#3
And, by so doing, it makes it impossible except from the main screen, where "by" is prefixed, to click on her comment. Use the fields in the posting form as designed, and everything works well. The design is there for a reason.
#4
I agree .com (and am not using or investigating this further and wont say how its done) But I can see where someone could exploit this to take people to Democratic Underground or Moveon.org or some stupid spam/virus/trojan site. (Boris would have loved it....).
#5
Do you know how flippin' scary it is to turn to one of your favorite blogs and find your name at the top of it? What the hell? What, exactly, am I supposed to have done?
Whatever it was, I haven't done it since April 26. I apologize to all those who were affected, to their families, friends, neighbors, and pets. I take full responsibility. I will make a full and complete investigation into this incident, and ensure it is not repeated. I feel your pain.
#12
Oh, I see. Yes, I've embedded my name in the link. I saw someone else do it, long ago, and thought it looked cleaner than simply having the web site next to my name.
CrazyFool, I've found that in Netscape, if you try to embed a link, you can't use:
this,
because you will get an extra rantburg tag tacked onto the front, i.e.:
http://rantburg.com/darkblogules.blogspot.com
But if you leave out the quotation marks, it works as it should:
In Konqueror, you leave the quote marks in. I don't know why it works this way.
I see now what .com means. In the list of latest comments, if you click on my name, you get to my blog, not my comment. I never read the comments this way (I only look at them by topic), so I never noticed it before. Actually, if you click on "by", you do get to the comment.
Sorry about that. I've fixed it now. As .com says, this is not magic.
#13
I'd been wondering too. At first I figured she was a PC but it didn't seem to work too well. Interesting the way these anarchic social orders work.
Nonetheless, very clever, Angie.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
05/08/2004 12:40 Comments ||
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#14
Oh, for the love of...that last comment was supposed to write the URLs out verbatim, rather than converting them into links. And, of course, that's what it looked like in the preview screen. And, apparently, the thing I said wouldn't work, now works.
#17
.com, that shows up as a link when you click on "comment," but in the individual page, it doesn't.
Whatever you do, please don't cause an Internal Server Error; I don't wanna go into Rantburg Withdrawl today.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
05/08/2004 17:54 Comments ||
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#18
I don't have the faintest idea what ya'll are talkin' about. There are only 2 things I need to no about electricity. 1, it is magic and 2, don't let the blue smoke out. If you let the blue smoke out of an electrical appliance it won't work any more.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/08/2004 18:39 Comments ||
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#19
DB - add another one - if you use those childproof outlet caps - electricity won't spill out of each outlet - that's why your electricity bill is so high.....trust me ;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 18:47 Comments ||
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#23
I live so far out in the sticks of East Tennessee even the Presbetyrians handle snakes. when I worked at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory we had another saying. Don't let the blue glow out.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/08/2004 22:40 Comments ||
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Summary
A number of Stratfor sources have indicated that militants are in the final stages of planning attacks on Middle Eastern targets. Based on the identity of -- and intelligence from -- these sources, Stratfor expects any attack to occur in Saudi Arabia, and we doubt it will be an isolated incident.
Analysis
Beginning May 4 and rolling over into May 5, Stratfor received a number of tips from sources in, or knowledgeable about, the Middle East indicating there is an imminent attack planned. As we triangulated that information with intelligence from additional sources, Stratfor has deduced that an attack is most likely to occur within Saudi Arabia, and that it will target Westerners as opposed to Saudis.
The security situation in the kingdom continues to degrade for a
variety of reasons. The mix of source information on the threat crosses business and government intelligence lines in both the United States and the Middle East. All sources have repeatedly proven their value to Stratfor, and that they are all -- independently -- warning of a possible attack makes this a threat that we take very seriously. To put the gravity of the threat in context, militants shot and killed five Western expatriates May 1 in Yanbu, a petrochemical town on the Red Sea coast. Two days later, U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia James Oberwetter advised all Americans living in the kingdom to leave.
The problem Westerners face in Saudi Arabia is three-fold.
First, U.S. policy indirectly stoked the current militant activity in Saudi Arabia. After the Sept. 11 attacks, Washington deemed Saudi efforts against al Qaeda insufficient. The reasoning for the Saudi tentativeness up to that point was obvious: Al Qaedaâs ideological home is rooted in the Wahhabi Islam that dominates the kingdom. For al Qaeda, the royal familyâs affiliation with Western interests is a betrayal of Islam and the Sauds are guilty of apostasy. Historically, the royals have dealt with this by providing the countryâs militants with an out: Go fight infidels elsewhere. This strategy worked well, and Saudi Arabia exported its militants to places such as Afghanistan and Chechnya. After Sept. 11 -- when several of these "exports" attacked New York City and Washington -- the United States confronted Riyadh over the practice. Stripped of the ability to simply send the militants elsewhere, Riyadh was forced -- by U.S. design -- to deal with the militants within the kingdom. More militants at home mean more militant activity at home -- which means more problems for Western guests.
The second problem Westerners in Saudi Arabia face is that the militants have adjusted their operational methods. The Yanbu attacks were not only the first attacks in that city, or even in the Hijaz region; they were also the first attacks in which the militants infiltrated the company employing the victims, even obtaining valid company identification cards. Such sophistication is not only frightening, considering the local nature of the militants, but nearly impossible to defend against.
Third, the Saudis are still on the learning curve. The intricacies of tribal loyalties -- and the unique role of religious go-betweens with a leg on each side of the fence -- always have complicated the process of gathering actionable intelligence. But in the aftermath of the November bombings of housing compounds in Riyadh, local Muslims were so outraged that the militants would attack other Muslims that many -- even in the Najd region, from which many militants hail -- were willing to cooperate with Saudi authorities to root out militant cells. That resulted in a quantum leap in Saudi intelligence capabilities. But the effort remains in its infancy; Saudi domestic intelligence efforts were never robust -- and they still are not. After all, the emphasis before Sept. 11 was on getting the militants out of country, not into Saudi prisons.
Taken together, these factors all indicate that the Saudi security situation is tangibly decaying, and local authorities are increasingly unable to adequately protect foreigners. Expect more Yanbus.
Posted by: tipper ||
05/08/2004 6:53:55 AM ||
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#1
This looks like a poem.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 9:30 Comments ||
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#2
have indicated that militants are in the final stages of planning attacks on Middle Eastern targets.
#3
It is a miracle that attacks like the one in Yanbu did not happen sooner. I do not know if anybody remembers the following article published in the NY Times two summers ago: Intelligence officials say the discovery of al Qaeda sympathizers inside Saudi Aramco.
February 13, New York Times â Pro-al Qaeda oil workers a sabotage risk for Saudis. The government of Saudi Arabia has increased security around its oil fields and processing centers after the discovery that employees of the state-owned oil company sympathetic to al Qaeda were discussing sabotage plans late last summer, American and Saudi officials say. American intelligence officials discovered the conversations and alerted the Saudi authorities, who quickly arrested and interrogated the suspects, the officials added. The quiet thwarting of the potentially disastrous sabotage, disclosed in October by ABC News, is seen by officials here and in Washington as a model of cooperation for a relationship that has been under strain since the disclosure of the role of Saudis in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Still, the sabotage case and the response to it underscore the deep anxieties about the security of Saudi oil when a war with Iraq could make it more valuable, but also more vulnerable, than ever. Intelligence officials say the discovery of al Qaeda sympathizers inside Saudi Aramco is part of a worrisome trend: al Qaeda's leadership appears to be increasingly focused on economic targets, especially the oil industry.
The Law Society is to give solicitors new guidance to help them save young women from forced marriages. The move comes after concern that lawyers are not intervening because they fear being branded racist. At least 300 forced marriages, many with victims under 16, are thought to be performed each year. The guidelines say that âfailure to tackle forced marriage is a failure to protect and endorse the rights of all citizensâ. Solicitors are reminded that forced marriage is not an issue confined to any particular culture They have to say that.
The authorities have long battled to prevent under-age girls being taken to their countries of origin to be married off by their parents. But recent investigations have found that a growing number are being married in Britain. Anne Cryer, the MP for Keighley, who led Labourâs action plan on forced marriages, wants to create similar guidelines for underage marriages.
Solicitors are asked to intervene by victims, siblings and teachers. Solicitors are afraid of being branded racist if they intervene to stop forced marriages, the Law Society has said. Chief executive Janet Paraskeva said confusion between arranged marriages and forced marriages stopped solicitors reporting incidents to the authorities. "We want solicitors to act, not shy away from these issues," she added. There are believed to be at least 300 forced marriages in Britain every year, and many solicitors encounter them through immigration applications. Others are asked to intervene by the victims, their siblings or teachers. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 12:16:29 AM ||
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Ireland hosted the main celebrations for the accession of 10 new countries to the EU at the weekend - and it also saw the main protests, which threatened to hijack coverage of the event. I have never taken part in a protest march in my life - something I like to think of as a symptom of a high-minded form of neutralism, when of course, it could just be laziness. As a reporter, I have seen thousands of demos. Saving one sort of whales; improving language rights in the other sort; having the monarchy back in Russia; not having it back in Romania; shortening the working week for French train drivers; abolishing it altogether for staff at nuclear power stations. And so on. But I have never seen demonstrations quite like the ones in Dublin last weekend, where protesters took to the streets as the European Union celebrated the accession of 10 new member states.
My modest role in all this was not to reflect on the extraordinary decade of upheaval in this troubled continent which saw three former Soviet republics joining the EU. It was rather to see if news coverage of the event would be hijacked by violent disorder on the streets, as has happened in the past at summits in Genoa and Seattle. This is the modern equivalent of being sent to cover the guillotining of the French royal family, and being asked by your editor to ignore the executions and provide a feature on the women who sat knitting along the route the tumbrils took. But unpicking the politics of the protest, and particularly the way in which it is reported proved a fascinating business.
At one of the dozens of small demonstrations that were scattered across the weekend, I bumped into a reporter from Lithuania, once a highly reluctant part of the Soviet empire, now a new and enthusiastic member of the European Union. He had noticed that there were communists and socialist workers among the environmentalists and anarcho-syndicalists. "Was this," he wondered, "an expression of anger that the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the Europe created in Potsdam and Yalta had propelled the Baltic republics and the states of Eastern Europe into the capitalist world?"
As he was speaking, a young man carrying a placard that said "I am against everything" was marching past us. At the head of the crowd was a small group with a banner that read: "One must have chaos within order to give birth to a dancing star." No, I told him, I did not really feel that this was a post-cold war fit of pique from the hard left over Lithuaniaâs territorial status. Well then, he persisted, what was it? Post ideology? Post politics? And a string of other questions that made you feel that the Vilnius morning papers must be rather hard going.
We sat in a coffee bar with a view of the parade and compared notes. He wondered what to make of anti-globalisation protesters who wandered through the streets swigging from bottles of Heineken and Coca-Cola, those champion lubricants of the wheels of international commerce. And I had been struck by the way in which four or 500 people, all committed to the eradication of poverty, had marched past a young man begging on the roadside without putting a single coin in the paper McDonaldâs beaker he was holding out. They could have been punishing him for flaunting the hated golden arches, but I think they just did not notice the guy actually starving right in front of them. Although admittedly, when I gave him three euros he jumped up and headed straight into the pub he had been sitting outside.
The largest single group in the demonstrations were anarchists, although the only manifestation of anarchy they managed was that every time their march approached a junction they told the escorting police they were going to turn right, and then actually turned left.
If anarchists work together can you still call them anarchists?
Each time they did it, it produced just a little of the chaos you need for a dancing star. And all the chaos you need for a really big traffic jam.
The point of all of this was of course to ensure that every time there is a gathering of Western leaders these days, there will be protesters seeking to ensure that they too get a share of the headlines. And it works, especially if you have a small hardcore of protesters who are prepared to engage in some futile, ritualistic confrontation with riot police guarding the summit venue. And so it proved in Dublin. An hour or so of posturing in front of the police lines and the resulting use of a water cannon produced headlines in the local papers the next morning talking of "mayhem" and appropriately enough, "chaos". The historic re-structuring over which Europe agonised for a decade was forced to share the front pages with about an hour of desultory stone-throwing.
My Lithuanian colleague, when I bumped into him again in the lobby of the hotel where we were both staying, was puzzled. He went to light a cigarette as we stood chatting about it and was incredulous when he was told that because of Irelandâs new anti-smoking laws, he would have to go outside to light it. He smiled happily because at last he had a story that pulled it altogether. The old communist states of Eastern Europe he said had swapped an order in which you could smoke everywhere and not protest at all for a new order, in which the opposite rules now appeared to apply. It had, we agreed, the makings of a decent poster for the next gathering of the worldâs anarchist protesters, wherever that might be.
Posted by: tipper ||
05/08/2004 7:27:25 AM ||
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#1
rite on!
im tired of capitalist oppresor
keepin me down
ima await death by local harpi
Posted by: not halfempty ||
05/08/2004 10:28 Comments ||
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#2
Quote of the week:
As he was speaking, a young man carrying a placard that said "I am against everything" was marching past us.
Ah, yes disgusting fond memories of my UC Berkeley happy college years '66 thru '70.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/08/2004 10:59 Comments ||
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#3
Am I the only one who wonders just where the portesters who show up at every single major economic and political conference come up with the cash to travel to these places. Could it be that in their spare moments they may be operating an unlicenced pharmacutical operation?
News mediaâs credibility crumbling Journalists seen as slightly more believable than used-car salesmen
President Bush recently turned to Brit Hume of Fox News and told him flat out that he prefers to get his "news" from White House and national-security staff, rather than as reports from journalists. Though that may have stunned the media elite, many ordinary Americans cheered. For two decades polls increasingly have indicated public dismay at the spin and fantasies of the press. In fact, a recent Gallup Poll says Americans rate the trustworthiness of journalists at about the level of politicians and as only slightly more credible than used-car salesmen. The poll suggests that only 21 percent of Americans believe journalists have high ethical standards, ranking them below auto mechanics but tied with members of Congress. More precisely, the poll notes that only one in four people believe what they read in the newspapers. Chicago Tribune Editor Charles M. Madigan may have put it best when he offered this advice: "If you are a journalist, you should probably just assume that you come across as a liar." ...more...
The truth hurts... Lol! Life is hard. Itâs even harder if youâre stupid and dishonest.
Posted by: .com ||
05/08/2004 6:46:37 AM ||
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#1
one in four people believe what they read in the newspapers
#2
President Bush...prefers to get his "news" from White House and national-security staff, rather than as reports from journalists. Though that may have stunned the media elite...
Who are dumber than they look, if they were stunned by that. The POTUS prefers to get his information from our intelligence services, rather than the newspapers. What a concept.
A 1999 survey conducted for the American Society of Newspaper Editors also points out that about 53 percent of the public view the press as out of touch with mainstream America
Only 53%? Wonder what a 2004 poll would show.
Another 58 percent believed journalists didn't care about inaccuracies
I can personally testify that they don't. And that's not even about "big" stories that can make careers.
A 2002 Harris Poll produced similar results. In the age of Enron and WorldCom disasters, even accountants scored higher on trust than journalists
Ouch. But deservedly so.
Creating an ethics standard of the sort that Fortune 500 companies require of their employees would "put the fear of God" into reporters, he says
Only for the ones who actually believe in a God, which leaves the liberal elite (i.e., most reporters) out.
The fact that they think someone has to tell them what is right and wrong, else they won't know, speaks volumes about them. None of it good.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/08/2004 12:33 Comments ||
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Mary Beth Cahill sez,
"Over the past week we have all been shocked by the pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq," wrote Ms. Cahill. "John Kerry has called on Donald Rumsfeld to resign, and today weâre asking you to support him by adding your name to the call for Rumsfeld to resign." Rummy resigns only if John Kerry resigns the senate for his behaviour in Vietnam 30 years ago
#1
So once again, John Effing Kerry does what he does best: slander American soldiers for cheap political gain. He's really got that shtick down to a fine art, doesn't he?
He doesn't do it directly this time, of course; he's learned that "nuance" thing since 1971. Now, he does it by blowing up the Abu Ghraib incident into some sort of systemic, military-wide problem that is allegedly so pervasive that it warrants the removal of the Secretary of Defense.
Shit like this makes me regret donating the legal maximum to Bush's campaign: because everytime I hear another outrage from Kerry and his band of malignant miscreants I want to write another check to Bush-Cheney '04, but I can't because I'm already maxxed out.
Filthy bastard.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/08/2004 20:30 Comments ||
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#2
I wondered where Sadr (Kerry's 'legitimate voice in Iraq') was going to get the reward money for those British Female Soldier sex slaves.....
#3
I'd say I wonder why the press doesn't ask Kerry about this latest pronouncement of that "legitimate voice in Iraq," but we all already know the answer.
And the press wonder why no one trusts them.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/08/2004 20:50 Comments ||
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#4
John JFK Kerry is giving slimy, blam America first politicians a bad name. They deserve better than the presumptive nominee.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono ||
05/08/2004 21:53 Comments ||
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Found thanks to Citizen Smash and Kevin Drum. EFL; RTWT.
So the father went to his brother-in-law, William Lawson, who was afraid that reservists like his nephew would end up taking the fall for what he considered command lapses, Mr. Lawson recounted in an interview on Friday. He knew whom to turn to: David Hackworth, a retired colonel and a muckraker who was always willing to take on the military establishment. Mr. Lawson sent an e-mail message in March to Mr. Hackworthâs Web site and got a call back from an associate there in minutes, he said. That e-mail message would put Mr. Lawson in touch with the CBS News program "60 Minutes II" and help set in motion events that led to the public disclosure of the graphic photographs and an international crisis for the Bush administration. It is still not entirely clear who leaked the photos and how they got into the hands of a "60 Minutes II" producer. What is clear, however, is that the furor over the photos is unlikely to dissipate any time soon...
The irony, Mr. Lawson said, is that the public spectacle might have been avoided if the military and the federal government had been responsive to his claims that his nephew was simply following orders. Mr. Lawson said he sent letters to 17 members of Congress about the case earlier this year, with virtually no response, and that he ultimately contacted Mr. Hackworthâs Web site out of frustration, leading him to cooperate with a consultant for "60 Minutes II." "The Army had the opportunity for this not to come out, not to be on 60 Minutes," he said. "But the Army decided to prosecute those six G.I.âs because they thought me and my family were a bunch of poor, dirt people who could not do anything about it. But unfortunately, that was not the case." So, let me get this straight... the pictures were published and the scandal broke because the Army insisted on prosecuting some abusive prison guards rather than letting them go? I guess itâs really true that no good deed goes unpunished.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
05/08/2004 7:11:32 PM ||
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#1
Hackworth hmmmmm.
I get the same flesh crawl about him that
I get about John Walsh.
The photos were a staged event, I'm assuming, so the photo taker was not just some guy passing by. Somebody had an idea on what was going to take place.
By what I read the photos were then quickly(?) released to the troops via e-mail.
But we still don't know who took the pics, who's idea to take the pics, or who released the pics.
#3
Hackworth does seem to have a huge chip on his shoulder and a pretty limited line of vision - i.e., his world seems to start & end with ragging on the military brass.
#4
The irony, Mr. Lawson said, is that the public spectacle might have been avoided if the military and the federal government had been responsive to his claims that his nephew was simply following orders.
That's not a defense. Lawson's kid is still a criminal, no matter who told him to do what.
"The Army had the opportunity for this not to come out, not to be on 60 Minutes," he said. "But the Army decided to prosecute those six G.I.âs because they thought me and my family were a bunch of poor, dirt people who could not do anything about it. But unfortunately, that was not the case."
What an ass. "Boo hoo! I'm getting dissed, so I'm going to release classified information and jeopardize the war effort. Boo hoo!"
What Lawson's done is ramp the outrage over this into a fever. How does he feel knowing that because of his "whistle blowing", serious people are recommending his kid be sent to the firing squad?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/08/2004 23:36 Comments ||
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#5
Robert: Well, they could be trying to create a huge uproar in hopes that it would enable them to plead "undue command influence," which Donald Sensing has been writing about. Although whether they'll be able to do this if the information gets traced back to their defense attorneys is something I don't know.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
05/08/2004 23:44 Comments ||
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#6
The irony, Mr. Lawson, is that your family IS a bunch of dirt people who can't do anything about your son coming to trial because the Army would rather suffer the humiliation it has than submit to your blackmail. The fruit didn't fall far from the tree. I hope you can get adjoining cells.
As for "undue command influence" the more I've thought about it, the more I suspect that may be one of the liberties that gets curtailed in wartime like being able to get on an airplane with your shoes tied. Whoever did the deed will do the time.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
05/08/2004 23:57 Comments ||
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I want you to step back for a moment and imagine the president of the United States begging forgiveness from the leader of a country which picks up the check for Sunni terrorist operations all over the world; which has been working for decades to spread Wahhabism to mosques and madrassas on every continent; which itself engages in interrogation tactics far more draconian than the ones American troops are being accused of (a point Friedman acknowledges); which produced fifteen of the nineteen degenerates who knocked down the World Trade Center; and which, as recently as last week, blamed "Zionists" for its various chickens having recently come home to roost. Go on, imagine it...
Itâs the ideology, stupid, and groveling to the very same thugs our campaign in Iraq is designed to eventually eliminate isnât going to change that ideology in any way except possibly to strengthen it. Friedman would do well to read his own op-ed page on this point, as thereâs a piece in there today by a Muslim who lives in West Virginia that puts the lie to his whole argument. The leadership of her mosque was taken over by a bunch of Wahhabist shitheels. The author wonders why moderates like herself donât stand up to them and notes ominously that "Americans need not look elsewhere to hear hate-filled rhetoric preached by fundamentalists. It resounds in our own back yards." Yet Tom Friedman would have the president of the United States walk up to this same bunch of miscreants and tell them, "Iâm so sorry about Abu Ghraib."
Posted by: ed ||
05/08/2004 6:06:13 AM ||
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Once again, members of the US Senate showed that grasping the big picture is not their strong suit. When the defense secretary made his much-anticipated appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee--as newspapers (including The New York Times) and Democrats called for his scalp--the members of this panel focused on what Rumsfeld knew when about the Abu Ghraib prison abuse inquiry and why he failed to brief Congress on the scandal to come before 60 Minutes published the shocking photos. I love it when the left complains about why someone doesnât do something. Kinda begs the question why doesnât the left move to Europe.
These are not unimportant points. Rumsfeld and his lieutenants do need to explain the investigative and corrective actions that did and did not occur, as well as the Pentagonâs failure to notify fully Congress and George W. Bush that it had a mess--perhaps a lethal PR nightmare--on its hands. (When NBC News reporter Jim Miklaszewski asked a Pentagon official about the soldiers alleged to have committed the abuse, the official replied, "You mean the six morons who lost the war?") Good point Dave. That is exactly what this is about: public relations. The military is uniformly bad at PR. They always have been. And the mere fact they are involved in this âpublic relations scandalâ tells me by this time next week, the gay pron you in the media love to distribute free will be as dim a memory as the last time Clinton told the truth.
But the question is not only how Rumsfeld and the Pentagon responded to the accusations confirmed by the Taguba report, which was completed on March 20; it is, why didnât the Pentagon take steps to prevent the abuses documented in that report when it had ample warning about abusive practices there and in other military facilities? The horrific acts that have triggered the current controversy transpired between October and December of last year. But before these acts became the subject of an inquiry--which was prompted by the report of a courageous whistleblower in January--there were indications that prisoners were being abused at detention facilities throughout Iraq. Between March and November 2003, the International Committee of the Red Cross inspected these facilities and found numerous violations. A confidential report the ICRC prepared--which was disclosed in todayâs Wall Street Journal-- noted that Red Cross inspectors had uncovered "excessive and disproportionate use of force against persons deprived of their liberty resulting in death or injury." The report cited the use of "physical or psychological coercion during interrogation to secure information" which "in some cases was tantamount to torture." It noted that prisoners were beaten, paraded naked with womenâs underwear over their heads, photographed in humiliating positions. The ICRC maintains that it began telling U.S. officials about the abuse of Iraqi prisoners--in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere--shortly after the beginning of the war. I see a crack. Tantamount to torture. Circumstances at work forces me to listen to NPR and leftists like you with your constant defeatist remarks. That is tantamount to torture and I havenât done anything. Do yourself a favor and stop parsing words. Write plainly and stop trying to make this look like a major scandal.
Why didnât Rumsfeldâs Pentagon respond to these warnings? Thatâs what the senators should have demanded to know. But they didnât. The ICRC reports were not the only sign that the Bush administration needed to pay close attention to the treatment of Iraqi prisoners and detainees. A year ago, the Sun newspaper in England disclosed the existence of photographs showing British soldiers abusing Iraqi POWs. In one shot, it appeared that an Iraqi prisoner was being forced to engage in oral sex. In another, a man stripped to his waist was tied to a fork-lift and suspended high in the air; a soldier driving the fork-lift was laughing. A third picture showed two naked Iraqi men in what seemed to be a coercive sexual position. These photos involved British soldiers, but they should have sounded alarm bells for the U.S. military. And in October and November 2003, Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder, provost marshal of the Army, investigated conditions at the prisons in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib and found that the guards had not been trained adequately. But Dave, you failed to note this incident was a commanderâs loss of control of her troops and how serious a matter that is in time of war.
Oh wait.
You donât know anything about the military and the relation of command to its mission, do you? If that is the case, and it is clear from you quoting non-military sources only, what gives you the right to report on this incident? You sure as hell donât care for the mission. But you do care for folks you would most likely never invite to your supper table.
The Pentagon ought to have responded to these warnings. Given that a secondary reason for the war was to bring democracy and human rights to Iraq--after taking care of the supposed threat posed by weapons of mass destruction that, it turns out, did not exist--the U.S. military had an obligation to go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that the conduct of U.S. troops were in keeping with the values the Bush administration claimed as justification for the war. Rumsfeld deserves criticism more for ignoring this responsibility than for his handling (or non-handling) of the Taguba report. Before the Senate committee, he said that no one in the U.S. military condoned or permitted "these things" to take place. Perhaps--though there are reports that military intelligence officers did ask the troops in the prisons to "soften up" detainees for interrogations. But Rumsfeld cannot say that he and others made sure that "these things" would not happen. The Pentagon is trying to win a war, Dave. Investigating every cry of ICRC makes takes time and money. Those resouces need to be directed to planting jihadis, not making common cause with these bastards. I am sorry those prisoners got mistreated. But the commander was relieved and the troops will be disciplined. That is enough for me. If you want heads on a pike, maybe you should team up with Kimmie the Nork. I hear the NKPA holds drumheads. That will get you off, right, Dave?
His dereliction of duty in this regard is part of his overall failure--and that of the entire administration--to plan and prepare adequately for the war and the occupation. The abuse scandal has revealed that American troops were not adequately prepped for running prisons. In an interview with the British Guardian, Torin Nelson, a private contractor who worked at Abu Ghraib, maintained that "cooks and truck drivers" were put to work as interrogators at the prison. He claimed that "many of the detainees at the prison are actually innocent of any acts against the coalition and are being held until the bureaucracy there can go through their cases and verify their need to be released." He depicted a detention system that overall has been a disaster. No, Dave, a disaster is soemthing that hurts the war effort, for example, leftists like you trying to create a mountain out of this baby mole hill springs to mind.
Pundits and citizens have expressed shock at the photos of abuse. But, sadly, such excesses come with the territory. There are prison scandals in the United States on a regular basis--and they involve people who supposedly are fully trained. Troops serving as guards at Abu Ghraib were trained as military police, who know how to arrest and detain people, not how to function as prison guards. And if abuse routinely happens in civilian prisons, it is not surprising that such awful acts would occur in prisons in a war zone. I bet a thousand to one a helluva lot more made light of the gay pron displayed worldwide than were shocked. You should check with folks outside your leftist readership.
The Bush administration claimed it could bring democracy, human rights and freedom to Iraq via invasion and occupation. But that means it has to advance these values as it engages in military and security actions that are often hard to control and tough to mount with respect for human rights and due process. War breeds brutality. (At the end of the first Persian Gulf War, a family friend in the military told me she knew of "body parts boxes" that had to be set up for departing GIs who were coming home. Before entering aircraft that would return them to the United States, U.S. soldiers had to rid themselves of trophies--ears, fingers, etc.--that had been removed from the corpses of enemy soldiers.) War is a blunt instrument; using it to export democracy and human rights is a tall order. The prison scandal demonstrates further that the Bush administration and the Pentagon marched off to war without thinking through the consequences and the challenges. Rumsfeld deserves to be grilled--if not hung out to dry--for that. And so does his boss. Thank God, Dave. I thought you were going to trot out the time-worn âexit strategyâ. Youâre good at that, right, Dave? You leftists donât know how to conduct a war, but you sure as hell know how to get out of one, absent the only decent way: total victory.
Posted by: badanov ||
05/08/2004 9:02:58 AM ||
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John Kerry has been urging President Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld, but one of his Senate colleagues is going even further, the Gannett News Service reports:
Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., a key Democratic supporter of President Bushâs decision to wage war on Iraq, said the president must demonstrate that he understands the "nature of the damage" caused by the abuse incident by "determining who is responsible, no matter how far up the chain of command this goes."
Once those people are identified, Biden said, Bush must "demand the resignations for whoever is involved in this policy, and that includes Lord God Almighty himself. It includes anybody involved."
Somehow it had escaped our notice that the Lord God Almighty serves at the pleasure of the president.
#2
God hasn't had hair implants...ergo Sen. Biden is more sophisticated. I rest my case ....*cough*
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 18:49 Comments ||
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#3
Biden's an idiot.
Posted by: Halfass Pete ||
05/08/2004 19:17 Comments ||
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#4
Halfass Pete - To show you what kind of idiot Biden is, I found that photo on his OWN SENATE WEBSITE. Kofi is in the kind of trouble he is , and Joey B has that photo in a place of honor.
#6
LOL - I am - Sr. Cabernet Sauvignon from Central california coast, Mr. Boneless Top Sirloin on the BBQ, and Dr. Boxing on HBO gave a prescription - I intend to follow it to a T
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 21:23 Comments ||
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#7
Joe never had an original thought and he still doesn't.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono ||
05/08/2004 21:54 Comments ||
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.... [Scott] Gregory testified he saw McVeigh being arrested along Interstate 35 north of Oklahoma City about an hour after the April 19, 1995, bombing. At the same time, a truck driven by a man wearing a red and white baseball cap backed up near McVeighâs 1977 Mercury Marquis, Gregory said. "I thought that was so odd," Gregory said. "I thought, âWhat an idiot. Why are you stopping to talk to that police officer when heâs obviously in a high-stress situation?"â ....
Joan Rairden, then an assistant manager at a McDonaldâs restaurant in Junction City, Kansas, said McVeigh came into the restaurant on April 13 or 14 with a group of people, including a dark-skinned man with slicked-back black hair. Rairden said the group piled out of a Ryder truck that was pulling a car shortly before midnight. Three people came into the restaurant, including McVeigh and the dark-skinned man, who she said had large lips and a wide nose. McVeigh went into the restroom, Rairden said, and the other man placed an order. McVeigh came into the restaurant with the same group during the lunch hour a few days later, she said. Rairden said she could not identify the dark-skinned man from a sketch of John Doe No. 2 that was shown to her by FBI agents after the bombing. "He was darker. It didnât look like exactly him," she said. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 10:49:40 PM ||
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My first thoughts at the news of the Abu Ghraib abuses, the Taguba Report and the Presidential mea culpa which followed was whether posterity would recall the incident in the same way the Christmas Truce in the first year of the Great War is remembered today. The last grasp at enforcing civilized standards of conduct before the brutality of the trenches coarsened men completely. The fraternization of that first December so alarmed the generals that "special precautions were taken during the Christmases of 1915, 1916 and 1917, even to the extent of actually stepping up artillery bombardments" to prevent its recurrence.
The brass didnât have to worry: it was never to be repeated. After the Somme in the following year, infantrymen on both sides filed saw-teeth into their bayonets to make the thrusts more painful. The history which remembers the Second World War as âthe Good Warâ forgets how four years of fighting transformed Allies that refused to bomb German cities in 1940 into those that planned thousand plane raids on Hamburg and Dresden in 1945 to rain incendiaries on tens of thousands of Western Europeans as policy. There were no reprimands, only medals, for the B-29 crews that incinerated 100,000 civilians in Tokyo in the raid of March 9, 1945. And the sad balance of probability is that Abu Ghraib will be displaced from the front pages by the next terrorist outrage, the next Bali, the next Madrid, the next 9/11 until we find ourselves wondering why it upset us at all.
While it is important to punish everyone responsible for the outrages at Abu Ghraib, the only effective way to stop the corrupting influences of war is to achieve victory. Japanese tourists are welcome in Asia everywhere today because the Second World War ended in 1945. And if by contrast Palestinians hand out sweets whenever a Jewish orphanage and Old Folkâs home is bombed it may be because the UN refugee camps there celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1998. If the outrages at Abu Ghraib hasten the end of war it will not have been in vain, but if they lead, as the Left most earnestly desires, to a Vietnam-like stalemate, it will be not the last but the first of many sad mileposts. ... One day Nicholas de Genovea, the Columbia professor who called for a "million Mogadishus" will understand that it means a billion dead Muslims.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 11:33:22 AM ||
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#1
Wretchard is quite the philosopher and he may well be right, as usual.
He does remind us that we're at war and "war is hell."
Our enemy doesn't scruple about how he kills us, treats our hostages and prisoners or mutilates our dead.
We should at least take heed of that.
And if we promise to abide by the Geneva Convention and ensure that POWs are treated humanely, is it too much for us to ask--just ask-- of Al Queda that they do the same for us?
It can't hurt.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/08/2004 12:29 Comments ||
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#2
Wonderful sentiment, Jen. Just one problem: Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization and not a signatory to any of the Conventions on the laws of war. They are infact illegal combatants.
Does anyone wanna try to get Al Qaeda to sign on to these things? I don't and I seriously doubt it would be militarily prudent to do so.
Al Qaeda fights without honor or rules. Our soldiers fight with both. When a tiny group goes outside that constrictive box, we discipline the doers, remove and cashier the officers and we go on to victory.
What we shouldn't do is to saddle our combatants with more, new rules after the war has begun.
Let's let the military defeat these folks first, then we can begin a national debate on how to be even nicer to crazy terrorists as we deprive them of the only thing they have consistently rejected: their own lives.
Posted by: fury one ||
05/08/2004 15:17 Comments ||
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#4
I have another take a little diferent than Belmont club.
Elite society in West (political/journos/some economic like that Soros clown) seems bunch of children with bad faith and loosing standarts.
There are an increasing disparity between Human rules(facts) and "Civilisation" rules (papers).
The default hate of western civilisation will finish one of the great achivements of that civilisation: functional countries that also granted security to their citizens.
#5
Mistreatment should be punished so the angry gal in the photos is likely to be pretty sorry she chose to work out her issues this way.
Second... These prisoners are locked up because they are Saddam's guys so excessive sympathy is like crying for Hitler's SS if they had to spend some time locked up at Auschwitz. At least these prisoners know they won't get the same bullet to the back of the head they dealt out with such frequency...
Third... Considering the misogynist nature of many excesses underpublicized in this culture I'd say the Islamic world could use some pictures of a woman soldier... not a woman in a burkha... not a woman with genital mutilation... not a woman beaten up... not a woman slaughtered for "honor"... so help me out here...
I think these photos would discourage the misogynist Islamic terrorists just as General 'blackjack' Pershing stopped the Islamics by burying them with pigs...
After all... what could be worse to them then to be paraded around by a woman soldier?
Can we stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and remember the hysteria of the last three yearsâand then learn something from it? What did we do to deserve September 11? Cannot we provide a Marshall Plan for the Middle East? Who let our guard downâwho became paranoid and passed the Patriot Act? Shouldnât we at least listen to what bin Laden is saying? Why kill innocent civilians in Afghanistan? The British and Russians failed and so will we. The peaks are too high; the Northern Alliance is a sham. We canât fight during Ramadan. There are too few troops. After four weeks, letâs face it: we are in a Vietnam quagmire. Who let bin Laden and Mullah Omar escape? Consensual government will never work with these people. We murdered tens of thousands of innocent Afghans. The country is no better off than before. Canât we get NATO or the UN into Kabul? Are our air-dropped food packages deliberately made to look like cluster bombsâand laced as well with fatty peanut-butter and jelly?
Who are these neocons? Wasnât the invasion cooked-up years ago for the Likud party? Donât preempt or be unilateral in Iraqâbut who screwed up in not preempting before 9-11? If we strike Saddam Hussein there will be millions of refugees. Thousands of Americans will die. Moderate governments will fall. We will kill millions of Iraqis. The oil fields will go up in smoke. We want only cheap gasâwe will cause gas to skyrocket if we go in. Pay the poor Turksâdonât be blackmailed by them. There are far too few troops. It will be a bloodbathâit was a bullying walkover. Our troops will be gassed; where is the gas? The sandstorm has ruined our momentum; we are in a quagmire. We will lose 3,000 troops taking Baghdad. The coalition is a sham; donât insult Bulgaria. We protected oil ministries while they looted 180,000 precious objects in the museum. Why did he strut on the aircraft carrier? Why canât we find Saddamâwhy humiliate him with a dental exam? Was it really necessary to show the corpses of his sons? Why were they embalmed? Why isnât there more electric power? Be careful not to antagonize Sadrâwho let Sadr get out of control? We are losing Afghanistan while we fight in Iraq. Rid the country of the Baathists; be careful in disbanding the Iraqi army. The Shiites are our friendsâthe Shiites are fanatics. Stay loyal to the Kurds; the Kurds are grasping troublemakers. More troops are needed. We need more Iraqis on the street or more of the UN or soldiers from Muslim countries or NATO to the rescue.
Do we remember the revolving door of hysterical critics who have periodically weighed inâa Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Norman Mailer, Alice Walker, Barbara Streisand, Al Franken, Jessica Lange, Dixie Chicks, or Tim Robbins? Remember Scott Ritter, those forgettable congressmen who went to prewar Baghdad, and all the assorted Europeans who employed Nazi metaphors to demonize the invasion of Iraq? All of them did their small part to convince us that we were either crazy or immoral for taking out a mass murderer.
We have been fighting two wars all along. The easier one was against the fascists in the Middle East, whom we demolished in Afghanistan in less than eight weeks and routed in Iraq in threeâwhile rounding them up worldwide and preventing another 9-11 attack here at home. But the other challenge? Now that has been nearly impossible to win. For here in the West we are split into two widely divergent groups who disagree about almost everything that has transpired since September 11, a cataclysmic event that apparently exposed a widening fault line. On the one side are those who believe in Western exceptionalism, the unique menu of individual freedom, personal liberty, consensual government, capitalism, rationalism, free markets, religious tolerance and self-critique. These believe that Western liberalism historically has been the only hope for mankind, inasmuch as it is an evolving concept that allows criticism and change, and incorporates widely divergent religions and races under its singular cultural aegis. Western societies are multiracial, not multicultural as a Rwanda or Iraq, and thus offer divergent peoples the common ground of shared values within the now much maligned nation state.
The West is, of course, not perfect; but its sins are those of mankind, of which it seeks to ameliorate through constant moral questioning. For those who embrace these values, our miracle of security, affluence, and freedom is entirely logical, and of course allows people a level of decency and civility not found elsewhere in the worldâwhether in the commonplace that means water that doesnât make you sick, toilet paper in public restrooms, cars that halt at stop signs, and lines that queue up rather than mobs that rush, or in the exalted sense a Bill of Rights, media that are free, and officials who are accountable. This classically liberal vision is always under assault on the left by utopian totalitarians, devils who demand coercive government powers to force us to be angels, and on the right by autocratic romantics who believe in the superiority of a pure religion, race, or nationality. Thus we must defend the promise of the West and its manifestation in America almost constantly. Indeed, it seems to me in these trying times that the greater sin is for thinking people to remain silent and allow the idea of America to be slurred without retort than it is for the ignorant to so breezily condemn it. We made no claims that we were perfect, only far better than the alternative and thus had the moral obligation and indeed the power and skill to defeat our enemies and preserve our culture.
On the other hand in this great divide at home are civilizationâs discontents. Perhaps it is the comfort of Western liberality, affluence, and leisure that has made them so smug, guilt-ridden and hypercritical, inasmuch as so many are so upscale. Or maybe it is a sincere belief that American society is inherently exploitive and believes only in an equality of opportunity rather than their own far more important equality of results. Many seem aristocratic and resent a radically egalitarian popular culture that caters to those well outside the university, sophisticated media, or the general intelligentsia. After all, America pays a lot more attention to âAmerican Idolâ and an array of grasping wannabees on âThe Apprenticeâ than to Guggenheim-prize winners, university-press poets, and independent film-makers. Those who are very skeptical of what America is about seem very unlikely to go to NASCAR, listen to talk radio, join Rotary, or own a plumbing supply business.
For the last three years these most influential Americans among the intellentsia have argued that the United States either should not, or could not, retaliate against our enemies. We lacked both the power and a clear sense of moral right to take the âlawâ into our own hands and move unilaterally. And so every step of the way, in almost every 24-hour news cycle, we have seen a litany of criticisms about our ability or right to take action. Such fury has been deductiveâpreconceived distrust of the United States always looking for and finding yet another proof that we are either wrong or weak. If the former group of defenders of the West accepts the tragic view of mankindâwe are all flawed and thus seek to craft a civilization that can ameliorate our more glaring sins in the brief time allotted to us on earthâthe latter is surely therapeutic: give us enough money, education, or power and we can create a perfect person who will worship reason rather than a mere religious totem, and thus soon make the world a perfectly fair and equitable place. For some, the pantheon is a Churchill, C.S. Lewis, or Tolkien, for others Michel Foucault and Edward Said.
So now we come to the earthquake of Iraq, and the divide has become a gaping abyss. Yes, there is real controversy over troop levels, the mission and purpose of our stay, and the costs of reconstructing Iraq. But behind the conundrum rest very, very different views of what the West and indeed the world should be. This fight for the future of Iraq is turning out to be for more than a referendum on democracy in the Middle East, but rather a trial of our own culture here at home.
Posted by: tipper ||
05/08/2004 7:11:17 AM ||
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#1
He's so right. I have noticed however that there is a fracture in the left, v/s a uniting among the right.
The lefty people I sit with in the park can be easily described by this,
"Perhaps it is the comfort of Western liberality, affluence, and leisure that has made them so smug, guilt-ridden and hypercritical, inasmuch as so many are so upscale. Or maybe it is a sincere belief that American society is inherently exploitive and believes only in an equality of opportunity rather than their own far more important equality of results.
But within that description is a fracture that those on the left are being forced to confront.
Those who belong to the church of, "If I constantly point out what is wrong with America, then I am doing something about the homelessness that I see and don't like." These people are followers, they don't want to act, they just want to complain about the fact that those who do act aren't perfect. They feel their complaining absolves them of the need to act.
But the others who wanted "equity of results" are beginning to realize that calling Bush, "Hitler" will not achieve them and are now realizing that all their party seems to offer is blame. These people are beginning to get disgusted with those who defend the Clintons no matter how low they sink and want to offer excuses for genocide. They still want the utopia of socialism, but are alarmed by the hate and blame that their "compatriots" are espousing.
Meanwhile, the right begins to unite under the understanding that our freedom and security is threatened ..and we must preserve it at all cost.
Posted by: Anny Emous ||
05/08/2004 10:15 Comments ||
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#2
[Troll droppings deleted]
Posted by: Man Bites Dog TROLL ||
05/08/2004 10:58 Comments ||
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#3
Troll Sucks Dog - Beating the DIMmi drum - and his miniscule meat.
#4
You got it, Dotcom!
Only a mental midget would have the reckless lunacy to deem VDH a "f*cking idiot."
The WOT="oil-patch idiocy" and yet Genius here recommends "seizing the ME oil fields...!"
Just how would you do that, Einstein?
A full scale invasion that made Gulf War I look like a scouting expedition?
Posted by: Jen ||
05/08/2004 12:14 Comments ||
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#5
And via a "hardline" Congress, no less. Wotta 'Tard Troll.
We will kill millions of Iraqis. The oil fields will go up in smoke.
Hasn't happened yet.
Eff all if I have the time or inclination to catagorically go through this wad of drivel.
This fight for the future of Iraq is turning out to be for more than a referendum on democracy in the Middle East, but rather a trial of our own culture here at home.
Yes, our culture is on trial to see if we are determined in assuring proliferation of a morally superior model for government. Permitting Arab ascendancy is just plain suicide and nothing else.
#9
"...our culture is on trial to see if we are determined in assuring proliferation of a morally superior model for government. Permitting Arab ascendancy is just plain suicide and nothing else."
Zipper, you are such a salad for brains cretin.
It was you Liberals' "culture of apology and feeling" that got us 9/11 and this war and that made "Arab ascendancy" (and I'm still not sure what you mean by this and I'll bet you aren't either) even in our own country possible.
Posted by: Jen ||
05/08/2004 13:42 Comments ||
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#10
"Eff all if I have the time or inclination to catagorically go through this wad of drivel."
Well, if you'd just taken the time to calmly read that "wad of drivel" through to the end, you'd have figured out that the cluster of statements you took issue with were not VDH speaking for himself: they were him parodying the Leftist voices of what he rightly calls "the hysteria of the last three years"-- and with which he most emphatically disagrees.
VDH's point is that we're not only in a fight to the death against Islamofascism abroad, but in a fight against an ideology of failure and weakness here at home, as well.
Frankly, to me, that's the bigger of the two wars. And it, too, will be a fight to the death-- maybe not in our lifetimes, but sooner or later.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/08/2004 14:12 Comments ||
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#11
Dave D., you mistake my intent. I too was questioning the ostensible validity of apologist and appeasment oriented hysteria.
#12
Hey Zenster, you seem to know a lot about nihilistic suicide, I'll give you that. So, tell you what, strap on a suicide belt and we'll all chip in on plane fare to Riyadh. What do you say?
On the way you can contemplate the determining of "assuring a morally superior model for government", and tell us if its contained in that belt.
Posted by: Comment Top ||
05/08/2004 14:50 Comments ||
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#13
Harpos on the assault.
Posted by: fury two ||
05/08/2004 15:20 Comments ||
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#14
Zen, I don't understand the personal thang you and Jen have had going, and I sometimes nod in ageement with some of your points, but "a morally superior model for government" is asinine on its face and disgusting in its implications. I'll take Sharia when I'm dead, and there'll be dead "true believers" scattered all around me. I owe my children that much. I think Islam doesn't really want to awaken the dragon that will consume them - armed and willingly suicidal 'Merkins would turn Islam to the "extinct" history pages, and deservedly so.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 15:33 Comments ||
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#15
#14 Frank G, its very simple, z is a pimple on the backside of humanity; and sometimes you must interrupt the important work we adults are doing, and reach around, and POP IT!.
He's the kind of isolated, suicide-watch, psychotic, loser-teen that Madeleine Albright would like to wrap her arms around, just to restore his self esteem. If she only knew about him! Oh! the humanity.
Posted by: Comment Top ||
05/08/2004 16:30 Comments ||
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#16
Zen, I don't understand the personal thang you and Jen have had going, and I sometimes nod in ageement with some of your points, but "a morally superior model for government" is asinine on its face and disgusting in its implications.
Frank G, an obsessive compulsive personality disorder or miscalculated dosage are the only explanations I can tender for the continuous torrent of lies and filth being spewed by my star detractor. In order to stop consuming precious bandwidth at this site, I have resolved to avoid any further interaction as it only seems to encourage deep sea fishing from beneath a well known bridge. Sadly, free speech appears to be a foreign concept for some types.
As to democracy being a "morally superior model for government," I have begun to believe that democracy (in the form of elected representation) is a fundamental human right. There is a distinct lack of validity to theocracy that essentially mandates free people to eradicate it. Any amalgam of church and state is inherently tainted by preferentiality and intrinsic repression of minority views.
If only by comparison, democracy is certainly morally superior to any existing theocracy. That was the essential gist of my statement. Does this clear things up? If not, please feel free to expand upon your objections.
#19
"proliferation of a morally superior model for government"
No, Aris, but using the word "proliferation" to describe the spead of democracy is awkward and odd.
99.99% of English speakers wouldn't do it.
Maybe Zen's foreign!
But he's still focused on nukes if he's using the "p" word.
#21
4doo> "99.99% of English speakers wouldn't do"
Unless they were intentionally using it as a parallel?
Sorry, but the rabid attack that Zenster has just experienced for something he never said by people that did not even bother to read his words reminds me all too well of the rabid attacks I've often experienced here for things I never said by people who did not even bother to read my words.
#22
re-reading, I stand corrected, apologies Z and AK
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 17:24 Comments ||
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#23
Aris Katsaris, thank you very much for carefully reading my words. I'm one of those dangerous individuals who uses polysyllables with incautious abandon, so I'm sort of used to being misinterpreted. Still, it's nice to know someone is paying (positive) attention. I've already witnessed similar attacks upon yourself here and will do my best to protest them when they come to my notice. (I shall think of you whilst spooning homemade tzatziki sauce over my gyros this evening.)
Frank G., your gracious apology is cheerfully accepted. I was admittedly rather mystified by your objections. I will trust that we now agree on this matter.
#24
Pardon me but we're not here to have a idiotarian lovefest.
Don't you know there's a war on?
Thank God VDH doesn't forget it.
I guess that's why he consults with the President.
v. pro·lif·er·at·ed, pro·lif·er·at·ing, pro·lif·er·ates
v. intr.: To grow or multiply by rapidly producing new tissue, parts, cells, or offspring.
To increase or spread at a rapid rate: fears that nuclear weapons might proliferate.
v. tr.: To cause to grow or increase rapidly.
---------------------
Any negative connotations borne by the word "proliferation" arise from its colloquial usage and not from some inherent secondary meaning. I rather enjoy thinking that proliferation of democracy is one of the finest ways to prevent further illicit spread of nuclear technology.
#26
Ip: the quote I misunderstood was: "Yes, our culture is on trial to see if we are determined in assuring proliferation of a morally superior model for government"
He meant democracy as a morally superior model - I was 180° off on my initial take. You don't see that on rereading? Idiotarian lovefest? Kiss my ass...
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 17:57 Comments ||
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#27
Kiss your ass? No, thank you.
If Zenster wants to chat with his like-minded pals, let him do it somewhere else or he should pay Fred a nice contribution for taking up his bandwidth with his inanity.
This thread should be about Victor Davis Hanson's very insightful views on the war we're currently fighting.
#28
Idiotarian - nobody here disagrees with Hanson.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 18:07 Comments ||
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#29
by the way - I Paypalled Fred (who was incapacitated) $50 for rantwidth...how much did you pay, loinjemmings@freelivrs.net?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 18:32 Comments ||
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#30
Zenster> Mmmm, tzatziki... :-)
Frank G> No harm done -- you've always been one of the most reasonable posters of this forum, and everyone can slip occasionally. As for idiotarian, I guess it's more that he doesn't *care* about what was said, when he gets the opportunity to insult instead.
Posted by: Man Bites Dog ||
05/08/2004 19:08 Comments ||
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#32
gotta have better bait when trolling, asshat, MSD
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 19:19 Comments ||
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#33
Jen, seizing the Gulf oil fields would be straight forward. They are not that big a geographic area.
BTW Zenster started out a troll but seems to be getting converted. He's also a pompous ass! But he does seem to have taken my advice and bought a dictionary. Now all he has to do is understand that when you put words together they have to mean something as a whole.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/08/2004 20:27 Comments ||
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#34
You would only want to take the SA oil fields if you really wanted to bring things to a head. It's just not our national psyche to do it. A blockade though...?
Would the world boycot US oil production from these fields (China, France, Russia?) Those guys would sell their mothers for a profit!
Would just stopping production from SA fields be a positive in the WoT. Was ExPres. Jimmy Carter correct that perhaps we should put on another sweater?
I still think that a major defunding of Arab jihadies has to happen and that will need an answer to the petrol $.
#37
VDH: the new Reverend Moon. That wipe is defending the $150,000,000,000 squandered on the Iraq bill-of-goods. That makes him a F%&$ing idiot, just like his human doormat defenders.
Solution: a hardline Congress, that resists oil-patch idiocy and seizes the Middle East oil fields.
Posted by: Man Bites Dog TROLL ||
05/08/2004 10:58 Comments ||
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Security threats have threatened the development of energy in several Middle East states. The Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a report that at least five Middle East countries have been affected by conflict and regional tension. The report, entitled "The Geopolitics and Security Dimensions of Middle Eastern and North African Energy Exports," identified these states as Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. "None of these tensions and conflicts poses immediate threats to the flow of MENA [Middle East, North Africa] oil exports," the report, authored by Anthony Cordesman, said. "But they have affected the development of energy supply in Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, and new outbreaks of violence could occur in many MENA states with little or no warning." The report termed the southern Gulf states as relatively stable amid the resolution of many of their border disputes in recent years. But Cordesman warned of Sunni-Shiâite violence in Bahrain, Al Qaidaâs campaign against Saudi Arabia and the heavy dependency on foreign workers in most Gulf Cooperation Council states.
The conference of Arab parties, which proceedings wound up Thursday in Amman, proclaimed May 15th of every year a day of anger out of solidarity with the Palestinian people and support to its rights for freedom and independence. The conference urged Arab parties, trade unions and institutions to organise activities and events to express the Arab nationâs attachment to the Palestiniansâ fundamental rights, in particular their right to return to their legitimate land. The participants also decided to work out a memorandum to be submitted to the coming Arab Summit. The conference also took the decision to create a parliamentary league of Arab parties to defend freedoms and national causes, as well as to hold, next 10 August in Khartoum, the 3rd Arab partiesâ youth camp.
#1
Jeezus H. Christ! These people parody themselves.
Here's a clue, Jordan. The "Palestinians" have a state; it's called "Jordan." The fact that you don't want these murdering, whining scum, even though they're your brothers, speaks volume about them. And you.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/08/2004 22:41 Comments ||
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#2
the people who live in "Palestine" are called Egyptians, Lebanese, Jordanians, and "Saudi laborers"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 23:29 Comments ||
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#3
"Day of Anger?" Heck, why not just have a whole Religion of Anger?
Posted by: Old Guy ||
05/09/2004 1:52 Comments ||
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Philippine officials are warning of a violent backlash as opinion polls point to a comfortable victory for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in Monday's national elections.
The National Security Adviser, Roberto Gonzales, has claimed opposition activists are plotting an uprising to sabotage the election and stop Dr Arroyo being returned to power.
But supporters of the leading opposition presidential candidate, Fernando Poe, have accused the Government of scaremongering and preparing to rig the election.
The latest survey published by Pulse Asia this week shows Dr Arroyo - who was trailing Mr Poe in the polls for months - pulling further ahead with 37 per cent against 31 per cent for the former action movie hero.
Victory would give Dr Arroyo another six years as president and the mandate she has coveted since being drafted to power by a popular uprising in early 2001 that topped President Joseph Estrada, now on trial for corruption.
Despite her patchy record in office, Dr Arroyo has run a slick and effective campaign, while Mr Poe's campaign has been undermined by divisions within the opposition ranks, lack of funding and the failure of the populist political novice to articulate credible policy alternatives.
Dr Arroyo's prospects have been boosted by the late endorsement of two national religious movements said to influence the voting of millions. But the powerful Catholic Church, which played a vital role in toppling the Estrada administration, has refused to take sides.
The elections will also choose a new Congress, replace half the Senate and decide thousands of provincial and municipal posts.
At a news conference on Thursday, Mr Gonzales - a senior cabinet member - said opposition activists, including retired and serving army officers, were plotting to wreck the likely victory by Dr Arroyo with a campaign of bombings and civil unrest.
He said the plot was designed to paralyse the economy, stir a popular uprising and persuade the armed forces and the international community "to recognise the opposition candidate as the legitimate president."
But a statement issued by the opposition accused the Government of conducting a smear campaign and "setting the stage for massive election cheating."
The Senate Speaker, Jose Venezia, also warned earlier this week of a "Madrid scenario", in which terrorist groups angered by Dr Arroyo's pro-US policies would stage attacks in Manila similar to the March 11 train bombings that presaged the election defeat of Spain's conservative government.
Mr Venezia, an ally of Dr Arroyo, claimed intelligence agencies had evidence that "local extremists under foreign principals" were plotting a series of "spectacular" attacks.
"It appears there is a move to perpetrate terrorist acts before or during the elections," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2004 12:29:10 AM ||
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#1
This article eerily echoes the US campaign season's shrill tenor. These will occur on May 10th...
Here's the link to the world Election Guide:
http://www.ifes.org/eguide/2004.htm
#2
Arroyo's reelection is of great overall significance. Out of the entire field of candidates, she alone has the education to steer the Philippines through the perilous course confronting it.
As the sole Christian nation in Asia, her country faces unique and substantial challenges. The MILF and Abu Sayyaf represent extremely destabilizing influences upon the country's already reeling economy. Agrarian reform, a key issue in overcoming critical socio-economic logjams that have rendered recent progress moribund requires a comprehensive understanding of political issues which Arroyo's opponent, Fernando J. Poe (called "FJP"), has absolutely no experience with.
Visions of renewed cronyism akin to that which prevailed in the Marcos and Estrada eras have already sent jitters through the Philippine stock market and affected currency exchange rates as well. Speculation abounds with rumors of military coups fueled by potential popular dissatisfaction with a FJP loss. Sadly, political patronage is still a fact of life and misconduct by the First Gentleman has served to damage public perception and hobble the effectiveness of Macapagal's administration.
None of this outweighs the Philippines' dire need for skilled leadership at present. Poe does not hold forth a lot of promise regarding political reform nor does he evoke much confidence for those abroad regarding the war on terror. The readily anticipated cronyism resulting from Poe's election could just as easily compromise military operations and internal security as trapos sought once again to wet their beaks in the government trough.
Arroyo currently enjoys a solid 7% lead over her rival, Poe. Let all of us hope that she prevails in the coming election. Failure by her to regain the presidency could bode ill in many quarters besides just Asia.
Zenster get your facts right. There are a number of Christian majority states in Asia, Including S. Korea, Singapore, East Timor, PNG and of course Russia, Georgia and Armenia.
Otherwise this is the Sydney Morning Herald, and although the largest circulation daily in Australia, its recent editorial policy has verged on the bizzare.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/08/2004 6:41 Comments ||
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#4
Phil B, By "Asia" I was referring to the "mini-dragons" of the Pacific rim. It is far from clear that Christianity is dominant in the Oriental countries you mention. While up to date statistics are not easy to locate, the percentages found in the those I provide here tend to reflect the more pervasive breakdowns among other East Asian populations. Perhaps you might provides some cites for your assertions as well.
According to government statistics, 42.6 percent or more than 17 million of South Korea's 1985 population professed adherence to an organized religious community. There were at least 8 million Buddhists (about 20 percent of the total population), about 6.5 million Protestants (16 percent of the population), some 1.9 million Roman Catholics (5 percent), nearly 500,000 people who belonged to Confucian groups (1 percent), and more than 300,000 others (0.7 percent).
In 1988 the [Singapore]Ministry of Community Development reported the religious distribution to be 28.3 percent Buddhist, 18.7 percent Christian, 17.6 percent no religion, 16 percent Islam, 13.4 percent Daoist, 9 percent Hindu, and 1.1 percent other religions (Sikhs, Parsis, Jews). The Christian proportion of the population nearly doubled between 1980 and 1988, growing from 10 percent to nearly 19 percent. The growth of Christianity and of those professing no religion was greatest in the Chinese community, with most of the Christian converts being young, well-educated people in secure white-collar and professional jobs. Most converts joined evangelical and charismatic Protestant churches worshiping in English. About one-third of the members of Parliament were Christians, as were many cabinet ministers and members of the ruling party, which was dominated by well-educated, Englishspeaking Chinese. The association of Christianity with elite social and political status may have helped attract some converts.
[Singapore]religious affiliation: Buddhist 28%; Muslim 15%; Christian 13%; Taoist 13%; Hindu 4%; other (non religious included) 27%
East Timor and Papua New Guinea are not major players on the rim and will not be for some time. Having been to Armenia for its celebration of 1,400 years of Christianity, it seems much more a part of southern Europe than Asia per se.
Apart from your contentions about Asiatic religious statistics, what do you think of the actual issues facing the Philippines, Phil B? Disputing a peripheral point does not disprove the bulk of my observations.
#8
sorry about the LOL! - but I've been dvorced..good luck, everyone....you all will need it :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 17:19 Comments ||
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#9
Actually Zenster is right about Singapore. Its one of those situations where direct experience is misleading. I live in Singapore and almost every Singaporean I know who professes a religion is a Christian, but thats because middle class english speaking chinese are predominantly christian. Heres a link if you are interested.
Posted by: Phil B ||
05/08/2004 20:45 Comments ||
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Women are required to cover their hair and to wear either a chador cloak or an overcoat, called a manteau, every time they go out, and these are meant to be black and shapeless. But the latest fashion here in Shiraz, in central Iran, is light, tight and sensual. Unlike Lynndie Englandâs outfit.
"There are some manteaus with slits on the sides up to the armpits," said Mahmoud Salehi, a 25-year-old manteau salesman. "And then there are the `commando manteaus,â with ties on the legs to show off the hips and an elastic under the breasts to accentuate the bust." They should be sending these commandos to Iraq. Theyâd probably be more effective.
Worse, from the point of view of hard-line mullahs, young women in such clothing arenât getting 74 lashes any more â theyâre getting dates. As the decadent Disney cartoon says, "Love conquers all."
"Parents canât defeat children," Mr. Salehi mused. "Children always defeat their parents." At last, a universal truth
And thatâs what Iranâs baby boomers, a wave of 18 million people 15 to 25 years old, are doing. They will transform their country, just as baby boomers in the West changed America and Europe. I donât think Iranâs theocracy can survive them, for Iâve never been to a country where young people seem more frustrated. The ultimate weapon against the Mullahs, Boomers.
The regimeâs problem is that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini exhorted Iranians to have more children, and they responded â today, 60 percent of the countryâs population was born after his Iranian revolution. And these young people are determining social mores and carving out a small zone of freedom for themselves. Perhaps sime is on our side! snip
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
05/08/2004 1:09:47 PM ||
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Re: Perhaps time is on our side...
It is a race between natural internal forces, the Mad Mullahs' Nuke dreams, and external intervention - which seems to have the US General Election as one of its major modifiers...
Can anyone here picture anybody besides Bush allowing (Iraq overflights) or materially assisting (air-air refueling, etc) Israel -- or taking the lead -- to decap the Mullahs, Rev Guard thugs, and Guardian Council?
#2
The mullahs are losing control because this current young generation considers them irrelvant.
Like when the seeds of destruction of the Soviet Union were sewn when a Georgian non ethnic Russian ruled over Russia with no ethnic ties except by marriage, so will it be that the seeds of demise of the Islamic Republic will be due to the edicts of an English-Pakistani "holy-man" whose only ethnic ties to Iran are by marriage!
#3
I work with several other Iranian engineers - mostly Civil, sent over before the fall of the Shah, and they convey a deep societal cynicism from their families and friends still there. There's a tipping point coming, I hope we don't miss it...
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 19:01 Comments ||
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Two girls at the centre of a lengthy international custody battle have returned to Belgium from Iran to be reunited with their mother. Sarah Pourhashemi, six and Yasmine 15, say they were taken to Iran by their father after their parentsâ divorce. They escaped and spent five months in the Belgian embassy in Tehran before a diplomatic deal enabled their return.
Reports in Iran and Belgium say an international arrest warrant for the girlsâ father Salami is to be lifted. Mr Pourhashemi took the two girls to Iran from Belgium in August 2003, after taking them for a week-long holiday in Greece. A Belgian court issued an international warrant for the fatherâs arrest a month later and ruled the mother, Zarah, to be the sole custodian of the children.
But Iranian law does not recognise dual nationality and said that, as Iranians, the girls should be in the custody of their father. Their return follows a visit to Brussels on Tuesday by Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, who said that a final decision on their fate was imminent after successful negotiations between the two governments. .... Details of the settlement were not announced.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 12:46:22 AM ||
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#1
We can only hope that these two young women were not mutilated while in their father's custody.
#2
The father must have exactly zero connections and a very low standing (he's gotta be on one of their "lists", heh) with the Mad Mullah "government" - none of the Islamic-dominated states has ever before agreed to such a deal because it violates some Islamic pillars and wall studs and door jambs. Amazing - and unique as far as I've ever heard. Lucky girls.
from Frontpagemag.com / EFL and Fair Use
By Shawn Macomber
May 7, 2004
Symptoms of a sick culture are not difficult to find in the Middle East. State-sponsored (and popularly embraced) anti-Semitism, violent fundamentalism and barbaric treatment of women and minorities are endemic in the region. For many years now the world has been waiting for a generational break between the fundamentalists and a new intellectual class borne of increased access to information and technology longing for a society based on acceptance, truth, and diversity.
As satellite dishes becoming more prevalent throughout the Middle East, Western pop culture and news are becoming the hook that tugs at the heart strings of those who hope to be free but have only known oppression. (Look at polls of young Iraniansâ positive views of America, for example.) That success has been countered by the dark forces of Islamic fundamentalism.
There are suicide bomber trading cards, video games where children can control a âmartyrâ on a mission to kill Jews, and the militant Lebanese group Hezbollah even has itâs own satellite channel, al-Manar (âThe Beaconâ), founded in June 1991. One of the Syrian/Iranian funded networkâs newest and most popular programs is a game show called, âThe Mission.â Contestants answer questions about the American-Zionist conspiracy for points. For every question a contestant answers correctly, they are allowed to move another step closer to the goal of Jerusalem on a large map. Sixty points lands a contestant on the holy city while the Hezbollah anthem plays in the background. The refrain âJerusalem is ours and we are coming to itâ rings out as the contestant collects a $3,000 check.
ââThe Missionâ follows a standard game show format, with contestants quizzed about history, literature, geography, science and the arts,â according to a recent New York Times article. âBut at least half the questions revolve around Palestinian or Islamic history, and at least one contestant is usually Palestinian.â Throughout the show, the host praises the exploits of suicide bombers and pleads for viewers to keep the faith that one day Arabs will ârecaptureâ the land stolen by the Jews.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is about the most kind-hearted programming the channel has to offer. ...more...
The Hate Culture, subset of the Shame & Blame Culture, hits the airwaves. Commercial time is prolly cheap - but Iâm sure you have to pass a litmus test to prove your ideological purity.
BTW, you can watch the official PA TV here (RealMedia):
http://www.psctv.com:8080/ramgen/encoder/live.rm
Posted by: .com ||
05/08/2004 12:23:19 AM ||
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Hezbollah has a TV network?
I wonder if they have a radio network, too. Err America is looking for more stations - sounds like a perfect fit.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/08/2004 0:28 Comments ||
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Turkish villagers have boycotted an imam who accused women of indecency simply for travelling on the same buses as men. Since being appointed to the mosque in the village of Kotanduzu a year ago, Mustafa Platin has also ordered women to don full chadors and instructed their husbands to force them to remain indoors if they refused to comply. The imamâs behaviour sparked a near-unprecedented rebellion. Villagers in the community perched high on a plateau in eastern Turkey have demanded his sacking and promised to boycott daily worship in the local mosque until a replacement imam is found.
Leyla Karsli, a 35-year-old mother of six, makes an unlikely temptress. She is shrouded in a headscarf concealing her mouth and buried in a shapeless, ankle-length gown. She was none the less a target for the imam. "He even wanted these ones to cover their heads," said Mrs Karsli, pulling her six-year-old twin daughters close to her. The imamâs superiors in Erzurum, the provincial capital, have ordered the cleric to undergo a series of medical examinations to shield him from prosecution.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 12:22:08 AM ||
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#1
A series of MEDICAL examinations.
Do we really want to go there?
#2
What? Don't they have segregated buses?!!??!! Barbarians! Infidels! In Saudi Arabia, the correct model for Islamic Society, all of the buses have a front section for "Single Men" and a back section for "Families" - just as they do in restaurants which also have separate entrances, as do their moskkks. Imam Platin should be commended, not berated. It's tough being such a Holy Man out in the backwaters of Islam.
... After the session, Graham told reporters outside the chamber that there will be additional allegations of "rape and murder," apparently related to the content of the videos, according to NBC News. ....
"There was a special womenâs section. There were young boys in there. There were things done to young boys that were videotaped. Itâs much worse," Hersh said during an appearance on Fox News Tuesday.
NBC News reported further details Friday evening, quoting unnamed sources who said that the unreleased material showed a prisoner being beaten nearly to death, an Iraqi female being raped by American soldiers and male children being raped by Iraqi guards.
The L.A. Times reported that the unreleased material includes images of at least one detainee being forced to engage in oral sex. The Washington Post and NBC News both reported that the videos include images of soldiers posing "inappropriately" with a dead body, apparently a detainee slain in prison. ....
Suhaib al-Baz, journalist for al Jazeerah television told British broadcaster ITV that the pictures were taken as part of a contest among the soldiers at the prison. "They were enjoying taking photographs of the torture. There was a daily competition to see who could take the most gruesome picture," al-Baz told ITV. "The winnerâs photo would be stuck on a wall and also put on their laptop computers as a screensaver."
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 10:42:39 PM ||
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Future Revelations in Interrogation Scandal Will Be Horrific
#3
badanov, can't you guess?
It's Col. David Hackworth--ring any bells?
Posted by: Jen ||
05/08/2004 23:28 Comments ||
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#4
I think that it is pretty clear that these are not Winter Soldier allegations.
I hope they put these perps behind bars for life. I have no sympathy for them. The damage they have done is not repairable. They are no better than Sadaam or his henchmen and they have betrayed their country and wasted the blood efforts of their commrades. They are scum.
Posted by: Anny Emous ||
05/08/2004 23:29 Comments ||
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#5
I will wait to see the pics/videos this time.
I think it is important that every video every pic be vetted as closely as possible and treated with a strong healthy dose is skepticism. I don't want, this next round, to hear a journalist say this is a pic of an American soldier performing this act without the name of the soldier and the name of the victim the date and the time, the source of the video, etc. The story had better be complete this time.
The same standard shoud apply to the press. If this is planted material, heads should roll on the journalist community as well, and I mean in the form of criminal charges as well as civil penalties. I think we need to hold everyone the same high standards of conduct our soldiers are being held to.
And you gotta wonder. Rumsfeld is talking about seeing videos and pics far worse than anything that has been released so far, but yet so has an Al Jizm reporter see some material as well.
Are they seeing the same material?
If so, how did Al Jizz see it and not release it. They love to embarass us. If the pics are real, why don't they show them?
If not, the second question applies. Why hasn't the other material not been released? Why is Al Jizz holding back? Editing the material perhaps?
All I want is to make certain, Al Qaeda productions didnt get hold of snuff porn, edited it, and planted the material beforehand. If something like that happens, I'd say we have a big rat in the house at very high levels in the Pentagon.
Of course if the material is real, those who raped and killed must be brought to justice, the officers, regardless of if they were aware should be relieved of command.
Debka analysis
The gallery of horror images rolling out of the US-run Iraqi Abu Ghraib prison onto media pages day by day â with much worse promised â has sharply altered the nature of the Iraq war, the attitudes of its combatants, the stakes held by the forces involved and the kinds of terror attacks in score. It will undoubtedly color the prosecution tactics under secret preparation for the crimes against humanity trial of deposed Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein. In Washington, the Bush presidency heads for an election on terra incognita after familiar game rules and certainties are swept away.
The radical cleric Moqtada Sadr picked up on Americaâs quandary in a trice â first by words, then by deeds. Friday, May 7, in a sermon at the al Kafa mosque, he dismissed the apologies of President George W. Bush for the abuses at Abu Ghraib and demanded punishment of the prison guards in kind. He reached al Kufa from his Najef stronghold past US roadblocks and troops who are advancing quietly into the city so as not to anger the Four Grand Ayatollahs.
As the Shiite cleric spoke, his aide Sheikh Abdul-Sattar al-Bahadli stood in the al-Hawi mosque of Basra and displayed documents and photos he claimed showed three Iraqi women being raped at British-run prisons. He proclaimed a jihad against British forces and announced a bounty of $350 for every British soldier captured and $150 for each one killed, while female soldiers could be kept as slaves.
A few hours earlier, Osama bin Laden was reported by an al Qaeda-linked web site to have offered 10 kilos of gold for the assassination of US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer, any high American officers, UN secretary Kofi Annan and members of the Iraqi Governing Council.
The depictions of brutality against Iraqi prisoners by US and British guards and intelligence personnel had quickly translated into contempt on the part of two prime coalition foes.
The Iraq spillover was not evaluated in time by US or British intelligence on the spot. Hundreds of Sadrâs black-robed Mehdi Army militiamen therefore surprised British troops early Saturday, May 8, with a fresh onslaught on the strategic southern region delimited by Basra and al Amara that commands the Euphrates, the Iraq-Iran frontier and Iraqâs main oil exporting terminal. Wielding assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, the Shiite extremists were soon in control of both town centers.
DEBKAfileâs military sources report that Sadr employed a very simple tactic. Leaving American forces to pummel part of his strength in Najef, al Kufaâs outskirts, Baghdadâs Sadr City and Diwaniya, he divided his militia up and whisked a part to the British-controlled south where the odds against them are more favorable. Britain deploys a smaller number of troops in Iraq than the United States â 7,500 compared with 135,000 Americans - not all have urban combat training and they have no air cover.
Sadr employed the same tactic out the outset of his uprising in early April. With transit permission through Turkoman territory, the Shiite cleric then pulled his troops out of Sadr City and split them up between the Baghdad-Fallujah-Amman highway where they cut a vital US supply route - and are still present - and Ar Ramadi where they laid a surprise ambush for US marines.
Predicting Sadrâs return to this tactic did not call for the sort of âcreative intelligenceâ cited by an American commander, particularly since Muslim warfare has not changed since Prophet Muhammed laid down a fundamental principle in the seventh century: If the enemyâs wall is unbroken and solid, donât beat your head against it; go and strike somewhere else until there is a breach. Then go for it with all your strength.
Sadr, though much despised by American military experts, followed this tactic twice, each time gaining the advantage of surprise.
The situation in the Sunni Triangle town of Fallujah is similarly unresolved. This hotbed of violence has dropped out of the headlines in the past week and is relatively calm. But the situation does not bode well for the US Marines there. Two former generals of Saddam Husseinâs armed forces were permitted to take over and welcomed with V signs by old soldiers waving the Saddam flag, all in the uniforms and insignia of the Special Republic Guards division that was the backbone of the Saddam regime and ruling Baath. The handover was decided by the local US command and approved by ground forces commander Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and Gen. John Abizaidâs Central Command, all the way back to Washington. The US Marines were enabled to leave Fallujah after occupying it for a month and so carry out the order of the supreme commander, President Bush, to refrain from capturing Fallujah by force in view of the potentially heavy cost in civilian and military casualties.
According to the official US position, the task of the Iraqi generals under Marine command is to restore law and order to the Sunni city, disarm local guerrillas, foreign fighters and al Qaeda terrorists, and so wind up the military operation. However, according to DEBKAfileâs military sources, there is a large credibility disparity between this perception and reality.
1. In a region where symbols have greater potency than military or political actions, Fallujah appears to Iraqis and Arabs at large as a place from which US Marines fled and Saddamâs old generals and soldiers came marching in. In their eyes, this spells an Iraqi guerrilla victory over US Marines.
2. Al Qaedaâs Iran-based senior commanders, who smuggled into Fallujah hundreds of fighters from Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Chechnya, Yemen and Kuwait, view the outcome of the Fallujah battle as the Islamic networkâs first major victory since being driven out of Afghanistan in 2001 as well as the eviction of the Marines from a Muslim city.
Bin Laden has therefore been encouraged to launch a series of paid assassinations against all the players tasked with administering Iraqâs June 30 transition to self-rule as part of an all-out effort to defeat the process.
3. The Marines on the perimeter of Fallujah cannot be said to control the city. The Iraqi generals have not succeeded in arranging a ceasefire, but rather grafted themselves onto the guerrilla-al Qaeda force, attaining a form of coexistence with them. Now and again, they report to American commanders, collect their salaries and promise to convey US demands to the guerrillas. Nothing usually comes of these demands. The Iraqi generals are at best a sort of buffer between the Marines and the insurgents, their loyalty highly ambivalent. However, this unresolved arrangement could well serve as a prototype for other Iraqi cities. If it spreads, the US military will find control of main Iraqi centers gradually slipping out of their grasp. This raises the question of what did defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld mean when he told the Senate Armed Forces Committee Friday that, despite the abuses of Iraqi prisoners, âWe are on the right track.â
Following the Abu Ghraib scandal, the US president may have to rethink the launch plan for his Great Middle East Initiative at the NATO summit late June in Istanbul.
Lectures from the Bush administration on democracy and Western values might not go down too well with nations and governments regaled by every television screen in the world with inhuman scenes from US-run Iraqi prisons.
DEBKAfileâs Washington sources report that, the day before Rumsfeld gave his testimony to congress, Jordanâs King Abdullah visited the White House. As one of Americaâs staunchest allies, he had hoped to persuade the coming Arab summit in Tunis to collectively condemn suicidal terrorism. For the sake of a unanimous vote, the monarch advised the president to administer a softener to Syria in the form of a start on some sanctions.
The eruption of the Iraqi prisoner crisis has forced Abdullah shelve his proposal for a more propitious moment and the Bush administration to reassess the timing of sanctions against Damascus.
As for Saddamâs public trial on war crimes and crimes against humanity, our sources report that the administration had secretly prepared three leading witnesses for the prosecution who were to have testified to the ex-rulerâs brutal practices: former foreign minister Ali Sabri, ex-information minister Mohammed Saeed Sahaf and ex-defense minister Hashem Mahmid Sultan â all chosen because they were close to Saddam in the last days of his rule. It is now feared that the impact of their testimony will be disappointing in the light of the powerful mages from Abu Ghraib prison since his downfall.
The US presidential campaign has likewise taken an unexpected turn. DEBKAfileâs Washington sources report exclusively that, as recently as ten days ago, Senator John Kerryâs campaign staff had resolved to drop Iraq as its focal issue after receiving startling new intelligence data. North Korea, the Democratic team had discovered, did not have only two nuclear bombs as generally believed but eight, all operational. Kerry would have argued that the Bush White House, because of its obsession with Saddam Husseinâs overthrow and Iraq â where no WMD was found, had neglected a front far more hazardous to the security of the United States and its allies, i.e. North Koreaâs expanding nuclear arsenal.
The development of the Iraqi prisoner crisis persuaded the Democratic presidential contender to abandon his North Korean strategy. The imagery from Abu Ghraib has proved even more radioactive in its effect on America than eight North Korean nuclear bombs.
#1
Hard to imagine getting everything more wrong if you tried. My favorite part may be the preposterous stuff about Sadr having the initiative (or a chance). Second would be the idea that this scandal will alter Iraqis' attitudes towards decades of murder, mutiliation, and oppression under the former despot.
Lawmakers in a mostly Muslim Nigerian state announced a proposed law calling for Muslims to be whipped and Christians to be jailed if caught drinking alcohol, raising fears of renewed violence after sectarian fighting left 500 dead this week.
Good move. Sectarian fighting kills 500, so propose some oppressive laws...
The bill must first be signed by Kano stateâs governor before becoming law. Lawmakers called for Muslims to be whipped with "eighty strokes of the cane" if caught drinking alcohol, the speaker of Kanoâs legislature, Saidu Balarabe Gani, said in broadcasts on local radio stations. The penalty for Christians would be a fine of 50,000 naira ($1=NGN130.01), a one-year jail term or both, Gani said. Most of Kanoâs eight million people are Muslim. Several other northern states have officially banned alcohol and instituted punishments for Muslims, but they are rarely enforced. Christian civilians are permitted to drink in establishments on federal military and police installations.
So you see, non-Muslims have nothing to worry about from shariah...
Muslim clerics earlier expressed anger over what a Red Cross official said were 500 to 600 dead in attacks last Sunday and Tuesday by Christian militants on a Muslim town of Yelwa in the majority-Christian central state of Plateau. Christian church leaders have distanced themselves from the killings, blaming them on rogue criminal elements. On the streets of Kano, the stateâs main city, groups of men - both Muslim and Christian - huddled around radios and debated the proposed anti-drinking law. Some non-Muslims reacted with alarm. "This is an attempt to cause bloodshed," shouted Adams Yakubu, who said he was Christian. If authorities try to enforce the alcohol ban on Christians and animists, "only God knows what will follow," he warned. "Some of these people are just looking for ways of repeating what is happening" in violence-torn Plateau state where hundreds, possibly thousands, have been killed in fighting between Muslim and Christian groups since January, said another man, Samson Ibrahim. More than 10,000 people have been killed in intertwined ethnic, religious and political violence in Nigeria since President Olusegun Obasanjo was first elected in 1999, ending 15 years of repressive military rule. Much of the violence has occurred between rival Christian and Muslim factions in Kano and other cities after a dozen northern states began implementing Islamic Shariah law in late 1999.
Two Pakistani women who say they were raped on the authorisation of a village council to avenge a landlordâs honour, say they would rather die than live with shame for the rest of their lives. In an interview on Friday at their makeshift mud house in the central province of Punjab, both expressed doubt that their powerful attacker would be punished, despite his arrest and those of the council members. "How can I show my face now? Either I will jump in a well or take some poison," said tearful 16-year-old Mumtaz Mai, recalling her ordeal last month.
In deeply Islamic Pakistan, rape brings considerable social shame on both the victim and her family. "I cannot go back to my parentsâ house, I cannot go in front of my husband; God please just bury me in the ground now," said Mumtazâs sister-in-law, Mudassan Mai. She said she had little hope of justice. "These are feudal people," she said. "The police belong to them, the courts belong to them, even the government belongs to them, whereas we donât know where our next meal will come from."
However, while such crimes are not uncommon in rural Pakistan, this case has provoked considerable interest inside and outside the country. Police said on Friday they had arrested the landlord, two of his brothers and the three-member village council, or panchayat, that authorised the rape. All six were remanded in custody. The attack occurred on April 30 in the small village of Donga Naich after the landlord complained to the council that his honour had been sullied when the son of a poor farmer began a relationship with his daughter. The council members, all landlords themselves, ruled that Ghaffar, who uses only one name, could avenge his honour by having sex with the farmerâs daughter and daughter-in-law. Mumtaz said Ghaffar had burned their clothes and they had had to cover themselves with sheets to return home. On the way they heard celebratory drum beats and loudspeaker announcements saying that Ghaffarâs honour had been avenged.
Ghaffar and members of the council have made no comment but one of his brothers said on Thursday that the women had only been stripped and not raped. The two women were to be medically examined on Friday in a Multan hospital. In a notorious case two years ago that highlighted the plight of women in rural areas, four men were sentenced to death for a gang rape authorised by another central Punjab village council. Two council members accused of abetting the crime also received the death sentence while eight other council members were tried and acquitted. Their appeals are still before the courts.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
05/08/2004 9:23:22 AM ||
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(IMHO, especially today) sounds to me like the sentence should be based on murder, not rape, regardless of how these poor ladies ultimately end up....
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 18:52 Comments ||
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This is bullshit -- I dont care if it is another 'culture' or not.
#3
sorry - today is Gentle's "confined to home dayweek year" don't expect to hear her talk until spoken to...
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 19:51 Comments ||
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[Troll droppings deleted]
Posted by: Man Bites Dog TROLL ||
05/09/2004 1:36 Comments ||
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#5
[Troll droppings deleted]
Posted by: Man Bites Dog TROLL ||
05/09/2004 1:36 Comments ||
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#6
Many of Gentle's comments are routinely discarded to the Sinktrap. People who keep demanding that she comment on this or that should go to the Sinktrap to see if she indeed has commented on this or that.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/09/2004 1:36 Comments ||
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#7
Many of Gentle's comments are routinely discarded to the Sinktrap. People who keep demanding that she comment on this or that should go to the Sinktrap to see if she indeed has commented on this or that.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/09/2004 1:36 Comments ||
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New evidence about a meeting in Prague between September 11 plot leader Mohamed Atta and Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani has been uncovered, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service. Investigative journalist Edward J. Epstein has uncovered Czech government visa records indicating al-Ani was posted to the Iraqi embassy in Prague between March 1999 and April 21, 2001, and was involved in handling Iraqi agents. A search of the Iraq Embassy in Prague after the fall of Baghdad to coalition forces revealed al-Ani had scheduled a meeting for April 8, 2001, with a Hamburg student, according to an appointment calendar obtained by Czech intelligence. Al-Ani then was placed under surveillance as he met with a young Arab-speaking man in Prague April 8.
After seeing Attaâs photograph after Sept. 11, the Czech counterintelligence watcher identified the man he had seen meeting al-Ani as Atta. Al-Ani was expelled from Prague within two weeks. According to Epstein, al-Ani denied he met Atta and repeated the denial after being detained by U.S. forces in July. The CIA has been unable to confirm the Prague meeting between al-Ani and Atta. If confirmed, the meeting would indicate a role by Saddam Husseinâs intelligence service in some level of support for the Sept.11 plot. The current official U.S. intelligence conclusion is that Saddamâs regime was not involved in supporting the Sept. 11 attacks. According to Epstein, Spanish intelligence has uncovered information indicating Algerians Khaled Madani and Moussa Laouar supplied Atta and another al-Qaida member, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, with false passports.
Five Bulgarian nurses condemned to death by a Libyan court for spreading an HIV epidemic among Libyan children fear they will be murdered in jail as they wait to appeal their verdicts, Bulgarian media reported yesterday. A court in the port city of Benghazi on Thursday sentenced the five women and a Palestinian doctor to death by firing squad for deliberately infecting 426 children with the virus believed to cause Aids.
The EU and the United States condemned the verdicts, fuelling speculation in Sofia that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who is in the midst of a campaign to mend ties with the West, could pardon the six. The nurses said they had been told they would be moved from Benghazi to Tripoli pending their appeal. They expressed fears that they might be murdered by other inmates if moved to one prison in the Libyan capital where they had already served time. They said they had received death threats there. The nurses were speaking by telephone from prison.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) ||
05/08/2004 10:11:40 AM ||
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I find it terribly shocking that any nurse would deliberately infect a bunch of children with AIDS. It seems likely that the hospital staff was either negligent or equipped with nothing but anicent medical equipment, and that the nurses have been convicted of murder on the basis of irrationality, xenophobia, and a wave of anger and fear.
Posted by: Old Guy ||
05/08/2004 19:38 Comments ||
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Libya is trying to blame the AIDS epidemic on others. That's all.
It's what the religion of peace does best, blame others, preferably infidels, kill them, and deny their own problems. (which only makes the problems worse)
They cuddle blame like a security blanket. Unfortunately it won't save them, from themselves.
A couple has been ordered not to conceive any more children until the ones they already have are no longer in foster care. A civil liberties advocate said the court ruling unsealed Friday was "blatantly unconstitutional." Predictable but not unmerited.
Monroe County Family Court Judge Marilyn OâConnor ruled March 31 that both parents "should not have yet another child which must be cared for at public expense. The facts of this case and the reality of parenthood cry out for family planning education. This court believes the constitutional right to have children is overcome when society must bear the financial and everyday burden of care."
Sounds eminently sensible. She's sure to be overruled...
The judge is not forcing contraception on the couple nor is she requiring the mother to get an abortion should she become pregnant. The couple may choose to be sterilized at no cost to them, OâConnor ruled. If the couple violates OâConnorâs ruling, they could be jailed for contempt of court. "I donât know of any precedent that would permit a judge to do this," Anna Schissel, staff attorney for the Reproductive Rights Project of the New York Civil Liberties Union, told the Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester. "And even if there were a precedent, it would be blatantly unconstitutional because it violates the United States Constitution and the New York Constitution."
Not that she can show us where in either document ...
Neither parent attended the proceeding or secured legal representation. The mother waived her right to a lawyer, and the father never showed up in court.
This is going to work well.
The mother was found to have neglected her four children, ages 1, 2, 4 and 5. All three children who were tested for cocaine tested positive, according to court papers. Both parents had a history of drug abuse. It was not immediately clear if the father had other children.
Wasn't clear to him either.
A case worker testified that the parents ignored an order to get mental health treatment and attend parenting classes after the 1-year-old was born. The mother was still in the hospital after giving birth to her fourth child in March 2003 when authorities took the infant, according to court papers. Investigators said the mother was unprepared to care for the infant. Attorney Chris Affronti, who chairs the family law section of the Monroe County Bar Association, said heâs not sure how the ruling could be enforced. "I think what the judge is trying to do is kind of have a wake-up call for society," he said.
- EMPHASIS ADDED - Letâs open this one up for discussion. I really dislike government intervention into the private lives of citizens. Yet, when people not only burden remaining society with their own responsibilities but also commit consistent child abuse, arguments estopping legal adults from continuing such a pattern of offense obtain a degree merit.
It is difficult not to believe that any further children had by these slackers would only be exposed to similar abuse before becoming wards of the state. Again, your opinions, please.
#1
"This court believes the constitutional right to have children is overcome when society must bear the financial and everyday burden of care."
What needs to be overcome here is not constitutional rights, but the nanny-state notion that society somehow "must" relieve people of the personal costs of their stupidity, foolishness, lack of impulse control, or irresponsibility.
When we relieve people of the consequences of their stupidity, all we reap is more stupidity.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
05/08/2004 13:18 Comments ||
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The government ordering a citizen to be sterilized is extreme.
Instead, offer them free drug treatment if they agree to sterilization.
Posted by: Old Guy ||
05/08/2004 13:21 Comments ||
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You know, I can think of *some people* (Ahem) that make you wish some judge had ordered their parents not to conceive ...
but it's too Nanny Police State for words to do that!
Damn living in a democratic republic where everyone has freedom! LOL
Posted by: Jen ||
05/08/2004 13:28 Comments ||
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The government ordering a citizen to be sterilized is extreme. Instead, offer them free drug treatment if they agree to sterilization.
Old Guy, that is not happening here.
The judge is not forcing contraception on the couple nor is she requiring the mother to get an abortion should she become pregnant. The couple may choose to be sterilized at no cost to them, OâConnor ruled.
When we relieve people of the consequences of their stupidity, all we reap is more stupidity.
Dave D. has it right. We are fighting evolution by cushioning so many feebs from the consequences of their acts. Stupidity should be painful.
#5
Norplant and a hit on the lead ACLU attorney? Darwin's law in both cases? Just thinking aloud....
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 14:56 Comments ||
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This is a clear case of societal abuse. These people refuse to accept the consequences of their own behavior, so the rest of us have to enforce our rights to NOT be put out by these slackers. My suggestion is to put them separate zoo enclosures, in different countries, and let them communicate only by email - with anyone - until both are sterile from old age. It'll be cheaper than having to continually absorb the cost of caring for an ever-increasing of welfare-dependent children, and maybe someone else will learn from their punishment.
We all have equal rights. No one, however, has the right to impose upon others without consequences. These nutcases are unwilling (or unable - with as much brain damage as they've done to themselves, there's always that possibility) to restrain themselves, so society must step in and restrian them - for the sake of the rest of us.
As for the ACLU, I hereby declare open season: Bag limit is two a day, possession is unlawful. Any weapon is permissible, but a lethal blow with an axe to the neck is preferred. These motherless sons are out to destroy our Republic, and it's time to stop them
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/08/2004 15:39 Comments ||
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If they have been proven to have committed child abuse then they should be locked up in jail. And since, to my knowledge, prisons don't tend to be mixed-gendered, there wouldn't be a problem with further procreation by them either.
#8
And since, to my knowledge, prisons don't tend to be mixed-gendered
Oh Aris, were it so simple. Prisoners here in the States are, in many cases, allowed conjugal visits. Some ACLU wackjob would get Mom permission to see Dad during visitation on Sunday and the clusterf**k (literally) would just keep going.
#9
hmm but i suppose gov money still goes for lots of stupid things and from top of my head paying the children food isnt the worst of all. Anyway put the children in debt to the state, when they grow up they'll have to pay or work for society or go jail.
#10
A4602 - punishing children for the excesses of their parents? Stop the machinery - either by physical separation or a (promised) claw-hammer vasectomy
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/08/2004 18:30 Comments ||
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Oh Aris, were it so simple. Prisoners here in the States are, in many cases, allowed conjugal visits. Some ACLU wackjob would get Mom permission to see Dad during visitation on Sunday and the clusterf**k (literally) would just keep going.
I'll throw my lot in with OP's remedy.
This couple's consistent pattern of child abuse would make it appropriate for the state to impose a restraining order prohibiting any conjugal visits.
... punishing children for the excesses of their parents?
Let's all be thankful America prohibited inheriting "the sins of our fathers" by eliminating debtor's prisons. For those unclear on the subject, read Dickens' "Little Dorrit."
.... A search of the Iraq Embassy in Prague after the fall of Baghdad to coalition forces revealed [Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir] al-Ani had scheduled a meeting for April 8, 2001, with a Hamburg student, according to an appointment calendar obtained by Czech intelligence. Al-Ani then was placed under surveillance as he met with a young Arab-speaking man in Prague April 8. After seeing Attaâs photograph after Sept. 11, the Czech counterintelligence watcher identified the man he had seen meeting al-Ani as Atta. Al-Ani was expelled from Prague within two weeks. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 9:51:38 AM ||
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WND and Geostrategy Direct aren't the only news media reporting this. EIN News (Czech Today) has the story up on their website as well, though you have to be subscriber to read it.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2004 10:05 Comments ||
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The mainstream press won't report this; it contradicts the story line they've been peddling for the last two years. For them, this information will never exist.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/08/2004 10:42 Comments ||
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Now, you realize this isn't exactly new news. Czech intelligence has been swearing up and down since 9/11 that the two met. CIA still says no, last I heard. This was (briefly) a big deal two years ago, when the Iraq war was grinding to a start.
This paragraph is very confusing. It implies that the fall of Saddam allowed Czech officials to get their hands on this appointment book, which then led to al-Ani being placed under surveillance in 2001. Have the Czechs invented time travel?
#6
this has been around for a few years but not widely reported...it would be impossible for the media to report on this sense it goes totally against the left version.....
Posted by: Dan ||
05/08/2004 11:31 Comments ||
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It's plausible that Iraqi intel dealt with or assisted Atta, but it's less plausible they did so specifically and knowingly in connection with 9/11. Why? Security. 9/11 relied entirely on secrecy and surprise, which was achieved, through excellent security by the participants and bosses. I can see no reason Atta would risk the enterprise by letting the Iraqis in on the secret, especially as there was no "need to know."
This has no bearing at all on the general question of AQ-Iraq contacts, for which there seems substantial evidence, or the untenable contention by some that for philosophical or other reasons, AQ would never deal with Iraq, even if its practical interests suggested it.
from WSJ Opinion Journal for May 7th
The House passed a nonbinding resolution yesterday "deploring the abuse of persons in United States custody in Iraq." Youâd think this would be something everyone could agree on, but the vote in favor was only 365-50. Of the 50 "no" votes, one came from Rep. Ron Paul, an eccentric libertarian Republican from Texas who often votes against congressional resolutions, especially on foreign policy.
The other 49 were all from Democrats, and by our quick scan almost all of them come from the left-wing fringe of the party, such as John Conyers, Barney Frank, Dennis Kucinich, Barbara Lee, Jim McDermott, Nancy Pelosi, Charles Rangel, Pete Stark, Maxine Waters. Are these folks in favor of abusing Iraqi prisoners?
Well, maybe not. The resolution, summarized here, actually has two parts:
Deploring the abuse of persons in United States custody in Iraq, regardless of the circumstances of their detention, urging the Secretary of the Army to bring to swift justice any member of the Armed Forces who has violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, expressing the deep appreciation of the Nation to the courageous and honorable members of the Armed Forces who have selflessly served, or are currently serving, in Operation Iraqi Freedom, and for other purposes.
So do the 49 Democrats object to honoring the "courageous and honorable members of the Armed Forces"? Some may, but from browsing the debate transcript in the Congressional Record (link in PDF), it appears those who object do so mainly on two grounds: that the resolution does not call for a congressional investigation of the abuses, and that it does not cast blame widely enough--that is, it does not condemn military leaders, contractors and others who may or may not have been involved, as well as the known perpetrators of the abuse.
Both these points are arguable, but the resolution takes no position on either of them. Out of frustration that their colleagues arenât prepared to take as hard a line as they would, then, 49 Democrats have effectively gone on record supporting the abuse of prisoners and announcing their lack of appreciation for the troops. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Taranto sometimes zings the idiocy pretty well!
Posted by: .com ||
05/08/2004 5:58:12 AM ||
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heh, heh. I sat at a table surrounded by lefties and watched them wring their hands and try to word their way around the fact that their party has sunk to depths that even they can no longer apologize for. In the end, they could only agree on what they were against: The evil Republicans and George Bush.
That's what these leftie leaders are really all about, ABB. They have NOTHING more to offer than that. Long ago, they had ideals...even if their methods to achieve them were flawed...they had ideals...clean air, end to poverty..etc..peace..love and happiness. Now they have nothing but ABB.
Hey lefties..you are a pathetic shell of your past ideals.
Posted by: Anny Emous ||
05/08/2004 9:38 Comments ||
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Maybe someone should have told these 49 democRATS that they were voting to abuse American troops - I'm sure they would have voted "Yes" immediately.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/08/2004 12:40 Comments ||
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KIEV (AFP) -- Former Soviet republics still hold on to millions of tonnes of aging armaments, a dangerous inheritance from the Cold War, as proven yet again by this weekâs deadly explosion at a military base in southeastern Ukraine.Blasts and fire raged for the second day Friday at the armaments depot as local residents scrambled for cover. Five people have been confirmed dead, and scores have been injured, many losing their homes.
The base stored old arms that were pulled back by the Soviet Union from East Germany after it completed its reunification with West Germany in 1990. Ukraineâs public prosecutor accused officers overseeing the site of negligence. It was the second such incident in just a few months. Defense Minister Evhen Marchuk initially denied that a blast had occurred, before eye witnesses told reporters about the disaster and footage of it appeared on the news, according to reports.
Some 60 percent of the armaments were kept in the open air and all stored in a single heap -- against strict regulations that say they should be separated by a wall, embankment or other defense shield in case of just such an accident. According to respected military expert Serhei Zhurets, Ukraine "has two million tonnes of Soviet-era armaments, some of which are no longer in functioning order and are waiting to be destroyed. But there is not enough money to do this."
In all, Ukraine inherited 184 munitions arms depots, much of it equipment that was pulled back from Warsaw Pact nations after the blocâs collapse. Ukraine has returned all of its nuclear warheads to Russia after the Soviet Unionâs collapse under a deal that the United States helped broker and insisted upon, fearing instability in independent Ukraine. But the safe upkeep of the massive load of arms here is still prompting fears in the West, mindful of Ukraineâs reputation for corruption in a nation where a quarter of the population lives below the official poverty line.
In March, Defense Minister Marchuk admitted that several hundred Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles remained unaccounted for in Ukraine. He said this must only be a case of bad bookkeeping and categorically dismissed the possibility of the missiles being stolen, even though Ukraine has been accused in recent years of delivering arms to nations like Iraq on the black market. According to some analysts, contraband armaments in the region are also seeping in from the Transdnestr, a separatist and largely lawless region of eastern Moldova that has one of the largest munitions dumps in the former Soviet Union.
But the situation is not much safer in Russia itself, which has been hit by several military catastrophes in recent years. The most dramatic was the August 2000 Kursk nuclear submarine disaster that claimed the lives of 118 seamen and was followed with horror across the world as its crew suffocated on the bed of the Barents Sea. Last summer, a fire at a military base in the Siberian region of Buryatia killed two people, prompting the evacuation of several thousand.
Russia also has up to 40,000 tonnes of chemical weapons that it does not have the cash to eliminate despite signing an international agreement to do so within years. Analysts and media report that arms are regularly stolen and re-sold by Russian officers, who receive miserly pay. Not good news.
Posted by: Zenster ||
05/08/2004 3:47:01 AM ||
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One of the relatively few short-sighted things Bush43 has done has been not funding programs that disarm old Soviet nuclear and chem-bio weapons. Created work for Russian scientists and technicians and helped to prevent just this sort of thing.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/08/2004 17:11 Comments ||
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from The Daily Telegraph - EFL & Fair Use
By Michael Barone
05/07/2004
Too many Americans and, so far as I can judge, Britons insist on seeing what is going on in Iraq through the prism of Vietnam. Eight days after military action began in Iraq last March, a front-page story in the New York Times used the dreaded word "quagmire". And when fighters began shooting at Americans in Fallujah and Moqtada al-Sadr led his "Mahdi army" into Najaf, American reporters and editorialists almost instantly compared the situation to the Tet offensive of January and February 1968. The abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison are routinely compared to My Lai.
Never mind that these comparisons to Vietnam are wildly disproportionate. The Abu Ghraib incidents did not constitute a massacre; My Lai did. Americans were fighting in large numbers in Vietnam from early 1965 until Tet, before analysts started opining that America was in a quagmire. Eight days versus 35 months: some quagmire. And the several thousand not very well organised fighters versus the more than 100,000 Viet Cong: some Tet. Plus, as we know now, the mediaâs analysis of Tet was wrong: Tet was a huge defeat for the Viet Cong and largely cleared South Vietnam, for a time, of Communist fighters.
But never mind. For liberal Americans of a certain age, the American involvement in Vietnam is the paradigmatic event in human history. It demonstrated - or their warped view of it demonstrated - that America could be on the wrong side of a war, that American military action was dangerous (as the peacenik slogan had it) to children and other living things and could accomplish nothing positive. And to American journalists of that age and younger generations, Vietnam and the soon-to-follow disaster for the American presidency, Watergate, were proof that disbelieving American leaders and providing the most jaundiced coverage of their actions was the road to enormous success and wealth. ...more...
Barone eschews the false historical correlations, false investigative journalism, and false ideals of the liberal press. The man gets it - and adds perspective. Well done.
Posted by: .com ||
05/08/2004 12:54:11 AM ||
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There IS an historical connection. The Tet offensive failed on the ground but with the help of the likes of Hanoi Jane and of didhonest reporters it succeeded where it mattered: in the American opinion.
The goal of the rebellion and of their Iranian and Saudi sponsors is not to succeed on the ground but to cause regime change in America. There would be no hope for the rebellion and its sponsors if the Democrat candidate where one of the Democrats of yore, a Roosevelt, a Truman or a Kennedy. Unfortunately it is Kerry. I am convinced it is only because of the hopes they place in Kerry there is a rebellion at all.
#4
The Tet offensive failed on the ground but with the help of the likes of Hanoi Jane and of didhonest reporters it succeeded where it mattered: in the American opinion.
Keep in mind also that the U.S. government helped it along; instead of bringing as much force to bear as was necessary within a short period of time, Johnson tried the gradual approach, which stretched things out unnecessarily. Combine that with his micromanaging of targeting and his fear of deeper Chinese and Soviet involvement and the eventual result was certain to be some sort of problem situation - a "quagmire".
Six men have been remanded in custody by a court in Pakistanâs Punjab province following an alleged revenge double rape. A landowner is accused of attacking two women after the village council said he could avenge his honour. The other five are alleged to have abetted the landowner. .... Police say the village assembly, or panchayat, consisting of around 50 people mainly from the landlordâs clan, authorised the revenge. They say the women - one in her late teens, and her sister-in-law - were taken forcibly to an outhouse and raped while some of the landlordâs relatives guarded the premises. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 12:40:43 AM ||
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Stories like this really drive it home.
It used to be "better off dead then Red", now the chant needs to be "better off dead than Moh-ham-med" Something I heard on The Savage Nation the other day.
#2
It doesn't say if the Village Assembly, the panchayat, which "authorized" the rapes is being investigated or charged for sanctioning this act, though a reference to another case at the bottom of the article vaguely implies it.
Call me a romantic, a dreamer, but it might be a good idea to do something about those who can, in the eyes of this and other villages, "authorize" honor rapes or killings. If they are not so empowered, making a point of that fact seems a rather good idea.
Gosh, since it's PakiWakiLand, maybe "Oops!" will cover it and everyone can go their merry way - except the rapees, of course. They will have to "go" so that no one is reminded of this little SNAFU. Rapes and killings are one thing, but embarrassment is humiliating - and we all know what that means.
... a 22 year old woman has been sentenced to 100 lashes of the whip on charges of adultery in Sudan. Ms. Razaz Abaker, 22 years old, was sentenced to 100 lashes of the whip for committing Zina, illegal sexual intercourse. The sentence was handed down by the Nyala Criminal Court on 13 March. The 27 year old man who was charged with having had sex with Ms. Razaz was acquitted by the same court on the basis of insufficient evidence against him. This case was brought based on claims that Ms. Razaz gave birth to a child three years ago outside of marriage, after having had sex with a 22 year old man. A policeman brought the case to the attention of the Attorney General. On the same day, the Attorney General interrogated Ms. Razaz and she confessed to having had sex with the man in question. She claimed that he raped her and had promised to marry her. On the same day, Ms. Razaz was convicted by the court and sentenced to 100 lashes of the whip, which was carried out immediately, with no possibility of legal assistance or appeal.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 12:30:56 AM ||
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"The 27 year old man who was charged with having had sex with Ms. Razaz was acquitted by the same court on the basis of insufficient evidence against him."
Wow. That's gotta be embarrassing... it was that small?
I don't see what's to get excited about here, this makes perfect sense. My friend Mahmoud explained it to me, though I can't recall exactly what he said, now. He's a Muslim and understands these things and we infidels should quit being so critical and accept their word. Islam is beautiful, peaceful, and exalts its wymyns.
#3
Fortunately for Ms. Razaz, the Sudan is heading up the UN Human Rights Commission which means her much lacerated ass is proof positive the Sudanese uphold the lofty international standards for treatment of women ever lauded by the members of the General Assembly.
Vladimir V. Putin inaugurated his second term as president on Friday with a pledge to give Russians "a real, tangible increase in their prosperity" and to nurture political and social freedoms that his critics say he has gradually eroded.
"Only free people in a free country can be genuinely successful," Mr. Putin said in a brief speech at the Kremlin after taking the oath of office, his right hand on a red-bound copy of the Russian Constitution. "This is the foundation for economic growth and political stability in Russia."
The ceremony marking the start of Mr. Putin's final four years as president â barring a constitutional change that he has said he opposes â took place in the gilded grandeur of St. Andrew Hall in the Grand Kremlin Palace, where Russia's last czars once sat on the throne. It was only Russia's third presidential inauguration since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and it very much reflected the character of its second president. While formal and lavish, the ceremony lacked pomp, festivity and, seemingly, much emotion from the man who dominates politics here.
In artfully choreographed coverage broadcast on state television, Mr. Putin strode, alone and unsmiling, along seemingly endless red carpets lined with 1,700 political, social and religious leaders who stood throughout the oath and his address. There was no glad-handing, no cheering â only polite applause that he acknowledged at least twice by saying "thank you" as he approached the dais where he took the oath.
"The last four years were not easy years for us all," he said somberly, but he went on to say that Russia had succeeded in preserving its territorial integrity â an indirect reference to the separatist struggle in Chechnya, still simmering and deadly â and in laying the foundation for economic growth. Mr. Putin, 51, won re-election on March 14 with 71 percent of the vote. The election underscored his enormous popularity but also drew criticism from international observers who said that state control of television and the use of government resources on his behalf fell short of basic democratic standards.
As he did in remarks on Thursday, Mr. Putin said Russia needed to develop a pluralistic political system, even though his Kremlin has orchestrated a constitutional majority in the Parliament led by the party defined almost entirely by its fealty to Mr. Putin, United Russia.
Since his re-election, Mr. Putin has vowed to restructure and trim the government and with it the bureaucracy and corruption that strangle economic and social life. He has reorganized his cabinet and government ministries, but has so far instituted few major policy changes and offered no new proposals in Friday's speech. When he finished, fewer than 10 minutes after he started, he retraced his walk through the glittering halls and emerged in Cathedral Square as the last echoes of a 30-gun salute resonated in the city's center. He reviewed a short parade of goose-stepping soldiers of the Kremlin's honor guard â a tableau that intertwined symbols of church and military in a still evolving Russia.
It was all over in 30 minutes. After a private visit to one of the Kremlin's churches, Mr. Putin returned to work, accepting the resignation of his new prime minister, Mikhail Y. Fradkov, and the rest of the government that he appointed on the eve of his re-election in March. It was a legal formality, since Mr. Putin immediately renominated Mr. Fradkov.
Later, Mr. Putin joined a smaller group of political and business leaders for an evening event that a Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said should not be called a party. Referring to the galas that surround American inaugurations, he said, "We do not have such things here."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/08/2004 12:24:02 AM ||
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In artfully choreographed coverage broadcast on state television, Mr. Putin strode, alone and unsmiling, along seemingly endless red carpets lined with 1,700 political, social and religious leaders who stood throughout the oath and his address
#4
At least, Vlad the Muslim Impaler isn't owned by the House of Saud, like the Oil-Patch thief in the White House.
High gas prices? Blame Bush!
Hey greatestJENeration:
If a slug who never earned an honest dollar in his alcohol sotted, rich kid life, is your hero, then who is your hero #2? Charles Manson? And I see that you can't take silicone jokes. What a whimpette!
Posted by: Man Bites Dog TROLL ||
05/08/2004 10:52 Comments ||
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.... Under Khuloe, a woman just has to state she loathes her husband and feels she can no longer fulfil her "wifely duties". Khuloe is part of a Civil Status Temporary Law, which caused controversy in Jordan when it was issued in late 2001. Jordanâs tribal- and Islamist-dominated parliament rejected the law, but the more liberal senate (upper house) passed it temporarily. In the coming months, parliament must review the law again and if passed, it will become permanent.
Islamist, tribal and independent deputies say the law is contrary to Islamic Sharia law, has made divorce too easy and led to broken homes and moral degeneration. .... Many expect parliament to insist on some changes to the Civil Status Law in order to pass it. Deputies believe Khuloe will remain active for several more months anyway, because a stack of temporary laws awaits review.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
05/08/2004 12:09:48 AM ||
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It made divorce too easy for women. Under Sharioa a man has only to say three timmes "I repudiate you" and they are divorced. But that does not lead to broken homes and moral degeneration of course.
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.
