#4
Bob Kerr is a columnist for The Providence (R.I.) Journal. E-mail bkerr@projo.com
Happy Hunting!!
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/23/2006 21:52 Comments ||
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#5
"We are winning the war in Iraq, but losing it at home."
I haven't heard one that good since Spiro Agnew back in'71.
Well DICKHEAD, what do you think: Saddam is gone, his goernment is gone, there are free elections, they have formed a government, they are forming and army and police that respect their citizens rights and are under CIVLIAN control, US casualties continue to DROP... Ask the Soliders and Marines who are fighting over there adnthey will tell you yes we ARE winning.
Sounds like we are WINNING - then again lefty assholes like this never let facts stop them.
This guy gets so much wrong in shuch a compressed space, and does it with such venom, he is to be commended! There is hardly a better example available online (outside of Daily Kos and Indymedia) of the deliberately ignorant hate-filled left! Congrats!
#6
No insult intended to the fine 'Burgers who are also baby boomers, but.....once the gang of idiots who fondly reminisce about the 70's as a wonderful time for this country is gone from this vale of tears, this nation will be a hell of a lot better off.
#7
well, DB - I was born in 59 and the 70's were a wonderful time - I got laid!
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2006 22:58 Comments ||
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#8
"...the 70's were a wonderful time - I got laid!"
So did I. But she got knocked up. :-(
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/23/2006 23:04 Comments ||
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#9
hee hee - so sorry DD I waited until the 80's and marriage for that, and now I made sure it's EXTREMELY unlikely *snip*
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2006 23:06 Comments ||
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#10
"Sounds like we are WINNING - then again lefty assholes like this never let facts stop them."
For Dickhead and a lot of the rest of the Idiocracy, I suspect winning is EXACTLY what they fear most, and why they want to get our troops out of there before they can accomplish something really satisfying-- like, say, playing Whack-a-Mullah. Or going Bashar-Bashing. Or, God forbid, turning South and laying some serious smackdown on the Saudi Oil-Tick Pricks.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/23/2006 23:09 Comments ||
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#11
I had my *snip* without any anesthetic. It was a memorable experience...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/23/2006 23:11 Comments ||
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#12
*yikes!*
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2006 23:15 Comments ||
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#13
The nurse was some kind of weird religious sect and had "issues" with the whole idea of vasectomies-- thought they were sinful or whatnot. And to cleanse her soul of the taint from assisting in these procedures, she adopted the practice of substituting saline solution for the Xylocaine, thus transferring God's punishment from nurse to patient.
The doc wasn't too bright but he eventually caught on and canned her, I assume since patients screaming during a vasectomy is not terribly common...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/23/2006 23:22 Comments ||
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#14
Uhhh - Dave D., that's WAY more information than we needed.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2006 23:40 Comments ||
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Washington discovered the names and their nationals of prisoners at Guatanamo Bay in Cuba those include Somali men. As reports say.
558 prisoners of Al-Qaeda suspects were held at Guatanamo Bay, two of them were said to be Somali nationals and they were alleged with terrorist acts and in connection with Al-Qaeda network.
Somalia has been on number 19th in list of nations whose people were displayed by US defence department and the two Somalis were identified as Mohamed Sulieman Barre and Mohamed Hussein Abdulahi who had been captured at the start of the US military operation carried out in Afghanistan late 2001. Earlier Washington said they were in suspicions with Islamic radicals inside Somalia those who it said should have links with Al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:14 ||
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Tributes have been paid to a Durham University graduate killed in Iraq where he was serving with the British armed forces. Lieutenant Richard Palmer was included in tributes at a remembrance ceremony on Saturday at his former College of St Hild and St Bede.
Lt Palmer, 27, died on 15 April in an explosion near Ad Dayr, north of Basra. College principal Dr Alan Pearson is also sending a letter of sympathy to Lt Palmer's family in Ware, Hertfordshire.
Lt Palmer graduated in 2003 with a Combined Honours degree in Social Sciences. The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards soldier was the 104th UK military fatality of the conflict. Lt Palmer's body arrived at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire yesterday, said an MoD spokesman. His coffin was draped with the Union Jack flag and carried from the transport plane by his fellow soldiers.
The tributes were being paid during the college's annual Sounding of Retreat ceremony at a war memorial dedicated to the Bede College Contingent of the Durham Light Infantry who were killed in the Battle of Gravenstafel Ridge during World War I. I salute Bede College and their fallen comrade.
George Bush yesterday revealed the extent of the political gamble Tony Blair took over Iraq, disclosing that he had spurned the offer of a get-out clause on the war even amid fears that it would cost him his government. In a rare glimpse inside the so-called special relationship, the US President disclosed how he had offered to release his 'close friend' Blair from the military coalition because he feared that domestic opposition to the war would actually bring him down. But the Prime Minister retorted that he would rather lose his government than retreat.
We knew this already, but it may be news to the MSM.
Bush's description of the events surrounding what he called a 'confidence vote' - the knife-edge Commons vote in March 2003 over military action - reveal not just the depth of trouble Blair was in, but the extent to which he was willing to gamble. 'I told Tony, I said "rather than lose your government, withdraw from the coalition" - because I felt it was important for him to be the Prime Minister at this point in our relationship,' the President told the journalist Con Coughlin, author of a new book about Blair's relationship with the US. 'I saw his clear view and strength of character. And that's when he told me, "I'm staying, even if it costs me my government".'
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Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:32 ||
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There is a new wave of sophisticated, articulate Islamic fundamentalists trying to spread the word among moderate Muslims in Sydney. Young men, wearing regular clothes, with neatly trimmed beards, broad Australian accents and fluent in Arabic, they appear to be fully assimilated, second-generation Australians. But they belong to a political group called Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation) that calls for the creation of a global Islamic state, or caliphate, under strict sharia law. The message from these young men is one of division, non-assimilation and rejection of the values of the "kafir" - non-Muslims.
At a public lecture at Bankstown Town Hall earlier this month, Hizb ut-Tahrir organiser Soadad Doureihi, his brother Wassim, and Usman Badar, president of Sydney University's Muslim Student Association in 2005, outlined their utopian goal of the ultimate overthrow of Western democracies. "Islam can never coexist one under the other or one within the other," Soadad told the crowd. "When the state is established, when people see the mercy of Islam they embrace Islam in droves." The April 8 lecture, to about 200 men and 50 women, was titled "Should Muslims Subscribe to Australian Values?"
Banned in Britain, Germany, Holland, Russia, and much of the Muslim world, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) has been invited to speak at Sydney Boys High at least twice, and often addresses students at Sydney University. Borrowing its methodology and ideology from Marxist-Leninist groups, HT calls itself a political party which works to "change the situation of the corrupt society so that it is transformed into an Islamic society", its website says. It opposes integration and assimilation of Muslims into Australian society.
Wassim told the Bankstown crowd: "The pushing to integration and assimilation is to get us to think and believe and feel in a certain way that Islam will not condone. On the collective level everyone accepts you have to have one set of laws and no Muslim in this country is demanding today the implementation of sharia law. In this country, yes, we believe this is the best way forward but . . . our current struggle is the implementation of Islamic law in the Muslim world and that will serve as a model for the rest of humanity. [But] if governments want to interfere in the individual, personal affairs of any citizen, they are going to create the conditions of civil unrest and chaos like in France."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:34 ||
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#1
Badar, a graduate of Malek Fahd Islamic High School in Chullora,
..and played in the big game against crosstown rivals Jihad Fatwa Tech, no doubt...
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/23/2006 8:47 Comments ||
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#2
"Islam can never coexist one under the other or one within the other," Soadad told the crowd. "When the state is established, when people see the mercy of Islam they embrace Islam in droves."
#3
"Islam can never coexist one under the other or one within the other," Soadad told the crowd.
Great! All the justification we need to send their sorry a$$es back where they came from. If they cannot assimilate, if they cannot assume the values of the country they're living in, they don't need to be there. Either send them back or kill them, it makes no difference to me.
If you look at it carefully, 75% or more of the trouble in the world today all comes back to one group, preaching one religion over all others, as the source. We need to elminate that source to eliminate the trouble. The sooner we get started, the sooner the job gets done.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/23/2006 13:03 Comments ||
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by Andrew Higgins, WSJ. EFL. Serge July, a former Maoist and a veteran of France's 1968 student-led revolt, says he supports France's new generation of rebellious kids. But he says he was "too busy" to join the recent rash of street marches against a new youth job contract. The 63-year-old boss of France's main left-wing newspaper has been battling instead to salvage his own job -- in collaboration with Edouard de Rothschild, banker, horse-racing enthusiast and scion of one of Europe's grandest capitalist dynasties. "Quelle horreur! Serge has Sold Out To The Man!"
On this peculiar and sometimes-prickly partnership hangs the fate of Libération, a newspaper set up in 1973 by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and a cluster of young radicals, among them Mr. July, dedicated to the utopian dreams of the 1960s. A founding manifesto promised to "depend on the people, not on advertisers or banks."
You see, it's not people who pay for advertising or invest in banks. It's... ummm... capital. Or maybe Kapital.
The paper, now a pillar of France's mainstream media, has drifted from its original Maoist moorings and into the orbit of the market forces it once vowed to avoid. Like newspapers the world over, Libération has been hammered by the Internet. Its biggest single shareholder is Mr. Rothschild, a New York-educated MBA who last year invested 20 million, or about $25 million, for a 38% stake.
He's a scion of the Rothschild family, of course. The brats in the streets would describe him as a plutocrat, and one of a long line of plutocrats.
But Libération's woes also mirror a broader European predicament: the long struggle of countries such as France, Italy and Germany to reconcile the rebellious ideals of 1968, when students and then workers took to the streets to demand a reordering of society, with free-market capitalism. . . . "Everything that French society is suffering...we are suffering, too," says Mr. July, who has run the paper since 1974. The print media, and France in general, he says, suffer "existential anguish."
"Not that reordering society didn't work, of course. We just... ummm... still have some tinkering to do."
Confronted with mounting losses at Libération, Mr. July in November announced a plan to cut jobs and outsource some of the paper's services. The cost cutting, says Mr. July, was "an ice-cold bath for everyone." The first strike in the paper's history followed.
But natch. We're discussing La Belle France, after a thorough reordering of society.
Mr. Rothschild wrote an open letter, saying that he understood the staff's "stupefaction" but warning that cuts were "unfortunately inevitable." The paper's accelerating losses risked eating up his entire investment in a year, he said.
"I'm a plutocrat, and even I can't afford you! So piss off!"
Left-wing reporters circulated a petition that blamed Libération's troubles on an editorial line "that flirts too often with 'good sense.' "
God Gawd! How insulting can they get?
They called instead for a radical stance of "causes, utopias, desires and provocations."
"Anything that would work is out. Just drop it."
After weeks of debate, management surrendered revised the restructuring plan, promising to avoid forced layoffs. Fifty-six people took buyouts. The paper is beefing up its Internet service and preparing to launch an expanded Saturday edition next month. Visits to Libé's Internet site jumped by about 50% during recent student protests, and the paper will soon start charging for certain Web services. Sales of the print edition, however, have barely budged. . . .
"Maudette! I'm going down to the newstand! Do we need any more fishwrap?"
"Non, Jean-Pierre! We still have a half bundle of Libé left!"
"Alas! Poor Libé! Sales of pre-packaged fish have so cut into their circulation!"
Total losses last year, including costs related to the restructuring, reached about 15 million -- 10 times what the paper had projected at the start of the year.
Not that that's a side effect of refusing to publish anything that makes any sense, mind you...
Advertising revenue fell 18%, and daily circulation dipped to about 140,000, well behind conservative Le Figaro and center-left Le Monde, which have also struggled. Libé has had a particularly hard time reaching young readers, once considered its core constituency. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
04/23/2006 07:38 ||
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I was going to post this. I especially liked,
Left-wing reporters circulated a petition that blamed Libération's troubles on an editorial line "that flirts too often with 'good sense.'
That didn't take long. Via DRUDGE.
Former presidential candidate John Kerry has come to the defense of a fired CIA officer accused of disclosing classified information to the press. "I'm glad she told the truth but she's going to obviously -- if she did it, if she did it, suffer the consequences of breaking the law,' Kerry explained to ABC THIS WEEK. I wonder if he'd have said the same thing if this was done during the Clinton Administration?
Told the truth? If it's true why can't the EU prove it to be true? I think Ms. McCarthy got caught in a sting.
ABC 'THIS WEEK' HOST GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: On another -- on another front, excuse me, CIA official Mary McCarthy lost her job this week for disclosing classified information according to the CIA probably about a WASHINGTON POST story which reveal revealed the existence of secret prisons in Europe. A lot of different views. Senator Pat Roberts praised action but some former CIA officers described Mary McCarthy as a sacrificial lamb acting in the finest American tradition by revealing human rights violations. What's your view? Hanging curve, middle of the plate...
SEN. KERRY: Well, I read that. I don't know whether she did it or not so it's hard to have a view on it. Here's my fundamental view of this, that you have somebody being fired from the CIA for allegedly telling the truth, and you have no one fired from the white house for revealing a CIA agent in order to support a lie. That underscores what's really wrong in Washington, DC Here.
Except that Ms. Plame wasn't revealed, Johnny, and Ms. McCarthy did indeed violate her signed security agreement.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That's one issue of hypocrisy but should a CIA officer be able to make decisions on his or her --
KERRY: ... Of course not. Of course, not. A CIA agent has the obligation to uphold the law and clearly leaking is against the law, and nobody should leak. I don't like leaking. But if you're leaking to tell the truth, Americans are going to look at that, at least mitigate or think about what are the consequences that you, you know, put on that person. Obviously they're not going to keep their job, but there are other larger issues here. You know, classification in Washington is a tool that is used to hide the truth from the American people. Daniel Patrick Moynihan was eloquent and forceful in always talking about how we needed to, you know, end this endless declassification that takes place in this city, and it has become a tool to hide the truth from Americans. So it's OK to break the law if you're telling the truth? Right. Got it...
Talk to the Clintons about using national security laws to hide political truths ...
STEPHANOPOULOS: These --
SEN. KERRY: So I'm glad she told the truth but she's going to obviously -- if she did it, if she did it, suffer the consequences of breaking the law. A classic Kerry StraddleTM!
#4
OK, Jf'inK, how about I leak that you're spoiled, whiny, loser loon living on your wife's dead husband's money.
Oh, wait - that's only classified if you're a Democrat. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2006 11:41 Comments ||
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#5
Depends entirely on who's Ox gets gored.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/23/2006 11:49 Comments ||
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#6
and to think he came close to being president OMG
Posted by: Jan ||
04/23/2006 11:51 Comments ||
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#7
This fatuous, bubble-brained twit came within a few thousand votes of being our President and the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. God have mercy upon us if we ever let these shitheads back in power.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/23/2006 11:56 Comments ||
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#8
Too bad she didn't tell the truth. Those "prisons" don't exist and never did.
#9
First: "You know, classification in Washington is a tool that is used to hide the truth from the American people."
Bullshit Senator. Classification is used to protect data, sources and methods , the disclosure of which could be reasonably expecte to caus from moderate to extremely grave damage to the security of the United States of America. Only in your "reliving the 60's" bullshit world does it mean what you choose it to mean in your statement.
Lets see as I published elsehwere: U.S.C. Title 18, Part I Ch 37 Sec 793 Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information U.S.C. Title 18, Part I Ch 37 Sec 798 Disclosure of classified information
I dont see ANY exemptions there for "telling the truth".
Bottom line is:
They took information that damaged the securoty of the United stats and was legally classified, then published it to MAKE MONEY or for POLITICAL GAIN.
For the reporters, they simply *sold* secrets (published in newspapaers that were sold for that conent), same as any spy like Hannasen or the Walkers who sold secrests to the Soviets for personal financial gain.
McCarthy did it for Political motivations - same as John Pollard who gave secrets to the Israelis for political reasons.
Both the reporters and McCarthy should be going to prison. They KNEW what they were doing was wrong, but their own imperatives of political and monetary gain were more important to them than was the law and the nations security, so they disregarded the law.
Like the Walkers and Pollard, they should be put in jail for the same crimes. And condemned just as roundly. Anyone with an ounce of integrity woudl be saying so, instead of tryign to excuse them in order to make political hay liek the Democrats.
That being said, Demcrats DISGUST me with this behavior - I could NEVER vote for them. (and can hardly see myself voting for the current crop of dickless wonders the Republicans have there who do nothing about border security, judges, taxes - act like a majority or you will not have to worry about it much longer!).
The situation is that simple regarding the law and the morals of the situation. These are not heroes, they are only the latest incarnation of the Walkers and Pollard - people out for personal gain at the expense of the security of the nation.
Too bad Kerry and other apologists are such simpletons and refuse to see that.
#10
"You know, classification in Washington is a tool that is used to hide the truth from the American people."
Classification is a tool that is used to hide the truth from everyone, especially enemies, for the ultimate benefit the American people.
#15
This kind of simple-headedness and two-faced behavior is why john "traitor" kerry should swing by the neck until his body rots and the rope can no longer hold the pieces together. What a totally stupid, idiotic, moronic little twit. The dummycritters should never be allowed to live down nominating this idiot for president of the United States.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/23/2006 13:08 Comments ||
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#16
Somehow, I think he'll change his tune should a Democrat become president.
#17
Once you remember that Kerry's been an active traitor since the early '70s, his comments make sense.
Mind you, that makes me wonder about the rest of the people rushing to McCarthy's defense...
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/23/2006 13:21 Comments ||
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#18
Robert, I don't wonder.
And neither do you.
We both know. As does just about everyone here.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2006 14:06 Comments ||
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#19
Did he pick a side, support the US, or say anything worth quoting? Nope, nothing new here.
Except you ol Darth! Your truth tellin has ruined my business of selling girls underware to him to wear under his French suits. Now what am I gonna do? Damn the truth.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/23/2006 14:07 Comments ||
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#21
So, what Kerry is saying is that those massive volumes of fiction written over the decades by college interns tripping on LSD which contain nothing remotely realistic should be kept secret under penalty of law. But, leaking the truth is exceptable secret behavior.
Kerry is an asshole. Kerry is a democrat. All demmocrats are _______s.
#22
This fatuous, bubble-brained twit came within a few thousand votes of being our President and the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. God have mercy upon us if we ever let these shitheads back in power.
In 1998, when President Bill Clinton ordered military strikes against a suspected chemical weapons factory in Sudan, Mary O. McCarthy, a senior intelligence officer assigned to the White House, warned the president that the plan relied on inconclusive intelligence, two former government officials say. Ms. McCarthy's reservations did not stop the attack on the factory, which was carried out in retaliation for Al Qaeda's bombing of two American embassies in East Africa. But they illustrated her willingness to challenge intelligence data and methods endorsed by her bosses at the Central Intelligence Agency.
On Thursday, the C.I.A. fired Ms. McCarthy, 61, accusing her of leaking information to reporters about overseas prisons operated by the agency in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks. But despite Ms. McCarthy's independent streak, some colleagues who worked with her at the White House and other offices during her intelligence career say they cannot imagine her as a leaker of classified information.
As a senior National Security Council aide for intelligence from 1996 to 2001, she was responsible for guarding some of the nation's most important secrets. "We're talking about a person with great integrity who played by the book and, as far as I know, never deviated from the rules," said Steven Simon, a security council aide in the Clinton administration who worked closely with Ms. McCarthy.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:18 ||
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#1
Larry Johnson, a former C.I.A. officer who worked for Ms. McCarthy in the agency's Latin America section, said, "It looks to me like Mary is being used as a sacrificial lamb."
Wretchard has a series of three postings with more detail than you'll get in the WaPo or NYT. The headline links to #1 of the series. #2 is here, and #3 here.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/23/2006 09:08 ||
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I sort of blogged a lot of it to a UK site...
Made lots of links there...for folks to follow. The site itself might make you a tad upset.. Look for 3dc posts
EFL
The rare firing last week of a CIA officer accused of leaking information to the news media stems both from the sensitivity of the subjects she allegedly discussed and the Bush administration's forceful efforts to block national security disclosures that have proved embarrassing or caused operational problems, according to current and former intelligence officials.
This sort of firing should be less rare, at least until everyone at DoD and CIA understand again what it means to sign a security agreement.
The use of polygraphs to force out the CIA officer, a historian and Africa specialist named Mary McCarthy who lately has been working for the agency's internal inspector, comes amid long-standing administration suspicions that employees of the spy agency have not sufficiently toed the policy line set by the White House on matters such as the fight against terrorism and the war in Iraq.
After all, why should they listen to the White House? They're the professionals, dammit ...
A majority of CIA officers would probably "find the action taken [against McCarthy] correct," said a former senior intelligence official who said he had discussed the matter with former colleagues in the past day. "A small number might support her, but the ethic of the business is not to" leak, and instead to express one's dissenting views through internal grievance channels. Nothing to see here. We don't have a lot of moles there. Just the ones in high places.
He's correct, though; there are indeed channels to express your discontent with a given situation, and it doesn't appear, so far, that Ms. McCarthy availed herself of any of those.
#4
Hangover's almost gone. Bruises should heal up in two or three weeks...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2006 16:16 Comments ||
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#5
Rantapalooza was great!
Fred - need any help paying the bail bondsman? ;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2006 17:29 Comments ||
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#6
I'm suspicious that the photos aren't up yet. Too much time allows for photoshopping hair where it doesn't exist, everyone's slimmer and better looking, wrinkle's removed...hell, given enough time, even I can look attractive
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2006 17:32 Comments ||
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#7
MOLE: Mary McCarthy
Miscreants of the Mole Clan [partial list]
Joe Wilson
Dana Priest
Bill Goddfellow [Priest's hubby]
Valerie Plame
Sandy Burglar
Richard Clarke
JOHN DALTON
RANDY BEERS
SUSAN RICE
BOB BELL
BILL DANVERS
ANNE RICHARD
ANNE WITKOWSKY
STEVE ANDREASEN
examples:
Heinz Family Foundation
Pew Charitable Trusts
Turner Foundation
MoveOn.org
Arianna for Governor
Win Without War
Rock the Vote
Planned Parenthood Action Fund
George Soros media
International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
United Nations Foundation
*
Here's another foundation our mole is involved with.
Joyce Foundation Director of Communications
Mary OConnell [she sure can communicate eh?]
*
affiliations:
Win Without War
Center for International Policy
Policy Studies Network
Fund for Peace
Lindsay Mattison
Orlando Letelier
Anthony Lake
John Deutch
D. Gareth Porter aka Gary Porter
**************************
What were her motives?
Ego:
we know Dana and the cabal stroked her DemoKrap loyalty..
or because she's an Elitist: "we know better and what is best"?
or something more sinister?
*
she's a traitor a Benedict Arnold regardless of motive.
#8
"given enough time, even I can look attractive"
Geez, Frank, how much time does it take to remove a pocket protector and plaid pants from a photo and add a full head of hair?
#9
oh, I've got the full hair...too much at times (lazy about haircuts). Fu Manchu as well...it's the tacky Hawaiian shirts that Shipman always gets on me about :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2006 18:41 Comments ||
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#10
RD, you can add John Deutsch (Clinton CIA Dir) to your list. Recall he was pardoned by Clinton in the final hours of his second term and spared from suffering any punishment for having taken laptops with classified materials to his home in 1996... Dumb as a rock and dangerous as hell. Actually made Tenet look like a step up.
The United States and India have agreed to share information on a real time basis and hold joint exercises as part of counterrorism efforts, the State Department said.
The decision was made at a two-day meeting in Washington of the India-US joint working group on counterterrorism, the department said in a statement on Friday.
"Both sides agreed to share information on a real time basis, respond to counterterrorism assistance requests expeditiously and collaborate to upgrade preparedness and capability to deal with acts of terrorism," it said.
The discussions "advanced" bilateral cooperation in areas of common concern such as bioterrorism, aviation security, cyberterrorism, terrorism related to weapons of mass destruction, terrorist finance and money laundering and "violent extremism," according to the statement.
The meeting also agreed to schedule joint counterterrorism exercises and develop specific training programs in "priority areas," it added.
Joint efforts to improve current mechanisms for extradition and legal cooperation were discussed, the statement said without elaborating.
The United States and India set up the joint working group on counterterrorism in 2000.
India has emerged as a key ally of the United States in its "war on terrorism" and the two powers in July last year agreed to build on a "strategic partnership" ranging from military cooperation to sales of civilian nuclear equipment.
US President George W. Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh clinched a landmark deal in March under which Washington would provide civilian nuclear technology to India to help the Asian giant cope with its energy needs.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has approved the military's most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism around the world and retaliate more rapidly and decisively in the case of another major terrorist attack on the United States, according to defense officials. The long-awaited campaign plan for the global war on terrorism, as well as two subordinate plans also approved within the past month by Rumsfeld, are considered the Pentagon's highest priority, according to officials familiar with the three documents who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about them publicly.
Details of the plans are secret, but in general they envision a significantly expanded role for the military -- and, in particular, a growing force of elite Special Operations troops -- in continuous operations to combat terrorism outside of war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Developed over about three years by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, the plans reflect a beefing up of the Pentagon's involvement in domains traditionally handled by the Central Intelligence Agency and the State Department.
For example, SOCOM has dispatched small teams of Army Green Berets and other Special Operations troops to U.S. embassies in about 20 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America, where they do operational planning and intelligence gathering to enhance the ability to conduct military operations where the United States is not at war. And in a subtle but important shift contained in a classified order last year, the Pentagon gained the leeway to inform -- rather than gain the approval of -- the U.S. ambassador before conducting military operations in a foreign country, according to several administration officials. "We do not need ambassador-level approval," said one defense official familiar with the order.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:26 ||
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Fred's? Odd, Dan, I don't recall even one instance of Fred openly advocating hunter-killer teams. Not that he doesn't approve of it, but accuracy begs the question.
#2
When SOCOM first dispatched military liaison teams abroad starting in 2003, they were called "Operational Control Elements," a term changed last year because "it raised the hackles of regional commanders and ambassadors. It was a bad choice of language," said one defense official, adding: "Who can pick on Military Liaison Elements?"
Look, you can issue them calico uniforms and call them "Great Aunt Florence Elements" for all I care, just go whack bad guys already!
Posted by: Mike ||
04/23/2006 7:38 Comments ||
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#3
It was .com that used to call for hunter-killer teams. And rightly so. We should givr them back some of that old fashioned terror they love so much.
#5
The first step is to gain entry into a denied or hostile environment. President Carter castrated the agencies ability to conduct operations of that type many years ago. Their primary focus has been almost entirely centered upon WMD since the Carter years. A culture of pipe smoking, low risk-no risk tweed jacketed, DoD despising, accedemic grey beard thinkers has evolved.
"It's Saddam's two mobile WMD trailers secretary Powell, show them the slides, the slides, it's WMD I tell you. I'm the DCID, it's what we do, I know! I know!
#6
'bout damn time for hunter-killer teams to be setup. Or they could be called headhunting teams. They would go after heads of cells or regional leaders.
#7
while I agree that this is a good way to go, I hope they don't have their hands tied by alot of political crap.
Any warrior putting his life on the line shouldn't be withheld from completing the job.
If they do take anyone alive I hope they keep it from the public so they can interogate them without the politically correct attitude of pencil pushers getting in the way.
Posted by: Jan ||
04/23/2006 12:02 Comments ||
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#8
Hola Presidente!
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2006 12:23 Comments ||
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#9
I've been advocating it since at least this episode, in October 2003. And I'd mentioned it a time or two before that.
By the way, I still stand by everything I said in the article.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/23/2006 13:56 Comments ||
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#10
They could be called Mosque Sanitation Squads. That's where the problems start, so let's sanitize.
#11
Gives "reach out and touch someone" a more 'tangible' aspect, no?
Heh!
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
04/23/2006 16:00 Comments ||
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#12
Let's be careful about this: it would be real easy for two problems to come about:
1) the teams slip their rules of engagement, or someone above them changes their RoE, so that we start killing people we shouldn't be killing.
2) there's any number of REMF's who would hang the teams out to dry for a corner office. After the news just in the last couple days about Mary McCarthy, we should be very careful about ensuring that the teams are never used as sacrificial lambs, either politically or out in real life.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2006 16:08 Comments ||
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#13
we should be very careful about ensuring that the teams are never used as sacrificial lambs, either politically or out in real life.
AGREED.
They would be below pond scum enemies if they did
Posted by: Jan ||
04/23/2006 16:55 Comments ||
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#14
maybe it's time to raise the punishment for leaking this info
I'm ready to have them put to death for these leaks putting others lives at risk
Posted by: Jan ||
04/23/2006 16:57 Comments ||
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#15
SW - read Clancy, huh?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2006 17:11 Comments ||
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Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has approved the military's most ambitious plan yet to fight terrorism around the world and retaliate more rapidly and decisively in the event of another major terrorist attack on the United States, according to defense officials. The campaign plan for the global war on terrorism, as well as two subordinate plans also approved within the past month by Rumsfeld, are considered the Pentagon's highest priority, according to officials familiar with the three documents who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Details of the plans are secret, but in general they envision a significantly expanded role for the military -- and in particular a growing force of elite special operations troops -- in continuous operations to combat terrorism outside war zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Developed over about three years by the Special Operations Command in Tampa, they reflect a beefing up of the Pentagon's involvement in domains traditionally handled by the CIA and State Department.
For example, the operations command post has dispatched small teams of Army Green Berets and other special operations troops to US embassies in more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America, where they do operational planning and intelligence gathering to enhance the ability to conduct military operations where the United States is not at war. And in a subtle but important shift contained in a classified order last year, the Pentagon gained the leeway to inform -- rather than gain the approval of -- the US ambassador before conducting military operations in a foreign country, according to several administration officials.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:17 ||
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#1
I fail to see how any of this is "news"?
In reality, this so-called new plan has been in operation for years. Read Kaplan's "Imperial Grunts"
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/23/2006 10:42 Comments ||
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#2
Last week the media tried to get Rumsfeld to resign but failed. This article is just the WaPo trying to further incite the other Bush bashers. Clearly Rumsfeld is out of control: "most ambitious plan yet", "significantly expanded role for the military", "subtle but important shift", blah blah blah.
Here we are, just a couple of days after a CIA leaker gets fired, and the WaPo is tweaking our noses with: "the Pentagon's highest priority, according to officials familiar with the three documents who spoke on the condition of anonymity" and "Details of the plans are secret, but...". Treasonous &@$<@#&s.
Taking strong exception to the Supreme Court verdict directing Orissa government to provide security to a muslim couple who wanted to stay together after talaq, Orissa unit of Jamiat-ul-Ulama on Sunday threatened to ostrcise the couple if they went by the apex court decision.
Supreme Court has no power to intervene in religious matter. The apex court should have confined itself to other litigations. It should have consulted religious institutions and clerics before taking such decision, Aameere Shariat (president) of Jamiat-ul-Ulama Maulana S S Sajideen Quasmi told PTI from Cuttack. We will certainly drive the couple out of Muslim society if they stay together defying clerics decisions and abide by the Supreme Court verdict, Sajideen said.
He said, had the apex court directed the state government to give the couple protection for any other reason, we would not have objected. It is purely a religious matter. The court should not have hurt sentiments of any religious community.
The Jamiat-ul-Ulama, the highest religious body of Sunni sect in the state, said it would write to President of India, Prime Minister, Chief Minister and Law ministers of both state and union governments to look into the matter.
We are not showing any disrespect to Supreme Court. We will continue to abide by its law. But we will certainly appeal the court to review its decision, he said adding that it could create distrust in the community.
The whole issue should be discussed in the parliament. It was high time the legislative body should take a firm decision on religious independence, he said.
Najma Bibi and Seikh Sher Mohmmed of Orissas Bhadrak district had incurred the wrath of clerics after the husband pronounced triple talaq in a drunken state in 2003 but subsequently wanted to stay together.
However, Supreme Court on April 21, 2006 had directed Orissa government to provide security to the couple who wanted to stay together.
No one can force them to live separately. This is a secular country. All communities Hindus or Muslims should behave in a civilised manner, a bench of Justice Ruma Pal, Justice C K Thakker and Justice Markandey Katju had observed.
Reacting to the apex court verdict, Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had said let the state government receive the verdict. Then only needful steps will be taken.
Jamiat-ul-Ulama said it would soon convene a meeting of qazee shariat (district unit) to deliberate on the issue.
We are waiting for the Supreme Court order and all heads of district units would discuss on the subject. Future course of action would be taken according to the resolution passed in the meeting, Sajideen said.
Meanwhile, clerics in Bhadrak district have given guarded response. Abdul Bari, president of Bhadrak Muslim Jamait, said we will take a stand after we get the copy of Supreme Court judgement.
He said, we are examining response of administration on the issue.
A report from Najmas village said some residents were opposed to Najama and Sher Mohmmeds reunion. we will not let anybody, who had defied fatwa, stay among us, they warned.
Posted by: john ||
04/23/2006 10:34 ||
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#1
That is why the US has a civil marriage that takes legal precedence over a religious marriage. In this case, the government could say that while the religion might decree them divorced, they are *not* divorced according to civil law; therefore, both the husband and the wife were still bound by their marriage agreement.
That is, any sexual activity outside of marriage would be legally adultery; if the husband or the wife left their shared house it would legally be abandonment (which could be a petty criminal act), etc.
This would trump the Ulama by negating their power.
#2
The muslims have bitterly resisted a uniform civil code.
When the Indian President and former rocket scientist, Abdul Kalam (ironically a muslim) recently reminded the parliament that the Indian constitution states that a uniform civil code should be enacted by the parliament (and it has not done so in 50 years), muslim groups protested calling for that part of the constitution to be amended as it was "a sword hanging over the head of the muslim community".
Posted by: john ||
04/23/2006 15:06 Comments ||
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#3
they refuse to be civil
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2006 16:34 Comments ||
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#4
Exactly.
They have managed to obtain rights in India that even muslim majority countries do not give.
Triple Talaq ("I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you") is not permitted in most islamic nations but it is in India.
Muslims are now pushing for affirmative action quotas in the public and private sector.
An attempt to impose quotas in the army has failed though...
Posted by: john ||
04/23/2006 17:10 Comments ||
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#5
The court should not have hurt sentiments of any religious community.
For a culture that is denied thought and can't fight back on reason, this cloak of "hurt feelings" focuses their rage.
Hurt feelings is the reason for all the carnage by muslims. Everywhere. And feelings are directed to rage against infidels. Sublimation of jealousy. Rage at the uhmah that denies them the dream.
ISLAMABAD - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Pakistani counterpart held talks on Saturday to speed up work on a proposed pipeline to transport Iranian gas to Pakistan and India, the Foreign Ministry said.
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and Ahmadinejad held the discussion by telephone, the ministry said in a statement. It didnt specify who initiated the call, or say whether the two also discussed the ongoing controversy over Irans nuclear program. The two leaders agreed that the experts of all sides should be asked to expedite the work on the pipeline project, the ministry statement said.
"C'mon, Perv, hurry the hell up before the Merkins flatten us!"
Iran proposed the project in 1996 but it hasnt gotten off the ground mainly because of Indias concern for the safety of the pipeline passing through Pakistan, its archrival. In recent months officials from Iran, Pakistan and India have held talks about various aspects of the proposed project, despite U.S. opposition.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
hope India's not counting on uninterrupted pipeline service....
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2006 17:43 Comments ||
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#2
Hury! Damnit! Perv want to git his rake right off the top when the contracts are signed..he absolutely don't care if the pipeline gits builtum or produces one cubic meter of gas, crude or lemonade.
KATHMANDU - Nepali police opened fire and used teargas on Saturday to confront over 100,000 anti-monarchy protesters who defied a curfew and marched towards King Gyanendras palace in the centre of the capital.
Political parties said about 150 people were wounded. About 100 were brought to one hospital alone, doctors said. Most of them have been hurt by teargas or in a stampede as they fled, said Dr. Rajesh Dhoj Joshi at the Kathmandu Model Hospital. But some have bullet wounds.
The police opened fire in at least two places and fired teargas repeatedly to push back protesters just a km (half a mile) from the palace, witnesses said. Marchers, waving branches and red communist flags, ...
So the Maoists were out in front. Where's the RAB when we need them?
... broke into the city as a seven-party alliance rejected overtures by the king to form a government. Previously, in over two weeks of protests, the protesters have been held at the outskirts.
The proclamation has no meaning, said former Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala of the Nepali Congress, the largest party in the alliance, referring to Gyanendras broadcast to the nation on Friday in which the monarch offered to hand over executive power.
The king appeared to rule out any change of the constitution to curb his powers. Political parties have demanded elections for a constituent assembly, which would draft a new constitution.
The royal proclamation is a sham, protesters in Kathmandu shouted as they threw tree branches, scrap and rocks across roads to block vehicles.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2006 00:00 ||
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United Nations Ambassador John R. Bolton said the world body maintains a strong anti-Western sentiment that reinforces resistance to reform efforts. "You all need to come to New York for 30 days, be a part of my mission, and just listen to what goes on there," he told the editorial writers.
I don't think I have that strong a stomach ...
Bolton said he feared that a group of developing nations, bent on protecting U.N. patronage jobs, is about to undermine Secretary-General Kofi Annan's proposed U.N. management overhaul. The organization called the Group of 77 on Wednesday demanded studies on the effects of the reform measures.
"The G77 are about to tank this entire reform package on the ground that they're somehow tilted toward the West . . . things like, you know, better procurement systems, better auditing systems, more modern personnel systems, the introduction of information technologies."
All the things that get in the way of grabbing the loot, in other words.
Likewise, Bolton expressed frustration with Russia and China for blocking efforts for more than a year to get the Security Council to impose sanctions against Sudan for human rights abuses in the Darfur region. "When 13 months go by and the Security Council doesn't do anything, it's reasonable to ask why anybody should believe anything the Security Council says about anything else," he told the Inquirer writers.
That's just what Saddam said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2006 00:00 ||
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#2
77 "nations" sucking on the biggest welfare tit in the world. Of course they object to anything that might disturb their entitlement to entitlements.
The UN doesn't need reform, it needs to be dissolved. It's simpy the money feed for despots and terrorists.
#3
"It's simpy the money feed for despots and terrorists."
Not to mention providing lucrative employment for the elitist bureaucrats who are far too insensitive and whimpy to do what needs to be done except drowning in the vile pool of political correctness. All about self image, little about substance.
BAGHDAD - President Jalal Talabani expressed his concern on Sunday over reported Iranian and Turkish troop concentrations on those countries borders with Iraq. Turkey has moved thousands of troops to the border region in what its military said was an offensive against Turkish Kurd guerrillas. Iran has also reportedly moved forces to the border, and last week shelled a mountainous region inside Iraq used by Iranian Kurd fighters for infiltration into Iran, according to Iraqi Kurd officials. There were no reports of casualties from Fridays artillery and rocket barrage.
Talabani said that so far Iranian and Turkish forces have stayed on their sides of the border. But I have expressed my concern over these concentrations ... Iraq is a soveriegn independent nation that wont let other nations interfere in its internal affairs, he said at a press conference with US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad in the northern city of Irbil.
Turkey has called on the United States to crack down on rebel bases in northern Iraq, but US commanders, struggling to battle Iraqi insurgents elsewhere, have been extremely reticent to fight the rebels, who are based in the remote mountain areas in one of the few stable parts of the country.
#1
I suspect that the Turks and Iranians may have reached a nudge-nudge wink-wink to wipe out the PKK at the same time. However, this leaves three variables in play: the rest of the Kurds, and their Peshmurga army; the Iraqi army; and the US.
In past the Turks have said they might enter Iraq to attack the PKK, yet if the Iranians entered Iraq it would be causus belli, unless perhaps it was done at the same time as the Turkish advance.
The Iranian shelling into Iraq received no response--this might embolden them to send in ground forces. The US could either slaughter or capture them, or ignore them.
It would be a shame to miss an opportunity to terrify the Iranian military right now. It would also be terribly difficult to encircle them in a mountainous area.
#5
As wid EGYPT, the Turks know Iran's Mullahs want Empire and to replace INSTANBUL wid TEHRAN as the center of the future Regional and eventually Global Muslim State. Turkey, as would every other sovereign Muslim nation on Asia Minor, may end up being just another province of Tehran. No longer only about the KURDS.
The Foreign Office pledged last night to investigate a claim that the decapitated body of murdered hostage Ken Bigley is buried near Fallujah in Iraq.
Osman Karahan, a lawyer acting for a suspected al-Qaeda militant, Loa'i Mohammed Haj Bakr al-Saqa, who is accused of ordering Bigley's death, has said his client knows where the British engineer's body is buried.
Al-Saqa, 33, is being held by the authorities in Turkey, accused of bankrolling bomb attacks in Istanbul in November 2003. More than 600 were injured and 61 people died in the attacks.
Turkish authorities discovered al-Saqa had slipped in and out of the country at least 55 times and say he may have had plastic surgery to change his appearance.
Karahan said his client was president of an informal court that sentenced Bigley to death. 'He took the decision,' the lawyer said. 'We have no information on the execution of the sentence.' The ditch where Bigley was buried, at an entrance to the city of Fallujah, was about 50 metres from an insurgent checkpoint.
Al-Saqa claims to have met Osama bin Laden and to have provided false passports for some of the 11 September attackers. He is thought to have been in Iraq at the time of Bigley 's murder.
It is thought unlikely that investigators will at this stage start digging in the area. But it is possible police will interview al-Saqa in Turkey after his trial.
'We are following up the claims as we have pursued every possible lead,' a Foreign Office spokesman said. 'We never regard a case like this as closed.'
Bigley, 62, from Walton, Liverpool, was taken hostage in Baghdad, where he was working, on 16 September 2004, and beheaded more than three weeks later. Eugene Armstrong and Jack Henley, two US hostages kidnapped with him, were also murdered.
Yesterday Bigley's brother, Stan, said he would reserve judgment on the claim. He had been told that Foreign Office officials had been sent to investigate.
'I just hope that the powers-that-be will do what's necessary to either verify that this is Ken's location or not, because it's driving us all up the wall,' he said.
Since her husband's murder, his Thai-born widow Sombat has been forced to rely on money sent by his relatives after a hold-up in settling his estate. Her brother-in-law, Phil Bigley said: 'It upsets us all that Sombat is in this position.'
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:26 ||
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Khalid had been in Iraq for only a few weeks, but he was already sick of the place. It wasn't the missions that bothered him. He was fighting alongside a small group of Saudis, and they were consummate professionals when it came to jihad, completely focused on the lightning-fast attacks they staged each day on the foreign invaders. The ambushes usually lasted no more than five or 10 minutes, but Khalid revelled in the chance to hit the streets and fire off his AK-47 at the American soldiers and their allies, four grenades strapped to his waist so he could kill himself if captured.
After the attacks, however, Khalid and the other fighters were confined to safe houses in Mosul and Haditha - dark, dank places with no hot water or electricity. The biggest problem was the Iraqis, the very people he was there to help. Sometimes it seemed as though there were double agents everywhere, checking him out on the street, trying to overhear him speaking the Yemeni dialect that would betray him as a foreigner, all so they could pick up their cell phones and call in the Americans, maybe even collect a reward. That made this jihad more dangerous and unpredictable than the other wars Khalid had fought in - Afghanistan, Bosnia, Somalia, places where they were often treated like heroes. When they weren't out on missions in Iraq, he and the Saudis were forced to stay in the safe house, the shades pulled down, with only a well-thumbed copy of the Koran and five prayer sessions a day to break the monotony.
ISTANBUL: British hostage Kenneth Bigley was buried near the restive Iraqi town of Fallujah after he was beheaded by his captors, the Turkish lawyer of a suspected Al Qaeda operative who claims a role in the killing said yesterday. "Kenneth Bigley is buried near the entrance to Fallujah city ... As you enter the city on the left there is a ditch, and his body is in this ditch," lawyer Osman Karahan told a Press conference in his office here.
The lawyer distributed to reporters copies of a rough hand-drawn sketch of the ditch which he said was drawn by his client, Louai Sakka, a Syrian national and alleged associate of Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. "This information came from my client and other sources and I have no doubt of its authenticity," Karahan said.
But he had nothing to do with anything of it, of course.
Karahan said Sakka was "in charge of the team that held and interrogated Kenneth Bigley" as well as the Islamic trial which convicted the Briton. But Sakka played no part in Bigley's execution, Karahan argued.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
"There is no connection between my client and the execution," Karahan said. "We do not know who actually carried out the execution."
"I know nothing! Tell them, Hogan!"
Bigley, a 62-year-old engineer, was kidnapped in Baghdad on September 16, 2004, along with two Americans who were subsequently killed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2006 00:11 ||
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All passport-holders have been called by Jordanian interior ministry in Amman to report at local population registry branches for new electronic documents. DEBKAfile adds: The regulation is being used to cleanse the kingdom of potential threats to the throne. Some 300,000 expatriate Iraqis live in Jordan. They cover a wide spectrum - from asylum-seekers from the Saddam Hussein regime, former prominent Baathists, including the deposed dictators daughters, and insurgent leaders of different stripes. Many West Bank Palestinians bear Jordanian passports as well.
The old passports will be valid only until the end of May. After that, holders of the old papers will not be eligible to enter or leave the kingdom. The official announcement does not promise all passports will be replaced. This strongly effects not only Iraqi troublemakers, but the huge number of Paleos living in Jordan who are not citizens.
#1
I wonder how many votes it would swing in the next election of the candidate(s) supported the establishment of a US Bureau of Population Registration? A hat tip to King Ab is certainly in order.
The Hamas-led Palestinian government and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah group agreed early on Sunday to try to end tensions between them after their supporters clashed in the worst internal fighting in months. The armed confrontations in Gaza on Saturday, which wounded 20 people, followed the condemnation by exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal of Abbas's veto of a new Gaza security force, formed by Hamas and headed by a top militant. Officials from the groups did not elaborate on what practical steps would be taken on the ground to stop violence.
"Internal orders were given to guarantee there would be no return to friction," said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, adding that a joint Hamas-Fatah committee would be formed to discuss how to handle any future disputes between the groups.
The appointment of Jamal Abu Samhadana, head of the Popular Resistance Committees which has often attacked Israel, as leader of a new Gaza police force was widely seen as an attempt by Hamas to strengthen its grip on the Interior Ministry. Abbas canceled the decision, a veto Meshaal said assisted a Western campaign to isolate the Palestinian government.
Students and militants loyal to Hamas or to Fatah took to the street, exchanging gunfire in Gaza and wounding 20 people. Chanting "Meshaal is a traitor," thousands of Fatah loyalists marched in Gaza, some firing rifles in the air. Many also protested in the West Bank.
Meshaal said after the violence on Saturday that Hamas respected Abbas's authority and called for Palestinian unity, saying: "We were united during the (uprising) in confronting the Israeli occupation. Today we have to be united in politics."
The Interior Ministry said the new Gaza force would work from within the existing security establishment, headed mainly by Fatah loyalists, but Abbas's aides said only the Palestinian president could make decisions regarding the government.
Cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad said aides to Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh would meet to try to solve the Gaza security dispute ahead of a meeting between the leaders later in the month when Abbas returns from a visit abroad.
KOBE - European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Saturday called for the Hamas-led Palestinian authority to show its willingness to build peace before the EU funding row can be resolved.
Barroso said the European Union was keen to continue supporting the Palestinian people but wanted to see the initiative come from the Palestinian authority. We hope this matter should be solved. But of course the initiative has to come from the Palestinian authority, to show their compatibility with the principles of peace in the region, he said.
We want to keep our support to the Palestinian people, Barroso told a forum held by the EU Institute of Kobe University. The problem is that now, there is a government in Palestine that does not subscribe so far to the principles of international community for peace, he added.
Nor have they bothered much with basic principles of international law, like accepting what the previous government did ...
European citizens are ready to support the Palestinian government if it is committed to peace, but not if it is not commited to peace, Barroso stressed.
Is that a new policy statement? Not being commited to peace never seemed to bother the Euros much before ...
He brushed aside concerns that the European Union was failing to support a democratically elected government. There is no contradiction, because we have accepted fully the Palestinian elections as free and fair, Barroso said. We were the biggest donors for the electoral process in Palestine. So we fully respect the result, he said.
"And we'll accept Hamas, too, just as soon as we can get the Americans to look the other way!" he added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2006 00:00 ||
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If by "peace", they mean "jew-killing", then I'm sure there won't be any problem.
THE MORO Islamic Liberation Front has dared a Singaporean security expert to prove his statements that the MILF continued to coddle members of the regional terror group Jemaah Islamiyah.
Mohagher Iqbal, MILFs chief peace negotiator, said Rohan Gunaratna, head of the political violence and terrorism center at Singapores Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, believes in something that is not necessarily true.
Its more on speculation rather than a statement of facts. Its very easy to say that rebel organizations like us are protecting terrorists. But how to validate it is another thing, he said.
Gunaratna had said at the sidelines of the counterterror forum being held on Mactan Island in Cebu that the MILF continued to shelter one or two JI factions in Mindanao despite the peace negotiations with the government.
The MILF has constantly lied that it is not harboring JI, Gunaratna said as quoted by a Reuters dispatch.
If he points a finger to anybody, he should bear in mind that four of his fingers are also pointing at him. If he reports somebodys wrongdoing, it should be validated first, Iqbal said.
Iqbal said the MILF was not hiding anything and previous inspections of its camps by government and private peace monitors failed to prove the presence of terrorists there.
He said claims of terror links between the MILF and the JI had always been an irritant but said it would not hinder the peace process being brokered by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).
Singapore has nothing to do with the talks. We dont need them. Its only a little country, Iqbal said.
He said the MILF, as a legitimate rebel organization, had not espoused terrorism to pursue its ideals.
In fact, we agreed (with the government) to form the Adhoc Joint Action Group which, in a way, is also a campaign against terrorism. What more can we do to prove that we are serious in the campaign on terror? he said.
Under the AHJAG concept, MILF fighters will help the government run after lawless elements in areas considered MILF territory.
The peace talks between the government and the MILF are expected to resume next month. Negotiators from both sides failed two weeks ago to iron out major differences on the issue of ancestral domain.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:46 ||
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Malacañang confirmed yesterday fresh warnings of terror attacks by al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) extremists in the country but assured the people that they have been contained.
"The warning against the JI is well taken, but we believe this is old stuff and does not reflect the stable situation that is obtaining on the ground," Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said.
Bunye also pointed out that the allegations that JI militants were being given refuge by some Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) leaders in Mindanao have been properly addressed.
Though admitting reports of the JI presence in Mindanao, Bunye said its forces have been contained by authorities there.
Bunye said perpetual vigilance against terror has been the prime concern of the government and it has never discounted the threat posed by terrorists.
"Working with our allies, we have been gaining solid ground in uprooting homegrown and foreign terror cells within our territory, and we shall never put our guard down," Bunye said.
He stressed "President Arroyo has spared no effort to ensure that terrorists are kept at bay while communities are kept alert."
A noted regional security analyst, Dr. Rohan Gunaratna, revealed the other day that the JI currently has 100 foreign militants hiding in Mindanao who have trained an additional 400 to 500 fighters for new attacks.
Gunaratna, head of the Singapore-based International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, also said the JI militants were being given refuge by rogue guerrilla leaders of the MILF.
In the three-day international experts conference on counterterrorism in Cebu that ended yesterday, Gunaratna urged Southeast Asian governments to launch joint military and intelligence operations against the JI to head off new attacks.
He said the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia should develop a "new platform" in its fight against the JI, and deploy joint forces to track down the extremists at their jungle bases.
Presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor added that Philippine security officials were aware of the presence of JI militants holding out in the dense jungles of central Mindanao as early as 2001.
"But as to how many they are, we dont really know and they are indeed a security concern," Defensor said.
He said efforts to deny the presence of the JI in Mindanao would be futile and embarrassing for the government.
"There have been terrorist operatives and they may even number 100 but there have been continuous operations against them," Defensor noted.
He also downplayed insinuations that the MILF was giving refuge to the JI militants.
He said the claims against the MILF have been addressed by the government in the course of its peace initiatives with the Muslim secessionist group.
Defensor said President Arroyo had even praised the MILF for its efforts to contain terrorism in the southern Philippines.
National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales said the government has been effective in addressing threats posed by terror groups in the region.
Gonzales stressed the war against terror groups like the JI has yet to be won.
"The Jemaah Islamiyah militants have been with us. What we can say is that this is a continuing threat. It is difficult to talk of numbers. So what my office will do is check these figures," Gonzales said.
He said security forces are able to neutralize the threat but stressed "the dynamics of terrorists are different."
"They can always regroup and it takes two or three of them to launch an attack. That is the reality of it," he said.
While the government has largely decimated the Abu Sayyaf rebel group, Gonzales said the JI is capable of resurrecting the bandit group and launch terror attacks anywhere in the country.
He said that even the Rajah Sulaiman Group of terrorists is not yet off of the countrys threat board.
"We are dealing with fanatical individuals and so it is actually not enough to dismantle their infrastructures. We have to capture all of them. They cannot be neutralized just like that," Gonzales said.
"While we have been effective in addressing these threats and arresting people, vigilance should be there," he stressed.
The JI has been blamed for the October 2002 bombings in the Indonesian resort of Bali which killed 202 people and for deploying suicide bombers in another attack on the resort island last year, killing 20 civilians.
The Abu Sayyaf, on the other hand, gained notoriety for kidnapping foreigners.
The bandit group is also blamed for the spate of bombings in Mindanao and Metro Manila, including the firebombing of a passenger ferry off Manila Bay in February 2004 in which over a hundred passengers perished.
Regional security officials admit the JI continues to operate jungle camps in Indonesia and in Mindanao, where they are training the Abu Sayyaf and other homegrown terrorists.
On the sidelines of the three-day anti-terror conference in Cebu on Saturday, Gunaratna revealed the existence of a JI faction led by Malaysian Noordin Mohammad Top.
He said Tops faction is closely working with the remnants of the Abu Sayyaf. Another group led by Indonesians Umar Patek and Dulmatin is reportedly being sheltered by the MILF.
The three JI leaders are all accused of playing key roles in the Bali bombings.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:44 ||
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#1
They are contained all right. They are free to train and do all the work they want just as long as they keep the training camps on Mindinao. This is crap, they have been there for years, Gonzales runs block for the MILF and the MILF are providing sanctuary. Defensor is such an idiot he cant spell MILF! I tell it again, the next big attack will have it's foot soldier picked from the ranks of these 3 or 4 training camps. We need to bypass the Corrupt Philippine leadership and go kill these guys.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/23/2006 10:01 Comments ||
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#2
the next big attack will have it's foot soldier picked from the ranks of these 3 or 4 training camps.
Do you mean the next big attack in the Philippines, in Southeast Asia, in Iraq, in Israel, in Europe or in the US, 49 Pan?
#3
TW,
Asia for certain, but a large number of attacks world wide have a connection here, Filipino's lack of quality intel, quality police, military, and corruption in that country, etc... Attacks in the PI and Asia are for certain and have happened, the super ferry and Youseff for example. For the US and Eurpoe It will be no surprise, to me, to find a planning or training connection here on the next event. Sorry to say.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/23/2006 14:35 Comments ||
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Thanks for explaining -- I just wanted to be clear.
Last year, Waemahadee Waeda-oh, 43, was on trial, accused of being a member of Jemaah Islamiah, a Southeast Asian terrorist network believed linked to al Qaeda. Last week, he was elected to Thailand's 200-member Senate from one of the three Muslim southernmost provinces where more than 1,100 people have been killed in two years of separatist violence.
The Muslim doctor, eventually acquitted of charges of belonging to Jemaah Islamiah and planning bomb attacks on western embassies, attributes his victory to his ordeal.
I used to live in fear and suspicion," Waemahadee, who alleged he was abducted, tortured into a confession and then denied bail during an almost two-year trial, told Reuters. People here are in a similar situation, so they looked for a person who could reflect their frustration, he said.
He won 100,000 votes, three times more than any other candidate in his area, where most ordinary people are caught between government security forces and the militants.
The last time separatist violence flared in the region, a former Muslim sultanate annexed by overwhelmingly Buddhist Thailand a century ago, militants took to the jungle.
Now they are living in the village, Waemahadee said.
Apparently the government is trying to win people's hearts and minds, but villagers whose relatives have been harassed by officials in the past are still skeptical.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:28 ||
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COLOMBO - Norways latest bid to save Sri Lankas tottering peace process ended in failure as envoys returned empty-handed from rebel territory amid more deadly mine attacks on Saturday, diplomats and officials said.
The head of the Scandinavian truce monitoring mission, Ulf Henricsson, and a senior Norwegian diplomat who spent the night in the guerrilla-held town of Kilinochchi returned here without even meeting the top Tiger leaders. Henricsson returned to Colombo this morning after spending overnight in (rebel-held) Kilinochchi, a diplomatic source close to the peace process said. They have not been able to end the impasse.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) said their leaders did not meet the Scandinavians because the rebels had not changed their stance on the latest hurdle blocking a second round of talks to salvage a fragile four-year truce.
The Tigers had announced earlier they were indefinitely postponing their participation in the two-day ceasefire talks slated to start on Monday until they could hold consultations with field commanders. The guerrillas have insisted they be given helicopter rides or allowed to use their own boats to travel from the islands east to the north where the rebel leadership is located -- a demand rejected by Colombo.
The emissaries went to Kilinochchi, 330 kilometres (205 miles) north of here, Friday to meet with the LTTEs political wing leader S. P. Thamilselvan in a bid to work out a formula that would allow the Swiss talks to go ahead. LTTEs political wing leader did not meet the peace-brokers because the LTTEs position has been clearly and repeatedly explained to them, spokesman V. Dayanidi said when contacted by telephone.
The LTTEs eastern commanders will travel by LTTE Sea Tiger boats or SriLanka Air Force helicopters. No alternative arrangements could be considered. A compromise offer of private helicopter rides was turned down by the Tigers who insist the military must give them a ride.
The military says allowing the Tigers to travel by sea would breach Sri Lankan sovereignty and it refuses to give free helicopter rides to the rebels.
I'd offer to fly the entire Tamil leadership anywhere, but it'd be a one-way trip.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2006 00:00 ||
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A serious triumph of hope over experience that they went into this expecting to accomplish anything. Perhaps the Norwegians will now choose to become sane?
The April 22 edition of the Israeli daily Haaretz quoted Zionist security officials as saying that the Mossad is plotting to assassinate Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.
I certainly hope so! They're the Mossad, fercryingoutloud.
The daily also quoted Israeli security affairs analyst Amir Oren as saying that Zionist security organizations are planning to assassinate the Iranian president and Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniya. Oren also claimed that Israel will should not face very many problems or serious reaction from the international community after the assassination of these two figures.
Haaretz stated that the final decision on the assassination of Ahmadinejad and Haniya would be taken upon the approval of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The publication of such news in the Israeli media and the explicit statements of the Zionist security officials about the assassination of prominent figures indicate that Israel is still vigorously pursuing a policy of state terrorism while the international community, and particularly the United States and its Western allies, the self-proclaimed standard-bearers of the global war on terrorism, have failed to take any measures against this ominous phenomenon.
Also, in the past, Israel has assassinated a great number but not nearly enough of Palestinian and Lebanese figures, including the famous caricaturist Naji al-Ali, and a number of fighters including Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyyad), Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), former Islamic Jihad secretary general Fathi Shaqaqi, Palestinian political leader Kamal Adwan, and former Hezbollah secretary general Seyyed Abbas Mousawi.
It should be noted that after all these well deserved assassinations, international organizations took no appropriate measures against the Zionist regime for these despicable crimes.
Perhaps because they didn't care very much about a bunch of dead Paleo terrs?
Obviously, when both the United States and its Western allies encourage Israel to commit such crimes and to intensify its state-sponsored terrorism, we cannot expect to see global terrorism eradicated. Violence always begets violence.
Flouting international law and enjoying the financial and propaganda support of the United States and its Western allies, Israel, which as the center of international terrorism has trained hundreds of agents to assassinate prominent political figures throughout the world, is trying to suppress the worldwide anti-Zionist movement through the use of force and terror tactics.
Yet, if state-sponsored terrorism, which the Zionist regime is trying to develop, is not addressed, it will eventually become a directionless blind terrorism that will threaten global security.
Unlike Islamist-sponored terrorism which could never do that, no sir, no way.
International organizations, and particularly the United Nations, should immediately condemn the Zionist regime for its threat to assassinate the Iranian president since ignoring such problems will lead to the law of the jungle ruling the international community.
The UN has already condemned Zionism. Really changed things, didn't it?
Although the Zionist regime will never dare to assassinate the Iranian president, its explicit threat to assassinate President Ahmadinejad will increase Islamic nations hatred of Israel, eventually to the point where the United States and its Western allies will no longer be able to control the situation.
Zionist officials should be prosecuted by an international tribunal for carrying out acts of state-sponsored terrorism because the Middle East will definitely witness a new wave of insecurity if these threats continue.
The publication of such threats is an explicit violation of international law. The United Nations should take serious action to confront this so that no other regime will ever dare to try to deal with its opponents through the use of force and violence. Double back to back yawns.
Lots of things done by islamofascist terrorists are against international law. Iran building nukes is against international law. Doesn't seem to slow them down much.
The United States arms control chief has given warning that Iran is "very close to the point of no return" in acquiring the technological expertise to make a nuclear weapon. "In terms of activities on the ground in Iran, it is fair to say that the Iranians have put both feet on the accelerator," said Robert Joseph, the senior US State Department official responsible for countering nuclear proliferation.
His comments, which come as the United Nations Security Council prepares to meet to discuss the crisis this week, indicate that Washington believes that the stakes are rising rapidly in the West's confrontation with the Islamic republic. Earlier this month, Teheran claimed to have enriched uranium for the nuclear fuel cycle. It has pushed ahead with its programme while taking advantage of a diplomatic stand-off between Moscow and Washington over possible UN sanctions.
Iran is following tactics outlined by its former chief nuclear negotiator in comments to clerics and academics previously unreported in the West. Hassan Rowhani made clear that Iran's goal was to present the world with a fait accompli over its nuclear ambitions. "If, one day, we are able to complete the fuel cycle and the world sees that it has no choice, that we do possess the technology, then the situation will be different," he told the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council. "The world did not want Pakistan to have an atomic bomb or Brazil to have the fuel cycle, but Pakistan built its bomb and Brazil has its fuel cycle."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:42 ||
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Russia's military will not intervene on one side or the other should the current Iran crisis lead to an armed conflict, the chief of the Russian general staff said.
"You are asking which side Russia will take. Of course Russia will not, at least I as head of the general staff, suggest the use of force on one side or the other. Just as was the case in Afghanistan," General Yury Baluevsky told reporters, referring to the 2001 US-led intervention to oust the Taliban.
The general, who heads the Russian armed forces, stressed that he did not think a military scenario was likely in relation to Iran and said that diplomacy was "the proper course".
"In my view a military solution to the Iranian problem would be a political and military mistake," Baluevsky said.
He also confirmed that Russia planned to go ahead with fulfilling an order by Iran for a consignment of Tor-M1 mobile air defence systems, despite US concerns about the deal.
"I am absolutely sure that it will be delivered, in accordance with international norms on non-proliferation," he said.
Baluevsky is known for his hawkish position with regard to the United States. In December he accused Washington of "double standards" in its policies towards Iran and North Korea, saying it had closed its eyes to Israel's nuclear arsenal.
His comments on Wednesday came as the Iran issue continued to overshadow talks in Moscow among leaders of the Group of Eight rich nations.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/23/2006 05:33 ||
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More commie double-speak, as they help build up AhMad's air defense systems, sell them military hardware, help build the nuke plants, etc.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/23/2006 10:31 Comments ||
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#2
yeah, they send them the equipment that they don't want or need anymore - cause it's old and outdated - in exchange for lots and lots of cash.
#3
It actualy sounds pretty smart to me, by selling the outmoded stuff (That we already know how to counter) they're getting cash for relatively worthless stuff.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/23/2006 13:12 Comments ||
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Nothing smart about it. The equipment we know about is dated, what we don't know about can kill us.
Couple that with the UNSC veto and the diplospeak, and military action is inevitable. In truth, Iran is a proxy for Russia/ChiComs.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/23/2006 14:05 Comments ||
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#5
China's interests, or more to the point, the Chinese' leadership interest in keeping their necks is by keeping the Chinese economy going by keeping the oil coming. China goes to civil war if/when their economy tanks.
If the flow of ME oil gets interrupted, China goes down. Hard.
#6
60 MINUTES had a report last night on how China's female/daughter shortage bears risk of inducing serious societal-cultural troubles across China. Even the Chicom [lady] Minister being interviewed had to admit that the crises were very real and troubling to the CPC - so much so that the CPC is now reversing course and rewarding Chinese citizens for the number of daughters borne. It was admitted suring the interview that baby female smuggling/kidnapping was now highly profitable, wid as many as 28 female newborns being found in one bag. THE CHINESE FOCII ON BABY BOYS IS A CLEAR SIGN OF A WEAK, UNSTABLE SOCIETY STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE BY GIVING PRIORITY TO THE PERCEIVED STRONGEST OF GENDERS.As for IRAN, Dubya and USDOD still must plan for any contingency vv North Korea, Taiwan and Iran - for me, North KOrea has always been a likely diversionary or holding front for China's real target(s), TAIWAN and SOUTH-SE ASIA, espec Taiwan. Few iff any in INTEL or the USDOD believe that any attack by North Korea will NOT have the sanction or support of China. As said before, Kimmie beats the chests and war drums of Norkie regional bellicosity, but its China's PLAAF and PLAN that does the actual buzzin' and penetratin' of Japan's air-and sea-space and WESTPAC. INTERFAX.ru > West/Euro-cnetric Russia's T-160 bombers penetrated into CANADA, aka Radical Islam's CANUCK-ISTAN.
#3
The author never mentioned the five guys that were HALOed into the mountains behind Teheran at night to set up links for the rescuers. Jumped out of a jet at 25,000 ft, chutes opened at 500 ft AGL. One guy's chute didn't open and he died. The other four were abandoned by Jimmuh, who did not allow a pickup. They escaped and evaded across Iran for four terrifying and arduous months until they got to Afghanistan. We can thank Jimmuh for the problems with Iran today. Romeo Bravo.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/23/2006 15:49 Comments ||
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#4
Thanks for the rememberance Paul.
Posted by: Send Me ||
04/23/2006 16:12 Comments ||
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#5
Every time Carter speaks we should throw Iran and Afghanistan in his stinking face. Moral giant? I think he's a cretin and incompetent pissant who never have been Peter-Principled to president had it not been for Watergate and a agenda-driven journalistic pack. PTUI!
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/23/2006 17:10 Comments ||
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#6
I was 14 yrs old when Carter was elected president and I as a youth thought he was the worst president alive and was so damn glad when he lost after his first term. That man is a disgrace and the worst president I have ever known.
#7
Heaven help me, I voted for him his first term. I was young, stupid, and voting for the first time. Four years later, I made it an absolute point to be back in the United States so I could vote against him. Four more years with him at the helm and the Communists would have won the Cold War and America would be a Third World country. What a contemptible President he turned out to be!
Posted by: mac ||
04/23/2006 18:36 Comments ||
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#8
It's ok Mac, it's ok. Don't be so hard on yourself The blessed Virgin accepts your confession. Now depart, say 10 Hail Mary's and sin no more, ie., vote for another donk dem as long as you live.
Posted by: Father Rant ||
04/23/2006 18:50 Comments ||
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WASHINGTON - The U.N. Security Council's impending showdown over Iran's nuclear ambitions is a critical test of the effectiveness of the world body, United Nations Ambassador John R. Bolton said yesterday. "If the Security Council can't deal with that threat, then you have to ask yourself what utility the Security Council would be in dealing with terrorism and weapons of mass destruction," Bolton said at a midday appearance before the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.
They can gum it to death, of course.
The United States and its allies claim Iran is developing a nuclear bomb under cover of a peaceful civilian nuclear power program. The 15-member Security Council has given Iran a deadline of April 28 to stop uranium enrichment, a key step in the process.
Bolton said the Bush administration was committed to resolving the crisis diplomatically. But he noted that the president had not ruled out military action. "We have to ask ourselves at sometime, if our efforts fail, will we allow Iran to get nuclear weapons?" Bolton said. "Now, I believe the president is very serious when he says it's unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons. If it's unacceptable, that means it's unacceptable."
Unlike when the French say something is unacceptable ...
Bolton said the issue can be resolved diplomatically if Iran followed Libya's example and renounced its nuclear ambitions. But he said the United States would not engage in talks with Iran because Tehran had already rejected "generous" offers from Russian and European negotiators to halt nuclear fuel research. "We have nothing to say to them," he said in a morning meeting with The Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2006 00:00 ||
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"Bolton: Iran will test U.N. efficacy"
Skolaut: The Useless Nitwits will flunk. Again.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/23/2006 2:07 Comments ||
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#2
Amusing piccy Fred , and of course they will Barbara , do we expect anything else ? :)
Excerpt:
Quote/
The United Nations moved into an ineffective, unaccountable body bloated with bureaucratic egos that offer unenforceable and hollow resolutions. Its councils and commissions are tainted due to the inclusion of states that sponsor and harbor terror, thus its inability to define terrorism, let alone a plan to eliminate it. Half-hearted, neutered peacekeeping initiatives either leave peacekeepers watching acts of genocide while sitting with their collective fingers in their noses or see the very people charged with protecting the threatened raping and abusing them.
In a move that illustrates just how hollow and comedic the actions of the United Nations have become, Irans ambassador, Mehdi Danesh-Yazdi, was elected to serve as the vice chair of the disarmament commission. The commission is charged with promoting the disarmament of nuclear weapons and reviewing treaties that deal with nuclear energy. Danesh-Yazdi takes his seat as the world scrambles to find a non-military way to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Un/Quote
Originally from the NYT, so who knows if it's true.
WASHINGTON, April 21 The Bush administration called today for Russia and the countries of Europe to impose their own penalties on Iran over its suspected nuclear arms program if no agreement on sanctions can be reached soon at the United Nations Security Council.
France will refuse to sell aircraft carriers to Iran, Spain won't sell port or oranges, Germany will ban all sales of pork sausage, and the Swiss will return all the Iranian's gold.
"If the Security Council cannot act over a reasonable period of time, then there will be an opportunity for groups of countries to organize themselves together for the purpose of isolating the Iranians diplomatically and economically," said R. Nicholas Burns, under secretary of state for political affairs and the lead envoy on Iran.
He added that "it's not beyond the realm of the possible that at some point in the future a group of countries could get together, if the Security Council is not able to act, to take collective economic action collective action on sanction."
If the Security Council is not able to act ...?
It was not clear that Europeans or the Russians were interested in a sanctions approach without the United Nations Security Council authorizing it, and American and European officials said they still hope the council will move in that direction next month. A European official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said several European countries would resist the approach of letting countries proceed without an international consensus.
The whole point of the exercise is to let them off the hook, and they jolly well won't volunteer to be on the hook again.
"If one or more countries break off and impose international sanctions, the Iranians would be thrilled," he said. "They would just be able to play countries off against each other. Going for sanctions, that would be a wasted exercise."
Everything is a waste according to the Y'urp-peons. Just ask Sartre and Camus.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2006 00:00 ||
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If Europeans hate Americans now, just wait until Iran is attacked. Anti-American hatred will go through the roof. That's why Europe won't act, and in fact will most likely obstruct the US in every aspect. Forget about sanctions.
Off on a tangent: I read a book about 10+ years ago about the Apocalypse where the author claimed the final war before the end of the world would be between Europe and the US. Read it, dismissed it as nonsense, forgot it, threw it out I think. Probably not now, but give it 100 years or so and this could be in the realm of possibility.
Posted by: rafael ||
04/23/2006 2:23 Comments ||
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#2
Ah, rafael. Europe is, like, doesn't have a 100 years.
Actually it does, if you consider EUrabia EUropean. By then the EU will have expanded membership to Turkey, Syria/Lebannon,Jordan, Egypt, Libyia Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, by way of acquisition of Spain and boast a population twice that of the US and approaching that of China.
#4
"If Europeans hate Americans now, just wait until Iran is attacked. Anti-American hatred will go through the roof."
If their hatred of us was deserved (it isn't), and if Europe mattered much (it doesn't), and if Europe might reasonably be expected to be around much longer (it won't be), then I suppose we could see this as a matter for some concern. Absent these conditions, though, Americans don't really have much reason to care about Europe and its everlasting irrational hatreds. And in fact, most Americans don't.
"That's why Europe won't act, and in fact will most likely obstruct the US in every aspect."
That would be an exceedingly stupid thing to do.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/23/2006 11:38 Comments ||
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#3 How's they going to feed themselves without Euros?
#8
Latin Europe is gone, Germanic Europe is questionable, New Europe is a logistical problem, the Brits better get ready to blow the Chunnel as soon as the last Dane gets through.
TEHERAN - Irans ambassador to the UN nuclear watchdog said on Saturday that Iran had a basic deal to enrich uranium in a joint venture in Russia but said details were still being worked out, Iranian state radio reported.
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), did not say if the joint venture enrichment was an alternative to enriching inside Iran, although Iranian officials have insisted they would defy UN demands and continue to enrich on Iranian territory. He ... announced the basic agreement on a joint uranium enrichment firm on Russian soil and said that there are only some issues regarding technical, legal and financial matters that need more assessment or exchange of ideas, radio quoted Soltanieh as saying from Russia.
That'll take forever and a day, of course ...
Iran previously said in February that it had reached a basic agreement with Russia on jointly enriching uranium. But little headway was subsequently made due to Teherans refusal to suspend home-grown enrichment, the main demand of Western powers who are threatening to press for UN sanctions on Iran.
Soltanieh was also quoted by the radio announcer as saying Iran would issue tenders next month for two nuclear power stations, in addition to one being built with Russian help near the southern port city of Bushehr. It was not clear if he meant May or the next Iranian month which starts on May 22.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/23/2006 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Washington discovered the names and their nationals of prisoners at Guatanamo Bay in Cuba those include Somali men. As reports say.
George Bush yesterday revealed the extent of the political gamble Tony Blair took over Iraq, disclosing that he had spurned the offer of a get-out clause on the war even amid fears that it would cost him his government. In a rare glimpse inside the so-called special relationship, the US President disclosed how he had offered to release his 'close friend' Blair from the military coalition because he feared that domestic opposition to the war would actually bring him down. But the Prime Minister retorted that he would rather lose his government than retreat.
There is a new wave of sophisticated, articulate Islamic fundamentalists trying to spread the word among moderate Muslims in Sydney. Young men, wearing regular clothes, with neatly trimmed beards, broad Australian accents and fluent in Arabic, they appear to be fully assimilated, second-generation Australians. But they belong to a political group called 
Confronted with mounting losses at Libération, Mr. July in November announced a plan to cut jobs and outsource some of the paper's services. The cost cutting, says Mr. July, was "an ice-cold bath for everyone." The first strike in the paper's history followed. 
ISLAMABAD - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Pakistani counterpart held talks on Saturday to speed up work on a proposed pipeline to transport Iranian gas to Pakistan and India, the Foreign Ministry said.
KATHMANDU - Nepali police opened fire and used teargas on Saturday to confront over 100,000 anti-monarchy protesters who defied a curfew and marched towards King Gyanendras palace in the centre of the capital.
United Nations Ambassador John R. Bolton said the world body maintains a strong anti-Western sentiment that reinforces resistance to reform efforts. "You all need to come to New York for 30 days, be a part of my mission, and just listen to what goes on there," he told the editorial writers.
Khalid had been in Iraq for only a few weeks, but he was already sick of the place. It wasn't the missions that bothered him. He was fighting alongside a small group of Saudis, and they were consummate professionals when it came to jihad, completely focused on the lightning-fast attacks they staged each day on the foreign invaders. The ambushes usually lasted no more than five or 10 minutes, but Khalid revelled in the chance to hit the streets and fire off his AK-47 at the American soldiers and their allies, four grenades strapped to his waist so he could kill himself if captured.
ISTANBUL: British hostage 
COLOMBO - Norways latest bid to save Sri Lankas tottering peace process ended in failure as envoys returned empty-handed from rebel territory amid more deadly mine attacks on Saturday, diplomats and officials said.
The United States arms control chief has given warning that Iran is "very close to the point of no return" in acquiring the technological expertise to make a nuclear weapon. "In terms of activities on the ground in Iran, it is fair to say that the Iranians have put both feet on the accelerator," said Robert Joseph, the senior US State Department official responsible for countering nuclear proliferation.
