from the Messiah's mouth. Idjit. HT to AOSHQ
Today on CBS's Face the Nation, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., in Afghanistan, told the paparazzi-pursued correspondent Lara Logan that "the objective of this trip was to have substantive discussions with people like President Karzai or Prime Minister Maliki or President Sarkozy or others who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years.
"And it's important for me to have a relationship with them early, that I start listening to them now, getting a sense of what their interests and concerns are."
The notion that Obama will be dealing with world leaders for eighjt-to-ten years, possibly up through July 2018, suggests that either (a) he believes that not only will he be elected and re-elected, but the 22nd amendment will be repealed and he will be elected for a third term, OR (b) he was speaking casually and just meant two terms.
(I'm guessing b.)
I'm thinking he's aglib idiot, unprepared for prime time, and can't operate without prepared speeches on teleprompters. Did you hear about the Bomb that hit Pearl Harbor?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008
18:10 ||
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AT least eight women and one man have been sentenced to be stoned to death in Iran and may be executed at any time, the lawyers defending several of those sentenced said today.
The eight women, ranging in age from 27 to 43, had convictions including prostitution, incest and adultery. The man, a 50-year-old music teacher, was convicted of illegal sex with a student.
The last officially reported stoning in the Islamic Republic was carried out on a man a year ago which drew criticism from rights groups, the European Union and a top U.N. official. Iran's judiciary chief Ayatollah Mohmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi ordered a moratorium on stoning in 2002.
"Our specific and clear demand is to have the stoning sentence stopped by Ayatollah Shahroudi since the defendants are liable to be stoned at any moment," defence lawyer Mariam Kian-Arsi said.
Judiciary officials were not immediately available for comment. But the Iranian authorities routinely dismiss charges of rights abuses, saying they are acting on Islamic sharia law.
The lawyers issued a list of those facing stoning, saying it numbered at least nine people and urged parliament to remove stoning and other corporal punishments from law books. "We are trying to have such punishments removed and replaced by different ones so that it would be compatible with the dignity of humanity," lawyer Mohammad Mostafaie said.
According to Iran's Islamic penal code, men convicted of adultery should be buried up to their waists and women up to their chests for stoning. Stones used should not be large enough to kill the person immediately.
Shadi Sadr, another defence lawyer, called on the international community and rights groups to back their efforts. "We are in close touch with human rights organisations and many of them have supported our campaign," Sadr said.
Amnesty International earlier this year called on Iran to immediately abolish "this grotesque punishment" and said many of those awaiting execution by stoning were sentenced after grossly unfair trials. Iran responds to Western criticism of its rights record by pointing to what it says are abuses in the West, such as detainees held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay.
ZIMBABWE will transfer ownership of all foreign-owned firms that support Western sanctions against President Robert Mugabe's government to locals and investors from "friendly" countries, a state newspaper reported today.
One last grab of the remaining wealth in the country ...
The southern African state is struggling with an economic crisis many blame on Mr Mugabe's policies, which has left it with an inflation rate of over 2.2 million percent and chronic shortages of food and other basic needs.
Mr Mugabe's government blames the crisis on sabotage by enemies angry over his seizures of white-owned farms for blacks, and has followed up that policy with another controversial law seeking to transfer majority ownership of foreign-owned firms to locals.
The Sunday Mail said Zimbabwe had begun auditing the ownership of Western firms in the country as part of a black empowerment drive "and to counter the possible withdrawal of investment under sanctions imposed and proposed by Britain and the U.S."
Preliminary results of Zimbabwe's audit of foreign investments showed that 499 companies enjoyed British investments. Of these, 309 had majority shareholders in Britain and 97 were wholly owned by Britons. The audit also found 353 firms with shareholders from other European countries, the Sunday Mail said in a story largely attributed to unnamed government sources.
US forces shot dead the 17-year-old son and another relative of the governor of northern Iraq's Salahuddin province in a raid today, local officials said. The US military said it shot two armed men and later found out they were both related to the governor.
As Seafarious would say, 'oopsies' ...
Governor Hamad al-Qaisi's brother, Lieutenant-Colonel Saad al-Qaisi, said American troops stormed a family house in the town of Beiji, where the governor's son Hussam and his cousin were staying. "They shot dead Hussam and wounded three others. This is barbaric and inhuman," he said.
A statement from the US military said its forces had wounded and captured an al-Qaeda financer in the house. "As they entered the target building, coalition forces encountered two armed men. Perceiving hostile intent ... they shot and killed the men. It was subsequently determined that the two ... were related to the governor," the statement said.
Local officials said Governor al-Qaisi had cut short a visit to Turkey because of the shooting.
#1
If there's one thing the Iraq war has taught us, it's that every Iraqi has two faces. But then, we already knew that from other dealings with Arabs. There are no moderates, only different shades of radical.
#2
wx...you are spot on. And, it's why my long term opinion in the ME is cynical. No amount of winning "hearts and minds" can counterbalance a culture that values tribal and family over truth and honesty.
#3
If this experiment doesn't prove out, we'll have to make much of the Middle East a wasteland to get peace. I'm willing to try a little longer before going that route.
#4
Depending on how close sonny-boy was to his daddy, his old man might find himself out of a job real soon, if he's lucky. If he isn't, he is in for an extended stay in one of Iraq's finer crossbar hotels.
The Palestinian Authority's official news agency Wafa says Israel is using rats to drive Arab families out of their homes in the Old City of Jerusalem.
In the past the news agency, which is controlled and funded by PA President Mahmoud Abbas's office, has accused Israel of using wild pigs to drive Palestinians out of their homes and fields in the West Bank. In the reports, Palestinians were quoted by the agency as saying that they had seen Israelis release herds of wild pigs, which later attacked them. "they turned me into a newt!"
But this is the first time that Palestinians have spoken of rats being used against them. "I got better"
"Rats have become an Israeli weapon to displace and expel Arab residents of the occupied Old City of Jerusalem," Wafa reported under the title, "Settlers flood the Old City of Jerusalem with rats." The report continued: "Over the past two months, dozens of settlers come to the alleyways and streets of the Old City carrying iron cages full of rats. They release the rats, which find shelter in open sewage systems." hmmmm....open sewage system, an Arab tradition, has absolutely nothing to do with the presence of rats...
Wafa quoted unnamed Arab residents as saying that they had tried to eliminate the rats with various poisons, but to no avail. "we need a lot of poison....for the rats"
Israel's goal was to "increase the suffering of the [Arabs] in Jerusalem by turning their lives into a real tragedy and forcing them to evict their homes and leave the city," Hasan Khater, secretary-general of the Islamic-Christian Front in Jerusalem, was quoted as saying. wonder how many Christians are in the Islamic-Christian Front
Jerusalem Municipality spokesman Gidi Schmerling said that the report was "pure fiction," and had no connection to reality.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008
11:57 ||
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#1
Are they sure they aren't relatives that stopped by? Hard to tell.
#3
I Thought "The Profit" liked cats?
There's your Rat solution right there.
Give it a month and see all the fat cats, bellies dragging the ground, and not a rat to be found.
I recommend "Maine coon Cats"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/20/2008 17:18
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Head of Military Intelligence Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin warned on Sunday of a possible terror attack by Hamas or Hizbullah in the near future along the Gaza Strip and Lebanon borders, respectively.
Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Yadlin said Hizbullah still had many outstanding issues with Israel which could be used to justify such an attack, such as the Shaba Farms, the village of Ghajar, IAF flights over Lebanon and Imad Mughniyeh's assassination in February - for which the group has blamed Israel. Of Gaza, Yadlin said some organizations which have not signed on to the cease-fire are planning a major attack.
However, Yadlin said Hamas was succeeding in enforcing the cease-fire on the Palestinian side but assessed that the fact that border crossings were not open "according to Hamas's expectations, constitutes a potential for eroding the cease-fire." While weapons smuggling continued, Egyptian activity in Sinai "diminishes the amount of arms smuggling, but quality weaponry still finds its way into the Gaza Strip."
Yadlin also said that Israel's enemies were continuing to arm themselves. But he added those enemies were worried of the possibility of a "hot summer" and did not intend to initiate a war with Israel during US President George W. Bush's remaining time in office, or before they had armed themselves sufficiently.
102:44:54 Aldrin: Okay. 75 feet. And it's looking good. Down a half, 6 forward.
102:45:02 Duke: 60 seconds (of fuel left before the 'Bingo' call).
[The accompanying 16-mm film clip (4.0Mb) by Gerald Megason covers the last forty seconds of the descent. The camera was mounted in Buzz's window and, when the clip starts, East Crater is visible at the bottom of the window.]
102:45:25 Aldrin: 4 forward. 4 forward. Drifting to the right a little. 20 feet, down a half.
102:45:31 Duke: 30 seconds (until the 'Bingo' call).
102:45:32 Aldrin: Drifting forward just a little bit; that's good. (Garbled) (Pause)
102:45:40 Aldrin: Contact Light.
102:45:43 Armstrong (on-board): Shutdown
102:45:44 Aldrin: Okay. Engine Stop.
102:45:45 Aldrin: ACA out of Detent.
102:45:46 Armstrong: Out of Detent. Auto.
[Armstrong, from a 1996 letter - "The Attitude Control Assembly [ACA] was the control stick. It had potentiometers or transducers or something similar to provide an output proportional to stick position. Output went to the LGC (LM Guidance Computer) to command the RCS jets to fire. 'Out of Detent' simply means the stick was moved away from its centered position. It was spring/detent centered like the turn signal control on your car."]
102:45:47 Aldrin: Mode Control, both Auto. Descent Engine Command Override, Off. Engine Arm, Off. 413 is in.
102:45:57 Duke: We copy you down, Eagle.
102:45:58 Armstrong (on-board): Engine arm is off. (Pause) Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.
102:46:06 Duke: (Momentarily tongue-tied) Roger, Twan...(correcting himself) Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/20/2008
10:18 ||
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A new Islamist jihad group that may become as much of a threat to Hamas as it is to Israel is gaining strength in Gaza.
The Gaza-based group of Salafi Muslims, known as the Army of Islam (Jaish al-Islam), first made headlines a year ago when it kidnapped British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reporter Alan Johnston near his Gaza City bureau office. "It was nothing personal," commented their leader, Abu Mustafa, in an interview published over the weekend by the German Der Spiegel. "It was a message to the West that they should release imprisoned Muslims." He added that at the moment foreign journalists are not in danger in Gaza.
The Salafis also known as the Wahabis "feel just like al-Qaeda and [we] think as they do," said Abu Mustafa. The limping terrorist, who still suffers from a serious leg injury he received in an Israeli air strike after his group launched a rocket attack on civilians in the western Negev last January, would not say whether he is in contact with al-Qaeda. The 33-year-old terrorist leader claimed that he has attracted approximately 5,000 followers so far, not including women and children. He ducked the question of whether foreigners were among them.
Abu Mustafa, who has a degree from Germany's University of Saarbrucken, told Der Spiegel that his group envisions a day when the world will be ruled by Islamic law. In that scenario, some people will convert, some won't but "will be able to live in peace under the authority of Islam," and in some cases, holy war will ensue, "just like our brothers on Sept. 11."
Abu Mustafa does not consider Hamas to meet the criteria for real followers of Islam, however. "They are traitors. Compared to us, they are Islamism-lite."
Whether they will come to violence over their differences, and ultimately a struggle for control of the region, is a separate issue. "We will give them the chance to turn away from the false path," he said, but added that if Hamas does not comply, "Then there will be confrontation." In the long run, however, Abu Mustafa said he believes Hamas's "American style of Islam" will do the job for him. "They will destroy themselves."
#1
About six months ago, they decided to put a hunch to the test. Janikowski merged his computer map of crime patterns with Bettss map of Section8 rentals.
Hardly rocket science. If the federal government is permitted to FEED the vermin, they will come. Ask any Orkin Man. Second-order effects; declining school standards and rejected school systems, closed businesses, declining home values, homes that won't sell, unwanted subdivisions and communities.
#2
they do their damndest to avoid talking about race, absence of fathers, cultural acceptance of crime and welfare (which is what section 8 is). What they need is a Community Organizer, huh?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 10:26
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#3
When I lived in Irvine, CA, the communist mayor of Irvine, Larry Agran, embraced the Section 8 program as a way to "help" the disadvantaged in Orange County.
I was away one Christmas and my house was burglarized. The police told me there had been 12 buglaries in my neighborhood in one week. They tracked the burglar down through an informant and the culprit was the first Section 8 guy moved into Irvine, in my neighborhood.
This nexus between Section 8 and crime does not surprise me at all.
I personally believe it is a class warfare program developed by the leftists in Congress to destroy the middle class.
Let's see:
Ruin the public school system and dumb down the middle class
Sexualize women, promote promiscuity among teen age girls and destroy the nuclear family
Demonize organized religion
Increase the role of the central government in every phase of our lives.
The latest addition is the "National Security Force" that Obama is promoting.
Looks like Obama and the dems in congress spend more time reading Trotsky than they do Keynes or Adam Smith or even Volker or Greenspan.
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/20/2008 10:39
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#4
Ima starting to think this ain't the real Cajun Cueball.
Posted by: Wayne Anthony nutz ||
07/20/2008 11:21
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#6
Phyllis Betts told me that when she was interviewing residents leaving the housing projects, they were under the impression they could move into the new developments on site. Residents were asked to help name the new developments and consult on the architectural plans. Yet to move back in, residents had to meet strict criteria: if they were not seniors, they had to be working, or in school, or on disability. Their children could not be delinquent in school. Most public-housing residents were scared off by the criteria, or couldnt meet them, or else theyd already moved and didnt want to move again. The new HOPE VI developments aimed to balance Section8 and market-rate residents, but this generally hasnt happened. In Memphis, the rate of former public-housing residents moving back in is 5 percent.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me. I mean for Pete's sake, we need to draw the line somewhere. What good does subsidizing irresponsible, counter-productive behavior do? My guess is that it only exacerbates the problem.
Is it a shame that only 5 percent of residents could meet such basic and lenient criteria? Absolutely. But there's only so much you can do to help someone. At some point, they need to help themselves.
#7
We could start to utilize some of the family housing on downsized and closed military bases. But to keep them from turning into new ghettoes and projects, there has to be tight criteria on who gets in, and behavior standards for staying. Yes, I'm suggesting a tight "leash" on these families - especially those lead by a single female with male children. There needs to be a large male presence in the lives of these boys - to teach them what is expected of men in America. You can't leave it up to the television, the same medium that gives us "pimp my whatever" and "thug-life".
Maybe I'm too idealic, but I don't think that anyone wants to be a POS, they simply evolve into it while no one is watching or doing any thing to stop it.
Enough is enough. Decent people shouldn't have to be the heard that feeds these predators. Some need to go away, they're simply too far gone to be mended. Many can be turned from their futures as crimnials and ganstas, but it will take a lot of effort - every day, not just fresh paint on new walls.
#8
You might have something there Rob06. At least if the housing is inside an intact perimeter fence with guard towers & such. Just fence 'em in instead of out. Then you don't have to worry much about the rest of the standards
Here in Katrina-land crime was WAAAYYYY down - for about a year. And I mean crime rate, not raw numbers. But then we brought most of our scum back from Houston, Dallas, Atlanta etc. And they brought their 'friends' and newfound 'skills', so our crime rate is worse than ever now.
#9
Glenmore, there's a way to fix that. It's called "trolling for alligators". Works well, too. Or you could raise a couple of mil, hire Sherrif Joe Arpio away from Arizona, and turn him loose in New Orleans.
My family lives north of the Red River, where there are fewer problems, but also fewer people. New Orleans is, and has been since the late 1840's, a problem. It takes strong men and strong willpower to put a stop to it, neither of which are common down there.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 16:43
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#10
Thought I'd post the list of the top 10 cities by violent crime rates and rankings for 2006. A few others are listed for comparison. I was a little surprised to see Anchorage, Alaska and Saginaw, MI. on the list. My recollection of Saginaw of about 10 or so years ago was that it was a sleepy little city. What happened to Chicago, D.C., Detroit, and Youngstown?
Memphis topped the list of 311 metro areas in its 2006 rate of violent crime -- homicide, rape, aggravated assault and robbery. The top 10 and selected others (violent crimes per 100,000 residents):
#14
Not necessarily, take Gainesville FL (Hogtown) it was a crossing on a minor river before an Ag School was built there, then the crime rate exploded, and the hawgs are always paranoid now.
Seriously, tho, the college first, then the crime.. low crime.. except for the occasional Ted Bundy and Rollins.
#15
Two comments: first, wherever there are sizable concentrations of blacks there will be a disproportionate amount of crime. Why this is so is an exercise left to the reader but that it IS so is indisputable.
Second, don't believe the figures. There's a tremendous amount of sleight of hand involved in compiling them. Rudy Giuliani did some good work in NY but he fudged the figures by having a lot of crimes simply not recorded as crimes. When the situation is actually on the edge of out of control, it is in the authorities' best interest to downplay the problem as much as possible. British police departments, and the Met in particular, are supposed to be world-class at this "reevaluation/recategorization" of real violent crime incidents.
In short, it's the usual thing: a group of boneheaded malcontents blaming others for their self-created problems and the authorities trying to hide the magnitude of the problems said malcontents cause. The only answer is to get a CCW and be prepared to protect yourself, and if you live in a place where that isn't possible, move to one where it is.
#17
And remember, Section 8 housing is how Daley has remade Chicago, closing the high-rise filing cabinets that imprisoned a lot of folks (Stateway Gardens, Cabrini-Green, etc.) and shoving them into the boondoggles and crooked low-rise housing.
The kind Obama was involved in, with friends, as a 'community organizer'.
See the superb article in the Boston Globe for more.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 20:35
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#18
SW - see comment #2 :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 21:25
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#19
I was just 'adding and extending' :-)
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 21:32
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The uncovering of a second Arab-Israeli cell with ties to Al-Qaida in the space of a few weeks does not quite suggest that an attack by international Islamic terrorism is imminent. But we are still able to learn two things: that among Arab Israelis, like the Palestinians in the territories, there is growing support for the messages of Al-Qaida, and that the Israeli security services are also countering terrorist plans also through the Internet.
The Bedouin men from Rahat who were arrested several weeks ago on suspicion of providing information on Israeli sites of possible attacks by Al-Qaida (including Ben-Gurion International Airport), and the cell on whose arrest a gag order was lifted Friday, operated in similar ways. In the latter case, the suspects are two Arab Israelis from Nazareth and Taibeh, who linked up with four Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. Their religious-ideological commitment was directed toward a terrorist plot (the six belonged to a religious study group at the Temple Mount). The cell contacted people linked with Al-Qaida through the Internet, collected basic information on possible targets and sought instruction on ways to carry out the attacks. It still seems they were a long way from being able to carry out any attacks.
There is something a bit deceptive about the Shin Bet security service announcement, according to which the six joined "the Al-Qaida organization" in February this year. Israeli intelligence almost never uses the term "organization" to describe Al-Qaida and prefers the description "international jihad movement." Al-Qaida is seen today as a loose network of organizations, which shares an extremist Islamic ideology and does not abide by a detailed and organized hierarchical structure. If anyone is imagining the six were sworn in to the organization in the middle of the night by Osama bin Laden, then he is in for a disappointment. It is a lot more likely that they communicated in Internet chat-rooms with individuals like themselves, who could have been a Pakistani youth in London or agents in Tel Aviv.
The latest case also attracted some international attention because U.S. President George Bush's name came up in relation to it. One of the suspects took a photograph of the helicopter landing pad on which the president's helicopter was scheduled to land in Jerusalem, and asked for instructions on ways to target it. However there was a long way to go between the suspect's wishes and a practical plan: He lacked both the means and the technical expertise to strike at the president. What the cell did do, according to the indictment, and this is by no means minor - is to collect basic intelligence for an operation. The collection of intelligence, as well as the wish of Arab Israelis and Palestinians with 'blue' (Israeli) identifications, to carry out serious terrorist attacks, is troubling. No less troubling is the growing identification they sense with the agenda of Al-Qaida, which is much more extremist than that of Hamas or of the extremist wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel. For some years now the public declarations of Bin-Laden and his aides have increasingly focused on Israel and Jewish communities around the world as targets for terrorist attacks. It is also known that cells linked with Al-Qaida operate with relative ease in the Gaza Strip.
The desire of Al-Qaida to operate in Israel is finding fertile ground. There are those who will willingly offer assistance - and therefore the likelihood of a strike by international jihad on Israeli soil (similar attacks have already taken place in Jordan and Sinai) is of reasonable likelihood.
#1
the likelihood of a strike by international jihad on Israeli soil (similar attacks have already taken place in Jordan and Sinai) is of reasonable likelihood.
Not if you publically hang the ones you've caught, then bury them in pig lard. I'm sure the word will get out. Then deport the families of these sh$$heads to some Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank. Also, start putting a few mild restrictions on Israeli Arabs, cranking them up each time you discover one of these "cells". Pretty soon, the Israeli Arabs will either learn to behave, or they'll leave of their own accord. It's time to quit putting up with this BS, in Israel AND in the US. Squeeze the "enablers" until they hurt, then squeeze them some more.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 16:53
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#2
Al Qaeda's reputation has taken a nosedive in the middle east because they've murdered so many Muslims.
Politically, they NEED some high profile anti-joo attacks.
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/20/2008 22:13
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#1
The American Civil Liberties Union says the ordinance targets young men of color.
Well as long as they're on a work site doing plumbing or carpentry, I doubt they'll be classified as saggy pants 'in public'. There's a lot of crack on display around those locations.
#2
I find this whole "Gangsta" dress very confusing. On one hand they WANT to dress, talk, and act like criminals, but they don't want to be treated LIKE criminals. Pull your pants up, get a job, and start being productive memebr of society. In about 20 years you wil see pictures of yourself and think "Oh god why didn't somebody stop me." Doubt me? Think leisure suits.
#3
A substantial subset of teenaged boys out here in the suburbs affect gangsta clothing, behaviour and accents. The trailing daughters rather scorn them, I'm afraid.
#4
tw, I wouldn't be afraid of having the trailing daughters scorn the gangstas. I would be much more afraid it they thought they were cool.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/20/2008 18:52
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#5
He says leaders should instead spend money on making the area look nicer. I thought that was the purpose of the new ordinance -- to make things look better.
#6
That whole "saggy-pants" thing originated in prison. It was originally an advertisement that the wearer of the saggy pants was...available for hire. So to speak.
Typically the saggy pants wearer even had their boxers on backwards and were pre-lubed. I wonder if these young men of color realize that.
Target them now, or target them later.
Posted by: Ho Chi Flaiper4630 ||
07/20/2008 22:17
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#7
Yeah, it's annoying. But in the late 80's parents and teachers were moaning about our pants being too tight, and us not tying our shoelaces on our hightop Reeboks. Same shit, different generation. Maybe I'm not old enough to be an old stick in the mud yet, but I really couldn't care less what they wear.
The biggest threat to the West is not al-Qa'eda, Afghanistan or Iran, but the country that, thanks to its laxity, has become the terrorists' chief hideout and breeding ground
It is not laxity. It is state policy. In 1947, the year it was created, Pakistan raised a jihadi militia and invaded Kashmir. The Pashtun tribals were so busy looting, even pausing to rape some Catholic nuns, that the Indians had time to send their own troops and take Srinagar. In 1965, there was Operation Gibralter, where Pakistan trained a jihadi militia and infiltrated them across the LOC along with regular Pak troops in disguise. They were supposed to provoke a rebellion. The locals reported them to the Indian army which sent its tanks across the international border deep into Pakistan proper. In 1999, they sent another group of jihadis, along with SSG commandos and the Northern Light Infantry across of the LOC to seize the Kargil heights. They were supposed to cut off the highway, allowing Pakistan to seize the region. A local shepherd reported the intrusion and the Indian army blasted them with hundreds of 155mm artillery guns, then sending in mountain warfare troops to remove them from the mountain peaks.
It's the threat to world peace that dares not speak its name.
In the early 80s the Pakistanis funded, trained and infiltrated Sikh terrorists in their Khalastani campaign. They blew up a 747 over the Irish sea. After the 1993 bombing of the Mumbai stock exchange, India recovered an unexploded bomb. The timer was US military issue - from a batch given to the Pakistan Army. In 1989, as the Afghan jihad was being wound down, Pakistan began training jihadis for war in Indian Kashmir. The Indian army has seized enough ordinance from dead jihadis to equip two complete army divisions.
We hear plenty about the dangers posed to our security by al-Qa'eda, Afghanistan and Iran. But when it comes to talking about the country that arguably constitutes the greatest threat to our everyday wellbeing, Pakistan hardly ever seems to merit a mention.
This is rather surprising, given that if you talk to any of the military commanders or politicians responsible for prosecuting the war against Islamist terrorism, Pakistan is the country that is almost universally identified as constituting the most serious active threat to our national security.
And it is also seen as the greatest obstacle to our efforts to combat the pernicious threat of jihad by terrorism.
Last week, the subject came up in conversations I had with one of our leading military commanders and a senior politician who is personally involved in the defence of the realm. About the only response I could evoke from my military acquaintance when I raised the thorny issue of Pakistan was a deep sigh and a shrug of the shoulders. "Ah yes, Pakistan," he said with a world-weary sigh. "A multitude of problems with no obvious solutions."
As for the politician, I was curious as to why the Government seems to have imposed a news blackout on making any statement that might be deemed critical of the Pakistani government. "The fact is, the country is teetering on the precipice of total collapse, and we don't want to be the ones to push it over the edge."
Indeed, the idea of Pakistan replicating the near-anarchy that prevails across the border in Afghanistan is almost too terrifying to contemplate.
While coalition forces have enjoyed much success in eradicating the operational infrastructure of the Taliban and al-Qa'eda in southern Afghanistan, they are deeply frustrated by the fact that the terrorists have simply been allowed to regroup and rebuild across the border in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.
British military commanders last week told The Sunday Telegraph that the five-fold increase in roadside bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan was the result of the training that Taliban fighters were receiving at religious schools in Pakistan, where they are being taught to make explosives and build improvised explosive devices.
And while al-Qa'eda is not the force it was when it carried out the September 11 attacks, Western intelligence experts believe the core of al-Qa'eda's leadership - possibly including Osama bin Laden himself - is based in the inhospitable mountain ranges of Waziristan in Pakistan, where they continue to plot their diabolical schemes to attack the West.
To this potent Taliban/al-Qa'eda terrorist mix has now been added the new ingredient of Pakistan's home-grown Islamist radicals, which Western security experts call the Pakistani Taliban to distinguish them from their Afghan neighbours.
The Pakistani Taliban is made up of indigenous Muslims who have been radicalised in one of the hundreds of Saudi-funded madrassahs, which openly preach that young Muslims have an obligation to wage Jihad against the infidels of the West.
Nearly all the major terror plots against Britain - both those that succeeded, such as the July 7 bombings, and those that have been foiled by the vigilance of our security services - have been linked in some way to Pakistan.
We've noticed that, as have some smart Brits, but the gummint there seems to be going out of its way not to notice ...
The emergence of a new, home-grown terrorist organisation in Pakistan has dramatically increased the threat the country poses to Britain.
As if this wasn't enough to give us all sleepless nights, Pakistan is the only Muslim country known to possess a nuclear weapons arsenal.
So long as President Pervez Musharraf remains the country's titular head, the West has some degree of assurance that Pakistan's nukes remain secure for, in his former capacity as the head of Pakistan's armed forces, Musharraf allowed US officials to make sure the necessary safeguards were in place to ensure the nukes did not fall into the wrong hands.
Al-Qa'eda's training manuals make no secret of the fact that the organisation would love to get its hands on a nuclear device, and the only two likely places it could do this are Pakistan and Iran.
Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal, spent the Nineties making a tidy profit from hawking his nuclear-bomb blueprints to some of the world's less stable regimes, and North Korea, Libya and Iran were among some of the more notorious beneficiaries.
Although Dr Khan was placed under house arrest after his activities were exposed by Western intelligence agencies in 2002, Pakistan's new coalition government, bowing to nationalist pressure, has indicated it is prepared to rehabilitate the disgraced nuclear scientist, even though the West is still struggling to come to terms with the consequences of his clandestine nuclear proliferation network.
This is just one of several disturbing developments to emerge from Pakistan since the new coalition government took power earlier this year, in reaction to the West putting pressure on Mr Musharraf to return the country to democratic rule. At the time, both London and Washington believed that Pakistan having a democratic government would increase its co-operation in fighting terrorism. In fact, the opposite appears to have happened.
Since most Paks, whatever their affiliation, agree with the terrorists: Pakistain is the land of the pure, there are infidels everywhere, and it's necessary to have jihad. The Paks won't allow themselves to be 'surrounded', won't allow Tajiks and Uzbeks to run Afghanistan, and won't allow Kashmir to go its own way. Doesn't matter who's in charge in Islamabad.
Pakistan was created by Indian Muslims who did not want to live in a democratic state where there would be one man, one vote. When they didn't get their way, they created their own country and built a new capital - Islamabad - The city of Islam, complete with its Mughal-Stalanist architecture. Even then there was the hope that India would soon break up and Pakistan, and its share of the British Indian Army, would dominate the weaker states of the subcontinent. For Pakistan to live in peace with its neighbors, especially India, requires Pakistanis to accept that they will not rule the subcontinent, that they will be dominated militarily, culturally, economically by non-Muslims. It requires Pakistanis to give up all hope of being the equal or better of India. That violates their concept of Islam. For Allah promised that the Muslims would conquer, that all would fall under the sway of Islam. If this is not the case, then what the Koran promised is incorrect. Pakistan might as well not exist. They might as well not be Muslims. Such a thing is far too traumatic. Hence we have perpetual jihad.
The West might have been frustrated by what it perceived as Mr Musharraf's lack of commitment to rooting out terror groups in Waziristan, but at least while he was directly running the country there were sporadic bouts of activity. But talk to any of the military commanders involved with prosecuting the war against the Taliban and al-Qa'eda, and they will tell you that Pakistani co-operation has virtually ground to a halt since the coalition government took control.
Until now, the West has maintained a discreet silence about its concerns regarding Pakistan's lack of commitment to rooting out Islamist terror cells, hoping that the new government in Islamabad can be persuaded to mend its ways. But the West's mounting frustration is unlikely to be contained for much longer.
Barack Obama, the Democrat presidential nominee, last week became the first leading Western politician to voice his frustration with Islamabad when he declared that he would have no hesitation in ordering American troops to pursue terror suspects across the Pakistani border "if Pakistan cannot or will not act".
The Pakistanis ignore this shot across their bows at their peril.
The Paks are going to bet on the fact that Barack Obama is an empty suit, and they may be right. Obama can talk tough about a country that's far away, but if he's willing to back down in Iraq, why would the Paks believe he'll be tough on them?
#1
On that last comment from Dr. Steve, if Candidate Obama can speak so, Candidate McCain can go even farther... which should prove interesting to all parties.
#1
Within two days in late June the Supreme Court of Canada clarified the concept of fair comment and the Canadian Human Rights Commission ruled why no hearing was warranted for the controversial Mark Steyn article published in Maclean's in October 2006.
OK, then let the recover the costs of lawyers, legal fees, loist time, etc. The state weighed in and attempted to crush them on a bogus complaint brought by axe-grinding muzzies.
Make the muzzies PAY. Personally. For all the fees and costs they caused the defendants to incur.
#2
This refers to the "Canadian Human Rights Commission" and the proposed hearing concerning Mary Steyn and the Maclean's article. That particular hearing is indeed a dead dog and will not be revived.
HOWEVER . . . . . the "British Columbia Human Rights Commission" hearing continues with Steyn et al waiting to hear the verdict. There may be further hearings in other provincial jurisdictions.
There may also be some . . . . civil . . . . . unpleasantness to follow, depending on the outcome.
There will be no recovery of costs, OS, because the process is INTENDED to be the punishment.
#3
And there is your problem. McCleans/Steyn ought to sue the government for malicious prosecution,. abrogation of fundamental rights to free speech presen in English Common Law, and so on - and if possible, force the individuals, under civil suit, responsible for the complaints to be brought to the courts and spend money to defend themselves against suits.
Too bad you guys don't have a First Amendment. Nor a Second.
#4
And yes, I mean litigate the snot out of this, suing individual comissioners, state, local and city government, individual officials from each of those, personally, and suing all the complaintants individuall.
Force them to spend money to defend themselves from claims of fraudulently filing charges.
Break them. Bankrupt them then hound them out of the country.
Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama met Sunday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a man Obama has chided for not doing enough to rebuild his war-torn country. Obama and Karzai held talks and lunched together at the presidential palace in Kabul. Karzai's office released video showing the two men seated in front of a marble fireplace, chatting and smiling. They made no public comment.
Obama has made Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants are resurgent, a centerpiece of his proposed strategy for dealing with terror threats. The candidate has said the war in Afghanistan deserves more troops and more attention as opposed to the conflict in Iraq.
Earlier in the day during breakfast with soldiers at Camp Eggers, a heavily fortified military base in the city, Obama praised the U.S. troops. "To see young people like this who are doing such excellent work, with so much dedication ... it makes you feel good about the country," Obama said.
"I want to make sure that everybody back home understands how much pride people take in their work here and how much sacrifice people are making. It is outstanding," he said in video footage from the military obtained by The Associated Press.
Lt. Col. Dave Johnson, a U.S. military spokesman, said Obama and other visiting senators met with many soldiers and sailors from their respective constituencies. While officially a part of a congressional delegation on a fact-finding tour also expected to take him to Iraq, Obama was traveling in Afghanistan amid the publicity and scrutiny accorded a likely Democratic nominee for president rather than a senator from Illinois. Security was tight and media access to Obama was limited by his campaign.
Traveling with Obama were Sens. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, and Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island. Both are military veterans and have been mentioned as potential Obama vice presidential running mates, although Reed has said he is not interested in the job and Hagel would be an unlikely cross-party choice.
Obama and others in the delegation received a briefing Saturday inside the U.S. base in Jalalabad from the Afghan provincial governor of Nangarhar, Gul Agha Sherzai, a no-nonsense, bullish former warlord.
"Obama promised us that if he becomes a president in the future, he will support and help Afghanistan not only in its security sector but also in reconstruction, development and economic sector," Sherzai told The Associated Press.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/20/2008
08:34 ||
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Traveling with Obama were Sens. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska "Republican",....
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 8:56
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#2
For MessiahO, that must have been like trying to pick up a hole-less greased bowling ball with one hand.
Karzai knows who got him the job, and how much his life would be worth if the US pulled out. He is more loyal to W. Bush than Karl Rove.
#3
I dunno -- I think Karzai is loyal, first and foremost, to himself. He's a survivor and I'm guessing that he's a lot better than most of us in reading tea leaves. If 'Bamer gets the job, Karzai will adapt.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 10:10
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#4
Obama, the glib and unserious traveling salesman, must be even less impressive to a man like Karzai, than he is to me. (if that's possible)
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/20/2008 10:32
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#5
I hate to think this nation would elect another Jimmah Kahtah, and one even more useless, but it may happen. I can only hope that God has the final say. BO is an over-educated idiot, to use one of my dad's favorite expressions.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 15:01
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#6
The U.S. is the elephant in Afghanistan's living room, of which President Karzai controls pretty much only the chair he is sitting in. He would be wise to cultivate the potential mahouts (as would be the rest of the world), regardless of his personal opinion... and I don't think anyone seriously thinks Mr. Karzai is stupid.
I post. You decide.
There she is -- no, not Miss America, but the Angela-Davis-Afro-wearing, machine-gun-toting, angry, unpatriotic Michelle Obama, greeting her husband with a fist bump instead of a kiss on the cheek.
It was supposed to be satire, but the caricature of Barack Obama and his wife that appeared on the cover of the New Yorker last week rightly caused a major flap. And among black professional women like me and many of my sisters in the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, who happened to be gathered last week in Washington for our 100th anniversary celebration, the mischaracterization of Michelle hit the rawest of nerves.
Welcome to our world.
We've watched with a mixture of pride and trepidation as the wife of the first serious African American presidential contender has weathered recent campaign travails -- being called unpatriotic for a single offhand remark, dubbed a black radical because of something she wrote more than 20 years ago and plastered with the crowning stereotype: "angry black woman." And then being forced to undergo a politically mandated "makeover" to soften her image and make her more palatable to mainstream America. How about taking her children to a hate-filled church?
Sad to say, but what Obama has undergone, though it's on a national stage and on a much more prominent scale, is nothing new to professional African American women. We endure this type of labeling all the time. We're endlessly familiar with the problem Michelle Obama is confronting -- being looked at, as black women, through a different lens from our white counterparts, who are portrayed as kinder, gentler souls who somehow deserve to be loved and valued more than we do. So many of us are hoping that Michelle -- as an elegant and elusive combination of successful career woman, supportive wife and loving mother -- can change that.
"Ain't I a woman?" Sojourner Truth famously asked 157 years ago. Her ringing question, demanding why black women weren't accorded the same privileges as their white counterparts, still sums up the African American woman's dilemma today: How are we viewed as women, and where do we fit into American life?
"Thanks to the hip-hop industry," one prominent black female journalist recently said to me, all black women are "deemed 'sexually promiscuous video vixens' not worthy of consideration. If other black women speak up, we're considered angry black women who complain. This society can't even see a woman like Michelle Obama. All it sees is a black woman and attaches stereotypes."
Black women have been mischaracterized and stereotyped since the days of slavery and minstrel shows. In more recent times, they've been portrayed onscreen and in popular culture as either sexually available bed wenches in such shows as the 2000 docudrama "Sally Hemings: An American Scandal," ignorant and foolish servants such as Prissy from "Gone With the Wind" or ever-smiling housekeepers, workhorses who never complain and never tire, like the popular figure of Aunt Jemima.
Even in the 21st century, black women are still bombarded with media and Internet images that portray us as loud, aggressive, violent and often grossly obese and unattractive. Think of the movies "Norbit" or "Big Momma's House," or of the only two black female characters in "Enchanted," an overweight, aggressive traffic cop and an angry divorcée amid all the white princesses.
On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a smart, accomplished black professional woman portrayed on mainstream television or in the movies? If Claire Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" comes to mind, remember that she left the scene 16 years ago.
The reality is that in just a generation, many black women -- who were mostly domestics, schoolteachers or nurses in the post-slavery Jim Crow era -- have become astronauts, corporate executives, doctors, lawyers, engineers and PhDs. You name it, and black women have achieved it. The most popular woman on daytime television is Oprah Winfrey. Condoleezza Rice is secretary of state.
And yet my generation of African American women -- we're called, in fact, the Claire Huxtable generation -- hasn't managed to become successfully integrated into American popular culture. We're still looking for respect in the workplace, where, more than anything else, black women feel invisible. It's a term that comes up again and again. "In my profession, white men mentor young whites on how to succeed," a financial executive told me, but "they're either indifferent to or dogmatically document the mistakes black women make. Their indifference is the worst, because it means we're invisible."
As someone who recently left a large law firm to work in the corporate sector, I have to agree. I liked my firm, but I always felt that I had to sink or swim on my own. I didn't get the kind of mentoring that I saw white colleagues, male and female, getting all around me. The firm was actually one of the better ones when it came to diversity, and yet of 600 partners, only five were black women.
A 2007 American Bar Association report titled "Visible Invisibility" describes how black women in the legal profession face the "double burden" of being both black and female, meaning that they enjoy none of the advantages that black men gain from being male, or that white women gain from being white.
Invisibility isn't the only problem. I run an organization dedicated to supporting African American professional women and often run empowerment workshops at various conferences. At a recent such workshop, I asked the participants to list some words that would describe how they believe they're viewed in the workplace and the culture at large. These are the kinds of words that came back: "loud," "angry," "intimidating," "mean," "opinionated," "aggressive," "hard." All painful words. Yet asked to describe themselves, the same women offered gentler terms: "strong," "loving," "dependable," "compassionate."
Where does the disconnect come from? Possibly from the way black women have been forced into roles of strength for decades. "Black women are the original multitaskers of necessity," says one nonprofit executive. "We've perfected it because we've been doing it for so long. But people don't appreciate the skill it requires, and they don't recognize the toll it takes on us as human beings."
For all our success in the professional world, we have paid a significant price in our private and emotional lives. A life of preordained singleness (by chance, not by choice) is fast becoming the plight of alarming numbers of professional black women in America. The fact is that the more money and education a black woman has, the less likely she is to marry and have a family. And yet the stereotype is that the less money and education a black women has, the less likely she is to be married. It's so unfair!
Consider these stunning statistics: As of 2007, according to the New York Times, 70 percent of professional black women were unmarried. Black women are five times more likely than white women to be single at age 40. In 2003, Newsweek reported that there are more black women than black men (24 percent to 17 percent) in the professional-managerial class. According to Department of Education statistics cited by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, black women earn 67 percent of all bachelor's degrees awarded to blacks, as well as 71 percent of all master's degrees and 65 percent of all doctoral degrees. That's 'cuz the dudes are all playin' sports. Sorry.
With all the challenges facing professional black women today, we hope that Michelle Obama will defy the negative stereotypes about us. And that, now that a strong professional black woman is center stage, she'll bring to light what we already know: that an accomplished black woman can be a loyal and supportive wife and a good mother and still fulfill her own dreams. Wait for the speech at the Convention.
The fact that her husband clearly adores Michelle is both refreshing and reassuring to many of us who long to find a good man who will love and appreciate us.
Recently, a friend who's a married professional mother of three girls wrote to me: "I think one of the most interesting things about Michelle Obama is that what she and her husband are doing is pretty revolutionary these days -- and I don't mean running for president. For a black man and woman in the U.S. to be happily married, with children, and working as partners to build a life -- let alone a life of service to others -- all while rearing their children together is downright revolutionary."
It's how so many black professional women feel. And our hope is that if Michelle Obama becomes first lady, the revolution will come to us at last.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/20/2008
08:10 ||
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#1
Mr. Perception, I'd like you to please meet Mr. Reality. Oh, you two already know one another?
#2
For a black man and woman in the U.S. to be happily married, with children, and working as partners to build a life ...all while rearing their children together is downright revolutionary.
Being married and raising a family is considered 'revolutionary'? That is the saddest thing I have read all week.
#3
black women also suffer from the perception that their achievements in school, business have been though affirmative action and not of their own doing. As with all overly-general perceptions, they start with some nugget of truth. AA and quotas do more to damage, in my mind, than help.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 11:39
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#4
We're still looking for respect in the workplace, where, more than anything else, black women feel invisible.
Congratulations, you've achieve American middle class. We're all an invisible gray. We buy into a concept in which there is no color, only status by merit. What you are articulating is that the original goals of the 50s and 60s Civil Rights movement have been achieved, only that's not what you really wanted. You want to be 'special', along with the perks and powers that come with being 'special'.
#5
On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a smart, accomplished black professional woman portrayed on mainstream television or in the movies?
Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, CSI Miami, Without a Trace, Heroes, Boston Legal... and that's with about five minutes of searching.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 12:13
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#7
This is like a "Baby On Board" placard: Yuppies congratulating themselves (and bragging to the world) for doing what LOTS of people with less money and fewer advantages managed to do out of innate decency and moral fiber. WooHoo...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/20/2008 13:07
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Sorry, dahlink, but if you are going to go into a traditionally male profession, you are going to run the risk of being characterized that way by some of the guys there, regardless of your color, if you dare to occasionally speak up against behavior you find unacceptable. It has nothing to do with your pigmentation.
Deal with it or go somewhere there are more women colleagues.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
07/20/2008 14:30
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#9
But Michelle, do tell us about that $200,000 raise you got for your clerical job when your hubby became US Senator. That smells like a dead hippo.
#10
If, and I still say its a big If, Obama gets elected POTUS, this lady will make Hillary look like a Sunday school teacher. She will be spitting dragon fire around the country and head butting everyone of us to get with the program - which is, of course, repatriation. Don't believe me? Watch.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/20/2008 16:27
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#11
Oh boy. At least four more years of hearing people with more power and a LOT more money than I am BITCH about how much life sucks for them.
#13
If a woman chooses a professional career but really wants a husband and family, she'd better hold the wedding right after her graduation ceremony. The male marriage pool shrinks with age (despite divorces), as the women for whom marriage and family are important take the interested men out of circulation, and many of those remaining refuse to be tested against someone's Platonic ideal (ok, perhaps platonic isn't quite the right word here). It's an interesting bit mathematical theory, as it turns out, which should be great fun for those of you able to follow it. Certainly our baby boomer black female professional has no business complaining about what holds equally true for her non-black equals.
As for the rest of the whine, if she wanted everyone to be see her as gentle and supportive instead of ball-busting, she should have chosen a career in housewifery, where the odds of that are better. Although, "loud," "intimidating," "opinionated," "aggressive," and "hard" are often compliments in the business world... even a gentle and supportive little housewife like me knows that.
#15
"they're either indifferent to or dogmatically document the mistakes black women make. Their indifference is the worst, because it means we're invisible."
Be damned glad it's indifference. If you're as arrogant, loudmouthed and incompetent as most of the professional blacks I met in my career, "indifference" would have been replaced with an active and well-merited effort to have you fired for cause.
Just because you're black doesn't mean you're entitled to ANYTHING. Most people are indifferent to other people; so what? There aren't that many Mother Teresas running around. As for a lack of mentoring, it seems to me there are thousands of things like the "Journal of Blacks in Higher Education" out there. Nobody else gets those; only you poor, misguided, mistreated blacks.
I'm sick of the underperformance, the unwarranted arrogance, the attitude of presumptive entitlement, the constant "race card" playing, and, most particularly, the vastly disproportionate violent criminal activity. So are lots of other people, which is why most people of other races tend to see blacks negatively and avoid dealings with them when they can.
There she is -- no, not Miss America, but the Angela-Davis-Afro-wearing, machine-gun-toting, angry, unpatriotic Michelle Obama, greeting her husband with a fist bump instead of a kiss on the cheek.
Yeah, I can see why blacks wouldn't like that. It's too close to the real truth.
Creates a vacuum. But since the Anglican hierarchy is interested in pretty much every possible cause other than Christian life and doctrine, it's predictable.
Gee, I wonder what will fill that vacuum over the next decade or so?
#1
Perhaps the tourism ministry can take them over, complete with actors dressed up as priests of the Church of England. Odds are more of the actors will believe in God than the real priests, anyway.
#2
Germany has the same problem with some of its 1500 castles. The solution is to privatize castles or churches in exchange for maintenance and restoration.
Importantly, while Medieval buildings are of great historical value and are often beautiful, they are not comfortable, in fact are downright uncomfortable, the reason clergy wore thick and layered robes. More modern buildings make far better churches for active congregations.
At the same time, private owners who restore such churches do far more than maintain. They go over every brick, and even excavate, to make it better, because they care about quality and historical accuracy, not utility.
The privatized castles of Germany are always in better condition than historical churches restored for use, that are very cold inside even on warm summer days, and look like they might fall down at any moment.
#5
The Church of England is rotten throughout - a terrible case of leftoid wood worm. The churches themselves are in a good state. A good treatment of moral fungicide and insecticide is needed.
#6
JFM, we don't have any medieval churches in the USA. It doesn't mean we're holier than thou, just not as old.
But some of us are concerned about declining moral values not only in Europe but in this country as well...taking it as an indication that our civilization is also in decline and fearing what will fill the vacuum...fearing that our children will go to hell. There is no guarantee that our civilization will survive...there never was...especially if we forget about God. A hundred years from now we could be forgotten.
If the Brits have lost faith in the Anglican church maybe they could try the Catholic, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc. It should be like so many radio stations where people can go up and down the dial. When they hear the Word they'll stop and listen.
Posted by: Abu Uluque6305 ||
07/20/2008 15:37
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It's just a building. Dust to dust. Christian principles live on.
#9
An eccentric high school teacher built himself a castle in the next suburb over from mine, after returning from serving in France during one of the world wars. He formed each block from cement in milk cartons, lightening them by putting a light bulb in the center. It's on the river and absolutely charming. A foundation cares for the castle and garden now.
Enough Semtex to make 56 bombs the size of the one used in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing has been stolen from a French castle. The 28 kilograms of the explosive were discovered to be missing yesterday along with an unknown quantity of detonators, but the Interior Ministry said they could have been taken more than a week ago. The Lyon depot is situated in a disused 19th century castle at Corbas near Lyon and is used by a civil defence unit to store explosives needed for bomb disposal workers.
"A theft of explosives used by bomb-disposal experts to destroy munitions retrieved from former battlefields has taken place," said a statement from the Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.
The statement said there had been "security failings" which gave the thieves their chance.
The Semtex is now being searched for by French anti-terrorist police who fear it could be used to attack civilian targets. Semtex is favoured by terrorists because it is powerful, has no smell and is almost impossible to detect.
"The investigation has to find out how they could have been stolen," a police source said, adding that the authorities were taking the theft "very seriously."
#3
To cut some slack to those civil defense guys - not that it is not a big screw up... -, destroying unexploded ammunition is so common in France it's probably hard to get it in perspective for a foreigner... something like 900 tons a year recovered from Verdun alone, and an estimate of seven centuries needed at current rate of recovery just to clear out WWI unexploded ammo (JFM will correct me).
So, this cache was not a "top secret" or "sensitive" one, it was just a cog in that huge work, a bit of a very mundane, run-of-the-mill enterprize; and if you want to put it in an ever worse light, just think that there actually are stockpiles upon stockpiles of unexploded shells in various stages of decay, including chemicals ones, lying in open air, with basically no security at all. There just isn't enough manpower, enough EOD to keep the rythm.
#4
I saw some of this when I was in Germany the first time. The US began building a new barracks at one of our downtown compounds, and found something like 84 mortar rounds when they were digging the basement. This was an installation that had been in constant use by the military since the end of WWII, and the weapons were discovered in 1974. England, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, the Eastern European countries, all have similar problems with unexploded ordinance. You read about a "find" every few weeks, if you happen to be in Europe, and can read one of the local newspapers. The sheer amount of weaponry used is staggering. A similar problem exists in Afghanistan, where the Russians supposedly left several MILLION mines behind when they left, most buried in unmarked minefields.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 15:12
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I take back my question, in light of further information. Thank you, gentlemen.
#1
Looking back, Tootal is angry at what he describes as wishful thinking about the Afghan mission by senior military and politicians.
If the politicians had 'looked back' a bit further...(Anglo-Afghan Wars 1839-42; 1878-80; 1919 and events in India they'd have a more solid perspective. For the lack of reading it, we appear to be doomed to a repeat of history.
#2
While I think there was a need to do some fighting, had I been empowered to have that money in bags of gold to put on the table and known who to talk to, we could have brought over some of the guys who ended up fighting against us.
This is similar to the strategy that won the war in Iraq for Petraeus, paying $300 to the Awakening Councils per month for each guerilla who turned on their former allies Al Qaeda in Iraq.
If makes you wonder why Tootal had to resign to drive home the point that a similar strategy should be adopted in Afghanistan.
The verb "to shanghai" joined the lexicon with "crimping" and "sailor thieves" in 1850s.[15] The most widely accepted theory of the word's origin is that it comes from the Chinese city of Shanghai, a common destination of the ships with abducted crews.[1][15] The term has since expanded to mean "kidnapped" or "induced to do something by means of fraud."[16]
Jihadis Militants fired on an army outpost and killed three villagers in separate attacks in Thailand's restive Muslim south, police said on Sunday, days after an unknown rebel group declared a ceasefire.
One soldier was wounded when a grenade exploded at the outpost late on Saturday in Pattani, one of three southernmost provinces where more than 3,000 people have been killed in separatist attacks since 2004. Also in Pattani, three Muslim villagers were shot dead by suspected militants, police said.
Thai authorities feared a spike in violence after the unknown Thailand United Southern Underground announced a "ceasefire" last week that was dismissed by army officials and security experts who said its leaders had no influence in the region. The Thai army identified the group's leader as Malipeng Khan, a separatist active in the 1980s who had failed to unify insurgent factions in the region annexed by predominately Buddhist Thailand a century ago.
Thai media attention has focused on Chettha Thanajaro, a former defence minister and leader of a minor party in Thailand's coalition government, who announced the "breakthrough" on Thursday after a year of talks with 11 separatist groups. "It was somewhere between a cheap political ploy aimed at putting pressure on the Malay Muslim insurgents in the deep south, or a desperate bid for free publicity," the Nation newspaper said in an editorial on Friday. "Either way, former army chief-turned-politician Chettha Thanajaro ... has raised more questions that he has answered."
No one likes war. War is a horrific affair, bloody and expensive. Sending our men and women into battle to perhaps die or be maimed is an unconscionable thought.
Yet some wars need to be waged, and someone needs to lead. The citizenry and Congress are often ambivalent or largely opposed to any given war. It's up to our leader to convince them. That's why we call the leader "Commander in Chief."
George W.'s war was no different. There was lots of resistance to it. Many in Congress were vehemently against the idea. The Commander in Chief had to lobby for legislative approval.
Along with supporters, George W. used the force of his convictions, the power of his title and every ounce of moral suasion he could muster to rally support. He had to assure Congress and the public that the war was morally justified, winnable and affordable. Congress eventually came around and voted overwhelmingly to wage war.
George W. then lobbied foreign governments for support. But in the end, only one European nation helped us. The rest of the world sat on its hands and watched.
After a few quick victories, things started to go bad. There were many dark days when all the news was discouraging. Casualties began to mount. It became obvious that our forces were too small. Congress began to drag its feet about funding the effort.
Many who had voted to support the war just a few years earlier were beginning to speak against it and accuse the Commander in Chief of misleading them. Many critics began to call him incompetent, an idiot and even a liar. Journalists joined the negative chorus with a vengeance.
As the war entered its fourth year, the public began to grow weary of the conflict and the casualties. George W.'s popularity plummeted. Yet through it all, he stood firm, supporting the troops and endorsing the struggle.
Without his unwavering support, the war would have surely ended, then and there, in overwhelming and total defeat.
At this darkest of times, he began to make some changes. More troops were added and trained. Some advisers were shuffled, and new generals installed.
Then, unexpectedly and gradually, things began to improve. Now it was the enemy that appeared to be growing weary of the lengthy conflict and losing support. Victories began to come, and hope returned.
Many critics in Congress and the press said the improvements were just George W.'s good luck. The progress, they said, would be temporary. He knew, however, that in warfare good fortune counts.
Then, in the unlikeliest of circumstances and perhaps the most historic example of military luck, the enemy blundered and was resoundingly defeated. After six long years of war, the Commander in Chief basked in a most hard-fought victory.
So on that historic day, Oct. 19, 1781, in a place called Yorktown, a satisfied George Washington sat upon his beautiful white horse and accepted the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, effectively ending the Revolutionary War.
#1
W was kinda helped by the fact that north Baghdad was cleansed of Sunnis. McCain has to be careful with distancing, but he has to do it. During a Letterman' appearance, he blamed Rummy for "mismanagement." Let's see where that goes.
Less than a month after meeting the chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff in Israel, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi left for the United States Saturday night for a week of talks - with a focus on Iran - with top US defense and diplomatic officials.
The visit is Ashkenazi's first to the US as chief of General Staff and comes following two visits Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen has made to Israel in the past seven months. Defense Minister Ehud Barak is scheduled to visit the US at the beginning of August.
During his week-long visit, Ashkenazi will meet with Mullen, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and top members of the Senate Arms Committee. He will also meet with senior US intelligence officials.
As a sign of the friendship the two military chiefs have developed over the past year, Mullen will host Ashkenazi and his wife Ronit for a private dinner at his house in the Washington, DC area. When Mullen was here three weeks ago, Ashkenazi and his wife hosted him for a private dinner at their Kfar Saba apartment.
Ashkenazi will be accompanied during the trip by IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Avi Benayahu and IDF Strategic and Foreign Liaison Department head Brig.-Gen. Yossi Heiman.
The talks, officials said, would focus on a wide range of regional issues, including Hizbullah and Hamas's military buildup, Syria's continued support of terrorism and the Iranian nuclear program, which would top the agenda.
The officials said that the main purpose behind the trip was exchanging views on the different issues and maintaining relations with the US, Israel's strongest ally. Ashkenazi will also discuss different means that Israel has developed to counter roadside bombs - known in the US as improvised explosive devices (IED) - which is one of the greatest threats to American troops operating in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The purpose is to continue to create and maintain the deep military-level dialogue with the US," a senior official said.
Ashkenazi will also meet with top American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) officials in Washington, and representatives of the Friends of the IDF in Miami. He will also visit Centcom headquarters in Tampa, and meet with senior members of the American media.
(Xinhua) -- Thirteen people were killed and 15 others wounded Friday separately in the internally displaced people (IDPs) camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu and in clan clashes in villages in southern Somalia, witnesses and local media said. "Hooded men armed with pistols arrived while we were taking food handouts from a local aid agency and people run away, but three men who were helping with the distribution were shot dead," Baadi Elmi, a resident, told Xinhua. "We do not know who they were or why they killed them."
The killing comes as IDPs in Elasha Biyaha camps have been protesting for the fourth straight day running against the targeting of aid workers.
Five aid workers have been killed recently in Somalia and four others are being held hostage by armed groups. Some aid agencies have scaled down their operations in the war-torn country while others have drawn their staff altogether after the increase in violence against aid workers.
The UN World Food Program warned Friday that attacks on aid workers on the ground and threats to ships delivering food aid to Somalia are jeopardizing the lives of millions who now need urgent food assistance.
Meanwhile, witnesses in the southern Somali port of Kismayu say that 10 militias were killed in fighting between rival clans and 15 others wounded, some of them seriously.
Local media reports say the clashes started Thursday and continued into Friday in Buriyo and Baghdad villages, 500 km south of Mogadishu, the capital.
The fighting began following revenge attacks for the killing of a member of one of the clans. Elders in the area are reportedly trying to calm the situation.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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#1
Have any of these jerks ever thought of taking up arms and fighting the people killing aid workers? Their "protests" are worthless. The only thing that will stop the "Islamic Courts Union" is hot lead. Make it cost enough, and they'll quit. Even farm implements can be used as weapons, although they're not as effective as other implements. The best way to make sure the NGOs don't abandon Somalia to die is to stand up to those that are trying their best to run the NGOs out. If you can't do that, you're worthless and deserve to die.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 14:42
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(Xinhua) -- Representatives of the world's religions Friday ended a three-day inter-faith conference in Madrid, with calls for enhanced dialogue among people from different religions, civilizations and cultures.
The World Conference on Dialogue brought together Muslim, Christian and Jewish leaders as well as politicians and other experts on inter-religious dialogue.
Dialogue is the most important channel through which people can understand each other and conduct exchanges and cooperation, participants said in their final declaration.
They rejected the notion that conflict is inevitable between different cultures and civilizations, and called for efforts to promote common human values and build a harmonious world.
Terrorism is one of the main obstacles to dialogue and co-existence, the declaration said. It called for an international agreement on defining terrorism, addressing its root causes and pooling efforts to combat it.
Participants expressed the hope that their conclusions and proposals would win support from the UN General Assembly.
The gathering showed that dialogue is the best way to promote peace and harmony, said Abdullah al-Turki, secretary-general of the Muslim World League, at a press conference after the meeting.
Around 300 people attended the conference, organized by the Muslim World League from an initiative by Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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(Xinhua) -- Over five thousand Hezbollah supporters gathered in the southern suburbs of Beirut to attend the funeral service of eight Hezbollah fighters killed in 2006 July war, and whose bodies were returned from Israel Wednesday, Local Daily Star reported Saturday.
The memorial service was attended by grieving mothers and relatives, as well as Hezbollah officials and supporters.
"They will be buried in this blessed land after their return from the blessed land of Palestine," said the head of Hezbollah executive council Hashim Safieddine in a speech at the occasion.
Relatives kissed and touched the coffins before they were carried through the streets of the southern suburbs by Hezbollah fighters, and were handed over to their families for burials in their native villages in south Lebanon.
Banners hanging on the streets said "Israel has fallen," others read "A victory from God."
The eight fighters were killed in fierce battled with the Israeli army in south Lebanon during the month of July in 2006, when Israel launched a devastating war, following Hezbollah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers on July 12 of last year.
The bodies of the eight fighters were handed over to Hezbollah as a part of the swap with Israel that included the return of five living prisoners and another 199 bodies of Palestinian and Arab fighters.
Hezbollah in retune turned over the bodies the two captured Israeli soldiers who were killed during the capture operation as media reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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#1
... or killed in custody, but why would the world media be interested in checking if that were true?
#2
the following comments published in the Blacksmiths of Lebanon blog: And there was a certain sleight of hand in all this. Mr Nasrallah had promised to retrieve the bodies of Palestinian martyrs, and they included the remains of 19-year-old Dalal Moghraby, which were supposedly stacked on the first lorry to cross the border yesterday. She was the girl who led 11 Palestinian and Lebanese gunmen in an attack on the Israeli coast road north of Tel Aviv. Cornered by the Israeli [sic] army, she decided to fight it out. Thirty-six people died and a surviving videotape shows an Israeli agent, a certain Ehud Barak yes, the man who is now Israels Defence Minister firing shots into her body and dragging her across a road. Mr Barak was one of the Israeli cabinet members who voted for the return of her corpse yesterday. But the Palestinians, it turned out, did not want their dead returned to Lebanon. Dalal Moghrabys mother Amina Ismail, for example, wished her remains to lie where she was buried in Israel the land which she and millions of other refugees still regard as part of Palestine. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command said it wanted its dead martyrs to remain on Palestinian land as they would have wished, and asked Hizbollah to exclude them from the returning corpses. No such luck. For Hizbollah had other ideas and with the agreement of the Israelis, of course brought them back to the land of their exile.
Also from the same blog:
Net gains:
Sami Kuntar
199 bodies of Lebanese and Arab fighters.
*Kohdor Zaidan
*Maher Kourani
*Mohammeda Srour
*Hussein Suleiman
*Technically not a net gain, as they were captured during the 2006 war.
Net Losses:
1200 civilians dead,400 of them under 13.
4400 civilians injured, 770 if them permannetly.
1 million people displaced from their homes.
125000housing units damaged or destroyed.
250 Hizbollah fighters killed.
80% southern villages destroyed.
5 billion economic damage.
15 billion long term economic looses.
91 bridges destroyed.
Northern Gaharreoccupied.
The continuing brain drain of Lebanon, etc.etc.
(Xinhua) -- The House of Representatives (DPR)of Indonesia is to give the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK)all the liberty it needs to investigate legislators involved in corruption, House Speaker Agung Laksono said on Saturday. "We will give the KPK our full cooperation, and will not protect House members from being investigated by the KPK," Antara news agency quoted the House leader as saying in Bali.
Can they come to Chicago when they're done?
Laksono said he had met with the leaders of the House factions and asked them to let the KPK investigate any of their members suspected of corruption. "We have met with each of the House factions and asked them to be willing to let KPK go ahead with its investigations with due observance of the principle of presumption of innocence," he said.
The arrests of a number of legislators as suspects in bribery and corruption cases over the past few months should serve as a lesson to the rest of the House members, he said.
But Laksono also expressed the hope that the KPK would fight corruption indiscriminately and not only target legislative bodies while ignoring corruption in other state institutions.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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(Xinhua) -- EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana started talks Saturday with Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili over Tehran's disputed nuclear program in the presence of U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns.
Burns, the first U.S. diplomat to attend negotiations with Iran in 30 years, will be listening, not negotiating, in the talks, U.S. officials said. But his presence was widely seen as a major policy shift by Washington on Iran.
At the one-day meeting, Solana is expected to sound out Iran's position on the long-standing dispute. The West fears that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at making atomic bombs instead of generating power. Tehran says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes only.
The talks would focus on an updated package of incentives offered by six world powers (five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany) to Tehran in a bid to breathe life into the deadlocked talks.
The package of incentives suggests that Iran get a temporary reprieve from economic and financial sanctions in exchange for freezing its enrichment activities.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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(Xinhua) -- A Pakistani Senate Committee Saturday demanded the immediate closure of the detention center in the Guantanamo Bay as it is in complete violation of the norms of a civilized world.
Pakistain presume to lecture anyone, anywhere, with the exception of Somalia and Zim, on the norms of civilized behavior?
The Senate Functional Committee on human rights through a unanimous resolution also called for releasing the six Pakistanis detained there.
Pakistain in the place where their "human rights" commission can't tell the difference between terrorism and counterterrorism.
The committee met at the Parliament House under Chairmanship of Senator S.M. Zafar and discussed the issue of detention of a woman, believed to be a Pakistani national, at U.S. Army's Bagram Detention Center in Afghanistan for over four years. The issue was highlighted in the national press on July 7, 2008 after the issue was raised at a press conference by a British journalist who converted to Islam after she was captured and held briefly by the Taliban shortly before the American invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001.
Members of the committee underlined the need for making more coordinated efforts to know the facts whether there was any woman languishing in illegal detention of the U.S. forces at Bagram in Afghanistan and the Guantanamo Bay. The committee was told that 67 Pakistanis had been freed so far from the Guantanamo Bay prison but six are still there. The committee members directed the ministries of interior, foreign affairs and the human rights division to take up the matter with the intelligence agencies whether they had handed over any women to the U.S. forces for interrogation or not.
The committee observed that the issue was of immense importance, all out efforts should be made not only to get the correct information but also take appropriate steps to get the women, if detained, released. It gave clear-cut directions to the concerned ministries that bureaucratic snags should not mar the issue and priority should be given to the matter. The committee was informed that the interior ministry had approached the ministry of foreign affairs to contact the U.S. authorities in this regard and the diplomatic mission in Kabul to take up the issue of the detained Pakistani woman with authorities in Bagram military base.
Officials of the foreign ministry told the committee that the matter was being pursued vigorously. The committee was informed that the Public Affairs Wing of the U.S. force based at Bagram in Afghanistan had already denied that any woman prisoner was detained in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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#1
And I call for removal of the supremacist Punjab majority in Pakistan, from Balochistan, Waziristan, Sindh and Kashmir. Get the hell out!
(Xinhua) -- Four people were killed and seven others wounded most likely due to a family feud in eastern Turkey on Saturday, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.
Earlier, Anatolia reported that a group of militants of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party opened fire at Turkish citizens in arable fields in Genc town of Bingol province, killing four people and injuring seven others.
Bingol Governor Irfan Balkanlioglu was quoted as saying that the incident occurred at 19:30 local time (1630 GMT), most likely due to a family dispute.
The injured have been taken to Bingol State Hospital for medical treatment, said the report, adding that the investigation into the incident is underway.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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#1
Diplomats are like terrorists.
You have to promote diplomacy to have a job.
What sort of clear answer does he need.
The Iranians have been telling all of the limp weenies in the EU to pound sand for about five years.
The Iranians will negotiate for about five more years and as soon as they have a working nuke, they'll break off talks and a major city somewhere in the "Infidel" west will disappear.
When that catastrophe happens, the nations of the west should take all of the "diplomats" and politicians that kept nannering for negotiations out and hang them........or better yet, parachute them into the still radioactive ground zero that their procrastination created.
Unfortunately, I am not an optimist about nuclear proliferation. You will notice that I said "when" not "if" about a nuclear terrorist attack.
When I was at the Prefix 5 school at Oberammergau back in 1974, we had a Brit Navy Commander say one day in class that his biggest fear was some nutjob in the middle east getting one of 'these' (pointing at a mockup of a tactical nuke)and then we would 'have all hell to pay' for it.
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/20/2008 10:58
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#2
Pictures of solana being a fawning, obsequious little dick.
A U.S. decision to bend policy and sit down with Iran at nuclear talks fizzled Saturday, with Iran stonewalling Washington and five other world powers on their call to freeze uranium enrichment.
In response, the six gave Iran two weeks to respond to their demand, setting the stage for a new round of U.N. sanctions.
This may be a game of Texas Hold-em, rather than the usual endless diplomatic blather. After all, President Bush went the U.N./international route before invading Iraq in 2003.
(Xinhua) -- A Canadian soldier has been killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, Canada's Defense Ministry said Saturday. The soldier was hit by an improvised explosive device Friday night while on a foot patrol in Panjwayi District near Kandahar. He was airlifted to an airfield hospital but was pronounced dead upon arrival, said the ministry in a statement. Another soldier was hurt lightly. Canada now has 2,500 troops stationed in southern Afghanistan. Since 2002 when Canada first sent troops to Afghanistan, a total of 88 soldiers and one diplomat have died there.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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Virtually no heroes can be found in the affair of the abducted soldiers, except for the noble Regev and Goldwasser families. Surely a cack-handed cabinet that hastened to wage war without pausing to reflect, and a vociferous media with a penchant for exaggerations and sentimental melodrama, are not among these heroes.
But maybe, in addition to the Regevs and the Goldwassers, we can add Ofer Dekel to the list, for his performance as the government's representative in the negotiations to return the two soldiers' bodies. He helped make the best out of a difficult situation, and at minimal cost.
Dekel operated within a rigid framework, made up of a government that needed an achievement, and to put an end to this affair; a reckless and impatient media; and the genuine human drama of the missing soldiers' families'.
Through it, he managed to keep a clear head. He correctly assessed that the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, is not the all-powerful sorcerer he's made out to be, and that Hezbollah - yes, even the mighty and dreaded Hezbollah - had some constraints that could be exploited.
One constraint stems from the organization's primary source of power - its status as the only armed militia inside Lebanon.
Its raison d'etre, in all the agreements within Lebanon and in other Arab countries, was resisting Israel's presence in Lebanon. The Israeli withdrawal in May 2000 stripped it of its legitimacy. How can Hezbollah justify its existence as a militia now?
The pressures to disarm Hezbollah increased with Syria's pullout from Lebanon in March 2005.
Furthermore, its need to take action against Israel, to justify its military component, produced the July 2006 kidnapping. In staging this attack, as Nasrallah himself admitted in retrospect, Hezbollah did not take into account a massive Israeli reaction.
This means that even the great Nasrallah makes mistakes, despite our commentators' insistence that he reads us like a book.
The other constraint is that Iran was upset over Hezbollah's reckless move, as the abduction was construed in Tehran. Furthermore, Iran was displeased with Hezbollah's use of long-range missiles, which were meant exclusively for a large-scale showdown with Israel.
This is why Iran has forbidden the organization to use the missiles until further notice.
Obviously, the Iranians are not eager to see a second round of hostilities with Israel - certainly not while they are attempting to dampen the international and diplomatic pressure over their uranium enrichment program.
Iran has an interest in presenting itself as a reasonable and responsible regional power.
This all means that despite Hezbollah's rearmament drive, it does not possess a military option right now. The balance of terror in the north is tipping in the favor of the Israel Defense Forces, as Hezbollah has reason to fear a ferocious Israeli retaliation for its military activities, in the name of a rematch or revenge.
Hezbollah's need to legitimize itself as an armed militia is becoming more pressing in light of how the March 14 Alliance, a coalition of anti-Syrian political parties and independents in Lebanon, is gaining support.
Hezbollah, which the Christian-Sunni-Druze alliance considers an enemy of Lebanese sovereignty, can justify its existence with nothing more than the pitiful pretext of liberating the Shaba Farms, which Hezbollah's detractors have ridiculed and belittled.
Another grave error by Nasrallah - May's forceful takeover of the Sunni quarter in Beirut - increased the need for legitimacy.
The takeover clearly showed that the militia is battling not just the Zionists, but also coreligionists: Lebanese Sunnis. Following the murder of its leader Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese Sunni establishment has become a strong believer in a strong and independent Lebanon.
The newly founded alliance between Christians and Druze has consolidated itself even further, while Sunni Muslim movements outside Lebanon, headed by Egypt's Muslim brotherhood, strongly rebuked Hezbollah for perpetrating this act - which Sunnis call an act of civil war.
If Hezbollah is sensitive to any sort of media coverage, it is not the coverage by Al Jazeera, with its amorphous and sentimental viewership.
Hezbollah cares about winning supporters from fanatical sister sects and Muslim organizations. This is especially true now that the Sunni-Shi'ite gulf is widening from its rupture point in Iraq.
The conclusion is that Hezbollah is in grave need of an achievement that would help it legitimize its existence as a militia.
Dekel apparently comprehended this, as well as Hezbollah's poor bargaining chips.
After all, the Israeli team negotiated under the near-certain assumption that the two MIAs were dead. Dekel understood the weaknesses of an organization that many perceive to be omnipotent, and this is why he was able to run a truly praiseworthy negotiation process.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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#1
This guy just doesn't get it -
Hezbollah has guns and money and is happy to kill its opponents, thats the only legitimacy it needs. And any other status it has it gets from winning propaganda victories, which this was.
#4
I disagree with almost everyone here. Not that Olmert's not a crook, which he certainly seems to be, but that his decision not to send in massive ground forces into Lebanon was precisely correct. Put simply, it would not have been enough to damage Hezbollah, it would have to be and stay defeated. The only way to do that would have been to reoccupy the country, and there is simply no way that the U.S. could have supported such an occupation. The prisoner exchange makes Hezbollah look weak, not strong.
#5
I dunno, Perfesser, the exchange makes Nasty look like a man who can get stuff done. That makes him look good to the rubes.
The Israelis are in a bad situation up north. Their army was allowed to deteriorate, the Hezbies have protection, and the world doesn't mind at all that the Hezbies are killing Jooos. Next time they have to go up there they might as well toss the Hezbies and re-occupy southern Lebanon -- the condemnation won't be any worse.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 10:02
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Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama met US troops in Afghanistan Saturday during a visit to assess efforts against extremist militants at the start of a major international tour, officials said.
US military commanders at the main US base at Bagram, north of Kabul, briefed Obama and other senators on the international effort against Taliban and other Islamic extremists, the US-led coalition said.
The delegation later flew to a base in eastern Afghanistan, closer to the border with Pakistan, where they met more of the 36,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Obama was due to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, the Afghan government said.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told reporters before leaving the United States that he was looking forward during his trip, which will also take him to Iraq, to seeing the situation on the ground.
"I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what ... their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they've been doing."
The Illinois senator said in the days building up to the tour that Afghanistan needs more help as it battles the Taliban-led insurgency.
If he wins the November elections, he has said he would commit at least two more combat brigades, up to 10,000 men, to Afghanistan while downscaling the size of the force in Iraq.
"We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more non-military assistance to accomplish the mission there," Obama said in The New York Times on Monday.
"Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."
In a major foreign policy address on Tuesday, Obama reiterated his promise to get most US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months, and to focus on Al-Qaeda havens in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president I won't," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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#1
"Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."
Except, of course, when Bush made it so, and the turbans fell for it - the "Flypaper Strategy" I believe it was called.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/20/2008 9:38
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#1: "Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."
I guess he hasn't heard that Osama said that Iraq was the center of the war on terror, because it was the ideal place for the Caliphate, and sent thousands to die to defeat the US. Obama's grasp of foreign policy is about as good as my grasp of intergalactic quark-quark interactions. The sign should read "The same old BS we always promise" - it'd be closer to the truth. God spare us from over-educated idiots with an agenda.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 15:44
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#3
The Obama trip should be dubbed the "InnocentsIdiots Abroad World Tour 2008"
The Pakistani Taliban have taken dozens of hostages, including police officers, paramilitary fighters and even state bank officials, and threatened on Friday to begin killing them unless the government released four of their comrades captured last week.
The standoff has grown into one of the most serious recent challenges to the government's resolve to curb the militants' rapid expansion. The threat comes just 10 days before Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani is scheduled to meet with President Bush at the White House.
So far, the government has held firm, sending hundreds of soldiers to the area, Hangu, in North-West Frontier Province, to engage in the first real fighting with the militants since the two sides agreed to a new series of peace deals this year.
The fighting has resumed as the government faces mounting pressure from the United States to take stronger action against Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, which the militants use as launching pads for attacks against NATO and American troops in southern Afghanistan.
The news media in Pakistan have been abuzz about suggestions in Washington that the United States might act directly in the tribal areas to stop the flow of Taliban fighters into Afghanistan. Most Pakistanis would strongly oppose such a move as a violation of sovereignty.
But the militants have increasingly extended their presence into more settled areas of Pakistan, like Hangu, where the provincial police arrested about half a dozen armed Taliban fighters riding in a pickup truck last Saturday.
In revenge, other Taliban members kidnapped a variety of officials and are holding them in an undisclosed place. The Taliban said they had 49 hostages; the government said there were 29.
The militants' response was so ferocious because one of the Taliban arrested, to the surprise of the police, was a man known as Rafiuddin, a lieutenant of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, according to the inspector general of the provincial police, Naveed Khan.
The capture led to unusual and repeated demands from the Taliban for Rafiuddin's release, Mr. Khan said. "That proves he means something to them," he said.
Another of the Taliban suspects in custody goes by the name of Anwar. He is one of 18 Taliban in the original core of Mr. Mehsud's organization and is one of his most cherished comrades, said a Pakistani counterterrorism and intelligence official in Peshawar, who could not be identified because his job does not allow his identity to be published.
Anwar is perhaps Mr. Mehsud's most important fighter and has been with him since 2004, the intelligence official said.
The spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Maulvi Omar, said in a telephone interview on Friday that the Taliban were waiting for the results of mediation before deciding what to do with the hostages. "If there's no result, we will start killing them," he said.
Mr. Omar said Rafiuddin was a "religious scholar" at the sprawling Kahi madrasa in Hangu. "He's not a fighter," he said. "That's why we want him back."
Mr. Omar also demanded the resignation of the new secular provincial government. It was elected in February, replacing a government dominated by religious parties sympathetic to the Taliban. If the government does not resign within five days, Mr. Omar said, the Taliban will take "organized action" against it.
Afrasiab Khattak, the provincial leader of the Awami National Party, which heads the province's government, dismissed the notion of releasing any of the Taliban, a stiffer stance than that taken by previous governments. "The government is not considering the release of anyone," he said. "It's only for the courts of law to deal with the situation."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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#1
you now know who's important to Mehsud. You let him know that if a hostage is killed or harmed, his valued pal is the first to take a bullet in the head, immediately, without trial. Next up is his buddy Anwar, then the next, then the next.....
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 8:50
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#2
Perv really, REALLY needs to let the US attack the Tribal areas, no holds barred. Otherwise, he and his government are dead. For our part, we should tell Perv he has 30 days to deal with the talibunnies, or the entire northwest of his nation becomes a kill zone. Wipe Peshawar off the map, turn Quetta into something the Romans would have left behind, and destroy anything that moves in between. Quit trying to fight a "nice" war, and go Mongol. The world will thank us - in a hundred years or so.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 14:50
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#3
I think it's the civilian government and the new head of the Army of the Pure that have to give permission now, Old Patriot.
The Arab League on Saturday slammed the International Criminal Court's "unbalanced" prosecutor for seeking the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, saying Sudan's courts should judge alleged Darfur war crimes.
Arab foreign ministers stressed "the mandate of Sudan's civil judiciary in achieving justice," in a resolution following crisis talks in Cairo over how to deal with ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo's request on Monday for Beshir to be arrested on genocide charges.
The resolution also criticised Moreno-Ocampo's "unbalanced stance" for asking ICC judges to issue a warrant for Beshir's arrest, which, if granted, would be the first ever issued by The Hague-based court against a sitting head of state.
Some of the Arab League's 22 members have previously criticised Moreno-Ocampo's move, saying it threatens peace prospects in Darfur, while also fearing a dangerous precedent for other leaders in the region.
The ministers called for trials of Darfur war crimes suspects to take place in Sudan, vowing that "effective justice will be realised with the follow-up of the Arab League and the African Union."
Khartoum has consistently rejected the ICC's jurisdiction, saying it would try alleged war criminals in its own courts, although credible trials have so far failed to materialise.
Sudan has refused to surrender two suspects named last year in connection with war crimes in Darfur and hopes to persuade veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council to defer any ICC prosecution of Beshir.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
01:14 ||
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#1
Don't those silly prosecutors know that they are supposed to issue a warrant for Bush first?
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
07/20/2008 1:40
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#3
The ICC is overly ambitious in this case, trying to extend their jurisdiction outside of its member states. Hopefully they will lose a lot of credibility if one or more of the big signatories slaps them down.
Make no mistake that this is a test case for American citizens.
Two people were killed on Saturday in clashes between members of the Fatah faction and Sunni Islamist militants at a Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon, camp officials said.
One man was shot while trying to intervene to halt the clash at Ein al-Hilweh camp between Fatah and Jund al-Sham, a small al Qaeda-inspired Islamist group. The second dead man was a member of the group.
Another Jund al-Sham fighter was seriously wounded in the fighting at the camp, which is near the city of Sidon in southern Lebanon.
Earlier on Saturday, gunmen from both sides fired machineguns and rocket- propelled grenades, Palestinian sources said. Rival fighters exchanged fire for almost two hours on the main street of the densely-populated camp outside the southern port city of Sidon, a Palestinian official added. Gunshots were subsequently heard in the city of Sidon itself, with a Fatah leader saying that one person from the movement was killed.
Sunni Islamist groups have substantial influence in the camp, which is off limits to Lebanese security forces.
Thanks to the Saoodis for the influence, and thanks to the goofy UN for the rules.
A Lebanese army spokesman said the fighting was confined to the camp and that troops, positioned at the entrance of the camp, were not involved.
Jund al-Sham's name refers to the ancient Islamic term of Bilad al-Sham, a region which covers Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. Its members are mostly Lebanese, many of whom fought against the army during an Islamist rebellion that broke out on New Year's Eve in 1999 in the predominantly Sunni area of Dinnieh in north Lebanon and left 45 people dead.
The Sunni group also includes Palestinians, mostly dissidents of the fundamentalist Usbat al-Ansar (Band of Supporters) which was outlawed by Lebanese authorities in 1995 for murdering a rival cleric. Jund al-Sham, which has no clear hierarchy or particular leader, is believed to have about 50 militants armed with assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
01:13 ||
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A member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement was shot and killed early Saturday in the northern Gaza Strip, sources said.
According to witnesses, a group of militants in the early morning attacked the house of Abdel Salam Abu Taqia, 23, near Jabaliya refugee camp and killed him. Hours later, the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry said the murderer was arrested, and claimed the incident was motivated by family differences. Abu Taqia was a member of the pro-Abbas naval police until Hamas routed all forces loyal to Abbas and took control of Gaza Strip
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
01:13 ||
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The deputy to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday that Iran was a friend of Israel, Iranian news agencies reported. "Iran wants no war with any country, and today Iran is friend of the United States and even Israel.... Our achievements belong to the whole world and should be used for expanding love and peace," said Iranian Vice President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaei, who is also head of the Cultural Heritage Organization.
The Cultural Heritage Organization news agency quoted him as saying that even during the eight-year war against Iraq, Iran just defended itself against the military invasion by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
The remarks by the vice president followed last week's warnings by some Iranian officials that Tehran's long-range missiles could target the Jewish state if the U.S. and Israel realized their threats to attack Iran's nuclear sites.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
01:13 ||
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[19 views]
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Hamas confirmed Saturday that the talks for the release of Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit were on hold. A senior Hamas figure said that once the group understood that Israel was not fulfilling its end of the cease-fire agreement, it had decided that continuing the Shalit talks would be futile at this time.
The source told Haaretz it is unlikely a Hamas delegation will depart for Cairo where renewed talks on a possible exchange deal would take place under an Egyptian aegis.
However, despite the charges directed at Israel, Palestinian sources believe Hamas isn't willing to be flexible about Shalit at this time due to the recent prisoner swap with Hezbollah.
The same sources noted that the release of Samir Kuntar has led Hamas to the conclusion that the radical Islamic organization should stick to its demands, which includes the release of 1,000 prisoners, many of whom were sentenced to life in prison for their role in suicide bomb attacks.
At a political rally in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, Ismail Haniyeh, who was prime minister in a Hamas-led Palestinian government, called on Interior Minister Said Sayam, to issue Samir Kuntar a diplomatic passport.
In an aggressive tone, Haniyeh told the crowd in Gaza that Hamas will not give in on "any issue" related to the release of Shalit.
Hamas will insist on the release of prisoners who were sentenced to life in prison. He concluded his speech by shouting "Jerusalem is ours, Gaza, Haifa, Jaffa, all of them are ours."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008
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It is the nation's favourite Chinese dish adored by millions and a staple feature on the menus of restaurants and takeaways the length and breadth of Britain. But Peking Duck could now be forced into extinction by an EU ban on the ovens traditionally used to prepare it.
Council inspectors have been busily visiting restaurants that use the ovens and sealing them closed with tape because they do not carry a CE (Conformité Européenne) mark certifying that the equipment meets safety standards on carbon-monoxide emissions laid down by Brussels. Ten restaurants in London including some in the famous Chinatown district have so far been affected and scores more in the capital will be hit in coming weeks. Other councils around Britain are also being urged to take similar action.
The clampdown comes despite an admission by council officials that there have been no reported health problems linked to the ovens, which are made in China and are also used to cook Cantonese Duck and suckling pig.
The ovens have been shut down by Westminster Council. The crackdown was launched after an official noticed the ovens were not CE marked during a routine inspection of Chinese restaurants in May. Westminster has now contacted other councils in areas with large Chinese populations to raise the issue.
A council spokesman said: 'If the restaurants want to continue cooking ducks in the traditional manner they will need to get new ovens which will comply with EU standards by having CE marking.
'We are absolutely not picking on the Chinese community. This is an issue with any kind of ethnic type of food where they may well be using catering equipment imported from outside the EU.
'We are not aware of a single injury or accident involving these duck ovens but now we are aware of this issue we want to prevent any accidents happening.'
In 2006, Westminster confiscated burners used on tables at Korean restaurants because they did not meet European safety standards.
Posted by: Basil F ||
07/20/2008 7:34
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#2
Try Duck Soup instead. "Remember, we're fighting for this woman's Honor, which is probably more than She ever did".
The EU is seriously devolving into a Dictatorship.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/20/2008 9:52
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#3
It's true to form, Deacon: the Euros invented statism, and they've always been more comfortable with that kind of goverance. The democratic anarchy of the United States gives them the heebie-jeebies.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 10:12
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#4
They should change the name to Holy Roman European Union, except they reject Christianity and have a rotating presidency.
#5
. "Remember, we're fighting for this woman's Honor, which is probably more than She ever did".
Um..... ^^^^^^^^^that, and you'll damn well be pleased with it.
#7
If any form of pleasure is exhibited,
Report to me and it will be prohibited!
The last man nearly ruined this place he didn't know what to do with it.
If you think this country's bad off now, just wait till I get through with it!
The country's taxes must be fixed, and I know what to do with it.
If you think you're paying too much now, just wait till I get through with it!
"Gentlemen, the European Union regulators here may talk like idiots, and look like idiots, but don't let that fool you: they really are idiots."
Posted by: Mike ||
07/20/2008 12:36
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#8
It's the same old EU bureaufascism. Those idiots think that if they are poached rather than fried in statist totalitarianism, it's all golden.
From my stomping grounds, in the heart of Central Texas, the Netroots converge
Liberal bloggers showed some reservation as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi took a lot of heat for a fairly unpopular Congress, but Al Gore's surprise entrance drew awe, applause and respect. Glad I didn't go into town today. Might have hurt my eardurms
Pelosi and the former vice president and advocate for climate change addressed the Netroots Nation convention at the Austin Convention Center Saturday.
Gore used the podium to advocate his new campaign, www.wecansolveit.org, to get the nation to generate 100 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources in 10 years. I know, I know, but I refuse to do a direct connect to that website. You will just have to copy and paste
Should Sen. Barack Obama win the presidency, Gore said he would probably decline an invitation to take a seat in his cabinet, stating that his purpose was to make climate change a number one issue in the public and in policy. The One Who Knows he is Messiah, stepping aside for the True Messiah
He criticized the administration's reluctance to deal directly with the issue of climate change, reviving the old antidote, "the hair of the dog that bit you," stating the Bush administration has attempted to resolve the nation's oil dependency "hangover" with the same old liquid medicine that created the problem.
Referring to the contentious political debate over drilling in one of Alaska's national protected areas, Gore argued that such a solution would only slightly improve the nation's dependence on foreign oil and only in the long-term. So what's wrong with planning for the long-term? Isn't that what leadership does?
"Defenders of status quo are the ones who got us in this mess," Gore said. "Ridiculous to open a few more areas for drilling to produce oil in 10 years that will be sold to China. Makes about as much sense as responding to an attack from Afghanistan by invading some other country." Betting he got a standing ovation on that line
Pelosi made it a point to address the war in Iraq, emphasizing her support for Obama's plan to work with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on a troop withdrawal and concentrate efforts in Afghanistan, where reports of violence have increased in frequency.
The speaker commented on her disappointment with the recent FISA bill passed in the House and Senate that gives immunity to companies involved in the administration's controversial eavesdropping program, overhauls some rules that would have obstructed the government's secret program and upholds the need for warrants and oversight.
"This is a day of taint for how you cooperated with the administration," Pelosi said in reference to the 17 senators, including Obama who voted in favor of the bill because of revisions he said removed his concerns.
Pelosi spent most of her time answering questions from the crowd on topics ranging from the potential for the impeachment of President Bush to a reported lack of essentials for troops in Iraq. Reported lack of essentials for troops in Iraq? This thing still alive?
When asked what she thought she envisioned from an ideal democratic government, And presenting the Democrats' Plan to Change America
Pelosi outlined the Democratic Party's platform, including climate change, universal health care, troop withdrawal from Iraq, improving education and technological innovation and building the nations' infrastructure.
A recent Rasmussen poll showed that only 9 percent of the public considers Congress' performance "excellent." Pelosi defined the public's spiraling regard for the effectiveness of Congress as a result of President Bush's control of the White House.
Pelosi said, "107 days until the election and things will be different."
The Director for New Media at the Center for Civic Action, Tracy Dingmann, said she found the keynote address to be more encouraging than inspiring, and said she believes the outcome of the presidential election will play a big role on policy and politics in Washington.
"You gotta have hope," she said. "It'll make a huge difference who the president is." And just what differences will this hope bring? Words not to be spoken
Activist for Swing Semester Natasha Chart agrees, but said the problem goes much deeper with the democratic caucus. What and Who in the *&^*% is Swing Semester?
"It's a very divided caucus," she said. "We have a lot of Democrats that are more afraid of the media, Republicans and George W., than the people that elected them." Could there be a more dumb comment quoted?
On the other hand, Chart praised Gore who she said has stood his ground and effectively advocated for environmental responsibilty and climate change, and in a way that makes it easy to talk about. All hail the Chief
#1
Leaving Iraq and concentrating on Afghanistan would be an unmitigated disaster. Afghanistan is an ethic civil war. These kinds of wars end either in a horrible slaughter of one side, or after many years both sides decide they have lost too much and agree to stop. Generally the former.
Everything the Left advocates is based on moronic memes and a complete lack of facts, understanding or analysis.
Iraq war bad!
Afghan war good!
Sherry, I agree it's a dumb quote, but you have to view it from the perspective of Left activist's who think that they elected these people therefore they should do what we want. And BTW, it decodes to 'They should be afraid of us, the activists and not the electorate'.
#5
phil_b, thanks for the clarification and the translation! 'Cause I didn't have the vaguest idea what she was talking about, much less, what it was suppose to mean!
A snippet of Col. Charles "Chip" Preysler, commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team report
The Army did not "abandon" the base after the attack, as many media reporters have suggested, Preysler said.
He said the decision to move from the location following the attack was to reposition, which his men have done countless times throughout their tour, and to move closer to the local seat of government.
"If theres no combat outpost to abandon, theres no position to abandon," he said. "Its a bunch of vehicles like we do on patrol anywhere and we hold up for a night and pick up any tactical positions that we have with vehicle patrol bases.
"We do that routinely.... Were always doing that when go out and stay in an area for longer then a few hours, and thats what it is. So there is nothing to abandon. There was no structures, there was no COP or FOB or anything like that to even abandon. So, from the get-go, that is just [expletive], and its not right."
He also didnt like the medias characterization that his men were "overrun."
"As far as I know, and I know a lot, it was not overrun in any shape, manner or form," an emotional Preysler said. "It was close combat to be sure hand grenade range. The enemy never got into the main position. As a matter of fact, it was, I think, the bravery of our soldiers reinforcing the hard-pressed observation post, or OP, that turned the tide to defeat the enemy attack."
Though Preysler and his staff have seen several reports on the fight and numbers of enemy, he said true specifics still remain unclear.
"I do not know the exact numbers. But I know they had much greater strength than one U.S. platoon," he said. "I believe the enemy to number over 100 in that area when he attacked. I dont know the casualties that he took, but I know that its got to be substantial based on the different reports Im getting. We may not know the true damage we inflicted on the enemy, but we certainly defeated his attack and repulsed his attack and he never got into our position."
Preysler and his staff also object to media reports that because of the size of the attack, it could be a harbinger of change in the way militants fight in eastern Afghanistan.
"I think people are taking license and just misusing statistics, and I refuse to do that," he said. "Were in the middle of the fighting season. When we first got here last summer and started fighting here in June, we were only seeing the enemy and engaging him first about 5 percent of the time. Now were between 25 and 40 percent. We see the enemy, and were engaging him first."
#1
Only our bright and honest media could look at a battle were we kiled 100 and lost ?10? and call it a defeat. Well I guess they enemy would call this a victory? Yep sure they would.
#2
Sarge, the MSM has been looking for THE Afghan TET offensive or a battle they could fit to that narrative for a long time. At this time, they also have another incentive - that is to support the Obama presidential bid by bolstering his calls for more troops for Afghanistan.
#3
When you are as invested in defeat of any American war, business, democracy advocacy or exports then you will damn well make up the stories to fit the agenda. The legacy media needs to put more emphasis on legacy and get lost.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/20/2008 16:10
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#4
The MSM has a wet dream whenever they can use the words, "lose, abandon, retreat, capitulate, or withdraw." Go figure. There are a few good, real journalists reporting on this war--most of them are referenced or posted at Rantburg. You don't see much of them in the MSM.
Of course he will not talk to the Commander of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, a Commander on the ground. Obama then trys to use that false report to demand troops leave ... Iraq, to join with Afghanistan troops. If the commanders on the ground, who are much more knowledgeable than the junior Senator, would have done so already. They have done so to the extent necessary.
Posted by: a yankee ||
07/20/2008 18:08
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#9
I do appreciate it, ladies and gents. He will returning from his first tour really soon. Anymouse's wife does not know about the steel re-enforced coffin her only son lived in at the FOB because of the mortars.
The US yesterday conducted a missile test above the Pacific Ocean, the Defence Department announced.
The missile launch from the Alaskan Island Kodiak was for testing a set of radars and sensors, the Department said in a statement. The test demonstrated the most complex integration to date of radars required to support a missile intercept, the statement said. US radio Sawa reported that the missile was tracked by land-, sea- and space-based sensors, especially by a California military base.
Posted by: Pappy ||
07/20/2008
00:58 ||
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#1
Interesting tidbit: The National Guard manned a good part of these tests. Colorado Army Nationa Guard (CO-ARNG) has a couple of very interesting units in addition to the 3/19 SF.
193rd Space Battalion
This Colorado Army National Guard battalion provides space-based support to designated ground forces commanders in support of Army operations. This battalion demonstrates that citizen-Soldiers can bring space capabilities to the Army and leverages the expertise and experience in space that these citizen-Soldiers gain in their civilian jobs.
The 100th Missile Defense Brigade (Ground-based Midcourse Defense), Colorado Army National Guard, provides oversight of the Soldiers trained to operate the nations limited missile defense capability. The brigade comes under the overall direction of the responsible combatant commander during an operational mission.
Everything was on fire. The trucks. The bazaar. The grass.
It looked surreal. It looked like a movie.
That was what Spc. Tyler Stafford remembered thinking as he stepped onto the medical evacuation helicopter. The 23-year-old soldier would have been loaded onto the bird, but the poncho that was hastily employed as his stretcher broke. His body speckled with grenade and RPG shrapnel, the Vicenza, Italy, infantryman walked the last few feet to the waiting Black Hawk.
That was July 13. That was when Stafford was blown out of a fighting position by an RPG, survived a grenade blast and had the tail of an RPG strike his helmet.
That was the day nine Chosen Company soldiers died. It was just days before the unit was scheduled to leave the base.
The first RPG and machine gun fire came at dawn, strategically striking the forward operating base's mortar pit. The insurgents next sighted their RPGs on the tow truck inside the combat outpost, taking it out. That was around 4:30 a.m.
This was not a haphazard attack. The reportedly 200 insurgents fought from several positions. They aimed to overrun the new base. The U.S. soldiers knew it and fought like hell. They knew their lives were on the line. "I just hope these guys' wives and their children understand how courageous their husbands and dads were," said Sgt. Jacob Walker. "They fought like warriors."
The next target was the FOB's observation post, where nine soldiers were positioned on a tiny hill about 50 to 75 meters from the base. Of those nine, five died, and at least three others -- Stafford among them -- were wounded.
When the attack began, Stafford grabbed his M-240 machine gun off a north-facing sandbag wall and moved it to an east-facing sandbag wall. Moments later, RPGs struck the north-facing wall, knocking Stafford out of the fighting position and wounding another soldier.
Stafford thought he was on fire so he rolled around, regaining his senses. Nearby, Cpl. Gunnar Zwilling, who later died in the fight, had a stunned look on his face.
Immediately, a grenade exploded by Stafford, blowing him down to a lower terrace at the observation post and knocking his helmet off. Stafford put his helmet back on and noticed how badly he was bleeding.
Cpl. Matthew Phillips was close by, so Stafford called to him for help. Phillips was preparing to throw a grenade and shot a look at Stafford that said, "Give me a second. I gotta go kill these guys first."
This was only about 30 to 60 seconds into the attack. Support our troops and read this first hand account of that day in the Stan
#1
I have to say it: if Vietnam War conditions were permitted, incoming rounds would have been suppressed with air launched Napalm. Somebody wants this enemy to live.
#3
#2 More like it was a case of using the air assets that were available. Posted by: Pappy
That may be true, Pappy, but we're still fighting this damned war with boxing gloves on our hands and a foot in a bucket. I'm sure a little napalm would go a long way on stopping the talibunnies from forming into large groups. We own the night. We need to find groups like this when they're gathering, and napalm them. Let them know we can not only kill them, but do so in a way that will GUARANTEE they never make it into "heaven". Remember those "burned" bodies several years ago? The taliban would be TERRIFIED of burning to death. They must be properly buried to get into "heaven" and get their "virgins". Napalm would be an extremely potent weapon against these nutcases. Our not using it is a crime against our fighting forces.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 14:37
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#4
45 US troops and 24 Afghan troops under attack by 600. 100 taliban coming from one direction, 100 taliban coming from another direction, with 400 in the village laying down cover fire for the taliban.
Posted by: a yankee ||
07/20/2008 15:12
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#5
From the OP, Pitts got on the radio and told his comrades he was alone. At least three soldiers went to the OP to rescue Pitts, but they suffered wounds after encountering RPG and small-arms fire.
Pitts fought the Taliban and survived the attack at the OP. The Observation Point was never taken by the Taliban. The top officer of the US troops, 1st Lt. Jonathan P. Brostrom, was killed at the Obserbation Point in hand to hand combat after he and two others came up to personaly reinforce the OP.
Killed were:
1st Lt. Jonathan P. Brostrom, 24, of Hawaii.
Sgt. Israel Garcia, 24, of Long Beach, Calif.
Cpl. Jonathan R. Ayers, 24, of Snellville, Ga.
Cpl. Jason M. Bogar, 25, of Seattle, Wash.
Cpl. Jason D. Hovater, 24, of Clinton, Tenn.
Cpl. Matthew B. Phillips, 27, of Jasper, Ga.
Cpl. Pruitt A. Rainey, 22, of Haw River, N.C.
Cpl. Gunnar W. Zwilling, 20, of Florissant, Mo.
Pfc. Sergio S. Abad, 21, of Morganfield, Ky.
Posted by: a yankee ||
07/20/2008 15:24
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#6
Clinton, TN is nearby as is Lake City, TN. Our paper reported the following about Jason Dean Hovater:
Hovater leaves his wife of 19 months, Jenna Hovater of Anderson County. They only had six weeks together before Hovater was deployed.
He was the son of Gerald and Kathy Hovater of Lake City and one of their four children.
It's a close-knit, highly religious family. All have musical talents. The parents have written and published compact discs of spiritual songs that feature their other sons, Joe, 23, of Oak Ridge on drums and Jesse, 21, of Lake City on guitar. Jason Hovater was an accomplished keyboard player.
The parents learned of their son's death when Army officers knocked on the door of their home at 2 a.m. Monday, Jessica Davis (sister) said. They are devastated by the loss, she said.
Jason Hovater enlisted in the Army both out of a sense of duty and because "he wanted to have some discipline in his life," she said.
"He was dedicated to it, and he believed in it," Davis said. "He said he wanted to be a part of it.
#7
They died true heroes, although they probably wouldn't have thought of themselves as such. May their memory bring comfort to those they left behind.
Good catch, a yankee. As our troops become more aggressive, no doubt there will be more of these battles in Afghanistan until the jihadis and their Afghan supporters realize they've lost and run off to a temporarily safer battlefield.
Flatten the village would be appropriate. The troops kept recalling how there were many RPGs. That place was an arsenal, and they did not want the newly arrived troops to uncover that arsenal, so they got the manpower together to use it on our troops, IMHO. Also, the troops may have stumbled unto the location of a major AQ or Taliban figure. So, yep, flatten the place.
Posted by: a yankee ||
07/20/2008 19:21
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#10
John Q, another Tennessee Volunteer doing what he believed in. No football reference intended. I spent 2 years in Oak Ridge and the families there are pure Gold.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/20/2008 19:28
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Posted by: a yankee ||
07/20/2008 20:43
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#12
Kunar has been a favoured spot of insurgent groups. Its impenetrable terrain, extensive cave networks and border with the semi-autonomous Pakistani Northwest Frontier Province provides several advantages for militant groups. The province is informally known as "Enemy Central" by American troops.
Like many of the mountainous eastern provinces of Afghanistan, the groups involved in armed conflict vary greatly in strength and purpose. Native Taliban forces mingle with foreign Al-Qaeda fighters, while mujahadeen militias, such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, continue to operate as they did in the chaotic post-Soviet years. Another strong militia in the region is the Hezbi Islami faction of the late Mulavi Younas Khalis, who had his headquarters in neighbouring Nurestan Province.
Compounding the problems of the province is an extensive criminal trade in smuggled lumber and other natural resources. This criminal activity is often organized along tribal lines, and has led to intense deforestation in some areas.
Hunt for Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden has often been rumoured to be in the province, or close by. In an intensive military operation in summer 2005, called Operation Red Wing, American forces undertook a massive hunt for bin Laden and other senior Al-Qaeda leaders. While attempting to rescue four stranded Navy SEALS during the operation, 19 American Forces were killed when their CH-47 Chinook helicopter was shot down, representing the single biggest loss of American forces since their invasion of the country.
Posted by: a yankee ||
07/20/2008 20:47
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Morgan Tsvangirai has agreed to enter power sharing talks with Robert Mugabe, saying Zimbabweans have suffered enough and it is time for that country's crisis to come to an end. This was the upshot of Friday's decision by President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating between the various Zimbabwean parties, to appoint a reference group to assist in negotiations. Independent Newspapers understands that power-sharing talks could begin as early as next week. The breakthrough comes as SADC foreign, defence and security ministers were warned in Durban on Friday, that the region's unity and peace, was being threatened by member states' differences over Zimbabwe. Reached for comment on Friday night, Tsvangirai, the leader of the majority faction in the Movement for Democratic Change, said: "I think we do have to co-operate with the group and expedite the second phase which is to start substantive negotiations."
"I am advised that the reference group with Mbeki is coming to Harare on Monday to sign the memorandum of understanding and we will obviously sign as well. It is a positive step and we look forward to finding the solution we were looking for. Zimbabweans had suffered enough and its time for this (the crisis) to come to an end." The three man group, comprising special representatives from the African Union, the United Nations, and SADC, was agreed upon on Friday at a meeting attended by Mbeki, AU Commisioner Dr Jean Ping, UN envoy Haile Menkerios and Angola's deputy foreign minister George Chikote, as well as the South African facilitators. Speaking on their behalf, Minister Sydney Mufumadi, described the group as a "support mechanism". He said Mbeki had "invited" the three men "to constitute a reference group which will interact with the mediator on an ongoing basis in order to ensure that we get through the mediator systematic support to continue with the process of executing the task given to him by the SADC".
Tsvangirai has previously resisted entering into power sharing talks, demanding that a second mediator be appointed to assist Mbeki, whom he believes is not impartial. Mufamadi said "we think it is important for the facilitators to have the benefit of such input". He said the group would be kept informed on an ongoing basis at a strategic level and he said they would appoint people on the ground in the country wherever the negotiations take place and that those appointees would get "briefings on a daily basis from the facilitation team". UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon had accepted the move. Speaking on his behalf, Menkerios said the UN security council had supported Mbeki and SADC's efforts and that this new reference group allowed this support "to find expression".
QUETTA: Four members of the Hazara community were killed on Saturday in a clash with the police, while 12 others, including three police personnel, were injured, the police said on Saturday. The clashes erupted between the Anti-Terrorist Force (ATF) and the Hazara community members when the latter were protesting against the murder of a fellow Hazara, who was killed in a car-snatching incident. The ATF also reportedly opened fire on a delegation of four ministers, injuring Hazara Qaumi Jirga Chairman Qayyum Changazi. The ministers had gone to the scene.
Jan Ali Changazi, a Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) member of the Balochistan Assembly from the Hazara community, told Daily Times that the ATF was responsible for the killing of four Hazara community members and that the force had opened fire on him and three ministers when they tried to reach the scene to calm down the protesters.
A senior police officer said that Hazara community members had reacted to the killing of a community member in a car-snatching incident on Saturday morning by marching towards the murder scene, resulting in a clash with a Baloch tribe. The police officer said that when the ATF arrived at the scene and tried to control the situation, the protesters opened fire on the force, injuring three police personnel. The ATF returned fire, killing four protesters and injuring nine, he added.
Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani met with a delegation of the Hazara community and condemned the incident.
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07/20/2008
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Zimbabwe is to introduce a bank-note worth Z$100bn in response to rampant inflation - but the note will barely cover the cost of a loaf of bread.
Some Zimbabweans are already calling for higher denominations in a country where the official annual inflation rate has exceeded 2,200,000%. Independent economists believe the real rate is many times higher. Zimbabwe's meltdown has left at least 80% of the population in poverty, facing mass shortages of basic goods.
The country's central bank has introduced several new notes already this year in response to the hyperinflation. In January, a Z$10 million note was issued, followed by a Z$50 million. By June the denominations had reached tens of billions.
In a notice in the state-controlled Herald newspaper, central bank governor Gideon Gono said the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe would introduce the new notes - known as special agro-cheques - to help consumers. "This new $100 billion special agro-cheque will go into circulation on Monday," the notice said.
But Zimbabwe residents say the latest note is already worthless, and does not even cover their daily lunch. "Nowadays, for my expenses a day, I need about Z$500 billion," one resident said. "So Z$100 billion can't do anything because for me to go home I need Z$250 billion, so this [note] is worthless."
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008
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#1
They're up to 11 zeroes already? I guess lopping off 3 awhile back didn't work out as well as they hoped. They'll have to start using scientific notation soon.
#4
I see little humour in the PRINTING. The Zim solution is not unlike what we'll soon be seeing from our own government in support of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
#6
You see!
Get rid of white rule and you will all be millionaires!!!
If you ask real nice, maybe they will come back and "subjugate" you back to a healthy economy.
LONDON (AP) - A Shiite militia that has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of five Britons in Iraq more than a year ago said one of the hostages committed suicide, a British newspaper reported. The Sunday Times of London published what it said was a statement in a video it obtained from the group through an intermediary in Iraq.
The video, available on the Times Web site late Saturday night, shows an Arabic-language statement claiming that one of the hostages - identified only a Jason - killed himself on May 25. A photograph, apparently of Jason, is affixed to the top left corner of the statement.
Clubbed himself to death with a three-iron?
The newspaper said the statement blamed the British government for ignoring statements that the kidnappers and the captives have made. In the past, the militia has demanded that that all British forces be withdrawn from Iraq and that Iraqis held by U.S.-led forces be freed. "This procrastination and foot-dragging and lack of seriousness on the part of the British government has prolonged their psychological deterioration, pushing one of them, Jason, to commit suicide on 25/5/2008," the Times quoted the statement as saying.
Five men - information technology consultant Peter Moore and four guards - were kidnapped from the Iraqi Finance Ministry compound in Baghdad in a brazen raid in May 29, 2007. Two of the guards are called Jason and the others are named Alan and Alec. Their surnames have been withheld at their families' request.
In December, a man identified as Jason was featured in a hostage video aired on Al-Arabiya television. Looking haggard and occasionally glancing down as if to read a piece of paper, Jason said he and his fellow captives felt they had been forgotten. Like the video carried by The Sunday Times, the Al-Arabiya broadcast showed a statement and identified the men's captors as the Shiite Islamic Resistance in Iraq.
The British government said Saturday night that it could not confirm the veracity of the latest video or verify its claims. But British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who had just left Iraq after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday, called The Sunday Times report a "very distressing development" said that he was taking it seriously. "I raised the case of these men with PM Maliki," Brown said in a statement. "We both share a desire to see them returned safely to their families. I call on those holding the hostages to release them immediately and unconditionally."
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Former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland was an icon of Sen. John Kerry's 2004 campaign, a badly wounded war hero who lost his seat, Kerry deplored, after a television advertising campaign questioned his commitment to national security.
But to the Obama campaign, Cleland has another qualification: Registered lobbyist.
So Cleland -- despite his iconic status -- was abruptly disinvited from appearing with Obama in Atlanta July 8, three sources familiar with the incident said.
This will go over well with veterans belonging to both parties ...
"This was a hard decision regarding Senator Cleland," said Obama's deputy campaign manager, Steve Hildebrand, in an email. He cited Obama's policy of banning lobbyists from participating in fundraising or giving money. "If we make exceptions, we will open ourselves to criticism," he said.
Cleland has told associates he was asked to appear at an Obama fundraising event in Atlanta on July 8, only to be told at the last minute that he wouldn't be welcome.
The policy has been a key symbol of Obama's outsider status, but many Democrats have also quietly questioned whether it goes too far when prominent party figures like Cleland, who an associate said has never actually lobbied in Washington, are left out in the cold on a technicality.
Cleland is registered to lobby for a company whose products are aimed at helping soldiers recover more quickly from battlefield injuries, Tissue Regeneration Technologies. "Sen. Cleland is definitely not doing lobbying work. He gives speeches and campaigns for a few friends, but mostly he's spending his time taking care of his father," said Cleland advisor John Marshall, who said that Tissue Regeneration Technologies was the only company on whose behalf he lobbies. He declined to comment on the incident in Atlanta.
In a brief telephone interview, Cleland also declined to comment on his treatment by the campaign. "I'm pretty much retired from politics," he said. "I don't really want to get into that at all."
But Cleland told others he was unpleasantly surprised when, after an invitation to the event for Obama -- whom he supports -- he was told at the last minute by an Obama aide that he wouldn't be welcome.
Obama spokesman Bill Burton also declined to comment on Cleland's exclusion from the Atlanta fundraiser. "Sen. Obama has nothing but respect for Sen. Cleland's service to our country and appreciates his support," he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
With all due respect to Senator Cleland, he was not wounded in combat. Somebody (maybe even Cleland himself) dropped a grenade while he was on a beer run. While his wounds are tragic, I wouldn't call them heroic.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/20/2008 0:32
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#2
Grenades and beer - now *there* is a recipe for fun!
#4
When do we start calling it "The Black Hole of Obama?"
Dude, guess you didn't get the memo. The term "black hole" is now officially racist.
Mostly off-topic -- once a colleague of mine was writing a popular article on black holes and asked me to vet it (for clarity, not for scientific accuracy, I hasten to add). For no good reason he brought up the Black Hole of Calcutta, describing it as an English prison! I scolded him for that, and his excuse was that he'd gotten that information from a French book.
#5
Angie, they can take that memo and shove it in another black hole "where the sun don't shine." For some time I've been PROUD to be considered a racist, given that "racist" is now defined as "a person winning an argument with a liberal."
BTW, the French didn't inflict Bama on us; our own libs did. That's just one more thing to remember when it's payback time.
#7
I've seen him speak at several IMF conferences (he was placed on the board) and... well, it's hard to be unpleasant when everyone wants to like you and you have prepared remarks, but, he managed to do it.
#8
For no good reason he brought up the Black Hole of Calcutta, describing it as an English prison! I scolded him for that, and his excuse was that he'd gotten that information from a French book.
Really? Either it was ssome paralle reality book or or he had had so many alcohol and his French was so poor he misundestood teh sentence.
BTW: When I try to learn something over a problem either I read a book in my mother language or one in the language of the people concerned. I wouldn't read a German book when trying to learn about British India.
LAHORE: The All Pakistan Lawyers Representatives Convention on Saturday gave another deadline August 14 to the government for the reinstatement of the sacked judges, warning that otherwise lawyers will resort to different ways of protests to intensify their ongoing movement.
LHCBA President Anwar Kamal announced the deadline in his briefing on the resolution unanimously passed by participants of the eight-hour-long convention. Of the total 22 members of the Pakistan Bar Council, only six attended the convention.
Real vote of confidence there ...
Kamal said that if the sacked judges were not reinstated by August 14, the lawyers would assume that the coalition partners had condoned President Pervez Musharrafs proclamation of emergency rule last year. It will be tantamount to betraying the peoples mandate of the February 18 polls, he said while reading out the resolution.
Kamal said that lawyers would stage sit-ins before Parliament House and in various other cities, step up court boycotts, block courtrooms, arrange countrywide marches converging in Islamabad and court arrests, and would also resort to civil disobedience movements if the sacked judges were not reinstated by the new deadline. On August 15, he added, the National Co-ordination Council formed during the convention would meet at the LHCBA Rawalpindi bench to give a concrete shape to protest strategies.
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War Fatigue, Frustration Play Into Americans' Decreasing Interest in War
The Pentagon and presidential rivals Barack Obama and John McCain all seem to agree on the need to send more troops to Afghanistan, but they are at odds with much of the country these days on the need to send more Americans into the lawless Afghan mountains.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that a startling 45 percent of Americans said they do not think the war in Afghanistan is worth fighting, despite the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which provoked the war in the first place.
Having failed to have us lose the war in Iraq, the MSM has decided to have us lose the war in Afghanistan.
The growing disenchantment with the Afghan deployment hasn't reached the level of national frustration with the Iraq war, but after more than six years with U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan and violence on the rise, Americans are becoming increasingly wary about the country's involvement.
Give the MSM a chance and they'll ensure we become more weary.
Fifty-one percent of Americans now say that the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan has been unsuccessful, up from 24 percent in fall 2002. Only 44 percent of Americans consider the war in Afghanistan a success, down from 70 percent in 2002.
Perhaps if the media had kept its nose to the wheel and reported on just how brutal the Taliban has been, how they have sanctuaries in Pakistan, and how the Paks aid and abet the Taliban the quoted poll numbers would be a tad different.
The national poll of 1,119 randomly selected adults was conducted by telephone July 10-13, 2008, with a margin of error of three percentage points.
For Sholom Keller, a veteran who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it comes as no surprise that support for the war in Afghanistan is fading. "I'm not shocked at all that American support is waning," Keller told ABCNews.com. "If we are in Afghanistan because the U.S. was attacked on Sept. 11, then I want to see the perpetrators captured and brought to justice.
"If we're not finding them in Afghanistan, then I don't know why we're there," he added. "And if they are there I want to know why we haven't found them in the last seven years if they've been giving troops the right intelligence and missions."
ABC news doesn't bother to tell you that Mr. Sholom Keller is a member of Iraq Veterans Against The War. Does that fact change how you read his quote?
Experts on the Middle East told ABCNews.com that many Americans share Keller's frustration, blaming several factors, including the fatigue from hearing about not one but two wars, as well as pressing issues at home, such as the failing economy.
Judith Kipper, the director of Middle East programs at the Institute of World Affairs in Washington, D.C., said that the gap in the numbers this year compared with those from 2002 is "tremendous" but still understandable. "It's battle fatigue," Kipper said. "American don't want war; they know it's costing a lot and the worse the economy gets at home, the more people feel a lack of confidence in their daily lives," Kipper said. "The less confident they feel, the less likely they are to support foreign wars and adventures."
So to hell with it, just vote for universal health care and screw what happens halfway around the world. After all, 9/11 couldn't possibly happen again.
And while Kipper says Americans haven't forgotten the 9/11 attacks, the fear and shock that pervaded the country in the days and months following have since faded, just as American's interest in Afghanistan has. "This is many years later and life goes on," Kipper said. "It's hard for Americans to relate to what happened years ago to their battle fatigue and war weariness now.
"[They care] about the problems that they're facing on a daily basis," she added.
The confusing nature of the war in Afghanistan and the failure to locate Osama bin Laden has contributed to American's already disillusioned vision of the war, Kipper said. "Americans know Iraq is near the oil and they know a lot about Saddam Hussein, but Afghanistan is the end of the earth for most people," she said. "It's a very confusing issue; why we're still there and NATO's involvement."
But others -- the presumptive presidential nominees included -- believe that it would be worse to leave Afghanistan than stay, despite what the American public thinks. "With Afghanistan, the reality is that McCain thinks this is in our national security interest," said Brian Rogers, a McCain campaign spokesman. "People are frustrated with the lack of success and it's [the job of] the leader to make the case to American people as to why the fight in Afghanistan is a compelling national security interest."
The Obama campaign said, "Sen. Obama supports this mission, as he does not make decisions based on polls."
Charles Dunbar, the former head of the U.S. embassy in Kabul, told ABCNews.com that while violence had risen in Afghanistan as of late, there is some good news coming out of the region, too. Removing troops from Afghanistan now would only cause a larger terror threat in the future, he said. "The Afghanistan story is not all being told; there is much more success in other parts of the country," said Dunbar, who now teaches international relations at Boston University. "I do recognize that the occasional suicide bombings are going to happen, and that's the news that is understandably going to influence the American public.
"This administration and the one that follows will need to make the case strongly that Afghanistan is a terrorist threat.
"They need to restore [Americans'] faith in the war in Afghanistan, particularly because Pakistan is a place where al Qaeda and others who are absolutely irreconcilable in our efforts to come to terms with the Muslim world are surviving under present conditions," he added.
Dunbar says he understands why Americans are losing faith in the U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan, but still warns against allowing the problem to get even worse. "It can be argued that we can't control [what's going on in Afghanistan] and we have to get out, but then we just have a bigger problem area," he said. "Then we have just widened our problem."
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#1
Afghanistan is a deep concern, because unlike Iraq, there may not be a way to win in Afghanistan, just create a stalemate. As long as Pakistan festers, Afghanistan will be destabilized by it.
A Vietnam comparison is not entirely wrong, in several ways. Therefore it is of deep concern how we plan to leave Afghanistan, and do so in such a way that the Afghans can take care of themselves, against a murderous foe backed by a hostile government.
#3
So to hell with it, just vote for universal health care and screw what happens halfway around the world. After all, 9/11 couldn't possibly happen again.
I know this was said ironically but in point of fact, this is unfortunately how many Americans I know, perhaps more than half here in NY State, see the responsibility of government under the US Constitution. It has nothing to do with defending the USA and everything to do with helping them pay medical bills now that they've developed Type II diabetes through overeating.
#6
If the Obamessiah winds up running the show, look for helicopters on the roofs of our embassies in both Baghdad and Kabul with a year. The Quislingcrats and their media sockpuppets are fifth-columnists and traitors, pure and simple. And when the next 9/11 happens, I really, really want to see journos hanging from lampposts across the entire country.
Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) ||
07/20/2008 4:50
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People are frustrated with the lack of success and it's [the job of] the leader to make the case to American people as to why the fight in Afghanistan is a compelling national security interest
I agree. Lay this one squarely at the feet of George W. "Mumbler-in-Cheif" Bush.
He has consistently bungled communicatiosn to the public about our successes, about our reasons, abotu the strategic realities.
Instead he has let the MSM shape the public perception.
He is an utter failure at the vital job of communicating the truth to the people, in the face of the hostile press.
He's a wuss when it comes to standing PUBLICLY and bringing in the public on the things that count.
Thank God we have Pelosi & Reid for opposition - Tip O'Neill would have eaten poor clueless George alive.
#8
Fighting in Afghanistan has always been like playing wack-a-mole. Ask the British and the Russians. I don't believe that the USA can afford a forever war.
#9
What will happen to the MSM if a few column writers, and maybe an editor or two, were to pass away over a weekend's time, all by car accident or drowning or electrocution. Do you think the tone of these stories would change? I believe that the rest would be cr@pping their pants. Suddenly they wouldn't feel so anonymous, maybe they'd stop being so blatantly on the other side of this one. If not, several more should be invited to join the recently departed.
As for you Old Spook, your jumping on the anti GWB bandwagon helps how? This president has never had the opportunity to shape the message. I'd even suggest that no president has had that power - if he was liked by the media of the day, his angle was presented - if not, then his angle was poo-pooed. Any time GWB has communicated to the country, he was followed up by some talking head - often of the Demo-rat persuasion, telling the audience that GWB was wrong and an idiot.
The media knows just how powerful it is. They know what effect Cronkite's broadcast had. The nameless, faceless "They" want to have the same power, to have that kind of influence on American society - not for good or ill, but simply to have it. In their thinking, they can do no real harm. That is why I think several of them should have their mortal coils removed, to remind all that this game is serious. The stakes are high, and more than a few empires have fallen to the barbarians, because people with voices didn't appreciate the divisiveness they caused.
#10
The media are elites, and as such, they 'deserve' to instruct the masses how to live. Todays pols are also elite, like Manbearpig, they know what is good and they will issue orders to us when applicable.
Like Margaret Thatcher said, Conservatism has reality on it's side. Now, we should stop tolorating the enemy and eliminate him.
#11
Hve you ever tried to get a conservative message to be carried to the public by liberal reporters? Can't be done. Fox and the blogs are the only way. If BO gets into the whitehouse, those two areas of conservative freedom of speech will be attacked with a vengeance.
Posted by: a yankee ||
07/20/2008 16:25
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#12
Robo06 proves that indeed you can have your own personal NUKES!
:)
#13
A pity the journalist didn't ask a few military people or Rantburgers what they think. I suspect the percentages would be a bit less lopsided in the journalist's preferred direction.
#14
You sure don't solve the communication problem by not doing a much, and seldom to never challenging the press daily in their false or bad reporting.
Facts are Bush didnt even try to fight - he sat on his wimpy ass instead of using the bully pulpit.
And I'm not jumping on the BDS Bandwagon - I've been critical of Bush's inability and lack of intestinal fortitude in communicating his positon. I've complained about this for a long time - "What good is the Bully Pulpit when all you're going to do is mumble?".
With the press against you, you have to continue to hammer, continue to try, and continue to put the effeor in. Bush gave up, and I cannot forgive that at all.
That's a huge fault, and one of the reasons Bush is seen as a failure by so many.
#15
I haven't forgotten about 9/11 and I've always supported a strong response, but I can't support
the mission in Afghanistan anymore.
We are not promoting freedom in Afghanistan (ideological deviation is punishable by death).
Instead we're importing Sharia-restrictions for non-muslims in the west, which is what parts of the US military in Afghanistan are officially calling for since "Condemning the religion (Islam)...does not make the world safer from terrorism". (see HotAir)
Whatever can be achieved in Afghanistan is not worth finlandizing ourselves, and that's exactly what's happening to us.
QUETTA/LAHORE: A security personnel was killed while 10 militants were gunned down in retaliatory fire during a clash in the Och area of Sui in Balochistan on Saturday, Geo News reported.
Wotta shame. My heart [urp] bleeds ...
According to the channel, a mobile team of the Frontier Constabulary was patrolling the area when unidentified militants attacked their vehicle, killing one FC personnel. FC personnel returned fire, killing 10 attackers, the channel added. Separately, two people were killed and one injured in a bomb blast near the Och gas fields on Saturday, the police said.
According to the police, two security officials were on routine patrolling near the Och gas fields when one of them stepped over a landmine that exploded, killing bystander Muhammad Akbar and injuring two others. One of the injured died while he was being taken to hospital.
Meanwhile, a man was killed and another injured when some unidentified men opened fire on them on Saturday, police said. According to police, Kadim Hussain was travelling with his friend in a vehicle when some unidentified men riding on a motorcycle opened fire on them. As a result, both were injured and shifted to hospital, where one succumbed to his injuries.
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Life continues to return to normal in Iraq. Will Obama notice?
BAGHDAD, July 19 (VOI) Baghdad operations command Rusafa sector (eastern Baghdad) will re-open al-Aima Bridge that links the two neighborhoods of Adhamiya (Sunni) and Kadhimiya (Shiite) during the coming few days, after being blocked for three years, Rusafa operations commander said. "The upcoming days will witness the reopening of al-Aima Bridge which was closed by the Iraqi government three years ago," Major General Monther Nesayef told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI).
He stressed the social importance of this issue, "and the relations between the two neighborhoods and re-practicing trade activities between them and other Baghdadi neighborhoods."
"Security services are currently preparing for the bridge's reopening," he added.
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JEDDAH -- Preparations are being made for a nearly SR7 billion expansion of Holy Prophet's Muhammad's (peace be upon him) Mosque in the holy city of Madinah. Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz has issued instructions for the acquisition of property towards the east of the Holy Mosque where an expansion project was launched in 2006.
Habib Zain Al Abdeen, acting secretary-general of the High Authority to Develop Makkah and Madinah, said that the properties to be acquired extend from the eastern side of the Mosque to the first ring road (King Faisal) going up until the Al Safa district in the north. He has been quoted as saying by the Arabic daily Al Madinah that details of the project and the compensation that will be paid to the owners of property that come under the expansion will soon be announced, and will be in line with the established compensation system.
The new expansion will include the Bani Al Najjar Project area, the old maternity hospital and the Al Dikhail hotel. The new expansion of the Prophet's Mosque from the eastern side will cover an area of 37,000 sq-m. It will also provide parking for about 420 vehicles and 70 buses.
Continued on Page 49
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#1
A much better way to spend excess oil profits than those traditionally used. Perhaps they've learnt not to build apartment blocks that will stand empty, not to fund Al Qaeda units that only provide target practice for -- nowadays -- Iraqi police and army trainees.
BARA: At least nine people were killed and 10 injured in clashes between Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) and Ansarul Islam (AI) in the remote Tirah area of Khyber Agency, local sources said on Saturday. They said the clashes took place in the Daki, Sangar and Inqilab Morcha areas. One of the dead and three injured were moved to Bara.
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Yet another mis-translation. It's almost as if the MSM can't get a story straight. Or won't ...
(CNN) -- A German magazine quoted Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki as saying that he backed a proposal by presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq within 16 months.
Nuri al-Maliki told Der Spiegel that he favors a "limited" tenure for coalition troops in Iraq. "U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months," he said in an interview with Der Spiegel that was released Saturday. "That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes," he said.
... a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately."
But a spokesman for al-Maliki said his remarks "were misunderstood, mistranslated and not conveyed accurately." Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the possibility of troop withdrawal was based on the continuance of security improvements, echoing statements that the White House made Friday after a meeting between al-Maliki and U.S. President Bush.
In the magazine interview, Al-Maliki said his remarks did not indicate that he was endorsing Obama over presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain. "Who they choose as their president is the Americans' business. But it's the business of Iraqis to say what they want. And that's where the people and the government are in general agreement: The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited," he said. "Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic," al-Maliki said.
The interview's publication came one day after the White House said President Bush and al-Maliki had agreed to include a "general time horizon" in talks about reducing American combat forces and transferring Iraqi security control across the country. The Bush administration has steadfastly refused to consider a "timetable" for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
In a statement issued Friday after a conversation between Bush and al-Maliki by closed-circuit television, the White House said that conditions in Iraq would dictate the pace of the negotiations and not "an arbitrary date for withdrawal."
The two men "agreed that the goals would be based on continued improving conditions on the ground and not an arbitrary date for withdrawal," the White House said.
In an interview to air Sunday on "Late Edition," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that "those goals are being achieved now, as we speak. And so, it's not at all unusual to start to think that there is a horizon out there, in the not too distant future, in which the roles and responsibilities of the U.S. forces are going to change dramatically and those of the Iraqi forces are going to become dominant."
White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said al-Maliki had made it clear that such decisions will be based on continuing positive developments. "It is our shared view that should the recent security gains continue, we will be able to meet our joint aspirational time horizons," he said.
McCain does not think American troops should return to the United States until Iraqi forces are capable of maintaining a safe, democratic state. He has been a strong advocate of the 2007 "surge" to escalate U.S. troop levels and says troops should stay in Iraq as long as needed. McCain says Obama is wrong for opposing the increased troop presence, and Obama says McCain's judgment is flawed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
but the inaccurate words are the screaming red headline at Drudge
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 9:12
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#2
Why bother looking at Drudge's crap page ? That's like listening to the Wolfdog Blitzer. I'd like to grab that furrball and stuff a squash down his yap every time I hear his sqealy voice...which ain't often.
ISLAMABAD/ PESHAWAR/ LAHORE: Gunship helicopters pounded militant hideouts in the Zargari town of Hangu district in the early hours of Saturday, officials said. Hangu District Co-ordination Officer Shahab Ali told reporters that the security forces were combing the area to drive militants out of the town and its suburbs. Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah said the situation in Hangu district was under control after the military operation.
Talking to reporters in Islamabad after a Senate committee meeting, Shah said Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud was behind the violence in the district. The government launched the military crackdown on Wednesday after militants, backed by Mehsud, ambushed a military convoy near Zargari last week and killed 17 troops.
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NINEWA, July 19 (VOI) Three civilians, including a woman, on Saturday were wounded in a roadside bomb attack on the main road linking al-Qayiara district to Makhmour suburb, said a source from the Iraqi army. "A roadside bomb went off targeting a civilian car at the main road that links al-Qayiara district to Makhmour suburb (60 km south of Mosul)," the source told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI) on condition of anonymity.
"Three of the car's passengers, including a woman, were wounded," he said. "The injured persons are residents of al-Qayiara district, and they were on their way to one of Makhmour suburb's villages when the bomb detonated," he added.
"Injuries were admitted to the Emergency Hospital in Arbil, and one of them is in critical condition," he noted.
Makhmour suburb is a disputed area between the two provinces of Arbil and Ninewa, and it lies 68 km southwest of Arbil city, which is 349 km northeast of Baghdad. In its latest report regarding dispute areas, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) suggested that Makhmour suburb should be administrated by Arbil province, the capital of Iraq's Kurdistan region. Mosul, capital city of Ninewa province, lies 405 km north of Baghdad.
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GHALANAI/PESHAWAR: The Umar Khalid group of Taliban killed two top leaders of a rival militant group in Mohmand on Saturday. Taliban spokesman Dr Asad said that the chief of Shah group, Muslim Khan, and his deputy, Maulvi Obaidullah, were shot dead after a Taliban court ordered their executions.
Meanwhile, Baitullah Mehsud called an immediate meeting of Taliban Shoora to hold accountable Khalid for the killings, Geo TV quoted Maulvi Umer as saying.
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Behind the court case against Turkey's ruling party lies an existential question: how Islamist has the country become?
Long piece in The Economist about Turkey. Worth a read if you're coming up to speed on the subject.
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#1
Steve,
No time or interest in The Economist any more but let me ask you - is the Turkish Military being infiltrated by Islamists? I would find that hard to believe. As long as the Turkish Military is still secular, western and part of NATO (as well as receiving US Military assistance) then there is a big counter-weight.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/20/2008 16:21
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QUITO, Ecuador, July 18 -- The tip came to the old journalist at midnight about the decision at the presidential palace: The police were on their way.
Lolo Echeverría in turn called his colleagues at Gamavision, one of Ecuador's prominent television stations, who drove to the studio through the deserted streets of Quito under the looming mass of an Andean volcano. They were in time to see police scale the white metal fence, break locks and force their way into the offices, the beginning of a swift government takeover of more than 190 businesses this month that has captivated this small and volatile nation.
Gamavision went blank briefly on the morning of the takeover, Echeverría said. In one of his last acts as vice president of news, he ordered that the word "censored" appear on the screen. Within a few seconds, he said, the warning disappeared.
Continued on Page 49
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Nepal's lawmakers will elect the country's first president today, with the Maoist-backed candidate Ram Raja Prasad Singh likely to be the first and only head of state of the world's newest republic. Nepal abolished its monarchy in May.
All of the three largest political parties in the newly elected Constituent Assembly have fielded candidates from the Madhesi, the southern ethnic group that has been the source of unrest since the Maoists laid down their arms two years ago. Mr Singh, 73, an ardent republican, said he would work at "institutionalising the republic" in the Himalayan nation. He is the likely winner, as the Maoists hold 226 seats in the 601-member assembly.
The Nepali Congress, the second largest party, has fielded Dr Ram Baran Yadav, 61. UML, the Communist Party of Nepal, has fielded Ram Preet Paswan, 55.
The selection means that a Madhesi will become the first head of the state after the end of 240-year old Shah dynasty in May. The Madhesis have been demanding equal rights in bureaucracy and all other aspects of governance since January 2007, when the country scrapped the old constitution and introduced a new interim constitution. They delayed the election of the president and formation of the new government by more than two weeks, by disrupting the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly.
The efforts of the political party to placate the Madhesis, who make up 31 per cent of the population, have been largely accepted by the people.
"It is a welcome move but the Madhesi leader should also champion the Madhesi cause; not all the candidates are real pro-Madhesis," said Ram Rijhan Yadav, editor of the weekly publication Purva Saptahik .
The Maoist party has fielded its leader, Shanta Shrestha, as its candidate for the vice presidency.
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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.
A new Islamist jihad group that may become as much of a threat to Hamas as it is to Israel is gaining strength in Gaza.
(Xinhua) -- Thirteen people were killed and 15 others wounded Friday separately in the internally displaced people (IDPs) camps on the outskirts of Mogadishu and in clan clashes in villages in southern Somalia, witnesses and local media said. "Hooded men armed with pistols arrived while we were taking food handouts from a local aid agency and people run away, but three men who were helping with the distribution were shot dead," Baadi Elmi, a resident, told Xinhua. "We do not know who they were or why they killed them." 
(Xinhua) -- EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana started talks Saturday with Iran's nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili over Tehran's disputed nuclear program in the presence of U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns. 
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama met US troops in Afghanistan Saturday during a visit to assess efforts against extremist militants at the start of a major international tour, officials said.
The Arab League on Saturday slammed the International Criminal Court's "unbalanced" prosecutor for seeking the arrest of Sudanese President Omar al-Beshir, saying Sudan's courts should judge alleged Darfur war crimes.
Two people were killed on Saturday in clashes between members of the Fatah faction and Sunni Islamist militants at a Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon, camp officials said. 
Earlier on Saturday, gunmen from both sides fired machineguns and rocket- propelled grenades, Palestinian sources said. Rival fighters exchanged fire for almost two hours on the main street of the densely-populated camp outside the southern port city of Sidon, a Palestinian official added. Gunshots were subsequently heard in the city of Sidon itself, with a Fatah leader saying that one person from the movement was killed. 
Morgan Tsvangirai has agreed to enter power sharing talks with Robert Mugabe, saying Zimbabweans have suffered enough and it is time for that country's crisis to come to an end. This was the upshot of Friday's decision by President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating between the various Zimbabwean parties, to appoint a reference group to assist in negotiations. Independent Newspapers understands that power-sharing talks could begin as early as next week. The breakthrough comes as SADC foreign, defence and security ministers were warned in Durban on Friday, that the region's unity and peace, was being threatened by member states' differences over Zimbabwe. Reached for comment on Friday night, Tsvangirai, the leader of the majority faction in the Movement for Democratic Change, said: "I think we do have to co-operate with the group and expedite the second phase which is to start substantive negotiations."
QUETTA: Four members of the Hazara community were killed on Saturday in a clash with the police, while 12 others, including three police personnel, were injured, the police said on Saturday. The clashes erupted between the Anti-Terrorist Force (ATF) and the Hazara community members when the latter were protesting against the murder of a fellow Hazara, who was killed in a car-snatching incident. The ATF also reportedly opened fire on a delegation of four ministers, injuring Hazara Qaumi Jirga Chairman Qayyum Changazi. The ministers had gone to the scene.
Obama disinvited 'lobbyist' Cleland
QUETTA/LAHORE: A security personnel was killed while 10 militants were gunned down in retaliatory fire during a clash in the Och area of Sui in Balochistan on Saturday, Geo News reported.
GHALANAI/PESHAWAR: The Umar Khalid group of Taliban killed two top leaders of a rival militant group in Mohmand on Saturday. Taliban spokesman Dr Asad said that the chief of Shah group, Muslim Khan, and his deputy, Maulvi Obaidullah, were shot dead after a Taliban court ordered their executions. 
