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Blair plans for war as UN is given 24 hours
Today's Headlines
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Afghanistan
Afghanistan will dump remaining Pak prisoners
Afghanistan will hand over all remaining Pakistani prisoners who were captured in the U.S.-led war that ousted the Taliban in late 2001, Pakistan's ambassador said Sunday. Ambassador Rustam Shah Mohmand said about 900 prisoners will be transferred to Pakistan, where they will be screened by authorities and likely released.
And how many will head back to Afghanland and jihad?
"This is a welcome decision although it has come late in the day," Mohmand told reporters in a press conference at the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul. "We believe this will pave the way for ... normalizing and improving relations with Afghanistan."
"Soon as we get our sphere of influence back, we're gonna be all set..."
No date was set was set for the transfer, but Afghan presidential spokesman Sayed Fazel Akbar said the process would likely begin next week.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 11:18 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  bet Musharraf is REAL happy to get these losers back
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 11:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Musharraf's excedrin headaches no. 3001 to 3901
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/16/2003 12:17 Comments || Top||

#3  These jihadis should be given a warning: return to Afghanistan to resume their little war and the next time they will go home in wooden boxes.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 03/16/2003 15:29 Comments || Top||

#4  ..Actually, Bomb-a-Rama is on the right track - these guys saw up close what trained people with 21st century weaponry can inflict on them once they're pissed enough. They may encourage others to go, but I have a feeling that they will be cleaning their turbans the next time somebody asks them to go a-Jihading.
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 03/16/2003 17:52 Comments || Top||

#5  Bomb-a-rama

Plastic bags are much cheaper

dorf
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 19:27 Comments || Top||

#6  what three things control the United states?
a bush
a dick
and colin.
Posted by: raptor || 03/17/2003 18:11 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Yemen hunts for al-Qaeda
Yemeni security forces launched last week a massive arrest campaign against al-Qaeda suspects in Ibb and Aden. The security arrested one al-Qaeda suspect in Ibb last Tuesday and over 20 others at different places in Aden. Reliable sources said that a suspect named al-Qasim was arrested in Ibb upon his return form a Gulf country. His family tried to get him released on bail but to no avail.

At the same time police in Aden arrested a number of people suspected of having links to al-Qaeda and Islamic Jihad. Among the arrestees were mosque preachers and religious personalities. Some of the arrestees were released but others are still in jail and have been charged with being affiliated to some terrorist networks.

Meanwhile, over 50 detainees in al-Hodeidah governorate appealed to President Ali Abdullah Saleh and human rights organizations requesting them to interfere and get them released or at least presented to court. They were arrested more than a year and a half ago upon the launch of the war against terrorism campaign. They complained that there was no legal justification for their imprisonment. According to official sources, there are currently 104 detainees in Yemeni prisons suspected of being members of al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 08:08 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Kuwaitis taking the prospect of war in stride
As talk of war intensifies in Kuwait, there is no rush to buy duct tape or gas masks, planning for weddings and other social events has largely continued and the manager of Kei, one of the more popular Japanese restaurants in town, says he does not foresee any interruption in the daily shipments of fresh fish.

For people whose country is preparing to serve as the staging ground for war, there is a remarkable degree of nonchalance among Kuwait's one million citizens. Many Kuwaitis give a we've-seen-this-before shrug when asked why they are not sealing off special rooms in their houses and filling them with water and nonperishable food, as some people in the United States have done. "I think we've become very desensitized," said Essa Saleh, general manager of a freight forwarding company, who says he hasn't bothered buying any equipment to ward off the effects of biological or chemical weapons.

Thirteen years ago, Kuwaitis were traumatized by an Iraqi invasion, followed by six months of often brutal occupation. Today, Kuwaitis say they feel safe knowing that there are about 150,000 U.S. and British troops sitting in the desert between them and the Iraqi army. "To a certain degree we are safer than anyone in the States," said Ahmad Dousari, a Kuwaiti environmental scientist. "We have the entire army here." There are of course signs of wariness and fear in Kuwait. International schools have closed. A man selling dates in the city's main souk says he sees only a fraction of the number of usual shoppers. And there are daily reminders of the possible consequences of war: Television programs and newspaper articles offer advice on how to protect oneself from biological or chemical attacks.

The government has hired a unit of about 450 specially trained Czech soldiers who patrol Kuwait City with 100 vehicles designed to detect chemical agents, including mobile laboratories and trucks that can decontaminate infected people. Emergency shelters have been designated in Kuwait City and its suburbs. Last week the government imported 200,000 gas masks, most of which are destined for use by government employees and rescue workers. Yet many Kuwaitis say they are not paying attention to the threat of biological or chemical weapons. Abdulaziz Saad Munifi, who runs a shop selling handmade leather sandals, says he believes in fate and sees no reason for God to punish Kuwaitis. "I feel safe," he said. "We believe God will save us - with some help from the Americans." The United States has installed Patriot missile batteries on the border with Iraq and has pledged to intercept any Scud missiles launched by the Iraqis toward Kuwait.

Since the early stages of the military buildup here, American military planners and diplomats have sought to allay Kuwaiti concerns. A top U.S. Army general met with Kuwaiti newspaper editors several months ago and "pledged on his military honor" that Kuwait would be safeguarded, according to someone who was at the meeting. Kuwait's corporate elite has taken such reassurances seriously. Rather than heading for bunkers, they have been discussing how they can make money in a post-Saddam Iraq. The list of hopeful companies includes cement makers planning to help rebuild Iraq and many other firms looking to broaden their market: food wholesalers, mobile phone companies and insurance firms. The optimism is reflected in the main index of Kuwait's stock market, which has risen 30 percent since October - as the likelihood of war has soared. Some Kuwaiti executives have already bagged their profits. Abdulmohsen Saleh, general manager of a company that sells arms, ammunition and other military equipment, summed up his recent cash flow succinctly. "Business is booming," he said.
Kind of hard not to like these guys.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/16/2003 09:22 am || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  His business won't be the only thing that's booming.

I couldn't resist.
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 2:54 Comments || Top||

#2  "Kind of hard not to like these guys."
Gotta say they certainlly are pragmatic.
Refrshing to see more people in the world are srtaight-up.Without"Talking out of the side of thier mouths".
Posted by: raptor || 03/16/2003 6:32 Comments || Top||

#3  250,000 of the best gaurds in the world,yes I would feel secure.
Posted by: raptor || 03/16/2003 7:06 Comments || Top||

#4  Inshallah
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 11:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Inshallah what? can you be more specific?
Posted by: RW || 03/16/2003 13:57 Comments || Top||

#6  I think that he means that it is Allah's will that 250K +/- allied soldiers are protecting Kuwait and everyone is doing their thing....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/16/2003 14:58 Comments || Top||

#7  Inshallah = God's will = All things unfold as they are meant to.
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 17:55 Comments || Top||


Britain
Fake Passports Sold at Mosque
A MUSLIM extremist is making fake passports to help fanatics sneak into Britain.
No! Really? That's never happened before...

The scam exposes a huge hole in national security as fears grow of a terror attack in Britain. Our investigator bought three phoney passports from a North African fundamentalist who boasts of supplying fake documents to fanatics. One was even in the name of Midhat Mursi, Osama bin Laden's chemical weapons mastermind dubbed Dr Death and currently on the run from the FBI.

The £300 passports were supplied by Nabjid Mekdaia - a Mujahadeen warrior who has vowed to fight for Saddam Hussein in Iraq against British soldiers. He boasted: "I am going to Iraq for Jihad (holy war). I am going for bin Laden. Everybody comes to me for passports. I make passports and then go to the mosque to hand it to them."

Mekdaia, 29, "works" from a mosque at the Muslim Welfare House on London's Seven Sisters Road. He uses the prayer room there - where he says worshippers are doused in alcohol-free Mujahadeen fighters' perfume before they pray - to cover his illicit trade in passports.

Sunday Mirror investigators first negotiated the sale of one counterfeit French passport as he put his shoes back on seconds after praying. Mekdaia said: "I do a good job, my brother. Everybody comes and gives me a deposit, photo, first name and surname, date of birth, height and eye colour. Then tomorrow they come and take their passport. They say, 'Thank you, brother', and go away."

To the man in the street, Mekdaia looks like a well-to-do businessman sporting expensive designer casual clothes and tinted shades. But he is a fanatical zealot who hates Britain and the USA and insists that he is going to Iraq to fight in the war against the West.

Our investigator said to him: "When you told me that you were going to Iraq I thought you were joking."

Mekdaia answered: "I do not joke. I'm serious - serious! This is my job. I am going for bin Laden."

Our investigators told Mekdaia that Midhat Mursi was hiding out in the war-torn Islamic state of Chechnya and needed to travel to Britain. Mursi, a leader in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement, is in the top 50 on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list with a five million dollar bounty on his head. Before the fall of the Taliban, Egyptian-born Mursi ran al-Qaeda's chemical weapons programme near Jalalabad in Afghanistan. He made worldwide headlines last year after videotapes from the camp showed live puppies writhing in pain after being exposed to a chemical agent.
Where are PETA when we need them??

At the camp Mursi trained terrorists to deploy chemical weapons. His "pupils" included one man who was imprisoned in the US for a plot to bomb Los Angeles airport in 2000.

Mekdaia boasted how he also sells fake National Insurance cards so that illegal immigrants can work in the UK or claim benefits. The bogus ID also helps terrorist cells blend into British society and open bank and credit card accounts. Mekdaia, who conducted his shady conversations in French, Arabic and broken English, said: "I make fake National Insurance numbers. Sometimes the names on the cards, along with a number, I just make them up in my head. The card is original but the number is fake. "I made three for Mohammed (another client) last week. Every week he comes and collects three or four with different names."
Feeding off the prostrate carcass of a liberal society...

Our reporter told Mekdaia that we needed a fake passport to smuggle another muslim extremist into Britain from Germany. He said: "He could travel here if he wants to. He can work here."

Looking from side to side, Mekdaia bragged that he had made passports for North Africans, Ghanaians and people from the Ivory Coast in Africa. "They take the plane and come here without problems," he said. He explained how he switches the photographs from one passport to another and doctors details. He grinned: "I take the picture out and put in another picture, put the plastic on and that's it."

Mekdaia introduced our investigator to an illegal immigrant called Hasman who came to the UK on one of Mekdaia's passports. Hasman said: "Don't worry, he has made passports for everybody, even me. He makes you a passport and you could go to Canada on it, I swear. Look at mine. The passport name is not mine but the picture is me."

Mekdaia, who lives in a shabby tower block in North London, was constantly suspicious of our investigator. The following day he insisted that our man spent nearly eight hours waiting in the Muslim Welfare House and nearby Cafe Paradis. The cafe is packed full of smartly-dressed North Africans sipping cappuccinos and talking on mobile phones, so that he could keep an eye on him. Shortly after midnight, Mekdaia phoned our investigator and told him to go to Manor House tube station about one mile away. A runner called Ali, who also sells untraceable stolen mobile phones, appeared from the shadows and handed over a French passport in our reporter's name.

Several Muslims at the Welfare House told how it was common knowledge that Mekdaia was a dealer in illegal passports. One preacher said: "Every young man who needs one goes straight to him."
And every young man, of course, needs one...

It seems they go to him for their more mundane needs, too. While our investigator was with Mekdaia, a man came up to Mekdaia and introduced himself. He wanted a car stereo. Mekdaia said: "I help Muslim people." Our investigator asked: "For free?" He replied: "Yes."
Just grab one. They're only infidels...

Officials at the Muslim Welfare House said Mekdaia had started using the mosque there earlier this year.
Just moved in and set up shop. Never occurred to anybody to tell him to get the hell out...

A spokesman for the French Embassy in London said: "These fake passports are a real problem, we are aware of that. The fight against terrorism is the highest priority."
"We're not doing anything of substance about it, but we're aware of it..."

Our investigation dossier will now be presented to the police - and Mekdaia will need more than a fake passport to get out of that.
Does anyone know the source of the quotation: "What makes Western Civilization great renders it incapable of defending itself"
Posted by: George H. Beckwith || 03/16/2003 01:19 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Once agin,and no one at the Mosque had a clue what was going on.

Tends makes a person look at proffessions of loyalty and friendship with a jaundiced eye.
Posted by: raptor || 03/17/2003 7:39 Comments || Top||


Europe
Bin Laden’s niece wants to be a star
A niece of Osama bin Laden is launching a career as a pop singer after rejecting her Muslim background and throwing herself into the London party scene.

Waffa Binladin, whose father Yeslam is the brother of the world's most wanted man, hopes to release a single by the end of the year after being told that she has the looks and voice to become a star. She has been working on a demo tape and has reportedly been receiving advice from rap artist Wyclef Jean.

Binladin, 26, has become a fixture on the London club scene after moving to the city six months ago. Last week she joined stars including Rod Stewart, Natalie Imbruglia and Phil Collins at a charity function hosted by Garrards, the jewellers. Her adoption of Western culture - she drinks alcohol, smokes cigarettes and wears mini-skirts and designer clothes by Versace - has seen her cast out by her father's family.

Her mother, Carmen bin Laden, who lives in Geneva with Waffa's two younger sisters, said: "The bin Laden family have condemned my daughters because they were brought up in the West and have western ways but I support Waffa's freedom."

Binladin, who trained as a lawyer in America, dissociated herself from her notorious uncle long before the September 11 terrorist attacks on America. At the time, she was living in New York less than a mile from the World Trade Centre.

Binladin uses the western spelling of the family name and has not been back to America since the attacks and plans to stay in London.

Her mother, who is fighting a 10-year divorce battle with her father, said: "The girls are in a very difficult position. People associate them with the Bin Ladens, which they are not. We have had no contact with that family for more than 10 years. We thought about changing the name but then people would think we had something to hide."
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 03/16/2003 08:06 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sounds like the first order of business is a name change, both stage and legal, or maybe she wants to capitalize on the surname. I hope she watches her six for fatwas.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/16/2003 20:22 Comments || Top||

#2  She would get a more profound impact of her lifestyle departure from the Islamic if she became a Hooter's waitress.
Posted by: badanov || 03/17/2003 0:05 Comments || Top||


Spain links suspect in 9/11 plot to Baghdad
An alleged terrorist accused of helping the 11 September conspirators was invited to a party by the Iraqi ambassador to Spain under his al-Qaeda nom de guerre, according to documents seized by Spanish investigators.
You just helped murder 3,000 people. It's Miller time.
Yusuf Galan, who was photographed being trained at a camp run by Osama bin Laden, is now in jail, awaiting trial in Madrid. The indictment against him, drawn up by investigating judge Baltasar Garzon, claims he was 'directly involved with the preparation and carrying out of the attacks ... by the suicide pilots on 11 September'.
Can we extradite this guy? Please?
Evidence of Galan's links with Iraqi government officials came to light only recently, as investigators pored through more than 40,000 pages of documents seized in raids at the homes of Galan and seven alleged co-conspirators. The Spanish authorities have supplied copies to lawyers in America, and this week the documents will form part of a dossier to be filed in a federal court in Washington, claiming damages of approximately $100 billion on behalf of more than 2,500 11 September victims. The lawsuit lists Saddam's government in Iraq as one of its principal defendants, claiming it provided 'material support' to the al-Qaeda terrorists. Although some Western intelligence officials have expressed scepticism about an al-Qaeda-Iraq link, in recent months George Tenet, the Director of the CIA, has made increasingly strong statements alleging such a connection. In Congressional testimony last month, he said that Iraq had co-operated with al-Qaeda for 10 years, and that it had trained al-Qaeda members in bombmaking and the use of chemical and biological weapons.
We'll get more evidence next month when we can go through the archives in Baghdad.
The evidence in support of the 9/11 damages claim cites several examples of this alleged co-operation. They include the terrorist training camp at Salman Pak near Baghdad, where former Iraqi intelligence brigadier Jamal al-Qurairy has said that non-Iraqi Islamic radicals were trained to hijack aircraft using knives. It also includes a new affirmation by the Czech government that Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 9/11 plotters, met an Iraqi intelligence officer, Ibrahim al-Ani, in Prague in April 2001. Some US officials have suggested this meeting did not happen. But in a signed statement dated 24 February, 2003, Hynek Kmonicek, the Czech ambassador to the UN, says his government 'can confirm that during the stay of Mohamed Atta ... there was contact with Mr al-Ani, who was on 22 April, 2001 expelled from the Czech Republic on the basis of activities not compatible with his diplomatic status [the usual euphemism for spying]'. Garzon's indictment says Galan was part of a cell which organized bank robberies on behalf of al-Qaeda, and which had supported the group around Atta financially and logistically
Czechs seem real insistent on this.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/16/2003 09:53 am || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm still not convinced about the Iraq link, but it will be interesting what Ibrahim al-Ani has to say after he wakes up in Guantanomo
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 03/16/2003 1:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Why is it so difficult to think there are links? Saddam's the largest money-launderer in the world.

Forget 9/11, what about WTC 1 and Oklahoma City????
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 2:02 Comments || Top||

#3  In the Fall of 2001, US officials were throwing the 'there-is-no-evidence-line' everywhere. I always thought that they were premature.
Posted by: Anonon || 03/16/2003 2:13 Comments || Top||

#4  I didn't say I rejected it, but in the whole wide world of Islamist terror, and all the murky links between members of al-Qaeda and elements in the governments of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Syria; plus all the Muslim Brotherhood and Wahabi/Salafist front organisations all over the world spreading a fascist mind set among Muslims there is no reason to believe that al-Qaeda is some sort of Iraqi proxy, even if there are links such as Ansar ul Islam and Al-Zarqawi.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 03/16/2003 2:15 Comments || Top||

#5  ... if we find fingerprints in Iraq...
some of them might point back to France.
That would be really, really embarassing.
Posted by: Dishman || 03/16/2003 2:52 Comments || Top||

#6  Why is it that Tenet is now saying links have existed for ten years? Where was he during the Clinton years when the FBI was busy looking under every bed looking for the greatest threat to the US, in the form of right wing terrorists? Somehow I doubt Tenet is doing more than reacting to a new client in the White House, although I'm sure the evidence existed. Tenet should have been sacked long ago. Why does Bush keep him on?
Posted by: TJ Jackson || 03/16/2003 3:43 Comments || Top||

#7  Did anyone miss the report about the meeting at the Gaza YMCA a few days ago wherein checks totaling $247,000 were issued to suicide bomber families from SADDAM?

What more of "a link" do people need? Let's get real: if one supports terrorism, one supports terrorism; does it really matter which terrorist group?

Our "war" is a war on terrorism. The impending conflict with Saddam is simply one small battle of the much larger war.

And the message MUST go forth loud and clear: if you incite/support terrorism, you will attract the unwelcomed attention of the U.S. military. However, if you behave yourself, and act like an adult, you will be left alone to pursue happiness. This message can NOT afford to be nuanced; there can be NO wiggle-room. Such times are long gone.

So, please, everyone be on notice: if the U.S. military needs to get involved, it will be at your invitation, and your's only.
Posted by: Jack || 03/16/2003 6:32 Comments || Top||

#8  Via Tim Blair/blog of MidEast Politics, Guardian, 1999:

Saddam Hussein's regime has opened talks with Osama bin Laden, bringing closer the threat of a terrorist attack using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, according to US intelligence sources and Iraqi opposition officials.

The key meeting took place in the Afghan mountains near Kandahar in late December. The Iraqi delegation was led by Farouk Hijazi, Baghdad's ambassador in Turkey and one of Saddam's most powerful secret policemen, who is thought to have offered Bin Laden asylum in Iraq.

--

It must be true, it's under Bubba's watch.
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 10:05 Comments || Top||

#9  TJ - the CIA got in one of its head-in-the-sand modes in the '90s regarding Iraq-Al Qaeda links. Some senior managers got it into thier heads that of course secular, socialist Iraq could never cooperate with religious fanatics. That may have been true in the '70s and '80s, but not in the '90s.

The DIA never stopped looking for links between Iraq and A-Q. Rumsfeld, of course, saw this evidence all along, and that's why he was hot to go after Iraq from 12 Sept. onward.

Eventually, Rumsfeld demanded, and got, Bush to order the CIA to turn over all of its discarded data, and the DIA produced a report, which they shared with the CIA. Tenet is now convinced, but I would guess there are middle managers in Langley who are still in denial about the Iraq-A-Q connection.
Posted by: Pete Stanley || 03/16/2003 14:11 Comments || Top||

#10  And Chamberlain never thought the nazis and bolshies would hook up. History, people, history.
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 17:19 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Terror Suspect Questioned in Pakistan
Pakistani and American officials on Sunday interrogated a key al-Qaida suspect and another man detained with him, but would not say where they were being held or whether they would be handed over to U.S. custody, the information minister said. Yassir al-Jaziri, who allegedly oversaw communication among al-Qaida operatives, was arrested Saturday in the eastern city of Lahore. Another man, an Afghan named Gul Zeb, was also arrested, but was not considered an important figure in the terror network.
"Duh. I'm cheap muscle. Huh huh."
The men were taken out of Lahore but Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said they remained in Pakistan, though they could be turned over to U.S. authorities if requested.
We'd like the North African, please. You can keep Zeb. If they hadn't snagged Khald so recently, Jazeeri would be cause for ululation.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 11:22 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Jehad philosophy lies in Karbla incident
Senior leader of Mutahidda Majlis-Amal, Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani has said that the opponent of Jehad could never be Muslims, we would never try to escape to London, just only for fear of death.
That's, ummm... incoherent. (Do these guys smoke funny cigarettes before they give these news conferences?)
Addressing Annual Shahadat Conference on Saturday under the aegis of JUP in New Karachi, Senator of MMA said that MMA has stopped the terrorism in the name of Islam, the great example of this is that Muharram has passed without any untoward incident. "Without the essence of Karbala Incident, the Jehad philosophy could not be comprehended adding that all the woes that the Muslims are facing today are due to that we have forgotten the golden principles of Islam", Maulana added.
"Which is, of course, to kill people..."
The aides of Zionist are again questioning by their so-called humanism, on which grounds, we are supporting Iraq, they did not know that Iraq is the land of forefathers of our believers burying the great son of Islam, Shah Abdul Qadir Gilani and Imam-e-Azam, Abu Hanifa, he added. The time is not far away when all the Muslim of the world would be united to answer the aggression against them, Maualana Shah Ahmed maintained.
Noorani is head of Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Pakistan (JUP), which signed Binny's declaration of war against us. He's also warned (accurately, if prematurely) that Pakland is going to get what Iraq's going to get.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 10:12 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


9 policemen killed in Kashmir militant attack
Nine policemen and two civilians were killed and five injured when terrorists militants attacked a remote police post in Kashmir on Sunday morning, police said. "The militants struck early in the morning with rifle grenades and automatic weapons killing nine policemen and two civilians," a police official said in Jammu. Officials said 25 policemen were on duty at the post at the time.
And at least a few of them would have been awake too
On Friday, seven people were killed in a gun battle between suspected militants and security forces in Poonch near the Line of Control. Police officials returned fire, but the attackers escaped, the officer said. The attack lasted nearly an hour.
Sounds like Musharaff better hurry up with his army/ISI reshuffle, or the Indians might encourage him to do so first.
A man who identified himself as Jamil Ahmed and claimed to be a spokesman of the Jamiat-ul-Mujahedeen called a news agency office in Jammu and said the attack was jointly carried out by his group and the Harkat-i-Jehadi Islami, to target police.
The Harkat is known in Pakistan as the Punjabi Taliban.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 03/16/2003 09:13 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  New offensive, or just feeling their oats? One of the days the Indians are gonna get tired of this s@#t and Pakland will cease to exist
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 10:02 Comments || Top||


Iraq
Turning the Tables
Decades of disinformation have planted an artificial hatred and distrust of America in the average Arab's mind. Governments like Saudi Arabia, Libya and Syria spend untold billions planting such anti-America sentiments in their people and people around the world. They are joined in these efforts by organizations like the PLO, Hamas, Hizbollah and al Qaeda.

These people, having no real contact with Americans and benefitting from our generous, yet hidden support at any time that they have ever needed it, have no legitimate reason to hate us, but do so because of the ceaseless workings of hatred on behalf of such countries and groups as I have already mentioned.

Freeing Iraq, setting regional Democratization in motion, will set before these misled masses the reality of America. Once the citizens of the Middle East are faced with the truth, then the lies and the unfounded malice will be exposed and the tables will be turned.

Posted by: Tom Schaller || 03/16/2003 11:56 pm || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Free Iraqi Army calls on people to topple regime
An Iraqi organisation calling itself the Free Iraqi Army yesterday issued a statement urging the Iraqi people to topple President Saddam Hussain. The statement, a copy of which was sent to Gulf News, said:
"Our great Iraqi people: time has come to throw out the treacherous dirty junta, that is led by the criminal Saddam Hussain and his leadership, who have humiliated and disgraced our people and army for more than three decades.

"We call upon you and our brave army to disobey orders issued by these villains, to start a mutiny against them and join the General Headquarters of the Desert Forces based on the west of Iraq. We call upon corps commanders to keep security and protect properties.

"This communique issued by our command is considered a warning to all the Iraqi army commanders to defy orders issued to them by the Iraqi regime.

"We call upon you to stage an uprising against them before time runs out. It is an honour for you to take part in liberating Iraq from tyranny, oppression, and grievance.

"We also call upon unit leaders commanding the mass destruction weapons to refrain from obeying orders to use them, and anyone who obeys such an order will bear responsibility for his act.

"Our great Iraqi people, the vanguards of your western Iraq-based army call upon you to take part in the liberation war, and requests you to refrain from assisting the dying regime."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 07:51 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Just wondering if the guy who wrote this little ditty for the Free Iraqi Army (snicker) has a first name of "John," or "Malcolm" or "Tex." Anyway, you have made your high school composition teacher might proud (sniffle).
Posted by: Govy || 03/16/2003 20:26 Comments || Top||


Sammy threatens to bring war to us
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein warned Sunday that if Iraq is attacked, it will take the war anywhere in the world "wherever there is sky, land or water."
I think he's talking about terrorist attacks. I just can't see the Iraqi army maching on Toledo. But Sammy's not involved with terroism, is he?
President Bush gave the United Nations one more day to find a diplomatic solution to the standoff. Germany advised its citizens to leave the country immediately and said it would shut down its embassy in Baghdad. Residents of the Iraqi capital lined up for gasoline and snapped up canned food and bottled water. People mobbed pharmacies to buy antibiotics and tranquilizers. Workers sandbagged fighting positions outside government buildings.
Taking it seriously, maybe for the first time. If they'd taken it seriously before, maybe it wouldn't have come to this. That's what happens when you trust in the Frenchies...
Saddam made his own preparations, sidestepping the military chain of command to place one of his sons and three other trusted aides in charge of the defense of the nation. The decree issued late Saturday placed Iraq on a war footing. In a meeting with military commanders Sunday, the Iraqi leader threatened a broader war if the United States attacks. "When the enemy starts a large-scale battle, he must realize that the battle between us will be open wherever there is sky, land and water in the entire world," Saddam told his commanders, according to the official Iraqi News Agency.
"It'll be the Mother of all Battles®... No, wait. We did that before..."
Iraqi Vice President Naji Sabri said Iraq has long been preparing "as if war is happening in an hour." Asked whether Iraq would use suicide attacks against invading American forces, Sabri told the Arab satellite television channel Al-Arabiya: "We have prepared ourselves for all kinds of war. For many months, tens of thousands have volunteered to serve as martyrdom-seekers (suicide attackers) in the battle with the American enemy. We trained them and readied them. We have prepared ourselves for street fighting and desert fighting."
The Talibs were going to suicide bomb us, too. The lid to the dustbin of history is open...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 05:15 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Now, how can he attack us w/stuff he doesn't have?
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 17:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe by boring us to death with lame menaces?
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 18:16 Comments || Top||

#3  I thought that ALL his military forces were Martydom-seekers--or it that just how it turns out!
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 18:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Saddam made his own preparations, sidestepping the military chain of command to place one of his sons and three other trusted aides in charge of the defense of the nation.

Excellent. the Secret Plan is working nicely: He's trusting fewer and fewer people every day.
Posted by: Ptah || 03/16/2003 19:36 Comments || Top||

#5  Yo! Bring it on, Jughead.

Let's see what ya got!
Posted by: H.D. Miller || 03/16/2003 20:45 Comments || Top||


Kurdish ally of Saddam Hussein regime defects
Saddam Hussein’s most important Kurdish ally has defected to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq in what officials here say is an indication that the Iraqi president’s internal support is beginning to crumble.

Jowhad Herki is chief of the powerful Herki tribe and since the 1960s has supported successive Baghdad regimes in putting down revolts by fellow Kurds. He arrived in northern Iraq via London after travelling there from Baghdad for medical treatment. He is a former member of the Iraqi parliament.

"This is a major development that shows that they are abandoning the sinking ship," said Hoshyar Zebari, a Kurdish leader in the northern autonomous zone. "It will have a major influence on other tribal leaders to close ranks because they have nothing to hope for from Saddam."

The Herki are the biggest of a number of tribes that allied themselves with Baghdad – usually because of inter-tribal conflicts with rebel tribes - and are known collectively by Kurdish nationalists as Jash or "little donkeys". Jowhad Herki stayed loyal to President Saddam even in 1991, when other Jash tribal leaders defected to the Kurdish rebel leadership during the uprising that followed the Gulf war.

Kurdish officials say he has several thousand loyal fighters around the strategic city of Mosul, which lies inside government controlled territory. Technically they are still on Saddam Hussein’s payroll, but their loyalty may be in doubt now that their tribal leader has switched sides.

Mr Herki is among a number of tribal leaders who have held talks with Masoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, in recent days as former enemies attempt to mend fences in what they now assume to be the final days of the Saddam Hussein regime. Others include Omar Surchi, head of the Surchi tribe and a former Jash leader who came over to the nationalist side in 1991. He recently travelled to Arbil to end a long-running feud with the Barzanis.

The Kurds may need all the unity they can muster if they are to confront the threat of a Turkish intervention which the leadership has vowed to resist by force.

Opposition leaders, including Kurdish representatives, are today due to begin talks in Ankara with Turkish and US representatives to try to defuse a crisis that would threaten the northern front in the event of a US-led war in Iraq.The Kurds will oppose any Turkish intervention into areas they control, even if the Turks were to come as part of a coalition force. Turkey has said it would send in troops to prevent an influx of refugees into its territory, to safeguard Iraq’s Turkoman minority and to prevent the Kurds seizing the oil city of Kirkuk.

The Kurds argue that there will be no flight of refugees into Turkey, as there was in 1991, that there is no threat to the Turkomans from the Kurdish regional authorities, and that Turkey has no right to try to determine post-war Iraqi affairs.

The Kurds are relying on the US to resolve the crisis, arguing that the last thing Washington wants while it wages a war against Baghdad is to have a Turkish-Kurdish conflict raging along the northern front.
Posted by: George H. Beckwith || 03/16/2003 05:42 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  No, No, NO, not STATE!

The Kurds have been sold down the river.
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 17:34 Comments || Top||


Bush: Tomorrow is the moment of truth
US President George W Bush has called for the immediate and unconditional disarmament of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, saying tomorrow is a moment of truth for the world. "Tomorrow is the day that we will determine whether or not diplomacy can work," Mr Bush said after a critical summit with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. He has urged nations who have voiced a commitment to peace and security to demonstrate that commitment by supporting the disarmament of Iraq. "The United Nations Security Council in resolution 1441 has declared Iraq in material breach of its long-standing obligations, demanded once Iraq's full and immediate disarmament, and promised serious consequences if the regime refused to comply," he said. "That resolution was passed unanimously and its logic is inescapable, the Iraq regime will disarm itself or the Iraqi regime will be disarmed by force."

Mr Blair has made a "final appeal" for the international community to issue a clear ultimatum authorising force if Iraq does not give up its weapons. "We make a final appeal for there to be that strong, unified message on behalf of the international community that lays down a clear ultimatum to Saddam, that authorises force if he continues to defy the will of the whole of the international community," he said. "I think it is so important that even now, at this late stage, we try to get the United Nations... resolving this." He said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein "plays these games, and we carry on allowing him to play them. Now is the moment to decide, whether we meant it or simply whether we are going to drag out this process forever. Because the threat is there and everyone accepts it. The threat of weapons of mass destruction, the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 02:24 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Uday survives another assassination attempt
More Debka, more salt...
DEBKAfile’s Iraqi underground sources reveal that a failed attempt was made on the life of Saddam’s elder son Uday at the al-Jadariye Boating Club on the Tigris River. There with a party, he is thought to have escaped with injuries from this second known assassination attempt, while three of his bodyguards were killed.
If true, are things getting a little tighter for Sammy and crew?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 01:27 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Gemayel tried to talk Sammy out of office
From Debka, so the usual grain of salt...
Saddam... set the scene for the Azores summit by putting his country on a war footing, taking command of the Iraqi air force and dividing the country into four military districts with orders to “destroy any foreign aggression”. His younger son Qusay was put in command of the key Baghdad district.
FoxNews was reporting this yesterday. Taha Yassin Ramadan's in charge of the northern district, and Chemical Ali's in charge of the southern, which could be significant — experience counts, y'know.
That move was the Iraqi ruler’s reply to a secret US mediator’s final effort to persuade him to remove himself in order to stave off war. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources reveal this last mediator as former Lebanese president Amin Gemayel. Denials apart, he was in Baghdad Saturday, March 15, for the third visit of his mission, which was to sell Washington’s final offer to the Iraqi rule to quit Iraq with his family — including his sons Uday and Qusay — and the country’s top political and military leadership, and go into exile in an Arab country. The offer included safe conduct guarantees for Saddam and his entourage along with a US pledge not to freeze his secret bank accounts.
I'd imagine this was put together to sooth the Soddies. Sammy as an exile opens up an entirely different can of worms...
The Iraqi ruler’s response to Gemayel — as to all of a long line of would-be mediators — was a refusal to consider any exile or refuge that divested him of ruling authority. Gemayel’s personal relationship with Saddam dates to back to the 1970s and early 1980s, when he was chief of the Lebanese Christian Phalange militia in Beirut. In those days, he was often in Baghdad to collect Saddam’s largesse to the tune of millions of dollars for his Christian fighters. They have remained friends.
That was back before Sammy became a Defender of Islam®...
On his penultimate trip to Baghdad on March 7-10, our intelligence sources discovered Gemayel took with him a special guest — an American colonel. This officer, another old Baghdad hand, was received by Saddam for an afternoon tete a tete on March 8. In the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the colonel paid a number of secret visits to Baghdad and was there again just before the first Gulf War in 1991.
And he's still a colonel? Or did Sammy talk to him when he was a mere lieutenant or maybe a captain?
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources report that the American crossed into Iraq — either from Kuwait or Saudi Arabia. Gemayel and senior Iraqi intelligence officials stood by to fly with him by plane and then helicopter to a secret meeting place near Baghdad. A senior intelligence source, who was briefed on the conversation between Saddam and the US officer, reports that the Lebanese ex-president and an interpreter were also present. After Saddam warmly shook his hand, the American said: “It’s been a long time since I last saw you, but you seem to be in great shape. You are a great soldier and I looking forward to facing you on the battlefield.”
Sammy's never been a soldier. He just likes wearing soldier suits. You sure this guy's not with the State Department?
”When do you intend to attack and try to kill me?” Saddam asked.
”Basically, after the March 19 deadline passes,” came the reply.
March 19th is Wednesday...
”You managed to get me to destroy my missiles,” the Iraqi leader said, pausing for effect. “Is the 19th the date of the attack or just the day when you want me to leave Iraq? After all, that’s what you came for.”
"G'wan. Tell me when the big surprise attack is scheduled..."
The US colonel answered: “According to our orders, that’s the date when we are supposed to head out and get you. And we’ve already been told, ‘Don’t come back with him left in place.’”
"But don't tell anybody, Sammy. It's a secret. You ain't s'pposed to know..."
Saddam was not pleased. “You are the sons of Satan. Go to hell. I’m not afraid of you.”
”We may not even wait until the 19th now,” the colonel shot back.
"Wanna see my muscle?"
”Well then,” Saddam said. “What’s the offer and where do you want me to go?”
”Egypt, Sudan, Syria – there’s a long list of offers. Even Iran made an offer.”
"Just pick some rat hole and scurry away..."
A defiant Saddam answered in English: “I will die before I surrender.”
Okay by me...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 01:01 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That will be arranged, my friend!
Posted by: Brian || 03/16/2003 14:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Saddam should be easy to find. This time he won't be driving around in Baghdad. He will be surrounded by his republican guards, probably in one of his palaces. If he does abandon ship, he can't do it by air, so that leaves him the ground route thru Syria or Jordan.
Posted by: RW || 03/16/2003 14:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Boy, too bad the "colonel" didn't want to go out in a boom of glory and become a homicide bomber. Wouldn't that make the ME sit up and take notice.
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 17:30 Comments || Top||


Baghdad: 5 U.N. Copters Have Left Iraq
Iraq said that five of eight helicopters used by United Nations weapons inspectors left the country Sunday after a Western insurance company suspended coverage for the aircraft as the threat of war looms in the region. The U.N. spokesman in Baghdad, Hiro Ueki, could not immediately be reached for comment, and no reason was given for the insurance company's action. But the suspension of the coverage was seen as a possible indication that war could be imminent as President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar prepared to hold an emergency summit on Sunday in the Azores.
Tuesday. Maybe Wednesday...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 11:42 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Everybody expects Tuesday, so it probably won't be Tuesday. End of the week maybe?
Posted by: RW || 03/16/2003 14:45 Comments || Top||

#2  By that logic, it will be Monday right after the vote. heh...
Posted by: Brian || 03/16/2003 20:22 Comments || Top||


Chirac Ready to Accept Deadline on Iraq
French President Jacques Chirac said on Sunday he was willing to accept a 30-day deadline for Iraq to disarm, provided the move was endorsed by the chief U.N. weapons inspectors. Speaking hours before President Bush was to hold an emergency summit with his top allies backing war, Chirac said the inspectors will be telling the Security Council next week that they believe it is possible to disarm Saddam Hussein peacefully. "One month, two months, I am ready to accept any accord on this point that has the approval of the inspectors," Chirac said in an interview broadcast on CNN. Extracts were released by the president's office in Paris, and the full CBS "60 minutes" interview was scheduled for broadcast Sunday night, Chirac's office said. Asked specifically whether he would accept a 30-day deadline, Chirac said "everything the inspectors propose should be accepted."
Try 72 hours, Jacques. That's plenty of time, coming after 12 years...
The president's comments - backing away from a 120-day period outlined in a joint Russian-French-German memorandum submitted earlier to the Security Council - was a clear move to present his case against war before Bush meets in the Azores islands with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spain's Jose Maria Aznar.
Pretty transparent, in fact...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 11:07 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Must remind the french of their potency on the world stage.... if they want to participate, maybe they can send a waiter or something ...
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 11:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Notice how Chirac wants "the trigger" to be pulled by Blix. Blix hasn't got the balls to do it, and Chirac knows it.
Posted by: Ptah || 03/16/2003 13:02 Comments || Top||

#3  This is garbage. Notice how the word "disarm" never comes out of the Worm's mouth. As far as Chirac is concerned, this might be 30 days before the UN passes yet another "final" resolution. Pretentious fraud.
Posted by: Christopher Johnson || 03/16/2003 13:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Sure, Jacques. 30 days works for us. Call us back in 30 days and we will have the new government of Iraq chat this disarmament thing up for a bit.
Posted by: badanov || 03/16/2003 14:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Of course "One month, two months" will take us right into Spring & Summer. Should've come up with this one month, two months ago. Time's up Frogman. Thanks for playing.
Posted by: RW || 03/16/2003 14:53 Comments || Top||

#6  Dailypundit's not happy.
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 17:31 Comments || Top||

#7  Soon Wormtongue will be wandering aimlessly, vanquished by all freedom loving kingdoms, republics, and just plain Joes.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/16/2003 20:34 Comments || Top||


U.N. civility degenerates to displays of anger
Diplomacy is not supposed to be a contact sport, particularly in this gleaming monument to international civility. But as the United States and Britain tried to forge a compromise on the Iraq crisis, tensions that had been building for six months burst into the open. Chaos and open displays of anger have displaced decorum in the usually staid hallways of the United Nations, as backers of a U.S.-British-Spanish resolution that would open the way for war grew increasingly fed up with war opponents — principally France, Germany and Russia.

At a briefing March 7 to discuss the progress of weapons inspections, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw shocked U.N. purists by referring to French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin as ''Dominique.'' First names aren't used in formal public meetings here. That was just the beginning of a descent into behavior more common at state legislatures. After a tense, three-hour meeting Wednesday night, officials from all sides complained of bullheadedness, deceit and rudeness — qualities forbidden in the genteel world of international diplomacy. Diplomats eager to find a compromise on a resolution were furious that the French rejected a British proposal almost before it was offered — and before the Iraqis themselves had said no. ''That was an ambush,'' snarled a normally unflappable diplomat for a country that supports the resolution.

U.S. and British officials have given up trying to conceal their anger and frustration with resolution opponents, particularly the French, who they say are determined to kill a resolution, no matter what it says. French officials sarcastically dismissed a British proposal to hold Iraq to six disarmament benchmarks while moving the deadline for compliance out of the resolution and into an unofficial side agreement. ''Must we resort to tricks?'' said a French official. Russia seemed almost gleeful at the predicament U.S. and British diplomats found themselves in as they tried to sell the notion of disarmament ''benchmarks.'' ''How are those benches? Are they leaving marks?'' Russian Ambassador Sergey Lavrov joked to reporters, expressing Russia's disdain for the latest U.S-British approach.

There was a growing feeling here that the rift within the Security Council, which many diplomats felt could somehow be papered over, was instead widening and could damage the United Nations' ability to work effectively. Those tensions were reflected in public Thursday, when Straw called France's seeming opposition to any compromise ''extraordinary.'' Straw said in London that ''without even proper consideration, the French government have decided that they will reject these proposals.''

While U.S. and British officials were genuinely angry about their opponents' intransigence, there was also a strategic intent behind their criticism. Both countries hope that by ostracizing opponents such as France, they can improve the climate for a compromise or help the political standing of embattled British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Some diplomats held out hope for compromise, and the negotiations seemed destined to continue throughout the weekend, notwithstanding an earlier vow by the White House to force a vote this week. The six council members who remain officially undecided on the measure — Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan — pleaded with the big powers to find a way out. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the deadlock a ''crisis.''

Diplomats from the six swing countries navigated the hallways here like football wide receivers trying to avoid defensive backs. By the hour, rumors swirled about where allegiances lay, and reporters swarmed ambassadors to demand the latest. Exhausted U.S. and British officials have not given up their hope that a last-minute diplomatic gambit will break the logjam. But Washington and London seemed increasingly resigned to the idea that France or Russia would veto the measure even if backers could scrape together the nine votes needed for passage. U.S. officials believed they were close to nine votes — Chile and Mexico remained elusive, and Pakistan would like to abstain — but British diplomats weren't quite so sure. If they got nine votes, the United States and Britain would argue that the resolution gave moral authority for a war and that opponents were thwarting the will of the international community. Opponents would doubtless ask whether the hundreds of resolutions vetoed by the United States over the years — most about Israel and tensions in the Middle East — also had the force of moral authority.

That kind of impasse could create enduring divisions on the Security Council and make cooperation on issues such as North Korea's nuclear program extremely difficult to forge. U.N.-watchers say the rancor could poison relations between council opponents. Will Russia, for example, get any U.S. help in recovering its multibillion-dollar debt from Iraq in a post-Saddam Hussein era? Or will France, Russia or Germany get any access to Iraqi oil projects in a post-war Iraq governed early on by Washington?
Not if Bush and/or Powell have any sense...

British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock virtually pleaded with his council colleagues late Wednesday night to find a middle ground. He compared the Iraq resolution to a badly damaged ship that will sink unless extreme measures are taken. ''We all face an important decision, probably a historic turning point,'' German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer told the council March 7. At the moment, that sentiment may be the only thing diplomats here can agree on.
Posted by: Spot || 03/16/2003 10:29 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Trouble in Paradise?
Posted by: Spot || 03/16/2003 7:28 Comments || Top||

#2  They just need to hold hands and sing "Kumbayah". That *always* works.

Maybe they should deploy some UN peacekeepers, too, just in case.
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg || 03/16/2003 8:55 Comments || Top||

#3  No, no, no. There is no trouble at all - the honorable ambassadors are merely having a frank exchange of ideas!
Posted by: Crescend || 03/16/2003 20:26 Comments || Top||


Baghdadis Rush to Buy Bicycles Ahead of War
During the 1991 Gulf war and subsequent US-led attacks, bombing disrupted transport and led to severe power and fuel cuts. So having learnt apparently in Iraq, people are rushing to buy bicycles and train on them because they fear that if war erupts, they will not be able to drive their cars. The authorities have also decided to distribute bicycles to ministries and state agencies that would need them in the event of war.
Posted by: Bernardz || 03/16/2003 09:14 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Next thing you know, the French will hold a stage of the Tour de France in Baghdad, apropos.
Posted by: Raj || 03/16/2003 13:18 Comments || Top||


U.S. Takes Back Turkey Aid Package
As U.S. hopes dwindled of going through Turkey for an attack on Iraq, the Bush administration took back its offer to give $15 billion in aid to Turkey in exchange for military cooperation.
"Special limited-time offer! Act now!" They didn't.

U.S. commanders have been eager to use the NATO ally to open a northern front in any invasion of Iraq. Staging in Turkey would allow more U.S. troops and heavier equipment to push toward Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit. The two countries had negotiated a package of U.S. grants and loans aimed at boosting Turkey's ailing economy, which is expected to suffer even more if there is war. Earlier this month, Turkey's parliament - mindful of polls showing a vast majority of the public opposed war - rejected a government motion to authorize the deployment of 62,000 American troops on Turkish soil. Turkey has since delayed a final decision, and the new prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Saturday a second vote was at least another week off. Now, the $15 billion is off the table, said two senior U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
No doubt the French will step in to help them out. They've always been fast friends to the Turks...

The White House's special envoy to the Iraqi opposition was in Ankara holding talks at the Turkish Foreign Ministry. Zalmay Khalilzad's primary mission during the Friday meeting was to persuade Turkey not to send its troops into northern Iraq, as the United States had agreed to allow as part of the negotiated aid package. Khalilzad warned that such intervention would be a "tragedy" for U.S.-Turkish relations. Turkey already has thousands of troops in Kurdish areas of northern Iraq and has said it plans to send more in the event of a U.S.-led invasion. Turkey worries that the political aspirations of its own sizable Kurdish minority would be boosted if Iraqi Kurds win more independence.
Well then, you should have cooperated with us.

But the United States, which insists it wants Iraq's current territorial boundaries to remain intact, hopes to keep violence from flaring in the volatile region now controlled by two autonomous Kurdish factions. U.S. military commanders and White House officials repeatedly have said they have other plans that, although costlier and riskier, allow for operating in northern Iraq without sending troops in from Turkey. But Pentagon officials said about three dozen ships with equipment for the Army's 4th Infantry Division will remain for now off Turkey's coast, where they have been for weeks. Other troops and equipment are still surging into Kuwait and the 4th Infantry's troops are still at their home base of Fort Hood, Texas, the officials said.

It was not decided whether the U.S. aircraft carriers Theodore Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman would stay in the eastern Mediterranean or follow the other ships in their battle groups, armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles, that already relocated to the Red Sea. Staying in the Mediterranean mean the carriers' planes might have to fly over Turkey to strike targets in northern Iraq. Turkey has not granted the United States those rights.

The U.S. aid package was withdrawn because it was linked to a certain time frame, said one official. It was not clear if the package could be renegotiated if Turkey were to later approve a U.S. troop deployment. Meanwhile, U.S. forces continued upgrading some Turkish military bases, under a previous agreement that was meant to pave the way for American use of those bases. Workers continued unloading gear for that purpose at Turkish ports Saturday, but not the tanks, helicopters and other U.S. weaponry waiting in ships offshore.
Is this another case of watch the hands, not the mouth? Or are we doing this just in case we get a vote?
Posted by: Steve White || 03/16/2003 09:38 am || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  yah. The Turks played this one bad...

It just struck me that there is no need for us to punish France, since the loss of discounted Iraqui Oil and the inability to collect on the huge debt owed them by Iraq, plus the loss of the Iraqui Market will put the French economy into such a tailspin that Germany's condition will look good in comparison.
Posted by: Ptah || 03/16/2003 14:52 Comments || Top||

#2  You're too kind, Ptah. Economics aside, we will punish France anyway as a matter of honor. Friends don't treat friends the way France has treated us.
Posted by: Tom || 03/16/2003 16:33 Comments || Top||

#3  I would agree that it IS a matter of honor. However, they have too thick of a skin (and an equally thick shell over their ego) to cry uncle if we do anything else.

Nevertheless, the punishment of France begins at the same time we start bombing Iraq. All the more reason to get started now, eh?
Posted by: Ptah || 03/16/2003 19:47 Comments || Top||

#4  I was thinking along the lines of some diplomatic punishment in NATO or elsewhere, but I'm certainly with you on getting started now.
Posted by: Tom || 03/16/2003 20:12 Comments || Top||

#5  we of course will do nothing to "punish" france, as that would be most inappropriate. OTOH, we may well decide that it is time to improve our trade, aid, and diplomatic relationships with the nations of West Africa. It would only be a coincidence, of course, that that is France's last sphere of influence.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/17/2003 8:38 Comments || Top||


US bombers destroy key targets
America revealed last night that supersonic bombers armed with laser-guided missiles had struck at Iraqi targets, destroying strategic radar sites in the first military precursor to all-out war.
Do we have any bomber/attack fighter other than the A-10 that isn't supersonic?
Two US Air Force B-1 bombers knocked out truck-mounted anti-aircraft radar systems designed to alert Iraq to attack by British and American aircraft. There was no news of casualties. Amid heightened tensions in the region as allied military leaders declared they were ready for battle and a defiant Saddam Hussein made faces vowed to repel any attack, the use of heavy bombers prompted claims that the US had effectively already begun war against Iraqi targets.
Just giving the Lancer boys a little work out, that's all.
However, with time running out for a diplomatic solution ahead of talks today between the United States, Britain and Spain, a source close to the Iraqi leader last night claimed that thousands of suicide bombers had been trained to 'kill Americans and sacrifice themselves' if any invasion is attempted. The source, a senior thug member of Saddam's ruling Revolutionary Council, told The Observer that they believed they could stop any allied advance by inflicting such high casualties that troops would be forced to pause while a political solution was found. He also revealed that Iraq's government planned to go underground and continue its fight after an attack.
We can help with the underground part.
'The US thinks it will come and find a general surrounded by bodyguards, but we are not stupid,' said the official. 'There are hundreds, even thousands, of places to hide in Iraq.'
The Iraqi people will point them out to us.
The source added: 'They can enter the cities but they cannot stay. The Americans are deceiving themselves if they think that the fighting will be short. We can kill them. They will destroy much in Iraq, but we are preparing thousands of people as suicide bombers.'
Nothing quite so unreliable as an unwilling suicide bomber...
The American bombers hit a mobile anti-aircraft radar system near a military air base in western Iraq, according to the Washington Post. The other target was a 'Pluto' surveillance radar system that was operating where the borders of Iraq, Jordan and Saudi Arabia meet. With reports of unrest in the north of Iraq and the rounding up of young Kurdish men for burning a portrait of Saddam, the attacks on border radar systems were being seen as the precursor for an imminent invasion of Iraq. The attack on the truck-mounted radar system was seen as an attempt to hold the strategically important 600-mile road from Amman in Jordan to Baghdad - a key target of US and British troops. The attacks appeared to mark the first action against targets destined to be taken in the opening hours of the war. The use of heavy bombers came as Pentagon sources indicated that US and British aircraft were flying up to 1,000 sorties as part of the psychological war on Iraqi troops. Several thousand US troops have been brought into Jordan for special forces operations across the border, many of them with Pave Low helicopters flown in on Galaxy transports that have been seen arriving at a military air base near Amman. According to Pentagon sources, the first moves in any campaign are expected to involve inserting special operations troops from Jordan or Saudi Arabia into western Iraq, where they could observe suspected launch sites and call in air strikes. But Saddam's thug adviser warned that it would not be an easy war for the United States and Britain: 'It will be like 10 Vietnams. Iraqis are fighting for their families. American soldiers are fighting for their salaries.'
Every news report from the exiles and the people on the Iraqi street says they want Saddam gone. Hmmm, who to believe?
The regime also believes that it has made a strong case at the point of a rifle to the people of Iraq that it has done everything possible to co-opt co-operate with the UN inspectors and that the American attack is unjustified. 'The government has convinced the people that it has done everything to stop the war,' he said. 'This is America's golden age, but if the Americans act alone, it will lose Europe and start a new cold war.' Although the official believed that there was a 60 to 70 per cent chance that the war would begin in a few days, the regime is still counting on God, the French and the Russians to make their case.
Heh, counting on the French.
'We trust in Paris and Moscow,' said the President's adviser. 'But there is a saying in Iraq - with the first shot, Saddam will be dead cowardice is over and courage fills the soul. We believe this attack will happen - at the same time, we hope God will stop the war.' Evidence emerged yesterday that an allied advance would prompt a wave of defections. Senior militia commanders in the north of Iraq said they had received hundreds of letters from Iraqi soldiers and officials in response to an amnesty offer by Kurdish leaders.
Yep, fighting for their families.
'The letters are coming from tribal leaders, the Republican Guard, even the Mukhabarat,' said Mohammed Haji Mahmood, a senior Kurdish commander. 'However, defectors from the Republican Guard said that their former units would fight because they have no choice'. The regular army would surrender as soon as possible, the defectors said. In the Middle East, preparations for war continued. Eight US warships passed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea yesterday to join the military build-up, following five ships that passed through on Friday.
Missile shooters are already in the Red Sea. Which ones are these eight?
Posted by: Steve White || 03/16/2003 09:46 am || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The B1-B is one of the few if not the only aircraft that is supersonic at sea level. My recollection is that it was designed to be able to out-run anything down on the deck.

"We trust in Paris and Moscow." ... so did Poland.
Posted by: Dishman || 03/16/2003 2:34 Comments || Top||

#2  The journohacks like to call the B-1B a "supersonic bomber" because it helps them tell it apart from the BUFFs. :-)
Posted by: jrosevear || 03/16/2003 5:48 Comments || Top||

#3  And if God doesn't stop the war will they accept it as a sign that He is not pleased with Saddam?
Posted by: RW || 03/16/2003 6:07 Comments || Top||

#4  Yes, most of the US bomber fleet is subsonic. The B2 is for stealth reasons, and the B52 is for design reasons. Amongst the bombers, the B1 is actually the odd one out being supersonic.

As for tactical strike and attack aircraft, the AV8B is subsonic. The EA6B is also subsonic, meaning that the entire EW capability of the US cannot outrun sound.
Posted by: David Newton || 03/16/2003 10:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Hope they group those suicide bombers reeeaaalllyy close together...the chain reaction should be spectacular - Iraqi pinball
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 10:13 Comments || Top||

#6  I stand corrected on the supersonic/subsonic bombers.

the chain reaction should be spectacular - Iraqi pinball

LOL!
Posted by: Steve White || 03/16/2003 12:42 Comments || Top||

#7  On the ships, they had been saying they were sending about a dozen ships from the
Med to the Red Sea. 5 + 8 = 13, Baker's Dozen. They'll be ready now.
Posted by: Steve || 03/16/2003 17:20 Comments || Top||


Blair plans for war as UN is given 24 hours
Tony Blair held an emergency 'war Cabinet' meeting yesterday to finalise plans for military action against Iraq and demand that the United Nations comes to a decision on the vital second resolution against Saddam Hussein within 24 hours.
I think it's time for the UN observers and inspectors in and around Iraq to scoot.
As Number 10 made clear that the chances of a diplomatic breakthrough in the Security Council were now 'bleak', the UN was given until tomorrow evening to come to a final choice on whether to back a second resolution or see America and Britain launch military action alone. If it is clear Britain and the US cannot get the necessary nine votes to pass the resolution in the council, they will dump plans to put it to a vote and announce that Saddam is in 'material breach' of UN resolution 1441 passed last November. That will be seen on both sides of the Atlantic as a trigger for war, which Ministry of Defence sources said would happen 'in short order'. It is expected that an air bombing campaign, followed by a massive ground offensive, would start within a few days.

It followed the disclosure by America yesterday that two US Air Force B-1 bombers knocked out truck-mounted anti-aircraft radar systems designed to alert Iraq to attack by British and US forces - a signal that war was imminent.

As tensions in the region heightened hour-by-hour, it emerged that Blair is also planning to hold an emergency meeting of the full Cabinet this week and announce a vote in the House of Commons, probably on Tuesday, if the UN route has been exhausted by tomorrow night. In a high-wire act, the Prime Minister will hope that with British troops about to go into conflict, the rebellion will be smaller than the 121 MPs who voted against the Government last month.
Here's where we'll see if the "unreasonable veto" of the French pays off.

Downing Street is braced for the resignation of Robin Cook, Leader of the House of Commons, by Tuesday night if the second resolution fails but officials said they hoped to keep Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, in the Cabinet. In the next 48 hours, in one of the last moves before mili tary action is announced, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, will say Britain is within its legal rights to launch an attack without a second resolution. The Government's chief law officer will say 1441 warns of 'serious consequences' if Saddam does not comply fully with UN resolutions. Earlier UN resolutions passed at the end of the Gulf war in 1991, which say that nations can use 'all necessary means' to disarm Saddam, back Britain's legal position. Goldsmith, whose legal advice to the Government advice is usually private, has told colleagues he feels he must speak out after reports that Britain had a weak legal case for an invasion. 'He's found all the reports that he's telling the Prime Minister that this might be illegal highly irritating,' said a senior Number 10 figure.
Not as irritating as Tony found them, I'll bet.

Blair and President Bush meet in the Azores today to finalise military plans and make a last assessment of the chances of squeezing a vote through the UN. France has said it will veto any resolution that automatically triggers war. Increasingly angry British government officials said France was acting in an 'arrogant manner' that was 'an affront to multilateralism'. France countered that it was seeking a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Yesterday, Bush made clear that war was now almost inevitable. 'There is little reason to hope that Saddam Hussein will disarm,' the President said in his weekly radio address. 'If force is required to disarm him, the American people can know that our armed forces have been given every tool and every resource to achieve victory.'

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, agreed that military action was now likely. 'The prospect of military action is now much more probable and I greatly regret that,' he said. However, throwing a spanner in the already convoluted works, the Iraqi government yesterday invited the leader of the weapons inspectorate Hans Blix and his colleague on the International Atomic Energy Authority, Mohammed ElBaradei, to visit Baghdad. The invitation, said officials at the United Nations in New York, where the invitation was delivered, asked for their presence to help 'accelerate the inspections process'.
Hey Blixie, you wouldn't be that dumb, would you?

In a signal that Blair is moving into 'high gear' as military action approaches, the Prime Minister called an emergency meeting of his closest aides and colleagues. The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'We need to take stock and realise things are difficult. But in the end you reach a point of decision. We are at that stage.'
In the end, I think Rummy's 'loose cannon' remarks last week had the desired effect. Rummy appealed to British honor and the Brits responded as we knew they would.

A poll of half of all backbench Labour MPs for today's BBC TV's Politics Show suggests the rebellion could be even larger than last time if Blair seeks support for war without a second resolution. Only 17 of the 129 MPs, asked if they would support military action against Iraq without a second resolution said that they would, and 95 said that they would not.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/16/2003 09:53 am || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Who cares what the entity - UN - whose members applauded Yassir Arafat when he addressed them, while carrying a gun on his hip. A majority of the stupid, doesn't count.
Posted by: Anonon || 03/16/2003 2:08 Comments || Top||

#2  Is it true Blair requested the Royal Family to remain in Britain next week? Doesn't the PM have to inform the Queen of a decision for war before undertaking action? If so does this indicate war is near?
Posted by: TJ Jackson || 03/16/2003 3:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Apparently, this is what we have been waiting for. Note this phrase from article posted above, "In the next 48 hours, in one of the last moves before military action is announced, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, will say Britain is within its legal rights to launch an attack without a second resolution. The [British] Government's chief law officer will say 1441 warns of 'serious consequences' if Saddam does not comply fully with UN resolutions. Earlier UN resolutions passed at the end of the Gulf war in 1991, which say that nations can use 'all necessary means' to disarm Saddam, back Britain's legal position.

On March 13, 2003, the US also recieved such a legal ruling. In a link to Instapundit, (you have to scroll down ( http://216.239.37.100/search?q=cache:lyfF2iimyuQC:64.247.33.250/index.php+%22serious+consequences%22+1441+John+Doe&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 ) alert reader Bert Wolff noted that in Bush v. Doe, the First Circuit notes that: "In diplomatic parlance, the phrase 'serious consequences' generally refers to military action."

Eugene Volokh has the goods at, http://volokh.blogspot.com/2003_03_09_volokh_archive.html#90665908 "Today's ["Today" being March 13, 2003] First Circuit decision (Doe v. Bush) made the same point:
The plaintiffs appropriately disavow the formalistic notion that Congress only authorizes military deployments if it states, "We declare war." This has never been the practice and it was not the understanding of the founders. See J.H. Ely, War and Responsibility 25-26 (1993). Congressional authorization for military action has often been found in the passage of resolutions that lacked these "magic words," or in continued enactments of appropriations or extensions of the draft which were aimed at waging a particular war. See, e.g., Laird, 451 F.2d at 34 ("[I]n a situation of prolonged but undeclared hostilities, where the executive continues to act . . . with steady Congressional support, the Constitution has not been breached."); Orlando, 443 F.2d at 1042-43 ("[T]he test is whether there is any action by the Congress sufficient to authorize or ratify the military activity in question."); see also Ely, supra, at 12-46 (arguing that Congress gave constitutionally sufficient authorization for ground war in Vietnam and Cambodia).

Here is the legal decision for the interested:
http://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/03-1266-01A.pdf

So it looks as if both Britian and the US were waiting for these legal decisions to show that the wording of 1441 stating "serious consequences" was indeed sufficient to go to war.

Both US and Britian have it now. It will begin. Pray for our troops as well as the innocent Iraqis!
Posted by: becky || 03/16/2003 7:29 Comments || Top||

#4  Leave it to the American legal profession to take credit for the liberation of Iraq. What a bunch of ass-kissing pansies.
Posted by: badanov || 03/16/2003 8:19 Comments || Top||

#5  What I find really amusing about Doe v. Bush is that it did exactly the opposite of what the plaintiffs wanted. Now we've got a finding that under US law, it's legal. Not only that, but the court went on to suggest legal basis under UN resolutions.
Posted by: Dishman || 03/16/2003 13:52 Comments || Top||

#6  If the UN inspectors don't leave within the next 12-24 hrs, they are even more stupid than the "human shileds"!
Posted by: mcat || 03/16/2003 16:06 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Jews Threatened in Denmark
Although Fadi Abdullatif, the head of fanatical Islamic fundamentalist Hizb-ut-Tahrir, was given a 60-day suspended prison sentence last year for distributing racist, anti-semitic propaganda, the organisation continues to post threats to exterminate Jews on its website, prompting immigrant spokesman Mehmet YÃŒksekkaya to challenge Danes to stop avoiding conflict and take up the fight against Islamic fundamentalism. Immigrant MP, Naser Khader, also said he is extremely concerned by the latest developments. 'Groups such as Hizb-ut-Tahrir are experiencing an upsurge in support from young people right now and it is important for parents to keep an eye on who their children are mixing with,' said Khader. The Ministry of Justice is currently investigating the legal possibilities of banning the Hizb-ut-Tahrir organisation, as has been done in Germany.
Posted by: George H. Beckwith || 03/16/2003 10:34 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Danes better deport this Abdullatif clown pronto (no more "toot-sweet")and send a clear unequivocal message that these activities will not be tolerated. If they don't it will just get worse!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/16/2003 23:26 Comments || Top||


Latin America
Ortega ratified as CTV president despite fugitive status
Fugitive CTV leader Carlos Ortega has been ratified as president of the Venezuelan Confederation of Trade Unions despite his current status as an asylum-seeker at the Costa Rican embassy in Caracas. CTV director Pablo Castro had hoped to land the plum job for himself but following a weekend meeting of the CTV's executive committee, Castro decided to put his personal ambitions on ice until at least the smoke clears on Ortega's final destination.
Ortega was one of the leaders of the anti-Hugo strike. Rather than spend a few years in jug, or be assassinated, he decided to beat it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 07:22 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If we don't allow him asylum we should be ashamed
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 19:42 Comments || Top||


Mark Steyn on Rumsfeld
Everybody else quotes Mark Steyn all the time, so I usually don't have to. But there are occasions when a particular turn of phrase could have come out of my own head, if the contents had been just a little more limber...
After all, at what point does Britain's helpfulness cease to be helpful? There are no hard and fast rules, but when Baroness Amos is chasing Dominique de Villepin around West Africa because Guinea's presidential witchdoctor is advising against war it is hard not to feel that, even by diplomatic standards, the whole thing has become unmoored from reality.

That is Rumsfeld's function - to take the polite fictions and drag them back to the real world. During the Afghan campaign, CNN's Larry King asked him, "Is it very important that the coalition hold?" The correct answer - the Powell-Blair-Gore-Annan answer - is, of course, "Yes". But Rummy decided to give the truthful answer: "No". He went on to explain why: "The worst thing you can do is allow a coalition to determine what your mission is." Such a man cannot be happy at the sight of the Guinean tail wagging the French rectum of the British hindquarters of the American dog.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 06:20 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Steyn rules! How he writes for some many disparate journals, in so many countries..is amazing...literally the Stephen King of opinion journals..but smarter and sharper wit
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 18:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Nearly fell down laughing when Steyn called Maureen Dowd, the New York Times elderly schoolgirl columnist!
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 18:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Ahh, the power of the frank and honest man. Straight shooters usually hit what they're aiming at...
Posted by: Ptah || 03/16/2003 19:25 Comments || Top||

#4  By the Way: When did the San Francisco - Bezerkley Area start downplaying Kaen's old moniker of "Baghdad by the Bay"? When invasion of the real Baghdad become necessary? I rarely hear that tune any more...just wondering
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 19:40 Comments || Top||

#5  whoops: Caen's
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 20:01 Comments || Top||

#6  Three weeks ago I bought Steyn's book The Face of the Tiger. Costs about $25 and he'll autograph it.
I should have bought it sooner. Read it all as they say. If there is a better writer (current events) somebody needs to point him/her out to me.
Posted by: Mark || 03/16/2003 20:47 Comments || Top||

#7  Yeah, and Steyn won't take the NY Twits (or Times) phonecalls since they tried to bowlderdize a solicited commentary. When they name it the New York Steyn, I'll start reading it again.
Posted by: Anonon || 03/16/2003 22:17 Comments || Top||


International
David Warren on the UN
This latest UN travesty has demonstrated, beyond reasonable doubt, that the UN is itself a counter-productive institution. No organization that puts advanced constitutional democracies on a par with corrupt, dysfunctional Third World dictatorships can have any moral authority. No bureaucracy such as that which has sustained the inspections rackets of Hans Blix and Mohammed ElBaradei has any business entering into serious matters of life and death.

And while there is hardly space to review the whole comprehensive disaster of the UN's organizational efforts in social, economic, and cultural affairs — or the very mixed results of its humanitarian efforts — I can find no part of the main institution worth retaining. Such useful agencies as those which regulate civil aviation, intellectual property or cross-border mail delivery do not require the UN edifice to continue their work. Most such were founded long before the UN, and the only contribution from headquarters is to make them bloated, inefficient, and political.

But that is hardly the worst sin of which the organization can be accused. In the final view, the evil of the UN consists in its having appropriated to itself the very ideals of human co-operation and solidarity, our hopes for international order and peace. By making all effort towards such ends dependent upon an apparatus of bottomless cynicism and corruption, the UN subverts those ideals and hopes.

The most effective way to proceed is for the United States to lead, by withdrawing its membership and all support, including all diplomatic and even parking privileges accorded to delegations in New York. For all that it has achieved, the UN deserves to be reduced from an international, to a municipal problem.
Ouch. As usual, bang on the money. I was just saying yesterday that a year ago, the U.S. withdrawing from the UN was a fringe position, but if it happened today, most of the American public would approve. By letting Jacques rant on and obstruct at every turn, and by refusing to connive at hiding the venality and corruption of the system, Bush has let the UN discredit itself. I think Kofi's seen this pretty clearly, too. He's been mighty subdued lately.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 12:19 pm || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  *nods* damn right.
Posted by: Ptah || 03/16/2003 15:01 Comments || Top||

#2  I think that organizations like world health, ICAO, mail, and others mentioned above will work well under international agreements, and not under the auspices of a high overhead parent organization. We do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. These good institutions need to be nurtured and the UN and all its corruption needs the old heave ho. Keep the other organizations lean so they do not become like the UN or the (in)famous IOC. The useful international institutions also need some mechanism for periodic performance review to keep them relevant and honest.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/16/2003 15:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Yeah, I used to think the "U.S. out of the U.N." ranters were whackos. Now I am one!
Posted by: Parabellum || 03/16/2003 16:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Agreed - when we have to bargain with Guinea, Mexico and Chile to implement our national defense means, the American people can understand how ludicrous it is - UN to Paris - Now!
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 16:53 Comments || Top||

#5  I can almost understand negotiating with other democratically oriented nations to push for coordinated military action-- it's hard for me to accept the Iraqi delegation heading a committee on Disarmament, or the Libyan delegation heading the Council on Human Rights.

It would be preferable if the UN were to implement serious sweeping reforms, but the ship is so corrupt it may be better to sink the darn thing and rebuild it with a "Six Sigma" approach in mind. Of course, the rest of the World at Large will hate us for our arrogance when we flush the UN down the commode... but what else is new?
Posted by: Lexicon || 03/16/2003 21:48 Comments || Top||

#6  Lexicon---The rest of the world will hate us, but after we move on, they will readjust themselves to the new reality or they will stand at the bus stop and watch the bus pull away. Real leadership means that one is not necessarily popular. I am with you. Open the bloody seacocks and send the UN to Davy Jones' locker. I sure do not see much salvagable in her rotting hull.
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 23:13 Comments || Top||


Home Front
American Islamic scholars say we've united bad guy factions
Islamic scholars in the United States who oppose calls for a religious struggle against America say the United States has succeeded where even bin Laden has failed: US policies in the Middle East have united a myriad of factions across the Muslim world to create the kind of umma, or community of believers, bin Laden has evoked. ''Why do Muslims think this is a war against the entire Muslim world?'' said Taha al-Wani, president of the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences in Leesburg, Va. ''There is a concept of umma. Umma will not lead to the foundation of a huge Islamic state. But it is the feeling that brings Muslims together when they face a threat or a problem. Since Sept. 11, America has gone too far. It has lost whatever sympathies there were in the Muslim world.'' Even those Islamic scholars who believe that a rebellion against the United States is a political — not theological issue — have been under pressure to adopt the language of extremists to remain in step with public opinion, Wani said.
Guess they've chosen which side they're on, huh?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 11:58 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think the Islamic scholars must have a macro written for this. Every event produces the same 'this is why we hate you so it must be your fault' press release.
Posted by: mhw || 03/16/2003 13:13 Comments || Top||

#2  I do not think that we ever had much sympathy in the Muslim world. The sooner we bring these guys to the light of day, just like Bush as done with the UN while trying to do a favor for Blair, the sooner we will root out this evil and get it cleaned up and out of the civilized world.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/16/2003 13:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Uniting all hostile Muslims is what the US Army Artillery corps calls a target rich environment.
Posted by: badanov || 03/16/2003 14:08 Comments || Top||

#4  It's always the generalizations: "US policies in the Middle East". Ask any anti-american psychopath what specific policy they are against and you get "those ones. the middle east ones."
I deal with anti-americanism on a daily basis because two of my co-workers are staunchly anti-american. The more I grill them to get to the root of their arguments, the more I hear things like "the US wants to dominate the world economy", "Bush doesn't want the dollar to fall below the Euro", "the US has WMD why can't Saddam", and of course the standard "it's about the oiiiillll". Nothing they say is based on logical deductions or inferences.
Posted by: RW || 03/16/2003 14:25 Comments || Top||

#5  Why do statements like "US policies in the Middle East have united a myriad of factions..." always seem to go unchallenged?

It isn't our policies in the Middle East that have led to Muslims lining up against us; it's their policies in the Middle East.
Posted by: Dave D. || 03/16/2003 16:34 Comments || Top||

#6  RW and the anti-americans arguments he deals with. Their motto: "Don't confuse me with the facts."
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/16/2003 20:27 Comments || Top||

#7  If you want to see how morally unbalanced these "scholars" are, check out:

http://www.mediamonitors.net
Posted by: Anonon || 03/16/2003 22:23 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Human shield run over by bulldozer in Gaza
An American woman in Gaza to protest against Israeli operations was killed Sunday when she was run over by an Israeli bulldozer, witnesses and hospital officials said. Witnesses said Rachel Corrie, 23, from Olympia, Wash., was trying to stop the bulldozer from tearing down a building in the Rafah refugee camp, witnesses said, when she was run over. She was taken to Najar hospital in Rafah, where she died, said Dr. Ali Moussa, a hospital administrator. Greg Schnabel, 28, from Chicago, said the protesters were in the house of Dr. Samir Masri. "Rachel was alone in front of the house as we were trying to get them to stop," he said. "She waved for bulldozer to stop and waved. She fell down and the bulldozer kept going. We yelled 'stop, stop', and the bulldozer didn't stop at all. It had completely run over her and then it reversed and ran back over her," he said.
Bet that hurt, briefly...
Groups of international protesters have gathered in several locations in the West Bank and Gaza during two years of Palestinian violence, setting themselves up as "human shields" to try to stop Israeli operations there. Corrie was the first member of the groups, called "International Solidarity Movement," to be killed in the conflict. Schnabel said there were eight protesters at the site, four from the United States and four from Great Britain. "We stay with families whose house is to be demolished," he told the Associated Press by telephone from Rafah after the incident.
The IDF demolishes the houses of Bad Guys. The International Solidarity Movement is expressing solidarity with the Bad Guys...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 11:37 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  then it reversed and ran back over her

congratulations on a job well done, Rachel
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 11:47 Comments || Top||

#2  She should have gone down to the pub with Ford Prefect when he invited her.
Posted by: jdhays || 03/16/2003 13:38 Comments || Top||

#3  Did she at least have her towel with her?
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 03/16/2003 13:56 Comments || Top||

#4  What is it with these un-ugly women in their 20s. Are they not getting laid?

What ever happened to making the world better by raising kids?. She should have been in Idaho, driving the SUV to the grocery store and theatening her kids to tell Daddy if they don't shut up.
Posted by: badanov || 03/16/2003 14:05 Comments || Top||

#5  badanov - apparently you didn't see the picture of the (un)lovely ms. Rachel teaching Paleo kids the proper way to burn the American flag?
Pardon me while I ululate for the chlorine in the gene pool
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 17:12 Comments || Top||

#6  Oooh. Homely.
Posted by: Fred || 03/16/2003 17:46 Comments || Top||

#7  ying and yang. Islamist provide suicide bombers, we provide suicide targets. symmetry. Darwin Award candidate.
Posted by: john || 03/16/2003 18:54 Comments || Top||

#8  Sad thing is they're (even on Fox) trying to paint her as some heroic martyr....
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 19:03 Comments || Top||

#9  Is that her face before or after the bulldozer ran over her?
Posted by: JDB || 03/16/2003 19:42 Comments || Top||

#10  How............darwinian
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/16/2003 20:41 Comments || Top||

#11  Maybe our bulldozer driver was just mezmerized by her nobility and hit the gas instead of the brake.
Too bad, so sad, honey. These people play for keeps.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/16/2003 21:54 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Second man with ties to University of Idaho arrested
A second man with ties to the University of Idaho has been arrested by federal agents in a widening investigation of a suspected terrorist-related web in the Moscow, Idaho and Pullman area. Former Idaho student Bassem K. Khafagi was arrested in January in a hotel near New York City's LaGuardia Airport and was returned to Michigan to face bank fraud charges. Khafagi and current University of Idaho student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen both are affiliated with the Islamic Assembly of North America, an FBI agent said. Al-Hussayen was arrested in late February, about a month after Khafagi, in the same investigation and is in custody in Boise, Idaho.
I'm sure we'll be told by the usual suspects that they're both pure as the driven snow, kind to puppies and kittens, and that it's all Ashcroft's fault...
Federal investigators allege the nonprofit IANA, which says it was formed to promote Islam, funneled money to activities supporting terrorism. "There is a very strong University of Idaho tie to that organization (IANA)," the FBI agent said. A former Washington State University student, Ismail Diab, who lived in the area as recently as last August, is being held as a material witness in the investigation. Washington State University officials could not confirm that Diab was a student at the Pullman school, which is eight miles from the University of Idaho campus. IANA is affiliated with Help the Needy, another nonprofit organization based in New York, also under investigation by the FBI. Four Arab men are accused of raising $2.7 million for unnamed individuals in Iraq through Help the Needy. Khafagi and Al-Hussayen are being held for investigation of violating U.S. immigration laws while awaiting separate trials on federal fraud charges. Al-Hussayen, a Saudi national, is being held in Boise on charges of visa fraud and lying to federal agents.
Naturally he's a Soddy national...
His attorneys and friends in Moscow dispute the government's contention that Al-Hussayen has led a life on the fringes of terrorism. But federal investigators contend Al-Hussayen and IANA provided Web sites for two radical Saudi sheiks, Salman Al-Awdah and Safar al-Hawali, who have direct contact with Osama bin Laden. IANA operated more than a dozen Internet sites, many of them managed by Al-Hussayen.
Many of them seem to be down at the moment, or haven't been updated in a couple weeks...
At the time of his arrest, Khafagi, an Egyptian national, was community affairs director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, based in Washington, D.C. Khafagi was a founding member of the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was incorporated in 1993, public records show.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 11:01 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  a CAIR official involved with terrorism???
Say it ain't so, Mo!
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 16:11 Comments || Top||


International
Those Who Live in Glass Houses Shouldn’t Throw Stones
For many years, the indigenous Kanak population of New Caledonia has been seeking independence from France, which colonised the country in 1853. After violent clashes in the mid-1980s, people in New Caledonia have negotiated new agreements which delay a vote on independence, but increase powers for the local government. The transition to independence in New Caledonia may influence other colonies in the Pacific, and similar autonomy programs are being debated in Bougainville and West Papua.

NOTE: New Caledonia is a major nickel producer
Nickel Mines: Bienvenue, Goro, Koniambo, Kouaoua, Nakety, SLN Mines, SMSP Mines, SMT Mines
Nickel Smelters: Doniambo, Koniambo
Nickel Companies: Argosy Minerals Inc., Eramet, Falconbridge Limited, Inco Limited, JC Berton Mines, Nickel Mining Corporation, Nisshin Steel Co Ltd, SMT, Societe MiniÚre du Sud Pacifique


In 1988, clashes between opponents and supporters of independence ended with the signing of the Matignon and Oudinot agreements, negotiated by the French government, the Kanak independence movement Front de Libération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS) and the conservative settler party Rassemblement Pour la Calédonie dans la République (RPCR). These agreements set out a ten-year transition with a vote on the future of New Caledonia scheduled for 1998.

Many Kanaks accepted the ten-year transition in the expectation that the 1998 referendum would lead to political independence for New Caledonia. However, the proposed referendum on self-determination and independence was deferred again for at least fifteen years, following the negotiation of a new agreement in May 1998 - the Noumea Accord.

The Noumea Accord includes constitutional changes to New Caledonia's status within the French Republic, creating "shared sovereignty", a new citizenship for New Caledonians, and ending the previous status as a territoire d'outre-mer (overseas territory) of France.

The Accord includes measures to recognise indigenous Kanak culture and identity (highlighted by a preamble to the Noumea Accord which acknowledges the "shadows" of the colonial period). A new cultural centre, named after the Kanak leader Jean Marie Tjibaou, has been built in Noumea, the capital of the country.

Other independence movements in the overseas Departments of France are Tahiti's leading independence party, Tavini Huiraatira (Polynesian Liberation Front), Movement for Independent Guadeloupe, Christian Movement for the Liberation of Guadeloupe or KLPG and Martinique Independence Movement or MIM.

This brings to mind Carl Bernststein's article in Time (2/24/92) about Bill Casey's destabilization of the Soviet Empire in the early 80s focusing on it's point of weakness in Poland."Tons of equipment-fax machines (the first in Poland),printing presses, short wave radios, video cameras, computers, word processers...-were smuggeled into Poland..." by secret channels.

If for any reason we should want to raise the temperature in the Frog Pond a few degrees (Centigrade, of course),it can been done by merely sending a couple of old Casey hands to the Caribbean and South Pacific with some small-to-moderate sized brown envelopes in their attache cases (figuratively, of course: the intrament of choice is non-tracaceable electronic money) and a bit of help from a Tech Rep at Blog*Spot.
Posted by: George H. Beckwith || 03/16/2003 09:09 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The various movements in the South Pacific are driven by large scale immigration to the region since WWII. Some island populations have moved closer to economic centers of activity. Some islands have had East Asian and Chinese immigration take over the commerce in the area.

The original population was overtaken by events because of its primitive nature and lack of adaptibility to change. Islands are not conducive to migration, to begin with, because of limited land area and the economic restrictions imposed by the ocean. Add to that immigrants with a more advanced culture and differing world view, and the original inhabitants get left behind.

And that ticks them off. The solution, for many of them, is the same that the African nations chose. Drive out the foreigners and everything will be better. "We'll all be richer and powerful." Of course, when the immigrants leave, so does the money, and the labor force that kept the money flowing.
Posted by: Chuck || 03/16/2003 11:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Just for the record : the 1988 "clashes between opponents and supporters of independence" were actually a full-scale hostage-rescue situation; the 22 april, 4 gendarmes were killed and 24 taken hostages by dozens of FNLKS (independence mvt) members. The situation was very tense, mainland France being right in the middle of the presidential election which opposed its conservative prime minister, and its socialist president. The 5 may, a few days before the election, the conservative prime minister, low in the opinion polls, opted for a military option. The GIGN, DGSE paramilitaries and Hubert naval-commandos launched an assault on the Ouvéa cave, where the group was hiding (location was partly found through brutally rounding up suspects & roughing them up ?). 19 hostages takers were killed (4 of them after they surrendered ?), as well as two gendarmes; alas, despite this and a shadowy (read "ransom") well-timed lebanon-hostages release, the conservative prime minister was defeated, to be elected in 1995 only. As you already guessed, his name was Jacques chirac.
Posted by: Anonymous || 03/16/2003 12:06 Comments || Top||


Iran
Aghajari refuses to have his head examined
Dissident Iranian professor Hashem Aghajari, under sentence of death for blasphemy, has rejected a court order for his mental health to be examined by doctors, his wife said Saturday. "The supreme court has decided that Aghajari be examined by five legal specialist physicians to test his mental balance," Zahra Behnudi said. "My husband considers this a new accusation against him and will not attend the medical test," she added, claiming the judiciary wanted to pass her husband off as a madman. "He is in good health and as a university professor and religious intellectual considers these accusations inappropriate."
Sounds kinda Soviet, doesn't it? It's the same mindset — "If you don't agree with me, you must be nuts."
Aghajari, a veteran of the 1979 Islamic revolution, was sentenced to death on November 6 for questioning the right to rule of Iran's Shiite Muslim clergy. He had called in a speech for a reformation within Islam and said Muslims did not have to follow their religious leaders blindly. Iran's supreme court overturned the death sentence against Aghajari on February 14, but he is to be retried by the same court that ordered his execution.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 10:34 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Khatami walks out of Expediency Council meeting
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami walked out of a meeting of the Expediency Council Saturday in an unprecedented protest against the stranglehold exercised over his reform agenda by conservatives who dominate the arbritration body. Khatami, as well as the speaker of the reformist-controlled parliament, Mehdi Karubi, and the head of its budget committee, Majid Ansari, left the meeting in protest at the Expediency Council's decision to boost the budget of another conservative-run watchdog body, the Guardians' Council. Khatami and his allies had demanded that the council's funding be determined by his government and parliament, Expediency Council secretary general Mohsen Rezaiee told IRNA. "But other members of the Expediency Council voted for a 60-billion-rial (7.5 million dollar) boost to the budget of the Guardians' Council," a more than two-fold increase from last year's 40 billion rial (five million dollar) budget, Rezaiee said.
Nice to see that rift widen, just a little bit more...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 10:28 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


East/Subsaharan Africa
Central African rebels take Bangui
Rebels in the Central African Republic claimed to have captured the capital Sunday, and a spokesman called the insurgents' leader the country's new president. The rebels began their attack on Bangui on Saturday while President Ange-Felix Patasse was visiting Niger for a meeting of African heads of state. Rebel spokesman Capt. Parfait Mbaye said the rebels controlled the entire city of 622,000 people by Sunday morning, though his claims could not be independently verified. Witnesses said Sunday they had seen many government soldiers shedding their uniforms and that Patasse's presidential guard had begun the looting at his home. After sporadic gunfire overnight, only silence could be heard Sunday morning.
Ummm... Yep. That sounds like a successful coup...
Mbaye said rebel leader Gen. Francois Bozize has entered the capital and would speak to the country soon. Mbaye called him "the president of the republic."
"... The Father of His Country®, The Hope of the Nation®..."
"Anyone who refuses to comply with the new decisions will be considered a troublemaker," Mbaye said, without elaborating.
"We shoots troublemakers in these here parts!"
Mbaye directed all of the state's police, national security forces and military to return to their barracks.
"Please return to your barracks so you can be executed in an orderly manner..."
Patasse flew later to Yaounde, Cameroon, where he remained Sunday morning, employees at his hotel confirmed.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 03/16/2003 10:01 am || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  meet the new boss, same as the old boss...different name, same guy (or virtually identical...). Sounds like (former) President Patasse should take the hint and retire to the Riviera to plot counter coups
Posted by: Frank G || 03/16/2003 10:04 Comments || Top||

#2  If yuh can't beat the rebels, yuh better get out of dodge, 'cause yuh might wind up as someone's tastey treat...........if I recall earlier postings.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/16/2003 12:22 Comments || Top||



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