Birkat Hachamah is a special prayer recited once every twenty-eight years. The Talmud1 explains that at these times the Sun returns to the position that it had when the Universe was first created. The next date set is April 8, 2009...
#2
Bright Pebbles, I had no idea you were that old. Or is your fact just something that we must all pretend is true just because you read it in a book.
#3
Personally, I think the sages of the Talmudic era figured that since the 7th year is the sabbatical year and the 49th year is about the jubilee year (which is 50 years) then 28 (the arithmatic mean of 7 and 49) must be the sun year (that there is a sun year is referred to briefly in the Mishna which was compiled about 200 years before the talmud was compiled). But this is just my theory.
Senate opponents of the nuclear test-ban treaty face "a new ballgame" 10 years after they rejected the global pact, the treaty's chief said Tuesday.
If the U.S. and other key nations fail again to ratify the pact, the world will become a place with "more fissile material in more facilities with more people to handle it, representing a risk of (nuclear) terrorism," said Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the treaty's preparatory commission.
"Probably what you will have to do is revisit the benefits of the treaty from a wider perspective, from a post-2001 viewpoint," Toth told The Associated Press.
The Hungarian diplomat was in Washington to meet with Senate staff and take part in a conference on nuclear nonproliferation organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The conference was dominated by talk of President Barack Obama's speech Sunday in Prague, Czech Republic, laying out plans to work toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Obama said he aimed to "immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty," or CTBT.
Although a 1963 treaty bans nuclear tests in the atmosphere, oceans and space, the CTBT would ban all nuclear weapons tests everywhere, including underground, both as a step toward disarmament and to block weapons proliferation.
In 1999, the Republican-controlled Senate rejected the pact almost entirely along party lines with a 48-in-favor, 51-against vote. Approval requires a two-thirds majority. Opponents objected to the treaty's monitoring system being unable to detect a cheater's small underground nuclear test, and that the soundness of the U.S. nuclear arsenal would come under question if tests could not be conducted.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, said March 27 he has begun the process of bringing the treaty back before the Senate.
Appearing on Tuesday's conference panel with Toth, physicist Sidney Drell, a longtime U.S. government adviser on nuclear weapons issues, noted that the government's weapons laboratories have since determined that the weapons' plutonium "pits" have a lifetime, "conservatively," of 85 to 100 years. "That concern, having weapons more than 20 years old, has been removed in the past 10 years," Drell said.
As for verification, Toth pointed out that his organization's monitoring system detected North Korea's very small nuclear test in 2006, and has since strengthened its capabilities. "No test of military significance can go undetected," the treaty chief said.
Meanwhile, "on the proliferation side, it is a totally new ballgame. There is a terrorist nexus," Toth told the AP. Treaty proponents point to fears that Pakistan's developing nuclear arsenal might fall into extremist hands in an increasingly unstable nation.
Pakistan and the U.S. are two of nine nations whose ratification is still required for the test-ban treaty to take effect. The others are China, North Korea, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran and Israel. Proponents believe a U.S. ratification could lead to these other "dominos" falling into line.
Otherwise, a total of 180 nations have signed the treaty and 148 have ratified it, including nuclear weapons powers Russia, Britain and France.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/07/2009
17:55 ||
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#1
"must" huh?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/07/2009 18:55
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Treaty proponents point to fears that Pakistan's developing nuclear arsenal might fall into extremist hands in an increasingly unstable nation.
And the treaty will be respected by extremists?
#3
The CTBT has nothing to do with the security of Pakistan's arsenal or lack thereof.
If Pakistan were to sign it, it would simply not test weapons anymore.
This would not affect weapons falling into the hands of jihadi elements of the Pak military.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/07/2009 19:32
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Rwandan President Paul Kagame has accused the international community of cowardice during a speech marking the 15th anniversary of Rwanda's genocide. He told a rally of 20,000 people in the capital, Kigali, UN troops abandoned their posts without firing a shot.
Thousands of candles were lit at the stadium, spelling out the word 'hope'.
Mr Kagame also led commemorations at Nyanza, where more than 5,000 people were slaughtered after peacekeepers pulled out.
Some 800,000 people were killed within 100 days by ethnic Hutu militia after the assassination of the president. The genocide began when Juvenal Habyarimana's plane was shot down on 6 April 1994 and came to an end when Tutsi-led rebels under the current president took control.
The massacre at Nyanza took place after Belgian troops withdrew following a Rwandan militia attack that claimed the lives of 10 peacekeepers on 7 April that year.
The BBC's Geoffrey Mutagoma in Kigali says the site of the former peacekeepers' base is seen as a symbol of the UN's failure 15 years ago.
We've had plenty of symbols of UN failure both before and after ...
President Kagame said: "We are not like those who abandoned people they had come to protect," reported AFP news agency. "They left them to be murdered. Aren't they guilty? I think it is also cowardice. They left even before any shot was fired.
"We are not cowards. They [the international community] are part of that history and the root causes of the genocide."
He laid a wreath at the hill site in Nyanza and lit a torch in memory of the victims.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/07/2009
17:33 ||
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After complaining against Prime Minister Manmohan Singhs visit to Arunachal Pradesh, China is now learnt to have objected to President Pratibha Patils tour of the state last week that included a visit to Tawang.
While there is no official word yet, sources confirmed that Beijing has taken up the matter with New Delhi which has reaffirmed its stand that Arunachal is an integral part of the country and leaders are free to travel to any part of the state. The other side is well aware of our clear and consistent position, official sources here said.
Patil visited Arunachal Pradesh during her four-day North East tour last week and went to Tawang, which China has staked claim to several times in the past. Patil, also as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, visited the War Memorial for Indian soldiers who died in the 1962 war with China and interacted with troops on the border.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson indicated the country was not pleased. The two sides should make joint efforts to effectively carry out the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, to ensure the healthy and stable development of bilateral relations, he said in Beijing, in response to questions on Patils visit.
Beijings complaint against a PM visit in February last year snowballed into a controversy, prompting External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to reaffirm that the PM has the right to visit any part of the country.
Beijing is especially sensitive about Tawang that was briefly occupied by the Chinese Army after the 1962 war. Several senior Indian ministers, including Defence Minster A K Antony, have visited Arunachal over the past few years. While the PM avoided a visit to Tawang, Antony visited the region in March and addressed troops on the border.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/07/2009
16:05 ||
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#1
President Patil tries out a weapon captured from terrorists at the Shararat Post in Tandhar sector of J&K while on a visit to forward areas in the state.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/07/2009 16:48
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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency chief on Tuesday refused to meet visiting US Special Representative Richard Holbrooke and American military commander Admiral Mike Mullen in an apparent reaction to criticism of his organisation for its alleged links with militants.
ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha refused to meet Holbrooke and Mullen, who had sought a meeting, because of the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff's recent criticism of the spy agency, Dawn News channel quoted military sources as saying.
There was no official word on the development. Pasha refused to meet the US officials because of Mullen's criticism and allegations about the ISI's links with Taliban militants, the channel reported.
Army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani too brought up the issue during his meeting with Holbrooke and Mullen, Dawn News reported. Kayani reportedly took strong exception to the criticism of the ISI, sources said.
The army chief said the sincerity of the ISI and his force should not be questioned. The ISI's role is "purely professional" and the army is committed to fighting terrorism, Kayani reportedly said.
Both institutions had no links with militants, including the Taliban, Kayani reportedly told the two US officials.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/07/2009
16:02 ||
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#1
Smart Diplomacy already paying dividends.
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009 16:47
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#2
Good. Now you've got an excuse to keep them out of the loop when the Predators do their thing.
JERUSALEM -- Israel successfully tested an anti-missile system designed to protect the country against Iranian attack, the Defense Ministry said, perfecting technology developed in response to failures of similar systems during the 1991 Gulf War. The intercept of a dummy missile was the 17th test of the Arrow system, a U.S.-Israeli joint venture. Israeli defense officials said the interceptor was an upgraded Arrow II, designed to counter Iran's Shahab ballistic missile.
Interesting, isn't it: Israel is full-speed ahead on missile defense. So is Japan. So is India. While we Americans are pulling back from missile defense.
Israel has identified Iran as its biggest threat, citing the country's nuclear program and its development of long-range ballistic missiles. Those fears have been compounded by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.
Israel believes Iran is developing nuclear weapons that could pose a threat to its existence. Israel has threatened military action, and Iran has said it would strike back, warning last month that Israel's own nuclear facilities were within missile range. Iran's Shahab-3 missiles have a range of up to 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers), putting Israel well within striking distance. Iranian officials were not available for comment on the Israeli test.
In a statement, the Defense Ministry said the interceptor shot down "a missile simulating a ballistic threat in especially challenging conditions." It called the test "an important step in the development program and the development of operational abilities to counter the growing threat of ballistic missiles in the region."
Defense Minister Ehud Barak watched Tuesday's intercept from a military helicopter, the ministry said. According to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, Pentagon representatives also were present. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the Iranian threat a top priority of his administration, congratulated defense officials for the successful test. "While we are for peace, we will know how to defend ourselves," he said.
In an interview Tuesday with CNN, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden was asked how worried he is that Israel, under Netanyahu, will launch a strike to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. "I don't believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu would do that," Biden said. "I think he would be ill-advised to do that. And so my level of concern is no different than it was a year ago."
The Arrow project is being developed by Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. and Chicago-based Boeing Co. at a cost of more than $1 billion. It was spurred largely by the failure of the U.S. military's Patriot missiles to intercept Iraqi Scud rockets that struck Israel in the 1991 Gulf War. Several batteries of Arrow missiles are already operational. But Israel has been working to perfect the system to deal with increasingly complicated threats, such as missiles that strike at extremely high speeds from high altitudes and could split apart as they approach their targets.
Iran has worked hard to increase the accuracy of its missiles. In November, it successfully test-fired the Sajjil, a solid fuel high-speed missile with a range 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers). Solid fuel is considered a significant breakthrough because it increases accuracy.
Rick Lehner, spokesman for the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, said the Arrow is meant to intercept short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. "This was the most advanced version of the Arrow weapons system in terms of the ability to perform the type of intercept that would be necessary to destroy a ballistic missile target," he said. He said that in conjunction with Patriot missiles, which strike at a lower altitude, Israel has "deployed a layered defense."
Israel is also developing a system to counter short and medium range rockets of the kind possessed by Palestinian and Lebanese militants. The system, called the Iron Dome, is set to be deployed next year.
The U.S. military has conducted separate tests in recent years of different components of the defensive shield, which is slated to include Patriot air defense batteries, anti-ballistic missiles launched from Navy ships and lasers mounted in planes designed to shoot down incoming missiles. Last month, the U.S. military's ground-based mobile missile defense system successfully shot down a medium-range ballistic missile during a test in Hawaii.
It was the first time the military fired two interceptors at one target using the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, a program designed to shoot down ballistic missiles in their last stage of flight. The drill followed up on a test that was planned for last September but had to be aborted when the target malfunctioned shortly after launch.
#1
difference is: Israel India, and Japan are acting in their own self-interest, self-defense. Obama will expose us for his own selfish aggrandizement among the Anti-American Leftys and Euros. F*ck him. He doesn't care about being genuflecting to terrorists.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/07/2009 18:58
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#2
er...ranting, editing, ranting, editing
/damn
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/07/2009 19:00
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WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, April 7 (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Tuesday slapped sanctions on a Chinese metals company and six Iranian companies suspected of collaborating on a scheme to transfer missile and nuclear technology from China to Iran.
A New York grand jury also indicted the Chinese metals company, LIMMT Economic and Trade Co Ltd, and its manager, Lee Fangwei, on 118 counts including suspicion of shipping 33,000 pounds (15,000 kg) of specialized aluminum alloy used for long-range missile production from China to Iran.
Lee was charged with the suspected misuse of Manhattan banks employed to transfer money between China and Iran by way of Europe and the United States. ...
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009
14:56 ||
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Note from AFA President -- Budget
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
AFA members, Congressional staffers, civic leaders, and DOCA members, yesterday, Secretary Gates briefed the press corps on his budget proposal for 2010. You can find his statement here.
In sum ... for the Air Force, the following was recommended:
Continued production of ISR systems
Increased production of the F-35
Continue the process to select tanker replacement
Purchase of more SOF lift, mobility, and refueling aircraft
However, the following programs were terminated/delayed:
F-22 production -- terminated
Follow-on Bomber -- terminated ("until we have a better understanding of the need, requirement, and the technology")
C-17 production -- terminated
Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter --X -- terminated
Transformational Satellite (TSAT) -- terminated -- and instead purchase of two more AEHF satellites
Missile Defense -- radically cut
o No increase of ground-based interceptors
o Airborne Laser (ABL) terminated
o Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) -- terminated
o Missile Defense Agency budget reduced by $1.4B/year
One cut -- which has but one line in the release -- retires 250 aircraft. This means:
We will have a defacto Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) -- since 250 aircraft is the equivalent of 3.5 wings (and over 5 CVBGs) of fighter aircraft
F-15s, F-16s, and A-10s will all leave the force ... with no replacements ...
Let me make a few observations about this budget.
1. This budget guarantees that the oldest Air Force in the history of our nation will get even older.
2. B-52s (built in the 1950s) will have to be kept on duty for a minimum of another 15-20 years ...
3. At a time when the nation is spending literally trillions of dollars, we seem to not have enough money to fund an adequate defense
4. We are using tomorrow's dollars to solve today's problems.
5. The acquisition decisions recommended will lock in the range of national security options for decades into the future.
6. The decisions are not just programic nuance -- but will impact core Air Force functions, to include Air Force ability to deter, to conduct an air campaign, and to rescue our downed Airmen.
7. The launch of an intercontinental missile by North Korea this weekend (and a similar launch by Iran 5 weeks ago) argues for a robust missile defense, not a reduced one -- to include the ABL. The technology of ABL has the potential to revolutionize warfare in the future.
8. It is difficult to determine the strategy which this budget supports. This is especially important since a Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) is mandated by law ... and will be conducted in the upcoming several months. It seems the budget (and hence the strategy) precedes the QDR.
9. This budget increases risk ... in my view ... beyond so-called "moderate."
AFA believes there are major impacts and consequences ... for the full-up joint team. These budget recommendations may cost us lives and will reduce our strategic options in a very dangerous world.
For your consideration.
Michael M. Dunn President/CEO
Of course MSM (Marxist Socialist Media) refused to report on this video that was being viewed on several conservative blogs that the public were not aware of.
When hell breaks loose, MSM will pay for not presenting fair and balanced reporting on the candidates. I will be the first one stomping on MSM's worthless asses.
Posted by: Jack Ebbemble3450 ||
04/07/2009 20:27
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#2
Men who used the treatment five minutes before having intercourse extended their love-making from half a minute to almost four minutes, trials showed.
#7
> Men who used the treatment five minutes before having intercourse extended their love-making from half a minute to almost four minutes, trials showed.
April 7 (Bloomberg) — A soldier of the French Foreign Legion serving in Chad killed three of his colleagues and is on the run, a military command spokesman said. The man killed two other legionnaires of the French military force and a soldier from the African state of Togo.
He fired at his comrades in an irrational act and is now on the run, Lieutenant Colonel Francois-Marie Gougeon, spokesman for the French Army said over the telephone. The priority is to find him. Gougeon said he didnt know whether the soldier left with his weapon.
The troops were killed in the military Camps des Etoiles, near the town of Abeche in eastern Chad, he said.
The French Foreign Legion soldiers who were killed and the one who shot them are part of a European peacekeeping force in Chad. The Togolese soldier was part of the United Nations force that is taking over operations from the Europeans, Gougeon said.
France has 2,100 troops in Chad, he said. There are about 5,200 peacekeepers as part of the U.N.s MINURCAT mission in Chad, Agence France-Presse reported. They are charged with protecting refugees from Sudans Darfur region and others fleeing rebel insurgency in Chad and the northern Central African Republic.
PARIS (AFP) European peacekeepers on Tuesday launched a manhunt for a "deranged" French Foreign Legion officer who killed two comrades, a Togolese UN peacekeeper, and a civilian in Chad.
"Gunshots were heard in the (military) camp and then the two legionnaires were found and then a little further away the body of the Togolese soldier was discovered," said Captain Christophe Prazuck.
It appeared that the soldier, an officer he described as "deranged," opened fire with his service weapon and then escaped from the scene, Prazuck said.
A local official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the legionnaire had later shot and killed a Chadian civilian after he resisted the fugitive's attempt to steal his horse.
#2
As I understand it officers are all French born.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/07/2009 16:23
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#3
French news agencies say nothing aboiut his rank but the terms seem to point that he is a private. For info Frenchmen _are_ allowed to serve in the Foreign Legion. Non-French are allowed but it is not a requirement.
#5
For most of its existence, the Legion was officered by Frenchmen but the enlisted were all non-French. Only fairly recently have Frenchmen been allowed to legally enlist.
While I cannot recall the term right now, there is a "madness" well known to the Legion that strikes in these isolated postings.
BARACK Obama displayed reality-denying virtuosity last week when, announc ing the cashiering of General Motors CEO Richard Wagoner, and naming his replacement, and as the government was prompting selection of a new majority of GM's board of directors, and as the government announced the next deadline for GM to submit a more satisfactory viability plan than it submitted at the last faux deadline, and as the government kept the billions flowing to tide GM over until, well, whenever, the president said: "The United States government has no interest in running GM."
Actually, his administration prefers to do that rather than allow bankruptcy to infuriate the United Auto Workers union, which was pre-emptively grateful to Obama's administration with lavish contributions to candidate Obama.
The president supposedly showed "toughness" in sacking a conspicuous member of a particularly unpopular little cohort, CEOs of big corporations. He will need more grit if, as his administration hints, this time it is serious, that its patience is wearing thin, that someday GM could face "controlled" or "prepackaged" or "surgical" bankruptcy. One suspects that those adjectives intimate that it will be faux bankruptcy, gentle in dealing with the UAW.
Last November (five months and $17.4 billion in auto bailouts ago), this column noted: "Some opponents of bankruptcy say: GM must not be allowed to fail before it perfects batteries for its electric-powered Volt, which supposedly is a key to the company's resurrection. This vehicle was concocted to serve GM's prolonged attempt to ingratiate itself with the few hundred environmentally obsessed automotive engineers in Congress. They have already voted tax credits of up to $7,500 for purchasers of such cars -- bribes that reveal doubts about consumer enthusiasm for them at a price that would reflect cost."
In December, GM, by then a mendicant groveling before its congressional masters, ran a full-page newspaper ad apologizing for having "disappointed" everyone, vowing to stop selling so many "pickups and SUVs" (which were 11 of GM's 20 most profitable products in 2008), and promising "revolutionary new products like the Chevrolet Volt." Another ad, which appeared before December and is still running, features a car attached to an electric cord, and says the Volt amounts to "reinventing the automobile."
Last week, in an unenthralled summary of GM's "viability" plan, Obama's administration said: "GM earns a large share of its profits from high-margin trucks and SUVs, which are vulnerable to a continuing shift in consumer preference to smaller vehicles. Additionally, while the Chevy Volt holds promise, it will likely be too expensive to be commercially successful in the short term."
The stunning shift in consumer preferences has been reported under headlines such as "Hybrid Car Sales Go from 60 to 0 at Breakneck Speed" (Los Angeles Times, March 17). Absent $4 gas, customers, those nuisances with their insufferable preferences, don't want the vehicles the politicians want them to want, even with manufacturers now offering large rebates and other incentives.
The two best-selling vehicles in America this year are large pickup trucks (Ford F-Series and Chevy Silverado). In February, Toyota sold 13,600 Tundra and Tacoma pickups and 7,232 Priuses. It sells the Prius at a loss, which it can afford to do because it makes pots of money selling pickups.
Has the car designer in chief (a k a the president) considered the possibility that what he calls "the cars of tomorrow" will forever be that?
His administration can't be faulted for failing to do well what can't be done well -- industrial policy, wherein the political class, with negligible experience in commerce, flounders. The administration can, however, be faulted for trying.
The government's wallow in the automobile industry, under this and the previous administration, merits a hockey coach's evaluation of his team: "Everyday you guys look worse and worse. And today you played like tomorrow."
#3
Absent $4 gas, customers, those nuisances with their insufferable preferences, don't want the vehicles the politicians want them to want, even with manufacturers now offering large rebates and other incentives.
Obama will deliver the $4 gas via cap and trade, shutting down North American drilling, and EPA regulation of carbon emmissions.
GM and Segway unveil new two-wheeled urban vehicle
NEW YORK A solution to the world's urban transportation problems could lie in two wheels not four, according to executives for General Motors Corp. and Segway Inc.
The companies announced Tuesday that they are working together to develop a two-wheeled, two-seat electric vehicle designed to be a fast, safe, inexpensive and clean alternative to traditional cars and trucks for cities across the world.
The Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility, or PUMA, project also would involve a vast communications network that would allow vehicles to interact with each other, regulate the flow of traffic and prevent crashes from happening.
"We're excited about doing more with less," said Jim Norrod, chief executive of Segway, the Bedford, N.H.-based maker of electric scooters. "Less emissions, less dependability on foreign oil and less space."
The 300-pound prototype runs on a lithium-ion battery and uses Segway's characteristic two-wheel balancing technology, along with dual electric motors. It's designed to reach speeds of up to 35 miles-per-hour and can run 35 miles on a single charge.
The companies did not release a projected cost for the vehicle, but said ideally its total operating cost including purchase price, insurance, maintenance and fuel would total between one-fourth and one-third of that of the average traditional vehicle.
Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development, and strategic planning, said the project is part of Detroit-based GM's effort to remake itself as a purveyor of fuel-efficient vehicles.
Ideally, the vehicles would also be part of a communications network that through the use of transponder and GPS technology would allow them to drive themselves. The vehicles would automatically avoid obstacles such as pedestrians and other cars and therefore never crash, Burns said.
April 5, 2009: U.S. and Israeli intelligence have learned of an ongoing debate in the Iranian leadership. The more radical leaders, who control the Revolutionary Guard, and the al Quds force, want to equip Hamas (in Gaza) and Hezbollah (in southern Lebanon) with more lethal weapons, and goad Israel into another war. The Iranian radicals have been trying to get anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles to Hamas, as these weapons can be used immediately against Israeli helicopters, F-16s and UAVs that regularly operate over Gaza, and the armored vehicles that come in with raids and patrol the security fence. So far, none of these weapons have gotten through. The Israeli air raid on Sudan last January destroyed nearly twenty truckloads of these weapons. Iranian cargo ships are being watched closely for additional attempts to get the missiles to Gaza. This effort could backfire badly. There's a risk that, if Iranian anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles get used in Gaza, the Israelis may decide that their decision to leave Gaza four years ago was a big mistake, and take control once more.
A more worrisome effort is to supply Hezbollah with chemical warheads for some of their rockets. The less radical Iranian clerics have blocked this proposal, so far. The majority of the clerics who run the religious dictatorship in Iran are reluctant to see chemical weapons used on Israel, as they fear the retaliation (which might include a nuke, as the Israelis have no chemical weapons of their own). The more radical clerics take the "God is on our side" angle more literally and believe Israel can be taken down if hit hard enough. A little nerve gas should do it. The Iranian clerics usually work out compromises in cases like this, and the deal may include shipping chemical warheads to Hezbollah, but keeping them under the control of the Iranian security officers stationed there. Many Hezbollah leaders are also not keen on employing the chemical option. That's because Israel has the ability to take all of southern Lebanon, and grind Hezbollah into the dust. The Israelis would take a lot of casualties. But if Hezbollah hit Israeli civilians with mustard or nerve gas, the Israeli troops would have plenty of incentive to come across the border with murderous intent.
Washington Post amazed... Ties to 9/11 Build Enthusiasm for the Fight, but Deployments Have Taken a Toll
FORT BRAGG, N.C. -- As the fight in Afghanistan transforms from a "forgotten war" to the U.S. military's top priority -- with tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines headed there this year -- overstretched ground troops are voicing unexpected enthusiasm about the new mission.
#2
Yup...Anymouse's Semper Fi son is chomping at the bit to get to Afghanistan. He actually jumped the line to get an early deployment with another unit...much to his mother's chagrin.
#4
"65 soldiers had to be "stop-lossed," or ordered to serve beyond the date they were scheduled to exit the Army."
I thought O'wonderful was supposed to put a stop to that. Is stop-loss OK now that a Democrat is doing it? I'm so confused!
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/07/2009 17:00
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#5
Good one Anymouse and congrats on a son with honor! We need more like him. You get to be strong and proud, momma will always worry.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/07/2009 18:25
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#6
TITLE 10 > Subtitle A > PART II > CHAPTER 39 >
para. 671a. Members: service extension during war
Unless terminated at an earlier date by the Secretary concerned, the period of active service of any member of an armed force is extended for the duration of any war in which the United States may be engaged and for six months thereafter.
It's in the contract as well as the law. Not that the MSM, and its legion of editors and fact checkers, care about truth. That DoD is operating pretty much as though its peacetime for most of the uniform service members is the interesting part.
BAGHDAD An Iraqi court has reduced the prison sentence for an Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at former President George W. Bush from three years to one. Court spokesman Abdul-Sattar Bayrkdar says Tuesday's decision was made because the journalist had no prior criminal history.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi was sentenced to three years in March after a quick trial. Al-Zeidi had pleaded not guilty to a charge of assaulting a foreign leader and said his action was a "natural response to the occupation."
The journalist's act during Bush's last visit to Iraq as president turned the 30-year-old reporter into a folk hero across the Arab world, where the former U.S. president is reviled for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Al-Zeidi faced up to 15 years.
"Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something."
So declared President Obama Sunday in Prague regarding North Korea's missile launch, which America's U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice added was a direct violation of U.N. resolutions. At which point, the Security Council spent hours debating its nonresponse, thus proving to nuclear proliferators everywhere that rules aren't binding, violations won't be punished, and words of warning mean nothing.
Rarely has a Presidential speech been so immediately and transparently divorced from reality as Mr. Obama's in Prague. The President delivered a stirring call to banish nuclear weapons at the very moment that North Korea and Iran are bidding to trigger the greatest proliferation breakout in the nuclear age. Mr. Obama also proposed an elaborate new arms-control regime to reduce nuclear weapons, even as both Pyongyang and Tehran are proving that the world's great powers lack the will to enforce current arms-control treaties.
There's no doubting the emotive appeal of Mr. Obama's grand no-nukes vision. Ronald Reagan shared a similar hope, and in recent years these pages have run a pair of news-making essays by George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry and Sam Nunn positing such a diplomatic goal. They probably gave Mr. Obama the idea. But the Gipper understood the practical limits of arms control in delivering such a world, and Messrs. Shultz and Kissinger are hard-headed enough to know that global rogues must be contained if we are going to have any hope of a nuclear-free future.
Mr. Obama recognized this rogue proliferation threat in his Prague address, but to counter it he offered only more treaties of the kind that are already ignored. OK, not merely more treaties. Two days earlier in Strasbourg he also vouchsafed the power of his own moral example.
"And I had an excellent meeting with President Medvedev of Russia to get started that process of reducing our nuclear stockpiles, which will then give us a greater moral authority to say to Iran, don't develop a nuclear weapon; to say to North Korea, don't proliferate nuclear weapons," Mr. Obama said, implying that previous American Presidents had lacked such "authority."
The President went even further in Prague, noting that "as a nuclear power -- as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon -- the United States has a moral responsibility to act." That barely concealed apology for Hiroshima is an insult to the memory of Harry Truman, who saved a million lives by ending World War II without a bloody invasion of Japan. As for the persuasive power of "moral authority," we should have learned long ago that the concept has no meaning in Pyongyang or Tehran, much less in the rocky hideouts of al Qaeda.
The truth is that Mr. Obama's nuclear vision has reality exactly backward. To the extent that the U.S. has maintained a large and credible nuclear arsenal, it has prevented war, defeated the Soviet Union, shored up our alliances and created an umbrella that persuaded other nations that they don't need a bomb to defend themselves.
The most dangerous proliferation in the last 50 years has come outside the U.S. umbrella on the South Asian subcontinent, where India and Pakistan want to deter each other. No treaty stopped A.Q. Khan. Meanwhile, the world's most conspicuous antiproliferation victories in recent decades were the Israeli strike against Saddam Hussein's nuclear plant at Osirak, and the U.S. toppling of Saddam and the way it impressed Libya's Moammar Ghadafi.
All of which means that any serious effort at nonproliferation has to begin with North Korea and Iran. They are the urgent threat to nuclear peace, the focus of years of great-power diplomacy and sanctions. U.N. resolutions have formally barred both countries from developing an atomic bomb and the missiles to deliver them. If Iran acquires a bomb or North Korea retains one despite this attempt to stop them, then the world will conclude that there is no such thing as an enforceable antinuclear order. It will be every nation for itself.
In the Middle East, a Shiite bomb will send the region's Arab nations scurrying to Pakistan to get a Sunni weapon. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and perhaps even Iraq will be in the market for a deterrent. The Turks -- long a power in the region but wondering if NATO membership is enough protection -- will also seek to join the nuclear club. Meanwhile, Japan will increasingly wonder if Americans would really risk an attack on themselves in order to protect Tokyo. The nightmare imagined by strategists at the dawn of the atomic age in the 1950s, with every major nation getting the bomb, will be that much closer.
Mr. Obama is a brilliant talker, and his words thrilled a Europe that wants to believe he can conjure peace and a nuclear-free world. But note well how little the Europeans answered the President's call for more troops in Afghanistan, much less any help in stopping a nuclear Iran. Mr. Obama is offering pleasant illusions, while mullahs and other rogues plot explosive reality.
BAGHDAD -- On a trip shrouded in secrecy, President Barack Obama flew into Iraq on Tuesday for a brief look at a war he opposed as a candidate and now vows to end as commander in chief.
Obama flew into the country hours after a car bomb exploded in a Shiite neighborhood of the capital city, a deadly reminder of the violence that has claimed the lives at least 4,266 members of the U.S. military since March 2003.
Even Fox does the body count snark in the second paragraph.
The visit came at the conclusion of a long overseas trip that included economic and NATO summits in Europe and two days in Turkey.
Shortly before leaving Turkey, the president held out Iraq as an example of the change he seeks in policies inherited from former President George W. Bush. "Moving the ship of state takes time," he told a group of students in Istanbul. He noted his long-standing opposition to the war, yet said, "Now that we're there," the U.S. troop withdrawal has to be done "in a careful enough way that we don't see a collapse into violence."
That's not what MoveOn thought you were saying last year ...
In office only 11 weeks, Obama has already announced plans to withdraw most U.S. combat troops on a 19-month timetable. The drawdown is to begin slowly, so American forces can provide security for Iraqi elections, then accelerate in 2010. As many as 50,000 troops are expected to remain in the country at the end of the 19 months to perform counterterrorism duties.
Tuesday's trip was Obama's third to Iraq, and his first since taking office. He met with U.S. commanders and troops last summer while seeking the presidency. Because of security concerns, the White House made no advance announcement of the visit, and released no details for his activities on the ground.
It was the last stop of an eight-day trip to Europe and Turkey during which Obama sought to place his stamp on U.S. foreign policy after eight years of the Bush administration.
#1
Ohhhh...so disappointing. I saw this article but Sherry not only beat me to it, but missed a tremendous opportunity.
Allow me to expound:
On a trip shrouded in secrecy, President Barack Obama flew into Iraq on Tuesday for a brief look at a war he opposed as a candidate and now vows to end as commander in chief.
Didn't you conveniently miss that vote, Mr. freshman Senator from IL and illegitimate POTUS (aka POS)?
Obama flew into the country hours after a car bomb exploded in a Shiite neighborhood of the capital city, a deadly reminder of the violence that has claimed the lives at least 4,266 members of the U.S. military since March 2003.
Wait...how many have died since Bambi took office, failing to end the war he promised to end?
Shortly before leaving Turkey, the president held out Iraq as an example of the change he seeks in policies inherited from former President George W. Bush.
Exactly how is Iraq different from Afghanistan, given the probable target is in between?
"Moving the ship of state takes time," he told a group of students in Istanbul. He noted his long-standing opposition to the war, yet said, "Now that we're there," the U.S. troop withdrawal has to be done "in a careful enough way that we don't see a collapse into violence."
Still using Ayers euphemisms, hmmmm???
In office only 11 weeks, Obama has already announced plans to withdraw most U.S. combat troops on a 19-month timetable. The drawdown is to begin slowly, so American forces can provide security for Iraqi elections, then accelerate in 2010. As many as 50,000 troops are expected to remain in the country at the end of the 19 months to perform counterterrorism duties.
Predictably, Reuters (aka 'Bama Press Corps') asserts that anything Bama does on Iraq is just fine (everything GW did was wrong).
Because of security concerns, the White House made no advance announcement of the visit, and released no details for his activities on the ground.
I suppose it was a slip of the tongue mentioning Iraq in Instanbul (any idiot knew he would be going to Iraq).
It was the last stop of an eight-day trip to Europe and Turkey during which Obama sought to place his stamp on U.S. foreign policy after eight years of the Bush administration.
Hmmm...I guess Instanbul doesn't count as part of Europe (oops...did Reuters mean 'European Union' & Turkey???)
Oh, and don't worry, Zero...your 'stamp' on history is all but assured, despite all the attempts to whitewash it as you go...
He and other world leaders pledged cooperation to combat a global recession, and he appealed with limited success for additional assistance in Afghanistan, a war he has vowed to intensify.
The new president drew large crowds as he offered repeated assurances that the United States would not seek to dictate to other countries.
Nope...dictate to no one...except Euro (on Turkey & stimulus), Pakistan, Afhanistan & Iraq...but that's all (maybe).
He had pledged as a candidate to visit a majority-Muslim nation in his first 100 days in office.
I guess Saudi Arabia doesn't count. I guess he 'does' have to keep his distance from 'oil', doesn't he (sure got that bow in, though!).
#7
He was in Turkey.
Wow what a surprise this must have been.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/07/2009 16:09
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#8
Sherry, as a mod you're always free to do in-lines :-)
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2009 16:09
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#9
Thanks Dr. Steve -- I occasionally do -- I spend most of my day in front of a computer, and get the "Breaking News" from several sources. So, usually, I'm just getting them up, wanting to read all the great snarking that goes on here!
#10
"Here's a couple things I want to say. Number one, thank you," the president bellowed as he addressed troops at a stopover at the tail end of a marathon overseas trip.
President Barack Obama greets military personnel at Camp Victory in Baghdad, Iraq, Tuesday, April 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
and
Posted by: john frum ||
04/07/2009 19:47
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#15
How ironic - the greatest Communist, 9-11 Terrorist, Traitor and Murderer of 3000 Americans of all is called "Mr. President"!
Posted by: Titus Whiter9537 ||
04/07/2009 21:37
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#16
I've been out of touch with the news, but thought I heard Obambi got to Iraq airport but weather kept him from helicoptering in to the city so he conducted his meeting with Maliki et al by phone. He could have done that without even landing. And if he hadn't telegraphed his punch, he probably could have safely convoyed to town (Bush might have had enough courage and stupidity to have tried that, though I wouldn't have recommended it.)
#2
Seems to me that a two-seat version of the A-10 (like the A-10B was supposed to be) with a couple of miniguns out the sides and controlled electronically would be doable. Weapons officer cursors onto the target, presses the button, and lead flies. Platform could use the targeting computer to provide information to the auto-pilot to keep it in a nice, stable circle so the weapon stays on target.
#4
A-10's drink a lot, have greatly reduced loiter time and can't carry 40mm cannon or 105mm arty. C-130's can conduct combat insertions and airdrops if necessary. They can also carry onboard analysts and techs, and land on combat assault airstrips to conduct extractions.
#6
Wait, what? It's a tanker/gunship? Are they high on crack? Who in their right mind would send a flying gas tank into close support missions with a 30mm autocannon?
The whole point of the boxcar gunship is to quickly bring small, mobile batteries in to loiter in a highly predictable circular orbit over a target & deliver direct fire. You *don't* want to do that if you've carrying god only knows how much gas for the rotaries. I'm sort of surprised we haven't lost any since Somalia.
If you need more Spookies, make more gunships. Don't send airmen into close proximity to ground fire with thousands of gallons of aviation fuel snuggled up tight next to 'em!
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
04/07/2009 15:08
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#7
Seems something like an updated OV-10 is the low cost, long range and right size aircraft for this war. A targeting pod, belly mounted 30mm, some Hellfires and 2.75" FFARs and you're ready for Taliban Season.
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009 15:10
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#8
Wait, what? It's a tanker/gunship? Are they high on crack?
Was thinking the same thing. Wouldn't want to be near one. Even the residual vapors in an empty tank would be fatal if hit by a tracer.
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009 15:13
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#9
Well whaddya know, the P-38 is back, FASTEST FIHTER IN WW 2
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/07/2009 16:00
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#10
Dual purpose 130 gunships like this are not new and a natural fit. The J model 130 is perfect for this mission and SOCOM has a few like this. I think there is a bit of misconception here. This aircraft is nothing like the tankers we commonly think of, its not a full caro bay of tank. It is just outfitted with two lines to refuel helicopters and a small internal tank. The J model gunship has an internal tank for range that can easily fill the couple hundred gallons for a helicopter without missing a beat or hurting its range. The gunship is loaded internally with a gunners control room, ammo racks, and of course the 105mm cannon, 20mm guns and an assortment of other fun stuff. It can help the heavy helicopters that take off low on fuel to make it to the fight, then provide that air cover that they do so well, and finally help them stay on station until the end of the fight and in return.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/07/2009 16:19
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#11
Loiter time? You want loiter time, it's time to bring back the war zeppelin. Only this time we we don't fill them with hydrogen, ok?
#13
"Wouldn't the recoil from any good-sized weapon mess with an A-10's aim"
Nah, you use something like the same technology that is used to keep a tank's main gun on target when moving over rough terrain with a could of extra features. Once you achieve a weapon system "lock" on the target and start a stream of ordinance on the way, you can track that stream with radar or optically, even, and the system can make its own compensations to get the rounds to the target. That adjusts for things like wind, humidity, temperature ... stuff that changes how bullets fly through the air. As for the plane moving, that can be compensated for, too.
Once you get the stream onto the target, it should be pretty hard to to miss as long as you maintain a lock on the target. The plane might move more than the system can compensate for but if you have the weapon system interacting with flight control electronics, that can be prevented from happening.
Lock on the target, pilot gives the weapon system control of the platform, pull the trigger, and from that point on the crew is "along for the ride" until delivery is complete. The weapon system has control of the platform until disengaged by the pilot or that activity is complete.
The wings are low on the A-10 to protect the engines from ground fire.
But my prediction is that any smaller gunship developed by the military will be unmanned. No need to put humans at risk for that mission and you can give a human exactly the same view from a cockpit sim that they would have from the actual cockpit anyway.
Just have a pair of video cameras that "look" in whatever direction the remote pilot is looking and feed these back to a stereoscopic display to the pilot. It would be just as if he is sitting in the cockpit except he isn't in any danger of being shot up.
#14
The A-10's 30mm cannon is on the center line of the aircraft, so no yawing is induced during firing. The A-10 does slow down from the recoil but it is fired in 1-2 second bursts.
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009 19:36
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#15
From my USMC C-130 pilot son:
As for #6 below, hes clueless The current AC-130s (gunships) have the same fuel cell configuration as all other -130s. So gunships have been in relatively close proximity to ground fire with fuel snuggled up to them for years! All -130s have fuel inside their wings ( and some carry externally under the wing, or inside the cargo compartment in removable tanks). So, ground fire is always a risk no matter what model -130 you fly. We takeoff with enough fuel for ourselves, as well as carry the extra fuel for our receivers in the tanks if you pass too much to the receiver, youre screwed because he cant give it back.
As for the tanks taking a bullet, there have been some recent modifications to the fuel tanks so hopefully prevent an explosion should they be hit by ground fire they have inserted **** into the tanks and that is supposed to reduce the gas/air mixture and prevent an explosion have to trust the slide rule guys on that one
The real answer to risk management comes from tactics The AC-130 flies at an altitude that is higher than the effective range of small arms fire / weapons. So Im not worried about taking a small arms tracer to one of my tanks. You would never employ a -130 the same way at a AH-1 or A-10 .No air to mud mission for the Herk!
WAUSAU, Wis. A man suspected of stealing a plane in Canada and flying erratically across three states was trying to commit suicide, hoping he would be shot down by military fighter planes, a state trooper said Tuesday. Suicide by F-16? That's different.
Adam Dylan Leon, 31, was arrested at a convenience store in Ellsinore, Mo., shortly after landing the single-engine, four-seat Cessna on a rural Missouri road Monday night, ending a six-hour flight, police said.
The plane was tracked as a flight safety issue and was not believed to be a terrorist threat, Mike Kucharek, spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said in a telephone interview from Colorado Springs.
The Missouri state trooper who arrested Leon said on ABCs Good Morning America that the pilot told him he had hoped to be shot down. He made a statement that he was trying to commit suicide and he didnt have the courage to do it himself. And his idea was to fly the aircraft into the United States, where he would be shot down, Trooper Justin Watson said on ABC.
Watson said Leon apparently hitched a ride to the convenience store after landing on a highway and taxiing the plane to a side road. He didnt appear surprised when the officer entered the convenience store to arrest him. Leon said he didnt have any ID, but he was the person we were looking for, Watson said. He said Leon gave me no indication that it was anything other than he was having personal problems and was in an attempt to end his life. He did state that he thought at one time he was getting shot down, but apparently the Air Force were just shooting flares, the trooper said.
Leon was in the Butler County Jail on Tuesday in Poplar Bluff, Mo.
The plane was reported stolen Monday afternoon from Confederation College Flight School at Thunder Bay International Airport in Ontario. It was intercepted by F-16 fighters from the Wisconsin National Guard after crossing into the state near the Michigan state line.
The pilot was flying erratically and didnt communicate with the fighter pilots, Kucharek said at the Aerospace Defense Command. The pilot acknowledged seeing the F-16s but didnt obey their nonverbal commands to follow them, Kucharek said.
The planes path over Wisconsin prompted a brief, precautionary evacuation of the Wisconsin capitol in Madison, although there were few workers in the building at the time and the governor was not in town.
The Cessna 172 continued south over Illinois and eastern Missouri before landing near Ellsinore, about 120 miles south-southwest of St. Louis.
The plane landed about six hours after the reported theft, and had enough fuel for about eight hours of flight, NAADC officials said. We tailed it all the way, Maj. Brian Markin said. Once it landed our aircraft returned to base.
FBI spokesman Richard Kolko told CNN that Leon was a native of Turkey who changed his name from Yavuz Berke and became a Canadian citizen last year.
#1
They let a unknown cessna piloted by a Citizen of Turkey, a muslim country, go unmolested for hours? And simply tailed it after an evac of Madison, even though he purposely ignored their commands?
Am I the only one who thinks he should have been shot down the moment he acknowledged but ignored them?
Posted by: Charles ||
04/07/2009 11:42
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#2
Do us a favor next time Adam/Yavuz. Tie yourself to the Trans Canada Railway tracks. It's a very Canadian way to go.
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009 15:25
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#3
They tailed it and made sure they could intervene if the pilot did something stupid like aim himself towards a sensitive location. There was no need to shoot him down otherwise.
Can you imagine the headlines and the Daily Kos if the AF had shot the dummy down and the plane had crashed into a kitten farm?
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2009 16:11
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#4
"Can you imagine the headlines and the Daily Kos if the AF had shot the dummy down and the plane had crashed into a kitten farm?"
Also, why punish the innocent plane, and the flight school, if it's not necessary?
It is too bad he didn't try something really stupid....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/07/2009 16:30
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#5
It is too bad he didn't try something really stupid....
#6
The plane was tracked as a "flight safety issue" and was not believed to be a terrorist threat
Hmmm there were still F-16s over the big lake long after he hit Wisconsin airspace. I suspect, no matter what NORAD says they werent taking any chances.
#7
I wonder if this guy didn't run out of fuel? The range on a Cessna 172 is around 610 nautical miles. The distance from Thunder Bay to Poplar Bluff is given as 700 nautical miles.
#8
At least now the Jihadis know they don't need to bother getting by TSA security, they can just Hijack Canadian planes instead.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
04/07/2009 20:51
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#9
And THAT is why he should have been smoked at the earliest possible opportunity. After all, they might be able to shoot him down if he heads for something like a mall, but what's suspicious about approaching an airport? I'd hate to have to be the person that makes that call. Is he landing or going to crash into the terminal?
Posted by: Mike N. ||
04/07/2009 20:56
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U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, (R-Saks) used a day of his two-week break from his congressional duties in Washington, D.C. to drop in on a few of his constituents at Auburn University Montgomery.
AUM and the main campus of Auburn University are both in congressional District 3, which Rogers represents.
Rogers talked a bit about the economy, the war and homeland security. But some of the most interesting comments he had to make (at least in this reporter's humble opinion) were about how Congressional Democrats were wielding their new majority in Congress.
Despite President Barack Obama's commitment to bipartisanship, Rogers says Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi (whom he described as "crazy," "mean as a snake" and "Tom DeLay in a skirt") Mye eyes, my eyes
and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid didn't get that memo.
"They don't talk to us," he said. "They've got the vote, and they can do what they want."
Rogers said to be fair Democrats are paying Republicans back for how they were treated when the Republicans controlled Congress. "Republican leaders didn't talk to the Democrats," he said. "The attitude was 'We have the votes on our side, let the Democrats whine.'"
Rogers said that's a culture that needs to change if Congress wants to get more done in between election cycles."At some point we've got to recognize that the power goes back and forth," he said. "One side only has it for a finite time and we've got to work together while the minority is still sensitive because that's going to be us one day."
#1
"At some point we've got to recognize that the power goes back and forth,"
Yep, nothing changes. They just keep raising the payback stakes at every hand off. They played the same game in Rome when Pompey got the Senate to tell Julie Baby to come home and face his turn, but leave the legions at the Rubicon. We know how that worked out in the end when power is more important than anything else.
GOD bless Bob Gates: Our secretary of defense can't be bought, can't be bullied and can't be fooled. And he values our men and women in uniform.
"This is a reform budget," the SecDef stated yesterday as he unveiled the Pentagon's new priorities. He insisted that we must "critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real requirements."
Translation: We need to give our troops the numbers and gear they need, not the gilded garbage defense-industry cartels foist upon us -- on loan-shark terms.
Gates appears to have made the right call on every single issue. And, instead of beginning with a focus on big-ticket weapons, he started by highlighting the needs of those who serve.
This SecDef wants to stop cutting troops to "save" money, only to funnel the funding to well-connected contractors. The Army and Marines will get their promised end-strength increases, while the Navy and Air Force won't cut more sailors and airmen.
He stressed the criticality of medical research and long-term care for our wounded -- including those suffering psychological trauma.
In a break with the practice of handling soldiers as a nuisance in supplemental spending bills, Gates aims to fund our troops' needs up front. We've never had a more committed defender of our men and women in uniform.
Laying out his overall priorities, the SecDef put flesh-and-blood first, "rebalancing" weapons programs second and acquisition reform third. He wants to protect people; buy only affordable, necessary weapons that actually work -- and stop the legal corruption that rips off the taxpayers and arms our troops with junk.
Here's how each service would fare:
Army: The Army's home-front bureaucrats, sniffing for good retirement jobs, have tried to turn their service into a ground-bound version of the Air Force, elevating elegant technologies above combat realities. Ignoring soldier psychology and the need for robust gear, the techies went bonkers.
The Future Combat System, a suite of lightly armored vehicles that couldn't protect soldiers from land mines or old-fashioned artillery, is supposed to magically deflect future weapons our enemies don't have. FCS would ask young soldiers to ride into battle trusting invisible "armor." And it packs pathetically little killing power, relying on "precision strike," a green-suit version of the "shock-and-awe" con that flopped so comprehensively.
Gates just said, "No." Useful technologies under development will be exploited, but this platinum-plated disaster won't enter the inventory. The SecDef demanded feasibility, affordability and battlefield utility. Tomorrow's warriors will thank him.
The SecDef also wants an Army of 45 "full up" Brigade Combat Teams that won't need to scrounge for added troops when going to war. That's better than fielding the programmed 48 BCTs that would have to rely on bureaucratic press-gangs to fill their ranks.
Navy: Gates took a leather strap to the Navy's backside -- a long-overdue move.
The Navy remains our pre-eminent service and the US remains an essentially maritime power. But Navy shipbuilding programs had degenerated so disastrously that no vessels joined the fleet on time, all ran over budget and few worked as advertised. The greatest Navy in the world was building ships that not only couldn't do much damage to an enemy, but couldn't even protect themselves.
Gates wants ships that can fight. He'll kill a dysfunctional high-tech destroyer program, with the Navy going back to buying DDG-51 destroyers that actually work. The troubled Littoral Combat Ship buy will go ahead -- it's just badly needed. The builders will have to shape up, though. And aging subs will be replaced.
Our SecDef wants our Navy to move at combat speed again.
Air Force: Hallelujah! The millions of dollars spent on advertising, lobbying and outright lying to force the Pentagon to buy more F-22 fighters didn't work. The buy of the F-22 -- an aircraft so fragile the Air Force fears sending it to war and with maintenance needs that give it a readiness rate below 60 percent -- is being capped at 187.
Gates knows we need a strong Air Force -- he just doesn't want the wrong Air Force. He supports extending our air supremacy by embracing the more-affordable F-35 fighter, funding 513 over the next five years.
He put a new manned-bomber program on hold until the justifications, specifications and costs make sense. But he wants re-bids on a replacement tanker aircraft as soon as possible -- to fill a genuine need.
The Marines: New amphibious-capability programs are waterlogged. Gates insists they make technical and budgetary sense before the dollars hit the beach.
The SecDef made many other good calls. He wants 2,800 more special-operations personnel; more useful intelligence capabilities; more support for our hard-working helicopter fleets; more missile-defense systems that actually protect troops; more cyber-war capability; 50 more Predator and Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles (the drones the terrorists dread), and thousands more in-house watchdogs to put the brakes on contractor cheating.
Of course, to realize his dream of a reformed acquisition process and a warrior-centered military, Gates needs the support of Congress. And Congress is a greater threat than China. The heroic work of the greatest public servant of our time is now at the mercy of our nation's most-pompous thieves.
#1
Previous articles said he's also dropping the F-22 and that the F-22 was better than the F-35 in an air supremacy role, which after all seems to be the linchpin of current doctrine. Not happy about the F-22, but like to hear from more knowledgeable about impact of dropping it.
#2
Before we look to high-tech, let's not forget how easy it is to manufacture and plant an IED, and then blend into the scenery. Low-tech, disproportionate retaliation is the only thing that has ever pacified terrorists. Hasn't Peters attacked anyone who says the Quran conduces terror?
#3
Gates also wants to end C-17 production. Who needs transport? Just tell the troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Asia and Europe to forage.
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009 16:15
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#4
Gates Lays Out Key FY 2010 Budget Recommendations
Terminated or Ending:
VH-71 Presidential Helicopter
F-22A Raptor
C-17 Globemaster III heavy-lift strategic transport
2018 Bomber
TSAT Satellite Program
Multiple Kill Vehicle (MKV) program
Air Force Combat Search and Rescue X (CSAR-X) helicopter
Future Combat Systems Ground Vehicle
NLOS-C cannon
Significantly Shifted:
KC-X Aerial Tankers
Airborne Laser
GMD ballistic missile interceptors
DDG-1000 Zumwalt Class destroyer
CG (X) Cruiser
LPD 11 and the Mobile Landing Platform
Aircraft Carriers down to 10
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009 16:22
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It's difficult not to warm to John Prescott. As part of a Labour Government that lived from headline to headline, he added a dash of authenticity. He may have been oafish, but he was reassuringly human.
Prescott is trying to fabricate a row out of my interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News, in which I warned Americans against adopting a socialist healthcare system along British lines. You can watch the old bruiser here. (If you're an American who likes to imagine that the British are eloquent, please ignore that last hyperlink.)
I wonder whether anyone still falls for this sort of stuff. For a long time, Labour politicians had two slogans which they would trot out whenever healthcare came up: "Envy Of The World" and "Free At The Point Of Use". These phrases were not intended to be arguments. Rather, they were ways of playing your trump, of closing down the debate.
Prezza uses both (or, rather, a mangled version of each). The NHS, he says, is Britain's "greatest creation". Really? Greater than parliamentary democracy? Greater than penicillin? Greater than the discovery of DNA, or the abolition of slavery, or the common law? John, the NHS produces some of the worst health outcomes in the industrialised world. Britain is the Western state where you'd least want to have cancer or a stroke or heart disease. Ours is now a country where thousands of people are killed in hospitals for reasons unrelated to their original condition. If this is our "greatest creation", Heaven help us.
As for the second slogan, which Prezza renders as "need and not ability to pay", there is no health system in Europe or North America that leaves the indigent untended. What is at issue is not whether we force poor people to pay, but whether we prevent wealthier people from doing so. The British system treats everyone equally, it's true: we queue equally, we wait weeks for operations equally, we are expected to be equally grateful for any attention we get.
Outside Westminster, the old incantations are losing their magic. Envy Of The World is no longer a charm to ward off criticism. People can see for themselves that Britain has become a place where foreigners fear to fall ill. Yes, all three parties are committed to the NHS: I am a humble backbencher, and speak only for myself. But I wonder whether, as on tax and borrowing, public opinion hasn't overtaken the Westminster consensus.
Let me put it like this. Imagine that, in 1945, we had created a National Food Service. Suppose that, in the name of "fairness" and "need and not ability to pay", sustenance had been rationed by the state. Conjecture that every citizen had been allocated one butcher, one baker, one café and so on. We all know where that would have led: to bureaucracy, to duplication, to surpluses in one field and scarcity in another, to racketeering, to hunger. No one, not even Prescott, is suggesting that we socialise food distribution - even though food is at least as basic human need as healthcare. As those Americans of whom you seem so contemptuous might put it, John, go figure.
Delhi: With infiltration on the rise and elections approaching, the Army is gearing up its counter-infiltration grid in Jammu and Kashmir to deal with a likely increase in violence levels. While the seasonal re-deployment of troops to forward areas that were snowed-in during winter has begun, the Army is also reorganising its counter-infiltration grid by moving in extra Rashtriya Rifles (RR) units near the Line of Control (LoC).
There has been no increase of troops in the state but specialised RR units, that usually carry out anti-militant operations in the hinterland, have been moved closer to the LoC in wake of recent attempts of infiltration. As many as 700 troops have been relocated to make the CI grid more effective against terrorists who manage to cross the fence, sources say.
This movement, which has taken place after the Kupwara encounter that left 17 militants dead, is in addition to some 3,000 troops who were relocated to the Line of Control from the Valley earlier this year after the 70 Infantry Brigade was shifted from Shopian.
The move comes at a time when, officers say, the LoC is most vulnerable to infiltration large sections of the fence that were under snow in the higher reaches have been damaged at several locations, making it easier for militants to cross over.
These are typically the months when we see a rise in infiltration as the snow starts melting. They try to sneak in before all posts along the LoC are fully manned after the winter months, a senior officer said.
While the CI grid is being realigned temporarily to meet immediate requirements, intelligence reports do not suggest a huge surge in infiltration in coming months. A slight increase is expected when the elections start but the Army is not expecting an abnormal rise in activity.
There are about 400 militants who are waiting to cross over. This may be a little over last year but there has not been much change on the ground situation yet, an officer said.
What has experts worried, however, is the new style of infiltration that involves large groups of 10-15 militants attempting to cross over. While this was the norm before the LoC fence came up, the past few years saw small groups of militants trying to sneak in. In only two cases late last year and the Kupwara and Gurez incidents this year have large militant groups crossed the LoC. The trend of larger groups attempting to infiltrate started late last year. It is either a sign of desperation to push in as many people as possible or a new tactic to push in a large number of militants through so that at least some of them succeed, an Army officer said.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/07/2009
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moving in extra Rashtriya Rifles (RR) units near the Line of Control (LoC).
Ima anxiously awaiting the RR's tactical transition from the LoC to LOD, (Line of Departure).
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, but Syria is taking fellow-Arab nation Libya to court over alleged jamming of Syrias satellite signals. Nilesats Salah Hamza, without naming any parties involved has diplomatically confirmed that there have been some instances of satellite interference lately. However, it seems Eutelsat may be in the firing line because of its carriage of the Syrian signals.
BBC Monitoring is reporting that a senior source at Syrias Zannubya Satellite Channel, which is said to be a close affiliate of former Syrian Vice President Abd-al-Halim Khaddam, has revealed plans to file a lawsuit in French and European courts against the Libyan Government for jamming the channel's transmissions.
In statements to London-based Quds Press, the channel's general director, Jihad Abd-al-Halim Khaddam, spoke of evidence that Libya has been jamming the channel's transmission and said: "Our channel's transmission via [Eutelsats] Hotbird satellite was jammed four times in a row. He added that the independent Association for International Broadcasting, which monitored the situation, reported that the jamming activity originated from Tripoli. Therefore, we are in the process of filing a lawsuit in French courts and the European Court [of Justice] against the Libyan Government and Hotbird's operators because they [Eutelsat] dropped our channel from their transmission list.
Al-Khaddam explained that Libya's jamming of Zannubya is consistent with efforts to activate security ties he described as deep between Syria and Libya.
His brown eyes wide with innocence, Abdullah laughs like any other 11-year-old as he tells his story. But it is no ordinary schoolboy tale he is sharing. It is of his arrest. Charged with carrying explosives, he is suspected of being a potential suicide bomber and is Afghanistans youngest prisoner. He is now behind bars in one the countrys most secure jails.
These are the facts of his case but nothing quite prepares you for the reality that is Abdullah. When I saw him in the prison office which is now his cell, my jaw dropped. Id been told I would meet a youth whod been arrested with a group of Taliban fighters but I didnt expect the picture of apparent innocence that confronted me.
He had just washed and he was crouching on the floor, having trouble closing the bag hed crammed his toiletries into. He could scarcely pull the zip. Yet Abdullah could strip, load and fire a Kalashnikov rifle. He would not tell me his full name. Abdullah, he said sharply. His voice hadnt yet broken. He is an orphan. But at the religious school where he was taught, Abdullah learned the principles of jihad holy war.
After a day reading the Koran, the evenings were taken up learning about the Kalashnikov and the pistol, about the foreigners that were coming to Muslim lands, killing women and children. Children like Abdullah and his younger brother Amin, who is 10. Abdullahs weapon of choice was the Kalashnikov because he found the trigger of the pistol hard to pull.
I asked Abdullah how he came to be caught with explosives. He launched into a story of how his cousin had come to his school near Peshawar in Pakistan and told him they were going on an outing. He walked with a group of men over the mountains and into Afghanistan. He was given an oversized jacket to put on the jacket that most of the explosives were found inside.
I watched this little boy speak, his high-pitched voice so innocent, pouring out the detail of an adventure he had clearly relished. He was arrested and taken to the jail of Kabuls Intelligence Service. I asked: How would you feel about being a suicide bomber?
He said he knew hed be in pieces. But he also knew the difference between suicide, which God forbade, and sacrifice, which is what you become if you blow yourself up, killing the non-Muslims who want to kill your family. Afterwards you would go straight to heaven, with 70 girls. I suspect he didnt care too much about the girls. But when I asked him what he wanted to do when he grew up, he said: When Im older Ill kill non-Muslims. If I dont, theyll come to our homes and kill us.
Its not clear what will happen to Abdullah. But the officials are likely to simply send him back across the border to his religious school. He will have quite a tale to tell the other children as he strips and loads his Kalashnikov, ready to defend Islam.
#1
In some regions of Africa, child soldiers begin training as young as seven. The AIDS epidemic has left many without parents and homeless which plays well for their recruitment by terrorists. The fact that these children may also have AIDS is an added bonus as they have nothing to live for.
#2
When Im older Ill kill non-Muslims. If I dont, theyll come to our homes and kill us.
No "clash of civilizations", eh? Actually a clash of civilization vs. barbarism. All brought to us by Saudi-funded madrassas.
#4
When will Pakistanis learn that their Arab pals, view them as an inferior race. Arab language education holds Pakistan back. We should be exploiting Arab supremacism, to split the enemy.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Phillips rejected Nasir Ehmood Alkhallefa's contention that although he knew looking at any form of pornography could draw physical punishment in his homeland, he believed the United States was far more permissive.
#1
Huh? The Bukhari Hadith says that the muslim "prophet" married the daughter of his successor, abu-Bakr, when the girl was 6; the marriage was consummated when she turned 9. The "prophet" was 55 at the time.
[Jerusalem Post Front Page] Responding to US presidentŽs endorsement of Annapolis process, cabinet member says Israel ŽŽwonŽt be 51st state;ŽŽ PM: Israel committed to peace.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Especially if it involves a train ride with showers at the end.
PARIS (Reuters) - Six suspected Somali pirates captured by French troops in Somalia last year lost an appeal on Monday in which they argued that their arrest and transfer to France were unauthorised, a court source said.
Just breaks the heart, doesn't it ...
The six men are accused of attacking a French yacht and holding its 30 crew hostage for a week last April. They have been placed under investigation for hijacking a ship, organised robbery, kidnapping and forming a criminal association.
They argued that they had been arrested and transferred without the proper judicial steps or authorisation by the Somali state. The fractured Somali government has said it does not have the resources to tackle the problem of piracy.
Most Somalis are trying to get into the West, guys. You made it, just not the way you hoped ...
The court ruled that their arrest was justified and described it as a "defence operation." If found guilty, the pirates could face a life sentence.
In October last year, French forces captured nine suspected pirates at sea and handed them over to Somali security forces because the operation did not involve any French victims. The men were seized by French troops in the Somali desert after fleeing with part of the $2 million (1.4 million pounds) ransom.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Pakistani security forces have arrested two suspects in connection with a bomb explosion at Chakwal Mosque in which 30 Shias were killed.
Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Dera Ghazi Khan Mubarak Athar Monday told reporters that police have detained Qari Mohammed Ismail and Ghulam Mustafa Qaisrani, who allegedly assisted the bomber in reaching the mosque.
They had recently shifted from South Waziristan Agency to Chakwal to carry out the attack, Athar said, adding that police have recovered some videos from their custody showing they wanted to carry out more attacks.
Athar added that both of the suspects are member of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Baitullah Mehsud group, a Press TV correspondent reported.
On Sunday, a suicide bomber blew him self up during a religious Shia gathering in Chakwal -- some 90 km southeast of Islamabad in Punjab province, killing at least 30 people wounded hundreds others.
Interior Ministry Chief Rehman Malik said that the attackers in such incidents are usually indigent Pakistani nationals who are paid PKR 500,000 Pakistani rupees - around USD 6,000.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani called on provincial officials to meet on Monday and devise a strategy to restore law and order in the region.
The meeting is called at a time when the terror activities are on rise in the country. "Prime Minister wants to streamline the existing mechanism so that all the resources can be used to root out terrorism and militancy," an official told media.
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[Kyodo: Korea] The Cabinet will decide Friday its basic guideline for new sanctions on North Korea after Pyongyang launched a rocket Sunday despite JapanŽs repeated warnings against doing so, Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said Monday. In a related development, the ruling bloc of the Liberal Democratic Party and the New Komeito party submitted a draft Diet resolution Monday to the House of Representatives Steering Committee, condemning North KoreaŽs rocket launch and calling for the strengthening of JapanŽs economic sanctions on the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
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No more trade, cement, fertilizer, grain, fuel, money, charity. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.
#2
PRAVDA ARTIC > US MILITARY WITHDRAWAL + RUSS-DESIRED PAN-KOREAN UNIFICATION = should be favored by JAPAN as per increased RUSSIAN TRADE.
* OTOH, CHINESE MIL FORUM > POSTER - JAPAN SHOULD FIGHT TO GET BACK ITS RIGHTFUL TERRITORIES [espec Pre-WW2]. Large parts of East Asia e.g. KOREAS, + SOUTH ASIA e.g. THAILAND, MYANMAR-BURMA, + even PHILIPPINES???
[Al Arabiya Latest] North Korea has failed in its third attempt since 1998 to build an accurate long-range missile, analysts say, undercutting its image as a defiant state able to project its power across the ocean.
The communist North claimed it had launched a satellite Sunday that was now circling the globe, transmitting data and patriotic songs praising secretive leader Kim Jong-Il.
But the United States and South Korea say the launch failed to get anything into orbit, and experts said the rocket's second and third stages apparently did not separate as planned.
"(It) was a failure," Joseph Bermudez of Jane's Information Group told AFP. "It seems to indicate that North Korea has not been able to demonstrate a reliable system capable of being an ICBM or a space launch vehicle."
A senior Russian military source confirmed the U.S. and South Korean reports that North Korea failed to place a satellite in orbit, the Interfax news agency reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Well, now they know what they need to work on next. Not quite a failure. And who knows, maybe they did it on purpose to give the world the excuse they wanted to avoid going to war.
#2
Its like Team America World Police maybe Kim should have a gala party and invite celebrities, that way he can actually get even more attention. As if this stunt wasnt already a cry for attention. Kim, we know you exist. Now run along.
#3
Careful not to ignore the strategic propaganda success. Cost of a modified surplus missile failure? .... a few thousand more hungry mouths that won't be fed. Flipping off the US and getting Barry and the feckless UN's 'green light' for future missile launches, along with Sino-Soviet solidarity..... priceless.
#4
Totally, its a way to desensitize the world to their missile launches. Like the underground nuke test and now this, pretty soon it will be the world saying "oh, dont mind them, thats just those north koreans launching another missile, they do it all the time." And, yes, the U.N. is powerless to stop it, as is Barry. Pathetic. Someone really should make the north and south reunify and get it over with. Where is superman in this situation?
#7
Missile failure is often the result of use of less than effectively responsive, ball-bearing mechanisms, which allow flight-path correction. Further, complex software must be employed to effect stability. The NKs revealed severe vulnerabilities.
#8
Not so sure about this. It depends on how heavy the payload was. A two ton payload and 4000km is enough to hit all of Europe and Western Russia with even crude nukes. I don't think the Iranians, Pakis or NorKs really care about putting comm satellites in geosynch orbit.
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009 16:32
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The way I see it, they tried for an "Orange Slice" orit, which would put it over DC around the third orbit,
(No math, just watching a sketch of where first and second stages splashed down. and extrapolating from the sketchy info available.)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/07/2009 17:47
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If the Iranians were involved in the missle's development and launch, then perhaps this "failure" is more show than fact. North Korea is starving, econmically weak and getting weaker, and surrounded by domineering China and other powerful prosperous nations including South Korea and Japan.
The Norks have no future unless thay can break China's hold on the country - in the face of intensifying national starvation, and given the Commies' desire to never give up power or political control, this means its in their near-term, covert, startegic or national interest to start a massive, long-term regional war involving China, the USA, Russia South Korea and Japan. The alternative is implosion or de facto Chinese takeover of more ancient Korean territories.
In sum, the Norks may actually desire the break-up of mainland Asia, and the military imperialism of Radical Islam, or the USA-Allies in defense against Radical islam.
Posted by: Titus Whiter9537 ||
04/07/2009 21:55
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[Straits Times] AN INDONESIAN court sentenced to death a man who confessed to killing 11 people, including his lover whose mutilated body was found in a suitcase. Verry Idam Henyasyah, who has bragged of plans to make a pop album about his crimes, held his head in his hands after the Depok District Court handed down its verdict, then smiled and waved to reporters as he was escorted out.
The five-month-long trial revolved around the murder of the 30-year-old's partner, Heri Santoso, whose dismembered body was found in a suitcase in the southern outskirts of the capital, Jakarta, in July.
Separate trials will be held for the other killings, which Henyasyah said occurred between 2006 and mid-2008. Those victims were found in shallow graves in the backyard of his parents' house in East Java province. They include a woman and her 3-year-old daughter.
'He's a sadist ... who has never shown remorse for his actions,' presiding judge Suwidya told the court, sentencing the defendant to death for premeditated murder.
Henyasyah's lawyer said he would appeal.
A group of female admirers have zealously attended many of the baby-faced Henyasyah's court hearings, asking for autographs and requesting him to sing. The former Koran recital teacher, who claims he used to be a model, has said he intended to record a pop album in prison titled 'My Last Performance.'
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[Jerusalem Post Front Page] Jordan's King Abdullah II said Monday that an Arab peace initiative offers a solution for peace in the Middle East, adding that Israel should seize the opportunity or risk ongoing conflict in the region.
"Israel must decide whether they want to observe this opportunity and become integrated in the region or whether they want to remain a fortress ... and keep the Middle East hostage in conflict," Abdullah said in Bucharest, during an official visit.
The king met Romanian President Traian Basescu Monday and discussed bilateral issues and the need for peace in the Middle East.
The initiative offers Israel recognition by all Arab countries in exchange for withdrawal from territory captured in 1967, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and a "just solution" to the problem of Palestinian refugees.
Basescu said he and Abdullah also discussed the possibility that Romanian and Jordanian companies start working in Iraq "after the troops retreat but even before".
Romania and Jordan signed four documents on bilateral cooperation during the king's visit to Bucharest. They deal with economic cooperation, the mutual protection of investments, cultural and scientific cooperation and environmental protection.
Abdullah was accompanied by Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Suhair Al Ali.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Hey Abdi, just because one of your own is in the White House, doesn't mean you've won.
#4
a "just solution" to the problem of Palestinian refugees
The devil is in the details. What would the Paleos would accept as a "just solution" other than the Right of Return?
[Jerusalem Post Front Page] Spokesman for countryŽs Foreign Ministry says all nations entitled to peaceful use of space technology.
Posted by: Fred ||
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See also RIAN > PYONGYANG: MISSLE FOR OBAMA.
* PRAVDA > RUSSIA MUST TAKE DECISIVE ACTIONS IN THE KOREAS. Artic - Post-Cold War continuing presence of US Milfors only serves to keep KOREAS divided in favor of the USA. RUSSIA SHOULD SUPPOR PAN-KOREAN UNIFICATION in order to prliferate PRO-RUSS = RUSS-SPECIFIC REGIONAL TRADE espec "PETRO-ECONOMICS" [Trans-regio PIPELINE to NOKOR, JAPAN, + BEYOND]. Also, UNIFICATION > REDUCE THE NUMBERS OF KOREANS [ NOT counting Chinois/Chinese] MIGRATING TO RUSS FAR EAST = VLADISVOSTOK FOR WORK + NEW WAY OF LIFE???
Also on PRAVDA > KAZAN OFFICIALLY BECOMES THE THIRD CAPITAL OF RUSSIA. Read, [future, expanding]ISLAMIC/MUSLIM RUSSIA???
#2
2009- 2012/2016 POST-DUBYA POTUS PERIOD >
Pragmatically,PRE/PROTO-NUKULAR IRAN 's = RADICAL ISLAM'S strategic focii broadly remains CENTRAL, etc. MAINLAND ASIA espec Cold War Nuke States RUSSIA, CHINA, INDIA = NUC-, MILTECHS for JIHAD.
[Maghrebia] Moroccan gendarmes seized nearly seven tonnes of drugs in El Kalaa and Bouarbi, in the northern Chefchaouen region, MAP quoted official sources as saying on Sunday (April 5th). The operation in the area, considered a centre for cannabis-trafficking, took place last Wednesday.
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I finally found "el Kalaa", after going through eight or nine different map links. It's about 50 miles northeast of Marrakech, in the lower section of Morocco. Marrakech has always been a center of the cannabis trade in Morocco.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/07/2009 17:10
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[Iran Press TV Latest] A one-time insider in the Bush administration suggests that former vice president Dick Cheney has a strong say in the Obama White House policies.
"He still has people in the Obama administration, in the bowels of the bureaucracy and he is still impacting the American policy. . . This is a supreme operator," claimed former chief of staff to ex-US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson speaking to Russia Today on Sunday.
He described Cheney as the time's "very powerful vice president backed by a very naïve president who went along mostly with what the vice president said."
Wilkerson is the second official to recently torpedo the former second-in-command's reputation after investigative journalist Seymour Hersh suggested that Cheney was supervising an 'assassination ring'.
Wilkerson took Hersh's allegations a step further, suggesting that Cheney was a principal director of the brigade.
"This is nothing new that someone would pour covert operations into the White House and Cheney was the perfect person to do it. He had the mindset for it. He had the dark-side philosophy for it and so forth. I have no problem believing that. They wanted their own intelligence and so you get the transfer of CIA-blessed techniques over to the Pentagon."
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former chief of staff to ex-US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/07/2009 6:11
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"Wilkerson is the second official to recently torpedo the former second-in-command's reputation after investigative journalist Seymour Hersh suggested that Cheney was supervising an 'assassination ring'."
Gee, the mullah tools say that like it's a bad thing. See-more Hersh is not an "official," btw (unless he holds some secret rank in the Soros Legion).
#4
this is too funny. The followers of The One must find this confusing. Where is the group hug from the non-white folk who suffer from America's hegemonic, imperialistic policies? All of the past was to come to an end once the beautiful words fell forth from Obama's mouth. How can those who believe in The One reconcile this deeply disturbing implication that Cheney is even more powerful than The One?
#5
All administrations leave... "stay behinds." Political appointmentees who have created or been groomed for an Executive Service (I can never be fired) position. It's a right of passage. Get over it ACORNIANS
#11
Next time I'm in Washington or Moscow in October, I'm going Trick or Treating in a Cheney mask. I'm hoping to cause cardiac arrest in Pelosi or Putin.
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009 15:17
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I always thought it was Rove that was working behind the scenes.
#15
This is just a sham story put out by people who are trying to remove Bush era individuals in the federal government. Plain and simple dirty politics by the Obama adminsitration.
The French couldn't help liberate Iraq but are happy to do business. Figures.
BAGHDAD - Iraq has signed deals with the United States and Europe to buy dozens of military helicopters that will be delivered over the next two years, the defence ministry spokesman said on Monday.
Major General Mohammed al-Askari said the government had placed orders with US and European groups for what he described as 'dozens' of helicopters, but declined to give a precise number. A senior military source, however, told AFP that 'Iraq has agreed with the United States and European countries to buy more than 40 helicopters.' 'We will receive all these helicopters in the next two years,' the source said, noting that the US would supply 30 of the aircraft, mainly to be used in the fight against terrorism.
That's good. I don't mind Euro companies getting a share of the orders but I'd hate to think the Iraqis would forget who stood by them.
Last month, French defence minister Herve Morin and his Iraqi counterpart Abdel Kader Obeidi announced the purchase by Baghdad of 24 multi-purpose Eurocopter EC 635 helicopters. The deal for the transport helicopters, which can carry up to seven soldiers and also engage in reconnaissance and search and rescue missions, is worth 360 million dollars. They form part of the order mentioned by the Iraqi security source.
In addition, France is preparing to sell to Iraq six Gazelle helicopters to train Iraqi pilots, said a French source close to the deal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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49 Pan to a white courtesy telephone.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/07/2009 2:37
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[ADN Kronos] As United States president Barack Obama began an official visit to Turkey on Monday, reports surfaced that a Syrian man was arrested in Istanbul in connection with a plot to kill him. The man - who sought to disguise himself as a journalist for the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera - managed to obtain press accreditation and allegedly planned to stab the US president with a knife, said Saudi daily al-Watan.
The Saudi daily contacted Al-Jazeera's bureau in the Turkish capital Ankara and spoke with the bureau's director Yusuf al-Sharif who claimed the Syrian man never worked with Al-Jazeera. The suspect was arrested last Friday in Istanbul, where he had been permanently living for a number of years. After his arrest, al-Watan said he confessed to having planned Obama's murder and that in case he failed, there were three other accomplices that would carry out the assassination.
Obama arrived in Ankara late on Sunday for a two-day trip to shore up ties with majority-Muslim Turkey, whose support is crucial to the US to solve the conflicts in Iran, Afghanistan and the Middle East. He is due to meet Turkish president Abdullah Gul and prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Obama was also due to visit the Turkish parliament and address the general assembly.
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[Bangla Daily Star] The United Nations (UN) has named four international war crime experts to assist Bangladesh in the trials of war criminals of 1971, responding to a request of the government, officials said.
The government has also taken initiatives to ask Pakistan and the US which supported Pakistan during the Liberation War, to provide Bangladesh with particular war related documents and evidence for the trial. The requests are being made under the International Crimes (Tribunal) Act 1973.
Pakistan in particular will be requested to send information regarding the Razakras (the collaborators of the erstwhile Pakistani occupation forces in Bangladesh), said the officials.
Continued on Page 49
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[Straits Times] POLICE have filed kidnapping charges against al-Qaeda-linked extremists who seized three two Red Cross workers in January and are still holding two hostages, officials said on Monday. The criminal complaint also named seven other people accused of supporting the militants. Among those charged with illegal detention were Abu Sayyaf commanders Albader Parad and Abu Pula and seven non-militants, including three policemen, on suspicion they provided ammunition and food to the Islamic militants, police Senior Superintendent Edwin Diocos said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross workers - Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipino Mary Jean Lacaba - were kidnapped Jan. 15 after inspecting a jail water supply project on southern Jolo Island, a poor, predominantly Muslim region 950 kilometres south of Manila.
Abu Sayyaf gunmen led by Parad and Pula freed Lacaba last week without ransom but threatened to behead the remaining two if government troops did not withdraw.
Of those charged, only the non-militants have been arrested, police officials said.
'We have witnesses who said that they provided vehicles, food and ammunition to the Abu Sayyaf,' Mr Diocos told The Associated Press, adding that the seven denied the allegations.
Kidnapping for ransom is punishable by life in prison.
Mr Diocos, who heads a police investigation into the abductions, said the arrests of the seven Jolo villagers and policemen should deter others in Jolo from supporting the Abu Sayyaf, which is on a US list of terrorist groups for its al-Qaeda links and involvement in bomb attacks, kidnappings and beheadings.
Abu Sayyaf militants have demanded government troops pull back from at least five detachments near their jungle stronghold, which has been surrounded by marines, police and armed village guards. They threatening to behead the hostages if their demand was not met, officials said.
Jolo Gov. Sakur Tan, head of a government task force dealing with the hostage crisis, said officials may consider a limited withdrawal to allow negotiations for the hostages' release.
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[Bangla Daily Star] Four people were killed and 16 others injured as a band of armed men launched an attack on their rival group over the control of a pond at Chatrar Mayagari village of Peerganj in Rangpur in the early hours of Monday.
The dead were identified as Saiful, 30, son of late Moyezuddin, Rezwan, 30, son of Abdus Samad, Quddus, 55, son of Kafil Uddin, and Nazrul, 30, son of Yusuf Miah. All of them hailed from Mayagari Satgara village. Saiful died on the spot while the rest at Rangpur Medical College Hospital yesterday morning.
The rivalry over the ownership of Harin Singh Dighi has been going on for a long time. The feuding groups are known as 24-party comprised of 24 families and 100-party of 100 families, locals said.
Police and witnesses said, the members of 24-party led by Dula Miah and Abdur Rahman armed with sticks, machete, axe and other sharp weapons allegedly attacked Mayagari Satgara village at around 3 am. Emdad Hossain and Golam Master, president and general secretary of the 100-party, said when the people of their group were sleeping at night the armed miscreants of the 24-party swooped on them.
President of the 24-party Dula Miah said as members of his organisation went to fish in the Harin Singh Dighi at night armed people of the rival group attacked them. He refused to make further comment.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009
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[ADN Kronos] At least seven people died and over sixty were injured in blasts on Monday in India's northeast state of Assam. A powerful bomb at a busy restaurant in Guwahati killed four people and wounded at least 56, police said. Blood and body were parts strewn over the entrance to the restaurant and many vehicles were destroyed by the explosion, bystanders said.
Many bystanders helped the injured although angry mobs also pelted police and public transport with stones after the explosion.
A few hours later, a second bomb tied to a bicycle went off in a market in the town of Dhekiajuli, 100 miles north of Guwahati, injuring at least six people, three of them critically, local officials said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for either attack. But police blamed the separatist United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) for the attacks. Intelligence officials say the group is flexing its muscles ahead of India's general election taking place in several phases from 13 April until 16 May.
The ULFA has links to Islamic militants in neighbouring Bangladesh.
Prime minister Manmohan Singh is scheduled to visit Assam on Tuesday to campaign for his Congress party.
Last week more than 10 people were injured when a bomb exploded close to where India's external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee was due to address a rally.
ULFA was suspected of carrying out massive serial explosions in October last year, in which 87 people died.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009
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Israel has signed a whopping $240-million agreement with India to build five artillery munition factories in Bihar over a period of three years. The munition factories will be built by the Israeli Military Industry (IMI) on the lines of its ordnance factory in the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Hasharon, business daily 'Globes' reported.
The Israeli defence industry said that the contract was the result of its collaboration with Indian government's Ordnance Factories Board (OFB). IMI will be the chief contractor in the deal and will use Israeli and Indian firms as subcontractors.
The state-owned Israeli firm reported $660 million in sales last year, 16 per cent more than in 2007.
The firm's CEO Avi Felder said the global economic crisis would change the procurement pattern by the world's leading militaries, which would switch to upgrading existing weapons platforms on short timetables instead of massive investment in new facilities that would take a long time to develop and deliver.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/07/2009
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Best read as a companion piece to yesterday's news on the Pentagon weapons cuts. Perhaps Gates is just implementing Obama's wishes, but it's also possible that Gates is on to something in the purchasing system. I don't claim to be smart enough to know the answer.
After reading a newspaper article's report that a particular armored vehicle had dramatically cut fatality rates in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other senior defense officials traveled 80 miles northeast to Aberdeen Proving Ground in spring 2007 to see for themselves how the V-shaped hull of the costly Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle deflected the worst blast effects of buried explosives.
Within weeks, and after some pointed demands for the MRAPs from Capitol Hill, Gates decided to make accelerated production of the vehicles his top priority, using a special task force that circumvented the department's normal purchasing methods -- and the initial opposition of the Army and the Marine Corps. The results were not perfect -- an inspector general's report said later that in its rush, the department overspent by tens of millions of dollars -- but they were effective: Thousands of additional MRAPs flooded into Iraq and fatality rates dropped precipitously.
Aides say that the experience was like a baptism for Gates into the weirdness of the Pentagon's weapons-procurement system, which experts have long assailed for buying the wrong arms and paying far too much. Hired by President George W. Bush mostly to fix the Iraq war, Gates initially left key buying decisions to his deputy, Gordon England. But they say Gates's decision to buy more MRAPs and a similarly frustrating battle to build more unmanned aerial vehicles for use in Iraq persuaded him that he would have to wade deeply into the procurement mess.
Gates concluded that "the building was not being responsive to the requests for these vehicles," his spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said.
In calling yesterday for "a dramatic change in the way we acquire military equipment," Gates showed his slow but palpable alienation from the so-called iron triangle of defense contractors, lawmakers and military service executives that has long promoted building the best weapons systems, no matter what the price. In the future, he said, weapons should be engineered to counter "the actual and prospective capabilities of known future adversaries," not what a potential adversary might create with "unlimited time and resources."
We can't afford 300-plus F-22s, the B-3 bomber, the CG-X and other big ticket items on the budget and economy we have. And I'd rather have our troops trained and maintained properly first.
Gates has signaled his frustrations with the broken and "rigid" purchasing system for months, and in a January article in Foreign Affairs magazine, he noted that the pursuit of perfect solutions combined with a lack of flexibility and innovation had made it "necessary to bypass existing institutions and procedures to get the capabilities needed to protect U.S. troops and fight ongoing wars."
But Gates sees this year as a rare opportunity to pursue politically controversial ideas, one of his top aides said, largely because of two factors. First, President Obama's repeated claim that procurement reforms can increase efficiency and save expenses across the government will provide "top cover" for Gates in his head-butting with a group of service chiefs that proposed last year to alleviate their woes by adding tens of billions of dollars to the budget instead of making hard choices or undertaking major reforms.
Second, Gates feels the nation's woeful economic status will give him added leverage in beating back attempts on Capitol Hill to continue financing weapons that troops don't need or want. "It is important to remember that every defense dollar spent to overinsure against a remote or diminishing risk, or in effect to run up the score" is a dollar that might otherwise be spent on troops or winning the wars we are in, Gates said yesterday.
To some military experts, the two-year wait for Gates to take such a step since his December 2006 appointment has been long. Kori Schake, a National Security Council staff member during the Bush administration and adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, said that "with the important exception of his emphasis on MRAP acquisition, he submitted two budgets and several supplemental spending requests that were straight-line extensions of previous spending."
Now, Schake said, Gates has called for ruthlessly separating appetites from real requirements, but Congress may "serve him up his own previous justifications for the very programs he proposes to cut."
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2009
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#1
Gates just killed the prez helicopter, he killed ARH, he fixed MRAP. He understands the contractor gravy train and is killing it. Good for him.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/07/2009 1:05
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That's biggest fault that Rumfeld had IMO. He was cluess that US could put in field several diferent armored vehicles in WW2 every year but with today billions could not replace a mere HMMVV...
One of big problems of USA is red tape and mentality. You guys changed from a people of doer's to beaurocrats enamourated of processes.
Posted by: Large Snerong7311 ||
04/07/2009 5:56
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Yes indeed that evil Pentagon acquisitions crowd rewarding their constituents and voters with military contract pork, unneeded C-130J, Osprey and the like. [snark off]
#5
...and don't forget the intrusive procedures and requirements that Congress dictates requiring loads of expense and time to procure. You just can't go down to Sears and pick up a Craftsman hammer [even though it would make both physical and financial sense to do so in some instances]. Add to that, the institutional unwillingness to ruthlessly make examples of those who do abuse the system "pour encourager les autres", that results in more paper, more regulation, more time consumed. 'Ah, it's our fault because we didn't protect the poor darling from himself'. Bah!
#6
The truth of the Defense budget is that it is going to lead the way with budget cuts. The Pentagon saw this from a mile away, and has been planning for it for at least a year. The Barney Frank estimate is a 25% reduction in the budget. But long term, more likely 50%.
Operations & Maintenance ($180B) - Pull US forces from as many overseas missions as possible.
Military Personnel ($125B) - Military pay will be stripped, with married personnel being RIF'd. Most enlisted will work for just a small stipend, room & board and medical. And not that unhappy, as national unemployment could reach 50%.
Procurement ($104B) and R&D ($80B) - Also get hit, except for critical systems and paper design.
However, this being said, Defense will do better than the other big 3 budget items. Social Security is likely dead within 2 years. Medicare and Medicaid in around that same time frame or a little longer.
#7
Yeps, not only that, Social Security and Medicare Part D are the biggest creators of deficit in the U.S. currently. These very well could be cut which is a terrifying thought for those who are affected. The U.S. is going to go back to a dark age in our history unless some real reforms take place.
#8
Anyone not familiar with the wonderment of the US Defense Acquisition system should look at DoDI 5000.02 Operation of the Defense Acquisition System. http://www.theriac.org/pdfs/DoDI%205000-02%20(Official%20Signed%20Version)%202%20Dec%202008.pdf
[Jerusalem Post Front Page] The Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism body set up in 2008 by former members of UK-based extremist Islamist organizations, has accused Abu Qatada, who they describe as "one of the world's most influential jihadi theologians", of inciting terrorism after they discovered that he has been issuing fatwas and statements from Long Lartin high security prison in Worcestershire, in the west midlands area of central England.
Jordanian national Abu Qatada has been in custody in the UK since August 2005, shortly after the July 2005 London bombing. Born in Bethlehem, the radical cleric entered the UK in 1993 using a forged United Arab Emirates passport and claimed asylum on ground of religious persecution. The following year he was granted asylum but in 2007 a British court ruled that he could be deported to Jordan where in 2000 he was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for his role in a plot to bomb tourists in Jordan for the millennium celebrations.
Richard Reid, the mid-Atlantic shoe bomber, and Zacarias Moussaoui, both jailed for involvement in terrorism, are said to have sought religious advice from him. Nineteen audio cassettes of Abu Qatada's sermons were found in the apartment of Mohamed Atta when it was searched after the 9-11 attacks. According to the indictment of the Madrid al-Qaeda cell, he was also the spiritual leader of al-Qaeda in Europe.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009
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#1
Just another non working sponger/hater which we welcome to our shores!!!!
[Kyodo: Korea] The United States will seek a ŽŽstrong, coordinated and effectiveŽŽ response to North KoreaŽs rocket launch at the U.N. Security Council, the State Department said Monday. ŽŽWeŽre going to continue to go forward in discussions with our partners in the council to see and to seek as strong, coordinated and effective response to the North Korean missile launch,ŽŽ department spokesman Robert Wood said at a news briefing.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009
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#1
Why am I thinking CDT manual of diplomatic expressions?
#2
How does he say it and still keep a straight face? Possibly, correct prior assignments and training.
Robert A. Wood is the State Department's Deputy Spokesman and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs.
Mr. Wood has been a Foreign Service Officer with the U.S. Department of State and the former U.S. Information Agency since 1988.
From 2004-2008, he served as the Press Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, Germany. Prior to his assignment to Berlin, he was Deputy Spokesman at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in New York (2001-2004).
In Washington, Mr. Wood has worked as a public affairs advisor for the Bureau of African Affairs, as a special assistant to the Undersecretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, and in several positions dealing with the Balkans.
Mr. Wood has also served in public affairs positions in Mexico City, Mexico; Lagos, Nigeria; Islamabad, Pakistan; and Pretoria, South Africa. His foreign languages are German and Spanish.
#5
Don't forget the words "measured" and "proportionate." You could also toss in: diffuse, long-winded, periphrastic, pleonastic, prolix, redundant, and verbose response.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The Afghan government confirmed Monday that a controversial law for the Shiite minority was not in force and reiterated it would be altered if a review found it contradicted women's rights.
Western countries have expressed concern over the law, most recently at a NATO summit, and Canada said Sunday it had received assurances from Afghan Foreign Minister Dadfar Spanta that the process of enforcing the law "has been halted."
The Shiite Personal Status Law was signed by President Hamid Karzai last month but such documents only come into force once they are published in the government gazette. "The justice ministry is reviewing the law to make sure it is in line with Afghan government's commitment to human and women rights conventions," Baheen said. "If there are any problems in the law, the justice ministry will change it again and resend it to the parliament," he said.
The law, which has not been publicly released, is believed to state women can only seek work, education or doctor's appointments with their husband's permission. Only fathers and grandfathers are granted custody of children under the law, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women.
Opponents of the legislation governing the personal lives of Afghanistan's Shiite minority have said it is "worse than during the Taliban."
Last month Pakistan's government agreed to restore a strict form of Islamic law in the Swat valley and neighboring areas of the northwest in a bid to take the steam out of a Taliban uprising in a move Western powers criticized who said it could result in further opression of women.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Straits Times] MALAYSIAŽ new prime minister urged the local media on Monday to criticise the government Žwithout fear,Ž but stopped short of saying if he would remove the annual licensing system that shackles publications.
Prime Minister Najib Razak, who took office on Friday, said he wants to build a free press that is transparent, accountable and caters to the needs of all Malaysians regardless of their race.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Iran welcomed on Monday a proposal to set up a global nuclear fuel repository, part of a U.S.-backed plan to put all uranium enrichment under strict international control.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Kazakhstan on a visit, said he supported a proposal to host the nuclear bank in the fellow Caspian nation, which is accessible from Iran by sea. "We think that (Kazakh President) Nursultan Nazarbayev's idea to host a nuclear fuel bank is a very good proposal," he told reporters after talks with the Kazakh leader.
Iran's support for the idea comes as U.S. President Barack Obama pushes for a "new beginning" in bilateral ties, and could play a role in mending bridges after decades of mistrust.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009
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#1
This is so bad there's no need for snark.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/07/2009 12:59
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader on Monday rejected accusations by the Dubai police that his close adviser masterminded the assassination of a prominent foe in the United Arab Emirates.
Selim Yamadayev, a foe of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, was shot on March 28 with Russian-made gold-colored handgun in the car park of a luxury seaside apartment block in Dubai.
Russian analysts suggested his death removed one of the last remaining powerful opponents of Kadyrov's increasingly strong control over Chechnya.
Dubai police named Adam Delimkhanov, an adviser to Kadyrov, as the person who masterminded the murder. Delimkhanov has repeatedly denied any involvement. "The crime ... is 100 percent of Chechen making and it's an operation of settling accounts (among Chechens)," the Dubai police chief, Lieutenant General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, told reporters on Sunday.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Mail and Globe] Zimbabwe's new power-sharing government will relax the country's harsh media laws and improve prison conditions as part of reforms to be implemented within 100 days, a minister told state media on Monday.
"There was an agreement to review the media policy so as to create a climate where divergent voices will be heard," Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told the state-run Herald newspaper, after a three-day ministerial retreat in the resort town of Victoria Falls over the weekend. "We want to see a multiplicity of media houses."
In 2002 President Robert Mugabe's government introduced stringent media laws, which banned foreign reporters and privately-owned daily newspapers, including a famously critical local paper.
Chinamasa said the government would also address the plight of prisoners. "We want to improve the justice delivery system including the restoration of prisoners' rights," he said.
Last week, a television documentary filmed secretly by a South African investigative news programme showed shocking conditions inside Zimbabwean jails. Pictures of emaciated prisoners suffering from malnutrition-related diseases, highlighted the plight of the hundreds of thousands prisoners starving inside prisons.
"We have agreed to meet the basic needs of all prisoners in terms of food, clothing, bedding and health within the next 30 days," said Chinamasa.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009
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#1
It's a trap!
/Admiral Ackbar
Posted by: ed ||
04/07/2009 15:58
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About 200 worshippers marched Sunday to protest the government's destruction of "Death Saint" shrines, saying Mexico's fight against drug cartels has veered into religious persecution.
"We are believers, not criminals!" the protesters chanted as they marched from a gritty Mexico City neighborhood to the Metropolitan Cathedral downtown.
At shrines, chapels and small churches across the country, tens of thousands of people worship the Death Saint, which is often depicted as a robe-covered skeleton resembling the Grim Reaper.
It is popular with drug traffickers, and soldiers often find shrines to the saint during raids on cartel safe houses. But in crime-ridden neighborhoods, people of all walks of life believe the "Santa Muerte" protects against violent or untimely deaths. Devotees often use elements of Catholic rites, leaving offerings of candles or praying to the folk saint for protection.
Mexican law enforcement won't say it is targeting the "Santa Muerte." But last month, army troops accompanied workers who used back hoes to topple and crush more 30 shrines on a roadway in the city of Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas. Many were elaborate, one-story, marble-clad constructions with electric lighting and statues of the skeletal Death Saint.
The sect's archbishop, David Romo, denounced the destruction as religious persecution and demanded a meeting with President Felipe Calderon.
Protesters carried statues and pushed makeshift shrines to the saint. Some brought their children, and one marcher carried a white puppy.
"Sometimes people look down on us because we believe in her, but my faith is bigger than somebody looking down on me," said America Melendez, a 24-year-old street vendor marching with a red-robed statue of the saint.
Roberto Sanchez, a 28-year-old carpenter, said he became a believer after praying to the Death Saint for the recovery of a sick nephew. He carried a sign reading "I believe in you Santa Muerte and I am not a narco."
"If we are not doing anything to them, they shouldn't be doing this," he said of the shrines' destruction. This is problematic. The SM cult may have as many as 2M members, and get considerable funding from the drug gangs. An Aztec throwback, they could become very menacing if pushed too hard.
#2
While the drug traffickers support SM, it is a decentralized cult with no strong leader, and the drug gangs get no support from the rank and file out of the deal.
Death cults have their own dynamic, precisely because they are not looking for salvation, or even to avoid death. This nihilistic outlook can easily turn homicidal in a big way.
Imagine the chaos inflicted by tens of thousands of ordinary looking people, who are suddenly inspired to look for an opportunity to kill others, at random, and walk away from it. These were the Thuggee.
This could cause tremendous panic throughout Mexico, because people could no longer trust their fellow citizens. Imagine going through your day not knowing if some random person is looking at you with an eye to murder.
No kidding. Guess Obama just isn't very persuasive ...
LUXEMBOURG - European Union nations were divided Monday over whether to accept inmates from Guantanamo prison camp as requested by the United States, after France agreed at the weekend to take one in.
As a national state, we dont accept anybody, Czech Interior Minister Ivan Langer, whose country holds the EUs rotating presidency, told reporters in Luxembourg at a meeting of the blocs justice and interior ministers. The reason, he said, is the high risk of no successful integration of such persons.
I dunno, there's parts of Europe in which these jokers would get along very well ...
On the other hand, we are the presidency and we look for a coordinated approach, he added.
All coordinated to say, 'no' ...
Austria and Germany are also among a number of EU states reluctant to have any former inmates in Europe and able move around freely without passport checks inside the 25-nation Schengen no-borders zone.
And move around they would ...
US President Barack Obama has said he would close the notorious war on terror prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by January 2010 and is seeking host states for up to 60 of the 245 inmates.
The EU regularly demanded the closure of the jail, where prisoners have been held often without charge or trial, and have welcomed Obamas decision to finally shut it.
But aren't willing to, you know, help out ...
But national laws differ widely among the 27 EU countries and they are struggling to define a common position on how best to help.
No, they're struggling with the best way to say no hoping that Obama will just drop the whole idea.
On Friday, France agreed to accept an inmate, probably an Algerian national, but President Nicolas Sarkozy said it would only be to put him in prison here.
Which somehow is more moral than leaving him in Gitmo ...
EU Justice Commissioner Jacques Barrot, taking part in Mondays meeting in Luxembourg, said that the United States wants to wrap up its dialogue with EU nations on hosting the inmates by June.
Barrot, recently returned from a fact-finding mission to Washington with Langer, said that while Washington had formally asked for help, no numbers of detainees it needed assistance with were given. He said EU interior ministers would lay out at a future meeting whether or not they want to take any inmates and what conditions some would like imposed.
The conditions will be simple: no.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2009
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#5
Obama: "Hey, wanna host some islamic terrorists Guantanamo inmates?"
Europeans: "No way Hussein Jose!"
Seriously, I'm a European who has never protested the incarceration and punishment of enemy war criminals. The least that can be said of these Gitmo inmates is that they're highly suspicious affiliates and sympathizers of islamofascists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There's no reason to endanger us, and reward them, by granting them access to the western world.
Why hasn't the Lightbringer asked his new bestest friends in the Erdogan regime to take this burden off him?
[Mail and Globe] Somali pirates seized ships from France, Britain, Germany, Taiwan and Yemen, defying world naval powers by prowling further out in the Indian Ocean to target victims. Ransom-hunting pirates equipped with skiffs, guns and grapnels took five ships in 48 hours, the two latest on Monday targeting a British cargo ship and a Taiwanese fishing vessel.
At least 17 ships and more than 250 hostages are now in pirate hands.
"There were two more hijackings today. There is one Italian-operated British-owned ship and a Taiwanese vessel near the Seychelles," an official involved in regional piracy monitoring told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The Seychelles government said it received a distress call saying that a Taiwanese fishing vessel, the MV Winfar 161, and its 29 crew was hijacked in its exclusive economic zone, north of Denis island. Transport Minister Joel Morgan said military forces had been deployed to intercept the pirates, amid reports that three more Taiwanese ships were trying to escape capture.
The information centre of the European Union's anti-piracy naval mission Atalanta confirmed Monday's second hijacking. "A 32 000 tonne UK-owned and Italian-operated bulk carrier was hijacked early this morning in the Gulf of Aden. Few details are known at this stage, but the mixed nationality crew are believed to be safe," it said.
Ecoterra International, an environment group monitoring illegal marine activities in the region, reported that a small French yacht was captured Saturday about 640km off Ras Hafun in northeast Somalia and was heading towards Somali Puntland.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009
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#1
Why doesn't someone put a big enough bounty on these guys heads that it would be profitable for Blackwater or similar group to outfit a small freighter appropriately and go fishing for pirates? Just wondering. Oh, and the bounty pays a premium for dead rather than still wiggling.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
04/07/2009 16:56
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#2
When we set up a lane we would patrol, the pirates began hunting ships outside the lane.
For some unfathomable reason, killing pirates seems to be against international law. The U.S. in particular will not do anything that could not be considered a law enforement op. The Indians killed a mother ship, but then got tarred because it was a "civilian" vessel. That drove the lesson home that you cannot kill pirates.
[Straits Times] A MASS grave containing the remains of 35 communist commandos killed during the Vietnam War was found in southern Vietnam, a military official said on Monday. The soldiers were rounded up and killed by South Vietnamese forces after attacking a US air base in Vinh Long province during the Tet Offensive in 1968, said Col. Vo Hieu Hoa of the provincial military command.
Authorities were tipped off about the mass grave by a former driver for the US-backed South Vietnam government, Hoa said. 'We finally found them after three days of excavation,' he said.
Thousands of Viet Cong guerrillas attacked major towns across southern Vietnam during the Tet Offensive in January 1968. Tet is seen by many as a turning point in the Vietnam War.
Meanwhile, the apparent remains of three American soldiers killed during the Vietnam War were sent back to the United States, US official Ron Ward said on Monday. The remains were recovered over the past month from sites in central and southern Vietnam. They were flown aboard a military transport plane to Hawaii on Saturday for identification.
Nearly 1,800 US servicemen are still unaccounted for throughout South-east Asia since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, when communist North Vietnamese forces overran Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam.
An estimated 58,000 Americans and 3 million Vietnamese were killed in the war.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009
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#2
This should also serve to remind us that Walter Cronkite did his level best to LIE about the Tet Offensive, to portray it as a great American defeat, and in doing so, was as important, or more important, than Jane Fonda to the anti-Vietnam War, anti-American effort.
When the old bastard finally goes to Hell, we should do our level best to remind America of the fact, so that Cronkite's memory will not be entirely whitewashed by his comrades in the MSM.
[The News (Pak)] The NWFP chief secretary and the inspector general of police (IGP) may not produce a Swati girl, who was publicly lashed by suspected militants, as the officials appear before the larger bench of the Supreme Court today (Monday).
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had taken a suo moto notice of the public lashing of the teenaged girl in Swat after a footage of the incident appeared on private television channels.
Apart from the federal interior secretary, the NWFP chief secretary, IGP, advocate general and president of the Peshawar High Court Bar Association (PHCBA) were directed to appear and produce the victim before the larger bench of the Supreme Court. "We are yet to take the girl into our protection and that's why we may not produce her before the court on Monday," Malakand Division Commissioner Syed Muhammad Javed told The News on Sunday.
IGP Malik Naveed Khan could not be contacted despite repeated attempts on his residence's telephone number. His cellular phone remained switched off all the day.
The family of the victim and the local elders, reportedly belonging to the Kala Kelay in Kabal, refused to let the girl go with the authorities due to social pressure and militants' fear. The Malakand commissioner and the acting DIG were directed by CS Javed Iqbal and IGP Naveed to gather details of the event.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Move it along. Nuthin to see here...
A Pakistani teenage girl at the center of national outrage over a video purporting to show her public flogging by the Taliban reportedly told an Islamic judge and a provincial official that the incident never happened.
The video, shown last week by Pakistani television and widely posted on the Web, shows the crying 17-year-old girl being held down by several men including a man identified as her brother as a member of the Taliban beats her.
The incident reportedly took place between two and five weeks ago in the Swat Valley village of Kala Killay. The video has sparked nationwide condemnation and demonstrations challenging the government's decision to allow Shariah law into the Taliban-controlled region.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called for an immediate inquiry and Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry recently restored to office ordered police and government officials from the north-western territory to bring the girl to court for questioning.
But the girl, identified as Chand Bibi, instead was interviewed at her home by an Islamic judge and a local government commissioner, and reportedly told them that the beating never happened.
"She requested the judge and the commissioner to spare her from appearing in the court in Islamabad," said provincial Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said, the Times of India reported.
Hussain said that upon questioning by the Islamic judge, she denied neighbors' claims that she had been dragged from her home, held down and flogged. She also denied reports that she had been charged with having an illicit relationship with a local man who witnesses claim also was beaten or that the Taliban forced the two to marry, the Times reported.
Instead, Hussain said, the girl told the judge the man was her husband, and that the video was a fake distributed to disrupt the peace process in the region.
This story bounced around the net all Monday. I don't know how true the threat was.
The Saudi Arabian newspaper al-Watan reported today that Turkish security services have arrested a man of Syrian origins Friday in connection with a plot to assassinate President Barack Obama during his current visit to Turkey.
The man, who was carrying an Al-Jazeera TV ID card in the name of M.G., confessed after his arrest that he was planning on stabbing the U.S. president with a knife during the Alliance of Civilizations summit held in Istanbul, adding that he had three other accomplices to help him execute his plan.
According to the paper, Turkish investigators were trying to verify whether the Qatari-based Arab TV channel has truly issued the ID card produced by the man, or if its a forged copy. The suspect, a permanent resident of Istanbul, has been regularly attending all conferences and events relating to the Middle East held in the city.
Al-Watan contacted Al-Jazeera's bureau chief in Ankara, Yucef al-Sharif, who said that news of the suspect came as a complete surprise to Al-Jazeera staff in Turkey, who all claimed that they knew nothing about the man. "We learned that he (the suspect) claimed to be working for our bureau if that has been the case then he most certainly forged our ID card, al-Sharif told al-Watan in a phone call from Ankara.
Al-Sharif said that Turkish security services know everyone who worked in Al-Jazeera's offices in Ankara.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/07/2009
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#1
I really truly want to see President Obama live a long happy life in retirement beginning in 2012.
#4
g(r)om, two US presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Impeachment just means that they get tried by the Senate.
I would be happy to see the One be the first one to be impeached, convicted, and removed from office.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/07/2009 6:59
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[Al Arabiya Latest] A spate of bloody car bombings rocked Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad on Monday, killing 37 people and wounding at least 140 others in an escalation of violence as the United States prepares to pull combat troops out of cities by a June 30 deadline.
Six car bombs shattered the city's fragile security situation just as British business minister Peter Mandelson arrived in Baghdad. Among the dead were at least two women and a baby.
Angry survivors hurled stones at Iraqi soldiers at the site of one of the blasts in Sadr City after troops fired shots in the air to disperse crowds of people trying to care for the injured, witnesses said.
Bloody bombings across Baghdad
During the morning rush hour 10 people were killed and 65 wounded when a booby-trapped car exploded in a market area of the impoverished Shiite district of Sadr City in northeastern Baghdad, an interior ministry official said.
Another car bomb in the central Allawi district killed six people and wounded 25 others. Most of the victims were workers waiting for jobs, a defense ministry official said.
Emergency teams moved in fast to clean up the pieces of twisted metal and the remains of a mangled white sedan. Storefronts were closed, many of them damaged.
A car bomb targeting the convoy of a senior interior ministry official killed one civilian and a policeman and wounded six other policemen in the southeastern Shiite neighborhood of New Baghdad. The official, a brigadier general identified as Sadun, was unhurt.
Bombings still too common
And in Shiite Hussainiya, in the city's far northeast, four people were killed and 20 were wounded when a vehicle exploded near a market.
The violence continued later in the day and shortly after noon twin car bombs tore through a popular medical clinic and a crowded bazaar, killing 12 and wounding 23 in Um al-Maalif just west of the city centre, defense and interior ministry officials said.
The attacks come after deadly clashes in Baghdad between Iraqi troops and former Sunni insurgents, now turned anti-Qaeda militants, over the arrest of their leader on criminal charges.
Despite improving security, bombings remain all too common in the capital, and the latest attacks came as Mandelson led Britain's first official trade delegation to Baghdad for more than 20 years.
The business delegation, on a one-day visit, was also to visit Basra in the south, a British embassy official said.
Also on Monday, seven Iraqi soldiers were wounded when a man exploded a suicide vest inside the house they were raiding in Balad, about 70 kilometers (43 miles) north of Baghdad.
In addition, an American soldier was killed on Monday in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, a U.S. military statement said.
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04/07/2009
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On this day in history: April 7th
1795 France adopts the metre as the basic measure of length.
1805 First public performance of Beethoven's Third Symphony (Eroica).
1827 John Walker, an English chemist, sells the first friction match. He had invented it the previous year.
1906 Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples.
1927 First distance public television broadcast (from Washington, DC to New York City, displaying the image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover).
1940 Booker T. Washington becomes the first African American to be depicted on a United States postage stamp.
1945 The Japanese battleship Yamato is sunk 200 miles north of Okinawa.
1954 U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower gives his "domino theory" speech during a news conference.
1964 IBM announces the System/360.
1969 The Internet's symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1.
1990 Iran Contra Affair: John Poindexter is found guilty of five charges for his part in the scandal (the conviction was reversed on appeal).
[Bangla Daily Star] Investigators yesterday questioned a truck owner and the manager of a transport agency in connection with the sensational 10-truck arms haul case in Chittagong five years ago.
Sources said Taslim Mallick, manager of Greenways transport agency that is located near Dewanhat footbridge in the port city, and truck owner Abdul Motaleb were quizzed.
During the questioning, both Taslim and Motaleb informed that one Abul Hossain hired the trucks from them in the name of carrying salt from Patiya, said Criminal Investigation Department (CID) ASP Muniruzzaman Chowdhury, also the investigation officer (IO) of the case.
The transport agency gave seven out of 10 trucks that carried deadly weapons and ammunition at the jetty of Chittagong Urea Fertiliser Limited (CUFL) on April 02, 2004. Motaleb owned five of the seven trucks.
The CID investigators once again sent letter to Bangladesh Coastguard, Chittagong Zone, yesterday, asking for the list of on-duty coastguard members during the seizure of arms and ammunition.
The CID yesterday received government's permission to quiz officials of National Security Intelligence (NSI).
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[Khaleej Times] Hamas on Monday urged the United Nations to distinguish between Israeli 'crimes' and Palestinian 'resistance' in its investigation of human rights violations in the Gaza war.
'We ask any investigation commission to be just towards the Palestinian people and ... not to put on a same level the Zionist crimes' and the acts of 'resistance' by Palestinians, said Fawzi Barhum, a spokesman of the Islamist movement that rules the Gaza Strip. 'What the Palestinian people did and our resistance during the war ... amount to self-defence to protect the Palestinian people,' he said.
Former international prosecutor Richard Goldstone was named on Friday to lead a broadened human rights probe into violence during Israel's 22-day Gaza offensive in December and January.
Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor on Friday slammed the UN probe, saying it was 'not an attempt to find the truth but to tarnish Israel's reputation and to join efforts led by some countries to demonise Israel.'
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04/07/2009
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[Al Arabiya Latest] A powerful earthquake struck central Italy as residents slept on Monday morning, killing at least 150 people and leaving 1,500 injured.
"Some towns in the area have been virtually destroyed in their entirety," a somber Gianfranco Fini, speaker of the lower house of parliament, said before the chamber observed a moment of silence.
The Italian news agency Ansa, quoting rescue workers, said the death toll had reached 92 nearly 12 hours after the quake struck.
Most of the dead were in L'Aquila, a 13th-century mountain city about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Rome, and surrounding towns and villages in the Abruzzo region.
Houses, historic churches were demolished and some 15,000 buildings were declared off limits in the worst quake to hit Italy in nearly 30 years.
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Follow-up on the Green Crescent story a little while back. Sounds like the RAB is rolling up the network and pinched Faisal a few days back. That they're announcing it now means the RAB has squeezed him dry. Expect some quiet crossfires in the near future.
[Bangla Daily Star] The Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) finally declared British citizen Faisal Mostafa, the main patron of Green Crescent Madrasa in Bhola, arrested yesterday after 10 days of mystery about his whereabouts.
The Rab claims the 42-year-old chemistry graduate was arrested along with his close associate Md Saifuddin Badal in the early hours yesterday in Bhogra on Pubail bypass road in Gazipur.
Additional Director General of Rab Col Rezanur Rahman Khan in a press briefing yesterday afternoon said no charges have been brought against Faisal and Badal. "Md Russell Howladar, who was arrested at Green Crescent Madrasa on March 24, gave the names of Faisal as the owner of the madrasa and Badal as Faisal's close associate," Col Rezanur said.
"It was Faisal! He kidnapped the Lindbergh baby! Honest! Now put those down!"
The elite force on March 24 unearthed a mini ammunition factory with huge arms and materials for assembling bullets in Ramkeshar village in Borhanuddin, Bhola. During that drive, Rab arrested three including Russell.
The names of Faisal and Badal also popped up in a simultaneous police investigation in Bhola. But the cases filed by the police against the madrasa did not include Faisal as an accused or perpetrator.
Rab-8 and the intelligence wing of Rab jointly conducted an operation and arrested the two at 4:00am yesterday. However, the media on March 26 reported that Faisal was arrested in Dhaka the previous day.
Twice cleared as a terror suspect in 1996 and 2002 in British courts but given 18 months imprisonment for possessing illegal firearm in the UK, Faisal's arrest has drawn focus of the British media.
And that's as good as a death sentence in Bang-land ...
The media also questioned the weak monitoring system of the British Charity Commission that channelises taxpayers' money to various NGOs, some of which landed in funding terrorist activities through Green Crescent.
Faisal's father in Manchester in the UK and father-in-law in Dhaka repeatedly claimed to The Daily Star that he has been arrested, but the law-enforcement agencies trashed their claim.
Col Rezanur yesterday denied that claim once again. "He will be sent to Borhanuddin police in Bhola for the next course of action," he said. "If the legal process allows we'll take them for questioning," he added.
Otherwise they'll just him in some upazaila at 4 am ...
Prior to this briefing, Faisal and Badal in handcuffs were brought before journalists and photographers were allowed to take their pictures. Wearing a full shirt, Faisal had salt and pepper beard and unkempt hair.
On how the arms and ammunition landed in Faisal's well-protected madrasa, Rezanur said, "This is still under investigation."
A citizen of Britain based in Manchester, Bangladesh-born Faisal registered an NGO -- Green Crescent -- in Doulatkhan in Bhola in 1999. He had a registered charity in the UK under the same name. He expanded the NGO to Borhanuddin without taking permission from the Department of Social Service. The NGO has a nine-member committee, in which he is the vice-president.
According to his family, Faisal travels to Bangladesh at least once a year. This time he came to Bangladesh in March and just left Bhola to go to Chittagong when Rab unearthed his ammo den. Rab sources say the ammo den surely indicates the madrasa has links with militants. But they are not sure if it was Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Harkatul Jihad Al Islami or some other group.
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[Associated Press of Pakistan] Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has taken serious notice of cutting off the nose of a woman in Kashmore and ordered an immediate inquiry into the incident. He has asked the relevant authorities to investigate the matter and submit a detailed report. The Prime Minister has also directed that the woman should be provided best medical care whose expenses will be borne by the government.
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#1
Cause it's unislamic---you're supposed to cut off the whole head.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A man stripped down to nothing but a strategically placed sock at a Tel Aviv supermarket in protest at its decision to sell bread over Passover in violation of Jewish religious laws, Israeli news websites Ynet News reported on Monday.
Police led away Arieh Yerushalmi, 28, after he shed his clothing in the store on Sunday -- one year after he staged a similar protest at another supermarket.
Yerushalmi wanted to protest against the store's decision to continue selling bread and other leavened products during the Passover week that begins on Wednesday. Jewish law forbids the use of such products during the holiday.
Leaders of the ultra-orthodox community, meanwhile, have written to dozens of stores and restaurants in Jerusalem urging them to reverse a decision to sell leavened food during Passover, according to media reports.
"At the last minute, refrain from doing this and declare that you will not burn your souls for a one-moment pleasure as well as financial profit," the ultra-Orthodox rabbinical Court of Justice said, according to Ynet. "The punishment for the blasphemy expected to hit the Holy City is extremely severe, and you will be the ones responsible for this," their letter said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009
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#1
Yeru-salami? Say it ain't so.
And I suppose just this once we can do without the obligatory photos.
[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Sudanese authorities are working to free two French and Canadian aid workers who are ŽŽin good shapeŽŽ after being kidnapped over the weekend in increasingly dangerous Darfur, an official said on Monday. ŽŽThey are in good shape,ŽŽ Foreign Ministry official Ali Yussef Ahmad told AFP. ŽŽWe are making every effort to free them in a peaceful way.ŽŽ
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[Jerusalem Post Front Page] Israel fears that Hamas is working to build unprecedentedly large tunnels along the Philadelphi Corridor that will be used to smuggle long-range rockets into the Gaza Strip in one piece, senior defense officials have told The Jerusalem Post.
Before Operation Cast Lead was launched in late December, Hamas was believed to be operating several hundred smuggling tunnels along the 14-kilometer strip of land separating the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. "Hamas is working on obtaining new advanced weaponry and extending the range of its rockets," a senior defense official told the Post. "In order to get this weaponry into Gaza, it will need larger tunnels than it currently has."
Digging a smuggling tunnel is considered a complicated and sometimes dangerous operation that can take several months, depending on the tunnel's length and size. The tunnels along the corridor vary in size, but some are believed to be large enough for a person to stand inside.
According to Military Intelligence, the long-range Katyusha rockets Hamas fired into Ashdod and Beersheba during the recent operation were smuggled into Gaza in several pieces. These rockets are manufactured in Iran in a number of pieces, enabling their fairly easy transfer to Gaza.
Other rockets that Hamas would like to get its hands on include the long-range Iranian-made Fajr, which has a range of 70 km. and could reach as far as the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Unlike the Grad-model Katyusha, which is 2 meters long, the Fajr is close to 10 m. and is not easy to assemble if smuggled into Gaza in components.
Some of the reports on the alleged Israeli air strike against a weapons convoy in Sudan and bound for Gaza have claimed that the trucks were carrying Fajr missiles, a weapon that could alter the strategic balance of power between Israel and Hamas.
Last week, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) chief Yuval Diskin told the cabinet that since the three-week military operation ended on January 18, Hamas had smuggled 22 tons of explosives, 45 tons of raw materials for producing bombs, dozens of rockets, hundreds of mortar shells and dozens of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles into Gaza.
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[The News (Pak)] Chief of his faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) Maulana Fazlur Rehman on Sunday said the non-governmental organisations that had created a furore over the flogging of a 17-year-old girl in Swat should also be included in the probe. Coming down hard on NGOs, he said these women rights bodies were always ready to protest against an incident even before it was confirmed.
Speaking at "Meet the Press" programme of the Peshawar Press Club, he said it was the NGOs' democratic right to protest and voice concern over the Swat incident but when it came to the drone attacks and killing of innocent women and children in tribal and settled areas, these organisations were always silent. He said the government and the Taliban had expressed ignorance about the whipping incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Maybe he should demonstrate how benign flogging is by getting the same treatment himself on camera and showing how it doesn't hurt????
KARACHI: Federal Minister Senator Azam Khan Swati of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) said on Saturday that the flogging of the 17-year-old girl in Swat was a Jewish conspiracy aimed at destroying peace in Swat and distort the image of those Islamists who sport beards and wear turbans.
Speaking at a reception hosted by the JUI-F Karachi Chapter in his honour, Swati said that the JUI-F may part ways with the PPP-led coalition government if drone attacks continue to violate the sovereignty of Pakistan. We shall not tolerate the violation of our countrys sovereignty through drone attacks, he said, adding that under a deep-rooted conspiracy, the Pakistan Army was being defamed. He said that the ISI might be modernised on the lines that they bring a bad name to its reputation among Pakistanis.He said that the US administration has declared Baitullah Mehsud as its enemy and approved financial aid for the Pakistan government for actions against people such as Mehsud. There are apprehensions that the US administration may turn Pakistan into the next Afghanistan on the pretext of an operation against terrorists as they did with Afghanistan in the name of Osama Bin Laden, said Swati. The JUI-F minister expressed concern over the fact that the US might target Pakistans nuclear installations, adding that we must be careful. It is unfortunate that we long for water and electricity in this age of advancement, he lamented, while also condemning the killings of Pukhtoons in interior Sindh. Qari Usman, Qari Sher Afzal and Maulana Abdul Karim Abid of the JUI-F also spoke on the occasion. staff report.
[Straits Times] THE Khmer RougeŽs prisons chief on Monday told CambodiaŽs UN-backed war crimes court that he had Žsacrificed everythingŽ for the revolution that ultimately killed up to two million people. Duch, whose real name is Kaing Guek Eav, last week apologised at his trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, saying he accepted blame for the extermination of thousands of people at the movementŽs notorious main prison, Tuol Sleng.
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[Mail and Globe] Fifteen years after the Rwandan genocide -- in which about 800 000 died -- prosecutors say hundreds of suspected perpetrators are still at large.
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[Beirut Daily Star: Region] Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's main moderate challenger at the June presidential vote said Monday he would adopt a conciliatory foreign policy toward the West unlike his "extremist" opponent. Prime minister during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq, Mir Hossein Mousavi, 67, is seriously considered by many moderates and even some conservatives as their main presidential candidate and a strong rival to Ahmadinejad in the contest.
"Our country was harmed because of extremist policies adopted in the last three years ... My foreign policy with all countries will be one of detente," Mousavi said at his first news conference since announcing his candidacy.
"We should try to gain the international community's trust while preserving our national interests." Ahmadinejad's critics say his fiery speeches against the West have exacerbated a dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which the West says is a front to covertly build nuclear weapons. Tehran denies the charge.
US-Iran tensions have worsened since the 2005 election of Ahmadinejad, who questioned the Holocaust and called for Israel to be wiped off the map. When asked about his views regarding the Holocaust, Mousavi said: "Killing innocent people is condemned. The way the issue [Holocaust] was put forward [by Ahmadinejad] was incorrect."
"Of course the question could be ... why Palestinians should be punished for a crime committed by Germans?" Mousavi's conciliatory tone followed an overture by US President Barack Obama toward the Islamic Republic.
Obama has offered a new US approach to Iran, which has not had relations with Washington for three decades, saying he would extend a hand of peace if Iran would "unclench its fist."
Iran says Washington must show real policy change toward Iran rather than in words.
While repeatedly stressing his belief in following the guidelines of Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini, the late founder of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, Mousavi said Iran had no intention to continue decades of hostility. "If America practically changes its Iran policy then we will surely hold talks with them," Mousavi said.
Obama on Sunday presented Iran with a "clear choice" of halting its nuclear and missile activity or facing increased isolation. Tehran has repeatedly rejected international demands to stop its most sensitive nuclear work. "Iran will never abandon its nuclear right. We have no right to do it," Mousavi said.
Mousavi, who defended Iran's state-controlled economy when prime minister, said high inflation and unemployment were among major issues that had to be tackled and that more liberalization of the economy was needed. "At that time Iran was at war ... Now we need privatization, creation of jobs and ... foreign investment," said Mousavi.
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[Maghrebia] Algerian security services on Saturday (April 4th) dismantled a bomb device outside the house of the founder and former leader of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) Abdelhak Layada in the Baraki suburb of Algiers, Echorouk reported on Sunday (April 5th). Layada, known as Abu Adlène, reportedly found a pack near his car containing two bombs that were not wired to detonate. Security services said the devices were aimed at intimidation. Layada served 13 years in prison before being released in 2006 under the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation.
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[Haaretz Defense] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday laid down his conditions for renewing stalled peace negotiations with Israel. The new Israeli government "would have to accept the creation of a Palestinian state, stop construction in West Bank Israeli settlements and remove army roadblocks crippling life in the West Bank so that we can resume dialogue in order to reach a political solution," Abbas said. The Palestinian leader was speaking during a visit to Baghdad.
A few hours before Abbas' declaration, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened his new coalition's inaugural weekly cabinet session by announcing that the next weeks would be dedicated to setting a policy for the advancement of the peace process.
"Today, we will establish a political-security cabinet and in the coming weeks we will complete the formulation of our policy to advance peace and security," Netanyahu told the 30 ministers and seven deputy ministers gathered for the session in Jerusalem.
The premier's comments came amid fears that his right-leaning government would stem any progress reached by former prime minister Ehud Olmert's administration in peace talks with the Palestinians and Syria.
"This government is a genuine unity government," he added. "It was created out of a sense of deep responsibility concerning the need to deal with the urgent security, economic and social challenges that Israel faces. And so with that, we set to work."
The prime minister told the cabinet that he planned to annul the previous government's decision to create an Israeli 'White House' with the hopes of reaching a more "modest proposal" for the premier's residence.
Ministers were also to vote on a number of ministerial panels during Sunday's meeting.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu promised ministers that over the coming days he would appoint a chairman of the health ministry, following the ire raised over the lack of a Health Minister appointed to the new government.
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#1
This little cockroach has such an overdeveloped sense of his own importance. Earth to Mahmoud: Obama is pro-Hamas, and Hildi couldn't care less about your mature charm.
[Mail and Globe] Sri Lanka's military readied on Monday for a final assault on Tamil Tigers boxed into a strip of jungle with thousands of trapped civilians, after urging the rebels to surrender or face annihilation.
Security forces were moving ahead after killing at least 480 Tiger rebels in four days of fierce fighting in the northeast of the island that ended on Sunday, military officials said.
Troops recovered the bodies from Puthukkudiriruppu district which was brought under control of the security forces on Sunday, military spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. He said the guerrillas were now confined to a 20 square kilometre coastal area which the military has
designated a "safe zone" for tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the conflict area. "They continue to use civilians as a human shield and attack security forces from the safe zone," Nanayakkara said. Sporadic clashes were reported from the region on Monday.
Army chief Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka told US ambassador Robert Blake that he believed Tamil Tiger supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran may still be hiding in the area.
An "exodus of trapped civilians could be expected at any moment", Fonseka told Blake according to an army statement.
In the past four months, about 65 000 people have managed to flee the war zone and find shelter in government-run camps.
The United Nations and other foreign aid organisations say as many as 150 000 civilians may still be trapped, although the Sri Lankan government insists the figure is less than half that.
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#1
Haven't I seen these headline before---several times?
#2
We saw several times that they were bracing for the final battle against this town or that sector, most of them pretty much unpronouncable. This is the first of what'll probably be several where they're finally gonna roll up the Tigers for good.
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04/07/2009 7:53
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#3
I recall seeing the SLA war zone maps, with the animation of their progress, and there may be more truth here than normal skepticism justifies.
If my conversion is correct, 20km2 is roughly 8-9 sq. miles, and I believe this is in a narrow strip of land. So, the LLTE doesn't really have any interior defenses left.
Sure, there will be several more unpronouncable locales, and related press releases, but unless there's a dramatic diversion or catastrophic loss of while, the government forces seem positioned to play this out.
Note how long they've kept the press and NGO/UN away from the front - seems like a sure sign of progress there.
[Bangla Daily Star] The ruling Awami League (AL) plans to change the leadership of its student wing Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) to pull the organisation out of the mire of factional feuds. The recent spate of violence in educational institutions over control of campus, extortion and tender manipulation has tainted BCL so much that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has stepped down as its constitutional head.
"Sheikh Hasina is considering reorganising Chhatra League to get it back on track," said AL Joint General Secretary Obaidul Quader.
Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, he said the party high command wants BCL to go through some radical changes to ensure its leaders and workers desist from extortion, tender manipulation and illegal trade over admission to schools, colleges and universities.
The AL high-ups will work out ways to confine the BCL activities to issues of student interests. He however did not elaborate on the prospective measures.
Sources said the top echelons of different organisational units including the central committee would be changed. Committees down to the grassroots level would be reorganised in strict adherence to the 29-year age limit.
The AL president set the age bar to rid the organisation of non-students and promote young leadership. It was first applied to election of the current central leadership including BCL President Mahmud Hasan Ripon and General Secretary Mahfuzul Haider Roton in April 2006. But the provision was not much in use as Ripon-Roton committee could not yet form BCL units at the other levels using the age criterion.
This left the two faced with the task of dealing with district and university committee leaders many years their senior. As a result, they failed to have a commanding presence and ensure order and discipline within the organisation.
Observers say the central leadership's failure to assert themselves caused the chain of command to fall apart, leading to factional clashes in different educational institutions. "The chain of command must be restored through reorganisation of the student body," observed Quader, also former BCL president.
He said the party chief should form a team of recently-retired student leaders to see to BCL politics. Quader used to take care of matters relating to BCL on behalf of the AL chief before formation of the present central committee in 2006.
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[Iran Press TV Latest] The Pentagon is spending millions to learn from Israeli's defeat in the 33-day war on Lebanon, amid fears the US army would be outpowered by Hezbollah in case of a conflict.
The US Department of Defense has conducted interviews with those Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers, who fought against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, to learn from the failures of their campaign, The Washington Post reported Monday.
The US military experts who studied the Israeli Army's annihilation were surprised by the defeat Hezbollah inflicted upon the armored columns, using anti-tank guided missiles.
Hezbollah forces are "extremely well trained, especially in the uses of anti-tank weapons and rockets," the newspaper cited a Pentagon report conducted on the group's military power.
According to another study conducted by the Army's Combat Studies Institute, "From 2000 to 2006 Hezbollah embraced a new doctrine, transforming itself from a predominantly guerrilla force into a quasi-conventional fighting force."
The 33-day war highlighted a rift among US military leaders, with some believing that the military should be restructured so that it would be better prepared for asymmetrical wars.
Others, meanwhile, were concerned that such changes would make the military vulnerable to conventional battles.
Many top Army officers however believed the war's outcome illustrated the price of focusing too much on counterinsurgency wars.
"The real takeaway is that you have to find the time to train for major combat operations, even if you are fighting counterinsurgency wars," said one senior military analyst who studied the Lebanon war for the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
In an attempt not to be caught off-guard by Hezbollah forces in the event of a war, the US Army and Marine Corps had arranged several multi-million-dollar drills to simulate battles against the group.
Citing Frank Hoffman, a research fellow at the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory in Quantico, the newspaper reported that the organization has conducted "five major [war] games in the last two years, and all of them have focused on Hezbollah."
Andrew Exum, a former Army officer who has studied the battle from southern Lebanon, was quoted as saying that "Even if the Israelis had done better operationally, I don't think they would have been victorious in the long run."
Tel Aviv, which launched the offensive to destroy Hezbollah's military power, was forced to eventually leave the region without achieving any of its objectives.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/07/2009
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Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
A pretty optimistic view of Hezbollah's capabilities by the Iran based Press TV.
#2
Well the Israelis were owned. Rockets still rained in Haifa at "end" of War. And the most criminaly incompetent Prime Minister and their Military leaders made a war from 9-5 and retire then get back to be again hit by Hizballah, plus a suicidal dash to Litani in last 2 days that made most of armored corps deaths for no result whatsoever. The only explaination that Olmert wasn't out is the Media and US and EU money and their political support.
Posted by: Large Snerong7311 ||
04/07/2009 5:40
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#3
Keep in mind that mullah tools actually believe this tripe and they plan accordingly. They will be slaughtered like sheep in the next round.
The only Hezbollah "victory" was in the results of what passed for Olmert's thought processes. He had yet to learn that "world opinion" is a whorehouse bought and paid for with Arab petro-dollars.
#5
This article is total crap. Israel kicked Hizbollah butt all over Lebanon. All the evidence is in that Hizbollah leaders hide in the shadows while Israel hunts them.
These fools should stop arguing that because they aren't all dead yet somehow Israel failed. With that approach, sooner or later an Israeli leader will go all Old Testament on them just to make the point clear.
What is happening is that the Israeli and American military are doing the prudent research on these villains now to answer the call when it comes.
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
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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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.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, but Syria is taking fellow-Arab nation Libya to court over alleged jamming of Syrias satellite signals. Nilesats Salah Hamza, without naming any parties involved has diplomatically confirmed that there have been some instances of satellite interference lately. However, it seems Eutelsat may be in the firing line because of its carriage of the Syrian signals.
His brown eyes wide with innocence, Abdullah laughs like any other 11-year-old as he tells his story. But it is no ordinary schoolboy tale he is sharing. It is of his arrest. Charged with carrying explosives, he is suspected of being a potential suicide bomber and is Afghanistans youngest prisoner. He is now behind bars in one the countrys most secure jails. 
PARIS (Reuters) - Six suspected Somali pirates captured by French troops in Somalia last year lost an appeal on Monday in which they argued that their arrest and transfer to France were unauthorised, a court source said.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Pakistani security forces have arrested two suspects in connection with a bomb explosion at Chakwal Mosque in which 30 Shias were killed. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] North Korea has failed in its third attempt since 1998 to build an accurate long-range missile, analysts say, undercutting its image as a defiant state able to project its power across the ocean.
[Jerusalem Post Front Page] Spokesman for countryŽs Foreign Ministry says all nations entitled to peaceful use of space technology.
[Iran Press TV Latest] A one-time insider in the Bush administration suggests that former vice president Dick Cheney has a strong say in the Obama White House policies. 
[ADN Kronos] As United States president Barack Obama began an official visit to Turkey on Monday, reports surfaced that a Syrian man was arrested in Istanbul in connection with a plot to kill him. The man - who sought to disguise himself as a journalist for the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera - managed to obtain press accreditation and allegedly planned to stab the US president with a knife, said Saudi daily al-Watan.
[Bangla Daily Star] The United Nations (UN) has named four international war crime experts to assist Bangladesh in the trials of war criminals of 1971, responding to a request of the government, officials said.
[ADN Kronos] At least seven people died and over sixty were injured in blasts on Monday in India's northeast state of Assam. A powerful bomb at a busy restaurant in Guwahati killed four people and wounded at least 56, police said. Blood and body were parts strewn over the entrance to the restaurant and many vehicles were destroyed by the explosion, bystanders said. 
[Jerusalem Post Front Page] The Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism body set up in 2008 by former members of UK-based extremist Islamist organizations, has accused Abu Qatada, who they describe as "one of the world's most influential jihadi theologians", of inciting terrorism after they discovered that he has been issuing fatwas and statements from Long Lartin high security prison in Worcestershire, in the west midlands area of central England. 
[Kyodo: Korea] The United States will seek a ŽŽstrong, coordinated and effectiveŽŽ response to North KoreaŽs rocket launch at the U.N. Security Council, the State Department said Monday. ŽŽWeŽre going to continue to go forward in discussions with our partners in the council to see and to seek as strong, coordinated and effective response to the North Korean missile launch,ŽŽ department spokesman Robert Wood said at a news briefing.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The Afghan government confirmed Monday that a controversial law for the Shiite minority was not in force and reiterated it would be altered if a review found it contradicted women's rights.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Chechnya's Kremlin-backed leader on Monday rejected accusations by the Dubai police that his close adviser masterminded the assassination of a prominent foe in the United Arab Emirates.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A spate of bloody car bombings rocked Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad on Monday, killing 37 people and wounding at least 140 others in an escalation of violence as the United States prepares to pull combat troops out of cities by a June 30 deadline.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A powerful earthquake struck central Italy as residents slept on Monday morning, killing at least 150 people and leaving 1,500 injured.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A man stripped down to nothing but a strategically placed sock at a Tel Aviv supermarket in protest at its decision to sell bread over Passover in violation of Jewish religious laws, Israeli news websites Ynet News reported on Monday.
[Mail and Globe] Sri Lanka's military readied on Monday for a final assault on Tamil Tigers boxed into a strip of jungle with thousands of trapped civilians, after urging the rebels to surrender or face annihilation. 
