UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is deeply troubled by reports of an attempt underway "to overthrow the Government of Mauritanian President Ould Taya by force," said a statement released by United Nations spokesman St{phane Dujarric. "The Secretary-General condemns any attempt to change the government of any country unconstitutionally and stresses that political disagreements should be settled peacefully, through the democratic process," Dujarric said.
Boy! Talk about quick and decisive action!
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
21:28 ||
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"The Secretary-General condemns any attempt to change the government of any country unconstitutionally and stresses that political disagreements should be settled peacefully, through the democratic process," Dujarric said.
So when do I get to vote on who gets the office of Secretary General?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 22:13
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Chinese are embracing Christianity in a social revolution that is spreading through town and countryside to the point where Christians already may outnumber members of the Communist Party of China.
Visits to villages in backward rural provinces or to urban churches in Beijing, where even on weekdays the young and middle-aged gather to proclaim their faith, confirm the ease with which conversions can be won.
"City people have real problems, and mental pain, that they can't resolve on their own. So it's easy for us to convert these people to Christianity," said Xun Jinzhen, who preaches to customers at a beauty salon in Beijing.
"In the countryside, people are richer than before, but they still have problems with their health and in family relationships. Then it's also very easy to bring them to Christianity."
State-sanctioned Protestant and Catholic churches in China count up to 35 million followers, making Christianity the third most practiced religion in the country after Buddhism and Taoism. Islam ranks fourth.
Even more significant is a steadily growing network of underground or "house" churches, which are said to have up to 100 million members.
That compares with an official total of 70 million members of the Communist Party, many of whom have lost faith as the party has moved away from strict ideological principles toward increasing acceptance of free markets... This has got to quietly scare the hell out of their leaders. The Taiping Rebellion in China had (distorted) Christian overtones, and may have been the second bloodiest war in human history after WWII.
#1
It's finally good to hear some Good News among all the Christian persecution that's going on. I have also read reports of other Christian missionaries are in full swing after the Tsunami and the floods in Bombay. I am not saying that I favor disasters but then again it's not really up to me, is it?
One constant that I find in all these articles is that the people (Christians) who the locals considered a threat, are the only ones sticking around to help after a disaster, whether it is environmental, natural, or emotional.
#2
It's finally good to hear some Good News among all the Christian persecution that's going on. I have also read reports of other Christian missionaries are in full swing after the Tsunami and the floods in Bombay. I am not saying that I favor disasters but then again it's not really up to me, is it?
One constant that I find in all these articles is that the people (Christians) who the locals considered a threat, are the only ones sticking around to help after a disaster, whether it is environmental, natural, or emotional. Here is an example of deliberate misinformation against Christianity.
#7
it's all right - it's a good article. It's just sometimes I get tired of all of the evil in this world and that picture pretty much sums it up.
Sometimes I have to wonder where the hatred, selfishness and cruelty comes from. At least if the Chinese convert, perhaps that's a billion more people that will at least attempt to embrace goodness over the lure of darkness. That's got to be a good thing.
#8
To throw in my $.02...do any of you know of a good site that has verifiable numbers of converts to Christianity by country? I've heard this for years about China (especially out in the rural/village areas), but have also heard it's also exploding in S. Korea, and many African nations. A buddy of mine just got back from Kenya (on mission) and they had a worship service there where 600+ villagers converted to Christianity! I'm betting in border states to "jihadistan" nations are seeing more and more converts. The only downside is that we may see a LOT more clashes between the jihadis/muslim gov'ts and the Christians (e.g. Sudan is my main example in this arena, but you see smaller conflicts in these border areas like SE Asia in Indonesia, etc.).
Posted by: BA ||
08/03/2005 21:23
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#9
BA,
"The only downside is that we may see a LOT more clashes between the jihadis/muslim gov'ts and the Christians"
But this time....
MSM duplicity exposed...........check
True nature of Islam exposed....check
Alt. media avail................check
U.S. awake from hibernation.....check
British awake from hibernation..check
IDF free to eliminate threats...check
#10
The only downside is that we may see a LOT more clashes between the jihadis/muslim gov'ts and the Christians
This would change the general world-wide trend in what way, exactly?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 22:15
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#11
The Koreans have been Christian for a long time. It got lost in the North for the most part, following the Communist take-over, but I think in the South the upwards of 90% belong to the religion... mostly Protestant, I do believe. There is at least one Korean Protestant Church within easy driving distance of my house, and several more in the city.
#12
The question is are these Christians as we know it. The Taiping Rebellion was fought between Christians and the government in China and if I recall it was a somewhat different version of Christianity.
At that point Christianity had grown so big as to be a threat to the Emporers, if my memory is correct. Looks like the tide is rising again.
#13
rjschwarz: The question is are these Christians as we know it. The Taiping Rebellion was fought between Christians and the government in China and if I recall it was a somewhat different version of Christianity.
In the past, a variety of religious sects have amassed armies either against or in behalf of the government. The Yellow Turbans helped bring about an end to the Han Dynasty. The Taipings attempted to topple the Qing Dynasty. The Boxers attempted to prop up the Qing Dynasty against the demands of various foreign powers for treaty ports and the like. But none of these movements had any real degree of intellectual coherence or staying power - the conflicts they brought about were pretty much raw power grabs by their leaders. I doubt that Christianity in its current form will spawn anything like the large-scale massacres that characterized the followers of the preceding sects - against their opponents when they were winning and against them when they were losing.
After several years of talking about it, the U.S. Department of Defense is finally sending itâs Sheriff ADS (Active Defense System) to Iraq. The system uses three non-lethal weapons. These include a "sound searchlight" (called the Long Range Acoustic Device), that can project sound long distances, and also pump out really loud sound and direct it like a searchlight against people. Then thereâs the Lazzer Dazzler, which sends very bright, pulsating, light at crowds. This light will disorient most people, and can also reveal any optics in the crowd, especially the scope of a sniper rifle. Finally thereâs the microwave device, which creates a burning sensation on the skin of its victims, causing them to want to leave the area, or at least distract them. The microwave weapon has a range of about 500 meters. ADS is carried on a hummer or Stryker, along with a machine-gun. The most important new development is the establishment of ROE (Rules of Engagement) for Sheriff systems. Put simply, anyone who keeps coming after getting hit with the sound, light and microwave is assumed to have evil intent, and will be killed. Sheriff will be particularly useful for terrorists who hide in crowds of women and children, using the human shields to get close enough to make an attack. This has been encountered in Somalia and Iraq. The army and marines want 14 Sheriff vehicles (eight for the army, six for the marines.) Each will cost about $1.1 million. The Department of Defense has been reluctant to send ADS to a combat zone for fear of bad publicity from the mass media, who are sure to dub use of the non-lethal weapon a war crime. Something odd here. The primary application of these weapons is against "rent-a-mobs". So why send them to Iraq, unless the military is anticipating large riots against US forces or the Iraqi government? The only other alternative I can imagine is using them in an, ah, adjacent country.
#1
In retrospect, I think they are deploying these in anticipation of rent-a-mobs for both the referendum and the national elections. Based on sheer numbers, that would mean the majority in Shiite areas.
#2
The Department of Defense has been reluctant to send ADS to a combat zone for fear of bad publicity from the mass media, who are sure to dub use of the non-lethal weapon a war crime.
As opposed to what they say when the protestors are shot? Send in the Sheriff.
#4
Great tool to control check points and handle crowds after a raid. Isreal could use a few and we could use a lot of them on the Mexican border.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
08/03/2005 21:39
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#5
Or rather, they're an all-around waste of live ammo? (Sorry if this sounds stupid.)
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
08/03/2005 21:43
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#6
Flamethrowers create a burning sensation as well and I think are far more...impressive when it comes to keeping crowds away. Of course, if they upped the power on the ADS so the targeted person explodes from intense microwaves, that works too.
By Valerie Richardson
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
August 1, 2005
DENVER -- A plan to redesign seven Denver Public Library branches with a Spanish-language focus has created a row over the library's role in light of the city's growing Spanish-speaking population.
At a series of public meetings last week, library officials said the "Language and Learning" branches would feature an increased Spanish-language book and periodical collection, a bilingual staff and classes for Spanish speakers on subjects such as English acquisition, high school equivalency and computers.
Head librarian Rick Ashton said the Language and Learning concept, which is being reviewed by the Library Commission and a 50-member advisory board, was required to address the needs of Denver's growing Spanish-speaking population.
Hispanics make up 34.8 percent of Denver's population, up from 23 percent in 1990, and about 20 percent speak Spanish at home. Children from Hispanic families account for 54.1 percent of the enrollment in Denver public schools.
Although some patrons have praised the library's vision, the Language and Learning idea has met with resistance from those who say that the proposal is another step toward placing Spanish on an equal footing with English as the national language.
"The library is a purveyor primarily of written information, and it should be provided largely, say 95 percent, in the native language of our country, which is English," said Fred Elbel, president of Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform.
Increasing the Spanish-language collection will discourage newcomers from learning English, critics say, and give preferential treatment to Spanish speakers at the expense of immigrants from Russia, Vietnam and other countries. "I'm totally against it. I think anyone entering the United States should learn English," Denver resident Dick Traeyhouse said after a recent forum. "To pick one language is wrong."
Critics also contend that the libraries will offer yet another incentive for illegal aliens to choose Denver as their home. Immigrants need not prove their legal status to receive a library card, say critics and library employees.
Library official Beth Elder countered that the library has long acted as a "gateway" for immigrants, helping them adjust to life in their new country. "Libraries have always welcomed immigrants and always been a resource for immigrants to improve their lives," she said. "Libraries have always had a role in helping them become members of the community."
Denver's library plan places it at the forefront of major cities moving to cater to Spanish-speaking patrons, said Ana Elba Pavon, president of Reforma, an affiliate of the American Library Association that seeks to promote the inclusion of Spanish materials at U.S. libraries.
"They are on the cutting edge with this," said Miss Pavon, who heads children's services at the Mission branch of the San Francisco Public Library. "They're restructuring their system so they can provide better service to the Spanish-speaking community. ... They have a lot of pretty revolutionary things going on with this."
Library officials declined to give estimates as to what percentage of the collection would be in Spanish, but they stressed that the branches still would carry materials in English and other languages. The library currently allocates 6.8 percent of its budget for Spanish-language books and magazines, library Commissioner Wesley Brown said.
The Library Commission and advisory board are slated next month to give final comments, but critics contend that the plan is already in place.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/03/2005
18:00 ||
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#1
You'll note that their libraries would never *dream* of offering free English-language and American culture classes from basic to advanced. First of all, few hispanics are schooled to understand how a library works, unlike in English language schools where children have it explained to them. A library would be a natural for teaching English. It could expose them to all sorts of fine literature, non-fiction and fiction. Right there is a huge assortment for all skill levels, and full of people who are both bilingual and speak native English. Think of how fast Spanish speakers would learn English if they could spend 3 hours a night six nights a week in intensive learning?
#2
How fast? Six months for basic proficiency, four months for language adepts. Beyond that they could start working on GED-type skills, so that they'd be employable in English-intensive jobs like McDonalds, not just cleaning and gardening.
#3
The Denver Public School's have had a bilingual program for many years. Instead of teaching English they teach the kids in Spanish, setting them up to fail, not being able to get higher end jobs. Even the kids that have been born and raised here, many of them still don't understand or speak English. Nor do they seem interested in learning, which is very sad.
In the Denver Public Libraries they have found explicit books in the Spanish language.
'Novelas' in Denver public libraries - Spanish language porn
"Novela" is the name sometimes given to Spanish language pornographic comic books. These novellas have been brought into Denver Public Libraries, presumably at taxpayer expense, to replace English language books. These Novellas are pornographic and reflect serious violence against women.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/03/2005 22:42
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jan...we used to call it "monolingual" education, since the "bi" part of it just wasn't happening.
This is an interesting concept. Essentially they are using hot water from passive solar to generate electricity and then methane. I'm sceptical they can use it to capture CO2 from the air as they claim, but I can see how it could work as an adjunct to a coal power plant. These are just the bullet points from the start of the article. Towards the end they lay out their business plan for progressive introduction. Assuming the technology works, this could make a real difference, unlike the usual alternative energy snakeoil.Coming into production in September, thermal solar panels from International Automated Systems will produce electricity at 3-5 cents per kilowatt-hour .
Bladeless turbine has wide range of waste-heat-harnessing applications.
Methanol production technique will utilize CO2, drawing it out of the environment and recycling it.
New U.S. energy bill opens a financing method that will enable this technology to quickly become a foundational component of the energy-generation infrastructure.
#1
This is a bit confusing on the surface, and only makes sense with some additional research. First of all, while they might make methanol about the same price as gasoline, it has about half the energy, so, for example, you can only drive half as far on a tank. (Same engine power, though). However, ethanol has more energy than methanol, and is made of renewable biomass, so why not use it? Because it is very expensive to make, even though it is heavily subsidized by the government. So this company is essentially trying to sell the Kyoto accord. Even though our methanol is twice the price of gasoline, it would recycle lots of carbon that might otherwise pollute or just be expensively buried underground.
#2
I thought it was interesting for 2 reasons. One was passive solar is cost effective to heat water. Extending that to electricity generation is an obvious step. Combining it with carbon capture adds value, and carbon capture is the only way to reduce CO2 levels (given Kyoto is a complete bust). Potentially this is a moreorless zero cost way of controlling CO2 levels.
#3
Most plant tissue is created from CO2. To get CO2, they open pores in their leaves. But this also lets out water. So, the more CO2 in the air, the less they need to open their pores, and the less water they need. So in water poor countries, build sealed greenhouses that have extra CO2 pumped into them. They get really productive crops, use far less water, and the CO2 is tied up in plant matter that can be decomposed into ethanol.
Followers of the Summum faith say Moses made two trips down from the mountain. On one journey, the prophet returned with the Ten Commandments, "lower laws" that were easily understood and widely distributed.
I. THE PRINCIPLE OF PSYCHOKINESIS
II. THE PRINCIPLE OF CORRESPONDENCE
III. THE PRINCIPLE OF VIBRATION
IV. THE PRINCIPLE OF OPPOSITION
V. THE PRINCIPLE OF RHYTHM
VI. THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSE AND EFFECT
VII. THE PRINCIPLE OF GENDER
File under mumbo jumbo...
The higher law obtained from the other trip, though, was passed down only to a select few who were able to appreciate it, according to the Salt Lake City-based religion.
Yassss... Secret knowledge, available only to the elect...
But now, Summum is fighting a legal battle to share that higher law - the Seven Aphorisms, or principles that underlie creation and nature - with everyone in a public forum. The church has filed suit against Pleasant Grove over its refusal to allow it to erect its own monument in a city park that has held a Ten Commandments monolith since 1971.
Considered buying some property with your own money and erecting it?... Didn't think so...
In the lawsuit, Summum alleges the denial of its request to put up the Seven Aphorisms in the park at 100 North and 100 East counters previous rulings. In two of them, handed down in 1997 and 2002, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver agreed that Salt Lake County and Ogden City had created a forum for free expression by allowing the erection of a Ten Commandments monument on government property. The same standard applies to Pleasant Grove, Summum contends in its suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court. "The rights of plaintiff Summum are violated when the defendants give preference and endorsement to one particular set of religious beliefs by allowing the Ten Commandments monument to remain in a public park or in a forum within the public park supported by taxpayers and disallow a similar display of the religious tenets of Summum," the suit says.
#6
Good manners are what keep you alive when dealing with strangers
Unfortunately, many motorists that otherwise know what good manners are seem to lose it entirely once their cars start moving. Failure to keep to the right when driving slow, cutting people off, forcing their way in, and failing to stop and let pass others that are being held up on a two-lane road are but samples of movement-induced motorist brain malfunction.
#7
One can only be appalled at the reduction in good manners occasioned by the passing of a statute outlawing dueling the US in the very early 1800's. I could be persuaded to support a repeal of said law, providing that the weapons allowed were "sporting". Being 6'8" I am much enamored of 16# sledgehammers in 6' of water....
#8
confusedshush says, "good manners are not reflected by how others correctly follow the rules, but how you, as an individual, handle the fact that the car in front of you did not follow the rules". Now we are talking manners, civility, chivalry and taking the high road.
Now that John Bolton has been installed as United Nations ambassador -- by the time-honored recess appointment or the power-crazed overreach of King Emperor Bush Fuhrer, depending on your point of view -- one can only wonder how he'll do. Here's a hypothetical workday. (Note that he's made it out of Washington without some senators throwing themselves on the train tracks to keep him from leaving. Or, rather, having aides throw themselves on the tracks. Make that interns. Aides might say things under anesthesia.) Anyway. The limo pulls up to the glistening U.N. building at 7:59 a.m.
There are, of course, protesters. They chant: "Hey hey! Ho ho! Bolton John has got to go! Hey hey! Ho ho!" But Bolton strides right through the crowd and enters the building, leaving the protesters stunned: It didn't work! The chant didn't work! Frantic calls are placed to ANSWER, CORE, ACORN, NARAL and the National Guild of Pronounceable Acronyms (NGPA); the leadership is informed that the magic chant has failed. Lucifer has entered the temple! Repeat, Lucifer is in the temple! Call George Soros and have him fund a new one STAT! No, that doesn't stand for anything.
8:03 -- Security makes Bolton go through the metal detector six times, convinced he's hiding brass knuckles somewhere. He leaves, grasping the detachable metal handle of his briefcase, smiling privately.
8:15 -- Bolton, who once remarked that you could remove the top 10 floors of the U.N. without diminishing its effectiveness, notes with rue how long the elevator takes to get to his office. He arrives. Superglue in the keyhole again, just like at State.
Noon -- Bolton presents his credentials to Kofi Annan, who is sweating and nervous. The lunch is amiable until Bolton, his hand still aching from a vigorous game of handball, makes a fist and cracks his knuckles, whereupon Annan takes a stack of papers from his desk, stammers that it has all the details on the oil-for-food scandal, and begs not to be put in a cell next to his son. "He snores," Annan begs.
3:17 p.m. -- The afternoon sun is getting hot; Bolton discovers the shade is stuck. He calls building services. He is informed that the shade has been stuck since 1966, that the U.N. Commission on Window Treatments was convened in 1967 to address the matter, and is scheduled to meet again in 2006, once India withdraws its objections to giving the rotating chairmanship to Yemen -- as one of the founding countries, it has the right to the chair, but when the nation split in two its claim to the chair was remanded to a subcommittee, which went on a fact-finding mission to a French drape manufacturer and never reported back aside from annual expense accounts from a beach house in the south. The Plenary Commission on International Shade Accords, a separate body, has recommended that any action on drapes or curtains be postponed until the U.N. building is renovated, or that a large movable curtain be erected across the street to block the sun, but this debate has been stalled over an amendment condemning Israel's treatment of Venetian blinds in the Gaza Strip. Of course, now that Israel has begun withdrawal from ...
3:24 -- Bolton hangs up, cuts the cord, and the shade comes down.
4:07 -- At the cafeteria, Bolton gets a doughnut and a cup of coffee; the cashier informs him she'll put it on the U.S. tab. Bolton insists on paying himself; she shrugs and asks for $428.26.
5:00 -- As the workday ends, Bolton looks outside and sees a crowd waiting to protest his exit. What disguise to use? The Saddam costume? No, they'd want autographs, and besides, that mustache dye takes a day to wash out. The Osama outfit? What, and get kissed to death by the Iranian delegation? No. Let's see ... perfect disguise. But alas: Everyone says, "G'night, John." "See you tomorrow, Mr. Bolton." How could they see through the helmet?
Apparently it's not enough to look like Darth Vader. You have to act like him, too.
It's what they expect. Might as well give it to them.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
14:38 ||
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I said it a couple of days ago andd I'll say it again. I hope he orders a bunch of 5 foot lengths of rope and hands them out and tells certain counrties delegations to go piss up them.
#2
Ahhh I still think the US should tell the UN to suck it cut off all funding and support kick them out of the states and the next day open a new organization. Call it whatever Better world alliance whatever have only nations that meet certian criteria can join others can get probation status as they convert over to the standards you know (freedom democracy capatalism) this new alliance agrees to a mutual protection pact to work together towards goals to spread and support the alliances values membership ect... You ask why would any nation join this group and stick it to the UN simple America is the largest market for goods and trade in the world use it to our advantage by making this free trade and such only amongst the alliance, that would also especially include the international aid cough "international welfare". I can think of a couple of nations that would join some for the trade some for the military protection.
#3
Nope. The UN has its uses. Not many, but a couple.
1) It gives us a chance to do the occasional, quiet, behind-the-scenes meetings that can be useful. "Say, Ambassador, your country keeps supporting terrorists, that ain't healthy, ya know?"
2) A few of the UN sponsored agencies do stuff. Sometimes. On certain days. The WHO is helpful. Certain technical organizations are quasi-useful. I didn't know abut the Plenary Commission on International Shade Accords, but I wouldn't have thought it pertained to drapes, anyways.
3) It allows us to point conveniently at what's wrong with much of the world. It gets time-consuming to restate all that, so being able to point to the UN is a short-cut.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/03/2005 18:54
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#5
Might we park the new Sheriff, see New Sheriff Article, in front of the building and help the protestors get in touch with their pain receptors and outer self? Bolten is standing alone in hell and will try to complete a noble task. Best of luck to a great man!
Posted by: 49 pan ||
08/03/2005 21:50
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VICTORIA, Texas - Relatives of seven illegal aliens people who died in the nation's deadliest illegal alien immigrant smuggling attempt have sued the maker of a trailer, a trucking company and the driver. The lawsuits, with allegations ranging from product liability to wrongful death and negligence, seek millions of dollars in damages.
Product liability? Why, cuz they didn't think to put a door knob on the inside of the trailer?
U.S. District Judge John Rainey will hold pretrial hearings beginning Sept. 6.
The smuggling scheme ended in horror in May 2003 when the closed trailer, bound for Houston from South Texas, was abandoned at a truck stop near Victoria. Seventeen illegal aliens people died inside the trailer of dehydration, overheating and suffocation. Two illegal aliens died later.
Horrible way to die, yes. Shouldn't have broken the law sneaking in
The suits name Great Dane Trailers of Savannah, Ga., Salem Truck Leasing and driver Tyrone Williams.
Great Dane having the deepest pockets
None had responded in court as of Tuesday, the Victoria Advocate reported in its Wednesday editions. A call placed late Tuesday to Great Dane Trailers was not answered. The leasing company could not immediately be reached for comment. The relatives in the lawsuits listed six of the illegal aliens victims as being from Mexico and one from Honduras.
Now there's a shocker....
A jury in March convicted Williams on 38 charges of transporting illegal aliens immigrants.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
14:05 ||
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#1
How could Great Dane have been so negligent as to not provide proper ventillation in their trailers for the illicit transportation of illegal aliens? The inhuman bastards!
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/03/2005 14:37
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#2
This is why summary judgement was invented.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/03/2005 14:43
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#3
You're right Mrs. D., unfortunately here it's far more likely to go against Great Dane, Salem Truck Leasing, & T. Williams than against the families of the dead.
Product liability? Why, cuz they didn't think to put a door knob on the inside of the trailer?
Yes. One very common products liability test considers whether, in hindsight, the product could have been made in such a way as to prevent the accident / dangerous circumstance without either unduly increasing the price of the product or severely impacting the utility of the product. Other tests are less heinous but no more likely to produce a positive outcome for anyone involved here (and there are numerous liability theories beyond simply products liability that are probably applicable to this case).
Any lawyer in Victoria would be insane not to take this case and they'd be foolish to take it on anything other than a straight contingency fee basis. Lots of money is going to change hands here but don't blame the lawyers or the courts, blame the politicians who wrote the laws.
#4
Great Dane has nothing to worry about beyond their counsel trying to generate too much in the way of billable hours over this, something that can be easily killed in the crib. Salem Truck Leasing probably has nothing to fear. Although I don't think it is so, I sure hope that company has no relation to William A. Salem (real reefer units his were) or his pappy slick trucking company operator Albert Salem.
#5
What the suit syas in part is that Great Dane should be liable because there were no warning sighns on the trailer that said people should not be transported in them. Great Dane replied that this is a refrigerated trailer than can only be opened while the trailer is at a standstill and DOT regulations prohibit people from riding in these types of trailers, therefore no warning sign was needed. I think, unless there is an extremely liberal judge, that Great Dane will be dismissed from this suit.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/03/2005 18:54
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Hordes of German troops couldn't take him, but time finally did.
Ernest Alva (Smoky) Smith, Canada's last winner of the Victoria Cross, has died at his home in Vancouver. He was 91. Born in New Westminster, B.C., on May 3, 1914, Smith was a joyful man with an impish smile who savoured a good cigar, a well-aged scotch and the attentions of ladies the world over. Far from a natural-born diplomat, however, it was his fierce fighting ability that vaulted Smith, nicknamed Smoky in school because of his running ability, into the company of royalty, presidents and prime ministers.
Last fall, Italians and Canadians gathered beneath the walls of an 800-year-old castle in Cesena, Italy, to honour Smith for unleashing a few minutes of fury that saved untold lives and changed his own forever.
In a warm ceremony filled with tales, tears and tributes, officials unveiled a plaque commemorating that night of Oct. 21-22, 1944. His actions that rainy night, when he singlehandedly fought off German tanks and dozens of troops on a road beside the Savio River, were hailed as an inspiration to all his countrymen for time immemorial.
To Smith, it was simple: kill or be killed. He was scared but he couldn't let his fear gain the best of him or he would die. "If you're not afraid, there's something wrong with you," he said. "You've got to do it. Don't worry about it. "Do it."
Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson, who developed a rapport with Smith over four Remembrance Days and many other ceremonies, said his feats that night resonated far beyond the moment into the hearts of generations of Canadians. "Someone once said that courage is rightly esteemed as the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others," she said. "It is the underlying, rock-like base on which we can live truly human lives. (It is) something he did not only in one battle, not only in the campaign of Italy but for all of us. "We are more human because one of our members is capable of such a thing."
Although his comrades called him "a soldier's soldier," Smith's relationship with the army was stormy. He built a reputation as an independent-minded man suspicious of authorities. They made him a corporal nine times and busted him back to private nine times. That was his rank when he was awarded his VC, the only Canadian private to win the medal in the Second World War Irreverant, sharp-witted and something of a trouble-maker, Smoky Smith and his deeds that night are the stuff of legend.
Already wounded once in Sicily, he had returned to cross the Savio River with his Seaforth Highlanders, the spearhead of an attack aimed at establishing a bridgehead in the push to liberate Cesena and ultimately break through the Germans' Gothic Line. But the rains were so heavy the river rose two metres in five hours. The banks were too soft for tanks or anti-tank guns to cross in support of the rifle companies. As the right forward company consolidated its objective, the Germans counter-attacked with three Panther tanks, two self-propelled guns and about 30 infantry. "The situation appeared hopeless," said Smith's citation announcing he had received the Commonwealth's highest military honour almost 61 years ago.
Then 30, Smith led his three-man anti-tank group across an open field under heavy fire. Leaving an anti-tank weapon with one of his men, he led Pte. Jimmy Tennant across the road for another. "We got hit with grenades," Smith recalled. "We got grenades thrown all over us. I don't know how I didn't get hit. He (Tennant) got hit in the shoulder and arm. "So I said: 'Get in that ditch and stay there. Don't move.' So we stayed right there and I never got a mark."
Smith had a tommy gun - a close-range submachine-gun - a Bren gun machine-gun and a PIAT, or Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank gun. He also had hundreds of rounds of machine-gun ammunition strung around his neck and hanging off his body. "We had tried to get a German bazooka, which we figured was twice the weapon we had," he said. "But they wouldn't let us have it. You know why? "It wasn't British."
The pair were no sooner into a ditch when a Panther came toward them, firing all the way. Smith waited until the 45-tonne vehicle was less than 10 metres away before he jumped out from his cover, laid down and fired back. He scored a direct hit, disabling the tank. "I hit it in the side or the track," said Smith. "A tank is pretty hard to hit. Sometimes the round would just bounce off it. "I could see it face-on."
Immediately, 10 German Panzergrenadier troops jumped off and charged him. "I killed four of them with my tommy gun. That scared them off. "They were up close - about 10 feet or so." Another tank opened fire. More enemy began closing on Smith's position. Smith grabbed more magazines and "steadfastly held his position," said the citation. "It was just a bunch of rocks," Smith said. "You're not fighting on the prairies, you know. You try and keep out of sight. "You find yourself a hunk of ground you can hang on to. That's the way you win wars, I think."
He fired another round at an approaching tank. It turned away. As each German neared him, Smith fired at them. The rest eventually turned and withdrew "in disorder," the citation said. "Even Germans don't like to be shot," Smith said. From a distance, a tank continued firing. Smith helped a badly bleeding Tennant up and the two of them made their way back across the road to a church, where Smith left his buddy in the care of some medics. Dead Germans lay strewn all over the road.
"I don't take prisoners. Period," Smith said 60 years later. "I'm not paid to take prisoners. I'm paid to kill them. "That's all there is to it."
Smith heard he'd won the Victoria Cross about seven weeks after the fight. His reputation as a party animal preceded him. Military police were sent to take him to the ceremony with King George VI in London.
"They picked me up in Naples or somewhere and they put me in jail," Smith recalled with his trademark grin. "'Don't let him loose in this town. Don't let him loose. He's a dangerous fellow.' "I liked to party. I'd have a big goddamn party and they'd say: 'Where is he now? Oh, he's drunk downtown."'
After the war, Smith worked a couple of years before he rejoined the army to go and fight in the Korean War. "After I got in the army, they wouldn't let me go. They said: 'You got a VC, you're not allowed to fight any more.' "I said: 'Why didn't you tell me before I rejoined?"'
He was promoted sergeant, then retired with full pension at 50. He became a newspaper photographer before starting his own travel business with wife, Esther. "I worked for Smoky Smith," he said. "He's the only boss I know who's good to me." He retired at 82. In recent years, he was pretty much confined to a wheelchair. He had a bad cough. His beloved cigars and scotch took their toll.
Jimmy Tennant survived the war. Smith helped him find a job with the Workers Compensation Board when they returned to Canada. Tennant had lost a chunk of bone in his arm so it was shorter than the other by about five centimetres. Tennant lived a long and happy life, not far from Smith in Vancouver. The two remained friends until Tennant died of lung cancer years ago. After that night in 1944, Smith's life was never the same again. Strange women kissed him. Countless men wanted their pictures taken with him. Children smothered him with affection. He met kings and queens and prime ministers and presidents. As much as he loved the attention, he never forgot the joys the simple things in life could provide.
Master Cpl. Bud Dickson, Smith's aide de camp on overseas trips for 10 years, remembered getting dressed six years ago in the Mediterranean town of Catania when a knock came on his hotel room door. Dickson opened the door and there stood Smith. "Come here, Bud, I've got something to show you," Smith said. Dickson finished dressing and went to Smith's room. The door was ajar and Dickson walked in, calling Smith's name. "Out here," came the reply. And there sat Smith on the balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, two of his beloved scotches on the table in front of him. Dickson sat, still a bit confused. The sun was just cresting the horizon to the east. "What's going on, Smoky?" he asked. "Nothin'," said the then-85-year-old veteran. "I just wanted you to come over and watch the sunrise."
So Dickson, then a 33-year-old army signaller, and Smoky Smith, who had probably seen more war than all present-day Canadian soldiers put together, sat back, sipped their scotches and watched a spectacular sunrise. They barely spoke a word. About 10 minutes passed. By now, the sun was big blazing orange ball. To this day, Dickson says he will never forget the words Smith spoke.
"Try to do this as often as you can," said Smith, who used to kill enemy troops with a half-metre-long, Indian-style warclub bristling with nails. "You never know when your last sunrise is going to be."
The war, Smith said last year, didn't darken his soul and weigh on his heart the way it did some veterans. "Once it's over, it's over," he said. "It was a good life." A military funeral is being planned.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
13:46 ||
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"Smith, who used to kill enemy troops with a half-metre-long, Indian-style warclub bristling with nails
WTF ? The whole rest of the article talks about Tommy guns and PIATs ( you know, ** NORMAL ** WWII-era weaponry)
Either that is a fact, in which case shame on the writer for not giving us more of THAT story, or that is some fictive weirdness thrown in for lordknowswhutreason during the "editing process" (with the state of the MSM these days, that's plausible)
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
08/03/2005 14:51
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Maybe the warclub has something to do with these parties he was having, and it ended up on the editing room floor. ;)
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
08/03/2005 15:03
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Police charged a 23-year-old man Wednesday with withholding information about the failed July 21 bombing attempts targeting London's transit system, making him the first person in Britain to face criminal charges in the attacks. The charge alleges that Ismael Abdurahman, from southeast London, "had information he knew or believed may be of material assistance in securing the apprehension, prosecution or conviction of another person in the UK for an offense involving the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism." He allegedly learned that information sometime between July 23 and July 28. Abdurahman will appear before Bow Street Magistrates in London on Thursday, police said.
The bombs set on three subway trains and a double-decker bus only partly detonated and did not cause any injuries. The attacks came two weeks after four suicide attackers detonated bombs on three subway trains and a double-decker bus, killing 52 other people. British police have arrested 37 people in connection with the July 21 attacks, and on Wednesday were still holding 16. They released one detainee Tuesday. Police say those still in custody include three of the failed bombers.
British officials are seeking the extradition from Italy of the fourth suspected bomber, Ethiopian-born Hamdi Issac, who was arrested Friday in Rome shortly after his arrival from Britain. On Monday, an Italian judge charged him with association with the aim of international terrorism.
As investigators worked to bring terror suspects in Zambia and Italy to Britain, an official warned Wednesday that London police are being stretched thin by the pressures of heightened security in the wake of bombing attacks. Many officers in the Metropolitan Police have been working longer hours and more days as they investigate the attacks, said Richard Barnes, a member of the watchdog agency for the Metropolitan Police Authority. Thousands of officers from the force and the British Transport Police have been deployed at subway and train stations across London in recent weeks, in a bid to avert more strikes.
Police also have had to deal with numerous security alerts, often caused by suspicious packages that prove to be harmless.
"The Met has risen, as it always does, remarkably well to the challenge, but you can't sustain people working 12 hours a day, six days a week, constantly," Barnes told British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
"There are some specialists who are working far more than that. ... The pressure is just enormous." A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police had no immediate response to Barnes' comments.
Meanwhile, Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa said Wednesday a terror suspect wanted for questioning in connection with the July 7 attacks will be deported to Britain. He gave no date for deportation. Zambian authorities have been questioning Haroon Rashid Aswat, 31, about 20 phone calls he allegedly made to some of the July 7 bombers on his South African cell phone. The president said British and American investigators also have interrogated Aswat in Zambia, Mwanawasa said. He did not give a date for the deportation. Aswat also is implicated in a 1999 plot to establish a terrorist training camp in the United States and has told Zambian investigators he once was a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, Zambian officials have said. A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office in London said she could not talk about the deportation of an individual. She did say that British consular officials in Zambia were seeking a meeting with an unnamed Briton detained in that country, and that Zambian authorities had agreed to the request.
In the July 21 bombing investigation, Italian prosecutor Pietro Saviotti said the extradition of Issac likely would take weeks. "The process for extradition is in course and at the same time we are carrying out careful checks to verify any possible crimes committed in our country," Saviotti told state radio RAI. "I would not say we are talking about days but about weeks" before Issac can be extradited, he said. Issac, who had lived in Britain for a decade, managed to elude a sweeping manhunt and leave London by train four days after the attack.
Police say all four bombers who carried out the July 7 attacks died in the blasts. Officers are not holding any suspects in connection with those bombings.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
13:40 ||
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In order, shoot him, hang him, then try him.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/03/2005 14:13
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Supporters and facilitators need to be dealt with as harshly if not more so than the actual boomers.
Hope all of you already ate lunch after reading that line...
Legendary in her own mind White House reporter Helen Thomas is mad at me, big time, as Vice President Cheney once said in a different context about a different reporter.
My sin? I made the mistake of assuming that, when I called her last week to ask about her recent Hearst Newspapers column on Cheney, I wasnât calling to pass the time of day but actually intended to write a story about it. Calling him âthe most powerful vice president in recent times, perhaps in U.S. history,â she said that Cheney âcertainly could campaign on the theme that he has had experience in running the White House."
Um, kinda like Al Gore did? No hypocrisy here...
Figuring that, having covered every president since Andrew JacksonAbe Lincoln John F. Kennedy, she knew I was going to quote her, since I assume people are on the record unless they state otherwise, which she didnât, I asked her if she was promoting a Cheney candidacy in 2008.
Emphasis mine - that's the whole 'he said - she said' argument in a nutshell. I guess it depends on how often they've ever chatted w/ each other; if it was less often, I'll side with him.
I then wrote what I thought was an innocuous item in our âUnder the Domeâ column Thursday in which I quoted her response: âThe day I say Dick Cheney is going to run for president, Iâll kill myself. All we need is one more liar.â She says I shouldnât have quoted her âbecause we all say stuff we donât want printed.â
Little surprise here - I can imagine much, much worse things being said in private by the likes of Krugman, MoDo, and the other usual suspects...
Little did I know, being a creature of the typewriter/telegraph era of journalism, that cybergossip (Um, try internet reporter - Ed.) Matt Drudge would pounce on the item and transmit it to the farthest regions of the Internet universe, along with an unflattering photograph of Ms. Thomas. You have a flattering one?
That was all Drudge acolytes needed to unleash a flood of e-mails condemning her â and me, as her unwitting accomplice.
Unwitting? Color me skeptical...
The general tone of the e-mails, and a number of phone calls as well, can be captured in one from Rob Clark of Sarasota, Fla., who wrote, âPlease tell Helen Thomas that she can borrow one of my guns if she wants to shoot herself.â
This is called 'Open Mouth, Insert Foot"...
Of course, there were also such gems as this one from an anonymous foul-mouthed Drudgoid who described me with a scatalogical term combining an adjective for a common sexual practice with a noun for a bodily orifice.
The old Kos "Take one letter from untold thousands to portray the opposition as nutjobs" meme? Couldn't see that coming. That trick's almost as old as Helen Thomas!
âNo wonder the fourth estate is in such sorry state, you f- - - - - - sleezeball,â he wrote. Iâd have taken his comment seriously if heâd had the guts to sign his name, but itâs easy to be a coward on the Internet. I just hope this slack-jawed degenerate reads this so he learns how to spell âsleazeball,â which he can easily see in the mirror.
'Slack-jawed degenerate'? So much for taking the high road.
Anyway, having unintentionally caused Ms. Thomas considerable pain, I wish to rise to her defense. Thomas is a great journalist, the stand-in model for the Old Man of the Mountain in Franconia, NH first lady of the White House press corps, who has blazed a trail for women journalists and has been doing for decades what White House reporters are supposed to do but too often donât, which is to ask tough questions of presidents.
I'd be breathless after such verbal fellatio / cunninlingus. Anyone want Helen's sloppy seconds?
Naturally, that doesnât sit well with a lot of people, who apparently would prefer to see their politicians treated like gods and who have a visceral hatred of the press.
You mean like JFK, Carter and Clinton, or like Gingrich, DeLay and Santorum?
But the larger lesson here, and one that Iâm surprised Ms. Thomas, who has been a Washington reporter since Charlemagne1943 and retired as UPIâs White House correspondent in 2000, failed to understand, is that âoff the recordâ is a virtually meaningless term, which is why this column bears the name it does. Itâs bad enough that I public officials hide behind it to try and weasel out of a huge mistake discredit their critics, as the CIA leak imbroglio demonstrates, but even worse when reporters do it.
"Thus I piously wash my hands of L'affaire Thomas".
#1
I wonder if he realizes the foul-mouthed fellow was a Helen "Ozzy Impersonator" Thomas supporter?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 14:35
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Raj, good Fisk, but you missed one.
.... and has been doing for decades what White House reporters are supposed to do but too often donât, which is to ask tough questions of Republican presidents.
SANAA, Yemen, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- A leading member of Yemen's ruling Popular Congress Party escaped an assassination attempt Wednesday in Sanaa, the official news agency, SABA, said. Sheik Hassan Abdullah al-Iraqi suffered a head injury when gunmen opened fire at him as he walked out of the defense ministry in the neighborhood of Hasbaa, the news agency reported. He was taken to a hospital and the attackers escaped.
Must have been wearing his Kevlar turban
Iraqi was detained at the Defense Ministry due to armed clashes last month between his Hamadan tribe and a rival clan in the province of Jouf northeast of Yemen. Police said it started an investigation into the latest attack.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
13:31 ||
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Graveyards desacrations seem to occur more and more frequently in La Belle France. Such class, such bravery...
From Adam Sage in Paris
SCORES of British war graves were vandalised at a cemetery in northern France yesterday, provoking outrage from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and French authorities.
In what gendarmes said was one of the worst acts of vandalism they had witnessed on British war graves, 42 headstones at the First World War Albuera Cemetery in the village of Bailleul-sire-Berthoult, near Arras, were toppled over.
Most had been kicked down, officers said, and one was charred after a fire was lit next to it. The register and the visitorsâ book were also burnt.
Gendarmes said that they had found beer bottles in the cemetery, and believed the damage was the result of mindless vandalism.
âThere is no grafitti and no sign that anyone was trying to make a political message,â said an officer. âWe are working on the theory that this could have been carried out by drunken youths.â
Christopher Farrell, administration manager for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in France, said: âThis cemetery should be a haven of peace, and obviously any reasonable person would find this shocking.â
He said that acts of vandalism were rare in the 2,915 Commonwealth military cemeteries in France, and tended to involve only a handful of headstones when they occured. âIn my time here, I donât think I can remember as many as 42 being vandalised,â he said.
âThe French authorities are being very supportive about this and want to make it clear that they wonât accept any form of vandalism. We saw the village mayor and he cannot believe it happened in his village, especially because every year the council lays a wreath in the cemetery on Armistice Day.â
Michel Dupuis, Mayor of Bailleul-sire-Berthoult, which has a population of 1,148, said: âWe are completely sickened by what has happened. It is scandalous to have done such a thing. We hope for only one thing, that those responsible are arrested.â
Hamlaoui Mekachera, the French Minister for Former Soldiers, expressed very strong indignation after the desecration. Describing the attack as barbarous and shocking, he spoke of the âundying gratitude of the French people for the soldiers of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth who came to fight by our sides during two world warsâ.
He said police had been ordered to step up surveillance of cemeteries after a series of politically motivated attacks on Jewish and Muslim graves.
The Albuera Cemetery is the burial place of 253 Commonwealth servicemen and one German. British troops first began burying their dead there during the Battle of Arras in the spring of 1917. But after the Armistice, soldiers who had died at other battlefields were brought for burial at Bailleul-sire-Berthoult as well.
In 2003 ten headstones were stolen from the nearby Hiberts Trench Cemetery by thieves believed to have taken them as garden ornaments. Earlier that year protesters daubed slogans condemning the war in Iraq at Etaples Cemetery, which contains 11,000 graves. âBut by and large, thereâs relatively little vandalism of this sort in France,â said Mr Farrell.
#1
Btw, I forgot, I dont have the exact numbers in mind coz I'm weak and stoopid (and badly need penis-enlargement pills), but I'm absolutely certain that the vandalizings of christian places of worship and christian graveyards dwarf the ones directed at jewish or muslim ones, all this in an absolute MSM silence. A christian graveyard desacrated is vandalism, barely worth of mention in the local newspaper, a muslim one is hate crime, covered by national teevee.
Note that in almost all recent cases, the perps who have been caught after having vandalized muslims graveyards were... north africans muslim, usually designed as "mentally ill"!...
Still, even in regard with that, somehow, I doubt synagogues are being firebombed by jews, and I doubt churches are being used as public toilets by christians.
In this case, northern France plus beer plus fire (a firebomb?), in my bigoted mind, would perhaps point to "racailles", that is muslim juveniles, rather than leftists.
#2
As much as I dislike the cowardly French nation, on every trip I have made to the Northern coast, the people had a deep respect for the Britts, the US, and the price "we" paid for "their" freedom. I can only hope it was just a few drunk idiots and not some growing trend on the northern coast. If there is a change of heart up there we have lost the only logical people in France.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
08/03/2005 21:59
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GULU, Uganda, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- The leader of a Ugandan murder cult that uses child soldiers is closing ranks as the International Criminal Court prepares to issue an arrest warrant. Joseph Kony, a self-styled prophet who has led the Lord's Resistance Army for 19 years, doesn't appear interested in an amnesty Uganda has offered for LRA members, The Telegraph reported Wednesday.
Joe is one of those folk what needs killin'
He is aware the court is investigating the abduction of some 20,000 children, but uses the isolation of his officers and child soldiers to intimidate them into believing they will go to jail if they surrender, the London newspaper said. Kony claims he wishes to rule Uganda according to the Ten Commandments, and justified murdering his own Acholi people with biblical references and accusations that they have failed to support his cause. At the Children of War Rehabilitation Centre in Gulu, 13,000 of Kony's abductees have received counseling and care in the past decade.
I'm sure he's trembling in his boots over this arrest warrant
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
13:27 ||
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Once again, THAT'S NOT ME!!!
I'm dead dammit!
Posted by: Rick James ||
08/03/2005 14:11
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Donât think of this as a book review; I havenât read it. Think of it as a teaser trailer â like a preview in the movies.
My wife and I read Bernard Goldbergâs book Bias last year. It made the case for there only being two types of folks, in the eyes of the media â regular folks and conservatives. The best example of this that I remember is when Senators are walking into the Senate for a televised event, we hear (in sonorous tones), âThatâs so-and-so, the conservative Senator from wherever.â But when Kennedy or Kerry walk in, they are announced as âThe senior (or junior) Senator from Massachusetts.â Not âthe very liberalâ, or even âthe liberalâ Senator, just plain âSenatorâ! I think Mr. Goldberg was on to something in that book!
My wife just finished reading Mr. Goldbergâs new book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up American (and Al Franken is #37). I looked through it this morning before breakfast. He starts off with several general categories, like America Bashers, Hollywood Blowhards, TV Schlockmeisters â News Division, and White Collar Thugs. Then we get into the specifics of the list. My wife observed, not all are liberals â but most are. Another observation from Mrs. Bobby - Kerry isn't in the top 100; he hasn't done anything!
As I scanned through the book, there are several names I did not recognize, and the author may spend a few paragraphs explaining his/her significance. For #90 however, Michael Jackson, there is little explanation: âIF I HAVE TO EXPLAIN it to you, you shouldnât be reading this book.â Number 95 â Courtney Love â âHOâ. Iâm not a big fan of Ms. Love. Iâll have to think about it, some.
A few other highlights - #91: Barbara Streisand; #72 Ward Churchill (perhaps the author explains why Ward is so far down his list); #65 Oliver Stone; #52 Markos Moulitsas (I didnât even know who he was until Rantburg); #45 Ken Lay (Enron); #20 Howard Dean; #19 George Soros; #18 Al Gore; #14 Mary Mapes; #12 Dan Rather (the author used to work for Dan â he is prominent in the Bias book); #11 Noam Chomsky (another learning experience for me at the âBurg); #6 Jimmy Carter; #4 âAmerican Pioneerâ Jesse Jackson; #3 Ted Kennedy; and #1 âa full-page picture and with a single quote â âThey are possibly the dumbest people on the planetâ (speaking of his fellow Americans) yes, the one and only Michael Moore.
Looks like a good book.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/03/2005
12:54 ||
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I am currently reading this and it is a really good reference on whos who on the leftand right.
(Pay article. Additional info from the print edition.) ...potentially deadly schistosomiasis, also known as "snail fever", which infects snails and people, has long been a priority for China. In 1949, some 12 million people were infected... Current infections are on the upswing, from 700k in 2000 to 850k today. ...an even deadlier parasitic disease, hydatidosis, caused by a parasitic worm, is spreading across the Tibetan Plateau and western Sichuan Province...at least 600k Chinese are currently infected, and an additional 60 million people are at risk. Humans usually contract the disease by contact with the eggs of the parasite expelled in canine feces. If not treated, it results in likely death... Culling infected dog populations is not feasible in Tibet, where the large Buddhist population strongly resists the practice...
#1
Scientific American also believes in global warming. Part of the hysteria over the dam has to do with environuts going on and on about how this is going to have major negative environmental impact. I don't think much about their views. As a military target, it's wonderful - a single hydro dam that will supply power to huge numbers of people. What will tens of millions of Chinese do when the lights are turned out during a Taiwan conflict? (The Canucks have a big hydro installation to our north, and it supplies a great deal of power to the New England area. Hydro installations are wonderful for the cheap power they provide, but as power installations go, they are extremely vulnerable because so much capacity is centralized in a single dam).
#4
For some reason, BH, we seem to care primarily about diseases that effect people.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 13:50
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just a little natural selection going on
Posted by: bk ||
08/03/2005 15:02
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Not only are Hydro-electric dams centralized targets the power grid of any industrial nation is a target rich environment. One doesn't have to take out the dam itself simply the distribution network. In the long run the Three Gorges Dam may be an environmental disaster but not in the way people think. Failure of the dam would of course result in one of the worst floods caused by man in history. But I was thinking more along the lines of reduced soil fertiltiy down stream due to flood control. As to any increase in parasitic infections there is always the law of unintended consequences.
#7
This should have been foreseen -- Egypt has a similar problem with a parasitic snail that lives in the Nile. The spring flood used to wash most of the snail population out to sea each year, but once the Aswan dam was built...
EFL: Oh, well. Goodbye, Aruba...
ONJUNG-RI, North Korea â From his perch on a huge illuminated billboard, the founder of this communist state, Kim Il Sung, smiles down benevolently as, a few yards away, North Korean waitresses serve beer and snacks to a crowd of cheerfully tipsy South Korean tourists. Enjoy yourselves, capitalist swine! Dear Leader demands it!
Behind a booth at the outdoor cafe, a decidedly sober-looking North Korean manager with a Kim Il Sung button on the lapel of her tweed jacket methodically counts a fat wad of U.S. dollars.
Through ventures such as this at Onjung-ri, the main tourist center of the Mt. Kumgang enclave on North Korea's southeastern coast, the regime is trying to meld Kim Il Sung's anti-capitalist ideology with its desperate need for money. Oh, I got a feeling Kimmie's not very anti capitalist at all as long as he gets his.
"They hate the United States, but they love U.S. dollars," said Oh Mi Seon, a South Korean executive who works at one of the resort's hotels. No shit. That's not a very exclusive club.
Since it opened in 1998, the Mt. Kumgang tourist operation has provided the regime of Kim Jong Il, the founder's son, with at least $490 million, becoming one of North Korea's largest legal sources of hard currency, say Western diplomats who have analyzed the country's finances. Despite the long-simmering tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the tourist business is better than ever. Last year 260,000 tourists, mostly South Koreans, visited Mt. Kumgang, more than triple the previous year, and the number is expected to grow 40% this year, according to Hyundai Asan, the South Korean company that operates the resort. Hyundai Asan hopes to open two new tourist enclaves in the North this year. Last month Kim met with the company's chairwoman in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, to sign off on a deal to bring tourists to Kaesong, a historic city just north of the demilitarized zone, and to Mt. Paektu, a famous peak on the China-North Korea border. Pilot tours are expected to take place this month. "Everything is happening right now. There is a very positive atmosphere for dialogue and for new tour opportunities," Jang Whan Bin, a director of Hyundai Asan, said last month. From the look of things at Mt. Kumgang, the North Korean government is eager to do business as long as it has a tight rein on the purse strings. Like I said...
The cafe, for example â a Korean version of a beer garden â has a spontaneous and casual look to it, but it is in fact owned by an agency called the People's General Service Bureau. Two years ago, most of the facilities in the enclave were South Korean-owned and most of the employees Chinese or Philippine. Today North Koreans are running and staffing five restaurants with attractive women well trained to smile politely at the South Korean tourists. "We're very glad to see and serve our own people here," said Kim Eun Ok, a 20-year-old North Korean waitress serving coffee in the chandeliered lobby of Mt. Kumgang Hotel. Smile, honey. And do what the nice man says... Even the portable toilets along the hiking trails come with a hefty price tag: Tourists are advised that they should pay $1 if they urinate, $2 if they defecate, although â despite the North Korean regime's reputation as "big brother" â nobody seems to inspect. ("It's up to your conscience to pay what you owe," said tour guide Cho Ara.) Support The People's Urination and Defecation Tax!
Hyundai Asan officials say North Koreans have become far more comfortable with tourists in recent years. When the tours started in the late 1990s, there was hardly any contact between North and South Koreans, and the tourists were given a long list of rules. No jeans were permitted, no Bibles, no T-shirts with slogans in English. Sounds like fun. What do you do? Sit around, drink yourself blind, get another 20 dollar "smile" from a waitress? Call my travel agent.
Today the enclave is abuzz with construction activity. The highlights include an 18-hole golf course and a beach hotel. Maybe Kimmie will be there to give on the spot field guidance to your short game? I hear the guy's amazing...
Although tourists now travel in buses across the DMZ, plans are underway to permit South Koreans to drive their own cars. The boom marks a stunning turnaround for the Mt. Kumgang project, which nearly closed two years ago amid the international turmoil over North Korea's nuclear weapons program and a political scandal in South Korea. In 2003, Hyundai Asan Chairman Chung Mong Hun leaped to his death from the company's high-rise headquarters in Seoul just days after he was questioned by prosecutors over alleged bribes paid to North Korea. Hmmmmm? Guess he might've been guilty, maybe?
Hyundai officials are aware that if the six-party talks underway in Beijing over the North's nuclear program end in failure, there could be pressure from the Bush administration and from South Korean conservatives to stem the flow of tourist dollars across the border. For their part, the North Koreans appear to view the success of Mt. Kumgang as a gesture of defiance against the U.S. Bite me, Yankee Dogs!!!
In June, when Hyundai Asan celebrated the visit of the millionth tourist to the enclave, North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency declared it a "a victory of the patriotic forces for reunification over the traitorous forces for division" â a reference to the U.S. This is the kind of talk that makes Hyundai Asan nervous. "We want to separate ourselves from political and military issues," director Jang said. "We see what we are doing as a pure economic development project. But it is difficult." Let me know when they put in the casinos and the strip joints...
#2
Lots of well-fed Sorks driving up the Nork coast in bright new cars spending cash has got to be a recipe for trouble in the lil kimie's troll kingdom.
EFL
SPACE CENTER, Houston Aug 3, 2005 â A spacewalking astronaut gently pulled two potentially dangerous strip of protruding fabric from Discovery's belly with his gloved hand Wednesday, successfully completing an unprecedented emergency repair job.
"That's one small pull for man..."
Astronaut Stephen Robinson said both pieces came out easily. He did not have to use a makeshift hacksaw put together in orbit that he brought along just in case.
In order to cut the fabric flush, they took the blade and wrapped one end with, you guessed it, Duct Tape!
"That came out very easily, probably even less force," Robinson said of the second piece. "I don't see any more gap filler. ⊠I'm doing my own inspection here. It is a very nice orbital belly."
Once under Discovery's belly, Robinson expected to spend about an hour removing or trimming the fillers from two locations near the shuttle's nose. It took mere seconds for him to pull each strip. NASA thought the first gap filler was the trickier of the two. They believed it remained glued to a shim that was bonded to a thermal tile. Good job, guys.
#3
If you want to work in space with bare hands, go ahead.
Since he did a visual inspection of the shuttle, I'm pretty confident everything up there is OK. On the ground, of course, NASA's a total mess and needs to be shut down.
#4
NASA has managed to transform itself from a can-do agency into a can't-do-anything agency. It's major successes in recent years ala the recent Deep Impact mission (the only way short of actually landing on these objects and doing on site analysis is to hit them hard and do spectropsity (sp) on the out gassing) were really done by places like JPL. The shuttle is at best a compromised design. The core of the launch stack does provide a heavy lift vehicle and the use of the External Tank and SRBs for such a vehicle date back to studies for the Shuttle C starting in the late 70s IIRC. Four or five segment SRB derived launchers with a H2/O2 or JP-4/O2 upper stage have also been studied.
Of course these are all paper studies. But the big question is just what do we expect to accomplish with any such program. That people will go back to the Moon and move father out into the Solar System is I think pretty much a given. And if the US and possibly Western Europe through the ESA have a presence on the Lunar surface then it is going to hard to squeeze them out. If the Chinese are the ones to go back to the Moon just how long before it is claimed lock stock and barrel.
A few days after the 2004 election, America Coming Together, the giant pro-Democratic voter turnout group that had raised about $200 million from George Soros, Peter Lewis, and a variety of Hollywood moguls, released a list of its accomplishments. Obviously, ACT, as big as it was, had not put John Kerry over the top, but the group had "held conversations at 4.6 million doorsteps about the truth about the Iraq war, about the state of our healthcare system, about the economy." It had registered half-a-million new voters. In the last days of the campaign it had made 23 million phone calls, sent out 16 million pieces of mail, and delivered 11 million fliers. And on top of it all, it had "launched the largest get-out-the-vote effort the Democratic Party has ever seen," turning out "unprecedented levels of voters in the battleground states."
It all sounded very, very impressive. And then ACT listed its accomplishments at the polls, and the results seemed far less impressive. . . . Soros and all his colleagues had spent $200 million to elect a Democratic secretary of state in Missouri.
The question that hung in the air at the time was whether, after such a defeat, the big donors would continue to support ACT â to get ready for the next big campaign â and help it grow into an even larger turnout machine. And now we have the answer: No.
On Tuesday ACT, which had already downsized dramatically in the months since the election, pink-slipped most of its remaining staff and shut down all its state offices. The money had dried up, the donors were on to other things, and the "largest get-out-the-vote effort the Democratic Party has ever seen" was over.
"Lord Vader Soros, the fleet has moved out of lightspeed and we're preparing for the 2006 elec--. . . ack!"
"You have failed me for the last time. . . ."
Throughout its life â it started when Ellen Malcolm of EMILY's List, Steve Rosenthal of the AFL-CIO, former Clinton operative Harold Ickes, and others held a downcast post-election dinner in November 2002 at a restaurant in Washington's Dupont Circle neighborhood â America Coming Together operated on the assumption that big, big money would bring victory to the Democratic party. . . . In July 2003, they traveled to Southampton, to the estate of the Godfather George Soros, where Soros's political consultants made a pitch for spending large amounts of money on Democratic-voter turnout. Soros, his friend and giving partner Peter Lewis, and several others present agreed that it was a good idea, and the money began to flow. . . . When rich Democrats across the country saw that Soros and Lewis had joined up with America Coming Together, they decided to hop on board, too.
"Someday - and that day may never come - I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this as gift . . ."
. . . In all, America Coming Together, along with its sister organization, the Media Fund, raised and spent about $200 million. And as Election Day approached, the organization gave off an air of confidence born of the belief that it was simply too big to fail.
In a way, it didn't fail. In 2004, America Coming Together helped create a record Democratic turnout â a performance that would have been a fabulous success had not the other guys turned out even more. In the end, though, the problem for ACT was not that it failed to turn out voters. The problem was, despite its claims to be reaching more people than ever before, it really did not reach a lot of new people. America Coming Together was not, in fact, America coming together; it might more accurately have been named Traditional Democratic Party Constituencies Coordinating Like Never Before. . . .
Despite all the hype and all the press releases, the effort really wasnât about converting new voters to the Democratic party. Rather, it was about squeezing just a little more juice out of a lemon that had been nearly squeezed dry in the past. Steve Rosenthalâs well-regarded successes in previous elections had not involved attracting large numbers of new people to the cause. They involved getting union voters to turn out in ever-greater percentages, even as the percentage of union households in the electorate shrank. The problem was, you could do that for only so long. At some point, every union member or union household member of voting age could turn out and it still wouldnât be enough to elect a Democratic candidate. For that, you had to expand your appeal, and that was something ACT failed to do. Malcolm, Rosenthal, and Ickes discovered that you could call it America Coming Together, but saying so didn't make it true.
"What is it?"
"It's a message. America Coming Together sleeps with the fishes."
Posted by: Mike ||
08/03/2005
10:17 ||
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#2
Big changes going on in the Demo party. First AFL-CIO, then Soros dropping ACT, Clinton getting a new spokesperson, all in a weeks time.
No wonder there has been a strange quiet on the big issues of the day, because their talking heads don't have a set of appproved talking points to work off of. It will be interesting to see if the quiet lasts only while the party regroups and figures out what their new tac will be - or - if the loss of Soros billions means an end to the spectacularly juvenile poltical tactics of moveon.org.
Since Missouri voted for the winning candidate in every election from 1900 through 2004 (except 1956), they are an important battleground state for the 2008 elections, y'see, and because the secretary of state of Missouri is responsible for "providing and preserving information for the public", this Democrat is in a perfect position to influence the state poll results next election.
How's that for justifying the $200 million cost ?
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
08/03/2005 18:43
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#5
Carl's comments can be confirmed by Senator private citizen Ashcroft, who lost by a very narrow margin in 2000 with lots of shenanigans.
#6
How many africans could the libs have fed with $200 million? When you think of the double standard, that has become standard it makes you sick to your stomach. What will these idiots do in 2008, try to get convicted felons the right to vote? Go around rousting bums out from under bridges to register, go to every university and try to warp young minds? They have a lot of work ahead of them. Just think what would happen if the GOP did a get the vote out thing.
In February and April 2003 Foundation Watch opened a window on George Sorosâ radical agenda for America. We followed his money, which supports programs intended to push the U.S. legal system, media, and society far to the Left. Our report looked at Sorosâ support for activists who work to eliminate the death penalty, make imprisonment an unacceptable crime control measure, push for absolute abortion rights, legalize marijuana and hard drugs, give entitlements to immigrants regardless of legal status, and shift public opinion to approve physician-assisted suicide. But this does not begin to encapsulate Sorosâ left-wing politics.
#4
Hey Poison Reserve, WTF? What do Rabin, Barak and Peres have to do with Soros?
Posted by: Tibor ||
08/03/2005 13:28
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#5
Tibor,
There are Jewish Leftists that sold their souls and sold out Israel for the "common" good. Google them. Then you will know what I am talking about. I will stand by what I said.
BTW, I also strongly disagree with the Gaza pullout. I am against Sharon on this one. I fully support the Israeli "Women in Green."
#6
Most Leftist Jews, including Soros, care nothing for Israel because they are secular. Every Jew in the world has a God of Israel mandated responsibility to support Israel. Since Soros is an active Leftist and a Jew, IMVHO, is a danger to the U.S. and Israel and must be stopped politically. Again, this is my viewpoint. I will stand by what I say.
#7
When the World Bank cut the funds and loans to India for the underground testing of a nuclear bomb. The Indian Govt. informed all Indians across the world to send money and invest in the Indian economy. Almost all Indians across the world heeded the call and invested massive amounts of money in India.
The World Bank saw what happened and pretty much put their hands up. The world found out real quick not make monetary threats against India.
This is the same way that all Jews around the world should support the state of Israel and stop appeasing terrrorism. Unfortunately, I don't see a collective love among Jews.
#8
Soros has been recently organizing some 70 ultra rich "progressives" into the Phoenix group...
*snicker* Here we have a compulsive gambler that is down some 400 million and he's rounding up players for a new game. You just have to wonder, who among those 70, are the suckers from whom he intends to win back his losses.
Golleeeee! Mister Soros is asking me to play. Well Shucks, I do indeed flatter myself to be a bit of a player. Oh lookie here..I seem to be on a winning streak. I won the first two hands. Maybe I'll risk a bit more this time.
#10
Okay, PR. I just wasn't sure how we switched from Soros wasting money on ACT and other things to leftist Israeli politicians.
Posted by: Tibor ||
08/03/2005 15:44
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When the World Bank cut the funds and loans to India for the underground testing of a nuclear bomb
SOB! This sucker is on to us! Is there anyway to hide the FEDERAL RESERVE BANKS from the hoi or the poli? Can we kill their vote? Are concentration camps a possibility? What about thousands and thousands of little tiny goyem robots? Is it possibole? We have the technology!
Despite its mainstream and wholesome appearance, the Council on American-Islamic Relations is the leading Islamist apologist in the United States and, as such, is a major influence on the enemyâs side in the war on terror.
Here is the link to the full 13 page report in .pdf format.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
09:44 ||
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It's on their website, click on the title, then home. I also hotlinked their name directly to the homepage. Don't know about a magazine, first time I've been there.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005 12:23
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#5
I have said for years (about 4 years to be exact) that it will probably take one more good terror attack to get people pissed off enough to shut down these kind of bastards. Sad, but true.
#7
Every time I hear a CAIR spokesman I get a little more suspicious. Not sure how you can shut them down, but a number of associate members are now in jail for various crimes. I know that the term moderate Muslim seems like a myth to many but I have met and worked with them. They are NOT the kind that would join a group like CAIR or any other group like them. Since Islam doesnât have any central figure we have to evaluate these groups one at a time and I think CAIR deserves a lot of scrutiny.
#8
CS: If you read Daniel Pipes for any length of time, you'll begin to see that he's Israel first, then the US (not that that's a bad thing). That being said, he makes MANY great points and has his ear to the grindstone (and tracks) these guys. Very closely associated with Steve Emerson (his was the 1st book I picked up after 9/11 and opened my eyes completely to the goons in our midst), but he's right on the money with this. Something like 5-6 of their former/current leadership have been charged or are under investigation for ties to terror (financial, ideological or otherwise). In fact, Pipes' latest article was on CAIR's "slander" lawsuit against Anti-CAIR (ACAIR), which they're close to settling. If you look at the charges the guy at ACAIR charged them with originally, and they've since backed away from fighting in court, it speaks volumes ($ to Hamas/Hezbollah, Terror ties here in the States, them stating publicly they want to overturn the US gov't with an Islamic one, etc.). Very good read.
Posted by: BA ||
08/03/2005 14:26
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#9
BA, I am one of those fool Neocons that believe that Israel and the U.S. have a joint future so I can appreciate Daniel Pipes article spin in that direction. Every time I see a CAIR spokesperson interviewed they make allowances for suicide attacks on Israel but not the rest of the world. What kind of wapred sense of reality do they live in? It is precisely because we let the attacks to go on in Israel for this long that we now have them in our back yard. Up till 9/11 we were quite happy that to let Israel fight a front line war against Islamo-facists. Now it's here in the west and we can't afford to let some organization with quasi ties to terror groups to exists withing our borders. Like I said I know and work with Muslims and they feel the same disgust I do when they hear about homocide bombers. Pipes is correct that prior to 9/11 this group and others would speak openly of Islamic domination of the west. Not exactly the Knights of Columbus.
#10
It is precisely because we let the attacks to go on in Israel for this long that we now have them in our back yard.
Agreed, CS. If the petrowhores of the EU had put their foot down and declared suicide bombing unacceptable, and had stopped paying them off simply to assure a steady flow of oil, islamic terror would never have gotten this far. Can't have it one way in Israel and another way in the rest of the world.
#11
CS, PD: I wasn't meaning to make it sound like I was arguing for sticking it to Israel. Personally, I'm all for standing by Israel, and backing them militarily if needed. Their fight has now become our fight. Was just pointing out that he tends to be "Israel can do no wrong" in some of his articles, but I personally get his articles via e-mail and soak them all up. I'm all for shutting down CAIR and quick!
Posted by: BA ||
08/03/2005 21:18
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Right on the heels of the sub explosion yesterday, the usual antics of the Russian Navy continue...
The flagship of Russiaâs Baltic Fleet, the Neukrotimy patrol ship has been hit by a demonstration bomb and partially sunk in the Neva River in the center of St. Petersburg, the Kommersant daily reported on Monday. The incident happened just one day before Sundayâs Navy Day parade that was held in the city.
The Neukrotimy (âIndomitableâ) arrived in St. Petersburg for celebrations to mark Russian Navy Day on July 26. On July 30, it suddenly submerged below its waterline, collecting water in its engine compartment, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Divers found a rupture in a weld joint and plastered it, after which the ship was moved to a dock for repairs, the agency said.
Kommersant, however, gave details of the incident which forced the flagship to be removed from the parade. The daily said that the sailors planned to make a show of destroying a dummy sea mine during Sundayâs parade. The dummy, which still had about 30 kilograms of TNT in it, was supposed to create a huge splash that would spray the spectators on the embankment. However, the current brought the bomb up to the shipâs hull together with the anchor and it exploded causing the Neukrotimy to partially submerge. Oooops
The Military Prosecutorâs Office has opened a criminal case under the article âcareless handling of potentially dangerous itemsâ. They said that the role and degree of responsibility of the military officials in charge of the preparation and conducting of training measures near the ship would be ascertained during the investigation.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
08/03/2005
09:23 ||
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#1
Neukrotimy is a "Krivak II" class ASW frigate of 3,000 tons displacement, according to hazegray.org. That's a relatively small ship to be serving as a fleet flagship, but it's still something more respectable than a "patrol ship."
Posted by: Mike ||
08/03/2005 9:45
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#2
Could happen to anyone. Back in 1943, FDR was on a battleship to the Tehran conference and the Navy put on an exercise which included a simulated torpedo launch. The USS Porter came up along the Iowa and made its drill. Suddenly, there was a "whooooosh splash!" and an armed torpedo was headed straight at the Iowa. Fortunately, the Iowa was able to evade.
From then on, whenever the Porter joined a new task group, it was greeted with "Don't shoot -- we're Republicans."
#8
Jackal -- in the Pacific in WWII, a US sub accidentally torpedoed itself. The only survivor was a lookout on the conning tower, who saw the torpedo curve back around.
Yeah, it can happen to anybody.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 11:25
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Fortunately, the Iowa was able to evade.
No link, roumors has it the Iowa may have made 38 kts. during this incident.
#13
More info on the top speed of the Iowashere. Looks like 35kts is the practical maximum, but even 32.5kts is smokin' fast for anything that big.
I've seen another article somewhere--can't find the link--which said that the Wisconsin threw up a rooster tail on her full speed trial in the 1980s, like a 45,000-ton speedboat.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/03/2005 12:23
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When the ship got up to 26 knots, a rooster tail would start to appear. Vibration was reported, but only aft of frame 166 (where the aft transverse armored bulkhead is). Chief's quarters were pretty bouncy and the Nixie room was like standing on a jackhammer. I set my notebook down on a table to record some data and you can barely make out my handwriting.
Walking forward, the vibration almost totally disappears as soon as you cross the threshold at frame 166. By the time you get up near the anchor windlass room, you can feel a slight torque to the bow. An almost imperceptible twisting that can only be felt by people with excellent sense of balance. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
08/03/2005 12:36
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#15
Yeah a speedboat that has 16" guns and can throw volkswagon sized shells over a hundred miles inland and can pretty much shake off 90% of all missles used today without a problem unless you happen to be on deck. I dont see why we cant modernize them to cut the massive crews down to a reasonable size pack on some more missles for longer penetration and use them as a direct assault platform. The majority of the planets major cities are in range of those big guns and her speed as a dash to theater weapon would be usefull.
#16
Much of the problem from the battleships stems from sustainability and range. The tomahawks used in DS I were only a stopgap measure. Their 16in. guns we're able to lay down 2 rounds a minute of fire (until the first 5 minutes were up approximately at which point you got 2 rounds a minute for the entire SHIP at best). In terms of ordinance weight on time to target it was easier to see an aircraft deliver the firepower necessary and more accurately (the guns were never very accurate to begin with). Top it all off with range, 30km-40km isn't very far inland.
To tell you the truth I dont see any modernized battleships coming out until railguns come out.
#17
Lawerence, the Tang was sunk by it's own torpedo but the Captain and several others survived. The Captain was on the bridge conducting a night surface attack and that's why he survived. He and several others were blown off the boat. I have the book detailing the Tang's exploits. a few men in the sub got out thrugh the forward escape hatch after the boat sank. I believe it was in relatively shallow water in the Sea of Japan. No one aft of the foeward torpedo room survived. The torpedo hit the stern on the port side and caused a fire that everyone between the foreward and aft torpedo rooms. That torpedo happened to be Tang's last one on that voyage. A real tragedy.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/03/2005 15:40
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#18
Having been an engineering officer onboard one of the Iowa class (hey, I chose my name for a reason!), I can tell you that the hulls and machinery were getting very long in the tooth. You get tired of patching fuel oil pipes that someone put his foot through or having firemains rupture every time the guns shoot.
I loved those ships, but their day has passed. Sob.
#19
What DN said. Hulls only have a finite lifetime, both in years and miles. Typically, BBs were designed for 20 years of peacetime service, with the ability to go another 10-20 after a big refit/rebuilding (all our WWI era ships were rebuilt in the 1930s, while the North Carolinas and South Dakotas simply scrapped around 1960). Wartime service is much less, of course. These ships are 60 years old. Granted, a lot of that was in mothballs, but even sitting still has some aging on the hulls and internal structure.
And we can't build new ones. I don't think anyone in the world has the ability to make 12.5" STS armor plate any more, or the 16" barrels. We would have to build all new factories. Then we'd have to train people to work them.
Then train people to actually use the guns. We've been without them so long there isn't much institutional knowledge any more. In fact, when the New Jersey was recommissioned for Viet Nam, finding gunners was so difficult the Navy considered making offers to ex-Royal Navy men (I don't think it ever happened, though).
I thought battleships are neat, but let them rest in peace. I wonder if they could strip the Wisconsin enough to tow it to Milwaukee?
#20
That's right, Dreadnaught, and don't forget the facacta powder system on the 16 inch guns that nearly took out IOWA. If we had a BB blow itself up, we'd never hear the end of it from the screaming lefties...
and this time they'd finally have point besides the ones on their heads!
Posted by: Ernest Brown ||
08/03/2005 20:22
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Ladies and Gentlemen, the Amazing Kim Jong Il! Let's hear it for him!
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea's Dear Leader Kim Jong-il never forgets a phone number, a cadre's career or a line of computer code. According to an article posted Tuesday on a Web site run by North Korea, Kim wakes up early every day for intensive memory training where he sits down and commits to his keen mind items such as the phone numbers of workers in his Stalinist state. All twelve of them...
"I remember all computer codes and telephones that workers are using now," Kim was quoted as saying on the Web Site "Uri-Min-jok-kiri" (www.uriminzokkiri.dprkorea.com), or "Among our People."
Kim surprised a group of North Korean officials attending a meeting in 2002 by recalling all their phone numbers "with lightning speed," the site said. I also know where you live.
On a day Kim visited a cemetery, he looked around at the tombs and he remembered the achievements, characteristics, tastes and bereaved family members for hundreds of the dead by a quick glance at the names on tombstones, it said. "All the attendants were surprised at his incredible memory," the site says. Ah, yes. I remember. He farted near a photo of The Great Leader. Of course, the punishment was death.
North Korean propaganda is ripe with the amazing achievements of its Dear Leader. The highly controlled state also closely monitors its citizens to make sure they do not speak out against Kim or challenge his rule. We love you, man. Please don't kill us.
Kim pilots jet fighters, pens operas, produces movies and accomplished a feat unmatched in the annals of professional golf by shooting 11 holes-in-one on the first round he ever played. Just 11? Well he was wearing those Herman Munster shoes...
The Web Site said Kim told all workers they should develop their ability to memorize. "The memory of a person gets better when a person uses their brain often," he was quoted as saying. On the spot field guidance for the mind. From the Dear Leader himself...
#3
But he still hasn't figured out how to feed em has he. Half dictator and half god as the Nork press reminds us. 100% evil by any measure. I suppose even the most intelligent, talented and articulate person who ever lived gets slightly distracted every now and then for a couple years. Farmin B hard fer sure in Norkland. Can you spare some Scotts grass seed?
Where are they? Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are the supermen of the civil rights establishment â able to leap tall buildings in a single bound to get in front of a picket line. When victim politics calls, the demagogic duo leap into patented action: March. Boycott. Shakedown. Repeat.
But the raging reverends are nowhere to be found as a scandal involving the liberal radio network Air America and a Bronx, N.Y.-based inner city charity for poor children brews. Why the silence? It's all about the Benjamins, as they say.
First, a summary of the financial fiasco that the liberal media won't touch: The New York City Department of Investigation has been probing allegations that officials of the nonprofit Gloria Wise Boys & Girls Club and one of its affiliates, Pathways for Youth, approved "significant inappropriate transactions and falsified documents that were submitted to various city agencies." The charities receive large portions of their budgets from local, state and federal government grants. At the center of the controversy is Evan Montvel Cohen, the disgraced former chairman of Air America, who was in charge of the liberal radio network at the same time he was serving as Gloria Wise's director of development.
The New York Sun's David Lombino reported this week that Cohen received more than $800,000 in loans for himself and Air America during his tenure, according to Gloria Wise executive committee President Jeannette Graves. Graves alleges that Cohen funneled $613,000 to himself and Air America without her authorization or knowledge. Other loans were approved by the Gloria Wise executive committee when Cohen claimed he needed money to cover medical expenses for himself and his father. As a result of an ongoing investigation, the city canceled its contracts with both Gloria Wise and Pathways in June â causing a near-shutdown of services to poor minority kids, Alzheimer's patients, and other underprivileged clients until other nonprofit agencies were brought in to take over the old management.
Air America's ever-evolving statements about the controversy have raised more questions than they've answered. After radio industry blogger Brian Maloney (radioequalizer.blogspot.com) called attention to the probe last week, the liberal radio network initially shrugged off corporate responsibility by asserting that its current management, Piquant LLC, "had no involvement whatsoever" with the funds and was "not being investigated." A follow-up statement then revealed that Air America "agreed months ago to fully compensate" Gloria Wise for the loan (despite having "no involvement" with it). Yesterday, Air America host Al Franken acknowledged that Piquant had conducted an internal probe of the matter before the city got involved â and, according to the city, failed to tell authorities about it.
If a conservative radio network had been entangled in a scam to steal from black children to line the pockets of wealthy white con artists, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would already be staging hunger strikes in protest. But both have hefty political and financial stakes in Air America's success â and the big mouths aren't about to badmouth their friends.
Air America's flagship New York City station is housed on Park Avenue at WLIB-AM, owned by Inner City Broadcasting. The company shunted aside its black-themed talk format at WLIB to accommodate Air America. In return, Air America made room for a few minority radio hosts and also entered into lucrative lease management agreements with Inner City Broadcasting, which owns and operates 17 radio stations in five markets. The co-founder of Inner City Broadcasting is New York media mogul Percy Sutton, best known as Malcolm X's lawyer and former Manhattan borough council president. Sutton helped bail Sharpton out after Sharpton was ordered to pay former Dutchess County prosecutor Steven Pagones over the Tawana Brawley race hoax. Sutton also raised and donated money for Sharpton's 2004 presidential bid. Sharpton still broadcasts a Sunday radio show on WLIB. Sutton and Jackson are longtime friends and partners. Sutton served as Jackson's 1988 presidential campaign finance chairman. Jackson has lobbied on Sutton's behalf. Sutton sits on Jackson's Citizenship Education Fund. As original investors, Jackson and his wife reportedly hold more than 23,000 shares in Inner City Broadcasting.
Now you know why there will be no boycotts at Air America headquarters over the possible bilking of poor Bronx children. Race hustlers care about only one color: green.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
09:05 ||
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#1
AAR gets its best ratings when they deviate from network programming. How could they possibly notice if there was a boycott? ;)
#3
I thought Gore launched a TV network recently. I can just imagine the excitement it will generate...that's if anybody can find it on their TV's. ZZZZZzzzzzz....
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- Lawmakers in Sweden and Finland have opted for tougher anti-terrorism laws. Sweden's Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom has signaled he wants to introduce a new bill to fight terrorism this fall, the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported Wednesday. The Social Democrat minister said the role of the military in case of a terror attack needs to be strengthened, and authorities should be able to preventively listen in on conversations.
A similar bill was introduced five years ago, but did not pass because of citizens' rights concerns, the newspaper said.
In Finland, new police laws have come into effect this month. Finnish authorities are now able to preventively bug phones to listen in on conversations of potential terrorists. Authorities have also used parts of the European Union's Schengen agreement to introduce tougher sea and air border controls before and during the 10th IAAF World Championships, which start in Helsinki next weekend.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
08:56 ||
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#1
Yep, you never know when one of those blond haired blue eyed Finns will fly a jet liner into a skyscraper. That's why they need to be subject to just as much attention as, say, a young arabic male without luggage and carrying a backpack, and with a head band proclaiming "Death to Israel and The Great Satan".
(CNSNews.com) - A report by a voting rights group regarding allegations of voter fraud, intimidation and suppression during the 2004 presidential election has found that "paid Democrat operatives were far more involved in voter intimidation and suppression activities than were their Republican counterparts during the 2004 presidential election." The report by the American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund found that thousands "were disenfranchised by illegal votes cast and a coordinated effort by members of certain 'nonpartisan' organizations to rig the election system through voter registration fraud in more than a dozen states."
For example, the report noted, paid Democrat operatives were charged with slashing tires on Republican get-out-the-vote vans in Milwaukee, and an Ohio court order stopped Democrat operatives from calling voters and telling them the incorrect date for election and polling place information. The report also found that a law enforcement task force found "clear evidence of fraud in the Nov. 2 election in Milwaukee" that included hundreds of felons, voters that voted twice, and even thousands more ballots that were cast than actual voters recorded as having voted in the city. The task force also found multiple indictments and convictions of ACORN workers for voter registration fraud in several states.
Five cities - Philadelphia, Pa.; Milwaukee, Wisc.; Seattle, Wash.; St. Louis or East St. Louis, Mo.; and Cleveland, Ohio - were identified as "election fraud 'hot spots' which require additional immediate attention prior to the 2006 elections." These cities were identified based on the report's findings and the cities' documented history of fraud and intimidation. The group sent a letter to Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean and Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman urging them to formally adopt zero-tolerance policies against fraud and intimidation. The group also asked both leaders to identify issues of concern in each election fraud "hot spot" by October 1.
"Until political parties and candidates are willing to adopt a zero-tolerance policy towards election fraud, the American public will have little confidence in other reforms," Brian Lunde, ACVR Legislative Fund board member, said in a statement. "There is no room for politics when it comes to the right to vote." "It should be easy to vote but tough to cheat," said Mark F. "Thor" Hearne, ACVR Legislative Fund Counsel in a statement. ACV suggested states adopt their "common-sense recommendations," which include requiring photo IDs at the polls, accurate statewide voter registration databases and a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to vote fraud and intimidation.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
08:46 ||
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#1
Ohio court order stopped Democrat operatives from calling voters and telling them the incorrect date for election and polling place information
Ya know, I keep hearing Democrats accusing Republicans of doing this.
Philadelphia, Pa.; Milwaukee, Wisc.; Seattle, Wash.; St. Louis or East St. Louis, Mo.; and Cleveland, Ohio
No shocks there. But East St. Louis is in Illinois.
The group also asked both leaders to identify issues of concern in each election fraud "hot spot" by October 1.
Hey, guys, I don't want to spoil your fun, but all the "hot spots" are Democrat strongholds.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 9:09
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#2
Its everywhere -
Sheriff Investigates Possible Ballot Signature Fraud
POSTED: 9:10 am MDT July 27, 2005
UPDATED: 9:22 am MDT July 27, 2005
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Some signatures may have been forged supporting a minimum wage ballot measure scheduled to go before the public in October.
A worker for ACORN, one of the activist groups supporting the measure, confessed to forging signatures, according to the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office.
ACORN says it hired at least 50 people to collect 33,000, and each worker was paid according to the number collected.
Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. David Knowles said the investigation is in its early stages and more people will be interviewed in the case. No charges have been filed yet, he said.
Several thousand signatures have already been identified as fake. Was brought to the attention of the Sheriff when a County Commissioner notice his name on the ballot initiative and knew he hadn't signed it. IIRC ACORN has a track record of this behavior.
For those of you who don't live in Chicago or C(r)ook County, Mayor Daley is indeed losing his touch. He's had a slew of assistants arrested or forced to resign over the past 6 months. Of course, His Excellency is shocked, shocked that his peons are corrupt.
BTW: today's headline for the Chicago Tribune: City gets Hall Monitor. A federal judge has put a monitor into city hall to assess the city's hiring practices.
Fourteen marines and their civilian translator have been killed in a roadside bombing in north-western Iraq, the US military says. It is one of the deadliest attacks on US forces since the 2003 invasion. It happened near the city of Haditha, in the same area as an incident on Monday in which six US marines were killed by hostile fire, the army said. The city is near the Syrian border in an area that has seen frequent insurgent assaults against US troops. The bomb is reported to have exploded near an amphibious assault vehicle travelling south of Haditha. One other marine was wounded.
One of Iraq's most violent Islamic militant groups, Ansar al-Sunna, has claimed responsibility for the attack on marines on Monday, saying it had killed eight personnel. The group said it had shot some of the marines and "slit the throats" of others. A ninth marine is said to have been captured although it is not possible to authenticate the statement.
At least 37 US military personnel have been killed in Iraq in the last 10 days, a period of intense violence, but the latest Haditha attack ranks among the biggest US losses. Last December, 14 US troops and four civilian contractors died in a suicide bombing targeting a military base in Mosul. Only air crashes, with or without hostile fire, have resulted in higher US death tolls, including 16 in the November 2003 loss of a Chinook helicopter near Falluja and 31 in a helicopter crash in January 2005 near the Jordanian border. Pacifying Iraq's western Anbar province, where Haditha is located, is a top priority for US forces. Officials say stability and political progress cannot be secured unless anti-US fighters are rooted out of the region.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
08:42 ||
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#1
"Pacifying Iraq's western Anbar province, where Haditha is located, is a top priority for US forces. Officials say stability and political progress cannot be secured unless anti-US fighters are rooted out of the region."
Keep eating shit. While U.S. officials talk of "stability and political progress" the Sunni population in Haditha and other similar towns provide aid and comfort to the enemy. There are scores of safe-houses throughout these areas.
Maximum force, especially airpower and artillery should be dropped on these bastards heads.
I'm sure sometime today, some 30-year plus retired veteran "officer" or Intelligence-type will write of the need to remain calm, to avoid anger like mine, and so forth.
#5
I know the first inclination is always to want bloody vengeance. However, cooler heads will prevail. The locals will be punished in the slow, gradual carrot and stick grind to root out and destroy the local troublemakers and facilitators. But the instigators outside of the country, for them is reserved, at best, the noose, and at worse, as they hide in their stately villas, to meet an end like Colonel Kurtz.
#6
"I know the first inclination is always to want bloody vengeance. However, cooler heads will prevail. The locals will be punished in the slow, gradual carrot and stick grind to root out and destroy the local troublemakers and facilitators."
Unfortunately, by the time we get around to this, President Hillary Rob'em Clinton will be withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.
What finally broke the VC's back in 'Nam? It was the Phoenix Program -- 40,000 assassinations of safe-house providers, "student activists" who were really fronts for the VC, so-called community "leaders" and civic "activists", and so forth. We need a Phoenix Program in the Sunni Triangle as well as massive bombings as a means of destroying the terror base and network.
But as I wrote earlier, it will not be done and therefore when President Bush says this war will be fought unlike other previous wars, I disagree. It is looking very much like the previous wars that we have lost or failed to generate a decisive victory.
#11
it is extremely important that this loss be followed by a max force operation to isolate and cutoff the entire area for a street to street and house to house cleansing operation.no one should go in or out of the area without individual approval of u s forces.If in doubt,blow it up.Overwhelming troops and firepower should be applied until every living person in the Haditha area is either vetted or killed . This has to be the response if we are ever to end this war.the terrorists must know that ambushes of U S forces leads to a terrible response and residents must know that the response to the terrorism they permit is sure and certain . If it means that Haditha is to be turned into a wet spot in the desert,so be it.it is upon their heads,not ours.had we folloiwed this policy in V N ,that war would have been over quickly with a minimum of death and destruction.it is the measured and proportionate response which is less merciful.War is Hell,and
Shermans path of destruction cut the Civil War short by months if not years .Think of how many lives,Japanese and American which were saved by Hiroshima.
Posted by: john e morrissey ||
08/03/2005 11:15
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#12
One of the problems with over-bombing is that we would likely hit a lot of Iraqis who are now providing good info to the coalition.
A less depressing way of looking at these fatalities is that the focus of terrorism seems to be moving away from the Center of the Sunni triangle toward the outer shell. Some rather large cities even in the triangle have stayed calm once the terrorists were driven out.
#13
Mr. Articulate ... Bullshit it was TET. REALLY?
TET wiped out 45,000 VC/NVA in early 1968. But their networks regained strength in the urban areas circa 1970-71. Phoenix Program took care of that problem.
Wanna crush the terrorists in Iraq? Then combine maximum military force with a CIA assassination program.
BTW: Assassinations in wartime and in combat areas are legal under the rules of war.
#14
Just another thought: If we stay the same course, we lose. Period!
Twenty years from now, just as is happening with "revisionist" historical accounts of the Vietnam War, often written by legitimately angry Vietnam vets, we will read tomes of how well our forces performed and how we "really" did beat the enemy. Of course the tomes will then go on to discuss how Iraq was lost by pointing the finger at media bias, liberal-left academe, political indecision, etc., etc., etc.
In other words, only on rare occasions will a voice emerge that argues how the military did not implement the proper strategy. I think of someone like Harry G. Summers or Michael Lind, both of whom have argued that Vietnam could've been won militarily and politically. Our armed forces accomplished the former but were not allowed to do the other.
Here in Iraq, we don;t have a liberal Commnader in Chief, so what the hell is the excuse for the pussy way in which we're conducting this war?
#16
The moose is wise, and his advice should be heeded.
But I empathize with the want to maim, kill, and/or destroy all those who oppose us. Hell its my personal philosophy, but let's not shoot the horse because the cart lost a wheel in a pothole.
Let's assume this is a guerilla war, no big assumption there ladies. And lets assume that the local Ansar al Sunna fucknuts aren't getting as much cooperation as they would like from certain villagers on the all important border. What to do, win them over by forcing the Americans to react with too much force against the local populace.
Us against them, us against them. That is what these insurgents must convince the local people to believe in order to get total buy in to the insurgents way of thinking.
This is the very core of the counter insurgent's dillema that Coalition forces face everyday. Kill everyone around you and be safe, for the moment, but turn the populace against you in the longrun. Don't kill everyone around you and bam, you could be dead, but the locals are with you or at least neutral.
Proportionate force is required and it is never easy.Tough decisions to make, but necessary in a hearts and minds war.
#17
Here's the MARINE unit from Ohio that has lost 20 men in the past 48 hours or so.
"The Marines were members of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines based in Brook Park, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, according to Gunnery Sgt. Brad R. Lauer, public affairs chief with the unit."
But I think its different here. The Sunnis make up about 26 percent of Iraq. Not too many Kurds or Shiites are going to lose sleep, shed tears, or join up in a rebellion against the Coalition if hell's fury is unleashed on selective Sunni towns and cities.
Did the rest of Iraq turn on us after we pretty much leveled Fallujah last November?
The Sunnis are waging a classic war of attrition; they're not stupid. The know about American election cycles, American MSM, and the fickleness of the voters once things go awry in Iraq.
Check out the stats of US deaths lately:
52 killed in April, 80 in May, 78 killed in June, dropped down to 54 in July, but now a whopping 22 in the first three days of August. We're at 1,820 dead ... at this pace, we'll hit the 2,000 mark by mid-September.
How much more do you think Joe and Jill Public will stand?
You may be right about select town targets , but I suggest relocation as an alternative method to complete destruction of the towns and the people who live there.
Classic and effective counter insurgency tactic is to relocate problem villages like this, and reassign community leadership duties under us control to weaken the hold of the insurgents over local people, and to win some hearts and minds with a bit of the old Uncle Sam pocketbook love. Tents are probably better than a lot of the shitholes these people live in anyway, and anything is better than being killed which I assume a lot of the locals are afraid of, as anyone would be in a war zone like this.
I like the idea of vetting someone as a friendly and killing all who are not, it is very logical and would be much easier with a relocation effort. But I'm not that familiar with the geographical layout, but hey we did it in Fallujah, so we can do it here.
The locals would be removed from the problem areas and then we level the place. The insurgents are likely not made up of a lot of locals but rather intruders who needed a convenient base near Syria with civilian cover. That plus foreign fighters streaming in from Syria, regardless the locals are probably being forced into cooperation most of the time, and for those who fight us willingly, well perhaps they will die just as willingly.
It would then proceed like Fallujah where we followed a similar line of action. So let's compromise a bit between the strategies of destruction of an enemy stronghold and soft handedness with the locals.
Good dialogue, the Rantburg is providing much of that since Fred's interdiction a few days ago. Thanks Fred and thank you asstuck for lively and relevant debate.
And yes we should annihalate Syrias despot leadership, in due time my pretty, in due time!
#23
I truly, honestly beleive that we "arc-light" one of those villages that are harboring the scum. No warning. Leave nothing but a smoking hole in the ground.
#24
I think Bush has been letting the Generals run the war, which is as it should be. By all accounts he is a big picture man, who tries to hire the best and let them do their thing. Look at who he chose to be VP, as compared to that cute, blond lad his daddy chose!
#26
Okay, you're right and I'm inarticulate. The Phoenix program won the war and broke the back of the VC, a magnificent victory for covert operations and death squads, one that should be studied to this day, by morons.
#27
"We're at 1,820 dead ... at this pace, we'll hit the 2,000 mark by mid-September. How much more do you think Joe and Jill Public will stand?"
If the voices of defeat and discouragement in the media have their way, the answer is probably "not much more." Joe and Jill Public don't appear to be holding up very well under the strain.
Yet that same Joe and Jill Public calmly and casually accept-- or worse, don't even care-- that the same number die on America's highways every fifteen days.
I point that out not to belittle the loss of these Marines, but rather to note that while our men and women in combat are brave, courageous and devoted, much of the public seems to have lost heart-- and spine.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
08/03/2005 15:05
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#28
The first thought I had when I saw the headline was, Heaven is in trouble -- 20 Marines from the same unit on leave together!
#29
Damn. God bless them and their families. I hope the "slit throats" and "captured" marine on the other attack are propaganda (which it certainly is, given the constant bragging of the pitiful IEd-enabled Lions of islam).
TW : very nice image.
#30
The Phoenix program won the war and broke the back of the VC, a magnificent victory for covert operations and death squads, one that should be studied to this day, by morons
wonder if this was the inspiration of Soro's new Phoenix Group. Might give some indication as to what his new strategy might be.
#31
What would the Romans have done? I think a demonstration of that kind of force might be effective. These people (all Sunni) need to fear us and the Iraqi government, not love us or it. At 26% of the population they are the source of much of the difficultly. Apparently Fallujah was not a sufficient demonstration for the Sunni.
A program of targeted assassination may very well already be under way and have been under way for a while already. There have been some reports of bodies found that may not have been the victims of sectarian, clan or, score settling.
#32
My impression is that equivalent numbers of non-muslims all on LSD would exhibit, on a society basis, more order and logic than one sees in the Suni triangle.
#33
My impression is that equivalent numbers of non-muslims all on LSD would exhibit, on a society basis, more order and logic than one sees in the Suni triangle.
#34
My impression is that equivalent numbers of non-muslims all on LSD would exhibit, on a society basis, more order and logic than one sees in the Suni triangle.
#36
I've seen the Answar Al Sunnah video of the incident yesterday. I am not going to link to it, no way, since the video includes a close-up of the mutilated but still recognizable corpse of one of the Marines.
It looks for all the world that the six Marines were traveling in a civilian vehicle and were ambushed. The "throat-slitting" apparently refers to the killing of the wounded afterward. It may be that one of the men was captured, since Centcom reports that one body was found several kilometers away.
Among other things, the jihad pigs are shown firing a mortar in plain sight on the crest of a ridge line and posing in the open with the looted equipment and effects afterward.
Where the fuck are these vaunted UAVs we keep hearing so much about?
It should be possible to deploy thousands of them but the Air Force, for its part, has just 12 of the much publicized Predators operational. Marine UAVs, the subject of much propaganda for a number of years, seem notable mostly for their absence. In the meantime, the savages feel perfectly secure posing and capering in the open near a recent ambush site.
#37
"#26 Okay, you're right and I'm inarticulate. The Phoenix program won the war and broke the back of the VC, a magnificent victory for covert operations and death squads, one that should be studied to this day, by morons.
Posted by: Shipman 2005-08-03 15:05"
Hey Shipman:
If you want to argue like a juvenile (see *Bullshit* comment), be my guess. As a teacher I constantly run into this type of argument ... from NINTH GRADERS!
Where did I write that the Phoenix Program won the war for us? What I wrote, and I could kick myself for having thrown away the book by one of the VC's top operatives who admitted the impact of both Tet and Phoenix, was that the latter broke the VC's back, one that already was wounded by 1968.
BTW: Stephen J. Morris wrote an interesting piece about our so-called defeat in Vietnam:
The War We Could Have Wonhttp://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17908
And I wrote that a combination of maximum military force and covert assassinations' programs to wipe out Sunni fighters terrorists and their enablers among the population would in part win this war.
Finally, I had family that served in the "Company" and I take exception to your implication that they and their covert operations' officers are morons. You're better than that.
#38
Crispis is right. Assassination teams should begin targeting known jihadis and enablers. We can't identify or kill all of them, but we don't need to.
As soon as a terrorist is identified, he should be dragged from his safe house in the middle of the night, shot with a suppressed pistol and left in the street for all to see. The worst offenders, the ones who boast of mutilating American soldiers, should have their heads cut off and impaled in some public place.
#39
"Where the fuck are these vaunted UAVs we keep hearing so much about?
It should be possible to deploy thousands of them but the Air Force, for its part, has just 12 of the much publicized Predators operational. Marine UAVs, the subject of much propaganda for a number of years, seem notable mostly for their absence. In the meantime, the savages feel perfectly secure posing and capering in the open near a recent ambush site."
#42
Definitely cannot trust Syria and I don't understand what Bush is waiting for in that case.
I am the very model of
a modern Armchair General
I have the answers to it all
both concrete and ephemeral
I can talk for hours on a blog
of waging war and victory
though I have never led
even a toy-soldier army
I can tell you lessons learned from 'Nam
and how we must drop the atom bomb
or send our ninjas far and wide.
And kill all muslims where they hide...
(stick with me, this is going to go fast)
I say the US has no guts
because I am a patriot
And if they aren't US
they're no good
so let's just nuke
their neighborhood
Our leadership simply has no balls
they should be nailing muslim guts
to the mosque walls
and though I pass out
when I bleed
"Kill them all" is
what we need
I can talk for hours on a blog
of waging war and victory
Col. Braddock and Rambo are real
fighting heroes, you see
I have the answers to it all
both concrete and ephemeral
I am the very model of
a modern Armchair General!
I imagine they'll all be storming your bunker now. Should we set up a donation fund for ammunition?
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/03/2005 19:32
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#44
Heh - a classic Pappy. And right on target.
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/03/2005 19:32
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#45
So, Pappy, do you think opinions and commentary should be limited to general officers and Those Who Work for PeaceTM or would field-grade be acceptable?
#48
AC, if you're retired - or current - field grade then you should know the difference between a Predator and the microUAVs that the Marines are using for short-range recon.
And WRT "thousands" of Predators, I take it you've lobbied for the mbillions of dollars that would cost? And the tens of mbillions required for the ground control facilities and pilot training to fly them?
No doubt you've been pushing that hard. Because if not, then you're pushing secondhand smoke on the UAV comment.
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/03/2005 19:39
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The RQ-1A/B Predator is a system, not just aircraft. A fully operational system consists of four aircraft (with sensors), a ground control station (GCS), a Predator Primary Satellite Link (PPSL), and 55 personnel for continuous 24 hour operations. System Cost: $40 million (1997 dollars)
So let's see ... one thousand Predators = 250 systems = $10 billion, without taking into account where/how the ground control stations will be built overnight ....
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/03/2005 19:41
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#50
I believe the current "A" version runs at 25 million per group of four, the last time I talked to someone who ran the damn things.
I *think* this works out to about the same cost as the A-10's that carry several times as much munitions but the Air Force has said in the past it can't afford to put new sensors or engines on. (They're finally doing it now, but cutting the force at the same time).
One of these days I'm going to have to get the uav rant done...
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/03/2005 19:54
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#51
Body counts make me puke. While our Muslimutts support terror in Iraq, our courts are supporting defamation claims of Islamic vermin. Muslims are terrorists by nature, and terrorists do not deserve protection from harassment.
www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,16147860%255E23109,00.html
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
08/03/2005 19:55
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#52
leader of the pack,
O-6 retired, but I could just as well be the janitor for all anyone here knows, so my case must stand or fall on its own merit.
I've pushed very hard for additional UAVs since the 1970s. Nobody has called for these to be built overnight, but the Predator program alone has been underway and indeed operational for a number of years. It is not a new technology.
No matter how much PR material we hear, though, major deployment is always just around the corner. As for building the base stations, you are aware, I trust, that the whole system is mobile?
What is $10 Billion compared to the cost of, say, a thousand F-16s and all their ground-support facilities and equipment?
If this system, and the galaxy of other perpetually developmental UAVs, are the super force-multipliers we have been lead to believe, and that the operational experience suggests they are, then this is not really an enormous amount.
Given the timescale and your figures, we could
in fact have deployed, and afforded, a couple of thousand of these by now and there are many, many much less costly UAVs with the same lengthy history.
I am well aware of the difference between a Predator and a micro-UAV which is why I said "...the Air Force for its part."
As it happens, I am also aware that the micros are not the only Marine UAVs,
The Pioneer UAVwas operational with the Marines during DS-1 and was based on the battle-proven Israeli Scout UAV. Where are they today? Pioneer Homepage
UAVs seem to be one of those technologies that is re-invented every couple of decades, then quickly swept under the rug for political reasons.
#55
Me too, leader.
It breaks my heart that these guys were reservists, all from the same town.
I have been very angry over it. I probably shouldn't have watched the jihadists' revolting snuff film today, but I have seen worse and if we flinch, there is nobody left.
#56
Come to think of it, I am the janitor sometimes.
A friend of mine who ran his own business for 50 years once told me, "To get stuck with cleaning toilets in a small business, you either have to be on the very bottom rung of the ladder or you have to own the place. Nobody else will do it."
We don't have a bottom rung at my place, so guess what?
(Actually, a contractor cleans the toilets, but I end up doing all sorts of other cleaning and repair type stuff).
#58
So, Pappy, do you think opinions and commentary should be limited to general officers and Those Who Work for PeaceTM or would field-grade be acceptable?
Field grade is acceptable, although holding a command (however briefly) in a combat situation at a lower rank is okay.
In all seriousness, it's not the rank. It's the rank stupidity of the armchair-generals' comments.
"As soon as a terrorist is identified, he should be dragged from his safe house in the middle of the night, shot with a suppressed pistol and left in the street for all to see." Oh, how do you propose to do this? Who would you send? CIA? SPECOPS? Subcontracted Mossad agents? 'Turned' Baathists? Troops in the neighborhood? Coerced members of MS-13? Killers in the Witness Protection Program? Who does the intel? Who verifies the intel? What happens if the wrong guy is killed? How do you propose to keep it quiet when somebody blathers that US or US trained/contracted hit squads are working Iraq or Syria?
I don't know what you did as an O-6, sir. I'd like to hope there was long-range thinking involved.
#59
AC: Do you have any idea of the per-plane cost of the upgrade program they're putting them through, and if that includes the new engines or not?
(Did they go with the new engines?)
Maybe we should continue this at a future date, I still have work to do here. Although suprisingly someone else fixed the toilet last week, they also told me today the sink in the other bathroom is broken. (Honestly). I should just blow it off and go eat...
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/03/2005 21:19
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#60
What's the rank of a little civilian housewife/mother in the suburbs? How about one who can't keep her thoughts to herself -- does that rate a promotion... or a demotion? ;-)
I have not at this point created a formal proposal for a covert assassination program, but you will receive a copy if I do. I hadn't thought of using killers from the witness protection program. Somehow I don't think they would do well in ME covert ops.
Keep in mind that we already engage in targeted assassination through the various "decapitation" strikes that have been carried out with indifferent success during the last few years. These have killed the wrong people on a fairly routine basis. Individual close-in targeting would be more precise than a JDAM on a local restaurant any way you cut it.
In this case, the model for C3 would have to be something like the Mossad's Operation Gideon, completely outside the regular chain of command but with enough covert parallel links to ensure adequate intel and resources.
The operators would depend on the venue. Specop troops could do it lawfully within Iraq.
A special directorate, with comprehensive and multiply redundant extra-governmental cover, would be used outside the country.
The ultimate authority would be the POTUS and DCI, but these would have to be insulated from actual operations. The effective authority would be the operational head of the program.
As for someone blathering, keep in mind that claims of this kind of activity are a regular staple of the Arab media, and many others besides, so a fog of fiction helps to conceal the cold reality.
This was actually discussed in some depth yesterday at LGF.
#62
I have to disagree with you on one point, AC. While I think we should embrace the idea of targeted killings, rather than it being secret, secret, I think it should be up front and personal - like the good ol' day's, Wanted, dead or alive.
If someone is worth killing - then make the case for it and put them down. I don't want to go back to those dark days where some pasty-faced intel puke makes the call.
I made the point before - and I'll make it again right now, that we are fighting like the British fought against the American rebels. We are hindered by some notion of "civility" that our opponets exploit and use to kill us.
Hey, I'm all for civility. But I think it's more civil to simply identify those who are at war with us and kill or capture them than it is to allow hundreds or thousands of innocents to be slaughtered.
But let's be up front about it. Few of us want to go back to those dark shadowy CIA days.
I vote Galloway be first for the gallows. Do I hear a second?
#64
oh...never mind. I'm starting to sound like Robespierre. My list of people I'd like to see exit this earth is just getting way too long. I don't know what to do.
#65
Phil,
I didn't know much off-hand about the A-10 modernization, other than the structural and operability life extensions, but did dig up some good links. A-10C makes first flight This has a lot of new avionics, mainly aimed at improving interoperability, and an extensive upgrade in weapons capability. A-10 service life
This discusses the new engines, but does not indicate whether they are included in the C mod program.
#66
tw.. Ok. I'm sure we can all agree that Galloway would be a good choice for the gallows! Then a few of those mouthy Iams. But we have to agree to quit before we grow to fond of it!
#70
Not snarky at all, 2b.
A couple of years ago, Malkovich created a media storm in the UK by saying publicly that he would like to kill Galloway.
The latter swine started some sort of legal action, on the ironic grounds of Malkovich making a terroristic threat, but it didn't go anywhere.
#72
God bless the Marines and their families. They are inour hearts.
The Marines will respond as they always do. They will not destroy the whole city, they will, however, gather intel, calmly and deliberately build a plan and execute that plan with the most extreem violence and accuracy the rag heads have ever seen.
NSDQ!
Posted by: 49 pan ||
08/03/2005 22:31
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#73
AC, thank you for a serious discussion. My 'witness protection program' comment was meant to be semi-sarcastic. Sammy the Bull would not be a good candidate as an assassin, but there might still be something to be learned.
Keep in mind that we already engage in targeted assassination through the various "decapitation" strikes that have been carried out with indifferent success during the last few years.
Yes, the generally safe, reach-out-and- touch-someone. Little risk for the operators, unless one considers Libya.
As for someone blathering, keep in mind that claims of this kind of activity are a regular staple of the Arab media, and many others besides, so a fog of fiction helps to conceal the cold reality.
I wasn't concerned about in-country. My concern was more with the 'home office'. The CIA is a ideology-over-purpose disaster, Congress leaks like a sieve, and most of the Pentagon, especially in the civil service, cannot be trusted.
This was actually discussed in some depth yesterday at LGF.
I don't normally read the LGF comments, but I will take a browse over there.
Mauritanian soldiers have seized control of the state radio and television station and main routes in the capital, Nouakchott. Presidential guards are said to have blocked off access to the presidential palace and gunfire has been heard, but it is unclear if it is a coup attempt. A plane carrying President Maaouiya Ould Sid Ahmed Taya has landed in Niger's capital, Niamey, officials say. Rebel soldiers came close to toppling him in June 2003. The government says it foiled two more attempts in 2004. Correspondents say it is unclear if Wednesday's events signal a coup - or an attempt to prevent one.
Or both...
A Mauritanian journalist told Al-Jazeera TV that there had been no official information from the authorities or other parties. A diplomat told Reuters news agency it could be a coup attempt, but it was unclear who was involved. "We don't know whether it is something that has succeeded or failed," said the British honorary consul in Nouakchott, Sid Ahmed Abeidna.
Presidential guards moved into state radio and television buildings from 0500 GMT, AFP news agency reports.
Check
State media broadcasts have been cut.
Check
An AFP journalist in the city says that military vehicles equipped with heavy weaponry and anti-aircraft guns have been deployed.
Check
Soldiers have taken up position on the streets.
Check
Some reports say troops have also taken control of the city airport and a key army building.
Check
Gunfire rang out briefly near the presidency building.
Check
"I saw scared people running away. Civil servants have all left their offices," a witness told Reuters news agency. A BBC correspondent in the city says there are rumours that senior army officers have been arrested.
Check, sounds like a coup attempt to me
Sidi El Moctar Cheiguer says he has not heard of any violence since the gunshots. The capital is calm and people are going about their business normally, our correspondent says.
"If we closed shop every time there was a coup, why, we'd never get anything done."
President Taya had been out of the country attending the funeral of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd.
Best time to schedule a coup
He took power in a bloodless coup in December 1984 and has been re-elected three times since. Correspondents say he later made enemies among Islamists in the country, which is an Islamic Republic. Critics accuse the government of using the US-led war on terror to crackdown on Islamic opponents.
Hey, whatever works
Mr Taya has also prompted widespread opposition by establishing links with Israel.
Earlier this year, nearly 200 people, including former President Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah, were put on trial for a series of alleged coup plots. Mauritania is deeply divided between three main groups - light-skinned Arabic-speakers, descendents of slaves and dark-skinned speakers of West African languages. UPDATE: NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) - A group of Mauritanian army officers announced the overthrow of the president on Wednesday, hours after troops took control of the national media and the army chief of staff headquarters in the capital of this oil-rich Islamic nation.
The group, which identified itself as the Military Council for Justice and Democracy, announced the coup against President Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Taya, who was abroad, through the state-run news agency.
"The armed forces and security forces have unanimously decided to put an end to the totalitarian practices of the deposed regime under which our people have suffered much over the last several years," the statement said. The junta said it would excercise power for two years to allow time to put in place democratic institutions.
Earlier Wednesday, Taya arrived in the nearby West African nation of Niger, apparently trying to return home from Saudi Arabia where he had traveled Monday for the funeral of King Fahd, according to officials in Niger's capital, Niamey. With his plane on the tarmac, Taya held talks at the airport with Niger's President Mamadou Tandja. Taya did not speak to reporters and security forces kept journalists at a distance.
Taya, who has allied himself with the United States in the war on terror, has faced staunch opposition among Islamic groups in his impoverished desert nation of 3 million and has cracked down ruthlessly on opponents since a 2003 coup attempt.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
08:32 ||
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#1
I find it really strange that this guy chose to leave the country despite the place being a nest of vipers.
#6
That's Algeria in war with Morocco. They're saving the festivities for later.
I believe Mauritania does still have slavery, though it's officially outlawed. If the Islamists take over, it'll prob'ly be legalized again, since the Prophit liked it.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005 16:02
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#7
IIRC Mauritania long since gave up their share of the spanish sahara - Morocco was then quite happy to take the whole damned thing.
Is it clear the coup plotters are Islamists? I mean a guy like that, in a place like that, probably has plenty of enemies.
A Briton held in Zambia on suspicion of terrorism will be deported to the UK, the country's president has said. UK police deny reports that Mr Haroon Rashid Aswat, 30, of West Yorkshire, is wanted over the 7 July London bombings. But they have said he is of interest in other inquiries. The US wants to speak to him about an alleged plot to set up an al-Qaeda training camp in Oregon. Mr Aswat's family fear he could end up in US detention at Guantanamo Bay.
Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa told a news conference: "We have discussed with the governments of the US and Britain and we have finally agreed that Mr Aswat must be deported to Britain because that is his country." At the weekend, Mr Aswat's family called on the UK Government to intervene in his case. "Press reports are reporting unnamed British officials in discussions with the US Government over extradition of Haroon," they said in a statement. "Yet our government and the FCO are dilly-dallying and do not have the decency to confirm Haroon's detention."
The Foreign Office said on Wednesday it had obtained agreement from the Zambian authorities to gain consular access to a British national in custody. But a spokesman refused to comment on the reports that name him or confirm if the man is to be deported to the UK. An extradition agreement does exist between the UK and Zambia, and if an extradition request was made it would be considered under those terms, he said.
Mr Aswat is being held in the central prison in Zambia's capital, Lusaka. The Zambian authorities said he was arrested on 20 July, after having entered the country on 6 July.
It is believed US authorities requested his detention because they want to question him about a 1999 plot to set up an al-Qaeda training camp in Bly, Oregon. James Ujaama, 38, a Muslim convert from Seattle who has lived in Britain, pleaded guilty to involvement in the US training camp plot in April 2003. He faced up to 25 years in prison but received a two-year sentence after agreeing to co-operate with federal investigations.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005
08:21 ||
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From The Becker-Posner Blog, an essay by Richard Posner, Senior Lecturer in Law
.... economist-columnist Paul Krugman's column in the New York Times this past Friday (July 29), entitled "French Family Values," brings into focus important issues of immigration policy, and, more fundamentally, of the different economic and cultural models of the United States and Western Europe. .... Krugman's column does not mention Europe's Muslims, but in defense of the French (more broadly, the European) model, argues that the French have made a good trade -- their average incomes are significantly lower than those of Americans, but they work a good deal less. ... Western Europeans work fewer hours per week, take much longer vacations, and retire earlier. In effect they trade material goods for leisure, a trade that Krugman regards as a sign of high civilization. ....
Krugman's failure to relate the European model to Europe's Muslim problem is telling. To point to the upside of Europe's social model without mentioning the most serious downside is to provide bad advice to our own policymakers. The assimilation of immigrants by the United States, compared to the inability of the European nations to assimilate them -- with potentially catastrophic results for those nations -- is not unrelated to the differences between economic regulation in the United States and Europe. Because the U.S. does not have a generous safety net -- because it is still a nation in which the risk of economic failure is significant -- it tends to attract immigrants who have values conducive to upward economic mobility, including a willingness to conform to the customs and attitudes of their new country. And because the U.S. does not have employment laws that discourage new hiring or restrict labor mobility (geographical or occupational), immigrants can compete for jobs on terms of substantial equality with the existing population. Given the highly competitive character of the U.S. economy, in contrast to the economies of Europe, employers cannot afford to discriminate against able workers merely because they are foreign and perhaps do not yet have a good command of English. By the second generation, most immigrant families are fully assimilated, whatever their religious beliefs or ethnic origins.
In contrast, even in a country such as France that has a declared policy of requiring all immigrants to assimilate, immigrants from alien cultures, such as that of the Islamic world, tend to be marginalized and isolated, even in the second and later generations. .... The European preference for leisure, also supposedly cultural, rests on policy, specifically the employment laws. So too in all likelihood is the difficulty European nations have in assimilating immigrants. The less fluid, less competitive, less market-oriented, and indeed less materialistic (the only color important to businessmen is green) a national economy is, the less opportunity it will provide to alien entrants.
Advocates of the European model point to the pockets of poverty in the United States, but may not realize that poverty cannot be abolished without recourse to measures that produce the social pathologies that we observe in Europe. Social mobility implies the opportunity to fail. If society protects jobs, the employment opportunities of ambitious newcomers are reduced and they may end up at the embittered margin of society. Thus, it is not poverty that breeds extremism; it is social policies intended in part to eradicate poverty that do so, by obstructing exit from minority subcultures. If Muslims in European societies do not feel a part of those societies because public policy does not enable them to compete for the jobs held by non-Muslims -- if instead, excluded from identifying with the culture of the nation in which they reside they perforce identify with the worldwide Muslim culture -- some of them are bound to adopt the extremist views that are common in that culture. The resulting danger to Europe and to the world is not offset by long vacations.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
08/03/2005
08:17 ||
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I think this guy says the things more clearly than most politicians of the Anglosphere. Following is my translation of the beginning of the interview. Remainder at link
It would be time politicians stopped saying that everyone is nice and that is just western society who has perverted a certain number of individuals. Bombings weren't the result of this. We are fully immersed in a Stockhom syndrom. But we are not those "bastards" who should "expy" (NDT: for their sins or crimes). This speech I have heard in the mouth of certain heads of government, must not make us forget that we are in a new war, declared by the islamo-fascists (NoT: Yes, he used the word) united under the Al-Quaida label. Their vindication is not religious but politic. They say: "We will set a society who will be at our image", a society, where believe me, woman will not be queen and where it will not be easy to hear mass on Sundays. A country of Westen europe has everything to fear, specially when it has a foreign policy worth to be named.
Background: This guy is a former anti-terrorist judge. Presently he is a right wing representive in French parliament and upon the request of the PM (Villepin) has written a report titled "The EU and the fight against terrorism". The interview has been published in Le Figaro Paris conservative journal
#1
Give this man a ClueBat and let him at the leaders of the West!
This is the first time I have seen the left described as having the Stockhom syndrom, and I believe it fits.
Good Job.
#3
JFM -- I think that the word you wanted was expiate, where you wrote expy. If only we'd stayed longer in Brussels, I would have had a chance to learn French, darn it! Thank you for the translation -- it is very good to know the French mainstream media is allowing such voices to be widely heard.
#5
France is run by a small elite who attended the ecoles superieur (sp?) It's as if the US were run by Harvard and Yale grads exclusively, not that we aren't close. Average Jean Table Wine has never been as screwed up as his elite leadership.
If guys like this are starting to say these things in public, and getting press, I interpret it to mean that the elite has strayed too far from what Jean Table Wine will accept and that they are now afraid of a Le Pen really taking over. So they are starting to break ranks, especially those on the lower rungs who see this as a way to catapault up the ladder.
Finally, as Kissinger observed, it has the advantage of being the truth. Let's hope France is really waking up and getting a smell of the coffee. Better late than never.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/03/2005 13:01
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#6
"Welcome to the party pal!"
- John McLeod, Die Hard
#3
I did notice quite a few of them, in specific areas (e.g. Indonesia) are Muslim on Muslim. One addition that I'd make (if I were running the site) would be to add a column w/ a link to news about that specific attack, in case readers wanted to follow-up. There are several attacks that were very vague on details, and he called them jihadi attacks. Not that I doubt they truly were, but more info could be helpful. Another thing that struck me was how many LARGE attacks occurred in Russia (besides the Moscow theater and Beslan). I counted 2-3 attacks on trains I hadn't heard about. And, of course, we have Casablanca, Bali, Madrid, London, several attacks in Saudi, the D.C. sniper, etc that made big press. Wonder if there's a counterpart to this site pre-9/11 to show how asleep we were as a nation, going back to Iran-hostage and even prior, to the Israeli olympic athletes being gunned down. Another trend, which we're all aware of, was attacks in Sudan by janjaweed. MANY of those attacks were very large (entire villages killed), and yet, the UN sits around. Sudan and Iran are Bolton's two top jobs in my mind at the U.N. (as well as N. Korea).
Posted by: BA ||
08/03/2005 9:45
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#4
If this doesn't look like world war, I don't know what does!
An American freelance journalist was found dead in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, the U.S. Embassy said Wednesday. Police said Steven Vincent had been shot multiple times after he and his Iraqi translator were abducted at gunpoint hours earlier. "I can confirm to you that officials in Basra have recovered the body of journalist Steven Vincent," said embassy spokesman Pete Mitchell. "The U.S. Embassy is working with British military and local Iraqi officials in Basra to determine who is responsible for the death of this journalist. Our condolences go out to the family."
Iraqi police in Basra said Vincent was abducted along with his female translator at gunpoint Tuesday evening. The translator, Nour Weidi, was seriously wounded.
Vincent and the translator were seized Tuesday afternoon by five gunmen in a police car as they left a currency exchange shop, police Lt. Col. Karim al-Zaidi said. Vincent's body was discovered on the side of the highway south of Basra later. He had been shot in the head and multiple times on his body, al-Zaidi said.
Police said Vincent, a Web blogger who had been living in New York, had been staying in Basra for several months working on a book. In an opinion column printed in The New York Times on July 31, Vincent wrote that Basra's police force had been heavily infiltrated by members of Shiite political groups, including those loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Vincent quoted an unidentified Iraqi police lieutenant as saying that some police were behind many of the assassinations of former Baath Party members that have taken place in Basra. "He told me that there is even a sort of 'death car' -- a white Toyota Mark II that glides through the city streets, carrying off-duty police officers in the pay of extremist religious groups to their next assignment," he wrote.
Vincent was also critical of the British military, which is responsible for security in Basra, for turning a blind eye to abuses of power by Shiite extremists in the city. Here is his blog: In the Red Zone
Posted by: True German Ally ||
08/03/2005
02:30 ||
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#1
He stuck his nose too far into the 'stench'. The Sunni's have it coming; and I don't need to know how the Shiites want to equalize the situation!!
#2
Iraqi terror networks pay close attention to the copy produced by foreign writers. Vincent is probably a victim of death-by-feedback. Condolences to his family.
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
08/03/2005 2:43
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#3
Condolences to Vincent and his family. This Middle East transformation thing is really going to take decades. They're just not ready for free speech and a free press. Too many thugs, even in places like Basra, never mind Falluja
Posted by: John in Tokyo ||
08/03/2005 2:54
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#4
boy, the Brits are doing a real good job down there. why don't we just turn that zone over to the Iranians? I think it would be difficult to distinguish the results.
#6
boy, the Brits are doing a real good job down there
That'd better be irony Mr Bellows - the Brits have done a damn good job in Basra - it's only a shame no-one's media wish to report it.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/03/2005 5:15
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#7
Democracy is a process. Its unrealistic to assume it will produce perfection immediately. There are going to be secular-religious tensions for a long time. Get used to it.
#8
the Brits have done a damn good job in Basra - it's only a shame no-one's media wish to report it.
A shame, indeed. I guess Big Media is too busy trying to get interviews with murderous thugs like Basayev to pay any attention. There *are* people, though, who are both grateful for and proud of the British role.
#10
Tony UK: That'd better be irony Mr Bellows - the Brits have done a damn good job in Basra - it's only a shame no-one's media wish to report it.
Basra is supposed to be a safe zone. I guess it's safe - for British troops. Steven Vincent was shot, probably by the Shiite religious thugs that the British contingent has been standing up as an integral part of their softly-softly approach. In helping Shiite gangsters turn Basra into a Tehran on the Shatt Al Arab, the Brits have pretty much set up the groundwork for an Arab version of Iran. I don't blame UK troops. I blame Tony Blair. I blame Labor. I blame an entrenched philosophy of multiculturalism. A Tory government would have laid down the law.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/03/2005 8:12
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#14
Howard UK: And a Tory government would have seen a lot more body bags coming home.
The point of a war is not to minimize body count - it is to achieve vital political ends. The British body count in this war does not remotely approach the numbers in the Malayan Emergency or the Korean War, but the stakes are far higher. Part of the British approach may be the result of a Foreign Office view that does not see Iran, or regimes like Iran, as a threat.
#15
Well, they nicked our boats - we don't need telling. The thin line we provide in Basra has stood the test - I think all forces in the South have had their testing time with regard to Shia fundamentalism. I'm sure the spectre dare even raise its head in Najaf, Karbala and other places where US troops have a presence. Give people their freedom and they may not necessarily vote for whom you expected them to. What evidence is their for saying Basra's regime mimics that of the mad Mullahs' in Iran?
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/03/2005 8:34
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#16
In retrospect, Steven Vincent may have taken on too much risk in not embedding with British troops. Basra may have seemed like a safe area, but Michael Yon, an ex-SEAL, has always been embedded with American troops even in the Kurdish areas. Now we are finding out the truth - thanks to British laxity, Basra is a cesspool just like the Sunni cesspools around Baghdad - the only difference is that the Shiites are quiescent because we are about to hand power over to them.
#19
Eason Jordan is going to be all over this one.
It's either the U.S./British military killing journalists or the U.S./British military didn't provide enough protection. You can't win with the Demoncats.
It's ironic how the journalists hates the military until they need protection. Kind of like abusing your dog everyday for barking and then get mad at the dog for not anything when someone breaks in.
#20
And we're left with neo-marxist anti-American reporters who sit behind their desks in the States or even risk the bar at the Baghdad Hilton or the Green Zone to proclaim the failure of the Iraqi Adventure. Squealing like a stuck pig when anyone challenges their knowledge about anything going on there on the ground other than their freshing polish shoes. That those people even pull a pay check under the guise of 'reporter' or 'journalist' is the crime here. Wormtongue or Mouth of Sauron would be more fitting in title and fate.
I agree with you until 7.7.2005. However, after 7.7.2005 the British are in no mood to pass out candy even in Basra. Tater needs to go down, once and for all.
I think there is going to be a major show down coming in Iraq. It may even involve a one two U.S./British simultaneous punch the terrs are not going to forget for a long time.
No matter what happens, one thing is for sure, PC in the Iraq War is officially over.
#22
There we are, the blame game has started. I don't thing that pointing our finger to all angles of the azimuth will help in any ways. The fact is Writer Steven Vincent was killed by violence and death loving islamist thugs, whichever faction they are from. But not by the Brits.
#23
Howard UK: Should I put Ken Bigley's death down to U.S. 'laxity' ?
Ken Bigley was smack in the middle of the badlands. American troops were swatting terrorists left and right in the heart of Baghdad, and are still doing so. Steven Vincent is dead. What the heck are British troops doing to take care of business? The UK policy of "they won't bother the Shiite thugs if the Shiite thugs don't bother them" is great for force protection, but doesn't really do anything for Iraqi civilians and certainly did not do anything for Steven Vincent.
#24
SwissTex: There we are, the blame game has started. I don't thing that pointing our finger to all angles of the azimuth will help in any ways. The fact is Writer Steven Vincent was killed by violence and death loving islamist thugs, whichever faction they are from. But not by the Brits.
My concern is not with Steven Vincent. His death is just part of the stench of the deliberate British policy in Basra of not stomping on Sadr wannabes. I never wanted British participation in Iraq because I saw this coming from a mile away. In return for a few hundred fewer GI casualties, we may be letting Iraq go down the drain.
The Brits had the stomach for war in Korea, where they lost a thousand dead. They had it in Malaya, where they lost over a thousand men. But they don't have it any more. This is not your father's Great Britain.
You seem a bit thin skined if the British liberation style in Basra comes in for a some criticism. The Brits are said to be using the 'softly-softly" approach in Basra. I'm reading from people on the ground that Basra is now nothing more than "little Tehran". I don't deem that a positive development. Now I'm reading that cops in your country are now required to take their shoes off before raiding a Muslim mosque or home and that raids on mosques are a no-no during prayer time. And you wonder why Basra is now called "little Tehran"? Please, spare me the softly-softly approach, okay?
Posted by: Mark Z. ||
08/03/2005 10:53
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#26
What the heck happened to the Land of Hope and Glory*, that force protection is its primary mission in Iraq?
Dear Land of Hope, thy hope is crowned.
God make thee mightier yet!
On Sov'ran brows, beloved, renowned,
Once more thy crown is set.
Thine equal laws, by Freedom gained,
Have ruled thee well and long;
By Freedom gained, by Truth maintained,
Thine Empire shall be strong.
Land of Hope and Glory,
Mother of the Free,
How shall we extol thee,
Who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider
Shall thy bounds be set;
God, who made thee mighty,
Make thee mightier yet.
Thy fame is ancient as the days,
As Ocean large and wide:
A pride that dares, and heeds not praise,
A stern and silent pride:
Not that false joy that dreams content
With what our sires have won;
The blood a hero sire hath spent
Still nerves a hero son.
* Sung to the tune of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance.
#28
Aye, tossers the lot. I don't think you'd call the Scots who fought off the mooks at Al-Amarra 'lax'. I think we have to agree that the two forces have different styles and very different theatres of operation. I would gladly admit that PC is a problem in the UK and have posted on this theme on many occasions. I am not thin skinned but will not take criticism of our forces' approach. Basra may be 'little Tehran' but its peaceful. Certainly the film I've seen of the troops in Basra shows an open society and very little hostility to our troops.
PS. Don't quote Land of Hope and Glory at me, prick.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/03/2005 11:34
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#31
As I said on RB the other day - we should do as we did in the Second World War and in Ulster - use internment.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/03/2005 11:50
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#32
Howard,
I am with you also. But you have got to stop making appeasement statments like "Basra may be 'little Tehran' but its peaceful. Certainly the film I've seen of the troops in Basra shows an open society and very little hostility to our troops."
I know you are by no means, an appeaser, but the quote above make you sound like one.
London also seemed "peaceful" until 7.7.2005. I, like many here, are NOT the least bit interested in FALSE Peace.
BTW, there is no need to make this thread personal.
#33
I just don't see where all the hysteria over Basra has suddenly come from. What about Amarra? Surely, a far more dangerous hotbed of Shia radicalism than Basra. Certainly give our troops more hassle than they receive in Basra - and I seem to remember us not being too PC to avoid chopping a few of them to pieces.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/03/2005 12:00
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#34
Civil War is imminent.
And whether anyone here wants to admit it or not right now. Handing complete power over to the Shias is comparable to letting the fox in the henhouse. Yes, the Badr Brigades of the Grand Ayatolla Sistani will assist us in running the Sunnis insurgency into the ground, but what of the open door to Iran? Sistani is an Iranian tool.
The Badr Brigades are who Vincent was investigating, and they are all trained by the Iranian Red Guard. IMVHO the current insurgency is an extension of the Iraq Iran war. With roles reversed in many ways. This time the Sunnis get the short end of the stick and the Shias are up. Under Saddam, quite the opposite.
And yes just like the last time we are providing support, but for the opposite side.
Do we really think the Sistanis and Sadrs of Iraq are going to close the door to their Iranian friends once they have power? Hell no they're not.
We are playing a dangerous game, and just like in Afghanistan in the 80s we are being forced to make some deals with the devil as it were. Hopefully we are not enabling another Osama or worse.
Sistani, Chalabi, Sadr, we're letting them all play for the sake of a temporary peace. But it is only temporary. Democracy in Iraq will be like lingerie. Its expensive, and looks damn good, and we have put a whole shitload of effort into seeing it, but it will be on the floor real soon.And that's when the real action will begin.
We may very well be fighting the very troops we've trained in Iraq in Iran in less than ten years.
Just my two cents.
And notice I ain't offering any alternatives, and I don't envy those who must make these decisions.
#35
How on earth did this become about questioning the quality of British troops? Meow!
The reporter was courageous - but what was he doing there days after the piece was printed? I wonder if he knew when it was to be published? You think he might have laid low for a bit afterward. But here I am blaming the victim, shame on me. Obviously Vincent had buns of steel and we are all better for it. If we see more corruption in Basra, it probably has more to do with the fact that Vincent had the courage to go out there and find it and report it - rather than it being better or worse than perhaps somewhere else.
#36
In retrospect, Steven Vincent may have taken on too much risk in not embedding with British troops. -- Zhang Fei
Zhang, you would do well to read his book. You would then understand his reasoning for what he did and was doing. While I did not entirely agree with what he wrote, I respect what he was attempting to accomplish.
Sunni's are launching full scale plans to participate in the next election, regarding the constitution.
There is still a fat boy (Al Sadr) that needs to be charged with another murder in regards to Stephen in Basra. And I think this time something will happen to Al Sadr. Steven made a lot of Iraqi friends.
#38
Sistani, Chalabi, Sadr, we're letting them all play for the sake of a temporary peace.
One of these things is not like the others,
One of these things just isn't the same...
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 13:55
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#39
Zhang Fei, you obviously are a cocksucker for having a go at UK troops and for quoting Land of Hope and Glory. Our boys have done and are doing a cracking job down in Basra, we have the best forces on the world. Wind ure neck in..b4 it gets snapped.
#41
NN: Zhang Fei, you obviously are a cocksucker for having a go at UK troops and for quoting Land of Hope and Glory. Our boys have done and are doing a cracking job down in Basra, we have the best forces on the world. Wind ure neck in..b4 it gets snapped.
Anyone who says his country has the best forces in the world is painting a target on his chest. In the 20th century, British forces have been kicked out of more countries than you can shake a stick at. Does anyone really think Britain would have evacuated the Jewel of the Crown (India) if British forces could have hung on? If you want to say the British forces are, man-for-man, the toughest guys around, fine. But what does that really mean? That we should include a new tough guy competition in the Olympics? Militaries are set up to fight (and win) wars, not get involved in competitions of primarily academic interest (or, as in Iraq, ignore Shiite thugs while hoping that the Shiite thugs will ignore them). By that measure, British forces are good for little more than peacekeeping and fighting second rate guerrilla forces like the IRA.
If you want to say that British forces are the best in the sense that they can do anything they are told to do, that is, of course, a rank untruth. Britain couldn't prevent China from taking Hong Kong back. It couldn't hang on to India, or to any of the territories east of Aden. What can British forces do? Beat up on banana republics like Argentina and share the glory for Gulf Wars I and II.
#45
Course you can't get kicked out of countries and continents unless you were there right? LOL It's like saying the PLA was never kicked out of Portugal because the PLA is invincible. :)
#47
Black Watch and other British units provided excellent support of various operations within Iraq. The vast majority of terrorists infiltrate from the west of Iraq instead of infiltrating through Brittish held areas. US forces are now repositioning to the west and taking hard hits this week as they do so.
Sistani was the one that got Al Sadr out of trouble when Al Sadr was holed up in a major mosque in Basra. It is Al Sadr's group who killed Stephen. Not the British. With store owners and now a prominent reporter being murdered by uniform police (Al Sadr sympathizers) the British and the coalition will adjust and deal with the cock roaches.
The many Iraqi friends that Stephen had will put pressure on the Iraqi segments there as well.
#48
Shipman: Course you can't get kicked out of countries and continents unless you were there right? LOL It's like saying the PLA was never kicked out of Portugal because the PLA is invincible. :)
The British *were* the best in the world. If NN had limited himself to "we had the best forces on the world", I would have left him alone. The PLA was no great shakes, but it is possibly the only light infantry force to have pushed the US military hundreds of miles south in the face of American air, artillery and tank superiority. In the 20th century, the British military spent most of its time getting its butt kicked by the Germans, and kicked out of its colonial holdings. Sic transit gloria mundi. And the British military's period of gloire is no more. We're talking about the present, not the past, since we can only live in the present.
#50
In the present, I greatly appreciate having the SAS, the Royal Marines and the Black Watch on our side.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/03/2005 15:32
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#51
Well, one thing is for sure. The spotlight is now on the Basra police and how the Brits have allowed such a mistake to happen. This is truely bad news.
I see the Brits leaving Basra next year by climbing aboard helicopters from the embassy roof.
#52
lemme guess ZF...some hot girl with a British accent dumped you? Why don't you just get it over with and tell the British posters that your penis is bigger than theirs?
#53
ZF, I could go to your level and bring up some wars/battles in recent history that didn't go the way the US wanted, but I won't. I have too much respect for the soldiers (British and US) in Iraq to waste space on this website slagging off each others military. The response of others to your comments tells me your opinion is not a true reflection of your countrymen.
#54
Shipman: Yeah, maybe you're right ZF, Brits fading into the Sunset. This is HMS Victorious going into that quite grave with D-5 Missile tubes.
This certainly helped them hang on to Hong Kong. It certainly deterred a Latin American banana republic from invading the Falklands. Thanks to this display of British power, Steven Vincent and hundreds of Arabs in Basra are really alive in an undisclosed location. Kim Jong Il has nukes, too - is his military able to do anything he tells it to do? Hey - North Korea and Britain do have something in common - rank impotence.
In the 20th century, only three of the major powers have had a consistent record of either political realignments or territorial adjustments in their favor - Russia, China and the US. Russia's czarist-era empire is gone. China has gained territory from almost every one of its neighbors except Russia. Uncle Sam has removed unfriendly regimes in Panama, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, Iraq, Afghanistan and extended its influence through Central Europe, the Balkans, Asia and Africa, much of which used to be Britain's backyard. I have left Britain out - because for Britain - the lyrics of the WWI-era anthem Land of Hope and Glory, when sung in the present context, could almost be said to mock Britain's present circumstances.
#55
I was upset and tired last night when I wrote that, and, reading it the next day, it was a bit harsh. A bit. I'm sure the Brits are doing a better job than the Black Turbans in Tehran would do.
The success of the occupation will be measured 10,20,40 years from now. I'm afraid that the Brits aren't doing their part to instill the values, norms, procudures, what have you, that will be necessary for Iraq in the next century. It reminds me a little of Terry Pratchett's Discworld city of Ankh-Morpork, where balance of responsibility for peace and order in the city is borne by the Theives' Guild -- pay your yearly money to the guild, and there will be no problem. If you don't pay, fair game. And any unlicenced theives will be quickly dispatched by the Guild.
Another practical effect of this hands-off policy, besides Vincent's assassination, is letting Jack the Ripper (link) run loose in Basra. And this, I stress, is only what we can see in the short term. I strongly feel that the Brits are frittering away a chance to build a strong institutions in their area.
Not only that, but we have to put up with aperiodic lectures (link) from General Sir Michael Jackson on how heavy handed (link) US troops are. That especially sticks in my craw. (I'm not sure why my links show up in bold - that's why I mark them so. Is it firefox?)
#56
2b: lemme guess ZF...some hot girl with a British accent dumped you? Why don't you just get it over with and tell the British posters that your penis is bigger than theirs?
Actually, no. I'm just tired of incessant British yapping about how great they are and how stupid and incompetent Americans are - I like to put them in their place every so often.
That would be if I called him ugly. I put the relevant facts on the table and gave him a chance to respond. His response was to resort to obscenity. Now we're talking meow, hiss.
#62
After thoroughly reading all the comments, I'd like to clarify -- I'm questioning British policy here, not the quality or bravery of British soldiers. I sincerely wish the British to be successful in their mission in Iraq. I believe they are capable of getting tough and I hope they do now.
I see some similarities in the US administration of Sicily/S. Italy during the Second World War. The US replaced one form of despotism, Mussolini's form, with another, the mafia's version. While this certainly saved many GI's lives, and secured lines of communication, this policy was short-sighted. While the locals were certainly friendly (one prominent man even demanding to be annexed to the US), the ways of the mafia ensured that Sicily and Southern Italy would be in the grip of grinding poverty for many years. The Italian state only recently came to grips with the Mafia problem. The economic retardation caused by the mafia has probably played a role in the coninued appeal of communism among Italian voters.
The primary difference between Sicily '45 and Basra '05 is of course that Sicily is an Island. The Mafia dons answered only to themselves, while the corrupting elements in Basra are sponsored by a hostile power across the Shatt al-Arab. Which is the crux of the entire Iraq problem, really. Security promlems such as this must be attended to immediately. There is no ocean to act as a buffer. The entire British and American defence philosophy is different in this regard.
#63
Mr R Bellows, I apologise. I think'm we need beeers.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/03/2005 17:10
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#64
Actually, no. I'm just tired of incessant British yapping about how great they are and how stupid and incompetent Americans are - I like to put them in their place every so often.
Heh.
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/03/2005 17:12
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#65
Mike Sylwester, I hope you're happy now! I took 'em on, I coulda been someone...
Posted by: Howard UK ||
08/03/2005 17:17
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#66
LOL Howard.
I say anyone who puts their ass on the line deserves my respect. The methods of their leadership ant their tactics I'll leave to my betters.
#67
I could care less about who's military is the best all I know is that if we don't get are act together,the Isalmonuts win and I sure as hell don't want them to.
#69
Well, well. A contentious thread has resulted in the formation of the Anglosphere Beer Drinking Society, Ltd. Confusion to the enemy!
(Certain French, Germans, Canadians and Ozzies also welcome.)
Posted by: Matt ||
08/03/2005 18:14
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#70
Elvis, your comment got lost in the acrimony, but it was the most perceptive. I would add one thing, Sadr and others may well be Iranian funded puppets, but don't assume all shias are, even those who look to Teheran for support. The Iraqi Shiaas are surrounded by historically hostile Sunnis, except for Iran. Its a dangerous neighbourhood for the world's first shia Arab controlled state.
#74
Khalilzad worked wonders in Afghanistan. He stood Hamid Karzai up and thwacked all the other contenders, having sized up Karzai as the best guy for American interests in the country. Too bad Bremer was in Iraq - he should have been posted to Afghanistan and Khalilzad to Iraq. Although Khalilzad's posting to Iraq is a plus, he has arrived too late to be kingmaker. Bremer picked the wrong guy (Allawi), and caved in too soon with respect to Iraq's status.
Australia - BOMB Squad officers in Perth are removing an explosive object from underneath a bench in an inner-city park, police say.
The object was not a bomb, a police spokesman said, describing it instead as military or commercial ordnance. The object was found under a chair at Langley Park, between Perth CBD and the Swan River about 11am (WST) today. Police closed a section of Plain Street between Adelaide Terrace and Riverside Drive while dealing with the incident.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
08/03/2005
02:20 ||
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#1
"military or commercial ordnance"
Hmmm, do they have "commercial grenades" ?
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
08/03/2005 10:27
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I suspect what they are saying is that they found explosives, perhaps Dynamite like you might legitimately use for lets say clearing stumps on a ranch, without a detonator or timer hence its not a bomb. At the same time who the hell leaves a bunch of explosives under and bench! I suspect that getting commercial explosives is just as hard as it is in the US and you have to show a legitimate reason, provide ID, an address etc and this all needs to be checked out. You are then hardly going to walk home with your explosives, stop to feed the pigeons, and then forget your package of TNT. Definitely something fishy. Probably some jihadi thought he got burned and dumped his package.
Posted by: Robi Sen ||
08/03/2005 17:02
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Yep, we gotta sign an affa david about birds and varmints, still dynamite purdy hard to come by unless you live near Ludawicci.
Two Algerian military policemen have been killed and four others wounded in an ambush by Islamic rebels, state radio said on Sunday.
The policemen came under rebel gunfire at a checkpoint near a hotel in the coastal province of Boumerdes, 50 km (31 miles) east of the capital Algiers, on Friday night, the radio said.
Algerian officials and media blame the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), Algeria's largest Islamic armed group, for attacks on government forces.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2005
02:12 ||
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But professor Juan Cole cites CIA analyst Marc Sageman [another of those "calm" voices] who argues that they're only a few hundred Jihadis around the world.
A man accused of co-ordinating the 2004 bombings of the Australian embassy in Jakarta in which nine people were killed claims that Osama bin Laden provided the money for the explosives, but while not ruling out this possibility a Jakarta-based security expert has urged more caution in what he says are crucial investigations in determining who is financing terrorism in the region. According to a report in the daily The Australian on Monday, Iwan Dharmawan, also known as Rois, shortly after his arrest las Novemeber told Indonesian authorities that he received 10,000 Australian dollars from a courier sent by Bin Laden.
âI can't exclude that al-Qaeda financed the [9 September 2004] Australian embassy bombings, but I surely can't affirm it. The matter is still open, " security expert Ken Conboy, who is the author of the book "The Second Front: Inside Asia's Most Dangerous Terrorist Network", which focus on Jemaah Islamiyah - the radical islamic group fighting for the establishment of an Islamic state in South East Asia - told Adnkronos International (AKI).
Rois says he learnt that Bin Laden had provided the money from Azahari bin Husin, a Malay suspect beleived to be behind all the major terrorist attacks carried out Indonesia in recent years. Azahari bin Husin and his assistant, Noordin Mohammed Top, are still on the run.
âFinding the sponsors of terror is crucial if we are to lower the intensity of the security threat against Jakarta, â Conboy told AKI.
âUntil 2003 it was quite clear that the money came from Pakistan, but that channel has been blocked. Nobody can now say for sure who finances terrorism in Indonesia. Rois' statement is just a supposition among others, â Conboy said.
Whaterver the source of the fundings, law enforcement agencies must focus their efforts in identifying then, the security expert stresses.
âAs long as money is available [to the terrorists], the risks of another attack in Jakarta is very high,â he said..
Rois, whose case is currently being judged in a Jakarta tribunal, is accused of having organised the logistics behind the attack against the Australian embassy. He faces the death penalty if convicted.
Despite the fact that Rois has denied being a member of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the radical islamic group is considered responsible for the Australian embassy attack, as well as those against several discos in Bali in 2002 which killed 202 people, and against Jakarta's Marriott hotel in 2003 which killed 12.
Jemaah Islamiyah, which means in Arab "Islamic community", has not been outlawed in the country and the organisation is supported by local madrassas, or Islamic institutes, especially those located in the region of Central Java.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2005
02:09 ||
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No doubt the most hard line Muzzi nation in SE Asia would back pedal about any firm AQ link. Quick, send out an expert to cast doubt. Would not want to piss off the muzzie savior BL and start a civil war.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
08/03/2005 22:07
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Egypt said it has killed the suspected commander of an Al Qaida cell that carried out a series of suicide strikes against tourists in the Sinai Peninsula.
Egyptian security sources said Mohammed Fulayfel was killed in Mount Ataqa near Suez City. The sources said Fulayfel, 24, was a leading suspect in the suicide strikes in Sharm e-Sheik on July 23 in which 88 people were reportedly killed. Cairo has never released the final casualty toll.
"In the course of investigations of the latest terrorist incidents, conclusive evidence was discovered that pointed to the fact that elements involved in these attacks were hiding out in a quarry at Mount Ataqa," the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Monday.
Fulayfel was also wanted for the bombings against Israeli tourists in Nueiba and Taba in which 34 people died in October 2004. In both strikes, most of the casualties were Egyptian nationals.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2005
02:04 ||
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The new Iraqi constitution to be presented later this month will not resolve many of the most difficult questions that threaten to split the nation along ethnic and sectarian lines, key participants in the process say.
Rather, the parties expect to meet an Aug. 15 deadline for drafting a basic law by deferring tough decisions on the details of the role of Islam, women's rights, oil-revenue sharing and federalism until after a new legislature is elected in December.
Not everyone is happy with that decision, taken in the face of strong U.S. pressure to meet the Aug. 15 deadline and keep Iraq's progress toward a permanent government on track. The last possible moment for seeking an extension was midnight Monday.
The Kurds, in particular, strongly oppose any delay in a final decision on the future of the northern city of Kirkuk, their role in the future of Iraq and ownership of Iraq's natural resources.
They have proposed that the constitutional drafting committee expand the provincial borders of Kurdistan and are vehemently opposed to a Sunni proposal that would recognize Iraq as an Arab nation. Kurds are not ethnically Arab.
The Sunnis, meanwhile, worry that excessive decentralization will take power from the Sunni center of the country, while Shi'ites, backed by some Sunnis on the committee, are pushing for a greater role for Islam in the nation's laws.
Women's groups are worried that their rights will be shoved aside in the rush to meet the deadline.
"Many Iraqi women are outraged by the idea that [the current draft of the] constitution refers to Islamic Shariah [law] as the primary legal source, especially as it relates to the personal-status law," said Manal Omar, regional representative of Women for Women International.
Under Shariah law, women inherit half of what men inherit, and may lose their equal rights in divorces.
"Many women are not against Islamic law in the constitution, but feel that safeguards need to be put in place with regard to interpretations and applications of an overarching Islamic Shariah," Miss Omar said in a telephone interview from Jordan.
The U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, said after meeting with women's groups yesterday that equality for women "is a fundamental requirement for Iraq's progress."
But an Iraqi official in contact with those drafting the constitution said the Shi'ites -- who have a majority in the interim legislature -- were unlikely to agree to any rights for women that were not acceptable under Shariah law.
"We have to respect the realities of Iraq," he said, adding that women "have to be patient and accept the reality. ... We will not put articles in against women, [but] we can just not topple this one overnight."
Once the new constitution is completed, Iraqis will have two months to debate its terms before approving or rejecting it in a national referendum.
If it is approved, a second national election will take place on Dec. 15, and a permanent government will be seated by Dec. 31. If voters reject the constitution, the committee will go back to the drawing board.
The hope in Washington is that if everything goes on schedule, support for the Sunni-led insurgency will dissipate and U.S. troops will be able to begin coming home early next year.
Neil Kritz of the U.S. Institute of Peace, which is advising the Iraqi parties in the drafting process, said that it is important to keep the political momentum going, even if many of the toughest decisions are deferred.
"In that sense, it would almost be an interim constitution. You can decrease support for the insurgency by drawing others into the political process, and [you] can set up a new time line to review it within two years," said Mr. Kritz.
A U.S. source close to the drafting committee said that U.S. political considerations rather than Iraqi political needs appear to be driving the push to finish quickly.
"The U.S. is putting on pressure because it is viewed as tied to troop withdrawals," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2005
02:00 ||
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#1
I believe the Kurds will not (and should not) be denied and screwed over, this time. To be honest, they are the only group in that entire region I give a flip about. I'll add the Persian people if they throw off the Mullahs and their yoke of councils and thugs. The Kurds truly deserve their own state. Period. The Iraqi Arabs? Jury's still out - and it's not looking like they "get it" at all, assuming the elected reps actually do represent the wishes of the Iraqi Arabs.
#4
Our Constitution guarantees equal rights and justice for all, regardless of religion, sect, race, or gender, is already written so it can meet the deadline, and has worked well even for a nation formed of every imaginable religion and ethnicity for over 200 years. It seems to be a no-brainer but the obvious is always overlooked.
#6
Why does it seem like basic principles like negotiation and compromise are beyond the ME thinking. I firmly believed democratic principles where desired by all people, but now I am not so sure. I am not advocating rushing anything, but it always seems like the wheels keep spinning without any traction.
#7
"But an Iraqi official in contact with those drafting the constitution said the Shi'ites -- who have a majority in the interim legislature -- were unlikely to agree to any rights for women that were not acceptable under Shariah law."
I thought they were drafting with a new start. A shame that they are bringing to the table old laws to live by that not everyone approves of.
Posted by: Jan ||
08/03/2005 12:50
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#8
Danielle, you seem to forget that our constitution avoided some contentious issues regarding a peculiar institution. As a result we killed 500-600,000 of our brothers. Sometimes that 's what you have to do to resolve contentious issues. Other times it's better to avoid them. I vote they avoid some if that's what it takes to start down this liberal republic thing.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
08/03/2005 13:10
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#9
It also took some 12 years to get the US Consitution together. The Iraqis have, what, less than a year?
#13
Mebbe they could use the EU model? I hear Chirac is through with it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/03/2005 21:39
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#14
wooda let them borrow ours.
You've got that right Bobby! And the same goes to the EU. Such small and petty minds that can't rise above the political rhetoric to embrace the near miraculous convergence of circumstance and genius that created a near flawless documents solely dedicated to liberty of man, ...rather than to the ambitions of small men.
Once again, I am reminded why George Washington was once called the Father of our Country. Twice, in full control of the power, he was willing to give it up for the good of all men. What a freak he was. Thank God for freaks.
[July 29 2005] at 1445 LT in position 12:24N - 050:30E, off Caluula, NE coast of Somalia. Five pirates armed with guns in a white speedboat fired upon a bulk carrier underway. Crew mustered, activated fire hoses and fired rocket flares. Master increased speed, took evasive manoeuvres and moved away from the coast. Attempted boarding was averted. No injuries to crew.
[July 29 2005] at 0300 LT in position 01:27.39S - 116:45.76E at SPM terminal, Lawi-Lawi, Balikpapan, Indonesia. Robbers boarded a tanker during cargo operations. They broke into three storerooms and stole safety equipment and property and escaped.
[July 28 2005] at 0415 UTC in posn 04:08.5N - 049:49.3E, off east coast Somalia. Six pirates armed with guns in a white hull speedboat fired upon a bulk carrier underway. Alert crew mustered and boarding was averted.
[July 26 2005] at 2000 LT at Georgetown port, Guyana. Five robbers armed with guns boarded a container ship departing with pilot on board. They held a crew at gunpoint and broke padlock of forward storeroom. The crewmember managed to escape and raise alarm. Robbers left empty handed.
[July 26 2005] at 1110 UTC in position 03:09N - 048:47E, 90 nm miles off east coast of Somalia. Eight pirates armed with machine guns and RPG in two speedboats approached a product tanker underway. One boat came within 30 metres and fired shots at the tanker. Crew mustered and activated fire hoses. Master increased speed, took evasive manoeuvres, increased speed and proceeded away from the coast. Boats aborted attempted boarding. Boats were white hulled with blue stripes and each boat was manned by four persons. No injuries to crew and no damage to ship.
#1
90 nm miles off east coast of Somalia. Eight pirates armed with machine guns and RPG in two speedboats approached a product tanker underway . . .
What kind of range does a speedboat have? Somehow, I doubt they have a 90-100 nm radius of action. There has to be a mother ship somewhere close by.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/03/2005 10:13
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range is determined by the amount of fuel they carry and the horsepower. I did some checking and found this review of a 21 foot Boston Whaler Outrage:
* Over 350 mile cruise range with 225 4stroke (150 mile tuna trip only burned 47 gallons; with near 80 gallons in reserve).
So 90nm is nothing, drug smugglers do more than that with extra tanks all the time.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005 10:40
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Thanks, Steve.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/03/2005 11:03
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#4
I wonder if any of those steely-eyed Lloyds of London gents read Rantburg? ;-)
Hardline Muslim fundamentalists are targeting mosques, universities and high schools across Melbourne in a battle for the hearts and minds of local Muslim youth. Mainstream Muslim leaders have identified three groups operating in Melbourne promoting radical forms of Islam and who they fear may turn rhetoric into violence. One of the groups is building a mosque in Broadmeadows, another is a radical group of young Bosnians loosely attached to high-profile radical cleric Mohammed Omran, and the other comprises local members of the radical international political organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir.
One Muslim leader warned that some more extreme elements had left Sheikh Omran's group, claiming it was not radical enough. These were mostly Arabs, Algerians and Somalis. Another political leader told The Age that radicals were causing problems and grief at mosques across Melbourne. "They are trying to take over executives, pamphleting, trying to recruit outside mosques," he said. "They are full of vitriol and poisonous rhetoric, and see the rest of Islam as corrupted." Several local mosques have succumbed to the radicals in recent years, including Preston mosque, one of Melbourne's most prominent. Leaders of other suburban mosques say they continually have to fend off attempts by hardliners to take control.
Three weeks ago members of one of Sheikh Omran's groups, the Islamic Information and Support Centre of Australia, were asked to leave the Doncaster mosque after distributing leaflets to members as they came to pray, according to the mosque's secretary, Rahil Khan. "We are very, very strict on that, based on experience," he said. The Bosnian mosque in Noble Park took out an intervention order against members of the same group in 2000 after disturbances prompted by radicals handing out leaflets, books and videos preaching hatred against the West. Imam Ibrahim of the Noble Park mosque said: "They are hardliners. They tried every mosque, but it depends on the imam. If he is strong and stable and has followers, there is no problem." At Preston, the radicals engineered an election and amended the constitution in the 1990s while the imam, Sheikh Fehmi el-Naji, was away on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Supporters of Sheikh Fehmi, Melbourne's most prominent imam, worked hard over the next decade to regain ground, and members say there is now an uneasy balance. But Sheikh Omran claims his supporters still control Preston mosque. "Nothing has changed since that day," he told The Age. Of the wider cultural war among Melbourne's Muslims, Sheikh Omran said: "I would say I'm winning. The Muslims are winning, and Islam in the end. Our message is winning hearts."
An imam said radical youths spoke to people coming to pray. "They tell them there's an attack on Muslims everywhere and a violent response is needed. If it's public, these guys are shouted down and kicked out. But if it's a conversation between two people who happen to be praying and one is an agitator, that's more sinister," he said. Few leaders were willing to be named. One said: "A lot of people are scared of these people. The same sect is blowing places up around the world, and it wouldn't be too difficult here."
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
08/03/2005
00:49 ||
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It's shouldn't be to difficult to turn them into the police then if they are well known. Oh I forgot you are muslims and can't do that. You are doomed them.
#2
I opposed the indulgence of suicide preacher, Jim Jones, prior to his kool-aid death wish in Guyana in the seventies, because I don't waste respect for freedom-of-conscience on animals like him. Similarly, Muslim imams are nothing but unflushed sewage, and deserve nothing but contempt.
Grand contradiction: Muslims are condemning the treatment of the Guantanamo Bay terrorists, as abuse of "muslims" while claiming that terror is against Islam. But if terrorists act against Islam, then why the hell are they recognized as "muslims." Answer: because Muslim leaders in the West and elsewhere, approve of the strategic use of terror, while they only condemn nominal tactical errors. Muslim = Terrorist
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
08/03/2005 2:38
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#3
Nice, better it be known, not to push the Aussies too far; they may just push anyone just shy dark of a sheet of paper right of that continent!!
The next test is to see if the community ignores them or starts going to them.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 7:38
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One Muslim leader warned that some more extreme elements had left Sheikh Omran's group, claiming it was not radical enough. These were mostly Arabs, Algerians and Somalis. Another political leader told The Age that radicals were causing problems and grief at mosques across Melbourne. "They are trying to take over executives, pamphleting, trying to recruit outside mosques," he said.
So stop talking and DO something about it.
"They are full of vitriol and poisonous rhetoric, and see the rest of Islam as corrupted." Several local mosques have succumbed to the radicals in recent years, including Preston mosque, one of Melbourne's most prominent. Leaders of other suburban mosques say they continually have to fend off attempts by hardliners to take control.
They must not be very effective if they're losing ground, which the article seems to indicate.
BATAM (Indonesia), Aug 2 (Bernama) -- Foreign Ministers of Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore have asked the Lloyds Joint War Committee to review its risk assessment which categorised the Straits of Melaka and Singapore as a high risk zone for piracy and terrorism. A joint statement issued at the end of their meeting here today said the categorisation was made without consulting and taking into account the existing efforts of the three littoral states to deal with the problems of safety of navigation and maritime security in the waterways.
The straits, through which 30 per cent of the world's trade and 50 per cent of the world's oil supplies pass yearly, have been placed on Lloyds' list of war-risk areas. Analysts said the categorisation could lead to insurers raising premiums or underwriters pulling out their insurance cover for shipping in the straits.
The two-day meeting at Tiru Beach Resort on the outskirts of Batam reaffirmed the sovereign rights of the littoral states over the two straits.
"The primary responsibility over the safety of navigation, environmental protection and maritime security in the Straits of Melaka and Singapore lies with the littoral states," the ministers said.
They acknowledged the littoral states should address the issue of maritime security in a comprehensive manner, taking into account piracy, armed robbery and terrorism, trafficking and smuggling of people, weapons and other trans-boundary crimes. In this task, the ministers welcomed the assistance of the user states, the relevant international agencies and the shipping community in capacity-building, training and technology transfer and other forms of assistance.
[ Malaysian Foreign Minister] Syed Hamid told the news conference the meeting was a clear sign that the three nations viewed safety and security of navigation in the straits seriously.
Singapore's Yeo said it was a timely meeting because of the global concern on the issue of maritime security in general and in the safety of the sea lanes in Southeast Asia in particular. He said there was a need to strike a balance between the interests of the littoral states and those of the user states.
"This (Straits of Melaka and Singapore) is a major arterial lifeline of the global trade...we've a major responsibility here, for our own interest and that of the international community's," he said.
#3
I think the "ministers" don't have the concept down, talking about repsonsibility and sovreignty are one thing, practcing them are another. Watch the rates to underwrite climb until you start hanging pirates and offer protection instead of lip service.
#4
Insurance is a numbers game. Perhaps Lloyd's has noticed a positive correlation between areas swarming with pirates and terrorists and actual acts of piracy and terrorism.
This whimpering is rather amusing coming, as it does, on the heels of the recent declarations by Malaysia and Indonesia that they didn't want their sovereignty compromised by anyone's military providing well armed escorts for merchant shipping.
#5
Anyone else expecting Lloyds to "review its risk assessment" and raise the estimate of risk?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 7:41
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#6
This is likely why Indonesia and Malaysia started slightly changing their usual song-and-dance a month or so back. Singapore is a major trade center and Indonesia and Malaysia are desperate to become ones; any increase in the cost or reduction in the amount of shipping is damaging.
When you have them by the wallet, their hearts and minds will follow.
Indeedy. Like I said, seaborne commerce can be closed by words, POTUS, CEO Lloyds, The First Lord of the A... it's a great gig, don't even have to forces in place.
A discussion amongst members of a password-protected al-Qaeda affiliated message board yesterday, August 1, 2005, concerned the presence of American forces in Algeria and North Africa, and their alleged âmaneuversâ with those troops from eight Islamic countries, including Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, Mali, and others. The focus was placed on this âmixed armyâ vis-Ã -vis the Muslims, mujahideen, and members of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC), as well as the âdisbelieversâ from the East.
One author believes that the mujahideen in North Africa are to be the primary targets of the joint forces of the American and Islamic countries, a view that other members concur, alleging that they wish to âput out Allahâs light by their mouths.â Another member questions aloud what is to be âtowards the infidel forcesâ in North Africa, to which another states: âThe expected hit is coming soon, Allah willing.â
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2005
00:44 ||
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#1
Or as it has been said before..."Bring It On!!"
Now that's what I call liberal thinking... h/t LGF Young Libs' terror hit squad
Victoria's Young Liberals have called on the Howard Government to train hit squads to track down those behind the Bali bombing.
The "war on terror" motion was adopted with a two-thirds majority at a Young Liberal Movement meeting on Monday night.
"The YLM calls on the Australian Government to train undercover agents to kidnap or kill those responsible for the Bali bombing," the resolution reads.
Supporters of the motion argued the disparity between the 20-year sentence for drug smuggler Schapelle Corby and the two-year sentence for radical Muslim cleric Abu Bakir Bashir justified kidnapping terrorist suspects overseas and bringing them to trial in Australia.
The motion was moved by YLM policy vice-president and Melbourne University Liberal Club member Alex Lew.
The resolution is not binding on the Liberal Party. There's definitely a different flavor of Kool Aid available Down Under, heh. Let's import some of that, plz.
#1
Actually, the Australian Liberal Party is Howard's party, while the Labour Party is more akin to the lefties. But DAMN, his party never fails to amaze me.
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
08/03/2005 1:46
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#2
Wow!! Aussie Young Guns__have balls...will travel! You just know, "W" is smiling and 'Winking' over this one!
#3
smn can you stop with the juvenile and moronic inneundos. You come across like you are 14 years old and copying the grownups, except you an adolescents idea of how grownups behave. If you have something to say, then say it. Otherwise STFU.
#4
Nice to see that someone is trying to return to a more classical meaning of the word 'liberal'. I'm getting rather tired of the word being a synonym for dictator-worshiping, nanny-state socialism.
#7
Steve:
I'm pretty sure most of the world uses "Liberal" in the more classical sense and uses "Social Democrat" for the not-quite-communists. Only in North America (and maybe Britain) have the two been confused.
#10
From my days of ranting against Aris, I learned that the word "liberal" as a different meaning outside the U.S. Maybe that's why the U.S. liberals want to now call themselves "progressive".
One never knows, the phrase "Progressive Leftist" may catch on, after all. The major benefit in the term "Progressive Leftist" would be that there will never again be a confusion in terminology, anywhere in the world.
#12
As others have pointed out, the Oz Liberals are quite different from American libs. Even so, at least one card-carrying American liberal, CBS correspondent Bob Simon, has endorsed a similar approach on a global scale.
Simon's ideas go far beyond what the young Liberals in Oz have suggested, however. He has cited a crucial but often overlooked advantage of this "Gideon-Phoenix" approach: nobody even claims that it is legal.
How is this an advantage? It avoids changes in statutory law or Constitutional interpretation that could be exploited by oppressors in the future.
Incidentally, Bob Simon was captured by the Saddamites and held prisoner for several weeks during DS1. It is just possible that this might have colored his thinking on this.
Haroon Rashid Aswat - the man believed to have co-ordinated the London bombings in which 56 people died - is known in Fordsburg, Johannesburg, as "a nice family man".
Aswat made his living selling Islamic CDs and DVDs at fleamarkets around Joburg and in neighbouring countries, a business associate said yesterday.
Ahmed Al Arine, who says he was interrogated for three days by South African intelligence agents last week, said he had helped Aswat sell CDs from a stall on Fordsburg Square and was shocked by the allegations levelled against him.
Al Arine, a refugee from Jordan seeking asylum in South Africa, described Aswat as "a nice person" and said he had never expressed any interest in radical Islam in the five months he had known him.
London police, however, are determined to question him because the July 7 bombers allegedly made about 20 calls to his cellphone shortly before the bombings.
US authorities also want to question him about an al-Qaeda-style training camp they say he tried to establish in Bly, Oregon.
Aswat has been described by US and British media as a senior
al-Qaeda figure and the ringleader of the July 7 attacks.
Quoting intelligence sources, the Times last week reported that, prior to the deadly bombings, Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as some of the London targets. He is also believed to have flown out from Heathrow hours before the four suicide bombers killed 52 rush-hour commuters on the transport system.
Zambian police are holding Aswat, who was arrested on July 20 in Lusaka. He was due to be extradited to Britain after Zambia's interior minister yesterday signed a document handing over custody of the suspect to Britain.
British newspapers reported at the weekend that Aswat had told his Zambian captors he was once a bodyguard for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Al Arine is in hiding after he claimed he was subjected to intense interrogation sessions at a police station in Pretoria.
He said he was arrested on July 24 without a warrant and was duped into giving police a blood sample for DNA purposes.
Al Arine's apartment in Randburg was searched and CDs, DVDs, documents and his computer hard drive were taken, all without a warrant, he claimed.
He has laid a complaint with the police's Independent Complaints Directorate.
His alleged ordeal has, however, allowed a snapshot of Aswat to emerge, which shows he has business dealings that require him to move across borders and in and out of Islamic communities with relative ease.
Aswat has family in South Africa and is believed to have left the country about a month ago, ostensibly to make business contacts on the fleamarket circuit in Botswana.
Al Arine said yesterday he had been introduced to Aswat by his grandmother and had known him to be a soft-spoken man "of good habits", who was very private.
"He was a quiet person. He didn't like anyone to interfere in his life. He always was very secretive, but he was very nice and he was fair with everything that he did with me," Al Arine said.
Aswat had been introduced to him as Yahya and he had called him by that name in the five months he had known him, he said.
"Sometimes I heard his family call him Haroon, and his granny said to me that this is because he looks like another Haroon in the family," Al Arine said.
Asked if Aswat had ever spoken to him about al-Qaeda or radical Islamic issues, Al Arine said: "Never. He didn't speak about these things. He was only concentrating on business: DVDs and CDs. It was for me to manage Joburg, and he had all the fetes and stalls outside Joburg and in Botswana," he said.
Aswat left for Botswana about four weeks ago and suddenly "disappeared". Al Arine started getting phone calls from Aswat's worried family, wanting to know if he had heard from his partner.
All of Al Arine's calls to Aswat went unanswered.
Al Arine was arrested nine days ago as he, his wife and young daughter went to Joburg International Airport to pick up a friend.
Five cars surrounded him and about 25 policemen from the Crime Intelligence Unit climbed out, pointing assault rifles at him.
Al Arine was forced to the ground, and when he wanted to know what he had done wrong, the police told him the orders to arrest him had "come from the president".
He was taken back to his flat and the police seized all kinds of documentation and carted them off.
His wife was told that if she ever wanted to see her husband again, she must not tell anyone of the arrests, Al Arine added.
While he was being interrogated, Al Arine was asked if he knew Ibrahim Abubaker Tantouche.
The US has accused Tantouche of being Bin Laden's banker, which he denies. Tantouche manages a stall in Fordsburg Square next to Al Arine's stand, but they were only passing acquaintances.
Al Arine at first denied knowing Tantouche, because he knew him only by one of his names, Ibrahim. But his interrogators were adamant, showing he had made a phone call to Tantouche.
Al Arine realised who the police were talking about only when they showed him a photograph.
Abeda Bhamjee, Al Arine's lawyer from the Wits Law Clinic, said she was concerned about the way the rights of Muslim and other foreign nationals were being infringed by police action.
Safety and Security Department spokesperson Director Sally de Beer refused to comment yesterday.
But Trevor Bloem, from the Ministry of Safety and Security, said no police action was above the law and he would be very concerned if human rights were being abused.
Al Arine has since been released and says all his documentation - other than his computer hard drive and his car registration papers - have been returned.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2005
00:42 ||
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#1
What a joke. All these bums are "shocked" by what Asswat did. Really? What page from the AQ manual does "shocked" show up?
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/03/2005 2:31
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#2
taquiyya for the kufr--ho chi minh worked in the bronx--mao was an agrarian reformer--fidel was an existential rebel--ask c. wright mills----move on dot orgy of violence
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
08/03/2005 2:44
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#4
Scroll more than halfway down: Page 25
AL-AQSA is active in South Africa since 1992, with the visit of Sheikh Muhammed Mahmoud SEYOM (the former Imam of the Grand AL-AQSA MOSQUE in Jerusalem, in 1988 he was banned to SUDAN where he opened a similar office) was accompanied by Abu YUSUF (director of the "PALESTINE AND LEBANON RELIEF FUND"). Abu YUSUF opened a few mosques and addresses in Walmer Estate, Woodstock.
This organisation is a front for HAMAS in South Africa. The political wing of HAMAS are in control of this office. It is important to note that South Afican Al-Aqsa International foundation forms part of a network: AIF ISLAMABAD - AIF JORDAN - AIF SOUTH AFRICA.
AL-AQSA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION offices in South Africa:
AMOCA GARDENS BUILDING
2de Floor Mint Ave 40 (- 14)
Fordsburg Johannesburg
P O BOX 421082
FORDSBURG 2033
Fax : (011) 8342918
South African AL-AQSA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION board of Trustees exist out of the following individuals:
Whadan Amin Aref KHUNFUR a Abu Ahmed
SAI GABRIELS
Dr. E Muhammed - Muntuz UL - Moulana Mumzal AL HAQ.
Page 26
This front organisation has a bank account at First National Bank, Industria account nr 9000028878. Funds are deposit in South Africa by supporters of HAMAS, where after these funds are being transferred to HAMAS in their struggle against Israel.
Funds are being channelled from the USA through AIF to organisations who:
There is this link which I cannot get to: Rantburg: Never forgive, never forget!...
The newspaper said that Fordsburg doctor Feroz Ganchi and Laudium student Zubair ... as a hangout for smugglers and terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. ...
rantburg.com/index.php?HC=1&D=2004-08-24 - 410k
It has taken a long time but maybe now the Brits will realise that all the different terrorist groups, no matter where they're from get together through the al Queda Franchise
.
LATE LAST MONTH an Algerian-born terrorist named Ahmed Ressam received a commuted sentence of 22 years (prosecutors had recommended 35 years) in prison for his role in planning to blow up the Los Angeles airport. His sentence infuriated many since his involvement in the plot against LAX was immediately transparent. After all, he was captured in December 1999 after driving off a ferry from British Columbia in a vehicle laden with bomb-making explosives.
Ressam received a commuted sentence after providing investigators with good intelligence about the al Qaeda network which spawned the plot. (Ressam has since stopped cooperating.) Indeed, Ressam's failed attempt against LAX was part of a series of al Qaeda-related attacks against targets around the world (in Jordan, Australia, and elsewhere) at the turn of the new millennium. There is still much about these planned attacks we do not know.
Ressam's story, like that of so many other al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists, contains an endless list of murky connections to a host of nefarious people and groups. The most troubling of these ties is to al Qaeda's Algerian affiliates, the Armed Islamic Group (aka the "GIA") and its descendant, the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (the "GSPC"). The history of the GIA is an especially violent one and Ressam is just one of many terrorists to have operated under its auspices. Indeed, the Algerian tentacle of the vast terror network executed scores of lethal attacks spanning more than a decade.
IT IS A CURIOUS FACT, then, that Saddam Hussein financial assistance to the GIA when it was in its earliest stages of germination. There is still much we do not know about Saddam's relationship with al Qaeda's Algerian affiliate. But, Iraq's relationship with the GIA warrants further investigation given its tortuous history.
THE ROOTS OF SADDAM'S RELATIONSHIP with the GIA trace back to the 1991 Gulf War. The group's early history is particularly useful in understanding why Saddam would offer the GIA his support.
As the war approached, Saddam sought and received support from a conspicuous group of Islamist radicals. Among them was the Sudanese leader Hassan al-Turabi and an Algerian Islamist named Abbas Madani, both of whom traveled to Baghdad in the months prior to the war and declared their support for Saddam.
Madani was then the leader of Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front (the "FIS"), which was a consortium of four Islamist parties formed to obtain democratically-elected political power. Madani was somewhat more tempered in his support for Saddam than his cohort, Ali Benhadj, because he feared (correctly) that support for Saddam would end Saudi financial support for the FIS. Benhadj overcame Madani's reticence, however, and moved the FIS firmly into Saddam's camp. According to Gilles Keppel (Jihad, The Trail of Political Islam), Benhadj--who was accompanied by "a detachment of Afghan-garbed jihadists fresh from Peshawar"--took to the streets and "delivered a harangue in front of the [Algerian] Ministry of Defense in which he demanded the formation of a corps of volunteers to join the forces of Saddam Hussein."
Writing in Al Qaeda's Armies, Middle East expert Jonathan Schanzer explains that as the Gulf War neared the "FIS became increasingly pro-Iraq and anti-U.S., as seen through their slogans, protests, and even training camps for volunteers to fight for Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The U.S. conflict with Iraq was a powerful symbol of FIS's soaring popularity."
INDEED, the FIS leadership leveraged popular support for Saddam within Algeria to the point that it was on the verge of taking power in 1992. To avoid a takeover by the Islamists, however, the ruling Algerian government and army cancelled the final round of elections. Martial law was imposed, Madani and Benhadj were thrown in jail, and the more radical elements within the FIS, including many former Arab Afghans, left its ranks to join the burgeoning GIA.
The "Arab Afghans" were among the earliest leaders of the GIA. Bin Laden's patronage of the group proved especially beneficial as hundreds of former veterans from the war in Afghanistan were soon redeployed to Algeria to swell the GIA's ranks. By some accounts, bin Laden is said to have personally arranged for the financing and necessary travel documents to be provided to upwards of 1,000 or more "Arab Afghans" who returned or relocated to Algerian soil. Al Qaeda's number two, Ayman al Zawahiri, is also said to have played a vital role in the group's formation.
Bin Laden did not just finance the building of the GIA with money from his own pockets or his wealthy benefactors, however. He also received help from Saddam Hussein: At least one former CIA official has confirmed that some of the money bin Laden funneled to the GIA came from Saddam's Iraq.
In a USA Today article from December 2001, Stanley Bedlington, a senior analyst in the CIA's counterterrorism center until he retired in 1994, explained, "We were convinced that money
from Iraq was going to bin Laden, who was then sending it to places that Iraq wanted it to go." He added, "There certainly is no doubt that Saddam Hussein had pretty strong ties to bin Laden while he was in Sudan, whether it was directly or through (Sudanese) intermediaries. We traced considerable sums of money going from bin Laden to the GIA in Algeria. We believed some of the money came from Iraq." [emphasis added]
Later, in an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD's Stephen Hayes, Bedlington elaborated on the relationship. "Osama bin Laden had established contact with the GIA," Bedlington explained, "Saddam was using bin Laden to ship funds to his own contacts through the GIA."
THE EXTENT of this financial arrangement is not clear. Declassifying the evidence of Saddam's financial relationship with bin Laden collected by the CIA in the early 1990s, as cited by Bedlington, would be a good start to answering these questions. It is likely, however, that we will never know the true extent of Saddam's support for the GIA. This is particularly troublesome since the GIA went on to become one of al Qaeda's most prolific affiliates; a brief review of the terrorist dossier compiled by the GIA and its descendant, the GSPC, demonstrates that further investigation of Saddam's support for the group is warranted.
Upon its inception in the early 1990s the GIA declared a "jihad" against the Algerian government and a civil war ensued. That war has ended at least 100,000 lives, including many foreigners operating on Algerian soil. The GIA's efforts in this war and abroad were directly aided by the core of al Qaeda. In his testimony ("Algeria's Struggle Against Terrorism") before Congress's Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation earlier this year, Lorenzo Vidino explained,
The Islamists were not alone in their violent struggle against the secular government. Throughout the 1990s they received financial and logistical support from al Qaeda, as hundreds of Algerian militants trained in al Qaeda training camps in Sudan and Afghanistan. And while battling the secular government at home, the GIA established a strong presence in Europe, where its cells interacted with other Islamist groups and provided the militants fighting in Algeria with money, weapons and false documents.
Indeed, the GIA's strong presence in Western Europe played a vital role in al Qaeda's planning and execution of a number attacks. One such incident proved to be an eerie forerunner of the events of September 11, 2001. Four GIA terrorists hijacked an Air France flight leaving Algiers in December 1994. Their goal was to force the pilot to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower. Their plan failed when the plane landed in Marseille and French Special Forces overtook it, killing the hijackers in the process.
In addition to the Air France hijacking in 1994, investigations into a series of bombings on French soil throughout 1995 led to the convictions of several GIA terrorists. Another bombing in France in 1996 turned up leads to the GIA; the GIA left its fingerprints on countless other plots throughout the mid-1990s.
By 1998, however, support for the group within Algeria began to wane after years of brutal attacks on civilians, so one of the GIA's former leaders reconstituted the group as the Salafi Group for Preaching and Combat (the "GSPC"). The GSPC subsumed much of the GIA's international network and terrorists operating within the GSPC's sphere continued to assault the western world.
Members of the GSPC have been connected to terrorist plots and attacks in Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, Spain, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere, several of which are particularly noteworthy.
The aforementioned plot on LAX at the turn of the new millennium is thought to have been spawned within the GSPC's Canadian presence, which it inherited from the GIA. According to Lorenzo Vidino, "A GSPC cell in Europe is believed to have planned to kill President Bush at the G8 meeting in Genoa in the summer of 2001." According to Schanzer, two members of the GSPC provided passports to the assassins of bin Laden's main nemesis within Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Massoud, just two days prior to September 11, 2001. "Massoud's assassination," Schanzer notes, "was likely designed to weaken the Northern Alliance with the full expectation that the U.S. would require its help in the post-September 11 invasion of Afghanistan."
The GSPC has also been an especially vocal supporter of the terrorist assault, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in Iraq. It was no surprise, therefore, when Zarqawi's al Qaeda branch claimed responsibility for taking two Algerian diplomats hostage in Iraq late last month. Zarqawi's group explained, according to a translation provided by globalterroralert.com, that the diplomats were taken hostage as direct retribution against the Algerian government for supporting the "Jews, Christians, and every country that wounds the people" of Zarqawi's group. The GSPC lauded the kidnapping and accused the Algerian government of "aiding the apostate Iraqi government and the crusader alliance their battle against the mujahideen."
Did Saddam continue to financially support al Qaeda's Algerian affiliate throughout its reign of terror? We do not know. Given the GIA's, and then the GSPC's, long history of terrorism around the world, it deserves further investigation.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2005
00:39 ||
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An interesting little analysis from the Wall Street Journal. Registration required, so presented here complete.
Important detail was missed in much of the reporting of the death of King Fahd of Saudi Arabia on Monday. Carried by the Saudi Press Agency (www.spa.gov.sa), it was information in the new official biographies of the new King Abdullah and his designated successor, Crown Prince Sultan. Why does this matter? It is because both men are lying about their ages--and age (of senior princes) is the key to understanding Saudi Arabia over the next few years.
When I wrote a book--"After King Fahd: Succession in Saudi Arabia"--in 1994, I spent months checking the years of birth of the sons of King Abdul Aziz, the founder of Saudi Arabia, often known as Ibn Saud. Since his death in 1953, the kingdom has been ruled by his sons, in descending order of age. First Saud (1953-64), then Faisal (1964-75), then Khalid (1975-1982) and, most recently, Fahd (1982-2005).
Precise birthdates are usually unknown, just years of birth. In itself that has potential for confusion because Ibn Saud, by virtue of having four wives at any one time, sometimes fathered as many as three sons in the course of a year. (Ibn Saud had 22 wives during his lifetime; births of daughters are even more imprecisely recorded but, for the purposes of this discussion, do not count.) I am confident that I pinned down the real birth years of all 44 sons. (One British Arabist, close to the Saudi royal family, would only confirm correct years, crossing out wrong ones, and leaving me to do the extra research to correct my mistakes.) Fahd was born in 1921, Abdullah in 1923 and Sultan in 1924.
On Monday, the Saudi Press Agency said Fahd was born in 1923 and noted that Abdullah was born in 1924 and Sultan in 1930.
1930!? Sultan is just 75 this year! I must admit I laughed on reading this. For years I have noticed that Sultan has understated his age, but 1930 set a new record. In the Saudi system, age brings seniority, a key qualification for succession. But old age also suggests infirmity, a possible disqualifying factor. (Fahd's detached confinement to a wheelchair was an embarrassment that the royal family likely does not want to repeat.) Sultan appears to have been shaving years, allowing himself to slip below a couple of half-brothers who, by virtue of temperament or lack of qualifications, are not in the running for the leadership, but still retaining an edge over a bevy of contenders born in 1931. It is the Saudi metaphorical equivalent of hair dye, although Sultan's black hair is not genuine either (and a senior British official who met him recently said he was wearing makeup, too).
Do not expect much discussion of this issue. The House of Saud is sensitive to being caught out. Most media will veer away from a confrontation. Expect even less discussion on the health of the two men. Abdullah is said to be reasonably fit, but Sultan had stomach cancer last year--the same senior British official who saw him said he then "looked like death"--and now reportedly walks around with a colostomy bag.
So Saudi Arabia is facing a future of kings with short reigns. They will probably be dubbed "Saudi Brezhnevs," after the increasingly decrepit leadership in the final years of the Soviet Union. It was entirely predictable: 12 years ago, a former British adviser to the Saudi royals preferred a Monty Python metaphor, "The parrots will fall off their perch in rapid succession."
The logical way around this problem is for the House of Saud to choose a significantly younger king--although for him to be called a "Saudi Gorbachev" would give Riyadh heartburn. Within the line of sons of Ibn Saud, Interior Minister Prince Nayef (born 1933) and the governor of Riyadh Province, Prince Salman (born 1936), would be contenders. Dropping a generation is often mentioned, but would probably be too contentious--which group of grandsons would benefit, to the consternation of their cousins?
Even this scenario could be upset by contenders dying "in the wrong order." When Sultan was thought to be on death's door last year, the U.S. war-gamed what would happen if he died before Fahd. The cautious conclusion was that Abdullah, described as leading the reformist wing of the House of Saud, would strengthen his position. This might have been wishful thinking.
Despite Abdullah's reputation for reform, the spectrum of differences on policy within the royal family is probably quite narrow. Personality differences and succession rivalries provide added frisson. Is cautious reform better than very cautious reform? And does reform actually mean change? The House of Saud knows it has to stand together. Oil policy is not contested. Nor is the Saudi leadership role in the Islamic world. Neither, frankly, is the need to maintain links with the U.S., despite this being inflammatory to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda affiliates.
For the U.S. to involve itself in the succession process is high-risk, but the priorities of oil and improving Saudi cooperation in the war against al Qaeda are vital. Washington makes little secret of not wanting either Sultan or Nayef to become king. Neither is considered modern enough; both are thought to have made past compromises with al Qaeda to redirect the threat to the kingdom onto U.S. interests. But when U.S. Ambassador Robert Jordan reportedly suggested at a 2003 Riyadh dinner party that after Abdullah, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, a son of King Faisal, would be a good choice, there was uproar. Mr. Jordan was leaving anyway. Sultan and Nayef were probably glad to see the back of him.
Although the next generation like Saud al-Faisal are unlikely to gain power for a while, they could be kingmakers. Former ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar is also a player, as is his half-brother, Khalid, Saudi commander in Desert Storm. Both are sons of Prince Sultan. Saud al-Faisal's brother Turki is also significant--he has just been nominated to replace Bandar in the U.S. But King Abdullah's son Mitab now has additional influence and could see himself as an emerging contender. All are rivals.
Another mainly overlooked news story on the Saudi Press Agency wire on Aug. 1 was titled "Royal Order." It said that King Abdullah had declared that "all current Cabinet members [would] continue in their present posts." So Abdullah retains the position of commander of the Saudi National Guard while Sultan is still minister of defense. The immediate issue for royal family politics is competition for a reallocation of cabinet posts and greater involvement of next generation princes.
Al Qaeda appeals to a section of Saudi public opinion because of resentment of the royal family's domination of power and business, as well as corruption. The next few years in the kingdom are going to be difficult enough anyway because of the declining years of Abdullah and Sultan. Gridlocked palace politics could turn instability into disaster.
Mr. Henderson is a senior fellow of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
#1
beware of azouzi--fahd's favorite son--and an sob islamist supremacist if there ever was one
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
08/03/2005 2:41
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#2
...This really shouldn't BE a surprise, Ibn Saud was at best a bit fuzzy on where and when his boyz were fathered; my understanding was Faisal was the only one whose birthdate could be ascertained with any certainty at all.
And perhaps .com can chime in on this - had heard when I was there that at least a couple of the boyz weren't fathered by Ibn Saud at all.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/03/2005 7:39
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#3
The problem with reform is that a public entrenched in Islam could decide that the rulers are infidels trying to convert them to the impure ways of the infidel West. For a time, it was far safer to move towards Islam, where unquestioning obedience towards earthly rulers was held to be a virtue, as long as they were Muslim. Until al Qaeda came along and held themselves to be superior alternative Muslim rulers to the existing bunch. That was when Islamization went too far, and it is why the Saudi rulers will continue with reform - to defuse the idea that the ideal state is one with Islam left, right and center. The Saudi royal family is not personally devout enough to fulfill that requirement - they are too wedded to their alcohol, their bling bling and their bouts with European escorts on the Riviera.
#4
Heard similar rumors, MK. Hey, he prolly lied about chopping down that date palm, too...
I did see some of the original pics and footage in the Royal archives since I was in on a software thingy to preserve it all. You oughta see the vaults they keep the stuff in, heh. There's an 8MM loop of him opening the valve to the first tanker... it's like crossing the Delaware in a snowstorm, in a Saudi sort of way. No pix of him staining dresses, perjuring himself on video, or playing hide the sausage, however. The legend (marrying 26 wives to unite the tribes, blah³) prolly doesn't match the family tree, but they believe what they want to believe, just as here.
#5
It would be so much simpler if King Abdullah would abdicate and the Kingdom become democratic, with equal status for all the warring sibs but noooo, they will battle one another to the death. This could get really bloody. Maybe we should covertly arm their wives and let the women rule. Most of their wives really are young and would be around long enough to provide stability!
#10
Danielle: It would be so much simpler if King Abdullah would abdicate and the Kingdom become democratic, with equal status for all the warring sibs but noooo, they will battle one another to the death.
Elections could bring to power al Qaeda. I think the sad fact is that in Saudi Arabia, it's the population that we need to worry about, not the rulers.
The preliminary finding by Italian investigators that those who took part in the attempted bomb attacks on London on July 21 were probably unconnected to any larger terrorism network raises a concern for intelligence and security services world-wide: there is a new breed of Islamic terrorism that has no link to old al-Qaeda structures.
According to western security officials, the topic of home-grown, radicalised Muslim extremists shifted near the top of counter-terrorism agendas more than a year ago during regular bilateral discussion between the US and the UKâs homeland security services after a series of arrests of domestic terror suspects in both countries.
The concern was heightened by US intelligence, which says the senior leadership group surrounding Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader, remains isolated, unable to direct or to commission specific attacks on western targets.
According to US intelligence officials, several al-Qaeda affiliates have had operations delayed because of a failure to receive instructions from the networkâs senior leadership. That, they believe, illustrates Mr bin Ladenâs increasing role as a propagandist rather than as an operational leader.
Cofer Black, who recently stepped down as the State Departmentâs top counter-terrorism official, told Congress last year that US-led efforts to cut off al-Qaedaâs senior leadership had produced a second tier of leadership, less sophisticated and less well-trained, degrading the groupâs capabilities.
Not all officials agree. Retired Admiral James Loy, former number two at the US department of homeland security and senior counsellor at the Washington-based Cohen Group, believes the new leadership is potentially as dangerous, since it remains largely unknown to intelligence officials and is widely dispersed.
âI liken that to the drug wars of the 1980s when there were five or six cartels in Colombia and we took them down,â said Adm Loy. âUnfortunately, [the result] was that instead of five in-command families, all these lieutenants came up. So instead of five in-control families, there are 50. Unfortunately, thatâs what is happening now, and thatâs a scary proposition.â
Of equal concern, say experts and officials, is the belief that Mr bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may be using a recent campaign of audio and video tapes in order to radicalise western Muslims resident in targeted countries.
These locals, disillusioned by US and British policy in Iraq, could be further influenced by recent admonishments by the al-Qaeda leaders that âthe most pressing duty after faithâ is to fight as part of a global jihad, officials argue.
âOsama bin Laden has relied on Muslim resentment towards US policies in his call for a defensive jihad to oppose an American assault on the Islamic faith and culture,â vice-admiral Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defence Intelligence Agency, told Congress this year.
âHe contends that all faithful Muslims are obliged to fight, or support the jihad financially if not physically capable of fighting.â
Federal Bureau of Investigation officials have said that while overseas al-Qaeda members remain their biggest concern, last yearâs Madrid bombings heightened attention being paid to the potential effect al-Qaeda propaganda may have on âradical American convertsâ.
âThe potential recruitment of radicalised American Muslim converts continues to be a concern and poses an increasing challenge for the FBI since recruitment is subtle and, many times, self-initiated,â Robert Mueller, FBI director, said in an unclassified report to Congress.
US authorities have already charged a handful of local Muslims with terrorism-related charges, including Ali al-Timimi, an American-born imam sentenced last month to life in prison for recruiting Muslims in his northern Virginia community for Taliban training camps in Pakistan.
Ernest James Ujaama, an American-born Seattle resident, was sentenced last year to two years in prison for attempting to set up a terrorist training camp in rural Oregon.
UK authorities last year arrested eight Britons of Pakistani decent in a raid that uncovered hundreds of pounds of fertiliser that police suspected was to be used to build a bomb.
Some experts think al-Qaedaâs Pakistan-based leadership still controls terrorist operations. The July 7 London bombings, they say, had hallmarks of the old leadershipâs operations.
âBin Ladenâs role is really that of a venture capitalist,â said Dominic Armstrong, director of research and intelligence for Aegis Defence Services, a London-based private security group. âIf he likes the idea, he can provide funding, training and expertise.â
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2005
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#1
The preliminary finding by Italian investigators that those who took part in the attempted bomb attacks on London on July 21 were probably unconnected to any larger terrorism network
this only increases my concern that perhaps the 7/21 bombing was a planned diversion.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
08/03/2005 9:07
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#3
I believe his theory is that 7/21 was a diversion from 7/7. Since the 7/7 bombs all went off, there's a lot less forensic evidence and no bombers to interrogate. Sending some mooks out with duds gets the authorities concentrating on the mooks instead, in the manner of the old "looking where the light is" joke.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 9:16
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#4
The fact that the experts agree that the "Mother of Satan" homebrew has a short shelf life unless sealed air tight means nothing to the conspirisy types. Sometimes things are as simple as they seem.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005 11:33
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#5
Steve, I'm not proposing that 7/21 was IN FACT a distraction. I'll agree with you that usually a cigar is just a cigar, as it may well be in this case.
However just saying "Occam's Razor" doesn't make it go away that anyone who is smart enough to pull off an event of this magnitude is smart enough to create a diversion to lead the police in the wrong direction after the fact. In fact, any good criminal or terrorist worth his salt would probably make that an obligatory part of his plan.
#6
On the other hand, they've never tried to deflect attention before, at least not like this.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 12:04
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I'm too lazy and don't have time to research this, but I think it was Phil who once posted a great article about the first WTC bombing and in my original comment a couple of days ago I was commenting that in in the first WTC case, (was it Yassin??), one of the players suddenly found himself stranded with no money and no way out of NYC. A patsy?
It seems like there are a few possible trends from that first attack that I've seen in other attacks. The terrorists are operating right under feds noses, but then the feds either stop watching or lose track of one or two important players right before the big attack. Certain players fly out of the country hours before the attack and now I'm musing on the possiblity that they leave a patsy behind to lead the investigation away from the light.
I'm not trying to win any converts to a conspiracy theory. I'm just commenting on it to see if others have had similar thoughts. Don't hold me to proving it - it's just a damn comment - a thought. I'm not trying to prove ANYTHING!
#8
I think one of the reasons these guys involved in the 7/21 bombing (and others) got picked up so easy can be traced directly back to the islamic mindset of not thinking for yourself. They exercise strict top-down command and control, follow orders blindly, no individual inititive, submission, etc. You see this fault in the Arab armies all the time, same here.
Look how long it takes to plan and execute every big attack, 2 to 3 years is the average we keep hearing. Always a controller and a "mastermind" who pulls the strings from afar. Lot's of travel to far away places to consult higher-ups. Long distance cell phone calls to receive orders, even after they know they could be traced. The only reason I can see is they are incapable of acting any other way.
When things went south on them and they were left on their own after the bombs failed, they were lost. Controller and mastermind had already left, no one to tell them what to do. So they panicked and did stupid shit. We still got lucky the Italians were watching that guys brother, or he might still be in the wind.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005 12:51
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So they panicked and did stupid shit.
If there is one thing that stands out most about the foot soldiers in this war, it is that they do some stupid, stupid things. If we didn't live in a PC society that was always willing to look away and excuse away their glaringly obvious behavior (take for example that lender who tried to help the terrorist adjust to this country after he threatened to slit her throat), this war would have been over before it even started.
#10
This article seems to be based on the current work product of Italian intelligence. Wasn't it these yabbos who were snookered by the infamous yellowcake forgeries? Color me unimpressed by the collective analytical prowess of Italian intelligence. Sometimes it seems like the Italians are too busy indicting CIA agents and botching ransom attempts to find their own asses.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/03/2005 16:20
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The theory that 7/21 was a distraction does not seem to have much basis especially when you consider how much it has cost these guys. Also the idea that there is no link to Al Queada is just silly. Just look up Aswat . There is now way Aswat or any of these guys decided to risk themselves just to distract people. Nope this was just a botched operation thatâs costing these people far more than they planned.
Posted by: Robi Sen ||
08/03/2005 17:08
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...in the first WTC case, (was it Yassin??), one of the players suddenly found himself stranded with no money and no way out of NYC.
Was it the same one that tried to get the deposit back from the van that blew up?
#14
RE: #8. they exercise strict top-down command and control, follow orders blindly, no individual inititive, submission, etc. You see this fault in the Arab armies all the time, same here.
Wasn't this also claimed about the Ruskies?
Occam's Razor! (Sorry)
I remember reading a long ways back about the escapades of the assassins of Archduke Ferdinand in 1914. Tried, failed, stumbled across their target later in the same day, improvised, succeeded. If Oliver Stone had been around then, he could've written a conspiracy theory to make JFK look like child's play!
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/03/2005 21:27
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In the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, Canadian police and intelligence officials fanned out across Ontario and Quebec in search of an alleged homegrown al-Qaeda "sleeper" cell.
The Ottawa-based RCMP investigation -- Project A-O Canada -- would eventually take officers to a small, nondescript apartment complex just a 10-minute drive from Toronto's soaring downtown office towers.
It was here, the Citizen has learned, that the Mounties, secret search warrant in hand, descended in January 2002.
It was one of seven warrants executed that day. At the same time in Ottawa, officers were busy rifling through the residence of Abdullah Almalki, a Canadian citizen who spent two years locked up in a Syrian prison and claims to have been tortured.
As with the Almalki raid, police were searching for detailed banking records, travel documents and information about explosives and government buildings. But with the shock of 9/11 still setting in, Toronto officers were looking for more.
Newly released court documents show that, in addition to papers and instructions relating to Osama bin Laden, his al-Qaeda terrorist network and the 9/11 attacks, police also sought general information about "jihad and holy wars," airline information and aviation instruction and training manuals.
Whether they found anything remains a state secret. The Citizen has obtained the name and address of the warrant target, but cannot publish either. The target moved out of the apartment in December 2004, and couldn't be reached for comment.
Interviews with former neighbours paint two different pictures of the target. To those who knew him as just another tenant passing in the dim hallways, he was polite, quiet and kept to himself.
One neighbour who frequently spoke with the man called him "odd," however. Telling her he was an Egyptian engineer, the target explained his sometimes lengthy travel was the result of a career with the Canadian government.
The man's name isn't currently listed on a federal employee database.
The neighbour, speaking on condition her name not be used, added that the target "liked a lot of women," and often went to a nearby gym to work out.
Without being told of the secret warrant, the woman said she was aware of a police raid at the apartment. Some residents understood agents with Canada's spy agency, CSIS, had stopped by earlier and told building managers they "would be around."
She added in the months leading up to, and following, the search, strange things were happening.
"There was a guy who used to sit outside in a beat-up old Jeep, and no matter what time of day it was, he was there," she said.
The neighbour considered calling the police on several occasions, but eventually came to suspect it was spies at work.
Then, on two separate occasions, the intersection in front of the building was shut down and "everyone was there," including the RCMP, Ontario Provincial Police, Toronto police and others.
Despite documentary proof that an RCMP raid took place, one angry building manager said the suspect was a "very nice man" and denied police had ever been to his property.
Four years after Project A-O Canada was launched, it remains shrouded in mystery. The RCMP insists near-blanket secrecy over the warrants is necessary to protect an ongoing operation, but a legal challenge by the newspaper continues to provide new details.
The search in Toronto and another at Abdullah Almalki's residence are the only two revealed thus far in court papers. A Citizen investigation revealed late last year that CSIS was tipped off days after Sept. 11, 2001, about activity at a townhouse belonging to Mr. Almalki's brother, Nazih Almalki. A suspicious neighbour claimed to have called the spy agency and later watched a police raid there. Nazih Almalki couldn't be reached for comment.
Maher Arar, an Ottawa man secretly shipped by the United States to a Syrian prison and an acquaintance of the Almalki brothers, has confirmed he later learned about a search at the townhouse.
Mr. Arar was released last year after his case mushroomed into a full-blown international incident. A public inquiry is currently examining the role of Canadian officials (including members of A-O Canada) in the case.
None of the men targeted by the 2002 warrants has been charged with a crime, and none of RCMP's allegations against them have been proven in court.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/03/2005
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#1
If you're gonna hunt AQ, don't forget your flashlight and bullets.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/03/2005 2:33
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There has been a problem as the Canadian Entemologists and Environmentalists lobby complain that people have to be careful to understand that al-Qaeda is to be attacked, not Cicada...
The whole anti-terror thing will be put on hold for a few months so that the bureaucracy has enoough time to explain this to every citizen...
A Republican former state lawmaker claimed a seat in Congress on Tuesday by narrowly defeating an Iraq war veteran who drew national attention to the race with his military service and a series of harsh attacks on President Bush.
Name calling of the Prez backfires when you are military.... Very bad form...
With all precincts reporting, Jean Schmidt had 52 percent, or 57,974 votes, compared with Democrat Paul Hackett's 48 percent, or 54,401 votes. Schmidt's margin of victory amounted to about 3,500 votes out of more than 112,000 cast.
Wait a minute, Aren't they challenging this? What about Dick Tracy, and Homer Simpson? Didn't they vote? How about all the minority Dems who were too stupid to vote without help?
Schmidt, 53, will replace Republican Rob Portman, who stepped down this year after being named U.S. trade representative by Bush. Portman held the seat for 12 years, consistently winning with more than 70 percent of the vote in the Cincinnati-area district.
Parties out of power always do better in special elections...
Democrats had viewed the race as a bellwether for 2006, saying even a strong showing by Hackett in such a heavily GOP district would be a good sign for them in the midterm elections.
Close only counts in horseshoes? Haven't you ever heard that?
"We began this race way back in late March, and no one had thought we'd be the focus of the national media or be the so-called first test of the Republican Party and the Bush mandate. Well, ladies and gentleman, we passed that test," Schmidt said.
And the fact that a primary opponent DeWine, Jr was handicapped by his father's double-dealing association with the "Gang of 14" helped you too, Madame Representative. Congratulations - Good show!
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/03/2005 7:26
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#4
For all that the man is an ass, and I am very pleased didn't win, he did step out of a very lucrative career when he didn't have to. (There are no poor people in the suburb of Indian Hill. We're talking solidly upper middle to lower upper class. Horses have the right of way.) He could easily have gone into politics without the military component. And it sounds like, unlike Senator John F. Kerry, he did right while he was out there, front line or no. I saw a snatch of his post-results speech, and he spoke of giving the voters a real choice -- and in this reliably Republican part of Ohio, he's the best choice the Democrats have offered in a while.
#5
Trailing Wife I would agree with his noble service that is because I believe ALL service is noble. It takes clerks, cooks, guards, supply people, drivers, shooters, and unfortunately lawyers to run a war. I have no qualms about his service but I do have issues with his stealth and blatantly dishonest campaign. Never during his radio or TV ads does he mention that he is a Democrat and a liberal. In the TV ad he claims to AGREE with the President, but is on record for saying the opposite. I contend that if this were not short campaign (and the voters had got the full story) the race would not have even been close. It also is a prequel to what we will see when Sir Hillary runs for President, she will claim to be a moderate hawkish instead of the neoliberal that we have all come to love. Congratulations to Representative Jean Schmidt.
#6
Democrats had viewed the race as a bellwether for 2006, saying even a strong showing by Hackett in such a heavily GOP district would be a good sign for them in the midterm elections.
Again with the "bellweather" talk. He basically ran ads suggesting he was GWB's best bud in the world. That's a far cry from his previous statements.
#7
Hackett lost because he was two-faced. He ran ads touting his military service as if he were a combat vet and a buddy of Bush. He's neither - he's a REMF officer, and no closer to the CinC than any other Marine.
And he also harshly criticized Bush, calling him an SOB in order to play to the MoveOn crowd that dominated demcrat politics.
Sorry Hackett, can't have it both ways. A two faced man is unstable in all his ways - so the voters essssentially called you on it - and didnt trust you.
"However, Buzz reader Melissa writes in with some interesting data from the last two congressional cycles:
2002-184,100. R-136,523 D-47,618
2004-310,000 R-227,102 D-89,598
2005-111,000 R-57,974 D-54,401,
Comparing 2002 to 2005, the Republicans stayed home, the Democrats, if reports are true, invested millions to get 6,783 more votes. Relative to 2004, they lost 35,197 or 40% of the voters they had only 9 months ago. The backslapping that is occurring is far from reality."
Seems the Dems are stretching the numbers again about this "success"
#14
Actually, I agree that this election was a bellweather for the Democrats: they are going to lose again next time... and the time after that, and the time after... ;-)
Like the last presidential election, when Kerry lost while getting more votes than Clinton needed to win. Hackett was the best they could do, and it just wasn't good enough. The message of the Democratic Party has passed its "sell by" date.
SHAH ALAM, Aug 2 (Bernama) -- The Selangor [a Malaysian state] government Tuesday asked followers of the nine active deviant sects in the state to turn over a new leaf in two months or face legal action.
Chairman of the State Islamic Affairs, Youth and People Friendly Committee Datuk Abdul Rahman Palil said a majority of these followers were active in the Sepang, Gombak and Klang districts. These nine sects were among the 23 that had been gazetted as deviant by the Fatwa Council, he told a press conference.
Abdul Rahman advised the followers to come to the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (JAIS) and attend counselling sessions, saying that they would not be prosecuted and their identities would be kept confidential. Since 1975, a total of 61 sects were investigated and 23 were ruled by the Fatwa Council as deviant...
Abdul Rahman also said that JAIS had set up a special enforcement unit to act against deviant sects in the state. Similar units would be established in each district and they would work with the police, Immigration Department, people's volunteer corps (Rela), penghulus, village development and security committees, and mosque committees, he added.
Abdul Rahman also said that JAIS would act against about 30 people from the state who were followers of the Ayah Pin deviant sect based in Terengganu.
#4
Traditionally, the Minangkabau who settled in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia at the end of the 17th Century choose from amongst themselves a "penghulu" or headman. Several of these "penghulus", notably that of Sungai Ujong, Jelebu, Johol and Rembau became powerful enough to exalt themselves above other "penghulus". By the early part of the 18th Century, the leaders of these four districts started calling themselves "Undang".
SHEIKHUPURA: A candidate for nazim slot died of heart attack during a corner meeting on Monday night. Muhammad Sharif, a Nazim candidate at Union Council 15-1 Muridke was delivering a speech during election campaign when he suffered a heart attack. His supporters rushed him to a hospital where the doctors pronounced him dead.
"He's dead, Jim!"
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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KARACHI: The Singh [sic] government has nullified a fatwa (edict) issued by a Hyderabad mufti declaring inter-sect marriages "haram" and calling those who resort to such marriages as infidels.
"They're legal as long as the parties are closely enough related..."
Sources in the Sindh Home Department said Mufti Mohammad Abdul Hafeez Qadri of Madrassa Ahsanul Barkat, Hyderabad, had issued a controversial fatwa declaring that marriages between Sunnis, Deobandis and Shias were "haram". The fatwa declares that "marriage between Sunni and Deobandi or Shia is invalid due to the latter's anti-Quran and Hadith beliefs and those not taking into account such beliefs would be infidels."
"Which means they must be killed. So there."
The sources said the home department had sought opinion on the fatwa from the provincial government's legal experts, who viewed that the fatwa was liable to forfeiture under Section 99-A of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) because it contained material intended to promote hatred and animosity between various sects of the Muslims of the country and to jeopardise brotherly relations and harmony existing among them.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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#1
ok--we'll expell them after beheading season
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
08/03/2005 2:24
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Wouldn't expect less of American universities if they were asked to do the same. In fact, I'd expect they'd be petitioning some judge for an injunction so they could hold on to their sacred cash cows, but arguing about its all an issue of 'freedom'.
#3
Which is exactly what they did post-9/11, Thruper, when they were required to report whether their foreign students were actually taking classes and passing them. Although their claim was that they couldn't possibly do something so difficult anyway, even were it not unethical to tattle on some of their students.
An Islamist who observes the activities of "Al-Qaeda" organization believes that its "offspring" consider the internet their sheikh and not Osama Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Right. All bow down to the Great Machine...
Dr. Hani al-Sibai, director of the London-based Al-Maqrizi Studies Center, told Asharq al-Awsat, "The new generation of Al-Qaeda organization in the West and East does not have a sheikh that it receives instructions or orders from. This "generation's" sheikh and leader is not Al-Zawahiri or Bin Laden but the jihadist instructions on the fundamentalists' websites and also the photos of the massacres in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Palestine."
That's what they use to fire up the rubes. What do they use to finance operations? Pay Pal?
He said the problem now is that Al-Qaeda's new generation does not trust the sheikhs who are in the West and considers them loyal to the Western authorities in Britain, the United States, France, and elsewhere "and they therefore act alone without consulting or seeking a fatwa (religious ruling) from any sheikh and herein lies the danger."
Correct me if I'd wrong, but aren't the "fatwahs" pretty much pro-forma statements of what the Krazed Killers want to hear? You guys have fatwahs flying in all directions, without much rhyme or reason, so you can pretty much pick and choose...
Al-Sibai believes there is no ideological connection between "Al-Qaeda's" new generation in the various countries hit by the terrorist operations - Egypt, Britain, and Turkey - but "they share one concern and one idea, namely, that the West is insulting Islam and humiliating its sons."
So the obvious answer isn't to try and outperform the decadent West, but to blow stuff up. That makes sense. Not a lot of sense, but sense. In an Islamic sort of way...
He added that Al-Qaeda's new generation surpasses the old fundamentalist organizations like the Egyptian "Islamic Group", "Jihad", and others because they are born in the West, are proficient in modern sciences like chemistry and physics, speak several languages, and are proficient in using computers and the internet. He says: "It is obvious that they know how to design websites for spreading their ideas and also to air tapes, sermons, and films that they obtain or are published by some media organs."
They can't produce modern technology, but they can figure how to make it blow up...
He called Al-Qaeda's new generation "a transcontinental generation that went beyond some of the local jihad groups in some Arab countries."
That's kind of the basis of al-Qaeda, isn't it? In fact, that's what al-Qaeda means...
He noted that "Al-Qaeda's" new grandchildren have never met Bin Laden or visited Afghanistan or Iraq, barely know how to use a machine gun, and are not known to the security services and therefore pose a danger that is not easy to pinpoint and hence confront. He added "They take their guidance from the internet, videotapes, and satellite channels. They speak Arabic and are proficient in English. What is their understanding of Islam? It is a mixture of the anger and disappointment that characterize their generation." He pointed out that "Al-Qaeda's" new generation have superb ability to move freely because of the various nationalities they have and also do not have black records with the local and international security circles.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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Fred, did you ever read a short story called "The Country of the Kind?"
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/03/2005 0:46
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So basically we own their new Sheik. Works for me.
" Now go jump off a bridge and explode to show your faith! "
Posted by: Charles ||
08/03/2005 1:22
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#3
So we turn control over the internet to UN? Nope
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/03/2005 2:38
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tim berniers lee shaik of shaiks
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
08/03/2005 2:59
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That's what they use to fire up the rubes. What do they use to finance operations? Pay Pal?
#6
So, in the end, it is America's fault. Time to issue the Death Sentence to the ISP's cooperating with jihadis - it's the right thing to do to atone for our frivolous egalitarian management of the 'Net.
Police scoured the snowcapped mountains of northern Colombia Tuesday for a leftist rebel unit blamed for a roadside bomb attack on a government convoy that killed at least 15 elite counterinsurgency troops. The bombing was the latest in a stepped up campaign of attacks this year by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, apparently aimed at undermining hard-line President Alvaro Uribe's re-election hopes. The rebels detonated a powerful explosive charge as the police convoy drove along a dirt road late Monday in the Sierra Nevada mountains that rise up from the Caribbean coast, said Gen. Alberto Ruiz, operations chief for the national police. Officials initially put the death toll at 11, but Ruiz told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday that at least 15 members of the elite unit died.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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British authorities, NBC News reports, have new information suggesting the second set of accused London bombers may also be linked to Pakistan. According to Western counterterrorism officials quoted by the network, authorities now think the apparent leader of the July 21 bombing suspects travelled to Pakistan late last year. Muktar Said Ibrahim obtained a British passport last autumn. Officials say that in December he travelled from Britain to Saudi Arabia, then on to Pakistan. "It raises the possibility that they were involved with Pakistani jihadists and possibly even with Al Qaeda itself," Dan Benjamin, a terrorism analyst, is quoted as saying. That would put Ibrahim in Pakistan at the same time as two of the July 7 bombers, who were seen arriving in Karachi in November 2004.
Purely coincidental, I'm sure. There's no proof, is there? The witnesses are all dead...
Investigators who have evidence of the Pakistani links of the July 7 bombers are now trying to determine the extent of the other bombers' Pakistani connection. President Pervez Musharraf has rejected the projection of the London bombers as Pakistanis, saying that they were born and bred in Britain and were British, not Pakistani, citizens. It was the British government that had neglected the rise of intolerant and radical groups such as Hizbul Tehrir and Al Mohajiroun in Britain.
I agree with Perv that both organizations should be banned, their members rounded up and deported to Antarctica. I don't agree with him that Pakland wasn't involved.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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OHMYGOD, Inc.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/03/2005 2:22
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I am sure that Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger, and Jack Straw are probably knocking their heads against the wall for not siding with India concerning Paki terrorism many moons ago. Also, Nixon is probably turning in his grave for calling the former Indian Prime Minister a "bitch" and should have sided with India concerning Paki terrorism.
It's funny that some decisions made in life can affect a whole generation. Always bet on the Democratic country, when deciding on friends.
...."Hey Becky, table 5 has been waiting on their order for a while now. Can you find out what's taking so long?"
...."I talked to the kitchen and they tell me that the F16's are going to take a while."
Excellent point! India, Israel, and the U.S. could end radical Muslim states in about ... 25 minutes, give or take the time it takes an ICBM, SLBM, or aircraft to hit the target.
They're so stinkin' nuanced they have no idea what the hell they're doing...
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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Good thing we have nothing at all to worry about from the Iranians for at least 10 years. I don't know about the rest of you but I'll sure sleep better at night after hearing about that new national intelligence estimate.
#4
Belgian 1st hairdresser Brigade: aka 'The Big gay ones" (1) then there is the 101th: "Screaming scissors". That will make Mullahs shake in their boots.
(1) I don't know in America but in France the profession is reputed to have a high proportion of gays.
#7
Appears they're tone deaf.
Send a squadron of Tornadoes breaking the sound barrier at treetop down the middle of Ayatollah Khomeini Boulevard during morning rush hour. That might wake them up.
Because they're laughing at you right now...
#8
France, Britain and Germany hardened their tone toward Iran on Tuesday, warning that Tehran risked triggering an international crisis and could face U.N. sanctions if it follows through with a threat to resume its nuclear program.
Yep, the tone was "toughened". Juuuust a little, to be sure.
#12
Yup. You can almost hear Kofi and son opening new off-shore bank accounts already, can't you? Oil for Food II anyone?
Posted by: BA ||
08/03/2005 14:14
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Toughened tone: the new and improved Hans Brix.
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/03/2005 16:01
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the European Union was prepared to offer extensive economic incentives to Iran,
Um, I'm running a nuclear program too, in my backyard. It's for peaceful purposes, rest assured. I want to get off the grid and produce my own electricity. Honestly. Now, can I have some money from you guys? I'll take 1/100th of what you're offering those Iranian guys. Maybe even less if the negotiations don't go right. Ok, I'll settle for a brand new Softail Springer Classic. How about it?
Posted by: Rafael ||
08/03/2005 16:10
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"This Iranian affair is very serious," said French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy. "It could be the beginning of a major international crisis."
Today's leading entry in the Statements of the Blindingly Obvious contest.
Posted by: Matt ||
08/03/2005 16:11
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Two explosions in trash cans slightly injured nine people Tuesday in separate locations in the popular resort city of Antalya on the Mediterranean coast, the police chief said. Police said they could not confirm whether the blasts were the result of bombs or of some sort of aerosol can exploding in the heat.
Injuries from exploding aerosol cans usually aren't that high, unless they're really, really big aerosol cans.
The first explosion occurred as men were emptying a trash can into a garbage truck in the city center, injuring three city workers and two people standing nearby, police chief Huseyin Kizik was quoted as telling the semiofficial Anatolia news agency. The second explosion occurred about 10 minutes later in a trash can near a market and injured four people, including a French tourist cut by broken glass, Kizik said. The explosion blew out the windows of a bus stopped nearby.
"The reason for the explosions isn't yet clear," Kizik said. "There's no finding yet that says they're bombs." Kurdish, Islamic and radical leftist groups are active in Turkey, and recent bombings have targeted Turkish tourist resorts.
So take your pick...
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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Dozens of Islamic extremists are involved in terrorist cells in Australia, the federal police commissioner confirmed Wednesday after a former spymaster claimed it was only a matter of time before an attack in Australia. Michael Roach, a senior official who recently retired from the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, said Australia is facing an imminent risk of a terrorist attack and has called for more extreme counterterrorism powers. He said Australia's two largest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, are home to Islamic extremists who have received specialized training from terrorist groups overseas. "Perhaps the number is around 50 or 60 in Australia that are working in separate cells," Roach told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. late Tuesday. "The threat is real. It's a matter of when this (an attack) will happen."
The would-be terrorists had developed a high degree of precision in their methods of assault, Roach said. Mick Keelty, the commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, confirmed Roach's allegations about the number of suspected terrorists operating in Australia, saying the figures were "not news to the intelligence community."
"We are focused on the people who we are aware have trained overseas, we are focused on the people who we know have a propensity to do something wrong. We're not focused on the Islamic community," he said. He also said Australian police and intelligence agencies are reviewing their counterterrorism powers after the July terrorist attacks on London's public transport system. "The reality is this is a moving feast — we are challenged by different moves by the terrorist groups, by each interest group, every time they attack," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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Just a matter of time.
They'd only want to hit sydney, no point hitting anywhere else. Sydney is the beating heart of Australia.
Armed groups in Iraq that oppose the U.S.-led coalition are committing war crimes by killing civilians, taking hostages and torturing and slaying defenseless prisoners, the human rights group Amnesty International said.
Wowzers! Even Amnesia International noticed?
The London-based organization also said it recognized that many Iraqis believe U.S.-led troops also have committed grave human rights violations. But it denounced the Iraqi insurgents for a "failure to abide by even the most basic standards of humanitarian law."
I think we've mentioned a time or two here how gleeful they are in flouting minimal standards of decency, but we're a bunch of infidels, so what the hell do we know?
"There is no honor nor heroism in blowing up people going to pray or murdering a terrified hostage. Those carrying out such acts are criminals, nothing less, whose actions undermine any claim they may have to be pursuing a legitimate cause," Amnesty said. The Amnesty International report — "In Cold Blood: Abuses by Armed Groups" — said insurgents were guilty of direct attacks intended to cause the greatest possible loss of civilian life, indiscriminate attacks resulting in the deaths of civilians, targeting humanitarian organizations, abductions and killing captured and defenseless police and military personnel. The report, released last week, said it was impossible to calculate how many civilians had died in Iraq as a result of these attacks. "We urge armed groups to immediately cease all attacks against civilians and all other abuses," Amnesty International said. "Armed groups, like other parties to the conflict in Iraq, are required to comply strictly with international law in all their acts and remain accountable for their actions."
Naturally, the AP article goes on to bitch about the U.S. standards of conduct, but you probably guessed that.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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What next? ACLU?
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/03/2005 2:34
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I am stunned and amazed AI finally got around to mentioning the carnage and brutality.
"We urge armed groups to immediately cease all attacks against civilians and all other abuses,"
Call me sceptical, but I just don't see this having much effect on vermin who happily engage in mass slaughter. Certainly not a much as, say, a trained Marine sniper, or a pre-dawn police raid.
#5
And thus they toss out a smoke screen of balance.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/03/2005 9:11
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Glad we have the folks at AI to keep it sorted. Perhaps they could describe the role of apologists and others in supporting the commission of "war crimes" through issuing a really special report.
#7
That's just what the islamonuts have been waiting for, I'm sure - AI's perspective on their approach. It's a spit in the ocean, and they're on the other shore.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/03/2005 12:03
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All in all this comes pretty close to a 10.0 on the "Drop-my-jaw-o-meter". But will it make a difference? Not f*****g likely
LAHORE: A Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) official succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday at General Hospital. He was brought in two days ago after six villagers attacked him and another PHA official in Burki police precinct.
"It's a Parks and Horticulture man!"
"Kill him!"
A PHA team consisting of Zahid Ali Khan and Ramzan raided Pangali village and challaned six villagers, including Ijaz, Arif and Yousaf, for damaging the PHA's property.
"Parks and Horticulture Police! Stick 'em up!"
The villagers attacked and tortured Khan and Ramzan with iron roads and clubs. They were taken to the hospital where Khan died on Tuesday. Ramzan is stated to be in critical condition.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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"Honey, this year, why don't we take our vacation in Pakistan? Their tourism minister said — "
"Oh, he's dead now, dear! Didn't you hear?"
"Well, I'm sure the new one will be just as nice!"
LAHORE: The election campaign in Union Council 105 was disrupted on Tuesday when supporters of two candidatesâ parties, including Tourism Minister Mian Aslam Iqbal, opened fire at each other after exchanging harsh words.
"Yer mudder wears combat boots!"
"Hypocrite!"
"Heretic!"
"Apostate!"
"Go fer yer guns, Mahmoud!"
A bullet hit the ministerâs car and also injured an activist of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) during the crossfire.
Somehow, we just knew JI would be involved...
Both the parties blamed each other for the incident and submitted their applications with the concerned police station for the registration of a case.
"You started it!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Liar!"
"Infidel!"
"Go fer yer guns, Ahmed!"
Former district nazim Mian Amir Mehmood said in a press conference on Tuesday at the Lahore Press Club that the tourism minister was on his way to visit a hospital project when he got into a clash with JI supporters. The matter was resolved in a mosque but JI supporters opened fire when the minister came out of the mosque.
"Well, sorry for the misunderstanding, Mahmoud! Glad we got that worked out!"
"Duck!"
The JI wanted to disrupt the peace of Lahore, Mian Amir said adding, no political party or religious force could be allowed to violate the law. He also said that authorities should take notice of this incident. The former district nazim said that the party responsible for the incident had been identified and an FIR had been filed against them. He said the people who initiated the crossfire were JI supporters.
The JI? Oh, come now! Pshaw!
The JI could indulge in such things only in Karachi but they could not be allowed to do the same in Lahore, he added.
"We got lawnorder up here, by Gar!"
"Look out!"
He also said the incident showed that JI were aware of their weak position in the upcoming local council elections. On the other hand, a JI press statement blamed the leaders of Watan Dost Group (WDP) for the confrontation.
"Yeah! It wudn't us! They dunnit!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
JI said that Muhammad Saleem, candidate for nazim, and Abid Mir, activist of Shabab-e-Milli and candidate for naib nazim at Union Council 105, had arranged a meeting at their election office on Tuesday. The tourism minister, whose brother is Abid Mirâs counterpart in the upcoming local council elections, and his supporters opened fire at them before the meeting and injured an activist, Adeel, the JI said. Muthida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Lahore President Hafiz Salman Butt said that the JI was not responsible for the incident.
"[Sniff!] Certainly not!"
It was Mian Aslamâs political strategy to get the sympathy of the voters of the area, he added.
The one with the most casualties wins?
He also said that the minister, who had been in charge of his brotherâs election campaign, arranged this drama when he realised that his brother was not in a position to win.
"It wuz all trumped up! The ammunition was hardly even live!"
Eyewitnesses said that the minister, accompanied by his bodyguards, was going into a local mosque to say his prayers when JI supporters confronted him and they got into a scuffle. The matter was resolved peacefully inside the mosque and the minister came out of the mosque after the JI supporters, eyewitnesses said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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FredMan breaks out, freaks out the oldies, the newbies, and the behind in the rents.... September, I swear.
Police have identified two Syrian-born Spaniards as the ideological mentors behind last year's Madrid train bombings, a newspaper reported Tuesday. El Pais said a police report handed over in March to the judge investigating the attacks concludes that the two, Moutaz Almallah Dabas and his brother, Mohannad, were directly linked to al-Qaida. Both are in custody.
Moutaz Almallah Dabas was arrested in London in March on a Spanish warrant for alleged terrorist offenses linked to the Madrid bombings. His brother was first picked up in Spain shortly after the March 11, 2004, attacks, then released for lack of evidence. He was arrested a second time in Spain, also in March of this year, and charged with belonging to an armed group. The attacks on the Madrid commuter rail network killed 191 people and wounded more than 1,500. Islamic extremists claimed responsibility for the bombings on behalf of al-Qaida and in revenge for the presence of Spanish troops in Iraq.
The judge investigating the case, Juan del Olmo, said last year the ideologue behind the attacks was a Tunisian named Serhan Ben Abdelmajid Fakhet. He was among seven suspects who blew themselves up weeks after the attacks in a suburban Madrid apartment as special forces prepared to move in to arrest them. But the police report reportedly given to the judge in March says the Almallah brothers were above Fakhet in the ideological preparation of the attacks. It said that, without them, the March 11 bombings "possibly would not have taken place."
"If al-Qaida gave the order to attack in Spain, set the date and started the process of carrying it out, the Almallah brothers made up the doctrinal base closest to" al-Qaida, the newspaper quoted the report as saying. Del Olmo has jailed 31 people â mostly Moroccan or of Moroccan origin â for the train bombings. About 70 others have been questioned and released but are still considered suspects. A trial is not expected until next year.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Sudan's capital erupted into ethnic and sectarian conflict Tuesday, with bands of northerners and southerners staging attacks on each other in an outpouring of anger sparked by the death of a former rebel leader turned vice president. Frightened residents carried clubs and bricks for protection, fearful of the deadly reprisal violence between Muslim Arabs and residents from Sudan's south enraged over the death of John Garang, killed Saturday when his helicopter crashed into a southern mountain range in bad weather.
At least 49 people were killed in the violence that started Monday, according to a U.N. official, though the number was not officially confirmed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to journalists. Armed gangs, said to be Arabs, broke into homes of southerners in several parts of the capital. Television footage showed southerners' homes torn apart, furniture smashed and doors hanging on hinges. At the same time, Muslim neighborhoods came under attack by supporters of Garang, who led a two-decade rebellion in Sudan's mostly Christian and animist south before becoming the country's vice president in a peace deal. A dusk-to-dawn curfew was declared for the second night in a row. In the evening, four armored vehicles sat parked on a downtown street, facing the direction of Omdurman, Khartoum's sister-city across the Nile, where some of the worst clashes were reported.
Bumping off Garang was on the same order of bright as the Syrians bumping off Hariri.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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Fred, I asked how long and you said 20 mins. Looks right on the mark to me.
#2
yikes-- another battle of omdurman--call kitchener!
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI ||
08/03/2005 2:14
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Garang was flying back to Sudan from Uganda aboard the Ugandan presidential helicopter AF 605 Type MI-172 (VIP version) after meeting Museveni. The plane hit a rock and crashed owing to bad weather south of New Site on the Uganda-Sudan border, just after Kidepo National Park, on Saturday.
I don't know, isn't dying in a Russian built, African maintained and piloted helicopter being flown in bad weather through mountains considered "death by natural causes"?
Posted by: Steve ||
08/03/2005 10:18
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I am Dr. Clement Moore, a representative and Financial advicer to John Garang of SUDAN, whose untimely death occurred recently in a helicopter crash.
Neither him nor his wife who he used as his next Of kin are alive since the incident claimed the lives of the entire family,leaving no one alive to claim the sum of (?14,000,000.00), he left in his bank account with the ISLE OF MAN BANK UK.
I think y'all know how the rest of the letter goes. If anyone is interested, I can send him your eMail address.
While mothers continue to bring children weak with hunger to feeding centers, market stalls are filled with food — but at prices well out of the reach of many in this desperately poor nation. "It is the government's job to deal with the hungry, we the traders are here for business," said Ibrahim Baye, who sells millet, a staple in Niger, at a Maradi market.
The well-stocked markets are deceptive. The food shortage is real. Last year locusts, in the worst invasion in 15 years, ravaged 7,000 square miles of Niger farmland. That and a subsequent drought cut cereal production by 15 percent last year, according to the United Nations. Hunger was a problem in Niger even before the locusts and drought. Today, more than a third of the nearly 12 million people in Niger face severe food shortages. Children are most at risk. On Tuesday, Baye shooed away beggars dressed in rags and staring at the heaped food on display. A friend sitting with him who gave only one name, Louali, said the grains on display had been stockpiled "and traders wait until the lean season to sell at double its price." Prices have dramatically increased. A bag of 220 pounds of millet went from $23 to $44. Few can afford that in the second-poorest nation in the world, where 64 percent of the people survive on less than $1 a day.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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#1
Locusts are high protein and fried taste like peanuts. Why hasn't anybody inform the starving people of that?
Over the years locust-prone communities have developed recipes to turn the tables on their voracious invaders. "You find large quantities of them for sale in local markets," said Keith Cressman, FAO's locust information officer. "They are very nutritious, because they are high in protein."
Tinjiya (Tswana recipe): Remove the wings and hind legs of the locusts and boil in a little water until soft. Add salt, if desired, and a little fat and fry until brown. Serve with cooked, dried mealies (corn).
Sikonyane (Swazi recipe): Prepare embers and roast the whole locust on the embers. Remove head, wings, and legs. Only the breast part is eaten.
The South Sotho people use locusts especially as food for travelers. The heads and last joint of the hind legs are broken off and the rest of the locusts are laid on the coals to roast. The roasted locusts are ground on a grinding stone to a fine powder. This powder can be kept for long periods of time and is taken along on a journey.
Dried locusts are also prepared for the winter months. The legs, when dried, are especially relished for their pleasant taste.
Cambodian locusts: Take several dozen locust adults, preferably females, slit the abdomen lengthwise, and stuff a peanut inside. Then lightly grill the locusts in a wok or hot frying pan, adding a little oil and salt to taste. Be careful not to overcook or burn them.
Barbecued (grilled): Prepare embers or charcoal. Place about one dozen locusts on a skewer, stabbing each through the center of the abdomen. If you only want to eat the abdomen, then you may want to take off the legs or wings either before or after cooking. Several skewers of locusts may be required for each person. Place the skewers above the hot embers and grill. Turn the locusts continually, to avoid burning them, until they become golden brown.
#6
There was an article last year about the American locust bloom in the east. Turns out some folks are SERIOUSLY allergic to locusts and eating can have major adverse impact
#7
Our "locusts", at least here in Cincinnati, are actually cicadas. They come out of the ground to breed once every [prime number: 5, 7, 13, 17] years to breed. Exact timing is dependent upon which species of cicada it is.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday it will not renew permission for ABC-TV to operate in the country after the network broadcast an interview with a notorious Chechen warlord. In a statement, the ministry said ABC would be considered "undesirable" by all Russian state agencies because of an interview with Shamil Basayev, which was broadcast last week on "Nightline."
I'm with the Rooskies on this. One man's genocidal mass-murdering sociopath is *not* another man's Emmy award-winning telecast. For shame, ABC.
Posted by: Fred ||
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There is a total boycottt of all things ABC at my house currently. You do not give a genocidal mass-murdering sociopath a platform to speak from. Russia is totally within it's rights to do whatever it sees fit to do, including prosecuting ABC and the persons who did the interview in their courts.
#2
The informational content of the broadcast could have been quickly (a mere minute or less when you cut away the BS) and easily conveyed without giving PR time for Ol Nasty Pegleg. Journalism? No, attention grabbing BS for all three parties concerned. One should know better. How do they feel about having given a mass murderer of school children in a school a soapbox?
A gunman on a motorcycle shot and killed a judge Tuesday in central Tehran and then sped off, a judiciary spokesman said. Judge Masoud Moqadasi handled a case against an investigative reporter jailed in 2000 for reporting that intelligence officials murdered five Iranian dissidents in 1998, judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimirad said.
The journalist Akbar Ganji remains in jail. Iran's Intelligence Ministry later blamed the murders of the dissidents on "rogue agents" in the secret service. As the judge drove away from his office, the gunman sped up to Moqadasi's car on a motorcycle and sprayed it with rifle fire and then fled, Karimirad told The Associated Press. Moqadasi headed the Tehran judiciary complex and specialized in cases of social vice, Karimirad told The Associated Press.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Contrast, in Iraq, people are given the technology and means to secretly report the foreign terrorists and local thugs. The Iraq secruity forces are making progress in reducing the ability of the opponents of the state to act. The Iraq government has the consent of the governed.
In Iran, the government has alienated a good portion of its population and rules through force. How effective will these types of operations become as the information flow is reduced to a minimum for the government. The boys next door are learning. By interfering in Iraq, the Mullahs are showing their own population how to act effectively against themselves. Blowback.
#2
This type of assassination, what used to be common in Iraq, and usually "three men on motorcycles", I've heard referred to as "Larry, Moe, and Curly Joe". That is, as if it was the same three guys who assassinated literally hundreds of Batthists, secret police, and other finks. It does make for a pleasant mental image.
Thousands of Kurds displaced from this northern city by Saddam Hussein began formally registering Tuesday as residents of Kirkuk in a bid to make themselves the majority in the province and bolster their claims to this oil-rich region. The move came as Iraqi officials are trying to draft the country's new constitution that is widely expected to turn Iraq into a federal state. Kurds would like to incorporate the Kirkuk area into their self-ruled region — a move opposed by Arabs, Turkomen and the Turkish government in Ankara. An estimated 80,000 Kurds were displaced by Saddam in the 1980s and registered as residents of the Kurdish-ruled provinces of Irbil and Sulaimaniyah. They were replaced by Arabs as part of Saddam's campaign to change the demographics of the province of 850,000 people.
Posted by: Fred ||
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LAHORE: Over 100 women were burnt by their family, husbands or in-laws in Pakistan over the first seven months of 2005, Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid (LHRLA) said in a report on Tuesday. According to LHRLAâs data, there were 107 cases reported, two from Balochistan, five from the NWFP and 50 each from Punjab and Sindh. The city with the highest number of reported incidents was Karachi, with 41 cases, while 26 cases were reported in Lahore.
Out of the 107 victims, 70 were married, two were single, while the marital status of the rest was unknown. In 18 instances, the victims were burnt alive, 56 women suffered critical burns and survived, while 29 later died of their injuries in hospital. In 62 cases, the women were allegedly burnt while cooking food, while in 13 incidents, burn injuries were caused by stoves or gas cylinders allegedly exploding. In 28 cases, reports only mentioned that the womenâs clothing caught fire, while four women were injured in acid attacks. However, the LHRLA said that contrary to initial reports, there was evidence that suggested that these women were deliberately attacked by their families. The report said that in many instances, the aggrieved parties reached out-of-court settlements, as traditional customs barred women from appearing in court. It said that any compensation received in such settlements almost always went to the victimsâ families; the victims themselves never received anything.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Palestinians fired rockets Tuesday at a gathering of thousands of Israeli settlers protesting the upcoming Gaza withdrawal, but missed, killing instead a 3-year-old Palestinian boy and wounding nine other Palestinians in Gaza. Witnesses said militants fired three rockets at the demonstration in the Israeli town of Sderot. Two of the rockets fell in Palestinian areas and the third fell in an open field near Sderot. Among the wounded were five children, aged 4 to 11, including four children of Hisham Abdel Razek, a senior official in the ruling Fatah party and a former Palestinian Cabinet minister. Abdel Razek's wife was also injured.
That's kind of Paleostain all over, isn't it?
Posted by: Fred ||
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Call in the friendly fire adjuster and get those multiple accidental martyr checks in the mail pronto.
#2
Steve was kind enough to point out that "Acts of Allan" are not covered incidents in the standard Mutual of Gaza policy. I also believe payment is prohibited by the "crossfire" rider and "collateral damage" waiver. Additionally, the hudna discount has been rescinded and the policy premiums are scheudled to rise at the close of Eid later this year. For further details please call Mahmoud in Customer Service.
#3
When the PA cops showed up to get the perps to knock it off the Hammas "gunmen" responsible opened fire on the Cops. Hammas is saying it is going to run Gaza when Israel withdraws. Of course the PA's control will crater and a bloody civil free for all will ensue. Just wonderful. Expect more not less provacation and rocket attacks.
#4
"Palestinian Cabinet minister Mohammed Dahlan said the attack hurt Palestinian interests, and threatened to use force if necessary to stop such activity.
"What took place last night is a national scandal," Dahlan said. "This is unfortunately not the first time that Palestinian victims are being killed. ... We should put an end to this by any means, by force, or by pursuing and convincing"
If you do that again, Im gonna get tough. Yup. THIS time I really mean it. Oops. Oh yeah. I didnt like that. You do it again, and THIS time im gonna get really, really tough. I MEAN it this TIME. .....
Cmon Dahlan. Youre gonna have to get tough soon - YOU'RE running out of time.
#7
I'd call this single incident a... ummm... metaphor? simile? allegory? Hell, I'm not an English major, so I can't be expected to keep them straight. Maybe it's a thick stew, containing all three, plus onions and carrots and turnips, simmered in a rich gravy of vitriol and incompetence for years.
Here are the Israelis, complaining that their government is going to do something they consider wrong, that's going to hit them square in the pocketbooks, for the sake of Peace in the Middle East®.
Rather than saying "Hoboy! The Zionists are leaving! Now we can take their rich farmland and turn it back into desert and have our own state!" and helping them pack, the Paleos decide to shoot rockets at them.
The Paleos, being Paleos, can't even manage to get the rockets into the right county, instead managing to kill a little kid and injure more.
Has anybody checked to make sure Mac Sennet is really dead? It sounds like something he wrote...
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005 15:14
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Fred: If you want to use the correct figurative label, metaphor is the closest. Webster's 3rd definition for "archetype" fits nicely too: "An inherited idea or mode of thought in the psychology of C. G. Jung that is derived from the experience of the race and is present in the unconscious of the individual."
Breaking its public silence on nuclear disarmament talks, North Korea said Tuesday it wants to narrow differences with the United States but still insisted it won't give up its atomic weapons program until Washington withdraws alleged threats. The main U.S. envoy said talks were nearing their conclusion — possibly within days — with delegates from six countries set to submit final comments Wednesday on a draft proposed by China for a statement of principles to guide future arms negotiations.
However, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill raised the possibility the discussions might break off without an agreement, with envoys heading home for further counsel. "Whether we have a draft that everyone agrees on, or whether it's decided that there should be a recess of some kind, we don't know yet," Hill said, adding negotiators were "close to the end of this round" after eight days of talks. Hill said the latest version of the statement was "a good draft" that he had submitted to Washington for review, but he didn't know how other delegations would respond. He declined to give any specifics of what the document contained.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/03/2005
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Breaking its public silence on nuclear disarmament talks, North Korea said Tuesday it wants to narrow differences with the United States but still insisted it won't give up its atomic weapons program until Washington withdraws alleged threats.
Bullshit. The NorKs would be stupid to give up nuclear weapons capability in any scenario; it's the only thing they got. Take it away, and then what?
#3
And should the talks result in an agreement providing him a few carrots why wouldn't he simply resort to being the nutty baddman in order to get more later. A little bit is never enough for folks like Kimmy. He can't do for himself or his people so the only alternative is to act the part to get the handouts. Feed the alligators (or in this case the squirrel) and they'll be back for more sooner or later at which point they'll be likely to bite if denied. Even squirrels can be exceptionally nasty and rude when denied their quickly acquired subsistence entitlement.
Saddam Hussein's lawyers will not take part in legal proceedings until the Iraqi tribunal acknowledges he was attacked in court and guarantees the safety of all defendants and attorneys, a lawyer for the former dictator said Tuesday. Members of Saddam's defense team claimed Saturday the former Iraqi president was attacked during a court appearance last week. The government and the Iraqi Special Tribunal said there had been no attack.
But Khalil al-Dulaimi, a lawyer for Saddam who attended the court appearance, insisted the allegation was true and demanded the government acknowledge it. He also insisted the tribunal apologize, guarantee the safety of Saddam and other former regime figures, and punish the attacker. He said Saddam's lawyers would stop attending any further proceedings "until our demands are met."
I'm not sure not showing up in court is the best way to win your case. In fact, I'm sure it's not.
Posted by: Fred ||
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As you'll all be shocked to hear, Saddam's defense team is an asshat festival on wheels. First he was "attacked"; then they backed down on that, but insisted that still, somehow, there was something to apologize for. There's video -- trust me, nothing of significance happened.
In a way, it's a shame that Saddam won't have an F. Lee Bailey, but instead a gaggle of William Kunstlers. One of the most valuable things about the trials will be documenting the record of horrible crimes and abuses, and the best way to cement a solid case is to have it vigorously, intelligently, and unsuccessfully challenged. As this little episode shows, we're not likely to see much of that .....
#4
These threats against our legal system are only the beginning.
Let's just put Saddam back in that hole they found him in, we shouldn't have "rescued" him.
If they don't return get a court appointed lawyer?
Posted by: Jan ||
08/03/2005 13:14
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The last thing this trial will be about is Sammy. We got a bunch of lawyers lined up who want to become the Johnny Cochrane of Muslimland, not to mention Ramsey Clark and whatever US lefty bozos he drags over there with him. Think OJ was a circus? Might be nice if Sammy has a heart attack in his sleep.
#6
Beyond political rhetoric and 3rd ring in the circus stunts there isn't a whole lot to do on behalf of folks like Saddam. What's the defense? I was just following orders. The columbian, shia, and amish (notorious king abner stolfus ring) drug gangs did it. I was sooo crazy I didn't comprehend my own evil ways. Self defense (gotta try real hard to keep the sociopathic smile off your face when you try that one). National security (mine not yours mr joe shia and kurd). Entrapment (Rummy made me do it I tell ya). The "Real Killers" TM did it and nobody cares. Damn Kuwaitis framed me. The loss of the potential entertainment of the absurd will be offset by reduced time and costs.
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.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is deeply troubled by reports of an attempt underway "to overthrow the Government of Mauritanian President Ould Taya by force," said a statement released by United Nations spokesman St{phane Dujarric. "The Secretary-General condemns any attempt to change the government of any country unconstitutionally and stresses that political disagreements should be settled peacefully, through the democratic process," Dujarric said.
VICTORIA, Texas - Relatives of seven 
GULU, Uganda, Aug. 3 (UPI) -- The leader of a Ugandan murder cult that uses child soldiers is closing ranks as the International Criminal Court prepares to issue an arrest warrant. Joseph Kony, a self-styled prophet who has led the Lord's Resistance Army for 19 years, doesn't appear interested in an amnesty Uganda has offered for LRA members, The Telegraph reported Wednesday. 
(CNSNews.com) - A report by a voting rights group regarding allegations of voter fraud, intimidation and suppression during the 2004 presidential election has found that "paid Democrat operatives were far more involved in voter intimidation and suppression activities than were their Republican counterparts during the 2004 presidential election." The report by the American Center for Voting Rights Legislative Fund found that thousands "were disenfranchised by illegal votes cast and a coordinated effort by members of certain 'nonpartisan' organizations to rig the election system through voter registration fraud in more than a dozen states."
A Briton held in Zambia on suspicion of terrorism will be deported to the UK, the country's president has said. UK police deny reports that Mr Haroon Rashid Aswat, 30, of West Yorkshire, is wanted over the 7 July London bombings. But they have said he is of interest in other inquiries. The US wants to speak to him about an alleged plot to set up an al-Qaeda training camp in Oregon. Mr Aswat's family fear he could end up in US detention at Guantanamo Bay. 
of empire.
[July 29 2005] at 1445 LT in position 12:24N - 050:30E, off Caluula, NE coast of Somalia. Five pirates armed with guns in a white speedboat fired upon a bulk carrier underway. Crew mustered, activated fire hoses and fired rocket flares. Master increased speed, took evasive manoeuvres and moved away from the coast. Attempted boarding was averted. No injuries to crew.
KARACHI: The Singh [sic] government has nullified a fatwa (edict) issued by a Hyderabad mufti declaring inter-sect marriages "haram" and calling those who resort to such marriages as infidels. 
An Islamist who observes the activities of "Al-Qaeda" organization believes that its "offspring" consider the internet their sheikh and not Osama Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Police scoured the snowcapped mountains of northern Colombia Tuesday for a leftist rebel unit blamed for a roadside bomb attack on a government convoy that killed at least 15 elite counterinsurgency troops. The bombing was the latest in a stepped up campaign of attacks this year by the 
British authorities, NBC News reports, have new information suggesting the second set of accused London bombers may also be linked to Pakistan. According to Western counterterrorism officials quoted by the network, authorities now think the apparent leader of the July 21 bombing suspects travelled to Pakistan late last year. 
Two explosions in trash cans slightly injured nine people Tuesday in separate locations in the popular resort city of Antalya on the Mediterranean coast, the police chief said. Police said they could not confirm whether the blasts were the result of bombs or of some sort of aerosol can exploding in the heat.
LAHORE: A Parks and Horticulture Authority (PHA) official succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday at General Hospital. He was brought in two days ago after six villagers attacked him and another PHA official in Burki police precinct. 
LAHORE: The election campaign in Union Council 105 was disrupted on Tuesday when supporters of two candidatesâ parties, including Tourism Minister Mian Aslam Iqbal, opened fire at each other after exchanging harsh words.
Police have identified two Syrian-born Spaniards as the ideological mentors behind last year's Madrid train bombings, a newspaper reported Tuesday. El Pais said a police report handed over in March to the judge investigating the attacks concludes that the two, 
Sudan's capital erupted into ethnic and sectarian conflict Tuesday, with bands of northerners and southerners staging attacks on each other in an outpouring of anger sparked by the death of a former rebel leader turned vice president. Frightened residents carried clubs and bricks for protection, fearful of the deadly reprisal violence between Muslim Arabs and residents from Sudan's south enraged over the death of .jpg "Locusts on a stick")
A gunman on a motorcycle shot and killed a judge Tuesday in central Tehran and then sped off, a judiciary spokesman said. Judge Masoud Moqadasi handled a case against an investigative reporter jailed in 2000 for reporting that intelligence officials murdered five Iranian dissidents in 1998, judiciary spokesman Jamal Karimirad said.
Palestinians fired rockets Tuesday at a gathering of thousands of Israeli settlers protesting the upcoming Gaza withdrawal, but missed, killing instead a 3-year-old Palestinian boy and wounding nine other Palestinians in Gaza. Witnesses said militants fired three rockets at the demonstration in the Israeli town of Sderot. Two of the rockets fell in Palestinian areas and the third fell in an open field near Sderot. Among the wounded were five children, aged 4 to 11, including four children of Hisham Abdel Razek, a senior official in the ruling Fatah party and a former Palestinian Cabinet minister. Abdel Razek's wife was also injured.
Saddam Hussein's lawyers will not take part in legal proceedings until the Iraqi tribunal acknowledges he was attacked in court and guarantees the safety of all defendants and attorneys, a lawyer for the former dictator said Tuesday. Members of Saddam's defense team claimed Saturday the former Iraqi president was attacked during a court appearance last week. The government and the Iraqi Special Tribunal said there had been no attack.
