The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. . . . I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
--Abraham Lincoln, 1863
Posted by: Mike ||
11/25/2004 6:22:54 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
This has truly been a year of great things and portends of future goodness (hear that, Iran?). I and my family give thanks and wish you all a happy Thanksgiving, even you, Aris! Eat up and drink to all our good health!
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2004 10:52 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Shoulda put this in the original posting, but I forgot: let us give thanks for Fred (for letting us play with his bandwidth and server space), the Army of Steve, and all the Rantburg community.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/25/2004 11:02 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I am thankful that Rantburg has occupied so much of my time during the past year in such an interesting and thought-provoking manner.
.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
11/25/2004 11:16 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Rantburg has been my morning coffee, without drinking coffee. Heh heh. Heck, I get RB withdrawl symptoms when the site is down, right Seafarious?
All kidding aside, we have much to be thankful for. Thanks, Fred, for your remarkable site.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/25/2004 11:35 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Rantburg and them crazy Rantburgers--just a few more things to be thankful for today!
Posted by: Dar ||
11/25/2004 12:01 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Dar---In reference to "them crazy Rantburgers," be more specific. Please supply examples, citing sources, as well as names.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/25/2004 12:36 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Dar is referring to Murat. He's thankful for Turkey on Thanksgiving Day.
Posted by: Tom ||
11/25/2004 12:42 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Thank you Fred; and thank you Rantburgers all.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
11/25/2004 12:44 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Thanks to all here, thanks to the brave men and women who defend us and our country, and thanks to all the people who every day make our lives a little better.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/25/2004 13:03 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Thanks to all and sundry here at Rantburg for your wit, wisdom, and humor. Thank you, America for your promise and bounty. Thank you GWB, for your leadership. Thank you, military men and women on duty around the globe today, standing in harm's way. Plus their families. Now please pass the spuds down this way. Time to eat!
#11
I've had a really rough year for my personal life but I am thankful that I have the courge to face it. I am also thankful for the friends I've made on Rantburg and for the time I've spent here. I really appreciate everyones views, humor, and honesty.
This is a great site.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
11/25/2004 13:53 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Thanks Fred for putting this wonderful site together and thanks to all the other RB'ers who make it so interesting and fun. Thanks especially for Mucky who makes me laugh. Most of all, thanks to our men and women in the military and their families. I am so proud of them.
Posted by: Remote Man ||
11/25/2004 14:10 Comments ||
Top||
#13
I am thankful for all the women and men that serve our nation in every branch of the armed services of the US. God Bless every one of them and their famlies. I am thankful for the great doctor who operated on me with skill and got all the bad stuff out of me. I am thankful for my family and my country. I am thankful for all the Random J. Posters out there who share opinions with us. Thanks Fred for the Server and bandwidth.
#17
Thanks to Fred, the Steves, Dan Darling, and everyone else here. And not least to those putting their lives on the line abroad as we on the home front are not.
#20
Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who got a real Thanksgiving dinner. Here in China, I had fish and boiled leeks. Oh, and a bowl of plain white rice. Still, I'm thankful that American prosperity is responsible for putting that rice on my table.
Yemeni authorities have released 113 militants belonging to the al-Qaida network — including at least five once accused of involvement in the deadly bombing of the USS Cole — after they recanted their extremist views, security officials said Thursday.
"Oh, yeah. We recant. Really."
"Okay. Go, and sin no more!"
"Can I have my guns back now?"
The militants once accused in the USS Cole bombing were later cleared. The 15 Yemeni militants convicted in August of involvement in the 2000 bombing, which killed 17 U.S. sailors, were not released. The 113 men were released during the past two weeks after signing pledges not to carry out terror acts or criminal activities.
"Mahmoud, give 'em their guns back. But remember, these are only for elk hunting!"
"Thanks. Can I have my antitank gun, too?"
Last month, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said more than 1,800 convicts, including al-Qaida members, would be released from prisons for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr holiday following it. Ramadan ended in mid-November. Saleh had said those to be released included some who served at least two-thirds of their sentences or completed their terms but were unable to pay the imposed fines.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2004 8:52:37 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Help is on the way Mr. Zarqawi. Thanks Yemen.
Posted by: Mark Z. ||
11/25/2004 22:34 Comments ||
Top||
#2
WTF, over? How's our Predator/Hellfire inventory? 113 losers badly needing to be dead.
CONVICTED terrorist Jack Roche will have to wait until next year to argue a claim that prison authorities are discriminating against him by not serving enough halal meat. English-born Roche, 50, became the first person to be convicted under Australian's new anti-terror laws after admitting to conspiring with terror groups Jemaah Islamiah and al-Qaeda to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Canberra. After changing his plea to guilty midway through his trial in May this year, Roche was sentenced to nine years in prison, which he is serving as a segregated prisoner in Hakea jail, 27km south of Perth. Roche, who converted to Islam in 1992, has lodged a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Commission alleging WA's Department of Justice is discriminating against him on religious grounds by denying him halal meat to eat.
During his sentencing hearing in June, lawyer Hylton Quail told the court Roche was essentially on a vegetarian diet, not out of choice, but because prison authorities had refused his dietary requests. But the justice department, which intends to defend the claim, has said all prisoners in Hakea are given access to halal foods. It has said Roche is receiving three halal meals a week alternated with vegetarian meals, while tinned halal meat or fish was also available from the prison canteen at cost price. A brief preliminary hearing into the claim was heard yesterday but it is understood the full hearing will not be until March next year. Suresh Rajan, president of Ethnic Communities Council of WA, said the justice department's stance was "mean spirited", and halal food should not be regarded as a treat.
On that we agree, it's not a treat.
"If you are going to provide him with halal food then you should provide it for all seven days — what is the issue there?" Mr Rajan said. "It is quite mean spirited to do it in half measures, and not decide one way or the other." Halal meat, including chicken and beef, has to be killed in the presence of a Muslim who prays to Allah as the carcass is left to bleed out. Muslims believe this rids the animal of impurities, making it more nutritious. Despite the justice department insisting Perth's Muslim community had confirmed the meals served at the prison were halal, AAP understands Roche remains unconvinced and is demanding proof.
Toss the freshly killed chicken into his cell. What he does with it is his business.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
11/25/2004 11:37:01 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
"It's Crime and Punishment, prisoner Roche. That will be all - send him back to The Box - 7 days for bitching. He'll be popular when he gets out, heh, being refreshed meat and all." -Warden Lockdown
#2
It is truly f***ing amazing the trivia the Australian media resorts to in order to run a (sympathetic) story on terrorist prisoners and detainees. A gitmo detainee's lawyer just has to say he might see him next month and it's film at six and eleven.
The two teenage friends hardly seemed like Islamic radicals. They smoked marijuana, drank beer, listened to rap and wore jeans. Yet the pair of French Muslims died insurgents in Iraq — one a suicide car bomber, say relatives who traced the young men's path from the slums of Paris through a religious school in Syria to the fight against the U.S.-led coalition next door.
Look on the bright side: they're dead.
Like many young Muslims here, Abdelhalim Badjoudj and Redouane el-Hakim didn't have jobs, and relatives and friends say they grew more alienated in recent years, surrounded by secular Western culture and by what many Muslims see as a subtle bigotry among Frenchmen against Arabs.
Might it have something to do with their propensity toward violence?
Badjoudj, who would have turned 19 on Dec. 16, allegedly blew himself up on Oct. 20 while driving a car filled with explosives near a U.S. patrol on Baghdad's airport road, wounding two American soldiers and two Iraqi police officers. He is thought to be the second French citizen to have carried out a suicide attack in Iraq. The body of el-Hakim, 19, reportedly was found July 17 after U.S. troops bombed a suspected insurgent hide-out in Fallujah, the city west of Baghdad that was overrun this month by U.S. and Iraqi troops. French officials also confirmed the death of a third French insurgent, identified as Tarek W. In his 20s, he reportedly was killed Sept. 17 after operating for several months in Iraq's Sunni Triangle, where most foreign fighters are based. No other details were available.
I'll let my imagination roam: gut-shot, in the hot sun, slowly bleeding to death, surrounded by flies... Or perhaps missing an important appendage or two, staring stupified at the bloody stump as his blood pressure dropped...
Although the number of French-born fighters in Iraq appears small — perhaps a dozen or more — anti-terrorism officials worry that some of the young men of mostly Tunisian and Algerian descent will return home with combat skills to wage jihad in France. "They become like stars," Gilles Leclair, director of France's Anti-Terrorism Coordination Unit, told The Associated Press. Leclair confirmed the deaths of el-Hakim, Badjoudj and Tarek W., and he suggested there were more like them in Iraq. "We have intelligence information that some people are still present in Iraq," Leclair told AP. But he said that "it's too early to say we have 10, 15, 40."
Maybe they should all have unfortunate accidents when they come back home?
El-Hakim and Badjoudj lived in the same northern Paris neighborhood. Both were unemployed and came from broken families. "If he had work, this wouldn't have happened," Badjoudj's uncle, Hicham, told AP. "He saw no future for himself."
Maybe he should have learned a skill, traded the jeans for more presentable attire, and learned to speak French. That's probably the way you find a job in France...
The uncle, who insisted that he be quoted only by his first name, said Badjoudj never knew his father, an Algerian who left his Tunisian mother when he was 3 and his brother Sabri was about 1. Badjoudj's mother — Hicham's sister — had five more children with her second husband, an Egyptian, and now may be living in Syria or Egypt, he said.
Or he could be in Iraq, too...
Hicham said Sabri, 17, followed Badjoudj to Iraq a couple of months ago and may have recently moved to the northern city of Mosul after the U.S. offensive in Fallujah. The uncle is at a loss to explain why Badjoudj was willing to sacrifice his life in Iraq, when he could hardly speak Arabic or identify with that country's culture. "Abdelhalim drank beer, he smoked hashish a lot," said Hicham, describing his nephew as extremely shy and quiet but "super kind" and "super polite."
And apparently super-explosive...
But Hicham noted many Muslims in France and other Western countries have trouble relating to secular culture and often find it hard to make a living. Nearly a tenth of France's 60 million people are Muslims, many of whom live in high-rise public housing slums that breed violence and crime. "There's no work here. There's no caring father. Life is tough," said Hicham, 36.
So that makes them cannon fodder. We've got news for them: they're never going to amount to anything in the terror networks, either.
Also, more important, America's presence in Iraq and Israel's occupation of Palestinian land are behind much of the anger among Muslim youth, including in Europe.
So why didn't they go blow up in Paleostine? Because even Hamas wouldn't have them?
Their anger and frustration are fanned by daily TV images of Palestinians being shot and killed by Israeli forces or Iraqi towns coming under U.S. bombardment. Extremist and radical leaders use this anger and despair to recruit fighters for the holy war in Iraq.
Which is why the problem's never going to be solved as long as the holy men are treated with kid gloves. Trying deporting a few thousand of them, if you can't bring yourself to arrange "accidents" for them.
El-Hakim, a Tunisian, was one of five children and was raised by his mother, Habiba, according to the newspaper Le Parisien. He reportedly dropped out of an apprenticeship at a neighborhood bakery and later started a sandwich shop that failed. AP was unable to contact el-Hakim's family. But according to Le Parisien's report, friends and relatives described him as easygoing until he came under the influence of an older brother, Boubakr, said to be a more religious man who wore traditional Muslim clothing. Boubakr is now in a Syrian jail, apparently for trying to cross into Iraq this year.
Hopefully to remain there until he dies of natural causes...
The el-Hakim brothers reportedly frequented the Iqra Mosque in the western Paris suburb of Levallois-Perret. Authorities closed the mosque in June and briefly arrested its members, including an Algerian cleric who is thought to have preached radical views and encouraged worshippers to pursue jihad, or holy war.
If they're back on the street, they're just doing the same old business at a different stand. Catch and release doesn't work.
El-Hakim's radicalization was recent, his family said. "He was smoking (marijuana) until six months ago," his sister, Khadija, told Le Parisien. Hicham said Badjoudj and five or six other French Muslim friends — all unemployed — had gone to Syria last year and enrolled in a theology school in the capital, Damascus. All of them ended up in Iraq, he said.
Seems to have failed as a theologian the same way he failed at the bakery.
Six months after leaving for Syria, Badjoudj returned to Paris for a visit, his uncle said. He married an 18-year-old sweetheart of Moroccan background but less than a month later went back to Syria. "He said, 'Inshallah (God willing), I will be going to Iraq,'" Hicham recalled. "He wanted to help the brothers, the Arabs. He wanted to be with them."
Inshallah, his passing was painful.
Hicham said he could not change his nephew's mind. "I told him not to go, that I would try to find him a job here. But I didn't try hard enough. I didn't know he would become a kamikaze," Hicham said, speaking in Arabic. "He said life was much better over there (in Syria), that people are nicer, (that) people live like crazy here. He said, 'I want to live just one whole day in peace.'"
Now he can rot in peace.
Hicham said he was certain that Badjoudj and his friends were indoctrinated and recruited by Islamic radicals while in Syria, not France.
So who indoctrinated him to go to Syria? Lutherans?
But he also said money was sent to them from France for their accommodation, food and clothing, although he claimed he didn't know who sent it.
I'll bet somebody could find out, if they tried hard enough.
According to Le Figaro, Lotfi Rihani, a French citizen of Tunisian origin, died last year in a suicide bombing in Iraq. It said Rihani had links to a cell of Islamic militants now on trial in France for plotting to attack a market during the 1999 Christmas holidays in the eastern French city of Strasbourg. Leclair, the director of France's Anti-Terrorism Coordination Unit, said there is no organized network in France recruiting young Muslims to join the insurgency in Iraq. He said Islamic radicals look for recruits at places where young Muslims congregate, such as fast food restaurants, cell phone shops and cybercafes. "They go to the mosque, discuss, they receive radical prayers, they hear a lot of things and most of the time they are unemployed ... and it's a kind of adventure. They go because it's an honor to go," he said.
Yeah. And it's an honor for them to be dead, the only accomplishment of short, brutal, useless lives. Mom must be so proud.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2004 8:18:56 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Let's prepare many more .223 caliber welcomes for the foreign guests in Iraq.
#2
The lives of 1000 of these mindless, undisciplined, vapid degenerates are not worth that of one of our principled, restrained and courageous troops. May the kill ratio continue its march until its 100000 to one...or more...
#3
they grew more alienated in recent years, surrounded by secular Western culture and by what many Muslims see as a subtle bigotry among Frenchmen against Arabs.
Brilliant explanation. "I'm alienated [ what teenager isn't?] and French people aren't always nice to me. I think I'll go blow myself up in Iraq."
Here's another explanation: born loser meets death cult, decides to give death a shot.
Video diaries made by Theo van Gogh during the filming of his dramatisation of the assassination of Dutch politician have gone online. Van Gogh tells in the final installment of his video diary how happy he is that the movie had been completed without anyone getting hurt and without the production encountering money problems. His last words are: "I am very happy, life is good". He was shot and stabbed to death in Amsterdam on 2 November as he was on his way to finish post-production work on the film 0605. Mohammed B, 26, who holds Dutch and Moroccan nationality has been arrested for the murder. A letter pinned to Van Gogh's body with a knife indicated he was killed for his outspoken criticism of Islam.
Internet service provider Tiscali announced on Wednesday the video diaries had been added to the special website www.0506defilm.nl. The movie can be downloaded for free from the site between 12 and 14 December. 0605 is the first European movie to be premiered on the internet. The movie has also been sold all over the world. Tiscali provided the EUR 2 million funding to make the movie, something Van Gogh expressed gratitude for in the last video diary. Known for using coarse language, Van Gogh referred to having his "finger in Tiscali's arse". The title 0605 refers to 6 May 2002, the day anti-immigration politician Fortuyn was gunned down in Hilversum Media Park in Hilversum. Fortuyn had just finished a live radio interview as part of his LPF party's general election campaign when he was attacked. His murderer Volkert van der Graaf was subsequently jailed for 18 years.
Fortuyn, I might point out, will be dead for a much longer time than that. There's something about that kind of justice system that's much too nuanced for me.
Posted by: tipper ||
11/25/2004 10:07:50 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
U.S. troops found two more bodies Thursday in the northern city of Mosul, and came under attack by rockets, mortars and small arms fire as they recovered the remains, according to the military and witnesses. The bodies were found in the western part of the city, said Capt. Angela Bowman of Task Force Olympia, bringing to 22 the number of corpses found in the past week. The bodies appeared to have gunshot wounds, another military official said. Before the latest grisly discovery, U.S. troops had found 10 bodies of soldiers_ nine of those shot execution-style _ who belonged to the Iraqi regular army, based at the al-Kisik military base about 30 miles west of Mosul.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2004 8:15:57 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Lt. Sven Jensen's U.S. Marines unit survived for weeks on military rations while living rough in Iraq's Fallujah, so he wangled a truck Thursday and drove his men to the rear for a rare treat: Thanksgiving turkey and cranberry sauce. While millions of Americans on the home front cheered good fortune and life's bounty Thursday, U.S. forces still under enemy fire in central Iraq sought a hot meal while remembering fallen comrades and offering thanks for the safety of their friends and family stateside.
One Marine, Cpl. Matthew Hummel, forgot the day's celebration. "Days get to blur here, someone had to remind me this morning," said Hummel, 21, from Easley, South Carolina. The Fallujah fight "was a nerve-racking experience, so I plan to give thanks that I'm still alive, that my friends and family are well back home, that my girl is waiting for me," he said.
U.S. forces manning front lines in the Sunni Triangle where Iraq's insurgency rages frequently live in abandoned buildings, where they huddle against an early winter chill and excavate brown, plastic pouches of vacuum-packed meals for prized Skittles and M&Ms. For Jensen, of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, it was time for a break. So he requisitioned a vehicle and drove 40 fellow Marines to a chow hall, where a cornucopia awaited. "It means more than just the first cooked food they'll have in over two weeks," said Jensen, a 25-year-old from Cobb Mountain, California, surrounded by servicemen tucking into Thanksgiving plates at a cavernous chow hall. They joined a holiday celebration among U.S. soldiers at bases around the world, from an air field in Kyrgyzstan in the former Soviet Union -- where soldiers decorated their cargo vehicles as floats for a makeshift parade -- to Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia -- where the region's president joined troops for corn, pumpkin cake and gravy-covered roasted turkey.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: God Save The World ||
11/25/2004 7:28:56 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Thursday to extend Denmark's military mission in Iraq by another six months, a departure from some other European nations that want to withdraw troops. The six-month tour for 525 Danish soldiers in Basra, 250 miles southeast of Baghdad, was to expire next month. The Danish contingent is under British command. In another vote — the lawmakers increased to 225 from 50 the number of Danish soldiers serving in Afghanistan and also extended their tour by six months.
Several countries in the U.S.-led coalition have said they want to end or reduce their missions in Iraq in the next few months, including Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. But in a 92-15 vote, lawmakers backed the two-party governing coalition's bill to extend the Danish contingent's mandate through June. Seventy-two lawmakers were absent. "It is time that we stop the terror that prevents the reconstruction of Iraq," said Ulrik Kragh of the governing Liberal Party to explain why the Danish presence in Iraq was needed. Those supporting the bill included the opposition Social Democrats, the small center Radical Party and the Danish People's Party, a government ally. Only the left-wing parties in the 179-seat Folketing, or parliament, opposed the extension.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
11/25/2004 7:30:11 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Denmark = Ally
Posted by: Matt ||
11/25/2004 22:26 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Take note. Countries have been showing their character for a few years now. Denmark's king wore a Star of David and encouraged all to do so when the Nazis marched in and commenced their standard racist idiocy, or so I've heard. Add Copenhagen to the approved list for Euro vacations ....
#3
Cool. Take Denmark off the list of PC small Euro states that will collapse in flames when their jihadis assassinate someone. The Danes have figured it out.
One of the leaders of the top US foe in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was arrested in the northern city of Mosul, national security adviser Qassem Daoud said. "We arrested a few days ago Abu Said, one of the leaders of the Zarqawi network in the city of Mosul," Daoud told reporters. He did not elaborate on the identity of the rebel leader and his rank in Zarqawi's Al-Qaeda linked organisation, but said information which led to the arrest came partly from local residents.
Zarqawi has a 25-million-dollar bounty on his head and his organisation -- which has claimed responsibility for a string of deadly bombings and kidnappings -- was said to be headquartered in Fallujah before US and Iraqi forces launched a massive offensive against the city on November 8. US military officials fear that many Fallujah rebels may have fled the Sunni city before the onslaught and are regrouping elsewhere. According to a government report published in December, Mosul was home to the second largest concentration of Zarqawi operatives in Iraq, with a contingent of close to 400. US troops backed by Iraqi commandos are currently involved in a vast operation to root out the insurgency in Mosul, the country's third largest city.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
11/25/2004 7:32:27 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
And 25 mil will go a real long ways in Iraq. How much did that old man get for shopping Uday and Qusay to the US, I can't remember...
Dunno - Marines say no chems found...
Iraqi troops searching suspected terrorist hideouts in Fallujah discovered a laboratory with manuals on how to manufacture explosives and toxins — including anthrax, Iraq's national security adviser said Thursday. Qassem Dawoud said the lab was found in the southwestern district of Fallujah, where pockets of insurgents are still holding out following the Nov. 8 assault by American and Iraqi forces."We also found in the laboratory manuals and instructions spelling out procedures for making explosives," he said. "They also spoke about making anthrax." Dawoud showed pictures of a shelf containing what he said were various chemicals. sounds awfully vague...
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2004 11:00:38 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
sounds awfully vague...
Provide links to something not vague! But you never do, Frank G!
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
11/25/2004 11:32 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I just link to what's reported, you decide. If it's on Fox news as breaking news, I assume it might be news, hmmm?
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2004 11:41 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Something I find highly significant is that kidnappers always seem to demand the release of women prisoners and the authorities say there are only 2 dubbed Dr. Germ and Dr Anthrax, i.e. bio-weapon experts.
BRITISH troops taking part in a US and Iraqi offensive seized 80 people during an overnight sweep of villages on the east bank of the Euphrates river near Baghdad, the Press Association reported today. Britain's domestic news agency said 80 people had been detained at 8am (3pm AEDT) Thursday, but that 60 of them were released later. The ministry of defence confirmed that British troops had undertaken an operation, but did not say how many people had been held. "The objective is to counter the insurgents and get some stability and security accross Iraq as we run up to the elections" in January, a ministry spokesman said. "There aren't any plans to take any other active part in this American operation." Twenty suspects were still held for questioning to determine if they are linked to a wave of attacks against US and British forces occupying Iraq. Suspected bomb making material was found during the sweep.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
11/25/2004 5:08:29 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
An ongoing U.S.-Iraq campaign against insurgents south of Baghdad will be very different from the recent offensive in Falluja, a U.S. Marine spokesman said Wednesday. "You don't have 5,000 troops sweeping across the Iraqi countryside," said Capt. David Nevers of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit. "What we're doing here is developing intelligence patiently and persistently, going after targets in a very focused way." Iraqi SWAT forces, backed by elements of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, launched the operation Tuesday. It involves more than 5,000 Iraqi, U.S. and British forces in Iraq's Babil province. "In the coming days -- and already we've begun -- Iraqi security forces, U.S. Marines, their British allies will conduct a multitude of operations aimed at capturing or killing those who are violently opposing Iraq's path to peace and democracy and freedom," Nevers said. The operation will involve "a lot of precision raids and house-to-house searches," Nevers said. "The insurgents are not going to know when we're coming," he said. There were increased attacks in northern Babil before the Falluja offensive that U.S. and Iraqi forces attributed in part to insurgents who had fled from Falluja.
Minister: No guarantee
Iraq's interim defense minister was quoted by an Arabic-language newspaper Tuesday as saying he cannot guarantee the safety of voters or candidates in the country's elections scheduled for January 30. "You ask me as defense minister, will I be able to provide safety for candidates and voters? I say no, I have no plan until now," Hazem Sha'alan was quoted as saying by the London, England-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat. "The Iraqi citizen doesn't know what elections are and doesn't know who the candidates are or who the voter is." Sha'alan, a 57-year-old tribal leader with a background in economics and real estate, said he planned to run as an independent candidate in the elections for a transitional national assembly. In the interview, he also referred to a "vile coalition" inside interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's government that he said is obstructing efforts to fund the new Iraqi army and pay pensions to former soldiers.
Other developments
Representatives of the International Red Thingy Cross have visited Saddam Hussein to monitor his condition for the first time since early October, a spokesman told The Associated Press on Wednesday. No details were immediately given. The toppled Iraqi leader is believed to be held near Baghdad International Airport in a U.S.-guarded facility
Posted by: God Save The World ||
11/25/2004 6:06:00 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
What we’re doing here is developing intelligence patiently and persistently, going after targets in a very focused way."
Translation: We got their names last week, we are now in ass kicking phase.
The United States has captured more than 1,300 insurgents in Faluja. But officials acknowledge that the U.S. military has been largely unable to identify the insurgents or determine their nationality. As a result, they said, military intelligence has been unsuccessful in determining the extent of the role of foreign fighters in the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy chief of U.S. Central Command, said the military believes that only several dozen of the more than 1,300 detainees in Faluja were foreigners. But he acknowledged that the military required help from Iraqi authorities to distinguish Iraqi detainees from foreigners. "It is very difficult to determine what a foreign fighter is," Smith said. "They do not carry ID cards or passports as they're in there doing this fighting. So it takes an Iraqi or another Arab to be able to tell by accent and stuff where they're from, where they might be from, and that is an ongoing process, as we go and interview the detainees."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2004 10:59:02 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Can't imagine it would be all that tough for Iraqis to sort most of them out.
In any case, they should be given about 30 years to think it over and perhaps some will fill in their info forms correctly .....
#2
But officials acknowledge that the U.S. military has been largely unable to identify the insurgents or determine their nationality.
Of what help would this information be? Are letters going to be sent to Assad, Khamenei, or whoever asking them to please stop it??
The best and least troublesome solution would be to dispatch these degenerates in battle, allowing them to collect their raisins. No incarceration, no upkeep, no future amnesty, and no expense.
#8
The idea is to cut off their fingers just below the shoulder and send 'em back where they came from, as a warning. Would YOU like to live the rest of your life having to be fed by someone else, dressed by someone else, and have your a$$ wiped by someone else? To be totally at someone else's mercy for everything you do? It's a great deterrent, especially for moose-limblesss.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
11/25/2004 18:18 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Eh, doesn't seem to have slowed Captain Hook down all that much. I wouldn't take chances like that...
Oy, oy - shipman, don't be dissing TGA. It's the Bundeswehr that makes recruits memorize world series winners. Wehrmacht's been defunct since 1945, at least partially due to this exact training deficiency.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
11/25/2004 22:37 Comments ||
Top||
THE daily discovery of thousands of weapons amid the ruins of Fallujah has stunned coalition troops, who say rebel arms caches are a sign of how well prepared the Iraqi insurgency was for a fight that could have ended in a much less decisive victory for US-led forces. "The sheer amount of caches we've found would stun you," US Marine Lieutenant Colonel Dan Wilson said. "You could literally take over this country with the number of weapons we've found."
Marine combat engineers and explosives experts were again scouring homes yesterday amid the battered streets in south Fallujah's Shuhada district, where the day before gunmen traded shots with units trying to seize two homes that were later found to be hiding nearly 700 mortar shells. "We knew south Fallujah was a pretty good strong point (for the rebels)," Staff Sergeant Tim Oberst of the 1st Battalion 8th US Marines said. "They had weapons stacked up like they knew what they were doing. If they had enough people who knew how to use this stuff it could have been a lot worse, but they were definitely ready. They wanted to fight."
As US troops largely cleared the city of rebels this week, reducing the insurgency to what military officials say are a few isolated pockets of fighters harassing troops with sniper fire and booby-traps, the extent of the rebels' preparations was becoming alarmingly clear. For more than an hour yesterday a daisy chain of marines passed mortar shells - from 60mm rounds the size of a small water bottle to large 120mm mortars and artillery shells that had to carried in both hands - to a waiting truck as a convoy of vehicles snaked its way through one ruined neighbourhood cleaning out weapons caches. Elsewhere, reporters saw a captured arsenal laid out in the dirt on the edges of another neighbourhood: rockets and antiquated shotguns jumbled next to clean, well oiled assault rifles, heavy machine guns and several homemade bombs.
Outside one house, marines piled boxes of medical bandages, IV bags, saline solution and other medical supplies they say had been stockpiled before the assault before torching the home where the cache had been discovered. "These guys were prepared - medical supplies, food that would last forever," Lieutenant David J Lee said. But brutal artillery barrages before the assault had succeeded in destroying the insurgents' commanders, he said. "Once they did that it was just a fight with a bunch of disorganised guys, and a lot of them didn't know how to use this stuff. "But don't get me wrong, it was tough. But it could have been a lot worse."
Posted by: God Save The World ||
11/25/2004 11:43:31 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
What about tunnels? Any underground corridors discovered?
#2
Your wish, shaheedi, is the djinn's Marine's command. 1800 dead assholes and counting.
http://rantburg.com/comments.asp?HC=Main&D=11/25/2004&ID=49697
Posted by: ed ||
11/25/2004 7:12 Comments ||
Top||
#3
I feel a sense of the Soviet/Souk, best to have lotsa stuff, lots and lots... antiquated shotguns? I saw some of those 120 mm mortar rounds, I'd blown them in place... rusty looking.
#5
Fox (6:30PST) had breaking news - Chem Weapons/IED lab found in Fallujah. Rooters reporting - more developing
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/25/2004 9:33 Comments ||
Top||
#6
The thing that I find remarkable is how our forces went into Fallujah and cleaned out the place with minimum casualties without reducing the whole town to rubble. Take a look at Grozeny in Chechnya with the Russian Army. Heavy casualties, both military and civilian, and total destruction. Our forces are truly remarkable and professional.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
11/25/2004 11:47 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Thank God these morons don't have the training, unit cohesion, and discipline of our fine servicemen and women. This could have been a lot tougher and uglier otherwise. Our professional military: one more thing to be thankful for today!
Posted by: Dar ||
11/25/2004 12:06 Comments ||
Top||
#8
without reducing the whole town to rubble
Any empty buildings should have been reduced to just that, IMO.
Posted by: Rafael ||
11/25/2004 14:10 Comments ||
Top||
#9
At least, every Fallujah mosque used by the terrorists should be razed & its site covered with a foot of reinforced concrete. Visit Fallujah -- lots of free parking!
#10
Alaska Paul: Our forces are truly remarkable and professional.
Extraordinary indeed. Is there any institution in our society that is as competent, flexible, well-led, meritocratic and progressive, disciplined, and has more integrity than our professional military?
Think about it: the Church is a disgrace. The MSM and academia have become a joke. The lawyers are as rotten as they ever were, and medicine is demoralized and in retreat. There simply is no institution that comes close to the military for professionalism, competence and integrity. Awesome and wondrous to behold.
#11
Alaska Paul: Our forces are truly remarkable and professional.
Extraordinary indeed. Is there any institution in our society that is as competent, flexible, well-led, meritocratic and progressive, disciplined, and has more integrity than our professional military?
Think about it: the Church is a disgrace. The MSM and academia have become a joke. The lawyers are as rotten as they ever were, and medicine is demoralized and in retreat. There simply is no institution that comes close to the military for professionalism, competence and integrity. Awesome and wondrous to behold.
Sudan's air force was said to have resumed air operations against villages in Darfour. Western diplomatic sources and relief agencies said Khartoum violated an agreement reached on Nov. 9 to end air attacks on villages in Darfour. They said that on Tuesday Sudanese air force planes bombed Tawila in the northern part of the province. The air attack was said to have been part of a military effort to regain control of Tawila amid a rebel offensive. On Nov. 22, rebel groups captured Tawila, located in northern Darfour and which contains about 30,000 refugees. "The parties have committed themselves to refrain from all hostilities and military actions," UN envoy Jan Pronk said. "I fully expect them to live up to their obligations."
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2004 11:11:46 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"The parties have committed themselves to refrain from all hostilities and military actions," UN envoy Jan Pronk said. "I fully expect them to live up to their obligations."
The US has asked Pakistan to hand over Osama Nazir, a key suspect in church attacks and the second attempt on President Musharraf's life, sources told Daily Times on Wednesday. Intelligence agencies arrested Nazir in Faisalabad last week and have been questioning him since. Nazir allegedly supervised an attack on a church in the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad that killed five people, including two US citizens. Thirteen US citizens were wounded in the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2004 10:42:50 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I think Fred is serious about these pliers. Those look like #7's to me. You better confess now, Osama.
Posted by: Steve White ||
11/25/2004 0:01 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Those #7 do wonders with dental work.
Posted by: Capt America ||
11/25/2004 0:12 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Any of our British readers remember a gang called the Toe-Cutters? They got very quick results with a pair of bolt cutters.
QUETTA: Three people were injured when a bomb exploded in front of the Saryab police station on Wednesday. Senior Superintendent of Police Rahmatullah Niazi said that the bomb was made locally and it exploded under a truck that was in police custody. He said three people with minor injuries were admitted to Civil Hospital and were discharged after treatment.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2004 10:48:41 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Suspected militants shot dead three people and wounded another three in a grenade attack in held Kashmir, while Indian troops shot dead three militants, police said on Wednesday. A police spokesman said a former militant was shot dead in his house near Kokernag health resort by suspected militants overnight. Militants also attempted to abduct another former militant now working for Indian troops after barging into his house in Kunzer village. "As the residents resisted, the militants opened fire, killing the ex-militant's brother-in-law," a police spokesman said. Militants also shot dead a Muslim village head in Rajouri district. In a separate incident, three civilians were wounded in a failed grenade attack on a bunker of paramilitary forces in northern Sopore town. Meanwhile, Indian troops shot dead three militants in the southern Kashmir district of Doda during two separate clashes, police said.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2004 10:50:04 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The Punjab government is considering a proposal for releasing sectarian activists that it detained under MPO 3, if the leaders of the related organisations provide affidavits pledging that the detained men would not indulge in sectarian activities, sources told Daily Times on Wednesday.
Yeah. That's gonna work.
Sources said that a majority of detained activists belonged to Anjuman Sipah-e-Sihaba Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Mohammed Pakistan. The Punjab government released 36 out of 76 sectarian activists on Eidul Fitr those were arrested under MPO 3. The government however arrested another 16 sectarian activists, sources said. They said that there were at least 56 activists detained by the government. Sources said that the Home and Police departments had prepared a list of 209 sectarian activists after the bomb blasts in Sialkot and Multan, out of which only 76 were arrested. A Home Department official said: "The Punjab home secretary released the detainees after hearing their petitions, but also rejected some petitions." He said that nearly 20 petitions were pending with the Home secretary. He said that more detainees were expected to be released if their leaders provided affidavits to the government.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2004 10:52:55 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Next Halloween I'm going trick or treating as a sectarian activist, my global warming suit is getting too small.
The political administration of North Waziristan Agency on Wednesday sealed Darpakhel tribe's business centre under the collective responsibility section of the Frontier Crime Regulations (FCR) in Miranshah and arrested 31 tribesmen besides taking 27 of their vehicles into custody. Sources in Miranshah told Daily Times that Jabari group and Hakim Khan group were notorious for extortion from public transport. These groups also took extortion money from traders in Miranshah Bazaar, they added. The two groups have been at war with each other. The political administration had closed down around 900 shops and two petrol pumps to make them surrender. However, no member of the two groups has been arrested.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/25/2004 10:37:25 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Lt. Sven Jensen's U.S. Marines unit survived for weeks on military rations while living rough in Iraq's Fallujah, so he wangled a truck Thursday and drove his men to the rear for a rare treat: Thanksgiving turkey and cranberry sauce. While millions of Americans on the home front cheered good fortune and life's bounty Thursday, U.S. forces still under enemy fire in central Iraq sought a hot meal while remembering fallen comrades and offering thanks for the safety of their friends and family stateside.
One of the leaders of the top US foe in Iraq, 
The United States has captured more than 1,300 insurgents in Faluja. But officials acknowledge that the U.S. military has been largely unable to identify the insurgents or determine their nationality. As a result, they said, military intelligence has been unsuccessful in determining the extent of the role of foreign fighters in the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy chief of U.S. Central Command, said the military believes that only several dozen of the more than 1,300 detainees in Faluja were foreigners. But he acknowledged that the military required help from Iraqi authorities to distinguish Iraqi detainees from foreigners. "It is very difficult to determine what a foreign fighter is," Smith said. "They do not carry ID cards or passports as they're in there doing this fighting. So it takes an Iraqi or another Arab to be able to tell by accent and stuff where they're from, where they might be from, and that is an ongoing process, as we go and interview the detainees."
The US has asked Pakistan to hand over 
QUETTA: Three people were injured when a bomb exploded in front of the Saryab police station on Wednesday. Senior Superintendent of Police Rahmatullah Niazi said that the bomb was made locally and it exploded under a truck that was in police custody. He said three people with minor injuries were admitted to Civil Hospital and were discharged after treatment.
The political administration of 
