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Izzat Ibrahim hangs it up?
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Woman sues after hula skirt bursts into flames
A woman who says she suffered second- and third-degree burns when her hula skirt burst into flames at a tiki party has sued the mail-order company she bought it from.
Damn! I hate it when that happens!
Autumn Cobb, 27, states in the lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court that the raffia hula skirt she purchased from the Oriental Trading Co. catalog was ``dangerous ... and unduly and excessively flammable.'' The action seeks unspecified monetary damages. The skirt went up in flames as Cobb walked by a tiki torch at a theme party in June, her attorney said.
Ummm... Hula skirt... Used to be known as a "grass skirt"... Tiki torch... AKA "fire"... I think I might know what your problem is...
She suffered burns on her buttocks, thighs and right hand, according to attorney Scott Mann.
"Elwood! Lookidat! Her buttocks are on fire!"
"Yeah, Hubert! And so's her ass!"
The skirt had an elastic waistband that was ``difficult or impossible'' to remove when exposed to heat, Mann said.
Perhaps because what it was holding up was on fire?
An after-hours call seeking comment from the Omaha, Neb.-based novelty company was not immediately returned.
"Please call back during normal business hours. This is a recording."
Mann said his client's medical bills have exceeded $100,000. Cobb still needs ``a few more surgeries,'' but has returned to work, Mann said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 15:14 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why does the phrase "Your ass is grass" come to mind?
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 15:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Definitely not the thing to wear around hungry goats - or horny old ones, either!
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 15:51 Comments || Top||

#3  I think I saw this on Gilligan's Island once.
Posted by: BH || 12/16/2003 15:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Sounds like one 'hot' chick...
Posted by: Raj || 12/16/2003 16:15 Comments || Top||

#5  I bet the skirt had a huge warning: 'DO NOT WEAR NEAR OPEN FLAME' which she promptly ignored.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 16:17 Comments || Top||

#6  The worst part is she got scalded when somebody threw hot McDonald's coffee on her to put out the flames.

But that's a lawsuit for another day.
Posted by: Dar || 12/16/2003 16:47 Comments || Top||

#7  CF's on the mark, I'd bet. Prolly a little too much tiki juice, too.
Posted by: .com || 12/16/2003 16:49 Comments || Top||

#8  Damn life's getting dangerous.. if you can't trust a cheap grass/plastic skirt what can ya trust?
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 18:16 Comments || Top||

#9  most Tiki torches I've seen were 5'-6' off the ground...how tall was this babe?
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 18:24 Comments || Top||

#10  Fred, I hope this doesn't mean there'll be a dimunition in tiki parties around here.
But I will still be smoking in my hula skirt cause I like to live dangerously!
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 20:21 Comments || Top||

#11  hula skirt burst into flames

Happens to me all the time. Oh wait... wrong blog.
Posted by: Rafael || 12/16/2003 20:29 Comments || Top||

#12  Dummy! Should've been wearing flame-retardant panties under a grass skirt. What? What's not? oh.
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) || 12/16/2003 20:57 Comments || Top||

#13  Hot MAMA!!!!
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 21:09 Comments || Top||


When did that start?
Real, live honest to goodness headline, no doubt composed by a real, live honest to goodness j-school graduate:

POSTED: 7:25 AM EST December 16, 2003


Okay. Now I'm really confused:
UPDATED: 11:42 AM EST December 16, 2003

Who the hell is first?

Dear, God! Where do they get these people?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 10:39 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Next enlightened statement, brought to you by your favorite spammer:

Penis enlargements work best with men!
Posted by: True German Ally || 12/16/2003 10:43 Comments || Top||

#2  I heard a rumor that ovarian cancer is more common among women, but I'm not sure how reliable the source is.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 10:50 Comments || Top||

#3  "Dear, God! Where do they get these people?"

They're the ones who couldn't make it as Theater Arts majors.
Posted by: Dave D. || 12/16/2003 11:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Strangely enough, testicular cancer is also more common among men.

Damn you, Y Chromosome! Damn you!
Posted by: Dar || 12/16/2003 11:12 Comments || Top||

#5  subheading: "Bush administration admits it has no answers as to why"
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 11:15 Comments || Top||

#6  Pregnacy is, for some reason, most common among women.

I think I need to get a $10M grant from the government to determine why.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 11:41 Comments || Top||

#7  You do know that the majority of people who flunk out of journalism school enter the school of Education, don't you? That's why your son's or daughter's teacher can't add or subtract, and has problems stringing six words together into a coherent sentence. My daughter has had three such teachers in high school in the past two years. Luckily she was able to change two of those classes.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 13:22 Comments || Top||

#8  Magnificent friendly new typeface in the contents area! Death to Sans Serif!
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 14:14 Comments || Top||

#9  Clearly, these J-School grads weren't pre-med before that.
The Number One problem in detecting prostate cancer in women is finding their &^%ing prostates!
What cretins!
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 15:07 Comments || Top||

#10  Ship #8: "Courier." Maybe we can get Fred to try Times-Roman for items, to make more readable.

OP #7: Haven't you noticed (not all, but) the ranks of journalists are fleshed out by them what can neither do, nor teach.
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) || 12/16/2003 15:22 Comments || Top||

#11  I used to use a serif font for articles. I didn't think it was as readable as Arial/Geneva.

Shall we try going back to it for a day or two? Then we can argue...
Posted by: Fred || 12/16/2003 15:31 Comments || Top||

#12  Fred I have stupidly strong feeling on SanSerif v. Serif type face... For most native USA types Serif type is easier to follow.... in theory it allows the eye to trail the ups and downs of the typed word more easily... Communists disagreed with this and allowed san serif type to flourish in the nether regions of Helventican dominated Europe.

Actually, it's a matter of what you're used to.. most folks in North America are used to Serif type in the body... Euros are used to Sans Serif. We will talk about type color in the next article . :)
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 18:26 Comments || Top||

#13  Go open a half-dozen-odd books. And page through a few newspapers. The pros who set type seem to think that if something is a few words long, it is easier to read in Swiss Bold. If it's a few paragraphs long, it's easier to read in Roman.
Looking at things on the screen it may not be so much difference, but then print a whole page of body text in 10-point Arial and in 10-point Times Roman and see which is easier to follow. Serif type tends to drag the eye from one word to the next. Sans serif tends to drag the eye from one line to the next.
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) || 12/16/2003 21:08 Comments || Top||

#14  Battle of the Fonts! Live... on Rantburg!
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 21:13 Comments || Top||

#15  Wingdings or bust!
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 23:15 Comments || Top||

#16  Hmmm, I have to go with seriffed. I prefer (STRONGLY!) Bookman Old Style, but then, I'm a purist... 8^)
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 23:46 Comments || Top||


Man bites dog Calls Cops to Report Cannabis Theft
ADELAIDE, Australia - What a dopey call. Police on Tuesday arrested a man who phoned officers to report thieves breaking into his house to steal his illicit cannabis crop.
Yah, dude. Hello, Mr. Copper? There’s like these guys, ya’ know ...and ...they ...are...(snicker...chortle...spit) taking my stuff man.
Police in the southern city of Adelaide said they arrested four men early Tuesday as they tried to steal the plants, which were being grown in two rooms at the home. They also nabbed the homeowner who made the call — on charges of illegally cultivating 16 cannabis plants.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 12/16/2003 7:41:37 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Like....dude.... like...dude!?
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 20:16 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Kabul again linked with Kandahar
Quagmire.
The Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, is today due to reopen a renovated key highway linking the capital, Kabul, with Kandahar in the south. Built in the early 1960’s with US funding, the highway was left a dusty potholed track after decades of conflict. It had to be cleared of more than 1,000 mines and pieces of unexploded ordnance before work could start. Reconstruction of the highway has been hampered by attacks on deminers and road workers by suspected Taliban remnants. Some 1,000 policemen have been been deployed by the interior ministry to patrol the highway. President Karzai will be joined at the official reopening by the US ambassador and Japan’s envoy whose governments financed the renovation of the 480 kilometre road.
Nice work. Hope the road gets used more by the civilians than the mafiosi.
Posted by: Seafarious || 12/16/2003 12:42:26 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I hope they have some quick-response bomb/road repair crews ready. The Turbans are going to go after that road for certain.
Posted by: Tokyo Taro || 12/16/2003 0:50 Comments || Top||

#2  More 'Flypaper'

dorf
Posted by: Anonymous || 12/16/2003 7:46 Comments || Top||

#3  should help with economic development, also make it easier for govt troops to move through southeast Afghan. Will give them an advantage in speed over the baddies, even without using choppers. Also ties in Kandahar into the center, increasing reach of Kabul govt.

This is part of the old "ring road" around afghanistan, built by the Soviets BEFORE they went in, as a foreign aid project to the old Afghan monarchy, which they were courting in the '50's and '60s, in part as a counter to pro-US Pakistan and Iran. It was trashed during Soviet occupation, and in the subsequent civil war. Reconstructing it is one of the lead reconstruction projects now.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 12/16/2003 13:15 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Seven expats injured in drive-by shooting
Update from yesterday, with names. EFL:
Securitymen Monday arrested a Kuwaiti man - identified as Ali Nasser Al-Ajmi (29 years old) - along with two of his accomplices for allegedly firing at a bus of the National Industries Company (NIC) when it was passing by an US military convoy at 2.40 pm earlier in the day.
Hummm, sounds like he missed the entire convoy and hit a bus. Well, he is a Kuwaiti.
Seven expatriate labourers were injured in the attack. Sources say Ali - a resident of Riqqa - was is the same man who shot at the American soldiers Sunday on the Seventh Ring Road and at Mina Abdullah.
So he’s a serial shooter.
A reliable security source said, "three Egyptian labourers, three Indians and one Syrian were wounded in Monday’s attack." He added policemen in a patrol car stationed at the bridge - where Ali attacked the bus Monday - were able to note the plate number of a dark grey Chevy sedan which the assailant was driving. Later CID men arrested Ali along with two others and found the Chevy and a van which were used in Sunday’s attack.
Just good old fashioned police work.
Ali confessed to his crime, the source added.
Does Kuwait make it’s own truncheons or are they imported?
"The Egyptian driver of the NIC bus - with 61 labourers on board - drove on for 150 meters after hearing the gun shots and suddenly slammed the brakes which resulted in minor injuries to an unknown number of labourers," he said.
"Oh great, the freaking bullets miss me and I end up nearly getting killed by the bus driver."
Lt Col Vic Harris, a spokesman with the US military in Kuwait, said the attack took place just outside the Port of Shuaiba. US forces use the port, south of Kuwait City, for transporting equipment. Earlier, Harris said the workers may have been contracted by Americans to work in the port. Later, however, he said the five did not work for the US military. The Interior Ministry official told the Associated Press the workers were from India, Egypt and Syria, and the bus had the name of National Industries Company on it. He said he had no information on who they worked for. One of the injuries is serious, he added. A US Embassy spokesman said Sunday’s shootings on the convoys appear to have been "terrorist attacks," targeting the US military force.
No shit? Glad you cleared that up
"But we have no specific information of who is responsible," the spokesman said on condition of anonymity.
"I can say no more"
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 3:12:38 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You know the old saying, "If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself."

They don't say that in Kuwait. QED.
Posted by: .com || 12/16/2003 16:45 Comments || Top||


Europe
Iraqi debt restructuring: Ja, Oui, Nyet
Edited for brevity.
U.S. special envoy James A. Baker III won German and French agreement Tuesday to work for Iraqi debt relief, but Washington did not say whether it would lift the ban on firms from those nations bidding for lucrative reconstruction projects in Iraq. "Germany and the United States, like France, are ready not only for debt restructuring but also for substantial debt forgiveness toward Iraq," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s spokesman Bela Anda said in a statement after talks with Baker. The German statement indicated that the United States also was prepared to relieve debt, and that levels would be decided by the Paris Club of creditor nations. However, statements from the White House earlier were noncommittal.

Iraq owes some $40 billion to the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and others in the 19-nation Paris Club. Other countries and private creditors are owed at least another $80 billion. Russia, which is also on Baker’s planned tour, has so far ruled out any outright forgiveness of the $8 billion Iraq owes it and says any restructuring must be through the Paris Club. "Iraq is not a poor country," Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said last week.
Posted by: Dar || 12/16/2003 1:44:38 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But Russia is a poor country.
Posted by: Michael || 12/16/2003 15:30 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm starting to think Bono is right and most debt should be forgiven and no further money loaned out. Throwing money at the problem has not helped a single third world nation that I'm aware of.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/16/2003 15:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Here is a link to the Paris club. I read through their website, but anyone know their real story? It is an informal group of creditor nations that negotiate with debtor nations to achieve a settlement. A host of poor nations is on the list, including Bob's Zimbabwe.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/16/2003 17:00 Comments || Top||


Cardinal Says U.S. Treated Saddam 'Like a Cow'
A top Vatican official said Tuesday he felt pity and compassion for Saddam Hussein and criticized the U.S. military for showing video footage of him being treated "like a cow."
I found it rather inspiring, actually...
Cardinal Renato Martino, head of the Vatican's Justice and Peace department and a former papal envoy to the United Nations, told a news conference it would be "illusory" to think the arrest of the former Iraqi president would heal all the damage caused by a war which the Holy See opposed.
Nope. But it sure goes a long way in that direction...
"I felt pity to see this man destroyed, (the military) looking at his teeth as if he were a cow. They could have spared us these pictures," he said.
I felt pity when I saw the skulls from the mass graves, with the rotting blindfolds still over their eyes. Because of the recent drought in Zimbabwe, we have a pity shortage this year, so I don't have enough left over for Sammy. I've already used up 300,000 units.
"Seeing him like this, a man in his tragedy, despite all the heavy blame he bears, I had a sense of compassion for him," he said in answer to questions about Saddam's arrest.
I guess that's what they pay cardinals and archbishops to do. The rest of us have to make due with feeling compassion for the people who were tortured and killed...
Martino was referring to the videotape released by the U.S. military which showed a grubby, bearded and disheveled Saddam receiving a medical examination by a military doctor after his capture in an underground hole Saturday. Martino was one of the Vatican officials most strongly opposed to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
Gee, golly, gosh! Comes as a surprise, doesn't it?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 11:10 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  As a Roman Catholic I believe he should STFU.
A sense of compassion? How about outrage and anger? Does the phrase: "Crimes against humanity" mean anything to you? Damn
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 11:13 Comments || Top||

#2  RC in the house here too. Cardinal Renato Martino is head of the Peace and Justice department because of his views. No surprise that he feels the way he does. But I do think the Cardinal's assessment of the treatment is off base. What I saw was a man getting a medical exam not torture.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 11:26 Comments || Top||

#3  Amazing how everyone is in a hurry to protect Saddam, but no one could work up any effort to protect the Kurds.
Posted by: Frank Martin || 12/16/2003 11:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Cardinal Martino only recently returned to the Vatican after serving sixteen years as Vatican observer to the UN. It would seem that the good Cardinal has picked up the secular habit of American Democrat politicians of speaking before thinking. He perhaps would benefit from a couple of years of silent contemplation.
Posted by: Tancred || 12/16/2003 11:34 Comments || Top||

#5  Nice barnyard metaphor,Cardinal,would you have felt better if his capturers had treated Saddam like the cowardly pig that he is? Save your pity for his victims, Cardinal.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 12/16/2003 11:39 Comments || Top||

#6  This RC says "Amen" to that, Tancred.
Posted by: Tom || 12/16/2003 11:40 Comments || Top||

#7  One more recovering RC here. It's hard for me to accept any views from people that live in one of the largest palaces in the world. You're supposed to get your reward in heaven. . .
Posted by: Doc8404 || 12/16/2003 12:03 Comments || Top||

#8  Chalk me in as another former alter boyon this blog... I have several pithy comments that I will keep to myself out of fear of spending even more time in Purgatory, but I can say that I guess this means the Vatican isn't included on the Pentagons bid list either?
Posted by: Capsu78 || 12/16/2003 12:07 Comments || Top||

#9  Wow, I to am a recovering Catholic. For me personally I have lost respect for the church. After all, they are no better than our own left. The protect pedophiles and condemn those fighting evil. The church has lost its way. Sad really. I know many good priests but they all share the taint of the church.
Posted by: Swiggles || 12/16/2003 12:40 Comments || Top||

#10  Maybe he'd prefer it if we treated Saddam like a sheep, just like all those young men abused by predatory priests.

Just another example of Catholicism pitying the poor abused autocrat.
Posted by: Hiryu || 12/16/2003 12:46 Comments || Top||

#11  As an exRC, I am truly disheartened at the Church. When they came out a month ago with the bloody history of islam in europe, I had hope there may be a realization of the true nature of what is happening in the world. However they continue to ignore the evil of the big picture, and focus on politically correct issues. As Swiggles noted, they protect pedophiles, show concern for a murderous dictator and opposed the liberation of 25 million tormented souls.
What would Jesus do? I'm not God, but you can bet the farm he wouldn't go approve of this asshat.
Posted by: johnCV || 12/16/2003 13:28 Comments || Top||

#12  Probably still pissed at Lauren Hill.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 12/16/2003 13:30 Comments || Top||

#13  Not a Catholic here, but firmly believe the Catholic Church has spent too much time playing Buddha, contemplating their navel instead of standing up to the real, present danger of evil in this world. The decline in Christianity is matched by a decline in civil behavior and in respect for one another. That, by the way, is also a failure of Islam, so it's not just Christianity. We need to return to our religious roots - all the way back to the Judeao-Christian roots in the Books of Moses, and get rid of the crap that's been painted and papered over to cover up the "hard" parts. In the meantime, the good Cardinal Martino needs to stick a plug in it. The capture of Saddam Hussein was a military operation, not a Red Cross "disaster".
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 14:46 Comments || Top||

#14  I'm a lifelong Prostestant, but you know, I thought we treated Saddam pretty great, all things considered!
He was alive (!) and well and he got what every recruit, inmate, or even hospital admittee does back home, a medical checkup, which I think was considerate and kind of us!
After all, gum disease and lice can cause real pain.
If he looked bovine, that says more about Saddam than it does the US military.
With all their squealing, you have to wonder if the Vatican doesn't have more vested in this deal than just "humanitarian (and dare I add Christian?) values."
Rome has been the apologist for Muslim extremism many times and if you don't believe me, read Oriana Fallaci on the subject.
I long for the return of an uncompromised Vatican that calls for and blesses Crusades!
There, I used the "c-word."
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 15:20 Comments || Top||

#15  No surprise there are a few of us RC's here on Rantburg. I had 12 years of Jesuit education myself. It taught me to think logically, seek the truth and apply morality to the extent that an imperfect man can in an imperfect world.

While this approach takes me to Rantburg everyday, it has alienated me from a Church that has been weak on perverts and dictators and refuses to use its still considerable power to thwart islamism.

I predict that, when the time comes to elect a new Pope, there will be immense pressure from the various 3rd world cardinals (many of whom come from countries where violent manifestations of Islam or more than theoretical issues) to clean up this nonsense. If not, this will be the last straw that leads to another schism. I already know what side I'll be on.
Posted by: JAB || 12/16/2003 15:41 Comments || Top||

#16  Fellow Rantburging RCs, Where did you go to church and what’s with all the RC Bashing? My RC Parish is in a multi-ethnic community and we all deplored the way some priests were protected by some in the church. We DO NOT (as a group) hide/foster/condone the acts of some VILE priest and the actions by the church to protect them. If you quit the church because or what a FEW despicable priests did then maybe you need to question YOUR and not THE Faith. Cardinal Martino is representing HIS view as the head of the peace and justice department. He has NOT been accused of buggering young men or anything close to that! Please come back to earth.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 16:17 Comments || Top||

#17  [warning - I'm in full Rant mode here]

You will note that this Cardinal does not speak with the voice of the Church.

I beileve my Church needs to clean house. The Pope has become a puppet, run by the "elites" in Vatican City, the same ones that have betrayed the core of the Church, allowing things like Pagan cermeonies, etc in the name of "Ecuminical" sentiments. Nowhere in the Word does it say to water down the message so we can all get along.

In the words of Chirst: "Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces" (MT-7:6)

Amny of them have lost sight of the fundamentals of the Church, its Magesterium, and its Sacrements - they have abandoned the fundamentals of the Nicean Creed we say every mass. They are more concerned with preserving the power of the Holy See than they are with its spirit.

We need someone to go in there and take a firehose and clear out the remnants of the "Revolution Theology" crowd, disempower those blinded by self-seeking goals (such as the stupid coddling of evildoers crap and accomodation of Islamists and other non-believers), and get the Church out of politics and back on the absolutes it was founded upon.

Yes, show compassion as Christ did, but also they must show some sense of moral outrage at the depths of depravity that their inaction would have allowed to continue. And remember that there are unbelievers and what the destiny of those unbelievers is: damnation. That also is what Christ taught: actions have consequences. The Vatican appears to have been very selective and abandoned many of the teachings.

Either you believe and try to live to the standards of the Church or you get out. Simple as that. And if the Vatican (as opposed to the Church) loses power, money and presitge, so be it. Its better to preserve out core than it is to water it down and make it lose all distinction.

The Vatican had best be more concerned with the board in their eye than the speck of dust in others.

We need a courageous man, not the Vatican elites, who manipulate the well-meaning but decrepit pope we have now.

I trust that God will help the Church right itself, as it did after the Protestant Reformation. It will take time and a coruageous man to step into the shoes of the fisherman.
Posted by: OldSpook || 12/16/2003 17:01 Comments || Top||

#18  Sorry CS, but it's a PATTERN of problems with the Church of Rome. It's not that individual priests are bad...it's that the Church, as an organization protects them. That's just wrong. It's no that this Cardinal is representing his view, it's that the Church as an organization doesn't stand against dictators. He is a Cardinal, a 'Prince of the Church', his view in fact DOES represent the official view of the Church. Until the Church gains some new leaders with strong moral courage, I will continue to be disappointed and derisive. I also take exception to your line "...maybe you need to question YOUR and not THE Faith...", I don't know about you, but my Faith is in God and his Son. Not the minions of a senile Pontiff who doesn't run the Church anyways. An organization, like Catholicism, is defined by its leaders. Just like Islam is defined by its leaders....
Posted by: Swiggles || 12/16/2003 17:05 Comments || Top||

#19  I've always been sceptical of religions and thier various denominations that claim"Our way is the only way"(Jehovah's Witness, Pentacostals, Mormons,Islam,yes and the Roman Catholic church,etc)I am a Born-agin Christian myself.I stopped attending church because of the bigotted,my way or no way attitudes I kept running into.One of the biggest problems I have with the RC is the belief that the Pope is inffalable and his edicts are to be adhered to wiyhout question.RC Cardinals have way to much power/influence over thier Priest and cogregations.

Read Revelations,St.Pauls(I think it was St.Paul) letters to the 7 churchs,God ain't none to happy with his Churches.
Posted by: raptor || 12/16/2003 17:53 Comments || Top||

#20  First, CS may be overreacting. Most RC's just want the church to live up to its ideals. I'm not leaving but like OS, want to push it to clean house before there is another schism.

Raptor is incorrect that we RC's believe the Pope is infallible. He is only infallible when speaking "ex cathedra" or, figuratively, from the chair of Peter. This is a once a century type deal not an everyday thing.

This Pope provided great leadership that helped us have a soft landing for the Soviet bloc. I am confident his successor will help us handle militant Islam but he'll have to clean house first. The Liberation Theology crowd that drove me nuts while we where winning the Cold War (with JPII's active help) is indeed the same element that has coddled dictators from Castro to Saddam.
Posted by: JAB || 12/16/2003 18:04 Comments || Top||

#21  If the Americans had treated Saddam as a cow they would have made hamburgers with him. They didn't.

Now seriously: how can this Pharisean dare to comment on pooooooooor Saddam who suffered no worse ordeal than being paraded on TV when he kept silence on the killings, the rapes, the plastic shredders, the gassings.

In the Gospel there is ONE sin who seemd unforgivable to Christ: "Woe to those who scandalize the little ones". Saddam did worse than that, he killed them. And this htpocritical bastard is shedding tears on him.
Posted by: JFM || 12/16/2003 18:08 Comments || Top||

#22  Raptor

The Catholic church never pretended everything the Pope said was right. The doctrine of infability only extends to doctrinal matters, not to political or practical matters. I think the theory is that God will inspire Peter's successor. But I am not a theologian.
Posted by: JFM || 12/16/2003 18:17 Comments || Top||

#23  AMEN OLDSPOOK! Yes we need a Pope with vision and a voice, but John-Paul II is too frail to be that person at this time. Not that it's advertised, but the Church has made MANY changes to address what has been going wrong. The many people who profess to be RC would know this if they went to church once in a while.

Swiggles you lack of understanding of RC pain me since in your earlier rant you said that you "are a recovering RC and lost all respect for the Church." Nobody speaks for the Church EXCEPT the Pope. Yes they are Princes of the Church, but only over the area or activity they are in charge. While they are the Popes representatives, they do not (theologically) speak for the church. So I stand by my earlier statement that Cardinal Martino is representing HIS view as the head of the peace and justice department of the Vatican. It's kind of like Condi giving an opinion on National Security.

As far as faith goes that is not something I can tell you one way or the other. It's a simple question: Do you believe in the teachings of the Church? Yes men (and women) do despicable things in this world. Does that change the teaching of the Church? My answer is NO.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 18:19 Comments || Top||

#24  Where's me Lobster Hat! Papists recovering and other are coming out of the woood work! To the walls!

There... that was fun. Relax breathe and thank your God thank you can tussle over some such minor ass details.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 18:34 Comments || Top||

#25  Shipman, these aren't minor ass details if this is your church - I'm heartened by all those speaking here from moral outrage. The answer is to work within the church to reform. The pedophile scandals are real and the church did wrong in covering up - don't let them!
Raptor, I don't think most christian sects subscribe to the "ours is the ONLY way" any more, I know the RC church dropped it long ago - the answer is to worship as you see fit and do good works, that's good enough in my book for heaven.

Our good Cardinal has obviously spent too much time among the moral heathens (the UN) and needs a 20 year sabbatical along with a vow of silence. He does speak for the Vatican, but not for me!
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 19:24 Comments || Top||

#26  To all, I suspend my moral outrage and ask to live in the community of the faithful.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 19:32 Comments || Top||

#27  My main problem with the church is they shut up when they ought to speak up and speak up when they ought to shut up.
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 20:22 Comments || Top||

#28  I'm RC as well, even belong to the KofC. Try to do good work for the community that's the best type of religion in my book no matter what your denomination is. I have my own issues w/organized religion and definitely issues w/my church passing around pedophilers. Time for a new pope and a back to basics theme imho.
Posted by: Jarhead || 12/16/2003 21:01 Comments || Top||

#29  Not being RC (lapsed Lutheran married to a lapsed Jew) I refuse to grind an axe. Too many connections being made here. Unfortunately, Tolerance is too rarely a Christian virtue, except when displayed by other-thinking people.

1. RC's shouldn't have to feel self-conscious about pedophile priests unless they are also pedophiles themselves.

2. Similarly, RC's shouldn't have to feel self-conscious about an idiot remark by some Vatican diplomat who should have known better. The Vatican has produced some good diplomats, too. E. g., Angelo Roncalli (aka John XXIII.)

3. Long as religion has become topic, I was looking where to post a cute snippet. This as good as any:
...while the President’s opponents have made much sport of the idea that God called George Bush to the presidency, it’s becoming increasingy difficult to doubt that He wants Bush re-elected. -- David Frum

Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) || 12/16/2003 21:36 Comments || Top||

#30  oops. In my last change "increasingy" to "increasingy[sic]" Typo was in the original. mea non culpa.
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) || 12/16/2003 21:41 Comments || Top||

#31  H.E. Mons. Martino, on October 22nd, 2001, said:

"In the midst of this current tragedy and threat to the Culture of Peace, forms of systematic terrorism should not be forgotten. In some cases it is almost institutionalized, possibly based on systems which utterly destroy the freedom and rights of individuals "guilty" of not bringing their thought into line with the triumphant ideology. Today these persons are unable to attract the attention and support of international public opinion and they must not be forgotten or abandoned." Source

Well, the Iraqi people have not been forgotten and (if Bush is re-elected) they will not be abandoned. So Mons. Martino, what is your problem?
Posted by: Rafael || 12/16/2003 22:39 Comments || Top||

#32  I'm also RC, married to big-time RC. I'd like to see the church clean up its own house right now and not be distracted by the plight of fascist thugs elsewhere.

That said, it's a real shame that the US Army dentist was prodding Saddam with a tongue blade to inspect his teeth when he could have been extracting Saddam's teeth without anesthesia using a hammer, cut his tongue off with a rusty knife, smashed him in the face a few times and then hooked up his genitals to an electrical generator, followed by hanging him upside down and beating his soles with a rubber-hose sheathed iron bar.

Yep, what we did to Saddam was just brutal. My cardinal says so.
Posted by: Steve White || 12/16/2003 23:24 Comments || Top||


N17 leader rubbishes decision
The man convicted last week of running the November 17 terrorist group that killed 23 people between 1975 and 2000, Alexandros Yotopoulos, claimed to have been an innocent victim of circumstances during a live radio interview on Saturday.
"Yeah. I wuz just standin' there, see? Mindin' my own bidnid. An' these here guyz, they comes up an'..."
“It was not a fair trial, not even a trial but rather a tasteless piece of theater,” the 59-year-old translator told SKAI radio. “The part of the decision that concerns me was dictated by the Americans.”
"They had this guy, see, he wuz standin' in the back o' the room, an' he wuz tellin' all those court guyz what to do..."
On Monday, the three-judge appeals court trying 19 N17 suspects found Yotopoulos guilty of instigating all but three of the group’s illegal acts between 1983 and 2002. Four defendants were acquitted. Sentencing is expected today or tomorrow. For Yotopoulos, the prosecution has asked for a sentence of 21 life terms plus 2,442 years, and a 58,500-euro fine. “When Savvas Xeros’s bomb went off, [the authorities] had already decided I was the leader,” he said. “Ten years before, it would have been [leftist author Pericles] Korovesis or someone else.” Asked what he expected during sentencing, Yotopoulos turned to Latin: “Sic transit gloria mundi.”
That's Latin for "Tuesday will be better."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Let's see...21 life terms...plus 2442 years...carry the 7...less time off for good behavior...this court sentences you to time served. Next case!"
Posted by: PBMcL || 12/16/2003 0:27 Comments || Top||

#2  “Sic transit gloria mundi.”

Hahaaa, the greek mutt uses Latin to get the point across. My, how the hellenes have fallen.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 1:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Not to diminish the loss of life but 23 people in 25 years? Can they really claim to be a terrorists group? They probably think more of themselves than Interpol does. I hope he becomes a Turkish bride in prison. He'll find out. Auday grimeesoo Alexandros, SKITA! (my rusty attampt at greek)
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 11:43 Comments || Top||

#4  "Not to diminish the loss of life but 23 people in 25 years? Can they really claim to be a terrorists group?"

They went for targeted assasinations, rather than mass murders. But at least one person they killed (Pavlos Bakoyannis) was a prominent enough Member of the Parliament that he might have one day become Prime Minister. Nobody will ever know for certain how big an influence this group may have already had on the course of Greek politics.

Auday grimeesoo Alexandros, SKITA

You probably mean "Adeh gamisou, Alexandre, SKATA!" which means "Fuck you, Alexandros, you sh!t"

I share and applaud the sentiment.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 12/16/2003 11:59 Comments || Top||

#5  Targeted Greek citizens of wealth or prominence in politics, employees of the British Council, and Americans associated with the Embassy, JUSMAGG or the military base. As an American serviceperson assigned to Hellenikon from 1983-85, I was very aware of the fact that I could be on their "to-do" list. And the suspicion that the N-17 gang was politically connected, and that the Greek police seemed to be rather hapless in their pursuit didn't make us feel much safer, either.
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 12/16/2003 12:18 Comments || Top||

#6  Afkarista poli feelos, Aris. It's been about 20 years since I last spoke greek. As you can tell;-)
Posted by: Anonymous || 12/16/2003 22:10 Comments || Top||


Court Refuses to Free Sept. 11 Plotter
A German court ruled yesterday that the only man convicted anywhere in the world over the Sept. 11 attacks must remain in custody despite new evidence said to cast doubt on his involvement. Lawyers for Mounir El Motassadeq, sentenced to the maximum 15 years earlier this year on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder, had asked for his release after a fellow Moroccan was freed from custody last week.
Score one for the German courts: they're not into committing national suicide...
It followed evidence passed through Germany’s federal crime office quoting an informant saying that neither Motassadeq nor the other accused, Abdelghani Mzoudi, was part of the Al-Qaeda cell involved in the 2001 attacks. Motassadeq’s lawyer, Josef Graessle-Muenscher, confirmed yesterday’s ruling but did not want to give further details. His appeal against conviction is currently going through Germany’s federal criminal court. Although Mzoudi was unexpectedly freed from custody last week, his trial is still going on. He also faces charges of accessory to the murder of more than 3,000 people, based on the death toll in the suicide attacks in New York and Washington, and membership of a terrorist organization. The evidence last week is thought to have come from Ramzi Bin al-shibh, also known as Ramzi ibn Al-Shaiba, an alleged senior Al-Qaeda operative who is now in US custody, although no name has been officially given. The informant named only four people involved in the Al-Qaeda cell in Hamburg, northern Germany — three of the hijackers, including their alleged ringleader Mohammed Atta, and Binalshibh.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It looks like freed Mzoudi might be back behind bars pretty soon as well...
Posted by: True German Ally || 12/16/2003 10:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Sanity reigns over the German version of our very own 9th Circuit Court of Appeals?
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 12:37 Comments || Top||

#3  I see this more as a move of the court to put a little pressure on Washington... to hand over some more evidence... just enough to bag the guys for the next decades. In 15 years or so we'll send them back to Morocco and you can have some more fun with them.

Ok we could still send them to Morocco right away with exact flight details?
Posted by: True German Ally || 12/16/2003 13:54 Comments || Top||

#4  I see this more as a move of the court to put a little pressure on Washington... to hand over some more evidence

I understand Washington has been a little tight-lipped about intelligence material to protect sources and methods. And this is resented everywhere. Fine.

But any German court that is thinking of releasing these guys needs to consider the following - if another major terror attack occurs on US soil, and these guys are linked to that attack, US-German relations are going to be set back for decades. In the wake of a major event like that, today's somewhat stormy relationship is going to seem positively sunny compared to what comes afterwards.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/16/2003 14:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Zhang Fei, we still need some tiny bits of evidence to convict people. The US cant jeopardize trials in Hamburg with secrecy and then blame the Germans for not doing their job.

I remember times when courts weren't bothered with technicalities like evidence and boy they were stormy!
Posted by: True German Ally || 12/16/2003 15:15 Comments || Top||

#6  I remember times when courts weren't bothered with technicalities like evidence and boy they were stormy!

Germany elected Hitler. The military and internal security apparatus supported him. His ascension to power had nothing to do with changes to the legal system. He used paramilitary thugs to intimidate and liquidate the opposition and enforce his rule.

Until the past several decades, the British used indefinite detention to quash terrorist activity without any ill-effects to its government. Lots of ex-British colonies have these laws on the books, and not a single Hitler has materialized. Like I said, dictatorships have to do with the national ethos, not creeping changes in a nation's laws.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/16/2003 17:13 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
"Peace" Activists Vandalize Enola Gay
Six survivors and about 50 peace activists visited a new museum where the shiny, restored Boeing B-29 Superfortress has gone on public display, holding pictures of hideously burned victims among tens of thousands killed or injured by the blast. Two men were arrested after a bottle of red paint, meant to symbolise blood, was thrown, denting a panel on one side of the plane, parked in a new annex to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 2:10:53 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Missed this bit before I posted, showing that not all Americans have forgotten:

But their act of remembrance beside the plane was too much for some museum visitors, who angrily chanted "Remember Pearl Harbour" and "What about the Nanjing massacre?", referring to actions of imperial Japanese forces.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 14:12 Comments || Top||

#2  I knew this was just a matter of time once they put it out there. They might as well put a fur coat on it to attract the rest of the moonbats with red paint.

Wonder how many of these "peace activists" would have lost ancestors or relatives in the invasion of Japan if the Enola Gay didn't drop that bomb? There would have been a lot more dead Japanese than Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw, too. Ignorant sh*ts.
Posted by: Dar || 12/16/2003 14:19 Comments || Top||

#3  What appalling nerve, for these a$$holes to come here and complain about the death toll in a war THEY started. I've said it before: Don't start sh*t you can't finish.
Posted by: BH || 12/16/2003 14:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Two men were arrested after a bottle of red paint, meant to symbolise blood, was thrown,..

A good caning for these two out back would be appropriate punishment...
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 12/16/2003 14:43 Comments || Top||

#5  There's a good chance Nagasaki and Hiroshima would have been levelled anyway along with every other major Japanese city in a conventional invasion if the A-bomb didn't end the war. And these six survivors would have been killed A.) by firebombing, or B.) by artillery, or C.) by strapping explosives on their backs and throwing themselves under Allied tank treads, or D.) by throwing themselves off cliffs a la Okinawa, or E.) by some other hideous death.

The senile old farts should be thankful they and millions of their countrymen survived an even worse fate that would have cut their pathetic lives short by about 57 years.
Posted by: Dar || 12/16/2003 14:55 Comments || Top||

#6  It's important to blacklist history that you don't approve of. Wouldn't want people to learn what happened would we, they might discuss it and come up with a different viewpoint.

/sarcasm
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/16/2003 15:34 Comments || Top||

#7  In the very same museum is a V-2,built with slave labor by concentration camp victims and set to be aimed at cities filled with civilians. Funny how they always seem to walk right past that to get to the big scary "amerikan" airplane. I wonder if the residents of Antwerp and London feel they should protest the V-2, that lovely little ballistic weapon, built by a tryant for the destruction of civilization.

Fact is, we killed far more in white europeans in Dresden with B-17/b-24 and Lancaster Bombers, it just took three days and 1000 bombers a day to do it. The fact is these little wetnoses dont give a damn about the 'poor japanese victims' they care about their own ass. The "bomb" threatens them, the fact that Japanese were killed once upon a time is of no consequence to them.

Is it the weapon itself or the yield of the weapon that they are upset with? if its the weapon, then perhaps they should protest the local mall, where they sell knock off samurai swords, similar to the ones that killed women and children by the thousands,slowly, one by one in Nanking China. If its the yield, then perhaps Tokyo, Hamburg and Dresden is also a candidates for martydom. The Tokyo fire raids killed more civilians and destryed more sqaure miles directly than did the hiroshima bombing, but again, I ask, is this only valid according to an accountants sense of the bottom line? that 16,999 dead is a not a tragedy, but 17,000 is?

Thank god for the crew of the Enola Gay. Thank God for the bomb. Thank God we got it first.
Posted by: Frank Martin || 12/16/2003 15:42 Comments || Top||

#8  Wonder how many of these "peace activists" would have lost ancestors or relatives in the invasion of Japan if the Enola Gay didn't drop that bomb?
My uncle was in a division training to invade the Japanese main islands. To this day he credits Truman with saving his life by ordering the A-bomb drops.
FM, good post. But I don't think you'll ever reach these idiots using logic.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 12/16/2003 16:04 Comments || Top||

#9  FM - Sorry, but the European theater was white people killing white people (and, especially Jewish white people), so they aren't deserving of our sympathy.
Posted by: Dar || 12/16/2003 16:49 Comments || Top||

#10  I knew this was just a matter of time once they put it out there. They might as well put a fur coat on it to attract the rest of the moonbats with red paint.

We forgot to announce that the exhibit is being serviced and maintained through a no bid Haliburton contract...
Posted by: Capsu78 || 12/16/2003 17:44 Comments || Top||

#11  Wonder if they'd have the nerve to do something like that if we had several dozen second- or third-generation Marines, whose parents/grandparents/greats were at Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Okinawa, Iwo Jima, or some of the other bloody spots, guarding it.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 18:09 Comments || Top||

#12  I said it before: A bomb, is a bomb, is a bomb. A nuke is just a MORE efficient one. Frank good point on the Dresdan fire bombing. We won't mention the bombing of Shanghai or the raping of Nanking. If we really subscribed to their rantings, Baghdad, Kabul, and Damascus would be smoking holes in the ground today.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 18:26 Comments || Top||

#13  The B-29s killed more Japaneese with mines than they did with bombs.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 18:36 Comments || Top||

#14  Let's remember that the Japanese Army killed an average of 300,000 Chinese and Filipinos a month. In other words even if we account for cancer deaths and even if we forget the people who would have been killed in an invasion the A bomb SAVED lives. At least one million of Chinese or Filipinos. Perhaps several millions.
Posted by: JFM || 12/16/2003 18:37 Comments || Top||

#15  Let's remember that people who do this kind of stuff are generally clueless and are acting out of ignorance and motivated by "feel-good"
Posted by: Michael || 12/16/2003 19:15 Comments || Top||

#16  Is there any end to the anarchist's stupidity and hypocrisy?

"Truth? You can't handle the truth!"
Posted by: alaskasoldier || 12/16/2003 19:33 Comments || Top||

#17  OK-just paint a red paint can on the side, and rename the plane "Flak Bait." Oops, can't do that...name already taken.

People ought to get a clue. The Enola Gay, as well as Bock's Car(Nagasaki) is part of history. Learn to live with it.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/16/2003 20:02 Comments || Top||

#18  Excuse me for being selfish, but I'm probably alive because they dropped those things. Dad had been through Okinawa, was headed for Japan, and figured his luck was up.
How villified would Truman be if ,when we have the bombs, we don't use them, and get about 2 or 3 or 4 million people killed conquering Japan?
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 20:34 Comments || Top||

#19  Peace activists committing an act of foolish violence? Please say it ain't so! F*ck those *ssholes. Yeah, they got two big ones and it could of been a third time if that's what it took. The more violent and cruel war is, the quicker its over, and ultimately saves more lives. Wish I'd been there to see them pull that shit. I'd be in jail right now for handling business on some peace pansie, but fairly happy I'm sure.
Posted by: Jarhead || 12/16/2003 21:25 Comments || Top||

#20  Jarhead, I'd mortgage the family farm to pay your bail, brother! Semper Fi!
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 23:55 Comments || Top||


Where have all the funders gone? CPUSA, passing
Heavily Edited -
LOOKING FOR A PERFECT HOLIDAY GIFT FOR THAT LEFTY on your list? Try shopping at the Communist Party USA online. On its “Shop ‘till Capitalism Drops!” website you can find “Commie Bear” for that red diaper baby.... only $17.99. In this convergence between a right-moving Communist Party USA and a left-moving Democratic Party, the once-dreaded CPUSA has become retro kitsch, the stuff of nostalgia and Andy Warhol art imitators.
wasn’t it always?
As David Horowitz has observed, the once-ideologically-mighty CPUSA that used to dominate “progressive” politics is today “only a constituent part of the whole” Leftist mechanism for seizing power and confiscating private property in America. The same could be said for the Democratic Party.
Wasn’t the communist party motto always: steal from others and give to me? Or was I just born too late?
The Democratic Party in the U.S. scouts for potential candidates with enough wealth to pay for their own campaigns – and perhaps a bit more. We may not yet have the best government money can buy, but in this regard the Democratic Party has led the way in selling our government to the highest bidders, foreign and domestic. Call it “U.S. Capitol Capitalism” or “Donkey Kong.”
I have a bit of a different take on this, than the article. I see this as a sign that the foreign funding for those wishing to undermine the USA is drying up, and they are now forced to sell themselves... or go hungry. I bet we’ll see even more of this now that Sadaam has fallen and more light is shed on the anti-american money networks.
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 11:46:18 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  peshawar - and totally inaccurate at that

1. The CPUSA was never the only part on the left - there were trotskyites, Norman Thomas Socialists (some fiercely anti-communist), Henry Wallace Progressives who wandered in and out of the Dem party, not to mention anti-communist labor liberals - Truman-Humphrey-Jackson-Moynihan-Dubinksy-Meany-Kirkland-Rustin

2. Dems moving left - well in '92 they moved right - at most Dean is leading back - but thats being resisted (go, Joe, go!) and at most is likely to lead to a flameout in '04 and a return to the center in '08 (hillary, keep your hairdresser)

3. There are of course still parties to the left of the Dems aside from CPUSA, the most prominent being the Greens (see above thread) I wonder how many members of democratic underground actually voted Dem in '04, rather than for Nader.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 12/16/2003 13:25 Comments || Top||

#2  I think that selling teddy bears and retro kitsch is a fitting end to the CPUSA. In fact, it would be funny if a gazillion million people hadn't died.
Posted by: anon || 12/16/2003 14:21 Comments || Top||

#3  I'd love to believe that Communism and Marxism are dead, but at the celebrations over Saddam in Baghdad on Sunday, I saw way too many men waving red flags with the hammer and sicle.
But your premise is sound: everyone knows that a world movement needs American dollars above all.
Libhawk, Hill lost the hairdresser when she was no longer Co-President and she won't need one now or in 2008.
She will be politically dead by next November tops.
What she needs is an orange jumpsuit.
And Hitlery, who wrote her Master's thesis on Marxism, is not a centrist.
She is the largest (both literally and figuratively) proponent of the Socialist Nanny Police State that the US had or has.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 14:54 Comments || Top||

#4  selling teddy bears and retro kitsch is a fitting end to the CPUSA

Now baby... that's cold.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 18:38 Comments || Top||


More evidence of derangement on the Democratic Fringe!
From a poster at the Democratic Underground forum - posting now deleted but it has been saved at Andrew Sullivan’s site:
"There really do seem to be a lot of us here who are genuinely happy that Saddam is captured. This suprises me. I’m not happy they captured him.

That’s not to say that I’m sad. I just think today’s news doesn’t stir any emotion in me at all. Saddam was never a threat to me. He never did anything to me personally. I doubt he ever did anything to you.

In fact, Saddam, over the course of his life and rule of Iraq, probably did more to help America than any other world leader. ..."
Posted by: ColoradoConservative || 12/16/2003 8:24:32 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  LLL friend of mine said to me "Saddam has been dead for months, it's all a conspiracy"
Posted by: Dcreeper || 12/16/2003 11:03 Comments || Top||

#2  "He never did anything to me personally. I doubt he ever did anything to you."

He doubts it? Hey Jude, don't be so sad.
Posted by: Lucky || 12/16/2003 11:42 Comments || Top||

#3  "Never did anything to him personally?"
How about someone he knows or loves that was slaughtered in the 9/11 attacks, in the first WTC bombing in 1993, in either Gulf War, in Kuwait, in Israel, or very possibly in the OKC bombing or the post 9/11 anthrax attacks?
Because Saddam was a player in all of those terror murders.
And you know, the US heartily participated militarily in WWI and WWII even though when we went in neither Adolph Hitler nor Kaiser Wilhem had never done much to us personally either.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 15:27 Comments || Top||

#4  I just think today’s news doesn’t stir any emotion in me at all. Saddam was never a threat to me. He never did anything to me personally. I doubt he ever did anything to you.

Chalk this up to snobbery:

"It's not like Saddam lives next door. He's Arab. Or African. I forget. Remind me ask our gardener where Iraq is. Oh, that's right - Jose's Mexican. Or Guatamalan. Whatever's next to Cancun.

"So Saddam killed some people. Nobody I know. Besides, isn't that what those people do in those dreadful countries anyway, dearie? And while you're up, would you get me another soy latte? There's a New York Times article on Howie I'm just simply engrossed with!"
Posted by: Pappy || 12/16/2003 18:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Thorazine...it does a body good.
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 20:39 Comments || Top||


Ramsey Ready To Defend Saddam
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clarke expressed readiness Sunday, December 14, to act as defense lawyer for ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, with western analysts suspecting the captured leader would be given fair trial. "Certainly, why not. I am ready to act in his defense," Clarke told IslamOnline.net shortly after the U.S. confirmed the detention of Saddam near Tikrit.
Ramsey did a bang-up job defending Milosevic...
Clarke, currently in Cairo to attend a two-day international anti-occupation conference, stressed that Saddam – however brutal – should be give a "fair, objective and impartial trial".
I quite agree. Then he should be hung.
"Saddam must be domestically prosecuted first and - if this fails - he should be referred to an international court," said the former American official, known for his staunch opposition to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq. He doubted, however, that the ousted Iraqi president would be given such a fair trial. Clarke averred that neither the U.S.-installed Interim Governing Council (IGC) nor the occupation forces is eligible to try the overthrown president.
"Nope. Sorry. Can't do it."
"The IGC does not represent Iraq. It is Bush's council," said the former U.S. attorney general. He noted that the Iraqi body was quick to say that DNA test proved the captured man was Saddam. "Do you think that they can take the test themselves. They are puppets," Clarke maintained.
Did that statement make any sense? Didn't think so...
For the occupation forces to take over the trial, he dismissed this as a would-be ridiculous proposal.
It was the occupation forces that hung the Nazis...
"Occupation of Iraq is in itself an international crime" and runs counter to common decency and moral integrity. Asked if Saddam could be taken to the International Criminal Court, the former U.S. attorney general whimsically ruled out the suggestion, noting Washington does not even recognize the court.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So.. since the GC cannot judge him, and the International Court cannot.... I guess we will just have to let him go. Sorry about the shave.

I know. Lets have the Iranians do it! We know that they LOVE SADDAM TO DEATH...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 0:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Hey, Ramsey's here! Let the freak show begin!
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 0:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Let Ramsey defend Sammy. The Iraqis will just have to bring the heavy judge:

Judge Roy Bean
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/16/2003 0:58 Comments || Top||

#4  Hey, we can invite Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley, too! That would complete the freak show!!
Posted by: alaskasoldier || 12/16/2003 1:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Saw a snippet on world link TV's ME roundup, "Rammy" Clark and some "international activist" who said, "We're the superpower now." Or something close to that.

For those of you who have DISH, check out WL TV and the newscast by Die Welt(?) in English. Very interesting. Actually, I was surprised. Slightly less anti-US than normal.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 12/16/2003 1:48 Comments || Top||

#6  Let me guess! RC was Jimmy Carters's AG.

Am I right?
Posted by: phil_b || 12/16/2003 2:06 Comments || Top||

#7  phil_b, you're close--try LBJ's.
Lyndon was a warmongering Dimocrat; you know, the way they used to be!
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 4:21 Comments || Top||

#8  Clark's just trying to establish attorney-client priviledge so interrogators don't start asking Saddam about ANSWER's funding.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 7:43 Comments || Top||

#9  Do you suppose that this latest spasm of vitriol and treason spilled out by the left (Michael Moore, et al) will finally hit the moderate American middle and they will say "Man, Howard Dean is these guy's candidate"?
Posted by: ColoradoConservative || 12/16/2003 8:28 Comments || Top||

#10  Ol' Ramsey should remember that justice is getting what you deserve (in this case permanent room in the Sod & Daisies Hotel for Sammy), but that just begs the question of why Ramsey is involved at all. What is it about the prospect of real justice that draws the loons out of the weeds? Don't go away mad, just GO AWAY!
Posted by: Spot || 12/16/2003 8:33 Comments || Top||

#11  This guy needs to get a life.
Posted by: Hiryu || 12/16/2003 9:03 Comments || Top||

#12  Clark's just trying to establish attorney-client priviledge so interrogators don't start asking Saddam about ANSWER's funding...

ohhhh...I can HARDLY WAIT!!! Someone should tell him that you can't stop a tidal wave - nor is there any way to surf or duck under it. Best to just get the heck out of it's way. Here it comes...babee! Let the show begin!
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 9:54 Comments || Top||

#13  that just begs the question of why Ramsey is involved at all

Well, excepting my joke about funding for ANSWER, the fact is that Ramsey has never met a blood-stained tyrant he didn't love.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 10:18 Comments || Top||

#14  "Clarke averred that neither the U.S.-installed Interim Governing Council (IGC) nor the occupation forces is eligible to try the overthrown president."
To summarize: Our (U.S.) legal legal system isn't up to Comrade Clarke's standards? Well Boo Friggin HOO! We should have a swift, fair trial and then PUBLICLY execute this monster.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 10:43 Comments || Top||

#15  Tarek Aziz has already asked to be defended by the infamous french lawyer Jacques Verges (of Klaus Barbie, Carlos the jacqual, and Milosevic fame); wouldn't surprize me the least if Jacques instead opted of defending Tarek's boss, good old Saddam himself.
Posted by: Anonymous || 12/16/2003 11:24 Comments || Top||

#16  Giving saddam to the Iranians might be a stroke of genius. OK we kill him - but what to we tell the loyalists we are supporting? Oh well, we still have the separatists...

It might give them fits... ah maybe we just keep him...
Posted by: flash91 || 12/16/2003 11:44 Comments || Top||

#17  This guy needs to get a life.
There are persistent rumors that several life sentences would be more appropriate. Not everything the OTHER Weasel Clark has done have been completely legitimate. If this bag of sh$$ goes to Iraq, he should be jugged and turned over to the Kurds - I'm sure they will know exactly what to do with him, and why.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 14:58 Comments || Top||

#18  CyberSarge - Which monster, Saddam or Clarke?
Posted by: .com || 12/16/2003 17:24 Comments || Top||

#19  Lyndon was a warmongering Dimocrat;

I don't know about that. If he really was one, the Vietnam War probably would not have turned out as it did.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 12/16/2003 18:16 Comments || Top||

#20  You got it BAR...

LBJ was a running scared New Deal Demo with a shit load of money ghosts in his closet.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 18:41 Comments || Top||

#21  Those would be Texas money ghosts, more than quite a few of which were defense industry biggies as they still are today and then there's NASA in Houston, which is defense-related.
Don't forget LBJ's "Great Society," largely fueled by the war economy.
His apparent failing with the Vietnam War inter alia was micro-managing it, letting McNamara and Westmoreland have their heads while at the same time being constrained by Cold War "conflict" protocols (no all-out victories or pushes allowed, maintaining the pretense that the Soviet Union and PRC weren't in the background, etc.)
One of the weirder phenomenon in the very strange war now is that our role and goal in the Vietnam "conflict" is being rehabilitated.
Johnson was right--Vietnam went Communist and Ho Chi Mihn's men almost destroyed both North and South Vietnam to the point that they're still picking up the pieces in 2003.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 20:32 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Al-Aalmi suspected in Perv boom
Pakistani authorities suspect that the terrorist group al Qaeda may have been behind an attempt at the weekend to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf. General Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led 'war on terror', narrowly escaped Sunday's attack when a series of explosions ripped apart a bridge in the city of Rawalpindi just after his motorcade passed. Intelligence officials said suspicion was falling on al Qaeda or an allied Pakistani group, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen al-Almi, several of whose members have already been convicted for trying to kill Musharraf. "The method used in the explosions points fingers towards them," said one intelligence official. "It is the handiwork of highly trained people and that's why we suspect them."
I thought they cleaned out al-Aalmi? Or have they become something like Turkish Hezbollah used to be?
Several key al Qaeda members, including the organisation's number three Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, have been arrested inside Pakistan, often with the help of US investigators. Three members of al-Almi were convicted in October for another failed attempt to kill Musharraf by parking an explosives-laden car along a route that his motorcade was to take during a visit to the southern city of Karachi. On that occasion, the bomb's remote control detonator failed. But the same car was later used for an attack on the US consulate in Karachi that killed 12 people. Pakistan has stepped up security since the latest incident and launched an inquiry into the lapses which apparently allowed the bridge to escape security checks. Seven security personnel, including four men detailed to check the bridge, have been taken into custody and are being questioned, intelligence officials said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 11:44 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Bhutan Army Seizes Camp of Indian Rebels
The royal army of the tiny Himalayan nation of Bhutan has seized a camp near its border with India that they believe housed the headquarters of a major Indian separatist group, a top Bhutanese official said Tuesday. In its first-ever modern military operation, some 6,000 soldiers of Bhutan's royal army on Monday began a sweep through dense forests to push out Indian militants operating from its territory.
"Boss? There's 6,000 guys from the Bhutan army here. They say they want us to get the hell out... Boss?"
Indian security officials say three major militant groups -- the United Liberation Front of Asom, or ULFA, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, and Kamtapur Liberation Organization — use Bhutan as a base from which they wage hit-and-run attacks into the northeastern Indian states of Assam and West Bengal. "By midday Monday, royal army soldiers had overpowered the central command headquarters of the ULFA," said Neten Zangmo, Bhutan's foreign secretary.
"And stay out, dammit!"
Zangmo told The Associated Press that the ULFA camp was located at Phukaptong in the Samdrup Jongkar district bordering Assam. Several rebels were arrested and at least seven Bhutanese soldiers were wounded in Monday's operation, Zangmo said in a telephone interview. She did not give details about rebel arrests, but the Indian army said it doesn't expect any top ULFA commander would be among the arrested rebels.
Too important to The Movement™, y'see...
Lt. Gen. Jitendra Singh Verma, the chief of Indian army's eastern command, told reporters in Calcutta said ULFA chairman Arvind Rajhkhawa and its chief commander Paresh Barua are believed to be hiding in Bangladesh. Hours after the Bhutanese operation began, a man identifying himself as Baruah telephoned local newspaper offices in Assam, saying a ULFA captain had been killed and a veteran ideologue injured as two of its camps came under heavy fire. The camps had been vacated, the man said, adding that at least five school children were injured by the Bhutanese army's mortar fire. Zangmo denied that children had been hit.
He did admit that several puppies, kittens, and baby ducks had been wounded, though...
The military operations came after six years of failed talks to persuade the rebels to leave the kingdom, the Bhutanese Embassy said.
"We told you to get the hell out, but did you listen? NO! You didn't listen!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 11:38 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Jake and his friends hard at work! Good to see this. Jake is a friend, a retired Army Special Forces Sergeant Major, who is a cousin to the Bhutanese King's American wife. She asked him to bring some of his friends and come train an army for the Kingdom. Guess he's done a good job.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 15:49 Comments || Top||

#2  I find these things always go easier if you show up with 5,999 other guys.
Posted by: Fred || 12/16/2003 15:55 Comments || Top||


Pakistan Arrests 10 in Anti-Terror Drive
10 bad guys, huh? That leaves about 75,000,000 to go...
Police arrested 10 people suspected of links to the Taliban and al-Qaida in two nighttime raids near the capital. The detainees, some of them Afghans, were arrested late Monday in Rawalpindi, where assassins tried to kill Pakistan's military leader Sunday with a bomb. But a government statement said the arrests were unrelated to that attack. The 10 were "involved in unlawful activities" and some weapons were seized. An Interior Ministry official said the raids were part of a campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaida and followed an intelligence tip-off. Pakistani intelligence agents were interrogating the detainees, he said.
"Mahmoud! Have you seen my red truncheon?"
"Oh, sorry, Ahmed. I was using it."
Also Tuesday, police arrested a man who was found to be carrying explosives as he boarded a train at the Jehangira station, about 60 miles northwest of Islamabad. Police were conducting a routine search when they found two sticks of dynamite, two detonators and two fuses in the luggage of Ulfat Khan, 35, according to a railway police official.
"What's with the explosives, Ulfat?"
"I'm gonna open my own diamond mine."
The train was bound for Karachi, which is Pakistan's commercial center and main port on the Arabian Sea.
"Take the last train to Karachi,
And I'll meet you at the station..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 11:18 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Take the last train to Karachi,
And I'll meet you at the station..."

"Hey Hey, we're the Mullahs....."
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 13:04 Comments || Top||


Osama Bin Laden, Omar won’t be taken alive
And this is a problem, how?:
Saddam Hussein’s capture leaves two household names left on the U.S. "terror" wanted list. But unlike Saddam, neither al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden nor Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is likely to be taken alive, a top Pakistani cleric with close ties to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime warned.
Sammy wasn't going to be taken alive, either. Had a boom belt and everything, remember?
And even if either were to be captured, it would do little to stem violence blamed on the groups, said Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, who knew Omar and called for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. "From what I know about these people you cannot arrest them alive," Shamzai told Reuters in an interview in Karachi.
It would be hard to arrest Binny alive since he’s been dead for two years now. If you corner Mullah Omar, he’s more likely to fight to the death because he is a true believer. You can always take somebody alive if you catch them sleeping.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 10:10:58 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  so basically, he's saying is:

you'll never catch them!
but if you do ...
you'll never catch them alive!
but if you do...
it won't matter anyway, SO THERE!!

Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 10:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Excuse Mr. Qusai-Leader in the 'Religion of Peace' why are you calling for a war on we Americans? Is it because you like living under a dictator? If I were King there would be a 'special' unit that took care of all the fatwa spitting clerics in the world. Declare war on us? Ok we KILL you game over. Also I am willing to bet that Omar and Osama will (if captured) act just as much of a bitch Saddam did. His sons had bigger stones than Saddam they died after a four-hour battle.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 10:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Or as the great philosopher Fred Rantburgensis would say:

"HOKAY"
Posted by: True German Ally || 12/16/2003 10:40 Comments || Top||

#4  That's what they said about Saddam. Osama will come quietly like a little biznatch the minute it even looks like he might get hurt. And Shamzai will cry like a little biznatch when he sees the footage of Osama submitting to a colonoscopy. Martyrdom is for the peons.
Posted by: BH || 12/16/2003 10:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Cybersarge, I agree with your 'special' unit but I would add an addition, that the Unit kills the fatwa spitting clerics in a way that makes it look like Allah did it. I'm not sure how Allah punished folk in the Koran but lightning, etc, can be simulated.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/16/2003 12:58 Comments || Top||

#6  Absolutely fine with me...
Posted by: gawdamman || 12/16/2003 13:11 Comments || Top||

#7  If you corner Mullah Omar, he’s more likely to fight to the death because he is a true believer.

No problem at all. Hang the guy's lifeless body from a Kabul lamppost for a couple of days, then wrap it up with pork rinds and bury it in a public ceremony.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 12/16/2003 14:58 Comments || Top||

#8  Bomb - I was with you until that last sentence. We don't want any of this foul cretin's essence released back into the environment - we have enough problem with the Greens as it is. His pigskin-wrapped body should be soaked with gasoline and burned in a controlled burn, until there's not even ashes left. Then VERY CAREFULLY clean the combustion chamber, and get it ready for the next Islamofascist.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 16:02 Comments || Top||

#9  And even if either were to be captured, it would do little to stem violence blamed on the groups, said Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, who knew Omar and called for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States during the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. "From what I know about these people you cannot arrest them alive," Shamzai told Reuters in an interview in Karachi

We would have alot better chance of catching them if we would sweat this guy a little and all the rest of the asshats that claim to know things.
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 12/16/2003 16:47 Comments || Top||

#10  Cheddarhead - right on. Since there is actually no law in Pakiwakiland, we should suggest to Perv that every one of these zeros who implies they communicate with OBL or Omar or other Taliban (or Elvis) should be picked up and hammered for info. If they really have it, great. If they don't, a coupla rounds of truncheons will convince them to STFU. Having a lawless society (Yeah, I know they claim to have Shari'a - that was included) can be convenient, at times. We pay through the nose for this arrangement, let's make it pay off. Been kinda quiet on the helpful side since capturing Sheik.
Posted by: .com || 12/16/2003 17:14 Comments || Top||

#11  Okay Rantburgers, putcher money where yer mouth is. Since I believe that Mullah Omar will end similar to Saddam Hussein, I put up a "WOT Future" titled "Mullah Omar captured without personally resisting". I say within one year.

I wanted to try working in "captured without resisting, but crying and soiling himself", but that is less a prediction than an expression of the contempt I have for these ignorant bullies.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 12/16/2003 17:53 Comments || Top||


Five bombs used in bid on Musharraf’s life
Five remote-controlled bombs were used in the assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf at the weekend, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said Tuesday. Would-be attackers planted five explosive devices, which detonated almost simultaneously and blew up a bridge seconds after General Musharraf’s motorcade passed on Sunday evening, he said. The bombs were highly sophisticated Rashid told a foreign news agency. This type of device was never used in the country in the past, he said. Five to six people have been questioned over the attack but no arrests have been made, the minister said. Those who planted the bombs were the ‘most expert people,’ he said.
If they were so expert, how did they miss?
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 9:58:18 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  More details: A sophisticated bomb containing about 250 kilograms (550 pounds) of explosive was used in the recent assassination attempt against Pakistan's military leader, officials said Tuesday. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said explosive was planted in five places beneath the two-lane bridge which President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's motorcade passed seconds before the blast happened Sunday evening. "This was done by very expert men. Such a bomb has never been used in Pakistan before,'' Ahmed told The Associated Press. He said investigators haven't identified the type of explosive, and that he did not know the quantity.
But an Interior Ministry official familiar with the investigation said Pakistani army bomb experts estimated about 250 kilograms (550 pounds) of explosive was used in the bomb -- which destroyed a section of a concrete bridge that spans a stream in Rawalpindi. The official, who declined to be named, gave no details about the type of explosive.
Earlier officials said seven people were being held, including three police officers who were meant to be on duty at the bridge at the time of the bombing. The Interior Ministry official said the three officers were still being interrogated. The official declined to say whether the officers had abandoned their posts -- although officials did confirm the officers were uninjured by the blast.


Five 110 lb charges of explosives wired to go off at the same time, a very professional job. Takes time to set charges like that, plus his route was supposed to be classified. They have the cops who were supposed to be guarding the bridge, they'll talk.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 10:25 Comments || Top||


Rights group condemns ’acid’ sentence
Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission on Monday called a sentence imposed on a 19-year-old man "horrifying." The teen was found guilty of throwing acid into the face of his 17-year-old fiancée and blinding her. A judge sentenced the man to seven years in jail but also ordered that he have acid thrown in his face and that the sentence be carried out in public. The commission said that the punishment would not deter crime. Instead, it said banning the sale of corrosive substances would help stop acid attacks.
Yeah that’ll do it.
"Justice based on an ’eye for an eye’ can never lead to the creation of a less crime-ridden and less violent society," it said. The commission also condemned the judge’s ruling that the sentence be carried out in public, calling it an "obscene spectacle." Mohammed Sajid was found guilty in June of attacking his fiancée in Bahawalpur, about 500 kilometres southwest of Islamabad, after a minor argument. In his verdict, Judge Afzal Sharif said the sentence was "an Islamic way of doing justice."
So let me get this straight... Pakistan has a human rights commission???

"Acid doesn't blind people. Raving lunatic anuses do!"
Posted by: Rafael || 12/16/2003 1:51:02 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm going to paraphrase an old Saturday Night Live sketch (lines spoken by Dan Akroyd,in relation to an abortion, for his debate opponent's mother):

"Normally, I would be a strong opponent of (Sharia law /eye-for-an-eye) practice, but - in this particular case - not only would I support (the sentence), but I would gladly perform (the task) myself."

I am utterly amazed at the frequency of the acid-maiming sceanrio in Southwest Asia, as well as the impunity with which it is typically carried out.

I detest bullies who terrorize others. Don't tell me that similar frequent sentences (along with castration by blowtorch) wouldn't deter this practoice - bullies are always cowards (ain't that right Saddam?!?).
Posted by: Lone Ranger || 12/16/2003 6:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Makes you think there might be hope yet for Pakistan.

Public is good. Watch even more cowards. That will probably do a lot of good. Nothing like exposing them and what they believe in for what they are.

And just remember, when corrosive substances are banned, only criminals will have corrosived substances.
Posted by: Michael || 12/16/2003 10:01 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Dead Guys Add Up
Samarra - 11 dead
Fallujah - 1 dead
Khalidiyah - 2 dead
Ar Ramadi - 2 dead (separate attacks)

Not that I’m counting, or anything. Note that in the Samarra ambush, we counted the bodies and then made the townsfolk pick them up. Cuts down on the arguments over the losses.
Posted by: Chuck || 12/16/2003 10:43:31 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I can already see the spin: "Large number of dead Iraqi insurgents points to continuing failure of unilateral U.S.-lead war"
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 23:21 Comments || Top||

#2  There has to be a short list for available virgins, too. Gee. 16 * 72 = 1152 virgins. Looks like backorders are in line.
Posted by: alaskasoldier || 12/16/2003 23:34 Comments || Top||

#3  You also have to consider why they are still virgins... I think a lot of boomers will wish they were in hell after all.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 23:56 Comments || Top||

#4  You also have to consider why they are still virgins... I think a lot of boomers will wish they were in hell after all.....
Read an interesting theological discussion once about the "reality" of Hell. One comment stands out: "Hell will be the one thing you hated the most in life." Match that with a joke I heard about Alice Springs, Australia: "Alice Springs, where there's a woman behind every tree. Her name is Helen, she's 90 years old, and snaggle-toothed." Can you say 72 Helens, and we don't mean the Trojan one.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/17/2003 0:11 Comments || Top||


Iraqi FM blasts U.N. - accuses eurotrash of "Settling scores with the United States"
EFL
Adds flavor (some garlic, lots of salt, and several gallons of vinegar) to the previous post...
Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, accused the United Nations Security Council today of having failed to help rescue his country from Saddam Hussein, and he chided member states for bickering over his beleaguered country’s future.
And from the NYT, if you can believe it.
"Settling scores with the United States-led coalition should not be at the cost of helping to bring stability to the Iraqi people," Mr. Zebari said in language unusually scolding for an occupant of the guest seat at the end of the curving Security Council table. "Squabbling over political differences takes a back seat to the daily struggle for security, jobs, basic freedoms and all the rights the U.N. is chartered to uphold," he said.
"You guys can sit here in the international bathroom exploring your sexuality. We've got things to do."
Taking a harsh view of the inability of quarreling members of the Security Council to endorse military action in Iraq, Mr. Zebari said, "One year ago, the Security Council was divided between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable. The United Nations as an organization failed to help rescue the Iraqi people from a murderous tyranny that lasted over 35 years, and today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure." He declared, "The U.N. must not fail the Iraqi people again."
Kind of an argument against any deep UN involvement in the political end of rebuilding, I'd say.
It was not immediately clear how the accusatory tone of Mr. Zebari’s speech affected the closed-door discussion over the United Nations’ role in Iraq that followed, but Secretary General Kofi Annan, the first to emerge from the hall, appeared taken aback. "Now is not the time to pin blame and point fingers," he told reporters.
Well, when is the time to point fingers, dammit?
Saying that Mr. Zebari was "obviously entitled to his opinion," Mr. Annan said that the United Nations had done as much for Iraq as it could under the circumstances and was prepared to do more.
"I mean, we ignored, we procrastinated, we obfuscated. What more did he want?"
"Quite honestly," he said, "now is not the time to hurl accusations and counter-accusations."
"That can be done... ummm... some other time."
He also took on countries like France that have expressed doubts about the current governing group. "As Iraqis," he said, "we strongly disagree with those of you that question the legitimacy of the present Iraqi authorities." He continued: "I’d like to remind you that the governing council is the most representative and democratic governing body in the region. The members of the Security Council should be reaching out and encouraging this nascent democracy in a region well known for its authoritarian rule."
Think about that. A government appointed by an army of occupation is the closest they can come to democracy in the entire region.
Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere of France, a critic of the war, turned aside the criticism of the Security Council dissenters, saying, "I don’t want to comment on the past."
I love it, let those bastards have it with both barrels. Of course, the sniveling french can only whine about ’bygones’, nothing unexpected there. Hope kofi got an earful from the guy. I love how he goes after them for not considering the IGC ’legimate’, I hope he took the opportunity to remind the french how much they miss saddam.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 8:09:00 PM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Shit, dupe post. Can you kill it Mr. Fred?
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 20:09 Comments || Top||

#2  He declared, "The U.N. must not fail the Iraqi people again."

again?

Jeesh. Soooo... there will be a next time. No wonder the NYT is printing it.
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 20:24 Comments || Top||

#3  No, B, the first failure was the recognition and support of Saddam's government. The again would be if the UN abandons Iraq and treats it as if it's America's sole problem.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 20:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Hoshyar Zebari delivered an excellent spanking to a group that richly deserved one.
Posted by: Dave D. || 12/16/2003 20:48 Comments || Top||

#5  Methinks we're going to be hearing a lot more from Iraqi's who've been shafted over the years by the UN, NGO's and certain countries.

Good for them!
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 12/16/2003 20:49 Comments || Top||

#6  "Now is not the time...blah, blah, blah." It will never be the right time, will it, Kofi? Anybody know when this idiot's term is up? (I know, I know - we just get a new idiot. But this one's reeeeeeally worn out his welcome.)
Posted by: PBMcL || 12/16/2003 21:07 Comments || Top||

#7  Sounds like in Mr. Zebari we've identified the first Iraqi Rantburger. Somebody send him the URL.

" Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere of France, a critic of the war, turned aside the criticism... saying 'I don't want to comment on the past.'" Good idea, Jean-boy, it's not very pretty from your point of view.
Posted by: Matt || 12/16/2003 21:33 Comments || Top||

#8  I think the IGC should sue the UN (possible?), and Kofi personally, to account for every dime of the "Oil for Palaces" program. Hit 'em where it hurts.
Posted by: PBMcL || 12/16/2003 21:34 Comments || Top||

#9  did ANYONE see this speech on the news ? ANY news ? ANYWHERE ?
Posted by: eyeyeye || 12/16/2003 21:36 Comments || Top||

#10  That would be 'no'...
Posted by: Raj || 12/16/2003 22:18 Comments || Top||

#11  Well, when is the time to point fingers, dammit?

Exactly. The monster has been dragged from his hole, the recovery of the country is under way (in spite of the idiots with RPGs). When will it be a better time to point some fingers at france and the u.n. than right now? ESPECIALLY considering their duplicity in keeping saddam in charge of the plastic shredders.


ps. thanks for the salt n' vinegar seasoning, FP.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 22:24 Comments || Top||

#12  Two posts based on two reporters at the same meeting, and I saw yet a third one, about to post until I saw it already posted twice. Now I'm posting a fourth one here. The Beeb quoted no one so they could devote the whole thing to spin: (EFL, but short to begin with)
UN chief demands clear Iraq role
The United Nations role in Iraq needs to be defined much more clearly, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says. Mr Annan said the capture of Saddam Hussein was an opportunity for a new beginning for Iraqis - and forming a provisional government was a priority. Mr Annan was addressing the UN Security Council during a debate on the future of Iraq. Mr Annan said the UN had not disengaged from Iraq despite appearances and was doing all it could from outside the country. But he said it was still too dangerous for the UN to return to Iraq, following the bombing of its Baghdad headquarters in August that killed UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others. Mr Annan said the UN was ready to play its full part in helping Iraq from out of mortar range, but "much greater clarity" was needed as to what was expected from it.
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) || 12/16/2003 22:57 Comments || Top||

#13  Unfortunately, Annan's term isn't up until 2006. This is his second term . . . how did THAT happen?!?
Posted by: spiffo || 12/16/2003 23:37 Comments || Top||


Baath party announces capture of its secretary general by biological effects
Stop the presses!
In a statement published on the Internet site, the Baath Arab Socialist Party announces that its Secretary General, Saddam Hussein, was held captive in the hands of the American occupation forces with the help "of traitors," stressing "continued" resistance against occupation. A statement by the party’s political leadership said that the American occupation forces were able, with the help of "puppet traitors" to launch an operation against certain areas of Salah Eddine governorate during the movement (travel) of its secretary general (Saddam Hussein).
Huzzza! The puppets are on our side now!
The statement explained conditions of arresting the former Iraqi President without a fight, stressing that the American forces were able in an operation to capture "comrade, the secretary of the Iraq’s region for the Baath party on Saturday before midnight." The Baath party, which ruled Iraq for 35 years reiterated that "brave armed resistance will not stop, rather continue." The statement added that the "great challenge which the secretary general will face in the concentration camp will add more heroism for his achievements."
Amazing, his PR team is still on the job. Oh, and I have no idea what the hell "biological effects" have to do with his capture. Unless they smelled him down in that hole, he did look pretty ripe.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 2:45:55 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Maybe it has something to do with this moonbat article claiming "the American forces, frustrated by the Resistance fighters' stubbornness, began to fire shells that contained types of narcotic gas, taking advantage of their technological superiority....the gas spread quickly in the air and affected the ability of the Resistance fighters to do battle, causing them to lose consciousness. This allowed the American aggressor forces to arrest them while they were unconscious. Among them was the Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein."

Supposedly, "the courageous Iraqi Resistance led by Saddam Hussein lost more than 150 men martyrs in the heroic engagement. He said that the US aggressor forces lost more than 250 men, however, in killed and injured during the combat, and dozens of American vehicles were destroyed.

He added that American Apache helicopters and airplanes were constantly in the skies of the area throughout the entire duration of the battle that raged for more than 30 hours during which the US occupation forces were unable to break the will and defiance of the heroic Resistance fighters."

File Under: Denial Over Shame.
Posted by: growler || 12/16/2003 15:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Huzzza! The puppets are on our side now!

Has Bert finally mended his ways?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 17:45 Comments || Top||

#3  all depends on whose hand is up your ass I guess
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 18:33 Comments || Top||


Iraq Official: U.N. Failed Us and Should Help Now
Iraq's foreign minister accused the United Nations on Tuesday of failing his country by leaving Saddam Hussein in power for decades and appealed to the world body to assume a leading role in Baghdad immediately. In an address to the U.N. Security Council, Hoshyar Zebari, foreign minister of Iraq's Governing Council, noted that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was opening offices in Nicosia, Cyprus, and Amman, Jordan, for international staff, who would commute to Baghdad. "Your help and expertise cannot be effectively delivered from Cyprus or Amman," Zebari said. Annan pulled out foreign staff after the Aug. 19 bombing of U.N. offices in Baghdad that cost 22 lives.
But the hotels are so much better in Nicosia and Amman!
But Annan said he needed a clearer picture of U.N. tasks and an indication that security had improved before reopening an office in Baghdad. "I need to weigh the degree of risk that the United Nations is being asked to accept against the substance of the role we are being asked to fulfill," Annan said. "I therefore need to know how responsibilities will be allocated and who will be taking what decisions."
"Sure, sure. We ain't gonna gain anything, but we're not gonna venture anything, either. That way there's no chance we'll lose anything, right?"
Zebari said the United Nations had failed to help rescue Iraq from "a murderous tyranny" that lasted more than 35 years and "today we are unearthing thousands of victims in horrifying testament to that failure."
Statistics. Mere statistics. The UN will include the numbers in a yearbook of some sort and then file it.
"The United Nations must not fail the Iraqi people again," Zebari said. Zebari called the United Nations "the key forum of collective international action to help us achieve our goals of restructuring and democratizing our country." He said Iraqis were "ready and willing to help provide whatever security is required." And he accused the 15-member Security Council of being divided "between those who wanted to appease Saddam Hussein and those who wanted to hold him accountable" and said they should overcome the deep divisions over the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Appealing for unity, Zebari said, "Settling scores with the United States should not be at the cost of helping to bring stability to the Iraqi people."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 13:39 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I should like to propose that the UN be relocated to Baghdad. Perhaps being in the middle of one of their failures will incent these diplomats to better effort. If nothing else, it'll take some of the pressure, high profile target-wise, off the Iraqis, Red cross/crescent, and coalition people who are actually trying to improve things.

I'm sure one of Saddam's palaces can be refurbished to the UN's high standards. The Iraqi Governing council can also make a buck or two selling range and windage info to the boomers.

If nothing else, it'll reduce the number of unpaid parking tickets in NYC by half.....
Posted by: Mercutio || 12/16/2003 15:00 Comments || Top||

#2  From another article (dammit, Fred, you spoiled my fun!)
Annan ... said it was "no time to pin blame and point fingers" over the past.
Okay pinning blame and pointing fingers over the present?
"The fact that the war was won doesn't make legitimate something that was not legitimate," France's UN ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere said after the council meeting. "But this is the past."
What was Frank Zappa's send-up of Sgt. Pepper?
Key opponents of the war on the Security Council, including France, Germany and Russia, now are opposed to the United States overseeing the rebuilding ...
We're only in it for the Money
Zebari said ... "Squabbling over political differences takes a back seat to the ... basic freedoms and all the rights the UN is chartered to uphold."
Business as usual at the UN, Hoshy
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) || 12/16/2003 17:54 Comments || Top||

#3  With all due respect, Hoshyar, if you want a functioning democracy anytime in this decade, you'll do everything in your power to keep the UN out of Iraq.

But feel free to bad-mouth them in the meantime - the rest of us do. :-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 12/16/2003 18:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Hmm...not to be cynical, but sounds to me like Zebari is posturing for his piece of that UN pie.
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 20:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Yes. it looks that way B, but they really have some really good justifications for payback from the UN.

My advice would be to take whatever financial aid they can (no 'aid' agencies though) and then tell the UN to shove it.

Not going to happen though (sigh).
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 12/16/2003 20:55 Comments || Top||

#6  Tony(UK)??? Is it you, sir? Mr. Blair sir?
Posted by: liberalhawk || 12/17/2003 18:36 Comments || Top||


U.S. Army Nabs Iraqi Rebel Leader, 78 Others
American soldiers arrested a rebel leader and 78 other people during a raid north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Tuesday.
"Hodges!"
"Yessir?"
"Tell them to send more paddy wagons!"
The raid, which began Monday, took place in the village of Abu Safa, near Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. Insurgents in Samarra ambushed U.S. forces on Monday, and the U.S. military said its troops killed 11 attackers. At 4:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, troops from the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division arrested Qais Hattam, described as the No. 5 fugitive on the division's list of ``high value targets,'' said Capt. Gaven Gregory of the 4th Infantry's 3rd Brigade. Hattam is not on the U.S. list of the 55 most wanted Iraqis. Soldiers also seized bomb making material, Gregory said. It was not immediately known if the raid was linked to intelligence gleaned from Saddam, who is under interrogation in U.S. military custody.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 12:06 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  this is starting to resemble and FBI sting operation. One after another after another. Way to go!
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 12:22 Comments || Top||

#2  It may be that Sammy has turned state's evidence to avoid the noose.

Or not.

If you were part of the fedhayeen, would you want to count on Sammy keeping quiet?
Posted by: Mike || 12/16/2003 14:06 Comments || Top||

#3  It may be that Sammy has turned state's evidence to avoid the noose.
Naah, he's much to brave for that. The US troops were only able to capture him through 'biological methods'. Yeah, that's it HEE HEE.
I'm agree with Mike, to Saddam, loyalty is a one way street.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 12/16/2003 15:50 Comments || Top||

#4  Form Al Guardian, via Andrew Sullivan:

"In the same northern Iraqi town yesterday, about 700 people rallied, chanting: "Saddam is in our hearts, Saddam is in our blood." US soldiers and Iraqi policemen shouted back: "Saddam is in our jail.""
Posted by: Tibor || 12/16/2003 17:04 Comments || Top||


Sammy's sister sez he was drugged
Saddam Hussein's sister has claimed Coalition forces must have drugged the deposed dictator to secure his surrender. Nawal Ibrahim al-Hasan told the al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper: "Saddam Hussein, hero of Arabs, would never surrender like this. He must have been subjected to drugs or nerve gas to paralyse him, for he is not one to surrender in this humiliating manner."
"Hodges, give him a double dose of giggle juice before we put him on the teevee!"
A shabby Saddam, 66, was pictured undergoing a medical examination after being arrested by troops on Saturday. He had not fired a shot during the raid.
No doubt the giggle juice was administered before he was captured...
Al-Hasan said: "Is it possible for a president to be humiliated like this and for the Americans to comb through his hair for nits? This is not the Saddam Hussein we know. He must have been drugged or injected with illegal chemicals. What happened is an insult to all Arabs and Muslims."
Maybe Sammy was the insult to all Arabs and Muslims. Of course, they're a pretty easily insulted bunch, aren't they?
She said her husband, Arshad Yassin, one of Saddam's special bodyguards, had also been arrested by US forces. Speaking from a safe place in an undisclosed Arab capital, al-Hassan warned that attacks against the Coalition occupation of Iraq would increase following Saddam's capture. She said: "The Iraqi resistance to occupation will continue and will escalate after his arrest because resistance is the only way and there can be no co-operation with occupation and occupying powers."
"At least, not until the money runs out."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 11:48 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Al-Hasan said: "Is it possible for a president to be humiliated like this and for the Americans to comb through his hair for nits? This is not the Saddam Hussein we know.

No. The Saddam you know dipped your Iraqi, freakin MUSLIM brethern in acid, you stupid bitch. The Saddam you know jammed your Iraqi freakin MUSLIM brethern through plastic shredders!!!"

He was a great MUSLIM leader. He gassed baby MUSLIM. He executed innocent MUSLIM children. He raped innoncent MUSLIM girls.

He was quite the MUSLIM warrior.
Posted by: alaskasoldier || 12/16/2003 12:18 Comments || Top||

#2  "al-Hassan warned that attacks against the Coalition occupation of Iraq would increase." Wow what a revelation! let's see they attacked a convoy today, results are 11 Islamo-facisits DEAD and no U.S./Iraqi casualties. Few more attack like that and your going to run out of Iraqi resistance fighters. Gee you think we are learning how to defend against these attacks?
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 13:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Drugged? No, drunk--as in drunk with the power that comes with terrorizing 25 million people with an unquestionable and absolute iron fist in an oil-rich country and serving no one but yourself.

What you see now is the Mother of all Hangovers.
Posted by: Dar || 12/16/2003 14:24 Comments || Top||

#4  Sounds like Hussein's sister is a candidate for an axehandle face-lift.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 16:14 Comments || Top||

#5  Damn straight he was drugged. Drugged right out of his hole. To bad the last words he didn't get to hear were "fire in the hole"
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 12/16/2003 16:28 Comments || Top||

#6  To bad the last words he didn't get to hear were "fire in the hole".
Much more pleasing would have been the sound of a cement truck as it increased the spin while dumping cubic yards of wet cement down on his vile, filthy ass.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 18:23 Comments || Top||

#7  Sounds like someone who never had to fear the rape gangs.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 19:23 Comments || Top||

#8  Not yet, sis, not yet. Plenty of time for that... among other things.
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 20:55 Comments || Top||


Sammy's secrets
Secret papers found in Saddam Hussein's hiding place reveal that he had regular contact with the leader of the terrorists who oppose the U.S. presence in Iraq, military officials told The Post. The papers prove Saddam communicated with Izzat Ibrahim al Douri, his former deputy in the Baath Party - the political organization behind his reign of terror.
I'd have been mighty surprised if he hadn't...
Details were sketchy, but the documents show Saddam was more deeply involved in the resistance than previously believed.
He's the one who knows where the cash is...
And the farm complex in Adwar where Saddam was found hiding in a "spider hole" Saturday may have been a terrorist meeting spot. People coming to see Saddam could get there by boat on the nearby Tigris River. Saddam's communication with al Douri is just part of a treasure trove of secrets found at the hiding place - which led yesterday to the arrests of two key Iraqi terror leaders.
That would be Un-named Co-conspirator One and his younger brother, Un-named Co-conspirator Two, no doubt...
U.S. officials said that crucial documents, found in the Butcher of Baghdad's briefcase, included a list of six names, including two financiers, two bomb makers, and the two arrested resistance leaders, described as distant relatives of Saddam. The documents also detailed the structure and financing of eight to 12 vicious terror cells around Baghdad - of which the U.S. had known little. The information should bring more arrests in the coming days, said officials. "Some were things we already knew about and we just needed the intel to go after them. I think we'll get some significant intelligence over the next couple of days," said Gen. Mark Hertling of the Army's 1st Armored Division.
They should be sifting through a glut of intel right now, even as the subjects of that intel are trying on their false noses and moustaches and getting the hell out of Dodge. Get 'em now, before they're gone...
Uncovering Saddam's involvement with and knowledge of recent Baathist death-squad activities remains the first priority of CIA agents interrogating Saddam. "I'm sure he was giving some guidance to some key figures in this insurgency. When you take down a mob boss, you don't know how much is going to come out of it," Hertling told reporters. But so far, Saddam remains grumpy and uncooperative, sources said, spending much of Day 2 of his sessions with the CIA refusing to say much beyond "rote" political rhetoric. "He's been fairly defiant," an official told Fox News. "While he's talkative, he's provided nothing substantial. His comments are self-serving, lengthy rationalizations of his behavior, and he punctuates a lot of it with wise-ass and deflective remarks."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 10:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It will be interesting to see how that now-famous briefcase affects Jim Baker's negotiations about the forgiveness of Iraqi debt, especially if Baker is anywhere near the poker player that President Bush is.

"So, Mr. Baker, what was in that briefcase?"

"Things."
Posted by: Matt || 12/16/2003 11:02 Comments || Top||

#2  He's the one who knows where the cash is...
As Deep Throat said: Follow the money!
(maybe that should be Deep Hole;)
Posted by: Spot || 12/16/2003 11:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Baker gives Master Class lessons on poker.
Posted by: anonymous on this one || 12/16/2003 11:12 Comments || Top||

#4  Yeah, God only knows what an on-the-run dictator would grab and stuff into his briefcase. Heck, he might have grabbed some paperwork specifically with an eye towards using it to blackmail his way into asylum.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 11:16 Comments || Top||

#5  R.C. That would explain much.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 11:45 Comments || Top||

#6  ...found in the Butcher of Baghdad's briefcase, included a list of six names, including two financiers, two bomb makers, and the two arrested resistance leaders, described as distant relatives of Saddam.

Why is this info being released? Would it not be better to pounce on, then own the cells in secret, rather than send them scurrying by releasing this info?
Posted by: Zpaz || 12/16/2003 12:05 Comments || Top||

#7  I see the CIA is still using the third string in Iraq. Need to turn this over to the nasty-boys. Bring on the crank telephone, the sandpaper truncheons, and the icewater baths.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 16:17 Comments || Top||

#8  We all hunger for good intel, but I agree with Zpaz - this shit should NOT be getting out. I hope this is part of a disinformation gig.
Posted by: .com || 12/16/2003 17:18 Comments || Top||

#9  especially if Baker is anywhere near the poker player that President Bush is.

LOL! Jim Baker won Florida with 2 Jacks a 10 and an icy stare.

Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 19:11 Comments || Top||

#10  If the AceHole is still defiant after two days, it's because he has too much to eat and too much room in his cell. Were I in charge of getting info out of him, I would reduce the caloric total in his diet down to no more than 1500/day, and make that fat, not carbs, and each time he got out of his cell for his talks with interrogators, I would see that he went back to a slightly smaller cell. Just enough smaller that it began to bother him....
Posted by: Rivrdog || 12/16/2003 21:15 Comments || Top||


"Senior Security Officer" informed on Saddam?
EFL, the entire article is well worth reading.
The informant was a senior officer in Hussein’s elite Special Security Organization, according to the U.S. commander who led the operation. When U.S. Special Forces troops seized him Friday during a raid in Baghdad, they had not immediately realized that they held someone with precious information about Hussein’s whereabouts.
Hmm, the SSO no less. The old regime is really falling apart. Everyone’s scurrying to make the best deal.
But in little more than a day, U.S. troops determined his identity, brought him to Tikrit and won his vital cooperation, according to Col. James Hickey, who leads the 4th Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade. Less than four hours after the informant had divulged that Hussein was hiding on a farm near the village of Dawr and highlighted two possible safe houses, soldiers from the 1st Brigade and Special Forces had caught him.
Fast work. Does this mean that Saddam wasn’t on the move every three-to-four hours as we had heard?
The senior Iraqi security officer had been sought by U.S. troops since early July because of his intimate ties to the former president. Even as U.S. forces had learned more about the security officer’s significance, he had repeatedly eluded capture, including in a series of operations early this month. U.S. officers declined to reveal the informant’s name, saying they needed to protect his identity so he could continue to provide intelligence.
Seems to me we’re giving away too much information already. Or are we playing games here? Subverting and confusing our enemies?
Wonder if this guy's got red hair and resembles Krusty the Klown?
Hickey described him as a native of Abou Ajil, a hamlet slightly north of Tikrit, the regional capital 10 miles northwest of Dawr. Tikrit is populated by many members of Hussein’s security forces and has been the site of some of the fiercest resistance against U.S. occupation. Hussein’s birthplace, the village of Auja, is located close by.
Is Hickey talking too much? Or is he saying what he’s been told to say?
Another U.S. Army officer said the informant was a key figure and financier in the insurgency. This officer called the informant part of the "42-inch waistband" [Heh!] group of middle-aged Hussein loyalists who are orchestrating a campaign of violence largely waged by younger activists.
Looking at my waist, I feel somewhat offended.
The man first attracted the attention of the U.S. military in early July, when troops from the 1st Brigade raided his property in Abou Ajil. Though they missed arresting him by moments, the troops captured a trove of photographs, documents and other items that indicated he was related to several key Hussein allies.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips || 12/16/2003 10:14:34 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "42-inch waistband" sure! but they're resolving to go on diets, strict diets,...right after New Year's
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 10:24 Comments || Top||

#2  "You youngsters go on out and slay some infidels. We'll stay here and guard the refrigerator."
Posted by: seafarious || 12/16/2003 11:13 Comments || Top||

#3  PP, maybe, like me, you look to Winston Churchill as a positive example of what a man can be.
Posted by: Lucky || 12/16/2003 12:24 Comments || Top||


carry-over from yesterday:Saddam humiliation may fire resistance
One thing nobody has mentioned (most especially the reporter).
In all of the documentaries, all the news items broadcast about Saddam, he never had a beard. By Sayyid’s Moslem standards Saddam was never a virile man.
Posted by: raptor || 12/16/2003 9:32:59 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Neither does Assad - but we already know he's not, courtesy of the IAF palace fly-by
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 9:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Now I did mention the fact that he was clean shaven. Why is it these assholes can always complain about Islamic or Arab sensibilites getting trod on yet they are allowed to say whatever they goddam please.
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 12/16/2003 16:34 Comments || Top||


U.S. Troops Kill 11 in Samarra Firefight
U.S. troops killed 11 attackers after being ambushed in a town north of Baghdad, the military said Tuesday, while a roadside bomb wounded three soldiers in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit. In the ambush Monday afternoon in the town of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, guerrilla scouts released a flock of pigeons as the U.S. patrol approached, apparently as a signal to other fighters, a military statement said.
"Cry Havoc, and set free the pigeons of war!"
Two gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on the vehicles, and then took cover among children leaving school.
That’ll endear them to the locals.
The attackers used a roadside bomb, automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades in the ambush but inflicted no casualties on the patrol, the statement said. Snipers were used to suppress the fire without hitting any civilians, the statement said.
Picked them off without hitting the kids, outstanding!
A company commander on the scene said 11 insurgents were killed in the ensuing firefight.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 9:32:18 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Two gunmen on motorcycles opened fire on the vehicles, and then took cover among children leaving school.

Arab Honor at work folks....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 9:37 Comments || Top||

#2  ... and then took cover among children leaving school.

That's the islamofascist version of Cover and Concealment, apparently.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 11:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Bet they did it on purpose, hoping we'd fire on the kiddies. Was a al-Jiz camera crew nearbye?
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 12:26 Comments || Top||

#4  You have got to love the employment of snipers in this situation. Kind of like a surgical removal of the islamo-growth.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 13:07 Comments || Top||

#5  Here's the CentCom link.
Posted by: Chuck || 12/16/2003 22:33 Comments || Top||


RUMOR: Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri Captured?
Rumor on Fox News that Izzat Ibrahim Al-Duri has been captured. No link yet, developing.

Here's the story referenced in the comments, below...
Saddam Hussein's fugitive number two, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, may have surrendered to US-led coalition forces in Iraq, Kuwait Television reported on Tuesday, quoting its correspondent in Baghdad. The correspondent said on air that "the information is not confirmed and is confusing."
Meaning, "I don't know, but that's what the rumor is..."
He said that according to the information, Duri had given himself up on Tuesday morning. An official at Kuwait Television later told AFP that the station's correspondent was quoting Iraqi sources that had told him Duri had surrendered.
"Which sources?"
"Some guy down at the bakery."
Number six on the US wartime list of most wanted Iraqi officials, Duri is now the highest-ranking official of the former regime still at large. He has a US$10 million bounty on his head.

And from Figaro, also referenced in the comments...
AFP. [ December 16, 2003 ] Kuwaiti state television, quoting its correspondent in Baghdad, affirmed Tuesday that the "number two" of the deposed Iraqi regime, Izzat Ibrahim, had turned himself in to the American forces to Iraq. He however added that "this information was not confirmed".
So this one's the same report as the other one, only in French...


Late (11 p.m.) addition, from news.com.au. More tomorrow:
Iraqi resistance leader 'surrenders'
THE reputed head of the Iraqi insurgency surrendered to US forces at dawn yesterday, Al-Arabiya television reported last night. The reported surrender of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the highest ranking member of the former regime still at large, follows the arrest at the weekend of two leaders of the insurgency along with Saddam Hussein.
By Jove, I think we've got him...
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 8:31:10 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  woo hoo!
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 9:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Krusty the Clown captured?
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 9:07 Comments || Top||

#3  well....we're waaaiting!
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 10:27 Comments || Top||

#4  AFP (via commandpost) reports Kuwaiti TV says Al Duri surrendered Tuesday AM (local time?), cites unnamed Iraqi sources. Is that where Fox got it, or do they have independent source?
Posted by: liberalhawk || 12/16/2003 10:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Kuwaiti news has a confused account
Posted by: anonymous on this one || 12/16/2003 11:04 Comments || Top||

#6  Yoo, hoo. Over here...

KUWAIT CITY : Saddam Hussein's fugitive number two, Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, may have surrendered to US-led coalition forces in Iraq, Kuwait Television reported on Tuesday, quoting its correspondent in Baghdad.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 12/16/2003 12:10 Comments || Top||

#7  You know, with only 13 of the head cheeses still on the run, we only have to capture one more and we can replace the deck of cards with a pair of dice...
Posted by: Fred || 12/16/2003 12:13 Comments || Top||

#8  Give it time. As they say over on LGF: 48 hours!
Posted by: MW || 12/16/2003 12:35 Comments || Top||

#9  A frog paper says it's true (links to French).
Posted by: growler || 12/16/2003 12:42 Comments || Top||

#10  Do not forget the story that the Kuwait's caught WMD crossing the border. One paper caused a storm as a bunch of other papers reported it using the original paper as their source. When the dust settled it was artwork or something.

Give it 48 hours.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/16/2003 12:48 Comments || Top||

#11  Gen. Myers says he hasn't been able to track this down.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 12/16/2003 13:10 Comments || Top||

#12  I want to know how a sunni arab gets red hair
( take a look at al-douri). the milkman maybe? mamma was a viking?
Posted by: Frank Martin || 12/16/2003 15:45 Comments || Top||

#13  Frank - Al-Douri was known as "The Iceman" - mebbe there's something to your Milkman idea??!!!?!
Posted by: .com || 12/16/2003 16:24 Comments || Top||

#14  Circassian?
Posted by: liberalhawk || 12/16/2003 16:33 Comments || Top||

#15  There are a fair number of Arabs that don't look 'Arab'.

I'll believe this one is captured only when I hear it officially confirmed. Every time the coalition goes on a major hunt we hear he was captured.
Posted by: Kathy K || 12/16/2003 16:42 Comments || Top||

#16  I figure it might be something like this:
http://ww2.pstripes.osd.mil/02/nov02/mauldin/images/_maul55.jpg

the caption of which is " this is the town grandpappy told me all about"
Posted by: Frank Martin || 12/16/2003 16:55 Comments || Top||

#17  Looks like a half Brit to me.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 19:12 Comments || Top||

#18  news.com.au is carrying it, from al-Arabiya, as of 11 p.m.

Looks like we got a winner!
Posted by: Fred || 12/16/2003 22:49 Comments || Top||


Saddam daughter pleads for father
Saddam Hussein’s eldest daughter Raghead has called for an international trial for her father.
Yes, Yes! Maybe something in Europe where he will be punished with 20yrs in prison.
Speaking from Jordan, Raghad said she could not bear to see the pictures of her rat holed father put out by the US administration in Iraq. She said her father must have been drugged before his capture.
Yes, yes! That’s it. While he was sleeping we slipped an IV in and BAM!
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 12/16/2003 8:03:47 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What an absolute crock this plea is. Watch for the usual fifth columnists to fall in behind her. Wesley, Wesley boy, where are you?
Posted by: ColoradoConservative || 12/16/2003 8:25 Comments || Top||

#2  He was drugged before his capture?? Hmmm...and then they let him go and captured him again! Yeah, that's it!
Posted by: Spot || 12/16/2003 8:41 Comments || Top||

#3  The UNHRC should be investigating Saddam for naming his daughter Raghead.
Posted by: BH || 12/16/2003 10:50 Comments || Top||

#4  Saddam isn't going to be hurt, Raghad... he's just going to go talk with your husband.
Posted by: snellenr || 12/16/2003 11:16 Comments || Top||

#5  You want the old bastard alive, honey? All it will cost ya is all the money he has stuffed into Swiss and French and German banks...
Posted by: mojo || 12/16/2003 12:02 Comments || Top||

#6  Saddam isn't going to be hurt, Raghad.
I don't know, I'm personally of the opinion that the transition should be as painful as possible. Nothing quite so inhuman as throwing his butt in to a plastics shredder, but tying his arms and legs to four different M1's, all heading in different directions, seems appropriate. But that's up to the Iraqi people to decide. I just want it to be a large jury, all comprised of people who have been raped or tortured by one of Saddam's sons.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 17:55 Comments || Top||

#7  Hmmm. I'd suggest she goes to one (just one, don't want to be mean) mass grave, find out the names of the people who were murdered and buried there and then ask each of those families *in person* whether they would agree to an international trial. If she gets one person that says ok, just one, then I say go for it.

I agree with OP - let the Iraqi people decide where he's tried, who by and what the sentence should be (personally I hope it's something that gets the moonbats wetting themselves - something involving wild animals maybe).
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 12/16/2003 21:06 Comments || Top||

#8  I bet she hasn't even visited one mass grave. Sounds like a spoiled little rich tyrant's daughter who everyone was terrified of. Well she can't 'make people disappear' any more can she?

As for Saddam. I think the Iraqi people should be the ones who decide what to do with him. Perhaps she should go to baghdad herself and appeal to the GC.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/17/2003 0:13 Comments || Top||


Iraqi profiteers, al Qaeda seen funding attacks
EFL
Attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq are financed by a combination of al Qaeda-linked funds
(yes, yes...)
and profiteering from the recently dissolved U.N. oil-for-food trough program,
(Oh, that’s not good.)
according to former Treasury Department senior official.
Hey, I thought we were starving the Iraqi children with sanctions?
The attacks would decrease markedly, said David Aufhauser, if world governments showed more concern cooperation in tracing and halting the money flowing to former Ba’athists and their sympathizers.
You don’t say?
Money skimmed from the United Nations program
(Say it aint so!)
by the deposed regime "has not been found, and that money is fueling the insurgency that’s going on in Iraq," said Mr. Aufhauser, who two weeks ago left the Treasury, where he was general counsel and a key player in the Bush administration’s efforts to stanch the flow of cash to terrorist organizations. The oil-for-food trough program "was designed by bureaucrats, not businessmen, and therefore destined for failure" Mr. Aufhauser told a gathering of the Middle East Forum last week. "It was easily gamed by Saddam Hussein, and he made it a holiday for graft, kickbacks, schemes and front companies. He integrated himself into the program and openly skimmed north of $6 billion."
Ah, come on Mr. Aufhauser, are you saying the UN was ripped of? Taken advantage of?
Although few analysts are willing to speculate how much money was illicitly accrued during seven years of increasingly bold surcharges, informal licensing and other profiteering, it is clear that a group of favored UN businessmen grew immensely rich during the sanctions decade.
I am shocked that the UN would allow its funds to be used in such a way. Shocked I tell you!
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 12/16/2003 6:46:44 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The UN most certainly was not ripped off. They intended for the program to operate the way it did.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 7:45 Comments || Top||

#2  but, but, it was for, The Children(TM)!
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 9:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Any truth in a story of some months back that Koffi Annan's son has oil dealings that took advantage of the UN's Oil for Food deal?
Posted by: Barry || 12/16/2003 11:11 Comments || Top||


Paper: Israel Planned Hit on Saddam
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - The Israeli military planned a daring assassination attempt against Saddam Hussein in 1992 - a plot that would have involved landing commandos in Iraq and firing sophisticated missiles at him during a funeral, an Israeli newspaper reported Tuesday. The attempt was reportedly called off after an accident during a training exercise for the mission ended in the deaths of five soldiers.
Damn.
The Israeli military put together the plan to kill Saddam in retaliation for Iraq’s firing of 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. However, the plan was never brought before the government for final approval, the newspaper said. It said critics warned that whether it succeeded or failed, it could have triggered Iraqi retaliation in the form of a biological attack.
Unlikely. Who would give the order, and who would know (given usual Israeli operational security) who had sponsored the attack?
Israeli military intelligence determined that Saddam himself, and not one of his doubles, would attend the funeral of his father-in-law in Saddam’s home town, and the assassination could be carried out there, Maariv said. The commandos would set up a few miles from the cemetery and fire two specially designed missiles that would home in on Saddam, who wore a lighter color military uniform from other soldiers. The custom-made missiles were named ``Obelisk,’’ the paper said.
Every thug in the world now is going to be wearing black, which is strangly appropriate.
After the assassination, the commandos were to be flown out of Iraq on an Israeli plane that would take off from a temporary airfield built in Iraq, the paper said.
Built?
The training mishap occurred during one of the final practices on Nov. 5, 1992, at the large Tzeelim training base in the southern Negev desert. The five soldiers, members of the elite unit, were playing the part of the targets, Saddam Hussein and his bodyguards, and the other commandos were to fire a dummy missile at them. By mistake, a live missile was substituted, and the five were killed. Six others were wounded.
"Dammit, Moshe, we killed five of our own."
"I know, boss, but look at the bright side."
"WHAT BRIGHT SIDE YOU IDIOT!?"
"They were all wearing white. The missile worked."

The mishap led to cancellation of the assassination attempt. Maariv reported that in fact, as predicted by Israeli intelligence, Saddam himself attended the funeral where he was to have been targeted.
Damn. Did we have JDAM’s in 1992? Not that it would have mattered, no one here would have given a ’go’ order.
The top commanders of the Israeli military were at the base to watch the exercise, including the chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Ehud Barak, later Israel’s prime minister. The fact of his presence came out a few days after the mishap, leading to rumors about the real mission, including the possibility that it was aimed at Saddam. Israeli military censors clamped a tight lid on the accident and the purpose of the training, banning publication of the details. After two foreign newspapers printed stories that the target was Lebanese Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the Israeli government suspended the press credentials of the papers’ reporters in Israel, charging that they had broken censorship rules.

Maariv reported Tuesday that the Nasrallah story was a government plant to distract reporters from the real target - Saddam - and the suspension of the reporters’ press credentials was part of the deception.
Worked, too. Damn. Think of the lives that would have been saved.
Posted by: Steve White (on location in Kitty Hawk) || 12/16/2003 1:06:07 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, at least that's less wear and tear they'll have to put on The Death Ray...
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 1:12 Comments || Top||

#2  "By mistake, a live missile was substituted, and the five were killed."
And if a dummy missile were used, only the guy playing Saddam would of died?
I'm not buying this.
Posted by: Ray || 12/16/2003 2:27 Comments || Top||

#3  C'mon, this is from the Guardian. It has a believability factor of 0.0001.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 7:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Mossad is having fun with the Guardian again.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 7:49 Comments || Top||

#5  The first JDAM kits went into "low rate" production in 1997.
Posted by: Mike || 12/16/2003 10:58 Comments || Top||

#6  Yeah, yeah...an' then we were gonna poison his moustache, so it'd all fall out an' he'd be like, so embarrassed...
(giggle)
Posted by: mojo || 12/16/2003 12:05 Comments || Top||

#7  I don't think the story can be true as reported. Muslim funerals are supposed to take place within a day of the the person's death, and that's not enough notice to arrange an event like this. It's possible that the event that the Israelis were expecting him to attend was a memorial service or something else where you'd have plenty of advance notice, but I don't think this would work for a funeral.
Posted by: Anonymous || 12/16/2003 16:02 Comments || Top||


Editorial: Cracking the Resistance
Even as Saddam Hussein was being taken into custody, the violence continued. There is now a clear pattern of attacks against Iraqi police, with car bomb assaults on a series of police stations. The fact that these outrages are being carried out by suicide bombers suggests that these are not die-hard Baathist thugs. Self-sacrifice was never their style, as the chief thug has so conclusively demonstrated.
That's more the Islamist trademark, though Sammy was pushing it for the Fedayeen...
US intelligence speaks variously of up to 15 different insurgent groups at work in Iraq. The hoods who kidnap and terrorize Iraqis are more probably the local criminals whom Saddam released onto the streets in one his final acts of vengeance against a people whom he had terrorized for so long.
"Y'r honor! My client ain't a terrorist! He's a crook!"
Then there are the ambushes by various paramilitary groups, including the Fedayeen, who it is believed are organized by Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri — since Saddam’s capture the most senior member of the old regime still at large. The heart will have gone out of these insurgents with the capture of Saddam, not least because of the humiliating way in which the man who exhorted them to lay down their lives for him so abjectly surrendered.
Which is why we've got to keep playing that up...
But the organized attacks, using cars and trucks packed with explosives, remain, and it is reasonable to assume that they are largely the work of terror groups who used the chaos following the invasion to infiltrate their men and material into Iraq. The borders with Syria and Jordan were particularly porous in the days following the US attack. Foreign militant wanting to fight the Americans to the death entered in large numbers to support Saddam’s regime, and once it collapsed, those of them not captured went into hiding. Security on Iraq’s borders has changed in the last eight months. It is now difficult for such militants to enter Iraq. That in time will diminish their ability to strike. Not only do their numbers decrease with every fanatical attack, but so too do their stockpiles of explosives. Though Iraq is still awash with weapons hidden by the old regime, it must be questioned how easy it is for insurgents to discover and gain access to these stores.
Without Sammy running things, and with his organization falling apart, we're going to be on an equal footing with them — we'll stand as much chance of finding them as they will. And we'll also have our guys freed up to spend more time looking for them...
With an Iraqi population released from the terror of Saddam’s return, the outside insurgents are also going to find it increasingly difficult to operate. There are now many more Iraqis who will be prepared to take the risk of informing against them — Iraqis whose hostility to them will grow with every fresh outrage. They are now also up against coalition forces whose morale has soared with the capture of their chief target. The suicide attacks will continue, but probably on an ever-diminishing scale. If that is so, it gives the Americans a credible exit route by disengaging sooner from the daily struggle to maintain law and order and handing them over to the Iraqis — along with what happens to Saddam Hussein himself.
That's been the idea from the first, I think...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:01 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  do the name imad mugniyah ring a bomb?
Posted by: Anonymous || 12/16/2003 1:27 Comments || Top||

#2  anon- I don't get it.

Izzat Ibrahim Al-Douri — since Saddam’s capture the most senior member of the old regime still at large. heh, heh...apparently not. Thought I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he "narrowly escapes" and isn't captured for another three weeks or so.
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 9:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Mugniyah's still at large, last seen in Iran. But he's more active in Lebanon with Hezbollah.

I heard a passing reference to the contents of Sammy's briefcase mentioning Zarqawi this morning though. Interesting to see if anything comes of that.
Posted by: Fred || 12/16/2003 9:57 Comments || Top||


Baghdad Bomber Kills 8 Police, Wounds 10
As if to prove the capture of Saddam Hussein would not end the anti-coalition insurgency in Iraq, a suicide bomber driving a taxi attacked a police building in Baghdad on Monday, killing eight policemen and wounding 10 others.
"We're still here! You'll never take us alive! Like you did Sammy..."
Residents said at least five civilians, including a 5-year-old girl, also were wounded by flying glass and debris in the attack in the Husainiyah district. Earlier Monday, seven policemen were wounded when a car bomb exploded in the western Ameriyah neighborhood. That attack was partially foiled by Iraqi officers and U.S. Military Police who fired on a second explosives-packed vehicle, preventing it from ramming the police station and detonating, said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling, of the 1st Armored Division. The driver of the second car ran away, abandoning the vehicle without detonating it, Hertling said. The driver later was captured, according to Capt. Brad Loudon. The car's 550 pounds of plastic explosives, with a powerful limpet mine attached as a detonator, was defused, Hertling said.
Gonna have a nice long talk with that boy...
Hertling said U.S. troops found yet another explosives-packed vehicle parked in east Baghdad on Sunday. It appeared to have been abandoned, possibly because of mechanical trouble.
Another advantage for our side: they're not real big on maintenance...
"Right now, we don't know what the target was," Hertling said. "It goes with the intelligence we had yesterday, that there would be several (car bombs). We dodged a couple of bullets in Baghdad." The attacks came less than a day after U.S. officials announced the detention of Saddam and warned his capture could lead to an increase in attacks against troops of the U.S.-led coalition and their Iraqi allies.
That's because of the requirement for Dire Revenge™. That and the fact that the money supply has suddenly been depleted...
Lt. Col. Ali Amer said the explosion in Husainiyah, on Baghdad's northern outskirts, occurred when a yellow Toyota Land Cruiser drove through the razor wire fence encircling the building, and detonated next to the gate. Several houses and shops were damaged and at least three cars were burned. The blast left a three-foot deep crater about 30 feet from the building entrance. The facade was demolished by the blast. The force of the blast heaved the car into the air and into the station courtyard.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:01 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Malaysia Students Jailed and Links to Alleged Militants
A look at the five Malaysian students jailed for alleged militancy, and their ties to relatives already in custody.
These students, I believe, are the ones picked up at the "finishing school" in Pakistan and sent home. Note their fine family backrounds:

- Mohamad Ikhwan Abdullah, 19. His father, Abdullah Daud, a former university lecturer, told a human rights commission inquiry last year he is a committed member of Jemaah Islamiyah. Abdullah Daud has been detained since 2001.

- Muhammad Radzi Abdul Razak, 19. His father, Abdul Razak Baharudin, a teacher, has been detained since 2001.

- Eddy Erman Shahime, 19. His father has been detained since 2001 or early 2002, authorities say, but his name wasn’t immediately known.

- Mohamad Akil Abdul Raof, 21. His brother has been detained since 2001, authorities say. The brother’s name wasn’t immediately known.

- Abi Dzar Jaafar, 18. Believed to have no relatives in custody.
Either he’s the first in the family or his relatives are smarter than average.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 4:29:43 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


80 Burmese officers studying nuclear technology in NORK
From East-Asia-Intel
A group of Burmese military officers traveled to North Korea last month to study advanced technology, including nuclear and atomic energy technology. According to the opposition Democratic Voice of Burma, an Oslo-based radio, 80 military officers from the State Peace and Development Council,
great cover title
as the ruling military junta is called, went to the North Korean capital. The visit comes amid reports that Burma’s government plans to buy surface-to-surface missiles from North Korea. Some 20 North Korean military technicians have been spotted in Rangoon.
Feasting on the local cuisine, and sending take-out home.
North Korea also is helping Burma construct a Russian-made nuclear reactor located in the Myothit region of the country.
Just what everyone needs in Burma.
In the past, other Burmese military officers have gone to study in Russia, Pakistan and China. A total of 328 military officers left for Moscow in the past two months.
On invitation from Pooty-Poot, no doubt.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/16/2003 4:04:39 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Hun Sen Orders Missiles Destroyed
Cambodia’s prime minister has ordered the destruction of the country’s surface-to-air missiles to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists, the government said Tuesday.
Hun Sen issued the order after a meeting in the capital, Phnom Penh, on Monday with U.S. Ambassador Charles Ray. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Heide Bronke said Ray and Hun Sen held a routine meeting to discuss counterterrorism and security and that the decision to eliminate the weapons was "unilateral." An assistant to Hun Sen, Leng Sophalleth, quoted the prime minister as saying he ordered the missiles destroyed "in order to contribute to ensuring safety and thwart terrorism."
Why, thank you very much.
The decision likely stemmed from fears the missiles might be stolen from the military and sold to terrorists. Small arms and other weapons left over from three decades of civil war in Cambodia are widely available on the black market. The prime minister called for "the destruction of all anti-aircraft weapons, which are the type A-72 surface-to-air missiles, from the depots of Cambodia’s Ministry of Defense," said the statement dated Monday. The ministry has 233 of the missiles, it said.
They are leftovers from the 80s and may not be serviceable, but it doesn’t hurt to make sure.
In May, Cambodian authorities closed Umm Al Qura, a Saudi-funded religious organization, and arrested four people - an Egyptian, two Thais and a Cambodian - suspected of links to the militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, al-Qaida’s arm in Southeast Asia.
"We’ve seen hell, and don’t want to go back."
Hun Sen said in September that his government had foiled an attempt by Jemaah Islamiyah’s alleged operations chief, Hambali, to launder money in Cambodia to fund attacks. Hambali, an Indonesian whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, was arrested in Thailand in August and is now in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location.
Most likely Bagram.
Ray, the American ambassador, said the United States would dispatch weapons experts to help Cambodia destroy the missiles "as soon as possible," the statement said. U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Bronke said details of the U.S.-Cambodian cooperation are still under discussion."
Working out the size of the "loan".
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 12:47:43 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Burma must be in a no-compete agreement with White-Slag-producing Kimchi
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 19:00 Comments || Top||


MILF Urged to Pull Out Men ‘Trapped’ in Fighting
The military yesterday said it would allow the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to remove their fighters who have been “trapped” in fighting between government troops and members of the Pentagon kidnap-for-ransom gang in the southern Philippines. “We have already talked this out with the MILF and the arrangement is for them to extract their members through our lines,” Gen. Narciso Abaya, Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff, told reporters in Manila. Abaya said, however, that the MILF members “must identify their comrades to avoid giving the kidnappers a chance to escape.”
I'll bet it galls MILF to throw the Pentagon thugs to the wolves. All that money — gone!
At least 12 people have been reported killed in three days of fighting in Maguindanao province, 930 kilometers south of Manila. Brig. Gen. Agustin Demaala, the army commander in the area, said fighting broke out on Saturday when government troops attacked suspected kidnappers in the jungles of Maguindanao. He said members of the MILF, which has a cease-fire agreement with the government, were dragged into the clash when the kidnappers sought refuge in their strongholds in the towns of Datu Piang and Talitay, he said.
The MILFies didn't tell them to piss off, either...
Demaala said soldiers recovered the bodies of 10 suspected Pentagon kidnap gang members, while the MILF still holds the bodies of a soldier and government militiaman killed in the fighting. The Pentagon gang — notorious for kidnappings and on the US terror list — is believed to be holding car trader Norman Sia, 24, kidnapped last week by men posing as customers. The fighting has triggered fears that efforts to resume stalled formal peace talks with the MILF would be hampered. Eid Kabalu stressed the rebel group did not provide sanctuary to the kidnappers. “We don’t shield kidnappers,” he said. “We have a standing agreement with the government not to provide refuge to lawless elements.” MILF Vice Chairman Ghazali Jaafar admitted the area is an MILF stronghold but denied they were providing sanctuary to the Pentagon gang, or that MILF guerrillas helped in their fight.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:01 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Seems to me that by giving the Pentagon Group sanctuary in thier strongholds MILF has violated the truce,coupled with the fact that both groups are trapped in the MILF strongholds this would be a good oppurtunity to whack both.
Posted by: raptor || 12/16/2003 8:01 Comments || Top||

#2  The problem is that Gloria really, really, really wants a peace deal, any peace deal. Can't figure out why.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 10:04 Comments || Top||


Iran
IRAN ANNOUNCES SHIHAB-3 UPGRADE
From Middle East Newsline
NICOSIA [MENL] -- Iran has announced plans to upgrade the Shihab-3 intermediate-range missile.
They are asking for a wack.
Iranian officials said the upgrade project would replace previous plans to develop the longer-range Shihab-4. But officials said the range of the Shihab-3 would also be extended. "We will be optimizing our Shihab-3 instead," acting Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said. "Such allegations [of developing the Shihab-4] are part of the U.S. and Israeli psychological war against the Islamic Republic." Dehghan was quoted in the Iranian daily Siyasat-e-Rouz as saying that Iran would not build the Shihab-4. The defense minister did not elaborate on what he meant by optimizing the Shihab-3.
Mabye the Shihab-3+1? The Black Turbans won’t stop until they become a crater somewhere.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/16/2003 5:41:47 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  switching to fuel additives from STP or Gumout will help extend their mileage - I read it on the bottle
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 18:17 Comments || Top||

#2  An extra SIMM ain't gonna help the Shihab.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 19:07 Comments || Top||

#3  "We begin bombing in five minutes."
Posted by: Raj Reagan || 12/16/2003 22:21 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Padilla still singing
Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen being held as an enemy combatant in the war on terror, continues to provide valuable intelligence to the government and will not be allowed access to a lawyer until those collection efforts cease. Senior Justice Department officials said Padilla eventually will be allowed a lawyer but that a delay was essential because of national security concerns. An order issued by President Bush in November 2001 allows captives to be detained if they were members of al-Qaida, engaged in or aided terrorism or harbored terrorists or if it is "the interest of the United States" to hold an individual.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 15:48 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But how can this be? He was an innocent captured in a too-wide net...CAIR said so
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 18:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Frank, and he was an innocent victim of Übersturmfuhrer John Ashcroft's jack-booted Patriot Act, too.
So says the ACLU.
Clearly, the man's a "martyr," if you'll forgive the expression.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 20:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Sit, Jose, sit. Roll over...Good, Jose. Good, Jose. Give Jose a treat.
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 20:45 Comments || Top||


Palestinian Hijacker Spared Death Penalty
Sigh, it’s as much as we could get. EFL:
The leader of a group of Palestinian terrorists who took over a Pan Am jet in Pakistan in 1986 and killed 22 people avoided the death penalty Tuesday under a plea bargain with the government. Under the deal, Zayd Hassan Abd Al-Latif Masud Al Safarini pleaded guilty to 95 charges - including murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder - and agreed to a sentence of three consecutive life terms plus 25 years. Wearing an orange prison jump suit, Safarini simply answered ``yes’’ through an interpreter to dozens of questions posed by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan. Safarini’s case was the first in which federal prosecutors had sought the death penalty for a hijacker. Their efforts were stymied after Sullivan ruled last April that there was no federal capital punishment for air piracy at the time Safarini and three others took over the Pan Am Boeing 747 while it was parked at Karachi Airport in Pakistan on Sept. 5, 1986. Court papers say Safarini led the four-member group who boarded the Pan Am plane. The men, all members of the Abu Nidal Palestinian terrorist organization, demanded that prisoners in Cyprus and Israel be released and that they be flown out of Pakistan. After 15 hours, the hijackers began shooting and throwing hand grenades at the passengers and crew they had herded into one area of the plane. In all, 22 people were killed, including two Americans, and more than 100 wounded. The four hijackers, and a fifth mastermind, were convicted in Pakistan and given death sentences that were commuted to life imprisonment. Four of those convicted remain behind bars, but Safarini was released Sept. 27, 2001, after his sentence was reduced by a series of amnesties. U.S. law enforcement agents caught him the next day as he traveled to Jordan to join relatives.
"Surprise!"
After the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, it took Congress 12 years to write a new death penalty law, making some drug-related crimes capital offenses. Air piracy wasn’t added until 1994, along with dozens of other crimes. In his April ruling, Sullivan agreed with the defense that the 1994 law couldn’t be retroactively applied to the 1986 hijacking.
A legal technicality meaning he gets to live out his life at tax payer expence. Meanwhile, 22 people are still dead.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 3:31:34 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Let someone do a Dahmer on him in prison....loose observation is all it takes
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 18:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Ok, so they deemed that "air piracy" wasn't a capital crime... but how about murder? Why the fuck can't they execute him for that?!?!
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 12/16/2003 21:29 Comments || Top||


Do Your Part to Help in the Coming Election.
Ralph Nader is surveying on his website, seeing if people think he should run in ’04. Considering the great effect he had on the last election, I think he should. After all, it’s not a given that Dean can’t win. But with Ralph’s hat in the ring... Go to the link and click the "questionaire" button.

I think we can guess what the results are going to be...
Posted by: growler || 12/16/2003 12:28:56 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Meh. Its a bit underhanded to stack the deck like that.

Let his supporters make the decision, don't muck with the democratic process.
Posted by: RussSchultz || 12/16/2003 12:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Now, don't I feel good about myself? Sure do.

Why I think everyone should visit Mr. Nader's site.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 12/16/2003 12:48 Comments || Top||

#3  "underhanded to stack the deck like that." Russ, I bet you right now that if the Dems had someone to siphon off votes from Bush they would give him FULL funding. As for 'muck' look no further than this years crop of Demoncrat candidates. 'Muck' barely scratches the surface. I personnally am voting for Al Sharpton in our 'open' election. I was going to go for Kusinich but he is too far right. Yes this is 'Democracy' as we know it!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 12:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Its a bit underhanded to stack the deck like that.

Not if you are being honest. He asks questions, you answer them. How is that stacking the deck?
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 12/16/2003 12:50 Comments || Top||

#5  Stack the deck?

I heard about the site from a way-left-leaning associate, who was urging people to go there and tell Ralph NOT to run.
Posted by: growler || 12/16/2003 12:51 Comments || Top||

#6  Russ - What do you think Ross Perot did in 1992 and in 1996? The Dims were very happy that he was in the race.
Posted by: Denny || 12/16/2003 12:54 Comments || Top||

#7  I don't think Nader will be much of a player this time around. Dean is very close to Nader in enough of his positions that the looney left will feel represented, and the Dems realize Nader was a big factor in Bush's win.

Nader would be better off becoming Senator for Washington State where he still has a lot of clout.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/16/2003 13:12 Comments || Top||

#8  Maybe. But consider that as the days pass, Dean will try to reinvent himself as a "centrist." If he does that, he could lose support from the far left if they had Nader as an option.
Posted by: growler || 12/16/2003 13:26 Comments || Top||

#9  It's not stacking the deck... I may in fact support Ralph Nader this year, if he convinces me that he would be a better President*. So I'll ask him to run...

*I'm *really, really, really* not expecting this to be the case, though.
Posted by: snellenr || 12/16/2003 13:39 Comments || Top||

#10  Meh, the dems cheered on Perot plenty when they were trying to split the GOP vote. I'll send some $$$ to Ralph, absolutely. Let the pinks and the reds tear eachother to pieces, it's what they want.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 13:47 Comments || Top||

#11  ruprecht, Please have some pity on Washington State. After all we have to live with Patty Murray.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 13:56 Comments || Top||

#12  I know what it did to Bush I's re-election chances, and to the Gore's election chances, and thats exactly why its not right to do it now.

Its the same thing Gray Davis' supporters did to win the last election (stuffed the primary ballot so a right wing candidate would be the republican choice to go against him, instead of the more centrist choice that would have beat him)

To me, that just goes against the ideals of democracy (or representative democracy)
Posted by: RussSchultz || 12/16/2003 14:25 Comments || Top||

#13  I took the survey. Hell, I think he should run. In all honesty, I didn't vote for Bush when he ran for governor when I lived in Tejas, and I didn't vote for him in 2000...I voted libertarian. I'll certainly vote for GWB next year, though. That being said, Nadir should be on the ballot just to get people more used to the idea of third parties being a viable option...

Steve
Posted by: skh || 12/16/2003 14:54 Comments || Top||

#14  CrazyFool, I once lived in Spokane. I helped vote the Speaker of the House out of his job. I only mention Washington because Nader scored real well there and its probably the only place he has a chance.

On the other hand, if he goes for Pres again he will probably become so associated with the Green party that the party will dissolve into confusion (like the Reform party did when Perot finally stepped back). A third party should work from the bottom up, not go for the Presidency.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/16/2003 15:56 Comments || Top||

#15  Yeah... did the survey too.... but accidently got trapped into the may volunteer section. Frankly, I got to the Do You Have A Reliable Car Question and started having an attack of the oh shit are these people sincere or what glooms.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 18:51 Comments || Top||

#16  Do you have a reliable car?

Of course. A Chevy Corvair.

Miss that one. Great for winter driving
Posted by: Michael || 12/16/2003 19:20 Comments || Top||


Gimli raises axe for Western civilization
[snipped, duplicate post]
Well, so much for any Academy Awards for you.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 12:01:26 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Gimli is smart!
My first article posting. EFL
Perhaps the most passionate observations came from John Rhys-Davies, who plays the dwarf Gimli and voices Treebeard the Ent. Focusing on the necessity of defending civilization in times of crisis, Rhys-Davies wanted Dire Revenge™ on the Orcs for atrocities committed against his people. Plus, Sauron was rising again on Arda and would take it over if he got the One Ring back. took the media to task for failing to appreciate the preciousness of Western civilization, and warned of the potential consequences of rising Muslim extremism and the increasingly Islamic face of Europe.
Ask any Byzantine about the consequences...
“I think that Tolkien says that some generations will be challenged,” said Rhys-Davies, “and if they do not rise to meet that challenge, they will lose their civilization. That does have a real resonance with me.”
Some people seem to have difficulty grasping the point...
Pointing a finger at the media, Rhys-Davies went on, “What is unconscionable is that too many of your fellow journalists do not understand how precarious Western civilization is, and what a jewel it is
 The abolition of slavery comes from Western democracy. True democracy comes from our Greco-Judeo-Christian Western experience. If we lose these things, then this is a catastrophe for the world.”
Democracy, as well all know, is a Jewish plot. Real freedom consists of submission to a divinely-appointed caliph, the gift of one's betters...
Rhys-Davies revealed that as far back as 1955 his father had predicted that “the next World War will be between Islam and the West.” The actor recalled his response: “I said to him, ’Dad, you’re nuts! The Crusades have been over for hundreds of years!’ And he said, ’Well, I know, but militant Islam is on the rise again. And you will see it in your lifetime.’ He’s been dead some years now. But there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him and think, ’God, I wish you were here, just so I could tell you that you were right.’”
There's a longing in the human soul for someone who has all the answers, all wisdom embodied in a single omnipotent being. When we're children, it's Mom and Dad. For adults, in the Middle Ages it was the church, then we had divine right kings. In the last century we had fascism and communism and Naziism and a host of other 'isms. And now we have Islamism, with its ideal of a portly caliph in a jewelled turban, ruling the world according to the Word of God as interpreted by equally portly holy men...
Looking at the lone female journalist at the table, Rhys-Davies said pointedly, “You should not be in this room [according to Muslim custom]. Because your husband or your father or your husband is not here to guide you. You could only be here in this room with these strange men for immoral purposes.”
He noticed Islam's innate horniness...
Rhys-Davies went on to contemplate the significance of demographic shifts among Western Europeans and Muslims in Europe. “There is a demographic catastrophe happening in Europe that nobody wants to talk about, that we daren’t bring up because we are so cagey about not offending people racially. And rightly we should be. But there is a cultural thing as well
 By 2020, fifty percent of the children in Holland under the age of 18 will be of Muslim descent
 “And don’t forget, coupled with this there is this collapse of numbers. Western Europeans are not having any babies. The population of Germany at the end of the century is going to be 56% of what it is now. The populations of France, 52% of what it is now. The population of Italy is going to be down 7 million people. There is a change happening in the very complexion of Western civilization in Europe that we should think about at least and argue about. If it just means the replacement of one genetic stock with another genetic stock, that doesn’t matter too much. But if it involves the replacement of Western civilization with a different civilization with different cultural values, then it is something we really ought to discuss — because, [hang it all], I am for dead-white-male culture!” His fellow filmmakers might not all agree, but Tolkien would have applauded.
Meanwhile, Viggo Mortenson was saying "Aragorn is Morgoth!"
Posted by: Korora || 12/16/2003 11:55:59 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Curses, beaten to the post by a first timer! Woe unto you as you face the Wrath of Steve's!
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 12:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Rhys-Davies for the democratic candidacy for president!!!!

Shoot, that won't happen. He believes that Western civilization is something to grateful for, not something to apologize for.
Posted by: alaskasoldier || 12/16/2003 12:24 Comments || Top||

#3  You could only be here in this room with these strange men for immoral purposes.

Holy Shit! This guy is fantastic! I especially like his pointing out the hypocrisies of supporting islamofascism to the idiot reporters. I wonder what they had to say about it.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 12:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Ooh, yeah, I'll bet he and that schmuck mortenson got along real well, huh?
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 12:29 Comments || Top||

#5  I never read the trilogy books but have eagerly watched the movies. The warning about Islamofascism by Tolkien is very apparent.

The Age of Reason white male culture though not perfect is being invaded by ignorance and subverted by moral relativism.

Posted by: Lucky || 12/16/2003 12:41 Comments || Top||

#6  One can be against Islamofascism and dishonest plutocrats at the same time.
Posted by: Hiryu || 12/16/2003 12:44 Comments || Top||

#7  I can see the Academy Awards now:
"The Oscar for best picture goes to Return of the King....except for Rhys-Davies!"
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 12:59 Comments || Top||

#8  duh - and the blood of Numenor is fading and high elves are dying out - Tolkein didnt seem to think this was a big deal as rhohirrim, lesser men, hobbits, dwarves, and wood elves could take their places, as long as they absorbed the VALUES of the older civ. Who cares whos dying out? Here in the USA, while our Pres is an evangelical of old stock New England origin, VP is old stock (?) and Sec Def is German-American, our Sec of State and NSA are African Americans, our Sec Transport and outgoing Sec Army are Japanese-Americans, #2 at Defense is Jewish, commander of Centcom is (christian) arab-american, head of forces in Iraq is hispanic, and ambassador to afghanistan, who has had lead role in both afghanistan and Iraq stragies, is a muslim afghan-american. Our diversity is OUR STRENGTH. This obsession with muslim birthrates is a European obsession - the natural obsession of nations without the genius for absorbing immigrants that we have. Replacing genetic stocks is more than something you wish for - its based on a mindset about change that Europe does not have, and that America does.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 12/16/2003 13:35 Comments || Top||

#9  The issue that Gimli brings up is that the Muslim masses arriving do not assimilate into the mainstream culture. You can have a diversity of cultures, that makes the US strong. Out of many, one. But our mainstream culture is based upon fundamental principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. In Europe, the Muslim masses do not in general want to assimilate, so they will have a house divided.

Rhys-Davies must have been reading Den Beste and other blogs on European demographics, or has been using deductive reasoning and common sense. He has pretty much hit it on the head.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/16/2003 14:09 Comments || Top||

#10  I think Herodotus touched on this idea of dying blood in the Histories, when he was discussing the Persians. Getting rich and fat tends to make civilizations soft and risk-averse. America's strength comes from immigration, constantly replenishing our people with tough, ambitious (often unscrupulous) folk willing to do the hard work to get ahead. The descendants of the Knickerbockers and the Olde Virginia families major in modern dance or womyn's studies, the Jews and Italians see their kids becoming lawyers, while the kids of the Hmong and the Indos and the Ghanians are taking engineering courses.

Societies that don't replenish themselves one way or another whither and die. Reality seems to be kind of the opposite of the "pure Aryan blood" approach. The only society I can think of that breaks the mold is Japan, which overcame it by instituting a society that specifically bred for aggression, competition, even ferocity.

Europe's got a great opportunity, if they can manage to keep their civilization from being overwhelmed. It's competition that can build sharpness of ideas and the will to achieve. If the Euros don't roll over, both societies will be the better for it.
Posted by: Fred || 12/16/2003 14:16 Comments || Top||

#11  AP - yeah, but why do US muslims tend to assimilate and Euro muslims dont - is it the luck of who we've drawn - more pakistanis here, mainly north africans there (at least in France and Benelux)? But we also assimilate IRaqis, pals, etc. Greece and Italy choke on Albanians and Germany chokes on Turks. Is it that we have the geographic luck to mix muslims in with hispanics, east asians etc? But they get black africans, Roma, ukrainians - have they done much better with them? Is it just something in the
air?

No I think its something in the culture.

Posted by: liberalhawk || 12/16/2003 15:28 Comments || Top||

#12  Liberalhawk, Germany formed as the grouping of German tribes. The borders may move around but that definition is still fairly well planted. There are third generation immigrants in Germany that have very little chance of becoming citizens. I think this is true throughout most of the world.

The US and a handful of ex-English colonies were created by immigrants.Thus immigration and assimilation is in our blood.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/16/2003 15:51 Comments || Top||

#13  Would like to see Gimi give instruction to these fools under the loving caresses of his axe.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 16:20 Comments || Top||

#14  Forges warm friends! Vote Dwarven in 2004!
Posted by: Secret Master || 12/16/2003 16:22 Comments || Top||

#15  Yes, liberalhawk, it is in our culture. Robert Burns had something to say about inbred royalty that got him in trouble with the Crown. Heh heh. I think that the secret to our success is that we assimillate at a pace that allows for this integration into the culture. This is one of the reasons that illegal immigration is so dangerous of an issue. It overwhelms the system's ability to absorb in an orderly fashion, and it reinforces distain for the law.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/16/2003 16:48 Comments || Top||

#16  The warning about Islamofascism by Tolkien is very apparent.

LOL! Dude, at the time Tolkien started writing the story he'd be much more concerned about the German threat and the war that his own son had to eventually fight in, not some Islamofascist threat.

And Tolkien wasn't writing allegory about WW2 either, so he certainly wouldn't be writing an allegory about Islam.

Applicability rests on the reader's own choices on the other hand -- take from him what you will, as long as you don't assume it's what the *author* had in mind...
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 12/16/2003 18:21 Comments || Top||

#17  Look at all these third world dumps!
It's not there government that keeps them from reaching great hights!
Or drugs!
Or there religion!
Or there cultures!

Race, race is the reason.
It's there right in front of your faces!
Divershitty is weakness. If you do nothing but let non white hordes flock to any White nation from there third world dumps, they will turn that White nation into, guess what, A THIRD WORLD DUMP!
They don't have the genes to reach great hights.
All divershitty does is weaken White nations and most importantly the White Race!

Non white hordes when they first arrive to any new soil(White nation) ,because the nations leaders don't care about race and only for money, will quickly take the jobs that require the least amount of education, leaf blowers, gardeners, fast food, cooks, waiters, those shitty little marts on every corner. Then once they dominate most of small commercial buisness's, then they move up the ranks in government, and before you know it the host race (White race) is left in the dust for that easy dollar, integrated and forced to be occupied by non white third world parisites, with out the White working class back bone holding the nation togther, these muds would have nothing.
Divershitty is the White Race's downfall
If you as a race do not take the bottom step, the FIRST steps in creating a civilization,
you have nothing, and you are just feeding of the host race. What have these not whites created, if it wasn't for the White Race these people would have no clue. With out our interaction they are nothing but savages with bones in there noses.
You can take the Groid, the towel head, the rice eater, the Red, out of the jungle, out of the desert, out from the bamboo, and off the plains, but you CAN NOT take the genetic inferiority out of these mud races. Plain and simple.

WHEN WILL YOU LEARN?!!!!

Brainwashed and weak is the way our enemies like us.

United and striving for purity in all aspects, we are a feared force to be reaconed with.

Its our fault we let it get to this.
Its our self and racial responsibilty to correct our mistakes forged by our weak leaders, and restore our racial hygiene, and reclaim our nations.

Re instill morals that are shit upon by this
occupied government, getting rich off of filth, drugs, and third world labor, and keeping you quite by keeping you fed and stupid. What do you have to lose? Not your house, or car or freedom.
But the very thing that makes us whole, one, apart of the soul of the universe, our ways and our customs, WHAT WE ARE, OUR RACE OUR BLOOD.
The beauty of our children will be our reward.


Hail, Hail the White Race.
Posted by: Anonymous4944 || 05/19/2004 22:41 Comments || Top||


Uplifting story du jour
Man to take US citizenship at 104
"Give me your tired, your poor..." and your very old as well
A new life is about to begin for Shlema Livshits when he takes American citizenship this week. He is doing what millions have done before him, but Mr Livshits is set to become one of the oldest people to ever make that move - because he is 104. Born during the reign of Russian Czar Nicolas II, he left Ukraine for the US in 1996 with his son Vladimir. Vladimir, a mere youngster at 72, will also be taking the oath of citizenship at Wednesday’s ceremony in Tennessee. "I love America and I enjoy living in America," Vladimir told the BBC’s World Today programme. But he said it was "hard to say" how difficult it was for his father to settle in a new country at such a mature age. "Because most of the time he doesn’t speak. He cannot hear - his hearing is very bad," Vladimir said. He said the pair decided to apply for the citizenship because they wanted to become, as he put it, full American citizens with voting rights.
Posted by: ColoradoConservative || 12/16/2003 11:39:29 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  uh, Shlema....we should really do something about that last name....
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 13:31 Comments || Top||

#2  uh, Shlema....we should really do something about that last name....

Yup - he needs to change it to something hip - like Lauren.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/16/2003 16:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Welcome home, new Americans!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 12/16/2003 18:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Welcome Home. You are where everybody knows your name.


And yes... say it loud say it proud Livshits one of Us! Livshits one of Us! Livshits one of Us! Whiskey! Sexy Democracy!
Singh Ho!
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 18:55 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon
Amnesty Opposes Death for 27 in Lebanon
Amnesty International urged Lebanon's president Tuesday to commute death sentences imposed against 27 people.
I think they should, too. The people they killed aren't dead anymore, are they?
Lebanese authorities recently agreed to reactivate capital punishment following a five-year hiatus, opening the way for 27 convicted murderers to be executed by hanging or firing squad. "The finality and cruelty inherent in the death penalty render it incompatible with norms of modern day civilized behavior and an inappropriate and unacceptable response to crime," a statement from the human rights watchdog said.
To me, the finality and cruelty of murder render a firing squad an appropriately civilized response.
Most prominent among the Lebanese prisoners facing death are civil servant Ahmed Mansour, convicted of killing eight colleagues in a shooting spree at a government building last year, and Badieh Hamadeh, convicted of fatally shooting three soldiers trying to arrest him in south Lebanon last year.
Wait a minute... You don't mean their victims are still dead, do you?
President Emile Lahoud still has to sign the execution orders. Justice Minister Bahij Tabbara said this week that it had not yet been decided whether the execution orders would be implemented. Amnesty, in its statement, urged Lahoud to use his prerogative to immediately commute the death sentences.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 11:22 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the finality in the Death Penalty is a feature, not a bug, assholes
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 13:02 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm sick of all of the death penalty hype and all of the attention and well wishing that it affords the worst criminals. I personally have no problem in just eliminating all the hype by allowing them to rot in a cell until they die.

Providing the maroonbats a parade for their bandwagons just re-victimizes the families of victims and minimizes the horror of the crimes.
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 14:56 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Bin Laden supporters/U.S. hate conference in Houston?
Two Saudi Arabian extremists, both supporters of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network, have canceled plans to visit the U.S. this month to speak at an Islamic conference in Houston. However, one will still make an appearance through a satellite television hookup from Saudi Arabia. Meanwhile, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is asking the State Department to expel two Saudi diplomats scheduled to appear at the conference.
A rare moment when I agree with Chuck.
According to the Saudi Information Agency, an independent news service critical of the Riyadh regime, at least two Saudi diplomats will join the conference to hear Sheikh Abdallah Ibn Jebreen, the bin Laden-praising Wahhabi cleric. A second cleric, Muhammad Saalih al-Munajid, who runs a website that promotes intolerance of Christians and Jews and calls for holy war on Shiite Muslims, has canceled his appearance.

In a recent audiotape obtained by SIA and recorded in October, Ibn Jebreen called bin Laden a great warrior in the path of God: "Osama is a man who fought in the path of God for a long time. May God aid him and bring victory to him and by him." SIA said Ibn Jebreen issued at least two fatwas in support of the Taliban and encouraged young people to enlist in al-Qaida. He issued another fatwa calling on Saudis to aid Iraqis fighting U.S. forces.

The two Saudi diplomats listed as attending the conference are Sheikh Yousef Al-Shubaily and Ibrahim Al-Kulaib. A third diplomat, Jafar Idriss, was set to speak at the conference but was asked to leave the U.S. two weeks ago for violating diplomatic conduct.

Schumer is also raising questions about whether the Saudi Embassy is sincere about following through on its pledge last week to stop sponsoring Islamic-affairs programs that spread fanatical Islam. A report this week by the Saudi Press Agency quotes the Saudi Islamic affairs minister, Sheikh Saleh Bin Abdulaziz, denying the Islamic-affairs programs will be closed and declaring them "part of the kingdom’s message." Schumer, in a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell, said he’s "disappointed that Saudi Arabia appears to be retreating from one of its most promising signs of cooperation in the war on terror." Schumer asked Powell to expel two clerics with embassy credentials who are set to speak at a three-day Islamic conference in Houston beginning Dec. 24.

Another cleric scheduled to speak via video hookup is Muhammad bin Abd al-Rahman al-Arifi, a student of Abdur-Rahman Baraak, a well-known cleric who has also praised bin Laden. U.S. law-enforcement officials have complained that a large number of Saudis with diplomatic visas do not have legitimate diplomatic business in this country. A Saudi official has said that Riyadh, concerned about the promotion of religious extremism, will close Islamic-affairs offices in its embassies and no longer will provide diplomatic status to Saudi clerics teaching overseas.
Somebody please tell me when I woke up in Europe? Where is the DIPLOMATIC and RELIGIOUS outrage over this ‘conference’? I am all for freedom of speech but don’t we have our fair share of ‘we hate America’ in Hollywood and in the Democratic party? I am advocating them, but if this were a skin-head or Nazi party meeting there would be OUTRAGE. I bet the Houston City Council would pass a resolution that any group advocating hate speech cannot hold a meeting in the city limits. Why are these people given a pass? The only way to confront them is to throw their racists and Anti-American diatribe back into their face. Also the State department needs to PNG anyone that attends this conference. WE DON’T NEED HATE SPEECH FROM ANY SECTOR OF SOCIETY.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 11:16:24 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The big news, if true was the last line quotes:

A Saudi official has said that Riyadh, concerned about the promotion of religious extremism, will close Islamic-affairs offices in its embassies and no longer will provide diplomatic status to Saudi clerics teaching overseas.

A little late in coming but I'm happy to see it happen none-the-less.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/16/2003 13:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Unfortunately, ruprecht, the rest of the story makes it clear the Saudis are lying. The two who are going to speak at the "conference" are the kind of people they say they'll no longer support.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 13:54 Comments || Top||

#3  "Two Saudi Arabian extremists, both supporters of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network, have canceled plans to visit the U.S. this month to speak at an Islamic conference in Houston."

Could it be that their plans were "canceled" by the U.S. Visa department? Or did they realize that there is a shuttle service Houston-Gitmo?
Posted by: True German Ally || 12/16/2003 15:22 Comments || Top||

#4  Sarge, PC dictates that we must honor their cultural heritage to hate Joooooooos and other assorted non-heathens...
________________________borgboy sez if the NAZIS had been ARABS they wudda gottin' home scot free...
Posted by: borgboy || 12/16/2003 18:51 Comments || Top||

#5  Maybe they can have their little hate fest in the Astrodome. We can seal the entrances, suck all the air out, and solve a lotta problems in one fell swoop.
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 21:20 Comments || Top||

#6  Was listening to one of the local talkshows today (950kprc), and they had some folks from the conference sponsors (DAWA? j. coats and 'walid'), the guy from the Saudi institute who apparently called bullshit on these 'speakers' (good for him), and a buddy of the dj or producer who spoke arabic on the show. Before they could even listen to the tape of what the mutt sheikh had to say, this 'Walid' guy started going off about how this guy was old, nobody knows when or where the tape was made of his speech, there were long blank spaces in the tape, blah blah blah. Basically just attacking the guy who 'denounced' the sheikh (imagine the fatwa on him will be forthcoming) instead of actually addressing what the mutt says on the tape (basically XXXOOO's to OBL). Lots of FUD and no substance about what this guy is spouting, so just another OBL apologist as far as I could tell, one of the "yes, but" crowd of saudi 'moderates'.

I think if the mutts are going to be so obliging as to congregate in one spot, the local FBI office should be getting pictures (if not fingerprints, cheek swabs, and vitals) from every attendee. Either that or line up some buses and ship them all off to Guantanamo. It sounds like nothing but a big saudi sponsored bash-America 'conference'. If they go off after friday prayers, they better be ready for all the bubbas with CCLs to start shooting back.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 22:41 Comments || Top||


Africa: East
34 toe tags in two days of Somalia festivities
Some 34 people were killed and 80 wounded, some seriously, in two days of clashes this week between rival clans in central Somalia, elders told AFP. "Around 34 people were killed and 80 others were wounded by renewed clashes (on Monday and Tuesday) in the central Somali town of Herale," one elder in the region told AFP on Tuesday. "The fighting erupted on Monday afternoon and continued until Tuesday between Dir and Marehan clans," said the elder. The fighting had died down by midday Tuesday, even though no official ceasefire had been agreed, the elder added. The clashes were the latest in a series of tit-for-tat confrontations rooted in the April murder of a Marehan elder, allegedly by Dir clansmen.
And a wonderful time was had by all, except for the dead and wounded...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 11:03 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  For some reason the Department of Homeland Security has OKd the "Temporary Protected Status" of Somalia. Such a determination is particularly convoluted but it seems to give special consideration to Somalis in the country illegally and to Somalia immigration.
Posted by: Tancred || 12/16/2003 11:43 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Bush rules out ’blanket amnesty’ for illegals
EFL
President Bush yesterday ruled out granting "blanket amnesty" to as many as 12 million immigrants illegally in the United States, but said he supports a policy that benefits American business owners and immigrant job seekers.
a new bracero program would work if the Unions don’t F&*k it up
"We need to have an immigration policy that helps match any willing employer with any willing employee," Mr. Bush said in a news conference yesterday. "It makes sense that that policy go forward. And we’re in the process of working that through now so I can make a recommendation to the Congress," said Mr. Bush about the politically dicey issue — made more urgent by his planned attendance at the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, next month. But the president reiterated a stance he has enunciated often: "This administration is firmly against blanket amnesty."
Memo to Ridge - "Clear your statements with the Whitehouse or STFU!"
The president did not spell out his preferred policy. A handful of options are floating around Capitol Hill, including one co-sponsored by several Republicans who propose giving legal residency to illegal immigrants through work. Senior White House officials have expressed support for such a temporary-worker program that would let some workers become legal immigrants, but so far the administration has not backed any single piece of legislation. Yesterday, a White House official said Mr. Bush’s comments represent no change from previous administration policy. The president’s comments come a week after Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge expressed support for giving legal status to immigrants. In Miami, Mr. Ridge said: "The bottom line is, as a country we have to come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12 million illegals, afford them some kind of legal status some way, but also as a country decide what our immigration policy is and then enforce it." Before the September 11 attacks, the administration had begun talks with Mexican President Vicente Fox about ways to legalize more than 3 million undocumented Mexicans living in the United States. The dialogue ended after the attacks.
We had other things to attend to, as well as needing to take a bit of time to think seriously about immigration policy. And maybe to think seriously about just how good a friend Vicente is...
High-level representatives of each government reopened talks last month with a meeting in Washington, but relations between Mr. Bush and Mr. Fox have been chilly for some time.
Mainly because Vicente fails to back us at critical junctures yet tries to organize the 12 million illegals as a voting force in the U.S. - he’s no friend of ours
While the two leaders met briefly in Bangkok at an international economic summit in October, lending an air of optimism to the new talks, relations soured again yesterday as Mexico accused the United States of violating international law over its treatment of 52 Mexican nationals on death row. In a court filing, Mexico asked the World Court in The Hague to order the United States to retry the Mexicans, saying those arrested were not told of their right to consular help.
Arrrggghhh... was the conculate gonna help their slaughtered victims? Bastards
The last major legalization program in 1986, when more than 2 million illegal immigrants were granted blanket amnesty, was a failure. The move did not stem illegal immigration, but instead created an avenue for millions of new immigrants to legally enter the country to visit newly legal relatives. Many illegally overstayed their temporary visas.
Duh... any new talk of an amnesty will bring a similar flood across hoping to be feet dry by the time the amnesty goes in effect - Ridge should be smart enough to know that
With that lesson in mind, top Republican lawmakers are proposing legislation that would impose a $1,500 fine on illegal immigrants before they were granted legal residency in the United States. Those illegal entrants also would have to line up behind workers who entered the United States under a guest-worker program as they sought legal residency. "If you do not deal with both pieces of it — those people who are here in an undocumented status, as well as those future want-to-be immigrants — all you do is create the next wave of immigrants who will come into the country illegally," Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona, one of three Republican authors of a comprehensive immigration-reform bill, said last week.
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 9:48:11 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  conculate? I've gotta get some coffee....
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 9:58 Comments || Top||

#2  The unions, led by Cesar Chavez, destroyed the last Bracero program. Rest assured, they would do it again.
Posted by: Tancred || 12/16/2003 11:56 Comments || Top||

#3  So this means that Illegal aliens (i.e. people who have no regard for the rule of law and are, by definition lawbreakers) could 'buy' residancy by paying off a $1500 fine?

What about those people who have been waiting for years in order to immigrate legally? Can they simply pay a 1500 fine as well? OIC.... Mr Ridge isn't finished pissing on them yet!

As for Fox, hasn't he stated what he plans on winning California back to Mexico without a shot being fired by using the Illegal Alien vote?

I would support a new Bracero program as long as there are decent safeguards and checks.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 12:10 Comments || Top||

#4  Three step program I would support.

(1) Expand the foreign worker program to allow more legal immigrants into the country and to ensure the law protects them and that they pay taxes.

(2) Any illegal can gain legal residency if they report themselves as illegals. This allows them to get a greencard and live legally in the US but they are forbidden from ever becoming US citizens and their children and decendents are also forbidden..

(3) Any illegal caught crossing the border, or in any other way will be kicked back into Mexico and they are forbidden from ever becoming US citizens and their children and decendents are also forbidden..

It's as simple as that. I think we'd find a lot of illegals going back to Mexico in the hopes of coming over legally per step 1. I think we'd find a lot of those that just want to work for the money tand not become citizens turning themselves in per step 2. And step 3 would cause the constant flow to slow down to a trickle.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/16/2003 12:56 Comments || Top||

#5  I would support a new Bracero program as long as there are decent safeguards and checks.

So would I, but with an extra requirement: the government bureaucracy now entrusted with immigration begins to perform its duty by actively finding and deporting illegal aliens. Surprise workplace inspections with ample resources would be an excellent start.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 12/16/2003 14:51 Comments || Top||

#6  The flood of Mexicans into the United States is not going to stop until it stops being a major political program of the Government of Mexico. Unfortunately, along with them comes a flood of others, some far from benign to the people and government of the United States.

I propose a change in our border policy: The first 100 yards of United States territory should be cleared of everything, graded as flat as possible, with a two-lane paved highway running 30 yards inside the border. There should be an eight-foot electrified chain-link fence ten feet on either side of that highway, with another chain link fence 50 yards inside the highway. Between the two inside fences should be a very DENSE minefield. The highway should be patrolled frequently (but randomly) by Stryker vehicles and Longbow Apaches, with orders to shoot to kill. Turn responsibility for the entire southern border over to the military, except at approved checkpoints.

Back this policy up with a blanket deportation order for all Mexicans who cannot prove they're in the country legally, regardless of how long they've been here. At the same time, close down ALL the Mexican consulates, and limit Mexican diplomatic presence in the United States to Washington DC and New York (for those assigned to the United Nations, only).

If anyone, on either side of the border, attempts to sabotage these efforts, the US/Mexico trade is restricted by 10% FOR EACH OFFENSE.

Sooner or later, Mexico will get the idea they cannot take back "Aztlan", and cannot win in a war with the United States. They will also learn they need to deal with their internal problems, instead of trying to export them to the United States.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 15:22 Comments || Top||

#7  OP, while your solution sounds severe at first blush, I think you have the thing nailed.
All I would add is that we need to do exactly the same on the Canadian border, too.
We're at war and it's just too *dead* easy for Islamist killers to simply walk across the border for them not to do it.
Only a matter of time.
Let's not get fooled again...Anyone remember how upset President Bush was (as well as the rest of us) when Mohammed Atta's visa (and one of the other 9/11 murderer's) came through 6 months after 9/11?
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 15:44 Comments || Top||

#8  O.P. I agree for the most part but think it should extend to all illegals -- not just mexicans but central / south americans, canadians, chinese, englishmen, french, etc...

Also round up the existing illegal aliens and deport them by the cheapnest means. If this means placing them temporarily in 'detention camps' until they can be shipped by cattle car then so be it. Note that this is not based on RACE (like the Jews in Germany and Japanese in USA during WWII) but on their legal status -- i.e. they are arrested and are being legally detained. They also face a lifetime ban unless they can prove they entered legally and then the normal banning procedure applies.

A few hundred fully armed predators patrolling our borders (southern and northern) would help.

And you only grant these special visas after a through background check and personal interview.

Also these people are 1) not allowed to adjust their immigration status based on marriage. 2) Children born of of these people (either parent) in the United States do not get automatic citizenship.

People who defy federal laws (i.e. local and state officals) by refusing to 'report' illegals will be criminally charged for aiding and abeding(sp?).
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 15:54 Comments || Top||

#9  Okay... fire at will. I believe in arrival of the fittest. If these guys can beat the border patrol, beat the system and collect from the establishment then all I want is their play book. The only reason my family didn't arrive as legals was because the Spanish holders in Florida didn't give a damn about a few runaway celts.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 19:01 Comments || Top||

#10  Shipman, NO.
That was then, this is WWIV.
We've had Islamofascist killers declare war on us.
Will they take advantage of our almost non-existent border security to get in and strike us with a dirty bomb or suitcase nuke?
The answer is: THEY MAY ALREADY BE HERE.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 20:10 Comments || Top||

#11  Five year moratorium on immigration, minimum. No more people in until we figure who we got here and who needs to go. Also, for every illegal we catch and deport, they get 3 convicts from our penal system. Fuck Vicente Fox.
Posted by: Jarhead || 12/16/2003 21:18 Comments || Top||


DRUDGE: Campaign Cash Race Turns International
From DrudgeReport:
Frustrated with the lack of domestic support, left-leaning website MoveOn.org has apparently been reaching beyond American borders to generate cash revenue over the internet! The provocative international fundraising strategy threatens to embroil the presidential candidacies of General Wesley Clark and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean. Both men are named on international fundraising websites suggesting donations to MoveOn.org.
MoveOn, for those who don’t know, was created to try to get people to forgive Bill Clinton for dropping his pants. "Nothing to see here, can’t we get over this and move on."
Meanwhile, MoveOn.org, which has been running ads critical of the Bush Administration, has named an "International Campaigns Director," the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. It is not clear how much money has been raised — to date— from foreign sources, but political websites from London to Portugal to Montreal are directing their citizens to stop the American president George Bush by donating to MoveOn.org!
This is one of those loopholes in the Campaign Finance Law.
Wesley Clark’s official campaign website has been offering a link to "Canada For Clark", which in turn advises Canadians: "Non-Americans can’t by law, give money to any particular candidate’s campaign. But we can support pro-democracy, progressive American organizations like MoveOn.org, which do their best to spread the ugly truth about Bush and publicize the Democratic message. Click here to donate to MoveOn.org." The top traffic referrer to CanadaForClark.com is Clark’s Official Campaign Website.
Funny how that works.
Dean04Worldwide.com is a noncommercial and volunteer website offered by Corinne Sinclair, a non-US citizen, based in London. Domain registration information indicates the website name servers are owned by PromoHosting.com, a website hosting service based in Portugal. Dean04Worldwide.com encourages non-Americans across the global to help Dean win the 2004 election. A notice on the website explains how to provide funds to MoveOn.org, since non-Americans cannot donate directly to the Dean campaign.
So, since Bill Clinton was sometimes called the first "Black" President, then can we assume Howard Dean would be the "Euro" President?
Late last week, a Swedish website removed an "EU-MoveOn.org Fundraising Appeal," claiming MoveOn.org "No Longer Accepts Contributions From Non US Citizens/Permanent Resident Aliens."
Oops, they noticed that their cover was blown.
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who has been headlining moveone.org events, is said to have vocalized serious concerns about the website accepting cash from foreign sources, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
Oh, that’s priceless. AlGore was Bill’s bagman, picking up checks from the Buddist nuns that were traced to Red China.
"To avoid jail even the appearance of impropriety, we are not going to take contributions from overseas," Wes Boyd, one of the founders of MoveOn.org, explained this weekend. Boyd refused to disclose how much revenue had already been generated abroad.
"On the advice of my attorney, I can say no more."
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 9:14:24 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Polipundit was on this before Drudge, and apparently MoveOn.org was embarrassed enuf about it to stop, but I don't know that anyone's monitoring these bastards
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 9:18 Comments || Top||

#2  so what's new. Democrats illegally accepting foreign campaign contributions.
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 10:00 Comments || Top||

#3  MoveOn, for those who don’t know, was created to try to get people to forgive Bill Clinton for dropping his pants.

Since then, however, they've been urging Americans to "move on" and forget about 9-11.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 10:19 Comments || Top||

#4  If the eurocommies are whining and wetting their pants, Dubya must be doing something right. And please, the dems illegally taking $$ from chicoms, eurotrash, canadian socialists, it's not news. They can justify anything in their 'war' against Big Oil™ and Bush, Inc©. And once again, they'll be given a free pass by the dem mouthpiece in the media.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 11:50 Comments || Top||


Caucasus
Chechens ’seize second village’
EFL:
Chechen fighters are reported to have taken at least eight hostages, a day after seizing at least four captives. The rebels attacked the village of Galatli in the Russian republic of Dagestan overnight, officials say. Viktor Tsitsvera, a local security official, told the Russian news agency Itar-Tass the village had been surrounded by border guards and police.
Unlike Saudi, when the Russians surround you, you don’t get away. Of course, the villagers are also at risk.
Military analysts have suggested the fighters got lost in the mountains while en route to - or from - Georgia.
"I knew we should have taken a left turn in Albuquerque"
Some reports suggest there are now as many as three bands of fighters in the area - perhaps because one large original group split up. One Russian news agency quoted a freed hostage as saying they included Arab fighters as well as Chechens and Avars - another local ethnic group.
The Arabs would be the fearless leaders, they’ll leave the Chechens and Avars to fight a holding action while they beat feet.
A state of emergency has been declared in the Tsuntinsky district of the remote, mountainous republic, which fighters crossed into on Monday. They took at least four hostages in the village of Shauri after a gunfight at the frontier which left nine Russian border guards dead, local authorities said.
Security forces have blocked roads into the village from Dagestan, Chechnya and neighbouring Georgia.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 8:54:09 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  wouldn't it be appropriate for the Russians to do hovel-to-hovel searches and execute any Arabs they find?
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 9:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Dammit, dammit, dammit: Chechen rebels who fought their way into the neighboring Dagestan region and occupied a village released all their hostages and fled, avoiding capture, Russian authorities said Tuesday. Dagestani police officials initially said that most of the dozens of rebels who entered Dagestan from Chechnya after ambushing a border post were surrounded in the tiny village of Galatli.
But Dagestani Interior Ministry spokeswoman Anzhela Martirosova later said the gunmen left the village sometime before dawn, leaving behind their 11 hostages - seven from Galatli and four they had seized in another village, Shauri.
Before leaving Galatli, the rebels told their hostages not to emerge from the village and approach security forces until after daybreak, a duty officer at the ministry said.


The old "Stick your head out and we'll pop you" routine. Must have been a piss poor job of surrounding the village.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 9:26 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Baghdad Jim McDermott Says Bush Timed Hussein’s Capture
The below entry further highlights why the Democrats will drive themselves over a cliff in 2004:
From Andrew Sullivan:
YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS STUFF UP: Fresh from Howard Dean’s raising of the question of whether president Bush had been tipped off in advance by the Saudis about 9/11 comes Democrat Jim McDermott, not exactly a stranger to conspiracy theories. He tells a radio show in Seattle that the U.S. military could have found the former Iraqi dictator "a long time ago if they wanted." Asked if he thought the weekend capture was timed to help Bush, McDermott chuckled and said, "Yeah. Oh, yeah." He added, "There’s too much by happenstance for it to be just a coincidental thing." When the interviewer asked again if he meant to imply the Bush administration timed the capture for political reasons, McDermott said: "I don’t know that it was definitely planned on this weekend, but I know they’ve been in contact with people all along who knew basically where he was. It was just a matter of time till they’d find him."

You begin to wonder if some Democrats have gone nuts - politically as well as psychologically.

- 12:49:42 AM
Drudge Report covers some Democrats denouncing this nut, which is a good thing, but it doesn’t hide the fact that a significant portion of the Democratic Party is in major misstep with the rest of this country and will pay dearly at the polls.

Yeah. But this nut keeps getting routinely reelected, doesn't he?
Posted by: ColoradoConservative || 12/16/2003 8:21:18 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Time to play his remarks over and over - embarrass the Dems til they repudiate the McDermott/Waters/McKinney lunatic fringe in their party
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 9:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Ahh!! Baghdad Jim! As I recall he is the one who 'leaked' those illegally taped cellphone conversations between Newt and someone in Florida to the press. As I recall the couple who taped the conversation were wide-eyed dyed-in-the-wool democrats who were 'vacationing' in Florida after addending a democratic function in washington and 'accidentally' taped the cellphone conversation (yeah... right....).
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 9:16 Comments || Top||

#3  hmmm...but McDermott/Waters/McKinney ARE the democratic party these days.
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 9:16 Comments || Top||

#4  According to a Washington Post story (heard this on the radio; haven't found the stoyr), Kerry blamed this year's flu on Bush. Apparently it's Bush's fault the pharmaceutical companies only made 83 million doses, despite the peak usage in the past being 70 million.

The Donks are going crazy, and if it weren't bad for the country, it would be funny.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 10:16 Comments || Top||

#5  If Bush had planned it he would have timed the thing after the Democratic convention confirmed Dean as the candidate and things were a bit closer to election time.
Posted by: ruprecht || 12/16/2003 12:43 Comments || Top||

#6  Ol' Jimmie McDimwit should be worried about treason charges if Sammy kept records.
Posted by: mojo || 12/16/2003 14:37 Comments || Top||


Card: The Campaign of Hate and Fear
Orson Scott Card on the Democrat’s 2004 presidential campaign:
...There are Democrats, like me, who think it will not play, and should not play, and who are waiting in the wings until after the coming electoral debacle in order to try to remake the party into something more resembling America.

But then I watch the steady campaign of the national news media to try to win this for the Democrats, and I wonder. Could this insane, self-destructive, extremist-dominated party actually win the presidency? It might--because the media are trying as hard as they can to pound home the message that the Bush presidency is a failure--even though by every rational measure it is not.

And the most vile part of this campaign against Mr. Bush is that the terrorist war is being used as a tool to try to defeat him--which means that if Mr. Bush does not win, we will certainly lose the war. Indeed, the anti-Bush campaign threatens to undermine our war effort, give encouragement to our enemies, and cost American lives during the long year of campaigning that lies ahead of us...
As they say, read the whole thing.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 7:54:39 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Looks like I screwed it up somehow, and the title link leads to the original article. Oh, well, it's my first post to Rantburg.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 7:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Link's fine, RC - good work
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 9:21 Comments || Top||

#3  You just have to put the title in the title box, the link (including "http://") in the link box. The program marries the two.
Posted by: Fred || 12/16/2003 10:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Good first post and spot on comment by Orson. BTW your comments are always first rate. AKA berkswaxen
Posted by: Lucky || 12/16/2003 11:46 Comments || Top||

#5  Card hits it every time, it seems. And a healthy back-to-reality Dem Party would be very good, indeed, for America. Maybe, after the debacle, they will shed some of the loonies to a greenies or gaia party and take a step or two towards the center.

Once upon a time, people crossed over in their voting when one side got it right - and it was the right move for the country. As it is now, with such a wide divide and mindless idiocy such as straight-party voting, the situation just feeds the fertile imaginations of the LLL. I would welcome a rational legislature, for a change. John Breaux's (D Sen LA) resignation will be a loss, since he was not insane or leaning toward insane. Almost singular, that.
Posted by: .com || 12/16/2003 17:02 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon
US not an enemy despite sharp differences: Assad
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said in an interview that he did not consider the United States an enemy despite their sharp differences. The interview was given a week ago, before the announcement of new US legislation to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions against Syria in order to force it to end alleged support for "terrorism."
Wonder what he thinks now that he's seen Sammy on the teevee?
The Syrian leader told the Greek newspaper Kathimerini: "Syria does not consider the United States its enemy despite numerous differences. "We are against the occupation of Iraq, against the actions of American forces in in Iraq, against violations of human rights™." Assad said he was also against "many other aspects of American policy in the region, including an attitude biased in favour of Israel. "But we don't consider the United States an enemy of our country," he stressed.
"In fact, we're thinking real hard about being pretty nice to them..."
US President George W. Bush signed a bill into law on Friday providing for sanctions against Iraq to persuade Damascus to end its alleged support for "terrorism," halt development of chemical and biological arms as well as medium- and long-range missiles, and withdraw the roughly 20,000 troops it has deployed in Lebanon. President Assad and his wife Asma were scheduled to arrive in Greece Monday on December 15 for a three-day visit.
I think this article's a little dated, though it's up on today's page...
In his interview, Assad said the Americans should withdraw from Iraq "according to Iraqi conditions," and that the country should have a new constitution approved by Iraqis. "Above all it's the Iraqis and not the Americans who should set the timetable for American withdrawal," he was quoted as saying.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:01 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "We are against the occupation of Iraq, against the actions of American forces in in Iraq, against violations of human rights™."

So... umm... where the fuck were you Assad when Saddam was gassing his own people and murdering them in the thousands?

And when will you withdraw from your own occupation of Lebanon?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 12/16/2003 0:30 Comments || Top||

#2  But we don't consider the United States an enemy of our country...

"... so please don't make me hide out in one of those empty septic tanks."

What's that smooching sound I hear coming from Dubya's butt? Sounds like Baby Assad is suffering some pucker factor in regard to his continued existence.

Fine one to talk about "violations of human rights", innee?
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 0:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Wonder how Baby Assad would look with a real shaggy, ratty beard?
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 0:57 Comments || Top||

#4  i got five words for baby ass wad --open up and say ah!!
Posted by: son of tuloi || 12/16/2003 1:31 Comments || Top||

#5  Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said in an interview that he did not consider the United States an enemy despite their sharp differences.

In other news, President Bashar Al-Assad was seen at his residence rat holing an e-tool.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 12/16/2003 7:30 Comments || Top||

#6  "We are against the occupation of Iraq, against the actions of American forces in in Iraq, against violations of human rights™."

Has he condemned his father's slaughter of Hama, yet? Or are some human rights violations more important than others?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 7:50 Comments || Top||

#7  To the people of Syria, no not in principle.

To Baby Assad, to to your local Home Depo and by one of those little shovels and start digging. It's just a small hole and really won't take very long.

And to make your stay a bit more comfortable maybe you could buy a bit of DDT.
Posted by: Michael || 12/16/2003 9:56 Comments || Top||

#8  Is Baby Assad trying to prepare the background for the day Saadam's lost WMDs are found stashed on syrian soil!
Posted by: The Dodo || 12/16/2003 10:49 Comments || Top||

#9  The Greek journal Kathimerini is owned by the devious Greek shipping magnate Aristides Alafouzas. Alafouzos has just signed an agreement with a number of liberal newspapers to create a new press alliance (also including the NYTimes-owned International Herald Tribune). It is a toss-up who is more reliable, Assad or Alafouzos.
Posted by: Tancred || 12/16/2003 12:16 Comments || Top||


Korea
U.S., China Postpone Talks With N. Korea
The United States and China have decided not to resume six-party talks on North Korea's atomic weapons program this year but hope to restart them, unconditionally, early in 2004, the Bush administration said Monday. China, the main go-between between the United States and North Korea, reportedly was urging the Americans to be more flexible in their approach.
I think we tried bending over backwards. You can't get more flexible than that. It didn't work.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the Chinese, who helped organize the first round of talks in Beijing in August, told the Americans it would be impossible to convene a meeting this week as they had been trying to do. China delivered a plan to North Korea last week in which the United States, South Korea and Japan offered a blueprint for resolving the nuclear dispute. The other nation involved in the talks is Russia. Boucher said Secretary of State Colin Powell discussed the status of the talks by telephone Sunday with Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing of China. He gave no details of their discussion, but China's official Xinhua News Agency reported that Zhaoxing "expressed hope for the U.S. side to take a more flexible and practical attitude in preparation for the next round." North Korea rejected the proposal on Monday and warned that Washington's "delaying tactics" would only prompt it to step up its nuclear program.
Since everything prompts them to step up their nuclear program, that statement doesn't mean much.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:01 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  More "engaged apathy", as Mr. Den Beste would call it. "Yeah, we think we can fit some talks in somewhere 'round April" followed by "nope, nope, April don't look good, mebbe in August" is the right approach. In the meantime we can see how the annual grass harvest goes, and just how high they strip the tree bark.
Posted by: Steve White || 12/16/2003 0:51 Comments || Top||

#2  I am not too enthused about talking when the SKors are continuing economic aid to the NORKS. We need to dump this on the laps of the SKors and the Chicoms.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 12/16/2003 1:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Both China and SK are trying to get the US to foot the bill to keep NK afloat. Why? It's simple - better us than them.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 12/16/2003 1:14 Comments || Top||

#4  We can feed 15 mil people no problem. I have no problem w/that.

It's the decades-long psychotherapy I refuse to pay for. I figure at least 40 years, til most of the 20-somethings ++ die off. Let the SorKs and China pay that bill.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 12/16/2003 1:53 Comments || Top||

#5  It's the decades-long psychotherapy I refuse to pay for

You're cranking out the bad vibes anon2U. The Juche based Army first program of small unit self-criticism and group therapy can easily be funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 7:58 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Dean Says America Not Safer After Capture
Anti-war candidate Howard Dean said Monday "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer," directly contradicting President Bush and drawing the wrath of two Democratic presidential rivals.
"No, no! There is great danger! Danger, I tell you!"
A forceful proponent of the war, Sen. Joe Lieberman, said Dean is in a "spider hole of denial," a reference to Saddam's ignominious hideout and Dean's assessment of the capture's impact.
That's the way politicians say "that boy's crazy!"
John Kerry said the front-runner's speech "is still more proof that all the advisers in the world can't give Howard Dean the military and foreign policy experience, leadership skills, or diplomatic temperament necessary to lead this country through dangerous times."
"Because I'm strong and decisive and stick by my decisions, you can count on me!"
The capture of Saddam posed a political problem for Dean, whose candidacy has been fueled by his opposition to the war. The former Vermont governor did not back away from his stance, and argued that Saddam's capture alone won't secure America unless Bush or the next president takes a broader approach to fighting terrorism. "The capture of Saddam is a good thing which I hope very much will keep our soldiers in Iraq and around the world safer," Dean said. "But the capture of Saddam has not made America safer."
Sure didn't make it any less safe...
Later, in a question-and-answer session, he added, "Saddam is a frightful person and I'm delighted that he's gone. But there are many frightful people in the world."
"Because there are so many of them, we shouldn't go after any of them!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:01 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Because there are so many of them, we shouldn't go after any of them!"

Are you sure Dean isn't running for the EU's presidency? He's a perfect fit for them.
Posted by: Rafael || 12/16/2003 0:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Joe Liebermann bitch-slapped Dean yesterday and apparently it didn't faze either Dean or his supporters. While I'm planning right now to vote for GWB in the fall, I'd be happy to give Joe money on the condition that makes a TV ad that repeats the "spider hole of denial" claim. And runs it in New Hampshire. Frequently.
Posted by: Steve White || 12/16/2003 0:48 Comments || Top||

#3  No, Howard. You'll meet "frightful people" at those wine and cheese fundraisers that your beautiful people supporters haunt. Saddam's a little more up the scale from frightful. Might even be above "dastardly" or "ruffian".
What a worthless puke you are, Howard.
Posted by: tu3031 || 12/16/2003 1:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Yes! I thought ol' Howie would take this opportunity to tack center already. Instead he seals his own doom.
Posted by: someone || 12/16/2003 2:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Up until now, I may have disagreed with Gov. Dean on many, many things, but I didn't think he was an idiot.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips || 12/16/2003 7:33 Comments || Top||

#6  The capture of Saddam posed a political problem for Dean...

Yes, each success we experience will set the Democrats back. This speaks volumes: In order for them to do well, America needs to fail.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 12/16/2003 7:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Rafael -- All the Democrats are running for the EU presidency. Look at how often they say we should bow to France's demands.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 7:44 Comments || Top||

#8  "Spider hole of denial". That's a great zinger. Go, Joe, Go.
Posted by: ColoradoConservative || 12/16/2003 8:26 Comments || Top||

#9  WTF - "frightful"!? What the f*** kind of dream world is Dean living in? He makes Jimma Carta sound like a stud.
Posted by: Spot || 12/16/2003 8:37 Comments || Top||

#10  Rafael, Sunday CNN Wolf Blitzer asked Joe Biden what he meant by a legitimate coalition, and Joe's answer was simply "must include France." No other qualifications.
Posted by: john || 12/16/2003 10:06 Comments || Top||

#11  Sorry. I went back to the CNN transcript for Biden's exact quote:

"Unless we get the French and the Germans in, we will not be perceived as having Europe in. And if that doesn't happen, we won't get the Arabs in."

The message was not quite what I thought I heard.
Posted by: john || 12/16/2003 10:17 Comments || Top||

#12  what's that flushing sound? Could it be the sound of Dean's career?
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 10:40 Comments || Top||

#13  MSNBC has the best Dean quote:
Dean said he “would not have hesitated” to launch an attack on Iraq “had the United Nations given us permission and asked us to be part of a multilateral force.”

Keep digging, Howard.
Posted by: Steve || 12/16/2003 11:10 Comments || Top||

#14  john -- Doesn't seem much better. I guess England, Spain, Italy, Poland, Estonia, and a host of others aren't European enough.

I'm begining to think that Kerry's not the only "Frenchman" in the Democrat party.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 12/16/2003 11:12 Comments || Top||

#15  Dean's campaign might not be safer but Amercia is. How many States can Dean lose?
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 12/16/2003 11:38 Comments || Top||

#16  How many states did Reagan win?
Posted by: True German Ally || 12/16/2003 13:50 Comments || Top||

#17  Anti-war candidate Howard Dean said Monday "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer," directly contradicting President Bush and drawing the wrath of two Democratic presidential rivals.

There's a bigger picture to be considered, and Dean is either unwilling or incapable of putting this event into its appropriate place in the puzzle.

"had the United Nations given us permission.."

Well that rules Dean out for President. What's needed is a leader, not a follower.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 12/16/2003 15:14 Comments || Top||

#18  I've always found Dean scary, but this is even worse--he's flat out lying to the American people.
What kills me about the Dims, Dean especially, is that they pay so much homage to the UN, then when we and President Bush remind them that their precious UN passed 17 resolutions against Saddam and that Bush tried for months to get an 18th authorizing them to actually do something about it, they balked and chose "irrelevancy."
By the obstructionism of the weasel powers, the Civilized World was forced to go outside of the UN and deal with Saddam's threat as part of a "unilateral" Coalition.
Dean and the other Ninecompoops also forget that the UN was completely willing to let Saddam have a pass (I suppose
indefinitely) until President Bush MADE it an issue!
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 15:35 Comments || Top||

#19  The picture I got when I was reading this article was the robot in "Lost in Space":
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!!!. Dean makes about as much sense, and is about as precise.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 15:42 Comments || Top||

#20  "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer..."
And Dean's statements certainly don't make America safer - the opposite is far more likely, as Orson Scott Card pointed out so ably.

Dean has crossed over the line, in his bumblingly blind attempt to make himself identifiable as the mostest baddest Bush hater, and now provides true aid and comfort to our enemy. I will savor seeing him get his ass stomped in the election.
Posted by: .com || 12/16/2003 17:08 Comments || Top||

#21  Danger, Will Robinson, Danger

Did you know the robot used the voice of a very young Colin Powell?
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 19:03 Comments || Top||

#22  Stop it--SecState Powell is still in the hospital.
Yes, he plugs some happy horseshit, but I'm pretty sure that's his job, such as it is post-Henry Kissinger.
He lets President Bush, Rummy, Cheney and Wolfowitz be the bad cops.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 12/16/2003 20:14 Comments || Top||


East Asia
Japan to spend Y90-100 bil on missile defense system
The Japanese government has decided to earmark 90 billion yen to 100 billion yen for a missile defense system in fiscal 2004, the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported Tuesday. The envisioned shield combines the system of Aegis-equipped destroyers to intercept ballistic missile in space and Patriot missiles to shoot down any remaining missiles from the ground, with an eye to protecting Japan from a North Korean missile attack.
All in favor say "Hai, dozo!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hai! Not to mention, The Sons of Heaven will be our first line of defense if Kimmie the Troll goes apeshit.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 12/16/2003 1:29 Comments || Top||

#2  What no Mecha?? I want giant robots with big guns dagnabit!!
Posted by: Val || 12/16/2003 5:14 Comments || Top||

#3  Hai
Posted by: raptor || 12/16/2003 7:57 Comments || Top||

#4  Reanimating Godzilla would be cheaper though...
Posted by: True German Ally || 12/16/2003 10:55 Comments || Top||

#5  "Uh! Godzirra! Let's run!"

Gawd, I loved that line!
Posted by: Fred || 12/16/2003 11:24 Comments || Top||

#6  "Starship Yamato" should be brought to fruition...NOW. Technology now exists to raise the holy ship from its watery grave and to refit it for present circumstances...

_______________________________borgboy
Posted by: borgboy || 12/16/2003 13:05 Comments || Top||

#7  If they build the Yamato we'll be forced to up the ante with the Essex Class X-wing carrier.
Posted by: Shipman || 12/16/2003 14:17 Comments || Top||


Central Asia
Two members of Hezb-e Tahrir arrested in Dushanbe
Two members of Hezb-e Tahrir, which is banned in Tajikistan, have been arrested in Dushanbe. Literature with extremist content and over 50 copies of leaflets, which call for overthrowing the constitutional system in the country, were seized from the detainees, a source at the Tajik Security Ministry told ITAR-TASS today. The religious extremists, the purpose of whom is to set up an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia... Law-enforcement agencies have managed to bring over 200 extremists to trial since 1998, when the extremists began penetrating into Tajikistan. At the same time, the number of Hezb-e Tahrir members exceeds by several times the number of those arrested, experts think.
That's okay. Just keep jugging them and don't let them out.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Truncheons? check.
Pliars? check.
Moustachios? The finest!

Now...how about some names?
Posted by: Frank G || 12/16/2003 9:23 Comments || Top||

#2  purpose of whom is to set up an Islamic caliphate in Central Asia

Can't we give these guys 100,000 sq feet of soverign territory next to the Vatican...and let them all fight over who gets to sit in the biggest chair, instead of fighting us?
Posted by: B || 12/16/2003 9:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Can't we give these guys 100,000 sq feet of soverign territory next to the Vatican...and let them all fight over who gets to sit in the biggest chair, instead of fighting us?
Unfortunately, they've been brainwashed into believing that they have the right to take over everywhere. The Caliphate isn't limited to Central Asia - they insist that they will dominate the entire world. There are two solutions: surrender, or kill them all. I refuse to surrender.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 14:32 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
Attajdid: Algeria Islamist leader calls Sahara issue artificial
Leader of the Algerian outlawed party, Islamic Salvation Front, Abbasi Madani, said the Sahara issue is an "artificial" one that is part of a colonial plan whose seeds were sown by western colonialists.
"Couldn't possibly be our fault, regardless of anything we did..."
Madani told Moroccan Islamic-leaning "Attajdid" daily the persistence of the problem is an "abnormal situation that has no reason to exist, because our (Moroccan and Algerian) interests are converging and interests are the same. The Algerian politician was referring to the dispute over the Moroccan Sahara and to Algerian support to the secessionist Polisario movement that claims the independence of the territory, retrieved by Morocco in 1975 under a tripartite agreement with Spain (the former colonial power) and Mauritania. Madani, whose party was dissolved by Algerian authorities, also stressed that the border issue between the two states is also an abnormal dispute, insisting that the late King Mohammed V (grandfather of King Mohammed VI) had been a staunch champion of the liberation movement in Morocco. "Our affection toward our Moroccan brothers is a virtue that bears testimony to the depth of our bonds, in the past, in the present and in the future," he went on, recalling how Morocco stood by Algeria and supported its liberation revolution against (French) colonizers. Madani also argued that the future will be endangered without union, insisting that the two states have always been tied by a shared destiny.
Right. That's what Morocco needs: union with Algeria. Take a functioning state and unite it with a failed state and expect good results...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 12/16/2003 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Indeed Fred, as Germany knows by now.
Posted by: True German Ally || 12/16/2003 10:54 Comments || Top||

#2  "I Blame WhiteyTM!"
Posted by: Raj || 12/16/2003 12:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Gonna be hard to convince the Moroccans, who have been more or less independent (the French and Spanish occupied and divided the country, but the Kingdom remained, at least with titular power), and goes back to the 15th Century. I doubt many Moroccans want to join with Algeria, under any circumstances.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 12/16/2003 13:28 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2003-12-16
  Izzat Ibrahim hangs it up?
Mon 2003-12-15
  Sammy sings
Sun 2003-12-14
  Saddam captured
Sat 2003-12-13
  Swiss uncover al-Qaeda cells in the Magic Kingdom
Fri 2003-12-12
  Noorani: "Rosebud!"
Thu 2003-12-11
  Senior Sammy Fedayeen Leader Iced, Toe-tagged
Wed 2003-12-10
  Boom boy nabbed at U.S. embassy in Beirut
Tue 2003-12-09
  Six dead in Moscow boom
Mon 2003-12-08
  Convictions for November 17th terrorists
Sun 2003-12-07
  Commander Robot nabbed!
Sat 2003-12-06
  Sudan rebels say 353 killed in fighting
Fri 2003-12-05
  40 dead in Caucasus train boom
Thu 2003-12-04
  Japan to Send Troops to Iraq
Wed 2003-12-03
  Armed police to patrol Birmingham streets
Tue 2003-12-02
  New terror arrests in London

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