January 18, 2005; The death toll from anti-government Sunni Arab violence continues to rise. There are now 100-150 deaths a week. That may sound like a lot, especially the way each incident is breathlessly reported in the media. But for a country of 26 million, that comes to a rate of 14-20 dead per 100,000 population per year. Other countries are more violent, like Columbia and South Africa, but these are not considered news. Iraq's death rate is about the same as was suffered by Thailand's rebellious Moslem provinces last year. The Japanese army suicide rate last year was 39 per 100,000.
But for Iraqis, there has been a large increase. While the United States death rate from violence is 5-6 per 100,000, under Saddam, the death rate from crime and government terror was 10-20 dead per 100,000 per year. It was at that rate a year ago, but the death rate from this violence has nearly tripled since then. Moreover, the deaths fall disproportionately in Sunni Arab areas. That means the death rate among Sunni Arab civilians is much higher than it is among Kurds or Shia Arabs. While the anti-government groups try to make attacks in non-Sunni Arab areas, this is much more difficult. The Kurds and Shia Arabs are armed and alert to any strangers in their midst. The police are recruited locally, and Kurdish police in particular are not intimidated by Sunni Arab violence. A disproportionate number of the police on SWAT teams and in riot police units are Kurds. Many Shia Arabs join the police out of a desire to get back at the Sunni Arabs who killed a family member. Shia Arab police are much less likely to flee in the face of massive Sunni Arab violence.
Another strange pattern is that, while 75 percent of the attacks are made on American troops, Iraqis suffer 80 percent of the deaths. This is because the American troops are much better at defending themselves. Most attacks on American troops fail, or result in a deadly counterattack. The anti-government forces know that the attacks on Iraqis are unpopular with Iraqis. And Iraqis don't like to make attacks on other Iraqis, nor do the foreign volunteers for al Qaeda. However, the damage is already done. The Baath Party was always hated by most Iraqis, including most Sunni Arabs. The violence of the last year has made Baath even more hated. Same with al Qaeda, which is behind most of the car bomb deaths, and some of the most prominent atrocities (like attacks that killed many school children.)
The anti-government forces are using naked terror to try and impose their will. Resisting this effort is indeed a war on terror. Europeans, and some Americans, insist that all this fighting is just training more terrorists, like in Afghanistan. But that is a myth. Very few Arabs saw combat in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Many more went to Afghanistan, hung out in Pakistani refugee camps and absorbed the atmosphere, then came home and have been telling tall tales ever since. The Afghans saw the Arab "volunteers" as a source of money, but totally inept as fighters. It was safer to leave the Arabs in the camps, drinking coffee among the women and children, who could protect these rich guests. Thousands of Arab volunteers returned from Afghanistan with imaginary skills, and fantasies of world conquest. That's why they've been more of a nuisance, than anything else, for the last two decades.
Most of the enemy experts in Iraq are thugs who previously worked for Saddam, and they are being killed off. Same with the foreign volunteers, which their home countries were glad to be rid of. Al Qaeda takes these inexperienced, but excitable young men and gets them killed, either as a suicide bomber, or in a shoot out with American troops. Most Iraqis now understand that getting into a fight with American troops is not a good thing, and is generally fatal for the attacker. Thus most of the attacks are with remote controlled bombs, or hit and run ambushes. The Americans with their UAVs and thermal imagers, and Allah knows what else, will find you quickly if you are shooting at them, and kill you.
American intelligence has identified hundreds of individual gangs or terrorist cells in the Sunni Arab areas. Key individuals, usually those supplying large amounts of cash (most attacks are still "paid for"), are also identified, and constantly being sought. Saddam was not the only Baath Party leader caught, several are nailed each month. Same with the al Qaeda organization in Iraq, which is intertwined with Baath (which supplies technical assistance, money and sanctuaries). Most of these gangs are tied to a specific town or neighborhood. Put the gang out of business, and the neighborhood becomes a much safer place for everyone. But the intelligence does not age well, and if you cannot get Iraqi police into the neighborhood quickly after one gang is smashed, another will form. The gangster psychology is popular in Iraq. During Saddam's time, the gangsters were seen as a cross between freedom fighters and Robin Hoods. Most were just thieves, but compared to Saddam's thugs, common criminals looked good. Now the gangs make extra money by planting roadside bombs, kidnapping or attacking American troops. Kill an American soldier and the cash rewards sets you up for life. Saddam always knew how to motivate people, and his legacy continues.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
9:49:43 AM ||
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#1
Most of the enemy experts in Iraq are thugs who previously worked for Saddam, and they are being killed off.
So how many were there to begin with, and how many are still alive? Are we 10% of the way there, 50%, more? Does anyone know?
#2
Moreover, the deaths fall disproportionately in Sunni Arab areas. That means the death rate among Sunni Arab civilians is much higher than it is among Kurds or Shia Arabs
Nature has a cruel way of achieving equilibrium and Darwin is even more adept- Al Qaeda takes these inexperienced, but excitable young men and gets them killed, either as a suicide bomber, or in a shoot out with American troops.
love the lines about leaving the rich Arabs with the women and children. heh, heh...ouch.
#3
Moreover, the deaths fall disproportionately in Sunni Arab areas. That means the death rate among Sunni Arab civilians is much higher than it is among Kurds or Shia Arabs
Nature has a cruel way of achieving equilibrium and Darwin is even more adept- Al Qaeda takes these inexperienced, but excitable young men and gets them killed, either as a suicide bomber, or in a shoot out with American troops.
love the lines about leaving the rich Arabs with the women and children. heh, heh...ouch.
Director Oliver Stone is so distraught over the criticism targeted at his last two big screen projects, he's preparing to flee America for France. The JFK movie-maker sparked controversy by meeting Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for his 2003 documentary Comandante - forcing TV network HBO to axe it from their schedule. Stone's recent historical epic, Alexander, was also subjected to scathing reviews in the US for portraying Macedonian warrior Alexander The Great as a bisexual. And Stone can't understand why years of hard work have failed to produce a positive reaction, so is desperate to seek comfort in his mother's homeland, to escape the bad vibes that are crippling his confidence in America. He says, "Since the Castro movie I did, things have been tough. Everyone was against it. Then I put my heart into Alexander, which wasn't appreciated either. The right thing is for me to stay out of America for a while. I'm planning to spend a lot more time in France."
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
01/18/2005
9:49:28 AM ||
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#10
he's gonna be "preparing to leave" for at least 4 years, you watch....
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2005 12:14
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#11
Ollie, sweetie... if the Alexander movie were any more of a dog it would be shedding all over the furniture. People were actually howling with laughter during the tragic deathbed scenes... maybe you should consider doing comedy. It works for Jerry Lewis, and he is supposed to have a lot of fans in France.
OTH, Jerry is intentionally funny---maybe you should work on this, during your French vacation.
#14
Can we negotiate a package deal with the French?
Here's my proposal: French citizenship for any Hollywood idiotarian (Stone, Depp, Baldwin et al) so long as we get one French scientist, technologist or proven entrepeneur in return. No returns for a minimum of ten years, no joint citizenship and no tears. Deal?
January 18, 2005: China appears to be building small amphibious ships in as many as five different shipyards (Lunshan, Huangpu, Jiangnan, Shanghai and Zhonghua). These are ships that could make the run across 300 kilometers of open water, at least in good weather. Larger amphibious ships, like their new LSD (landing ship dock) are building at a more leisurely pace. In any event, the LSD and LST type ships are also useful for longer range amphibious operations. But the smaller craft have only one target; Taiwan. If there is no invasion attempt against Taiwan, the hundreds of new small amphibious craft can be used for river and coastal shipping operations (which carry a lot of cargo in a country that is still underserved by modern highways and railroads.) But in the meantime, this building program is sending a rather unpleasant message to Taiwan.
Looks like they are planning on a swarm attack, figure even with heavy losses enough will get through to establish a beachhead. Not a bad plan when you don't care how many troops get killed.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
9:40:52 AM ||
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#1
The US is working on counters, including the Streetfighter class of ship, a multipurpose platform designed for littoral (coastal) warfare. Something like a 500-600 ton PT boat with an estimated cost of $90M/each. The catamaran-style littoral ships are also under heavy development by the US and Australia. Also, the US plans to have a fleet of 8(?) Seawolf subs stationed at Guam, a formidable force, indeed. For further information, check out the magazine "Proceedings of the US Naval Institute", which is the premier magazine for US and international naval information and commentary, and a lot less expensive than a subscription to Jane's.
#3
Trent Lott was said to be very disturbed by this development. In a meeting before the Senate, he demanded that sanctions be imposed on China until a proportionate number of those contracts be awarded to Pascagoula, Miss.
#5
If you sink enough of those amphibs just off the beach,what are the Chicoms going to do,crawl over the wreckage.That would make a bunch of slow moving targets.
Watched a Discovery docu titled:"Stealth and Beyond" focusing on Navel warfare.The U.S. Navy plans to deploy a new destroyer or frigate(don't remeber wich)by 2015.Along with all the stealth tech(angled superstructure,noise/IR reduction,etc)this bad boy will have 2 155mm deck guns firing 10 rounds/min.Thats more fire power than two and a half gun batteries.
#8
Raptor, that'd be the DD(X) design (aka Zumwalt class apparently). The Navy was originally planning a whole new cruiser and destroyer design till budget drawdowns caused them to merge that into one program. It'll be interesting to see how the Navy affords this program as a lot of the funding has to be chosen currently to either keep our current aircraft carrier fleet up or lose one of the planned carriers and instead get the DD(X) program going faster.
America has hobbled an effort by Britain and other European countries to persuade Iran to freeze its nuclear programme. Senior officials said privately that the US would not offer economic or political concessions to woo Teheran. President George W Bush is trying to improve relations with Europe and will visit London and Brussels next month. But in private, American officials are furious at the European Union's "engagement" with Teheran. They say they will not co-operate with what they see as the dangerous policy of giving the regime "rewards for bad behaviour".
The New Yorker magazine reported yesterday that teams of US special forces had infiltrated Iran to scout suspected weapons sites that would be targeted in future air strikes. Seymour Hersh, the magazine's award-winning journalist, quoted a US official as saying that after Afghanistan and Iraq "we're going to have the Iranian campaign". However, a senior US administration source said Mr Bush was unlikely to take any decisions on dealing with Iran for the next six months, while the issue was "blocked" by the European diplomatic initiative.
Another well-placed US source said "military action is only the last resort after other options have been exhausted". He said Washington wanted first to exert pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear programme through an escalating series of diplomatic and economic sanctions at the United Nations Security Council. Iran is widely believed to be pursuing a secret programme to build a nuclear bomb. The nation says it only seeks to develop nuclear power to save its oil reserves. Under an agreement in November between Iran and Britain, France and Germany, Teheran was spared a referral to the security council after it agreed to suspend "voluntarily" the most sensitive parts of its nuclear programme: the enrichment of uranium and the reprocessing of plutonium. In return, the Europeans made a commitment to improve relations.
Working groups met in Geneva yesterday to discuss three issues: Iran's nuclear programme; improved technological and economic co-operation; and "firm commitments on security issues". The EU has agreed to move ahead with co-operation even before an overall agreement is reached and has resumed talks on a trade pact with Iran. But many of the benefits that Teheran seeks - advanced technology, investment in its oil industry and greater international acceptance - can be provided only with US agreement. The Europeans hoped to entice the new Bush administration into the diplomatic process. American officials dismiss the idea out of hand. One said the European effort was "comical". Another said the Iranians would break out of whatever constraints the Europeans imposed.
Washington believes that any concessions made by Teheran are temporary, and often imposed by their own technical problems. British officials admit their initiative is running into the sand. Without US support, the Europeans believe their initiative is doomed and it will be only a matter of time before the Iranians resume their nuclear activities. The US will not publicly denounce the initiative but appears content to watch it collapse. It then hopes to bring the issue to the security council. Britain says such a move would be pointless because any sanctions would be blocked by Russia and China. Bad Bush bad, trying to block soft bribery power
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005
9:37:57 PM ||
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#1
Ah, the final chapter in this scripted and staged bit of performance art by the E3: blame America / Bush for their failure.
This all about appearances and image - for internal consumption. Substance plays no part, anymore, in European Foreign Policy. It's just a show for their masses, a continental straw-man performance.
The Europeans dream up endless toothless and pointless exercises, spend months shuttling various bigwigs all over the planet, loudly proclaim success and progress in their pet press, and then fall on their faces at their imagined "finish line" - and blame it on a lack of US cooperation - which they knew they needed and yet failed to secure before Opening Night. "Why?" one might ask - reasonably. They look stupid and absurd to those outside of the influence of their furiously spinning press. Even toss in the US MSM's complicity - and it is still obviously a fool's errand. So why in the world did they proceed with a flop that they knew would be a flop?
The 8 years of Clinton have spoiled Europeans into believing the critics love them. Eight long years of Big Hugs and Big Conferences and Big Shows. Eight years of self-congratulatory success on Broadway, in Piccadilly, Gay Paree, and Berlin.
The run is over, children. The Clinton Bubble has burst, the World has changed, and there's a new Sheriff in DC who won't read the lines you've scripted. Grab the handrail, steady yourselves, get back on your feet, and shake off the dream-state. Stop wasting what few resources you have on asinine performance art. Shitcan the authors of this rehashed hash - it sucked the first time around and it won't make it to syndication. After a year of pleasant indifference followed by three of snickers and muffled laughter, a sane man would expect you'd have figure it out, by now. The next sound you hear will be jeers, muffled no longer.
Since your realpolitik cupboard is bare, why don't you start working with the new team, instead of expecting us to join you on your misty-eyed Magical Mystery Tour? That dog is dead. We'll do it without you if you're not intelligent enough to figure it out and gutsy enough to fire the old cast of losers who have wasted the last 4 years.
#2
American officials dismiss the idea out of hand. One said the European effort was "comical". Another said the Iranians would break out of whatever constraints the Europeans imposed.
It was comical but it's not funny anymore. The mullahs have insisted, again and again, on their right to rip up any agreement they sign and develop nukes. Obviously, they have no desire whatsoever to drop the nuclear drive.
Neither can these kleptocrats, all of whom are millionaires, be bribed. They don't give a flying f*** about their people's economic welfare. Were that true, the mullahs would have diverted less oil money into their pockets and billions more into the development of domestic industries. Iran is not hurting for cash or trade. The obvious reality here is that it's Germany and France that are being bribed here: it's their battered export sectors that are desperate for contracts, not Iran's.
Black is white, night is day. At this point it's more an absurdist drama than a farce.
#3
IMO it's a mistake to think European leaders are simply naive in (apparently) thinking Iran will honor any agreement it makes.
A full century of experience has conditioned Europeans to believe that they can refuse to take any responsibility for reining in dictators, because if a madman does emerge, the U.S. will spend the blood and treasure to put things right.
So I suspect France and Germany *want* to give Iran time to develop nukes, because that will force the U.S. to act--in which case we become the warmongers, while the Euro's emerge as voices of reason.
--s
Posted by: sf ||
01/18/2005 12:53
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I'd agree with that. The E3 get to posture endlessly as friends of the muslim world and offload the dirty work to us and the Israelis.
Isn't this more or less a fair summary of French middle east policy for the last thirty years?
#5
America has hobbled an effort by Britain and other European countries to persuade Iran to freeze its nuclear programme.
Let me be as brutal and brisque about this as I can be.
1) The mullah are at the final phase of aquiring nukes.
2) They have publicly addmitted that they are enriching Uranium.
3) We all know what weapon grade uranium is good for.
4) The Mullahs have publicly and repeatedly declared that they want to destroy the state of Israel (and maybe they wouldn't mind to do so to a couple of large American cities while they are at it).
6) There is NO WAY, I repeat NO WAY Israel can allow Iranian nukes !
Therefore if the Merkin's wont do it, we will have to do it.
Q.E.D.
P.S. I truely hope there is currently an intense binational effort to avert the nightmare of an Islamic nuclear thugocracy on the loose.
Re: #3 & #4, France in particular would like to see Israel disappear, I think. And the Euro posturing w/ the muslim world isn't posturing -- they have backed themselves into a bad spot re: energy.
Yes, It's All About the Oil (for Europe, anyway). And not likeing Israel, which is as bad as the US or worse when it comes to having the audacity to defend itself.
#4
Please let me know where I went wrong. Length is one thing, but this is a super article, prolly vetted by a dozen different Pentagon types before being sent to Gertz. It details much of the Chinese prep for a possible US-China conflict. I did embed strong tags within the blockquote. I have my own comments to add to it, too, if it can be cleaned up and made nice.
#6
It wasn't a hiccup. You got sink-trapped. It wasn't the tags that kicked you in, more likely you used one of the filtered phrases or addresses Boris uses.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005 14:48
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Filtered phrases? Inquiring minds want to know, Fred.
Police on Tuesday arrested three brothers for allegedly harboring suspected suicide bombers who later made an attempt on the life of Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz. The suspects, alleged members of the Islamic militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed, were identified as Abdul Moim, Abdul Basit and Nisar. Chaudhry Iftikhar, the chief of police in Rawalpindi, a city near the capital, said the three were nabbed in their home village in Attock, a district to the west, where the attack was launched July 30 as Aziz campaigned for a by-election, weeks before he took office.
Aziz escaped unhurt but nine other bystanders were killed. Iftikhar said the two bombers, both Pakistanis, were sheltered at the brothers' house in Awanpura village before the attack. One of the bombers was killed in the attack, but the other's suicide belt malfunctioned and did not explode. It's unclear if the surviving bomber has been arrested. Earlier Tuesday, police announced the arrest last month of another suspected Islamic militant wanted for a failed assassination attempt against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and for a deadly bombing near a U.S. Consulate in the southern city of Karachi in 2002. Islamic militants, including al-Qaida operatives, have targeted Musharraf and his top allies for backing the U.S.-led war against terrorism, which ousted the radical Taliban militia from power in neighboring Afghanistan in late 2001.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
9:35:31 AM ||
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MADRID, Spain (AP) - A car bomb exploded Tuesday in the main Basque city of Bilbao, injuring a policeman, news reports said. The bomb exploded in Gexto, a wealthy district of Bilbao in Spain's Basque region, the news agencies Efe and Europa Press said. Europa Press said the explosion occurred after a person claiming to represent the armed Basque separatist group ETA called the Basque newspaper Gara.
"We're back!"
TV station Telecinco said one policeman was injured
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
9:31:58 AM ||
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#1
But I gathered the ETA was 'on the ropes'? That they were eager for negotiations?
#2
I though Zappy and the political arm of the ETA were having a love fest. This should set that back. My honest opinion is Zappy will like any socialist turd give away the farm and give in to terrorism. He has done it before.
Having assigned guilt, the al Qaeda statement added, "We warn Fatah-Lebanon that we intend very soon to avenge the blood of our brother Al Masri. This warning is addressed to the entire Fatah command and leadership hierarchy in Lebanon - from the highest to the lowest commander.
#1
Gee, don't stop with just one, wipe all of the dinks out. Then you can start in on Al Aqsa and Hamas and Hizbollah. Think of it as just another training thingy.
#4
Is there a fund set up so contributors can donate to provide airline tickets for the AQ to get to Lebanon and the Fatah boys to Pakland, Iraq, and Soddie? Sounds like we need to get the black aircraft involved.
#6
Wouldn't it be great - each AQ operative individually takes out one Fatah goon with an individual suicide strike! Convince them that remote control bombs are for pussies. Kinda' like Kamikaze pilots taking each other out.
BAGHDAD, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Two people were killed and five others injured Tuesday in an attack on the offices of a major Shiite party in Baghdad, reports said. Witnesses said a suicide bomber stormed one roadblock but was stopped at the second by guards who opened fire on his car and managed to keep him from reaching the offices of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as Sciri, in the posh neighborhood of Jadriah in central Baghdad. The blast killed two guards, wounded five others and destroyed three cars. It also smashed the windows of the building housing Sciri's offices. Suicide car bombs have become a daily occurrence in Iraq as the date of elections draws nearer.
The Shiite party is expected to do well in the poll set for Jan. 30. Sciri leaders have described attacks on their party as an attempt to provoke sectarian conflict with the minority Sunni Muslim community, some of whose parties are boycotting the election over security concerns.
In another development, kidnappers of the Catholic bishop of Mosul freed him Tuesday, al-Jazeera television reported. Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa was released a day after being abducted in the northern city amid reports of a ransom demand. No ransom was believed paid.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
9:17:44 AM ||
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The breathtaking success of the probe Huygens, which landed on the Saturnian moon Titan last Friday after a seven-year trek across the Solar System, kicks off what promises to be a bumper year for space. Other highlights in the coming months include the launch of robot scouts to Mars and Venus, a US mission to smash open a passing comet and the test flight of a monster 10-tonne rocket. Robot Scouts? Watch the L-cubed freak out.
The United States and China are scheduled to resume manned space flights, while Europe is due to deploy its first satellite in a navigational constellation designed to rival the US Global Positioning System (GPS). In science, Earth's two closest neighbours are to come under scrutiny after the deep-space heroics on distant Titan. NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, due for launch in August, should powerfully add to the army of explorers -- two US and European probes and two US rovers -- which are sniffing around the Red Planet, searching to answer the mysteries of its lost water and atmosphere. More materials for the pfifltriggi.
Venus, a hell with fiery heat and an atmosphere of acid, will be visited for the first time in a decade. The European Space Agency's Venus Express probe, set to take off in October, could confirm suspicions that the planet known as the Evening Star fell victim to runaway global warming. "See? It's Bush's fault for not signing Kyoto!"
On July 4, a novel US probe, Deep Impact, is to rendezvous in deep space with the comet Tempel 1, and fire a metal slug into its heart -- a gigantic, soundless wack whose results should be visible from Earth as a whitish cloud. But it's not an act of cosmic vandalism: the idea is to find out more about comets -- the intriguing, primitive rubble left over from the building of the Solar System. The outcome will also give invaluable tips as to how Earth could destroy or deviate any asteroid on a future collision course. These missions are all very different but they share one important thing -- they are born of the "faster, quicker, cheaper" doctrine of robotic exploration, says Doug Millard, curator of space technology at Britain's Science Museum. "We won't see the like of Cassini-Huygens again," he said, referring to the US-European mission to Titan. "That was the last of the very big multi-billion-pound (-dollar, -euro) missions. It was a throwback to the Voyager, Pioneer era, the vanguard of the US space exploration programme of the 1960s and 70s. In those days, you built two spacecraft just in case one went wrong. Those days have long gone." Closer to home, fingers will be crossed when the US spaceship Discovery resumes flights by the shuttle fleet after the catastrophic loss of its sister craft, Columbia, on February 1, 2003. The gingerly-prepared mission has a May or June launch window. Pray for success and safety.
Late in the year, China is expected to launch Shenzhou VI, the second manned flight in its secrecy-shrouded space programme. Europe, too, will be seeking to make its mark in orbital operations. Next month will see the test launch of its Ariane 5 ECA, a behemoth with a 10-tonne payload. The first attempt went disastrously wrong when the rocket self-destructed over the Atlantic in December 2002. And in November, Europe is scheduled to launch the first Galileo satellite, creating a navigational web in orbit that is promised to outperform the GPS in terms of accuracy and become the leading tool in traffic management. Space policymakers in Europe and elsewhere will spend much of 2005 debating how far to join the United States in President George W. Bush's goal, sketched in January 2004, of resuming human missions to the Moon and thence to Mars. "But don't you see? He wants people on Mars for the war secrets!" /moonbat
ESA Science Director David Southwood said a major question was whether it was right to invest so much money on exploring the Red Planet. "Is real progress going to be made doing things on Mars and sending people to Mars, or is it a broader exploration (of the Solar System) that is needed?" he said in an interview.
Posted by: Steve from Relto ||
01/18/2005
9:14:15 AM ||
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Where are the manned space station & Moon colony, then? (f*cking NASA bastards).
China is building up military forces and setting up bases along sea lanes from the Middle East to project its power overseas and protect its oil shipments, according to a previously undisclosed internal report prepared for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
"China is building strategic relationships along the sea lanes from the Middle East to the South China Sea in ways that suggest defensive and offensive positioning to protect China's energy interests, but also to serve broad security objectives," said the report sponsored by the director, Net Assessment, who heads Mr. Rumsfeld's office on future-oriented strategies.
The Washington Times obtained a copy of the report, titled "Energy Futures in Asia," which was produced by defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.
The internal report stated that China is adopting a "string of pearls" strategy of bases and diplomatic ties stretching from the Middle East to southern China that includes a new naval base under construction at the Pakistani port of Gwadar.
Beijing already has set up electronic eavesdropping posts at Gwadar in the country's southwest corner, the part nearest the Persian Gulf. The post is monitoring ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and the Arabian Sea, the report said.
Other "pearls" in the sea-lane strategy include:
Bangladesh: China is strengthening its ties to the government and building a container port facility at Chittagong. The Chinese are "seeking much more extensive naval and commercial access" in Bangladesh. Burma: China has developed close ties to the military regime in Rangoon and turned a nation wary of China into a "satellite" of Beijing close to the Strait of Malacca, through which 80 percent of China's imported oil passes. China is building naval bases in Burma and has electronic intelligence gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal and near the Strait of Malacca. Beijing also supplied Burma with "billions of dollars in military assistance to support a de facto military alliance," the report said. Cambodia: China signed a military agreement in November 2003 to provide training and equipment. Cambodia is helping Beijing build a railway line from southern China to the sea. South China Sea: Chinese activities in the region are less about territorial claims than "protecting or denying the transit of tankers through the South China Sea," the report said.
China also is building up its military forces in the region to be able to "project air and sea power" from the mainland and Hainan Island. China recently upgraded a military airstrip on Woody Island and increased its presence through oil drilling platforms and ocean survey ships. Thailand: China is considering funding construction of a $20 billion canal across the Kra Isthmus that would allow ships to bypass the Strait of Malacca. The canal project would give China port facilities, warehouses and other infrastructure in Thailand aimed at enhancing Chinese influence in the region, the report said.
The report reflects growing fears in the Pentagon about China's long-term development. Many Pentagon analysts believe China's military buildup is taking place faster than earlier estimates, and that China will use its power to project force and undermine U.S. and regional security.
The U.S. military's Southern Command produced a similar classified report in the late 1990s that warned that China was seeking to use commercial port facilities around the world to control strategic "chokepoints."
A Chinese company with close ties to Beijing's communist rulers holds long-term leases on port facilities at either end of the Panama Canal.
The Pentagon report said China, by militarily controlling oil shipping sea lanes, could threaten ships, "thereby creating a climate of uncertainty about the safety of all ships on the high seas."
The report noted that the vast amount of oil shipments through the sea lanes, along with growing piracy and maritime terrorism, prompted China, as well as India, to build up naval power at "chokepoints" along the sea routes from the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea.
"China ... is looking not only to build a blue-water navy to control the sea lanes, but also to develop undersea mines and missile capabilities to deter the potential disruption of its energy supplies from potential threats, including the U.S. Navy, especially in the case of a conflict with Taiwan," the report said.
Chinese weapons for sea-lane control include new warships equipped with long-range cruise missiles, submarines and undersea mines, the report said. China also is buying aircraft and long-range target acquisition systems, including optical satellites and maritime unmanned aerial vehicles.
The focus on the naval buildup is a departure from China's past focus on ground forces, the report said.
"The Iraq war, in particular, revived concerns over the impact of a disturbance in Middle Eastern supplies or a U.S. naval blockade," the report said, noting that Chinese military leaders want an ocean-going navy and "undersea retaliatory capability to protect the sea lanes."
China believes the U.S. military will disrupt China's energy imports in any conflict over Taiwan, and sees the United States as an unpredictable country that violates others' sovereignty and wants to "encircle" China, the report said.
Beijing's leaders see access to oil and gas resources as vital to economic growth and fear that stalled economic growth could cause instability and ultimately the collapse of their nation of 1.3 billion people.
Energy demand, particularly for oil, will increase sharply in the next 20 years — from 75 million barrels per day last year to 120 million barrels in 2025 — with Asia consuming 80 percent of the added 45 million barrels, the report said.
Eighty percent of China's oil currently passes through the Strait of Malacca, and the report states that China believes the sea area is "controlled by the U.S. Navy."
Chinese President Hu Jintao recently stated that China faces a "Malacca Dilemma" — the vulnerability of its oil supply lines from the Middle East and Africa to disruption.
Oil-tanker traffic through the Strait, which is closest to Indonesia, is projected to grow from 10 million barrels a day in 2002 to 20 million barrels a day in 2020, the report said.
Chinese specialists interviewed for the report said the United States has the military capability to cut off Chinese oil imports and could "severely cripple" China by blocking its energy supplies.
Posted by: Anonymoose ||
01/18/2005
8:58:12 AM ||
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#1
The "Chinese company with close ties to Beijing's communist rulers" is Hong Kong based Hutchinson-Whampoa, which is perhaps the largest commercial shipping company in the world. In addition to now managing both ends of the Panama Canal, they are building an enormous deep water port in the Caribbean, and acting as an extensive economic-diplomatic support structure for Chinese initiatives throughout South America, especially oil-rich Venezuela.
#2
Hutchinson-Whampoa also fronted the Husky Energy deal in Canada, where now the Chicoms have a majority ownership. They are also getting resources for the Chicoms, like acquiring Noranda. Nice having Chicom controlled vital industries in our northern neighborhood.....warm, fuzzy feeling.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/18/2005 22:59
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said on Monday he would not rule out military action against Iran if that country was not more forthcoming about its suspected nuclear weapons program. How about a promise we will. Or that we will not tolerate tehm getting nukes?
"I hope we can solve it diplomatically, but I will never take any option off the table," Bush said in an interview with NBC News when asked if he would rule out the potential for military action against Iran "if it continues to stonewall the international community about the existence of its nuclear weapons program."
Iran denies it has been trying to make nuclear weapons and says its nuclear program is geared solely to producing electricity. So clearly it's time to transition to Sy Hersh's Bag o'Lies
Bush's comments followed Pentagon criticism on Monday of a published report that it was mounting reconnaissance missions inside Iran to identify potential nuclear and other targets.
... I didn't feel like giving Hersh anymore air time, but there's lots more at the link if you need it.
Asked whether U.S. military forces had been conducting reconnaissance missions in Iran, Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Venable said, "We don't discuss missions, capabilities or activities of Special Operations forces."
W answered the question asked, but won't rule out vs. won''t tolerat still looks like a slow motion climb down from his former agressive stance.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/18/2005
8:57:39 AM ||
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#1
C'mon, Mrs D - what did you expect? Reagan's "bombing will comment in 5 minutes"?
You're a hard one. Sorry he's not your bitch doing your bidding, on your schedule, with your script, lol, because I want precisely what (I presume) you do...
Aw, fuck it. I'm tired of trying to drag reality back into the equation for those unwilling to recognize that being The President of The United States does not mix well with knee-jerk instant-gratification thinking. You have a "feeling" he's bailing? Fine. Great. Cool. Awesome. Knock yourself out. Please. Use my hammer.
#4
The Euros don't seem to thinks so, CF. They are whining that their negotiations can't possibly succeed the US refuses to pay the price they want to promise Iran. (see the Bush Bad article below)
#5
bad cop? I'm thinking Harry Callahan - "well do ya feel lucky....punk?"
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2005 11:07
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Good cop-bad cop is play-acting. It doesn't work when the target is determined not to go along and when Good Cop is deadset against the Bad Cop's actually doing anything in response.
Here's the acid test for the E3: which would you prefer, a nuclear iran that buys your exports or an iran defanged by US-Israeli direct action? Isn't it obvious which outcome the E3 are driving toward?
Iraqi prisoner abuse suspect Pfc. Lynndie England said in an interview with a Dutch television program aired Monday that she had been in love with fellow soldier Charles Graner when abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison took place. England, 22, of Fort Ashby, W.Va., was a prison clerk who was shown smiling and pointing at naked Iraqi prisoners, and holding one at the end of a leash, in photographs that caused international outrage. She is charged with 19 counts of abuse and faces a sentence of up to 38 years if found guilty on all counts. England gave birth in October to a son fathered by Graner, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Saturday for his role in the scandal. "He's a really good guy," England said of Graner on the television program Nova.
Sure, sure. We caught that right away. And you're a really sweet girl...
"He's very responsible, he's very trustworthy. I'm not just saying that because of the storm we're in." She said she still loves him and hopes they will someday be together again.
Maybe ten years or so. Maybe fifteen for you.
England said she had been doinking in a relationship with Graner when the abuse occurred in the fall of 2003. Asked whether she loved him at the time, she answered, "yes."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
8:55:46 AM ||
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Of course she did....hence the euphemism "Love Child".
BTW, Mike Savage of the 'Savage Nation' radio show has already started a "Free Graner" movement. (And I had expected this to come from the LLL.) He also has a poll that shows way over half of the participants think that Graner didn't deserve 10 years.
Does Leavenworth have suites for couples?
#5
I don't know how many years one should get for gross stupidity mixed with a sadistic streak. I fully expect the wank-o-matics to pile on this post, today.
#7
âHeâs very responsible, heâs very trustworthy..."
And he couldn't possibly marry her anyway until after he divorced his current wife, and arranged for the support of his current offspring. As if someone like him would do that for someone like her.
#8
BTW, Mike Savage of the 'Savage Nation' radio show has already started a "Free Graner" movement.
Let's put Savage in Graner's custody. Seems like fitting punishment for both of them: Savage gets the abuse he deserves and Graner has to listen to Savage.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
01/18/2005 10:55
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Savage is either a moon howling moon bat or an agent provocateur of the left. Put him in the same cell with the Unibomber and let nature take it's course.
#11
# 7 & 10 What is love? and love is what it is?
What is reality? I don't feel sorry for either
of them. Upon entering the armed forces- all soldier's are educated on what is allowed i.e. abuse and the full court martial procedure.
I think the innocent victim is their little boy.
Who will raise him when both parent's are incarcerated.....for many year's**
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: andrea ||
01/18/2005 14:04
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Andrea rhaetor dicet: What is love? and love is what it is? What is reality?
I have it from good sources that the answer is 42. It is not entirely clear, though, what is the question.
Who will raise him when both parent's are incarcerated.....for many year's
Lemme guess... two scenarios...
A) Foster homes (probably not the best arrangement but more likely)
B) Adoption (chances that kid would grow up a decent human being)
#13
I bet the Euros love this click, the stereotypical US military pervert. Should launch a French movie soon.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 14:38
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Lynndie England says she loved Graner
Proof neither one of them has any taste.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/18/2005 14:45
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...England said of Graner on the television program Nova.
Is this the PBS series devoted to scientific topics? WTF? Isn't there enough coverage of this already without cannibalizing broadcast time devoted to science?
#18
#12 Sobiesky - I already know that a relative (who is willing /God Mother-Father) would be given legal custody through the court). Foster parent if nobody can take care of the boy.
Adoption- a good choice, but you would have to terminate the parental right's from both parties and I doubt that would happen ***
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/18/2005 19:21
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Four top leaders of different outlawed parties were killed yesterday in shooting incidents involving police, Rapid Action Battalion, and the outlawed operatives in Khulna, Kushtia and Rajshahi. Didarul Islam Palash alias Shyamal, 28, Operational Commander of the Khulna Metropolitan city unit of Purbo Banglar Communist Party's (PBCP) Janajuddho faction was killed reportedly in shootout between police and his accomplices at about 4:30 am yesterday behind the truck terminal at Sonadanga of Khulna.
Nice, dark, deserted truck terminal
Earlier at around Sunday midnight, he was arrested along with three women PBCP cadres at flat of a three-storey building in Sonadanga Residential Area. One of the women is said to be the wife of Nazu, the prime suspect in Dainik Janmabhumi editor Humayun Kabir Balu murder case. Deputy Commissioner (HQ) Akbar Ali of Khulna Metropolitan Police said the arrested women are members of a suicide squad formed to avenge the killings of top PBCP leaders in crossfire.
Ah, we heard about them last week. Didn't take the cops long to start rounding them up.
He said Monday's shootout broke out when a police team on an arms recovery drive following Didarul's confession came under attack from the PBCP cadres near the truck terminal. Didarul got shot when his accomplices tried to snatch him from police.
Almost like it was planned
Police recovered one gun, 58 rifle bullets, 13 pistol bullets, and five gun cartridges from the scene. Besides, they recovered leaflets that called for the PBCP cadres detained in Khulna District Jail to break free from the prison at any cost, said police. Didarul Islam Shyamal stands accused in several cases including five for murder.
Our Kushtia correspondent reports: Delwar Hossain Dulal alias Dayal, 38, regional leader of Gono Mukti Fouz (GMF) and Sirajul Islam alias Ilu, 30, commander (arms) of outlawed Jashod Gono Bahini (JGB) died reportedly in a shootout with Rab (Rapid Action Battalion) and police in Kushtia early yesterday. A Rab-6 team arrested Dayal at village Ratulpara in sadar upazila at about 5:00pm on Sunday, said Rab sources. Iswardi police arrested Sirajul Islam at Blackpara area of Iswardi municipality area the same day and handed him over to Kushtia police. Both the arrestees were taken into the custody of a joint team of police and Rab in Kushtia town. During the interrogation, the two admitted to possessing firearms hidden at various locations throughout Kushtia.
Bangla cops must have one hell of a truncheon squad
Following the leads, Rab-6 men with a contingent of police left for village Bahadurpur in Bheramara upazila of Kushtia to recover the firearms at about 4:00am. When they reached Bakapul area, a band of outlawed operatives fired on them resulting in an hour-long gunfight. The law enforcers said Dayal and Ilu while trying to escape from the police van got caught in crossfire and died on the spot.
Just like the script sez
The law enforcers retrieved two LG guns and 30 rounds of ammunition from the spot. Police said Dayal stood accused in 14 cases including seven for murder and Ilu in 11 cases including six for murder cases.
Our Rajshahi correspondent adds: Lal Potaka, a top leader of outlawed Purbo Banglar Communist Party (PBCP M-L), was killed in 'crossfire' between police and his followers in Durgapur upazila of Rajshahi in the early hours Monday. Rajshahi DB police arrested the PBCP publicity secretary for international affairs Muhammad Shafi Sarkar on Sunday shortly after he was released on bail. Ramna police arrested Shafi and Ali Tareq from Aziz Cooperative market in Dhaka on May 22 last year. He had been interrogated in the joint interrogation cell and admitted his involvement in a number of murders. A police press release claimed Shafi, also known as Internet Shafi, was accused in a dozen of cases including four for murder. Following information obtained from him under interrogation, a police team led by Assistant Superintendent of Police Alamgir Kabir took him to Aroil village in Durgapur to retrieve arms.
Say "Goodbye", Shafi
On the way at Raghunathpur, Shafi's accomplices ambushed the police team at around 4:00am. Police returned fire that escalated into a shootout that left Shafi dead on the spot. Police recovered a locally-made gun and three bullets from the scene. Sources in Rajshahi Central Jail said three plainclothes policemen were seen handling papers of Shafi's bail before he was freed at around 1:00am on Sunday.
Cops bailed him out at 1:00am, then arrest him again and he get's caught in a "crossfire" at 4:00am. Now that's time management!
That night shift they've got is pretty industrious...
Meanwhile, Rapid Action Battalion in Rajshahi exchanged gunfire with 'criminals' at Sujan Palsa village in Bagmara upazila here yesterday afternoon leaving one injured. The injured, Abdus Samad, is a charge sheeted accused in Subhodanga Union Parishad chairman Golam Rabbani murder case, Rab said.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
8:55:00 AM ||
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Police arrested a youth in a house at Gabtoli upazila in the district early yesterday and seized powerful explosives and bomb-making substances from his possession. The detainee Shafiqullah, who hails from Bandar upazila of Narayanganj, claimed himself to be a member of Tablighi Jamaat while police said they believe he is an operative of Islamic militant group. The seized materials include three small containers of picric (acid), more than 20 electronic circuits, three small boxes of ICs (integrated circuit), one box of electric doorbell switches and a coil of litmus paper. The coil was inscribed with Universal Indicator PHI1-10. Police, however, could not say immediately what were in the 23 other containers that too were seized.
Police raided the house of Joynal at Chaksudhu village in Gabtoli at about 1:30am on suspicion of his involvement in the Saturday's bomb blasts in Bogra and Natore that left two people dead and 70 others injured. Jaynal, reportedly a follower of Bangla Bhai, operation commander of Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB), could not be held. Instead, police found Shafiqullah and recovered the explosives and bomb-making materials. Shafiqullah said he was introduced to Joynal in an Islamic function three to four months ago.
A wedding, perhaps?
He said that he came to Bogra to visit the archaeological site at Mahasthan Garh. Joynal's wife Monwara Begum said Shafiqullah teaches Arabic to her children. He came to their house at 9:00pm on Sunday, she added. "Shafiqullah might have a link to the Saturday's bomb attacks. He might have brought the explosives to carry out further attacks in future" said a top police official seeking not to be named.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
8:49:45 AM ||
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AFP, Washington: Teams of US commandos have been operating inside Iran since last summer, selecting suspected weapons sites for possible air strikes, The New Yorker reported yesterday. The magazine's award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, who last year exposed the extent of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, wrote that he was repeatedly told by US intelligence and military sources that "the next strategic target was Iran."
Would that be "former intelligence and military sources, now unemployed with a chip on their shoulders"?
President George W. Bush has signed a series of orders authorizing commando groups to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia, the New Yorker said.
I would certainly hope so
The Bush administration has been conducting secret spying missions inside Iran at least since mid-2004, gathering intelligence on declared and suspected nuclear, chemical and missile sites, it said. "The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids," Hersh wrote.
"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign," a former high-level government intelligence official told the magazine. "The Bush administration is looking at this as a huge war zone. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy," the official said.
Works for me
A top government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon told the magazine that Pentagon civilians -- especially Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz -- "want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible." Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz believe that Iran's clerical regime could not withstand a military blow and would collapse, the magazine reports.
International allies are helping the Pentagon with its Iran plans, according to the magazine. Israeli consultants are helping develop potential weapons targets inside Iran. Pakistan is also involved. Pakistani scientists are providing information to an American task force that is penetrating eastern Iran searching for underground nuclear installations, the magazine said.
In return, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has received guarantees that he will not have to hand over disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan to international authorities for questioning. Khan, the architect of Pakistan's nuclear programme, in February took responsibility for transfers of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
The New Yorker article went on to describe how the Bush White House has solidified control over US intelligence operations and how the Pentagon has finagled new powers to conduct covert operations without oversight from the US Congress or involvement by the CIA.
Pssst! Iran, the US spies are pretending to be al-Qaeda operatives. Don't tell anyone, ok?
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
8:39:17 AM ||
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#1
I doubt that "Seeless" Hersh knows what's going on. An earlier article said he was working on some kind of historical hysterical novel which puts such reports in the realm of fiction. If indeed we had SF, CIA, or Commandos in Iran on intelligence gathering missions, Hersh would be a traitor for endangering the lives of these people.
#2
Pssst! Iran, the US spies are pretending to be al-Qaeda operatives. Don't tell anyone, ok?
actually it's just as easy to hide as Basij members...I'd purge em all along with the shifty AQ guys
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2005 14:16
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Maybe the Bush Team is using hersh. Why else would they give him ANY info whatsoever? They know he's a freakin' idiot, out to discredit them any way he can.
"....We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy."
If the countries of the world don't want Americans coming soon to a country near them, chasing terrorists, all they have to do is stop helping the terrorists and start killing them.
The mullahs in iran must be shittin' in their robes right about now. Ha ha ha..... They know our boys can put a 2,000 pound bomb right in their soup bowl at dinnertime. And, that's just eatin' at their insides.
Nothing is too petty for the ChiComs to get in a spitting match over. I'm beginning to wonder if they're secret Muslims... the resemblance in behavior is uncanny, no?
China said it had received assurances from the United States that Taiwan has not been invited to send a delegation to President George W. Bush's second-term inauguration this week. The statement contradicts earlier reports from Taiwan, whose media has said Nobel laureate Lee Yuan-tseh would head the island's delegation to the ceremony on Thursday. "China has expressed its concern to the US side," foreign ministry spokesman Kong Quan told a regular briefing. "The US response is they have not invited and do not recognize the so-called special envoy delegation from Taiwan," he said.
The Chinese statement was immediately dismissed by Michel Lu, spokesman for Taiwan's foreign ministry. "How could we attend the celebration without an invitation? It's not possible," he told AFP. "We urge Beijing to change its narrow-minded way of thinking and drop its irrational rhetoric." China regards Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, despite their split in 1949 at the end of a civil war. Taiwan's China Times Express this month also cited informed sources as saying Lee's delegation would comprise Taiwan's top China policy maker Joseph Wu, deputy defense minister Michael Tsai and several parliamentarians. Of course, I hope Taiwan (China) is, indeed, invited. The Commies can go suck a trailer hitch.
ISLAMABAD: Rawalpindi Police on Tuesday arrested three people involved in the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz near Jaffer Mor in Fatehjang tehsil on July 30, 2004 . The accused, Muhammad Nisar, Abdul Manum and Abdul Basit, are brothers and were arrested from Awanpura in Fatehjang. They are active members of Jaish e-Muhammad and Jamatul Furqan.
Mother must be so proud!
Chaudhry Iftikhar Ahmed, the deputy inspector general of Rawalpindi division, told reporters that the accused visited Afghanistan frequently and took part in the attacks on US-led forces there. He said 19 people belonging to several banned outfits had been involved in the plot to assassinate Shaukat Aziz. Out of the 19, two, Amjad Farooqi and Muhammad Zeeshan, had been killed, three had been arrested and the remaining 14 would be arrested soon, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
7:52:24 PM ||
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crap - I figured it was a hush attempt on Tariq Aziz....
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2005 21:07
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Iran's judiciary admitted yesterday it had made an administrative error by summoning Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi to a national security court, and said there was no danger she would be arrested. Judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad also dismissed a complaint from Ebadi over the use of solitary confinement, saying such cells no longer existed and had been replaced by "comfortable suites".
"The prosecutor reviewed the case when he learned it concerned Ebadi, and found some mistakes had been made," Karimi-Rad told reporters. He explained that the clerk who wrote the summons "was not experienced enough", and had failed to state the reason for the summons and had also mistakenly called Ebadi to a branch of the feared Revolutionary Court - a body that normally handles political or national security crimes. The case, he explained, concerned a private complaint about an "insult". The spokesman also stressed this was also "pardonable".
"The prosecution would like to see the plaintiff. He has not been found yet," Karimi-Rad said. "It is a public case so should go to a public court and not a Revolutionary Court.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
7:37:05 PM ||
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#1
So no flag, huh? ROFL!!! Yeah, sure, this is the full story. Yewbetcha. Lol!
Not very well done Islamist apologetic that's approximately six miles long (I can't believe I fisked the whole thing!)
During the last two decades in particular, the concept of "Islamic terror" has been often discussed. In the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on targets in New York and Washington which caused the death of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, this concept has once again returned to the top of the international agenda.
It's at the very top of the American agenda.
As Muslims, we completely condemn these attacks and offer our condolences to the American people.
I'm glad to hear you do. Thank you for the condolences...
In this article, we will explain that Islam is by no means the source of this violence and that violence has no place in Islam.
And I'll politely disagree...
We strongly condemn the cruel terrorist acts which targeted the innocent people of the United States. One point that should be stressed at the outset is that the identities of the perpetrators of the acts of terrorism which targeted the United States are not yet determined.
Yes, they are. Bin Laden's accepted responsibility for the attacks. He's mentioned Mohammad Atta by name. Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad have both referenced their parts in it. Judge Garzon continues his investigation and finds more links. Denying an Islamist role in the attacks is a specious argument, a denial of reality or it's a conscious lie.
There is a chance that these horrible attackers are linked to quite different centres. It may well be a communist organization harboring rage and hatred against American values, a fascist organization opposing federal administration or a secret faction in another state.
It could be the Illuminati or invaders from Mars, but taking a quick slice with Occam's Razor, it's Osama bin Laden and his Islamist cohorts. That's the same Islamist cohorts who've been responsible for the Nord Ost Theater outrage, the Bali bombings, Beslan, bombing the U.S. consulate in Karachi and the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen, the Madrid train bombings, and most of the other atrocities being committed in the world in the past three and a half years. It's the same Islamist cohorts who're cutting people's heads off in Iraq, Soddy Arabia, and Pakistan, the same guys who shot up the Indian parliament, and the guys who murder little kids in their beds in Israel.
Even though the hijackers have Muslim identities, the questions regarding by whom and for what purposes these people were used will probably remain to be a mystery.
This seems to be a weak and ineffective way to say he doesn't agree with terrorism. Ok. Good.
He skirts the edges of many a good point, never quite hitting the mark. But the problem with Islam is that it is based on blame. I suppose it's a step forward that he's blaming "the terrorists" rather than the Jews or other infidels, but his ability to face reality falls short of the mark.
#5
Ignorance is bliss or the salvation for a guilty conscience is denial. In either case Ahmed here needs some updating on the facts. Muslims have a violent past which conversion by the sword and shield continue in that familiar manner today. They cannot peacefully coexist in Thailand, Philappines, Holy Land, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, The Caucasian Region, The Balkans, Kashmir, Turkey-Greece, Turkey-Armenian, Nagorno Khabarkh, Lebanon, East Timor, and many other places which warfare is not overt but a cultural war which will enable the fundamentalist to take root and radicalize these people into violent masses which in turn will continue to push democratic governments into adpoting their line of thinkig whether it be through adoption of Sharia as in Nigeria or dividing the population as in Ivory Coast.
2) Support should be provided for the spread of "True Islam", which is a religion of love, friendship, peace and brotherhood, and for its true understanding by Islamic societies.
Somehow, I knew this would turn into a f*cking infomercial. Shoo, allah-pimp! I'm not in the market for a psychotic death cult right now.
#8
Oh yeah, waitaminnit... will I also get a set of Ginsu knives - perfect for cutting tin cans and sawing the infidel's head off - free of charge? Then I'm your man. Just feed me the lines and gimme my AK.
AILING federal Labor leader Mark Latham was expected to step down from his position possibly within the next 24 hours, NSW Premier Bob Carr said today. Hip hip - Hooray!
And former ALP leader Kim Beazley was an interested and credible candidate for the top job, he said. Pressure is mounting on Mr Latham to end the speculation over the leadership, sparked by last week's announcement he was suffering from a second bout of pancreatitis. As the federal malaise threatened to disrupt Labor's dominance across state and territory governments, Mr Latham has been urged to draw a line in the sand over his leadership. "I think there's an expectation now as this concern has gathered pace over recent days that he will do that (step down)," Mr Carr told Sydney radio station 2UE. "(There's an) expectation that his silence means that he's reached a decision to move on. I would think the party would be expecting it and the party would welcome it, and we say that out of all concern for him and his family given the obviously serious health condition that the Lathams are now coping with."
When asked if he believed it would be in the best interests of the party for Mr Latham to step down, Mr Carr said; "I not only believe it, I think that's the consensus that's emerged within the Labor Party. "Indeed I'd go a step further. I think there's an expectation that that is going to happen," he said. There was also an expectation Mr Latham should step aside sooner rather than later, he said. "Labor's on the canvass, I think we wanted after October 9 some evidence of a plan for federal Labor to reconstruct and to pull together," he said. "The vacuum that we're now experiencing delays that ..."
Kim Beazley was a prime candidate for the top spot, Mr Carr said. "I don't think it's appropriate for state leaders ... to baptise people," he said. "I'd simply say at this stage Kim Beazley is off running, running strongly. That's the impression I've got. "Kim Beazley is undoubtedly interested and I think Kim returning to the leadership gives that stability we're all seeking. "I think Beazley's got a lot of credibility across the board." When asked if changes could be expected within 24 hours, Mr Carr replied: "I've got that instinct from talking to people that an announcement is sooner rather than later".
Posted by: God Save The World ||
01/18/2005
5:11:45 PM ||
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Plans Described as Almost Complete Despite Continuing Violence, Threats
The voting lists have been checked, the ballots printed. Red stain is ready to mark the finger of each voter, and the poll locations and names of candidates -- until now secret -- soon will be published. Despite threats, a rushed timetable and the murder of eight election workers, preparations for Iraq's elections are almost finished, according to the U.N. representative on the country's elections board.
"Everything is on track," Carlos Valenzuela, a veteran election organizer for the United Nations, said Sunday. "It was a very tight time frame. Luckily, there was no slippage."
Iraqi election workers distribute campaign posters in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood. Valenzuela disputed reports that many election workers, intimidated by insurgents, have quit.
Valenzuela, who has helped carry out elections in such places as East Timor, Cambodia and the Palestinian territories, said he was surprised that logistics for the Jan. 30 elections have been assembled in less than a year. He shied from questions about whether the threats of violence that are expected to keep large numbers of voters home would irreparably mar the results.
"There isn't a yardstick" of turnout to pronounce the election valid, he said. "There is no magic number. At the end of the day, you have to leave it to the Iraqi public as to whether they believe this process was credible or not." snip
Valenzuela and a team of about 20 U.N. experts are advising the Iraqi election commission, which includes eight Iraqi members and Valenzuela.
"We have not had mass resignations" of election workers who feel threatened, he insisted, despite some reports of wholesale quitting. "I am surprised there have not been a lot more resignations because the level of intimidation from insurgents is quite high."
The election workers are "some of the most courageous people I have seen," he said. Despite the deaths of eight workers, the election commission has been able to recruit workers to staff the polls and supervise the elections, he said. More than 3 million Iraqis went to election officials to correct errors in the food distribution rosters that were used as a base for preparing the voter lists, and another 1.2 million Iraqis made new registrations, he said. snip
#1
Valenzuela and his team didn't do Venezuela, did they?
He actually said a couple of intelligent things. This stands out as common sense: "There is no magic number. At the end of the day, you have to leave it to the Iraqi public as to whether they believe this process was credible or not."
He'll probably get fired by the UN High Commissioner For Rigged Bullshit, er, Elections for being so normal and sensible.
#4
I don't even see why UN representatives are opening their big mouths. These idiots should simply do their damned observing when the time comes and keep their yaps shut in the meantime. After all, that the Iraqis are now at a position where they can actually have an un-rigged election sure as hell didn't come about because the UN finally decided to give Saddam the hook. Remember, ol' Goo-fi himself said that the war to depose Hussein was "illegal".
Perhaps Paul Volcker, head of the United Nations-authorized inquiry into the U.N. Oil-for-Food program, was speaking solely of graft when he said recently that the internal audits of Oil-for-Food contained "no flaming red flags." But if he meant anything beyond outright criminality, he was surely wrong.
On that score, previously secret U.N. internal audits of the multi-billion dollar program, finally released last week by Volcker's own investigating commission, are packed with bombshells enough to shatter any normal business — let alone a U.N. program supplied with $1.4 billion to cover its administrative costs in monitoring $111 billion worth of deals done under UN sanctions by Saddam Hussein. The problems unveiled go well beyond those in the already much-discussed audits of the Oil-for-Food inspectors hired by the U.N. Secretariat to oversee Saddam's oil exports and relief imports, who according to the United Nations' own auditors too often charged too much and inspected too little.
One audit report that has so far received little attention describes at length the spectacular failures of Oil-for-Food's executive director, Benon Sevan, to adequately run even his own office and budget, let alone monitor what the program was doing in Iraq. Sevan is the one U.N. official who has been publicly accused of taking bribes in the form of oil vouchers from the Saddam Hussein regime, though Sevan denies this.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Through hard work, diligence, and a true Journalist's intellect, Claudia rocks and rocks. She has already rocked the UN. She will soon rock the world. Eat 'em alive, Claudia.
"[N]o one had provided persuasive evidence that the documents were not authentic." — Dan Rather
"[T]he Panel stresses that it is making no findings as to the authenticity of the Killian documents;... it may never be possible for anyone to authenticate or discredit the documents." — Report of the 60 Minutes independent panel
It's time to drive a stake into this continuing saga less it become the new grassy knoll for the left-wing pundits and blogosphere. I accept the challenge. While the public debate has exposed these creative forgeries by focusing on the peculiarities of type fonts and signatures, the fatal flaw is in the inconceivability of the documents themselves. While a doctoral dissertation could be written (and probably will) on the issue, space constrains us to the most salient points. Thus we will take just one of these famous memos and prove it to be a fake. By extrapolation, one could take that to the remaining five when editorial space becomes available.
The selected memo is that dated May 4, 1972, wherein the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian orders 1st Lt. Bush to report for a flight physical not later than May 14. This memo is the most expository of the memo forgeries for several reasons. First, while the other five memos may be considered Mr. Killian's memos to self, and thus personal musings never intended for distribution, this particular memo is posited as a direct order to 1st Lt. Bush, mailed to his (wrong) home address. It was used obsessively by CBS and Bush opponents in the campaign as evidence of his refusal to obey a direct order. If any criminal or civil liabilities for fraud or forgery of government documents obtain, they would be most applicable to this document.
So, putting aside the typos, the superscripts, the signatures, the wrong header and address, and all the previously dissected items susceptible to subjective interpretations, how do I prove this memo is a fake? Easy — for the weekend that 1st Lt. Bush was supposedly ordered to report for his physical, May 13-14, 1972, the Ellington Air Guard Base was closed. It was Mother's Day. Except for emergencies, Air Guard units never drilled on Mother's Day; the divorce lawyers would be waiting at the gate. If George Bush showed up at the clinic that weekend, he would have had to get the key from the gate guard.
The drill weekend for May 1972 was the following weekend, May 20-21. A survey of the pay and flight records of several of the Texas Air Guard members of that period shows no activity for May 13-14, but drill pay vouchers and flights for May 20-21. Guard flight physicals were normally conducted on the drill weekends, because that is the only time all the required clinic personnel were on hand to complete lab work and flight surgeon consultations mandated for aircrew. Does anyone think that Jerry Killian, squadron commander and one of the drill-schedule planners would not know on May 4 that the clinic was closed the next weekend?
While CBS, in its rush to judgment, might have missed this fatal flaw in the Burkett memo, its investigative law firm, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP, cannot be excused. Why? Because one of their investigating lawyers was informed of this fact on Nov. 15 and given a list of seven witnesses who worked in the same offices with Jerry Killian every day in 1972. (Disclosure statement: I was the source.) The panel report makes no mention of this, and a canvass of most of the witness list reveals no contact attempt by Kirkpatrick & Lockhart. CBS paid Kirkpatrick & Lockhart big bucks for this report. As brilliantly explained by Tony Blankley ("Damage Control at Black Rock," his Jan.12 column), if Kirkpatrick & Lockhart's aim was an attorney's protection of its client, intentional ignorance was a good strategy.
The lesson here: If you are a big media entity with a political agenda and have reporters with a five-year obsession to get George Bush on his Guard service even if it means using fake documents from an incredible source (hint to USA Today) get Kirkpatrick & Lockhart. If you want the unambiguous truth, look in the yellow pages for a good but inexpensive private investigator.
William Campenni, an engineer living in Herndon, Virginia, served as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard in the early 1970s.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
4:21:39 PM ||
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#1
I wish this article really would put a stake in this story; unfortunately, this tale is a creature that will probably rise up from the dead everytime moonbats gather to curse Bush's name.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
01/18/2005 16:49
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#2
As I stated earlier, the Commander does not direct flight physicals, you get a rip (paper work) from the clinic that tells you that you need one. Also if the Commander orders you to the clinic because he suspects you are using drugs, you go right then and there (Officers included). Finally, if you were CD to a 'whiz-quiz' you also were informed why. Steve I am sure you remember the rips from the Dental/Medical clininc? Green/white computer paper?
While barely registering a ripple in the Mainstream Media, several key senior people have been "resigned" by Kofi Annan in the wake of a series of scandals. The sudden departures also follow a Manhattan meeting with liberal friends of Annan's from the foreign policy establishment, we read about that here at Rantburg
and a meeting between Annan and Bush Administration officials in Washington. There may be more than meets the eye in this sequence of developments. snip
Annan has spent his entire career at the UN, and is the first Secretary-General in history to have risen through its ranks to the top. I didn't realize that.
Annan the apparatchik has been the willing puppet for these worthies. The ongoing revelations in the oil-for-food scandal have constituted a proverbial thread being pulled, which is unraveling the cloak which has shielded much of the UN from public scrutiny for decades. In the last few months we have seen a passel of disgraceful scandals revealed from Turtle Bay. [...Congo ... sex-for-food racket. ...UN High Commissioner for Refugees ... accused of sexual harassment. ...UN Refugee and Works Agency ...aware Hamas on ...UN payroll.] These disgraces follow upon previous scandals. [Durban Conference...submitting the issue of Israel's security barrier to the International Court of Justice.... Annan...complicit in the genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia by his refusal to act ...attempts to hide his negligence or obstructionism in those two massive slaughters.] His feckless response to the genocide in the Sudan seemed almost to be an attempt at a mass slaughter hat trick.
Actually, Annan may have already achieved that dubious hat trick by permitting Saddam Hussein to murder hundreds of thousands of his own people with nary a response from the Secretary General. The oil-for-food scandal was just the apotheosis of trends that have been gaining strength in the UN during Annan's reign: a sense of lawlessness and corruption, lethally combined with an utter lack of accountability, that pervades the UN and has caused great harm throughout the world. For a more complete list, those with abundant time on their hands are directed to google and these three search terms: scandal, UN, Annan. snip
Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minnesota) and Representative Henry Hyde (R-Illinois) have been among the Republican leaders in Congress trying to bring to light the facts behind the oil-for-food scandals. President Bush has challenged the UN to hold true and fast to its founding principles, peace, democracy, the prevention of genocide, if it is to remain relevant. There have been calls in Congress to cut funding to the United Nations unless ameliorative steps are taken. A recently established group, Move America Forward , is beginning a television advertising campaign urging the United States throw UN out of the United States. !!!
Nice idea, but I think it's too early. Then again, I thought the Orange Revolution was too early, too, so don't take my word for it...
Annan's cabinet will be left in tatters. While the Washington Post and the New York Times report on departures from the CIA and George Bush's Cabinet with an unseemly avidity, there has been a wall of silence regarding the mass exodus from the United Nation. Leaving aside the issue of media bias, what does this sequence of events say about Kofi Annan? That he would willingly sacrifice his friends and allies to preserve his title. That a man who has presided over the perversion of the UN is so frightened of exposure that he gleefully throws out to the lions people he has worked with closely over the years without accepting any personal responsibility himself. After all, these problems festered under his reign. Only pressure from George Bush and some key Congressmen has prompted him to take these steps towards reform.
We probably should never expect more from a man who, during his entire career at the United Nations, has been sacrificing and subverting the very principles and goals upon which the United Nations was founded: the spread of democracy, freedom and peace throughout the world. Throughout his rise in the UN bureaucracy, he willingly dispensed with these noble goals. He has diminished the stature of the United Nations. He has made it an accomplice in the greatest swindle in the history of the world. And he has made it an actor in genocides on two different continents. He has irreparably harmed the United Nations. So should we be surprised that he offers up others to keep his job? Why not add a few friends to the funeral pyre?
#1
Rest assured that these recently departed have signed non-disclosure agreements so as not to reveal insightful information about OFF.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 19:04
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Anan has never been accountable to an electorate (or to shareholders, for that matter) for the results of his decisions or his actions/inactions. He is the quintessential bureaucrat and is way out of his depth.
#3
At least now he has adult supervision in the form of Mark Malloch Brown. Smart and capable Brit, friend of Wolfowitz, tapped into Blair's admin, now Kofi's handler chief of staff.
#4
true nuff---Not only Anan has no accountability, but the whole bloody UN has no accountablity. We are not politically ready for the Olde Heave Ho of the UN, but we damned well can hit the UN in its pocketbook to get its attention. The kleptocracy delegates need to know that going to the UN for a vacation away from their sh*thole countries and dumping on NYC is not acceptable behavior.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/18/2005 22:35
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He begins:
It's a good rule of thumb that, no matter how big an idiot someone is, he can never compete with the political class's response to his idiocy. Thus, whatever feelings of unease I might have had about Prince Hitler were swept away the moment the rent-a-quote humbugs started lining up to denounce him.
I say to Harry: you go, girlfriend, you Reichstone Cowboy you. It's uniforms night at my pad every Thursday and you're more than welcome, Your Royal Heilness.
etc... go read the whole Steyn thing :-)
Not to spoil it, but here's the blowoff:
Alas, tyranny doesn't always come with a self-evidently hilarious dress code. And the soft, supple, creeping totalitarian inclinations of our present-day rulers are sometimes harder to resist. If I had to pick the single most revolting remark from this bogus Reichsfuror, it would be this: "I think it might be appropriate for him to tell us himself just how contrite he now is."
That's Michael Howard, the leader of the supposed Conservative Party. What's conservative about demanding people submit to public self-abasement? Wasn't it the Commies who used to insist you recant on TV and then disappear into re-education camp? A conservative party ought to be a refuge from the sanctimonious nannytollahs of the age. But, from his shabby Kerryesque opportunism on the war down, Mr Howard has no discernible coherent political philosophy - except for his all-pervasive authoritarianism, into which his repellent call for a display of princely contrition fits all too neatly.
Since Britain seems to hold three-minute silences for something or other every month now, maybe for the next one we could all get together and Prince Harry, in uniform, and his father, in mufti, can lay a wreath to mark the tragic loss of our sense of proportion.
#2
The good fallout might be that the UK kids ask WTF is the big deal -- and learn something about the Holocaust. That would be an improvement over the norm, I'm sure.
#4
What .com said. His Royal Dopeyness doesn't shock anyone; what's truly astonishing is the ~50% of young Britons who've never heard of the holocaust. Now they will.
#5
I'd say that the real outrage is that 50% of young Britons never heard of the holocaust, if that's true. Do they not teach history? And BBC - you're worthless too.
President Robert Mugabe hailed Iran as a "critical partner" and vowed to take cooperation to "new heights" as he played host to President Mohammad Khatami, the state-run newspaper reported. Khatami, who arrived here late Monday on the penultimate leg of a seven-nation African tour, visited the National Heroes Acre in Harare where those who fought in Zimbabwe's liberation war against British colonial rule are buried. Although he was scheduled to hold talks with Mugabe Tuesday morning, Khatami instead met the country's two vice presidents, Joseph Msika and Joyce Mujuru. No reason was given for the cancellation of the meeting with Mugabe but the two vice presidents said they discussed Zimbabwe's land reforms and ways of getting rid of Bob bilateral trade opportunities. Khatami also met Islamic religious leaders based in Zimbabwe and local business people and industrialists.
It's the "Islamic religious leaders based in Zimbabwe" part that interests me. Failed states do seem to attract them like flies.
He flew out to Zimbabwe's prime resort of Victoria Falls, where he was also to visit a crocodile breeding farm. Speaking at a banquet in Khatami's honour late Monday, Mugabe hailed oil-rich Iran as a key partner in Zimbabwe's drive to shun the West. "We attach great importance to this visit as it will enable us to work towards strengthening and diversifying our relations," Mugabe was quoted in the state-run Herald newspaper as saying. "Your visit affords an opportunity to raise our bilateral cooperation to new heights as my government has embarked on a deliberate 'Look East' policy in which your country is a critical partner," he said. Iran is one of the countries Mugabe has been warming up to as part of this policy, partly forced by Zimbabwe's isolation from the West over controversial land reforms and allegedly fraud-marred elections in 2000 and 2002. Khatami said although the two countries were miles apart geographically, they shared a difficult past. "I share your historical suffering and grief and I value the victorious struggle of heroic people of Zimbabwe," Khatami said in response to Mugabe's speech.
"You're a pretty nice guy, for a infidel."
Mugabe also slammed Western powers opposed to his land reforms, saying they were the same ones who had branded Iran part of an "axis of evil", a reference to the policy outlined by President George W. Bush in 2002 that put Iran, Iraq and North Korea at the top of a US list of so-called rogue states. "They have demonised my leadership and government while feverishly working to effect a regime change," Mugabe said. "We cherish your unwavering support during the land reform process and look forward to its continuation as we empower our people," he added. Iran -- which has provided a 15 million-euro (19.5-million-dollar) credit line to Zimbabwe to purchase tractors, combine harvesters and medical equipment -- will extend a further 20 million euro credit line for agriculture and communications, the newspaper reported.
So, what's in it for Iran?
Zimbabwe embarked in 2000 on a controversial land reform scheme that saw some 4,000 white farmers lose their land to landless blacks. Khatami is due to depart Harare Wednesday morning after signing several protocols expected to boost trade between the two countries.
Zimbabwe has something to trade?
The Iranian leader arrived in Zimbabwe from Benin where he signed two cooperation agreements on agriculture and trade. He also visited Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. From Zimbabwe, he is due to travel to Uganda.
Other than some mining interests (coal, gold, copper, nickel, tin, clay, numerous metallic and nonmetallic ores), I can't see much for Bob to trade other than a base for Iranian backed terrorists.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
2:11:10 PM ||
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Whoa, lol! Birds of a feather and all that. Has Chavez visited, yet? Castro?
Sounds like a valid TFA* litmus test: Have you been to tea with the Mad Mullahs, yet?
#4
Anon4724 - Well there we have it! Two bona-fide card-carrying UN Member States recognizing Whack-a-Bob. I guess that means he's a swell guy. Of course, while in Iran, they made him ride in the trunk - being a Kufr and black and all.
Got a spiffy sword, huh? And a medal - so that's where those come from! I've always wondered where these tinhorn Dictators who've never been on a battlefield got all those spiffy medals. They give them to each other! *slaps forehead* Friggin ingenious!
A4724, I cannot express to you how disgusted and disappointed I am with what has happened over the last 6 months in Venezuela. Where Carter contributed is especially appalling and offensive to me. I fear that Venezuela is "lost" for some years - maybe decades. There is only one answer, of course, and the time is almost past for that: bloody revolution. If the armed forces will support it, it could still happen, but it would've been so much easier 6 months ago. Sigh.
You are absolutely right! The Opposition greatly underestimated Chavez and thought that Carter (spit) could save the day. We are not counting on the Venezuelan Army to do anything since he has been buying them off for almost 6 years now.
One way to hurt him and his "revolution" is to starve him of the money he gets from oil exports, especially to this country. If the US could find an alternate source, he will have to sell it to China or Europe at a much cheaper price. Venezuela oil is high in sulfur and it is always at least $4 dollars cheaper than Saudi oil. That combined with transportation charges will greatly reduce the price per barril and a lot of his social programs (read handouts) would come to an end. It is then that his supporters will rise up against him. There is a very narrow window of opportunity for the latter to happen and that window is closing fast.
Hat Tip: World Tribune Editors' Note: LTC Tim Ryan is Commander, Task Force 2-12 Cavalry, First Cavalry Division in Iraq. He led troops into battle in Fallujah late last year and is now involved in security operations for the upcoming elections. He wrote the following during "down time" after the Fallujah operation. His views are his own.
All right, I've had enough. I am tired of reading distorted and grossly exaggerated stories from major news organizations about the "failures" in the war in Iraq. "The most trusted name in news" and a long list of others continue to misrepresent the scale of events in Iraq. Print and video journalists are covering only a fraction of the events in Iraq and, more often than not, the events they cover are only negative.
The inaccurate picture they paint has distorted the world view of the daily realities in Iraq. The result is a further erosion of international support for the United States' efforts there, and a strengthening of the insurgents' resolve and recruiting efforts while weakening our own. Through their incomplete, uninformed and unbalanced reporting, many members of the media covering the war in Iraq are aiding and abetting the enemy.
The fact is the Coalition is making steady progress in Iraq, but not without ups and downs. So why is it that no matter what events unfold, good or bad, the media highlights mostly the negative aspects of the event? The journalistic adage, "If it bleeds, it leads," still applies in Iraq, but why only when it's American blood?
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005
2:07:10 PM ||
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I'm sure Dan Rather will lead with this story tonight... :-(
#2
When ops start winding down and these troops finally begin to come home...there's going to be a true accounting of what the MSM has done.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
01/18/2005 15:35
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#3
Naw...it will get swept under the rug.
Ordinary folks will just want to get on with their lives. That's an ok thing.
The MSM and lefties in general will just quietly drop the subject rather than look stupid and look for another reason to hate. That's not so ok, but there it is.
Posted by: Michael ||
01/18/2005 15:42
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#4
The irony is that the media have been treacherous swine for a long time. Gen WT Sherman, when reporters were caught in his camp, had them put backwards on a mule and ridden around with a sign reading "Traitor" around their necks before kicking them out--much to the amusement of his soldiers.
#6
It will be fascinating to see the impact on our domestic politics of this generation of veterans when they return home.
First, these are probably among the most talented, resourceful, and of course courageous Americans we have. Many are very well-educated and perfectly capable of smacking down rivals in debating forums. If they choose to enter politics, we will have some extremely interesting candidates for national office soon.
Second, once they return home they will have far more time to set straight the MSM spinners and doom-mongers, in a media and cultural environment that, unlike that of 1968, gives ordinary citizens a real voice and fighting chance against the Cronkites of the MSM.
Third, they will have very valuable expertise in not just military operations but also diplomacy, intel-gathering and of course politics in the arab world. This will make them a very useful counter to the arabist foreign policy madarins at State and in academia.
Fourth, their positions on domestic issues is not easily predicted. It's doubtful that soldiers who have sacrificed so much for what has been, all in all, fairly shabby treatment, both by the MSM's distortions and Washington's imposed hardships on their families, will be as corporate- and gazillionaire-friendly as our two plutocrat-driven parties.
I imagine we will have the makings of a truly populist, largely sunbelt-based party that can knock one of the two parties off its perch-- almost certainly the Dems. Or at least pull the parties and the debate into new directions. Stay tuned.
#21
I tried to forward this to CNN and NBC and ABC on their web sites....none of them would accept it..the error msg was "The correct amount of data was not sent" I guess they only want short sound bites. I didnt try to send it to CBS, figured they dont care anyway.
Posted by: Live to Ride ||
01/18/2005 17:06
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#22
Lex is absolutely correct about the forthcoming impact of the returning soldiers on our society. These men and women are truly incredible. Every time that I get to work with them, which is often, I am stunned at their capabilities.
The MSM is no longer in sole control anymore. Their power is getting chipped away each and every day by the blogosphere and talk radio. Unfortunately, bloggers generally can't be there on the ground with a camera or microphone when Col. Ryan calls with a potential story. Nevertheless, I think that many Americans know that what they are seeing is terribly one-sided.
I love how a posting like this draws the trolls like hot butter. You know it is the last kind of information that they want to get out.
#27
I was in the Army from '70-'73, as the Vietnam war was winding down. And I don't remember there was much of an awareness among GIs back then of just how deliberately and calculatingly their efforts were being undermined by politicians and the MSM at home. Back then, many people still believed the media were unbiased, honest, and loyal to the country.
But today's soldiers sure as hell are conscious of that bias-- and of the media's dishonesty and disloyalty. They are also aware of the Democratic Party's attempts at exploiting every setback, every surprise, and every mistake for cheap political gain.
And they are NOT pleased. Add that to the political ferment, the blogosphere's shattering of the MSM's long-held monopoly on published opinion, and the continuing urgencies of the WoT, and we're in for some very interesting politics.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
01/18/2005 20:09
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#28
I've been mulling lex's post, too. There's a possible political earthquake in those people. I would welcome it with open arms, I am certain. Even where they had a more hearts 'n minds take, I'd STFU and listen. And the best part is the entire working-age spectrum is represented.
I'm "getting it", I think. And I think I like it, heh.
#29
Capt. America- send this to more than the media's that you have tried to reach. Lot's of work, but do not give up. As we all know...sex sells, and so do these one sided military stories- And YES, the parties, stories and memories for those who do get to come home!
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/18/2005 20:40
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#30
hey poster # 27 I remind you that military families are also aware of republican party exploits and big and taft talk but not personal participation
Posted by: republicans are the crap of america ||
01/18/2005 21:37
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Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2005 21:47
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#33
the funny thing is...in the past, it was the journalists who wrote about the soldiers. The MSM is so discredited and so out of touch that after this war - it will be the soldiers writing about the journalists - and it won't be flattering....but it will be fun for the rest of us.
#34
LTC Tim Ryan Is full off shit REALITY is: the iraqi are kickin corn and turky american raised asses like the viets 40 yers ago so stick your jew influenced media proud in your arses and go fuck yours mothers
#35
hey coward but taffy on computers pussies why don't you literates Jew farts join the army or send your wifes to intratein the army as patriotic duty
Posted by: bill ||
01/18/2005 16:24
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#36
HEY FRANK ABLANDO THE MAMMAS TO HERMANA MAMA MY BIEN
Posted by: bill ||
01/18/2005 16:25
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#37
LTC Tim Ryan Is full off shit REALITY is: the iraqi are kickin corn and turky american raised asses like the viets 40 yers ago so stick your jew influenced media proud in your arses and go fuck yours mothers
#38
hey Fred did your sibling are in the army yet or you are just a buffon talking taft
#11 y tu chingada mama, Sibilla
Posted by: Frank G 2005-01-18 4:19:08 PM
is also off-topic or abusive comment
minning is: your fucking mother ...your
#39
#19 ahhhh good! I was worried it might be wasted on you, pendejo
Posted by: Frank vjeco putto y marricon 2005-01-18 4:44:43 PM
tua moglie mi suchia il cazzo e tua figlia mi lecca le palle
#1
N.B.: Though the lefties in Hollywood periodically whimper about how the blacklist destroyed careers, they always neglect to mention two salient facts. First of all, NONE of the individuals in question were punished by Washington--they were all punished by their peers in the industry. The second, and more important thing is that only ONE of them ever renounced his true belief in hard-corps Stalinist communism. The rest of them WERE communists, and most went to their graves just as dedicated in their hatred of America and democracy as they had been in their youth.
#1
whose gonna watch it? Oh...I suppose the over 40's-not-yet-hooked-into-the-blogosphere will continue to watch people like perky Katie (gag)but the rest of us who have discovered the online community simply have no time to waste with the opinions of one or two boring, bland, ho-hum people who are clueless to what's going on.
Why would I waste my time with plodding through their biased and mindless coverage when there is so MUCH to read that I can't even begin to start.
There are articles I still want to read on rantburg from Sunday but there is just soo many places that the links take me that I can't even barely read anything anymore- I've spun into a ADD like frenzy - skimming instead of reading- not wanting to spend too much time on any one piece cause I have things to do, things that need to get done, but I have to disconnect from my computer -
Somebody please - invent a optical scan reader that will read to me outloud what is written on the blogs- with voice activated commands - so I can put it on my myfi and get off the computer and have rantburg and the rest of the blogosphere to go.
#2
Well, there is software to read text aloud, but you have to feed it... Automating it would be interesting... might be able to do it from the XML feed...
#2
The Indians are unable to reform their decadent, inefficient, and incompetent government. A government that permits huge numbers of people to get advanced degrees, then does not permit them to use that knowledge in any way to their profit. An utterly stifling business climate, with a hatred, fear and loathing of initiative and novelty, and an unwillingness to just get out of the way and let people succeed. It breeds a near madness in those who know that "somewhere out there", they could be making a relative fortune with their hard-earned talents.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- The Florida delegation to the Democratic National Committee has voted unanimously to endorse Howard Dean for party chairman, the New York Times said Tuesday. Florida's backing derails efforts to orchestrate the simultaneous endorsement of one candidate by all 50 state party leaders later this month and gives a major lift to Dean, who is believed to have the support of a plurality of committee members. Most Democrats have held back from publicly endorsing any candidate in the crowded field. Florida Democratic Chairman Scott Maddox said his state delegation had endorsed the former Vermont governor despite concerns he might not be the right ideological symbol for the party.
"The only knock against Howard Dean is that he's seen as too liberal," Maddox said. "I'm a gun-owning pickup-truck driver and I have a bulldog named Lockjaw. I am a Southern chairman of a Southern state, and I am perfectly comfortable with Howard Dean as DNC chair." "What our party needs right now is energy, enthusiasm and a willingness to do things differently," he said. "I think Howard Dean brings all three of those things to the party."
Oh, please, please, please!
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
1:37:24 PM ||
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"I'm a gun-owning pickup-truck driver and I have a bulldog named Lockjaw."
The only option then is that it is the water.
"Yeaaaghhh!!!"
Though... would be nice if after the big bang of self-implosion of donkey characters an opposition party (centrist would be my preferrence) is established by non-moonbat leftovers. "loyal" opposition, that is.
#4
"The only knock against Howard Dean is that he's seen as too liberal," Maddox said. "I'm a gun-owning pickup-truck driver and I have a bulldog named Lockjaw.
Anybody ever piss on the side of your pickup truck on Adams St. across from the 1st Baptist Church and laugh in your face? LOL! He called the cops and they laughed....
A massive turnout is expected this morning at the funerals of a Jersey City family. The family was found bound, gagged and slashed to death on Friday. The police are talking about robbery and religious hatred as motives. But ABC News has learned the FBI sees a possible link to a terror trial now underway in New York. The bodies of Hossam Armanious and his wife and two young daughters will leave from Journal Square for the church at around 10:00 this morning. The coffins will arrive at the church just around 10:30 for the funeral service. Thousands are expected to attend. And many of those are very fearful because there are no arrests in this case. There are still several theories on the table as to why all this happened. There is doubt and uncertainty in this close-knit community.
ABC News has learned that the slain family's cousin has been a translator working for the prosecution in the trial of Lynne Stewart. She is the radical lawyer accused of smuggling messages from imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, to terrorist cell members and associates. The FBI is also looking at other aspects of the murder, including possible robbery. Investigators also say that the slain father was active online. He recently argued in a chat room with a Muslim, who felt he had insulted Islam. That man reportedly threatened to kill him if he didn't take back his comments.
Emile Garas, victim's uncle: "That is all speculation. Nobody can say anything until the authorities do the final investigation." The murdered family belonged to the Coptic Orthodox church. They fled Egypt a decade ago to escape religious persecution. They were mourned Sunday by relatives and fellow churchgoers.
The Coptic community is offering at least $100,000 to anyone with information
Stewart is a veteran seditionist and a significant insider in left-elite circles, a lesser known colleague and comrade of Ramsey Clark and Ron Kube. Her prosecution is even a minor cause celebre in the campus activist industry. If the murders really are connected to the translator, it would represent a very significant escalation of the left elite's covert war against America and a step toward open warfare. That they would even consider overt violence on this scale is also a good indication that their confidence in media support and academic cover is eroding.
Radical lawyers are the 7-figure a year end of the terrorist spectrum and have been since the heyday of William Kunstler and Angela Davis in the 60s.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy ||
01/18/2005
1:30:05 AM ||
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#1
Thanks AC1
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/18/2005 7:32
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#2
This story is intrinsically about 100 times as important as the Lacey Peterson murder. If Stewart is tied into it, maybe it will get some real play.
Somehow I bet we will find the murderer is one of those folks who seemed like a nice jolly muslim to his infidel associates.
#4
The hard left may feel they're losing their cover, but as of yet I don't see it. As for Stewart, for her previous crimes and her open advocation and active support of the violent overthrow of our democracy she deserves to be shot.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
01/18/2005 11:38
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#5
This story is intrinsically about 100 times as important as the Lacey Peterson murder. If Stewart is tied into it, maybe it will get some real play.
Never happen. a) There's no sex involved, b) no attractive women involved, c) Stewart will still get a pass because of who she is.
#6
Possible link, but I wonder how many Copts in the US don't have or haven't had family members working as translators for the Government? They seem to be perfect recruitment material for such a job, and this association might well be entirely coincidental.
#12
Aw gawdz, that was awful. I can still taste the stomach acid. The only thing "it" could ever be passionate about is a 200 lb block of chopped liver shaped into a replica of Lenin's @$$.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
01/18/2005 12:44
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#13
Or a well-deserved beating at the hands of a Turkish husband. She seems to like going with the rougher characters.
#14
This woman is not an attorney, she crossed the line long ago and became a traitor that has aided and abetted terrorists trying to destroy this country.
Long, two-part series on the shabby treatment of NKor refugees by the SKors.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/18/2005
12:59:14 AM ||
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Article: China has developed close ties to the military regime in Rangoon and turned a nation wary of China into a "satellite" of Beijing close to the Strait of Malacca, through which 80 percent of Chinaâs imported oil passes. China is building naval bases in Burma and has electronic intelligence gathering facilities on islands in the Bay of Bengal and near the Strait of Malacca. Beijing also supplied Burma with "billions of dollars in military assistance to support a de facto military alliance," the report said.
This is why sanctions on Burma are a bad idea. All of these countries we're giving a hard time about human rights are becoming China's allies. This kind of thing is why we adopted a policy of non-interference with those regimes that weren't aligned with the Soviets during the Cold War. If we're going to start peeling some of these countries away from Beijing, we need to start being a little less assertive about human rights with respect to friendly countries.
More than 50 years after he directed a brilliant amphibious invasion that repelled North Korean forces during the Korean War, Gen. Douglas MacArthur is no longer welcome. The focus of the latest outpouring of South Korea's anti-Americanism is on a bronze statue of the general, mounted on a massive 16-foot slab of concrete in this port city's Freedom Park. Police have guarded the statue 24 hours a day since it was targeted three years ago by protest groups angry with American policies.
Pull the guards. Let the vandals destroy the statue. It's their country. We'll know next time not to bother sending another McArthur...
Now civic groups are angry that taxpayer money is being spent to protect the monument. The dispute over the MacArthur statue is symbolic of South Korea's internal debates over its history, the division between North and South and sweeping generational changes. "In the urgency of the Korean War, he was the hero," said Choe Woong-ki, 68, looking at the statue. "I don't know what other people think, but for someone like me who has been through the Korean War, he was a contributor to our country. I don't understand." How do you want your Chinese food prepared...losers.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005
12:53:47 AM ||
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#1
Yep, they're just a decade or so from self-immolation. When the ones who remember pass on, the cycle begins anew.
Thus it has ever been with stupid people. I've just never included Koreans in that category before.
#2
Police have guarded the statue 24 hours a day since it was targeted THREE YEARS AGO by protest groups angry with American policies.
A bunch of protestors attack it three years ago, it gets guarded 24 hours a day (its a statue! paint comes off!) and now people (after three years) think the police might be better employed say.... fighting crime? well, what fools eh?
#4
I love it when you justify your rabid sweeping cultural slurs .com, its so much easier than just slinging insults at me... o no, no wait a second....
#6
Lotsa statues in DeeCee of Grant, Sherman, etc that dont have 24 hour protection. In fact I dont think ANY of them do. Mountain out of molehill dept here, folks.
#8
Note source in Wash Times. Wash Times, while sometimes a valuable source, has particular obsessions with Korea, not surprising given its publisher. They may be making a big deal cause of some obscure nuanced thing they have against the folks who pulled the police.
#9
Man, I don't miss that place at all. What a dump.
.com is right: when the old ones go, the young 'uns are gonna run amok. Sure was something taking a train ride down to Seoul. The old folks would smile wide and pat our arms and shoulders. The young ones (40ish and younger) would shoot us looks that could kill. I distinctly remember one "gentleman" who glared at me from the time he got on the train till the time he got off. Never once moved his glance from me.
Yeah, pull the security from the statue. Pull us out completely. Let 'em fend for themselves and see how they like it.
#10
nada: The young ones (40ish and younger) would shoot us looks that could kill. I distinctly remember one "gentleman" who glared at me from the time he got on the train till the time he got off. Never once moved his glance from me.
The young 'uns are on this yellow/racial solidarity/supremacy kick. Doesn't seem to have occurred to them that the Chinese showed up just in time to prevent the unification of the Korean peninsula.
#11
A statue is an artifact that represents something deeper than itself. In this case, MacArthur's likeness symbolizes the dead and wounded Americans who fought for freedom, faced incredibly bad conditions, in what was one of the most bloody wars in recent history.
In this sense, the yu's are pissing on their very freedom itself, on their very pant legs.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 13:24
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The inscription at the monument reads: "We shall never forget what he and his valiant officers and men of the United Nations Command did here for us and for freedom. And until the last battle against the malignant infection of communism has finally been won, may we never forget it was also he who said 'In war, there is no substitute for victory.' "
INDEED!!
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 13:26
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Help build up Japan's capabilities. Encourage the Japanese to keep a tight watch on Korea a w as China.
Dr Rice's confirmation hearing is in progress. Those with the means should be watching / listening. You would not (or maybe you would, lol!) believe the shit. Kerry has taken a number of shots. Boxer is on right now - going totally moonbat.
Secretary of State nominee Condoleezza Rice told senators on Tuesday that a U.S. exit strategy from Iraq is "directly proportional" to Iraq's ability to defend itself against terrorists after this month's elections.
Stepping out from her largely behind-the-scenes role as President Bush's national security adviser, Rice said she could not give Congress a timetable for American disengagement. "The goal is to get the mission accomplished," she said. "We're right now focused on security for the (Jan. 30) election."
Rice told her Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing that spreading democracy through the Middle East remains a top administration foreign-policy objective.
... Now Boxer is doing aluminum tubes - the whole nine yards of LLL memery. Wotta whore - keeps bringing up the US service people killed in Iraq - as if she doesn't dream of 10,000 so she could scream, "I told you so!" Unbeleeeeevable Whoring.
#1
They will reconvene the hearing at 2:30 ET. I don't know if Boxer used all of her time, but it ended up in a bona-fide scrap with Boxer waving the LLL memes and Dr Rice challenging Boxer to refrain from questioning her honesty and integrity. Very testy. Boxer is the biggest asshole whiner I've ever heard speak as a US Senator. Not even Skeery, who played his games about imaginary Int'l offers of help, yadda3, was nearly as big an ass - and that's saying something.
#3
Babâs had a petition to stop Condi from getting a hearing. I guess that idea fell short (like her many others). Yes she was elected by a large margin, but that had to do with turnout for Skerry in California and not her abilities. Also she was facing yet another cream puff of a Republican. She is just about the dumbest Senator in history and shows many times that she is out of her league in the Senate. If she had not gone into politics, she would have become the youngest Walmart greeter, a (automated) tollbooth operator, or possibly a slow/stop sign handler.
#5
Raj - You're an Oracle! That was a running joke in the hearing, in fact. Biden chided him for showing up, heh. I hope somewhere, on some blog, some of the highlights (like Biden's shot) are available.
#7
Boxer wins in CA because the Republican party doesn't seem to grasp that you can't run a Trent Lott type Republican in that state and win.
So instead of running a moderate that would win - and perhaps not be against abortion and who might favor the environment - the Republican would rather lose than back a true moderate.
#8
Boxer, a dumb senator for a dumb state. She's a superb emblem for a state whose educational system and workforce have deteriorated markedly in recent years.
#9
Well 2b the problem is Republican politics in California tends to be run out of and by Orange County Republicans that have a death wish it seems. Instead of doing the possible they demand the impossible and don't get get elected as a result. The void is filled by The Democrats lead S.F. Bay area moonbats and LA county diptards who know how to lie,look and sound good. Ronald Reagan knew how to win and deliver California WTF is wrong with the rest of these peeps? One reason I am not registered a Republican The California Republican party doesn't speak or represent me.
#10
lex I think you ought to check the GDP of California compared to the state you live in. The myth that the California work force and education system is some how substandard seems to be refuted by such comparisons. Even during the current tough economy here California is kicking the other 50 states ass when it comes to GDP.
Ajmal Khan, the Federal Minister for Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs, has ruled out screening of Indian films in Pakistani cinemas. "Exchange of films with India is not possible in the present circumstances because our film industry cannot compete with Indian movies and a decision in this regard will be taken at an appropriate time," the minister told the Senate Standing Committee on Sports, Culture, Tourism, Minorities and Youth Affairs in a meeting with the Pakistan Censor Board officials.
"Those dances in those Bollywood films, why, it'd have all our boys all riled up for ... gun sex. Can't have none of that, nope," Khan later added.
Singing, dancing, having fun, the occasional discrete titty bobble... No. That's just not Pak.
Khan's statement was in contradiction with that of his predecessor Rais Munir Ahmed who had told the Senate that the government was considering exchanging films with India and screening Indian films in Pakistani cinemas. The minister said that Pakistani films did not reflect the true Pakistani culture, which was not a good sign. "Our film industry is going through testing times and is not producing quality films," he said.
Oh, so Oliver Stone's been there too, eh?
Khan said that there were no qualified film producers and directors and technology used in Pakistan films was also outdated. The minister said the government had decided to help the industry financially. He added that the government would provide financial assistance to legendry artistes Mehdi Hasan and Rangeela and the National Film Awards would be held regularly senators boycott meetings.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/18/2005
12:38:25 AM ||
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Shortly after the U.S. presidential elections, George Bush Sr. was in Spain on a hunting trip with friends.
Spanish Minister of Defense Jose Bono asked to see him and, according to a well-informed Madrid source, was very persistent. When the former president agreed, Bono arrived for the meeting with a lavish gift of a pair of hand-made Spanish hunting rifles. His purpose was to ask the elder Bush to persuade newly re-elected President George W. Bush to agree to speak to Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, at least on the phone.
G.H.W. Bush telephoned his son at the White House, but the president's reaction was, "tough, rough, and loud," the source said. Sorry, Bush Sr. told Bono, the president was not interested in personal contact with Zapatero at this time.
**SNIP**
The fact that Aznar still has access to the White House irks the Zapatero government. On the other hand, observers say Zapatero has not helped his own case with his public criticism of the war in Iraq, which he has described as "illegal." And while Zapatero never publicly said that he supported Democratic candidate John Kerry in the presidential elections (Nope, just made tons of dinner bets), Spanish officials were quoted as saying that relations would certainly improve if Kerry were elected president.
**SNIP**
Even so, observers believe that U.S.-Spanish differences are a surface crack in the relationship, but not a fissure. At the working level, it is still largely business as usual. The chief of the Spain's armed forces recently said U.S.-Spanish defense cooperation was still good both within the NATO framework and on a bilateral basis. For example, U.S. Navy ships continued to call at Spanish ports for routine services. Last October, Spain increased the strength of its military contingent in the NATO peacekeeping force in Afghanistan from 165 to 1,040 men. Cooperation on the anti-terrorism front also remains good, according to Spanish sources in Madrid.
A leading Spanish business executive told United Press International that U.S.-Spain tensions have not affected commercial transactions between the two countries (because we really haven't paid attention). He noted that administration spin merchants had not pushed anti-Spain sentiment the way they had the PR offensive against France after President Jacques Chirac opposed the Iraq war(BS, frogistan's stance was one in a long line of back-stabbing). There had been no boycott of Spanish goods in the United States, and the number of U.S. tourists visiting Spain had continued to climb to record levels. While French toast had become Freedom Toast on the Air Force One breakfast menu, a Spanish omelette had not been re-named a Regime Change Omelette.
**SNIP**
...Paris is not on Bush's travel schedule, but reliable sources say President Chirac will by then have made a separate trip to Washington, or possibly to the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas: the trip has yet to be officially announced. - If that slime ends up at the ranch, I want my RNC donation back.
#1
So let's get to the crux of the question: Did George get to keep the rifles? Are there any stats on the pieces - you know fps, muscle velocity, ohms, foot-lbs of resistance, the good stuff.
Kuwait City — Foreign embassies, shopping malls, state security buildings, vital installations, and American military convoys to Iraq were listed among the potential targets of suspected terrorists arrested in Kuwait, newspapers reported yesterday.
Kuwait security forces arrested at least half a dozen suspects linked to Saturday's raid on a house in the southern area of Umm Al Haiman where one Saudi militant was killed and three Kuwaiti security force members were wounded, reports said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/18/2005
12:26:16 AM ||
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There is *zero* evidence of grief in this article.
MECCA, Saudi Arabia (Reuters) - More than two million Muslim pilgrims have begun streaming out of Mecca towards Mena on the first day of a haj pilgrimage marked by grief over the Asian tsunami disaster and security fears. This year's haj has a particular poignancy for thousands of pilgrims from Asia, where most of the world's one billion Muslims live, after December's devastating tsunami caused by an undersea earthquake off Indonesia. Tragedy has struck the haj before. Saudi Arabia has cranked up its largest security operation ever for the ritual, a once in a lifetime duty for every able-bodied Muslim, fearing attacks or deadly stampedes like one last year that killed 250 people.
Indonesian officials have said they expect the country to reach its 205,000 pilgrim quota despite the killer waves that killed more than 175,000 people.
Indonesia not grieving.
Some prominent clerics in Saudi Arabia, which imposes a hardline brand of Sunni Islam alien to most Muslims, have suggested the disaster was Indonesia's punishment for its Western-style mixed-sex beaches, bars and nightclubs.
Soddies giddily opportunistic; not grieving.
But most Muslims said the Koran did not support such a view. "Although the Koran does talk about God using natural phenomenon to punish people who have gone astray, it is not for us to say or to know," said Sayeed Mohamed, a preacher from South Africa where Islam is growing fast.
South Africa waxing Talmudic; not particularly grieving.
Other pilgrims were more concerned with key issues to Muslims, such as Israel's occupation of Jerusalem's holy sites. "We saw the tsunami disaster on teevee, but it's far from us. We care about Palestine," said Nasser Abdullah from Yemen.
Yemen seething at the Zionists; definitely not grieving.
#2
Spot on, Seafarious. If they were truly grief-stricken, thye would've donated their travel money to the survivors, rather than selfishly spending it on Haj for themselves. Surely charity ranks higher among the five Pillers of Islam?
#3
You are forgetting that Zakat is not supposed to benefit infidels.
Posted by: Steve from Relto ||
01/18/2005 13:01
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"Some prominent clerics in Saudi Arabia, which imposes a hardline brand of Sunni Islam alien to most Muslims, have suggested the disaster was Indonesia's punishment for its Western-style mixed-sex beaches, bars and nightclubs
So thats why most of the dead were devout and observant muslims who had voted for sharia law to be implemented?
The disconnect with reality among these people is appalling.
#5
I wouldn't expect the Muslim faithful to cancel their travel plans because of the tsunami; Haj is a central requirement of Islam and usually a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing.
I was just pointing out that the article did not show any evidence that even one pilgrim felt any personal sympathy towards the victims.
My guess is that Haj is the most important of the five pillars, since the money for Haj goes right into the Prince's pocket rather than being frittered away on widows and orphans.
TEHERAN — The United States would not dare attack Iran, Iranian Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani was quoted yesterday by the internet service of state-television network IRIB. "Neither the US not the Zionist regime (Israel) dare to attack Iran," Shamkhani said.
The minister's remarks came in response to the New Yorker article.Â
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/18/2005
12:16:01 AM ||
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Sounds like he is aping old Saddam's lines.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 0:32
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#9
How many of these little outbursts does this make? The little dog yaps long and loud because it's askeered. It has good reason to be: Clinton's gone.
#10
You know, I've always been curious that if you use enough nukes in one spot, can you really blow a hole in the crust. I say we find out on Iran. Besides, it's cheaper than refurbishing all those nukes anyway.
#13
"The United States would not dare attack Iran" or we will unleash our powerplants upon them. Just a thought, it would be nice if every time one of these Mullah's open their mouth with this blather that Mullah suddenly disappears... poof. Would love to (not) see our coverts busy doing more than just recon.
A human rights group claimed Tuesday that it has obtained video footage showing dissident activities in North Korea, with demands for freedom and democracy written over a poster of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il. If authentic, it would be the first time images of dissent in the highly secretive North have come to light. But there was no way to independently confirm the validity of the footage. The 35-minute videotape, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, shows written statements posted on a wall, urging North Koreans to fight to retrieve freedom and democracy. A man is heard, but not seen, reading a statement, demanding Kim Jong Il be removed from his post. ``The North Korean people are suffering from hunger and poverty because of Kim Jong Il's dictatorship and dogmatic politics,'' the man says.
If true, this man gets a beer on me at the O-club any day of the week.
The tape was delivered to the Seoul-based Citizen's Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees, and became public after the Coalition handed over the footage to an Internet news site that specializes on North Korean affairs. The Coalition said the footage was taken by the Youth Solidarity for Freedom at a North Korean town near the border with China. The Kim family has ruled North Korea for more than a half century, creating a powerful personality cult. Portraits of Kim and his father hang side-by-side on the walls of every house. Recently, however, observers of the world's most reclusive regime have noted possible signs of subtle cracks in Kim's grip on power.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/18/2005
12:12:53 AM ||
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Al Guardian must be torn by this... a good story, if true vs. a fellow commie's regime in danger. Sympathies to the Editorial Staff.
#2
and became public after the Coalition handed over the footage to an Internet news site that specializes on North Korean affairs
oooh....smart move!! That's one big huge nail in the coffin of the MSM. No longer do they bother to send it to the Guardian or the NYT, but instead they now make it public on the internet where it can't be ignored.
Hold on to your pocketbooks, the UN is trying to make itself relevant and respectable, via Lucianne:
Every year, 11 million children die - most under the age of five and more than 6 million of them from preventable causes such as malaria, diarrhoea and pneumonia.
In some of the most impoverished African nations, less than half of the children are in primary school, fewer still go to secondary school. Around the world, 114 million children do not receive basic formal education.
In a world where more than one billion people live on less than US$1 a day, sub-Saharan Africa emerges as the worst afflicted. The continent is burdened with a unique combination of foetid poverty, declining life expectancy and falling income per head. All at a time when so much of the developing world, particularly Asia and Latin America, is enjoying economic growth....
Hey, commie-lite, SOCIALISM KILLS, FREE MARKETS FEED (thanks Protest Warrior), OPEN UP THE EU!
And swing the corrupt dictators from the yard-arm.
Posted by: anonymous2u ||
01/18/2005
12:08:13 AM ||
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#1
After the US came up big on SE Asia Aid, the UN is imposing the guilt complex on the world. For some reason, thought, the zillion page report only shows US government contributions while being critical of how little the US contributes to world aid.
Didn't President Bush correct these idiots before? Explaining to them that private and corporate contibutions are additive and substantial? Do these UN pinheads ever get it?
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 0:28
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#2
And if you look at Lucianne, if I counted correctly, 3! articles on this topic.
#5
Classic OPM (Other People's Money) approach to poverty. The most interesting aspect is how they have become sohpisticated anough to mix in tidbits of truth and "Quick Win" (as the article puts it) ideas - which they hope will whitewash this monstrosity. So you'll get a few nice moments where common sense can be applied - dragging the massive baggage of the real program - international socialism supported by taxes on successful democracies. Lol!
Why not just do the Quick Wins. Then tell the retards that there's more where that came from as soon as you get rid of the thugs and corruption and institutional religion. Oh, and that Shari'a Law shit? Not in this century, pal.
#6
"In a world where more than one billion people live on less than US$1 a day, sub-Saharan Africa emerges as the worst afflicted. The continent is burdened with a unique combination of foetid poverty, declining life expectancy and falling income per head."
Give them into the care of the UN, and they'll do just as well as the UN's poster foster children --- the Palestinians.
#7
# 5 .com sounds like one heck of a plan. Do you think that by allowing the government to have a significant role in the implimentation of this plan would ever reach it's goal? I hope to be around in 2015 (I'll be 50) Time will tell.
I think we need to work as individual's which would form a group to begin to solve such a dilemma. Yes education is empowerment. It is a good plan, however, time will tell ** LOL
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/18/2005 19:44
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#8
# 3 do you mean ownership of property? I.e. a home or rental? Are you thinking about homeless
population? I have a plan for that social crisis.
I think the United States government should create a postage stamp (stamp out poverty /homelessness) to raise the funding
however, I really don't think our government cares about the homeless (a guesstimate amount of that population)is entered on the U.S. census). I have another hypothesis on how to assist with homeless population. (I'm keeping it a Chinese ancient secret). I know that I can put a significant dent in the homeless population by the 1 point plan I will embark on in the next few year's **
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/18/2005 19:52
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#9
# 5 .com sounds like one heck of a plan. Do you think that by allowing the government to have a significant role in the implimentation of this plan would ever reach it's goal? I hope to be around in 2015 (I'll be 50) Time will tell.
I think we need to work as individual's which would form a group to begin to solve such a dilemma. Yes education is empowerment. It is a good plan, however, time will tell ** LOL
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/18/2005 19:57
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#10
Andrea: By "property rights" I mean the shared understanding that we need to keep our hands off each other's stuff. Societies that have that basic understanding are good at producing wealth and don't need ten point programs funded by taking stuff away from better off folks.
"Stamping Out Homelessness" with postage stamps sounds catchy. Head over to Photo Stamps and put together your own design. .com can help you with a suitable photo.
#11
You mean this 10-point plan?
1 Kenilworth, IL
2 Fairfax Station, VA
3 Great Falls, VA
4 Danville, CA
5 Atherton, CA
6 Short Hills, NJ
7 Purchase, NY
8 Portola Valley, CA
9 Bedford, NY
10 Overland Park, KS
#16
#10 C.L. thanks for the information. The program is currently under review. I will put it on my list of "things to do" and I will write a letter and send it first class to D.C.
You are correct- it is NOT the job of those who are wealthy, fortunate whatever you want to label that social class to be an anchor and to solve such a global crisis. We all need to work on this piece by piece- THE WORLDS BIGGEST PUZZLE.
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/18/2005 21:07
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The Case for Boredom
A roundup of the past two weeks' good news from IraqAlso available at http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/. Just keep scrolling.
A brief summary: Things continue to improve in Iraq, despite the violence reported by the news media. The Iraqis are taking on more responsibility for their own security, and the population continues to turn against -- and turn in -- the anti-democracy forces. And it sounds like the election will be a resounding success, with voter and politician enthusiasm like that seen in Afghanistan.
Construction/reconstruction is booming, both local efforts and those sponsored by the Coalition. Infrastructure and education continue to benefit from international support and donations. Unemployment is down slightly, despite continuing flows of returning refugees. And so on... Go and read the whole thing :-)
The US media is disciplined by corporate America into promoting the Republican cause
On Thursday, the fairy king of fairyland will be recrowned. He was elected on a platform suspended in midair by the power of imagination. He is the leader of a band of men who walk through ghostly realms unvisited by reality. And he remains the most powerful person on earth.
How did this happen? How did a fantasy president from a world of make believe come to govern a country whose power was built on hard-headed materialism? To find out, take a look at two squalid little stories which have been concluded over the past 10 days.
The first involves the broadcaster CBS. In September, its 60 Minutes programme ran an investigation into how George Bush avoided the Vietnam draft. It produced memos which appeared to show that his squadron commander in the Texas National Guard had been persuaded to "sugarcoat" his service record. The programme's allegations were immediately and convincingly refuted: Republicans were able to point to evidence suggesting the memos had been faked. Last week, following an inquiry into the programme, the producer was sacked, and three CBS executives were forced to resign.
The incident couldn't have been more helpful to Bush. Though there is no question that he managed to avoid serving in Vietnam, the collapse of CBS's story suggested that all the allegations made about his war record were false, and the issue dropped out of the news. CBS was furiously denounced by the rightwing pundits, with the result that between then and the election, hardly any broadcaster dared to criticise George Bush. Mary Mapes, the producer whom CBS fired, was the network's most effective investigative journalist: she was the person who helped bring the Abu Ghraib photos to public attention. If the memos were faked, the forger was either a moron or a very smart operator.
--SNIP--
Posted by: anonymous2u ||
01/18/2005
12:04:08 AM ||
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The US media is disciplined by corporate America into promoting the Republican cause.
If true, then it's 'bout g*ddam time.
On Thursday, the fairy king of fairyland will be recrowned. He was elected on a platform suspended in midair by the power of imagination.
That must be the Deomcratic Party platform and John Kerry's campaign you mean.
He is the leader of a band of men who walk through ghostly realms unvisited by reality.
Two months after an election and the left continues to deny what has happened. Who is living in unrealty?
And he remains the most powerful person on earth.
Isn't it terrible? A plain spoken man with a backbone welding power Constitutionally.
How did this happen? How did a fantasy president from a world of make believe come to govern a country whose power was built on hard-headed materialism?
Whoa, baby. Take a course in Economics 101 before you twist that into an accusation.
To find out, take a look at two squalid little stories which have been concluded over the past 10 days.
Squalid because the left was deeply involved in it and little because the fifth column press is too embarassed to give it the play it deserves.
The first involves the broadcaster CBS. In September, its 60 Minutes programme ran an investigation into how George Bush avoided the Vietnam draft. It produced memos which appeared to show that his squadron commander in the Texas National Guard had been persuaded to "sugarcoat" his service record. The programmeâs allegations were immediately and convincingly refuted: Republicans were able to point to evidence suggesting the memos had been faked. Last week, following an inquiry into the programme, the producer was sacked, and three CBS executives were forced to resign.
The incident couldnât have been more helpful to Bush. Though there is no question that he managed to avoid serving in Vietnam,
There wasn't? Then why the fake memos?
the collapse of CBSâs story suggested that all the allegations made about his war record were false,
Funny how that works. You lie and all the other 'facts' which support the lie gets called into question.
and the issue dropped out of the news. CBS was furiously denounced by the rightwing pundits, with the result that between then and the election, hardly any broadcaster dared to criticise George Bush. Mary Mapes, the producer whom CBS fired, was the networkâs most effective investigative journalist: she was the person who helped bring the Abu Ghraib photos to public attention.
If Mapes leaked the Abu Ghraib photos to the press then that fact alone justifies the firing of this fifth columnist. But the writer fails to mention Mapes was a leftist with an agenda and the full resources of a worldwide news organization and she still couldn't get her story right because it was a lie.
If the memos were faked, the forger was either a moron or a very smart operator.
JERUSALEM, Israel - For the past generation, Israel has found itself engaged in post-modern warfare. Whereas Arab armies have proved themselves in five wars to be no match for the Israeli Defense Force on the battlefield, since Israeli forces withdrew from most of Lebanon twenty years ago, enemies of the Jewish state have found that the most effective means of fighting it is on the post-modern battlefield.
The most conspicuous component of the post-modern battlefield is terrorism. Terrorist foot soldiers of the post-modern army sow fear and revulsion in the heart of the target population in order to induce a sense of helplessness. In the face of photographs of the charred remains of babies being pulled from bombed-out cafes and buses, the mighty Israeli army suddenly seems small and impotent.
While terrorism is the outward face of the post-modern aggressor, social psychology is perhaps his greatest weapon. If the target population can be manipulated to view itself as the aggressor, if it can be brought to view its position as untenable, then it will sue for peace and surrender. So it was that Kadoura Fares, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and one of the heads of Fatah who signed far left-wing Israeli politician Yossi Beilin's capitulationist Geneva Accords in October 2003, said in an interview with the pan-Arab London-based newspaper Al-Hayat that month that the Palestinian aim in signing the accords was to "foment a piercing public and political debate in Israel."
While Hamas has placed its emphasis mainly on the terrorist aspect of the post-modern battlefield, the PLO has placed an equal emphasis on the psychological component of the war. In fact, it could be said in retrospect that the greatest single victory the PLO has scored in its 46-year-old war with Israel was the publication of a single report in 1997. That report, "Demographic Indicators of the Palestinian Territory, 1997-2015," is based on a census carried out by the PA's Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) in 1997. It projects that the Arab population west of the Jordan River will by 2015 outnumber the Jewish population.
These numbers were immediately adopted by such prominent Israeli demographers as the University of Haifa's Arnon Soffer and the Hebrew University's Sergio Della Pergola, who have both warned that by 2020 Jews will make up between 40 and 46 percent of the overall population of Israel and the territories. The Palestinian projections, which place the Arab population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip at 3.83 million and the Israeli Arab population at 1.33 million for a total of 5.16 million Arabs west of the Jordan River, put Israel with its 5.24 million Jews at the precipice of demographic parity with the Arabs.
Largely in reaction to these statistics, which were bandied about by everyone from politicians to diplomats to defense officials, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided a year ago to adopt the left wing Labor Party's campaign platform and withdraw the IDF from Gaza and the northern West Bank and forcibly remove the Jews living in those areas from their homes. In his interview with Israel's largest circulation daily Yediot Aharonot in December 2003, which was the curtain raiser for Sharon's announcement of his policy shift later that month, Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "Above all hovers the cloud of demographics. It will come down on us not in the end of days, but in just another few years. We are approaching a point where more and more Palestinians will say: 'There is no place for two states between the Jordan and the sea. All we want is the right to vote.' The day they get it we will lose everything."
BUT WHAT if the numbers are wrong? What if the doomsday scenarios Israelis hear on a daily basis, arguing that Israel is about to be overrun by the Arab womb, are all based on fraudulent data — part of an ingenious Palestinian plan to psychologically manipulate Israel into capitulating?
This week a team of American and Israeli researchers presented a study of the Palestinian population statistics at the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation in Washington. The team, led by American businessman Bennett Zimmerman and Israeli strategic consultant Yoram Ettinger, compared the PCBS data to birth and death records published annually by the PA's Health Ministry; to immigration and emigration data from Israel's Border Police at the international crossing points into the Palestinian Authority and at Ben-Gurion Airport, and to internal migration records of Palestinians from the territories into Israel recorded by the Israeli Interior Ministry.
The researchers also compared Palestinian population data from the PCBS to voting records compiled by the Palestinian Central Elections Commission before the 1996 Palestinian elections and this week's Palestinian elections, as well as to the Israeli Civil Administration's population survey of Palestinians carried out in the 1990s before the transfer of authority over Palestinian population records to the PA.
The PCBS forecast was further compared to Palestinian population surveys carried out by UNRWA and the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS) in the mid-1990s, and to World Bank Palestinian population studies. All of the team's comparative analyses led to the conclusion that the Palestinian population forecasts upon which Israel is basing its current policy of withdrawal and uprooting of Israeli communities in the territories are faulty in the extreme.
The PCBS count includes the 230,000 Arab residents of Jerusalem. Yet these Arabs are already counted by the ICBS as part of Israel's population, which means that they are counted twice.
The PCBS numbers also project Palestinian natural growth as 4 to 5 percent per year - among the highest in the world and significantly higher than the natural population growth of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Yet Palestinian Ministry of Health records published annually since 1996 show that Palestinian natural growth rates in the West Bank and Gaza average around 3 percent. In 2002, the Palestinian Ministry of Health retroactively raised its numbers but even the doctored figures never extended beyond 3.7 percent. The original data show a steady pattern of decrease in natural growth leading to a natural growth rate in 2003 of just 2.6 percent.
Indeed, the total fertility rate of Palestinian women has been trending downward in recent years. Palestinian women in the West Bank averaged 4.1 children in 1999 and 3.4 in 2003. Palestinian women in Gaza averaged 5 children each in 1999 and 4.7 in 2003. The multi-year average of Israel's compound growth rate from 1990-2004 is 2.5 percent. And even as Israel's growth rate went down to 1.7 percent between 2000 and 2004, a similar decline occurred among Palestinians in Gaza, where growth decreased from 3.9 percent to 3.0 percent, and Palestinians in the West Bank, where growth declined from 2.7 percent to 1.8 percent.
The PCBS also projected a net population increase of 1.5 percent per year as a result of immigration from abroad. But the study's authors found that except for 1994, when the bulk of the Palestinian leadership and their families entered the areas from abroad, emigration from the Palestinian areas has outstripped immigration every year.
Aside from this, the PCBS numbers include some 200,000 Palestinians who live abroad. This fact was corroborated by an October 14 press release by the Palestinian Central Elections Commission which stated that "200,000 eligible voters are living abroad." The number of Palestinians living abroad constitutes 13 percent of the Palestinians counted in 1997 and forms the basis of the projections of that population's growth in spite of the fact that they don't live in the territories.
The report also shows that while the Israeli Interior Ministry announced in November 2003 that in the preceding decade some 150,000 residents of the Palestinian Authority had legally moved to Israel (including Jerusalem), these 150,000 residents remain on the Palestinian population rolls. Parenthetically, this internal migration is largely responsible for the anomalous 3.1 percent annual growth in the Israeli Arab population. Absent this internal migration, the Israeli Arab natural growth rate is 2.1% — that is, below the Israeli Jewish growth rate.
The study presents three separate scenarios for calculating the actual Palestinian population in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Its authors prove that the first scenario, based on the PCBS numbers, minus the double counted Jerusalem Arabs and minus the internal migrations, is not statistically plausible. Yet even this scenario places the Palestinian population at 3.06 million, or 770,000 less than the number that currently informs Israeli decision makers.
The average of the last two scenarios, which corrected for the Palestinians living abroad and were based on base populations comprised of ICBS Palestinian population survey projections from the 1990s and Palestinian voting records in 1996 and 2004, brought the final projected number of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to 2.42 million — nearly a third less than the 3.83 million figure currently being used.
The study, which has been accepted by prominent American demographers Dr. Nicholas Eberstadt and Murray Feshbach, shows that contrary to common wisdom, the Jewish majority west of the Jordan River has remained stable since 1967. In 1967 Jews made up 64.1 percent of the overall population and in 2004 they made up 59.5 percent. Inside Israel proper, including Jerusalem, Jews make up 80 percent of the population.
While reading the report, the inescapable sense is that something has gone very wrong within Israeli society. The numbers are so clear. The data have always been readily available. And yet, like bats attracted to the darkness of a cave, Israelis preferred the manipulative lies of the PA to the truth.
The entire 117-page report can be accessed on-line at www.pademographics.com. Given that it shows that the Israeli government's current policies are based in large part on an uncritical acceptance of fraudulent data whose purpose was to demoralize Israeli society into capitulating to its post-modern foe, hopefully Olmert and Sharon will take a look at it.
Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post where this column first appeared.
#1
Even if this critique is correct, the Jewish proportion west of the Jordan is too low to keep all the territories, and its declining. Disengagement remains the correct policy, if SLIGHTLY less urgent.
#2
Thanks, A5089! This is very good to know. But I agree with LH, separation and building the Security Fence to contain the violent are still the right moves.
(2005-01-17) -- An Amber Alert has been issued nationwide today after the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was reported missing on the very day when millions of Americans planned to observe the slain civil rights leader's birthday.
In Jonesboro, Georgia, authorities monitored a speech Sunday by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, after an informant said Mr. Jackson might be carrying the King legacy. However, during his speech it became clear that the legacy was no longer in Mr. Jackson's possession.
Police have released a description of the legacy in Dr. King's own words from a speech he delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963.
Analysis of the so-called 'I Have a Dream' speech shows that Dr. King was concerned primarily with freedom by means of equal rights and equal justice under the law for everyone.
Forensics experts have been unable to find a match for the King legacy among the words of any of the major American leaders who claim the King mantle.
"The King legacy is so easy to counterfeit and then pass off for personal gain," said one expert. "It's just a small cut to take Dr. King's dream that people 'will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character', and to slice out the 'character' part and leave nothing but empty skin. Equality of opportunity gets falsely transformed into equality of results as a birthright."
The most common counterfeits also lack what experts call the "backbone" of the King legacy -- trust in God.
Dr. King allegedy rested his assertion of equal rights on the passage in the Declaration of Independence that says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
"Without a Creator," said the forensics expert, "the legacy of equal rights collapses into a vicious struggle where the strong prevail and no rights can reasonably be asserted. Dr. King knew there is no basis for equal rights without a loving and righteous creator God."
"The second most common measure employed by counterfeiters is to remove Dr. King's desire to unite the races," the source said. "The genuine legacy pictures Black and White holding hands, eating together, marching together as well as singing and praising God together. The counterfeiters inevitably portray civil rights as a struggle of innocent Black against malevolent White, or caring Democrat against selfish Republican. But the King legacy pitted the justice of God against the injustice of men and foresaw the day when God's victory would benefit Americans of every hue, faith and political stripe."
Indeed, the 'Dream' speech text seems to corroborate this when Dr. King said, "Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."
A review of the archival audio reveals that the biggest applause line in the 1,619-word speech was as follows: "The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny.
Amid the roar of applause, Dr. King added, "And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone."
Meanwhile, as the search continues for the missing King legacy, Americans are left to struggle with what it all meant.
"The kids are out of school and I have the day off," said one suburban Philadelphia man, "so we're grateful for Dr. King's efforts to free all Americans from education and work. What a great dream."
In related news, the Columbia School of Journalism today holds a panel discussion titled 'Inequality in America." Professional journalists on the panel include Connie Chung, Geraldo Rivera, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Ed Bradley and Rudi Bakhtiar.
Posted by: Korora ||
01/18/2005
12:01:46 AM ||
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And don't forget the bling bling, lotsa bling bling. Keeping it real, doncha know.
Ott's remarkable knowledge and grasp of reality allow him to write such awesome parody. He's an amazing talent - and social critic. Twenty years ago, he'd have either been forced to scribble some art to go with his insightful observations and be an editorial cartoonist -- or maybe, if he was incredibly fortunate, he might have landed a column - after 20 years of obits and City Council meetings. Today, he can and has created his own personal brand of journalism and made his own source-point for dissemination.
Kidnappers released footage of eight Chinese hostages they threatened to execute unless Beijing "clarifies its role" in Iraq, while a Syrian Catholic archbishop was released a day after being captured.
And as the campaign for the January 30 general elections kicked into second gear despite the violence, US Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice acknowledged shortcomings in training of Iraqi security forces.
In a tape broadcast Tuesday on Arab news networks and showing eight Chinese nationals holding up their passports guarded by two hooded men, the kidnappers charged the group had "worked with US forces in Iraq."
"We ask the Chinese government to clarify its position toward those and other Chinese who have entered Iraq to help occupation forces," said one of them without identifying his organization.
The Chinese embassy in Baghdad confirmed that eight construction workers from the southern province of Fujian had been abducted last week on the main highway from Iraq to Jordan, China's official Xinhua news agency reported.
Another video released Tuesday showed a Lebanese held by a previously unknown group on charges of working with the US military. The embassy could not immediately confirm his capture.
The latest hostage crisis came quick on the heels of another kidnapping episode that sent shockwaves through Iraq's small Christian minority.
A Syrian Catholic archbishop nabbed in the northern city of Mosul on Monday afternoon, was released by his captors less than 24 hours later.
Monsignor Basile Georges Casmoussa said after his release he had been treated well, and that the kidnappers had captured him by mistake and did not request a ransom for his release.
His statement contradicted earlier declarations by a senior prelate who said money was being collected to free him, as well as his own driver's statement.
The short crisis raised the specter of growing sectarian strife ahead of the elections, though most of the ethnic-torn country's Christian leaders downplayed the kidnapping, blaming criminal gangs.
Sunni Arab insurgents fiercely opposed to the very principle of democratic polls have stepped up their attacks against the long-oppressed majority Shiites, who are expected to dominate the vote.
On Tuesday, a suicide car bomber killed himself and two others at a checkpoint some 30 meters (yards) from the headquarters of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) -- home also to party leader Abdel Aziz Hakim.
Al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group claimed responsibility for the attack in an Internet statement.
Iraq's Interior Minister Falah Naqib warned the country risked sliding into civil war if the Sunni minority boycotted the elections.
Eleven other Iraqis were killed in a string of separate incidents across Iraq, and a US soldier was killed in the Baghdad area.
With milestone elections less than two weeks away, an electoral debate so far subdued by relentless violence and fear of insurgent reprisal for participation in the electoral process started gathering steam.
US-backed interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi staked the hopes of the Iraqi National Accord -- his party -- on his reputation for tough security policies, setting out its platform for the polls.
His party also accused policemen loyal to the Shiite list of abusing their position to intimidate voters in the majority community's southern heartland.
One of Allawi's running mates, state minister Adnan Junabi, took up the allegations further Tuesday, accusing Shiite supporters in the main southern city of Basra of pressuring voters and again criticizing the use of religion.
Ironically, Junabi was forced to admit that the premier's own supporters within the security forces had been guilty of similar abuses, after policemen were seen handing out campaign materials for Allawi's list in Baghdad.
A US official conceded there had been violations by several of the larger parties but insisted that teething problems were only to be expected in a country that was holding its first free elections in a half century.
In Washington, Rice acknowledged that problems needed to be solved over the training of Iraq's fledgling security services -- to face their toughest challenge so far when they take near full responsibility for security on election day.
She told the Senate foreign relations committee that Americans were working "to address some of these problems of leadership and morale and desertion in the armed forces and in the police forces and to look at some of the equipping of the police forces."
Rice also warned that Syria may face new US sanctions if it maintains its ties to terrorists and cross-border help for insurgents in neighboring Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/18/2005
11:59:41 PM ||
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BERLIN Suppose George Bush comes calling on the European Union at its Brussels headquarters a month from now and embraces the idea of an emergent EU that looks to itself like the world's first soft-power superpower?
**SNIP**
If Schröder says world mulipolarity cannot be Europe's forward vision - in Paris last week, Jacques Chirac's personal bugaboo, the presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy, marked himself down as opposing it as a confrontational idea - then multipolarity's place as an emblematic banner for a European superpower would die forgotten as French excess. Should Schröder find this too much disloyalty to Chirac, or if Chirac did not subtly recant beforehand, perhaps on a quick trip to Washington (he is seriously conflicted about how much soft power Europe can acquire before China howls in laughter), then Bush would return home without a quid pro quo.(which would happen cos that's the way it is).
**SNIP**
The United States can't be interested in consecrating a Europe that could well turn out to be a Righteous Power, instructing, pontificating and limiting its responsibilities to what Robert Zoellick,(I like him already) Condoleezza Rice's future deputy secretary of state, said a year ago was Europe's predilection for endless negotiations in excellent hotels in pleasant locations. (And they say we don't pay attention to them) This Righteous Power aspect (the phrase is that of a former Bush White House official), sometimes comparing the supposed new nobility of Europe's purpose with the Americans' hard-power clangor, is obvious in many European descriptions of life as the gentle superpower.
--SNIP--.
In an article in which she acknowledges plenty of European incoherence, another German, Ulrike Guerot of the German Marshall Fund, all the same projects a dreamlike EU becoming "the real superpower" of the 21st century, "endowing humanity with a global consciousness" that emphasizes "global cooperation over the unilateral exercise of power". (And I've won the lotto -- in my delusion/dream)
In truth, the Bush administration may be too exquisitely cynical to think anything palpable is required from Europe in response to the president's planned cuddly diction, convinced there is no new reason to suppose, all the talk aside, that the EU will soon be anything other than what it is now. That is a place, Guerot says, whose governments flee precise definitions of its future for fear of getting pinned down on how much has to be shelled out for building some credibility into the desired softness.
.
Are the costs of either effective hard or soft power beyond Europe's reach, as some in Washington dismissively think?
.
At the moment, French generals are complaining about the non-pertinence in a terrorism-driven era of Chirac's plan to spend â¬8 billion (the equivalent of about one-tenth of France's debt) on new submarine-launched nuclear missiles with a range sufficient to hit China - or US. And here, Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer returned from the tsunami area in Asia acknowledging that the Americans were "very much faster" getting aid to its victims because they had the proper transport aircraft - and that Germany might think of renting some as a stopgap in the future.
Posted by: anonymous2u ||
01/18/2005
11:59:04 AM ||
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#1
For the life of them, it sounds like the "leadership" of the EU is something like the BBC comedy series "Keeping Up Appearances", writ large. With Chirac and Schröder being Hyacinth and Richard Bucket, respectively.
#4
Joschka Fischer returned from the tsunami area in Asia acknowledging that the Americans were "very much faster" getting aid to its victims because they had the proper transport aircraft - and that Germany might think of renting some as a stopgap in the future
Let's see... the Germans rented cargo aircraft (Tikhonovs, I think) from Uzbekistan to get their gear to Afghanistan in 2002, and now are looking to rent ours as well. Why not? Helps reduce the trade deficit. Ramp it up.
We know from various sources, including the Washington Post, that Retired Lt. Col. Bill Burkett liked to post messages to a Yahoo discussion group for Texas Democrats. Well, a sharp-eyed TKS reader noticed a recent posting on that Yahoo group:
Date: Mon Jan 3, 2005 8:05 pm Subject: Followup to the Bill Burkett, CBS - National Guard Controversy from Nicki Burkett
From: BBurkett16@a...
Sent: Monday, January 03, 2005 1:01 PM
Subject: (no subject)
Ladies and Gentlemen:
This morning I received a phone call and later a URL address from a senior journalist in Washington.
For the first time, someone put the CBS story into a slight bit of context; from which some of you reported or went quiet as soon as the lynch mob took over. In one case on this list, our attorneys are actively considering legal actions within the statute of limitations and following the report of the VIACOM Panel. This past week, we may have scared the Devil out of senior folks at CBS and throughout the journalistic World. We are now negotiating with the VIACOM panel for an in-depth interview to explore the facts and documentation of the story; the roles of CBS, ABC, the Associated Press, New York TImes, USA Today and numerous others who actively sought Bill out as a source on the story and their backlash after the story went elsewhere. We have already received open-ended offers from NBC, publishers and lately a Movie producer.
This is background information only. But please understand that Bill has remained quiet while VIACOM conducted it's investigation.
However, this article from the Columbia Journalism Review, what we are told is the media's most highly respected ethical publication.
This URL is sent for your review of the story.
If you choose to republish, as many of you will, please contact the publisher. Not us.
http://www.cjr.org/issues/2005/1/pein-blog.asp
Thank You
Nicki Burkett
Bill's gonna sell his story to the highest bidder?
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
11:52:21 AM ||
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WASHINGTON — An Iraqi-born American citizen will strike a plea deal with the Justice Department as part of the federal investigation into the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, officials at Justice told FOX News. The Justice Department on Tuesday will announce the agreement with Samir Vincent, one of the men suspected of getting kickbacks as part of the multi-billion dollar scandal. The exact nature of the charges to which Vincent will plead is not yet known. Vincent will agree to help the prosecution as part of the deal, officials said.
"Spill your guts, Samir, or it's the big house for youz!"
This case is being handled by the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York. The Justice Department's probe also has included U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan's son Kojo Annan.
Vincent's name was listed in the CIA's Iraq Survey Group report released in October 2003, which cited the Oil-for-Food scandal extensively in its discussion of Saddam Hussein's schemes. According to the report, Phoenix was awarded 1.5 million barrels of oil in 1999 and 2000, netting Vincent $1 million. Vincent and Phoenix received vouchers for 7.9 million barrels of oil, for a profit of $3.6 million between 1997 and 2001, according to the report.
Vincent was described as one of three U.S. citizens who were allowed to profit by selling Iraqi oil or the right to trade it. In a faxed statement to FOX News in October, Vincent said his company, Phoenix International, legally received oil vouchers under the program. FOX News attempted to reach Vincent and Phoenix International on Tuesday for comment on the plea agreement.
In 2000, Vincent led Iraqi religious leaders on a tour of the United States to push for an end to sanctions against Iraq.
Well, that's what he was paid the $1M to do.
Among the people the group met with was former President Jimmy Carter. Vincent worked with Rev. Billy Graham on that tour.
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
11:45:27 AM ||
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This is one of the loose threads that, when pulled, should unravel a few more details about the Kofi and Kojo Show.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 14:40
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#2
Cool. Let's hope he spills dirt on Chirac and his cronies.
#3
He's smart. The OFF Scam will, indeed, unravel - in fact, I think a snowball will soon be more apt. Those who cut deals early will get the best terms.
#5
I've always been suspicious of the ol' Rev. Have you ever seen his house? Tammy Faye was probably so jealous that she thought she had red mascara on. Makes hers look like the guest house out back.
Pass the offering plate and buy the Rev aNOTHER limo. Reminds me of Jessie Jackson.... give to ME.me.me.me.me. Yeah...a real freaking man of God. Anyway...I hope I'm wrong -but considering the size of Billy's house, and his cars and his fancy clothes, it wouldn't surprise me one bit to find out he's a big fat fraud.
MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali returned to the Dutch Parliament on Tuesday, declaring under intense media scrutiny that she intended to continue her fight against Islamic extremism despite repeated death threats. She appeared in the Lower House shortly after 2pm for her first Question Time since she went into hiding some two months ago after the brutal murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The Somali-born MP was hotly followed by Dutch and foreign media journalists and camera crews. Hirsi Ali was also escorted into the parliament chamber by a horde of protection officers from the Royal and Diplomatic Security Service, and several bodyguards from a private security company.
Lower House chairman Frans Weisglas welcomed Hirsi Ali back prior to the start of the parliament's first question hour after the end of the Christmas recess. "Dear Ayaan, welcome back among us. We have missed you," he said. Weisglas also said he hoped that Hirsi Ali — who moves on a daily basis from safe house to safe house — can soon resume her normal work outside of the parliament. "We hope to soon hear your voice here in the House again," he said, to loud applause from the public tribune.
The Liberal VVD had earlier arrived at the parliament in an armoured Mercedes just before 9.30am on Tuesday, proceeding immediately to a meeting with Weisglas and VVD parliamentary leader Jozias van Aartsen. She then attended her first party meeting since Van Gogh's death. Hirsi Ali said she was pleased to be back and Van Aartsen said her return represented a joyful and fantastic day.
Soon after the brutal killing, it was discovered that Islamic extremists were planning to murder Hirsi Ali. She was then flown by the Dutch military from the airbase Valkenburg on 10 November to the US base Brunswick in the state of Maine.
NAS Brunswick is the base closest to the European theater and NATO commands. It's the last active duty DOD airfield in the northeast, located 26 miles northeast from Maine's largest city, Portland, and 31 miles south from the capital city of Augusta. I'm impressed, nobody would look there. Hell, I didn't even know there was there.
The two terrorist suspects arrested after a 14-hour stand-off in The Hague on 10 November are accused of planning the Muslim-born MP's murder. It has since been revealed that the murder was planned for New Year's Eve, when fireworks would disguise the sound of shooting.
Hirsi Ali is known for her strong criticism of the Islamic faith, having previously called the prophet Mohammed a pervert by modern standards for taking a child bride. She also co-wrote with Van Gogh the film Submission, which took a critical look at domestic violence in the Islam faith. The film is believed to be the prime motivation behind Van Gogh's murder and a note left plunged into the filmmaker's body with a knife warned that Hirsi Ali was next.
But speaking at a press conference at about 4pm, Hirsi Ali said she had discussed at length with Van Gogh the possible dangers of making the film. She also said it was terrible that others had resorted to violence. Nevertheless, Hirsi Ali also declared to the world that she would continue with her fight against the radical side to the Islamic faith: "Ladies and gentlemen, I will continue".
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005
1:13:25 PM ||
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#4
Sobiesky - Lol! I am not so encumbered, by design, heh. As I tell telephone solicitors who ask to speak to the "woman of the house", there is no such animal, now WTF do you want? Lol!
"Glorious Golden Gloria" is my current contact with the real-world. Hirsi is now my virtual flame, heh.
BTW, meet Mimi, my housekeeper the last 2 yrs I was in Saudi - she's an Ethiopian version of Hirsi regards escaping unhealthy / sinister forces there.
#6
You can bet I offered that advice, regards SA. She was the person I was with as we watched the WTC attack on CNN. It was unforgettable, of course, but made even more so by her questions about how the US would react and an extensive conversation. She is a terrific person - and when I left I gave her what I called her "Get out of Jail Free" card - plenty of money to get her and both her sisters (also there in SA) out of that shithole, heh. I had to make her promise aloud that this would be kept hidden and private - not end up going home to buy a phreakin' VCR for her Mom - or something equally pointless.
The first known visual evidence of dissent within the world's most secretive state emerged yesterday when video footage taken in a North Korean factory showed a portrait of the dictator, Kim Jong-il, defaced with graffiti demanding freedom and democracy.
The 35-minute video clip, said to have been taken in November, was posted on the website of an opposition group based in South Korea. It shows a poster of Kim scrawled over with the words: "Down with Kim Jong-il. Let's all rise to drive out the dictatorial regime.''
Kim inherited the leadership of the world's most reclusive communist state in 1994 on the death of his father, Kim Il-sung.
Posted by: Pappy ||
01/18/2005
11:31:29 AM ||
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#1
This was probably done by a foreigner and not a Nork. I am guessing this because it was supposedly seen by a foreigner and they are only allowed in special areas. If this happened in a non-foreign area we would never have heard about it.
#2
Cyber Sarge above might be correct. Think about it. The guy(s) who supposedly defaced Kimmy's pic would be certainly marked for death if caught. Equally, if caught smuggling this pic out of NK, the smuggler would be marked for death. Regret to advise: I'm thinking this pic is a photoshop special worthy of dot com. Wish it were otherwise.
Posted by: Mark Z. ||
01/18/2005 12:32
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Oh shit - now I have to install the Korean character set? Lol!
From the NY Times. Presented to you in its entirety....have at it, Rantburgers! Maybe it explains PEST?
PRESIDENT BUSH begins his second term this week as the leader of a nation that appears to be sharply divided. Since the election, there's been endless discussion about the growing gap between "red" and "blue" America. When former President Bill Clinton said a few months ago that he was probably the only person in America who liked both Mr. Bush and Senator John Kerry, it seemed it might be true.
Yet, surprisingly, recent neuroscience research suggests that Democrats and Republicans are not nearly as far apart as they seem. You mean they're the same species? Next he'll be saying they could interbreed! In fact, there is empirical evidence that even the fiercest partisans may instinctively like both Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, although they struggle against this collaborative impulse.
During the eight months before the election, I was part of a group of political professionals and scientists from the University of California, Los Angeles, who used functional magnetic resonance imaging, or f.M.R.I., to scan the brains of 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats, producing images like those seen above. We measured brain activity while subjects looked at political advertisements and at images of the presidential candidates.
The news media have focused on our finding that the amygdala, a part of the brain that responds to danger, was more heightened in Democrats when viewing scenes of 9/11 than in Republicans. This might seem to indicate fundamental differences, but other aspects of our results suggest striking commonalities.
While viewing their own candidate, both Democrats and Republicans showed activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area associated with strong instinctive feelings of emotional connection. Viewing the opposing candidate, however, activated the anterior cingulate cortex, which indicates cognitive and emotional conflict. It also lighted up the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an area that acts to suppress or shape emotional reactions.
These patterns of brain activity, made visible on the f.M.R.I.'s, suggest that both Bush and Kerry voters were mentally battling their attraction to the other side. Bush voters wanted to follow Mr. Kerry and kick the crap outta him; Kerry voters found someone to blame appeal in Mr. Bush. Both groups fought this instinct by arguing to themselves that their impulses were wrong. By recalling flaws associated with the opposition, the voters displaced attraction with dislike. Because the process happened nearly instantaneously, only the final sense of dismay reached full awareness.
Simplifying the neurophysiology somewhat, one can regard the process of reaching an opinion or making a choice as a collaboration between two regions of the brain - the limbic area, which feels emotions, and the prefrontal cortex, which controls the processing of ideas and information. The two areas work in tandem: thoughts provoke feelings, and in turn, the intensity of these feelings determines how the thoughts are valued. In reacting to pictures of the opposing candidate, the voters we tested countered the feelings of connection with even stronger hostile emotions, which they induced by calling up negative images and ideas. And facts, in the case of the Bush voters....
This dance between strong emotions and interconnected ideas is well known in psychiatry, and it forms the foundation of cognitive behavioral therapy, an effective form of talk therapy. When there is a divorce, for example, adolescents may induce in themselves feelings of rage toward one parent out of loyalty to the other. A cognitive behavioral therapist could help quench this rage by challenging the child's beliefs about the estranged parent. Without the beliefs to sustain it, the rage disappears. So all we really need is a good shrink....right....
In the case of this past election, while we witnessed an electorate that seemed irreconcilably divided, using f.M.R.I., we could see that the Republicans and Democrats we tested liked both candidates. The initial reflex toward allegiance is easy to explain: people rise through the ranks to run for higher office because they are able to evoke in others a powerful impulse to write huge checks to their campaigns join their cause. Voters sense this attraction, and to keep from succumbing, they dredge up emotion-laden negative images as a counterweight. So...the reason this Democrat-leaning girl couldn't bring herself to vote for Kerry is that I found him so damn sexy??
This suggests that the passions swirling through elections are not driven by a deep commitment to issues. We are not fighting over the future of the country; we are fighting for our team, like Red Sox and Yankee fans arguing over which club has the better catcher. Both in an election and in baseball, all that really matters is who wears the team uniform. Uh, no....Barry Bonds could be the newest Diamondback, and I'd still think he sucks!
Will an awareness that we are conning ourselves to feel alienated from each other help to close the political gap? It is unknown, because neuroscience has advanced only recently to the point where humans can begin to watch themselves think and feel. If we are going to solve the nation's complicated problems, it is important to close this gap because in a setting where emotions run high, careful thoughts have no chance against intoxicating ones. In divisive politics, as in highly spiced dishes, all subtlety is lost.
So, Democrats, admit that you admire the confidence and decisiveness of President Bush. That will never happen! And Republicans, concede that you would like a president to have the depth of knowledge and broad intelligence of Dr Condoleezza Rice Mr. Kerry. Now that f.M.R.I. is revealing our antagonisms as a defensive ploy, it is time to erase the red and blue divide.
Um, not exactly, heh. How about links to those fMRI images? True, people have interesting subconscious reactions - often differing from the eventual conscious reaction. But (knew that was coming, huh?) I completely reject this puffery.
It is my real-life experience, not interpretation of fMRI images, that the conscious mind goes through much hand-wringing, weighing of pros and cons, wearing sack-cloth and ashes, and gnashing of teeth as a delaying tactic prior to finally accepting on the conscious level what the subconscious decided the instant a question or dilemma is posed or encountered.
#4
.com, sorry about not being able to post the "images" along with the story. I couldn't get it to work. All it was was two pictures of the same brain...one with a pro-Bush caption, one with a pro-Kerry. Not much to see, there.....but what else do you expect from the NY Times??
#5
DB - :-) I looked, but couldn't locate an image I once had which fit the topic - in the humorous vein. Sigh. BTW, you should be able to get the direct path to any image by right-clicking and selecting Properties, heh. Just FYI...
#6
The NYT under Pinch Sulzberger has ceased to be a serious newspaper. It's really more of a lifestyle guide for childless urban and college-town liberals. Sort of a better-behaved and duller version of the Village Voice.
#8
Pinch's NYT is a gay-friendly, college-educated version of USA Today: lots and lots of lite articles about subjects near and dear to the NPR crowd. There are still some excellent reporters (John Burns esp, also Gretchen Morgenson in the business pages) and a few reporters who rise to the occasion now and then (Dexter Filkins occasionally hits it), but by and large the reporting in the Times is shoddier than it was ten years ago and the proportion of content devoted to heavy subjects has fallen considerably.
What content has taken its place? Well, every time I open the Times there's at least one front page article on either gay issues, or porn, or the housing market, or the science of aging or urban frivolities that have nothing to do with the core issues that sway elections and world affairs. This is simply pandering to a core market arbitrarily defined as liberal yuppies who fear Karl Rove more than Osama, who care more about real estate and Thai restaurants than they care about understanding swing voters or China or Ukraine.
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "Colonel Muayed Yassin Aziz Abd Al-Razaq Al-Nasseri, commander of the Army of Muhammad, one of the resistance factions in Iraq. The Army of Muhammad was founded by Saddam Hussein after the fall of the regime, on April 9, 2003. At first, Yasser Al-Shabawi was put in charge, until his capture in July 2003. Then Saad Hammad Hisham was in charge until December 2003. Then I was put in charge from January 2004 until now. The Army of Muhammad has some 800 armed fighters."
Interrogator: "What operations did you carry out? How many operations did you carry out?"
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "We carried out many armed operations against the coalition forces in all the districts. The operations included bombarding their military posts, their camps, and their bases, fighting these forces, and planting explosive devices against their patrols and convoys."
Interrogator: "What was the nature of your organization?"
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "The organization was a military armed one, which operated according to a method of non-centralized command."
Interrogator: "How is the Army of Muhammad related to the Ba'th party?"
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "The Army of Muhammad is militarily independent. After Saddam Hussein's capture in December 2003, for a period [of] four months, the Army of Muhammad had no connections with the party, but after April 2003, there was a meeting with the party and we are currently coordinating with them. In addition, Saddam Hussein distributed a communique via the party, back then, instructing all his supporters or whoever wants to fight the Jihad for the sake of Allah, to join the Army of Muhammad because it is the army of the leadership."
'Today, the Leader of the Ba'th Party in Iraq is Izzat Ibrahim'
Interrogator: "Who are the leaders of the Ba'th Party in Iraq?"
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "Today, the leader of the party is Izzat Ibrahim. He is the leader of the party in Iraq. Next in line is Fadhl Al-Mashhadani, who is responsible for the local organizations within Iraq. Then, there is Muhammad Yunis Al-Ahamd, who is responsible for the organization outside Iraq. He is currently in Syria."
'Aid Came from the Neighboring Countries - We Got Aid Primarily from Iran'
Interrogator: "Did you get support from the countries of the region?"
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "Yes, sir... Many factions of the resistance are receiving aid from the neighboring countries. We in the Army of Muhammad - the fighting has been going on for almost two years now, and there must be aid, and this aid came from the neighboring countries. We got aid primarily from Iran. The truth is that Iran has played a significant role in supporting the Army of Muhammad and many factions of the resistance. I have some units, especially in southern Iraq, which receive Iranian aid in the form of arms and equipment."
Interrogator: "You're referring to units of the Army of Muhammad?"
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "Yes. They received money and weapons."
'[Fighters] Met Personally with Iranian Leader Khamenei... They Even Got Car Bombs'
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "As for other factions of the resistance, I have reliable information regarding the National Islamic resistance, which is one of the factions of resistance, led by Colonel Asi Al Hadithi. He sent a delegation to Iran from among the people of the faction, including General Halaf and General Khdayyer. They were sent to Iran in April or May and met with Iranian intelligence and with a number of Iranian leaders and even with Khamenei."
Interrogator: "You mean they personally met with Khamenei?"
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "According to my information, they met with him personally, and they were given one million dollars and two cars full of weapons. They still have a very close relationship with Iran. They receive money, cars, weapons, and many things. According to my information, they even got car bombs."
'Cooperation with Syria Began in October 2003... Later, Saddam Hussein Himself Authorized Me to Go to Syria'
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "In addition, as I've told you, Syria... Cooperation with Syria began in October 2003, when a Syrian intelligence officer contacted me. Saad Hamad Hisham and later Saddam Hussein himself authorized me to go to Syria. So I was sent to Syria. I crossed the border illegally. Then I went to Damascus and met with an intelligence officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Abu Naji through a mediator called Abu Saud. I raised the issues that preoccupied Saddam Hussein and the leadership. There were four issues: First, the issue of the media; second, political support in international forums; [third], aid in the form of weapons, and [fourth], material aid, whether it is considered a debt or is taken from the frozen Iraqi funds in Syria."
'The Syrian Government is Fully Aware of this, and the Syrian Intelligence Cooperates Fully'
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "Through the Ba'th party - the Arab Socialist Ba'th Party operates in Syria with complete freedom. It maintains its relations and organizes the Ba'th members outside Iraq. The Syrian government is fully aware of this, and the Syrian intelligence cooperates fully, as well as the Ba'th Party, in Syria.
"As for the Ba'th Party, after we contacted them, they organized a meeting for me with a man named Fawzi Al-Rawi, who is a member of the national leadership and an important figure in Syria. The Syrian government authorized him to meet with me. We met twice. In the first meeting, I explained to him what the Army of Muhammad is, what kind of operations we carry out, and many other things. In the second meeting he told me that Syrian government officials were very pleased with our first meeting. He informed me that the Army of Muhammad would receive material aid in the form of goods, given to us for free or for a very low price, for us to sell in Iraq, in order to support the Army of Muhammad. This was done this way due to Syria's current circumstances, international pressure, and accusations of supporting the terrorism and resistance in Iraq."
Interrogator: "During your investigation we found a picture of a Syrian man. What is this picture?"
Muayed Al-Nasseri: "This is the picture of an Islamic preacher called Abu Al-Qaqa, whose [real] name is Mahmoud Al-Agassi. He lives in Aleppo, Syria. I have met with him twice. He supported me and gave me $3,000. He also sent a sum of money with me for someone in the resistance here in Iraq.
"Also, I forgot to mention that Fawzi Al-Rawi told me he had close connections with many factions of the resistance. He mentioned his Hareth Al-Dhari [leader of Iraqi Sunni Clerics Association], Mahdi Al-Sumayda'i, and other factions."
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2005 13:49
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#7
Lies, all lies. Sec Dep Armitage says the Syrians are being "helpful" but they could be "more helpful."
And the Iranians wouldn't do such things, now that the EU-3 is applying soft power on them.
Seriously, it is no longer a case of not knowing that Syria and Iran are killing our soldiers and innocent Iraqis. The real question is: What in the hell are we going to do about it? And when?
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 14:52
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#8
For Syria, try this page and 1) enter H.R.1828 in the Search field and select the 108th Congress. The Bill shows up as the #2 hit - check it out.
#12
Well, .com, since Syria is the weaker dependent enemy, there are arguments for and against doing them first.
Obviously it would take far fewer troops to knock out Syria. Some of them might even have 6-pointed stars on their tanks and airplanes. Right now, our troops are stretched thin trying to protect everything. The question is: if we send them over there, can they do the job quickly enough that we can start to reap the benefits of the lower threat level? Syria can't be another Iraq, because where would the terrorists be based? Turkey? Jordan? Israel???? Granted, there are all the terrorists that have made their homes there and we would have to make sure we captured or killed them.
OTOP, if we can neutralize Iran, then Syria withers on the vine. Iran would be far tougher. We could hope that there is a strong domestic opposition, but we hoped for that in Iraq, too. The mullahs don't have the complete Stalinist total control that Saddam and his henchmen did, so an opposition is at least possible there. Then again, Machiavelli warned a foreign power to never intervene in a civil war, since he likely reunites the opposing sides against him.
Over all, I'd prefer to take out Syria to free up our back. Then, turn around on Iran and use a blockade/bombing strategy. Try to kill some of the government leaders without carpet bombing cities or anything.
REPORTS of an increasingly hard-line US policy towards Iran are starting to worry British generals and diplomats, who fear the 9,650-strong UK garrison in southern Iraq would be targeted by Tehran in retaliation to any strike by the Bush administration. The allegations of US covert operations inside Iran have added to the worries in Whitehall that the stand-off with Tehran over its nuclear ambitions could be moving into a more dangerous phase. Last summer's capture of eight Royal Marines by Iranian Revolutionary Guards off southern Iraq has convinced many senior British officers and diplomats that any increase in tension with Iran would result in 'blow back' against British forces in Iraq. The marines were eventually released unharmed but it later emerged that Iranian gunboats entered Iraqi territorial waters to abduct the marines' patrol boats. Revolutionary Guard naval forces conducted the operation, apparently on the orders of hard-line Mullahs, causing tension within the Tehran government which had been trying to cultivate the Europeans as a counter-weight to the Americans. "We now think the Iranians were sending us a signal," said one British officer. "They were saying, if you get too close to the Americans we can make life very difficult for you and you will pay a price."
Foreign Office sources are particularly worried that the departure of Colin Powell from the Bush administration has left the neo-conservatives in control of US foreign policy in Washington. British intelligence sources are becoming worried that the Iranians will employ a strategy to strike back at US interests and its allies across the Middle East. Here, the role of the large Shia population in southern Iraq will be crucial and this could make life very uncomfortable for the British garrison in the Basra region. Until now the Shia of southern Iraq have generally been co-operative with British forces, but the fear is that Tehran could activate "sleeper" cells to launch an all- out guerrilla war. There were credible reports that last summer Tehran concentrated troops along the border with Iraq in response to US sabre-rattling over the nuclear issue, raising the possibility that Iran might try to seize Iraqi territory.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005
11:16:47 PM ||
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#1
Do I smell a change of wind direction on the British
Foreign Office ???
Dont the British understand that, left alone, the Iranians are going to strike sooner or later ?
#2
The British Foreign Office and the British Army are traditionally Arabophile, EoZ. The Foreign Office is also traditionally anti-American, in the common, stupidly elitist way. On the other hand, it seems to me the British forces are pretty nearly over-extended, between the Yugoslav countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, and their normal responsibilities. So maybe that sparked the comment.
#3
It's sad that fine troops are led by such a breed of losers and whiners. How far down the chain does the rot go? I'll leave that to the RB Cousins to say. I don't have any doubts about the men and women at the pointy end.
#6
Ok, would an anti-american body 1) have joined NATO, an american lead alliance 2) have allowed ICBMs and B52s, along with support staff / troops to be stationed on its soil 3) have supported the wars in afganistan and iraq (both of them) 4) allow you to use our radar installations 5) have lent you British Indian Ocean Territory in perpetuity for military purposes? As the foreign office is responsible for all decisions of this type it seems to have a fairly strong pro-american bias historically.
#7
Almost all of what you cite is from Days of Yore - co-security arrangements made when the Soviet wolf came knocking. Iraq and Afghanistan are more current - and yes, Tony Blair has been a marvel from the US POV regards Iraq, since on the domestic front he's a card-carrying looney.
I'd wager the Foreign Office does not decide such things as NATO participation (Afghanistan) nor invasion of hostile regimes (Iraq) - independently as you imply. Straw is, last I checked, serving Blair, is he not?
The anti-American bias is, indeed, present in Blair's party - is it not? His cabinet has been, how shall I put it? - a colorful lot?
The historic reference is the key. Indeed, American and the UK are and have been strong allies, militarily, historically. Politically, however, the UK situation is far more nuanced and complicated, and I have no doubt that the UK regulars are far better equipped to respond regards the myriad nuances that have led to support in Iraq while the "voice" of UK public is decidedly and stridently anti-American.
#8
whoa! Please note that the article is from our good friend, and blood relative of Bagdad Bob, Sources Say. Not a single real quote to be found.
The Brits may not want to continue with Iran, but only the elusive "british officer" is whining. So before we start a transatlantic rift, let's all agree that it's a given that the British fighters (as opposed to some politicos - and please note - we also have plenty of those whiners here in the US) are very brave, competent and played a crucial role in the fall of Sadaam.
#12
I believe SH's real complaint was the use of "traditionally"... and that is probably valid to a degree. The current schizophrenia, and the incessant Beeb, Al Guardian, et al anti-American mantra has worn some of the armor from our alliance. I have absolute confidence the the UK troopers, but good reason to doubt the current collection of their superiors, given the UK political situation.
#14
I didn't phrase my comment (#2) as well as I thought. Sorry. What I meant is that the people who work in the Foreign Office generally don't like Americans (and haven't historically, going back to when we were mere Colonials), in the oh-so-common elitist way. For that matter, many in the American foreign service (aka the State Department) feel much the same as their British counterparts. I didn't mean that the Britain has been less than staunch ally.
But anyway, I was trying to find an explanation for the comment that, as 2b pointed out, came from anonymous Sources in the Army and Foreign Service complaining about potential ugly possibilities. What I was really hoping for from our cousins is commentary on the next sentence, about overstretched forces. Any takers?
#15
British forces are extended to the limit at the moment, and getting involved in an attack on Iran would exceed that limit, IMO - hence the apparent apprehension. Blair and Brown hacking at the Army - in order to scrape a few more pounds together to throw to out EU neighbours, buy comfortable chairs for employees of the MoD and generally piss up the wall - doesn't help. The British Army increasingly relies on its volunteer segment, the Territorial Army (TA), to fill the gaps, but that's a finite resource approaching a point where membership and holding down a day job is untenable for a critical number.
In short, the current UK Government is shafting the Armed Forces.
#18
Regarding Iran, the EU are not on our side. Their primary goal is not to contain Iran but to restrain the militarist US hegemon. Given the choice between 1) defanging Iran with a US-Israeli strike + covert action and 2) a nuclear Iran, the EU Three would clearly prefer the latter.
The "negotiations" with Iran are a farce. Iran and the EU 3 are on ths same side here.
#19
Doesn't it also run counter to the chief EU members' current approach towards Iran?
Yep. Blair got his fingers burnt over Iraq but I don't doubt he'd side with the US again if he thought the situation was unmanagable through jaw-jaw. When or if that'll happen, I don't know. But the resources with which to play an active role are thin. Still, we've got the subs if required.
Their primary goal is not to contain Iran but to restrain the militarist US hegemon. ... The "negotiations" with Iran are a farce. Iran and the EU 3 are on ths same side here.
That's certainly a gross exaggeration on the British part. It might apply to the French and Germans. Blair and his Straw monkey may be being played for fools, and overreaching in their efforts to mend some fences post-Iraq, but their guiding motivation is not to restrain the militarist hegemon. That's a tad absurd.
#20
So why are Blair and Straw actively participating in and perpetuating the farce, Bulldog? Either they believe in what they're doing or they don't. If the former, they're being played for fools; if the latter, they're a too cunning by half. What do they hope to achieve?
#21
This news, coming on the heels of the UK's caving in to France and Germany in arms sales to China, does not bode well for the Brits.
Very mixed signals at best.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 13:10
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#22
Lex one supposes they dont think a war against Iran is in their interest. Doesnt automatically mean their motivation is to restrain US power. Nations may have different reasons for disagreeing with us - we dont have to listen when their positions are not in OUR interest, but if we assume that everyone who disagrees with us on an issue like Iran is playing a Chirac, we really will unnecessarily alienate allies.
#23
LH - Given how many countries have been playing like/with Chirac, then in cases where they disaggree with the US for other reasons, they should perhaps make the effort to get the US to believe them (that they aren't Chiraq's lapdogs).
It seems like the same carping from the sidelines all the time.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
01/18/2005 13:34
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#24
The wrecklessness of France, Germany, the UK and let's not forget Russia (towards Iran) might well lead to wrecklessness on the part of the US. At the least, the EU approach puts a lot of faith into diplomatic means working with Iran. On what do they base that belief? Has Iran always been trustworthy with regards to those governments?
#26
LotR - Odd, isn't it? Much like with the Blue Staters, the US (Red Staters) "must reach out to", "must understand", those that act in opposition. Has the same faint odor of "The US Asked For It" regards 9/11.
We should clearly state and follow US interests - and those who wish us to follow a different path can approach us and explain their reasoning. Where it is deemed a superior avenue, we should join them and collaborate. Where it is not, we should thank them for their time, decline, and proceed with securing US interests. I don't think this needs to be as complex and nuanced as the game currently demands. Just a blunt person's take.
Perhaps that is precisely what's happening here. The E3 plays the soft card, it is verified that the Mad Mullahs are / are not dealing in good faith. And at the back of the parade is the US with Bush having in his pocket HCON 398 Joint Resolution authorizing all means necessary to gain Iranian compliance with their Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations...
Then, again, maybe the E3's being the wankers identified in #18, #19, etc... Or it's just the usual game and we're expected to do what we usually do - when everything turns to shit trying to deal with asshats like the Mad Mullahs, we go it alone. Did I miss anything. lol?
#27
.com - Exactly. Right after the election I remember all these Europeans saying how they hoped Bush would "make an effort" to "mend fences" with Europe in his second term.
Silly me, sitting here thinking that they should be the ones making efforts.
As for this situation, I don't really think there's much chance that the Europeans are playing a soft card, I think it's exactly what it seems like: obstructing the US from taking action against Iran. 'Cuz for some reason France seems to want them to have nukes.
Maybe they figure if everybody has them, then the US will be scared off from doing anything, anywhere, and our military advantage won't matter any more. Of course, that presumes that the lunatics won't start setting them off like firecrackers.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
01/18/2005 16:08
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#28
I will probably get flamed for saying this, but here goes...I think it would be a big mistake for the US to make a pre-emptive strike on Iran at this point in time for several reasons. For one thing I think there's a good deal of internal struggle in Iran right now and Iranians are lining up against the mullahs, particularly the young university students and the older intellectual elders who remember the good Western things that were present there under the Shah's reign. Unlike Iraqis who were not as outward looking, the Iranians are and I think if we can stabilize Iraq and have a decent elected government take the reigns, the Iranians will are ripe to rise up and over throw the fundamentalist mullahs with a little help of discreet Western funding. However if the US does a premptive strike and actually becomes an invader we play right into the mullahs hands. There will be collateral damage and the Iranian people will change their focus from over throwing the mad mullahs to lining up behind them to protect their country from "American imperialism."
We know for sure that Pakistan and North Korea have nuclear weapons and yet we're working through diplomatic channels to curb the chance that these 2 rogue nations would ever use the weapons against us or Japan or India. What's the rush to nail Iran when we're not even sure it has nuclear capability and when the mullahs' own people might over throw them in the not too distant future?
#29
2x - No flames. The problem is that you're new here, as far as I know. This topic has been hashed and bashed numerous cycles.
There are 5 generally agreed possibilities:
1) We do nothing, ever, and the Mad Mullahs get the nuke, a guidance system, and slap it on their Shahab 3 improved (Shahb4, actually) rocket. Link 1 Link 2
As you can see, this sucks and has caused some to get very unhappy because they're worried Bush will do nothing.
2) We try to invade a country 3x the size of Iraq with almost no troops. Duh. Won't happen, agreed?
3) We Try to knock out the Iranian nuke facilities via air. TLAMS, Cruise missiles, Stealth, etc. Most say this is very risky cuz we don't know where everything is, some is buried too deep even for bunker-busters, and / or some is co-located with innocent civilian sites. Who knows? Can out intel be trusted?
4) Some sort of thingy with a blockade. Strikes me that this accomplishes nothing without one of the others, but hey, what do I know, eh?
5) My favorite, of course. Collaborate with the native Persians who are progressive, predominantly young, quite liberal for the ME, elders are still alive who probably have filled them with happier tales of pre-Mullah days, they have shown a distinct dislike and distrust of the Mullahs, the heavy-handed way Khomeini slapped down Khatami - who the normal people had elected and felt was their man, etc... If our CIA isn't utterly worthless, it ought to be a cinch to find the elements who would welcome assistance in toppling the Mullahs. Give them arms and do a full decapitation strike on the Mullahs, Rev Guard, the Doodah Council, the Basij and back it up with SF to protect important facilities. Also, hit all known nuke sites. If coordinated, the Persians should be able to take control of their country - and I hope if it goes this way, the Black Hats are wiped out.
#30
LH - Lex one supposes they dont think a war against Iran is in their interest. Doesnt automatically mean their motivation is to restrain US power.
OK, let's analyze the interests at stake here. Given the manifest determination of the Iranians to rip up agreements they sign, it's obvious that this approach means Iran goes nuclear. Then war with Israel becomes very likely. At the same time this approach will likely result in large contracts in Iran for EU multinationals such as Renault and Siemens.
In other words, the EU are willing to sacrifice Israel's security and risk its survival rather than risk a US strike that would hurt the EU's relations with the muslim world. No problem, no problem at all.
#31
So you and I agree, #28, about the most favorable option being #5 and that there would be a sequence of events over a number of years for the ultimate goal of mullah over throw to be accomplished.
Maybe I have misunderstood the article. When I read "to any strike by the Bush administration", I assumed a military strike was imminent. I don't think that option is appropriate now because the majority of Iranians are not on the same page about co-operating with the US to over throw the mullahs.
#32
2x - The key, of course, is time and timing. I have many personal sayings and one applies here: You can't wait for good timing, that's an oxymoron.
Either there's time to coordinate or there's not. If not, then #3 is all that's left to us.
The other possibility, of course, is Israel. They cannot afford to let this happen. Period. Full stop. Personally, since it would probably be a one-way trip without US refueling assistance, I would much prefer we do it. But, as insurance, we sold them 500 bunker busters. I don't think they're considering deepening the Suez with them.
I really have no doubt that #3 will happen, either alone or as part of #5. I hope we have the time to do it right - or we'll have to come back and do it again. I think Iraq is a good lesson in getting it right on the first pass.
#33
"...the EU are willing to sacrifice Israel's security and risk its survival rather than risk a US strike that would hurt the EU's relations with the muslim world..."
Lex-At times, one can only stand back and watch. Nicely done.
#34
com, I would like to see some creative options to muddy the waters further...
Maybe direct at TV frequencies broadcasts on all Iranian channels of western entertainment and News (not just US -- porno, first run movies, church services, buddhist messages everything...) so that on every channel they get the world and not the Mad Mullahs. Jam the Mullah's channels on Radio and TV when they appear or just overpower them from the sat. (give the sat a nice reactor to give it enough kilowatts...)
From The Independent
.... New evidence has emerged and pressure is mounting on authorities to reopen the case of Sirhan Sirhan, who was convicted of the assassination and who remains in the California state prison in Corcoran. Celebrities and journalists are joining the campaign for a federal investigation, which has been sparked in part by a new book, Nemesis, by the British author Peter Evans. Evans, who spent 10 years researching the book, has unearthed evidence to support Sirhan's contention that he was hypnotised into being the "fall guy" for the murder. Evans identifies the hypnotist, who had worked on CIA mind control programmes and who was later found dead in mysterious circumstances. ....
Both Evans and Sirhan's lawyer, Larry Teeter, .... believe that while Sirhan fired several shots, none of them hit Kennedy. The assassination, they say, was carried out by a professional hitman who fled immediately, leaving Sirhan to take the blame. It was only because Kennedy had dismissed his Los Angeles police bodyguards that Sirhan survived and was not gunned down on the spot as his controllers had intended, reports Evans. ....
The author Dominick Dunne, in his Vanity Fair column last month, described Nemesis as presenting "a startling revision of American history". ....
On 17 April 1969, after 64 sequestered days and nights, and 16 and a half hours of deliberation, the jury of seven men and five women found Sirhan "alone and not in concert with anyone else" guilty of murder in the first degree. He was sentenced to death in the gas chamber, but the sentence was reduced to life imprisonment when the United States Supreme Court declared the death penalty unconstitutional. ....
Evans goes further and names the hypnotist as a Dr William Joseph Bryan Jnr. He had worked on a CIA mind-control programme called MKULTRA and claimed to have moonlighted as a technical adviser on The Manchurian Candidate. The hypnosis, says Evans, had been done over three months, a period known as the "white fog" when the Los Angeles police task force later investigating the assassination - and trying to construct a meticulous timetable of Sirhan's activities up to the shooting - lost track of him. Sergeant Bill Jordan, the detective who was Sirhan's first interrogator, told Evans: "We took him back for more than a year with some intensity - where he'd been, what he'd been doing, who he'd been seeing. But there was this 10- or 12-week gap, like a blanket of white fog we could never penetrate, and which Sirhan himself appeared to have a complete amnesia about." Dr Bryan was found dead in a Las Vegas hotel room in 1978. He had either shot himself or was murdered. The case remains unsolved. ....
The recollections of a waiter at the Ambassador at the time add weight to the theories that Sirhan was not the assassin. Phil Elwell, who owns the popular King's Head pub and restaurant in Santa Monica, recalls that his friend and fellow waiter Carl Ucker was in the pantry that night and grabbed Sirhan's gun hand. "He was holding Sirhan Sirhan's wrist, and although Sirhan was firing the gun, Carl said that there was no way that any of the bullets could have hit Kennedy," said Elwell. "Carl told the police this and went on a lot of talk shows saying the same thing, but nobody seemed to take much notice." ....
In Nemesis, Evans gives a totally different motive. He has unearthed startling evidence that the assassination was carried out by a Palestinian terrorist named Mahmoud Hamshari. Evans quotes sources as saying that Hamshari was receiving protection money from Aristotle Onassis to prevent attacks on his Olympic Airlines. Onassis, says Evans, had hated Bobby Kennedy since 1953, when Kennedy was one of the prime movers in scuppering a major deal Onassis was pushing through in Saudi Arabia. In addition, Kennedy stood in the way of his marriage to Jackie. She had promised her brother-in-law not to wed Onassis until after the 1968 election because they both knew how the American public would have reacted. She married Onassis in October 1968.
Dr Bryan was chosen to hypnotise Sirhan because he had links to both Hamshari and Onassis. Hamshari had visited him seeking a cure for migraine headaches, while Onassis had called on the doctor in an attempt to cure his sexual dysfunction, says Evans. It was Onassis's money, says Evans, that financed both the hypnotism of Sirhan and the assassination. He says that Onassis confessed his complicity in the assassination to one of his lovers, Helen Gaillet De Neergaard, when she was his guest on his private island, Skorpios, in 1974. She confirms this in a letter to Vanity Fair, published in the February issue. "Thank God the truth has finally been told for posterity," she writes. .... I wrote a series of articles about this several months ago. I intended to write one more article to conclude the series, but I became impossibly busy with my translation work and never did finish it.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
01/18/2005
10:46:25 PM ||
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#1
he was hypnotised into being the "fall guy" for the murder
No need to read any further. This bullshit sounds like it came straight out of Conspiracy Central.â¢
Here's a fact: Middle Eastern moslems have been murdering people - particularly those who support Israel, as Kennedy did - FOR 40+ YEARS.
We need to start paying attention.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/18/2005 23:46
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EFL
The people who live in a Hialeah neighborhood say they are outraged by displays of hatred on a house there. The home has six swastikas splashed across a fence and another one etched into the door. But it is a message apparently directed at President George W. Bush that has caught the attention of the Secret Service. "Knock, knock!"
Yanis Leidy, who lives near the home that is located on the corner of East 52nd Street and 9th Court, is worried. "It concerns me," Leidy said. "It worries me that this person might do something else." Not after the Secret Service stops by for Cuban coffee and fried plantains.
The fence has other prominent signs Vote Kerry and warnings, but most disturbing may be a spray-painted message the U.S. Secret Service will investigate as a possible threat against the president. While displaying swastikas is not illegal just really ignorant, the message could be another matter. Maybe they can go to a costume party with Prince Harry.
Prominently painted on an awning are the words, "Die Bush." Nice people, heh!
Posted by: Dragon Fly ||
01/18/2005
10:41:57 AM ||
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#1
That's German for "The Bush"
Posted by: Sideshow Bob ||
01/18/2005 10:46
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#2
Interesting. Playing seer is a risky gig, but some of this rings true - even given the many wiggles that will likely occur en route. I believe China will have more grief than implied - hell, I hope we supply it. Interesting regards India and Brazil.
The Europeans have several hardcore moments of truth approaching, and speechifying, grandstanding anti-Americanism, and hair dye won't help. Nor will dragging all down to the lowest common denominator. Better re-invigorate capitalism, and do it fast, or sink under the weight of those PC policies.
#6
I'm in Germany and I'm surprised that they give them THAT long. Must be hedging their bets.
The unions here make the stateside unions like kindergarten kids. In Germany, you'll have to pry their benefits from their cold dead fingers. In all fairness, it seems like the German economy is what has kept the EU sputtering along this long.
#8
A CIA prediction has about as much validity as Henry Blodgett's investment picks.
The EU's science and technology base is excellent, and there has been so much transatlantic investment in both directions that, at least at the level of large corporate activity (eg ~50% of GDP), we and they are joined at the hip. And of course we will continue to cooperate closely on intel-sharing and cross-border judicial-police coordination.
The really interesting question is the EU's relationships with the failing state that is Russia and the only superpower rival on the horizon, China. To the extent EU energy sources, esp natural gas, derive increasingly from Russia and EU exports are devoted increasingly to China, it would seem that the EU has significantly less leverage over those nations than we do. Not much of a superpower if you can't exercise leverage over China and Russia...
#9
More room for Richard Rieds and company. Can't wait for these flying buses to get sent back to base due to loading known terrorists.
Even your screaming Euros.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 15:06
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#10
The $64 question is: "And then what happens?" Now, accepting the notion that the EU is functionally dead as a continental government, does NOT mean that it will go away. As evidenced by the Holy Roman Empire (962-1806), which after its founder, Charlamagne, died, became a paper exercise but remained so for almost a thousand years. Powerless, meaningless, yet surviving endless internal clashes, the invasions of the Ottomans and even the Protestant Reformation. And yet, modernism has swept away many of the regional and local differences in the continent, so it is doubtful Europe will return to its ultra-fragmentary 19th century state. Most likely, it will devolve into large, competing blocs with independant states playing the middle--suggestions of which we've already seen with the "Frankenreich" vs. the Britain-Italy-and-a-few-others-bloc. The divisions will be based on subtle but important differences, such as those nations under Roman Law vs those under Common Law, with tiny Brussels pretending to still be of consequence, though living on the handouts of whoever throws a few coppers their way to get a de jure ruling in their favor.
#12
My sentiments are shared. EU = one seriously dysfunctional family
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 17:24
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#13
The divisions will be based on subtle but important differences, such as those nations under Roman Law vs those under Common Law,
I don't think there's 1 person in 10 that even knows the differences between the two systems, let alone considers them significant.
No other division either is either significant enough or will interfere with EU's current map too much. Orthodox vs Western Christian would only remove Greece and Cyprus from the EU -- a rich-North vs continent, would only remove UK, Ireland and Denmark. A loss to be sure, but not crippling by far, and would probably increase the integration in the rest of the continent.
The only future division I'm concerned about, is a possible Eurasian vs Euro-atlanticist division, to divide Europe again between the poles of Kremlin and Washington. But it seems to me it'd need a significantly stronger Russia than now for it to become a huge issue, and Ukraine's Orange Revolution put a significant blow to that.
#15
The Airbus will be a nice large tempting terrorist target with half a k population on it. I hope that they made more robust vertical stabilizers and rudders on it than they did with their sister airbus ship off of NYC.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/18/2005 22:40
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#1
The media has ignored the slaughter of Christians since the early 70's. This is nothing new. What is new is that the blogosphere can report it outside the local area. Were it not for the blogosphere, you wouldn't be aware of this murder.
#3
Seems you have the same problem as we do in the UK... undeniably some of the UK media sideline stories that show religious/ethnic minorities in a bad light and instead allow us to feed on the cult of personality ... The Beckhams, the Royals etc... in order to shield us from the painful reality. I live in the same area of London where the infamous but much trumpeted Stephen Lawrence murder occurred - a similar murder occurred recently with a reverse racial profile: 4 Afro-Caribbean men attacked a lone white male. Was it reported - even tho it occurred in a busy supermarket car park at 4 in the afternoon? - Not a chance!! Seems to be a similar conspiracy here.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
01/18/2005 10:47
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#4
All this tip-toeing by the MSM concerning Christian killing has been pissing me off for a long time. I am surprised to see that even Fox News is walking on rice paper on this one.
Not too long ago, there was a bombing in Soddy that killed quite a bit of Lebanese people. What the MSM wack job failed to report, is that these Lebanese were Christians.
#5
the MSM understands that there is no such thing as negative publicity. Thus for years, they have completely ignored religion - all faiths.
TV shows - all are almost completely void of any references to going to church, synagogue, prayer, or belief in God, despite the fact that there are churches and synagogues on every corner in America - and people fill them.
Radio - despite 500 years worth of the best songs being passed down in churches and synagogues - you will almost NEVER ever hear any of that music on the radio. Think- other than the occassional "amazing grace" sung by a really BIG star that can do whatever they want - when was the last time you heard any of the beautiful and popular religious songs on the radio. It's not because people don't like it - it's been purposely ignored.
NEWS STORIES - never a peep about ANYTHING religious. Christian and Jewish people murdered/massacred in sectarian violence are always ignored by the MSM.
And they ignore it for good reason..if you ignore it, it doesn't exist. And when it can't be ignored the focus will be on something else - American Hegemony or Zionist occupation. No publicity - none because the MSM understands that there is no such thing as negative publicity.
MSM/radio/Hollywood ignores religion to the degree that it simply cannot be an oversight.
What I find to be most interesting right now is the endless discussions by the left sniping about "Jesus Land" or "morality". This has to be because the lefty bloggers didn't get the memo that by simply acknowledging Jesus land - you promote it.
#6
I'm not convinced it's hostility to christians that's motivating editors' relative silence here.
Given the incompetence and tendency toward sensationsalism of the MSM, it's a good thing that they're holding back on reporting this. Would you want these jokers to mangle the story and get it wrong? How would that help public awareness of what exactly we're up against?
Patience. Let the FBI investigation go forward and let the facts come out in due course.
#10
I think you're missing the point here. MSM journalists' incompetence rises in direct proportion to their ignorance of the particular social group or social activity under examination. It's bad enough when MSM morons try to figure out what's happening within the evangelical community, but in this case we're talking about a feud within an arab community that is even more of a black box to MSM editors and journos than evangelicals are. These people have no sources or insight into that community.
The chances that they would screw up the story at this stage are close to 100%. I'm not bothered at all that these clowns are not mangling the story.
#11
I agree and disagree lex. Ignorance alone doesn't explain the fact that true slavery and Christian massacres have been 100% ignored. It also doesn't explain why the music industry ignores beautiful and popular religious music.
Pat Boone's neice gave up a lucrative career in music because she refused to sign a contract that prohibited her from singing Christian music.
It's not just Christians that are ignored - it's GOD in general. They give Muslim deaths the airplay only in the context of white/Judeo/Christian oppressors.
#12
prohibited from singing Christian songs , huh? Anybody tell Elvis? Johnny Cash?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2005 12:20
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#13
Here's another reason to welcome the MSM's silence on this: here's a chance for the blogosphere and talk radio to research this and develop and put forward sources and insights in the MSM's stead. A test case of sorts for the blogosphere.
One last point - I used to tune into the 700 Clubs (and yes...I think whatever his name is ..pat roberts? is a flaming moron) but their World Report had these absolutely fantastic stories about slavery, christian genocide, et al that were just world class. I remember one in particular about Jewish Doctors who performed surgery on Palestinian children - for free. It was one of the most dramatic and touching doc's I've ever seen...the footage and stories was top notch.
So, it's not like the stories weren't out there to be told. They were just ignored.
#16
I like your point in #13 lex, I think (hope) we're already seeing it.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
01/18/2005 12:33
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#17
2b - plus they're dead, lol. By and large, the christian "rock" I've heard is pretty sad stuff. None of the heart and intensity that gospel music had.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2005 12:40
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#18
I'm not talking about "Christian Rock", I gotta agree with you on that one. I'm talking about the good stuff . The songs that have made people sing along for more than half a millennium.
#19
Don't you ever wonder why you never heard the Supremes or any of the soul groups sing favorite gospel songs on popular radio? They would have been instant hits!
#20
The media has ignored the slaughter of Christians since the early 70's
I agree with 2b. MSM purposely ignores bad things happening to Christians, and play up bad things done by Christians. This is a very different from the way news stories are handled regarding visible minorities and other religious groups including Muslims and Jews. With regards to the latter, the MSM will make criticisms directed at Sharon's and Israel's policies, but the Jewish religion is not blackballed as per what is done with Christianity.
If there was a chance that this Egyptian family had been slaughtered by a straight white male Christian, it would have been front page news, regardless of how far along the FBI's investigation had come.
#21
Flipping around the dial I heard an Eddie Vetter-like voice growling and moaning, with grungy guitar riffs accompanying, about how he "searched for yewwwwwwwww, i missssssed you, i was there fer yewwwwww but yew weren't therrrrrrrre..."
It was the local Christian grunge station. Very entrepreneurial.
Lex...Frank G..you telling me that you a rousing rendition of Hava Nagila wouldn't make sing along in the shower? I'm not just talking about Christian music here.
#23
oops..sorry about the grammer...my point is that religious music - popular religious music is conspicuoulsy missing from the airwaves in a way that does Stalin proud....unless it is sung by a very big star. Why is that? It's not because it wouldn't make the charts.
#24
Hmmm, I don't think there's a concerted effort, as you seem to say, just a down cycle in the music theme? P.O.D. does hard rock with Christian themes, and they're good, and they get airtime, but as you say, they're the exception, rather than the rule.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2005 13:03
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#25
Sometimes, the lyrics matter more to you; sometimes, the music. Depends on your mood and what stage of life you're at, I think. I would listen to Christian musicians, even if I didn't walk step in step with their beliefs (as expressed through the lyrics), as long as the music was remarkable.
#26
I gotta go..but I would say that it is, at the very least, interesting that all references God are wiped clean from the TV, news and radio. Which gets back to the story posted here....they just won't cover it unless it has a negative angle.
Endless coverages for molesting priests but NEVER a word about feeding the hungry, housing the homeless or caring for the elderly. Don't you ever wonder why?
#27
2b - I think that the entertainment industry realizes that its "target audience" would most likely just sneer at the sound of true gospel music being played because it is what they have been trained to do. With a generation today that spends more time in front of a television screen than with their families the entertainment business has a total monopoly on the collective minds of the youth of this nation. They will listen to what they are told to listen to and they will buy what they are told to buy.
#29
entertainment business has a total monopoly on the collective minds of the youth of this nation
Yes. Agree. And GOD has been wiped clean from that, despite the fact that 90% believe.
But you don't have to believe in God to think it odd that they won't cover stories about Slavery in Africa, Christian genocide or play really good Gospel on the air. I'll sing along to foreign music that I can't even understand... so it's not the words that are at issue here.
I think I've pounded my thought to the ground and I really do have to go. But if you think about it - it really is very odd.
#32
Little bit of math for you that will explain why the big money players at the top of the entertainment industry are so clueless.
In the entertainment business, Time is Money.
Also in the entertainment business its well known that Knowledge is power.
So I'll look at this as an engineer...
As an Engineer, I know Power = Work / Time.
So given the conditions of the entertainmen industry I can substitute Knowledge for Power and Money for Time, giving the following equation:
Knowledge = Work / Money.
Solving that for Money we have:
Money = Work / Knowledge.
So the more knowledge you have the more work you need to do to get money in the entertainment industry.
But also - notice that no matter how much work you do, the less you know the more money you will have.
So that explains it!
In Hollywood, it doesnt matter how much you work, the less you know the more you make!
Those who make the most know the least - this is readily observable in the general population in the entertainment business, especially with Michael Moore and other leading leftie looines as prime examples.
This yields the conclusion:
To be on the top of the money list in entertainment, you dont need to know anything at all!
Lex, I would completely agree with you, if I actually believed that the MSM was being cautious on this story due to their desire to get the facts before reporting it. However, they do not show such respect for the truth and deliberation in other situations when the facts are not completely known.
#36
mjh...os...I used to agree with you both, but now I'm not so sure it's ignorance.
Think of it this way. Imagine if the news/TV/Radio almost NEVER made reference to African Americans. All actors white, news only about white people, no black sports players, no black musicians. Ahh...but they were willing to report only news/events that portrayed AA in a bad light.
That is an excellent analogy to the point I'm trying to make re: the total white-wash re: refrences about religion or God. This isn't about belief or no belief ...it's about an oddity where an aspect of our culture is completely absent from all aspects of the MSM.
Why is a perfect example? Because a similar "white-wash" existed back in the 50's for AA's. They just simply weren't there, except for an occasional bug-eyed yasssir. It wasn't like it was an actual conspiracy..but it was reflective of an intent to oppress.
The other article today - about only bad news from Iraq just makes me wonder - how long are we going to blame this "oddity" on naive ignorance??
#37
Off topic on the original story but somewhat on topic RE: the christian music thread. I listen a lot to www.live365.com stations, especially the Southern Gospel stations, i.e. All Quartets Stereo and Gospel Twang Radio.
I agree with Lex's #13 post, let the Blogs take the lead on this story. It will only prove one more time how irrelevent the MSM has become.
#38
Tipper: I doubt the killings were done by a former tenant...why kill the children?? (possible witness) Nothing was taken from the home? Why are so many invoking the 5th? Yes, the 1st amendment should prevail. As a society know one should have to live in such fear for the freedom of speech. The 7th - Freedom of Religion. Lets hope the authorities catch the right criminal.
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/18/2005 20:53
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#39
Little bit of math for you that will explain why the big money players at the top of the entertainment industry are so clueless.
In the entertainment business, Time is Money.
Also in the entertainment business its well known that Knowledge is power.
So I'll look at this as an engineer...
As an Engineer, I know Power = Work / Time.
So given the conditions of the entertainmen industry I can substitute Knowledge for Power and Money for Time, giving the following equation:
Knowledge = Work / Money.
Solving that for Money we have:
Money = Work / Knowledge.
So the more knowledge you have the more work you need to do to get money in the entertainment industry.
But also - notice that no matter how much work you do, the less you know the more money you will have.
So that explains it!
In Hollywood, it doesnt matter how much you work, the less you know the more you make!
Those who make the most know the least - this is readily observable in the general population in the entertainment business, especially with Michael Moore and other leading leftie looines as prime examples.
This yields the conclusion:
To be on the top of the money list in entertainment, you dont need to know anything at all!
#41
Little bit of math for you that will explain why the big money players at the top of the entertainment industry are so clueless.
In the entertainment business, Time is Money.
Also in the entertainment business its well known that Knowledge is power.
So I'll look at this as an engineer...
As an Engineer, I know Power = Work / Time.
So given the conditions of the entertainmen industry I can substitute Knowledge for Power and Money for Time, giving the following equation:
Knowledge = Work / Money.
Solving that for Money we have:
Money = Work / Knowledge.
So the more knowledge you have the more work you need to do to get money in the entertainment industry.
But also - notice that no matter how much work you do, the less you know the more money you will have.
So that explains it!
In Hollywood, it doesnt matter how much you work, the less you know the more you make!
Those who make the most know the least - this is readily observable in the general population in the entertainment business, especially with Michael Moore and other leading leftie looines as prime examples.
This yields the conclusion:
To be on the top of the money list in entertainment, you dont need to know anything at all!
The police are talking about robbery and religious hatred as motives. But ABC News has learned the FBI sees a possible link to a terror trial now underway in New York.
The bodies of Hossam Armanious and his wife and two young daughters will leave from Journal Square for the church at around 10:00 this morning. The coffins will arrive at the church just around 10:30 for the funeral service.
Thousands are expected to attend. And many of those are very fearful because there are no arrests in this case.
There are still several theories on the table as to why all this happened. There is doubt and uncertainty in this close-knit community.
ABC News has learned that the slain family's cousin has been a translator working for the prosecution in the trial of Lynne Stewart. She is the radical lawyer accused of smuggling messages from imprisoned Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, to terrorist cell members and associates.
The FBI is also looking at other aspects of the murder, including possible robbery.
Investigators also say that the slain father was active online. He recently argued in a chat room with a Muslim, who felt he had insulted Islam. That man reportedly threatened to kill him if he didn't take back his comments.
Emile Garas, victim's uncle: "That is all speculation. Nobody can say anything until the authorities do the final investigation."
The murdered family belonged to the Coptic Orthodox church. They fled Egypt a decade ago to escape religious persecution.
They were mourned Sunday by relatives and fellow churchgoers.
The Coptic community is offering at least $100,000 to anyone with information about the crime.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/18/2005
10:18:18 AM ||
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#1
Jersey City cops are saying in the news the apparent motive was robbery.
I call Bullsh*t.
Since when is robbery part of sharia?
Brussels intends to do away with the cruet - that set of salt and pepper and in southern Europe, olive oil and vinegar - on restaurant tables. This act of cultural and culinary terrorism shows the very worst side of Brussels' regulatory mania and is an insult to those devoted to Mediterranean cuisine.
"No cruets for you!"
The decision has all the hallmarks of a grey Eurocrat, sitting bored out his mind in a Brussels restaurant, tucking into a meal of mussels and chips, washed down with pink beer, perhaps called delirium tremens, made by Trappist monks somewhere in darkest Belgium. Regulate, regulate, regulate. The Eurocratic ideal runs something like this: the size of the Euro-apple must be five point three one centimeters around the girth. The delicious Portuguese bravo d'esmofe measures five point one three centimeters about the girth: destroy it! Burn it at the stake! Stamp it into the ground! Thus the Europeans will never know what it is like to eat the bravo d'esmofe, which is like standing enraptured in paradise while your taste-buds explode around you in ecstasy, a type of culinary orgasm but without the sex.
Ummm... Okay. I'll have to try that sometime. I won't need a rubber, will I?
Likewise, Mediterranean cuisine. Come to Portugal in the summer and ask for a delicious portion of charcoal-roasted sardines, which are traditionally served with bread - good, Portuguese bread, not the plastic stuff from packets - boiled potatoes and a green pepper salad. Any decent self-respecting Portuguese reaches for the cruet set and pours a good helping of luxuriously smooth olive oil on his potatoes and green peppers, then mops up the remainder with healthy chunks of his bread. Now the E.U. decides that the cruet set is anti-hygienic. Why? After it has been in use for so many centuries as part of each and every lunch and dinner table around the Mediterranean, the population seems to have survived this dangerous piece of equipment.
I think Charlotte Corday beaned Murat with a cruet before doing him in in his bath, but that was probably a fluke...
Could it maybe explode? Could someone spit in the olive oil and stand giggling in the corner when the next customer pours it all over his bacalhau a lagareiro (codfish cooked in an oven and served with potatoes in their skins, punched to break them open and then soaked in olive oil)? Or is Brussels worried about the quality of the olive oil? People have been managing quite well until now. No, we do not want those plastic McDonald's-style sachets thank you, the ones you can never open and when you do manage to finally rip the top off, you get a free shower of some God-awful concoction which tastes of plastic. And stinks. Olive and oil and plastic are like fish and sugar. Or is this not about regulation, for regulation's sake? After all, with all the pressing issues around the world and especially now, the European Union Eurocrats are obsessed with a cruet set? Are they so worried that we will consume too much olive oil? Are they that worried about the quality, these Eurocrats who allow people to buy packets of cigarettes complete with dire messages, warning them that they will get cancer? So, if the olive oil in the cruet is that dangerous, how about banning cigarettes altogether?
It'll come. Just wait...
Give me my cruet any day and allow me to pour a nice, healthy helping of olive oil and vinegar on my salad, on my peppers, on my tomatoes, in my soup, on my plate to soak up with my bread, on my olives, on my fish, on my potatoes, let me enjoy my Mediterranean diet. It is not for no reason that the Mediterrean diet is regarded as one of the healthiest and the fundamental ingredients are the staple members of the cruet set: olive oil and vinegar. If they do not produce or use these products in Brussels, let them eat mussels, without the cruet.
What do they eat in Brussels, besides Brussels sprouts and chocolates? I've been there, but it was a long time ago, and somehow I didn't bring away any fond gastronomic memories with me...
Waffles, Fred. Golden brown waffles dripping with maple syrup, creamy butter, and a sense of smug superiority.
But let Brussels not come and dictate to me how I eat my food, in the region I have chosen to live, and interfering at the same time in the cultural values I have chosen to defend. The cruet on the table is a part of Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Greek culture, it is a fundamental part of Mediterranean culture in Mediterranean cuisine. Defend the cruet, I will. And I exhort our Mediterranean readers to Defend the Cruet. Set up a Cruet Defence Movement and refuse to eat in restaurants which do not have cruets on tables, or else refuse to allow people to bring their own cruet into the restaurant.
"Aux barricades! And bring sardines!"
I for one will begin taking my portable cruet set into restaurants with me. Not because I am against the European Union, but because I stand up for the preservation of cultural heritage and the cruet set is the tip of the iceberg. What we are witnessing is an Americanization/banalization/plastification of cultural/culinary habits in Europe. Ban the cruet, replace it with the plastic sachet. Start putting ketchup on your dolma, try mayonnaise with your moussaka, smother your sardines with a new green-style sauce containing Christ alone knows what and hey! why not exchange your charcoal roasted fish for a greenburger with plastic mash? Or how about a Double MackSalad with Healthfries, Freedom Chips and Democracy Sundae? Complete with three plastic sachets of sauces and a shitty plastic toy which might disintegrate in your three-year-old's mouth. Choking him to death but thank God he didn't use the cruet. No, I'll take my chances with the cruet set, please, as people have been doing in this part of the world for hundreds of years. Cultural terrorism by Eurocrats, no thanks.
Getting ready for a condiment jihad...now accepting applications for the Balsamic Martyrs' Brigades...
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
10:16:20 PM ||
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#1
"What we are witnessing is an Americanization/banalization/plastification of cultural/culinary habits in Europe."
What the heck does the U.S. have to do with out-of-control Belgian food Nazis? Must be the obligatory anti-American reference. Apparently no story (on any topic whatsoever) is complete without one
#3
Just wait...when they start regulating dicks. EU average is 5.9" (15 cm) in 'ready' state. The excess would be chopped off, while the substandard wieners would be adjusted by a stretcher therapy.
#4
I guess the next BelgianCrat wiseacring will go like this :
"According to Article 37.117 of the European culinary code of regulations, all French restaurants would be limited to serving kidney pie and green peas as the mandatory entree."
Just give them another 5 years and the entire continent will be eating dreck.....
#6
JFM,
Its going to be even worse because as the Iron Curtain slowly descends over Europe, the New Khalifa and the Sharia will raise their ugly heads from within...
#7
What do they eat in Brussels? Everything. In very large amounts. And its all delicious; they've murdered many meat inspectors to ensure that.
Mussels, chocolates, french fries with mayonnaise, meltingly tender illegally hormone-fed veal, mtih-f beef, mtih-f pork, crepes with chocolate sauce, sugar-crusted Belgian waffles with berry sauce, plain Belgian waffles with chocolate sauce, French wine, Trappist beer, stew cooked with beer, stew cooked with wine, sliced baguette to dip in the sauces, chocolate-hazelnut butter on bread for breakfast, and the children eat their afternoon bread-and-butter with chocolate sprinkles on it (British translation "hundreds and thousands", for the Aussies "fairy bread" but with only chocolate)...
Given their eating habits, I have never understood the Brussels obsession with regulating the foodstuffs of others, since it all ends up in sleekly prosperous Brussels bellies in the end.
#8
TW, that's more like my memory of Belgium, yum. And don't forget the pies, cakes, and pastries. Just because BS is coming out of Brussels doesn't mean that Belgians are doing it.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/18/2005 11:06
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All fun aside, do not confuse "Brussels bureaucrat" with a Belgian or Euro regs with Belgian cuisine. Most of the real heavy hitter bureaucrats I have worked with and know in Brussels are either Irish, Italian or Luxembourg. And in defense of Belgian cuisine (which should need none among true gourmands)it is the finest in Europe - where the hell do you think the French learned to cook? Plus what country would you rather govern - one with 150 cheeses or one with 600 different types of beer?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
01/18/2005 11:28
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#16
Plus what country would you rather govern - one with 150 cheeses or one with 600 different types of beer?
Come to Britain and you can have the beerand the cheese!
Posted by: Homer ||
01/18/2005 11:37
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#20
You know you've hit rock bottom when PRAVDA is making fun of you.
I thought you've hit rock bottom when you start to BELIEVE what Pravda is saying.
"Brussels intends" is for me the first warning sign (beyond the name Pravda, ofcourse) -- who is this Brussels? Is it the European Commission, the Council? Or it just indeed the advice of a minor bureucrat who has no power or authority, a foolish law that will never pass? A reporter uses the vague "Brussels" only when he doesn't care to clarify but to obfuscate instead.
I've checked a couple other articles that this guy "Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey" wrote: http://english.pravda.ru/author/_78.htmld
Check them out yourselves (there's a list at the end of the above page). An apologist for Putin's own barbarism in Chechnya, he nonetheless calls Darfur simply as "no less barbaric" than *Abu Ghraib*: the only entity he hates and mocks more than the European Union seem to be the United States and Israel.
An example: When he defended Prince Harry, he referred to "Sharon's units in the Lebanon as they were committing their massacres of civilians"
And you are free to read for yourselves what he's saying on Iraq, the reelection of Bush and so forth.
If you "hit rock bottom when Pravda starts mocking you", I'm afraid that the USA hit rock bottom long before the EU did.
---
Either way, even in the slim possibility this "cruet set" thingy is real, I'm guessing such a law will be cheerfully ignored, and certainly nothing will ever be done to enforce it. In Greece atleast we cheerfully ignored the law against kokoretsi.
#21
even in the slim possibility this "cruet set" thingy is real, I'm guessing such a law will be cheerfully ignored, and certainly nothing will ever be done to enforce it. In Greece atleast we cheerfully ignored the law against kokoretsi.
I think it's time you guys asked yourselves whether you actually want to be involved in the European project, or not. You seem to want to have your cake and eat it. If Greece, and yourself as an individual, are so contemptuous of consensually drawn European laws you should consider leaving the union.
OT, but, Aris, what's your opinion of Prince Harry's decision to wear a German uniform with Nazi insignia to a party? Do you object to people wearing such clothing? Do you support the efforts of some German politicians to ban the swastika symbol across Europe?
#22
I'm guessing such a law will be cheerfully ignored, and certainly nothing will ever be done to enforce it. In Greece atleast we cheerfully
ignored the law against kokoretsi.--
Aris, you don't get it. They would hire more people to ferret out the law-breakers. It's for your health, you know.
After all, Britain has people testing waves to see if you have a TV and haven't paid your tax.
#23
They would hire more people to ferret out the law-breakers.
Don't bank on it. Flouting European laws is a normal way of life for many Europeans - not just the Greeks. Seems offensive to us uptight by-the-letter Anglos, but, especially in the Mediterranean countries where corruption is a sport, dodging inconvenient laws is a shrug-of-the-shoulders no-brainer.
#24
And more than that, it's seen a sign of cleverness. Cheating is a sport there, not a sign of a lack of ethics or a compromised intellect, as is the case here.
#27
And you want to join forces with that 3rd world mentality ...because...???
Do you mean me? Perhaps I should have inserted the sarcasm on/off at the appropriate positions in comment #21. I would far rather Britain pulled out of the EU.
#29
"I think it's time you guys asked yourselves whether you actually want to be involved in the European project, or not. You seem to want to have your cake and eat it."
Always the best option, whenever possible. :-)
"If Greece, and yourself as an individual, are so contemptuous of consensually drawn European laws you should consider leaving the union."
*g* I'm contemptuous of all laws, whether European or national, that interfere with the liberal rights of individual people. It has nothing to do with the Europeanness or not of the law -- a Greek law that would try to do the same should be ignored just as cheerfully. Such an attitude is good to have to have for *any* central authority that interferes with individual rights.
I'm free to eat kokoretsi or not. Greece-the-state obeys the law that bans kokoretsi, but Greek people cheerfully ignore it. Neither Greece-the-state, and certainly not the EU are arrogant enough to think they can enforce it. Everyone wins.
If anything, the fact that it's a European law is better, as it makes it even less likely to be enforced. The smaller the state's power to restrict the people's non-harmful actions, the better. When a religiously conservative Greek minister tried to have bars close very early in the nights, the Greek people ignored him with contempt also. Except in that case the *nation's* power to enforce the law was greater, which made the violation of our rights real on a practical level, rather than the just theoretical level which the kokoretsi-thingy is.
This isn't exactly the equivalent of the UK Conservatives claiming they'll be nationalizing the Common Fisheries Policy, thus violating the rights under treaty of the citizens of other member-states. Unlike the violation of the CFP, which is fundamental to the EU's framework, nobody else is hurt by allowing people to eat kokoretsi as they want.
This is the difference between a libertarian-attitude ignoring of EU law, and a nationalistic-attitude ignoring of EU law. The former simply rebels against restrictions, the latter just wants the restriction to be placed on a national rather than an EU level. The latter is contemptible, the former is good to have.
"OT, but, Aris, what's your opinion of Prince Harry's decision to wear a German uniform with Nazi insignia to a party? Do you object to people wearing such clothing?"
I think they should have the *right* to wear it. I also think it was very irresponsible and stupid for him to do so.
I also think that UK should abolish its monarchy, which would make us indifferent to what the third-in-line from the throne chooses or not to wear.
Do you support the efforts of some German politicians to ban the swastika symbol across Europe?
#32
Greeks prefer to live as law-breakers rather than to protest an absurd law? We Brits aren't inured to flaunting the law, and consequently get enraged at having to deal with the stupidity and miles of red tape emanating from Brussels. I can see why you are so much more fond of the EU than we are.
What about Greek farmers who fraudulently claim EU subsidies they're not entitled to? That's another petty victimless crime? After all, it's not Greek money they're stealing, and it seems like a fairly libertarian-attitude ignoring of EU law. Everyone wins, huh? How would you feel about a food producer who flaunted regulations regarding proper storage of fresh meat? Do you cheerily laugh off bouts of gastroenteritis from dodgy kebabs?
I'm glad to see that we agree re. Harry and the German 'Liberals' [sic]. As regards the Royal family though - they're a nice little earner, thanks. We'll probably keep them for a while longer.
#33
Greeks prefer to live as law-breakers rather than to protest an absurd law?
Our way of protesting at the absurdity of the law is breaking it. The process of breaking it shows there's no victim caused, thus proving the absurdity of the law.
Other than that, I'm not interested in your irrational accusations, Bulldog. Stealing money is hardly a victimless crime, neither is causing food poisoning though improper storage of meat.
#36
Jules> No. If the law wasn't absurd, there'd be victims caused by the lawbreaking, there'd be *someone* to protest it with a personal stake in it, someone who was hurt through our violations.
Not circular at all. It all depends on the existence of victims.
Other than that I confess that I've not protested enough: I've only eaten kokoretsi a handful of times. To my defense, I really dislike its taste. :-)
#40
Quick question: Isn't it better on principle to have laws that comport with reality, and to have said laws represent the will of the people, at least on some level? Laws shouldn't be ignored; they should be respected. To have laws that are ignored or looked down upon as stupid formailities that are ignored is unhealthy for the body politic. It denegrates the other, "good laws" that the society demands. cf. the broken window theory of policing (success), and on the other hand, the war on drugs (failure). Moreover, government will always demand more laws; more ways to control the behavior of it's subjects. When the "legislature" lacks systems for accountability or perverts those systems, you can bet that they will overreach.
Posted by: Mark E. ||
01/18/2005 13:27
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#41
It denegrates the other, "good laws" that the society demands.
Yep. Let's test out this theory of "victimless crimes". Would someone name a few victimless crimes?
#42
Ok, Jules.....jaywalking, and for the most part, possession of marijuana. Could even throw in prostitution sometimes (neither party a minor, both consenting adults....then, definitely a victimless crime.)
#43
It denegrates the other, "good laws" that the society demands.
Agreed, unfortuanately, but blind obedience to the law is even worse.
Disrespecting authority has on the whole never been as harmful as unthinkingly bending to it.
Would someone name a few victimless crimes?
Public nudity. (though in some limited cases -- like in crowded places -- that becomes a public health concern)
The anti-sodomy law of Texas which existed until recently. Do you think all gay people in Texas would have done well to respect this law, and thus legitimize the intrusion of the state in their sex lives?
Posted by: Tom ||
01/18/2005 13:54
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#45
Aris, you obviously haven't seen some of the naked people I have, or you wouldn't say it's a "victimless" crime! :)
Most of the people you wouldn't mind seeing naked rarely are....
#47
Jules, I wasn't arguing for using marijuana, just the possession of it. Personally, I don't think marijuana's that bad. But just having it in your backpack or in your house.....where's the crime there?
Even if one party in the act of prostitution is married, really, how's that different from adultery (except someone's getting paid?) Adultery has been decriminalized in a lot of jurisdictions, and even where it's still on the books, I've never heard of it being enforced. I'm not arguing the morality of it....even if both parties are unmarried, it's personally repulsive to me. But they aren't technically hurting anyone unless they are passing a disease on to another partner.
#48
Weirdly enough I would *not* put jaywalking in the list of crimes that's always victimless. In occasion it can be irresponsible -- and dangerous for the drivers as well.
I was justifiably shouted at when I once stupidly jaywalked (jay-ran :-), in such a potentially-dangerous situation.
#49
In comparing alcohol and marijuana and what effects each has on people and safety, I would put alcohol on the side of greater overall harm.
In terms of prostitution, I agree that adultery is not much different than prostitution, other than the fact that prostitution is paid for (we could always collect taxes-just kidding) but I couldn't disagree more about it not hurting anyone else. It seems like it often does-even if not immediately. IMO, it destroys trust (marital or otherwise) and falsely disassociates the hormonal, biological, social and psychological aspects/consequences of sex. It also tends draw other law-breaking parts of society to its environs.
#50
falsely disassociates the hormonal, biological, social and psychological aspects/consequences of sex. It also tends draw other law-breaking parts of society to its environs.
Sounds like Hollywood to me! ;)
But seriously....if you have Trixie the independent businesswoman providing a service to Buford, ok....but does it really matter if she's doing his electrical work or providing a service of a more, um, personal nature? That's why I say, yeah, it's a victimless crime in some circumstances, not all.
If Buford and Trixie aren't married, aren't passing on a disease, and both are legally of age, why is it that if she charges for it she's a criminal, but if, after a few drinks she does the same damn thing she's not?
#51
You make a good point, and I don't disagree with you that they are both consenting and no kids/spouses are involved-I should not butt in. :)
OTOH, I feel kinda sorry for Trixie. She doesn't know her body or herself very well. For those interested in the other explanation, do a little research on oxytocin. That'd be a good start.
The problem with just blithely ignoring those stupid little laws (which we all have to some extent) is that they are threat in the back pocket of any would be dictator. Depending on the severity of the consequences, which itself is a changeable thing, they can be enforced at will to either add revenue to the govt or harrass those who disagree. A proper society is one in which the law is obeyed because it is correct to do so. That posits that the laws are agreed upon by the people and are worthy of being obeyed.
Having a raft of laws that really don't make sense leads to all sorts of bad things. If you are constantly flouting laws, where do you draw the line? In the same place as everyone else, or do you have hundreds of different lines to choose from?
#54
I could be wrong, but what I got out of this article was that all these silly laws (should they ever come into being), are just bad for business. Well, except maybe the producers of little plastic sachets. Which gets me thinking... who is the real sponsor of such laws in Europe, hmm?
Posted by: Rafael ||
01/18/2005 15:55
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#55
#31 - at least he's capable of ignoring - something you have yet to master.
#56
Eoz> Not having ever cooked it, I don't know if this recipe is typical but here you go: http://greece.hispeed.com/kokoretsi.htm
2b> You're only saying that because when I choose to ignore something, I *actually* ignore it, rather than going "I'm ignoring you" all the time. You wouldn't want me posting "ignore" messages every time Mrs D is speaking about "he who must not be named".
#57
face it, Frank got the upper hand by ignoring you first and even got the satisfaction of driving the point home with one word instead of the 15000 you post to the same effect.
Maybe when you reach the age of 16 you will understand.
#62
Aris, Aris, Aris....I could not have provided you with a better set up....and then even encourged you with the reward...sigh... the opportunity lost was yours.
#64
This isn't Monkey Island, 2b, with mockeries and retorts. This isn't kindergarten, with gangs of petty bullies using taunts and countertaunts, because if they dare to get physical the teacher will grab them by the ears.
Opportunity lost to do what? Play your ritualized games of superiority? Make a step towards some "alpha" position in the hierarchy of trolls and mockers that I wouldn't even desire?
Even when dealing with such stalking or trollery as Frank's or Tom's, I never play with "setups". I'm trying to make you see sense, I'm not trying to grab points in some game you are participating in, and which I'm not.
#67
Okay, is everyone pretty much ready for Speed Weeks! I know RB types are into NASCAR, but remember that Speed Weeks takes off with a little meth and THE 24 HOURS OF DAYTONA! Yes boys and girls the 24 Hours is the only keeping race that helps keep you safe from OWG! Please come to Florida spend your money, nothing larger than 50's please.
Having teamed up with the US to help eliminate Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Pakistan is once again proving its worth in the "war on terror", this time in Washington's quest against Iran.
Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker has reported that since at least last summer, US teams have penetrated eastern Iran, reportedly with Pakistan's help, to hunt for secret nuclear and chemical weapons sites and other targets in the hardline Islamic country, which features prominently on the Bush administration's "axis of evil", along with now "liberated" Iraq and North Korea.
Exclusive information gathered by Asia Times Online shows that Pakistan has provided extensive facilities to special United Kingdom and US units to train them in commando operations in Pakistan's port city of Karachi, which in many ways resembles the Iranian towns of Tehran, Shiraz, Isphan and other urban centers. Special forces from the US and Britain have staged unannounced exercises in Karachi. With its maze of high rises, communication networks and the division of the city (Sher-i-Bala and Sher-i-Payien), Tehran and Karachi are very similar.
"Pakistan's support to the US against Iran is logical as Iran did not hesitate to hand over all evidence of Pakistan helping Iran in developing nuclear technology to the international agency [International Atomic Energy Agency]," commented one analyst.
During the exercises, the troops got to know different localities, residential areas, roads and exit points of the city, including railway and bus stations and the airport. For the exercises, the troops were provided with detailed maps of Karachi, including important buildings. The exercises, which started several weeks ago, ended on January 17, highly informed sources revealed to Asia Times Online. The troops were barracked at Malir Cant, the cantonment area of the Pakistan army adjacent to Karachi airport.
On January 11, the troops conducted anti-hijacking exercises on a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) aircraft at an isolated yard several kilometers from the main terminal and runway, although they were provided with detailed maps of the airport.
While confirming the exercises, a spokesman of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Colonel Tahir Idrees Malik, said they were anti-terrorist drills. He said it was an honor for Pakistan to be able to give training "to these friendly countries". When asked why Karachi had been chosen, and why the troops did not do the drills in their own countries, he said exercises always took place where action was expected.
He refused to mention the names of the countries participating in the exercises, and repeatedly said that they were simply meant as preparation for anti-terrorist activities. He also confirmed the anti-hijacking exercises took place on a A-300 PIA aircraft, saying they were part of a long program for troops which included railway and bus stations. Any crowded place could be a target for terrorists, Idrees said.
This is the first time in the history of Pakistan that armed forces, including the Pakistan army, have been known to stage exercises in city areas. Traditionally, they exercise in areas resembling the borders, including deserts and mountains, to prepare for assaults from forces such as India's. Pakistan has fought three wars with India.
Asia Times Online sources maintain that for practical reasons it is difficult to accept the ISPR official's statement that the drills were meant for anti-terror activity in Karachi or in Pakistan. Karachi has been an exit point for Arab-Afghans to their countries of origin in the past, and almost all of the top al-Qaeda operators arrested were captured in or around Karachi, and their network effectively destroyed. Now, official handouts from the government of Pakistan or the US maintain that other al-Qaeda figures are likely to be moving around the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas, while others have been tracked to the northern Punjab or North West Frontier Province.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/18/2005
10:05:02 AM ||
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Who were the US and British Special Forces hunting in Karachi, I wonder? Only the mention of Hersch's New Yorker article in paragraph 2 spoils it.
#2
TW: Who were the US and British Special Forces hunting in Karachi, I wonder? Only the mention of Hersch's New Yorker article in paragraph 2 spoils it.
This is Asia Times, home of Asian and Muslim fantasists. I wouldn't waste any time reading it.
#4
Assuming that this is true, it is interestingly counter-intuitive. That is, most of the Iranian nuclear production facilities are not located in the cities, so why train for extensive urban operations? The answer to that, I would guess, would be an unconventional assault on the command and control infrastructure. But this leads to another question: would that attack be limited to the military forces command who would protect the nuclear sites, or would it also be to decapitate the Iranian government? Such a force could also throw a major city into chaos, attacking its water, power, communications and transport; but to what end?
Vice President Dick Cheney is playing a potentially pivotal role in shaping the Bush administration's ambitious domestic agenda, supporting larger personal investment accounts for Social Security than many other Republicans and helping gauge how the White House should proceed on Capitol Hill, administration officials and associates of Mr. Cheney say. Advertisement On issues like Social Security and overhauling the tax code, they say Mr. Cheney tends to mix an instinct for free-market conservatism with a pragmatic knack for vote counting, being the former House member that he is. Although Mr. Cheney is most identified in the public mind with foreign policy, he has also begun assertively rebutting administration critics on domestic issues, as he did in a speech last week on Social Security, while he works behind the scenes to hold together an increasingly fractious Republican Party.
As on Iraq and other foreign policy issues, Mr. Cheney's views on domestic matters tend to favor bold action even at the risk of short-term political backlash - what his critics would consider overreaching, reinforcing President Bush's own instincts. But even as he usually favors conservative approaches to whatever issue is under consideration, he also has a realistic streak honed by his keen sense of what members of his party on Capitol Hill are willing and able to push through Congress and deliver to Mr. Bush's desk, people who have discussed domestic issues with him say. On Social Security, Mr. Cheney, in internal administration discussions, has been advocating that the personal accounts Mr. Bush wants to create within the retirement system be at the large end of what has been under consideration, a position likely to hearten many conservatives in Congress who also want to establish the biggest possible accounts, they say. But he has also been supportive of benefit cuts that some conservatives are telling the White House would be political suicide...
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
10:02:58 AM ||
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Wait! The guy carrying the sign is a lesbo?
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 15:14
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#9
As a child attending a catholic school, obviously the nones were unable to give us first hand (err) sex education. They were much more familiar with hand-to-hand combat.
So, imagine my confusion about this lesbian thing. I am just a babe at a loss over this hummersexual stuff, where women are butches and dykes against Bush. Since when did hummersexualty become political. I thought it was sexual preference.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 18:57
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#10
I'm sure the nuns who taught me could teach a few lessons to any bull dyke in Marin County.
The Catholic archbishop kidnapped in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul has been freed without a ransom being paid, the Vatican said. Pope John Paul, who had prayed for the archbishop's release, was informed immediately of the release, said papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls. "He changed his prayer to one of thanks," he said. A ransom of more than £100,000 had initially been demanded but the bishop was released without the payment of any money, the Vatican said.
Basile Georges Casmoussa, 66, of the Syrian Catholic Church, one of the branches of the Roman Catholic Church, was seized on Monday as he walked near his church in Mosul. A priest said gunmen forced the archbishop into a car and drove away. The Vatican branded the kidnapping a "despicable terrorist act" and demanded his immediate release. Mosul has been a hotspot for the violent insurgency in recent months. The reason for the kidnapping was unclear but Christians - tens of thousands of whom live in and around Mosul - have been subjected to attacks in the past.
Christians make up just 3% of Iraq's 26 million people. The major Christian groups in Iraq include Chaldean-Assyrians and Armenians. There are small numbers of Roman Catholics. Officials estimate that as many as 15,000 Iraqi Christians have left the country since August, when four churches in Baghdad and one in Mosul were attacked in a co-ordinated series of car bombings. The attacks killed 12 people and injured 61 others. Another church was bombed in Baghdad in September.
Posted by: tipper ||
01/18/2005
10:00:01 AM ||
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Posted by: Howard UK ||
01/18/2005
07:51 ||
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#1
Substitute Security for Identity and we have a Winner!
This will be interesting to follow. Will Bell be forced to retract? Will the UK education system lower its standards so far that Fundo Madrassahs will be accredited? Tired of importing your jihadis and ready for home-grown, are you? This will go nicely with your Islamic Banks and a dole system looted by HookBoys. Will Shari'a be far behind?
This really is a big deal, IMHO, a pivot point of history in the UK.
#2
What took them so long to arrive at a simple conclusion? How many times can the Brits police foil the boomers? Are they waiting for that superfluous yet deadly development as a catalyst? The ostrich's head is still half stuck in the hole.
Posted by: Wo ||
01/18/2005 21:29
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#3
Substantial comment on the calibre of British schools in today's Wall Street Journal. Here's the whole thing, because its only available to subscribers.
Apples and Candyfloss
School league tables were introduced to the U.K. in 1992 to offer an easy comparison between schools. But the latest tables, released last week, make the task more complicated if anything. That is unless you're a parent who believes vocational courses such as hairdressing and bakery can be compared with -- and indeed be worth more than -- academic subjects such as English and math.
The government's examination watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, used a complex new system this year to compare results -- valuing some vocational courses higher than academic ones. For example, the top mark, an A*, in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) -- a national test taken at age 16 -- in an academic subject is worth 58 points to a school, and an A, 52 points. Compare this to a D grade in a vocational GCSE -- such as health and beauty -- worth 68 points, and a Level 2 certificate in cake decoration, which earns 55 points.
The Independent Schools Council, representing 1,300 private schools, described the new system as "absurd." "This is not even a case of trying to compare apples and pears: it is comparing apples with candy-floss." Quite. This isn't to denigrate vocational courses. Such comparisons are of little use to parents whether they are searching for a school with the best academic or best vocational degrees for their children. Pretending the new system is actually useful to anyone except a government minister trying to meet performance targets seems a stretch.
In response to criticisms like these, the government accused critics of "old-fashioned educational snobbery" and argued the new system benefits pupils who would otherwise leave with no vocational skills by encouraging schools to offer more vocational courses. Even if it were to do that, more dangerously it also offers an incentive for schools wanting to improve their league performance to strongly encourage pupils to switch into vocational degrees from academic ones.
Stretching even further, government officials trumpeted the "increase in standards" the results showed. The figures did reveal an increase of eight-tenths of a percentage point, to 53.7%, in pupils gaining 5 or more A*-C GCSE grades or equivalent. The government highlighted that the inclusion of vocational degrees only amounted to 0.1 percentage points of the increase -- but this is only year one, schools are just discovering how to play the system. What the government failed to mention, however, is that this was well below their target of a two-percentage-point gain, and that the number of pupils who passed actually fell by 0.2 percentage points. The real news was that despite the huge increase in spending of taxpayers' money on education over the last year -- £4.6billion ($8.7 billion) -- standards are barely rising, if not falling.
The irony of the league tables is that even if parents were to make sense of it, they could do nothing with their findings. Unlike countries such as Sweden where parents can choose which government funded school their child attends -- and so schools compete for pupils resulting in higher standards -- in the U.K. only those children with parents willing and able to pay for a private education have a choice. All other children must attend a local school. State schools in Britain only compete for more government funding -- and increases in standards occur largely through government manipulation of figures.
Perhaps this is why the government has complicated the league table system. A clear table would only serve as a cruel reminder for parents of the education their children could be getting if school choice was introduced.
#4
Substantial comment on the calibre of British schools in today's Wall Street Journal. Here's the whole thing, because its only available to subscribers.
Apples and Candyfloss
School league tables were introduced to the U.K. in 1992 to offer an easy comparison between schools. But the latest tables, released last week, make the task more complicated if anything. That is unless you're a parent who believes vocational courses such as hairdressing and bakery can be compared with -- and indeed be worth more than -- academic subjects such as English and math.
The government's examination watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, used a complex new system this year to compare results -- valuing some vocational courses higher than academic ones. For example, the top mark, an A*, in the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) -- a national test taken at age 16 -- in an academic subject is worth 58 points to a school, and an A, 52 points. Compare this to a D grade in a vocational GCSE -- such as health and beauty -- worth 68 points, and a Level 2 certificate in cake decoration, which earns 55 points.
The Independent Schools Council, representing 1,300 private schools, described the new system as "absurd." "This is not even a case of trying to compare apples and pears: it is comparing apples with candy-floss." Quite. This isn't to denigrate vocational courses. Such comparisons are of little use to parents whether they are searching for a school with the best academic or best vocational degrees for their children. Pretending the new system is actually useful to anyone except a government minister trying to meet performance targets seems a stretch.
In response to criticisms like these, the government accused critics of "old-fashioned educational snobbery" and argued the new system benefits pupils who would otherwise leave with no vocational skills by encouraging schools to offer more vocational courses. Even if it were to do that, more dangerously it also offers an incentive for schools wanting to improve their league performance to strongly encourage pupils to switch into vocational degrees from academic ones.
Stretching even further, government officials trumpeted the "increase in standards" the results showed. The figures did reveal an increase of eight-tenths of a percentage point, to 53.7%, in pupils gaining 5 or more A*-C GCSE grades or equivalent. The government highlighted that the inclusion of vocational degrees only amounted to 0.1 percentage points of the increase -- but this is only year one, schools are just discovering how to play the system. What the government failed to mention, however, is that this was well below their target of a two-percentage-point gain, and that the number of pupils who passed actually fell by 0.2 percentage points. The real news was that despite the huge increase in spending of taxpayers' money on education over the last year -- £4.6billion ($8.7 billion) -- standards are barely rising, if not falling.
The irony of the league tables is that even if parents were to make sense of it, they could do nothing with their findings. Unlike countries such as Sweden where parents can choose which government funded school their child attends -- and so schools compete for pupils resulting in higher standards -- in the U.K. only those children with parents willing and able to pay for a private education have a choice. All other children must attend a local school. State schools in Britain only compete for more government funding -- and increases in standards occur largely through government manipulation of figures.
Perhaps this is why the government has complicated the league table system. A clear table would only serve as a cruel reminder for parents of the education their children could be getting if school choice was introduced.
The funeral for an Egyptian immigrant family found slain in their home here erupted into a scene of chaos and roiling emotion on Monday, with some mourners jumping on top of cars, shoving each other and threatening to beat a Muslim cleric who was escorted to safety by the police.
The source of the disruption at the Coptic Christian service appeared to be the presence of Muslims, who said they had come to pay their respects.
In the days since the victims, Hossam Armanious, 46; his wife, Amal Garas, 36; and their daughters, Sylvia, 15, and Monica, 8, were found stabbed to death in their home early on Friday, speculation that the slayings were a hate crime has led to loud recriminations by Christian Egyptians, expressed in news interviews and at a demonstration here on Sunday.
Muslims and Christians have a long and violent history in Egypt, where Muslims are the majority, but relations between the groups had never soured locally, several Muslim and Coptic Christian leaders said. Although the case brought new tension to the Egyptian community, the Jersey City police have refused to say whether they believe the slayings were the result of religious hatred.
"Those are killers!" yelled one man as Sheik Tarek Yousof Saleh, a Muslim cleric from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, left the funeral site, escorted by police officers. "We don't want them in the church!"
In a telephone interview yesterday afternoon, Sheik Saleh said he never intended to cause trouble and regretted attending the funeral. "I didn't come to hurt anyone, I came to support them," said Sheikh Saleh, 42, the imam of the Oulel Albab Mosque on Bay Ridge Avenue, sounding shaken. "I am sorry."
The uproar outside the community center of St. George and St. Shenouda Coptic Orthodox Church, on Bergen Avenue, began when some of the hundreds of mourners present saw a Coptic bishop hug the sheik before the sheik left in a police car, several members of the church said. According to the Rev. Antonious Tanious and several other Coptic Christians, two men began screaming at Bishop David, who presides over the Coptic churches in the Northeast, asking him how he could let a Muslim attend the service.
Panicked police officers whisked the two men and some others into a nearby garage and closed the metal door just as a swell of people, some screaming and waving wooden crosses, pressed up against the door.
"A metal gate on the garage was pulled down to prevent the groups from attacking each other," said Capt. John Tooke of the Jersey City Police Department. "It was a very chaotic and emotional scene. We had people that were rowdy, disruptive and really out of control."
After 15 minutes, most of the group in the garage was allowed to leave. The two men were detained but not charged, Captain Tooke said. Another man walked around dazed afterward, his hand bleeding. "We tell the Muslim people, 'Don't come here.' We don't like them and they come," said Nadia Sourrial, a church member, echoing a sentiment expressed by numerous other people who were interviewed. "They like to show us we're dead."
In the interview yesterday, Sheik Saleh said two editors of local Arabic-language newspapers called him on Sunday evening and advised him to go to the funeral in a show of solidarity between Muslims and Christians, he said.
Sheik Saleh, who is Egyptian, went with one of the editors, Ahmed Saleh Maharem, who is also a columnist. Mr. Maharem said at least 10 other Muslims were present, and some were welcomed. But the Sheik, who wore a white abayya, or head covering, was most noticeably Muslim.
Dozens of other Muslims, many of them community leaders, canceled plans to attend the funeral after seeing television reports about the mounting friction, said Debbie Almontaser, a Muslim community activist in Brooklyn. The New Jersey office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations released a statement Monday saying that the organization had called on law enforcement authorities to do everything in their power to apprehend those responsible for the murders.
#3
Egyptian Christians have been persecuted ever since Arab Muslims conquered them over a thousand years ago. From being majority Christian and Egyptian, the population has become Muslim and Arab. The funny thing is that the Arabs now claim credit for the achievements of the Egyptians thousands of years ago. You gotta love the gall.
#1
He won't leave, not while him and his vile spawn are sucking up generous benefits. I'm sorry to sound like a fascist but can't we just put him up against a wall and shoot him? It was reported in yesterday's Times that a catalogue of his misdemeanours has been sent to the Met... he well be joining brother Hook in Belmarsh before we know it... Imamâs calls on internet for Britons to join al-Qaeda prompts police inquiry
Posted by: Howard UK ||
01/18/2005 7:43
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#2
How about putting a cap on welfare benefits and a cap on the number of years you can receive such benefits? It seems to have worked very well in the US.
A side benefit is that it would reduce Islamic migration to western Europe and lead to some out migration.
#3
True - I guess some Muslim doctor's signed him off work on long term sick pay due to a 'bad back.' A notably easy scam to pull...
Posted by: Howard UK ||
01/18/2005 8:38
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#4
The reason for posting was to show that at last his antics are getting some high profile media , albeit The Sun , but it has a base readership of around 4 million I think , mostly 'bread-and-butter' hard working Brits . The paper , even though its quite shite , is very influencial in its own provocative way .
I know, we had this yesterday. But, coming on the heels of the oil for food program and the ongoing revelations of UN hands in the till, my breath's still taken away...
More than 500 million people can escape abject poverty if rich countries give more money to the UN double development aid over the next 10 years, according to a new UN-sponsored report. Some 265 experts who contributed to the plan said 250 million people would no longer suffer hunger and 30 million children could be saved if $195 billion was invested over the next decade. Published on Monday, the report suggests money be spent on both long-term projects and quick fixes, such as supplying mosquito bed nets and creating free school lunch programmes. These would enable countries to meet global goals to combat poverty, hunger and disease that all nations promised at a UN summit in 2000. "The goals are not utopian. They are eminently achievable," said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in accepting the report from Jeffrey Sachs, a Columbia University professor and lead author of the survey.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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#1
Divert money from Kyoto compliance and buy those people netting!
#2
What they really need is DDT to kill the breeding mosquitos -- bed nets are more expensive, and have been demonstrated to be only minimally effective at best (which is slightly better than totally ineffective, after all). But those in power, having taken full advantage of DDT in their own countries, will now not allow it to those 3rd world countries that desperately need it. /rant
Trolling for comments? Why not just mention he-who-shall-not-be-named? After all, this is his favorite tranzi organization at its favorite work, stealing from those who make to subsidize those who don't.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/18/2005 7:30
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#6
WashTimes had a good piece today on DDT rather than the politically correct bed netting. DDT has been found to not have any harmful affects, despite the damning press.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 9:55
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#7
Per WashTimes, "The butcher's bill from the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia and East Africa last month is broaching the 200,000 mark. That number, as tragic as it is, could be increased by some magnitudes if something isn't done immediately to halt the onset of malaria, which has already been detected in Indonesia. Yet, inexplicably, the most effective way to combat malaria â spraying the insecticide DDT â is not being used by the world's leading aid organizations. Instead, we're giving those most at risk bed nets. Why? Because of baseless Western fears that DDT is more dangerous to humans than malaria, which causes 2 to 3 million deaths every year." (more)
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 9:58
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#8
hey..I'm with you on the need for DDT. But let's not delude ourselves that DDT isn't harmful. You are spraying a deadly poison in the air. It's a cost/benefit thing.
It almost wiped out the pelicans and other birds because it weakened the shells so it has a negative effect on the environment.
Let's not stick our head in the sand just for the sake of being able to make the point that there is a valid reason to use it.
#9
True enough, 2b. But do it quickly and effectively, and the damage will be short-term. Shoot, the DDT levels needn't even be as high as was used in the old days. In the 1950s my father discovered a catalyst (or something) that made DDT more effective at significantly lower levels. Unfortunately, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring came out the next year, so he never was able to get it into production. But what Daddy can do, so can others, and may well have done.
#10
More than 500 million people can escape abject poverty if rich countries double development aid over the next 10 years, according to a new UN-sponsored report.
I'll consider giving their silly report a look when they dispense with the idea of appropriating even more money out of the pockets of the U.S. taxpayer.
#11
Actually, 2b, you are incorrect about how DDT is applied: it's lightly sprayed on the walls of the homes to kill the bugs when they land there to rest. One treatment is good for 6 months, at a cost of about 2 cents US.
The Punjab government has extended the detention period of over three-dozen sectarian activists who were jailed for 90 days under the Maintenance of Public Ordinance, sources said on Monday. They said that the extension was made under the Anti-Terrorist Act of 1997, adding that the activists were supposed to be freed this month. The government released some sectarian activists a few days back after they and their families submitted written pledges that they would not participate in any sectarian activity in the future. Those released have to report to their area's station house officers twice a day. They have to notify the police before they leave their residential areas. Their national identity cards and passports will remain with the police until the government says otherwise.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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A U.N. tribunal convicted and sentenced two former Bosnian Serb army commanders to lengthy prison terms Monday for their roles in the 1995 slaughter of thousands of Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica, Europe's worst massacre since World War II. Col. Vidoje Blagojevic, 54, received an 18-year term for complicity in genocide and other war crimes. He was the wartime commander of the Bratunac brigade that took part in the killing of more than 7,000 Muslims near the eastern Bosnia city of Srebrenica. Dragan Jokic, 47, a major in the Zvornik brigade who assumed command during a week of killing at the end of the 1992-1995 war, got a nine-year sentence. He was convicted of murder, extermination and persecution on racial grounds. Prosecutors had sought 15-20 years in prison for Jokic and 32 years for Blagojevic. Both men were acquitted of allegations of command responsibility. The court said the men had merely passed on orders, rather than given them.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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Yes, but didn't they sit in jail when they weren't in the courtroom? We knew they were guilty, they knew they were guilty, the purpose of the trial was simply to demonstrate to the folks back in the Yugoslav countries that they would be formally punished. Its like all those Hutus in Rwanda, waiting for years in Black Hole of Calcutta jails for their own turn in the courtroom. I know its supposed to be "innocent until proven guilty," but sometimes its about demonstrating the culpable will be held responsible in front of the whole world, and by the world punished.
An Israeli jet has launched a bombing raid on an area adjacent to the disputed Shebaa Farms, following an attack by Hizb Allah on an Israeli bulldozer, Lebanese police said. On Monday Hizb Allah fired two missiles on a hilltop position in Alman al-Qusair that had been held by Israel before its 2000 pullout from south Lebanon, the police said. Israeli artillery opened up after this attack, firing nearly 45 shells in 15 minutes around the villages of Kfar Shuba, Rashaya al-Fakhar, Kfar Hamam and Halta, wounding two women, security sources said.
An AFP correspondent saw Israeli helicopters and other aircraft overflying Lebanese soil at low altitude. Israeli military sources confirmed that the bulldozer had been hit but said it had suffered only material damage and the attack had caused no casualties. Hizb Allah's Al-Manar television station said the attack on the vehicle caused casualties and that an Israeli ambulance rushed to the scene.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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It's about time. These yaahoos have been lobbing shit from Shebaa Farms into Israel for far too long.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 0:30
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NEW DELHI: Indian police on Monday claimed to have arrested a Pakistani national for spying. The Special Cell of Police caught Mohammad Azhar Rafiq at a courier shop near New Delhi Railway Station while sending documents to Bangladesh, said Ashok Chand, the deputy commissioner of police. Mr Rafiq, a resident of Rahmiyar Khan, had illegally entered India via Bangladesh in 2001 and had settled in Mumbai under the name Sarang Ali Khan, he said. He had allegedly spied for several years, Mr Chand added.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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ISLAMABAD: Dr Atta ur Rehman, chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC), said 250 expatriate professional Pakistanis had returned to help the government impart quality education.
How many survived the first month back home?
Under the faculty development programme, 1,500 expert expatriate Pakistanis would be inducted in different universities nationwide, Dr Rehman told PTV.
"Once they've had a head start, the fundos will start hunting them down..."
"We are converting brain-drain into brain-gain," he said, adding that presently only 1,700 out of the 7,000 university teachers had PhD degrees. He said he hoped the currant annual figure of 200 PhD would increase to about 1,200 to 1,500 within four to five years. He said 1,000 scholarships were annually given to deserving students who wanted to continue higher education. Dr Rehman said the government was sponsoring exceptional students for higher education abroad.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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Dr Rehman said the government was sponsoring exceptional students for higher education abroad.
This doesn't seem like the best strategy for starting a gain unless they plan to send them to Burma and North Korea, in which case the result would till be questionable as to the brain part.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
01/18/2005 7:36
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#2
Ahhh, I have that postcard. My favorite professor had one hanging up in his office. Shot in St. Louis. If you look closely, you can see the Arch over on the left. On the original, anyway.
That's because the critics' side didn't win the election...
WASHINGTON: President George W Bush is drawing heat over a $40 million splurge on inaugural balls, concerts and candlelight dinners while the country is in a somber mood because of the Iraq war and Asian tsunami. As Bush prepares for his second-term inauguration on Thursday, his supporters plan to celebrate with fireworks and three days of parties, including a "Black Tie and Boots" ball and nine other balls. Critics say the lavish celebrations are unseemly when US troops face daily violence in Iraq and Americans are being urged to donate money to alleviate the suffering in Asia, where the Dec. 26 tsunami killed 163,000 people. "I just think that the sobriety of the times dictate that we be mindful of the imagery of these things," said Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York. In a letter, Weiner urged Bush to ask donors to re-direct their inaugural contributions to equipment for troops in Iraq, some of whom have complained of having to scrounge for scrap metal to protect their vehicles.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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#1
Democratic Rep. Anthony Wheiner...nuf sed.
With all the shit that Bush has had to endure, I say....party on, dude.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 0:37
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#2
I suppose they shouldn't have put the Statue of Freedom atop the Capitol during the Civil War either. Too extravagant.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
01/18/2005 8:01
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#3
Another effort by the Dims to deligetimize the election and the Presidency of our country.
Posted by: Bill Nelson ||
01/18/2005 8:40
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#4
The counter for this is hilarious. The republicans have announced that they are turning this inaugural into "a four-day long celebration of America's men and women in uniform." There are already scheduled events for soldiers, and those who like them, all over DC. Black tie balls on the high end all the way down to BBQ parties elsewhere. I wouldn't even be surprised if the word went out to military bases around the globe: "You fellas take the day off and have yourselves a party." So, that being said, what would you think of someone who protests "America's young men and women in uniform"?
#6
I walked down to the Capitol yesterday...all the preps are being made. The platform is ready, there are more news trucks than people in DC, and it is FREEZING COLD outside. I hope the weather warms for the event.
#9
I was supposed to be part of the second Reagan inaugural when it fell to minus 17. They canceled the parade, but I still got the entire day off! My only regret is that I can't be there to help scuffle with the LLL sore losers that are planning to attend. Saw one last night on H/C and she was clueless as to why she needed to attend just to protest. If she doesn't like Bush she doesn't have to attend the parade, it's for people who want to celebrate his re-election and paid for by private donors. May the DC police response be swift and violent.
#15
But nary a word about Trump's wedding! Lets count the phonies that show up to that thing and any recent statements they have made about peace, war, charity, etc.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
01/18/2005 11:40
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#16
I hope it's about 30 degrees and the cops break out the water hoses.
#17
Funny, I didn't hear all these guys whining about the Indonesians and other South Asians choosing not to cancel their New Year's Eve parties right after the tsunami.
#20
#15 Jack How long do you think Mr. Trump will be married? (a real joke).
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/18/2005 20:18
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#21
Fred: At this time of crisis- the war, the Tsunami, mud slides in California, buried skiers in Utah et al. I know the U.S. dollar could be used in a wiser manner to benefit all of us*
Yes, the money needs to go to the soldier's for
equipment and any other effort's for fighting this war. ALso, when they all come home- that is another war (personal nature) for those soldier's known as veteran's ** Lets NOT S--T on them and have the funds available to support them ****
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/18/2005 20:26
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#22
Look folks, a puppy was killed today. Yes, an evil car ran over this cute little puppy and it was dragged for several feet. Poor Georgi!
Therefore, the President should confine the festivities to a case of purified water shared amongst family members in a tent pitched in front of the White House.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 23:00
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#23
I will give Trump's new tramp three months, longer if she doesn't say anything except "Nice hair, Don" during that time.
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 23:02
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Would-be terrorists hoping for a free ride on the information superhighway instead are getting tangled in the World Wide Web as officials are keeping close tabs on Internet cafes and who's who in cyberspace. Three Internet cafes, including one located in downtown Riyadh, have been raided by security officials in a move to crack down on terrorists who have been using public cafes to exchange information, post terror messages and issue threats to organizations, government agencies and nations. In one incident last week, several armed security officials swooped down on a cafe and questioned Saudi and expatriate employees staffing the place. "The security officials showed me a particular mail ID and wanted to gather information about the person using that ID," said Arif Ziauddin, manager of the cafe. He said officials also checked to see that the cafe is complying with revised government regulations issued late last year.
That'd be the "no skin sites" rule, I guess...
The new regulation states that all cafe customers should surrender their ID cards so that their names and ID numbers can be written down before accessing the Net.
"My ID card? Yeah, sure. Which one do you want?"
Ziauddin said many terror suspects have turned to cyberspace to communicate with their accomplices since the May 12, 2003, bombings in Riyadh. "Another cyber cafe was raided three times within a week and the security officials also detained a Saudi, who was surfing the Net at that time," said Hassan Adlous, an Arab expat. The crackdown on cyber cafes has intensified after the arrests of a number of people in Riyadh and Buraidah in November. "Every now and then, security officials raid the cafes," Adlous said. "Teef International Cafe, Khaleej Net and Al-Rawdah cafes were raided recently." The cyber cafe business, which is booming in the city, faces increasing scrutiny as police crush terror havens and keep watch on cafes letting youngsters surf the web. Apart from being accessible to suspects, a large number of teens flock to cyber cafes for chatting, looking for adult sites and generally surfing for culturally unacceptable sites.
Toldja so...
According to the rules, users under-18 must not be allowed to access the Net in cafes. Exceptions are made for those accompanied by their guardians as well as trainees and students in computer science. Monitoring authorities claim more than 95 percent of some 400,000 blocked websites deal with pornography. The rest contain political and social subjects that violate the Kingdom's laws and regulations. With the Kingdom's blocking rate set to go up, Internet service is being closely monitored, and undesirable sites are blocked by a proxy server operated by the Internet Service Unit (ISU) at the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), according to a study published recently. In addition to detailing blocking of sexually explicit content, the ISU website lists as prohibited "pages related to drugs, bombs, alcohol, gambling and religion or Saudi laws."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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Lol - this is a scream. When I went to Saudi the last time in 2000 the 'Net Cafes were just starting. It took me more than 3 months to get my own working connection from my apartment, so I came to know the Cafe game as played there. 50SR / hour (that's about $13.25USD) and slower than turtles stampeding through peanut butter. Filtered so heavily I couldn't even get to American Express to see my billing statement. But full and unfettered access to the Yahoo Chat world - where the asshats play.
Think I would have more fun sticking my head in boiling water than doing anything in Riyadh . Thinking about it , I dont think I could access Al-bbc at the time .
ISLAMABAD: Unidentified men fired rockets at a Frontier Corps (FC) camp near Mach in Balochistan on Monday. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Separately, unidentified people booby-trapped an electricity pylon and blew it up, suspending electricity to the Mach area for two hours. An FC official said, "Unidentified people fired about six rockets at an FC camp from the National Highway, which missed their target and hit the hills around the camp." FC and Levis personnel retaliated and the attackers took flight. Earlier, 10 hostages held by tribesmen in Balochistan were freed by security forces, the Balochistan home minister said. They were abducted on Tuesday from the Sui gas fields after several days of clashes between security forces and tribesmen. On Friday, the Balochistan government asked the federal government to take charge of security at the Sui gas plant.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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Saudi authorities have traced the source of explosives used in the recent car-bomb blasts that targeted the Interior Ministry and special forces base here to a house in a densely populated low-income suburb in the middle of Riyadh city. The Interior Ministry said when they searched the location police investigators found the back seats of the two cars used in the attacks. The seats were removed to make room for explosives. Police also recovered communication equipment, a computer, ammunitions and women's clothes as well as a number of documents, the Saudi Press Agency reported quoting an Interior Ministry statement. Meanwhile, security forces arrested a suspected militant, while another Saudi was detained on suspicion of links to a shootout in Kuwait, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Mansour Al-Turki said yesterday. The wanted suspect was arrested late Saturday after security forces raided his house in Baqaa.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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#1
"Police also recovered communication equipment, a computer, ammunitions and womenâs clothes as well as a number of documents..."
The anonymity provided by the abaya is the greatest tool in the Saudi deviant's toolbox. The headgear (veil vs. kaffiyeh / fan belt) and the black (lack of) color is really all that differs between the normal dress of Saudi myns and wymyns - but it blinds the Saudi Police.
I think they might mean something "Now or never." My money's on "never."
JERUSALEM: Israel will not accord new Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas any 'grace period' and expects him to institute an immediate crackdown on armed militants, a source close Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Monday. "Abbas must fight against terrorism and deploy his forces to try to stop the firing of Qassam rockets and mortars," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Israel will not grant him any grace period to carry this out," the source added.
Firing rockets and mortars at people is usually considered an act of war. Either knock off with the war or expect a two-sided war. That sounds pretty fair to me...
Sharon told the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday that he had the army carte blanche to crush militants in the Gaza Strip who regularly fire rockets and mortars at settlements and southern Israel. The Israeli town of Sderot, a regular target of the rocket attacks, was staging a one-day general strike Monday to highlight their plight. Three Sderot residents were also among the six victims of an attack on a Gaza border crossing on Thursday night which prompted Sharon to order a freeze on all contacts with the Palestinian Authority until further notice. "Our forces will continue to operate day and night, without any time limit, to put a stop to these attacks," the source added. "Abbas must take action and not content himself with mere words: he must use the forces that he has at his disposal in order to prevent the firing of Qassams and mortars," the official added. "Until now, he has not even lifted a finger... "
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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#1
Why do I perceive the smell of large scale violence wafting in the air ??
One more multi casualty act of terror and I think Abbas is going to learn the true meaning of following in Arafat's footsteps.
#2
This moment has been long in coming, with no surprises except that Arafat finally fucking died. Why on Earth would anyone think there should be some grace period? Everyone knows what they are going to do - or not - already. Let's just tell the Paleos to get on with failure, the marching about, the seething, the internal struggles for Chief Murderer, etc.
#3
I'm not sure I can take more of this "threaten raid" and "raid" in retaliation for terrorist attacks. Nothing Israel does is ever going to get the rest of the world to like them, so screw it.
Just announce that the next terrorist attack results in a total war of expulsion of all Jordian and Egyptian squatters in these "territories" and then the next time some knucklehead takes a shot at somebody, do it.
Then tell Egypt and Jordan that any cross border attacks by their citizens will be taken as an act of war. The last war.
Syria can be told the same thing regarding the Hizbolla armpit in Southern Lebanon.
Grrrr.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
01/18/2005 9:14
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LotR - Lol! I just got thru ranting about Iran and how the Prez can't just fly off the handle and whack 'em cuz I (we) want him to... and you go and post something similar for Sharon - and I find myself agreeing with every word! Shit! Lol!
I hafta take my anti-instant-gratification pills. BeBackL8r. ;-)
#6
.com - LOL, sorry about that. I was reading about that family in NJ on another thread and resisted posting something really nasty, then came down here and it looks like I vented some. :)
Go on and try to be reasonable, though. I'm just raving in the corner this morning. Pass the coffee and ammunition, though. *g*
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
01/18/2005 10:02
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#7
Lol - sounds like a good plan to me, bro! Sigh. So much shit, so few actual options out there in the *cough* real world. Clearly, however, Sharon should do whatever needs doing - he has everything to gain and nothing to lose. ;-)
#8
There was a small news snippet on the local TV news last night that claimed that Mazen has said he was going to crack down on terrorism and terrorist groups operating on his territory. Well, he better get a leg up, 'cos time's a wastin'....
Kuwait has stepped up security around oil and vital installations after a weekend clash between police and gunmen planning a major attack near the country's largest oil refinery and a US military camp. "In the two incidents between 10 and 15 people, Kuwaitis and Saudis, were arrested," Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah told reporters after briefing a parliamentary committee on the security situation. The gunbattle on Saturday was the latest in a series between Kuwait security forces and militants believed be sympathetic to Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda's leader. By raiding the gunmen's hide-out in the southern town of Umm Al-Haiman on Saturday, police thwarted plans of attacks on "sensitive" sites, Nawaf told the parliamentary committee. "Operations were aborted, which if it wasn't for God's mercy, would have resulted in hitting Kuwait's interests, sensitive sites and targets," Rashed Al-Hobeida, who heads Parliament's defense committee, quoted Sheikh Nawaf as saying.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, under growing pressure to rein in militants, ordered his security forces Monday to prevent attacks on Israel and investigate a deadly shooting of Israeli civilians last week. But Palestinian security officials were short on details about possible actions against armed groups, and a spokesman for Hamas said his extremist group would continue attacks.
So that ends that discussion...
The order by Abbas, approved by his Cabinet, was the Palestinian leadership's first step against militants since six Israelis were slain Thursday at the Karni crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. "A decision was taken that we will handle our obligation to stop violence against Israelis anywhere," Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said. While Israel's government cautiously welcomed the announcement, it remained unclear how far Abbas was willing to go. He has insisted he will use persuasion, not force, to get militants to halt violence.
So it's the same old poop, in a new diaper.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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#1
Think he has problems ordering a coffee , let alone persuading hundred's of armed militia retards to throw down their weapons . They are all too busy jerking each other off celebrating their latent gay manhood by carrying ak-47's anyway .
#3
While I know this is all just useless bloviating, I can't help but think that maybe Abbas could accomplish something. He seems different to me than Arafat, in that Arafat was just a party boy interested in other party boys and keeping the Palestinian people down so that elections would never knock him from power - and to assure that the foreign money flowed through his pockets first.
But Abbas seems to have an interest in REAL power, to lead a real country and a real army.
Who knows - but new leaders always bring new opportunity.
#5
Message from Earth to 2b.
Palestinian entity is not a nation, it's an invention of people (Arabs and others) who simply cannot accept the idea of a Jewish state.
As such, there isn't a chance of a paper doll in Hell, that "Palestinians" accept the existence of Israel --- in particular, stop terrorism except as a temporary, tactical measure; as long as they exist as a concrete entity.
An oil tanker carrying jet fuel for US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan exploded in Chaman after it caught fire on Monday, an official said. A hotel was also partially damaged but there were no casualties in the incident. Witnesses said it was a bomb explosion and two people were injured seriously. The oil tanker was parked at the Kargil Shahidan hotel and was soon to leave for Kandahar.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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#1
I thought this stuff doesn't burn naturally. Or am I thinking of Blackbird fuel?
#2
Brave person indeed who drives an oil tanker across Afganistan to Kandahar . (former stronghold of the Taliban who claim responibility for the attack)
#3
From MacNails really neato link:
When a Navy jet is refueled in flight by an Air Force tanker with Air Force fuel, safety rules prohibit the plane from being stored below deck on the ship when it lands.
KARACHI: A Pakistani militant has been arrested for his alleged role in high-profile terror attacks including a plot to kill Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, police said on Monday. Mohammad Jamil Memon, a member of the extremist organisation Harkatul Mujahideen Al-Alaami, was detained in Swat a few days ago, senior police investigator Manzoor Mughal said. Memon admitted his involvement in activities including the April 26, 2002 attempt to kill President Musharraf in Karachi, when a remote-controlled device failed to detonate an explosives-laden van near the president's motorcade, police said. "Memon was initially arrested in Swat and will now be interrogated by Karachi police for his alleged role in high-profile cases here including the plot to kill the president," Mughal said. Police said they would also quiz Memon over a June 14, 2002 suicide bomb attack on the US consulate in Karachi, which killed 12 Pakistanis. The vehicle used in the bid on President Musharraf's life was also employed to strike the consulate. Three members of the same group as Memon were sentenced in 2003 to 10 years' hard labour for the assassination attempt. Two of them Mohammad Imran and Hanif Ayub were given death sentences for bombing the American consulate.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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BAGHDAD: Violence escalated in Iraq on Monday with at least 71 deaths reported as insurgents stepped up attempts to prevent elections scheduled for January 30. Iraqi forces killed 35 insurgents over the past 48 hours and arrested 64 during a sweep near Fallujah west of Baghdad, the Iraqi government said on Monday. In Mosul, US forces killed seven insurgents and arrested 12 over the past 24 hours, the US military said, adding 81 suspected insurgents had been arrested in Anbar province over the last three days. Gunmen killed the son of a representative of Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shia spiritual leader, officials said.
Insurgents detonated a suicide car bomb at police headquarters in Baiji on Monday, killing at least 10 people. At least 20 people were wounded, mostly police. Near Baquba, gunmen opened fire on a checkpoint and killed eight soldiers. Three Iraqi civilians were killed in Ramadi when a suicide bomber attacked a US patrol and American troops opened fire. Nine civilians were wounded. A US lieutenant said there were US casualties, but did not elaborate.
In Sharqat, gunmen attacked a police station, killing one policeman and wounding two. The bullet-ridden body of another policeman was found beside a road. Gunmen also attacked a police station in Dour, a village near Tikrit, killing one policeman and injuring two. A guard was killed and two wounded when guerrillas fired at a polling station in Musayib. One insurgent was also wounded. The Iraqi Catholic archbishop of Mosul was kidnapped in what the Vatican called an "act of terrorism".
Time to send in the Swiss Guards, isn't it?
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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Kuwaiti security forces have arrested at least 10 suspects, including Saudi nationals, after the latest clashes between police and purported fighters, the interior minister has said. "In the two incidents between 10 to 15 people, Kuwaitis and Saudis, were arrested," Shaikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah said on Monday. One Saudi fighter was killed and two Kuwaiti security officers were wounded in a shootout on Saturday, which came five days after two police officers were killed in clashes with armed men in the south of Kuwait
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has given orders for members of resistance group al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades to be incorporated into the security services, a senior security official says. "The decision has been made to put members of the al-Aqsa Brigades in the Palestinian security services," the official said. "Abu Mazen [Abbas] told us that this must happen as soon as possible."
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of Abbas' own Fatah movement, is the second largest of the Palestinian armed factions and has been behind hundreds of resistance attacks. A Palestinian cabinet minister later said Abbas had ordered his security apparatus to prevent attacks on Israeli targets. "Abu Mazen and the cabinet gave clear instructions to the security chiefs to prevent all kinds of violence, including attacks against Israel," minister without portfolio Qadura Faris said.
Earlier, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) called on other resistance groups to halt their attacks, saying they gave Israel an excuse to block the peace process. But Hamas quickly dismissed the call to halt attacks, saying such a move helped Israel justify its military operations in the occupied territories. "We are sorry to say that some people are using this name [the PLO] to issue a demand which is at odds with the aims of the Palestinian people," spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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#1
They're just arranging the political field for their own suicide a full-scale war with Israel.
#2
The internal pressure and frustration within Israel is on the brink of an explosion. Sooner or later we will have to deliver a serious blow to the Hamas and Al Aksa Brigades because even the Israeli left now perceives the situation to be so fucked-up as to permit the serious consideration of a second Nakba.
Abbas is playing into the hands of the extremists by doing nothing to curb their rabid attacks. He will not last long with this type of double speak.
A Spanish judge indicted eight people on terrorism charges Monday, saying they provided logistical help and false documents for suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks. The indictment was released by Spain's leading terror investigator, Judge Baltasar Garzon. It said the eight had provided logistics and counterfeit documents for suspects including Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged would-be Sept. 11 hijacker who has been in U.S. custody since his 2002 capture in Pakistan. He is believed to have been the main contact between a group of Sept. 11 attackers in Hamburg, Germany, and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Binalshibh, who could not get into the United States to participate in the attacks but served as a key money man, reportedly is being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "The group in question provided logistical support to Ramzi Binalshibh and other members of al-Qaida linked to the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 in the United States," Garzon said in the indictment. The eight indicted suspects were identified as Reda Zerroug, Redouane Zenimi, Samir Mahdjoub, Mohamed Ayat, Hedi Ben Youssef Boudhiba, Khaled Madani, Tahar Ezirouali and Spaniard Francisco Garcia Gomez. All except Ayat and Garcia Gomez were charged with membership of a terrorist organization. Those two were charged with collaboration.
Stone cold stud. 'Nuff said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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#1
Picture taken on St. Patrick's Day? (tie)
Posted by: Captain America ||
01/18/2005 0:23
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QUETTA: Chief Minister Jam Yousaf said on Monday paramilitary forces in Balochistan had identified about 100 homes from where they believe tribesmen fired rockets between January 7 and 11 at Sui installations, killing at least eight people. "Now, those homes are the focus of search," he told The Associated Press. He would not say if any arrests have been made or weapons seized.
Hundreds of paramilitary troops were searching homes for weapons and renegade tribesmen in Sui. The Balochistan home minister, Mir Saeed Khan Nosherwani, said that the overall law and order situation in Balochistan is satisfactory, APP reported. Online reported that Sui residents are facing gas and water shortages. Reuters reported that armed tribesmen from rural Balochistan have begun converging on Dera Bugti, about 50 km north of Sui, to support the nationalist cause. "They are coming voluntarily, to protect their motherland," said resident Murad Ali Bugti. Tribesmen took positions in bunkers on hilltops surrounding Dera Bugti, while government troops dug in bunkers around Sui. Sui resident Hafizullah Bugti vowed to resist an attack by government forces. "We do not want to fight, but if fighting is forced upon us, we will," he said.
"Yar! We be Bugtis!"
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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Now, how the hell are you gonna expel Sami from the JUI-Sami? It'd be like taking the "ass" out of "embarrass", the "oodle" out of "dipsy doodle."
Addressing a news conference, Gul said that he enjoyed the support of quite a few JUI-S members and said that it would be better for Maulana Samiul Haq to rejoin the MMA. He said Haq and his son, Maulana Hamidul Haq Haqqani, were trying to tarnish the image of the MMA. Statements issued by the two were a conspiracy to damage the unity of the MMA, he added. He said Maulana Fazlur Rehman, MMA secretary general, was his (Qari Gul Rehman's) true leader because he was wise and honest. He added that Qazi Hussain Ahmed was also his leader because he tried to keep the MMA united.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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The inspector general (IG) of the Punjab Police has said that stern action would be taken against people who were violating the Marriage Ordinance. He issued directives to SSPs and DPOs all over the province to take strict action against the marriage ordinance violators. The Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan has imposed a heavy penalty on people who serve meals at valima receptions. However, hotels are continuing to serve meals.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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#3
Googled it, from PakNet: The Valima is the Groom's reception. Traditionally it was thrown to prove to the community that the marriage has been consummated. The bride and groom are brought out together and presented as a true husband and wife. There is usually dinner, and a chance for everyone to breathe a sigh of relief that it is all over.
Also: Once in the house the bride has to give some money to the groom's brother (relative if he doesn't have any brothers) to allow her to sit down. When the bride arrives into the grooms house the bride waits outside till the grooms parents give some money as a present to welcome the bride in their house and it means she no longer is an outsider but a member of the family.
The bride and groom are kept separated till the following morning when the groom's family invite all their relative and friend to celebrate their sons wedding and to announce the arrival of the bride who is now the daughter. When the reception is over the groom and bride go on their honeymoon.
Don't know why Pak Supremes are against dinner, unless there's a risk of getting cheese dip all over the automatic weapons?
Posted by: Steve ||
01/18/2005 14:58
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Wrong pic, Fred. That's the splendiferous jacobean poet John Donne, who when it came to the ladies was about as unpuritanical as you can get.
#5
It's John "Wee shall be as a city on a hill" Winthrop.
Serving food at weddings is un-Islamic. So's dancing, music, the bride and groom holding hands with each other, smiling, and either party enjoying the consummation.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005 15:04
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#6
Oh well, I never really liked wedding cake anyway.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/18/2005 15:09
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#7
The Valima is the Groom's reception.
Ah, the chasan's tisch. except that comes BEFORE the ceremony, and therefore before the Yichud shteibel. Which is symbolic, nobody actually consumates the marriage in the yichud shteibel. And after that you have the main reception. Typical muslims, got it all bolloxed up. :) (and most non-Orthodox dont do a seperate chassans tisch, or even a kabbalas panim, but have adopted the western custom of a 'cocktail hour' immediately before the meal.)
#8
"So's dancing, music, the bride and groom holding hands with each other, "
Dont they know you can have dancing WITHOUT men and women dancing together? Somebody get them a copy of fiddler on the roof, or an invitation to a chassidic wedding. Then again, maybe not.
#9
Actually, for this law, you can blame the bridal-industrial complex. Apparently the tradition of the wedding feast was getting way out of hand and astronomically expensive for the families of the brides. It had grown from a simple meal to a multiple-day affair, with some families going into hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt for one wedding...
Posted by: The Punjab Association of Wedding Caterers ||
01/18/2005 17:02
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#13
# 9 Seafarious you are correct about the law and
the bridal industry complexity. I do have a friend, Rashmi (Pakistanian) who married my boss Dan....they were married in the United States and none of this occurred. What about the laws on SEX? Sorry- I don't ask Rashmi or Dan their business !
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea ||
01/18/2005 19:32
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Venezuela dispatched extra troops as part of an effort to tighten security along its border with neighboring Colombia, but officials on Monday denied that the move was linked to a heated dispute over the capture of a rebel leader in Caracas by bounty hunters paid by Colombia. Top Colombian lawmakers, meanwhile, endorsed Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's stand in the dispute. "We're looking for the unity that the country needs right now," Colombian Sen. Jairo Clopatofsky, a pro-Uribe legislator, told reporters after he and other lawmakers met with the president. The dispute — the most serious between the two nations in decades — arose after Colombia acknowledged it paid a bounty to have Rodrigo Granda, a top member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, captured in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, last month and taken to the Colombian border, where he was arrested.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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#1
The way that Chavez tightens Border Security remains me of the way airports tighten their security here. Law abiding citizens are searched. Terrorists..please come in!!
The government is prepared even to amend the Constitution to satisfy the Baloch people, said Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the president of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), on Monday, Online reported. Talking to Voice of America, Shujaat said the government had no plans to start a military offensive in Balochistan and would sort out all problems with the Baloch through dialogue.
Toldja the crisis would pass...
Shujaaat said the government wanted Balochistan to prosper and progress and was currently carrying out major development programmes in the province to bring it at par with the rest of the country. Shujaat said that though he was in close contact with tribal chief Nawab Akbar Bugti, some people were instigating him against the government and military. He said some elements in Islamabad also opposed a political solution to the Balochistan problem. "It will be our effort that they do not succeed in their nefarious designs."
... and their deep-laid plots...
"We will never compromise the country's national interests and can even relinquish power for the purpose," Shujaat said. In an interview to Geo TV, Shujaat reiterated that the problems in Balochistan were political and would be resolved politically, APP reported. "Political issues can be resolved through political means and we are trying to resolve it," he said. Shujaat said the parliamentary committee on Balochistan he chairs has representatives from all political parties and will finalise its recommendations very soon, then present a report to the government in two or three days. To a question, he said the provincial government had requested the federal government for help to secure the Sui area, but there is no military operation in Balochistan. He said an inquiry into the gangrape of the woman doctor is underway and the rapists will be punished.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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Tribal clerics were negotiating with former Guantanamo Bay inmate Abdullah Mehsud and his fellow militant Baitullah Mehsud for their surrender on Monday amid growing hopes for an early settlement, a government official told Daily Times here. The same clerics met the Peshawar corps commander, Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain, on January 11 to get an extension to a deadline for the surrender of Abdullah Mehsud. The general agreed to extension in the January 15 deadline to January 26. "Baitullah is expected to surrender to the political administration of South Waziristan before or just after the Eid," the official said on condition of anonymity. Gen Hussain had said Baitullah would be pardoned if he laid down his arms and surrendered to the government, but the same offer is not open to Abdullah.
Abdullah was asked to "surrender to the law", meaning he would be tried in court for kidnapping two Chinese engineers in October. One of the hostages died during the rescue operation by army commandos. The official declined to give details of the negotiations between the clerics and the two Mehsud militants, but said the clerics were trying to persuade the militants to give up armed struggle and "live peacefully".
Posted by: Fred ||
01/18/2005
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
America has hobbled an effort by Britain and other European countries to persuade Iran to freeze its nuclear programme. Senior officials said privately that the US would not offer economic or political concessions to woo Teheran. President George W Bush is trying to improve relations with Europe and will visit London and Brussels next month. But in private, American officials are furious at the European Union's "engagement" with Teheran. They say they will not co-operate with what they see as the dangerous policy of giving the regime "rewards for bad behaviour".
Police on Tuesday arrested three brothers for allegedly harboring suspected suicide bombers who later made an attempt on the life of Pakistani Prime Minister 
..on January 15, 2005, an unusual al Qaeda communiqué appeared on various jihadist websites asserting that an exhaustive probe conducted into the murder of "our brother 
The breathtaking success of the probe Huygens, which landed on the Saturnian moon Titan last Friday after a seven-year trek across the Solar System, kicks off what promises to be a bumper year for space. Other highlights in the coming months include the launch of robot scouts to Mars and Venus, a US mission to smash open a passing comet and the test flight of a monster 10-tonne rocket. 
Iraqi prisoner abuse suspect Pfc. 
Four top leaders of different outlawed parties were killed yesterday in shooting incidents involving police, Rapid Action Battalion, and the outlawed operatives in Khulna, Kushtia and Rajshahi. 
Police arrested a youth in a house at Gabtoli upazila in the district early yesterday and seized powerful explosives and bomb-making substances from his possession. The detainee 
Iran's judiciary admitted yesterday it had made an administrative error by summoning Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi to a national security court, and said there was no danger she would be arrested. Judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimi-Rad also dismissed a complaint from Ebadi over the use of solitary confinement, saying such cells no longer existed and had been replaced by "comfortable suites".
While barely registering a ripple in the Mainstream Media, several key senior people have been "resigned" by Kofi Annan in the wake of a series of scandals. The sudden departures also follow a Manhattan meeting with liberal friends of Annan's from the foreign policy establishment,
President 
A massive turnout is expected this morning at the funerals of a Jersey City family. The family was found bound, gagged and slashed to death on Friday. The police are talking about robbery and religious hatred as motives. But ABC News has learned the FBI sees a possible link to a terror trial now underway in New York. The bodies of 
More than 50 years after he directed a brilliant amphibious invasion that repelled North Korean forces during the Korean War, Gen. Douglas MacArthur is no longer welcome. The focus of the latest outpouring of South Korea's anti-Americanism is on a bronze statue of the general, mounted on a massive 16-foot slab of concrete in this port city's Freedom Park. Police have guarded the statue 24 hours a day since it was targeted three years ago by protest groups angry with American policies. 
Ajmal Khan, the Federal Minister for Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs, has ruled out screening of Indian films in Pakistani cinemas. "Exchange of films with India is not possible in the present circumstances because our film industry cannot compete with Indian movies and a decision in this regard will be taken at an appropriate time," the minister told the Senate Standing Committee on Sports, Culture, Tourism, Minorities and Youth Affairs in a meeting with the Pakistan Censor Board officials.
Kuwait City — Foreign embassies, shopping malls, state security buildings, vital installations, and American military convoys to Iraq were listed among the potential targets of suspected terrorists arrested in Kuwait, newspapers reported yesterday.
A human rights group claimed Tuesday that it has obtained video footage showing dissident activities in North Korea, with demands for freedom and democracy written over a poster of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il. If authentic, it would be the first time images of dissent in the highly secretive North have come to light. But there was no way to independently confirm the validity of the footage. The 35-minute videotape, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, shows written statements posted on a wall, urging North Koreans to fight to retrieve freedom and democracy. A man is heard, but not seen, reading a statement, demanding Kim Jong Il be removed from his post. ``The North Korean people are suffering from hunger and poverty because of Kim Jong Il's dictatorship and dogmatic politics,'' the man says.
Brussels intends to do away with the cruet - that set of salt and pepper and in southern Europe, olive oil and vinegar - on restaurant tables. This act of cultural and culinary terrorism shows the very worst side of Brussels' regulatory mania and is an insult to those devoted to Mediterranean cuisine.
Vice President 
An Israeli jet has launched a bombing raid on an area adjacent to the disputed Shebaa Farms, following an attack by Hizb Allah on an Israeli bulldozer, Lebanese police said. On Monday Hizb Allah fired two missiles on a hilltop position in Alman al-Qusair that had been held by Israel before its 2000 pullout from south Lebanon, the police said. Israeli artillery opened up after this attack, firing nearly 45 shells in 15 minutes around the villages of Kfar Shuba, Rashaya al-Fakhar, Kfar Hamam and Halta, wounding two women, security sources said.
NEW DELHI: Indian police on Monday claimed to have arrested a Pakistani national for spying. The Special Cell of Police caught 
ISLAMABAD: Dr Atta ur Rehman, chairman Higher Education Commission (HEC), said 250 expatriate professional Pakistanis had returned to help the government impart quality education.
WASHINGTON: President George W Bush is drawing heat over a $40 million splurge on inaugural balls, concerts and candlelight dinners while the country is in a somber mood because of the Iraq war and Asian tsunami. As Bush prepares for his second-term inauguration on Thursday, his supporters plan to celebrate with fireworks and three days of parties, including a "Black Tie and Boots" ball and nine other balls. Critics say the lavish celebrations are unseemly when US troops face daily violence in Iraq and Americans are being urged to donate money to alleviate the suffering in Asia, where the Dec. 26 tsunami killed 163,000 people. "I just think that the sobriety of the times dictate that we be mindful of the imagery of these things," said Democratic Rep. 
Would-be terrorists hoping for a free ride on the information superhighway instead are getting tangled in the World Wide Web as officials are keeping close tabs on Internet cafes and who's who in cyberspace. Three Internet cafes, including one located in downtown Riyadh, have been raided by security officials in a move to crack down on terrorists who have been using public cafes to exchange information, post terror messages and issue threats to organizations, government agencies and nations. In one incident last week, several armed security officials swooped down on a cafe and questioned Saudi and expatriate employees staffing the place. "The security officials showed me a particular mail ID and wanted to gather information about the person using that ID," said Arif Ziauddin, manager of the cafe. He said officials also checked to see that the cafe is complying with revised government regulations issued late last year.
ISLAMABAD: Unidentified men fired rockets at a Frontier Corps (FC) camp near Mach in Balochistan on Monday. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Separately, unidentified people booby-trapped an electricity pylon and blew it up, suspending electricity to the Mach area for two hours. An FC official said, "Unidentified people fired about six rockets at an FC camp from the National Highway, which missed their target and hit the hills around the camp." FC and Levis personnel retaliated and the attackers took flight. Earlier, 10 hostages held by tribesmen in Balochistan were freed by security forces, the Balochistan home minister said. They were abducted on Tuesday from the Sui gas fields after several days of clashes between security forces and tribesmen. On Friday, the Balochistan government asked the federal government to take charge of security at the Sui gas plant.
Saudi authorities have traced the source of explosives used in the recent car-bomb blasts that targeted the Interior Ministry and special forces base here to a house in a densely populated low-income suburb in the middle of Riyadh city. The Interior Ministry said when they searched the location police investigators found the back seats of the two cars used in the attacks. The seats were removed to make room for explosives. Police also recovered communication equipment, a computer, ammunitions and women's clothes as well as a number of documents, the Saudi Press Agency reported quoting an Interior Ministry statement. Meanwhile, security forces arrested a suspected militant, while another Saudi was detained on suspicion of links to a shootout in Kuwait, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Mansour Al-Turki said yesterday. The wanted suspect was arrested late Saturday after security forces raided his house in Baqaa.
JERUSALEM: Israel will not accord new Palestinian leader 
Kuwait has stepped up security around oil and vital installations after a weekend clash between police and gunmen planning a major attack near the country's largest oil refinery and a US military camp. "In the two incidents between 10 and 15 people, Kuwaitis and Saudis, were arrested," Sheikh 
Palestinian leader 
An oil tanker carrying jet fuel for US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan exploded in Chaman after it caught fire on Monday, an official said. A hotel was also partially damaged but there were no casualties in the incident. Witnesses said it was a bomb explosion and two people were injured seriously. The oil tanker was parked at the Kargil Shahidan hotel and was soon to leave for Kandahar.
KARACHI: A Pakistani militant has been arrested for his alleged role in high-profile terror attacks including a plot to kill Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, police said on Monday. 
BAGHDAD: Violence escalated in Iraq on Monday with at least 71 deaths reported as insurgents stepped up attempts to prevent elections scheduled for January 30. Iraqi forces killed 35 insurgents over the past 48 hours and arrested 64 during a sweep near Fallujah west of Baghdad, the Iraqi government said on Monday. In Mosul, US forces killed seven insurgents and arrested 12 over the past 24 hours, the US military said, adding 81 suspected insurgents had been arrested in Anbar province over the last three days. Gunmen killed the son of a representative of Ayatollah 
Palestinian leader 
A Spanish judge indicted eight people on terrorism charges Monday, saying they provided logistical help and false documents for suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks. The indictment was released by Spain's leading terror investigator, Judge 
QUETTA: Chief Minister 
Maulana 
The inspector general (IG) of the Punjab Police has said that stern action would be taken against people who were violating the Marriage Ordinance. He issued directives to SSPs and DPOs all over the province to take strict action against the marriage ordinance violators. The Supreme Court (SC) of Pakistan has imposed a heavy penalty on people who serve meals at valima receptions. However, hotels are continuing to serve meals.
Venezuela dispatched extra troops as part of an effort to tighten security along its border with neighboring Colombia, but officials on Monday denied that the move was linked to a heated dispute over the capture of a rebel leader in Caracas by bounty hunters paid by Colombia. Top Colombian lawmakers, meanwhile, endorsed Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's stand in the dispute. "We're looking for the unity that the country needs right now," Colombian Sen. Jairo Clopatofsky, a pro-Uribe legislator, told reporters after he and other lawmakers met with the president. The dispute — the most serious between the two nations in decades — arose after Colombia acknowledged it paid a bounty to have Rodrigo Granda, a top member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, captured in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, last month and taken to the Colombian border, where he was arrested.
The government is prepared even to amend the Constitution to satisfy the Baloch people, said Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, the president of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML), on Monday, Online reported. Talking to Voice of America, Shujaat said the government had no plans to start a military offensive in Balochistan and would sort out all problems with the Baloch through dialogue.
Tribal clerics were negotiating with former Guantanamo Bay inmate 
