DUBAI - US and Afghan forces released the Kabul correspondent of Al Jazeera television, his driver and a cameraman on Sunday hours after holding and questioning them, the station said.
An Al Jazeera journalist said from Kabul that the three had not been aware of any restrictions on reporting in the area where they were held. The Qatar-based station earlier quoted a statement from the US forces as saying the team had been filming locations of a âsecurity natureâ near the headquarters of the US-led troops operating in Afghanistan.
But they're not on the other side, nope, no truth to that at all, nope nope ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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the three had not been aware of any restrictions
But they are journalists. Isn't finding things out what they're paid to do?
Egypt's independent and opposition press has criticised police for forcibly breaking up a three-month protest by Sudanese refugees that left as many as 25 people dead. "Shame on Egypt," thundered the headline in the Al-Arabi newspaper on Sunday, as relatives held funerals across Cairo for the dead, who included women and children. "Prosecute the murderers and dismiss the minister of interior," the paper demanded.
Thousands of riot police wielding sticks and water cannon forcibly removed hundreds of Sudanese demonstrators, in an operation that began at dawn on Friday. The independent Al-Isboa newspaper called it "the night the human conscience was lost."
"The interior ministry lost its mind and killed 20 Sudanese in the Mohandiseen massacre," declared Sawt al-Umma, referring to the upmarket Cairo neighbourhood where up to 2000 refugees had been camping outside UN offices to draw attention to their cause.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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Rantburgers already know the main storyline, but check out the description of the plutonium.
NORTH KOREA is working to restart a reactor that would produce enough plutonium to make 10 atomic bombs a year, a leading American nuclear scientist has revealed. Siegfried Hecker, former director of the US governmentâs top secret Los Alamos laboratory, also said the North Koreans reprocessed 8,000 fuel rods to make up to 14kg (30lb) of plutonium last summer, despite taking part in six-party talks hosted by China to end their weapons programme.
âThey have the plutonium,â he said. âWe have to assume the North Koreans can and have made a few nuclear devices.â
Heckerâs revelations were based on information gleaned during two visits to North Korea, the last in August 2005, in which he met physicists and, in a pure moment from spy fiction, was handed a specimen of weapons-grade plutonium, stored in a marmalade jar.
Hecker, who was at Los Alamos from 1973-97, gave his warning at a recent conference in Washington as one of the most authoritative observers of North Koreaâs programme. On his first visit to North Korea in 2004, Hecker was taken to the Yongbyon nuclear research centre to meet its director. His hosts brought a small steel container into the conference, containing a wooden box. âThey slid open the box and inside were two glass jars â two marmalade jars, actually â with screw-on tops,â he said. One contained powder, the other a thin scrap of metal â the â stuff you would use for the bombsâ.
âI held the plutonium and it passed the test,â he added. When he told the director it was not very warm, the latter replied: âWell Dr Hecker, thatâs because the plutonium 240 content is low, which means that itâs good bomb-grade plutonium.â
On his second visit, Hecker met the director in Pyongyang, the capital, to learn that while the North Koreans had been negotiating in China, they had also been making up to 14kg of plutonium, taking their total stock to an estimated 43kg, enough for about eight bombs.
Hecker said his main fear is that North Koreaâs impoverished regime might sell material to terrorists. âForty kilograms of plutonium, some number of briefcases anywhere in basements, in one of the 15,000 tunnels in North Korea â nobody will find it,â he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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Ah, ye old plutonium in a marmelade jar demo.....
I guess that the NORKS are expressing their displeasure that things are not going their way with the six party talks, so try some intimidation and blackmail. And thanks to our ChiCom friends, who handle the logistics of propping up Kimmie's regime, so that they can create all this wonderful Pu for their people. Man, NORK is one sick place.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/02/2006 12:40 Comments ||
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Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can: Much of what we loosely call the western world will survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes, including many if not most western European countries. Thereâll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlandsâ probablyâjust as in Istanbul thereâs still a building called St. Sophiaâs Cathedral. But itâs not a cathedral; itâs merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon western civilization is on balance better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the west.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Mastry from Steyn, as always.
Question that has been on my mind for all Rantburgers: When it hits the fan, what country do we move to? Is there any sovereign territory that is not under siege and is sane (as we see it)?
#5
If they outbreed us 5:1 then we need to outkill them 5:1. Eventually that is what it must come to or we will disappear. We need the WILL to breed, or/and the WILL to kill. Many - too many - lack that will. Now, I am not advocating going out and shooting your neighbors, but I certainly do advocate fighting back, hard. In a healthy society our soldiers in Iraq would have the total support of their countries.
#6
Documenting the paradigm shift a-comin'. Steyn nails every issue squarely on the head. He's like the real Father Knows Best. A smart guy, with a big view, a long view, a calm incisive mind, decent and fair, and I'm betting he's got those quaint patches on the elbows of his sweater. If he doesn't smoke a pipe, well, he prolly should start - and tell anyone who complains to fuck off.
As for zoomer Cameron Diaz, dibs on the left butt cheek. Heh, the place where her brain ought to be is filled with the customary wholly unsupported self-aggrandizing detritus and offal of limousine liberal goofiness, sloshing around in rancid Kool Aid.
If only he was an American citizen. Sigh. He missed out on college, so the moonbat indoctrination process didn't damage his brain, and a long look at Qanuck liberal politics turned him into a natural Conservative American. Hey Qanada, we'll trade you Diaz, Spears, Babs, hell - all of the "entertainment" industry - for Steyn. We'll understand if you decline. How about for Alberta? Okay, it was worth a shot.
#7
Here's another question? Would it benefit the US if we opened immigration from Europe, or would the increase in the speed in the decline of Europe hurt us more? I think that if we accepted immigrants from the west, we would get the best and most ambitious of their countries. What would that do to Germany or Spain? Would they decline more quickly, and would that decline hurt us badly?
Posted by: Formerly Dan ||
01/02/2006 2:07 Comments ||
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#8
I love Steyn - but this piece has too much linear thinking for my taste.
I agree that the EU will become Eurabia - even sooner than he predicts, unless the much ballyhooed bloody backlash actually occurs - which I can't predict one way or the other.
And while the demographics are certainly a major factor - I for one think this whole go forth and multiply bullshit makes as much sense as the idea put forth in the 70's that we would all starve to death. Cultures that don't breed themselves into poverty have the ability to educate themselves and produce technology to improve their lives and can provide larger percentages of their accumulated wealth to their fewer children which they can use to pay a bit more per hour for their needed care.
It's not that we won't be able take care of ourselves in our old age that is going to be the problem, but that we are letting the immigrants in masse and it is this influx of immigrants who massively breed and then expect the state to grant all those children all of the education/healthcare/roads/and other tax-funded benefits that the rest of us enjoy that creates the cultural demographic problems he cites. It's a big ponzi scheme that no one wants to address as they might not get to collect their full share that is coming their way.
I submit that we could do fine without the massive influx of immigrant laborers. And I don't think we need to start breeding like rabbits. Just like vacuum cleaners and washing machines eased our list of chores, their will be robots to farm and technology to create and distribute our ready made meals to assist us in our old age. These immigrants may mow our lawns and clean our homes, but would the world really come crashing to an end if we modified our culture to let the grass grow and we cleaned our own homes and couldn't afford to eat out quite as often?
I believe Steyn hits the nail on the head when he says that the problem is in what we choose to worry about. The "mass media" has misinformed us that John Ashcroft is a far greater threat than the Saudi funded mosques and too many have bought into the lie. The media has repeated the lie until they have made it virtually impossible for rational people to point out that it is not tolerant to tolerate the virulent intolerance of Islamic radicalism.
This is IMHO, the real threat to the western world. The Gobbelesque brainwashing of the American public and Western world that not only do we not need to be concerned with the current threat to western civilization - but that anyone who attempts to sound the alarm and take proactive precautions is a knuckledragging moron to be shunned and poo-poohed.
Unless we find a way to get the message out and sound the alarm to the average citizen, then western civilization may indeed fail.
#9
Finally, the courage to speak with clarity. The one great advantage Americans (and Canadians) have is that we will get to observe from ringside seats the decline and demolition of western culture in Europe in the very near future. If we do not learn from this direct example we will be doomed also. Hopefully, this will be so gruesome that all these idiots will wake up. I'm currently readjusting the zero in my scopes from 100 to 200 yards. Normally, I hunt at 100, but for these assholes I want to start a little farther out. We should immediately outlaw the practice of Islam in the US on political grounds. We are fortunate that the masses of immigrants from the south were indoctrinated as Catholics who breed very well yet.
And, yes, isn't everything a ponzi scheme nowadays. The entire US economy is betting that all the massive borrowing from the Japanese and Chinese will NEVER be repaid. We just expect to kite them. There may be too few Japanese to retaliate, but I'm not certain the Chinese will be so cooperative.
#10
2b: And while the demographics are certainly a major factor - I for one think this whole go forth and multiply bullshit makes as much sense as the idea put forth in the 70's that we would all starve to death. Cultures that don't breed themselves into poverty have the ability to educate themselves and produce technology to improve their lives and can provide larger percentages of their accumulated wealth to their fewer children which they can use to pay a bit more per hour for their needed care.
Cultures don't breed themselves into poverty. For centuries since Malthus, that has been the load of bullshit sold to us by elites who were too lazy and irresponsible to put up with the burden of parenthood, but were fearful of being outbred by their "inferiors". It's only been with the advent of the pill that American families have grown significantly smaller. The US went through its rapid economic growth years when families were huge, and having six or seven siblings wasn't particularly exceptional.
There are countries that *blame* their poverty on having large populations. Basket cases like China and India. But the reality is that to have the population density of Japan, China would need to have a population of 3 billion. And to have the population density of Hong Kong, China would need to have a population of 50 billion. And yet Hong Kong and Japan are both more prosperous than China. Note that Hong Kong's population at the end of WWII was 1m. Its population today is 7m. China's population at the end of WWII was 600m. Its population today is 1.2b. Hong Kong's population has gone up 600% whereas China's has gone up 100%. And yet Hong Kong is richer than China. Why is that? It's because in a free economy, population growth is a asset, not a liability. Population growth is why Uncle Sam is a superpower, whereas Canada is just another developed country.
#11
Ok ZF - so get busy. Time for you to do your share and start spitting them out. Look, I think people who have lots of kids are blessed in all of the important things in life. But the solution to the WOT is NOT to get into a baby-in-the-arms race with third world countries.
It's not that I disagree with what you write ZF or that I am willing to take back what I wrote above as much as I'm sick of arguments that are based on the premise that someone else needs to get busy and do something. Like upper-middle class white women who send their kids to private school being the biggest champions against vouchers and of keeping kids in public schools.
I don't have time to get into all of the reasons that this Buchananesqe argument is so totally bogus that I won't even start. But if you believe it then by all means, do your part.
I'm not an evil genius - but if I was, I couldn't escape the realization that the winner of this game isn't going to be the one who has the most to feed - but it will be the one who most quickly learns how to genetically eliminate those whose culture and beliefs are the antithesis of their own. Evil Dogbert in the science lab eliminating genetic markers that make cats. The 21st century day final solution.
I love Steyn - he's the best. But this particular argument of his is as linear as the ones from the 70's that we would all starve. It's as stupid as the whole grand caliphate idea. Let's all move backwards instead of forwards.
#13
Population growth is why Uncle Sam is a superpower, whereas Canada is just another developed country.
Yet another piece of brilliant analysis from Z.F.!
Posted by: Rafael ||
01/02/2006 13:59 Comments ||
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#14
Both sides have some point here.
Europe is screwed, but not because of birthrates, but what causes them. The Euros have gone nihilist. They are committing cultural suicide regardless of what the mohammedans do.
But the mos are also cutting their own throats. What Steyn does not point out is that birth rates are falling everywhere, including moland. By 2030 what will mo land look like? It could be watching China deal with an older population than the U. S. Realizing that with the post petroleum age upon them the same future awaits them and with declining revenue it will be even more unpleasant.
Again, the U. S. will be the place to be as long as we have to build fences to keep people out.
#15
"would the world really come crashing to an end if we modified our culture to let the grass grow and we cleaned our own homes and couldn't afford to eat out quite as often?"
According to the conventional wisdom standard, yes, yes it would. Haven't you figured out that the main uses of "advances" are to kill people and to make someone else do your work for you? :P [/not exactly joking]
*sigh* 2b, I think of what you're saying as merely a different approach to a common situation that both you and
"I couldn't escape the realization that the winner of this game isn't going to be the one who has the most to feed - but it will be the one who most quickly learns how to genetically eliminate those whose culture and beliefs are the antithesis of their own. Evil Dogbert in the science lab eliminating genetic markers that make cats. The 21st century day final solution."
Besides the problems of advocating genocide -- you're still wrong. It it were acceptable, it would still come down to whichever did it.
Nimble Spemble, good points, both. Cultural suicide and birth rates are two different things. Hell, I'm looking at China vs. Tibetans re: that. (China trying to deliberately geographically and demographically displace Tibetans with Han Chinese, yet overseas Tibetans... are Tibetans. Dunno if you will be able to say the same for Europeans, but get my drift? :P)
re: falling birth rates = need for immigration -- while one could accuse those who see this in the U.S. of "Buchananism," it's very real in Japan, but there they also have the spectre of young adults who just don't enter the workplace. Reason? Parents worked years in stable but grueling/boring jobs (salarymen), wanted their kids to have stimulating/"fulfilling" jobs, and boom, the young adult can't decide what he or she wants to do and thus remains a live-at-home slacker.
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
01/02/2006 15:58 Comments ||
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#16
This is a thought-provoking piece, but I agree that it is rather linear. While Steyn refers to population numbers frequently, his main thrust is about culture. Will the Euros have the stones to defend and promote their culture? Will we? Who knows, but that is the point. The missing component in this argument are the unknowns.
What will be the result if the jihadis get an A-bomb and light it off in Europe? What if a replacement for oil is discovered/perfected in the next 20 years? What if the practice of democracy spreads in the ME and radical Islam is shunned?
Any one of these is a possibility and their result could make Mr. Steyn's argument seem as prosaic as the population bomb theories from the '70's.
From the prism of today I think that Steyn makes a compelling argument, especially with regard to the nanny state. However, I think the prism has blinders on, a common occurance with any long-term projection.
#17
2b: I'm not an evil genius - but if I was, I couldn't escape the realization that the winner of this game isn't going to be the one who has the most to feed - but it will be the one who most quickly learns how to genetically eliminate those whose culture and beliefs are the antithesis of their own.
Even in a communist economy, the government doesn't feed the people - the people feed themselves. In fact, even in a communist economy, it isn't the government that feeds the people, it's the people who feed the government. In countries with crappy economies, the government gets in the way of people feeding themselves, sometimes by stealing what they produce and sometimes by making it difficult for the people to make a living via arbitrary rules that feed the moral vanity of the people in power.
#18
ZF: Population growth is why Uncle Sam is a superpower, whereas Canada is just another developed country.
Rafael: Yet another piece of brilliant analysis from Z.F.!
Yet another content-free posting from Rafael. Fact is, Germany is a major power because it has 80m people. Denmark might have similar GDP per capita, but its 5m population makes it just another developed European country.
Population density is the major index of crowdedness. And yet Germany has twice the population density of China, but more than ten times the per capita income. If China were to become as crowded as Germany, it would have need to have a population of 2.4b instead of 1.2b. Point being that crowdedness determines nothing - in a free economy, population growth is an asset, not a liability.
Take a country like Bangladesh, which has a high population density - 954 per sq km and compare it to Singapore which has a population density of 6481 per sq km. Why does Singapore have 20x Bangladesh's GDP per capita? Note that in the past 40 years, Singapore's population has quadrupled, whereas Bangladesh's has only tripled. So Singapore started out a lot more crowded than Bangladesh, and today, the margin of crowdedness has actually *widened*.
Swap it around and compare China to Singapore - China's population density is 133 per sq km and Singapore's is 6481 per sq km. (This means that to reach Singapore's population density, China's population would have to reach 60b, from its current 1.3b). In the past 50 years, China's population has doubled, whereas Singapore's has quadrupled. And yet Singapore's GDP per capita is 15 times China's. Given how crowded Singapore is, and how rapidly its population has grown, shouldn't it be China's GDP per capita that should be 15 times Singapore's?
Again, two points - (1) countries with large populations are powerful countries, and no, Buchanan did not invent that concept, any more than he invented other practices that we also share, such as brushing twice a day, showering in the morning, et al and (2) the government doesn't feed the people - the people feed the government, and themselves. This truism is why even someone like Genghis Khan, who viewed people as game or livestock to be slaughtered for his benefit if necessary, refrained from annihilating his subject populations - he understood that they fed him, not the other way around - as long as they were alive, he could tax them, and make much more for him than merely slaughtering them for their loot.
#20
#18 ZF: "Germany is a major power because it has 80m people."
IF Germany is a major power (I contend it is not, except in its own mind), it's because we let it be.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
01/02/2006 19:16 Comments ||
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#21
Yet another content-free posting from Rafael.
Better to be content-free than plain wrong, but to each his own I guess.
Population growth by itself did not make Uncle Sam into a superpower. One other reason could be: where do Europe's best scientists conduct their research? Hint: it's not in Europe. But scientific or industrial advances have marginal value if they're not put into use or brought to the marketplace. Where can you find the most favourable conditions for transforming ideas into things people use and want? Hint: USA. And why is this so?
This is just the tip of the iceberg.
You're ignoring far too much history, among other things.
Posted by: Rafael ||
01/02/2006 19:27 Comments ||
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#22
Europe accepted the cycle of building and destroying long ago, as seen by the French penchent for revolution/restoration (which Republic are they up to now? Fifth is it, or Sixth?). Anarchy was invented there, and nihilism has unfortunately been a dominant philosophy since the course of the first world war became clear to anyone who looked. And following nihilism came self-indulgence, which includes the indulgence of working really, really hard, but not having children because that requires one to look beyond one's own desires.
However, population growth is falling everywhere; even the Palestinians have been caught short a million in their population counts. One benefit of the global economy is that stuff is cheaper everywhere, and women who feel more prosperous tend to have fewer children. Even sheltered Muslim women. The entire Muslim world is going to have a reverse baby boom problem that will make what we're seeing now in China and Japan look like pikers, and the imams and mullahs are not going to enjoy the result.
In the meantime, though, I think sighting your guns to 200 yards rather than 100 yds isn't a bad idea, or at least stocking up on shoelaces, about whose usefulness on airplanes a certain jarhead posted some years ago. ;-) And that's all I can say before reading the article at issue...
If having more babies was as sunny a picture as Mr. Steyn portrays, the birthrate would never have gone down. Although he is right about demographics-the numbers do tell an important story about what we need to think about for survival-women would be having more babies, if there were more pros than cons in doing so. Yes, we don't want Islamists in power. To a much lesser extent, but still, neither do we want Father Knows Best in power.
#24
Rafael: Population growth by itself did not make Uncle Sam into a superpower.
Actually it did. Canada has always been roughly as well run as the US. But the US took a major gamble by letting in large numbers of Southern and Eastern Europeans immigrants. The result is that a far smaller percentage of America is of Anglo origin than is Canada. But Uncle Sam, with 10 times the population, thanks to those immigrants, is a superpower, and Canada is not. Note that a century ago, Canadian leaders thought Canada would catch up and surpass the US. But it never happened, because Canada has one-tenth the population.
Gauls, Teutons and Britons started out as a bunch of half-naked savages. But demography meant that they outnumbered the Romans* and slowly shrank the boundaries of the Roman empire. (On the way, they adopted a lot of Roman practices and took on the trappings of civilized society). What history tells us is that your numerically superior enemy won't always be stupid. If you don't maintain your numbers, you will eventually be overwhelmed.
* The Romans contributed to their own demographic problems by practising infanticide. We don't do anything so crude, but we have contraceptives and abortion on demand.
#25
jules 2: If having more babies was as sunny a picture as Mr. Steyn portrays, the birthrate would never have gone down.
If working more hours was so much fun, European work hours would never have come down. What Steyn is saying isn't that having more children is great fun - he's saying that unless Europeans have more children, they're going to be overwhelmed. Children are not fun - they're a lot of work. But if Euros don't have more of them, Europe is going to die out.
#26
What Steyn is indirectly getting to is this - European entitlements plans are Ponzi schemes. Basically working people pay into these Ponzi schemes to finance the retirements of retired people. In effect, by producing and bringing up new generations of working people, folks who have children are subsidizing those who don't. I think it is quite rational for people to not want to subsidize others, or to subsidize others to the minimum extent possible. This is in part why Europeans are having less children - the costs are high, and the benefits go to other people.
Ok, whatever. And if conditions weren't just right you could take in half the population of the entire world and it wouldn't do squat.
The Soviet Union was considered a superpower, with a (then) similar population* count, but when communism collapsed, it proved itself to be a house of cards. The conditions just weren't there. For this reason I tend to define a superpower by something more than just population size. The underlying conditions must exist, such as they do in the USA.
I'll grant you that population growth is necessary, but I'll add that it's not sufficient.
* a population that was similarly productive, scientifically advanced, etc.
Posted by: Rafael ||
01/02/2006 22:05 Comments ||
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#28
ZF - you can throw out all of the facts that you want to but how many kids do you have? Sounds to me like you need to get off the Internet and get down to Walmart's diaper sale so you can practice what you preach. Or is it as I suspect that it is all about some abstract "they" (other than you) that needs to get to work making babies to support you in your old age. Hey, maybe the Mormons were right about polygamy after all. Bring on the surrogates and clones.
Do we just need more babies -or do we need more of the "right" kind of babies. Or perhaps you are saying that we need more babies born into the right kind of culture? And exactly what type of culture would that be? The kind practiced by our liberal elites who are primarily WASPS? (Hmmm, I guess WASP doesn't work so well anymore, should just make the acronym WAS.) At any rate I should think that you would be happy that the WAS couples aren't reproducing more than one or two cause they are so lazy indolent and not producing the right kind of children to fight the WOT or to be willing to wipe your rear when you get old.
Sigh..there are many great comments on this thread and now I don't have time to respond to them - but I do agree that the demographics in the WOT can't be ignored - but the idea that we can win this battle by a baby race is just one of those useless abstract discussions about how people (other than you and me) need to sacrfice for your and my common good.
#29
ZF-They ARE going to be overwhelmed, which should make Europeans, who have a quiet little gender war raging on right now, BTW, think about offering something besides money as incentive for European women to have babies (which they are doing, in France). Long-term MONOGAMOUS relationships would be a good start, though they are not in themselves the whole answer. Your point and Steyn's point are solid, but they do little to persuade women to birth children. Long-term commitment, sexual fidelity, and the sharing of burdens-now those are persuasive. For every potential mother, everywhere.
#30
There is a lot of evidence that Muslim birthrates are about to tank. However, there is a island of opportunity for the next 20-30 years. The Muslims will have a lot of surplus young males and the Europeans will be relatively senescent. All the European guns will be impotent without anyone to man them. And believe me, the ability to soldier goes down very quickly after the age of 30.
If you believe in the Learned Elders of Islam* hypothesis, and believe that there is some method behind all of the Islamist madness then you probably also believe that there are smart, ruthless men in Dar al Islam that understand the demography and are prepared to take advantage of it to further their interests.
I would argue that their interests (especially those of the Arabs and most especially those of the Saudis) are roughly the same as the Soviets post-Stalin. They can't produce anything and once the oil runs out, they are going be S.O.L., whether or not the muslimas keeps cranking out five babies each. So their strategic imperative is to capture someplace that they can exploit for another few generation, namely Europe.**
So they'll keep using the carrot and stick with Europe, while hoping that they can achieve demographic dominance in the next 25 years. They must also win their own culture battles at home. Just as we must stop the Tranzi rot, the LEoI must keep their women uneducated in order to keep birth rates up. Damn history is fun.
* I don't think that the Arabs have the temperment to document things like the Nazis or even the Soviets and I don't think that we'll ever have a high enough ranked defector to spill the beans. So we may never be able to prove it, but I've seen enough circumstantial evidence to believe that there is a conspiracy.
** I always have wondered why the Soviets never attacked in the '74-'80 time frame when our Army was full of drugged out malcontents and the Euros were beginning to lose their will. It just goes to show how weak the Brezhnev clique was. I think that collectively and individually, the LEoI are much better opportunists.
ZF: PONZI In effect, by producing and bringing up new generations of working people, folks who have children are subsidizing those who don't.
I'm the one who originally brought up the point that it is a PONZI scheme but I think you completely missed my point. Do you know how a PONZI works? It necessitates that the poor saps at the bottom always will LOSE. And that is what this whole baby race idea is advocating - create more saps at the bottom to feed the top. And like any Ponzi scheme, there is a point - as there is in Europe where it fails because the people at the bottom either get wise or don't get enough back to make it worth their while to continue to fund the scam for the bastards at the top.
We need to move forward not backward. This no different than the 70's starving example. It's not a linear argument. Again - I'm not saying anything bad about the idea of having lots of childrern, they are their own reward and the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned - but this isn't the 1800's and demanding that women breed for the survival of the race is just an abstract BS argument unless you or some other rantburger has just read this thread and decided to have 3 more children for the survival of the race. Any takers? I didn't think so.
So they'll keep using the carrot and stick with Europe, while hoping that they can achieve demographic dominance in the next 25 years. They must also win their own culture battles at home. Just as we must stop the Tranzi rot, the LEoI must keep their women uneducated in order to keep birth rates up. Damn history is fun.
I'd also add they must keep their males uneducated as well.
#33
2b: Again - I'm not saying anything bad about the idea of having lots of childrern, they are their own reward and the more the merrier as far as I'm concerned - but this isn't the 1800's and demanding that women breed for the survival of the race is just an abstract BS argument unless you or some other rantburger has just read this thread and decided to have 3 more children for the survival of the race.
What I'm saying is that people who don't have children are picking up the slack for people who don't. The solution is not for people who already have children to have even more children, which further benefits the childless, but for the childless to be penalized via the tax code for not having kids. A way to do this would be to increase the dependent child tax credit.
An alleged Al Qaeda operative accused of serving as a key link between the group's leaders and suicide bombers hid his tracks so well that even fellow militants thought he was dead. Loai Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, wanted by Turkey for 2003 bombings in Istanbul that killed 58 people, is said to have eluded intelligence services by using an array of Pakistani made fake IDs, employing aliases even with his Al Qaeda contacts and finally faking his death in Fallujah, Iraq, in late 2004.
He didn't fake it, he merely delayed it.
The Syrian radical didn't surface until last August, when a work accident an accidental explosion forced him to flee his safehouse in the Turkish resort of Antalya, police say. Officers reported finding bomb-making materials meant for an attack on an Israeli cruise ship as well as fake IDs and passports from several countries. Police eventually cornered al-Saqa in southeastern Turkey and he is awaiting trial on terrorism charges. His story is an example of how Al Qaeda militants operate in the shadows, changing identities, moving from country to country and covering their tracks to help the loosely organized terror network carry out attacks.
If we aren't aggressive in trying to find them they'll be successful and the Bush administration will be blamed. If we're aggressive the Bush admin will be accused of violating civil liberties.
Until recent years, al-Saqa was not well-known to international intelligence agencies despite his conviction in absentia in 2002 â along with Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi â for a failed plot to attack Americans and Israelis in Jordan with poison gas during millennium celebrations. He and al-Zarqawi were each sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Al-Saqa later emerged as a key Al Qaeda operative in the Middle East. Two Turkish terror suspects interrogated at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said al-Saqa served as a connection between the 2003 Istanbul bombers and Al Qaeda, according to testimony obtained by The Associated Press. "He is a very important person for that region because obviously he knows more people than the locals themselves," said Michael Radu, a terrorism analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. "He probably meets people from different cells, different subgroups who do not know each other, but he knows them so he can have a much better picture."
Al-Saqa, 32, juggled identities, and rumors, to elude intelligence agencies. Turkish Al Qaeda suspect Burhan Kus said at Abu Ghraib that he had heard al-Saqa and Habib Akdas, the accused ringleader of the Istanbul bombers, were killed in a U.S. bombardment of the Iraqi town of Fallujah in November 2004. "Al-Saqa apparently faked his own death, borrowing a disinformation tactic used by Chechen militants," said Ercan Citlioglu, a terrorism expert at the Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies in Ankara, the Turkish capital. Several accused Turkish Al Qaeda suspects recognized al-Saqa's photos but identified him with different names, most calling him "Syrian Alaaddin." "The al-Saqa case clearly shows how Al Qaeda is taking advantage of fake IDs and porous borders to spread its terror, forcing countries to take more sophisticated measures, like taking fingerprints in the United States, to increase border security," Citlioglu said.
Remember the protest that went with that decision?
Analysts said his capture was a blow to Al Qaeda since he would be one of only a few people who understood the infrastructure of an organization that lacks permanent, hierarchical links. "That is a serious blow because it is very hard to replace these kind of people," said Radu. But Turkish security officials warn that others still operate in the region. One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described al-Saqa as one of fewer than a dozen Al Qaeda number three's "middle managers" who serve as contacts between local cells and the Al Qaeda leadership.
Al-Saqa's success in eluding capture for so long underlines the challenges that authorities face in trying to crack down on Al Qaeda and the insurgency in Iraq. He apparently left Iraq after spreading the rumor about his death in Fallujah. Nine months later, police responding to the Antalya explosion discovered more than 1,320 pounds of bomb-making materials, falsified Syrian and Turkish IDs and two Tunisian passports. All bore al-Saqa's picture. He eventually was captured at Diyarbakir airport in southeastern Turkey with yet another fake Turkish ID. Only then did Turkish police realize they had captured and deported al-Saqa â without knowing his real identity â in March 2003 for carrying a fake Syrian passport.
Wonder why they didn't keep and interrogate him then? A fake Syrian passport would seem to be a big clue.
Identifying himself as a "mujahed" â guerrilla fighter â al-Saqa admitted to failed plans to make a bomb and to stage an attack on Israeli tourist ships, similar to the attack on the destroyer USS Cole off Yemen in October 2000 that killed 17 sailors, said Emin Demirel, a terrorism expert and author of several books on al-Qaida's structure in Turkey. According to testimony obtained by AP, al-Saqa told Turkish prosecutors: "I was going to blow up the Israeli ship in international waters." Prosecutors charged al-Saqa with being a senior Al Qaeda member, making bombs and smuggling explosives into Turkey. He is being held at the high-security Kandira prison near Istanbul. No trial date has been set.
Wonder if the Turks can execute him without upsetting the EU too much?
Al-Saqa could also be extradited to Jordan, where a military court convicted him, al-Zarqawi and Jordanian-American Raed Hijazi in connection with the failed millennium terror attack. Jordanian prosecutors suggested in their indictment that al-Saqa was an agent coordinating between militants traveling through Turkey to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Jordanian interrogators and Turkish truncheons. Interesting combination.
In Istanbul, Al-Saqa played host to Hijazi and two other militants, including a cousin of al-Zarqawi, helping to arrange their travel to Pakistan for training in neighboring Afghanistan, court documents said.
Kus, the terror suspect held at Abu Ghraib, said al-Saqa was known to have provided passports to insurgents in Istanbul. He said al-Saqa brought $50,000 to Istanbul for the 2003 bombings at the British consulate, the local headquarters of the London-based bank HSBC and two synagogues. A total of 58 people were killed and hundreds suffered wounds. Kus said al-Saqa and fellow ringleader Akdas cheered and shouted "Allahu Akbar" â Arabic for "Holy Shit God is great" â as they watched TV news in Syria about the bombings. Kus, charged with helping to build the Istanbul truck bombs, said he later traveled from Syria with Akdas to Iraq, where al-Saqa was a commander in Fallujah, then an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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We already have an extensive file on Saqra under the name Louai Sakra, which is the preferred Romanization of his name used in the Turkish press.
Also for the idiot AP writer, mujahid doesn't mean "guerrilla," it means "holy warrior" or more literally "one who strives" (striving or struggle being the literal meaning of jihad). Must we now sacrifice even such basic concepts as etymology to the alter of political correctness? The Turkish press, which serves an almost entirely Muslim population, didn't have any problems with identifying him as a jihadi and even a Salafist. God forbid the AP, which services a mostly English non-Muslim populace, do the same ...
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/02/2006 3:03 Comments ||
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#2
Wonder if the Turks can execute him without upsetting the EU too much?
There is nothing that Turkey can do, or not do, that won't upset the EU so much that they again delay considering Turkey's application to be considered to possibly become a member of the EU someday in the rapidly receding future.
Emphasizing that "we are at war with an enemy who wants to hurt us again," President Bush on Sunday strongly defended the domestic eavesdropping program that began in 2002, and repeated his contention that the disclosure of its existence had caused the country "great harm."
In a brief exchange with reporters after visiting wounded soldiers at Brooke Army Medical Center, Bush said the surveillance, conducted by the National Security Agency, targeted known Al Qaeda members or associates and involved intercepts of only a few numbers in the United States.
"If somebody from Al Qaeda is calling you, we'd like to know why," he said. "We're at war with a bunch of coldblooded killers."
The NSA is normally required to seek permission, on a case-by-case basis, from a special panel of federal judges before conducting any type of surveillance within the United States.
Bush contends that the congressional authorization to use force against Al Qaeda, passed a week after the Sept. 11 attacks, enabled him to approve NSA intercepts of telephone calls and e-mails without seeking court orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Bush said Sunday that the program, which the New York Times revealed last month, had been repeatedly vetted by Justice Department officials and members of Congress.
"This program has been reviewed, constantly reviewed, by people throughout my administration. And it still is reviewed," he said.
He also clarified remarks he had made in April 2004, in which he said that all wiretaps required a court order and that "when we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."
Asked about those statements Sunday, Bush said: "I was talking about roving wiretaps, I believe, involved in the Patriot Act. This is different from the NSA program. The NSA program is a necessary program."
The president's comments came after he was asked about a newspaper report that a top Justice Department official had questioned the legality of certain aspects of the surveillance, resulting in its temporary suspension. He avoided answering directly and instead raised a spirited defense of the program.
"We're at war, and as commander in chief, I've got to use the resources at my disposal, within the law, to protect the American people," he said.
The New York Times reported Sunday that in March 2004, administration officials made an emergency visit to Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft's hospital room after his deputy, James B. Comey, who was serving as acting attorney general during Ashcroft's absence, refused to approve continuation of the program. Ashcroft was recovering from gallbladder surgery and had been in intensive care under tight security, the paper said.
Comey could not be reached Sunday for comment.
Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said the report of Comey's refusal to give his approval heightened concerns about the program.
He said that when people like Comey "had real doubts about the program, it calls into question the way the president and vice president went about changing it."
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), has said his panel will hold hearings into the eavesdropping program, and Schumer said he would ask Specter to call Comey, Ashcroft and other administration officials as witnesses.
But citing widespread discussion of the issue, the Senate's second-ranking Republican, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said the Senate Intelligence Committee, whose sessions are usually closed to the public, was the more proper venue for hearings.
"We're already talking about this entirely too much out in public ⊠and it's endangering our efforts to make Americans more secure," he told "Fox News Sunday."
The Justice Department has announced that it is investigating who leaked information about the top-secret program to reporters.
"The fact that somebody leaked this program causes great harm to the United States," Bush said Sunday.
"There's an enemy out there. They read newspapers, they listen to what you write, they listen to what you put on the air, and they react."
Schumer told Fox that the Justice Department investigation should determine whether the leaker was seeking to disclose damaging information or to reveal potentially illegal activity.
"There are differences between felons and whistle-blowers, and we ought to wait till the investigation occurs to decide what happened," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/02/2006 03:21 ||
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One must surely ask, if NSA had been phone call mining prior to Patriot Act and 9/11, could the attack have been prevented? If NSA would have had only a 10 percent chance of discovery or prevention, would it not have been worth the effort?
EFL to snip duplications from the other NSA-related stories posted today.
WASHINGTON â The investigation into who leaked information about a National Security Agency secret wiretapping program on potential terror suspects needs to focus on the motivation behind the leak, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday. "There are differences between felons and whistleblowers, and we ought to wait 'til the investigation occurs to decide what happened," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told "FOX News Sunday."
Having discovered that the burner on the stove is hot, Senator Schumer is looking for some ointment.
The Justice Department on Friday opened an investigation into who leaked the information about the program, sparking debate over its threat to national security and presidential powers versus civil liberties.
President Bush has cited his constitutional powers and a congressional resolution after the Sept. 11 attacks to justify his approval of the program. But Bush's decision to allow the secret wiretapping program is questionable, Schumer said. "The president thought that there was a problem, instead of coming to the people and saying he needs changes in the law; he just did it on his own," Schumer said . "It calls into question the way the president and the vice president change things."
So Chuck, had the President come to the Congress for this (assuming that he needed to), you would have said 'yes', correct?
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said he welcomes the investigation, adding that members of Congress were briefed on the program and didn't reject it. "Thank goodness the department is investigating who is leaking this information that could threaten our safety," McConnell told "FOX News Sunday." "We need new techniques in the wake of 9-11."
Schumer sent a letter Sunday to [Senator Arlan] Specter requesting current and former administration officials be called as witnesses and suggesting that they avoid any attempt to use executive privilege to prevent testimony. Some officials include Comey, Ashcroft, Gonzales and Card.
The White House said that the program was "reviewed regularly and approved by top officials including those at the Justice Department." But Schumer and other critics say that while the president needs tools to fight the War on Terror, other factors need to be reviewed to make sure there is a balance between security and liberty. "When you want to shift balance, [you] must have open debate and rules that are set," Schumer said.
Of course, an open debate would tip off the very people we're trying to find.
The investigation needs to focus on finding out who leaked the information, McConnell said. "We are talking about intercepts with people who are talking internationally and planning another 9-11," McConnell said. "I applaud the Justice Department for beginning it."
The information may have been leaked to the media because they didn't agree with the program, Schumer said.
Does that give them the right to violate the law? And if the leakers turn out to be wrong -- the program in the end passes constitutional muster -- what excuse do they then have?
Supreme Court Justice nominee Samuel Alito may face tough questions about the program in his upcoming Senate confirmation hearings, which are set to begin on Jan. 9. "The revelation about the NSA leaks means that the Supreme Court will play a very important role," Schumer said. "There are serious questions to be asked. We'll see where Alito comes down."
I suspect Judge Alito will decline to answer the question on the grounds that the USSC may have to rule on it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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no fool like an old fool. Watergate is over. Get over it. The sixties were a fun party and a good time was had by all except the millions whose lives were ruined with drugs, broken homes or who were pushed into gulags and mass graves once your "Peace" was achieved. Most Americans are sick of geezers pining for the Watergate glory days of their youth. Shut up and sit down grandpa - your constant incoherent babble is annoying.
#2
I'm sure there are many things Schumer would like to know.
Why "the sun rises in the East and sets in the West", for example. That it doesn't would be more than a purely partisan asshole flat-worlder like Chucky could fathom, I'd wager.
Anything more complex than this would be beyond his official comprehension.
Myself, I would like to know the motivation behind anyone voting for him. But that's just me.
#3
The investigation into who leaked information about a National Security Agency secret wiretapping program on potential terror suspects needs to focus on the motivation behind the leak, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday.
WTF? Is the leak illegal or not? If so, then who gives a mountain of crap about the motivation behind it?
#4
Chuck S. should face a fireing squad for the crap he has done that actually has diminished peoples rights and crap he has pushed that goes against the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. If he needs to see a criminal he needs to look in the mirror.
#5
"...we ought to wait 'til the investigation occurs to decide what happened."
Perhaps not individually but collectively, Schumer and the rest of the Democrat Blather Machine will pay a heavy price for their lack of circumspection on this issue. No matter how they attempt to spin, fold, and mutilate perception, the fact of the matter is their leadership was not simply ânotifiedâ but repeatedly advised. And despite some âconcernsâ, they were totally complicit. Their adolescent âParty-in-Powerâ rationale only further reinforces their ineptitude with their base voters. Furthermore, aside from the far-left, favoring the rights of terrorists over national security does not play well with the majority of the American electorate. Ironically the Democrats had a golden opportunity to not only do the right thing and stand shoulder to shoulder with the President but score some much needed âtough on terrorismâ points. Predictably their lust for negative headlines has put them on the side of a felon within their own ranks.
Fruit of Eavesdropping Was Processed and Cross-Checked With Databases
Don't worry, according to WaPo this is somehow wrong.
Information captured by the National Security Agency's secret eavesdropping on communications between the United States and overseas has been passed on to other government agencies, which cross-check the information with tips and information collected in other databases, current and former administration officials said.
The NSA has turned such information over to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and to other government entities, said three current and former senior administration officials, although it could not be determined which agencies received what types of information. Information from intercepts -- which typically includes records of telephone or e-mail communications -- would be made available by request to agencies that are allowed to have it, including the FBI, DIA, CIA and Department of Homeland Security, one former official said.
The progressive Left has complained since we liberated Iraq that a major failing of the Bush administration was failing to cross-check raw intel on WMD -- if only they had done so they would have known that the intel was flawed. Now NSA will be flayed for .. cross-checking raw data.
At least one of those organizations, the DIA, has used NSA information as the basis for carrying out surveillance of people in the country suspected of posing a threat, according to two sources. A DIA spokesman said the agency does not conduct such domestic surveillance but would not comment further. Spokesmen for the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, declined to comment on the use of NSA data.
Since the revelation last month that President Bush had authorized the NSA to intercept communications inside the United States, public concern has focused primarily on the legality of the NSA eavesdropping. Less attention has been paid to, and little is known about, how the NSA's information may have been used by other government agencies to investigate American citizens or to cross-check with other databases. In the 1960s and 1970s, the military used NSA intercepts to maintain files on U.S. peace activists, revelations of which prompted Congress to restrict the NSA from intercepting communications of Americans.
Today's NSA intercepts yield two broad categories of information, said a former administration official familiar with the program: "content," which would include transcripts of a phone call or e-mail, and "non-content," which would be records showing, for example, who in the United States was called by, or was calling, a number in another country thought to have a connection to a terrorist group. At the same time, NSA tries to limit identifying the names of Americans involved.
"NSA can make either type of information available to other [intelligence] agencies where relevant, but with appropriate masking of its origin," meaning that the source of the information and method of getting it would be concealed, the former official said.
Agencies that get the information can use it to conduct "data mining," or looking for patterns or matches with other databases that they maintain, which may or may not be specifically geared toward detecting terrorism threats, he said. "They are seeking to separate the known from the unknown, relationships or associations," he added.
Sure seems like a good idea, doesn't it?
The NSA would sometimes monitor telephones, e-mails or fax communications in cases where individuals in the United States -- and sometimes people they contacted -- were linked to an alleged foreign terrorist group, officials have said. The NSA, officials said, limited its decisions to follow-up with more electronic surveillance on an individual to those cases where there was some apparent link to terrorist sources.
But other agencies, one former official said, have used phone numbers or other records obtained from NSA in combination with wide-ranging databases to look for links and associations. "What data sets are included is a policy decision [made by individual agencies] when they involve other than terrorist links," he said.
DIA personnel stationed inside the United States went further on occasion, conducting physical surveillance of people or vehicles identified as a result of NSA intercepts, said two sources familiar with the operations, although the DIA said it does not conduct such activities.
I find this reassuring -- someone's on the ball out there following up potential threats.
The military personnel -- some of whose findings were reported to the Northern Command in Colorado -- were employed as part of the Pentagon's growing post-Sept. 11, 2001, domestic intelligence activity based on the need to protect Defense Department facilities and personnel from terrorist attacks, the sources said. Northcom was set up in October 2002 to conduct operations to deter, prevent and defeat terrorist threats in the United States and its territories. The command runs two fusion centers that receive and analyze intelligence gathered by other government agencies.
Those Northcom centers conduct data mining, where information received from the NSA, the CIA, the FBI, state and local police, and the Pentagon's Talon system are cross-checked to see if patterns develop that could indicate terrorist activities.
Talon is a system that civilian and military personnel use to report suspicious activities around military installations. Information from these reports is fed into a database known as the Joint Protection Enterprise Network, which is managed, as is the Talon system, by the Counterintelligence Field Activity, the newest Defense Department intelligence agency to focus primarily on counterterrorism. The database is shared with intelligence and law enforcement agencies and was found last month to have contained information about peace activists and others protesting the Iraq war that appeared to have no bearing on terrorism.
But were they a threat to a military installation? If so, their inclusion is proper. If the 'activist', for example, tried to break down a security fence, that's something to include.
Military officials acknowledged that such information should have been purged after 90 days and that the Talon system was being reviewed.
Gen. Michael V. Hayden, deputy director for national intelligence and former head of NSA, told reporters last month that the interception of communications to the United States allegedly connected to terrorists was, in almost every case, of short duration. He also said that when the NSA creates intelligence reports based on information it collects, it minimizes the number of Americans whose identities are disclosed, doing so only when necessary. "The same minimalizationist standards apply across the board, including for this program," he said of the domestic eavesdropping effort. "To make this very clear -- U.S. identities are minimized in all of NSA's activities, unless, of course, the U.S. identity is essential to understand the inherent intelligence value of the intelligence report." Hayden did not address the question of how long government agencies would archive or handle information from the NSA.
Today's controversy over the domestic NSA intercepts echoes events of more than three decades ago. Beginning in the late 1960s, the NSA was asked initially by the Johnson White House and later by the Army, the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to intercept messages to or from the United States. Members of Congress were not informed of the program, code-named Minaret in one phase.
The initial purpose was to "help determine the existence of foreign influence" on "civil disturbances occurring throughout the nation," threats to the president and other issues, Gen. Lew Allen Jr., then director of NSA, told a Select Senate Committee headed by then-Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) in 1975.
Allen, in comments similar to recent Bush administration statements, said collecting communications involving American citizens was approved legally, by two attorneys general. He also said that the Minaret intercepts discovered "a major foreign terrorist act planned in a large city" and prevented "an assassination attempt on a prominent U.S. figure abroad."
Overall, Allen said that 1,200 Americans citizens' calls were intercepted over six years, and that about 1,900 reports were issued in three areas of terrorism. As the Church hearings later showed, the Army expanded the NSA collection and had units around the country gather names and license plates of those attending antiwar rallies and demonstrations. That, in turn, led to creation of files on these individuals within Army intelligence units. At one point a Senate Judiciary subcommittee showed the Army had amassed about 18,000 names. In response, Congress in 1978 passed the Foreign Intelligence Security Act, which limited NSA interception of calls from overseas to U.S. citizens or those involving American citizens traveling abroad.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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I believe this is called "connecting the dots." This is also opposite of Ms. Jamie Gorelick's wall.
#4
This newspaper saying that a intelligence gathering agency, gave the information they gathered to the government and somehow this is wrong. I seen stupid stuff but this takes the cake
SAN ANTONIO -- President Bush on Sunday strongly defended his domestic spying program, saying it's a limited initiative that tracks only incoming calls to the United States. "It's seems logical to me that if we know there's a phone number associated with al-Qaida or an al-Qaida affiliate and they're making phone calls, it makes sense to find out why," Bush said. "They attacked us before, they'll attack us again."
You'd think that would almost qualify for a 'master of the obvious' graphic, but there are too many Democrats around who don't get the message.
Bush spoke to reporters at Brooke Army Medical Center where he was visiting wounded troops. He said the leak of information about the secret order to eavesdrop on Americans with suspected ties to terrorists causes "great harm to the nation."
Asked how he responds to Americans worried about violations of their privacy, he responded, "If somebody from al-Qaida is calling you, we'd like to know why."
There's not a whiff of 'domestic spying' on Dems, controversial domestic figures, left-wing kooks, etc., but the leftie blogs are all screaming about this because they think Big Brother⢠is listening in on their phone calls.
The president said that he is conscious of people's civil liberties. "This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America and, I repeat, limited," he said. "I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy's thinking."
The Justice Department has begun investigating the leak to The New York Times that resulted in a story last month about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush, who called the program "vital and necessary," dodged a question about whether he was aware of any resistance to the program at high levels of his administration and how that might have influenced his decision to approve it. He said the program has been reviewed by Justice Department officials and members of Congress and that it continues to be reviewed. "The NSA program is one that listens to a few numbers called from the outside of the United States of known al-Qaida or affiliated people," he said, adding that he believes that he is acting within the law.
None of which requires a FISA warrant.
"The fact that somebody leaked this program causes great harm to the United States," he said. "There's an enemy out there."
Go to the leftie blogs -- Kos, Washington Monthly, Atrios, etc -- and none of them get it. First off, most of their commenters don't even believe al-Qaeda to be a threat, even as they deny that the US has hurt al-Qaeda substantially in the WoT. Second, while they complain that a major failing of the Bush administration about 9/11 was a lack of preparation and intel by our government, they refuse to believe that programs like this are necessary.
And their biggest complaint is that 'if the eavesdropping is necessary, then get a FISA warrant', as if it's like going to the corner store for a carton of milk. FISA warrants are required unless one of the parties is a 'US person' under law, and that's established in advance. We also now know that a couple of FISA judges were refusing and amending warrants. We also know that the intel gathered was for military ops purposes and not law enforcement. And we know that intel gathering like this isn't conducive to a warrant -- it's not targeted at a single individual, it's about building patterns and recognizing the web out there that al Qaeda and related groups have built. A warrant is counter-productive to that. Fact is, the NSA did go for FISA warrants when they had specific targets in mind.
The Dem politicans, particularly [spit] Polosi and [spit] Reid, want it both ways -- if al-Q does manage a successful op on American soil, they'll hammer Bush for failing to protect the country. In the meantime, they'll hammer him for working to protect the country. My hope is that in 2006, the American people are smart enough to see through the game being played.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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That damn Bush!! Can you imagine spying on US residents communicating with foreign terrorists. And using a lame excuse like terrorists operating in America executing the worst attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor. Protecting American lives should never take precedence over people's rights. I mean terrorists are people too! Clearly grounds for impeachment!! If only Bush would embrace the Left's nuanced approach of appeasement and surrender.
#2
Holy smoke! The NSA eavesdropping program does not fit the Dems Suicide on the Installment Planâ¢, so attack. The lemmings are demanding why everybody is not being allowed to jump over the cliff. These guys are into some serious Kool-Aid. Unfriggin believable.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/02/2006 12:51 Comments ||
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Link to Simplicius Redivivus, a blog, that translates an interview by Die Seit with Michael Scheuer. EFL.
DIE ZEIT: You helped develop the system of renditions at the CIA. Terror suspects were apprehended outside the U.S. and turned over to other countries. Were these "extraordinary renditions" a success from the point of view of the CIA?
Michael Scheuer: Absolutely. For a decade it was the United States' most successful anti-terrorism program. Because the goals were so clearly defined. First, we wanted to identify the members and contacts of the terror-group al-Qaida and put them in jail. Those in fact who had either taken part in an attack on the United States or who were possibly planning an attack. Second, papers and electronics were to be confiscated. It is being claimed in the media that we had apprehended and hauled off people on the basis of some suspicions, in order to interrogate them. But that isn't right.
Scheuer: We knew from experience that aggressive interrogations that border on torture don't work. People say whatever the interrogator wants to hear. Either the people lied or they gave us precise but outdated information.
ZEIT: Who invented the system of "extraordinary renditions"?
Scheuer: President Clinton, his security advisor Sandy Berger, and his terrorism advisor Richard Clarke tasked the CIA in Fall 1995 with destroying al-Qaida. We asked the President: what should we do with the people we've apprehended? Clinton: that's your concern. The CIA objected: we aren't prison guards. We were again told that we should solve the problem somehow. So we developed a procedure, and I was a member of this task force. We concentrated on al-Qaida members who were wanted in their home countries or who had been convicted there in absentia.
ZEIT: Why did countries want to cooperate with you on their own territory? Couldn't they have dealt with it themselves?
Scheuer: They believed that only America was threatened. And that they would themselves only become targets of terror if they arrested suspects. If we hadn't gotten the ball rolling, no-one would have done it.
ZEIT: Your partner countries wanted the CIA to do the work for them?
Scheuer: Yes, but they had no interest in holding these people in their own country. The CIA itself didn't apprehend or imprison anyone.
ZEIT: Didn't you have concerns about torture in these countries?
Scheuer: No my job was to protect American citizens by taking Al-Qaida people off the street. The Executive branch of our government have to decide if they consider that hypocritical. This operation was 90% a huge success and only 10% a disaster.
ZEIT: In what did the disaster consist?
Scheuer: Everything was made public. Now the Europeans will help us a great deal less, because they have to fear that everything will be in the Washington Post. And then there is this blowhard in the Senate, John McCain, who practically concedes that the CIA tortures. All completely false. But that's how the whole program was destroyed.
ZEIT: Why did you take these people to their home countries instead of the the U.S.? Couldn't you have kept these people more safely under lock and key?
Scheuer: It was always a case of violent crime. We had little doubt that these countries would not let anyone go. And we didn't bring them to the U.S. because President Clinton didn't want us to.
ZEIT: Why not?
Scheuer: Our leadership didn't want to treat them like prisoners of war, but rather as criminals. At the same time they feared that it wouldn't be possible to gather enough evidence to hold up in court.
ZEIT: Human rights played no role in the Clinton administration?
Scheuer: The CIA raised this question. People aren't treated in Cairo the way they are in Milwaukee. The Clinton administration asked us: Do you believe that the prisoners will be treated according to the standards of the local laws? And we said: yes, [we are] fairly certain.
ZEIT: So the Clinton administration didn't want to know that precisely what went on there?
Scheuer: Exactly. The CIA officials in charge were pretty certain from the that in the end we would take the blame. And you yourself notice: in this debate we hear not a word from Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, or Richard Clarke.
ZEIT: One of your earlier colleagues is quoted with the remark that "extraordinary renditions" are "an abomination".
Scheuer: If it's an abomination to defend America, then this critic would feel right at home in the left wing of the Democratic Party. I think it's more of a matter of lack of courage to handle the dirty work onesself.
ZEIT: Internal critics claim that the program went out of control after 2001.
Scheuer: The process of getting the approval of the lawyers for an operation is to this day a tortuous process. Europeans should not underestimate the crippling nature of American system of government.
ZEIT: What has changed legally since 2001?
Scheuer: Well, because we detain the people ourselves now, we are no longer such Pharisees [the English may well have been "hypocrites"]. You have to credit the Bush administration for behaving a little more courageously and doing its own dirty work. And in the newspaper I read that there are so-called "improved interrogation techniques". That sounds as if one can now be a little rougher than before.
ZEIT: If I understand you correctly, you find the outcry in Europe amusing?
Scheuer: Very amusing, really.
ZEIT: How did the cooperation work with European allies, especially with Germany?
Scheuer: Before 2001, variable at best. I don't believe that Germany is among our best allies. The Italians were always good, the British somewhat. The fundamental problem in Europe is of a basic sort: the immigration and asylum laws have have made the establishment of a hard core of terrorists who have been convicted elsewhere, and who are now citizens of European states. In addition, no-one can be deported to a country that has capital punishment.
ZEIT: The attitude to the death penalty has hindered cooperation?
Scheuer: Not just hindered. It was like a barrier. Out of principle we didn't work in Europe. There are agreements from the Cold War, according to which we can't state any operations in Europe. The CIA is bound to those to this day. We simply went to those places where it worked. There is no sense in banging your head against a wall.
ZEIT: Why was the cooperation so changeable, apart from the question of capital punishment?
Scheuer: Churchill said in the late 1930's: the Europeans always hope that the aligator eats them last. As long as the target of the terrorists was the United States, many in Europe were asking themselves why they should endanger themselves together with America.
ZEIT: How do that work when you wanted information in one of your cases? Let's say, from your German colleagues?
Scheuer: Sometimes there was just no answer. Sometimes some of the questions were answered. Sometimes the response was: we don't have much. Here is the little bit that we do have. There was just a lot of hemming and hawing.
ZEIT: Has that changed since the attack of 2001?
Scheuer: Yes, completely. But even after the attacks in New York, Madrid, and London, there is still this belief in Europe that they shouldn't get too involved. This idea that you only endanger yourself if you support the Americans.
ZEIT: The invasion of Iraq gave many adherents to that point of view.
Scheuer: The Iraq invasion without a doubt broke the back of our whole anti-terrorism operation. And in the long term, the war will certainly have the effect that a second generation of well-trained fighters, European Muslims and European converts, will return to Europe. The first generation came in the 1990's from the Balkans and Chechnya.
ZEIT: The case seems more to be a symbol that it is better to entrust such questions to the police, prosecutors, and courts and not to the CIA.
Scheuer: If you want to consider Al-Qaida as a matter of criminal prosecution and then wait until we've lost, then you are correct. However, we are in a war. And the sooner we remove such matters from the realm of criminal prosecution and get them under the rules of the Geneva Convention, the better it will be for America, for Europe, and also for the Germans. If these people are prisoners of war, there is no legal process.
ZEIT: Mr. El-Masri says that he was tortured. He was in a CIA prison in Afghanistan.
Scheuer: If he was in a CIA prison, he was certainly not tortured. Period.
ZEIT: What is the future of the extraordinary renditions?
Scheuer: The program is probably dead. Because of the leaks, the revelations, and the criticism. And for those who bear responsibility in the intelligence agencies, the effect is sobering. None of those who ordered us to act as we did now admits it.
President Bush's first official act of the new year was pinning Purple Hearts on U.S. soldiers wounded in Iraq, a signal that for the White House, 2006 would be another year dominated by the war.
The president gave the military award to nine soldiers during a private session Sunday morning with veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and some family members at the Brooke Army Medical Center.
The soldiers were among an estimated 2,300 wounded service members treated there since the beginning of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Bush took note of their plight as he restated his reasons for fighting the Iraq war.
"There's horrible consequences to war â that's what you see in this building," the president said after the hospital visit. "On the other hand, we also see (soldiers) who say, 'I'd like to go back in, Mr. President, what we're doing is the right thing,' because many of these troops understand that by defeating the enemy there, we don't have to face them here. And they understand that by helping the country and the Middle East become a democracy, we are, in fact, laying the foundation for future peace."
It was Bush's 34th meeting with wounded troops, the White House said.
"I am resolved to make sure that these kids who are recovering here, that have suffered terrible injury, that their injuries are not in vain by completing the mission and laying that foundation for peace for generations to come," Bush remarked Sunday. "And I'm optimistic we'll achieve that objective."
Bush's visit to the medical center began a week filled with events related to Iraq or the war on terror.
The president plans to meet with key advisers to form a strategy intended to get an indefinite extension of provisions of the U.S. Patriot Act, which was passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to expand the government's powers against terrorism. After a last-minute congressional deal signed by Bush on Friday, the act will expire in five weeks.
Bush will travel to the Pentagon on Wednesday and make a statement about the war.
The next day he will meet with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, along with people who held those positions in the past, to talk about "our challenges in Iraq and winning the war in Iraq," according to a spokesman.
Also in the year's first week, Bush may be meeting with Gen. John Abizaid, the commander of Central Command and the top military official overseeing Iraq and Afghanistan, an official said.
The opening week fits with Bush's public New Year's resolution, which began with the words, "To continue to work tirelessly for peace abroad."
The energetic focus on the war comes at a time when, despite a slight recovery in the last quarter of 2005, Bush is still trying to convince a majority of Americans that the war in Iraq is worth the price in American lives.
Bush's public approval rating dipped below 40 percent at times in 2005 and rose to 47 percent in an ABC News/Washington Post poll taken after a Dec. 15 election in Iraq.
Many surveyed remain skeptical about the war, in which about 2,100 Americans and 30,000 Iraqis have died at year's end.
Roughly half the people polled by CNN/USA Today recently said it was a mistake to ever send troops to Iraq.
Bush confronted the issue in his end-of-year radio address Saturday.
"As we help Iraq build a peaceful and stable democracy, the United States will gain an ally in the war on terror, inspire reformers across the Middle East and make the American people more secure," he said.
Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi, of California, did not mention the war in her party's response, except to wish safety for military personnel.
Instead, she outlined domestic proposals she said Democrats will push in the coming year.
Her message appeared to be a shift from leading Democrats' strong criticism of the war before the Iraqi election.
After meeting with wounded personnel, Bush joked about what he termed his own injury in combat â from a encounter with a tree on his Crawford ranch.
"As you can possibly see, I have an injury myself â not here at the hospital, but in combat with a cedar. I eventually won," he said. "The cedar gave me a little scratch. As a matter of fact, (a) colonel asked if I needed first aid when she first saw me. I was able to avoid any major surgical operations here, but thanks for your compassion, colonel."
Asked by a reporter what he would say to an injured soldier about how a loving God could permit or cause some war injuries, the president answered in part:
"I think we see God's work here every day. I think when you find nurses and doctors who work around the clock, who come in at a moment's notice to save a life, I happen to believe there's a lot of divine inspiration to that kind of dedication and work. The parents I saw or the wives I saw, many of them were in prayer on a regular basis for their loved one."
Bush also defended again his authorization of an anti-terror eavesdropping program without search warrants.
"It's seems logical to me that if we know there's a phone number associated with al-Qaida or an al-Qaida affiliate and they're making phone calls, it makes sense to find out why," Bush said. "They attacked us before, they'll attack us again."
Asked how he responds to Americans worried about violations of their privacy, Bush responded, "If somebody from al-Qaida is calling you, we'd like to know why."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/02/2006 03:51 ||
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"a signal that for the White House, 2006 would be another year dominated by the war"
Golly... That he would be derelict in his duty as CinC if he didn't maintain focus in a time of war seems to be some sort of an indictment from this Moonbat rag's editorial perspective. This mish-mash was (literally, I'm sure) thrown together with less care than your average 'D' Student's Freshman English assignment.
Yo, Chronicle, you folks should all get yourselves a Drano IV, stat. Please consider my suggestion value-added analysis.
#2
Asked how he responds to Americans worried about violations of their privacy, Bush responded, "If somebody from al-Qaida is calling you, we'd like to know why."
While I think that the chance of liberal democracy (or at least some form of civil society) in Iraq is slightly less than the chance of my wife's cats mastering calculus---you gotta admire the guy's way with words.
#3
"Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi, of California, did not mention the war in her party's response, except to wish safety for military personnel."
Sometimes it's hard to guage which direction the wind is blowing when your thumb is inserted firmly up your ass.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former CIA counterterrorism officer who tracked Osama bin Laden through the mountains of Afghanistan says the U.S. spy agency could need a decade to build up its clandestine service for the U.S. war on terrorism.
Gary Berntsen, a decorated espionage officer who led a paramilitary unit code-named "Jawbreaker" in the war that toppled the Taliban after the September 11 attacks, said CIA Director Porter Goss faces an uphill battle to fill the agency's senior ranks with aggressive, seasoned operatives. "He's probably more aggressive than most of the senior officers in the clandestine service. So I think he's having to pull them along a bit," Berntsen said in an interview.
"(Goss) is trying to improve the situation. But it's going to be tough. The rebuilding is going to take years. A decade, at least," he told Reuters late last week.
The CIA, widely criticized for lapses involving prewar Iraq and the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, has seen its clandestine staff dwindle to less than 5,000 employees from a peak of over 7,000, intelligence sources say.
Experts blame a post-Cold War downturn in recruitment for a current lack of seasoned clandestine operatives that has been exacerbated by a rush to lucrative private sector jobs in recent years. "We have a smaller number of really, really aggressive, creative members of our leadership in the senior service," said Berntsen, who recently published a book about his exploits in the war on terrorism, titled "Jawbreaker".
Former CIA Director George Tenet told the September 11 commission in April 2004 the CIA would need five years to produce a clandestine service fully capable of tackling the terrorism threat. Goss later said at his September 2004 Senate confirmation hearings that rebuilding the clandestine operation would be "a long build-out, a long haul."
President George W. Bush issued an order last year that called for a 50 percent increase in CIA clandestine officers and analysts to be completed "as soon as feasible." "The CIA is moving aggressively to rebuild and enhance its capabilities across the board," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.
But intelligence sources say the rebuilding process has been complicated by disaffection for Goss' leadership within the clandestine service.
Years of double-digit growth in federal spending on intelligence that followed the September 11 attacks may also be about to end. John Negroponte, the new U.S. director of national intelligence, has endorsed an intelligence budget for fiscal year 2007 that is relatively flat, with current spending levels believed to total about $44 billion for the 15-agency intelligence community.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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Well, we've had about a half decade since 9/11. I assume that's been pretty much pissed away?
#5
As Howard Dean testified before the 9-11 Commission; that after many years of seeing their fellow officers chastized and hauled up before some board or commission for anything that may possibly appear questionable by the MSM, only those who are extremely risk adverse have survived and been promoted into the senior cadre. Any aggresive goal oriented officer is viewed as a threat to the "status quo" by the senior cadre. Who at this point in their careers simply want to draw their pay and do as little as possible until they retire. With many years of seniority on their side, these older officers have banded together in resentment toward the efforts of Porter Goss to reorganize and re-activate the organization as directed by the President. Many of the senior officers have established strong ties with powerful people over the years. If they are able to use this influence to reject and remove Porter Goss; the organization will, without doubt, continue on as the vast stagnate and ineffective "quagmire" for untold billions and billions of taxpayers hard earned dollars.
Central security agencies have established links between the mastermind of the attack on Indian Institute of Sciences in Bangalore and Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, sources said on Sunday.
Three persons were detained--two in Bangalore and one in Hyderabad--in connection with the attack on the evening of December 28 and security agencies have found evidence of their links with Al Hadees group based in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia, the sources said.
Three persons were detained-two in Bangalore and one in Hyderabad-in connection with the attack on the evening of December 28 and security agencies have found evidence of their links with al Hadees group based in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia, the sources said.
Lashkar has its overseas cells in both Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/02/2006 13:14 ||
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Pakistan and India yesterday exchanged lists of their nuclear facilities, a requirement every Jan. 1 under an accord in which they promised not to attack each other's nuclear installations. "The governments of Pakistan and India today exchanged lists of their respective nuclear installations and facilities" under the 1988 agreement, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement yesterday. Pakistan handed over its list of nuclear sites to an Indian diplomat in Islamabad, while a Pakistani diplomat received India's list in New Delhi, the statement said. The agreement came into force in 1991 and the first such exchange of information was on Jan. 1, 1992. Under the agreement both Pakistan and India are to refrain from attacking each other's nuclear facilities in the event of a war.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2006 09:54 ||
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Jan 1: Nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India have exchanged lists of their nuclear facilities in line with an agreement to swap such information annually on New Year's Day, the foreign ministry said. The two countries swapped the information under an agreement signed in 1988 on the prohibition of attacks on each other's nuclear installations, the ministry said in a statement Sunday.
The agreement came into force in 1991 and the first such exchange of information was on January 1, 1992. Under the agreement both Pakistan and India are to refrain from attacking each other's nuclear facilities in the event of a war.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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A new year dawned in revolt-torn Nepal yesterday amid growing fears of fresh violence as the Maoist rebels' unilateral truce neared its end. The rebel ceasefire, first announced for three months in September and later extended for another month under popular pressure, is due to expire at midnight on Monday.
King Gyanendra, who seized absolute power 11 months ago, has refused to match the truce while the guerrillas have accused his royalist government of provoking them to break it.
"Oh, we're so provoked!"
"An end to the ceasefire would naturally mean resumption of violence," said Yubaraj Ghimire, editor of Samay, a weekly magazine. "But there is still some hope that the Maoists will continue with their unilateral ceasefire for some time."
The truce neared its end amid unconfirmed reports that the Maoists, who hold sway in the countryside, were now setting their sights on the high-security capital, Kathmandu, which has so far been spared major attacks. The rebels are fighting to establish one-party communist rule in the mountainous Himalayan nation.
On Friday, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed concern that fighting could resume and urged the government to join the ceasefire. Annan also called on the rebels to extend the truce, saying that the people had benefited from the de-escalation of violence in the last four months.
Attaboy, Kofi. Just jump in there and solve problems like you always do.
But analysts said the royalist government, which asserted recently that it had broken the rebels' "backbone", was unlikely to take heed as it believes the rebels cannot be trusted.
"Continued refusal by the state to reciprocate the ceasefire would not only discredit it further but establish that it is the government which is more responsible for the possible resumption of conflict and the likely bloodshed," Ghimire said.
I think we know which side Mr. Ghimire is on.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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The tantrum with which Secretary General Annan greeted the now famous question about the missing Mercedes Benz tells us a lot about the tensions that are building at the United Nations, yawn. The question was lodged at a press conference by one of the best reporters in the U.N. press room, James Bone of the London Times. Mr. Annan, normally a mild-mannered, suave operator, excuse me while I puke lashed out at Mr. Bone, calling him "cheeky" and "an overgrown schoolboy," and accused him of being "an embarrassment" to journalism - upon which the august editorial page of the Wall Street Journal promptly invited Mr. Bone to relate the backstory.
The Mercedes Benz, described as a "sporty green" Jeep-type vehicle, is missing somewhere in Africa, really narrows it down doesn't it?and Mr. Annan, his son Kojo, and their army of spokesmen and lawyers, just don't seem to want to answer questions about: What happened to that car? Who owns it? Where is it parked? The September 7 report of the Independent Inquiry Committee headed by Paul Volcker has it that the car was bought in Geneva in the fall of 1998, just as the goods-inspection company Cotecna was about to land a fat contract with the U.N.'s oil-for-food program. Cotecna at the time employed Mr. Annan's son, Kojo. The secretary general contributed $15,000 toward the purchase of the car. Another contributor was a Cotecna official and a family friend of the Annans, Michael Wilson, who paid a $3000 deposit. Kojo Annan paid the rest.
The car was, however, not purchased under Kojo Annan's name, but under his father's. Claiming diplomatic discount helped in shaving 14.3% off the Mercedes ticket price of just under $40,000. A Ghanaian-based United Nations Development Program official, Abdoulie Janneh, helped in promoting the diplomatic immunity, and the car's owner avoided just over $20,000 in dues and shipping expenses as it was imported from Switzerland to Mr. Annan's homeland of Ghana. Some questions lingered since the Volcker committee ended its $34 million investigation in November. Many of those surrounded Mr. Annan's role - or lack thereof - in landing a U.N. contract for his son's employer, Cotecna. But none was as straightforward as the one that became a staple of the daily noon briefings: Where is that car?
Since Mr. Bone and others began asking it, neither the secretary general nor any of his aides or spokesmen has been able to come up with a simple answer. On November 20, our Benny Avni e-mailed the question to Mr. Annan's lawyer, Gregory Craig, who has yet to produce an answer. A week later, a spokesperson vaguely promised that Kojo Annan's lawyers will have some comment on the car "soon," but as of yet they have supplied none. Failing to explain as usual, the technicalities involved in lending his good name and good money to purchase a Mercedes, Mr. Annan has pretended the whole affair had nothing to do with him but of course, and everything to do with his wayward son. "I am neither his spokesman or his lawyer," the father said of his son last week at that press conference.
The question that lingers for us is why such a simple question needs so much attention from lawyers or spokespersons anyway. The fact that brilliant advocates like Mr. Craig et al. were unable to craft a simple answer after so many weeks that the issue has been in the limelight, hurting Mr. Annan's image so badly, is bizarre. Either there is some deep dark secret that needs to be protected, or another factor is at work here. In October Mr. Annan has publicly told our Mr. Avni that his "world is so small," urging him to "move on" and stop asking those nasty and highly embarrasing oil for food questions. The secretary general was apparently applauded by advisers eager to go on the attack. An emboldened Mr. Annan then went after Mr. Bone last week, but bullying from the bully pulpit backfired, and reporters are now more interested than ever in the story of the missing Mercedes.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be readmitted to hospital later this week to undergo a procedure to repair a small hole in the heart, his office said yesterday. Doctors at the Hadassah hospital on the outskirts of Jerusalem will on Thursday perform a cardiac catheterization in order to fix the minor birth defect. The operation is aimed to avoid any further clotting which caused the 77-year-old premier to suffer a minor stroke two weeks ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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The number of troops dying as a result of battlefield injuries in the Iraq war is half of what it was during the Vietnam War, critical care and trauma surgery experts at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center say.
Medically speaking, todayâs mortality rate among wounded troops is 50 percent less than it was roughly 35 years ago.
The lower mortality rate among todayâs wounded troops has been achieved not so much by innovations but rather refinements to U.S. military medical care, doctors said.
âI think itâs the refinement of techniques that has really changed the outcomes of our multitrauma patients,â said Air Force Dr. (Lt. Col.) Guillermo J. Tellez, chief of Landstuhl Regional Medical Centerâs surgery division. âItâs everybody putting their lessons learned toward refining techniques.â
Those refinements have saved thousands of lives since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
âThere would have been an additional 2,200 people that would have died without the things that weâve done,â said Air Force Dr. (Lt. Col.) Warren Dorlac, chief of critical care and trauma surgery at Landstuhl.
Those include: damage-control surgery, limb and abdomen incisions, external fixators, critical care air transport, formal trauma systems and concurrent process improvement.
Damage-control surgery has had as much as an effect of saving lives of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan as anything else, Dorlac said. Nowhere were the benefits of damage-control surgery more apparent than in Fallujah, Iraq, during November 2004. The Navy Forward Surgical Team there performed damage-control surgery on casualties, Dorlac said.
âThey had huge numbers of patients and managed all those guys with perfect damage-control principles,â he said. âBy doing that, for their Marines, I think they had a zero-mortality rate in theater.â
In damage-control surgery, surgeons treat only a patientâs most critical problems and get that patient out of surgery so he or she can receive additional treatment at a medical facility with more assets.
âWeâre operating on patients and getting them out of the operating room before they develop a physiologic crisis,â Dorlac said. âIf we operated in the old mode of surgery â this is even 15 years ago â you would start the case and operate until you finished the case. And if the guy died, the guy died, but you didnât walk out of the operating room until you had done basically everything. Now we just go in and stop the hemorrhage. We stop the contamination. We leave the abdomen open. We cover it with a piece of plastic, and we get the guy out.â
Specific surgical procedures being used on wounded troops are refinements of tried-and-true techniques. Instead of making two incisions to relieve pressure inside limbs damaged by roadside bomb blasts, surgeons at Landstuhl are making four cuts to the limbs. Landstuhl surgeons also will open patientsâ abdomens sooner than they would have in the past. Surgeons cut open the abdomen to release internal pressure, promote blood flow and allow internal organs to swell.
âWe now know that by relieving some of the internal abdominal pressure that we are able to save a lot of the bowel, the liver, kidneys,â Tellez said. âThat has been very helpful.â
Once swelling subsides, doctors at Landstuhl or even in the States can close the patientsâ abdomens.
Only in the past few years have doctors been able to determine when itâs best to close wounds that have been left open to prevent infection.
âWeâve known since the Civil War that keeping wounds open â dirty wounds â is very important, but what weâve done is that weâre able to fine tune when the right time is to reconstruct some of these wounds,â Tellez said.
The use of external fixators offers doctors a way to stabilize fractures without covering open wounds subject to swelling. Among their benefits, external fixators help bone and soft tissue heal, and the devices also allow open fractures to be treated.
âIt decreases further movement and hopefully decreases further loss of bone and tissue,â Tellez said. âIt decreases infection rates too.â
The critical care air transport allows wounded patients to be evacuated from downrange to Landstuhl, where doctors can provide more comprehensive treatment. From July 2004 to July 2005, 690 critically injured patients were transported to Landstuhl via critical care air transport. The air transport capability allows U.S. military medical providers to have a smaller presence downrange.
Until very recently, the military lacked a formal trauma system that linked what doctors were doing to patients across its continuum of care â from downrange to Landstuhl and on to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
âYou canât just have all these pieces working by themselves,â Dorlac said. âYouâve got to pull them all together. We (Landstuhl surgeons) were doing surgery, and our patients were going to Walter Reed. We had no idea if what we were doing was right or not.â
Now that the system is in place, doctors have made wide-ranging policies that have been able to prevent fatal problems such as pulmonary embolisms. At one time, pulmonary embolism â basically, a blood clot in the lungs â was the top preventable mortality at Landstuhl.
âIn the first year and a half of the war, we had a number of patients die from pulmonary embolisms here, and Walter Reed had a number of patients die there from pulmonary embolisms,â Dorlac said. âWhen we instituted a theaterwide policy, our No. 1 preventable thing went to zero.â
With concurrent process improvement, military medical providers have been able to examine data and make treatment changes just weeks later â something that has never been done in prior U.S. conflicts.
âIt has been done on a large scale before, so at the end of one or two years in World War II someone says, âHey, weâve had a lot of complications with this,ââ Dorlac said. âThey pull all the records up, look at it and say, âWe are having some problems. Yeah, letâs change that.â Weâre making decisions now after a month of data.â
From Baghdad to Walter Reed, military traumatic care doctors have the goal of decreasing morbidity â ill effects of injuries â and mortality â deaths â Dorlac said.
âWeâre attacking that from hundreds of different directions,â he said.
#1
The doctors are being a little bit the egotists they've always been. I'm sure they're doing a better job than Vietnam docs, because we've learned a lot more and have better technology. But I'd give a lot more credit for the morbidity rate to body armor resulting in far fewer potentially fatal wounds. Some analyst already knows the real answer somewhere at Walter Reade
TEHRAN, Iran â Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hard-line president who has said the Holocaust was a myth, now has charged that European countries sought to complete the genocide by establishing a Jewish state in the midst of Muslim countries. "Don't you think that continuation of genocide by expelling Jews from Europe was one of their aims in creating a regime of occupiers of Al-Quds (Jerusalem)?" the official Islamic Republic News agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Sunday. "Isn't that an important question?"
He conveniently forgets that 1) Jews that fled Europe during and after WWII did so to avoid being killed, and 2) the Brits tried to stop Jewish refugees from entering the Mandate territory.
Ahmadinejad said Europeans had decided to create a "Jewish camp" as the best means for ridding the continent of Jews. He said the camp, Israel, now enjoyed support from the United States and Europe in the slaughter of Muslims.
In October, Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." Last month, Ahmadinejad said the Holocaust, in which Nazi Germany killed six million Jews, was a myth. After global outrage over the comments, he said that Europeans, if they insist the Holocaust occurred, should cede some of their territory for a Jewish state.
He said anti-Semitism had a long history in Europe, while Jews had lived peacefully among Muslims for centuries.
As long as they remembered their place, of course. And they lived very peacefully in Arab states and Iran in the 1950s and 60s, when they were expelled from those countries.
His remarks have been condemned by the White House, Israel, Germany, France and the European Commission, among others. Germany has said the remarks would affect negotiations over Iran's nuclear program.
Uh-huh, sure it will.
Posted by: Steve White ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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I just can't get a grip on this guy. Is he hoping to derive some benefit from the conflict that will come from his statements and behavior? He fits the Hollywood "evil ruler" template to the point of caricature. Is he this big of a dumbass or is there a larger plot?
#3
With all of his bumbling comments, he always carefully skirts one uncomfortable little fact-Jews claims to the land predate Muslims claims to the land. Whether or not Muslims treated Jews well in the intervening time is interesting, but not really pertinent.
#5
Ahmadinejad said Europeans had decided to create a "Jewish camp" as the best means for ridding the continent of Jews. He said the camp, Israel, now enjoyed support from the United States and Europe in the slaughter of Muslims.
Oh goodie, another buncha wonderf&*k bafflegab by Iran's wingnut in chief. If this guy's pharmacy sells stock, I need to invest heavily.
So, what is it this time? Lessee, Europe sets up a "Final Solution" summer camp that turns out to be an American financed Arab @ss-kicking machine.
I'd say this @ssclown's hookah is long overdue for its 40,000 mile crankcase maintenance check.
#6
Planet Dan may be on to the main point about Ahmadinejad: These statements that he spews pass as logic in that part of the world. And what he spews is not stopped or contradicted by the Mad Mullahs (MM) who really run the show. So that is how they look at the Jews. Just peruse through MEMRI articles and TV shows that are translated to English. That is the twisted logic that the civilized world will have to deal with if civilization as we know it will survive.
And not a lot of people are talking about Ahmadinejad's logic and its implications. We just hear irritation and lukewarm outrage now.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/02/2006 13:02 Comments ||
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#7
He is partially correct. The Europeans created Israel to complete the Crusades.
Syria's ruling Baath party says it has expelled former vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam, who has implicated the regime in the murder of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq al-Hariri. "The national leadership has decided to throw Khaddam out of the party. It considers him a traitor. Khaddam has betrayed the party, the homeland and the (Arab) nation," the party leadership on Sunday said in a statement carried by the official SANA news agency. The party described Khaddam's comments to Al-Arabia, the Dubai-based satellite channel, from his base in exile in Paris as a "slander which violates the principles of the nation".
Posted by: Fred ||
01/02/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
I think being expelled from the party is the least of this guy's problems. Anyone else expect him to have an "accident" soon?
He has not issued any public statements all year. Speculation has grown over his influence, health and even possible death. Where is the Western world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden?
The Al-Qaeda leader's period of silence has been the longest since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, offering no clues to the whereabouts or fate of a man who this year appears to have quietly slipped off the radar.
Bin Laden has not been heard of since a December 27, 2004, audiotape in which he anointed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted man, as Al-Qaeda's leader in the war-torn country.
Just before, on December 16, 2004, a video surfaced where he also called on his fighters to strike Gulf oil supplies and warned Saudi leaders they risked a popular uprising.
Since then - silence. Regular interventions by Al-Qaeda's number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, seen as the ideological brains of the network, has only served to feed feverish speculation on what has happened to bin Laden.
Zawahiri claimed in a videotape released in September that bin Laden was still alive and leading jihad against the West.
"Al-Qaeda for holy war is still, thanks to God, a base for jihad. Its prince Osama bin Laden, may God protect him, still leads the jihad," said Zawahiri.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said recently he did not know whether bin Laden was dead or alive, adding that he would not like to speculate over his fate.
The commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, General Karl Eikenberry, has insisted that bin Laden was still considered alive, and that U.S. forces continue their hunt for him.
Seemingly more candid was CIA director Porter Goss, who recently told ABC news channel that bin Laden's hideout was known and implied that the CIA knew more than it could reveal.
The total eclipse of bin Laden also gave rise to various speculations on Islamist Web sites, with some admirers of the terror chief already contemplating that he might be dead.
"Bin Laden, tracked by the intelligence services who are on his heels, is hiding somewhere along the mountain frontiers between Pakistan and Afghanistan," wrote one blogger.
Another claimed that "Abu Abdullah (bin Laden) has deliberately decided to stop all communications to avoid being located by gigantic U.S. surveillance devices."
"O my beloved. I know that you are mortal. Nobody can oppose the will of God. But the thought of seeing you taken captive fills me with fear," said another in a "letter of affection" addressed online to bin Laden, following a rumor claiming that Al-Qaeda chief had perished in the October 8 earthquake which ravaged Pakistan.
But the editor of the Islamabad-based Mediawatch Yaqoub McLintock, who is also an expert on Al-Qaeda, appeared confident as to bin Laden's safety.
"I think he is alive and well. Admittedly, bin Laden is not in great health, but he is not at the point of death. All that we hear about his fate is nothing but media speculation. His death would certainly be announced by Al-Qaeda, in conformity with Sharia (Islamic law)," he said.
He also claimed that bin Laden avoids making any appearances "as a safety measure, knowing that he is being traced by intelligence services."
Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor in chief of the London-based daily Al-Quds al-Arabi, agreed.
"Bin Laden has said it all and has nothing to add," he said.
"The man could well be preparing a large-scale operation in the United States," added Atwan, the first Arab journalist to interview bin Laden, who has a $25 million bounty on his head.
"Dead or not? This is not the question," said Yasser Sirri, the director of the London-based Islamic Observatory.
"Admittedly, bin Laden is a strategic symbol, but Al-Qaeda is now a decentralized multi-national jihadist (movement) capable of generating thousands of bin Ladens," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
01/02/2006 03:50 ||
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Top|| File under:
#1
You get that way when you get your 72 rasins. I am voting Binny is dead or good as dead.
#4
Good point, Sea. I find it hard to believe that an organization that depends on publicity and image would not display their Fearless Leaders if they were in any way presentable.
Personally, I kind of like the idea that they are still around, hurt and wounded, hiding from their hunters like rats at the dump and watching their heroic Lions slowly being ground down.
#6
Right in Steve. I like to think that Binny/Zark are in a spider hole or cave and jump every time th wind blows or a bird chirps. It is they who have become the terrorized!
#8
My guess is that the mullahs are going to keep them under wraps until things really start to hot up between them and us. Then they will be ungagged to provide a distraction in an attempt to divert us from our imminent action. Look for the Dhimmis to fall for it big time.
Posted by: DanNY ||
01/02/2006 13:12 Comments ||
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#9
My guess is that the mullahs are going to keep them under wraps until things really start to hot up between them and us. Then they will be ungagged to provide a distraction in an attempt to divert us from our imminent action. Look for the Dhimmis to fall for it big time.
Posted by: DanNY ||
01/02/2006 13:14 Comments ||
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#10
I am working in a Quickie-Mart, making Slurpee's for infidels.
Posted by: Abu Abdullah ||
01/02/2006 14:06 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
DUBAI - US and Afghan forces released the Kabul correspondent of Al Jazeera television, his driver and a cameraman on Sunday hours after holding and questioning them, the station said.
An alleged Al Qaeda operative accused of serving as a key link between the group's leaders and suicide bombers hid his tracks so well that even fellow militants thought he was dead. 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former CIA counterterrorism officer who tracked Osama bin Laden through the mountains of Afghanistan says the U.S. spy agency could need a decade to build up its clandestine service for the U.S. war on terrorism.
A new year dawned in revolt-torn Nepal yesterday amid growing fears of fresh violence as the Maoist rebels' unilateral truce neared its end. The rebel ceasefire, first announced for three months in September and later extended for another month under popular pressure, is due to expire at midnight on Monday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be readmitted to hospital later this week to undergo a procedure to repair a small hole in the heart, his office said yesterday. Doctors at the Hadassah hospital on the outskirts of Jerusalem will on Thursday perform a cardiac catheterization in order to fix the minor birth defect. The operation is aimed to avoid any further clotting which caused the 77-year-old premier to suffer a minor stroke two weeks ago.
TEHRAN, Iran â Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hard-line president who has said the Holocaust was a myth, now has charged that European countries sought to complete the genocide by establishing a Jewish state in the midst of Muslim countries. "Don't you think that continuation of genocide by expelling Jews from Europe was one of their aims in creating a regime of occupiers of Al-Quds (Jerusalem)?" the official Islamic Republic News agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Sunday. "Isn't that an important question?"
Syria's ruling Baath party says it has expelled former vice-president Abdel Halim Khaddam, who has implicated the regime in the murder of Lebanese ex-premier Rafiq al-Hariri. "The national leadership has decided to throw Khaddam out of the party. It considers him a traitor. Khaddam has betrayed the party, the homeland and the (Arab) nation," the party leadership on Sunday said in a statement carried by the official SANA news agency. The party described Khaddam's comments to Al-Arabia, the Dubai-based satellite channel, from his base in exile in Paris as a "slander which violates the principles of the nation".
