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Soddies shoot it out with Bad Guys in downtown Mecca
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Eurobarometer: Iraq and Peace in the World
Don’t have time now, but I will write more about the survey later.
Eurobarometer is a survey of European opinion routinely conducted by the European Comission. Today, they released a "flash" survey number 151 called "Iraq and Peace in the World" [local]. The survey has become controversial even before its release.

The survey polled about 500 people from each of the 15 EU countries, for a total of 7515 people. I summarize the results below. I give the overall response, and, where noted, response of citizens of particular EU countries.


  • Was military intervention in Iraq justified? No (68%; Greece: 96%; France: 81%)
  • Who should manage the rebuilding of Iraq? UN (58%), Iraq (44%), EU (25%), US (18%)
  • Who should finance the rebuilding of Iraq? US (65%; Germany: 84%), UN (44%)
  • Who should guarantee security in Iraq during the period of rebuilding the country? UN peacekeepers (43%), UN (19%), US(6%)
  • Who should manage the transition to a sovereign government in Iraq? UN (60%; UK: 72%), provisional gov’t of Iraq (44%)
  • The European Union should support the re-establishment of an Iraqi government in Iraq as quickly as possible. Agree (86%)
  • The European Union should encourage political and cultural relations between Europe and Arab countries. Agree (86%; Ireland: 92%)
  • For each of the following countries, does it present a threat to peace in the world? Israel (59%; Netherlands: 74%), Iran (53%; Greece: 26%), North Korea (53%; Greece: 30%), United States (53%; Greece: 88%), Iraq (52%; Greece: 27%), Afghanistan (50%), Pakistan (48%), Syria (37%), Libya (36%), Saudi Arabia (36%), China (30%), India (22%; Netherlands: 34%), Russia (21%), Somalia (16%), EU (8%; UK: 18%)
Posted by: Alex || 11/03/2003 7:45:22 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is there any reason why we (U.S.) should give a rat's ass about what the Euros think about Iraq and peace in the world?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/03/2003 20:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Never knew the Greeks were such moonbats.
Posted by: J. Michael Krause || 11/03/2003 21:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Well shoot, we had Aris to give us fair warning, no?
Posted by: Ptah || 11/03/2003 21:25 Comments || Top||

#4  "Who should manage the rebuilding of Iraq? UN (58%), Iraq (44%), EU (25%), US (18%)."

The EU should manage the reconstruction of Iraq? These clowns can't even decide on the shape of bananas and they're going to shape the future of Iraq?
Posted by: Tibor || 11/03/2003 21:39 Comments || Top||


PFC Lynch engaged
Edited for brevity.
Former prisoner of war Pfc. Jessica Lynch plans to visit her fiance’s family this Thanksgiving and to marry Army Sgt. Ruben Contreras in June, the groom-to-be’s mother said. Lynch, 20, and Contreras met almost two years ago at a Taco Bell near Fort Bliss, Texas, where they were stationed. Contreras is stationed in Texas while Lynch is scheduled for a round of media appearances this month. The couple eventually could end up in Colorado Springs. Contreras said he hopes to leave the Army next year and become a juvenile probation officer. “It’ll be tough, but I like working with kids,” he said. He said he is applying to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and wants to settle in town.
Lynch received multiple offers for full-ride scholarships at several WV universities after stating her intent to become a teacher. Guess she won’t be taking them up on the offer after all.
Posted by: Dar || 11/03/2003 11:13:03 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  those would be the Robert K. Byrd Scholarships to Robert K. Byrd University system?
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 11:53 Comments || Top||

#2  ...proud gridiron home of the Babbling Kleagles!
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/03/2003 12:08 Comments || Top||

#3  That would be Robert Byrd (D) Percale?
Posted by: Shipman || 11/03/2003 12:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Here's best wishes and congratulations.
Posted by: Atrus || 11/03/2003 12:14 Comments || Top||

#5  Big article in yesterday's Gazette, the local Colorado Springs newspaper. The couple plan to live in the Springs after Lynch's future husband gets out of the Army. It's not a bad choice for her. There are two GOOD local colleges (one the liberal Colorado College, which has a teacher's program, the other Colorado University at Colorado Springs, which is MUCH less liberal - may have something to do with the fact tha a large portion of the faculty is either active or retired military, but doesn't have a teaching program per se), and about a dozen junior colleges and extensions of major universities whose main campus is elsewhere. With the Academy, Peterson AFB, Cheyenne Mountain, Schriver, and Fort Carson (which has the biggest hospital), Lynch can continue to receive top-flight medical attention.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/03/2003 13:31 Comments || Top||

#6  ..I do genuinely wish her all the luck and happiness in the world. It will be interesting, however, to see how the MassMedia(TM) treats her after she starts her new career...

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 11/03/2003 13:36 Comments || Top||

#7  Mike,
I think she has a much better chance of living normally in Colorado Springs as opposed to her hometown in WV. I would think that many service people would have trouble returning to such a small town after seeing the outside world.

It would be near impossible for her. Everyone would treat her differently. My impression is that would break her heart. She'll probably head back quietly for Thanksgiving or X-mas each year and hope that they don't rename the High School after her.

It might be smarter if she doesn't get married in the community that she plans to reside in permanently.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 14:04 Comments || Top||

#8  Anything else we should know about her? How about her street address and phone number? How many kids she plans on having?

I wish the media would leave it alone. It disgusts me that just because she was the first POW rescued, she gets all the attention. I have nothing against Lynch, but I'm just sick of her being seen as a 'Saint'.

And why is she being swarmed by the media, besides the fact she was the first POW rescued? First, it's because she's a blonde haired, blue eyed, woman. The perfect image of a young woman in todays society. Second, she's from a small town named PALESTINE. It doesn't get any more convenient for the media than that. Thirdly, they want to milk her suffering for all it's worth to make Bush look bad. They want us to think " How could he put that poor girl through that? ".

This is why I'm sick of hearing about Lynch. My best wishes go out to her, but lets hear about the other POW's in the war.
Posted by: Charles || 11/03/2003 17:10 Comments || Top||

#9  Charles -- Given Jessica's situation was unique. Unlike the other POWs, she was seriously wounded and couldn't be marched off like they were. She was alone in a hospital and essentially helpless enough to warrant sympathy from an Iraqi informer. And, of course, the dramatic video footage of the rescue made for great TV.

That being said, my biggest fault with the story is I don't think she deserves the Bronze Star. Anything more than a Purple Heart and a campaign ribbon should suffice, based on the accounts I've read.

And, yes, it would be nice to hear about the other POWs!
Posted by: Dar || 11/03/2003 17:35 Comments || Top||

#10  Headline
June 1st, 2021
Jessica's Daughter Accepted at Several Ivy League Schools

Headline
September 20th, 2048
Jessica to Begin Social Security

Will it ever end?
Posted by: Glass || 11/03/2003 17:36 Comments || Top||

#11  Wow, they were stationed at a Taco Bell. Must have been a tough assignment.
Posted by: rg117 || 11/03/2003 17:55 Comments || Top||

#12  Dar, I'm not sure if I'd give her the bronze star either, but she may rate it according to military protocol. I definitely don't think she rates the "V" that goes with it when given for valor. All the stories I've heard about her fighting to the last bullet have been de-bunked.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 22:27 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Afghanistan Declared ‘Islamic Republic’ in Draft Constitution
Afghanistan unveiled a post-Taleban draft constitution Monday, a historic milestone on what has been a bloody, bumpy and often tragic path to recovery after decades of war. The draft’s first article declares that "Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic," an indication of the government’s desire to bring the country together under the banner of Islam, which is practiced by the vast majority of Afghans.
That's because Islamic republics are so peaceful and prosperous and competently led...
The hard-line law enforced under the former Taleban regime is not expected to be a part of Afghanistan’s future. "The religion of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam. Followers of other religions are free to perform their religious ceremonies within the limits of the provisions of law," the draft states, according to an English translation provided by the government.
And those limits are...?
While avoiding direct mention of Shariah, the draft states that "in Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam and the values of this Constitution."
That opens the way to Islamic banking, silly divorce laws, women as breeding stock, mandatory beards and curly-toed shoes, the whole shebang...
The draft creates the post of president and vice president, and envisions two houses of congress. The position of prime minister - included in previous versions of the constitution - was cut from the final draft. Many feared a strong prime minister could have emerged as a political and military rival to the president, a major concern in a country that has known little but war for a quarter-century.
Think Hekmatyar versus Rabanni...
"The most important thing that a country like Afghanistan needs is stability," said Jawid Luddin, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai. "This constitution is made for Afghanistan for the next 100, 200 years." The draft must still be debated at a grand council, or loya jirga, next month. Ratification of the document will set the stage for nationwide elections scheduled for June. A red-bound copy of the long-awaited draft constitution was handed to former King Mohammad Zaher Shah, Karzai and Lakhdar Brahimi, special envoy of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, during a ceremony at Kabul’s Presidential Palace. "I hope this will be acceptable for the people and will direct people toward peace, security and democracy," said the 88-year-old Shah. The constitution enshrines Shah as the ceremonial "father of the nation," but he has no official political role and the title will not be passed along to his son. Karzai made no comment during the unveiling ceremony. The draft constitution was handed out in Dari and Pashto, and the English-language version was later released by e-mail. The draft allows political parties to be established as long as their charters "do not contradict the principles of Islam" and sets other conditions such as not having any military aims or foreign affiliation. It sets Pahsto and Dari as the official languages, but the national anthem will be sung in Pashto.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 21:21 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Back where we started. Everything must obey Islamic law. Oy vey... And I'm sure there'll soon be established the equivalent of a Council of Guardians filled with mullahs, like in Iran.

Gods, I had thought that Afghanistan atleast had been a victory against Islamofascism. Not to be, it seems. Absolute religious freedom and separation of church from state should have been put in the constitution -- without that we only managed to exchange one gang for another.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 11/03/2003 22:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Hmmm... That's unusual. We're in complete agreement.
Posted by: Fred || 11/03/2003 22:41 Comments || Top||

#3  This really pisses me off. What in hell did we invest all that money and--more importantly--the lives of our soldiers for? So it could become a "Taliban-lite" state? Screw this...

I propose we start teaching small unit tactics to all K-6 classes for the next five years to prepare them early to go in and finish the job since we've dropped the ball. I thought we cut the head off the snake but it turns out it's a hydra.
Posted by: Dar || 11/03/2003 22:43 Comments || Top||

#4  "The most important thing that a country like Afghanistan needs is stability,"

And you think you will get that by having an Islamic Republic (1)? Brahahahahahahahaha!!!! Oh Stop! Your killing me!

(1)- Or any other religious-based state for that matter. There *is* a very good reason Jesus said to give unto Caesar what is Caesars and unto God what is Gods...)
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/03/2003 22:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Why are the world's Muslims so damned determined to prove they're incapable of living in modern societies? Do they REALLY want the civilized world to decide they're untrainable barbarians, dangerous to both themselves and us?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 22:54 Comments || Top||

#6  This really pisses me off. What in hell did we invest all that money and--more importantly--the lives of our soldiers for? So it could become a "Taliban-lite" state?

The investment is supposed to be to get Osama. Anything outside of that is to assuage our liberal collaborators.

Congrats, Afghanistan.
Posted by: badanov || 11/03/2003 23:19 Comments || Top||

#7  I also am concerned in the extreme over this development. I was a strong supporter of both of these wars....though I was not generally favorably disposted toward Bush.

I see myself as a good progressive liberal and these wars actually advanced my liberal world agenda. I had even planned to vote Republican for the first time in '04...

But Sweet Lord, this development really makes me crazy...almost as bad as the Ramadan dinner in our White House last week...

Could somebody tell me what is going on. Has bush gone completely soft in the head...has he gone "wobbly" in that famous phrase?
Posted by: Traveller || 11/03/2003 23:38 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Slow, stately tread of Saudi privatization
Saudi Arabia’s investment chief on Monday slammed the slow pace of privatization in the Kingdom, saying that combined with failure to open major sectors to foreign investors, it was harming the economy more than any alleged terror threat. “None of the big sectors have been opened up yet, and in the case of sectors taken off the ‘negative list’, public sector monopoly holders are preventing new investors from coming into the market,” Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki told AFP.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 21:14 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I heard they were thinking about privatizing swimming pool construction 2nd quarter next year.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 21:23 Comments || Top||


Begging ban exposes Saudi poverty
Saudi authorities have launched a campaign against begging on the streets of the oil-rich kingdom. The minister of labour and social affairs was quoted on Monday by the Arab News daily as saying the ministry aimed to reduce the number of beggars by helping them find jobs and place the elderly in specialised centres. “Some people resort to begging just to make easy money without actually being in need. It’s a kind of disease,” said Ali al-Namlah.
Either that, or they might be suffering an acute shortage of groceries with no prospects of employment as middle managers. They don't do plumbing, y'know...
But Dr Saad al-Faqih, a London-based dissident, said that poverty in Saudi Arabia is an increasingly serious social problem. "Homelessness is part of poverty and when we say poverty we mean real poverty," he said. "People estimate at least 30% are living below the poverty line," added the head of the Movement for Islamic Reform.
Don't spend enough time and effort on jihad, huh?
Saudis are lining up at the royal palaces pleading for help, he said, adding the royal family is consuming 60-80% of the country's revenues.
Yet another oil-for-palaces program. Maybe oil-for-Monte Carlo...
"Their dignity prevents them from begging," he said. More and more Saudis are unable to meet their basic essentials. "They are unable to pay water bills. They are unable to pay electricity bills. Meals are hard to come by," said al-Faqih. "We're talking about major areas in the big cities." While there are no official figures, more than 12,000 beggars were arrested in Saudi Arabia in 1998 of which 9000 were foreign and expelled. Approximately 100,000 Saudis enter the workforce every year. Al-Faqih expressed doubt that Saudi Arabia's poverty crisis could be resolved as long as the House of Saud was ruling the country. "The manner of running the country does not provide enough room for change to create jobs and rid of corruption," he said, adding corruption is "endemic and the norm".
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 20:38 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  No doubt a lot of the national income is spent on the royals. But also a lot goes to the religious 'leaders', the religious police, training imans overseas, building mosques overseas, funding islamic 'charities', etc.

Of course, the royal family probably blames the poverty on Israel.
Posted by: mhw || 11/03/2003 20:46 Comments || Top||

#2  I hope they aren't pushing the beggars across teh border into Iraq. They couldn't be that depraved, could they?
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 21:31 Comments || Top||

#3 
"Homelessness is part of poverty and when we say poverty we mean real poverty,"

As opposed to overweight / Color TV DVD / cell phone yakkin' / car ownin' American poverty.

If the bottom drops out for me, there's no place else I'd rather be than the good ol' USA.

I count my blessings. And they are worth protecting.
Posted by: Hyper || 11/03/2003 22:28 Comments || Top||

#4  'Saudis are lining up at the royal palaces pleading for help, he said, adding the royal family is consuming 60-80% of the country's revenues. "Their dignity prevents them from begging," he said.'

Sounds like the Royal Family should find real jobs instead of begging! Walmart is paying $8.00/hr for greeters..or did I misread that statement....oh my
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 23:06 Comments || Top||


Saudis Battle Militants in Streets of Mecca
EFL-FU
Police battled militants in the streets of the holy city of Mecca on Monday, killing two of the suspects and uncovering a large cache of weapons, the state news agency reported.
State News huh....not just for external consumption?
The raid on two buildings in Mecca’s al-Sharea neighborhood foiled a terrorist operation "that did not respect the sanctity of holy places and the month of Ramadan" — the holy month of fasting that began days ago, an Interior Minister was quoted as saying by the Saudi Press Agency. It was the second time this year that Saudi authorities have broken up suspected militant rings in Mecca — a city at the symbolic heart of the Saudi royal family’s rule — amid a wide crackdown on Islamic extremists. When police surrounded the buildings at 8 a.m., the suspects opened fire with automatic rifles and grenades, the official said.
"smells like .....Ramadan"
Police fired back as the militants fled in two cars, hitting one of the vehicles and killing two of its occupants. A cache of weapons and bombs were found inside the car, the official said. Security also seized fire arms including Kalashnikov rifles, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades, and material to make explosives in the raided premise. Passports, identification cards, and flyers were also found. Police are searching for the militants who escaped, the official said. It was not clear how many were at large, and the ministry official did not give details on the alleged terrorist plot. The government has been pantomiming cracking down on Islamic militants since May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh killed 26 people and nine attackers. On June 14, a raid on a terror cell plotting attacks in Mecca killed five Al Qaeda militants and two security agents. Police also found six dozen bombs and other weapons in the militants’ hide-out.

Saudis had reacted angrily to the threats against Mecca, the birthplace of Islam’s seventh-century prophet and the heart of the annual pilgrimage every able-bodied Muslim is required to perform at least once. The legitimacy of Saudi rulers rests partly on their custodianship of the holy city, which is off-limits to non-Muslims. A strike on Mecca could be seen as a strike on the regime. More than 200 suspects have been arrested and more than a dozen killed in a series of high-profile police raids since the Riyadh attacks. The Riyadh bombings also sparked unprecedented public discussion of the role of religion in Saudi society, with some daring to argue that the strict form of Islam preached in the kingdom fostered intolerance and extremism.
Noooo Wayyyy
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 1:09:27 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "As ye shall sow, so shall ye reap."

Have fun, Soddies. You earned it.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/03/2003 13:37 Comments || Top||


Al-Qaeda regrouping in Yemen
I expect that this is a logical consequence of the merger between al-Qaeda and their two Yemeni jihad affiliates. Either Yemen agrees to turn themselves into the next big terror haven or things start heating up there.
Al-Qaeda elements have recently warned the Yemeni government against its excessive security cooperation with the US.
This time there were no explosions to accompany such a rant. Perhaps they’ve lost touch ...
The mouthpiece of the Yemeni Unionist Party Al-Wahdawi Weekly in its issue released Oct. 27, said that it has received a phone call via satellites from a person named Abu Mohammed Al-Ghamedi, a Saudi national, who claimed that he was the representative of Al-Qaeda in Yemen and he went saying that they are ready to pursue attacking the American interests in the country without mentioning any other details.
Dear God, not another al-Ghamdi. Is there no end to these guys? There seems to be enough of them running around to qualify as a terrorist organization on their own right.
Moreover, he said that al-Qaeda elements in Yemen have been guided by Al-Muaataz Bellah, indicating that they ousted Khalid Abdulnabi, a leader of Hutat Group in Abyan. He also said that that Aden-Abyan Islamic Militant Group has joined Al-Qaeda.
The Hutat Group is a new one for me, unless it’s the Yemeni Islamic Jihad. We already knew about the Army of Aden joining al-Qaeda.
The Hutat group would be the Hatat wild bunch that got shot up back in July, in the Hole in the Wall. I'd guess Abdulnabi was "ousted" about the time he turned himself in. Either that, or he turned himself in because he was ousted and turned himself in to avoid having his beard mounted on some guy's trophy wall...
“He refused to specify which pay phone where he was phoning from, indicating that he was phoning via satellites to convey such information to the press,” according to the newspaper.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 11/03/2003 12:26:07 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This time there were no explosions to accompany such a rant. Perhaps they’ve lost touch ...

Maybe they're acting like the UN, you know, blustery and ineffectual.

Dear God, not another al-Ghamdi. Is there no end to these guys?

There's a science experiment about this, something about how if you put a male rat and a female rat together, lots of food, no competition, pretty soon ... well, you know the results of that experiment!
Posted by: Steve White || 11/03/2003 0:48 Comments || Top||

#2  I do not know what all the secret intel is, but everything points to the theory that a good Saudi ass-kicking will clear up alot of this al-Q nonsense. Iran is bad, very bad, but they seem to be a close second to Saudi. .com, what say you?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/03/2003 1:38 Comments || Top||

#3  A few months ago I wrote a letter to a Yemen Times columnist, concerning his complaints about the number of guns in his country. He replied by saying that there were 4 guns for every Yemeni. I don't believe in strict gun control. However, gun sense means knowing when enough is enough.
Posted by: Anonon || 11/03/2003 3:55 Comments || Top||

#4  I believe that 70% - 80% of all bad-guy funding comes from Saudi and Iran - and Saudi is probably 60%+ of that. The Saudis also fund the training grounds (madrassahs and schools and cleric centers and all the rest, whether it's in Pakiland, Germany, or Wash DC). The Iranians are tighter-fisted with their cash - recall the demands for expense reports and such in West Bank / Gaza ops they funded. LOL. They're terrorists - with a CPA, I guess.

No doubt whacking either would deal a real blow to the baddies. Iran is the one that's most immediately dangerous right now, IMO - and far easier to justify with a list of casus belli items long enough to convince anyone but a NaziMedia Tool or a Donk Prez Candidate. When? When we have to, I guess, to stop them tipping their new NorK missiles with Paki-Russkie nukes. The ones with the "We will bury you" messages painted on them.

The longer term problem with Saudi is sticky. And it's the one that really worries me. Geo41 actually thinks they're his friends - he's always been soft as butter in Saudi dealings. Some of that came from his buddies / Cabinet (esp Schultz and Scowcroft). Geo43 seems to have inherited the inclination, if not the full disease, as evidenced by how much cover he's given them - the blanked 28 pages and how he acted toward Clown Prince Abdullah in Crawford.

Clearing the decks:
We have a LOT of people over there (10,000+ American civvies in oil biz and prolly about the same number of UK Commonwealth civvies)- though the Riyadh attacks opened the gates: Most guys are staying, but sending their families back or planning to do so. Because of the causeway to Bahrain, they could get out fast, if needed, assuming the Saudis will let them go, and not have to fight over air flights. We have pulled out all but liason military. Because of Saudi laws, a hasty exit doesn't mean we lose a lot of civvy assets, either - they'll be mostly Saudi-owned, we just provide people and brainpower.

So whacking Saudi is really about this "Special Relationship" crap that Roosevelt set up and Geo41 bought into 100%. He was a true Ivy League noblesse oblige Skull 'n Bones guy who idolized Henry Stimson and Wild Bill Donovan. Dubya isn't any of that, but he has to get real a lot faster than I think he's doing now. I don't think you'll be able to wean him from this legacy crap until they do something else like 9/11 and the finger points back at the Royals again. That should do it, but that's a helluva price to pay just to get Dubya to let go of his lifelong held Saudi myths, implanted courtesy of Daddy.

Once the green light is on - you'll have to isolate them - airports, Bahrain causeway, Gulf docks and shipping, hiways to Kuwait and Qatar... then what? Not sure, except sea of glass....

Is that 2 cents worth?
Posted by: .com || 11/03/2003 6:09 Comments || Top||

#5  I should hope that the only American asset that AQ could attack in Yemen would be the bookbag that Jonnie Lindh left when he beat feat to Pakistan for his summer vacation.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 9:22 Comments || Top||

#6 

Just a small question: how well would we be able to occupy Saudi Arabian territory in a war, when we're having problems with domestic support occupying Iraq, which has a mostly friendly population and the "resistance" is mostly foreign?

I don't think we're up to actually trying to occupy a hostile population.



Posted by: Anonymous || 11/03/2003 11:19 Comments || Top||

#7  I've always favored a targeted approach regarding the Saudis. I don't think it is their govs policy to fund terrorist. There is popular support for them though. Why the popular support, wahabi cash and all. That segment needs to be targeted. .com brings up the foreign civilians which is a big problem in the targeted approach as they may not appreciate the hostile action to their good health. So that should be addressed, like get the hell out. That would make the loonies happy anyway. A blockade of Saudi oil assets would dry up cash. Then with clearer royal heads taking stock of the situation the targeting of the wahabi's could begin. Once free of wahabi influence the Saudi good guys(?), such as Sec of State Collin Powell's buddy Prince Bandar, would have a better chance to promote a modern state. I realize that this is on the sophomoric side. But lets not forget that radical Islam has a heart and that is what needs to be cut out. If it isn't then there is no end to this war, NO END! Screwing around in Iraq is not going to do much more than screwing around in Iraq. It's time for them to have their civil war. Anon is right about occupying Saudi, not good. Iran; let Iran be the new home of radical Islam. Iranians are smart enough to reject that by themselves. BTW, the targeting of wahabi funded mad houses must be done world wide. Use their prefered method, daytime car bombs with red cresents on them.
Posted by: Lucky || 11/03/2003 12:35 Comments || Top||

#8  .com, did you see the Nesday article on the "modern" Saudi Ramadan where they are all text messaging Ramadan greetings to each other?
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 13:24 Comments || Top||

#9  SH - Interesting piece, Thx! I particularly enjoyed this bit:

"clerics here insist the new month begins not when scientists determine, but when the crescent moon should be seen with the naked eye"

And we all know that Allah parts the clouds to permit viewing of the cresent - to remove confusion among his believers... for He is all-knowing and kind to His children.
Posted by: .com || 11/03/2003 16:49 Comments || Top||

#10  .com - I liked the part about how you could tune to a special scriptural channel on your airplane headset. Could you imagine getting Happy Ramadan spam?
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 17:10 Comments || Top||

#11  Lucky - The Wahabbists "own" the Two Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina - a sore point with, as well as leverage against and power over, every other faction of Islam. To cut the heart out of Wahabbism would be to do the same to Islam in general. Certainly the Shi'a would dearly love to get their hands on them. You can't "move" Islam from its roots - they're extra super magically Holy and everything, y'know. They'd prolly get pissed at your insensitivity and declare jihad. ;-)

Saudi Arabia is much like the surface of the Moon - with air, gravity, and ass-kicking heat 8+ months of the year. Most of it is unoccupied (and this applies to the "Anonymous" comment about occupation) wasteland. Hell, most of the occupied places other than the Red Sea coast are wasteland with buildings and streets. They don't call the Southern 1/4 of Saudi the "Empty Quarter" for nothing. If we were free to do what we wanted, the thing to do would be to "occupy" a reasonably small portion of the Gulf coast, where most of the oil is located and trans-shipped, and the Red Sea coast which is also a major shipping area. Any oil prodution left would be almost worthless without shipping. The middle of the sandbox is interesting only to Muslims as it contains Nos. 1 & 2 on their Holy Hit Parade. Riyadh (I've never been there myself, but know from others who've lived and worked there) is a wasteland, situated there because it is the traditional homeland region of the House of Saud, close to the Two Holy Mosques, and, since it once mattered in warfare as Saud subdued the holdout tribes, centrally located.

You can "whack" Saudi and take them out of the terrorism game by taking the oil centers. As Willie Sutton said when asked why he robbed banks, "because that's where the money is" - without the oil, these are wild-eyed Wahabbi goat herders with a few oases of date palms. Like America has romanticized the Old West with many thinking (without really thinking) they wish they'd lived then, the Saudis have their Bedu past and love to pretend they all feel the call of the wild, but none would actually do it cuz it's damned recent history and their elders know better.

I highly recommend scrolling through this online book and reading the anecdotes. They really paint an interesting picture and give background on how to deal with Saudi Arabia. You will find stories worth the effort. The one about the old Beduin and the King's train carriage was an eye-opener for me.
http://www.amble.com/barnes.htm

Cut off their oil and they are nothing but a tempest in a samovar in the middle of nowhere: The Moon. You don't think that more than 2 or 3 percent of the money sitting in Swiss Banks would be donated to the True Believers to wage jihad - if they knew that no more was coming in, do you? Me neither. ;->
Posted by: .com || 11/03/2003 17:35 Comments || Top||

#12  .com, But I've always wanted to be a cowboy, if only it could be true. A nice ranch, a few hunert head-a cows, no worries, just me and ol'Paint against the world. Think'n me and ol'Paint 'll amble off to amble.com presently. Ya'll have a good even'n. Thankee.
Posted by: Lucky || 11/03/2003 18:59 Comments || Top||

#13  Speaking of holy icons. I wonder what happened to Mullah Omar's cloak of the profet.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 19:21 Comments || Top||


Europe
Dutchies debate cutting aid to Muslim schools
THE DUTCH PARLIAMENT IS DEBATING CUTTING AID TO MUSLIM SCHOOLS BECAUSE OF ALLEGED PREACHING AGAINST GAYS, WOMEN'S RIGHTS, EUROPEANS, AND THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS OF THE COUNTRY. (AL-SHARQ AL-AWSAT, LONDON, 11/3/03)
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 21:04 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the Islamists are opposed to the little boy with his finger in the dyke
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 22:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Shame they aren't cutting Islamic school support coz they won't serve in the military or something to be outraged about, but I will take PC as an excuse to take away their money.

Maybe the Dutch are acquiring some cajones?
Posted by: badanov || 11/03/2003 23:34 Comments || Top||


Great wahrks! I don’t believe this!
Asshat. Hat tip Protest Warrior
The leader of the Danish Republican Party, Sooslashren Mosegaard has invited Saddam Hussein to seek political asylum in Denmark. In a statement conveyed to Al Bawaba via email, Mosegaard said the offer is "on behalf of the Danish people."
Who would be very pissed indeed were Saddam to get asylum there.
"The Danish Republican Party does not sympathize with Iraq’s former regime. But we do believe that everybody - even Saddam - is entitled to protection from inhumanly punishment," the statement of the Danish politician added.
"Inhumanly punishment?"
According to the danish law, as an asylum applicant in Denmark, Saddam Hussein can not be extradited to USA or other countries who employ torture or death penalty, the statement added.
Or incarcerated, for that matter.
Posted by: Atrus || 11/03/2003 4:57:58 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So if Sadaam came back into power, he would not be able to extradite himself from Denmark.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 17:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Denmark isn't a huge country to search like Iraq. And it doesn't have a military. At least not one that we can't wipe out with a squad of Apaches.
Posted by: Charles || 11/03/2003 17:13 Comments || Top||

#3  "Unhumanly punishment" -- like the government-run rape squad? Or the shredder? Or gassing? Or being hung from hooks? Or...

A simple hanging, lethal injection, or electrocution is a million times more humane and less painful and protracted than Saddam deserves. God willing, we'll locate him and he'll be gutshot while he's resisting.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 18:52 Comments || Top||

#4  This strikes me as quite odd. The Danes were part of the coalition, patrolling lanes in the Gulf and the rivers. They even fired shots in anger for the first time in who-knows how long.

Something tells me this would be equivalent to an offer from, say, the World Worker's Party in the United States making the same offer on behalf of the people of the United States.
Posted by: eLarson || 11/03/2003 19:32 Comments || Top||

#5  Well, who IS Sooslashren Mosegaard, and what is the Danish Republican Party?
Posted by: Lu Baihu || 11/03/2003 20:12 Comments || Top||

#6  Mr. Mosegaard is a frothing loon and the "head" of a one-man party. His message was sent to, guess who, al-Jizmeera, which is how it managed to get the coverage it did.

The full scoop on him can be found in the update and comments to this post.

You really SHOULD know better than to believe anything coming out of Albawabalabadabbadabbadoo-ding-dong.
Posted by: Emperor Misha I || 11/03/2003 20:35 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
ro’Moore gets Spinsanity treatment.
In his latest book Dude, Where’s My Country? — a polemic against President Bush — liberal gadfly Michael Moore again demonstrates why he has a reputation as a slipshod journalist who has trouble getting his facts right.
ro’Moore doesn’t want the facts to get in the way so he deceives himself to avoid having to think.
Moore established his reputation for playing fast and loose with the truth in his first film, the 1989 documentary "Roger and Me," centering on General Motors layoffs in his hometown of Flint, Michigan. As the New Yorker’s Pauline Kael wrote at the time, he manipulated the chronology of his film, implying that certain events were a response to GM’s large 1986 layoffs when in fact they had occurred years before. Moore’s best-selling book Stupid White Men was no less factually challenged. In it, he made a number of mistakes, ranging from the sloppy (suggesting that the multiyear cost of a new fighter plane was all being spent in 2001) to the outright ridiculous (reprinting an outdated list of attacks on Bush from the Internet virtually unedited). "Bowling for Columbine," for which Moore was awarded last year’s Academy Award for best documentary feature, continued the pattern. Critics, including my co-editor Ben Fritz and Dan Lyons of Forbes, documented how Moore repeated a well-debunked myth about supposed US aid to the Taliban, falsely portrayed a scene in a Michigan bank to make it appear as though one could open an account and walk out with a gun, and altered a Bush-Quayle ’88 campaign ad, among numerous other distortions.
ro’Moore lied, people may die.
Moore has generally brushed aside such criticism with suggestions such as "How can there be inaccuracy in comedy?" as he put it to Lou Dobbs on CNN’s "Moneyline." More recently, however, he has gone on the offensive, going so far as to suggest critics of "Bowling for Columbine" are "committing an act of libel" in an August 19 appearance on MSNBC. And in a long article posted on his web site, he denounces criticism of the film as "character assassination" and "make-believe stories."
"Of course, his lips fall off a lot."
Despite repeatedly dismissing his critics, Moore has recently acknowledged some of his errors. For instance, in the DVD release of "Bowling for Columbine," he changed the caption he inserted over a Bush/Quayle ’88 campaign ad, making the text more accurate (although the viewer still is unlikely to realize that the text wasn’t in the original ad in the first place). On his web site, Moore explicitly admitted making this correction in the film. In two places in Dude, Where’s My Country?, Moore implicitly acknowledges mistakes in his earlier works. On several occasions over the past two years, Moore has asserted that (as he put it on "Politically Incorrect") "the Bush Administration gave $43 million in aid to the Taliban in part to — give money to the poppy growers for the money they would lose because they can’t grow heroin anymore." "Bowling for Columbine" continued the canard, asserting that the US gave $245 million in aid to the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Both of these are false; the aid, intended to help relive famine, was given to non-governmental organizations, not the Taliban. In his latest book, Moore finally gets it right, noting that the aid "was to be distributed by international organizations." (page 34)
Mighty big of him, though no less than you'd expect from such a large person...
Moore also implicitly corrects himself about what was manufactured at a Lockheed plant in Littleton, Colorado. In "Bowling for Columbine," Moore implies that the plant made nuclear weapons at or immediately before the time he visited. Actually, while the plant was involved in nuclear missile production years before, it now makes rockets that are used as space-launch vehicles for military and civilian satellites. In his newest book, Moore sets the record straight, writing that "Lockheed Martin, the biggest arms maker in the world, built rockets that carried into space the special new satellites that guided the missiles fired into Baghdad" during the recent war in Iraq. (page 74) At least Moore is finally telling the truth about the US aid and Lockheed. Most other subjects come in for much more dubious treatment in the book. For example, Moore misstates the details of how members of the Bin Laden family left the US after Sept. 11, claiming that "while thousands were stranded and could not fly, if you could prove you were a close relative of the biggest mass murderer in U.S. history, you got a free trip to gay Paree!" (page 20) Yet a few pages earlier, Moore himself quotes a November, 2001 New Yorker article by Jane Mayer which notes that "Once the FAA permitted overseas flights [after Sept. 11], the jet [with the Bin Ladens] flew to Europe." (page 4) As this and other reports have made clear, the Bin Ladens did not leave the US until after the resumption of commercial flights. And a Boston Globe article of September 20, 2001 quotes a Saudi government official stating that the Bin Ladens chartered their own plane — hardly a "free" trip as Moore suggests.

Moore’s penchant for conspiracy theories often leads him to stretch the facts or make laughable claims. Bashing the proposed Terrorist Information Awareness project, he writes that "There is usually very little in the way of an electronic or paper trail when it comes to terrorists. They lay low and pay cash. You and me, we leave trails everywhere — credit cards, cell phones, medical records, online; everything we do. Who is really being watched here?"(page 110) In Moore’s fervor to indict the TIA system, he forgets about the credit cards used by the 9-11 hijackers, which were used to help retrace their steps.

Moore also repeats a well-debunked myth about Democratic presidential hopeful General Wesley Clark. According to Moore, "Clark has said that he received phone calls on Sept. 11 and in the weeks after from people at ’think tanks’ and from people within the White House telling him to use his position as a pundit for CNN to ’connect’ Sept. 11 to Saddam Hussein." (page 53) Moore cites a June 15, 2003 interview with Clark on NBC’s "Meet the Press." Despite somewhat ambiguous phrasing in that interview, however, Clark, has subsequently been consistent in his claim that it was a member of a think tank who contacted him, not the White House, a fact buttressed by a recent report that identified the man who made the call. And Moore pluralizes the single call Clark refers to in the "Meet the Press" interview to "calls" - a claim Clark has never made.

In addition, Moore attacks the Patriot Act with an array of examples that have nothing to do with it. He introduces the list by writing that "To date, there are at least thirty-four documented cases of FBI abuse under the Patriot Act — and at least another 966 individuals have filed formal complaints. Many of these people were just minding their own business, or seeking to partake in our free society. Consider these examples." (page 111) Moore lists an anti-globalization activist who was questioned by "immigration officials" and a "State department agent"; a New York judge who asked a defendant if she was a terrorist; French journalists detained at the Los Angeles Airport; a local police officer in Vermont entering a teacher’s classroom to photograph an anti-Bush art display; a college student questioned by Secret Service agents about "anti-American" material; and a Green Party activist questioned on his way to Prague. None of the incidents he lists, however, happened as a result of the Patriot Act, nor did any of them involve the FBI (the French journalists were detained for improper travel documents, and the Green Party activist was questioned by the Secret Service, as Moore’s own sources note).

Bush’s policies towards Iraq come in for particular criticism — and, in several cases, gross distortions. Moore writes that "There were claims that the French were only opposing war to get economic benefits out of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. In fact, it was the Americans who were making a killing. In 2001, the U.S. was Iraq’s leading trading partner, consuming more than 40 percent of Iraq’s oil exports. That’s $6 billion in trade with the Iraqi dictator." (page 69) In reality, that "trade" was done under the auspices of the United Nations oil-for-food program, which allowed Iraq to sell a limited amount of oil to purchase humanitarian supplies. One can only imagine what Moore would have said if the U.S. refused to purchase Iraqi oil and allowed its citizens to starve.

At another point, Moore attacks Secretary of State Colin Powell’s statement to the United Nations that "What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence." According to Moore, "Just days earlier, Powell apparently was not so sure. During a gathering of CIA officials reviewing the evidence against Saddam Hussein, Powell tossed the papers in the air and declared: ’I’m not reading this. This is bullshit.’" (page 82) Moore makes it appear as though the speech Powell gave at the UN included the evidence he had called "bullshit." In fact, the US News & World Report article that Moore cites does note Powell’s exclamation, but it details the process by which Powell winnowed out pieces of evidence he was uncomfortable presenting. The article concludes "And plenty was cut [from Powell’s speech]. Sometimes it was because information wasn’t credible, sometimes because Powell didn’t want his speech to get too long, sometimes because [CIA Director George] Tenet insisted on protecting sources and methods."

Nor is Moore above twisting facts to attack the Bush administration’s tax cuts. Moore criticizes the 2003 Bush tax cut for reducing revenue to the states. As one example, he writes, "Take the kids in Oregon, whose schools were shut down early this year because they ran out of tax money." (page 160) While Moore makes it appear as though the 2003 Bush tax cut shut down Oregon’s schools, Oregon actually passed a law in May 2003 decoupling its state income tax system from the federal government’s, insuring that the 2003 tax cut would have no impact on the state’s budget. Moreover, as an article from the June 8 New York Times Magazine - one of Moore’s own sources - notes, Oregon voters had rejected a referendum earlier in the year that would have raised taxes to pay for schools and other spending.

In a recent interview with Bookreporter.com, Moore was asked if he made a special effort to fact-check his new book. "All my work goes through a thorough fact-checking process," he said. "I hire three teams of people to go through the book and then two separate lawyers vet it. There is a reason that I have never been sued over anything in my three books — that’s because everything in them is true." Apparently, Moore needs to hire himself some new fact-checkers. Regardless of the supposed rigors of its vetting process, Dude, Where’s My Country? cements Moore’s reputation as one of our nation’s sloppiest commentators.
Posted by: Atrus || 11/03/2003 10:06:46 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Moore can write or say anything he wants - I object to his media/Dem supporters labelling this tripe as a documentary, and any organization (can you say "Oscars") which accepts this fiction as a documentary loses their credibility as well. In a bit of delightful hypocrisy, Moore also has filed suit against someone "stalking" him with a camera - a la "Roger and Me" and his Lucianne Goldberg apartment camera stunt. The fat fu&k can't handle what he dishes out. He'll be history in 5 years, along with Franken
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 10:22 Comments || Top||

#2  "He'll be history in 5 years, along with Franken"

-Frank, probably true. However, it's always good to have limosine liberal media whores around. Keeps us vigilant of what we are fighting against. On a side note, Dean should be embarrassed of Franken's behavior at that fund raiser some months ago.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 11:05 Comments || Top||

#3  Moore says

"There is a reason that I have never been sued over anything in my three books -- that’s because everything in them is true."

actually, the reason is that the books are entertainment and thus it is difficult to make a case that you have been damaged by a mistatement (no one sues South Park or SNL successfully either).
Posted by: mhw || 11/03/2003 11:05 Comments || Top||

#4  Satire is virtually suit-proof, but I think he's treading dangerously by calling it a documentary. Additionally, it's difficult to prove slander/libel against a public figure IIUC
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 11:13 Comments || Top||

#5  Notice that Moore's excuse when challenged is that its "satire". In other words, he isn't even courageous enough to stand up and defend his muck as accurate, critical and opinionated. Can you imagine P.J. O'Rourke having to backtrack on any of his writings as just "satire" when in fact he is such a master he can defend them as being accurate, funny and critical discourse all wrapped up in one.
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 11/03/2003 11:40 Comments || Top||

#6  It's funny how his message gets echo's. Here is an LA Times article repeated in Newsday: Report Ties Iraq, Afghan Contracts to Cronyism. The DNC must have a staffer assigned to zing the Halliburton frisbe out into the media once a week.

A company I used to work for, Nucor Steel, was a heavy backer of Clinton because they had several mills in Arkansas, but they have probably benefitted much more from Bush's disasterous foray into protectionism.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 11:52 Comments || Top||

#7  However, it's always good to have limosine liberal media whores around.

Also because they keep the country moving to the center. You have to be an idiot or a true believer to be willing to admit that Moore represents your POV.
Posted by: B || 11/03/2003 12:05 Comments || Top||

#8  However, it's always good to have limosine liberal media whores around.

Also because they keep the country moving to the center. You have to be an idiot or a true believer to be willing to admit that Moore represents your POV.


I disagree. Propaganda works. Most people are vulnerable to propaganda to one degree or another, and a I'll bet there are millions out there who take Moore's lies at face value. I know many people who have seen Bowling who haven't had the opportunity to learn what a crock of bulls*** it is - the media don't exactly shout about it, at least not in the UK. It doesn't help that Hollywood fawned over it, and disgracefully gave it the Oscar for Best Documentary [sic].

What Moore peddles are lies, on a big scale and they're told often. What was it Goebbels said?
Posted by: Bulldog || 11/03/2003 13:15 Comments || Top||

#9  Yes propoganda does work--look at how many Americans believe Saddam Insane was behind 9/11!
And BTW, this librul is still waiting on his limo--when do I get one?
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 11/03/2003 13:59 Comments || Top||

#10  NMM, everybody gets a limo ride in the end. :-)
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 14:08 Comments || Top||

#11  Yes propoganda does work--look at how many Americans believe Saddam Insane was behind 9/11!

That number is actually very small. The left keeps adding together the number of people who think it's "possible" or "likely" that Saddam was aware or somehow involved, and then treating those people like idiots for having a better comprehension of world events than the left.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 14:39 Comments || Top||

#12  Propoganda does work. Often Michael Moron's 'truth's are repeated and 'quoted' as fact by the left. Sometimes these people know that it is a bunch of crap but use it nevertheless to legitimate their own BS but often they are quoted by fools who think 'well its in a book so it MUST be true! - after all MM hasn't been sued yet!'.

Remember the Mass media (at least here in the US) still says that Bush told america that Iraq was an IMMINENT THREAT even when he (Bush) went out of his way to say that it wasn't but that we should not wait for it to become an imminent threat?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/03/2003 18:26 Comments || Top||

#13  Carzyfool, that cronyism is an example of that. You award a contract to a huge company because only a huge company has that type of capability. That start the the old "in-bed with big business" canard rebounding off the walls ad nauseum until those who no better get sick of arguing the point. Propoganda in the echo chamber works eventually becasue countering the argument is eventually boring and exasperating.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 19:27 Comments || Top||

#14  Well, I agree that propaganda works for all reasons stated above. But there becomes a point where you acquire the "stink of a loser" that results in more people who don't want to be associated with you than those who do. Sure, MM picks up the young and ignorant..and gives fuel to the true believers, but....
think what's-his-face who claimed that the blue Smurf was gay. Suddenly, all but the already--forever-faithful were denying they ever knew the guy. Push the pendulum too far, and back it swings.

MM is all about comedy...but it's the Democrats who are becoming the joke.
Posted by: B || 11/03/2003 20:17 Comments || Top||

#15  B. I think you are reffering to Jery Falwell pointing our that Tinky Winkie of the Tellitubbies might be a new gay icon because he carries a handbag. He was wrong about the Tellitubbies. They aren't gay they are communist. This link will fill you in. It is one of the Hose;s favor websites of all time.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 21:38 Comments || Top||

#16  Actually - I've had my doubts about Patrick, the purple starfish on Spongebob Squarepants, for quite some time
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 23:10 Comments || Top||

#17  That link was hilarious!
Posted by: B || 11/04/2003 7:18 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Monkeys Terrorize India Workers, Tourists
(okay, this may be a little off-subject but damn funny)
In a capital city where cows roam the streets and elephants plod along in the bus lanes, it’s no surprise to find government buildings overrun with monkeys.
(it’s no surpise in the U.S. either)
But the officials who work there are fed up. They’ve been bitten, robbed and otherwise tormented by monkeys that ransack files, bring down power lines, screech at visitors and bang on office windows. The Supreme Court has stepped in, decreeing that New Delhi should be a monkey-free city after citizens filed a lawsuit demanding protection from the animals. Easier said than done. A past initiative to scare off the army of Rhesus macaques with ultrahigh frequency loudspeakers didn’t work. A plan to deport them to distant regions has stalled because local governments refused to have them. There’s an ape patrol of fierce-looking primates called langurs, led about on leashes by keepers. But whenever a langur looms, the pink-faced, two-foot-tall hooligans simply move elsewhere on government grounds.
(kind of like pan-handlers)
"Please do not feed the monkeys," implores a sign at Raisina Hill, the complex of colonnaded buildings that includes the president’s residence, Parliament, and Cabinet offices. To no avail. Hindus believe that monkeys are manifestations of the monkey god, Hanuman, and worshippers come to Raisina Hill every Tuesday handing out bananas. Last year the monkeys made their presence felt by hanging from window ledges and screeching at reporters arriving for a news conference with visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
(I didn’t know A.N.S.W.E.R. had a New Delhi Chapter.)
They do, but it's entirely staffed by monkeys...
"It’s a big problem, especially in the evening," says Defense Ministry spokesman Amitabha Chakrabarti. Monkeys break into offices at night and paw through the files looking for food, he said. "Those who work late hours have to be careful when it is dark."
"Mukkerjee? Is that you?... Damn! You ain't Mukkerjee!"
The city estimates at least 1,500 of New Delhi’s more than 5,000 macaques live on Raisina Hill. In the latest effort, a monkey relocation initiative, 400 monkeys have been caught at Raisina Hill in the past year and moved to a holding area on the outskirts of New Delhi to await their return to forests in neighboring states, said Madan Thapliyal, a municipality spokesman. But governments of those states have so far refused to take the furry exiles, saying they have more than enough of their own. Maneka Gandhi, daughter-in-law of the late Indian leader Indira Gandhi and an independent lawmaker in the lower house of India’s Parliament, believes the monkeys should be left in peace.
(my father-in-law would’ve wanted it that way)
Gandhi, an animal rights advocate, has already managed to halt a New Delhi program to spay and neuter stray dogs, saying it was cruel.
‘Like people, cows, and disease, we don’t have enough stray dogs in India. ’
She claims that captured macaques, despite their holiness to Hindus, have been given to laboratories for experimentation or have died in their holding area cages. They were "relocated to monkey heaven," she said.
I swear I didn’t make any of this shit up. LMFAO!!
Atul K. Gupta, of the Wildlife Institute of India, says macaques belong in forests, but deforestation and human settlement are driving them into cities in search of food. Macaques are crafty pickpockets, know how to open refrigerators, and brazenly snatch lunch pails from government workers, he said. "They have learned the tricks of finding food in an urban environment." The answer, he said, is to save the forests. Otherwise, he says, "the problem will get worse."
In other words the Indians need to learn about this thing called birth control and quit having more kids then their environment or economy can support.
Perhaps they should think seriously of hiding them on buses and smuggling them into Pakistan. Think what fun they could have in Karachi and Lahore...
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 10:08:27 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Use the city dump as monkey flypaper. Don't be cruel, though, give the monkies tentnus shots on a volunteer basis.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 11:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Don't shoot any monkey's, though. and certainly none of them should be spanked. Give them internet access. I've heard that one may be working on sonnets. They've got to be better than Ludicrus.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 12:00 Comments || Top||

#3  SH....

Okay we got the monkeys now we need terminals & time.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/03/2003 12:48 Comments || Top||

#4  watched "28 Days Later" on DVD this weekend - Don't touch the monkeys....
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 13:14 Comments || Top||

#5  Sounds like PALEOS with tails...
________________________________borgboy
Posted by: borgboy || 11/03/2003 14:24 Comments || Top||

#6  Start issuing short clubs and recipies for Macaque Burgers.
Posted by: mojo || 11/03/2003 15:57 Comments || Top||

#7  I don't think monkey skin hats would ever catch on, but does everyone remember the physics lab where the instructor induces static electricity by rubbing a glass rod with an animal fur ...
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 17:14 Comments || Top||


Terrorists earn minimum wage
What motivates a young man to take up terrorism, enrol himself at a training camp in Pakistan, infiltrate India, fire at the Army and possibly never return home? It is a small pay package that equals the wage of a peon or driver. The lure of a mere 3,000 Rupees per month ensures that the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) meets its manpower requirements. However, not every terrorist gets Rs 3,000. Payments relate directly to performance, area of operation, number of casualties the terrorist has inflicted upon Indian security forces, motivation level and other HR criteria. In short, the ISI maintains dossiers and gives annual marks to its cadres very much like the Pakistan Army does for its regular employees. The pay scale is not rigid as it varies depending on the risks one is willing to take and his commitment to the cause. Some of the more ‘enthusiastic’ Kashmiri youth get around 5,000 Rupees. With the number of years one puts in, the annual increment increases. A Kashmiri company or battalion [commander] gets from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000. A district commander gets around 20,000 Rupees.

Nevertheless, one thing is clear: that Kashmiri youth get a raw deal compared to the Pakistani or foreign counterpart. The Kashmiri mujahideen is paid less by the ISI than a Pakistani terrorist. The rank and file from Pakistan or Afghanistan or any other country gets a starting salary of 5,000 Rupees that can go up to 7,000 Rupees. Commanders get much more. A commander starts at anything above 25,000 Rupees. The higher they go, the heftier the pay package and the more discreet it becomes. Lashkar-e-Taiba’s (LeT) Doda district commander Mohd Shahzad, a Pakistani national, captured by the Army after a fierce encounter in September 2003, said he came to Jammu & Kashmir to be a jehadi and was paid nearly 20,000 Rupees per month but that limit was waived off as a special case.

The main attraction in joining the ISI is the initial offer. A Kashmiri gets Rs two lakh (200,000 rupees) as one-time payment to join. There is a catch. One must go over to Pakistan to get the complete four to five month training and then work his way back into India from the 120 launch pads. The basic training at the 85 training camps is the same and involves handling small arms (AK-47) and explosives, small unit tactics of raid and ambush and radio communication. The second term involves training of special operations-explosives. “Poor economic conditions in the Valley force some to cross over to Pakistan for their training. The amount is too tempting for anyone to say ‘no’,” explains an official.

There are other factors too at work. Competition and style for instance drive most youth into the realm of the AK-47. “It has become a style. If you don’t have a gun you don’t get good girlfriends and nobody respects you,” a militant said to an army officer serving in the Valley. Sources also point to the presence of foreign militants who come to the Valley after sessions of intense motivation and psychological drills. LeT’s Shahzad said he came to Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) to fight jehadis as he was told harrowing stories of atrocities being committed on the Muslims in the Valley. "I felt I had to take revenge but now after fighting the army for more than three years I realise the futility of this ‘freedom’ movement,” he said in a heart-to-heart talk. However, the ISI makes sure that those who help recruit while on the job are not neglected. It rewards handsomely. “If a militant motivates and enrols another youth, he can make up to 15000 Rupees,” explained a source.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 11/03/2003 3:41:06 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  DO they qualify for benefits? What's the dental plan like?
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 7:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Now we know why they all have part time jobs at Al Jiz.
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/03/2003 8:59 Comments || Top||

#3  So, it's not about Allah and the 72 raisins! It's about minimum wage!
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 10:24 Comments || Top||

#4  The locals seemed to be getting stiffed. They should seek representation. Which arm of the AFL CIO covers workers in international terrorism. I don't think its the UAW - I'll ask the shop steward that covers my district.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 11:57 Comments || Top||

#5  Which arm of the AFL CIO covers workers in international terrorism?
Sounds like a job for the Teamsters
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 13:34 Comments || Top||

#6  When terrorists demand a wage increase, you would have to kind of take the demand seriously.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 17:16 Comments || Top||

#7  Even with the pittance they receive, they're over paid. Where else, except in American colleges, can a flaming moonbat get paid for being a flaming moonbat?
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/03/2003 21:00 Comments || Top||


Pakistani troops picked up in al-Qaeda raid
I think we all saw this one coming.
Three Pakistani armymen were captured inside Afghan territory during a raid on an Al-Qaida hideout in the Kandahar region, the main stronghold of the former Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
Okay, Kandahar is well into the interior of Afghanistan. I’m guessing they just got lost ...
Afghan officials later handed them over to the Pakistan embassy in Kabul. Although the Afghan government says the men have been released as a goodwill gesture, it is bound to cause a lot of embarrassment to Pakistan.
Ya think?
President Musharraf has been insisting that his army has no links with the Al-Qaida.
He also says that Pakistan only provides moral support to the Kashmiri groups ...
Afghan security forces had recently arrested the three Pakistani nationals in the Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province. Since the fall of the extremist Taliban regime, Afghan authorities have released hundreds of Pakistani prisoners who had been jailed mainly in and around the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 11/03/2003 12:42:23 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Must be that the geomagnetic storms have screwed up the Pak's compasses. Of course hundreds of Pak soldiers strayed to the north and were airlifted out of Konduz (or near Mazar-e-shariff) in the Afghan war with the Taliban.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/03/2003 1:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Should have picked India:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/EK01Df05.html
Posted by: Anonon || 11/03/2003 3:52 Comments || Top||

#3  If the Pakistanis can come into Afghan territory, why can't some spec ops boys ...
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 7:50 Comments || Top||

#4  I feel the Afghan officials have shown a lot of restraint in the handling of Pakistan fighters and Al-Qaida supporters, they could have easily just shot or jailed them. To publicly release them in general was smart in one way by proving their existance, but also a bit of a gamble since they will probably return back to their old haunts. In retro, I honestly feel that Pakistan is the hornerts nest now, and it has been for a while. Maybe we cant occupy that land but should at least cut of the borders and make Musharraf sweat'em out by showing topdog relations with India just to give hem something to think about throughout the winter and early spring.
Posted by: R.A. Myers || 11/03/2003 11:44 Comments || Top||


Iraq
'America Will Never Run,' Bush Says of Iraq
One day after the deadliest attack against American forces since the fall of Baghdad, President Bush said on Monday that he would not be intimidated by the guerrilla campaign in Iraq and vowed again that the United States would stay there as long as it took to achieve stability. "The enemy in Iraq believes America will run, that's why they're willing to kill innocent civilians, relief workers, coalition troops," Mr. Bush said in a speech. "America will never run."
Keep to that, G.W. Never back down...
But a day after the missile attack that brought down an American helicopter and killed 16 Americans, Mr. Bush stuck to a strategy begun on Sunday of not explicitly mentioning the attack. He instead spoke in generalities about the nature of the insurgency in Iraq and the loss of American life, apparently in an effort to avoid being locked into a pattern of responding in detail to each new episode of bad news. "We mourn every loss," Mr. Bush said. "We honor every name. We grieve with every family. And we will always be grateful that liberty has found such brave defenders."
Better to set the objectives and keep working toward them. Yes, we're going to take casualties. We all know that, except possibly the Dem presidential candidates. Casualties hurt. My heart bleeds for every dead or wounded American — any one of them could have been me 20 years ago, or one of my sons or my friends' sons today. But if we let Iraq to being a cesspool, then those lives are going to have been wasted, as will be the lives of the Iraqis who're on our side. We'll have let the Bad Guys win, and we'll end up fighting them again later, from a less advantageous position.
The president's calibrated remarks, mixing resolve with tribute and sympathy, reflected his need both to shore up support for his Iraq policy at home and to assure Iraqis that he remains determined to establish a stable democracy in their country. The White House brushed aside any suggestion that large numbers of Iraqis were celebrating the downing of the helicopter and had turned against the American occupation.
I don't care if they do or they don't, beyond the point that I think the bastards should be deported like the Assyrians used to do.
"The Iraqi people overwhelmingly support coalition forces staying in Iraq until they finish their job," said Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, citing, without being specific, "a number of indications the Iraqi people appreciate what we are doing to improve the security situation." Mr. McClellan said the American people recognized "that the president is providing strong leadership and taking decisive action to make the world a safer and better place and make America more secure."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 23:48 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israelis behind Baghdad bombings?
MOHSEN ABDUL HAMID, THE CHIEF OF THE IRAQI ISLAMIC PARTY AND MEMBER OF THE IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL, TOLD THE SAUDI DAILY OKAZ THAT ISRAELIS WERE BEHIND SOME OF THE BAGHDAD BOMBINGS THAT OCCURRED ON THE FIRST DAY OF RAMADAN. (TESHREEN, SYRIA, 11/2/03)
Somehow I remain unconvinced...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 21:06 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Would it be unethical to schedule and publish a five minute break for his security once and hour? If the Baathists or Syrian get him, it would be addition by subtraction.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 21:44 Comments || Top||


Moqtada to cooperate: the Americans are guests and peace lovers
What? Somebody gave him some money?
The Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr had considered "Saddam Hussein and his followers as the enemy of Iraq, rather than the Americans," whom he described as "guests" in Iraq.
We're "guests." We just had to fight our way in the front door...
In a statement circulated in Najaf city and the Iraqi daily published excerpts of its yesterday, al-Sadr said that Americans are "peace loving people" and the existence of the American forces in Iraq are "that of guests," calling for that the "holy month of Ramadan will be 'the month of meeting of Iraqis and Americans in circles of peace and amity'."
Maybe he's back on his meds?
Al-Sadr stressed the need of preventing "bloodshed and wars and terrorism so as to have tolerance and amity among peoples." He called on the Americans to open the way for attending their councils and seminars, camps and churches.
Or could it be that he's smart enough to realize that we're reaching the point where we're going to stop screwing around with him?
The American forces had recently detained several associates for Moqtada al-Sadr and prevented worshippers from heading to certain Shiite mosques. Recently al-Sadr sought to form what he called "al-Mahdi army and a shadow government."

FOLLOWUP: MEMRI corroborates...
IN A SURPRISING STATEMENT, IRAQI SHI'A LEADER MUQTADA AL-SADR SAID THAT SADDAM AND HIS FOLLOWERS ARE THE REAL ENEMIES OF IRAQ, NOT THE AMERICANS. HE SAID THE AMERICAN SOLDIERS ARE GUESTS AND THAT AMERICANS ARE A PEACE-LOVING PEOPLE. (AL-ZAMAN, IRAQ, 11/2/03)
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 20:55 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, well, boy wonder has figured out that he's in deep shit. How about hanging for Murder One, bubba? Rule of Law doesn't work like tribal society, son, kissing ass now won't get you off the hook for what you've done. I hope you swing, Qomboy.
Posted by: .com || 11/03/2003 21:42 Comments || Top||

#2  rule of law is one thing, politics another. ("shuffle the cards and look for the joker")Sadr is a player - he seems to realize that he made his move and lost, and that its now in his interest to go along, and that, with our hands full, its in our interest to leave him alone as long as he goes along. "he who fights and runs away ...."

a positive development nonetheless - better to have a sensible Sadr ont he sidelines, while we focus on the Baathi and the Al qaeda.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 11/03/2003 21:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Sounds to me like someone had a nice long chat with Mr Al-Sadr and explained, among other things, cause-and-effect, and tolerences, and what the fark happens when someone crossing over the line to him.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/03/2003 22:38 Comments || Top||

#4  could be that dancing laser-like spot on his forehead and chest all day caused him to change his worldview....thank God for solar flareups

;-)
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 22:59 Comments || Top||

#5  It was probably explained to him (slowly, using small words and hand gestures) exactly how little it would bother the major Shia players if he was to have an accident.
Posted by: mojo || 11/03/2003 23:27 Comments || Top||

#6  more taquiyya for the kufr--don't believe it--a strategic hudna if i ever saw one
Posted by: Anonymous || 11/04/2003 3:09 Comments || Top||


Sammy lied to by Frogs and Russkies
ELF - interesting article
Saddam Hussein refused to order a counterattack against U.S. troops when war erupted in March because he misjudged the initial ground thrust as a ruse and had been convinced earlier by Russian and French (tap, tap - damn) contacts that he could avoid or survive a land invasion, former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz has told interrogators, according to U.S. officials.
(then his mustache fell off)
In addition to Aziz, interrogators have systematically interviewed dozens of former Iraqi generals, intelligence officers and scientists in recent months, while trying to isolate them from one another to prevent coordinated answers. Among the interrogators’ questions: If Hussein did not have chemical or biological weapons, why did he fail to disabuse U.S. and other intelligence services of their convictions that he did? Why did he also allow U.N. inspectors to conclude that he was being deceptive?
Uh, because he’s an idiot?
I’ve always wondered this myself. Why not come clean, get sanctions lifted and then resume? I guess it’s the "me heap big Arab stud" syndrome
Posted by: Spot || 11/03/2003 4:24:41 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  if in fact he did not have wmd saddam would of never admitted it - he built his reputation in the middle east based on the fact he had these weapons. without them he had no trump cards in dealing with the likes of Iran and Sauidis. If it was a bluff it worked on them - but not on good ole bush who finally called his bluff. I persoanlly believe he did have these weapons and will never find the smoking gun the dems are pounding for. It is just too bad the american people are ignorant in the why states deal with each other and bush had to use wmd to further amercican policies in the region.
Posted by: Dan || 11/03/2003 17:17 Comments || Top||


Mystery Projectile
7 Pics at the site
The U.S. Army is not saying much about the "mystery projectile" that went through the side skirts and side armor of an M-1A1 tank last August 28th. Whatever it was just barely missed the tanks gunner (it went through the back of his seat and grazed part of his flak jacket) and put a pencil size hole nearly 50mm deep into the four inch thick armor on the other side of the tank. The damage may have been done by a projectile, not a shaped charge (which uses a jet of super-hot plasma to burn a hole in armor and put a quantity of plasma and molten metal inside the tank.) No known RPG would do that kind of damage. But some Western anti-tank rockets generate a different kind of plasma jet that might create the kind of damage done. A U.S. 25mm armor piercing shell (fired from the gun mounted on the M-2 Bradley armored vehicle) uses a small penetrator, but that penetrator is of depleted uranium, which burns like a flare once it is inside its target. One major unknown is the large number of portable anti-tank weapons (especially Russian and Chinese models) that have not been tested against the M-1 tank. It’s not unusual for new weapons to have unpredictable effects once they are first used in combat. Until the army releases more information, if they have any, the mystery lingers.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 11/03/2003 3:53:14 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Seems to me, that if a new missile bounced off a tank without doing any damage you would want to publish an article like this so the bad guys continue using the lame missiles.

If a missile actually punctured the armor of the tank you would probabably be less vocal about letting the enemy know they have an effective weapon.
Posted by: Yank || 11/03/2003 16:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe they're referring to the Russian-made Kornet missile. They essentially mobility killed a couple or our M-1s. Never heard of that happening before. Again, I think this was the Kornet.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 16:56 Comments || Top||

#3  Yank, I read the full article a few days ago. It didn't bounce - went thru one side and partway thru the opposite side.
Posted by: Mercutio || 11/03/2003 17:21 Comments || Top||

#4  I think the mystery of the projectile is why there are insurgents, Bathist's or AQ's running around with the latest Russian technology.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 17:23 Comments || Top||

#5  Maybe the Russians have developed their own 'silver bullet.' I had heard that back in the late 1980s the Russians were working on a 135mm smoothbore weapon, kind of a next generation tank gun, but it never got on any vehicle. Of course it is possible the ATG was a towed version of the 135mm gun.
Posted by: badanov || 11/03/2003 20:06 Comments || Top||

#6  Why do I get the feeling the cold war isn't over?
Posted by: Anonymous || 11/03/2003 23:37 Comments || Top||


Instapundit - MORE ON CERP FUNDS IN IRAQ
Hattip to Winds of Change

from a celebrated expert:


I am a Marine Reserve Lt.Col. and was the Provincial Military Governor for Wasit Province in Iraq until early September. In fact, you blogged a story about me. (Link)

We had funds that were seized from Saddam and used them for all manner of reconstruction projects. Additionally we had US funds allocated for our discretionary use (well, there were some restrictions, I couldn’t use it to benefit US personnel). It was essential to our success when I was there. We didn’t lose one Marine to enemy fire after the war combat was over. As funding and the discretion to spend money where and when it is needed become bogged down in government red tape, it will create problems for the guys who are still there. No doubt. Politicians don’t appreciate the needs of guys on the front lines and what we need to do to get things done. It’t the small things that build in importance with immediate impact. We also got help for things we needed from folks back home. I asked a group called Spirit of America for red, white and blue soccer jerseys for local kids and adults to help build goodwill since soccer is the game there. They wrote up the story at: Link

They helped another Marine with dental supplies and they’re helping Army guys there now. The main thing is that there is help from the private sector and people in the U.S. can help. You guys should know about that because it’s even more important now that the seized funds we used are drying up.

I’m back home at work now but let me know if I can tell you more about this or put you in touch with the guys who helped us.

LtCol David Couvillon, USMCR

Instapundit links to a WA Po article as an example of the good works accomplished through the CRE program:Military Uses Hussein Hoard For Swift Aid
Red Tape Cut, Cash Flows to Iraqi Contracts

Instapundit encourages the blogosphere to take action.

I think the issue hinges on the coalition trying to gain UN and international apporval through transparency which would be hard to do with CRE. Here is an example article from Reuters on Thursday: U.S. Promises Transparency in Handling Iraqi Funds

Kind of ironic that the UN is demanding transpancy in a CPA program and the result is hurting Iraqi’s. When I think about UN involvement in Iraq, the feelding in my head reminds me of the AFLAC commercial. I’m taking about the one where the duck staggers out of the barber shop after listening to Yogi Berra explain suplemental insurance.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 11:18:43 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq Neighbors meet - Fail to Grasp Roach Motel concept
Newsday EFL
Arab, Iranian and Turkish foreign ministers condemned terrorist bombings in Iraq and called on Iraqi officials to cooperate on border control Sunday after talks on the Iraqi crisis — which Baghdad’s interim authority boycotted. In the ministers’ final communique, read to journalists by Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa, made no direct reference to cross-border infiltration.
Hell of a meeting, though. Really enjoyed talking together. Too bad about not being allowed to wet the old whistle. Ramadan and all.
Instead, the ministers expressed concern about the presence of terrorist groups in Iraq and the possibility that they might cross into their own countries.
Farouk is such a cut-up.
Don’t they know that roaches check in but they don’t check out.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 7:30:08 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lol! We could sell that to the left...all the talk of Combat(TM) and Raid(TM) are just pest control operations. No war here.
Posted by: B || 11/03/2003 8:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Global Security has a good piece on the ultimate bug zapper: The Dawn of the E-Bomb
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 14:11 Comments || Top||

#3  There was a movie about the E-bomb awhile back.( 5 years maybe) A rouge scientist stole it and used it on a airplane to black out everything electrical on the East Coast. Cars, traffic lights, hospitals, everything. No secret is 100% safe. We need defense against this bomb before we finish building it.
Posted by: Charles || 11/03/2003 17:19 Comments || Top||


Iraq War III
Iraq War III
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

We thought we won the first Iraq war in 100 hours, but lost the peace to Saddam and his Baathist followers. We thought we won the second Iraq war decisively in one week, but Saddam’s murdering class and his imported terrorists chose to run and fight from underground.

We are now six months into Iraq War III. The coalition is clearly winning on two of the three war fronts. As the team of ABC-TV and Time magazine reporters are persuasively showing this week, the people of Iraq’s Shiite south and Kurdish north — 80 percent of the population of 23 million — are making substantial progress toward reconstruction and self-governance.

But the battle within the Sunni triangle around Baghdad — where Saddam’s rapacious sons and secret police long victimized other Iraqis — is not yet won.

One terrorist aim is to increase suffering by driving out the U.N. and Red Cross relief workers. Another is to assassinate Iraqi leaders and police who dare to cooperate with the liberation. The key goal is to kill enough Americans to cause U.S. public opinion to lose heart. Such a retreat before federal democracy takes root would set the stage for an Iraqi civil war.
Here I want to point at the snowball effect, a little snowball can grow and cause an avalanche, that’s clearly the purpose of the insurgents. It is not an avalanche yet but IMO the snowball is growing. To belittle the insurgence as a handful of imported terrorists will become the biggest US failure I am afraid.

There is no denying that the shooting down of a transport helicopter, killing 16 Americans and wounding 20, was a terrorist victory in Iraq War III. The question is: Will such casualties dishearten the U.S., embolden failuremongers and isolationists on the campaign trail, and cause Americans and our allies to cut and run?
Shooting down a military target of an occupier is called terrorism?

Although such a retreat under fire would be euphemized as an "accelerated exit strategy," consider the consequences to U.S. security of premature departure:
Set aside the loss of U.S. prestige or America’s credibility in dealing with other rogue nations acquiring nuclear weapons. Iraq itself would likely split apart. Shiites in the south would resist a return of repression by Saddam’s Sunnis and set up a nation under the protection of Iran. Kurds in the north, fearing the return of Saddamism, would break away into an independent Kurdistan; that would induce Turkey, worried about separatism among its own Kurds, to seize the Iraqi oil fields of Kirkuk.
Well well well mr. Safire, Turkey to seize the Iraqi oil fields, Turkey is not USA you know, but a thief sees everybody as a thief, a thief’s psychology.

One result could well be a re-Saddamed Sunni triangle. Baghdad would then become the arsenal of terrorism, importer and exporter of nukes, bioweapons and missiles.
Do I recognize this song?

There is no way we can let that happen. Either we stay in Baghdad until Iraq becomes a unified democratic beacon of freedom to the Arab world — or we pull out too soon, thereby allowing terrorism to establish its main world sanctuary and its agents to come and get us.

Our dovish left will say, with Oliver Hardy, "a fine mess you’ve got us into" — as if we created Saddam’s threat, or made our C.I.A. dance to some oily imperialist tune, or would have been better off with our head in the sand. Most Americans, I think, will move past these unending recriminations, reject defeatism and support leaders determined to win the final Iraq war.

To catch Saddam or otherwise break up the terror network, we need Iraqi informers to tip us to the plans of the attackers. We should blanket the Sunni triangle with a powerful media message: a return of Baathism would mean a bloody war with the rest of Iraq that the coalition would make certain Saddam’s followers lost.

Most television sets in the triangle depend for reception on the old rabbit ears, not satellite dishes; the Iraqi Media Network we set up is now operational but runs mainly old movies and canned messages from our Paul Bremer with an Arabic translation. I’m told by programmers in the contractor handling IMN, Science Applications International, that attention-getting Arabic programs produced in the gulf states will begin this month, which should attract many new viewers.

But why not supplement Bremer on the air with our secret weapon? John Abizaid, our commanding general, speaks fluent Arabic. He should be on radio and television regularly — the live voice and face of liberation — answering questions from Iraqi reporters in their native language. If Donald Rumsfeld can deliver the message of resolve on TV here, why not Abizaid there?

We will help Iraqis win the final war against Baathist terror. Failure is not an option.
Well said William, clap clap clap

Posted by: Murat || 11/03/2003 5:03:52 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Screw you,Gollum!
Posted by: Raptor || 11/03/2003 7:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Murat, great pick to post but you need to do some work on your comments:
Shooting down a military target of an occupier is called terrorism?By the definition those that attack what is deemed the (and I hate to use this label) legitimate Goverment are isurgents. Those that bomb Hospitals, Schools, and police stations are Terrorists. I thnk we both know which group they fall into.

Turkey to seize the Iraqi oil fields, Turkey is not USA you know, but a thief sees everybody as a thief.
Do I have to review Turkish History versus U.S.? Do they teach about the Ottoman Empire and how it cam into being? No Murat we are not on the same moral level here. We are not expanding an Empire and not raping the country to serve our own ends.
Safire is correct that Failure is NOT an option in Iraq and we won't fail.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 11/03/2003 7:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Cyber Sarge,

Apart from the cost of lives (I wished all loss of live was avoidable, including that of Iraqis), to the definition shooting (down) an enemy military vehicle being a land or aerial vehicle in a war zone can hardly be called terrorism. Also bombing of police and police stations who are regarded by many Iraqis as collaborators of the enemy is debatable.

On the bombing of schools and hospitals I agree these are terrorist deeds, but realise that the US have hit hospitals and schools during the bombing campaign too, albeit we might accept these as misfortunate errors it tastes bitter.
Posted by: Murat || 11/03/2003 8:27 Comments || Top||

#4  ...the US have hit hospitals and schools during the bombing campaign...

Name one.
Posted by: Parabellum || 11/03/2003 8:53 Comments || Top||

#5  Hey, he saw it on al'Jazeera! That makes it true!
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 8:57 Comments || Top||

#6  All in all, not a terribly interesting column. It was obvious within weeks after the fall of Baghdad that a Baathist/Sunni insurgency was happening. It will probably last for years. However, I rather imagine that it will be a predominately Iraqi army fighting the Baathists and terrorists within a year or two.

Violence and instability is endemic in the region thanks to the it's history of tribalism, tyranny, and brutality. Sometime soon there will be a civil war in Iran -- and that will be a bloody farce that go on for years. A coup of some kind is obviously brewing in Saudi Arabia. Syria is a crackup waiting to happen. The Israeli's will eventually tire of constant terrorism do something serious to the Palestineans. And the Kurds will soon begin their long fight again -- I think that this time they will succeed.

Truly, one fouled up part of the world.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips || 11/03/2003 9:15 Comments || Top||

#7  "but realise that the US have hit hospitals and schools during the bombing campaign too, albeit we might accept these as misfortunate errors it tastes bitter."

-gimme a break Murat. We don't target caregiving instalations, never have. Even when the enemy puts a tank in one (like in Nasiriya). The terrorists clearly target their own Red Crescent centers, big difference.

"John Abizaid, our commanding general, speaks fluent Arabic. He should be on radio and television regularly — answering questions from Iraqi reporters in their native language."

-That's a good idea actually. Broadcast him into the triangle. Put it to them in black and white that they're the minority in Iraq. If we leave the revenge killings from the other groups are gonna start back up. Shit, the Sunnis don't really see that far down the road. We leave, the Iranians back the Shiites and then a good battle ensues between them and their former oppressors.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 9:20 Comments || Top||

#8  Murat. Genius that you are, do you think you can get that link/title thing down?
On second thought, don't. One look and I know it's you and I don't have to waste my time.
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/03/2003 9:31 Comments || Top||

#9  My guess is Murat doesn't know what you're talking about, tu3031. He's probably never bothered trying to read an original linked article himself - he's one of those folk who don't enjoy having to consider evidence in order to form an opinion.
Posted by: Bulldog || 11/03/2003 10:52 Comments || Top||

#10  WND has an article fromthe Scotsman that has some insight into or speculation on the pattern of the attacks: Mosques under suspicion
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 10:53 Comments || Top||

#11  Super Hose -- Mosques? Involved in terrorism?

Pshaw! It must be a mistake!
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 11:01 Comments || Top||

#12  It must be a mistake!

It must be Ramadan.
Posted by: Rafael || 11/03/2003 11:16 Comments || Top||

#13  Hi Bulldog I enjoy the liberty of not being prejudged because of being an American, British or Iraqi. Maybe because I am anti-war I am a bit prejudged I wont deny. The Americans and Britons however are seeing their countries of being in the right just because they blind themselves with nationalistic feelings. What right do they have, did Iraq posses WMD, if yes where are they. Did Iraq have any guild in 9/11, if yes where is the prove, even Bush admitted no links existed. Iraq was just a country bog down in misery due to US sanctions and in no position to form any danger to anyone. Sorry but I don't see the US and Britain as liberators at all, al the propaganda about WMD turned out empty balloons.
Posted by: Murat || 11/03/2003 11:21 Comments || Top||

#14  Folks, technically Murat is correct about the shooting down of a helicopter: IF it was done by remenants of the Iraqi army, Ba'ath party, etc., as part of their not-ended fight against us, and if they did so under a command, wearing a uniform, etc., then it was a military operation and not terrorism. So says the Geneva convention.

However, if it was done by foreign jihadis coming into the country, or by Ba'athist irregulars out of uniform, etc., such jokers are illegitimate combatants; it isn't terrorism in the way we use the word. Because they're illegitimate, we'd be justified under the Geneva convention, on capturing them, to execute them in the field without benefit of tribunal or hearng. The commanding officer at the scene would have the right under international law to shoot them himself.

The difference is an important one to make: not for us, but for Y'urp-peons and for Murat. They think that the proper response to "terrorists" is police action, trials, hearings, etc. These jokers are illegal combatants, and as such they have no rights under international law.

As to the article, Safire makes some sense as usual, though he's too much of a hand-wringer for my taste.

Murat: if we did bomb a hospital or school, it's because Saddam and his boys were hiding arms and troops in them. That is well-documented. Think about that.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/03/2003 11:27 Comments || Top||

#15  It looks to me as if we are following a pretty smart strategy. Our goal is to drain the swamps, not swat at mosquitos.

All these Jihadis are leaving the rest of the islamic world, and that alone will have an impact, as they wont be back in their home countries continuing their reign of blackmail and extortion against the host governments. Those governments once free from the actions of the local gang members, will be able to make the type of reforms that will assist in getting rid of the jihadis support structures.

The Jihadis are playing our game, we have set the tune and they are dancing. If they do nothing, Iraq becomes a secular democracy, they lose, and they know it and they are scared to death of such a thing. If they are forced to leave their comfy enclaves around the world and go to iraq, where they will be killed in large numbers, where they are not welcome by most of the local populace, and where after being chased continually by the US and ratted out by the same locals will get tired and try to go home, only to be met by restrictions to their travel from their one time helpful host governments. The Jihadis are now forced to kill Islamic people ( not jews, or infidels) at an increased rate to be able just to operate in that formally safe country. The irony is not lost on me that the same islamists that insisted that we could not invade afghanistan during Ramadan because it would "inflame the arab street", now hide behind the holiday to give their attacks some from of legitimacy. I dont think its lost on the Islamic world either.

We are killing the jihadis faster thn they can be replaced by drawing them out in one place that we can move freely. We are drawing them into a place where they stand out from the local populace and thus can be eliminated or outright captured to provide more intelligence to their operations back in their host countries.

This is much smarter more effective strategy that trying to send in swat teams into 50 countries around the world.

To paraphrase JFK: "Let them come to Iraq"

Posted by: frank martin || 11/03/2003 11:40 Comments || Top||

#16  "Iraq was just a country bog down in misery due to US sanctions and in no position to form any danger to anyone."

-actually it was UN Sanctions, and they were a danger to their own citizenry.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 11:47 Comments || Top||

#17  I enjoy the liberty of not being prejudged because of being an American, British or Iraqi.

LOL! Where on earth do you get that idea? We all carry our prejudiced baggage around with us, but most people in here try to leave as much of it as they can at the door, whereas you swan around with your anti-American, anti-UK, anti-secular rucksack sitting proud on your shoulders and full-to-bursting with cliche and dogma. Apparently you're the only one who can't see it.

Maybe because I am anti-war I am a bit prejudged I wont deny. The Americans and Britons however are seeing their countries of being in the right just because they blind themselves with nationalistic feelings.

Can't dismiss it as easily as that ol' boy. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator and tyrant who destroyed his own once-proud country through senseless wars, embezzlement of the national wealth, and imposing a culture of terror and suspicion on his people. He attempted genocide against the Kurds, and attempted to eradicate the Marsh Arabs (and was stopped only by the US and others who protected these people by imposing no-fly zones). He invaded two neighbouring countries and in the process killed millions. Only a force led by the US liberated Kuwait and restored her sovereignty, and pervented further Iraq military campaigns. His regime divided the country and he, his family and his cronies behaved with a level of depravity unusual even by the standards of the Middle East. Invading Iraq with the sole purpose of removing Saddam and replacing the Ba'athists with a representative government was the best thing that could be done for Iraq. Supporting the war was right, and of that there is no logical counter-argument to that, that does not entail leaving the Iraqi population to continue their miserable existence or worsen it. Nevertheless, it's what you were opposed to. So cry me a crocodile-tear river.

What right do they have, did Iraq posses WMD, if yes where are they.

Did you believe that Iraq had no WMD, before the war? Nobody doubted it. Most people still don't. Saddam's not turned up yet either - didn't he exist either? Either the WMD are well-hidden, were destroyed, or were spirited out of the country during the many months' advance warning Saddam had before the war began.

Did Iraq have any guild in 9/11, if yes where is the prove, even Bush admitted no links existed.

That's totally irrelevant. 9-11 wasn't the justification for the war.

Iraq was just a country bog down in misery due to US sanctions and in no position to form any danger to anyone.

As SW pointed out, Murat, that's UN sanctions. UN. Get it? UN. Suffering caused by sanctions, and Saddam's syphoning off what was left for himself, was the fault of the UN. Sanctions imposed because Saddam reneged on the cease-fire conditions after the First Gulf War. The US could have resumed hostilities a lot sooner than 2003, and put an end to the UN-imposed sanctions and all that suffering. Is that what you'd have preferred? Also, as SW pointed out, Iraq under Saddam remained a threat to its own people, and it also remained a threat to its neighbours, not least of which, Israel.

Sorry but I don't see the US and Britain as liberators at all, al the propaganda about WMD turned out empty balloons.

You're entitled to your disgustingly unsympathetic attitude towards the ordinary citizens of a neighbouring country, and it's what I've come to expect from you. You opposed the war because you supported Saddam. You supported Saddam because he was in opposition to the US, and for that you were prepared to the excuse him all manner of barbarity and cruelty towards ordinary, faceless Iraqis whose plights you weren't interested in. You chose to ignore what really constitutes evil because your prejudice against America has blinded you to it. And you speak only for yourself, and care only for yourself. That's what it means to have been anti-war.
Posted by: Bulldog || 11/03/2003 12:47 Comments || Top||

#18  "We are killing the jihadis faster thn they can be replaced by drawing them out in one place that we can move freely."

You know, this (the "flypaper theory") seems complete bull to me. It seems founded on the idea that there's a finite number of terrorists (or jihadis) out there, and that providing them with a cause somehow takes them away from their remaining "causes".

You can be pretty sure that any action (e.g. the invasion of Iraq) that convinces jihadis to leave their own countries so as to fight abroad is at the same time an action that creates atleast as many *new* jihadis from the nearly unlimited basis of support in the Arabic/muslim populations.

This isn't a finite number of terrorists/jihadis fighting that we should be glad huge numbers of them are heading to Iraq. That's like being glad of Soviet Union becoming communist or whatever, because that means a smaller number of communists will remain to trouble the rest of the world. Bull, bull, bull.

Now, if a great number of jihadis were suddenly *afraid* or unwilling to act in Iraq, then I could very well believe that an equally large number of the population in other countries would be unwilling or afraid to ever *turn* jihadi.

So... any reason whatsoever to think that recruitment of jihadis/terrorists has gone down in Arabic states after the invasion of Iraq?
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 11/03/2003 13:00 Comments || Top||

#19  Aris,

An even better point is that the "flypaper" strategy and the "rebuilding Iraq" strategy would seem to be prima facie contradictory.
Posted by: Ernest Brown || 11/03/2003 13:17 Comments || Top||

#20  Did Iraq have any guild in 9/11, if yes where is the prove, even Bush admitted no links existed.

Uh, so what? Is there a point here?
Posted by: Raj || 11/03/2003 13:30 Comments || Top||

#21  I have no problem with a partitioned Iraq. Screw the current Iraqi borders. If those in the south want to be Iranian, have at it, prayers at noon. If they want to be free, we do that well. Kurdistan invaded by Turkey, not over US military protection. Hell, they would rather benifit from Kurdish oil exports. Those Kurds in Turkey will do well when Kurdistan welcomes them home with good jobs. Sunniland with it's capitol in Bagdad, maybe a divided Bagdad like Berlin, as a mecca for terroist, now there is a target rich enviroment. If Sunnilanders wants to have it's Nazi's back, let them. It wont be long until they commit suicide. I fully support our efforts to take dowm saddam, but we don't have to slaveishly remake that pisshole. When can help those who will help themselves.
Posted by: Lucky || 11/03/2003 13:34 Comments || Top||

#22  Well, we COULD just turn the Kurds loose, and let Turkey reap it's whirlwind...
Posted by: mojo || 11/03/2003 13:48 Comments || Top||

#23  I've been having a hard time deciding how to label Moo-Rat. Either he's a dairy farmer, or a goatherder - He's always so full of bullshit, but then he bleats a lot, too. I've finally opted for Moo-rat - a half-assed know-nothing that's full of bulls$$$.

William Safire is a cautious old man who has a hard time getting a grasp on what's actually taking place. He's been in the Washington, DC, area far too long for clear thinking. I read articles similar to this from other pundits four months ago. Safire's finally getting a bit of a clue.

IF you really want to see what's happening in Iraq, you don't listen to the paid pundits. There is more than enough information in the blogosphere to provide some very definite data - from both Iraqis and soldiers in Iraq, and from people around the world who are keeping very close eyes on every little bit of information.

Two points: the majority of the problems currently bugging both the people and the coalition are in the Sunni Triangle. We're slowly coming to grips with that reality, and hopefully, soon, some young officer will have the guts to say "we need to do this". The current battle plan isn't working, and the guys actually implementing it are the ones who probably can come up with a solution for correcting the problem. No matter how or when, or who comes up with the idea, sometime, probably within the next couple of months, the correction WILL be implemented. Watch the Sunni body-count go through the roof when that happens. Second point, the US needs more boots on the ground in the Sunni Triangle. They don't necessarily need to be US boots. Maybe they'll be Japanese or Korean boots - if so, the Sunnis are going to learn a very HARSH lesson, very quickly. Those troops don't play nice - they play to win.

We're winning the war of attrition, too. The number of people going to Iraq to "make jihad" almost equals the number of jihadis killed. Pretty soon, the tipping point will be reached, and there will be more dead jihadis than infiltrators. It won't take long after that to end the constant barrage of terrorist acts against US forces.

The more I think about Safire's words and Moo-rat's comments, the more I see how they appeal to each other. What a couple! May I be excused to throw up now???
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/03/2003 14:38 Comments || Top||

#24  It may make more sense to consider the bombing in Beruit as the first shot of WWIII. Looking at the conflict as continuous it makes the losses in Somalia less of a waste. Military.com has this article that provides some grieving advice for spouses: look behind but don't stare. The story of the kid's school project is tough to read. We are passing it around the assembly line where I work.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 14:53 Comments || Top||

#25  Were there an infinte number of Sioux? Apache? Mafiosi? German Nazis?, Confederates?,Japanese Imperiaists? in their time, each of these people were wrapped in cloak of invinciblity, and given powers well beyond their means.

We need not paint the Jihadis has 10 foot tall supermen. They are a criminal enterprise, more in tune with the 'barbary pirates' of 200 years ago. The natural desire of the leftists to paint all anti-civilization forces with powers of moral superiorty is just evidence of their asininity. We need not attribute to them powers they do not have. I doubt there are as many Jihadis as we would think there is. I would have to be a racist ( as I suspect "murat" is) to believe that all Arabs are jihadis, I would have to be a bigot ( again, as I believe "murat" is) to believe that all of Islam is bent towards Jihad.

To paraphrase Enrico Fermi, "if there are so many, why are they so hard to find"?

The question is, How are you going to fight them? I do believe that some of you really do not consider what it will mean to lose this war against civilization. This is not a war of choice of political systems between the communists and the capitalists for example, in that war, what saved us all was that in the end, both sides wanted to live. We could count on the Soviets actually desiring to live and fight another day. What we all have to understand is that the enemy we are fighting today does not want to live, they want to kill us, all of us, not just the 'right' or the "left", but all of us. There is no 'peaceful coexistance' out there awaiting for us. They, the Jihadis, cannot exist if we exist. Its that simple.

So, the question for you is this :

How do you fight them? How do you eliminate them as a threat to our lives?

and remember, we can't afford to lose or to experiment with "shiny happy talk". I suggest you look at 10,000 years of human history for your inspiration. And remember, they is no peace without capitulation. Someone has to 'give up', and decide to live a different way.

Heres a few approaches to the problem that have been tried:

1) Give up.

Thats right, surrender. Drop support of Israel, remove all military assets, no longer support the 'peace process' in the middle east.

Just say its impossible and run away. Im sure it will all work its way out, besides what right do we have to interfere? Please visit the holocaust museum nearest you when you consider this approach. This war is no longer about 'the jews',its about us. the Jihadis make no delination between us and the Jews, we are all infidels. If we allow the jihadis to 'deal with the jews', how can we stop them if they decide to go after someone else? Will it be our business then? At what point are we compelled to act?


2) Hide behind your shores

Well, if we just stay home they wont kill us. Since theres all that open land on Mahattan island where the WTC used to be, we should have plenty of room to put all of our once overseas military assets. This plan worked really well in the past. until we forced the Japanese to go to war against us. (They were victims of our imperialst schemes you know, "why do the japs hate us?" my grandfather used to ask......).

3) Arrest them, put them in a world court tribual.

Sure, I'm positive that the governments of the world will cooperate as they have done in the past. Why, look at what fine job the milosevic trials have done in europe.

4) kill them all, let God sort them out.

Well - I have to admit this did occur to me on September 11th, the idea of unleashing all of those OHIO class nuclear submarines was mighty appealing. Much as I want to start flattening everything from Morocco to Malaysia, Im afraid my Capitalist Imperialist Military-Industrial heart cant quite stomach the act of killing BILLIONS of people, when I know that only about 400,000 are actually my enemy.

What we will likely do is put our men an women at risk, spend money and time being 'surgical' in our apprach. How devious of us. How "civilized".

<<>>

We are winning this battle, and we will win this war. We have met this challenge before and we will succeed again.
Posted by: frank martin || 11/03/2003 15:10 Comments || Top||

#26  Frank ^5's you wrapped that up into a neat little package. Those idiots chanting anti-war slogans two weeks ago would be the FIRST that the Jihadis would want dead. I do agree that not all Moslems want to go kill infidels but you forget the fence sitters in this game. There is a LARGE number of undecided in Iraq that could care less whom rules the country, only that it not be an infidel. They won’t take up arms against us, but they won’t stop people who do. We need to win this group over but so far we have had little to offer them.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 11/03/2003 15:47 Comments || Top||

#27  Three points: (1) A terrorist is someone who generally targets civilians. Its a job title. If they attack military target it doesn't make them a terrorist, but it doesn't disqualify them from being terrorists either. (ii) The big news here is not that the article is interesting, or newsworthy, but that it was printed in the New York Times. (iii) Murat, you have no baggage from being American or British or Iraqi but you do have some serious baggage from being anti-American with every letter you type, practically masterbating at the thought of American military casualties.
Posted by: Yank || 11/03/2003 16:30 Comments || Top||

#28  Uh, Bulldog, I actually pointed out the UN sanction thing. SW pointed out the terrorists deserving death upon capture.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 17:02 Comments || Top||

#29  frank martin> You go on a tangent, but nothing you wrote has any relevance to my point -- namely that the "flypaper" tactic doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me.

I don't remember in any Cold War conflict to actually *want* communists to come into a country just so that fewer communists remain doing mischief in their own ones. Perhaps my knowledge is lacking or something. I don't remember the Allies wanting the Nazis to annex Austria so that fewer Nazis remain in Germany. And yet that's exactly what you seem to be discussing. That if Islamofascists come looking for trouble in Iraq, fewer would remain in places like Yemen or Saudi Arabia or whatever.

"Were there an infinte number of Sioux? Apache? Mafiosi? German Nazis?, Confederates?,Japanese Imperiaists?"

You'll find out that in all those examples, the entirety of Germany, Japan, Confederate South, etc, needed to be occupied, not just a small piece of it from which we "could drain the swamp" by luring fighter to come attack us away from their homes.

No such occupation can occur with the entirety of the Arabian nations, the same way it couldn't occur with the entirety of the Warsaw Pact nations. Just as was the case with communism, the fight against islamofascism is a war of ideologies, not a nationalistic conflict where a single enemy government or single enemy leader can be defeated and his country occupied. Or even a single group of people.

It's with that reasoning that creating an Iraqi "flypaper" doesn't make any sense to me.
How does giving the jihadis one more cause help defeat their ideology?

Of course the invasion of any muslim nation would have created and lured those jihadis. It's inevitable. I'm not saying that this would have sufficed as a reason to cancel the War on Iraq. What I'm saying though is that it's one of the negatives, not one of the positives of the Iraq invasion, as you seem to be bizarrely claiming.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 11/03/2003 18:19 Comments || Top||

#30  Please accept my apologies, Jarhead.
Posted by: Bulldog || 11/03/2003 18:35 Comments || Top||

#31  It's with that reasoning that creating an Iraqi "flypaper" doesn't make any sense to me.
How does giving the jihadis one more cause help defeat their ideology?


It's not giving them a cause that helps defeat them - there's no shortage of causes around world, ranging from Chechnya to East Turkistan - it's showing them that the US, like Russia and China, will not be deterred by Muslim terror attacks. We will also topple the governments that sponsor them, not necessarily simultaneously, but one government at a time. (Note that almost 16 months went by between the toppling of the Taliban and the war in Iraq. I would expect the next campaign to occur no later than 2005). Jihadis have had no shortage of causes over the years - everywhere they've retreated, they've been defeated by superior force, including the numerous jihads against Israel.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 11/03/2003 19:07 Comments || Top||

#32  Ultimately, what we are trying to destroy is a sentiment that still exists in many Muslim minds - the hope of defeating us via terrorist attacks. We are in the business of extinguishing the hope of Muslim victory in the same way that Lord Kitchener destroyed the hope invested in a Muslim Messiah (Mahdi) in the Sudan almost 100 years ago.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 11/03/2003 19:12 Comments || Top||

#33  Some Japs were still ready to fight on even after Nagasaki. They felt they could handle that much damage and continue the struggle. Lee only needed to get some chow for his army after fleeing Richmond and he would have carried on. Mead offered President Lincoln a great victory after Gettysburg, Lincoln could have cold-cocked him, "You ass, the war goes on, It is Lee's army I want." The Germans needed total devastation to pacify them. Sunniland is waiting to feel the truth, they think they can take what we have so far handed out. Well, "those people" seem to think that they are safe enough. Mr Bush, I know you check in to Rantburg, how could you not, please finish the Iraqi campaign. Please finish this war quickly. It is not a great battle victory we want. It's Islam's army. Kill it!
Posted by: Lucky || 11/03/2003 20:02 Comments || Top||

#34  Quick Aris! what was the first country we invaded in WWII? France? Italy? nope.

Morocco(operation torch). Why? They never declared war on us, they werent going anywhere, they were no threat to us!

We invaded Morocco because it was in the way. We needed it as a beachhead to attack our enemies, the Axis powers. Morocco, occupied by the Vichy French were marginally aligned with our enemies. There was no connection at all between Vichy France and the attack on Pearl Harbor, but we invaded and took the country anyway. Why? Bacasue it was the smart move.

Iraq, is also in the way. Iraq is also a beachhead. We now have the borders of both Iran and Syria, both countries host bodies for the islamo-fascist terror parasite networks. With our troops now encamped on those borders, we are now able to operate clandestine operatives into both countries and to gather the one thing we have been in short supply, real intelligence operatives on the ground to find out whats going on, and to perhaps, tip things over our way. Spying is a game of relationships, you need to know people. You cant get to "know " people from a satellite up in space. I suspect that Iran will fall in this fashion, from the inside, with our operatives, courtesy of the easy routes now in place in Iraq. ( and I think it will be very soon)

I dont think the Jihadis are communists or anything like them. They are criminals, a better comparison could be made to the mafiosa of sicily or yakusa of Japan.

The Jihadis survive because they can intimdate their local governments and populace; "do what we say or we will blow up your stuff". This was the exact goal of the 9/11 attacks. Did 9/11 effect our miltary ability to wage war, did 5,000 deaths impede our ability to survive?; Hardly. but it did put the fear into many small marginal governments they "if they can get the Americans, they can get me". That kind of fear and intimidation their own populace is what feeds the Jihahdis.

You ever wonder why Saudi Arabia has millions of miles of pipelines and refineries spread out wide open desert, but pipelines are ever blown in SA?

Simple - Because the Saudi family buys these guys off.

Thats how its done in every country in Africa, and even some European countries ."Do what you want to the infidel, but leave us in peace- heres your honorarium to the madrassas", they say.

The world held its breath after 9/11. Some in fear of the rage we would enact on the world, innocents and guilty alike. Many more were in fear that we would do nothing.

We did act. We didnt send the USS Los Angeles to target Syria and Iraq and turn their cities into fused glass, as I honestly expected in the cold days after 9/11. We have instead done it judicially and surgically. Despite having weapons of ulitmate distruction, we have chosen to not use them. We now routinely drop concrete and not explosives, in the goal of not killng anymore than we need to. We are the first Power in history to spend billions of dollars making weapons LESS distructive. What kind of people would do that?


The Jihadis are now stuck with a different 'inner dialog"; fight the Americans - and die. There are many in the world, even our own country, who are not convinced of our resolve, and I have no doubt that the Jihadis are testing that resolve.

I ask anyone who doubts that Americans will stand and fight and sacrifice for the right things to go to the cemetary in Gettysburg. Unlike Vietnam, We have no choice this time but to fight. The question of whether or not to fight was solved on 9/11, the only question now is - how and where. I prefer to take the war to them. I believe that we are better off attracting them to fight in Iraq, instead of letting them attack LA harbor. I believe its very hard to run an extortion ring in Tunis, and control of the local city government if all your "muscle boys" are in Iraq, "fighting the infidel". By waging a war in Iraq, we can in some ways starve out the Jihadis.

They have their weaknesses, and we should exploit them.
<<>>
( BTW : I've never used the term "flypaper",thats something youve brought to the dialog. Its my belief that our strategy against terror has many levels and methods.From my perspective, we are doing amazingly well, my estimate was that we would lose 5 to 7,000 troops in the initial occupation of Iraq. I know its tought to watch bad things happen, but I also know we are at war. and "War is all hell and it cannot be refined". We are at war not for ideology or "oil" but for nothing short of survival. I pray every day for it to end, but I also pray for total victory. )
Posted by: Frank Martin || 11/03/2003 20:22 Comments || Top||

#35  Good thread, guys.
Posted by: Matt || 11/03/2003 20:40 Comments || Top||

#36  No sweat Bulldog, it's just that I don't come up w/many good ones so gotta get the credit when I can bro!
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 22:38 Comments || Top||

#37  Great summarization of what a lot of us think Frank M. Thanks. BTW - unless my history is off, didn't we go into Guadalcanal before Torch?
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 22:44 Comments || Top||

#38  We did, I just dont think of it as a country-style entity. I believe it was a territory of Australia at the time. I also think we occupied Iceland before Morocco, but it was a mutual defense thing.

I actually think, from a military standpoint and place in history, Iraq is very similar to Guadalcanal. The Jihadis have to hold it, and we cant afford to let them keep it. Considering how bloody guadalcanal was , can you imagine how the modern day sensitivities to casualties would be if we face a battle of that magnitude? I think I mentioned it earlier, but I expected it to be 5-7,000 KIA going into Iraq, so even though every death is a tragedy, when all our KIA could fit the seats of one 737, by comparison to something like the bloodbath of guadalcanal, it makes you wonder.
Posted by: Frank Martin || 11/03/2003 23:26 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Mecca Cola to Hold Anti-American Hate Fest
Mecca Kola International will hold international peace conference soon in Malaysia with a large number of leading personalities working for promotion of peace to attend the conference from across the world.
Conferences in Malaysia tend to be very peaceful indeed.
This was stated by Taufiq Matlooti, chairman Mecca Cola International in an informal talk with Mohsin Jamil Baig, the chief executive of Online here Sunday. He informed that the sitting Prime Minister of Malaysia, Abdullah Badawi and former prime minister, Mahatir Muhammad will preside over the conference.
Mahathir Muhamad will preside? That settles it, it will be the most peaceful conference ever.
"We have made contacts with all the noted dignitaries working for the cause of peace all over the world including Jesse Jackson and Nelson Mandela to ensure their participation in the conference", he added. They have nodded yes to attend the conference, he stated.
Jessy "shakedown" Jackson, Nelson "Michelin" Mandela; you can always count on them to hate the United States, I mean, to promote peace.
Giving further details about the conference he said that a big concert will also be organised on this occasion. All the leading singers including Yusuf Islam will perform in the concert, he disclosed.
I wonder whether the Dixie Chicks will make it.
Too bad they couldn't get Cat Stevens...
Posted by: Sorge || 11/03/2003 8:35:20 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Coca-Cola ad, early 1970's: "We'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony..."

Mecca Cola ad, early 2000's: "We'd like to force the world to Islam, or abject slavery..."
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 9:03 Comments || Top||

#2  LOL!!! Good one, RC! You've got the touch, bro!
Posted by: .com || 11/03/2003 9:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Mecca Cola? Isn't that the new Islamo-facist soft-drink they're selling in Paris?
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 9:11 Comments || Top||

#4  That's Salam Cola, the Cola of Peace for the Religion of Peace.
Jesse, huh? That'll buy them TONS of credibility over here. Nice to see he's for sale internationally now instead of just domestically.
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/03/2003 9:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Nothing new there. Remember his loving embrace of the Arafish? Or his relative (step-brother? half brother?) who raked in cash from Libya?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 9:39 Comments || Top||

#6  Mecca Cola is sold in France mainly to people of Algerian ascent. 10% of the profits (after creative accounting) are supposed to go to help Palestine. I ever wonder why Algerians care so much about Palestine instead of their own victims of the civil war or of the earthquake. I also wonder why Algerians in France (who usually are on minimum wage or on welfare) should spend money on Palestine instead of letting the Saudis give 10% of THEIR profits if they care so much. Go figure.
Posted by: JFM || 11/03/2003 10:02 Comments || Top||

#7  When you've been drinking Mecca Cola, do you have to piss facing east?
Posted by: Bulldog || 11/03/2003 10:48 Comments || Top||

#8  Nobody laughed at my Nelson "Michelin" Mandela joke? Come on people!
Posted by: Sorge || 11/03/2003 11:05 Comments || Top||

#9  Bulldog, LOL! They probably would piss east if they all didn't squat to piss.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 11:09 Comments || Top||

#10  sorry Sorge...but I don't get it. Perhaps someone could 'splain.
Posted by: B || 11/03/2003 12:11 Comments || Top||

#11  Mandela's ANC had a habit of putting gas-filled tires around people's necks and lighting them on fire.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 12:46 Comments || Top||

#12  Michelin Man
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 13:58 Comments || Top||

#13  Nice to see he's for sale internationally now instead of just domestically.

That's globalization for you. I wonder if ANSWER's interested in protesting that...

( * crickets chirping * )
Posted by: Raj || 11/03/2003 14:02 Comments || Top||

#14  Jackson has a record for international meddling:
From old CNN news "Jackson went to Yugoslavia in 1999 to secure the release of three American soldiers captured during the conflict over Kosovo. In September 1990, he won the release of 47 American civilians in Baghdad, seized after Iraq invaded Kuwait. And in 1984, he intervened to bring Navy pilot Robert Goodman out of Syria after he was shot down over Lebanon." I doubt that he had approval for these trips by US State Department.
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 11/03/2003 14:36 Comments || Top||

#15  What a great place for NKor to test their new nuke? Even if it's a total dud, like their poof-haired weirdo 'leader'. I don't think even the US would protest TOO much...
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/03/2003 15:00 Comments || Top||

#16  "Necklacing" ANC tactic used against suspected collaborators and policemen
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 11/03/2003 15:57 Comments || Top||

#17  NMM -- and don't forget the occasional unfortunate witness.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 16:21 Comments || Top||

#18  I have read quotes from Winnie that indicated she was a proponent of necklassing. Was Nelson also involved or was this one of the items that they didn't see eye to eye on?
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 17:04 Comments || Top||

#19  Since Nelson was in prison at the time, he has the ever-popular "plausible deniability".
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 18:56 Comments || Top||

#20  How involved was in in blowing stuff up and hurting people before he went to jail? Not that that would disqualify you from a "peace prize."
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 19:37 Comments || Top||

#21  SH, I always take flack from my black friends over this one. Bottom line - I think Mandela was a crook. His wife was apparently a total ho as well as an embezzler. Read some stuff up on those two - not pretty.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/03/2003 22:48 Comments || Top||

#22  Mandela was also a Soviet stooge, with all the bloody hands and lust for power that involves.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 22:58 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon
Syrian presence in Lebanon like German occupation of France?
LEBANESE MARONITE PATRIARCH NASSRALLAH SFEIR COMPARED SYRIAN PRESENCE IN LEBANON WITH GERMANY'S PRESENCE IN FRANCE DURING WWII. THE SITUATION, HE SAID, MUST BE DEALT WITH IN A FRIENDLY FASHION THROUGH COOPERATION AND MUTUAL RESPECT. (AL-SHARQ AL-AWSAT, SYRIA, 11/2/03)
Yup. Just like they did it in World War II...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 21:08 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Half of non-Iraqis arrested in Iraq are Syrians
THE AMERICAN ADMINISTRATION HAS CONFIRMED THAT HALF OF NON-IRAQIS ARRESTED IN IRAQ FOR SUSPECTED TERRORIST INVOLVEMENT ARE SYRIAN NATIONALS. (AL-ZAMAN, IRAQ, 11/1/03)
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 21:03 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not a damn quiver on the suprise meter.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/03/2003 22:39 Comments || Top||

#2  In a twist - most are found to be French with forged Syrian passports...
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 22:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Time for another buzzing of the presidential palace in Syria. This time, our planes.

And this time, we drop a few presents.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 22:59 Comments || Top||


Africa: East
Yemeni, Sudanese, Ethiopian meeting on terrorism
The foreign ministers of Yemen, Sudan and Ethiopia started in Sanaa on Saturday a meeting that will last for two days in preparation to convene the summit which will be held by the presidents of the three countries in Addis Ababa in December in order to enhance the work of the regional group to fight terrorism in the African horn, formed by the three countries in January this year.
This should be interesting...
Yemen's foreign minister Abu bakr al-Qurabi said he will discuss with his colleague, the Sudanese Mustafa Othman Ismael and the Ethiopian peer [who apparently has no name] "necessary preparations for the meeting of the presidents of the three countries in Addis Ababa in December in order to enhance this regional group." The three countries started close coordination following the summit which included in October 2002 in Sanaa the President of Yemeni, and Sudan and the Ethiopian prime minister. On the other hand, the Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir accused the leader of the southern rebels (Sudan People Liberation Army) John Garang of deception concerning certain issues which he said obstruct the finalization of a peace agreement. Al-Bashir said in an interview with the Egyptian state- owned daily al-Ahram that "Garang returned back to matters which were settled in the Mashakos agreement ( in July 2002), like talking about the foundation of a private central bank in the south and an independent currency and a defense ministry, an issue which supports separation, and we have refused and do refuse that." He added that "negotiations have achieved large strides and that despite current problems, we expect to sign the peace agreement." Al-Bashir explained that there are three issues that are still pending before signing a comprehensive peace agreement which are the sharing of resources and authority, and the situation of three areas under dispute in the country. He said that Garang says that people of these areas stood with him during previous fighting periods, and therefore, he links the fate of these areas to him. But this is not correct. These areas are part of northern Sudan, they have no links to Sudan and Arab tribes live in it."
Well, that sure settles it. Once Arab tribes have lived in it, nobody else can have it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 20:49 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fred, if an Arab tribesman uses my toothbrush, he can have that too.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 21:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Lucky for you, they don't use toothbrushes. They're un-Islamic...
Posted by: Fred || 11/03/2003 21:22 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon
Arab Parliamentary Union: the Whole Arab Homeland is Syria
The 44th urgent session of the Arab Parliamentary Union Council concluded its deliberations in Syria on Sunday under the motto of "the Whole Arab Homeland is Syria."
Does that mean the whole shebang is going to collapse when we beat up Syria?
In a final statement, the Council expressed strong condemnation over the latest Israeli aggression on Syrian lands.
Boy, wotta surprise.
It stressed complete solidarity with Syria in confrontation of the US — Israeli pressures and threats expressing its appreciation over Syria's principled stances and her keen interest to achieve "just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East based on UN related resolutions and Madrid terms of reference." The Council asserted Syria's legitimate right to defend herself and protect her lands. It strongly denounced the US House of Representatives' approval on the so - called Syria Accountability Act considering this as a violation of international law and conventions. The Council urged the Arab states to stand by Syria and back her in confrontation of the Israeli aggressions and US pressures calling them to give priority to establish a deterrent balanced force that obliges the Arabs' enemies to reconsider their stances.
"You guys hop on over here and keep them from beating the snot out of us, okay?"
It condemned the "US total bias in favor Israel, its defence of Israel's aggression on Syria and giving it the political coverage to such act." The Council backed the Syrian draft resolution submitted to the UN Security Council to make the Middle East a region free of weapons of mass destruction. The Council expressed concern over Israel's continuation of violating Lebanon's water and airspaces.
Sounds like the Council did everything but powder Syria's behind...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/03/2003 20:44 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Do the Syrians really expect that these other clowns will back them up.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 21:55 Comments || Top||

#2  I think this circus was put together by the Syrians as a propaganda show.
Posted by: Fred || 11/03/2003 22:50 Comments || Top||

#3  They've had 44 "urgent" sessions? How many "emergency" sessions? How many "oh, just thought we'd have a chat" sessions?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 23:00 Comments || Top||


Middle East
16yr old homocide bomber
Today's flying meat was 16, vice 17 years old.
Posted by: chriskarma || 11/03/2003 5:58:06 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  try this?
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 18:56 Comments || Top||

#2  The enmity has only one ending. Until there is no one left to express it or to be co-opted by the most craven cowards ever to walk the earth, the insanity continues. Thx for the link.
Posted by: .com || 11/03/2003 19:04 Comments || Top||

#3  cool Barnes Aramco link too - thx!
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 19:26 Comments || Top||

#4  Oops - been offline for awhile - Thx! There were some interesting times back before they got all Soddy and full of themselves.
Posted by: .com || 11/03/2003 21:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Try this also.
Seems a pity, but then, maybe not.
http://tinyurl.com/tk0p
Posted by: tipper. || 11/03/2003 23:37 Comments || Top||

#6  Oooops!
Tinyurl doesn't seem to work.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/031103/241/5r59l.html&e=11&ncid=708
Posted by: tipper. || 11/03/2003 23:48 Comments || Top||


Iran
Sons, Aides of Top Iran Cleric Arrested
AP from Newsday EFL
Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri’s sons, Ahmad and Saeed Montazeri, plus his aides, Reza Ziaei and Gholamreza Hojjati, were taken into custody by plainclothes security agents in Qom, a holy city 80 miles southwest of Tehran, Zahra Rabbani, Ahmad’s wife, told The Associated Press. Rabbani said Iranian authorities gave no reason for the arrests, but the move came after she had decided to turn a building next to her home into a seminary school for the elder Montazeri to teach in.
What could be wrong with teaching?
Security agents have closed the building, which is where Monday’s arrests occurred. Montazeri, 81, resumed teaching in September after spending five years under house arrest in Qom for telling students that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was incompetent to issue religious rulings.
Ah, a rather controversial curriculum.
Montazeri had also accused ruling hard-line clerics of monopolizing power and ignoring the democratic demands of ordinary Iranians.
Must have been on a roll that day.
Khamenei denounced him as a traitor and the mosque where he made the speech was closed.
So much for civil debate of the issues.
Following Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, Montazeri had been the designated successor of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. That was until he fell out with Khomeini shortly before his 1989 death after complaining about powers wielded by unelected clerics.
Didn’t learn his lesson. Stays on message, though.
Criticizing Khamenei is considered taboo in Iran and critics are subject to punishment.
At least he wasn’t walking on the beach holding hands with his wife. The get out the baseball bats for that type of thing.
But in recent months, reformers have become bolder and directly criticized Khamenei and the unelected bodies he controls. On Monday, Mojtaba Lotfi, a close aide to the grand ayatollah, said the mosque Montazeri preached at in Qom has remained closed since he was first placed under house arrest. "They (hard-liners) believe the mosque where Khamenei was criticized in should never open again," he said. "It is apparently a symbolic decision to tell everyone that Khamenei should not be criticized."
I don’t know how Allah will feel about closing a place of worship for that type of reason. I’m thinking he might not buy in to the whole temporal politics reasoning. Who am I to say, though? Being the infidel and all.
I wonder, when they sow those places with salt, do they use rock salt? Or is it regular table salt?
Lotfi said Montazeri condemned the arrest of his sons and aides. He did not elaborate.
He can say no more!
In his first public speech in six years following the lifting of the house arrest order in September, Montazeri denounced Iran’s theocratic establishment as undemocratic and urged it to allow the country’s young people to choose their future.
This guy just doesn’t give up. You got to respect that.
Montazeri, who is in poor health, is one of a few grand ayatollahs, the most senior theologians of the Shiite Muslim faith. He enjoys huge followings in Qom and Isfahan, his birthplace. Notice how they didn’t want to have him die in custody. Would have been a little more controversial than having his sons succumb to simultaneous blunt force traumas to the head strokes.

In my mind I think I can pretend that this guy is a moderate. Just nobody ask him for his views on Israel.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 1:56:42 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wonder, when they sow those places with salt, do they use rock salt? Or is it regular table salt?

Kosher salt.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 14:43 Comments || Top||

#2  From what I've heard the Grand Ayatollahs aren't too hot on the idea of an Islamic Republic (the thelogical justification is a tad flimsy AIUI.) The top guys in the regime are only middle ranking clergymen, Khamene'i is a mere Hojjatoleslam who was promoted by decree to Ayatollahood when Khomeyni keeled over, 'Rafsanjani' (Behramani) still is a Hojjatie, though he now styles himself a full blown Ayatollah (is pride a deadly sin in Islam?) Khamene'i is also seen as an also-ran by people like Montazeri, which doesn't help matters (from the IRI's POV.)
Posted by: Dave || 11/03/2003 15:24 Comments || Top||

#3  Montazeri had also accused ruling hard-line clerics of monopolizing power and ignoring the democratic demands of ordinary Iranians.

There's your reason for the arrests. Any other questions?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/03/2003 15:36 Comments || Top||


In stark contrast to fate of Canadian Journalist -Two Iranian Filmmakers Freed in Iraq
EFL Ap from Newsday
Two Iranian filmmakers returned home Monday after being held for four months by U.S.-led coalition forces in neighboring Iraq on suspicion of spying. Saeed Aboutaleb and Soheil Karimi, who work for Iran’s state-run television station, were detained by U.S. troops on July 1 in the southeastern Iraqi city of al-Kut when they were spotted filming a U.S. military base.
That will get you a trip to the cooler in the war zone.
They were released Monday from a prison in British-controlled southern Iraq where they have been held, Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency said. The arrests were met with anger in Iran, where officials complained to the Swiss ambassador to Tehran, who looks after U.S. interests in Iran, and warned Britain that its ties with Tehran would suffer if London did not help release them.
We’ll huff and we’ll puff and we’ll shut of rug exports.
A British Foreign Office spokesman said Monday that coalition authorities in Iraq were pleased that the Iranian men have been freed. "It was unfortunate that these two intelligence operatives journalists were caught up in the stringent security regime currently in place in Iraq," the unidentified spokesman said in a statement released by the British government. Washington broke diplomatic relations with Iran after militant students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 American hostages for 444 days.
Seems like we still can hold 51 people for 444 days before we are even.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 1:41:00 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Washington broke diplomatic relations with Iran after militant students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 American hostages for 444 days.
Does anyone still think they were students? Didn't think so.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/03/2003 15:37 Comments || Top||


Africa: Southern
BBC: Mugabe poll challenge in court
EFL
You hear quite a few shrill voices defending Hugo Chavez in Venezuala, but not even Mugabe’s regime is treated like a toxic waste spill. I can’t figure out whether he is on thin ice or whether everone just figures that African regimes are messed up by definition.
Packed High Court in Zimbabwe has begun hearing an opposition appeal against the victory of Robert Mugabe in last year’s presidential election. Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai says the result - in which he came second - was rigged. The government denies foul play, saying the results reflected the will of the people - nah nobody will buy that vote. A BBC correspondent says the opposition have little chance of forcing an early election even if the appeal is upheld but the issue is stoking tension. Mr Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party refuses to hold talks with the MDC over Zimbabwe’s economic crisis unless it recognises his election victory.
Deadlocked in economic chicken as the ice gets thinner.
"The elections were stifled at best because the president, one of the contenders, became the rule maker," lawyer Jeremy Gauntlet said in his preliminary statement to the court. Mr Gauntlet is a high-profile South African lawyer, who has previously represented Nelson Mandela.
Odd choice - wonder how Winnie and Nelson feel about Bob.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 12:33:59 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I do not think “Winnie and Nelson” are a couple any more. Nelson spent years in jail to fight for freedom, while Winnie should have spent years in jail to pay for murder.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 11/03/2003 14:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Eric, understood. I know I don't care for Winnie; I would like to hear her oppinion of Bob purely for the comic value. It would be more interesting to hear whether Nelson is an appologist for Bob.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 15:12 Comments || Top||

#3  That would be interesting. Mandela's succesor, Mbeki, appears to be, though that might be more in an attempt to stave off a refugee problem. But given what's going on in S.A., I suspect a significant portion of the ANC is looking at Mugabe as an good example.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/03/2003 16:38 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Paleos seethe, whine
JPost; reg reqd. Hat tip LGF.
Palestinians on Sunday marked the 86th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration by demanding an apology from Britain for promising "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." Palestinians throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip marched in the streets jumped up and down, made faces and held rallies to condemn the role Britain played in the establishment of Israel.
"Haman! Haman!"
For decades the Palestinians and the Arab world have been marking the "notorious" anniversary of the Balfour Declaration — a reference to foreign secretary Arthur Balfour’s support in 1917 for a "national home" for the Jews in Palestine — by protests and rioting rallies.
And they’re peeved that Hitler was foiled; never mind that they’d have been next.
Statements issued by different Palestinian factions, organizations, and officials demanded an apology from Britain, saying it is morally and legally responsible for the creation of Israel. The Palestinian Council for Defending Refugees Rights said Britain must apologize for the injustice done to the Palestinians as a result of the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. "We hold Britain responsible, morally and legally, for the injustice done to the Palestinian cause," the council said.
"Jews breathe. That’s unfair."
Google's never heard of the Palestinian Council for Defending Refugees’ Rights. They must be one of the biggies...
"Britain is responsible for disarming our people prior to the establishment of the State of Israel, thus depriving our people of their right to self-determination and independence. Therefore, we are demanding that Britain apologize for what happened in Palestine."
"And then round up the Jews for extermination, dammit!"
Youssef al-Kazzaz, the director of the Voice of Palestine, the Palestinian Authority’s official radio station, also demanded an apology from Britain for the "criminal" Balfour Declaration. "Britain alone bears the responsibility for the ill-reputed Balfour Declaration," he said. "Britain alone should therefore make an official apology to the Palestinians for what this declaration caused, including occupation, displacement, killings, and settlements. That decision gave Israel a free hand to carry out its known policies in Palestine."
"Democracy, prosperity, and freedom suck."
Kazzaz called on Palestinians and Arabs living in Britain to form special committees to put pressure on the British government to issue a similar declaration acknowledging the Palestinians’ right to establish their own state. "Otherwise, the Palestinian people in their homeland and elsewhere would continue to hold Britain responsible for this crime in favor of Israel," he said.
How is it crime? Oh yeah I forgot the Sharia motto: Freedom is slavery.
The Arab Liberation Front, a breakaway group from the PLO, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine issued statements in Gaza City saying that Britain bears the historic responsibility for the creation of Israel. Hamas also issued a statement demanding an apology from Britain, saying it is morally and legally responsible for the suffering of the Palestinians.
Uh-huh. Yeah sure.
Posted by: Atrus || 11/03/2003 12:27:22 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  On your knees, blokes!

Note to paleos. Try winning your wars instead of blaming others. Hell, you had all the might of Syria, Egypt, Jordan, the Soviets. Pathetic.
Posted by: Lucky || 11/03/2003 13:53 Comments || Top||

#2  The trigger for Herzl's establishment of the Zionist movement was the Dreyfus case wasn't it? Maybe the Pallies should ask the French to apologise? AFAIK the idea of emmigration to the Palestine mandate was most popular amongst the Ashkenazim in Eastern Europe (no prizes for guessing why) so maybe the Romanians, Poles etc should say sorry for being so anti-Semitic? Then there was some kind of unpleasantness in central Europe in the middle part of the 20th century (Apologies from the Germans?) & Oh, BTW the Mizrahim ('Oriental' Jews) weren't (as a rule) fanatical Zionists were they, so who's responsible for them moving to Medinat Yisrael en masse?
Posted by: Dave || 11/03/2003 15:02 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Sen Bob Graham : "note to self - announce retirement"
EFL - FU
Florida Sen. Bob Graham will not seek re-election to a fourth term in the U.S. Senate and will announce his retirement Monday, sources confirmed to Fox News. Graham, who ended his bid for the Democratic nomination for president last month, will make his announcement at noon at Lincoln High School in Tallahassee, Fla. The senator is at the school for a "work day," in which he is working with construction workers on a new school roof and athletic track. A source close to Graham told The Associated Press that there were other things he wanted to do, but has pledged to help the Democratic Party keep the Senate seat. Graham, a former two-term governor, is considered one of the most popular politicians in Florida, where he has served in the Senate since 1987.
"Yep. He's a flake, but he's our flake..."
Five Democrats — former state Education Commissioner Betty Castor, U.S. Reps. Allen Boyd, Peter Deutsch and Alcee Hastings, and Miami-Dade Mayor Alex Penelas — declared for the Senate seat but vowed not to challenge Graham.
Alcee — wasn’t he convicted of a crime/removed from judicial office once? nice
The field of Republicans seeking Graham’s seat include state House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, legal activist Larry Klayman, former U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum and state Sen. Dan Webster of the Orlando area. While the state GOP said his presidential campaign might make him vulnerable, analysts considered Graham to be a strong candidate for re-election. Graham faced pressure from fellow Democrats to run again. Republicans hold a 51-48 majority in the current Senate, with one Democratic-leaning independent. Three Democrats have announced plans to retire rather than seek re-election: Sens. Zell Miller of Georgia, John Edwards of North Carolina and Ernest "Fritz" Hollings of South Carolina.
I used to disagree with, but still respect Graham, but in the last year+ he’s become increasingly unhinged in his public statements and accusations in trying to appeal to the Dem primary voters. He won’t be missed nearly as much as Zell Miller
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 11:51:52 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Klayman would be a loose cannon. That would be fun. I would assign a permanent CPSAN camera to whatever committee he sits on.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 11:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Graham also had heart surgery early this year. He may be looking at health/stamina issues...He's served Florida fairly well in his years as governor and senator. Hope he enjoys his retirement.
Posted by: Anonymous || 11/03/2003 12:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Gov. Bob's national timing was off by about ten years. Many Floridians were somewhat annoyed by his shift to the left following his less-than-avid reception he got in Iowa and NH. Bye Bob. Frankly Graham lost much of his luster when Sen. Gramm retired.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/03/2003 12:21 Comments || Top||


Middle East
UNESCO official: Killing in the name of Islam is un-Islamic
JPost Reg req’d EFL - she won’t last long speaking such blasphemy
Men and women who carry out suicide bombing attacks allegedly in the name of Islam are not real Muslims, Aicha Bah-Diallo, UNESCO Assistant Deputy Director General for Education told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.
Of course they're not. They're wahhabis...
"You cannot understand it because she (in the case of a woman suicide bomber) did not do it as a Muslim, because in Islam you cannot kill," said Bah-Diallo, from Guinea in West Africa and herself a Muslim.
That sure isn't in the Koran...
"Life has been given by God, so how can someone take it away — their own life and that of others? . . . That’s why I’m saying, she did not do it as a Muslim," said Bah-Diallo, when asked about the suicide attack by a Palestinian woman at Haifa’s Maxim restaurant a month ago in which 21 people were killed. "In the origins of Islam, there is no violence. Mohammad the prophet said he built his mosque for God and all the monotheists could come and pray in his mosque, and he was the one who was protecting all monotheist believers.
Except that only Muslims are considered monotheists. And only some Muslims, at that...
"If you don’t believe in Adam, Abraham and Jesus Christ, you are not a Muslim. People should know that . . . The Koran is built on tolerance."
WTF? It is?
Bah-Diallo is among dozens of top-ranking women from nearly 40 countries taking part in a week-long interational symposium on "Women’s Voice in Conflict Resolution and Peace-Building" at the Golda Meir Mount Carmel International Training Center in Haifa. The event, which officially opened on Sunday, is being sponsored by MASHAV, the Foreign Ministry’s Center for International Cooperation, in conjunction with Soroptimist International of Israel. Bah-Diallo stressed the need to give women a more leading role in trying to develop dialog between Israelis and Palestinians and promoting education on both sides that places more emphasis on common factors and less on differences. "I really believe that women have to be part of peace-building. We are more numerous than men and we have many roles to play. We are mothers, we are sisters, we are citizens and we have more feeling towards peace than men," she said in a special interview with the "Post." "I have seen many women, Palestinians and Israelis, who are trying to bring people together and talk to each other. You cannot kill somebody you have been talking to and working with.
Oh, sure you can. It's done all the time...
"It is so importannt to go back to dialog — to sit around the table and — talk to each other, get to know each other and get to see what unites you and build on that and minimize what divides you.
What happens is that you sit around passing gas and drinking tea, talk to each other, get to know each other, discover you really don't like each other, and then have at it with cudgels. From there things go downhill and people are exploding in every direction. Myself, I prefer to remain stand-offish.
"This dialog is very important, but I don’t see women around the (negotiating) table. . . Most of the time it is men. . . Maybe when we will have more women around the table for dialog it will be better."
And maybe when we grow out of this multicultural we-can-all-get-along claptrap we'll live in an adult world...
Bah-Diallo is a firm believer that peace and resolving conflict begins at home and that it is important teach children the concept of learning to live together and how to accept differences from a very early age.
Those kind of ideas will get a Fatwa on ya faster than you can say: "Religion of Peace™"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 11:26:18 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Aicha, honey, perhaps you should let someone else start your car in the mornings, K?
Posted by: Steve White || 11/03/2003 11:30 Comments || Top||

#2  "I really believe that women have to be part of peace-building. We are more numerous than men and we have many roles to play. We are mothers, we are sisters, we are citizens and we have more feeling towards peace than men," she said in a special interview with the "Post."

Oh, I see. She's not a jihadi-idiot, she's a gender-feminist-idiot.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/03/2003 12:42 Comments || Top||


Premature boom
FOLLOWUP to the previous story. Adds detail...
al-Reuters. Watch for spin. Edited for Digression
A Palestinian teenage suicide bomber blew up near Israeli forces in the West Bank on Monday, killing no one but himself, hours after the militant group Hamas ruled out ceasing all attacks on Israelis under any future truce deal.
Finally coming clean, in other words
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said security forces, acting on information about a planned suicide bombing inside Israel, raided the village of Azoun near the town of Qalqilya. "The suicide bomber blew himself up next to an armored army vehicle and we have one slightly wounded soldier," Mofaz said in broadcast remarks.
"And who's gonna clean that mess off the track?"
Relatives identified the Palestinian as Sabi Abu Saoud, 17, from the West Bank city of Nablus and said he was a member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, linked to the Fatah movement.
All of 17 years old? Did his Mom and Dad have to sign a permission slip for him to join up?
Earlier on Monday, Hamas chief spokesman Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi set out his conditions ahead of a possible dialogue with Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei on reining in violence threatening a U.S.-backed "road map" to peace.
A road map that didn’t take all the pitfalls into account.
Rantissi said the radical Islamic group could discuss halting its suicide bombings inside Israel, while still targeting soldiers and Jewish settlers on occupied land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Excuse me? How can you be occupiers in your own land?
Such a condition would be unacceptable to Israel, which regards attacks on settlers and soldiers as terrorism.
For the same reason we regard the sun to be a star.
"The issue that will be possible to be addressed (with the Palestinian Authority) is continuing the resistance to the occupation while avoiding civilian casualties," Rantissi told Reuters at a Gaza Strip safe house.
just before his lips fell off
Personally, I think he's possessed by demons and djinns and efrits and possibly a calliope...
"But if the enemy (Israel) does not accept, then resistance will continue comprehensively," he said.
"But we’d do that whatever."
Hamas, sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state, does not regard the 250,000 settlers living on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war as non-combatants. International human rights groups consider the settlers to be civilians.
For the same reason we consider the Earth to be a planet.
Posted by: Atrus || 11/03/2003 10:40:53 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  from the JPost:
"The would-be-suicide bomber's father, Kamal, said that "he was just a little boy and those who sent him should have left him alone."
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 11:11 Comments || Top||

#2  The would-be-suicide bomber's father, Kamal, said that "he was just a little boy and those who sent him should have left him alone.

Nice. The a--holes who sent the boy off to die just cost Kamal his son and, likely, his house. All for the glory of the Palestine state. Yasser must be proud.
Posted by: Dar || 11/03/2003 11:34 Comments || Top||

#3  You dont think Ham-Ass or Arafat gives a flying flick about the palestinian people do you? Ham-Ass Arafat and the IJ only care about killing and murder --- they are addicted to it.

If they kill Israelies or Palistinians or puppies or baby ducks don't mean a thing to them.

Targetting Israelies only tend to lend it some sort of 'credibility' in the eyes of the left and Europe. If they did not have Jews to pick on they would happily kill Palistinians or other Muslims -- they can hardly hold back murdering their own folk as it is.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/03/2003 12:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Personally I'd rather the US cede Rhode Island to Israel (starting with Pawtucket, please!), bring all Israelis over here, then let Darwinism do the rest.
Posted by: Raj || 11/03/2003 13:51 Comments || Top||

#5  Raj, they could bring most of the holy sites with them. Half of the Parthenon is in the British Museum.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 14:15 Comments || Top||

#6  You dont think Ham-Ass or Arafat gives a flying flick about the palestinian people do you? Ham-Ass Arafat and the IJ only care about killing and murder --- they are addicted to it.

Arafish worships power.
Posted by: Atrus || 11/03/2003 15:57 Comments || Top||

#7  er.......Parthenon?
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 16:06 Comments || Top||

#8  Frank, I think the story was that the Turks were going to wreck the thing anyway. link : sample text-

The Parthenon sculptures are now one of the greatest treasures of the British Museum and they have been the heart of its classical collections since they were acquired in 1816. The gallery in which they are housed has been described as "one of the central places of earth". They are among a select number of objects in the Museum that are intrinsic to its identity. Inevitably, there are occasional requests to lend some of these objects to exhibitions abroad. The Museum has a very generous loans policy, but the Trustees are determined that such loans should not deprive visitors of the chance to see objects that are famously part of the Museum's collections, which they may reasonably expect to see on display when they come, and which offer the public an overall sense of the past.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 16:59 Comments || Top||

#9  gotcha
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 19:09 Comments || Top||

#10  just wondering: how damaged will the Al-Aqsa site be when they dig up Solomon's Temple/Temple Mount to ship it out....heh heh
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 19:11 Comments || Top||

#11  I don't know, but the wailing wall will go nicely on the cliff walk in Newport.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 19:32 Comments || Top||

#12  Frank, you had me hook line and sinker by the way. I had to check to see if they gave it back eventhough I had seen it with my own eyes.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 19:35 Comments || Top||

#13  ;-)
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 20:25 Comments || Top||


Suicide bomber attacks West Bank
A Palestinian suicide bomber has blown humself up near Israel forces in the West Bank, injuring a soldier. The attack happened just hours after the Islamic group Hamas ruled out putting an end to attacks on Israelis under any peace deal that might be negotiated.
signed their death warrant, did they?
The bomber blew himself up next to an army vehicle after troops raided the village of Azoun following a tip off about a planned attack on Israel.
tips can be called in on 1-800-dontblowmyhouseup
The man is believed to have been a dismembered member of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of Mr Arafat’s Fatah movement.
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 8:39:40 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Looks like another case of Palestinan premature ejaculation. No wonder they're using women now.
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/03/2003 9:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Time to roll out the remote-control dozers for Field Test #1.
Posted by: Dar || 11/03/2003 9:58 Comments || Top||

#3  I thought Yasser was ready to talk peace. That must be code for - attack imminent.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 10:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Perhaps EA will come out with a decent D-9 simulator...
Posted by: Shipman || 11/03/2003 13:00 Comments || Top||

#5  darn...no babies? no women? How many virgins does a loser like that get?
Posted by: alaskaman || 11/03/2003 14:16 Comments || Top||

#6  He didn't even kill a soldier. No 72 raisins for you, Kfur!
Posted by: Charles || 11/03/2003 17:37 Comments || Top||

#7  This is what remains of the bomber, a teenager as mentioned a the post above.

[WARNING: graphic image]
Posted by: Bulldog || 11/03/2003 18:24 Comments || Top||

#8  not graphic enough...should show the x-rays of those with nails, bolts in their heads, spines from splodeydope packing. F*&king stupid cowards
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 19:14 Comments || Top||

#9  They should deliver the kid to Arafat's desk,
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 21:52 Comments || Top||


Iran
Iran: Taliban & Al Q are the illegitimate children of USA
From CNN... EFL and Fair Use
Iran rules out terror extraditions
Wednesday, October 29, 2003 Posted: 1330 GMT
PARIS, France (CNN) --
Iran will refuse requests to extradite captured al Qaeda members to the United States, instead trying them under Iranian law, a top official has said. Seyed Mohammad Sadegh Kharazi, Iran’s ambassador to France, also said Tuesday there were "links between al Qaeda and the military elements of the Baath party," the party once run by deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. He described al Qaeda and the Taliban as "essentially the illegitimate children" of the United States.
Oh yeah. I see the connection, now. Thx.
U.S. officials blame recent attacks in Iraq on Baath party remnants, members of terrorist groups, and other insurgents. The United States has called on Iran to send al Qaeda members within its borders to the United States, because of the terrorist attacks the group has launched against the U.S. and its interests overseas.
We’d like to sit down, pull out the samovar, and whip up a little tea. That’s how these things are done, y’know.
Kharazi said his country will instead try al Qaeda members "under Iranian law because they have committed crimes on our territory. We have from the very beginning been totally opposed to al Qaeda and, besides, al Qaeda has been completely opposed to us," Kharazi told reporters at the Center for Foreign Press.
I think Kharazi needs to talk to the other Iranian Govt - the one that actually runs things... He appears to be confused. Perhaps it’s from being posted in Phrawnce.
"It has to be said that the Taliban and al Qaeda are essentially the illegitimate children of the U.S.A. It is the Americans who are responsible for bringing these movements into being."
Right. Ignore the timeline. We asked for it - in advance. Just post-date that fatwa.
...More...
Watch the Black Hats invent reality and logic. It’s a marvel, but not unique - a very similar process is occurring right here at home. Our own Local Looney Land is well advanced in constructing their own noir reality and logic. See? Over there, just to the Left of Trotsky.
Posted by: .com || 11/03/2003 8:20:20 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He described al Qaeda and the Taliban as "essentially the illegitimate children" of the United States.

In that case, they're out past their curfew, so please send the bastards back home...
Posted by: snellenr || 11/03/2003 9:01 Comments || Top||

#2  And we'll beat 'em like a red-headed stepchild.
Posted by: mojo || 11/03/2003 10:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Someone please explain to me why these idiot mullahs are still in power? Can someone please get the destabilization of Iran underway already?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/03/2003 15:35 Comments || Top||

#4  B-A-B, shhh ... the moslems said they'd handle theirown regime changes from here on out.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 17:20 Comments || Top||

#5  " Baath, Al-Queada, be quiet. it's time to listen to the puppet show by Mr. Kharazi. "
Posted by: Charles || 11/03/2003 17:23 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon
Syria warns Israel of possible action by militant Homeowners Associations
CAIRO, Egypt -- Ordinary Syrians might attack Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan Heights in retaliation for last month’s Israeli air raid on a purported militant training camp near Damascus, Syrian officials warned.
If your security post gets egged or TP’d don’t say we didn’t warn you.
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouq al-Sharaa said the response may come against Jewish settlements on the Golan, the strategic plateau which Israel seized from Syria in 1967.
Take this as a veiled threat - the way it was intended.
This is veiled? Oh, how subtle.
Syria has "many cards that we have not played.
(we have Go Fish and the Crazy Eights and the Old Maid and the ...)
Don’t forget there are many Israeli settlements in the Golan. I am not exaggerating, but I am describing things as they might happen," al-Sharaa also a noted Syrian astrologist said in an interview published last week in Britain’s Sunday Telegraph. Information Minister Ahmed al-Hassan expanded on al-Sharaa’s comments on Sunday, saying the government may not be able to prevent Syrian citizens from retaliating on their own. "A group of people might shell these settlements," al-Hassan quoted al-Sharaa as saying in the Telegraph interview. He did not elaborate.
In Fort Wayne the neighborhoods band together to contract snow and trash removal. In Syria they buy mortars - unless the Golan Best Buy provides rental service.
"The Syrian people, after being provoked by the Israeli attack on its territory, are asking the government to retaliate," al-Sharaa said, according to al-Hassan.
We have been flooded with petitions.
"It is difficult to restrain the people’s reactions, especially as there are Israeli settlements in the Golan within a short distance of Syrian territory.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 7:47:35 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They warned the Israelis. You can't paint your house that color.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 11/03/2003 8:36 Comments || Top||

#2  "Not that we know something's about to happen. Nope, huh uh. Not us Govt guys, oh no, it'll be the regular people who will, uh, maybe do some stuff. Y'know little people. Just citizens... with Katushas. We're just playing cards and minding our own business - y'know, restraining things."
Posted by: .com || 11/03/2003 8:41 Comments || Top||

#3  There is no trash removal in Syria - otherwise Assad and the Baathists would be gone
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 8:42 Comments || Top||

#4  Israel should say the same thing. That there's rumors that ordinary Israeli citizens of the Northern Front Neighborhood Group might drive their tanks tractors toward Damascus.

Just rumors, ya know, so be careful.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 11/03/2003 9:14 Comments || Top||

#5  Quick - send a load of viagra. What a bunch of limp dicks. You naughty Jooooos (lip quivering) watch out or we'll sic the Homeowners Assocatiation on you!
Posted by: Spot || 11/03/2003 9:21 Comments || Top||

#6  especially as there are Israeli settlements in the Golan within a short distance of Syrian territory.

al-Sharaa needs a geography lesson -- the most difficult thing about the terrain in the 30 miles between Israel and the Syrian settlement of Damascus is the need to keep your foot on the brakes to avoid outrunning your artillery support.
Posted by: snellenr || 11/03/2003 9:27 Comments || Top||

#7  At least it's not the Condo Association. They can be friggin' rabid animals!
Posted by: tu3031 || 11/03/2003 9:34 Comments || Top||

#8  Mortars and crew servec weapons are OK; just no yard gnomes. Even if they look like Yasser or Yassin.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 10:43 Comments || Top||

#9  Got to admit, it's a bit more subtle than the Chinese volunteers of the Korean war...
Posted by: Pappy || 11/03/2003 13:03 Comments || Top||

#10  Super Hose

In France a few years ago there was a "Yard Gnome Liberation Front" who kidnapped yard gnomes and set them free in their natural habitat (forests).
Posted by: JFM || 11/03/2003 16:02 Comments || Top||

#11  The Israelis should suggest that ALL the Syrians attack the Golan heights: preferably at the same time. Line them up nice and straight. Should take the Israeli airforce about an hour to kill all of them and solve a lot of problems.
Posted by: Slumming || 11/03/2003 16:18 Comments || Top||

#12  JFM, has the pink flamingo, the chrome ball or the lawn burro made it to Europe?
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 17:05 Comments || Top||

#13  kinda of strange how the people of syria have weapons to shell the settlements.
Posted by: Dan || 11/03/2003 17:24 Comments || Top||

#14  They better not have the Lawn Jockey in Europe. They aren't allowed to steal those!

Oh, yeah, Syria....um...attack and your dead.
Posted by: Charles || 11/03/2003 17:31 Comments || Top||

#15  Get them out in the open so we can waste them all!
Posted by: Jakester || 11/03/2003 18:50 Comments || Top||

#16  Jakester - Are you proposing that we waste all the Syrians, Israeli settlers, Gnomes, Pink Flamingos, Chrome Balls, Lawn burros or lawn jockeys?

JFM, culturally speaking, what's up with this whole Marianne controversy. Is it as big a mess as having Barbara Streisand's husband play Cowboy Ronnie?
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 19:11 Comments || Top||

#17  "In Fort Wayne the neighborhoods band together to contract snow and trash removal. In Syria they buy mortars..."
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the residents of Fort Wayne are better armed... :o)
Posted by: Old Grouch || 11/03/2003 22:46 Comments || Top||


Middle East
America must be Fought in Iraq - Israel Must be Destroyed
The author of this unhinged diatribe is Dr. Hisham Al-Bustani, a Jordanian columnist, dentist and "human rights activist."
I don't think I'd want him drilling my teeth...
The two burning tasks of the Arab world today are the total destruction of Israel and the fight against the US in Iraq, according to the official Palestinian Authority [PA] daily, Al Hayat Al Jadida. The call for Israel’s destruction, a basic and widespread Arab view, was to have been rejected by the PA after the Oslo Accords, yet it continues to be promoted in the tightly controlled PA media. It should be noted that the refusal to recognize Israel’s existence is expressed in the article by the rejection of the name Israel, as well, as references to Israel are placed in quotation marks as follows - "Israel" - implying - "so called Israel".

The article depicts Israel and the US as parallel and prime enemies of the Arab world and this is consistent with the opinions of the general Palestinian population according to the poll PMW released last week in Washington. That poll found that 87% of Palestinians thought either the US or Israel "is the single greatest threat to world peace". [51% answered Israel, 36% answered the US]. The article’s call to fight Americans in Iraq is likewise consistent with PA opinions as the poll found that 42% of the Palestinians support the Iraqi attacks on Americans and 74% of Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein in the war.

The following is from the article in the PA daily:
"During these moments in history it is extremely important to adopt a direct and decisive position regarding imperialism, and especially regarding the Zionist entity. There is no option but resistance to imperialism... There is a need to crystallize a position regarding the imperialist-Zionist project in the Arab region. The resistance - that is meant to bring the expulsion of the American occupation in Iraq - should be supported by all means. The same applies to the struggle against the Zionist entity until the Zionist project is defeated, its entity is eliminated, and a free and Arab Palestine is established as a first step towards uniting the Arab homeland and striving towards independent development and socialism. There are no other fundamental solutions to the Arab problem, but this one...

The two state solution, a binational state, or even one democratic state outside the Arab dimension, will not be capable of getting rid of the contrast between the Arab masses and the Zionist-imperialist project in the Arab region ...

[There is] another issue, that the world movement should decide and take a standpoint: There are no "progressive Israelis". Every person, who is part of the Zionist-imperialist project, even if he is "opposed" to Zionist policy, is part of the structure of “Israel” ... A person cannot be simultaneously both progressive and part of the Zionist entity - Zionist project...

...Israel is an illegitimate state. This definition applies to organizations and individuals that represent [Israel] or recognize it. Therefore, in order to emphasize this illegitimacy, all ties with the "Israelis" should be canceled, and in other words: normalization with Zionists should be opposed on a world level, not only in the Arab homeland...

...There is no option other than the elimination of the imperialist-Zionist project... The meaning of resisting Israel is resisting Globalization, and vice versa..."
[Op. Ed. by Dr. Hisham Al-Bustani, a Jordanian columnist, in Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, official PA daily, Oct. 25, 2003]
Posted by: tipper. || 11/03/2003 4:07:38 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That's right Hisham, you bring your war over here and we will crush you.
Posted by: B || 11/03/2003 9:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Can anyone tell me where to get a new surprise meter? The needle on mine never moves.
Posted by: Spot || 11/03/2003 9:13 Comments || Top||

#3  oops, made my comment above re: title, America must be fought in Iraq :-)

Soooo..the anti-zionists are now openly and publically joining forces with the globalization and socialist movements. While I'm sure it will give a short term boost in money and supporters, I think that long term, it is a fatal mistake for the Jihadi's. Those movements are confused and scattered, with no real goals other than to rebel. Here in the US, members who aren't under the age of 23 might as well write "loser" across their forehead. So I guess their new strategy is to make a winner out of an even larger pool of losers.

Seems to me this alliance will provide them with lots more indians...but way too many chiefs.
Posted by: B || 11/03/2003 9:19 Comments || Top||

#4  The Arab street continues to conduct itself annoyingly: Arabs Celebrate Strikes on U.S. in Iraq. I suggest that we move the capital to Basra - a community that has gotten the message: Water, Electricity Key to Peace in Basra
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 10:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Some quotes from another fine article to complement SH's posts:
The goodwill towards Americans is mingled with humour. An official went to see a Shia tribal leader, and as they sat down for the first of many cups of a hot sweet beverage, the lights in the majlis, the reception room, dimmed and went out. The American started to apologise, but was stopped short by his host: ‘No, I blame the French. If they hadn’t played around at the United Nations Security Council, you would have been here three months earlier.’

And my favorite:
On an international level, the issue was never simply Saddam but rather Russia, France and Germany trying to use multilateralism to negate America’s unilateral tendencies. But George Bush decided that, post–9/11, being asked to provide both the big stick and the fat wallet allowed him to have a say on when to use them.
Posted by: Dar || 11/03/2003 12:49 Comments || Top||

#6  Dar, I like the three month one. I reminds me of the Russian humor during the latter days of teh Soviet system. Dry as the Sahara.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 13:32 Comments || Top||

#7  There is no option but resistance to imperialism... So this guy opposes the Syrian occupation of Lebanon does he?
..and a free and Arab Palestine is established as a first step towards uniting the Arab homeland and striving towards independent development and socialism. There are no other fundamental solutions to the Arab problem, but this one...
Ye Gods, a genuine Ba'athi! I though people who believed in Michel Aflaq's crap were rather thin on the ground these days. In the best tradition of Ba'athi hyperbolae this rant's long on rhetoric but decidely short on detail, how will this unification come about then? And how will the ZE be destroyed considering the IDF's record of doing horrible things to Arab armies?
Posted by: Dave || 11/03/2003 18:09 Comments || Top||


Africa: East
Burundi Peace Agreement Is Signed
Burundi’s president and main rebel leader signed a peace agreement Sunday, but efforts to end the decade-long civil war were threatened by renewed fighting between Tutsi-dominated government troops and other Hutu rebels.
Heck of a rebel leader, signs the peace agreement and his boys keep fighting. Must be taking lessons from Arafish.
Peter Nkurunziza, leader of the rebel Forces for the Defense of Democracy, said Sunday the deal with President Domitien Ndayizeye could lead to a cease-fire with all rebel groups in Burundi. At least one other group has resisted any agreement with the government and skirmishes continue. ``We look forward very much to work with our brothers who were our enemies yesterday and will be our enemies tomorrow,’’ Nkurunziza was quoted as saying by the South African Press Association. ``I hope the agreement signed today will be implemented in the very, very near future so we shall indeed be one.’’ His FDD is the largest Hutu rebel group fighting the army.

South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who helped broker the deal, said the agreement signaled an end to the conflict in this central African nation. ``I believe with this agreement Burundi’s problems are over,’’ Zuma said. ``This is an agreement you can defend, own and implement.’’ The agreement allows Nkurunziza’s rebels to be included in the military and form a political party. Both government and rebel fighters will be granted temporary immunity from prosecution. Fighting flared up last week as the Hutu-dominated National Liberation Force clashed with the Tutsi-dominated army. Thousands fled their homes outside the capital, Bujumbura.
Last-minute grab?
The National Liberation Force is the only group that has refused to negotiate with Burundi’s transitional government. Two smaller rebel factions signed cease-fires in October 2002. Ndayizeye, a Hutu, heads a transitional government that took office in November 2001. His predecessor was a Tutsi. Tutsis are in the minority in Burundi, but have effectively controlled the country for all but a few months since it achieved independence in 1962.
Let’s have a nice round of applause for the Belgians for this arrangement!
Posted by: Steve White || 11/03/2003 1:10:55 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So Steve---How long to you give this one before it falls apart?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/03/2003 1:29 Comments || Top||

#2  AP - souinds like it already did
Posted by: Frank G || 11/03/2003 9:51 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Arafat Willing to Enter Peace Talks
Things must not be going will in Ramallah. EFL.
Following an Israeli offer, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Sunday he is ready for peace talks, while about 6,000 Palestinians returned to jobs in Israel for the first time in a month. In an abrupt turnaround last week, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said contacts were already underway with Palestinian officials, adding, ``We are ready to enter negotiations at any time.’’ Sharon had previously conditioned talks on a crackdown on violent Palestinian groups responsible for attacks on Israelis.
Hmmm, wonder what happened in Jerusalem?
Asked about Sharon’s remarks, Arafat told reporters he would accept an offer for talks. ``There is no official communication, but we are ready while we find more splodydopes,’’ he said after meeting a delegation of Greek lawmakers at his smelly, rotted out headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Talks on the U.S.-backed and clinically dead ``road map’’ peace plan have been stalled for weeks because of Palestinian bombing attacks and Israeli defensive military operations, along with the Palestinians’ unwillingness inability to form a sham stable government. Arafat has often said he is ready to talk peace, but Israel and the United States are boycotting him, charging that he is completely tainted by terrorism. They insist on dealing with a mouthpiece an empowered prime minister.
Don’t see this going anywhere.
On Sunday, Arafat formally asked Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei to form a government, and Qurei said he accepted. Palestinian officials said they hoped the work could be completed in a few days. Qurei has been serving as the head of an emergency 30-day Cabinet. He could not agree with the veteran Palestinian leader over who should be the new interior minister in charge of the armed forces. The one-month decree runs out Tuesday. Qurei said Sunday he hopes to put together a government that is ``acceptable to Yassir everyone,’’ but Palestinian officials said the dispute with Arafat over interior minister has not been resolved.
And won’t be.
Reflecting a relative downturn in violence in recent weeks, the Israelis announced on Sunday that they would permit about 15,000 Palestinians to enter the country for work. A military announcement referred to "outside pressure" ``confidence-building measures’’ decided by the government. Before dawn, about 6,200 workers over the age of 35 crowded the Erez crossing point from Gaza, submitted to strict security checks and went to jobs in Israel. The permits arrived at the beginning of the second week of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. ``It is a miracle from God because I was running out of money due to the holy month of Ramadan and I was thinking how I would manage to feed my children in this very bad economic situation,’’ said Mohammed Salman, a 42-year-old construction worker who has seven children.
Construction, eh? Don’t think I’d turn my back on him while he has a hammer in his hands.
However, Salman was unhappy with the security checks, which make a trip from his home in the Jebaliya refugee camp to Tel Aviv last several hours instead of less than an hour.
And why would that be?
Strict closures were placed on Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza before the Jewish New Year holiday in September because of increased concerns about attacks. The restrictions, which had been extended through a series of Jewish holidays — and the Oct. 4 suicide bombing at a that killed 21 — prevented nearly 3 million Palestinians from leaving their communities. Many Palestinian farmers could not reach their fields, badly damaging the annual olive harvest.
Not that anyone would notice.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/03/2003 1:06:12 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I was going to comment on this, but I'm too depressed. Don't go away mad, Yasshole, JUST GO AWAY!
Posted by: Spot || 11/03/2003 9:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Can't SOMEBODY please shoot the old bastard? Please?
Posted by: mojo || 11/03/2003 11:29 Comments || Top||

#3  Arafart has been "ready" more times than can be counted. Someone needs to put their foot down, whether it be the U.S or Israel, and put a permanent stop to this recurring bait-and-switch routine.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/03/2003 13:44 Comments || Top||

#4  If Arafish shows up at the peace talks, I hope Isreal shoots him dead and negotiates over his dead body.
Posted by: Charles || 11/03/2003 17:26 Comments || Top||


Iran
Iran sez they don’t need no trouble with the IAEA
Fred, you do the honors.
Iran’s top leader has warned that Tehran will end cooperation with the UN nuclear agency if it makes excessive demands that undermine the country’s nuclear program. Although Iran agreed last month to allow unfettered inspections of its nuclear facilities, hard-liners have pressured the government not to make further concessions. "If parties to the talks with us or centers of global power come up with excessive demands and we feel that our interests and values are harmed, we won’t hesitate to end this trend (of cooperation)," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said. "Peaceful nuclear technology is our legitimate right and no country and no organization can deprive us of this right, including the right for production of our own nuclear fuel," Khamenei told a large group of Iran’s military brass and government officials after hosting a fast-breaking party. His comments were broadcast by state-run television.

Iran pledged last month to suspend uranium enrichment and sign an additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty allowing unfettered inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran also handed over to the IAEA a dossier on its nuclear programs, effectively meeting an October 31 deadline to prove its nuclear program is peaceful. IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told CNN on Sunday that the agency was in the process of verifying the declaration and said they were making "good and steady progress" with Iran. If the IAEA decides Iran has not proven its peaceful nuclear intentions, it could refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which could impose sanctions.

For now, international pressure on Iran has eased, with focus shifting from Friday’s deadline to a November 20 IAEA board of governors meeting. But the Iranian government has faced growing hard-line pressure not to make further compromises. On Friday thousands of hard-liners rallied in several cities against the government’s decision to cooperate with the IAEA, warning that a signature for the additional protocol will prompt nationwide street protests. The United States accuses Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons and has pressed for the IAEA to declare Iran in violation of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Washington, though, does not believe Iran has yet made nuclear weapons, citing a lack of fissile material — either enriched uranium or plutonium. Iranian officials say nuclear weapons have no place in their defense strategy.

"What happened (Iran’s decision to cooperate) was correct and a policy to foil the conspiracy hatched by the U.S. and the Zionists," Khamenei said. Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, said he will, however, intervene to stop the Iranian government from making decisions he may consider as inappropriate. "So far, nothing has been done against our principles. Wherever I feel that a step has been taken against the directions and goals of the establishment, I will stop it," he said. Khamenei said Iran will not back down on seeking nuclear technology for peaceful purposes and vowed the country will finally produce fuel for its future nuclear reactors. Iran has said its decision to suspend uranium enrichment will be temporary and Iran will not give up its goal to develop a complete nuclear fuel cycle, from mining its own uranium to enriching the ore, without having to rely on any other country.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 11/03/2003 12:35:10 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  LOL / Grrrr. Rights. What a laugh. Rallies of public support. Snicker. Zionist Conspiracies. Guffaw. Principles. Belly laugh. Peaceful. Bwahahahaha!

Right.

Roll out the plan, boys. Give everyone their secret decoder rings. Start the clock. Tip 'em over.

Bye bye Black Hats.
Posted by: .com || 11/03/2003 6:18 Comments || Top||

#2  It's like watching Barry Sanders juke.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 7:51 Comments || Top||

#3  More like watching Colonel Sanders juke...
Posted by: snellenr || 11/03/2003 9:04 Comments || Top||

#4  Iran pledged last month to suspend uranium enrichment and sign an additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty allowing unfettered inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

So didn't these twits claim that the excess radiation detected were trace emissions from previously used equipment????
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/03/2003 15:39 Comments || Top||

#5  Knew it was a bogus agreement. I saw a piece after the agreement was signed and Iran insisted on its "national dignity and honor" be respected by IAEA. Where have I heard that one before?
Posted by: Michael || 11/03/2003 18:28 Comments || Top||


Caucasus
Somebody tried to whack Shevardnadze ...
Maybe they can hire the crack folks at the Belgrade PD to locate the culprits ...
Security forces in the former Soviet republic of Georgia said Sunday they had found a cache of weapons which was to have been used in an attack on President Eduard Shevardnadze.
Did they have "Made in Russia" stamped on them?
The announcement came the same day as a parliamentary election which has left tensions running high between opposition parties and the authorities. Shevardnadze, 75, has survived two near-miss assasination attempts during his ten-year tenure as Georgia’s leader.
Pity they didn’t succeed, otherwise the Georgians would be minus one dictator and Ruslan Gelayev would be looking for new housing ...
"According to our information, it was intended for detonation near the cortege of the president in order to sow instability in society," he said.
The jihadis in the Pankisi Gorge, meanwhile, are doing that quite alright on their own.
In one of the assassination bids on Shevardnadze, his armoured limousine was hit by anti-tank grenades. Observers said the election was set to deliver a stern rebuke to Shevardnadze, blamed by many voters for a decade of poverty and corruption.
Kind of the same way that Rooters "blames" al-Qaeda for 9/11.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 11/03/2003 12:30:57 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Did they have "Made in Russia" stamped on them?

You were expecting "Made in Arabia Georgia Iraq Iran Chechnya"?
Posted by: Steve White || 11/03/2003 0:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Hitman can't spell. The sanction was for the governor of California.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/03/2003 14:06 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2003-11-03
  Soddies shoot it out with Bad Guys in downtown Mecca
Sun 2003-11-02
  13 dead as US helicopter shot down
Sat 2003-11-01
  Pak opposition leader arrested on treason charges
Fri 2003-10-31
  Ivory Coast Uncovers Assassins Plot
Thu 2003-10-30
  Izzat Ibrahim running al-Qaeda ops in Iraq
Wed 2003-10-29
  New JI leader on trial in Jakarta
Tue 2003-10-28
  Bob has a stroke?
Mon 2003-10-27
  Red Cross rocketed in Baghdad
Sun 2003-10-26
  Wolfowitz hotel rocketed in Baghdad
Sat 2003-10-25
  Jordan charges 108 with terrorism
Fri 2003-10-24
  Residents foil bomb plot in Baghdad burb
Thu 2003-10-23
  Sudan refuses to close down Hamas and Islamic Jihad offices
Wed 2003-10-22
  1 killed, 2 critical in premature Nablus car boom
Tue 2003-10-21
  Iran agrees to UN nuke inspectors
Mon 2003-10-20
  Five helizaps in Gaza

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