None of the news articles I read gave the complete list of the idiotarians who voted against Rice's nomination. So, I went to the Senate's vote-record page and found out for myself. And, to save you the trouble, I post the names here.
#3
Notice that Billary voted Yea? She was in church last week using the word God at least three times in every sentence. Next month look for her to go hunting for Ducks or whatever is in season. Note to Bill: You may want to stay home.
President Mohammad Khatami, responding to comments by a senior US official that Iran tops the list of world trouble spots, said yesterday the United States was the country which most endangered global peace. Tensions between Tehran and Washington, which broke diplomatic ties in 1980,
And the reason was...? Think back, now...
have heightened in recent days as US officials have taken an increasingly tough line on the Islamic state. "You look around the world at potential trouble spots, Iran is right at the top of the list," US Vice President Dick Cheney said last week on the day George W. Bush was sworn in for a second four-year term as president. Khatami, speaking to reporters after a meeting with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, responded in kind. "We say that America is at the top of the list of countries which are endangering world peace and security and we hope that one day they come to their senses," he said, adding he thought a change in US policy was very unlikely. Iranian officials have been quick to stress that Tehran would respond vigorously to any military attack by the United States or Israel, which Cheney said may decide to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
9:38:44 PM ||
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Tehran would respond vigorously to any military attack by the United States or Israel
as in: panicked scattering in all directions for cover
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/26/2005 21:44
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Right on Frank...The US need not have to invade per se in order to accomplish it's primary objectives of neutralizing the nuclear threat. I would recommend to the President: No boots on the ground (other than CIA, special forces, and or mercenaries)! Hit the 300+ targets, both known and suspected in a first stage wave; wait for reaction and prepare for the second demoralizing hit. Take them back atleast 22 years!
#3
No boots on the ground
See that's the problem, smn. There are "boots" on the ground-our GI's and coalition forces in Iraq. This has been discussed quite a bit on other threads. The problem is that Iranians would rush the Iraqi border and call their Shiite cousins to arms. One of the top contenders in the Iraq election is a Shiite cleric called Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution. He's a pal of head honcho Shiite cleric, Sistani. Hakim lived in exile for many years in Tehran like other Iraqi clerics did when Saddam the Terrible was in power.
Hakim made some odd comments recently about looking to Iran for suggestions about security issues in Iran, so it may not be so far fetched for Iran to think they have some sympathies in the Iraqi political community: In comments certain to raise eyebrows in the United States, al-Hakim spoke of a role for Iran and Syria â both regarded in Washington as enemies in the war on terror â along with Iraqâs other neighbours, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait, in the security of the country.
âThese countries have past experiences and good security forces and with good relations we can solve this problem together,â he said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1452397,00.html
This situation is very tricky. The US needs to tread carefully.
#4
Now wait a minute, let's be cognizant of the circumstances underway:
1. There IS IRG (Iranian Republic Guards) in Iraq. So, when (not if) the US takes action against Iran, there would be an uprising in Iraq. That is why we must accelerate the military training of Iraqis, who are best equipped to identify friend from foe.
2. SF is the tool of choice in Iran (and Syria for that matter), only SF can ID the numerous targets, paint them for targeted missle attacks.
3. Attacking Iran will unleash a much wider theatre of attack, perhaps beyond the ME region. It will also make overt the insidious relationship between al Qaeda and Iranian groups like Hezzbolah and Hamas.
4. Like with Iraq, Iran has had years to prepare for the inevitable. They are deploying a worldwide counter US strategy, while stroking the EU-3 for all its worth.
There is a red line, folks, a point at which action is required. Moves and counter-moves are well underway, they are just not obvious.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/27/2005 9:04
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"Right on Frank...The US need not have to invade per se in order to accomplish it's primary objectives of neutralizing the nuclear threat. I would recommend to the President: No boots on the ground (other than CIA, special forces, and or mercenaries)! Hit the 300+ targets, both known and suspected in a first stage wave; wait for reaction and prepare for the second demoralizing hit. Take them back atleast 22 years!"
An added benefit, it'll remaind the Iraquis who is who, and what is what.
#6
What I mean by no boots on the ground 2xstandard #3, is that without the nation building option on the table as a hindrance, the US could concentrate on unfiltereddestruction of the enemy! A filtered war (using surgical precision) will only inflame the Iranian street (such as what has happened in Iraq) as nationalism take root! Take Japan for instance; the Emperor never would have surrendered if the targeted sights of "Fatman" and "Littleboy" were isolated but totally military encampments. The horror of war is what prevents or stops it!
#7
IMHO the "Iranians rush the border scenario" is absurd. A decapitating or disabling strike would cause havoc among the IRG and mullarchy. They barely control the populace now. Rushing our troops and arms would be like condensing the Iranians'8 yr Iranian-Iraq war casualties into a week-long carnage. They have no chance to counterattack, and we don't want to invade. Destabilize and arm the opposition/population for regime change. Why would the war spread beyong Hezbollah firing (briefly) into Israel? Think Israel wouldn't annihilate them? Syria gonna attack? who?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 10:44
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#8
For Khatami, "world peace" == current status quo, where Iran and its agents spread their poison around unopposed.
It seems the mullahs' current comfy position is being threatened, and they don't like it. Well that's just too damn bad.
#9
Frank, frank, frank, how many times do I have to tell ya....
Hezbollah and Hamas have a global reach far beyond an attack on Israel. Shit, they are even in Latin America. Iran's counter punch is asymetric warfare, using H & H and AQ. They've been planning counter measures for years.
There are by some estimates over 2,500 IRG in Iraq, including some senior folks. They are primarly in southern regions and Sadr is a huge backer.
Baby Asshat does not control his daddy's country, they do have WMD, and pose problems. It is no surprise that a mutual defence (and more) alliance has been struck with Iran.
US action on Iran is imminent. You can bet that plans have been developed to counter the above-mentioned potentialities.
Posted by: Kofi Annan ||
01/27/2005 15:02
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#10
ok "Kofi" lol. I also hope US action is imminent, harsh, and successful. I'm still not over the '79 embassy hostages. I think Iran's minions will have their hands full enough to worry about the MM's demise
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 15:12
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I never underestimate the capabilities of the calculating Chinese...
January 27, 2005: Department of Defense intelligence analysts are having a hard time figuring out when China thinks it will be ready to make a grab for Taiwan. The recent surge in the construction of short range amphibious ships, and constant movement of more ballistic missiles to within range of Taiwan, indicate something may happen sooner rather than later. Taiwan is only 300 kilometers from China. There are about 600 DF-15 missiles (with a range of 600 kilometers) aimed at Taiwan now, and by next year, there may be 800. Moreover, it is suspected that these missiles, and their half ton warheads, are being equipped with precise GPS navigation systems. Such systems could cripple Taiwan's air force and air defenses. China has been training its marines and army troops for amphibious operations. Because of all this, it is believed that China would be ready to make a run at Taiwan by 2010. By then they would have several hundred modern warplanes, dozens of destroyers and submarines, bombers equipped with anti-ship missiles and a long standing declaration that they would regain control of Taiwan one way or the other.
But other analysts point out that China has always done poorly in the early stages of a war, and that their program to create a large force of professional troops, and modern equipment, will take longer. Only small portions of the Chinese armed forces are getting trained and equipped to Western standards. Over 90 percent of the Chinese military are beset by decades old equipment designs and corrupt or incompetent leaders. Only with highly trained and well equipped troops, would they have a chance against Taiwanese and American forces. To produce a large force like this would take another ten or twenty years, at least. In the meantime, the Taiwanese have noted the Chinese preparations, and have suddenly for modernization fever. Until recently, Taiwanese legislators were keen to cut their defense budget. No more.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
9:26:35 AM ||
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What happens after the ChiComs take Taiwan? Then they won't have that issue to blame for their governmental shortcomings?
#2
More like, what happens when they are repelled into the sea? They'd be crazy to threaten a nuke exchange w/us. Within 20 yrs we may have a fully functioning anti-missile defense sheild. If they were to somehow take Taiwan I believe it would be a very pyric victory.
#3
glen - theyd ride for a long time on the glory from the military win. Theyd let the next gen of chicoms worry about legitimacy with the Taiwan issue gone. I mean when youre a system fundamentally in decline, why worry about the long term if you can buy 10 or 15 years?
JH - I cant see the US threatening a nuke exchange over Taiwan.
Ive always assumed theyd be repelled, and that a blockade against Taiwan would be the optimal strategy. Amphib makes sense if they think they have to win fast, before a US counterblockade begins to hurt. Still pretty hard to pull off, I think, even with them finally getting some amphib capability - and of course theres a lot more to amphib capability than just getting the boats, right JH? Not too many modern militaries have managed an opposed amphib landing - its not easy, IIUC.
I suspect building up capabilities is more important as part of the dance of threats with Taiwan. I mean if its 90% sure the Chicoms will fail, and youre a Taiwan leader, do you really take the chance they'll succeed for some symbolic jesture towards independence?
#4
LH, the U.S. wouldn't be threatening the exchange, the article states the Chinese would be initiating that threat. My contention is such a threat might be moot in 20 yrs due to our advancing technology. Or, are they really willing to threaten the exchange w/us over Taiwan either way?
Your right wrt amphib capability, boats is not enough. Amphib planning is the most tedious thing (according to many of our pubs) a modern mil can undertake. The USMC has some great books on amphib planning that the hard core buff may like but pretty dry for anyone else. The biggest problem imho is coordination of fires, maneuver, air assets that can give you vertical envelopment capabilities, and follow on logistics. Decent weather also helps. If they were planning an invasion of Taiwan we'd pick up on their troop movements and massings pretty quick. Not sure we'd cut them off in the straits but we could get there quicker then they'd like. Plus, whose to say that in 20yrs the chinese political/economic/socio situation may have changed and this is no longer a viable goal for them.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/27/2005 14:30
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#7
Davis, so right. Moreover, the $200M Chinese investment in Europe's GPS project, >"US Could Shoot Down Euro GPS Satellites If Used By China In Wartime: Report."
Posted by: Duke Nukem ||
01/27/2005 15:11
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#11
300km is not like crossing the English Channel on D-Day. Conventional amphibious troop carriers would take a day or more, they would be sitting ducks. Night vision and radar makes this a 24hr sitting duckfest. As the saying goes, you cannot get there from here.
Posted by: john ||
01/27/2005 18:57
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An Afghan soldier fired on fellow troops Thursday, killing five and wounding six, before he was shot and killed by other Afghan soldiers, the U.S. military said. Elsewhere, Afghan police killed a Taliban commander and captured his deputy in a shootout. The motive for the soldier's shooting spree was unclear. It took place inside a coalition base in southern Helmand province early Thursday. "The soldier who initiated the shooting was returning from guard duty at the time of the incident and, currently, no information is available as to his motives," a statement issued by the U.S. military said. The wounded were evacuated to the main American base in southern Afghanistan at Kandahar for treatment. The statement said five Afghan National Army soldiers were killed and six wounded before other soldiers shot the attacker. "No evidence indicates this attack was conducted by any anti-coalition militia forces," it added. A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry confirmed the incident and said officials were traveling their to investigate.
Maybe he was just having a bad day?
Coalition forces often operate alongside the U.S.-trained Afghan army, which currently has 18,000 soldiers. It plans to recruit and train 70,000. The captured Taliban commander, Mullah Mohammed Ullah, and his deputy Mullah Mohammed Ghafar were cornered as they traveled by motorbike in a village in Musa Qala district of Helmand province on Wednesday, an official said. They opened fire when police tried to stop and arrest them, sparking a shootout in which Ullah and one policeman were killed and three other officers wounded, said Mohammed Wali, spokesman for the provincial governor. Ghafar was wounded. Wali said that the two men were Taliban leaders in Musa Qala, and had led an attack on the district chief's office last year that left at least four Afghan soldiers dead.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
9:09:20 AM ||
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Wow--I'm impressed by the Quisling stamp! That's got to be 50's vintage--not much support for capital punishment nor much disgust with those who support murderous tyrants can be found in Norway (or most of Europe for that matter) any more.
Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005 16:12
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#2
Actually, after further reflection, he looks like the guy on "Scooby Doo" who always gets busted at the end and mutters, "And I'd have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddlesome kids!"
Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005 16:34
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ROME, Jan. 27 (UPI) -- Italian police are searching for a serial bomber responsible for planting tiny charges inside children's candy, The Independent said Thursday. The most recent incident by the person Italian media has dubbed the "Unabomber" struck Wednesday in the town of Treviso, where schoolchildren found a Kinder Surprise sitting on a low wall. The chocolate covering had been removed, and the children were kicking the yellow plastic egg-shaped toy around when it exploded. There were no injuries and police found a second similar device nearby.
Bet he was hoping they would try to open it to get the little toy inside. I know my Kinder Eggs.
The first of the serial attacks came in August 1994, when a pipe-bomb exploded at a country fair. Then in 2000 the tactics changed, when tiny bombs began turning up in supermarket products, such as a tube of tomato puree, mayonnaise, a candle and sandwich spread. No one has been killed in the spree, although several people have been maimed, including one woman who lost an arm.
Bastard
The Italian media named the bomber after Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, the murderous U.S. mail bomber who was tracked down after a 17-year hunt and is serving four life sentences.
Find him, shove one of his little "surprises" up his butt, then kick him around the schoolyard for awhile
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
9:01:41 AM ||
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ONLY a skunk smells his/her own hole. To pray on children is unwarrented, uncalled for. Unabomber is an appropriate name- but why pray on children?? The individual at large will get caught...the sooner the better.
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/27/2005 11:15
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I (heart) Kinder Eggs. Fie on a-holes that mess with 'em.
#4
Must have learned his trade from the Soviets during the occupation of Afghanistan. They used to put explosives in toys and drop them to the Afghan kiddies. St. Leonid, Yuri and Constantine was what the kids got to bad their religon prevents them from experiencing St. Nick.
North Korea appears to have bought a complete nuclear weapon from either Pakistan or a former Soviet Union state, a South Korean newspaper said on Thursday quoting a source in Washington.
Most likely Pakistan, they've been real cozy
Seoul Shinmun quoted the source as saying the United States was checking the intelligence. The purchase was apparently intended to avoid nuclear weapons testing that could be detected from the outside, the source was quoted as saying. North Korea is believed to have one or two nuclear weapons and possibly more than eight. U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon said after a visit to the North this month that its second-ranked leader had told his delegation that it possessed nuclear weapons. Pyongyang has declared that a nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, sealed under a 1994 agreement with the United States, had been restarted. Spent nuclear fuel from that reactor could be converted to weapons-grade material. North Korea has never officially declared that it possessed atomic weapons, speaking instead of its "nuclear deterrent." U.S. experts who visited the Yongbyon facility said spent plutonium previously stored there had been removed. North Korea is suspected of running a separate program based on uranium enrichment technology, assisted by a former top Pakistani nuclear scientist.
All together now; "Khaaaaaaannnnnnnnn!"
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
8:52:12 AM ||
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But what about ongoing maintenance? Rantburg experts have assured us that without very frequent and persnickety maintenance, the thing quickly becomes useful only as an expensive, and radioactive, paperweight.
#2
They'll bring in Syrians with hammers to test for duds, just like in Ryongchon.
Posted by: ed ||
01/27/2005 11:03
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If it is one that uses tritium then the tritium has to be changed on a schedule depending on when the tritium was first made. It degrades over time. The bomb will still explode but will not be nearly as powerful. It's called a fizzle in the bomb society.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/27/2005 11:39
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#4
or, as Ed so slyly noted? A "train accident"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 11:43
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#5
"The purchase was apparently intended to avoid nuclear weapons testing that could be detected from the outside"
Would this be to disassemble the bomb to reverse engineer a proven design? But why would they need an actual weapon instead of just the plans, which Kahn was so freely selling? Perhaps this weapon is not the Kahn design.
Posted by: DO ||
01/27/2005 12:31
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#6
Don't bug us, Americans, or you go kaboom!
Posted by: Kim Jong Hung Low ||
01/27/2005 14:44
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#7
Unfortunately tritium boosters are good for around 4-7 years (4 if booster types are of very crude design and capability). But yeah you usually don't need to change the tritium for about 7 years which is a long time.
Family that slays together, stays together SHERPUR, Jan 26:— Eight members of a family were today awarded life imprisonment for murder of a teenage boy at Hati Agla in Sadar upazila more than four years ago, reports UNB. The convicts are Abdus Salam, Alaluddin, Bahezuddin, Ahezuddin, Armanuddin, Shahin, Shoel and Suruzzaman. According to the prosecution, Abdul Mannan Alias Miskin, son of a poor peasant, used to offer love to a girl of the family. This earned him wrath of the well off family, which planned his murder. The boy was called out of his home late in the evening of August 14, 2000. He was taken to a nearby jute field and slaughtered. After lengthy hearing and examining prosecution witnesses District and Sessions Judge Ashish Ranjan Das pronounced the verdict in a crowded court.
Infamous dacoit dies in 'crossfire'
NAOGAON, Jan 26:—An infamous dacoit leader, Jamir Uddin, 38, died in a crossfire between the members of police and his accomplices here in the early hours of Wednesday.
"Crossfire" being the leading case of death for captured dacoits
Police said Jamir Uddin, an absconding being sought in four robbery cases, was one of the suspects in the triple murder that occurred very recently at a wholesale rice depot in the town. According to police, being received a secret information, a team of Naogaon Police arrested Jamir Uddin from his residence at Hajir Bagan area in Chaktakaru village under the Sadar upzila on Tuesday noon.
"You're under arrest, Jamir! We got a date in a dark alley."
When interrogated, Jamir informed the police that a 12-member armed gang is going to gather at Taratbari village of Mahadevpur upazila of the district to commit robbery in the village. As per his confession, police went to the village along with Jamir to arrest the gang members.
Been nice knowing ya, Jamir
As soon as they reached near the village, the accomplices of Jamir opened fire on them at 3 pm. The police also encountered them that resulted in a crossfire.
Just like it was planned, or something. From additional source: Police earlier nabbed bandit leader Jamiruddin alias Jamir from Hajirbagan area in Sadar upazila on Tuesday afternoon. Acting on his statement, police along with Jamir went to an abandoned house near a primary school at Taratbari at 3 am today (Wednesday) to arrest the other members of his gang.
Jamir Uddin, in handcuff, received bullets and died on the spot while trying to escape the police custody during the crossfire.
Sure. Right. Whatever you say.
Police, later, recovered a 12-bore pipe gun, one shutter gun, three rounds of bullet, four large ramdaos, two chapatis, one knife, one kirich, a box of Chrispy Cream doughnuts and two rounds of empty cartidges from the spot. The police sent Jamir's body to hospital morgue for autopsy.
"He's dead, Jim"
Terrorist held with arms in Keraniganj
KERANIGANJ, Jan 26:—Police arrested a terrorist along with a pistol from Nazirbag area of the upazila on Tuesday. The arrested was identified as Pintu Ranjan Sarker, 20, follower of infamous terrorist Siddartha Sarker, who was killed recently. Police said acting on a tip off they raided the area and arrested him in the morning adding that Pintu was wanted in a number of murder and other criminal cases. A case was filed against him under Arms Act.
"Crossfire" to be scheduled at a later date.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
8:29:35 AM ||
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received bullets and died on the spot
I love that phrase. It's... poetic.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 9:12
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Variety or a typo? Jamir was arrested at noon, not midnight, and subsequently the accomplices of Jamir opened fire on them at 3 pm.
Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division's 2nd "Commando" Brigade Combat Team prevented an apparent kidnapping of eight Iraqis Jan. 26 in western Baghdad. During a patrol in Baghdad's Khadamiyah district, the Soldiers noticed a suspicious vehicle about 8:30 p.m. They stopped the vehicle and found three Iraqis bound and gagged. They detained five suspects in possession of four pistols, an AK-47 assault rifle and a sub-machine gun outfitted with a silencer. The kidnap victims included a sheik and an administrator from the Iraqi Ministry of Oil. No shots were fired. The suspects detained are being held for further questioning.
Posted by: JackAssFestival ||
01/27/2005
8:20:36 AM ||
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Should get a roll up out of this, follow that thread to other 'nappers.
Posted by: Hillary Clinton ||
01/27/2005 8:50
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The Supreme Court of Canada has overturned the indecency conviction of a man from B.C. seen masturbating near a window in his own home.
The court acquitted Daryl Clark of Nanaimo on Thursday, ruling that his living room could not be considered a public place under the Criminal Code even though he could be partially viewed from outside.
* FROM NOV. 2, 2004: Privacy case goes to highest court
The decision is sure to be celebrated by civil rights groups, which argued the conviction eroded privacy rights.
More than four years ago, neighbours in an apartment about 30 metres from Clark's home looked through his window and saw him touching himself. They called the police.
When officers arrived, they shone a flashlight at the house and Clark jumped back from the window, turning off the lights.
In the court's judgment, it said the police officers could see Clark "from about maybe the neck or the shoulders up" when they were on the street.
A provincial court convicted him of wilfully committing an indecent act in a public place and sentenced him to four months in jail.
The province's Court of Appeal and Supreme Court upheld the conviction.
Clark's lawyer had asked the Supreme Court of Canada to reject the conviction and appeals, arguing that Clark never meant to be observed and that a living room can't be considered a public place.
Pakistan is considering a request by Afghanistan to return the aircraft used by Afghan pilots when they defected from their country's communist government in the 1980s, officials said.
The Afghan aircraft include six helicopters and eight fighter jets — four MiG-21 and four SU-22, a senior government official said late on Tuesday.
"The aircraft landed in Pakistan between 1983 and 1989 on account of defections of their pilots," he said on condition of anonymity.
He said the aircraft are parked at various air force bases in Pakistan. He would not specify their locations.
Afghanistan — which is struggling to rebuild after a US-led coalition ousted the Taliban militia from power in late 2001 — made a request to Pakistan to hand over the planes "sometime last year", Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said.
"Pakistani authorities are looking into this question," he said. He would not elaborate.
"This is a matter that can be sorted through consultations," Khan said.
Last month, the Afghan Defence Ministry said it was seeking the return of 26 aircraft — nine helicopters, five bombers, eight fighters, two trainer jets and two transporters.
Afghan officials have said 19 of the planes are in Pakistan and seven in Uzbekistan.
It was not possible to reconcile the discrepancy in the number given by the Afghan and Pakistani officials for the sought-after planes in Pakistan.
A senior Pakistan air force official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said Monday that the Afghan planes in Pakistan were not airworthy.
He said the aircraft had developed 'flaws' while parked for two decades.
AUSTRALIAN Iraqis today expressed pride at being able to vote in their country's first democratic national elections.
Voting opened at nine polling centres in Sydney and Victoria at 7am (AEDT) today, making Australian Iraqis the first in the world to vote in the poll.
More than 11,800 Iraqis in Australia are among 280,000 expatriates across the world who are expected to vote over the next three days.
Out-of-country polling closes at 5pm (AEDT) on Sunday.
Kassim Abood, a senior adviser to the out-of-country voting program, said it had been an exciting morning.
"I think a lot of Iraqis are very proud today. People coming to me, shake (my) hand, hug me, kissing me and tell me 'congratulations', it's wonderful," he told reporters outside the Fairfield polling centre in Sydney's south-west.
Centre manager Shimon Haddad was the first to vote and said he never thought he would see this day.
"I'm proud to vote for the election. We have been looking forward to this time (for the) last 50 years actually, so it's a very exciting day for Iraq citizens," he said.
"We call Australia home now, but as Iraqi origin we are proud to participate in this election and we hope and we pray that everything goes smooth back home ... and we get a democratic Iraq."
Another Iraqi to cast his vote this morning, Hussein Khoshnov, is a Kurd who came to Australia 10 years ago.
"We are Kurds of north of Iraq and we have been suffering (for the) last 50 years through the dictatorship and we are now hoping for a really fair life for all the different (people) in Iraq.
"We have the honour to do that (to vote) and we are very proud of it and (it's) a very historic moment for many Iraqis and we hope for this election to be a success," he said.
About an hour after voting started traditional music and dancing broke out at the doors of the Fairfield polling booth, with the flags of Iraq and Australia being waved above heads and triumphant shouts of "Iraq" filling the air.
Meanwhile across the road, a small group of protesters from the World Communist Party assembled to demonstrate against the elections.
Counting of the votes will take place in Australia on Tuesday, February 1.
If this was posted already, sorry, via EU Referendum:
In early December 2004 the European Union (EU) decided "in principle" to lift the embargo on arms sales to China put in place after the Tiananmen massacre of 1989.[1] Washington is strongly opposed. But if the Europeans go ahead, then the question for the United States—and its friends and allies in Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, India, and even Australia—will be: what can the Europeans provide that China does not already have, and how would such provision affect US and allied security? To assist in answering those questions, here are two issues to consider:
#1
Any -- the French GPS tech has been covered and possibly the German stealth subs, but I don't recall seeing the nanotech stuff.
Posted by: Duke Nukem ||
01/27/2005 18:21
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Of course, all bets are off starting in July with the lifing of the ban on arms sales to China. With allies like these, who needs enemies?
Posted by: Duke Nukem ||
01/27/2005 18:24
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#3
This will affect our relationship with NATO, or what is left of it. How in good faith can we give our allies access to our stuff when they could be sending it along to the Chicoms?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 22:19
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#4
even, sad to say, the Brits
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 22:33
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#5
That is what really hurts, Frank.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 22:34
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January 27, 2005 -- THE three CBS News execs asked to resign earlier this month over the embarrassing Memogate scandal still haven't quit. Instead, they've hired lawyers. Unlike veteran producer Mary Mapes — who was fired outright for using bogus documents in a George Bush-bashing Dan Rather report on "60 Minutes" — the three were asked for their resignations. CBS is still waiting. Sources say Josh Howard, Betsy West and Mary Murphy are no longer coming into the office and could be threatening wrongful dismissal lawsuits as they negotiate severance packages. A spokesman said, "CBS refuses to comment on speculation."
BWAHAHAHAHAHA - thought this could be swept away?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005
6:01:48 PM ||
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"CBS refuses to comment on speculation."
"But we're more than happy to air it as news!"
Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005 18:36
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#2
Life imitates art. This is a riff on the cereal commercial where the simpleton eating crunchy cereal can't hear his supervisor repeatedly firing him. If CBS doesn't have the institutional discipline to have security escort these people from the premises, box up and ship their personal belongings, and bar them from reentry, it is even more pathetic than it currently appears.
#3
Too close to the UN building. 12 resolutions later....Don't hold your breath. These people will be in place. Remember for liberals its all about appearence not results. Report issued. Resignations request. That's all folks.
We may be wrong. This is a possibility that Bush refuses to acknowledge. His denial appeals to a significant segment of the American public. An equally significant segment is appalled. This has left the US not only deeply divided, but also at loggerheads with much of the rest of the world, which considers our policies high-handed and arbitrary
President George W Bush's second inaugural address set forth an ambitious vision of the role of the United States in advancing the cause of freedom worldwide, fuelling worldwide speculation over the course of American foreign policy during the next four years. The ideas expressed in Bush's speech thus deserve serious consideration.
"It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture," Bush declared, "with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
There is a bow to diplomacy in the assurance that fulfilling this mission "is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend our friends(still to be decided)> and ourselves by force of arms when necessary." Similarly, Bush recognises that outsiders cannot force liberty on people. Instead, "Freedom by its nature must be chosen and defended by citizens and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities."
Finally, there is acceptance of diversity, for "when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom and make their own way."
I agree with this goal, and have devoted the last fifteen years of my life and several billion dollars of my fortune to attaining it. Yet I find myself in sharp disagreement with the Bush administration. It is not only that there is a large gap between official words and deeds; I find that the words sometimes directly contradict the deeds in a kind of Orwellian doublespeak.
When Bush declared war on terror, he used that war to invade Iraq. When no connection with Al Qaeda could be established and no weapons of mass destruction could be found, he declared that we invaded Iraq to introduce democracy. Now the elections in Iraq are about to be converted into a civil war between a Shia-Kurd dominated government and a Sunni insurrection.
In Iraq and beyond, when Bush says that "freedom will prevail," many interpret him to mean that America will prevail. This has impugned America's motives and deprived the US of whatever moral authority the country once had to intervene in other countries' domestic affairs. If, for example, America offers support to Iranian students who are genuinely striving for greater freedom, they are now more likely to be endangered by US support, as the regime's hardliners are strengthened.
To explain what is wrong with the new Bush doctrine, I have to invoke the concept of open society. That is the concept that guides me in my efforts to foster freedom around the world. The work has been carried out through foundations operating on the ground and led by citizens who understand the limits of the possible in their countries. Occasionally, when a repressive regime expels our foundation — as happened in Belarus and Uzbekistan — we operate from the outside.
Paradoxically, the most successful open society in the world, the US, does not properly understand the first principles of an open society; indeed, its current leadership actively disavows them. The concept of open society is based on the recognition that nobody possesses the ultimate truth. To claim otherwise leads to repression. In short, we may be wrong.
That is precisely the possibility that Bush refuses to acknowledge, and his denial appeals to a significant segment of the American public. An equally significant segment is appalled. This has left the US not only deeply divided, but also at loggerheads with much of the rest of the world, which considers our policies high-handed and arbitrary.
President Bush regards his re-election as an endorsement of his policies, and feels reinforced in his distorted view of the world. The "accountability moment" has passed, he claims, and he is ready to confront tyranny throughout the world according to his own lights.
But the critical process that is at the core of an open society — which the US abandoned for eighteen months after September 11, 2001 — cannot be forsaken. That absence of self-criticism is what led America into the Iraq quagmire.
A better understanding of the concept of open society requires that promoting freedom and democracy and promoting American values and interests be distinguished. If it is freedom and democracy that are wanted, they can be fostered only by strengthening international law and international institutions.
Bush is right to assert that repressive regimes can no longer hide behind a cloak of sovereignty: what goes on inside tyrannies and failed states is of vital interest to the rest of the world. But intervention in other states' internal affairs must be legitimate. This requires clearly established rules.
As the dominant power in the world, America has a unique responsibility to provide leadership in international cooperation. America cannot do whatever it wants, as the Iraqi debacle has demonstrated; but, at the same time, nothing much can be achieved in the way of international cooperation without US leadership, or at least active participation. Only by taking these lessons to heart can progress be made towards the lofty goals that Bush announced. —
#2
I suggest Soros goes back and rereads Karl Popper on the concept of an Open Society. In summary, in an Open Society the best approximate of the truth will emerge, notwithstanding the views of any individual or group of individuals. It has nothing to do with international law and nothing to do with the motivations of individuals and nothing to do with any individual's notion of what consitutes 'progress'.
via Drudge
Description: The Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS San Francisco (SSN 711) in dry dock to assess damage sustained after running aground approximately 350 miles south of Guam Jan. 8, 2005.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005
5:07:35 PM ||
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#1
CRAP! That was a hit!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 17:08
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#2
Wow, that was close to head on. The designers. construction crews and actual crewmembers should feel proud. Thanks for not doing "good enough for government work."
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/27/2005 17:17
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#8
Well, geez, no wonder! If they took off that tarp they could see where they're going!
Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005 18:33
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#9
Sorry--I shouldn't be making light of this accident since it did claim the life of a sailor. Thank God the boat managed to survive this and bring the rest of the crew home.
Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005 18:35
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#10
reminds me of 007 returning a car to Q - slightly used...good design, and crewwork saved the ship, obviously. Crew and Capt should get commended, not slapped around, if that seamount was uncharted
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 18:36
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#11
Holy Shiite!
Damn, that crew is good.
Can you imagine a sub from any other country in the world surviving this?
Me neither.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/27/2005 19:37
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Interesting. The hit seems to be from the side and above rather than head-on or from below. She must of rolled into the impact. She is sitting on a block up front indicating the keel is intact all the way forward. She was on her way to buckling too it appears. Witness the hump where that guy is walking. That is not part of the design. I think the fore-aft green bulkhead separates the A and B side of the number 1 forward main ballast tank. And the green bulkhead oriented port-starboard separates the number 1 and 2 main ballast tanks. Separating Main Ballast Tanks into 6 forward and 6 aft tanks was a smart design choice instead of going with 2 big ones. If she had ruptured all of the forward main ballast tanks, recovery would have been more challenging than it already was. Whether she would have been able to move enough water from forward trim tanks to maintain a neutral fore-aft trim let alone positive buoyancy is an interesting question. If she could not obtain positive buoyancy, she would have had to ground herself in shallow water in order to save the crew. Also note the 2 shutter doors on the port torpedo tubes. They remain shuttered and bent with the outer hull. They did not rip off let alone peel back. The shutter door sits in front of the muzzle doors of the tubes. The shutter doors are not part of the pressure hull. The muzzle doors are part of the pressure hull if the breech doors are open for tube loading. I wonder what the muzzle doors look like. The tarp is on to hide the sonar array from view, methinks.
#13
Hmmm. Here is another thought. I wonder if the torpedo tubes themselves are bent. Since the boats always have warshots loaded when underway, I wonder if there might be a Mk-48 torpedo stuck or breeched in the tubes. That would be a challenge to get out. The torpedos use OTTO fuel which is not kind to humans.
Not to worry about the tube. As far as I know, "688 boat" tubes are located amidships. They're in that position so as not to interfere with the fully hemispherical sonar dome at the bow.
I hope any "real squids" will correct me if I'm Wrong
Posted by: Ralph ||
01/27/2005 22:26
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First thing I noticed after the frontal damage was the hump, indicating buckling. This submarine hit HARD!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 22:33
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#16
...Holy Mother of Gawd....
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
01/27/2005 22:58
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Just to put some of this open-source stuff in perspective, Ali = Hamid Reza Zakiri (both are pseudonyms) and at least one of the two senior dissidents is Choopan, whom I believe has been mentioned on Rantburg in the past.
In a rising tide of rhetoric, Vice President Dick Cheney said on Jan. 20 that if Israel decided unilaterally to attack Iran to halt its alleged covert nuclear weapons program, the Bush administration would probably be unable to halt the military action. In comments published in the Shargh newspaper, Iranian Revolutionary Guards Brig. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari replied to the threats and warned that Iran will carry out an "astonishing" retaliation in the event that the country is attacked by Israel or the United States. Jafari said, "We will counter any stupid action by Israel and its master with firmness and in an astonishing way." Jafari, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards' ground forces, said Iran now had to ability to defeat any invader in the space of just weeks, commenting, "We pushed the Baathist enemy from our country within one and a half years." He added, "With the experience and skills from that war (the 1980-1988 war with Iraq) and in the case of any invasion, the invaders will be defeated in less than one and a half months." Chief of the Revolutionary Guards Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi commented, "Even though the U.S. and Israel do not have the courage to invade the Iranian nation, the Revolutionary Guards are in very good state of readiness to response to threats. The U.S. cannot bring security to the Middle East by pushing Iran aside. And if they plan conspiracies, the Iranian nation and its leadership will stand against expansionism with firmness."
Congress has been pressing the Central Intelligence Agency to investigate claims by an Iranian defector identified only as "Ali," over his claims that Iran planned to crash an airliner into a nuclear reactor in the United States. Several members of Congress are reportedly alarmed by the intelligence and one has met with CIA senior officials to press for an investigation. The CIA has thus far refused to interrogate the Iranian, a former senior official in the 1970s. The vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Representative Curt Weldon has met with "Ali" several times in Paris over the last two years. Weldon commented that "Ali" has been accurate in predicting several important developments in the Iranian regime since February 2003, including developments in Iran's suspected nuclear weapons programs and the regime's alleged support for al-Qaida. "Ali" reportedly remains in contact with two dissidents in the inner circle of the Islamic republic who reputedly told of a secret government directive by Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who presides over the nation's strategic weapons programs while financing and controlling groups labeled terrorists by Western governments.
On Wednesday, France's domestic counter-espionage service, known as DST, arrested seven people who were allegedly trying to go to Iraq to fight coalition troops. Among those detained by the DST are two women. The militants were taken into custody following raids in a Muslim area of northern Paris. The Paris raids centered on the Addawa mosque in the city's 19th arrondisement, described as a recruitment center for Iraq. It was the first operation of its kind in France since reports surfaced in 2004 that some young French Muslims had been killed in Iraq. The names of those taken into custody were not released. The first French citizen reported killed in Iraq was 19-year-old Redouane al-Hakim. Hakim entered Iraq and was killed during a U.S. aerial bombardment of Fallujah in July. Hakim and his brothers frequently visited a radical Islamic prayer center in the Parisian suburb Levallois Perret, which French authorities investigated and closed in early 2004. Other French citizens killed in Iraq included 24-year-old Paris resident "Tarek N.," who was killed in the Sunni triangle in September and 19-year-old Abdel-Halim B., who was killed a month later. French anti-terrorist services estimated last month that up to 25 young French citizens had left to fight in Iraq. France DGSE country's foreign intelligence service reported that a young Algerian-born French citizen is in charge of a 20-man fighting group in Iraq. French anti-terrorism experts said it is too early to talk of a highly organized French recruitment network similar to that for Afghanistan, but worry that guerrillas would return home as heroes with impressive reputations high, which they could then use to recruit others. French intelligence discovered that most of those heading to the combat zone appeared to have entered Iraq from Syria.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/27/2005
4:30:47 PM ||
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More than 100 people, including prominent academics, are being held in Oman following a wave of arrests earlier this month, relatives of the detainees said Thursday.
"Several professors from the education and Islamic studies faculties of Sultan Qaboos University are among more than 100 people who were arrested on January 9," one family member confirmed.
His account was corroborated by the testimony of relatives of other detainees.
Family members said those arrested were followers of the Ibadi Muslim sect dominant in the small Gulf sultanate, not Sunni Muslims like Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his militants.
Relatives said the security forces gave no reason for the arrests but added that they came amid rumours of a plot by Islamists to sabotage the Muscat Festival, a month-long shopping and cultural event which opened last Friday.
Security forces had intercepted an arms shipment from neighbouring Yemen, bin Laden's ancestral homeland where US special forces have been operating against Sunni militants since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, family members said.
But they strongly denied any link between their detained relatives and the arms shipment or Al-Qaeda.
"We were astonished by father's arrest in his Muscat home at dawn on January 9," said Taleb al-Abri, son of Islamic studies professor Ali bin Hilal al-Abri.
Taleb acknowledged that, like many Muslims, his father oppsed the US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq but insisted his father had no connection to terrorist activity and no connection to Al-Qaeda.
He said police had seized six computers as well as cameras from family homes in Muscat and in the Al-Hamra region southeast of the capital.
The Saudi-owned daily Al-Hayat reported Wednesday that some 300 suspects, including "military officials", had been detained in a wave of arrests this month. It too said the crackdown followed an arms seizure near the Yemeni border.
Sunni militants loyal to Al-Qaeda generally regard other Islamic sects as heretical.
But last year, Yemeni security forces launched a months-long campaign in the northern mountains against a preacher from the Shiite Zaidi community, whom it accused of leading a radical anti-US uprising.
Oman has largely been spared the Islamist unrest that has rocked neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Kuwait further north.
But last September a Briton was wounded in a shooting in an upmarket residential district of Muscat.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/27/2005
3:43:48 PM ||
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The EU is now calling on Iran to totally dismantle its nuclear fuel program in order to guarantee it does not seek atomic weapons, according to confidential reports on deadlocked month-old talks with Tehran.
Representatives of Britain, France and Germany told Iran that "nothing short of full cessation and dismantling of Iran's fuel cycle efforts would give the EU3 the objective guarantees they need that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful," a diplomat said Wednesday, reading to AFP reports on a meeting held in Geneva on January 17.
Iran has suspended uranium enrichment as a confidence-building measure but the EU now wants the Islamic Republic to definitively abandon enrichment as well as any activities for making plutonium.
Iran insists that the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty guarantees its right to peaceful enrichment activities.
The Geneva meeting was the second round of talks on a potentially lucrative trade pact after a deal clinched in November by the European bloc's three most powerful members -- the so-called EU3 of Britain, France and Germany -- for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, the key process that makes what can be fuel for nuclear reactors but also the explosive core of atomic bombs.
The trade deal forms part of a package of incentives for Iran if the talks produce "objective guarantees" the country is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons, as the United States charges it is doing.
Iran insists its nuclear program is a peaceful one to generate electric power.
The diplomat said the EU trio had agreed not to give Iran any incentive "goodies until progress was made in the nuclear working group," one of three in the meeting.
The nuclear group "is setting the pace for the package of incentives," which are to come from the political and technology transfer groups, the diplomat said.
The diplomat said Iran had argued that it needs to be able to generate 7,000 magawatts of nuclear power by 2021, and that it needs nuclear power for this.
But the European trio said this made no economic sense in oil-rich Iran.
The Europeans then "presented their views that what would be needed would be cessation/dismantling of sensitive parts of the nuclear program (i.e. the fuel cycle)," a second diplomat said reading from another report on the meeting.
Diplomats said the Europeans told Iran, however, that they would not object to a "safeguarded nuclear program," namely if Iran used fuel it did not make itself.
Iran did offer to limit enrichment to low levels producing fuel that was not weapons-grade and to allow for more intense monitoring by the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"The Europeans said no," the first diplomat said.
The diplomat said Iran had also asked to be allowed to use 20 centrifuges for research, despite the fact that the enrichment suspension is supposed to extend to all related activities, and the Europeans rejected this.
Meanwhile, in the political-security working group, Iran called for a "friendship treaty" with the EU, the diplomat said.
The Europeans offered assistance, with France to help Iran develop an export control regime, Germany to help with Tehran's counter-narcotics strategy and Britain with counter-terrorism.
The Iranians wanted to discuss Al-Qaeda and Iranian resistance groups but ruled out talks on Hezbollah and Hamas. The EU refused this limitation, the diplomat said.
The second diplomat said that while Iran was blocking the talks with its refusal to abandon the nuclear fuel cycle, the EU was stymied since it needs US backing if it is to offer Tehran key incentives, such as the trade issue of helping the Islamic Republic join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
"The Europans can not offer anything to Iran until the United States comes on board," the diplomat said.
A US diplomat said British Foreign Minister Jack Straw had made this point in recent talks with US Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The United States is not backing, but is also not opposing, the EU talks with Iran.
A third round of talks between the EU3 and Iran is scheduled for February in Geneva.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/27/2005
3:40:19 PM ||
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With Iraq's election only three days away, insurgents bent on wrecking the poll killed 19 Iraqis and a US Marine on Thursday and bombed polling stations in the country's Sunni heartland.
The flurry of attacks, including the execution of four Iraqi National Guards, came as US investigators probed a helicopter crash that killed 31 US troops on Wednesday, the deadliest day for American forces since the war began.
But the jihadist Army of Ansar al-Sunna issued a "final warning" to stay away from the polls, saying anyone who voted would be marked for death, either during or after the election.
"Those who don't pay heed will have only themselves to blame," the group said in a statement on an Islamist website.
Gunmen abducted and executed four National Guards in the western city of Ramadi, an officer in the US-trained force said. Notes were found pinned on the four bodies warning against collaboration with American troops.
In Samarra, north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed three civilians and another explosion near an Iraqi army patrol took the lives of a soldier and two bystanders.
Insurgents blew up a school administration building designated as a polling station in Samarra after ordering workers out, officials said. At least five other sites slated for voting were bombed in neighbouring towns.
Late on Thursday, explosions hit four polling places in schools in the western city of Ramadi, destroying one of the buildings, police said. No casualties were reported.
In Mahmudiya, an insurgent stronghold south of Baghdad, a car bomb killed three policemen and an Iraqi soldier.
The US military said one Marine was killed and four others wounded in an attack in the same area.
A car bomb exploded near a US base in Ramadi but no casualties were reported. Two bystanders were killed earlier in crossfire between gunmen and US troops in the western city. It was not clear which side shot them.
In Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, a suicide car bomb killed a policeman, and in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit a translator working with US forces was killed by a roadside bomb. Three other policemen were killed in a series of separate attacks.
While US-led forces worked to quell the insurgency, a US transport helicopter went down in the desert of western Iraq on Wednesday. Thirty Marines and a sailor were killed.
Investigators were trying to find the cause of the crash. But there were signs that bad weather may have been a factor.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/27/2005
3:33:43 PM ||
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Jordan's King Abdullah II on Wedneday affirmed that political, economic, administrative and social development is an integrated process and stressed the need to broaden public participation.
"As political development is a gateway to the full participation of all segments of the grassroots and civil society institutions in the various aspects of the development process, I assert here that political development should start at the grassroots level, then move up to decision-making centers, and not vice-versa," King Abdullah said in a televised address to the nation.
The King also stressed the necessity to reconsider the current administrative divisions of the Kingdom where there will be a number development areas or regions, each of which consisting of a number of governorates and each region will have a local council directly elected by its people.
To that end, King Abdullah said "we shall as soon as possible form a Royal Committee to study the various aspects of such an approach and to put the appropriate mechanism for its implementation and translation from an idea to tangible facts on the ground."
In his speech, King Abdullah congratulated the Palestinians "for their great achievement in concluding the presidential election and choosing their legitimate leadership." The King described this achievement "a key and essential step for the Palestinians in their pursuit to regain their rights and to establish their independent state on their national soil."
King Abdullah also called upon Iraqis of all groups and spectra to take part in the elections to be held in few days. "The elections are the only realistic way for Iraqis to achieve security and stability, rebuild their country, and ensure that Iraq regains its natural and special status within the region," the King said, according to Petra.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/27/2005
3:26:07 PM ||
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Security forces have stormed an apartment building in southern Russia, ending a two-day standoff and killing seven suspected Islamic extremists. Thursday's assault in the capital of Russia's republic of Kabardino-Balkaria led to a gun battle lasting several hours. Smoke billowed from the upper floors, which were gutted by fire. At least two police officers were reported wounded. Russian authorities had surrounded the building Tuesday and opened negotiations with the suspects seeking their surrender. Officials say the extremists belonged to the radical Islamic Yarmuk group, which they link to Chechen separatist fighters. The group was also blamed for an attack on a local drug enforcement office last month. Weapons were stolen and four agency employees were killed in that attack.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/27/2005
3:24:25 PM ||
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#1
note to Saooodis: this is how you "surround" somebody
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 19:20
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Iraqi troops need six more months before they can take control of cities and towns, the country's army chief said Thursday, and after that, the military would still need help from U.S. and other foreign forces to protect its borders.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Gen. Babaker Shawkat Zebari said he was optimistic about prospects for bolstering the capabilities of Iraq's security forces -- a key U.S. goal as the White House comes under domestic political pressure to withdraw American troops.
"God willing, during this year, our units will be fully armed, trained and have enough soldiers," said Zebari, an ethnic Kurd. "After all this is finished, I am very optimistic that the Iraqi army will be able to protect the territories and border."
Zebari said that if Iraqi forces continue to improve, "we will be able to protect Iraqi cities and villages within six months."
On Wednesday, however, the top U.S. commander here, Gen. George Casey, said Iraqi forces were not ready to take over the fight against the insurgents and there was no guarantee they would ever be able to do so.
In remarks prepared for delivery at Johns Hopkins University, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., said the U.S. military presence in Iraq "has become part of the problem, not part of the solution" and that the United States needs to work with the Iraqis "on a specific timetable for the honorable homecoming of our forces."
Zebari said he was hopeful that in the next six months, the insurgents could be weakened militarily as Iraqi forces grow in confidence and capability.
Nevertheless, Iraq would still need U.S. help even after Iraqi troops and police assume the main responsibility for protecting Baghdad and other major cities.
"The Iraqi army should benefit from presence of coalition or multinational bases to protect from any border violation by any country," Zebari said.
According to Zebari, Iraqi authorities in the past three weeks have detained 2,000 insurgents, including foreigners from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Yemen. He added that 95 percent of the suicide attacks in the country are carried out by foreigners.
As the elections draw nearer, insurgents attacks have been increasing to try to scare people away from the polls. Flyers distributed in Baghdad and elsewhere warn that the insurgents will "wash the streets of Baghdad" with voters' blood.
The government is tightening security starting Friday, imposing a 7 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew, banning driving on election day, and closing the border and airport.
"There are threats. There are suicide attackers and terrorists, and we do not say they are not dangerous, but we have exerted all we can to find safe ground so that the voter can vote," Zebari said.
To try to bolster its fighting capabilities, Zebari said the Iraqi military was buying weapons from former Soviet bloc nations, mainly Poland and Ukraine. Iraq's old army used Soviet equipment and officers and sergeants are more familiar with it.
Earlier this month, Deputy Defense Minister Ziad Cattan visited Poland, where he signed a $20 million deal to buy weapons from the state-owned arms company Bumar PHZ.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/27/2005
3:23:31 PM ||
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Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) said he was very satisfied with efforts by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to restore calm and pledged in an interview published on Thursday to pursue peace with him.
"There is no doubt that Abu Mazen (Abbas) has begun to work," Sharon told the Yedioth Ahronoth daily.
"I am very satisfied with what I hear is happening on the Palestinian side, and I have a serious interest in advancing the process with him."
Abbas, speaking after talks with U.S. envoy William Burns, urged Israel to agree quickly to a cease-fire with Palestinian militants and said he was looking forward to holding a still unscheduled summit with Sharon.
Burns told reporters the United States was "very encouraged" by steps Abbas has taken toward a "restoration of law and order" that would serve as a basis for a cease-fire.
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurie later signed an order banning unauthorized Palestinians from carrying weapons. Militant groups have ignored such edicts, issued by the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) in the past.
Abbas, elected president on Jan. 9 on a platform of ending more than four years of bloodshed, has been pursuing a truce deal with Hamas and other militant groups. Violence has dropped sharply in Gaza, raising hopes peacemaking can be revived.
A Palestinian official said Israel had already agreed to free 500 of some 7,000 Palestinians it is holding. Israeli political sources confirmed Israel was considering letting hundreds of prisoners out as a goodwill gesture to Abbas.
"I intend to advance the chance of a settlement with the Palestinians," Sharon said. "I intend to be accommodating toward Abu Mazen while at the same time remaining vigilant and assessing the situation on their side."
Israel says it will answer quiet with quiet and has shelved major military operations, but refused to stop selective raids.
But Abbas suggested he needed formal word from Israel that it would hold its fire in order to get militant factions behind a truce they insist must be mutual.
"The Israelis have to respond quickly. We cannot wait for a week or two," Abbas said in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
In another sign of change after Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s death, Palestinians voted in the Gaza Strip (news - web sites)'s first municipal election, a test of strength between Abbas and the militant Hamas, which is popular in the territory Israel plans to leave this summer.
Abbas and Sharon are expected to meet next month for talks likely to focus on coordinating the planned pullout from the Gaza Strip and ways to restart a U.S.-backed peace "road map" charting incremental steps toward a Palestinian state.
Across the Gaza Strip, thousands turned out to vote for candidates vying for 118 seats in 10 municipal councils.
"The election is our way of getting rid of corruption," Mohammed Abu Harbeed, a supporter of pro-Hamas candidates.
Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction, made significant inroads in last month's West Bank municipal elections in which the mainstream Fatah (news - web sites) came out ahead.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/27/2005
3:21:33 PM ||
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China has detained dozens of people, some of whom have been severely beaten, for trying to mark the death of former leader Zhao Ziyang, witnesses said. The allegations came as the government intensified security to prevent mourners attending Saturday's funeral in Beijing for Zhao, the former Communist Party secretary general purged for opposing the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy movement. At least three people, including a woman in her 70s, were punched and manhandled by police officers outside the government offices which receive complaints in the Chinese capital, witnesses said. They were among some 60 people who pinned white paper flowers to their clothes, a traditional Chinese symbol of mourning, said a bystander who took pictures of the beatings and posted them on overseas websites. "A man from Henan province was beaten badly. His left eyeball looked like it was beaten out of its socket and he had a one inch cut to his right eye," said the man who requested anonymity. "An elderly woman from Shandong province was beaten to a point where she couldn't move and a man from Hunan province was also beaten," he said. Police shouted at the petitioners that Zhao, who spent nearly 16 years under house arrest until his death last week, was a "political criminal," the witness said.
#1
So if poor Zhao was an unperson with an unfuneral does that make him undead? It will serve them right if he lives forever, as it were.
Posted by: Land of fog and mold ||
01/27/2005 15:28
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#2
The ChiComs live Beyond the Valley of Petty Peevish. Had they just let it go, it would've gone rather quietly. Instead, once again, they highlight their vindictive differences from China's average man & woman.
Keep it up. You and the Mad Mullahs have this petty and insensate blind streak in common. Both will fail and fall because of it.
May you live in truly revolutionary interesting times.
The people of Bristol Bay, Alaska, had little use for the energy exploration business back when a salmon was worth about the same as a barrel of oil.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, when state officials and oil companies pushed for onshore and offshore drilling, many residents in the sparsely populated region fought back.
"A sockeye salmon was going for over $2 per pound, oil was $14 a barrel and the Exxon Valdez had just gone up on the rocks," said Tom Hawkins, chief operating officer of the Bristol Bay Native Corp. "People made a good living from fishing and asked themselves, 'Do we really want to take this risk?'
Kosovo is fast becoming "the black hole of Europe" and could descend into renewed violence within weeks unless the EU takes urgent action, senior diplomats and international experts warned in Brussels this week. But continuing EU indecision (!!!) over the breakaway province's demand for independence from Serbia, coupled with the ethnic Albanian majority's failure to embrace reform and respect Serb minority rights, are paralysing plans to launch "final status" talks this year. Key words: paralyzing plans launch talks Hand wringing details continue for many more paragraphs.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/27/2005
2:02:04 AM ||
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#1
Well Thank GOD, Allah and Buddah all at once. It's hot here in Thailand and it stinks with all of these dead bodies around. I'd much rather lunch in Brussels.
Posted by: UN Weenie ||
01/27/2005 9:00
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#2
Sounds like it's time for another conference. Can I get my usualy catering fee this time, dad: cost plus 150 percent?
#3
Classic case of Muslim intolerance. I've stated before that Serbia needs a strong leader not a cow-towing UN Weenie. The map of Europe can longer afford to be changed. If Kosovo becomes independent it will lead to yet another welfare state the EU will have to financially support. More importantly another launch pad for Muslim extremists to infiltrate into Europe. Kosovo will drain Europe financially and militarily. Bring Slodo back from the Hague and let him crush this rebellion. If the Kosovars are such sweeties why hasn't Albania absorbed more of them. Thanks for all the help Turkey. Not only did you screw us in Iraq, but you continue tacit support of the Chechen quagmire. Your hideous Ottoman Empire has spawned these Muslim states in Europe proper which can't seem to get along with anyone. PS thanks for all your support for the Azeri's I'm sure the Armenians and Cypriots appreciate all the help. Definately a strong candidate for the EU
#6
I am on the fence about Kosovo, given the treatment they (Kosovars) recieved from Serbia over the last couple of decades. Picture what Saddam did to the Kurds (less the gas) and that gives you a base for how they feel. I also feel that since all the provinces were allowed to go their on way, why not Kosovo? If Slovenia can break away and become it's own country why not let the Kosovars determine their future? They may be 'intolerant' but the Serbs taught them all about tolerance.
#7
perhaps our moral and intellectual superiors, Aris and the EU, could handle this and STFU about Iran. Let us handle the really big problems outside your neighborhood. Although this may be over their competence level, you should tackle it. Keep the tut-tutting to yourselves as well.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 10:24
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#8
A Marshal Tito is needed. That kind of strong leadership is pretty much all these disputatious people understand. Their nature is not to be peaceful and get along with others. They don't even get along amongst themselves. Their evolution as a ethnic group is retarded so much that they don't fit well with any other group of people. Do they even get along with other ethnic Albanians?
#9
The problems in the former Yugoslavia are Europe's problem. If they cannot deal with a donneybrook in their backyard, then they cannot deal with anything. I understand that the issue of Kosovo being used as a base for Islamic extremists is a serious one. It is about time for the EU to sh*t or get off the pot. THEY need to be faced with this serious issue and be forced to deal with it.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 11:31
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#10
..unless the EU takes urgent action, senior diplomats and international experts warned in Brussels this week.
"Hello? EU? Uncle Sam here. It's your turn; this is YOUR backyard and quite frankly, we're busy so we're going to sit this one out. Good luck."
#14
Frank G, since I see that your obsession about me still hasn't diminished, just let me remind you that I had opposed the Kosovo bombings, claiming that they did nothing but promote Albanian imperialism and create an anti-Serb ethnic cleansing from *their* side, when most of the rest of Rantburg was praising Kosovo for the multiethnic paradise that it had supposedly become after the USA intervention.
Can you parse the above paragraph or do you need smaller sentences, you fucktard?
If the Kosovars are such sweeties why hasn't Albania absorbed more of them.
It's Albanian imperialism, the only European territorial imperialism still undefeated (besides Russian). That means they want to increase the territory of their nation, not retreat their external minorities within the border of the nation-state they already possess.
You keep on talking about Muslim extremists, when you forget that this is national imperialism of the Balkan variety. Religion has a very secondary role in this.
If Slovenia can break away and become it's own country why not let the Kosovars determine their future?
Slovenia was a federal republic of Yugoslaviain its own right, and constitutionally empowered to withdraw. Kosovo was an autonomous region of Serbia, with no rights of withdrawal. That's the legal argument.
The moral argument is that Slovenes had no other national state of their own, *Slovenia* was the state of their peoples. Albanians already have a nation-state. The wish for Kosovar independence, is a disguise for Greater Albanian imperialism. They don't want Kosovo to be independent, they want a Great Albania that will contain all the Albanian minorities of the region. Hence, the similar attempts to steal away territory from FYRO Macedonia as well.
Give Kosovo independence, and you'll not be approving a wish for national independence, all you'll be doing is rewarding Albanian imperialism.
#18
Okay, Aris, sounds like you know what to do with your little Kosovo/Albania/Macedonia tasks. Now you and your EU go handle them and we will handle Iran. I don't care how you handle them, just don't have a little hissy fit when The Great Satan finally gives the mullahs their due. Besides, not much of the fallout will land in the EU anyway.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/27/2005 19:04
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#19
"Okay, Aris, sounds like you know what to do with your little Kosovo/Albania/Macedonia tasks. Now you and your EU go handle them and we will handle Iran."
"You" will handle Iran? I hope so, but I don't see it happening.
#20
So's a sizeable region in Greece. One wants to be specific when talking about this stuff.
So call it by it's real name, and refer to the other one as "the region in Greece known as Macedonia". Or simply let context indicate which one you mean -- my daily commute takes me through California, but no one would ever take that to mean I cross the continent twice a day. And only rarely does anyone confuse a Miami in Ohio with a Miami in Florida.
Of course, my impression of the "FYRO" crap is that it's a bunch of hyper-nationalist claptrap, with Greeks unwilling to let people even consider that Alexander might not have been from Greece.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 19:17
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#21
So call it by it's real name, and refer to the other one as "the region in Greece known as Macedonia".
Do you typically call Taiwan by its real name, that being "Republic of China"?
When EU starts recognizing it as Republic of Macedonia, I'll start calling it such as well. Until then I'm still hoping-without-hope for a compromise name which will appease paranoid fears that Greek chauvinists try to instill on the population. "Macedonia of Skopje" would be good. Or even "Northern Macedonia". "New Macedonia" sounds like crap, but still better than nothing.
Of course, my impression of the "FYRO" crap is that it's a bunch of hyper-nationalist claptrap,
Yeah, I'm well known as a hyper-nationalist.
with Greeks unwilling to let people even consider that Alexander might not have been from Greece.
Well, he kinda *was*, if by "Greece" you mean the territory currently known as that name, namely both his birthplace and the capital of his empire is currently within the boundaries of the "Greek region known as Macedonia"...
... and if you're talking modern-day ethnicities, other than the descent of our language I don't know any common element between the modern Greek people and the ancient Greek people, so in many ways he wasn't "ours" either, but then again neither was Pericles or Socrates...
...but then again he was even less "Macedonian" since the modern day slav-Macedonians don't even have the linguistic connection with that time, they are northern peoples that descended far afterwards...
So both territorially and ethnically Alexander isn't "theirs", and he's probably hardly anyone's, besides History's.
In short, so long as the EU tells you to, you'll go along with the paranoid fears instilled by the Greek chauvanists. No chance of you simply rejecting the paranoid fears and calling Macedonia what it wants to be called? You know, make a stand, be a good example, maybe change a few minds.
I'd think it would be a stunningly easy thing to do, especially on something so trivial. At least do it while you're at Rantburg, even if you don't do it around other Greeks.
Ah well. Never mind. I get your point: your government says it's 'X', so you'll go along.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 19:44
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#23
you'll go along with the paranoid fears instilled by the Greek chauvanists.
Um, no. I don't believe in the paranoid fears instilled by the Greek chauvinists. The Greek chauvinists don't want a compromise in the name at all. If I were a Greek chauvinist, I'd be calling it "Skopje".
What I want is a name, that'll make it easier for our two nations to live side-by-side -- namely I want a name that'll defang the Greek chauvinists of *some* of their power, by the fact of not being able to be interpreted as laying territorial claims.
And among other things, I do want a name that reminds people that more than 50% of the region once known as Macedonia lies outside that small country.
No chance of you simply rejecting the paranoid fears and calling Macedonia what it wants to be called?
I'm afraid of the fear itself, the way everyone should be afraid of it also. The EU was the only thing that forced Greece to stop a catastrophic embargo against FYRO Macedonia. Now the uncompromised name will be the excuse that the Greek chauvinists will use to block FYRO Macedonia's entry into the EU.
So, yeah, I'm favouring a compromise in the name. We live in the real world, not a universe of ideal solutions where everyone is 100% happy.
More on the issue, I'd posted here: http://www.livejournal.com/~katsaris/28307.html
Robert, why didn't you answer on whether you are calling Taiwan Taiwan or whether you are using its real name?
#24
If I had a reason to refer to them formally, I'd use their formal name. In the US, "Taiwan" is the commonly used name, so I'd normally use that.
I certainly wouldn't use whatever name the PRC insists on using for them, simply out of fear.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 20:10
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#25
"In the US, "Taiwan" is the commonly used name, so I'd normally use that."
But you nonetheless object to my using the commonly used name of FYRO Macedonia in Greece?
In fact among the *two* commonly used names of FYRO Macedonia in Greece, I used the one that actually contains the word "Macedonia".
Sure, making a stand and simply calling "Republic of Macedonia" is the path that *some* people have chosen. Perhaps they are right, though since I do prefer a compromise, it's not the path I've chosen.
But don't go about lecturing on me, when I'm doing what you yourself just said you are doing -- using one of the commonly used names in each person's own country.
I certainly wouldn't use whatever name the PRC insists on using for them, simply out of fear.
No, if you were Chinese, I'm sure you'd be not be doing it out fear, you'd be doing it out of Chinese nationalism.
Never mind, Aris. It's clear the newspeak nature of "FYRO" doesn't grate on your nerves like it does mine.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 20:26
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#27
One of the characteristic of newspeak was that all terms used in politics had to have an inherent positive or negative meaning so as to combine (and thus destroy) meanings.
Examples of newspeak: "Death tax", "Pro-life", "EUrabia", "Eurorealist" as opposed to the more neutral "Inheritance estate tax" or "anti-abortionist" or "European Union" or "Eurosceptic"
Even "socialist" is soon becoming newspeak when it's used by conservatives as a useful word to combine and destroy the different meanings of European-style socialdemocracy and USSR-style "socialistic" tyranny.
The nature of "FYRO Macedonia" doesn't seem very newspeak-like with that criterion. It doesn't combine and destroy meanings, it doesn't have an inherent positive or negative feel. It's an abbreviation but not one meant to distance the mind from the actual words and concepts discussed.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 21:06
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#29
Lets have a UN conference. Then Aris can tell us how much he knows and how little we know, and we can all get fat on fois gras, filet mignon and French Champagne!
#30
Ah, screw it. This time give the Serbs carte blanche, and let the muslims have a serving of the sh*t sandwich they insist on feeding the rest of the world.
Mark Espinola, call your office Crude oil fell for the first day in four after a government report showed an unexpectedly large rise in U.S. inventories last week and OPEC's president signaled that the group wouldn't cut production. Supplies climbed 3.4 million barrels to 295.6 million barrels, more than triple the 1 million-barrel increase that was the median forecast among 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Oil prices are too high for a further cut in production or quotas, said Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who is the OPEC's president and Kuwait's oil minister. OPEC ministers decided on Dec. 10 to reduce daily oil output by 1 million barrels. ``The promised OPEC cuts are not impacting U.S. import levels,'' said Marshall Steeves, an analyst with Refco Group Inc. in New York. ``I'm not sure whether shipping times or a lack of compliance are responsible, but it's not being felt.'' It could be that all those dreadful snowstorms which kept people off the streets, also kept them from using up the gasoline in their cars. And overall the winter has been warmer than usual, I understand, which means that home heating oil is being used up more slowly as well.
Crude oil for March delivery fell 86 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $48.78 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Yesterday's close of $49.64 a barrel was the highest since Nov. 29. Oil is up 42 percent from a year ago. In London, the March Brent crude-oil futures contract fell 45 cents, or 1 percent, to close at $46.51 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange. Brent touched $46.94 yesterday, the highest since Nov. 4. Much more at link
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/27/2005
1:50:55 AM ||
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#1
Hmmm...the price of gasoline had gone up about six cents during the past week...
#2
oil consumption up - heating oil mostly.... still, gas is under $2/gal for mid-grade in SD for the first time in two years
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 11:04
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I dunno, I could never wrap my brain around the idea of "heating oil". Of course, being a CA native and a lifelong resident (so far) has something to do with that....
The House Judiciary Committee chairman, F. James Sensenbrenner Jr (R-WI), introduced a bill to clamp down on illegal aliens' use of driver's licenses and to give judges more discretion to deny claims of asylum, beginning the new Congress' first fight over immigration.
#2
the White House promised it as a '05 priority so he'd let the Intel overhaul bill pass. He's holding them to it. Good for him/us!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 17:39
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He's holding them to it. Good for him/us!
The WH is not the impetus behind this bill, Frank. In the article Frist was quoted as not being too thrilled. Also, Mr. Sensenbrenner said he has not heard support or opposition from the White House
#4
It's an '05 priority issue: immigration reform - per the WH. Get your facts straight. Sensebrenner, however has a different scheme in mind (a la Tancredo) than W. I don't support the President on his (floated) plan. Shut the borders. Allow legal, orderly immigration and work permits ONLY as it benefits the American nation, not Mexico
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 17:51
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#5
Frank, I agree. "Shut the borders." The U.S.-Mexico border is far too porous. The citizens near the border recognize the problem to the extent that they have organized a border watch program. Why not make use of citizens to a greater extent to help out? We don't have enough Border Patrol and probably never will. During WWII, older people who weren't fit to go to war were armed and watched the beaches in the U.S.
#6
It's an '05 priority issue: immigration reform - per the WH. Get your facts straight
Get your threads straight. What's under discussion is Sensbrenner's specific bill about driver's licenses for illegals. Your number #2 response led me to believe that you thought that the WH was backing Sensbrenner's bill. What is "it" referring to in a thread about the drivers license for illegals? I'm not a mind reader. I just take cues from logical sequence. the White House promised it as a '05 priority so he'd let the Intel overhaul bill pass. He's holding them to it. Good for him/us!
#7
if I was unclear, I apologize, but the WH promised to raise the issue as a priority in '05, even knowing their (WH vs Sensenbrenner) approaches differ. Immigration will make or break the GOP the next two yrs
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 19:06
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#8
We don't need more laws, just federal and state governments that will enforce those already on the books. What part of ILLEGAL alien is hard to understand?
#9
i agree. Any 'immigration reform' should consist of simply ENFORCING EXISTING IMMIGRATION LAWS.
If you want any new laws how about withholding federal finds from states, and local governments who violate those laws with 'sanctuary' laws which hogtie local law enforcement. AND require proof of citizenship for such things as drivers license, voter registration, voting, etc....
#12
I agree that the existing laws need to be enforced. The executive branch gets the enforcement going. It is their job. The President does not want to do it. Therefore, to get the Executive to do it will require the people holding the Congress and the President's feet to the fire. The President will drag his feet on this. He has shown where he wants to go on illegal aliens. The people will need to build a big fire and stoke it if it is going to happen.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 22:23
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#13
Agreed AP. I have been very unhappy w/the lack of responsiveness to this problem from the admin.
#14
I will be writing letters to the President and to our three congresspeople this weekend. I will at least see where they stand and hold their feet to the fire, with my little rosebud torch.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 22:55
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#15
Unfortunately the only letters concerning our borders that the federal government pays any attention to are en espanol.
THE Australian Government has warned Australian travellers that terrorists may be planning attacks on cinemas, theatres and pubs in the UK. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has updated its travel advice for the UK, urging Australian tourists to be alert to suspicious activities. The advice said while there was no specific information to suggest a terrorist attack was imminent in the UK, police and politicians there believed there was a high probability of some kind of attack being attempted.
"Police have warned the public to be vigilant at cinemas, theatres, pubs and nightclubs and on all types of public transport, including the London Underground system and buses," the advice said. "Australians in the United Kingdom are advised to be alert to their own security. "As you would in Australia, use common sense and be alert to suspicious activities."
The advice also alerts Australian tourists to a spate of assaults which have occurred late at night on public transport in the UK. Pickpocketing and street theft at tourist spots and on public transport was also on the rise, while sexual assaults had occurred in unlicensed taxis, it said. DFAT also warned Australian travellers to be careful using automatic teller machines (ATMs) in the UK because of the number of card scams being carried out there.
"Prior to travel, Australians should ensure they have a variety of financial options available to them including credit cards, travellers' cheques and cash," it said.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
01/27/2005
1:36:35 AM ||
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Essentially, when in London if the muslims don't get you, the natives will... mwahahahahaa!!!
Posted by: Howard UK ||
01/27/2005 8:43
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My God! And I was contemplating going to the Post Office this afternoon...
An Oklahoma senator hopes to revive cockfighting in the state by putting tiny boxing gloves on the roosters instead of razors. The Oklahoma legislature outlawed the blood sport in 2002 because of its cruelty to the roosters, which are slashed and pecked to death while human spectators bet on the outcome.
But State Sen. Frank Shurden, a Democrat from Henryetta and a long-time defender of cockfighting, said the ban had wiped out a $100-million business.
To try to revive it, he has proposed that roosters wear little boxing gloves attached to their spurs, as well as lightweight, chicken-sized vests configured with electronic sensors to record hits and help keep score.
I think we need a vest for Sen. Shurden, the one with the arms that tie behind the back
"It's like the fencing that you see on the Olympics, you know, where they have little balls on the ends of the swords and the fencers wear vests," said Shurden. "That's the same application that would be applied to the roosters."
Ok, but where are you going to get the little tiny cut-doctor?
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
12:52:16 PM ||
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#1
This still won't pass muster with the PETA types.
Between this and USC telling jews not to call themselves 'zionists' because it might offend the muslims I think our education system is going to hell in a handbasket....
A University of Colorado professor has sparked controversy in New York over an essay he wrote that maintains that people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were not innocent victims.
Nor has anybody ever killed before or after in a terrorist attack an innocent victim, right Ward?
Students and faculty members at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., have been protesting a speaking appearance on Feb. 3 by Ward L. Churchill, chairman of the CU Ethnic Studies Department.
Ethnic studies, is it? That's what I always look for on a resume...
They are upset over an essay Churchill wrote titled, "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens." Churchill's essay argues that the Sept. 11 attacks were in retaliation for the Iraqi children killed in a 1991 U.S. bombing raid and by economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations following the Persian Gulf War.
Then why didn't they attack the United Nations? Seems they'd be on the list someplace...
The essay contends the hijackers who crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 were "combat teams," not terrorists.
Ward's a little fuzzy on the concept of "combat teams," apparently...
It states: "The most that can honestly be said of those involved on Sept. 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course."
The "most" than can honestly be said about them? I guess that, speaking of quantities less than "most", you could also say that those "combat teams" hijacked four planeloads of innocent civilians going about their legitimate business, running two of them into civilian targets, one of them into the ground, and one into a legitimate military target. But you can't stop there, Ward. There are other acts of terrorism specifically directed against civilians, most of whom are innocent as babes, and some of whom have actually been babes. The same flavor of terrorists, for instance, took 600 people hostage who went to enjoy an evening at the theater in Moscow. The same flavor or "combat team" took an entire elementary school hostage in Beslan. The same flavor of "combat team" blew up a couple beer joints in Bali, blew up commuter trains in Madrid, shot up churches in Pakistan, and blew up two of our embassies in Africa. The very same "combat teams" are trying to intimidate all of Iraq out of voting, because they're convinced that people need to be ruled by holy men. To make their point, they're chopping people's heads off whenever they get a chance. But they're just giving back some of what they received, right, Ward?
The essay maintains that the people killed inside the Pentagon were "military targets."
That's arguably so, assuming we were in a state of hostilities. Even though Binny declared war on us in 1998, we hadn't geared up to a war footing. As far as the passengers on those four planes were concerned, we were at peace.
"As for those in the World Trade Center," the essay said, "well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break."
Give you a break in what manner, Ward? They were either civilians or they weren't...
The essay goes on to describe the victims as "little Eichmanns," referring to Adolph Eichmann, who executed Adolph Hitler's plan to exterminate Jews during World War II.
No one in the either of the World Trade Center buildings, to my knowledge, was a "little Eichmann." Some were no doubt mean to their wives or ducked their child support. Some probably surfed the internet on their employers' time, or stiffed their creditors. Most probably didn't do any of those things, merely getting up in the morning and going to work, like most of us do. By that measure we're all "little Eichmanns," to include you, Ward... Oh, and in what manner were the passengers on the four planes "little Eichmanns"? Or don't they count?
Churchill said he was not especially surprised at the controversy at Hamilton, but he also defended the opinions contained in his essay. "When you kill 500,000 children in order to impose your will on other countries, then you shouldn't be surprised when somebody responds in kind," Churchill said. "If it's not comfortable, that's the point. It's not comfortable for the people on the other side, either."
First you'd have to demonstrate that half a million children were in fact killed by the UN sanctions and during the first Gulf War. That's an arguable point. Any of the UN sanctions figures would be doubtful, since Sammy was milking the system and grabbing off the money that should have been going to the kiddies, using it to build palaces and maintain an iron grip on power. Remember the truckloads of gold bars found after the war? How many kiddies would a truckload of gold bars feed for how long?
The attacks on Sept. 11, he said, were "a natural and inevitable consequence of what happens as a result of business as usual in the United States. Wake up."
I would state unequivocably that such acts are not a "natural and inevitable consequence" of U.S. policy. Otherwise we'd no doubt have Vietnamese flying planes into buildings all the time. Otherwise such acts would be directed exclusively at the U.S.
A longtime activist with the American Indian Movement, Churchill was one of eight defendants acquitted last week in Denver County Court on charges of disrupting Denver's Columbus Day parade. His pending speech at Hamilton has drawn criticism from professors and students, including Matt Coppo, a sophomore whose father died in the World Trade Center attacks. "His views are completely hurtful to the families of 3,000 people," Coppo said.
Things like that don't matter to innalekshuls like Ward. They're little people, of no consequence...
A spokesman for Hamilton College released a statement noting that Hamilton is committed to "the free exchange of ideas. We expect that many of those who strongly disagree with Mr. Churchill's comments will attend his talk and make their views known."
Are they searching attendees for rotted fruit at the door? Are the campus police breaking up gatherings that feature tar and feathers?
#2
"The Sept. 11 attacks were in retaliation for the Iraqi children who were killed in a 1991 bombing raid and for economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations following the Persian Gulf War."
-so why not run a jet into the UN building then?
-This guy has some interesting intel sources, I thought Iraq had no direct involvement w/9-11?
-And how many of the hijackers were pissed off Iraqis btw?
Hijackers who crashed jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11 were "combat teams," not terrorists.
-yeah, we should've known by the uniforms they all wore on the planes.
The people killed inside the Pentagon were "military targets."
-If we were in a declared state of war w/another nation I'd agree.
This should be filed under the "When the 1st Amendment is abused by insufferable morons on tenure" list.
#3
Ah, the rantings of a worthless Indian Commie...
I suppose those Iraqi children had it coming, though, using this logic. After all, the Iraqi army raped and killed a lot of Kuwaitis. Chickens roosting, or something like that.
Posted by: Jeff ||
01/27/2005 13:44
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#4
A more concise citation of self-loathing and nonsensical Western guilt I could not have invented. Bravo, Ward.
#5
You beat me to it Jarhead. Un and Iraq involvement. One more thing, when he says The attacks on Sept. 11, he said, were "a natural and inevitable consequence of what happens as a result of business as usual in the United States. Wake up."
does this include Clinton?
#6
Me thinkum Big Chief Churchill should lay offum firewater, he speakum with loser tongue.
âBury my heart at Wounded Liverâ
Posted by: Big Sarge ||
01/27/2005 14:05
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#7
This staggeringly STUPID "professor" has garnered an audience...which many people equate with having validity for your position (e.g., Je$$e Jackson).
Bad enough that as an American we have to have traitorous scum like this moron running around loose, but since he is a âprofessorâ at a public institution that means that in one fashion or another AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS pay part of his salary!!
#8
A more concise citation of self-loathing and nonsensical Western guilt I could not have invented. Bravo, Ward.
Actually, Jules, there's no self-loathing there. Churchill is one of those embittered Native Americans who is totally and utterly consumed by hatred for everybody and everything White. He's pretty successful, too, having built an entire career off of it.
Posted by: Jeff ||
01/27/2005 14:09
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#10
Kill 500,000 children? Is it me, or do the loonies double their number every year or two?
Posted by: Tom ||
01/27/2005 14:33
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#11
What kind of numbskull, dhimmi wit, elevator doesn't go to the top floor, asshole, shit-for-brains, son-of-bitchin, weasle bastard is this pig-screwin peckerwood? Did I miss anything?
Posted by: Eddie Haskell ||
01/27/2005 15:22
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#16
Jeff-does he consider himself an American? He certainly sounds like a lot of leftie Americans to me. (Thanks for the info, though. I was afraid he might be a descendent of a different Churchill.)
The leftie self-loathing formula seems to hold these statements as self evident and God help the poor soul who disagrees with one of them on these:
Whatever ills others have done, Americans have done more, worse, longer, more painfully, more unjustly than any other people on earth today or in the past. We are the one nationality that is by nature and culture evil. We must atone for our souls.
Verbally self-flagellate in public. Others must see your guilt and your remorse on the six o'clock news in order to consider you worthy of living on the same planet as they.
Accept responsibility for people in the rest of the world getting robbed and killed by their own criminals. If there are corrupt people in those countries, we are the Dr. Frankenstein.
Agree to pay room, board and medical care for all inhabitants of third world countries. If others don't do so it's because they can't afford to, but they care, they really care, unlike Americans who can afford to pay for everyone everywhere but don't, proving that they don't care.
Accept responsibility publicly for all people who die as a result of warfare. If Palestinians die, it's America's fault for not making the Peace Plan work. If Iraqis die, it's America's fault for the pompous act of risking our own lives to try to help people who said that their leader was a mass murderer.
And never never forget, APOLOGIZE FOR BEING AN AMERICAN.
#17
It's sure hard not to vote with #1 Scooter for a major thumpin for this idiot. As satisfying as that would be, what would be much more just would be for UofC to dismiss him as incompetent and everyone else to ignore him as irrelevant and insignificant.
Posted by: DO ||
01/27/2005 15:55
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I was at a party in New Zealand on the 26th of December and heard a guy tell me a similar thing. I said that if you carry that logic out to its end, anybody perceiving some injustice can go ahead and condemn another group of people to death without so much as a by-your-leave. Take this insane attitude to its logical end and Mr. Churchill can be perceived as a threat to someone by advocating for murderers. How long does the American public have to act like sheep and go to the slaughter for our alleged sins, asshat?
Of course, nobody in his circle of friends weeps for murder, torture, disfigurement, or rape victims of Saddam. He gets a pass. This additude of Mr. Churchill's is not just bad, but it seems like more of a mental disease. He views our right of freedom of speech as license. Freedom of speech implies responsibility, and a price to be paid for one's view. He has the right to say it, but cheering for murder should have a steep price to pay. We'll see what happens with this fellow.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 16:02
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#19
Hopefully this jackass will be run down and trampled to death by the CU buffalo mascot. What an idiot.
#20
Anyone here living in Colorado? Then consider the following: this guy has the right to say such things on his private time (First Amendment) but
it is an entirely different thing if he is using his pulpit for propagating his ideas. Your pay taxes for having him teaching not for sprouting his ideas. In other words he is steling from the tax payer. Start a camapiagn for such people having to refund the state ALL the salaries they perceived in the last ten years and add a substantial interest.
Jeff-does he consider himself an American? He certainly sounds like a lot of leftie Americans to me. (Thanks for the info, though. I was afraid he might be a descendent of a different Churchill.)
I'm not exactly sure, but as the stuff he spouts centers around how the evil, White Americans are to blame for everything, I can only assume he considers himself separate from the USA. There are a lot of Native Americans who feel the same way he does and who celebrated on 9/11.
And, of course, the Native Americans are one of those sacred cows - perhaps the most sacred - of the Left, so it's pretty likely no major liberals will strongly condemn Churchill's (if ever a guy didn't deserve his surname...) words. Most Leftists won't admit it, but they feel exactly the same as Churchill. As you said, they're a sick, self-loathing, and ultimately suicidal bunch. Not too different from the old Trappist monks, really, and I'm sure if you told them that wearing hair shirts and sleeping on rocks would be for the Common Good, you'd get a lot of takers among them. :-)
Posted by: Jeff ||
01/27/2005 16:32
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#22
This son-of-a-bitch is deserving of a 12ga. slug.... right between the eyes.
#23
Churchill is so far out on the lunar fringe, I'm not certain even a 12 ga would get his attention. Unfortunately, there are many goofballs like him populating our universities.
#24
What's with the hyper-violent Canadian? All I've ever seen it post is trollish crap.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 17:59
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#25
Actually, according to AIM {American Indian Movement}, Ward Churchill is a violent Caucasian mole planted by the FBI in the Indian movement to forment trouble. AIM kicked him out for attacking one of their elderly female board members and injuring her. AIM says that there is no evidence whatsoever that Churchill is descended from any known, recognized, or generally accepted tribe of Indians : just an out-to-lunch Commie troublemaker.
The ringleaders of this conspiracy are two wannabees, white men masquerading as Indians, who are very deceitful and treacherous individuals by the name of Ward Churchill and Glen Morris.
Posted by: Christopher Johnson ||
01/27/2005 20:13
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#27
Let's have a UN conference about it. I just found a great deal on French Champagne and I already have the fois gras on ice. Whaddya say? Cost plus 150 percent?
#29
Courtesy of Nation Review Online, Mr. Churchill's university page.
As some folks have noted: 1) The school he attended, Sangaman State University, wasn't exactly top tier in the 70s and 2)None of the publications at the bottom of the page were put out by academic presses (meaning no peer review).
#30
Dan Caplis & Craig Silverman of Denver's KHOW radio afternoon show are leading up an effort to get this moron removed from the University - he is the latest in a series of really stupid and tasteless events at Univ. of Colo.
Via Freedom and Whisky:
There's some big numbers here.
DO THE poor really benefit from Labour? It's not such a daft question: welfare payment goes up, certainly, but is Scotland more socially cohesive as a result? Are people escaping sink estates, finding work and helping their children prosper?
**SNIP**
But dig below the data, step into the housing schemes, and you find that the generosity is breeding tragedy. Under Labour's welfare payments, 266,000 people in Scotland are now categorised as "incapacitated" - claiming dole and deemed unable to work.
This figure is staggering. If they all lived together, they would occupy a city greater than Aberdeen or Dundee - yet such people do not show up on unemployment figures. Nor do they work. They are in the invisible zone of the labour market.
There are 2.4 million of them across Britain - people who have been effectively decommissioned, and usually ushered into a life of housing schemes, sink schools and social failure.
**SNIP**
Yet the share of the UK workforce actually in employment remains well below its peak in 1989. Glasgow's unemployment may be 8 per cent, but a third of its adults have no job. The same is true for one in four Scots.
Labour has, in part, fought unemployment by finding alternatives to work. One is studying: universities have proliferated, in varying qualities, offering a bewildering array of not always useful courses. Then comes the option of being categorised as permanently sick. Since 1993, the number of Britons considered "incapacitated" has doubled from 1.2 million - a rise not seen since troops returned from the Second World War.
There has been no crippling, nationwide epidemic. But there has, instead, been a political disease - where the definition of welfare is entitlement, not empowerment. Where the aim is to write cheques, not to aid careers.
**SNIP**
Posted by: anonymous2u ||
01/27/2005
12:42:16 AM ||
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BD, et al, is this a Scottish problem or all of Britain?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/27/2005 7:16
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All of the UK. This is the Labour Government's way of deceiving the British public about the true levels of unemployment here. They get away with it because the media, well, I don't need to go on...
#3
BD: I think incapacity benefit existed prior to the Labour Government being in power and the Tories certainly, like all governments, massaged the unemployment figures in the nineteen eighties to their political advantage.
I was given the choice of taking incapacity benefit when I was ill several years ago. The sum offered was pitiful and I got on with things. However, for some it does provide a more lucrative opt-out than unemployment benefit. Although a staunch believer in the need for a welfare state that provides a helping hand, I do, however, think a review of the social security system in the UK is long overdue.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
01/27/2005 8:12
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#4
I wouldn't say it's an exclusively Labour thing or even a Labour invention, but it's been exploited by Blair and his spin machine like by nobody else. The fact that "the share of the UK workforce actually in employment remains well below its peak in 1989" demonstrates that the problem of unemployment is worse than before Blair became PM - yet Blair's actually managed to make the public believe that unemployment has gone down...
#6
when i was stationed there, i got the distict impression that the conditions had as much to do with the culture as anything else (no offense scotland). work didn't seem to be valued like it is here (by here, of course, i mean houston). i'm not passing a value judgment, cuz i don't know that work is what i value most either. no doubt the dole does not help to encourage the (moral) value of work. but then niether does (what seemed to me) to be the view of brits that scots were 2nd class citizens. i still remember the change of attitude when i spent bank of scotland money down south, and it wasn't a positive one.
#7
It can be hard trying to get rid of Bank of Scotland money south of the border. Same goes for Royal Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank. I know. It's not because you're Scottish - it's because it's so damn rare people are either suspicious of it or know they themselves might have difficulty passing it on (like a mangled coin or any torn note). IIUC it's not even a legal obligation to accept other British notes in England. In England we only have Bank of England notes. Much simpler. I dread to think what happens when you try offloading one of the four(?) Northern Ireland issuers' notes...
There's a saying about the Scots / English that I think sums it up pretty well:
The Scots say they're superior to the English, but don't believe it.
The English don't say they're superior to the Scots, but the do believe it...
All the armed militants barricaded in a house in the city of Nalchik during a three-day standoff in the Russian internal republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, North Caucasus, are thought to have been killed, a source in the local operation headquarters was quoted by Russian Information Agency Novosti as saying. Bomb disposal experts are searching the house for booby traps set by the gunmen.
Two policemen were wounded in the standoff with the gunmen. There were seven militants in the house, four of them women. A local interior official quoted by Interfax said that according to preliminary information, they were the gunmen's wives and sisters.
The group of gunmen could be linked to the radical Islamic organization "Yarmuk" that claimed responsibility for an attack on the republic's Drug Control Service headquarters on Dec. 13. Four servicemen were killed in that incident and a large amount of weapons were stolen. One of the killed militants was identified as the head of "Yarmuk", Muslim Atayev, Interfax reported. UPDATE: NALCHIK, January 27 (RIA Novosti) - Three out of seven terrorists eliminated in Nalchik have been identified. They come from the village of Kendeler of the Elbrus district in Kabardino-Balkaria (a constituent republic in the North Caucasus), a source in the investigation group told RIA Novosti.
Among them is Muslim Atayev, the leader of the so-called Yarmuk jamaat which assumed responsibility for the attack on the State Drug Control department of Kabardino-Balkaria in December 2004 when four drug policemen were killed and many weapons stolen. According to the source, women who stayed with the militants in the house in Nalchik's outskirts also rendered active armed resistance. They shot Kalashnikov assault-rifles.
Three men and four women were killed, the source said adding that the apartment where the terrorists had been hiding supposedly belonged to one of these women.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
12:24:57 PM ||
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Perhaps we ought to tell Putty we have similar probelms so they quite selling weaponry to Syria. Guess what Vlad the Syrians will stab you in the back as well. Wonder how many of their jihadies are operating on Russian soil.
From Powerline: translation of an article that appeared in today's Arabic-language newspaper alsharq Alausat:
Iraqi police forces in Alkoot [southern Iraq near Basrah announced they arrested yesterday a member of Al Zarqawi's group in the city of AlKoot.
The chief of police said that the suspect is 29 years old and has confessed to murdering a number of police and national security men, and confessed to participating in a number of car bombings in Baghdad and other provinces. The police chief added that the suspect, who will remain anonymous due to ongoing interrogations, carried forged Iraqi documents and speaks in an Arabian Gulf Dialect [i.e. a dialect of the Arab countries on the Persian gulf] and had met with a number of armed terrorist cells that used to be in Felujah.
#2
The Iraqis have him, so they will interrogate him in a manner befitting the customs of that country and region. [just being culturally sennnnnnnsitive]
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 16:11
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High oil prices don't seem to be doing serious harm to the American economy, although it is one more factor weighing down the European economies, especially Germany and France. I wouldn't mind oil prices staying on the high side long enough for us as a people to shift toward higher fuel efficiency -- cars, Energy Star household equipment, the cute little light diodes that are supposed to replace regular lightbulbs in the next few years. With the U.S. as a market for these kinds of goods, manufacturers will have the economy of scale to enable such goods to be priced within reach of the rest of the world.
#3
Well said Trailing Wife, but I pray to God that those cute little light diodes won't be coming only and straight from China. My conscience is already bothering me over the greater weight of Saudi oil versus Chinese goods! Which presents the greater strategic threat?
#4
smn, I am seriously the wrong person to ask that question of. Give me a couple more years here at Rantburg, and then perhaps I'll be ready to give it a try. But I do hear that the diodes have something like a 10-year lifespan, which if true makes them pretty much a buy-once item -- should be easier on your conscience then.
#5
Time for my cold fusion plug. Not withstanding what you may have heard/read, cold fusion is real and offers the potential of almost unlimited almost free energy. Why the possibility it could exist should be rejected by the scientific powers-that-be is an interesting question, but no more intersting than the completely fictitious global warming nonsense. I assure you cold fusion is a real phenomena and in the next few years you will see a car battery size device that will produce kilowatts of power for months. EBook for those who are interested. And it may well come out of China.
#6
My conscience is already bothering me over the greater weight of Saudi oil versus Chinese goods
Both are bad for our economy. We are importing way more than we sell abroad. We are suffering from twin deficits - gov't over spending and foreign goods importation out weighing our goods being exported.
I read the article that was posted earlier about the federal gov't debt as a modest percentage percentage of our GDP and the article suggesting that running huge deficits wasn't bad for our economy.
But such interpretation is misleading because the GDP reflects our entire economic base, whereas our debt can only be paid down by gov't revenues. Our debt is financed upwards of 40% by foreign investors. Our dollar's devaluation reflects foreign investors thinking it's unlikely we will pay back the debt. So I don't agree that our economy is in good shape.
#7
Our dollar's devaluation reflects foreign investors thinking it's unlikely we will pay back the debt. Cause and effect are by no means so clear cut. Arguably the main reason for the US trade deficit is people hold USD because they trust the US gov most of all to protect its value. A similar argument holds for US Gov debt, although gov debt is primarily a domestic problem.
#9
Interesting article in the WSJ today regarding cost of oil. Cost to discover is $2-3 per barrel. Cost to lift is $.5-1 in the ME. Author argues that the abundance of supply is what allows the price to fluctuate so violently. Cost to lift Alberta tar sands is $15 per barrel but it requires substantial capital investment that will be at risk if the ME lowers the price. We should be taking some of their profit by way of an oil import excise and providing incentives to develop Alberta sands.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/27/2005 8:28
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#10
Mrs Davis: That's an interesting counterpoint to the "peak oil" conspiracy theorists, don't you think?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
01/27/2005 8:55
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#11
On this subject, any Rantburgers know semiconductor materials "in, around and through"?
#12
I see no one has risen to my cold fusion post. A shame becuase its perhaps the biggest story of my generation. Cold fusion will affect society as profoundly as the internal combustion engine.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 18:12
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#14
2xstandard: Our debt is financed upwards of 40% by foreign investors.
This doesn't mean that we need foreigners to finance the debt - it's a result of the fact that foreign central banks trying to depress the value of their currencies by buying dollars tend to prefer to park these dollars in relatively liquid instruments like Treasuries. At present levels, Treasury yields aren't attractive to American investors. If foreign investors pull out, and yields rise, the slack will be taken up by US investors, who have $34T in assets, dwarfing the $5T or so outstanding Treasury debt. In 2003, money market mutual funds alone held $2.3T in debt assets. This excludes corporate, other institutional and individual holdings of specific debt securities.
2xstandard: Our dollar's devaluation reflects foreign investors thinking it's unlikely we will pay back the debt.
If foreign investors thought this, they would stop buying US debt, causing interest rates to rise. In recent months, interest rates haven't changed.
The devaluation of the dollar is a result of the fact that foreign economies aren't growing, meaning that their economies aren't absorbing US goods. The US economy is growing, which has increased demand for foreign goods, driving down the US dollar, which may further slow down foreign economies, as goods from US companies crowd out goods made by local companies.
This is why foreign countries are complaining about the weak US dollar, not because they think a weak dollar is bad for the US, but because it's bad for them. Airbus is going to need massive subsidies because it now has to compete with a Boeing quoting the same dollar prices that it was before, whereas Airbus must increase its prices 50% in dollar terms just to make the same number of euros it used to make before the dollar fell.
#15
When you consider that many companies have margins in the mid-single digits (percentage-wise), it's clear why Europe is complaining. American companies are going to clean their clocks. All the whining about central banks switching away from the dollar is just smoke-and-mirrors. They can't switch and have their companies remain competitive. And if they hold dollars to keep their home currencies weak, they need to invest these dollars in something. Only Treasuries have the kind of liquidity they need. US corporate or municipal debt won't do.
#18
ZF and Phil, I am not a trained economist so maybe my take on our twin deficits and our foreign indebtness and how the cost of oil is bad for us is wrong or too simplistic. I apologize if that is the case. However, what I've read from trained economists led me to view things as I do. Maybe they are wrong?
For example:
http://www.aei.org/news/filter.all,newsID.21611/news_detail.asp
"Washington Fiddles While the Dollar Falls" by Desmond Lachman who is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute
Over the past two years, the dollar has shed almost 40 percent of its value against the euro. This has not been the mere result of the vagaries of the international capital market. Rather, it has been a reflection of the growing concerns in those markets about U.S. profligacy and about the increasing tendency of the United States to live considerably beyond its means. Never before over the past hundred years has the gap between U.S. imports and exports been so large in relation to the size of the economy. Never before has the U.S. been so indebted to foreigners as it is today. The deterioration of the U.S. net international investment position at an annual rate of 5 percent of GDP is now very much on Alan Greenspan's mind.
Contrary to what the Treasury would have us believe, the U.S. external payment imbalance is not a reflection of foreigners' hunger to invest in U.S. companies and in the U.S. stock market. Alas, those days went with the bursting of the equity bubble in March 2000. Instead, the main factor now holding up the dollar is the massive purchases of U.S. Treasury paper by foreign central banks, which now finance an unprecedented 50 percent of the U.S. external deficit. They do so not because they believe that the U.S. is an attractive place in which to invest. Rather, they do so as a means to keep their currencies cheap in relation to the dollar so as favor their export sectors.
Depending on foreign central banks to support the dollar is a very thin reed on which to base a dollar policy. Already some foreign central banks, notably those in India and Russia, are showing clear signs that they are tiring of having to accumulate ever-increasing amounts of depreciating dollar paper. They also fear the loss of domestic monetary control and inflationary pressures that flow from having to issue currency to prop up the dollar. It is only a matter of time before other central banks too balk at the potentially large costs to their balance sheets of continuing to pile up dollar holdings in magnitudes that have no historic parallel.
As Alan Greenspan suggests, any serious solution to the U.S. balance of payments problem must begin with a substantial reduction in the U.S. budget deficit as part of a strategy to improve U.S. savings performance.
It would be a grave mistake for Washington to count on endless forbearance in the world currency market while it fails to address the U.S. budget deficit problem. For when currency markets lose confidence, they can be brutal and they can wreak havoc on the equity and bond markets. One can only hope that Washington heeds the alarms already sounding in the currency markets and stops fiddling about the budget before it is too late.
#19
My understanding is that the drop in the dollar is deliberate, specific policy on the part of the Bush administration. That is to say, he wants it to drop.
#20
ZF is mostly right. In addition, the current account (trade) deficit and gov deficit are different things and only weakly related. For example, Australia runs a bigger trade deficit than the USA, yet gov revenues are strongly in surplus (by about as much in GDP terms as the US gov is in deficit). Germany and several other European countries run large trade surpluses and large gov debts. THERE IS NO NECESSARY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TWO.
So any statement that refers to both the USD and the US gov debt is largely meaningless. In very basic terms if you hold USD, then the most convenient way to hold them is in the form of US gov paper. If they don't hold USD then the gov finances its debt some other way (or doesn't finance it) almost exclusively a domestic issue. Which is where Greenspan is coming from. His remit is inflation and that will be the consequence. BTW the no historical parallels is complete nonsense, the UK was in an almost identical situation a hundred years ago when the pound was the world's currency.
#21
dish, a devalued US dollar is a double edged sword for us, and once again I am looking at the issue based on a layman's readings of opinions from economists.
Yes, GWB had wanted the $ to be devalued a bit in hopes that our exports would pick up to close the gap on the trade deficit. But that did not happen.
In spite of the devalued US $, the trade gap increased.
And the cost of oil had to go up when the dollar's value went down, because most OPEC producers take a hit on a US dollar devaluation because the US dollar is the official currency for petroleum markets. Most of the OPEC countries are making most of their purchases of goods and services ( imports) from countries who use currencies other than the US dollar. So the OPEC countries need to raise prices of oil to make up for their losses the take for imports from the EU and China. American consumers get hit with the rising oil prices and foreign investors who own alot of our debt ( Lachman says it's over 50%) get nervous about devalued US dollars, which they own alot of.
It's kind of a vicious circle, but I think the bottom line is the federal government is getting way over its head with the 2 deficits growing and Congress merrily raising the ceiling for gov't borrowing. At some point in the very near future our nation will pay the price.
I read that the Social Security Trust will be the mitigating factor of reality speak to the USA if no other eventuality comes before it. At around 2016, the gov't can't borrow against the Social Security Trust surplus anymore because there will be too many geezers reaching retirement age all at once and drawing on Social Security.
Maybe ZF or Phil can shed more light on the pros and cons of a devalued US dollar.
At Strategy Page, which unfortunately provides no permalink.
The Iraqi navy (officially, the Iraqi Coastal Defense Force) is slowly coming back into existence. At present, the force consists of five 89 foot long harbor patrol boats, and twenty FABs (Fast Aluminum Boats). There are about 500 sailors, many of them older men who have experience, but have been out of the navy for many years. The new navy was activated last September 30th, after nearly a year of training by Australian, Italian, Dutch and American naval personnel. For the next few years, the main work of the Iraqi navy will be protecting port facilities from terrorists, chasing smugglers, and dealing with potential safety problems aboard the many ships delivering goods, and taking out oil, from Iraqi ports. Smuggling is a bigger problem than terrorism, with well organized gangs doing over a billion dollars of business a year smuggling oil products out of Iraq and Iran. The new Iraqi government will decide when, and how, the navy will expand. Eventually the navy will probably have some larger ships, like corvettes (1,000 tons and up) for patrols farther out into the Persian Gulf. Aircraft will have to be obtained, for maritime surveillance. For now, those two tasks are taken care of by coalition naval forces.
Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005
12:19:49 PM ||
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A long time ago, I read how the Iraqis had purchased a ship from Italy, how the ship was almost completed when the embargo came into effect, and how the ship was just sitting at an Italian port with an Iraqi crew, unable to leave for years. I wonder what ever happened to it and them?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 20:33
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Anonymoose - I didn't know anything about that story till last summer, when I visited a friend in La Spezia, where the vessel was laid down. Apparently on their first attempt to return to Iraq the crew got lost in the Med and the Italian Navy had to come to their rescue, returning them to port. When war broke out the Iraqis were left in limbo, and without funds. They stripped the vessel of anything sellable and, I believe, the boat never left port again. Some still live in La Spezia.
The Saudi foundation Al Waqf-Al Islami has built several mosques in Bulgaria, but the Islamic community is tight-lipped about its links with the elusive organization, which has been linked to Al Qaeda.
Bulgaria's Muslims--most of whom are members of the country's Turkish minority--are traditionally a moderate lot. But in recent years, more radical forms of Islam have arrived in Bulgaria and elsewhere in the Balkans, often with Saudi financing.
If it's Saudi money, you can bet it's radical
So, how radicalized is Bulgaria's Muslim community and what is this Saudi money being used for?
This investigation, conducted in August 2004 by Yana Buhrer Tavanier, who is an editor with the Bulgarian weekly Kapital and a TOL contributor, has not found any evidence of terrorist activity--but it has uncovered a shadowy network that finances mosques and schools that promote the radical teachings of Wahhabi Islam and similar tendencies, and a network that has links to the chief mufti's office.
The first of our two articles looks at several mosques that were built with Saudi money, though Bulgaria's Muslim leaders continue to deny this fact. A second article deals with the network of Islamic schools in the country.
Very long investigative report at the link.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
12:13:33 PM ||
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Another wonderful contribution to the world of stability - courtesy of Turkey.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/27/2005 14:22
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True Tom the Saudi's will continue to spread radical Wahhabism wherever they can. The key being where they can. Had Turkey and the wonderful Ottomans not occupied so much territory in Europe proper and incessantly attacked the Byzantines the Balkans would not be such a powder keg today. Their Muslim influence would be diminished in Europe and more difficult for radical Islam to take hold.
Rantburgers passionately (as always) discussed Ms. Noonan's response to Bush's Inaugural Address. Apparently she heard about it, and wrote this response in the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com. Enjoy the whole thing.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/27/2005
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Excerpts from Peggy Responds:
A week later, do I stand by your views?
Yes because someone hurt my feelings on the night of the inagural ball. Downright snubbed me they did. Said Bush's speech was the best speech ever written. Excues me? Hello! I wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan, and my long flowery speeches are waaay better than that straight-to the-point, Gettysburg type crap.
But isn't hard criticism of such an important speech at such a serious moment disloyal? You're a Bush supporter!
I am. I even took off from the Journal to work for his re-election. I did exciting and I hope helpful work at considerable financial loss. And what praise did I get? None! I got nothing but financial loss and had to listen to crap about how that was the best speech ever written!
Why don't you see the speech as so many others do, as a thematic and romantic statement of what we all hope for, world freedom? Don't we all want that?
Yes. But words have meaning. To declare that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, that we are embarking on the greatest crusade in the history of freedom, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation--seemed to me, you know, just a bunch of blah, blah, blah, and is , rhetorical and emotional overreach of the most embarrassing sort. You see, I am a speech righter before an American. It matters more to me how it is being presented, rather than what is being presented
I mean, look, they forgot context!! *Scoff* All speeches take place within a historical context, a time and place. A good speech acknowledges context often without even mentioning it. The American masses are just too stupid to put it in context themselves. A good speech writer, like me, does that for them.
What's wrong with a little overweening ambition? Shouldn't man's reach exceed his grasp?
True. But despite the fact that it was clarified that Bush's speech does not indicate a change in policy, I'm going to rant on and on as if it did. Because, I'm washed up in the Republican Party circles now, and I'm tired of not getting all of the press kudos for my brilliant speeches that far less talented people like Michael Moore and Maureen Dowd get. And the Democrats have better parties then the Republicans do. All the cool people hang out with the Dems. I'm going to prove to Howard Dean - or whoever gets the spot, that I can write for them. Look, Howie, Look!!! I can write meaningless, petulant, childish crap myself.
Exhibit A Refrain from breast beating, and don't clobber the world over the head with your moral fabulousness.
Exhibit B
It is Bush, the dumb, unnuanced, chimp, cowboy trying to be fancy. It is a tough man who speaks the language of business, sports and politics trying to be high-toned and elegant.
Do you have anything else to say, Peggy?
Yes, I have over 2,000 words of flowery, meandering words, painting pretty pictures that you can read if you have nothing better to do. I really don't say anything other than my own opinion. If you want to cut to the crap, I just basically say that Bush's speech wasn't as good as anything I could have written and that he's a dumb cowboy.
#2
Shorter version: Peggy is in serious defense mode. Peggy drops down several notches in my esteem meter.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/27/2005 9:30
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Here is an unhappy fact: Certain authoritarians and tyrants whose leadership is illegitimate and unjust have functioned in history as--ugly imagery coming--garbage-can lids on their societies. They keep freedom from entering, it is true. But when they are removed, the garbage--the freelance terrorists, the grievance merchants, the ethnic nationalists--pops out all over. Yes, freedom is good and to be strived for. But cleaning up the garbage is not pretty. And it sometimes leaves the neighborhood in an even bigger mess than it had been
What weve learned is that the garbage comes out anyway. The garbage lids arent really very effective. The lids have been stripped off in Latin America, east asia, and eastern europe, and the garbage has proven less than anticipated. Weve kept the lids on in the mideast, and thats where the shit comes from. Bush to his credit understands that.
And the choice between "we're going to push for democracy everywhere NOW" and "its just a romantic and thematic speech" is a false one. There are clearly a range of policy implementation steps that can and must be taken to implement this, which go beyond mere words in a speech, yet are less than global crusade.
#4
time for Peggy to do a LONG sabbatical and get some hubris-reduction
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 10:20
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#5
Brother 'Hawk, you took the words right out of my keyboard!
Peggy, please, in the name of all that is holy, stop hanging out with Brent Scowcroft and go spend time with normal people. The "realists" are tyrrany's enablers.
Posted by: Mike ||
01/27/2005 10:23
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#6
really think I'm right on this one. Everything I need to know I learned in kindy-garten.
Right after the speech - Peggy had glowing words on Fox. Then, after a poor night sleep (fire alarm) she panned it - and panned it big. Using all the left's buzz words...cowboy, lack of nuance etc.
She's a good speech writer, but this is a great speech. One for the ages and she knows it. Plus, it was written in a style 100% opposite her own - blunt and to the point.
I think someone hurt her feelings that night and after suffering a financial loss, poor night sleep and a blow to her ego - she, in a moment of human weakness said words that just can not be taken back. First she very publically loved it then she very publically hated it. Loving it again wasn't an option without losing her position of authority and credibility forever. No, then she'd be a stooge, a pansy, a flake. It was a no win. So now she's digging in.
Personally, I think it's tragic. She knows it's a great speech. She said so immediately following. But she'll spend her life trying to justify herself here - never being able to admit it was a small moment of human failing, jealousy and spite.
In her efforts to maintain her head high in this life, she will be mocked by the future, something she must be acutely aware of. The Getttysburg address was widely panned in its time too.
That she, a great writer of her time, will go down in history as a small minded critic of one of the greatest speeches of our time, is truly a tragedy indeed.
#7
Her response to your-all response to her response to Bush's speech should be even more amusing, or so one can hope. And a fun time is had by all...;-)
#8
2b, I read the whole article, I thought she was saying it was not blunt enough?
I don't have a problem w/what she said. One person's opinion, such is life. So she thinks Bush sounded out of character, so what. I think she supports Bush, I know I do, and I don't like everything he does all the time.
"The "realists" are tyrrany's enablers."
-um, no. I consider myself a realist, & have yet to enabled any despot to take rule anywhere. Those who passively stand by and watch bad things happen are tyrrany's enablers.
I think more to the point is that the U.S. military can realistically & pretty conventionally kick the shit out of any two dictatorial countries in the world at the same time, and definitely any one dictatorship. We can take them all on one at a time, but not all at the same time realistically speaking. I think the worry is that by promoting a possible policy shift (which was denied by the admin anyhow) could possibly lead to too many fires we'll have to piss on and not enough bladder to do it with. Even so, I think LH is quite correct that there is a whole spectrum of means to encourage democratic reform all over the world w/out getting militarily involved. Bush prolly did not have the time w/an inaugural type of speech to put it in that context (as Noonan hoped) but I hope that's what it boils down to. Though I'm not sure we havn't already been promoting this since the cold war.
#12
Though I'm not sure we havn't already been promoting this since the cold war.
To the extent Clinton did it, it was not particularly strategic, and it was too quiet, and it was way inadequate. Which, I suppose, goes some way to excuse the GOP assault on Clintonist demo promotion, and their preference for "humility". But its only become clear that this is essential since 9/11, and its been quite disputed since then. And since the speech, I might add.
I think it is sad that some of you view Noonan's criticisms about the President's speech equates "disloyalty." Noonan did not haphazardly criticize the speech without supporting the problems she had with it. She writes an opinion column - get it? - opinion column= her opinions.
When we smugly dump on left wing journalists as biased hacks towing the DNC party line, how much better are we for pressuring conservative journalists to be in lockstep with the Admin, oohing and aahing about every utterance the President makes?
#14
oh please. Your "loyalty" issue is a blatant strawman. Calling Bush a simpleton "trying to act fancy" is not serious dialoge (though it would pass for it on the left) - it's just petty and childish as are all her other cowboy references. It adds nothing of substance to the discussion.
Her complaints are as shrill and meanigless as if she had denigrated a speech about civil rights because the man giving it didn't have perfect diction, didn't say his "s's" right, and the public just wasn't ready for such frank talk. Besides, wink, wink, there's reason to fear that he won't stop with just equality for just schools and the busses - what he really wants is an excuse to go after your women.
#15
you can tell her what you think at peggy@peggynoonan.com
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 17:44
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#16
Your analogy lost me, 2b, particularly the bold what he really wants is an excuse to go after your women. Huh?
As I recall in the initial opinion piece Noonan did not say the cowboy things that you say offended you and she mentioned them now only to defend herself because others did focus on the superficial things she did not.
Whatever.
Noonan's opinion piece will be viewed as a disloyal by some conservatives( yes, 2b, that's the slam that Noonan has taken by and large). Other conservatives will see Noonan's piece as reasoned observations. I thought GWB's speech was over the top and you likely thought it was perfect. So we it follows that we would evaluate Noonan's piece depending on whether or not she reinforces our reaction to GWB's speech. No mystery there.
#17
no - if I/we didn't like her 2nd take we're accused of seeing her as disloyal to W - your words. How about seeing her as deeply wrong? How about questioning her personal, not party, motives since her two takes on the speech, a day apart, were so different?
If someone else see it as reasoned observations, fine. Don't paint dissent from her 2nd take as kneejerk W loyalty, and the argument's over
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 18:10
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#18
Frank - agreed.
Bush the uppity n&^^$r cowboy
Had Peggy given it a day or two and written a thoughtful piece - she would have had my respect and attention.
Bush's speech was simple and, for anyone not already primed to be paranoid, Bush was speaking to a simple truth - democracies don't attack each other and thus we should do all we can to encourage democracy around the world.
It's a big F'ing duh. Yet Peggy rushes out, fans the flames of paranoia, "I fear he's going after your women to invade the world!
#19
I think it is sad that some of you view Noonan's criticisms about the President's speech equates "disloyalty."
The quote is for you, Frank, read my words carefully. Do I make any reference to Noonan's first opinion piece or to her 2nd opinion piece? No, I don't.
I am speaking generally that the reaction to Noonan's opinions about GWB's speech has been to slam her for disloyalty by conservatives who are pissed that she held the opinions she did. I do not name you or anyone else specifically in my quote. It is a just a passing observation I made with reference to this huge fury that Noonan has directed at her from some conservatives.
Noonan is in the employ of the WSJ not the GOP. She is paid to write thoughtful reasoned opinion pieces, and that's what she did. To disagree with Noonan's opinions is one thing but to ascribe unsourced, unproven, "hidden" motives to Noonan claiming her opinions about GWB's speech represented ( the following is an example of the personal attacks against Noonan) "a small moment of human failing, jealousy and spite" is silly.
#20
Yawn. I'm not interested in defending Noonan's petulant rant. She's entitled to her opinion, and I'm entitled to mine. And my opinion is that, rather than sounding like a professional historian critiquing a historic speech, she sounded like a catty, chat-room troll. In the future, I intended to afford her all of the attention I think she merits - none.
Jerusalem, Jan 26 : Agreeing to a key Palestinian demand, Israel has decided to halt its policy of "targeted assassinations" after Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas reached a breakthrough deal 'in principle' with militant Hamas faction.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has also decided to resume political contact with Palestinian leaders, which was frozen on January 14 following an attack in the Gaza Strip, public radio announced today. The contact with Israeli officials will re-start "very quickly", notably through Dov Weisglass, one of Sharon's main advisors, it said.
Israel informed the PA about its decision to stop "targeted" killings, which was taken after generals from the two sides met yesterday to plan deployment of the Palestinian policemen in central and southern Gaza, security officials told Ha'aretz daily.
Abbas yesterday reached an agreement 'in principle' with Hamas leaders in Gaza over the militant faction's participation in the PA's diplomatic decision-making and in a future Palestinian government, sources involved in Abbas' talks were quoted as saying in the local media. The agreements were reached in Abbas' meetings with top Hamas leaders in the territories -- Mahmoud al-Zahar and Ismail Haniyeh.
Both sides had their fingers crossed.
A "supreme diplomatic authority" will be established as per the agreement, which will include participation from all factions, to replace PLO as the key body responsible for approving any diplomatic agreements with Israel, the sources were quoted as saying.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/27/2005
12:12:16 AM ||
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#1
Israel has decided to halt its policy of "targeted assassinations"
Bomb's away, eh?
#3
While I do hope Israel continues (or increases, even) a rigorous intelligence-gathering effort, I do hope Israel doesn't employ any military activity that would be viewed as breaking the agreement.
But, I think a real concern is that Hamas/IJ will continue to build infrastructure and capability for killing while this hudna is in effect. It's not like they finally accept the existence of Israel. That puts Israel between a rock and a hard place: What does Israel do when it finds a bomb making or rocket making factory? What does Israel do when it uncovers plans for attacks?
Given the current dynamics, all Israel would be able to do would be to contact the PA to deal with the threat. That pits pali vs. pali, one faction of which is service to the Jews.
If you mean "why should anyone care about the palis," I would suggest they shouldn't. But I would love to see progress made, which requires that palis start to trust Israel and hamas is marginalized. If Israel were to strike first, it would give great comfort to hamas and would give palis reason to blame Israel for the breakdown of the process.
#7
..which requires that palis start to trust Israel..
You're kidding, right? Israel has provided more than enough reasons for anyone to believe that they can honor their end of an agreement. It's the Paleos, not the Israelis, that need to prove something. The Paleos need to prove they can police themselves. The Paleos need to prove they can honor agreed-upon deals. And most of all, the Paleos need to prove that they can fix what's wrong with their society.
#8
I agree that they need to prove they can police themselves. In fact, I really believe they won't be able to (too much corruption, too many people benefit from the conflict and not enough capability exists). But that's why Israel needs to be pristine in this -- any first-strike military action on the part of Israel would be a pretext for Hamas to say that Israel broke the accord and they'd have an excuse to not police themselves and not fix what's wrong with their society. The bottom line is: it's easier to blame Israel than to actually do the real work that needs to be done. I simply don't want to give them any reason to do that, forcing them to fix the real problems.
From the "Water: Why does it continue to hate us?" Dept. Edited for brevity.
A 50-foot Pacific wave temporarily disabled a "Semester at Sea" ship filled with hundreds of college students yesterday, injuring two crew members as it broke windows and damaged the vessel's controls, the Coast Guard said. Coast Guard vessels and aircraft from Alaska and Hawaii were dispatched to help the 591-foot Explorer, about 650 miles south of the Aleutian Islands and about 1,600 miles from Honolulu. The ship for a time operated on just one of its four engines and could do little more than keep the bow headed into heavy seas using emergency steering. By last night, a second engine had been started and the ship was making headway at a speed of about 10 knots, or about 11.5 mph, said Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Glynn Smith in Alameda, Calif. Jim Lawrence, a spokesman for V. Ships, the technical managers of the ship, said no one was critically hurt but he did not have details on injuries. He said the ship may head to Midway Island, about 800 miles away. The weather in the region has been unsettled recently, with winds gusting to 50 mph or more.
Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005
12:09:15 PM ||
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Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005 12:11
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#2
Engine's broke. Steering's broke. Ship is in danger of capsizing. That is not a disaster, that is a training opportunity of the first order. Drag those sorry college boys out of the swimming pool, throw them in the engine room and make them save their own lives. Make 'em barf in the bilge instead of their stateroom. Let 'em figure out what a crescent hammer is all about.
#5
My brother actually stowed away on board the old ship (SS Universe) in '79 or '80. His girlfriend was a student. The ship left Long Beach for Honolulu. He helped load baggage, acted low key, went to classes and hid in her closet during the lifeboat drill. The bartenders all knew him by name (how odd??). There were 5 other stowaways on that trip, all of whom ended up in the brig. My brother ate dinner at the captain's table and the girlfriend payed for his flight back to LA. God I miss him.
Seven people were gunned down in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan on Wednesday when two clans decided to settle scores in the middle of a crowded bazaar, officials said.
"Apostate!"
"Land thief!"
"That does it, go fer yer guns!"
Police said four pedestrians were caught in the crossfire and three of the tribesmen also died when a land dispute turned violent in Mir Ali district near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan.
"We'll settle this Bengali style!"
The two tribes quarreled late Tuesday over the plot of farmland in Aapy village and "after exchanging hot words they agreed to show their power in Mir Ali's main bazaar on Wednesday," local official Mohammad Jamil told AFP.
The groups met at the appointed time and opened fire on each other. "The exchange of fire continued for quite some time. The rival groups lost three men
That'd be Ike, Jimmy, and Doc...
while four pedestrians caught in the crossfire also died," he said. At least five other people were rushed to hospital with serious bullet wounds, Jamil added. Tribal police intervened to arrange a ceasefire, he said. The area is run on tribal laws and is semi-autonomous from central government control. "We have registered a case and the accused will be arrested soon," he said. Rival tribesmen in the deeply conservative region, which is dominated by heavily armed ethnic Pashtuns, often settle disputes at gunpoint.
How do you say, 'slack-jawed mopes' in Pashtun?
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/27/2005
12:08:16 AM ||
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If they where Bengali they would talk each other to death. Thats how we do it in my hood! Bigups to the Far Far East Coast Possie :-)
Posted by: robi sen ||
01/27/2005 0:36
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Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
01/27/2005 3:38
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#4
The modern version of waving sticks and shouting. I wonder how many bullets it took to actually hit twelve people, only three of whom were targets. Heaven help them if they ever get their hands on machine guns -- they might wipe themselves out an entire village per quarrel, but the land would be unusable due to lead concentrations forever.
#8
Look on the bright side guys (3) less loonies to wield ak-47's. PS do they these weapons out at a coming of age party? Everytime I see images of this area of the planet these people all seem to have ak's or RPG's. Nice place eh!
At least seven security personnel including an army major and a police inspector were killed and four were wounded in a Maoist guerrilla ambush in Parbat district west of Kathmandu Wednesday, the state run Nepal Television reported. It quoted security sources as saying a 30-minute gun battle between the security forces and the Maoists erupted after the initial explosion. Two civilians - a taxi driver and a passenger - were missing following the clash. The television report said the injured were undergoing treatment at Kushma, the headquarters of Parbat district.
The television also reported that the Maoists abducted over 500 students and teachers from various schools from eastern villages of the far-western Kanchanpur district Wednesday. Local radio reports said the Maoists abducted the students and teachers to involve them in indoctrination sessions.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/27/2005
12:03:23 AM ||
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Its been a while -- Bangladeshi crossfire just isn't the same ;-)
#2
The television also reported that the Maoists abducted over 500 students and teachers from various schools from eastern villages of the far-western Kanchanpur district Wednesday
#1
Ah, yes, the King of Swaziland. The MONEY QUOTE:
Some 39 per cent of adult Swazis are infected with HIV/ Aids, the highest proportion in the world. King Mswati responded to the crisis in 2001 by banning virgins from having sex for five years. Any man caught deflowering a virgin would be fined one cow.
This law proved too rigorous for the king. Months later, he chose a 17-year old bride and fined himself one cow.
LMAO! This may not be an RB classic, but it is definitely a runner-up.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 22:29
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On walking, quacking, swimming, and crapping like a duck...
Rep. David Dreier's new bill will not create a new national identification card. Oh sure, it will add a magnetic identification strip and identifying photo to your existing Social Security card, and you'll be required to present the new card for identification any time you want to apply for a new job. At that point, your prospective employer would then check the identification listed on your card against a national database which identifies eligible employees.
But Rep. Dreier's bill will not create a national identification card. How do I know? The card will say so! Look:
To offset fears of government intrusion, the card would be clearly marked, "This is not a national ID card," Dreier said.
#2
I no longer fear a non-counterfeitable nat'l ID card. In fact, I'm now for it
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 21:20
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#3
I've slowly moved over to the "OK" column, too. My biggest reservation is still the possibility of it being used too broadly. I realize no law will be able to stop the spread of its use, but maybe put a ten-year expiration on it.
Or, heck, a Constitutional amendment saying that any law establishing a form of national identification expires in ten years, and that any use beyond immigration, verification of eligibility for employment and voting is forbidden.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 21:29
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#4
Not only no more multiple dipping (eventually), but you'll actually have to be a citizen to get those bennies.
#6
Mag stripe - ha! Hope the (non-national ID) National ID contains a smart chip. Then the data in it can be digitally signed by the Feds. Make it a whole lot harder to either alter or counterfeit.
Omani police have arrested some 300 suspects, a number of them Islamists, who were planning attacks in the sultanate, where a cargo of arms was also seized, Al-Hayat newspaper reported Wednesday. Citing "information" and "rumours" circulating in Oman, the pan-Arab daily said that "social and military officials" were known to be among "some 300 people arrested ... last week."
Nice going, Mossad.
Arms were discovered when a truck transporting them had an accident, "which led to (the dismantling) of the group," it said. The information, published on its front page and attributed to the paper's correspondent in Muscat, also said there were "rumours of explosions on the first day of Eid Al-Adha", which began last Thursday. Those arrested planned "explosions targetting the Muscat Festival, which was boycotted by Islamists who deem it against the precepts of Islam," the daily said.
Having fun usually is.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/27/2005
11:56:46 PM ||
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"Arms were discovered when a truck transporting them had an accident, âwhich led to (the dismantling) of the group,â it said"
Omani drivers are among the worst in the world. I guess they are also going to have to hire foreigners to do the driving while on terror missions. Why not? They hire them for everything else!
When I lived there (1999-2002) it was illegal for foreigners to own a truck and to drive a truck as a profession - part of the Omanization process. I don't know about hiring foreigners to drive on terror missions though...hmmm...probably illegal.
The drivers there are a sight to behold. They tend to drive in what we called the "Insh'allah" mode.
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Three Palestinian terrorists militants were shot dead Wednesday by a unit of undercover Israeli troops operating in the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, Palestinian security and medical sources said. The three were killed in an alleyway in the city by a group of undercover Israelis dressed as Palestinians.
Their identities were not immediately known, nor was it clear to which terrorist militant group they belonged. There was no immediate comment on the shooting by the Israeli army.
There was, however, the unmistakable sounds of clinking glasses at the enlisted mens' club.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/27/2005
11:54:15 PM ||
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If they were dressed as Palestinians, how can we be sure they weren't actually...wait for it.... Palestinians? Say, from a rival gang organization?
A senior Palestinian commander said the deployment of Palestinian police in southern Gaza, originally set for Thursday, has been postponed. The commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not give the reasons for the delay. However, lower-ranking officers said there were still some disagreements with Israel over where the Palestinian policemen would take up positions. Israeli security officials were not immediately available for comment.
Yup. Israel's fault, again. Yup. Yup. Ri-i-i-ght.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
01/27/2005
11:49:05 AM ||
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#1
in fairness, this is bureaucratic blame - "hey, shimon, i think commander Mahmuds post should be over there" "no, abdul, with all due respect, we've done this for years, and the post needs to be 150 meters to the east" "I insist he goes over THERE, and I expect your signoff immediately" "wait a bit while I run it by the MOD in Tel Aviv"
rather than - "we cant do this cause the Evil Israelis are hurting Pal children and cutting down olive trees"
#2
i mean youve got israelis who know the local security needs, and are blunt, and Pals officers who have arab sensitivity about face, and they havent been working together for some time. Some friction is to be expected.
#3
The article, however brief, claims that there are disagreements over positioning. If the Paleos can't or won't take suggestions, then it should be made clear that they can organize their own effort if they prefer, but a failure to perform up to expectations will result in negative consequences.
King Abdullah II announced steps toward democratic reform in Jordan on Wednesday and urged all Iraqis to take part in their historic elections. In a televised speech, Abdullah said he wanted to "address all our ars are appointed by the government. "I assert here that political development should start at the grassroots, then move up to decision-making centers, and not vice versa," the king said.
"Mahmoud, what's he saying?"
"I dunno Ahmed, he's babbling in tongues again. Musta seen a blonde."
He said the plan for the new councils would be developed and implemented with assistance from a royal commission that will soon be formed. Abdullah spoke only hours after US President George W. Bush urged him at a Washington press conference to "make sure that democracy continues to advance in Jordan." Jordanian government officials, insisting on anonymity, stressed that Abdullah's announcement was not linked to Bush's call because the king had recorded his speech much earlier.
"How much earlier?"
"Much earlier."
Bush made the statement in reply to a question on whether he would condemn the Jordanian government for arresting a man and charging him with slander after he delivered a lecture called "Why We Boycott America." Since ascending the throne five years ago, Abdullah has sought to press ahead with reforms introduced by his late father, King Hussein, who died in 1999. Hussein's reforms focused on political liberalization, which included reviving a multiparty system banned since a 1956 leftist coup attempt and restoring parliamentary elections. Abdullah's reforms are economy-oriented. A computer and Internet enthusiast, Abdullah wants to make Jordan a regional information technology hub. He also wants to see his nation geared toward open-market economy and globalization and has introduced relevant legislation in recent years. His early target was to ensure that Jordanians have access to computers, improved education and health care.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/27/2005
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Nicaraguan police, with U.S. assistance in a sting operation, thwarted black marketeers trying to sell SA-7 shoulder-fired missiles capable of downing commercial aircraft earlier this month, raising fears that some missiles already have been sold to terrorists, The Washington Times has learned. U.S. officials think the missiles are being provided by elements of the Nicaraguan military. One official said intelligence reports suggest Nicaraguan army elements are keeping a secret stash of SA-7s not inventoried by international inspectors. The sellers in the sting demanded several hundred thousand dollars for each missile, said an administration official who discussed the operation on the condition of anonymity. It is not known if the black marketeers had been successful in selling other SA-7s before they were arrested.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
11:39:42 AM ||
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nice grab
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 12:13
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I wonder how many aircraft/heliocopters have actually been shot down by SA-7s. Under 50? Under 25?
Edited by yours truly
China is open to discussing its currency at the upcoming G7 finance ministers meeting but will not be pressured on any appreciation, central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan was reported as saying. Zhou acknowledged the growing pressure for change on the yuan but said China has been taking gradual measures to relax its control of the capital markets as it becomes further integrated into the global economy. "We would like to discuss that issue in the context of international cooperation," the China Daily quoted Zhou as saying. "For any country, the exchange rate issue should be decided by the sovereign state," he added. China has repeatedly pledged to free up its dollar-peg over the last several years but has not indicated a timetable or specific measures, only saying that any eventual loosening of the peg will be gradual and stable. snip
Bush, speaking at a news conference, said his administration must face up to the "twin deficits," referring to the budget gap and current account deficit, which measures trade and investment flows. But he also said an important factor is China, whose clout in global commerce is growing. "In terms of the trade deficit, it is important for us to make sure ... that countries treat their currencies in market fashion," Bush said. "I've been working with China, in specific, on that issue; secondly, that people knock down their barriers to our goods and services." Washington has for some time been pressing China to adjust or float the yuan, saying the undervalued currency gives Chinese exports an unfair advantage.
Posted by: Secret Master ||
01/27/2005
11:37:01 AM ||
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al-Reuters, of course, played this as evidence that China is abandoning the dollar peg as a show of no confidence in the US economy.
#2
Reuters may have slanted its reporting to suit its anti-GWB agenda. However, we cannot ignore the fact that China owns considerable US debt, and because we have twin deficits accumulating, China being part of our trade deficit and our too much spending deficit, there is some truth to China having to weigh its response to GWB's request in light of its being a major creditor rather than merely a major trader. In other words, China will unpeg the yeun from the dollar even though it will hurt its exports because it is concerned about its credit to the USA, about the value of its investment.
ONE of the two bomb-makers behind the 2002 Bali nightclub attacks was believed to have been killed yesterday in a targeted air strike. The strike came after spies tracked him to a meeting with terrorists from the southern Philippines-based militant group Abu Sayyaf, the Philippines military said last night. Philippines officials said they were confident that Dulmatin, one of the most wanted men in Southeast Asia, was at a meeting bombed by fighter jets and attack helicopters in an Islamic stronghold 900km south of Manilla.
Don't get your hopes up, no body parts, yet
The Australian Federal Police last night said it had received no information from the Philippines and was unable to confirm the development. If true, however, the attack has killed one of Jemmah Islamiah's most capable bomb-makers at the gathering with two acolytes and Abu Sayyaf chief, Khadaffy Janjalani, who had evaded the military for five years. The meeting was being held in a marshland hut in Mindanao Province, a notorious heartland of Islamic rebels. Two bomber aircraft dropped 100kg bombs and attack helicopters followed up with six rockets. "We had six targets, and they were all hit in the bombing runs," said the Philippine military's Southern Command chief, Colonel Domingo Tutaan.
Dulmatin's assassination would be the biggest breakthrough in the hunt for the remaining Bali bombers in the past two years. Like his mentor Dr Azahari, who remains on the run in Java, Dulmatin is Afghanistan-trained and one of the few JI militants able to assemble and explode large chlorate and nitrate bombs. Police allege he was the man who mixed and assembled the 500kg bomb that destroyed the Sari Club, claiming most of the 202 lives lost during the Bali blasts of October 2002.
He's a dangerous guy, hope they got him this time.
The International Crisis Group's Sydney Jones claimed earlier this month that Dulmatin had been the target of a similar, failed strike in the same area on November 18. JI is believed to have formed links with the Abu Sayyaf up to five years ago. Abu Sayyaf rebels once claimed to have fought for an Islamic state in the south of The Philippines, but won infamy around the world for the repeated kidnapping and killing of tourists. Both groups are alleged to enjoy the ongoing support of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has been semi-legitimised by the Philippine Government as an autonomous group representing Muslims in the largely Islamic south of the country. Meanwhile, another of the Bali bombers, Mubarok, yesterday refused to give evidence at the terrorist trial in Jakarta of Jemmah Islamiah's alleged spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir. Mubarok, who is serving life in prison for aiding the bombers, said he could shed no light on whether Bashir had given several of the bombers, including Amrozi, his blessing before the deadly attacks.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
11:25:49 AM ||
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#1
'hope they got him' is right
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 12:00
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When more than 200,000 people died in a tsunami caused by an Asian earthquake in December, the immediate reaction in the United States was an outpouring of grief and philanthropy, prompted by extensive coverage in the news media.
Two months earlier, the reaction in the United States to news of another large-scale human tragedy was much quieter. In late October, a study was published in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, concluding that about 100,000 civilians had been killed in Iraq since it was invaded by a United States-led coalition in March 2003. On the eve of a contentious presidential election -- fought in part over U.S. policy on Iraq -- many American newspapers and television news programs ignored the study or buried reports about it far from the top headlines.
It wasn't ignored -- it was turned into the A-#1 talking point of the perpetually indignant.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 13:46
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#2
Idiots. You'd think that there would be a modicum of itelligence, but no, you get drivel like this.
"That's a classical sample size," says Michael J. Toole, head of the Center for International Health at the Burnet Institute, an Australian research organization. Researchers typically conduct surveys in 30 neighborhoods, so the Iraq study's total of 33 strengthens its conclusions. "I just don't see any evidence of significant exaggeration," he says.
As any Statistics 101 student knows a random sample is only valid if a random distribution can be reliably assumed. In a country like Iraq that is poppycock of the worst kind!
This is statistical analysis on the order of the man putting one hand in freezing water and one hand in boiling water and saying on average I feel fine. One skewed site could totally corrupt the extrapolations.
#6
Yeah, I read that "study." It was a statistically inept and inaccurate load of CRAP.
Don't have a copy of it, but if memory serves they took the word of people - rather than looking at actual death certificates - and the guestimate (which is what it was) was anywhere from 8,000 to 200,000. So they just decided on 100,000. And this piece of flatulance was supposed to be peer reviewed? By whom? The DU?
What The Lancet did - for political purposes not even in its own country - was to make every other article they publish suspect. Their articles are often used in court cases to prove a particular medical point. I know if I'm involved in one in the future I intend to suggest to the attorneys they use this very flawed and obviously rigged article to question any Lancet article used by the other side.
If I were a genuine researcher who regularly published in The Lancet, I'd be livid at what they did.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/27/2005 19:47
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#7
There is a discussion of this going on at Michael Totten's blog. A fool named Factcheck insisting that this is a perfectly reliable scientific study.
To refresh your memory Barbara the "sample" included 33 neighborhoods, 30 homes per neighborhood for a total of 8,000 people interviewed. They verified with a death certificate ~6% of the deaths, but, only tried to verify ~8%. There was a total of 21 violent war realted deaths from which they extrapolated 100,000. The 8,000 to 200,000 range was the 95% confidence factor.
If I tried this crap in a stat class (oh that was a loooooonnng time ago) I wouldn't have gotten an F; I would have been laughed out of class!
NYT - Reg Req'd, so I'm posting the whole piece....
Having spent the last 10 days traveling to Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland, I have one small suggestion for President Bush. I suggest that when he comes to Europe to mend fences next month he give only one speech. It should be at his first stop in Brussels and it should consist of basically three words: "Read my ears." Ho-ho, Tom, you kidder!
Let me put this as bluntly as I can: There is nothing that the Europeans want to hear from George Bush, there is nothing that they will listen to from George Bush that will change their minds about him or the Iraq war or U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Bush is more widely and deeply disliked in Europe than any U.S. president in history. Some people here must have a good thing to say about him, but I haven't met them yet. because you have a revolving circle of like-minded anti-American friends, loser. Talk about not listening to dissent
In such an environment, the only thing that Mr. Bush could do to change people's minds about him would be to travel across Europe and not say a single word - but just listen like St. Hillary. If he did that, Mr. Bush would bowl the Europeans over. He would absolutely disarm and flummox people here - and improve his own image markedly. All it would take for him would be just a few words: "Read my ears. I have come to Europe to listen, not to speak. I will give my Europe speech when I come home - after I've heard what you have to say." "I'm a simple-minded chimp and will do whatever you say"
If Mr. Bush did that none of the European pundits would be able to pick apart his speeches here and mock the contradictions between his words and deeds. None of them would comment on his delivery and what he failed to mention. Instead, all the European commentators, politicians and demonstrators would start fighting with one another over what to say to the president. It might even force the Europeans to get out of their bad habit of just saying, "George Bush," and everybody laughing or sneering as if that ends the conversation, and Europe doesn't have to declare what it stands for. rrriiiggghhhtt
Listening is also a sign of respect. It is a sign that you actually value what the other person might have to say. If you just listen to someone first, it is amazing how much they will listen to you back. Most Europeans, though, are convinced that George Bush is deaf - that he cannot listen or hear. Just proving that he is not deaf, and therefore the Europeans don't have to shout, would do wonders for Mr. Bush's standing.
What would Mr. Bush hear? Some of it is classic Eurowhining, easily dismissible. But some of it is very heartfelt, even touching. I heard it while doing interviews at the Pony Club oooooohh! , a trendy bar/beauty parlor in East Berlin. And more and more I think it explains why many Europeans dislike Mr. Bush so intensely. It's this: Europeans love to make fun of naïve American optimism, but deep down, they envy it and they want America to be that open, foreigner-embracing, carefree, goofily enthusiastic place that cynical old Europe can never be. Many young Europeans blame Mr. Bush for making America, since 9/11, into a strange new land that exports fear more than hope, and has become dark and brooding - a place whose greeting to visitors has gone from "Give me your tired, your poor" to "Give me your fingerprints." They look at Mr. Bush as someone who stole something precious from them. "Give us your money! Protect us in war while we snap at your back and undermine your security"
Tim Kreutzfeldt, the bar owner, said to me: "Bush took away our America. I mean we love America. We are very sad about America. We believe in America and American values, but not in Bush. And it makes us angry that he distorted our image of the country which is so important to us. It is not what America stands for - and this makes us angry and it should make every American angry, because America lost so much in its reputation worldwide." The Bush team, he added, is giving everyone in the world the impression that "somebody is coming to kill you."
Stefan Elfenbein, a food critic nursing a beer at our table, added: "I know many people who don't want to travel to America anymore. ... People are afraid to be hassled at the border. ... We all discuss it, when somebody goes to America [we now ask:] 'Are you sure?' We had hope that Kerry would win and would make a statement, 'America is back to what it was four years ago.' We hoped that he would be the symbol, the figure who would say, '[America] is the country that welcomes everybody again.' [But] now we have to wait four more years, hopefully for somebody to give us back the country we knew and liked."
Yes, yes, there are legitimate counters to all these points. But before anyone here will listen to Mr. Bush make those counterpoints, he will have to really listen to them first.
I'm gonna puke. This passes for intellectual opinion in the Old Gray Dowager
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005
11:02:19 AM ||
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#3
Shoulda gone to Israel, Japan, Australia and India. There's still time to cancel without having to pay penalties.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/27/2005 11:27
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#4
How very anti-liberal. Didn't they always used to complain when they would speak and nobody would listen to them? They *never* assumed it was their fault, because they believed in their ideas. But now, when Bush speaks, clearly a man of belief, *and* a man who turns his beliefs into reality with considerable success, the liberals put their fingers in their ears and go "LaLaLaLaLaLa! I can't hear you!" In that way, they sound just like their anti-segregationist forbears sounded. Ironically, now, the left (and Europe) is so empty of new ideas, so decadent in their philosophy, and so exhausted in their ideals, that they have nothing new to contribute. So they demand that others listen to them as they walk around with their fingers in their ears, going "LaLaLaLaLaLa!", as if that could ever change anything. Burning with jealosy and rage, like a small boy whose sister is giving a violin recital to the grown-ups to some acclaim, they hide under the table, red-faced, crying and cursing, "Stop that! #*$*%@^&*!"
#5
Stay home and save the airfare. Tell the whiners it's Bush contribution to stop global warming.
Posted by: ed ||
01/27/2005 11:41
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#6
The author is missing something obvious. These people are victims of the European media which is one constant drum beat of anti-Americanism. It's is couched in the language of anti-Bush spin but it is actually anti-Americanism. The 68ers as they are called dominate the press in Europe. Their hate for the the United States palpable and they control the media and much of many European governments. The United States of America is the cause of all wrong and misery is their meme. The author is on of them too so he misses this. He can't see this for what it is. George Bush the centrist is portrayed as a extreme right winger by European media. ( For God sakes he is a practicing Methodist a very liberal denomination.) Europe needs to hate the United States of America because the EU is a failure. Their economies are moribund. Their birth rates are not sustaining their culture. Europe is dying. They have decided to focus on the United Stats of America instead of themselves and fixing the serious problems they have.
#7
We had hope that Kerry would win and would make a statement, âAmerica is back to what it was four years ago.â
-which is why he lost. There's no going back to before 9/11. Wake up assholes.
I liked how this guy went to a trendy bar/beauty salon to canvas the "average" euro's opinion - tool.
As far as W going there and not speaking, I'm actually cool w/that tactic. Heck, I don't think our Prez should have to say anything to most of these folks. Let them put their $.02 in if it floats their boat, W should just say "thanks for your input" and do what needs to be done anyhow.
#8
âAmerica is back to what it was four years ago.â
Which is where their party stands. In the dicitionary that is REGRESSIVE. Of course in their own 1984 manner, they call themselves PROGRESSIVE.
#9
I spent most life in the U.S. and I could give a shit what Europe thinks about anything. If Tom likes the Euro stand so much he should pack up and move there. If he needs help packing I will be happy to oblige. Maybe we could trade him for TGA or Bulldog?
#10
Well, we know where Tom is spending his expense account money -- in trendy bars. If had interviewed a Soho bar owner and a NY food critic, he would have gotten the exact same response.
Years ago, I respected Freidman for the work he did in Beruit. But now, he has sunk to the level of AFP and AP. Couldn't he get off his fat ass ans interview some folks who aren't part of the chattering classes? How about some factory workers? Or a family living on the edge of a Turkish neighborhood?
Freidman just used up the last of his attaboy credits with me. From now on it's all ah shits.
#11
Do an anonymous survey in Iran and you'll find quite a bit of support for George, especially amoung the under 30's which make up 60% of the popluation. Freedom is ony taken for granted when you have it. Unfortunately, Europe hasn't had to fight for it in 60 years. PS guys you wouldn't have it if we didn't fight for you. You can thank my grandfathers and great uncles at the same time you kiss my ass.
#15
Europeans love to make fun of naïve American optimism, but deep down, they envy it and they want America to be that open, foreigner-embracing, carefree, goofily enthusiastic place that cynical old Europe can never be
It's really astonishing to think that the above slop is put forward as a breakthrough insight by the NY Times' preeminent analyst of foreign affairs. It's bad enough that he tries to buttress this claim by boasting that he's spent a full ten days (!) hitting the bar/beauty shops of Europe-- no hard analysis of changes in popular opinion; no analysis of what people read, view, think; no effort to examine the effect of an even more biased and ludicrously slanted 1968er-dominated media upon popular views-- but this caricature of a stereotype doesn't even have any internal logic.
So Europeans hate the US now for hassling them at passport control at JFK? How many Europeans have endured this experience recently? A few thousand? How many patrons of Berlin's "Pony Club" have endured this? Two, three?
This is about as intelligent as arguing that Americans hate France because when they arrive at Charles de Gaulle they see black immigrants and patrols with automatic weapons and attack dogs instead of beautiful girls in short skirts and beret-clad intellectuals.
The divide is simple. We view this struggle as a war. Most Europeans think it's just another counter-terrorist police effort. They see no major difference between the islamofascists and Baader-Meinhoff or the Red Brigades and believe that Bush is imposing his own fundamentalist religious views (HISSSS!!! RELIGION--BAD!!) on the conflict, views which are in the Euros' eyes more reprehensible than Osama's views.
"Listen" my ass, Tommy Boy. We would have far more transatlantic understanding if our diplomats and traveling journos in Europe would insist, again and again, to anyone who will listen that this is war, it is a war against another version of fascism, and we will not make any excuses whatsoever for taking the fight to the fascists and defeating this scourge the only way it can be defeated: by trouncing it, with JDAMS and ballots both.
#17
There is nothing that the Europeans want to hear from George Bush, there is nothing that they will listen to from George Bush that will change their minds about him or the Iraq war or U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Bush is more widely and deeply disliked in Europe than any U.S. president in history.
#18
"I heard it while doing interviews at the Pony Club, a trendy bar/beauty parlor in East Berlin."
With that '70's porn mustache, I'd be careful about admitting to going to places like the Pony Club, Tommy Boy.
Also, Stefan Elfenbein (the Germans have food critics?) says "We had hope that Kerry would win and would make a statement, âAmerica is back to what it was four years ago.â"
I too wish America could go back four years. That way we could stop the 9/11 hijackers from murdering 6 people I knew, along with three thousand others. What a stupid Dieter! Sorry, TGA.
Posted by: Tibor ||
01/27/2005 18:23
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#19
Sorry Tom - off by two. When Bush goes to Europe, he should say only two words - the second one is 'you'.
From Geostrategy-Direct, subscription req'd.
The Iraqi embassy in Syria facilitates the flow of insurgents to fight the coalition in Iraq, U.S. officials have determined.
They said the Iraqi embassy in Damascus has refused to submit to the authority of the interim government in Baghdad. The embassy has provided passports at sharply reduced costs to Islamic volunteers who have joined the Sunni insurgency movement. Iraqi passports---cheap---inquire within
The embassy in Damascus is one of at least two embassies that have refused to come under the authority of the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad and remains aligned with Saddam Hussein loyalists. The other such Iraqi embassy is in Libya.
Officials said the embassy in Damascus issues passports for a range of Arab nationals who seek to join the insurgency. For $95, or 5,000 Syrian pounds, applicants can receive a passport within a day.
The passports have been issued to Iranians, Lebanese, Palestinians and Syrians. Officials said embassy staffers have been offered financial incentives to provide the passports to the insurgents.
Iraq and the United States have warned Syria to stop the operations of the Iraqi embassy in Damascus. But the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has refused to intervene. I think that we have given way too many warnings. Something to make the Syrians think about the price of such nefarious activities is in order now.
The Iraqi embassy could be overseeing the activities of five insurgency centers to recruit volunteers to fight the coalition in Iraq, officials said. Some of the centers have been sending at least 30 insurgents a month to Iraq since April 2003.
The U.S. military learned of the role of the Iraqi embassy following the capture of Fallujah in November 2004. Iraqi passports were meant to conceal the identity of foreign Arab nationals, particularly Syrians.
"Some of the Syrians captured in Fallujah and amongst the insurgents have been caught with Syrian identity cards," the opposition Reform Party of Syria said. "The distribution of free Iraqi passports out of Damascus can, in the future, conceal the real identity of insurgents."
Over the last week, Iraqi authorities have captured more than 100 Sunni insurgents. Officials have not ruled out that among them were senior operatives. But the detainees have benefited from changes in identity that make it difficult to determine their names and countries of origin. Culturally sennnnsitive interrogation by Iraqis should get the answers forthcoming, IMHO. [snip]
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005
10:47:27 PM ||
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The Philippine military said on Thursday it had attacked a group of renegade Muslim rebels as they met two Indonesians suspected of taking part in the Bali bombings in October 2002 that killed 202 people. There was no immediate information on casualties after artillery, aircraft and helicopter gunships pounded a marshy area near Datu Piang town on the southern island of Mindanao. The military said two Indonesians from the regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) -- Umar Patek and Dulmatin -- were with rogue rebels from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) who broke a truce by attacking an army outpost this month. Khadaffy Janjalani and Abu Sulaiman -- two leaders of Abu Sayyaf, a smaller group of Philippine Muslim rebels -- were also there, the military said. "The intelligence operation had determined the exact lair of this group of renegades and ranking leaders of the Abu Sayyaf and JI who were holed up in several houses," Lieutenant-General Alberto Braganza of the army's southern command told Reuters.
Sounds like they found a high command meeting. Be still my beating heart.
Philippine officials say there are nearly three dozen Indonesian and Malaysian militants hiding and training with some MILF factions. The rebels deny having any formal ties with JI, which is associated with al Qaeda.
"Oh, sure, we know them, and get together for drinks, but it's nothing formal. I mean, it's not like we get dressed up or anything."
The government and the MILF, the largest Muslim rebel group in this mainly Roman Catholic nation, are due to resume informal peace talks in Malaysia on Feb. 1 to try to end a 35-year insurgency that has claimed 120,000 lives. Eid Kabalu, a spokesman for the MILF, said the rebels would protest over Thursday's military strikes. "This is a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement," he told Reuters by phone. "I checked with our truce panel and there was no prior coordination."
Like even the Phillipine Army was going to tell you they were going to attack. Who do you think they are, Saudi?
The military said in a statement it had informed the MILF prior to the attack and assured the rebels it was aimed at the JI and Abu Sayyaf members suspected of being in the area.
OK. So. I was wrong. They are that stupid.
Kabalu said Wahid Tundok, the commander of the rogue band of rebels, was not in Datu Piang town after being sidelined by the MILF leadership over the attack on the army outpost on Jan. 9 and 10 in which 13 soldiers and 15 militants were killed. Officials in the Philippines and Malaysia said at the time they did not expect that clash to derail the peace talks. But the attack by the rogue rebels, the worst violence during a 17-month truce, exposed weaknesses in the ability of MILF leaders to control their forces. Earlier this month Sidney Jones, Southeast Asia director for the International Crisis Group, cited Indonesian intelligence sources as saying Umar Patek and Dulmatin were the targets of a Philippine air force strike on Nov. 18 in central Mindanao. Jones said the two suspected Bali bombers were not JI members but belonged to a little-known Indonesian group called Banten that operated independently of the regional network. Beyond Umar Patek and Dulmatin, Philippine security forces are searching for two other unnamed Indonesian terror suspects. "There is an ongoing manhunt operation in central Mindanao," Chief Superintendent Ismael Rafanan, head of the national police intelligence group, said on Monday. "We're after the big fish."
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
10:46:54 AM ||
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The Rotterdam international film festival has pulled the last contentious work by Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh at the eleventh hour, amid fears that the screening might trigger further acts of religious violence. The short film, Submission Part One, was due to form the centrepiece of a debate on freedom of speech on Sunday night. It will now not be shown.
Submission Part One is a ten-minute film about a Muslim woman forced into an arranged marriage where she is beaten by her husband, raped by her uncle and finally accused of adultery. Explaining the decision to withdraw it, the film's producer Gijs van de Westelaken said: "We do not want to take any chance of endangering anyone else who participated in the film."
Posted by: growler ||
01/27/2005
10:46:32 AM ||
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#1
Thus proving that speech there is, indeed, not free. What a dramatic way to win debate points.
#6
It's amazing Muslims can cry about discrimination and PC Police will give you a citation if you criticize them but if you disagree they kill you.
Round two goes to the Muslims as well. My opinion compulsory viewing for all graduating High Schoolers. Let them know the threat islam is to the World.
Today was the first pro-forma trial day of Mohammed Bouyeri, the terrorist who slaughtered Theo van Gogh on 2 November.
* The assassination was planned; ten witnesses claim they have seen surveillances by the terrorist on different location on van Goghâs regular route to his office.
* The night before the attack, 1 November, two other members of the Hofstad terror group met Mohammed Bouyeri (Jason W. and Ismael A).
* AIVD taped phone conversations of the, now detained, Hofstad cell members. They recorded them saying: âWe have conform the authentic Islamic way, slaughtered the lam. This will be the punishment for each person that will offend Allah or his prophet. O you, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, tomorrow if Allah wants it, itâs your turn.â In the same phone conversation the caller claimed to belong to the group of Mohammed Bouyeri "the brigade of the Islamic Jihad". The phone conversation was made from the address in Den Haag (Antheunisstraat), where a week after the murder Jason W. en Ismail A. where arrested. The AIVD has still 20 hours of tapes, but did not have the time yet, to process them.
* The prosecutor only questioned Mohammed Bouyeri right after his arrest. At that time he did not wanted to cooperate. No further attempts where made.
* An AIVD (Dutch inteligence service) transcript of a conversation of Mohammed Bouyeri, was found in the house of Mohammed Bouyeri (See also: The Secret Service Mole story).
* Achmed H. (26), who lived at the same address as Mohammed Bouyeri, worked in a building opposite to where Theo van Gogh lived. He also has no albi for the time around the murder. Witnesses declare that they have seen him, together with two others, near the crime scene.
* The prosecutor knew on 2 november of the threats made against Wilders and Hirsi Ali, but waited to inform other services that handle the securiy (DKDB) of Wilders and Hirsi Ali. He says he first wanted to do some research and forwarded the information on 3 november. Strangly enough, Aboutaleb and burgomaster Cohen received protection that same day, but Wilders and Hirsi Ali only days later.
* The pro-forma trial date for the Hofstad terrorist trial in set on 7 february.
* The public prosecutor asked 3 months delay to finish his investigation.
The Charges
1. Murder on Theo van Gogh with terrorist intentions
2. Attempted murder of 8 police officers with terrorist intentions
3. Attempted murder on 2 bystanders with terrorist intentions
4. Making death threats to Ayaan Hirsi Ali with terrorist intentions
5. Obstructing Ayaan Hirsi Ali to attend a parliamentary meeting with terrorist intentions.
6. Membership of a criminal organisation with terrorist intentions
7. Conspiracy to murder with terrorist intentions
8. Illegal possession of firearm and ammunition
The arrest
Regarding the murder on Theo van Gogh, they have 53 eyewitnesses. Only some minor details where not reported earlier. New was that he gave more details on how the arrest took place.
After the slaughter Mohammed Bouyeri calmly walked through the park. When he wanted to leave the park, he walked into a police car. He walked to the car. The police officers in the car stayed passive. When Mohammed Bouyeri is only a few meters away from the car, he starts shooting on them. In panic the police car tries to flee, but crashes into a wall. Mohammed follows them calmly and continues shooting and hits one officer in the chest (he was wearing a bullet proof vest). When other police cars arrive, he shoots at these cars too. In all cars bullet holes where found.
----
All this from a Dutch blogger who's following the trial. [hat tip: Roger Simon]
#9
My favorite detail is that Bouyeri intended to martyr himself but the cops just winged him and took him to hospital. No virgins for you, Mo!
The part that sux is that Mo is still intending to martyr himself via the Dutch courts. His lawyer is consistently refusing any psychiatric or other evaluations that would delay trial and harsh punishment. Dunno if Holland has death penalty or not.
#11
The Rotterdam international film festival has pulled the last contentious work by Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh at the eleventh hour, amid fears that the screening might trigger further acts of religious violence.
The Dutch need to step hard on these terrorists. Deal with it now or deal with it later.
If it's in the EU, it has no death penalty. Condition of entry. It's also one of the reasons why British prisons are filling up with death-penalty exiles who would be shot on arrival if they were repatriated but who we can't repatriate because we're prevented from deporting anyone who faces a death penalty, either convicted or not - even to the US.
The most recent doom-and-gloom forecast by Matthew Parris of the London Times would be hilarious if it were not so hackneyed. After all, Americans long ago have learned to grin any time a British intellectual talks about the upstart's foreordained imperial collapse. And as in the case of our own intelligentsia's gloominess, it is not hard to distinguish the usual prophets' pessimistic prognostications from their thinly-disguised hopes for American decline and fall.
But this country is now in its third century and assurances that the United States is about through are getting old. In the early 20th century the rage was first Spengler and then Toynbee who warned us that our crass consumer capitalism would lead to inevitable spiritual decay. Next, the Hitlerians assured the Volk that the mongrel Americans could never set foot on German-occupied soil, so decadent were these Chicago mobsters and uncouth cowboys. Existentialism and pity for the empty man in the gray flannel suit were the rage of the 1950s, as Americans, we were told, had become depressed and given up in the face of racial inequality, rapid suburbanization, and the spread of world-wide national liberationist movements.
In the 1960s and 1970s we heard of the population bomb and all sorts of catastrophes in store for the United States and the world in general that had unwisely followed its profligate paradigm of consumption; yet despite Paul Ehrlich's strident doomsday scenario, the environment got cleaner and the people of the globe richer. And then came the historian Paul Kennedy, who, citing earlier Spanish and English implosions, "proved" that the United States had played itself out in the Cold War, ruining its economy to match the Soviet Union in a hopeless arms race—publishing his findings shortly before the Russian empire collapsed and the American economy took off (again).
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: tipper ||
01/27/2005
10:43:52 AM ||
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Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/27/2005 11:39
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#3
Honestly, I think we are just beginning our real ascent. If there is a parallel to us in world history it would be the Romans for their power, reach, effeciency, discipline and the Pax Romana. But unlike most predictions the parallel is not with Rome's decline but with the beginning of its ascendence.
It remains to be seen if we the heirs of Rome can maintain our ascendency for as long as they did (1000 yrs) but if they could do it, why couldn't we? It also remains to be seen whether it is possible for us to learn from what happened to Rome or if its even possible for humans to avoid it. How long will we be able to hold onto power justly? How long will we be able to stay a healthy civilization? Will we be able to step down graciously at some point without resorting to brutal repression in some futile attempt to contain new upstart forces in the world?
I think the answers to these questions will be a long time in coming because we're actually just getting started. I predict that the answers will be positive ones because we have already avoided so many of the problems that eventually brought Rome down. Imperialism is one. Its hard to think of a powerful people more averse to the idea of empire than Americans who still somehow keenly remember how much we disliked it when it was us. Americans dont want to be anywhere else than right here. We dont want our soldiers anywhere else than right here protecting our borders. I dont think many people understand the depth of our feelings about this nor how deep is our reluctance to send our soldiers away to foriegn lands.
As long as that never changes we'll stay in good shape.
#5
The fact that the American people voted the Democrats out of power is indicative of a nation on the ascendancy instead of in decline. Perhaps the intellectuals identify so thoroughly with the Democrats, that they have mentally transferred the malaise and innui following the implosion of the Democrats to the country as a whole. As usual, they have tried to extrapolate from a single point.
Fido, the lead dog of an Iditarod musher was stomped to death by a charging moose along the Denali Highway in Alaska. Ramey Smyth said that a few years ago Fido led Smyth's team to a significant victory in the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race on the Kenai Peninsula. Fido, who was killed earlier this month, was behind the leaders in a team of 20 dogs when the moose appeared and for reasons no human can know, the moose charged the dog, reported the Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News. Smyth says he wishes he'd kept the gun he had loaned to another musher, who was having trouble with a moose on the trails around Talkeetna. He said all the mushers training in the Cantwell area had been having troubles with a moose. It's always better to have a gun and not need it than not have one and need one!
Fido's friend Bowser was coincidentally done in by a squirrel recently...
Moose, why do they hate us dogs?
Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005
10:43:26 AM ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 11:21
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The CIA Cat Desk's Daily Brief indicates that the Cats, still smarting from their recent unsuccessful plots against the Dogs, might have begun meeting secretly with other species. The Moose Desk confirms that Bullwinkle has dropped off their radar.
#1
Tipper-Thanks for posting an interesting article. A few noteworthy comments:
â...'Even if we include immigration, the population of the original EU-12 will fall by 7.5 million over the next 45 years, according to the UN calculations. Since the times of the 'Black Death' epidemic in the fourteenth century, Europe has never seen such an extensive population decline,' writes Niall Ferguson, a British historian..."
â...First, a young man graduates from a college or vocational school; then he secures his living, which is followed by marriage; and only then children are born. This succession not only conforms to social conventions but is also based on a profound economic logic: it is simply foolish to start having children before getting a living. The taboo of sex in Western cultures has profound economic reasons...â
â...Instead of integration of immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa into a majority European society, the opposite will occur: the immigrants will integrate the existing European culture into their own civilization. After some time, it will be their civilization that will become dominant...â
We're not the business pages, folks. Let's stick to the WoT and strange animal stories.
Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005
10:28:23 AM ||
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CSX also released 2004 earnings reports a couple days ago:
CSX Corporation today reported its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2004.
* Net earnings were $66 million, or 30 cents per share, including international terminal's discontinued operations and related tax obligations, which lowered net earnings by $93 million, or 41 cents per share;
* Net earnings from continuing operations were $159 million, or 71 cents per share, up $47 million, or 42% compared to the prior year's quarter;
* Surface Transportation operating income, including rail and intermodal operations, was $315 million, up $76 million, or 32% compared to the fourth quarter of 2003.
Not too shabby for both east coast RRs--especially considering their 3rd and 4th quarters were in upheaval thanks to the onslaught of hurricanes that not only devastated FL but caused landslides, washouts, and flooding all through the east (even up here in western PA--thanks, Ivan!).
Posted by: Dar ||
01/27/2005 10:36
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"Imagine everything you did between the years of 1976 and 1992. Now remove all of it. Those 16 years were taken away from Sunny Jacobs, convicted and sentenced to death for a crime she did not commit. But her story is not unique, and it could happen just as easily to you. The Exonerated tells the true stories of six innocent survivors of death row." — website for the play The Exonerated
fact, Sunny Jacobs, the main character in The Exonerated, is both legally and factually guilty, a woman who has been exonerated only by the Hollywood glitterati who take these claims at face value. The TV-movie version, produced by CourtTV, stars Susan Sarandon as Jacobs. Four other well-known actors perform in what is essentially reader's theater. Six people have been released from death row, all supposedly innocent, railroaded by incompetent police or prosecutors who hid evidence. It is only the latest in a recent spate of political propaganda masquerading as entertainment with the very specific intent of driving and influencing public policy on the death penalty, all funded at least in part by left-wing billionaire George Soros.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005
10:12:12 AM ||
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#1
As opposed to all the people wrongfully convicted for non-capital offenses. I bet the celebrities are beating down the doors of prisons trying to talk to them.
Oh, yeah, you can't push an agenda that way. Sorry, forgot.
#2
With Susan and George what else did you expect. What was this "plea" that is allowing convicted murders to walk free? If I were a member of those officers families, I would want to know what that is all about.
HERE'S a challenge for swimwear designers. Britain's advertising watchdog last week banned a series of television commercials featuring bikini-clad women because they were offensive to Muslims. Stand by for the burqini, a fetching one-piece ensemble made entirely of black hessian, measuring 2m in length and equipped with a small vent through which women can stick their snorkel.
Also in Britain, the Fox network has agreed to demands from the Muslim Council of Britain for talks over a BSkyB drama depicting middle class Muslims as members of a terrorist sleeper cell. Just where do television executives dream up such fantasy? Unless they were aiming for an accurate account of that September 11 hiccup, where middle class Muslims who were members of a terrorist sleeper cell murdered 3000 innocent people.
Again in Britain, a search and rescue service near the town of Preston had last week its funding slashed when authorities discovered it hadn't rescued enough ethnic minorities. It wasn't that the Bowland and Pennine Mountain Rescue Team had done nothing while minority folk lay stranded at the bottom of cliffs. In fact, it soon emerged there hadn't actually been any to rescue. But that's hardly the point.
And on Sunday, the Home Office confirmed it was considering a request, again from the Muslim Council of Britain, for this week's commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz to be made racially inclusive. Muslim leaders are threatening to boycott the event unless it acknowledges the holocaust of the Palestinian intifada.
In Britain, the cancer of political correctness seems all the more malignant, fuelled perhaps by the fabled determination of the Brits to be unfailingly polite. As a result, the country looks through Australian eyes like a multicultural worst-case scenario, where befuddled Poms tie themselves up in knots to address all sorts of ludicrous grievances and in doing so undermine the values which have made this country a beacon for democracy and free expression throughout the civilised world.
The above cases are almost comical. The biggest story of this past week involves a particularly nasty scumbag by the name of Omar Bakri Mohammed. His mere presence in Britain is offensive in itself, but his rabble-rousing conduct poses a very real (but unchallenged) threat to public safety. Bakris' case serves as a counterpoint to those who come over all weepy at the treatment of Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks, whose incarceration is held up as a shameful betrayal of Western liberal principles.
The Tottenham Ayatollah, as Bakri is known, was kicked out of Saudi Arabia in 1985 for being a member of an illegal organisation. Mystifyingly, the Brits rolled out the red carpet for a guy whose stated life aim is to see the Islamic crescent flag flying over 10 Downing Street. Not only did they let him in, the British taxpayers pay him, his wife and seven children some $750 a week in benefits, with Bakri also claiming an invalid pension of $125 a week, having injured his leg as a boy in Syria. He's even used the Koran to justify his status as a low bludger, saying that accepting welfare from Western governments was a way of weakening the infidel.
In return for this investment, the British people get regular outpourings of hate-filled bile. Bakri has called for the assassination of former prime minister John Major, praised the magnificent September 11 hijackers, and told rallies he can understand why young Muslim people would want to launch attacks in Britain. Last week, a powerful investigation by The Times established Bakri is now using an internet chatroom with some 80 British-based followers to go further. He called on young Muslims to become suicide bombers and declared Britain a Dar ul-Harb, the Arabic expression for State of War, explaining that non-Muslims had no sanctity for their own life or property. Police have subsequently launched an investigation but due to privacy considerations there has been no official public comment on an individual, as the authorities here refer to this fellow, not wanting to suggest he's actually done anything wrong.
Perversely, the terror laws which the British Government could use to act against Bakri and have used against Sheik Abu Hamzah, the almost fictitously evil radical cleric, who has two hooks for hands (which were blown off by a landmine) are under threat from, of all places, the judiciary. The courts, which represent the values which radical Islam wants to destroy, have ruled the new powers to detain terrorist suspects are unconstitutional and must be watered down.
What a crock. Bakri shows how the most accomplished fanatics can use Western liberal principles as a vehicle for their own brand of holy war, while we stand about agonising over the presumption of innocence, burden of proof, free association and unfettered public debate. The truth is that authorities will eventually spring into action to stop the likes of Bakri -- provided of course that he bombs something. Until then, it would be a betrayal of our liberal principles to do anything to a man who history may ultimately judge as a garrulous eccentric. What a lovely gamble to have to take.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/27/2005
10:05:40 AM ||
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I adore Blair's articulate and muscular anti terror-nation policy, but it would be really, truly good for Britain if the Tories could get their heads out of wherever they left them, and mount a legitimate opposition.
Posted by: ed ||
01/27/2005
09:16 ||
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#1
Just what we need: naked jihadis.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005 10:44
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Aargh!!! Now I have that image haunting me for the rest of the day ....
Posted by: too true ||
01/27/2005 10:45
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It is a good thing the clothing was discovered and brought to the authorities attention...What else crossed the border and who does the jacket really belong to??
Andrea
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/27/2005 11:06
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#4
this sounds weak.....
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 11:24
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#5
I can't recall ever having seen a terrorist shoulder patch before.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005 11:30
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Hebbronville is in Jim Hogg County about 30 miles east of the border. My guess: some Mumia-cong asshelmet got the patches by mail-order and had them re-worked locally as a prop for campus demonstrations. If they really want to pursue this, they could start with hippy-boutiques that do custom embroidery work in Austin and San Marcos.
#8
To continue....
The asshelmet may simply have forgotten the jacket. It is also possible that he/she was rebuked by fellow peace-hypocrites for being too obvious about the real agenda, or simply have thought better of it, and decided to abandon the jacket to rile Homeland Security. In that case, it seems to have worked.
#2
US military 'overenthusiastic' in helping Iraq vote: UN official
I prefer: "UN Officials "overenthusiastic" About Raping Young African Girls: US Military"
Posted by: Tibor ||
01/27/2005 9:33
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Maybe we should hold a 'Is Overenthusiastic for Democracy a Good Thing" conference in Brussels. I got a good deal for fois gas this week and I am looking to unload it.
#4
Right. Americans usually are overenthusiastic about 'regular people' voting, not just the special people of the General Assembly representing their dictator, autocrat, thug, or average overpaid UN bureaucratic weenie. Sort like the enthusiasm of individual giving for disaster relief.
#7
If the UN had its way, Iraqis wouldn't be voting because US involvement would have been so minimal Saddam would still be funding Kofi's retirement.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 11:42
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The Americans are enthusiastic because they see it as eventually being a ticket home and because they are hopeful for Iraqis.
Once again, the UN is shown to be on the wrong side of history.
Posted by: Kofi Annan ||
01/27/2005 14:48
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OK, just like your mom would fine you a quarter for bad words out of your mouth, I say we start fining UN officials for negative comments about the US...let's just take it out of our "donation" to that useless organization each year.......uhmmm....$1 Mil per offense sound OK to you, guys?
Eckhard added that Perelli "did not intend to criticize the US military's profile."
Sure she did.
But they're backtracking. Maybe they're getting scared the U.S. will (1) not protect the UN wankers in Iraq and (2) get fed up and tell the UN to FOAD.
Which we should.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/27/2005 19:32
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#11
Barbara, I'm learning acronyms. Is FOAD Freak Of And Die (Acronym finder)
Posted by: ed ||
01/27/2005
08:53 ||
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#1
Yet another example of more anger converts to islam. The angry and disenfranchised will always take any alternative no matter what it happens to be. They swallow hook line and sinker the first alternative to come along. Such is the case here. If these folks had come in contact with Moonie missionaries or any other kind of missionary first, they would have converted to that instead of islam and would have claimed to have found complete satisfaction in those faiths too. The point is rebellion from the culture. As long as the convert feels they are sticking it in the eye of the culture they have rejected, they are happy. Although islam seems to be particularly attractive to the angry people of this world maybe thats because it is so angry at the non-islamic world all the time.
#3
Founded by a Scotsman who turned to Islam during a stay in Morocco in the 1960s, the Murabitun are from the orthodox Sunni branch of Islam but have incorporated some mystical Sufi practices. They are highly critical of the charging of interest rates as un-Islamic and advocate scrapping currencies, taxes and the nation state, to be replaced with Islamic emirates trading in gold coins. "Our model is not ideological or utopian but is based on the life of our Prophet Mohammad," reads a statement on the group's Mexican web site.
#5
Peggy, Islam differs from such cults as the Moonies and the CNN audience in that allegiance will bring a continuing flow of arms, money, trained terrorists, money, international status and, we shouldn't forget, money.
#6
I almost mentioned the continuous supply of wide-eyed hippy activist chicks as another benefit of Islamo-fascist allegiance, but the Moonies and Chomskyites (though not CNN) can supply those as well.
#7
I think you understated the amount of money they can bring in by converting to Islam.
And, seriously, I'd rather they returned to their old gods. Less destructive, more civilized.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 20:01
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With Islamo-fascist resources added to those of the established Zapatista guerrilla movement, the potential for widely expanded violence is very high.
In particular, the Zapatistas have an experienced and active support network among the usual suspects in this country (campus commies, lefty churches, ANSWER, etc.).
This is already cross-linked with the Islamic fifth column and would provide a very dangerous terror/subversion network once the two are fully integrated.
We are seeing more and more of this kind of alliance, not just the "Red-Brown" type, but increasing integration among various lefty causes themselves. The eventual result will be a kind of Grand Unified Moonbat (G.U.M.) network.
#9
During the initial Zapatista uprising in 1994, there were verified reports that several captured guerrillas had been beaten and shot in cold blood by Mexican troops. The global media made much of this, and there is no excuse for it, but they left out some background. During the initial counter-attack, the first army unit to reach the area was driven back. Unfortunately, a wounded soldier (a 19 year old conscript) was left behind and hideously tortured to death by the guerrillas. The army held back on orders from Mexico City. Their positions were close enough for the soldiers to to see the guerrillas taunting them with their comrade's mutilated remains. This went on for a couple of days before another attack was launched, the body was recovered and the young conscripts took revenge. Again, this is inexcusable but so was leaving out this background information.
My source for this is a former Mexican infantryman who was there, and it has been verified by others, including civilian witnesses.
Posted by: ed ||
01/27/2005
08:35 ||
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I see the word "profiteer" and I automaitcally guess a bunch of people with French, German, & Russian surnames and UN credentials.
I RTFA and was disappointed. I guess the real graft has yet to be uncovered.
#1
Local and federal law enforcement authorities are finalizing a task force that is to look into potential fraud in Milwaukee in the Nov. 2 election, sources confirmed today.
The details are being worked out between Milwaukee County District Attorney E. Michael McCann, U.S. Attorney Steve Biskupic, Milwaukee Police Chief Nannette Hegerty and the local office of the FBI.
A commenter to the blog suggests WI may in the end be officially moved to the Bush column, and many pols jailed. Interesting times, indeed.
#2
That commentator was optomistic. What really needs to happen is for the GOP to have poll watchers at EVERY urban polling place. I think I'll go to Philly next time.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/27/2005 7:13
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Summary: Its Not Just Here *insert suitably heavy music, possibly on a classic concert organ* Centrists across the Anglosphere -- Bush, Blair, Howard -- win consistently over moribund opponents inhabiting both ends of the spectrum, by working to reform the welfare state.
#5
"The Democratic Leadership Council, the party's leading centrist organization, and Third Way, a new group working with moderate Senate Democrats, expect to issue statements soon opposing Bush's push to divert part of the Social Security payroll tax into accounts that individuals could invest in the stock market, officials of the groups say.
Social Security is not welfare. These funds have been paid into the Government by people who have worked. SS could use reform. The best thing would be to have a system whereby Congress cannot fund pet projects from these funds. Maybe the Bush plan of individual accounts would be a way to keep Government's fingers out of the pie.
Wonder if Prince Nawaf's "resignation" has anything to do with the Kuwaiti interrogation?
Security sources say weapons which were reportedly found buried in a garden in Sabahiya belong to some of the persons who are in police custody. The sources added Shaikh Hamed Al-Ali was expected to be charged with persuading youths to attack United States forces in Kuwait and Iraq, spreading radical ideas and explaining the manufacturing of explosives on his website.
... and the Kuwaitis seem to take these things more seriously than the Soddies do.
In another development, Nasser Kh. A., the preacher's brother who allegedly shot dead a Kuwaiti police officer in the Maidan Hawalli clash is believed to have sneaked into Iraq to fight against American forces. Al-Qabas reported that the preacher's wife was also interrogated for allegedly hiring cars for the militants but was released. It said investigations revealed the suspects have links with radical groups in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and Al-Qaeda.
... but I repeat myself.
The investigations also revealed some MPs, leaders of religious organizations and preachers had met the militants before the two incidents. The militants are said to be well organized and have several sources of funds.
So we can expect a political housecleaning, as well? That'd be nice...
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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Police in Taif are investigating a strange incident that occurred at Al-Ufairi village, when a man entered a mosque and started firing from his pistol at the imam just before Friday prayers. The imam, who received two bullet wounds in his chest, died on the spot. According to a Taif police source, the killer had personal grudge against the imam. According to police reports, the killer said that "he had no choice but to kill the imam after finding all doors locked in solving his conflict with him." The incident, which took place at the mosque located in Ranyah district, shocked worshippers as the imam was about to deliver the Friday sermon. Eyewitnesses described the moment as terrifying.
Personally, I always find occasions where holy men get plugged kind of exhilirating, but maybe that's just me...
"I couldn't believe my eyes," said Muhammad Al-Harthi, a 60-year-old retiree. "The man just barged into the mosque and started shooting at the imam... We couldn't stop him until we called the police," he added. "When we called the police the man quickly left the scene and hit the road." But he was quickly apprehended and taken into custody.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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Four more people were detained in Paris Wednesday by anti-terrorist agents looking into the recruitment of Islamic extremists to join the insurgency in Iraq, bringing to 11 the number of arrests this week.
Nice work, French intel services.
The four - all young men - were being held at the headquarters of the domestic intelligence service DST, along with six of the seven people detained on Monday in the working-class 19th arrondissement of the capital. The identities of the detainees were not disclosed, but officials said that eight of the nine men - all aged between 20 and 24 - were of north African origin with French nationality. The other was a French convert to Islam.
Cue suprise meter.
They were arrested as part of an anti-terrorist investigation launched last September after evidence emerged of a so-called "Iraqi network" recruiting Islamic militants to fight US forces there. The foreign intelligence service DGSE has identified a French man, named only as Fawzi D., at the head of a group of some 20 Islamic militants in Iraq, officials said. The nine young men detained this week have known each other since childhood and attend the same prayer-halls and sports clubs, investigators said. They also have links with two brothers - Redouane and BoubakeurEl-Hakim - who played a key role in organising recruits for Iraq. Redouane, 19, was killed in July during the US bombardment of the Sunni town of Fallujah, and Boubakeur is being held in Syria after being caught trying to cross to Iraq.
"Whoops. Ya got me, coppers."
The Hakim brothers frequented a prayer-hall in the northern Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret which has been shut down. The men held this week moved around the ad-Da'wa mosque in the 19th arrondissement, which officials said has become an important recruiting centre. The other three French nationals killed in Iraq were named as Tarek N. , Karim - also known as Abu Salman - and Abdelhakim B. They were killed in September and October in the so-called Sunni triangle to the north and west of Baghdad.
Posted by: Seafarious ||
01/27/2005
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Further gist for that relative-tracing program the Army has been using so successfully in Iraq?
An opposition candidate in the March election escaped unhurt after he was shot at here last weekend by ruling Zanu PF party supporters allegedly on the orders of Deputy Minister of Transport, Andrew Langa. Langa, who is the sitting Member of Parliament (MP) for Insiza, about 120 kilometres south of Bulawayo, is also the Zanu PF candidate for the area in the March poll. He was in the area campaigning when he met the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party's Siyabonga Malandu, who was also canvassing for support. The MP allegedly ordered his younger brother and his driver, who were part of a group of supporters he was travelling with, to shoot at Malandu and his supporters. Neither Malandu nor his supporters were injured because of the shooting although three youths who were part of the opposition group were assaulted.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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Fred, is that Fearles Fosdick? Where the hell are the bullet holes?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
01/27/2005 21:27
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First the nonsense: British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the United States Wednesday to take the world's needs into account when it seeks global support for its actions, and cited climate change as an issue all nations must address together. "If America wants the rest of the world to be part of the agenda it has set, it must be part of their agenda, too," Blair told the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos.
Blair pledged to help developing countries reduce pollution and build more environmentally friendly economies. Blair called for a common agenda worldwide, at the top of which would be cooperation in the fight against terrorism. He also urged that the world's countries protect human rights and freedom and "when we can, seek to increase the number of people able to live in democracy." The only thing Blair should have said: He dismissed claims that the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq was trying to foist Western-style government on the country in this weekend's Iraqi elections. "The notion of democracy being a 'Western idea' is a nonsense and mythology as most recently the people of Afghanistan have powerfully demonstrated," he said.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/27/2005
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Blair smells a Lame Duck cooking opportunity to advance US EU relations with the Arab World!
#6
Tony is playing to his base and to the Europeans.
He knows very few nations can even hope to comply with Kyoto. He also knows Bush can't attack another nation. The US doesn't have the troops to attack with. This is pre-election politicking.
#9
Europe has not yet, and will not, blow billions on Kyoto. As with so many other things, they talk big about this. As far as I've been able to determine, their Kyoto efforts are along the lines of Germany's recycling efforts: all the plastics are picked up weekly curbside, then delivered for safekeeping to the salt mines in East Germany. The last I'd heard, several levels have been filled with masses of unsorted plastic things. German recycling of paper, also collected curbside, has ruined the commercial French paper-recycling industry, and mandatory reuse of glass bottles has significantly increased gasoline usage due to massive shipments of empty bottles back to the manufacturers. Shoot, replanting the damaged and dying pines of the Schwarzwald, not to mention the other ancient forests of Germany, would go a distance toward offsetting CO2 emissions, but I'm not aware they are even doing that.
/rant. Sorry 'bout that, its a pet peeve of mine.
#14
British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the United States Wednesday to take the worldâs needs into account when it seeks global support for its actions,..
The obvious solution here is simple: when action is contemplated, do not seek "global support". Keep seeking it, and sooner or later everybody else starts to think that they have a say in your own business....
#17
I've got a better idea: Since we have the most robust economy, the largest and best-equipped military, and the most inventions and entrepreneurs (not to mention the right of self-defense denied so many other people around the world), the world needs to integrate with us.
C'mon, world - clean up your act. Decrease your regressive regulations, taxes, and welfare states and liberate your people. Quit being jealous of us and join us!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/27/2005 19:56
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Barbara, what's the point of living if one can't be one's inferiors' betters?
A2u, really! I saw something about it on the news once, about 1995. Neatly piled rows of the yellow trash bags that are only for plastics, as far as the camera could pan. Makes the punters feel good because they are doing something Good, keeps the housewives busy because it all has to be clean before its bagged, and no cost to the economy except for transport, as nothing is ever done with it. Perhaps they do now, they've had a decade to think it over, but they certainly didn't then. Perhaps TGA can update us.
JThis Public Announcement is being issued to alert U.S. citizens to the current security situation along the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border in the wake of increased violence among drug traffickers.
Although the majority of travelers in the region visit without mishap, violent criminal activity, including murder and kidnapping, in Mexico's northern border region has increased. The overwhelming majority of the victims of violent crime have been Mexican citizens. Nonetheless, U.S. citizens should be aware of the risk posed by the deteriorating security situation. This Public Announcement expires on April 25, 2005.
Violent criminal activity along the U.S.-Mexico border has increased as a product of a war between criminal organizations struggling for control of the lucrative narcotics trade along the border. The leaders of several major criminal organizations have been arrested, creating a power vacuum. This has resulted in a wave of violence aimed primarily at members of those trafficking organizations and criminal justice officials. However, foreign visitors, including Americans, have been among the victims of homicides and kidnappings in the border region in recent months.
Mexico's police forces suffer from lack of funds and training, and the judicial system is weak, overworked, and inefficient. Criminals, armed with an impressive array of weapons, know there is little chance they will be caught and punished. In some cases, assailants have been wearing full or partial police uniforms and have used vehicles that resemble police vehicles, indicating some elements of the police might be involved.
U.S. citizens are urged to be especially aware of safety and security concerns when visiting the border region. The majority of the thousands of U.S. citizens who cross the border each day do so safely, exercising common-sense precautions such as visiting only the legitimate business and tourism areas of border towns during daylight hours. It is strongly recommended that red-light districts and neighborhoods where street drug dealing occurs be avoided.
Posted by: trailing wife ||
01/27/2005
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#1
If I were Condi, I'd put the squeeze on Boxer by deploying a "Virtual Iron Curtain" on the Mexican border to California! With the grilling she took from Boxer, as though she were applying for the Secretary of Defense post; alittle payback could be sweet! With the Mexicans swarming all over California government restricting ebb and flow to south of the border...I'm sure Boxer or Arnie would come crawling to "W" for relief!
#2
I'd be a lot more impressed if the announcement made reference to travel being inadvisible because of the likelihood of tourists getting in the way of the six infantry divisions being deployed on the border...
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
01/27/2005 1:18
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#3
Interesting Ricky, however Vicente Fox would go nuts over such a deployment and counter protest with a Mexican boycott of influxing labor to the US (sealing the border from his end), thus affecting our economy in the short fall. Border labor states would 'cry' to the Administration through the Congress! My feeling is, we would slowly need to tap the spigot.
#4
Ricky, I'm w/you. Let Fox go nuts. For those corporations that care more about cheap labor then they do American security/sovereignty and the rule of law - I say f*ck you, learn to adapt.
#5
smn - nuts! Close the border - gates are for screening, and IF we need their labor they can come in on guest-worker visas. I could care less whether Fox cuts his wrists or not, nor could I care if my chicken costs twice as much because Tyson has to quit undermining our national interests for their profits. We'll get over it. Either you don't live in a border state, as I do, or you have blinders on. A Mexican boycott? sheeesh
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 10:33
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#6
I'm all for closing the border, but nobody said nothing about doubling the price of no chickens. 49 cent lb. chicken quarters and 10 cent lettuce are what make America great.
Kuwaiti society is against terrorism and extremists who don't listen to true religious scholars, says Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs Abdullah Al-Matooq. The image of Islam and Kuwait is beyond everything and nobody has the right to damage it, he adds. Addressing top officials of the Awaf Ministry at the Grand Mosque Tuesday, Al-Matooq accused religious fundamentalists of creating an Internet website to propagate their perverted ideas, adding "such people won't have a place in mosques." He urged Imams to focus their Friday sermons on "faith and values," saying "Kuwaitis are known for their moderate ways and tolerance of others. Our country has never witnessed a sectarian or religious war which proves we are peace loving people."
Describing his meeting with the officials of the ministry as a part of a strategy to stress the importance of values and transparency, Al-Matooq said "the Awqaf Ministry is proud of its scholars and Imams who give sermons every Friday to remind people about values." Kuwaiti mosques are free of terrorist activities and the number of complaints received by the ministry against mosques is decreasing, he added. Al-Matooq went on to say the Awqaf Ministry is planning to establish an institute to educate Imams in social subjects, such as psychology, and other religious subjects. Stressing the importance of supporting civil authorities in creating awareness on the dangers of terrorism among people, the minister said "the Cabinet has decided to establish an anti-terrorism committee comprising of representatives from the Ministries of Awqaf, Information, Education and Social Affairs."A team headed by Undersecretary of Awqaf Dr Adel Al-Falah will concentrate on anti-terrorism activities while another team under the leadership of Maj. General Mohammad Al-Sabae will warn on protecting youth, he continued. The parent and sub-committees have held several meetings to chalk out programmes aimed at educating different segments of people, Al-Matooq concluded.
You might consider divorcing the state from the holy men and doing away with the Awqaf. Decide you're a modern state and not a quasi-theocracy and let the individual mosques and preachers stand or fall on their own. And hold the holy men responsible for their actions and words.
But that's just my thoughts. I'll admit that I've got a soft spot for Kuwait, left over from the first Gulf War.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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Kuwaiti security men have arrested a 28-year-old female employee of the Ministry of Information identified as Hadiba S.K Al-Harbi for pasting leaflets on a wall in the ministry that described Osama bin Laden as a warrior who fights for the sake of Allah. Other leaflets called on the government to release those arrested for their involvement in the twin shoot-outs. A security source said the police were alerted after the lady, who works in the transport department was caught on a security camera. She is said to have been transferred from the finance department of the ministry after a disagreement with her supervisor due to her radical religious ideas. Police confiscated a laptop computer which was found with her. "The interrogations lasted until 3:30 am Tuesday morning. A 'buffet' was ordered from a local restaurant in preparation for the marathon interrogation," sources privy to Monday's interrogations of the suspects told the Arab Times.
"Mahmoud! Call out for Chinese! This is gonna take awhile!"
The men were charged with hiding information on the absconding suspects, possessing unlicensed arms and ammunition and facilitating the escape of fugitives. However, the Public Prosecution has released M. Al-Enezi, brother of Amer Al-Enezi, the main suspect in the case after interrogating him for two weeks following the Maidan Hawalli incident. The Arab Times learnt that Bander Shimmari, a Kuwaiti national was charged with being a key member of the Mutlaa Cell that planned the shoot-outs; Mohammed A.B. Al-Azmi, also a Kuwaiti, was charged with taking part in the planning; Bandar Shimmari, a bedouin was charged with being a member of the cell and being aware of the shoot-out plan; Sultan Sahli, Kuwaiti, was charged with possessing cell phones used by the planners; Mohammed Dhafeeri, a Kuwaiti, was charged with knowing where the weapons were hidden; Mishaal F. Al-Ajmi, a Kuwaiti, was charged with possessing 8 Kalashnikov rifles without license; and Jaber J was charged with promoting radical ideas. The charges against Fawaz Mohammed, Khaled Sh. and Saud Z were not specified. Two others whose names were not mentioned were accused of encouraging the militants, knowing their intentions and the places where weapons were hidden. Seven militants who are still at large were identified as Amer Kh. A., Nasser Kh. A, Mohammed A. Sh., Mohammed S.A., Mohammed J.A., Ahmed M.M., and Salah S. A security source said among the seven fugitives were four bedouns working for a charity society who are believed to have left the country.
"Our work here is done! The needy have been provided with arms and ammunition! Time to move on, Ahmed!"
"I'll pack..."
"Don't bother packing! It's time to move on!"
Meanwhile, Al-Watan said the police are looking for Mohsen Al-Al-Fadhli who was earlier released after providing the police with information that led to the arrest of the suspects. It was revealed during the interrogation of the other suspects that he helped in planning the shoot-outs.
Bad Mohsen. Playing both ends against the middle, were you?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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#1
The interrogations lasted until 3:30 am Tuesday morning. A 'buffet' was ordered from a local restaurant in preparation for the marathon interrogation," sources privy to Monday's interrogations of the suspects told the Arab Times.
Ha! you just cant make stuff like this up! I hope the interrogators enjoyed their meal, and I hope what they came up with made it worth it.
Today is the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Rantburg's dear friend True German Ally is part of that select group of extraordinary persons who survived the horrors of Hitler's final solution and now is able to return to participate in this commemoration. It is incumbent upon all of us to remember how thin the line is between good and evil, and to strive always to propagate the good and vanquish the evil, in all its forms.
The linked article was not written by TGA (as far as I know), but by an Auschwitz survivor, and I would like TGA to know he's in our prayers today.
Sixty years ago, the Russians liberated Auschwitz, as the Americans approached Dachau. The Allied advance revealed to a stunned world the horrors of the greatest catastrophe ever to befall our civilization. To a survivor of both death factories, where Hitler's gruesome reality eclipsed Dante's imaginary inferno, being alive and well so many years later feels unreal.
We the survivors are now disappearing one by one. Soon history will speak of Auschwitz at best with the impersonal voice of researchers and novelists, at worst with the malevolence of demagogues and falsifiers. This week the last of us, with a multitude of heads of state and other dignitaries, are gathering at that cursed site to remind the world that past can be prologue, that the mountains of human ashes dispersed there are a warning to humanity of what may still lie ahead.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Seafarious ||
01/27/2005
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#8
As I stand their bound at rifle point I watch as my daughters 8 and 3 clutch their most prized possessions, their favorite dolls and their mother's hands. They are led off on a rail car to certain death. My wife cannot look back on me for the emeny forces her to keep her head straight. I can't look upon the face of the love of my life and the most precious people in world to me. My wife will not disobey the enemies commands because she couldn't stand to think I would have to watch her and my daughters be killed. Off she goes never to be seen again. Clutching my hand and silently sobbing is my son only 5. He has no use to the enemy either. It is my toughest pill to swallow. I'm strong and they can use me but the innocent, the young and weak will be destroyed. Soon they will come for him, rip him from me and do as they may. All I can do is stand helpless and defeated, a broken man a mere vision of myself. As they approach I have a mere moment to recount the joys of my family and pray their death will not be to horrible. At that moment is life worth living? I can't imagine the horror, I've put myself in their position many times before. What do you do? I don't think words can express anymore. I only hope we learn, learn to fight hatred and phobias. Is Islam the next Nazi Regime? Would they do this to all non-believers? I would step on that train for my family, leave them be! I'm a firefighter and I do it everyday for strangers. But, will my sacrifice be enough? This radicalism has to be fought now, not when Christians, Jews and Hindus are once again being loaded on trains.
#9
I couldn't attend the ceremony in Auschwitz due to some health problems. But I'll definitely attend the ceremony for the liberation of Buchenwald by US troops.
#10
"weh mir, nito nit kejner schojn...
gewen a volk, gewen, un schojn nito... gewen
a volk, gewen, un schojn... schojn ojs!
a meissele asa, es hejbt vun chumeschl
sich on un bis, bis jetzt... a meissele
gor trojerik, wer sogt as schejn?
a meisse vun Amolekn un bis an
ergeren vun ihm, dem deitsch... o himl weit,
o breit die erd, o jamim groiss â
nit balt zusamen in eijn knojdl sich
un nit varnicht die schlechte ojf der erd,
soln sej varnichtn sich alejn!"
"Woe is unto me, nobody is left.
There was a people and it is no more.
There was a people and it is ... Gone ...
What a tale. It began in the Bible and lasted till now.
A very sad tale. A tale that began with Amalek and concluded with the far crueller Germans...
O distant sky, wide earth, vast seas,
Do not crush and don't destroy the wicked.
Let them destroy themselves!"
Itzhak Katzenelson
Dos lied vunem ojsgehargetn jidischn volk
(The Song of the Murdered Jewish People, written in the concentration camp of Vittel before the author, who fought and survived the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto, was murdered in Auschwitz on Mai 1st 1944)
#11
"weh mir, nito nit kejner schojn...
gewen a volk, gewen, un schojn nito... gewen
a volk, gewen, un schojn... schojn ojs!
a meissele asa, es hejbt vun chumeschl
sich on un bis, bis jetzt... a meissele
gor trojerik, wer sogt as schejn?
a meisse vun Amolekn un bis an
ergeren vun ihm, dem deitsch... o himl weit,
o breit die erd, o jamim groiss â
nit balt zusamen in eijn knojdl sich
un nit varnicht die schlechte ojf der erd,
soln sej varnichtn sich alejn!"
"Woe is unto me, nobody is left.
There was a people and it is no more.
There was a people and it is ... Gone ...
What a tale. It began in the Bible and lasted till now.
A very sad tale. A tale that began with Amalek and concluded with the far crueller Germans...
O distant sky, wide earth, vast seas,
Do not crush and don't destroy the wicked.
Let them destroy themselves!"
Itzhak Katzenelson
Dos lied vunem ojsgehargetn jidischn volk
(The Song of the Murdered Jewish People, written in the concentration camp of Vittel before the author, who fought and survived the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto, was murdered in Auschwitz on Mai 1st 1944)
I fear it will be unless it can be turned onto another path, at the end of which "submission to God" no longer means "submission to man". But if it cannot be guided-- or shoved-- off its present course, then a showdown is inevitable: it will be either them, or us.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/27/2005 17:05
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#13
NEVER F&*KING AGAIN.
Before that happens? an Imam a day - it's all we ask. The Jews will always be the canary in the coal mine, and we need to be there for them
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 17:31
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#14
Hope you're back to full strength again soon, TGA.
Bless you, Frank. If there should, God forbid, be a next time, we won't wait quietly -- we'll fight with teeth and toenails if that's all we have, until you bring up the artillery. Deal? Last time around we didn't believe in the pure evil of the plan until it was too late; now we know better.
#16
"weh mir, nito nit kejner schojn...
gewen a volk, gewen, un schojn nito... gewen
a volk, gewen, un schojn... schojn ojs!
a meissele asa, es hejbt vun chumeschl
sich on un bis, bis jetzt... a meissele
gor trojerik, wer sogt as schejn?
a meisse vun Amolekn un bis an
ergeren vun ihm, dem deitsch... o himl weit,
o breit die erd, o jamim groiss â
nit balt zusamen in eijn knojdl sich
un nit varnicht die schlechte ojf der erd,
soln sej varnichtn sich alejn!"
"Woe is unto me, nobody is left.
There was a people and it is no more.
There was a people and it is ... Gone ...
What a tale. It began in the Bible and lasted till now.
A very sad tale. A tale that began with Amalek and concluded with the far crueller Germans...
O distant sky, wide earth, vast seas,
Do not crush and don't destroy the wicked.
Let them destroy themselves!"
Itzhak Katzenelson
Dos lied vunem ojsgehargetn jidischn volk
(The Song of the Murdered Jewish People, written in the concentration camp of Vittel before the author, who fought and survived the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto, was murdered in Auschwitz on Mai 1st 1944)
#17
"weh mir, nito nit kejner schojn...
gewen a volk, gewen, un schojn nito... gewen
a volk, gewen, un schojn... schojn ojs!
a meissele asa, es hejbt vun chumeschl
sich on un bis, bis jetzt... a meissele
gor trojerik, wer sogt as schejn?
a meisse vun Amolekn un bis an
ergeren vun ihm, dem deitsch... o himl weit,
o breit die erd, o jamim groiss â
nit balt zusamen in eijn knojdl sich
un nit varnicht die schlechte ojf der erd,
soln sej varnichtn sich alejn!"
"Woe is unto me, nobody is left.
There was a people and it is no more.
There was a people and it is ... Gone ...
What a tale. It began in the Bible and lasted till now.
A very sad tale. A tale that began with Amalek and concluded with the far crueller Germans...
O distant sky, wide earth, vast seas,
Do not crush and don't destroy the wicked.
Let them destroy themselves!"
Itzhak Katzenelson
Dos lied vunem ojsgehargetn jidischn volk
(The Song of the Murdered Jewish People, written in the concentration camp of Vittel before the author, who fought and survived the uprising of the Warsaw ghetto, was murdered in Auschwitz on Mai 1st 1944)
Saudi Arabia has accepted the resignation of the kingdom's intelligence chief Prince Nawaf bin Abd al-Aziz, state television reported. King Fahd issued a royal decree removing Prince Nawaf from his post "based on his request" and appointing him as an adviser at a ministerial level, the television said on Wednesday. The decree did not say who would replace Prince Nawaf, who has been suffering from poor health, as head of the intelligence service of the Gulf Arab state, which has been battling a wave of al-Qaida linked violence for nearly two years. Prince Nawaf, one of King Fahd's half-brothers, had undergone surgery in 2002 after suffering a brain haemorrhage. they're all half brothers. same rich daddy, virtually anonymous mommy.
He took over the post from Prince Turki al-Faisal shortly before the 11 September 2001 attacks, carried out mainly by Saudis. coincidence? hmmmmm . . .
Prince Turki, a senior member of the Saudi royal family, had overseen the intelligence apparatus for 25 years.
Posted by: PlanetDan ||
01/27/2005
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#1
How many times are they each their own cousins, too? On average, I mean.
#3
Speaking of poor health, hasn't King Fahd been at death's door for the last few years?
Posted by: Steve ||
01/27/2005 8:18
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#4
The guy had a brain haemorrhage and was named Chief of Intelligence after that? That explains a lot of what is going on in that country, doesn't it?
A friend in England informs me that the police just released the 4 Gitmo returnees. They are free to cause more terror.
Time to spread stories about who they spilled the beans on so that their days are shorter....
Posted by: 3dc ||
01/27/2005
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#1
I have already started to spread the "news" these guys gave people up. I don't know if the BBC will post any of my comments or not but I gave it my best shot.
No one seems to understand the reason these men were allowed to go free is that they gave up all the information they had. That information led to the arrest of bigger fish. After all the information they gave was verified and all the arrests were made that could be they were let go. In short they made a deal.
I wish those who keep bringing up the Geneva Conventions here in their comments actually knew something about the ones that the US has signed on to. The US has not signed on to and ratified all the protocols the UK has. These persons are not covered under the protocols the US has signed. Those captured on the battle field are quite lucky not to have been shot on the spot which is legal under Geneva. My impression is that 99% of the people who bring up The Geneva Accords have no idea what is covered by them at all. Whom is covered by what Conventions and even when they apply.
For those insisting that these person where held in horrid conditions here are the following facts. These persons had adequate food, health care, clothing and the freedom to practice their religion while in detention. In fact they may have had better treatment then a regular criminal in a UK prison. According to this very website abysmal conditions and abuse exist in some UK prisons.
You can spread the "news" here at BBC's "HAVE YOUR SAY." Perhaps they will publish you. I know that they won't likely publish me but they have in the past.
#2
Be prepared to be horribly misquoted or ignored. eg. Those captured on the battle field are quite lucky not to have been shot on the spot - Mr Doom, USA.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
01/27/2005 8:32
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#3
Howard, yes that would be misquoting SPOD, but the actual quote is quite true considering the circumstances.
I agree that most folks who claim to know Geneva do not. I recently gave a class to a bunch of my Marines on the law of war, code of conduct, and rules of engagement. It seems that most of the world does not understand that we are actually going above and beyond Geneva for *detainees*, we've given them *pow* treatment in a sense that they do not rate. Summary execution of out of uniform combatants is allowed for these folks.
#2
Didn't see anything about Jane Fonda in the link, but did get a rude awakening this morning about 0500 EST. Turned on the TV to AMC in time to see the ending of "The Sands of Iwo Jima" followed by "Barbarella". Only in America could you have John Wayne in one of his most patriotic military roles followed by Jane Fonda as a Slut from Outer Space.
Communist rebels yesterday warned it would target US forces secretly operating in the southern Philippines if it do not pull out from the strife-torn region, where Filipino troops are battling Maoist guerillas and terrorist groups tied to the Al-Qaeda network. A rebel spokesman Gregorio Rosal accused President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of collaborating with the United States when she allowed US military advisers and combat troops to clandestinely operate in areas in the south where the New People's Army (NPA) is actively operating.
Aside from the NPA rebels, the Abu Sayyaf group and Jemaah Islamiya militants, listed by the US as a foreign terrorist organizations, the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and other kidnap gangs are also active in the southern Philippines. "US military advisers who participate directly in the AFP's war efforts will be regarded as members of an armed adversarial force. The New People's Army is likewise ready to face interventionist US military advisers and troops in the battlefield. We will hold the Bush and Arroyo regimes responsible for the consequences," Rosal said in a statement.
Occasionally, even when you're paying attention, you can forget what a cesspool much of the world is.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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Another French BrainstormFart
January 27, 2005; Page A12
Speaking of bad French ideas, yesterday President Jacques Chirac proposed an "experimental" international tax to fund research and treatment of AIDS. He suggests raising perhaps $10 billion a year from a tax on all airline tickets, or a levy on fuel or global capital movements.
There is of course no such thing as an "experimental" tax; once created it is more or less permanent, and merely increases in rate and breadth. Such a global levy has long been the dream of the United Nations, which must now depend on the contributions of sovereign governments that would prefer to spend their money on their own priorities. The Bush Administration, for example, has already pledged $15 billion from U.S. taxpayers for anti-AIDS spending.
If we can nonetheless return the favor to Mr. Chirac, we'd recommend that he actually cut taxes on his fellow Frenchmen. That would help revive the anemic French economy, making that country richer and its citizens better able to donate their own money to charity
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/27/2005 9:22
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#6
Good to go, and I want a global tax to go to funding the U.S. Military. Since we do more meals on wheels, peace keeeping, and disaster relief then the UN could ever dream, I'd like this "experimental" tax to take effect immediately. Your first check M.Chirac should be addressed to:
World for American warmongers we hate but need.
Care of Mr. Jarhead, Capt, USMC
10 November Ln.
Red State, USA
01775
P.S. Please no personal checks or pay pal. Certified mail and cashiers checks okay.
A truck bomb attack in northwest Iraq has killed up to 15 people on a day that has seen fighters attack the offices of three political parties northeast of Baghdad. A truck bomb exploded near the offices of a major Kurdish party in the Iraqi town of Sinjar on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 30, the local mayor said. Kurdish official Dakhil Kassim Hassun said the blast targeted the offices of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Sinjar, close to the Syrian border in northern Iraq. The group led by al-Qaida's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said in an Internet statement that it had carried out the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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#4
reminds me of how my bro in law use to do child disipline:
Jake!
Jake Come here!
Come here RIGHT NOW!
Jake! Jake! Jake!
Jake, I'm going to count to three you are going to get a spanking if you don't come here right now! ...ONE.......... TWO..................
JASON ALEXANDER SMITH YOU COME HERE RIGHT NOW!!
JAKE, DID YOU HEAR ME?
JAKE, please come here!
peleeease, Jake, please come.
If you come here right now, I'll give you a cookie.
Come on Jake, please!
Never mind.
#6
2b, Would I be correct in assuming the child turned into a monstrous brat? I learned early that sometimes you have to chase them down first. Of course, you only have to read trailing daughter's post last night on the Condi thread to realize how well that turned out. ;-)
Renewed fighting in Sudan's Darfur region may have killed up to 105 civilians and displaced more than 9,000 last week, the United Nations said yesterday. "It has been confirmed that the village of Hamada was nearly totally destroyed and that up to 105 civilians may have been killed, with the majority of victims being women and children," UN spokesman George Somerwill told a news conference.
A UN assessment team was sent last week to the area of Hamada, Juruf and Gemeiza villages in South Darfur state, where the government launched a military campaign in December it said was to clear the roads of banditry. Aid community sources and rebels have said government planes bombed the area on Jan. 19. Somerwill did not know how the people were killed, who the fighting was between or if aerial bombardment had caused the high number of casualties in Hamada. Aerial bombardment would be a direct violation of security protocols signed between the government and the two main Darfur rebel groups in November.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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Israel and the Palestinians resumed political contacts yesterday and finalised a deal to deploy thousands of Palestinian security forces to curb attacks in southern and central Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon froze all contacts with the Palestinians in mid-January after a suicide attack killed six Israelis at the Karni crossing between Gaza and Israel. The move cast a major shadow across Mahmoud Abbas' inauguration as Palestinian Authority president the following day, but Sharon has since been impressed by Abbas's efforts to end the bloodshed.
After authorising security contacts last week, Sharon dispatched his senior adviser Dov Weisglass for talks with Palestinian negotiations minister Saeb Erakat yesterday. "We discussed in great depth and detail several political and security issues, mainly preparations for a summit between the Palestinian and Israeli leadership," Erakat said. The two would meet again next week for further preparations, he added. Sharon's office said "contacts were renewed after positive developments in the Palestinian Authority and the efforts to prevent terror". Abbas praised the meeting for having "very good negotiations on every issue."
Posted by: Fred ||
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Former prime minister Mian Nawaz Sharif and Maulana Fazlur Rehman, the leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly, agreed to begin a unified struggle to depose President General Pervez Musharraf, after a long meeting in Jeddah on Wednesday. Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz sources told Daily Times that it was a somewhat volatile meeting during which Sharif adopted an aggressive stance. MNA Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was present at the meeting and MNA Hafiz Hussain Ahmad, Fazl's right hand man, joined them at the dining table after the meeting. Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the chief of the Muttahida Majlis e Amal (MMA), had called on Sharif on Tuesday. "Sharif accused Fazl of giving the government a safe exit in critical situations and pointed out that Qazi had adopted a sterner posture against the rulers while Fazl had a soft corner for them," said the insiders. They quoted Sharif, "The reason for your soft stance against the government is that you want to save your Opposition leadership in the National Assembly and in the provincial governments of NWFP and Balochistan."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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There were five rocket attacks all over Balochistan on Wednesday night, ARY news channel reported. Three rockets, fired from an unidentified location, struck close to Sibi Police Station, but caused no loss of life, it said, adding that police said they heard the explosions but could not confirm whether rockets had caused them. A rocket damaged an electricity transmission line in Kohlu, suspending electricity in the area, it reported. Another rocket struck an unidentified area in Dadar without causing casualties, it said.
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Two senior Palestinian security commanders said Wednesday that Israel has agreed to hand security control of four West Bank cities to the Palestinians within 10 days. However, a senior Israeli official said the issue has not yet been discussed, noting that Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz is abroad.
The Palestinian commanders said security control is to be handed over in Ramallah, Tulkarem, Qalqiliya and Jericho. Undercover Israeli troops shot dead a wanted Palestinian militant on Wednesday and wounded a teenage passerby during an arrest raid in the West Bank, witnesses and security sources said. Two other Palestinians were also killed on Wednesday — a 3-year-old girl in Gaza and a West Bank village mayor who apparently stumbled across stray ordnance in an area where Israeli troops conduct live-fire exercises. The violence prompted the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militant faction to threaten to end a de facto truce obtained by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas if the Israeli army did not halt raids and military strikes within 24 hours.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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#1
..said security control is to be handed over in Ramallah, Tulkarem,..
An Italian court acquitted three north Africans of international terrorism charges linked to the alleged recruitment of suicide bombers to be sent to Iraq, ruling that the men were guerrillas, not terrorists. Deputy Premier Gianfranco Fini, who is also foreign minister, expressed "anger and incredulity" over what he said was a "distortion of the reality before the entire world." The men had been accused of association with the aim of international terrorism, a charge introduced in Italy after Sept. 11, 2001, as part of Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government's war against terrorism. Judge Clementina Forleo convicted the men, Tunisians Ali Ben Sassi Toumi and Bouyahia Maher, and Moroccan Mohamed Daki, of assisting illegal immigration and dealing in false documents, Toumi's lawyer Sara Fardella said. The Tunisians were sentenced to three years in prison and the third defendant to 22 months. RAI state TV showed portions of Forleo's written ruling, which said the defendants were guerrillas, not terrorists, and that there was no proof they were planning attacks.
They must have promised to kill Judge Forleo last...
The trial of two other defendants Nourredine Drissi of Morocco, and Kamel Hamraoui of Tunisia has been transferred to the northern Italian town of Brescia, Fardella said, because the two are suspected of being part of a terrorist cell located in the nearby town of Cremona. All five were arrested in 2003.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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#1
I read this at the BBC and was incredulous! This is actually true. This $%&&^%$ leftist "Judge" turned 4 terrorist recruters loose! Someone needs to come down hard on this dumb spiteful overbearing woman. A hard slap is in order. Meh
The Pakistan Army has set up a new military base near the Sui gas field, where thousands of forces were deployed after a deadly rocket attack this month that disrupted fuel supplies, officials said on Wednesday. The move will anger tribesmen who have strongly opposed government plans to establish new military garrisons in the region.
But then, most things anger the tribesmen, so what the hell can you do?
Colonel Mazhar Masood said that a military cantonment is being established in Sui, a town near where rocket and mortar attacks on January 7-11 killed at least eight soldiers and civilians and forced a temporary shutdown at a gas plant and pipeline, disrupting supplies across the country. "A new cantonment has been set up in Sui over 400 acres of land. Primarily, a battalion of army soldiers with tanks and other military equipment has been taken there," Masood, who is in charge of the garrison, told reporters.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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The No. 3 man at the Pentagon, Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy, is resigning his Pentagon position, FOX News learned Wednesday. Feith's reasons for resigning are unclear, but Pentagon sources say the undersecretary will offer "family reasons" as his explanation. His last day will come at some point in the summer, the sources said. Feith has not submitted a letter of resignation, but he verbally informed Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of his intentions. "He has had that discussion with me. I am hopeful he'll stay until we are able to find an appropriate successor, which we've not started looking for," Rumsfeld said in an evening press conference. Pentagon spokesman Larry DiRita said Feith was weary of missing events in the lives of his children and wanted to spend more time with them.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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#1
I am delighted that Feith is leaving. He is bad baggage for Rumsfeld and for GWB. I hope he doesn't get any golden parachute send off this summer. The guy screwed up. Condi Rice is taking heat for the incompetence of Feith, Tenet, and Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz should go as well. I'm surprised Rumsfeld kept either of them on considering that Rumsfeld was back stabbed recently by neocon standard bearers.
Is it Feith who the FBI are investigating on the qt along with Larry Franklin for possibly sharing sensitive US policy material with an Israeli lobby group? What an idiot if it's true. More bad karma for the WH. Give Feith the pink slip asap.
#3
So I'm guessing the first commentor's pseudonym stands for "twice as stupid as standard".
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/27/2005 8:21
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#4
You just noticed?
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/27/2005 8:22
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#5
Unlike 2X sub-standard, Doug Feith is a big loss in the WoT. He was the whipping boy for the likes of Tubby Ted, Leaky Leahy, and the other leftist baboons, but I am certain he was no friend to our enemies.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/27/2005 9:34
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#6
My thoughts are mixed. I dont know WHO was responspible for those mistakes which were made (and I wont bother naming them, cause I know we dont all agree on precisely what they are) - only someone whos privy to the memos and private conversations between Rummy, Wolfie, Feith, etc can really say who directed whom to do what, based on what advice, etc. My own inclination has been to blame Rummy rather than Wolfie or Feith, but I will freely admit that theres an element of ideological preference in that - I think 2x is expressing, without admitting it, a reverse of that preference. I would say that Feith is closer to the challenged policies than Wolfie, but then that depends much on which policies are challenged, which gets to CA's point.
So instead of arguing ideology and blame, heres my qs.
1. Did he jump or was he pushed?
2. Who takes his place?
#7
2X did manage to get that Joooo-bash in though...points for obsession perseverance
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 10:26
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#8
The only thing I know about Feith is General Tommy Franks called him the "Fucking stupidest person on the face of the earth". I must say I repect General Franks' opinion. He thinks very highly of Condeliza Rice.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/27/2005 12:08
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#9
DB - don't doubt ya, but would LOVE to see a link on that? Is it in his book? If Franks said that, then I'm glad he's gone too
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 12:11
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#10
p. 281 in Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack".
http://slate.msn.com/id/2099277/
Posted by: Tom ||
01/27/2005 12:38
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#11
cool, thx!
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 12:41
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#12
Bob Woodward. There's a guy who provides links to everything.
Mistakes were made by those who tried to do things. That's why the Clinton administration made no mistakes in the war on terror.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/27/2005 12:56
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#13
2X did manage to get that Joooo-bash in though...points for obsession perseverance
You own the obsession, Frank, not me.
I have never supported people holding important positions in private enterprise or in government based on of their religion nor do I fear criticizing people who are incompetent because of their religion. I don't intend to change my direct and honest approach to evaluating people to please you, Frank.
If you would take your anti-semitic baiting glasses off, you might notice that I faulted 4 people in total for incompetence, people who have been/should be fired. You would know better than I, Frank, since you seem to be an expert on Judaism and its membership - what about Tenet and Franklin - are they Jews as well?
in Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack". http://slate.msn.com/id/2099277/
Exactly. I remembered that but did not have the book handy. Feith has been an embaressment to this Administartion since day 1. I think Feith was the guy who was quoted a short while after 9/11 happened that since Afghanistan had such a challenging geography, the US might bomb Southeast Asia instead to drive home the point. Whatever the exact wording was, Feith made the Admin. look like irresponsible "let's bomb them all" jerks.
And the fact that he is being investigated by the FBI about sharing sensitive policy material along with Franklin with a foreign country's lobby group is inexcusable. Feith brings bad publicity to the DOD and this investigation is not flattering to Israel either.
That's why the Clinton administration made no mistakes in the war on terror.
How did Clinton get into this discussion? Feith's mistakes are under discussion. If you want to deflect judgement of Feith's goof-ups, we can go back to Carter's Admin, Reagan, Bush 41, if that would make everyone happier.
It is a pity that Feith is allowed to formulate the plan for re-designing our active military troop levels, considering his incompetence and considering that he has never served in the military himself. It's like me re-designing the military. What makes a civilian like Feith any more knowledgeable than the next guy on the street? Pathetic. I stand by my evaluation. The guy should have been fired yesterday.
#14
Frank, the quote is in Bob Woodward's book, "Plan of Attack". Actually, a very good read, as is General Franks' book "American Soldier". As I said I don't know anything about Feith. I'll have to get educated. http://slate.msn.com/id/2100899/
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/27/2005 14:12
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#15
Feith may be a complete incompetent. I just find it strange that you brought up a suggested link to the Israeli lobbying group link. LH is much more an expert on Judaism than I, a Catholic. I based my characterization from repeated readings of your comments. I stand by my evaluation.
Oh, and thx all for the links/info - if Tommy Franks has no use for Feith, I say fire him asap too.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 15:07
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#17
What LH said. Feith is a lightweight. Woflowitz is a brilliant man with a string of policy successes to his credit, not least of which were singlehandedly convincing the Reagan foreign policy team to dump Ferdinand Marcos and embrace Aquino's candidacy in 1986 and warning of the Iraq threat many years before 1991 (Wolfowitz had done his PhD thesis on this topic, some twenty years earlier).
1. Did [Feith] jump or was he pushed?
2. Who takes his place?
Any time a Washington official or a business exec says he's quitting "to spend more time with his family," you know he was pushed. If they had wanted more time with their families they never would have sacrificed same for so many years to their great struggle to climb to the top of the pyramid.
#18
What lex said....pushed. Real question is why? What will be gained, moving forward?
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
01/27/2005 15:52
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#19
id rather NOT go into detail here about AIPAC, as Im personally an acquintance (not close) of a key AIPAC person.
I would suggest googling on say, Franklin, FBI, investigation - toss in some terms like witch hunt, or antisemitism, and you may find some very interesting things about a particular FBI official. My take is that someone with an ax to grind went after Franklin for some run of the mill info sharing.
#20
"The Spies Who Aren't
By Joel Mowbray
FrontPageMagazine.com | September 17, 2004
The past couple weeks have seen a swirl of anonymous allegations of supposed spying and espionage, including implications that the Pentagon civilian staff might be teeming with double agents for the Jewish state.
Thing is, almost none of it is true.
Beyond mishandling of classified documentsânot an inconsequential offense, to be sureâevery other accusation leveled by unnamed State Department and intelligence officials appears part of a carefully calculated campaign to question the loyalty of several Pentagon civilian employees by name, as well as a much larger group by implication.
According to someone with intimate knowledge of the draft presidential directive that low-level Pentagon Iran analyst Larry Franklin allegedly leaked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the document contained no sources and no methods. It had no sensitive material of any kind. It was nothing more than a policy paperâjust a few pages that resembled an opinion-editorialâadvocating tougher diplomacy, not war, in dealing with Iran.
Why was it marked âsecret?â Nearly every document emerging out of that Pentagon office was stamped secretâthe lowest grade of secrecy. A memo about an office Christmas party would probably be classified secret too.
If guilty, Franklin should be appropriately punished. But what about others who are inexplicably being lumped into the same smear campaign?
Bandying about words like âespionageâ and âspying,â as many news outlets have, serves the goals of the State Department and the CIA, the mortal policy enemies of the hawks at the Pentagon. But unlike previous leak campaigns, State and CIAâs latest effort may have crossed into dangerous territory.
Most politically appointed administration officials on the foreign policy team who support President Bushâs agenda seem to have at least an uneasy feeling that the anonymous smear campaign flirts dangerously close to classic anti-Semitic libels.
Others are of decidedly less mixed opinion. Says one official, âIt is not a witch hunt; it is a pogrom.â
Looking at the media coverage, particularly that of the Washington Post, and the reported conduct of the investigation, it is not difficult to understand the officialsâ concern.
Though Franklin is Catholic, few articles mention that he is not Jewish, and none from the Post do so. He is far down the food chain, yet almost every story identifies him as an employee of Feith, who is Jewish, even though the undersecretary for policy is some six levels removed and oversees over 1,000 subordinates.
Tarring specific so-called neoconservatives, a September 4 Post story with no other clear purpose identified by name five other Pentagon officials about whom âinvestigators have asked questions.â All five individuals are Jewish, and according to the piece, âhave strong ties to Israel.â
Driving home the smear, the story informs readers that three of them âwere co-authors of a 1996 policy paper for then-Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.â The paper in question, however, was neither commissioned nor funded by Netanyahu or the Israeli government. It was unsolicited advice, no different than the papers and op-eds written by thousands of Washington policy wonks attempting to persuade various individuals or entities, including foreign leaders or governments.
The reported track record of the FBI agent in charge of the investigation, FBI assistant director of counterintelligence David Szady, is also troubling. Szady has for years âled investigations into Jewish American CIA employees believed to be spying for Israel that have also failed to persuade the Justice Department even to investigate the cases,â reports Eli Lake of the New York Sun.
Thatâs not all. Stephen Green, who reportedly was interviewed by the FBI for four hours relating to this case (the FBI refused comment), is a free-lance writer on a two-decade long quest to prove that Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and other Jews are actually embedded Israeli spies. Some twenty years of futility later, Green is suddenly all the rage with leftist blogs and ânewsâ sites, as well as (frighteningly) some mainstream news outlets.
Until his newfound popularity on the left and in the Arab press, Greenâs staunchest support had come from Institute of Historical Review (IHR), which is perhaps best known for its denial of the Holocaust. Greenâs two books that purport to document Israelâs vast network of Jewish spies working in the U.S. government have received rave reviews from the Holocaust deniers.
And now Green is being utilized by the FBI.
For those curious about the origins of this seemingly sprawling investigation, a quote in the September 4 Post story seems particularly revealing: âThe initial interest was: Do you believe certain people would spy for Israel and pass secret information?â which was attributed to âone source interviewed by the FBI about the defense officials.â
In other words, it appears that this investigation started without a scintilla of evidence, and it was sparked solely because of âbeliefs.â
Two days earlier, the Post reported that this investigation is âmore than two years old.â Yet in those two years, the Post reported on September 4, all investigators have on the five named Jews in the Pentagon are âsuspicions,â which the Post also noted may not even be âspecific.â
What those five officials have (courtesy of the Post), however, is a taint that will not soon disappear, regardless of their actual innocence."
#21
I think General Frank's remarks were made in the context of Feith trying to tell him how to plan Operation Iraqi Freedom more than anything else. Franks delt with him one to one a couple of times and found his knowledge of military strategy very wanting. General Franks is now retired. As for the assertion that General Franks didn't get the number of troops he requested, he states in his book that Rumsfield asked him quite often if the number of troops alloted was sufficient. General Franks was never, by his own admission, denied the troops he requested. There was a lot to do with the logistics of staging through Kuwait that also determined the number of troops.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/27/2005 16:35
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#22
thx LH - I remember Mowbray's article now
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 17:21
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#23
Sorry, lh, I think Mowbry's defense that it's a witch hunt is bull. And what does Mowbry, a journalist, know what constitutes everyday how hum policy documents and what constitutes serious breeches of security. Give me a break.
If it were a ME lobby group and Muslim gov't officials being investigated, Mowbry would be leading the charge on automatic guilt based on the investigees Muslim religion and no one here would be calling it witch hunts/foul play.
Arguing Nazi witch hunts is getting old. It's 2005 - let's all move along and get over the they're out to us mindset. Questionable behavior regarding our national security should be investigated to the fullest degree. People in positions of power should conduct themselves in a manner that is above reproach. And Joel nobody Mowbry is a bit too full of himself after his Visa Express expose. Joel is not a lawyer with the Justice Department. Joel is not an FBI agent. Thanks but no thanks I don't need Joel the Journalist telling citizens like me with his all knowing journalistic confidence what constitutes criminal action and what doesn't.
Feith, Wolfowitz, Tenet, Franklin are all EMPLOYEES of the US taxpayer. They are not elected to office for 4 year terms and therefore do not have the confidence of an electorate. They should be held accountable for their errors in judgement and fired accordingly regardless of whether they are Jewish, Muslim, Christian. Were these US gov't EMPLOYEES hired because of their religion? The answer is "no" so religion should be a zero factor in their evaluations or their defense.
Some of you had no problem criticizing Rumsfeld in the past. I didn't hear any apologies about your remarks being misunderstood as being a religious witch hunt.
If the aforesaid US gov't EMPOLYEES were so worried about pogroms/witch hunts then they should have stayed home hiding in their paranoid little closets and not taken gov't jobs where they would have public profiles and hence be open to public scrutiny.
As for who should replace Feith, is there a need? Whose position did Feith fill? Why do we have 1500 employees pushing pencils in the DOD under his position and coming up with war plans and occupation plans that are so filled with holes that we needed to spend more millions of $ on the grand standing 9/11 commission to publish a 1000 page book on all the errors? Fire the whole works of Feith's incompetent pencil pushing minions. Would we miss any of them? I doubt it.
#25
Why are we arguing with a troll who's left droppings all over the blogosphere?
Right, moron, I mean "someone."
As for your self-important comment about not being able to "forgive" Tommy Franks, what a joke. You should be so lucky to even shine Tommy Franks shoes. Crawl back under your pathetic rock.
And by the way, "someone", aren't you being rather anti-semetic in criticizing Tommy Franks?
Vice President Dick Cheney voiced his support Wednesday for Ukraine's new president, and his bright orange tie — symbolic of Viktor Yushchenko's "Orange Revolution" — drove home the message. "The world has been inspired by the remarkable images emanating from Ukraine in recent months," Cheney said at a cultural center in Krakow, Poland, where the two met during a heavy snowstorm. "We have watched as Ukrainians, by the hundreds of thousands, converged on Kiev's Independence Square to preserve their freedom and safeguard their right to determine the destiny of their nation." He said the Ukrainian people have shown the world the "unstoppable power of the popular will."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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And Pleasseee...Mr Cheney, let the Secret Service double taste the food, or better yet, bring your own!!
A tribal jirga in Sindh has decided to kill a woman doctor who was allegedly gang raped in Sui to restore the "lost honour" of her tribe, a Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) official told a press conference on Wednesday.
Really, I think it's not connected with religion or culture or something like that. I think it's a function of marrying close relatives for generation after generation.
PMA President Dr Umer Ayub said the husband and in-laws of the doctor had told him of the jirga or local council's decision in Gumbat Khairpur. He demanded the members of the jirga be arrested, and the alleged rapists of the doctor be hanged at Minar-e-Pakistan to deter such crimes. He criticised the federal interior minister for not visiting the woman doctor and her family. He also slammed the NWFP Assembly for not condemning the alleged rape. Ayub said a tribunal formed by the Balochistan government to investigate the incident should be given a one-month deadline. "It has been 24 days since the incident and not one of the accused has appeared before the tribunal. The culprits should appear before the tribunal and not on television," he said. Ayub said the woman doctor had given her statement to the tribunal a couple of days ago, naming her alleged attackers and outlining the incident in detail. He said DNA tests should be used to identify the culprits. He said the PMA central council would meet on February 13 to discuss its future line.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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#1
Pigs. If she isn't out by now, she'll be dead before the tribunal reaches a conclusion.
#2
Not sure if they are talking about the husband or Dr.Umer,but I find it surprising that someone is calling for the arrest of the Jirga,and hanging the perps.
Sounds like an excuse to kill people. They'll settle for Paleos if they can't get to the Zionists...
The radical Islamist group Hamas will make its first major foray into the Palestinian political process Thursday when it takes part in local elections in its Gaza stronghold on an anti-corruption ticket. New Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to persuade both Hamas and its smaller rival, Islamic Jihad, to end their campaign of anti-Israeli attacks by joining the political mainstream. While they boycotted the Jan. 9 presidential election, both groups will be participating in the next round of municipal elections being held in 10 electoral districts across the Gaza Strip.
Hamas did field a number of candidates in an earlier round of elections in the West Bank late last month but Thursday's ballot is being viewed as a first real barometer of its electoral strength. While voting is not taking place in Gaza City or in the other main towns of Rafah and Khan Yunis, the elections are seen as highly significant as they are the first since the territory was seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has exempted hajis (pilgrims) returning to Pakistan from getting their luggage scanned in order to speed up their clearance process, said an official statement issued by the CBR on Wednesday. The CBR instructed all Customs officials not to screen or check the baggage of hajis and post senior supervisory officers to help them in all possible ways, the statement added. The instructions have been issued especially in view of International Customs Day. The concession will restore the hajis' confidence in government policies.
Easier to bring back a Holy Hand Grenade Relic this way.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2005 11:23
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#4
I thought it was trivial to find whatever weapons you wanted in Pakistan already. Why would anyone go to the trouble of importing them in haji luggage from Saudi controlled Arabia? Am I missing something here?
Posted by: James ||
01/27/2005 13:29
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#5
Must be all the money to pay the jihadists is in the luggage!
(Think smuggling caddies into Mexico not drugs out!)
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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#1
Yet voter turn out could be blunted by the release of the new book- "Swift bomb terrorists for piss and blasting be upon you infidel democracy is evil how miny times I gotta tellya" . The book is a bombshell attack on the notion of freedom, liberty, and government by the consent of the people, and includes a forward by Peggy Noonan. The indictment of democratic government is expected to be the source of low voterturnout in an election that won't happen until Sunday and is also said to be a source of recent evidence of pessimism and apathy about the as yet unoccurred elections to many experts in the MainStreamCreepia. further exasserbating the decision making process of doom and gloomers everywhere blah blah blah etc etc
Posted by: an dalusian dog ||
01/27/2005 5:46
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#2
Yes, and in case you haven't got the message from the MSM, low voter turnout in the Sunni areas could UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMACY OF THE ELECTION RESULTS. At least that's what the MSM is hoping. I stress the word "could", an important word in any MSM "factual" analysis, which specializes in worst-worst case scenarios.
#4
The Iraqis are about to learn the best part of democracy...you can lose an election and not be summarily shot by the victors. In fact, you can lose an election and get even more face time on US teevee and call the winning team big fat liars...and be taken seriously.
#5
See, #3, according to the Euros nothing is legitimate unless everyone agrees to it. Of course, "everyone" doesn't include Americans, or conservatives ... but on the other hand, no one has to ABIDE by their agreements, just make them.
For the shining example to follow and live by see: Brussels, EU etc.
Posted by: too true ||
01/27/2005 10:44
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Israel accused a Danish-Palestinian detainee on Wednesday of videotaping its security installations and trying to recruit Israeli Arabs on behalf of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah. A police statement said Lebanon-born Iyyad al-Ashuah, 39, was taken into custody on Jan. 6 after guards aboard a cross-country train he was on noticed him filming out of the window. Under interrogation by internal security agents Ashuah said Hizbollah paid him $2,000 to come to Israel, gather footage of its security installations and recruit members of the minority Arab community to carry out attacks. Two Israeli Arabs were also detained. Israeli media said Ashuah could be charged on Thursday. Hizbollah declined comment. "(Ashuah) was motivated by ideology," police investigations chief Amichai Shai told Israel's Army Radio. "Money was not the main factor here."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2005
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#1
Where the hell are you getting all these lurid dime-novel covers, Fred?
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.
President 
An Afghan soldier fired on fellow troops Thursday, killing five and wounding six, before he was shot and killed by other Afghan soldiers, the U.S. military said. Elsewhere, Afghan police killed a Taliban commander and captured his deputy in a shootout. The motive for the soldier's shooting spree was unclear. It took place inside a coalition base in southern Helmand province early Thursday. "The soldier who initiated the shooting was returning from guard duty at the time of the incident and, currently, no information is available as to his motives," a statement issued by the U.S. military said. The wounded were evacuated to the main American base in southern Afghanistan at Kandahar for treatment. The statement said five Afghan National Army soldiers were killed and six wounded before other soldiers shot the attacker. "No evidence indicates this attack was conducted by any anti-coalition militia forces," it added. A spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry confirmed the incident and said officials were traveling their to investigate. 
North Korea appears to have bought a complete nuclear weapon from either Pakistan or a former Soviet Union state, a South Korean newspaper said on Thursday quoting a source in Washington. 
SHERPUR, Jan 26:— Eight members of a family were today awarded life imprisonment for murder of a teenage boy at Hati Agla in Sadar upazila more than four years ago, reports UNB. The convicts are Abdus Salam, Alaluddin, Bahezuddin, Ahezuddin, Armanuddin, Shahin, Shoel and Suruzzaman. According to the prosecution, Abdul Mannan Alias Miskin, son of a poor peasant, used to offer love to a girl of the family. This earned him wrath of the well off family, which planned his murder. The boy was called out of his home late in the evening of August 14, 2000. He was taken to a nearby jute field and slaughtered. After lengthy hearing and examining prosecution witnesses District and Sessions Judge Ashish Ranjan Das pronounced the verdict in a crowded court. 
Security forces have stormed an apartment building in southern Russia, ending a two-day standoff and killing seven suspected Islamic extremists. Thursday's assault in the capital of Russia's republic of 
China has detained dozens of people, some of whom have been severely beaten, for trying to mark the death of former leader Zhao Ziyang, witnesses said. The allegations came as the government intensified security to prevent mourners attending Saturday's funeral in Beijing for Zhao, the former Communist Party secretary general purged for opposing the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy movement. At least three people, including a woman in her 70s, were punched and manhandled by police officers outside the government offices which receive complaints in the Chinese capital, witnesses said. They were among some 60 people who pinned white paper flowers to their clothes, a traditional Chinese symbol of mourning, said a bystander who took pictures of the beatings and posted them on overseas websites. "A man from Henan province was beaten badly. His left eyeball looked like it was beaten out of its socket and he had a one inch cut to his right eye," said the man who requested anonymity. "An elderly woman from Shandong province was beaten to a point where she couldn't move and a man from Hunan province was also beaten," he said. Police shouted at the petitioners that Zhao, who spent nearly 16 years under house arrest until his death last week, was a "political criminal," the witness said.
Via Lucianne:
Crude oil fell for the first day in four after a government report showed an unexpectedly large rise in U.S. inventories last week and OPEC's president signaled that the group wouldn't cut production. Supplies climbed 3.4 million barrels to 295.6 million barrels, more than triple the 1 million-barrel increase that was the median forecast among 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Oil prices are too high for a further cut in production or quotas, said Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who is the OPEC's president and Kuwait's oil minister. OPEC ministers decided on Dec. 10 to reduce daily oil output by 1 million barrels. ``The promised OPEC cuts are not impacting U.S. import levels,'' said Marshall Steeves, an analyst with Refco Group Inc. in New York. ``I'm not sure whether shipping times or a lack of compliance are responsible, but it's not being felt.'' 
Seven people were gunned down in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan on Wednesday when two clans decided to settle scores in the middle of a crowded bazaar, officials said.
At least seven security personnel including an army major and a police inspector were killed and four were wounded in a Maoist guerrilla ambush in Parbat district west of Kathmandu Wednesday, the state run Nepal Television reported. It quoted security sources as saying a 30-minute gun battle between the security forces and the Maoists erupted after the initial explosion. Two civilians - a taxi driver and a passenger - were missing following the clash. The television report said the injured were undergoing treatment at Kushma, the headquarters of Parbat district.
Omani police have arrested some 300 suspects, a number of them Islamists, who were planning attacks in the sultanate, where a cargo of arms was also seized, Al-Hayat newspaper reported Wednesday. Citing "information" and "rumours" circulating in Oman, the pan-Arab daily said that "social and military officials" were known to be among "some 300 people arrested ... last week." 
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Three Palestinian 
A senior Palestinian commander said the deployment of Palestinian police in southern Gaza, originally set for Thursday, has been postponed. The commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not give the reasons for the delay. However, lower-ranking officers said there were still some disagreements with Israel over where the Palestinian policemen would take up positions. Israeli security officials were not immediately available for comment. 
ONE of the two bomb-makers behind the 2002 Bali nightclub attacks was believed to have been killed yesterday in a targeted air strike. The strike came after spies tracked him to a meeting with terrorists from the southern Philippines-based militant group Abu Sayyaf, the Philippines military said last night. Philippines officials said they were confident that 
The Rotterdam international film festival has pulled the last contentious work by Dutch film-maker Theo Van Gogh at the eleventh hour, amid fears that the screening might trigger further acts of religious violence. The short film, Submission Part One, was due to form the centrepiece of a debate on freedom of speech on Sunday night. It will now not be shown.
The most recent doom-and-gloom forecast by Matthew Parris of the London Times would be hilarious if it were not so hackneyed. After all, Americans long ago have learned to grin any time a British intellectual talks about the upstart's foreordained imperial collapse. And as in the case of our own intelligentsia's gloominess, it is not hard to distinguish the usual prophets' pessimistic prognostications from their thinly-disguised hopes for American decline and fall.
Fido, the lead dog of an Iditarod musher was stomped to death by a charging moose along the Denali Highway in Alaska. Ramey Smyth said that a few years ago Fido led Smyth's team to a significant victory in the Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race on the Kenai Peninsula. Fido, who was killed earlier this month, was behind the leaders in a team of 20 dogs when the moose appeared and for reasons no human can know, the moose charged the dog, reported the Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News. Smyth says he wishes he'd kept the gun he had loaned to another musher, who was having trouble with a moose on the trails around Talkeetna. He said all the mushers training in the Cantwell area had been having troubles with a moose.
HERE'S a challenge for swimwear designers. Britain's advertising watchdog last week banned a series of television commercials featuring bikini-clad women because they were offensive to Muslims. Stand by for the burqini, a fetching one-piece ensemble made entirely of black hessian, measuring 2m in length and equipped with a small vent through which women can stick their snorkel.
The Public Prosecution headed by 
Police in Taif are investigating a strange incident that occurred at Al-Ufairi village, when a man entered a mosque and 
Four more people were detained in Paris Wednesday by anti-terrorist agents looking into the recruitment of Islamic extremists to join the insurgency in Iraq, bringing to 11 the number of arrests this week. 
British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the United States Wednesday to take the world's needs into account when it seeks global support for its actions, and cited climate change as an issue all nations must address together. "If America wants the rest of the world to be part of the agenda it has set, it must be part of their agenda, too," Blair told the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos. 
Mexico
Kuwaiti society is against terrorism and extremists who don't listen to true religious scholars, says Minister of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs 
Kuwaiti security men have arrested a 28-year-old female employee of the Ministry of Information identified as 
Saudi Arabia has accepted the resignation of the kingdom's intelligence chief 
Communist rebels yesterday warned it would target US forces secretly operating in the southern Philippines if it do not pull out from the strife-torn region, where Filipino troops are battling Maoist guerillas and terrorist groups tied to the Al-Qaeda network. A rebel spokesman 
A truck bomb attack in northwest Iraq has killed up to 15 people on a day that has seen fighters attack the offices of three political parties northeast of Baghdad. A truck bomb exploded near the offices of a major Kurdish party in the Iraqi town of Sinjar on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and wounding 30, the local mayor said. Kurdish official Dakhil Kassim Hassun said the blast targeted the offices of the 
Renewed fighting in Sudan's Darfur region may have killed up to 105 civilians and displaced more than 9,000 last week, the United Nations said yesterday. "It has been confirmed that the village of Hamada was nearly totally destroyed and that up to 105 civilians may have been killed, with the majority of victims being women and children," UN spokesman George Somerwill told a news conference.
Israel and the Palestinians resumed political contacts yesterday and finalised a deal to deploy thousands of Palestinian security forces to curb attacks in southern and central Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon froze all contacts with the Palestinians in mid-January after a suicide attack killed six Israelis at the 
Former prime minister 
Two senior Palestinian security commanders said Wednesday that Israel has agreed to hand security control of four West Bank cities to the Palestinians within 10 days. However, a senior Israeli official said the issue has not yet been discussed, noting that Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz is abroad. 
An Italian court acquitted three north Africans of international terrorism charges linked to the alleged recruitment of suicide bombers to be sent to Iraq, ruling that the men were guerrillas, not terrorists. Deputy Premier 
The Pakistan Army has set up a new military base near the Sui gas field, where thousands of forces were deployed after a deadly rocket attack this month that disrupted fuel supplies, officials said on Wednesday. The move will anger tribesmen who have strongly opposed government plans to establish new military garrisons in the region. 
The No. 3 man at the Pentagon, 
Vice President 
A tribal jirga in Sindh has decided to kill a woman doctor who was allegedly gang raped in Sui to restore the "lost honour" of her tribe, a Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) official told a press conference on Wednesday. 
The radical Islamist group 
The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has exempted hajis (pilgrims) returning to Pakistan from getting their luggage scanned in order to speed up their clearance process, said an official statement issued by the CBR on Wednesday. The CBR instructed all Customs officials not to screen or check the baggage of hajis and post senior supervisory officers to help them in all possible ways, the statement added. The instructions have been issued especially in view of International Customs Day. The concession will restore the hajis' confidence in government policies. 
Israel accused a Danish-Palestinian detainee on Wednesday of videotaping its security installations and trying to recruit Israeli Arabs on behalf of the Lebanese guerrilla group 
