Can President Obama, Vice President Biden, or Secretary of State Clinton walk and chew gum at the same time? Evidently not. Perhaps Obama can take the 3:00 a.m. phone call, but alas he and his team are ill-prepared to take that, and the 3:10 a.m. and the 3:15 a.m. phone calls together.
What is going on in the Middle East is truly incredible. A Tunisian fruit vendors self-immolation leads to the fall of the Tunisian dictatortruly a noxious character albeit a secular onefollowed in short order by Hosni Mubarak, an ally in name only. Now, Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh is hanging by a thread, NATO forces are half-heartedly trying to undermine Qaddafis hold on Libya, and trouble has started in Syria. In all these cases, the Obama administration has been behind the curve. Obamas foreign policy style is akin to a gambler at a blackjack table who wants to sit at the table, but place his bets only after the dealer has laid out the cards.
In all these crises, President Obama has only reacted after violence has occurred. What message does this send to dissidents and those peacefully seeking reform?
It seems, alas, that only the squeaky wheels get the grease. Demonstrators must use bombs and bullets if they want to be heard. That is not a message Washington should send.
In Iraqi Kurdistan, protesters have been out in the street for more than 50 days protesting peacefully against corruption, nepotism, and the lack of democracy. Even though the demonstrations have been peacefulsome rock-throwing asideMasud Barzani and Jalal Talabanis militias have opened fire on crowds, killing at least eight. Journalists have been leading the charge, and a number have been arrested, beaten, or shot. And yet, through it all, the Obama administration has been largely silent.
Silence is not neutrality; it benefits dictatorships. Last week, during his swing through Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Barzani. Gatess mission was straightforward. He was seeking resolution on Iraqs unresolved government formation, and was also discussing flashpoints such as Kirkuk. What he was not doing, according to members of his team, was showing any shade of green light to Barzanis actions to crackdown on the democracy protestors. But the U.S. silence has given Barzani an opening to do what Barzani does best: spread falsehoods in the interest of his own political power. Iraqi Kurdish officials have hinted darkly to the protesters that the Obama administration has blessed a crackdown. The only certainty amid the Kurdish crisis is that the most pro-American people in the Middle East will now blame the United States the next time Barzani decides to kidnap a journalist or shoot a 14-year-oid
This is truly scathing criticism and very on point.
The last paragraph is very damning.
Even Robert Gates who is probably the most astute person on the cabinet,has trouble keeping the heard pointed in one direction. Where is the White House to refute the false spin on Gates' visit?
Answer: either on the back nine at the Army Navy Golf Course or hiding under his desk in the oval office....
Disgusting.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/17/2011 23:52
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Five troops killed in a suicide bombing this weekend at a military base in eastern Afghanistan were members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division, a senior U.S. military official said Sunday.
Earlier, authorities had said only that five members of NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, which includes troops from the United States and other nations, were killed in the Saturday incident.
The families of all five have been notified of the deaths, and a formal announcement from the Army is forthcoming, said the official, who declined to be identified pending the announcement.
On March 29, the same Army division lost six troops in a series of firefights in eastern Afghanistan.
On Saturday, a suicide bomber wearing an Afghan military uniform struck, killing the five, at a military base, Forward Operating Base Gamberi, in eastern Afghanistan's Laghman Province. The attack came during a meeting between Afghan soldiers and their ISAF mentors.
Four Afghan National Army troops were also killed and eight others, including four translators, were wounded, Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said in a statement. The wounded were all in good condition, Azimi said.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahed claimed 12 foreign soldiers and four Afghan military service members died in the attack. He said the bomber, Abdul Ghani, "joined the Afghan National Army a month ago in order to kill the invaders."
The Laghman Province base is controlled by Afghan security forces. Azimi said Saturday he would not comment on the Taliban spokesman's claim.
#1
Rest in peace, with our thanks. Let's hope those who sent the murderer are soon found. According to Strategy Page, we got really good at data mining in Iraq, and have been applying it pretty successfully in Afghanistan/Pakistan.
The wave of robberies the city of Malmö has witnessed during this past year is part of a war against the Swedes. This is the explanation given by young robbers from immigrant backgrounds when questioned about why they only rob native Swedes, in interviews with Petra Akesson for her thesis in sociology.
I read a report about young robbers in Stockholm and Malmö and wanted to know why they rob other youths. It usually does not involve a lot of money, she says. She interviewed boys between 15 and 17 years old, both individually and in groups.
Almost 90% of all robberies reported to the police were committed by gangs, not individuals.
When we are in the city and robbing we are waging a war, waging a war against the Swedes. This argument was repeated several times.
Power for me means that the Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet.
The boys explain, laughingly, that there is a thrilling sensation in your body when youre robbing, you feel satisfied and happy, it feels as if youve succeeded, it simply feels good.
Its so easy to rob Swedes, so easy. We rob every single day, as often as we want to, whenever we want to.
The immigrant youth regard the Swedes as stupid and cowardly: The Swedes dont do anything, they just give us the stuff. Theyre so wimpy. The young robbers do not plan their crimes: No, we just see some Swedes that look rich or have nice mobile phones and then we rob them.
The murders on Saturday of five NATO soldiers by a Taliban suicide bomber who enlisted as an Afghan National Army soldier marked the latest in a rising toll of coalition troop deaths at the hands of Afghan security forces they are attempting to train.
Since January, 13 troops with the International Security Assistance Force have been killed when Afghan police, soldiers or security guards -- or insurgents who infiltrated their ranks -- attacked coalition forces. These types of killings have accounted for the deaths of at least 38 coalition personnel since 2009, according to a Stars and Stripes review, constituting roughly 3 percent of the hostile fire deaths among troops during that time.
By comparison, 27 troops were killed by mortar or indirect fire attacks launched by insurgents during that same time period, according to the independent website icasualties.org.
Surprisingly, the killers are not usually Taliban sleeper agents or impostors. They often appear to be regular Afghan troops who start shooting after some dispute with coalition troops, according to the NATO command in charge of training Afghan security forces.
"[The shootings are] usually related to people getting into arguments," said Lt. Col. David Simons, spokesman for the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, who said his conclusion was based on incident reports.
"Let's put it in the vernacular of a bar fight. But here, they have weapons," Simons said. "It's just, somebody told them to do something. Or they didn't like the way they were talked to."
Culture clash instead of Sudden Jihad Syndrome.
The attacks could also reflect the larger cultural clash between Western troops and their Afghan counterparts.
"There's a cultural misunderstanding," said Thomas Barfield, the chairman of Boston University's Anthropology Department, who has spent years in Afghanistan, beginning in the 1970s. "The Afghans see stuff as offensive. The Americans don't think they're giving offense."
For example, the different ways that Afghan and Western soldiers handle their weapons can set up conflicts, Barfield said.
"Afghans do not have what the American military considers good control over their weapons," he said. "They point them at people. So American troops yell at them. So you've got people with lethal weapons. You have not instilled enough discipline in the [Afghan recruit]. And an insult an American might consider mild, an Afghan might consider deadly."
The opportunities for conflict are numerous, said Barfield, whose most recent visit to Afghanistan was in February. Encounters with Afghan women can be especially sensitive.
"The Americans say, 'We didn't disrespect the women.' The Afghans say, 'You weren't supposed to see them at all,' " Barfield said. "It shows the men as powerless, and it's an insult to their honor."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
15:56 ||
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#1
Happy Birthday/Daily Gam Shot
Jennifer Garner aka Wanda in "Dude, Where's My Car?" aka Nurse Sandra in "Pearl Harbor" aka Elektra Natchios in "Daredevil & Elektra" aka Gray Wheeler in "Catch and Release" aka Vanessa Loring in "Juno" (age 39)
The Ministry of Defence has admitted that secret information about the UK's nuclear powered submarines was made available on the internet by mistake.
A technical error meant blacked-out parts of an online MoD report could be read by pasting into another document. Details were reported to include expert opinion on how well the fleet could cope with a catastrophic accident.
The MoD said a secure version had now been published and it was working to stop such an incident happening again.
Information also included measures used by the US Navy to protect its nuclear submarines.
#1
What exactly makes you think it's a mistake on their part, moose?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/17/2011 17:08
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I seem to recall a similar incident on this side of the pond a couple of years ago.
Doesn't anybody check anything anymore?
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/17/2011 17:59
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It's hard to keep up with what MS Office does to an electronic document. It is probably some secretary typing the document or even worse, the actual Officer making the report. If they aren't trained about these "little things" then you get these leaks. There ARE advantages to paper files.
President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner cut her out of talks aimed at averting a government shutdown. Later, Pelosi walked onto the House floor and, along with more than half of her Democratic colleagues, voted against the compromise, which passed anyway. Warms the cockles of my heart!
It was a stark indication of just how far Obama has moved from the former House speaker who largely defined his first two years in office. Then, she was his rudder, and she kept his presidency on a reliably liberal course. Virtually every important piece of legislation -- the stimulus, the health-care bill, financial regulations -- was negotiated at the conference table in her second-floor office in the Capitol. Yet only a few thousand folks voted for Nancy. Now Obama is, in a sense, rudderless. He has no use for Pelosi, who, made radioactive by the dastardly Bush-Cheney-Rove-Rumsfeld Republicans in 2010, is minority leader in a chamber that consigns the minority to irrelevance. A lesson well-taught in 2009.
Liberals howled at the moon about Obama's spending deals with Republicans in December and again this month, but the latest CNN poll finds that 58 percent approve of the deal to avoid the shutdown and, by 48 to 35 percent, Obama and the Democrats are getting the credit. Some people are slow learners.
Pelosi loyalists say that, ideology aside, Obama simply isn't getting as much from negotiations as he should, because his bottom line is fuzzy. "The first rule of politics," one senior congressional aide said, "is to know where you want to get to before you start." His goal is to keep the same home address as long as possible.
Democratic activists are disillusioned by what they perceive as Obama's quick capitulation to Republicans. As labor leaders met in Washington last week for private conferences, the criticism of Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid turned caustic. I didn't see anything more about Reid - I certainly would've left that in!
"His decisions don't seem to be anchored to anything," one prominent Democratic operative complained to me. "Democrats desperately want to support him but aren't sure what they're supporting or why." Shocking. Some people saw that in 2007.
On the eve of Obama's Wednesday speech outlining his budget goals, Pelosi used that opening to reassert her influence with the president. She called up White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley and drew a line in the sand: Democrats couldn't tolerate capitulation by Obama to Republican demands for a restructuring of Medicare, which they hope to make the central campaign issue of 2012. The Republicans will end Medicare as we know it!
"Let me be absolutely clear," Obama said Wednesday. Once again, 'let me be clear' -- he also says that, which is how you know he isn't being clear.
"I will not allow Medicare to become a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry." The partisan speech infuriated Republicans, set back negotiations in the Senate -- and delighted Democratic activists. But the rudderless ship lost its' course again...
But the next morning, Obama was in the Oval Office with the chairmen of his bipartisan debt commission, whose recommendations have inflamed liberals. "Very frankly, it is the framework that they developed that helps to shape my thinking for today," he said.
Pelosi's piloting skills aren't what they used to be. Somebody please do a poll about whether we're better or worse off for Nancy being sidelined.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/17/2011
14:00 ||
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Pelosi's piloting skills aren't what they used to be.
Piloting? Like up until the point she ran the ship into the iceberg?
Obean needed someone who was tone-deaf to get this job done. Now that she's irrelevant, she's under the bus. I wish she'd just let go of the drive shaft and make everyone's life easier.
She's got something wrong with her. I think her behavior and statements show she's gone completely off the deep end. Starting a few years ago.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/17/2011 17:30
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Payback's a b!tch. Warms the cockles of my heart too. Pelosi, Reid, and Obama have got to be the most divisive corrupt political hacks in our history.
Obama could steer a middle course between her and Boehner and trot to victory in 2012.
The problem is that 'socialism on the installment plan' does not address any core issue: spending/debt, business climate/job creation, or government overreach.
#5
Virtually every important piece of legislation -- the stimulus, the health-care bill, financial regulations -- was negotiated at the conference table in her second-floor office in the Capitol.
interesting choice of words, seeing as how no Reps were present
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/17/2011 18:54
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WaPo house editorial. They seem confused. The contradictions at the heart of U.S. policy in Libya are becoming more acute. On Friday President Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in declaring that the NATO air campaign, which was launched in the name of protecting civilians, will continue for as long as dictator Moammar Gaddafi remains in power. Now he speaks for NATO, too?
Yet in an interview he gave to the Associated Press the same day, Mr. Obama acknowledged that the war between rebels and Mr. Gaddafi's forces is stalemated, 10 days after U.S. ground attack aircraft were pulled from the operation on his orders. Does the WaPo really believe Moo-mar can be defeated from the air?
Let's see if we can sum this up: Mr. Obama is insisting that NATO's air operation, already four weeks old, cannot end until Mr. Gaddafi is forced from office -- but he refuses to use American forces to break the military stalemate. I think they got it.
If his real aim were to plunge NATO into a political crisis, or to exhaust the air forces and military budgets of Britain and France -- which are doing most of the bombing -- this would be a brilliant strategy. As it is, it is impossible to understand. No, you were right the previous sentence: it's a brilliant strategy.
How else to explain his decision to deny NATO the two most effective ground attack airplanes in the world -- the AC-130 and A-10 Warthog -- which exist only in the U.S. Air Force and which were attacking Mr. Gaddafi's tanks and artillery until April 4?
Mr. Obama appears less intent on ousting Mr. Gaddafi or ensuring NATO's success than in proving an ideological point -- that the United States need not take the lead in a military operation that does not involve vital U.S. interests. Hanging our allies out to dry is a feature, not a bug.
The French and British have been stranded by Mr. Obama's posture; they are facing the usual difficulties in persuading NATO's other members to join in bombing operations. Only half of the alliance's nations are active in Libya, and a number are quietly opposing a mission they see as ill-conceived. Both the British and French foreign ministers have appealed for American help, but France's Alain Juppe appeared to get a brush-off from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in a closed-door meeting Thursday. "I got the sense they will stick to their same line," he said.
We believed that Mr. Obama was right to support NATO's intervention in Libya not only because of the risk that Mr. Gaddafi would carry out massacres but because defeating the dictator is crucial to the larger cause of democratic change in the Middle East. It's not at all clear that Moo-mar is as vicious as Saddam was. Maybe there would've only been mini-massacres.
Yet having reluctantly joined the fight -- and accepted the goal of Mr. Gaddafi's ouster -- Mr. Obama seems determined to limit the American role even if it makes success impossible. If the president is very lucky, Mr. Gaddafi will be betrayed and overthrown by his followers or somehow induced to step down voluntarily. We can only hope that the NATO alliance does not collapse between now and then. Yes, the WaPo is clearly confused.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/17/2011
13:39 ||
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Maybe NATO has outlived its usefulness. They should either revert to their old mission (oh right, no more USSR) or define a new mission that everyone buys into that would allow this type of "kinetic role playing" whenever or wherever some bureaucrat wants.
#4
Funny, I was looking at it as an indictment on the UN; though it is interesting to see the European Socialists System unglue in a light rain. I maintain that EU needs to take some initiative to prevent a clandestine invasion, but come'on quit playing footsie and start playing rugby.
...but of course a stalemate with no solution is the warning Eisenhower presented as the military industrial complex so what the hell, supply north africa and all nutcase special ops with modern weapons, pat yourself on the back for a transaction poorly planned, and die before the handful of years pass before the modernized armed mobs, is that the equalizing goal to disarm 1st world and arm 3rd world and only the UN can be the organizers of local alliances, with the US and EU paying the taxes towards the UN because nobody else will? Really, auto pollution, why doesn't the UN go after KSA et al for producing the stuff instead of the consumers or do we not want to address that question.
Kinetic role playing, now thats funny. If I had to picture it, what we got is a singing telegram serving a warrent on a drug house.
#5
Clearly Barack Obama is a great military strategist in addition to his superb golf skills. Perhaps like Kim Jung Un he should be declared a four star general.
#6
I know what I'd like to declare him, Black Bart, but I'd get sink-trapped.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/17/2011 20:06
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#7
I didn't think it would be possible to create a scenario in which Gaddafi looks like the most competent person in the vicinity, but they may have done it.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/17/2011 20:56
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#8
I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that Obama really wants to win this one. I suspect he wants to lose or draw, given a) his former political associates ties to Daffy, and b) that to him it's just an opportunity to waste resources and burn more of the US's seed corn so that we won't be able to reverse the economic catastrophe that's currently happening in slow motion.
#10
I am confused. If we go into a conflict in that part of the world, we expect NATO to join in.
But on the otherhand, if NATO decides to enter into a conflict, we don't have to participate?
I thought, as near as I can remember, there are some buzz word in the NATO treaty that bind the US to action if NATO as an organization chooses to enter a conflict in defense of something or other.
If Obumble, the incompetent One, is trying to deplete the two other Western first line fighting forces, for what reason? A global Islamic overthrow?
He is becoming increasingly dangerous and irrational. I think the Charles Krauthammer diagnosis of Obumble being a toxic Narcissist is being confirmed in front of our eyes.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/18/2011 0:00
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Australian internet whiz Daniel Tzvetkoff, who has become a prized FBI informant in a bid to avoid a 75 year jail sentence in the US, may have brought down the multi-billion dollar American online poker industry.
The FBI announced on Friday it had charged 11 people, including the founders of three of the largest internet poker companies in the US, with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling offences.
The three poker sites - PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker - have been shut down.
#1
and yet the Washington DC gubbamint just approved an online poker gaming. Think Holder will shut them down too or just allow them to be the sole operation going. Thuggishness and racial solidarity reigns
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/17/2011 14:12
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#2
What a coincedence, Frank G.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/17/2011 16:37
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Two Palestinian teenagers were arrested for the murder of a settler family last month in the Israeli settlement of Itamar, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sunday.
The suspects were identified as Hakim Maazan Niad Awad, an 18-year-old high school student, and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, 19, both from the West Bank village of Awarta, located 2 kilometers (1.24 miles) south of the settlement of Itamar. Israeli security forces said both men, who are reportedly affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), confessed to the murders and reconstructed them.
On the night of March 11, the suspects set out toward Itamar on foot, armed with knives and tools to cut the perimeter fence. Once inside Itamar, they reached the first row of houses and broke into a home adjacent to the Fogel residence, but found nobody inside. They stole a M-16 rifle, clips and a flak jacket before exiting the home and walking towards the Fogel residence.
"Having spotted children while still outside, they murdered 11-year-old Yoav and 4-year-old Elad. The assailants thereupon entered the bedroom where the parents, Ruth and Udi, were sleeping with 3-month-old Hadas and murdered all three, following a struggle," the IDF said in a statement.
Before leaving the house, the suspects stole another M-16 rifle and then returned to Awarta on foot. According to the IDF, various members of their families were extensively involved in helping them.
Several suspected accomplices are also under arrest. During the investigation, dozens of suspects from Awarta were detained for questioning.
The head of Awarta village council, Qayies Awad, told Palestine News Network that he questions the Israeli clams and condemned the investigation.
"As Palestinians we were not part of the investigation, moreover Israel was controlling Awarta for the past 35 days since the attack happened, they entered every house in the village, they could have planted any evidence they want. We demand an international investigation of the Itamar killing," he said.
Democrats appear to have recruited retired Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez to run for the U.S. Senate in Texas, setting the stage for the party to field a well-known candidate in the 2012 race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.
Former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, a Democrat, confirmed that Democratic Senate campaign chief Patty Murray, D-Wash., was referring to Sanchez on Thursday when she said Democrats were close to announcing a candidate in Texas.
Sanchez, reached by phone at his San Antonio home, asked where the reports of a Senate run came from and then said, I can neither confirm nor deny.
Sanchez, the former top military commander in Iraq who was left under a cloud from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, would not discuss the Senate race.
Already, LTG Sanchez is emphasizing that hes going to be more to the right than the average Democrat:
I would describe myself as during my military career as supporting the president and the Constitution, Sanchez said. After the military, I decided that socially, Im a progressive, a fiscal conservative and a strong supporter, obviously, of national defense.
Sanchez himself wrote and signed a 2003 memo that included specific interrogation tactics approved for use despite noting that they may violate the Geneva Conventions. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sanchez denied signing off on these interrogation methods.
1) This is the kind of Democrat we want. As long as he is serious about the fiscally conservative bit, his socially progressive side won't do the kind of harm that's been done by the socially progressive/fiscally irresponsible Democrats have done. We want the Republicans we elect to be fiscally conservative as well, which too many of them have not been.
2) How much responsibility does he hold for not preventing an atmosphere in which Abu Ghraib behaviour occurred? Managerially he is responsible for not making sure that woman who commanded the prison was doing things properly, but at that level she should not have needed close supervision. In other words, should I hold it against him in terms of his judgement and ability that it was on his watch that it occurred?
Barbara, Mr. Wife has long described himself as socially progressive and fiscally conservative. By that he means that he wants to provide the underprivileged help to pull themselves up to the middle class, should they be willing to do the hard work, and within the constraints of funding provided by a reasonable tax and regulatory scheme. He grew up the son of a union steel worker -- his father had a high school diploma, his mother finally got her GED a decade ago. He was bright and hard working, and so was given a place in a research program for high school students that he parlayed through harder work into an education and a career.
I imagine an awful lot of American military people have similar stories, thanks to taking advantage of the opportunities the Armed Forces provide the troops and their families in return for hard work. The key is remembering that an individual's hard work has to be the response to proffered help.
#7
"The key is remembering that an individual's hard work has to be the response to proffered help."
It strikes me the today's "progressives" think the downtrodden are incapable of doing anything to pull themselves out of their crappy lives, tw, and really don't want them to, as that would lead to fewer guaranteed votes for said "progressives." I don't mind helping give others a chance to pull themselves up, though I'd rather see it done by charities rather than the government, which has proved over the decades that it's incapable of helping anyone but itself (in the form of the people who get cushy jobs "helping" poor people stay poor).
Hopefully Sanchez is more like your husband and less like clowns such as Patty "Osama-bin-Laden-builds-day-care-centers" Murray.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/17/2011 14:49
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#8
Hopefully Sanchez is more like your husband and less like clowns such as Patty "Osama-bin-Laden-builds-day-care-centers" Murray.
Agreed, Barbara. That's why I'm hoping some here can comment knowledgeably about the gentleman. Pappy was a bit cryptic.
#9
In the miltary Senore Lopez supported the constitution, but now he is a progressive. Texas will over whelmingly vote this Democrat down, just like Texas did to all the other major progressives last fall. Period.
#10
TW,
I suspect his interest in the Democratic Party is due to bitterness about how his career ended.
As for his responsibility for the scandal, 2 thoughts:
1) It is traditional for the top guy to take a hit for any scandal.
2) The memo to interigators is pretty damning, and his defence is pretty weak.
At the very least he (and others in the chain of command) are guilty of lax supervision. Probably of the "Don't tell me. I don't want to know" kind.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
04/17/2011 16:52
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#11
Problem for him is he is up against a solid Republican field - including one who has won state wide office in Texas more than once, and has bona fide in-office fiscal conservative credentials: Michael Williams (Whom I have contributed to from out of state)
#12
Michael Williams is a Commissioner on the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the oil and gas industry. It is the states oldest regulatory agency. Elected statewide three times, he was elected to complete an unexpired term in November 2000. In November 2002 and 2008, they re-elected him to full six-year terms. He was initially appointed to the Commission by then-Governor George W. Bush in December 1998 to fill a vacant seat. Williams served as Chairman of the Commission from September 1999 to September 2003 and again from July 2007 to February 2009. He is the first African American in Texas history to hold an executive statewide elected post.
Williams serves as the Chairman of the Governors Competitiveness Council. He also chairs the Governors Clean Coal Technology Council, represents the Governor on the Southern States Energy Board and is a member of both the National Coal Council and the Interstate Compact Commission. Williams also serves as the Railroad Commissions point person for the agencys regulatory reform and technology modernization efforts.
The son of public school teachers who earned degrees in math and the husband of a mechanical engineer, Michael is the creator and co-sponsor of the Winnovators, a summer camp for 6th through 12th graders to inspire the next generation of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians.
An advocate of alternative energy, Williams is championing the conversion of Texas public and private fleets, especially school buses, from diesel and gasoline to environmentally cleaner, cheaper and domestically produced natural gas and propane through his Breathe Easy initiative.
Michael is the immediate past Honorary State Chairman of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Texas. He initiated the Texas response against the tragedy in Darfur. Williams also narrates short stories for children of all ages, including the visually impaired and those with special needs.
Previously, Williams served as general counsel to a Texas high-tech corporation and of Counsel with the law firm of Haynes and Boone, L.L.P. He also has served in a volunteer capacity as the General Counsel of the Republican Party of Texas, the chairman of the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission, on the Board of Directors of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Our Mother of Mercy Catholic School.
A devout conservative, Michael helped get out the vote for Republicans as Chairman of Texas Victory 2004 and 2006, has served as Convention Chairman and Platform Committee Chairman at Republican Party of Texas State Conventions and was one of the original board members of the Texas Christian Coalition. He is also a life time member of the National Rifle Association.
He also had the pleasure to serve as an adjunct professor at Texas Southern University in the School of Public Affairs and Texas Wesleyan School of Law.
In 1990, President George H. W. Bush appointed Williams to be Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education, a position previously held by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Former President Bush previously appointed Williams as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Law Enforcement at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. He had policy oversight responsibility for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Customs Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. Williams also served in the Department of Justice as Special Assistant to Attorney General Richard Thornburgh.
Williams served as a prosecutor in the Department of Justice under President Ronald Reagan. In 1988, he was awarded the Attorney Generals Special Achievement Award for the conviction of six Ku Klux Klan members on stolen military weapons charges. Early in his career, he was an assistant district attorney in his hometown of Midland, Texas.
Williams is a proud alumnus of the University of Southern California where he holds a bachelors, a masters and a law degree.
He is a member of Most Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Arlington, Texas. He and his best friend, Donna, celebrate 24 years of marriage.
The Wests political and financial elite is still a very long way from grasping the extent to which the global centre of economic gravity is now shifting and the implications in terms of relative and absolute living standards.
There is still "no question" of an international invasion of Libya, David Cameron has said, despite admitting the constraints on ground forces were making the mission more difficult.
Six civilians were reported killed and dozens more injured in the besieged rebel-held town of Misrata as forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi kept up a barrage of rockets and other fire.
Prime Minister David Cameron said the Nato-led air strikes on regime military targets had helped prevent massacres and the taking of Misrata but opposition forces have called for a stronger intervention.
While the United Nations Security Council authorised "all necessary measures" to protect civilians - it specifically ruled out the presence of any occupying force on the ground.
With the two sides mired in a stalemate, Mr Cameron conceded that meant the international allies were not able to "fully determine the outcome".
#1
Between those tough guys, the French, and the straight forward no nonsense talking Brits, we now have a clear picture of what we are into in Libya.
Compared to the Euros, our current foreign policy team (I'm excluding Hillary here, she isn't allowed to make policy)is a bunch of naive children.
The rest of the world is laughing at Obama and watching his foreign policy being led around by the nose by every foreign dignitary that can stand to sit in the same room with him.
I think Carter will be relieved to know that he will no longer be listed as the worst president in American history. The libs who write textbooks will try to spin it every which way, but the empty suit hiding under his desk in the oval office is a complete and utter catastrophic failure. That puts the "fifth estate" the media completely naked as incompetent and partisan to even the door stop IQ's that voted for this waste of oxygen in the first place.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
04/17/2011 17:42
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#2
Uncle Muammar will leave Libyuh only iff the proper concessions + compensations [kowtows] to Him are made.
Also read, NO TRIALS OR OTHER PROSECUTIONS AGZ HIM FOR WAR CRIMES = CRIMES AGZ HUMANITY.
That being said, iff-n-when He does choose to leave Libyuh + Ruling Power, IMO Muammar will likely choose Cold War ally RUSSIA, since SADAT + now MUBARAK are gone + fellow anti-Israel ally EGYPT, Other has gone the way of the Muslim Brotherhood = Radical Islam or are at risk of doing so. Muammar prolly trusts Russ to be brutal agz anyone's attempts to kidnap or kill him once under their flag.
Iff not Russia, then prolly one of the usual comfy Neutral Euro-States where his Security, Identity, + $$$ Wealth can be heavily protected.
#3
WAFF > WE BETTER GET OUT OF LIBYA NOW BEFORE UGANDA + AFRICAN UNION ATTACK US! | UGANDA LASHES OUT AT FOREIGN STAKES IN AFRICA, as symbolized by the Libyan Crisis + NFZ.
ARTIC = The African Union will not tolerate any FOREIGN = EURO INTERFERENCE OR INTERVENTION [control?] IN AFRICAN AFFAIRS???
* Also, CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > {PressTV] LIBYAN RULER MUAMMAR GADDAFI HAS MADE TWO MISTAKES [as per US-NATO/EU = African affairs]: IT BLOCKED US AFRICA COMMAND BY NOT JOINING IT, + LET CHINA INTO LIBYA BY WID MAJOR ENERGY INVESTMENTS INSTEAD, SAYS FORMER US OFFICIAL.
Former US Treasury AsstSec DR. PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS.
ARTIC > ROBERTS = US-NATO/EU desire to remove or eliminate China from influence in the Mediterranean, + thus dev Hegemony + control of Mediterranean Energy resources [+ Africa], NEXT US-NATO TARGET AFTER LIBYUH WILL BE SYRIA DUE TO LARGE RUSSIAN NAVAL PRESENCE THERE.
CNN has obtained a list of roughly 70 "behavioral indicators" that TSA behavior detection officers use to identify potentially "high risk" passengers at the nation's airports.
Many of the indicators, as characterized in open government reports, are behaviors and appearances that may be indicative of stress, fear or deception. None of them, as the TSA has long said, refer to or suggest race, religion or ethnicity. If you're standing there quietly trying not to draw attention to yourself, you might be trying to hide something. If you are drawing attention to yourself, you might be doing so to try to hide something.
But one addresses passengers' attitudes towards security, and how they express those attitudes.
It reads: "Very arrogant and invokes first amendment rights expresses contempt against airport passenger procedures." This alone ought to invalidate this "indicator".
TSA officials declined to comment on the list of indicators, but said that no single indicator, taken by itself, is ever used to identify travelers as potentially high-risk passengers. Travelers must exhibit several indicators before behavior detection officers steer them to more thorough screening. So what happens if a muslim starts complaining loudly about the procedures? Probably the same thing, but they'd be more discreet about it.
Suspected Muslim terrorists insurgents killed a man and seriously injured a paramilitary ranger in separate attacks in Yala and Narathiwat yesterday.
Musae Sa-lae, an assistant village official was shot and killed in Yala province while driving a motorcycle at 6:30 a.m.
Musae was going to work in his rubber plantation when attackers hiding at the side of the road shot him, where he died at the scene.
Later that afternoon, a member of the 46th Rangers Regiment was seriously injured in a drive-by attack which police suspected was the work of terrorists extremists in Narathiwat province.
Volunteer ranger Muhammad Yakee, 26, was riding his motorcycle home when he was followed by two men on another motorcycle. The pillion rider took three shots at him and then they fled the scene. One bullet pierced the victim's neck and exited through his mouth. Muhammad was taken to the hospital and immediately underwent surgery.
A soldier was seriously wounded when a roadside bomb exploded in Narathiwat province on Saturday night.
The explosion took place about 8:30 p.m. when the 7-man patrol unit was patrolling the road on motorcycles.
The suspected terrorists militants detonated the home-made bomb while Pvt Chakkrapong Thongrit, 21, was passing by on a motorcycle. He was seriously injured and was taken to the district hospital.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said that not covering the face is a "shortcoming" and suggested that any Muslims who advocate being uncovered could be guilty of rejecting Islam.
In a statement published on its website the MCB, warns: "We advise all Muslims to exercise extreme caution on this issue, since denying any part of Islam may lead to disbelief.
"Not practising something enjoined by Allah and his Messenger is a shortcoming. Denying it is much more serious."
The statement quotes from the Koran: "It is not for a believer, man or woman, that they should have any option in their decision when Allah and his Messenger have decreed a matter."
The statement will add to controversy about the veil after France earlier this week banned the full-face covering.
The University of Texas Investment Management Co., the second-largest U.S. academic endowment, took delivery of almost $1 billion in gold bullion and is storing the bars in a New York vault, according to the funds board.
The fund, whose $19.9 billion in assets ranked it behind Harvard Universitys endowment as of August, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers, added about $500 million in gold investments to an existing stake last year, said Bruce Zimmerman, the endowments chief executive officer. The holdings are worth about $987 million, based on yesterdays closing price of $1,486 an ounce for Comex futures.
The decision to turn the funds investment into gold bars was influenced by Kyle Bass, a Dallas hedge fund manager and member of the endowments board, Zimmerman said at its annual meeting on April 14. Bass made $500 million on the U.S. subprime-mortgage collapse.
Central banks are printing more money than they ever have, so whats the value of money in terms of purchases of goods and services, Bass said yesterday in a telephone interview. I look at gold as just another currency that they cant print any more of.
#2
That's a great place to keep your gold. That way you remember where you put it. When people die sometimes things like that disappear especially if you have no family. This happens in Hospitals also in route or even family. The worst is grave robbery. Yes, that is happening.
Just a side note. Do you know what they bury overweight people (500lbs+) in?.
#4
Bass made $500 million on the U.S. subprime-mortgage collapse.
Clearly the UTX endowment board watches Glenn Beck -- they are clearly influenced by his "Buy Gold!" advertisers, while Mr. Bass is learning Soros' profit from chaos playbook off of Beck's chalkboard.
Posted by: regular joe ||
04/17/2011 11:57
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I am all about being smart enough to recognize what is going down, trying to protect one self by hedging against it like Bass did and is still doing until the rest of America gets half a brain and puts a stop to Obama's madness. Thank you Mr Beck for your wisdom during this crisis. And for all of you trying to pin this crisis on Beck, obviously you need to listen to him and other people who know how to recognize, prepare, survive and overcome.
#6
In other words, there are people like Beck out there who know what Soros and Obama are doing and are hedging against that by using their playbook, until we get these two out of our country.
h/t Instapundit
Robert Zoellick, World Bank president, said food prices are at "a tipping point", having risen 36pc in the last year to levels close to their 2008 peak. The rising cost of food has been much more dramatic in low-income countries, pushing 44m people into poverty since June last year.
Another 10pc rise in food prices would push 10m into extreme poverty, defined as an effective income of less than $1.25 a day. Already, the world's poor number 1.2bn.
Mr Zoellick said he saw no short term reversal in the damaging effect of food inflation, which is felt much more in the developing world as packaging and distribution accounts for a far larger proportion of the cost in the advanced economies.
Asked if he thought prices would remain high for a year, Mr Zoellick said: "The general trend lines are ones where we are in a danger zone... because prices have already gone up and stocks are relatively low." Three cheers for the wonderful: Postindustrial, Gaea saving, World we live in.
#1
"World Bank: Food prices have entered the 'danger zone'"
What - they might not be able to afford all the patè and champagne they want? That's the only thing that would really bother these clowns.
Sounds more like they're laying the groundwork to demand the West U.S. give them even MORE money.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/17/2011 10:09
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having risen 36pc in the last year to levels close to their 2008 peak.
I seem to recall -- although perhaps I am mistaken -- that we survived the 2008 peak, apparently still higher than current levels. Is there truly not enough food for the world, or is it just that in much of the world the various national GDPs are hidden away in the ruling class's Swiss bank accounts, unavailable for paying higher prices?
#3
"Is there truly not enough food for the world, or is it just that in much of the world the various national GDPs are hidden away in the ruling class's Swiss bank accounts, unavailable for paying higher prices?"
I'll take Door #2, tw.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/17/2011 14:21
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# 4 Mr. G thank you for that post. This article was shown in the UK first. Rice has dropped in price however our only bright spot. An old scout motto "be prepared" comes to mind. We are paying higher prices now and they are going up every day. The poor countries are suffering but we don't hear much about them now for some reason. Water looms as a major issue. Well, it's really a problem now. The solution is not government. Socialism is not an answer. Free capitalism and its people and this can be resolved toot sweet. So much mucking about and nothing to show for it.
#8
See also DRUDGEREPORT > WORLD BANK PRESIDENT: WORLD IS "ONE SHOCK AWAY" FROM FULL-BLOWN CRISIS.
IIUC ARTIC = a Global "Perfect Storm" of variable Crises.
WB Prez ZOELLICK = 'Tis a [Global] Econ Recovery wid NOT ENOUGH JOBS, ESPEC FOR WORLD YOUTHS = YOUNG ADULTS... ... IN ANY "REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT", THE "STATUS QUO" METHODOLOGY(S), ETC. IS NOT THE WINNING HAND.
#9
Food inflation is primarily a supply side problem, made substantially worse by the biofuels lunancy.
phil_b, maybe, but have a look at this article from Oct 2010 which anticipated a great deal of what we currently see unfolding in the world. Bernanke sets the world on fire
#10
JM that makes allot of sense "a Global "Perfect Storm" of variable Crises" and it sure looks like we are moving out of the eye into turbulence. Youth not having work is causing trouble true true. One world order? what a laugh. One currency, no way. We are too interdependent now. To me it looks like we either shoot ourselves in the foot or mother nature will.
#13
phil_b, commodities have moved from their historical purpose of feeding people and making things, into the casino. Sure natural caused can cause short term shortages and price rises, but if handled correctly, these periods are brief and price rises are small.
But with the new Casino Economics instituted by Bernanke, commodities have lost their connection to the real world and depend for their prices on the luck of the casino players. Relying on casino gamblers has always been a receipt for disaster.
#14
It's a myth that over the medium to long term, speculators raise prices of physical commodities that can not be easily stored, essentially gold and silver.
#15
It's a myth that over the medium to long term, speculators raise prices of physical commodities that can not be easily stored
phil_b, this is the heart and soul of the biggest debate in economics today.
I hold with the Austrian view that the above statement is nonsense.
The Austrian view is as stated in the article above that "Full-employment can be established only by the private sector. Therefore, the market and the price mechanism have to be allowed to operate without the distortions that have been created by government and central bank policies'
The opposite view is the Krugman/Keynesian view as you stated.
Unfortunately it's also the view being taught to unsuspecting students at most universities. What they fail to understand is the difference between physical speculators and financial speculators (casino gamblers)
h/t instapundit
...It was a chilly, wet and blustery afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin one more appropriate for a late-season Packers game than a springtime political rally. The stirring NFL Films theme, The Classic Battle, wouldve been a more apt musical choice than Van Halens Right Now to accompany Palin as she entered the stage outside the state capital building to address thousands of Tea Party members, along with a good number of extremely hostile, expletive-hurling government union rowdies.
So MSM, keep obsessing over the shiny new Trump toy if you must. But better keep an eye on a certain sharpshooting, grizzly mama.
#1
She may not have a Medal of Honor, but her politics makes me think of parallels to Teddy Roosevelt. Scares the heck out of elitist Republicans and has a good solid link to the common citizen. Of course this observation only goes so far. It's not 1889.
#2
#1 Ditto that "good solid link to the common citizen". What is good and right is wrong today.
The same people will vote for Obama in the next election. No change has occurred for them to vote for another. The seniors want their money, poor want their safety nets, students want their loans,those who work for the government want their jobs and so on. The Israeli are on their own. Those of the Jewish faith here
are nearly 100% for Obama. We shall all have sardines and Matzah at the Seder so to speak.
We shall all be poor.
#4
Thoseof the Jewish faith here are nearly 100% for Obama.
A vile canard. Only 78% of the Jewish vote went to Obama in 2008, and likely many of those will not vote for him or donate to his campaign in the next election, though they also won't vote for or donate to the Republican candidate.
At the community level alternate, non-Progressive Jewish organizations have been self-organizing over the past two years, Tea Party style. In Indiana entire congregations have left the progressive Jewish organization and formed their own group. They started working with one of the Republican state legislators, and when the Republicans swept both houses in Indiana last year, he got a resolution passed supporting Israel.
#6
Glad to hear people of the Jewish faith are moving away from Progressivism. Hope the trend continues. Obama has done little to nothing to support people of the Jewish faith. One could think of him as anti-semitic. He has put Israel in a dangerous position.
[Straits Times] INDONESIA police are attempting to identify the jacket wallah who went kaboom!" in a mosque as police were praying, wounding 30 people.
Police front man Maj. Gen. Anton Bahrul Alam says forensic doctors have been examining the DNA of the bomber, whose mangled body was found at the scene of the blast at a town in West Java.
He says the bomber's head is still intact. A picture of his face was released Saturday.
Alam said the bomber was wearing five layers of pants to hide the bomb that was strapped to his body.
Friday's attack was the first on a mosque in Indonesia since gun-hung tough guys started targeting the predominantly Mohammedan country a decade ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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WASHINGTON: On the instructions of Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Hussain Haqqani, Pakistani Consul General in Houston Aqil Nadeem visited Dr Aafia Siddiqui in Carswell detention facility in Texas on Friday.
In a two-hour meeting, Aafia informed the consul general that she was medically fine and was pleased to speak by phone to her mother and children in Karachi on Thursday. According to a Pakistani embassy official, Aafia will also be able to meet her brother at her request. The consul general informed her that the Pakistani Embassy in Washington had coordinated consular access for her through the authorities concerned. Dr Aafia Siddiqui asked the diplomat to convey her thanks to ambassador Haqqani for his concern for her welfare, the official said. app
[Ennahar] Seventy-Islamists were tossed in the slammer in the northern Jordan after violent protests in which dozens of people were maimed Friday, mostly coppers, said Saturday an official of security services
Prime Minister Maarouf Bakhit has accused the group of being part of an armed organization, based on an "obscurantist ideology," and warned that his government would stand firm against it.
The suspects, members of the Salafi Movement (Sunni ultra-conservative), were tossed in the slammer Friday during raids in Zarqa, where the festivities took place, and in the nearby town of Rassifeh, hours after Islamist protesters had attacked police, the source said.
Initially, 120 people were tossed in the slammer. Fifty were released and 70 were interviewed for alleged involvement in the violence in Zarqa on Friday, the official said under condition of anonymity.
According to a member of the Salafist movement, 22 of its leaders were among those jugged, including its leader, AbdelChahatah al-Tahawi.
The festivities, the worst in three weeks in the country, were held Friday as anti-government demonstrations were held in several cities in Jordan.
Police chief, Hussein Majali, had said that evening that police had intervened to "prevent the Salafists to attack people who were shopping.
Fifty-one coppers were hit with "knives, sticks and sharp tools, and 32 were treated for inhaling tear gas," said the source, who also reported eight civilians "injured when police fired tear gas."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
"obscurantist" means deliberately vague.
So, an "obscurantist ideology" means either that the ideology itself is vague; or, more likely, that like the rest of Islam, they are encouraged to lie and deceive to those not of their sect.
[Arab News] Forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffy ... a proud Arab institution for 42 years ... fired at least 100 Grad rockets into Misrata on Saturday, a rebel front man said, in a third day of heavy bombardment of the besieged rebel-held city.
"They fired Grads at an industrial area this morning, at least one hundred rockets were fired. No casualties are reported," Abdelbasset Abu Mzereiq told Rooters by telephone.
Misrata is the only major bastion of the rebels in the western part of Libya. Pro-Qadaffy forces have laid siege to it after the city rose up in revolt along with others against Qadaffy's four-decade rule in mid-February.
More than 100 rockets landed in the city on Friday and rebels said government forces had reached the city center.
Human Rights Watch said it had evidence Qadaffy's forces were firing cluster munitions into residential areas of Misrata. It published photographs of what it said were Spanish-produced cluster bombs, which release grenades designed to explode into fragments and kill the maximum number of people. I thought cluster bombs were WMDs. At least that's what Code Pink always said...
Mussa Ibrahim, a Libyan government front man, dismissed the allegations, saying: "I challenge them to prove it."
Late on Friday, an aid ship brought nearly 1,200 Misrata evacuees to the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, just a fraction of those stranded in the city and desperate to escape, an official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), who was on board the Greek ship, said.
There were likely to be 8,000-10,000 migrants who still needed to be evacuated from the city, Jeremy Haslam, an IOM aid coordinator said. The continued bombardment made it impossible to get into many areas of Misrata, he said.
"We threw out the textbook, basically. We couldn't get to the most vulnerable, those who need to get out fastest, because it was too dangerous," Haslam said.
On Friday, US President Barack B.O. Obama acknowledged the military situation on the ground in Libya had reached stalemate three weeks into the war, but said he expected NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... allies to force Qadaffy from power eventually.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
For Old Spook
Thank you for your service from an ex "Wallmeister".
Posted by: European Conservative ||
04/17/2011 0:22
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#2
fired at least 100 Grad rockets into Misrata on Saturday
Which is, I'm sure everybody will agree, is a terrible crime against humanity.
#5
A first class functioning system can fire 40-50 rockets in a 30 minutes or so and then it has to take time out to reload.
They probably have a less than fully functional system so unless they have more than one launcher, its reasonable to suspect a dozen or so rockets hit at once and it seemed to be a hundred.
Posted by: Lord Garth ||
04/17/2011 9:42
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#6
"They fired Grads at an industrial area this morning, at least one hundred rockets were fired.
Destroying domestic industry. Something even Obama can sit back and feel good about.
#7
For years I've heard that the Arab street seethes because the Great and not-so-great Satan(s) were propping up their vicious dictators.
Then I heard the Arab street seethed because we took down vicious dictator Saddam, in an invasion.
So what do they make of us taking on another transvestite brutal dictator and losing?
Posted by: regular joe ||
04/17/2011 11:38
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#8
So what do they make of us taking on another transvestite brutal dictator and losing?
They'll seeth. That's all they know how to do.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
04/17/2011 13:54
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#9
That is the imputus in all this to begin with, duplicitus rational, history by the winners, so forth. The losers will say they won no matter what, so what ya gotta do is kick ass so hard they sound like Wimp Lo.
Jean Claude Van Damme looked pretty in the movies, but after he got his ass flat kicked in a bar they stopped showing his movies. I think there is a lesson there for the cultivated people of matters.
[Tolo News] A jacket wallah wearing an Afghan cops uniform detonated his explosives to a military base in eastern Laghman province on Saturday, officials said.
The incident happened at 07:30 am local time in Dasht-e-Gamberay area of Laghman province and the suicide bomber was wearing an Afghan cops uniform, Zahir Azimi a front man for Afghan Defence Ministry told TOLOnews. Mr Azimi said there was no report about the exact number of casualties in the attack.
Meanwhile, ...back at the scene of the crime, Lieutenant Queeg had an idea... officials in Jalalabad hospital said that 4 were killed and 8 others were maimed in the attack and all of them were from Afghan National Army.
Taliban have grabbed credit for the attack.
So they do occasionally acknowledge their work.
The attack comes as on Friday a suicide bomber attacked on Kandahar police headquarters in which three were killed including Khan Mohammad Mujahid, the police chief of the province. Two other coppers have been maimed in the attack, officials added.
Taliban have grabbed credit for the attack.
Two excitements claimed. Three points creates a pattern...
Recently hard boyz have been targeting government buildings in some parts of the country.
NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... has stressed on long-term cooperation with Afghanistan in Berlin conference.
On Friday NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in Berlin meeting said that handing over security responsibility did not mean leaving the country.
The Afghan Foreign Minister said that the grinding of the peace processor and reintegration required regional and global cooperation.
There are around 152, 000 foreing forces in Afghanistan, 100,000 of them American troops fighting myrmidons.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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A security source from the Northern Israeli command warned 150 villages in southern Lebanon that the Jewish state would destroy "every house or building from where missiles are launched."
Israel has evidence that Hizbullah is continuing to prepare for war, the official said. He stated that Israel has provided the United Nations with reports and maps that reveal the presence of 1,000 Hizbullah arms depots and 40,000 missiles in bunkers.
Hizbullah has turned 150 southern villages into a huge military camp, he said. Accordingly, the Israeli army is not responsible for any harm that might inflict the citizens of this region.
#1
Accordingly, the Israeli army is not responsible for any harm that might inflict the citizens of this region
According to the Geneva Convention and the laws of war, Israel is right of course - people who use human shields and fight from behind civilians are the ones responsible for the civilian casualties.
In the court of world opinion, though, Israel will be seen as causing the slaughter of untold numbers of innocent civilians. And by civilians, they mean "anyone not in uniform, even if they are caught launching a missile or firing a mortar at Israel"
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/17/2011 1:50
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#2
In the court of world opinion Israel doesn't have a right to exist anyway, Rambler. So, "world opinion" will just have to learn to zip up.
#3
I was hoping that the Israelis would do just this.
Now, hopefully, the Israelis will demand that the UN officially notify Hezbollah that this is an unlawful activity, and that their known leadership assign to individual Hezbollah commanders, by name, the task of either removing the military equipment from these villages or removing the civilians who dwell there to a place of safety.
And that failure to comply will make the Hezbollah leadership subject to prosecution for war crimes, if and when there are hostilities and civilians are harmed, or *just* those appointed Hezbollah leaders designated as responsible before hostilities commence.
Lebanon belongs to the Geneva Conventions, which means that Hezbollah is fully subject to criminal prosecution for violating the accords.
Jordanian security forces have arrested 70 Islamists after violent protests in which many people were hurt, most of them policemen, a security official told Agence France Presse on Saturday.
The suspects, members of the ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim Salafist movement, were rounded up during raids Friday in the town of Zarqa and nearby Rassifeh, hours after Islamist protesters attacked police, the official said.
Initially 120 people were detained but 50 of them were later let go while 70 were quizzed about their involvement in the violence in Zarqa, a northern industrial town, said the official who declined to be named.
Those found guilty would be prosecuted, he added.
A member of the Salafist movement meanwhile told AFP that 22 prominent figures of the Islamist group including its chief in Jordan, Abdul Shahatah al-Tahawi, were among those detained.
More than 90 people, most of them policemen, were hurt Friday when Islamist Salafist demonstrators armed with swords, daggers and clubs attacked police in Zarqa during protests.(AFP)
[Ennahar] According to informed sources, the emir of "Katibet Tarik ibn Ziyad", Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, alias, Ghedir Mohamed, head of the organization of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat ... now known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb... in the south, has decided to send Libyan activists to Libya on a special mission: bring weapons from the areas where battles are taking place between Libyan forces of Evil and pro-Qadaffy forces.
According to these information citing new repented, Abu Zeid, nicknamed "Essoufi", allegedly ordered sixty snuffies of Libyan nationality, members of his organization, to go to Libya to bring the greatest possible amount of weapons of war and transport it in the Saharan Sahel region ... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas... . Abu Zeid said that their mission was not to take part in the war as it is "not their war," but to take advantage of the situation in Libya to seize weapons and war equipment.
These revelations are confirming what has been reported by many officials on the attempts of the Salafist organization to bring weapons from Libya to the Sahel Saharan regions.
Chadian President Idris Deby had said that the organization of Droukdal had seized heavy weapons that it would have brought to his strongholds in the Ténéré desert.
An Algerian security official had also told Rooters that the terrorist organization had managed to seize heavy weapons from Libya.
For her part, the U.S. Secretary of State had warned the Libyan opposition on the consequences of exploitation by the snuffies of situation in Libya to seize weapons they would use later in their terrorist operations.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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[Ma'an] The Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, government said Saturday it has placed in durance vile two more suspects in connection with the murder of an Italian activist, hanged hours after his abduction.
The interior ministry "managed to arrest two suspects" in the murder on Friday of pro-Paleostinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, in addition to two other suspects previously taken into custody, a statement said.
"The security forces continue to hunt other members of the group responsible for the murder," said the statement.
The suspects placed in durance vile were being questioned about Arrigoni's murder, it added, without revealing their names or when they were placed in durance vile.
Hamas had said Friday two suspected kidnappers were placed in durance vile and security officials were looking for accomplices.
The Italian activist was found hanged in a house north of Gazoo City, the ruling Hamas government said on Friday, blaming a radical Islamist group for his murder.
"The government media office denounces the criminal kidnapping and murder of an Italian solidarity activist... who was found by security hanging in an abandoned house in northern Gazoo," Hamas said on Friday.
Hamas government front man Ihab Al-Ghoussein branded the murder a "heinous crime which has nothing to do with our values, our religion, our customs and traditions."
"The other members of the group will be hunted down and the law will be applied," Al-Ghoussein said on Friday.
The pro-Paleostinian International Solidarity Movement named the activist as 36-year-old member Vittorio Arrigoni, who had been living in the Gazoo Strip for much of the past three years.
In a video posted on YouTube, the kidnappers said Arrigoni had been taken hostage in order to secure the release of an unspecified number of Salafists jugged by Hamas security forces.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Ennahar] Sirte, the hometown of Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffy, ... a proud Arab institution for 42 years ... and Al-Hira south-west of Tripoli, were the targets Saturday in air strikes by NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... , reported the official Libyan agency Jana.
Raids by "colonialist aggressors crusaders have targeted Saturday morning Sirte, a coastal city of about 120,000 inhabitants located 600 km east of Tripoli, the agency said, without giving details on the targets.
The city had already been the target of raids Friday, according to Jana.
In the afternoon, the agency said that Al-Hira, 50 km southwest of Tripoli, was also targeted by NATO raids, without giving further details.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[Bangla Daily Star] Suspected Mohammedan rebels rubbed out a woman candidate contesting village-level polls in restive Indian Kashmire, police said yesterday.
Haseena Akhter, in her forties, was fighting elections in her village of Pakherpora, 35 kilometres from Kashmire's summer capital, Srinagar.
The Panchayat or local body elections, which began on April 13, are being held in two phases in the revolt-hit Mohammedan-majority state after a gap of 10 years.
"Akhter was dragged out by unidentified gunnies who raided her residence on Friday night and killed her in the compound at point-blank range," a police brass hat told AFP, requesting anonymity.
Separatist politicians and jihad boy groups have called for a boycott of the local polls, terming the exercise an attempt by India to "strengthen its occupation of Kashmire".
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
I suspect these 'rebels' are not from Kashmir and are not rebels since, being born in Pakistan, they have no allegiance to a foreign state. Pakistani terrorists cannot be rebelling against India.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/17/2011 20:23
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Ineffectual Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Hamas on Friday of running its agenda based on dictates from Iran, Palestinian news channel Ma'an reported.
Occasionally he gets one right...
Abbas, who was scheduled to visit the Gaza Strip in attempts to reconcile the long-standing riff between his Fatah faction and Hamas, said to a journalists that the meeting remained an on-paper proposal following orders from Iran to Hamas leaders ruling from Damascus, Syria.
[Maghrebia] Libya's National Transitional Council (NTC) on Wednesday (April 13th) gained official recognition from the international contact group in Doha.
NTC representative Mahmoud Jibril said the move by foreign ministers and diplomats was "the "correct beginning for dealing with the Libyan crisis on the part of the international community".
Participants agreed "to set up a temporary financial mechanism that would help the National Transitional Council and the international community manage aid to meet short-term financial needs as well as essential needs in Libya", a forum communiqué said.
The group also stressed the need for Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffy ... Custodian of Wheelus AFB for 42 long years ... to leave to avoid further bloodshed.
"The Transitional Council presented its vision for a solution in Libya and provided all the guarantees to the international community that Libya will stay within the international community and will be bound by its laws," Jibril told Al-Shorfa.
Jibril said that the National Transitional Council requested arms and equipment to help the rebels overthrow Qadaffy's regime. "Otherwise, I think that the problem will last longer, and neither air strikes nor the imposition of a no-fly zone on the Libyan regime will be sufficient," he said.
He criticised the Turkish initiative that was introduced because it did not contain any reference to Qadaffy's departure. Jibril said he would oppose any initiative that did not include such a stipulation.
The Turkish initiative called for a cease-fire in cities surrounded by pro-regime forces, a corridor to be opened to allow the distribution of aid, and negotiations leading to free elections. It did not call for the removal of Qadaffy and his family.
Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassem Al Thani said during a presser after the meeting that the final communiqué opens the door to provide the Libyan opposition with means for "self-defence".
"The Libyan people need to defend themselves to resist persistent attacks by Qadaffy's forces," he said.
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04/17/2011
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[Yemen Post] A delegation from the opposition coalition, the Joint Meeting Parties, heads on Sunday to Saudi capital Riyadh to meet the GCC foreign ministers.
The rotating president of the coalition, Yasin Saeed Noman, told Aljazeera Satellite Channel that the delegation will brief the Gulf ministers on what is happening in Yemen.
Previously, the JMP informed the GCC member states that it wanted to explain the situation in Yemen before their second declaration that should complete the GCC proposal for a peaceful transfer of power, he said.
The regime was misleading our brothers in the Arabian Gulf and that was seen as a roadblock to explain the things here as they are being done as the situations are gravely deteriorating, he made clear.
The GCC states welcomed our explanation and the meeting will take place Sunday afternoon, he said.
Regarding the reports that there was a U.S.-EU vision for a timeframe for the ouster of the Yemeni regime in the light the GCC proposal, Noman said that there was a 'misconception'.
" The U.S. and EU thoughts for the Yemeni crisis were thrashed out even with the regime and they focused on the implementation of the first initiative, nothing else," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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[Iran Press TV] Six banks have been closed in several parts of the United States in one single day, bringing the total number of bank failures to 34 in 2011.
That's all? Surely the pace was faster in 2010...
US regulators shuttered two banks in the state of Alabama and two others in the state of Georgia on Friday. Two more were closed in Mississippi and Minnesota on the same day, Rooters reported.
Superior Bank in Alabama's capital, Birmingham, which was closed on Friday with nearly USD 3 billion in assets and USD 2.7 billion in deposits, was the largest bank to be closed in the current year.
Washington Mutual Bank, closed in 2008, is the largest bank, with a total of USD 307 billion in assets, to be seized since the beginning of the US financial crisis.
In 2010, US authorities shuttered 157 banks with an ownership value of USD 92 billion. The figure followed 140 bank foreclosures with total assets of USD 169 billion in 2009.
According to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Sheila Bair, the number of failures is expected to drop through the rest of this year.
The growing number of closures has cost the deposit insurance fund billions of dollars since it started four years ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
Good Morning Moonbeam and all others. What a distraction. Well I don't like that word anymore "expected". That's all you hear nowadays "(FDIC) Chairman Sheila Bair, the number of failures is expected to drop through the rest of this year". Unexpected that is.
#2
Not counting the banks force out of business, not so much as investment or financial failures, but because the Feds jack up reserve levels at the same time extorting multi-year advance payments in FDIC insurance.
#3
#2 Hello!; This is a weak subject for myself. I do however run into business people who pass on general information. This week I was told Banks want to loan money now. The problem is that those people who apply are overextended, bad credit risks and so on.
#4
...And Friday, BoA - which has my checking, savings, and mortgage - 86'd their CFO and hired one of the most powerful and well connected regulatory lawyers in Washington:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42608309
I am very seriously considering pulling my savings out TOMORROW.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/17/2011 10:45
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#5
In the 20's and 30's people put money in Mason jars for good reason.
#6
BOA has my mortgage, Mike, but only because they bought Countrywide (who bought it from someone - it's hard to follow); I wouldn't let them or one of the other bankconglomerates near my actual money.
Can't do anything about the mortgage, but I'd definitely look around for a regional bank to move the checking and savings to. Or, if you're eligible, a credit union.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/17/2011 11:22
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#7
In the 20's and 30's people put money in Mason jars for good reason.
If it were in the form of coins that were made of silver ....
#8
Gorb is correct. I have some confederate paper money and it has no value. They are still finding gold buried in Rome when their economy tanked. The problem with gold is this money is taken out of circulation.
#9
Miss Barbara -
Thank you for the advice - there is a regional here that has a great rep plus one of my wife's uncles was a VP there and until recently was a member of the board. I'll have to start physically taking the payment to the bank every month but it will be worth it to know I wont possibly end up getting only pennies on the dollar. (I know by the book FDIC fully insures every dime in there, but 1) I don't trust Washington to pay up and 2) if BoA goes under a LOT of banks are going with it, and that will spread any payout even further. I ain't takin' any chances.)
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/17/2011 20:16
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[Bangla Daily Star] Jamaat-e-Islami has expressed concern over the lives of its leaders Motiur Rahman Nizami and Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojahid, who will be quizzed at a "safe home" in Dhanmondi instead of Dhaka Central Jail for links to war crimes.
Terming the "safe home" a torture cell, Jamaat acting secretary general ATM Azharul Islam said, "We are deeply concerned about the safety of our leaders. The Safe Home is in an area, which is considered a ruling party stronghold."
He was speaking at a presser at the party headquarters in the city's Moghbazar area.
The Jamaat leader announced a countrywide protest rally on April 18 demanding cancellation of the remand of the two party leaders.
"The government will have to take the full responsibility, if anything happens to the two top leaders," Ahzarul said.
The International Crimes Tribunal on April 13 allowed interrogators to quiz the two at a "Safe Home" in Dhanmondi from 10:00am to 5:00pm on two dates.
During a court hearing, defence counsel Munshi Ahsan Kabir said the "safe home" is in a residential area that lacks security and medical facilities.
But Chief Prosecutor Ghulam Arieff Tipoo rejected the claim and told the court that the "Safe Home" is well-secured.
On April 5, the tribunal allowed Sherlocks to quiz Nizami and Mojahid inside Dhaka Central Jail in connection with 1971 war crimes.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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QUETTA: Unidentified gunnies in Dera Murad Jamali set ablaze a tanker carrying fuel supplies for NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the style of the American pants... troops stationed in Afghanistan on Saturday.
According to official sources, the vehicle carrying fuel for NATO troops was on its way to Kandahar from Bloody Karachi when unidentified attackers, riding a cycle of violence, shot bullets at it on the National Highway near Dera Murad Jamali in the limits of the Sadar Levies Station. As a result of the firing, the tanker caught fire and was destroyed completely. However, The wishy-washy However... no casualty was reported in the incident. After committing the crime, the gunnies managed to escape from the scene.
Balochistan Levies officials reached the site and cordoned off the area, soon after the incident. No outfit had claimed the responsibility for the attack until the filing of this report. Balochistan Levies has started the paperwork but haven't done much else against the unidentified attackers. Further investigations are underway.
[Ennahar] Syrian President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... on Saturday expressed his sadness at the death of dozens of people during demonstrations against the regime, in a speech before the new government broadcast on public television.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.
[Dawn] A group of lawyers on Friday thrashed Anti-Corruption Establishment Assistant Director Umar Farooq who is investigating a case against former SSP investigation Shafqaat Ahmad Bhaddar.
The officer had come to appear before the court of Justice Manzoor Ahmad Malik with regard to a petition filed by the former SSP for cancellation of a case against him.Advocate Chaudhry Wasim Bhaddar, a relative of Shafqaat Bhaddar, was leading the lawyers who gave a sound beating to the ACE officer when he came out of the courtroom.
The lawyers hurled abuses at him and tried to snatch record of the case, accusing him of not conducting investigation on merit. ACE officer Umar Farooq later informed the judge about the treatment meted out to him and the judge asked him that he could initiate legal proceedings against the lawyers.
At this the officer left the court premises but the infuriated lawyers again beat him up.
Highly frustrated and angry, Umar Farooq again went to the judge and loudly said he did not to work. "I am resigning from job. There is no respect. I want justice," he told the judge.
The ACE officer alleged that both parties involved in the case of Shafqaat were pressuring him but he was doing investigation on merit.
Justice Malik took strong notice and called Lahore High Court Bar Association President Asghar Ali Gill who tried to placate the official but to no avail.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
sounds like a group of lawyers need a beating - even more than the usual
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/17/2011 11:48
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[Ennahar] An Egyptian administrative court on Saturday ordered the dissolution of the National Democratic Party (NDP), former ruling party, and the seizure of its assets, said a judicial source.
"The tribunal ordered the dissolution of the NDP and the seizure of its money. Its headquarters and its buildings will be transferred to the government," the source said.
Conducted over three decades by Hosni Mubarak, ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... the NDP is trying to survive the popular revolt that toppled former president February 11. Many of its former executives are under investigation for corruption, and many are already behind bars.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
This leaves the MB as the largest political group in the country. Hopefully the NDP will reorganize enough to prevent a one-party state, but odds now favor the MB getting the next government.
#2
I wonder if we can find a judge to do the same thing with the Rethuglycon and Dummycheat parties. Let the Tea Party be the majority party, and the rest of the "minority" parties can suck their exhaust.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/17/2011 20:12
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The last thing I would want is a judge deciding the political makeup of this country.
Pakistan joins the discussion started by Dr. Fadl and his fellow jihadi prisoners in Egypt.
DURING the mass movement against then president Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, concern was raised that radical and violent actors could try to exploit the situation in pursuit of their objectives. However, a smooth transition in Egypt has proven wrong apprehensions of violence by jihadist groups.
There has been violence, some quite nasty, but mostly it's not been reported.
After the transition, it was claimed that Mubarak had crushed the jihadists in the 1990s and those that had remained were unable to mount a serious challenge. Some commentators have argued that mass movements are not the domain of jihadists. Many others have denied the presence of jihadist networks in Egypt. Further explanations have been given in this regard but a major element that has not really been factored in is the in-depth debate that challenged the militant narrative in Egypt.
Egypt passed through a violent phase in the 1990s when the government made all-out efforts to dismantle jihadist groups in the country. The Mubarak regime had filled up the prisons with thousands of suspects. Although rejection of violence by the Muslim Brotherhood had shrunk the space for violent actors in Egyptian society, the discourse facilitated among captive members of the Islamic Group (Gamaa Islamiyah) and Al Jihad, the two main jihadist groups in Egypt, on the issue of the legitimacy of pursuing a violent path, contributed much towards countering violent ideological tendencies.
The debate was initiated among thousands of imprisoned members of the Islamic Group and questioned the justification of violence for achieving their stated goals. After the discourse, reading and furtive conversations, the detainees came to feel that they had been manipulated into pursuing a violent path. Although it was difficult to start the debate as initially it had faced strong opposition both inside and outside the prisons, at some point the imprisoned members of Al Jihad, the most violent group in Egypt and led by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, also began to express an interest in joining the non-violent initiative. But Dr Fadl, the architect of Al Qaedas ideological paradigm, was the man who turned the initiative into a great debate.
Fadl, an Egyptian physician and scholar, was one of the first members of Al Qaedas top council and proponent of the literature that Al Qaeda used for indoctrination. His book Compendium gave Al Qaeda the licence to murder all those who stood in its way. Al-Zawahiri had declared the book a victory from God. Later, Fadl accused Al-Zawahiri of adding new chapters to his book and rephrasing it in parts, which caused a rift between the two.
Al-Zawahiris amendments to Fadls work provoked a debate among the imprisoned leaders of the Islamic Group in the late 1990s. They started to examine the evidence and felt that they had been manipulated into pursuing a violent path. In 2001, Fadl was arrested in Yemen and handed over to Egypt. Fadl joined his former colleagues in prison and started revising his previous work and came up with a title Rationalising Jihad in Egypt and the World. This new book attempted to reconcile Fadls well-known views with sweeping modifications from Compendium.
Apart from covering many critical issues including the conditions for jihad in foreign lands and the killing of innocent civilians, Fadl critically examined the question of takfir and observed that there were various kinds of takfir, and that the matter was so complex that it must be left to competent Islamic jurists, and that members of the public were not qualified to enforce the law. He cautioned that it was not permissible for a Muslim to condemn another Muslim.
The debate provided an opportunity to Islamic Group and Al Jihad members to review their strategies and give up violence. At the same time, on a societal level, it helped to strengthen non-violent narratives. One has not even heard echoes of such a discourse in Pakistan, although the dire need for that cannot be emphasised enough.
Religious scholars in Pakistan have issued more than a dozen conditional religious decrees against suicide attacks, stating that there is no justification for such attacks on Pakistani soil. However, in the decrees they have not failed to mention that terrorist attacks are a reaction to the governments policies. There has been intentional evasion of talking about extremism mainly on the ideological front. This attitude of putting the entire burden on the state and shirking ones own responsibility has almost become the norm in Pakistan.
Fear for personal security, as much as any other factor, has hindered the initiation of a debate on such sensitive issues. A number of religious scholars from all schools of thoughts hold contrary views on the militant discourse but these views either do not have support within their sectarian domains or the scholars do not want to expound their thoughts vociferously for fear of risking their lives.
Very few scholars have been willing to speak out in the face of personal threats. Allama Javed Ghamdi is one such scholar who has been the voice of reason in the ideological proliferation in Pakistan. But the clergy in Pakistan does not accept his narrative because of his modern credentials. There is an urgent need to find the voice of reason among the clergy, which has an influence in the militant circles and can courageously initiate debate on critical issues.
In this context, one example is a young Deobandi scholar, Muhammad Ammar Khan Nasir, son of Maulana Zahidul Rashidi, who wields influence in the Deobandi school of thought and is well respected even among militant groups in Pakistan.
Nasir, in his newsletter, Al Sharia, has declared that it is not permissible on religious grounds for non-Afghan Muslims to fight against international forces in Afghanistan. He has argued that Pakistan is in agreement with the international community in Afghanistan and if the government supported the Taliban it would be going against the principles of Islam.
An interesting point...
He has also spoken about the militants limited understanding of world politics and stated that they required intellectual guidance. He has urged the clergy to abandon its state of denial and recognise, rather than justify, the Talibans weaknesses.
The debate initiated by Ammar Nasir has formed the basis for an intellectual discussion among Deobandi scholars. This is a ray of hope that the intellectual discourse is still intact in the religious community in Pakistan. But the crucial question is: can these discussions be transformed into something close to the great debate in Egypt?
The writer, Muhammad Amir Rana, is editor of the quarterly research journal Conflict and Peace Studies.
[Ennahar] Forteen soldiers were killed and 12l were maimed Friday night by a "terrorist group" which attacked their outpost in Azazga (140 km) east of Algiers, according to security sources.
This attack would have caused 14 deaths and twelve maimed among the military and one of the assailants, according to residents reached by telephone from Algiers. The body of the latter was seen on a highway, sources said. The exchange of fire lasted over two hours, said the site. The position attacked is situated outside the town of Azazga, on the edge of the dense forest of Yakouren, where al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is very active. The attack came nearly two months after lifting the state of emergency declared in 1992 to contain an Islamic insurgency.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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Iran and Turkey opened a third border crossing Saturday, with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu proclaiming the two neighbors "friends for eternity," Anatolia news agency reported.
Davutoglu inaugurated the new crossing at Kapikoy in eastern Turkey's Van province with his Iranian counterpart Ali Akbar Salehi, and said a fourth would open in June at Esendere in the southeast.
A fifth would follow at Dilucu in northeast Turkey, Davutoglu said, without giving a date.
"Our prime minister has set a target of 30 billion dollars" in annual trade with Iran, Anatolia quoted him as saying. "That is why we are opening this border crossing."
"Currently Iran-Turkey trade stands at 11 billion dollars annually and we are trying to hike it to 30 billion dollars," Salehi said.
Relations between the two neighbors have blossomed since the conservative Islamic-based government of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to power in 2002.
Erdogan determined to triple the value of their bilateral trade -- which at present consists mainly of sales of Iranian gas to Turkey -- by 2015.
Turkey has reluctantly agreed to implement economic sanctions against Iran approved by the United Nations Security Council because of Tehran's nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at weapons development.
#1
ION BYZANTIUM, TODAY'S ZAMAN > TURKEY'S STAKES IN DANGER AS UNREST RAGES IN SYRIA. Various Perts.
Turkey fears ...
> Affect of unrest on Syria's own domestic KURDISH POPULATION, + ultimately as per TURKEY'S KURDS on the Syria-Turkey border.
> Affect on Thurkey's vital international trade flows which route through Syria.
> LOSS OF ASSAD REGIME + SYRIA = DECISIVE? LOSS + FAILURE OF ALL OF TURKEY'S REGIONAL PROJECTS, INTERESTS WID VARIOUS NEIGHBORING STATES.
Loss of Syria + its Region-stabilizing influence more serious to Turkey than Diplomatic, Geopol brouhahas wid Iran.
* OTOH CHINESE MILITARY FORUM > WHILE MOST OF ALLAH'S STATES [Muslim Nations]STILL PUT AN ALL-OUT EFFORT TO GET [1930's?] 1930 TECHNOLOGY = NUCLEAR BOMBS, THE US IS ABOUT TO PERFECT ITS ABM SYSTEM.
#2
HMMMMM, HMMMM, I have to wonder iff the Turko-Syrian KURDS will in time become akin to the "SOUTH KURILES" issue between Russia + Japan, i.e. SCO-CSTO BFF RUSSIA + CHINA as per Russ isolating or containing "strategic partner" China from North China Sea + NORPAC, ARCTIC NAVAL, TRADE ROUTES???
[Iran Press TV] At least two Bahraini women have died as a result of a crackdown on the opposition, while thugs backed by Saudi forces stormed the village of Karzakan following the country-wide protests.
Azizeh Hassan died in her home after pro-regime thugs stormed houses in Bilad al-Qadim district, a Press TV correspondent reported on Saturday.
Moreover, a female teenager died a month after she was attacked by pro-regime thugs in Manama. Jawaher Abdul-Amir Kuwaitan was in a coma at the capital's al-Salmaniyah Hospital.
A number of rallies were held in cities and villages across the country, including in A'ali, Diraz, Karzakan and Bani Jamrah, on Friday.
Meanwhile, ...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Nunzio had his hands full of angry bleached blonde... Al Khalifa loyalists backed by Saudi forces poured into the streets of Karzakan, terrorizing and damaging properties.
Security forces have stepped up their crackdown on the opposition, with over 800 people now being tossed in the clink.
According to the opposition Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights and the al-Wefaq party, the prominent human rights ...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions... lawyer Mohammed al-Tajer was tossed in the clink on Saturday night during a raid on his house.
The Bahrain Center for Human Rights in Manama has said that those jugged by government forces undergo torture. The group has also cited incidences of families receiving the bodies of those who died in jug with bruising and lashing marks.
Since the beginning of anti-government protests on February 14, scores of protesters have been killed and many others gone missing. Many of the families believe those tossed in the clink are most likely being jugged at the Sheikh Isa military base.
Most Bahraini media outlets have been blocked and mosques demolished by the government. Additionally, doctors and others who help the injured protesters have been targeted in arrests.
Bahraini protesters are demanding an end to the 200-year rule of the Al Khalifa dynasty.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
Iran is pushing the Shias into protests, then distracting the Iranian populace with the whipped up hysteria. Nice double game if they can get away with it. Why aren't we actively subverting the Mullahs and RG by arming the opposition and disrupting the gov't ops?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/17/2011 10:10
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#2
"Why aren't we actively subverting the Mullahs and RG by arming the opposition and disrupting the gov't ops?"
Two words, Frank: The Won.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/17/2011 10:12
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#3
It is not halal to arm the brother of your brother.
[Dawn] Two security personnel and a beturbanned goon were killed in exchange of fire during an attack on a security post in Khpayanga area of lower Kurram tribal region on Friday.
Sources said that a group of armed gun-hung tough guys attacked an FC checkpost with heavy weapons. As a result, two personnel Wasim Khan and Hakeem Khan were killed and another one was injured. A beturbanned goon was also killed when FC men retaliated.
The bodies of secret police were shifted to FC headquarter from where they will be dispatched to their native towns.
Meanwhile, ...back at the argument, Jane reached into her purse for her .38... a government-run primary school was partially damaged when an bomb planted by unknown myrmidons went off in a remote village of Malakand protected area early on Friday morning.Sources said that unidentified gun-hung tough guys had planted the device along the outer wall of the school building in Sholwai, some 25km from district headquarter Batkhela, which went kaboom! with a big bang. As a result, the boundary wall of the school was partially damaged.
The Malakand Levies have lodged a case and started investigation.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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[Emirates 24/7] Egypt's state prosecutor decided on Friday to transfer ousted president Hosni Mubarak ...The former President-for-Life of Egypt, dumped by popular demand in early 2011... to a military hospital, from which he will be moved to prison when his health improves, state media reported.
Abdel Maguid Mahmud "decided to transfer the former president Hosni Mubarak to one of the military hospitals," from one in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, the official MENA news agency reported.
Mubarak would be placed under "the necessary security," it reported.
It added Mubarak would remain "jugged under preventive custody according to prison laws with the obligation of informing the state prosecution as soon his health improves and the opportunity arises to move him to a prison."
Mubarak suffered a heart attack earlier this week during questioning by prosecutors over his alleged involvement in the deaths of anti-regime protesters.
He and his two sons were subsequently remanded in jug for 15 days.
The report said the prosecution had asked the interior ministry to transfer Mubarak to a hospital in Cairo's Tora prison, where his sons Alaa and Gamal are along with a growing number of former ministers and regime officials.
The interior minister responded by saying the prison's hospital was not equipped to deal with a rapid decline in the 82-year-old's health and recommended a military hospital, the report said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
To encourage other dictators to fight to the last.
[Iran Press TV] In Yemen, thousands of outraged women have defended their right to protest in the capital and other cities over remarks made by President President-for-Life Ali Abdullah Saleh. ... Saleh initially took power as a strongman of North Yemen in 1977, when disco was in flower, after serving as a lieutenant colonel in the army. He had been part of the conspiracy that bumped off his predecessor, Ibrahim al-Hamdi, in the usual tiresome military coup, and he has maintained power by keeping Yemen's many tribes fighting with each other, rather than uniting to string him up. ... President-for-Life Saleh ... exemplifying the Arab's propensity to combine brutality with incompetence... had earlier said that it was un-Islamic for women to join men in demonstrations against him, Rooters reported.
In response, around 5,000 women erupted into the streets in Sana'a on Saturday. The protesters, who have filed a complaint against Saleh for disrespecting women's rights, marched from University Square to the office of Attorney General Abdullah al-Olafi.
Similar protests were held in the industrial city of Taizz, south of the capital, Sana'a. Sit-ins were also held there and in the city of Ibb.
Women argue that their participation in the demonstrations is religiously sound, and that the president is exploiting religion after failing to stop the protests through employing tribes and security forces.
The demonstrators continue to call on Saleh to step down after nearly three months of protests. While Saleh says civil war could break out if he steps down before an orderly transition, the protesters say they want him out immediately.
Meanwhile, ...back at the barn, Bossy had come up with a new idea... a local Yemeni newspaper has revealed that Saleh will step down from power in 30 days upon the designation of a new vice president. This is according to a timetable set by the US and EU ambassadors.
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04/17/2011
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The IDF has drawn up a comprehensive multi-year strategy; planners hope their prudence will help protect Israel from all fresh dangers.
[jpost] - The IDF's multi-year plan, unveiled to the press this week, was for the most part a continuation of the last plan, Tefen, initiated in 2007 under former chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi.
Then, the IDF was reeling from its failures and mistakes following the Second Lebanon War in 2006, and Ashkenazi decided to invest in the ground forces by manufacturing more Merkava tanks, developing a new armored personnel carrier (APC) called the Namer and significantly boosting training.
An emphasis was also put on missile defense, the benefits of which we witnessed last week when the Iron Dome intercepted eight rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.
This has paid off, and the IDF is unquestionably better prepared today for another ground war in Syria, Lebanon or the Gaza Strip.
During his term as chief of staff, Ashkenazi oversaw nearly 100 different brigade-level exercises. In 2006, by comparison, the IDF held a total of two brigade-level exercises. The IDF has already received the first batch of Namer APCs and has equipped some of its tanks with the Trophy active-protection system. The ground forces are ready.
THE NEW plan, called Halamish and constructed under new Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz -- some IDF officers have joked that Halamish is the Hebrew acronym for "I am missing 1 billion shekels" -- continues the same line of thinking as Tefen, but may contain another focal point.
While both plans identify Iran as the greatest threat and challenge for Israel -- followed by the northern front, which includes Syria and Lebanon and then the Palestinians -- Halamish may be unique if it places Egypt on the list as well.
In the meantime, Gantz has decided to take the cautious and not hysterical approach vis à vis Egypt. This was done with the understanding that even if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over in upcoming elections -- considered unlikely -- it will still take some time before Egypt threatens Israel again like it did in the days leading up to the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
For that reason, the upcoming year will be spent mostly on learning about Egypt, dusting off old maps, remembering what it was like being in the Sinai and preparing conceptually for the future.
When it comes to Egypt, if the worst-case scenario comes true, the IDF will have plans in place to embark on an unprecedented procurement campaign that, in short, will set the establishment of new divisions, fighter jet squadrons and other military capabilities. If that doesn't work and Egyptian tanks roll through the Sinai, Israel could always call on the US for intervention.
BUT WHERE Halamish breaks from Tefen is in the following assessment, which serves as the introduction of the new multi-year plan: "There is an increasing probability of conflict on multiple fronts." While this concept -- war on several fronts simultaneously -- is not a new one for Israel, it is significant when it appears in a military multi-year plan for the first time in 15 years.
What are the chances for war? 50-50? 70-30? No one in the IDF will say. If they could, there would be no purpose in maintaining a massive branch in the IDF called Military Intelligence.
The new plan, though, is sophisticated and recognizes that the IDF is already at war on some of its fronts. It is waging a war against Iran's nuclear program -- mostly in the shadows and below the surface -- and is also, at the same time, fighting on the high seas against weapons smuggling to Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon -- demonstrated by the seizure of Iranian arms on the Victoria cargo ship last month.
But if a larger-scale conflict breaks out in the coming years, the IDF has a very clear idea of the way it wants to see it play out. The first principle will be to ensure a short conflict -- with a clear and decisive victory for Israel at its end.
What this means, though, is unclear, mainly because the IDF no longer really talks in terms of victory and defeat in the conventional, historic sense of the terms. Years ago, after one side's military surrendered and it had lost significant territory to its adversary, it was obvious who had won. Nowadays, when an enemy does not really own territory -- as is the case with Hamas and Hezbollah -- and when it cannot conquer Israeli territory, how is it possible to determine the outcome of a war?
That is why when the IDF talks about terms like victory and defeat, what it means is that the other side has been so badly beaten that it will be deterred for an extended period before engaging Israel again. While the IDF made major mistakes during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, the quiet that has prevailed in the five years since proves that the war was something of a victory. The country's difficulty in understanding this new concept likely added to the public sense of failure at the time.
THIS UNDERSTANDING of the nature of conflicts was demonstrated during Operation Cast Lead in 2009, which, while it did not destroy Hamas, did create deterrence and restore quiet for the residents of the South. Unfortunately this deterrence eroded over the past month, culminating in last weekend's cycle of violence, which included over 120 rocket and mortar attacks against Israel in just two days.
Then, too, the IDF's entire operation was aimed at restoring deterrence and postponing what many in the defense establishment believe is inevitable -- a large-scale Cast Lead-like operation in the Gaza Strip.
The IDF knew that it was facing a new round of violence two weeks ago after it bombed a car in the southern Gaza Strip carrying three senior Hamas operatives and suitcases full of money. The terrorists were planning to kidnap Israelis in the Sinai and then smuggle them under the border and into the Gaza Strip.
Knowing the group would try to exact revenge -- one of the slain terrorists was a close confidant of Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari -- the IDF removed troops and equipment away from the border, trying hard not to provide Hamas with a target. But by last Thursday, Hamas had had enough and, in the absence of a military target, decided to fire a Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missile at a school bus near Nahal Oz.
The IDF then began responding, but throughout the entire weekend did not attack major Hamas targets like bases or military compounds. Even though it killed nearly 20 Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives, none was killed in targeted killings, but rather in routine bombings and air strikes against cells spotted in real time launching, or preparing to launch, rockets into Israel.
The idea was to send Hamas a message that Israel could cause it damage on many different levels. If Hamas had not understood the message by Sunday, when the cease-fire went into effect, Israel would have begun to escalate its response, and Hamas likely would have reciprocated. With every Israeli escalation, it is possible that Hamas will, eventually, finally decide to use its long-range Iranian-made rockets that are capable of hitting near Tel Aviv.
At no point during the operation did the IDF mention toppling Hamas or defeating Hamas. Instead, the idea was to restore deterrence and make Hamas understand that it would pay a price for its attacks against Israel. After almost a week of strained and tense quiet, the message seems to have gotten across -- at least, for the time being.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Prepare for no help from the US as well -our admin is useless. You have permission to take Gush Katif and Sinai back if you so chose to do. The aim is to stop attacks, but if this becomes a worldwide BS move, take out "palestine. You must survive and if that is done, they may rant all pissed off, but they ALL know they are wrong. So, defend yourselves at all cost right now. I need not read you the rules of WAR, for you never have not had WAR. Just make sure you read them to the Knesset and the World after you have started it. Permission granted - just make sure next time you win, and you will. GOD Blessed Israel. Now it is YOUR land.
[Arab News] Iran's oil minister says rising crude prices do not signal the sector is in an "extraordinary situation" and there is no need for an emergency OPEC meeting.
According to the IRNA news agency, Masoud Mirkazemi said the "market has decided the price of crude based on supply and demand."
He spoke at an oil expo in Tehran.
Iran is highly dependent on oil exports and traditionally pushes for higher prices.
Crude has gained 28 percent since Feb. 15, as the Libya conflict extended market concerns about supply risks and signs of a recovering US jobs market bolstered optimism that crude demand will strengthen.
Crude reached $113.46 on Monday, its highest level since September 2008.
Iran holds the OPEC presidency.
Mirkazemi said no members had sought an emergency meeting.
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04/17/2011
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#1
Remember, America, 52% of you voted for this screwing.
[Ma'an] President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... has ordered the Paleostinian Authority attorney general to open an official investigation into the murder of an Italian activist found dead in Gazoo on Friday.
Abbas' legal advisor Hasan Al-Uri said the killing of Vittorio Arrigoni would be treated as treason, and that those responsible could be sentenced to death, the official PA news agency Wafa reported.
"The murder of Arrigoni, who voluntarily risked his life to defend the independence and freedom of the Paleostinian people is equal to the murder of a Paleostinian warrior," Al-Uri added.
Arrigoni, 36, who was working with the pro-Paleostinian International Solidarity Movement, was found dead by the security forces in a house in northern Gazoo early on Friday.
He had been hanged, Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, security officials said.
This is really going to impair recruitment in Seattle...
Arrigoni was kidnapped a day earlier by a Salafist group which had demanded that Hamas release Salafist prisoners within a 30-hour deadline that was to have expired on Friday afternoon. It was not clear why they killed him.
Gazoo premier Ismail Haniyeh ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... on Friday ordered the interior ministry of the Hamas-run government to open a criminal investigation into the killing.
The murder "does not reflect the values, morals, or the religion of the Paleostinian people. This is an unprecedented case that won't be repeated," he said at an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis.
The killers will be brought to justice "as soon as possible" to deter any similar crime, he said, adding that the government would consider Vittorio a Paleostinian martyr and name a street after him.
Hamas officials said Haniyeh called Arrigoni's mother to express his and his government's condolences for the death of her son. He explained the efforts the government is making to prosecute those responsible.
On Saturday, Gazoo's interior ministry "managed to arrest two suspects" in the murder on Friday of pro-Paleostinian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, in addition to two other suspects previously taken into custody, a statement said.
"The security forces continue to hunt other members of the group responsible for the murder," said the statement.
The suspects tossed in the clink were being questioned about Arrigoni's murder, it added, without revealing their names or when they were tossed in the clink.
Hamas had said Friday two suspected kidnappers were tossed in the clink and security officials were looking for accomplices.
This article starring:
Vittorio Arrigoni
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[Arab News] Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, found the body on Friday of a pro-Paleostinian Italian activist who was killed by Al-Qaeda sympathizers in the Gazoo Strip, raising questions about the group's control over the beleaguered enclave.
Two men were nabbed and others were being sought for the abduction and killing of Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, who was found strangled in an abandoned house on Friday, Hamas officials said.
An bad boy group in Gazoo aligned with Al-Qaeda had threatened on Thursday to execute Arrigoni unless their leader, jugged by Hamas last month, was freed.
"Gazoo is safe and I want to assure all visitors to Gazoo that they are safe and secure," Ismail Haniyeh, ...became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank... the Hamas prime minister, told a French journalist. "The crime that took place was an isolated incident ... and we will enforce the law against the perpetrators."
Saeb Erekat, ...negotiated the Oslo Accords with Israel. He has been chief Paleostinian negotiator since 1995. He is currently negotiating with Israel to establish a de jure Paleostinian state... an aide to Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas, ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... whose Fatah faction was driven out of Gazoo by Hamas in 2007, called the killing "a dark page in Paleostinian history" and appealed for national reconciliation.
Hamas front man Fawzi Barhoum denounced the crime as an attempt "to harm international solidarity with besieged Gazoo and to damage the image of the Paleostinian people."
But there was also a shiver of fear that snuffies are bold enough to challenge Hamas over what they consider its lack of religious fervor.
There was clear outrage among ordinary people in Gazoo over the cold-blooded killing of the Italian activist who had helped local fishermen and farmers. Arrigoni had lived in Gazoo since arriving aboard a humanitarian aid boat that Israel had admitted despite imposing a blockade on the tiny coastal territory.
"Vittorio was here for the Paleostinian people, and they killed somebody who was here for them," fellow Gazoo activist Silvia Todeschini, also from Italia, told Rooters. "They will not kick us out. We will stay."
Paleostinians liaising with Italian diplomats said Arrigoni's body would be repatriated via Israel on Sunday.
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There are moderate Muslims, and some of them speak up. Here is another case study.
To Hasan Afzal, the reaction to his new pro-Israel group may demonstrate just why the organization is necessary.
Ive been really overwhelmed just by how shocked people have been that theres been a group called British Muslims for Israel, Afzal said.
That surprise isnt surprising. The debate over Israel and the broader Middle East conflict has become so tense and toxic that a group calling itself British Muslims for Israel inspires a mix of suspicion and fascination. But Afzals group is real. Formed by young Muslim professionals in Britain in January under the umbrella group Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy, it really took off after Afzal was interviewed by Israels Channel 10. Their Web site (BritishMuslimsForIsrael.com) received thousands of hits and the group began receiving letters of all kinds, from thank you for what you said to how can we help? One writer offered to help jazz up their Web site, and several spoke admiringly of the groups bravery.
Although I never for one second thought I was being brave, I just thought I was being obvious in what I was saying, Afzal told me. We were worried that the dialogue, when it comes to the Middle East and especially Israel, had in the past five or six years moved from how do Muslims build an independent Palestinian state and coexist with Israel, to nonsense questions like should Israel even exist, or should the Jews even have a homeland, Afzal said. And we found that disturbing for two reasons: first is, its a completely delusional question to even ask if Israel should even exist.
Afzal likes to pose the following hypothetical to anyone willing to discuss Israels right to exist: Suppose the argument was about India-Pakistan, and Afzal said to his interlocutor, you know, I really support Indias right to existhow silly would he sound? In addition, Afzal knows where such a question, with respect to Israel, would lead. Once you start asking if Israel has a right to exist, Afzal said, that is almost like a back door Trojan horse entry to some pretty dark aspects of Islamism.
The media environment in Britain can be downright hostile to the Jewish state. Part of Afzals work is countering the misinformation in British media. Im sure you know that the UK has an infamous leftwing newspaper which cant help itself but print editorials or op-eds linked to members of Hamas. And Im talking about the Guardian here.
Afzal points to the coverage of the massacre of the Israeli family in Itamar. It was mostly ignored in British media, he said, and when the BBC finally covered it, they did so in a dehumanizing and insulting way, insinuating that since the family lived in the West Bank, they got what they deserved.
Though Israel does have a tense relationship with European intellectuals and media, these groups arent ready to give upquite the opposite. Thats because the media in Britain, according to Afzal, doesnt speak for the people. I asked him how representative British media is of the populations opinions on the whole.
Its not representative, which is the bottom line, he said. But their work remains so important because such biased media coverage can, over time, erode sympathy for Israel even among its supporters. Take your average consumer of news in Britain, he said. If he gets the same anti-Israeli, delegitimized point of view, day in and day out, then decent people will start to turn their backs on Israel.
On a cultural level, Afzal made a point to avoid the traditional talk of coexistence between Jews and Muslims in Europe and beyond. He isnt opposed, of course, to this activity, but rather wants to take it beyond the commonalities and into the realm of real debate.
What I would say about coexistence groups is, its great having a Muslim and a Jew in a room together and agreeing that we shouldnt eat pork and agreeing that male children should be circumcised, he said. But what youll rarely find is that they actually talk about the issues that matter. So thats why we try not to get too into the coexistence game. We have set beliefs and its our job to advocate it to the grassroots Muslim community and beyond.
#2
I think the extremists are terrified of any voices of moderation, because of a simple point.
If you look at any group of people, including Muslims, the vast majority of them have "inertia". They just live their lives and never really "do" much of anything other than that.
Extremists of all kinds are always a minority, and their hardest problems is having to push and coerce this inert majority into doing anything. Typically, they do so with violence against their own people, and desperately try to create the illusion that the majority are extremist.
For example, while the vast majority of post-Czarist leftists in Russia were moderates, or "Mensheviks", the "Bolsheviks", a tiny minority, had a name that meant "majority".
In a civilized society, extremists have to do everything in their power to keep the majority isolated and apart from society at large. Because if they integrate, they are no longer under control.
They also are reliant on creating a persecution or victimization complex among their people, the actually rather rare "Islamophobia". Which in most cases should instead be called "Islamoskepticism".
In any event, over time, more and more Muslims in the west are going to start noticing that they aren't persecuted, and are treated fairly equally, or enough so that extremism is seen as just that. Not offering them anything of value.
Pakistan joins the discussion started by Dr. Fadl and his fellow jihadi prisoners in Egypt.
DURING the mass movement against then president Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, concern was raised that radical and violent actors could try to exploit the situation in pursuit of their objectives. However, a smooth transition in Egypt has proven wrong apprehensions of violence by jihadist groups.
There has been violence, some quite nasty, but mostly it's not been reported.
After the transition, it was claimed that Mubarak had crushed the jihadists in the 1990s and those that had remained were unable to mount a serious challenge. Some commentators have argued that mass movements are not the domain of jihadists. Many others have denied the presence of jihadist networks in Egypt. Further explanations have been given in this regard but a major element that has not really been factored in is the in-depth debate that challenged the militant narrative in Egypt.
Egypt passed through a violent phase in the 1990s when the government made all-out efforts to dismantle jihadist groups in the country. The Mubarak regime had filled up the prisons with thousands of suspects. Although rejection of violence by the Muslim Brotherhood had shrunk the space for violent actors in Egyptian society, the discourse facilitated among captive members of the Islamic Group (Gamaa Islamiyah) and Al Jihad, the two main jihadist groups in Egypt, on the issue of the legitimacy of pursuing a violent path, contributed much towards countering violent ideological tendencies.
The debate was initiated among thousands of imprisoned members of the Islamic Group and questioned the justification of violence for achieving their stated goals. After the discourse, reading and furtive conversations, the detainees came to feel that they had been manipulated into pursuing a violent path. Although it was difficult to start the debate as initially it had faced strong opposition both inside and outside the prisons, at some point the imprisoned members of Al Jihad, the most violent group in Egypt and led by Ayman Al-Zawahiri, also began to express an interest in joining the non-violent initiative. But Dr Fadl, the architect of Al Qaeda's ideological paradigm, was the man who turned the initiative into a great debate.
Fadl, an Egyptian physician and scholar, was one of the first members of Al Qaeda's top council and proponent of the literature that Al Qaeda used for indoctrination. His book Compendium gave Al Qaeda the licence to murder all those who stood in its way. Al-Zawahiri had declared the book a victory from God. Later, Fadl accused Al-Zawahiri of adding new chapters to his book and rephrasing it in parts, which caused a rift between the two.
Al-Zawahiri's amendments to Fadl's work provoked a debate among the imprisoned leaders of the Islamic Group in the late 1990s. They started to examine the evidence and felt that they had been manipulated into pursuing a violent path. In 2001, Fadl was arrested in Yemen and handed over to Egypt. Fadl joined his former colleagues in prison and started revising his previous work and came up with a title Rationalising Jihad in Egypt and the World. This new book attempted to reconcile Fadl's well-known views with sweeping modifications from Compendium.
Apart from covering many critical issues including the conditions for jihad in foreign lands and the killing of innocent civilians, Fadl critically examined the question of takfir and observed that there were various kinds of takfir, and that the matter was so complex that it must be left to competent Islamic jurists, and that members of the public were not qualified to enforce the law. He cautioned that it was not permissible for a Muslim to condemn another Muslim.
The debate provided an opportunity to Islamic Group and Al Jihad members to review their strategies and give up violence. At the same time, on a societal level, it helped to strengthen non-violent narratives. One has not even heard echoes of such a discourse in Pakistan, although the dire need for that cannot be emphasised enough.
Religious scholars in Pakistan have issued more than a dozen conditional religious decrees against suicide attacks, stating that there is no justification for such attacks on Pakistani soil. However, in the decrees they have not failed to mention that terrorist attacks are a reaction to the government's policies. There has been intentional evasion of talking about extremism mainly on the ideological front. This attitude of putting the entire burden on the state and shirking one's own responsibility has almost become the norm in Pakistan.
Fear for personal security, as much as any other factor, has hindered the initiation of a debate on such sensitive issues. A number of religious scholars from all schools of thoughts hold contrary views on the militant discourse but these views either do not have support within their sectarian domains or the scholars do not want to expound their thoughts vociferously for fear of risking their lives.
Very few scholars have been willing to speak out in the face of personal threats. Allama Javed Ghamdi is one such scholar who has been the voice of reason in the ideological proliferation in Pakistan. But the clergy in Pakistan does not accept his narrative because of his modern credentials. There is an urgent need to find the voice of reason among the clergy, which has an influence in the militant circles and can courageously initiate debate on critical issues.
In this context, one example is a young Deobandi scholar, Muhammad Ammar Khan Nasir, son of Maulana Zahidul Rashidi, who wields influence in the Deobandi school of thought and is well respected even among militant groups in Pakistan.
Nasir, in his newsletter, Al Sharia, has declared that it is not permissible on religious grounds for non-Afghan Muslims to fight against international forces in Afghanistan. He has argued that Pakistan is in agreement with the international community in Afghanistan and if the government supported the Taliban it would be going against the principles of Islam.
An interesting point...
He has also spoken about the militants' limited understanding of world politics and stated that they required intellectual guidance. He has urged the clergy to abandon its state of denial and recognise, rather than justify, the Taliban's weaknesses.
The debate initiated by Ammar Nasir has formed the basis for an intellectual discussion among Deobandi scholars. This is a ray of hope that the intellectual discourse is still intact in the religious community in Pakistan. But the crucial question is: can these discussions be transformed into something close to the great debate in Egypt?
The writer, Muhammad Amir Rana, is editor of the quarterly research journal Conflict and Peace Studies. Continued on Page 49
#3
You'll note that the question is quite specific: is violent jihad against Islam? This does not preclude non-violent jihad, the soft jihad of law and culture engaged in so actively in the U.S. and Europe. The question goes back to the shocking lesson of 9/11 -- violence against those damned American kufrs results in overwhelming, humiliating and deadly force against the perpetrators, but more importantly against their supporters and hosts... and most importantly of all, to the mystics, Allah has not intervened on their side as expected. And all while they sat in the safety of their Egyptian cells.
And so, when the goal clearly will not be achieved one way, another must be adopted, as has been described in the Koran and all that. The problem is, such subtleties are no doubt not a matter of focus at the madrassahs where the cannon fodder study.
[Iran Press TV] Syrian President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad One of the last of the old-fashioned hereditary iron-fisted fascist dictators. Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor... has introduced a new package of reforms which he says will meet the demands of anti-government protesters.
Addressing his new cabinet, Assad said he expects the decades-long state of emergency to be lifted within a week, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.
"Contrary to what some people think, that this will destabilize Syria, I think lifting the state of emergency will boost security in Syria while at the same time safeguarding the dignity of the Syrian people,'' he told his cabinet.
He called on the new government to engage in a national dialogue with people and respect their aspirations for freedom.
However, The wishy-washy However... he stressed that the Syrian people should be patient because reforms will not produce instant results.
Demonstrations, in the meantime, were reported in several cities, including the capital Damascus ...The City of Jasmin is the oldest continuously-inhabited city in the world. It has not always been inhabited by the same set of fascisti... and the northwestern city of Banias.
A Syrian rights group has said the government is responsible for the death of 200 protesters since mid-March.
Assad said an investigation into the death of civilians and troops is underway and results will soon be announced.
On Thursday, the president issued amnesty for those jugged during the protests, aside from those the government considers to have committed criminal acts.
Syrian authorities blame the protests on armed gangs and foreign powers. The government recently announced the arrest of foreign elements it accuses of provoking the recent unrest in the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
UN PRESIDENT TIM KALEMKARIAN, US PRESIDENT TIM KALEMKARIAN, US SENATE TIM KALEMKARIAN, US HOUSE TIM KALEMKARIAN: BEST MAJOR CANDIDATE.
#2
hmmm. Your message is too subtle, perhaps it's me, but I'm not getting it.
Timmy's in the well? Is that you, Lassie?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/17/2011 19:05
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#3
Timothy Charles Kalemkarian
1994: Write in Candidate for US Senator (Lost)
1998: Candidate for Mayor of Moorpark (Lost; 2.5%)
Candidate for Oak Park Unified School District (Won; 26.9%)
2000: Candidate for Moorpark City Council (Lost; 0.8%)
2000: Write-in Candidate for President (Lost)
2004: Write-in Candidate for President (Lost)
2004: Write-in [Republican] Primary Candidate for President (Lost)
2010: Primary Candidate for US Senator (Lost; 0.8%)
From other sites:
Mr. Kalemkarian is a perennial candidate, who has alternated between running for US Senate and the Presidency. He is best remembered for kicking off his 2000 campaign for the top spot by marching back and forth across the street from Monica Lewinskys parents home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles wearing a sandwich board. He has no web site or distinguishing political stances other that an avid follower (himself, maybe?) who trolls the comments sections of political blogs leaving comments about how qualified Kalemkarian is for office.
Apparently this clown's been dumping this spam practically everywhere since 2007, if not earlier.
KARACHI: Thirteen students were maimed in a clash between two students' organisations at the Dawood College of Engineering & Technology within the limits of Jamshed Quarter cop shoppe here on Saturday.
The clash took place between the Islami Jamiat Tulba (IJT) and Jeay Sindh Students Federation (JSSF) when the IJT students tried to stop a student of JSSF from playing songs on his mobile phone. The verbal exchange soon turned violent as both the groups started fighting with sticks. However, The ever-popular However... the administration of the college intervened and tried to bring the situation to normality. Later, they again clashed, leaving 13 students injured. Police shifted the injured to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre.
A heavy contingent of police and Rangers rushed to the scene and took the situation under control. No FIR was lodged till filing of this report.
Meanwhile, ...back at the wreckage, Captain Poindexter awoke groggily... a fight broke out between the students of the Pukhtoon Students Federation and the Imamia Students Organisation in the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology within the limits of Aziz Bhatti cop shoppe that left four students injured. The fight started on campus and later on the students came out on the University Road and blocked it for half an hour. However, The ever-popular However... the police and Rangers rushed to the scene and controlled the situation. No one was tossed in the clink and no FIR was lodged till filing of this report.
[Ennahar] "To crown the institutional structure aimed at strengthening democracy, it is important to introduce the necessary amendments to the Constitution" of 1996, Bouteflika ... 10th president of Algeria. He was elected in 1999 and is currently on his third term, which is probably why Algerians are ready to dump him... said in this highly anticipated speech of 20 minutes.
"I have expressed on numerous occasions, my desire to revise the Constitution and I reiterated this belief and this desire on several occasions", said the Algerian head of state by announcing the creation of a constitutional commission "to be attended by political currents acting and experts in constitutional law."
The committee "will make proposals which I will ensure compliance with the fundamental values of our society, before submitting them to parliament for approval or your approval by referendum," he said.
Bouteflika also announced a revision of the electoral law and the law on political parties.
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#1
Heck, we have a President who does the same thing too.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Burkina Faso's ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and may be in the process of being chased out now... President Blaise Compaore has dissolved his government amid reports of a mutiny in the country's military.
In the presidential decree issued on Friday, Compaore also appointed Colonel Major Nabere Honore Traore to replace General Dominique Djendjere as the chief of general staff for the national army.
He also appointed Colonel Boureima Kere to replace Colonel Major Gilbert Diendere as the head of the presidential security brigade.
Officers attached to the presidential security brigade went on the rampage on Thursday and Friday, destroying property and leaving a number of people injured. The mutineers were reportedly venting anger at the government for failing to meet their demand for housing and food allowances.
Never a smart idea to short the Praetorian Guard...
Heavy gunfire was heard at the presidential palace in Ouagadougou on Thursday night. President Compaore was not in the palace at the time.
Power supply was also disconnected to various districts of the capital.
The officers from the presidential guard unit received support from other military camps, especially in the area of Ouezin. They vented their anger by ransacking various places, particularly the home of the chief of general staff, and the shops in the capital's main market.
Public offices and service stations opened for a short while on Friday morning, but closed after an hour following rumours that the soldiers had surrounded strategic places.
Compaore, himself a former army captain, was re-elected in November with more than 80 per cent of the vote, having won all elections since 1991 after coming to power in a 1987 military coup.
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[Tolo News] A Taliban Shadow district chief was killed in foreign forces' air strike in western Afghanistan, local officials said on Saturday.
The incident happened on Friday in Kashak-e-Rebaat Sangi district in east of Herat province when Mullah Mohayuddin a Taliban shadow district chief and three Talibs were killed in foreign forces' air strike, Shafiq Behroziyan, a front man for governor of Herat told TOLOnews. There were no civilian casualties in the attack, he added.
The Taliban have not yet commented.
Previously dozens of Taliban capos and hard boyz have been killed in foreign forces' air strikes in the country.
Kashak-e-Rebaat Sangi is an insecure district in the province where faceless myrmidons have been active. Foreign forces have launched military operations in Afghanistan to clear volatile areas of bully boys.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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#1
One down, thirty-three to go.
Posted by: American Delight ||
04/17/2011 8:42
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#2
I still think it would help with perspective if an artificial rank was assigned to such managers, parallel to military rank.
Likewise, I think it would help morale among our soldiers. For example, it would make a lot more sense to a squad if instead of telling them that they bagged a "Taliban shadow district chief, facilitator and high poobah", that instead they had bagged a "Taliban Lieutenant Colonel."
Doing so also highlights that the Taliban *do not* have military rank, so by the Geneva Conventions, *do not* have the rights and privileges due military personnel.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said Saturday that talks should be held with Islamist movements in the Arab world if they embraced democracy and renounced violence.
A diplomatic source said the statement marked a radical shift in France's foreign policy amid popular uprisings in Arab countries.
"We should talk and exchange ideas with all those who respect the rules of the democratic game and of course the fundamental principle of renouncing violence," Juppe said during the closing speech of a Paris symposium on revolts in the Arab world.
"I hope that this dialogue will open unashamedly with Islamic movements as soon as the principles I just mentioned -- the rules of the democratic game -- are respected," he said.
The diplomatic source said Juppe's remarks represented a significant change in French foreign policy. "France is open to dialogue with all players of the democratic game," he said.
A series of popular uprisings in Arab nations from Tunisia to Libya has raised concerns about Islamist movements such as Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood or Tunisia's newly legalized Ennahda (Awakening) movement gaining in influence.(AFP)
QUETTA: Unidentified hard boyz blew up a gas pipeline in Pir Koh area of Dear Bugti on Saturday, forcing the suspension of supply to a gas purification plant.
According to official sources, faceless myrmidons had planted an bomb near a 24-inch diameter pipeline supplying gas to a purification plant from Pir Koh gas field. The device went off with a huge bang disrupting supply to the plant.
The sources said that many parts of Punjab would face gas shortage due to the damaged pipeline. Reportedly, Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) experts have been called in and repair work on the damaged portion of the pipeline has been started. A case has been registered against the unidentified myrmidons and investigation is underway. No group claimed the responsibility for the blast till the filing of this report.
[The Nation (Nairobi)] Hundreds of Tea Party supporters rallied in Boston in an anti-tax day event headlined by likely US presidential contender and former Republican governor of Minnesota Tim Pawlenty.
With a hot budget fight raging in Washington, Pawlenty was quick to sling spending cut slogans in an attempt to win over Tea Party die-hards in the home state of Mitt Romney, a potential rival for the Republican nomination in 2012.
"We can't spend more than we take in," Pawlenty roared from a makeshift podium beneath the dome of gazebo on Boston Common.
"You can't do it as an individual, you can't do it as a family, you can't do it at your place of work and we can't let the government do it anymore."
His remarks drew cheers from the crowd on a day that also saw Republicans in the US House of Representatives muscle through a politically risky budget outline presented by Republican Representative Paul Ryan.
Roundly denounced
The blueprint, which has been roundly denounced by the B.O. regime, aims to cut some $4.4 trillion from deficits over the next decade.
While it would cut the Medicare and Medicaid health programmes for the elderly, poor and disabled, it would also slash taxes on the richest Americans and corporations.
Some at the Tea Party rally here suggested it won't go far enough.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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The difference between conservatives & liberals
[Dawn] Seven people were killed in different incidents of violence across the metropolitan city Bloody Karachi on Saturday, DawnNews reported.
An Abdullah was killed and two others were maimed when gunnies opened fire on Saturday morning.
Unknown assailants opened fire on the Chief Secretary Officer Jamal Khan of ANP in Shah Latif twon
In another incident in Malir district unknown assailants fired on ANP's Chief Security Officer, Jamal Khan's car in which one of the guards was killed instantly while two others were severely injured.
One of the guards pegged out at the hospital.
Another person was rubbed out near singer chowrangi in Korangi area. While a twelve year old boy was killed by a stray bullet in Sohrab Goth area.
Two people were maimed during a firing spree on a shop located near post office in Liaqatabad area. One of the victims, Ayub a.k.a Raja pegged out on the way to the hospital.
Also, an unidentified dead body was recovered from Guilstan-e-Jauhar.
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[Dawn] A bridegroom was killed on his wedding night when a bullet fired by a friend of his friend hit his head at the marriage celebration at his house in Tench Bhata late Thursday, the family said.
That's gonna give gunsex a bad name...
Javaid Iqbal, the grieving father of 25-year-old Jahanzaib Javaid, believes that Ajmal Khan, the shooter, came to the wedding with murder on his mind.
"My son was murdered. We caught the cruel man, seized his pistol and handed him over to the local police," he told Dawn.
According to him, Ajmal Khan came with one of his son's friends, pulled out his pistol as the wedding ceremony was in progress, targeted his son and fired.
Shocked guests seized and disarmed Khan and rushed the bleeding bridegroom to District Headquarters Hospital where doctors declared Jahanzaib dead.
Just days before his marriage, Jahanzaib was in detention of the same cop shoppe to which his murder was reported.
Police and his family said he was jugged for a couple of days for questioning in connection with a private complaint lodged against the family. But police found him innocent of any wrong doing and had set him free three days before his wedding.
"Had I known what tragic fate awaited my son on Thursday, I would have delayed his marriage," said father Javaid Iqbal sobbing.
Iqbal, a taxi who lived in a rented house with his two sons, said he was hard up these days and had barrowed money to hold his son's marriage.
Tench Bhata police have registered a murder case and started investigation into the incident.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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"Had I known what tragic fate awaited my son on Thursday, I would have delayed his marriage."
Duh. Because it's better to have an unmarried, dead son, I guess.
GAZA CITY: Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, on Saturday rejected accusations by president the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas ... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial... that it is blocking Paleostinian reconciliation efforts with support from Iran.
"The accusations made Abbas that Hamas receives Iranian instructions to block (inter-Paleostinian) reconciliation efforts are not true because it is he who is blocking the reconciliation," Hamas MP Yahiya Musa said. "Abu Mazen (Abbas) must be honest and tell his people about the messages he has received from Israel and American stopping him from working for reconciliation," he said in statements posted on Hamas's website Ressalah.
On Friday Abbas said in an exclusive interview with AFP that Iran has ordered Hamas not to reconcile with its long-time foe and his secular party, Fatah. Until now Hamas has refused to say yes or no to the initiative to put an end to divisions, form a new government and prepare for elections. afp
#4
If you want things to be better in the ME, then the best place to start is Syria. Get rid of the Pencil Neck regime with something better, then Lebanon gets better, same with Iraq, even Gaza, as the influence of Hizb'Allah and Iran greatly diminish. There will be more effect than playing around in G'Daffy's sandbox.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/17/2011 15:21
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The "something better" is gonna be the trick, AP.
If they would turn inward and kick out the Iranians, that'd be great. I'm afraid that's too much to hope for.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/17/2011 16:40
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NEW DELHI: The owners of a hijacked ship said on Saturday that they were perplexed by the continuing detention of some of their crew members by Somali pirates despite their paying a multimillion-dollar ransom.
Is there no honor amongst pirates?
Pirates released the ship and some of the crew on Friday. But a Somali pirate told The Associated Press afterward that the Indian crew members' hostage ordeal is being prolonged in retaliation for the arrests of more than 100 Somali pirates by the Indian Navy. However, the ship owners said on Saturday that all the crew members of the Asphalt Venture were Indian -- not just the seven still being held.
All 15 crew members, held hostage after September's attack, were Indian, Sunil Puri, a New Delhi-based spokesman for Interglobal, a United Arab Emirates-based company that owns the ship, told the AP. On Friday, Hassan Farah said pirates in stronghold of Haradhere in Somalia had taken a collective decision not to release the Indian crew members.
Puri called the pirates' action "unprecedented," and said that it wasn't immediately clear why the pirates acted as they did. "We are still trying to ascertain why that happened. We kept our side of the bargain. We don't know why they weren't released. This is an unprecedented situation. In the past they have always kept their word," Puri said.
While Puri did not reveal the amount of ransom paid, pirates are receiving an average of $5 million to release ships and crew, and a ransom in that ballpark was believed to have been paid on Friday.
The Indian navy has seized around 120 pirates, mostly from Somalia, over the past few months. Last month the Indian navy captured 61 pirates when they attacked a naval ship. Indian warships have been escorting merchant ships as part of international anti-piracy surveillance in the Indian Ocean area since 2008.
#1
The idea that somalia has no government is a legal fiction promoted by l;iberal butt lickers. India could simply declare war on somalia, invade, kill thousands of somalians in unlimited war, sink every ship and boat that was not a captured ship, destroy all the port facilities,tell the UN to get bent , then leave.So could any other country with a real leader.
#2
India could simply declare war on somalia, invade, kill thousands of somalians in unlimited war, sink every ship and boat that was not a captured ship, destroy all the port facilities,tell the UN to get bent, then leave
Pakistan (and China) would like that. And I wouldn't be too sure on the "and leave" part - at least on a set schedule. On the bright side, it'd be a repeat of the 'flypaper strategy'.
[Christian Science Monitor] - As the dust settles in Afghanistan after sustained protest over a Florida pastor's Quran burning, many residents in Kandahar are facing an unpleasant truth: More Qurans were burned in the course of their protests than by Terry Jones. The demonstrations, which started peacefully, quickly turned violent, killing at least nine people and injuring scores in Kandahar City alone.
On Wednesday, the province's top spiritual leaders moved to address the irony -- and promote restraint at a time when passions are running high over the US war effort. They called a shura, or meeting, and told the crowd of several hundred people that gathered in a tent at Kandahar University how to protest in an Islamic manner. Inside the tent, many looked down and thumbed prayer beads as various speakers shouted into microphones, delivering their passionate pleas for order at future demonstrations.
Seek elders' advice, said the mullahs. "They know the Islamic law for when to protest," said Haji Rahmudeen, head of the Kandahar Business Association, in his address to the crowd.
There was much speculation that Wednesday's event could end in yet another protest. Indeed, all the ingredients were there to stoke the ever-present well of anger over the ongoing foreign presence. During Mr. Omar's speech, he reminded the crowd that America was still the enemy and its soldiers are "killing our 2-year-old children in our homes." At an Afghan demonstration, such remarks would normally be met with shouts from the crowd and calls for "Death to America." But on Wednesday, the crowd just quietly listened. When the event ended, few people stayed even to socialize as the crowd shuffled out of the tent, returning to their cars or bicycles. "We are serious about it. We don't want these kinds of demonstrations in our province. If people want to react to something, they must do it in a peaceful way," said Maulavi Enayatullah, a member of the religious scholar's union in Kandahar city after attending Wednesday's gathering.
#1
If they burn a shop, there is a Quran in every shop, so this is a big problem, So when do the good Muslim Afghans start executing the perpetrators? Foreign jihadis are just as foreign as Americans in Afghanistan, and they have proven far more dangerous. Maybe some day the Afghans will learn. But today isn't that day.
[Arab News] You've seen her on the red carpet, famously walking out of jail, and working on a farm in "The Simple Life".
But now Gay Paree Hilton says she is showing a side of herself on television that fans have never seen before -- the down to earth, funny, relatable girl who nevertheless has a multimillion business based on being famous for being famous.
"On 'The Simple Life', I was playing a character. Now people will get to see my real world, my friends, my house, my business," Hilton said on Friday.
"I would never have done a show like this five, ten years ago. I wasn't really comfortable with myself. I have been through so much. I have nothing to hide. It's like, what else can happen?. I was ready to show myself," she told TV journalists.
"The World According to Gay Paree" debuts on the US cable channel Oxygen in June, and follows Hilton, her mother Kathy Hilton, and friends including Brooke Mueller, the third ex-wife of actor Charlie Sheen.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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Didn't she show her real self in that sex video a couple of years ago?
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/17/2011 0:28
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[Tolo News] Islamabad has for the first time established a joint commission for peace establishment in Afghanistan and Pakistain, Pakistain PM said in Kabul on Saturday.
"In consultation with President Karzai, Chairman Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani ... the legitimate president of Afghanistan... and members of the high peace council both sides have agreed to establish the Afghanistan-Pakistain joint commission for facilitating and promoting reconciliation and peace," Mr Yusuf Raza Gilani ... Pakistain's erstwhile current prime minister, whose occasional feats of mental gymnastics can be awe-inspiring ... said.
He said he also echoes President Zardari's recent comments published in the Guardian.
"As far as President Zardari's statement is concerned, I fully endorse that statement that he said that a war in Afghanistan can destabilise Pakistain and it is vice versa so the war on terrorism is directly affecting Pakistain not only in form of casualties but in form of economy as well," said Mr Gilani.
He also added that his country will support any Afghan-led efforts to establish peace in Afghanistan.
The Pak Prime Minister said the war in Afghanistan is destabilising Pakistain.
President Hamid Maybe I'll join the Taliban Karzai ... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a Pashtun face on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use... has welcomed the establishment of the peace commission to put an end to insecurity in both countries.
Mr Karzai said the United States and Pakistain can play an important role in bringing peace to Afghanistan and also urged Soddy Arabia and Tukrey to play their role in bring peace to the country.
While international community and the Afghan government have repeatedly said that terrorist sanctuaries exist on Pak soil, but Mr Gilani denied the existence of such sanctuaries and stresses on the fight against terrorism.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/17/2011
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Now Obama is, in a sense, rudderless. He has no use for Pelosi, who, made radioactive by the 
The contradictions at the heart of U.S. policy in Libya are becoming more acute. On Friday President Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in declaring that the NATO air campaign, which was launched in the name of protecting civilians, will continue for as long as dictator Moammar Gaddafi remains in power. 
CNN has obtained a list of roughly 70 "behavioral indicators" that TSA behavior detection officers use to identify potentially "high risk" passengers at the nation's airports.
[Arab News] Forces loyal to Libyan 
cycle of violence
al-Assad
[Iran Press TV] At least two Bahraini women have died as a result of a crackdown on the opposition, while thugs backed by Saudi forces stormed the village of Karzakan following the country-wide protests.
Egypt's state prosecutor decided on Friday to transfer ousted president 
Bouteflika
Dear Bugti on Saturday, forcing the suspension of supply to a gas purification plant.
Karachi
[Arab News] You've seen her on the red carpet, famously walking out of jail, and working on a farm in "The Simple Life".
