See before and after photos of the Chirac-Crime-Family's removal of Christian crosses from a Brittany cemetary. One French blog says some of the interned fought naval battles against Muslim Barbary pirates (unlikely).
If Keith Ellison has his way, there will be no Crosses in Arlington Cemetary; only the Crescent sword symbol.
The last time I was upset like I am now was when those Buddha figures in Afghanistan were destroyed by the Taliban swine with opposable thumbs.
In the past, when armies conquered an area they would quite often then go to work to erase the religious and cultural symbols and icons of the population. Here we are doing it for them. Before they get there. With the misguided hope that they kill us last. Good or bad, it was what the people who died for a cause wanted. Leave it alone.
When Chirac dies he should be thrown head first into a volcano with no ceremony. Along with anyone else who thinks this is a good idea. At least they would know exactly what was going to happen to them after they died.
The fighting hasn't even started yet and they've already surrendered.
A colonial-era footbridge collapsed onto railroad tracks in eastern India on Saturday, burying a train beneath tons of red rock and killing at least 33 passengers.
Rescuers struggled for hours to remove the pile of concrete, slabs of red stone and debris from the mangled sleeper car. By nightfall, they reached the crushed section and discovered that the car believed to have been largely empty was full of bodies.
Thirty-three bodies had been recovered by Saturday night, including those of five children, said Ajay Verma, deputy inspector general of police for railways. Fourteen people were pulled out alive and four of the wounded were in a serious condition.
The 150-year-old arched footbridge at the Bhagalpur station, in the eastern state of Bihar, had been in the process of being dismantled, said Viplav Kumar, a local government administrator at the scene.
Bhagalpur is about 93 miles east of Patna, the capital of Bihar.
Two of the three arched spans had already been removed, but the third came crashing down in a cloud of dust.
"A loud roar and the heavens seemed to have crumbled over us," passenger Anil Yadav, told the Press Trust of India news agency. "Thick clouds of dust streamed into the compartment, leaving me gasping for breath."
Television footage showed a man pleading for help through a shattered window.
Hundreds of people crowded around as rescue workers used cranes, bulldozers and even their hands to remove the rubble.
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad ordered an inquiry into the incident and suspended two railway engineers responsible for dismantling the bridge.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said safety norms had not been followed.
"This is definitely the fault of the railways," he said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2006 17:37
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#2
Bihar is the poorest and most backward part of India.. its very own version of subsaharan Africa.
Only the presence of the Indian Federal government, and periodic presidential rule from Delhi prevents it falling into the abyss...
Posted by: john ||
12/02/2006 19:23
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#3
Got a photo from Alaska Paul a few months ago where a backhoe hit a bridge over I-70 in Kansas, cutting it half in two. I don't know why bridges hate trains, and I for sure don't know why backhoes hate bridges, but I believe stupidity is the common denominator...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/02/2006 19:42
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#4
I blame the metric system...minimum clearances are such a subjective thang
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2006 21:17
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One third of rebuilding contracts under criminal investigation Not enough.
BTW - Massive Merry-Go-Round Spin Alert. The gist and the facts are important. alG's Editorial hacking, flacking, and hi-jacking isn't. alG at it's, um, "best". Another BTW - sorry, but most of the money comes from the US, alG. We'll get hinky about the thievery, thankyouverymuch, you can fuck off. The Iraqi government is in danger of being brought down by the wholesale smuggling of the nation's oil and other forms of corruption that together represent a "second insurgency", according to a senior US official. Stuart Bowen, who has been in charge of auditing Iraq's faltering reconstruction since 2004, said corruption had reached such levels that it threatened the survival of the state. "There is a huge smuggling problem. It is the No 1 issue," Mr Bowen told the Guardian. The pipelines that are meant to take the oil north have been blown up, so the only way to export it is by road. "That leaves it vulnerable to smuggling," he said, as truckers sell their cargoes on the black market.
Mr Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Sigir), cites Iraqi figures showing that the "virtual pandemic" of corruption costs the country $4bn (£2.02bn) a year, and some of that money goes straight to the Iraqi government's enemies. A US government report has concluded that oil smuggling abetted by corrupt Iraqi officials is netting insurgents $100m a year, helping to make them financially self-sustaining.
"Corruption is the second insurgency, and I use that metaphor to underline the seriousness of this issue," Mr Bowen said. "The deputy prime minister, Barham Saleh, told Sigir this summer that it threatens the state. That speaks for itself."
The Bush administration's strategy in Iraq hinges on the survival of the government run by Nuri al-Maliki, despite US reservations about the prime minister's readiness or ability to confront extremists in his own Shia community.
But Mr Bowen's office has found that the insurgents and militias have also been abetted by US incompetence. A recent audit by his inspectors found that more than 14,000 guns paid for out of US reconstruction funds for Iraqi government use could not be accounted for. Many could be in the hands of insurgents or sectarian death squads, but it will be almost impossible to prove because when the US military handed out the guns it noted the serial numbers of only about 10,000 out of a total of 370,000 US-funded weapons, contrary to defence department regulations.
Jim Mitchell, a Sigir spokesman, said: "The practical effect is that when a weapons cache is found you're deprived of the intelligence of knowing if they were US-provided, which might allow you to follow the trail to the bad guys."
Mr Bowen's inspectors are among the few US civilian officials who still venture beyond the fortified bounds of the Green Zone in Baghdad into the rest of Iraq, to see how $18bn of American taxpayers' money is being spent. Much of the money has been wasted. Sigir officials have referred 25 cases of fraud to the justice department for criminal investigation, four of which have led to convictions, and about 90 more are under investigation.
A culture of waste, incompetence and fraud may be one legacy the occupiers have passed on to Iraq's new rulers more or less intact. Mr Bowen's office found that nearly $9bn in Iraqi oil revenues could not be accounted for. The cash was flown into the country in shrink-wrapped bundles on military transport planes and handed over by the ton to Iraqi ministries by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) run by Paul Bremer, a veteran diplomat. The money was meant to demonstrate the invaders' good intentions and boost the Iraqi economy, which Mr Bremer later insisted had been "dead in the water". But it also fuelled a cycle of corruption left over from Saddam Hussein's rule.
"We know it got to the Iraqis, but we don't know how it was used," Mr Bowen later told Congress.
In the Hillah region a defence department contract employee and two lieutenant colonels were found to have steered $8m in contracts to a US contractor in return for bribes. The Pentagon contract employee, Robert Stein, pleaded guilty earlier this year, admitting he and his co-conspirators received more than $1m in cash, help with laundering the funds, jewellery, cars and sex with prostitutes. Stein also admitted that they simply stole $2m from the construction fund, accounting for the money with receipts from fictitious construction companies.
Hillah just happened to be the district Mr Bowen's inspectors examined in depth. It is still far from clear how much reconstruction money has gone missing around the whole country.
A potentially far more serious problem has been the way the US government decided to give out reconstruction contracts. It split the economy into sectors and shared them out among nine big US corporations. In most cases the contracts were distributed without competition and on a cost-plus basis. In other words the contractors were guaranteed a profit margin calculated as a percentage of their costs, so the higher the costs, the higher the profits. In the rush to get work started the contracts were signed early in 2004. In many cases work did not get under way until the year was nearly over. In the months between, the contractors racked up huge bills on wages, hotel bills and restaurants.
According to a Sigir review published in October, Kellogg, Brown and Root (a subsidiary of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company) was awarded an oil industry repair contract in February 2004 but "direct project activity" did not begin until November 19. In that time KBR's overhead costs were nearly $53m. In fact more than half the company's $300m project costs from 2004-06 went on overheads, the audit found.
Iraq also represented a grey zone beyond the reach of the US civil courts. KBR was found to have overcharged the US military about $60m for fuel deliveries, but that did not stop it winning more government contracts.
A California company, Parsons, had its contract terminated this year after it was found to have finished only six of more than 140 primary healthcare centres it was supposed to build, after two years work and $500m spent. However, the contract was ended "for convenience", meaning Parsons was paid in full. In a police college Parsons built for $75m in Baghdad the plumbing was so bad that urine and excrement rained down from the toilets on to the police cadets. Parsons left a sub-contractor to do repairs but in general there is little punitive action that can be taken for shoddy work.
Part of the reason big US contractors have been able to get away with so much is that there has been limited proper supervision. CPA employees were picked not for their financial expertise but for their political loyalty.
Mr Bowen would have passed the test. He campaigned for George Bush in Texas and was one of the small army of Republican lawyers called in to Florida in 2000 to oversee the vote recounts on Mr Bush's behalf. When he started the job in March 2004 few expected he would do anything to embarrass the administration.
However, Mr Bowen has emerged as the scourge of the big corporations who are among the Republican party's biggest donors. Earlier this year a clause extending his mandate was stripped from a military spending bill just before a vote. Sigir, however, seems to have been saved by the Democratic victory in last month's elections.
Mr Bowen bristles at the suggestion that Mr Bush might have had a hand in the attempt to close his office. "I'm doing exactly what the president expects me to do," he said.
#2
WE taught THEM how to be corrupt? What is this idiot smoking? Has he never heard of the "Oil for Palaces" program? The UN supervised almost $100 billion in graft, fraud, kickbacks, and plain out and out thievery. Al-G must be hiring mentally defectives if they believe this is a story.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/02/2006 19:03
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This should make many here happy, ecstatic even. Meat for every ankle-biting crybaby cum armchair super-warrior on the planet. Dig in. WaPo's got your backs.
Ever since 1948, when Harvard professor Arthur Schlesinger Sr. asked 55 historians to rank U.S. presidents on a scale from "great" to "failure," such polls have been a favorite pastime for those of us who study the American past.
Changes in presidential rankings reflect shifts in how we view history. When the first poll was taken, the Reconstruction era that followed the Civil War was regarded as a time of corruption and misgovernment caused by granting black men the right to vote. As a result, President Andrew Johnson, a fervent white supremacist who opposed efforts to extend basic rights to former slaves, was rated "near great." Today, by contrast, scholars consider Reconstruction a flawed but noble attempt to build an interracial democracy from the ashes of slavery -- and Johnson a flat failure.
More often, however, the rankings display a remarkable year-to-year uniformity. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt always figure in the "great" category. Most presidents are ranked "average" or, to put it less charitably, mediocre. Johnson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Richard M. Nixon occupy the bottom rung, and now President Bush is a leading contender to join them. A look at history, as well as Bush's policies, explains why.
At a time of national crisis, Pierce and Buchanan, who served in the eight years preceding the Civil War, and Johnson, who followed it, were simply not up to the job. Stubborn, narrow-minded, unwilling to listen to criticism or to consider alternatives to disastrous mistakes, they surrounded themselves with sycophants and shaped their policies to appeal to retrogressive political forces (in that era, pro-slavery and racist ideologues). Even after being repudiated in the midterm elections of 1854, 1858 and 1866, respectively, they ignored major currents of public opinion and clung to flawed policies. Bush's presidency certainly brings theirs to mind.
Harding and Coolidge are best remembered for the corruption of their years in office (1921-23 and 1923-29, respectively) and for channeling money and favors to big business. They slashed income and corporate taxes and supported employers' campaigns to eliminate unions. Members of their administrations received kickbacks and bribes from lobbyists and businessmen. "Never before, here or anywhere else," declared the Wall Street Journal, "has a government been so completely fused with business." The Journal could hardly have anticipated the even worse cronyism, corruption and pro-business bias of the Bush administration.
Despite some notable accomplishments in domestic and foreign policy, Nixon is mostly associated today with disdain for the Constitution and abuse of presidential power. Obsessed with secrecy and media leaks, he viewed every critic as a threat to national security and illegally spied on U.S. citizens. Nixon considered himself above the law.
Bush has taken this disdain for law even further. He has sought to strip people accused of crimes of rights that date as far back as the Magna Carta in Anglo-American jurisprudence: trial by impartial jury, access to lawyers and knowledge of evidence against them. In dozens of statements when signing legislation, he has asserted the right to ignore the parts of laws with which he disagrees. His administration has adopted policies regarding the treatment of prisoners of war that have disgraced the nation and alienated virtually the entire world. Usually, during wartime, the Supreme Court has refrained from passing judgment on presidential actions related to national defense. The court's unprecedented rebukes of Bush's policies on detainees indicate how far the administration has strayed from the rule of law.
One other president bears comparison to Bush: James K. Polk. Some historians admire him, in part because he made their job easier by keeping a detailed diary during his administration, which spanned the years of the Mexican-American War. But Polk should be remembered primarily for launching that unprovoked attack on Mexico and seizing one-third of its territory for the United States.
Lincoln, then a member of Congress from Illinois, condemned Polk for misleading Congress and the public about the cause of the war -- an alleged Mexican incursion into the United States. Accepting the president's right to attack another country "whenever he shall deem it necessary," Lincoln observed, would make it impossible to "fix any limit" to his power to make war. Today, one wishes that the country had heeded Lincoln's warning.
Historians are loath to predict the future. It is impossible to say with certainty how Bush will be ranked in, say, 2050. But somehow, in his first six years in office he has managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors. I think there is no alternative but to rank him as the worst president in U.S. history. You're welcome.
One of the greatest traits of the french Vth Republic is that each president is worse than the one before him, and make people regret him.
Who could have thought that mitterrand, that awful, cancer-ridden crook, would be seen as a better man than shirak, by contrast?
Current Fearless Leader is yacoub ben shirak.
I let you imagine what it will take for the curse of the Vth to be upholded, and our 2007 president to fail even THAT standard.
The worst US president will be Mensa material, in contrast.
#5
"But Polk should be remembered primarily for launching that unprovoked attack on Mexico and seizing one-third of its territory for the United States."
Further evidence for the phrase, "inverted reality based community."
This mini-meme is being fed to most kids studying history these days, but it bears little resemblance to the truth.
Like most of the revisionist crap that the academic left attempts to spread, a la Gramsci, these days.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
12/02/2006 14:29
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#6
Johnson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Richard M. Nixon occupy the bottom rung, and now President Bush is a leading contender to join them.
No Carter?
Well this guy's obviously full of shit...
#7
"worst president" has several meanings:
1) Bush doesn't give a rat's a** about Eric Foner's opinion.
2) Bush doesn't even know who Eric Foner is.
3) Bush doesn't care what the Washington Post thinks.
Therefore George Bush is the worst human being ever.
Al
Posted by: frozen al ||
12/02/2006 16:39
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#8
...Christ, not THIS sh*t again...Every Republican president that I can remember (that's Nixon on forward) has been proclaimed 'the worst President ever" by one or more Learned Idiots.
Until of course the next Republican president takes office, and then he becomes 'the worst ever'..
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/02/2006 17:40
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#9
You really know what is the "worst ever"? It's the sheep who read total crap like this, by guys like this and, believe it; that is the "worst ever"
#10
do we get to vote on Eric Foner's status as "biggest donk bitch"?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2006 19:46
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#11
FDR was one of the best.
After 4 years in the White House, the US was in a depression.
After 8 years in the White House, the US was in The Great Depression.
After 12 years in the White House, the US was in World War 2.
Phalking brilliant, wasn't he ? His anti-depression policy actually extended the depression by several years. Big brother government, socialism, no workie.
We know that we are being lied to. Sometimes we just don't realize how much we are being lied to.
The more sordid the Islamic present seems, the more we are told of the glories of the Islamic past. And the most glorious of the glories of Islam, the most enlightened of its enlightenments, are the "Islamic science" and "Islamic philosophy" of the Golden Age.
So what does Islamic law say about this science and this philosophy? According to Reliance of the Traveller: The Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law by Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri (d. 1368), they are unlawful, serious affronts to Islam, a form of apostasy. Apologists for Islam in the West brag about the "Islamic science" and "Islamic philosophy" that their accomplices in the Islamic world condemn.
Reliance of the Traveller lists the following sorts of "unlawful" knowledge:
(1) sorcery
(2) philosophy
(3) magic
(4) astrology
(5) the sciences of the materialists
(6) and anything that is a means to create doubts
#1
Islam is the antithesis of intelligent thought, even about God. It is so self-contradictory that it insults itself. It is a death cult without peer, and a piece of fecal matter as a lifestyle. It denies the entire Old Testament, while pretending to embrace it. It has no validity, and there is no reason not to flush it down the tubes along with zoroastrianism and Quetzelcoatl worship - both of which reached higher intellectual and scientific levels than Islam can ever hope to achieve.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/02/2006 20:53
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A wide gap exists between Lebanon's Shiite and other communities in their opinion on a number of issues including the outcome of the recent war with Israel and the situation in Iraq and Iran, according to a survey released in Washington Friday.
The survey, conducted November 11-16 by Zogby International polling firm on behalf of the University of Maryland's Sadat Chair for Peace and Development, shows that more than 70 percent of the country's Shiites believe that Israel was the biggest loser in the war with Hizbullah this summer. That's in contrast to Sunnis, Christians and Druze in the country who overwhelmingly believe that the Lebanese people were the biggest losers.
Nearly 50 percent of Shiites questioned also believe Arabs should continue to fight Israel even if the Jewish state returns all territories occupied in the 1967 war as opposed to Sunnis, Christians and Druze who believe otherwise, according to the poll.
On Iraq, more than 50 percent of Sunnis, Christians and Druze believe civil war in that country will expand rapidly if the U.S. quickly withdraws its forces as opposed to nearly 50 percent of Shiite who believe that Iraqis will find a way to bridge their differences if U.S. forces pull out.
More than 90 percent of Shiites also believe that Iran has the right to its nuclear program as opposed to a majority who feel otherwise in the three other communities.
The four religious communities agree on a number of issues when it comes to the United States, including their belief that their view of America would improve if it brokered a comprehensive Middle East peace settlement that would lead to a Palestinian state.
All four communities also believe that the Democratic Party's recent victory in the U.S. elections will not make a difference as far as U.S. policy in the Middle East.
As to confidence in the U.S., more than 50 percent of Shiites and Sunnis said they have none as opposed to more than 40 percent of Christians and Druze who say they have some confidence.
More than 60 percent of all those surveyed believe that democracy is not a real U.S. objective in the Middle East.
When asked which countries they preferred as a superpower, France came in first among Sunnis, Christians and Druze while Russia topped the list among Shiites.
French President Jacques Chirac was the most admired world leader among Sunnis, Druze and Christians while Shiites favored Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.
When asked to name two countries that pose the biggest threat, the majority of Shiites and Sunnis identified the United States and Israel as opposed to Christians and Druze who said Israel and Syria.
"There were a number of things striking in this survey, on issues related to Syria, the role of Hizbullah and Iran," Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland who coordinated the survey, told AFP. "The line-up on these issues appears to be Shiite and non-Shiite, more than Muslim and Christian."
The survey involved 600 respondents and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percent.
It was released on the same day that Hizbullah led a mass demonstration in Beirut in a bid to force the resignation of Premier Fouad Saniora's government.(AFP)
Zogby has not yet posted the poll's tabular results.
Deborah Orr
Next week I'm going to the cinema. Definitely. Without the required escort? Stone her.
But this Thursday evening saw me sitting on a panel of five women in Whitechapel, and taking part in a "Dialogue With Islam" about whether the veil is "a mark of separation" or "a statement of identity". That there was a 'debate' indicates that we still have a problem.
Quite how these two categories are mutually exclusive, I'm afraid, was not resolved during the debate. Neither was anything else. They're quite the same, actually, and that's the point.
The more I try to get to grips with this issue, the more puzzling I find it all. I learned during the course of some full and frank exchanges, though, that the veiling of women has got nothing whatsoever to do with female sexuality, protection from the gaze of strangers, or anything else at all. The reason why Muslim women adopt total face and body shrouding is because Allah tells them to. There is, apparently, no other explanation that is either relevant or necessary, whether you believe in Allah or you don't. There is a difference, however: if you wear a shroud because you believe that Allan demands it, fine and dandy. If you wear a shroud because you're afraid that if you don't, the local hard boyz from the Committee for the Protection of Virtue and Elimination of Vice will beat you half to death, then we have a serious problem. It's hard to be a good, progressive feminist when you're scared of being killed if you violate some arcane rule. Allan's commands aren't the central issue here (for many of us), it's the demands of his more fanatical, male adherents.
I learned too, more forcefully than I've heard it expressed before, that the idea that this "dress code" oppresses women is ridiculous. Sure Deb, seems rather silly: dressing women like sacks of potatoes shouldn't be considered oppressive in the least. After all, it's the woman's responsibility to control the desires of the men around her.
The reason why there has never been a concerted Muslim feminist movement (I'm told) is that Muslim women have always had all of the equalities that Western women are still struggling with the vile British patriarchy to achieve. Quite where this splendid state of affairs can be seen working in an actual society remains somewhat elusive though. Which is a shame, because I'd be off there like a shot if only I could locate the place. Pay attention, Deb: Saoodi-controlled Arabia. Iran. Mauritania. Great place, that Mauritania.
Here though, Muslims are constantly and invariably demonised (the audience started jeering when I questioned this entirely negative view), it's all the Government's fault, everything, and since Islamic terrorism is a contradiction in terms, ... Not a contradiction, but increasingly redundant.
... it doesn't exist and therefore can hardly be cited as an influence, rightly or wrongly, on the current woeful state of misunderstanding and distrust. I actually understand the people who advocate my death or forced conversion to their religion, and I always distrust them.
People never go on about Christian terrorists, apparently, which proves something -- That there aren't too many. Remember Eric Rudolph? You know him, the fellow who murdered a couple of abortion doctors. Remember the end to his story? A Department of Justice headed by a Bush appointee and an FBI headed by a Bush appointee prosecuted him in a courtroom headed by a Bush appointee, and he's now incarcerated in a federal prison run by a Bush appointee.
And he's about the only one I can think of here in the States.
-- although I do vaguely remember the days when you only appeared to get two kinds of terrorist anyway - Catholic and Protestant. You haven't travelled much, else you'd have encountered Coptic, Orthodox and Chaldian terrorists.
(In an unfortunate cultural echo, they wore black face coverings that showed only their eyes as well.) It was totally grim, of course, back in the days when any Irish person was viewed as a potential terrorist, and much injustice resulted from such assumptions. Remember those days? Remember how few IRA hard boyz it took to bring an entire population under suspicion? And how the moderate Irish government, and moderate Northern Irish government, and brave moderate Irish men and women, went to great lengths in blood and sacrifice to bring it to an end? We're still waiting for the moderate Muslim community and moderate Muslim governments to do the same.
I hate the British government's demands that the Muslim community should take on collective guilt for Islamic terror, ... Wrong. They don't demand guilt. They demand responsibility. The Muslim community has to help police itself, and good, loyal Brits of Muslim faith need to rat out the terrorists and terrorist supporters in their midst. There's a difference.
... and I do consider myself to have a great deal in common with the Muslim people I was discussing these matters with. In that case, you're on my list.
I didn't support the attack on Afghanistan. Why the hell not? Did you support the Taliban? Or is it that they were too far away and the evil they were committing, from blowing up Buddhas to executing their women in soccer stadiums to enabling terrorist attacks halfway around the world, was too distant for you to care? Remind me, aren't liberals supposed to care about the oppression of ordinary people? Here was the Taliban lopping heads and beating people for the slightest of infractions. Other than issuing statements, what would you do about it? Poseur.
I didn't support the war in Iraq. The best face you can put on that position is that you simply didn't (and don't) give a rat's ass about the ordinary people of Iraq. Screw 'em, you got yours. That they were starved and beaten and used cynically for Saddam's own ends, well, that's their tough luck. If they care enough they can revolt on their own, and if Saddam crushes them too bad. And the sanctions were evil because babies were dying; after all the BBC told you so.
The people who were so firm about doing away with (for example) apartheid melted away when confronted with the genuine evil of Saddam. What does that say about your morality?
I think the "war on terror" and the "axis of evil" are stupid and divisive pieces of dumb propaganda. Until more of your citizens are blown up in the Tube. Then you might gain an appreciation that terror is real, that law enforcement alone as the single arrow in your quiver is an inadequate response, and that there is indeed collusion of evil people to generate and spread terror.
I'm troubled by the social exclusion of many Muslims, just as I am by that of other British minorities. Britain is one of the most inclusive countries in the world today. Go ahead and be troubled by the 'social exclusion' of many Muslims; just be mindful as to why, and the extent to which it's generated by Muslims themselves who consider you to be unclean and an infidel.
I agree with many of the criticism that the people in Mile End made of British society. Of course you do. Can't possibly imagine that you or they would have anything good to say about your society. That's part of being a good progressive: all cultures are equal except your own which is inferior. Even we at Rantburg have better things to say about Britain than you do, and you live there.
But I'm seen by many of the people I spoke with on Thursday as Islamophobic, just because I have some criticisms of Islam - and indeed of revealed religion generally. You might expect that Muslims who care greatly about their faith will consider atheistic critics of said faith to be evil and unworthy of respect. Christians also tend to get a little riled when confronted by such people, especially when their critics are both strident and stupid.
Except a Christian won't behead you.
That they seem entirely anti-Western, on the other hand, is it be honoured, respected and genially tolerated, if we are to prove ourselves as liberally democratic as we like to say we are. It's quite a trick - having to accept opposing values in order to be seen to uphold your own. And remember, your own society is e-e-e-evil and inferior. Who says so? You do. Why would you expect your opponents to disagree?
Turning up before a bunch of people who have nothing positive to say about Britain or its culture is depressing. For you as a good progressive it should have been exhilerating.
I'm all for meeting people half way, and so are many British Muslims. But this audience, at least, appeared to want to hear nothing except a fulsome surrender to the idea that the West is always terrible and Islam is always best. No can do. Why not? You seem most of the way there already. Remember to have yourself fitted for a black burqa -- Seafarious, our own fashion consultant, points out that blue will make your ankles look fat.
#4
That is Dr Steve White, wxj - not me. Got all over this, didn't he? Lol. I should charge him the Madam's fee for posting it - I can tell he left with a smile on his face...
WASHINGTON - Liberals cheered the announcement Friday that Los Angeles Democrat Rep. Jane Harman will not lead the House Intelligence Committee next year, while military analysts called the decision a loss for national security.
"I think Harman would have been one of the worst choices for this position," said author and popular liberal commentator Glenn Greenwald. "It's very refreshing to see Pelosi choose someone who will take oversight seriously." And all of Glenn's sock puppets agreed, doncha know.
But Dan Goure, a national security expert with the Lexington Institute think tank, described Harman as a well-respected expert on intelligence matters and called her removal a mistake. "I think that it is a mistake for Democrats newly in power after a decade of being in the wilderness to not go with their strongest team, and that was Jane Harman," Goure said.
Security experts credit Harman with creating the position of a national intelligence director - calling for the creation of the post several months before the 9/11 Commission recommended it. Not sure that centralizing intel even more than it was is a good idea, and centralizing is the default position of any Democrat, be it national security or health care.
She also was an early voice for a comprehensive assessment of intelligence on Iraq. "She's very plugged into the professionals and the agencies," Denis McDonough, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress liberal think tank in D.C.
Harman, for her part, issued a statement Friday congratulating Reyes and vowing to help make his transition a smooth one. "I leave this position with incredible respect for the women and men of the intelligence community," Harman said. "I pledge to them that I will continue to look after their interests and the interests of the intelligence industrial base that is largely centered in my congressional district in California." Well, that proves their point. Respect for the people who keep us safe? Neocon Bitch.
#4
Methinks that a couple dozen decent Donks backed by the Trunks in the House could appoint a new Speaker come January. Just not Madame P. Been done elsewhere. Then its a payback new round of appointing committee chairmanships.
#5
Isn't Daschle demanding power sharing...oops. Nevermind. And isn't the power sharing score 49-R's, 49-D's and 2-I's in the Senate? If it wasn't for Dennis "You can't investigate Dollar Bill Jefferson" Hastert, Procopious2k has the correct strategy for the House leader selection..... unfortunately, Rodney King is still advising the Reps.
Oscar-winning US actress Gwyneth Paltrow feels dinner talk is far more interesting in her adopted homeland Britain than back in her native country.
"I love the English lifestyle, it's not as capitalistic as America. People don't talk about work and money, they talk about interesting things at dinner," she told "NS," the weekend magazine supplement of daily Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias on Saturday. Well, if she won an Oscar, she's almost Nobel material.
"I like living here because I don't fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans," the 34-year-old added. They do the *sniff* thingy better 'n anyone.
Paltrow, who won a best actress Oscar for 1998's "Shakespeare in Love," lives in London with British band Coldplay's frontman Chris Martin whom she wed in 2003.
She said having US pop star Madonna, 48, who married British film director Guy Ritchie six years ago, nearby was another advantage to living in London.
"She's like an older sister. Everything I have gone through, she went through ten times worse and ten times longer. She gives me good advice about how to say no and take care of myself," said Paltrow. Madonna. Now we're talking class, baby.
#3
People don't talk about work and money, they talk about interesting things at dinner
I actually enjoy a certain amount of work-related discussion at dinner, although my guests generally don't rehash the 2:00 meeting. But then, I know interesting, intelligent people with a wide range of interests who do interesting and useful work in creative ways, and who are as likely to discuss how Charles Van Doren's _A_History_of_Knowledge_ shaped their world view (for me it was Van Loon's _Lives_ and more recently Revel's _Anti-Americanism_) as they are to describe their adventures in India. I've even had some fascinating war-related discussions with some colleagues who'd been involved, wherein I was able to make use of what I learnt here (garning a great many startled and bemused expressions, for which I thank Rantburgers all. Such knowledge apparently is not expected from a dear little Midwestern suburban housewife!).
#4
Maybe it's bad food that makes for good conversation. I grew up in Scotland. Where the cuisine was similar to the English, but blander. As a result, our dinner conversations were quite spirited. And the result of that, heated debate. Try inviting a Scot's to dinner and mention poetry.
#5
This reminded me of the scene in The Aviator when Hughes is invited to the Hepburn compound for lunchies. Their Socialist prattle finally gets to him and he says that they are dismissive of money (i.e. work, capitalism, success) because they have it. He excuses himself from the table and leaves. Of course, once he's gone, it's clear his dead-on-the-money observation has gone right over their pointy elitist heads.
#6
Yeah, I can see how work related question could get to her...
I mean like: "you looked like quite the dom when you posed in a black leather bikini with a whip, Gwyneth - could you model that sometime for my son? He needs some incentive to study."
Or, "you are in nude in so many of your movies but we never get to really see the nasty parts of the guys your with - how do they keep it modest with a babe like you? Like how are you able to turn them off so well?"
#10
"The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans,"
It's called generalizing from a limited case. I would think the stray cats in my alley were more intelligent than Americans if the only Americans I knew were Hollywood bozos and porn lords. What a twit.
#11
that's a lotta words for someone who reads from a script for a living. Successful highschool grad and UCSB dropout? Intelleckshul
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2006 18:17
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Here's a dinner question for ya, sweetheart: if Brits are so "intelligent and civilized," why will you have to wear a niqab before I do?
TW, I'd take black coffee and cigarette and leave the Earl Grey to you, but I suspect our conversations would be far more interesting than what passes for intellectual exchange at Gwyneth's table. No doubt it revolves around weighty geopolitical issues, like which tart's salary goes up her nose, which one has her head down the loo, and which one is deliberately trying for beaver shots to boost her CD sales. Riveting, I'm sure.
#13
We lived in England for 18 months back in the mid-1980's. My wife became quite close to several of the women in the local Lace Guild. They discussed much the same thing women discuss anywhere in the world - home, children, who's doing what, where, when, etc., - plus a lot about lacemaking, knitting, embroidery, and other "womanly" topics. They seldom talked politics, and they NEVER talked work, although several of the ladies worked outside the home. When we get together with friends, we discuss what interests us all, not necessarily the latest Rantburg comments or the latest joke from Hollyweird. As for Gwyneth Paltrow, I wouldn't recognize her if she walked into my living room, and that's probably not going to change because she thinks "Brits are so intelligent and civilized". I much prefer an honest barbarian to a lying "civilized" piece of fecal matter, or an idiotic bimbo.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/02/2006 19:23
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what a stupid ass. I'm sure she's enjoying knowing that everyone is talking about her stupid remarks, and maybe she's eating them for dinner.These hollywood types don't deserve the press they get.
Posted by: Jan ||
12/02/2006 20:32
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#15
Lol, Jan. She'll never know what folks like us think - nor would she care, lol - she and her ilk live in an acho chamber - which is the incubator for such idiotic statements. Just imagine how smarmy they'll be toward her at the next dinner. She "wins" - in her world.
#17
The America Gwyn speaks of is not the America the rest of us know. From her Wikipedia entry:
Paltrow was born in Los Angeles, California, to the film and television director Bruce Paltrow and the actress Blythe Danner; Paltrow's father was Jewish and her mother was raised a Quaker. Raised in Santa Monica, she attended Spence School, a private girls' school in New York City, and briefly studied art history at the University of California, Santa Barbara, before dropping out and committing herself to acting. Paltrow has a younger brother, Jake Paltrow, and is a cousin of actress Katherine Moennig.
Follow the IED hunter from down under, Cpl Hover, as he shows how he identifies IEDs planted by the rascally Eye-rackies. Be sure to sit through the credits for the bonus items.
This story has been on Drudge for a coupla daze. I don't think it's been posted on da 'Burg, though... If I'm wrong, plz Trash this post, if I'm not - I wonder why. Rather big implications for security - and a Sure-Fire Shitstorm from every deep dark nasty corner of disingenuity - ACLU, CAIR (Imagine the Muzzy outrage, lol), ANSWER, The Black Helicopter Krowd, you name it.
PHOENIX (AP) - Sky Harbor International Airport here will test a new federal screening system that takes X-rays of passenger's bodies to detect concealed explosives and other weapons. The technology, called backscatter, has been around for several years but has not been widely used in the U.S. as an anti-terrorism tool because of privacy concerns. Thank you, ACLU.
The Transportation Security Administration said it has found a way to refine the machine's images so that the normally graphic pictures can be blurred in certain areas while still being effective in detecting bombs and other threats. Uh oh, TSA has discovered naughty bits...
The agency is expected to provide more information about the technology later this month but said one machine will be up and running at Sky Harbor's Terminal 4 by Christmas.
The security agency's Web site indicates that the technology will be used initially as a secondary screening measure, meaning that only those passengers who first fail the standard screening process will be directed to the X-ray area. Even then, passengers will have the option of choosing the backscatter or a traditional pat-down search. Lol. Compromised from the git-go. Of course, anyone refusing should get a cavity search.
A handful of other U.S. airports will have the X-rays machines in place by early 2007 as part of a nationwide pilot program, TSA officials said. The technology already is being used in prisons and by drug enforcement agents, and has been tested at London's Heathrow Airport.
The security agency says the machines will be effective in helping detect plastic or liquid explosives and other non-metallic weapons that can be missed by standard metal detectors.
Some say the high-resolution images - which clearly depict the outline of the passenger's body, plus anything attached to it, such as jewelry - are too invasive. This is an outrage! I am purdy outraged! I posted my naughty bits on MySpace - if they wanna see 'em they can go there - I want the hits! There's a few thousand terrabytes of high quality pr0n floating around the net, and the ACLU is outraged over this?
But the TSA said the X-rays will be set up so that the image can be viewed only by a security officer in a remote location. Other passengers, and even the agent at the checkpoint, will not have access to the picture. In addition, the system will be configured so that the X-ray will be deleted as soon as the individual steps away from the machine. It will not be stored or available for printing or transmitting, agency spokesman Nico Melendez said. Since it would be helpful, it doesn't stand a chance. And her right boob is bigger 'n her left boob.
#1
Think there was a test of this system at the Orlando,Fla airport a few years ago...strickly voluntary on the passengers part,though...
You can,however,insert a plate into your pants,provided by TSA to block your privates from xray..just don't let it slip...(grin)
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2006 18:14
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#9
Watch out! This thing could get ugly
Posted by: Captain America ||
12/02/2006 18:54
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#10
Sure puts a lie to the burqua bitches doesn't it? It addition anything metallic larger than a pin would show up nicely. Bravo. I wonder how much energy is used per each individual ?
Elves and kiddies hit hardest. Wait, did they say a donkey? Are Santa reindeers jobs being outsourced to third world donkeys?
Santa will have to rent a donkey to help him this Christmas after one of his animals met a tragic end. The creature - made of polystyrene - was decapitated after making contact with live cables as Santa drove along a road cordoned off after an accident. The earlier crash - at Tadcaster, North Yorkshire - had left the wires exposed.
Emergency crews were amazed when a man dressed as Santa, towing a nativity scene on a trailer, ignored the closure and his plastic donkey touched a cable.
In the original accident, a woman's car hit an electricity pole, bringing down the wires. She was not hurt, despite her vehicle turning over, but was treated for shock.
Now Santa is hoping someone will give him a new ass donkey for Christmas. Reindeers not good enuff for you? Is that so? I call that discrimination!
Just a tad shy of the 1/4 of Leb population (1Mn) the hyperventilating ass-kissers blathered about yesterday - and probably still an exaggeration. BUT... it does show just how fucked Lebanon is - these are Hezb minions. Sad - CedarGrrl has no future in her future.
Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to Beiruts streets today in a Hizbollah-led demonstration aimed at toppling the government of the beleaguered prime minister, Fouad Siniora.
A week after vast numbers attended the funeral of the murdered industry minister, Pierre Gemayel, Beirut was a flood of colour again as a sea of Lebanese flags blanketed the downtown area.
Hizbollah had planned demonstrations last week, but postponed them after the assassination of Mr Gemayel, the sixth anti-Syrian figure to be killed in two years.
The 200,000-strong crowds included supporters of Hizbollah, its fellow-Shia Amal party, the Christian faction led by Michel Aoun and supporters of Emile Lahoud, the Syrian-backed president.
But although the colours of various political factions were on display, the predominant symbol was Lebanons green cedar tree emblazoned on a red and white flag, a sign that Hizbollah wanted the rally to project the sentiments of a nation. Yup, don't show the Hezb flag - folks might misunderstand.
The Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shia militant group has branded Mr Siniora a puppet of the United States, and is calling for his cabinet to be replaced by a new government that will give Hizbollahs allies sufficient representation to effectively yield veto-power.
I call on the prime minister and his ministers to quit, shouted Mr Aoun to the crowds, speaking on behalf of the opposition. Does this "quit" thingy include the Prez, too?
Siniora out, we want a free government, chanted the crowd in response. Free. Heh.
Mr Aoun called on the people to continue the sit-in until we reach our goals of installing a new unity government. "We want Pencilneck!"
"We want Pencilneck!"
"We want Pencilneck!"
Purdy catchy.
Demonstrators had been transported to the capital from all over Lebanon by bus and, although many returned home last night, several thousand remained for an indefinite sit-in around the prime ministers Grand Serail office.
White tents were set up on roads leading to the Ottoman-style building, and mattresses, blankets, food and water were laid on for those who planned to stay the night.
Ill stay here for as long as it takes, said Rahida Eliast, the 21-year-old students orange bandanna identifying her as a supporter of Mr Aouns Free Patriotic Movement.
I dont care where I sleep, and I dont care what I eat. I just want to see this government brought down. "I'm a Patriot! We all are! We want Pencilneck!"
Armoured personnel carriers could be heard through the streets of the capital early yesterday as hundreds of combat troops were deployed to strategic positions around the prime ministers office.
Inside the building, Mr Siniora, who has pledged he will not resign, was holed up with several cabinet ministers, attempting to go about his daily schedule and ignore the huge protests outside.
Hundreds of Hizbollah discipline men dressed in civilian clothes, and armed only with distinctive grey and white caps and walkie-talkies, were positioned alongside Lebanese soldiers at newly-laid razor-wire fences surrounding the building to ensure that the protests stayed peaceful. They've gone "pro". Might be good enough for ANSWER work, now.
Sheikh Naim Kassem, Hizbollahs deputy chief, said: This government will not take Lebanon to the abyss. We have steps if this government does not respond. Steps. I'll bet they do.
Mr Sinioras supporters claim that Hizbollah and its allies are attempting to stage a coup to bring down the government in order to torpedo an international tribunal to try the suspected killers of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, last year.
Although Damascus denied any involvement, protests that followed the killing prompted Syria to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. "Us involved? Perish the thought! We want Pencilneck! We want Pencilneck!"
Margaret Beckett, the Foreign Secretary, arrived in Beirut last night for a 24-hour visit. Try the veal, Mags.
#2
Well, you got the US puppet and you got the Iranian puppet. You were supposed to take your pick when you had that election thingy but who needs democracy when you got the guns and the Koran?
BTW, that particular girl may be cute but the look in her eyes is that of a sociopath who could get off on a violent revolution.
#1
Baker has long roots here. His family named the road and when the new neighbors moved in, he tells us, they asked him to move out.
"Basically that I should package up my family and my business and find a place elsewhere," said Baker. "That's ridiculous, they just bought the place one week prior and he's telling me I should think about leaving."
Well, it's because you have to respect their sensitivies (pigs and all are haram), and... they don't have to respect yours (you're just a kufr). Simple, but brilliant.
#2
More from the Houston Chronicle. There's a few details not mentioned in the other story. The mosque spokeman says that "attendance at the largest services will probably not exceed 30 worshippers", but apparently the mosque complex serves 150-200 families. And of those, you're only going to get 30 worshippers at a time? My boyfriend thinks this is a typo for "300", but 300 people is not a trivial number.
By the way, Houston (and environs) is famous for its lack of zoning laws, which is why the government can't stop them from building a mosque, and it can't stop a guy from putting in a few pigs, either. About a mile from me there's a high-rise office complex, and a mile in the other direction there are cows. (Office complex has been there for years, during which there used to be a lot more cows.)
There's a pop-up on the Chronicle web site that shows the proposed site. It's right next to George [H.W.] Bush Park.
#6
Or chickens, .com. The ammonia in their waste alone is enough to knock a grown man over. The new chicken houses have huge fans (for cooling the birds). Just put the end of the houses with the fans near the moskkk.
There's a fairly new set of chicken houses (I think 4 houses, each hold about 25,000-30,000 birds) going up I-75 north out of Atlanta (near Cartersville area). They're about 200-300 feet off the right of way, but have the fans blowing toward the interstate. You can smell it for about 10-15 secs. after passing by, even if you're going 80+mph (and, the farm is on the southbound side of I-75).
And, ed, not only the waste pond, but the mortality pits for burying hogs that die on the farm. Nothing like seeing a full-size bulldozer have to go in and remove a 260 lb. hog from the house, lol! Another true story, a guy I work with went to inspect some hog farms up in Tennessee. About mid-week they had a storm roll through, and the next day, he went out to one of the hog farms. Lightning had struck the power to the cooling units to 1 hog house, and a cable had broken to raise/lower the cooling "curtains" on the side of the house. Mid-summer, and they had to dispose of about 600 BIG pigs! My coworker came up and they were extremely busy digging a burial pit (imagine how big that would be)!
Posted by: BA ||
12/02/2006 15:53
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The bottom line of this story is that the asshats just picked the wrong place to buy and the wrong guy to fuck with. That this would / will be true in so many places and with so many folks in the South is purdy funny, IMO.
#9
Ya know, these type stories are happening more and more, and I always chuckle. Mostly it's due to urban sprawl (new subdivisions going up right next to the farm that's been there for 100+ years). That it happened to some headbangers is just a plus.
One final true story a guy from Florida told me (he works at the FL Dept. of Environmental Protection, DEP, a State counterpart to EPA, where I work). He was at a public meeting for a proposed dairy, in North Florida, and the dairy had applied for a wastewater permit to DEP. Granted, everyone that was protesting the dairy was there for these same reasons (mostly zoning or lack thereof, which EPA/DEP don't get into at all, that's a local issue). At the end of the meeting, one lady stood up (who lived nearby) and literally said, "Why do we need a dairy here? I can just go to the grocery store to get my milk!" The DEP guy said, "Lady, where do you think the store gets the milk?"
At that, the mindset of "city folk" was truly exposed. They have NO clue where their milk (or drinking water, or sewage, or gas, or power, etc.) comes from. They just know they can get it at the store/flip on a switch and it works! He told me that all the farmers in the room busted out laughing at the DEP guy's response.
Posted by: BA ||
12/02/2006 16:11
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New Delhi, Dec 02: Buoyed by a successful missile interception in higher atmospheric zone, defence scientists are now planning to shoot down incoming warheads, much closer to ground, with a new missile named Pad.
The country's top Missile Scientist Vijay Kumar Saraswat told a press conference today that "within the next three to four months the DRDO is planning to carry out another missile interception in the endoatmospheric zone" -- a pattern used by the Americans in the development of their Patriot PAC-III anti-missile shield.
"We have demonstrated the technology to defend against incoming ballistic missile threat," he said, but added it would take another three to four years to develop for the country a full-fledged anti-missile theatre shield.
Saraswat's announcement comes in the midst of recent criticism of the DRDO which has been accused of allowing "heavy time and cost overruns" in critical projects.
He admitted that the Pad was still a technology demonstrator and said it would need another half-a-dozen tests to validate it as a missile shield.
The scientist said in any future indigenous missile shields, India would have to have a mix of exoatmospheric and endoatmospheric interception capabilities to match short reaction threats.
He ruled out that India might opt out of trying to acquire either the American or Israeli anti-missile system saying "we are only at the beginning and at this stage co-development or outright acquisition cannot be counted of."
Saraswat is the Chief Controller of the country's missile programme and project director of the air defence missiles, whose team successfully carried out India's first ever surface-to-surface missile interception in the exoatmospheric zone on November 27.
Posted by: john ||
12/02/2006
10:34 ||
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Apparently the radar they are using is a "joint development" - they aren't saying who, but is most probably a derivative of the Israeli Green Pine.
They probably want to integrate the Patriot PAC-3 with their own interceptors in this ABM system.
A recent Russian article mentioned that Russia would not provide the source codes for the S300 system if India bought the Patriot.
Posted by: john ||
12/02/2006 10:58
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New Delhi: India has unveiled a missile interceptor on the basis of which it claims unprecedented capability to defend itself against a missile attack.
The DRDO claims that two batteries of this system are sufficient to defend the capital.
It is a substantially reconfigured version of the Prithvi missile. The Monday test demonstrated the ability of the Prithvi-based system to intercept an incoming ballistic missile at an altitude of 80 kilometre above the surface.
Missile Programme Head Dr VK Saraswat said, We have developed the technologies which are required to configure a anti-ballistic missile system. "
In fact, it is a two-tiered system, with the modified Prithvi being the high-end interceptor. Should the Prithvi fail to stop an incoming missile; there is a second layer of defence, with another interception attempt at 30 kilometre above the ground with another missile, as yet unidentified.
The DRDO claims a 99.8 per cent kill probability with this twin system, when four interceptors are fired in a sequence.
"Together against same target you launch one Exo-atmospheric interceptor and also one Endo-atmospheric interceptor. Then you see how it works. Because that is what the actual scenario is going to be, " Saraswat added.
Critical to the capability is a modified Israeli Greenpine radar, which tracks the incoming missile. But critics of the missile defence concept have pointed out that successful interception under controlled conditions can be misleading. The technology, it is generally believed, is several decades away from maturity.
So, if India were to claim that it has a capability to blunt missile threats, what could it mean for nuclear deterrence in the region? A possibility is that an adversary could over-react to overcome the stated defences by firing more missiles.
The DRDO says two of its systems would be sufficient to defend a city of the size of Delhi from a ballistic missile attack. It needs six more tests over a three-year time frame to refine the technology.
But the DRDO is not willing to give any assurances on when the armed forces would be able to use this system.
Posted by: john ||
12/02/2006 14:19
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#6
"No sir, Mr. Putin, that's not a Patriot missile system we're buying, that's a Pak-riot system. Entirely different. Can we have the codes now?"
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2006 16:54
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#7
...Wondering if the Indians aren't trying to do the same thing to the Paks we did to the Sovs - set the bar so high for a successful attack that it will break their economy beyond hope to try and outbuild them...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/02/2006 17:36
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Guwahati, Dec 02: The Indo-Bhutan border in the Assam sector has been sealed following an incident of bomb blast in neighbouring Bhutan. "The Indo-Bhutan border has been sealed and there is additional deployment of the para military force, Shastra Seema Bal (SSB), following the incident of blast", police additional DGP of Assam B P Rao told media persons here.
He said that security has been tightened along the Indo-Bhutan border, including at Samdrup Jhongkar in Nalbari district, which is the entry point to the Himalayan kingdom.
When asked about any insurgent outfit behind the blast, Rao said preliminary reports point out the involvement of ULFA. "But involvement of other outfits other than ULFA cannot be ruled out at this moment", he said.
The Assam police, he said, have taken all precautionary measures and are in touch with the BSF and SSB in this regard, Rao said.
Posted by: john ||
12/02/2006
10:14 ||
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SSB - Special Security Bureau - has both intelligence gathering and commando (behind enemy line) functions - raised after the 1962 Indo-China war.
SSB reportedly infiltrate into Tibet and China proper to gather intelligence.
Posted by: john ||
12/02/2006 10:23
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Bhutan doesn't have a military, but it does have a well-trained police force. There aren't very many of them, but they're all fiercely loyal to the Prince. We won't hear anything more about this if they catch the culprits.
Bhutan is one nation that doesn't really worry about China. The easiest pass to cross from China to Bhutan is at 16,800 feet above sea level. The pass into India is only about 4500 feet.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/02/2006 16:40
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#3
That doesn't stop China from coveting Bhutan.
Only its status as a virtual Indian protectorate keeps the PLA out.
Posted by: john ||
12/02/2006 19:19
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MUMBAI, DEC 1: Impressed with the high quality of state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd's (NPCIL) existing plants and the credibility of its expansion programme, the US government and the visiting American nuclear companies plan to organise one more visit to India to explore business opportunities. This was what representatives of US nuclear companies GE, Westinghouse, Thorium Power and Transco Products had to say during a presentation by NPCIL here on Friday.
The presentation came in the wake of the Senate passing the Indo-US civilian nuclear Bill last month. Sources involved with Fridays presentation told FE, NPCIL briefed US companies about the prevailing regulatory and security norms besides investments lined up for capacity addition. They were also told that private sector participation in nuclear energy capacity addition will be possible only after India's Atomic Energy Act is amended.
NPCIL chairman and managing director SK Jain explained the nuclear power scenario in India. Sources said US companies were specifically told that they would have to strictly follow regulatory norms as an independent regulator was in place. They were also informed that just a license from the US would not fulfill the requirement to do business in India. US companies said they had no problem in adhering to regulatory norms, the sources added. US undersecretary of commerce and international trade Franklin Lavin praised the high quality of plants and the qualified manpower employed in the Indian nuclear power sector.
Posted by: john ||
12/02/2006
10:07 ||
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Don't like the poll questions on the side of the sourced article. Talk about Anti-American and loaded.
RIYADH, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said there was no truth in an article by a Saudi security adviser suggesting the world's top oil exporter would back Iraq's Muslim Sunnis in the event of a wider sectarian conflict.
"He's talking out of his head! Needs a drive in the desert, that boy does!"
Nawaf Obaid, a security adviser to the Saudi grand high poobah government, said on Wednesday the kingdom would intervene with funding and weaponry to prevent Shi'ite militias attacking Iraq's Sunnis once the United States begins pulling out of Iraq. He also suggested Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, could bring down world oil prices to squeeze Shi'ite power Iran, which Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab countries accuse of meddling in Iraq.
Um, oh, okay, gee yeah, lower oil prices for a while. I dare you. See how easy it is to fund the overseas madrassahs.
Saudi state news agency SPA issued a statement on Friday attributed to an "official source" who rejected Obaid's ideas.
"There is no basis in truth to the article by the writer Nawaf Obaid in the Washington Post of Nov. 29, 2006," it said. "The writer does not represent any official body in Saudi Arabia. What he published only represents his personal opinion and does not in any manner at all represent the policy or positions of the kingdom," it added.
"(Saudi Arabia) continually affirms its support for the security, unity and stability of Iraq, with all of its sectarian groups."
With the ones they favor on top, of course.
Obaid stressed in the article that the views were his own and not those of the Saudi government.
"I know this article doesn't represent Saudi policies," said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Thursday. "I am in contact with the Saudi government and they realise the necessity of protecting the democratic process."
And you can always a trust a Saoodi royal when they tell you something face-to-face, it's part of their culture.
A Western diplomat in Riyadh said the official denial confirmed diplomats' belief that the substance of Obaid's article does not reflect Saudi policy. He said at most the article may have been intended as a "warning".
In that case, it worked well.
Diplomats say Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally, is worried that Washington has lost control of Iraq and developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Arab governments say is driving Islamic extremism and anti-U.S. sentiment in the region.
Sunni-Shi'ite sectarian violence is threatening to descend into a full-scale war in Iraq, which Saudi Arabia fears could spill over onto its borders. Saudi Arabia has a Shi'ite minority, and some Saudi Sunni militants have gone to Iraq to join insurgents fighting the U.S.-backed Baghdad government. Saudi willingness to back Sunnis has been tempered by fear of al Qaeda militants in the Sunni insurgency who also oppose the Saudi government.
Army officials have admitted that Iraqi police may have been implicated in the death of a British sergeant, but no one is likely to be brought to justice.
Just weeks into his second tour of Iraq, Sgt John Jones, 31, of the 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was killed by a roadside bomb as he commanded a routine patrol in Basra. Four other soldiers were injured.
A charismatic, compassionate man with a sharp sense of humour, Jonah, as he was known to his friends, was killed in what John Reid, who was Defence Minister at the time, described as a "barbaric act of terrorism".
It was revealed yesterday, however, that Sgt Jones was one of several British soldiers murdered by Iraqi police. Just a week after the anniversary of his death, his parents received a report from the Army that appeared to suggest his killer or killers may have been among the same Iraqi security forces the British have been training.
Describing the moment of Sgt Jones's death on 20 November 2005 as his patrol was heading back to the Shatt al-Arab base, it read: "It was observed at this point that there were a number of unknown Iraqi males wearing Iraqi Police Service and military uniforms and that they were observing the scene from the Port Authority area. An Iraqi Police Service car was seen to turn around and head away from the scene, back the way it had come."
Sgt Jones's mother, Carol, 60, said she was devastated by a covering letter from the Army's directorate of personal services, which added: "The jurisdiction for the case was handed over to the Iraqi Police. As yet, no one has been detained in connection with your son's death.
"However, as a cautionary note, I would say that, based on other similar circumstances, there is not a hugely realistic chance of this happening."
Mrs Jones, from Tamworth in Warwickshire, added: "A lad who was with John told us it was definitely Iraqi police. There was nobody else in the street. It was uncannily quiet. At his inquest, they said no one was investigated because they had got ID on them. One of the policemen had a mobile phone or remote [which could set off a roadside bomb] but he had ID on him so he just walked away.
"I have spoken to other mothers - three at least - who are waiting for reports and been told by the Army the police are the killers. It is frightening. They can't be vetting them properly."
Mrs Jones, who recently suffered a stroke, said the latest news had left her terribly shaken, adding: "I thought I was coming to terms with it. But when I read this report I just went to pieces. I have not slept. I can't even eat. I just want somebody brought to justice. I just want to ask the Army why aren't they out there looking for the people who did this?
"If I was well enough to get on a plane I would go over there and find him myself. It is heart-breaking. He had a five-year-old son. We feel so terribly frustrated."
The Ministry of Defence has long claimed that Britain's exit strategy from Iraq relies on building a strong Iraqi police and army, trained by the military. Senior officers have now conceded that there is a "small rotten core" within the Basra police. Locals, however, have long claimed that the force is heavily infiltrated by insurgents and responsible for the vast majority of murders in Iraq's second city.
Mrs Jones continued: "Tony Blair tells us that our soldiers are protecting the Iraqi people but they obviously don't want us there if they are killing us.
"John loved the Army but I don't think he would have joined if he thought that he would die like this."
The Ministry of Defence said in a statement last night: "Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Sgt Jones. Any further investigation into the events surrounding Sgt Jones's death must be handled by the Iraqi authorities. The UK and coalition forces will continue to offer support to the Iraqis on this matter.''
#1
Actually it was the Iranians via their agents in the Iraqi police, that is the truth. The Iranians have totally inflitraterd Basra because of the "soft power" The UK forces have been forced to persue.
#3
The IP in the south are riddled and run by the militias - which are, AFAICS, simply Shia Mafia.
What's missing from the article is "Why Sgt Jones?"... Jones was commanding the patrol and happened to be the only death in the attack, does that prove it was personal? It's certainly problematic to kill one guy in a patrol with a roadside bomb - is it not?
Is he an especially irritating foe of the militias - has he made a local name for himself messing in their business? Lawd, that would certainly set him apart, IMHO, as it seems the UK Pol & Mil "leadership" can't wait to "turn over control" and haul ass - leaving this total cock-up behind.
Sgt Jones' death is rotten, to be sure, but nothing here actually proves it was personal. This appears to be a Mob hit on the "Federal coppers". If more than that, then they have failed to make a case for it in this article.
IMHO, the real problem is the way the south was "handled" (mishandled) by the UK Pol & Mil "leadership". Their people, their troopers, certainly started out rough and ready to do a military job... but it has devolved into a military failure and now a Law Enforcement mess facing corruption from top to bottom of every office of authority with no hope of improvement without re-invading, militarily.
11/30/2006 - Those religious nut bags at the Westboro Baptist Church were not welcome at this funeral for a soldier who died in Iraq. They are pretty much running for their lives and trying to drive away as fast as possible. This crowd would have torn them limb from limb.
This gang is not a church at all, of course. It is a sado-masochistic lawyer cult whose membership is limited to one family; the disbarred shyster and longtime Democrat activist Fred Phelps, eleven of his thirteen children, and their assorted children and spouses.
I've always wondered how the Phelps cult gets the money for its various activities. Granted, nine of the thirteen Phelps children are lawyers, four of them with cushy state jobs at the Kansas Department of Corrections; but it is still hard to account for how they can afford to have two or three different groups traveling around the country all the time. At one point, before the 2003 invasion, they even went to Iraq to join one of Saddam Hussein's anti-American demonstrations.
There is some money behind this and it is not from someone who has any respect for Christian principles.
#1
In a related event, a ND Indian tribe has banned Phelp's hate group from their reservation pending a funeral of a ND National Guardsman from the tribe killed in Iraq on Thanksgiving Day.
With so many lawyers in the group, I imagine part of their income is related to tort extortion -- they provoke someone to attack them and squeeze money by manipulation of the US tort system. This is why the video cited in this article was made, as a way of collecting evidence to make money off this racket. Many states have laws against being a public nuisance, I wonder if these could be applied against Phelps and his crew.
#7
My first reaction is: ABOUT FRIGGIN TIME! Too bad one or two didn't get roughed up enough to have a court date. I am assumming that any rational jury would conclude the group was inciting violence and therefore deserved what happened. Also the discussion is correct the bulk of these yahoos are lawyers with somewhat cushy jobs. I think that maybe the MSM needs to give them super publicity and have their names all over the papers. I heard two of the lawyer/snakes on the radio and they have no love for anyone that doesn't worship as they do. Think FAR FAR right fringe and then go two spaces right from that.
#9
What I want to know is what the hell are those police doing there ? Why are there police protecting those parasites ? They would be sent home with a lesson carved on their faces and they would learn to stay home, but the asshole police are protecting them.
#10
The cops are doing their jobs just like the professionals that many of them are. Go figure. No officer of the law should stand by idly as someone within their view takes the law into their own hands. To expect that is to encourage societal mayhem. What would your response be if the officers in attendance happened to agree with Phelps?
I found this article in Occidentalis to be...uh, just a bit troubling, don't you think? Or am I worrying over a trifle?
The Danish government said it was shocked to learn that a Koranic school is teaching its pupils that the only way to obtain peace in the Middle East is to exterminate all the Jews.
The school, situated in Odense, in the suburbs of Vollsmose, in the center of Denmark, is also supposed to be teaching pupils in the elementary grades that the Jews are Nazis and that the American president George W. Bush ought to be electrocuted... Teach them how to get back where they came from.
#3
Shut down the school, expel the entire staff, the school board and the financiers. Give the families a choice of placing their children in public schools until they graduate or emigrating, because those who have imbibed such things cannot be allowed in the community without deprogramming.
#4
Anyone want to bet that there is a link between this jihadist school and Ahmad abu Laaban of Cartoonifada fame? Vollsmose, jokingly known as "Voldmose" ("vold" being the Danish word for "violence"), distinguishes itself by having the highest crime rate in all Denmark. It's no coincidence that it also has the highest "immigrant" population as well.
Denmark is only slowly coming out of denial and an ostrich-like posture regarding lack of Muslim integration. Much like America, Denmark has been among the most tolerant of all European nations regarding issues of religious freedom. For this reason, it is also having the greatest difficulty in comprehending the habitual lack of assimilation and violent attitude its Muslims are showing towards their host culture.
One must hope that Denmark will reflect upon its honorable and decent past in the process of deriving sufficient moral authority to label Islam for the intolerant and dangerous ideology it is. The difficulty a nation which serves as the model of societal openess has with one, count it, ONE single group and only that group should serve as a prime indicator of where the real blame lies.
Not quite a Fat Lady moment, but the third time's the charm and I for one am oiling up the ululator. This punk is dirty to the core of his shriveled puny soul, assuming he still has one.
A court convicted four Dutch Muslims on Friday of plotting terrorist attacks and sentenced them to up to eight years in prison, a victory for prosecutors who had failed several times before to convict would-be terrorists before they acted. The prosecution was pleased with the verdict even though it was much less than the 15 years prosecutors sought, spokeswoman Digna van Boetzelaer said. The heaviest sentence was reserved for Samir Azzouz, 20. Judges said he had played a "central role" in the group and had prepared a suicide video meant to "strike terrible fear into the Dutch people." The judges ruled that the defendants shared an ideology of jihad, or holy war. But they said the defendants did not constitute a terrorist organization, which likely would have led to longer sentences.
Azzouz had been arrested twice before as part of investigations into alleged terrorist activities. The first time he had bombmaking materials, but was released without charge on a technicality. The second time he was charged with planning an attack but was acquitted when the judges found the preparations had not advanced far enough to prove a terrorist conspiracy. On Friday, presiding Judge E. Koning said Azzouz had taken "concrete steps" toward an attack by gathering automatic weapons. Koning also said the suicide videotape, together with a tapped telephone conversation "could mean nothing else" except that Azzouz was close to carrying out the attack. In that conversation, he mentioned a "soup about to boil."
Azzouz's lawyer Victor Koppe called the verdict "political" and said his client plans to appeal. "Everything (Azzouz) says is interpreted in the worst possible way," he told Dutch television.
I still want to know who Victor Koppe's paymaster is...
Among other suspects, Nouredine al Fatmi, who already is serving a five-year sentence in a separate terrorism case, was given an additional four years for plotting attacks and for recruiting others for armed attacks. Mohammed Chentouf, who judges said did not play a leading role but was also plotting attacks was sentenced to four years. Soumaya Sahla, al Fatmi's ex-wife, was given a three-year sentence for conspiring with the others. One other defendant was convicted of passport fraud and sentenced to three months. A sixth defendant was acquitted of all charges. All six had pleaded not guilty. Defense lawyers argued they were innocent religious victims of police harassment, and that several witnesses who had testified against them were not credible.
"Yer honor, da witnesses is all dirty kafirs! Dey can't possibly testify! Allan sez so!"
#1
"Everything (Azzouz) says is interpreted in the worst possible way," he told Dutch television.
Not much different from what YOU get paid to do, jackass. Payback's a b*tch, ain't it?
#2
I still want to know who Victor Koppe's paymaster is
No doubt the Dutch taxpayers. And such fine examples of the legal profession. The 'Hofstadgroup' Terror Trial Koppe belongs to a group of Amsterdam based political lawyers who happen to have very good relations with selected members of the press. These lawyers have a special preference for defending terrorism suspects and leftwing fringe groups. They believe that intelligence and security agencies should be abolished as quickly as possible. It all originated with the famous Dutch lawyer P.H. Bakker Schut, who sympathized with the notorious German terrorist Baader-Meinhof gang, a Marxist group from the 1970s and 80s, which was seeking the violent overthrow of the German state. Bakker Schuts adept Ties Prakken specialized in leftist fringe groups and anarchists, and her successor was a blond female lawyer from Germany named Britta Böhler. She happened to be a great admirer of Abdullah Öcalan, a Turk-Kurdish macho with a preference for blond European women and the leader of the PKK, an extremely violent Kurdish terrorist network which specialized in liquidating opponents. In Ocalans terrorist camps, there were a few German women who previously belonged to, or sympathized with the Baader-Meinhof gang.
BTW, Koppe graduated from the University of Virginia law school.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2006 9:50
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#3
A UVA grad, yikes. Thomas Jefferson is spinning in his grave right about now.
Though he's ostensibly paid by the Dutch government, I still think he has some sort of 'understanding' with someone connected with the Soddies. Zero proof, of course, but he is to smooth to be a mere public servant.
#4
The judges ruled that the defendants shared an ideology of jihad, or holy war. But they said the defendants did not constitute a terrorist organization, which likely would have led to longer sentences.
Once again proving that this world has yet to make the link between Islam and terrorism. How many more people will need to die before all pretenses are dropped about Islamofascism, Islamism, Jihadism and other such garbage, such that Islam and Islam alone is finally taken to task for the violence it preaches?
Abdullah Öcalan, a Turk-Kurdish
For brevity's sake, can't we just shorten that to "Turdish"?
Democrats have long attacked President Bush for the historic tax cuts he ushered through Congress during his first term and have promised to reverse at least some of them. But among their top priorities when they take over Congress next month is passing a permanent tax cut of their own.
Included in their "Six for '06" platform that they say helped them win majorities in the House and Senate, Democrats promised to: "Make college tuition deductible from taxes, permanently."
Their tax cut promise is neither an election-year gimmick, Democrats say, nor a reversal in their long-standing opposition to Mr. Bush's tax cuts. "Democrats have made it clear that the middle class will be our priority and making college more affordable is a key concern of working families," said incoming House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat.
They have been less clear, however, about their plans for other tax cuts that expire in 2010 and or how to raise the revenue required to institute the "pay-go" rules they have promised. Those rules prohibit adding any new spending to the budget or cutting taxes unless there is money in the budget.
Link was pretty slow but may be better now. More interesting links at article link such as original police report, passenger complaint letter, and some blogging. Verrry interesting indeed.
The case of U.S. Airways flight 300 gets stranger by the minute. When six traveling Muslim clerics were asked to deplane last week, it looked like another civil rights controversy against post-9-11 airport security.
Now new information is emerging that suggests it was all a stunt designed to weaken security .
Yesterday I spoke with a passenger on that flight, who asked that she be only identified as Pauline. A copy of airport police report, which I also obtained, supports Paulines account - and includes shocking revelations of its own. In addition, U.S. Airways spokeswoman Andrea Rader also confirmed much of what Pauline revealed ..
The passenger, who asked that she only be identified as Pauline, said she is afraid to give her full name or hometown. She is spending the night at another location because she does not feel safe at home. She credits reports that one imam is apparently linked to Hamas. It is scary because these men could be dangerous.
Everybody is entitled to their religious beliefs but stay in your damn seat and pray quietly.
The last thing I want to experience during an airline flight is a bunch of arab men standing up and prostrating themselves chanting about allah...
I'm sorry.. I used to be far more tolerant.. until I read more about islam..
And this is post 9-11
Posted by: john ||
12/02/2006 10:12
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#7
The "media" appears to be deliberately omitting facts that are unsympathetic to the Mohammedans. The media are the enemy also. We'll have to clean out that nest of vipers at some point.
There has to be some way to force the media to adhere to some kind of standards, that do not violate the First Ammendment. If not, then the media will need to be on the receiving end of some direct citizen action. Traitors.
A side note: An acquaintance sent his intelligent level-headed daughter off to college (Journalism School) and four years later got back a foaming at the mouth Liberal with a head packed with insane notions. Just sayin'.
#8
Dry run. Testing for openings. Pushing for relaxation of security practices. Also at Reagan? Target-rich environment real close. And remember, AQ likes to repeat until they succeed - WTC had to be hit twice, and somewhere in DC (White House?) was not hit on 9-11. Five years is pretty standard cycle time for them.
My definition of 'Press' (as in freedom of the press) includes presenting unbiased reporting. It does not include being a government announcer (that's Snow's job) nor does it include being an enemy propaganda outfit who spew unfiltered and unverified 'news' from enemy sources as the MSM has proven time and time again all to willing to be.
I don't think the allies would consider Tokyo Rose as part of the press. She would have been arrested on sight (and indeed was tried for treason wasn't she?). Neither should we consider most of the MSM sources and outlets as part of the 'press' (nor should they enjoy the additional benefits)
#11
There is no doubt at all that this was premeditated. Probably cooked up at the conference they attended. The good news is this has backfired on the f**kers. Most people now days know they can not rely on MSM for any reliable information. I fully expect that shortly, incidents of this sort will result in brawls, whereby the "peaceful" muzzies will be beaten to within an inch of their worthless lives. And, when the cops arrive, no one will have seen anything.
#13
I heard Pauline on Hannity this week. Pretty composed & well spoken lady. She talked about the seat belt extenders and the passengers cheering when the six klingers were escorted off that bird.
As for the MSM, I wish there was a way to sue them for everytime they publish a story that omits key pieces of info - like the passengers cheering the removal of these clerics from the plane.
#14
like the passengers cheering the removal of these clerics from the plane.
Don't leave out the important details, Broadhead6:
Other Muslim passengers were left undisturbed and later joined in a round of applause for the U.S. Airways crew. It wasnt that they were Muslim. It was all of the suspicious things they did, Pauline said.
I'm confident that this important fact will be omitted in the media's rush to paint this as yet another case of Muslim profiling.
We are rapidly approaching the time when a government sponsored "Media Fairness" agency will need to be set up whereby commerically broadcast media can be assessed for bias or omission of fact. The government can rightfully use its own channels to disseminate accounts of when and where mainstream media has distorted or left out vital details that skew the public's perception of key issues, especially those related to national security.
Dan Rather's utterly biased and untruthful (to be polite) attempt to smear Bush during a presidential election cycle must forever stand as a watershed moment in when the media became a public enemy.
#16
CrazyFool: My definition of 'Press' (as in freedom of the press) includes presenting unbiased reporting.
Thank You! That is a very interesting distinction, and one that I think the courts needs to define. What I wouldn't give to be able to classify most of the MSM as "Not Press", but Infotainment/Opinion Mongers/Propagandists.
The harm that the media does is appalling, and you know they'll scream loudly when it all starts to come back on them.
#19
To date, the best we can do is boycott those news sources which we deem as untrustworthy. The reduced viewing numbers and loss of advertising revenues will eventually result in replacement of those news anchors who prove unpopular and finally reach down to the programming teams and script writers who come up with this unadulterated horseshit.
Farther downstream, there may well be much more serious repercussions at the hands of a betrayed and angry public when the unmitigated treason committed by these talking heads finally comes to light. Then the price will likely be far more costly than just job security.
#20
IIRC the price of biased reporting was 20% drop in NYT stock, no?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2006 18:45
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#21
Not everyone knows about Rantburg, sad to note.
Knowing that most americans vote based on what they read in the local papers and local TV is frightening.
Yes the media should be held accountable for reporting the whole truth, without embellishments.
Posted by: Jan ||
12/02/2006 21:13
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#22
Zenster, I was unaware of any other muslims on board. I only heard about the imams.
PESHAWAR Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said the government is determined to go ahead with more legislations to ensure protection of womens rights and to get them involved in the development of the country. Passage of the Protection of Womens Rights Bill 2006 is the first step of the governments initiatives regarding womens welfare and development, he remarked during a chat with the media at Governor House Peshawar yesterday.
The prime minister said the present government, in accordance with the vision of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has initiated steps for safeguarding the rights and interest of women. He said progress could not be achieved without providing due protection and opportunities to women.
That's a true statement, but let's face it, you guys have been exposed to these ideas for a while and not much has happened, because you're either afraid of or enamored with turban-wearing, spittle-fling people.
In response to a question, Aziz said the government is also working on certain changes and amendments in the Family Laws to ensure due rights of women in inherited properties. He reminded that federal government had agreed to introduce changes and reforms in such laws in the interest of women and that it was not laying the foundation of a Westernised society.
"Oh no, we'd never do that!"
The prime minister said, There is no pressure by the federal government on the NWFP governor in connection with the Hasba Bill passed by the provincial assembly. He said the bill is being thoroughly examined by different institutions.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2006
00:17 ||
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"The U.S. military is no longer able to defeat a bloody insurgency in western Iraq [Al Anbar Province] or counter al Qaeda's rising popularity there, according to newly disclosed details from a classified Marine Corps intelligence report," began a front-page article in yesterday's Washington Post by Dafna Linzer and Thomas E. Ricks. It concerned the so-called "Devlin Report," a five-page document allegedly filled with gloom and doom. It contrasts completely with my article Return to Ramadi, in the Nov. 27 Weekly Standard, in which I write that the largest city in the province is slowly being reclaimed from al Qaeda. By coincidence, the day my article hit the stands the Times of London published an extensive article coming to the same conclusion as mine. But for the timing, you'd practically think one of us had plagiarized the other.
Why such different conclusions between our articles and the Post's and whom to believe?
It helps to know that the Times writer and I both went to and reported from Ramadi. We didn't summarize classified documents or quote unnamed sources. Linzer and Ricks stayed home and reported from Washington, relying entirely on an unpublished document in addition to quoting a "senior intelligence official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity." I have recently ripped the media's "Baghdad Brigade" for pretending it can cover a country the size of California from a single Iraqi city. What does that say about those who think they can cover Al Anbar from Washington?
All of this illustrates a point I and others have desperately tried to make, that you cannot understand the Anbar if you haven't been there. That's why I went three times to the province and twice to Ramadi itself. It wasn't to attend a beerfest. It may also help explain things that Ricks has a recent book declaring the war a "Fiasco," and hence is already inclined towards a pessimistic view. Top-notch milblogger Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail declares, "Military and intelligence sources that I spoke to who have read the [Devlin] report indicate that they largely agree with [it] . . . but not as presented by the Washington Post." (Emphasis his.)
Alas, as much attention as my article has gotten it's hard to compete with a Post A1 article. Further, as Vietnam's Tet Offensive proved, guerrilla wars are as likely to be decided in the media as on the battlefield. It's looking like Iraq will prove no exception.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2006
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#1
I guess it's a good thing that the Germans and Japanese didn't possess the resources, skills, and natural advantages that the enemy has in Anbar, or I guess we'd have lost WWII. Oh, wait ....
#3
...as Vietnam's Tet Offensive proved, guerrilla wars are as likely to be decided in the media as on the battlefield. It's looking like Iraq will prove no exception.
This being the case, that makes the MSM media the enemy, shouldn't they be treated as such in a real physical fashion?
#4
Hard to believe but Walter Cronkite was on our side during World War II. I'm not kidding.
His life's conduct makes a lot more sense when you consider that in World War II he was on the side of the Soviet Union as well as the U. S. Which was intentional and which coincidence?
#6
Mikey the Viet Cong were pretty much destroyed during Tet. But they didn't have the endless bodies the Religion of Pieces has. There was then as now kind of traitorous 5th column we face today in the MSM.
#7
Hard to believe but Walter Cronkite was on our side during World War II. I'm not kidding.
Walter lost me at Tet too. Walter was in the European Theater when the Bulge happened in December 44, when we were surprised by a enemy offensive, that killed far more than Tet, that resulted in the destruction of an entire American division, and just after a serious bloody drubbing in the Hurtgen Forest. He knew better. No excuse. Im sure a Baker Group circa 1944 would have been working on an honorable withdraw after that if not earlier in the bogged down human grinding machine that the bocage country was in Normandy for weeks after the invasion.
#8
This is exactly why I've adovcated media blackouts as much as possible. In the case of Ramadi - at least for 90 days, concurrently loosen the ROE, and then turn our lads & the ISF loose on all suspected assholes.
#11
I can make a case for repeal of the Freedom of the Press. No shit. They had an enormous chance to do good here in the US, but they obviously fucked up. They became the enemy of the people, and that sin cannot be tolorated. Put a price on the head of every journalist.
#12
wxj - But they've been there since the end of WW-II. There have been no consequences for it, either. Hell, they credit themselves with bringing down a President, trashing US Foreign Policy, installing an entire generation raised on the smell of their own 60's brain farts into the power positions of most of AmeriKKKa's institutions, and turned the entire US toward their Stalinist nightmare, er, utopia.
#13
"The next war had better be completely finished in less than 3 months to prevent the media from organizing."
I figure the next President who has to wage one will reckon he's got more like two weeks. Tops.
"I wonder if the MSM assholes have ever thought about what this will look like?"
If they have, which I doubt, they certainly don't give a shit.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/02/2006 20:55
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#14
Start treating them as the enemy they are, freedom of the press is not freedom to not have your ass kick by a fellow citizen or your ass deported by the government as a hostile alien.
Freedom of the press is about the government not interfering in the legal opertaion of the press. If you are doing illegal things, like giving away state secrets, the First Amendment doesn't cover you.
#15
IMNSHO, the Sunnis screwed themselves by believing all the MSM's hype about how 'fearsome' they and the insurgency were. As a result the Sunnis lost any influence in the goverment and the security forces to groups that will see that their heads end up on stakes.
If the insurgency has gotten fiercer, it's out of desperation.
Airport officials said Friday they will consider setting aside a private area for prayer and meditation at the request of imams concerned about the removal of six Muslim clerics from a US Airways flight last week.
A group of Somali clerics met with airport officials Friday and said they would attract less attention if they had a private area for prayer. Devout Muslims pray five times daily, facing the holy city of Mecca.
"When we pray, we don't want a problem. We don't want what happened last week," said Abdulrehman Hersi, an imam at Darul-Quba mosque in Minneapolis, referring to six clerics who were barred from a US Airways flight in Minneapolis after drawing the concern of some passengers.
#4
"When we pray, we don't want a problem. We don't want what happened last week," said Abdulrehman Hersi, an imam at Darul-Quba mosque in Minneapolis, referring to six clerics who were barred from a US Airways flight in Minneapolis after drawing the concern of some passengers.
Guess what, asshole. Demanding preferential treatment makes you into part of the problem, NOT its solution. Do you see Jews demanding areas set aside for their private worship? No? Then why do you think that you are entitled to any special consideration?
We need to begin flogging these traitorous fucks with the simple matter of equal protection under the law. If they cannot stand the notion that Islam will not receive preferential treatment, deport their terrorist asses or jail them for sedition.
I'll freely confess that back when I first posted here it was of some interest to learn about Arab culture and all of the nomenclature needed to intelligently discuss the issues arising therefrom.
After over five years of posting about these sick twisted Islamic fuckwits, I've had it up to here about knowing their terms and vocabulary for what amounts to an assault upon my life, loves and world.
#11
"When we pray, we don't want a problem. We don't want what happened last week,"
Well if they didn't decide to switch seats to a "let's hijack the plane" configuration, and they didn't ask for seatbelt extenders which they clearly didn't need, and they didn't act like royal jackasses aside from their prayer ritual... then it never would have happened.
Of course if that never happened, then you wouldn't get your little media spotlight, would you?
#12
And I demand every airport set aside a special waiting area for my Temple of Baal. I plan to sacrifice before an image of a Golden Calf and will probably need some alone time with the temple wenches. Though I admit all those chain-mail bikinis are not going to come cheap.
There was an article the other day about even non-Wahhabi muslim students having to find other rooms on campus to pray because the group that took over the 'non-denominational' space was so obnoxious.
There's a reason that the phrase 'camel's nose in the tent' has Arabic connotations.
#14
Captain America's got it right. I've been known to kneel down and pray to the porcelien god myself, though I am somewhat a lapsed member of that sect.
#18
Great. I can't find a smoking section in most airports, but they'll bend over backwards for these assholes.
Screw 'em. Tell them to pray in a Somali driven cab...
Exactly. It's their group dominance display. That's why they must be smacked down hard and humiliated at every opportunity.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2006 15:07
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#20
Not until there's FULL true reciprocity at the airports in Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, Tehran, and Mecca.
Seriously, even here in the US, the won't allow infidels into their own moskkks, much less into a setaside room at the airport they feel is their own. At first, I thought, let them pray at the non-denom. chapel that every airport has, but then I came to my senses and realized that would just stir the hornets' nest when someone of another faith is in there.
True story. Right after 9/11 (I rode to work with 2 Muslims back then), I called the younger one and asked if he wanted to go to my church for a memorial service. It was to be non-denominational, just more to remember the victims and pray for them (however you felt). He declined, which didn't shock me. I asked if they were doing anything like that at his moskkk, and he said NO! (I was naive then about the depth of death cult this so-called "religion" was back then). I then asked if I could visit his mosque with him sometime (truly, I was curious then about what they believed). He told me "I wouldn't feel comfortable taking you there". He might as well have called me cracker or something. Here I was trying to open up to him a dialogue between our faiths, I was truly curious about his and wanting to find out what they believe. Because I was white/Christian/infidel, I wouldn't be invited to his moskkk. I still wonder what goes on within those walls and it's literally just a mile up the street from us.
Posted by: BA ||
12/02/2006 15:41
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#21
Daily as a part of my job I look at Homeland Security message traffic from DHS, the IC and state and local agencies across the country, as well as open source reporting. Every week, and sometimes every day, we see the ongoing nature of islam seeping into the fabric of the country. Uncompromising, adamant, deceitful, purposeful, and with a shared vision of conquest. Like fools we let them in, and the rising tide of their presence is everywhere.
The slippery slope of cultural suicide is accelerated every day by the compromises everyday Americans make, thinking that through accomodation we can build the goodwill for our vision of "multiculturalism" and harmony. Utter horsesh!t. The invasion has begun, and so has the planning for the fifth column. WAKE UP people, your very freedoms and country are at grave risk, and you are asleep, too timid and PC to confront these invaders. Even the least of them supports your conversion and Sharia as law. Many more want to harm you and take what you have got as theirs by right of conquest. I've never been so frightened by a threat as I am of this one. We are slipping towards European-style catastrophy day by day.
I hate sounding like a paranoid loon, but it is really that serious!
#22
Well said... and true. I often wonder just how many people outside of the various bubbles (RB, LGF, etc) where this behavior is seen for what it is, have realized this. I think not many - so the camel's nose gets further under the tent every day. Our civility and sense of fair-play will soon come back to haunt us.
#23
Exactly why I think this is gonna get a LOT nastier before it's over. I'd bet the average American has NO clue of the threat Islam truly is. I'd doubt even your average "conservative" does (e.g. those that listen to Rush or Hannity). Another reason I love the 'burg, because we "get it", as well as getting overseas news, that on it's own, appears to be a minor incident, but when all pieced together, forms the threat we all face.
I see multiculturalism dying quickly in some of the Euro countries who are facing the threat full on right now (the Danes during the cartoon-ifada, the Netherlands after Theo van Gogh and their "anti-immigrant" politician being off'd, etc.). Some of these countries were probably the MOST multi-culti, and I believe if they can shake it off, so can we. Unfortunately, I believe we'll have to be hit again, and big. But, I do believe the "real" America will stand up when we get hit again, and next time it REALLY ain't gonna be pretty when we strike back.
A big part of this is the coming civil war that will need to happen to win the WoT once and for all. The LLL, the MSM and the average American who'll pull that lever for personal gain (welfare receipients, abortion rights diehards, gay "rights" agenda pushers, etc.) are ALL lined up on the side of the jihadis right now. What they don't see (or refuse to see) is that if the jihadis took over, they'll be the first to be beheaded on You Tube. We will win this thing, first of all because there are many who see this threat. But, second of all, is because those who are fighting on the right side own all the guns!
Posted by: BA ||
12/02/2006 16:03
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#24
But BA. don't forgot that those whoe don't 'get it' are working hard to take the guns away from those who do. Watch the next Congress at work, for starters.
#26
What goes on in the moskk stays in the moskk. Our sense of fair play is seen as a trait of weakness to be exploited. At our peril. We need to watch this Minneapolis situation very closely, all right. The enemy is probing our defenses and our infrastructure. If the government cannot see the threat, then the people need to act or put enormous pressure on the govt. First order of business is to get the people aware of the threat, and the biggest impedent to that is the MSM.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/02/2006 20:45
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#27
Sorry, BA - I didn't mean to ignore your remark. Were you still friends with the Muzzy who wouldn't invite you to Friday Prayers, I'd suggest you wait for him outside and, when he emerged, go up to him and greet him loudly and warmly. His reaction would be The Lesson - one that all of America needs to see and understand.
As I've said before regards the Saudis, one primary lesson I learned there was: You can be his friend, but never ever make the mistake of thinking he's your friend.
We are but infidel cattle - and any notion otherwise is delusional.
#28
lol .com,
you gave me visions of folks standing outside mosque's similar to abortion clinics counciling them before they go in.
that would be an interesting ploy.
Posted by: Jan ||
12/02/2006 21:00
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#29
Maybe this could be an avenue for really stirring up the shit with Muslims in America. Have large groups of Christians stand around outside of Mosques and leaflet while witnessing to exiting Muslims. Let the Muslims try and raise a stink only to get slapped down in court over First Amendment rights.
More than anything, make sure that plenty of news coverage happens whenever and wherever there are any threats of violence or squealing about attempted conversions. Get Islam's religious intolerance under a glaring spotlight. If I were a Christian pastor, this would be near the top of my priority list. All other faiths need to begin exposing Islam for the religious fraud it is. No peace for Muslims so long as their is no real freedom of religion in Islamic countries.
#30
But BA. don't forgot that those whoe don't 'get it' are working hard to take the guns away from those who do. Watch the next Congress at work, for starters.
True, but the actual ACT of taking them is a whole 'nother matter. Sure, in some LLL cities, you might get the cops to round them up. But (as someone posted here yesterday, I believe), if they tried to get the military to confiscate guns, something like 90+% said they would NOT do it. Add to that, if they tried to do it full-scale, I'd be willing to bet there'd be some massive violent retaliations.
Sorry, BA - I didn't mean to ignore your remark. Were you still friends with the Muzzy who wouldn't invite you to Friday Prayers, I'd suggest you wait for him outside and, when he emerged, go up to him and greet him loudly and warmly. His reaction would be The Lesson - one that all of America needs to see and understand.
No problem, I didn't think ya dissed me at all. And, your right, it would be the lesson of all lessons. Funny thing is, he only lives like 6 houses up from me, works with me (although on different floors), and we actually have a lot in common. I have NO doubts though, that if push came to shove, he'd be Muzzie first! The other one I rode with though, is very Americanized (to the point of being your average overweight, completely into the easy life), so I don't worry about him at all. Don't see either one of them very much anymore. And, they are Bangladeshi, not some hard-core Wahhabis from Saudi. I used to push their buttons (after 9/11 and my eyes were opened) and start up discussions about Israel in the car. I was completely blown away by how quickly the younger one went completely ape-$hit batty, and he had NEVER been there, didn't know any "Palestinians" at all, etc. He was born in Bangladesh, but his folks came here and raised him (around early middle school age, I think) in NYC. ABSOLUTELY no connections to Israel/Palestine at all, but that's what he tried to mold everything into, how the evil Jooos were the root cause of everything bad in this world. Cog Dis to the extreme.
Posted by: BA ||
12/02/2006 22:07
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TAIPING: Malaysias snake king Ali Khan Samsudin, 48, died as he had lived handling the reptiles that he loved. His eldest son Amjad Khan, 21, said his father had been performing at a show in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday when he was bitten by a King Cobra.
Ali Khan, who regularly performs with his beloved snakes for charity and for a living, died at 1am yesterday at Kuala Lumpur Hospital where he had been recuperating.
We don't call it 'recuperating' when in fact you're dying. We call it 'dying'.
Amjad Khan related that when his father contacted him on Tuesday to tell him he had been bitten, the family had not been too worried. He had been bitten by snakes many times before, including three times by King Cobras. The first King Cobra bit him in Taiping when he was 21.
So we didnt think anything would happen. I was just relaks saja (calm), said Amjad Khan at their flat in Kampung Boyan here yesterday.
On Thursday night, his condition took a turn for the worse. Family members here received a call from Amjad Khans uncle to go to the hospital. We rushed from Taiping at 11.30pm, but by the time we arrived he was already gone. We didnt even get a chance to say goodbye, said the son. Maybe his body couldnt take it any more because of his diabetes.
Snake venom on top of diabetes? Yup, that could be bad.
He leaves behind five children aged 13 to 23 from wives Mau Boh Bee, 48, and Jumabee Mohd Ibrahim, 33. Amjad Khan, who also works as a snake handler, said he would continue his fathers work despite the tragedy. Many of my fathers shows have been cancelled, but this is a trade that has been passed down for five generations, he said, adding that his uncle Husein Dasthagir, 48, also worked with snakes. Its our way of life and we cant imagine doing anything else.
Handling snakes runs in the family. Crazy definitely runs in the family.
Well known for his daring feats with cobras, Ali Khan had also made it into the 1997 Guinness Book of World Records, living in a glass enclosure filled with more than 5,000 scorpions for 21 days. He set another record by living with 400 snakes for 40 days.
You really have to wonder how the guy managed to live as long as he did.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2006
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#1
About 1962 or 63 our boy scout troop at Morrison (Taichung - near the AB) had the top snake guy from Taipei visit our clubhouse at the MAAG enlisted complex.
We could start by saying such shows are not appropriate. prior I had killed lots of nasty snakes - esp. white mambas after the show all of us were scared to death of the snakes..
This jerks idea of a snake show was to have about 8 cobras slithering in a circle surrounded by scared cub scouts and sadistic den mothers.
Then he would start skinning one and let the others aim for us. When one would get close he would set down the one he was skining and start in on the closests one. After all these were skined and he had cut out their gallbladders and poison sacs - putting them in various booze jars with strong spirits...
He started in on the bamboo snakes and mambas.
We used to stake out mambas for our cat but this guy made the cat look kind hearted and gentle...
The next week dad took me to see the largest live python they ever captured in Taiwan. (Damn thing really stared in my eyes for a long time).
At this point it was night lights on for a year.
Several weeks later a 100 ft step snake got the snake man while doing a show in his resturant.
Another side story like that.... we lived on a compound right across the street from the Taiwanese Airforce Hospital and pilots housing. We employed a "slow" guy to do minor lawn care and such on our campus (not mil). He loved snake meat and had watched the vendors do their thing so many times the poor fool thought he could do it to. He tied two white mambas to a stick. Started to skin one so the other bit him. Went to the other and the first bit him. Then he thought he better do something about it so he walked across the street to the ROC airforce hospital ER carrying the stick with the two snakes on it so they could give him the correct antivenom.
#4
Worse in one sense. In the time it takes to walk 100 steps you are dead. (different kind of poison. Stops respiration. But if you can get on life support quickly or have mouth to mouth you stand a good chance.)
#6
When I lived in India as a kid, we used to get snake charmers through our village periodically who would charge money to get rid of snakes in your yard. Of course it's purely coincidental that they would show up right about the time people began reporting cobra sightings around town.
Al Qaida in Iraq reportedly published a message on its website on Friday urging members to assassinate King Abdullah of Jordan. The message called on "Jordanian partisans" to take action, and addressed the king as follows: "Patience, your fate will be the same as your traitor great-grandfather's."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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Whatever he done to them? Ah, forgot. Hashemis are pretenders to the Saudi throne.
#2
The Hashemis used to rule Mecca, taking their cut from the lucrative haj traffic. The British removed them in favour of their pet desert Arab, Saud, and gave them Jordan (and I think Iraq) as compensation.
#3
psssst, Abdullah? The Paleos are AQ tools. Act accordingly
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2006 18:39
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#4
Having Al-Qaida kill King Abdullah may be exactly what the US needs to knock some heads in that part of the world. I would recommend nukes and 500 miles on every large city (over 5000 population), and a few extra for any gathering crowds. I'm sure the entire world will be more peaceful after Riyadh, Mecca, Medina, Jedda, Aden, Bandar Abbas, Busahir, Qom, Tehran, Khartoum, Cairo, Alexandria, Damascus, Homs(Hims), Latakia, Beirut, and a dozen or so other sources of trouble are eliminated. Maybe even toss a few at Qetta, Karachi, Peshawar, Islamabad, Miranshah, et. al., for good measure.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/02/2006 19:09
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#5
OP - I'll admit that is a pretty complete plan and I like it but, you left out one small item.
Collect all the friendlies before your strikes commence, board them onto a ship, have it proceed 10 miles into the Med off of Alexandria,
Texas Rep. Silvestre Reyes, an Iraq war opponent, will become chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee when Democrats take control of Congress in January, Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi said on Friday.
In choosing Reyes, a former border patrol agent and Vietnam War veteran, Pelosi skipped over two more senior Democrats to head a panel that oversees the conduct of U.S. national security policy and counterterrorism efforts. The panel's top-ranking Democrat, California Rep. Jane Harman, has had strained relations with Pelosi, and the next in line, Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida, is a former federal judge who was ousted from that post after allegations of corruption. Pelosi said of Reyes: "When tough questions are required, whether they relate to intelligence shortcomings before the 9/11 attacks or the war in Iraq, or to the quality of intelligence on Iran or North Korea, he does not hesitate to ask them."
The incoming Democratic-led Congress is expected to be more aggressive next year in challenging the Bush administration on security and intelligence matters, after six years in which Republican lawmakers who controlled the House and Senate were accused of rubber-stamping the White House.
But the Bush administration on Friday said it welcomed Reyes' appointment. "Congressman Reyes' lengthy service on the intelligence committee and his comprehensive understanding of the intelligence community and the challenges it faces ideally qualifies him for this important chairmanship," said John Negroponte, director of national intelligence.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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#1
Not jumping to any rash conclusions. He could turn out to be decent. Certainly a better choice than Hastings.
Twenty-eight people were formally charged in the July 11 train bombings in Mumbai that killed more than 200 people. Thirteen of the accused are in custody, police prosecutor Raja Thackeray said. The 28 were charged with murder, handling explosive substances, committing terrorist acts and causing damage to public property in Mumbai, formerly called Bombay. They could face the death penalty. Police say the 28 suspects belong to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group, as well as the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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Good work, boys! Keep it up, except alter the deal/captured ratio, k?
In a string of operations across Iraq this week, Iraqi forces detained 28 suspects, coalition forces killed 17 insurgents and rescued three Iraqi hostages, and four Iraqis were killed in a suicide attack, military officials in Iraq reported.
The 9th Iraqi Army Division, with coalition support, detained 28 suspected insurgents for questioning in an operation within the Iraqi capital today in Rusafa. U.S. attack helicopters were used in support of the mission to assist the ground elements with their mission. An assortment of small arms and munitions also were seized during the operation. Nice combined arms, combined units operation. Just the sort of thing we say we're training the Iraqis to do.
Elsewhere, coalition forces used air-delivered precision ordnance to kill three insurgents today in Ubaydi. Insurgents attacked coalition forces with small-arms fire and then attempted to run away flee in a vehicle. In response to the attack, coalition forces used precision ordnance to destroy the vehicle and the insurgents inside. Aside from the vehicle, there was no further damage. 'cause it's precision, you know. In another operation, coalition air and ground forces combined to kill 14 insurgents and wound two at about 2 a.m. yesterday after the individuals engaged a coalition convoy with small-arms fire southwest of Samarra. While the insurgents fled in trucks and motorcycles, Task Force Lightning attack helicopters tracked them for several miles and used two guided bombs to destroy one of the vehicles. Subsequently, helicopters and strike aircraft engaged the remaining vehicles, killing or wounding all of the insurgents. Honda Gold Wing don't fail me .. [ZAP] .. rosebud ..
Upon further investigation of the site, Task Force Lightning soldiers discovered more than 1,500 rounds of small-arms ammunition and various semi-automatic machine guns including six AK-47s, two heavy machineguns, two destroyed motorcycles with homemade machine gun mounts and one rocket-propelled-grenade launcher.
Separately, Iraqi police successfully engaged a suicide car bomber attempting to breach an entry-control point leading to a police station in the Dawasa neighborhood Nov. 29 at about 12:15 p.m. The Iraqi police prevented the terrorist from breaching the entry control point, but the bomb exploded outside the checkpoint, killing four Mosul citizens and the suicide car bomber and injuring 29. The four citizens killed in the blast included two children and two adults. Those injured were transported to Mosul general hospital for treatment. One Iraqi police officer received treatment for superficial wounds and was released. That's not engaging 'successfully'; 'successful' is when the splodydope is nailed before he pulls the cord.
"Iraqi police in Ninewa province are vigilant to these types of attacks," said Army Maj. Adam Rocke, operations officer for 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division. "The sad part is the innocent citizens who are killed or injured as a result of these cowardly acts, especially the children.
In another operation, three handcuffed hostages were rescued from insurgents by soldiers of the 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, near Forward Operating Base Loyalty on Nov. 29. A fourth handcuffed hostage was found nearby, dead from a gunshot wound to the head.
The three rescued hostages were discovered after the U.S. soldiers noticed an illegal checkpoint being manned by six individuals in military uniforms. One of the six manning the checkpoint had a fake Ministry of Interior identification. The six suspects caught running the illegal checkpoint were detained by U.S. forces for questioning
Elsewhere, soldiers from Multinational Division Baghdad uncovered a sizeable cache of munitions in a northwestern neighborhood of the Iraqi capital Nov. 29. After receiving a tip, soldiers from Company A, 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, conducted a combat patrol to search a house of a suspected mortar man. When the troops arrived at the residence, there was no one at the home. During the search of the house, they discovered a weapons cache. They found 16 82 mm mortar rounds, one 60 mm mortar round, one 82 mm mortar tube with a tripod, one 60 mm mortar tube with a base plate, 11 grenades, one machinegun with three full magazines, one rocket-propelled-grenade launcher sight, one set of body armor with plates, one set of body armor without plates, 42 mortar primers, 59 grenade fuses, two radios, and a bomb protective suit.
#1
Elsewhere, soldiers from Multinational Division Baghdad uncovered a sizeable cache of munitions in a northwestern neighborhood of the Iraqi capital Nov. 29.
Were these leftover munitions from the Saddam era or recently shipped and off-loaded bad stuff from, oh I don't know, maybe Iran or Syria?
Yea, let's get the two involved in "discussions" and see if they'll help us out. Brilliant idea ... Not!
#2
I think we need to take up a collection here on Rantburg to buy the Army a dozen sets of thumb screws and a few other sundries for serious "questioning" of subjects. We need to keep it small, so they're easily portable - no Iron Maidens or racks. Maybe a chain saw with an extra large splash shield, for really SERIOUS questioning... Find out once and for all who's naughty and who's nice, especially in the Iraqi police.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/02/2006 17:03
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#3
Old Pat, if you've a field phone, you don't need anything else.
#5
Interesting, SpecOp35 - if he openly associates himself with Hillary, then his Favorite Son status could offset Obama's "popularity" - though I believe that to be yet another media thingy, a vaporous bandwagon effort among the Limo Liberal Editorial Krowd.
#13
I hate to be a heavy psychedelic bummer, but that picture .com linked to in #8? Those are the people who are calling the shots now in today's Democratic Party.
And the American people-- God help us all-- just made them a majority in Congress.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/02/2006 17:11
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#2
How about sending some equipment/instructors to Ethiopians instead?
We're already doing that, grom. That's what part of those 1600 SF folks are doing in Djibouti. What we want are 50,000 boots on the ground in Baidoa, driving toward Mogadischu with tanks and APCs. I'd like to see some surprise navy action, with F/A-18s blowing up mosques in central/southern Somalia at 3AM. Catch the bad guys while they're napping, more or less.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/02/2006 17:15
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Morocco is to scrap compulsory military service in a move analysts said on Thursday was aimed at blocking infiltration of the military by Islamists hatching an anti-monarchist plot.
Morocco has been on alert over religious hardliners since 2003 when suicide bombings killed 45 people in Casablanca. Analysts said the security concerns had deepened since the discovery in August of a group, Ansar Al Mehdi (Mehdi Partisans), accused by government of planning to launch a holy war to establish a caliphate Islamic state. The group infiltrated the army and police to recruit at least nine of their members.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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Wouldn't courts martial and executions provide a more comprehensive solution?
Religious party activists held small protests on Friday in several cities around Pakistan as President Pervez Musharraf signed into law a bill curtailing the scope of Islamic laws on rape. Islamist opposition lawmakers have threatened to resign from parliament over the issue, but protests held after the National Assembly passed the Women's Protection Bill earlier this month have failed to generate much public support. "Right. We're gonna get out there and demonstrate against nooky."
The passage of the bill was seen as a test of Musharraf's commitment to his vision of "enlightened moderation", and a major battle in a long struggle between progressives and religious conservatives to set the course for this mainly Muslim nation. "The bill was sent to the president by the prime minister yesterday, which he signed and returned today," Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani told Reuters.
Hundreds of supporters of the Islamist parties chanted anti-Musharraf slogans at a demonstration in Rawalpindi, the city next door to Islamabad, and demanded that the government scrap the bill, and there were smaller rallies in other cities after Friday prayers. The act takes the crime of rape out of the sphere of the religious laws, known as the Hudood Ordinances, and puts it under the penal code. Under the Hudood Ordinances, which were introduced by a military ruler in 1979, a rape victim had to produce four male witnesses to prove the crime, or face the possibility of prosecution for adultery. The change does away with that requirement and will allow convictions to be made on the basis of forensic and circumstantial evidence.
An Islamist opposition leader said it would turn conservative Pakistan into a "free sex zone". Liberal groups and human rights activities have hailed the amendment, although they want a complete abolition of the Hudood Ordinances.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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Posted by: abu King Coal ||
12/02/2006 6:38
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#3
"Under the Hudood Ordinances, which were introduced by a military ruler in 1979, a rape victim had to produce four male witnesses to prove the crime, or face the possibility of prosecution for adultery."
Charming people, these Wahhabist-trained and educated, and Deobandist-inspired Muzzies.
Unless we're talking what, fivesome or sixsome, how in the world is a rape victim to produce four male witnesses? And in such a misogynistic culture, really, four male witnesses to vouch for a female just raped by her uncle? Come on now.
#4
Charming people, these Wahhabist-trained and educated, and Deobandist-inspired Muzzies.
Ironically the Pak dictator General Zia Ul Haq, born in Jalandhar, India was educated at the Government High School, Simla and got a B.A. from St. Stephen College, Delhi. He was trained at the US Army Command and General Staff College Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
A most secular background. But scratch the surface and the islamist emerges?
BTW he led one of the "Black September" Ops in Jordan that crushed the PLO.
The sash he wore was an award granted by the King of Jordan...
Posted by: john ||
12/02/2006 10:47
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Islamist opposition lawmakers have threatened to resign from parliament over the issue
Go right ahead. Don't need you @$$holes anyway.
Good for Pakistan, good for Pakistanis, good for Islam in general.
It's interesting how much denial you'll see in the ME. That sign says "Niswan bill is a sign of forcination", as if they want to bury their heads in the sand that there might be some muslims that are actually human. Nothing changes, you just become aware of it. They'd rather live in ignorance, I guess. No wonder original science isn't one of their strong points.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Stephen A. Cambone, the Pentagon's top intelligence official and a close ally of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, will step down at the end of the year, becoming the first key department member to leave in the wake of Rumsfeld's resignation. It had been widely speculated that Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, would resign as the Pentagon prepares for the expected Senate confirmation of a new defense chief -- former CIA director Robert Gates.
The Pentagon's intelligence-gathering has come under fire during Cambone's tenure, with critics accusing the Defense Department of trying to take expanded control over the nation's intelligence activities.
Cambone was in charge of intelligence when it was disclosed a year ago that a Pentagon database of suspicious activities contained the names of anti-war groups that had been found not be security risks. Cambone ordered a review of the program.
Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Vician said Gates did not request Cambone's resignation. "This was an independent decision," said Vician. "Dr. Cambone decided that now is a good time for a change to enable him to spend more time with his family."
Cambone came to the Pentagon with Rumsfeld in January 2001, and served in three other top level posts before taking over the intelligence job in March 2003.
The Iraq Study Group has reached a consensus.
by Robert Kagan & William Kristol
In the frenzied final week of the Iraq Study Group's deliberations, co-chairmen James Baker and Lee Hamilton took time out to pose for a photo spread for a fashion magazine, Men's Vogue. This might seem a dubious decision given the gravity of the moment and their self-appointed roles as the nation's saviors. The "wise men" who counseled Lyndon Johnson during Vietnam and the members of the Kissinger Commission who tried to reshape Ronald Reagan's Central American policies did not sit for Annie Leibovitz in the middle of their endeavors. Nor did they hire a mega-public relations firm to sell their recommendations (supposedly intended for the president) to the public at large, as Baker and Hamilton have done.
But we think the chairmen's self-promotion and big-time product marketing are perfectly understandable. They have to do something to distract attention from two unpleasant facts.
The first is that after nine months of deliberation and an unprecedented build-up of expectations that these sages would produce some brilliant, original answer to the Iraq conundrum, the study group's recommendations turn out to be a pallid and muddled reiteration of what most Democrats, many Republicans, and even Donald Rumsfeld and senior military officials have been saying for almost two years. Thus, according to at least six separate commission sources sent out to pre-spin the press, the Baker-Hamilton report will call for a gradual and partial withdrawal of American forces in Iraq, to begin at a time unspecified and to be completed by a time unspecified. The goal will be to hand over responsibility for security in Iraq to the Iraqis themselves as soon as this is feasible, and to shift the American role to training rather than fighting the insurgency and providing security. The decision of how far, how fast, and even whether to withdraw will rest with military commanders in Iraq, who will base their determination on how well prepared the Iraqis are to take over. Even after the withdrawal, the study group envisions keeping at least 70,000 American troops in Iraq for years to come.
Continued on Page 49
#1
I've won several bets (friendly and "future beers to be named later" variety) with this preposterous commission outcome. A few related ones remain to be settled, when Dubya formally rejects all of the specific recommendations.
Of course the administration should be horse-whipped for ever going along with the whole idea in the first place. It goes way beyond Bush, or Iraq, or Donks vs. Trunks. The US does not use commissions to make decisions on strategy in war - we have elections, and elected officials to do that. The familiar dodges involving base closure and perennial Social Security reform are repugnant but probably now institutionalized - but war strategy? This is insane - even if little comes of it (and as Kristol and Kagan point out, the commission exercise has been yet one more prop used by the media to flog their latest Iraq priorities).
Yet despite Bush's residual steel, I find it hard to imagine any changes in the direction of pursuing anything like victory. If the administration can watch its post-modern "counter insurgency" approach sputter and fail for over a year, helping turn Congress over to a party that may be the most lifeless and pathetic ever to win a US election, without firing anyone or trying anything different, they can probably (incredibly) continue to fiddle-f**k in Iraq now.
Leaks about re-thinking "Sunni engagement" are beyond ironic. There were many whose initial reaction to Sunni engagement was deep concern - and election turnout and unity government did nothing to change matters. Attempting to split and co-opt the Sunni community of course made sense - but as with everything in Iraq we forgot to first "set the conditions" by breaking the will of the die-hard resistance and making life intolerable for those who tolerated al Qaeda. The Sunnis who joined the government could never deliver enough to break the complex grip that fear and violence have back home.
Strategic boldness and tactical lassitude - an odd and unfortunate combination, so far ....
#2
The *real* solution is going to come from the pentagon group led by Colonel McMaster.
And that's theone I trust. He and the 3rd ACR did arguably the best job of it over there of any Army unit. Col McMAster "Gets It". That and he was a young pup when I served with him in GW1, but a damn fine officer. If we had more like McMaster as General Officers I bet that we'd have a lot less of the BS ROE and other hamstringing we have done to ourselves - far more effective meaning far less blood shed on BOTH sides.
#3
FWIW, I think this commission nonsense has two functions:
1. to smoke out the spineless cowards.
2. provide political cover for whoever needs it.
1 is short term, 2 is long term. There was no chance that it's reccomendations were going to be implemented. Sort of like the moynahan commission, WRT welfare reform.
just my $0.02
Posted by: N guard ||
12/02/2006 10:07
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Right on all counts, OldSpook and N guard.
McMaster does seem like someone who understands that force and will are still the first topic in war - not jobs and electricity.
I'm hampered by limited info, but I wonder if there's a widespread split in the Army as I saw in the palace in Baghdad, between those with almost a fixation on non-military measures and those who were more practical and realized what people and environment we're dealing with.
NATO and Afghan troops killed 10 Taliban rebels and captured two suspected militant leaders in a raid on an alleged suicide bomb cell in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said Friday. Separately, six Taliban were killed and two other insurgents arrested after a three-hour gunbattle with Afghan police.
One NATO soldier was lightly wounded in the operation against the suicide cell carried out early Thursday in the troubled Sangin district of Helmand province, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said. The identity of the suspected commanders captured in the raid was not revealed.
An ISAF statement said troops seized two suicide vests, several rocket-propelled grenades and a cache of equipment and weapons that were ready to be used in future attacks. Warplanes and helicopters backed up the troops in the operation, it said, adding that there were no civilian casualties. Most of the NATO troops stationed in Helmand are British.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
smells like quagmire
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2006 1:31
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Does anyone have a body count for dead Talibunnies since the vaunted Spring Offensive began back in April of 06? I'm guessing it's somewhere at around 2,000 dead fluffy bunnies.
#5
More authoratative than the AP, Roooters, and the UN Convention on the Counting of Bodies of Misplaced Freedom Fighters.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2006 11:35
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I'd love to quote this source, but it's Paki. There was a raid, but the ISAF press release does NOT quantify the number of Talibs killed.
I also don't quote the Afghan police on their "luck" with the Talibs.
I spend quite a bit of time each day checking with multiple parts of the military for info. There is little coordination and, especially with NATO, they have a tendancy to release information days after it happened. So, I'm constantly going over the same stuff looking for new data.
Mexico's new President Felipe Calderon promised on Friday to get tough on violent crime by slapping tougher sentences on drug traffickers and other lawbreakers. Calderon said his administration, which took power on Friday, would put together a plan within 90 days to step up the fight against organized crime and clean up a corrupt police force whose officers often work in league with felons.
Drug-trafficking gangs have killed almost 3,000 Mexicans in the last two years in a bloody struggle for control of the trade in cocaine and other drugs destined for the United States. "It's not going to be easy or quick, it will take time and will cost a lot of money and even human lives," he told supporters in Mexico City's vast national auditorium, detailing his specific agenda for cracking down on lawbreakers. "I will be at the forefront of this battle. We are going to beat crime."
Many of Mexico's largest cities are plagued by kidnappings, muggings and carjackings, while some rural areas have become drug-trafficking strongholds where local police fear to tread. "Today criminals want to terrorize and immobilize society and the government," said the conservative Calderon. "Let's put an end to the impunity of criminals."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
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Just remember the three numbered envelopes that Fox gave you.
When things get really out of control, open number one. It will read - blame everything on your predecessor. It should buy you time.
When things get really out of control again, open number two. It will read - reorganize. It should buy you time.
When thing get massively out of control again, open number three. It will read - prepare three envelopes for your replacement.
Columbia University officials are lowering the boom on some graduate journalism students suspected of cheating on, of all things, an ethics exam. The J-schoolers' alleged lapse on the final was reported yesterday by Radar Online.
This is almost like being an intern with Reuters or CBS.
Or the Associated Press...
The exam in question consisted of two essay questions to be completed in 90 minutes any time during a 36-hour period. Students who took the test early were instructed to avoid discussing the questions with those planning to take it later, but the warning was ignored. One honorable young scholar got wind of what happened and blew the whistle, sources said.
Vice Dean David Klatell told students in an e-mail that there had been a "serious problem" with the final and ordered them to attend a special session of the class "Critical Issues in Journalism" today - or fail. The order applies only to the Friday morning section. The evening section is exempt. It was unclear how many students could be affected.
The course, which includes such issues as "Why be Ethical?" and "Tribal Loyalty vs. Journalistic Obligation," is taught by New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, who could not be reached yesterday. One source said of the special session, "It's an 'Out yourself or you'll all have to suffer' situation." A Columbia spokesman confirmed Klatell had fired off the e-mail, but did not release details about the "problem."
#2
The course, which includes such issues as "Why be Ethical?" and "Tribal Loyalty vs. Journalistic Obligation," is taught by New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, who could not be reached yesterday.
Ya sure he's not recruiting? They look like Times material to me.
BUFFALO, N.Y. A man was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday for running an unlicensed money-transfer business that sent $5 million to Yemen. Mohamed Albanna of Lackawanna arranged the transfers from his Buffalo cigarette and candy wholesale business from 1999 to 2002.
U.S. Attorney Terrance Flynn said authorities did not allege that money transferred by the business went to support terrorism but could not rule it out. Albanna, along with a brother and nephew, were arrested in December 2002, after the arrests of six other Yemeni-American men from Lackawanna who admitted to attending a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan. One of the "Lackawanna Six" used the unlicensed business to send $1,500 to Kamal Derwish in March 2002, according to a ledger investigators took from the business. Derwish is believed to have been killed by a CIA missile strike in Yemen later that year.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Lynch outlined other transactions that he said would have triggered alarms at legitimate money-transfer businesses. But with no paper trail, investigators hit a dead end, he said. Albanna, a leader in Buffalo's Arab-American community, has said the money was sent from Yemeni-Americans in the United States to relatives back home. "My intention was always to assist my fellow man," he told U.S. District Judge William Skretny.
Posted by: Fred ||
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But with no paper trail, investigators hit a dead end,
They knew this was completely illegal and hid the end landing. This had clear implication of Muslim terrorism. So why are these Moozlimbs even allowed in the West?
#2
The Yeminis grow ever bolder in Lackawanna. We were in Lackawanna/Buffalo for Thanksgiving -- Mr. Wife comes from Lackawanna, home of the long-shuttered Bethlehem Steel plant, I from the university suburb on the other side of town. My darling mother-in-law reports that the high school boys' soccer team was shut down mid-season because the Yemeni lads were in the habit of egregiously abusing their kafir opponents -- spitting, gouging, shouted abuse -- the school superintendent finally put his foot down. Next year they get a three-year probation, but in the meantime lots of claims that college scholarships were lost, etc (yeah, right -- Lackawanna has never been that kind of academic haven). The school has a prayer room now, and Christmas has been banished into the mists of history. And my darling mother-in-law and the friend she goes walking with several mornings a week continue to be pushed off the sidewalk by hijab-coiffed Yemeni women, who do so with malice aforethought.
#4
Thanks for update TW. Yes, cesspools all...Dearborn,Lackawanna, and apparently Minneapolis. These are out of control. We can't let these cancer pits gain credence in upending American traditions. The Muzzies must be thrown out. There can be no accomodation given.
It sounds like Mr. Derwish was running a simple hawala thingy, a traditional Muslim non-bank money transference set-up, often involving family members at both ends. I b'lieve that's illegal altogether in the U.S. if a certain money level is crossed (prob'ly $10,000 total transactions or something), irrespective of whether or not any of the handled funds were transferred to terrorists or terror organizations.... Just as mobsters are convicted of not paying the proper taxes on their ill-gotten gains.
(SomaliNet) Reports from Galkaayo city, the capital of Mudug province in central Somalia say that nine cleric men belonging to Tabliq religious sector have been arrested by Puntland authorities. Reliable sources confirmed Somalinet in Galkaayo city that the clerics are now being held in a prison located in the city for suspicion. They are being questioned in the cell for their destination amid high tension between Islamic Courts and Puntland authorities.
Unconfirmed reports emerging from who were behind the arrest of the religious men with some reports say that militia loyal to Colonel Abdi Hassan Qeybdid have been responsible for apprehending the preachers. It is the second time that pro government militia arrest the Tabliq priests. Recently, about ten Tabliq Islamist clerics, who had been held in Baidoa city, southwest of Somalia, were released after being found no guilty.
Tabliq men are known to have been devoted to the Islamic religion and their work is only for preaching the practice of Islam through many difficulties. In everywhere in the world, Tabliq send teams of clerics to reach the Islam to the non-Muslims. In Somalia, they go to places where the Somalis seem be weak in practicing the Islam.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Recruiting future Muslime terrorists during times of stress. Sounds just like USA prisons.
(SomaliNet) Somalis interim government top official said on Friday that troops defected from the Islamic Courts Union joined his government in Baidoa city, the capital Bay province in southwest Somalia. It is the first time militia from Islamic Courts joins the government since its rise in Somalia in early June.
In a news conference held today in Baidoa city, the deputy minister of defense in the transitional federal government Salad Ali Jelle said that they had welcomed in Baidoa large number of defected militia from Islamic Courts after they could not stand with what he called the extremism acts.
We are here indicating that my government has welcomed the joining of about 350 militia from Islamic Courts to the government Mr. Ali Jelle said they were the local militia who came from Bur-Hakaba area where it controlled by the terrorist group of Islamic Courts.
He told the reporters in Baidoa that the defection of the militia came after they faced difficulties from the Islamic Courts, which confiscated all the battlewagons they belonged. The militia reached at Karkor village 20km of Baidia, where we have sent trucks to take them to the city, Jele added.
The Islamic Court official in Bur-Hakaba town 180km southwest of the capital admitted the defection of the local militia but their number is smaller than the claim by the government. Mohamed Ibrahim Bilal, the leader of the Al-Bayan Islamic Court, confirmed the news on the defection but said they were about 13 militia who would not have an impact on the Islamic Courts. There have been thirteen local militia who defected to the government and I think they do so for Khat reasons, because they were all Khat consumers and this would have nothing to do with our power, Bilal said. I am absolutely dismissing the remarks from Salad Ali Jelle in which he said the number of the defected militia were hundreds he was lying and told untrue story to the reporters.
Three officers of the defected Islamist troops identified as Abdi Madey Ibrahim, Abdi Gaas Hussein and Barow Mohamed Hassan could be seen sitting beside where Mr. Jelle was speaking to the reporters in Baidoa.
Posted by: Fred ||
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(SomaliNet) Somalis interim government top official said on Friday that troops defected from the Islamic Courts Union joined his government in Baidoa city, the capital Bay province in southwest Somalia. It is the first time militia from Islamic Courts joins the government since its rise in Somalia in early June.
#2
How does anyone know they really defected? Couldn't they be doing that Muslim lying thing and faking defection, so they can attack from the rear while the ICU attacks from the front?
#3
That's possible Glenmore, but being muzzie they could also be strong horsing it for a bit, then maybe change back, depending. In'shalla they will find the winner.
Amir Abu Hafs, the Deputy Military Amir of Chechen Mujahideen martyred (Shaheed, insha Allah) in a fierce battle that lasted for several hours in the Dagestani town of Khasavyurt, on Sunday, November 26, 2006, according to a Tuesday report for the Kavkaz Center news agency from the Eastern Front Headquarters of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria's Armed Forces.
Two other Mujahideen martyred with him in the battle, Allah's willing, the report says. Earlier the Russians falsely claimed that they had killed 5 Mujahideen in the action.
Details of the battle are still unavailable. The battle lasted for the whole light-time period on Sunday, the report says. The Russians earlier claimed that it lasted for 4 hours.
Amir Abu Hafs was born in 1973 in Jordan. After graduating from a university, he came in 1995 in Chechnya to fight as a volunteer against Russian aggressors. After martyrdom (Shaheed, insha Allah) of Amir Hattab, Abu Hafs became a deputy of Amir Abu Walid. And after Abu Walid (Shaheed, insha Allah), he became the commander of a group of volunteers. He was nominated a Deputy Military Amir of Chechen Mujahideen by the order of the Chechen President in 2005.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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Wow ... you think this particular news source is a tad bit biased? Allan Akbar!
#2
Wow ... you think this particular news source is a tad bit biased? Allan Akbar!
It's kavkazcenter, an oldie but goodie, in its Xth incarnation; the voice of the caucase hard boyz, complete with stories about the Incredibly Heroic Deeds of the Lions Of Islam from all over the world.
My favorite was the 12 years afghan boy who killed twenty or so crusaders and their lackey, and destroyed an US tank too, all this with grenades, before vanishing into the sunset.
Army in mountainous and forested area of Mahore in district Udhampur on Thursday killed three Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorists including a Battalion Commander. According to PRO Defence Lt Col SD Goswami, troops of 59 Rashtriya Riffles on information regarding movement of terrorists in the area have launched a search operation at Deolmarg area, some 180 kms north of Jammu.
An encounter occurred during the search operation, when terrorists opened fire on the troops. During the fierce gun battle, army have gunned down three Hizb terrorists including the Battalion Commander that has been identified as Shabir Ahmed. The other two slain terrorists have been identified as Abdul Hameed alias Aashiq and Mohammad Amin alias Juneid. One Ak-47 riffle, three magazines, 58 rounds, one SLR riffle, four magazines, 50 rounds, one 9 mm pistol, one magazine, four rounds and UBG have recovered from the possession of slain terrorists.
Posted by: Fred ||
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An underground operative was killed during a "shootout" between his accomplices and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) in Durgapur upazila of the district last night. They don't even bother to hide the facts anymore in the "shootouts".
Police said the dead, Babu, 30, son of UP Chairman Afsar Ali, was an active member of an outlawed party. Islamicist? No-o-o-o. Communist? Ye-e-e-s.
Acting on a tip-off, ... ... that coming from our man, Mahmoud the Weasel ...
... a team of Rab personnel raided the old cattle market area near Taherpur-Durgapur road at about 7:15pm to arrest Babu and his cohorts. We have no idea where that is.
Sensing the presence of the Rab men, Babu and his accomplices opened fire on the law enforcers, prompting them to retaliate. Spider-sense tingling, random, aimless fire, and retaliation all in one sentence.
Rab sources said, Babu received bullets during the encounter ... ... received one behind each ear, in fact ...
...and died on the spot.
"Which spot?"
"That spot!"
Police said Babu was arrested in 2004 on charges of criminal acts and released on bail only two months ago. He again got involved in criminal activities, they added. And his mother didn't love him either.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2006
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Boo hoo, Babu. Out only two months and he crossed The Weasel. Word will get out...
A French engineering student who was expelled from Syria on suspicion of trying to join Islamists fighting U.S. forces in Iraq has been placed under formal French judicial investigation, a judicial source said on Friday. Moustapha el-Sanharawi, 20, from the central city of Tours, was arrested in mid-October on the Syrian-Iraqi border. He was a student at ENSTA, a French engineering institute, in Paris before leaving for Syria, the source said.
Agents from the DST domestic intelligence service detained him on his arrival back in France on Wednesday. "He was placed under investigation for associating with wrong-doers in relation to a terrorist undertaking," the source said.
In France, judges lead investigations before any charges are brought. Since 2004, French authorities have dismantled several networks ferrying young French Muslims to fight in Iraq, mostly passing via Syria. French intelligence said last year at least six French nationals had died in fighting in Iraq since 2003 and around 10 others were believed to be fighting alongside rebels. Authorities fear fighters returning from Iraq could form the core of new French terrorism networks.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Ima hope this Investigation weighs about 1200 lbs. kilos
Heavily edited because it's typical SeeBS / AP hash it all together pseudo-journalism.
(SeeBS/AP) As Sunnis and Shiites continue to target each other in Iraq, top leaders from each group will be meeting with President Bush.
First up will be one of the most powerful Shiite politicians in Iraq, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim. He will meet Mr. Bush on Monday to discuss ways to improve the deteriorating situation. Al-Hakim is leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, the largest party in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's governing coalition. He is a rival of al-Maliki, and many consider al-Hakim an even more powerful political figure because of his party's electoral strength among Shiites and its Badr Brigade militia. U.S. intelligence sources tell CBS News that al-Hakim's forces were the first to send death squads against Sunni targets, CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante reports.
SCIRI runs the Badr Brigade, a militia that is widely blamed for some of the sectarian killings that have been tearing Iraq apart since the bombing of a major Shiite shrine north of Baghdad in February. Al-Hakim repeatedly has denied the involvement of the Badr Brigade in the violence, arguing the militia has been turned into a political organization. Before succeeding his slain brother as leader of SCIRI, al-Hakim was in charge of Badr, which was trained and armed by Iran's Revolutionary Guard and fought on the side of Iran in its eight-year war against Saddam Hussein's army in the 1980s.
The empowerment of Iraq's Shiites following the ouster of Saddam's Sunni-led regime in 2003 has been a source of alarm to many governments in the overwhelmingly Sunni Arab world and sparked fear of Iran's growing influence in the region.
Bush will meet with al-Hakim in Washington on Monday in a bid to find a new approach in Iraq, said National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe. "President Bush looks forward to an exchange of views and a discussion of important issues facing Iraq today," Johndroe said.
#2
Wait a minute, the WAPO yesterday reported that the Bush Administration was re-considering it's "reach out and touch the Sunnis" program. Now we read this nonsense about continued meetings with Sunni officials? Which way is up, which way is down, Mr. President?
#3
Secret Service must be excreting large bricks over the Monday meeting. A violent death of the principals would likely set off a pogrom in Iraq and I am not confident Cheney would have enough backing in Congress, and especially among the American people to do anything about it.
#4
Now there's a good thought. Let GW inform the ragheads, after spewing their nonsense, that they will be going "hunting" with the VP, who wants to test his new Christmas present...a new "bird" gun.
#5
Cheney would do what he deemed best, and damn the consequences. He isn't going to run for office ever again, he knows as much as anyone what's been happening behind the scenes as well as in front, and he is a very, very intelligent and decisive man. I have no worries about such a promotion.
The unknown assassin who killed Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy, appeared last night to have claimed a second victim after tests revealed that one of the dead man's associates had been poisoned with the same radioactive isotope, polonium-210. Mario Scaramella was found to have ingested a potentially fatal dose of the substance and was being treated at a London hospital last night.
The Italian self-styled security consultant says he flew to London last month to warn Mr Litvinenko that both their lives were at risk. At a meeting at a West End sushi restaurant he claims he gave the Russian a document which named five people on a hitlist allegedly drawn up by Russian intelligence officers. Mr Scaramella's urine was tested after he returned to London this week following Mr Litvinenko's death. The Guardian has been told that the amount of polonium-210 discovered in the Russian's body could have killed him 100 times over, and would have cost as much as £20m to acquire. While the amount detected in Mr Scaramella's body is considerably less, it presents a grave threat to his health. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) said "high quantities" of polonium-210 had been found. "The quantities are such that they are likely to be of concern for his immediate health," a spokesman said.
Scientists advising police believe it is possible he was poisoned at the same time as the former spy, who complained of feeling ill shortly after the meeting at the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly on November 1. Mr Litvinenko ate fish, while the Italian only drank a glass of water. Since his voluntary return to the UK last Monday, Mr Scaramella, 36, has been under the protection of Scotland Yard detectives and has been having a debriefing at Ashford Park Hotel near Forest Row, East Sussex, part of which was sealed off last night. He was tested for poisoning at the request of Scotland Yard.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Remember that an extremely small amount of Polonium ingested can kill. Smearing a bit on the lip of a bottle of water could do it, or sprinkling a bit on a piece of sushi. A very small drop in cigarette tobacco which is then smoked, would also work, and might explain the material scattered all over the place.
#2
Expensive hit. For that kinda money I would have gone ahead and sprung for 6 professional thugs to hold him while a Doc or a qualified practicing nurse injected the polonium into a vein. I'd want to be sure.
#3
Ship,
You're right about the cost, but let's face it - murder by polonium has a certain James Bond quality to it that can be appreciated by fine megalomaniac villains everywhere.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/02/2006 7:27
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3 round trip first class plane tickets from Moscow: $25,000
2 grams of Polonium: $75,000
2 weeks of headlines and Brits running around like chickens without heads?: Priceless.
Three Egyptians suspected of links to Al Qaeda were sentenced to death on Thursday for involvement in the October 2004 bombings in northern Sinai which killed 34 people. The defendants erupted into shouts of "God is great" when the verdict was pronounced in the court in the canal city of Ismailiya. Ten other defendants who were also in court received prison terms ranging from five years to life.
The bombings marked the beginning of a spate of deadly attacks in Sinai and triggered an ongoing hunt by Egypt's security forces for extremist Islamist groups in the peninsula. The judge at Ismailiya emergency state security court sentenced Younis Mohammad Mahmoud Erian Garir, Osama Mohammad Abdel Ghani Nakhlawi and Mohammad Gaez Sobah Hussein Abdallah to death by hanging.
Both trial and verdicts were criticised as unfair by human rights groups and defence lawyers. The defendants charged that Israel and the US were behind the attacks as they were being led away from the court. No date has been set for the executions.
In September, the files of Garir, Nakhlawi and Abdallah were handed to the grand mufti, the state's top cleric, who must approve all death sentences before they can be pronounced, except those issued by military courts.
Hossam Bahgat, director of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, who has campaigned for the death penalty to be abolished in Egypt, described the verdict as "heart-breaking" due to what he said was the lack of evidence to prove the defendants guilt. "These people never received a fair trial," said Bahgat, whose rights organistation monitored the Taba case closely. "The defendants have all presented credible allegations of torture in court and they were denied access to a lawyer during the interrogation," he told AFP.
There is no right of appeal for trials in emergency state security courts. The defendants' only option is to petition the president, who has the authority to reduce the sentence or order a retrial.
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Hanging ... the method of execution usually reserved for the lowest of the low.
China has tightened controls on nuclear exports with global terrorism in mind, Xinhua news agency said on Friday, the latest effort to ease proliferation concerns in the West.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Two Mujahideen groups in Iraq, the Tawhid Knights Brigade [Saraya Fursan al-Tawhid] and Creed of Abraham Brigade [Saraya Millat al-Ibrahim], were announced on Wednesday, November 29, 2006, to having joined the ranks of the Islamic State of Iraq. According to the statement, they pledged loyalty to the Emir of the Believers, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. The group states: "These brigades had hurt Allah's enemies and executed heroic battles that hurt the Crusaders and their helpers. They offered unto Allah some of the best men, may Allah accept them".
The Islamic State of Iraq and its Ministry of Information was established to protect the Sunni Iraqi people and defend Islam, by the Pact of the Scented People. It is composed of a variety of insurgency groups, including the Mujahideen Shura Council in Iraq, Conquering Army [Jeish al-Fatiheen], Army Squad of the Prophet Muhammad [Jund al-Sahaba], Brigades of al-Tawhid Wal Sunnah, and Sunni tribes. It has a presence in the governorates of Baghdad, Anbar, Diyala, Kirkuk, Salah al-Din, Ninawa, and parts of Babel and Wasit, and is head by the Emir of the Believers, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the Wasington-based SITE Institute reported.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Ha! Old Bill's looking better since he left the Twangers and developed an interest in 50's Cheesecake world affairs.
#2
The Islamic State of Iraq and its Ministry of Information was established to protect the Sunni Iraqi people and defend Islam, by the Pact of the Scented People
Ah the smell of camel schit in the morning. And we fought for these people!?
#5
I do believe, gentlemen, that this group has nothing to do with the central government of Iraq and the press release just more of the same self aggrandizing twaddle that these motheaten jihadi groups routinely produce. As they say, nothing to see here.
#7
Toast 'em like marshmallows. We need to reduce the hot air to fight global warmening (it's 22 degrees here in Co Springs, and has been snowing all morning).
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/02/2006 17:08
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Get to know Saudi Executioner Abdallah al Bishi. Just a regular guy, a pious guy, a guy who swings a sword with the best, a guy following in his Daddy's curly-toed slippers. He's taken over 100 heads. He is just one of at least 6 Executioners in Saudi. But Abdallah rates, since his stomping chopping ground is Mecca - though sometimes he plays an away game. As the Lebanese TV interviewer says, "There is no negotiating with him, once the heads have ripened." In addition to heads, he also handles lopping off hands and feet. An all-around kind of guy.
When he was told he would be carrying out his first execution - he didn't know why he had been summoned - he said, "No problem." ("mafi mushkila")... though he did admit, "Every person is a bit worried when he starts a new job... and is afraid he might fail.". He's beheaded many friends, he says, but those are the breaks. He sez knocking off 3, 4, 5, or 6 in a sitting is no big deal, nor does it matter if they be wymyns or myn. See his children, not the wifey - I'm sure she's tied up somewhere out back - his son Badr will soon be following in his slippersteps in Riyadh... hear his tale of pride. Insh'allah.
Worthy. Not something you see everyday. Thank your lucky stars.
Toughening its stance against right-wing warlords once unofficially allied with the government, Colombia on Friday transferred to prison 59 militia leaders said to have planned a mass escape from a work farm.
Four government helicopters arrived at the La Ceja camp near the northern city of Medellin to take the militia chiefs to a nearby high security prison, the latest in a series of government clampdowns on the right-wing fighters. The men, held on charges ranging from massacre to drug smuggling, are among more than 30,000 paramilitaries who have turned in their weapons over the last three years in exchange for benefits including reduced prison terms and the suspension of extradition orders.
But some of those suspensions may now be revoked, as the government loses patience with militia leaders accused of continuing their lives of crime while in government custody. "The transfer order results from credible information that there could be risk of escape," Colombian Interior Minister Carlos Holguin told reporters.
The transfer was ordered by President Alvaro Uribe, a close U.S. ally, who is also facing a political crisis in which three allied lawmakers were arrested last month for being involved with the paramilitaries. The militia leaders have committed some of the worst atrocities of Colombia's four-decade-old conflict, in which thousands are killed each year.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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Pakistani security forces arrested seven suspected Taliban fighters in a raid in Quetta, said police on Friday. The seven Afghan nationals were arrested late on Thursday from a house in Quetta, said Deputy Inspector General of Police Abdul Qadir Thabo. They are Taliban fighters, but there is no important commander among them, said Thabo, adding that investigators were trying to trace their origin and links with the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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Two outlaws were slaughtered by their rivals at Nandanpur village under Ataikula upazila of the district early yesterday. The dead are Tikka, 35, of Bangram Masterpara under Santhia upazila, and Baki, 33, of Nandanpur village under Ataikula upazila. Oh, must be neighbors.
According to police, Tikka and Baki were cadres of Purbo Banglar Communist Party (ML-Janajuddho). Not to be confused with the Old Biplopi Communist Party ...
Local people said a gang of 20 picked up the two outlaws from a house at the village at around 1:00am. Learned a thing or two from the RAB, did they ...
The gang took the two to a field and slit their throats. No shutter gun required.
On information, police went to the village yesterday morning, recovered the bodies and sent them to Pabna General Hospital for autopsy.
"Here's two more for you, Dr. Quincy!"
"Yeah sure, Sam, stack 'em in the back with the rest. Boy my wrists are killing me!"
Police said Tikka and Baki might have been killed by their rivals in the party. Couldn't have been the RAB, there would have been a press release.
Both were wanted in twelve systems a number of cases, they added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2006
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C'mon, folks. Don't try this at home.
Leave it to the professionals...
Posted by: The RAB ||
12/02/2006 14:52
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Sri Lanka's defence secretary, the brother of the country's president, narrowly escaped with his life today after a suicide bomber targeted a military convoy in which he was traveling through the heart of the island's capital. The audacious strike, by a suspected Tamil Tiger bomber, left at least two people dead and 15 wounded. Moments after the explosion police sprayed the site with bullets. It appears the bomber drove a rickshaw alongside the five-car convoy, carrying the defence secretary, Gotabhaya Rajapakse, and detonated the device.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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A bomb planted in a motorcycle exploded in a posh residential colony near the US consulate and military intelligence buildings, killing one person. Witnesses said that a motorcycle parked at the Defence Market on Khyber Road exploded at around 6:30pm, killing a passerby. Residents identified the victim as Zahoor, a resident of Chagar Mati and watchman at a nearby house. NWFP IG Raffat Pasha said that it was not a suicide attack because bodies of suicide bombers get mutilated beyond recognition. He added that the bomb was of low intensity. Peshawar police chief Habibur Rehman believed that it was a premature blast, which did not reach its target.
Law enforcement agencies and police reached the spot soon after the explosion and cordoned off the entire area. The explosion also damaged some vehicles parked near the site. This is the sixth explosion in the provincial capital since September 8. At least 11 people have been killed and another 45 injured in these incidents.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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The local Taliban have lifted a ban on the sale of newspapers in North Waziristan that was imposed following an erroneous news report, which claimed that four tribal militants were killed in a clash with security forces. A journalist in Miranshah told Daily Times that news stalls reopened on Friday after the Taliban lifted the ban late on Thursday evening. The two-day ban was imposed on Tuesday after a private news agency carried an old report that was posted on a foreign news organisations website as fresh news.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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Great! That means our enemies now can go back to reading the New York Times to get their Intel info.
Hundreds of thousands of opposition protesters crammed into the heart of Beirut Friday and besieged the headquarters of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government in a peaceful show of force to bring down the ruling Cabinet. "We are here to criticize Siniora, and not the entire Sunni community!" MP Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and Hizbullah ally, said from behind bulletproof glass to a vibrant crowd of demonstrators at Riad al-Solh Square in Downtown Beirut.
Siniora has "made many mistakes" and his government has "made corruption a daily affair," Aoun said, calling for the resignation of the premier and his ministers.
"Siniora out," the massive crowd chanted in response to Aoun's verbal assault as they overflowed nearby parking lots and streets after arriving from across the country waving Lebanon's national flag.
Simultaneously, a newly composed song blared over erected loudspeakers, titled "Tears protect no one." The song, set to a hard-hitting upbeat track, compiles extracts from a recent speech by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbullah leader, critical of Siniora's emotional addresses to the nation during the July-August war with Israel. "I wish that the prime minister and his ministers were among us today, not hiding behind barbed wire and the army's armored personnel carriers," Aoun said. "He who has his people behind him does not need barbed wire."
Demonstrators blocked all access roads around the government headquarters, setting up tents and staging sit-ins to keep Siniora and his ministers holed up inside their offices.
As The Daily Star went to print the siege was being partially dismantled after a telephone call by Siniora to Speaker Nabih Berri, leader of the Amal Movement and a key Hizbullah ally, to "take responsibility" and ensure that access in and out of the Grand Serail was not inhibited. According to local television LBCI, Siniora made the call to Berri after receiving "information" that demonstrators might try to storm the Serail during the night.
As the sun set, the demonstration continued, albeit in slightly reduced numbers, after MP Ali Hassan Khalil, Berri's representative at the rally, called on protesters to "continue the sit-in, during the night, the day and even dawn." "We will not budge until we hear that the government had resigned," Khalil said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2006
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Wouldn't take a nuke, LoD, just a few runs with napalm. After that, Hezbollah couldn't get enough people together to play four-handed pinochle. Hopefully, we could bag Nasty and Aoun at the same time.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/02/2006 17:11
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How about marshmallows? With Olmert, that's about all you'll get.
(KUNA) -- Three people were killed and 20 others were wounded when a car bomb went off in a popular market in a northern Baghdad district on Friday, a police source said. "A car bomb exploded in a popular market in the Shiite neighborhood of Husseiniyah, killing three civilians and wounding 20 others," the source told KUNA.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The Indian Army Friday claimed to have gunned down a key accused in the serial blasts in the national capital on Diwali eve last year that killed nearly 60 people.
Army spokesman Lt Col AK Mathur said that security forces gunned down Ali Baba alias Abu Huzefa, deputy commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in an operation at Kreeri in north Kashmir's Baramulla district, 40 km from Srinagar. "On specific information provided by locals about the presence of Ali Baba in fields in Kreeri, troops of Rashtriya Rifles launched an operation when the rebel was trapped in a gorge and engaged in a gunfight before being gunned down," Mathur said.
Several arms, ammunition and documents were recovered from the slain guerrilla. "He was involved in the pre-Diwali serial blasts in New Delhi and also in atrocities on locals here. He was a resident of Pakistan's Sindh province and was active in Pattan Sopore area for the past two years," Mathur said.
Posted by: Fred ||
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And thus avoiding any Abu-Grabby or GITMO type of bad press from the hand wringing crowd.
Good on ya!
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.
The Iraqi government is in danger of being brought down by the wholesale smuggling of the nation's oil and other forms of corruption that together represent a "second insurgency", according to a senior US official. Stuart Bowen, who has been in charge of auditing Iraq's faltering reconstruction since 2004, said corruption had reached such levels that it threatened the survival of the state. "There is a huge smuggling problem. It is the No 1 issue," Mr Bowen told the Guardian. The pipelines that are meant to take the oil north have been blown up, so the only way to export it is by road. "That leaves it vulnerable to smuggling," he said, as truckers sell their cargoes on the black market.
Deborah Orr
WASHINGTON - Liberals cheered the announcement Friday that Los Angeles Democrat Rep. Jane Harman will not lead the House Intelligence Committee next year, while military analysts called the decision a loss for national security. 
Oscar-winning US actress Gwyneth Paltrow feels dinner talk is far more interesting in her adopted homeland Britain than back in her native country. 
MUMBAI, DEC 1: Impressed with the high quality of state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd's (NPCIL) existing plants and the credibility of its expansion programme, the US government and the visiting American nuclear companies plan to organise one more visit to India to explore business opportunities. This was what representatives of US nuclear companies GE, Westinghouse, Thorium Power and Transco Products had to say during a presentation by NPCIL here on Friday.
RIYADH, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia said there was no truth in an article by a Saudi security adviser suggesting the world's top oil exporter would back Iraq's Muslim Sunnis in the event of a wider sectarian conflict.
Army officials have admitted that Iraqi police may have been implicated in the death of a British sergeant, but no one is likely to be brought to justice. 
Democrats have long attacked President Bush for the historic tax cuts he ushered through Congress during his first term and have promised to reverse at least some of them. But among their top priorities when they take over Congress next month is passing a permanent tax cut of their own. 
PESHAWAR Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said the government is determined to go ahead with more legislations to ensure protection of womens rights and to get them involved in the development of the country. Passage of the Protection of Womens Rights Bill 2006 is the first step of the governments initiatives regarding womens welfare and development, he remarked during a chat with the media at Governor House Peshawar yesterday.
TAIPING: Malaysias snake king Ali Khan Samsudin, 48, died as he had lived handling the reptiles that he loved. His eldest son Amjad Khan, 21, said his father had been performing at a show in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday when he was bitten by a King Cobra. 
Texas Rep. Silvestre Reyes, an Iraq war opponent, will become chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives intelligence committee when Democrats take control of Congress in January, Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi said on Friday.
Twenty-eight people were formally charged in the July 11 train bombings in Mumbai that killed more than 200 people. Thirteen of the accused are in custody, police prosecutor Raja Thackeray said. The 28 were charged with murder, handling explosive substances, committing terrorist acts and causing damage to public property in Mumbai, formerly called Bombay. They could face the death penalty. Police say the 28 suspects belong to Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based Islamic militant group, as well as the banned Students' Islamic Movement of India.
In another operation, coalition air and ground forces combined to kill 14 insurgents and wound two at about 2 a.m. yesterday after the individuals engaged a coalition convoy with small-arms fire southwest of Samarra. While the insurgents fled in trucks and motorcycles, Task Force Lightning attack helicopters tracked them for several miles and used two guided bombs to destroy one of the vehicles. Subsequently, helicopters and strike aircraft engaged the remaining vehicles, killing or wounding all of the insurgents.
Religious party activists held small protests on Friday in several cities around Pakistan as President Pervez Musharraf signed into law a bill curtailing the scope of Islamic laws on rape. Islamist opposition lawmakers have threatened to resign from parliament over the issue, but protests held after the National Assembly passed the Women's Protection Bill earlier this month have failed to generate much public support.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Stephen A. Cambone, the Pentagon's top intelligence official and a close ally of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, will step down at the end of the year, becoming the first key department member to leave in the wake of Rumsfeld's resignation. It had been widely speculated that Cambone, the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, would resign as the Pentagon prepares for the expected Senate confirmation of a new defense chief -- former CIA director Robert Gates. 
The Iraq Study Group has reached a consensus.
NATO and Afghan troops killed 10 Taliban rebels and captured two suspected militant leaders in a raid on an alleged suicide bomb cell in southern Afghanistan, the alliance said Friday. Separately, six Taliban were killed and two other insurgents arrested after a three-hour gunbattle with Afghan police.
Mexico's new President Felipe Calderon promised on Friday to get tough on violent crime by slapping tougher sentences on drug traffickers and other lawbreakers. Calderon said his administration, which took power on Friday, would put together a plan within 90 days to step up the fight against organized crime and clean up a corrupt police force whose officers often work in league with felons.
Columbia University officials are lowering the boom on some graduate journalism students suspected of cheating on, of all things, an ethics exam. The J-schoolers' alleged lapse on the final was reported yesterday by Radar Online.
BUFFALO, N.Y. A man was sentenced to five years in prison Thursday for running an unlicensed money-transfer business that sent $5 million to Yemen. Mohamed Albanna of Lackawanna arranged the transfers from his Buffalo cigarette and candy wholesale business from 1999 to 2002.
(SomaliNet) Reports from Galkaayo city, the capital of Mudug province in central Somalia say that nine cleric men belonging to Tabliq religious sector have been arrested by Puntland authorities. Reliable sources confirmed Somalinet in Galkaayo city that the clerics are now being held in a prison located in the city for suspicion. They are being questioned in the cell for their destination amid high tension between Islamic Courts and Puntland authorities. 
(SomaliNet) Somalis interim government top official said on Friday that troops defected from the Islamic Courts Union joined his government in Baidoa city, the capital Bay province in southwest Somalia. It is the first time militia from Islamic Courts joins the government since its rise in Somalia in early June. 
Amir 
Army in mountainous and forested area of Mahore in district Udhampur on Thursday killed three 
An underground operative was killed during a "shootout" between his accomplices and Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) in Durgapur upazila of the district last night.
First up will be one of the most powerful Shiite politicians in Iraq, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim. He will meet Mr. Bush on Monday to discuss ways to improve the deteriorating situation. Al-Hakim is leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, or SCIRI, the largest party in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's governing coalition. He is a rival of al-Maliki, and many consider al-Hakim an even more powerful political figure because of his party's electoral strength among Shiites and its Badr Brigade militia. U.S. intelligence sources tell CBS News that al-Hakim's forces were the first to send death squads against Sunni targets, CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante reports.
The unknown assassin who killed Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian spy, appeared last night to have claimed a second victim after tests revealed that one of the dead man's associates had been poisoned with the same radioactive isotope, polonium-210. Mario Scaramella was found to have ingested a potentially fatal dose of the substance and was being treated at a London hospital last night.
Three Egyptians suspected of links to Al Qaeda were sentenced to death on Thursday for involvement in the October 2004 bombings in northern Sinai which killed 34 people. The defendants erupted into shouts of "God is great" when the verdict was pronounced in the court in the canal city of Ismailiya. Ten other defendants who were also in court received prison terms ranging from five years to life.
Two Mujahideen groups in Iraq, the Tawhid Knights Brigade [
Toughening its stance against right-wing warlords once unofficially allied with the government, Colombia on Friday transferred to prison 59 militia leaders said to have planned a mass escape from a work farm.
Hundreds of thousands of opposition protesters crammed into the heart of Beirut Friday and besieged the headquarters of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government in a peaceful show of force to bring down the ruling Cabinet. "We are here to criticize Siniora, and not the entire Sunni community!" MP Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and Hizbullah ally, said from behind bulletproof glass to a vibrant crowd of demonstrators at Riad al-Solh Square in Downtown Beirut.
The Indian Army Friday claimed to have gunned down a key accused in the serial blasts in the national capital on Diwali eve last year that killed nearly 60 people.
