A former Taliban diplomat said today Osama bin Laden, was in the southern Afghan province of Nimroz just days before U.S. forces launched a new operation to arrest him. Naseer Ahmed Roohi, a former diplomat in Afghanistan's fallen hardline government, said he had information from "reliable sources" bin Laden had been in the Siakoh mountain range straddling the southwestern Afghan provinces of Nimroz, Helmand and Pakistan's Baluchistan province. "Bin Laden, along with a few companions, shifted to an unknown area, just days before the U.S.-led operation in the area," Roohi told Reuters. Translated, I'd say that says he hi-tailed it as soon as he heard about KSM getting snagged...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 11:50 am ||
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A temporary school has been torched near the southern city of Kandahar, the latest in a string of attacks targeting education in the former Taliban stronghold, officials said Friday. "If they ain't ignorant, they ain't gonna be devout..." Kandahar education director Dawood Barak said tented classrooms at the Shah Mahmood Hotak school in the village of Shekh Mamado, five kilometres (three miles) south of the city, were set on fire by unknown attackers. âOne school tent was totally destroyed, another caught fire and was brought under control by villagers,â Barak told AFP. The incident on Tuesday came as another school in the Panjwari district to the east of Kandahar was looted and littered with so-called ânight lettersâ calling for an Islamic uprising against foreign forces in Afghanistan. Thank you, Mr Hekmatyar...
Last week Barak himself was the target of an attack when a bomb planted in a ditch outside his residence in the centre of the city exploded blasting a chunk out of the house wall and injuring two passers-by. Barak said the attacks were probably the work of Taliban sympathisers. Both schools, who have supplies donated by the United Nations Childrenâs Fund (UNICEF), gave primary-level education to mixed classes of boys and girls. Oh, horrors! Quick, Ethel! My pills!
âThis is the act of the enemies of Afghanistan. I have established 350 schools in this area and I will continue to strengthen my efforts against these people,â Barak said. Enemies of Afghanistan and of education...
In Shekh Mamado, villagers said they would also stand defiant. âThey try to frighten us by doing these things, but this village will be united against our enemy and our children will receive an education,â said Mohammad Rahim, a teacher at the Shah Mahmood Hotak school. It's the jihadi way...
Chulho Hyun, a spokesman for UNICEF in Kabul, said the organisation was looking into reports of the attack at Shekh Mamado but was too ineffectual unable to give details. Unconfirmed reports from Helmand province, to the north of Kandahar, say eight schools have been attacked in the Mosqala area of the province, 120 kilometres (75 miles) north of Kandahar city.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 11:26 am ||
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âOne school tent was totally destroyed, another caught fire and was brought under control by villagers,â
Notice that the fire was brought under control by the villagers. These villagers are our allies. The villagers like these all across Afghanistan will help Karzai and the US get all the Talibannies. Islam is split and America is united.
Saudi Arabia will not provide Iraqi President Saddam Hussein asylum if he decides to quit as proposed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Saudi foreign minister said in remarks published today. "That's enough for us," Prince Saud said in an interview with Saudi-owned Asharq Al-Awsat. But Saudi Arabia's chief diplomat reiterated Riyadh's backing for the UAE initiative calling on Saddam and his regime to quit within two weeks to avert a potential US-led war on Iraq. "Get the hell out, but don't come here..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 11:58 am ||
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Damn. You know you're one screwed dictator when the Saudis don't want you.
Posted by: David Hines ||
03/09/2003 22:43 Comments ||
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Saudi Bomb disposal experts removed 16 sticks of dynamite set to blow up a shopping center in the heart of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's commercial capital. The dynamite was laid at three emergency exits of the upmarket Al-Mihmal center and wired to timers due to go off at 9:00 am (0600 GMT) Saturday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Asharq al-Awsat as saying. All four floors of the center and an adjacent nine-storey office block were evacuated after the explosives were discovered an hour earlier by a security employee on his rounds, the pan-Arab daily added. Security sources told the daily that "amateurs" appeared to have laid the dynamite. Amateurs with 16 sticks of dynamite...
Investigators were checking security cameras and questioning all employees of the center in the Red Sea port city, but no arrests had been made or lines of inquiry disclosed. The security cameras... Nice touch, that. Wonder if the amateurs realized they were there?
The Al-Mihmal center is one of the most luxurious in Jeddah and is one of the usual stop-offs for VIP visitors guided by government officials. The last high profile guest was Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and ex-U.S. President Ronald Reagan was the first, the Saudi-owned daily said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 10:37 am ||
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Of course, the Saudis also claim that all of the mysterious bombings inside the kingdom that only target Westerners are the result of some insidious alcohol smugglers that no one ever manages to actually catch.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/09/2003 14:41 Comments ||
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Saudi Arabia Saturday, March 8, denied it has provided a small airport near its border with Iraq as a base for U.S. troops to launch air strikes against Baghdad, and said the closure of the facility to civilian traffic was for purely humanitarian reasons. "Yes, we have closed the Arar airport and moved air traffic to the nearby Jouf province. We have received some technical assistance from the Americans to be able to deal with an expected influx of Iraqi refugees if the war breaks out,â AFP quoted Defense Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz as speaking at a press conference. "The command is Saudi and the friends are there only for humanitarian and technical assistance... preparations are being used for humanitarian purposes." Oh, of course, of course...
Earlier on Saturday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal also denied the airport has been closed to civilian flights because U.S. troops were landing there to take part in an anticipated U.S.-led war on Baghdad. Certainly not...
Prince Sultan said the kingdom encountered a major refugee problem during the 1991 Gulf War after about "150,000 Iraqi refugees crossed into the kingdom" and now does not want a repetition. âThe assistance from the United States is to help deal with the expected influx of Iraqi refugees and that our action is based on U.N. resolutions to protect the Iraqi people,â he added. Are we setting up POW camps, too?
Prince Sultan stressed the military agreements between Riyadh and Washington are not for cooperation regarding war. "We have no agreements with the United States for U.S. aircraft to use our airbases for engagement purposes," he said.
Prince Sultan, however, admitted the kingdom has amassed "large numbers of aircraft and land troops" in the northern city of Tabuk, close to the border with Jordan, over fears that Israel may violate Saudi airspace. They do that regularly, y'know...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 10:36 am ||
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Thousands of American soldiers are pouring into Saudi Arabia in preparation for an invasion of Iraq, independent sources say. The Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, a London-based group opposed to the Saudi regime, said that between 2,000 and 5,000 United States troops landed in the northern garrison town of Tabuk in the last week. Other credible independent reports said that American forces had taken control of Arar airport, less than 10 miles from the Saudi-Iraq border and that it had been closed to civilian air traffic. The Saudi government, which is facing stiff opposition to the war at home, has not commented on the developments. The source on this is Hezb ut-Tehrir, so it's supsect. But it makes sense...
Last week The Telegraph reported that the White House and Riyadh had secretly agreed that American air operations against Iraq could be launched from Saudi soil, in return for a promise that all American forces would be withdrawn from the country after the war. And that makes sense, too. I imagine the Soddy reform movement will become much more pronounced, assuming we're successful in what we want to do in Iraq. I also imagine they'll try and keep it all surface movement, and that in the long run they won't succeed...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 10:17 am ||
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#1
If we take over that H3 base in west Iraq, we won't need Soddy - but could get there in a hurry if we wanted to
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2003 12:24 Comments ||
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Voting began Sunday, March 9, in a by-election in which the head of Turkey's ruling party, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is expected win a seat in parliament, clearing the way for him to take over as Prime Minister and for the United States to deploy troops on the Turkish soil. Assuming it's not too late...
The charismatic head of the Justice and Development (AKP) party is a candidate in the south-eastern province of Siirt, where 119,000 people are eligible to vote in election re-runs for three seats in the 550-member parliament. The AKP, a conservative movement with Islamist roots, came to power in November on a sweeping election victory. But Erdogan was not allowed to run because he once served a jail term for a fiery speech âinciting sedition.â Since then he has been seen as the de facto leader behind Prime Minister Abdullah Gul. But thanks to amendments passed by the AKP-dominated parliament, he can now stand in Siirt, where the November results were annulled due to voting irregularities. It is seen as a near certainty that Erdogan will win one of the three seats in Siirt, making him eligible to become prime minister. Gul, a close Erdogan ally, has already indicated he will step down. I'm not even going to speculate on the behind-the-scenes horse trading that goes into this. But I think anything Turkey gives us at this point will consist of transit rights. We're not going to be there long...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 10:24 am ||
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#1
I hope the shoe is now on the other foot, and we can express reservations about having 40,000 Turkish troops enter the Kurdish region of northern Iraq.
Get that number down to 5-15,000, and make their operations strictly humanitarian or no $15 billion.
Posted by: Jon ||
03/09/2003 16:16 Comments ||
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It may be too late. Check out dailypundit's link to a story in a scottish paper.
Pakistani prosecutors yesterday tried to link the attackers of the US consulate with a failed plot to kill Pakistan's president as a magistrate testified in a trial of five suspected Islamic militants accused of masterminding the suicide bombing. The five could face the death penalty in connection with the June 14 attack, in which a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a concrete block outside the consulate in Karachi, killing 12 Pakistanis and injuring 50 other people. Prosecutors argued that the defendants had planned to use the same explosives-filled truck to kill President General Pervez Musharraf two months earlier. But that plot fell through, and they instead used the vehicle for the consulate bombing. Assassinating Perv was not a good idea. Not succeeding in assassinating him was a worse idea...
Police say would-be attackers parked an explosive-laden Suzuki pick-up near the Karachi airport and planned to blow it up as a motorcade containing Musharraf passed by on April 26, but the plot failed because a remote control used to set off the bomb malfunctioned. "We're sorry. The cell phone number you have dialed is not a working number..."
The defendants have been accused of the plot but have not been indicted. At the trial, Magistrate Fariduddin Qazi said one of the defendants, Muhammad Ashraf, had "made a confessional statement voluntarily" during questioning about the plot to kill Musharraf. Defence attorney Khawaj Naveed Ahmed argued the confession was made under duress. "Okay, I'll confess! Just stop hitting me there!"
The five defendants - Ashraf, Mohammed Imran, Mohammed Hanif, and Sharib and Mufti Zubair — face conspiracy, murder and terrorism charges. They allegedly belong to an offshoot of Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, a militant group linked to the Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. The group was banned in Pakistan and has been labelled a terror organisation by the US.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 10:03 am ||
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FoxNews was yakking about this earlier today. Took me awhile to find it...
TERRIFIED Iraqi soldiers have crossed the Kuwait border and tried to surrender to British forces â because they thought the war had already started. "Unh! Damn! Is that gunfire?"
"Where's my sheet?"
The motley band of a dozen troops waved the white flag as British paratroopers tested their weapons during a routine exercise. The stunned Paras from 16 Air Assault Brigade were forced to tell the Iraqis they were not firing at them, and ordered them back to their home country telling them it was too early to surrender. "Nice of you to drop by, Mahmoud, but you're a little early. We're all still in the shower. Can we make it, say, next week?"
The drama unfolded last Monday as the Para batallion tested mortars and artillery weapons to make sure they were working properly. The Iraqis found a way across the fortified border, which is sealed off with barbed-wire fencing, watchtowers and huge trenches. "Yo! Conin' through! We quit!"
A British Army source in Kuwait contacted me to explain how the extraordinary surrender bid unfolded. The source said: "The British guys on the front-line could not believe what was happening. They were on pre-war exercises when all of a sudden these Iraqis turned up out of nowhere, with their hands in the air, saying they wanted to surrender. They had heard firing and thought it was the start of the war. The Paras are a tough, battle-hardened lot but were moved by the plight of the Iraqis. There was nothing they could do other than send them back." "Awww, Seargant-Major! Can't we keep 'em?"
"They were a motley bunch and you could barely describe them as soldiers â they were poorly equipped and didn't even have proper boots. Their physical condition was dreadful and they had obviously not had a square meal for ages. No one has ever known a group of so-called soldiers surrender before a shot has been fired in anger." Now they'll have to wait for a helicopter to go by, or a reporter, or something...
Last night the Ministry of Defence officially denied the incident had taken place, but the story was corroborated by an intelligence source. Things aren't looking good for Sammy...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 03:31 pm ||
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Ha ha ha ha!!! Supoib. But what a PR coup lost. Don't our British forces have embedded reporters? Would have been a great TV piece, set the Iraqi squaddies a great example.
We could have sat them down for tea and biscuits, photographed them with their white flags and big smiles, and dropped photos and videos over the whole country...
#3
"There was nothing they could do other than send them back."
And I wouldn't want to make any bets for long life expectancy for those Iraquis on their return, either.
Posted by: Old Grouch ||
03/09/2003 15:51 Comments ||
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Then again, word will spread that those guys on the other side are pretty nice. Give a lot of hope to those chaps on the Iraqi team. Hell, they just want to go home like everyone else.
Hope they at least gave them some food an water.
Posted by: Michael ||
03/09/2003 16:06 Comments ||
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Are we sure they weren't French?
Posted by: Matt ||
03/09/2003 16:21 Comments ||
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I hope the Brits gave them a good meal before sending them back, it may have been their last.
Posted by: Jon ||
03/09/2003 16:24 Comments ||
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Wow--I really feel sorry for those poor sods. They may not have a better opportunity in the future. If they're not just shot out of hand upon their return to their unit, they just might find themselves killed in the opening barrage when the invasion starts.
I hope they're not already dead--it would be great for the word to spread that they can expect decent and humanitarian treatment from the UK and US. Then all we need to do is start the invasion by driving a Land Rover with a megaphone across the border blaring, "Okay--NOW you can surrender!"
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg ||
03/09/2003 17:11 Comments ||
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With luck these blokes weren't "missed" from their unit. Don't suppose their commanding officer wants to be unpopular with his men this week...
#10
aving a nasty, suspicious mind... Wouldn't this be a great way to infiltrate Iraqi special ops guys into our rear area? They surrender, get taken back, and pu into a nice, laid back POW facility. Breaking out is relatively easy, maybe they scrag a guard or two, then they're loose in the rear. The Kuwaitis have been sending them back, too.
#11
Actually, if you stop and think about it, it is really very sad. I do not believe these people want to die and yet they know that is very possible, either by the allies or by Saddam. Let us all hope, they are able to escape and live to build a better Iraq
Posted by: Joe ||
03/09/2003 19:49 Comments ||
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I agree, Joe. If we're going in as liberators, these guys are the ones we want to survive to view us as such. Save the bombs for Saddam and his cronies--these are the guys who will welcome us and help us establish a just, legitimate government to represent them after three decades under Saddam's jackboot.
I wish we could take them in, if not as PWs at this date, as candidates for political asylum.
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg ||
03/09/2003 21:08 Comments ||
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The first rats scuttle away... (Edited for length)
Tony Blair has suffered the first resignation from his government over the Iraq crisis and has been warned that more could follow. Loughborough nobody MP Andy Reed announced on Sunday that he was quitting as parliamentary aide to Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett. In a statement on his website, Mr Reed said he would give his full reasons for resigning on Monday. "I fully support the prime minister in his attempts to find a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis through the UN route and do not want to do anything that undermines that effort at this stage," he added. "So I'm stabbing him in the back and hoping to make a name for myself as the man who brought Blair down"
Three other parliamentary private secretaries — MPs who work as assistants to ministers — have indicated they also would step down if action was taken without a new UN resolution. Another unnamed aide to a cabinet minister told the Sunday Telegraph he would also depart if war went ahead without a new resolution. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott said the resignation threats should be kept in context and most Labour MPs and ministerial aides did back Mr Blair's stance. Acknowledging Labour anxiety over Iraq, Mr Prescott said: "Tony Blair is giving leadership. That's what this party wants from Tony Blair. "We will go on seeking to get that second resolution at the UN, which we are fighting very hard for." Mr Prescott said Parliament would get a vote over a new second resolution, although its timing could not be allowed to threaten the safety of UK forces. Trade Secretary Patricia Hewitt told Sky News it was rather "self-indulgent" to talk about resignation when ministers were working "flat out" on getting a new resolution. Labour rebel MP Alan Simpson said resignation was a sign of the gap between Downing Street and both the Labour Party and the public. "It is a very dangerous gap for the goverment to find itself in," he said.
In a recent vote on the crisis, 122 Labour MPs rebelled against Tony Blair's hardline Iraq stance. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby programme: "We reserve the right to make decisions if it is not possible to secure agreement here in the UN. "What we would be doing in those circumstances is actually putting into practice the UN's own writ."
#1
Bulldog: Correct me if I'm under an American misapprehension, but it seems to me that PM Blair's (has the USA had a better friend?) difficulties end when the fighting starts and the British public rally around the squaddies. Can he last ten days?
Posted by: Matt ||
03/09/2003 18:31 Comments ||
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Andy Reed is a pinko commie. No surprise he will resign. Rather, Blair should thank Almighty God this piece of political jetsam has left government.
#3
Matt - I'm tyring to think of a time when the armed forces went to war without a majority of public support. Most say they do support conflict, but only with the UN's go-ahead. It's difficult to say how many of those will be satisfied the campaign's 'just' or sensible when the UN diplomacy has been exhausted. I believe the British will support our troops whilst they're risking their lives for their country, but there will inevitably be demonstrations and the like.
Tony will last more than 10 days because, crucially, most of his cabinet are behind him, it's more difficult to say how many of his MPs are prepared to rebel. You could say Tony's bound to have posted natural allies to his cabinet, so his cabinet will not reflect the general party opinion. They're also more experienced (they know who put them in power), and also have most to lose by unsuccessfully defying Tony.
Re: "Has the USA a better friend?" - the USA has many good allies, I suppose Blair's the most high profile, and has the most to offer by way of diplomatic and military support. Mustn't forget all the other, smaller guys!
Iraq is said to have transported chemical and biological weapons to the borders with Syria and Turkey. U.S. officials said an Iraqi intelligence unit was spotted transporting the nonconventional weapons about six weeks ago from facilities in Baghdad to the Syrian and Turkish borders. They said the transfer of the weapons appeared to be part of an effort to conceal them from United Nations inspectors and spare them from any expected U.S. attack. "We know that in late January, the Iraqi Intelligence Service transported chemical and biological agents to areas far away from Baghdad, near the Syrian and Turkish borders, in order to conceal them," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Wednesday. "And they have concealed them from the prying eyes of inspectors." So it would seem, though the inspectors' eyes pry pretty diffidently...
In an address to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, Powell did not identify or say how many BW and CW weapons were transferred by Iraq. But Powell and other officials said Iraq is believed to have produced such agents as anthrax, VX and botulinum toxin.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 11:14 am ||
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U.S. intelligence has concluded that Iraq deceived the United Nations in its current effort to destroy the Al Samoud missile. U.S. officials said the regime of President Saddam Hussein has not destroyed any Al Samoud missile deployed in forward bases in southern Iraq. Instead, they said, Iraq has brought out missiles from military warehouses and replaced the engines with those from the Soviet-origin SA-2 surface-to-air missile, developed in the 1950s. "From recent intelligence, we know that the Iraqi regime intends to declare and destroy only a portion of its banned Al Samoud inventory and that it has, in fact, ordered the continued production of the missiles that you see being destroyed," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies on Wednesday. "Iraq has brought its machinery that produces such missiles out into the daylight for all to see. But we have intelligence that says, at the very same time, it has also begun to hide machinery it can use to convert other kinds of engines to power Al Samouds." This dance is starting to make me dizzy. Can we take a break and have a cool drink?... Oh, okay. I guess I'll wait until it's over. But I'm still dizzy.
Iraq has declared that it has 100 Al Samoud missiles, half of them deployed by the military. So far, the UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission reports that 34 such missiles have been destroyed.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 11:10 am ||
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The real danger would be if Saddam actually disarmed. Because we couldn't go to war, the UN would have to lift the sanctions, and once the attention is elsewhere Saddam would quietly get his WMD back.
Just as they did the last three times they met, the 15 members of United Nations Security Council agreed on Friday that Iraq has not complied with their demands that it disarm immediately and completely. And just as in previous gatherings, they disagreed over what to do about it and when. The Bulgarian ambassador was just on FoxNews, discussing the backroom sessions. There weren't any fistfights, and nobody's moustache seems to have been cursed, but other than that it wasn't pretty...
On the day after U.S. President George W. Bush said more starkly than ever before that he didn't need their approval to go to war, and that it was time for them to "show their cards (and) let the world know where they stand," country after country told the United States it was wrong in insisting that Iraq's chance to disarm was all but over and war was imminent. "Nope. Nope. Can't do it."
The majority found reason for guarded hope that war could be avoided. Pakistan's UN ambassador, Munir Akram, said, "We believe there is no imminent threat to international peace and security. The cost of delay, in our view, will be much less than the cost of war." "And if we're wrong, well, no skin off our fore..."
The members pleaded for unity, and some talked of compromise. Cameroon is one of the six "undecided" countries the U.S. hopes to woo to its side before a vote is taken. The others are Mexico, Chile, Angola, Guineau and Pakistan. In what is likely to be their last high-level council statement on the matter, none gave any hint on Friday of support for the U.S. resolution, and all called for continued inspections. But U.S. and British officials said they would launch a concentrated weekend of "persuasion," and insisted that nothing was final until the actual vote was taken. "They know there are other interests engaged," said one official, referring by way of example to a U.S.-Chile free trade agreement that must be approved by the U.S. Congress. I don't think we should be giving anything away until the actual vote takes place. I don't think we're going to win it, so we should save the money...
Significantly, none of the six fully supported the other extreme of the argument. France, Russia, Germany, China and Syria have called for inspections to continue indefinitely until chief UN inspector Hans Blix tells them there is no more progress to be made. Most of the undecided six said they preferred that the council delineate tasks for Iraq to complete within a specified deadline — along the lines of a compromise proposed last week by Canada, which is not a council member. Neither the United States nor the French side expressed much interest on Friday in a compromise, although France said it was willing to shorten the time between scheduled inspector reports to the council.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 11:01 am ||
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GW already has everything he needs: got 1441 with a 15-0 vote, won the Congrssional Resolution, and the Mid-Terms. He just getting the troops ready to go.
GW wants a vote. He doesn't need to win or lose. He wants to put France an the UN on notice for their recent perfidity. So there is a lot of squirming going on.
And I'm betting Tony Blair is OK without a win. They have isolated France as the bad guys. Tony doesn't face reelection until 06. He and his party have never got along well; he dragged them kicking and screaming from being a motley crew of communists, stalinists, and calcified trade union leaders into government, Without Blair, they would die and they know it.
There are ironic parallels between the Security Council and the Arab League meetings last week. When the Destinguished Representative from The Repulic of France is addressed at the Security Council Table by his first name, you just called him a monkey. Addressing any frenchman by his first name is considered very poor social grace.
Blix lied to the Security Council Friday. The 167 page document that was highlighted by Jack Straw contains the smoking gun: the drone aircraft and the spraying equipment. What the hell is this stuff for? Advance agricultural technology? These drones are the ultimate weapon. Let them fly and they contaminate everything in their path. Shoot them down and they continue to contaminate where they land. Bastards!
Posted by: john ||
03/09/2003 13:18 Comments ||
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RE: drones. I wonder if we can use some kind of EMP on the drones if we can find them early enough. I do not think that their guidance system is hardened. Though, if they are used as a terror weapon, they could have some kind of rudamentary guidance system like the V-1 that EMP could not touch.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/09/2003 14:32 Comments ||
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#3
The drones sound scarier than they are. Mustard gas from the drones could kill dozens but to kill hundreds or thousands, you would need so much payload that the drone wouldn't get very far. Getting a big enough dose of the biologics to kill would also be a problem for a drone because of dilution, decay in sunlight, etc.
#4
Sec'y Powell seems confident (as of Sunday AM) that we will get the votes. I betcha we get them, because when it's time to raise hands what are they going to do? They may not like the 'cowboy' in the White House, but I'm damn sure they don't want him really pissed at them (even the Frenchies).
A day after President Bush issued an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to disarm, infantry paratroopers with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division prepared their armored Humvees for an airdrop inside Iraqs borders, a possible sign that the first strike is imminent. The 82nd will be on the first aircraft and the first out the door, said Division commander Maj. Gen. Chuck Swannack. "From standing start, with all our equipment ready to go ... 18 hours," Swannack said. "They are going to give me a few days warning. But we're going to posture. Its just like you've got a gun loaded with ammunition, and weve got the hammer cocked back. Were cocking back that hammer a little more every time, every day, to go ahead and rig our equipment for parachute assault. The division is ready for an airdrop inside Iraq. Entering behind enemy lines is what this division is all about." Interesting. A look at what's going to actually happen? Or is Gen. Swannack hollering "Hey! Look over here!" Betcha Sammy would really like to know...
"In the first stage of any parachute assault, we jump out at 800 feet and you come down in about 15 seconds, 16 seconds in an air drop. And everybodys a rifleman, right away. But everything in the 82nd Airborne Division — from anti-tank weapons systems to engineering equipment, artillery pieces, all of that's air dropped." The big problem with airborne assaults is ground fire. And historically, they've been high-casualty affairs. Presumably, we're expecting to take out any ground fire...
Swannack said the assault would be a coordinated effort with the Air Force to take out enemy air defenses, but that the division enters knowing there probably are some enemy folks down there with small arms weapons. "Thirty days ago this forward base in the Kuwait Desert didnt exist," said Army Sgt. Phil Estes, 21, a 325th Infantry Regiment paratrooper from Norfolk, Va. He arrived a month ago with his armored Humvee. Since then, the 82nd Airborne has assembled a sea of black and tan tents, a mess hall and sprawling parking lot of armored jeeps, trucks and other artillery.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 10:45 am ||
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#1
Similar story in Telegraph about the British paras and Saddam International Airport. Surely disinformation? Market Garden-esque invitation to trouble, and the fact it's being touted - has to be a propaganda exercise? Course it could be a clever double-bluff...
#2
Bulldog, I wouldn't be surprised to see an airdrop to grab an airport or two. Actually, it's fairly standard US doctrine (see Grenada). But like you, I suspect disinformation in the Telegraph article
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
03/09/2003 12:01 Comments ||
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Indiaâs leftists say itâs about oil. The VHP say itâs about the clash of civilisations. Everyone sees the US campaign against Saddam Hussein through their own prism. Itâs true oil has a role. So does Islam. And WMD and terrorism. When the US decides to let slip its dogs of war, it does so for multiple reasons, for such decisions require multiple interests to feel they have a stake.
Okay. Got the generalities out of the way. Shall we move on?
Before 9/11, only two groups in the US security establishment were gunning for Hussein. One group was a traditional, âwe-need-petrolâ school of thought. Under a policy going back to the Fifties, Washington took it for granted that any country in a position to disrupt the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz was a security threat. Invoking this principle, Bill Clinton embedded regime change into his Iraq policy. His reason: a nuclear-empowered Iraq could tip the balance of power in the Persian Gulf against the US forever. But this school was satisfied with sanctions and fomenting coups if it couldnât get war.
Clinton was riding the success of the previouis Bush administration in this respect. Schwartzkopf had demonstrated that the Fourth Largest Army in the World® wasn't all that, so thumping them now and then provided an excuse for Bill to look tough without the risk of getting his nose bloodied...
The other group was a Republican lobby that argued the biggest threat facing the US was a future convergence of two trends: WMD proliferation and a new breed of terrorists willing to use such weapons. They argued that the US had to respond with a radically different security strategy: missile defence, pre-emption and rogue State eradication. Of the last, Husseinâs Iraq was seen as the most obvious target. Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney are graduates of this school.
Having been dramatically proven correct, they still don't have time to preen. But having their positions vindicated by events, they're more confident in implementing the rest of what they saw as needed...
The newly-elected George W. Bush ignored Hussein. He wanted a second term and a risky overseas mess was a no-no. The CIA and State Department argued Iraq was a nuisance, not a crisis. The oil industry went further: they wanted sanctions against Hussein lifted. His national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, wrote it didnât matter whether Hussein got nukes or not. In other words, Bushâs Iraq policy was initially softer than Clintonâs.
Bush campaigned on a policy of avoiding "nation building." That approach was proved wrong, too, but he turned around quickly enough...
Then 9/11 happened. Rumsfeld and Co. argued that Iraq needed to go down along with Afghanistan. Powell, the CIA and Bush gave them a thumbs down. But by the time the Taliban were history, Washington had sketched out a blueprint for a multi-front war on terrorism. Once the battle plan was laid out, it was realised that Rumsfeldâs thinking was right. Many of the warpaths against terrorism ended with an X on Husseinâs face â but for wildly different reasons.
Sammy wasn't directly responsible for 9-11 â but he could have been. That's why he has to go...
The first and most important front in the war on terror evolved from the WMD-terror convergence theory. Al-Qaeda literature found in Kabul, Pakistani physicists hobnobbing with Osama bin Laden and a flood of other intelligence made it clear terrorists were desperate to get WMD capability. The big, hairy fear of the US today is that the next 9/11 will be done with anthrax or plutonium, not jet fuel.
Since the rest of Cheney's and Rumsfeld's theories have been confirmed, I'd call that last statement a "probable."
This is forcing the tectonic shift in US strategic thinking. Stopping a terrorist plan that is already unfolding is nearly impossible. So the US has shifted its sights further down the chain of causality. Go after insecure sources of WMD, knock out States that fail certain indices of international behaviour, target banks that play crooked and so on.
The shortlist of nations who declined to change their ways became the âaxis of evilâ. Iraq was deemed danger No. 1. It was judged the most likely place for terrorists to get WMD. It was also felt a message had to be sent to such countries. Toppling Hussein would do just fine.
Iraq represents the low-hanging fruit. Or it should, if the Euros would get out of the way. The fact that the Franco-German axis has been carping and running interference tells us that the more difficult targets are going to be even harder than they should be, unless the axis is discredited. That's why the diplo war is more important at this point than the ground fighting will be in Iraq...
The second front was about the long-term eradication of the root causes of Al-Qaeda-type terrorism. All the terrorist-wallahs and Arabists the Bush administration tapped said the same thing: the reason educated Arabs sign up with bin Laden is a lack of democracy in their homelands. The antidote: open up the Arab world.
Two professors, Fouad Ajami and Bernard Lewis, are the gurus of this belief. Their acolytes include Cheney and Rice. Completely overhauling the Arab world is a task roughly comparable to knocking the Soviet bloc, so the White House has preferred not to blow the trumpet on this.
Instead, lesser officials like the State Departmentâs policy planning chief, Richard Haass, and Riceâs deputy, Stephen Hadley, have served as mouthpieces. The second front warriors are pushing for the occupation of Iraq as they need a model Arab democracy. Iraqis are secular and are expected to welcome ballot boxes after decades of dictatorship. It also has enough oil to pay for its own revival.
Arab thinkers and Washington insiders say that another reason is that the US needs a lot of surplus petroleum handy for a showdown with the unrepentant cashbox of jehad: Saudi Arabia. Another derivative: the next secular Arab democracy the US wants is Palestine. The Israelis have already been put on notice.
Bush laid the groundwork for that last summer. The Paleos have dug in their heels and have started to shake apart, but there's been some movement. It won't break soon, though. Paleostine is definitely further down the list than Iraq...
Hussein must feel befuddled. Before 9/11 everyone from Exxon to the Elysee Palace was plugging for him. Then it all went bad. He became a target of a new, preventive strategic doctrine straight out of Minority Report and a plan to transform the Arab world so radical no one quite believes it.
This represents an enormous shift in mindset for an America-first White House that wanted even a token US troop presence in Macedonia withdrawn. Bush does not seem really bothered to explain all this to his own people. Instead, he has resuscitated genuine, but hoary, Iraqi violations of UN resolutions that all assumed were no longer worth a fight. No wonder half the world thinks the US response is exaggerated.
He's explained all this to his own people. He doesn't have to give us the detail â those of us who pay attention have been following the necessity pretty easily, and those who don't pay attention don't need held by the hand...
Bush is taking on an enormous task and even greater risk. Toppling Hussein pales in comparison to the decision to modernise Islam. As Hadley said in a speech, âThis is an awesome responsibility. When future scholars look back on the history of the Middle East in the early part of the 21st century, I hope that they donât ask âwhat went wrong?â but instead ask âWhy did it go right?ââ
I believe that Bush is on the right track. He was wrong in his stance against "nation building," but the nation-building he was opposed to was the kind of thing we tried in Vietnam and later in such Clinton debacles as Haiti. He turned around when he saw the need to do it. We tried the "introduce democracy and let it grow" approach in Afghanistan, with indifferent results, so we'll use a different model in Iraq. The best model we have is the military governor model, alà McArthur in Japan, and Iraq possesses the requisite conditions for its implementations, regardless of how loudly our "allies" within the country may holler about it. If it turns into another kleptocracy, we won't be able to go in and fix it later, unless the result is another Sammy, and that would still be far, far down the road. So we're only going to get one chance to do it right. I do believe that the surrounding powers will be doing their best to sabotage the operation, and that some pretty significant things can and will go wrong. We're not going to leave a perfect state behind us â but I do believe we'll leave a much better state.
Posted by: George H. Beckwith ||
03/09/2003 09:49 am ||
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a plan to transform the Arab world so radical no one quite believes it.
That's right, a chance to live in peace & prosperity is a radical idea.
#2
Actually, Lebanon used to have something remarkably like that. Jihad was more important...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2003 10:04 Comments ||
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All the really 'worst case' scenarios are triggered if Saddam stays in power. Also, simply the act of showing the world the torture chambers, torture instruments, torture infrastrusture that Saddam has built ought to have a positive effect on the rest of the world (of course there will be plenty of people who will say we made it up, or that the Israelis did, or blah, blah).
A number of ministerial aides are threatening to resign if British troops go to war against Iraq without a fresh mandate from the United Nations. In other statements against the government's position, the former solicitor general said it would be "flagrantly unlawful" to go to war without a further UN resolution. And former armed forces minister Doug Henderson warned that the Labour party was facing "one of the most critical periods" he could remember over the issue.
In other words, they're going to keep trying until they can dent Tony...
Downing Street insists it is confident the Security Council will back the draft resolution in a vote proposed to take place on Tuesday. Tony Blair, spending Sunday at his Chequers official country residence, is thought to be engaged in an intensive round of telephone diplomacy over the deadline idea.
I don't think it's going to work, but he's trying...
In the UK, an opinion poll in a Sunday newspaper suggests increasing public support for military action against Iraq. The survey — by ICM in the News of the World - indicates 69% back the use of force to confront Saddam Hussein. Good, a welcome statistic...
But only 15% would support a war without a second UN Security Council resolution. Apalling that so many are happy to exercise opinion by foreign proxy. What, pray tell, do they think France, China and Russia can impart in the way of moral authority? Depressing...
The British and American publics have both been fed the pap for 50 years that the UN counts for something. It's a mystical thing, kind of like getting the Pope's blessing was in the Middle Ages...
Five parliamentary private secretaries — MPs who work as assistants to ministers — would step down if action was taken without UN backing, says the Sunday Telegraph. Nice when the dead wood drops throws itself off the tree...
Former Solicitor General Lord Archer of Sandwell said military action could only be justified in self-defence, or where the Security Council deemed it necessary to preserve international peace.
Or if we were invaded by demons...
Not worthy of comment
Neither case applied in the current situation, the Labour peer told GMTV. He urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to do all he could to get a resolution passed — but if he could not, to accept defeat to stop history remembering him "as the person who went to war unlawfully". Mr Henderson said Mr Blair had failed to convince the British population, key members of the UN, many MPs and probably some Cabinet members of the case for war.
Many of whom remain resulutely opposed to being convinced...
"Upwards of 150" Labour MPs could rebel if a second resolution was not secured, he told GMTV. And he estimated about 95% of local Labour members opposed war without explicit UN authorisation. Goes to show how astounding it is that Tony nominally represents such a bunch of pacifist imbeciles.
Public protests against the war continue, with tens of thousands taking to Britain's streets on Saturday. International Womens' Day. Shame more Iraqi women couldn't come along. Suppose those being raped in Saddam's cells would have appreciated it. No doubt some have been shown the pictures.
Posted by: Bulldog ||
03/09/2003 09:07 am ||
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Yes, please tell me anyone...how France, China and Russia are now the moral giants in deciding these issues of war with Iraq. To think that people in America and Great Britain, want these pillars of freedom and tolerance, to decide if we have the right to protect ourselves...obscene I say!
#2
Remember that the UK television media views the UN as some sort of saintly body: Kofi Anand is usually depicted as if he already had wings and a halo.
If nobody points out the facts about the UN, then these are the results you get.
#3
We got very lucky with Blair. As the above article indicates, he's not your typical Labourite.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
03/09/2003 8:13 Comments ||
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Lord Archer wants Blair 'to accept defeat to stop history remembering him "as the person who went to war unlawfully"'.
Has His Lordship given any thought to how history will remember Blair- and all of Britain as well- if they back out now?
I suspect Blair would much, MUCH rather be remembered as the PM who took Britain to war without France's permission, than be remembered as "The Cowardly Lion."
Britain's men in uniform have the right stuff; does its citizenry?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/09/2003 8:17 Comments ||
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If I was Blair, and I stood the chance of being buried someday with "Took Britain to War without France's Permission" as my epitaph, I'd jump at it.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2003 10:07 Comments ||
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Dave, "Britain's men in uniform have the right stuff; does its citizenry?" - some of us do, but too few. Things are moving faster at the moment than most people can keep up with, unfortunately, at least that's what I tell myself. The fact that 54% support conflict, albeit only with the UN's blesing shows that they have fighting spirit, but their uncritical belief in the UN needs readjustment. A speedy, decsive war followed by visible evidence of Saddam's crimes and an appreciative population would save Blair's neck. But this March 17th deadline cannot be extended.
Fred - Tony will be feted for that for sure one day, but I wonder how his own reality-challenged party will look at it. It's the best France-related epitaph a PM could have since Wellington's...
#7
When Wellington was in Portugal, the opposition and the British public called for his head on a regular basis. Is this a British tradition?
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2003 10:51 Comments ||
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Of course, we love our traditions. But for variety, this time the opposition are supportive, and his side are muttering mutiny. But then Wellington didn't become (a Tory) PM till 1828, 13 years after Waterloo.
Churchill - booted after the war, but returned to office next time round when the electorate had their first taste of Labour.
Maggie - at her popularity prime when the Argies nabbed the Falklands. Not ejected for another nine years.
The difference this time is that Tony's doing the traditionally Tory leader's role but acting as the head of a confused, governing, Labour beast...
#9
The British Labour Party is a motley crew of communists, rigid trade union leaders, and animal rights weirdos. Until Tony Blair dragged them kicking and screaming into the 20th century, they were just another bunch of hooligans at a soccer game. If Tony goes, they disintergrate. Sort of like the Dems without Clinton.
Every vote on Iraq in Parliament he has won with a super majority. He does not have to call an election until 2006. A number of his party are planning to resign to join what, the World Workers Party?
As long as the Tories stand behind Blair, he should survive. When was the last time an Englishman surrendered to a Frenchman?
Posted by: john ||
03/09/2003 13:47 Comments ||
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Guess everyone knows where the V-sign originated.... Maybe Straw did a bit of that under the table at the UNSC session.
True, the Labour party would wtill be languishing as unelectables without Blair, but do they realise that? Blair's tugged the party to the middle ground (the Lib Dems are now the most left wing of the three main parties), and has wrenched it away from its natural roots in doing so. He's drifting rightwards, but there has to be a whiplash effect, and it could be violent. Time will tell...
Edited for length and relevance
A few days ago, British troops in Kuwait were deprived of a small piece of technology which, although not essential, represented their last direct link to their loved ones and the increasingly remote green, wet, cool homeland. The Army took away their mobile phones. The soldiers reacted philosophically. They expected it. Kuwaiti cellphone coverage leaks across the border into mobile-less Iraq. When the invasion takes place, none of them wants the merry sound of Nokia ring tones pealing over the battlefield. "Mildred! I told you, never call me at the office!"
Such temporary, mild, and largely symbolic privations compare starkly with the conditions affecting the men whom our soldiers are preparing to fight: the regular Iraqi army. The loss of a mobile phone does not concern them for a second. It is the prospect of finding their next meal, and of surviving an onslaught of terrifying magnitude, that concentrates their minds. The contrast between the fates of these two groups could not be more extreme. It's just amazing that Sammy has lasted this long, treating the army like this.
In the desert, it is easy to see the war machine. Column after column of British trucks and Land Rovers and American Humvees move north through the dust storms. Streams of gigantic tank transporters rumble around the Kuwait City ring roads. The US convoys are edgy, after several shootings by locals; every man and woman wears a helmet, and the convoys are always topped and tailed by vehicles carrying heavy machine guns on swivelling mounts, with a stony-faced gunner behind each one. No one wants to be the last one capped in Kuwait.
The British are more relaxed, but their vehicles, too, are festooned with weaponry. Their menacing Land Rover convoys are a frequent sight, two guns on each one, the faces of their crews invisible behind helmets, goggles and dust scarves, like a vision from desert warfare of 60 years ago.
They sound like happy warriors, but they're probably just as grouchy as the Yanks. The weather's not getting any more pleasant — which is why they need goggles and dust masks, both of which are hot and uncomfortable to wear for extended periods...
They are almost ready. But not quite. Ironically, after the sniping in the press back home — and the fact they were originally supposed to be based in Turkey — the British deployment seems to have gone relatively smoothly, and it is the United States which has been lagging behind. American forces have been so pressed for time that they have been moving ammunition to their bases in the desert using civilian trucks and local drivers. A crucial contingent of the US buildup, the 101st Airborne Division, is still waiting for its helicopters — its main means of transport — to arrive, shrink-wrapped, by ship. Then they will have to be unpacked, assembled and worked up and their aircrews given days to acclimatise to local conditions. Hence the seven day ultimatum to Sammy.
It is still likely that General Tommy Franks, overall commander of the Iraq operation, will have the equivalent of five ready divisions at his disposal in Kuwait by mid-March — two airborne, the 82nd and the 101st; one armoured, the 3rd Mechanised Infantry division; one of US marines, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force; and one British, a mix of airborne, armoured and marine. For all its hundreds of thousands of men, however, it is a remarkably light force compared to the one Norman Schwarzkopf had under his command in 1991. It is some five divisions smaller, and the missing divisions were the main armoured fist of the successful blitztkrieg into Iraq and Kuwait at that time. More divisions are on their way, but will not arrive for weeks; the anticipated second front in the north is not now going to happen.
This is going to either prove or disprove the light force concept. The only thing that bothers me is that Franks is so unlike Schwartzkopf...
This time around, fewer troops will have to travel much farther, through areas that are thick with civilians. In other words, whatever Gen Franks' plan is, it counts on very fast movement, very light resistance and fair weather — a risky strategy. 'Mr Rumsfeld tells us it's going to be like Palm Sunday, they'll be strewing palm leaves in the streets,' said one senior British commander. 'I hope he's right.'
I'd guess some places will — and others won't. The question is how well the places that aren't strewing palm leaves are going to fight...
In the 1991 Gulf war, overwhelmed by surrendering Iraqis, allied forces took to disarming them, binding their hands and instructing them to walk south. Now optimistic officers think even disarming the soldiers might not be necessary. 'A hundred thousand prisoners would be difficult,' said one. 'If they lay down their weapons and depart, or frankly even if they don't lay down their weapons but depart, we have no legal responsibility to take charge of them.' Collect the rifles, just in case, and send them all home.
I don't think I'd even consider leaving an armed formation behind me, especially not in Iraq, where pretending to surrender is an accepted tactic...
Before the troops go in, and as they advance, US and British aircraft will be carrying out heavy air raids across Iraq, probably the most dangerous and destructive actions of an invasion both from the point of view of Iraqi civilians and world public opinion. At one airbase in Kuwait where RAF Tornado aircraft are based, a bleak, seething anthill of grey dust, armourers, mechanics, helicopters, fighters and bomb dumps, the aircrews work alongside old armoured concrete aircraft shelters which they helped destroy in 1991 when they were under Iraqi control. Thin sunlight shines in through ragged gashes in the roof. The Kuwaitis are said to be suing the French company which built them; the French point out that they were designed to protect against Iraqi bombs, not British and American ones. Oh giggle! THAT is funny! I wonder if the Kuwaitis got a warranty?
The contrast between the fortunes of Western forces, with their well-fed, motivated troops and airmen, and those of their prospective foe could not be more intense, a point underscored by the sight of the young Iraqi deserters who are appearing in increasing numbers in Amman, joining the queue that forms outside the offices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to ask for asylum. According to officials many gave the same account. They had heard a story that Saddam was changing the rules of the military draft. Instead of serving for a few months before being rotated out, the young men said they had been warned new soldiers would have to stay with their units until war broke out. The implication was not lost on these young men. In the last Gulf War it was conscripts who had borne the brunt of the withering American assault, many being buried alive by US bulldozers. So they ran. "Take a number, Line forms to the left. Take a number, ..."
It takes money, a passport and connections to flee abroad, however, though others have taken a less costly and marginally less risky course — stumping up a bribe to local Baath Party officials for a call-up exemption. The price of that bribe has increased sharply. In the autumn it was $400 (£250) now it is $900 and rising. Those who cannot pay simply flee to relatives in the countryside when the conscripting officer comes visiting.
This is in contrast to the Baghdadis jumping up and down and making faces and vowing to defend Sammy to the death...
Finally, there are the unlucky ones without influence or money. Collectively they are known as the Iraqi army. Already they are preparing for surrender, defeat and even death. Travellers from Iraq describe soldiers in ragged uniforms sometimes without boots. It is also said they are paid only intermittently and survive, in some units, on little more than soup, bread and what they can beg. But Saddam is wasting little of his resources on the regular army — which is distrusted for its lack of loyalty and morale — and regarded merely as cannon fodder to slow the US advance before they meet more loyal units in the Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard. Sammy treats them like garbage and then wonders why they won't be loyal. Why even bother? He knows that we won't slow down.
You wouldn't know this, however, from the daily military parades and nightly broadcasts of Saddam, sometimes appearing with his son Qusay, or meeting with his military commanders to disparage American military might. According to these broadcasts, the Iraqi soldier is a formidable fighter, fit as an SAS trooper, schooled in the intricacies of urban warfare, well commanded and committed to Saddam. If true, American and British forces might have reason to worry. But, of course, it is not true. The regular Iraqi army has no inclination to fight, so Saddam is turning to the use of fear to persuade its soldiers to fight. And this is the Guardian talking, folks.
Gulf War I set the psychological background for Gulf War II. Sammy's been calling Gulf War I a victory, but the rest of the country was there, too, as was the military. It'd take another 20 years of propaganda to convince people otherwise. He doesn't have that long...
Then there are the tanks: the newest are Iraq's 700 T-72s which were heavily outgunned by US armour in the last Gulf War and have loading problems and the propensity to burn. These are, in any case, limited to the Republican Guard. The T-72 "Jack-in-the-Box." Hit them and the top flies off.
But even tanks are pointless without the will to fight. Western analysts have been suggesting for months that Iraqi soldiers are being asked to sacrifice themselves not for Iraq, but for Saddam, a strategy made clear by Saddam's deployments of his best soldiers around himself in Baghdad and not around the country. It is a plan designed, not for victory, but for carnage stalemate, to draw on the Americans and inflict sufficient casualties so that Saddam can sue for another imperfect peace. 'Even the regime has become aware that it is unlikely the majority of its forces will fire a shot,' said one Western source last week. 'They have been told by security officers attached to different military units that morale is at rock bottom and that no-one wants to die for a hopeless cause.'
I wouldn't even want to get bruised for Sammy...
This message has been reinforced by a massive US leafleting campaign that has told soldiers: 'Surrender if you don't want to die' — an idea mocked by Saddam in his broadcasts. 'Are they still harbouring the illusion that they are capable of toppling Iraq with their leaflets?' he said last week. 'This love has been going on for 35 years of my being in power.' Does he even believe this stuff?
"Enforced love" isn't a new concept. In 99 cases out of 100, it just doesn't stick...
While the regime has tried to foster a sense of collective unity and repeating the decade-old canard that it was Iraq that won the last Gulf War, in reality Saddam is preparing to defend himself by the only way that he knows — by threatening violence against those who falter. Civil governors have been replaced by military governors, and pressure has been put on the population to remain in their homes, rather than flee. Iraqis who have left in recent weeks, speak of intimidation both of the civilian and military to lock them into Saddam Hussein's last stand. New, sandbagged positions, residents of the cities understand, are to keep them in, not the tanks out. Most shocking of all is the unverifiable claim by Western intelligence agencies that special security units have been trained how to hang deserters quickly to provide a visible encouragement to both the army and the civilian population. Special satisfaction then, will come about when it's Sammy swinging from a lamp post.
And we have our reporters "embedded" now, so they can send live pictures of dangling corpses...
It has a certain logic that accords with other verifiable details: for instance the claim by Iraqi soldiers to officers of the 32-country UN Iraq Kuwait Observer Mission based on the Iraqi border (Unikom) that their families have been put under protective custody 'to make sure they fight'.
When everything disappears at once, how do you know who fought and who didn't?
'They are terrified,' a Unikom captain said in a recent interview. 'They won't surrender at the first shot. They will surrender when they hear the first American tank turn on its engine.' Let's get this over with a minimum of casualties to us and to all the poor schmoes in the Iraqi army.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2003 08:11 am ||
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"Collect the rifles, just in case, and send them all home."
Collect their rifles and send them home, but treat them with some courtesy and give them a decent meal first. We want to make sure that they tell everyone back in the village that the Americans are decent folks.
The Russian T-54/55 series and the T-62 series tanks are the ones with the design flaw in which a shot on the turret or an internal explosion will cause the turet to come off.
The T-72 is one hell of a fine vehicle with a 125mm main gun that is quite capable and, with the right ammunition, co-equal to the 120mm main guns.
I do not know if they have the same turret problems as previous series, but I do regard the T-72 as a very capable tank
#3
good point Badanov - however, the Strategic Genius⢠that Saddam is, he digs them in so their little heads turrets peek out and can shoot. I'm sure the pilots love the lack of mobility. A dead-in-it's-tracks tank is indeed a Jack-In-The-Box (lovely visual...heh heh)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2003 8:11 Comments ||
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Tanks have three elements, Mobility, armor, firepower which makes them powerful weapons. Take away any of those elements and it becomes just another heap of junk. Iraqi armor 'doctrine', such as it is, takes away mobility. Incredible.
The Soviets developed their engineering corps' equipment to enable tanks to dig in quickly for the purpose of defeating an imminent atack, preferably a tactical ambush, the idea being that once an engagement is concluded, tanks could quickly roll out of their entrenchments, form up and launch an immediate counterattack.
What Iraqi commanders are doing is almost criminal in its stupidity; not at all how these systems were designed to be used, and the result will be, a bunch of heaping wrecks, misused, and burning.
Don't get me wrong. This all works for US. I think the best use for T-72s in this case is the best outcome. Pop hatches and abandon the vehicle.
It just goes to show how true what Sun Tzu said about war. Paraphrasing: To use an uneducated population in war is to throw them away.
#5
It's not so much the tanks, it's the guns, their accuracy and their aiming electronics. American Tankers found that they could hit Iraqi tanks of whatever model at a range of 2 miles. the Iraqi guns had a range of 1 1/2 miles. The Americans learned that all they had to do was stand off and fire away.
#6
I'm not a military expert(TM), but I had fostered the impression that tank-on-tank warfare was a luxury retained to keep the M1/Challenger crews happy. Air superiority makes anything static or ground-dwelling an elaborate Iraqi coffin...?
#7
There may be Republican Guard surrenders also. As pointed out above, all the important RG hardware are easy targets. The only really intense training these guys have is ideological training. It is doubtful that after the first strike they will even function as organized troops. They may do some sabotage or fire some bio/chem stuff which could be bad enought; but the tanks will be worthless within a few hours of the balloon going up.
Forget the laser targeted JDAMs and Hellfires: the real transformation in the American military has come in a far more mundane area: transportation.
The US now has the ability to fly 70-ton battle tanks over huge distances. This means that America is less reliant on bases in the region to support an invasion of Iraq. It is a key transformation that is as much of a breakthrough today as the technique of dropping parachute troops far behind enemy lines was in the Second World War. Then paratroopers had to wait for their tanks to catch up overland. Today's US Air Force can fly in the tanks too, radically changing the strategic realities of land and air war.
The key piece of equipment is the Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport plane. First introduced in 1993, the C-17 can carry the 70-ton M1 Abrams main battle tank, smaller M2 Bradley tanks and even helicopters. Most importantly the C-17 can land on dirt airstrips and on short runways of 3,000 feet. Traditional transporters can do neither.
Put the C17's capabilities together and it means that the Pentagon can fly tanks into short dirt airstrips in the middle of nowhere. This means that airstrips in northern Iraq can be used, if time allows, to launch armoured attacks. The US Air Force has specialist Red Horse teams whose job is to clear and repair an airstrip rapidly, or when necessary make one from scratch. Helicopter-borne troops can seize an airfield and then, as they expand around the base, transport aircraft begin to arrive.
The C-17s can come in one after the other, like passenger planes dropping down to Heathrow. The armour they disgorge will give a hardened spine of reassurance to otherwise lightly armed parachute troops. But though transporting large numbers of tanks in this way would put too much strain even on US resources, the M1 Abrams is the undoubted king of the battlefield and only a few would give massive support to the rest of any invasion force. In 1991 the most dramatic US operation was a drive of 100 miles by Airborne forces north from Kuwait. What's the old saying — bad generals think tactics, good generals think strategy, great generals think logistics?
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2003 07:47 am ||
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He who gets ther the"fastest with the mostest"wins.
It will start with a pillar of fire. As the air-raid sirens sound over Kirkuk, Iraqi soldiers will rush from their foxholes, bunkers and fortified command centres and throw lit rags into huge pits filled with oil, benzene, petrol and rubber. The pits have been dug along all the major roads surrounding the city and in rings around it. The boiling cloud of thick, poisonous fumes will blind the American and British jets on their bombing runs and make parachute drops almost impossible. Then the Iraqi defenders will sit and wait for the onslaught. "Allright Faisal, you run with the burning rag to the oil trenches and set them ablaze."
"And what are you going to do, Abdul?"
"I'll cover you."
"With what? It's an air raid!"
"I'll cover you with a shroud. Now git going!"
For the moment there is little movement along the front lines between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the autonomous enclave run by the Kurds in the north. At Kala, near the city of Arbil, exchanges of fire are frequent. But at Chamchamal, 30 miles south of the eastern city of Sulaymaniyah, the lines are quiet. Last week Iraqi cannon fodder troops were clearly visible along the ridges that rise above the border posts. The Kurdish peshmerga militia watched their enemy lazily, waiting for the American precision munitions they believe will open their way into Kirkuk.
They're like the rest of us now, just waiting...
Kirkuk, a city of 550,000, is crucial. It is likely to be the site of one of the messiest and bloodiest battles. With its huge oilfields, critical strategic position just 120 miles north of Baghdad and its full-size runway it is a key target for the Americans. Hold Kirkuk and you hold the northern third of Iraq. The Iraqis are well aware of this. Though the disconsolate soldiers on the ridges above Chamchamal are from the 8th Infantry Regiment, a conscript unit, Saddam has been reinforcing Kirkuk with units of the elite Republican Guard. When are these Brit writers ever going to learn that the RG's are not elite?
Kurdish officials told The Observer there are hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces massed around the city. In one village alone, Kamanji, there are 25 tanks and 10 anti-aircraft guns, travellers crossing into Kurdistan at Chamchamal said. That's 35 targets. And a B-52 carries how many JDAMS?
Ten miles south of Kirkuk lies the huge Khalid bin Waleed base. It is protected by minefields, rows of barbed wire and dozens of machine-gun nests and bunkers. Just beyond the camp is a large airfield where dozens of helicopter gunships and MiG fighter jets are protected by concrete bomb shelters each with its precise GPS location known. Around them and the city itself are four rings of interlocking bunker systems and minefields.
Very formidable, indeed...
Although on paper Saddam's battle array around Kirkuk looks impressive the defences around the strategic city, whether or not obscured by clouds of swirling toxic smoke, are less strong than they might seem. Travellers report that Saddam's vaunted 'volunteer' militia are in fact press-ganged. Every night, a senior official from the Baath Party drives through Kirkuk in a red Volkswagen Passat sending out teams to conscript young men. For 4,000 Iraqi Dinars (around £1.50) the officials will 'forget' a household. Corruption at every level. Remind me how the peaceniks think the Iraqis will fight for Saddam?
All the Kurds remember how in the spring of 1991 their lightly armed militia were able to seize Kirkuk after the militia, recruited by Saddam from certain Kurdish tribes, swapped sides. But the Kurds were only able to hold the city for 11 days before being routed by tanks and helicopters. Now everything depends on the Americans. 'With American help we can be there in hours,' said Mustafa Chaw Rash, a senior official with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), one of the two governing parties in the northern enclave.
Assuming the plan calls for stopping at Kirkuk and not going straight to Baghdad...
Yet there is little sign of any substantial presence of US forces in northern Iraq. The Turkish parliament's vote against allowing the deployment of US forces at Turkish bases has thrown Pentagon war plans into disarray. American military planners were hoping to deploy 62,000 men from the 4th Infantry Division. Now other options are being looked at, including a massive airlift of troops, possibly from the 101st or 82nd Airborne Divisions.
I think the 62,000 men figure includes more than just the 4th ID, unless it's grown...
However there are only three usable airstrips in Kurdish-controlled Iraq and facilities are still hugely limited. The single strips are around 3,000 yards long, only just enough for a large cargo plane. The only major airfields are at Mosul, the Iraqi-held city in the north-west, and, of course, at Kirkuk. The most likely scenario is a rapid build-up of lightly armed specialist troops protected by helicopters who would help local forces to penetrate quickly into Kirkuk and secure the strategic oilwells and the airfield. But such a scenario brings its own problems. Kirkuk is historically Kurdish but Saddam's 'Arabisation' policy, by which Kurds have been forced out of their homes through threat of torture or worse and replaced by Arabs from farther south, means that the city is now ethnically mixed. There is also a large number of Turcomans, a separate ethnic group of whom the Kurds have always been suspicious. Of all the cities in Iraq, the 'score-settling' in Kirkuk could be the worst. Especially if the Turkish army rolls south.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2003 07:40 am ||
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It's difficult to think of anything more stupid than surrounding yourself with pits of fuel and lighting them off. For every U.S. pilot that is irritated by the smoke there will be 1,000 Iraqis choking on it. Truly natural selection at work.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/09/2003 11:12 Comments ||
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What else for Sammy to do? He'll be hoping for more stray bombs too, don't forget, and who knows what he thinks he'll be able to get up to under his cloak of smoke? Sowing confusion's one of the best strategies left open to him.
Unlike the UN, 'final' means final to Tony.
Saddam Hussein is to be given a 'final and non-negotiable' list of weapons he must destroy or account for within six days to prevent a devastating onslaught from American and British forces. In a stark outline of the endgame for Iraq, Britain and the US are to publish a set of disarmament 'trip-points' detailing specific weapons in his arsenal that the United Nations has listed in a private report to the Security Council circulated this weekend. Lessee: Monday is the 10th, 10 + 6 = the, um, ...
With the international community seemingly split on whether the Iraqi dictator should be given more time to comply with resolution 1441, British officials told The Observer that the targets would be based on the UN report by Hans Blix, the head of the weapons inspectors. I might slip a few other things into the list. How about, for starters, every mobile lab in Iraq?
Tony Blair hopes that by relying on evidence supplied by the UN itself to push through the vital second resolution on war, Britain and America will avoid accusations that they will act against Iraq whatever the UN says. He also wants to head off a growing rebellion of backbench MPs and the threat of resignation by up to 30 Ministers if no second resolution is achieved. The backbench rebellion is a real concern; the Ministers? Be gone with them.
Last night a number of junior Ministers were named as being ready to resign if there was no second resolution. Anne Campbell, Parliamentary Private Secretary to Patricia Hewitt, the Trade Secretary, Andy Reed, aide to Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, and Michael Jabez Foster, who works for Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, have all said they would consider their position. More than 200 backbench MPs are also likely to rebel if a vote is taken in the Commons on conflict with Iraq without a second resolution.
Make a list, check it twice. Things are going to look different when this part of the game is over...
'What we are going to do is give Saddam a clear ultimatum,' said a senior Downing Street figure. 'What we want to do in the next few days is express clearly what he has to do.' Number 10 said that the process of fortnightly reports by Blix had now run its course and that it was time for the Security Council to come to a decision. That time was here months ago, but okay.
'We believe the Blix process is now complete,' the Prime Minister's official spokesman said. 'There is not full and immediate compliance [by Iraq]. We want to emphasise that this can still be resolved peacefully if Saddam Hussein decides to disarm. He is only going to make that decision if he believes that this time it is really different.'
Had it been me writing it up, the ultimatum would have included Sammy and Sons, Inc., stepping down and moving to France...
It was clear last night that the international community was facing the final make or break week on Iraq. In a desperate plea for more time, France said yesterday it would not support the resolution and made an official appeal for a summit of world leaders to discuss the looming conflict. Russia also said it was opposed to any resolution that 'authorised war'. Does this mean that Putin won't veto if the resolution doesn't explicitly authorize war? Hmmmm ...
The position of the two permanent members of the Security Council, which both have the power of the veto, is supported by Germany and upcoming target Syria. Britain and America's position was supported yesterday by Spain and Bulgaria. The British and US 'trip points' will be based on a summary draft of Blix's UN report circulated by Number 10 yesterday. The document demands that Saddam:
accounts for Iraq's al-Hussein missile system and 50 Scud Bs which the UN says 'may have been retained for a proscribed missile force';
explains the illegal import of 131 Volga engines for its al-Samoud 2 missile system and why Unmovic, the UN inspections team, had later found 231 engines and documentation for a further 150; Four hundred missiles? They could carry enough anthrax to Kuwait to raise a stir.
accounts for and destroys 550 mustard gas shells and 350 R-400 bombs, which are capable of carrying chemical and biological weapons, which are still outstanding;
reveals the whereabouts of 80 tonnes of mustard gas as well as VX, Sarin and Soman gas. This doesn't go far enough, but Blixie really hurt us on Friday.
It is likely that the resolution will be voted on by the middle of this week. If Britain and America succeed in getting the nine votes needed to pass the resolution then Saddam would have until 17 March to comply. If he did not do so military conflict would begin soon after. If the resolution is passed Government sources said that the Commons would be given a vote on the issue with a possible emergency recall of Parliament next weekend.
This puts Sammy in the position of having to please Tony and G.W., rather than Blix. That's where he should have been from the first...
Downing Street was bullish last night about the chances of getting the required nine votes to pass the resolution. Sources close to Blair said that all the diplomatic effort would be aimed at persuading the key 'middle six' countries — Pakistan, Angola, Cameroon, Guinea, Mexico and Chile — to support the resolution.
By now, most of the U.S. finds the whole subject tedious and arcane and wants to get the thing under way. This is for the British...
An ICM poll for the News of the World today shows that 68 per cent of the public now back military action, with only 22 per cent opposed. Nearly 80 per cent of those who supported action said that there should be a second resolution. There's the money paragraph. We're doing this for Tony.
And Dr Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Today programme that Saddam had to demonstrate a 'dramatic' change in attitude. 'Clearly the ball is very much in Iraq's court,' ElBaradei said. 'I hope that Iraq understands that they need to have a dramatic change in their attitude to demonstrate to the international community that they are fully, actively co-operating in providing evidence that they do not have chemical and biological weapons.' Looks like the 17th, unless Sammy pulls a rabbit out of his hat.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2003 07:31 am ||
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Saddam will throw Blixie a bone and The frogs will say"See the inspections are working".
Everybody knows Blixie/Bairadae are either incomptant or have thier own agenda.
We also know the only reason Saddam gives up even 1 weapon is because of American/British weapons pointed at his head.
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte yesterday urged the leader of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front to surrender and face charges over last weekâs airport bomb attack that killed 21 people in this southern city. Duterte, appointed by President Gloria Arroyo as the âcrisis managerâ to solve the crime, said there were indications that MILF chief Hashim Salamat and his lieutenants ordered the attack. âI believe that Hashim Salamat is a decent man but I would insist that charges be filed and warrants issued against them,â Duterte said over local radio. âProve to us that you are not involved. Just surrender the bombers.â I think he's proven he's not what you'd call a "decent man," but I'm sure Duterte's being polite...
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu on Saturday said rebel leaders have gone into hiding, but denied the attack was the handiwork of the 12,500-strong guerrilla force. Are events with MILF finally coming to a head?
Authorities said one of the victims in the explosion was the MILF bomber, who planted the explosives contained in a bag in a crowded waiting shed at the Davao International Airport. Duterte said two weeks prior to the bombing last Tuesday, he received intelligence reports of a MILF terrorist attack in the city. He said he tried to contact Salamat through the rebel chiefâs nephew, Datu Ibrahim Paglas, in nearby Cotabato but was told he was out of the country. In Pakistan? Or in Soddy Arabia?
The mayor said he then went to Manila and urged âhigher upsâ including Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes, Interior Secretary Jose Lina and national police chief Hermogenes Ebdane to cease talks with the MILF and impose martial law in the south. âTwo weeks ago I raised the alarm to [the Manila government] that there is a movement in Davao that cannot be controlled,â Duterte said. I don't think he was the only one who saw it coming, either... Military southern command chief Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya on Saturday said a joint police-military task force was ready to arrest the MILF leaders but warned of retaliatory attacks. âWe expect there will be additional terrorism but we will respond to it. We will stop the terrorists from further harming the people,â Abaya said. Dire Revenge® is to be expected...
Apart from Salamat and Kabalu, those included in the charge sheet were MILF chief negotiator Ghadzali Jaafar and military chief Muhammad Murad.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 11:38 am ||
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Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a seat in parliament Sunday, a crucial victory that paves the way for him to become prime minister and strengthens his hand toward uniting the government on allowing in U.S. troops for an Iraq war. The charismatic Erdogan — already the nation's de facto leader — has advocated the U.S. troop deployment in Turkey, and analysts say one of his first moves as premier could be to purge ministers who oppose it.
Prime Minister Abdullah Gul is expected to resign Wednesday to make way for Erdogan to take over the government, after Erdogan's Justice and Development Party overwhelmingly won balloting in the southern town of Siirt. Town officials said Justice captured 84.7 percent of the final vote count. It was unclear when parliament would be ready to take up a new resolution on U.S. troop deployment, after lawmakers failed to approve a resolution last week. Turkish media say a vote could come as early as Thursday, but members of the Justice Party said it could be two weeks before a new government is in place.
Erdogan's election was likely to end some of the confusion within the Turkish government. Gul is head of the administration, but the Erdogan leads the ruling party and is widely regarded as the power behind the scenes. It was Erdogan whom President Bush invited to the White House after Turkey's national elections in November. Some analysts say those muddled lines of authority contributed to the failure of the resolution last week by a mere four votes in the 550-seat parliament — despite Justice's huge majority of 362 seats. Erdogan had been barred from running in November national elections because of a conviction for inciting religious hatred over a poem he read at a rally in Siirt, 60 miles north of the Iraqi border.
Justice lawmakers changed the constitution after the national vote to allow Erdogan to run for office Sunday. "In the November elections, the person who was the prime minister in our hearts was not able to become a deputy. This week this mistake, this shame is being rectified," said Deputy Prime Minister Ertugrul Yalcinbayir. The vote comes as Washington pressures Turkey to allow in U.S. combat troops to open a northern front against neighboring Iraq in a possible war. Ships carrying equipment for the soldiers are already off the Turkish coast, and it was unclear how long Washington could wait for a Turkish decision. Erdogan has hinted he will soon resubmit a troop deployment motion. Although the Turkish public is overwhelmingly against a war, Erdogan urged legislators after the failed vote to act "not to satisfy their daily emotions but toward the country's future."
Rebuffing the United States risks straining ties with Washington and losing a say in the future of neighboring Iraq â as well as a $15 billion U.S. aid package offered in exchange for hosting U.S. troops. "Recep Tayyip Erdogan's test in Siirt will determine the fate of the motion," Enis Berberoglu wrote in the Hurriyet newspaper. "If a result that pleases the (Justice party) emerges from the elections, then Erdogan's hand will be strengthened." The newspaper reported Saturday that Erdogan plans to sack four ministers who opposed the deployment, reducing the number of ministers from 24 to 20.
During Gul's premiership, Erdogan strongly influenced policy, and Cabinet ministers — including Gul — often consulted Erdogan after key meetings. Although Erdogan urged legislators to vote for the first failed resolution, his words are likely to have a stronger impact once he is in office. "It is one thing to run a government by remote control and another to sit in the prime minister's seat," said Ilnur Cevik, editor in chief of the Turkish Daily News. "Gul knew he was a transition prime minister and exerting your will on the party is very hard if you are a lame duck prime minister." The Siirt by-elections were scheduled after Turkey's election board ruled that a ballot box there had been tampered with during the national vote.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/09/2003 05:09 pm ||
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This is a longish Washington Post article on KSM -- well worth a read
On the eve of his capture last weekend, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, al Qaeda's deadliest operator, took a commercial flight from the Pakistani city of Quetta to Islamabad, the capital, according to Pakistani investigators. Even with the breath of his enemy on his neck, Mohammed couldn't tolerate an arduous trek by car. With signature audacity, he hopped a plane.
Hope he enjoyed his flight to Bagram...
The self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was apparently convinced that the groomed man with a receding hairline pictured on FBI wanted posters bore no resemblance to the overweight, tangle-haired man he had become. But Mohammed had been under 24-hour surveillance for several days, according to Pakistani intelligence sources, and as he made the 430-mile flight to Islamabad, four agents of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency sat elsewhere on the plane. This section describes how we fumbled a chance to capture him in 1996. The writers seem to think that KSM wasn't directly a part of al-Q. at that time. However, he was already a terrorist and was on the run from an op gone bad in the Phillipines Mohammed fled to Qatar in 1996. The FBI soon learned of his presence there, and the Clinton administration sought to arrange an operation to arrest Mohammed and fly him to prison in the United States. When the CIA reported that it did not have the necessary officers or agents in Qatar, a Pentagon plan involving U.S. Special Forces was put before a meeting of the National Security Council's Deputies Committee, a panel of officials just below Cabinet rank, according to former officials involved in the discussions.
At the time, however, Bahrain and Qatar had been feuding over disputed islands in the Persian Gulf. Because the Pentagon plan involved sending a small attack force by helicopter from Bahrain into Qatar, administration officials feared the Qataris might mistake the U.S operation for a Bahraini attack. Officials decided that the risk of triggering a war between the two countries — and of scuttling an important defense basing agreement being negotiated with Qatar — was too great. As a result, the administration asked Qatar's foreign minister to have Mohammed turned over to the United States. According to former officials of the U.S. and Qatari governments, the foreign minister informed Interior Minister Abdullah bin Khalida Thani, a member of the Qatari royal family and an Islamic fundamentalist who allowed Mohammed and a group of Arabs traveling with him to stay at his large farm outside Doha. Thani, sources said, tipped off Mohammed and his group and helped them flee. The FBI and U.S. diplomats protested, but they lost their chance to get Mohammed.
That's one of those favors we'll remember for a long time.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
03/09/2003 09:18 am ||
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"Quetta"? Few people know it, but KSM is a Balochi. Musharaf's PML-Q shares power in that province with the MMA, which is controlled by the JI, which has now been caught harboring four al-Qaeda terrorists. In spite of the JI denials, all four residences were armed safe-houses, and shots were fire at security forces in two occasions. JI jihadis, such as Qazi and Kurshid Ahmad can't deny that their "Million March" of last Monday, was a sea of posters of Osama bin Laden. In spite of this harborage, an enormous transfer of federal funds to the MMA's terror base - North West Frontier Province - was announced on Thursday. A high percentage of those funds is pooled from American aid money. The White House, which has links (including State Dept consultation arrangements) with the JI's American fronts - ISNA, ICNA, IANA, MSA - has downplayed the JI-al-Qaeda links. Front-page in totalitarian Pakistan; spiked in free-press America. George Washington is rolling in his grave over this atrocity.
Seymour Hersh is already on the Bush administration's case for the President's alliances with terror. Can't wait for his book.
North Korea test-fired a missile into the sea off its east coast on Monday, South Korea's Defense Ministry said.
There had been indications that North Korea was planning to fire a missile. The Pentagon had earlier cited a North Korean warning to ships to stay out of a sector of the Sea of Japan from Saturday to Tuesday.
Maj. Kim Ki-Beom, a spokesman at the Defense Ministry, said the missile was believed to be an anti-ship missile similar to one that North Korea test-fired on Feb. 24. That launch came on the eve of the inauguration of South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and amid escalating tensions over Pyongyang's refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons programs.
In Tokyo, the chief of Japan's Defense Agency, Shigeru Ishiba, said the missile didn't appear to target Japan. Well that seems like an odd journalistic silly question. It was an Anti-Ship Missle, not an anti-island archipeligo missle.
"We don't think this will have any significant impact on our national safety, but we are monitoring it closely," he told a parliamentary session.Dial 1-800-Raytheon for your nearest Patriot anti-missle system distributor.
Meanwhile, South Korea was trying to determine whether the new test was successful. It had said the earlier one was a failure it appeared to have exploded in midair due to defects.
U.S. officials had sought to minimize the significance of the earlier missile test, saying it involved a small weapon and not one of North Korea's stockpile of long-range ballistic missiles.
North Korea has repeatedly accused the United States of plotting an attack, and says its military maneuvers are defensive.
The nuclear dispute flared in October, when U.S. officials said Pyongyang admitted having a covert nuclear program in violation of a 1994 deal. Washington and its allies suspended fuel shipments; the North retaliated by expelling U.N. monitors, withdrawing from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and restarting a nuclear reactor.
Congratulations boys, you hit the ocean. You do realize of course that lurking just under the surface of that very same ocean is atleast two United States Navy Nuclear Ballistic Submarines, just watching and waiting for the chance to shoot back, right?
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/09/2003 11:26 pm ||
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The chief of the Russian Security Council believes that almost all conditions for a successful constitutional referendum have been created in Chechnya. Vladimir Rushailo spoke in Grozny on Friday after a session that addressed ways to revive the republic's economy and create more jobs in addition to security issues and the preparations for the referendum. Biggest step would be to kill Basayev and Maskhadov...
Officials from the Security Council, the Chechen administration and the government took part. "Primarily, our focus was on public security and how to ensure it both during the referendum and after it," he said. Rushailo noted that all district administration officials expressed confidence that the referendum will be a success. The official recalled that he was sent to Grozny by the president to check up on the progress to normalize the situation in Chechnya. I hope they're not being over-confident. The jihadis are going to turn themselves inside-out to make the referendum a bloody fiasco...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 11:19 am ||
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Iran said Sunday it will take "necessary measures" if Argentina does not correct its "mistake" over arrest warrants issued against some 20 Iranian officials in connection with a deadly 1994 bombing. "If the information concerning the arrest warrents is true, the Argentine government should make up for this mistake, otherwise the Islamic Republic will take necessary measures in this regard," state media quoted foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi as saying. What're you gonna do? Bomb them?
Asefi Sunday accused Iran's arch foe Israel of being behind the "baseless allegations. There has been no convincing proof of Iran's involvement in that incident, and we have repeatedly said that these rumours and reports are made up by Zionist circles." "Yeah! All the witnesses are dead!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/09/2003 11:06 am ||
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If Argentina has any cojones, they'll round up all Iranians (and assorted hanger-ons) arrest the culpable that may still be around, and deport the rest. looks like Iran - under the current regime - doesn't want diplomatic ties. That can change when the regime changes ...in a couple months I believe
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2003 11:27 Comments ||
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If I were an Argentinian, I would not take kindly to threats by Iran. However, this statement by Iran is one more bit of rope for their self hanging. I think Iran is starting to feel the heat of this Iraq thing.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/09/2003 14:25 Comments ||
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Among the many American and British engineers who have worked in Iraq, there must be present-day men of the courage and imagination of Major Bagnold involved the affairs unfolding in the Middle East.
Ralph A. Bagnold (1896-1990) had an innate curiosity and inventivenessas a young boy that was encouraged by his father, a British Army RoyalEngineer. Young Bagnold followed a family tradition when... became an officer in the British Army Royal Engineers. He spent three years in the deadly trenches in France, after which he utilized a special militaryeducational leave program to study engineering at Cambridge University,receiving an honors degree in 1921 and returning to active duty with the army.It was a life-long yearning to explore the unknown that led him and his associates, during the period between World War I and World War II when he was stationed in Cairo and later in India, to explore the desert. Using vacation leave periods and personal vehicles, he and his colleagues drove thousands of kilometers in Trans-Jordan, in the Sinai, and in that part of the northeast Sahara known as the Libyan Desert. The sizes and striking geometry and symmetry of the desert sand dunes together with the vastness of the great sand sheets stimulated his desire tounderstand their origin and evolution, i.e. to understand the processes by which sand is moved by the wind.
His deep sense of curiosity, combined with his sound background in basic physics and mathematics and his inventiveness, resulted in his building and instrumenting wind tunnels and running experiments with them in the laboratory and in the field. These experiments and his careful field observations led to his classic, "The Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes," completed in 1939 and published in 1941. He was recalled to active duty as a Signals Officer as war in Europe erupted in 1939; He was soon reassigned to Egypt. Concerned about the vast unprotected desert flank west and south of Cairo, Bagnold proposed to General Sir Archibald Wavell, Commander in Chief of Middle East Land Forces, the establishment of a small organization equipped with desert-worthy vehicles that clandestinely could observe enemy vehicular traffic along the coast road in northern Libya and Egypt and could attack remote desert outposts andairfields southward. As Bagnold remarked to Wavell, "How about some piracy on the high desert?"
Wavell's response was immediate and positive, and thus was born the Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) that very effectively put to use the knowledge and experience that Bagnold and his colleagues had accumulated during their earlier travels and that utilized the techniques andknowledge that they had developed, among them the sun compass and a closed cooling system for their vehicles. The LRDG (the forerunner to the SAS)
very effectively tied down significant Italian and German militaryresources that otherwise would have been available to use against the British farther north and,through their "road watches," provided invaluable information of movements of enemy troops and material east and west along the coast road in Egypt and Libya. After the war, Bagnold continued his interest in the movement of sand, expanding his research toinclude water-borne sand. Through the influence of his good friend Luna B. Leopold, he was supported in much of this work by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Posted by: George H. Beckwith ||
03/09/2003 04:59 pm ||
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North Korea would launch a ballistic missile attack on the United States if Washington made a pre-emptive strike against the communist state's nuclear facility, the man described as Pyongyang's "unofficial spokesman" claimed yesterday. Kim Myong-chol, who has links to the Stalinist regime, told reporters in Tokyo that a US strike on the nuclear facility at Yongbyon "means nuclear war". "If American forces carry out a pre-emptive strike on the Yongbyon facility, North Korea will immediately target, carry the war to the US mainland," he said, adding that New York, Washington and Chicago would be "aflame".
Posted by: Oki ||
03/09/2003 11:39 am ||
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I alternate between thinking we should totally shun these idiots and thinking we should unilaterally wipe them off the planet. Perhaps we should just announce a five-year schedule for pulling out of South Korea and let South Korea and Japan work this out. It's yet another unfinished U.N. war with us taking the heat... maybe France and Jimmy Carter should handle this one.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/09/2003 11:33 Comments ||
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Their rhetoric is putting them into the position of a threat that we can't ignore. It's been possible to note it and not react, but it looks like they're trying really hard to cross the line. We ignored Binny's declaration of war, too, and we saw what it got us.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2003 11:52 Comments ||
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I'd be inclined to ignore them, but I don't want to shaft Japan. Kozuimi is already in dire straits.
Posted by: Brian ||
03/09/2003 12:36 Comments ||
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That's right Fred. Given rhetoric like this, they better have the sense not to aim their missile tests in our direction. Or else they better hope the guy with the finger on the button understands the North Korean dialect.
I still think this is China's pet project though. They picked a perfect time to stick it to the US, and without much effort at that.
Posted by: Jon ||
03/09/2003 16:52 Comments ||
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We are playing the NK card about as right as we can. NK wants to parley directly with US. US sez lets have a block meeting. NK ups the rhetoric. US maintains course, hoping NK craters. The question is, will NK go over the line in some kind of provication. And that, ladies and gentlemen is the big question. Stay the course, but plan on an incident. If we do not get one this week, we may get one on I-day.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/09/2003 17:30 Comments ||
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Bush and team have decided in relation to North Korea that time is on our side. The NKors could collapse at any time. So, the Bush Team has decided to say 'Crisis, what crisis?' whenever NKor is brought up. If necessary, add 'boys will be boys' to the latest provocation. The Bush Team is implementing a brilliant strategy of "Don't just stand there, do nothing". This is bringing the SKors and Japan around. We also say that NKor is China's ally and they should handle the problem, while we cut off all our aid, food and oil going into NKor. We string NKor along, while cutting them off and they won't be able to do anything, even if they wanted.
Swarms of rebels attacked French troops and villages near a key river crossing in western Ivory Coast today, causing hundreds of terrified residents to flee. Automatic gunfire could be heard coming from west of Guessabo after the French army said the rebels tried to break through to the main highway between Duekoue and Daloa, a key cocoa city. "Since dawn, there have been numerous clashes with armed elements trying to break through between Duekoue and Dibobly, which is by the Sassandra River," said French army spokesman Philippe Perret.
Fighting in the lush, cocoa-rich west of the former French colony, near the border with Liberia, has become increasingly chaotic as rebel groups, Liberian mercenaries fighting on both sides and ethnic militias have formed groups to loot and kill. Heavy fighting broke out in the western town of Bangolo on Friday, north of French positions at Duekoue. Rebels said many civilians were killed in an attack that they repulsed. Ivory Coast's army said it was not behind the attack. sounds like everyone's trying to get the upper hand at the "peace" table — nice Rooters scare quotes, huh?
Civilians are always so much easier to kill than the guys with the guns, aren't they?
About 3,000 French troops are in Ivory Coast to protect the remaining French citizens and to police a shaky cease-fire line. The French army in the west said it took seven hours to beat back the rebel attacks.
Perhaps Jacques and Dominique should consider sending some air support?
"It is urgent that the international community helps Ivory Coast put an end to the disorder in the west of the country," said Jules Yao Yaoa, a spokesman for Ivory Coast's army. "We must, above all, stop what is starting to look like the shifting of Liberia's own conflict onto Ivorian territory and the risk of tribal war." where in Africa isn't there a risk of tribal war?...jeez
But there's always carnage if Charles Taylor's involved. Add in a few turbans and the situation's worse. I think we've pretty well established by now that the "international community" isn't going to do squat for anybody that doesn't involve passing gas...
Civil war broke out in the world's leading cocoa-growing nation after a failed coup in September. Several thousand people have died since then, and more than a million people have fled to other countries or to safer areas of Ivory Coast. Months of talks have failed to stop the fighting, despite a truce signed in October by the main rebel faction, the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast, and another truce signed in January by the two rebel groups in the western part of the country. The meeting in Ghana brought together all 10 parties to a French-brokered deal reached in late January. Another of Dominique's "triumphs of diplomacy"
The three rebel groups and seven political parties, including President Laurent Gbagbo's ruling Ivorian Popular Front, removed some of the obstacles to implementing that earlier accord. The parties agreed to the creation of a National Security Council made up of one representative for each of the 10 signatories, the army, the paramilitary gendarmerie and the police force, as well as Gbagbo and Prime Minister Seydou Diarra. "We hope that for once everybody can respect their undertakings. This is the key for a true peace," said Guillaume Soro, leader of the Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast.
Figger the odds on that happening, buddy...
The council will nominate the ministers of defense and security, but Gbagbo will make the final decision. The parties agreed that Gbagbo would delegate some executive authority to Diarra, who will head a transitional government until elections that are due in 2005.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2003 08:52 am ||
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Refresh my recollection. What UN resolution are the French troops enforcing?
Posted by: Matt ||
03/09/2003 8:22 Comments ||
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The Frenchies are demonstrating that if you actually want to do something, don't bother going through the UN. I think they're also exposing their troops without having heavy air support for them. But I don't think they've caught on to the combined arms concept...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/09/2003 10:06 Comments ||
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#3
"Indochine, Part Deux"
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg ||
03/09/2003 11:46 Comments ||
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Matt The applicable UN resolution is 1464 dated Feb 4, 2003.
But I believe the French troops went in prior to that date. Permission postdated.
Posted by: john ||
03/09/2003 12:26 Comments ||
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John, typical for the UN, if you have any (personal) security settings (i.e.: firewall) you can't view that document...ironic, huh?
You know Fred, if the French ever got that piece of crap, the De Gaulle, seaworthy, they could launch air support from the gulf ...simplisme, non?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2003 12:31 Comments ||
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Frank, that link is supposed to open up the .pdf document. May not work as a direct link, sorry.
Try this one
http://www.un.org/Docs/scres/2003/sc2003.htm
Posted by: john ||
03/09/2003 12:41 Comments ||
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#7
Refresh my memory: why didn't France, Russia and China veto a resolution that authorizes the use of force before exploring in full all peaceful alternatives?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2003 13:02 Comments ||
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#9
"Permission postdated", huh? Wonder if in a year or two, thousands of newly-freed, highly pissed-off Iraqis will descend upon the U.N. and demand 'perm-post' for the American invasion that liberated them?
God, I hope we instill into the Iraqi civilians just who it was that freed them and who it was that was willing to let them rot away under Saddam.
Posted by: eric ||
03/09/2003 22:01 Comments ||
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#10
"It is urgent that the international community helps Ivory Coast"
Help the French!
I don't think so,this guy needs to lay-off the African black hash.
Opionion in the New York Times, by Jimmy Carter
Profound changes have been taking place in American foreign policy, reversing consistent bipartisan commitments that for more than two centuries have earned our nation greatness. These commitments have been predicated on basic religious principles, respect for international law, and alliances that resulted in wise decisions and mutual restraint. Our apparent determination to launch a war against Iraq, without international support, is a violation of these premises. Sorry to disturb your nap sir, but we do have international support, Shall we go through the manila folder again? UK, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechlosovalia, I'll keep the list short for brevity sake, but you get my point. (current count is at 40 nations on our side)
As a Christian and as a president who was severely provoked by international crises most of which he walked blindly into by trying to be "nice", I became thoroughly familiar with the principles of a just war having not decided even once during my tenure as president that there was any justification for war, and it is clear that a substantially unilateral Again, "uni" means one. please refer to the previous abreviated list.
attack on Iraq does not meet these standards. This is an almost universal conviction of religious leaders, with the most notable exception of a few spokesmen of the Southern Baptist Convention who are greatly influenced by their commitment to Israel based on eschatological, or final days, theology. Oops, thats a dead givaway. "except for people who know "Jews", have visited the holocaust museum, or actually know any "Jews", everyones against the war." I think your white sheet is showing, sir.
For a war to be just, it must meet several clearly defined criteria. Please forward this list back in time to President Lincoln. He'll be sure to stop the Civil War once het gets this list.
The war can be waged only as a last resort, with all nonviolent options exhausted. Translation, wait until there are dead in your streets. Please designate which American city should be sacrificed and the exact number of dead sufficient for it to be called "an attack". It seems to "brother Jim" that 3000 dead is not just not enough.
In the case of Iraq, it is obvious that clear alternatives to war exist. True, but the little bastard Saddam wont sit still long enough for us to shoot him in the head, and besides, since you passed that little law removing the ability for the CIA to assassinate people, its a little harder than it was before. Thanks a bunch pal!
These options — previously proposed by our own leaders and approved by the United Nations — were outlined again by the Security Council on Friday. But now, with our own national security not directly threatened and despite the overwhelming opposition of most people and governments in the world, the United States seems determined to carry out military and diplomatic action that is almost unprecedented in the history of civilized nations. He says this as if the President of the United States just woke up one day, cut himself shaving and said " get me Rumsfeld on the phone!, were going after Iraq" — Get it through your head Jimmy, We are at war. We didnt pick the fight, they brought it to us. They started it, but we are sure as hell going to finish it.
The first stage of our widely publicized war plan is to launch 3,000 bombs and missiles on a relatively defenseless Iraqi population Jim -The US is the first country in history to spend BILLIONS of dollars creating weapons with LESS distructive power. Our purpose is NOT to kill civilians. Will they get killed? Almost certainly, but the current landlord of the people of Iraq thinks its a real knee slapper to put civilians into military targets, just so he can cry to the cameras about how we massacred them. I'm sorry it happens, but to say that its our purpose to kill and maim non combatants, is just slanderous.
within the first few hours of an invasion, with the purpose of so damaging and demoralizing the people that they will change their obnoxious leader, who will most likely be hidden and safe during the bombardment. Betcha 10 bucks he goes down in the first 10 minutes of the show. Betcha 20 bucks the same people complaining today about "the people of iraq" getting hurt, will be the first to say it was our fault in the first place after its all over.
The war's weapons must discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. Check. Please send me your pamphlet on "water being wet" and "food is good for you"
Extensive aerial bombardment, even with precise accuracy, inevitably results in "collateral damage." and your point is? are you arguing that unless we can be 100% certain that the ACME bomb corporation produces weapons that will only kill their intended target, we should never take up arms? Tell me Jim, How discriminating was the nuclear sumbarine you served on during the 1960's?
That souonds like a statement that aerial bombardment should never, ever, be used, to make sure no baby ducks, puppies, or kittens are killed...
Gen. Tommy R. Franks, commander of American forces in the Persian Gulf, has expressed concern about many of the military targets being near hospitals, schools, mosques and private homes. again, and your point is? of course hes concerned you ninny, hes a good and moral man, and hes got one hell of a job to do. If you are a christian as you say you are(every 20 seconds by my count), pray for the man - he could use the help right now, and not your tin whistle backbiting crap.
Its violence must be proportional to the injury we have suffered. translation: Screw the iraqi people, they are just little brown people of the middle east, what right do we have to liberate them from this horror. Why should white bread Americans from middle america get themselves killed for 3rd world backward savages. Answer: if you want to stop Terrorism, you have to cut out its breeding ground, that breeding ground is not "poverty" dickweed, it's totalitarian governments that crush their people and use Israel as a scapegoat to stay in power. Iraq is just the first one on the list to be "converted".
Despite Saddam Hussein's other serious crimes, American efforts to tie Iraq to the 9/11 terrorist attacks have been unconvincing. Only to those who dont want to see a proof in the first place. In the second world war, the first country the United States invaded after being attacked was Morocco. What did they have to do with "pearl harbor"? Nnothing. Why did we attack them? Because they were in the way, because it was essential to our larger strategy for us to have the area occupied by that country at our service in the furtherance of our long term goal. Isn't that enough? The same applies to Iraq: it's in the way, we need it to do other work, and it fits our bigger strategy of wiping out the places where terror lives. If thats not enough reason, how bout this: Who funds Hamas? Who funds Islamic Jihad? how do weapons, funding and supplies get shipped to the west bank? thats right kids, right through Iraq.
The attackers must have legitimate authority sanctioned by the society they profess to represent. The unanimous vote of approval in the Security Council to eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction can still be honored, but our announced goals are now to achieve regime change and to establish a Pax Americana in the region, perhaps occupying the ethnically divided country for as long as a decade. For these objectives, we do not have international authority. France announced on Friday that there were absolutely no circumstances that they would ever support war against Iraq, which in my mind is just a step away from saying that they have entered into a mutual protection treaty with Iraq. Do we need to ask permission of the French, who have masssive monetary interests in the country and who have suppling the armys or Iraq, if we can go in and attack Iraq?
Other members of the Security Council have so far resisted the enormous economic and political influence that is being exerted from Washington, and we are faced with the possibility of either a failure to get the necessary votes or else a veto from Russia, France and China. Although Turkey may still be enticed into helping us by enormous financial rewards and partial future control of the Kurds and oil in northern Iraq, its democratic Parliament has at least added its voice to the worldwide expressions of concern. I love what the man says here, he makes it sound that the only way that anyone could possibly agree to get rid of saddam is if they are paid off. How very nice. How very condesending. How very European.
The peace it establishes must be a clear improvement over what exists. And do pray tell, how could anything be worse? Although there are visions of peace and democracy in Iraq, it is quite possible that the aftermath of a military invasion will destabilize Its stable? Based on what metric?
the region and prompt terrorists to further jeopardize our security at home. so, we shouldnt attack people who hate us and kill us, because they might get mad at us and kill us some more? So, if we left them alone, they would all go back to playing shuffleboard?
Also, by defying overwhelming world opposition, the United States will undermine the United Nations as a viable institution for world peace. Jim, the United Nations didnt exactly get our hostages back for you did they? They didnt exactly help you get the Russians out of Afghanistan, did they? The didnt put a stop to Pol Pot did they (and for that matter neither did you) They didnt stop half of Africa from trying to kill the other half in the 1990's, did they? Did it stop the Argentines from invading the Falklands? Stop the English from kicking the snot of the Argentines for doing it? Stop Saddam from invading Kuwait the first time? Stop Iraq and Iran from fighting for 10 YEARS!? They didnt stop India and Pakistan from getting the bomb, did they? They didnt stop the Palestinians and the Syrians from turning the formerly lovely country of Lebanon into a cesspool did they? so whats the score here?, War, Famine and Pestilance have all occured under the watchful protection of the UN. But if the US picks up a big stick to actually possibly maybe give some people a chance to live in peace, THAT has just got to be stopped right away. Jim's approach seems to be that status quo is good, change is bad.
What about America's world standing if we don't go to war after such a great deployment of military forces in the region? The heartfelt sympathy and friendship offered to America after the 9/11 attacks, a medical condition known as known as 'crocodile tears'
even from formerly antagonistic regimes, has been largely dissipated; increasingly unilateral and domineering policies have brought international trust in our country to its lowest level in memory. Not exactly, Jimbo, I do remember what the world thought of us when you were running the show. it was pretty low then.
American stature will surely decline further if we launch a war in clear defiance of the United Nations. Will it be our stature or the UN's that will fall?
But to use the presence and threat of our military power to force Iraq's compliance with all United Nations resolutions â with war as a final option â will enhance our status as a champion of peace and justice.
Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, is chairman of the Carter Center in Atlanta and winner of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Peace Prize Currently known as the 'badge of the incompetant', and held by a dicredited former one term president and Head of a Terrorist organization.
Once upon a time, it was considered distasteful and disrespectful for former presidents to speak publically about current affairs and to take sides against the current president. I guess it just goes to show you how low some people will go,and what the true nature of the character in some individuals really is.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/09/2003 08:33 am ||
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Jimmy has long since lost any right to speak about defending America...and you're right Frank, beyond the Sadat-Begin peace deal he's shown a real antipathy for the Jeeewwwws. He's a good carpenter and should stick to building houses for the poor. It's a nice vocation, keeps him off the streets and out of dictator's PR campaigns. Does anybody who remembers the state of America in his presidency have anything but loathing for this poseur?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/09/2003 6:31 Comments ||
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Once the torture chambers are opened in Iraq, the world should force this terrorism apologist to see for himself what his policies would have perpetuated.
#3
Jimmy Carter has lost his way as an American. This little missive proves it. How awful it is for him to refuse to support our troops while they are getting ready to go to war, and refuse to back Bush in this difficult circumstance.
Mr. Carter has every right to express his opinion on the war, but it was my understanding, the debate ended in October and the requirement is that now all real Anericans must be quiet and support the actions of the troops and Bush; that anything less could conceivably place them in even greater danger and could damage their morale.
I don't know about anyone else, but I am going to be one vocal human being when this war is over for all the remarks, treasonous and overwise made against the war while our people were in forward deployment.
Please place this in my 'In' box for processing when Iraq is finally stablized. These irresponsible things said and written cry to be addressed.
#4
So being anti-war is also anti-semetic but the right thing to do? Unless France says the war is OK but bombing is not allowed cause we might hurt someone?
I need my meds
Posted by: john ||
03/09/2003 12:37 Comments ||
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Nice Fisking, Frank. Of course when every single sentence and paragraph are nothing but party line boilerplate it's a pretty easy job.
#8
Paul, please don't do that, I need you in the Ivory Coast! (see above).
Frank, nice Fisking, almost a turkey-shoot but someone's got to do it. Maybe Fred will get an Instalanche for your good work.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2003 15:01 Comments ||
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I have to say I go into sidewinder mode at the mere sound of this former presidents voice. If he was just talking about the presidents stand on bakery subsidies, Im not sure I'd get so exercised, but what really flips me out is that in a time of war, he decides to help discredit the president of HIS OWN COUNTRY. Is he entitled to his opinion? sure he is, but does he have a duty to make sure its not used to further the aims of the enemies of this country, you betcha.
I would say that most of the stuff I used is really "condensed cream of denbeste", but some of it is also based on the not-so-fond memories of living through the 1976-1979 years.
Believe me, there are days when I'm convinced that his brother Billy Carter was really the smarter of Mrs. Lillians' sons.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/09/2003 18:20 Comments ||
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Hmm, don't all of Mr. Carter's arguments against an attack on Iraq also apply to his failed attack on Iran? There was no UN resolution that I recall that authorized military action. And Carter's fiasco in the desert had far less international support than any action proposed by Mr. Bush.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
03/09/2003 18:28 Comments ||
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#11
When Jimmuh got his Nobel, someone in the Blogosphere (can't remember who, it was someone with a MUCH better eye for a nasty turn-of-phrase than myself) said that the Nobel Peace Prize now had all the credibility of a "Father of the Year" award from NAMBLA.
P.S.: For the uninitiated, NAMBLA does NOT mean "National Association of Marlon Brando Look-Alikes" ;-)
Posted by: the ghost of howard beale ||
03/09/2003 21:15 Comments ||
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Discussions in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, have resulted in an agreement to form a new government of reconciliation by 14 March. The breakthrough is a positive step but two key portfolios remain unallocated. Ministries of Looting and Pillaging.
The rebels have ceded their demand for the defence and interior ministries but, despite this, no-one could agree on who should have them. I'll take defense, Alaska Paul gets interior, and between the two of us we'll clean the varmints out.
Instead, a national security council has been set up, comprising of 15 representatives from all sides. It is proposed that rebels, politicians and members of the Ivorian security forces will jointly run the affairs of these ministries. That is, until they agree nominations for the posts by consensus. Unfortunately, such nominations are the very things that they have been unable to agree on for over five weeks.
Sounds like a recipe for bodies in the streets. Steve, that's actually a good idea. Maybe they should hire people from outside the country to run those two ministries...
The allocation of other ministries has yet to be announced. And although those meeting in Accra have agreed to forming a government, there remains one key obstacle to their success — the Ivorian President, Laurent Gbagbo has insisted on having the final say over the composition of a new government. If he does not like the proposals, he might reject them. Especially if it means his head.
Well, he is the one who's supposed to be in charge. And he was elected...
Meanwhile, the talks have been further overshadowed by fresh fighting in Ivory Coast. On Friday night the rebels claim to have been attacked by government forces in the town of Bongolo. And, on Saturday, the French troops monitoring the ceasefire in western Ivory Coast say that they have also come under attack in several key locations. So far, two French soldiers have been injured by the so called armed elements. Any of them surrender?
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2003 08:38 am ||
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Thx Fred. I can't speak for Paul, but I'd be happy to work for expenses and a small fee. I want some paramilitary CIA guys for personal security, and I'd want a brigade-sized unit (can mix US, Aussie, Brit, Canadian, Spanish, German, Dane, all okay with me) to crack a few heads and get started on training a real, professional Ivorian army. Air cover could be done by National Guard units with A-10s; be good training for them.
Now, where's Paul and what's his wish list? :-)
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/09/2003 14:55 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
