More than 90 percent of the suicide attacks in Iraq are carried out by terrorists and foreign fighters recruited, trained and equipped by al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a U.S. military spokesman said Monday.
Al-Zarqawi and al-Qaida in Iraq "are real threats to the citizens, security and stability of Iraq and we continue to conduct aggressive operations to eliminate the threat they pose not only to Iraq, but also to the rest of the region," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch said in a statement.
The Washington Post reported Monday that U.S. military was conducting a propaganda campaign to "magnify the role" of al-Zarqawi to turn Iraqis against him and to link the war in Iraq to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
According to the newspaper, some U.S. military intelligence officials believe the campaign has overstated al-Zarqawi's importance within the Iraqi insurgency
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/10/2006
21:17 ||
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So there I was, thinking that the only "imminent" threat was the Islamization of the Western world, a historic shift well underway in Europe. Yes, it remained clear that out-of-control immigration in the United States jeopardized the future of our nationhood. But after Sept. 11, the present danger had become creeping sharia: the gradual -- and not so gradual -- acceptance of Islamic law by Western and, therefore, non-Islamic societies.
But then came last month's massive, mainly Mexican street protests against border control and in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens, mainly Mexican, who have crossed into this country since the last time Uncle Sam granted amnesty in 1986. Back then, it was amnesty for less than 3 million. Today, 20 years later, these protestors, along with George W. Bush, want to see some 12 million illegal aliens "earn" citizenship (amnesty). In another 20 years, will a new, amnesty-seeking illegal population number 48 million?
In light of the post-protest retreat -- I mean, "deliberations" -- in the U.S. Senate, such a colossal figure looks increasingly plausible. After all, what does an illegal alien or two (or 48 million) have to lose? We are, as we are repeatedly lectured, "a nation of immigrants" who do the work that "Americans" won't do. In fact, maybe just forget about "Americans." If We, the People, get anything like Amnesty 2006 -- with provisions to attain an increasingly Hispanic demographic -- the United States will change from being a neighbor of Latin America to becoming a part of it. Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
04/10/2006
20:41 ||
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#1
Combined factors are working not only to prevent such a straight line project, but to actually strongly reduce the number of illegals coming into the US naturally, with no intervention.
#1 is that Mexican demographics have radically changed, their birthrate has dropped to 2.1 per family. This really takes the pressure off down there.
#2 is that much of the push northward is caused by Fox's PPP, that is forcing Mexicans off of land to be developed. Not only is there a finite number of such people, but once the PPP is underway in earnest, it will actually need vast amounts of labor to construct and maintain. This will cause a demographic pull South, and away from the North.
#3 is any efforts done against immigration, such as the wall. Even if nothing else is done, it will reduce a major portion of the immigrants who are capable of making it North.
Put it all together and the cumulative effect is that most of the pressure to emigrate to the US will be reduced, and the total numbers will strongly drop.
#2
That will just open the door to unlimited Muslim immigration to the US from the Middle East under the same pretext of "doing jobs Americans don't want." The corporate love of low wages is just too powerful.
The real answer is to enact strong border enforcement and decrease immigration.
#1
Yawn. The Israelis have already been kicking your grotty Palestinian @sses from here to Tuesday since, like, forevah. So, who needs a declaration of war?
#2
It is amazing how an entire people has intentionally deluded themselves so badly. I can't think of any group in history which has survived this way.
#5
YJCMTSU all right. Un-freekin believable! Dhimmi or die is their slogan. Shows you what throwing a sh*tload of money at a bunch of psychopaths will do.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/10/2006 20:47
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#6
Wonder is Hamas is going to try to threaten the EU with suicide bombers in Europe if they don't pay the Danegeld? They know better than to threaten the US as long as GW is president.
The judge investigating the Madrid train bombings will conclude 191 people were killed by a local Islamic cell inspired by al-Qaeda, it was reported.
The Spanish daily El Pais reported high court judge Juan del Olmo's indictment will say the Islamic terrorists were inspired by a radical website called Global Islamic Media (GIM).
The 1,000-page indictment, due to be published on Tuesday, will reject any involvement of the Basque terrorist organisation ETA, claims the paper.
The terrorists behind the attacks were inspired by the messages on the GIM website which specifically advocated attacks on Spain before the general election of 14 March 2004.
The newspaper reports two of the ringleaders who led the attack, Jamal Ahimidan, called El Chino, and Serhane Abdelmajid Fakhet, known as El Tunecino, consulted the website between September and December 2003. The website included a document recommending attacks on Spain before the elections.
It said: "It is necessary to make the most use of the upcoming elections. We think the Spanish government will not be able to tolerate more than two attacks, three at the most, after which it will have to pull its troops out of Iraq."
Three days after the train bombings which also injured more than 1,500 people, Spaniards voted in the Socialist government which promptly withdrew troops from Iraq.
About 30 people are expected to be formally charged in relation to the attacks. A trial, expected to last up to 10 months, will take place later this year or next.
Contrary to scenes of hundreds of thousands of united Latinos marching across the country in support of immigration reform, a sizable number of the ethnic group opposes the marches and strongly objects to illegal immigration.
But their voices have largely been muffled by the massive protests, which will continue Monday as tens of thousands of demonstrators are expected to take to the streets of Tucson, Phoenix and other cities nationwide.
They are voicing their support of a Senate bill that would give an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants living in the country a chance for U.S. citizenship.
"That's the objective of the marches -- to give the impression that all Latinos are for allowing the illegals to become citizens," said Phoenix resident Lionel De La Rosa. "Well, I'm not."
The 71-year-old Texas native and Vietnam veteran said he favors punitive measures more in line with the immigration bill passed by the U.S. House in December that would have made it a felony to be in the United States illegally.
"I'm for that 100 percent," he said. "As far as my Latino friends are concerned, they all agree on this."
A 2005 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center found that Latinos in general have favorable attitudes toward immigrants and immigration.
But when it comes to illegal immigration, significant numbers have negative views of illegal immigrants.
The survey found those feelings are strongest among middle-class and middle-age U.S.-born Latinos.
And though 68 percent of Latinos said they believe illegal immigrants help the economy by providing low-cost labor, nearly a quarter felt illegal immigrants hurt the economy by driving down wages.
U.S.-born Latinos looked even less favorably toward illegal immigrants than foreign-born Latinos.
More than a third of U.S.-born Latinos said illegal immigrants hurt the economy, compared with just 15 percent of foreign-born Latinos.
Latinos also are divided over whether to allow illegal immigrants to earn citizenship. the survey found.
Though 88 percent of foreign-born Latinos favored allowing illegal immigrants to earn citizenship, a smaller number of U.S.-born Latinos, 78 percent, said illegal immigrants should be allowed to do so.
Though views such as De La Rosa's are common among Latinos, they are rarely reflected among Latino leaders, said Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C. think tank that favors greater restrictions on immigration.
"It's easy to tap into the views of the intellectual class, but harder to tap into the views of the common folks," he said.
And because so much of the debate over illegal immigration comes off as anti-Hispanic, Latinos who favor greater restrictions on immigration are often reluctant to speak out.
"That's extremely off-putting," Camarota said. "Whatever their views, they keep it to themselves."
Many Latinos fear being ostracized for their negative views of illegal immigrants, said Phoenix resident Frank Barrios, 64.
"There are a lot of Hispanics that are upset about the illegal just the same way as the Anglo population," said Barrios, a third-generation Mexican-American who traces his family's roots in Arizona to the 1870s. "That group is larger than many people would believe."
South Phoenix resident Elsie Orta said she has no plans to participate in Monday's march in Phoenix.
"Other Hispanics have told me to go to the demonstrations," said Orta, 55, who said her mother is from New Mexico and her father's family traces its roots to Spain. "I think it's hurting them. They're making a fool of themselves."
The Phoenix native believes Arizona is under siege by illegal immigrants who speak Spanish, use public services and take jobs away from citizens. Illegal immigrants, she said, should be deported.
"They want us to cater to them all the time," she said. "They're coming over here, they're taking our jobs. And now, everything has to be in English and Spanish? I don't think so. They need to go back." This division is pronounced. Remember that 44% of "Hispanics" voted for Bush in 2004, and the popular attitude of Mexican-Americans is often very conservative, though their self-appointed leaders are uniformly leftist-liberal.
#1
This story jives with the turnout a few years back in California. There was a ballot imitative to restrict public services of illegal aliens, the "conventional wisdom" claimed that there would be a Latino uprising at the polls, but the measure passed by 75%. Hard to deport 11 million but if you get started I bet half of them will leave before you have to send them back forcibly.
#2
A lot of the illegals will self-deport if you DON'T let them get legal status while here and DO expedite granting legal status to applicants at ports of entry. Quit rewarding those who cut ahead of the line and start rewarding those who do things right. Make it worth their while to go back to Mexico and get in line where they belong.
#4
I await the counter-demonstrations by those who are of Mexican birth but are now genuine Americans who believe in the rule of law. Should they materialize, it will gut this Tranzi wet dream in a heartbeat and leave the Democraps flopping about on the beach.
If they do not, then they have learned nothing being here and do not deserve to enjoy the wondrous freedom of America. One might even say they differ little from the phantom moderate Muslims, in fact -- playing both sides of the issue until the outcome becomes clear.
#5
Ulinter Angeagum6865: Successful, prosperous people don't agitate against those who are not successful or prosperous. Mostly, they work for a living. They're too busy.
The people out on the streets are out solely because they are scared that they're about to be declared "felons". Yes, that should scare them. It would scare me.
The bottom line to ALL of this crapola is that there is ONE thing, and ONE thing only that will solve MOST of the problem. And that is to build a wall.
Any other proposals, that is, ANY AND ALL other proposals, are efforts to NOT build the wall.
Nobody is serious about declaring illegals felons. The argument is hogwash, as is deporting them *or* giving them amnesty. ALL bogus, to avoid the one big thing that will matter.
So look to Washington, D.C. If you understand that EVERY effort on the subject except to build the wall is a deception, suddenly it becomes very clear.
There are a handful of Congressmen who understand what is going on, and want to build a wall. But there are a LOT of Congressmen who DON'T want that wall built, and will throw up vast amounts of bulldada, trying to sound "helpful".
But the latter are like people standing in a bucket brigade, but instead of passing buckets of water, they are passing buckets of gasoline, while pretending to be "helpful".
#6
I'd like to weigh in... Regards real people having jobs and little time for demonstrating, good point, Moose. At the end of the day, what energy is left (most of us would agree) should be invested in being a good spouse and parent. Citizenship is a distant second for most of us, I think. Only the kiddies (which seem to be a very large percentage of those agitating) and the professional Tranzis seem to have the time for marching around.
If the citizens who emigrated legally from Mexico vote for rule of law, then they have done the least they can do. If they were to do more, however, it would deflate the demagoguery very quickly. The greatest positive impact potential comes from them acting. Others will be branded bigots and racists - as we see happening now.
Indeed, the fence works well enough to help stem the tide. I support building it where it would have the greatest impact - and a little more on both ends, lol.
The US Senate is our real problem and I don't see how we will make sufficient effective changes in its composition in a timely manner. It would take a huge mobilization of those real Americans who recognize the rule of law is the very foundation of our system, the very reason for our success. And they are probably not motivated to do more unless there's a personal impact... a very American trait. The Minutemen are the exception to the standard selfishness which rules supreme in most issues.
We owe them a huge debt of gratitude for getting this issue front and center and putting their asses on the line to back up the rhetoric. BUT they are largely white and many retired, so their impact is less than it should be. I think that what impact they have had is due to their restraint and careful observance of the law. The ACLU thought they would be able to destroy them and the movement to control our borders, but have failed miserably, lol. God bless the Minutemen leadership - they got it right on the first pass.
In the short-term, I believe we're screwed. We have to find a legislative formula which can swing over the support of the cowards to something that, at least, begins to slow the flow. Once that is accomplished, then we push for more, I guess. We have to proceed in stages, and each must give the cowards political cover to move forward to the next.
1) They're undocumented or carrying false documents. That allows law enforcement to hold them with a charge beyond the 72 hour limit to clear their background. 72 hours is not enough to have all jurisdictions to report in on outstand felony warrants for robbery, rape, murder, etc.
2) It allows multiple counts against coyotes for each act of abetting and aiding in the commission of the federal felony.
3) It allows the prosecution of local and state officials as conspirators in the commission of a federal felony by providing 'safe haven' to those committing a felony.
I could care less about individually prosecuting each and every illegal. Points 2 and 3 will do a lot to cut the support system.
#10
LOL. Oh yeah, sure thing. Without the legislative will you've got nothing. No law changes. No felony offense. Nothing. SOS. Just holding your pud and spouting off won't change a thing folks, you've got to do it at the polls every November. Cull the DC herd of the weaklings - or pound sand.
Scrap the Kyoto plan, Ambrose says
JEFF SALLOT
Globe and Mail Update
Ottawa As greenhouse gas emission levels in Canada climb, Environment Minister Rona Ambrose says it's time for the federal government to scrap its Kyoto plan and think about something new.
"We're looking at all options," she said yesterday, making it clear the Conservatives think it will take a lot longer to clean up the air than the deadlines adopted by the previous Liberal government.
High-level discussions among officials in the Departments of Environment and Natural Resources since the Conservatives took office in February conclude "that it is impossible, impossible for Canada to reach its Kyoto target," Ms. Ambrose said.
Instead of reducing the levels of greenhouse gas emissions as specified under the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, Canada has seen an actual increase, she said.
Canadian emissions had been running about 24 per cent higher than the benchmark level. But Ms. Ambrose said that in Canada's next report to the United Nations the government is going to be in the embarrassing position of having to admit "we're getting close to being up by 30 per cent."
Environment Canada officials said later in the day the figure is closer to about 28 per cent.
NDP Leader Jack Layton said the Conservative government is being defeatist. "It's as though they're throwing in the towel before we've even begun."
The New Democrats like the Kyoto Protocol and say the environment is a keystone issue for their support of the minority Conservative government. The environment is the first item Mr. Layton raised in political discussions with Prime Minister Stephen Harper after the Jan. 23 election.
Ms. Ambrose said Canada is not the only country that agreed to the protocol on global warming in Kyoto, Japan, nine years ago only to find now that cutting greenhouse gases is a lot tougher than first thought.
The United States, which reneged on the original Kyoto deal, actually has a better track record cutting greenhouse gases than does Canada, Ms. Ambrose said.
The Kyoto pact set short-term reduction targets through 2012. These are unrealistic for Canada, the minister said. Instead, Canadians need to talk about "action and solutions long term. We need solutions that are out by 50, 100 years, not two years, five years." The rest is at the link. I do have an issue with the reporter on his statement that the US "reneged" on the Kyoto deal. We never agreed to abide by it so there is no way we reneged.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/10/2006
17:33 ||
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#1
The United States, which reneged on the original Kyoto deal, ...
Reneged? How can you renege on something you never agreed to? I mean outside of LLLa-LLLa Land.
#2
The irony is that Canada is the highest per capita energy consumer in the world, because it's so bloody cold. Were global warming to actually occur, it would be highly effective in reducing Canada's energy consumption and emission of so-called greenhouse gases.
BRITAIN has tried to silence renewed sabre-rattling from within the US administration for military action against Iran, saying the idea that the White House wants a nuclear strike is "completely nuts".
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw insisted that Britain would not support pre-emptive military action against Tehran, adding: "I'm as certain as I can be sitting here that neither would the United States."
Many analysts in the West suspect Tehran is attempting to build its own nuclear weapons. Over the weekend, Iran allowed UN inspectors to examine some of the atomic plants which, it maintains, are designed solely for production of electricity.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Straw said: "There is no smoking gun, there is no casus belli. We can't be certain about Iran's intentions and that is, therefore, not a basis on which anybody would gain authority to go for military action."
The idea that the White House wanted a nuclear strike was "completely nuts", he said.
Mr Straw was responding to an article by award-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, published in The New Yorker. It has been seized on as evidence that any hope of a diplomatic solution to the standoff is being swept aside by White House hawks.
Hersh says US President George W.Bush now believes his historic purpose is to stop Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom he is said to regard asa "new Hitler", acquiring nuclear weapons.
The article suggests that Pentagon plans presented to the White House include the use of a "bunker-buster" tactical nuclear weapon against underground sites in Iran because of concerns that conventional strikes would not be "decisive".
The Pentagon attempted to dismiss the report as being filled with "fantastical, wrong and unsubstantiated allegations".
Hersh pointed out that the Pentagon had used similar language initially to describe his revelations about abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad.
His article says US troops have been ordered to infiltrate Iran to collect target data and to cultivate relationships with indigenous groups that oppose the Ahmadinejad Government.
It also claims that US carrier attack jets have been flying simulated bombing runs within range of Iranian coastal radar.
Pentagon officials denied this. They said war planners had routinely updated contingencies on Iran but this did not reflect any orders to prepare for a military confrontation.
The US is thought to have taken limited steps that go beyond contingency planning, such as flying drones over Iran.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry dismissed the US media reports as "psychological warfare" that stemmed "from America's anger and helplessness".
Last month, the UN Security Council gave Iran 30 days to halt its nuclear research, or risk action such as sanctions.
Joseph Cirincione, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "I previously dismissed talk about US military strikes as left-wing conspiracy theory ... but in just the past few weeks I've been convinced that at least some in the administration have already made up their minds that they would like to launch a military strike against Iran."
Mr Straw acknowledged that the US administration uses "slightly different language" on the issue.
"President Bush says (military action) is not on the agenda, but they don't rule out any option in theory. I believe it is not on the agenda and they are very committed indeed to resolving this issue by negotiation."
Mr Straw said he was encouraged that Russia and China had joined the US and European Union powers to apply diplomatic pressure to Tehran.
Kori Schake, a former staffer on Mr Bush's National Security Council, told The Washington Post talk of a military strike was a "diplomatic gambit to keep pressure on others".
#5
Gasp, shock, horror, are the Brits trying to say that PRAVDA is wrong about Dubya's and America's insidious, malicious plan to nuke Iran wid bunker-busters, besides of course taking over the world by various false pretenses??? Iff PRAVDA is wrong, do Americans dare to dream that Pravda's claim of America's imminent collapse is also, gasp, wrong!?
Gaza ceasefire shot down within hours
Abraham Rabinovich, Jerusalem
April 11, 2006
ISLAMIC Jihad, the most aggressive of the Palestinian militias, crapped in their shorts blinked briefly yesterday under Israeli pressure when its armed wing in the Gaza Strip said it would stop firing rockets into Israel for a week.
A statement issued by the group said the halt in rocket attacks was intended to ease the suffering of the Palestinian population and to test Israel's claim that its shelling of the strip was only in retaliation for the firing of rockets from Gaza.
"We want to show the world that we are only defending ourselves and that we don't love bloodshed," the statement said.
But it was overridden within hours by the organisation's political wing.
"Islamic Jihad is going to escalate its attacks on the Zionist entity by all possible means," said Khader Habib, a senior official. "We are going to teach the Government of Tel Aviv a lesson that they are not going to forget."
The unusual hint of moderation by the military wing, which last year rejected a temporary ceasefire agreed to by all other militant groups, came after Israel fired more than 1000 shells into the strip during the past week from artillery and gunboats off the Gaza shore. God bless the 155mm.
In addition, aircraft killed 15 people over the weekend in strikes on rocket launch sites, training camps and vehicles carrying wanted men.
Israel says almost all the dead were militants, but the victims included the five-year-old son of a senior figure involved in rocket production, who was also killed. Since Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip seven months ago, hundreds of Palestinian-made Kassam rockets have been fired from there at Israeli targets.
The situation presents the new Hamas Government with a major dilemma. According to Israeli analysts, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups that fire rockets would be likely to stop because of public pressure - but only if they are asked to by Hamas, thus enabling them to save face.
But Hamas, which had been the leading militant group until its accession to power, would find it difficult to publicly renounce its major credo - the right of resistance.
#1
a 5 yr old held close by his disgusting f*&k of a father. Sorry kid, but it was too bad Dad didn't keep you away from the family bidness. Perhaps he was already training you to take over when he passed?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 21:05
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U.S. mistakes in the invasion of Iraq led to the current insurgency and sectarian fighting, former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says.
"We made some serious mistakes in the immediate aftermath of the fall of Baghdad," Powell told the National School Board Association's annual conference in Chicago. "We didn't have enough troops on the ground. We didn't impose our will. And as a result, an insurgency got started, and ... it got out of control."
The retired general said as a result, the United States is morally obliged to "stick with the people of Iraq" for as long as it takes to restore order, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Powell said Saturday he believes the United States made visa requirements too strict for foreign students after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks when it was discovered one of the hijackers entered the country on a student visa.
He said the country lost many of the world's brightest international students to universities in Canada, Europe and Asia after the students decided it would be too difficult to get a U.S. visa.
#1
"We didn't have enough troops on the ground. We didn't impose our will. And as a result, an insurgency got started, and ... it got out of control."
We didn't have enough troops on the ground in Texas, the New Mexico or Dakota Territories either. Somehow we muddle through. To include a year without funding because the Democrats obstructed the budget. Took an Apache raid into Texas to convince that Dem delegation that it might be a good idea to have the Army actually operating on the border. Hindsight is always 20/20. By the Way, o'Colin, what was Roosevelt/Truman's master plan for post war Germany and Japan? Not that we had a few years working our way there to have something in place when the dust settled.
A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he recieved a $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday. Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the 84 ringgit ($23) bill, the New Straits Times reported. But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit ($218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported. It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya's father's phone line was used illegally after after his death.
How many of those calls were to Damascus, Aden, Khartoum, and Riyadh?
"If the company wants to seek legal action as mentioned in the letter, I'm ready to face it," the paper quoted Yahaya as saying. "In fact, I can't wait to face it," he said. Yahaya, from northern Kedah state, received a notice from the company's debt-collection agency in early April, the paper said. Yahaya said he nearly fainted when he saw the new bill. Government-linked Telekom Malaysia Bhd. is the country's largest telecommunications company. A company official, who declined to be identified as she was not authorized to speak to the media, said Telekom Malaysia was aware of Yahaya's case and would address it. She did not provide further details.
#1
I got an overdraft notice from my bank back in '04 that said I was $998,695.99 overdrawn. Damn near pooped my pants. According to the bank they still don't know what happened.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/10/2006 16:28
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#3
DB, Subtract that OD from $1,000,000 and you'll probably have the balance that should have been in the account. A $1,000,000 debit probably hit it in error becasue and account number was miscoded. Happens all the time. Usually, though somebody catche one of the at magnitude.
BAGRAM, Afghanistan No more than 200 yards from the main gate of the sprawling U.S. base here, stolen computer drives containing classified military assessments of enemy targets, names of corrupt Afghan officials and descriptions of American defenses are on sale in the local bazaar.
Shop owners at the bazaar say Afghan cleaners, garbage collectors and other workers from the base arrive each day offering purloined goods, including knives, watches, refrigerators, packets of Viagra and flash memory drives taken from military laptops. The drives, smaller than a pack of chewing gum, are sold as used equipment.
The thefts of computer drives have the potential to expose military secrets as well as Social Security numbers and other identifying information of military personnel.
A reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked "Secret." The contents included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, a U.S. ally, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for "kill or capture" and discussions of U.S. efforts to "remove" or "marginalize" Afghan government officials whom the military considered "problem makers."
The drives also included deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 U.S. service members and their Social Security numbers, information that identity thieves could use to open credit card accounts in soldiers' names.
After choosing the name of an army captain at random, a reporter using the Internet was able to obtain detailed information on the woman, including her home address in Maryland and the license plate numbers of her 2003 Jeep Liberty sport utility vehicle and 1998 Harley Davidson XL883 Hugger motorcycle.
Troops serving overseas would be particularly vulnerable to attempts at identity theft because keeping track of their bank and credit records is difficult, said Jay Foley, co-executive director of the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego.
"It's absolutely absurd that this is happening in any way, shape or form," Foley said. "There's absolutely no reason for anyone in the military to have that kind of information on a flash drive and then have it out of their possession."
A flash drive also contained a classified briefing about the capabilities and limitations of a "man portable counter-mortar radar" used to find the source of guerrilla mortar rounds. A map pinpoints the U.S. camps and bases in Iraq where the sophisticated radar was deployed in March 2004.
Lt. Mike Cody, a spokesman for the U.S. forces here, declined to comment on the computer drives or their content.
"We do not discuss issues that involve or could affect operational security," he said.
Workers are supposed to be frisked as they leave the base, but they have various ways of deceiving guards, such as hiding computer drives behind photo IDs that they wear in holders around their necks, shop owners said. Others claim that U.S. soldiers illegally sell military property and help move it off the base, saying they need the money to pay bills back home.
Bagram base, the U.S. military's largest in Afghanistan and a hub for classified military activity, has suffered security lapses before, including an escape from a detention center where hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects have been held and interrogated.
Last July, four Al Qaeda members, including the group's commander in Southeast Asia, Omar Faruq, escaped from Bagram by picking the lock on their cell. They then walked off the base, ditched their prison uniforms and fled through a muddy vineyard.
The men later boasted of their escape on a video and have not been captured. The military said it had tightened security at Bagram after the breakout.
One of the computer drives stolen from Bagram contained a series of slides prepared for a January 2005 briefing of American military officials that identified several Afghan governors and police chiefs as "problem makers" involved in kidnappings, the opium trade and attacks on allied troops with improvised bombs.
The chart showed the U.S. military's preferred methods of dealing with the men: "remove from office; if unable marginalize."
A chart dated Jan. 2, 2005, listed five Afghans as "Tier One Warlords." It identified Afghanistan's former defense minister Mohammed Qassim Fahim, current military chief of staff Abdul Rashid Dostum and counter-narcotics chief Gen. Mohammed Daoud as being involved in the narcotics trade. All three have denied committing crimes.
Another slide presentation identified 12 governors, police chiefs and lower-ranking officials that the U.S. military wanted removed from office. The men were involved in activities including drug trafficking, recruiting of Taliban fighters and active support for Taliban commanders, according to the presentation, which also named the military's preferred replacements.
The briefing said that efforts against Afghan officials were coordinated with U.S. special operations teams and must be approved by top commanders as well as military lawyers who apply unspecified criteria set by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The military also weighs any ties that any official has to President Hamid Karzai and members of his Cabinet or warlords, as well as the risk of destabilization when deciding which officials should be removed, the presentation said.
One of the men on the military's removal list, Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, was replaced in December as governor of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. After removing him from the governor's office, Karzai appointed Akhundzada to Afghanistan's Senate. The U.S. military believed the governor, who was caught with almost 20,000 pounds of opium in his office last summer, to be a heroin trafficker.
The provincial police chief in Helmand, Abdul Rahman Jan, whom U.S. forces suspect of providing security for narcotics shipments, kept his job.
Though U.S. officials continue to praise Pakistan as a loyal ally in the war on terrorism, several documents on the flash drives show the military has struggled to break militant command and supply lines traced to Pakistan. Some of the documents also accused Pakistan's security forces of helping militants launch cross-border attacks on U.S. and allied forces.
Militant attacks on U.S. and allied forces have escalated sharply over the last half year, and once-rare suicide bombings are now frequent, especially in southern Afghan provinces close to infiltration routes from Pakistan.
A document dated Oct. 11, 2004, said at least two of the Taliban's top five leaders were believed to be in Pakistan. That country's government and military repeatedly have denied that leaders of militants fighting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan operate from bases in Pakistan.
The Taliban leaders in Pakistan were identified as Mullah Akhtar Osmani, described as a "major Taliban facilitator for southern Afghanistan" and a "rear commander from Quetta" in southwest Pakistan, and Mullah Obaidullah, said to be "responsible for planning operations in Kandahar."
At the time, fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, his second-in-command Mullah Berader, and three other top Taliban commanders were all suspected of being in southern or central Afghanistan, according to the military briefing.
Another document said the Taliban and an allied militant group were working with Arab Al Qaeda members in Pakistan to plan and launch attacks in Afghanistan. A map presented at a "targeting meeting" for U.S. military commanders here on Jan. 27, 2005, identified the Pakistani cities of Peshawar and Quetta as planning and staging areas for terrorists heading to Afghanistan.
One of the terrorism groups is identified by the single name "Zawahiri," apparently a reference to Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy and chief strategist in Al Qaeda. The document said his attacks had been launched from a region south of Miram Shah, administrative capital of Pakistan's unruly North Waziristan tribal region.
In January, a CIA missile strike targeted Zawahiri in a village more than 100 miles to the northeast, but he was not among the 18 killed, who included women and children.
Other documents on the computer drives listed senior Taliban commanders and "facilitators" living in Pakistan. The Pakistani government strenuously denies allegations by the Afghan government that it is harboring Taliban and other guerrilla fighters.
An August 2004 computer slide presentation marked "Secret" outlined "obstacles to success" along the border and accused Pakistan of making "false and inaccurate reports of border incidents." It also complained of political and military inertia in Pakistan.
Half a year later, other documents indicated that little progress had been made. A classified document from early 2005 listing "Target Objectives" said U.S. forces must "interdict the supply of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) from Pakistan" and "interdict infiltration routes from Pakistan."
A special operations task force map highlighting militants' infiltration routes from Pakistan in early 2005 included this comment from a U.S. military commander: "Pakistani border forces [should] cease assisting cross border insurgent activities."
Posted by: john ||
04/10/2006
15:04 ||
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#1
Too bad we can't salt the bazzars and souks. That would be unseemly.
#4
Interesting speculation. Some of that, including the bit about Pakistan, may be aimed at Musharraf. But the names and home addresses aren't something CENTCOM wants out there.
President General Pervez Musharraf Monday said Pakistan will serve as a fountainhead of Islamic Renaissance and urged leaders of all Muslim countries to strive for socio-economic uplift of their people and also encourage understanding true essence of Islam.
Since the Pakiwakis have been at the forefront of the Islamic world for so long ...
Addressing a seminar on Islam and the Modern World, organized jointly by the Institute of Strategic Studies and English Speaking Union of Pakistan, the President also renewed his call for mandatory contribution by each Islamic country to enable the OIC to deliver in terms of their scientific and technological development.
Becuase there's a wealth of Islamic scientific and technological know-how just waiting for funding ...
The President also underscored that Islam is in consonance with modernization as the religion stands for improving the "inner character and living conditions" of the people. "Islam is not in conflict with modernization -- it is for all times -it is progressive and dynamic -- it is in consonance with modenization as it aims at development of people -- teachings of Islam are in line with democracy, progress and rights of minorities."
Just like it was a thousand years ago.
He said that Islamic countries can grow a global economic power by boosting mutual trade and utilizing 70 percent of their oil resources.
Instead of using the money to buy Bentleys.
Identifying some of the key problems confronting the Muslim world, the President stressed that the way forward called for demonstration of "will and resolve" by all OIC countries vis a vis socio-economic emancipation of their people and reorganization of the Organization of Islamic Conference. "Let's pull our people out of the downtrodden socio-economic state through good governance - let's set personal example - let's understand Islam in its true essence within ourselves and project it internationally to correct misperceptions about our religion.
This is heresy in so many ways, Perv ...
President Musharraf also underlined the importance of resolution of political disputes affecting the Muslim countries. In this context, he referred to his vision of enlightened moderation and said it calls upon the Muslims to reject extremism in favour of their socio- economic development and asks the West to facilitate the resolution of longstanding political disputes that confront Muslims.
By resolving them in favor of Muslims, of course. How's that Kashmir thing working out?
He referred to Pakistan's call for mandatory annual contribution of .01 per cent of GDP by each of the 57 Muslim countries and said it would raise US dollars 1200 million for restructuring and reorganizing the OIC into a vibrant and dynamic body. "Even if all member countries contribute half of that percentage, the OIC will have at least US dollars 100 million to bring the less developed countries out of socio-economic backwaters."
And $100 mil will do so much good in North Wazoo ...
Posted by: john ||
04/10/2006
14:56 ||
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AS part of a strategy to boost its connection with the outside world, China's railways will seek to extend the newly built Qinghai-Tibet rail link to India, a State Council official has said.
China plans to build four international railways in the southwest, south, northeast and northwest of the country during the 11th Five-Year Plan period.
In the southwest, China will extend the 1,956-kilometer Qinghai-Tibet line to Shigatse and will then stretch it into the South Asian subcontinent to connect with India's railway network.
The Qinghai-Tibet rail link, the first railway on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau - known as the "roof of the world" - will launch its test run on July 1.
The Tibet Autonomous Region boasts a border line of more than 4,000 km, neighboring many countries such as India, Bhutan and Nepal. Prior to the completion of the Qinghai-Tibet railway, many countries had guessed that Lhasa would not be the terminal station for the new railway, hoping that the line would be extended to benefit neighboring countries.
King Gyanendra of Nepal has expressed hopes that the Qinghai-Tibet railway will stretch into Nepal and eventually link to India's rail network, making Nepal a transfer hub for its two giant neighbors.
"Considering the stable relations between Tibet and neighboring countries as well as their economic development, it is very necessary to pave tracks into South Asian countries," State Council official Hu Changshun was quoted as saying by the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po newspaper yesterday.
With the increasingly close economic relations between China and the world, the building of international rail links is expected to bolster China's opening-up policy, solving transport problems that curb cooperation with neighboring countries over energy and mineral resources, Hu added.
Besides connecting to southern Asia, China is also considering construction of international railway links from Yunnan Province to Southeast Asia; northeastern China to Russia's railway network; and northwest Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region with Russia as part of the 11th Five-Year Plan and in the future.
Posted by: john ||
04/10/2006
14:49 ||
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#4
China plans to build four international railways in the southwest, south, northeast and northwest
Big thinking, I like that. Cut me in for 10 percentum and I'll show you how to water the stock real money.
Posted by: D Drew ||
04/10/2006 16:32
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If the PLA doesn't take all the window seats, it sure would be a pretty ride. Too bad China is so screwed up. Imagine taking a train ride from Mumbai to Bejing. What an intestine eye popping journey that would be. It'd make the Trans-Siberian look like the trans-continental snoozer it really is.
An anti-corruption campaign group has urged governments in the West to help Africa recover part of the wealth lost through corruption.
Transparency International made the appeal in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
The group estimated the amount of illegally appropriated money invested outside Africa to be $140bn (£80.4bn). $140 Grazilliontrillionschmillion (£80.4 Grazilliontrillioinschillion).
It called on Western governments to change their banking laws to make it easier for illegally acquired wealth to be repatriated to Africa.
Thats a lot of milk tarts. Balance at the link. Imperialist, colonizing pigs.
#2
So the Nigerian scams have escalated to international and governmental levels. Guess the quota of common idiots has started to dry up. Now they're aiming for the professional idiots. Heh.
(EFL)
President Hugo Chávez warned he could declare the United States ambassador William Brownfield persona non grata and thus expel him from Venezuela if the diplomat continued to walk around Venezuela "as if he owned the country."
Chávez' remarks came Sunday during his 252nd weekly radio and TV ¡Aló, Presidente! (Hello, President!), from north central Carabobo state.
"You are a provoker. We do reject any aggression, and we do not encourage aggressions, but the (US) ambassador continues to insist in appearing in a baseball field to donate gloves and balls... His recklessness and provocation may result in a serious situation. The United States threatened us, but this is a provocation of the empire to seek another incident... You may start packing your things." Arrogantly giving baseballs to poor kids! Will those imperialist Yankee dogs stop at nothing?
During the first hour of his seven-hour show, Chávez talked about Jesus Christ, in the occasion of Palm Sunday. Seven hours! "You can't touch this, Fidel, viejo!"
#1
the little man continues to escalate until we kill him. Why not just skip to that step and avoid a lot of other dead venezuelans?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 15:00
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Hugo, quit banging your spoon and throwing peas, do us a huge favour and PNG EVERYBODY! Turn the US mission into a Walmart. We'll save millions each year.
#1
IOW, the Navy believes that a protracted war wid China for control of East/South Asia-Africa is possible. MadMoud = Kimmie = China-Taiwan, etc > Amer's enemies will push and push until they are either appeased, or America-Allies invade.
EFL
One hears not an encouraging word about US President George W Bush these days, even from Republican loyalists. Yet I believe that Bush will stage the strongest political comeback of any US politician since Abraham Lincoln won re-election in 1864 in the midst of the American Civil War.
Two years ago I wrote that Bush would win a second term as president but live to regret it. Iraq's internal collapse and the president's poll numbers bear my forecast out. But Bush's Republicans will triumph in next November's congressional elections for the same reason that Bush beat Democratic challenger John Kerry in 2004. Americans rally around a wartime commander-in-chief, and Bush will have bombed Iranian nuclear installations by October.
One factoid encapsulates Bush's opportunity: in a February 14 CNN/Gallup poll, 80% of respondents said they believed that Iran, if it had nuclear weapons, would hand them over to terrorists; 59% said Iran might use nuclear weapons against the United States. A slight majority of those polled, to be sure, did not wish to use military action against Iran, but that should be interpreted as "not yet", for two-thirds said they worried that the US would not do enough to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Americans are a misunderstood people. Only one in five owns a passport, and a tiny fraction of non-immigrant Americans learns a foreign language. US apathy regarding what might plague the rest of the world is matched only by US bloodlust when attacked. President Bush earned overwhelming support by toppling Saddam Hussein, a caricature villain who appeared to threaten Americans, but earned opprobrium by committing American lives to the political rehabilitation of Iraq, about which Americans care little.
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is the sort of villain that Central Casting once sourced for studio film productions in Hollywood. No more than Napoleon Bonaparte could stay away from Russia can Ahmadinejad abandon Iran's nuclear ambitions. He represents a generation that has bled for its country and its sect for a quarter-century and now has come into its maturity and must demonstrate its mettle. The Revolutionary Guards of 1979 now are middle-aged men who now at last have a chance to lead. Ahmadinejad has salted the regime's middle ranks with thousands of men like himself.
America's discomfiture in Iraq provides Iran with an opportunity to restore its regional greatness, the last one for centuries, if not millennia. If Iran stands down as a prospective nuclear power, it faces a rapidly graying population, declining capacity to export oil and discontent among rural folk and the urban poor. The promise of the Islamic Revolution will have melted into mediocrity and cynicism, and the generation of Ahmadinejad will have turned out a damp squib.
To be very precise, I am not accusing the White House of manipulating the Iranian issue for political purposes. On the contrary, if the US president thought only in terms of political consequences he never would have risked so much on the Quixotic quest for Iraqi democracy. Still, Bush has the opportunity to shift the subject away from the unpopular campaign to improve the politics of the Middle East, and back to the extremely popular subject of killing terrorists. He believes (and I am long since on record agreeing) that Washington will have to put paid to Ahmadinejad before very long, and there is no reason not to look for a political benefit as well.
Just as in the 2004 elections, the Democrats will have a losing hand if the White House orders force against Iran. Americans rally behind a wartime leader; the one exception was Vietnam. America's engagement with Iran would resemble the Bill Clinton administration's aerial attack on Serbia rather than the Iraq wars, for there is no reason at all to employ ground groups.
God takes care of drunks, small children and the United States of America. Improbably, destiny has a surprise in store for George W Bush.
#1
The $64 question is will we wait for an Iranian attack? The political reality is that it is a mid-term election season, one day beyond which election Bush is seen as a lame duck.
This means that republican loyalties will wane, and the democrats will work overtime to undermine Bush, the economy, and the government as a whole--first running against Bush, until other republicans come forward to declare for President.
In turn, even with damning evidence, it will be hard to persuade Congress to once again go to war. Too many of them would want the war to be "the next President's war".
For this domestic reason, and for many international reasons, it would then be to all our advantage if Iran attacked first. An ineffectual, ill-prepared, and ultimately unsuccesful attack, done when we are fully prepared to attack ourselves.
An ideal, from our perspective, would be something like "The Ems Dispatch", which caused France, and its buffoonish leader, Napoleon III, to attack Germany in the Franco-Prussian War. Having been insulted, he ordered a small French unit to advance into Germany, with no other French Army preparations. On crossing the border, they met the fully prepared, loaded, and ready, entire German Army. The war lasted two weeks.
In our case, if we could not stimulate the Iranians to attack at a time and place of our choosing, it might well be worth our while to make it appear that they had attacked.
For example, if a Shahab-3 missile on a mobile launcher in the middle of nowhere, Iran were to launch a missile on a trajectory to a US airbase in Iraq, even though the missile detonated prematurely, it would be more than adequate causus belli.
Many nations satellites would detect the missile launch and trajectory, and Iranian denials about a "rogue" missile crew would be ignored.
Most likely something more complex could be done, but that is the basic concept.
#3
Anon, you're shalob-3 scenerio reminds me of Spies Like Us. Not that it is good or bad mind you, but would the Iranians be up on mediocre American comedies and have defenses prepared for such a thing?
#4
There's a fraction of a paragraph in there that just begs for a fisking:
Americans are a misunderstood people. Only one in five owns a passport, Mr. Spengler: get out your world atlas. Got it? Good. Now turn to the page with the U.S. national map. See that big thing the U.S. is sitting on. It's called North America. It's a continent. Continents are big, really big, vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big things. Starting in most places in the U.S., you can go as much as a couple thousand miles before you bump into another country. When you do, it'll be Canada or Mexico. Americans can enter either one for short stays without a passport.
Why do so few Americans have passports? It's not ignorance or isolationism; it's because we don't need them for daily living. and a tiny fraction of non-immigrant Americans learns a foreign language. Remember that big continent thingy I was telling you about? Well, nearly everyone on it speaks English. Within the U.S. itself, there are linguistic subcultures (Mexican immigrants, Chinatown, Little Italy, and so on), but you need not be bilingual to interact with them, as most people within them are at least conversationally functional in English. French-speaking Canada -- same story. Mexico -- plenty of English speakers in at least the tourist-y parts. As for the rest of the world, English is the de facto language of international commerce, so most business dealings overseas are conducted in English. While a lot of us nevertheless learn a second language in school, we tend not to need it in actual daily life; and if you don't use it, it atrophies. US apathy regarding what might plague the rest of the world is matched only by US bloodlust when attacked. . . . We come by our indifference honestly. Recall that the U.S. was settled largely by people who moved here to get away from the rest of the world. We also have a default live-and-let-live social philosophy which carries over into foreign policy. Oh, and we also believe in self-defense.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/10/2006 16:20
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rjschwarz: mediocre is an understatement.
However, I was remembering from Gulf War I, when one of our teams laid hands on a mobile SCUD launcher after dispatching its crew, and how similar the Iranian's use of mobile SHAHAB-3 launchers has become.
I highly doubt they would have much security either on their launcher or their missiles, and we might have as long as half a day to work our works on it, after having borrowed it from its previous owners.
The point is that there are any number of ways to demonstrate Iranian aggression, but that missiles are easy to independently verify, and thus tend to dispel doubts.
The rest of the world needs to get over itself. We really don't give a shit about them, as long as they leave us alone.
And that just kills them.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/10/2006 18:43
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#8
Wrong, November, right after the mid-term election.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/10/2006 21:42
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#9
MadMoud's anti-Israel rants has already provided enuff casus belli within the context of the UN Charter, both for the imposition of UN-specific sanctions as well as demands for Iran NOT to dev any nuke weapons - the UNO only needs the consensus of the UNSC, espec the "Big Five" and Russia-China. Where 2008 is concerned, the agenda-less RINO/Repubs-for-Socialism-Communism-OWG Dems have nothin to run on against Dubya's super-successful record -as long as MadMoud copntinues to threaten Israel and America and rant about universal Islamism/Islamist OWG, any Dem or MSM criticisms of Dubya, includ but not limited to claas for investigation or impeachment, won't and hasn't worked. Prez wannabe Hillary may be about power, Communism-Socialism,and Socilaist OWG, but like Bill she is also about doing eight years of PC, Bill-style "nothing-accounts-for-something" national governance, geopolitics, and personal ease/convenience. Real world, real-time problems are STILL for the GOP, NOT wavy-gravy laissez faire = Regulation/Govt, Utopia = Totalitarianism Dialectic Policratic Democrats-Lefties whom as a class care about everyone = no one, and whom gets the blame for anything. THE RINO AGENDA-LESS DEMS NEED MADMOUD = KIMMIE = CHINA-TAIWAN, ETC CRISES; THEY NEED AMERICA TO ATTACK = AMERICA BEING ATTACKED - THE DEMS-LEFIES AND ANTI-AMER AMERICANS NEED TO JUSTIFY OWG AND SWO AT ANY PRICE, EVEN IY MEANS DIR OR INDIR COLLUDING FOR THE DEATHS OF 3000 CITIZENS ON 9-11, EVEN IFF IT MEANS INDUCING OR ENSURING THE PC DEFEAT OF THEIR OWN COUNTRY AND ARMED FORCES OVERSEAS. Iff one accepts that the Dems_Lefties intend that America in future give up or lose its sovereignty, freedoms, Govt. and endowments to OWG, be it voluntarily = by force, then one must accept that any anti-OWG, pro-anti-sovereinty,pro-USA GOP-Democrat MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO WIN IN POTUS ELEX YEAR 2008, by any means necessary, as 2015-2018 > both Russia-China agree that war against the USA and only the USA is not only possible but desired. This means that any "Manchurian Candidate" POTUS has from 2008-2016, or 2012-2020, to PC lead democratic, FASCIST =HALFCOMMIE America down the path to full-fledged anti-Amer Amer Socialism, anti-US OWG, and anti-US NWO/Soc-Commie World Order, where the extermination of 90% of the world's population + 5.8 Bilyuhn of world's 6.0+Bilyuhn + 200Milyuhn of Amer's 300Milyuhn + loss of minima 1/2 of CONUS-NORAM, etc. is good for everyone, includ the genocided/holocausted Americans, whom will hug each other and sing songs as they happily report to their local death camps!?ALa LIFE OF BRIAN, Clintonian Americans will be more than happy to be crucified as long as they are not placed next to Jews or the [non-kosher]"other Son-of-God".
Continued decline in Zimbabwe's tobacco production could bring the tobacco industry "to its knees" if unchecked, a Zimbabwe Parliamentary committee has been told. According to the country's state-owned The Herald newspaper, the tobacco industry painted a gloomy picture on the state of preparedness ahead of this year's season because of "numerous challenges" faced.
On Tuesday, tobacco auction-floors representative Wilson Nyabonde told the Parliamentary portfolio committee on lands, agriculture, resettlement, rural resources and water development that with the introduction of the dual marketing system, auction floors continue to see declining sales with only between 17-million and 20-million kilograms expected this selling season, The Herald said. "This is far below the pick of 237-million kilograms in 2000, representing a 7% to 8% utilisation of available capacity for the auction floors in the country."
Nyabonde was quoted as saying that if the decline in production continued, it would not be surprising that this could be the last year for tobacco auctioning in the country. "The signals are that with this trend, auctions will become a thing of the past," he said. If auction floors failed to open next year, thousands of jobs would be lost as well as world-class auctioning facilities. To restart them later may not be possible, he added.
Is it Nuclear Winter™ already? But my warm coat's still at the cleaners...
For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society's continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say "how silly to judge climate change over such a short period". Yet in the next breath, the same person will assure you that the 28-year-long period of warming which occurred between 1970 and 1998 constitutes a dangerous (and man-made) warming. Tosh. Our devotee will also pass by the curious additional facts that a period of similar warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, well prior to the greatest phase of world industrialisation, and that cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate.
Does something not strike you as odd here? That industrial carbon dioxide is not the primary cause of earth's recent decadal-scale temperature changes doesn't seem at all odd to many thousands of independent scientists. They have long appreciated - ever since the early 1990s, when the global warming bandwagon first started to roll behind the gravy train of the UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - that such short-term climate fluctuations are chiefly of natural origin. Yet the public appears to be largely convinced otherwise. How is this possible?
Since the early 1990s, the columns of many leading newspapers and magazines, worldwide, have carried an increasing stream of alarmist letters and articles on hypothetical, human-caused climate change. Each such alarmist article is larded with words such as "if", "might", "could", "probably", "perhaps", "expected", "projected" or "modelled" - and many involve such deep dreaming, or ignorance of scientific facts and principles, that they are akin to nonsense.
The problem here is not that of climate change per se, but rather that of the sophisticated scientific brainwashing that has been inflicted on the public, bureaucrats and politicians alike. Governments generally choose not to receive policy advice on climate from independent scientists. Rather, they seek guidance from their own self-interested science bureaucracies and senior advisers, or from the IPCC itself. No matter how accurate it may be, cautious and politically non-correct science advice is not welcomed in Westminster, and nor is it widely reported.
Marketed under the imprimatur of the IPCC, the bladder-trembling and now infamous hockey-stick diagram that shows accelerating warming during the 20th century - a statistical construct by scientist Michael Mann and co-workers from mostly tree ring records - has been a seminal image of the climate scaremongering campaign. Thanks to the work of a Canadian statistician, Stephen McIntyre, and others, this graph is now known to be deeply flawed.
There are other reasons, too, why the public hears so little in detail from those scientists who approach climate change issues rationally, the so-called climate sceptics. Most are to do with intimidation against speaking out, which operates intensely on several parallel fronts.
First, most government scientists are gagged from making public comment on contentious issues, their employing organisations instead making use of public relations experts to craft carefully tailored, frisbee-science press releases. Second, scientists are under intense pressure to conform with the prevailing paradigm of climate alarmism if they wish to receive funding for their research. Third, members of the Establishment have spoken declamatory words on the issue, and the kingdom's subjects are expected to listen.
Continuing his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, John F. Kerry addressed (by telephone) a conference convened by that racist hustler and prevaricator Al Sharpton who won, if I'm not mistaken, exactly one delegate at the party convention in 2004. According to The New York Times yesterday, in what appeared to be rather inchoate remarks, Kerry used Iraq as a trope but offered a ten-point plan for the nation from soup to nuts ... well, from getting Osama bin Laden to legislating lobby reform. The Times alluded to Kerry's well-known verbosity. So it wasn't surprising that he also went off and said, "Not in one phrase uttered and reported by the Lord Jesus Christ, can you find anything that suggests that there is a virtue in cutting children from Medicare." I'd actually go Kerry one further: I doubt that Jesus ever mentioned Medicare at all. Still, it's probably significant that some presidential aspirants--Kerry, for one--want to demonstrate that there are among them some real live Democrats for God. Or, as the Times said about him, he is "A Roman Catholic, who has struggled at times to talk about his own faith ... Mr. Kerry also told the group that he believed 'deeply in my faith'." Now, there are many Catholics including high ecclesiastics who doubt this. But who am I to have a point of view on what is essentially an intramural fight? In any case, as it turns out, Kerry is not only a Roman Catholic but also an ecumenicist. Once again I rely on the Times: Kerry asserted that "the Koran, the Torah, the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles had influenced a social conscience that he exercised in politics." My God, what bullshit politicians feel obliged to utter! Or maybe the bullshit is already second nature, or even first. But since Kerry raised it, let me ask: What hadith of the Prophet influenced him the most, and why? And here I have a personal interest: Which of the injunctions of Leviticus and who among the Prophets have the most meaning for him? Ordinarily, of course, I wouldn't ask such personal questions of a politician. In the spirit of Jesus, Kerry will certainly forgive me for doing so.
--Martin Peretz
This is from The New Republic Online.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/10/2006
12:00 ||
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#1
Kerry is a slimy asshat that will say anything to get in the whitehouse. If he said water was wet I wouldn't believe him.
Real Life imitates the Onion, Part 345
A job for life, generous bennies, the pick of tee times, and compliments from every lawyer in town can't make up for the reality of "low" pay on the federal bench. Making between $149,132 and $208,100 (on par with the vice president and House speaker) just doesn't cut it anymore for the black-robed class. So much for equality between the three branches of our government....
Listen to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. "We are patronized when we meet judges from England, the European Union, or Malaysia, whose salaries double that of ours," he tells a House subcommittee. "They say, 'We're so sorry about your salaries.' You shouldn't put us in that position." How dare we peasants keep him in such poverty!! Of course, I'm sure they are comparing their gross salaries, not their net salaries....
His dramatic complaints reveal that judicial pay has gone from a whine to a serious issue that Chief Justice John Roberts plans to raise with Congress. "The failure of the Congress to address the problem of judicial salary is assuming the proportion of a historic wrong," says Kennedy. Yeah, right up there with separate-but-equal and Kelo.
Court reps say law school students shun the bench, judicial morale is low, and many are fleeing to wealthy firms. Kennedy says his law clerks win signing bonuses equal to his $199,200 salary when they leave, and the federal bench's top class-action judge quit because he didn't get a cost-of-living adjustment. The resulting higher workload even has older judges off the links and in the court full time. Horrors! What inhumanity!!
"They don't have to do that," says Kennedy. "They don't have to work at all." The rest of us have to wait until we retire to not work at all, your Highness. Sorry for the confusion as to appropriate judicial duties.....
#1
A Kennedy who dislikes patronization? Quite unique I'd say. You don't like being a wage earner in the top 3% of all Americans?
then find other work you sniveling, whining puke.
#4
they should make less than the President, VP and all legislators, none of which has a lifetime appointment.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 13:32
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#5
Why don't we just confirm the ones we've already hired, so they can judge? Since they're salaried, they don't get overtime, so my proposal would amount to a pay increase for actual work done, right?
#6
Sea, I agree. These guys leave a LOT of money on the table when they go on the bench, if they're any good. And I hope they are. And I'm willing to pay for it. Except for Anthony "Whiner" Kennedy. Patronized? My ass. I'll bet no one ever patronized Oliver Wendell Holmes, or Harry Black (HWNAL) or, name your own favorite SC justice. Criminee, he's a justice on the greatest court in the world and he feels patronized?! What a wimp.
#8
lol, CF! What does (on an annual basis) McCain's proposal of $50/hour come to? I'd sign up in a heartbeat, especially if he paid me under the table in cash a'la the amigos. Calculator says that's a TRUE $104,000/year, with NO withholdings! Sign me up! So much for the whole "Americans won't do this work" argument!
Posted by: BA ||
04/10/2006 15:47
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#9
I'd also nominate any of my fine Rantburgian friends to the bench. Any one of us would make a better judge than Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg et. al.
Posted by: BA ||
04/10/2006 15:48
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#10
"The failure of the Congress to address the problem of judicial salary is assuming the proportion of a historic wrong," says Kennedy.
You just missed another historic opportunity to STFU, Justice Kennedy. Your ruling on Kelo v. New London was an act of treason. Come the glorious day...
#2
Yeah bad link, but I wouldn't doubt it a bit. How many people could there possibly be that want to get killed by American Marines in the sandy armpit of the world?
Al Qaeda has apparently implemented a new strategy, going after Shia Arabs, and only Shia Arabs, without endangering Sunni Arabs. The new head of al Qaeda operations in Iraq is an Iraqi Sunni Arab, and his tactic is to concentrate on attacks against Shia mosques, preferably during prayer services. This way, you kill a lot of Shia, and only Shia. The only Sunni Arabs you will find inside a Shia Mosque are suicide bombers, and the occasional soldier or policeman looking for illegal weapons, or Shia terrorists. During three days of suicide bomb attacks last week, over 250 Shia Arabs were killed or wounded. The only Sunni Arab casualties were less than a dozen suicide bombers.
What is the practical effect of these attacks? Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
04/10/2006
11:17 ||
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#1
I don't remember what's the exact word used for the feeling I have toward theses clowns, but I'm pretty sure it involves a heavy dose of indifference, mixed with a slight element of schadenfreude. It will come back to me.
#3
Regarding the future of Iraq and the involvement of Iran, yup, I'm worried (but only for what it means to the West).
For the iraqi themselves, I couldn't care less, and I won't even tell how I feel for the sunnis.
#5
Okay, so Iran is behind these attacks. I see three possible outcomes. (1) Pretext to US attack upon Iran (2) Rwanda style Sunni/Shia war in which Sadr is killed (3) Rwanda style Sunni/Shia war in which Sadr ends upon top.
Somehow I think option 3 unlikely as the Sunni will target him, the US will target him, and the Shia in power will target him.
I also don't see how any of the 3 options favor the Sunni, and at some point they will finish off the Al Queda presence in their midst out of a sense of self-preservation.
#1
Didn't go through it with a fine tooth comb, but I see some good and bad trends alike. The graphical outputs make it all a lot easier to see. Thanks lotp that's a good one.
#2
Nice of the very liberal Brookings Institute to put this together. A very cursory glance is enough to see that they are taking values at the extreme range of available estimates.
One example - oil production under Saddam is estimated generally between 1.8m bbl/day and 2.5m. CIA put the number at around 2.1m. Brookings of course went with the highest available number, 2.5m, because it casts the US in the least favorable light.
Excerpt:
As far as the kind of treatment illegal immigrants from Mexico deserve, lets treat them as Mexico treats all immigrants. According to the Center for Security Policys J. Michael Waller, Mexico deals harshly not only with illegal immigrants. It treats even legal immigrants, naturalized citizens and foreign investors in ways that would, by the standards of those who carp about U.S. immigration policy, have to be called racist and xenophobic.
If you think these critics are mad about U.S. immigration policy now, imagine how upset they would be if we adopted an approach far more radical than the bill they rail against which was adopted last year by the House of Representatives - namely, the way Mexico treats illegal aliens.
For example, according to an official translation published by the Organization of American States, the Mexican constitution includes the following restrictions:
Pursuant to Article 33, "Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country."
Equal employment rights are denied to immigrants, even legal ones. Article 32: "Mexicans shall have priority over foreigners under equality of circumstances for all classes of concessions and for all employment, positions, or commissions of the Government in which the status of citizenship is not indispensable." ...
Article 55 denies immigrants the right to become federal lawmakers. A Mexican congressman or senator must be "a Mexican citizen by birth." ...
Article 27 states, "Only Mexicans by birth or naturalization and Mexican companies have the right to acquire ownership of lands, waters, and their appurtenances, or to obtain concessions for the exploitation of mines or of waters."
Article 11 guarantees federal protection against "undesirable aliens resident in the country." What is more, private individuals are authorized to make citizen's arrests. ...
According to Article 33, "the Federal Executive shall have the exclusive power to compel any foreigner whose remaining he may deem inexpedient to abandon the national territory immediately and without the necessity of previous legal action."
Posted by: ed ||
04/10/2006
10:30 ||
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#1
Sounds like a haven for foreign investment and entrepreneurship.
#2
A former coworker of mine was Mexican by birth and here legally, with green card and all. She wanted to become a US citizen but dared not because she would lose all rights to her family's land in Durango.
#3
You know, I don't like Clancy as much as I used to, but in Debt of Honor, they had a nifty law that would mirror the laws of another country. That would be amusing to do to Mexico. Tell them we'll make our laws just like theirs. Then if they complain, we'll just say we're following their lead.
#4
I'm not too sure about that story your former coworker told you, Sea. I think most of Durango is over 100 miles from the ocean, so even if the Mexican government recognized her as an American now, she could legally own the land. (They never used to recognize when one of their citizens took another country's citizenship, unless they've recently changed their laws.)
#5
IIRC the Mexican government recently changed their laws to allow 'former' citizens [those naturalized in the US] to continue to vote in Mexican elections.
A U.S. Navy Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) team from the amphibious dock landing ship USS Oak Hill (LSD 51), boards the MV Bhakti Sagar. The boarding came after the Bhakti Sagar requested assistance.
ABOARD USS OAK HILL (LSD 51), At Sea - USS Oak Hill (LSD 51) provided assistance to a distressed vessel approximately 60 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia March 30, while conducting maritime security operations (MSO) in the area. The crew of Motor Vessel Bhakti Sagar contacted Oak Hill via radio, asking for assistance. As part of MSO, coalition forces have a longstanding tradition of helping mariners in distress providing medical assistance, engineering assistance, and search and rescue. The motor vessels crew said they needed food, water and fuel.
I was surprised to hear them call me over the radio, said Ensign Andrew Wilcox, the officer of the deck at the time the U.S. ship received the distress call. Shortly after dawn Oak Hill sent a Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) team to the motor vessel to assess how Oak Hill could help. The crew was scared at first, but after they saw we were there to help them they calmed down, said Operations Specialist Seaman Nicholas Cheramie, VBSS boarding team member.
This is pretty much a Notschitt story there's more at the link except for the photo of the Bhakti Sagar. Seems like every few days we have a story about a ship in turban-infested waters going down with greater or less loss of life. Looking at the conformation of the Bhakti Sagar the reasons become a little more clear. I'm not a nautical kind of guy, but I can recognize top-heavy when I see it.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006
10:24 ||
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#2
Obviously the Somalis don't believe in scraping old paint.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/10/2006 14:09
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The MV Bhakti Sagar looks like it was built with half the blueprints from Noah's Ark and a magazine illustration of a Mississippi river boat's superstructure. And, Dr. Steve, that is not paint on the side. It may be from Tom Sawyer's whitewash brigade, or from gull poop when it was laying on its side during low tide.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/10/2006 16:52
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The big clue is the gopher bark substructure...
#5
The white line down the side looks to be the true waterline.
She's riding very high and unballasted, They do that for fuel economy, (fairly safe as long as there's a dead calm) but overall a good candidate for capsizing, get those ballast pumps going NOW folks.
While you can
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/10/2006 20:23
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#6
think of a bobber while fishing for sharks?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 21:09
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An Alabama employment agency that sent 70 laborers and construction workers to job sites in that state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina says the men were sent home after just two weeks on the job by employers who told them "the Mexicans had arrived" and were willing to work for less.
Linda Swope, who operates Complete Employment Services Inc. in Mobile, Ala., told The Washington Times last week that the workers -- whom she described as U.S. citizens, residents of Alabama and predominantly black -- had been "urgently requested" by contractors hired to rebuild and clear devastated areas of the state, but were told to leave three job sites when the foreign workers showed up.
"After Katrina, our company had 70 workers on the job the first day, but the companies decided they didn't need them anymore because the Mexicans had arrived," Mrs. Swope said. "I assure you it is not true that Americans don't want to work.
"We had been told that 270 jobs might be available, and we could have filled every one of them with men from this area, most of whom lost their jobs because of the hurricane," she said. "When we told the guys they would not be needed, they actually cried ... and we cried with them. This is a shame."
Mrs. Swope said employment agencies throughout Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi faced similar problems, when thousands of men from Mexico and several Central and South American countries -- many in crowded buses and trucks -- came into the three states after Katrina, looking for employment and willing to work for less money. The number of foreign workers who flooded the area after the hurricane has been estimated at more than 30,000. Many of them have been identified by law-enforcement authorities and others as illegal aliens.
"The men we sent to jobs in Alabama were local fellows looking for work, men who needed jobs," Mrs. Swope said. "After driving 50 miles to the work sites where they had been promised $10 an hour, they discovered the employers had found substitutes who were willing to work for less."
#3
Construction is made for illegals even more than agriculture. Shifting, temporary job locations for employers who form a new corporation for each job or year. Now that they've got the skills in the drudge jobs, drywall, insulation, etc. it will be hard to keep them out. The other big industry in the midwest is meat packing. Calling Upton Sinclair.
#4
This really is the heart of the matter. Americans know these ILLEGALS are here. Why didn't she contact state and federal representatives ? Immigration ? Sheriffs ? Why didn't any of the workers who were thrown out contact someone and raise hell? Everyone just rolls over and accepts this ? This is outrageous. These employers should not be fined, they should be jailed. Actually, I would prefer that we just declare open season on them. We could stop this in a couple of days.
#6
SOP35/Rat
Call them all you want, I've done it several times when I was in the carpenters union. They won't do a goddamned thing. Local police/ Sheriffs office won't touch them with a 10 foot stick. Federal building just transfers your call around until you get mad and hang up after 20 minutes.
#7
"Why didn't she contact state and federal representatives ? Immigration ? Sheriffs ?"
Conflicting laws and policies are on the books. ICE must make the arrest, and then they only usually do so if they are breaking another criminal law, such as dealing drugs. Local sheriffs aren't allowed to pick up and detain illegals for merely being here and have even asked for the law to be changed so they could aid overworked Feds. For a long time, many midwestern states had only one office and a few agents to handle a huge multi-state region and the smugglers knew it. One coyote was caught with the State Patrol schedule for Iowa, timing the drive through to avoid detection. The current policy is partial control of the southern border, with amnesty for any who make it across to the interior, with little law enforcement past our own borders. Not only do they work for less, they send much of it back to Mexico. The unfairness of these contradictory policies is further highlighted when trying to decide who should be deported and who should stay, who should get temporary work permits, paying back taxes and put on the rolls for income tax. The way I see it, they have to get a database of who is here so rational decisions can be made and that means getting them to register and get a tamper-proof ID card.
#8
The problem isn't overworked Feds, it's ober bribed Congresscritters. Every time an employer is raided, you can be a contributor call the congrewss critter to ask, "WTF? Didn't I give enough?"
#10
Good comments. You all know this same horseshit and so do I. I'm doing my taxes now. And I wonder why ? We all know the old saw about NO TAXATION without representation. That's exactly where all of us law abiding citizens are. Do we ALL have to stop paying taxes ? Do we need to start burning down federal structures ? No one is paying any regard to us taxpayers and we all know it.
#15
Remember that we have until the 17th this year because the 15th is on a Saturday ;)
Posted by: Jan ||
04/10/2006 18:22
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Grouch Marx wrote a book about his dealings with the IRS called, "Many Happy Returns". Histerical factual accounts.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/10/2006 19:30
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#17
Dr. Kargol: Some youngsters on the other hand, are attracted to it by its very illegality. It's like murder make a thing illegal and it acquires a mystique. Look at arson I mean, how many of us can honestly say that at one time or another he hasn't set fire to some great public building. I know I have. The only way to bring the crime figures down is to reduce the number of offences get it out in the open I know I have.
SAUDI ARABIA has invited bids for the construction of a security fence along the entire length of its 900km (560mile) desert border with Iraq in a multimillion-pound project that will attract interest from British defence companies.
The barrier is part of a package to secure the Kingdoms 6,500km of borders in an attempt to improve internal security and bolster its defences against external threats.
Saudi Arabia is concerned that the chaos in Iraq could cause an overspill of sectarian violence and terrorism. The kingdom claims to be winning the battle against al-Qaedas Saudi wing but wants to protect itself against Saudi insurgents returning from Iraq.
Theres no suggestion that the border isnt secure at the moment, so it could be a bit of an expensive white elephant, a European diplomat in Riyadh said. Saudi militants join ing the insurgency use other routes, such as Syria.
Riyadh is worried by the rise to power in Iraq of the Shia majority, with its close links with Iran, which Saudi Arabia mistrusts. It is concerned that its Shia minority, which is concentrated in the oil-producing eastern province, may become radicalised.
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#5
Theres no suggestion that the border isnt secure at the moment, so it could be a bit of an expensive white elephant, a European diplomat in Riyadh said.
Very typical Euro response. Never thought I'd be high-fiving the Majic Kingdom. Nothing on Bid Radar yet, still looking.
#6
This is so strange. When Israel announced it's desire to build a wall abutting Palestine, the World Community complained including the UN. Israel said the barrier was to protect it's territorial borders.
Egypt, if I am not mistaken, also has a security wall built along the Palestinian border. I remember the bulldozers punching a hole in it from Palestine several months ago. I don't remember anyone complaining when it was built.
Now Saudia Arabia wants to build a border fence with Iraq to protect itself from terrorists.
The United States wants to put a border wall on to protect it's Southern Border from illegal immigration. The Mexican Governments and NGO's files formal complaints in protest.
Complaints about Israel >1
Complaints about the United States >1
Complaints about Egypt and Saudia Arabia 0
#7
A report from the Yemeni state news agency Saba said the 5,550-teu M/V Hyundai Fortune (built 1996) has already sunk 130 NM off Aden following the blaze on March 21. Hence we have been receiving these rumors all day long. We rechecked our photos of M/V Hyundai Fortune from March 23 and reconfirmed the absence of Alzheimer's. This may explain why neither CNN nor Fox are headquarted in Yemin. March 22
We're now expected to believe that this system will be able to stop hassling 68-year-old cello players long enough to process an extra 10 million-plus immigration applications, and that furthermore an agency that keeps no reliable records of legal entry into the United States will somehow be able to determine on the basis of utility bills whether this or that undocumented alien falls into amnesty-eligibility category.
RTWT, for it is good.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/10/2006
07:48 ||
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#1
Superbly done. Thanks Mike! Hope you are doing well.
#6
It amazes me that people aren't more upset about the illegal immigrants chanting, "Today we march! Tomorrow we vote!" They probably have been voting Democrat for years and just didn't know it.
#7
Did anyone watch C-Span today? Was the wall-to-wall use of Spanish because the audience
1) didn't understand English
2) understood English but rejected using it because they have decided Spanish is to be the official language of the US?
I am not saying it isn't a good idea to speak more than one language. It is a great idea to study at least one more language. Me, I can get by in French and Spanish. Nor am I suggesting that an immigrant can't speak his native language in public. But does this lobby not realize that throwing aside the common language of the host country in a widely publicized national debate is a breach of the most elementary manners? There is a real disrespect going on with this defiance against speaking English. Watch the footage of the audience from C-Span recorded today. Most the audience knew when to applaud after some English phrases were spoken. Thye understood English; they just shoved it aside so that Spanish would reign supreme, similar to the way that (until today) they flew the Mexican flag above the American flag on the same staff.
While stressing that diplomacy is the first course for dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions, the White House is not ruling out a military response and says "normal defense and intelligence planning" is under way.
The White House, sensitive to President Bush's image as a war hawk, is trying to play down the possibility of a military strike on the country that Bush included among nations forming the "axis of evil."
"The president's priority is to find a diplomatic solution to a problem the entire world recognizes," Bush counselor Dan Bartlett told The Associated Press on Sunday. "And those who are drawing broad, definitive conclusions based on normal defense and intelligence planning are ill-informed and are not knowledgeable of the administration's thinking on Iran."
Bush and other administration officials have said repeatedly that the military option is on the table. Several reports published over the weekend said the administration was studying options for military strikes, and an account in The New Yorker magazine raised the possibility of using nuclear bombs against Iran's underground nuclear sites.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., called the idea of a nuclear strike "completely nuts."
Straw said Britain would not launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran and he was as "certain as he could be" that neither would the U.S. He said he has a high suspicion that Iran is developing a civil nuclear capability that in turn could be used for nuclear weapons, but there is "no smoking gun" to prove it and rationalize abandoning the plodding diplomatic process.
"The reason why we're opposed to military action is because it's an infinitely worse option and there's no justification for it," Straw said.
Defense experts say a military strike on Iran would be risky and complicated. U.S. forces already are preoccupied with
Iraq and Afghanistan, and an attack against Iran could inflame U.S. problems in the Muslim world.
The U.N. Security Council has demanded Iran suspend its uranium enrichment program. But Iran has so far refused to halt its nuclear activity, saying the small-scale enrichment project was strictly for research and not for development of nuclear weapons.
Bush has said Iran may pose the greatest challenge to the United States of any other country in the world. And while he has stressed that diplomacy is always preferable, he has defended his administration's strike-first policy against terrorists and other enemies.
"The threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to destroy our strong ally Israel," the president said last month in Cleveland. "That's a threat, a serious threat. It's a threat to world peace; it's a threat, in essence, to a strong alliance. I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that we will use military might to protect our ally."
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Mark Ballesteros would not comment Sunday on reports of military planning for Iran. "The U.S. military never comments on contingency planning," he said.
Stephen Cimbala, a Pennsylvania State University professor who studies U.S. foreign policy, said it would be no surprise that the Pentagon has contingency plans for a strike on Iran. But he suggested the hint of military strikes is more of a public show to Iran and the public than a feasible option.
"If you look at the military options, all of them are unattractive," Cimbala said. "Either because they won't work or because they have side effects where the cure is worse than the disease."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:53 ||
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Stephen Cimbala, a Pennsylvania State University professor who studies U.S. foreign policy, said it would be no surprise that the Pentagon has contingency plans for a strike on Iran.
Such a profound statement. "No surprise" why I am not and will never be a Penn State faculty member.
#5
#4 - Re: Contingency plans - If you search long enough I bet you'd find the contingency plans for the attack on Wisconsin by Alabama. Having a contingency plan to attack Iran shares space on the surprise meter with daily sunrise.
#6
nice of Jack Straw to take Britain away from the table. Quit fellating the MM's, Jack - they laugh at you behind your back, in front of you, and to your face.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 10:51
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#7
If you search long enough I bet you'd find the contingency plans for the attack on Wisconsin by Alabama
Contigency? We're in Divisional field exercises.
#8
LOL - They're rebuilding the Dan Ryan right now, so make sure you skip to the page about river transport. That way you seize the bridgehead at Prairie Du Chein and avoid the south side of Chicago. Then again, the south side makes an excellent staging area for coming through Balochistan. Like I said, all these plans are somewhere in the pentagon's files - maybe PSU can file a FOIA and issue a press release.
Terror stalks the remote, poverty-stricken, under-developed villages in West Midnapore district bordering Jharkhand, a hotbed of Maoist activities where voters are in two-minds whether to vote or not, fearing reprisal from the ultras who have given a vote boycott call.
"This time the situation is difficult. We do not know what to do. We may cast our votes, but what will happen afterwards? The Maoists can kill us for voting," said Mangal Soren of Dangardiha village where two Communist Party of India (Marxist) leaders were killed before their families by Maoists last month.
"The Maoists have asked us why we should vote when there was no development in the area," Krishna Mahato, another villager told a visiting PTI correspondent.
The massive deployment of security forces in the district, which goes to the polls on April 17 in the first phase, has so far failed to boost their morale. "Security forces have been deployed for the election. They will not be here forever. We will have to continue to live here," Mahato said.
Whether it is Dangardiha or Birghi, Amlasol or Amjharna, situated at a stone's throw from adjoining Jharkhand, the picture is almost the same in the far-flung villages under Binpur constituency.
From the police administration to candidates, everyone admitted that the people in the areas were afraid of Maoist violence, but nevertheless hoped that they would vote in the election. SPC
"It is true that the people are a bit scared, but we are taking all measures to counter the maoists. We are combing the jungles, doing area domination job with deployment of forces. We think ultimately the villagers will exercise their franchise," Ajay Nand, district superintendent of police said.
Despite his hope, the people in this area, which has witnessed a number of violent incidents, including the killing of three policemen, and a villager in a landmine blast in the last two months, are yet to be convinced.
"We heard that the Maoists have given a vote boycott call. They have threatened to chop off our fingers if we cast votes," Nagen Hansda, a resident of Birghi village said. Posters calling for a boycott of the election by the Maoists were seized from Amlasole last week. Admitting that the Maoists had given such a call, the SP said that this was nothing new for the naxalites.
In the past also they had boycotted elections. The Maoist phenomenon was being blown out of proportion by the media, he claimed.
Many said that the Maoists were able to penetrate the areas taking advantage of abject poverty and underdevelopment. Leaving the metal road that leads to Banspahari, as one enters Bhulaveda range in which these villages are nestled, signs of underdevelopment and poverty are telltale.
"There is hardly any road, water is scarce. In the absence of irrigation, we can grow crops that feed us only for a few months. For the rest of the year, we have to thrive on food from the jungle. We sell rope made of babui grass and firewood to somehow manage our livelihood," said a resident of Ukhuldoba village, from where two women members of the CPI (Maoist) were arrested in February.
A massive deployment of central para-military and state security forces has been made to instill a sense of security among the electorate. Security forces have erected bunkers and were on patrol in difficult terrain and on the road leading to Belpahari and Kankrajhore. At many places BSF personnel, armed with mine detectors, were sanitising the area.
What might be seen as a silver lining in the cloud, Mansaram Mandi, a resident of Ukhuldoba, however, said he has not heard of any boycott call and would vote. Both Jharkhand Party and CPI-M, the two major contenders in the constituency, also expressed confidence that the people would participate in the poll.
"They may have some fear, we have to remove it. We will tell them if you want to defeat CPI-M, who ignored development all those years, you have to vote," Jharkhand Party candidate from Binpur Chunibala Hansda said.
Former state minister and CPI-M nominee Shambhu Mandi was not ready to accept that the villagers would not vote. "Birsa Munda, Sidho Kano who fought the British, were their leaders. Why should the adivasis (tribals) be afraid of so-called Maoists who are representatives of zamindars," he asked.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:51 ||
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We may cast our votes, but what will happen afterwards? The Maoists can kill us for voting," said Mangal Soren of Dangardiha village
Algerian troops killed at least 10 suspected Islamist militants in a raid on a gang accused of shooting dead 13 customs officials, newspapers reported on Sunday. The soldiers, backed by air power, also seized 60 AK-47 rifles, 10 rocket launchers and a significant quantity of ammunition in the attack on Saturday in the north African country's southern desert, they reported.
A good part of the increased effectiveness of Algeria's troops against the GSPC comes from us. Only a couple years ago the Algerians were chasing these guys using shoe leather express.
The Islamist fighters, who have links with smuggling networks across Africa's Sahel region, ambushed a party of customs officials on Friday, shooting dead 13 and wounding 10 others 200 km from the country's biggest oil producing town of Hassi Messaoud. Saturday's raid took place in the same area, in the province of Ghardaia some 700 km southeast of the capital Algiers. One customs agent was reported missing following Friday's ambush, suspected to have been carried out by members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).
The army offensive is still going on in the region, where security forces have intercepted convoys carrying weapons from neighbouring Mali and Niger, El Watan newspaper, usually well-informed on security matters, reported security sources as saying. Some 18 fighters of the GSPC are surrounded by the government forces, Liberte daily said. Friday's ambush was the worst attack since the government last month started implementing an amnesty aimed at bringing peace following years of violence that cost the lives of 200,000 people. The peace move gives rebels still fighting six months to surrender provided they were not involved in massacres, rapes and bombings of public places. Some 800 rebels are still active, the authorities said. But several militants have surrendered in the past days, according to media reports.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:49 ||
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"... fighters of the GSPC are surrounded... "
It will be interesting to see if the Algerian definition of "surrounded" is similar to the Saudi Arabian definition (either 'dead' or 'oops, they slipped away'.)
#2
Generally, in Algeria, being "surrounded" means Abdullah has not arrived yet with his toolkit, to begin the interrogations. It is not a bad idea to be killed in combat, rather than be taken alive for interrogation in Algeria -- at least according to all of the available accounts of such.
The Government is facing renewed calls for an independent inquiry into the July 7 London bombings.
Conservatives said an independent probe was vital to avoid "another Government whitewash".
The demand came after reports that the official inquiry into the attacks will say they were planned on a shoestring budget and did not have any direct support from al Qaida.
According to the Observer, the Home Office report, being complied by a senior civil servant, will say the atrocities were not the work of an international terror network as originally suspected.
Rather they were carried out by four men who had scoured terror sites on the internet.
Tory homeland security spokesman Patrick Mercer said the lack of a link with al Qaida was difficult to believe.
"The leak suggests that the Government's narrative on the July attacks is going to make no connection with international terrorism and al Qaida," he said.
"I find that very hard to believe. A narrative from the Government is going to come from the same sources that provided us with the dodgy dossier over Iraq. This is why it is so important that we have an independent inquiry and not just another Government whitewash."
The Government has repeatedly rejected demands for a public inquiry into the attacks. Instead it will publish a definitive account of what happened in a written narrative.
Tony Blair has said a public inquiry is not necessary. There are numerous inquiries by MPs' committees. And the Prime Minister has said it was already know "essentially" what happened.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:46 ||
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#1
they were carried out by four men who had scoured terror sites on the internet
Caused by four men who visited Pakistan and returned radicalised and hell-bent on murder. Mmmm..
Posted by: Howard UK ||
04/10/2006 5:12
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After months of relative quiet, Islamic insurgents have struck Algeria.
At least 13 people were killed when suspected Al Qaida-aligned fighters ambushed a government convoy in a desert region of Algeria. The April 7 attack in Ghardaia, 700 kilometers south of Algiers, targeted customs agents on their way to a seminar in Ouargla.
Algerian security sources blamed the Al Qaida-aligned Salafist Brigade for Combat and Call. The sources said the Salafists have been operating in Ghardaia in southern Algeria.
Algerian media reports said the attackers ambushed the convoy in two four-wheel-drive vehicles. Shouting "God is great," the insurgents opened fire with automatic weapons, killed the customs agents and burned the government cars. The insurgents also seized weapons from the convoy.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:44 ||
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The U.S. military has determined that Al Qaida was losing the loyalty of its senior operatives in Iraq.
Officials said the U.S.-led coalition has received significant cooperation from captured aides of Al Qaida network chief Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi. They said information provided by these insurgents has led to the discovery of other Al Qaida commanders as well as weapons caches.
"What we're finding is there's a lack of a specific quality inside the Zarqawi network, and that quality is loyalty," U.S. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said.
Over the weekend, about 85 people were killed and 140 were injured in a series of bombings that targeted Shi'ites in Baghdad. Officials said the attackers were disguised as women and struck a Shi'ite mosque.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:43 ||
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The United States is backing a new coalition of Somali militants fighting Islamic extremists for control of the lawless nations capital, a U.S. official said, as both sides prepared for a battle that could explode in widespread violence.
Residents say both sides have recently received an infusion of cash and weapons as they face off for control of the country, which has had no central government since warlords divided it into clan-based fiefdoms in 1991.
While there have been numerous reports of al-Qaida bombers hiding in the Horn of Africa nation, only recently have they been reportedly involved in fighting alongside Somali extremists.
A U.S. official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said prominent al-Qaida leaders with large cash bounties on their heads are under the protection of the extremist leaders in Mogadishu. He did not name them, but eight men wanted in the embassy bombings are on the FBI most wanted list.
Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi told AP that the alliance of clan leaders fighting the Islamic group was not acting on his authority, though he said his government was cooperating with the United States.
The U.S. has long worried about al-Qaida and other terrorist groups finding a haven in Somalia. For years, though, clan rivalries may have kept outsiders from gaining a foothold. The Islamic extremists appear to be capitalizing on the Somali peoples frustration with disorder and instability.
"Islam is itself a policy which God created for the people to rule each other," Aweys told the AP. "We will have to liberate our people from these warlords who have been shedding our peoples blood for the past 15 years."
Aweys does not deny past contacts with Osama bin Laden , but says he has no links now with bin Laden or al-Qaida.
Last month, the Islamic unions forces beat back militiamen loyal to warlords who have held power for most of the last 15 years and have joined the new government. The Islamic unions forces captured a small airport and a strategic road to the vital El-Maan port, through which almost all trade with Mogadishu passes.
Since then, hundreds of heavily armed Islamic fighters have been building defensive positions in Mogadishu, residents said. They have threatened to kill anyone who cooperates with non-Muslims and several high-profile intellectuals have been slain for their contacts with Westerners, so witnesses agreed to speak with the AP only on condition they were not named.
Aweys, who went into hiding following the Sept. 11 attacks and only re-emerged in August 2005, has condemned the new United Nations -backed transitional government. The top Cabinet members are a whos who of former warlords, but the transitional government has taken control only of a small portion of the nation of 7 million.
In an apparent response to the Islamic extremist challenge, several key warlords in the new government have formed the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism.
Hussein Gutaleh Ragheh, the alliances spokesman, said the groups goal is to capture known al-Qaida members who have come to Somalia from Sudan, Yemen and other countries.
"Were not fighting against any tribe or clan, were hunting down a few terrorists who are hiding among our people," he said.
"We know that these terrorists are using some Somalis after brainwashing them ... to kill the innocent, the intellectuals and the former military officials of the country under the pretext that they work for foreigners," he added.
In a few months, the alliance has gone from a disparate group of clan-based warriors to one of the most powerful militias in Somalia. Residents of alliance-held areas report trucks full of new weapons arriving from neighboring Ethiopia for the anti-extremist alliance. The source of the weapons was not clear.
Ali Garaare, an alliance commander, said hundreds of new fighters have joined the force.
"Our leaders used to pay us $60 dollars (a month), but after the formation of the new anti-terrorism alliance they increased our salary to $160," Garaare said.
Most Somalis live on less than $1 a day and the country has few natural resources, making it one of the poorest countries on earth.
Somalis with connections to the alliance have said that U.S. officials have frequently visited Mohamed Dhere, a governor in the new administration, and other alliance leaders.
Aweys said he believes they are CIA agents who have financed the alliances sudden increase in cash, a rumor widely accepted among Somalis.
The CIA declined to comment on any matter concerning Somalia.
There have also been rumors of U.S. troops from neighboring Djibouti operating in Somalia. The U.S. official said the reports of military personnel in Somalia are untrue, but would not go any further.
The official did say that U.S. officials have met with many community leaders and provided them with information about al-Qaida suspects living in Somalia and have asked them to expel such people from the country.
Dhere, who along with other alliance leaders declined to speak to the AP, told his troops on Monday to prepare for battle.
"You must prepare yourselves for a real war against terrorism," local journalists quoted him as saying in the central town of Jowhar.
"When you cut a camels neck, you know it struggles for its life as it kicks everywhere, and thats what these terrorists are doing ... get ready for your last blow against terrorism, we will have to eradicate them from our Somali soil."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:41 ||
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#1
Somalia is place of power stragle and gready,I belive every one specially the war-lords in mogadishu would go high and low to get grip of power and personal regognision.they change their stories so often so quick and they lie every single time, for example,ask one war lord 'if there is a weapons of mass distractions in Somalia? the answer is so easy regardless the consiquency He will simply point his finger on samewhere, to the same, those who are saying they are fighting with Al-qaida in mogadishu today are punch of liers who are expecting some cash from the rich guys whether He is from the USA USSR or from SS of hitler the Nazis, Let alone al-qaida or al-bachini the game of money search is on top agenda of any group of war-lords in somalia.
I would there fore advice any one not to be fooled by those gangs who has been killing and shelling somali civilians in their thousands for more then 15 years.
we the Somalians will held responsible for any one who rewards those war-lord for their evil act and doings.
#2
Piss on the MSM. Most of Somalia is peaceful. The MSM focuses on the battle for UN dispensed goodies in the south around Mog. Most 'Somalias' have got them out of the United Nations imposed and created debacle called Somalia. Google Puntland and Somaliland.
#3
I don't think anybody's fooled by the warlords and their gangs. Any alliance with or support to any side in Somalia would be a purely tactical measure.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006 10:36
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#4
somalia is one of the east african islamic country and westrn countries do not want see there is a government, that is why they are giving cash money and weapons to the warlords who wants to distroy our country.we all know there no al-qaida in somali but american fooling all the world.
#6
It is unfortunate that U.S is backing Some Somali warlords to shed innocent blood in one of the poorist country in the world for the cause of what they called "the war on terror". But what is more humilating is that some American government officails are meeting with Somali clans, while there is a newly formed government in the country , to help them capture men who are among Somalis are the "liberators", the Islamic courts leaders. It is not only humilatinting, but it is irresponsible to think that way. This act is unfortunately underminding the little hope that many Somelis dream off; they will come to us one day to rescue us from the murdering warlords but not to revenge from what happend in 1991; the Mission for Restoring Hope in Somali.
#7
we all know there no al-qaida in somali but american fooling all the world
Yeah its all a smokescreen. The US desires to keep Somalia a failed state so they can complete their imperialistic hegemony and take control of their drought stricken agricultural and livestock goldmine.
#10
It is unfortunate that the U.S is backing Some Somali warlords to shed innocent blood in one of the poorist country in the world for the cause of what it called "the war on terror". Remember, the fun you are giving out to these guys with the fake organization; "counter terrorism" is going to be used against innocent civilians. What you have granted them is painful enough to see six month olders blown by the unaimed explodig bullets. But what is more aganizing is that some American government officails are meeting with Somali subclans elders and related politicans to that clan while there is a newly formed government in the country , to help them capture men who are among Somalis are the "liberators", the Islamic courts leaders. It is not only humilatinting, but it is irresponsible for the U.S government to think that way. This act is definately underminding the little hope that many Somalis have dreamed off; "they will come to us one day to rescue us from the murdering warlords" but not to revenge from what happend in 1991; the so called Mission for Restoring Hope in Somali. If you(the U.S) are not liberating us from these guys, let's the Islamic Courts worriors alone teach them a lesson. Look! they have already stared the first two classes, and the warlords are good learners!
#11
US must not help the people who kill,rape and terrorise the innocent people who are stuck in Mugadishu and can not defend themselves. Instead It should work with the current government and most Somalia who are willing to end this senseless bloodshed.U.S government must not provide financial assisstance these warlords who clearly committed crime against Humanity,in its place US should help bring these warlords to justice and answer the crime they committed last 15 years.
#12
we've washed our hands of Somalians and their lovely capitol. Black Hawk Down and all that. The only thing we should be doing is making sure it doesn't poison teh rest of the region by becoming even more of a haven for AQ and pirates. Let them rot for all their ingratitude
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 12:41
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#13
Suggesting that there are Al-Qaida in Somalia is Ridiculous, because majority of Al-Qaida Gangs are from Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Two Nation that are investing Millions to destroy Somalia.
Tens of Thousands of Somalis were tortured every year in that two Al-Qaida nations, innocent somali women seeking Refuge in those two Al-Qaida Nation were rapedthen killed by mostly Yemeni Authorities.
Any Somalian who for any reason sympathizes Al-Qaida seem to be mentally un fit .
America Should wake up and focus the Activities of newly formed Sana Alliance whose whole purpose is to misled the World about links between Yemeni Government and Al-Qaida.
Sana Alliance Consist of Nations that has no regard to human life nations such as Yemen, Sudan,Ethiopia and Murder Somali warlord Turned President of Somalia Abdullah Yusuf.
Al-qaida has settled down in Ethiopia for the Sole reason Yemeni Nationals control the wealth of devastated nation of Ethiopia, and their warlord Prime minster needs cash to Suppress the democratic voices against his ill fated Regime.
America should open their eyes before it is too late
#14
The U.S., under UN auspices, came to Somalia in response to the suffering of the Somali people. We got dead Rangers out of it, and the Somalis got to dance in the streets rejoicing. So Somalia's not going to get a lot of sympathy from the U.S. today, no matter how many pictures of starving children are published. Been there, done that.
If you're incapable of establishing a government in Mogadishu, that's a Somali problem. Somehow Somaliland and Puntland manage a modicum of stability, but it seems to be beyond the grasp of the inhabitants of the capital. That's too bad for them, but it's not our fault.
If you can't run your country, maybe you should think hard about asking somebody else to take over. I'd advise against the Belgians or the Italians, but the Brits might be talked into running things if you ask nicely.
You can sneer all you want at the "war on terror," but it seems to me that in Mogadishu terror's won. You surrendered. We'll keep fighting.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006 12:51
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#15
Oh yes, a sleeping, snoring America. Why do they all hate us so. All we want is a little rest.
#16
Has the world knows that America Created Al-Qaida and keeps functioning to date.
Americans Suggested that AlQaida was involved in 1991 fight between Elite American Troops of U.S. Rangers and Militias Loyal to Late General Aidid may God Bless his Soul.
Somalis Categorically Deny that there was any AlQaida involvement of that horrible war in which more than 15.000 Innocent Somali Civilians Lost Their Lives and caused the nation to Loose the hope, thus making the so called "Operation Restore Hope" into Operation Of no hope.
America Handed a well written Resume and curriculum vitae to Alqaida and in particular to Usama Bin Laden when they gave them credit of fighting alongside with aAidid Militias back in 1991.
it is no Secret Somali Militias are better fighters than Al-Qaida or any stinky scary Arabs across the universe.
Furthermore American Foreign diplomats and Military Generals based in Neighbouring Djibouti are on the process of creating another fictional AlQaida Figure a crazy murderer and Rapist individual residing Mogadishu with Backing of his Looting sub-clan Of Eyr - Habargidir the So Called Hassan Dahir Aweys a Psycho who loves to be in the Spot light who along side with his sub clan Eyrlooting the Wealth of Somalia and raping yaung girls.
America is giving this Psycopath what he hoped to have a free media coverage in which otherwise would have been impossible, The only support he enjoys is that of his sub clan even the Rest of Habar gidir Clan portay him as psycho who has no formal education and lags the characteristic symbol of True Muslim Somali Sheikh.
Somalis in General Oppose any cat of killing Innocent Life not to mention a suicide mission, which is the main principle of AlQaida.
Our Religion prohibited any Act of suicide killings.
#18
The United States is preparing to wage a NUCLEAR WAR on IRAN as of today (April 19th 2006) according to CNN. What do we expect from the US in other HAOT SPOTS of the world to do? BACK Child mpllesters and mureders on the pretext of WAR ON TERROR!!!!!! As an Ameircan Citizzen of Somali origin I am appaled and dismayyed on the current policies towards Somalia by the Budh Administration.
Posted by: Ali ||
04/10/2006 14:00
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#19
Our Religion prohibited any Act of suicide killings.
Yes sir no doubt about it. Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya is just another peace loving benevolence organization
#21
A U.S. official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said prominent al-Qaida leaders with large cash bounties on their heads are under the protection of the extremist leaders in Mogadishu. He did not name them, but eight men wanted in the embassy bombings are on the FBI most wanted list.
Not a wise thing to do, aligning yourselves with people who bomb US embassies. Not at this point in history.
#22
"The United States is preparing to wage a NUCLEAR WAR on IRAN as of today (April 19th 2006) according to CNN."
Well, you can be comforted by the fact that the United States would not waste a nuclear weapon on Somalia. In fact, Somalia is not worth the life of one soldier - from anywhere.
#23
I wonder how jourlists like Daynile wrote this article, I thought the editors of this newspaper were well intelligent enought. But that needs to think again for many peaple.
I hope that our people, Somalian, would think enough before they write or say something on media.
thanks
#24
America or shall i say Bush are providing alot of money for anti terrorist projects ever gready person is profiting from it, it become very good busniss and american administration will believe if you bring alein and told them he is al-ch top terrorist from midle east probably they will say they have his file and they were fallowing him so its not supprise the somali warlds are claiming that there are terrorist in somali infact the only people who is been terrorising the nation for 15yrs are the warlords we are the most unforginate people in the world our goverment is made of full of terrorist and yet they calling the the rest of the somalis terrorist and usa is funding them this is new blind world order either you agree or your a terrosist which means you will be killed and your killer will be rewarded
#25
Somalia, as you may know is muslim country and there is no centeral system since 1991 because of the power imbalance of the wold, it is real that Somalia lost its government without foriegn forces attacked it, but know Somalis suffer becaus outsiders donot want to see them standig allone, US can deny any direct misslead of Somalis but US officials cross thier hands over Ethiopia to take thier revenge from poor Somalis who tought them uneasy lessons killing 18 soldiers from them in 1994 , so far, they want to take care about thier recent bussiness cose they think that some Al-qaeda leaders stay in somalia ( let us see the winner ).
The problems will be neighbouring for somalis because it is the stupid warlords who unkindly fulfill the US/Ethiopian constant killing of somali civilians in Mogadishu.
Whatever the case in somalia may be, the end product will be a central goverment that keeps the situation normal ( the dream of Somali civil people ) and it w'll come soon insha Allah... let America try to kick it from them... it w'll be its collapse.
The BBC says that the Sanaa alliance is a regional alliance that will attempt to combat terrorism in the Horn of Africa. Now, here. Their opinion is that assertions about the Coalition existing to fight terrorism are absurd because the three nations (Yemen, Etheopia, and Sudan) that comprise it maintain strong ties, one way on another, with terrorism, either through state terrorism or by providing all sorts of support to the elements that have strong connections with Al-Qaida organization led by Osama Bin Ladin.
Sounds true. Sounds screwed up beyond belief. Sounds, in short, like Africa. Unfortunately for the truly innocent in places like your home nation, The United States government has grown extremely wary of (and hostile to) ungovernable nations like Somalia and Afghanistan, which have a nasty tendency to produce and export terrorists, pirates, and genocidal maniacs of all kinds. Did I mention the word export? Thats why other nations get interested in places like Somalia, not (sadly) because terrible things happen there.
Now, dont get me wrong: the Sanaa Alliance sounds like a hypocritical excuse for its member states to pursue their dubious agendas under the guise of combating terrorism. But who, exactly, is our military is our military supposed to work with if not these clowns? If they are at least SAYING the right words. Maybe - just maybe - with a lot of prodding from the US, Britain, and France, they will start DOING the right thing as well. I understand that, given the nature and history of Africa, this is extremely unlikely, but its probably the best chance The Horn has.
What do you want out of us, anyhow? We can extend our influence to many places, but we cant police the entire world, you know.
#28
Hassan: Thats a little incoherent but sounds accurate, if somewhat biased.
Kasim: Very few Americans dream of revenge against Somalia. Very few of us want to have anything to do with Somalia at all. No offense but, really, who does?
#29
The world is witnessing a history in Making whether you believe it or Not.
No doubt the Collapse of American Imperial Power is near, and will Follow the Same bath other Evil Empires such as the soviet and the Nazis.
It does not take to be genius to see the similarities between the three for Sure America will follow similar bath taken by both Soviet and nazi led Germans, and for sure Bush is making it happen faster than anticipated.
Only God knows about The things that are going to happen in the future humans can Only Predict, and hope my predictions will become reality sooner than later.
Posted by: Simon ||
04/10/2006 19:17
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#30
Kasim, for my part I would love to see Somalia be an independent, successful country with a functioning government. Both for the sake of the Somalis and because such a government could then be held accountable for choices about whom to shelter.
It's not Somali strength that concerns me, it's their current weakness that is fostering instability, pirate attacks on ships etc.
#34
First off, the article says it is the Ethiopians that are arming and supplying the one Somali faction. Ethiopia has literal shiploads of old Soviet weapons just laying around in old military bases, from their years of civil war. Ethiopia also has a major border with Somalia and naked self-interest involved in preventing some Islamist/Maahdist movement from springing up in Somalia. Also for funding, 10 thousand troops at $200 American a month comes to 2 million dollars a month, or $24 million a year. Ethiopia may not have much money but that is a wise investment for them.
And since we are cooperating with the Ethiopians against terrorism, the money could easily be theirs that was freed up by American counter-terrorism funding.
#35
America is doomed and have no sympathy from the rest of the world, a nation that rely on fiction rather than Facts , a nation that briests Molest Young Boys rather than Protecting, a nation that is worth less and bankrupt due to the arrogance of their Rulers. a nation that is believed to be Democratic but suppress the Peace Loving People anad all intellectuals, a nation that love to be called Intelligence but became idiotic in nature.
Ever watched a movie Dumb and Dumber with James Carey and Jeff Daniels (Both Canadian Actors), the movie was hit funny and Actors wer hillaious.
My Point is the movie makes a lot of money in the Box office and helped the two canadian Actors gain more movie deal because of their Talent.
Before the Movie Producers introduce this Movie to these two Poor canadian Actors they asked couple of dozen American born Actors for the roles,Yet they came up empty handed because no American wanted to portray themselves as dumb or dumber because America believes they are intellectually superior than the rest of the world, not realizing that it is better for the rest of the world to notice the American IQ rather than Americans spending millions of dollars to convince the rest of the world they are intellectuals.
Wanna Know some thing America ! You are Idiots and dump that is why Americans are talking lately about controversial issue of intelligence Design.
Humans for sure can neither develop inteligence nor they can design or Alter, only God Can do All those things, humans can nourture childs brain while they are growing , but America Choose wrong way and instead molest babies rather than nourturing, This is why Americans sided with Somali Warlord in the conflict between them and Islamic Courts .
Americans Sees similarities between Mogadishu warlords and Americans which is kill babies rather nourturing.
Mogadishu Warlords kill more babies than any other group in this world including Al-qaida, the only group I might say killed more kid than Mogadishu warlord are American soldierd in Iraq and Afghanistan, surprised, I bet not.....
#36
Do not bleave the the what the Somali worlods want to gain through the international war of terrorism. they want to get a finnancial support from United States and after 16years of civilwar Somali worlods still want to create instability in Somali Capital to fool the world that they er feitghing with Al-Qaida, but the riallity is that Somali Worlords er more worse then Al-Qaida and they er more brutal.
#37
Secret master aked what do you want from us, meaning what Somali's want from US, response is nothing, we warry much about Aids Invested American Soldiers that are spreading the disease in the Corners of the World .
Somalia refused to become like Phillipines where American Soldiers Enjoy Molesting 7 years Old babies, and leave with them the agony of living with Aids for the rest of their lives.
Somalia Choose to Live dignity rather than living with thw agony of seeing American Soldier molesting their precious children.
Now it is time for Somalis to Protect their innocent children From Americans and Mogadishu warlords.
Posted by: Aj JAma ||
04/10/2006 20:56
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#38
very nice - same IP? Same low intellect and idiocy. You're entitled to live in that sh*thole, I wouldn't want you to ever leave.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 21:08
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#39
Blame America/Europe/Jews all you want. But it was good Allah fearing Somalis who are killing little Somali babies and raping Somali women and boys. It was mohammed's finest Somali home grown that starved to death hundreds of thousands of Somalis. It is those raised in the islamic sewers of Somalia that can't neither have morals or organizational ability to provide safety, food, shelter, water. Yes my fat Somali refugee, more islam is the answer. Cut off more hands and the food will rain from the heavens like mannna. Bump your head 5 times a day and angels will descend to smite the infidels, the source of all evil. Islam is the answer to backed up sewers. If only Somalis spent more time in the masjid and less time in the fields, working, fixing things, enforcing law, studying.
The best thing America can do is seal the coast from all western aid and watch in fascination as a whole nation recreates the screenplay of Mad Max. We can even show UAV video on Imax, then cheer when Ethiopia takes over and converts what's left of a stupid people duped by a murderous 1400 year old cult.
Personally, Yow et al., I await the day Americans finally have enough, round up and hang the mohammed worshipping butt pirates like you.
Posted by: ed ||
04/10/2006 21:17
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#40
you forgot the green drool.....nice
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 21:22
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#41
That was masterful, ed. Bravo!
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/10/2006 21:25
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#42
to Shieldwolf , you seem to be lagging the intelligence to understand what Ethiopians are and their way of living, i would suggest you to go to libraries and search the true meaning of word Abyss (Abyssinia).
I was not surprised Americans relying on ethiopians for their ill fated mission of destroying Somalia .
It takes to make a visit to Addisababa to find out who ethiopians Are, there is A somali proverb saying :
" Those who help themselves can help the others"
Since Ever humans remember Ethiopians were panhandlers to whom ever have some pennies in their Pockets.
History showed Ethiopians regardless who sided with them can not with stand with Somali fightersbecause of these reasons:
Etiopians do not function in the night time including fighting, a very simple example is that Ethiopians do not use washrooms inthe night time , they rather Boo and Bee inside their bedroom for the fearof an unseen Creatures(Jinn) they claim to use the facilities in the night time.
1977 war between Somalia and Ethiopia Somali Military succeeded to Capture All of the Somali Land handed over to Ethiopia by U.K.in less than 6 months, untill Warsaw Pact sided with Ethiopia because they did not want see the end of filthy living Ethiopians, while America who supposedly helping Somalidue to the Cold war between then Soviet Union and USAkeep silent and enjoyed to see the wounds inflicted to Somalians by the Russians and Cubans, thus indicating Americans Care no friends but religion as your articlr indicated .
As a strong muslim believer i will die defending my religion .
No secret Americans are fighting against Islamic religion, terrorism has become synanamous and excuse .
If america want to Help Ethiopia there are easy venues to do so:
First and for most help ethiopians to learn a good Hygiene, you will suffocaye surely standing out side of the balcony of your hotal room.
Teach them to brush their Teethand take a shower for at least once a day.
Teach them not to sell prostitutes in the hotels and ask them to fight Aids rather than spreading into the society and beg the world for Assitance.
Ethiopia is the only nation in the Universe that had a fertile land Yet their Poeople starved on Purpose by their Government to secure donations from weary donor countries.
All the stuff I mentioned above is fact that I experienced on my last visit to Ethiopian Capital Addisababa.
It is time for the world to tell Ethiopia Enough is Enough no more hand outs become a self relying Society snd dig the farm land for the crop to feed your own children rather than starving them,
Posted by: Ina Aw baahalow ||
04/10/2006 21:35
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#43
mods,
were these *visitors* all screened? did they pass all the RB hygine/med tests?
#44
Ah, yes. Famine, clan warfare, and Sunni-flavored Islam. Clearly the Americans' fault. I'm sure that Somalia was a paradise before the United States came to exist in 1776. A thousand years of paradise until we wrecked it. Not a care in the world other than risk of capture by Arabian slavers.
Seriously, Ina Aw baahalow et al, the difference between your ancestors and my ancestors is that mine abandoned what didn't work for them and moved on to build better lives based on better principles. Hanging out in a desert and being submissive to a 7th-century religous death cult was just not their style.
It doesn't seem to be working for you either, does it?
#45
Before the Movie Producers introduce this Movie to these two Poor canadian Actors they asked couple of dozen American born Actors for the roles,Yet they came up empty handed because no American wanted to portray themselves as dumb or dumber because America believes they are intellectually superior than the rest of the world,
Have you taken a good, hard look at any of our actors lately? It strains the imagination to believe that any of them would hesitate for a moment to portray themselves as dumb or dumber because America believes they are intellectually superior than the rest of the world. Honestly, I doubt that more than 1% of our population has ever considered themselves intellectually superior to, say, the Japanese. Youve got us all wrong.
You are Idiots and dump that is why Americans are talking lately about controversial issue of intelligence Design.Humans for sure can neither develop inteligence nor they can design or Alter, only God Can do All those things, humans can nourture childs brain while they are growing , but America Choose wrong way and instead molest babies rather than nourturing
Uh, was I just trying to reason with you? Man, youre right: I am stupid! Hay, moderators, its sink trap time. Make the trolls go back under the bridge until they stop posting things like -
Somalia refused to become like Phillipines where American Soldiers Enjoy Molesting 7 years Old babies, and leave with them the agony of living with Aids for the rest of their lives.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 22:32
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#48
Ah, another delusional Somali crowing about another "Mother of All Battles" victory. "Liberated" a weakened post-Selasie Ethiopian territory in the same way the Japanese "liberated" the Pilipines. At least the Japanese held out for 4 years. The cowardly Somalis dropped their weapons and ran back to buggering little boys in Mogadishu in less than one year. The biggest damage Somalis did to Ethiopians was to get the Ethiopia to adopt Communism in response.
Somalia was a backward province of Ethiopia and will be once again. This time there will no Italians to take the beachfront property away from the Ethiopians. Dont forget, baahalow. Ethiopian Mass is on Sundays. Be there, or be an infidel.
Posted by: ed ||
04/10/2006 22:49
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#49
Im proud to say Somalia belongs to Somalis and the truth is Somalis always survive and one day goodness will prevails over evil. No matter White House supports the warlords in Mogadishu or not.
American government want Somalia to be unstable country and to keep our people dump. Western countries always are the enemy of Islam and also American interest in Somalia is not Al-Qaida. Somalia has natural resources and the second largest uranium holder after Australia as well as Oil and etc. American using and supporting other governments that share borders with us to make Somalia not to be a peaceful place just like Lebanons support from Syria.
In history Somalis are warriors not matter who they fighting against and in 1977 Somalia occupied Ethiopia and seized most of the country 7 million Vs 67 million its obvious we can do it again until last Somali man standing we are natural born killers without the help from any country. Ethiopia got help from Russia, Cuba and other communist countries otherwise Ethiopia would be part of Somalia and dont forget Black Hawk Down as well. No matter how advance technology American troops had. You need to have a Heart to fight. My question is why American supporting warlords why they dont go to Somalia?
This comment goes to every Black Man specially African Man Niggaz with knowledge is more dangerous than than niggaz with guns instead of helping their community and giving something back to the community they abandoning their community Where is the Doctors, Teachers, Scientist, Pilots and Rich Africans they investing or working outside Africa and not looking back where they came from and also its clear that our educated and our leaders using the wealth of the African continent with their personal use and becoming dictators.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is seeking to deepen ties with Iran, with discussions on holding joint military exercises and obtaining uranium, according to Bush administration officials.
Hamas also is talking to Caracas about sending representatives to Venezuela to raise money for the militant group's newly elected Palestinian government.
But relations with another ally, Russia, have soured over a deal in which Moscow is selling 100,000 AK-47s to Venezuela. The South American country was counting on receiving new rifles, but Russia has shipped a number of refurbished models, prompting Caracas to halt the deal, the U.S. sources said.
Mr. Chavez's continuing efforts to cozy up to Iran are of increasing concern inside the Pentagon and State Department.
Mr. Chavez yesterday threatened to expel the U.S. ambassador, after accusing the diplomat of provoking tensions, according to reporters in Caracas. The threat came two days after pro-Chavez demonstrators tossed eggs, fruit and vegetables at Ambassador William Brownfield's car and the State Department warned Venezuela that it faced consequences if it did not protect the U.S. envoy.
The Washington Times reported in October that the Chavez government had made overtures to Iran about obtaining nuclear technology. The U.S. and European allies are now trying to force Tehran to give up its stated ambition to enrich uranium, a possible first step to building nuclear weapons.
U.S. officials told The Times that talks now include discussions on Venezuela's obtaining uranium for what is feared to be a fledgling nuclear program in Caracas.
"Hugo Chavez has been clearly talking to Iran about uranium," said a senior administration official, who asked not to be named.
The official said he could not confirm reports that Venezuela wants to buy uranium from Iran.
Having made several trips to Iran, Mr. Chavez has declared solidarity with the country's hard-line mullahs and has entertained Iranian officials in Caracas as he seeks to build an anti-U.S. axis that also includes Fidel Castro's Cuba.
Mr. Chavez has endorsed Tehran's nuclear ambitions, and voiced support for the terror insurgency in Iraq.
"I am on the offensive," Mr. Chavez said on the Arab-language Al Jazeera television network, according to a British Broadcasting Corp. translation, "because attack is the best form of defense. We are waging an offensive battle."
Venezuela, the No. 3 U.S. oil supplier, would have to build a nuclear program from the ground up, and there have been press reports in Latin America that Mr. Chavez wants to buy a reactor from Argentina.
A spokeswoman at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington referred questions to Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez Herrera, who was not available for comment. Mr. Alvarez denied to The Times last year that Venezuela was supporting insurgencies in South America and that Venezuela bought the 100,000 AK-47s from Russia "because of defensive purposes for the country."
The Times reported last year that the State Department had formally protested the rifle deal to Moscow. The fear is Mr. Chavez's left-wing regime is arming neighborhood militias trained by Cuba to enforce a Stalinist-like security apparatus, while putting used rifles on the black market for South American insurgents.
The Web site Strategypage.com reported last week on the refurbished AK-47s.
The senior administration official said he believes the report is true and probably stems from corruption on both ends of the deal.
"Throughout the Venezuelan government, there is a complete lack of accountability because Chavez has destroyed the institutions of accountability," the official said. "He's trying to centralize everything to himself."
A State Department official said the administration is also concerned about the overtures Venezuela is making toward Hamas, the militant organization that executes terror attacks on Israel and recently won Palestinian parliamentary elections.
"We certainly are concerned about the ongoing relationship with Venezuela and a number of countries of concern, not just Iran, but Hamas and others," the official said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:39 ||
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I thought Hugo had uranium in Venezuela. And why Iran when Brazil has plenty also? Has Hugo alienated Lula already?
#6
Hugo: We know the Sov AK buy went badly, but let us recommend a few Chinese Xinhou-60 aircraft. Don't forget to sign the spares agreement, it's only a few bolivars more. Check with Bob Mugabe a well known, Xinhou satisfied customer.
#8
So what's up with the deal with Russia supplying Venezuela with refurbished AKs instead of new ones? What did Russia have in mind? I would imagine that the Purchase Order said new ones, give 'em new ones. A 100K units is still a nice order, so why try to piss off your customer? This makes no sense.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/10/2006 17:02
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What are they going to do, buy American?
And Doc, yes, Hugo has alienated Lula. His puppet in Bolivia basically rewrote the contracts for Petrobras so they couldn't affford to extract natural gas from the deposits around Santa Cruz anymore.
I don't know what Lula was expecting from Chavez. Then again, I don't know what Chavez was expecting from Putin.
Isn't the modern left wonderful to watch from a distance? (Like, say, Saturn?)
After more than two years of delays and rampant speculation about his findings, a Spanish judge is expected to issue indictments early this week in connection with the March 11, 2004, train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people and wounded at least 1,000.
The bombings, the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of Western Europe since the downing of a Pan American Airlines flight over Scotland in 1988, have led to the arrests of about 120 people and the provisional jailing of 24.
It is not clear how many will be indicted. Local news reports estimate that the number of indictments will be between 30 and 40.
The judge handling the case, Juan del Olmo, has shunned publicity throughout the investigation, hardly speaking with the press and keeping much of his work from public view.
Still, the broad outlines of his conclusions are evident in several of his provisional court filings, which attribute the attacks to Islamic radicals, most of them Moroccans and many with ties to Al Qaeda.
According to the filings, the group appears to have come together in Spain, initially under the guidance of a Syrian named Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, also known as Abu Dahdah, who was convicted by a Spanish court in September of conspiring to commit the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and of leading a cell of Al Qaeda in Spain.
After Yarkas was arrested in 2001, leadership of the group eventually passed to a younger radical, a former Tunisian graduate student in economics named Sarhane Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet, who in early 2003 began calling for an attack on Spain in part because of its support of American policies toward Iraq, the documents say.
Fakhet and his co-leader, Jamal Ahmidan, the man who investigators have called the operational head of the cell, blew themselves up along with five other members of the group when their apartment near Madrid was surrounded by the Spanish police about three weeks after the train bombings.
Investigators working with del Olmo say that practically all of the principal members of the group are now dead or in custody, and that they have unraveled most of what the group did in the days leading up to the attacks, largely through information gathered from phone records.
What they have not established, at least not publicly, is the existence of a link between the group and the top leadership of Al Qaeda.
Many investigators say that the typically horizontal structure of Islamic terrorist networks suggests that the group probably conceived and carried out the train bombings without any order or message from Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants.
Del Olmo has been publicly criticized by senior judges for the slow pace of his investigation, leading him to set his own deadline of April 10 for issuing the indictments. A court official said that the judge was likely to miss the deadline by a day, suggesting he would publish his findings on Tuesday rather than Monday.
The trial is expected to begin in late summer or in early autumn.
One person has been convicted so far, a minor identified by the initials G.M.V. who pleaded guilty in November 2004 to having helped provide the explosives used in the attacks.
Del Olmo's investigation has been the subject of intense partisan maneuverings almost from the outset.
Members of the center-right Popular Party, which was in power at the time of the attacks, continue to suggest that ETA, the militant Basque separatist group, was involved - a claim they made in the days immediately after the attacks.
The governing Socialists call this reckless disregard for the facts, contending that the Popular Party is trying to fend off criticism that the attacks were a response from Muslim radicals to Spanish support for the American invasion of Iraq.
While being careful not to directly blame the previous government for the attacks, saying that only terrorists are responsible for terrorism, the Socialists have argued that the policy of supporting the invasion of Iraq put Spain at greater risk of attack from Islamic militants.
The police investigators have said repeatedly that there is no evidence indicating that ETA participated in the train bombings.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:37 ||
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"Local news reports estimate that the number of indictments will be between 30 and 40."
Citations and stern letters of reprimand all around. Pay your paltry fine to the clerk as you leave.
The three-star Marine Corps general who was the military's top operations officer before the invasion of Iraq expressed regret, in an essay published Sunday, that he did not more energetically question those who had ordered the nation to war. He also urged active-duty officers to speak out now if they had doubts about the war.
Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, who retired in late 2002, also called for replacing Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and "many others unwilling to fundamentally change their approach." He is the third retired senior officer in recent weeks to demand that Mr. Rumsfeld step down.
In the essay, in this week's issue of Time magazine, General Newbold wrote, "I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat Al Qaeda."
The decision to invade Iraq, he wrote, "was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions or bury the results."
Though some active-duty officers will say in private that they disagree with Mr. Rumsfeld's handling of Iraq, none have spoken out publicly. They attribute their silence to respect for civilian control of the military, as set in the Constitution but some also say they know it would be professional suicide to speak up.
"The officer corps is willing to sacrifice their lives for their country, but not their careers," said one combat veteran who says the Pentagon's civilian leadership made serious mistakes in Iraq, but has declined to voice his concerns for attribution.
Many officers who served in Iraq also say privately that regardless of flawed war planning or early mistakes by civilian and military officers, the American public would hold the current officer corps responsible for failure in Iraq. These officers do not want to discuss doubts about the mission publicly now. General Newbold acknowledged these issues, saying he decided to go public only after "the encouragement of some still in positions of military leadership" and in order to "offer a challenge to those still in uniform."
A leader's responsibility "is to give voice to those who can't or don't have the opportunity to speak," General Newbold wrote. "Enlisted members of the armed forces swear their oath to those appointed over them; an officer swears an oath not to a person but to the Constitution. The distinction is important."
General Newbold served as director of operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2000 through the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the war in Afghanistan. He left military service in late 2002, as the Defense Department was deep into planning for the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"I retired from the military four months before the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's tragedy to hijack our security policy," General Newbold wrote.
His generation of officers thought it had learned from Vietnam that "we must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it," General Newbold wrote.
The "consequence of the military's quiescence" in the current environment, he wrote, "was that a fundamentally flawed plan was executed for an invented war, while pursuing the real enemy, Al Qaeda, became a secondary effort."
A senior Pentagon official on Mr. Rumsfeld's staff said Sunday that the Pentagon leadership provided ample opportunity for senior officers to voice concerns.
"It is hard for the secretary and the rest of the policy leadership to understand the situation if they are not getting good, unvarnished advice from military commanders," the civilian official said.
While General Newbold said he did not accept the rationale for invading Iraq, he wrote that "a precipitous withdrawal would be a mistake" because it would tell the nation's adversaries that "America can be defeated, and thus increase the chances of future conflicts."
General Newbold's essay follows one on March 19, by another retired officer, Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who commanded the training of Iraqi security forces in the year after Baghdad fell. General Eaton wrote an Op-Ed article in The New York Times criticizing Mr. Rumsfeld's management of the war, adding, "President Bush should accept the offer to resign that Mr. Rumsfeld says he has tendered more than once."
When asked about that essay, President Bush rejected the call to dismiss Mr. Rumsfeld, repeating as he often has that he was satisfied with Mr. Rumsfeld's performance.
On April 2, Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, who previously led the military's Central Command, responsible for operations in the Middle East, said in a television interview that Mr. Rumsfeld, among others, should be held accountable for mistakes in Iraq and that he should step down.
General Newbold has been quoted previously describing his concerns about Iraq planning, including in "Cobra II," a book by Michael R. Gordon, chief military correspondent for The New York Times, and Bernard E. Trainor, a retired Marine lieutenant general who is a former military correspondent for the newspaper. In the book General Newbold is described telling fellow officers that he considered the focus on Iraq to be a strategic blunder and a distraction from the real counterterror effort. He is also quoted as expressing concern about Mr. Rumsfeld's influence on war planning, in particular his emphasis on assigning fewer troops to the invasion.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:35 ||
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#2
Ninny-Zinni, Weasly Clark and now this Notbold. Scratch their brass and you'll find Clintonian pot metal underneath it.
All of these guys were in the inner circle under Clinton, were told that they were losing their high positions when Rummy took over (civilian control of the military was still in the Constitution last time I checked).
Weasly Clark ran for Pres as a Hellary seat-warmer financed by the Clintons and their wing of the (D)onks, and now we get the books from the others who have been under rocks since the war started.
Next to join the cabal will be the former USAF Chief of Staff Merrill McPrick, the bonehead that made USAF officers dress like waiter captains.
McPeak was the one who reorganized the USAF to get rid of the Strategic Air Command, figgering we would have no use for strategic nukes ever again.
Then along comes Iran, North Korea, and maybe now Venezuala eventually. Whadda maroon!
Bah! But...it's better to have all these maroons in one club where we can keep an eye on 'em.
#3
Rvrdog-
I've been waiting for Red Mike McPeak to open his big mouth as well, but there is the liklihood that his own actions were so egregious that any protest on his part will be run right into the dirt.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/10/2006 6:51
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Amazing how big these guys balls get when they're out of the chain of command. At least Shinseki spoke up on the job and has kept his mouth shut since. My only fear is that Clinton got to the colonels as well as the generals. Any vets got opinions about how deeply Clintonism is in the high command?
#5
I'm in the process of reading Clancy's(with Gen.Fred Franks)"Into the Storm(a study in command). Gen.Franks commanded VII Corps.
It's primarily about GW1,but goes into great detail about the rebuilding of the U.S.Army after Vietnam.This is a very good read,I highly recommend it.
#6
The troops really lost faith in McPeak when he tried to make them wear Navy uniforms. This all puts me in mind of the Bing Crosby song from White Christmas, "What can you do with a general"
When the war was over, why, there were jobs galore
For the G.I. Josephs who were in the war
But for generals things were not so grand
And it's not so hard to understand
[Refrain:]
What can you do with a general
When he stops being a general?
Oh, what can you do with a general who retires?
Who's got a job for a general
When he stops being a general?
They all get a job but a general no one hires
They fill his chest with medals while he's across the foam
And they spread the crimson carpet when he comes marching home
The next day someone hollers when he comes into view
"Here comes the general" and they all say "General who?"
They're delighted that he came
But they can't recall his name
Nobody thinks of assigning him
When they stop wining and dining him
It seems this country never has enjoyed
So many one and two and three and four star generals
Unemployed
#7
"I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat Al Qaeda."But now that I have my retirement pay in hand and I know fir sure I ain't gonna get that 4th star, I can say whichever I wants. Semper somethin.
#8
All the yahoos were Clinton "yes" men and ball lickers. No real fight to 'em. Not surprised they are crying like the babies they are now that they don't have to worry about being early retired.
I got out when these jokers came into power. They, and Clinton screwed up the military so fast it made my head spin.
So long suckers, and don't let the door hit you in the ass.
#9
Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, was a MISERABLE FAILURE by all standards - look at the mess we had to clean up after he left - Gen Abazaid bascially had to completely redesign and reimplment the training process Eaton was in charge of, it was WORSE than starting from scratchin that they had to UNDO the damage Eaton and his policies had left. Eaton made rank kissing ass politically under Clinton.
And don't get me started on McPeak, that dick. Nor Clark, a friggen showbaoter who made things a lot worse in the whole ops of KFOR with this prima donna behavior.
As for Fred Franks (Tom Clancy book), I served indirectly under him in GW-1 (2ACR, corps asset), he was a good, if cautious, general. As did Col MacMaster Tal-Afar fame, commander of the 3ACR today (who was in 2ACR, 2nd squadron as a LT I recall, in GW1).
Notice they dont say anything about the 3 dozen or so other retired generals in recent years who back up the invasion, but are not out braying about it.
#11
Hmm three (or maybe a dozen) retired gernerals out of 100s don't agree with Rummey and thats the ones that get coverage? FYI Shinseki had already put in his paperwork to retire before he stated any disagreement.
#12
Now, if he was a retired general who favored the war and the SoD, do you think he would have gotten any pub in Time or the other MSM?
I just hope there is enough arm chairs on the sets for ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. for all these disgruntled retired generals.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/10/2006 11:16
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#13
The General expresses regret but doesn't offer to bear any of the consequences of his self-confessed screwup. Tell you what, General: If you really think you screwed up, donate half of your retirement pay to the families of Marines who died while you held rank. Or at least drop and give the nation twenty. But maybe you're just putting your hat in the ring for the number two spot on Hillary's ticket.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/10/2006 12:09
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#14
You know when the time came around, Eisenhower was promoted from below a good number of generals. If Rummy can id a good Marshall who can select people like Col MacMaster to fast track and get beyond the Clinton era crowd, doing away with the usual good o'boy club, we'd be far better served.
#15
I don't know why the MSM is counting, because it's not decided by a vote.
"we must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it,"
So he retired? That's not even standing by quietly.
The decision to invade Iraq "was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions or bury the results."
Not only was he not privy enough to the decision making to make such a claim, but he retired when he could have stayed to provide four critical months of expertise and influence.
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." -- Thomas Paine
I have a signed copy of that book. I was an escort officer for (ret) GEN Franks and driving him around was like have audio tapes of that book. He asked what my security clearance was and the stories got better. A great man.
The press would have you believe that many amputees from this war are the first to re-enter military service. Not true. (ret) GEN Franks lost one of his legs in Vietnamn and fough his way back to military service.
But like you said, the book is highly reccomended.
#17
GEN Clark is a straight up asshat. If Monica sucked the Presidents dick, Wesley was tounging his balls for an appointment as the EUCOM Commander. There was not one damn soldier in Europe that liked him.
He was a politician before being a military officer.... and we saw through that.
One might contrast this with the UK, which apparently has 400-600 known al-Qaeda members operating within its borders and doesn't appear to be making any serious efforts to remove them.
THE Howard Government will launch an investigation into why an alleged senior al-Qaeda bagman was allowed into Australia a decade ago and whether he lied to immigration authorities about his past.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation will also examine information revealed in The Weekend Australian on Saturday about Ahmad al-Hamwi and allegations that he had supplied funds for terrorists across South-East Asia.
An Immigration Department spokeswoman said the case files of Mr Hamwi, who was found living in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Riverwood last week, would be reopened and examined to determine if he had committed citizenship fraud.
Mr Hamwi, also known by his alias Abu Omar, told the Refugee Review Tribunal in 1996 he had no involvement in terrorism and failed to mention a residency in Turkey. Philippines National Police intelligence reports allege that he had been banned from Turkey for his suspected involvement in a 1986 bombing.
The Weekend Australian revealed on Saturday that Mr Hamwi was the director of an Islamic charity that US and Philippines counter-terrorist officials say was a conduit for funding an al-Qaeda cell in Manila planning a major terrorist attack on US airliners and an assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II in 1995.
Philippines National Police intelligence reports also say the charity funded the Philippines terrorist group Abu Sayef and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
The spokeswoman said if there was enough evidence to show Mr Hamwi had committed immigration fraud his citizenship or residency in Australia could be revoked.
"We would have to establish there was a case to answer, then it would be referred to the Australian Federal Police," she said.
A spokeswoman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said the information contained in the story would be of interest to security agencies. "Anything that goes to national security is not something that the Attorney would comment on, his view would be that if there are people of a security concern, our agencies would obviously be concerned and investigating that," Mr Ruddock's spokeswoman said.
"At this stage they're reports, that information is now obviously in the public domain and clearly available to security agencies."
A spokesman for Opposition national security spokesman Arch Bevis said the federal Government had to explain why a person with close ties to Osama bin Laden had been given refuge in Australia.
"The Government's handling of immigration and asylum matters has seen some Australians deported whilst people close to terrorists remain at large here in Australia," he said.
The Weekend Australian put detailed questions to Mr Hamwi but he repeatedly refused to respond.
Mr Hamwi admitted to the Refugee Review Tribunal that he was the director of the International Research and Information Centre (IRIC) in Manila from 1993 to 1995.
According to terrorism researcher Zachary Abuza and Philippines National Police counter-terrorist investigator Rodolfo Mendoza, he was part of a three-man team at the charity, which was the chief conduit of funds to 1993 World Trade Centre bomber Ramzi Yousef. Yousef was planning to blow up 11 US airliners over the Pacific in 1995 when an accidental explosion in his apartment alerted Philippines police to the plot, known as Operation Bojinka, and the related plot to assassinate John Paul II.
Mr Hamwi became involved in the charity through his brother-in-law and former flatmate, Mohammed Jamal Khalifa - who is Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law - and was sent to the Philippines by the world's most wanted man to establish a Southeast Asian arm to his worldwide terrorist network.
The pair lived together for years and married Filipina sisters, Nora and Alice.
For Khalifa, this was one of two wives - his other wife is Osama bin Laden's older sister.
One of the other men involved with the IRIC was Wali Khan Amin Shah, a close associate of bin Laden who became a key planner in the Bojinka plot. Wali Khan was arrested in February 1995. He was later convicted along with Yousef. He has since co-operated with US authorities.
Mr Mendoza's investigation fingered Mr Hamwi for providing funding to Yousef for his terrorist activities through an intermediary, Carol Santiago (who revealed his name during interrogation), and her boyfriend, Wali Khan.
Mr Hamwi was questioned but never arrested for his role in the plot. Philippines officials were ill-prepared to round up all the suspects, who soon fled the country. Mr Hamwi fled to Australia just months after the discovery of the plot.
Former ASIS spy Warren Reed said allowing Mr Hamwi into the country was a "potentially dangerous situation".
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:32 ||
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It should perhaps be noted that the writer is the author of a book called "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq." How the hell do you "villainize" a man who decapitates people in his spare time? The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The documents state that the U.S. campaign aims to turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, by playing on their perceived dislike of foreigners. U.S. authorities claim some success with that effort, noting that some tribal Iraqi insurgents have attacked Zarqawi loyalists.
For the past two years, U.S. military leaders have been using Iraqi media and other outlets in Baghdad to publicize Zarqawi's role in the insurgency. The documents explicitly list the "U.S. Home Audience" as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.
Some senior intelligence officers believe Zarqawi's role may have been overemphasized by the propaganda campaign, which has included leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, Internet postings and at least one leak to an American journalist. Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted deadly bombing attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an Army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., last summer.
In a transcript of the meeting, Harvey said, "Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will -- made him more important than he really is, in some ways."
"The long-term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but these former regime types and their friends," said Harvey, who did not return phone calls seeking comment on his remarks.
There has been a running argument among specialists in Iraq about how much significance to assign to Zarqawi, who spent seven years in prison in Jordan for attempting to overthrow the government there. After his release he spent time in Pakistan and Afghanistan before moving his base of operations to Iraq. He has been sentenced to death in absentia for planning the 2002 assassination of U.S. diplomat Lawrence Foley in Jordan. U.S. authorities have said he is responsible for dozens of deaths in Iraq and have placed a $25 million bounty on his head.
Recently there have been unconfirmed reports of a possible rift between Zarqawi and the parent al-Qaeda organization that may have resulted in his being demoted or cut loose. Last week, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said that it was unclear what was happening between Zarqawi and al-Qaeda. "It may be that he's not being fired at all, but that he is being focused on the military side of the al-Qaeda effort and he's being asked to leave more of a political side possibly to others, because of some disagreements within al-Qaeda," he said.
The military's propaganda program largely has been aimed at Iraqis, but seems to have spilled over into the U.S. media. One briefing slide about U.S. "strategic communications" in Iraq, prepared for Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top U.S. commander in Iraq, describes the "home audience" as one of six major targets of the American side of the war.
That slide, created by Casey's subordinates, does not specifically state that U.S. citizens were being targeted by the effort, but other sections of the briefings indicate that there were direct military efforts to use the U.S. media to affect views of the war. One slide in the same briefing, for example, noted that a "selective leak" about Zarqawi was made to Dexter Filkins, a New York Times reporter based in Baghdad. Filkins's resulting article, about a letter supposedly written by Zarqawi and boasting of suicide attacks in Iraq, ran on the Times front page on Feb. 9, 2004.
Leaks to reporters from U.S. officials in Iraq are common, but official evidence of a propaganda operation using an American reporter is rare.
Filkins, reached by e-mail, said that he was not told at the time that there was a psychological operations campaign aimed at Zarqawi, but said he assumed that the military was releasing the letter "because it had decided it was in its best interest to have it publicized." No special conditions were placed upon him in being briefed on its contents, he said. He said he was skeptical about the document's authenticity then, and remains so now, and so at the time tried to confirm its authenticity with officials outside the U.S. military.
"There was no attempt to manipulate the press," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the U.S. military's chief spokesman when the propaganda campaign began in 2004, said in an interview Friday. "We trusted Dexter to write an accurate story, and we gave him a good scoop."
Another briefing slide states that after U.S. commanders ordered that the atrocities of Saddam Hussein's government be publicized, U.S. psychological operations soldiers produced a video disc that not only was widely disseminated inside Iraq, but also was "seen on Fox News."
U.S. military policy is not to aim psychological operations at Americans, said Army Col. James A. Treadwell, who commanded the U.S. military psyops unit in Iraq in 2003. "It is ingrained in U.S.: You don't psyop Americans. We just don't do it," said Treadwell. He said he left Iraq before the Zarqawi program began but was later told about it.
"When we provided stuff, it was all in Arabic," and aimed at the Iraqi and Arab media, said another military officer familiar with the program, who spoke on background because he is not supposed to speak to reporters.
But this officer said that the Zarqawi campaign "probably raised his profile in the American press's view."
With satellite television, e-mail and the Internet, it is impossible to prevent some carryover from propaganda campaigns overseas into the U.S. media, said Treadwell, who is now director of a new project at the U.S. Special Operations Command that focuses on "trans-regional" media issues. Such carryover is "not blowback, it's bleed-over," he said. "There's always going to be a certain amount of bleed-over with the global information environment."
The Zarqawi program was not related to another effort, led by the Lincoln Group, a U.S. consulting firm, to place pro-U.S. articles in Iraq newspapers, according to the officer familiar with the program who spoke on background.
It is difficult to determine how much has been spent on the Zarqawi campaign, which began two years ago and is believed to be ongoing. U.S. propaganda efforts in Iraq in 2004 cost $24 million, but that included extensive building of offices and residences for troops involved, as well as radio broadcasts and distribution of thousands of leaflets with Zarqawi's face on them, said the officer speaking on background.
The Zarqawi campaign is discussed in several of the internal military documents. "Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response," one U.S. military briefing from 2004 stated. It listed three methods: "Media operations," "Special Ops (626)" (a reference to Task Force 626, an elite U.S. military unit assigned primarily to hunt in Iraq for senior officials in Hussein's government) and "PSYOP," the U.S. military term for propaganda work.
One internal briefing, produced by the U.S. military headquarters in Iraq, said that Kimmitt had concluded that, "The Zarqawi PSYOP program is the most successful information campaign to date.
Kimmitt is now the senior planner on the staff of the Central Command that directs operations in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East. In 2003 and 2004, he coordinated public affairs, information operations and psychological operations in Iraq -- though he said in an interview the internal briefing must be mistaken because he did not actually run the psychological operations and could not speak for them.
Kimmitt said, "There was clearly an information campaign to raise the public awareness of who Zarqawi was, primarily for the Iraqi audience but also with the international audience."
A goal of the campaign was to drive a wedge into the insurgency by emphasizing Zarqawi's terrorist acts and foreign origin, said officers familiar with the program. "Through aggressive Strategic Communications, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi now represents: Terrorism in Iraq/Foreign Fighters in Iraq/Suffering of Iraqi People (Infrastructure Attacks)/Denial of Iraqi Aspirations," the same briefing asserts.
Officials said one indication that the campaign worked is that over the past several months, there have been reports that Iraqi tribal insurgents have attacked Zarqawi loyalists, especially in the culturally conservative province of Anbar. "What we're finding is indeed the people of al-Anbar -- Fallujah and Ramadi, specifically -- have decided to turn against terrorists and foreign fighters," Maj. Gen Rick Lynch, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad, said in February.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/10/2006
02:27 ||
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#1
Dan asked: "How the hell do you "villainize" a man who decapitates people in his spare time?"
Well, it's right in the source documents: "Villainize Zarqawi/leverage xenophobia response," one U.S. military briefing from 2004 stated.
While al Qaeda's been a useful source of meat, the main force beind the Iraqi insurgency has been... Iraqis. Specifically, local baathists.
#2
My god. I'm stunned by this! I guess he's just misunderstood eh - a misguided criminal. Sheesh i've heard it all now. Next up 'How Hitler was Unfairly Treated'.
#4
How the hell do you "villainize" a man who decapitates people in his spare time?
Good question. But here's another one: how the hell are we supposed to win this war-- or any war, for that matter-- with the media churning out an endless torrent of anti-American propaganda?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/10/2006 5:52
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#5
And here I thought Zarqawi villainized Zarqawi ...
#7
Rofl, yeah what a great man he came to fight for the Iraqis and hes done nothing but blow them up, yay, what a fckin hero! All whilst ignoring the fact he isn't even an Iraqi! whos interfering now eh troll?
#9
Besides when this whole middle eastern conflict goes thermonuclear the likes of Zarq will cease to be of any concern to anyone. Rofl. Much bigger fish to fry next door and all this talk of Zarq and his fellow clowns will cease to be relevent.
#10
other sections of the briefings indicate that there were direct military efforts to use the U.S. media to affect views of the war. One slide in the same briefing, for example, noted that a "selective leak" about Zarqawi was made to Dexter Filkins, a New York Times reporter based in Baghdad. Filkins's resulting article, about a letter supposedly written by Zarqawi and boasting of suicide attacks in Iraq, ran on the Times front page on Feb. 9, 2004.
Leaks to reporters from U.S. officials in Iraq are common, but official evidence of a propaganda operation using an American reporter is rare
It's a good thing those noble reporters are far too smart to ever act as the American military's propaganda tools...
#11
How much more pathetic can you get, seeking internal scapegoats even at a stage when the external enemies are as plain to see as your country's impotency and/or unwillingness to fight them?
I'll resist the temptation to go on a major rant at this comment and restrict myself to noting that whenever the Left doesn't want to address an issue, it (specifically you) change the subject and throw out a statement so vague and filled with non-specific innuedos that no one can criticise it.
So, Aris, what exactly are the threats and what do you propose be done about it?
Otherwise, (since .com is not around) it's just your personal wankfest.
#13
Zarqawi SHOULD be focused on, because his work with Ansar al-Islam, sponsored by Saddam, was a serious threat to the West before we ever went into Iraq.
Google "ricin" and "apartment" .... reports were that the specific formula of ricin found in both Paris and London was characteristic of that produced by Saddam's mukhabarat -- and the cookbooks for it were found when US special ops guys and the peshmerga overran the Ansar camps early in the war.
That's one small detail among many that make the case that the tie between Saddam's regime, al Qaeda and planned terror actions is stronger than some would like to admit.
#14
There has been a running argument among specialists in Iraq about how much significance to assign to Zarqawi, who spent seven years in prison in Jordan for attempting to overthrow the government there. After his release he spent time in Pakistan and Afghanistan before moving his base of operations to Iraq.
Hmmm. The timeline here seems to be lacking something here. WHICH years did he spend in jug in Jordan, HOW MUCH time did he spend in Pakland/Afghanland, WHEN did he travel to Iraq and WHY?
Oh, I'm sorry, this story is about the military manipulating the gullible if well-meaning press corps.
Presenter: Another man who had his head decapitated was Stig O' Tracy.
Interviewer: I've been told Abu Musab al-Zarqawi decapitated you.
Stig: No. Never. He was a smashing bloke. He used to buy his mother flowers and that. He was like a brother to me.
Interviewer: But the police have film of Zarqawi cutting off your head.
Stig: (pause) Oh yeah, he did that.
Interviewer: Why?
Stig: Well he had to, didn't he? I mean there was nothing else he could do, be fair. I had transgressed the unwritten sura.
Interviewer: What had you done?
Stig: Er... well he didn't tell me that, but he gave me his word that it was the case, and that's good enough for me with old Zarqi. I mean, he didn't want to cut my head off. I had to insist. He wanted to let me off. He'd do anything for you, Zarqawi would.
Interviewer: And you don't bear him a grudge?
Stig: A grudge! Old Zarqi? He's a real darling.
"The long-term threat is not Zarqawi or religious extremists, but these former regime types and their friends," said Harvey, who did not return phone calls seeking comment on his remarks.
Ummmm ... No. Religious extremists constitute the major threat in both Iraq (Zarq isn't fomenting that civil war all by his little ol' self) and the Global War on Terrorism. Yet another terminal case of rectal-cranial insertion.
#18
Thanks to Zenster -- I just saw that Monty Python skit the other evening! And truth be told, that skit, and many others, are right on target and are as true today as they were 30 years ago. MP understood media and manipulation as well as anyone.
#19
I found a trace of unintended (I'm sure) humor in Ricks' article. This foolish author believes there needs to be a concerted effort to "turn Iraqis against Abu Musab al-Zarqawi."
Even a novice knows that Zarqawi is viewed as an evil cockroach by Iraqis.
It seems the only one who needs to be convinced of Zarqawi's evil is the author.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/10/2006 11:11
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And yo! moderators, why am I unbanned again? I won't get any *less* obnoxious, I promise you that.
Makes one wonder why he keeps checking to see if he can slip through. What emptiness.
#21
We are not "seeking internal scapegoats", Aris. We are seeking to not be undermined by our own people and to not to be undermined by "news" media that are far less than objective than they should be. Much of the media seems to have lost the distinction between "reporting" and "editorializing", perhaps because editors are more interested in wielding political influence than in doing the "Journalism 101" part of their jobs. If journalism was a licensed profession that was regulated the way law and medicine and engineering and even hair styling are regulated, then many of these editors would lose their licenses.
#22
Finally, *finally* demand that Sadr is declared a terrorist outlaw on par with Zarqawi or stop supporting with your troops a villainous Shiite leadership that keeps such a murderer in its pocket as a useful reserve. They must either abandon him or you must abandon *them* to their fate. Have them choose.
Hard to argue with that part, Aris. Many around here have been saying the same thing for quite some time, myself included.
#25
Fred's the only one with keys to the troll cabinet. Us mods can toss trolls in but can't fish 'em out. Any un-bannings are strictly at the site owner's discretion.
#28
Villainizing a Villain is Villain². This is getting too convoluted for me. Zark, as well as Tater need to go, and the rest is mega minutae.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/10/2006 16:40
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#29
I'm sure it's the media's fault that the whole of Iraq is infiltrated by Iran's agents. Sadr, SCIRI,
Iraq's Ministry of the Interior, the Iranian stooges' vile actions are all the fault of CNN, BBC and Time magazine.
How much more pathetic can you get, seeking internal scapegoats even at a stage when the external enemies are as plain to see as your country's impotency and/or unwillingness to fight them?
Saddam's eldest daughter praised her uncle, Barzan Ibrahim, and the others on trial with her father as "Iraq's real men," in an interview aired Sunday on pan-Arab satellite network Al-Arabiya. "My uncle Barzan has been remarkable in court, very courageous and a real hero," Raghad said. "He has clarified the wrong impression that was made about Iraqi men. Those who surround my father, they what could be called Iraq's real men, the honorable image that represents our country."
Oh yaasssss, honorable indeed ...
Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half brother, appeared in one court session in February dressed only in an undershirt and long underwear, struggling with guards as he was pulled into the courtroom. The former chief of intelligence then sat on the floor with his back to the judge in protest for much of the session.
Raghad, who has been living in Amman, Jordan, with her sister, Rana, and their children since August 2003, said she believed most Iraqis were not happy with the trial, and those who acted pleased "were chosen by a certain party to reach a certain goal."
Too bad your husband couldn't join you. Oh, right ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/10/2006
00:36 ||
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#1
Redacted by moderator. Comments may be redacted for trolling, violation of standards of good manners, or plain stupidity. Please correct the condition that applies and try again. Contents may be viewed in the sinktrap. Further violations may result in
banning.
#3
Some people need a confrontation with Conan swinging an axehandle. It clears up all the confusion between reality and the lala land some people live in.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/10/2006 19:33
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AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Saddam Hussein's lawyers are denied the same rights and resources as the prosecutors in his trial, a U.S.-based legal adviser to the deposed Iraqi leader said Sunday.
Curtis Doebbler said Saddam's legal team is at a disadvantage compared with the prosecution, which he said has spent $300 million and has "hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops and dozens of American lawyers to assist them." "All these resources have been deployed to collect evidence for more than two years" to build a case against Saddam, he said in a statement e-mailed by the Jordan-based defense team to The Associated Press.
By contrast, Doebbler said, Saddam's defense team "consists of volunteer lawyers without adequate resources or the ability to find experts (or) adequate witnesses." He said the defense cannot visit the sites of the alleged crimes "because of the state of insecurity in Iraq."
So have your 'client' call off the insurgents.
Doebbler, a Washington-based law professor specializing in international law, said the non-Iraqi lawyers for the defense "cannot even enter Iraq to visit their clients regularly." In Iraq, Saddam's attorneys are "held under virtual house arrest without access to telephones, faxes, computers, books, or any adequate facilities to do their work," he said. "Even their legal notes are read and only papers approved by American officials can be passed to their clients."
Golly, that's a shame.
He rebuked human rights groups without citing any by name, saying they had failed to protest the conditions of Saddam's trial. "It is quite incredible that the international community silently watches a process that continues to violate more and more human rights," he said.
They were more silent when Saddam was in charge.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/10/2006
00:29 ||
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last I heard, there were over a thousand lawyers working on Saddam's case. I'd say he's lawyered up.
DOHA, Qatar, April 9 (UPI) -- Kuwaiti researcher Abdullah al-Nufaisi told a seminar in Doha, Qatar, that Saudi Arabia is preparing a nuclear program, the Middle East Newsline reported. He said Saudi scientists were urging the government to launch a nuclear project, but had not yet received approval from the ruling family.
So they're not joining the club tomorrow.
Riyadh denies any intention to establish a nuclear energy program, but Gulf sources told the Middle East Newsline Saudi officials have been discussing a nuclear research and development program -- and that the program would be aided by Pakistan and other Riyadh allies.
Khhaaaaaaan!
"Saudi Arabia will not watch as its neighbors develop nuclear weapons," a Gulf source said. "It's a matter of time until a Saudi nuclear program begins."
A matter of time, and intel, and scientists, and facilities, and technicians, and ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/10/2006
00:25 ||
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"Saudi Arabia will not watch as its neighbors develop nuclear weapons"
Fine and dandy. Be sure to turn your heads when we blast the snot out of Iran.
#2
A close to ideal non-proliferation agreement could be reached with nuclear-coveting 3rd world countries: pebble bed reactors.
Simply put, pebble beds are ceramic balls with radioactive material mixed in. They lie on a floor with indentations in it, like hundreds of eggs in cartons. They need miminal technical support and give off a fixed amount of heat.
Advantages are that they are smaller power plants, cannot become supercritical or meltdown, and are built over a deep pit, so that when the balls are exhausted, they drop straight down for permanent disposal--no reprocessing needed.
Though they produce enough energy for commercial use, they do not produce enough to enrich plutonium, and no other weapons grade isotopes are produced in their use.
This solves one big problem: if a country says it wants nuclear power for peaceful uses, then pebble bed reactors are the way to go. If it wants weapons, then it wants more conventional reactors.
The technology for pebble beds is easier than conventional reactors, and China is planning to produces hundreds of them. So there really is no excuse, or effective pretense that the larger, more powerful reactors are needed.
In fact, if the Chinese are successful with their reactors, pebble beds would be much more economical for the US to use in the future, now that most of our nuclear plants are far beyond their projected useful lifespans. Practically speaking, a typical US State could have one or two, and the more populous States could have half a dozen each.
Tehran, Iran, Apr. 09 A senior Iranian cleric was shot and seriously wounded and two army officers were killed by gunmen in the restive province of Sistan-va-Baluchistan, south-east Iran, a semi-official daily reported on Sunday.
Hojjatoleslam Youssif Mohammadi-Soleimani, the representative of Irans Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the Centre for Higher Education in Iranshahr, was gunned down Friday evening by an individual on a motorbike, the hard-line daily Jomhouri Islami wrote. Mohammadi-Soleimani was shot five times, the report said, adding that he was seriously wounded.
Pray for sepsis.
On Saturday, six armed individuals kidnapped a local oil official, identified as Eshaq Nezamdoust, outside his home.
The report added that in two separate incidents, two army officers identified as Mostafa Ahmadi and Behzad Gholi-Pour were killed by insurgents. Considering the fact that Sistan-va-Baluchistan Province has land and sea borders stretching thousands of kilometres with Pakistan and Afghanistan where American and British military forces are based, in order to create lasting security and relieve the people here of fear, officials must act quickly to reduce damages as a result of insecurity, the daily added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/10/2006
00:22 ||
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Shot the cleric right in the ol' south-east region, eh? Sounds painful.
#2
was gunned down Friday evening by an individual on a motorbike,
Probably a Grobdeutschland courier with Schmizer and a little too much time on his hands. Used to see them practicing near Tolz all the time. Bursts of 3-5, low, leg shots were the norm, barrel under the handle bars for increased control.
BAGHDAD - Iraqs acting speaker of parliament said on Sunday he would call on the assembly to convene in the next few days, raising the possibility that political deadlock over a new prime minister may be broken. The Iraqi people are impatiently waiting for this issue to be resolved. When the parliament convenes it will be possible to start the steps to form a national unity government, Adnan Pachachi told a news conference.
His announcement was the first public sign of a possible breakthrough for Shia, Kurdish and Sunni leaders who are struggling to form a unity government four months after parliamentary elections. Pachachi did not say whether the assembly would vote on a prime minister and there was no suggestion that Ibrahim Al Jaafari would finally agree to widespread calls for him to step aside as the main Shia Alliances nominee.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/10/2006
00:21 ||
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YANGON, Myanmar - Former Foreign Minister Win Aung has been sentenced to seven years in jail by a special court after being charged with misuse of authority by the ruling military regime, family sources said on Sunday.
Kind of a light sentence for a prominent former regime member; they usually get tossed into an open grave.
The family source, who demanded anonymity for fear of retribution by authorities, said Win Aung was being held in Yangons Insein prison. They did not specify the date of the verdict.
At a press briefing on Sunday, police chief Brig. Gen. Khin Yi confirmed sentence had been passed on Win Aung but declined to elaborate. The sources said Win Aung was arrested last October and his trial began early this year on charges connected to the sale of an imported car.
Previously a military intelligence colonel and a former ambassador to the United Kingdom, Win Aung became foreign minister in 1988. Win Aung was known to have been close to ex-Prime Minister Gen. Khin Nyunt, who was given a 44-year suspended sentence in July last year on charges including bribery and corruption. A number of other close associates area also serving jail terms in what was seen as a power struggle within the ruling junta.
The current junta has something to look forward to when they lose the next power struggle.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/10/2006
00:09 ||
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A Saudi foundation plans to launch next year a private university it hopes will help reform the strict Muslim kingdoms much-criticised education system. The whole reason for Al Faisal university is . . . to cause a change in Saudi Arabia, you can only do it with education, said Prince Bandar bin Saud bin Khalid al-Saud, deputy managing director of the King Faisal Foundation. We look at education as an agent of change in Saudi Arabia.
The reform of education in the kingdom, which follows an austere version of Islam, has been under debate since the Sept 11 attacks on US cities, carried out mainly by Saudis. Local and Western critics say the education system fosters the radical Islam espoused by militants. They say schools and universities also do not arm young Saudis with the right skills to get a job in a country with a rapidly growing native population.
Prince Bandar said the university enjoyed the support of authorities to become the benchmark for other universities in Saudi Arabia. Costing hundreds of millions of dollars, it will focus on sciences and will not offer courses in Islamic or social studies. We will teach engineering, medicine, science and business technology . . . Al Faisal should be like the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) or the Cambridge of the Middle East, he told Reuters in an interview late on Saturday.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006
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"Al Faisal should be like the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) or the Cambridge of the Middle East"
Maybe MIT should send them Noam Chomsky? You know, for "authenticity"?
Critics of the Bush administration have expressed alarm over reports that the president is considering a military strike to knock out Iran's nuclear programme. Anthony Zinni, a retired general and former head of US Central Command, told CNN on Sunday that a pre-emptive strike on Iran would be extremely risky "Any military plan involving Iran is going to be very difficult. We should not fool ourselves to think it will just be a strike and then it will be over," said Zinni.
Actually, that's precisely what we should do: Strike them to take out the nuclear facilities and decapitate the ayatollahs, use ground troops only if necessary, and then leave it to the Iranians to clean up the mess, with the proviso that we'll hit them again if they don't.
"The Iranians will retaliate, and they have many possibilities in an area where there are many vulnerabilities, from our troop positions to the oil and gas in the region that can be interrupted, to attacks on Israel, to the conduct of terrorism."
And we have an equally wide range of options available to us. We don't have to waste time or resources occupying them, and without the ayatollahs' regime Israel becomes safer and the Shiite strain of terrorism loses its drivers. It'll wither and die.
But he said he had no detailed knowledge of the alleged military plans.
So what's his bitch?
John Kerry, a democratic senator and former presidential contender, also assailed the White House for what he said was its over reliance on military might. "That is another example of the shoot-from-the-hip, cowboy diplomacy of this administration. For us to think about exploding tactical nuclear weapons in some way is the height of irresponsibility. It would be destructive to any non-proliferation efforts and the military assessment is: It would not work," he told NBC television.
The only people who've talked about using tactical nuclear weapons are Seymour Hersch and a few other people whose opinions don't count. Bush hasn't been waving nukes and we don't need them. Our military has the capability to take out the Iranian regime just as quickly as we threw Sammy out. And after our experience in Iraq, I don't think we'll be as squeamish about inflicting large numbers of casualties on the enemy.
Both men made their remarks after the publication of two media reports this weekend that said George Bush, the US president, was seriously considering military action against Iran, including using nuclear weapons, amid a stalemate in diplomatic efforts.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006
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#2
There are no magical secret Iranian weapons. This is a state-of-the-art professional force against a Vietnam Era force commanded by Stone Age lunatics. It will be a wildly uneven contest, in our favor - if it comes.
President Bush faces a tough choice - and that doesn't come from the Mullahs' insanity - it comes from the weasels who infest our Congress, "think tanks", "international organizations", and their media co-conspirators. Despite the media drumbeat of articles like this, the US public seems to understand at the moment, as recent polls have clearly demonstrated, that Iran is a serious threat and a reckoning must surely come.
Public concern is just one of many concurrently rising and falling component indices -- so timing is everything. Those who demand their personal schedules must be accommodated will likely be unhappy. I find them amusing. Bush surely finds them irrelevant. As irrelevant as the restrictions against acting to end a threat to the security of the US, of Israel, of Europe, of the Gulf region.
He will accept the challenges that land on his desk during his tenure. He is not a cowardly populist. Bush will act.
#3
MadMoud = Kimmie = Chavez, etc > all demand their nations be invaded so that they can engage in asymmetric , alleged "People's War" against US imperialism when what they're really doing is supporting anti-American Americans and thier similar "Creeping Communism/Socialism" within America itself, where the Fed takes over everything domestically while failing overseas. Be it Arabs-Isreali Wars or Saddam per se, defeat after defeat has shown that the enemy's most costly or advanced Commie Bloc assets were no match for even elderly/primitive/obsolescing US assets. NO AMERICA SHOULD BE AFRAID OR ASHAMED OF WAR, NUKE WAR, OR EVEN THE DRAFT BECUZ AMERICA-ALLIES MUST EITHER RULE THE WORLD, OR BE DESTROYED, IFF ONLY BECUZ AMER'S ENEMIES ARE GIVING THEMSELVES THE SAME BASIC CHOICES.
#6
I am beginning to think we should send troops into Iran to just whip their ass and to leave calling cards so they don't forget we mean business. The Civil War wasn't over till Sherman waltzed through Georgia and South Carolina. We should do the same to Persia. Then we should withdraw to the Arab and Kurd parts which should be united with their Iraqi kin when that place dismembers.
We're going to have to Shermanize some country over there. Iran now, Pakistan later, unfortunately Saudi, probably, never.
#9
No. I'm keeping it as a memento of what could have been.
Posted by: Sen. Bill Frist ||
04/10/2006 12:28
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#10
Bush said today that Hersch's article was "wild speculation". He also said that the US goal was that Iran not have nukes, not have the capability to build nukes, and not have the knowledge to build nukes. That's a pretty big hint that if an attack comes it will be such that Iran will never be able to reconstitute.
#12
We need a good show of "Shock and Awe" - complete with massive B-52 raids over cities. We need to show to the entire world just what kind of damage we CAN inflict, if we choose.
Take out the Silkworm and Scud units.
Take out the airfields and aircraft.
Take out every military installation on the map.
Take out every building that we think might even
POSSIBLY be involved with nuke weapons.
Take out every place where we know the mad mullahs
of islam hide out.
Take out anything else that looks like it could
be a military target.
Take out all their ports and harbors and oil
export facilities.
THEN sit down with the survivors and discuss their "nuclear" program, and a bunch more.
It's called "negotiating from a position of strength", and it gets the attention of your adversaries. If they refuse to change, THEN you use nukes to clean up the mess.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/10/2006 18:47
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#13
Actually, that's precisely what we should do: Strike them to take out the nuclear facilities and decapitate the ayatollahs, use ground troops only if necessary, and then leave it to the Iranians to clean up the mess, with the proviso that we'll hit them again if they don't.
And saddest of all is how Saudi Arabia needs a mega-@ss-whupping the mostest.
Old Patriot, it's nice to see we're finally starting to see eye-to-eye. We've got you over to using nukes during phase II of Iran's behavioral modification. That's a huge improvement over first use. As to your own order of battle, what's not to like?
#14
and take out our old embassy in Tehran, then side trips to unload remainders over South Lebanon and Bekaa on way home
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/10/2006 19:52
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and take out our old embassy in Tehran
Absolutely right, Frank. Those b@stards have it set up like some Madame Tussand's Waxworks of American Imperialist Humiliation. Imagine what a surprise it would be for that day's gawking crowd of gloaters when the whole place comes apart at the seams. Use white phosphorus to eliminate all traces.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006
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#1
Hamid Karzai in India: Well, we are very happy in Afghanistan with India helping us in a manner that is not expected,
India went out of its way to provide us with great economic assistance. Indias help is reaching up to $600 million. It has helped us in all walks of life,
Karzai has a through command of English..so these wordz were carefully chosen to be purposful.
now Ima no Diplo, but these wordz are a bank shot to Perv, a not to subtle hint..
'Since you no f*ckie respect our frontiers, we nogonna f*ckie respect you or urn nither'!
#2
Very simple: let's dream that Afgahanistan succeds and becomes richer than Pakistan. What happens? Pashtuns from the NWFP would remind that the Durand traety has expired and would try to seced in order to join Afghanistan. If it were only for that reason (and there are many others) Pakistan has all interest in keeping Afghanistan as a failed state. And that means that any Afghan who sincerely loves his country (and is not completely brainwashed by the "We are all Muslims" BS) will look for an alliance with the enemies of Pakistan.
IRAQI pilots who flew in Saddam Husseins air force are being targeted by armed militias in an apparent witch-hunt against veterans who fought in the war against Iran two decades ago. According to official military statistics, 182 former pilots and 416 senior military officers had been killed by the beginning of January 2006 as part of the campaign. At least 836 pilots and high-ranking military officials have fled to neighbouring Arab states. Many of the assassinations have been blamed on militias from the Shiite Badr Brigade who were trained and financed by Iran and who now form the backbone of Iraqs police and special forces.
A delegation of more than 1,000 members of the former military elite mainly from the Sunni minority appealed recently to President Jalal Talabani to intervene to end the attacks. The officers and their families have accused Iran of inciting Iraqs Shiite militias to carry out acts of vengeance. The organised nature of the attacks has reinforced their claims that elements within the Iranian-backed government are behind the attacks. Anyone who participated in the former war against Iraq is now a target, not knowing when the death sentence will be carried out against him, said the brother of Imad Mohammed Marhoon, a pilot assassinated last December. We cannot escape and we are unable to defend ourselves. We are the walking dead.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006
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Iran inciting violence and death?
Say it ain't so!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/10/2006 0:17
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The Baathist ex-military officers have been funding and organizing the insurgency and the terror campaign against the Shiites. Cough up the arms and explosives caches, the couriers, the account numbers, the recruiters, the contacts in Syria and KSA, the trainers, the infiltrators, the safe houses, and the propaganda teams, and I'm sure that some sort of protection can be arranged.
#4
Whoa, easy WXJAMES!
We have to debate it in the UN for at least another 300 months before we can write them a letter telling them that we don't like what they are doing. Then, come the security council circle jerks and so on. Maybe some day we can bomb them, but that will be a long way down the road. Just look at the Sudan dossier.
#6
Come to think of it, it would be a fine idea for the US to take a bunch of the aircraft from the "Mothball Air Force" in Tucson, which could be fairly cheaply reconditioned in about the same time Iraqi pilots could be trained.
Imagine the Iranians surprise if they woke up one morning and Iraq had a fully operational 300 plane air force? Granted, heavy on transport and reconnaisance aircraft. But in that their older fighter aircraft still sport the latest air-to-air missiles...
DASKA: A schoolgirl escaped unhurt when two boys tried to set her on fire after failing to kidnap her from outside her school in Sayyan village on Saturday. According to the first information report, Muhammad Tahir and his accomplice allegedly tried to kidnap Safina, 15, a resident of Malhowali village, when she came out of her school on Saturday.
When the girl resisted, the accused sprinkled petrol on her and tried to set her ablaze. People came to her rescue, foiling the attempt and saved the girl from being burnt. Later, the accused allegedly tried to throw acid on her face but she remained safe. The accused escaped from the scene threatening the girl of dire consequences, in addition to making announcement to kidnap her at any cost. Satrah police have registered a case, while the accused are still at large. People expressed grave concern over the incident, demanding immediate arrest of the accused.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Flay the skin from their living bodies in public. Keep doing it to teh perps every time this happens and soon it will happen no more.
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/10/2006 0:43
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This is utter nonsense. Anyone, even small children, can pick up a sharpened stick or piece of metal or glass, and perform effective vigilante justice on these perps.
Why they do not do so is the problem. Why no one has ever even suggested they do so is the problem.
Anyone, anywhere, who solely relies on their government for their defense will be a victim.
Iraqi Kurdish leaders have officially informed the main Shia Alliance that their rejection of Ibrahim al-Jaafari as the Alliance nomination for prime minister is final, political sources said on Sunday. The message was delivered by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is also a top Kurdish leader, to a committee from the Alliance, the sources said.
The Alliance, under growing pressure to nominate a replacement to break a deadlock over a unity government, is expected to inform other political blocs of their final decision on Jaafari today (Monday), the sources said. Representatives from the seven factions of the United Iraqi Alliance, the Shia bloc, formed a three member committee to discuss the deadlock over Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari with the Sunni and Kurdish parties to be more certain of the reasons for their opposition, said Shia official Ridha Jawad Taqi earlier on Sunday.
A Shia official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue said al-Jaafaris supporters within his Dawa party and the movement of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr were still insisting on keeping the prime minister as the Shia nominee to head the next government. Sunni politician Saleh al-Mutlaq proposed that the new prime minister be chosen by consensus among all parties, a proposal the Shias are unlikely to accept. The constitution states that the largest bloc in parliament - the Shia alliance - has the right to nominate the prime minister subject to parliamentary approval. Al-Mutlaq said the new government should be made up of independents, nationalists and technocrats from outside the current political parties.
Al-Jaafari has refused to step down. Alliance leaders have been reluctant to force a move against him as long as Dawa and the al-Sadr group stick by their support. Such a move could lead to the breakup of the Shia alliance.
So the Shiite majority, in order to remain a majority, has to remain in thrall to the Shiite minority, led by Tater. That makes him the power broken and coincidentally protects him from getting a thorough thumping from the Americans or the Iraqis. I'm not sure what this says about the political skills of the players in Baghdad, but it's probably not very complimentary.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Right ! In a country where people are killed for having the wrong religion or going to the market on the wrong day, why the hell are they jumping through hoops over this asshat Jaafari ?
Why not just kill the bastard if he won't get out of the way ? I don't get it. We know he's a pawn anyway. We know he's got Iran's interests at heart. Kill him and move on. His 15 minutes are up now.
#2
Speculation. They want to postpone the confrontation with Tater and the Tehran puppets till we attack Iran at which time they will be squashed for their Persian links under cover of our attack on Iran and Iran's counter-attack on Iraq. Better to take them out now militarily, better to take them out then politcially.
Two German hostages held in Iraq have appeared in a video on the Internet pleading for their lives while their kidnappers vow to punish them unless their demands are met. The kidnappers, a group called Ansar al-Tawheed wal Sunna (Followers of Unity and Prophetic Tradition), are demanding the release of all Iraqis held in US-run prisons. The group has also told Germany to stop giving help to the US and Iraqi authorities.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her Government is scrutinising the video of engineers Thomas Nitzschke, 28, and Rene Braeunlich, 32, which was posted on an Islamic Internet site on Sunday. "We will do everything in our power to save the hostages and to bring them back to Germany," she said.
In the 24-second video, dated March 28, Mr Nitzschke pleads with the German Government to save him and Mr Braeunlich. "We have been held captive here for more than 60 days. We are close to breaking point. Please help us. Please help us," he said.
The video shows the two hostages looking haggard and wearing beards. In an accompanying statement the kidnappers threatened: "Know that if our two demands - the release of all Iraqi men and women held in occupation prisons and a halt to all aid to Americans and their agents, including Shiites - are not met, punishment will be meted out quickly. Those of you who help the occupiers, the infidels and the Shiites, know that you and your citizens will not escape the jihadists (holy warriors)."
Posted by: Fred ||
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In the end of all Jihadis have a special place in the firey regions.
Besides with a female chancellor of Germany, the jihadis are in a bad spot cause if the hostages do get free, the warped jihadi bastards will have lost face to a woman...
A Swiss judge has issued an arrest warrant for the former head of Iran's secret police for his role in the killing of a leading Iranian dissident 16 years ago. Ali Fallahian is charged with masterminding the assassination of Kazem Rajavi, a renowned human rights advocate, near Geneva in April 1990. According to a report in Lausanne-based newspaper Le Matin Dimanche, the international arrest warrant was issued by Swiss investigating magistrate Jacques Antenen on March 20. It called on law enforcement agencies to arrest Fallahian who for years headed Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and is currently a security advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and transfer him to the Canton Vaud Prison in Lausanne.
The Swiss foreign ministry confirmed on Sunday that the warrant had been issued. "The Iranian authorities have yet to react to [it]," said spokesman Lars Knuchel, adding that the shooting had been a source of discussion between Bern and the Iranian capital Tehran since 1990. Kazem Rajavi, then the representative of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Switzerland, was gunned down in broad daylight by several MOIS agents on April 24, 1990 as he was driving to his home in Coppet, a village near Geneva.
Two of the hitmen were later discovered in France and arrested by French police. But despite a warrant for their arrest by the Swiss authorities, the French government put them on a direct flight to Tehran "for reasons of the state". This drew international condemnation, including from the United States.
The NCRI charged that Ayatollah Khamenei and former President Rafsanjani were also "directly involved" in ordering the assassination and should be issued international arrest warrants as well. "Thirteen persons were involved in planning and carrying out the murder," Antenen said. "All of them had service passports, marked 'on assignment'. A number of those documents had been issued on the same day in Tehran." The Iranian authorities have always denied any involvement in the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Iranian Fatwa no different than a Mafia contract.
#2
I believe I read a similar article about Amadinajad about the time he was taking office. It was nearly the same as this , only it was Austria that wanted to have a few words with him about killing a dissident.
#2
"A report by influential investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in The New Yorker magazine, citing unnamed current and former officials..."
I find it fascinating that a man of Hershs somewhat dubious accuracy rate can still illicit such high level reactions. There have been similar reports speculating the same scenario yet when Hersh offers his increasingly transparent opinion as news, even government officials are motivated to act in response. His detractors have repeatedly leveled legitimate critiques yet amazingly he continues to maintain credibility with some of the worlds top officials. Go figure.
As MPs gather in Ottawa to discuss Canada's more combative role in southern Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official and coalition commanders painted two disparate images Sunday of where the war is headed. In a weekend interview with The Canadian Press, insurgent spokesman Qari Yuosaf Ahmedi said the Taliban are convinced the resolve of the Canadian people is weak. As suicide attacks and roadside blasts increase, the public will quickly grow weary, he said. We think that when we kill enough Canadians they will quit war and return home, Mr. Ahmedi said in an interview, conducted through a translator, over a satellite telephone.
Given the fact troops are already deployed, Mr. Ahmedi suggested Monday's House of Commons debate as a sign of indecision among Canadians. In addition to his fire-breathing rhetoric, the Taliban's public relations spokesman claimed that the insurgency had recruited 180 suicide bombers for operations in and around Kandahar over the next few weeks. He said they are prepared to attack Canadians any one else, at any place and at any time.
But coalition commanders had a vastly different assessment, painting the Taliban as cornered, marginalized into rural pockets, struggling to raise money and find recruits. The reason we think the Taliban are falling apart is because the pattern of attacks we're seeing is not co-ordinated, said Major Quentin Innis, a Canadian liaison officer with the local community. It may appear there are a lot of attacks going on and those are regretable.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Boyo. You don't understand Canadians at all. You just said the magic words. They are Scotts, Danes, Sweeds and Norkis' with a smattering of Russians and Germans tossed in to an ample pot of French speakers and Englishmen who middle names often are "don't hang you labels on me." They will do the opposite of what you said just to prove you wrong. NFC Mr Taliban Offical. The MP's will piss and moan but they will not back down from the likes of you losers.
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/10/2006 0:38
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Norway has frozen aid to the Palestinian Authority, officials said on Sunday, joining a growing list of countries halting assistance to pressure the new Hamas government to restart negotiations with Israel. Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said that Norway wanted to help bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table "so that we can achieve our goal and the international community's goal -- namely two states that can live side by side in peace."
Posted by: Fred ||
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I think to a degree what is happening is it is dawning on the Europeans that the Paleos are a hopeless cause who will consume ever increasing wads of cash forever. Hamas election gives them a pretext to step back and save their money.
American soldiers in Iraq killed eight suspected anti-US fighters during a raid north of Baghdad on Sunday, the US military said. Clashes erupted when US soldiers surrounded a suspected safehouse and nearby tent on the northern outskirts of Baghdad. Five suspected fighters inside the tent were killed. As firing on the soldiers continued, they called for air support, and three assailants were killed in the ensuing air strike, a military statement said. After the fighting, the US forces discovered bombs and weapons inside the house and detained two suspects. A woman inside the house was wounded when the soldiers entered, but was taken to a hospital and is listed in stable condition, the statement said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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There is a sick side of me who loves that name. But since i have seen Dresden, I do not blame the Allies but the the Soviets for screwing up that city.
The Israeli government says it has severed all ties with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, declaring it a "hostile entity". However, the government will maintain contacts with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, although it has ruled out full peace talks with the leader of the Fatah faction. The decision was announced following a security cabinet meeting on Sunday. In a statement issued after the meeting Ehud Olmert, the acting Israeli prime minister, also said that his government would shun foreign diplomats who meet members of the Hamas administration.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Fred : Alfalfa? I though you'd put the zero surprise meter here. Israel had no quarter with Ham-Ass, and never will.
#5
If I was the Israeli govt, I would first shut off the electric power, since there seems to be no Paleostinian Authority. I would hint at, since there is no longer a Paleostinian Authority, the Israeli govt is not bound by Oslo. However, for humanitarian purposes, the Israeli govt is continuing to provide potable water for _______ days. If a suitable settlement is not agreed upon after this time elapses, where Isreal's security and right to exist are affirmed, then the water goes off. Period. Pound sand and sewage. Action and consequences. Messkit: Meet sh*t.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/10/2006 21:36
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Pakistan has branded an underground militant group operating in the restive southwestern province of Baluchistan a "terrorist" organisation, officials said yesterday. "The federal government has declared Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) as terrorist organisation over its involvement in sabotage and subversive activities," provincial police chief, Chaudhry Mohammad Yaqub, told AFP. He said Baluchistan police had arrested an unspecified number of militants who confessed they had been receiving money and weapons from the group for attacks on government installations. "BLA itself had been claiming responsibility after almost every incident," Yaqub said.
He said now the group was officially a terrorist organisation, its name could not appear in the Pakistani media. The police chief said the group was allegedly led by a provincial deputy, Balach Marri, who was facing several criminal charges including landmine blasts and bomb explosions. "He will now lose his seat in the provincial assembly," he said.
The BLA leader's brother Gazin Marri, who served as provincial home minister from 1993-96, was arrested in Dubai late last month on charges of money laundering, he said. "This confirms our belief that the group had been receiving funds from abroad," Yaqub said without giving details.
Along with some nationalist tribes the BLA has been waging a sporadic revolt in recent years in sparsely populated Baluchistan to win more political rights and a greater share of profits from the region's rich natural resources. The government launched a fresh crackdown in Baluchistan after militants fired rockets in the town of Kohlu during a visit by President Pervez Musharraf last December.
Firing up Perv was a move of singular brilliance, since I don't think they came within a mile of him. Whether they're a terrorist organization or not is another matter. As I've pointed out on a few occasions, there are differences between terrorists and guerrilla organizations, and the BLA fits the latter to a tee. They don't as a matter of policy make war on civilians, keeping for the most part to attacks on military targets and infrastructure. There's a qualitative difference, even given that they're Bugtis and Marris and suchlike primitives, between them and the genuine terrorists infesting North and South Wazoo. They're not the ones lopping off heads and organizing roving bands of fascisti and hanging people. Akbar Bugti's probably got a black belt in evil, but I wouldn't call him a terrorist. A perfidious bastard, yes; a tyrant, yes; a terrorist, no.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A stampede at a religious gathering in Pakistan has left at least 29 people dead, most of them women and children, police say.
I'm sure it's Bush's fault...
The incident occured at the Sunni Muslim Faizan-e-Medina centre in the southern port city of Karachi on Sunday afternoon. As many as 70 others people were injured in the crush, hospital and police officials said. Zahid Hussain, a Karachi police spokesman, said thousands of women were leaving for a rally after attending the gathering to mark the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad, which falls on Tuesday. "A girl was coming out of the mosque ... when she fell down, triggering a stampede," Hussain added. As she fell she had cried out, sparking the panic.
Uhuh. That'll do it, whatever it was...
He said up to 50,000 people, mostly women and children had gathered for the ceremony.
Apparently just waiting to stampede...
A doctor at the state-run Jinnah Post-Graduate Medical Centre, said most of the deaths were caused by internal injuries and suffocation. "Many of the victims are women and children," Dr Simi Jamali said.
That follows, since most of those present were women and children...
Survivors in hospital described how the scene quickly descended into chaos as participants at the ceremony struggled to reach safety. "Women fell on each other as panic spread," one woman said. "It was absolute mayhem. Nobody knew what had happened".
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"A girl was coming out of the mosque ... when she fell down, triggering a stampede," Hussain added. As she fell she had cried out, sparking the panic
#9
Although muzzies seem particularly apt at this behavior (stoning the devil, anyone?), it is unfortunately an all too common human phenomenon with large crowds in bottlenecks. Remember Pope JP II's Africa visits, or Roskilde, or the Who in Cincinatti, or any number of soccer stadium stampedes and too many smaller instances to name? With huge crowds in tight spaces, it just takes one idiot or unfortunate to trigger a huge tragedy.
The possibility of terrorists' gaining access to such high-end technology is worrisome. But few have publicly stated that engineering certain types of recombinant microörganisms using older equipment -- nowadays cheaply available from eBay and online marketplaces for scientific equipment like LabX -- is already feasible. The biomedical community's reaction to all this has been a general flinching. (The signatories to the National Academies report are an exception.) Caution, denial, and a lack of knowledge about bioweaponeering seem to be in equal parts responsible. Jens Kuhn, a virologist at Harvard Medical School, told me, "The Russians did a lot in their bioweapons program. But most of that isn't published, so we don't know what they know."
On a winter's afternoon last year, in the hope of discovering just what the Russians had done, I set out along Highway 15 in Virginia to visit Serguei Popov at the Manassas campus of George Mason University. Popov came to the National Center for Biodefense after buying a book called Biohazard in 2000. This was the autobiography of Ken Alibek, Biopreparat's former deputy chief, its leading scientist, and Popov's ultimate superior. One of its passages described how, in 1989, Alibek and other Soviet bosses had attended a presentation by an unnamed "young scientist" from Biopreparat's bacterial-research complex at Obolensk, south of Moscow. Following this presentation, Alibek wrote, "the room was absolutely silent. We all recognized the implications of what the scientist had achieved. A new class of weapons had been found. For the first time, we would be capable of producing weapons based on chemical substances produced naturally by the human body. They could damage the nervous system, alter moods, trigger psychological changes, and even kill."
When Popov read that, I asked him, had he recognized the "young scientist?" "Yes," he replied. "That was me."
After reading Biohazard, Popov contacted Alibek and told him that he, too, had reached America. Popov moved to Virginia to work for Alibek's company, Advanced Biosystems, and was debriefed by U.S. intelligence. In 2004 he took up his current position at the National Center for Biodefense, where Alibek is a distinguished professor.
Regarding the progress of biotechnology, Popov told me, "It seems to most people like something that happens in a few places, a few biological labs. Yet now it is becoming widespread knowledge." Furthermore, he stressed, it is knowledge that is Janus-faced in its potential applications. "When I prepare my lectures on genetic engineering, whatever I open, I see the possibilities to make harm or to use the same things for good -- to make a biological weapon or to create a treatment against disease."
The "new class of weapons" that Alibek describes Popov's creating in Biohazard is a case in point. Into a relatively innocuous bacterium responsible for a low-mortality pneumonia, Legionella pneumophila, Popov and his researchers spliced mammalian DNA that expressed fragments of myelin protein, the electrically insulating fatty layer that sheathes our neurons. In test animals, the pneumonia infection came and went, but the myelin fragments borne by the recombinant Legionella goaded the animals' immune systems to read their own natural myelin as pathogenic and to attack it. Brain damage, paralysis, and nearly 100 percent mortality resulted: Popov had created a biological weapon that in effect triggered rapid multiple sclerosis. (Popov's claims can be corroborated: in recent years, scientists researching treatments for MS have employed similar methods on test animals with similar results.)
#1
For a similar view, but different perspective, see Nobel Laureate (in physics) Robert Laughlin in "A Different Universe." (This is not the focus of the book, but it is a smashing read anyway.)
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin will announce on Monday how the government plans to revise an unpopular youth job contract in the hope of bringing more than one month of mass protests and strikes to an end. Villepin is to present President Jacques Chirac with the "agreed position" of the ruling UMP party on changes to the First Job Contract (CPE) at 8:30 a.m., sources at the presidency said. After the meeting Villepin will make an announcement at 10:30 a.m., his office said in a statement that gave no further details.
The "easy hire, easy fire" law allows firms to fire workers under 26 without giving a reason during a two-year trial period but it has proved highly unpopular, provoking a series of mass marches and national strikes. Unions, who want the CPE repealed because it removes job security for young people hired under the contract, threatened on Sunday to extend their protests unless Chirac provides a clear solution to a crisis that has weakened his prime minister. "If tomorrow the message isn't clear, the order of the day will be new action ... before May 1," said Annick Coupe, national representative of the Solidaires union.
Backers of the contract say it will help reduce France's 22 percent youth unemployment by helping employers bypass laws that make it hard to lay off workers -- something often cited by firms as a disincentive for taking on new hires. Students are planning fresh protest marches on Tuesday. "We need a clear response on the part of the government and the president of the republic, which is to say the withdrawal of the CPE, pure and simple," Bruno Julliard, president of the French National Union of Students, told LCI television.
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Some yellow snow would go well with the white flag.
Unbelieveable, if France were a civilized society. If they insist on committing suicide, I want to be as far away from the blast radius as possible. Where I worked, several young French engineers had returned home to renew their work visas. Then the Sept. 11 attacks occurred. During the time these "youths" were stuck in France, all they wanted to know was if their visas would be renewed so they could return to the US. Incredible selfishness, but they also realized they had a snowball's chance in hell of finding similar work or pay in France.
#3
National suicide on the installment plan. You got your muzzies on the car-b-que, you have your youth on strike and rioting, and there are always transit workers ready to strike for any reason.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/10/2006 17:21
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Three bombings including a suicide blast killed a soldier and wounded 16 other Afghans Sunday, officials said, in the latest in a spate of attacks linked to Taliban insurgents. The suicide attacker struck an Afghan army checkpoint in the eastern province of Paktika near the border with Pakistan, provincial government spokesman Salam Mangal said. Six soldiers were wounded with one later dying in hospital. Two of the injured were in a serious condition, provincial governor Akram Khealwak said. It was the first suicide attack in the province, he said. The bomber blew up a taxi in front of the checkpoint in Barmal district on a main route to Pakistan, Mangal said. The wounded soldiers were taken to a nearby base of foreign coalition soldiers for treatment.
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Ever since the Christian convet got free, these Talibani and Talibani butt kissers can't stand it. I think it has been more violent there in the past couple of weeks. Anyone agree/disagree?
The armed wing of the governing Palestinian movement Hamas, under huge international pressure to renounce violence, vowed on Sunday to avenge a weekend of Israeli strikes which has left 15 people dead. The latest victim was a 29-year-old taxi driver Yasser Abu Jarad who was killed by a tank shell at the entrance to a national security post in the Beit Hanun region of the northern Gaza Strip as he dropped off a member of a unit. Five other security men were also wounded in the attack which came as part of intensifying efforts by the army to put a halt to the firing of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel. A series of air strikes on Friday night and Saturday had also left 14 people wounded, making it much the deadliest bout of violence since Hamas's upset victory in a January parliamentary election and subsequent formation of its first government last month.
The radical Islamist movement, regarded as a terrorist organisation by the West and Israel, has carried out the bulk of the suicide attacks against Israel since the Palestinian uprising erupted in September 2000. Although it has held off any such attacks for more than a year, Hamas has so far resisted international pressure to commit itself to non-violence and recognise Israel's right to exist.
Both the US and European Union announced over the weekend that they were either cutting or suspending direct aid payments to the already cash-strapped Palestinian Authority now that it is led by Hamas in the absence of a change of platform from the party. However the prospects of a u-turn by Hamas looked particularly dim Sunday after the movement's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, issued a statement vowing to avenge the Israeli attacks. "These crimes against the Palestinians will not stop us following the path of resistance and jihad," the Brigades said in a statement received by AFP. "The Zionist enemy will pay a high price and will drink from the same cup from which our people drink day and night."
It was the first time in several months that the Brigades had issued such a statement and comes despite the fact that none of the victims of the weekend's violence were followers of the group.
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"The Zionist enemy will pay a high price and will drink from the same cup from which our people drink day and night."
Politicisation of zakat distribution is the main cause of corruption in the system, reveals a report of the Economic Committee of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII). According to the report, zakat committee chairmen are appointed on a political basis to accommodate political workers, which generates corruption, sources said.
A CII meeting has also reviewed the committee's report and agreed to its observations, the sources said. Sources said the CII made seven recommendations to streamline the zakat distribution system and eliminate corruption. One of the recommendations is to stop political appointments and depoliticise the Zakat distribution system. Also, the government has been urged to appoint people with good reputation as chairmen of the zakat committees.
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zakat funds corruption
One of our finest.
Posted by: Department of Redundancy Department ||
04/10/2006 13:36
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Rescuers found two bodies yesterday and were searching for more people missing after a goods-laden fishing boat capsized in a storm in northern Bangladesh overnight. The trawler, carrying bags of rice and fish along with 33 people on board, sank in the Meghna River near Kishoreganj, 80 kilometers north of the capital, Dhaka, the United News of Bangladesh said. Eighteen passengers managed to swim ashore or were rescued by passing boats, while about 15 others were initially unaccounted for, it said.
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British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has dismissed claims that the United States was preparing for military action against Iran, including nuclear strikes on suspected atomic weapons facilities. He told BBC television that the international community was right to view the Islamic republic's nuclear programme with "high suspicion" but "there is no smoking gun, there is no 'casus belli' (justification for war)".
"We can't be certain about Iran's intentions and that is therefore not a basis for which anybody would gain authority to go to military action," he said Sunday. Straw was speaking following reports from the United States that President George W. Bush was studying options for military strikes, including possible targets. The April 17 edition of the New Yorker said they included Iran's underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and its uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Straw dismissed the idea of nuclear strikes with bunker-busting bombs as "completely nuts" and questioned the reliability of the reports' source.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Of course it's nuts.
We don't need nukes to blow up their nukes.
Conventional will do just fine. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/10/2006 0:18
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Now what would Jack Straw know about nuts?
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/10/2006 0:28
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One thing I don't understand is how Blair can stand the Straw man. Either there is really no one else available for the post, or the Straw man implements policy as defined by Blair. In both cases, God save Brits.
#6
the international community was right to view the Islamic republic's nuclear programme with "high suspicion" but "there is no smoking gun, there is no 'casus belli'
Threats to "Wipe Israel off of the map" are not casus belli? WTF is this guy smoking? Probably not straw, regardless of his name. Iran has essentially declared war on America. Straw can sod off.
QUETTA: No organisation named the Baloch Liberation Army exists, only a group of four to five thousand people using the name as "an excuse for anti-state activities", said Balochistan Home Minister Shoeb Nausherwani on Sunday. He clarified that the group lacked the structure and planning of a proper organisation. These people are paid Rs 4,000 to Rs 5,000 monthly by local and foreign elements to create havoc, he added.
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Interpol has issued a special notice against India's most wanted criminal sought for the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai that killed more than 260 people, the international police agency's website showed on Sunday. The notice sent to all 184 member countries places Indian crime boss Dawood Ibrahim on the same list as Osama Bin Laden. It seeks a freezing of his assets, a ban on travel as well as an arms embargo.
The notice on www.interpol.int also gave two of his possible addresses in Pakistan. Islamabad has denied his presence in Pakistan. The tough new notice gives details of Ibrahim's 11 passports issued in India, Pakistan, UAE and Yemen, 17 aliases and also the countries from which he is known to operate. Ibrahim has been on Interpol's notice after the 1993 Mumbai blasts. In 2003, the US Treasury, linking him to Al Qaeda, put his name on its global terrorist list.
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A strike was observed in Balochistan on Sunday in protest against the police siege of the houses of Sardar Akhtar Mengal and Sardar Attaullah Mengal in Karachi for a fourth day. A shutter down strike was observed in Ghuzdar, Qalat, Sibi, Dera Murad Jamali, Dalbadin, Noshki, Gwadar and Bela on the call of the Balochistan National Party. A wheel jam strike was observed on Karachi, Tuftan and Joharabad highways.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/10/2006
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In rural Texas, Georgia and Alabama "Shutter down" .... actually has duel meanings. Larry the Cable Guy.... "Sutter Down" as in; stop the mower, John Deere belt driven lumber saw, oil field pumping unit, etc. SHUTTER DOWN!
The government has set up a committee of tribal elders to review the case of two alleged commanders loyal to Nawab Akbar Bugti who surrendered to security forces with some 40 armed supporters in the Sui area of Dera Bugti on Saturday. Their cases will be scrutinised by the local Reforms Public Safety Committee, Dera Bugti District Coordination Officer Abdul Samad Lasi told PTV. All the men and their cases have been handed over to committee in Sui and we have not initiated legal proceedings against the people who surrendered yesterday (Saturday). We are waiting for the committees report and whatever they put up for recommendation, we will go and follow that.
Lasi claimed that more Bugti tribe members had communicated with the administration seeking to surrender. They want to become peaceful citizens, so I have told them to clear things in a court of law before coming to their areas. If they have no cases against them they can live like good citizens of Pakistan, he said. He said those who surrendered included two groups, one of a tribal force working under Nawab Akbar Bugti, and the other of hardcore criminals. Speaking to the BBC, Nawab Bugti denied he had any link to the men who surrendered. There is no association between me and these commanders, as they are criminals, Bugti told the BBC on Sunday.
Posted by: Fred ||
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"They want to become peaceful citizens..."
You know...spend more time with the family, read a good book, maybe finnish that home improvement project they put off while out indiscrimanatly terrorizing the region.
An Egyptian man who routinely donned the full Islamic veil to visit his mistress incognito was tipped off by his unfeminine shoes in the Cairo metro's women-only carriage. Camouflaged under a head-to-toe black niqab to spare his illegitimate partner her neighbours' reprobation, the 30-year-old student eventually met his own doom after accidentally revealing suspiciously clumpy footwear. An alarmed passenger on board the carriage screamed for security at a central Cairo underground station and the impostor was unmasked.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Here in America we would just assume she was a butch lesbian.
#2
Wearing "Clumpy shoes" with a head-to-toe niqab is a serious fashion faupax. A better choice is something more casual like a simple smart looking pump. Remember nothing too elegant and women shouldnt wear anything in an open-toe to expose their sensual body parts.
Police arrested more than 100 Islamist activists for distributing posters calling on government employees to strike in protest at Jordans third fuel price hike in less than 12 months, Islamists said on Sunday. Government sources denied the charges by the head of the Islamic Action Front, Zaki Bani Irsheid of arrests and harassment of activists who had plastered posters and distributed strike leaflets. At this stage there is not a single person who is detained, the source said. Some people who were putting up flyers and banners in violation of certain laws were questioned but they were then immediately released.
The government, which depends on energy imports for most of its needs, endorsed a 12 to 65 percent price hike on a range of petroleum products at a cabinet meeting late on Saturday, effective from midnight. Kerosene and diesel, both widely used for heating by Jordans poor, rose by 43 percent. The authorities say it was no longer possible to defer the decision as the cost of subsidising petroleum prices at current oil prices threatened the countrys financial stability. Opposition parties say the fuel price raises hit the countrys poor the hardest.
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Opposition parties say the fuel price raises hit the countrys poor the hardest.
Even in the ME it is so.
NORTH Korea's defence chief has warned that Pyongyang could also launch a pre-emptive attack against the United States, with state media saying soldiers were ready to be "human bombs."
"A pre-emptive attack is not (the) monopoly of the US, and North Korea will never sit idle till it is exposed to a preemptive attack of the US," Defense Minister Kim Il-Chol said, according to the official Korean Central News Agency.
"The US is now talking about the six-party talks but in fact, it is zealously inciting hostility toward North Korea while floating all sorts of sheer fictions, utterly indifferent to the talks," he said.
He issued the warning at a meeting yesterday to mark the 13th anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il's reign as chairman of the country's powerful National Defence Commission. Kim Il-Chol accused Washington of "watching for every chance to attack Pyongyang after listing it as a target of pre-emptive attack. "It is the traditional combat method of North Korea to directly counter the pressure and threat of aggression from the enemies, without yielding to them," he said.
Rodong Sinmun, the ruling communist party's daily newspaper, said in an editorial Sunday that the North's military power "has been remarkably strengthened... The whole army is replete with the spirit of devotedly defending the leader and all the servicepersons are reliably defending the country and socialism in the spirit of readily becoming human bombs, the spirit of suicide bombing. It has modern offensive and defensive means capable of coping with any war."
Posted by: Fred ||
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NOt even SpetzNork mil parades can hide the emaciated characteristics of starvation and weight loss on young impressionable NorKor soldiers - SOMETHINGS GOTTA GIVE, FOLKS, EITHER THE WEST CONCEDES OR THE NORKS ATTACK OUT OF PC ANTI-US RESISTANCE = WAR/CONQUEST FOR FOOD.
#4
I just hope the NorKors hold off for another 2 years : that way, our troops will be off of the DMZ completely, and almost out of Seoul. Let the South Koreans defend themselves, if they choose to. And if not, to hell with them.
#5
Joe, just one quip... there has been no weight loss noticeable on nork soldiers for a while. There would have to be some weight to lose in the first place. ;-P
#7
After they explode, the are already blown into bite sized chunks for their neighbors' stew pots. Another Krazy Kimmie labor saving device.
Posted by: ed ||
04/10/2006 10:18
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The Norks are just doing their part for running interference for Iran. The Iranians and the Norks have a type of mutual alliance support.
I would expect this saber rattling to get a lot louder in the coming months as the pressure on Iran gets turned up. Think back to the runup to Iraq 10x I would say we may even have some low level engagements on the border like back in the day.
I dont think he Norks want all out war thou they know the Snorks could woopem and with our support it would be a route. But Kimmy will go to the edge if allowed.
#9
I would not be surprised to see some Nork action of some sort, as well as Chicom mischief if we take on Iran. I would imagine that our Mil planners have taken this into account. At least I hope that they have. When Iran goes down, the Norks are really going to be in a corner.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/10/2006 17:06
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"The whole army is replete with the spirit of devotedly defending the leader and all the servicepersons are reliably defending the country and socialism in the spirit of readily becoming human bombs, the spirit of suicide bombing. It has modern offensive and defensive means capable of coping with any war."
Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) second-in-command Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai was placed on a 10-day remand yesterday in an arms case. The Detective Branch (DB) of police, accompanied by the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) members, produced Bangla Bhai before the No 2 Cognisance Court here at around 11:45am. He was wearing a helmet and bullet-proof vest.
After the hearing, First Class Magistrate Smiriti Rani Karmakar granted the remand sought by DB Sub-inspector Mainul Islam for interrogating the militant kingpin. This is for the third time Bangla Bhai was placed on remand. He was remanded for 20 days earlier, 10 days each in Rab assault case and explosives case.
Other accused in the arms case are his wife Fahima Khatun, bodyguard Masud and his host Chan Miah. SI Nazrul Islam of Rab filed all three cases with the Muktagachha Police Station after the arrest of Bangla Bhai at Rampur village under the upazila on March 6. Bangla Bhai looked fresh and was smiling at the court and he exchanged salams with the waiting journalists and members of law enforcement agencies.
Posted by: Fred ||
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What does it mean when you discover that aljazeera is a less biased news source than either the NYT or WaPo? I mean, there was only one actual attack on Berlusconi by the reporter in the entire article!
MIRANSHAH: Suspected militants fired rockets at a military post in Datta Khel, a village in the North Waziristan, said an official on Sunday. No one was reported hurt and the nine rockets fired in the attack landed in a field near the post, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of his job.
Also, security forces opened fire at a pickup truck after its driver ignored orders to stop and sped through a roadblock near Datta Khel, he added. The vehicle was later found abandoned and its driver's seat was splattered with blood, indicating the man was injured in the shooting. No weapons were found and it was not known whether the man was a militant or a civilian.
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...driver's seat was splattered with blood, indicating the man was injured in the shooting.
An uproar over the threatened execution of an Afghan man who converted from Islam to Christianity highlights a disturbing conflict between application of Islamic laws and protection of human rights in Asia and the Middle East, US experts say. The case of Abdul Rahman, who narrowly escaped the death penalty in Afghanistan by fleeing to Italy, reflects a bigger trend of anti-conversion legislation curtailing rights of non-Muslim minorities, the experts told a US Congress-sponsored meeting.
Rahman, 41, was spirited out of Afghanistan on March 29 after a US-led Western furore over his trial under Shariah law which says that anyone who leaves Islam must be put to death unless they recant. Though state prosecution for conversion out of Islam is relatively rare in Muslim-majority countries, at least 14 such countries considered apostasy a crime, with Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen, Mauritania and Comoros making it punishable by death, said Nina Shea, director of global rights group Freedom Houses centre for religious freedom. Lesser punishments are imposed in Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, the Maldives, Oman and Qatar while some states deny civil rights to those viewed as apostates.
Shea faulted the United States, which has extensive influence in Kabul, for the fatal flaw in the Afghanistan constitution that allowed prosecution of apostasy crimes. After all, this is the very constitution that the United States supported and guided and about which our officials heralded as one of the most enlightened constitutions in the Islamic world, she said. The implication of Rahmans case is that it points out the unresolved tension in certain Muslim countries between the application of Islamic law and protection of human rights, said Felice Gaer, vice chairwoman of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
She said it was an irony that Islamic nations which considered conversion a crime also vowed, as UN members, to uphold the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which cleary affirm and protect the freedom to change religions or beliefs. International experts entrusted with the interpretation of freedom of religion have consistently affirmed that the freedom to adopt a religion is the freedom to change religion, Gaer said.
Islamic law or principles are a source of, or a limitation on, general legislation in 15 of 44 predominantly Muslim countries studied by the commission, an independent body created by Congress to monitor religious freedom.
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"Islamic laws restricting human rights"
I think this call for a "Master of the Obvious" graphic, Fred. ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/10/2006 0:19
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this should send our liberal progressives into a cog dis tissy.
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Posted by: ali ||
04/10/2006 9:04
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This brough to you by the "No Shit?" department of the obvious.
Cherie Blair, the wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was in Afghanistan yesterday for a series of meetings focused on judicial reform and women's empowerment, the British Embassy said. Blair, a human rights lawyer, met President Hamid Karzai and also his wife, Zinat, on her daylong trip from Pakistan. "During both meetings she discussed a variety of issues, including human rights in Afghanistan, reform of the justice sector, and empowerment of women," the embassy said in a statement.
I wonder if she said anything about freedom of religion?
Blair visited a girls' school and chaired a discussion at the embassy on human rights and justice that was attended by the head of the Afghan human rights commission and UN officials.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Nah, I won't wish a burka on anyone--just a paper bag would do. (What on earth happened to Tony when he married this creature? I mean, she is not only awfull to look at, but total cucoo to boot--some people may be not pretty but at least have some mental capacity, or loonies, but somewhat presentable physically)
#3
The other problem is what is she doing in Afghanistan. Someone should remind both to to her and Tony Blair that the spouse of a prime minister has got no mandate from the people to represent it so she is a Mrs Nothing. Her duty is to smile and shut up. And that allowing her to intervene in politics just because she married the PM has a name: nepotism.
#4
JFM: Please tell me that mug shot is NOT a smile. I vote for industrial-strength, rip-stop burka. Agree with post, as Mrs, Head of State, she may be an impo't'nt persoan, but carries no official weight.
#1
You mean even the Eunichs are starting to figure out the Useless Nitwits are worthless?
Does this mean the Endtimes™ are near? ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/10/2006 0:22
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No worries, the Ruskies and the ChiComs will fill the void.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/10/2006 0:30
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The lead nations of the EU, like ALL Great Powers, treat the UN purely pragmatically - to be used to achieve their national ends when possible. To be bypassed when THAT suits their national ends. They all were willing to act independently of the UN on Kosovo. SOME of them wouldnt act independently on Iraq, because support the US/UK on Iraq did NOT follow their national interests. Iran may well turn out to be a different matter.
#4
What this means is that the hsitory books will say that Condi Rice wiped the floor with Colin Powell. It might be worth living 40 more years just to see how much damage that guy really did.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a major broker in Middle East politics, sparked Shiite fury across the region yesterday after suggesting that Iraqs majority community was under the sway of Iran.
Only parts of it...
In an interview first aired Saturday by the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya news channel, Mubarak warned that Iraq was in the midst of a civil war that threatened the Middle East. He also expressed alarm about Shiite Irans influence in Arab countries. There are Shiites in all these countries (of the region), significant percentages, and Shiites are mostly always loyal to Iran and not the countries where they live, he said.
Kind of like Muslims in general, isn't it? You guys consider that a feature when it applies to us, a bug when it applies to you.
Ibrahim Jaafari, Iraqs incumbent premier and a devout Shiite, unequivocally condemned Mubaraks remarks. The comments have upset Iraqi people who come from different religious and ethnic backgrounds and have astonished and discontented the Iraqi government, he told reporters yesterday.
He's only stating a fact, like him or not. Iran owns and operates the al-Sadr mob, and they'd own and operate the Badr Brigades if the Hakim family would let them. The Hakims are merely more intelligent than Tater.
As Jaafari spoke, he was flanked by President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Adnan Al-Pachachi, a Sunni and the Parliaments acting speaker.
... both of whom have to be polite for the sake of internal politix...
Jaafaris government has come under repeated accusations of collusion with Tehran from Sunni Arab factions in Iraq. Egypt had been one of the main driving forces behind an attempt at uniting Iraqi ranks by sponsoring a national reconciliation conference, still due to take place in the near future.
But they're suspect because Egypt's a Sunni nation and their relations with Iran are none too warm...
Expressing his anguish at Mubaraks statements, Talabani said these accusations against our Shiite brothers are baseless and we have asked our foreign minister to talk to Egypt about this. In nearby Kuwait, whose population is one third Shiite, Shiite MPs and clerics lashed out at Egypts veteran leader. We are not begging for certificates of loyalty to our countries from Mubarak or others. These are irresponsible statements ... and only serve to incite sectarian rifts, MP Hassan Jowhar said. Nothing can satisfy Shiites except a clear, official apology from President Mubarak.
Ummm... Does that mean they're going to riot and burn down the Egyptian embassy?
Posted by: Fred ||
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Mubarak. "Shiites are bad."
Shiites. "Mubarak is bad"
#3
The comments have upset Iraqi people who come from different religious and ethnic backgrounds and have astonished and discontented the Iraqi government,
From all indications, mentioning reality, truth, facts or other remotely concrete concepts generally has this effect on Muslims. Sort of like their protest over the Danish cartoons in the face of what they themselves print daily.
Hundreds arrested as protesters defy curfews across Nepal Nepalese police firing tear gas and rubber bullets clashed on Sunday with thousands of pro-democracy protesters who defied a curfew despite warnings that violators could be shot, opposition parties said. A second death was reported among demonstrators demanding that King Gyanandra give up the absolute powers he seized 14 months ago.
Home Minister Kamal Thapa said 253 people had been arrested on Sunday and blamed the protests on Maoist rebels. "The ongoing protest program is clearly that of the Maoists," Mr Thapa told reporters. "They are trying to create armed revolution, so the government has been compelled to impose the curfew."
Posted by: Fred ||
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A military court has charged former Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam, who defected last year, with inciting a foreign attack against Syria and plotting to take power, an official close to the court told The Associated Press on Sunday.
A top member of Syria's ruling elite for nearly 30 years, Khaddam who lives in France provoked an outcry in December when he alleged that Syrian President Bashar Assad threatened former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri months before Hariri's assassination in February 2005. From France, Khaddam has also called for the overthrow of the Syrian regime. The court issued seven charges against Khaddam, including inciting a foreign country "to launch a direct aggression against Syria", a charge that carries life imprisonment at hard labour, the official said. Another charge was "conspiring to seize political and civil power", which also entails a possible life prison sentence, the official said.
I'd guess the more likely penalty would be having his car blow up some Sunday morning.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Whew! When I saw the headline, I thought they were talking about Al Gore.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed a new commander of security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said on Sunday, a move designed to alleviate tensions with Hamas. The new commander, Sulaiman Helles, is a member of Abbass Fatah movement but is seen as having better relations with Hamas, the militant group that now leads the Palestinian government, than the man he replaces, Naser Youssef.
The appointment follows a decision by Abbas last week to assume security control over Gazas border crossings, a move that angered Hamas, which said it violated power-sharing agreements. Hamas wants overall control of security affairs. The new appointment, if confirmed, would put Helles in charge of all paramilitary units in the West Bank and Gaza, a force of around 20,000 men. He would not, however, have control over the police and other preventative security forces in the territories. Hamas has said that the paramilitary forces should fall under its control as leader of the government.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Who is that in the picture? Tyrone - Queen of Battle?
An international press watchdog has called for the immediate release of a Saudi journalist detained for the last five days after writing about religious extremism in the conservative kingdom. In a statement issued on Saturday, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, expressed deep concern about the detention of Rabah al-Quwai, who works for the Okaz and Shams dailies and two Saudi-run websites. Ann Cooper, the CPJ director, said: "We condemn the detention of Rabah al-Quwai and call for his immediate release."
The CPJ said Quwai was detained after criticising "the strict religious interpretations of hard-line Islamists who subscribe to the Wahabbi doctrine and who wield tremendous influence in the country". Ouwai's lawyer said that his client was detained in the northern city of Hail on Monday after being summoned from Riyadh, with Inquisitors prosecutors reportedly questioning him for allegedly having "denigrated Islamic beliefs" in his articles. The CPJ quoted Saudi media as saying Quwai had received threats in the past warning him to "go back to his religion and leave these fictions behind".
Posted by: Fred ||
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Can anyone explain to me why Bush, so seemingly rational about so many other things, has such a "hard-on" for the Saudis? Is it a money thing, an oil thing? What gives? These assholes aren't woth the powder it would take to blow them to hell.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
President General Pervez Musharraf Monday said Pakistan will serve as a fountainhead of Islamic Renaissance and urged leaders of all Muslim countries to strive for socio-economic uplift of their people and also encourage understanding true essence of Islam.
Continued decline in Zimbabwe's tobacco production could bring the tobacco industry "to its knees" if unchecked, a Zimbabwe Parliamentary committee has been told. According to the country's state-owned The Herald newspaper, the tobacco industry painted a gloomy picture on the state of preparedness ahead of this year's season because of "numerous challenges" faced. 
For many years now, human-caused climate change has been viewed as a large and urgent problem. In truth, however, the biggest part of the problem is neither environmental nor scientific, but a self-created political fiasco. Consider the simple fact, drawn from the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase (there was actually a slight decrease, though not at a rate that differs significantly from zero).
Terror stalks the remote, poverty-stricken, under-developed villages in West Midnapore district bordering Jharkhand, a hotbed of Maoist activities where voters are in two-minds whether to vote or not, fearing reprisal from the ultras who have given a vote boycott call.
Algerian troops killed at least 10 suspected Islamist militants in a raid on a gang accused of shooting dead 13 customs officials, newspapers reported on Sunday. The soldiers, backed by air power, also seized 60 AK-47 rifles, 10 rocket launchers and a significant quantity of ammunition in the attack on Saturday in the north African country's southern desert, they reported.
The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers familiar with the program. The effort has raised his profile in a way that some military intelligence officials believe may have overstated his importance and helped the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Some senior intelligence officers believe Zarqawi's role may have been overemphasized by the propaganda campaign, which has included leaflets, radio and television broadcasts, Internet postings and at least one leak to an American journalist. Although Zarqawi and other foreign insurgents in Iraq have conducted deadly bombing attacks, they remain "a very small part of the actual numbers," Col. Derek Harvey, who served as a military intelligence officer in Iraq and then was one of the top officers handling Iraq intelligence issues on the staff of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an Army meeting at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., last summer.
AMMAN, Jordan (AP) - Saddam Hussein's lawyers are denied the same rights and resources as the prosecutors in his trial, a U.S.-based legal adviser to the deposed Iraqi leader said Sunday.
DOHA, Qatar, April 9 (UPI) -- Kuwaiti researcher Abdullah al-Nufaisi told a seminar in Doha, Qatar, that Saudi Arabia is preparing a nuclear program, the Middle East Newsline reported. He said Saudi scientists were urging the government to launch a nuclear project, but had not yet received approval from the ruling family.
Tehran, Iran, Apr. 09 A senior Iranian cleric was shot and seriously wounded and two army officers were killed by gunmen in the restive province of Sistan-va-Baluchistan, south-east Iran, a semi-official daily reported on Sunday.
BAGHDAD - Iraqs acting speaker of parliament said on Sunday he would call on the assembly to convene in the next few days, raising the possibility that political deadlock over a new prime minister may be broken. The Iraqi people are impatiently waiting for this issue to be resolved. When the parliament convenes it will be possible to start the steps to form a national unity government, Adnan Pachachi told a news conference.
A Saudi foundation plans to launch next year a private university it hopes will help reform the strict Muslim kingdoms much-criticised education system. The whole reason for Al Faisal university is . . . to cause a change in Saudi Arabia, you can only do it with education, said Prince Bandar bin Saud bin Khalid al-Saud, deputy managing director of the King Faisal Foundation. We look at education as an agent of change in Saudi Arabia.
Critics of the Bush administration have expressed alarm over reports that the president is considering a military strike to knock out Iran's nuclear programme. 
DASKA: A schoolgirl escaped unhurt when two boys tried to set her on fire after failing to kidnap her from outside her school in Sayyan village on Saturday. According to the first information report, Muhammad Tahir and his accomplice allegedly tried to kidnap Safina, 15, a resident of Malhowali village, when she came out of her school on Saturday.
Iraqi Kurdish leaders have officially informed the main Shia Alliance that their rejection of 
Two German hostages held in Iraq have appeared in a video on the Internet pleading for their lives while their kidnappers vow to punish them unless their demands are met. The kidnappers, a group called 
A Swiss judge has issued an arrest warrant for the former head of Iran's secret police for his role in the killing of a leading Iranian dissident 16 years ago. Ali Fallahian is charged with masterminding the assassination of Kazem Rajavi, a renowned human rights advocate, near Geneva in April 1990. According to a report in Lausanne-based newspaper Le Matin Dimanche, the international arrest warrant was issued by Swiss investigating magistrate Jacques Antenen on March 20. It called on law enforcement agencies to arrest Fallahian who for years headed Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and is currently a security advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and transfer him to the Canton Vaud Prison in Lausanne.
As MPs gather in Ottawa to discuss Canada's more combative role in southern Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official and coalition commanders painted two disparate images Sunday of where the war is headed. In a weekend interview with The Canadian Press, insurgent spokesman Qari Yuosaf Ahmedi said the Taliban are convinced the resolve of the Canadian people is weak. As suicide attacks and roadside blasts increase, the public will quickly grow weary, he said. We think that when we kill enough Canadians they will quit war and return home, Mr. Ahmedi said in an interview, conducted through a translator, over a satellite telephone.
Norway has frozen aid to the Palestinian Authority, officials said on Sunday, joining a growing list of countries halting assistance to pressure the new Hamas government to restart negotiations with Israel. Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said that Norway wanted to help bring Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table "so that we can achieve our goal and the international community's goal -- namely two states that can live side by side in peace."
American soldiers in Iraq killed eight suspected anti-US fighters during a raid north of Baghdad on Sunday, the US military said. Clashes erupted when US soldiers surrounded a suspected safehouse and nearby tent on the northern outskirts of Baghdad. Five suspected fighters inside the tent were killed. As firing on the soldiers continued, they called for air support, and three assailants were killed in the ensuing air strike, a military statement said. After the fighting, the US forces discovered bombs and weapons inside the house and detained two suspects. A woman inside the house was wounded when the soldiers entered, but was taken to a hospital and is listed in stable condition, the statement said.
The Israeli government says it has severed all ties with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, declaring it a "hostile entity". However, the government will maintain contacts with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, although it has ruled out full peace talks with the leader of the Fatah faction. The decision was announced following a security cabinet meeting on Sunday. In a statement issued after the meeting Ehud Olmert, the acting Israeli prime minister, also said that his government would shun foreign diplomats who meet members of the Hamas administration.
Pakistan has branded an underground militant group operating in the restive southwestern province of Baluchistan a "terrorist" organisation, officials said yesterday. "The federal government has declared 
A stampede at a religious gathering in Pakistan has left at least 29 people dead, most of them women and children, police say.
The possibility of terrorists' gaining access to such high-end technology is worrisome. But few have publicly stated that engineering certain types of recombinant microörganisms using older equipment -- nowadays cheaply available from eBay and online marketplaces for scientific equipment like LabX -- is already feasible. The biomedical community's reaction to all this has been a general flinching. (The signatories to the National Academies report are an exception.) Caution, denial, and a lack of knowledge about bioweaponeering seem to be in equal parts responsible. Jens Kuhn, a virologist at Harvard Medical School, told me, "The Russians did a lot in their bioweapons program. But most of that isn't published, so we don't know what they know."
French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin will announce on Monday how the government plans to revise an unpopular youth job contract in the hope of bringing more than one month of mass protests and strikes to an end. Villepin is to present President Jacques Chirac with the "agreed position" of the ruling UMP party on changes to the First Job Contract (CPE) at 8:30 a.m., sources at the presidency said. After the meeting Villepin will make an announcement at 10:30 a.m., his office said in a statement that gave no further details.
Three bombings including a suicide blast killed a soldier and wounded 16 other Afghans Sunday, officials said, in the latest in a spate of attacks linked to Taliban insurgents. The suicide attacker struck an Afghan army checkpoint in the eastern province of Paktika near the border with Pakistan, provincial government spokesman Salam Mangal said. Six soldiers were wounded with one later dying in hospital. Two of the injured were in a serious condition, provincial governor Akram Khealwak said. It was the first suicide attack in the province, he said. The bomber blew up a taxi in front of the checkpoint in Barmal district on a main route to Pakistan, Mangal said. The wounded soldiers were taken to a nearby base of foreign coalition soldiers for treatment.
The armed wing of the governing Palestinian movement Hamas, under huge international pressure to renounce violence, vowed on Sunday to avenge a weekend of Israeli strikes which has left 15 people dead. The latest victim was a 29-year-old taxi driver Yasser Abu Jarad who was killed by a tank shell at the entrance to a national security post in the Beit Hanun region of the northern Gaza Strip as he dropped off a member of a unit. Five other security men were also wounded in the attack which came as part of intensifying efforts by the army to put a halt to the firing of rockets from Gaza into southern Israel. A series of air strikes on Friday night and Saturday had also left 14 people wounded, making it much the deadliest bout of violence since Hamas's upset victory in a January parliamentary election and subsequent formation of its first government last month. 
Politicisation of zakat distribution is the main cause of corruption in the system, reveals a report of the Economic Committee of the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII). According to the report, zakat committee chairmen are appointed on a political basis to accommodate political workers, which generates corruption, sources said. 
Rescuers found two bodies yesterday and were searching for more people missing after a goods-laden fishing boat capsized in a storm in northern Bangladesh overnight. The trawler, carrying bags of rice and fish along with 33 people on board, sank in the Meghna River near Kishoreganj, 80 kilometers north of the capital, Dhaka, the United News of Bangladesh said. Eighteen passengers managed to swim ashore or were rescued by passing boats, while about 15 others were initially unaccounted for, it said.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has dismissed claims that the United States was preparing for military action against Iran, including nuclear strikes on suspected atomic weapons facilities. He told BBC television that the international community was right to view the Islamic republic's nuclear programme with "high suspicion" but "there is no smoking gun, there is no 'casus belli' (justification for war)".
Interpol has issued a special notice against India's most wanted criminal sought for the 1993 serial bomb blasts in Mumbai that killed more than 260 people, the international police agency's website showed on Sunday. The notice sent to all 184 member countries places Indian crime boss Dawood Ibrahim on the same list as Osama Bin Laden. It seeks a freezing of his assets, a ban on travel as well as an arms embargo. 
The government has set up a committee of tribal elders to review the case of two alleged commanders loyal to Nawab 
An Egyptian man who routinely donned the full Islamic veil to visit his mistress incognito was tipped off by his unfeminine shoes in the Cairo metro's women-only carriage. Camouflaged under a head-to-toe black niqab to spare his illegitimate partner her neighbours' reprobation, the 30-year-old student eventually met his own doom after accidentally revealing suspiciously clumpy footwear. An alarmed passenger on board the carriage screamed for security at a central Cairo underground station and the impostor was unmasked.
Police arrested more than 100 Islamist activists for distributing posters calling on government employees to strike in protest at Jordans third fuel price hike in less than 12 months, Islamists said on Sunday. Government sources denied the charges by the head of the Islamic Action Front, Zaki Bani Irsheid of arrests and harassment of activists who had plastered posters and distributed strike leaflets. At this stage there is not a single person who is detained, the source said. Some people who were putting up flyers and banners in violation of certain laws were questioned but they were then immediately released. 
NORTH Korea's defence chief has warned that Pyongyang could also launch a pre-emptive attack against the United States, with state media saying soldiers were ready to be "human bombs."
Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) second-in-command Siddiqul Islam alias Bangla Bhai was placed on a 10-day remand yesterday in an arms case. The Detective Branch (DB) of police, accompanied by the Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) members, produced Bangla Bhai before the No 2 Cognisance Court here at around 11:45am. He was wearing a helmet and bullet-proof vest.
MIRANSHAH: Suspected militants fired rockets at a military post in Datta Khel, a village in the North Waziristan, said an official on Sunday. No one was reported hurt and the nine rockets fired in the attack landed in a field near the post, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the secretive nature of his job. 
An uproar over the threatened execution of an Afghan man who converted from Islam to Christianity highlights a disturbing conflict between application of Islamic laws and protection of human rights in Asia and the Middle East, US experts say. The case of 
Egyptian President 
Hundreds arrested as protesters defy curfews across Nepal Nepalese police firing tear gas and rubber bullets clashed on Sunday with thousands of pro-democracy protesters who defied a curfew despite warnings that violators could be shot, opposition parties said. A second death was reported among demonstrators demanding that King Gyanandra give up the absolute powers he seized 14 months ago. 
A military court has charged former Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam, who defected last year, with inciting a foreign attack against Syria and plotting to take power, an official close to the court told The Associated Press on Sunday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has appointed a new commander of security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said on Sunday, a move designed to alleviate tensions with Hamas. The new commander, 
An international press watchdog has called for the immediate release of a Saudi journalist detained for the last five days after writing about religious extremism in the conservative kingdom. In a statement issued on Saturday, the New York-based 
