EFL slightly...guess we need to cut her deserved slack
I'm so happy to be free and am looking forward to spending a lot of time with my family. I want to express my deep appreciation to all the people who worked so long and hard for my release. I am humbled by the sympathy and support expressed by so many people during my kidnapping.
In the past few days, the U.S. military and officials have been extremely generous, and I am grateful for their help. Throughout this ordeal, many U.S. agencies have committed themselves to bringing me safely home.
My colleagues at The Christian Science Monitor have worked ceaselessly to secure my release, and worked with security consultants to do so. Many other news organizations, both inside and outside of Iraq, as well as many officials from Iraq and other countries, worked hard to bring about my freedom.
So many people around the world spoke out on my behalf.
Thank you, all of you.
During my last night of captivity, my captors forced me to participate in a propaganda video. They told me I would be released if I cooperated. I was living in a threatening environment, under their control, and I wanted to go home alive. So I agreed.
Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not. The people who kidnapped me and murdered Alan Enwiya are criminals, at best. They robbed Alan of his life and devastated his family. They put me, my family and my friends - all those around the world - who have prayed so fervently for my release - through a horrific experience. I was, and remain, deeply angry with the people who did this.
I also gave a TV interview to the Iraqi Islamic Party shortly after my release. The party had promised me the interview would never be broadcast or aired on television, and they broke their word. At any rate, fearing retribution from my captors, I did not speak freely. Out of fear I said I wasn't threatened. In fact, I was threatened many times. broke their word? Islamics? Who'da thunk it?
Also, at least two false statements about me have been widely aired: One, that I refused to travel and cooperate with the U.S. military and two, that I refused to discuss my captivity with U.S. officials. Again, neither statement is true.
I want to be judged as a journalist, not as a hostage. I remain as committed as ever to fairness and accuracy - to discovering the truth - and so I will not engage in polemics. But let me be clear: I abhor all who kidnap and murder civilians, and my captors are clearly guilty of both crimes.
Now, I ask for the time to heal. This has been a taxing 12 weeks for me and for my family. Please allow us some quiet time alone, together.
- Jill Carroll reasonable and unforgiving - quite a bit different than our previous "hostages". God bless her and her family
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006
18:33 ||
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#1
This is all we every want. To hear the truth, not speculation. The press should of been smart enough to wait until she was out of harm's way to get her story.
VASCO: India and France will carry out joint naval exercises off the Goa coast from tomorrow where aircraft carriers, fighter aircraft and submarines would display their prowess and tone up compatibility between the forces of the two countries.
French multi-mission aircraft Rafale and Modernised Super Etendards (MSE) will test its skills against Indian Navy's Sea Harriers and Air Force's Jaguar maritime fighters in seven-day exercises in which French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle and Indian aircraft carrier Viraat would participate.
The French navy has despatched its nuclear submarine Saphir, and a fleet of 25 aircraft including multi-mission Rafale, MSEs, Dauphin and Lynx helicopters, Advanced Airborne Warning and Air Control Systems (AWACS) Hawkeye and air surveillance aircraft Atlantique II for the exercises.
Besides Viraat, the Indian task force would comprise guided-missile destroyers Mumbai and Gomti, tanker Aditya and submarine Shankul.
The two navies would tone up compatibility with a special stress on improving communications during the exercise conducted 200 nautical miles off the Goa coast which would also include air-to-ground bombing.
A senior French Naval officer said there were some problems on account of communication between the two navies which were being corrected very fast.
"We have been following the NATO and Western systems of communication, while India has been using the Russian systems," he said adding there was "fast improvement" on this front.
"Otherwise, the compatibility between the two navies is very perfect. They have been able to work together. Indian Navy is very professional," he said.
The officer said language was not a problem during the joint exercises as French officers and sailors now speak English as per the requirement.
The advanced exercises, the seventh of the series, would involve various air manoeuvres including dissimilar air combat, fleet air defence, intermediate and advanced anti-submarine warfare and maritime inderdiction operations.
During the exercises, the Navy's Sea Harriers would operate sorties from the French carrier.
Posted by: john ||
04/01/2006
18:29 ||
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#1
India might actually sink a French ship on accident.
Posted by: Charles ||
04/01/2006 22:35
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#2
My favorite was from Sydney a good few years ago. A marine salvage company announced (the day before April 1) that they had left their sonar on as they crossed Sydney Harbor and recorded the position of the missing third Japanese midget submarine that got into the Harbor in WW2, and was never found afterward. The next day they would raise it, they said.
The story ceated an uproar, but some party pooper proved the sub could not be where they said it was. Which was a great shame- they had a mock up of a little conning tower they were going to raise in front of every TV camera in Sydney. Then they would open up the hatch, and out would jump a small Japanese sailor.
"... an Iraqi Army patrol stopped an anti-Iraqi forces attempt to steal a dump truck south of Baqubah ..."
"Four insurgents were killed, one wounded and eight detained."
"After the firefight, the units inspected a white sedan the anti-Iraqi forces were using in their escape attempt. It was found to have a mortar tube with base plate, some mortar rounds and a sniper rifle with ammunition."
Assigning 13 (or more) men to the task of stealing a dumptruck indicates they seriously wanted it for something. Is it possible they wanted the dump truck to use as a mobile mortar position? It would potentially diminish the effectiveness of counter-battery response, which has been limiting them to only a couple of quick shots before they had to scoot. Would the propellant gasses cause problems in the confined space of a dump truck bed?
#2
Anonymoose is right, I think. If they welded heavy steel plate over the top of a dump truck, the blast from a bomb inside would be mostly in the horizontal plane, and extremely destructive. Sort of an IRA cream can bomb on a huge scale.
Sweden's national dish is an acquired taste, to say the least. Some say surstromming, a fermented herring, smells like rubbish left out in the sun for days. But now the fish has been banned from several major airlines, classified along with dangerous weapons like shoe bombs and firearms. The Baltic herring is fermented in barrels for months before being put in tin cans, where the fermentation process continues.
The decision has made many Swedes very angry indeed. Surstromming is as Swedish as Volvo and Ikea. Some say it is simply rotten fish, which smells like rotten fish. Others argue it is the finest of delicacies.
But now major airlines like British Airways and Air France argue the cans are pressurised goods, and must be classified as potentially explosive. The dish is no longer allowed on their flights, and the sale of the delicacy from Stockholm's international airport has been stopped. That has made producers of the surstromming choke on their fermented fish, calling the airlines' decision "culturally illiterate". It is a myth, they say, that the tinned fish can explode. They admit, however, that a punctured tin would emit a foul smell, and that the content might spill quite forcefully, like a punctured can of beer. "Well, yah, but it's not going to go kabloomey like a Palestinian..."
But that is not enough to stop the export of a potent national symbol, the herring supporters argue. The leader of the Swedish Surstromming Academy, an organisation promoting the dish nationally and internationally, and you thought your job sucks! said any airline worried about explosives and foul smells should first ban bottles of champagne and French cheese before attacking the pride of the Swedish cuisine. Bet it pairs up real nice with durian...
from the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com. Free, but registration required. Ms. Rosett calls on the man whose nemesis she is. Read the whole thing -- a nice thing to read on the weekend. If you don't like registering for sites, use BugMeNot.com.
'I Am Not Running Away' Meet Benon Sevan, the man at the center of the Oil for Food scandal.
NICOSIA, Cyprus--"Medium or sweet?" asks Benon Sevan. He is inquiring how much sugar I would like in the Turkish coffee he's boiling up for us on his kitchen stove, and I am torn between thanking him for his hospitality and wondering if he might poison the refreshments. For the past three years, we have had a somewhat fraught connection, via a shared interest in the biggest corruption scandal ever to hit the United Nations--he as a star suspect, and I in writing about it. So when, together with a traveling companion, I paid a surprise visit on a recent Sunday afternoon to Mr. Sevan's current home--here in the capital of his native Cyprus--I really had little hope that he would do anything but slam the door on me.
This city of old sandstone walls, street cafés and orange trees is where the former head of the U.N. Oil for Food program has been living quietly since he slipped out of New York last year, shortly before he was accused by Paul Volcker's U.N.-authorized investigation of having "corruptly benefited" from the graft-ridden U.N. aid effort for Iraq. Since then, Mr. Sevan's name has been in the news, but the man himself has been all but invisible. He has refused to talk to the press, and he turned away a group of visiting U.S. congressional investigators who knocked on his door last October. The U.N., while paying Mr. Sevan his full pension, has deflected almost all questions about him. He has not been brought before any court of law. As a citizen of Cyprus, he is safe on the island from U.S. extradition, and there is no sign the Cypriot authorities are planning to bring charges against him.
Yet the questions abound. It was with trepidation that I approached the nine-story white building where Mr. Sevan now lives... knocked. The tall, bespectacled 69-year-old answered, wearing a gray-and-blue T-shirt, warm-up pants, slippers and a thin gold watch. He recognized me instantly, and protested: "I don't want to talk to you. I have nothing to say." We stared at each other, and he volunteered: "I am not ashamed to look in the mirror when I shave myself." Then: "I am closing the door now."
But he didn't...After some more dickering, I finally offered the compromise that I would not ask him to answer questions on the record about Oil for Food. With that, he ushered us into his living room for what turned into a 2 1/2-hour chat.
It is a strange limbo in which Mr. Sevan now lives, apparently alone and with a lot of time on his hands. Just three years ago, he was running a multibillion-dollar U.N. operation in Iraq, and together with his wife, Micheline Sevan (who also worked at the U.N.), was renting a midtown Manhattan apartment for $4,370 per month, owned a house in the Hamptons, and was jetting around the world on U.N. business. Today, if Mr. Sevan wishes to remain out of reach of various criminal investigations spawned by Oil for Food, he is basically confined to self-imposed exile on Cyprus.
#3
She must be likeable to have such rappor with him. I find it interesting he realizes the spiritual and moral nature of the scandal; these are the guys that turn into key witnesses and turn over evidence when their conscience gets them. She needs to wine and dine him next.
BERLIN -- Six world powers came to Berlin seeking unity in their bid to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions. But by the time they left, their common front had sprung new leaks, leaving a delicate diplomatic road ahead.
The meeting on Thursday of ministers from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China had been aimed at keeping up pressure on Tehran after a milestone statement by the UN Security Council.
Yet more than three hours of talks ended with Washington and its European allies still struggling to convince Russia and China to crack down on Iran for its suspected efforts to build a nuclear bomb.
The Western countries were upbeat about the talks a day after the Security Council capped weeks of haggling and adopted a non-binding statement urging Iran to halt all uranium-enrichment activities.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the meeting sent "a very strong signal" on international unity. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said that Tehran had "miscalculated" in counting on divided world opinion.
But at a post-meeting news conference, the Russians and Chinese were conspicuous in singing a different tune on Iran, which maintains its nuclear program is for strictly peaceful purposes.
Both went out of their way to insist on a peaceful solution to the row, in contrast to the Americans who will not take any option off the table and have occasionally hinted at possible military action.
"The Chinese side feels that there has already been enough turmoil in the Middle East," said Chinese deputy foreign minister Dai Bingguo. "We do not want to see new turmoil being introduced to the region."
While the United States pushed to at least brandish the threat of sanctions against Iran if it keeps up its sensitive work on uranium enrichment, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov took a different view.
"Russia doesn't believe that sanctions could achieve the purposes of settlement of various issues," he said. "We believe that there must be a balanced approach of the international community."
A wide gap appeared even in the perception of the threat posed by Iran.
The Americans branded Tehran the world's "central banker" for terrorism and an undemocratic, destabilizing element in the Middle East on top of a potential nuclear menace. But the Russians were buying little of it.
"Before we call any situation a threat, we need facts, especially in a region like the Middle East where so many things are happening," Lavrov told reporters.
He said that it was up to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which referred Iran to the UN Security Council, to provide facts on the alleged Iranian threat and "so far they have not been provided".
Reluctance by Russia and China clouded chances for further action by the Security Council where they hold a veto along with the other three permanent members, the United States, France and Britain.
The statement adopted by the 15-member council on Wednesday essentially gives Iran 30 days to comply with demands that it halt its controversial nuclear activities but does not say what would happen if it did not.
A senior US State Department official, who asked not to be named, said that the "next logical step" would be a resolution under chapter seven of the UN charter that could pave the way for sanctions.
The official said that Rice and some other ministers on Thursday urged such a course. But he added, "I am not saying that there is unanimity about this. There was not an agreement among all the parties."
But the Americans could take comfort that they had made significant process over the last year in whipping up international support to challenge Iran's nuclear activities.
A year ago the United States was struggling to get the Security Council involved and now it is. At that time the Europeans were balking at US calls for possible sanctions and pressing negotiations; now they are on the same page.
If the Russians and Chinese were trying to put brakes on the process, their vote for Wednesday's statement and presence at Thursday's meeting were welcome signs for the US administration.
"We're pleased where we are right now," said the State Department official.
#1
This is nothing but a ritual dance. Everybody but perhaps the Iranians knows what will happen next. Diplomats have long been discussing "what ifs..." and telling each other "then...", for months.
And yet they will turn up at the UNSC and go through all the motions, as if nothing had been mentioned before. And they will submit endless motions they know will fail before they make the one that everyone has already agreed to.
#3
Time to leave the table, and tell what the Chinese and Russians have gained by selling out world/regional security for power and money. Embarrass them: name names
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 18:55
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Short of actually attacking Iran itself, I could not agree with you more, Frank. Russia and China are facilitating international terrorism and the world needs to hear it loud and clear.
Senior members of Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Alliance bloc called publicly for the first time on Saturday for Ibrahim al-Jaafari to step down as prime minister to break months of deadlock over a national unity government. Other senior Alliance officials, speaking anonymously, confirmed that four of seven main groups within the bloc wanted Jaafari to give up the nomination for a second term if, as is all but certain, he fails to persuade minority Sunni and Kurdish parties to drop their refusal to serve in a cabinet under him.
"There is a broad trend inside the Alliance who want Jaafari to do this (step aside) and we expect him to do so," Daoud said. "We have stood behind him for 50 days and today we have reached the conclusion that there should be a prime minister for all Iraqis, not just one group."
Alliance officials said the seven key groups inside the bloc had met on Thursday and Friday and concluded by a four to three majority to give Jaafari just days to persuade the Kurds, Sunnis and secular leaders to drop their opposition to him. That seems highly improbable but a committee of three Alliance officials was holding meetings with the Kurds and Sunnis today. A Kurdish political source said: "Our position regarding Jaafari is clear and has not changed."
It was not clear what mechanism might be used to choose a new nominee for prime minister nor who that might be. A favorite may be the defeated SCIRI candidate, Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. Jaafari continued to have the support of his own Dawa party, its Dawa-Iraq allies and the movement of Iranian-backed cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr. SCIRI and its Badr allies, the independents and the Fadhila party were against Jaafari.
U.S. diplomats deny accounts from SCIRI and other Alliance officials that Washington has pressured Hakim to drop Jaafari. However, a U.S. diplomat said on Saturday that it was Washington's analysis that any prime minister must be both competent and able to unite Iraqis -- and that Jaafari did not score well on those criteria. The United States, however, had no preferred candidate in mind and would not impose its views.
Thailand on Sunday holds its second general election in a year, with embattled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra set to win again in a polls marred by boycott by the main opposition parties and a call by an anti-Thaksin group for voters to tick "no vote" or abstain from voting.
Under Thailand's election process, voting is mandatory and about 45 million people of the country's 64 million population are eligible to vote to elect members to the House of Representatives which is made up of 500 members of parliament (MPs). Up to 400 of them are elected on a constituency basis and 100 from party lists, with the number appointed depending on the total number of votes obtained by the contesting parties.
Although TRT is expected to romp home in most constituencies due to the declared boycott by the main opposition parties -- the Democrat, Chat Thai and Mahachon -- the Election Commission (EC) pointed out that the election was unlikely to return the 500 MPs required to form a new parliament. There are nearly 200 constituencies in nearly 60 provinces across the country where TRT candidates will stand unchallenged, but to win they need to get at least 20 per cent of the votes cast, which looks impossible especially in the Democrat Party's stronghold in the restive southern provinces. Last year, TRT only won one seat compared to 52 by the Democrats in the south where more than 1,000 people have been killed in violence in the past two years.
In the capital, street demonstrations organised by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) to oust Thaksin had been taking place almost daily but Thaksin has vowed to carry on and leave his fate to the voters. The 56-year-old billionaire reiterated that he would step down if the ruling party did not receive half of the votes in tomorrow's election. Speculation has been rife that Thaksin will hand over the post to a trusted TRT figure before coming back in another election within a year after amendments are made to the constitution and to cool down the current political tension.
TRT's standing shot up ahead of the election after news emerged that his staunch critic and PAD leading figure Sondhi Limthongkul went to China yesterday, sparking rumours that he fled the country to avoid being charged for offending the king in an interview with a local newspaper.
Tension has been running high ahead of the election, with pro- and anti-Thaksin demonstrators venting their anger at various establishments in the capital, including newspaper outlets, the Election Commission and the Singapore Embassy, which came under fire following the Thaksin family's sale of Shin Corp to Singapore's Temasek Holdings.
Whatever the outcome tomorrow, the political crisis looks unlikely to end soon as PAD has scheduled another rally on April 7 to keep its pressure on Thaksin to leave for good.
But the biggest loser could be the Thai economy as the signs are already there, especially in terms of foreign direct investment and the lucrative tourism sector which saw 60,000 tourists from China and Singapore cancelling their visits to the kingdom due to the current turmoil.
A 4.3-Richter quake shook suburbs of Boroujerd in this western Iranian province at 12:01:09 hours (08:31:09 GMT) on Saturday.
The province was first hit by a major quake Thursday evening and has been shaken by 71 aftershocks since then. Tehran University's Geophysics Institute reported that today's quake was felt in an area measuring 33.79 degrees in latitude and 48.81 degrees in longitude.
A quake measuring six degrees on the Richter scale also hit suburbs of Douroud, another city of Lorestan located 80 kilometers east of Khorrambad, at 04:47 hours (01:17 GMT) on Friday. The quake was followed by 71 minor quakes and aftershocks. An earthquake measuring 4.2 degrees on the Richter scale jolted surrounding area of Boroujerd city on Saturday afternoon. According to the report of seismography center affiliated with Tehran University Geophysics Institute the tremor occurred at 15:38 local time ( 12:08 GMT) and its epicenter was at 33.74 latitude and 48.82 longitude.
The strongest tremor in Lorestan province in the last two days occurred at 4:47 early morning on Friday measuring 6 degree on Richter scale 80 kilometers east of Khorramabad, capital of Lorestan province, in surrounding area of Doroud city.
According to the latest report, 70 persons have died and more than 1,300 people have been injured so far. Around 330 villages in the province have been damaged and 15,000 families have been homeless.
With all the recent MSM hype about an Iraq civil war, behind the scenes, a much greater civil war might be brewing. The US is aware of this, and is working to forstall it from happening.
It is a war within Islam itself. It is not easy to calculate, because their are many factions with conflicting agendas, and no easy alliances.
The obvious fight is between Sunni and Shiites. But it is unclear, as while the Iranians might dream of a Shiite empire, the Shiite are intensely divided among themselves. As are the Sunni. So this brings into play lesser factions, minority interests, and their programs.
One such split is between the primitive, fanatical, Wahabbi and Salafist movements vs. the modern, secularist, and even socialist Moslems. While not actively fighting, they constantly conspire against each other, and wait for an opportunity.
Another split is between Wahabbis and factions such as the Sufi, especially in Saudi Arabia. While the Wahabbi rule half the country, the Sufi are quite powerful among the upper classes, and if the Wahabbis ambitions become too great for them, and they openly challenge the Sauds, they might be replaced by the Sufi. As managers of all the Saudi holy sites. This could be markedly violent.
Other factions, such as the Moslem Brotherhood, could turn on whoever they see fit, in an almost unpredictable, but powerful way.
All told, it has become one task of the US military in the region to control any of these, or other outbreaks, that could spiral out of control and cause chaos through the ME.
#2
everyone wants to wear the bejeweled turban. Divide and conquer baby. That's why in the end, democracy will win - because in this modern global world, the guy who ultimately wins will be the one who learns the power of sharing.
#3
The more you learn about Iraq, the less you like it.
I often wonder if they are capable of self-government. I know that sounds egocentric, but look at all the major political groups and one thing stands out among them. They are all radical. Radicals don't seem to make good leaders, you can't reason or compromise with a radical and that is what democracy is all about.
#4
It's not about self-government as much as it is about a BALANCE of power. If you get the balance of power right, between the people, the legal, the executive, the military, and the congress - it will work.
#8
A civil war sounds like a good way to describe it. It isn't new, and as he says it isn't a single battle. One aspect is the neo-Kharajites against the rest.
Forty years ago I was a young lad in Africa, living at a mission school with a Muslim village next door. I'm not sure it is fair to call the villagers "moderates;" they were perhaps a bit too syncretist for the label to be perfectly accurate. But there was no seething, Israel wasn't on anybody's radar, and I never heard of apostates getting killed. Ostracised from the family, yes. There weren't a lot of conversions among the Muslims; there were a lot more among the animists (who could also face ostracism, by the way).
Aside from the minor detail that the whole school grounds turned into a giant refugee camp a few years ago, I rather doubt that the village would have the same attitudes now as it did then. The Salafi missionaries have been around, teaching Muslims to "come back to the pure path." That is, the pure path as taught by the Salafis.
So what do the native Muslims do? It has long been an article of faith that following any of the 4 main schools makes you an acceptable Muslim, so they have to accept the Wahhabis as legit. (And the Wahhabis have got lots of money and custody of the holy places, so they must be very legit, right?) But the Wahhabis reserve the right to declare other Muslims to be infidel. So native Muslims are in a position analogous to our own, where we accord freedom of speech to people who want to deny us freedom of speech. And the Wahhabi schools and mosques have enough money to drown out opposition voices, even when there are any.
The result is obvious: native leaders lose influence and Wahabbi rules and priorities reign.
I've never been to the Middle East, and no doubt the dynamics there are different.
Posted by: James ||
04/01/2006 16:12
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#9
I often wonder if they are capable of self-government.
Ever watched sessions of the Taiwanese legislature?
Gang fights in the aisles. :)
Too bad our own 'esteem' body of the people no longer witnesses the occassional 'caning'. When words fail you ....
#10
Excuse me, but these violent factions within Islam have pre-existed the entrance of the US involvement in Iraq by decades, if not centuries. Implying that it is the job of the United States to resolve these as well is probably intended to imply that the United States is somehow to BLAME for them.
It may seem obvious, but Trolls and lefties exploit preconditions and ambiguity, so making things clearer and more obvious limits their options: "I didn't MEAN THAT!" is their obvious response that covers up their irritation that their loophole just got closed.
Japan's opposition party suffered a fresh humiliation Friday when its leadership resigned en masse over a fake e-mail scandal, handing Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi an uncontested grip on power in his last six months in office.
The shakeup at the Democratic Party of Japan marks a new low for a party that was trounced in last September's elections.
Party leader Seiji Maehara and his lieutenants stepped down after the party's credibility was torpedoed by one of its own lawmakers, who used a fraudulent e-mail in an apparent attempt to discredit Koizumi's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
"I am sorry I couldn't complete my term as leader," said Maehara, who was six months into a two-year tenure. "It is necessary for my staff to resign ... to regain the people's trust."
The party apologized earlier this month after it learned that unfounded allegations were made in Parliament by lawmaker Hisayasu Nagata. He proffered an e-mail that alleged financial links between the son of the ruling party secretary-general and the Internet firm Livedoor Co., which is under investigation for doctored earnings.
Nagata, who later admitted he couldn't verify the e-mail's authenticity, said Friday he would give up his seat in Parliament.
Friday's resignations mark another retreat for the opposition party, whose gains in parliamentary elections in 2003 and 2004 had many predicting a competitive two-party system would finally mushroom after a half-century of nearly uninterrupted Liberal Democratic Party rule.
But the Democratic Party of Japan was trounced in the Sept. 11 elections, with the ruling party scoring a two-thirds majority with its coalition partner.
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Maehara then emerged as a fresh new face to reverse the party's slide. Instead, he was challenged as inexperienced, criticized for backing policies too close to Koizumi's, and finally ousted over the fake e-mail.
"You can't underestimate how serious the damage is that's been done to the DPJ because of this," said Gerald Curtis, a professor of Japanese politics at Columbia University. "Whether they can now move forward, restructure, find a new leadership and a new message, that's to be seen. ... They have their work cut out for them."
Koizumi has promised to step down as prime minister in September. Those mentioned as possible successors lag far behind in public support.
"The two party system may take a little while longer because of this blunder," said political analyst Shigenori Okazaki. "Many people are disillusioned. They voted for the DJP to see change, and this is what they got."
Maehara said he hoped his departure would allow the party to rebuild.
"I arrived at my decision to take responsibility as the country's largest opposition party, to win back the public's trust and to achieve the party goal of taking over the government in the next election," he said.
Democratic Party of Japan executives will meet Monday to discuss a schedule for picking new leaders. Possible candidates include Naoto Kan, who has twice before served as party leader, and Ichiro Ozawa, a former ruling party member who switched sides and is known for his abrasive leadership style.
Koizumi attributed the political debacle to inexperience.
"Maehara is still young," he said. "I hope he will play an important role in the future by learning from this experience."
#4
I guess this means that negotiations will start soon on re-writing of the Japanese Pacifist Constitution. Opening the door for Japan to become a military superpower as well as economic.
Will this happen? Is this a good thing? I dont know, part of me says we need our allies to be more powerful yet part of me also says that I would rather keep others weak even if that means US doing more of the work ourselves to keep a WW2 type scenario from coming to be again. WW2 and WW1 times in history happened because unlike today you had a multicolor world were conventional war could succeed.
I just dont think people realize how much the US absolute domination plays into the fact that no nation sees conventional warfare as winnable means to their goal, hence all these little wars no massive super power wars. Nuclear weapons has nothing to do with it, if anything it makes it worse because it gives the aggressor nation a powerful deterrence to stop invasion and lose of their homeland/power in the case that they lose their aggression attempt.
Unfortunately I believe that our political leadership is so infiltrated with the peace-love-&-happiness LLL mentality that we have no choice but to urge others to build up pull more weight even if that may risk more serious wars in the future. But I guess you cant always have your cake and eat it to.
Below I've posted information about the Alexander/Cornyn citizenship bill, S. 1815, which is apparently under consideration to be added to the Judic. Cmte. Immigration bill as a "non-controversial" amdendment. I fear it's very problematic. I've attached the text of the bill. NCLR thinks there are at least 3 big problems with this bill:
1) the way ESL/Civics would be funded would leave out many of our providers and community members; Money first.
2)it subverts the whole natz test redesign and creates new standards for English language and history/civics that are unacceptable; You gotta know English
3) while it doesn't overtly mention assimilation, it is very strong on the patriotism and traditional american (sic) values language in a way which is potentially dangerous to out communities. We don't want to assimilate, we want to Balkanize. It's an invasion, not immigration.
Michele Waslin, Ph. D.
Director of Immigration Policy Research
National Council of La Raza
202-785-1670
#1
If I was a Mexican - I would have crossed the border to find opportunity in the US. I applaud the get up and go of those families that do it. I respect them.
That said, groups like La Raza, have blown it. Too many immigrants crossing our boder aren't welcome guests anymore, but pests. Slam the border shut, seal it tight. Make those that are here part of a guest worker system - fingerprinted and accountable to being thrown out if they don't follow our laws. Those that want citizenship need to do more than just walk across a line to share in the bounty of America.
They think we need them, but the truth is that if they have become far more trouble than they are worth. There are millions in the world that would be willing to work hard to come here and take their place without becoming the demanding shrews that groups like La Raza have turned them into.
#3
CrazyFool: You just cannot demand that 11 million people give up everything that many have had for decades, march across the border with their children, many of whom have never been to Mexico or even speak passable Spanish; just on the off-chance that if they apply for citizenship they might get through the line in 15 years.
That is not reasonable. They will refuse. And then what do you do? Force out 11 million people? Depopulate whole neighborhoods or even cities at gunpoint and tell them to leave their homes and most posessions behind them?
#4
details, details. Seal the border first. Then you can deal with the millions that are already here. If they leave, they can't get back. If they stay, we can, at our leisure, force them to take a path to citizenship or deportation ....whatever that path may be.
#5
The name "La Raza" means "The Race". It cracks me up that people who get upset about names like "Aryan Brotherhood" or "White Man's Party" don't choke on this. Maybe it's because the perps in this case are noble, opressed brown people.
#7
And then what do you do? Force out 11 million people? Depopulate whole neighborhoods or even cities at gunpoint and tell them to leave their homes and most posessions behind them?
I see this argument a lot and it is one of the stupidest around.
These people are here now. What will happen to them if we don't change the law? Nobody is calling for them to be deported at gunpoint as a reuslt of depopulation of whole cities. What will happen is that employers will find it more and more onerous to hire illegals as there are more inspections of workplaces. They'll lose their jobs and come to the conclusion they are better off going back and getting in line. One at a time, the same way they came over.
And if they don't go back, they can just live out their days here without benefit of any governement programs. But I see no reason why their previous violation of the law should put them to the front of the line ahead of people who have obeyed the law. Why I should feel more sorry for Mexican lawbreakers here as opposed to the peons still there is beyond me.
#8
America is unique in the world in that our society is founded on a social compact, respect of and obedience to our laws, laws which treat all citizens as equal. It is corrosive enough to our national identity to have one group, the Democrats, that only obeys laws when that are convenient at the time, but to reward 11,000,000 CRIMINALS who refuse to even acknowledge the existence of our social compact could break that compact. At that point, why would the rest of us feel compelled to obey inconvenient laws? Why should only Americans/Republicans be suckers? These people know they came in violation of our laws. They knew that because they had to sneak into the country. That they are trying to brazen it out does not in any way change the fact that they are criminals and cannot be rewarded if we are to continue as a nation.
I like President Bush, but I think he and his advisors seriously underestimate the damage that will be done if our laws are continued to be ignored. Moose, maybe we can't uproot whole communities, but we can't give them all a pass. I live in San Diego and thoroughly enjoy the mix of culture out here. I respect hardworking Mexicans, but damn it, either we have the law or we don't and without the law America ceases to exist.
#9
not impossible, Moose, only difficult with teh wailings and gnashing of teeth from such as you. If they have to, they will. Employer -crushing sanctions and a big fucking fence is just the start.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 13:08
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#10
Any organization called "The Race" is in fact racist. Hence, it is the polar opposite of what our country stands for. We are a country of many races but only one country.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/01/2006 13:13
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#11
Build the fence, then worry about the 11 million.
#12
If one more politician starts waxing nostalgic about how their grandparents immigrated to the US and how were a nation of immigrants I think I will spew my stomach bile. The term immigrant supposes legal citizenry. That is why the Dept. of Justice uses the correct and accurate term of alien for those that have an undefined citizenship status. How about the term worker? Sure you can assume most are entering the country to work. But because it is an unprovable assumption, wouldnt it be just as accurate to use the term non-worker? If the term Guest is used, shouldnt it be clear that it doesnt include those that come uninvited? At some point the term undocumented entered the lexicon. Sounds like a paperwork SNAFU does it not? At the very least it infers that the host country shares some of the blame for lack of documentation. And at worst it infers that everything is copasetic with the exception of that tedious paperwork process. However, one thing is crystal clear. The reason people use these ambiguous terms is to obfuscate the real issue. People can disagree on solutions but I just wish everybody would admit the issue is ILLEGAL immigration.
#16
I hear ya moose. Unfortunately we can't just grant Amnisty to 11 million illegal aliens. Been-there. Did-that. Didn't even get a damn tshirt (just millions of more illegal aliens)!
I think a compromise might be needed - perhaps defining a process for illegals who have been here (and both productive and law-abiding) for 10+ years.
In the meantime close the border and start discouraging illegal crossing (I refuse to call it 'immigration'), enforce existing laws against hiring illegals and stop giving them a free ride on our medical, educational, and social systems.
#17
Look, seal the border, tell Mexico that anyone we catch from anywhere not here legally will be counted as a terrorist/spy/sabetour. End remittences to Mexico any other country without proof of legal residence. Seize Mexico's assets to pay for any money that the illegals cost us.
#18
And let's not forget to treat the next Mexican army unit that cross our border as hostile, and wipe them off the fucking map.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/01/2006 14:30
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#19
First and foremost, they are UNDOCUMENTED. Make them register, voluntarily, for a biometric ID card so their place of employment, residence, and other pertinent data is on the books. After a short deadline, non-compliance is considered criminal. Toss out criminals, but most of them will go underground or return to wherever they slithered in from. Those without documentation are in breach of law and automatically deported, so they will rather comply. Second and third generation families without problems should be given special consideration, but those born here of illegal aliens should retroactively have their citizenship revoked. Requiring biometric ID to cross the border aids border security, and should also be required of Canadians (or passpsorts). Any caught without a resident alien card are banned for life for any consideration of guest worker status. The path to citizenship should require the same as an other legal immigrant that would like to become an American, learning English and being a good citizen that participates in society. How many terrorists like Hezbollah are already here? No one knows, but we'd better find out just who is here NOW.
#20
when someone sez they all cam ehere to be workers, ask about the 50% jail pop in Los Angeles that's illegals.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 16:12
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#21
Frank G: The point I've been trying to make is that *if* we build the wall, and radically reduce (note: not stop, which is not cost-effective) the number of illegals coming in, then our problem is for the most part solved.
Ergo, trying to roust 11 million people is unneccesary. They are integrating into our society at a record pace. If we significantly slow down the flow, our integration efforts will be a lot more effective. They'll stop being Mexicans and become Americans.
Not only will cracking down on employers not work, which we know because we have tried this approach a bunch of times; we know that our business community is heavily invested in them. An entire county in Arkansas, singularly employees of Tyson Foods, is Mexican. Most are legal. Do any of you want to see food prices triple overnight, just for the emotional satisfaction of an anglo doing the work?
Here's a sweetener for those of you who would prefer to kick them out: Selective Service.
Say we get into hostilities with Iran, enough that we just cannot resist a draft. With military service as a "quick ticket" to citizenship, would that be satisfactory?
How about if they volunteer for military service for streamlined citizenship? Males *and* females performing priceless service to the US.
#22
There has NEVER been a concerted crackdown on employers, and to suggest so shows you've never studied the arrests of employers. Less than 25 convictions nationwide a year?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 16:23
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#24
crazyfool, I like your statement about not allowing them to "adjust" their status.
I agree they should wait in line like everyone else. They have broken the law.
Not only should employers be fined if found to be hiring illegals, but hospitals, schools, and housing need to report all illegals as well.
For car insurance or for anything, we need to require citizenship proof to get. We have been giving them everything.
At my workplace, we have hired additional staff to help them learn how to fill out papers to get services in a round about way eluding the law against this very thing. Denver opens her arms to illegals.
Posted by: Jan ||
04/01/2006 17:39
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#25
Frank G: The problem with arresting business owners is that they have a lot of money to buy good lawyers, which will get them off with a wrist slap.
The crackdowns that have been done in past were all focused on raiding an employer, thus depriving him of his employees for several days, at least. This actually will cost them more in the long run than arresting him.
RD: Thanks for re-posting the link I posted here yesterday. Any your point about cluelessness was?
I might add that if you added up ALL of the protestors in the US, it is about 1% of all illegals in the US. That is hardly what I would call a fair sample of their opinion.
I will also criticize some of the radio and TV people for also trying to make it appear that all illegals are hardened criminals, just because a lot of criminals, where there are a lot of illegals, are filling up their local prisons.
Surprise, that too is nonsense, in that their percentage of criminals per capita is just slightly higher than it is for white people. And definitely lower than it is for black people.
To recap: build the wall, and quit screwing around with lots of misdirections and excuses why we will build the wall right *after* we do something else. Something else that never gets done. The entire issue is the wall, and those who know that the wall is critical to accomplishing anything of importance.
Everytime anyone speaks on the subject, they should be pressed,
"When is the wall being built?"
"Why are they starting to build the wall in the middle of nowhere, instead of on the main routes?"
"Why do you try to change the subject whenever the wall is mentioned?"
#26
hokay to your response - I agree. The wall is currently being built NOT where natural (read: dead by thirst or snakebite) obstacles occurr.
San Diego used to see hundreds of thousands crossing yearly - we see a trickle now where the fence occurrs. Arizona and TX are the new focus, and that's where we need to build it. I agree we don't need it in bumfuck egypt, desert county, but what we do need is a rapid, well-armed response when they detect crossers and drugrunners (usually protected by Mexican Authorities). Cut off, kill, or capture a few of Mexico's finest and let's start the publicization of this farce
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 18:53
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#28
La Raza, just like the isalmists blew it by showing their cards to early. If they actually watched their p's and q's they'd have been a majority before long and making the calls rather than freaking out the gringos enough that we'll volunteer to help build the fence.
#29
RD: Thanks for re-posting the link I posted here yesterday. Any your point about cluelessness was?
Moosey it went over ur head twice then! :)
As of 2002: Huge increases in comunicable diseases via illegal immigration. [hospital data]
17% increase in MDR-TB Virtginia alone in Caliphornia it's higher, Chagas Disease, 7000 cases of Leprosy or Hansen's Disease, Dengue Fever Tx, Polio, Malaria, Hepatitis A, B, and C etc.
I do agree that resistant TB has been spreading, but its highest incidence in in New York.
Chagas Disease, Dengue Fever, and Malaria are spread by insects. You could add the Encephalitis diseases, that are also caused by the golf courses and standing water created North of the border.
Hepatitis A, B, and C etc. Only A is directly communicable, B and C are by contaminated blood.
Polio has almost been eradicated worldwide.
Leprosy is usually only spread in close quarters over an extended period of time, as is TB. TB is confusing, however, because a person will react to an initial test for exposure long before they are infected. Two different tests and two different treatments are used depending on exposure or infection.
A big reason that illegals go to expensive emergency rooms is because they can neither get Medicare, or health insurance, and they cannot belong to HMOs. The health care system is just not designed for cash payment, even assuming you can muster that much cash in a hurry.
This also precludes preventative medicine, so that by the time they arrive at the ER, their condition is appropriately "emergent", they must get care or their lives could be at risk, or they could face serious damage.
I agree that "there is no right to health care"; but I also realize that if, under normal circumstances, you could pay for your health care, with insurance or other means, and yet you are denied health care and forced to go to the emergency room, there is a fundamental flaw in the system: that being an interference in ordinary supply and demand. It really is that simple.
But once again I return to the wall. If we were to radically reduce the sheer number of people getting in, we would soon be able to manage the people who are already here. And without deporting or abusing them.
If they could or had to get health insurance, the vast majority of them would. I suspect the same percentage wouldn't as the percentage of white citizens who don't get health insurance.
#31
A big reason that illegals go to expensive emergency rooms is because they can neither get Medicare, or health insurance, and they cannot belong to HMOs. The health care system is just not designed for cash payment, even assuming you can muster that much cash in a hurry.
that's a LOAD OF CRAP. Illegals use Emergency Rooms as primary care because the ER's are required by law to treat them regardless of ability to pay. We, the taxpayers of SW US states actually pay for it. ThankYouFuckyouverymuch. There are cash-paying ER rooms all over, but those stand empty except for Joe Six-Pack who almost cut his thumb off mowing lawn while intoxicated. The drug-resistant TB is a border-state emergency. NY? Bah Prove it with a link.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 21:25
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#32
Moose, either we are a nation of laws or we are nothing. If you think it is OK for 11,000,000 Mexicans to ignore our laws, where do you draw the line? Is it OK for me to go out and rob a bank because I'd like a little more spending money? Hey, it's just a law.... If more people like you start thinking the law is optional, then it's every man for himself.
#33
This pretty much captures it. Stop asking me "English or Spanish?" at the ATM. Stop spending my tax dollars on Spanish. Stop spending money on facilities and services for illegals. Build the wall. Give the illegals a one-way turnstile back to Mexico.
#34
Illegals use Emergency Rooms as primary care because the ER's are required by law to treat them regardless of ability to pay. We, the taxpayers of SW US states actually pay for it.
When the state actually gets around to paying the hospitals. One reason why RFK in L.A. closed down.
#35
Pappy, according to the article I linked, "84 California hospitals are closing their doors as a direct result of the rising number of illegal aliens and their non-reimbursed tax on the system".
#36
Frank G: Since last time I looked, NY has fallen behind CA and TX. However, I can give you a link that shows how those dirty, filthy third world illegal Mexicans are just slightly more inclined to have TB than are African-Americans, with Asians pulling a close third.
However, I still say that if illegals can pay for something, they often do. It is obvious that many newly in the US, or otherwise unintegrated, can't pay. But my contention still holds: if you took an equal number of white people and forbade them from insurance, belonging to HMOs, and Medicare, leaving them the only option of paying in cash, you would seem them flock to the ERs too. Especially if they only had minimum-wage jobs.
When typical real debt from a hospital stay starts at $10,000, there is a rapid curve in the public of those who cannot pay. Without insurance, most people would be hard pressed.
#38
Moose, this doesn't have a god damned thing to do with race or national origin. These fuckers have broken our laws and must be deported. I really don't care where the fuck they come from as long as they go back. Why is it that you refuse to deal with the basic issue: THEY ARE BREAKING OUR LAWS.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 22:55
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#40
All of you missed Silentbrick's little gem of an idea:
End remittences to Mexico [or] any other country without proof of legal residence.
I think this would go a long way towards discouraging illegal entry. Biometric ID to prevent re-entry under false papers would nail all those illegals who attempted to carry money across the border physically.
I also have to concur with RVW and Depot Guy. This is about rule of law and that is what makes America great. Most everything else is window dressing.
INDONESIA today described as "tasteless" a caricature in The Weekend Australian newspaper depicting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as a dog.
The publication of the cartoon followed a similar drawing in an Indonesian daily portraying Prime Minister John Howard and his Foreign Minister Alexander Downer as copulating dingoes.
The cartoon war comes amid tensions between Jakarta and Canberra over Australia's decision to grant refugee visas to 42 asylum-seekers from Indonesia's restive Papua province.
Vote: What do you think?
Presidential spokesman Andi Mallarangeng said Mr Yudhoyono had not seen the Australian caricature but the president "laughed" when told of the depiction.
"It's in poor taste. Sometimes the media, both in Indonesia and other countries, resort to poor taste, which actually demonstrates the level of their quality," Mr Mallarangeng saud.
The Australian cartoon, drawn by award-winning cartoonist Bill Leak, shows Mr Yudhoyono as a tail-wagging dog mounting a startled-looking Papua dog and saying "don't take this the wrong way".
The caption under the cartoon reads "no offence intended".
On Monday Indonesian tabloid Rakyat Merdeka ran a front-page caricature showing Mr Howard being mounted on Downer with the Prime Minister saying: "I want Papua!! Alex! Try to make it happen."
Mr Howard dismissed the Indonesian cartoon, although Mr Downer described it as grotesque and "way below standards of public taste".
Downer responded to the latest cartoon by saying the Australian Government in no way condoned it.
"Editors have responsibility to be mindful of the consequences of what they publish, particularly when they knowingly publish material that is likely to be found offensive in some quarters," Mr Downer said.
The Australian embassy in Jakarta had been alerted to possible fallout from the Mr Leak's cartoon.
"We have been in communication with our embassy," Mr Downer said.
"They have concerns that there will be a negative reaction by the Indonesians to material like this which is extremely offensive."
Indonesia has been stung by the decision of Australia's immigration department to issue three-year visas to the group of Papuans, including prominent separatists and their families, who arrived by boat in northern Australia in January.
In response, Indonesia has recalled its ambassador to Canberra, postponed an agreement on jointly fighting bird flu, and angry Indonesians have protested outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta.
Since the decision, Mr Howard has repeatedly stated his support for Indonesian sovereignty over Papua, a former Dutch colony taken over by Jakarta in the 1960s.
As far as I can tell, this cartoon was drawn explicitly to give offense. There's nothing in the actual issue which demands, or even suggests, dog buggery, or illicit relations (personal or political) between Howard and Downer. I suspect the cartoonist's point was less about New Guinea, and more about the Danish cartoons. "Ha! Let's see what you think when you're the one being insulted!"
#2
These insulting cartoon events are like the Mexican Flags flying at the immigrant rallies - I just don't think that they understand what type of effect they are causing for Americans.
I guess provacateurs are like generals - always fighting the last war. Times have changed and they aren't helping their own causes with these events, they are seriously hurting it.
A MAN in a north Indian state killed his four-year-old son after he started seeing visions of the Hindus goddess Kali demanding a sacrifice.
"The goddess appeared before me and commanded me to offer either myself or my son," the 28-year-old barber, identified only as Pramod, told police after slitting the boy's throat with a razor on the outskirts of Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh state today.
"I chose my son because if I had died then the rest of my family would suffer," he said.
The man's wife, Kusum, said her husband had developed a split personality after being given a "potion" by a relative during a family property dispute.
"Subsequently, he started visiting a tantrik (black magic practitioner)," she said. Pramod told police the tantrik had assured him that the row over property would be solved if he were to offer a human sacrifice.
"Thereafter I could repeatedly see Goddess Kali appearing before me and asking for the sacrifice which I ultimately offered," he said.
Kali is considered the destroyer of evil in the Hindu pantheon.
Police superintendent Ashutosh Pandey said officers were wary of the claims. "We do not rule out the possibility that the killing was done because Pramod suspected the boy had been fathered by another man."
Authorities have uncovered Friday a supposed plot by the al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group to seize passenger ships and take hostage their passengers in Mindanao, officials said.
Officials did not say how the plot was discovered, but a report by the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (Nica) in Northern Mindanao claimed the Abu Sayyaf was also planning to hostage the passengers.
"We ordered tightened security in all passenger ships in Northern Mindanao. We have contingency measures, and are ready to address any situation. We cannot rule out the possibility of a terror attack after the recent bombing in Jolo," regional police chief Florante Baguio said.
The report identified the leader of an 11-member Abu Sayyaf team that would carry out the hijacking as Abu Awillah, and that among the targeted were ferry vessels sailing from Manila to Mindanao.
Baguio said the police have intensified their intelligence operation to track down members of the terrorist group in the region.
"We are intensifying our intelligence efforts and initiate appropriate security measures to preempt terrorist attacks," he said. "I have ordered the police to ensure patrol visibility and to secure all sea and airports, including bus depots, public areas and vital government installations."
Authorities have tagged the Abu Sayyaf group in the February 2004 bombing of Super Ferry 14, which killed more than 100 people in the worst maritime terrorist attack in the Philippines.
The 10,192-ton ship was sailing out of Manila, with about 900 passengers and crew, when a television set filled with TNT exploded. The Abu Sayyaf owned up the bombing.
Since the bombing of the Super Ferry 14, authorities have deployed secret marshals in passenger ships.
The Abu Sayyaf was also believed to be behind the Tuesday bombing of a two-storey convenience store building in Jolo that left seven people wounded.
Authorities had warned of impending attacks in Zamboanga City and Basilan island in Mindanao, where security forces are pursuing Abu Sayyaf members blamed for the spate of terrorism and kidnappings of foreigners in the region.
The Abu Sayyaf is included in the US terror lists and Washington offered as much as $10 million bounty for the capture of its leader Khadaffy Janjalani and his lieutenants, tagged as behind the killing of two kidnapped US citizens in 2001 and 2002 in Mindanao.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
03:31 ||
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#1
what a bunch of assholes!
Posted by: bk ||
04/01/2006 9:53
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#2
Sounds liike a good time for a well-armed decoy.......
This is a post from a Canadian blog. He asks some very good questions (emphasis mine)...
While Im not too keen on what is going on in France, I cant bring myself to denounce the students. There are too many conflicting agendas at work, and this sort of mass protest provides cover for the small group of anarchists, vandals, and thugs who couldnt care less about the CPE. But the question at the centre of the dispute is not the specific policy, but the dysfunction of the French parliamentary system.
When I first arrived in France at the start of the anti-CPE protests, I was a bit confused. Under the impression that the CPE was a bill still under debate in the parliament, I asked some students why they didnt work with the opposition parties to try to water the bill down, or (better) push for it to be expanded to the job market as a whole. I was a bit surprised to hear that the CPE wasnt a bill, it was a law that had already been passed by the legislature and was simply awaiting ratification in the senate.
I spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out just how things worked over there:
Why didnt you start the protests before the bill became law?
Why didnt the legislature draw attention to the problems?
Why didnt the media get involved sooner? Etc.
No one had any answer except to say look, that isnt the way it works here. The bill got presented as a fait accompli. The only thing to do is take to the streets.
It is only when you look at France that you realize how open and effective our democratic institutions really are. Ours is an essentially adversarial and partisan system, which is what a lot of people dont like about it. Theyd rather politics be more consensual and coalition-based, with less party discipline, more free votes, and so on. But look at France, and see our systems virtues.
Sure, question period in the Commons might be a zoo, but it serves its function of focusing sustained public attention on divisive issues. The media and public interest groups get involved, and the government is forced to decide how much political capital it can afford to spend on the issue. It can either push through, moderate its position, or back down entirely. In the end, regardless of what happens, democracy is served. The adversarial nature of parliament motivates public consent for the system as a whole. Win or lose, people accept the result.
#3
True, 3dc, but that does not mean he is a nazi sympathizer. OTOH, lama and camel are related. ;-)
Of course, he's sooooo relevant! He's been out of Tibet for almost half a century. He found his base of adherents within moonbat community, and thus he is sort of catering to them.
As for 10 Osamas springing from one dead... they would soon fatwa each other, so I'd say it may have some positive aspect, not mentioning that being visible, they may offer nice targets. I am more worried about the damage the 'closet jihadis' may do, incrementally, taking minute steps that are hardly noticed.
#4
The Dalai Lama is out of touch with reality. He loves publicity and plays PC politics. In the past he has called(asserted foolishly)that death cult as a RoP(lost that URL unfortunately). For that I've long junked him as any sort of Sipiritual guide completely despite being a nominal(but very adequately well-read) Buddhist.
There is a provision in Buddhism teachings that allows one not to speak if the words though true are not helpful or pleasant in any given context. He spoke invertedly and falsely to please the bad guys. He should simply have STFU and no stigma would have been attached.
#5
No, I think DL is on to something there...If 10 proto Bin Ladens spring up and we kill them then 100 will spring up in their passing, then 1000, 10000, etc. Soon we will have cleaned out the whole nest of Jihadi nuts. Brilliant!
#7
Hah! Love the "separated at birth" photos. Notably HST looks the less brain-addled.
Posted by: regular joe ||
04/01/2006 9:23
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#8
He got this part right. Wonder if he made it up himself?
"It is fascinating. In the West, you have bigger homes, yet smaller families; you have endless conveniences - yet you never seem to have any time. You can travel anywhere in the world, yet you don't bother to cross the road to meet your neighbours," he said.
"I don't think people have become more selfish, but their lives have become easier and that has spoilt them. They have less resilience, they expect more, they constantly compare themselves to others and they have too much choice - which brings no real freedom."
#9
2b, I agree he did get that part correct. And I think he probably did make that up himself.Just like Einstien said, great minds will always be attacked by lesser minds, and when it comes to it, not many are more intellegent and thoughtful than the DL. perhaps not any, certainly not the moroons who supposedly run the show worldwide these days.
Posted by: bk ||
04/01/2006 9:58
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#10
Hello Dolly, too late since Generals Pelosi and Reid have declared war (yesterday).
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/01/2006 10:01
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#11
on second thought - it's all just a cute little word play. I'd write one running it backwards that takes our many choices, which most in the world don't have, and keep us busy doing things we want to do, rather than being stuck inside some societal caste of rich or poor, and allows the ordinary hard working working stiffs to rise up from the fields and share in some of that wealth usually hoarded by a very small few, such as the Dali Lama himself, and become successful in life, able to travel and afford conveniences. Further more, we have bigger homes because we have more conveniences and smaller families
...etc. but I don't want to spend the time. Actually I have time to do that, if I so choose, but I choose not to because there are other things that I'd rather be doing right now.
I'd choose my lifestyle, he describes above, over life in Tibet any day. I'm sure 99.9999% of people in Tibet would make that same choice, if they had it.
#12
sorry bk - I changed my mind. What he says is right and thoughtful, but life is about balance, not absolutes. So he makes the same mistake on evaluating our lives, as he does about being humane to terrorists - he is dealing in fantasy absolutes ideals and ignores the reality of the need in the real world to work towards achieving balance.
#13
FWIW: Tibet was a backwards hellhole when the Lamas ruled it (visions of Lost Horizon notwithstanding) - >50% of the population were serfs, little better than slaves. It's easy being a ruler-in-exile; you don't have to do anything.
Not justifying the ChiCom's invasion, just sayin'.
#14
Yes, #13, There's this story of a Christian Sikh by the name of Sadhur Sandar Singh(I believe) who was severely tortured by the Tibetan authorities then when he went a preaching there. They(the Tibetans) weren't so pristine that they carried no bad Karma to frutify.
#15
Carl Spackler: So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald... striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one - big hitter, the Lama - long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 13:05
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#16
I've never understood the D Lamas thing about Garnet and Gold - BC or FSU fan?
#20
I seem to remember reading that Afghanistan was like totally Buddhist once, big Buddhist statues and all. Then along came the religion of peace. The Buddhists tried appeasement. Didn't work very well. Now there are no Buddhists or Buddhist statues left in Afghanistan
#21
The Dali Lama neglects to note how not killing bin Laden could easily result in the death of millions. Inaction frequently incurs far more deleterious consequences than does action. If you need an example, just look at Europe's Muslim problems.
#22
"You can travel anywhere in the world, yet you don't bother to cross the road to meet your neighbours,"
I wonder how many times he crossed the road to meet his neighbors when he was growing up in the 1,000-room Potala Palace.
"they have too much choice - which brings no real freedom"
A robe and a begging bowl brings real freedom, I suppose, but I'm not ready to become one of his monks.
#23
People with robes and begging bowls are parasites off the productive members of society. Reminds me of the German/Austrian artist/architect Hundertwasser, who permitted his friends to share their food with him, let him bed on their furniture, use their facilities, and take him out for little treats. A thoroughly unpleasant and essentially abusive person, although very talented in his chosen fields. At least he made lovely paintings and produced wonderful buildings. What do begging monks provide?
It should be stressed that contrary to the impression given by the media and some analysts in the West concerning its so called diffuse independent networking character, al-Qa'ida began life and long continued its operations with the support of states:[1]
* 1980s, phase one: Activity in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.
* 1990-96, phase two: To work alongside the Islamist revolutionary regime in Sudan to export revolution to Egypt, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Eritrea.
* 1996-2001, phase three: Operations from Afghanistan, as an ally of the Taliban government.
Even today, the organization is "state-centered" in the sense that its goal is to take power in specific Islamic states and establish a new form of authoritarian government, a caliphate. The significance of a reliable base in Muslim territory is reflected in al-Qa'ida's return to Arab land, and its attempts to destabilize at least one regime and achieve a new safe haven. Ayaman al-Zawahiri, bin Ladin's deputy, explains the importance of the quest for a "fundamentalist base":[2] "Victory for the Islamic movements against the world alliance cannot be attained unless these movements possess an Islamic base in the heart of the Arab region." He notes that mobilizing and arming the nation will not yield tangible results until a fundamentalist state is established in the region:
The establishment of a Muslim state in the heart of the Islamic world is not an easy or close target. However, it is the hope of the Muslim nation to restore its fallen caliphate and regain its lost glory... We must not despair of the repeated strikes and calamities. We must never lay down our arms no matter how much losses or sacrifices we endure. Let us start again after every strike, even if we had to begin from scratch.
It is in this framework that we must see the concentration of al-Qa'ida's operational efforts on the Iraqi front. At the end of 2004, the US State Department assessed that the role of key Islamist groups in Iraq makes it "the central battleground in the global war on terrorism."[3]
Since the demise of the Taliban regime and al-Qa'ida "solid base" in Afghanistan three phases can be distinguished in the operational activity of the organization and its affiliates and supporters in the Muslim world: (1) After the demise in Afghanistan, the strategy of destabilizing Muslim countries by attacks against soft targets; (2) after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, concentration on the Iraqi arena against the US army and the coalition forces with the hope of a victory on the 1980s Afghanistan model; (3) since the fall of 2004, an extension of the fighting to most of the Middle East, an increased effort in Europe, but the appearance of the first strategic splits in its ranks.
Al-Qa'ida is Weakened after the Demise in Afghanistan
The goal of the World Islamic Front (WIF) for the Struggle Against Jews and Crusaders proclaimed by bin Ladin on February 22, 1998 was to form an international alliance of Sunni Islamist organizations, groups, and Muslim clerics sharing a common religious/political ideology and a global strategy of Holy War (jihad). It was replaced in the spring of 2002 by a new name, or perhaps framework-Qa'idat al-Jihad (The Jihad Base)-and WIF virtually disappeared.[4]
After the war in Afghanistan and until the Madrid bombings in March 2004, in spite of bin Ladin, al-Zawahiri, and other al-Qa'ida spokes persons' repeated threats to hit devastatingly at the heart of the United States and the Western world, all successful terrorist attacks have targeted Muslim countries (and Muslim communities such as Mombassa, Kenya). Local or regional groups affiliated with al-Qa'ida were primarily responsible for these operations. They include the Salafi factions in Tunisia and Morocco; Yemeni Islamists; or the Indonesian Jemaa Islamiyya (in fact a group led from Indonesia by Abu Bakr Bashir but with Malaysian, Philippine, and Singaporean branches striving to form a new regional Islamic state).[5] It seems that only the suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia in May 2003 were directly related to al-Qa'ida militants.[6] Interestingly, with the exception of Saudi Arabia, the economies of all these countries or communities (Djerba, Bali, Casablanca, Istanbul, Mombassa) are heavily dependent on tourism.
The campaign by al-Qa'ida terrorists and associates against Arab and Muslim regimes may be explained by a shift in the ideological and strategic thinking of those Islamists who now occupy the vacuum left by bin Ladin and his deputy. The targeting of the tourist infrastructures calls to mind the strategy of the Egyptian jihadist groups in the mid-1990s. One might speculate that this strategy results from the growing influence of al-Zawahiri, bin Ladin's deputy.[7] Yet this is also the result of the decline in al-Qa'ida's operational capabilities following the quick demise in Afghanistan, the unremitting campaign of harassment against its leaders, and the capture or elimination of many of its central commanders.[8]
On February 11, 2003, just before the US-led war in Iraq, bin Ladin distributed two audiocassettes. One addressed the Iraqi people while the other (at 53 minutes his longest to date) was directed to Arab governments and clerics. The main focus of his speech was not the United States, but rather the Arab governments and the Islamic clerics that supported them and gave them legitimacy. The conflict with these Arab governments was presented as eternal and insolvable.[9]
Focus on the Iraqi Arena
Bin Ladin's February 2003 message to the Iraqi people sought to encourage their morale and guide them as to how they should face and defeat the incoming American invasion of their country. In an attempt to convince the Iraqis that the United States was not invincible, bin Ladin explained how he and his followers, numbering only about 300, had frustrated the American action against them at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. He stressed the importance of the Iraqi people fighting united against the Americans, irrespective of whether they were Arabs or non-Arabs (Kurds), Sunnis, or Shi'a.[10] Religious scholars from the Islamic Research Academy at Egypt's al-Azhar university also declared on March 10, 2003 that a US attack on Iraq would require Arabs and Muslims to wage a jihad in Iraq's defense against "a new crusade that targets its land, honor, creed, and homeland."[11]
At the height of the war, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan declared that Saddam Hussein's government was ready to meet the overwhelming military superiority of the United States by resorting to widespread suicide attacks against Americans and British troops "and all who support them," both inside Iraq and elsewhere in the Arab world. At a news conference on March 29, 2003 he claimed that the Iraqi soldier who killed four Americans in a suicide attack outside the holy city of Najaf was the first in a wave of Iraqis and other Arab volunteers ready to become "martyrs." Arabs outside Iraq, he said, should help "turn every country in the world into a battlefield." [12]
Upon the fall of Baghdad, al-Nida, al-Qa'ida's website posted a series of articles which stated that guerilla warfare was the most powerful weapon Muslims had, the best method to continue the conflict with the "Crusader Enemy." It mentioned that it was with guerilla warfare the Americans were defeated in Vietnam and the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan, "the method that expelled the direct Crusader colonialism from most of the Muslim lands, with Algeria the most well known."[13]
Despite American warnings Damascus permitted the passage of thousands volunteers, many of them Syrians, wishing to join the Iraqis in their war against the Americans. It started with a few dozen volunteers, mostly from the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. This went on until a missile from an American plane hit one of the buses of volunteers in Iraq, killing five passengers. [14]
Thus, the scenario for the insurgency and terrorist campaign in Iraq was built already in the weeks and possibly the months before the war, involving an "objective" coalition of ex-Ba'thists and army and intelligence officers, Iraqi Sunni Islamists delivered from Saddam's yoke, Muslim volunteers from Arab and European countries, and with the tacit support of Syria and probably Iran.
Due to some major American strategic errors and in spite of the swift and stunning US military campaign in Iraq, this scenario developed into "a continuum of violence and uncertainty": the lack of a quick Iraqi political alternative to the Saddam regime (contrary to what happened in Afghanistan), the disbanding of the regular army and police forces, and the lack of a clear planning for the immediate aftermath of the war.[15] In the words of a known American military analyst, "the US chose a strategy whose post-conflict goals were unrealistic and impossible to achieve, and only planned for the war it wanted to fight and not for the "peace" that was certain to follow."[16]
A short description of the Iraqi insurgency is necessary in order to understand and evaluate its use by al-Qa'ida and other global jihadist groups in order to expand the fight to the whole of the Middle East and beyond:
During the summer and fall of 2003, Iraqi insurgents emerged as effective forces with significant popular support in Arab Sunni areas, and developed a steadily more sophisticated mix of tactics. In the process, a native and foreign Islamist extremist threat also developed which deliberately tried to divide Iraq's Sunni Arabs from its Arab Shi'ites, Kurds, and other Iraqi minorities. By the fall of the 2004, this had some elements of a low-level civil war, and by June 2005, it threaten to escalate into a far more serious civil conflict.[17]
Iraqi insurgents, terrorists, and extremists exploited the media focus on dramatic incidents with high casualties and high publicity. They created "alliances of convenience and informal networks with other groups to attack the United States, various elements of the Iraqi Interim Government and elected government, and efforts at nation building." Then insurgents increasingly focused on Iraqi government targets, as well as Iraqi military, police, and security forces and tried to prevent Sunnis from participating in the new government, and to cause growing tension and conflict between Sunnis and Shi'a, and Arabs and Kurds. By May 2005, this began to provoke Shi'a reprisals, in spite of efforts to avoid this by Shi'a leaders, contributing further to the problems in establishing a legitimate government and national forces.[18]
Although from the beginning of the war and its immediate aftermath many Islamist groups were involved in the fighting against the US and coalition forces, the Jordanian-Palestinian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was considered to be the most dangerous leader of the most dangerous group connected with al-Qa'ida.[19] He was presented by the US and Western intelligence agencies as the former director of a training camp in Afghanistan and a close associate of Usama bin Ladin. He was believed to have escaped to Iraq during the US invasion. He was reportedly in Baghdad from May-July 2002 to undergo medical treatment, while establishing a network of approximately two dozen members who moved about freely throughout Baghdad for over eight months, primarily conducting transfers of money and materials.[20] He coordinated terrorist activities in the Middle East, Western Europe, and Russia from his base in Iraq, and his connections stretched as far as Chechnya and the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia. Al-Zarqawi was considered to be the leader of the terrorist group al-Tawhid, which first gained public attention in Germany when a number of its members were arrested in that country in April 2002.[21] Zarqawi was also presented as the leader of the Arab contingent within Ansar al-Islam linked to al-Qa'ida plots in Jordan during the millennium celebration, as well as to attempts to spread the biological agent ricin in London and possibly other places in Europe.[22]
At some point, most likely after the occupation of Iraq in April 2003, he split from Ansar al-Islam and created his own organization, which he called al-Tawheed wal Jihad (Monotheism and Jihad). This organization first came to world attention when US citizen Nicholas Berg was beheaded in April 2004, allegedly by Zarqawi himself, and the event was videotaped and posted on Islamist websites. Al-Tawheed wal-Jihad lacked a solid base of operation, and therefore the group decided to use Fallujah as "a safe haven and a strong shield for the people of Islam-'the Republic of Al-Zarqawi.'"[23]
The radical Sunni Islamist insurgents, like those belonging to the Zarqawi group, called also "neo-Salafis" or "Takfiries", believe they are fighting a region-wide war in Iraq to create a Sunni puritan state, a war that extends throughout the world and affects all Arab states and all of Islam. Foreign volunteers are one of the most dangerous aspects of the insurgency involved in the cruelest sectarian terrorist attacks against civilians-mostly suicide bombings, kidnappings, and beheadings. Some clerics and Islamic organizations recruit young Arabs and men from other Islamic countries for Islamist extremist organizations and then infiltrate them into Iraq through countries like Syria. There is the danger that some will probably survive and emerge as new cadres of expert terrorists building a new generation of trained radical young men and jihadists outside the country.[24]
Zarqawi's group is composed mostly of non-Iraqi Arab volunteers who originate from countries bordering Iraq-Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, and Syria-due to the ease with which jihadists from these countries can infiltrate Iraq. According to some researchers, the multi-national nature of the two groups could also explain the alliance between Zarqawi and bin Ladin.[25]
The successes of the Zarqawi group during the two and a half years of terrorist and guerrilla activity and the continuation of their painful strikes against the coalition forces and primarily against the officials and security forces of the new Iraqi government has attracted more and more groups and volunteers to his ranks. Although for a long time he was considered the representative of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, it was only in December 2004 that his allegiance to bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida materialized. This was due to growing strategic and tactical disagreements between the various leaders of the jihadist movements.
Expanding in the Middle East, Increased Effort in Europe, First Strategic Splits
The disagreements are a result of the need to achieve at any cost a quick visible victory in the fight against the US-Western coalition and its Arab allies and relate to three main issues: (1) With the growing strategic and political status of the Shi'a in Iraq and the potential threat they represent in the entire Gulf area, the Shi'a have been designated as the Sunni jihadist movement's main enemy. (2) The growing number of innocent Muslims killed in terrorist attacks due to the increasing violence in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, have produced negative reactions among Arab public opinion and the need to delineate tactical "red lines." (3) With the beginning of the terrorist jihadist activity in Saudi Arabia in May 2003, there has become a need to define the main struggle front-Iraq, Saudi Arabia, or possibly Egypt. The need to score a strategic victory on the Iraqi and Middle Eastern fronts, to attract greater participation of new young levees in the struggle, and solidarity from the Arab masses have also pushed the jihadist leaders to bandwagon the Palestinian intifada and to increase their operational efforts in Europe in the hope of disrupting the US coalition.
The Sunni-Shi'a Divide
From the September 2003 assassination of Ayatollah al-Hakim and to present, Zarqawi has made the utmost effort to provoke the Shi'a of Iraq to retaliate against the Sunnis and thus trigger a civil war. This strategy, reflecting the common Wahhabi doctrine, became obvious after US authorities leaked a letter written by him in January 2004. The Shi'a were described as "the most evil of mankind...the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom." Their crime was "patent polytheism, worshipping at graves, and circumambulating shrines."[26]
Zarqawi's position contradicted bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida's views concerning the Shi'a. It should be noted that in his audio message of February 2003, bin Ladin stressed the importance of the Sunnis and Shi'a fighting united against the Americans. He even cited Hizballah's 1983 suicide bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut as the first "American defeat" at the hands of Islamist radicals.[27]
The victorious image in the Arab and Muslim world achieved by the Shi'a Hizballah movement and its leader Hasan Nasrallah after the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000 and, more recently, the exchange of prisoners (including many Palestinians) between Israel and Hizballah in January 2004, created much resentment and criticism in Saudi jihadi-Salafi elements. Moreover, the presentation of Nasrallah as the "New Salah al-Din" put the role of the global vanguard of Islam played by Qa'idat al-Jihad at risk for a takeover by the Hizballah. Since the process of establishing a new government in Iraq, with a clear Shi'a majority, Salafi web sites and forums have stepped up their attacks against the Shi'a, Iran, and Shi'a doctrines.[28]
It is interesting to note that it was bin Ladin who accepted the strategy of Zarqawi and the Saudi jihadists, recognizing the predominance of the leaders who continued the fight on the ground rather than that of the nominal leadership which was hiding somewhere in Pakistan. This process took a whole year and resulted in the nomination of Zarqawi as the "emir" of al-Qa'ida in Iraq.
Bin Ladin did not respond to Zarqawi's first letter sent to him in December 2003 (the one leaked in January 2004 by the Americans). On October 17, 2004, "with the advent of the month of Ramadan and the need for Muslims to unify ranks in the face of the enemy," Zarqawi announced that "Tawhid and Jihad Group, its prince and soldiers, have pledged allegiance to the shaykh of the mujahideen Usama bin Ladin."[29] He changed the name of his organization from al-Tawheed wal Jihad to Tandhim Qa'idat al-Jihad fi bilad al-Rafidain (The al-Qa'ida Jihad Organization in the Land of the Two Rivers). Interestingly, the announcement mentioned that "[t]here have been contacts between Shaykh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi_with the brothers in Al-Qaida for 8 months," but "a catastrophic dispute occurred." The contacts resumed, however, and in the end, "the brothers from Al-Qaida" understood "the strategy of the Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement in Mesopotamia..." and "their hearts" were "pleased by the methods [al-Zarqawi] used."[30]
Al-Qa'ida indeed reprinted and acknowledged the statement, responding favorably to the new development in their online magazine Mu'askar al-Battar.[31] On December 27, 2004, bin Ladin designated "honored comrade Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi" as the "commander [Amir] of al-Qaida organization in the land of the Tigris and the Euphrates," and asked "the comrades in the organization" to obey him.[32] In a video aired on al-Jazeera, in what appears to be a response to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani's call on his Shi'a followers to vote en masse and decree that those who boycott the elections are "infidels," bin Ladin warned against the participation in elections: "Anyone who participates in these elections_ has committed apostasy against Allah." He also endorsed the killing of security people "in Allah's name."[33]
However, this important issue has continued to trouble the relations between the al-Qa'ida leadership and al-Zarqawi, as evidenced in the letter sent to the latter by Ayman al-Zawahiri in July 2005. In this major document Zawahiri acknowledges "the extent of danger to Islam of the Twelve'er school of Shiism... a religious school based on excess and falsehood," and "their current reality of connivance with the Crusaders." He admits that the "collision between any state based on the model of prophecy with the Shi'a is a matter that will happen sooner or later." The question he and "mujahedeen circles" ask Zarqawi is "about the correctness of this conflict with the Shi'a at this time. Is it something that is unavoidable? Or, is it something can be put off until the force of the mujahed movement in Iraq gets stronger?"[34]
Moreover, Zawahiri reminds Zarqawi that "more than one hundred prisoners-many of whom are from the leadership who are wanted in their countries-[are] in the custody of the Iranians." The attacks against the Shi'a in Iraq could compel "the Iranians to take counter measures." Actually, al-Qa'ida "and the Iranians need to refrain from harming each other at this time in which the Americans are targeting" them.[35] This is indeed a new kind of real-politik on the part of al-Qa'ida leadership.
The Killing of Innocent Muslims
The jihadist fighters in Iraq were enraged when in July 2004 Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, Zarqawi's former prison mentor, posted an article on his website criticizing "blowing up cars or setting roadside explosives, by firing mortars in the streets and marketplaces, and other places where Muslims congregate." Al-Maqdisi stated that the "hands of the Jihad fighters must remain clean so that they will not be stained by the blood of those who must not be harmed even if they are rebellious and shameless," and warned against attacks on Christian churches, as this would strengthen the will of the infidels against Muslims everywhere.[36] A year later, al-Maqdisi criticized "the extensive use of suicide operations" in which many Muslims were being killed and expressed reservations about the extensive killing of Shi'a in Iraq. Moreover, he opposed declaring the Shi'a as non-Muslims, which in effect permitted their blood.[37]
In a 90-minute audio recording released in May 2005, Zarqawi relied on Muslim jurists to justify and legitimize the collateral killing of Muslims in the act of killing infidels, as the evil of heresy is greater than the evil of collateral killing of Muslims.[38] In the same recording, Zarqawi announced the beheading of the chief of intelligence of the Shi'a Badr, "the brigade of perfidy, the brigade of apostasy and the brigade of agents for Jews and Crusaders." Some Islamist Saudi writers, such as Abd al-Rahman ibn Salem al-Shammari, also praised the beheading of captives. This then became one of Zarqawi's preferred tactics in his attempts to threaten and expulse the foreign presence in Iraq, and he was proudly named the "Shaykh of the Slaughterers."[39]
In a July 2005 audiotape, Zarqawi claimed that it was a duty to wage jihad against the Shi'a, because they were apostates (murtadoon) and had formed an alliance with the Crusaders against the jihad fighters. In July 2005, Zarqawi published a third statement in which he rejected al-Maqdisi's accusations and attacked him, saying that ulama who were not participating in the jihad in Iraq had no right to criticize the actions of the fighters, thereby even serving Crusader interests.[40]
A small number of Sunni shaykhs and organizations urged Zarqawi to withdraw his anti-Shi'a statements on the grounds that they ignite fitna (internal strife), thus serving the interests of the occupation. So did the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, the Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Shaykh Abd al-Aziz al-Shaykh, and the Syrian Islamist Shaykh Abd al-Mun'im Mustafa Halimah. Moreover, five "resistance organizations"-the Army of Muhammad, al-Qa'qa Brigades, the Islamic Army in Iraq, the Army of Jihad Fighters in Iraq, and the Salah al-Din Brigades-stated that "the call to kill all Shi'ites is like a fire consuming the Iraqi people, Sunnis and Shi'ites alike" and proclaimed that the resistance targeted only Iraqis "connected to the occupation."[41]
Define the Main Struggle Front: Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt?
Throughout bin Ladin's public statements and declarations runs one fundamental and predominant strategic goal: the expulsion of the American presence-both military and civilian-from Saudi Arabia and the entire Gulf region.[42]
According to Cordesman and Obaid, Saudi Arabia only began to experience serious internal security problems when bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida actively turned against the monarchy in the mid-1990s and began to launch terrorist attacks in an effort to destroy it.[43] However, these attacks remained sporadic until May 2003 when cells affiliated with al-Qa'ida began an active terror campaign directed both at foreigners-especially Americans-and the regime.[44]
According to this analysis, an organization that called itself the al-Qa'ida Organization in the Arabian Peninsula set up an infrastructure that included safe houses, ammunitions depots, cells, and support networks. However, in Afghanistan there were disagreements among the leadership of al-Qa'ida regarding the timing and potential targets of attack in Saudi Arabia, and the then local leader Yousef al-Uyeri maintained that al-Qa'ida members were not yet ready for it. This group was responsible for the May 2003 attacks which indicated that al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula had become a major threat. Since the May 2003 attack, Saudi Arabia has remained a prime target for bin Ladin. [45]
This analysis does not explain why al-Qa'ida did not anything serious to attack its major target and the loathed Saudi royal regime until after its demise in Afghanistan. It seems more realistic to evaluate that there was a kind of unwritten agreement between the Saudi rulers and bin Ladin not to touch Saudi interests and soil. This could also explain why Saudi Arabia was one of the only three countries (with Pakistan and the UAE) that recognized the legitimacy of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, supported it financially, and maintained diplomatic relations with it until the last moment.
According to Dr. Sa'ad al-Faqih, a widely acknowledged expert on al-Qa'ida, the jihadists have abandoned their previous tactics of targeting Westerners and the security forces in Saudi Arabia and are now focusing all their attention on the royal family. They "believe that the prevailing opinion in Saudi Arabia-and probably in the wider Muslim world-is that the royal family is infidel and deserves harsh treatment_ [and they] have overcome their fear of a secular takeover in the event of the sudden downfall of the House of Saud." According to al-Faqih, it seems that in the late 1990s, bin Laden thought that if the House of Saud were removed, the country would fall into the hands of secular forces. Al-Qa'ida has reached the conclusion that, as they learned from the Iraq theater, the sudden collapse of the regime would either invite foreign interference or lead to chaos. An American invasion would therefore provide a massive recruitment opportunity for them and a certain victory.[46] It is of interest to note that according to al-Faqih, the local Saudi leadership has made "quite a few clumsy decisions" in the recent past and "at the operational level there is now a very tenuous link between bin Laden and his advisers and the local al-Qaeda leadership in Saudi Arabia."[47]
According to Reuven Paz, an Israeli expert on Islamist organizations, the attacks in Saudi Arabia marked an important change in the jihadist strategy and a return from the distant Afghanistan to the Arab land. This shift became even more evident after the first jihadist attacks in Sinai, on October 7, 2004, after seven years of a de facto timeout from terrorist operations conducted on Egyptian soil.[48]
In an article written by the Saudi Abu Abbas al-Aedhi, the Sinai attack is presented as the first of several forthcoming attacks in Egypt as part of a clear strategy approved by the mujahideen in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Egypt. The jihad in Iraq and Egypt are viewed as "the ropes to strengthen the Jihad in Arabia"[49] The next steps should be the beginning of jihad in Yemen and Kuwait on the one hand, and the unification of the North African jihadist groups in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, and the Sudan, on the other hand. The main theme of al-Qa'ida's strategy, however, is to place the jihad groups in Saudi Arabia at the center, coordinating the Islamist activity with the two "branches" in Iraq and Egypt as part of this central goal. This strategy was devised among others by the late Yousef al-Uyeri, killed in June 2003 by the Saudi police. According to this analysis, al-Uyeri marks the shift of the younger generation of the dominant scholars of global jihad to Saudi hands and should be viewed as the architect of global jihad in Iraq.[50]
Another jihadist analysis, seemingly based upon the 1601 page book on jihad by Abu Mus'ab al-Suri relates to the Sinai attacks of October 2004, the consequent Cairo (April 2005) attacks, and the Sharm al-Shaykh (July 2005) attacks. According to al-Suri the most important jihadist target in this phase must be attacks against tourists. The attacks in Sinai were, therefore, a highly successful example of this strategy, both against the Egyptian government and in terrorizing the Westerners.[51] This also seems to be an attempt to identify new fronts in the Arab world-apart from Iraq-to conduct the struggle. Paz believes there is a high likelihood that we are facing two separate strategies and even two different competing parties of global jihad, with Zarqawi in the Iraqi arena and al-Suri stationed in other parts of the Arab world.[52]
Furthermore, it is important to note that the Saudi involvement in the Islamist insurgency in Iraq is significant, as they represent some 61 percent of Islamists killed and some 70 percent of Arab suicide bombers. It seems that thus far, Saudis are not only the group most affected by the insurgency in Iraq, but also help feed it. One significant explanation for this could be the Wahhabi hostility towards the Shi'a, who are perceived as infidels, and the notion of the need to support the Sunni minority in Iraq.[53]
Apparently, the new strategy proposed by the new ideologues of global jihad is implemented on the ground.
In January 2005, eight Kuwaiti soldiers, five of them officers, were arrested after a tip from Saudi Arabia that an al-Qa'ida cell was operating in Kuwait and planning attacks against US troops. The subsequent round-up of suspects included the detention of an imam said to be the cell's mastermind. [54] On March 19, 2005, a car bomb driven by an Egyptian suicide bomber in Doha, the capital of Qatar, demolished a theater packed with Westerners and damaged an English speaking school, leading to one fatality and up to 50 people injured. The attack was the first in the country, which hosts the US Central Command that directed the 2003 invasion of Iraq, [55] and came two days after the suspected al-Qa'ida leader in Saudi Arabia urged militants in Qatar and other Gulf states to wage holy war against "crusaders" in the region. [56]
The Brigades of Martyr Abdulaziz al-Moqrin, a previously unknown group apparently named for a Saudi al-Qa'ida leader killed in a 2004 shootout with security forces, issued a website statement threatening to carry out further attacks in Kuwait. Clear Saudi ties also have emerged in militant crackdowns in the Gulf island state of Bahrain. In 2004, at least six Bahrainis were arrested on suspicion of planning to bomb government buildings and foreign interests and collaborating with foreign terrorist groups. In January 2005, Omani authorities arrested at least 100 Islamic extremists suspected of planning to carry out attacks at a popular shopping and cultural festival.[57]
Playing the Palestinian Card
Until his demise in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001/2 bin Ladin gave Palestine low priority. For him, the heart of the matter was the US presence on the holy soil of Saudi Arabia, which he saw as the bridgehead of a corruptive non-Muslim culture. Throughout bin Ladin's public statements and declarations is one fundamental and predominant strategic goal: the expulsion of the American presence-both military and civilian-from Saudi Arabia and the entire Gulf region. Bin Ladin and the WIF he created did not forget what they saw as crimes and wrongs done to the Muslim nation: "the blood spilled in Palestine and Iraq.... the massacre of Qana, in Lebanon_ and the massacres in Tajikistan, Burma, Kashmir, Assam, the Philippines, Fatani, Ogadin, Somalia, Eritrea, Chechnia, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina." Yet it is worth noting that the Palestinian issue was given no special prominence. According to Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi, bin Ladin "has been criticized in the Arab world for focusing on such places as Afghanistan and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and [he] is therefore starting to concentrate more on the Palestinian issue."[58] Following the demise of Afghanistan, the hiding al-Qa'ida leaders bin Ladin and Zawahiri mentioned Palestine more and more as a top priority and in parallel there was a sharp increase in attacks by jihadist groups against Jewish and Israeli targets.
The first major attack after the war was the suicide bombing on April 11, 2002 outside a historic synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia. The 16 dead included 11 Germans, one French citizen, and three Tunisians. Twenty-six German tourists were injured. The Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Sites claimed responsibility.
On May 16, 2003, 15 suicide bombers attacked five targets in Casablanca, Morocco, killing 43 persons and wounding 100. The targets were a Spanish restaurant, a Jewish community, a Jewish cemetery, a hotel, and the Belgian Consulate. The Moroccan Government blamed the Islamist al-Assirat al-Moustaquim (The Righteous Path), but foreign commentators suspected an al-Qa'ida connection.
On November 15, 2003, two suicide truck bombs exploded outside the Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues in Istanbul, killing 25 persons and wounding at least another 300. The initial claim of responsibility came from a Turkish militant group, the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front, but Turkish authorities suspected an al-Qa'ida connection.[59]
On November 28, 2002, at least 15 people died in the first suicide attack by al-Qa'ida against an Israeli target: an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombassa, Kenya. A large part of the Paradise Hotel was reduced to rubble and nine Kenyans and three Israelis were killed. A parallel attempt to fire two missiles at an Israeli holiday jet (an Arkia airline plane-a Boeing 757 carrying 261 passengers) that had taken off from the city's airport failed.
The reason for this sudden interest in Jewish and Israeli targets was most likely the result of al-Qa'ida and associates groups' attempts to bandwagon what was considered at that stage a very successful violent al-Aqsa intifada by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and other Palestinian groups. On the one hand, it permitted them to claim their support to the Palestinian people, but at the same time it created an anti-Jewish and anti-Israeli terrorist campaign which would attract more solidarity and support from the Arab and Muslim masses and possibly attract more young recruits to their ranks. More recently in August 2005, four Israeli cruise ships carrying a total of 3,500 tourists scheduled to dock in the Mediterranean Turkish resort of Alanya were rerouted to the island of Cyprus by the Israeli authorities due to fear of a terrorist attack. A Syrian citizen named Louai Sakra was arrested for plotting to slam speedboats packed with explosives into the cruise ships filled with Israeli tourists.
Al-Qa'ida in Palestine?
A new radical Muslim terrorist group with close ties to al-Qaida in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, has started operating in the Gaza Strip, according to PA security officials. Jundallah, or "Allah's Brigades," consists mostly of former Hamas and Islamic Jihad members. It launched its first attack on IDF soldiers near Rafah in mid-May 2005. The group is especially active in the southern Gaza Strip. Jundallah's emergence in the Gaza Strip confirms suspicions that al-Qa'ida has been trying to was trying to establish itself in the area before Israel's planned withdrawal.[60]
On August 2, 2005, a posting on the forum al-Mustaqbal al-Islami (Islamic Future) included what it termed the "First Declaration of al-Qa'ida from the Land of the Outpost, Occupied Palestine," specifically the "military wing" of a group calling itself "Alwiyat al-Jihad fi Ard al-Ribat" (The Jihad Brigades in the Land of the Outpost). The declaration described a rocket operation undertaken on July 31, 2005 against the settlements of Neve Dekalim and Ganne Tal:
... In the context of the Islamic Jihad by our mujahideen brothers of al-Qa'ida's World Organization against the Jews and Crusaders. We declare that the Brigades are not a new or passing organization on the land of Palestine, but a [true] believer spirit that urges on the mujahideen to make themselves into a single rank.
Some observers, however, believe that the new group is merely a split from Fatah or an operational pseudonym that will disappear after a few uses, as was the case with the Tanzim Jundallah group.[61]
In September 2005, Mahmoud Waridat, a West Bank Palestinian arrested in July the same year, was charged by IDF prosecutors with undergoing training at an al-Qa'ida camp in Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, though it was said the defendant later declined an offer to join bin Ladin's global network.[62] A leaflet distributed in Khan Yunis in October 2005 by al-Qa'ida Jihad in Palestine announced that the terrorist group had begun working towards uniting the Muslims under one Islamic state, the only way for Muslims to achieve victory over their enemies. The leaflet is the latest indication of al-Qa'ida's effort to establish itself in the Gaza Strip after the Israeli withdrawal from the area. On the eve of the disengagement, a number of rockets were fired at the former settlements of Neveh Dekalim and Ganei Tal. An announcement claiming responsibility on behalf of al-Qa'ida members in the Gaza Strip was made by three masked gunmen who appeared in a videotape. Al-Qa'ida's new on-line television channel branded PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas a "collaborator with the Jews," accusing him of assisting Israel in its war on Hamas.[63]
Nine Katyusha rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on the night of December 27, 2005. Four rockets hit the town of Kiryat Shmona, another hit the Western Galilee town of Shlomi, and four landed in open areas. IDF intelligence estimated that the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, headed by Ahmed Jibril-was responsible for the Katyusha fire, most likely in coordination with Hizballah. As a result, on December 28, 2005, Israel Air Force fighter jets fired two missiles at a PFLP-GC training base at Na'ameh, about seven kilometers south of Beirut, slightly wounding two fighters.[64]
On December 29, 2005, al-Qa'ida's Committee in Mesopotamia (Iraq), led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the rocket attack. According to its statement:
[After] careful planning and intelligence gathering, a group of al-Tawheed lions and Al-Qaida operatives put their faith in Allah and launched a new attack on the Jewish state_ [with] ten Grad rockets from Muslim territory of Lebanon toward selected targets in the northern part of the Jewish state_. This blessed attack was carried out by the mujahideen in the name of Mujahid Shaykh Usama Bin Laden, the commander of al-Qa'ida_ With the help of Allah, what is yet to come will be far worse."[65]
Sources in the IDF said it was difficult to determine the reliability of the announcement.
It should be noted that there is an al-Qa'ida affiliate in Lebanon, Usbat al-Ansar, comprised of radical Sunni Palestinians from the Ayn al-Hilwah refugee camp in southern Lebanon. On August 19, 2005 an al-Qa'ida affiliate calling itself the Abdallah Azzam Battalions fired three Katyusha rockets from Aqaba, Jordan. One of the rockets landed near Eilat's airport, the second narrowly missed an American ship in the Aqaba harbor, and another hit a group of Jordanian soldiers.
Although it is possible that Hizballah or one of its Palestinian allies were behind the December 27, 2005 bombing of northern Israel, the claiming of responsibility by Zarqawi's al-Qa'ida Committee in Mesopotamia should be taken seriously. It is possible that the stage of al-Qa'ida and Iran refraining "from harming each other" has already passed and the moment has arrived when the Iranian regime, in coordination with Assad's regime or Hizballah, have decided to give a free hand to al-Qa'ida to do their "dirty work."[66]
Increased Effort in Europe
Although the vast majority of Muslims in Europe are not involved in radical activities, Islamist extremists and vocal fringe communities that advocate terrorism exist and reportedly have provided cover for terrorist cells. It must be stressed that there was a serious Islamist terrorist threat in Europe long before 9/11. On December 24, 1994, four terrorist members of the Algerian GIA hijacked Air France flight 8969 at Algiers airport bound for Paris. The terrorists assassinated an Algerian policeman. In addition, during the intense standoff, authorities learned that the aircraft was laden with more than twenty sticks of dynamite and that the GIA planned to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower in Paris, blowing it up. The plane was diverted to the Marseille International Airport and there French commandos managed to overcome the terrorists.[67]
In the 1990s, the NATO, EU, and US decision to support Bosnia's independence practically neutralized bin Ladin's plan to use the Bosnian front-and later Kosovo and Albania-to penetrate Europe. Still, some ex-mujahideen remain in Bosnia and seem recently to be active.
In December 2000, the arrest of four suspected al-Qa'ida members by German police foiled a plot to attack the Strasbourg Cathedral. An Islamist preacher named Abu Qatada was arrested for the attack but was released on a lack of evidence. December is the twelfth and last month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... This article is about the year 2000. ...Also, in September 2001, US, European, and Middle Eastern efforts foiled a plot to blow up the US embassy in Paris. The same month, a plot was uncovered to bomb a NATO air base in Kleine Brogel, Belgium, home to 100 US military staff. Germany (the Hamburg cell) and Spain (the wide infrastructure in Madrid and some provincial cities) were identified as key logistical and planning bases for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Moreover, the Milan Islamic Center in Italy has served since the mid-1990s as a base and support for several Egyptian, Algerian, Tunisian and Moroccan al-Qa'ida affiliated cells, which did not reach the stage of conducting terrorist attacks before their arrests.
The March 11, 2004 attack on the trains in the Atocha station in Madrid was the first successful operation in Europe by an al-Qa'ida affiliated group. It was followed by the July 7 and 23, 2005 series of four suicide bombings in the London underground, the second one a failed operation. The March 2004 terrorist bombings in Madrid have been attributed to an al-Qa'ida-inspired group of North Africans. UK authorities suspect the four young British nationals who carried out the July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks on London had ties to al-Qa'ida as well.
These attacks were presented as retaliation for the participation of Spanish and British troops in the US-led coalition in Iraq. The Madrid attack executed just three days before elections in that country indeed brought down the Aznar government and imposed a socialist government that decided to withdraw its troops from Iraq. However, the arrest of some 130 Islamist activists preparing new major attacks in Spain after the March 2004 bombings and the withdrawal of Spanish troops from Iraq prove that the war is only a good pretext.[68] The goals of the Islamists are much larger and they are not willing to compromise. And the Islamists have no intentions of stopping after one victory, and most likely not stop before the liberation of Andalusia from Spanish "occupation."
Since the war in Iraq, attacks and threats have also targeted the "minor" US allies in the framework of the international coalition: Poland and Norway, South Korea, Italy, and Denmark. Moreover, police operations in Germany, Italy, Ireland, and the UK have led to the arrest of terror suspects and the dismantling of an Islamic network centered in Italy that recruited fighters for the insurgency in Iraq. This network, possibly involving Ansar al-Islam in Italy and al-Tawhid in the UK and Germany, also had a foothold in Norway, France, Spain, and the Netherlands.
The preferred option and long-term goal of al-Qa'ida is therefore not a concept different from "transnationalism." The Muslim world is not, nor has it ever been, defined wholly or mainly in terms of the umma or transnational linkages and identities. To be sure, forms of solidarity over Muslim-related political conflicts and issues-such as Palestine, Kashmir, and now Iraq-do exert a hold on many people and inspire some to radical activism.[69]
Zarqawi Taking the Lead?
According to a serialized book published in July 2005 by a Jordanian journalist, the future strategy of Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi is based on expanding the conflict with the United States and Israel and involving new parties in it. Simultaneously, a broad-based Islamic jihadist movement will assume responsibility for changing the circumstances that have long prevailed in the region and for establishing an Islamic caliphate state in seven stages with Iraq as its base.[70]
Turkey, which is located north of Iraq, is viewed as the most important Islamic state because of its great economic and human resources and significant strategic location. Abu-Mus'ab and al-Qa'ida believe that Turkey lacks self-determination and freedom because "the Jews of Dunma" control the army and the economy and are the real powerbrokers in the country. Therefore, Turkey's return to the ranks of the nation "will not happen unless a powerful strike is dealt to the Jewish presence in that country." Al-Qa'ida's current strategy is to infiltrate Turkey slowly and postpone major operations there until major gains are made in Iraq.
Iran is the second country that al-Qa'ida seeks to involve in this conflict. Iran expects that the United States and Israel will strike a number of nuclear, industrial, and strategic Iranian facilities. Abu-Mus'ab thinks that the US-Israeli confrontation with Iran is inevitable and could succeed in destroying Iran's infrastructure. Accordingly, Iran is preparing to retaliate by using the powerful cards in its hands. The area of the war will expand, pro-US Shi'a in Iraq and Afghanistan will suffer embarrassment and might reconsider their alliances, and this will provide al-Qa'ida with a larger vital area from which to carry out its activities.[71]
However, according to al-Faqih, "al-Qaeda secretly thinks it might have made a mistake by appointing Zarqawi as its leading representative in Iraq," because he is "too decisive as a commander" and is driven by arrogance. According to some rumors, "the jihadi circles are trying to reach bin Laden in order to convince him to remove Zarqawi as the local al-Qaeda commander in Iraq." The jihadist leaders in Iraq are not at all happy with Zarqawi's conduct and "begrudge his arrogance and recklessness." Basing himself on Zawahiri's letter to Zarqawi, al-Faqih concludes that Zawahiri remains al-Qa'ida's main strategist.[72]
Conclusion
It is clear from this succinct presentation and from the events on the ground that the current situation in the Middle East is both complex and volatile and that developments in one country or region are influencing neighboring countries and conflicts. Therefore, the war on terrorism will require a long and intricate campaign. The danger of the Islamist networks can be neutralized in the long run only by preventing the formation of a "liberated fundamentalist territory"-the concept of Ayman Zawahiri-in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Central Asia, Indonesia or elsewhere in the Muslim world.
The existing danger is not that of a united World Islamist Front and its victory, but rather of a politically and socially destabilized Middle East and of an increasingly paranoid and undemocratic global society (especially if WMD terrorism succeeds). On the strategic-military level, only political, intelligence, and operational cooperation between the great international players-the United States, Europe, Russia, China, and India-can overcome this dangerous perspective. On the ideological and political level, the radical trends in the Muslim societies can be defeated only by the moderate Muslims.
The words of a famous moderate Muslim leader of a moderate Muslim country, Abdurrahman Wahid, former president of Indonesia, speak for themselves:
An effective counterstrategy must be based upon a realistic assessment of our own strengths and weaknesses in the face of religious extremism and terror. Disunity, of course, has proved fatal to countless human societies faced with a similar existential threat. A lack of seriousness in confronting the imminent danger is likewise often fatal. Those who seek to promote a peaceful and tolerant understanding of Islam must overcome the paralyzing effects of inertia, and harness a number of actual or potential strengths, which can play a key role in neutralizing fundamentalist ideology. These strengths not only are assets in the struggle with religious extremism, but in their mirror form they point to the weakness at the heart of fundamentalist ideology...
Muslims themselves can and must propagate an understanding of the "right" Islam, and thereby discredit extremist ideology. Yet to accomplish this task requires the understanding and support of like-minded individuals, organizations and governments throughout the world. Our goal must be to illuminate the hearts and minds of humanity, and offer a compelling alternate vision of Islam, one that banishes the fanatical ideology of hatred to the darkness from which it emerged.[73]
*Ely Karmon is Senior Research Scholar at The Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and also Research Fellow at The Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel. He lectures on terrorism and guerrilla in modern times at IDC, at the IDF Military College, and at the National Security Seminar of the Galilee College. Karmon is the author of Coalitions of Terrorist Organizations. Revolutionaries, Nationalists and Islamists (Leiden, Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2005).
[1] Fred Halliday, "A Transnational Umma: Reality or Myth?," October 7, 2005, at: http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/umma_2904.jsp.
[2] Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights under the Prophet's Banner, published as a serialized book by the London Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. English translation available at: www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ayman_bk.html.
[3] US Department of State, Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, Country Reports on Terrorism 2004, Department of State Publication 11248, April 2005, pp. 61-62.
[4] Reuven Paz, "Qa'idat al-Jihad. A New Name on the Road to Palestine," ICT website, May 7, 2002, at: www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=436.
[5] April 11, 2002, a blast at Tunisian synagogue kills 17 people. A fuel tanker is blown up outside a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba killing 19 people, including 14 German tourists. An al-Qa'ida spokesman later says the organization was behind the suicide attack.
October 12, 2002, bomb attacks on Bali nightclubs kill 202. Two bombs rip through a busy nightclub area in the Balinese town of Kuta killing 202 people, most of them foreign tourists. The Indonesian authorities believe the attacks were carried out by the South East Asian militant network Jemaa Islamiah which is said to have links to al-Qa'ida.
November 28, 2002, Israeli targets come under attack in Kenya. Sixteen people including three suicide bombers are killed in a blast at an Israeli owned hotel in Mombassa. A missile fired at an Israeli plane misses its target. A message on a website purporting to come from al-Qa'ida says the group carried out the attack.
May 12, 2003, dozens killed in Saudi bombings. At least 34 people are killed in a series of bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh. The targets were luxury compounds housing foreign nationals and a US Saudi office. Washington and Riyadh say al-Qa'ida is the prime suspect. It is the first in a string of attacks over successive months in Saudi Arabia.
May 16, 2003, Morocco is rocked by suicide attacks. Bomb attacks in Casablanca kill 45 people including 12 attackers. Targets include a Spanish restaurant, a five star hotel, a Jewish community center, and the Belgian consulate. Four men later sentenced to death for the attacks are said by the Moroccan authorities to be members of the Salafia Jihadia widely believed to be linked to al-Qa'ida.
December 15, 2003, suicide bombers hit two Turkish synagogues. At least 23 people are killed and more than 300 injured in two devastating suicide attacks on synagogues in Istanbul. The government blames al-Qa'ida for the attacks.
December 20, 2003, two bomb attacks on British interests in Turkey. Attacks on the British Consulate and the HSBC bank offices in Istanbul leave 27 people dead and more than 450 wounded. There are separate claims of responsibility from two allegedly al-Qa'ida connected groups.
See BBC News, Timeline: Al-Qaeda, at: http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.%20co.uk/1/hi/world/3618762.stm.
[6] "Saudis arrest suspects in Riyadh bombings," ICT website, May 28, 2003, at: http://www.ict.org.il/spotlight/det.cfm?id=901.
[7] Ayman al-Zawahiri audiocassette, October 9, 2002; September 2003: Parts of the 105-minute tape broadcast by al-Jazeera satellite television showed Bin Ladin with al-Zawahiri, who urged supporters to bury Americans in "the graveyard of Iraq." Although bin Ladin had not appeared on a videocassette for many months, remaining silent, he allowed al-Zawahiri to speak.
[8] As of May 2005 the list included, among others: Ramzi bin al-Shibi (the reputed recruiter for the 9/11 attacks); Mohammed Atef, Abu Zubaydah, and Khaled Shaykh Mohammad (all senior operational planners); Abd al-Rahim al-Nashirih (bin Ladin's alleged point man on the Arabian Peninsula and chief organizer for maritime attacks such as the USS Cole suicide strike in 2000); Riduan Isamuddin (also known as Hambali, al-Qa'ida's main link to Southeast Asian militant groups and the accused mastermind of the 2002 Bali attacks in Indonesia); Ahmed Khalfan Ghilani (one of the FBI's 22 most wanted terrorists, believed to be a key figure behind the 1998 U.S. embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania); Abu Faraj al-Libbi (thought to be al-Qa'ida's third most senior leader in 2005 and main coordinator for operations in Pakistan); Haitham al-Yemeni (described as a central figure in facilitating the international dissemination of jihadist communications and supplies).
List taken from Peter Chalk, Bruce Hoffman, Robert Reville, Anna-Britt Kasupski, Trends in Terrorism: Threats to the United States and the Future of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, RAND Center for Terrorism Risk Management Policy, 2005.
[9] Two bin Ladin supporters developed this critical analysis of Muslim governments in their articles. They present the Arab League and the Muslim Conference as "two paralyzed associations." Moreover, Arab Islamic movements are also criticized, and the weak leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, for instance, was compared with the strong figures of Hassan al-Bana and Sayyid Qutb.
[10] B. Raman, "The Iraq War & Terrorism," South Asia Analysis Group, Paper no. 647, March 30, 2003.
[11] Iraq Report, Vol. 6, No. 10, March 14, 2003.
[12] John F. Burns, "Iraqis Threatening New Suicide Strikes against U.S. Forces," NYT, March 30, 2003.
[13] "Al-Qa'ida on the Fall of Baghdad," MEMRI Special Dispatch-Jihad and Terrorism Studies, No. 493, April 11, 2003.
[14] Ze'ev Schiff and Nathan Guttman, "Thousands cross Syrian border to fight for Iraq," Haaretz, April 1, 2003. See also Jonathan Schanzer, "Foreign Irregulars in Iraq: The Next Jihad?," Analysis of Near East Policy from the Scholars and Associates of The Washington Institute, PolicyWatch No.747, April 10, 2003.
[15] On the lack of planning for the immediate aftermath of the war see Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (London: Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. 413.
[16] See Anthony H. Cordesman, with the assistance of Patrick Baetjer, Iraq's Evolving Insurgency, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Working Draft: Updated as of June 23, 2005. Cordesman gives an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of the Iraqi insurgency and the strategic and tactical errors of the Bush Administration in dealing with it.
[17] Cordesman, Iraq's Evolving Insurgency, pp. 11-12.
[18] Ibid.
[19] For an in-depth analysis of his career see Nimrod Raphaeli, "The Sheikh of the Slaughterers: Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi and the Al-Qa'ida Connection," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series, No. 231, July 1, 2005.
[20] King Abdallah of Jordan told the press that in 2002, Jordan had asked Iraq to extradite al-Zarqawi following the murder of the U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley, but the Saddam regime had ignored the request. Most agree that al-Zarqawi was definitely in Iraq at the end of 2002 and that he was given shelter by the terrorist group Ansar al-Islam (see below), which operated from northern Iraq. Ibid.
[21] Ulrich Schneckener, "Iraq and Terrorism: How Are ' Rogue States' and Terrorists Connected?," Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik Comments, March 2003.
[22] Kenneth Katzman, "Iraq : U.S. Regime Change Efforts, the Iraqi Opposition, and Post-War Iraq," Congressional Research Service Report, March 17, 2003.
[23] Raphaeli, The Sheikh of the Slaughterers.
[24] See Anthony H. Cordesman, New Patterns in the Iraqi Insurgency: The War for a Civil War in Iraq, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Working Draft, Revised: September 27, 2005.
[25] Reuven Paz, "Arab Volunteers Killed in Iraq: An Analysis," Project for the Research of Islamist Movements (PRISM) Series of Global Jihad, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 2005).
[26] See Raphaeli, The Sheikh of the Slaughterers.
[27] See Reuven Paz, "Global Jihad and the Sense of Crisis: al-Qa'idah's Other Front," PRISM Occasional Papers, Vol. 1, No. 4 (March 2003), at: www.e-prism.org/pages/4/index.htm.
[28] Reuven Paz, "Hizballah or Hizb al-Shaytan? Recent Jihadi-Salafi Attacks against the Shiite Group," PRISM Occasional Papers, Vol. 2, No. 1 (February 2004), at: http://www.e-prism.org/images/PRISM_no_1_vol_2_-_Hizbullah_or_Hizb_al-Shaytan.pdf.
[29] See National Terror Alert, at: http://www.nationalterroralert.com/updates/index.php?p=297.
[30] "Communiqu? from Al-Tawheed wal-Jihad Movement (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) in Iraq ," October 17, 2004, at http://www.globalterroralert.com/zarqawi-bayat.pdf.
[31] "Zarqawi's Pledge of Allegiance to al-Qaeda: From Mu'asker al-Battar, Issue 21," Translation by Jamestown Foundation Researcher Jeffrey Pool, Terrorism Monitor, Vol. 2, No. 24, December 16, 2004.
[32] Islamist sources in Britain criticized bin Ladin's designation of Zarqawi as leader of the group, because it was smaller than other terrorist organizations operating in Iraq, such as Jaysh Ansar al-Sunna or al-Jaysh al-Islami. See Raphaeli, The Sheikh of the Slaughterers.
[33] Nimrod Raphaeli, "Iraqi Elections (III): The Islamist and Terrorist Threats," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 202, January 18, 2005.
[34] See Ayman al-Zawahiri, Knights under the Prophet's Banner, published as a serialized book by the London al-Sharq al-Awsat, the English translation at: http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/ayman_bk.html.
[35] "Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi," ODNI News Release No. 2-05, October 11, 2005, at http://www.dni.gov/letter_in_english.pdf. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence released the letter dated July 9, 2005, obtained during counterterrorism operations in Iraq.
[36] Raphaeli, Iraqi Elections (III).
[37] See Y.Yehoshua, "Dispute in Islamist Circles over the Legitimacy of Attacking Muslims, Shi'a, and Non-combatant Non-Muslims in Jihad Operations in Iraq: Al-Maqdisi vs. His Disciple Al-Zarqawi," MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis Series - No. 239, September 11, 2005.
[38] "The [collateral killing] is justified under the principle of dharura [overriding necessity], due to the fact that it is impossible to avoid them and to distinguish between them and those infidels against whom war is being waged and who are the intended targets. Admittedly, the killing of a number of Muslims whom it is forbidden to kill is undoubtedly a grave evil; however, it is permissible to commit this evil _ indeed, it is even required _ in order to ward off a greater evil, namely, the evil of suspending Jihad." See "Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi: Collateral Killing of Muslims is Legitimate," MEMRI, Special Dispatch, No. 917, June 7, 2005.
[39] Raphaeli, The Sheikh of the Slaughterers.
[40] Yehoshua, "Dispute in Islamist Circles over the Legitimacy of Attacking Muslims, Shi'a, and Non-combatant Non-Muslims in Jihad Operations in Iraq."
[41] "Sunni Sheikhs and Organizations Criticize Al-Zarqawi's Declaration of War Against the Shi'ites," MEMRI Special Dispatch Series, No.1000, October 7, 2005.
[42] According to the "Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places"(its full title), "the latest and the greatest of [the] aggressions, incurred by the Muslims since the death of the Prophet_ is the occupation of the land of the two Holy Places-the foundation of the house of Islam, the place of the revelation, the source of the message and the place of the noble Ka'ba, the Qiblah of all Muslims-by the armies of the American Crusaders and their allies." The declaration is presented as the first step in the "work" of "correcting what had happened to the Islamic world in general, and the Land of the two Holy Places in particular.... Today.... the sons of the two Holy Places, have started their Jihad in the cause of Allah, to expel the occupying enemy out of the country of the two Holy places." See Ely Karmon, "Terrorism a la Bin Ladin is not a Peace Process Problem," PolicyWatch, No. 347, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, October 1998.
[43] Cordesman and Obaid claim that the Kingdom was the first target of al-Qa'ida when in November 1995, the US-operated National Guard Training Center in Riyadh was attacked, leaving five Americans dead. This subsequently led to the arrest and execution of four men, purportedly inspired by Usama bin Ladin. However, bin Ladin who denied involvement praised the attack (see Washington Post, August 23, 1998) and according to other analysts the terrorists were inspired by the Jordanian jihadist ideologue al-Maqdasi.
[44] See Anthony H. Cordesman and Nawaf Obaid, "Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia: Asymmetric Threats and Islamist Extremists," Center for Strategic and International Studies, Working Draft: Revised January 26, 2005.
[45] Ibid. Again according to Cordesman and Obaid, at the beginning, al-Ayeri was the chief of al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula and reported directly to bin Ladin (al-Ayeri's was the only regional al-Qa'ida operation to report directly to OBL). Al-Ayeri's lieutenants, in turn, reported directly to him. They were responsible for setting up five autonomous cells focusing exclusively on operations within Saudi Arabia.
[46] See Mahan Abedin, "New Security Realities and al-Qaeda's Changing Tactics: An Interview with Saad al-Faqih," Spotlight on Terror, Jamestown Foundation, Vol. 3, No. 12 (December 15, 2005). Dr. Saad al-Faqih heads the Saudi opposition group, Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA).
[47] Ibid.
[48] Reuven Paz , "From Riyadh 1995 to Sinai 2004: The Return of Al-Qaeda to the Arab Homeland," PRISM Series of Global Jihad, Vol. 2, No. 3 (October 2004).
[49] The article, entitled "From Riyadh/East to Sinai," was published on several Islamist Internet forums.
[50] According to Paz, two of his Saudi associates, are trying to fill his place-Shaykh Ahmad al-Zahrani, alias Abu Jandal al-Azdi in Saudi Arabia, and Shaykh Abu Omar Seyf in Chechnya, who is the leading Islamic scholar of the Arab battalion of volunteers there. Another individual to be noted is Shaykh Hamed al-Ali, a Saudi who lives in Kuwait.
[51] The analysis was published on September 25, 2005 by a known al-Qa'ida supporter, nicknamed Abu Muhammad al-Hilali. It appears to be the first analysis of this kind to be based on the 1601 page book on Jihad by Abu Mus'ab al-Suri which was published via the internet in January 2005. See Reuven Paz, "Al-Qaeda's Search for new Fronts: Instructions for Jihadi Activity in Egypt and Sinai," PRISM Occasional Papers, Vol. 3, No. 7 (October 2005).
[52] According to Paz, al-Suri is probably the most talented combination of a scholar and operative of global jihad. He was one of the chief al-Qa'ida explosive trainers in Afghanistan, but also gave many lectures about jihadist strategy, religion, and indoctrination. Many of his lectures from Afghanistan are posted on his web site in the form of video and audiotapes, and much of the material there appears in his monumental book. His call for a "Global Islamist Resistance" could be part of global jihad, but also a call for a new form of al-Qa'ida loyal to the doctrines of Abdallah Azzam, but not necessarily to the Saudi form of jihadist Tawhid. Interestingly, al-Suri has a European background. He is a Spanish citizen as a result of marriage, and lived in the 1990s in Spain and London. He is well familiar with the European arena and Muslim communities there, primarily that of North Africans. Ibid.
[53] Reuven Paz, "Arab Volunteers Killed in Iraq: An Analysis," PRISM Series of Global Jihad, Vol. 3, No. 1 (March 2005).
[54] 12,000 US civilians live in Koweit, while 25,000 US troops are based in there, using it as a launch pad for operations in Iraq. See Robin Gedye, "Soldiers in 'anti-US plot' held by Kuwait," Daily Telegraph, January 15, 2005.
[55] Sean Rayment and Peter Zimonjic, "One dead as blast demolishes Qatar theatre packed with westerners," Daily Telegraph, March 20, 2005.
[56] Reuters, March 25, 2005.
[57] Paul Garwood, "Terror wave spreads across Mideast, raising concerns over regional links," Associated Press, February 1, 2005.
[58] Karmon, "Terrorism a la Bin Ladin is not a Peace Process Problem."
[59] See Significant Terrorist Incidents, 1961-2003: A Brief Chronology, Office of the Historian, Bureau of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State, March 2004, at http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/5902.htm.
[60] Khaled Abu Toameh, "Al-Qaida-linked terrorists in Gaza," The Jerusalem Post, May. 20, 2005.
[61] Stephen Ulph, "Al-Qaeda expanding into Palestine?" Terrorism Focus, Jamestown Foundation, Vol., 2, No. 15, August 5, 2005.
[62] "IDF prosecutors charge West Bank Palestinian with Al-Qaida link," Reuters, September 8, 2005.
[63] Khaled Abu Toameh, 'Al-Qaida raises its head in Gaza," Jerusalem Post, October 10, 2005.
[64] See Amos Harel, 'Iraq al Qaeda claims Tuesday's missile attack on northern Israel,' Haaretz, December 29, 2005.
[65] See the Communique at http://www.globalterroralert.com/pdf/1205/zarqawi1205-9.pdf.
[66] "Letter from al-Zawahiri to al-Zarqawi."
[67] See "Air France Flight 8969" at: http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/%20Flight%20AF%208969%20Alger-
Paris%20hijacked.
[68] See "El n?mero de presos por terrorismo isl?mico en Espa?a ha crecido un 59% en el 2005," Barcelona La Vanguardia, December 25, 2005.
[69] Halliday, "A Transnational Umma."
[70] Fuad Husayn, The Second Generation of Al-Qa'ida (Part 13), a serialized book on Al Zarqawi and Al-Qa'ida published by the London al-Quds al-'Arabi, July 11, 2005. See also Yassin Musharbash, "What al-Qaida really wants," Spiegel Online, August 12, 2005, at: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,369448,00.html.
[71] Ibid.
[72] See See Mahan Abedin, "New Security Realities and al-Qaeda's Changing Tactics: An Interview with Saad al-Faqih,"
[73] Abdurrahman Wahid, "Right Islam vs. Wrong Islam," WSJ.com Opinion Journal, December 30, 2005, at: http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007743.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
00:33 ||
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The U.S. intelligence community has briefed Congress on the increasing cooperation between Iran and Al Qaida.
Congressional sources said congressional committees have been told that Teheran has sought to use Al Qaida in any Iranian war with the United States. The sources said Iran has harbored leading Al Qaida operatives and enabled them to plan major attacks that would be launched upon Teheran's approval.
"Teheran has been seeking a range of terrorist options against the United States in case it strikes Iran's nuclear weapons facilities," a congressional source said. "Al Qaida has played a role in these options, although it's unlikely to be a leading element."
On Wednesday, the United Nations Security Council gave Iran a month to honor a demand to end uranium enrichment and related activities. The council decision was reached after the United States dropped its demand for a two-week deadline for Teheran.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
00:31 ||
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#1
Dan, is a copyright infringment to see the whole thang here at Rantburg News?
#3
I suspect the Iranians are having to seriously re-evaluate their "unconventional force" allies. This is because I think they have already tried one international blow-up, to show how powerful Moslems are worldwide.
The cartoon debacle. They probably thought that by now, there would have been massive riots throughout the world, with cities burning, because of the cartoons.
Oop. That didn't work. So now that have to go directly to the militants in hope that *they* can do something against the West to cause chaos. For its part, al-Qaeda is probably concealing from them how badly damaged they really are--still blustering and bragging like they did to the Taliban, back in the day.
al-Qaeda, for its part, is caught between a rock and a sharp place. It has to agree to help the Iranians, or they will kick them out or kill them outright; so they are probably promising, insisting, that they can take on major targets and grab world headlines.
This means that sooner or later, most likely before any official hostilities, the Iranian will give the al-Qaeda a bunch of cash and tell them to go out there and create havoc. And having been lying through their teeth, al-Q will have to decide to run from the Iranians for the rest of their lives; or to get slaughtered first, and then run for the rest of their lives if they try to attack a western target.
#4
Meanwhile, al-Qaeda Sunnis are slaughtering Shiites (and vice versa) in Iraq. But Islamic prophecy holds that the Mahdi (Savior) will rise in Khorassan (partly in Iran) and lead an army through Sunni territory - presumedly in unity - and defeat the Dajjal's (Anti-Christ) army in Arabia, prior to the end of days. Sunni-Shiite unity is best pre-empted. I love to disprove "prophecy."
#10
If ever it was unclear with respect to Iran using terrorist proxies for smuggling a nuclear device into the United States, it is no longer. This, literally, unholy alliance should serve immediate notice to one and all of just how vital it is to catastrophically dismantle Iran's nuclear assets with all possible haste.
It is as if Iran, with its preposterously vitriolic rhetoric, has dug itself into a hole so deep whereby it is now easier for them to dig through to China than reverse course in any respect.
Any single one of their bellicose threats, be it nuclear attack, Semitic genocide or terrorist sponsorship in general each represent an ample casus belli. Lumped together, they are nothing less than a flat out declaration of war against America. We can no longer afford to ignore this. Bush needs to make an open case based upon these issues and proceed with military action against Iran.
Three weeks of testimony and dozens of documents released in the sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui have offered an eerie parallel view of two organizations, al-Qaida and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and how they pursued their missions before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Al-Qaida, according to the newly revealed account from the chief plotter, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, took its time in choosing targets - attack the White House or perhaps a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania? Organizers sized up and selected operatives, teaching them how to apply for a visa and how to cut a throat, a skill they practiced on sheep and camels. Despite the mistakes of careless subordinates and an erratic boss, Osama bin Laden, Mohammed tried to keep the plot on course.
Mohammed, a Pakistani-born, American-trained engineer, "thought simplicity was the key to success," says the summary of his interrogation by the Central Intelligence Agency. It is all the more chilling for the banal managerial skills it ascribes to the man who devised the simultaneous air attacks.
If Mohammed's guiding principle was simplicity, the U.S. government relied on sprawling bureaucracies at feuding agencies to look for myriad potential threats. The CIA had lots of information on two of the hijackers, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar, but the FBI did not know the men had settled in San Diego, where Mohammed had instructed them to "spend time visiting museums and amusement parks" so they could masquerade as tourists.
At the FBI, a few agents pursued clues that would later prove tantalizingly close to the mark, but they could not draw attention from top counterterrorism officials. A Minnesota FBI agent, Harry M. Samit, warned in a memo that Moussaoui was a dangerous Islamic extremist whose study of how to fly a Boeing 747-400 seemed to be part of a sinister plot.
"As the details of this plan are not yet fully known, it cannot be determined if Moussaoui has sufficient knowledge of the 747-400 to attempt to execute the seizure of such an aircraft," Samit wrote on Aug. 31, 2001. He had already urged Washington to act quickly, because it was not clear "how far advanced Moussaoui's plan is or how many unidentified co-conspirators exist."
But to high-level officials, the oddball Moroccan-born Frenchman in Minneapolis was only one of scores of possible terrorists who might be worth checking out. An FBI official in Washington edited crucial details out of Samit's memos seeking a search warrant for Moussaoui's possessions and said that pressing for it could hurt an agent's career, Samit testified.
The picture of a large and lumbering bureaucracy trying to defend against a small and flexible enemy is striking, said Timothy J. Roemer, a member of the national Sept. 11 commission.
"It's like the elephant fighting the snake," said Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
00:29 ||
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#1
But why did al-Qaeda carry out the 9-11 attacks? Their cause was: polarization of Muslims and Westerners, in context of the West's engorgement on multi-cultural poison. Islamofascists are strong everywhere, including in your town.
#2
Why did al Qaeda attack? Polarization? Engorgement on multi-cultural poison? In your town?
Such original brilliance.
Welcome back, Man Bites Dog.
Yes, I finally remembered where I'd heard that point of view before. I'd ask how your therapy's coming along, but your posts tell the story.
The FBI is an organization which, other than perhaps forensics - and that is not a given anymore, time has passed by. A bureaucratic dinosaur totally immersed in PCism, decades behind other agencies in every relevant respect, and ultimately a dangerous legacy as it sucks up resources and exists mainly to self-propagate.
Any organization which uses unconventional means for communications and finance can leave the FBI tied up in knots at square one. DIA and NSA, however, are another matter entirely. I'll leave the state of the CIA to OS.
Seafarious gave notice that desperate ad hominem attacks are not welcome here, presumedly because said attacks are all noise and no substance. Yahoo has all sorts of forums that I avoid because they vent spin-envenomed control freaks. I don't want to be banned like you were, so I am going to obey the rules and keep posting timely articles on subjects that interest open-minded Rantburgers.
As for substance, 2 days ago Condi admitted that "tactical" errors were made in the counter-terror war but defended the "strategic" plan. Maybe she was hinting that al-Qaeda's successful polarization scheme could have been better countered. To me that is an open-minded and flexible approach, and I support her.
.com:
Try to be nicer and people will like you.
Seafarious, et al:
This might be sinktrap material but .com's unmanaged rage and lack of substantive posting, will probably have to be addressed pro-actively at some time. I am sorry if you find that now is not the right time, and chose to sinktrap this. Let's fight terror, and not terror fighters.
#6
Listen to Dogs, dear, .com does not choose to be patient or tactful, but he has never visited Rantburg anonymously. I assume that the reason we haven't seen much of him lately has to do with a lovely -- and likely not at all sweet -- thing keeping him busy in the wilds of Las Vegas, where he's lived since moving back from Saudi Arabia not all that long ago. I realize you and he are not fond of one another, but the moderators and the old timers like him, so you are not going to win that one. And remember, we who come here are quite clear who the bad guys are, and don't need to be pursuaded. Truly! ;-)
#8
trailing wife:
Whiny obsession and all trump Bridge-play can indicate only 1 presence. He was banned until yesterday according to Seafarious, and he signalled the second coming by regurgitating outdated Hannrity stock. With all the material available to Rantburgers, it should be obvious that the White House is sharpening pre-emption, so it is not wise to stay angrily rooted in the 2002 worldview like the Maglite wielding security guard.
#16
whining is unattractive. LOTP answered before I could, but I echo her comments
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 16:08
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#17
I had to go back to the beginning, when I first started visiting. MBD was one of the premier TROLLS infesting Rantburg - fairly hard to forget. Multiple agendas is (still) the game. Bush hatred, Muslim hatred, VDH hatred, LOL. Above all, nothing negative happens in the WoT World that isn't Bush's personal fault. Reading recent posts it's there, but generally more circumspect than in the glory daze. Back then, the comments were deleted, but I and many others got to see them before they were. This time, MBD has survived because it has been careful.
Here, refresh your memories. A number after the link indicates the number of its TROLLED comments on that particular article.
#20
lotp:
Forums tend to attract obsessive-compulsives. Trust me: they are always in attack mode and if Moderators muss their sandboxes, you become their target. Dollars for dimes says that they come here in both friendly and hostile guises, and work toward pathological equilibrium on both levels. I have a good rapport with those who come here only for info, and I will treat subjective posts like wallpaper. The WOT is about to change. Rantburgers should be better able to adapt.
#24
ironic, huh, N Spemble? But I repeat myself :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 18:45
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#25
LtD, I've been around the Internet since before it WAS the internet, ie since the ARPANET days when people in British Columbia, like you, were not online.
Don't presume to teach your elders about online culture. ;-)
#29
Just 2 days ago (comment #20) MBD reached its pathological equilibrium.
Every US President has forsworn the first-strike use of nuclear weapons - for 60 years. Painting this as another of Carter's legacies, which are already numerous and odious, is prejudicial logical fallacy, such fallacies are something at which MBD excels. Much of it is cut and pasted from other sources, I'm sure. You can tell when it decides to add original thoughts... I've noticed the oddness in some of your constructs - and you've obliged with another:
"Rantburgers should be better able to adapt."
Perhaps what's said in BC should stay in BC. Don't need you here, that's a certainty.
Once upon a time, as the links I gave above indicate rather clearly, Fred knew what to do with MBD - and did it repeatedly - that was only about a month's timespan. That a real nuke 'em first post didn't raise but one eyebrow must (please) be because it came late... I hope.
#30
For the record...yesterday I sinktrapped LtD's off-topic, personally insulting sneak attack on another poster. I sinktrapped the reply to LtD's comment to prevent the thread from devolving into a food fight. I then poop-listed whichever smartypants changed its name and posted to stir the pot. I don't like calling out individual posters, but LtD, you're on the list. Keep your commenting focused on the War on Terror, and not on the other RB participants.
#31
Guess you'd better whack me, then, Seafarious. I object to this sick fuck's posts going unchallenged.
Ah, well, it doesn't matter. The moderators redact clearly innocent comments on lame grounds and skip right over insane bombs. It used to be exciting, wild, fun, interesting; you could just lurk and enjoy the hard edged banter and the heavenly snarking. Lucky, TGA, AC, and others would leaven the mix with laughter, facts, and insight. Terribly missed, those are gone, now. I'd guess it's lonely on the ramparts for the stalwarts remaining, stalked by the sinktrap.
Pass the cucumber sandwiches, please. Mon Dieu! Sans croûtes, naturellement! Barbares! Ah, et passent les nukes, svp.
#34
Seafarious gave notice that desperate ad hominem attacks are not welcome here, presumedly because said attacks are all noise and no substance.
Pot -> Kettle -> Black
I have a good rapport with those who come here only for info, and I will treat subjective posts like wallpaper.
Riiiiiiight. Here's a hint kiddo. .com outclasses you before the devil can get his shoes on. If you're wondering why he's not here, I'd wager it's because he probably refuses to get into a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
Respectfully, as I said, I am tactfully ignoring you know who no matter what name he goes under. OCD is a problem. Howie Mandel gets an anxiety attack when someone asks to shake his hand. I was stating a fact when I said that OCD types - at least 3 - are here. Lotp and yourself will probably have cause to agree with me at some time, if you don't already. I have apologized for breaking the rules. OCD control types could not.
Gunmen in police uniform kill and kidnap at electronics shops. A mosque raid draws government charges that U.S. troops run Iraqi forces beyond its control. Bodies turn up on streets as militia death squads roam freely.
This weeks violence in Iraq suggests the conflict has entered an ominous new stage where crime gangs, Sunni Arab insurgents and pro-government Shia militias overlap as violence pushes the country closer to sectarian civil war.
What began with a murky Sunni revolt against occupation and then the US-backed interim government has exploded into a communal and criminal battlefield where determining who is killing whom -- let alone why -- is getting harder every day.
The Sunni insurgency is now complemented by the Shia militias who are getting very powerful and are able to wreak havoc on the Sunnis, said Martin Navias, at the Centre for Defence Studies at Kings College in London.
The various groups are killing each other and kidnapping but not openly doing it. It is a type of ethnic cleansing. But it is not an open civil war.
Iraqi leaders are struggling to form a unity government more than three months after elections, raising concerns that a widening political vacuum will foster ever more violence.
Analysts say that while the new trends were alarming, there were no signs that the violence is about to spill over into open warfare with street battles between Iraqs main Shia, Arab Sunni and ethnic Kurdish groups.
A fall in American casualties since last summer suggests that US troops, with growing numbers of Iraqi allies, have made gains over insurgents. March should show one of the lowest monthly US death tolls of the war, possibly the lowest in two years.
But measuring success in those terms on that conventional military front is easier than gauging progress in the battle against a complex network of criminals, militias and insurgents -- all of whom can show up in police or army uniforms.
Gunmen dressed as police commandos -- precise accounts of the uniforms varied -- killed nine people in an attack on an electronics store in Baghdad on Wednesday, one of a series of raids against lucrative businesses in the capital this week.
Workers, including women, were rounded up and then killed.
On Monday and Tuesday, a total of 35 people were abducted in four attacks, including two on electronics dealers and one on a money-changer where the attackers also stole $50,000.
Determining whether they were criminals or insurgents seeking funds seems impossible in Iraqs chaos.
Police officers in the area where the raids were carried out said they had no idea who was responsible.
Many security groups work in Iraq and nobody knows who they are or what they are doing, said one police lieutenant colonel, who would give his name only as the familiar Abu Mohammed for fear of reprisals from his shadowy adversaries.
There are now many organised crime groups working under formal cover, as militias or security companies. Its hard to figure out who they are, let alone who is behind them.
One businessman who said he was familiar with some of the businesses targeted said several belonged to one man, suggesting attacks by racketeers. That could not be confirmed, however.
Hazim Al Naimi, a politics professor at Baghdads Mustansiriya University, said the raids were another disturbing sign that the conflict has been escalating since the bombing of a Shia shrine last month touched off bloody reprisals.
Since then, hundreds of bodies have turned up in the streets, many shot or strangled with signs of torture.
The crisis has become very complicated now. We are seeing raids on electronics shops that make no sense. It could be a campaign to wreck the economy so Iraqis dont set up businesses. Its hard to tell, said Naimi.
Al Qaedas Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, the man who has been most predictable in Iraqs conflict, has been keeping a low profile.
His suicide bombers have eased off, leading Interior Minister Bayan Jabor to conclude Zarqawi is no longer a threat.
But US officers say he is shifting attacks away from American soldiers and Shia civilians to Iraqi security forces and more targeted killing, raising fears of new violence as the authorities try to grapple with deepening mayhem.
Long-term stability ultimately depends on whether Iraqi forces can take on militants and insurgents on their own.
US commanders have been praising Iraqi special forces for a raid on a Baghdad mosque compound on Sunday night which left what they said were 16 terrorists dead.
But as government-run state television showed lengthy footage of the bullet-ridden bodies, Shia leaders accused the Americans of a massacre of unarmed worshippers and directing Iraqi forces without a green light from the Iraqi government.
Police and local residents said the compound was a base for the Mehdi Army, a Shia militia. But the US military says it still has no idea who the 16 were despite extensive intelligence work ahead of the raid and the rescue of a tortured hostage.
People ought to be focused on the fact that 50 members of the Iraqi special operations forces planned and conducted this. And it was flawless. Flawless, US Major General Rick Lynch told a news conference on Thursday.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
00:28 ||
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#1
Electronics shops make sense if they are out of electronics kits for IEDs.
#2
Re-read the first few paragraphs of this - a classic of the distorted self-parody of reporting that is now common. Every few weeks there's a new "alarming" turn in the war, every time portending - you guessed it - a step closer to "civil war". The distortion here is really quite dramatic. Criminality centered on money has been at the heart of most of the so-called "insurgency" among most Sunnis, not to mention being at the root of almost all kidnapping and much of the other misbehavior.
But it would be unseemly to portray the vicious quasi-fascist mercenary thugs behind the "insurgency" as, well, vicious quasi-fascist mercenary thugs. I say "quasi-fascist" because like other Arabs these particular losers can't really even get the twisted, evil, malevolent European-invented models of statecraft that they've tried to imitate quite right.
Scan "news" reports out of Iraq and behold words you'll hardly find in any other hard news stories on any other topic: "raging, exploding, wave of violence (means 2 small attacks in city the size of LA), chaos, teetering on brink of civil war, blah blah blah". Someone with the patience and time really oughta carefully document this - it would be striking.
#5
Most news reports emphasize body count rather than the fact that it's Iraqi-on-Iraqi.
I suspect that's because if Americans were more aware that these casualties are mostly Iraqi internicene violence, we'd take the view widely expressed during the Iran/Iraq war: "I hope they both lose."
Now that I think of it, considering the factions involved this may be in fact another Iran/Iraq War.
Posted by: regular joe ||
04/01/2006 9:19
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#6
But the cumulative death toll keeps rising.
So? It continues to raise on the highways, in the cities, and everywhere people live. Senseless, far less than being done in by some rectal orifice of an excuse driving DUI for the umpteenth time. Given the choice between during 24 in Iraq or traveling some of our roads on Friday or Saturday night, I'd say you have a better chance of survival in the former.
#9
Cumulative death toll rising....good one Jackal! Its a bear-doing-what-in-the-woods moment, heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/01/2006 10:42
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#10
And the cumulative total would still increase if one American was killed every two months. In fact, someone who didn't want you to notice that the RATE has gone down to practically nothing would call attention to that fact.
Considering that we're counting deaths, the cumulative total is hardly expected to decrease. in fact, I'd sorta think that if I went out there and resurrected 100 people, you'd complain that the cumulative total has gone down "a piddling fraction of the total."
#12
I wouldn't be surprised to read "the cumulative death toll has gone down" if it could be spun to hurt W. The utter impossibility would evade our MSM geniuses just like the fact that life has a 100% fatality rate (oooohhh!! Global warming?)
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 22:19
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#13
Nobody is f'ing with the Kurds.
You know why?
They will take the fight to the bastards who are bankrolling all this incitement to civil war: Iran (and Syria to a lesser extent).
They have organization and clandestine operations cells there from decades of dealing with opression.
The Swiss banking giant, UBS, may have helped Iran develop its nuclear program, may have held an account for Al Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden, and could find itself investigated as part of Congress's ongoing inquiry into the United Nations oil-for-food scandal, lawmakers said yesterday. During an intense grilling on Capitol Hill, the bank was also accused of engaging in a pattern of resistance to congressional inquiries, as lawmakers cited years of non-cooperation with congressional probes into improper transactions between the bank and terrorist regimes. One lawmaker disclosed that UBS had provided a witness for yesterday's hearing only under threats of subpoena, and another accused the bank's representative at the hearing of using "weasel words" to dodge tough questions.
Yesterday's hearing of the House International Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight, chaired by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, Republican of California, was a long-awaited public examination of UBS's alleged money laundering for state sponsors of terrorism, including Cuba and Iran. It is the latest in a series of inquiries spawned in 2003 when American soldiers liberating Iraq discovered $762 million in American currency stashed in hideouts belonging to Saddam Hussein. The serial numbers on the banknotes were traced to UBS, which distributed the currency as part of the Extended Custodial Inventory Program run by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
The Federal Reserve program, in cooperation with international banks, allowed clients to exchange old American banknotes for new ones. One condition of the program was that the international banks were not allowed to accept cash from countries against which America maintains sanctions. They also were not allowed to transfer cash to such countries. When American investigators probed the $762 million that emerged in Iraq, they found that UBS had also provided $3.9 billion in American currency for Fidel Castro's Cuba, $1 billion for Iran, and $30 million for Libya. Cuba, Iran, and Libya appear on the State Department's official list of state sponsors of terrorism. As a result of an investigation by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in cooperation with the Department of the Treasury, UBS was censured by the Swiss Banking Commission, and paid a $100 million fine to the Federal Reserve in spring 2004.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
00:21 ||
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#1
Interest rates are so bad at Swiss banks you just know the money is dirty.
#3
fuckin swiss, neutral my ass... they support anyone and have a terrible track record to prove it, self righteous pigs.
Posted by: bk ||
04/01/2006 10:05
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#4
BK, they support anyone with the cash, Nazis, Saddam, Hezbullah, etc... They are probably hoping to bankroll the Bil Ladem construction company. What bothers me in this report is the Bin Laden family's open and financial support to their terrorist brother. The US should roll up the whole damn family and put them at Gitmo until UBL is captured. We have played around enough with this ass, time to get close to what counts and run him down in a manner like they did Pablo. Lets put anyone who ever supported or dealt with him on our list and let them share a cel at Gitmo.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
04/01/2006 18:41
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#5
The Swiss whoring themselves out to bad guys with cash - wotta surprise!
#6
Dana R's a straight guy. Orange County's finest, if you ask me. BTW, slightly OT - nobody in southern california really calls it the "O.C." - that's for TV
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 19:16
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#7
*shrug* If UBS can't keep their American currency under control, perhpas it would be best not to let them have any more. Separately, I don't imagine we'll do anything about the bin Laden siblings until we are ready to go after Saudi Arabia -- bin Laden paterfamilias was the previous King's favourite builder, after all. Besides, most of what the family are getting for their money is dead jihadis and blown up supplies, thanks to our brave men and women around the world. The more they throw away now, the less they'll have later.
#8
The Swiss have a lot to answer for. Their past actions have been tantamount to crimes against humanity. Just watch Frontline's "Nazi Gold" program if you have any doubts.
#9
The lady with whom I studied German before we moved across the pond was Swiss German. The sleep of her childhood was ever interrupted by the Nazi trains rumbling through the Swiss countryside. She was so disgusted by her countrymen's hypocracy that she left as soon as she reached adulthood, and never looked back. And don't let's forget that the Nazis put the identifying J for Jew on passports at the request of the Swiss authorities, who wanted to make sure they were keeping out the right people.
A Beirut military tribunal has acquitted six Lebanese soldiers and a Syrian national of charges that they belonged to a group linked to the al-Qaeda network. Thursday's ruling by investigating magistrate Samih al-Hajj stated that "no proof was found relating to them".
In January the seven were arrested on suspicion that they were plotting terrorist attacks. Video and audio recordings containing speeches by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden were found in their possession. After their arrest, the men told investigators that in 2004 they travelled to Iraq to fight against US troops. There, according to their testimony, they were captured and detained for 10 months in a US military detention centre. Upon returning to Lebanon the men, according to al-Hajj's sentence, began collecting money to aid militants fighting US-led forces in Iraq. While the men had confessed of taking part in "jihad" there was no evidence suggesting they were linked to al-Qaeda, al-Hajj said. As for the audio and video propaganda materials, these can be purchased easily in Lebanese markets "by any citizen," the judge said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
00:20 ||
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Australia has warned of a possible terrorist attack against Western interests in Indonesia this weekend, and the US government issued a new security alert to its citizens for the country.
The advisory by the Australian government urged citizens against travelling to Indonesia, including the resort island of Bali, "due to the very high threat of terrorist attack".
"We continue to receive a stream of reporting indicating that terrorists are in the advanced stages of planning attacks in Indonesia against a range of targets, including places frequented by foreigners," it said.
"These reports include information about potentially heightened risk of attack on particular dates - recent reports suggest Sunday, April 2, 2006, (tomorrow) could be a potential date for attack but we emphasise that attacks could occur at any time, anywhere in Indonesia."
The dpa news agency reported this morning that the US Embassy in Jakarata has alerted its citizens, and said Westerners and Western interests in Indonesia remain under threat by terrorists.
"Recent reports suggest that Sunday April 2, 2006 could be one potential date for an attack; however, terrorist attacks can occur at any time, anywhere in Indonesia," the message said.
It warned especially of possible attacks on places where Americans and other Westerners live, congregate, shop or visit.
Western countries including Britain have issued frequent warnings about possible attacks in Indonesia.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
00:18 ||
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Charles Taylor once broke out of a prison in Massachusetts and nearly slipped away this week before Nigeria could hand over the former Liberian president to an international court.
Now, Taylor is being carefully guarded to make sure he doesn't escape again, his chief prosecutor told The Associated Press on Friday.
Prosecutor Desmond de Silva also said security concerns had prompted officials to request that Taylor's trial be moved to Europe, where it would remain under the auspices of the Special Court established in Sierra Leone to try those believed to bear the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed during this country's 1991-2002 civil war.
Taylor is accused of backing Sierra Leonean rebels notorious for raping and maiming civilians by chopping off their arms, legs, ears and lips. He is charged with 11 counts of crimes against humanity.
Taylor's 1989 insurgency in Liberia, which eventually killed 200,000, helped tilt West Africa into crisis.
Charles Taylor has been a regional warlord at the epicenter of the destabilization of the whole region, de Silva said, noting that new Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had expressed concern in a speech about her predecessor's supporters using the trial as a pretext to launch an uprising.
If the security and peace of Liberia is imperiled, it could well spill over into Sierra Leone, and thereupon all trials would come to an end, de Silva said.
De Silva, who once called Taylor an escapologist, said the court complex where he has been held since his arrest Wednesday was guarded by Mongolian troops. He called in an extra contingent of Irish troops and could call in more.
I take the view that at this moment in time, the detention facility in the court is secure, and I think Mr. Taylor would find it extremely difficult to escape, de Silva said.
De Silva also said it would be difficult for anyone who might want to harm Taylor to get to him. De Silva dismissed concern expressed by Taylor's relatives about his safety in custody, noting, We don't go around killing people.
While Special Court officials have requested the trial be moved to The Hague, his first appearance before judges was to be in Sierra Leone's capital Monday. De Silva said Taylor would be read the charges against him 11 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes and be asked to plead.
If he pleads guilty, trial will be fairly short, de Silva said. If he pleads not guilty, it could take months.
Officials were working out the logistics of moving the trial to The Hague.
The Dutch government has said a resolution by the U.N. Security Council would give a solid legal basis for changing the venue. Britain circulated a draft resolution, drawn up in consultation with Dutch diplomats, later Friday.
Dutch Foreign Ministry spokesman Dirk-Jan Vermeij said officials also were discussing where Taylor would be held during the trial and if he is convicted.
Taylor was accused in 1983 of embezzling nearly $1 million and fled to the United States, where he was detained on a Liberian arrest warrant. He escaped from a Massachusetts jail in 1985 cutting through bars with a hacksaw to launch Liberia's civil war.
Taylor fled to exile in Nigeria in 2003 as part of a deal to end fighting in Liberia. Nigeria, under pressure from the United States and others, said last week it would hand Taylor over to the U.N. court but made no move to arrest him, and he fled.
Nigerian police captured him trying to slip across the northern border into Cameroon. He reportedly had two 110-pound sacks filled with dollars and euros.
While the Sierra Leone tribunal's charges refer only to the war there, Taylor also has been accused of backing rebel fighters elsewhere in West Africa and of harboring al-Qaeda suicide bombers who attacked the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, killing more than 200 people.
His son, Charles McArthur Emmanuel, was arrested Thursday by U.S. authorities in Miami. According to an affidavit filed in federal court in Miami, Emmanuel, a U.S. citizen, led Liberian forces who were responsible for Taylor's security until he went into exile in 2003. Emmanuel, 29, also known as Charles Chuckie Taylor Jr., was on a United Nations list of Liberians whose travel was restricted.
Emmanuel appeared in federal court Friday on a charge of passport fraud, said Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
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And we should believe this man ... why? It's not like his boss would let a former employee who Knows Too Much address the international press without getting a visit from Big Mahmoud if any of this were true.
The possibility exists that Canadian troops stationed in southern Afghanistan could come across the world's most well-known fugitive, Osama bin Laden, according to one of his former bodyguards.
Abu Jandal told the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes bin Laden is hiding in Afghanistan, where Canadian troops are currently stationed, not Pakistan, where he was reputedly being sheltered in the lawless tribal lands.
As part of Task Force Afghanistan, about 2,300 Canadian Forces personnel are deployed in Afghanistan with the majority of them operating in the former Taliban stronghold of southern Afghanistan.
Jandal worked as bin Laden's personal bodyguard in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2000.
In the interview, which airs Sunday, Jandal dispels the commonly held notion that bin Laden has taken refuge in the tribal areas of northwestern Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan.
"Not Pakistan," Jandal told the newsmagazine. "I know the Pakistani tribes along the border very well. They can be very trustworthy and faithful to their religion and ideology, but they are also capable of selling information for nothing."
Bin Laden's last confirmed hiding place was in southeastern Afghanistan, when U.S. forces in 2001 intercepted radio messages of him directing troops in the mountainous region of Tora Bora.
Since then the trail has grown cold with the exception of the occasional statement by him condemning U.S. interventions in the Islamic world.
In the interview, Jandal, who now lives in Yemen and remains a fervent supporter of bin Laden, also said he is certain an attack on the U.S. is being planned.
Under a deal with the Yemeni government, which arrested him after the attack on the USS Cole, Jandal has promised the government there that he would remain in Yemen.
Jandal also told the show the closest the Americans ever came to killing bin Laden was before the 9/11 attacks.
That was when the Americans fired missiles at an Al Qaeda training camp near Khost, Afghanistan to retaliate against the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
According to Jandal, sheer luck saved bin Laden, because the night before the attack, at the very last minute, he decided at a fork in the road to go to Kabul rather than the training camp. The next day, the camp was flattened by U.S. missiles.
Jandal also dismissed as untrue reports that bin Laden was sick with a kidney problem that required dialysis. But he confirmed earlier reports that bin Laden had ordered his bodyguards to kill him rather than allow him to be captured alive.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
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NEW charges levelled against two men accused of belonging to a Melbourne terrorist cell have linked members of the group to supporting the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Two of the 10 men who allegedly formed a self-contained terrorist cell, Shane Kent, 29, and Aimen Joud, 21, now face charges of trying to help al-Qaeda carry out a terrorist operation. It has previously been alleged that Kent trained with al-Qaeda and that he used his knowledge to train members of the group.
A total of 22 new charges have been laid against the 10 men, who were arrested in November last year.
An Australian Federal Police spokeswoman said the new charges resulted from evidence gathered under search warrants in November and from follow-up investigations.
"Operation Pendennis is an ongoing operation. While the majority of the brief has been served in Victoria and NSW, some of the material is still being assessed," she said.
Also, three other men, believed to be connected to the group of 10, were being questioned by federal police in Melbourne last night. It is believed that two of the men are Majid Raad, brother of accused men Ahmed and Ezzit; and Shouie Hammoud.
The group's alleged spiritual leader, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, 46, of Dallas, is charged with directing, belonging to, recruiting for and supporting a terrorist organisation.
But a lawyer for Benbrika yesterday told the Melbourne Magistrates Court that the only explosion connected with the group was material detonated by federal police on October 6, 2004.
The court heard the case against the men relied largely on interpretations of a vast record of conversations intercepted by police.
Four of the men appeared briefly in court. Benbrika spoke briefly in Arabic when he entered court then, evidently translating his remarks, said: "This life is very short. Everyone is going to die, but the best of us " His last words were indecipherable.
His lawyer, Bill Doogue, said Benbrika was being held in solitary confinement and restricted to his cell 18 hours a day.
"He has very limited access to his seven children, and when he does have access to his children his wife is not allowed in the room as well, and is forced to watch through the glass window," Mr Doogue said. "For a man who is presumed to be innocent it's grossly unfair."
Yesterday's hearing was delayed after the men were refused permission to attend court in prison garb. The lawyer for eight of the men, Rob Stary, said their civilian clothing was soiled and musty. But magistrate Paul Smith said that not having been found guilty, they should appear in court as any other citizen would. "All defendants appearing before the court, whether in custody or not, should appear in civilian clothing," he said.
As well as Benbrika, Kent and Joud, the men alleged to belong to the terror group are: Abdullah Merhi, 20, of Fawkner; Hany Taha, 31, of Hadfield; Ezzit Raad, 24, of Preston; Fadal Sayadi, 26, of Coburg; Amer Haddara, 26, of Yarraville; Ahmed Raad, 23, of Fawkner; and Izzydeen Atik, 25, of Williamstown North. They are charged with offences including funding a terrorist organisation and possessing items to carry out a terrorist act. They will appear again on June 14.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
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A man with alleged links to a Pakistani militant group is behind bars in Toronto but accusations that he is a terrorist are little more than hype, according to a security expert. Raja Ghulam Mustafa, 40, was arrested March 16 outside his brother-in-law's house in Newmarket, Ont. where he had been staying, a Sun Media report said. While news reports have allegedly linked Mustafa to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden through a group known as the Mujahedin-e-Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), foreign affairs expert Eric Margoles says the Pakistani group has little or no interest in Canada. "It (LET) had nothing to do with terrorism against the west, but it had everything to do with fighting inside of Indian-ruled Kashmir," Margoles told CTV Toronto on Friday.
"None of our concern," he sniffed. "Just a bunch of South Asians. Let them kill each other, as long as they don't do it here."
Published reports also said that Canadian border service officers found a packed suitcase and large amounts of money on the man during the March arrest. While searching the house, officers reportedly seized a briefcase with counterfeit documents and a laptop computer.
They're known as "religious artifacts" in the trade.
None of these details can be independently confirmed.
"So it probably didn't happen that way at all."
When contacted by CTV.ca on Friday, a spokesperson for the border services agency declined comment. "We're not confirming any of the details," Anna Pape said Friday.
"So sod off, Swampy!"
Police also arrested Mustafa's brother-in-law, Syed Maqsood Aly, who is not being linked to any militant group but is allegedly facing outstanding charges in the U.S. It is not known if he was arrested at the same time as Mustafa. The pair is being held at the Toronto West Detention Centre on immigration violations.
"Probably in terrible conditions."
The men were employed as cab drivers by Mahar Fawagers. He told CTV News that he hired the men eight months ago and they both passed police security checks to get their taxi licenses. "I haven't had any complaints about them," Fawagers said.
"Except from a few infidels."
Margoles believes branding the men as terrorists is unfair. "They may have been petty criminals, they may have been involved in visa applications or money laundering, or something like that," Margoles said. "It doesn't mean they're going to plant a bomb in the CN Tower."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006
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Margolis has made many trips to the Indian subcontinent. He has close ties with many in the Pakistan army.
Posted by: john ||
04/01/2006 8:12
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The men were employed as cab drivers by Mahar Fawagers
I hope the gentleman is being thoroughly investigated, too.
#3
>Margolis has made many trips to the Indian subcontinent. He has close ties with many in the Pakistan army.<
Reading his book "War at the Top of the World", the guy practically gushes over the Pakis. He goes on an awful lot about their beautiful dark eyes and muscular bodies.
Only bombers were killed in two failed suicide attacks in southern Afghanistan on Friday. With the fresh assaults, the number of suicide attacks rose to four during the past three days. Friday's attacks were carried out in two provinces of Kandahar and Paktia but officials say only one constable was injured. Targets of both the attacks were convoys of the Afghan army and police.
The first suicide attack was carried out in the Kandahar province, where a bomber tried to detonate himself amid a military convoy, said a senior military officer General Rahmatullah Raufi. He said only the bomber, believed to be an al-Qaeda member, was killed in the explosion. The soldiers were unhurt. Hours after the first attack, another such blast was reported from the Paktia province, where a Taliban militant blew himself up to target some police constables. A local officer said no sooner did the policemen rush to arrest the suspect than he stepped back and there was a big explosion. The body of the bomber was mutilated beyond recognition. One policeman suffered injuries in the attack, who was rushed to a military medical facility in the province.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Awesome...It's nice when the only ones that get what they deserve are the perps.
Police say the overnight arrest of three Melbourne men has disrupted the activity of a group with links to terrorist organisations overseas. A 21-year-old Coburg man, a 25-year-old from Brunswick and a 26-year-old from Hadfield have been charged with belonging to and providing funds to a terrorist organisation. They were arrested after a series of raids conducted last night by ASIO and Federal, Victorian and New South Wales police in north Melbourne.
The Australian Federal Police's Assistant Commissioner for Counter Terrorism, Frank Prendergast, says the arrests relate to the November raids in Sydney and Melbourne. "We believe that what we've done is disrupt a significant threat to the community," he said. "The specifics of those threats will come out during the court processes and we need to be careful in this situation not to say anything that will impinge on the court process."
Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon says the men have made no reference to a specific target for an attack. The ABC understands the men have been charged under tough new laws that prevent anyone associating with alleged terrorist groups. They are believed to be devotees of Islamic cleric Nacer Benbrika.
The suspects' lawyer Rob Stary says the men belong to the same prayer group as 10 others facing court on terror offences. "This is an operation that's gone on now for nearly two years," he said. "[They have] been identified previously and it's curious, the timing of their arrest. They were arrested some time after five-thirty, co-incidentally at the same time that the Melbourne 10 appeared in court all on the same day after a committal mention hearing."
The men were arrested as part of Operation Pendennis. The two older men have also been charged with supporting a terrorist organisation. Two of the charges carry a maximum penalty of 25 years' prison.
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04/01/2006
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Rescue teams are en route to western Iran after three strong earthquakes and several aftershocks left at least 66 people dead and around 1,000 injured. Around 330 villages have also been badly damaged by the quake, local officials say. The epicenter of the quake was in a mountainous area between the two industrial cities of Boroujerd and Doroud. Three tremors struck the remote region, the largest of which measured 6.0 on the Richter scale.
The initial quake of magnitude 4.7 struck late on Thursday evening, according to state television. It was followed by a quake of magnitude 5.1 at 11:06 pm local time while the third much stronger magnitude 6.0 quake struck at 4:47 am local time on Friday.
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Three Palestinians have been killed in clashes in Gaza between armed men and the security forces. The violence on Friday was sparked by the death of a Palestinian resistance fighter who died in a car-bomb explosion earlier during the day. Rival Palestinian factions clashed at the funeral of Abu Youssef al-Quqa, killing three people and wounding at least 20 others, hospital officials in Gaza said.
"We have a big mess here," said Dr Bakr Abu-Safira, an emergency room physician. Hospital officials said two of the dead were bystanders. A boy was wounded in the head by flying debris after the explosion, but his injury is not life threatening.
Ismail Haniya, the Palestinian prime minister, appealed for calm after the killing, and said the Hamas-led government he leads would launch an investigation. Haniya told Reuters that he asked his interior minister, Saeed Seyam, to conduct an immediate investigation into the death of al-Quqa, a top commander in the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), an umbrella group of fighters in Gaza often responsible for rocket attacks against Israel.
Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, Hiba Akila, reported that Israeli artillery on Friday shelled uninhabited arable lands in the northeastern part of the Gaza Strip. Fighters loyal to al-Quqa accused Palestinian security forces of collaborating with Israel in the killing, triggering a series of gunfights in Gaza after the explosion. Israel denied any involvement in the blast outside a mosque at the start of Friday prayers that killed al-Quqa.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Three Islamic militants and seven Indian security forces personnel were among 11 people killed in separate attacks in Indian-held Kashmir which also left 11 others injured, security officials said on Friday.
Six policemen were killed when their vehicle was hit by a roadside explosion in the Soura area of Srinagar, police said. Senior official of the Central Reserve Police Force, N Bhardwaja, said that initial reports indicated that the bomb had been detonated by a remote control device. Militant group Hizbul Mujahideen claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to a local news agency. In other violence, three militants were killed in two separate raids by security forces in southern Pulwama district, army spokesman Vijay Batra said.
In Anantnag, suspected militants abducted and later shot dead 38-year-old local folk singer and dancer Hassan Shah late on Thursday, police said. "He used to entertain the public and also dance during political rallies (by pro-India parties)," a police spokesman said. In another incident, six civilians were injured when a grenade hurled at a police guard post exploded in Srinagar late on Thursday, police said.
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It was only after all the able-bodied teachers in a school in Afif had struggled hard that they could save their principal from the ire of their students recently. A number of angry students pounced upon their principal and started thrashing him with all their might because they were not allowed to come to school. The boys were involved in a fight on the previous day and were sent away from the school with the condition that they could come back only with their parents. The students did not, obviously, want to involve their parents in such an ordinary thing as fighting among themselves. They came to school next morning as though nothing had happened the previous day, but the principal wanted the students to obey him. He did not allow them to attend the morning assembly. It was too much for the students and they jumped on the principal and heaped blows and kicks on him.
Apparently there's some dispute over who's in charge at the school, Mr. Principal or the little monsters...
All the teachers and students were shocked and confused and did not know what to do for a few moments. Then some teachers ran to the assistance of the principal and tried to repel the boys. Then the boys turned on the teachers and it was a free for all for some time. Soon the students discovered that they were no match for their teachers and called for a tactical retreat, Al-Watan daily reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2006
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#1
Such good islamic students. When you teach your children nothing but violent jihad against anything that upsets their delicate sensibilities as the True Way To Virgins, don't be freakin' surprised when they demonstrate how well they have studied.
Mecca (Rantburg News Service): A series of meetings of the Learned Elders of Islam will be held at Muslim World League headquarters in Makkah with the participation of prominent Learned Elders from around the world to discuss ways and means of attaining World Domination. Abdullah Al-Turki, secretary-general of MWL, said his organization has completed preparations for the three-day secret meeting set to begin today. Many Learned Elders and heads of Islamic centers and organizations worldwide have already arrived in Makkah, eager to take part in the conference.
Al-Turki said four secret sessions will be held to deal with key Protocols. The first secret session will cover imposing religious and cultural unity. The second workshop will focus on subverting economies. Social unity will be the main theme of the third workshop. Political unity will be the focus of the fourth workshop. We established this association to coordinate activities of Islamic organizations and centers, especially in matters such as introduction of Islam, protection of Islamic identity of Muslim minorities and formulation a joint stand on contemporary issues, Al-Turki said. "Our eventual goal is the eradication of non-Arab cultures and languages, to include, of course, religions, and the rule of a divinely appointed Caliph from Riyadh. Or maybe Mecca. Not that I have myself in mind for the job, of course. But if asked..."
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04/01/2006
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Can we glass them now? Please? Pretty Please?
With sugar on it?
Speaking of glass, I think wearing such infidel devices as glasses must be haram - those look like Sergio Tacchini frames. So the is Niagara Spray Starch used to give his kaffiyeh that crisp jaunty crease. He's obviously holy cuz he doesn't wear a fanbelt.
An Afghan man who faced the death penalty in his homeland for converting from Islam to Christianity says he was certain he would have been killed if he had remained in Kabul. Speaking in Italy, which has granted him asylum, Abdul Rahman said in an interview with Italian journalists he also wanted to thank the pope for intervening on his behalf. "In Kabul they would have killed me, I'm sure of it," said Rahman, 41, who is under protection in a secret location in Italy. "If you are not a Muslim in an Islamic country like mine they kill you, there are no doubts." He said his case was to serve as an example "to others who dared rebel."
That's precious few of them, but that's because the holy men will kill them.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Still is. Italy is hardly out of reach to Dir al Islam.
#2
Glad to hear that this man made it out ok. Problem doesn't end there, though. What do we do with the next 10, 100, 1000 Afghanis who decide they no longer wish to be part of a death cult?
Glad to be back on rantburg. Back in the Midwest-couldn't take moonbat-land any longer.
Khyber Agency residents have started fleeing to undisclosed locations to avoid being caught in the paramilitary operation against militants here. Also, the political administration has arrested several tribesmen under the Collective Responsibility Act of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR). Local officials launched crackdown on Bar Qambar Khel, Shlobar Qambar Khel, Spah, Malik Din Khel and Aka Khel - all Afridi tribe clans. Khasadar force has been deployed at all entry and exit points.
Dozens of tribesmen have been arrested for supporting cleric Mufti Munir Shakir's Lashkar-e-Islam, and a large number of people have evacuated their residences following a government notice to empty any residence one kilometre from the militant organisation's headquarters. Bara market was deserted on Friday and no shop or trade centre was open. The political administration did not detain any influential person focussing instead on poor people.
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NWFP Governor Khalilur Rehman presided over a high-level meeting to review the law and order situation in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas at Governors House, Peshawar. Chief Secretary Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi, Frontier Constabulary Inspector General Maj General Mohammad Alam Khattak, FATA Secretary Muhamad Shahzad Arbab, Governor Secretary Arbab Mohammad Arif, Khyber Agency Political Agent Fida Wazir participated in the meeting. The meeting also reviewed the situation in Bara and proposed measures to tackle the situation. The Khyber Agency political agent informed the meeting about government action taken so far. Rehman said the government would take action against all defying its authority, whether such people were in Bara, North and South Waziristan or in the settled districts of the province. He directed authorities concerned to show no mercy to miscreants.
This was after he said all was well, no Taliban here, move along...
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The French president has announced that he will sign a controversial youth job law despite weeks of protests, but with the promise that it will be amended right away to weaken two of its most disputed reforms. Jacques Chirac's long-awaited speech on Friday seemed aimed at striking a balance between Dominique de Villepin, the prime minister, who wanted the law applied promptly and in full, and millions of protesters who demand it be scrapped before any compromise could be discussed.
Even before he spoke, students gathered in Paris and other main cities to continue their protests against the First Job Contract (CPE), which will let employers fire workers under 26 without cause during their first two years on the job. "It is time to defuse the situation," Chirac said in the televised speech, in which he said he understood the concerns of youths who could not find jobs. Youth unemployment is running at 22%, high above France's 9.6% national average. Chirac said he had heard "the worries that many youths and their parents express. "In our republic, when the national interest is at stake, there should be neither winners nor losers. We should now close ranks," he said.
In a gesture to students Chirac said no CPE contract could be signed until the new changes had been voted. Villepin pushed the law through parliament last month, arguing France must reform its rigid labour code quickly to fight youth unemployment. Students and workers reacted with the biggest protests seen here in years. Chirac's proposals reflected suggestions made by Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister and leader of the governing UMP party and the main rival to Villepin in the undeclared race to become the conservative candidate in the 2007 presidential election.
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A leading Iraqi Shia cleric demanded on Friday that the United States sack its ambassador, accusing Zalmay Khalilzad of siding with his fellow Sunni Muslims in the sectarian conflict gripping the country. In a sermon read out at mosques for Friday prayers, Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yacoubi said Washington had underestimated the bloody conflict between Shias and the once dominant Sunni Arab minority, which many fear threatens to trigger a civil war. By this, they are either misled by reports, which lack objectivity and credibility, submitted to the United States by their sectarian ambassador to Iraq ... or they are denying this fact, Yacoubi said in the message, later issued as a statement. It (the United States) should not yield to terrorist blackmail and should not be deluded or misled by spiteful sectarians. It should replace its ambassador to Iraq if it wants to protect itself from further failures.
After the imam of Baghdads Rahman mosque read that line, worshippers chanted Allahu Akbar - Holy Shit God is Greatest.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Right, demand away. Muslims. The only ones they hate more than each other are everyone else. There's nothing to underestimate, they're from another world, another time, that Arab alternate reality. Separate them or let them slow-burn to the end.
Newly-installed Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar said the United States is biased towards Israel, guilty of crimes against the Muslim and Arab world and is widening the rift between the American people and those of the Middle East. Zahar, considered one of the more hardline officials in the Palestinians' new Hamas-led government, also said his group would not cave in to international pressure to change its ways and that it had no plans to negotiate with Israel.
Responding to a statement by US President George W. Bush, that Washington would provide no aid to a Palestinian government headed by Hamas unless it changes its extremist policies, Zahar said Bush's comments were in line with American support for Israel in the United Nations, and its massive aid to Israel. "America is committing big crimes against the Arab and Islamic countries," Zahar told the Associated Press late Wednesday at his Gaza home. "This new decision, will intensify the gap between the American people, American interests and the Middle East in general," Zahar said.
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Of course since he is Hamas he is a fricking terrorist so his word ain't worth shit.
#2
Why do they have so many ministers when they all speak with the same voice? What a waste of human resources! If you read Hamas Covenant, you don't need to listen to their ravings anymore!
The US embassy in Jakarta joined Australia on Friday in warning of a possible attack against Westerners in Indonesia this Sunday. "Terrorists continue to plan attacks against Westerners and Western interests in Indonesia," the embassy said in a statement e-mailed to Americans in Indonesia, adding: "Recent reports suggest that Sunday April 2, 2006 could be one potential date for an attack."
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had issued a similar warning earlier on its Web site www.smartraveller.gov.au, talking of a possibility of an attack against Westerners on Sunday. In wording virtually identical to Australia's, the US embassy advisory added that attacks can occur at any time, anywhere in Indonesia. It also repeated previous cautions that any place where "Americans and other Westerners live, congregate, shop or visit" could be potential targets, but that attacks would not necessarily be limited to such spots.
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New Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said Palestinians were "sick and tired of the West's racist approach" to the Middle East conflict in an article published in a British newspaper on Friday.
I guess he's just trying to hit all the buttons, to see which ones might work.
The Hamas government leader said Israel's unilateralism was a formula for conflict and asked if Western policymakers ever felt "ashamed of their scandalous double standards" in an article entitled "A good peace or no peace" in The Guardian daily. He wrote that the West had piled demands on Hamas since they won the Palestinian general election in January, while equivalent demands had not been directed towards the parties in Israel's general election, held Thursday.
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We are sick and tired of racist islamo-facists who kill innocent people all the fricking time.
FOAD Ismail
#2
Oh, I get it - he mean's we're anti-semitic, right? Oh, no, wait, the Jews are semites and we support them, but then again so are the Palestinians. So, if I understand him right, he's declaring that the Palestinians are a heretofore undiscovered racial class...Caucasoid...Negroid...Mongoloid...Palestinoid (?)
#9
Just before 9/11, there was thre Durban conference, I'm sure Mr. Gromgoru remembers how well "antiracism" had morphed into hatred of the israeli, USA, and West, in that order.
They hate us, and tell us it's because we're "racist" (hey, they're not, of course!), and since it fits in our white men/westerners guilt-driven worldview (because of suicidalism), we fall for it, and let them go away with it. They're playing us like violins, hitting all the right buttons.
Sweden has accepted a request by the Hague war crimes tribunal to conduct an independent audit of the detention unit where Slobodan Milosevic died earlier this month, the court said. The former Yugoslav president died in his cell on March 11 of a heart attack, months before an anticipated verdict in his United Nations war crimes trial. The 64-year-old suffered from high blood pressure and a heart condition. "The tribunal is grateful to the Swedish government for its support," the court said in a statement on Friday, adding that the audit would cover all areas related to the management and administration of the detention unit in a Dutch prison outside The Hague.
Milan Babic, a Croatian Serb leader committed suicide in the same detention centre a week before Milosevic's death. In New York, Fausto Pocar, an Italian judge and president of the UN tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, told UN Security Council members in a video briefing that Milosevic had been examined by several doctors, including a Belgrade-based cardiologist and seven others he had requested.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2006
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Over / under on the time this gets completed - 5 years, and a sternly worded letter!
The US secretary of state has defended the US invasion of Iraq and hinted that the US will not release prisoners from Guantanamo Bay until it is certain they pose no threat. "I know we have made tactical errors, thousands of them, I'm sure," Condoleezza Rice told a gathering of 200 foreign policy experts, local officials and journalists organised by England's Chatham House foreign policy institute on Friday. "This could have gone that way, or that could have gone that way. But when you look back in history, what will be judged is: Did you make the right strategic decision?"
Also on Friday, Rice said her country harbours no desire to be the world's jailer. Speaking at a football stadium, Rice said: "We want the terrorists that we capture to stand trial for their crimes. But we also recognise that we are fighting a new kind of war, and that our citizens will judge us harshly if we release a captured terrorist before we are absolutely certain that he does not possess information that could prevent a future attack."
Jack Straw announced last week that Britain would take up the case of a British resident held at the Guantanamo. He said the government would intervene on behalf of Bisher al-Rawi, 37, a native Iraqi and British resident who was arrested in Gambia three years ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
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President Pervez Musharraf and his Sri Lankan counterpart Mahinda Rajapaksa on Friday discussed bilateral political and economic relations and stressed the need to increase trade between the two countries.
"Oh, honey! I just can't decide! Where should we go for our vacation this year? Pakistan or Sri Lanka?"
Posted by: Fred ||
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Violence at a Berlin school dominated by Arab and Turkish youths and the nearby slaying of police officer, shot in the head while trying to arrest muggers, has fuelled alarm that troubled parts of the German capital are lurching out of control.
Don't know if it's the same school, but I've recently read an article about a german teevee documentary on the woes of girls in islamized schools, focusing on the example of one ethnic german teen who was gangraped and then forcibly prostituted for weeks at her school by muslim (iranian and turkish IIRC) school"mates", or one other pregnant german teen who was kicked to death by her turkish boyfriend 'coz he didn't want to be involved with a non-turkish wimman (non-muslim are good enough for screwing around, not for marrying or something).
Response of the public education was said to be very weak to say the least, keeping their head fully buried in the sand, and local response was even lamer (such as an school headmaster locking the rape-prone school toilets, and only allowing girls after they've come pick up the keys and noted their name...).
Osama Bin Laden has no intention of being taken alive and has designated a special gun to be shot with in the event of imminent capture, one of the Al Qaeda chiefs former bodyguards told the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes.
"What kind of gun?"
"It's a special gun!"
Abu Jandal, who was with Bin Laden in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2000, said that his old boss had given strict instructions on what should happen if he was cornered. If he was going to be captured, Sheikh Osama prefers to be killed, Jandal said in the CBS interview to be broadcast on Sunday.
"Aaaarrrr! Y'll never take me alive, coppers!"
Jandal, who lives in Yemen, said he believed Bin Laden was hiding out in Afghanistan rather than Pakistan and warned that his most recent threats of another terror strike on the United States should be taken extremely seriously. When Sheik Osama promises something, he does it, he said. So I believe Osama Bin Laden is planning a new attack inside the United States, this is certain.
US President George Bush has offered aid to Iranians struck by a devastating earthquake, which has killed at least 70 people and injured 1,265. But he has not no let-up in pressuring Iran over its nuclear program. "We obviously have differences with the Iranian government but we do care about the suffering of Iranian people," Mr Bush said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2006
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#1
Send them some (liberalism) infested blankets, that may do the trick, while were at it send Reid an Puglosi as distributors. Just take off as soon as offloaded...
#6
Ahh, but all the aid workers are amazingly muscular and fit, in fact they move uncannily like large jungle cats... they all speak the local language, and the things they know -- it's just amazing! ;-)
#8
The dumbest damn offer I've heard of this side of the Milky Way galaxy!! "W" should use that 'offer' for the Gulf States recovery; the Katrina evacuees atleast, and save all his other rhetoric for when the bombs start flying later this year!
The Sindh High Court on Friday allowed the appeals of four Lashkar-e-Jhangvi activists and set aside their convictions on murder recorded by an anti-terrorism court. The court ordered their immediate release if the men were not required in any other case. Mohammad Ajmal alias Akram Lahori, Mohammad Azam, Malik Tassaduq Hussain and Attaullah were found guilty by the trial court of killing six men and injuring five others while they were praying at Imambargah Ali Murtaza in Mehmoodabad on October 4, 2001.
Akram Lahori is head of one of the branches of LJ. It's not against the law to be the head of a banned terrorist organization in Pakland. In fact, I believe it's considered a prestige thing.
Attaullah and Azam were sentenced to death while Akram Lahori and Tassaduq Hussain were given life imprisonment. The anti-terrorism appellate bench of the SHC, consisting of Justice Mohammad Afzal Soomro and Justice Rehmat Hussain Jaferi, had reserved judgment on their appeals for January 27. The SHC bench, consisting of Justice Rehmat Hussain Jaferi and Ali Sain Dino Metlo, allowed the appeals and acquitted the appellants of murder charges. The bench said the prosecution had been unable to prove the appellants guilty.
"Dey got nuttin' on us! Da witnesses are all dead, yer honor!"
"Case dismissed!"
Posted by: Fred ||
04/01/2006
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Saudi Arabia yesterday denied a German magazine report that it was working on a secret nuclear program with the help of Pakistani experts. The report is totally unfounded, a Defense Ministry spokesman told the Saudi Press Agency, adding that Riyadh advocates imposing nuclear non-proliferation in the (Middle East) region.
"Nope. Nope. Never happened."
Pakistan also rejected the report. It is a fabricated story and motivated by vicious intentions, Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
"Trust us on that!"
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Saudi paid for the Pak bomb and hid the payments in the mess call BCCI. (blast from the past... Dem leaders, rice gate, bank failures of the 80s...)
#3
The Saudis are probably very keen on getting their hand in the nuclear cash register, but for reasons other than what might be supposed. They fear Iran in a big way, and righly so. If something doesn't change drastically, Iran is going to make a bomb someday and the Sauds are scared shitless of the idea.
#4
Ah, yes, BCCI, Bank for Crooks and Criminals International. HERE is a link to the executive summary of the Senate investigation of them. Multi-layered bunch into everything, including the US banking system.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/01/2006 10:56
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If the Saudi nukes work as well as the rest of the Saudi military, and there's no reason to believe they don't, we have nothing to fear.
Tribal militants blew up electricity pylons in the Pakistani province of Balochistan on Friday, blacking out large tracts of the region, before setting off a landmine that killed a power company official, police said. The official was on his way to the site of the explosions when the landmine went off. Three people were wounded.
The attack came a day after Balochistan's provincial assembly set up a panel of peace brokers to negotiate with tribal chiefs leading the revolt against the Pakistan military in the resource-rich province. About 80 percent of Balochistan, including Quetta, was without electricity as a result of the sabotage, according to Quetta Electric Supply Company chief Nooruddin Mengal. "It will take 60 to 70 hours to restore full supplies," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A bomb hidden in a garbage can has exploded near a bus stop in Istanbul, killing one person and injuring 13 others, police said. The blast occurred on Friday in the Kocamustafapasa district of Istanbul. A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bomb was believed to have contained plastic explosives. Muammer Guler, Istanbul's governor, said the man killed in the blast was a street vendor who sold sesame-coated pretzels. A child was among the injured, CNN-Turk television reported.
Video footage broadcast on CNN-Turk showed debris scattered across a residential street in Istanbul, covering the sidewalk and parked cars. Ambulances with flashing lights moved down the street while police carrying submachine guns tried to keep crowds of people from the site. A bomb disposal expert wearing protective gear checked nearby garbage canisters.
An armed Kurdish group claimed responsibility for Friday's blast, calling the attack retaliation for the killings of Kurds in southeastern Turkey. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a small armed group, said:"We declare to the public that our people are not without protection. The Kurdish people will not remain defenceless." The email note to journalists added: "From now on, every attack against our people will be met immediately by even more violent acts. We will start to harm not just property but lives too. With our actions we will turn Turkey into hell. The bomb attack in Kocamustafapasa, carried out by our action team, was just a warning," the group said. The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons is a group believed to be linked to the main insurgent Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
The Kurds probably deserve a country of their own more that just about anyone.
Posted by: bk ||
04/01/2006 10:09
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#2
Although terrorism might not be the best plan of action....
Posted by: bk ||
04/01/2006 10:10
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The PKK is far from representative of "the Kurds," whether in Turkey or elsewhere. The PUK has fought against them in concert with the Turkish military for precisely that reason and there is little reason to believe that Abdullah Occalan's "People's Republic" would be any less oppressive for Turkish Kurds than the current Turkish racism against them is.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/01/2006 12:32
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A six-year-old boy and two young men wounded during rioting in Kurdish-dominated southeast Turkey have died in hospital, raising the death toll to six after three days of unrest. The violent protests in the city of Diyarbakir were sparked by recent killings of separatist Kurdish rebels by Turkish forces. About 270 people have been injured in the protests, the worst street violence seen in the area in more than a decade. Turkish television said many shops and offices had reopened on Friday, but witnesses reported renewed clashes between protesters and police in at least one district of the city.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
how long befor the Kurds establish their own country?
Posted by: bk ||
04/01/2006 10:08
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The United States has suspended all contact with the Palestinian government led by Hamas, the US State Department announced. However, the administration will maintain contact with the Palestinian Authority's representative in Washington, Afief Safieh, because "he does not report to the foreign ministry", Adam Ereli, deputy State Department spokesman, told reporters on Friday.
Mahmud Zahar, the new Palestinian minister of foreign affairs, is a Hamas member. "We've advised our mission in Jerusalem, as well as other missions around the world that ... there should be no contact between US government officials and PA (Palestinian Authority) officials who are under the authority of the prime minister or any other minister in the Hamas-led government. This includes working-level officials in those ministries," said Ereli. "If they're working in a Hamas-led ministry, no matter what their affiliation is, we're not going to have contact with them," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
a load of semantics in that
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 12:52
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#2
The real question is "have we cut off ALL funding to the Palestinians including our contributions to NGOs and the various UN conduits?" Let the bastards starve.
Balochistan Liberation Army chief Ghazain Marri has been detained by the United Arab Emirates government in Dubai on money laundering charges, according to well-placed sources. The sources said that the second eldest son of the Nawab was taken into custody on March 22 by the Dubai authorities for his alleged involvement in money laundering cases in the Persian Gulf emirate. Sources said the 46-year-old Ghazain was picked up from Dubais Dera area on the request of the Pakistan government which had lodged a formal complaint to the UAE government about the alleged involvement of Khair Buxs son in arranging finances for terrorist activities.
Pakistan authorities said that Ghazain, has been providing bread and butter to all those conceiving, planning and executing acts of terrorism across Balochistan. The sources said it was not clear yet whether the Pakistan authorities were seeking his extradition or trying to cut a deal with him in order to bring an end to the present upheavals in Balochistan. It is indeed a big breakthrough for the government, said a source close to senior government circles.
However, Ghulam Mohammad, the Balochistan National Movement president, who is known for his close links with the Marris, said he was not aware about Ghazains detention or arrest in the UAE or anywhere else. Raziq Bugti, adviser to the Balochistan chief minister, also expressed ignorance about this matter.
The advisor to the chief minister is always the last to know.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
How can it be money laundering when Balochistan is the private property of the Nawab? Much like moving one's cash from the left pocket to the right, donchaknow. ;-)
Charles Emmanuel, son of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president, has been arrested in Miami, the US Justice Department said. A US citizen, Emmanuel is being held on a charge of making false statements on a passport application, Brian Roehrkasse, Justice Department spokesman, said on Friday. He was taken into custody on Thursday night at Miami International Airport in Florida, where his flight from Trinidad had just landed, Roehrkasse said.
His father, Charles Taylor is being held at the UN-backed Special Tribunal in Sierra Leone that has charged him with war crimes. The ex-president is accused of formenting and encouraging atrocities in civil wars in Liberia and neighbouring Sierra Leone. Emmanuel, 29, appeared at a hearing in federal court in Miami on Friday, Roehrkasse said. He would make no further comment.
Emmanuel headed the Liberian anti-terrorist unit that was responsible for Taylor's security until he went into exile in 2003, according to an affidavit filed in federal court in Miami. Emmanuel's name appeared on a United Nations Travel Ban list of people whose travel is supposed to be restricted, the affidavit said. He was born in Boston in 1977, the affidavit said. Emmanuel served his father in Liberia for the duration of Taylor's rule from 1997 until August 2003, the affidavit said, citing an interview with Emmanuel's mother.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Afghan security forces have retreated from a gun battle that has left six insurgents dead but allowed Taliban fighters to take control of three villages in the troubled south of the country. The Taliban attacked a police post in the Kajaki district of Helmand province according to a deputy provincial governor. AP on Friday quoted Mohammad Amir Akhund as saying: "In the couple-of-hours exchange of fire, six Taliban were killed and three were wounded. Taliban have control of three villages in the district now. The government forces have not started any operation in these three villages so far."
The province of Helmand is practically lawless and is one of the areas most affected by an increasing number of attacks that are blamed on a Taliban-led insurgency. Its is the largest producing area of opium in a country that is the largest producer in the world of the drug, a fact that some say links with the violence. Around 3,300 British troops are due in Helmand in the coming weeks as part of a multinational force that is being deployed to hunt down members of the Taliban and other Muslim groups.
Kajaki is next door to the district of Sangin, the scene of the Taliban's biggest attack on a multinational-force base in months when a Canadian and an American soldier were killed on Wednesday. The attack happened just two weeks after the Taliban said they would launch a spring offensive. An estimated 1,700 people were killed in violence in Afghanistan last year, most of the deaths, double the number of 2004. Most of the deaths were due to the insurgency and most of them were fighters.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
I wonder if "owning" three villages will act as a focal point to draw in additional fighters?
An earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale struck off the eastern Indonesian island of Talaud early on Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, an Indonesian official said. The quake's epicentre was in the sea 42 km west of Talaud and at a depth of 33 km, staff official Lukito of the Jakarta earthquake centre said. Talaud is between Sulawesi, one of Indonesia's major islands, and Mindanao in the Philippines, and lies around 2,250 km north-east of Jakarta.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
That was me, cookies keep vanishing.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/01/2006 8:43
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Fifty-seven people were killed while 13 others remain missing following the capsizing of a boat Thursday night off the Bahraini coast of Muharraq. The dead include 17 Indians, 14 British, four South Africans, four Pakistanis, three Filipinos, two Singaporean men, an Irish man, and a German woman.
If I ever get to take another vacation, I'm taking a cruise to the Caymans, not to Arabia or Egypt or some other fun spot like that.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Three booby-trapped cars blew up within minutes in southern Baghdad on Friday inflicting several casualties, a security source said. The source told KUNA that a booby-trapped car blew up at 08:00 p.m. (locat time) in the district of Dora, and three minutes later another car blew up only meters away. A third identical explosion occurred shortly later, wounding seven civilians. The blasts inflicted extensive damage and started a huge fire in an apartment building. Gunfire staccatos echoed across the region after the blasts.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Death everywhere and always is the penalty for apostasy, in Islam and every other faith. It cannot be otherwise, for faith is life and its abandonment is death. Americans should remove the beam from their own eye as they contemplate the gallows in the eye of the Muslims. Philistine hypocrisy pervades Western denunciations of the Afghan courts, which were threatening to hang Christian convert Abdul Rahman until the case was dropped on Monday.
Afghanistan, to be sure, is a tribal society whose encounter with the modern world inevitably will be a train wreck. The trouble is that the West has apostatized, and is killing itself. There turned out to be hope for Rahman, but there is none for Latvia or Ukraine, and little enough for Germany or Spain. That said, I wish to make clear that I found the persecution of Rahman deplorable.
The practice of killing heretics has nothing to do with what differentiates Islam from Christianity or Judaism. St Thomas Aquinas defended not just the execution of individual heretics but also the mass extermination of heretical populations in the 12th-century Albigensian Crusades. For this he was defended by the Catholic philosopher Michael Novak, author of learned books about the faith of the United States of America's founding fathers (see Muslim anguish and Western hypocrisy, November 23, 2004).
Continued on Page 49
#2
There are so many mistakes in this piece. Here a just two striking ones: It strikes me as the most tortured effort at moral equivalence that I have ever seen.
Europe's Christians could not summon up the "moderation" necessary to tolerate their Jewish neighbors until after 1945, when Europe was conquered and rebuilt by the Americans.
They may not have invited them to tea and they indeed lived in separate worlds, even if they lived next door to each other, but, for the most part, I'm not aware of the accepted practice of Christians burning Jews at the stake or throwing them to lions or chopping off their heads.
But the stubborn fact remains that if the English Separatists who founded Massachusetts had not deviated from Christian theology, and set out to become a new chosen people in a new Promised Land, we would not be talking about the United States of America to begin with. Christianity drew the notion of a People of God from the Jews, upon whose trunk it proposes to graft the reborn Gentiles. But the graft did not take except where radical Protestants emulated the Jews, and set out to make a new people in a new land.
What is he talking about? This makes no historical sense. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and probably the majority of the founding fathers were from the Church of England or Episcopalians. Their ancestors didn't originally come here for religious freedom, but for OPPORTUNITY, like most American immigrants. Maybe Spengler never heard of Jamestowne or the Virginia company. They came to find wealth and fortune. I don't know how many of the founding fathers were Puritans or Shakers, I'm sure there were some. But I can't even begin to guess what tortured point he is trying to make with this nonsensical and innacurate argument.
#5
Spengler's thought is pretty much orthagonal to most of the discussion that goes on here. He is attacking the same problem we are attacking but from an almost purely philosophical/theological basis. Read his comments section. almost nobody there argues facts. The debate is all about whether the Islamists are more like the Calvinists or Nihilists or whether Aquinas or Kirkegaard is more applicable to this or that point of theology. I think that his columns do a good job of establishing root cause, but are almost worthless if you are interested in exploring solutions. In fact, if you were to try to engage Spengler in a discussion on his board about solutions, he would almost cetainly turn around and point out that the current clash between Islam and the West was "tragic" and that nothing could be done to avert the killing and dying.
My main criticism of Spengler is that while he understands that the US is different than the Old World cultures, he is blind to what it is that makes us so different. Rather than really exploring what it is that makes the US culturally unique, he falls back on the old platitude that the US has _no_ culture. This is exactly analogous to the American travelling out of country for the first time (and I fit this description during my first long term sojourn overseas) who fails to understand the people among whom he was now living and labels them as not human or less than human.
Spengler realizes that American culture lacks a sense of the tragic, but fails to realize that we not only lack a sense of the tragic, we _are_not_ tragic. We are not a non-culture, we are a post culture. We don't destroy our enemies, we beat them then we rebuild them. We don't ignore our minorities; we try a fix and if that doesn't work, a generation later, we try another one. If you fail in one career, you keep trying until you find one where you succeed. You screw up in undergrad, you go to night school and get your BA.
Spengler always points to the Civil War as a tragic event in American history. Yet he doesn't seem to know (or perhaps he cannot address it because it would upset his world view) that 25 years later vets of both sides were quaffing whiskey side by side at big reunions. What other culture has ever achieved that degree of reconcilliation and overcome the tragic to that degree?
Old World cultures have written and unwritten laws and rules that cannot be broken. Tragedy occurs when those rules force society into conflict from which there is no backing down. In the US, we simply change the rules. We're on the verge of a race war? No problem. We'll rewrite the laws, open up the schools, and invent affirmative action.* People are getting tired of living in crowded cities? Piece of cake. We'll build freeways, change zoning laws, even change residency laws.**
Look what's happening in France right now. There is an example of culture at it's most tragic. After months of rioting by Muslim youths, the French youths cannot accept a solution that would help to ameliorate Muslim unemployment and help prevent future unrest. There is no thought, no deliberation, and no debate. Just culture acting blindly through people arrogant enough to believe that they are beyond culture. Tragedy and irony compound.
I find it sad that Spengler understands American post-culture so poorly. But since I', an American, I never give up hope that he will figure it out. Tragedy after all is for losers. Post-cultural Americans find solutions.
* No, I'm not in favor of affirmative action. It didn't work well, and we are finding new solutions now. They'll probably be better ones.
** Pre-WWII residency laws would have left most Americans disenfranchised due to longish residency requirements. We addressed this issue quite easily at the local level. Contrast this with European efforts to make the Single European Act work. The only way a foreigner can find work in another country is if he is a corporate executive or a sex worker in the black economy. Again we see the blind hand of culture undermining good policy.
#7
Point well taken 2b. I personally think that he's missing One Big Clue and has a lot of other clues. He _does_ want Western Civ to win this war. I consider him to be an ally, though not a particularly effective one.
No educated Muslim would tell a Christian that the latter is going to heaven, unless they did so to cultivate dhimmism. We will all learn that, in time.
However, the case I made at Orrin Judd's posting of this article by Spengler is a bit more damming: Spengler wanted us to think that Islam and Christanity are the same TODAY, because Islamists do TODAY is what Christians did over 180 years ago. He HAS to go back 180 years ago, because Christianity TODAY does NOT do today what Islam does today. In doing so, he demands that we have to ignore the CHANGES that took place in Christianity, the internal debates, the schisims, the arguing, that took place over that period THAT CREATED THE CHANGE.
I came up with an illustration of what Spengler (and a lot of other people) are doing to make it a bit clear. An employer has two candidates: a 20 year old drop-out with a 10th grade education, and a 40 year old with a Master's degree and 15 years of experience. Mama wants her dear little boy to get the job, so she argues that her boy is SO much better educated today than the 40 year old WAS 35 YEARS AGO. True, but it ignores the fact that the 40 year old man is no longer 5 years old. Also, the point of the exercise was to determine who is better for the job based on education and experience: by demanding that the 40 year old be judged by the way he was 35 years ago, the mother is saying, "Ignore the experience this guy has accumulated. Ignore the learning that took place in that 35 years." Ignore, in short, that very thing that, if taken into account (NOT IGNORED), would award the job to the 40 year old.
The question whose answer spengler is trying to answer for us is "which religion is superior?" Clearly, Christianity TODAY is better than Islam TODAY because they don't kill apostates today, but he doesn't like that conclusion, so he compares Islam today with Christianity 180 years ago to show one is not superior to the other. "Ignore everything they did in the past 180 years" he asks us, "to become better than Islam." "Ignore" mama asks, "everything this man learned and did over the past 35 years to become more qualified than my drop-out son."
Same fallacy is involved when talking about America today by citing what happened before the civil war.
Five men standing trial at the State Security Court on charges of plotting subversive acts against Americans, Israelis and Iraqi police training centres in Jordan pleaded not guilty to the charges on Wednesday. The defendants, part of a group of eight men including three who are being tried in absentia, were also charged with plotting activity aimed at undermining Jordan's relations with another country and belonging to an illegal organisation. The prosecution identified the five men in custody as Ahmad T., 37, Hassan A., 41, Abdul Hakim M., 29, Sami M., 33, and Sakher M. The remaining three defendants were identified as Haitham H., Ahmad Y., and Nasri A. When asked by the tribunal whether they were guilty or not, some of them answered Jihad... is not a crime. The defendants then entered a not guilty plea.
At the end of the session, the state prosecutor asked the court for more time to summon his witnesses. The tribunal agreed and adjourned the session until April 19.
The defendants decided to launch attacks against Americans, Israelis and Iraqi police training centres in the Kingdom following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the charge sheet said. The men decided to form 10 cells for this purpose and called themselves the Mansourah sect, according to the prosecution. Some of the suspects used the Internet to lecture on jihad and the need to fight Israelis and Christians in any part of the world, the charge sheet said.
They distributed CDs in the Kingdom, which contained material on military operations against American forces in Iraq and speeches by Jordanian fugitive Abu Mussab Zarqawi, it added. The suspects also distributed a magazine published by Al Qaeda network in Iraq in mosques in eastern Amman, according to court documents. The prosecution also charged that some of the suspects recruited several people and sent them to fight in Iraq, which harmed the relationship between the Iraqi and Jordanian governments. The authorities arrested five of the eight defendants in August 2005 before they carried out any of their alleged plans.
Posted by: Fred ||
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OAKLAND, Calif. - Democratic Party chief
Howard Dean accused
President Bush and the Republican Party on Friday of exploiting the immigration issue for political gain by scapegoating Hispanics. "YEEEAAAAARRRRGH!"
Dean and Bush agree on the legislation at the heart of the debate. Both support a Senate bill that would expand guest-worker programs for an estimated 400,000 immigrants each year.
However, at a speech in an Oakland union hall, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate sought to tie Bush to a much tougher House bill that would tighten borders and make it a crime to be in the United States illegally or to offer aid to illegal immigrants. Bush does not back the House bill.
"This is a nonsensical proposal put out by far right-wingers in the Republican Party who have been endorsed for re-election by the president of the United States," Dean said. "The president has a moral obligation to rein in the right-wing extremists in his party and stop this divisive rhetoric about immigrants." So it is extremism to encourage rule of law?
Dean devoted much of his short speech here to the immigration debate, which has taken center stage in Washington this election year and touched off mass demonstrations elsewhere. More than 500,000 immigration-rights activists marched in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, largely to protest the House measure.
Bush has spent much of his career courting Hispanic voters, the nation's fastest-growing voting bloc, and he has helped double the GOP's share of the Hispanic vote since 2000.
Nevertheless, Dean accused Bush and fellow Republicans of demagoguery in the immigration debate, saying it fit with a long-standing pattern. He cited the president's opposition to the University of Michigan's affirmative-action program and Bush's decision to "pick on" homosexuals an apparent reference to the gay marriage issue in the 2004 election. Ah, so it's bullying to have unfashionable opinions in general?
"In 2006 it's immigrants. That's what their strategy is on the Republican side: divide people, scapegoat them, set them aside, point the finger at them," Dean said. "Well, that may be good for the Republican Party, but it's bad for America, and we're not going to do that." "YEARGH! FY LIFS JUST FELL OFF!
During his remarks criticizing Bush, Dean was interrupted by a shout of "Impeach!" "Protecting freedom and order both is a felony!"
A spokeswoman for the
Republican National Committee did not immediately return a call for comment.
In Mexico, Bush said the United States must enforce the laws protecting borders but he also repeated his support for a "guest worker program that would allow undocumented immigrants already in the country to remain.
#1
IOW, the Fed and only the Fed must place more tax dollars to enforce laws the Dems don't want enforced - by any, and several, measures, the Dems are gifts that keep on giving. The Dems are fighting hard for the BALKANIZATION of America which they know will be eliminated once America is under Socialism and OWG, in the name of Motherly Regulatory, universal, deficit accounting.
#2
"That's what their strategy is . . . divide people, scapegoat them, set them aside, point the finger at them"
If this isn't a textbook case of projection, I don't think there exists a textbook.
This describes EXACTLY what the DNC and their allies in the infotainment and education industries have done to whites, capitalists, and devout Christians.
After thirty years of being told by Dean's fellow travellers that as a white conservative Christian all I'm about is starving children, lynching blacks, and keeping women barefoot and pregnant, he has some nerve making these kinds of accusations.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
04/01/2006 5:22
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#3
"If this isn't a textbook case of projection, I don't think there exists a textbook."
For the masses it's projection; but for the Democratic Party leadership it's a tactic-- a way of making lies more appealing.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/01/2006 8:57
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#4
It sure would be nice to have elected officials actually listen to us, and remember that they are our representatives.
Tancredo is one of the few that actually wants to enforce the laws already on the books.
Talk about "flip flopping" Bush's statements a few months back (link below) and now, sure are black and white.
I love our country, and it really frightens me to see the direction we're going in, and to look 5, 10 or 20 years down the road I sure don't like what I see.
We've been talking about the anchor babies, lower wages paid/scabs, emergency medicaid, schools, them sending their money home to Mexico etc etc..
We need to act on this now.
* Build the fence
* have real consequences for illegals working to the folks that hire them
* no anchor babies born of illegals
* no illegals able to attend our schools
* have emergency medicaid be just that only for emergency. (months of prenatal care is not emergency)
* consider a fee for transferring money out of country
I know I'm probably leaving stuff out there are so many issues involved.
Our middle class is disappearing, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. I'm working by tail off and am sliding into the poorer side I'm sad to report.
Also just looking at how we've been outsourcing the high end jobs and importing workers with little or no education for scrub jobs; the trend being that our country is becoming more illiterate.
Illegals aren't interested in coming to america because they like our way of life. They come here for the free stuff and jobs.
We all need to speak English! I'm not a racist, I don't like folks of the opposing view accusing me of such. In Denver they don't use the term "Citizen" anymore, they talk of "residents", which include illegals.
On a side issue, learning of how Barbara Bush is "donating" to Katrina channeling the money to her son only reminds me of the Silverado crap that Neil Bush got away with. Why oh why do these slime yes slime get away with such high crimes. They are the ones benefiting from the illegals working here, not me. I have to pay more in taxes to cover their costs. Oh how I wish our elected officials would listen to us!
RANT!
Posted by: Jan ||
04/01/2006 16:46
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#5
Every thing wrong in this world would be rosy if wasn't for that evil Bush family. Really.
bet it was SEIU - Service Employees International - they want all the cheap service (read hotel workers, cleaners, janitors, etc.) labor here to organize under their banner and couldn't give a rat's ass about national security, costs to society, or you personally. F*&k em
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 18:43
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#7
2B
I only struck out at Bush because of the recent deal with Barbara's donation this past week, reminding me of the "business park" that Neil Bush was involved in. I drive past this failed business park every time I drive to work and it just angers me.
There are plenty of slime deals from both sides of the fence.
Frank,
I like unions. I feel they back the laborer and help keep safety issues and benefits for the workers. I do hope you're wrong about how they don't care about national security, regarding the costs to society; to pay a "living wage" with benefits if this costs society more then that's the way it should be. To pay illegals such a cheap wage without benefits, it's almost like comparing these workers to sweat shops in other countries. Isn't it?
(Sorry for slightly being off topic)
Posted by: Jan ||
04/01/2006 22:31
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#8
Jan - if the wages were raised, probably no need for illegals? This is just a way of raising membership
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 22:54
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#9
When folks say the illegals are taking the jobs that americans won't do, I'm just saying that if the wage were a decent one with benefits they certainly would.
The money that businesses are saving by paying the lower wage is being pocketed, not passed on to the consumer.
Posted by: Jan ||
04/01/2006 23:14
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#10
I'd agree
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/01/2006 23:28
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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.
Sweden's national dish is an acquired taste, to say the least. Some say surstromming, a fermented herring, smells like rubbish left out in the sun for days. But now the fish has been banned from several major airlines, classified along with dangerous weapons like shoe bombs and firearms. The Baltic herring is fermented in barrels for months before being put in tin cans, where the fermentation process continues.
Senior members of Iraq's ruling Shi'ite Alliance bloc called publicly for the first time on Saturday for Ibrahim al-Jaafari to step down as prime minister to break months of deadlock over a national unity government. Other senior Alliance officials, speaking anonymously, confirmed that four of seven main groups within the bloc wanted Jaafari to give up the nomination for a second term if, as is all but certain, he fails to persuade minority Sunni and Kurdish parties to drop their refusal to serve in a cabinet under him.
Thailand on Sunday holds its second general election in a year, with embattled Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra set to win again in a polls marred by boycott by the main opposition parties and a call by an anti-Thaksin group for voters to tick "no vote" or abstain from voting.
A 4.3-Richter quake shook suburbs of Boroujerd in this western Iranian province at 12:01:09 hours (08:31:09 GMT) on Saturday.
The Swiss banking giant, UBS, may have helped Iran develop its nuclear program, may have held an account for Al Qaeda terrorist Osama bin Laden, and could find itself investigated as part of Congress's ongoing inquiry into the United Nations 
A Beirut military tribunal has acquitted six Lebanese soldiers and a Syrian national of charges that they belonged to a group linked to the al-Qaeda network. Thursday's ruling by investigating magistrate Samih al-Hajj stated that "no proof was found relating to them".
A man with alleged links to a Pakistani militant group is behind bars in Toronto but accusations that he is a terrorist are little more than hype, according to a security expert. 
Only bombers were killed in two failed suicide attacks in southern Afghanistan on Friday. With the fresh assaults, the number of suicide attacks rose to four during the past three days. Friday's attacks were carried out in two provinces of Kandahar and Paktia but officials say only one constable was injured. Targets of both the attacks were convoys of the Afghan army and police. 
Police say the overnight arrest of three Melbourne men has disrupted the activity of a group with links to terrorist organisations overseas. A 21-year-old Coburg man, a 25-year-old from Brunswick and a 26-year-old from Hadfield have been charged with belonging to and providing funds to a terrorist organisation. They were arrested after a series of raids conducted last night by ASIO and Federal, Victorian and New South Wales police in north Melbourne.
Rescue teams are en route to western Iran after three strong earthquakes and several aftershocks left at least 66 people dead and around 1,000 injured. Around 330 villages have also been badly damaged by the quake, local officials say. The epicenter of the quake was in a mountainous area between the two industrial cities of Boroujerd and Doroud. Three tremors struck the remote region, the largest of which measured 6.0 on the Richter scale.
Three Palestinians have been killed in clashes in Gaza between armed men and the security forces. The violence on Friday was sparked by the death of a Palestinian resistance fighter who died in a car-bomb explosion earlier during the day. Rival Palestinian factions clashed at the funeral of 
Three Islamic militants and seven Indian security forces personnel were among 11 people killed in separate attacks in Indian-held Kashmir which also left 11 others injured, security officials said on Friday.
It was only after all the able-bodied teachers in a school in Afif had struggled hard that they could save their principal from the ire of their students recently. A number of angry students pounced upon their principal and started thrashing him with all their might because they were not allowed to come to school. The boys were involved in a fight on the previous day and were sent away from the school with the condition that they could come back only with their parents. The students did not, obviously, want to involve their parents in such an ordinary thing as fighting among themselves. They came to school next morning as though nothing had happened the previous day, but the principal wanted the students to obey him. He did not allow them to attend the morning assembly. It was too much for the students and they jumped on the principal and heaped blows and kicks on him. 
Mecca (Rantburg News Service): A series of meetings of the Learned Elders of Islam will be held at 
An Afghan man who faced the death penalty in his homeland for converting from Islam to Christianity says he was certain he would have been killed if he had remained in Kabul. Speaking in Italy, which has granted him asylum, 
Khyber Agency residents have started fleeing to undisclosed locations to avoid being caught in the paramilitary operation against militants here. Also, the political administration has arrested several tribesmen under the Collective Responsibility Act of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR). Local officials launched crackdown on Bar Qambar Khel, Shlobar Qambar Khel, Spah, Malik Din Khel and Aka Khel - all Afridi tribe clans. Khasadar force has been deployed at all entry and exit points.
NWFP Governor 
The French president has announced that he will sign a controversial youth job law despite weeks of protests, but with the promise that it will be amended right away to weaken two of its most disputed reforms. Jacques Chirac's long-awaited speech on Friday seemed aimed at striking a balance between 
A leading Iraqi Shia cleric demanded on Friday that the United States sack its ambassador, accusing 
Newly-installed Palestinian Foreign Minister 
New Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya said Palestinians were "sick and tired of the West's racist approach" to the Middle East conflict in an article published in a British newspaper on Friday.
Sweden has accepted a request by the Hague war crimes tribunal to conduct an independent audit of the detention unit where 
The US secretary of state has defended the US invasion of Iraq and hinted that the US will not release prisoners from Guantanamo Bay until it is certain they pose no threat. "I know we have made tactical errors, thousands of them, I'm sure," Condoleezza Rice told a gathering of 200 foreign policy experts, local officials and journalists organised by England's Chatham House foreign policy institute on Friday. "This could have gone that way, or that could have gone that way. But when you look back in history, what will be judged is: Did you make the right strategic decision?"
Osama Bin Laden has no intention of being taken alive and has designated a special gun to be shot with in the event of imminent capture, one of the Al Qaeda chiefs former bodyguards told the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes. 
Saudi Arabia yesterday denied a German magazine report that it was working on a secret nuclear program with the help of Pakistani experts. The report is totally unfounded, a Defense Ministry spokesman told the Saudi Press Agency, adding that Riyadh advocates imposing nuclear non-proliferation in the (Middle East) region. 
Tribal militants blew up electricity pylons in the Pakistani province of Balochistan on Friday, blacking out large tracts of the region, before setting off a landmine that killed a power company official, police said. The official was on his way to the site of the explosions when the landmine went off. Three people were wounded. 
A bomb hidden in a garbage can has exploded near a bus stop in Istanbul, killing one person and injuring 13 others, police said. The blast occurred on Friday in the Kocamustafapasa district of Istanbul. A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bomb was believed to have contained plastic explosives. Muammer Guler, Istanbul's governor, said the man killed in the blast was a street vendor who sold sesame-coated pretzels. A child was among the injured, CNN-Turk television reported.
A six-year-old boy and two young men wounded during rioting in Kurdish-dominated southeast Turkey have died in hospital, raising the death toll to six after three days of unrest. The violent protests in the city of Diyarbakir were sparked by recent killings of separatist Kurdish rebels by Turkish forces. About 270 people have been injured in the protests, the worst street violence seen in the area in more than a decade. Turkish television said many shops and offices had reopened on Friday, but witnesses reported renewed clashes between protesters and police in at least one district of the city.
The United States has suspended all contact with the Palestinian government led by Hamas, the US State Department announced. However, the administration will maintain contact with the Palestinian Authority's representative in Washington, 
Afghan security forces have retreated from a gun battle that has left six insurgents dead but allowed Taliban fighters to take control of three villages in the troubled south of the country. The Taliban attacked a police post in the Kajaki district of Helmand province according to a deputy provincial governor. AP on Friday quoted Mohammad Amir Akhund as saying: "In the couple-of-hours exchange of fire, six Taliban were killed and three were wounded. Taliban have control of three villages in the district now. The government forces have not started any operation in these three villages so far."
An earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale struck off the eastern Indonesian island of Talaud early on Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, an Indonesian official said. The quake's epicentre was in the sea 42 km west of Talaud and at a depth of 33 km, staff official Lukito of the Jakarta earthquake centre said. Talaud is between Sulawesi, one of Indonesia's major islands, and Mindanao in the Philippines, and lies around 2,250 km north-east of Jakarta.
Three booby-trapped cars blew up within minutes in southern Baghdad on Friday inflicting several casualties, a security source said. The source told KUNA that a booby-trapped car blew up at 08:00 p.m. (locat time) in the district of Dora, and three minutes later another car blew up only meters away. A third identical explosion occurred shortly later, wounding seven civilians. The blasts inflicted extensive damage and started a huge fire in an apartment building. Gunfire staccatos echoed across the region after the blasts.
Five men standing trial at the State Security Court on charges of plotting subversive acts against Americans, Israelis and Iraqi police training centres in Jordan pleaded not guilty to the charges on Wednesday. The defendants, part of a group of eight men including three who are being tried in absentia, were also charged with plotting activity aimed at undermining Jordan's relations with another country and belonging to an illegal organisation. The prosecution identified the five men in custody as Ahmad T., 37, Hassan A., 41, Abdul Hakim M., 29, Sami M., 33, and Sakher M. The remaining three defendants were identified as Haitham H., Ahmad Y., and Nasri A. When asked by the tribunal whether they were guilty or not, some of them answered Jihad... is not a crime. The defendants then entered a not guilty plea. 
OAKLAND, Calif. - Democratic Party chief
Nevertheless, Dean accused Bush and fellow Republicans of demagoguery in the immigration debate, saying it fit with a long-standing pattern. He cited the president's opposition to the University of Michigan's affirmative-action program and Bush's decision to "pick on" homosexuals an apparent reference to the gay marriage issue in the 2004 election.
