Talks between Iranian and Saudi Arabian officials have reportedly been postponed, days after the Saudis voiced concern about Iran's influence in Iraq. Saudi officials said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has abandoned his plans to visit Riyadh. Mr Mottaki has visited Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman as part of a tour of the Gulf. Saudi Arabia recently voiced disquiet over the ascendancy of Shias and the prospect of sectarian war in Iraq, which it borders, along with Iran.
Iraq's interior minister Bayan Jabr hit back at the Saudi complaints on Monday, saying he did not wish to be lectured by "some Bedouin riding a camel". Mr Jabr said Sunni Arab countries should support the newly empowered Shias in Iraq rather than pushing them into the arms of Iran.
Saudi officials have not said why the Iranian envoy's visit was postponed, nor how long it has been postponed for. An Iranian foreign ministry spokesman had earlier said the two sides would discuss Iraq, the Palestinian issue and Tehran's quest for peaceful nuclear technology. Iran's foreign ministry has rejected as baseless and unrealistic allegations that Iranians are infiltrating Iraq.
Iran's position is that it wants foreign occupation of Iraq to end but it argues a stable Iraq is in its best interests. At the same time Iran's closest allies are now in power in Baghdad - top Iraqi Shia politicians many of whom spent years in exile in Iran - and that makes other countries in the region nervous, says the BBC's Frances Harrison in Tehran.
On Tuesday, Mr Jabr - a Shia - directed a fresh attack on Saudi Arabia's Sunni rulers in an interview with the Arabic television network al-Jazeera. "[They should] create a democratic system and give freedoms, and not grant rights in just dribs and drabs, saying that maybe a woman can drive a car but she can only work within limits in the workplace," Mr Jabr said. "We call for democracy and freedom in all the Arab nation," he added.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/05/2005 08:39 ||
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#1
This is truly precious, two asshat Islamonutz regimes lecturing each other, especially on the topics of freedom, democracy, and rights lol.
#2
Iraq's interior minister Bayan Jabr hit back at the Saudi complaints on Monday, saying he did not wish to be lectured by "some Bedouin riding a camel". Mr Jabr said Sunni Arab countries should support the newly empowered Shias in Iraq rather than pushing them into the arms of Iran.
No, this is not satire....notice how these dhimmis are finding offensive items before any Muslims actually make a complaint. CAIR would be so proud! British prison officers who wore a St. George's Cross tie-pin have been ticked off by the jails watchdog over concerns about the symbol's racist connotations. The pins showing the English flag -- which has often raised hackles due to its connection with the Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries -- could be "misconstrued," Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said in a section on race in a report on a jail in the northern English city of Wakefield. The banner of St. George, the red cross of a martyr on a white background, was adopted for the uniform of English soldiers during the military expeditions by European powers to recapture the Holy Land from Muslims, and later became the national flag of England. A section on race relations in Owers' report said: "We were concerned to see a number of staff wearing a flag of St. George tie-pin. While we were told that these had been bought in support of a cancer charity there was clear scope for misinterpretation, and Prison Service Orders made clear that unauthorized badges and pins should not be worn." As one of her formal recommendations Owers said: "Staff should not wear unauthorized badges or pins." Chris Doyle, director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, said Tuesday the red cross was an insensitive reminder of the Crusades. "A lot of Muslims and Arabs view the Crusades as a bloody episode in our history," he told CNN. "They see those campaigns as Christendom launching a brutal holy war against Islam. Muslim or Arab prisoners could take umbrage if staff wore a red cross badge. It's also got associations with the far-right. Prison officers should be seen to be neutral." Of course, if I were to be offended by the Muslim Crescent because of some unknown ancestors 800 or so years ago who may or may not have been slaughtered during the Muslim invasion and Ottoman occupation of the Balkans, thereby causing me shame(tm) and humiliation (tm), I'm sure Chris would tell me to grow up and get over it....
Doyle added that it was now time for England to find a new flag and a patron saint who is "not associated with our bloody past and one we can all identify with." "Candidate must be a minority, disabled and atheist. No icky white males, unless they are bisexual bondage freaks."
#2
The Muslim crescent makes me think of an outhouse, so I guess we're even.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/05/2005 10:06 Comments ||
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#3
Wait until the World Cup next Year and you'll see St George's flags flying everywhere. I know let's switch to the Maltese Cross instead...
A lot of Muslims and Arabs view the Crusades as a bloody episode in our history ... They see those campaigns as Christendom launching a brutal holy war against Islam.
What a prick.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
10/05/2005 10:30 Comments ||
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#4
Doyle added that it was now time for England to find a new flag and a patron saint who is "not associated with our bloody past and one we can all identify with."
Cousins - it's time for you to have a little revolution. A multiculti culling event. A little Tranzi terrorism is due. Toss the tossers. Get mad. Get bad. Get mean. Over-chlorinate. (Pssst - Doyle and his dollymop kakpipe cosmonauts love beef bayonet, snack on chuftie plugs, and say your loyal football fans blow mud and ride the other bus.)
#5
GPC -- you really, really, need to take your Prozac regularly. Or, if you are adhering to your dosage, tell your doctor you need something stronger.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/05/2005 10:31 Comments ||
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#9
Blue room: I remember cricket being a peaceful spectator sport until the Pakistani supporters decided to launch a couple of pitch invasions.. Solution? No muslims allowed in cricket grounds..
Posted by: Howard UK ||
10/05/2005 11:05 Comments ||
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#10
Any bets on which UK cathedral will be the first to go the way of the Bamiyan sculptures?
#11
military expeditions by European powers to recapture the Holy Land from Muslims
The guy lacks the ability to grasp a Blinding Flash of the Obvious. The Holy Land[tm] in question was Christian not Muslim. It was to take back that which was taken by muslim military expedition. Quislings one and all, these apologist be.
#14
Any bets on which UK cathedral will be the first to go the way of the Bamiyan sculptures?
The fate of the Hagia Sophia is more likely. Stonehenge, on the other hand, will get the Bamiyan treatment -- no matter what it was for, it was built by pagans and probably related to their religion.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
10/05/2005 12:22 Comments ||
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#15
Seems to me then, that Moozies in Australia (NSW, to be exact) should be pissed off at the state flag of NSW.
#17
So that explains the rape jihad against teenaged Sydney girls. I just knew the little Lebanese darlings were not at fault, but were driven to it by extreme provocation.
Posted by: ed ||
10/05/2005 14:30 Comments ||
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#18
Someone should remind the Muslims that we regard the Muslim conquest of previously Christian lands, the MidEast was the original center of Christianity, as an abomination and are offended by their continuing caterwauling about us not surrendering the rest of the world to their pathetic religion. If they truly force it to an us or them situation, it will not be healthy to be them. Arabs and weapons technology just don't mix.
Pyongyang, October 4 (KCNA) -- Hugo Chavez Frias, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, expressed support and solidarity with the heroic struggle of the Korean people to defend independent dignity and stressed the need to develop the relations of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Venezuela and the DPRK in all the fields including politics and economy. He met and had a friendly conversation with the DPRK delegation headed by Yang Hyong Sop, vice-president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, on a visit to Venezuela at the Presidential Palace on Oct. 2. On hand were the members of the DPRK delegation and the Venezuelan foreign minister, the minister of Science and Technology and the director of the Department of External Relations of the Presidential Office.
Hugo has oil and money to spend. I guess we all know what the Norks have to sell.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/05/2005 09:25 ||
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Switzerland's 3 October decision to extradite former Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgenii Adamov to the United States was not unexpected. However, it has unleashed a firestorm in Russian political circles and the media, threatening to become a major issue in U.S.-Russian relations for some time to come.
Adamov, who served as atomic energy minister from 1998 until 2001, is accused by the United States of embezzling some $9 million in assistance that was intended to boost security at Russian nuclear facilities. He also stands indicted in Russia on charges of abuse of office and embezzlement. But from the beginning, the case has had numerous and ominous political overtones.
Adamov's arrest on a U.S. warrant in Berne, Switzerland, on 2 May 2005 came on the heels of the 24 February Bratislava summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush. In the run-up to that summit, a document was leaked that indicated that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov had reached a landmark agreement granting Washington access to some of Russia's most sensitive nuclear facilities in order to ensure their security.
The leak outraged Russian nationalists, including many in the Duma, who forced the government to backtrack on the talks and, in the end, the document was not included on the Bratislava agenda. When Adamov was arrested just days later, the same conservatives were quick to condemn the move as an effort to pressure Moscow into granting U.S. access to the country's nuclear secrets. Despite the end of the Cold War, many in Russia continue to cling jealously to the country's military and civilian nuclear programs as indications of Russia's great-power status.
Since Adamov's arrest, Russian officials and observers have offered contradictory testimony as to whether he possesses any state secrets. Defense Minister Ivanov has said repeatedly that Adamov presents no threat to national security. He repeated this assertion on 3 October, according to ITAR-TASS. However, current Atomic Energy Agency Director Aleksandr Rumyantsev told Ekho Moskvy that "to be atomic energy minister means to know secrets." Former Atomic Energy Minister Viktor Mikhailov (who served from 1992-98) told ITAR-TASS on 3 October that "Adamov still knows state secrets.... As a minister, he knew the plans of our leading research centers, including the federal nuclear centers in Sarov and Snezhinsk."
Some analysts have speculated that Adamov poses another security threat, however. In a tacit admission of how deeply corruption has penetrated the highly sensitive nuclear sector, analyst Ivan Yartsev wrote for politcom.ru on 2 October that gaining access to Adamov would "help foreign secret services to acquire the loyalty of those Russian officials who worked with the former minister and about whom he possesses compromising information." "Most likely, if the extradition takes place, it would be logical from the perspective of state security to carry out a series of dismissals of such officials," Yartsev wrote.
Although it seems unlikely that Adamov knows details of scientific information, it is likely that he has policy information and other general knowledge that Moscow would be reluctant to risk revealing to the United States. In particular, Adamov was privy to policy discussions and planning relating to Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran and North Korea. He also was instrumental in drafting controversial Russian plans to import spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing and storage, a plan that the Russian government argues could bring in as much as $20 billion in revenues over 12 years. Duma Deputy Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovskii (Liberal Democratic Party of Russia) told RBK-TV on 3 October that "the goal of Adamov's extradition might be to get extra information about all agreements between Russia and Iran because all such agreements were reached when Adamov was minister."
Many in Russia have long suspected that U.S. objections to Moscow's cooperation with Iran is more about keeping Russia out of the lucrative nuclear-technology market than it is about the danger of weapons proliferation. The fact that U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker chose 3 October to state that "no government should permit new nuclear transfers to Iran and all ongoing nuclear projects should be frozen" did not pass unnoticed in Russia. RIA-Novosti editorialized the same day that Russia's cooperation with Tehran "gives jobs to tens of thousands of people and hundreds of enterprises."
Finally, the Adamov case has drawn the attention of those in the Kremlin who have been working full-time for months now to forestall a "colored revolution" in Russia, which is preparing for national legislative elections in 2007 and a presidential contest in 2008. These officials have noted Washington's glowing praise of the revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan, and, more ominously, U.S. statements in favor of more democratic political processes in countries like Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan. "The Russian authorities have long spoken of a likely effort by the West, and the United States in particular, to organize the next 'colored revolution' in Moscow to change the political regime and, possibly, to break up the country," Yartsev wrote.
In a commentary on politcom.ru on 27 May, Yartsev wrote that Adamov could play a role similar to the one allegedly played by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Pavlo Lazarenko, who was convicted by a U.S. court of embezzlement and money laundering in June 2004. According to Yartsev, Lazarenko's "information played a significant role in preparing the Orange Revolution."
As far-fetched as such speculation seems on a literal level, such theories definitely play well in Russia's political climate today and can be used to justify any number of domestic political developments, such as cracking down on foreign funding of nongovernmental organizations or discrediting opposition parties and figures with Western credentials. The Adamov case will likely have increasingly serious international and domestic consequences for some time to come.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:35 ||
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North Korean leader Kim Jong Il could soon name his successor to head the hard-line communist nation, a Russian news agency reported Tuesday. The ruling Korean Workers' Party celebrates its 60th anniversary on Monday, and an announcement of the North's next leader could be timed around that event, an unidentified diplomatic official in Pyongyang told the ITAR-Tass news agency, which has a correspondent in the North Korean capital.
One option for Kim, 63, is to carry communism's first and only dynasty into the next generation of his family, which founded the Stalinist regime in 1948. Another option is to hand over the government â and its possible nuclear arsenal â to someone outside the family, such as a figure from the hard-line Korea People's Army.
Anybody actually see the lil weasel lately?
The ITAR-Tass source said the decision could be made either at a closed party leadership meeting or a party congress, which would usually be announced a month in advance, ITAR-Tass reported. No plans for such a meeting have yet been made public. Many analysts caution that North Korea is such a reclusive society that any predictions amount to little more than speculation. Kim has three sons and all of them have "approximately equal chances" of inheriting leadership of the reclusive state, according to ITAR-Tass.
In August 2004, Cheong Seong-chang, a North Korea expert at the independent Sejong Institute research center just outside Seoul, claimed Kim was likely within the next few years to anoint his son, Jong Chul, 22, as his successor.
#5
Clearly the Norks need money and they need to choose a successor. What is needed is the first ever Pay-Per-View âCelebrity Death Match: Korean Leader Editionâ. Al the North Korean princes or chosen ones are locked into a cage until one is left breathing and is declared âNew Dictatorâ. At $59.99 a pop on a worldwide scale and we are talking some money here folks. They could probably make enough to order take out from China. If you are out there Dear Leader (and I know you are) I am ready to be the promoter for this.
Oh who will replace a-little old me,
The Commie tyrant by the sea,
Who can I trust - who will it be,
Before they bury me under that tree.
I have to search both near and far,
So I sing the tune about a twinklin' star,
Don't laugh at me - don't say, "Har-Har",
Or I'll dip you in that red hot tar!
This job is tough I'm so alone,
I work my fingers down to the bone.
There's no one to call up on the phone,
And if I don't pick my son he'll moan.
> The ruling Korean Workers' Party celebrates its 60th anniversary on Monday, and an announcement of the North's next leader could be timed around that event ...
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer will urge Jakarta to ban Jemaah Islamiah (JI) when he travels to Indonesia next week but warns Australia cannot force its will on other nations. The Government is under pressure to convince Indonesia to outlaw the terrorist group thought to be responsible for the weekend bombings in Bali, which killed 22 people including up to four Australians.
But there are signs Australia's demands may fall on deaf ears.
Signs? Portents? Is it time for Obvious Man�
Indonesia's deputy ambassador in Canberra Kristiarto Legowo cautions that focusing on a JI ban may divert attention from the hunt to catch the killers. "It is only wise that we avoid ourselves from something that may deflect our attentions on the real issue," he told the Seven Network.
"We must focus on root causes and the anger of Muslims," he added.
Australia is sending more police to Bali in a bid to catch the masterminds behind the bombings which took the lives of 16-year-old Brendan Fitzgerald, from WA, and Jennifer Williamson, 48, of Newcastle. Authorities are still trying to identify another two bodies, believed to be Newcastle couple Colin and Fiona Zwolinski, both aged in their mid-40s.
As Australians recover from the traumatic weekend events, calls are growing for the Government to force Indonesia to take action on JI. Prime Minister John Howard reiterated that banning JI was not the be all and end all of tackling terrorism in Indonesia. But he believes tolerating the group sends the wrong message to the majority moderate Indonesian people. "While ever a country tolerates as a legal organisation, as body that is clearly involved in terrorist acts, it is sending the wrong signal to those who might listen to the propaganda of those organisations," Mr Howard told Macquarie Radio.
Mr Howard and Mr Downer both admit that for all Australia's representations, it is ultimately a decision for Indonesia's legal system.
Posted by: Oztralian [AKA] God Save The World ||
10/05/2005 08:00 ||
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Prince Andrew has been accused of arrogance after refusing to go through an airport security check. He was prevented from boarding a Qantas jet to New Zealand because he would not be screened by guards at Melbourne Airport. After a tense stand-off, he reluctantly agreed to be searched with a hand detector. This incident just shows what is wrong with the West's response to the WOT. We have known knowns and known unknowns, to paraphrase Rumsfeld, and Prince Andrew is not a known unknown. so we have the stupid situation where scarce resourses are being wasted on unnecessary searches like 90 year old grand-mothers, because we don't want to appear politically incorrect by "profiling", which good policing methods dictates. However if it was his bro "Bigears" there would be a case for screening.
Airport and security officials expressed surprise at the Prince's actions. They believed he would have understood the importance of security in the wake of the London bombings. A Group 4 security worker at the airport said: "Who does he think he is? What a pompous p----. Everyone has to go through security screening. He should be happy to do so." Officials said last Wednesday's incident showed no one was exempt from Australia's airport security procedures. It followed a minor diplomatic incident in March, when Papua New Guinean Prime Minister Michael Somare was required to remove his shoes for a security check at Brisbane Airport. Anti-monarchists have had a field day with the latest incident. Australian Republican Movement spokesman Rod Kendall said: "We love stories like this. It highlights how the royal family think they are different from the rest of us. The law is the law, no matter who you are.
Prince Andrew, nicknamed Air Miles Andy for his love of travel freebies, was on a private trip to Melbourne where he attended the opening of a global conference on schools. He was about to leave for a four-day official tour of New Zealand when officials met him at a special gate at Melbourne Airport and told him he needed to pass a security check. He refused. A source said: "There was a bit of consternation on both sides. Managers and security were called and it was suggested to the Prince that he sit down in the next room and think about it for a while. "He was told he would not be allowed to board the flight unless he agreed to be screened because it was the law. Eventually he reluctantly agreed." A Melbourne Airport spokesman confirmed a short delay in the Prince boarding the plane because of a security incident. A Buckingham Palace spokesman said: "We don't make any comment about security matters."
#1
kudos to the security personnel for standing up to these pompas asses. That's a hard situation to have to deal with. How dare they put themselves above the law.
Posted by: Jan ||
10/05/2005 1:16 Comments ||
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#2
It really is telling, isn't it? I guess he's got the hang of being Royalty, now.
#7
Who does the Group 4 security worker think he is? Himmler? These pompous, useless, ineffective farts need to be gotten rid of, and guns made required equipment in the cockpit and optional in the passenger cabin. As the heros of Flight 93 demonstrated, this weapon can be denied our enemies.
#8
At first I am thinking âGood for the Security peopleâ but then I have to question what they expected? The man is Heir to the British throne and very unlikely to cause a security threat. Reminds me of the story of Al Gore and grandmothers getting screened, but I think a case can be made against the ex-VP. Common sense needs to take hold or we will lose the WOT. Little old ladies, former VPs, heads or state, and dare I say British Royalty shouldnât warrant as much scrutiny as some named Acmed, Ali, or Mumar. Since we donât have infinite resources lets try to focus them on the threat.
#9
e man is Heir to the British throne and very unlikely to cause a security threat.
*cough*DukeofHamilton*cough*
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
10/05/2005 10:44 Comments ||
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#10
Cyber,
But where does the "Royal" treatment end? Should we let the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia get through because he is personally not a know n threat? Kudos to the security folks. Terrorism is everyone's game...everybody plays by the rules..I'd much rather piss off a blue blood than be responsible for a lot of spilled red
#11
There is a difference in reaction between what might be called an "unrevealed known" and the "true unknown".
For the former, say you walk into a room and see a revolver lying on a table. You know it can be dangerous; you also known its general parameters, that is, *how* it can be dangerous. So it, by itself, is not particularly menacing. It is an "unrevealed known". You are not threatened by it, you just don't know why it is there.
For the "true unknown", say you walk into a strange, pitch black room. The door slams shut behind you and locks. Then you hear the unfamiliar growl of a large, angry animal, of unknown type. Now *that* is scary, because you do not have enough information on which to act in any way.
So this makes *four* possibilities: the known, the unrevealed known, the true unknown, but also the unknowable. So, in the case of airplane security, you need to prioritize:
1) The known: HRH Andrew. Not a threat.
2) The unrevealed known: Drunk soccer fan. May be a threat, but not a terrorist threat.
3) The true unknown: Arab guy wearing a heavy coat in summer. Serious threat.
4) The unknowable: Allah himself, in disguise, planning to blow up the plane. Not a threat, since you can't see him coming anyway.
#13
The prince is obviously not a threat, but the security people did the right thing. We don't want them to have (and they propbably don't want) the authority to waive rules. Once they have that, the quality of security is dependent upon the discretion of the individual screeners.
Giving screeners the ability to grant exceptions reduces security and makes their jobs more difficult.
#14
I travel a lot and I am very suspicious of everybody, particularly those that stick out as eastern or middle-eastern stock. If Al Gore and I were flying on the same plane I would have no problem with him bypassing security. If Osama Bin Butthead and I were on the same flight I would expect the security personnel to give Mr. Butthead some scrutiny before they let him fly. A little common sense is all it takes and we can stop terrorism. If the cops were given a description of crime suspect of White/Middle Age/6â2â/Mustache and they made a point to look for an equal amount of Hispanics or Blacks we would fire them for inefficiency, stupidity, or both.
#15
Uh, spoiled brat, prince, frog or toothfairy if you wish but at the end of the day he ain't nothing special outside of his imaginary kingdom and given that has no grounds for complaint and obstinancy.
#18
Prince was carring drugs, his royal entourage negotiated a wand [singolo] test before he agreed.
Posted by: Matt Drudge ||
10/05/2005 15:40 Comments ||
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#19
Ok, Cyber Sarge, but there may be another reason. The ever-popular CYA....as in, "No, we're not picking on you....we did the same bloody thing to Prince Andy...now shut up & spread 'em!"
Just in case the NZ version of CAIR gets their panties in a wad over the Kiwis searching a Mr. Osama bin Laddin who just flew in from Kabul....
France has told visiting Afghan President Hamid Karzai that Paris favors keeping separate commands for the United Nations security assistance mission and U.S.-led combat operations in Afghanistan. Karzai has expressed hopes that NATO will eventually assume command of both missions. It is a position that is backed by Washington as the U.S. begins to reduce the size of its combat force in Afghanistan.
Prague, 4 October 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai has been speaking about his hopes for the double NATO command since the day after the 18 September parliamentary elections.
But France made clear its position on the issue on 3 October, when the Afghan president met in Paris with French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Oztralian [AKA] God Save The World ||
10/05/2005 07:11 ||
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#1
Military advice from the French; how, um, useful...
#2
This is actually good and sound advice. NATO can not duplicate the airlift and supply performance that the US can, and the british will maintain control of the training and rebuilding with the rest of NATO and Australia and the combat forces will be controlled by the US. Let the bureaucrats do what they do best and the combat forces do what they do best.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has taken closed-door statements in an inquiry that could clear up whether the intelligence program Able Danger identified September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta a year before the attack.
A spokesman said yesterday that the committee likely will release a report or a statement in the next two weeks that makes conclusions, or at least determines the facts.
Most of the attention on Able Danger has come from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which already has conducted one public hearing on the intelligence-collection program. It is now asking the Pentagon to allow personnel associated with Able Danger, such as defense intelligence analyst Anthony Shaffer and Navy Capt. Scott Philpott, to testify in public about how Atta was purportedly identified.
But a final verdict could come sooner from the intelligence committee, based on closed-door briefings already provided by Mr. Shaffer, Capt. Philpott and Pentagon officials.
Mr. Shaffer and Capt. Philpott contend Able Danger identified Atta in 2000 as being linked to al Qaeda. A Pentagon investigation failed to turn up any document that supports their contention, officials said at a Sept. 1 press conference.
The Pentagon thus far has refused to allow Mr. Shaffer and Capt. Philpott to testify in open session, as requested by Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican. Officials say such testimony would violate the practice of not testifying on classified programs in public.
"We're hard-pressed to send witnesses to testify in open session about a program that the other committees who have investigated have respected the classification aspects," a Bush administration official said.
The official said the Pentagon is not attempting to hide anything from Congress, noting that Mr. Shaffer, Capt. Philpott and others have been allowed to brief committee staffs.
Mr. Shaffer came forward earlier this year to say that Able Danger identified Atta during the Clinton administration. He said government lawyers prevented the Pentagon from sharing information with the FBI, which, if notified, could have investigated the finding well before the September 11 attacks.
The Pentagon said it found no evidence that lawyers prevented the information from going to the FBI.
Rep. Curt Weldon, Pennsylvania Republican, has fueled the debate by saying government lawyers ordered the destruction of reams of Able Danger documents. At the Senate Judiciary hearing last month, one of the men who destroyed the papers offered what appeared to be an innocent explanation: A Pentagon policy to protect privacy dictates that intelligence information on U.S. citizens be destroyed after 90 days unless the data has law-enforcement value.
Able Danger was a data-mining operation set up in 1999 that sought to make links between individuals using publicly available information. "In the months that followed, we were able to collect an immense amount of data for analysis that allowed us to map al Qaeda as a worldwide threat with a surprisingly significant presence within the United States," former Army Maj. Erik Kleinsmith, an Able Danger analyst, testified.
#1
Close door = no public attention. The enemies of the United States are just not bomb carrying fanatics. There are those within our own government for whom power, non-accountability, and invisibility are just as dangerous to our lives and our Constitution. And its not about National Security, its about POWER.
#2
"...innocent explanation: A Pentagon policy to protect privacy dictates that intelligence information on U.S. citizens be destroyed after 90 days unless the data has law-enforcement value."
Innocent explanation?
Am I missing something here? (I often do)
Who were the US citizens? What were their associations with potential, if not known, terrorists? And how could this not have any law-enforcement value?
#3
let Sandy Burglar hold all the documents for safekeeping again?
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/05/2005 12:39 Comments ||
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#4
Able Danger used data mining to identify people who had the characteristics of known terrorists. At that point the crime had not been committed. Therefore, the data could not have had law enforcement value. The database would have contained vast amounts of data on US citizens.
Arguably, the results, i.e. the identification of Atta (and other non-US citizens) could have been retained, but I suspect becuase those results were derived using data on US citizens, a lawyer concluded the results must be destroyed.
Several border area Congressmen said Tuesday they're preparing to introduce a measure calling for a federally funded, sworn border militia to patrol the country's borders and assist the U.S. Border Patrol, the Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other federal border security agencies, 1200 WOAI news reported today.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) says the proposal calls for the federal government to spend $100 million over several years to hire, train, and equip 'reserve deputies,' who would patrol the border under the authority of border county sheriffs.
Cuellar said the measure is in response to the activities of the Minutemen and other civilian groups which have recently encamped in border areas of Texas and Arizona, and claimed to be helping report illegal immigrant activity. "These people would be trained, they would be sworn, they would be inside the law enforcement chain of command, and this would be a lot different than the Minutemen, who are out there on their own, and we don't know who they are or what their motives are," Cuellar said.
I smell a Trojan rat.
Other members of Congress who Cuellar says have signed on as co sponsors include Republicans John Culbertson and Henry Bonilla, both of Texas. he said he expects to obtain additional co-sponsors before the measure is introduced, which he expects to occur before the end of October.
Cuellar says the members of the militia would be 'reserve deputies.' He says they could be retired law enforcement officers, or part time officers who work on an as needed basis at the command of local officials. "Those sheriffs would work arm in arm with the Border Patrol to provide security along the border."
Cuellar says how the reserve officers would be deployed, what their duties would be, and whether they would be armed would be up to the local officials and would be handled according to the laws in place in each jurisdiction.
He says the militia would have a decided advantage over the Minutemen, whom Cuellar said he 'doesn't want' in Texas. Cuellar said most of the Minutemen are untrained volunteers from out of the area, and the reserve deputies would have to be residents of the county where they would be deputized. "They know the trails," he said. "They know the area because they have been doing this kind of work for a long time."
Cuellar unveiled his proposal at a time when several hundred Minutemen volunteers are engaged in a border watch operation in Brooks County, in rural south Texas.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:59 ||
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#1
please, most folks know where "the trails" are. More folks patrolling the border would be a good thing.
Posted by: Jan ||
10/05/2005 1:24 Comments ||
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#2
the proposal calls for the federal government to spend $100 million over several years to hire, train, and equip 'reserve deputies,' who would patrol the border under the authority of border county sheriffs.
aren't there already folks that are trained that are just out of work? I say hire the guys that already know how to patrol these areas, and spend the money on equipment and support for them to get the job done.
Posted by: Jan ||
10/05/2005 1:34 Comments ||
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#3
Isn't that the entire purpose of the border patrol? It does seem alot like a trojan rat, just like Clinton's 100,000 new cop propsal was.
#4
Wait, what happened with that proposal? (Clinton's.)
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
10/05/2005 3:48 Comments ||
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#5
No its a creative way to get around the Posse Comitatus Act. Since too many are scared by Hollyweird fiction about the military in civil police operation and their civil liberties [though the Act actually had the effect of denying blacks' their civil rights for nearly a hundred years], this is a means to obtain manpower. I guess the Civil Air Patrol is the tin-foil hat crowds version of the Hitler Youth. They're rats, rats I tell you.
#6
The sole purpose of this act is to get control over the Minutemen, to get them to stop interfering with the flow of illegal aliens.
The irony is that a handful of Minutemen, properly placed on the border, radically multiply the effectiveness of the Border Patrol. This is because they are not only positioned on the major corridors, but tactically they are stationary, whereas the BP are maneuverable.
Using a chess analogy, it is the difference between having just a knight and having a rook and a knight.
So even though the feds leave the BP way undermanned, with intent that they fail in their mission, the Minutemen still result in there being an illegal alien labor shortage in the US for those corrupt businesses that use them.
In turn, these businesses exert extreme pressure on the government to come up with some way of neutralizing the Minutemen and returning to the status quo. Literally billions of dollars in cheap labor costs each year is a big incentive.
#8
"...and the reserve deputies would have to be residents of the county where they would be deputized."
Doesn't want volunteers but is fine with a Federally funded militia. Of course, they must live in a county from his district. Yeah, sounds like a Democrat proposal to me.
#9
"...and the reserve deputies would have to be residents of the county where they would be deputized."
Of course. Out-of-towners don't know the right drug connections and might disrupt supplies. It's really all about drug trafficking and the bribes to supplement their income.
#10
I can do it for half price. Just don't ask me about the employees status.
Posted by: Upstanding Pillar of Business Guy ||
10/05/2005 13:27 Comments ||
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#11
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) says the proposal calls for the federal government to spend $100 million over several years to hire, train, and equip 'reserve deputies,' who would patrol the border under the authority of border county sheriffs.
Any guarantee that these new deputized individuals would actually do their job, or be allowed to do their job? Or is this just another way to put more people on the federal payroll?
[October 2 2005] at 2000 UTC at Chittagong anchorage 'B', Bangladesh. Robbers armed with long knives boarded a general cargo ship at stern. Crew raised alarm and robbers escaped with ship's stores. Coast guard informed.
[October 01 2005] at 1200 LT in position 06:11.4N - 097:06.3E, Northern tip of Sumatra, Malacca Straits. Ten persons in a fishing boat chased a supply ship underway. Crew activated fire hoses and master took evasive manoeuvres. Attempted boarding was aborted.
[September 30 2005] - Hijacked MV Prima Indah. MV Prima Indah departed Bangkal palam for Singapore on 30.09.2005 with a cargo of 660 mt [of] tin ingots. On 30.09.2005 at 1300 UTC pirates armed with guns hijacked the ship in position 01:28.6S - 106: 41.1E, Indonesia. The 14 crew members were set adrift in a fishing boat and landed safely at an island. Ship and cargo are missing... By now the vessel may have changed name, flag and possibly she has been repainted.
[September 30 2005] at 2320 UTC in position 05:05N - 051:05E, 150 miles off eastern coast of Somalia. Pirates in a fishing boat attempted attack a bulk carrier underway. They came within 1.7 nm and master took evasive manoeuvres. Pirates chased the ship for two hours and finally aborted attempt.
[September 30 2005] at 0330 LT at Abidjan anchorage, Ivory coast. Robbers armed with big knives boarded a bulk carrier and stole ship's stores. Crew mustered and robbers jumped into water and escaped in their boat. Port authority informed who advised master to drfit 10-15 nm away from anchorage area.
[September 29 2005] at 0500 LT at Vung Tau anchorage, Vietnam. Robbers boarded a container ship and stole ship's stores. Master informed authorities.
[September 28 2005] at 2310 LT at Chittagong anchorage, Bangladesh. Robbers armed with long knives in a boat approached a general cargo ship. Deck Officer raised alarm and crew mustered at poop deck. Robbers using long bamboo pole attached to a hook attempted to board. Alert crew used dunnages to prevent boarding and robbers fled after 15 mins.
[September 28 2005] at 0550 LT at anchor off Balikpapan, Indonesia. Two robbers armed with machetes boarded a tanker via anchor chain and stole forward liferaft. They tried to steal ship's stores but were spotted by duty watchman. Robbers left a machete on board and escaped in a boat waiting with an accomplice. Pertamina PFSO informed.
[September 27 2005] at Escravos anchorage, Nigeria. Robbers armed with guns boarded a tanker and shot two crewmembers.
U.S. and U.N. officials urged the Shiite-led government Tuesday to reverse last-minute changes to voting rules for a referendum on Iraq's new constitution and head off a threatened Sunni boycott. The crisis emerged less than two weeks before the Oct. 15 vote and just a day after the U.N. began distributing 5 million copies of the constitution to voters.
The United Nations sharply criticized the changes â which make it nearly impossible for the Sunni minority to defeat the charter at the polls â and warned that they violate international standards. Unlike Iraqi elections before 2003. Or unlike those of Cuba, Zim-Bob-we, the PRC, Saudi Arabia,...
Sunni Arab leaders are opposed to the draft constitution that Washington hopes will unite Iraq's disparate factions and erode support for the country's bloody insurgency, paving the way to eventually begin withdrawing foreign troops. But a boycott by the minority would deeply undermine the credibility of the vote and wreck efforts to bring Sunnis into the political process. Just as North Carolina's and Rhode Island's rejection of the Constitution tore the United States of America apart.
Iraq's Shiite-dominated parliament passed the new rules on Sunday, effectively closing the loophole that would have given the minority a chance of vetoing the constitution by getting a two-thirds "no" vote in three provinces even if it wins majority approval nationwide. Sunni Arabs have a sufficient majority in four of Iraq's 18 provinces. The new interpretation of the rules declares that two-thirds of registered voters must vote "no" â not two-thirds of those who actually vote. The interpretation raises the bar to a level almost impossible to meet. In a province of 1 million registered voters, for example, 660,000 would have to vote "no" â even if that many didn't even come to the polls.
The United Nations cried foul. "Ultimately, this will be a sovereign decision by the Iraqis, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in New York. "That being said, it is our duty in our role in Iraq to point out when the process does not meet international standards." U.N. officials were meeting with members of parliament to reverse the change, Dujarric and Iraqi officials said. "The decision will be amended depending on what we reach in agreements with the United Nations, Abbas al-Bayati, a Shiite Turkomen lawmaker on the constitutional commission, told The Associated Press. "The U.N. is seeking one interpretation for the word 'voters,"' he said.
The Americans were talking separately with the Shiite-led government, said an Iraqi lawmaker, Mahmoud Othman, and an official close to the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined comment on the U.S. role except to say that the new rules are a topic of discussion among Iraqi authorities. A senior State Department official said privately that U.S. diplomats have made clear concerns about the rule change in those discussions.
A new version of the rules could be decided as early as Wednesday, and it would be put to parliament for a new vote, Othman said.
The dispute over the rule changes threatens to deepen disillusionment with the political process among Sunnis, who make up the backbone of the insurgency. "The aim of this move is to pass the constitution and impose it on everybody regardless of their opinions," said Saleh al-Mutlaq, the main Sunni figure on the commission that drafted the constitution.
He, like other so-called moderate Sunni Arab leaders opposed the final text but had urged followers to go to the polls to vote "no" but threatened to call a boycott over the rule change. "Holding our breath until we turn blue Boycotting the referendum is a possible option that we are thinking of, because we believe that participating in the voting might be useless," al-Mutlaq said.
Sunnis say the constitution's strong federalist bent will tear Iraq apart into Shiite and Kurdish mini-states in the north and south, leaving the minority weak in a central region without oil resources. Boo-hoo.
Sunni Arabs boycotted January parliamentary elections, the reason for their minimal representation there and the fact that they intended to vote in the referendum â even if against the charter â granted it legitimacy. But after the passage of the new rules, Sunnis accused the Shiites of using their dominance to stack the deck against the minority. "This is fraud aimed at distorting the truth, it aims to foil any effort to bring down the constitution," said Ayad al-Samarraie, a senior official in the Iraqi Islamic Party, one of the main Sunni Arab groups.
The controversy centered on the definition of the word "voter." Must have had help from Democrats in Washington and Florida.
Election rules in the interim constitution read, "The general referendum will be successful and the draft constitution ratified if a majority of the voters in Iraq approve and if two-thirds of the voters in three or more provinces do not reject it." The committee decided that while the first reference to "voters" in the clause refers to those who cast votes, the second refers to all those registered to vote. "There should be one interpretation for the word 'voter,' or else we will appeal over the referendum and its results," al-Samarraie said. Actually, that sounds too much like the kind of stuff our leftist judges pull. I have no sympathy for the Sunnis, but a Constitution should not need tortured interpretation of common words.
#1
Oddly enough, I have to agree with the article's thrust. Do it straight-up.
If they torpedo it, then it will be crystal clear that the Sunnis are too stupid to live.
I've always hated these absurd attempts to hold together a bogus entity - no different than Yugoshitvia. Cut the Kurds loose from this faux monstrosity, at least.
Only a few months ago, I'd have said seal the southern border of Kurdistan and let the Arabs kill each other off. Now, with the south so terminally fucked up, as it obviously is, I'm not sure. Any ideas out there - that don't involve shackling the Kurds to this cluster fuck?
#2
The problem traces back to the form of democracy the UN set up in Iraq. It's the same shit that Germany is going through right now with coalition building.
In essence, there is no "straight up". It's too f!*ked up.
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/05/2005 2:18 Comments ||
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#3
Re: Straight-up...
I was referring to the article - where they changed the rules on the constitution ratification vote. What are you talking about?
#4
The United Nations sharply criticized the changes â which make it nearly impossible for the Sunni minority to defeat the charter at the polls â and warned that they violate international standards.
#5
CA, it's called proportional representation and it does suck. Why do we keep forcing a clearly unworkable system on others that we do not adopt ourselves? Because the government is still under the control of idiots like Lani Guenier. It's going to take a long time for all these idiots to die because they won't be fired.
#7
They changed them back: Iraq's parliament has reversed its decision to change the rules governing a referendum next week on the country's new constitution. The altered rules would have made it much harder for Sunni opponents of the draft constitution to reject it. Parliament has now decided to revert to the original rules - as both the United Nations and Washington said it should.
UN legal advisors said that a referendum held under the new rules would not meet international standards. After a brief debate, MPs voted 119 to 28 to restore the original voting rules for the referendum. Only about half of the 275-member body attended the vote, although a quorum was achieved.
Posted by: Steve ||
10/05/2005 8:39 Comments ||
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#8
Good that they changed them back. I'm not sure what "international standards" are for elections (do they require Jimmy to be watching?), but the rules didn't pass the smell test, with different definitions for "voter" for yea and for nay.
Posted by: James ||
10/05/2005 11:41 Comments ||
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#10
The thing about new democracies in old countries is that there are so many groups that were grossly discriminated against under the old regimes. Proportional representation is the only way to get things started -- if we want the many minorities to feel they have a stake in the new set-up. We can hope that once the people mature politically (and clearly it takes more than the half century Germany has experienced ... France is too busy enjoying its own manic-depressive cycle ever to move beyond it, I think), they will be able to see the problems inherent in a proportionally representative system.
#11
I'm not sure what to think except if Washington and the UN agree on this rule change, it probably isn't a good thing. Why should a minority be allowed to change the charter?
#12
TW, by the time they live through all the problems of pr, they're fed up with democracy and ready for a man on a white horse to get something done. That's why the Germans turned to Hitler. That's why they're in the jam they're in today.
First past the post with a real commitment to individual rights is the ONLY way to go. It forces opposing parties to move to the middle. with pr there is no incentive for real accomodation, only continual political games that give you, in the case of Italy, a government a year.
With PR, I'd bet the Iraqis will decide they'd be better off splittting the country up with the Sunnis joining Syria, the Shia joining Iran and the Kurds going after eastern Turkey. That'll be lovely.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
10/05/2005 15:16 Comments ||
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#13
Danielle,
It was the Shiites who changed the voting rules in the first place to make it almost impossible for the Sunnis to torpedo the constitutional vote. I would have let it be known that if the constitution was torpedoed by Sunnis, it would have to be rewritten, with less outside input, and less favorable to Sunni interests, or possibly excluding the Sunni provinces in a new Shiite-Kurdish nation.
Posted by: ed ||
10/05/2005 15:17 Comments ||
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#14
It is a problem, I admit, Mrs. D, but we set up the same system in Afghanistan, and look how enthusiastic both peoples were in their last round(s) of elections. And it looks like the number of parties is beginning to rationalize, just a bit. And first past the post would just put the Shiites straight into power at this point.
The Germans, on the other hand, probably need another generation of working things through (Moses led the Israelites through the wilderness for 40 years, until all those who'd lived in Egypt even as children were dead, before God deemed them ready for the freedom of self-rule in the Promised Land. And then they had to conquer it before it was theirs anyway)... and let's hope they make it that far before events and birthrates overtake them.
The Palestinian parliament decided Wednesday to appoint a committee of lawmakers to investigate what killed longtime leader Yasser Arafat, alleging Israel involvement.
After all, who better than lawmakers to investigate a complex medical condition.
The French hospital that treated Arafat, 75, in the weeks before he died on Nov. 11 has not presented a clear picture of what killed him. His wife, Suha, refused an autopsy, and a Palestinian government committee set up months ago to investigate the circumstances of his death has not yet submitted a report.
Since Arafat's death, rumors have swirled throughout the Middle East that Arafat died from either AIDS or poisoning. Many Palestinian officials insist that Israeli agents somehow poisoned him, a charge Israel denies. Arafat's medical records, obtained recently by two Israeli journalists who shared them with The Associated Press, cast doubt on these conspiracy theories. French doctors who treated Arafat at Percy Military Hospital concluded he died of a "massive brain hemorrhage" after suffering intestinal inflammation, jaundice and a blood condition known as disseminated intravascular coagulation, or DIC.
DIC is when your body's blood clotting mechanisms are activated throughout the body instead of being localized to an area of injury. Small blood clots form throughout the body, and eventually the blood clotting factors are used up and not available to form clots at sites of real tissue injury. Clot dissolving mechanisms are also increased.
This disorder has variable effects, and can result in either clotting symptoms or, more often, bleeding. Bleeding can be severe. DIC may be stimulated by many factors. These include infection in the blood by bacteria or fungus, severe tissue injury (as in burns and head injury), cancer, reactions to blood transfusions, zionist death rays and obstetrical complications.
But the records are inconclusive about what brought about DIC, which has numerous causes ranging from infections to colitis to liver disease. The hospital's director, Dr. Jean-Paul Burlaton, refused at the time to discuss Arafat's medical records
Posted by: Steve ||
10/05/2005 14:36 ||
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Leaders of Palestinian factions including rivals Fatah and Hamas pledged on Tuesday to refrain from violence in settling Palestinian problems after a firefight between Hamas activists and Palestinian police left three dead. Farouk Kaddoumi, a leader of Fatah -- the ruling faction of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the exiled leaders of Palestinian groups agreed in Damascus that dialogue should be the only way to solve their disputes. "We need to concentrate on killing Jooooos, not each other."
Listing the decisions of their meetings, Kaddoumi said the leaders agreed to "call all Palestinian powers and factions to ban the use of weapons to solve internal differences." Kaddoumi said the leaders also agreed to "refrain from all forms political and media provocations that can harm the interests of our people and their national unity."
Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal acknowledged the call, but defended his militant group's right to resist Israeli occupation and to have a role in Palestinian political life at the same time. "So long as our land is occupied it is the right of the Palestinian people and their factions to combine resistance and political activities. Resistance and its arms are directed against the occupation while political activity is part of re-arranging the Palestinian home," said Meshaal. But "we refuse any inclination toward internal feuding because our fixed national principles set Palestinian blood as a taboo," he told reporters after the meeting that also comprised less senior leaders of key factions -- the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
On Sunday, a Palestinian police commander and two civilian bystanders were killed in firefights between policemen and Hamas gunmen. Fifty people were wounded when militants tried to storm a police station shortly afterwards, police said. Palestinian police said Sunday's fighting began when a Gaza police patrol pulled over a carload of Hamas gunmen who were flouting a new ban on the public display of weapons agreed to by political leaders of the various militant factions.
Hamas has said the militants fought police on Sunday "solely in self-defense" and they also acted to protect homes of Hamas political leaders that came under gunfire from policemen. "We are in dire need to fortify our national unity and solve any differences through dialogue and dialogue alone," said Meshaal, who blamed unspecified foreign interventions for the tensions between factions.
Palestinian policemen stormed into Gaza's parliament building on Monday to demand a crackdown on militants, and deputies called on Abbas to sack the cabinet for failing to stamp out chaos in the streets. The two challenges highlighted Abbas's uphill struggle to impose law and order in the Gaza Strip to make it the proving ground of a future Palestinian state after Israel's withdrawal of settlers and soldiers completed last month. I'd be satisfied with a Final Solution to the Paleos. I don't don't care if any live any more.
Here in the world's largest Muslim country a war of ideas within Islam is playing out on an unlikely stage: a bohemian arts community in a crowded Jakarta side street. The patrons of the Utan Kayu Theater, including some of Indonesia's leading novelists and writers, normally gather to discuss such topics as avant-garde art or prewar Russian cinema.
But in recent weeks, a fierce debate over how Muslims should be allowed to worship, marry, and even think has caught the theater in its crossfire. Hard-line Muslim groups have been threatening to evict the Liberal Islam Network, a small group of intellectuals known as JIL, from their offices in the theater complex by the beginning of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan - Wednesday.
The struggle, observers say, is not only over how to interpret Islam's 1,400-year-old holy book, the Koran, but what role it will play in Indonesia's future. The tensions are driving a rising confrontation between liberals and an alliance of conservative and radical groups.
JIL's crime, according to the white-robed vigilante group the Islamic Defenders Front, is spreading liberal ideas about Islam. "The intellectual fight has turned physical," says Nong Darol Mahmada, a female JIL member, telling of death threats by telephone. "The hard-line conservatives are getting more powerful."
The Islamic Defenders, famous for attacking cafes with samurai swords, have also tried to recruit nearby poor residents to help evict JIL and its supporters, including a radio station and media think tank. JIL is preparing lawyers, and plans to seek protection from the courts.
The threats from the Islamic Defenders follow a series of fatwas, or religious edicts, from Indonesia's powerful Islamic scholar's council, the MUI. On July 29, the council issued fatwas condemning "liberalism, secularism, and pluralism." The 11 fatwas, read to a meeting of 400 Islamic scholars from across the country, also condemn inter-faith prayers and marriages between religions.
Growing power of conservative IslamJIL activists say that fatwas mark the growing power of ultra-conservative Islam, a movement that unites both elected politicians and street vigilantes. Supporters of the fatwas say they are following their duty to protect Islam from the threat of globalization and Western ideas. "The liberals think everything is open to interpretation," said Ma'ruf Amin, head of the MUI's fatwa commission, "and that clashes with Islamic teachings."
Syafi'i Ma'arif, former chairman of Indonesia's second largest Muslim organization, the 30-million strong Muhammadiyah, warned reporters that: "the fatwas will embolden hard-line, power-hungry groups." Since July 29 an alliance of Muslim vigilante groups, the Anti-Apostasy Movement, has stepped up a campaign to get rid of informal prayer groups and churches, causing a total of 23 to close within a year.
Mobs have also attacked the houses and mosques of the 200-member Ahmadiyah, a Muslim sect, declared by the fatwas to be "deviant," because they recognize their founder to be Islam's last prophet instead of Muhammad. In an interview, the MUI's Mr. Ma'ruf tut-tuts over the closures, condemning violence, but noting that "the churches didn't have permits."
Since its arrival from the Middle East in the 11th century, Islam has nestled alongside older Hindu, Buddhist, and animist practices. Only a tiny, violent fringe openly supports terrorist attacks such as last weekend's suicide attack in Bali that left at least 26 dead and 100 hundred injured.
Most of Indonesia's 193 million Muslims - 88 percent of the population - practice a moderate form of Islam. Muslim Indonesians often give their children Hindu names, and religious minorities such as Christians are protected under the constitution.
JIL's founders say the group was formed in 2001 to protect this spirit of tolerance through its activism, radio broadcasts, and newspaper articles. "We just want to be able to discuss religion in the same way you can discuss art or politics," says JIL coordinator Hamid Basyaib.
JIL's mission statement says the group believes in ijtihad, or the application of reason to interpreting Islamic texts. The use of ijtihad, Mr. Hamid says, has led its members away from a literal interpretation of the Koran and toward support for the separation of mosque and state.
The group has also offended conservatives by arguing that truth is relative and that other religious faiths are equal to Islam. Even worse, say hardliners, is JIL's support for the "freedom of belief," including the right not to be religious.
Mr. Hamid also rejects criticism that liberal Islam is an American import, claiming the group draws on an ancient tradition of Islamic scholarship stretching to thinkers in the 14th century.
JIL part of wider liberal networkMr. Ma'ruf says that JIL is just part of a much wider network that includes several major state universities. He also warns liberalism has gained ground in the world's two largest Muslim organizations, the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and the 30-million strong Muhammadiyah. "Some things, some passages, [in the Koran], are beyond question," he says from NU's headquarters. "It is heretical to question the literal word of God," he says.
But JIL activist Abdul Moqsith Ghazali claims the NU and the Muhammadiyah are showing signs of shifting in a conservative direction, pointing to the influx of students who graduated from Middle Eastern universities in the 1980s.
Senior members of both organizations supported the July 28 fatwas. "There's a rising tide of Islamic conservatism [in Indonesia]" says Greg Barton, an associate professor at Australia's Deakin University and scholar of Indonesian Islam.
"These people have been working for over a decade and only now are beginning to see the fruits of their labors," says Mr. Barton.
Back at the Utan Kayu Theater, Ms. Nong breathes a sigh of relief, after promises from nearby community leaders to support JIL. The group, along with the radio station, is safe for the time being. "We've won in this neighborhood," she says. "But the war of ideas will continue."
Posted by: Steve ||
10/05/2005 12:36 ||
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#1
"the war of ideas will continue." And if the jihadis win, there's the 3 Conjectures waiting down the line.
Posted by: jolly roger ||
10/05/2005 18:51 Comments ||
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TEHERAN - Iran said on Tuesday it was willing to resume unconditional talks with the European Union over its nuclear programme, which Washington says is a cover to make atomic bombs. âIran has no problem with resuming talks. But it will not accept conditional talks under pressure,â Asefi told a weekly news conference.
Oh. Those kind of unconditional talks.
The European Union has said it was up to Iran to suspend conversion again and cooperate fully with the IAEA for talks to resume.
Asefi said his country needed to see Europeâs goodwill, demanding more practical and meaningful steps from the EU. âInstead of sending mixed signals, the EU should practically show it is interested in talks,â he said.
Today's chuckle: an Iranian talking about goodwill.
Ali Larijani, secretary-general of the Supreme National Security Council, said on Monday Tehran would review its membership of the Non-Proliferation Treaty if its case was reported to the council.
Hardline parliamentarian Mehdi Kouchakzadeh said on Tuesday talks with the Europeans were a âwaste of timeâ.
He must read Rantburg.
âIranian officials should not wait for the EUâs shallow promises any more,â he told the official IRNA news agency. âWe should also start uranium enrichment in Natanz and think about ending snap (UN) inspections.â
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
How many times a day does Israels little satelite pass over and rephotograph their targets?
#2
A Russian minister has already effectively affirmed that North Korea already has nukes plus possesses the ability and skill to deve its own - read, USA STAY OUT OF [COMMUNIST]ASIA; while also cannot confirm or deny that Iran has the same ability, although he believes Iran is not ready yet, or as ready as North Korea. Prob the best, most realistic/pragmatic way to interprete these remarks and their implications > the Russians desire to see Dubya and the US's volunteer army get bogged down in US-specific "quagmire" in Iran, i.e. another PC-incorrect "War for Oil" due to MSM-verified "imperfect" US INTEL, while protracted US-China "Life-or-Death" mortal struggle in East Asia. In this way the Commies get the USA to eliminate their SpetzIslamist proxies while still putting US sovereignty, and "victory" in the WOT at risk. Nothing will make US Lefties happier than mushroom clouds over US cities and overseas = Fascist Socialism has "failed" and proves itself NOT the best form of SOCIALISM FOR AMERIKA!?
#5
The last thing we want is some neo-con from the Shrub administration dealing with Iran. I recommend that you contact my good friend Sir Michael P. Jagger, who is more than willing to offer practical advice towards preserving what is left of the shattered peace of our time.
Posted by: E. John ||
10/05/2005 10:22 Comments ||
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Just six weeks before last Saturday's terrorist atrocity in Bali, in a jail cell in Jakarta, I interviewed Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), al-Qa'eda's main ally in the region, and the group on which western attention is focused in the hunt for culprits.
Bashir was celebrating the news that an Indonesian court had agreed to reduce his 30-month sentence for conspiracy in the 2002 Bali bombings by more than four months, meaning that he will soon walk free.
Ever since the first bombings, in which 202 people died, Indonesian authorities have been woolly in their response to terrorism for fear of alienating a largely anti-American population. Nothing illustrates this better than the appeal court's judgment on Bashir's early release - they took the decision even though he was implicated in a JI plot to overthrow Indonesia's previous government, and despite independent testimony from senior JI operatives in custody that he had approved the 2002 bombings.
At 66, Bashir is a lanky, bespectacled Hadrami, who, like Osama Bin Laden, traces his family back to the Hadramawt region of Yemen. Surrounded by acolytes - including known JI bombers - serving him dates, he answered questions with a strong voice and easy laugh.
Scott Atran: What are the conditions for Islam to be strong?
Abu Bakar Bashir: The infidel country must be visited and spied upon. If we don't come to them, they will persecute Islam. They will prevent non-Muslims converting.
SA: What can the West, especially the US, do to make the world more peaceful?
ABB: They have to stop fighting Islam. That's impossible because it is sunnatullah [destiny, a law of nature], as Allah has said in the Koran. If they want to have peace, they have to accept to be governed by Islam.
SA: What if they persist?
ABB: We'll keep fighting them and they'll lose. The batil [falsehood] will lose sooner or later. I sent a letter to Bush. I said that you'll lose and there is no point for you [to fight us]. This [concept] is found in the Koran.
SA: Have you met Osama Bin Laden?
ABB: No, no. I want to though. After my release, I hope I can meet him.
SA: Where will you find him?
ABB: If he still exists - but how could I? I have sympathy for his struggle. Osama is Allah's soldier. When I heard his story, I came to the conclusion that he's mujahid, a soldier of Allah.
SA: You will always be on his side?
ABB: His tactics and calculations may sometimes be wrong, he's an ordinary human being after all. I don't agree with all of his actions. Osama believes in total war. This concept I don't agree with. If this occurs in an Islamic country, the fitnah [discord] will be felt by Muslims. But to attack them in their country [America] is fine.
SA: So this fight will never end?
ABB: Never. This fight is compulsory. Muslims who don't hate America sin. What I mean by America is George Bush's regime. There is no iman [belief] if one doesn't hate America.
SA: How can the American regime and its policies change?
ABB: We'll see. As long as there is no intention to fight us and Islam continues to grow there can be peace. This is the doctrine of Islam. Islam can't be ruled by others. Allah's law must stand above human law. There is no [example] of Islam and infidels, the right and the wrong, living together in peace.
Posted by: ed ||
10/05/2005 19:52 ||
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Ken Potts calls himself a patriot. That's what his front yard tells you too. Metal American flags are staked in the ivy beside the driveway. A red, white, and blue pinwheel spins near the front sidewalk. One flagpole flies the American flag. A second flagpole carries the banner of the Army's 101st Airborne.
Even his mailbox on North 185th Street in Shoreline sports the image of the Airborne's screaming eagle.
But he says that in the last year the mailbox has been blown up twice with fireworks. The house has been egged. Paint has been thrown on the house too. The flags have been torn down and ripped up more than once.
And the 101st Airborne flag has had the word "murder" and a swastika written on it with a permanent marker. "It's really difficult for me to see something like this and not feel sad," Potts told us of the vandalism that started around election day last year. Especially, he says, since the 101st led the charge in World War II to defeat Nazi Germany.
But the biggest insult to this house with a permanent Bush-Cheney placard attached to the second story and a collection of mostly Republican election signs in the side yard, is the spray paint someone left on his vinyl siding this past weekend. In two-foot tall letters on the side of his house facing Meridian someone painted "Bush Nazis." "Where do they get off calling the President of the United States a Nazi," he said.
This former soldier with three tours of Vietnam says he feels like his own freedom of speech is under attack. "When you have someone or a group of people who want to take that away from you, who probably didn't do a thing to defend them in the first place, it's really sad."
But to fight back he always puts new flags back on those front yard flagpoles. He installed a security camera that keeps watch over his front yard. And for his own political jab he put an electronic readerboard in a front window. 24 hours a day it says: "Liberalism - is a mental disorder." "I want to make sure that they know I can't be pushed around."
And he says he'll leave the spray painted "Bush Nazis" on the side of his house for a while to show people on this busy corner what tolerance "doesn't" look like. He also says he's turned the other cheek and doesn't want prosecution or revenge. He says he'd like to meet the vandal or vandals and have a friendly American debate instead. "If we want to have disagreements in this country there's ways to have disagreements and there's ways to have a dialogue. If you've got a problem with me come up and talk about it. We may not even agree but we can agree to disagree."
#1
Ken,
Good luck on having an educated debate w/ these MOONBATs!! They have NO idea what freedom costs!!This is what some liberal(peice of sh&%)professer has been drilling into their heads until they actually beleive it. You've stated it correctly LIBERALISM IS A MENTAL DISORDER!!!!!
#2
"He says he'd like to meet the vandal or vandals." Oh and I would too! Only I doubt there would be much conversation on their part. It's a little hard to talk when youâre unconscious. Please of please let law enforcement catch these assholes and expose them to the whole country. But then what would some expect from Washington State, hell they have a statue of Lenin! Everyone in Europe tore them down, but Seattle put one up? Sad state of affairs. Five bucks to the tip jar says that they are caught within the week. Because Liberalism is a mental disorder and the perps probably don't watch the news.
The desire to force people to work for things that they do not freely choose to by forcibly extorting a percentage of their earnings i.e. their time; is exactly analogous to owning slaves.
#4
He is having exactly the wrong kind of reaction, teh one who led to moonbats dominating in the propaganda war. It is US who should be plastering the houses of Vietnam activists with paintings of "Genocider!" and with photos of mass graves in Cambodia alonside with "Your Work". It is the people who marched agsint the war who should have their cars and houses defaced with paintings like "I marched for genocide". We should stop apologizing and reamaining on the defensive as this guy is doing.
#5
He should apply some of his training. Plan and set an ambush carefully with sufficient assets on call for contingencies. Keep it documented from start to finish. Wait patiently for the moment. Let nobody escape. Call the 5-O's when the area's secured and the documentation is ok'd. Trace the perps' links. If you find organizational structures follow up promptly. Let the 5-O's know and retain a trial lawyer on contingency to skin the guilty in civil court and the media.
#7
A swastika painted on a mans house for flying the American and 101st Airborne flags. Where is Jesse Jackson and the rest of the self proclaimed civil rights leaders. It's safe to assume the plight of white republicans don't elicit the same outrage. A simmilar thing happened in my home town to a man for displaying a large Bush/Cheney yard sign. Repeated vandalism to prperty and swastikas painted on his house. Not much outrage. In fact, the local fishwrap went as far as to write an op/ed saying he had it comming because he lived on a busy street and the sheer size of his signs were enough to incite vandalism.
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) - Turkish intelligence agents are infiltrating mosques, monitoring underground Web sites and investigating Islamic front charities but are having little success penetrating al-Qaida's tight-knit cells, agents and anti-terror police say.
It is a common frustration around the world, with police in Italy, Britain and dozens of other countries finding it difficult to penetrate al-Qaida, a loosely knit terrorist organization where family ties and close personal relationships are often key.
We've commented on that here often. The inner circle seems to always be related by marrige or blood ties. Outsiders rarely get beyond cannon fodder level.
The Indonesian government's inability to prevent Saturday's suicide bombings on the island of Bali - three years after a similar attack on the tourist haven and a month after the president strongly warned of the possibility of upcoming attacks - is the latest example of the elusiveness of Islamic terrorist groups and the need for better intelligence.
Turkey's recent arrest of Louia Sakka, a Syrian accused of planning to ram a boatload of explosives into a ship carrying Israeli tourists to southern Turkey, illustrates the challenges. Sakka slipped into Turkey with a fake passport two years ago and was detained, but police said they did not realize he was an al-Qaida operative and deported him to Syria. He returned to Turkey and was caught in August only after an accidental explosion in the safe house he was using led neighbors to complain to police about a strange smell coming from the burning building. Police discovered more than 1,320 pounds of bomb ingredients in the house and later uncovered Sakka's alleged plot.
To gather information on al-Qaida-linked groups, police here and in other countries have been trying to use Muslim informants to penetrate cells, but police are having trouble recruiting people who can infiltrate al-Qaida, which has links often forged on battlefields in Chechnya, Bosnia and Afghanistan - and now Iraq.
"Al-Qaida is held together by bonds of friendship, kinship and discipleship," said Nick Pratt of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies based in Germany.
Paul Beaver, a British defense and security expert, said it took years for Britain to penetrate IRA cells, and infiltrating al-Qaida is "a more demanding job. There has been some success, but not enough, as the July 7 attacks in London showed." The London bombing on July 7, which left 52 dead from four suicide blasts on subways and a bus, was carried out by a homegrown al-Qaida-inspired cell led by a Pakistani-born Briton.
In Bali, no one claimed responsibility for the suicide attacks that killed at least 22 people, but suspicion fell on the al-Qaida-linked regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah, which has also been blamed for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists.
Turkey has an advantage in investigating Islamic groups - with a 100 percent Muslim police force, as religious minorities are not accepted - but that has failed to translate into big gains. One Turkish intelligence agent said it might be possible to infiltrate al-Qaida sympathizers or supporters, but it's far more difficult to penetrate an operational cell discreetly planning and carrying out attacks, because the structure is built on a "lack of trust."
Cells operate independently and each cell leader knows only the person above him in the organization, said the intelligence agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the subject.
Also, one cell leader may command several groups, the agent said. The leader will use one alias with one group and another with a different group, he said, so captured members of different cells give interrogators different names. When Turkish police showed suspects pictures of Sakka, they identified him with different names, according to a police interrogation report obtained by The Associated Press.
Harun Ilhan, one of the key al-Qaida suspects on trial for the Istanbul bombings in 2003, said they frequently changed code names.
Their Operational Security (OPSEC) is very good. Communications Security (COMSEC) has weaknesses in the area of cell phone usage and computer hard drives, but it looks like sensitive information is being passed by couriers which are harder to intercept.
Turkish authorities monitor more than 800 Turks who have fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya or Bosnia; they are also now monitoring people who have fought in Iraq, police say.
Turkish undercover police often join Friday prayers in certain mosques, trying to see who known suspects may be meeting and where they are going, said an anti-terror police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk on the record. Police also use cameras to monitor streets and airports in some major cities.
Sometimes the police make their presence obvious. During a recent Istanbul Islamic charity event to collect aid for Palestinians, some people seemed startled when a police radio began blaring under the jacket of a man attending the event. The man - clearly a plainclothes police officer - made no effort to turn off the radio, possibly to intimidate people. Police and intelligence agents also tap telephones of suspected Islamic militants and try to intercept Internet messages, but security forces are also finding that task frustrating.
"Just as it was difficult to infiltrate al-Qaida's inner circle in the real world, the chat rooms, Web sites, and computers of today's displaced network have become more challenging to observe," said Chip Ellis, coordinator of terrorism studies at the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism based in Oklahoma. "Some of these have been around for years and have closed themselves to new members and encrypted their communications," he said. "Others are constantly relocating and resurfacing." There are also legal barriers. Phone and Internet companies in the Netherlands, for example, have protested demands by the Dutch government that they store data such as Internet service provider addresses and phone calls for three years for police.
Authorities also are trying to convince militants to give up violence.
Following the 2003 truck bombings in Istanbul that killed 61, some al-Qaida-linked suspects expressed regret for their role in the killings while under interrogation, but after they returned to their prison cells, "they were seen quickly returning to their militant views," said Emin Demirel, a Turkish terrorism expert and author of a new book titled "Al-Qaida Elements in Turkey."
Posted by: Steve ||
10/05/2005 09:11 ||
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4 October 2005 -- Afghan judicial officials and rights campaigners today said the editor of a women's rights magazine has been arrested and sent to jail for allegedly publishing un-Islamic material.
Rahimullah Samandar, who chairs Afghanistan's Independent Association of Journalists, said Ali Mohaqiq Nasab was jailed on 2 October. Nasab is a religious scholar and the editor of the monthly "Haqooq-i-zan" ("Women's Rights") magazine. His detention followed a complaint filed by minority Shi'ite Muslim clerics objecting to two articles critical of the Islamic law that had been published in "Haqooq-i-zan."
Supreme Court official Mohammad Karim said the attorney-general had ordered Nasab's detention and that Muslim clerics where currently reviewing his case. One of the articles is reportedly critical of the punishment under Shari'ah, or Islamic law, of 100 lashes for those women who are found guilty of adultery. The other article reportedly argues that giving up Islam is not a crime.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:49 ||
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#1
wow 100 lashes they still do that?
Posted by: Jan ||
10/05/2005 1:40 Comments ||
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#2
Slades of taliban
Posted by: Captain America ||
10/05/2005 2:00 Comments ||
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Powerful warlords, a former Taliban commander and women's activists were among the frontrunners as vote counting drew to a close Tuesday in Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in more than 30 years.
Preliminary results will be announced starting Wednesday or Thursday and in phases, in the event of unrest, officials said. Losing candidates are expected to bombard election authorities with complaints and accusations of cheating. Final certified results are due Oct. 22.
The election Web site, which charts progress in the count, shows that in most provinces, the top-ranking candidates for the 249 Wolesi Jirga, or National Assembly, are warlords or leaders of mujahedeen factions, many of them active in the anti-Soviet resistance of the 1980s and the ruinous 1992-96 civil war that followed.
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a former guerrilla leader and arch conservative suspected of having had links with al-Qaida is set to win a seat in Kabul. Hazrat Ali, a former provincial police chief accused of ties to illegal armed groups is leading in eastern Nangahar province. He and his militia were used by U.S. forces to hunt Taliban and al-Qaida.
But there are also plenty of new faces. Among the expected winners is 27-year-old Malalai Joya, a women's rights worker, who rose to prominence for daring to denounce powerful warlords at a post-Taliban constitutional convention two years ago. Women candidates are reserved a quarter of all seats.
Three former Taliban government ministers - including the minister of vice and virtue who imposed harsh Islamic restrictions on women during its rule - appear to have failed resoundingly at the ballot box, so far winning only a few hundred votes each. Yet in insurgency-plagued Zabul province, a former Taliban military commander, Abdul Salaam Rocketi, is leading. He battled against the U.S.-led ouster of the hardline militia, but has since denounced the rebels. He earned his last name for his skill in firing rockets.
In the capital, the two chief rivals to Karzai in last year's presidential election - ethnic Hazara leader Mohammed Mohaqeq and Younus Qanooni from the Northern Alliance - are leading.
It remains to be seen if they can marshal broader support within parliament to become an effective check on Karzai's dominance in Afghanistan's highly centralized political system.
Posted by: Steve White ||
10/05/2005 00:07 ||
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#1
Abdul Salaam Rocketi,...earned his last name for his skill in firing rockets.
And the chief executioner in Saudi Arabia is known as Abdul Mohammed Abdul Beheadi?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Talks between Iranian and Saudi Arabian officials have reportedly been postponed, days after the Saudis voiced concern about Iran's influence in Iraq. Saudi officials said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has abandoned his plans to visit Riyadh. Mr Mottaki has visited Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman as part of a tour of the Gulf. Saudi Arabia recently voiced disquiet over the ascendancy of Shias and the prospect of sectarian war in Iraq, which it borders, along with Iran. 
British prison officers who wore a St. George's Cross tie-pin have been ticked off by the jails watchdog over concerns about the symbol's racist connotations. The pins showing the English flag -- which has often raised hackles due to its connection with the Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries -- could be "misconstrued," Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said in a section on race in a report on a jail in the northern English city of Wakefield. The banner of St. George, the red cross of a martyr on a white background, was adopted for the uniform of English soldiers during the military expeditions by European powers to recapture the Holy Land from Muslims, and later became the national flag of England. A section on race relations in Owers' report said: "We were concerned to see a number of staff wearing a flag of St. George tie-pin. While we were told that these had been bought in support of a cancer charity there was clear scope for misinterpretation, and Prison Service Orders made clear that unauthorized badges and pins should not be worn." As one of her formal recommendations Owers said: "Staff should not wear unauthorized badges or pins." Chris Doyle, director of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, said Tuesday the red cross was an insensitive reminder of the Crusades. "A lot of Muslims and Arabs view the Crusades as a bloody episode in our history," he told CNN. "They see those campaigns as Christendom launching a brutal holy war against Islam. Muslim or Arab prisoners could take umbrage if staff wore a red cross badge. It's also got associations with the far-right. Prison officers should be seen to be neutral." 
Pyongyang, October 4 (KCNA) -- Hugo Chavez Frias, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, expressed support and solidarity with the heroic struggle of the Korean people to defend independent dignity and stressed the need to develop the relations of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between Venezuela and the DPRK in all the fields including politics and economy. He met and had a friendly conversation with the DPRK delegation headed by Yang Hyong Sop, vice-president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, on a visit to Venezuela at the Presidential Palace on Oct. 2. On hand were the members of the DPRK delegation and the Venezuelan foreign minister, the minister of Science and Technology and the director of the Department of External Relations of the Presidential Office. 
Switzerland's 3 October decision to extradite former Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgenii Adamov to the United States was not unexpected. However, it has unleashed a firestorm in Russian political circles and the media, threatening to become a major issue in U.S.-Russian relations for some time to come.
[October 2 2005] at 2000 UTC at Chittagong anchorage 'B', Bangladesh. Robbers armed with long knives boarded a general cargo ship at stern. Crew raised alarm and robbers escaped with ship's stores. Coast guard informed.
The Palestinian parliament decided Wednesday to appoint a committee of lawmakers to investigate what killed longtime leader Yasser Arafat, alleging Israel involvement.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Powerful warlords, a former Taliban commander and women's activists were among the frontrunners as vote counting drew to a close Tuesday in Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in more than 30 years.
