At least six Americans were killed Wednesday when a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest made his way into an American base in southeastern Afghanistan, according to NATO officials.
The bomber managed to elude security and reach an area near the bases gym, said one official, who did not want to be identified because the official was not authorized to speak about the incident. It was not clear if the bomber entered the gym.
One official confirmed that the attack took place in Khost Province at Forward Operating Base Chapman, which the official described as not a regular base, suggesting that it was used by American intelligence agencies.
The suicide bomber died in the blast and six Americans were also wounded, some of them seriously, and the death toll could climb, the officials said. It was not clear that those killed and wounded were military personnel.
Even by the standards of a war characterized by a rising number of American and NATO casualties, the attack was an especially deadly one for Americans in Afghanistan, which in addition to soldiers include a growing number of civilian contractors employed in reconstruction and intelligence operations. That the bomber managed to breach a secure base tasked with potentially sensitive operations also made it a particularly audacious attack.
#1
"They shall grow not old,
as we that are left grow
old.
Age shall not weary them,
nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the
sun and in the morning
We will remember them".
According to her wikipedia bio, Hines and Alan Young appeared together again in 1996, in the two-person play Love Letters. Alan Young, btw, is now 90 years old.
On Sunday the administration told us "the system worked."
On Monday, the president said it merely failed to prevent an "isolated extremist."
By Tuesday, though, the president acknowledged a "systemic failure" and two administration officials told CNN that this was a conspiracy so vast we were looking for bombing targets in Yemen to retaliate.
#1
In other words, the administration has not a clue to what is going on. Seems like at lower levels we know a lot. It also seems our leaders run to the podium as soon as they can to deny any mistakes. Just maybe if they paid attention, for just a minute, then communicated among themselves, they would not look soo stupid. This is clearly amature leadership at best, neglegent leadership, more likely. Now we will be in full contact damage control, blame Bush, blame the "Government system", blame anyone they can. If they would have taken 15 minutes to talk with key leaders they might have learned this was a coordinated effort to bring down this airplane. They also migh learn that there are other efforts to hurt America out there. Then they can act to stop them and protect our ountry, the primary mission of the federal government, not health care, buying GM, bailing out AIG, etc...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/30/2009 16:01
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#2
Some of the words I want to hear from the President:
I'm not taking it any more from any towel wearing son of a b____, who thinks tying a fire bomb to his d___k is a good idea;
... ordered to shoot on sight
... ordered to start an easy to get on "double search" list
... non-American saboteurs will be sent to a military tribunal
... shot
... a foreign spy or saboteur does not get the same protections as American citizens
...Gitmo prisoners are being moved to Antartica to allow prisoners to cool down and reflect on things...
#3
whatadeal, I like that last one, especially if you make it one of those rapidly disappearing ice-flows. They get a chance.....if AGW is wrong then they can survive long enough to freeze solid.....if it's right, they survive long enough to drown.
#2
Hit Submit to soon. The Afghan army isn't anywhere near ready to take over from Coalition troops: literacy, training, approach, addiction, raw numbers... leadership and corruption. Gee whiz, it's like they haven't been reading Rantburg or any of the other warblogs. Which of course they haven't; the New York Times has reporters reading FoxNews and Rush Limbaugh -- they haven't discovered the more esoteric sites.
H/T Hotair.com
Yemeni security forces stormed an al-Qaida hide-out Wednesday in a principle militant stronghold in the country's west, setting off clashes, officials said, as a security chief vowed to fight the group's powerful local branch until it was eliminated.
A government statement said at least one suspected al-Qaida member was arrested during the fighting in Hudaydah province. The province, along Yemen's Red Sea coast, was home to most of the assailants in a bombing and shooting attack outside the U.S. Embassy in 2008 that killed 10 Yemeni guards and four civilians.
"The (Interior) Ministry will continue tracking down al-Qaida terrorists and will continue its strikes against the group until it is totally eliminated," said Deputy Interior Minister Brig. Gen. Saleh al-Zawari.
He was speaking to senior military officials at a meeting in Mareb, one of three provinces where al-Qaida militants are believed to have taken shelter.
The group's growing presence in Yemen, an impoverished and lawless country on the edge of the Arabian Peninsula, has drawn attention with the attempted attack on a U.S. airliner on Friday. U.S. investigators say the Nigerian suspect in the attack told them that he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula set up its Yemen base in January when operatives from Saudi Arabia and Yemen merged.
A security official who gave more details on Wednesday's raid said it resulted from a tip and targeted a home five miles (eight kilometers) north of the Bajil district. He said one suspected al-Qaida member was injured and several who fled were being pursued.
The owner of the home, a sympathizer of the group, was arrested, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
Yemen will continue to coordinate its military efforts with the United States to track down al-Qaida in several areas of the country, said Tarek al-Shami, spokesman of the ruling National Congress Party.
The U.S. has increasingly provided intelligence, surveillance and training to Yemeni forces during the past year, and has provided some firepower, a senior U.S. defense official said recently, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive security issues. Some of that assistance may be through the expanded use of unmanned drones, and the U.S. is providing funding to Yemen for helicopters and other equipment.
The Pentagon recently said it poured nearly $70 million in military aid into Yemen this year -- compared with none in 2008.
More details surfaced Wednesday on the Nigerian man suspected in Friday's attempted airliner attack. While in Yemen, he led a devout Islamic life, shunning TV and music and avoiding women, said students and staff at an institute where he studied Arabic. Hmmmm, like Major Hasam who wouldn't even have his picture taken with women -- same iman? Reports seem to indicate, "Yes."
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab spent two periods in Yemen, from 2004-2005 and from August to December of this year, just before the attempted attack, Yemeni officials have said. Administrators at the institute said Wednesday he was enrolled at the school during both periods to study Arabic.
Abdulmutallab showed little interest in study during his brief time at the San'a Institute for the Arabic Language this year, which coincided with Ramadan, the holy Muslim month of fasting that began in late August.
"When I asked him why he wasn't studying, he would tell me he wanted to devote his time for worship during Ramadan," Ahmed Hassan, a 28-year-old Arabic language student from Singapore, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Hassan said he was stunned when he heard reports that Abdulmutallab, 23, told U.S. officials after his arrest he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen. He said he never suspected the Nigerian of belonging to the terrorist network.
Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has claimed responsibility for theattempted attack on the airliner, which was bound for Detroit from Amsterdam. It said it was retaliation for a U.S. operation against the group in Yemen. More than 60 militants were killed in airstrikes this month carried out by Yemeni forces with U.S. intelligence assistance.
Yemen issued Abdulmutallab a visa to study Arabic. Yemeni officials have said authorities in Yemen were reassured that he had visas from a number of countries engaged in the fight against terrorism, including the United States.
Staff and students at the institute said Abdulmutallab spent at most one month at the school. That has raised questions about what he did during the rest of his stay, which continued into December.
While in Yemen, Abdulmutallab led the life of an ultraconservative Muslim. He avoided mixing with female classmates, listening to music or watching television, fellow students and staff at the institute said. Hassan said Abdulmutallab would start his day by going to the mosque for dawn prayers and then would spend hours in his room reading the Quran, Islam's holy book.
Ahmed Mohammed, one of the teachers at the institute, said Abdulmutallab spent the last 10 days of the holy month of Ramadan sequestered in a mosque. He says Abdulmutallab attended barely four hours of the 20-hour course Ahmed taught.
Youssef al-Khawlani, an administrator at the institute, recalled how upset Abdulmutallab was when he heard the ring tone of his phone, set to a popular song.
"When he heard it, he told me I should stop it because it was haram (forbidden by Islam)," said al-Khawlani. "He also would not watch TV."
The cover of Al Gore's new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, features a satellite image of the globe showing four major hurricanes--results, we're meant to believe, of man-made global warming. All four were photoshopped. Which is nice symbolism, because in a sense the whole hurricane aspect of warming has been photoshopped.
True, both greenhouse gas emissions and levels in the atmosphere are at their highest, but this year had the fewest hurricanes since 1997, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For the first time since 2006 no hurricanes even made landfall in the U.S.; indeed hurricane activity is at a 30-year low.
None of which is really all that remarkable. What's remarkable is that the hurricane hysteria essentially reflects a "trend line" comprising a grand total of two data points in one year, 2005. Those data points were named Katrina and Rita.
In a 2005 column, I gave what now proves an interesting retrospective.
"The hurricane that struck Louisiana yesterday was nicknamed Katrina by the National Weather Service. Its real name was global warming." So wrote environmental activist Ross Gelbspan in a New York Times op-ed that one commentator aptly described as "almost giddy." The green group Friends of the Earth linked Katrina to global warming, as did Germany's Green Party Environment Minister.
The most celebrated of these commentaries was Chris Mooney's 2007 book Storm World:Hurricanes, Politics and the Battle Over Global Warming. Mooney, for the record, is also author of the best-selling book The Republican War on Science.
Yet there were top scientists in 2005 such as Roger Pielke Jr., a professor of environmental studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, publishing data showing the Rita-Katrina blowhards had no business building a case around two anomalies.
Pielke published a report in the prestigious Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (written before Katrina but published shortly afterward) that analyzed U.S. hurricane damage since 1900. Taking into account tremendous population growth along coastlines, he found no increase. His paper was dutifully ignored by the powers that be.
But the so-called Climategate scandal, which illuminated efforts by climate change scientists to squelch opposition viewpoints, has now caught up to one scientist, Kevin Trenberth, who vociferously and influentially demanded that Pielke's paper be shunned.
Trenberth works in the same town as Pielke and is one of the top researchers on the strongly warmist Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In a leaked e-mail from two months ago, he admitted to colleagues what he had hidden from the outside world: that there's been no measurable warming over the past decade.
Yet two years earlier he told Congress that evidence for man-made warming was "unequivocal" and things were "apt to get much worse." And in 2005 he told the local newspaper that Pielke's Bulletin article was "shameful" and should be "withdrawn."
"Our paper shouldn't have been controversial," notes Pielke today, "and since then our conclusions have been reinforced by the IPPC." The panel's latest report, from 2007, concluded that whether warming is causing increased hurricane activity is "pretty much a toss of a coin."
Yet Pielke's paper was excluded from that report. Why? Says Pielke, "a scientist at a high level of the IPCC saw fit to disparage a paper in his domain, said it should be ignored by the panel, and subsequently it was." He added, "After seeing [leaked] e-mail discussions in which the scientists talked about keeping literature out of the report ... well, you can connect the dots."
But it wasn't just Trenberth. In one of the hacked e-mails, Phil Jones, director of the British climate center from which the e-mails were stolen (and who has since resigned) wrote to colleagues about Pielke's complaints of not being published, "Maybe you'll be able to ignore them?"
For many millions of American homeowners, the 2005 tempest tirade was hardly just academic. Half a year later, a company called Risk Management Solutions (RMS) issued a five-year forecast of hurricane activity predicting U.S. insured hurricane losses would be 40% higher than the historical average. RMS is the world leader in "catastrophe modeling," and insurance companies use those models to set premium rates charged to homeowners as well as by reinsurance companies and others.
With four years of data in, losses are actually running far below historical levels and at less than half the rate that RMS predicted. A lot of individuals and a lot of companies have grossly overpaid.
This hardly supports rushes to judgment on global warming consequences. "If you overestimate or underestimate risks there will be costs," says Pielke. "It's honesty and accuracy that count."
#1
Environmentalists have developed a simply technique for communicating with the public called lying. The WWF is running a commercial about the poor endangered polar bears and how "climate change" is killing them off. Gore frequently talks about the endangered polar bears. The facts are that polar bear population has increased by a factor of four to five in the last fifty years.
#2
ION FREEREPUBLIC/OTHER > RUSSIA ARMAGEDDON PLAN TO SAVE EARTH FROM COLLISION WITH ASTEROID [Comet APOPHIS [2029-2036].
Again, in terms of size both GUAM'S KAMALEN/CAMARIN + APOPHIS are relatively small - Its their consequences + ultimately their SYMBOLISM which is significant. The defense of GUAM-WESTPAC from KAMALEN is more of US-SPECIFIC PEROGATIVE given the time frame, not one for desired OWG-NWO at this time as would be for APOPHIS 2029-2036.
1960's - early 1970's GUAM TAOTAMONAS > Its NO ACCIDENT that the USDOD desires to base a US ARMY MISSLE DEFENSE TASK FORCE, includ BMD batteries, here on Guam as part of the reloc of Marine forces from Okinawa + US realignment of Pacific forces. Iff I were Guam's HR Delegate Bordallo, Governator Camacho, andor GovGuam Legislature Politicos = so-called "HOUSE OF HESSLER" [Guam PDN Forums], I would try to get the BMD task force here ASAP, or at least USAF strike aircraft [F15's, B52's,etc] equipped wid high-atmospheric defensive missles.
Aagin, what makes people think that a POST-WOT?, ECON- + GEOPOL WEAKENED AMERICA = AMERIKA, the mighty USSA = weak United Socialist Republiks of Amerika-NORAM, UNDER OWG WILL HAVE THE NATIONAL-GLOBAL SOVEREIGNTY, ETC. TO UNILATERALLY FIRE POTENT MISSLES AT ANY SPACE ROCK, WIDOUT OWG = "UNIVERSAL" CONSENT + DEBATE???
E.g. WMF/OTHER > the ECON BANKRUPT USA in future may have to depend on an INTERNATIONAL MERCENARY SYSTEM TO SATISFY US-SPECIFIC MIL MANPOWER, RESOURCE REQUIREMENTS [e.g. Hessians, Irish Legion = "Wild Geese", French Foreign Legion, etc.]International or "Global" milfors paid by the weak USA but not necessarily LOYAL to the USA - DITTO FOR SCIENCE-BASED SPACE DEFENSE??? WHAT MORE A WEAK USA STILL FIGHTING AGZ A STRONGER BUT NOW NUCLEARIZED ISLAMIST-MILIT THREAT AROUND THE WORLD???
Clearly NOT voting for OWG-NWO and related has no consequences for mainstream America = Amerika, doesn't it?
As a fresh poll measured the political cost of Sen. Ben Nelson's health reform vote, he prepared Tuesday to take his case directly to Nebraskans during Wednesday night's Holiday Bowl game.
Nelson will air a new TV ad in which he attempts to debunk opposition claims that the Senate legislation represents a government takeover, and he makes the case for health care reform.
"With all the distortions about health care reform, I want you to hear directly from me," the Democratic senator says in the ad.
Nelson, dressed in an open-necked shirt and sweater, speaks directly into the camera during the 30-second ad.
The message will be launched during the Nebraska-Arizona football game and continue to air statewide for an undisclosed number of days.
It will take more than 30 seconds to explain away such an abdication of leadership and betrayal of supposed principles.
#2
Predicted talking points:
1) I didn't vote for the bill, just for the closing of 'pointless debate', to allow the democratic process to proceed.
2) I bargained for the best deal possible for Nebraskans.
3) I will vote against the bill when it comes to the floor.
What am I missing?
#3
"Look, no one knows what's in a damn 2,000 page bill anyway, much less how it's actually going to work. So why shouldn't I get you guys some money out of this thing?"
Posted by: Matt ||
12/30/2009 15:15
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#4
Hope the Jumbotron at the stadium has a heavy covering. If this piece of garbage gets shown there at halftime (paid for, of course, with OUR money), there'll be a massive load of beer bottles (at least) thrown at the screen.
Warning to sports bars everywhere....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/30/2009 15:26
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#5
Barb, I don't think they sell booze at college games (it's been a while). But I would grant that there will be a chorus of BOO's which is kind iof like booze. ;-) I would wonder if it is possible to recall a senator? That would get thier attention in a hurry.
#9
it's here in San Diego. There's beer (usually til the start of the 4th qtr) and cocktails in the Stadium Club. The trick is to get hammered before you go in. It also helps that Ben's paid lie will only show in Neb., I think
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/30/2009 18:33
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#10
And the thinks that interrupting a BOWL GAME IN NEBRASKA is gonna help is ratings?!?!?!?!
#1
Best of all, the bill contains a provision that, in the event of another government request for emergency aid to prop up the financial system, debate in Congress be limited to just 10 hours.
STFU and give us the money! -- Bawney
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2009 13:10
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#1
Does this mean they'll allow US Air Marshals on flights?
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
12/30/2009 12:26
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#2
I can fix this problem. For all international flights
1) Sky marshals.
2) Hand-screen of every piece of carry-on luggage.
3) Psychology screening: a trained screener talks to each passenger and looks for inconsistencies, anxiety, etc.
4) Shorten, not lengthen, the no-fly list, make it accurate as possible, and enforce it rigorously. Better yet, incarcerate every person on the no-fly list. There's a job for Interpol.
5) Make clear that countries with a significant number of al-Qaeda crazies residing within pay a price: for example, no more visas for ANY of their citizens to come to the U.S. If we can't trust them to take care of their citizens, we can't trust their citizens in our country.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2009 14:41
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#3
Make clear that countries with a significant number of al-Qaeda crazies residing within pay a price: for example, no more visas for ANY of their citizens to come to the U.S. If we can't trust them to take care of their citizens, we can't trust their citizens in our country.
No more Saudi students or British visitors to Disneyland.
#5
Nice list, Dr Steve. If only they would implement it.
(Of course, I'd be happy to settle for a small pack of Vietnamese potbelly pigs on each flight. They'd amuse the kids, and freak out the jihadi wannabes who would be afraid that they might get a speck of lard on them when the plane goes boom.)
There is no more solemn duty for an American commander-in-chief than the martialling of all elements of American power the phrase Obama himself used on Monday to protect the people of the United States. In that key respect, Obama failed on Christmas Day, just as President George W. Bush failed on September 11th (though he succeeded in the seven years after that).
Yes, the buck stops in the Oval Office. Obama may have rather smugly given himself a B+ for his 2008 performance but he gets an F for the events that led to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarding a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam with a PETN bomb sewn into his underpants. He said today that a systemic failure has occurred. Well, hes in charge of that system.
The picture were getting is more and more alarming by the hour. Here are some key elements to consider:
1. Abdulmutallabs father spoke several times to the US Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria and visited a CIA officer there to tell him, apparently, that he feared his son was a jihadist being trained in Yemen. According to CNN, the CIA officer wrote up a report, which then sat in the CIA headquarters at Langley for several weeks without being disseminated to the rest of the intelligence community. This was not just a casual encounter. Again according to CNN, there were at least two face-to-face meetings, telephone calls and written correspondence with the father. If its true that the CIA sat on this then it beggars belief.
2. After 9/11, the huge bureaucracies of the Homeland Security Department and the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI) were created. Inside the DNI, the National Counter Terrorism Center was created. These organisations were created to connect the dots. It may well be that the fault lay with NCTC and not the CIA CIA spokesman George Little says here that key biographical information and information about possible extremist connections in Yemen was passed to NCTC. If NCTC knew about it, then did someone at the National Security Council within the White House? Theres a huge blame game beginning so well no doubt know soon enough.
3. It wasnt just the meeting with the father. According to CBS, as early as August of 2009 the Central Intelligence Agency was picking up information on a person of interest dubbed The Nigerian suspected of meeting with terrorist elements in Yemen. So there were other parts of the jigsaw that were not put together.
4. In his studied desire to be the unBush by responding coolly to events like this, Obama is dangerously close to failing as a leader. Yes, it is good not to shoot from the hip and make broad assertions without the facts. But Obama took three days before speaking to the American people, emerging on Monday in between golf and tennis games in Hawaii to deliver a rather tepid address that significantly underplayed what happened. He described Abdulmutallab as an isolated extremist who allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body phrases that indicate a legalistic, downplaying approach that alarms rather than reassures. Todays words showed a lot more fire and desire to get on top of things well see whether Obama follows through with action. In the meantime, he went snorkelling.
5. There has been a pattern developing with the Obama administration trying to minimise terrorist attacks. We saw it with Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslim convert who murdered a US Army recruit in Little Rock, Arkansas in June. We saw it with Major Nidal Malik Hassan, a Muslim with Palestinian roots who slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas last month. In both cases, there were Yemen connections. Obama began to take the same approach with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Well see whether this incident shakes him out of that complacency. Whether its called the war on terror or not, its clear that the US is at war against al-Qaeda and radical Islamists.
6. Guantanamo Bay. It seems that two of the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) planners behind this attack were released from Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration. That calls into question the competence of Bush administration officials but also the wisdom of closing Guantanamo Bay. How many other enemies of America and the West are going to be released back to the battlefield? As Mike Goldfarb asks: Is the Obama administration seriously still considering sending some 90 Yemeni detainees now being held at Gitmo back to their country of origin, where al Qaeda are apparently running around with impunity?
7. Janet Napolitano, Obamas Homeland Security Chief, has been a distaster in this, exhibiting the kind of bureaucratic complacency that makes ordinary citizens want to go postal. On Sunday, she told CNN that one thing Id like to point out is that the system worked and ABC News that once the incident occurred, the system worked. A day later, she grumbled that quoted out of context before reversing herself, telling NBC: Our system did not work in this instance. No one is happy or satisfied with that. An extensive review is under way. The system worked comment was a heckuva job, Brownie moment. Is she up to the job?
8. Will Obama hold individuals accountable? Briefing the press today behind a cloak of anonymity as a Senior Administration Official, Denis McDonough, NSC chief of staff (he gave the game away by saying he was from Minnesota), said that Obama intends to demand accountability at the highest levels before adding: It remains to be seen what that means exactly. If heads dont roll and soon then Obamas words will seem hollow. Its an opportunity for him to show some real steel.
9. Theres a continued, unfortunate tendency for everyone in Obamaland to preface every comment about something going wrong with a sideswipe against the Bush administration. On Sunday, Bill Burton, Deputy White House Press Secretary, briefed: On the Sunday shows, Robert Gibbs and Secretary Napolitano made clear that we are pressing ahead with securing our nation against threats and our aggressive posture in the war with al Qaeda. We are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us, and have dramatically increased our resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan where those terrorists are. Why pat yourself on the back for winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us when the issue at hand is why the US government under Obama, er, took its eyes off a terrorist who did try to attack us and nearly killed 300 people? Its bordering on the juvenile. Obamas been president for a year now. Its time for him to accept that things that happen as his responsibility, not Bushs. Its time for him to echo Ronald Reagan, who said over Iran-Contra: I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration.
10. Will there be US air attacks against targets in Yemen? Watch this space. Its safe to say that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or AQAP, described to me by a senior intelligence official today as officially recognised and in corporate terms a sanctioned franchise of al-Qaeda that is plainly now seeking to become an international rather than just a regional Islamist player.
#1
We are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of the terrorists that attacked us
I wonder how many terrorists died in Iraq when they might otherwise have attacked us somewhere else? Does anybody ever stop to think how much it bothers them that we beat the crap out of them in Iraq? Does anybody stop to think how easily we could transport a couple hundred guys from Iraq into Yemen to chill a few mooks there?
Afghanistan is the "good war", huh? Let's see how we're all feeling about that in 2012. In the meantime do something about Muslim men with bombs in their pants...and leave the little old white ladies alone.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2009 12:19
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#2
Do you really want to get these guys? I thought Bambi knows the Chicago Way.
It's worth reading (don't worry, it's short) Janet Napolitano's op-ed in USA Today. As if to confirm Dick Cheney's claim that the Obama administration doesn't understand we're at war, Napolitano never uses the word...war. Nor does she mention Islam, Yemen or Nigeria -- nor any of the details of the incident, nor the particulars of the government failures over the last few months.
Lots of op-eds ghost-written for cabinet secretaries are stupid. But this one may outdo them all in its vagueness and avoidance of substance, in its managing to be at once bureaucratic and cloying, and in speaking to the American people as if they are children. She attempts to reassure, and fails.
By the way, since this was a plot hatched overseas by people whom our intelligence agencies are listening in on and trying to bump off -- is Napolitano really the appropriate lead official? It's revealing who the White House put out Sunday -- Napolitano and press secretary Robert Gibbs. For the Obama White House, it's all spin and TSA procedures. Do we still have a CIA director? I'd heard Panetta wasn't getting along with the White House...but is he even in the loop?
#1
More idiotic statements uttered by incompetent idiots. By never mentioning the word the "W" [war] word, these bumblers are hoping it will go away. Naive stumbling, bumbling, ostriches.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/30/2009 14:26
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#5
Oh no, he got the reference right. I'm still snickering!
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2009 14:44
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#6
Actually the photos of her always remind me of this scene from Charlie Wilson's War:
Charlie Wilson: I stood in Harold Holt's office in Islamabad, and I offered him the keys to the safe. I said to him, "What do you need?" And I was apparently annoying him. Gust Avrakotos: Well, that's because Harold Holt is a tool. He's a cake-eater, he's a clown, he's a bad station chief, and I don't like to cast aspersions on a guy, but he's going to get us all killed.
Posted by: Matt ||
12/30/2009 16:52
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#7
Its not 2012 [Nuc Iran] or 2013 yet [Nuclear Militancy-Terrorism].
IMO, when NATO Officio says that the US-NATO have ONE YEAR to turn things around in AFPAK = prove the merits of the POTUS Bammer's Afghan SUrge, methinks He = US-NATO realize the threat of 2013.
A body scanner at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport would not necessarily have detected the explosives which the would-be syringe bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had sewn into his underwear. A Dutch military intelligence source told De Telegraaf newspaper that Al Qaeda has its own security scanners and has been practicing ways of concealing explosives.
The terrorist group has even carried out test runs at smuggling explosives through European airports, the paper reports.
On Monday Schiphol's operational manager Ad Rutten said the explosives carried by the 23-year-old Nigerian Abdulmutallab may well have been detected had he been scanned by one of the airport's 15 body scanners. Schiphol was the first airport to run a trial of body scanners, which use sound waves to see through passengers' clothing. At present the scanners are only an optional alternative to the conventional metal detector, as European privacy laws prevent them being made compulsory.
Since the attempted attack on the flight from Schiphol to Detroit, Schiphol has been operating tightened security measures. Around 50 extra security staff have been hired in to carry out the tightened checks on passengers to the United States. All passengers to the US are now being body searched at the gate. The airport says that while the chance of discovering any concealed explosives is still not 100 percent, it is at least much higher than it was.
#1
We can play this game all day long. My 13 year old could smuggle a bomb on a plane if he thought about it for ten minutes. The way to stop it is to kill the organizations that promote this behavior, kill the ideology and the leaders that recruit and promote this. We need to go after the people that fund these people. We need to not invest in scanners for airports, we need to eliminate the people that are trying to kill us. Read killing Pablo, use it as a model, stop feeling guilty for killing bad guys and make this country safe.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/30/2009 16:12
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#2
I referred that excellent book to a fellow recently Pan. He replied, "I don't have to read it." I didn't ask any additional questions.
I think we knew this but I'm posting this to ensure that we connect all the dots.
WASHINGTON: At least one leader of al-Qa'ida's branch in Yemen, where the failed bomber of a US-bound Christmas flight was allegedly trained, was freed from the US prison in Guantanamo, Cuba, a Pentagon list reveals.
The list, released in May, names 27 former prisoners who resumed terrorist activities after being released from Guantanamo, including Said Ali al-Shihri, who was transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and later implicated in the bombing of the US embassy in Yemen's capital, Sanaa, last year.
ABC television named Muhammad Attik al-Harbi, a former al-Qa'ida leader in Yemen, as another unrepentant former Guantanamo prisoner.
Yemen's role as an al-Qa'ida haven has come under renewed public scrutiny in the wake of a Nigerian man's alleged attempt to detonate a bomb on a Northwest Airline plane as it approached to land in Detroit on Friday. US law enforcement official have said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, confessed to receiving specific training for the attack from an al-Qa'ida bombmaker in Yemen. An al-Qa'ida affiliate in the Arabian peninsula claimed yesterday that it was behind the failed bombing, and threatened new attacks on the West, US monitoring groups said.
The two-page statement, which was accompanied by a picture of Abdulmutallab, boasted that the "Nigerian brother . . . was able to breach all the modern and sophisticated technologies and checkpoints at the airports around the world".
The US government remains cautious in linking the suspect to al-Qa'ida, which has claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. It has strengthened its presence in Yemen by exploiting the loose control of the central government over the heavily tribalised provinces.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2009
10:04 ||
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#1
So how's the Gitmo catch and release program working for us Obama?
#2
boasted that the "Nigerian brother . . . was able to breach all the modern and sophisticated technologies and checkpoints at the airports around the world".
Meanwhile, our "Kenyan brother" is engaged in full image control.
#3
But...but...Obama says he was just an "isolated extremist" despite his ties to Yemen.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2009 11:07
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These guys were released under W, not the Dems. We should have tried these guys through the military justice system or else through new WOT courts and sentenced those found guilty to SuperMax prison.
IIUC, The govt didn't have enough on these folk to try them even under military rules. The Saudi had additional info and claimed to have a successful deradicalization (or radical immunization) program. The State Dept (that would be the one that Condi Rice headed), somehow took the word of the Saudis and Condi convinced the Natl Security Cabinet to go along (of course there was pressure from the left to reduce the number of detainees).
and speaking of idiots at the State Dept. How come Janis is getting all the blame and Hillary is getting none of it. It seems to me that State Dept is substantially to blame for this.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/30/2009 11:16
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"W" was constandly under fire from the left over The Global War on Terror (GWOT), the war in Iraq, GITMO, so-called CIA black prisons overseas, Abu Ghraib, etc. He certainly should have tried them all in a military tribunal and executed the lot, I'll give you that. But imagine if you will the outrage from the UN and the left.
#10
We should have shot all non-uniformed combatants on sight.
Only after we wring all the intel we can get out of them and I don't care how. If they wanna sign the Geneva convention and start wearing uniforms that'd be another matter.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2009 12:59
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Gitmo releasee must not have been a particularly good trainer as his student didn't get his virgins, and now won't be able to use them if he ever does get them.
#13
What Barbara said, just kill them. There is surely enough data, biological and digital to justify, get int, kill and justify the int. Even as I approach the age of the hills, we still discuss the names of those who betrayed us, and who opposed us. I would like to remember those who supported us, but I don't remember any who didn't have a financial incentive, eg, clapped-out choppers from Israel, our only friend(?).
I do believe the sell-out occured years ago.
Reporting from Washington - With the healthcare battle still unfinished, the Obama administration has been laying plans to take up an issue that could prove even more divisive -- a major overhaul of the nation's immigration system.
Senior White House aides privately have assured Latino activists that the president will back legislation next year to provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States. No mention in article whether they would now be covered in the 'new health care plan' We already know the answer to that ...
#5
Should an immigration bill gain traction, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel would probably be a central player in the negotiations Our goal is not to outdo the Republicans, rather to use our achievements and proposals to prevent them from using this as a wedge issue against us."
With double-digit unemployment, Amnesty for illegal aliens isnt going anywhere. No matter. The O-Team knows that the useful tools only require the appearance of effort not accomplishment. Its really quite simple just float out a proposal that looks like a bribe. Lord knows the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been grousing about the lack of a public option in the health care bill. Not to mention, Andy Stern and SEIU are going to need a sweetener to swallow a tax on their precious Cadillac Health insurance plans. Also, amnesty is quickly becoming the favorite hot button to distract their critics from talking about whatever boondoggle they have going on.
Rahm just loves the Two-Fer.
#2
OK, OK, I'll say it. After watching who commits terrorist acts over the last 30-40 years, one has to conclude the majority of recent terror acts are committed by muslims. I have tried to separate "good" muslims from "bad" muslims and keep things in that perspective. However, I think I was just being PC. One never knows when a "good" muslim is going to go jihad and become a "bad" muslim and kill a bunch of infidels and anyone who gets in the way. Collateral damage means nothing to these jihadists. The "bugs" in the religion seem to be "features" adhered to by a many or most muslims. I don't trust what muslims say and profess versus what I see. The Doomsday mentality, going to visit the virgins, lying in the name of religion, violence, etc. all seem to be built into the religion. You look at Christians, Jews, Buddhists, etc. and they are not the ones committing terrorist acts. Maybe I'm exhibiting discrimination and/or theophobia--maybe not.
#3
For a more in-depth analysis John, if you've not read Rosenberg's "Inside the Revolution" I'd strongly encourage it. An amazing eye opener into this sickening cult of death.
#1
Fox Nuus just reported the Detroit Jihad lad has confessed that "there are hundreds like him training in Yemen." Barry may have to very soon direct a mandetory conscription of "man-made disaster" and "isolated act" lawyers.
#2
MUTALLAB II > IIHC, FOX NEWS AM Segment repor that another male airline passenger has been arrested bu authorities in MOGADISHU allegedly carrying chemicals + syringe which could be used as a bomb???
Lest we fergit, the closer ISLAMIST IRAN gets to effec formal indigens Nuclearization [Year 2012 maxima], THE GREATER THE PROBABIL OF MULTIPLE TERROR STRIKES BEING PLANNED + LAUNCHED AGZ THE USA PROPER.
#1
Where did you find this guy? He's a gem. Loved this part:
And what did Messrs. al-Harbi and Shari/al-Awfi do to reform themselves in the Saudi Kingdom?
American officials agreed to send the two terrorists from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia where they entered into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" and were set free, according to U.S. and Saudi officials.
"Muhammad, Said, you both show great promise. The tensile strength of the drawing of the detonator is remarkable. And that smoke issuing from the World Trade Center, what can I say? It has a quiet intensity. Said, my goodness, the quality of light you have captured in your painting of the Pentagon's penetration ... some artists work a lifetime without being able to achieve such effects!"
Notice the numerous "allan willing"... are the "we" and the - literal, I mean, come on! - arab butt-kissing of "gorgeous george" just some good old fashioned huckstery, or, is he fully on the other side (he did marry muslim broads, after all)? Or maybe a mix of those two...? A whore, a fellow traveller, something in-between?
Via FrontPageMag The agencies that maintain watch lists have come under withering criticism that rights are being abused, which may have led to the under-inclusion of potential terrorists.
The case of the alleged Christmas bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is being called a massive intelligence failure. And the evidence thus far does suggest a possible lapse in the government's management of terrorist watch lists.
But if so, the blame doesn't lie wholly with government agencies charged with maintaining the lists. Some share of responsibility lies with civil libertarian extremists who have ceaselessly lambasted the entire no-fly system.
Maintaining a terrorist watch list is a highly complex task. The problem includes not only assembling a list of potential suspects but distributing the information on the list to visa offices, border checkpoints, cargo facilities and the like in a timely fashion. The correct spelling of foreign names, with all the variants arising from translation, is in itself a highly complicated endeavor. Criteria for inclusion of a subject on a watch list must be established. And then there is the difficulty of training agents, many of them with little understanding of the nuances of places such as Yemen and Nigeria, to operate the system.
News reports suggest that Abdulmutallab's name was added to a government list of people with suspected ties to terrorism in November, after his father warned the American embassy in Lagos, Nigeria, that he had embraced Islamic extremism.
Abdulmutallab was not, however, on the far shorter no-fly list maintained by the FBI, which is why he was able to board without apparent problem the Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit. According to testimony before a Senate committee in early December by Timothy J. Healy, director of the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center, the consolidated watch list maintained by the FBI currently consists of about 400,000 names. But of these, only about 3,400 have been placed on the no-fly list. In other words, about 396,600 individuals who have a suspected link to terrorism are permitted to fly.
A Justice Department audit last spring found numerous flaws in the terrorist watch system. As new information flows into the FBI, it is required to update the lists. Yet according to the audit, in 67% of the cases it sampled, "the FBI case agent primarily assigned to the case failed to modify the watch list record when new identifying information was obtained during the course of the investigation, as required by FBI policy."
The inevitable complexity of the watch list process guarantees significant errors. On one side lies the problem of innocent people finding themselves on the list: There have been more than a few notorious cases of error, including instances in which federal air marshals were themselves barred from flying. On the other side lies the problem of alleged terrorists like Abdulmutallab being allowed to fly.
Reducing both types of errors is obviously highly desirable. But given the nature of the dangers that the lists are designed to avert, a reasonable policy would tilt toward over-inclusiveness.
And here is where the political context becomes critical. The Bush administration was subjected to withering criticism for the way it managed the no-fly list. The American Civil Liberties Union put the system on its own list of the "Top Ten Abuses of Power Since 9/11," asserting that "the uncontroversial contention that Osama bin Laden and a handful of other known terrorists should not be allowed on an aircraft" has been exploited "to create a monster." In one of several lawsuits the group has filed involving terrorist lists, the ACLU alleged that they "violate airline passengers' constitutional right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and to due process of law."
Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has been one among a chorus of voices that accused the former administration of being far too sweeping, placing "infants, nuns and even members of Congress" on terrorist watch lists. The writer Naomi Wolf has called travel restrictions such as the no-fly list, "a classic part of the fascist playbook" akin to the depredations of Nazi Germany, where "families fleeing internment were traumatized by the uncertainties that they knew they faced at the borders." This was hysteria directed against Bush counter-terrorism mechanisms that the Obama administration has left almost entirely unchanged.
The Department of Homeland Security has indeed received a high volume of complaints about airport screening by individuals attempting to travel. Yet only a minuscule 0.7% of the complaints stemmed from issues relating to the watch lists. And of that 0.7%, about 51% of the complaints led to the conclusion that the individual in question was appropriately on the watch list. Whatever problems exist, the system is not outrageously over-inclusive. Indeed, if anything, the opposite is the case.
We will never know whether fierce criticism from the left had any direct effect on the processing of Abdulmutallab's file, but the political environment is important to consider going forward. The officials managing the watch lists are not eager to be hauled before a congressional committee if they blunder and bar innocent people from getting on flights. But they are also acutely aware of the potential price tag of being under-inclusive.
The problem with over-inclusiveness is that innocent people will suffer major inconvenience and that counter-terrorism resources are wasted. But if the lists are under-inclusive, innocent people can die, and in large numbers. If asked to choose between over- and under-inclusiveness on the watch lists, the passengers of Northwest Flight 253 no doubt would have their preference.
Gabriel Schoenfeld, a resident scholar at the Witherspoon Institute and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, is the author of "Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law," due out in 2010.
Posted by: ed ||
12/30/2009
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But if so, the blame doesn't lie wholly with government agencies
When national security is involved, "blame" should always lie at the TOP!
FP: Andrew C. McCarthy, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Your thoughts on how the Obama administration is handling Abdul Mutallab in comparison to how it handled Hasan? The embarrassing and leaving-us-open-to-terror saga continues? Napolitano, as we know, emerged with some moronic statements. Your thoughts?
McCarthy: Jamie, thanks for having me. Its a pleasure.
It would be nice if the government spent half as much energy focusing on what actually catalyzes jihadist terror as it does denying that there is terrorism. This problem is not unique to Obama officials, but this administration is raising willful blindness to a new level.
Basically, unless they catch a guy wearing an al Qaeda t-shirt, their default position is that everyone is a lone-wolf with no connection to any larger enterprise and God forbid that we should ask exactly what it is that somehow inspires all these lone-wolves to attack Americans.
In my book, I describe how, right after Sayyid Nosair murdered Meir Kahane in 1990, the first impulse of the NYPDs chief of detectives was to portray him as a lone, crazed lunatic who was certainly not part of a broader conspiracy and whose religious beliefs were irrelevant and, as their public statements at the time demonstrate, the FBI went right along publicly with that theory.
Of course it was idiotic for Napolitano to say Hasans was not an act of terrorism and that there are no indications Mutallab is part of a larger terrorist conspiracy. Already, evidence to the contrary is overwhelming, on both scores. But this is the same error weve been making for 20 years. We dont want to come to grips with the fact that something we cant control something we can only fight or surrender to is causing Muslims to terrorize us. So we pretend the something and the terrorism dont exist.
FP: It appears that former Gitmo detainees released in 2007 may be behind this latest terror effort. The significance?
McCarthy: Well, we plainly should not have been releasing jihadist detainees all along, and this obsession to shutter Gitmo is sheer madness. Common sense says that, if even the Obama administration realizes it would be problematic to release the last 200 of them, these remnants must be a very serious national security threat. And yet, less than two weeks ago, we shipped another half-dozen back to Yemen as a harbinger for what the administration hoped would be the return of dozens more (Yemenis account for about 90 of the remaining 198 or so detainees). Thats nuts.
The Yemeni government, while it periodically feigns friendship with the U.S., makes common cause with Qaeda jihadists using them to help fight Shiite insurgents. The government has a history of releasing and allowing the escape from custody of anti-American terrorists. Sending them to Yemen as well as to Afghanistan and Somaliland, as weve taken to doing is like sending them right back to bin Laden.
The only thing possibly more absurd is the delusion that we can move them away from jihadism by sending them to a Wahhabist re-education course run by the Saudis, who have spent billions of dollars and half a century propagating the ideology that fuels Sunni terrorism. Rest at link
Posted by: ed ||
12/30/2009
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Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/30/2009 15:31
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this has been going on in New York for quite some time. I saw a piece on tv about this compound they have up there over 6 months ago. Muslims have these little "communities" all over the place. There is also one in Franklin County GA where you can hear automatic weapons being fired all the time. Local law enforcement is scared too go there and have only saw the FBI come anywhere near it once and that was right after 911
Posted by: chris ||
12/30/2009 17:31
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IIRC FOXNEWS > Guest Pert FRANK GAFFNEY > opined that the USA WILL TRULY LOSE THE WOT IFF
* HIDE OUR HEADS IN THE GROUND LIKE OSTRICHES.
* AMERS [espec WASH Govt. Leadership] REFUSE TO RECOGNIZE THAT THE ISLAMIST JIHAD IS A REAL THREAT TO OUR NATIONAL SURVIVAL + CHOOSE TO RESPOND/FIGHT AGZ IT WID PCORRECTNESS + HALF-MEASURES.
Twin suicide blasts in the western city of Ramadi on Wednesday killed 23 people and left the Anbar provincial governor wounded in the latest attacks against government targets to hit Iraq.
The co-ordinated bombings, which were blamed on Al-Qaeda and collusion from the security forces, struck the governorate offices in the centre of Anbar's provincial capital and also killed and wounded senior security officials.
The first attack struck near a security checkpoint at a road junction leading to the governorate offices in the centre of the Anbar provincial capital at around 9:30 am (0630 GMT). In addition to the dead and wounded, some 20 vehicle were destroyed in the blast.
About a half hour later, governor Qassim Mohammed Abid and senior provincial security officials, who were in the governorate offices, went outside to check on the situation.
"A suicide bomber wearing an army uniform ran towards the governor," police Captain Ahmed Mohammed al-Dulaimi told AFP. "Some security people held him back, and he detonated himself."
The attack killed governorate compound security chief Colonel Mahmud al-Fehdawi, and wounded Abid and Anbar deputy police chief Colonel Abbas Mohammed al-Dulaimi. Overall, 30 people were wounded in the two attacks.
Posted by: ed ||
12/30/2009
06:47 ||
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A top Chinese naval official has proposed setting up a permanent base to support ships on an anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden, raising the idea that China could build foreign bases elsewhere.
In an interview posted on the defence ministry website, Yin Zhuo -- an admiral and senior researcher at the navy's Equipment Research Centre -- said such a base would bolster China's long-term participation in the operation.
...
As the world's largest importer of crude oil, China is reportedly interested in establishing naval bases in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Thailand and the South China Sea to protect its sea transportation lines.
And to establish hegemony in the Indian Ocean ...
Posted by: ed ||
12/30/2009
06:44 ||
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Picking up where Zheng He left off, about 500 years tardy. How different the world would be if the insular culture had acted differently.
#3
I'd suggest one each in Yemen, Somalia, and Eritrea, Thing.
Something would happen. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/30/2009 20:08
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"And to establish hegemony in the Indian Ocean ..."
yup, I think the Indians would have something to say about that. Seeing as the Indians have a much larger blue water navy and they take very seriously their interests around the Indian Ocean
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/30/2009 20:55
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The Obama administration quietly announced last week that it would overturn one of the harsh immigration enforcement measures enacted by the Bush administration following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Beginning next month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said, those who arrive in the United States fleeing torture or persecution abroad will no longer automatically be welcomed with handcuffs and months in a jail cell. Instead, many of those seeking protection will again be permitted to live freely in the country while their applications for permanent asylum are considered by an immigration judge.
Posted by: ed ||
12/30/2009
06:39 ||
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Oh, goody! Now the bad guys can fly in, get a few lap dances, and then blow up a domestic airliner.
Any chance the One will re-visit this decision after the Christmas Miracle?
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/30/2009 7:05
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#2
So the 'keep out of jail free card' simply reads "I am fleeing torture and persecution." Will we be using the UN definition? Appears we'd better get ready for an onslaught of persecuted Gazookians, unwanted criminals from Cuba, and other new Democrats from the middle east. With the dole and food stamp money running dreadfully low, one must wonder how we are to feed these people. The Napolitano "system is working" for us again.
#3
Mark Steyn once remarked that the quickest way for an immigrant to get into Canada legally would be to commit some horrid crime in the old country and claim he's fleeing to Canada to avoid torture and execution.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
12/30/2009 10:17
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When is the Obama administration going to take the "kick me" sign off the U.S.? Why is he asking for trouble?
Christmas Day 2009 witnessed another attempted terrorist attack on U.S. territory. Al-Qaida and its affiliates intend to spill American blood on American soil -- lots of it.
For the clear-thinking, there is no question Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is a terrorist with connections. Yemen's government confirmed The Christmas Terrorist lived in Yemen from August to early December 2009. "Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula" (based in Yemen) claimed credit for operation.
Yet two days after the incident, the Obama administration's queen of incompetence, Janet Napolitano, said she had no evidence of a wider terrorist plot involving Abdulmutallab. Napolitano also stuck to the "terrorism is crime" narrative. Abdulmutallab committed an act of war, a strategic terror bombing of Detroit, but the ideologues running the Obama administration just can't acknowledge that. The Obama administration recently sent six Yemeni terrorists from Guantanamo Bay to Yemen. Why? Well, according to the terror apologists, George W. Bush treated these poor men like war criminals, which violated their rights ...
Posted by: ed ||
12/30/2009
06:36 ||
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Yet two days after the incident, the Obama administration's queen of incompetence, Janet Napolitano, said she had no evidence of a wider terrorist plot involving Abdulmutallab.
Which simply means she is NOT reading daily classified intelligence traffic and updates, or for political purposes is refusing to accept or believe any of it. You decide.
At least 70 people died in violent clashes between security forces and Islamists in the northern Nigeria city of Bauchi, according to a hospital morgue body count Wednesday. The clashes erupted Monday between suspected members of an Islamist sect and police and military forces.
Posted by: ed ||
12/30/2009
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DAILY TIMES.PK > [Mutallab]NEW TERROR PLOT PUTS PRESSURE ON NIGERIA.
...Having known Jimmy Carter when I was a Congressman and Mayor, I have a minimum of high regard for him. I believe that he has often used his position - most recently as an author - to damage the State of Israel, and in doing so, he has injured the Jewish community worldwide.
...When Jimmy Carter asks the Jewish community for forgiveness, I believe it is incumbent upon him to list what he believes he has done that requires forgiveness. I also think we should know if after leaving the presidency he received any gifts, lecture fees or loans from Arab nations. He should make available any correspondence he has had during that period with Arab governments and list all the compensation, if any, he has received from them. I also would suggest that he hold a press conference at which journalists could ask him questions on the entire subject. Then and only then would the Jewish community be in a position to decide whether or not to grant him forgiveness. He should also know there is no one person in the community who can grant him such forgiveness.
The thought surely has occurred to many, as it has to me: Why is he suddenly so concerned and in need of forgiveness?
...Skeptics say his sudden interest in bettering relations with the Jewish community comes as a result of his grandson's running for public office in a community with a large Jewish population.
Carter went to see a fortune teller. The fortune teller told him "You will die on a Jewish holiday!". Carter was in a panic, he replied "Which one, there are many Jewish holidays". The fortune teller told him "Any day that you die will be a Jewish holiday".
#4
LBJ, Carter and Clinton. I learned all I need to know about Democrats from those guys. Unfortunately, now I have Obama to teach me things that I never even wanted to know.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2009 11:54
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The Carter legacy:
On November 25, 1977, President Jimmy Carter hosted the shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and his wife, Empress Farah, at a sumptous state receptiono on the South Lawn of the White House. Despite thousands of Iranian students protesting outside the White House gates, denouncing the shah's human rights abuses and retrictions on personal freedom in the country of their birth, the president spoke warmly of his "close personal friendship" with the shah and called Iran "an island of stability" in the Middle East, reflecting on the personal and strategic ties between the two men and the nations they led.
Cited by Baqer Moin, Khomeini: Life of the Ayatllah, p. 186.
#6
...Skeptics say his sudden interest in bettering relations with the Jewish community comes as a result bf his grandson's running for public office in a community with a large Jewish population.
Um, good luck with that. I think (hope?) that the J-Street bunch may have learned a little from the past year....
#7
ironically, there are many doctrinaire libs among the Jews of Fulton county, GA; including many that hold no opinion on Israel or are peace-now types or don't really care what the dad of a State Senator says on foreign policy
this suck up might not change many minds
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/30/2009 13:51
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The EU's funding of NGOs in Israel does not constitute meddling in Israeli political affairs, and the EU hopes the government will not place restrictions on outside funding of these groups, the EU's new ambassador to Israel told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. it isn't 'meddling in policy'--- it's war by other means.
#1
The odd part is why Israel doesn't fight back against the EU. The EU does not have any considerable intestinal fortitude, and with a little finesse, Israel could make them back off.
If you had invested $100 in the stock market in January 2000, by now it would be worth just $90. This has led some writers to describe the past 10 years as the lost decade.
I disagree. Loss assumes an unconscious act of forgetfulness. This, by contrast, was a decade of deliberate escape, an era in time when America chose to enter an alternate reality. A 10-year interval where otherwise responsible citizens decided that the best way to deal with their problems was to simply ignore them.
#1
Any different from the previous decades when the rest of West and the international trading community relied solely upon America to provide its real security and economic foundation while all the time engaging in actions to undermine both? America just caught the disease everyone else was carrying, severe self centered behaviors. Things become 'interesting' when someone else is no longer around to provide the environment that made life comfortable. That creates anxiety and fear which can be read in the words they articulate.
#1
The attraction? "Shes a Russian Jew," he said, "who gets up earlier than I do."
Certainly wouldn't want to marry a common old American. Congratulations Peter, nice 401K catch for those jobless years, 2013 and beyond. If anyone knows they'll need it, it's got to be YOU!
#5
Time to move on; nothing to see here. Old news. The marriage between members of the Administration and the MSM took place a long time ago-lock, stock, and barrel.
#1
I mean, just because the CIA has been tracking him and then his dad felt compelled to contact the State Department about him doesn't mean we should have done anything rash like not let him get on a US-bound international airplane with a few hundred passengers on board.
That would probably be some type of profiling, and CAIR, the ACLU and Jesse Jackson wouldn't stand for it.
#2
I'm starting to become suspicious of this whole deal. For example, what if the explosive substance in his underwear didn't blow up because it wasn't actually an explosive?
It is a common trick to substitute fake ingredients to defeat bombers in sting operations, so even if they get through the net, they fail. Who but a chemist can easily tell the difference between ammonium nitrate and ammonium sulfate?
#4
I'm starting to become suspicious of this whole deal.
I have difficulty thinking the CIA would get the American public all "jacked up" with fake explosives in an airplane with nearly 300 passengers. But maybe.
#6
The August date might coincide with Mutt's father's visit to the USEMBASSY. Of course we will never see them, but I'd still like to read the cable traffic from Lagos and know what actions the FBI Legat and Bureau took, if any. A transcript of Mutt's father's statement [names, dates, places] or an interview would be most interesting.
#9
There have been reports by passengers on the flight that a passenger videotaped the entire flight. A blogger from another site suggested the following:
The video was for use in an unsuccessful attack, to find out what went "wrong" and prevent such a "failure" in the future. In the case of a successful attack, well, the attack would have worked, with no need to debug it.
Maybe. I have trouble thinking AQ wouldn't go for taking the plane down rather than merely testing reactions by passengers and crew. However, that said the Mutt said there are 25 or more boomers being trained in Yemen for similar missions.
I wonder when the current administration is going to wake up and realize we are in a world-wide war with islamic terrorists?
#10
"I wonder when the current administration is going to wake up and realize we are in a world-wide war with islamic terrorists?"
You can quit wondering, John. The answer is NEVER.
They don't think any of them are personally at risk, so they don't care.
Hate to say it, but the only thing that will get their panties in the correct wad is one of them falling victim to the islamonuts. (Maybe not even then, since the head fool is not at risk....) >:-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/30/2009 15:23
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Slot the b'stard, noone(!) will ever know. Chip every moslem at birth, they can fly Moslem Air, and be tracked, every flight in pig-skinned chicken wings. Time to call a halt to this rotten mess and snuff 'em.
#1
It was clear from his late teenage years that he was actually quite devoted to his faith. He never missed his prayers. We understand that he met some people who influenced him when he was in London.
How frikken predictable! These lonely misguided youts influenced by extremist stories make me wanna spit. The guy is a radical Jihadist who wanted to slaughter as many infidels as possible on Christmas day! Its the same angle as the disaffected youts from Minneapolis. Remember, they must have been coerced into blowing themselves up in Somalia. So the obvious question is, who influenced the influencers? And in turn who, or what, influenced that layer and so on. Our intrepid NYT journalists dare not open even the first Russian nesting doll because they are afraid they will have to say what is contained in the last.
These wackos seriously need their I-Phones crushed in front of their beady little eyes
EcoSnoop.- Sustainability through Activism EcoSnoop for iPhone is an activism tool that allows green-aware users to assist and encourage corporate green initiatives. What's the big deal?
It has been estimated that as much as 30% of the energy consumed in office buildings is wasted. This suggests a significant opportunity for energy use reduction, cost savings, and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions through cost-effective energy efficiency opportunities.
To help identify the best opportunities, both from the perspective of the building owner and the utility, it is important to examine how, where, and when energy is used and the savings are likely to occur. (Excerpt taken from the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency Sector Collaborative on Energy Efficiency Office Building Energy Use Profile)
Q: How can I help using my iPhone?
A: Users locate and report on eco-offenders by submitting pictures and descriptions of blatant abuse and misuse issues.
Q: What happens with my pictures?
A:The EcoSnoop website and iPhone applications are a centralized repository of environmental awareness and a tool for actively promoting energy conservancy and green awareness. By using the EcoSnoop iPhone application, the user becomes an important link in the chain of helping to report and mediate green waste (energy, pollution, etc.). Additionally, by going yourself and encouraging friends to utilize the website to add as much information as possible about the picture (address information, responsible party information, etc.) you are giving the EcoSnoop community the tools to encourage positive change!
EcoSnoop: We need your help saving the world; 1 picture at a time.
#1
"It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy."
-- George Orwell, "1984"
Posted by: Mike ||
12/30/2009 5:41
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#2
Well, oddly enough this is in Holland(!). And it wouldn't be able to detect modest indoor setups, looks like an outdoor-only tool for large-scale drying sheds and such.
"The Europe as you know it from visiting, from your parents or friends is on the verge of collapsing," Geert Wilders said in a speech in the United States last year. The leader of the Netherlands' populist Party for Freedom added: "We are now witnessing profound changes that will forever alter Europe's destiny and might send the Continent in what Ronald Reagan called 'a thousand years of darkness.' " And not just Europe, but America as well.
Been to Europe lately? Thought it was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. The passage of the Lisbon Treaty, hailed by President Obama, nailed the coffin shut on national sovereignty in Europe. The people of Europe fought it, but were overwhelmed by their political elites and the lack of American leadership in this age of our rather Marxist, collectivist U.S. president. Come Jan. 1, 2010, a disastrous and suicidal pact called the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Europe/Mediterranean) goes into effect with little fanfare or examination. It boggles the mind that such a consequential and seismic cultural shift could be mandated and put into play without so much as a murmur from the mainstream media.
Why should Americans care about this? Americans have to care because this global gobbledygook is coming to our shores, thanks to our globalist president.
The European human rights group called Stop the Islamization of Europe (SIOE) has been working tirelessly to expose the mass Muslim immigration plan of the Euro-Med Partnership. A statement on the SIOE Web site criticizes the secrecy of the process: "It was shocking to hear about the plans and at the same time knowing that Danish politicians and a [cowardly] Danish press - who is otherwise proud to be critical - has told nothing to the Danish people about this project which begins in January. This also showed clearly at the conference. Only very few politicians showed up and no media. Those politicians who showed up had obviously never heard about the Euro-Mediterranean project.
The goal of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation is to create a new Greater European Union encompassing both Europe and North Africa, with the Mediterranean Sea becoming a domestic Eurabian sea. The goal is to establish a "comprehensive political partnership," including a "free trade area and economic integration"; "considerably more money for the partners" (that is, more European money flowing into North Africa); and "cultural partnership" - that is, importation of Islamic culture into post-Christian Europe. According to the SIOE, in the Euro-Med plan "Europe is to be islamized. Democracy, Christianity, European culture and Europeans are to be driven out of Europe. Fifty million North Africans from Muslim countries are to be imported into the EU."
Skeptical? It's already happening. The British newspaper the Daily Express reported in October 2008 on "a controversial taxpayer-funded 'job centre' " that opened in Mali at that time as "just the first step towards promoting 'free movement of people in Africa and the EU.' Brussels economists claim Britain and other EU states will 'need' 56 million immigrant workers between them by 2050 to make up for the 'demographic decline' due to falling birthrates and rising death rates across Europe." To offset this decline, a "blue card" system is to be created that will allow card holders to travel freely within the European Union and have full rights to work - as well as the full right to collect welfare benefits.
A Muslim population from Africa moving freely into Europe threatens America. On Christmas Day, a Nigerian Muslim flew from Amsterdam to Detroit and tried to explode a bomb on the plane - after he was allowed to board the plane without a passport. The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership will make jihad attacks like this one all the easier.
And once in Europe, Muslims have already begun demanding special privileges and accommodations. IslamOnline reported on Dec. 21 that "Muslims activists from 26 European countries have come together to launch the first rights council to enlighten European Muslims about their rights, monitor rising Islamophobia and defend Muslim rights in European courts of law." Ali Abu Shwaima, a Muslim leader in Italy, explained: "We think European human rights groups are not doing enough to defend the rights of Muslims. Therefore we thought that we need this new council, especially that all laws and constitutions in Europe respect freedom of religion and oppose all forms of discrimination and racism."
"Islamophobia," "discrimination" and "racism" are all terms Muslims in Europe and America use to confuse people into thinking that the perpetrators of Islamic terrorism are the real victims. And it is working: Mr. Wilders is going on trial in the Netherlands, instead of all the Islamic hate sponsors he is fighting against. It has to be this way, to increase harmony among the Muslim and non-Muslim member states of the Euro-Med Partnership. This internationalism is already destroying what has made Europe free and great. And now Mr. Obama seems to want to do the same to America.
#1
Great article ...but politically naive or motivated an American journo trying to explain Europe from a touristic experience smell...a little
middle eastern and Africans north, south and central are hired by companies that the owner is usually a conservative and politically talking,leftist politically are against of non European emigrants
#7
I care about Europe - egad, it's where I keep all my stuff! /The Tick mode off
Agree with first sinktrapped commenter is that it's the view from a 'ourist', in some way; I certainly can't predict what's coming next, and then next, and then next,... but talks of "demise" certainly are premature. But SHTF, messy stuff, collapse of Nation-States, etc, etc...? Maybe, probably, I don't know, maybe the scenario will unfold like that, or like this. I'm not being shallow, it's basically all that, right now, everything's, everybody's opinion is hot air.
Wait & See.
As for the prevaling meme expressed say by Pam, or Grumpy G(r)om, why not? 2010 Western Europe has nothing to do with the 1960's one, this one is dead (according to local wingnuts, in no small part through jooooooooooooish influence, which is the ironical exact counterpoint to Grumpy G(r)om's own scapegoatism and victimhood-based bitgotry, and actually has some valid roots, as a good 50% of the post-WWII "destructive left" HAS been jewish, without delving into any imaginary GRand Conspiracy)... but, I just am bothered by premature post-mortem of "Europe", IE white european cultures and white european civilization.
We'll see what happens.
And, please, if push comes to shove, and the effeminated EUros try and fight back, please, please, please, don't lapse into that other "conservative" meme, the "fascistic by nature, racist, narrow-minded, tribal,... Europe-from-which-our-ancestors-once-escaped). I love the USA, at least my own imaginary version of it, but, spare me the Ralph Peters fantasies of the diverse, multicultural, race-blind USA having to rescue the hapless "european" muslims from an upcoming genocide, when the unenlightened EUros revert back to their roots.
#8
"Fifty million North Africans from Muslim countries are to be imported into the EU."
Sorry but that's utter BS
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/30/2009 8:52
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#9
I'm not being shallow, it's basically all that, right now, everything's, everybody's opinion is hot air.
Just ONE, single, thoughts exercise : set yourself back in late 2001, or early 2002 mindset; now, devote a part of your mighty brain to dwelve into what is known of BHO's background, with all its "colourful" and byzantine bits.
Pray tell, does any of the gentlemen (and the odd female) reading this would have simply DARED to imagine having HIM as president in 2010? Think about it... 2001 ----> Nov 2008. Dude.
Really, think about it, and come back and try to tell EUropeans that they are sick - they (we) are, can't deny it, but, well... so are you, and, believe me, no schadenfreude at all here.
Just understand it's not "you" and "us" against "them", it's "us" (yeah, even the israeli, sorry, G(r)om, but AFAIC, israelis are white europeans, in last analysis) and "them".
#10
EC, knock it off! Can't you see I'm trying, with my feeble means, to sound all deep and wise here! Don't you dare inject some rationality here, you're making me look bad by comparison, you're exposing my schtick. How am I supposed to work my self-esteem here? Have some heart.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/30/2009 9:15
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#12
Pray tell, does any of the gentlemen (and the odd female) reading this would have simply DARED to imagine having HIM as president in 2010? Think about it... 2001 ----> Nov 2008. Dude.
Play your own game, think back to 1992 and Billy Boy just being elected defeating Bush I, would anyone then think that Bush II would be elected in 2000 [and then barely by the hanging chad] or that we'd fact 8+ years of full war whose warning was in the first Trade Center bombing then.
The hair breathe win of Bush and the harsh division of the election outcome should have signaled that the country was indeed deeply divided and that the 'other side' would go to any lengths to manufacture a candidate that would gather power. They didn't care who or what it took, just get power back. It could have been Kerry, but the tradition of not changing leaders during war made the difference. When the opportunity presented itself they could have run just about anyone to include Hillary with their traditional alliance while dancing on the corpse of the Republicans who alienated their own with their rapacious behaviors.
#13
I certainly concur with your "feeble" assessment. You may also wish to belay the Ralph Peters drivel. I don't recall him ever saying anything of the sort, and I read it all.
#14
WIth EC on this. The "Eurabia" thesis is crap.
For starters, the vast majority of the muslims who come to Europe quickly become secular, or at most, weakly or rarely observant like Christmas-and-Easter Christians. The riots in France were simply race riots by bored, unemployed, 100% secular punks in the cites [projects]. When the imams told them to cease and desist from their favorite pastime of Grand Torch Auto, the kids told the imams to f--- off.
Second, even if most of the muslims in Europe were actually observant, their numbers aren't anywhere close to the 25% threshold that our own Mexicans have already crossed in the southwestern US. The 2nd- and 3rd-generation muslim immigrants have smaller and smaller family sizes than their immigrant forebears.
Finally, you get the sense the tide is turning for ordinary white (and non-white Christian) Europeans. Many of the Dutch have had it. The Swiss have just made their feelings known, in the minaret referendum. The Brits are starting to recover their ancient love of liberty and are protesting their leaders' embrace of sharia and multiculti idiocy.
As to the Euro-Mediterranean thing, it's nothing more than a trade bloc. All about money. Which, when you get down to it, is all the EU really signifies.
#16
How about a US-EU free trade zone? I don't want to live in an Asian Century. Our Euro in-laws p*ss us off from time to time, and we them, but let's get real: we and they have vastly more in common than either of us will ever have with the Asians or our respective neighbors to the south.
God help us and our children if "Asian values" ever displace western ones from pride of place in the world. If you don't like euro-socialism, just consider the Indian caste system or the bandit capitalism practiced by the Chinese government and military.
Peoples of the north, unite. Nothing to lose but a dim and bleak future.
#17
I don't recall him ever saying anything of the sort, and I read it all.
Besoeker, can't point to the very article, but I *did* read it (a couple years+ ago, maybe?), and it turned me off him, was reminded of noting it by having poster the JW article above earlier.
#18
One last dig: I don't care for EUcrats and Gore-style crony capitalism any more than the rest of youse, but really, our transatlantic p*ssfest is a tempest in a p*sspot. You ain't SEEN corruption till you've been to countries like India, China, Indonesia, for that matter Brazil, Russia, Ukraine.
We and the EUros are like a old couple. We quarrel constantly, he-says-she's-a-nag-and-she-says-he's-domineering, but neither of us has ANYTHING in common with the primitive, brutal, authoritarian and thoroughly corrupt and rapacious political economy you find outside the West.
It would behoove us to remember who the real enemies of freedom and individual dignity are.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/30/2009 9:41
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#20
I certainly concur with your "feeble" assessment.
Sorry, I do what I can, with what I have, the internet allows for people to vent off anonymously, just take it as it comes, and not too seriously... it's not like I am responsible for what I do or say, anyway, or should be held responsible for, at least. That's my whole premise.
I plan on hitting the tipjar for the New Year to alleviate the guilt of being able to speak along others, like if I were a real person (I'm not, but I'm mostly harmless, on the bright side).
Note that I don't read much RP, certainly haven't looked after him lately, but I really liked his "the shah always falls" piece eons ago. I don't have anything against him, it's just that he's not my cup of tea (Steyn falls pretty much in the same camp, though he's very entertaining to read and often funny).
#21
And yes I agree with Lex. Mrs Geller needs an extended trip to Europe.
There's no such thing as the "Islamization" of European culture. It's simply not there.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/30/2009 9:44
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#22
I don't want to live in an Asian Century.
I don't mind it. I have more in common with people who work hard, study hard, take care of their families and don't endorse every new intellectual fad that comes along than I do with Europe.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2009 9:50
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#23
I live in California. Was involved with a new school for kids here which, at one point, I hoped might offer my kids an alternative to the dreadful public schools. But now the project has been taken over by an Asian foundation which seeks to promote "Asian values," including
-- putting 40 kids into a classroom
-- kicking back 10% of the California revenues to the foundation, and squeezing profits out of the operation by paying staff slightly more than min. wage
-- violating CA employment laws, eg intervening in employees' private lives and political activity
I miss Europe. I miss the America that looked to Europe as the ultimate source of the best in our civilization and culture.
#24
Steve, I'm all for Americanized Asians. But Asian institutions as they exist today in CHina, India and pretty much all of Asia are profoundly opposed to our basic concepts of individual dignity. Side by side with respect for elders, respect for learning etc is utter contempt for any notion of transparent and honest government, rule of law, individual rights, equality of opportunity etc. Remember, the Asian Americans are the ones who escaped from those sh*tholes. They don't want their girls to wear saris or their boys to have to become gov't whores to make a living.
#25
Just understand it's not "you" and "us" against "them", it's "us" (yeah, even the israeli, sorry, G(r)om, but AFAIC, israelis are white europeans, in last analysis) and "them".
#28
anonymous5089, about half of the Jewish population of Israel come from Arab countries, Iran and North Africa. Given birth rate differentials, that proportion will be considerably higher. The culture of Israel is becoming less European to follow the birthrate -- which the neighboring countries will no doubt discover the hard way. The guilt of the colonizer is a European attitude, not an Arab one.
#30
In 2050 Europe (and the rest of the civilized world) will look very different. We will live (me only hopefully) a high tech information society, with little use for unskilled labor. Automatization in factories will be dominant, services done by intelligent machines (you won't see a cashier in the supermarkets by then).
High skilled services will remain... but we really won't have use for unskilled labor from North Africa.
And Islam is of little or no appeal to the average European not born as a Muslim. That won't change either. If there is a "respiritualization", it will be predominantly Christian.
Muslims living in Europe will also change, and 4th and 5th generations will differ little from, non-Muslim families. You won't see 5th generation Muslim families with 6 kids.
Extremists exist and will exist. We will have to watch over them closely. But Islam is not going mainstream in Europe and never will.
"Euroabia" is a myth created by Bat Yeor. Europe is certainly looking to expand its influence to North Africa and the Middle East, but it will not tolerate things the other way round.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
12/30/2009 23:04
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#31
It's okay. Maybe once we all are exposed to non-western European values for a sufficient period, we'll learn to fight back.
#1
Whale-hugging eco-freaks with death rays? This must be the 21st century!
Posted by: Mike ||
12/30/2009 5:41
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#2
Sea Shepherd is a criminal organization openly organizing and funding piracy and terrorism in the US and Europe. Our failure to prosecute this gang and its numerous enablers will come back to haunt as Japan continues to asserts itself in the future.
Didn't the Sea Shepard earlier file a complaint that a Japanese Wailer had 'attached' a helicopter with fire-hoses? (What was the Helo doing within firehouse range anyway?).
If you look at some of the linked videos you can see what appears to be 'Greenpace' actually ramming a whaler. And another were GP complains that two of their activists are 'kidnapped' when they are detained while boarding (uninvited) a whaler.
Didn't the Sea Shepard earlier file a complaint that a Japanese Whailer had 'attacked' a helicopter with fire-hoses? (What was the Helo doing within firehouse range anyway?).
#10
And another were GP complains that two of their activists are 'kidnapped' when they are detained while boarding (uninvited) a whaler.
Another case for "shoot, shovel, and shut up". Uninvited boarders are just pirates; treat them that way.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
12/30/2009 19:13
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#11
"Well, you see, officer, when one of them tried to climb aboard, we turned hard to port to try to shake him off. Unfortunately, he fell overboard. When we came about to try to pick him up, we accidentally rammed the Sea Shepherd at full speed. The thing sunk like a stone. By that time, the guy who had fallen overboard had disappeared too. We looked for them for a while, but couldn't find him. Or any other survivors from the Sea Shepherd."
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
12/30/2009 21:01
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Two defence volunteers were killed and three others seriously wounded by a bomb attack on the Panareh-Saiburi road at Bangtha Ruad village of Pattanis Panareh district on Wednesday morning, said Panareh police chief Pol Col Naruecha Suwanlapha. The five defence volunteers were on a pickup truck escorting teachers to three primary schools in the district when suspected insurgents detonated the 5-kg home-made bomb planted under the road. The explosion turned over the pickup truck and instantly killed Anuwat Temratana, 32, and Aim Yodsri, 54.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Somali pirates on Tuesday seized a British-flagged chemical tanker in the Gulf of Aden on the same day a Panamanian-flagged bulk carrier was also hijacked.
Reports said that the vessel, the St James Park, was captured in the Gulf of Aden en route to Thailand from Spain and is believed to be heading towards pirate lairs on the Somali coast.
St James Park has a crew of 25 with different nationalities and another 19 crew members were onboard the bulk carrier which was hijacked off Somalia's southern coast. The St James Park is the first merchant ship seized in the area in more than six months.
Nigel Choong of the International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting center said the tanker issued a distress signal late Monday when it came under attack.
On the same day, the pirates reportedly released three vessels -- a Chinese coal ship, De Xin Hai, an Indian fishing dhow, the Laxim Sagar, and the Singapore-flagged container ship, Kota Wajar. Pirates said Saturday they had received a 3.5 million ransom for the Chinese coal ship.
Two Britons kidnapped by the sea bandits in October on the journey around the world are still in the pirates' captivity despite efforts to secure their release.
A multinational European Union-led naval armada dispatched to the region to battle piracy in the Horn of Africa has so far failed to tackle the growing crisis in one of the world's busiest shipping routes. The vastness of the region makes it impossible to patrol all areas at once, and the anti-piracy presence has pushed the outlaws to expand their operations.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
Why is the world (US) letting this happen.
There are plenty of military assets in the area of Somalia.
We need to take the fight to the pirates and blockade the harbors they work out of , or unzip a can of whoopazz on their bases of operation.
It's quite simple. really.
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/30/2009 11:53
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#2
No worries! As soon as the CIA Vitilgo project achieves 100% host coverage, the pirates can be declared renegade mercenary colonists and we can slay them all with reckless abandon.
TEGUCIGALPA -- Just days after Honduras' recent presidential elections, Tegucigalpa Chamber of Commerce members gathered for their monthly meeting and breathed a collective sigh of relief.
``Finally, we can get back to business,'' said Luisa Maria Willingham, the chamber's director.
For five months, talks of networking and sales projections were put on hold as business owners tried to navigate through the civil unrest caused by the forced removal of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya in June.
Getting back to business now means facing the harsh economic landscape of a country that has essentially been on standby for half of the year. Almost 180,000 jobs have been lost since Zelaya's ouster, according to studies by Honduran business groups. A study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., found that nearly $50 million was lost each day during a series of curfews imposed by the de facto government.
While the Nov. 29 elections won by conservative Porfirio Lobo are seen by many as the country's way out of political turmoil, business leaders are hoping that international acceptance of the election will also restore faith among foreign investors and local consumers.
``Foreign businesses often have a fear of investing in Latin America because of the problems that have resulted from someone like [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chávez nationalizing businesses,'' said Adolfo Facusse, president of the National Association of Honduran Industry.
``What Honduras has demonstrated is that we're not going to follow in the political path of Chávez,'' Facusse said. ``Many business owners will look at what happened here, will note our elections and see Honduras as a more stable place where the government will not try to take over your business.''
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2009
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#1
Parts of this headline need saved for use here in 2010......
The chief if the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has said the elite force has not committed any extra-judicial killings in the name of, what he said, gunfights the crossfire in common parlance in the last year.
The comment of Director General (DG) of the RAB Hasan Mahmud Khandaker, came yesterday at a press conference on a year ending evaluation of the battalion activities at it's headquarters in the city's Uttara. The RAB chief said that a total of 60 criminals were killed in 57 separate incidents of 'gunfight' in 2009.
"We found all the 57 gunfight incidents lawful after thorough investigation into each of the incidents," he said, adding that the magistrate's report regarding the incidents gave credit to the incidents.
Replying to a query he said, "We use firearms in accordance with the law and we would have to prove it."
He said that a total of 2000 RAB personnel would be deployed at different strategic points of the city while 3000 others outside the capital for smooth celebrations of the new year.
The RAB DG expressed his satisfaction over the recent improvement of the law and order in the country saying, 'I must say the law and order situation is satisfactory."
As long as they keep doing crossfires ...
"In 2009, the RAB arrested 16,436 people in connection with different allegations. Besides, the battalion also recovered 1306 different sorts of firearms, 8163 bullets, 27 grenades in the outgoing year," he said. The DG also said that the battalion arrested 78 members of different militant organisations.
"So far, this year, the battalion's anti-drug drives hauled up 5,591 people. We have seized 42,284 contraband yaba tablets, 2,226 V1agra tablets, 34.174 kilogram of heroine etc," the RAB DG said.
It was originally 222,600 v1agra tabs, but, well, you know ...
"None of the RAB personnel from top to bottom will be spare if they are found guilty," the RAB chief said, adding that a total of 164 members of the RAB were punished for their misdeed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2009
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#1
60 criminals in 57 gunfights? What were the stats last year for Detroit?
#5
Actually, that was an attempt at a literal-answer-type of joke, but thanks anyway for linking me to the origin of the saying (which I never bothered to do before, as I knew the meaning and it was enough for non-curious me; note that lyncher/To lynch is also part of the french vocabulary, from that same Charles Lynch source, the joy of cultiral cross-pollenization).
The Myanmar authorities on Tuesday agreed to repatriate soon around 9,000 of its nationals out of 28,000 who are staying in two camps in Cox's Bazar as registered refugees.
Myanmar's visiting Deputy Foreign Minister Maung Myint, who held foreign secretary level talks here with Bangladesh Foreign Secre-tary Mijarul Quayes, agreed to take back the refugees shortly as Bangladesh handed over a list of 28,000 Myanmar nationals registered by the UNHCR as refugees.
Briefing reporters on the outcome of the 4th Foreign Secretary level consultations, Mijarul Quayes said the remaining registered refugees will also be repatriated after verification by the Myanmar government about their nationality. The Myanmar side has no reservation to repatriate them back after verification of the nationality of these undocumented refugees.
The refugees, popularly known as Rohingyas from Myanmar state of Arakan, started entering the country since late 1991. So far, 236,000 refugees were sent back over the decades with the help of UNHCR.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2009
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HMMMM, HMMMMM, DAILY TIMES.PK has it as > NO COUNTRY FOR 400,000 [Myanmar] MUSLIM REFUGEES, REFUGEES IN BANGLADESH SAY "NO" TO REPATRIATION.
Methinks its safe to say that for every Muslim refugee Myanmar/Burma takes back, TWO OR MORE go over the border into BANGLA.
North Korea on Tuesday confirmed it is holding Robert Park, a Korean-American activist who had illegally entered the country. The official Korean Central News Agency said, "An American has been detained since he illegally entered through the [North] Korea-China border on Dec. 24. He is under investigation."
He's figured out by now that life sucks in Nork-land ...
The North did not give his name or other details. It said he entered the North on Dec. 24, not Dec. 25 as a fellow human rights activist had originally claimed.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters, "We are concerned by these reports and we are looking into them." The U.S. is trying to get information through the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang.
The North could use Park as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the U.S., as it did when it detained two American journalists in March.
And if that doesn't work they'll just grab a few more hostages ...
Park apparently carried a letter in which he mentioned the human rights issue and criticized North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2009
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Park apparently carried a letter in which he mentioned the human rights issue and criticized North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
Wild-eyed optomist, and serious Moonbat meets reality.
Asuming he lives (I give it Not quite 50-50) I'd love to see if he learned about the world, or remains an idiot.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/30/2009 0:55
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#2
i'll take irredeemable idiot for a thousand Alex.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
12/30/2009 0:59
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#3
These idiots are volunteering to be captured in order to give the North bargaining chips. Talk about useful.
#4
Is Clinton gonna have to get out those knee pads again?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2009 8:41
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#5
No way. This guy said before he went over that he didn't want to be bailed out. He appears to be on the Christian version of a religious suicide mission. Just leave him to his fate. I'm sure he'd be the first to say, "It's in God's hands now."
Around 80 to 90 percent of North Koreans buy daily necessities in the market and an average of one person per household is a trader, making it unlikely that the regime will succeed in reverting to a centralized economy, an academic says.
When the state utterly fails to provide the basics, people will find a way to care for themselves.
Han Ki-bum, a North Korea expert and former National Intelligence Service agent analyzed the North Korean economy over the past 10 years and submitted a dissertation to Kyungnam University on Tuesday.
Citing interviews with North Korean defectors and sources in the North, Han wrote, "Some traders promote fantasies about South Korean goods. When young customers approach, these merchants tell them, 'Look at the [South Korean] mark. It's the best. Take it or regret it later.'"
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2009
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Around 80 to 90 percent of North Koreans buy daily necessities in the market and an average of one person per household is a trader,
This sounds exactly like my History lessons of the USA before 1800.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/30/2009 1:05
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#2
When the state utterly fails to provide the basics, people will find a way to care for themselves.
Well, those that survive, anyways.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/30/2009 8:48
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A man who allegedly claimed he wanted to start a holy war in Memphis will return to court Jan. 11 on charges of threatening to blow up several businesses on Christmas Day.
Mohamed Ibrahim, 35, is charged with commission of a terrorist act, false reporting and disorderly conduct. He is in the Shelby County Jail on a $50,000 bond.
The case has been referred to the FBI in Memphis for further investigation, according to the charges.
Friday afternoon, Memphis police dispatchers issued an alert that a man driving a black Chrysler PT Cruiser had threatened to "blow up the business" at 300 Poplar, a BP gas station.
A Memphis officer stopped the vehicle at Front Street and Jackson Avenue.
The driver refused to identify himself to police, and appeared to be hiding something, according to the arresting officer.
After Ibrahim was arrested and placed in a police cruiser, he began cursing police and attempting to kick out the windows, according to the charges. Officers subdued him with pepper spray.
Police determined that Ibrahim had earlier that day made threats to blow up seven other businesses around town, according to the charges.
Memphis police bomb squad officers checked the vehicle for explosives, then towed it to the impound lot.
An FBI agent called to the scene recovered three cassette tapes described as "Islamic" in a police affidavit, and took the GPS from the vehicle.
Court records show that Ibrahim had been arrested two days earlier with a 10-inch butcher knife concealed in his jacket sleeve and charged with unlawful possession of a weapon. He was released on $100 bond.
That day, Ibrahim had threatened other businesses and "stated he was a Muslim, and wanted to start jihad here in Memphis," according to the weapon charge.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
So was this guy a nut case, or the start of bringing it home.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/30/2009 1:19
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maybe both. definitely nutter....
Posted by: abu do you love ||
12/30/2009 1:23
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They're not exclusive, 49 Pan.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
12/30/2009 8:44
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300 poplar is right downtown
interesting that he didn't threaten Graceland
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/30/2009 9:53
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Graceland is in [or will be in] rehab for fixing up. These nut cases/jihadists would wait until the repairs were completed.
#6
Unfortunately, the REAL jihadis wouldn't make any such statements. The first thing you'd know of their presence would be places and people blowing up. THEY are the ones to watch out for. This guy may have been a distraction, to get the police to reduce their vigilance for the real jihadis.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/30/2009 14:35
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"charged with commission of a terrorist act, false reporting and disorderly conduct"
Oh, no! Not the dreaded disorderly conduct!
Why, such a charge will just ruin his chances of a good future....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/30/2009 15:30
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C'mon Babs, it is now on his PERMANENT RECORD!
Posted by: Dean Wormer ||
12/30/2009 16:15
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[Al Arabiya Latest] A Detroit-based American attorney told Al Arabiya on Tuesday he is organizing a peaceful protest against terrorism in the name of Islam on the day the U.S. District Court has scheduled a hearing for the Nigerian who attempted to blow up a Delta airlines flight.
"For eight or nine years Muslims are attacked by the media and by terrorists who pretend to represent us. It is time we take a stand and show Islam is not an evil religion, it is a religion of peace. Those who would commit terrorism do not represent Islam," Majed Moughni, organizer of the Dearborn Area Community Members, told Al Arabiya.
" For 8 or 9 years Muslims are attacked by the media and by terrorists who pretend to represent us. It is time we take a stand and show Islam is not an evil religion, it is a religion of peace. Those who would commit terrorism do not represent Islam "
Majed Moughni, organizer
The Detroit bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, is accused of trying to attack Northwest Airlines flight 253 en route to Detroit Metro Airport on Christmas Day, by attempting to detonate an explosive device on board. He claimed he was acting on al-Qaeda orders.
Moughni's Facebook group, the Dearborn Area Community Members, called for local Muslims and other citizens to join the protest and take a strong stand against Abdulmutallab's actions.
One post read: "Please bring your signs, and American flags: theme: "NOT IN THE NAME OF ISLAM."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
time we take a stand and show Islam is not an evil religion
While I like the idea, it's not much and kind of late. And good luck with it, Majed - betcha some of your 'peaceful' brethren show up looking for a fight.
#2
The insurmountable problem is, when your prophet says it's OK to lie "whenever you're uncomfortable", who's ever going to believe you're telling the truth.
Friday brings an end to a decade most Americans will be glad to see the back of. What's to like about a 10-year span that started with an embarrassingly botched election, moved on to the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history and ended with a harrowing financial crisis?
The "Aughties" were awful. But all the media-driven doom and gloom is getting a little out of hand. Yes, it was a rotten 10 years for America. But cheer up: Things aren't as bad as they seem, and there's a good chance they'll get better.
This was the "decade from hell," Andy Serwer proclaims in a recent Time cover story: a period of economic apocalypse and unrelenting terror, "the most dispiriting and disillusioning decade Americans have lived through in the post-World War II era."
Holy hyperbole, hackman. Has Serwer never heard of the "misery index," the measure of unemployment plus inflation that Ronald Reagan used to pummel Jimmy Carter in the 1980 race? At 11.84, it's at its decade-long peak right now, but it hit 22 in Carter's last months and busted Obama's record in four of the last six decades.
Surely the 1930s -- the decade that saw Hitler's rise to power and a U.S. unemployment that routinely passed 20 percent -- has to count as more "dispiriting" than the 2000s. And how about the '60s -- a decade of assassinations, vicious race riots, rising crime and a pointless war that killed more than 50,000 Americans?
The Aughties were worse, Serwer says, because "the idea that terrorists can attack anytime and anywhere is new and profoundly unsettling."
Well, settle down. The latest "Human Security Brief," tabulating political violence worldwide, reports that over the last decade, "fatalities from terrorism have declined by some 40 percent," while "al-Qaeda has suffered a dramatic collapse in popular support throughout the Muslim world." Every year of this decade -- including 2001 -- many more Americans died from the flu than died from terrorism.
Doomsayers like Serwer could benefit from a little historical perspective. As P.J. O'Rourke once put it, if you think there was some golden age in the past you'd rather live in, "let me say one word: 'dentistry.' "
The fact is, a lot of good things happened in the 2000s, and, typically, the bounties of the era were provided by private enterprise, not the machinations of government do-gooders. The Internet put the means of production in the hands of the workers, leading to a dynamic do-it-yourself culture in which bloggers compete with established columnists, bands without a record contract can hit it big, and anyone with a digital camera can get his 15 minutes on YouTube.
History comes in cycles. The Aughties resemble a milder version of the '60s, a decade that began with high trust in government (as happened after 9/11) and ended with Americans relearning the old lessons about federal incompetence and the limits to American power.
But whenever pessimism gets its hooks in me -- which is fairly often -- I think back to the introduction my colleague David Boaz wrote a few years ago for "Toward Liberty," a collection marking 25 years of the Cato Institute.
Boaz describes the stagnant America of the late '70s, with a top tax rate of 70 percent, 91 percent of television viewers chained to the big three networks -- a time when people literally couldn't imagine a world without the Soviet Union: "Energy czars. Gas lines. Raging inflation. ABC-NBC-CBS. Mao Tse-Tung. The Soviet Union. Apartheid. It was a different era. What wasn't so obvious at the time was that it was the end of an era."
That era ended because Americans corrected their course after two difficult decades, doing the right thing after exhausting all other possibilities, in Churchill's phrase. And the years to come will give us plenty of incentive to put America on the right path again.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
many more Americans died from the flu than died from terrorism
Now that's something the Government can do something about! Bring on Obamacare!
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/30/2009 6:13
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[Dawn] Ten civilians, mostly school children, have been killed during Western military operations in eastern Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai's office said Monday, citing "initial reports".
Karzai condemned the killings which his statement said took place in Kunar province, bordering Pakistan, on Saturday.
"Initial reports indicate that in a series of operations by international forces in Kunar province... 10 civilians, eight of them school students, have been killed," the statement said.
"President Karzai strongly condemns the operation which caused civilian deaths and has appointed a delegation to investigate the incident," it said.
A senior official in the Afghan government, speaking on condition anonymity, said the death toll could change because investigations are ongoing.
When contacted Sunday, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had no information on any operations or casualties in Kunar.
A senior Western military official told AFP that US special forces have been conducting operations against militants in the border regions of Kunar. "They have been killing a lot of Taliban and capturing a lot of Taliban," he said.
Politicians representing Kunar walked out of an important parliamentary session debating appointments to Karzai's new cabinet to protest against the civilian casualties, television showed.
The border regions of Kunar have long been volatile as Taliban fighters are said to cross the porous border from Pakistan to fight Western troops and Afghan government forces.
"In 33 out of 34 provinces, the Taliban has a shadow government," a Western military intelligence official told reporters on Sunday. Omar "has a government-in-waiting, with ministers chosen" for the day the government falls, he added.
"Time is running out. Taliban influence is expanding," the military official warned. "Where the (Afghan) government is weak, the enemy is strong," and able to exploit the corruption and unpopularity of Karzai's administration, he said.
ISAF had no immediate comment on the Kunar operations. US military sources said US Special Forces generally operate in Afghanistan outside the ISAF mission, as Operation Enduring Freedom.
Most recently, Karzai condemned the killing of six civilians during a NATO raid in early December as US Defence Secretary Robert Gates vowed US troop reinforcements would keep civilian deaths to a minimum. Karzai's office said six civilians, including a woman, died when troops from ISAF conducted an operation in Laghman province on the night of December 2.
Meanwhile a British soldier was killed on Monday in an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence in London said, taking the country's military death toll there this year to 107. The soldier, from the 3rd Battalion, The Rifles, died as a result of the blast while on patrol in the Kajaki area of southern Helmand province where British troops are based, the ministry said.
Earlier Monday, officials said Taliban-linked militants stormed a police post in northwestern Afghanistan, sparking a gunfight that killed two police and left three others missing. The militants attacked the post late Sunday in Badghis province, killing two officers, provincial police chief Sayed Ahmad Sameh told AFP. Three other policemen were missing, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
School children? How old were they? Were they kindergartners or were they older boys in a madrassa?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2009 8:38
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Simply amazing how quickly and accurately they are able to know civilian death tolls.
As soon as a terrorist hits the ground, they take his AK47 away and voila.. pfffft...he becomes a civilian.
This also begs the question... how come every terrorist hideout and training camp is full of women and children??
me thinks ENEMY PROPAGANDA
Posted by: Mike Hunt ||
12/30/2009 11:49
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Been like that for a long time, and our "Stuperior In Chief" doesn't get it.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/30/2009 12:54
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a factor in the problem is that the US will pay a family/village/tribe some serious (for them) $$$ if we kill a civi, but not a dime for a jihadi. so it is in the locals financial interest for as many dead bodies as possible (and any goats or dogs that can be buried before officials can get eyes on) to be 'civilians'.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
12/30/2009 23:09
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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned Tuesday that Russia will have to go ahead with a new class of advanced offensive nuclear missiles if the United States continues with plans to develop a defensive missile shield.
The powerful ex-president said in Vladivostok that the dispute was the main issue holding up negotiations on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Those tensions could be eased if Washington provides Moscow with full details of the missile shield plan, Mr. Putin added. He said Russia would reciprocate with information about its offensive missiles.
We should hope that Putin carries through with his threat. Every ruble he spends on new strategic missiles is a ruble unavailable to modernize the conventional forces which are in desperate need of new equipment, better training and better pay. The Bulava missile in particular has been one of the most expensive strategic turkeys in history. We can afford strategic defense, Russia can't afford strategic offense.
Russia analysts said the remarks appeared to be an effort by Mr. Putin to squeeze as many concessions as possible from the Obama administration before agreeing to a new treaty to replace an arms reduction pact that expired Dec. 5.
"It's a negotiating ploy," said Clifford Kupchan, a Russia specialist at the Eurasia Group, a risk analysis and consulting firm. "Both sides want a START treaty, but Putin wants at least informal constraints even around Obama's missile defense lite."
Hoping to chain down President Palin (or Pawlenty) in 2013 is more like it ...
Earlier this year, the Obama administration scrapped plans by the George W. Bush administration to base interceptors and radar in the Czech Republic and Poland in favor of a largely sea-based program.
Nevertheless, Mr. Kupchan said, Russia remains "in perpetuity scared of a potential U.S. ability to neutralize their second strike capability."
A former U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile officer and current Defense Department official told The Washington Times that Mr. Putin is "trying to get us to drop as many missile defense systems as we will drop. He is going to push until he finds that line where we say, 'No more.' "
You may not find that day while Bambi is around ...
Mr. Putin, who is widely considered to be more powerful than Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, appeared to deliberately link U.S. missile defense plans to the treaty aimed at reducing U.S. and Russian stockpiles of offensive nuclear weapons.
"If we want to retain the balance, we have to establish an exchange of information: Let the U.S. partners provide us information on [their] missile defense while we will give them information on [our] offensive weapons," Mr. Putin said.
A U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate state of negotiations told The Times, "We are aware of Putin's comments. The bottom line is that as the president said alongside President Medvedev in Copenhagen, we continue to work on the START treaty."
Indeed, Mr. Medvedev said in Copenhagen on Dec. 18, "Our positions are very close and almost all the issues that we've been discussing for the last month are almost closed. And there are certain technical details which we can encounter, many agreements which require further work. I hope that we will be able to do it in a quite brief period of time."
The Obama administration -- like its predecessor -- has insisted that missile defense is aimed not at Russia but at Iran and North Korea. Its decision to scrap the Bush plan, however, was seen by many as a concession to Russia and part of an effort to "reset" relations and improve cooperation on other issues, including Iran.
That worked well ...
Toby Gati, who was a special assistant for Russia to President Clinton and is a former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research, said the Russians "always regard their missile forces as the one element of their national defense which is the absolute equivalent of U.S. systems and gives them the stature of a great power on par with the United States in this area. They jealously guard any action which might undermine it."
Mrs. Gati said the Putin remarks could reflect Russian concern that the U.S. decision not to base a missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland did not eliminate plans for the system altogether.
"The Russians have always been concerned about our defensive systems, and their original satisfaction that we backed away from the plan in Central Europe is now over," she said. "Now they are facing the realities of what that new system is and the fact that the U.S. continues and will continue to have systems that they regard as a threat, even if these systems are not a threat."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/30/2009
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#1
Our defensive systems aren't designed to defend against a massive attack from a country such as Russia. They are designed to defend against smaller attack.
If Russia is worried about this, it says to me that they must have a strategy of limited nuclear war that such a defensive system would interfere with. It would potentially eliminate the ability or Russia to intimidate by threatening to launch a small number of nukes and force them to go "big" quickly.
It stinks. Force them to go big or keep them on the launcher. I am not in favor of anything that allows Russia or anyone else to play an intimidation game with the threat of a small strike.
#3
I think Putin is trying to make lemonade out of the Bulava lemons. They need a new class of missile anyway, but the Duma doesn't want to pay for it, so Putin is trying to pretend that Russia is threatened to squeeze the money out of them.
[Asharq al-Aswat] By Tariq Alhomayed
It is normal for Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah to defend of Hamas, and to make reference to Egypt with regards to the issue of [the construction of] the wall along the border with Gaza. This comes following [Hamas chief] Khalid Mishal's recent visit to Iran, and prior to this Hamas met with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and almost a month ago an Iranian official met with Hamas in Damascus. However what is strange is that Hassan Nasrallah's talk about Egypt comes at the same time that Ali Larijani was meeting with the Egyptian president in Cairo, and following this [meeting] he spoke to the media about the necessity of activating Egyptian -- Iranian relations, and also Arab -- Iranian relations, in order to reach a strategic relationship based upon an Arab -- Turkish -- Iranian alliance. Larijani's conciliatory talk completely contradicts the speech given by Nasrallah on the occasion of Ashura, in which he lectured Egypt and the Egyptians.
Nothing can be understood from this other than that there are two trends reacting against each other in regional Iranian politics...two trends that were born from the womb of the [original] conservative trend, and they are the hard-line trend, and the most hard-line trend. The Iranian reformists are busy, and in fact have concentrated all their efforts on the internal struggle that has begun to develop in a concrete and substantial manner, and this indicates that something might happen there.
The talk about a hard-line trend and the most hard-line trend in Iran is justified if we recall the course of events, especially those events that are connected to Iran in our region, and there is the contradiction of Larijani's position [towards Egypt and the Arabs] with Nasrallah who is associated with the most hard-line [trend] in Iran, particularly the Revolutionary Guards. However apart from Egypt, there is another example of this [contradiction], and that is the occupation of the Iraqi Fakka oil well [by Iran], which came at an awkward time for Iran's allies in Iraq, and was embarrassing to the attempts of some Iranian officials who wanted to improve their regime's image in our region.
Of course there are the attempts made by Ahmadinejad and others, to accept uranium enrichment abroad during negotiations with the west on the nuclear issue, however this was an issue that Tehran soon backed down from in the face of internal pressure from the most hard-line [trend] in Iran. This is something that could cause the Islamic Republic serious difficulties with the West, and particularly the US, and this will become clearer over the course of the month.
Therefore the internal division that has struck Iran seems to be causing larger cracks between the hard-line trend and the most hard-line trend, and this is something that will aid the west in dealing with Iran at a time when Tehran is in more danger than ever. It is clear that the most hard-line trend does not hesitate in moving forward to achieve its interests, the most prominent of which is removing all of those that stand in their way internally. This is something that increases Tehran's vulnerability, and everybody is expecting a dangerous event to take place as a result of this, especially the [reformist] Green movement is growing, and this proves that the movement is continuing its advance, without being concerned about being the Revolutionary Guards, or the Wali Al Faqih, and they are not concerned about what is happening abroad and continue to focus on the internal struggle that is now sweeping the cities, and not just the [political] circles.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
Basic English---you too can get along with 700 word vocabulary.
[Al Arabiya Latest] An Iraqi man was awarded $85,000 for informing security forces of a car bomb in Baghdad, the first such reward after funds were dramatically upped for
" The prime minister decided to reward a citizen who provided information regarding the presence of a car bomb in Jamaa, giving him 100 million Iraqi dinars "
Major General Qassim Atta
tip-offs, a military spokesman said Tuesday.
"The prime minister decided to reward a citizen who provided information regarding the presence of a car bomb in Jamaa, giving him 100 million Iraqi dinars," said Major General Qassim Atta, the spokesman for Baghdad operations command.
The identity of the man was not released for security reasons.
On Dec. 16, the Iraqi government approved plans to offer rewards of up to $85,000 for tip-offs about car bombs.
The decision came after Defence Minister Abdel Qader Obeidi asked parliament for funds to recruit informers, saying that the authorities lacked sufficient intelligence about insurgents.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
Now, that's smart. If the Iraqi security officials can control their passion for peculation, this is bound to work.
It's easier with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. First, she should be placed under oath and directed to explain why terrorists will not now detonate their weapons 61 minutes before arrival. And then reconsider her job.
Since the terrorist attempt Friday on Northwest/Delta flight 253, Napolitano has repeatedly said "the system worked." But it didn't. A terrorist was able to get a bomb aboard the airplane. It is no thanks to Napolitano that the passengers on 253 are alive, not in fragments in a warehouse somewhere, being identified by technicians. The system failed, but fortunately the bomb did too.
Unfortunately for the rest of us. For a tiny cost, terrorists apparently have panicked officials into inflicting more damage on the global air transportation system, by imposing humiliation and discomfort on passengers, while not making the terrorists' job any harder.
It's time to apply some serious security discipline to the protection of air transportation, on a global scale. This rests on the fact that no security measure is perfect. But if there are multiple measures in place, the attacker can't count on the imperfections to line up - link several slices of Swiss cheese - and has a much more difficult task.
Today's system wastes a huge amount of time and money searching people who are not homicidal maniacs - and this is the incontrovertible fact behind all the arguments about "profiling." Not only are most passengers not bombers, but most passengers are linked to a mass of data, an electronic identity that makes it easy to confirm that they are unlikely suspects.
Yes, some people will argue, but there's always the chance that a 44-year-old woman who's lived in Des Moines for 16 years and has travelled 20 times a year on business, on average, for the last decade has suddenly decided to become a suicide bomber. There is a chance, but it is a very small one, and if terrorist groups have to start recruiting in that demographic it will put a big crimp in their activities. Which is what we want.
So one way to greatly improve aviation security would be to take advantage of what we already know about people. Offer passengers a smart card, linked to a security rating - akin to a credit rating, based on personal details, life events, a travel record, the data trail behind the ticket and other factors, rated against the profile of known attackers.
(Privacy? Count yourself lucky if that's all anyone knows about you. The other day I was dealing with a bank online: In 30 seconds it was asking me to confirm what city a family member lived in, and it knew where I lived - 25 years ago. That horse is not just out of the barn - it has galloped across the open plain into the sunset.)
Use any of several hard-to-spoof biometric systems to match the card to the holder - they have to be better than photo IDs, and I speak as a person bearing not the slightest resemblance to my passport photo - and your high-rated passengers can sail through. Maybe not every time - I'd happily trade the imbecile shoes/jacket/laptop routine for a once-in-10 thumbprint scan and explosives check - but at least most of the time.
Then you can get rid of the low-paid, bored-to-death screeners doing the same thing over and over again and focus on the low-rated types. I'd guess that the alleged flight 253 bomber would have been among them: boarded in Nigeria, paid cash, no bags, 20-30 years old and male.
The absence of any kind of critical thinking along those lines is why Napolitano maybe should be fired. But that would reflect badly on her boss, and what we've seen in the last year is that, ultimately, that's what matters in Washington.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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Learn from the Israelis. Use well-educated, professional, highly-trained airport screeners to ask a few q's of every single passenger while he or she's waiting in line at security. Very easy to spot liars and nervous nells, esp those with one-way tix but no bags, islamic surnames, strange appendages strapped to the sides of their trousers etc.
Works for the Israelis and has done so for going on four decades. Cost? Maybe a billion or two per year. Cheaper than yet another stupid tech non-fix.
#2
#1 Learn from the Israelis. Use well-educated, professional, highly-trained airport screeners
What! No slip shoe, post-dap hand jam or grinning sociolect jive? Who will we find for Hartsfield-Jackson?
We trained hard at TSA . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning UNIONIZEto form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing....
#3
I keep telling you guys, the system DID work. You just have to understand what the system is supposed to do.
1) provide thousands of gov't employee jobs that can be controlled for maximum political benefit;
2) provide after the fact cover for every politician and bureaucrat;
3) sort the shredded aluminum from shredded people so that the greenies will be impressed by the recycling.
[Dawn] Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has strongly condemned the suicide attack on the main Ashura procession in Karachi on Monday afternoon.
Speaking to the media in Lahore, the PML-N chief said the blast in Karachi was yet another attempt by terrorists to destabilise the country and that 'they are enemies of Islam and Pakistan.'
Sharif added that the amendments made by military dictators in the 1973 constitution must be immediately abolished in order to restore some form of stability in Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Geo News] The security forces in Orakzai Agency have killed nine militants while 14 terrorists have been injured.
According to sources, security forces gunship helicopter attacked terrorists' hideouts in Anjani area of lower Orakzai, killing nine militants and injuring fourteen others.
During the operation, militant commander's house, seven vehicles, oil depot and four hideouts were destroyed.
On the other hand, Police arrested 60 suspects in a crackdown in Jandol area of lower Dir.
Meanwhile, old enmity claimed four lives in Jungle Khail area in Kohat.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Ma'an] Egyptian security forces detained four Palestinians in Rafah after they allegedly snuck into the country via smuggling tunnels running from the Salah Ad-Din border area.
Security sources told Ma'an the men had entered Egypt in order to finish smuggling deals with the local merchants. Intelligence reportedly questioned the men on the identity of Egyptian smugglers, but did not indicate if any names had been disclosed.
One of the men detained was identified as 31-year-old "HR," who allegedly disclosed the location of the tunnels he used to enter Egypt. The tunnels were reportedly on private Egyptian land, while two others were located on public lands.
Egyptian investigators said they were continuing to question the detained men for more information on the tunnel industry.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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(CNSNews.com) -- President Barack Obama, in his first public comments on the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit, described the suspect as "an isolated extremist," despite reports that the 23-year-old Nigerian had been trained in Yemen, a country he visited twice.
The Associated Press, quoting a Yemeni government official, said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab lived in Yemen for two extended periods of time -- a year, from 2004-2005 and again from August-December this year. He apparently was in Yemen a few weeks before the attempt to blow Flight 253 out of the sky over Michigan. (See timeline)
A statement posted online Monday by Al-Qaeda in Yemen (also known as al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) said its "manufacturing sector" had provided Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab with the explosives he took onboard the aircraft. (The United States has not yet authenticated the Web posting, but Abdulmutallab's connection to Yemen is not in doubt.)
Al Qaeda in Yemen is the same group with which Anwar al-Awlaki is affiliated. Awlaki, a U.S.-born imam, preaches a radical form of Islam that may have inspired the Fort Hood killer. As CNSNews.com reported earlier, al-Awlaki described Maj. Nidal Hasan as a "hero" after Hasan allegedly shot and killed 13 people at Fort Hood last month. Hasan reportedly had contacted al-Awlaki on numerous occasions before the rampage.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) told ABC News it looks like al-Awlaki "played a role" in the attempt to bomb Flight 253. "All roads point back to Yemen, they point back to Awlaki, I think it is a pretty deadly combination," Hoekstra told ABC's "The Blotter."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
President Barack Obama described the suspect as "an isolated extremist,"
The country discribes Barack Obama as "an isolated president and suspect"
Iran on Tuesday rejected rumors circulating the media that the body of Mir-Hossein Mousavi's nephew has gone missing, saying the body of the deceased is being held for further investigations.
Media reports claimed that the body of Seyyed Ali Habibi Mousavi Khamene, the defeated presidential candidate's nephew killed on Sunday in Tehran, had been transferred from hospital to an unknown location by unidentified individuals.
According to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the body of the 42-year-old was transferred by government officials alongside the bodies of four others killed on Sunday to conduct further inquiries into their deaths.
The Iranian police force has described Mousavi's nephew's death as "suspicious," saying that investigations into his "assassination" are underway.
The deaths came as anti-government protestors took to some central and downtown streets in Tehran on Sunday, chanting slogans against top Iranian government officials.
Iranian police forces used tear gas to disperse protestors.
Seven people were confirmed dead during the Sunday unrest.
Iran's Deputy Police Chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said earlier that the force under his command did not use violence against protesters, denying any involvement in the killings.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Mousavi's supporters are repor claiming that the anti-Mousavi Iranian Govt ordered the death of his nephew???
President Barack Obama on Monday expressed support for the protesters in Iran and denied that the United States or other foreign countries had anything to do with the unrest.
President Obama, in Hawaii where he is on a family vacation, condemned the violence against demonstrators on Ashura, the holiest religious ceremony on the Islamic calendar for Shias, and called for the release of those "unjustly detained" after the deadly protests.
Iran was the scene of protests on Sunday with security forces clashing with demonstrators who chanted anti-government slogans and damaged public property. According to Iran's police, seven people were killed during the unrest. The force says it neither used violence nor shot a single bullet and only used tear gas to disperse the protesters.
"For months, the Iranian people have sought nothing more than to exercise their universal rights," Obama told reporters. "Each time they have done so, they have been met with the iron fist of brutality, even on solemn occasions and holy days."
Iran on Tuesday blamed foreign countries for interfering, orchestrating and supporting the unrest in the country, which first erupted after the June 12 election.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the violent protests on the day of Ashura in Tehran were sporadic but well-guided and pre-planned. He said setting public property aflame and creating chaos is not acceptable anywhere in the world.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said supporting the violation of law and encouraging protests is considered as "interference in the internal affairs" of Iran.
President Obama, however, sought to distance himself from the Iranian assertion, saying, "It's about the Iranian people, and their aspiration for justice, and a better life for themselves... And the decision of Iran's leaders to govern through fear and tyranny will not succeed in making those aspirations go away."
He said Washington or its allies had nothing to do with the protests.
Following the Sunday protests, Iranian security forces rounded up a number of opposition figures, including former foreign minister Ebrahim Yazdi, who is the current Secretary-General of the Iran Freedom Movement.
The protests were also met with widespread condemnation in the country, with Iranian lawmakers staging a rally to criticize the riots and the use of the sacred occasion, Ashura, to stage anti-government protests.
Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, who spoke to reporters after the rally on Tuesday, asked authorities to show "no mercy" to rioters.
"Majlis wants the judiciary and intelligence bodies to arrest those who insult religion and impose the maximum punishment on them without reservation," Larijani said.
Tehran Prosecutor-General Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi promised that the Judiciary would firmly deal with the rioters, Fars News Agency reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
Do the Mullahs think its going to go away?
I think Bambi is finally smelling the breeze and has decided to get his toes a bit wet in whatever that is that's flowing down the street. He's a careful kinda guy. Like with the Afghanistan thingy..he likes to take his time on these statesman type thingys. Solemn deliberation, deep thought...then decisive action ( with a bugout clause ). The man is a born politician, nearly a god really. Greek Columns and symbolic Seals and unique Logos and songs from choirs of schoolchildren.
And those speeches...uses "I" and "me" about 34 times whenever he gives one. And I like that rhetorical flourish of "some say..BUT I say". That's pure Jesus gold.
Meanwhile they are torching police cars and working in teams to isolate some Basij and beat his fu8king brains out in less than ten seconds of quick work. Ever worked in a ten man squad of College boys with kerosene soaked knotted newspapers in a big trash bag you can stuff under the popped up hood of a Police car or just bust out the side window with a pipe and light the whole sack in the drivers side?
Pick out a particular Policeman, isolate him and cut him off. Then get him. Do it fast. Knock him flat with pipes (Five men) Cut his uniform off him with box cutters and leave him naked.( three men ) Slit his nose down the center so he remembers.( do that yourself)
Work as a team. Get another one. Use the crowds for cover.
By JOHN FUND
Even in an economic recession, Americans in urban areas continue to buy second homes in rural parts of the country, frequently helping to revitalize depressed areas. Inevitably, though, political operatives have also been seizing on weekend residents as a way to change the political complexion of rural communities.
Nowhere is the battle being more fiercely fought than in New York's Columbia County, a two-hour drive up the Hudson River from New York City. Local Democrats have encouraged weekend residents to register and vote on the theory that their ballots aren't needed in New York City, where Democrats already hold an overwhelming registration edge. In a lightly-populated upstate community, however, a few transplant votes can represent the balance of power.
That was certainly the case last month in the town of Taghkanic, which has about 1,500 people. In a closely contested race for local offices, more than 20% of the ballots were cast by absentees, almost all of them by weekend residents who appeared to have delivered narrow victories to local Democrats. In response, Republicans have sued, pointing to evidence that many of the absentees were people whose jobs, drivers licenses and primary residences were in New York City and legally should have voted there. Some may even have voted in both jurisdictions. Approximately 60 absentee ballots are at issue and could sway the result of some races if disqualified.
The case will be heard by a local judge in State Supreme Court in Columbia County tomorrow. Evidence before him will include spreadsheets showing that many of the county's absentee voters had signed affidavits for property tax exemptions on homes outside of Columbia County or signed second-home riders on mortgages securing their Columbia County property. Those riders explicitly say their primary residences are elsewhere.
"We are not against weekenders," says John Faso, a former GOP state legislator from Columbia County, who is supporting the legal challenge. "They don't realize they've been encouraged to vote in a way that isn't in accordance with the law." But Democrats are arguing that legal precedents allow people to choose where they can vote -- some have even launched a Web site called CountryVote.org that urges weekenders to "vote where your heart is."
A charming sentiment, but it flies in the face of New York's election law, which includes several criteria for determining where someone can legally vote, including place of employment, location of tax payments and where a family's children go to school.
Flooding rural elections with newbie voters who really live somewhere else is a clever tactic, but it appears to violate election law and can also exacerbate often delicate relations between long-time local residents and newcomers. If weekenders want to vote where they claim their hearts are, let them give up their city tax breaks, their exemption from local jury duty and their often blissful indifference to the real problems and challenges of their adopted communities from Monday through Friday.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
Violate election law? This DOJ don't care about no steenking election laws. Holder sez, "Laws are for wusses!"
#3
did you prefer an empty dwelling in order to keep a political majority without revenues, or the services the that revenue create including your capacity to vote in the first place?
#4
I prefer a government of laws, rather than of men.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/30/2009 7:09
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#5
A fair number of 'snowbirds' have always voted in Florida or NY, dependeng on the election - and sometimes both. Likely one reason the 2000 Pres election was such a mess.
#6
Hey, that's a good idea, Glenmore. You get up early, vote in NY, hop on a plane to FLA and vote there in the afternoon. Cool. Nobody's gonna check on it. There are all kinds of places where a scheme like that could work.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/30/2009 11:21
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#7
Generally done through absentee ballots, though I suppose the rural-urban double dipping could be done by car.
#9
My late Grandmother routinely invited us to go down to the town hall to vote when we visited northern Wisconsin. I didn't have the heart to tell her I wouldn't vote for David Obey if they paid me.
[Al Arabiya Latest] The Sudanese parliament adopted a key law paving the way for a promised 2011 referendum on southern independence Tuesday after northern and southern leaders struck a deal on a disputed article.
The new version of the law approved by MPs includes a provision demanded by southern politicians that requires diaspora southerners to cast their ballots in the south.
" This law is not a law of separation for south Sudan but is a law for the referendum. We all need to unite Sudan and work towards unity "
Deputy speaker Atem Garang
A previous version adopted last week had allowed for absentee votes, prompting a walkout from parliament by southern politicians fearful that if southerners voted in the north there could be fraud and pressure by the Khartoum government.
The United States had said it was "deeply concerned" that the earlier text had been stripped of the wording previously agreed with southern politicians.
Analysts believe that the referendum in January 2011 will almost inevitably lead to southern Sudan voting to separate from the north, with which it fought a civil war that cost the lives of two million people.
Delays in implementing the 2005 peace deal that capped more than two decades of conflict pushed the former foes into a political collision over the law.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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Top|| File under: Govt of Sudan
[Al Arabiya Latest] Lebanon's army said on Tuesday it fired at four Israeli warplanes which flew at low altitude over south Lebanon.
"The army's anti-aircraft guns fired in the direction of four Phantom-type enemy Israeli planes that had been overflying the (southeastern) Hasbaya region at low altitude since this (Tuesday) morning," an army spokesman told AFP.
U.N. peacekeepers and Lebanon say Israeli flights over the country violate Security Council Resolution 1701 that ended a 34-day war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in 2006.
The army publishes almost daily reports of Israeli violations of Lebanese air space. But it rarely opens fire unless the Israeli planes fly within range of its guns.
An spokesman for the Israeli army said it was checking the report of the incident.
Israel relies heavily on air supremacy and its air raids destroyed large districts of the Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs of Beirut and several towns and villages in south Lebanon during the 2006 war.
Hezbollah has said it has the right to acquire air-defense weapons and to use them against Israeli warplanes.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[21 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Phantom Type? I think they need to brush up on their recognition drills.
#4
Actually, I recognize that photo - I've seen it many, many times. It's part of an air defense exercise in East Germany. The weapon is a ZU-23/4. The area in the background is Finsterwalde Airfield, a few miles east of Berlin. I can't remember exactly, but I think the photo was taken in the late '60s or early '70s. Although it's not radar-controlled, the ZU-23/4 is a potent air defense weapon, since it pumps out a HUGE rate of fire. The Soviets put the same four-barrel weapon on a tracked chassis, and added fire control radar. It could be used both as an air-defense weapon and an assault weapon (ZPU-4). The Israelis captured a half-dozen from Egypt in the 1973 war.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/30/2009 14:48
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Old Pat, don't want to quibble, but the soldier on the left of the pic has an interesting eagle over his left breast pocket to looks a lot like the WWII insignia? Was there a similar insignia in the GDR military?
#7
Those are Soviet troops, NoMoBS. The guy you're referring to is most probably a lieutenant, and the insignia on his RIGHT breast pocket is probably an airborne infantry patch. Also note the red tabs on his collar - this is also an indication these are airborne troops.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/30/2009 17:39
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#9
ION PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > LEBANESE ANALYST: HAMAS IN 2010 WILL BE AS [militarily] STRONG AS PRE-WAR HEZBOLLAH IN 2006. The Hammies will be able to fire anti-aircraft missles at Israeli Helos + low-flying jets, emplace large quantities of IED explosives capable of destroying MERKAVA-sized MBTS = AFVS, ATGMS, + ability to attack Israeli civilian communities widin 100-kms [62 miles] from their Gaza bases. HAMAS will have the ability to seriously damage iff not destroy road-bound Israeli troop convoys.
#10
Mojo, Wild Weasels were retired several years ago.
USAF figured that they were unneeded, so parked them and the Aardvarks. Now they depend on the Prowler for the jamming mission, until the Electric Lawn Darts come on line in any sort of numbers.
But that won't fix your WW requirement in any case.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the United States and Colombia of conspiring to build a fake guerrilla camp on Venezuelan territory in order to undermine his rule.
In a televised address at Fort Mara military base in the western city of Maracaibo, Chavez referred to the 'possibility' of a US-sponsored initiative by Colombia to put bodies and weapons of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fighters in a neglected region of Venezuela in order to 'discredit' his government.
Colombia may transport corpses of leftist FARC rebels "to a mountain in Venezuelan territory, build some huts, an improvised camp, put some rifles there... and say 'There it is, the guerrilla camp in Venezuela,'" the Associated Press quoted him as saying on Monday.
"We have evidence that the Colombian government, instructed and supported, or rather directed by the United States, is preparing a false positive," he noted, using statistical terminology to describe the feasibility of such a scheme.
"The verbal war against Venezuela began weeks ago, saying that we have I don't know how many guerrilla chiefs hidden here... that in Venezuela there are rebel camps protected by the Venezuelan government, which is absolutely false," the Venezuelan president told soldiers stationed near the country's second largest city.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Ma'an] Fatah Central Committee member Sultan Abul Enein said on Tuesday that the blast in Beirut on Saturday that caused the deaths of two Hamas members was an accident.
He said in an interview with Voice of Palestine radio that the explosion resulted from a "misuse of arms," and had no security or political significance. Smoking while unloading the dynamite boxes, was it? Tusk tusk.
He did not say on what basis he made these assertions. Abul Enein served as one of Fatah's senior leaders in Lebanon for years before moving to the West Bank in August.
The two Hamas members were buried on Tuesday. Hamas has not publicly accused anyone of carrying out the apparent bombing.
Speaking at the funeral on Monday, Hamas' top leader in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan declined to speculate on who was responsible. Also on Monday Lebanon's official National News Agency reported that the blast had been caused by 15 kilograms of TNT.
This article starring:
OSAMA HAMDAN
Hamas
SULTAN ABUL ENEIN
Fatah
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
Hmmm, I've noticed an increase in Boomers going boom whenetting their devices, Scraping the bottom of the gene pool aparently.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
12/30/2009 1:10
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#2
Safety rules say to enforce radio silence when handling explosives with electrical detonators. Maybe somebody is driving around Beirut transmitting volumes of radio 'noise' and every now and then happen to do so as they pass a bomb factory. This would be strictly an unwitting malfunction of their CB, certainly.
#3
they passed up an oppurtunity too blame it on the jews? has hell frozen over?
Posted by: chris ||
12/30/2009 17:33
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#4
This supports my guess that Hezb wired the car and it went off before it was supposed to killing some Hezb workers and some Hamas guards. Hamas is afraid to blame Hezb and Hezb is afraid to admit their guys messed up.
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/30/2009 19:48
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#5
It was an accident, all right.
They meant to kill Joooooooos instead....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/30/2009 20:05
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[Ma'an] The Egyptian government has the right to determine through which port aid convoys to Gaza can arrive, and to request cooperation from the activists, Husam Zaki, spokesman of the Egyptian foreign ministry told Egyptian TV on Monday.
Zaki told Egypt's Channel Two that activists had finally listened to government orders, saying they would re-route the convoy to travel via Al-Arish, the Mediterranean port, rather than Nuweiba, the Red Sea port.
Viva Palestina organizers lamented in a statement that the demand would "add days and costs to the journey, as it [would] entail hiring ships and sailing around the Sinai Peninsula through the Suez canal." The first two convoys also traveled to Gaza via Al-Arish, and organizers did not explain why they had changed course for this trip.
The first Viva Palestina convoy, backed by British MP George Galloway, started in the UK, went south to Spain, then across North Africa to Egypt. For second convoy, in June, delegates flew into Cairo and drove equipment to the Rafah crossing.
The latest convoy travelled through Europe to Turkey and down to Jordan via Syria. Egyptian spokesman Zaki said he understood why the group chose to travel through Turkey.
"We realized the political goals behind passage through Turkey, most of the participants and the aid were from Turkey," Zaki said. He said Egypt had no problem with Turkish aid and Viva Palestina delegates coming into the country, but asked that participants respect the government decision.
He explained that a route for the convoy via Al-Arish had been approved by Egypt's security services, adding that all aid destined for Gaza was required to clear at the port in Al-Arish only.
Zaki said the convoy organizers were informed of the rules, but said the "did not even bother to reply" to the Egyptian communiqué.
Organizers told Ma'an they notified Egyptian officials of both the route of the third convoy and details of all the participants "well in advance" of the travel date, and added that they were only told of the rules preventing them from using the Nuwbia port on 21 December.
Zaki said the route for the convoy via Al-Arish had been approved by Egypt's security services, adding that all aid destined for Gaza was required to clear at the port in Al-Arish only.
Zaki said the convoy organizers were informed of the rules, but said the "did not even bother to reply" to the Egyptian communiqué. A spokeswoman from the Viva Palestina office in London said the accusation was false.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Ma'an] Hamas does not want to sign the Egyptian reconciliation document, but the party is ready to talk unity, Hamas politburo deputy chief Moussa Abu Marzouq told Saudi newspapers Tuesday.
Hamas leaders are ready to talk about reconciliation, but not on the terms of the Cairo document, the leader said, as high-profile Hamas leaders met in Damascus to discuss the same issues, along with Israel's latest offer in prisoner swap talks.
Abu Marzouq said the issue of reconciliation was at the top of the party's priority list, along with securing a prisoner release in exchange for a captured Israeli soldier.
Hamas will not think of signing the document unless our comments are taken into account, Abu Marzouq said, noting that if Egypt was not capable of brokering a deal than Palestinians would go elsewhere for assistance.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Geo News] Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi Hussain Mehanti has demanded judicial probe into Karachi suicide blast and fire incidents. Mehanti was addressing a meeting of district leaders. The meeting passed a unanimous resolution demanding the government to arrest the real culprits behind the attack and give financial assistance to the families of Karachi blast victims. Medical facilities should be provided to the injured and government should compensate losses of the traders besides announcing a financial package. Meanwhile, Muhammad Hussain Mehanti and Ex-MPA Nasrullah Khan visited Jinnah Hospital and inquired about their health. Earlier, members of All Pakistan Small traders Organization met with Jamat-e-Islami Karachi leaders and apprised them of the losses.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Dawn] Iranian MPs called for the "maximum punishment" of opposition demonstrators on Tuesday after violent protests erupted during a Shia religious commemoration and eight people were killed.
The conservative-dominated parliament condemned "disgusting comments" by Western governments about Sunday's unrest and accused the protesters of being "anti-religion" and "counter-revolutionaries."
"Parliament wants the judiciary and intelligence bodies to arrest those who insult religion and impose the maximum punishment on them without reservation," said the statement read out by parliament speaker Ali Larijani on television.
But the MPs appeared to be softer on opposition leaders, who reject President Mahmoud Ahmadienjad's June re-election as fraudulent, and urged them to distance themselves from the protests.
"We expect these gentlemen who had complaints in the election to wake up and clearly separate their path from this wicked movement, not to come out and issue statements again and make the air dustier."
The MPs hit out at US President Barack Obama over his "statement in favour of this group which committed anti-religion acts on Ashura" and said it was reminiscent of his predecessor George W. Bush.
"Such praise disgraces you and causes the system to act more firmly," the statement said.
Obama demanded on Monday that Iran free those protesters it had detained and told the opposition that history was on its side as he led Western nations in denouncing the Islamic regime's deadly crackdown.
"The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens," Obama said in Hawaii where he is on holiday.
At least eight people were killed as security forces used teargas, batons and eventually live rounds to push back thousands who had taken to the street.
More than a dozen dissidents were also rounded up as the regime stepped up its crackdown on opposition.
The nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi -- Ahmadinejad's main challenger in the disputed June election -- was also shot dead in the demonstration.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
I think the vigilantism sign should be directed at the Iranian MPs who said this.
[Straits Times] INDONESIAN police said the brother and father-in-law of Noordin Mohammad Top, one of Asia's most wanted men before he was killed in a raid in September, were being held on suspicion of hiding the late militant.
Top's father-in-law Bahrudin Latif and his son, who were captured last week in West Java, were suspected of possessing material used for homemade bombs.
Ito Sumardi, chief of police detectives, told reporters on Tuesday that Bahrudin Latif, also known as Baridin, and his son, who were captured last week in West Java, were also suspected of possessing explosive material used for homemade bombs.
Malaysian-born Top set up a violent splinter group of regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah, which was responsible for a series of attacks in Indonesia including the bombing of two luxury hotel bombings in Jakarta in July.
Mr Sumardi said police were investigating the network linked to Baridin, who was being held in Jakarta. Police have previously accused Top's father-in-law, who was a veteran of the Afghanistan conflict, of being a key figure in Al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia.
The militant has been on the run since fleeing just before a raid earlier this year in which police found a cache of explosive material in the back garden of his home in Cilacap, Central Java. Baridin's daughter married Top in 2006 and the couple had two children, according to the International Crisis Group.
Tito Karnavian, the head of Indonesia's anti-terrorism unit Detachment 88, said last week that despite set backs militant cells in Indonesia were still actively recruiting new members and planning attacks, the Jakarta Post reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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Top|| File under: Jemaah Islamiyah
A statement from Fatemeh Karroubi, wife of opposition leader and disputing candidate of Iran's June presidential elections, Mehdi Karroubi, was issued today denouncing the attacks against her family.
Ms. Karroubi writes that her family has been threatened by "nightly attacks of arbitrary forces." She adds that she holds the government responsible for anything that may befall members of her family.
Mehdi Karroubi has been repeatedly attacked by pro-government forces in the past six months. In the latest attack a group of government supporters in plain clothes attacked his car a few days ago.
Hosein Karroubi, son of the opposition leader, has announced that his father is "partially imprisoned" because his security personnel refuse to cooperate with him anymore.
Ms. Karroubi writes that certain officials have given the "green light" to a group of arbitrary forces passing as "revolutionaries" to attack "senior figures of the system."
She adds that these elements have been trained in specific sessions to commit any "immoral, illegal and irreligious act."
She also refutes recent rumours of her husband's arrest.
In the past two days, more and more hardliners have urged the judiciary to arrest the two opposition leaders, Mehdi Karroubi and MirHosein Mousavi.
Today the judiciary announced that they have arrested over 20 political activists and journalists.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
[Al Arabiya Latest] Three men were sentenced to death by hanging on Tuesday after being convicted of helping to plan an al-Qaeda truck bombing in northern Iraq in June that killed 72 people.
A judge at Rusafa criminal court in central Baghdad said the court "sentences to death by hanging Adnan Jassim Ali al-Juburi, Walid Mahmoud Mohammed al-Hamdani and Jawad Falah al-Hamdani."
He cited "sufficient evidence of their involvement in the planning and execution of the bombing in Taza."
The judge's name cannot be published for security reasons.
A suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives as worshippers left a crowded Shiite Muslim mosque on June 20 in Taza, near Kirkuk, north of Baghdad. Victims included women and children, and the blast flattened dozens of homes nearby.
Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, spokesman for Iraq's Supreme Judicial Council, put the death toll at 88.
The men can appeal the sentence. Birqdar said they had carried out the attack, but declined to outline their specific involvement or relationship to the suicide bomber.
A statement from the National Media Centre said the suspects confessed to carrying out the attack.
Most similar attacks are attributed to Sunni Islamist insurgents, who view Shiites as heretics, and to supporters of Sunni Arab Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath party.
Violence has fallen sharply in Iraq in the last two years, but bombings and shootings remain common.
Relatively few convictions for such blasts are handed down, partly due to the high volume of attacks and the lack of experience in modern forensic techniques among Iraqi forces.
The Taza convictions come as Iraq prepares for a March 7 parliamentary election, and as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki struggles to defend his reputation for quelling violence in Iraq after a series of major bombings in Baghdad in recent months.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Quqnoos] Afghan agents arrested four militants allegedly responsible for killing the country's deputy intelligence chief.
Abdullah Laghmani, the deputy head of Afghanistan's intelligence service, who was visiting his hometown on September 2, was killed along with 23 other people, mostly civilians, when a suicide bomber targeted him in Mihtarlam, the capital city of the eastern province of Laghman.
More than 70 others, most of them civilians, were wounded in the attack. Abdul Rahman, a military commander of Taliban fighters in Laghman, and three of his associates were arrested for planning the attack, the intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, said in a statement on Tuesday.
Rahman confessed that he received an order for the bombing from Shahid Khel and Maulawi Kabir, two Taliban leaders living in Peshawar, Pakistan, the statement noted.
The attack was carried out by a Pakistani national by the name of Abdul Jabar, it said, citing Rahman's confession.
The statement also said that by arresting the group, the agency foiled an attack on Laghman's governor because the group planned to target the provincial headquarters with a truck loaded with 2,500 kilograms of explosives.
The would-be suicide bombing was also plotted by Taliban leaders in Peshawar and was planned to be carried out by two Pakistani bombers, the statement added.
Afghan officials have repeatedly blamed Pakistan's government for allowing the Afghan Taliban to run training camps inside Pakistan, from where they plot attacks on Afghan soldiers and the more than 110,000 foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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Top|| File under: Taliban
[Al Arabiya Latest] Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States and Israel on Tuesday of staging an anti-government protest in which at least eight people died, saying it was a "nauseating play."
His talk of a theatrical piece "commissioned and sold out" by the country's two arch-foes, came as Iran's parliament called for opposition demonstrators to be given maximum punishment, which is the death penalty.
" Americans and Zionists are the sole audience of a play they have commissioned and sold out. A nauseating play is performed "
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
"Iranians have seen lots of these games," the president was quoted by state news agency IRNA as saying.
"Americans and Zionists are the sole audience of a play they have commissioned and sold out. A nauseating play is performed."
Ahmadinejad also condemned comments made by U.S. President Barack Obama and the British government, who have lashed out over Iran's crackdown on protesters.
"We have advised them repeatedly but if looks as if they insist on being humiliated, we are sure they will be humiliated more than their predecessors," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
So its all staged by foreigners and/or it only has one tiny audience in Iowa and no one else in the whole wide world is paying attention? Paid for by Langley and the Juice? No sh9t.
And its a put up job and no one is watching? yeah?
Sell me some really greasy Polish baloney.
And all those people participating and some getting shot and who could have stayed home...why are THEY motivated? Motivated in such numbers that you have to censor your own Media coverage its so huge and all over the place. And did I mention you are shooting your own people? I thought I might bring that up.
And take a look at the currency in your wallet and tell me if any of the bills with the Ayatollah's picture on it have "Death" in Farsi written across his forehead and down his nose.
I think you are talking to yourself and that you just might be having a very bad day there, Pussy.
President Barack Obama said Tuesday that "a systemic failure" allowed the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam. He called it "totally unacceptable."
The president said he wants preliminary results by Thursday from two investigations he has ordered to examine the many lapses that occurred. It will take weeks for a more comprehensive investigation into what allowed a 23-year-old Nigerian carrying explosives onto the flight despite the fact the suspect had possible ties to al-Qaida, Obama said.
"It's essential we diagnose the problems quickly," he said, interrupting his vacation for a second consecutive day to address the incident, with more anger this time directed at the flaws in the U.S. system.
The suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was on one advisory list, but never made it onto more restrictive lists that would have caught the attention of U.S. counterterrorist screeners, despite his father's warnings to U.S. Embassy officials in Nigeria last month. Those warnings also did not result in Abdulmutallab's U.S. visa being revoked.
On top of that, airport security equipment did not detect the bomb-making devices and materials he allegedly carried on board.
Obama said many things went right after the incident, with passengers and the flight crew subduing the man and government officials working quickly to increase security.
However, he said: "What's also clear is this: When our government has information on a known extremist and that information is not shared and acted upon as it should have been ... a systemic failure has occurred. And I consider that totally unacceptable."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
At first when I watched his speach today I thought, Oh look, he's finally getting some balls. Then the sad realization sets in. This is typical pattern. He is blaming America for the bomber. It's our fault, the CIA, FBI, the systems fault the bomber got through security. Just like he called the Mass police stupid and his wife said she was never proud to be an American. He, our president is supposed to be on our side, this guy was a terrorist, now our president has turned it into being our fault, he got through because we failed. Bullshit! He needs to stand up and say,"This terrorist tried to hurt my country. I will do everything in my power to hunt down everyone involved in this terrorist act. I will not rest until everyone involved in this event are brought to justice." But of course he won't, our prez is a coward.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
12/30/2009 0:55
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it has been a systemic failure... a failure for the people of this country to learn the lesson that life is not always fair, that sometimes you need to take care of yourself, and the government is not the answer to all your problems. there has been a systematic failure by the central institutions of this country(aided by 5th columnists on the left) to teach common values to our youth and to set a standard where someone is responsible for the outcomes of their actions.
Obama is the pentacle of this failure and our country will remain beclowned by him for 3 more years. he is the product of a broken system that promotes failure and lionizes victimhood.
excuse me, i need to go vomit
Posted by: abu do you love ||
12/30/2009 1:06
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#3
The cheapest and most effective solution for preventing these people from terrorizing America is to simply stop granting them visas to come to America. All of the 9/11 hijackers had visas and were probably having their expenses paid by some ridiculous diversity-driven foreign aid program. The underwear bomber had a visa. Take a politically incorrect turn and stop granting visas to Arabs and Muslims until the jihad is over. Stop letting innocents be slaughtered on the alter of political correctness.
#4
indeed... rather than the US having to prove they should not be let in, make them prove they should. place the presumption on 'danger' until proven shown otherwise.
Posted by: abu do you love ||
12/30/2009 2:48
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#5
Systemic failure means Bush's system failed. So it's not his fault.
One - or more - scapegoats must be found.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/30/2009 6:05
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#6
"Obama is the pentacle of this failure "
LOL! I'm sure you mean "pinnacle", but I like your version too - it is funnier.
#13
Obumble: Before I read this on TV, what does the word "systemic" mean?
TelePrompter: Systemic refers to something that is spread throughout, system-wide, affecting a group or system such as a body, economy, market or society as a whole. It should not be confused with "systematic", which means methodical.
Oblahblah: Wah?
TelPrompter: In this case it means it's Bush's fault.
Obambi: That's better. Could you post it phonetically for me?
Posted by: regular joe ||
12/30/2009 16:41
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#14
"Systemic failure" > USA, or the Dutchies? Yemenis? Somalis???
* PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > OBAMA: MILITANTS IN AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN, YEMEN, AND SOMALIA ARE PLANNING ATTACKS AGZ THE USA, + anywhere else in World Islamist MilTerrs are.
[Dawn] The army said Tuesday that its troops had killed an alleged Taliban commander and explosives expert during a search operation in the northwestern Swat valley.
"Security forces conducted a search operation near Charbagh and killed Abu Zar, a wanted terrorist commander," a military statement said, calling him an explosives expert who planned attacks against security forces.
"Two other terrorists were also apprehended with a cache of arms and ammunition," the statement added.
A senior security official in the area said Abu Zar was a "great symbol of terror" in Swat, and had killed a number of policemen and army personnel.
The military says it has quelled a militant uprising in Swat, which slipped out of government control in July 2007 after radical cleric Mullah Fazlullah mounted a violent campaign to enforce sharia law.
The army launched an offensive in April and says more than 2,150 militants have been killed in Swat and the neighbouring Buner and Lower Dir districts. It said in July that most of the insurgent bastions had been wiped out.
But sporadic clashes and suicide attacks continue to rock the valley.
Although Fazlullah remains at large, a number of his lieutenants have been killed or arrested, including Abu Zar's uncle Sher Mohammad Qasab, who died in September in military custody.
Qasab, dubbed "head of the Taliban beheading squad" by Pakistani media, was one of the most senior commanders on a list of 16 wanted militant leaders in Swat who had a 10 million rupee (120,000 dollar) price on his head.
Pakistan has posted a reward of 50 million rupees (more than 600,000 dollars) for Fazlullah.
The military is now engaged in an offensive in the northwest tribal belt along the Afghan border, where the core Taliban leadership and Al-Qaeda-linked militants are holed up in the rugged mountain terrain.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Bangla Daily Star] One person was trampled to death and two others were injured by a wild elephant at Lama upazila of Bandarban district on Monday.
The death is third of its kind within 15 days after elephants killed a four-year-old child and his father on December 14 at Bangali Para village under the upazila.
The deceased was identified as Moulavi Ayub Ali, 35, of Faitong union who died on the spot and the injured Noab Ali, 65, and Hasan Rob, 43, were sent to Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
Local people said Ayub Ali and few others were going to attend a wedding ceremony around 8:00pm when a herd of wild elephants attacked them at Keijja Khola area.
Lama upazila chairman Mohammad Ismail said at least 50 families from Muslim Para, Keijja Khola and Bangali Para villages left their dwelling houses in the face of continued attacks by wild elephants.
He also said ripe paddy, several thousand banana trees and more than 150 dwelling houses bore the brunt of the attacks by the wild elephants.
But those who are still living in the area appealed to the government for taking steps to save them from the attack.
Two groups of about 15 or 16 wild elephants were seen on the nearby hills, said local sources.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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Iran's parliament speaker condemns US and British officials for their reactions to disturbances in Tehran, saying that they orchestrated the "sacrilegious" events.
Addressing the parliament on Tuesday, Ali Larijani said that Iran was not surprised about the stance that Washington and London had taken towards the anti-government protests, which were held during Sunday's Shia Muslim ceremonies of Ashura.
According to Tehran chief prosecutor general Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi, seven people were killed in the clashes that broke out between security forces and demonstrators in Tehran on Sunday.
The Tehran police headquarters said that the police forces neither used violence nor fired a single bullet on Sunday.
"US and British officials' disgraceful comments about the sacrilegious events of Ashura are so disgustingly vivid that they clarify where this movement stands when it comes to destroying religious and Revolutionary values," Ali Larijani said.
"Israel's restlessness and its covert efforts to secure more Western aide for these sacrilegious movements has worsened the political situation. The anxiety of royal Wahhabi media has also caused an especially big scandal," he added.
Larijani also singled out US President Barack Obama's defense of Sunday's anti-government protests and said that his reactions was a "gift from God" that would prevent any "naive interpretations" about a possible shift in US policy.
"Washington's behavior during the past few months was nothing but an opportunist attempt to harm the national interest of Muslim Iranians.
"That goes for its childish interference in our internal affairs and its duplicitous gestures on the nuclear issue," he said.
After the Sunday protests, Obama condemned what he called "Iran's crackdown on protesters" and called for the release of the people who were detained.
"We call for the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained within Iran," Obama said on Monday in Hawaii, where he is on vacation.
Obama said that the US will support protesters during the "extraordinary events."
On Monday, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband also hailed what he called the "great courage" of those who took part in the illegal protests.
Iran's Foreign Ministry has vowed to summon the British Ambassador to Tehran, Simon Lawrence Gass, in reaction to Miliband's remarks.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Asharq al-Aswat] Baathists said that they feel like they are heading towards an increase in "stability and security" thanks to a number of [political] lists that will participate in the upcoming legislative elections scheduled for March 2010. These [electoral] lists will work to "return the rights of Baathists who were wronged by some political parties" following the collapse of the previous Iraqi regime. For his part, Iraqi Virtue party MP Sabah al-Saadi said "there are 30 thousand Baathists included in the Debathification [program] who hold sensitive [political] positions in the Iraqi state today.
Abu Ahmed, a former member of the dissolved Baathist party told Asharq Al-Awsat that "following the occupying forces control of Iraq, we felt panic and fear, but despite all of this we still had hope, especially as the President Saddam Hussein was still alive, but after his death there was severe fear and loss of hope for the majority of Baathists with regards to living a decent life."
Abu Ahmed added "most of us [Baathists] wanted to live in peace with a new life away from arrests and surveillance, and subpoenaing by security men. We suffered a lot as a result of political parties, and they asked a lot from us, we even surrendered our personal weapons to them but to no avail."
Former US Administrator of Iraq, Paul Bremer, initiated the Debathification committee in the wake of the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime in April 2003, to pursue the Baathists [and prevent them from holding political positions]. The committee's name was later changed to the "Accountability and Justice" committee, and the Iraqi parliament voted to enact a special law [on former Baathist members].
A former member of the Baathist party who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity said "the smile has returned to our faces after almost 7 years, and we expect good [to come from] the nomination of individuals and [political] lists to stand at the forthcoming elections and return to us what has been lost, especially as most of us have faced injustice and have not committed any crime."
This former Baathist party member, who joined the party in the 1980s, said "we have been waiting for these candidate lists to stand for election for several years, and [we expect] them to have a comfortable majority in the forthcoming Council of Representatives in order to defend our rights."
He added "we will vote for the list that is closest to us and will achieve our ambitions."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Dawn] Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, says the provincial administration has found important clues that may lead to the terrorist who planned the Ashura bomb blast. "What clues?"
"Important clues!"
He said, the recent interception of a van and recovery of weapons underneath its seats and the arrest of those planning to blow the Karachi refinery has given a lead and the government would soon succeed in arresting the culprits.
The Chief Minister said the government had put in place foolproof security measures to avert any terrorist act but terrorists succeeded in penetrating into the procession through a sidewalk.
He said the visual footage has provided important leads to investigating authorities and it may yield some results.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
the government had put in place foolproof security measures to avert any terrorist act but terrorists succeeded
#2
Just when you think something is fool-proof somebody makes a better fool.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
12/30/2009 16:53
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DAILY TIMES.PK/OTHER > PAKISTAN TALIBAN [TTP] CLAIM CREDIT FOR YOUS-E-ASHUR/KARACHI BOMBING, THREATEN MORE ATTACKS [agz "US Ally" within next TEN DAYS].
[Asharq al-Aswat] Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which claimed responsibility for the attempted attack on a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit, is led by a Yemeni who was once a close aide to Osama bin Laden.
The group formed in January this year, when leader Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi announced a merger between operatives from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Al-Wahishi, who goes by the alias Abu Basir, was among 23 al-Qaeda figures who escaped from a Yemeni prison in 2006. He is on Saudi Arabia's most wanted list, which includes many militants currently in Yemen.
At least two former detainees released in November 2007 from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have resurfaced as al-Qaeda commanders in Yemen. Said al-Shihri, who was released from a Saudi rehabilitation program last year, is a deputy leader of the organization in Yemen. Another former Guantanamo inmate, Abu al-Hareth Muhammad al-Oufi, surfaced in January in a video clip showing him sporting a bandolier of bullets as an al-Qaeda field commander.
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has been blamed for a series of attacks in Yemen, including an assault against the U.S. embassy in San'a, and suicide bombings targeting South Korean visitors. Recently, the group indicated it was ready to take its fight beyond Yemen. The government there said the Nigerian accused in the Christmas day attack on the U.S. airliner visited Yemen this year. In claiming responsibility for that attack, al-Qaeda urged supporters to get the "infidels" out of the Arabian peninsula. The call echoed Osama bin Laden, who criticized Saudi Arabia for hosting American military bases.
The group's first operation outside Yemen was carried out in Saudi Arabia this August against the kingdom's counterterrorism chief, though that bomb attack failed.
Experts believe the al-Qaeda fighters number in the low hundreds. The group appears to be well funded and has found sanctuaries among a number of Yemeni tribes, particularly in three eastern provinces.
This article starring:
ABU AL HARETH MUHAMAD AL UFI
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
ABU BASIR
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
NASER ABDEL KARIM AL WAHISHI
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
SAID AL SHIHRI
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Israel's two chief rabbis said they will renew the fight against pregnancy terminations as they warned that the high number of abortions in the Jewish state was delaying the arrival of the Messiah, Israeli press reported on Tuesday.
" The vast majority of abortions are unnecessary and forbidden by Halacha, adding to the gravity of this transgression is the fact that it impedes the coming of redemption. "
Chief rabbis
Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger and his Sephardic colleague Shlomo Amar condemned, in a letter to Israel's faithful, what they called "a veritable epidemic, which every year claims the lives of tens of thousands of Jews," Ynet news said.
The rabbis said "the vast majority of abortions are unnecessary and forbidden by Halacha" but also "adding to the gravity of this transgression is the fact that it impedes the coming of redemption."
According to the two rabbis some 50,000 abortions are performed in Israel every year and said only 20,000 are legal.
"What heart doesn't cringe by these numbers which indicate nothing less than a pandemic... and the loss of tens of thousands of Jewish souls every year," the paper quoted the rabbis as saying.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/30/2009
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#1
I agree, abortions is bad for the souls of the unborn. Except chinese abortions, of course. Since chinese have no soul (or, if they have one, it's painted full of lead, and filled with alkali-softened carboard mixed with ground pork fat).
Bottom line, less abortions for real people, more abortions for chinese - problem solved.
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.
By Pamela Geller
[Iran Press TV Latest] Somali pirates on Tuesday seized a British-flagged chemical tanker in the Gulf of Aden on the same day a Panamanian-flagged bulk carrier was also hijacked. 
The chief if the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) has said the elite force has not committed any extra-judicial killings in the name of, what he said, gunfights the crossfire in common parlance in the last year.
North Korea on Tuesday confirmed it is holding Robert Park, a Korean-American activist who had illegally entered the country. The official Korean Central News Agency said, "An American has been detained since he illegally entered through the [North] Korea-China border on Dec. 24. He is under investigation."
Friday brings an end to a decade most Americans will be glad to see the back of. What's to like about a 10-year span that started with an embarrassingly botched election, moved on to the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history and ended with a harrowing financial crisis?
[Dawn] Ten civilians, mostly school children, have been killed during Western military operations in eastern Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai's office said Monday, citing "initial reports".
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned Tuesday that Russia will have to go ahead with a new class of advanced offensive nuclear missiles if the United States continues with plans to develop a defensive missile shield.
It's easier with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. First, she should be placed under oath and directed to explain why terrorists will not now detonate their weapons 61 minutes before arrival. And then reconsider her job.
[Dawn] Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has strongly condemned the suicide attack on the main Ashura procession in Karachi on Monday afternoon. 
[Ma'an] Egyptian security forces detained four Palestinians in Rafah after they allegedly snuck into the country via smuggling tunnels running from the Salah Ad-Din border area.
Iran on Tuesday rejected rumors circulating the media that the body of Mir-Hossein Mousavi's nephew has gone missing, saying the body of the deceased is being held for further investigations. 
President Barack Obama on Monday expressed support for the protesters in Iran and denied that the United States or other foreign countries had anything to do with the unrest. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] Lebanon's army said on Tuesday it fired at four Israeli warplanes which flew at low altitude over south Lebanon.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has accused the United States and Colombia of conspiring to build a fake guerrilla camp on Venezuelan territory in order to undermine his rule. 
[Ma'an] Fatah Central Committee member 
[Ma'an] The Egyptian government has the right to determine through which port aid convoys to Gaza can arrive, and to request cooperation from the activists, Husam Zaki, spokesman of the Egyptian foreign ministry told Egyptian TV on Monday. 
[Dawn] Iranian MPs called for the "maximum punishment" of opposition demonstrators on Tuesday after violent protests erupted during a Shia religious commemoration and eight people were killed.
A statement from Fatemeh Karroubi, wife of opposition leader and disputing candidate of Iran's June presidential elections, Mehdi Karroubi, was issued today denouncing the attacks against her family.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Three men were sentenced to death by hanging on Tuesday after being convicted of helping to plan an al-Qaeda truck bombing in northern Iraq in June that killed 72 people.
[Quqnoos] Afghan agents arrested four militants allegedly responsible for killing the country's deputy intelligence chief.
President Barack Obama said Tuesday that "a systemic failure" allowed the attempted Christmas Day attack on a Detroit-bound flight from Amsterdam. He called it "totally unacceptable."
[Dawn] The army said Tuesday that its troops had killed an alleged Taliban commander and explosives expert during a search operation in the northwestern Swat valley.
[Bangla Daily Star] One person was trampled to death and two others were injured by a wild elephant at Lama upazila of Bandarban district on Monday.
Iran's parliament speaker condemns US and British officials for their reactions to disturbances in Tehran, saying that they orchestrated the "sacrilegious" events. 
[Dawn] Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, says the provincial administration has found important clues that may lead to the terrorist who planned the Ashura bomb blast. 
[Asharq al-Aswat] 
