An Oregon soldier whose case has caused a stir in anti-war groups nationwide has been sentenced to six months in jail, a loss of pay, a reduction of rank and a bad-conduct discharge for being absent without leave.
Pfc. James Burmeister, who was born in Portland and raised in the Eugene area, received the sentence Wednesday from a military judge at a court martial held at Fort Knox, Ky. Burmeister agreed to plead guilty to the charge in exchange for an agreement by military prosecutors not to seek more serious charges.
Anti-war activists from filmmaker Michael Moore to groups such as Veterans for Peace have called publicly for Burmeister to be released, arguing that he did the honorable thing by refusing to carry out unethical orders.
But Army Capt. Christopher Cross, a military prosecutor, told the Louisville Courier-Journal that "soldiers considering going AWOL... must know there are consequences for abandoning their comrades."
Burmeister said he left the Army without permission because he had become disturbed by a tactic known as "small kill teams," in which soldiers would plant U.S. government equipment in parts of Iraq in the hopes that insurgents would come to claim it. Army snipers would then have an opportunity to shoot the Iraqis before they could make off with anything.
Burmeister said he complained to superior officers that the snipers couldn't know for sure whether the people they shot were actually insurgents, or presented any threat to U.S. forces.
Eventually, the soldier from Cheshire, Ore., was injured by a roadside bomb and sent to Germany to recuperate. While there, he left his unit and went to Canada, where he campaigned against the use of "small kill teams."
As if the shipbuilding discussion wasn't already center stage within the Navy, this news is sure to cut into the dominance the DDG-1000 currently holds as water fountain conversation. It was reported that during Admiral Roughead's recent visit to Israel, the topic of the LCS came up. DSCA posted this arms sales notification the other day.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress of a possible Foreign Military Sale to Israel of Littoral Combat Ships as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised, could be as high as $1.9 billion.
The Government of the Israel has requested a possible sale of up to 4 Littoral Combat Ships (LCS-I variant): Hull, and all mechanical and electrical functions. Each ship will be equipped with: 2 MK-41 Vertical Launch Systems, 8 cells for each system; 1 Close-In-Weapon System, Block 1A, 1 Enhanced HARPOON Launching System with launchers; 2 MK-32 Surface Vessel Torpedo Tubes; Communications and Sensors; Link 16; COMBATSS-21 with SPY-1F(V) and MK-99 Fire Control System; or Ship Self-Defense System. Also includes design and integration services, hardware and software, spare and repair parts, test and tool sets, personnel training and equipment, publications, U.S. Government and contractor engineering and logistics personnel services, and other related elements of logistics support. The estimated cost is $1.9 billion.
That suggests the LCS-I costs $475 million per hull, but the price is misleading. For $475 million, Israel is getting SPY-1F(V), VLS, Phalanx, Harpoon, and SSDS. Sounds incredible, but there is more to it than that, the real cost is slightly higher.
According to the LCS-I data sheet, the Israeli industry is also fitting out systems for the LCS-I, including the ADIR radar, SRLU, ESM, SATCOM, Barak missile system, Typhoon gun, etc... that will be purchased from the Israeli defense industry. Similar modifications could of coarse be done by the US defense industry, but once you factor in the "other systems purchases and integrations" the LCS-I will probably run around the same current estimated cost of the Littoral Combat Ship being produced by the United States, we estimate around $550 million.
But that is the rub. The US Navy could be producing frigates, with SPY-1F(V) and strike length VLS (The LM version of the LCS has strike length VLS, which supports quad packed ESSM meaning this ship can carry 64 ESSMs), for the same price as the current US Navy designed Littoral Combat Ship. Israel is saving money with the Lockheed Martin version by not pushing the speed threshold with some revolutionary propulsion system and keeping things very simple leveraging existing technology. Evolution, not revolution.
Israel is not the only customer either. we have previously covered how Lockheed Martin has already engaged India regarding the development of MK41 as the standard for the Indian Navy. The Barak system is also in use with the Israeli Navy, so in effect the majority of the systems the LCS-I is designed to support scale very well into the Indian Navy infrastructure. As a multi-mission combatant at 3000 tons for around $550 million US dollars, the Lockheed Martin MMC version has excellent potential as a possible export platform for Europe as well, as most European Navies already utilize the same equipment, the scalability is there. There really are not other platforms on the market at this size with anything near the flexibility of a SPY-1F multi-mission frigate.
We have a hard time believing this isn't going to be a major issue in the future, particularly if Lockheed Martin is able to hit cost marks (which we wouldn't bet on). The US shipbuilding industry will soon potentially be building affordable AEGIS frigates, and the US Navy is chasing unrated ships of the same design and displacement that are still having difficultly justifying its mission profile with such a high price tag.
It will get particularly noisy when the Navy realizes the LCS is too small for its needs with unmanned technology platforms. The LCS is a mothership not a surface combatant, we don't build small aircraft carriers, why the hell would small motherships make sense? In the end, if you want to legitimately support the unmanned technologies that represent the future of war, build big motherships or the same reason we build big carriers. Any significant investment in a surface combatant should produce a ship that can fight, not an unrated naval truck, We call it a frigate, but the role is historically known as the cruiser.
Looks like Israel gets it, the US Navy needs to seriously look into it.
#1
Government wants to manage health care, when they can't even manage shiters.
Posted by: From Dallas ||
07/17/2008 17:59
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#2
“I’m not going to lie: I used to smoke crack in there,” said one homeless woman, Veronyka Cordner, nodding toward the toilet behind Pike Place Market. “But I won’t even go inside that thing now. It’s disgusting.”
AMMAN (AFP) - A teenage Palestinian gunman raked a bus with gunfire in Amman, injuring six people, before turning the gun on himself as police tried to subdue him, officials said on Thursday.
The wounded -- four Lebanese members of an orchestra, a Palestinian woman and the Jordanian bus driver -- were not seriously hurt in Wednesday's late night attack, said government spokesman and Information Minister Nasser Jawdeh.
Jawdeh said the alleged attacker tried to commit suicide, and that he was seriously wounded while police spokesman Mohamad Khatib said he was "clinically dead" after shooting himself in the head.
Witnesses said tourists were arriving to attend an evening of music at the Roman amphitheatre in Amman when an individual began shooting at the bus at around 11:00 pm (2000 GMT).
A security official told AFP that the gunman was an 18-year-old Palestinian from the Bakaa refugee camp, north of Amman, and had no criminal record other than two minor cases of theft. The official named the youth as Thaer Abdul Kader al-Wheidi and said he had no known political ties.
I am Mulay Ahmed Muhamed Raisuli the Magnificent, Thaer Abdul Kader al-Wheidi sherif of the Riffian Berbers. I am the true defender of the faithful and the blood of the prophet runs in me and I am but a servant of his will.
District residents can start registering their guns today. But at least one very high profile application was already rejected.
Dick Heller is the man who brought the lawsuit against the District's 32-year-old ban on handguns. He was among the first in line Thursday morning to apply for a handgun permit.
But when he tried to register his semi-automatic weapon, he says he was rejected. He says his gun has seven bullet clip. Heller says the City Council legislation allows weapons with fewer than eleven bullets in the clip. A spokesman for the DC Police says the gun was a bottom-loading weapon, and according to their interpretation, all bottom-loading guns are outlawed because they are grouped with machine guns.
Someone needs go to DC and start beating some sense into these assholes. Make them PERSONALLY liable for denying the constitutional and civil rights in defiance of the Supreme Court ruling
#1
"Bottom-loading"? What the hell is a "bottom-loading" pistol? Do they mean clip-fed? Does this mean that only broomhandle Mausers with their top-fed clips are the only automatic pistols registrable in DC by their interpretation? As far as machine-pistols go, I'd call a broomhandle Mauser *more* military than your typical run of automatics. Especially with the detachable rifle-stock.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/17/2008 16:41
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#2
Exactly OldSpook, lets put their personal assets on the line here and see how they "interpret" the law.
I don't know exactly where your legal protection ends as a policeman, but this guy has got to be outside of that. A civil suit, or better yet a class action lawsuit would do wonders to improve their attitudes.
#3
Hmm. I suppose the military-grade weaponry (for "militia" equippage purposes) would be an argument in favor of the broomhandle Mauser, wouldn't it? Of course, it would also be an argument in favor of assault rifles and military carbines, if not actual crew-serviced weaponry.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/17/2008 16:43
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#4
The idea that a 1911 .45 cannot be owned or carried is just wrong.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/17/2008 16:43
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#5
So I can have a British Sten MK II? It feeds from the side.
#6
This can quickly be stopped by getting an injunction from a federal judge preventing its enforcement. But that will most likely not be done, because it needs to be challenged in a low federal court to be definitively killed.
#11
typically, your civil-service protection ends at malicious conduct and/or negligence.This meets both. Sue the City, sue the persons responsible and the Mayor/Council members and Police Chief individually, which could affect them personally.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2008 21:34
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#12
If we didn't have a DoJ full of Clintonistas still, a public declaration and impaneling of a grand jury to question the members of the DC government on civil rights violations and conspiracy would get a quick attitude change not requiring years of appeals in fed court on 'procedures'.
#13
You are surprized that DC refused a permit for this guy? He's the guy who caused them all this grief. Heller may have the Supreme Court on his side, but DC has the Democratic Congress on their side. DC is hopeless. Evacuate the area and apply insecticide to entire area. Reinhabit after the smoke clears.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/17/2008 22:31
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#1
We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives weÂ’ve set. WeÂ’ve got to have a civilian national security force thatÂ’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.
Sounds like the Gestapo. Who's gonna run it, Barry? Farrakhan?
Hitler expanded the SS, originally a small bodyguard, as a counter to the Wehrmacht. It was rewarded for its political reliability with the expansion to many division and priority in equipment.
#7
Possibly modeled after the Citizens Power Councils of Venezuela and Nicaragua, or the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution of Cuba, or maybe even the Committee for Public Safety of the French Revolution.
Or maybe somebody's just typing this stuff up and he has no clue what he's reading.
#9
One good thing is that he can't appoint "officers" to lead his army without congressional approval. Commissions are issued by Congress, not the President. He can try, but I don't think any budget would be forthcoming.
#10
'Brown Shirts' were originally the Sturm Abteilung (SA - which by 1934 had grown to 4,500,000 men) led by the socialist Ernst Roehm. Interesting how some ideas never change and the possible analogy here.
The Schutzstaffel (SS) were a smaller group originally, but much nastier. They purged the SA leadership on July 13, 1934 (Night of the Long Knives) and became Hitler's instrument of internal control.
I don't think that BO is thinking an 'AmeriCorps' for this, although that's how it will be presented.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/17/2008 15:11
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#11
Pineapple face in Panama had a similar organization....as does Mugabe with his "veterans"...
#13
Obama is for gun control. No one should own guns.
Unless you are a member of the Obama "Civilian Army". We have a military. We have police, we have Sherrifs departments, now what is this "Citizen Army" supposed to do again?
Posted by: From Dallas ||
07/17/2008 16:20
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#14
How about deploying said "army" to secure the damned borders?
#15
I didn't see any of this on the cover of the New Yorker. It must be some VRWC smear. You sure you can't photoshop the movement of lips and have different words come out?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/17/2008 17:09
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#16
Mullah Richard: Actually, the SS were two very different organizations.
The average education in the Waffen (or combat) SS was a Master's degree, and in the early part of their existence, they were intended to be a military elite not under General Staff command, but fighting alongside the Wehrmacht. In combat, they wore the distinctive "asphalt soldier" uniform.
The other SS, responsible for the vast majority of crimes, was the General SS, many of whom were uneducated, low order street thugs like the SA. While also run by the Finance Ministry, they were who managed and guarded concentration camps, organized into second echelon 'einsatz gruppen', who would slaughter civilians after an aread had been captured, and other such offenses.
The Waffen SS fought the Soviet Army with absolutely no quarter, in one case, an SS anti-tank company held off two Russian mechanized armies for two weeks. If captured, Waffen SS routinely had shell casings pounded into their kneecaps before being killed.
At the end of the war, the US made no distinction between Waffen and General SS, and would hang either if caught, on the nearest light pole.
However, entire battalions evaded through US lines to get to French controlled Germany, where they were re-uniformed as Foreign Legion and sent to Indochina to fight the communists, often under their same officers.
The minute I saw this article, I immediately thought about the SA. Same 'concept', relatively the same purpose, with the same "uneducated, low order street thugs". (Ima thinking that BO would welcome this opportunity for his Chicago (and other inner-city) 'reformed' street-gang constituents as a way to keep them 'occupied'.)
Kind of like the CCC for bad guys.
The educated and purpose-driven would still enter the regular armed forces as they wouldn't want to be caught anywhere the likes of the folks this group would be composed of.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
07/17/2008 17:32
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#18
Whattaya' bet that within months, if not weeks, of its inception this "Citizen's Army" will possess nothing but loyal Democrats and will institute a sort of "political reliability" test for entrants?
Yeah, it's a political commissariat in the making.
If this joker actually gets in and starts this bullshit it will be the first step towards a new civil war in this country. Loyal Americans of both parties and all stripes will band together in our own militias to put a stop to the destruction of our country.
#23
Having some experience as a mess officer, I am concerned about the sustainment and FEEDING of such an army. Oh, that's right Obama EBT Cards. Er, oh, I got it.
#24
As a reminder, ALL of the most oppressive totalitarian regimes were leftist, socialist.
Hitler and the National Socialist Party
Stalin and the Commmunist Party
to name a few.
To me this conjures up a number of names:
OVRA
NKVD
KGB
Gestapo
Stasi
ISI
The further left someone goes the less tolerant of opposing ideas and more dictatorial they become. This generation of Dems..Pelosi, Reid, et.al., are the most dangerous group of politicians we have had since the "Know Nothing" party.
The final and most troubling to me personally tidbit of this little outburst from Obama is that the text of his speech on his website was Redacted to eliminate the reference to the civilian army. Talk about obscuring facts...this beats ANYTHING I ever saw out of slick Willie.
Gentlemen, this guy scares the living crap out of me, it has nothing to do with the color of his skin, it has everything to do with the ideas that keep coming out of his mouth.
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/17/2008 21:39
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#25
an SS anti-tank company held off two Russian mechanized armies for two weeks
Two mechanized Soviet armies with a combined armor strength of 600 tanks, plus something on the order of 5,000 rifleman ( not to mention dozens of tubes of field artillery and rocket launchers, mortars, etc ), against 4 AT guns?
I won't ask for a link to describe such a fantastic feat of arms, but I will suggest that perhaps the size of opposing forces are in error?
The SS from an operational and strategic level were the best soldiers ever fielded in WWII, but they also accounted for the highest casualties because of the lack of trained and experienced NCOs. IOWs they were a disaster tactically.
Their officers were often old Imperial army officers who knew a thing or two about combat, but the SS took the highest casualties in the early going because of the lack of trained NCOs, which you can account to poor small unit tactics.
Once they got past that little "sarge sez we shouldn't be doing this" refrain, the SS were awesome combatants
All Desiree Carpenter wanted was a chance to succeed. As a young woman Ms. Carpenter (not her real name) had been subjected to repeated physical and sexual assaults, losing her eyesight during one attack. Her assailant did hard time, but now he was back on the streets and vowing to track her down.
Her only hope was to flee to another state, assume a new identity, and start over. Washington was the best place to begin anew, since the state had passed tough anti-stalking laws. So she packed her bags and hopped on the train with her two children in tow, bound for Bellingham, a couple hours north of Seattle.
Being blind, she had come into a laptop computer with a screen reader that converts text to the spoken word. That's how Desiree and I exchanged information for this article.
Arriving at the Bellingham train station, she expectantly called the Womencare Shelter, a group that bills itself as a "feminist organization working to end violence against women."
Desiree was told to go to the local MacDonald's to be interviewed by an intake worker. There she was scrutinized to make sure "I was acceptable," as Desiree later recounted. The staffer told Ms. Carpenter to detail her rape experiences while her children sat quietly and listened.
Admitted to the shelter, the staff removed her daughter's electronic homeschooling program, saying African-Americans spend too much time with rap videos. Desiree's television was padlocked and she was informed she could only watch TV on weekends.
Like all residents, Desiree was assigned housekeeping chores. It's not that the tasks were menial, but asking a blind woman to clean toilets and sort broken glass seems a little cold-hearted. When the new resident questioned her duties, the staff urged her to become more "empowered."
The staff forbade the woman from making safety accommodations on the shelter's flat-top stove. So Desiree and her young children ate micro-waved meals and peanut butter sandwiches for the rest of their stay.
When residents wanted to re-enter the facility, they typed in a security code. Desiree asked to have the keypad marked with Braille dots, leading her to be ridiculed as being disruptive and manipulative.
At one point a resident confided to her, "The staff here acts worse than an abuser."
The shelter did help Desiree to secure the all-important name change. Of course that entailed losing all her educational credentials, job references, credit cards, and so forth. That was the sacrifice she knew she would have to make.
Over the next two weeks things went from bad to worse, especially after Ms. Carpenter complained about the videotape that lectured residents why organized religion was "oppressive" to women.
In desperation, Desiree contacted the Bellingham Adult Protective Services, pleading they dispatch a disability aide so she could cook her own meals.
But the Womencare director ordered "Nyet," claiming that would compromise the shelter's secret location. Then the shelter staff began to suspect she was planning to file a complaint with the Washington Human Rights Council - of course that was forbidden by shelter rules.
So that evening the director barged into Desiree's room and issued an ultimatum: "Either you drop your civil rights complaint or you're out of here!"
When Desiree tearfully said she had only requested someone to assist with the necessities of life, the staff interpreted her claim of innocence to be further proof of guilt. That was reason enough to summon the police.
Within minutes a female officer dashed into the shelter, gun drawn, pulled the startled children out of bed, and ordered them out. The officer explained that even though Desiree had not violated any rules, the shelter was "exiting" her because she was unhappy with their services.
Then came the crushing blow - the shelter director blurted out Desiree Carpenter's previous name. The officer hastily entered both names, linked by a single report, into the National Crime Information Center database.
In that moment, all the labors of the past month were undone, all her hopes of a life free of fear were dashed!
The staff then ransacked Desiree's room, stuffing her possessions, food, and legal documents into a black trash bag. Mother, son, and daughter were sent packing into the rainy night.
During her one-month nightmare at Womencare, Ms. Carpenter suffered too many indignities to recount in a single column - more details can be seen here.
In the end, Desiree's daughter said she would rather die than ever again trust an abuse shelter.
16. The police officer came in with her hand on her gun, pulled my kids out of their beds, in the middle of a Washington downpour at 9 PM at night. When I asked for a supervisor she told me to wait out in the rain in the gutter on the side of the street when I pointed out there was no sidewalk. She allowed the shelter workers to keep my insulin, my food, money orders bought to order new birth records with the sealed name and, worst of all, my blind cane.
17. The officer said although I had not violated any shelter rules, had no write ups, posed no danger to myself or other clients, and my children were in bed, the shelter was exiting me because I was "unhappy" with their services and they did not want to be sued!
18. They ransacked my room and put my things into big black trash bags while my kids stood there crying. The shelter workers then said if I continued to ask for a police sergeant they would not even help me with a motel.
19. They knew they are the only shelter in Bellingham city limits and that a few hours in a motel would leave me nowhere to go. They refused to allow me to call the APS case worker so she could come to the motel and help me learn safely how to navigate the property. They were placing me in a motel on a busy highway with no access to safely cross for food and no way to get my daughter to school (remember they forced her into public school and took her homeschool materials to keep us from watching rap videos).
20. After spending several days in the motel with no insulin, no antibiotics for the infection I got in my hand when I cut it while being forced to sort open sharp tin cans and glass for recycling. That was my chore in the shelter and they said refusing it was refusing to empower myself and live on my own! They made me walk to urgent care and pay for the visit and my own medication to treat the cut and infection. I was forced to return to an area where the abuser had found me before and my new and old name would be cross referenced. Although the police apologized, once they entered the new and old names into NCIC to run me for warrants, the names are forever cross referenced, they offered to give me a letter if I wanted to pay for another court hearing — and somehow get my kids to understand why their names had to be changed again. My son was two and already having trouble with the change — his father is not violent and had consented to the name change to keep his child safe while he was deployed with the military.
NEW YORK (CBS) [7-18]¯ Rev. Al Sharpton spoke out Thursday against Rev. Jesse Jackson's use of the N-word that was caught on tape while preparing for an interview for Fox News.
Sharpton, who has joined Jackson in opposition of the word, said on CBS News' The Early Show on Thursday that he was "very disappointed" by this latest revelation.
"I think this certainly does not reflect the Reverend Jackson that we all know and love," Sharpton said. "I think that we have to be consistent. We have denounced the N-word at National Action Network and other groups. Those of us and many of us who have used it privately said we must refrain from it if we're going to challenge people using it publicly."
Sharpton agreed that public figures especially need to be role models for others in expunging the word from today's culture.
"Once we take this public position we have that responsibility. I've said and many of those in other groups, NAACP and others, that we've all used it in the past. And we've got to stop it as we challenge this nation," he said.
"We can't challenge others without challenging ourselves. I still hold the Rev. Jackson in high esteem, but I certainly don't condone the use of the word used by Rev. Jackson or myself or anyone else."
In the past, Jackson himself said the word is an ethnic slur that he has asked others not to use because it is offensive and degrading.
#6
Don't write him off too soon, he's pulled shit like this for years and come out smelling like a rose every time. No D.A. will indict him, no (black)jury will convict him. Unless he pulls a good one in Salt Lake City, he is virtually untouchable.
#7
Some stupid people wonder why there is racial prejudice against and hatred for blacks in America. Given their criminal depredations on and persistent insults to every other group in America, it would be a miracle if there WASN'T real animosity and dislike for them. Allen Bloom called it: there are blacks, and there is everybody else, and that dichotomy is by black choice because of self-segregation.
As Israel buries her fallen sons, harsh questions and details are arising from the exchange which took place yesterday. According to Israeli officials, the bodies were received in a severely-damaged state which may have lengthened the confirmation of their identities. Former IDF Medical Corps and Chief Military Rabbinate officials have noted the tragic expertise Israel has gathered in years of conflict, but remained shocked by what they saw yesterday at the Rosh HaNikra border crossing.
Rabbi Yisrael Weiss, former Chief Rabbi of the IDF, who was present during the transfer of the fallen soldiers yesterday, said that "the verification process yesterday was very slow, because, if we thought the enemy was cruel to the living and the dead, we were surprised, when we opened the caskets, to discover just how cruel. And I'll leave it at that.
Maybe now Israel will boot that ass Olmert out for accomodating such beasts
#1
Once again I'll suggest that Israel open a special "pig graveyard" for the remains of the worst of the terrorists. Or even if they don't, they should let the rumor out that they did.
#5
I'll have to chalk this one up for the hizbollah; they got what they wanted and SHOULDN'T have gotten, and they spat and p*ssed on the israelis. Their only thought right now must be "hey, let's do it again!". Good job, boyz. But, again, while I'm in no position to criticize the IDF themselves who act and act well to do what's needed, I can't help being very interrogative about the israelis as a society (or, at least, their Enlightened Elites) since 1993 (for europeans, and americans, I'm not interrogative at all).
#8
Apparently bringing home their dead, even at great cost is an Israeli thing. We probably don't understand the full dynamics of the policy like they do. The Israelis don't seem that pissed off about it from what I read in the J-Post. Maybe there is another component to this that we don't understand here.
Having said that, I would like to see them put a rocket up each of those guy's asses.
#9
I'm sure the MSM will be in an uproar about the mutilated corpses any time now. You know kind of like the uproar when those muslim bodies were burned in Afghanistan...
#10
C'mon, CF. These were just a couple of Joooooos. Nobody cares what happens to them even before they're dead.
/sarcasm
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/17/2008 14:08
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#11
I dunno, Bigjim, you're probably right, but this really p*sses me off, just out of basic humanity. So, yeah, they're f*cking animals, but they got what they wanted, they won, isreali politics or tradition or not. Damn.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/17/2008 14:11
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#13
There is no excuse for Israel having not executed the Palestinian for crushing in the skull of an Israeli baby. Instead, Israel handed him over alive and free in return for more mutilated bodies of Israelis. These actions will only encourage more of the same sordid deeds of the Mohamedans.
#14
Personally, I wouldn't care what the orcs did with my body after I was dead. It isn't me anymore. That said, I would prefer the slaughter of the criminals that kill innocents rather than get the bodies of my loved ones back. Nothing says revenge better than, "You want this? Too bad, eat hot death instead fuckface!"
#16
I read an article lately about IDF soldiers leaving written instructions not to bargain for their release alive or dead if they are captured or killed. I wonder if this was just a couple of guys or if this is going to catch on.
#17
I thought these guys were alive when they were captured? Israelis should remember this when exchanging prisoners. Israelis should also turn over "damaged" (as in dead) goods.
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/17/2008 21:29
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#20
I posted in another but similar thread on this site that giving up 5 live assholes for 2 remains of dead soldiers was somewhat incomprehensible to me. The Israelis should've traded remains for remains if that's what the muzzy's were gonna do. Somebody else posted that I obviously don't understand Jewish traditions about the dead - clearly I don't. I think in this case you need to worry about the innocent that are living in your country and keeping them alive. This action will only embolden these vermin methinx.
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli security officials warned on Thursday that Lebanese murderer Samir Kantar, who was freed in a prisoner swap after nearly three decades behind bars, should now fear for his own life. "Every terrorist who committed an act of terror against Israel, especially someone like Kantar, who killed a little child and two other people, is a target," one of the officials told AFP."If there is a chance for Israel to close the file on Kantar, Israel won't hesitate," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Kantar, who turns 46 next week, was just 17 when he was sentenced to five life terms for a 1979 triple murder in one of the most notorious attacks in Israeli history.He was convicted of killing a police officer, a civilian and a four-year-old girl, whose skull he was accused of crushing with his rifle butt, in a raid in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya.
Another security official said Kantar "has become a target for killing. Now that he is out of jail, we have no obligation towards Kantar, a loathsome murderer whose accounts will be settled in the end," the unnamed official told the top-selling Yediot Aharonot newspaper.
Israel's intelligence agenices Mossad and Shin Beth opposed Kantar's release but were over-ruled by political considerations, in order to end the mystery over the fate of two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah two years ago in a raid that sparked the devastating 34-day war in 2006.
#3
Should've had a death penalty. If you did, all this pig would've been doing for the last forty years would be fattening up generations of worms...instead of himself.
Or they could've taken him out yesterday, along with Naz and a coupla thousand other true belivers.
#8
He was convicted of killing a police officer, a civilian and a four-year-old girl, whose skull he was accused of crushing with his rifle butt, in a raid in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya.
Obviously conviction in an Israeli court doesn't count toward actual guilt in the eyes of AFP - certainly not when it's a cold-blooded atrocity against a 4-year-old Israeli girl.
The hatred I feel toward the MSM is almost as much as I feel toward Kantar and his spawns-of-Hell ilk.
#9
This kind of rhetoric aggravates me. IMHO, keeping silent and just carrying it out is more professional and sincere. Let the Banana Republic dictators and Imams make threats. I hope Israel silences these guys in and moves forward.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
07/17/2008 21:49
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Worth a look just for the mugshots.
WAYNESBORO — Two armed robbers were beaten by a mob early Tuesday morning at the Mountain View Apartments after they broke into a woman’s residence for the second time in less than two hours, Waynesboro police said. Michael Seifert, 19, of Waynesboro, and Blake M. Via, 18, of Stuarts Draft, are each charged with armed robbery, abduction, malicious wounding and breaking and entering.
Police spokesman Sgt. Kelly Walker said authorities received an initial call at 3:11 a.m. from an 18-year-old woman who reported two unknown men had kicked in a door and entered her apartment. As the woman peeked around the corner, the men saw her and fled, driving away in a white car. Walker said police went to the apartment and took a report. About one hour and fifteen minutes later, police received a second call from the woman stating the two men had returned, this time armed with a long gun and two handguns that later were determined to be BB guns.
Walker said the men forced the woman into a back bedroom, where she was shot in the leg. The assailants then ordered the woman out of the apartment. Walker said after the woman called 911 again, she rounded up a group of four men from nearby apartments “and the fracas was on." "Fracas"? From the looks of these two, it oughta be "major ass kicking".
When police arrived at the apartment complex, which sits across from Kate Collins Middle School, Via broke free from the mob but police tracked him down after a brief foot chase. “We found the other one lying on the landing of the steps to the apartment,” Walker said. Walker said the two robbers were carrying a computer and a Playstation 3 when ambushed. Both pieces of equipment, valued at about $1,400, were damaged during the ensuing melee.
Police also found suspected crack cocaine and powder cocaine on the men, Walker said. Drug charges against the pair are pending forensic testing.
Both suspects were treated at Augusta Medical Center in Fishersville for minor injuries and released. They are being held at Middle River Regional Jail in Verona without bond. ...and where they're now considered the new prom queens.
CHINA has announced a ban all entertainers from overseas, Hong Kong and Taiwan who have ever attended activities that "threaten national sovereignty" after an outburst by Icelandic singer Bjork.
Earlier this year, Bjork shouted "Tibet! Tibet!" at a Shanghai concert having performed her song "Declare Independence", which she has used in the past to promote independence movements in other places such as Kosovo.
China has ruled Tibet with an iron hand since its troops marched into the Himalayan region in 1950, and swiftly condemns any challenge to its authority there.
"Any artistic group or individual who have ever engaged in activities which threaten our national sovereignty will not be allowed in," the Ministry of Culture said in a statement on its website.
During performances, entertainers who "threaten national unity", "whip up ethnic hatred", "violate religious policy or cultural norms" or "advocate obscenity or feudalism and superstition", will also be banned, the rules state.
The new rules come on top of Beijing banning pop festivals and tightening approvals for outdoor events in the months leading up to the Olympics, where it fears security threats from unruly crowds and potential protesters.
Even encores need to be approved in advance.
"Nothing that has not been approved will be allowed to be performed," it said.
Though the issue burst into the international spotlight after the Bjork case, which prompted an angry rebuke from China, singers from the much freer and more open ethnically Chinese societies of Hong Kong and Taiwan are more normal targets of ire.
China banned the hugely popular Taiwan pop star Chang Hui-mei for a year after she sang the self-ruled island's anthem at anti-China President Chen Shui-bian's inauguration in 2000. China considers Taiwan its sovereign territory.
She was later forgiven, though, and allowed back into China.
""Violent crime in the city of Chicago is out of control," Blagojevich said at the bill signing ceremony. "I'm offering resources of the state to the city to work in a constructive way with Mayor Daley to do everything we can possibly do to help stop this violence," said the governor."
Hey, I know! Maybe they can, y'know, outlaw guns or something....
#1
You can declare a state of emergency. My father was a policeman in CA when the earthquake hit the Bay Area in 89. They declared a state of emergency then, he said you don't have to file any reports, just get the shotgun out and start lighting em up.
That would prolly quiet things down in Chi-town fairly quick.
CAIRO, July 17 (Reuters) - Nearly two-thirds of Egyptian men admit to having sexually harassed women in the most populous Arab country, and a majority say women themselves are to blame for their maltreatment, a survey showed on Thursday. The forms of harassment reported by Egyptian men, whose country attracts millions of foreign tourists each year, include touching or ogling women, shouting sexually explicit remarks, and exposing their genitals to women.
Egyptian women and female visitors frequently complain of persistent sexual harassment on Egyptian streets, despite the socially conservative nature of this traditional Muslim society. The behaviour could have repercussions on Egypt's tourism industry, a major foreign income earner, with 98 percent of foreign women saying they had experienced harassment in the country, the survey said. FILTHY INFIDEL TEMPTRESS!!!
Some 53 percent of men blamed women for bringing on sexual harassment, saying they enjoyed it or were dressed in a way deemed indecent. Some women agreed. "Out of Egyptian women and men interviewed, most believe that women who wear tight clothes deserve to be harassed," the survey said. It added most agreed women should be home by 8 p.m.
The survey said most of the Egyptian women who told of being harassed said they were dressed conservatively, with the majority wearing the Islamic headscarf. The harassment took place on the streets or on public transport, as well as in tourist destinations and foreign educational institutions
#3
I remember a story my mother told me. When she was in her 40's she was walking across an open mall to get to her car. There was one black guy with his back to her about ten yards away. She saw he was pissing on the wall and reached in her purse for her .38 S&W revolver. This bastard looked over his shoulder, saw a woman, and turned around with his d*ck in his hand. In response, she pulled that .38 out and drew down on him. She said it was hilarious to watch that melanin-enhanced POS light out down the street at full speed with his d*ck still waving in the breeze.
I told her the only mistake she made was not shooting him in the groin.
The US federal government said yesterday it would open 3.9m acres of land in a designated petroleum reserve in Alaska for drilling as a means to help curb rising petrol prices.
"This is welcome news at a time when Americans are paying record prices at the pump," said C. Stephen Allred, assistant US secretary for land and minerals. "Together with proposed new production from other offshore and onshore areas, these increased supplies will help to stabilise energy costs.''
The Alaska decision follows another by President George W. Bush on Monday to lift a presidential ban on drilling on the US outer continental shelf, off Florida. That decision still requires Congress to lift a separate ban on the area before the area can be leased for development. But the bureau of land management, an agency within the US Department of the Interior, said the Alaskan land that will now be offered requires no other approvals and will be up for leasing in the autumn.
The site was set aside decades ago but development was blocked by lawsuits from environmentalists concerned about disrupting wildlife. The government has tackled these fears, making it a condition of the lease by oil and gas companies that polar bears, waterfowl and caribou are protected.
#4
I wondered why Matt Drudge didn't have the economic doom and gloom stuff going today as he has most days recently. Then I went over to a financial page and found out why ...
NEW YORK (AP) -- Oil prices are tumbling for the third straight day and natural gas futures are accelerating a sell-off amid growing concerns about the weakening U.S. economy.
Light, sweet crude for August delivery is down $3.50 at $131.10 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange in extremely volatile trading. Oil is now down about $14 in the last three days.
Natural gas prices are also plunging.
Natural gas is trading down 82.6 cents at $10.572 per 1,000 cubic feet. It has tumbled more than 20 percent since its peak before the Fourth of July.
and
NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street surged Thursday as tumbling energy prices bolstered an already upbeat mood that followed stronger-than-expected quarterly reports from big names like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and United Technologies Corp. The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 150 points as oil fell more than $3 and brought its three-day decline to more than $13 a barrel.
So his strategy of yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre didn't work. At least not this time.
#6
I think this is an area pretty far west of the existing pipeline. Thus there will be plenty of opportunities for greenies to stall this one by attacking the environmental impact of the pipeline, etc.
#7
Depending on the type of oil bearing strata, the yield might be good or not so good. Depends on the geology specific to ANWR's costal plain. Have we even test drilled yet? I don't think we even know.
It was probably discovered with magnetic surveys or regional seismic reflection surveys, so the geology may be unknown yet.
#8
re #4. Crosspatch. Oh my god, the economy is tanking so the price of oil is falling! This has nothing to do with the announcements made by Bush and the administration in the last couple of days. /s off (grin)
#9
Americans are turning down the economy by taking heed and the gas is starting to seriously back up at the refineries and storage facilities. Can't sell all they got now. Look to lucrative extended deals for major purchasers of bulk first so that the oil companies can lock in prices now before it drops too far. Who's going to blink first on falling prices.
#10
Down 4.22 at 130.38 as of two minutes ago. Tehran better wake up the Photoshop guys for another launch or have Mahmoud drop another one of his pearls of apocalyptic wisdom.
#12
Ole Bill and his guys deliberately understated the potential oil reserves in these areas of Alaska by a factor of 10.
On a separate note, he deliberately had the Dept of Commerce understate the potential reserves in ANWR by a factor of ONE HUNDRED as a means of justifying the set aside..as in "its only a fifty year supply"...actually its enough oil for us to tell the middle east to shove it for a long time...enough time to find those precious alternative energy sources those darling little simpletons in the environmental movement dream of.
I believe that the announcement of opening ANWR for drilling would send oil futures through the floor...Hmmmm, I wonder if the dems will call for a bailout of the commodity brokers that have jacked the oil prices?
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/17/2008 15:32
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#13
Light, sweet crude for August delivery fell $5.31 to settle at $129.29 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices have fallen about $15 in the past three days.
Natural gas futures for August delivery fell as much as 8.2 percent in the day, the biggest one-day drop in nearly a year.
Other energy futures also fell. Heating oil fell 6.62 cents to $3.7748 a gallon, while gasoline futures gained slipped fell 9.92 cents to $3.1802.
#14
Higher prices mean less demand. The bastards you see on the idiot box seem to think that gasoline is an inelastic demand. WRONG! Some of the boys at The Big Picture have been claiming for some time that commodities were the last big bubble to be popped. I thought they were right at the time and I think the proof of that belief is now beginning to make itself apparent. My guess is that in five years the price of gas will be back under $2.
#15
I wouldn't mind seeing a great many futures and hedge fund jackals lose their shirts over this. They have been dicking around with the price of oil at the cost of every other sector of the American economy, all the while running away with obscene profits. Should we feel sorry for them when they start hanging themselves in the men's room at the exchange cause they cant meet their margin calls?
I think not. Pass the popcorn.
#19
According to the Institute for Energy Research (h/t Powerline):
Section 2. Lease Sales in the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska
Ø This section requires that lease sales be conducted once a year. This is something that is currently allowed, but not done because NPRA’s Indiana-sized area has no infrastructure. In addition, a history of dilatory lawsuits has made it an area of limited interest to energy producers. This section also seeks to expedite permits in the NPR-A, a positive step. However, it does nothing to tackle the biggest problem with developing new energy: dilatory protests and lawsuits. Any genuine effort must involve putting a stop to the legal blocking and tackling of groups opposed to American energy production. Incidentally, Congress should address this issue nationwide.
In other words, it's already open.
They don't sell leases because there is no infrastructure; the Alaska pipeline serves ANWAR better.
Powerline: NPR-A is already open to oil exploration and development. That isn't happening, though, because the Corps of Engineers hasn't been able to get a permit to build a pipeline, and the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations have tied up proposed projects in litigation. Moreover, NPR-A is a less desirable area for exploitation than ANWR. It has about the same amount of recoverable oil, but spread out over ten times the area as ANWR's 1002. Both environmentally and economically, ANWR is a far superior place to recover oil, and it is close to the existing Alaska Pipeline.
#20
What needs to be done is declare open season on 80% of all "environmentalists" who have nothing to do with a particular area. If you don't live there, shut your yap and move on. We have too many people in this nation that engage in lawfare with no consequences for themselves. Hanging a bunch of them may get the message across to the rest that we're tired of their "back to nature" BS.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/17/2008 22:11
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Tension gripped a small town in Pakistan, after rumours that a Hindu child had burnt a copy of the Muslim holy book, the Koran. The incident took place in a remote mountainous area between Hyderabad and Karachi. Following the incident, people reportedly gathered in the town of Thano Ahmed Khan to pressure police to take action against the child.
Later it was revealed that the child, who works in a grocery store, had mistakenly given a buyer some goods wrapped in a page from a textbook which had a Koranic verse on it.
According to reports, the child was taken to a guesthouse, stripped and beaten up. Another report, denied by police, said that the boy was paraded naked in the area. The boy's father, Maharaj Jaman Das, who holds an important religious position in the community, offered an unconditional apology to the protesters and said his son did not know what was written on the paper.
Police tried to verify the incident but no one in Thano Ahmed Khan could produce the paper which contained the Koranic verse.
And never will, either ...
Police in Thano Bula Khan told the Pakistani daily, Dawn, that no charges had been laid as no one had given any evidence that an act of blasphemy had occurred.
#1
Saudi authorities routinely confiscate Korans from pilgrims that they find objectionable (added artwork, publisher etc). They are dumped into bins at the airports in Mecca and Medina. Prseumably they are burnt.
The Saudis also destroy historic mosques to make way for parking garages. They destroyed the graves of Mohammed's family and companions.
There is not a peep about this from the folk who are quick to allege blasphemy at Guantanamo Bay
Posted by: john frum ||
07/17/2008 11:44
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#2
My koran soaks up oil under the car in the garage. They'd be pissed.
#4
john frum: The Wahabbis strongly believe that no historical artifacts or icons should be preserved at all, especially relating to Mohammed. They oppose art in any form, generally, and especially decor in mosques.
When they take over a mosque, the first thing they do is destroy any art or decor, then paint the bare walls white.
#6
When they take over a mosque, the first thing they do is destroy any art or decor, then paint the bare walls white.
How ironic that they are the first to lament the "tragedy of Andalusia"
Posted by: john frum ||
07/17/2008 14:09
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#7
When they take over a mosque, the first thing they do is destroy any art or decor, then paint the bare walls white.
They also do that in kosovo, with relative success, and did that in bosnia too. Apparently the locals don't/didn't like this at all, this goes against their own traditions, but, well, the wahabis have lots of money, and make inroads with the youths.
Anyway, the wahabi are iconoclasts, cf. the buddhas destruction, or the vandalizing of kabul museum... and I think the arabs in general (because they hail from a mostly nomadic, desert culture, after having supressed their urbane & more sophisticated culture through islam????) don't care at all about preserving the past, just think of the ennemity between the turks and the saudis about the arabian peninsula turkish-era monuments which were destroyed by the saudis, not just for religious purpose, sometimes just to make way for a new mall... and that whole pre-islamic "age of ignorance" makes destroying the past of islamized/conquered civilizations/cultures mandatory.
Islam is a giant eraser of civilizations, to be replaced by arab imperialism (arab language, arab names, arab customs, arab prophet worship, arab imitation,...).
#9
When Bosnia became independent, the Saudis paid over $30,000,000 to demolish Ottoman era mosques; they rebuilt Wahabi approved structures in their place.
#10
Great. We have a precedence set by the Guardians of Islam, the Saudis, for destroying mosques. Now, what is keeping us from expediting the obvious total destruction of all mosques?
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/17/2008 16:51
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#11
Kafirs aren't allowed.
An abandoned mosque at Ayodya in India was destroyed in 1992. That incident still provokes rioting.
Posted by: john frum ||
07/17/2008 17:19
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The market's down? We must break something! Cue Rage Boy!!
July 17 (Bloomberg) — Pakistan investors stormed out of the Karachi Stock Exchange, smashed windows and cursed regulators after the benchmark index fell for a 15th day, the worst losing streak in at least 18 years. Insh'Allah investment planning...
``I have lost my life savings in the last 15 days and no one in the government or regulators came to help us,'' said Imran Inayat, 45, a protester and a former banker who retired early and said he lost 300,000 rupees ($4,175) on the market. Hey, Mo didn't play the market. So screw you... Police surrounded the exchange after hundreds of investors stoned the building and shouted anti-government slogans. They directed their ire at the government and Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, which this week removed a 1 percent daily limit on price declines. The measure was aimed at halting a slide that wiped out $30 billion of Pakistan's market value in three months, threatening to undo a 14-fold rally since 2001.
``There has been some level of mismanagement by the authorities,'' said Habib-ur-Rehman, who manages the equivalent of 6.5 billion rupees in Pakistani stocks and bonds at Atlas Asset Management Ltd. in Karachi. ``This may be due to their misperception that they can prevent the market from falling. Investors have to learn to bear losses as they do gains.'' INFIDEL!!!
The benchmark Karachi Stock Exchange 100 Index dropped 278.96, or 2.7 percent, to 10,212.92 at the close. The index has plunged 35 percent from the record of 15,676.34 on April 18. The Karachi Index has plunged this year on concern that the ruling government coalition would collapse because of disputes between Asif Ali Zardari, co-chairman of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the biggest group in the ruling coalition, and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The leaders have failed to resolve differences over how to reinstate judges dismissed by President Pervez Musharraf and whether the former army chief should be removed and stand trial.
Foreign investors slashed their spending on Pakistani stocks to $62.2 million in the 11 months ended May 31, from $1.76 billion a year earlier, according to data compiled by the central bank. Who the hell invests in the Pakistani stock market? Those trying to recover after losing out in the Somali stock market ... In Karachi investors today broke windows, threw plant holders in the parking lot of the building, burned shareholder statements and at least one protester was injured, prompting intervention by police and the paramilitary. Investors were also protesting outside the Lahore and Islamabad stock exchanges, Geo Television reported. ``We demand that all stock prices be frozen at current levels,'' said Kauser Javed, who heads the Small Investors Association. ``People have sold their assets in the last 15 days to meet payments and if things continue this way, you will start hearing of suicides. The regulators always favor big brokers and investors.'' I don't think they grasp the "free market" thingy...
#3
Seems like just about two years ago I was reading articles about paki business owners and investors living large and spending money like it was going out of style. Guess it was going out of style after all.
#4
And if you can retire on $4,175 in Wakiland, Mexico better watch out. They'll have the baby boomers moving in on em. They think they got it bad now with the Taliban, look out!
#1
The Democrats stance on domestic oil production symbolizes the height of liberal elitism. There was a rally on the Hill earlier this week called "The War on The Poor!" The organizers bused in close to a hundred (99% African American) activists demanding the Democratically-controlled Congress do something about high gas prices and stop kow-towing to the environmentalists. They were essentially calling for Pelosi's head. It was awesome.
#4
Uncle Phester, good catch on that one.
Those are all sensible, well conceived ideas to help with the demand side, and I will applaud their implementation. But that still wont do it by itself, we need to stabilize the oil market with surplus production capability to really de-fang the Arabs. WTF is wrong with the Dems? They seem to want to keep us in under their boot. I thought the Repubs were supposed to be the evil mortgagers of human suffering and woe?
#5
Dems are worthless, loathsome pieces of human garbage that truly hate this country, and particularly its white inhabitants. When I hear someone admit to being a member of the Democrat Party, I immediately assume they have no judgment, no morals, no scruples, and can't be trusted any further than I can cover them with a loaded handgun. I won't knowingly allow a Dem in my home.
#6
Uncle Phester, I wonder if the donks realize how phrigging phoolish they look. Proposed H.R. 6495 (Democrats Float Bill to Curb Gasoline Demand) is absolutely, abjectly ridculous, silly, and an insult to taxpayers and citizens. Our local police are cutting back on patrol beats. The gasoline budget for the police is about 0.4 million over budget this year. Our bus company is looking for ways to eliminate bus routes. I think we ought to "drill" inside the heads of the donks to see if there is anything there. It is really practical to move closer to a bus stop as proposed by this bill. Morons.
Just in case anybody forgot why the little prick is down there.
A retired U.S. soldier who was ambushed by armed fighters holed up in the mud compound where Omar Khadr was captured said on Tuesday the Canadian deserves to be at Guantanamo Bay. Sergeant Layne Morris said he had not seen the dramatic interrogation video released by Mr. Khadr's lawyers, in which the young detainee cries for help, but he brushed off the footage as a public relations exercise.
Sgt. Morris said the defence lawyers' strategy seemed to be to win sympathy for their client, and that he found it "troublesome" the public had to be constantly reminded of what Mr. Khadr is alleged to have done six years ago. "My lasting image of Omar is of him crouched in the rubble waiting for U.S. troops to get close enough so he could take one of them out, and he did that successfully and that is the underlying reason why we're all here in the first place," Sgt. Morris said. "Omar is not a kid that was just snatched up off the street somewhere and has been wrongly charged and judged unfairly. I think he is precisely where he needs to be. He's earned that stay."
Sgt. Morris was serving with a Special Forces unit in eastern Afghanistan when his patrol came under fire on July 27, 2002. Pro-Taliban fighters shot dead two Afghan Militia Force troops and then opened fire on the Americans. When the gun battle ended 4Å“ hours later, Sergeant Christopher Speer was dead and Sgt. Morris had shrapnel wounds that would cost him his eye. The Americans shot Mr. Khadr, then 15, as they entered the compound and brought him to Bagram air base. He is now being held at the controversial U.S. military camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
He has been charged with throwing the hand grenade that killed Sgt. Speer, although evidence has since surfaced suggesting that another fighter may have been responsible. Really? What evidence is that? His lawyer's say so?
Sgt. Morris says Mr. Khadr must have thrown the grenade because he was the only one left alive in the compound.
On Tuesday, Mr. Khadr's lawyers released seven hours of video footage that showed him being questioned by officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The lawyers said it was "beyond comprehension" that the Prime Minister had not yet returned Mr. Khadr to Canada. Research his family tree. It's very interesting.
"I haven't had a chance to look at it," Sgt. Morris, who lives in Utah, said of the video, "but I guess my thoughts are that if I'm ever in trouble, that's a bunch of defence attorneys that I'd like. They don't seem to be doing a whole lot of lawyering work. It's mostly PR work. And so it's kind of troublesome that the other side of the story has to be continually told in the media just to counter what the lawyers are trying to do in public."
Sgt. Morris and the widow of Sgt. Speer, Tabitha Speer, won a $100-million lawsuit against Mr. Khadr's father, Ahmed Khadr, a suspected al-Qaeda financier killed by Pakistani troops in 2003. Their lawyer, Don Winder, said on Tuesday he had been in touch with the Canadian government about collecting from the family. That's a lotta Canadian welfare checks.
Mama Khadr is at it again – demanding her and her family’s “rights” as “Canadians.” The quotation marks in the above paragraph are used advisedly. The fact that we allow this woman and her odious family to continue to masquerade as citizens of this country is living demonstration of just how gutless we truly are. That we haven’t yet run this Jihadist welfare queen and the rest of his disgusting family the hell out of this country tells me (and should tell you) pretty much everything one needs to know about why the Islamist advance against the West has yet to be checked or even effectively countered in most of the West.
For those who are late to the party, IÂ’ll briefly review the history of the Khadr family. Papa Khadr was a senior member of al-Qaeda who took his family to Afghanistan where they hung out with Osama Bin Laden. During the 1990Â’s, he was arrested for his part in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan, but he was kindly sprung from jail through the intervention of Jean Chretien.
Mommy and Daddy al-Qaeda raised their children to be good little martyrs. The eldest daughter’s wedding was attended by Bin Laden – and she’s reportedly under investigation by the RCMP. Two of the sons – Abdul and Omar – ended in Guantanamo Bay after being captured while fighting on behalf of the terrorists. Abdul flipped and managed to get out of Gitmo by working for the CIA. Omar, who killed an American in combat, is about to be tried for murder. Another son is in jail in Canada, awaiting extradition to the United States.
Eventually, Daddy Khadr was killed while fighting alongside al-Qaeda forces. In the same battle Abdulkareem, the youngest son, was seriously wounded. It was at this point – with her son in need of extensive (and expensive!) medical care that Mommy Khadr discovered her secret affection for Tim Horton’s and the National Hockey League and began to first demand her and her children’s “rights” as “Canadians.”
So, to summarize: the elder Khadr came to Canada in the mid-1970’s and then returned to the Islamic world in the early 1980’s – thereafter returning to Canada only sporadically (most notably for a year of free health treatment when he was wounded by a land mine). Since then he – and his progeny – have devoted themselves to waging war against the West. But, somehow, we are supposed to simply accept that these people – citizens of convenience who have waged war against our nation and civilization – are legitimate “Canadians” and to grin and bear it while they, being natural parasites with no respect for our nation, suck tax dollars out of our system to pay for the surely expensive medical treatment for someone wounded while standing alongside our enemies.
Not only this – after all, this outrage has been allowed to pass practically unnoticed – but now we are supposed to have sympathy for (as the media and the left obviously does) an al-Qaeda solider who, while fighting as an unlawful combatant, treacherously wounded one Allied solider and killed another. Indeed, we are not only supposed to have sympathy – we are actually supposed to devote time and resources (read: my and your money) into freeing him from a fate which is far less than what he has earned.
Do it again and again, til you get it right!
Irish politicians reacted angrily Wednesday after French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested Ireland should hold a second referendum on the EU's new treaty, after rejecting it last month. Irish voters dealt a blow to the European Union last month by rejecting the Lisbon Treaty in the only popular vote on the text anywhere in the 27-nation bloc.
According to deputies who attended a meeting with Sarkozy Tuesday, he said that the Irish would "have to re-vote", despite 53 percent opposition.
A key adviser to the French president said later on Wednesday that Sarkozy could ask Ireland to hold a second referendum on the document, but with some minor changes. "One of the solutions would be indeed to eventually ask the Irish to re-vote, but probably not on a text that would be exactly the same," said Henri Guaino in an interview to French television. "We'll see," he added.
Guaino stressed that Sarkozy's remarks, widely reported in the press, were "not an official statement from the president."
Sarkozy's comments were described as "deeply insulting" by Sinn Fein's Aengus O Snodaigh, who speaks for the party on international affairs. Sinn Fein was the only major political party in Ireland to oppose the Lisbon Treaty.
"In the month since the Irish people voted overwhelmingly to reject the Lisbon Treaty, we have listened to a succession of EU leaders lining up to try and bully and coerce us into doing what they want," O Snodaigh said. "The fact is that the people have spoken and the Lisbon Treaty is dead."
He added that Sinn Fein had sought a meeting with Sarkozy when he visits Ireland Monday. "It is important that President Sarkozy understands that the Irish people demand that our vote is respected and, more importantly, our concerns addressed," he said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2008
08:19 ||
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#1
You will keep voting until you get it right, serfs!
#4
Ah, but in France, the peasants aren't allowed to vote on such important things as international treaties. So Sarkozy and the rest of the EU elite don't have to worry what the people think.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/17/2008 12:29
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#5
Sark, don't piss off the Irish. Seriously. You dont want that.
#7
In 2005, the french voted "non" with a good majority, so this repackaged constitution was passed through the parliament, with a very touching almost unanimity from the MP. As for sarko, well, his oppostion to the entry of turkey into the EU was one of his presidential selling points, but, alas, like his others firm stances, this has gone under the bus™.
Sark, don't piss off the Irish. Seriously. You dont want that.
Why? What could the irish do, except keeping getting an high economical growth, compared to the slumpish, impotent french economy? Let sarko piss them off if he wishes, why not, it's not like this is a pub brawl... in fact, I'm happy he shows himself to be like he's seen in France, I was amused/bothered by the english language press that pictured him as some kind of Reagan rethread. He's not, he's shitraq, only younger, and even less popular, for the leftists (who need to have him being a fascist), for the wingnuts (because he's a "jooooooooooooooooo", because he's sold to the Evil americans,...), and for the man on the street (because he's a blowhard more interested in his PR than any actual reforming).
#8
Ah, but in France, the peasants aren't allowed to vote on such important things as international treaties.
In France, the peasants have an habit since 1789 of having convulsive crisis that usually result in regime changes... in 200 years, as I like to enumerate in no particular order as my grasp of elementary History is a bit flimsy, 5 republics, 2 empires, one short-lived mob rule, one directorate, 1 constitutional monarchy, 1 dictatorship, one occupation gvt, hum... I'm certainly missing a few, all born on the ashes of the precedent one after a crisis, armed or not, as is the norm with the irremediably divised post-Revolution french society.
So, while I'm not particularly looking forward to it, comfortably hidden in my cozy infantilized bubble that I am, I have no doubts sooner or later the peasants will throw an hissy fit, probably sooner than later, given the "ripeness" of the 5th, the state of public finances, the general decay of France, the nullity of our Enlightened Elites (starting with sarko, the "lawyer" who never was anything else than a professional pol and speak french like the uneducated spoiled limousine brat he's been and still is)... my only real concern, through in fact, as long as I can shop on ebay, I don't really care, is that
1) the french are totally feminized (not because they're french, mind you, but because post-60's western societies are feminized, and this is true for the USA as well, for an unknown for me, but clearly real part, just think about the way your education system treats boys, or your legal system treats divorcee husbands);
2) the french are economically ignorant, thanks to the marxist-slanted public education, in fact, the brain-death of our economy is attributed to the "rampant free market economy" (while post-WWII France is something of an USSR that succeeded... for a while), even by the supposed "rightwingers" (who are socialists like all the others, they're just less shy about their racism)... so any type of "revolution" would vertainly be an involutive one, going to MORE socialism, and blaming the jooooooooooos (whose own very vocal & visible Enlightened Elites will reap what they sowed, much to the chagrin of the ordinary french jew), and the USA (not that it will matter much, of course);
and, compounding 1) & 2),... 3) there are say, 10-12, perhaps 15 or more millions of non-europeans, massively african, turkish and arab, living in France, younger, not devirilized, whose "rowdier" parts have total control of the street, with massive friendly populations just on the other side of the Meditteranea, plus turkey... oh, and did I mention that the french army is only a shadow of what a standing army should be, and that police could NOT control adequatly the relatively "modest" 2005 ramadan riots, being ordered by the then interior minister (I think his name was nicolas s.) to avoid confrontation and avoid at all cost any casualties among the rioters, so to keep the situation in check?
So, to end my rant, my conclusion is I'd better hurry getting more stuff from Evil Ebay while I can.
#9
And to add a bit more, I'd say that what I've said for France is true to different extents to most of western societies, INCLUDING the USA. I know this is not polite to mention that in good sociey, but the white race has a rather bumpy future ahead of itself, as its Nations are turned the ones after the others in colorful, multicultural, diverse... errrr... brazil (though brazil itself is on an upward trend), with all the accompanying joys. All this while the rest of the world actually get "purer" ethnically - just ask the european whites in africa!
#9
BH6, we Army and Marines did get even with the Airforce, long time ago, at Goodfellow AFB. The night before Armed Forces Day.
There is only one jet aircraft on that training base, and its a fighter (full sized) on a huge concrete pintle out in front of the NCO club as I recall. There's also a water tower.
Some soldiers and marines got together and got some gray panels with the letters Y F and A. And a couple of banners. And some liquid adhesive. And a bike chain and some padlock. And a rapelling rope. And money to some privates to keep calling for pizza and chinese food delivery so the SPs at the gate would have something to do.
Some unknown enlisted people (who might have been included army SF and a Recon Marine due to the rope work and climbing expertise) got up on the water tower and hung 2 green banners, "USMC - Semper Fi" and "US ARMY - Be All You Can Be" over the words "AIR FORCE", then pulled the access ladder up, padlocked it, and rappeled off, pulling the rappel rope behind them when done.
Some other unknown people (cough cough) used those aforementioned grey panels, which were color matched to the aircraft, and lettering that was color and size matched, as well as a pile of liquid adhesive, to transform the Aircraft from US AIR FORCE to US FAIRY FARCE.
PT formation (facing said water tower) and our formation run by the NCO club the next morning was, umm, entertaining. Especially since all those exempted from morning PT happened to make formation for the run, those prior service folks.
The AF Colonel went apeshit, but nobody in the Marine and Army quarters seemed to quite know who did that, and nor how they evaded the ever watchful USAF SP's. The Marine's Gunny and Army 1SG were sure none of their troops would EVER do anything like that. Certainly not the prior service guys (mostly NCOs) who were retraining into SIGINT. Especially not them.
I went back there to visit a couple years later and that was still being told - although the deeds had somehow gotten larger and more elaborate with time.
#11
Yeah, yeah, OS: Of course, its not a "fairy force" when you grunts are pinned down and you need a little precise JDAM or 500 pounder to cool down the fire pit. You may want to tell this story to the latest Silver Star holder - Captain Greg Ambrosia - and ask if he would be receiving his star on this side of the grass if Air Power hadn't delivered.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/17/2008 17:31
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#12
Jack, back the truck up. In the end we all know its same team - that was just a bit of showing off on an AF base to get back at the barcalounger AF types that ragged on us for formation runs, and drill.
And I agree, Zooms are great when you don't have arty or helos on call, and after all, you guys need someone to take and hold the ground you put your bases on.
In all seriousness, I probably owe my life to an A-10 pilot from way back when. And some of the bravest I've ever met in when I was at MacDill were AF PJs and the guys out at Hurlburt.
#13
Jack is Back!
Yes that's logical and very true Jack... but these AF Video Fly Boys are just begging for some Harsh but Good Natured badgering.
OldSpook #9,
The Marine's Gunny and Army 1SG were sure none of their troops would EVER do anything like that. Certainly not the prior service guys (mostly NCOs) who were retraining into SIGINT. Especially not them.
LOL! sure OS..sure LOL..
Damn that sounds almost as complicated as the Son Tay Raid OS!
Heh..Great result though... I would sure hate to be caught by AF-SP' wienies who have no love for both the Special Forces Army and all Marines and have absolutely no sense of humor.
yikes!
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/17/2008 18:37
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#14
heh heh OS you beat me to it! LOL!
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/17/2008 18:37
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#15
And aside from that, Jack, we are jealous that you guys do have the best looking women, and more of them around, than you find in a typical Marine Infantry company or an Army Cavalry Troop.
And as a Marine buddy once told me, you can tell the AF is smarter then we are - they keep the enlisted in the rear with the gear and send the officers out to get shot at.
Here's an old one:
"Secure the building."
The Marines will kill everybody inside and make it a command post
The Army will put fence and barbed wire around it, build observation towers and place a PFC with an empty rifle to it.
The Navy will turn out the lights and lock the doors.
The Air Force will take out a 5-year lease with an option to buy.
#16
There's just something about keeping your head down in a hole and then hearing a couple of F-4's go screeming overhead at weed-top hight that makes one feel good inside.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/17/2008 19:35
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#17
Deac, try A-10's raking a dug in defensive line of T-72s, when our helicopters couldn't get there due to the shmal and our arty was mobile with us.
I'll tell ya this, its a lot easier to assault thru T-72's that have been "swiss chessed" (and their infantry support fragged) than it is to fight the damned things, even when you can get 1st shot kills at over 1Km thru a sand berm.
#19
at ease everyone...I like the chair force, best chow, most chicks and pilots that can rap..what's not to like? Plus they got the A-10 which we jarheads definitely need to commandeer. I also love Bufs, Spectres & B-1b's - coolest looking bird on the face of the planet.
I will never forget a hot day in sep 05 in Camp TQ and going to a USAF tent where they had the a.c. so cold the zoomies were making snowmen and having a snowball fight when I entered.
#20
Common joke last year btwn Army personnel facing theater extensions to 15 months was.... " hey Jim, how many 4 month USAF deployments have you had to the ITO, this is my fifth?.
Another day in the Land of Inversion, where the obvious is not an option. I heard more interviews with learned politicians informing me that “drilling for oil” will not affect anything, least of all the quantity of oil. We must apparently wait until 2015, when a magic engine that runs on unicorn flatulence is invented. I have to ask: why is anyone investing in unicorn flatulence today, when it won’t make any difference for several years? The answer’s simple: the engine will Appear at the chosen moment, borne from the clouds by starlings, but only if we have repented of our foul ways, and the last of the sinners has left the cul-de-sac to reside in a home located a sustainable distance from his or her place of employment. When the last suburban outlying development is empty, when the homes of whose size we disapprove has been abandoned, when the last citizen has been gathered unto the bosom of the urban center, where his profligate ways are sneered upon and the measure of his yard shall be no greater than the standard lot size decreed in 1902, then shall the magic engine appear. Until then, the wind and the sun will bear us onward.
Honestly, it’s like FDR coming into power promising “bold, persistent experimentation – except for any sort of government involvement in the economy. That’s off the table.”
No, in the Land of Inversion, we’ve decided to do things that run completely counter to human nature – at least to the nature we perceive in our domestic opponents. Don’t give an inch to your domestic foes; they’ll read it as weakness! To everyone else, though, it’s olive branches strewn like ticker-tape at an astronaut parade. In Israel, for example, this horrible prisoner swap - child-killer exchanged for murdered soldiers. The fellow is welcomed home as a hero by Hezbollah and Lebanon’s Prime Minister and President, because in the Land of Inversion, heads of state clear their calendar when child-killers breathe the sweet air of freedom again. It’s all relative, really. One man’s child-killer is another man’s freedom fighter, and if you point out that the “another man” is a Jew-hating idiot fanatic who’d be proud to blow up the Holocaust Museum in DC and take out a busload of Iowa tourists, you’re ignoring the significant impact this exchange had on the Climate of Trust that will lead to peace. I mean, it’s not like the entire cabinet turned out to meet the guy. In the delicate calculations of the region, that counts for something.
Meanwhile, in Germany, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said he was “encouraged by the prisoner swap and hoped that it was the first of many more.”
Oh, it will be. If Eichmann was still around there would be people lobbying for his release. Hadn’t he suffered enough? What’s gained by keeping him in jail, after all? This is the peculiar logic of the Land of Inversion: there’s a certain moral legitimacy that falls lightly on someone’s shoulders if he’s in jail. The crime is soon forgotten, and we’re left with the sad sight of someone languishing – they’re always languishing – in a grim prison. If the reporter who interviews them finds the have a “ready smile” or a “quick wit” or notes that the prisoner discusses his case with “flashes of anger,” well, we’re intrigued: what sort of modern Valjean has society stuck in the Bastille this time?
I didn’t celebrate Bastille Day this year – used to go down to the New French Bar and have bread and garlicky mayo and enjoy the day, but I don’t have the same sort of romantic view of the French Revolution anymore. Nice work deposing the King, guys, but no thanks for the first totalitarian state devoted to remaking society from the ground up. Good morning, citizens. Today we will discuss guillotine production, and choose the new names for the months of the year. How’d that turn out? Empire, then restoration, you say?
Drat the luck.
Meanwhile, over in Blighty: every day brings another story that suggests they could power the lights on the Strand by harnessing the RPMs of Churchill’s corpse. Some I believe; some are almost heartening, such as this story – a fellow got in trouble for taking pictures of his own kids in a park, but the police declined to run him in for violating the Male And Therefore A Likely Perv Act. (Can’t find link, sorry.) Every other day has a story of a man who fights off intruders in his house, and is charged with Making a Fist Instead of Forming a Fetal Ball and Waiting for the Bobbies to Come ‘Round and Pretend To Take Down a Description of the Attackers. I know I’m seeing this all from a distance, filtered through the media, but it ties into my own subjective suspicions, which are based in emotion and therefore unassailable: are you saying my feelings aren’t VALID?
Back up a bit. I think these stories are pinging my brainpan because I've watched too much “Torchwood,” that generally disappointing BBC series I’ve been watching out of interest and creepy fascination. Not with the show itself, but with the culture it seems to suggest. If you haven’t seen it, well, it’s a group of X-Files-style paranormal investigators dealing with the rift-raff, the creatures who come to London through a rip in space. It connects with Dr. Who somehow. The team is balanced for gender and sexual preference, and is notable most for their utter ineptitude. Picture Mulder and Scully with flashlights and no guns, a tendancy to show up late for everything and stand around looking grief-stricken while something bad happens. Then they go back to their batcave and have pizza.
The women, of course, are Strong and Smart and Purposeful; the men are either weak and nerdy, or bitter, undernourished and nerdy, or a cheerfully pansexual immortal American who comes from the future. I suppose it’s good that the American is the strongest and most Yankee-can-do sort of character on the show, but he doesn’t do anything, either. Anyway: in the last episode I saw, they encountered three people who’d come to the future from 1952. one of them was depressed about landing in 2007, what with his son in a loony bin with Alzheimer’s and all, so he tried to off himself in a car by running the car in the garage. Our Yank hero interrupted him – but he heard the fellow out, saw his point, and sat with him in the car until the fumes killed him.
ThereÂ’s something a bit off when the hero performs a compassionate act of assisted suicide because someone canÂ’t adjust to the 21st century after a week. I donÂ’t know how quite to explain it, but itÂ’s like a show from a culture with nothing underneath it anymore.
I know it’s simplistic to expect a character to say “chin up, old sport! That’s the ticket! We’ll muddle through, I say, and bully for tomorrow, what?” But there was just something telling about watching this Briton from ’52 kill himself because the modern world had nothing to offer him. The show didn’t seem to even realize what the character might have found lacking in the England of 2007.
Before he died, the Yank gave him a lecture about the afterlife: there isnÂ’t one. You donÂ’t see your loved ones. ItÂ’s just black. Cheers, mate.
He would probably be seconded on that point by this fellow, who I expect will name an atheist as his successor, as part of an outreach program to attract people uncomfortable with the whole “God” part of religion. There really isn’t any reason to set the bar that high, you know. In his latest missive, he has acknowledged that parts of Christianity may “offend” Muslims, which is a fascinating choice of words. It puts doctrinal differences into the realm of emotional reaction, and as we all know “offence” must be followed with apologies and seminars and outreach and an hour of steady banging of the head on the hard marble floor. No one has the right to give offense, but everyone has the right – indeed, the obligation – to be offended by something.
Given the Islamic belief that Christ did not die on the cross, itÂ’s only a matter of time before the Church of England mandates small step-ladders beneath every crucifix. You can believe he got down and walked away, if you like. WeÂ’re not saying he did, but we wouldnÂ’t want to offend anyone who insisted he did. <
After that, they will call in acoustical engineers to retrofit the churches, because thereÂ’s just a terrible echo when the padre speaks.
I love this part:
Dr Williams added: 'It is all the more important for the sake of open and careful dialogue that we try to clarify what we do and do not mean by it, and so I trust that what follows will be read in this spirit.
What we do and do not mean by it. Meaning, We believe that you believe we are wrong, and we believe that our being wrong offends you.
ItÂ’s the natural end result of elevating tolerance above all else: eventually you are intolerant of the things in which you once believed, because they are theoretically offensive to those who have no interest in the maintenance of your traditions. In the end, traditions are just social constructs used to impose social order; best if we do away with them anyway. Something better always fills a void, right?
The article is just rife with delicious nuggets:
Religious identity has often been confused with cultural or national integrity, with structures of social control, with class and regional identities, with empire: and it has been imposed in the interest of all these and other forms of power,' he said.
History is a sin for which we must constantly beg absolution. WeÂ’ll go first in the merry abasement race; you guys follow.
Guys? CÂ’mon, guys?<
Imagine that, though: religious identity has often been “confused” with cultural integrity. Those strange, disparate elements have managed to intertwine for some peculiar reason. How does that happen? Well, people tend to identify with their own culture, for the most part – unless they’re American post-war kids brought up in the hell of Levittown – and you’d think this would be a natural fact embraced by the precepts of multiculturalism. If a people wish to include religious concepts in their cultural self-definition, isn’t this their right? Are we suggesting now that that the two should be separated, lest one lend unearned authority to the other? You could see this is a criticism of some elements of the immigrant community, after all, and that's not up for discussion: cultural chauvinism of the worst sort. You could argue that irreligiousness, the current state of Europe, is a part of their modern cultural integrity; that is a form of religious identit, in a way. But saying “we have managed to cut the cord, and so should you” will not impress people who have neither the intention nor the ideological means to separate one from the other. It just looks irresolute and smells sick and gives the impression of an old beast, with a limp.
It wouldnÂ’t sound odd coming from a Marxist critic of religion, but it does sound peculiar coming from the head of a church. As for the imposition of religious identity to serve the interest of empire, at least we know now why India turned into a totally Christian nation in the 19th century. That one has bothered me for a long time.
It gets better, and the honored gentleman gives away the game here:
“The Archbishop said that faiths which reject the use of violence should learn to defend each other in their mutual interest.
'If we are in the habit of defending each other, we ought to be able to learn to defend other groups and communities as well,' he said.
'We can together speak for those who have no voice or leverage in society - for the poorest, the most despised, the least powerful, for women and children, for migrants and minorities; and even to speak together for the great encompassing reality that has no voice of its own, our injured and abused material environment.”
There you have it. Humans are just supporting characters in an argument that ends with a plea for the health of our Common Rock. To sum it all up: sorry about that whole Christ-died-for-your-sins thing; weÂ’ll try to keep it down. Can you join us to work for a ban on plastic grocery store bags?
This works with reasonable people, for only for so long. The reasonable people on both sides end up in the tumbrel. Not the first wave, or the second, but they get around to them eventually. The Land of Inversion has its own definition of reasonable. It's full of people who regard your denunciation of your history and culture and tradition and beliefs with amusement, and say: that's a good start.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/17/2008
06:09 ||
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#2
James, if you think its inverted now wait until we put old Winston and Reagan on warp speed and elect Obama as the most powerful person in the world. And he is a deity that you won't need a step ladder for under his cross.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/17/2008 17:07
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My greatest worry on Iran's nuclear threat to civilization isn't the military option. It's trying that option on the cheap.
If there's any way to block Tehran's pursuit of nukes short of warfare, I'm all for it. Maybe yesterday's dispatch of the No. 3 US diplomat to observe the European Union's talks with the mullahs about their nukes will work a miracle (don't hold your breath). Military strikes must be the last resort. Even a successful attack would panic oil markets, interrupt supplies to an unknown degree and make enemies of the Iranian people for another generation.
But the fanatics in Tehran may leave us no peaceful alternative. In that case, the most disastrous thing we could do would be to launch an economy-model attack. If forced to strike, we have to do it right. When safe-at-home ideologues bluster, "Just bomb 'em," they haven't a clue how complex this problem is.
Nor is there any chance that the Israelis could handle Iran on their own (their recent air-force exercise was psychological warfare). As skilled as their pilots and planners may be, the Israelis lack the capacity to sustain a strategic offensive against Iran - or to deal with the inevitable mess they'd leave behind in the Persian Gulf. Israel's aircraft could do serious damage to Iran's nuke program, but the US military would face the potentially catastrophic aftermath.
Without compromising any secrets - the Iranians already know what we'd need to do - here are the basic requirements for smacking down Iran's nuke program:
* Take out Iran's air-defense and intelligence network to protect our attacking aircraft.
* Take down its national communications network to degrade its military reaction.
* Strike dozens of dispersed nuclear-related targets - some of them in hardened underground facilities, with others purposely placed in populated areas.
* Hit every anti-ship-missile installation along Iran's Persian Gulf coast and the Straits of Hormuz. The reflexive Iranian response to an attack would be to launch sea-skimmer missiles against oil tankers and Western warships. The Iranians know that oil's now the world's Achilles heel.
* Destroy Iran's naval capacity, including small craft, in the first 24 hours to prevent attacks on shipping (expect suicide attacks, too).
* Immediately take out all of Iran's long-range and intermediate-range missiles - not just those that could strike Israel, but those that could hit Saudi, gulf-state or Iraqi oil refineries, pipelines, port facilities and oil fields . . . or our installations in the region.
* Hit the military's key command centers in Tehran, as well as regional headquarters, with special attention to the Revolutionary Guards' infrastructure.
* Expect three to six weeks of intense air and naval fighting, followed by months of skirmishing and asymmetrical warfare. And Iraq will heat back up, too.
Screw up the effort, and today's oil prices will double or triple, with severe downstream shortages showing up in a matter of weeks - every oil tanker's insurance will be canceled immediately, even if the Straits of Hormuz remain open (unlikely). And we'll be in the global doghouse.
Gimme-my-war chumps of the sort who believed "dissident" Ahmed Chalabi on Iraq insist that, if we weaken the Tehran regime by attacking, the Iranian people will overthrow it. Utterly wrong.
Yes, many Iranians detest their killer-bumpkin president. But plenty of Americans despise our president - yet, if our homeland were attacked tomorrow, most would rally behind him. And we'd fight back. The Iranians would respond the same way. If a war did spark regime change, the new government might well be even harder-line. Nobody likes to be bombed - and serious attacks on Iran's nuclear program would kill a lot of Iranians.
Yet it'd be even worse if we tried to hit Iran on the cheap, in some think-tank-concocted Shock and Awe Part II. "Precision" attacks - limited to air-defense sites and nuclear facilities - would draw a swift and painful Iranian response against the Gulf's oil exports.
And one last worry: If we decide we have no choice but to attack, we're so casualty-averse that our civilian leadership is apt to put critical targets off-limits to spare Iranian lives. We still want to win wars without hurting anybody, by just breaking the other guy's toys. And that's never going to happen.
If we have to fight, we have to fight to win. Take down Iran's nuke program? I'm damned certain of one thing: If we start this one, we'd better get it right from the first shot.
#1
I agree with Peters in most respects: If we hit them at all, we have to hit very hard indeed. I think he overstates the challenge in one respect though:
* Strike dozens of dispersed nuclear-related targets - some of them in hardened underground facilities, with others purposely placed in populated areas.
This is true of "nuclear targets" in general but the really critical ones, the uranium enrichment centrifuges, can't really be dispersed to any practical degree. You have to have a lot of them close together to complete the process. You can't put one in every other garage or mosque, then go shuttling partially enriched uranium hexafluoride gas all over the countryside like so many bolts of cloth. The stuff is almighty dangerous and corrosive. To transport it, you would have to condense it back to a solid each time it was removed from a dispersed centrifuge unit, then vaporize it again before it is fed into the next one. This would reduce progress to a snail's pace even without the obvious hazards of constantly trundling batches of corrosive and radioactive poison around a backward country.
The Iranians will have hardened the centrifuge facilities as well as they and their European contractors know how, but I really don't think that will be good enough.
Beyond that, however, this is every bit as difficult as Peters says. The campaign against Iranian maritime facilities must be as thorough and as ruthless as any since the Second World War. Every missile site, ship, boat and coastal RG hovel must be blasted off the face of the Earth in as little time as possible if we are to have any hope of keeping the Strait of Hormuz open. Every Iranian warship at sea, especially submarines, should have an SSN assigned as far in advance as possible, with orders to trail it and be prepared to sink it literally at a moment's notice.
#2
We still want to win wars without hurting anybody, by just breaking the other guy's toys. And that's never going to happen.
Hear, hear!
The best way to deal with Iran, or any other ROP country, is to take out their entire infrastructure. Reduce them to indigenous tech, so to speak.
But in this instance he is spot on. The military command control and intelligence systems and leadership targets and their infrastructure, inclduing power water telecom and broadcast facilities, must be eliminated.
#5
So, Supreme Commander Obama is going to do all this next year? Impossible. Voters need to know what the real stakes are if we elect BO. Bush doesn't have time to finish the job, so the next guy has to take it on. I have confidence that McCain can do a good job, but do I trust the voters to make a sane choice? Some days I do, some days not.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/17/2008 9:18
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#6
If Obama wins, look for Israel to force out hand and Bush will be the one ordering in ths strikes in late November.
#7
"The blow must be a shattering one."
I agree with this and not with Peters on this one. A conventional strike modology is what we can't afford. We need to hit them with mass nuclear strikes so large as to totally paralyze what remains of its citizenry. This needs to be discussed and OK'd by Congress. Let the Mullahs know that we have warned them and that utter destruction is their only other alternative. The attack should be by nuclear missiles only, no troops. Death from the sky. Over with in 30 minutes.
#8
Strike dozens of dispersed nuclear-related targets - some of them in hardened underground facilities
You don't really need to destroy the deep facility, just screw up all entrances/exits and they're out of the picture. In a bad way.
Besides, I hear W ordered the development of a nuclear bunker buster. More than sufficient for anything they could put out there I would think.
And don't we have some pretty cool unmanned undersea vehicles that probe for mines and submarines and report back to base? That ought to help a lot with their subs, especially if they use active sonar.
And I would think that a few water-filled old tankers with several phalanx systems on them and piloted up and down the straits to flush out the guys with missiles hiding in the weeds ought to help a lot, too. Heck, put an anti-missile system on every tanker running up and down the straits with a few marines to guarantee that the systems don't fall into the wrong hands.
As for "intense air fighting", perhaps some loitering bombers would be all that would be necessary. Be ready to drop bombs at all the vulnerable points along the straits as soon as any missile activity is detected. It's probably resource intensive, but cheaper than the alternative. Heck, sell opt-in "protection packages" for $1M each. Whiners need not participate! :-) This one will be tough because sleeper cells could wait for years before they decide to go wreak havoc.
#9
I don't know, I should think that if we picked one or two nuke sites that they must have to make nukes and then hit them in one all night raid using our stealth bombers to blast the crap out of them and then denied everything the next day.... Instead report a series of explosions at such and such site, Iranian dissident's are suspected.
#11
Nuking Iran, as deliciously ironic as it sounds (oh you want nuclear weapons? Here ya go!), would really be uncalled for. I think that Peters is pretty much right. Massive percision strikes that will remove Iran's nuclear refinment capability and their capability to make war at the same time are what is called for.
The only problem with that is how many insurgents they will pump into Iraq. If we are going to do this, we need to have a full commpliment of troops ready to invade.
We break Iran's face, they give us a bloody nose and we finish wiping them off the map, then rebuild them as we did Iraq.
Or we could do it right the first time. Mass the troops for an invasion, tell Iran to kill the nuke program now. If they don't we do the air strikes outlined above and send the troops in in overwhelming force to clean and disinfect that toilet at the same time. We have the lessons we learned in Iraq, we should be out in two years if we use what we learned. Maybe less since there won't be some jerk sending hostile insurgents across the border and financing civil war.
#13
There is no such thing as the Iranian people, as there was no such thing as the Yugoslav people. A strike agaisnt Tehran would likely trigger a bloodbath against ethnic Persians. And I doubt we would stand aside and let the government slaughter civilians to reassert control, like Saddam was allowed to do after Gulf War 1.
Otherwise, Iran is unusual in that has a small number of communication chokepoints due to its topography. Knock down a couple of dozen major bridges and you will stop the government (quickly) redeploying its forces to counter trouble hotspots. I'd isolate Tehran from the rest of the country.
#14
What Im thinking, other than HE on the main targets (nuke facilities and targets that need a hard kill, like leadership and radars), the most effective initial weapon would be aluminzed mylar.
Take out the entire power grid. No power to pump water or sewage, nor to pump gasoline either.
There go all the cities. Food distribution, medical care, all the modern things, gone. Cholera rampant within weeks. Starvation within months.
Keep hitting hard targets with HE and the power grid with non-permanent damage.
They will surrender, or die in large numbers, eventually. Which one happens is up to them.
#15
Seems like most of the items on the list are doable. I don't know whether you can accomplish all this without causing the price of oil to go up. As we have seen, the price of oil is volatile and often the price is based on psychology as much as anything. Bush lifted the ban on drilling and the price of oil went down immediately. The item on the list that is problematic is the last one: Expect three to six weeks of intense air and naval fighting, followed by months of skirmishing and asymmetrical warfare. And Iraq will heat back up, too. Don't look for Obama to do what Peters outlines. Best to elect McCain at this time.
#16
Oh and that also takes out broadcast and telecom as hard targets if needs be. If the Mullahs cannot reach the masses, they cannot rally the masses.
Two men claiming to head a group responsible for the southern insurgency said on national TV on Thursday they had agreed to an immediate halt in attacks. "We have agreed to a cease-fire," a spokesman for the unnamed group said in a statement aired on TV Channel 5 on Thursday noon. "Our group will now support peace in southern Thailand."
The group claimed that the cease-fire began last Monday in order to restore peace in the region. The group also called on underground movement to stop all kinds of their operations. Several killings and bombings have been reported since Monday, including two bombs near the Yala municipal headquarters on Wednesday. The statement was made in Yawi, and was translated into Thai.
Earlier, former army chief Gen Chattha Thanajaro said he had met with a group called Ruam Pak Tai Khong Prathet Thai, or Thailand's United Southern Underground group, and agreed to end violence. "They must prove their intention to cease their activities for the sake of sustainable peace in the south," he said in the broadcast. " Everything is not 100 per cent certain," he said.
Spc. Grover Gebhart has spent nine months at a small post on a Sunni-Shiite fault line in western Baghdad. But the 21-year-old soldier on his first tour in Iraq feels he's missing the real war -- in Afghanistan, where his brother is fighting the Taliban.
With violence in Iraq at its lowest level in four years and the war in Afghanistan at a peak, the soldiers serving at patrol station Maverick say Gebhart's view is increasingly common, especially among younger soldiers looking to prove themselves in battle.
"I've heard it a lot since I got here," said 2nd Lt. Karl Kuechenmeister, a 2007 West Point graduate who arrived in Iraq about a week ago.
Soldiers who have experienced combat stress note that it is usually young soldiers on their first tour who most want to get on the battlefield. They say it is hard to communicate the horrors of war to those who haven't actually experienced it.
"These kids are just being young," said Sgt. Christopher Janis, who is only 23 but is on his third tour in Iraq. "They say they want to get into battle until they do, and then they won't want it anymore."
That soldiers are looking elsewhere for a battle is a testament to how much Iraq has changed from a year ago, when violence was at its height. Now it's the lowest in four years, thanks to the U.S. troop surge, the turn by former Sunni insurgents against al-Qaida in Iraq because they finally felt comfortable ratting out the bad guys because the increased US troop presence ensured their security, and Iraqi government crackdowns on Shiite militias because they knew the surge guaranteed that the US would have enough troops to be able to back them up no matter what.
At least 29 U.S. soldiers died in Iraq last month, and there were 19 deaths in May -- the lowest monthly toll for American troops since the war began in March 2003. By comparison, in Afghanistan, 28 Americans died in June and 17 in May, but there are four times as many U.S. troops in Iraq.
American military deaths in Iraq are also down sharply this month, in a trend that could take center stage during Sen. Barack Obama's planned visit to Baghdad and the debate over whether America's main battle is shifting back to Afghanistan. At least eight soldier deaths had been reported for July by the military as of Wednesday -- four in combat, two not connected to fighting and the recovery of remains of two soldiers missing since last year.
The daily average of 0.50 deaths so far is significantly below any month in the war. The lowest for a full month was 0.61 deaths in May, and the next lowest was 0.71 in February 2004.
The relative calm is apparent in Baghdad's Ghazaliyah neighborhood, patrolled by troops stationed at Maverick from the 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division. Instead of facing gunfire and roadside bombs, the soldiers' armored Humvees are chased by waving children as they weave through streets crowded with pedestrians out to shop or just to stroll.
Some of Maverick's troops saw combat a few months ago when they helped the Iraqi army take over the Ghazaliyah office of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr in a battle complete with gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades. But their days in Ghazaliyah have mostly been filled with routine patrols. The soldiers' job is to serve as a critical presence that helps keep violence down in the mixed Sunni and Shiite neighborhood. "Ninety-five percent of the time it is perfectly quiet in Ghazaliyah now," said 1st Lt. Shane Smith, who leads one of the three platoons at Maverick.
Quiet can mean boredom, as Gebhart and a colleague turn in another four-hour shift in one of Maverick's guard towers, looking over a landscape of two-story concrete buildings and green fields dotted with a few cows and goats.
To while away the time, the young soldier from Omaha, Neb., talks of his brother, who is fighting the Taliban in the mountains outside Kandahar city in southern Afghanistan. "He spends 20 days at a time camped out in the mountains, and the Taliban come engage them in serious firefights," said Gebhart. "At least it sounds exciting."
That excitement comes with a price, the officers here point out.Militants in Afghanistan killed nine American soldiers Sunday, the worst attack on U.S. forces in the country in three years. More U.S. and NATO troops have been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq over each of the last two months.
The soldiers at Maverick have faced tragedy during their tour, losing one comrade to a sniper in April and another to a roadside bomb in June. But those deaths have only heightened the frustration of younger soldiers who joined the Army with the classic notion of fighting an enemy.
"These kids who joined the Army since the Iraq war started in 2003 are more fearless than when I joined during the Cold War," said 1st Sgt. John Greis, the senior enlisted soldier at Maverick. "They knew they were going to war."
But with violence down in Iraq, they have little opportunity to prove themselves as warriors to fellow soldiers, some of whom are only a few years older but have already battled al-Qaida in places like Fallujah and Mosul on previous Iraq tours. Saying they want to go where the combat is -- in Afghanistan -- is one way for young soldiers to prove their toughness, colleagues say.
Some may get their wish. There is broad consensus in Washington that some U.S. forces can now leave Iraq and that more are needed in Afghanistan. Both of the main presidential candidates -- Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain -- called this week for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters operating along the border with Pakistan.
After recently returning from Afghanistan, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more troops are needed for the Afghan conflict. On Wednesday, he said he expected to be able to recommend American troop reductions in Iraq later this year if security continues to improve.
Not all soldiers in Iraq are pining for service in Afghanistan. Greis, a 21-year veteran, isn't eager to seek out battle. "There is nothing cool about seeing your buddy on the ground during his last dying seconds of life," he said. He rolled up his sleeve and pointed to a Latin phrase tattooed on his right shoulder: "Dulce Bellum Inexpertis" -- "War is sweet for the inexperienced." Oh, did I forget to mention that this was an AP article?
#1
Funny how they are finally getting it that the surge worked.
And that last line, War is sweet for the inexperienced. is very true, but wth a twist the AP reporter woudl never get.
After being in one, you dont want to see a war again, yet when it happens you want to get into the mix because you get the feeling in your bones that your country, and your buddies, need you. Especially if the cause is just and vital, as this is. Even if you are too old to do it anymore.
#3
sweet or bitter, you can spend hours on moral and emotional discourses on war.
The bottom line, though, is that Iraq is quiet and Afghan is where the combat is. Whether youre a youth thinking war is sweet who WANTS to go to Afghan, or a grizzled sergeant whos WANTS to stay in Iraq, the takeaway for the homefront is the same, and thats huge.
#4
It is amazing how much mustard is still in the troops after years of low-level action in inhospitable climes.
A great, untold tale is of the crash of military morale after the withdrawl from Vietnam. A decade of blood, sweat and tears that resulted in cleaning the clock of their enemy, not just to be thrown away in an act of cruel treachery, but millions of innocent lives thrown to the wolves to be destroyed.
And even when completely cut off from supplies and support, the ARVN fought on for two years against an enemy now given unlimited support by their Russian backers, before finally being defeated. The 300 Spartans had nothing on the ARVN.
And the US military has never forgotten or forgiven that betrayal by the Democrats.
But now that our ally Iraq can stand on its own, even if betrayed, their sights turn to Afghanistan, which while a more difficult strategic objective to pacify and uplift, is entering their realm of support.
If McCain is elected, and hopefully without too many Democrats in congress, not only will the villains in Afghanistan and Pakistan be smitten, but the US military will do everything in its power to create an Afghan army so strong that their nation shall keep its sovereignty against their foreign and domestic enemies.
And if that succeeds as well, it will be like gall and wormwood to the Democrats, who will have failed again to increase the cruel tyranny in the world.
#8
Well said, 'moose. If we ever have a military coup in this country, there are going to be LOTS of Dems looking at a foot-in-the-ass-across-the-border expulsion from the U.S. That prospect doesn't bother me; I'm sure they'll like Mex better than the USA they've spent their lives ruining.
#9
After being in one, you dont want to see a war again, yet when it happens you want to get into the mix because you get the feeling in your bones that your country, and your buddies, need you. Especially if the cause is just and vital, as this is. Even if you are too old to do it anymore.
Amen, OS. Truer words were never spoken. Once a warrior, always a warrior.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/17/2008 17:58
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As Canadian military officials claimed a major blow against the Taliban on Wednesday, insurgents launched two dramatic attacks in Kandahar province that had Canadian troops scrambling to respond.
No Canadians were hurt in the assaults which killed three Afghan Police officers and an undetermined number of civilians. But the Canadians rushed their Quick Reaction Force (QRF) of infantry and combat engineers to rebuild the district's main highway 40 kilometres west of Kandahar City that had been cut in half by one of the attacks involving a powerful roadside bomb.
In the other assault a few kilometres further down the highway, insurgents fired rocket propelled grenades at a convoy of Afghan civilian fuel tankers, setting five on fire and, according to local officials, killing at least one Afghan woman who happened to be nearby.
The two attacks took place within four hours of each other and straddled the timing of a victorious news conference held by Canadian military officials and the governor of Kandahar to announced a successful airstrike against the Taliban which they believe killed Mullah Mahmoud, the second-in-command of Taliban forces in Kandahar province. "Let there be no doubt, our troops have the initiative in Kandahar province," said Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson, commander of Canadian soldiers in Kandahar. "Afghan troops and ISAF soldiers are routinely defeating insurgents in our area of operations and insurgents have suffered heavy losses across the region."
As Thompson spoke, the five fuel tankers were already ablaze and insurgents were just minutes from detonating the roadside bomb that could be heard by soldiers at the Canadian forward base in Masum Ghar, three kilometres away.
The force of tanks, armoured personnel carriers and combat engineering vehicles were already preparing to go out in aid of the fuel tankers when they were called to the roadside bombing.
The QRF has had a busy summer. It's being requested so often by Afghans under attack in the violence-prone Zhari and Panjwaii districts that some Canadian soldiers say they sometimes feel as busy as firefighters in a town filled with arsonists. "Yes, it is frustrating to have to redo the same 10 kilometre stretch of road almost daily now but overall we can't stop reacting to what they're doing," said Warrant Officer Patte Forest of Shilo, Man. "It's going to be a very slow process, there's no doubt in my mind. I think everyone understands that. But if you let the frustration of redoing the same things over and over again get to you, we're not going to accomplish anything."
Canadian soldiers insist conditions are improving for Afghans in Kandahar province despite grim comments from American military officials who talk of the "resilience" of the insurgency and talk of conditions getting worse, not better. When asked why the American are so pessimistic, the Canadian commander at Masum Ghar shakes his head. "I don't know," said Maj. Chris Adams of the Lord Strathcona's Horse based in Edmonton.
For Adams, life in the local districts of Panjwaii and Zhari have been steadily improving since Canadian troops fought pitched battles with the Taliban in 2006. "We have a bazaar here in Zhari-Panjwaii, a market that a year ago had two shops open, that was it, two butcher shops," said Adams. "There are now 210 shops with 160 owners and last week they actually formed a chamber of commerce."
Besides being home to the Quick Reaction Force, the Canadian forward base at Masum Ghar is a centre for Canadians who mentor the Afghan Army and police.
Part of the Canadian strategy to is gradually train local Afghan forces to take over more of the security work, allowing the NATO-led coalition to eventually leave. However, American military officials say before that can happen more foreign troops are needed to support Afghan forces and fight insurgents.
The summer fighting "season" has not gone well for U.S. troops who said on Wednesday they were abandoning a remote outpost in eastern Afghanistan where militants killed nine of their comrades earlier in the week.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
And yet the locals continue to request protection by Canadian troops. Clearly they've made an impression.
#2
How are they ever going to be able to take over without their own air force? We depend heavily on ours and use our planes, choppers and drones constantly.
#3
1. They can take over the ground fighting and continue to use coalion air
2. they can rely less on air - theres an argument that we over rely on air, which has caused excessive collateral damage (real, not only enemy propaganda) that has not been cost benefit justified.
#4
"They can take over the ground fighting and continue to use coalion air"
And to the extent that the Afghan government finds it necessary, we will have continuing influence.
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/17/2008 11:01
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#5
LH, if the cost benefit is that they die so I live the numbers are just fine with me. Afterwards we can debate whether the human shields had to die as well. But I want your butt on the line (preferably in the lead squad) before any guidance is heard from you on tactics so I know you are thinking of the welfare of the troops.
Civilians trying to control squad and company size maneuvers from 8,000 miles away are a deadly way to run things.
#6
when I said cost benefit, I meant mainly from our POV. If you use air instead of ground, your forces are safer, you have more collateral damage, and that collateral damage hurts you in fighting for hearts and minds.
Obviously there are going to be some occasions its worth it, and some where it isnt. Are we leaning to far towards air now? I dont know. Im not there, my ass isnt on the line, and more important I dont have access to the military and political info that US AND Canadian and British senior officers do. So dont ask me to decide on my own.
I am only saying that it IS an option, to go with less air, and some in afghanistan, and in Canada, advocate that. If and when this becomes an all Afghan show, it will be the Afghan NAtional Army whose asses are on the line, and they will have the right to try it with less air if they see fit.
Repeat, I am NOT some leftie screaming about the evilness of our killing the human shields. Im simply trying to respond to someone who is sceptical that the ANA could even try to win without an air force.
#7
They were the heroes of Dieppe. I salute them all.
At Dieppe on 19th August 1942, Honorary Captain Foote, Canadian Chaplain Services, was Regimental Chaplain with the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry.
'Upon landing on the beach under heavy fire he attached himself to the Regimental Aid Post which had been set up in a slight depression on the beach, but which was only sufficient to give cover to men lying down. During the subsequent period of approximately eight hours, while the action continued, this officer not only assisted the Regimental Medical Officer in ministering to the wounded in the Regimental Aid Post, but time and again left this shelter to inject morphine, give first-aid and carry wounded personnel from the open beach to the Regimental Aid Post. On these occasions, with utter disregard for his personal safety, Honorary Captain Foote exposed himself to an inferno of fire and saved many lives by his gallant efforts. During the action, as the tide went out, the Regimental Aid Post was moved to the shelter of a stranded landing craft. Honorary Captain Foote continued tirelessly and courageously to carry wounded men from the exposed beach to the cover of the landing craft. He also removed wounded from inside the landing craft when ammunition had been set on fire by enemy shells. When landing craft appeared he carried wounded from the Regimental Aid Post to the landing craft through heavy fire. On several occasions this officer had the opportunity to embark but returned to the beach as his chief concern was the care and evacuation of the wounded. He refused a final opportunity to leave the shore, choosing to suffer the fate of the men he had ministered to for over three years.
Honorary Captain Foote personally saved many lives by his efforts and his example inspired all around him. Those who observed him state that the calmness of this heroic officer as he walked about, collecting the wounded on the fire-swept beach will never be forgotten.'
The London Gazette, 14th February 1946.
President Bush has the legal power to order the indefinite military detentions of civilians captured in the United States, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., ruled on Tuesday in a fractured 5-4 decision. But a second, overlapping 5-4 majority of the court, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar now in military custody in Charleston, S.C., must be given an additional opportunity to challenge his detention in federal court there.
An earlier court proceeding, in which the government had presented only a sworn statement from a defense intelligence official, was inadequate, the second majority ruled.
The decision was a victory for the Bush administration, which had maintained that a 2001 congressional authorization to use military force after the Sept. 11 attacks granted the president the power to detain people living in the United States. The court effectively reversed a divided three-judge panel of its own members, which ruled last year that the government lacked the power to detain civilians legally in the United States as enemy combatants.
The first 5-4 decision mentioned, which I'm guessing the writer disagrees with, is "fractured." However, the second 5-4 decision, which I'm guessing the writer agrees with, is a "majority of the court."
A French diplomat visited the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Wednesday but said France was sticking to international terms for any dialogue with the Islamist group.
Alain Remy, the French consul-general in Jerusalem, said in Gaza that France will not talk to Hamas unless it recognises Israel, renounces violence and accepts existing Israeli-Palestinian interim peace accords.
"This is a very simple position and we will stick to it," Remy said, echoing the policy of the Quartet of Middle East mediators -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.
Remy was one of the most senior European representatives to visit the Gaza Strip since Hamas Islamists seized the territory a year ago. Remy attended a reception at the French Cultural Center in Gaza as part of Bastille Day celebrations.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said despite Remy's comments "there were official contacts between Hamas and France". He said Remy's remarks were "for media consumption" only.
Hamas opposes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's peace talks with Israel. Remy said an international force for the Gaza Strip remained an option in a peace settlement but stopped short of saying France would send soldiers into the territory.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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The Awami League (AL) has said it would not hold talks with anyone including diplomats if the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami are present. The AL yesterday informed the US Embassy in Dhaka about its stance and asked them not to invite the party to any discussion if Jamaat leaders are present. The AL asked the embassy to invite them separately to avoid meeting Jamaat.
The request came following strong criticism from in and outside the party following talks on different crucial issues with US envoy in Dhaka James Moriarty in the presence of Jamaat leader Mohammad Qamaruzzaman.
Earlier, AL leaders informed the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) representatives in Dhaka about their stance.
Insiders say AL Publicity Secretary Asaduzzaman Noor, who along with acting general secretary Syed Ashraful Islam attended the meet, called Jon Danilowicz, political councillor to the US embassy, and conveyed the decision, which is also a crucial stance of the AL-led 14-party combine. "I've phoned the US embassy and made the request not to invite us in future if Jamaat is also invited," Noor told The Daily Star.
On Tuesday's talks at the US envoy's residence, he said they did not know that Jamaat leaders would be there. He added, "As we've decided to boycott Jamaat, we'll never sit at any talks or discussion with any diplomats in presence of Jamaat leaders."
"We don't mind attending ceremonial programmes like that of the US Independence Day," he said adding, NDI and IRI now don't invite them to the event where Jamaat leaders are invited.
In response to Noor, Danilowicz said they would definitely keep it in mind in future.
The AL has earlier decided to boycott every programme attended by Jamaat leaders accusing them of resorting to war crimes during the Liberation War. However, several AL leaders violated this decision by joining programmes arranged by diplomats in recent past.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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Bush administration initiatives to defend the nation against a smuggled nuclear bomb or a biological outbreak or attack remain poorly coordinated, costing billions of tax dollars while basic goals and policies remain incomplete, according to new reports by congressional investigators
#1
See the adjacent article about the leadership of the House Homeland Security Committee for a possible explanation for poor policy guidance from our Congress.
In the UK, author and historian Tom Holland, who wrote about the rise of Cyrus in his book Persian Fire, joined the condemnation of the cylinder as a model text enshrining human rights.
"It's nonsense, absolute nonsense," he said. "The ancient Persians were not some early form of Swedish Social Democrats."
He added that conquering a huge empire in the ancient world did not come without a list of atrocities, and "he staged several salutatory atrocities when he invaded."
He added that the UN's adoption of the cylinder stemmed in part from a desire to claim some eastern roots "when it is so Western in its philosophical underpinnings".
But the UN, which has promoted the relic as an "ancient declaration of human rights" since 1971, when then Secretary General Sithu U Thant was given a replica by the sister of the Shah of Iran, stood by its importance yesterday.
#1
that reputation has been challenged by German historians who claim that the UN is unjustly celebrating the rule of a man every bit as despotic as any other land-grabbing leader.
Of course, none of the other land grabbing leaders get mentioned by name in the Bible 23 times. Cyrus is the only gentile to be designated as a messiah, a divinely-appointed king (Isaiah 45).
Alexander the great was so moved by the inscription on the tomb of Cyrus that he ordered a Greek translation to be carved alongside it.
O man, whoever you are and wherever you come from, for I know you will come, I am Cyrus who won the Persians their empire. Do not therefore grudge me this little earth that covers my body
Posted by: john frum ||
07/17/2008 7:54
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#2
even if it was Persian propaganda, the fact that they thought it desirable to CLAIM they were tolerant marks them off from other ME conquerors, like the Assyrians. And their record of local cultural autonomy isnt bad, at least if the Bible is to be believed. Thats not the same as the Athenian respect for the free individual, but its not a bad legacy.
Protests against assault of a freedom fighter by Jamaat-Shibir activists continued with freedom fighters joined by people and different political and socio-cultural staging demonstrations in Kushtia, Rajshahi, Magura, Dinajpur and Rangpur yesterday.
They demanded judicial inquiry into Friday's incident in the capital in which freedom fighter Sheikh Mohammad Ali was kicked, shoved and whisked away at a function of a Jamaat backed so-called freedom fighter's organisation.
The protesters also demanded trial of war criminals and called upon pro-liberation forces to unite to resist them.
Our Kushtia Correspondent reports: Different organisations in Kushtia yesterday protested the heinous attack on freedom fighter Sheikh Mohammad Ali Aman by Jamaat-Shibir and demanded punishment of the culprits.
The have also demanded ban of politics by Jamaat.
The organisations included Kushtia unit of Bangladesh Muktijoddah Oikya Parishad Central Command Council Kushtia, district Awani League, Kumarkhali unit of Muktijoddah Sangsad. They held separate programmes.
Muktijoddah Oikya Parishad held a rally and formed a human chain in Kushtia town. The rally was addressed by, among others, former Zonal Council Chairman in Southwestern Division during 1971 and former lawmaker mp Abdur Rouf Choudhury, Nasim Ahmed and Sahabub Ali.
They criticised the caretaker government for not taking any action against the culprits involved in Friday's incident, alleging that it is 'soft on Jamaat'. They demanded ban on Jamaat backed so-called freedom fighters forum.
Kumarkhali unit of Muktijoddah Sangsad at a press conference at its office criticised the caretaker government for its silence on the issue despite an outcry across the country and urged all pro-liberation forces to intensify the demand for trial of war criminals.
Kushtia district AL in a statement claimed that Jamaat has gathered a large number of fake freedom fighters under its banner with an evil motive to tarnish the image of genuine freedom fighting. These people managed fake certificate of freedom fighters during the BNP-Jamaat government.
OUR Dinajpur CORRESPONDENT reports: Dinajpur units of Sammillito Sangskritik Jote, Muktijodha Sangsad and some other organisations held a joint rally and formed a human chain in Dinajpur town yesterday demanding punishment of Jamaat-Shibir activists who assaulted a freedom fighter.
They said Jamaat formed the so-called Jatiya Muktijoddha Parishad to harass genuine freedom fighters and demanded a ban on the organisation.
They also demanded trial of war criminals.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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Seven people were killed and five others injured on Wednesday in fresh clashes between the Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) and the Ansarul Islam (AI) militant groups in the remote Tirah Valley.
The most recent casualties occurred when LI militants advanced on the hideouts of the AI. Sources said that both groups have occupied positions in the Tirah Valley Mountains and are firing upon each other with heavy ordnance.
They said that more than 100 people have been killed in the clashes that have been continuing for a month and several more injured. The political administration has thus far been unsuccessful in preventing the clashes, the sources added.
This article starring:
Tirah Valley
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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California voters will have the chance to vote in November on whether to end gay marriage after the state's top court declined on Wednesday to remove an initiative on the issue from the ballot.
California, the U.S.'s most populous state, started marrying same-sex couples a month ago after the California Supreme Court ruled that limiting marriage to a man and a woman violated the state's constitution.
Opponents of gay marriage then placed an initiative to amend the constitution on the November ballot. "Proposition 8" declares that marriage will be limited to one man with one woman.
In the latest phase of a bitter legal battle, supporters of homosexual marriage asked the California Supreme Court to remove the issue from the ballot. The court unanimously denied the petition without detailed comment.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
They say
Teh Gay
Puts California in play
In 2008
#2
Gays had the support of most with the just Civil Unions. Pushing marriage down the public's throat via judicial fiat was too much. This will pass, and some of the black-robed f*ckers will not get re-elected. Watch the wailing and gnashing of teeth in November.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2008 8:03
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#3
The problem is that the judges previously usurped the power of the people and thier legislators by arrogating to themselves the making of a law, essentially fabricating one that suited their liberal politics, not the constitution and laws of the state.
So the people are exerting their rights by makign a definite statement to the courts to stay the hell out of the way on this, by going over their heads in the only way possible: amending their constitution.
Had the judge left things alone, the civil unions would have been in place and this constitutional issue would not have had the success it appears to be having.
The funny thing is, in terms of legalities contract law, no laws are needed to achive the effects of "marraige" for any couple that wish to do so - excpeting possibly on taxes. Simply draw up the contract language in the civil law and both sign it.
The issue is that marriage has special connotations, and the homosexual activists wanted to force others to accept them on that basis as well, which is NOT possible, and is arguably an abuse of the law.
The ultimate solution will be to remove marriage from the laws completely, and make it a simple legal tax status issue (i.e. you get a tax break if your relationship is beneficial to society), with the rest covered by civil laws (health care eligibility, etc).
That leaves marriage to the Churches, which is where it belongs as an institution and moral issue. Seperation of Church and State should run both ways if people want to get picky about it.
But the homosexual activists and tier political cronies tried to bypas the lawmakers and the people they represent, and have created this backlash by their bypassing democracy. And thus they stand to lose everything they were trying for because they were anti-demoicratic and pro-judicial activist, thumbing their nose at representative government and constitutional law, to force their viewpoint on the majority, willing or unwilling. People have had enough of that crap.
#4
No problem, OS. The judges will just declare the constitutional amendment unconstitutional, under some legal principle they will pull out of their ass.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/17/2008 11:02
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#5
The ultimate solution will be to remove marriage from the laws completely, and make it a simple legal tax status issue (i.e. you get a tax break if your relationship is beneficial to society), with the rest covered by civil laws (health care eligibility, etc).
Yeah. Focus the tax breaks on children [future tax revenue investments].
The radical gays really passed up a big opportunity. If you follow the InstaProf's wife's blog, you'd know how much 'traditional' marriage is in trouble because of legal inequities. She's been covering the evolution of the marriage boycott development for a while. The missed opportunity is that the gay community could have developed a model civil contract that met their need for ratification but was good enough for straight community to adopt as an alternative to the existing institution as well.
As I've posted, in the end, it wasn't about fair, or equal, or justice, it was about POWER.
Financial chief of Pakistan based militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad and a soldier were killed in 22 hour long gunfight in Kashmir.
A police officer told NewsBlaze that police on Tuesday afternoon received specific information that militants were hiding in a house in Warpora, Sopore in North Kashmir. He said, "Accordingly, police, para-military forces and army personnel laid siege around the area and zeroed-in on a residential house where the militants were hiding. The militants present inside were asked to surrender. They, however, refused the offer and fired from sophisticated weapons towards the soldiers". He said, "The fire was returned by the troops and in the ensuing gunfight, which lasted for more than 22 hours, two militants including financial chief of Jaish-e-Mohammad and a soldier were killed".
At least 13 soldiers including a Lieutenant Colonel of Indian army were injured in the gunfight and were hospitalized. The condition of three of the injured soldiers is said to be "life threatening"
The financial chief was identified as Asgar Ali alias Ali Raza of Pakistan. Another slain militant was identified as Hilal Ahmad Sofi alias Tariq alias Khalid of Kashmir. Hilal is said to be a top commander of Hizbul Mujahideen.
This article starring:
Kashmir
Warpora, Sopore in North Kashmir
ASGAR ALI ALIAS ALI RAZA
Jaish-e-Mohammad
HILAL AHMED SOFI
Hizbul Mujahideen
HILAL AHMED SOFI
Jaish-e-Mohammad
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Jaish's Financial Chief, and a soldier were Killed in a 22 hour long gunfight in Kashmir.
Name: Asgar Ali,
aka... 'Ali *Dead as a Doornail* Raza'
I wonder if he had any loose change in his pockets?
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/17/2008 21:44
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The Sindh government has banned two controversial books titled 'The Prophesied End Time' and '2008 God's Final Witness', both written by Ronald Weinland.
An official announcement said that both books contain material that may offend the sentiments of Muslims, Jews and Christians and is likely to create resentment among different religious groups. It said that this resentment could lead to a law and order problem in the country.
The government has ordered confiscation of all copies of the two books wherever they are found in the open market and has also directed authorities concerned to take necessary action against the writer, publisher, distributors, sellers and others concerned.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Heck, why not cut to the chase and ban every book except the Koran? After all, it has all needed human knowledge, science, morals, everything. There is no need for any other book.
/sarcasm
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/17/2008 0:34
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#2
If you had memorized it like you are supposed to, you wouldn't even need that.
Thomas Hickman drove through New Mexico, police say, until his Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo ran out of gas. Then the 55-year-old North Richland Hills man walked into a field, tied helium balloons to a gun, covered his mouth with duct tape, and shot himself in the back of the head, according to New Mexico State Police.
That determination is a far leap from what authorities first suspected when Mr. Hickman's body was discovered March 15 near Santa Rosa, N.M., about 100 miles east of Albuquerque. Authorities initially thought the Red Lobster executive had been kidnapped and slain.
But investigators came to the conclusion that Mr. Hickman committed suicide. The first clue was the bundle of white helium balloons, with the gun still attached, found snagged on bushes and cactus near Mr. Hickman's body.
The grip of the Smith & Wesson Airweight had been removed and the trigger guard ground down, said Lt. Rick Anglada of New Mexico State Police. "He took as much weight off as he could to make it light as possible," Lt. Anglada said. The plan apparently was to have the gun float far away after being fired, but that didn't happen.
The gun and balloons led police from that field back to Mr. Hickman's house in North Richland Hills. "This was apparently an elaborate attempt to make it look like he was murdered," Lt. Anglada said. "Investigators were able to show that he purchased the balloons and purchased the gun. We also found shavings from the gun in his garage."
Partway through the investigation, one of the investigators recalled seeing a television show in which balloons were used in a suicide. The investigator obtained a copy of an October 2003 episode of the television drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and noticed that there were several similarities between that show and Mr. Hickman's case. But Lt. Anglada said New Mexico authorities are not sure if Mr. Hickman ever saw the program.
Detectives would not speculate about the motive for his suicide, the lieutenant said.
However, the investigation showed that at the time of his death, Mr. Hickman's life was in turmoil. Lisa Hickman, his wife of 29 years, was ill, and he had been caring for her for some time. Mr. Hickman had also recently lost some money in the stock market, Lt. Anglada said.
Mrs. Hickman could not be reached for comment Tuesday. But in March, she described her husband as a generous Christian man who "did not preach the word of God, but he walked the walk. He lived it."
The couple moved to Texas from Florida in 2003 and had one son.
Mr. Hickman worked for Red Lobster for 32 years and oversaw restaurants in the chain from North Richland Hills to West Texas. He started as a manager trainee, company officials said. In 1977, Mr. Hickman was promoted to general manager and headed operations at restaurants in Wisconsin, Illinois, North Carolina and Florida. He became director of operations in 2003 when he took over restaurants in parts of Texas. As the West Texas director of operations for Red Lobster, Mr. Hickman regularly traveled through the region where he died. He was last seen at a meeting in Abilene on March 13. The next day, he missed a meeting in Lubbock. On March 15, two motorists discovered his body in the field.
#1
Perhaps there is a difference in life insurence payouts between sucide and any other death. He couldn't cope with stress but wanted his wife to be finacially well provided for. That would make the bowl of nuts picture the only nuts in this case. Dang! I must be old, but early in the morning that nut bowl sure looks like eye candy to me.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/17/2008 8:33
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#2
I feel for the guy. When you 45 or 50 you are forced to accept that you are the man you are. NASA launches missions and the Rolling Stones go on tour and nobody calls you to join. If you aren't happy with where your life ended up, another 10 - 20 years dragging yourself to retirement looks bleak. I'm surprised that it doesn't happen more often.
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
07/17/2008 13:26
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#3
The quote you're looking for is, "There comes a time when you look into the mirror, and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. Then you accept it, or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking into mirrors."
Posted by: bruce ||
07/17/2008 17:42
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#4
It helps immensely if you actually do the time in your youth to figure out who you are, what's it all about, and what are you going to do with your life rather than partying and waiting to 40+ and discovering its not what you were looking for or expecting out of life. A lot of 'kids' are coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan far wiser about their lives than most people 20+ years older who've avoided facing their mortality.
Kidnappers of an Afghan citizen have demanded the release of 15 Taliban prisoners from a jail in the Kunar province of Afghanistan.
Unidentified armed men, riding in two cars, had whisked away Zahidullah Malyar on Tuesday. Hailing from Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar, 28-year-old Malyar has been living with his family in the Hazarkhwani area of Peshawar for the past 24 years, his family members told Daily Times.
His father Gul Agha is an employee with a non-governmental organisation (NGO). According to the family members of the kidnapped man, they received a telephone call on Wednesday morning asking for the release of 15 Taliban prisoners.
Release for release: Talking in Pashto, the caller asked the family of the kidnapped man to convey their demand to the Afghan government. He told Malyar's family that the Afghan government had 15 militants in custody, adding that Malyar would not be freed until those militants had been freed.
"They did not ask us for ransom. Also they did not give us any deadline or warning to kill the victim," said Shukrullah, a cousin of the kidnapped man. Police officials said that they were not aware of the latest demands. However, they said investigations were underway.
The First Information Report (FIR) against the unidentified kidnappers was registered with Yaka Toot police on the complaint of Rehmat Gul, son of Gul Agha, alias Mirza Khan.
The kidnapping and demand of prisoners' release has spread a wave of fear among people of Hazarkhwani, especially Afghans who have been living there for years. They told Daily Times that the regular kidnappings of people by armed men was alarming and pointed to the failure of the law-enforcement agencies and the government to ensure safety of life and property of the peaceful citizens.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Who do they think they're dealing with? The Israelis?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/17/2008 5:50
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The killing of 11 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers in American airstrikes last month might have been prevented if the precise location of a border checkpoint had been in an American database used to prevent accidental attacks on friendly forces, the New York Times has quoted American and Pakistani officials as saying. Had the grid co-ordinates of the post on the border with Afghanistan been in the database, red flags would have immediately gone up when allied troops called in airstrikes during a border clash with insurgents, American officials briefed on an investigation into the strikes told the newspaper on Tuesday. Separately, APP quoted the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) spokesman on Wednesday as terming the report factually incorrect. The spokesman said, "The grid co-ordinates of all the posts on the Pakistani side of the border had been shared with the coalition forces at least thrice since 2003."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
This is all assuming it was a "mistake" or "accident" which it may have been or may not have been. But what is rich is that the ineffectual, totally corrupt Pakistani Army is so precise that its maps are inviolate and always up to date.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/17/2008 16:54
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#2
if they tell us where the Pak troops are located, all others become fair game, and teh ISI can't abide that. Nice jab at the Paks because they either tell us where their troops are and STFU when we hit cross-border attackers, or admit they own/run the Taliban, then we can hit any and everybody
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/17/2008 19:43
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#3
Woah, bummer dudes. We prolly forget to put new batteries in the database. Our bad. We thought y'all were a bunch of flea-ridden Talibunnies. Oops!
Former Pakistan ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin was taken to South Waziristan after a detour of over 100 kilometres into Afghan territory, sources said on Wednesday.
"The ambassador reached South Waziristan through Afghanistan as clashes in the Orakzai tribal region changed the travel plans of his abductors," sources close to Azizuddin's family told Daily Times.
The former envoy was kidnapped from the Khyber Agency on February 11 and was released over three months later on May 17 after the government paid out a "huge ransom", the sources claimed. However, the federal government has said that it rescued the ambassador during a "commando operation" and paid no money.
"He (the ambassador) was treated well, but the initial hours of his abduction were terrible because his abductors took him into Afghanistan to escape the clashes in Orakzai," the sources added. "At the time, Azizuddin was not aware that he was being driven through Afghanistan but was informed of it later."
While the former ambassador spoke briefly to the media at his Islamabad residence hours after his release, he has yet to give a detailed interview about what really happened to him.
Baitullah's role: Baitullah Mehsud, whose base lies in South Waziristan, has denied that he had any direct involvement in Azizuddin's kidnapping but admits "another group" was involved. However, Zulfiqar Mehsud, deputy to Baitullah, told Daily Times on May 23 that his group had "kidnapped the ambassador".
"We did not know whom we had kidnapped in the initial hours. However, when we heard through the media that our prisoner was Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, we were overjoyed," Zulfiqar said.
According to the sources, Baitullah would meet Azizuddin "once a week" and was always "very apologetic". "Baitullah Mehsud told Azizuddin that he was kidnapped without his (Baitullah's) permission and that people like Azizuddin should not be kidnapped," they said.
The sources say that Azizuddin was treated very well during his captivity. "He (the diplomat) was allowed to walk and used to talk to his family on the phone quite frequently," they added. They also said that Azizuddin was still confused over who had really kidnapped him: "He is not sure how true it is that his 'own people' (countrymen) were behind his kidnapping."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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In Gaza, meanwhile, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday hailed Kuntar as "a great hero" and said Israel's decision to release him and four Hezbollah fighters had undermined Israel's policy of not freeing "prisoners with blood on their hands."
Haniyeh also branded the exchange of prisoners as "a victory" for Hezbollah and armed resistance against Israel. "The Israelis should pay the price for the release of Gilad Shalit," Haniya said in a statement in central Gaza, referring to the Israel Defense Forces soldier kidnapped by Gaza militants in June, 2006 cross-border raid. "It is hard to see thousands of prisoners still held in Israeli jails," He added.
People celebrated in the streets of the Hamas-controlled coastal territory, and handed out sweets in support of Hezbollah. "Today is a great victory for the resistance movements and to Hezbollah, said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. "It shows that the only successful way to free the prisoners is by kidnapping soldiers."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday hailed Kuntar as "a great hero"
Ismail, you really need to raise your standards for heroes as your current standards are lower than whale $hit.
Senior Minister and provincial president of Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians (PPPP) Rahim Dad Khan asked militants on Wednesday to lay down weapons and surrender as problems could not be solved through use of guns. "Come to the negotiating table as problems could be solved only through dialogues," said the senior minister while talking to the media at hunger-strike camp staged by the All Contract Lecturers Association (ACLA) NWFP in front of the Peshawar Press Club to press the government for acceptance of their demands.
Regarding the Hangu operation, the PPPP senior minister, who holds the portfolio of planning and development in the provincial cabinet, said there was no military operation in Hangu, adding it was a reaction to what the militants did there.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
I bet that went over big - with western reporters, that is.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/17/2008 10:09
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What is small enough to be hauled on a truck, has the power to provide electricity to 45,000 homes, can help the U.S. cut its dependence on foreign oil and has no emissions? Hint: The Sierra Club won't like it.
Next week, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will rule on an application from NuScale Power, an Oregon-based startup that is seeking federal clearance to move ahead with its project to build mini or portable nuclear reactors. Popular Mechanics quotes NuScale as saying that if its design is approved, it will begin tests with the hope of getting final approval a few years from now. Should the process go smoothly, the mini reactors could go online by 2015.
Mini nuclear power plants, from end to end, would be no more than 65 feet long and have no visible cooling towers to ruin anyone's "viewshed." A conventional nuclear plant can eat up thousands of acres and cannot "disappear" into a populated area.
Because of their size, the mini plants can be built at a central factory and shipped via rail or large truck anywhere in the country, keeping construction costs down.
An Energy Department official told New Scientist magazine four years ago that such reactors wouldn't require maintenance or need to be refueled. After their useful life of about 30 years they could be returned to the factory.
And oh yes: They're virtually terrorist-proof.
While neighborhood-friendly mini nuclear plants could displace a large number of traditional coal- and gas-fired power plants, they would be especially useful in remote areas where fossil fuels are used to run generators. They also would make it unnecessary to burn large amounts of gasoline and diesel to transport other fossil fuels to these isolated outposts.
The U.S. has not seen a nuclear plant of any size come online since the Watts Bar facility in Tennessee went into production in 1996. While France gets more than 75% of its electricity from nuclear power, the U.S. has been stuck at the 20% level for years. But the high price of crude seems to have refocused minds. NRC documents show the commission already this year has received 13 applications to build 19 nuclear power units.
It would be helpful if many of those who are now thinking differently are part of the NRC license-approval bureaucracy.
#3
Sweet! Next stop: TokaMate - your personal thermofusion reactor.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
07/17/2008 8:34
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The key is the passive fail-safes that are designed into the unit (that is, if nothing is done the unit will simply slowly shut down), as compared to the active ones (i.e. someone has to do something to prevent a runaway, and generally they need electricity to do it) in older designs.
#5
It's all well and good but transmission issues will still abound. It's kind of like the folks (including some of our brilliant legislaters) who think that wind turbines store the energy they produce for when the winds not blowing.
Although given the current political wind here in Kansas on coal fired power, this might have some credibility. Although we are still talking nuclear and that has it's own ramifications, we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out in the MSM..............
#8
The greenies will have many opportunities to obstruct.
If every NuScale miniplant will have to file a transportation plan and every transportation plan will have to be approved by every jurisdiction the miniplant moves through, it will just about kill this whole idea.
#9
This appears to address one of the issues that I seldom hear much about. There are many advantages to having a distributed power base. Don't need as many big power lines to shift power from a few central locales where it is produced to the many, many places it is needed. A distributed power generation system cuts transmission losses, is more secure against attack or critical component failure. One question does come to mind. What do you do for dynamic load adjustment. Nuclear is great for producing lots of power, but is not good at adjusting on the fly to rapid changes in demand. House-sized batteries or better yet, several million Toyota electric cars hooked to the power grid at night can go a long way toward smoothing things out on the old grid.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/17/2008 10:03
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#10
I think this is proven tech. Both the Japanese and the South Africans have had similar units going on 20 years, and have ironed out a lot of bugs.
The idea is to have a very low maintenance system that is just like a big box with a few gauges, an on-off switch, and circuit protected high current plugs. And when its lease runs out, the company picks it up and gives you a new one.
#12
Actually "malibu", transmission issues are exactly what this avoids.
By being small safe and local, its relatively simple to hook to the grid, with no long distance transmission of poeer needed.
That's actually one of the major selling points - put power generation closer to where it is consumed, and replace transmission lines from distant power plants.
And as other have stated, and array of these might be a viable alternative to a medium scale coal or nuke plant for small cities.
#13
Richard - use the extra capacity to create hydrogen. Yes you lose a lot in the conversion but you don't entirely waste the capacity and that hydrogen can be used in fuel cells.
I still can't imagine the greenies letting this get past. For most of the 'green' organizations these days its more about power, and the ability to run people's lives, than the environment.
#15
Don't underestimate the knee-jerk automatic resistence to nuke power. I forwared an article on this approach to my local newspaper yesterday; I expect to have them cancel my subscription by the end of the week.
I do still have some concerns - the usual two and one of them seems to have been addressed; (1)the safety of the system when it's run by local yahoos and (2) what is the ultimate disposal plan for the waste materials
Posted by: Big Unusoth9894 ||
07/17/2008 14:23
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#16
I'm sure the controls will include some means to synchronize the volatge phase. Even the local yokels might be able to handle it.....
However, things also depend upon the voltage/amperage coming out of the plant and what you are feeding that power into whether it be a substation or what. Lock in the power out of sync and motors start turning backwards and things go poof!
There are already vast monies spent on the infrastructure including substation, transformers, and lines. Investor owned utilities might jump at the chance to stick the bill to you whereas co-operatives might be able to use them to offset higher costs of coal/natural gas generation.
#17
Richard of Oregon is right. First places to get them would be places off the grid, currently using diesel generators. Then the camel's nose is under the tent.
The Soviets had quite a lot of these, and even with Soviet's safety standards and quality control (lack thereof), I don't recall any problem.
#18
One other thing, for off the grid communities and communities that want to go off the grid, you can and should make electricity unmetered. That would be a powerful incentive in colder places.
A peace jirga from Hangu failed to convince the provincial government to end the ongoing military operation against suspected militants in the district, sources said on Wednesday. The jirga, led by MNA Haider Ali Shah, met Awami National Party (ANP) NWFP President Afrasiab Khattak, but failed to get the provincial government's approval to end the military operation.
This article starring:
Hangu
Afrasiab Khattak,
MNA Haider Ali Shah
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Dorthy, your pearl necklace is too long. Most of it is hidden by the frilly collar on your dress. Take a few pearls off and try again. We want to see those shinny little bubbles of joy.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/17/2008 8:36
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008 13:34
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#5
Where do you get those pics? The 'bloid is one of my daily adds to my archives, very interesting. Plus, where did you get that sense of humor? I want one (as long as it doesn't requier any kind of effort).
#7
She looks depressed. I'm sure I can cheer her up...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/17/2008 15:28
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#8
Where do you get those pics? The 'bloid is one of my daily adds to my archives, very interesting. Plus, where did you get that sense of humor? I want one (as long as it doesn't requier any kind of effort).
Hush, I sense the Mother of all RantBurg Legacees is involved.
The Color Mag Covers from the '20 and '30 are all Fred, gotta be, listen to his accent, it got screwed up when he stumbled on a motherlode of the things somoewhere, Grandfathers house barn? Near the horse?
(VOI) -- A total of 109 persons were killed or wounded in a car bomb explosion that ripped though a residential area in Talafar district, Ninewa, the third blast to hit the province today, Iraqi authorities said.
On Wednesday evening, a total of 15 persons were killed and 94 others were wounded when an explosives-rigged car detonated in al-Taleea neighborhood, downtown Talafar (60 km west of Mosul city), Talafar Mayor Brigadier Najm Abdullah al-Juburi told Aswat al-Iraq- Voices of Iraq- (VOI). The brigadier noted that some of the wounded were in a critical condition, expecting the death toll to rise further.
Earlier today, two suicide car bomb explosions ripped through Ninewa's Mosul city. The first targeted a U.S. patrol vehicle in al-Maared intersection, leaving six civilians wounded; while the second occurred in Doura al-Hamam area, eastern Mosul, leaving two dead and nine others wounded.
Acts of violence have recently become a daily occurrence in the city, despite security successes claimed by Iraqi authorities since the commencement of operations Lion's Roar and Umm al-Rabiain (Mother of the Two Springs) on May 10.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Sounds a lot like pandering to me. First, he tells the rubes how much he's going to give them. Second, he tells them how much he's going to cut taxes. He gets applause on both counts. Neither he nor anyone else gets to have their cake and eat it too, and that sounds exactly like what he just promised them.
In a country of 300 million people we've GOT to have some better choices for POTUS than these three lying jerks. Thinking that one of them will be the next President is depressing as Hell.
#2
Guilt ridden, ear-tickling platitudes and victimization confirmations. A gross example of good breath wasted. If he were to gain ONE vote from his attendance I'd be astonished.
#7
Enduring McPain's pandering and stuttering is causing excess stomach acid. Why do I have flashbacks of '96 and Dead Man Dole ? Any decent dog could have trounced Billy then. Any reasonable Republican ought to be able to whip the Magic Man with the forked tongue. McPain is only the candidate until the first round of voting at the convention, correct ? Maybe they'll get some intelligence and toss his shifty ass, put in a real candidate and roll over Barry like a steam roller over a drunk in the gutter.
I can tell you from personal experiece with 2 different state GOP organizations, that they country clubber's at the top would rather control a loser party than lose control of a winner.
UNtil the GOP cleans house and boots the go-along get-along RINO, it will continue to lose.
#10
I can tell you from personal experiece with 2 different state GOP organizations, that they country clubber's at the top would rather control a loser party than lose control of a winner.
Prime Minister (PM) Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Wednesday strongly condemned Afghan President Hamid Karzai's statement that Pakistan is involved in a series of terrorist attacks inside Afghanistan.
Gilani said this in a statement before the start of a cabinet meeting in Lahore, according to a press release issued by the PM's media cell. "Pakistan has time and again declared on all forums that a stable Afghanistan is in the interest of Pakistan and the entire region. Pakistan has provided all-out support for the establishment of a stable government in Afghanistan," he said.
Hampering: "Afghan leaders should not give statements that could hamper the development process in the region," the press release quoted Gilani as saying.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#2
It tells looooots about the Palestians that this guy is a hero between them. It also tels looooooots about the "friends of the Palestina cause" a la Rachel Corrie that between all the causes in the world to support, eg the Blacks (Niggers in their internal language) of Sudan, they have picked the one of those who have such heroes, have tried to bomb maternities, put bombs on retarded boys and raise thir children in a genocidical hate. It really, realy tells lots.
Democratic and Republican congressional aides say there is turmoil within the the House Homeland Security Committee's majority staff and that oversight work is being eclipsed by a focus on promoting contracting opportunities for small and minority-owned businesses.
Sources who spoke only if they could remain anonymous said they are particularly concerned that the committee's new staff director, I. Lanier Avant, does not have the qualifications to lead the committee and faces a conflict of interest because he continues to serve as chief of staff in the congressional office of House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss.
They expressed concern that Avant must balance his duties on Thompson's personal staff, which includes attention to politics and fundraising, and managing the heavy responsibilities of running the committee, which he began doing last month.
Avant does not have a security clearance. Sources said that raises questions about his ability to make decisions on issues involving classified information.
Speaking candidly with CongressDaily, Avant said he does "the bulk of [Thompson's] political work." But the 30-year-old aide said he knows the line between his jobs.
Wonderful. Just fricking wonderful. The Dems put a 30 yr old neophyte in charge of a key homeland security committee's work.
It is not a violation of House rules for one aide to serve as chief of staff and committee staff director for a lawmaker. The majority staff director of the House Small Business Committee, for example, heads Small Business Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez's personal office.
But sources said the arrangement with Avant has made Thompson's agenda of reaching out and helping small, minority-owned and disadvantaged businesses secure homeland security contracts the overriding focus of the committee staff. Not enough attention has been paid to broader national security matters, the sources said.
Thompson created an electronic newsletter, Business Opportunities at DHS, which includes an e-mail address -- DHSBizOps@mail.house.gov -- that small and disadvantaged businesses can use to tell the committee if they feel they are being treated unfairly by the department. "Their Web site is selling themselves as people who give out contracts at DHS," one source said. "This is all misusing resources as far as I'm concerned."
The Democratic staff has been holding a series of nonpublic morning meetings in the committee's office with top executives from several companies. The staff also has organized public technology fairs and held its first so-called diversity roundtable last month.
I've worked in small/disadvantaged businesses. They have their place, which nearly all the time is NOT at the center of cutting edge technology.
RTWT if your blood pressure's pretty good beforehand.
#1
I think that much of Homeland Security is going to dissolve with the departure of President Bush, in that for all practical purposes it is redundant, ineffectual and annoying. Its very name has always grated, and its job performance, as such, was not good.
What little it has to show in success is due to the integration of preexisting agencies merged with it. Most likely it will become just an administrative headquarters, an extra tier bureaucracy over the other bureaucracies.
Or, as these things are sometimes called, "a dead raccoon under the porch."
Once you establish a another bureaucracy or agency in DC, you play hell getting rid of it. Look at the Dept. of Education. Reagan even ran for President on getting rid of it as one of his first acts. Same with HUD and HHS. They only get stronger. The chairman of the oversight committee and the appropriations committee that Homeland Security comes under will never give up that power. And don't be surprised that I. Lanier Avant gets a security clearance even if his brother is an AQ associate or his girlfriend is Hizbollah.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/17/2008 16:48
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A militant was killed and three others injured in a clash between two rival groups in the Khalodag village of Mohmand Agency over the occupation of a madrassa on Wednesday, locals and hospital sources said. The sources said that the clash started when the Shah Sahib militant group tried to take control of a madrassa in Khalodag village from the Commander Umer Khalid militant group. Mamor, a militant, was killed in the ensuing clash and Mansoor, Fayaz and Ayaz were injured.
This article starring:
Khalodag
Mohmand Agency
COMANDER UMER KHALID
Taliban
SHAH SAHIB
Taliban
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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“There is a movement afoot,” Bower confided. “It hasn’t hit the ground yet, but we want to target down-ticket Democrats who have been complicit in the DNC’s dealings these past few months. You’ll probably be hearing more about that soon. Some of Obama’s original supporters are leaving him. Eight super-delegates left Obama this week. People are realizing Obama will be a dead weight to them and that’s why these eight delegates have switched back over to Hillary’s column. And I’m expecting there’ll be more to follow.”
NoteÂ… this is all unconfirmed. But I have been a believer - ever since HRC was running second in the primaries - that she will either stage a comeback at Convention time, or work under cover to help defeat His Messiahship so she can take a run at the Oval Office in 2012.
One has to rememberÂ… it is Obama who has annointed himself as the nominee. He does not have enough pledged delegates to win, and must depend upon the Supers to put him over the top. Yet the Supers do not vote until Convention time, and may change their mind at any point between now and then.
As I saidÂ… rumors abound in the blogosphere of delegates and the tests of their loyalty to BHO. I suspect, as many FAÂ’ers here like to say, that the popcorn poppers or microwave bags will be in abundance at the end of August. And the fat lady? SheÂ’s still traversing the streets of Denver, and hasnÂ’t even started a warbling warm up on the process for the official DNC nominee.
It’s been pretty quiet on the HRC front since her careful “suspension”. But the pot is simmering now, and it’s not impossible for an October surprise to end up an August surprise for the Jr. Senator from IL.
#1
all conjecture but it all sounds plausible Mooses but so does just about everything political.
more conjecture
Another slant is that all along McCain's election staff hasn't feared Obama because they know the majority of Americans have figured it out, that Obama is nothing but an angry empty suit.
Because McCain believes he can whip Obama easily in the General his StraTeeGery now is to keep major tabs on Hitlery.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/17/2008 6:57
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#2
Difficult to predict. I laughed at Slick and said he'd never be elected. I was wrong not once, but TWICE!
#4
If Hillary makes a serious grab at the convention, Redford may be right. This could be the end of the Democratic party as we know it. The Whigs could not resolve their north-south divison and split never to regroup. Out of the ashes came the Republican party. We got damn lucky with that mess. Lincoln's name would never have made it out of Illionis without a political crises of huge proportions. BO is from Illionis but he aint no Lincoln.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/17/2008 9:28
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#6
work under cover to help defeat His Messiahship so she can take a run at the Oval Office in 2012
This is her best course to the whitehouse.
Running as the "victim" of Obama, and against a much older McCain, she will be a lot more effective than after a floor fight this year.
Think of the hard decisions and hard work McCain faces in the next 4 years - he is going to have to make some unpopular decisions. And the economy is likely going to bump along and get at least one solid recession under the watch of whomever is in office. And with McCain's temper he will probably piss off the DC press worse than anyone since Nixon. THen throw 4 years of stress on him and his age of 77-78 becomes a serious issue.
And on top of that conservatives will not be as driven to work for his reelection after he does the right thing in replacing stevens and Ginsburg with young originalist justices, cementing the court for the next 10-15 years. Much of the GOP will oppose him if he caves in on amnesty for illegals, like it appears he will, and follows through with his idiotic "global warming" regulatory policies.
Another major issue goes away that woudl hurt hillary as well - the terror war will be sinding down, Iraq will be stable and most US troops will be home from there, and Afghanistan should be "becoming stable". And whatever crisis we have with Iran will have already happened.
So 2012, after a McCain presidency, the GOP is weaker, and Hillary holds all the cards.
If she is smart, she will continue to smile while she lets her operatives put the shiv in Obama's back, reveal secrets, and sabotage his campaign, while boosting McCain's (tacitly).
Maybe. But maybe a less harsh Mellow; a mellow Orange would be that McC picks a GOOD VP and then say in March of 2012 announces that he's retiring in favor of said GOOD VP.
Don't ask me who this VP is, maybe Romney but someone good.
(Romney ain't my first choice but I don't see anyone else even close)
#10
There has been a lot of speculation that McCain will only serve one term. With that in mind, try this for a counter-scenario:
McCain-Palin '08
Palin-Jindal '12
Posted by: Mike ||
07/17/2008 13:54
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#11
Mike,
From what I've heard of Palin & Jindal they sound quite good but I don't know enough about either and I'm a little concerned about the lack of experience.
Of course compared to the Obamanation my Dog has more executive experience.
Big difference between Clinton in 92 and 96 - (shhhh) he was white. This is the 800 pound Gorilla in the voting booth. Note how well Obama did in caucuses where you had to raise your hand in public versus ballot voting compared to pre-vote and exit polls. The Bradley effect is more applicable to Obama, of course, than Clinton. His star will be brightest when he goes to Europe but by November I believe he is very wrinkled, tattered empty suit.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/17/2008 17:15
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(PTI) Pakistani security forces today attacked with artillery Taliban positions in the curfew-bound northwestern Hangu district injuring at least 12 people, days after 16 paramilitary personnel were killed by the militants in the troubled region. The army targeted militant positions in Zargari and nearby villages in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) leading to injuries to 12 people while 20 houses were damaged.
A key road linking the district to other parts of NWFP was closed to all traffic, TV channels reported.
An indefinite curfew was imposed in Hangu town due to the threat of Taliban attacks, district police chief Mohammed Idris said. People have begun leaving the region due to fears of fighting between the security forces and the Taliban.
However, elected representatives from Hangu and a tribal jirga or council appealed to the government to stop military operations so that they could hold peace talks with the Taliban. The NWFP government has assured the jirga of support for talks with the militants aimed at ending violence.
Hangu district has witnessed heightened tension since seven militants were arrested during a sweep by security forces last week. The Taliban besieged a police station in Doaba village to demand the release of the arrested militants but withdrew after the army was deployed in the area.
The Taliban took 29 government officials and security personnel hostage before leaving Doaba. On Saturday, the militants gunned down 16 Frontier Constabulary personnel after ambushing their convoy in the Zargari area.
Sporadic incidents of violence have also been reported from various parts of the NWFP.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
So the brave and noble pak army shelled a village, indiscriminately. Is that about it?
Former vice-president of Barisal BM College students union Mashiul Alam Sentu was killed in a 'gunfight' between his accomplices and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab-8) members early yesterday at Kashipur in Barisal.
Sentu, 35, also a vice president of BNP-backed Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) central committee and JCD's Barisal city unit president, was shot dead one day after his arrest.
Lt Commander AKM Mamunur Rashid of Rab-8 in Barisal said Rab-3 personnel arrested Sentu at Katabon area of Dhaka on Tuesday afternoon.
"During interrogation, Sentu confessed where his stock of arms was hidden in Barisal. He was then taken to Barisal and handed over to Rab-8 at Mawa Ghat early yesterday," Rashid said.
The Rab-8 members took Sentu to Kashipur Bilbobari in Barisal to recover the hidden arms but as they reached the area, Sentu's accomplices opened fire on them.
Rab retaliated with gunshots leading to a short gunfight at around 4:15 am.
"Sentu was shot dead as he tried to escape at the time,'" Rashid said. Two Rab members were also injured and a Rab car damaged at the time.
A Rab press release yesterday said that Rab recovered Sentu's body after the gunfight along with one AK-47 rifle, a shutter gun, a revolver and a home made gun, from the scene.
Sentu was a known criminal in Barisal city and an accused in 19 cases, including four for murder. He had been in hiding since launch of the anti-crime operations.
However, Sentu's family claims that all cases lodged against Sentu were politically motivated and that he had been acquitted of all of them.
Meanwhile JCD leaders and activists protested the incident by bringing out a procession on the DU campus that ended with a rally rear Dhaka University Central Students' Union building.
Talking to The Daily Star, DU unit General Secretary of JCD Saiful Islam Feroz alleged that Sentu has been killed following a conspiracy by a vested quarter to realise their interests in the upcoming Barisal City Corporation polls.
He demanded proper investigation into the incident.
However a section of JCD activists yesterday expressed hope that the organisation would now be spared the blame of patronising terrorism and create new leadership free from the clutches of someone like Sentu.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Good to see the shutter gun is finally out of the shop!
but a shot up Rabmobile???? Holy quarter panel Rab-Man! (apologies to Robin)
(VOI) -- Sayyid Bahaa Fadhil Jamal al-Den, member of Basra provincial council, said that his brother, a prominent figure of al-Ikhbariya Shiite sect in Basra, on Wednesday noon survived an assassination attempt, when unknown gunmen opened fire on him in old Basra city. He added that his brother and his brother's driver were wounded and admitted to the hospital.
"Unidentified armed men driving a modern car opened fire targeting Sayyid Aqeel Fadhil Jamal al-Den, at Bashar Street intersection, in the center of old Basra city," Sayyid Bahaa Jamal al-Den told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI). "My brother and his driver were wounded and admitted to hospital," he said.
"A combined Iraqi army-police checkpoint was nearby when the incident took place, but it did not interfere," he added. "There are many repeated security violations; a matter that invites us to reconsider the accomplishments of Saulat al-Forsan (Knights Assault) security operation," he noted.
Al-Ikhbariya Shiite sect that was founded around four centuries ago has around 100 thousand followers in Basra.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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The caretaker government is incorporating a new provision in the Representation of People Order (RPO) Ordinance 2008 to bar individuals convicted by a trial court of criminal offences involving moral turpitude from contesting elections.
At present, due to the lack of specific legal provisions an individual convicted by a trial court of such criminal offences can participate in elections while their appeal against the conviction is pending with the higher court.
The new provision drafted by the Election Commission (EC) upon government desire says such a convict will be disqualified from contesting the parliamentary polls while their appeal against the trial court verdict is pending with a higher court.
Due to loopholes in the existing electoral laws individuals convicted by the trial courts have come up as candidates for the August 4 city corporation polls. Sources said Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed himself recently expressed concern about how to prevent this.
Asked by the chief adviser, senior officials of his office communicated with the EC and requested it to look into the matter. Following the government's desire, the EC drafted the new proposal.
The draft was supposed to be sent to the government yesterday for incorporation into the draft RPO, the sources added.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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Colombia misused the symbol of the Red Cross in this month's military rescue of politician Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other rebel-held hostages, it said on Wednesday, admitting a possible violation of the rules of war. "We regret that this occurred," President Alvaro Uribe said in a speech following reports that the Red Cross emblem was displayed on a jersey or T-shirt worn by a Colombian intelligence officer who took part in the rescue mission.
Falsely portraying military personnel as Red Cross members is against the Geneva Conventions as it could put humanitarian workers at risk when they are in war zones.
Uribe has drawn widespread praise for the July 2 rescue of French-Colombian citizen Betancourt, three U.S. defense contractors and 11 other kidnap victims held for years by Marxist guerrillas.
Rebel leaders were duped into handing over their most prized hostages in the operation, which highlighted the success of Uribe's U.S.-backed offensive against the guerrillas. But the use of the Red Cross symbol takes some of the shine off the mission. "Parties to the conflict must respect the Red Cross emblem at all times and under all circumstances," said Yves Heller, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Colombia. "We will continue working in the field in Colombia."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Deception is part of the game. Let's ask the former hostages if they give a crap. And since when did FARC or any other "insurgent group" give a fat rat's ass about the "rules of war." This one needs the BS meter. Rooters is really stretching to find the cloud hiding behind all that shiny silvery lining.
The real story here is that the ICRCT's collusion with the rebels has been exposed, since the rebels thought they were just helping with a "transfer." So the ICRCT and their MSM friends are madly throwing mud in the water...
#2
Hundreds of humanitarian workers who risk their lives to help people in countries like this have now been put even further in jeopardy because of the government of COlombia's actions. ICRC and other agencies work in these areas unarmed and rely on negotiation and neutrality to get through these areas alive. I'm sure the hostages who were rescued wouldn't want millions of people worldwide who depend on humanitarian worker's help to starve and die of disease.
#4
Woozle,
What should be most bothersome is that FARC believed the Red Cross would help them with an internal hostage transfer - why would they believe such a story unless there was some 'history' with the Red Cross abetting their criminal endeavors in the past? Does the Red Cross routinely help terrorists conduct their business? Perhaps so, in return for the terrorists allowing the Red Cross to provide medical and humanitarian help to hostages? While that would be understandable (if true), it would still be unacceptable to me.
Posted by: Menhaden S ||
07/17/2008 8:43
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#5
At least people are fine with the Che t-shirts...
#6
Is this the ICRC which loans ambulances to Hamas and Hezbollah so they can move their arms and ammunition around without being fired upon? That neutral ICRC?
The fact that the terrorists simply handed over their hostages to someone who they thought was a member of the Red Cross Thingy would bring their neutrality into question.
How often has the ICRC facilitated the movement of hostages in the past?
#8
Woozle: The ICRC may have outlived its usefulness as a neutral organization. Its red cross logo makes it a target in Muslim countries, replaced by the far less responsible Red Crescent sister organization, and its leaders have been co-opted by internationalists.
And the internationalist agenda is inimical to the founding principles of the ICRC.
#9
Hundreds of humanitarian workers who risk their lives to help people in countries like this have now been put even further in jeopardy because of the government of COlombia's actions. ICRC and other agencies work in these areas unarmed and rely on negotiation and neutrality to get through these areas alive. I'm sure the hostages who were rescued wouldn't want millions of people worldwide who depend on humanitarian worker's help to starve and die of disease.
Ah yes, I guess the Burmese government is gonna start shooting aid workers now because they'll think they're really the Columbian government.
#10
The international community does nothing to stop the use of humanitarian vehicles & uniformed personnel in the Palestinian areas for weapons transport & armed personnel transport.
The bar was reset long ago. Columbia was not the first.
#11
What sort of links with terrorists do the people who are bitching about this, have? None? Oh, do I see your nose getting longer. This is circumstancial evidence that Red Cross people may have aided and abetted FARC in the past. If they have, then why should we trust Red Cross workers.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/17/2008 10:20
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#12
But the use of the Red Cross symbol takes some of the shine off the mission.
Really? Geez, I guess if FARC didn't just take it for granted that the Red Cross was there to help them out, maybe it wouldn't have worked?
Look for the Red Cross to let this one disappear off the radar screen right quick...
#13
Ponder this: Did the RED CROSS misuse the RED CROSS emblem when they "inspected" Thereisenstadt Concentration Camp in '44 and gave it a clean bill of health?
#14
Ask John McCain if the ICRC mis-used their symbol when they found he and his buddies were well fed, well taken care of and being treated humanely while residents of the Hanoi Hilton.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/17/2008 16:29
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#15
The ICRC and the UN are two international organizations that should be disbanded immediately, as whatever small amount of good they do is vastly overshadowed by the help they give the forces of evil.
#16
Red cross symbol misused? Give me a break. I guess I'll go do something more important than reading tripe. I'm going to add to my beer bottle collection. After that I will count them all again. After that I'll trim my toenails. All the while I will be thankful the Columbians pulled off a great rescue mission. I am glad our three guys are back. The liberal media who are trying to make something out of nothing can go screw themselves. Media whore$ communists ba$tards.
Afghanistan's secret service, the Riyast-e-Amniyat-i-Milli, provided precision intelligence on the jihadist cell which executed last week's bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, highly placed government sources have told The Hindu.
RAM notified its Indian counterparts that an attack on the embassy in Kabul was imminent as early as June 23. Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence Directorate, it said, had instructed Afghanistan-based jihadists to execute an attack on the Indian mission. Based on the available intelligence, RAM said that it expected the terrorist cell to execute a fidayeen (suicide squad) attack, which would use explosives to breach defences at the front gate of the Indian embassy.
RAM's head of diplomatic security, the sources said, spent three nights camped at the Embassy, working with his Indian counterparts to make sure effective counter-measures were put in place.
As a result of the RAM warning, a new machine-gun post was set up above a shopping complex next to the Embassy to engage terrorists who managed to breach the gates. Police patrols around the perimeter were beefed up. Hesco barriers -- sandbag-like blocks made up of collapsible wire mesh and heavy duty fabric liner which are widely used in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military bases -- were fitted to make perimeter walls blast-resistant.
India's Research and Analysis Wing corroborated the Afghan warning three days after RAM's report. Based on communications intelligence and informants' reports, RAW said the attack would most likely be carried out using a Toyota suburban utility vehicle.
Less than a week before the bombing, United States military intelligence personnel monitoring terrorist communications in Afghanistan obtained new information on the attack. Plans to execute a fidayeen strike, they learned, had been dropped. Instead, a car-bomb was being prepared. Government sources said this last warning was accurate down to the last detail, even asserting that the vehicle would have Kabul licence plates.
Investigators now believe an estimated 100 kg of military-grade plastic explosive was welded into the underside of the SUV, bearing licence plate number KBL 11827 SH -- enough to gouge a 2.5 metre diameter, 1 metre crater on the concrete-asphalt road and fling the vehicle's engine block, number 2L3240928, almost a 100 metres away.
Had Hesco barriers not been installed around the Embassy, Indian security experts, who spoke to The Hindu,said the blast would have claimed the lives of at least two dozen personnel who were then working inside the building.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Three cheers for honest spooks!
Here's hoping that India might return the favor and send a brigade or two to help the Afghans with their problem, at the same time getting in some high quality training--a bargain at the price.
#3
Given the level of cooperation, it almost goes without saying that India's Intell Service has a number of operatives working with the Afghan government.
I guess you would say that they have a common enemy...the ISS. The Paks are playing a dangerous game. India is galloping ahead as a technology giant and has a far more robust economy. India has the resources and the animosity to conduct military operations in the trans Afghan border region.
The fact that those idiots in Al Qaeda are trying to set up shop in India makes Indian involvement in Afghanistan all the more plausible and probable.
It seems that when a nation that gets in bed with Bin Laden and his cronies, the social order and effectiveness of the central government crumbles.
I predict that Pakistan will disintegrate into a series of tribal fiefdoms ruled by warlords much like Somolia if they do not get a grip on it and do something to preserve their sovereignty.
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/17/2008 10:36
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Part of a pipeline carrying natural gas from energy-rich Central Asia to Russia has been shut down after being damaged by an explosion, emergency officials in Kazakhstan said Wednesday.
A 39-kilometer section of the Central Asia-Center pipeline in western Kazakhstan was closed off following the blast late Tuesday, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Nobody was hurt in the blast, the ministry said in a statement.
There was no word on the cause of the explosion or what effect it would have on supplies. The effect could be small because the pipeline system is extensive.
In Moscow, officials at the state-owned Russian gas monopoly OAO Gazprom declined to comment. Moscow reached a deal with Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan in December to build a new natural gas pipeline along the Caspian Sea coast to Russia to supplement the existing route.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
ION KOMMERSANT > STATE DUMA MEMBER:US IS THE CAUSE OF RUSSIA's, UKRAINIAN CLASHES + RUSSIA, CHINA DSPLEASE BUSH ANEW [Zimbabwe].
A showdown is looming between the Bush administration and the federal court system over the military's role in prosecuting and trying terrorism suspects detained at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A judge with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday will consider whether to delay the military tribunal of a key suspect in the war on terror - the former driver of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Attorneys for Salim Hamdan asked U.S. District Judge James Robertson last week for the delay so they may use a landmark Supreme Court decision to challenge the legality of the military tribunal system. Mr. Hamdan, whose military trial is scheduled to begin Monday, would be the first Guantanamo detainee to face a tribunal as an enemy combatant. The Justice Department said in a court filing Monday that the military tribunal should proceed and that federal courts do not have the authority to delay it.
#4
Let's all understand. Congress passed the law governing the legal prosecution of our own soldiers [UCMJ], but Congress can not pass law to prosecute unlawful combatants captured on the battlefield because Justice Kennedy has 'issues'? Are the enemy entitled to more consideration than our own? Hey, judge, what about the 14th Amendment, what does that have to say about equal treatment? Should we just do away with JAG and turn all issues of crime and discipline over to DoJ? Get the judiciary out of the conduct of war. It's an Article I power.
#5
The Judge said, "Let the Games Begin", I mean, "Let the Trial Continue". Basically he said the Defense Attorneys were premature in their appeal as the Trial had not occured. He said, "Do you want ME to determine the Rules? This is not the proper Forum. Let the Trial go on and then file your appeals".
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
07/17/2008 19:03
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The Taliban Tanzeem-e-Karwan, a wing of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) headed by Haji Naimatullah, has established Qazi courts at Salarzai tehsil in the Bajaur Agency and started disposing of cases under Shariah law. Spokesman Muhammad Yasir told reporters from an undisclosed location that the Taliban had setup two Qazi courts in Salarzai and were resolving cases that had been pending in courts for months and years within a week.
He said that Tanzeem chief Haji Naimatullah established the courts on the appeals of locals seeking timely solutions to their problems. Yasir said that the Qazi courts were being run by five religious scholars and were announcing verdicts in accordance with Shariah. He said tribesmen were submitting their cases in great numbers since the courts had begun operations.
Area residents told Daily Times that the establishment of the Qazi courts was a good step for the provision of easy justice. They said the establishment of the courts allowed them to gain justice without resorting to influential contacts. They also said that they were satisfied with the method by which the courts were deciding their cases in accordance with Shariah.
This article starring:
Salarzai tehsil in the Bajaur Agency
HAJI NAIMATULLAH
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
MUHAMAD YASIR
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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At least 24 policemen were killed when a landmine exploded under a security vehicle in eastern India on Wednesday, in an attack police blamed on Maoist rebels. The attack, in Orissa state's remote Malkangiri district, comes a fortnight after the rebels sank a police boat and killed 38 officers of an elite anti-insurgency unit in the same area. "All 24 police personnel are dead," officer Sujeet Naik told Reuters, blaming the strike on rebels who are known to be strong in the forested region. Police said the Maoists had stepped up violence in response to a security campaign in the area. Maoist rebels regularly kill police and attack government establishments and factories across large swathes of eastern and central India, particularly in the countryside. They say they are fighting for the rights of the poor and landless, an insurgency Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described as the single biggest threat to India's internal security.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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Canada said on Wednesday it would not press for the return of a young Canadian inmate held at Guantanamo Bay despite the release of video footage that showed him weeping and calling for his mother.
The film prompted mounting calls from politicians and commentators for Ottawa to intercede with Washington on behalf of 21-year-old Omar Khadr, who is charged with killing a U.S. medic in Afghanistan in July 2002 at the age of 15.
Secret video of his interrogation by Canadian agents over four days in February 2003 shows him moaning in despair and crying out for his mother.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Khadr faces serious charges and should go on trial. "Our position has not changed and it's not going to. We're not going to blow in the wind on something as fundamental as this," Harper's chief spokesman Kory Teneycke told Reuters.
Extracts from the secret video show Khadr -- then 16 -- being grilled by officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service spy agency. The film was released by Khadr's lawyers, who are pushing Ottawa to intervene with Washington on his behalf. "Making a change at the 11th hour because his legal team is pursuing an aggressive media strategy is not in the interests of due process ... We're about doing what the right thing is," said Teneycke.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Khadr hid behind a wall, and tossed a grenade after US troops believed the area was secure. The murder victim was a Field Medic; while front line, they are not first entry units. Khadr had every opportunity to surrender; if he had done so, then he would be free, like his older brother who was himself once a jihadi (cum Defense Intelligence operative in Europe and elsewhere).
I have no doubt that the terrorist feels sorry for himself. Tough. He should have been hanged in 2001.
#2
The little bastard should have been shot in the field as an illegal combatant. All in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
I wonder if the medic had a chance to cry out for his mother?
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
07/17/2008 2:28
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#3
Glad to see the Canucks doing the right thing here.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/17/2008 6:29
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#4
He should have been interrogated then hung from a street lamp as a warning.
#5
Killing medics is bad form, bad form indeed.
Enjoy your stay you little cockroach.
Some day I hope they give you a trial and lengthy prison sentence, then deport your ass to Canada to be tried and sentenced again.
#6
Just got done reading Andy McCarthy's "Willful Blindness" about the Blind Sheikh and the 1993 WTC bombing as well as all the other ongoing "jihad" back then. Khadr is only using a ruse out of the AQ and Jihadi playbook that was captured on Salem's little tape recorder (he was the Egyptian mole they were using). They know more about our constitutional protections and US jurisprudence, than even Obama, who is supposedly a constitutional law instructor but doesn't even understand habeas corpus. In fact, they will do and say anything that makes them the victim and us the bad guys.... just like any good lawyer would do:)
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/17/2008 16:42
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The Prime Minister's Office Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued on Tuesday a heightened terror alert to Israelis traveling to Sinai, saying they had specific intelligence regarding militant groups' intent to abduct Israelis in Egyptian peninsula. "Terrorists groups, who have been preparing to abduct Israelis in Sinai, are ready to carry out their plans with immediate effect," the alert said. "For some time the safety of Israelis visiting or residing in Sinai has been subjected to a substantial threat."
The bureau recommended that all Israelis refrain from entering Sinai, and suggested that Israelis currently in Sinai depart immediately.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in a rare public appearance, welcomed five Lebanese freed from captivity in Israel on Wednesday after his guerrilla group returned the bodies of two captured Israeli soldiers.
Nasrallah, who moves in secret for security reasons, emerged briefly to embrace the ex-prisoners at a rally in Beirut and declared the exchange a victory for Hezbollah and Lebanon.
"This people, this nation and this country, which gave a clear image today, cannot be defeated," he told the crowd before leaving to deliver a speech by video link from a safe location.
A grim mood prevailed in Israel, where the prisoner swap was widely seen as a painful necessity two years after the capture of the two Israeli army reservists sparked a 34-day war in which about 1,200 people in Lebanon and 159 Israelis were killed.
Among the released captives was Samir Qantar, who had been Israel's longest-serving Lebanese prisoner and whom Israelis revile for his part in a 1979 Palestinian guerrilla attack.
The International Committee of the Red Cross brought the men to the border town of Naqoura. Wearing military fatigues, they marched down a red carpet flanked by a Hezbollah honour guard.
Two Lebanese army helicopters then flew them to Beirut, where President Michel Suleiman, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri kissed them at the airport. "Your return is a new victory," Suleiman declared.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Samir sez he still wants to be a martyr. Israel may try to accomodate him.
Israel threatens to assassinate Quntar
Bethlehem - Ma'an - An Israeli security source said on Thursday that a day after his release from Israeli prison, Samir Quntar is a target for assassination by Israeli forces.
The Israeli Hebrew newspaper Yediot Ahronot quoted the source as saying, “Israel will get him, he will be assassinated and Mosad will not take too long to kill him.” When questioned on whether he saw the assassination threat as a breach of the agreement with Hezbollah he said, “there are no commitments regarding Quntar’s life, he is a damned killer and we will make him pay back soon.”
Quntar was the most controversial of the prisoners freed on Wednesday as part of the swap between Hizbollah and Israel. He was held in Israeli prison from 1979 until 2008 for the killing of three Israeli civilians. Quntar is portrayed in the Israeli media as a monster and his release caused consternation amongst some sections of Israeli society.
This assassination threat could be seen as an attempt to make up for what is seen widely as a victory for Hezbollah at the expense of Israel.
#2
What a miserable excuse for a human being. Holding up a baby killer and some kind of hero is probably the most barbaric and inhumane act he could possibly engage in. If he had any common decency, he would put the man on trial in Lebanon for murder and put him right back in jail.
War is one thing, killing a child and then killing the child's father in front of the remaining child is the act of an animal, not a human being.
Nasrallah and Hezbollah are a band of insane maniacs. May God have mercy on their souls for they will surely face harsh judgment.
His release and return to a jubilant hero's welcome in Lebanon drew condemnation in Israel, where security officials warned he was now a target for killing. "Every terrorist who committed an act of terror against Israel, especially someone like Kantar, who killed a little child and two other people, is a target," one official told AFP.
#6
It's time to start killin muslims. Period. Any sick religion that would react to that situation (prisoner swap) the way they did deserve to be eradicated. Worse than Nazis.
Sri Lankan troops have captured a strategically important coastal town from the Tamil Tigers, the defence ministry said on Wednesday, as government forces continue their push against the rebels' northern stronghold.
The ministry described the capture of the northwestern town of Vidattaltivu, which it said was the main base of the Tigers' sea wing and their logistics hub for the west, as a "fatal blow" for the rebels. Fighting in the 25-year civil war is now concentrated in the north after the Sri Lankan army, which has vowed to finish off the Tigers this year, drove the rebels out of their eastern enclave in 2007. "Gallant soldiers of Army 58 Division and Commando Brigade have liberated the strategically important Vidattaltivu town this morning," the defence ministry said on its website. It said it was the first time Sri Lankan troops had held the town since the departure of an Indian peacekeeping force in 1990. The Tigers were not immediately available for comment.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing IndyMac Bancorp Inc. for possible fraud in connection with home loans made to risky borrowers, according to a report Wednesday by the Associated Press. The report, which cited an unnamed law-enforcement source, said the FBI's investigation focuses on the company, which was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. last Friday, and not the people who ran it.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
"the FBI's investigation focuses on the company... not the people who ran it"
Ha ha... artful. This isn't a criminal investigation in any way. It's a public relations exercise. The gov't is using the news of an FBI investigation to influence market perceptions. The goal is for John Q. Public and various analysts to say "IndyMac's failure wasn't caused by mountains of bad debt, which could cause dozens of other banks to fail. The FBI is investigating for fraud, therefore IndyMac isn't typical, therefore we're all safe."
Buy gold and silver ingots and bury them in your back yard.
Sudan's president, accused of masterminding genocide in Darfur, might escape war crimes charges if he brings to justice two men suspected of mass killings, Western envoys said on Wednesday.
The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, asked the ICC on Monday to issue an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir on suspicion of crimes against humanity.
Moreno-Ocampo accused Bashir of a campaign of genocide that killed 35,000 people outright, at least another 100,000 through a "slow death" and forced 2.5 million to flee their homes in Sudan's western Darfur region.
Sudan, China and South Africa have expressed concern that a formal indictment of Bashir could damage the stalled peace process aimed at ending the 5-year-old conflict in Darfur.
"The search for justice should not jeopardize the other priorities in Sudan," South Africa's U.N. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo told reporters ahead of a Security Council meeting.
U.N. peacekeeping officials and national diplomats say privately they fear an arrest warrant against Bashir could provoke a wave of violence against the joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID) or even prompt Khartoum to order all international peacekeepers in Sudan out of the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
I'm sure Bashir has a bus of his own to throw people under. Prolly a whole fleet of them.
The Canadian military says the Taliban's self-declared 'deputy governor of Kandahar' appears to have been killed in an air strike by international forces. They say Mullah Mahmoud was second-in-command in the shadow government that the Taliban have created to lead Kandahar if they ever regain power.
The military made the announcement at a press conference with the actual government of Kandahar on Wednesday.
The coalition learned of a meeting of insurgent leaders from Afghan intelligence, and last week gunned down Mahmoud and eight of his companions during the meeting in Khakrez district. The militants were apparently meeting to discuss yet another planned attack on the Arghandab valley, the lush farming area just a stone's throw from Kandahar city.
The militants have been cleared out of the area twice before - including just last month after they declared themselves in control of a handful of riverside towns.
Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid says the planned insurgent attack was foolish from the start. "That the Taliban would try to organize to attack Arghandab again shows how unwise their leaders are," Khalid said. "Those people who have sons or brothers who have been fooled into working for the Taliban should call them to come home now and return to a peaceful life."
This article starring:
Mullah Mahmoud
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
...the shadow government that the Taliban have created to lead Kandahar if they ever regain power.
Even after the bodies of the two Israeli soldiers, Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, had been handed over to Israel and examined by Red Cross officials yesterday, their parents clung to the hope that a mistake had been made, and that their sons would yet walk back across the border. "We will continue to hope until we can hope no more," said Tzvi Regev, the father of Sergeant Regev.
The faint chance that at least one of the soldiers would be returned alive two years after they were captured by Hezbollah guerrillas pushed Israel to pay a high price for the exchange. Five Hezbollah prisoners were set free for the remains of the two soldiers, the most notorious among them Samir Qantar, who spent almost 30 years in an Israeli prison for the killing of an Israeli father and his young daughter. Israel also returned the bodies of nearly 200 Palestinian and Lebanese militants that had been killed in clashes over the past decades.
Only hours after the exchange would the Regev family acknowledge that there was no more room for hope. Israeli forensic science teams confirmed what the Red Cross had already determined - that two black coffins handed over by the militant Shia group contained the corpses of Goldwasser and Regev. The kidnaps of the two soldiers set off a 34-day war between Lebanon and Israel in 2006. "It was horrible to see it," said Mr Regev, choking back tears as he described watching one of the coffins being removed from the Red Cross vehicle that had brought the remains back across the border. "We were always hoping that [Ehud] and Eldad were alive and that they would come home and we would hug them." A Regev family member added that it was impossible to watch celebrations being prepared across Lebanon, as the family readied for a funeral.
In contrast to the festivities in Lebanon, a sombre mood enveloped much of Israel. Nowhere was the gravity of the day felt stronger than in the small coastal town of Nahariya, where the home of the Goldwasser family stands a few minutes' drive from the apartment building where Mr Qantar killed Danny Haran and his daughter, aged 4. The killing was for ever seared into the nation's consciousness as one of the most brutal acts of terrorism in Israel's history.
In Mr Qantar's trial witnesses recalled how in the dead of night on April 22, 1979, he shot Mr Haran in front of his child, then killed the girl by smashing her skull against a rock with his rifle butt. Mr Haran's wife, Smadar, accidentally smothered her two-year-old daughter with her hand while trying to stifle her cries as she hid from the killer. He has never expressed remorse over the incident.
Israel had hitherto held Mr Qantar as a bargaining chip to win new information about Ron Arad, an Israeli airman whose plane crashed in Lebanon in 1986. Under pressure from the captured soldiers' families to bring them home, Israel's Cabinet voted on Tuesday to release him in exchange for the bodies of the two captured soldiers.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Damn it Israel, wake up! You must assume, anytime a Jew is taken into the possesion of the Muslims, that he (or she) is dead. As dead as those who were marched into the showers at Auschwitz! Avenge them - Avenge them all, show the muslim no mercy, but light a fire in their flesh. They have been calling you to war for many years now- it's high time that you grant them their most serious desire - give them death on a scale un-imaginable! Ask for forgiveness later - but act now.
#5
I hope Israel tagged them with a very slow-acting poison that will take months to begin to be effective, but once it starts, is very painful and always fatal.
I understand the Jews' beliefs in death and burial. I also know any Jew/Israeli captured by ANY Arab group will have a slow and painful death, with no chance for repatriation. That's why I hope Israel uses nukes the next time Hezbully begins to launch rockets at Tel Aviv. Make the area between the Litani and Beirut so radioactive it'll take a million years to cool down. It's the only way Israel can "secure" a northern border. Oh, and the area between current Israel and the Litani will become Israeli territory - a twofer.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/17/2008 16:58
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#7
understand the Jews' beliefs in death and burial. ... Make the area between the Litani and Beirut so radioactive it'll take a million years to cool down.
But not the pertinent geography, OP (look at the map).
#2
This stuff can be pretty nasty. North of Sicily there is an undersea volcanic area that has turned the water harshly acidic. It is sterile ocean, and only robotic probes can dive in it.
#4
Beware this PC article from the BBC. As the Earth actually cools over the next few years, expect claims that man-made atmospheric CO2 is turning into carbonic acid that will cause a similar PH decrease in the oceans. You see, CO2 isn't warming the atmosphere, it's acidifying the oceans.
Different decade, different lie.
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/17/2008 11:18
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#5
Gaia farts. World dies. Women and children hit hardest.
#7
The late Cretaceous ended 65 million years ago, not 93. But what's 30 million years if you're the BBC?
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
07/17/2008 12:53
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#8
Baba, it was not the cause of the mass extinctions at the end of the Cretaceous (that may have been a comet or meteor that hit the Yucatan), but it may well have been the cause of a smaller mass extinction of marine life forms at the end of the Cenomanian (subdivision of the Cretaceous). The end of the Cenomanian is notable for having the highest overall sea level of the last 600 MY (as best we can tell.) I am not sure whether volcanoes were a cause, or just another effect of whatever the cause was, but the Cenomanian was quite an interesting time.
Posted by: Menhaden S ||
07/17/2008 13:20
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Rana Shaikh and her team were shooting two hours outside Karachi for the ARY Digital production 'Kaisa yeh Junoon' that she wrote and directed. They had 200 fair-skinned extras against a rugged tribal background in which Baitullah Mehsud's recent advances are being discussed by a group of fighters.
They finished shooting and turned to leave when the extras surrounded them in the car. They banged at her window. 'Give us the tape!' they shouted. "You have been abusing Mehsud!" Rana tried explaining to them that they were repeating what had already been reported.
It is precisely this frightening encounter that 'Kaisa yeh Junoon' seeks to tackle. "[I am] hoping people realise that taking up guns will not solve the problem but will lead to more suffering and heartbreak," said Rana.
Rana asks the question on everyone's lips. "Will this country be fit to live in?" She feels that Pakistani society has completely failed to bring up its children with the sensibilities that should have come post-Partition. A US ambassador once told her a long time ago that he never saw any joy on the faces in the streets in Pakistan. "We never thought we needed a strategy for identity, something that India understood so well by banning foreign items after 1947," said Rana. "It makes a difference to be surrounded by all things Indian. And they built their academies, their movie halls. You could hear Bismillah Khan in a Delhi park for free. But here and now, [our youngsters] can't decide what Pakistani is; we have been swamped by other cultures, particular Indian movie culture."
It was not just in Karachi that the crew encountered manifestations of the very topic of the film. Despite acquiring all the proper paperwork and authorisation, they ran into trouble at the Regent's Park mosque as well. They were shooting a nikkah sequence with one of the mosque's own clerics one day. All the girls were covered properly and Kirron Kher was present. A crowd of angry men burst in and hurled abuse at the crew, saying it was haram to film and a Hindu like Kirron Kher should not be inside such a holy place.
Thus, the making of the teleseries was a challenge. "It was at times depressing," Rana admitted. "I kept saying to my young associates what a dark story it was. And ever since [we started work on it], I have been noticing more and more of [extremism] around us. I am alarmed at the ferocity of people who think they are good Muslims."
Rana's alarm prompted her to begin the project in the first place. Its outline emerged after her 'Umrao Jaan Ada'. Shooting began in March 2007 after 2.5 years of preparation for the four locations, including Cambridge. The project picks up from the Afghan Jihad 25 years ago and links up to present day. "The West has to understand that it needs to respect and support Muslims as well and this should not be too hard for seasoned democracies and open societies such as the UK and US," she said. "They firmly believe in 'live and let live'. The problem of fundamentalism, which can be traced along one trajectory back to the Afghan Jihad, 25 years ago, means that we are arguing from a position of weakness at this point."
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
#1
"The West has to understand that it needs to respect and support Muslims as well"
Herein lies the basic problem with the mooks, they want demand respect and support, but refuse to reciprocate that courtesy. They could all succumb to typhus for what I care.
#3
A lot of leftists think Islamic terrorism began with the jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Its true that the Soviet takeover there figuratively lit a match to the tinder of Islamic radicalism in Pakistan. However, what the leftists refuse to acknowledge is the many, many episodes of jihadic terror and the tens (maybe hundreds) of millions of deaths caused by the past 1400 years of jihad.
#4
"we have been swamped by other cultures, particular Indian movie culture"
Pakistan the melting pot, NOT. They have been swamped by one culture -- their own Islamic culture.
#5
You just have to go back to the when Pakistan was made a State to fine out about Muslim violence. Look what happened to the Hindus living there at the time.
On Friday, May 23, investigators from the National Fraud Unit, headed by Brig. Gen. Shlomi Ayalon, arrived at the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem and interrogated him on suspicion of receiving cash from Moshe (Morris) Talansky. In the course of that interrogation they whipped out Olmert's classified declaration of assets, the one he had submitted to the state comptroller in 2003 as required by law.
One line in the report cited a $75,000 loan Olmert took from Joe Elmaleh, a wealthy Israeli businessman who now lives in Vermont. Olmert received that hefty loan on January 1, 1993, when he was an opposition Knesset member and a few months away from beating Teddy Kollek in the Jerusalem mayoral race. The investigators discovered that this money has never been repaid.
The police investigators asked Olmert several tough questions. "Why didn't you repay the loan to Elmaleh?" they queried. The prime minister claimed that the repayment date had not yet arrived, even though more than 15 years had gone by. Olmert thereby effectively confirmed that he has not repaid a cent to Elmaleh. The loan is worth about $150,000 today, or half a million shekels.
The state comptroller in 2003, former Supreme Court justice Eliezer Goldberg, read the laconic report of the loan in the declaration of assets filed by Olmert - by then minister of trade and industry and deputy prime minister. He tried to understand why such an experienced politician had failed to repay a loan he took from a businessman who had had clear economic interests in Israel. In an exchange of letters, Olmert told Goldberg that he intends to repay the loan to Elmaleh when he is able, and that Elmaleh had never asked for his money back.
Goldberg, who was legally authorized to convey the information to the attorney general, preferred to compromise with Olmert, and instructed him to have Elmaleh sign a document in which Olmert undertakes to repay the money at a later date. So in July 2004 Olmert asked Elmaleh to sign a document, now in the police's possession, which states: "As deputy prime minister I have been asked by State Comptroller Eliezer Goldberg to confirm the following facts with you: The original loan that I took from you on January 1, 2003 was for $75,000. The conditions of the loan were linkage plus 3 percent interest, and we agreed that I would pay you the money whenever you asked for it. The value of the money in July 2004 is about $140,000. From here on in it is agreed that if you do not request the money, I will return it to you in full in January 2009."
Goldberg refused this week to comment on the matter, on the grounds that Olmert's declaration of assets is classified.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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Following the build up of NATO troops on the Pak-Afghan border, local Taliban have imposed a restriction on the smuggling of diesel to Afghanistan, Aaj TV reported on Wednesday. According to the channel, the Taliban has also appointed volunteers on the routes leading to Afghanistan to check the practice. It said a meeting of the Taliban Shura (council) had been summoned to decide whether or not to ban the supply of food grains to Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Is smuggling the right word to use here?
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/17/2008 10:27
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#2
One man's smuggling is another man's free trade.
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Hooper Bay, AK ||
07/17/2008 12:39
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#3
Taliban restrict diesel smuggling to Afghanistan
Taliban Global Warming Mitigation Plan....
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
07/17/2008 14:14
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Foreign donors are ramping up aid to remote, neglected Central African Republic because they fear cross-border conflicts in neighbouring Sudan's Darfur and Chad could expand and feed on a vacuum of state authority there.
Plagued by decades of dictatorship, unrest, coup attempts and rebellions, the vast but sparsely populated former French colony is ranked among the world's least developed states.
Basic infrastructure is in ruins, bandits roam the bush unchecked by the army or police and borders are left unguarded. "Everyone's heard about Congo, Darfur, and the Great Lakes, but we've suddenly realised there is this big empty country in the middle of it all with very permeable borders," Fiona Ramsey of the European Commission's delegation in Bangui told Reuters. "Though it's a much smaller conflict, it is a large land mass. It allows smuggling of natural resources. It allows the circulation of arms," she added.
Landlocked Central African Republic's strategic significance at Africa's heart went largely ignored until an anti-government rebellion in Sudan's western Darfur province erupted in 2003, triggering a political and ethnic conflict that sent raiders and refugees spilling into neighbouring states like Chad.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/17/2008
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#1
Plagued by decades of dictatorship, unrest, coup attempts and rebellions, the vast but sparsely populated former French colony is ranked among the world's least developed states.
Sounds just like most of Africa.
Sure, let's send them lots of money. That'll change things...
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.
CAIRO, July 17 (Reuters) - Nearly two-thirds of Egyptian men admit to having sexually harassed women in the most populous Arab country, and a majority say women themselves are to blame for their maltreatment, a survey showed on Thursday. The forms of harassment reported by Egyptian men, whose country attracts millions of foreign tourists each year, include touching or ogling women, shouting sexually explicit remarks, and exposing their genitals to women. 
Two men claiming to head a group responsible for the southern insurgency said on national TV on Thursday they had agreed to an immediate halt in attacks. "We have agreed to a cease-fire," a spokesman for the unnamed group said in a statement aired on TV Channel 5 on Thursday noon. "Our group will now support peace in southern Thailand." 
As Canadian military officials claimed a major blow against the Taliban on Wednesday, insurgents launched two dramatic attacks in Kandahar province that had Canadian troops scrambling to respond.
Seven people were killed and five others injured on Wednesday in fresh clashes between the 
California voters will have the chance to vote in November on whether to end gay marriage after the state's top court declined on Wednesday to remove an initiative on the issue from the ballot.
Financial chief of Pakistan based militant group, 
The Sindh government has banned two controversial books titled 'The Prophesied End Time' and '2008 God's Final Witness', both written by Ronald Weinland.
Thomas Hickman drove through New Mexico, police say, until his Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo ran out of gas. Then the 55-year-old North Richland Hills man walked into a field, tied helium balloons to a gun, covered his mouth with duct tape, and shot himself in the back of the head, according to New Mexico State Police.
In Gaza, meanwhile, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday hailed Kuntar as "a great hero" and said Israel's decision to release him and four Hezbollah fighters had undermined Israel's policy of not freeing "prisoners with blood on their hands." 
Democratic and Republican congressional aides say there is turmoil within the the House Homeland Security Committee's majority staff and that oversight work is being eclipsed by a focus on promoting contracting opportunities for small and minority-owned businesses.
A militant was killed and three others injured in a clash between two rival groups in the Khalodag village of Mohmand Agency over the occupation of a madrassa on Wednesday, locals and hospital sources said. The sources said that the clash started when the 
(PTI) Pakistani security forces today attacked with artillery Taliban positions in the curfew-bound northwestern Hangu district injuring at least 12 people, days after 16 paramilitary personnel were killed by the militants in the troubled region. The army targeted militant positions in Zargari and nearby villages in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) leading to injuries to 12 people while 20 houses were damaged.
Former vice-president of Barisal BM College students union Mashiul Alam Sentu was killed in a 'gunfight' between his accomplices and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab-8) members early yesterday at Kashipur in Barisal.
The 
Canada said on Wednesday it would not press for the return of a young Canadian inmate held at Guantanamo Bay despite the release of video footage that showed him weeping and calling for his mother.
Sudan's president, accused of masterminding genocide in Darfur, might escape war crimes charges if he brings to justice two men suspected of mass killings, Western envoys said on Wednesday.
The Canadian military says the Taliban's self-declared 'deputy governor of Kandahar' appears to have been killed in an air strike by international forces. They say 
On Friday, May 23, investigators from the National Fraud Unit, headed by Brig. Gen. Shlomi Ayalon, arrived at the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem and interrogated him on suspicion of receiving cash from Moshe (Morris) Talansky. In the course of that interrogation they whipped out Olmert's classified declaration of assets, the one he had submitted to the state comptroller in 2003 as required by law. 
