BERLIN, Feb. 21 (UPI) -- German Defense Minister Peter Struck Friday announced Germany would withdraw troops from Afghanistan if the tension in the region escalates due to an U.S.-led strike on Iraq. In other words, we'll pull out when you most need us.
Although senior German media earlier had quoted German military officials as saying the ISAF forces would remain even if the U.S. administration wages war on Iraq, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder repeatedly has cautioned the international community about a possible increase in terrorist attacks in the event of such a war. Sounds like Herr Stuck is just following Gerhard's orders. The army wants to do the job.
The German military base in Kabul has been the target of two missile attacks in the last few weeks and it faced a suicide bomb attack last year.
#1
This is purely speculative so far. It will only happen if the situation becomes unsustainable. There is an agreement with the American government on this.
#2
well, here's the reality of it, isaf doesn't do a damn thing except hang around in kabul. And even they don't do it all that well.
I was there in country for 8 months, and the only time I saw an isaf soldier was when I went back to bagram for a resupply run. Those guys don't do a damn thing except mill around kabul and SOME do ANA training.
Pakistan's donation this week of arms and ammunition to the Afghan National Army signifies yet another move to strengthen its influence in the post-Taliban government in Afghanistan and ensure it remains friendly to Islamabad, experts in Islamabad say. Pakland makes a donation of arms and ammunition to Afghanistan. They're loading a barge with coal to donate to Newcastle, too. And there's a planeload of chocolate on its way to Hersey, PA...
The donation of a large quantity of arms and ammunition to help the government of President Hamid Karzai raise its own army is in addition to the 100 million U.S. dollars that Pakistan has committed for reconstruction activities in its neighbouring country. The weapons include 5,000 submachine guns, 180 mortars, 75 rocket-propelled grenades launchers and 10,000 mortar bombs. "For me? Oh, you shouldn't have!"
The official statement said that the Feb. 16 delivery of weapons is part of Islamabad's âcommitment to support and strengthen the central government, including the raising of the national army of Afghanistan''. Pakistan would be also helping train Afghan army personnel, hoping these moves will raise its stock in a country whose Taliban-led government it had backed until after the Sep. 11 attacks, which promoted Islamabad to make a diplomatic U-turn and distanced itself from the Taliban. Former foreign secretary Dr Tanvir Ahmed Khan said Islamabad's latest gestures show Pakistan's resolve to strengthen and consolidate the Karzai government, and help him expand his writ that is now challenged by dozens of warlords. Many of them financed by Pak entities — and some, we suspect, financed by Pak itself...
It would be in Pakistan's strategic interest to have beside it a friendly government in Afghanistan, since Islamabad would not like to have other nations, including Iran, Russia and rival India, gain a foothold in the region. It's that "sphere of influence" thing. Pakland has delusions of becoming a great power...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 08:53 am ||
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#1
they also donated several gunboats and a diesel sub
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/21/2003 9:05 Comments ||
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#2
Plus some non-conventonal (and rather confused) forces in the NWFP (???).
#3
gunboats&submarine.I know Murat considers Americans to be Geographically ignorant.But isn't
Afganistan land locked.
What are they going to do with them,patrol Kabul's sewers.
#4
Subtile humour, Raptor. Like the "p" in swimming...
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/21/2003 10:31 Comments ||
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#5
Pakistan has realized that they lost big-time by backing the Taliban. Also India's been making lots of friendly gestures towards the new Afghan government. Pakistan can't let Afghanistan become a Indian ally, hence this help.
Pretty good for Karzai and company if they play their cards right.
Posted by: John Thacker ||
02/21/2003 12:16 Comments ||
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#6
thanks Paul - you got it
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/21/2003 13:09 Comments ||
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#7
I was in Pakistan in '71 - '72 and back then our nations were friendly to each other. Even during the War for Bangladesh we stuck by them. It was only after Bhutto was overthrown by Zia followed by our arming of the mujahaden(sp) that things started going sour. We left all those Islamists around Peshawar fully armed and once the USSR left Afghanistan, these fundamentalists were "all dressed up with no place to go". Glad I'd moved on to greener pastures by then.
#8
Pakistan has opted to mine copper in Afghanistan. They have also endorsed interest in establishing industries such as small-scale industries. Oddly enough, the Chinese mined the copper in Pakistan itself. I have read in several places that a delegation form Pakistan was there recently. Pakistan has also agreed to import iron ore from Afghanistan where the raw commodity is in abundance. Thereby providing some cheap ore to the steel plant (a Russian aided project); they have in South - a perpetual white elephant and bone of contention of every ruling group there. Presently Pakistan obtains ore from Australia
Pakistan does not want to be outmatched by the Indians, realizing that the former country has more to give in terms of both economic raw material and technical expertise.
Karzai himself is a graduate in Engineering from India and therefore familiar with that country. And the least to say that now Taliban (a group funded and sponsored by Pakistani intelligence agency the ISI)
have gone away. Pakistan is a self-styled leader Muslim groups of the world like those in Kashmir or Afghanistan . However, it never touches matters that are not in geographic vicinity like Muslims of Albania, Eritrea, Somalia, Myanmar, Philippines etc(a case of selective-myopia.) The arms aid,copper mining and establishing infrastructure in Afghanistan are all vestiges of a similar psyche and would also help safeguard future interests like the US$3.2-billion natural gas pipeline that will run from Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and then into Pakistan.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) offices in Kunduz came under bomb attack earlier in the week. "On Tuesday night there were two explosions, one inside and the other just outside the IOM compound," Jarrett Blanc, an IOM programme manager Kabul said. "Nobody was hurt. Only seventeen windows of the compound building were blown out," Blanc explained, adding, however, the IOM had not delayed or suspended its operations as a result of the incident. Nothing serious. Only 17 windows...
"Due to heavy snow at the time, local IOM staff who work outside in the compound were sheltered in a shed and no-one was injured or killed," David Singh, a media relations officer for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN. Guess the brutal Afghan winter has its uses...
According to security sources there was no fragmentation from the device, ruling out the possibility of it being a grenade. "Evidence so far suggests that it was an improvised explosive device," Singh said. They teach 'em how to make those at Muzafarrabad Junior College, in Pak Kashmir.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 08:27 am ||
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The German government has warned that a US-led military attack on Iraq could inflame radical Islamist feeling in Afghanistan, endangering its troops in the multinational International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). According to a confidential document from the German Foreign Office, "hostility towards the leading role of western countries" is mounting even among the Afghan government's security forces. German troops may have to be withdrawn if the situation deteriorates seriously. I guess the Afghans don't keep up on German foreign policy
Germany and the Netherlands took over joint command of the 4,000-strong Isaf mission in Afghanistan this month. Germany has 1,700 troops, rising to 2,500 by the end of next month. Peter Struck, German defence minister who visited Kabul last week, warned of the dangers of remaining al-Qaeda and Taliban supporters. But until now, Berlin has not drawn attention to the threat posed by the Afghan government's own security forces. The report warns that government troops, mainly those from the Northern Alliance - the anti-Taliban union of Afghani ethnic and religious groups - are in a position to damage the work of Isaf in Kabul" and to block the routes to the military airport in Bagram. Although the situation in Kabul has improved, the report says police are in a weak position to maintain public order.
That's why they have ISAF in the first place, isn't it? Soldiers who aren't willing to defend themselves are of slightly less use than Boy Scouts.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
02/21/2003 08:10 am ||
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#1
Want the use of having a force there if they run at the first sign of trouble?
The German army sure has changed.
#3
Germany has a leadership problem, and it seems to flow down to military leadership also. We are now in the process of sorting out our foul- and fair-weather friends.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/21/2003 9:41 Comments ||
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#4
Armed Boy Scout: So US and Brit Spec Forces are needed somewhere else and you see it as a tuck and run? Sorry, that doesnt' cut. First off, using those troops on any protracted hunt is a waste of talent, and second Binny isn't in Afghanland anyway. Nice try. A civil war is another ball of wax. We have to come down on Pooty-Poot to knock off arming warlords. Either way, I don't see any indication of US / Brit bailing because things are getting dicey. You've heard of Iraq , right?
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/21/2003 11:34 Comments ||
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#5
Who's Pooty-Poot? If you're thinking about Putin, he's not arming the warlords, not with weapons anyway. Most of those AKs you see them parading around with are knock-offs made in the NWFP, if not Afghanistan itself, or somewhere else in Pakistan.
#6
"German troops may have to be withdrawn if the situation deteriorates seriously."
Like if somebody starts shooting.
Are you sure this isn't Chirac talking? Lately he has been using Schroeder as his version of Charlie McCarthy - or maybe Mortimer Snerd.
Posted by: John Anderson ||
02/21/2003 12:58 Comments ||
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RW: My info says that Putin is financing certain warlords, and if so I'm betting it's not going towards humanitarian causes. Right though, no info that he's shipping arms directly. My bad on the mental shortcut.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/21/2003 13:28 Comments ||
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If "inflamed" jihadis becomes a problem, there is an obvious solution: death. If I was a peacekeeper in Afghanistan, then I would treat a jihadi's life as of less value than that of a mosquito. I love the smell of napalm in the morning, afternoon, evening and night, 24-7.
The leaders of the UK's Catholic and Anglican churches have cast doubt on the moral case for launching military action against Iraq. In a joint statement, they say war inevitably brings "a sense of failure", and call for United Nations weapons inspections to be given more time.
"How much time?"
"How about another twelve years?"
They urge the Iraqi Government to show its total compliance with UN resolutions on weapons of mass destruction. But the statement - signed by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor, archbishop of Westminster and leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales, and by his Anglican counterpart, Dr Rowan Williams, the archdruid archbishop of Canterbury - also says the moral alternative to military measures is not inaction.
"It's, ummmm... something else."
The country's two most senior archbishops say "inaction, passivity, appeasement or indifference" cannot be embraced and instead urge for all sides to give UN weapons inspectors more time. They say: "It is vital therefore that all sides in this crisis engage, through the United Nations - fully and urgently - in a process, including continued weapons inspections, that could and should render the trauma and tragedy of war unnecessary."
"This is good. We should keep doing this forever. Eventually, Sammy will die of old age, and maybe when he does he won't have killed anybody we know."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 09:13 pm ||
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#1
Fred---The Archdruid, that's rich...LOL.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/21/2003 21:22 Comments ||
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"It is not well brought-up behavior. . . . They missed a good opportunity to shut up."
-- French President Jacques Chirac, berating Eastern European countries for supporting the U.S. positionon Iraq, Feb. 17.
Chirac's outburst made headlines. It was clumsy, impolitic and revealing. But the bullying of New Europe by Old Europe is not new.
Posted by: kanji ||
02/21/2003 12:31 pm ||
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#1
I love this quote from the same article:
Europe did not take to the streets against America last weekend; only Western Europe did. The streets of Eastern Europe were silent. The Poles, and their Eastern European neighbors, have an immediate personal experience of life under tyranny...The French and their neighbors are six decades removed from their liberation. They think freedom is as natural as the air they breathe, rather than purchased at the price of blood -- American blood in no small measure
#2
France wants to be a world power. They haven't had any real military success since Napoleon, so now they try to win by being clever, with the same results as their military efforts.
Posted by: John ||
02/21/2003 21:16 Comments ||
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Some 5,000 Iraqi opposition troops based in Iran have crossed the northwestern Iranian border into northern Iraq to "secure the frontier in case of war and combat People's Mujahideen Organisation (MKO) [Mujahideen e-Khalq], an Iranian opposition group based in Iraq," sources told Gulf News yesterday. The opposition forces were equipped with heavy weapons and artillery and they moved into an area near Darbandikhan, an uninhabited area and rugged stretch of hills and canyons about 15 miles from the closest point on the Iranian border. The forces of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) are under the control of Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir Al Hakim, the most prominent Shi'ite dissident who lived in Iran for more than two decades. Ayatollah Hakim's forces, under the name of Badr Brigade, were previously based in southern Iran. They have now started to move towards northern Iraq, which is governed by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), an independent area beyond Saddam Hussain's grasp. So that's a counter-move to Sammy moving the Khalq into position. It also clarifies who controls the Badr Brigade. We'll have to watch them closely when Sammy's gone, otherwise we'll see them trying to establish rule by ayatollah.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 09:53 pm ||
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Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan offered a "dialogue" with the United States, saying in an interview broadcast Friday night that his country was ready to talk if Washington abandons "aggression" and ceases "interference in internal affairs."
"We'll send some money your way, if you leave us alone."
"We are ready for a dialogue with the American administration and ready to build economic relations," he said. "We are for a dialogue and normal relations with all the countries of the world, except for Israel. If they abandon aggression, and there is a dialogue that leads to normal relations, achieves mutual interests far away from interference in internal affairs, then we have no objection."
Does that mean they've disarmed? Didn't think so.
In the interview with Al-Shabab Television -- owned by Saddam Hussein's son Odai
Who else? Does anybody in Iraq own anything but Uday and Qusay?
â Ramadan also accused the United States of trying to dominate the world, saying Iraq can't accept that. He appealed to Arab countries to come to Iraq's defense, saying they were Washington's next targets. And in a nod to countries opposing U.S. threats of war, he said Iraq would help them argue their anti-war case by cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors.
Time to dole out some more spits and dribbles to engender conversation. The longer the chat keeps up, the longer it'll be until Sammy gets whacked.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 10:15 pm ||
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#1
I read somewhere that Uday said the US respected strength, and if Iraq was strong, we would negotiate. Anyone else know what the hell he was talking about?
#2
That's rich. Sammy wants dialogue. He doesn't get it. And the great part is we can thank the "peaceniks" for unknowingly dupin' Sammy into thinking he's got chips to bargain with. Bwah ha ha!
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/22/2003 0:31 Comments ||
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The United Nations chief inspector, Hans Blix, has ordered that Iraq destroys dozens of banned missiles, in what could be a key test of Baghdad's willingness to disarm. In a four-page letter, Mr Blix said Iraq must start destroying its liquid-fuel al-Samoud II missiles and its engines, warheads and component parts by 1 March. The missiles exceed the 150 kilometre (93 mile) range set by the UN after the 1991 Gulf War. Correspondents say the UN order presents Iraq with a dilemma: whether to give up a weapons system it could use against a US-led invasion, or refuse to comply and prompt the US to launch military action.
Heh heh. Make up your mind, Sammy...
Mr Blix handed the letter to Iraq's UN Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri at UN headquarters in New York, where they met for more than an hour on Friday. "The appropriate arrangements should be made so that the destruction process can commence by 1 March," the letter said. That deadline is also the date Mr Blix is due to give his next report on Iraqi compliance to the UN Security Council.
I love these unlikely coincidences...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 09:07 pm ||
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SALT LAKE CITY â Former President Jimmy Carter blamed U.S. policy in the Middle East for creating animosity abroad, but he stopped short of taking a stand on war with Iraq. Unbelievable. Just when you think they've gone to the bottom floor, they dig another basement.
He said published reports that he had signed a petition opposing war were wrong. So that whole thing with "the Mirror" was just "spectacular error"
Ummm... They seemed pretty sure he'd signed on...
Carter, 78, spoke Thursday at a private meeting with 300 donors to raise money for his Georgia-based Carter Center, which promotes peace, democracy and world health. Promotes it yes, but has the worst track record of any organization since the UN in achieving these goals.
The former president, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, has refused requests for comment since Secretary of State Colin Powell brought the U.S. case against Saddam Hussein to the U.N. Security Council two weeks ago. Carter did not comment Thursday on Powell's recent address, but he did have great praise for the secretary of state. "Colin Powell is caught in difficult circumstances," Carter said. "I'm glad he's there." But why Jimmy?, He stands for everything you're against!
In his most recent statement about Iraq, issued Jan. 31, he said "any belligerent move by Saddam against a neighbor would be suicidal" with the country under intense monitoring from satellite surveillance and the U.N. inspection team. Kuwait was under satellite surveillance, it still got invaded. Apparently Jimmy would prefer to wait until there are dead in our streets before we do something.
"If Iraq does possess concealed weapons, as is quite likely, Saddam would use them only in the most extreme circumstances, in the face of an invasion of Iraq, when all hope of avoiding the destruction of his regime is lost." This is the same kind of logic given by people living in a domestic violence situations. "Its my fault I made him beat me".
Carter also noted that the United States is a major world supplier of weapons and ammunition, but less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the nation's wealth goes to help the world's poor. He said that's the lowest percentage of any developed nation. Funny Number Alert. Since we give 6 BILLION Dollars a year to Egypt so that it will stay peaceful against Israel and we fund 75% of the UN is this really true? Is it his idea that we if just "give" money away, people will stop being poor? Has he ever been to Cabrini Green?
Carter became the third president to win the Nobel Peace Prize, when he was honored in October for his efforts in negotiating solutions to conflicts worldwide. Sucess rate: Zero.
President Theodore Roosevelt got his for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 Result: no war between Russia and Japan to speak of since. (that last minute dash in 1945 doesnt count)
and President Wilson for his role in the 1919 Versailles Conference after World War I. Wilson's advice was completely ignored by the Europeans, and rejected by the US Senate. But his heart was in the right place, so he gets a prize. It should be called the 'tin woodsman' award.
While in the White House, Carter helped secure the 1978 Camp David accords for peace between Israel and Egypt. And that was good, if he got the award for just that, id say fine.
He has since promoted human rights and recently criticized U.S. leaders' "pre-eminent obsession" with Iraq while not pressing for resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or pressuring North Korea to stop developing nuclear bombs. Jimmy, youre the one who said everything would be ok if we just gave them oil. Has this guy ever been right about anything?
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
02/21/2003 08:25 pm ||
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#1
Can't figure out why anybody pay's attention to Carter/Clinton.They both sucked as priesedent.
Thier "learned"opinion is worthless.
The latest secret agents in the war against terrorism have slipped into this Persian Gulf port armed with remarkable powers to detect and detain any enemy bent on imperiling U.S. ships or sailors. But unlike most of their colleagues, these undercover operatives are honking about their exploits. A yelping brood of Navy-trained sea lions has settled into these strategic waters, where an armada has massed in the tense U.S.-Iraq standoff that looks ever more likely to lead to war.
Graduates of the Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in San Diego, the sea lions have been flown here to help the Harbor Patrol Unit guard the headquarters of the Navy's 5th Fleet against underwater saboteurs. "They're very vocal animals. It's a good sign when they make noise, because it shows they're getting comfortable," said Brenda Bryan, head trainer of the animals slithering around the Navy's special operations pier. She and three others accompanied the sea lions from San Diego and will serve as a liaison to the patrol and special operations teams.
Zak, a 385-pounder, hammed it up for TV cameras last week, performing thank-you dives from his floating pen after feedings and giving Bryan a high-one with a flipper. In their sentry work, the sea lions are trained to alert humans when they detect an intruding diver and to mark the intruder with a "restraint device" -- a C-shaped clamp the animal attaches to the diver's leg like a handcuff. The sea lion then deploys a floating marker attached to the clamp before swimming away to accolades and safety. "Sea lions can operate in shallow-water environments. They can see in near-darkness, and they have multidirectional hearing â all capabilities that humans don't have," said Lt. Josh Frey, a 5th Fleet public affairs officer and Los Angeles native.
The animals have other advantages over humans. They can swim 25 mph and dive repeatedly â as deep as 1,000 feet â without tiring, said Cmdr. John Wood. They are better suited to the work in the gulf than are dolphins, which have been part of naval undersea warfare exercises for four decades, because they adapt better to the region's higher temperatures and shallow harbors. Sea lions can even pursue a fleeing suspect onto dry land. Neither Frey nor the San Diego training center's spokesman, Tom LaPuzza, would say how many of the California sea lions are being used, citing security. Only two were visible during their media debut last week. But the program has prepared 20 sea lions for the search-and-detain missions, as well as for mine recovery and defusing. "They're not looking for mines in the gulf. They're looking for divers," LaPuzza said, noting that the animals are capable of mine clearing but will be tested in their first conflict only on their skills at intruder apprehension.
The sea lions are already at work patrolling the Navy's pier at Mina Salman, just east of here, but they haven't yet discovered any intruders, Wood said. The animals are, in effect, on trial for the next few weeks to determine whether the skills they learned can be replicated in the field. If so, LaPuzza said, the sea lions here could be permanently attached to the 5th Fleet harbor patrol. If not, they will be flown back to San Diego for more training.
Navy handlers say the animals are relatively safe because their activities are performed too quickly to allow enemy retaliation. "The animals are treated pretty well. They are very valuable to us for the capabilities they provide and because they save lives," Wood said.
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg ||
02/21/2003 08:26 pm ||
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#1
If we really wanted to make an impression on enemy divers, we could use trained Orcas. Of course, they'd be a lot more expensive to feed.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
02/21/2003 14:42 Comments ||
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#2
I also read the other day that the ground guys will be going in with chickens in cages (I wish I
could find the link) using the canary in a coalmine priciple for gas attacks. Can't wait until PETA gets hold of that. Maybe they'll volunteer to be human gas detectors to spare the chickens. I'm all for that.
#5
Why on earth would they release this information? Sea Lions are mammals and thus easy targets. The end result of this will be the enemy slaughtering all sea lions in the hopes of killing one or two trained ones. What was the point of releasing this info??? How stupid!
I wonder if that's why they kept washing up on the beaches in CA with bullet holes in their heads. Maybe some idiot put out a press release bragging about their use in smuggling operations or some such thing.
Turkey is seeking to impose a blackout on reporting events in northern Iraq by banning journalists from crossing the border between the two states, Turkish journalists charged Friday. Engage cloaking device!
A member of the Turkish media, who had just returned from the border town of Silopi, said Turkish forces have stepped up security measures in the area and refused to allow any journalists, Turkish or foreign, to cross into Iraqi Kurdistan.
Silopi is situated 10 miles (15 kilometers) from the crossing point on the Habur river that lies on the road connecting Turkey and Iraq. Iraqi Kurdish officials report Western journalists have been told in recent days by Turkish embassies abroad that they would be allowed to use the Habur gate. But, the officials say, so far no journalists have been able to do so. Western analysts said the Turkish ban sought to achieve two goals. One was to deny the Iraqi Kurds favorable reporting in the world media. In recent years, Turkey fought a long, bloody and costly insurgency among its own Kurds and fears the example of the prospering autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region could fuel renewed separatist aspirations at home. The other reason, the analysts say, is to prevent the media from observing whatever actions the Turkish military may take in the region.
Turkey has increased its military presence inside Iraq in recent weeks and massed troops on its side of the border. Turkey opposes but expects an American invasion of Iraq soon to topple its leader, Saddam Hussein.
Ankara has warned that it would use force to prevent the emergence of an independent Iraqi Kurdish state and is promoting an Iraqi Turkmen Front to counter the Kurdish parties that govern in the area that lies beyond Saddam's control.
The ITF rejects the authority of the Kurdish administrations and is demanding an autonomous zone of its own. Ankara barred the way for non-governmental organizations seeking to enter Iraq in 1993 and later for journalists. At the time the Turkish armed forces were in Iraqi Kurdistan in pursuit of Turkish Kurdish insurgents driven out of southeastern Turkey.
Despite the ban, foreign media teams have managed to enter Iraqi Kurdistan, passing through the region's other neighboring states, Iran and Syria. In recent weeks scores of Western and Asian journalists have reached Irbil, the major city in the western area of controlled by the Kurdistan Democratic Party. They'll be looking over the border trying to see whats going on in the Turkish controled zone.
Posted by: Steve ||
02/21/2003 09:57 am ||
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What do a priest, Miss Germany, a spiritual healer and a diehard communist all have in common? Uh, brain damage?
They have made their way to Baghdad to try to stop a U.S.-led war on Iraq, employing various skills and talents, ranging from diplomacy to spiritual healing, soccer to fashion. Like I said, brain damage.
Baghdadis, who have not seen such a diverse influx of foreigners for many a year, are both amused and bemused. "Look, Ali, freaks!"
"I am a Reiki master, look it up on the Internet," said Peter van Dyke, who drove a London cab to Baghdad with another 100 "human shields" following in double decker buses.
"It is through achieving higher knowledge or spiritual consciousness, or rei, that we are able to properly guide our life energy, ki, to create positive results and affect positive and personal and global change," declares the one Web Site devoted to the reiki healing technique. (long toke)"Wow, dude, that's deep!" (exhale)
Mainstream spirituality has also made its presence felt. Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, special envoy of Pope John Paul II, met with President Saddam Hussein last week to try to avert war.
Gennady Zyuganov, the leader of Russia's Communist Party, saw Saddam on Wednesday. Old friends?
Rudulpho Tucci is an Italian farmer from Anzio who teamed up with a Canadian housewife to found the Bridges to Baghdad group.
Tucci is pursuing peace with his dog, a Saint Bernard.
German pacifists have recruited brains and beauty to the cause. Miss Germany arrives on Thursday and is due to hold a press conference at al-Rashid hotel, which has been bursting at the seams with a bizarre crowd of journalists and celebrities. Bet the bar staff is on double shifts.
Spanish pacifists chose football to spread their message, playing the Mustansiryah University team and drawing 5-5. Typical soccer game
Not to be outdone, the Iraqis showed they too have style. The Iraqi Fashion House staged a show on Wednesday with models displaying costumes inspired by five civilizations that inhabited Mesopotomia before Christ. "We convey history and we do it enthusiastically," said Hanan, one of the models to the background beat of Babylonian music. It's just like Woodstock, with JDAMS.
Posted by: Steve ||
02/21/2003 09:33 am ||
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#1
No, Steve. A typical soccer game is 0-0 after two overtimes.
I am a Reiki master OK, but if you can't levitate, don't bother me.
#2
Human shield to Iraqi bystander:
"I just came from Great Britain on a hair-raising journey of great peril in this double-decker bus to save your country!"
Iraqi bystander: "You better go back to your driver. He gives out the medals."
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/21/2003 10:02 Comments ||
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#3
Helluva lot easier to get in there then it probably will be to get out. I don't think you'll see Marine choppers landing on roofs to whisk them to safety after it starts. Should've thought this through, folks. It's not some 60's ha-ha game.
One of the most important lessons from my Reiki teacher was there is a time for death. The story went like this:
She and several others knew someone who suffered a serious heart-attack. They worked together to keep the person alive. Whether or not it was a result of their efforts, the person did 'live'. Unfortunately, the person had suffered enough brain damage that 'life' was as a vegetable, with no hope of ever regaining consciousness.
The same logic applies to cancerous tissues. If you seek for health of the cancerous tissues, the worst that can happen is that your wishes will be granted.
Death is built into every cell of our body in the form of the p53 enzyme and the process of apoptosis. Cells choose to die rather than destroy the whole body. When they fail to choose death, we call it cancer. The cancerous cells must then have death forced upon them.
This obsession with life at any cost is just as sick, if not more so, than an obsession with death.
#5
Hey Van Dyke - that "reiki master" bullshit may play in Peoria, but the locals over there tend to take a dim view of moronic new-age religions. They call it "blasphemy" and cut your stupid head off for it.
Of course, in most such cases, the head wasn't being used anyway.
#7
Going to Baghdad has become the cool thing to do, just so they can say "Dude, I did my part, man". But the part that will show that they really care about the Iraqi people is when they will scatter like roaches when the action begins.
#8
Actually I kind of like the "shield" idea:
1.) it gets the crazies out of our country;
and
2.) maybe they can be human shields for the
opposition in Iraq.
Either way, it is a little like classic darwinian selection - the elimination of the stupid and incompetant.
Posted by: John ||
02/21/2003 21:30 Comments ||
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#9
What kind of a jerk takes his dog into that sort of thing?
Posted by: aa ||
02/22/2003 0:02 Comments ||
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A rather jaunty sign advertising the grimmest of tasks was pinned up on a small noticeboard labelled "Human Shields" in the lobby of the Andalus Hotel Apartments in Baghdad on Thursday. It sought three extra volunteers to join the 13 already committed to living at the Baghdad South Power Plant to try to prevent it being bombed in the event of war. "There is no more important place for a shield to be," the notice read.
Unless it's next door to the ammo dump, of course...
Volunteers from half a dozen nations expect to move into a collective dorm room tomorrow at the power plant, a site suggested to them by the Iraqi Government. Since arriving this month they have been touring hospitals, water treatment plants and other installations critical to the civilian population. "They have shown us a number of sites and one of them was this power station," said Godfrey Meynell, 68, a professional an anti-war activist from Britain. "It seems to me that if the electricity is cut then water treatment suffers, hospitals suffer. Of course America appears to have become so immoral now that there are few chances of it making the slightest bit of difference."
America's become so immoral we want to stop Sammy from killing people at random and gobbling up any small countries around him.
Participants rejected US threats that use of human shields, albeit voluntary, would be a war crime. "That is ridiculous," said Ken Nichols O'Keefe, 33, a Gulf War marine veteran who initiated the idea. "They are not using me; I am here voluntarily." OK, traitor, we'll remember that.
The Iraqi Government is paying to house the volunteers in small hotels in Baghdad and setting up free telephone lines and internet access so they can lobby the folks back home. Monitored, of course.
Western diplomats wonder, however, whether the Iraqi Government, once besieged, will want the public relations headache the shields will undoubtedly represent. Some of the volunteers also have their doubts. "We fear they will keep us together and then push us out at the last minute," Mr Meynell said. Push you in front of their troops, more likely.
Others have become aware of the sinister side of what some say they naively interpreted as a kind of extraordinary war protest. "I think the Iraqi Government is potentially putting us in a dangerous position," said a young Australian who had decided to leave. "Plus, the chicks are not as cute as I thought they'd be"
The shields stress that they came to protect civilians and not to support the Iraqi Government, but the distinctions get blurred. One American peace advocate recalled a typical march where the Westerners chanting anti-war slogans were suddenly joined by dozens of Iraqis holding pictures of Saddam. "It changed the spirit of the march, that wasn't what we expected," said one of the volunteers. What exactly did you expect, asshole?
Posted by: Steve ||
02/21/2003 09:28 am ||
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"I think the Iraqi Government is potentially putting us in a dangerous position,"
GOOD GOD! How unbelievably stupid do you have to be to travel across a quarter of the world saying you want to be a "human shield" and not realize that could be DANGEROUS?!
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
02/21/2003 9:36 Comments ||
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Too bad the "second-thoughts" crowd of naive dupes human shields cannot get their stories out on the mass media. Instead of just plain idiots, they can be useful idiots as a learning tool to people who need to learn the basics of making good life decisions.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/21/2003 9:52 Comments ||
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The Iraqi Government is paying to house the volunteers in small hotels in Baghdad and setting up free telephone lines and internet access so they can lobby the folks back home.
On enemy turf and being sponsored by them. Sounds like treason to me. Ask Tokyo Rose about that.
#4
Sounds like they have started to realize that "In the great Scheme of things they aren't worth the sweat of my testicals.Maybe the Holywood peacenicks should join them at the power plant.
#6
Thay have net access? Any e-mail addys? I'm sure the boys in the backroom over at NSA would like to send them some congrats on successfully infiltrating the Baghdad area...
#7
What absolute idiots. I think the only thing that will get through to other like minded idiotarians will be to watch this batch get turned into pizza topping.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/21/2003 12:33 Comments ||
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a young Australian who had decided to leave
Aparently one of the smarter idiots. I wonder how many of the dumbest ones will only "protect" a hospital or the hotel they're staying in.
#10
"On enemy turf and being sponsored by them. Sounds like treason to me. Ask Tokyo Rose about that."
well of course theyre not on enemy turf, since we havent gone to war yet. They're only traitors once the shooting starts. And i think once that happens, unlike tokyo rose, theyll have difficulty getting their message out.
#11
I hope you all are reading Where is Raed? (http://dear_raed.blogspot.com)
If not, you should.
Latest entry includes this:
One of the latest group to arrive in Baghdad, mostly Europeans, were welcomed to the Rasheed hotel , which is like the Waldorf Astoria of Baghdad, no other hotel is more expensive and exclusive. All of them were wearing T-shirts with what was supposed to be "Human Shields" in Arabic, but they had it all wrong it said "Adra'a Basharia" instead of "Duru'u Basharia" which got them a few giggles and a new name; they are now the "Adra'a" just to show how clueless they are. A lot of funny Arabic these days with all these HS's running around, a van with a foreign number plate standing near the ministry of information has "No War" written all over it in many languages the biggest in Arabic. All over the front of it is says "La Harba" which is wrong and sounds like a night club, my cousin thought that was cute. Anyway, what really got my goat this time was finding out that they get food coupons worth 15,000 dinars per meal, 3 for every day.fifteen thousan.
Do you know how much the monthly food ration for a 4 person family is worth, for a whole month not per meal (real cost, not subsidized) ? 30,000 dinars, if you get someone to buy the bad rice they give you for a decent price. 15,000. What are they eating? A whole lamb every meal? Let's put this within context. Today in the morning Raed, our friend G. and I went for a late big breakfast we had 2 tishreeb bagilas (can't explain that, you have to be an Iraqi to get it otherwise it sounds inedible) and a makhlama (which is an omelet with minced meat), tea, fizzy drinks and argila afterwards (the water-pipe-thingy) all for 4,750 dinars, and we were not going super cheap. A lunch in any above-average restaurant will not be more than 8,000 dinars and that includes everything. 15,000 thousand is a meal in a super expensive restaurant in Arasat Street, in one of those places that really almost have an "only foreigners allowed, no Iraqis welcome unless you are UN staff" sign on it. I will stop calling them tourist when they stop taking all this pampering from the Iraqi government.
#13
""On enemy turf and being sponsored by them. Sounds like treason to me. Ask Tokyo Rose about that." well of course theyre not on enemy turf, since we havent gone to war yet."
Actually, we are currently at war, under a ceasefire agreement from 1991, so yes, treason is a valid observation. But it is a war between Iraq and the UN, so I can't see anyone suffering prosecution, unless they wilfully interfere with the US military, something I would not put past any of these idiots.
Posted by: john ||
02/21/2003 19:25 Comments ||
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Around 250 U.S. troops bound for Turkey arrived at a Romanian air base near the Black Sea port of Constanta, part of a buildup of forces for a possible war on Iraq, officials said Friday. The troops, who arrived aboard four Hercules C-130s late on Thursday at the Kogalniceanu airport, are awaiting Ankara's permission to move to Turkey. Romanian Defense Ministry sources said the troops, sent by the U.S. European Command, were the first contingent of American forces bound for Turkey to arrive in Romania. "The U.S. troops will remain here until Monday," Public Administration Minister Octav Cozmanca said. "We were informed by U.S. authorities that more U.S. planes are coming." American officials in Bucharest confirmed the news but would not say how many troops were expected. "Additional U.S. soldiers and equipment will arrive over the course of next days," Mark Wenig, spokesman of the US embassy in Bucharest told Reuters. NATO aspirant Romania has offered Washington its air bases and the Black Sea port of Constanta for refueling of warplanes and transport of troops. Wenig said a U.S. team of experts who visited Romania earlier this week approved "possible temporary use of the Kogalniceanu air base" in the event of hostilities in Iraq." Thank you, Romania.
Posted by: Steve ||
02/21/2003 09:29 am ||
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These first guys are the air traffic controllers, etc., that support additional fly ins.
NATO's top military commander in Europe has ordered AWACS surveillance planes to Turkey to watch for any potential attack from Iraq, the alliance announced Friday. The planes will fly from their base in Geilenkirchen, Germany, to a Turkish air force base in the central city of Konya in the next few days. They are scheduled to start flying missions in defense of Turkish air space by Thursday. The order from Gen. James L. Jones, the supreme allied commander in Europe, follows an agreement last weekend among NATO nations to end weeks of stalemate over whether to start military planning to boost Turkey's defenses against the threat of an Iraq air attack. It was not immediately clear how many AWACS planes would leave for Turkey, but NATO military officials this week suggested five or six planes from the alliance fleet of 17 would be enough to do the job. Three batteries of Dutch Patriot missile defense systems have already been sent to Turkey by sea and are expected to arrive in the country by end of next week. They will be integrated into NATO's radar defense system and operated by 370 Dutch Air Force troops from southeastern Turkey. The Dutch didn't wait for a NATO agreement to send them.
Deployment of the biochemical units will wait until the Turkish military presents a detailed list of what exactly it needs to fill shortfalls in its defenses. NATO's military headquarters will then ask allies for specific units to move to Turkey. NATO has also ordered its civil emergency experts to report on how the alliance can assist Turkey with the civilian consequences of any Iraqi attack, such as by helping hospitals, keeping roads and communications lines open or repairing damaged water and power networks.
Posted by: Steve ||
02/21/2003 09:17 am ||
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I'm sorry, but with Turkey showing its true color, green, we'd better make damned sure everything leaves. We're going to have enough mischief as it is, don't need another Nato "ally" causing more.
The Turkish parliament will not vote on a request to station US troops inside the country before the end of the week, according to a statement issued by the office of the Turkish Prime Minister late Thursday. According to the statement from Prime Minister Abdullah GÃŒlâs office, there was no question of parliament voting on the issue before next week. The US has been pushing Turkey to make a decision on whether it will support a possible military strike against Iraq. This includes the deployment of US troops inside Turkey. The decision not to send the motion to parliament on Friday was confirmed by Turkish Foreign Minster Yaßar YakÜß on Thursday evening. Speaking after a meeting with the Prime Minister and other senior members of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, YakÜß said that the motion would not be submitted on Friday and that it was not technically possible to do so. The Foreign Minister also denied that US Secretary of State Colin Powell had issued an ultimatum to Turkey to make a decision on the question of US troops on Thursday. Following both the US media and the Turkish media there are parts, which are interesting. The US media is projecting the stalling of allowing US troops only on economic parameters, while the Turkish media states that US officials are not straight in their pledges to inform Ankara about their war plans. In other words the US politicians donât seem to or donât want to understand the real meaning of the word âallyâ.
As a Turk I am pro American, this in contradiction to my anti-war feelings, at the same time I am fully in support of my government not to let Turkey patronized in a way the US wants. If there is an alliance this must be in the true meaning of the word.
Posted by: Murat ||
02/21/2003 08:09 am ||
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I can sympathize with these views, however, there are operational and tactical concernes here that override. How many Iraqi spies are hiding amongst the Turkish population? How much intel does Iraq gleen from Turkey, whether Turkey knows it or not? That is the real reason to play this close to the vest.
No one knows what the final war plans are, except the generals who formulated them and their immediate superiors. It is not a matter of not trusting Turkey, who has been an ally for some time, and will bear a terrible burden when the war starts. It is a matter of keeping our men alive, and successfully accomplishing the mission.
YOu want to know more about what we plan? How much are you willing to pay for that knowledge, how many servicemen's lives are you willing to risk for it? If your knowing what the plan is reduced the chance for success, would that be worth it?
Posted by: Ben ||
02/21/2003 4:35 Comments ||
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Ben,
I am sure nobody expects to reveal plans to the population, be it the Turkish or US population. Besides when talking about war plans I donât think it is meant to know where bomb x is to be dropped. The meaning here is the after war plans, the structure of future Iraq and whether or not to disarm the militia who are armed to the teeth by the US as opposition forces etc.
There are a lot of things on which the US acts very shallow. One has to understand that Turkey got dished up with all the mishaps of US planning during Gulfwar I, in which the US armed all kind of opposition militias. Most of these arms landed in the hands of terrorists leading to more than 30.000 victims between 1991 and 1998 in Turkey. Turkey is extra concerned this time that such will not reoccur and want to have a firm say in the after war arrangements. A US war against terror must not lead to another flare up of terror in the region because of the wild handouts of weapons to militias. It would be worth very much to know what these plans are.
Posted by: Murat ||
02/21/2003 5:51 Comments ||
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"...US politicians donât seem to or donât want to understand the real meaning of the word âallyâ.
Alliances are built on trust. Money is obviously the overriding issue here, and I find it apalling that Turkey thinks it can hold the US to ransom in this way. If there are differences over the sharing of tactical information, it should be done behind closed doors. Generating another damaging rift like this is either: i) an untimely and clumsy money-grab which makes a mockery of NATO, yet again, or ii) a cynical attempt to demonstrate to the Turkish population (which is about 95% opposed to war) that the government in Ankara isn't simply towing the American line unquestioningly.
What does trying to extort money in this way actually achieve for Turkey in the long run, Murat?
#4
re Bulldog
The money issue is aired by the US media I guess as a kind pressurizing for a quick voting of the parliament. Meanwhile there are reports that there is only haggling over a remaining 5% of the total issues on which there have been no agreement reached as far as I have understand, and most of it are not money but political related issues according to the Turkish foreign ministry.
Posted by: Murat ||
02/21/2003 6:33 Comments ||
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Murat, I agree. Our retreat from Iraq last time was shameful and is now coming back to haunt us. In addition, Turkey suffered financial losses last time that our friends, the Soddis, did not make up. Stability in the region has a higher importance to Turkey than to us.
Another lesson to be learned from last time is not to assume that local forces can topple Saddam. I think many in Washington thought Saddam would be ousted by the locals and it didn't happen.
#6
Turkey's national finances are in awful shape but this is not an outcome of the Gulf War. The previous two Turkish administrations were marked by outrageous corruption and waste. The new government has made a lot of noise about fighting corruption and waste. Unfortunately, there is a long history of American foreign aid being used to promote more corruption and waste.
#7
mhw,
Thatâs true, Turkeyâs national finances are in awful shape, as well as caused by corruption too, but the main cause are the international (mainly US) policies to embargo Iraq and Iran. Both unfortunately direct neighbours of Turkey and to the worst whilst biggest trading partners. I am not bashing the international policies of Iraq and Iran embargo, but the loss of that trade brought the Turkish economy to a near collapse (compare it for the US losing Canada and Mexico for trade and the impact of it).
Posted by: Murat ||
02/21/2003 8:59 Comments ||
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Our plans for Iraq look to me like they were drawn from MacArthur, sans Hirohito, with shades of Marshall. The big difference on this go-round is that the Iraqis have the capability to finance their own reconstruction. If we can leave the appropriate institutions in place, we should be able to do an even better job than we did in Japan.
#9
Murat,
I doubt the embargo of Iran did much harm to the Turkish economy. With or without the embargo, the Turkish-Iranian trade is mostly indirect and minimal.
Iraq is another matter. Before the Gulf War, Turkey was getting lots of $$$$ on pipeline fees transporting Iraqi oil. Since the Gulf War the pipeline fees are gone. However, the cross border trade between northern Iraq and Eastern Turkey is pretty significant and has increased quite a bit since the Gulf War. The problem with this trade is that it is mostly black and grey market and difficult to tax. Turkey still gets pipeline fees from oil of non Iraqi origin. They also get transit fees from oil transported by sea from the Black Sea. I saw number once on this in a WTO booklet but generally, WTO numbers can be either accurate or totally hosed and it takes more time than I have to decipher it. In any event, the funds the US provides to Turkey this time will be a good test for the current govt. Will they squander it or will they use it constructively? I hope for the first, but hopes have been dashed before.
#11
You know, I'm starting to wonder if this is about money at all. Might the delay in getting NATO help have contributed to the delay in getting the US troops in? Most of the NATO is defensive - it will protect Turkey, but you might also say that it is force protection.
Posted by: Pete Stanley ||
02/21/2003 12:25 Comments ||
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Sorry, Murat, but loose lips sink ships. France has had flapping lips in the past, and sold our technology, and plausible deniability sometimes is the way to go.
The United States will send more than 1,700 troops to the Philippines in the next few weeks to fight Muslim extremists in the southern part of the country, opening a new front in the fight against terrorism, Pentagon officials said Thursday. A six-month training mission in the Philippines last year limited 1,300 U.S. troops, including 160 special forces soldiers, to an advisory role. But this mission will be a combat operation with no such restrictions on U.S. and Philippine troops serving side by side, military officials said.
They've had a year to work out the details of cooperation. Last time it was a hurried thing, spurred by Afghanistan and the Abu Sayyaf festivities. I hope they're going to hit MILF this time.
Under the plan, about 750 ground troops, including 350 special operations forces, will conduct or support combat patrols in the jungles of Sulu Province. In addition, about 1,000 Marines, supported by Cobra attack helicopters and Harrier AV-8B attack planes, will stand ready aboard two ships offshore to act as a quick-response force and provide logistics and medical support. The first troops are expected to arrive within days, officials said. Maj. Gen. Joseph Weber, commander of the Third Marine Division, will lead the U.S. force. The operation will last as long as necessary "to disrupt and destroy" the estimated 250 members of the extremist group Abu Sayyaf, one official said, adding that it marks a sharp escalation in the war against terror as the United States builds up for a possible war with Iraq and continues to hunt Al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Philippine and U.S. officials said they agreed to begin the joint offensive now for several reasons. Negotiations between the countries have been on-going for months.
Toldja so. And Abu Sayyaf remnants have largely folded into MILF in the last year. Likewise the Pentagon gang. That's where both came from in the first place...
But Abu Sayyaf's repeated attacks and the bombing death of an American Green Beret last October spurred Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to work out an aggressive plan.
That means our guys get to shoot Bad Guys, too. Lord knows, there are enough of them to go around.
Dispatching U.S. commandos to the southern Philippines comes at a convenient moment for Pentagon officials, who have sought to show that the U.S. military can fight a war with Iraq and still carry out a global hunt for terrorists. Arroyo has walked a political tightrope at home on the sensitive issue of welcoming U.S. military help to defeat a deadly foe. She has said she is not running for reelection, which some diplomats said will make it easier for her to weather the political fallout from what is sure to be a contentious issue in the Philippines. The Philippine constitution prohibits foreign troops from carrying out unilateral combat missions, but U.S. forces will technically play a supporting role in the Philippine-led operation, a distinction that may allow Arroyo and her supporters to skirt the legal issue. "It's something they will have to finesse," a senior U.S. official said. We're just advisors, what could go wrong?
There's definitely that danger. The Philippines situation and the terrain both bear unpleasant similarities to Vietnam. On the other hand, we dealt with the Moro rebels a hundred years ago under the same conditions and with much more primitive equipment.
The combat operation, which goes well beyond an ongoing set of training missions, reflects the Pentagon's growing concern that militant Islamic networks pose an increasing threat to Americans and U.S. interests in Southeast Asia. "The Philippines have a terrorist problem and we have offered our assistance," a senior Pentagon official said Thursday. "Over time, that assistance takes different shapes and forms. The Philippines have invited us to expand our role with them."
The PI government doesn't want to admit publicly that the problem includes MILF (and MNLF, which is hopefully a spent force after Misuari's fiasco last year)...
A military assessment team, the vanguard of the larger combat force, is expected to arrive in the Philippines in the next few days, and the full force could be conducting combat operations against the Abu Sayyaf group within a month, a Pentagon official said. As they have for months, the U.S. Navy will continue to fly regular P-3 reconnaissance missions over the Sulu Archipelago to provide badly needed intelligence to Philippine army forces and U.S. forces. Philippine officials will ultimately be responsible for the timing and scope of operations, but U.S. officials are expected to play an influential role in those decisions. The Philippines are old friends with which we have had a minor falling out the past decade. Time to kiss and make up.
Posted by: Steve ||
02/21/2003 08:40 am ||
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We won the original Moro war by dropping tons of money (for the time) on rewards for turning in the rebels. It worked. The actual fighting part of it went on like this has, or the fight against the Viet Cong. As long as the guerrillas can blend in at will with the locals, we can't get all of them. A "Making Mulims Rich" program, on the other hand... MMR forever!
#2
phillipines is like VN - jungle convered, mountainous
so no good opportunities to use armor and air power to control the battlefield, an infantry war, where our comparative advantage is least.
PI is unlike VN - its a chain of islands, so the battlefield can be subdivided and the opposition supply lines broken by our control of the sea. This makes the campaign against Abu Sayaf (on small islands) easier than the campaign against MILF (on the large island of Mindanao)(US not in the MILF campaign - at least not yet) . Of course we can still surround Mindano and cut it off from the world, something we couldnt do in VN. So its winnable in a way VN wasnt, but still likely to bemessier than Afghan, probably even messier than Iraq will turn out to be.
...As described to NEWSWEEK for the first time by foreign officials who work closely with the CIA, the aim was to sink a U.S. warship with everyone aboard, and the scenario was every bit as grand and complicated as something out of an old James Bond movie. Through a front company, Al Qaeda actually bought a large freighter equipped with a heavy-duty crane. It also bought several small speedboats from a manufacturer in the United Arab Emirates. The plan was to carry the smaller craft on the mother ship, fill them with explosives, lower them into the water and send them on their way toward the warship as, in effect, suicide torpedoes. If those failedâand they would have been vulnerable to defensive fire if the shipâs crew was alertâthe freighter itself was filled with explosives, making it the biggest conventional bomb ever built. It wouldnât have to ram the warship to sink it, just explode nearby. His MO writ large.
Late last year, Nashiri was spotted in Yemen, but the Yemenis didnât arrest him. He went to Dubai and was picked up there. Ever since, Nashiri has been in one of the secret CIA interrogation centers outside the United States, beyond the reach of American law or mercy. According to intelligence sources familiar with his dossier, heâs been quite giggly talkative. By combining what Nashiri has told them with details from other captured masterminds like Abu Zubaydah (none of whose whereabouts are a matter of public record) the CIA can cross-check information, spot inconsistencies, apply truncheons, and expand its web of coverage.
So weâre all a lot safer? Yes, in fact.
Safer. But not safe. Interesting details in this article.
Posted by: JAB ||
02/21/2003 08:55 am ||
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This gang loves grandiose plans. That's why most of them fail--too many working parts. Just like some of those Japanese battle plans in '44 and '45.
#4
It kinda makes you giggly, all it is, really, is a "fast acting depressant." It's designed to more or less put you only half asleep (yeah this is a over simplified explanation). the most common substance used is Sodium Pentothal(sp?) thiopental(sp?). Technically it is supposed to put the "subject" into a hypnotic state. Basically it makes them too loopy to really lie, and you just guid the conversation.
btw, a hypnotic state is also called a theta state. It's that point between when you are awake and when you are asleep. You know, kinda like when you're awake enough to know what is going on in the room but you still can't move. I think it's called semi-catatonic sleep paralysis.
A survey using sophisticated aerial photography of Sunday's anti-war march and rally in San Francisco has produced results that indicate a far smaller crowd than the 200,000 protesters estimated by police and event organizers. SF PD isn't biased on this one, really.
The results of the independent survey, commissioned by The Chronicle and SFGate.com, cast doubt on traditional counting methods and contradict the crowd estimate of 200,000, which was reported in this newspaper and news media around the world. Crowd size in a demonstration is important because organizers tend to use it as evidence of support for their cause.
In a series of detailed, high-resolution photographs, the aerial survey shows that around 65,000 people were in the area of Market Street and Civic Center Plaza at 1:45 p.m. Sunday, which organizers said was when crowd size was at its peak. That number does not take into account marchers who dropped out before or arrived after the moment the photo sequence was shot. Calculating a precise number of protesters for the entire rally is not possible from this survey, but the result is much more accurate than the visual scan method most commonly used by police and organizers. Edited for length. Remainder includes supporting evidence for revised estimate.
Three Saudi Arabians have been jailed for 10 years by a Moroccan court for plotting to attack Western warships. The three men, accused of being part of an al-Qaeda cell, were found to have plotted to sail a dinghy loaded with explosives from Morocco and ram it into ships in the busy Straits of Gibraltar. The Saudis, who were arrested last May, were also accused of planning to blow up a cafe in the Moroccan tourist destination of Marrakech, and attack tourist buses.
"Tourists! All of them infidels! We must kill them!"
Prosecutors had requested the death penalty - execution by firing squad - but capital punishment is rare in Morocco. The three men, Abdullah Mesfer Ali al-Ghamdi, 22, Zouhair Hilal, 26, and Hilal El-Assiri, 31, were convicted on charges of attempted murder, attempted sabotage with the use of explosives and belonging to a "criminal organisation". They were found to have plotted to buy small speed boats, fill them with explosives and use them for suicide attacks against British and US warships as they crossed the narrow Straits of Gibraltar. The Moroccan wives of two of the men were sentenced to six months in prison for their part in the plot.
I like that. Quick and effective. They didn't turn them over to the Soddies for disposal, either, when they asked.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 09:00 pm ||
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The US Government is to add three rebel groups from Russia's breakaway republic of Chechnya to its list of terrorist organisations, State Department officials have said. The groups could not be named until an official notice is published in the US Government gazette, the Federal Register. But diplomatic sources both in the US and Russia have identified the groups as the Battalion of Kamikaze Shahid, the Congress of Peoples of Ichkeria and Dagestan and the United Force of Caucasian Mujahideen.
The "Battalion of Kamikaze Shahid"?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 08:49 pm ||
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I wonder if they have a Department of Redundancy Department in their TO?
"My brothers! Thanks be to Allah! You will fly hiiiiiiigh up in the sky, then dive down on American Battleship, killing yourself and all aboard!..."
Long article from Insight magazine. If true, this poses a real threat very close to home.
As Washington prepares a high-stakes military venture in the Persian Gulf, a growing physical threat is being posed by Iraq, Libya and Iran to the soft underbelly of the United States. Hundreds and possibly thousands of agents from rogue Arab nations are working hard to help President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela take control of South America's largest oil industry and create al-Qaeda-friendly terrorist bases just two hours' flying time from Miami. Arab advisers now are reinforcing a sizable contingent of Cubans in efforts to reorganize Venezuela's security services, assimilate its industries based on totalitarian models and repress a popular opposition movement. "What happens in Venezuela may affect how you fight a war in Iraq," Gen. James Hill of U.S. Southern Command is reported recently to have told his colleague at U.S. Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks.
"Chavez is planning to coordinate an anti-American strategy with terrorist states," says Venezuela's former ambassador to Libya, Julio Cesar Pineda, who reveals correspondence between the Venezuelan president and Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi about the need to "solidify" ties between liberation movements in the Middle East and Latin America and use oil as an economic weapon. Exhorting his countrymen to return to their "Arab roots," Chavez has paid state visits to Libya, Iraq and Iran and signed a series of mutual-cooperation treaties with the rogue governments whose operatives now are flooding into Venezuela.
What the hell "Arab roots" does Venezuela have?
There they can blend into an ethnic Arab community estimated at half-a-million. Last Jan. 10, 18 Libyan technicians flying in from Tripoli via Frankfurt, Germany, were received at the Caracas airport by Ali Ahmed, head of Libya's "Commission" in Venezuela. He was accompanied by the parliamentary whip of the ruling Venezuelan Revolutionary Movement (MVR), Cilia Flores. Nicolas Maduro and Juan Baruto, two other bosses of the MVR party militias (the Circulos Bolivarianos) who had paid an extended visit to Tripoli in 2000, also were on hand to smooth the way for the Libyans coming off Lufthansa Flight 534. The Libyan agents were identified as: Alsudik Alghariy, Elmabruk Najjar, Koaled Adun, Zeguera Adel, Sherif Nagib, Abubaker Benelfgh, Nabiel Bentahir, Abdulfat Enbia, Waldi Majrab, Amhamed Elkum, Abdulgha Nashnush, Mohamed Romia, Abdurao Shwich, Abdulnass Elghanud, Ezzedin Barhmi, Abdulssa Seleni, Hassan Gwile and Mhemmed Besha.
The high level of security provided for the Libyans' arrival was intended to avoid the havoc of previous days when the entry of Iraqi and Iranian groups touched off a riot. As word of the landing of 20 Iranians had spread through Simón BolÃvar International Airport on Jan. 8, crowds of infuriated travelers banged counters and cigarette urns and chanted "Get out! Get out!" to protest what many Venezuelans perceive as foreign interference in their country's affairs.
Doesn't look like those "Arab roots" go very deep.
The uproar became such that one delegation had to be ushered through the presidential ramp to avoid immigration or customs checks, sources in Venezuela's military-intelligence department, DIM, tell Insight. Some of the Iranians, now holed up at a Caracas hotel, are reported to be hesitant about conducting their mission of reactivating installations of Venezuela's recently nationalized oil company, PDVSA.
Not only Arabs (and Medes and Persians), but scabs. Maybe that's what set the locals off.
Meanwhile, Iraqi VIPs, moving under the protection of Chavez's secret police — the Department of Intelligence Security and Prevention (DISIP) — came to the attention of Venezuela's regular military when government agents tried to use air-force planes to fly five of Saddam Hussein's agents into the interior of the country. Military pilots requested special clearances before allowing the Iraqis onto the C-130s.
When Geraldo was interviewing Venezuelans a couple weeks ago, I was surprised at how readily some of the "pro-Chavez" thugs admitted to being Colombians...
Military sources also report that the recently arrived group of Libyans is billeted at the Macuto Sheraton Hotel in La Guaira, which they share with Cuban commandos who have been conducting strike-breaking operations around the nation's oil ports. Local units of the National Guard, the branch of the Venezuelan armed forces responsible for internal security, were reported to be refusing government orders to repress strikers. According to Capt. Jose Ballabes of the merchant-marine union, the Cubans improvised floating concentration camps on board oil tankers, threatening officers and crews to get them to move the paralyzed vessels. When the Venezuelans still resisted, "such methods as sleep deprivation, often used against political dissidents in Cuba, are being systematically employed against our people," says Ballabes. Imported experts in their field.
Sources in Venezuela's merchant navy name two of the Cuban agents on the tankers as Arturo Escobar and Carlos Valdez, who were presented as "presidential advisers" operating with DISIP. Venezuela's internal-security organization now is reported to be controlled by a command cell of undercover officers from Fidel Castro's military-intelligence service. Venezuelan sources say the Cuban operatives also run a computerized war room inside Chavez's presidential palace, Miraflores. It is in this war room that the repressive policies now afflicting the country have been planned, according to serving officers in the Venezuelan army, navy and national guard consulted by Insight.
The Libyans, like the Cubans, are specialists in military intelligence and security, but are described as computer specialists brought in to operate and reprogram crashed systems at the oil refineries, according to industry sources.
"The West must expect deepening relations between Venezuela and Islamic states," says professor Elie Habalian, a specialist in petroleum economics and a consultant to PDVSA President Ali Rodriguez Araque, who is identified by Venezuelan military sources as a one-time communist guerrilla chief.
Aided by Cuban intelligence and Islamic workers, the government has managed to get oil production back up to 34 percent, a level sufficient to supply basic domestic needs. "It's a war between two models," continues Habalian, "one seeking total control over oil policy and the liberal international policy represented by PDVSA's previous management" effectively eliminated by the government, which has ordered the mass dismissal of 7,000 oil-company employees. Interfacing of Venezuela's oil industry with the radical state systems also facilitates plans for a possible oil embargo against the United States in the event the military assault on Iraq is prolonged. While international oil experts consider such a scenario unlikely due to Venezuela's desperate need for export earnings, Venezuelan opposition leaders fear that Chavez could take advantage of a conflagration in the gulf to consolidate his dictatorship with the support of Cuban and Arab agents already in place.
"Chavez has violated the constitution on 34 counts and is moving to nationalize banking," says a leading member of Venezuela's business community. "He has packed the high courts with his judges, neutralized the army and turned the national assembly into a rubber-stamp parliament. All that's left to do is shut down the independent media and decapitate the opposition." According to this source, Chavez is most likely to move when world attention is fixed on Iraq. The decapitation program seems to have begun with the recent killings and arrest of Carlos Fernandez.
If the strike temporarily has undercut Venezuela's capacity to use the oil weapon, Chavez can pay back his radical Arab allies by supporting terrorist attacks against the United States. In the wake of claims by former presidential pilot Maj. Juan Diaz Castillo that Chavez contributed $1 million to al-Qaeda, police sources in Caracas tell Insight that a highly fanatical cell of Islamic activists already is operating from a sports complex in the old downtown section of the capital protected by armed units of the Circulos Bolivarianos. Undercover police officers report that the group has ties to a Hezbollah financial network operating from the Caribbean island of Margarita under Mohammed al Din, an important Chavez backer and a close friend of hard-line MVR deputy Adel el Zabayar Samara, a key link between Islam and Latin America's radical left.
The Caracas cell is involved in recruiting Venezuelan Arabs for terrorist indoctrination and military training at isolated camps in the country's interior and on islands off the coast, according to intelligence officers who claim that members of al-Qaeda are hiding out in Margarita. They say these members include Diab Fattah, who was deported from the United States for his possible connections with the Sept. 11 hijackers. Four Venezuelan officers investigating terrorist activities on the resort island were killed in 2001 when Chavez moved to dissolve DISIP Section 11, which had targeted radical Arabs.
A 40-hectare estate on the sparsely populated peninsula of La Guajira near the border with Colombia is another suspected training base for Islamic terrorists. Equipped with highly modern communications systems, including satellite dishes and parabolic antennae, the complex belongs to an Arab-owned company called Jihad, which is registered as a home-appliance dealership. Automatic weapons and explosives are home-appliances in most Islamic countries.
Chavez's international plans may have suffered a diplomatic setback recently when he failed in an effort to include any of his rogue allies in a "Group of Friends of Venezuela." He wanted Cuba, Algeria and China to form part of the U.S.-backed watchdog committee of governments designed to support efforts by the Organization of American States to guarantee democratic liberties and future elections. But as war in the gulf absorbs U.S. attention, the group may come under the decisive influence of its other senior partner, Brazil. While that country's elected president, Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, appears to have put himself in the center-left and to be aligning his policies with the West, some of his key advisers object. Chief among them is Marco Aurelio Garcia, a hard-line Marxist with close ties to Cuba and Colombian narco-guerrilla organizations, who is slotted for a top job in the foreign ministry.
He already has used his influence to secure delivery of more than 500,000 barrels of oil to Venezuela to help Chavez get through the most critical moments of the strike. One of Aurelio Garcia's closest contacts is Mohammed Latifi, a powerful figure in Tehran's ruling circles who proposes an international oil boycott of the United States and is connected with terrorist networks.
Posted by: Steve ||
02/21/2003 08:13 pm ||
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Wonder how long the Iranian connection will last?
Posted by: H.D. Miller ||
02/21/2003 13:29 Comments ||
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as far as i can tell most of the folks quoted are among Chavez's enemies. He has alot to lose, and is rather vulnerable. Yeah he's flirted with Libya, but notice how cautious theyve been lately. I would put this in the same category as a debka report - interesting, worth noting, but take with an ample supply of salt.
#4
This connection should not be any surprising. South America has had root for the Muslims since long. Most of the influx of immigrants to South America around 1550 -1900 has been was from Europeans from Spain ( common language ) The Muslims from northern Africa dominated Spain from the 8th to the 15th century.
From 1492, the last bastion of Muslim political strength, Grenada, fell. The Muslim Spain was on the decline and its culmination took place when the last batch of Muslim die-hards left Spain in early part of 1600âs. Just to demonstrate what I am saying Spanish language has many Arabic words, its music has an Arabic tone, its culture has more Arabic influence than the European does, and proper nouns in Spanish often have the Arabic prefixes. Islamic influences in Spanish and Latin American architecture. Fountains, tiles, arches, all had Moorish/ Muslim influence, as the workers were from that area. There are churches and cathedrals in Latin America, which were built facing Mecca.
Chavez an adventurist, who has still a lot of a âteenaged boyâ in him, is probably an apple of the eye for Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. The Venezuelan President is right in the American backyard. He is elected, and has an effervescent personality. Characters like Castro and Qaddafi (though soberedâup themselves due to age and experiences) would always like to brew trouble on the sidelines for the US and Mr. Chavez is an ideal candidate for that. Not only that, lately Mr. Chavez has become vindictive with the strikers, something he could do from the very first day. This demonstrates to me some additional enduringness he has been able to line-up recently.
The Venezuelan caught with a live grenade at Gatwick appears in all probability a trailer of things to come.
Thanks to Paul for the headzup!
Police and FBI officials are patrolling a remote area of southeastern Utah after reports an oil company employee was attacked by armed men who asked questions about the oilfield's operations and appeared to be Middle Eastern. The victim, whose name wasn't released, told authorities four armed men attacked him at 11:30 p.m. last night at the ExxonMobil oil and natural gas processing facility in Aneth, Utah. ''He did not get a good look at them,'' Leonard G. Butler, acting executive director of Navajo Nation public safety in Window Rock, Ariz., told KUTV. ''They were speaking a language he did not understand.'' Aneth is on the Navajo reservation about 380 miles southeast of Salt Lake City at the sparsely inhabited Four Corners juncture of Utah, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. The source is World Net Daily, which isn't max reliable. On the other hand, FoxNews has footage on right now of a refinery fire on Staten Island. Fire apparently started on a barge. Fox sez it's a propane barge. Foreboats and the Coast Guard are on their way now.
Explosion, fire, and people's phones went dead. The explosion was described as large enough to shake the ground.
If there's any hint of Middle Eastern involvement, we can roll anytime...
FOLLOWUP:
Two people have been confirmed dead after a huge explosion at an Exxon Mobil oil and gas facility on Staten Island, on the outskirts of New York City.
Officials in the city, which has been on high alert since the 11 September attack in 2001, have stressed that there is no indication of terrorism.
Tell us why...
The Federal Bureau of Investigation says it is still too early to determine the precise cause of the explosion which occurred as a barge was offloading fuel at about 1010 local time (1510 GMT).
So what rules out terrorism? Or is it ruled out like it was ruled out when the guy shot up LAX last 4th of July?
A spokeswoman for Exxon Mobil said the bodies of two barge workers had been found in the water and another worker was being treated in the hospital with serious burns. About 30 other workers at the site of the blast were unhurt.
If the bodies weren't wearing turbans, then I'll believe there's no terror connection.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 08:44 pm ||
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I suspect the Utah thing is a nut job.
Staten Island? Well, refineries and petrol storage areas catch fire all the time. We'll have to wait and see.
Israeli soldiers shot and killed two Palestinians in separate confrontations in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the military and Palestinians said. At the heavily guarded first clue that it might be a tough target, fool
Erez crossing point between the strip and Israel, a Palestinian hurled two hand grenades at Israeli border policemen. Israeli forces shot and killed the man, who also carried a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a revolver, an army spokesman said. After the shooting, Israeli troops ordered Palestinian laborers working at an industrial zone at the crossing point to leave the area, one of the workers said. Of course they'll complain that they're prevented from earning an honest living by the Jeeewwwwwstargets
Zionist entity
Earlier, soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian trying to enter Gaza's Dugit Jewish settlement after midnight, the army said. Palestinian doctors at Gaza's Shifa Hospital said the man's body was riddled with 12 bullets nice grouping!
and that the lower half of his body appeared to have been crushed by a vehicle. Sympathy meter check ....nope, no response
The violence came amid a weeklong Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip against the Islamic militant group Hamas, which claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on an Israeli tank that killed four soldiers on Saturday.
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/21/2003 09:51 am ||
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This article demonstrates that the Israelis know the real definition of gun control; they can hit their target!
Posted by: John ||
02/21/2003 22:22 Comments ||
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It's long, it's crap, it's KCNA...
Pyongyang, February 20 (KCNA) -- The situation on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia is so alarming that a nuclear war may break out any moment. This is attributable to the U.S. extremely reckless hostile policy to stifle the DPRK. The Bush administration fabricated the fiction of the DPRK's "nuclear weapons development" and peddled it to the international community in a bid to internationalize the "nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula", the issue which should have long been settled between the DPRK and the U.S. It also instigated some members of the international atomic energy agency, a political waiting maid of the U.S., to refer the issue to the un security council while crying out for a "military counteraction". Last week the IAEA was our "cats paw". This week, "waiting maid".
The only people I've seen dwelling on "military counteraction" have been the NKors. Or have I missed something?
Then why is the U.S. styling itself the world's "only superpower" resorting to such a mean farce unbecoming for its status so desperately? Lurking behind this is a strategic aim sought by the bush administration to woo the international community to put political and diplomatic pressure upon the DPRK till it is disarmed and place the whole Korean Peninsula under its domination and, furthermore, establish its political and military supremacy over Northeast Asia. The heritage foundation in the U.S. already worked out an official report to the effect that success of the U.S. world strategy in the 21st century would depend on its policy toward the Korean Peninsula. I wasn't aware that the Heritage Foundation was in charge of making U.S. foreign policy.
It said that the U.S. absolute interests in Northeast Asia cannot be guaranteed nor can a new international order and the U.S. leading position and role be ensured in the world unless the Korean issue is settled. The foundation's assertion about the establishment of a new international order represents the Bush administration's universal view aimed to put its strategic rivals in Northeast Asia under its political and military domination.
I'm not too sure which Heritage Foundation report they're referring to. I suspect it identified North Korea as a "flash point," then moved on to the next topic. I could be wrong, though. Maybe they dwelt on why it's a flash point and maybe even presented some approaches to defusing it.
After the demise of the Cold War, the U.S. shifted the focus of its world political and military strategy from Europe to the Asia-Pacific. This was based on the calculation that it can put the world under its domination only when it keeps a firm hold on the Asia-Pacific, Northeast Asia in particular, a region of strategic importance and rich in natural resources.
Like North Korea, which is rich in, ummmm... grass. And vitriol, of course. If we want to corner the world vitriol market, we must conquer North Korea...
It is the view of the U.S. that Russia's military muscle has been remarkably weakened since the collapse of the former soviet union. So, it calculated that it can accomplish with ease its ambition for hegemony in the region only if it puts the Korean Peninsula, a strategic vantage in Northeast Asia, under its control. The Korean Peninsula is a very important forward strategic base for the U.S. whose world strategy in the 21st century is to put Northeast Asia under its control and establish an unchallenged domination over the world. The jist of this rant seems to be that control of Northeast Asia (Korea) is the key to "world domination". How many out there knew that? Let's see some hands.
Isn't it a sign of mental illness when you keep repeating yourself? Isn't it a sign of mental illness when you keep repeating yourself? Isn't it... [slap!]
When the balance of forces was upset and there occurred on the international arena such disturbing developments as the collapse of socialism in several countries and the break-up of the soviet union, the U.S. sparked a nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula early in the 1990s and worked out a plan for a "military attack," calculating that the DPRK would collapse sooner or later. Or maybe they'll all just starve to death.
However, socialist Korea has been converted into a politically and militarily powerful country which no formidable enemy dares attack under the banner of the army-based policy. The U.S. had no option but to view a war with the DPRK as a "horror story" and agree on adopting the DPRK-U.S. Agreed Framework (AF), in the long-run. It was really a magnanimous measure taken by the DPRK to adopt the AF at the negotiations with the U.S. under which both sides made political, moral and legal commitments to remove the root cause of long-standing mistrust, confrontation and misunderstanding between the two countries and normalize bilateral relations. ..and we were "magnanimous" because we had no intention of honoring any of it. Thanks, Jimmy Carter.
If American politicians were wise enough, they should have not missed that rare historic opportunity for the sake of the future of the U.S. but opted for fully normalizing its relations with the DPRK. However, no sooner had the Bush administration taken office than it went so arrogant as reviving the Cold War doctrine principally aimed at "setting right its territorial and social position unfavorable for the U.S. interests." What upset the hard-line hawks of the Bush administration was landmark political changes in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia in the new century. Thanks to active measures taken by the DPRK, its relations with several countries in the region witnessed rapid progress and a firm foundation was laid for peace, reconciliation and cooperation in the inter-Korean relations and such bold plans for reconnecting the inter-Korean railways and linking them with the Trans-Siberian railroad entered the phase of practical implementation. In the meantime, the U.S. keen on political and military hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region found itself in the danger of being completely eliminated from the political arena in Northeast Asia due to its hostile policy towards the DPRK. It was against this backdrop that the U.S. felt an urgent need to hatch a plot to set back the positive development in Northeast Asia. The fiction of the DPRK's "nuclear development" was to serve this purpose. Seems like the Russians and the Japanese don't buy into "the fiction".
That was why the U.S. projected "threat from North Korea" and its "nuclear development" and worked hard to internationalize them. To this end, the Bush group was busy dispatching so-called "special envoys" to Northeast Asian and European countries and set in motion the IAEA. It totally scrapped the AF and even went the lengths of urging Japan and South Korea not to improve relations with the DPRK. The Bush administration's Korea policy was a defective product as it went amiss from the outset. It is proven through decades-long confrontation between the DPRK and the U.S. that if the U.S. takes hostile attitude toward the DPRK and seeks to dominate the whole Korean Peninsula by means of war the U.S. itself will not escape catastrophe. Another purpose sought by the U.S. in peddling "threat" from the DPRK and its "nuclear development" and pushing forward the establishment of "Missile Defense System" (MD) and preparations for a war of aggression is to put its war industry in full-capacity operation in a bid to save the U.S. economy from depression and drive its strategic rivals to an arms race till their strength is neutralized. Hey, it worked against the Soviets.
Much upset by a serious crisis as evidenced by recession, a slowdown in export and increase in unemployment, the bush administration is keen to help the munition monopolies rake up huge profits through ridiculous military spending and the establishment of md in a bid to consolidate its political foundation and reenergize the economy and, at the same time, draw its strategic rivals into the arms race. It is open secret that the declaration of the East-West Cold War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and all other wars waged by the U.S. against humanity were to meet the interests of the U.S. military-industrial complexes. The national security strategy shaped by the Truman regime was to implement this plan and it has since served as a foundation of the foreign policy pursued by the successive U.S. administrations. The U.S. needs a new flashpoint for a war in order to save its economy from a crisis through escalated tensions and arms buildup. The U.S. views oil-rich Iraq and Korea, a strategic vantage, as those flashpoints. The administration's anachronistic Korea policy went amiss this time, too. Any U.S. provocation to the DPRK may put its interests in the Asia-Pacific in serious jeopardy. This may lead the U.S. economy to catastrophe and, moreover, put its position as a "superpower" in a peril. If the U.S. had dropped its hostile policy toward the DPRK and established friendly relations with the latter, the issue of transport route, the most important issue in its efforts to develop Northeast Asia, would have already been settled, doing those countries in the region and the U.S. good. Given that genuine economic prosperity is guaranteed by peace and free and fair world economic order, the Present Bush administration's recovery of war industry will only bring benefits to a handful of munition monopolies, while putting the majority of working people in destitution. this would make the prospect of the U.S. economy gloomier. Kim Jong Il: Friend of the American working man.
It is by no means fortuitous that many people of the world assert that "a rogue state is the U.S., not the DPRK and the country which should undergo a change is none other than the U.S." If we were a rogue state, North Korea would've become a radioactive trash heap 50 years ago.
As the DPRK has already clarified, it has willingness to clear the U.S. of its security concern if it assures the DPRK of non-aggression including non-use of nukes by concluding a legally binding non-aggression treaty and does not stand in the way of the DPRK's economic development. Sounds like they want a deal. And soon. And badly.
The U.S. will get nothing from talking about "military counteraction" against the DPRK and maintaining a hard-line stand toward it. The DPRK has never fired even a single shell at the territory of the U.S. if the U.S. dares start a war against the DPRK despite its warning, it will react to it with the toughest self-defensive measure.
Posted by: tu3031 ||
02/21/2003 09:16 am ||
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They're threatening nuclear war but statements to the effect that they're developing nukes are "fiction". This makes even less sense than usual. Must've been hitting the ol' grape juche again.
#2
Kind of reminiscent of the "You don't have proof that Saddam has chemical weapons, and if you do attack him he will use all of those chemical weapons" argument.
#3
The U.S. had no option but to view a war with the DPRK as a "horror story"
see? just a little editing and the KCNA vitriol actually makes sense
Posted by: Frank G ||
02/21/2003 10:14 Comments ||
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Boy, reading this stuff makes my head spin! So NKor wants a legally binding non-agression treaty? What the hell does legally binding mean? After reading this diatribe, I will agree with the editorial comment about NK wanting a deal and soon and badly. They will just have to learn the meaning of "quid pro quo" first before they can expect a deal.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/21/2003 10:21 Comments ||
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Excuse me while I wipe the spittle off of my screen...
#6
"Legally binding non-aggression treaty"? Yeah, we've seen how they perform under legal obligations. We're gonna keep 'em squirming. Let's see what new silliness Dear Leader pulls in order to get our attention.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
02/21/2003 11:11 Comments ||
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This is brain numbing. North Korea is seriously delusional. They are a mentally ill regime. How can a rational person contemplate further agreements with these people?
#8
The worst part is that even were we to decide to send Dear Leader to join his ancestors, we'd be dealing with a brainwashed people. They're not like the Iraqis, who live with Sadddam but know better, and who can reasonably be expected to welcome US troops or at least understand what they're about. These folks have been Completely Cut Off for decades. We (or at least the ROK) might have to spend years deprogramming what is essentially a cult with millions of members.
#9
There is an underground movement that smuggles people out of N.Korea thru China. Saw this on a documentary awhile back. These N.Koreans on TV seemed as rational as you and me.
It is difficult to estimate how many are actually delusional, how many aren't but do what they are told out of fear, and how many simply tow the party line to keep any little advantage they may have over the rest.
#10
They may be brainwashed, but they're still human. One of the clues that S.Korean police have in capturing infiltrators is that the northerns stand around in the middle of a street and gawk at modern civilization. One trip through the South and their entire concept of life changes. Lies, lies, and more lies is the line going through their heads. That's why they're stunned. It crushes their complete understanding of world. Deprogramming hasn't, and will not, be a problem there.
Posted by: Don ||
02/21/2003 14:48 Comments ||
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I met a Russian who went to London way back in the 70's and said he actually thought it was a set up.
#12
I've got a Russian friend who emigrated here in '82 and he still says they most amazing thing he's ever seen was the first time he walked into an American supermarket. They are just floored by all the "stuff" we've got available to us.
A fourth round of interminable peace talks between Sudan's government and a rebel group fighting for the self-determination of the south will start in the Kenyan capital on March 19. Oboy. More yap-yap.
The fourth phase of the talks between Khartoum and the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLA) will discuss "security arrangements" during an envisaged transition period, a diplomat told AFP. He said that another meeting between the two parties is scheduled for March 1 to address the issue of disputed territories in central Sudan — Southern Blue Nile, Abyei and the Nuba Mountains — which although not in the south, are claimed by the SPLM. I believe these are Christian-Animist enclaves within Dar ul Islam...
The March 1 meeting will be chaired by Kenya, unlike the main peace process, which is steered by the regional body, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). The government and the SPLA/A agreed in July last year that the south would enjoy autonomy for six years to be followed by a referendum on the political future of the south. Since then both sides have been merrily breaking the agreement whenever it suits them...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 08:22 am ||
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The Ugandan army has killed five rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) based in southern Sudan, local daily New Vision reported on Friday. Ugandan army sources were quoted as saying on Thursday that at least five LRA rebels had been confirmed killed in a fight on Tuesday and this is the fourth military achievement in the Sudan since March last year. Some rebels were also believed to have been injured in the fighting on the Kit River valleys in the Sudan on Tuesday. The Ugandan army's 4th Division Commander based in Gulu, Col. Andrew Gutti, had earlier said the army was registering military success against LRA rebels. He said the army was doing better in both dry and wet conditions and had been deployed in areas suspected to have LRA hideouts. Thought the LRA was ready to hang it up? Personally, I think it's a much better idea to hunt them down and kill them, each and every one. The problem there is that the Ugandan army so far hasn't been the instrument to do it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 08:18 am ||
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If the nail Mr.Kony, the nutbag who runs this crew, then they can go from being an army to being banditos, which is what they were in the first place.
The Islamic movement Hamas has renewed missile attacks against Israel. Hamas gunners fired four Kassam-3 short-range missiles toward Israel on Wednesday. One missile slammed into the southern Israeli city of Sderot and three people were injured. Israeli officials said the missile struck the industrial zone of Sderot. They said the Kassam missiles were fired from the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun. It was the first Kassam rocket attack on Sderot in nearly three weeks. The attack came days after Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders announced they would end rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli communities. "Revenge! We must have revenge! (Drool.)"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 08:14 am ||
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Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared to begin a swing through northeast Asia this weekend for high-level talks over the nuclear crisis and possible war on Iraq. Analysts in Japan said Tokyo would ask the United States to refrain from imposing economic sanctions on North Korea. Powell's Asia trip aims to ease rising tensions over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. Japanese officials said Iraq and North Korea would dominate Powell's talks with Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi Saturday. Powell is to meet with Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba on Sunday. I'd guess that 99 percent of what we're doing right now is behind the scenes...
On North Korea, Koizumi and Kawaguchi are likely to tell Powell that Washington should not hurriedly impose economic sanctions against North Korea, a move Pyongyang has said would be tantamount to a declaration of war. "If the United States imposes sanctions, Japan fears it will result in North Korea firing missiles at Japan," said Lee Young-Hwa, an expert on North Korea and professor of economics at Kansai University. "North Korea will not launch missiles at South Korea because they are the same ethnic group. Japan is the most likely to become a target for North Korea's 'experiment' to test the will of the United States." I guess if your mind is sufficiently rotted by years of juche, it makes sense to shoot at a bystander if you can't have your way.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 08:04 am ||
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Economic sanctions on a country without an economy is kind of pointless.
On the other hand, not giving them oil in exchange for whatever foolishness they promise to stop is not an economic sanction.
Thousands of U.S. troops Friday began major war games near the heavily fortified inter-Korean border against a backdrop of rising tension over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. U.S. military authorities said the exercise, involving some 5,000 troops of the U.S. Army's Second Infantry Division, would last until March 10 at a strategic point near the demilitarized zone. The 15,000-strong Second Infantry Division is headquartered in Dongducheon, 40 kilometers north of Seoul and straddling an invasion route used by the North Korean People's Army in 1950. That was the last time they tried the "reunification" gag...
Some 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea under a mutual defense pact that was signed at the end of the Korean War. The drill, called Iron ARTEP (Army Readiness Training and Evaluation Program), is aimed at "testing units' abilities to conduct wartime missions," said Major Curtis Roberts, spokesman for the Second Infantry Division. "This is a semi-annual drill. It has nothing to do with the current political or diplomatic situation. The main agenda of the drill is to test and evaluate units' abilities to conduct wartime missions. "Nearly one-third of 15,000 soldiers assigned will be mobilized for the drill." ARTEPs are relatively routine exercises.
ARTEP has been planned as a warm-up drill ahead of RSOI/FE 03, other U.S. military officials said, referring to annual joint exercises to be staged by U.S. and South Korean troops from March 4 to April 2. RSOI-FE 03 focuses on a mock battle aimed at evaluating command capabilities and the deployment of U.S. forces from abroad. A U.S. aircraft carrier would be sent to waters around the Korean peninsula as part of those war games. That's the more important execise. It's the capper to the year's training cycle.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 07:59 am ||
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Moscow is ready to work through the United Nations to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, Russia's UN ambassador Sergei Lavrov said in an interview published Friday. A day earlier, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov resisted U.S. calls for multilateral talks on North Korea and stressed that Moscow continued to support direct talks between Pyongyang and Washington over the stand-off. "Our American partners believe it would be beneficial to use the multilateral mechanism," Lavrov told the Vremya Novostei daily. "We don't want to bother arguing with them. They're nuts. And we ain't takin' the heat for when they finally loon out."
"We are not against this and are ready to work through the UN Security Council as long as this is accompanied by a bilateral dialogue," he added. U.S. officials have argued that direct negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington over the Stalinist state's alleged plans to develop a nuclear program must involve all of the regional powers, since their safety is also concerned. Until now, Russia has described as "premature" suggestions that the UN Security Council should discuss the crisis surrounding North Korea's nuclear ambitions, arguing that this would inflame the situation. I guess now they're "mature." Powell's team has been working. Yesterday he said we and China have "the same views" on NKor. With a China-Russia-USA alliance, perhaps Dear Leader will wake up. But I doubt it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
02/21/2003 07:52 am ||
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#1
I guess that everyone, including Russia and NK think that the UN Security council will "inflame the situation." Well, there is some hope, then. Even NK feels that the security council is useless. Now we have a basis for negotiations....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
02/21/2003 10:29 Comments ||
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#2
Hmm, wonder if Pooty-poot knows he's on W's shit list?
#3
Curiously, Russia's initial reaction may have been the right one but for the wrong reason. Multilateralism isn't a solution, its an excuse; it isn't a policy, its the abrogation of responsibility; and, it isn't leadership. The UN is intellectually and morally incapable of any policy worthy of American support and inviting UN Security Council to discuss the crisis is a trap for the unwary. The Administration should consistently resist multilateralism where ever American national security is implicated, including both Iraq and North Korea.
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The source is World Net Daily, which isn't max reliable. On the other hand, FoxNews has footage on right now of a refinery fire on Staten Island. Fire apparently started on a barge. Fox sez it's a propane barge. Foreboats and the Coast Guard are on their way now.
