NNI: Afghan security forces foiled a plot to kill Defence Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Planning Minister Mohammad Muhaqeq after Afghanistan's New Year celebrations, a local commander said. On March 22, after the new year celebrations, three rockets were fired at Mazar airport from Gornar village, four km from the main city in northern Afghanistan, reports The Australian. Four suspected extremists of former premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were arrested for plotting to killed the two ministers. One of them today confessed they had been plotting to kill the ministers, who were returning to Kabul, Commander Majit Rozi said. "They said then they were soldiers of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, but didn't say anything about killing Marshal Fahim," he said. "Then, after a report on Balkh television (earlier in the week), one of them confessed that they had come to kill Marshal Fahim and Hajji Mohammad Muhaqeq."
Hek is sitting in a madrassah in NWFP, saying something witty and Islamic right now. Something like, "Curses! Foiled again!"
The provincial television station had reported that Afghan security forces foiled an assassination attempt as the ministers left Mazar for Kabul after attending new year celebrations. Renegade warlord Hekmatyar is attempting to undermine the government of President Hamid Karzai. The International Security Assistance Force blamed Hekmatyar extremists for a rocket attack on its Kabul headquarters last month.
He's trying to undermine Hamid and his gummint, but he's obviously not paying top dollar for his snuffies.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 05:19 pm ||
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When are we Afgan/Allied forces going to clean-out NWFP?
Via Drudge
SARANDON MOVIE ON CBS FINISHES LAST PLACE IN OVERNIGHTS
Outspoken Hollywood Halfwitanti-war activistSusan Sarandon hit severe ratings turbulence on CBS Sunday night with her original telefilm ICE BOUND â landing last in overnight ratings and losing nearly 40% of audience levels from the previous Sunday on CBS. ICE pulled a frosty 5.5 rating/9 share in NIELSEN's 55 overnight markets. But it was in New York City where Sarandon hit complete bottom. At 9 PM in Gotham, Sarandon trailed even the WB network's BLACK SASH [3.5/5], with a 3.4 rating/5 share â the lowest seen for CBS on Sunday night in recent memory. It is not clear if it was ICE's subject matter â a woman suffering from breast cancer in the South Pole â or if it was viewership rejection of Sarandon that resulted in the startling ratings crash. Or maybe her 'life-partners' rantings?
Susie's got enough rantings of her own to make people dislike her. She takes a back seat to no man, least of all her consort.
CBS finished first in its 7 PM slot with 60 MINS [7.5/14]. A rerun of NBC's LAW AND ORDER [10.2/16] took top honors at 9 PM; ABC's holiday airing of TEN COMMANDMENTS [8.9/14] won 10 PM.
"Sure, [ICE BOUND] was a disappointment in the ratings," a CBS source said Monday from New York. "But Susan's acting was mediocre terrific and we are very proud to have aired the movie." Total audience levels, despite the holiday, were nearly identical to the previous week, research shows. Note: I wonder how a remake of Bull Dhuram would do now? Maybe the Dixie Cicks can do the theme song?
#1
"But Susan's acting was mediocre terrific and we are very proud to have aired the movie."
Sure but the advertisers and local networks were less then thrilled, that is, if they already paid. If they didn't, it's the network execs who won't be hiring Sarandon any time soon.
Bet you Sarandon blames conservative radio for suppressing her constitutional right of free speech and riling the people against her.
#4
the neo-liberial communist would love for everyone to believe that their freedom of speech is bieng suppressed. Just the opposite the american people are awakened, before 9-11 people would not of thought twice about boycotting a movie star, just would not have had the support. But things a changing and the low ratings for the hollywood traitor trash bunch is the result of the amercian people exercising right a self expression and self determination . These actors need to remember a saying from WWII - Lose Lips Sinks Ships - We are at war and this statements rings as true today as it did 50 years! Lets just hope the commy traitors in hollywood get the message. The amercian people have gotten the message!
Posted by: Dan ||
04/21/2003 15:24 Comments ||
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Susan Saran-Wrap: How does boycotting or disliking someone censor them in America? It doesn't.
Bet you she does it from about seven or eight different nationally broadcast forums (entertainment and otherwise) and completely misses the irony each and every time.
#8
Just saw Ron Jr.(@Buchaan and Press)Whining about stars being sensord(gist of it was that celebraties shouldn't be held to account for thier words).Man,I need a shower!
Said compareing His Father(Ron Sr.)to Bush Jr.was like compareing like Pries.Regean to a garden knome.
What a damn whennie!
Expect to hear her say idodge responability.(Bitchhh)
NNI: Chairman Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf and ex-cricket star Imran Khan has said the Iraq war has suggested the US foreign policy is terribly influenced by the Jews lobby. âIn addition to this the âoil lobbyâ was also functioning and all have shared interests,â he told his partyâs office bearers from South Waziristan Agency. Imran said that Israel considered Pakistan and Iran a threat to herself and she was afraid of Pakistanâs nuclear capability. Referring to the Kashmir problem, Khan said this issue needed to be fully highlighted on the world media. âThis is our misfortune that despite a false Indian propaganda and massive bloodbath in Vally, the New Delhiâs version of media blitz was being given importance at the international level." He gnawed at welcomed the hand of friendship extended by the Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee, saying it was a good gesture provided there is an element of sincerity in the offer.
I think we can safely say that everyone, not only Israel, is frightened of Pakistan's nuclear capability. Nuclear weapons are bad enough. Nuclear weapons in the hands of loons is a nightmare.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 10:00 am ||
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Well his wife's jewish.So why doesnt he leave her to register his protest...surely service to Allah comes before getting serviced by her!
NNI: Member National Assembly Maulana Azam Tariq Sunday announced his new political party âMillat-e-Islamia Pakistan.' Maulana Azam Tariq, a chief of banned Sipah Sehaba Pakistan and also who contested October last year election from the jail, has announced that the newly formed party headed by Maulana Ali Shair Haideri, would be working for making Pakistan a real Islamic Welfare country. âThe decision of making Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan has been taking in a meeting held on April 19 in KhairpureâSindh. Where thousands of Pakistani clerics, students, intellectuals, writers and others discussed and deliberated for as many as 19 hours,â Azam said.
So Haideri's going to be the legit face of the party, while Tariq is the power in the party. One can only imagine the amount of gunfire that must have been required for "thousands" of Pak clerics, students, etc., to discuss and deliberate for as long as 19 hours. The carnage must have been breath-taking...
Maulana Azam Tariq has been elected convener of the newly announced religious political entity with six conveners throughout the country including one for Azad Jammu and Kashmir. âThe entire process of the newly formed political entity would complete its process of manifesto, party constitution and the units in the country by May 15. Following which a membership campaign will be launched,â Azam said.
"Y'wanna join the party or you wanna kick in for the membership fund?"
"How 'bout neither?"
"How 'bout Mahmoud breaks yer knees?"
"The membership fund, I think..."
Six conveners of the party are named as Dr. Khadim Hussein Dhaloo, Khalifa Abdul Qayyum, Syed Pir Ali Shah Bokhari, Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhanvi, Dr. Mehmoud Ahmed Ghaznavi and Allam Masoud-ur-Rehman Usmani. The convener of Punjab is named as Maulana Abdul Khaliq Rehmani, Sindh Allam Badr 0ul-Din Chishti, Balochistan Haji Mohammad Rafiq, NWFP Haji Ghulam Mustafa and Mufti Abdul Wahid would be performing as convener of Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas. The provincial conveners would be setting up bodies at district level and would also be nominating their assistants in the provinces. The districts conveners would be nominating city and tehsil level conveners and who would make their level bodies. After completing the process as mentioned, a convention of the party would be convene for the approval of the party manifesto.
Betcha at least 2/3 of the guys on that list show up in the news in the next years associated in some way with acts of violence...
The party will be working for harmony amongst all the sects of Islam in Pakistan and will be projecting main objective of paying regard to all the sects. Azam condemned killings in the name of sectarianism âreligion, especially Islam teaches a lesion of passion, tolerance and respect for all other religions.â He said that the government should find out the root causes of sectarian violence in the country âand having done that should legislate in the parliament to prevent such violence.â
As far as I've been able to tell, the root causes of sectarian violence in Pakland have lain with groups like Sipah and Lashkar e-Jhangvi. Azam calling for peace and tolerance among sects would be a pretty funny joke, if not for all those corpses.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 09:52 am ||
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the telling statement?
"The provincial conveners would be setting up bodies at district level "
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2003 10:24 Comments ||
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Y'mean like "Weekend at Mahmoud's"?
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2003 10:47 Comments ||
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"...especially Islam teaches a lesion of passion"
Dr. Freud...call your office.
#5
"...especially Islam teaches a lesion of passion"
I just hope penicillin can clear that up. Eeeeww!
Posted by: Baba Yaga ||
04/21/2003 15:52 Comments ||
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"...especially Islam teaches a lesion of passion"
He said with a voice full of emulsion. With apologies to Mrs. Malaprop.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/21/2003 17:58 Comments ||
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You are rigtht; these guys are terrorists. I hope they keep their hateful activites in Pakistan. I wish they would all be put in jail where they belong (killing them would be better).
From the Daily Telegraph whose reporters seem to have spent a lot of time digging for documents in Iraq. Sorry link is to long to fit in the heading George Galloway, the Labour backbencher, received money from Saddam Hussein's regime, taking a slice of oil earnings worth at least £375,000 a year, according to Iraqi intelligence documents found by The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad. A confidential memorandum sent to Saddam by his spy chief said that Mr Galloway asked an agent of the Mukhabarat secret service for a greater cut of Iraq's exports under the oil for food programme. He also said that Mr Galloway was profiting from food contracts and sought "exceptional" business deals. Mr Galloway has always denied receiving any financial assistance from Baghdad.
Asked to explain the document, he said yesterday: "Maybe it is the product of the same forgers who forged so many other things in this whole Iraq picture. Maybe The Daily Telegraph forged it. Who knows?" When the letter from the head of the Iraqi intelligence service was read to him, he said: "The truth is I have never met, to the best of my knowledge, any member of Iraqi intelligence. I have never in my life seen a barrel of oil, let alone owned, bought or sold one."
In the papers, which were found in the looted foreign ministry, Iraqi intelligence continually stresses the need for secrecy about Mr Galloway's alleged business links with the regime. One memo says that payments to him must be made under "commercial cover". For more than a decade, Mr Galloway, MP for Glasgow Kelvin, has been the leading critic of Anglo-American policy towards Iraq, campaigning against sanctions and the war that toppled Saddam. He led the Mariam Appeal, named after an Iraqi child he flew to Britain for leukaemia treatment. The campaign was the supposed beneficiary of his fund-raising. But the papers say that, behind the scenes, Mr Galloway was conducting a relationship with Iraqi intelligence. Among documents found in the foreign ministry was a memorandum from the chief of the Mukhabarat to Saddam's office on Jan 3, 2000, marked "Confidential and Personal". It purported to outline talks between Mr Galloway and an Iraqi spy. During the meeting on Boxing Day 1999, Mr Galloway detailed his campaign plans for the year ahead.
The spy chief wrote that Mr Galloway told the Mukhabarat agent: "He [Galloway] needs continuous financial support from Iraq. He obtained through Mr Tariq Aziz [deputy prime minister] three million barrels of oil every six months, according to the oil for food programme. His share would be only between 10 and 15 cents per barrel." Iraq's oil sales, administered by the United Nations, were intended to pay for only essential humanitarian supplies. If the memo was accurate, Mr Galloway's share would have amounted to about £375,000 per year.
The documents say that Mr Galloway entered into partnership with a named Iraqi oil broker to sell the oil on the international market. The memorandum continues: "He [Galloway] also obtained a limited number of food contracts with the ministry of trade. The percentage of its profits does not go above one per cent." The Iraqi spy chief, whose illegible signature appears at the bottom of the memorandum, says that Mr Galloway asked for more money. "He suggested to us the following: first, increase his share of oil; second, grant him exceptional commercial and contractual facilities." The spy chief, who is not named, recommends acceptance of the proposals.
Mr Galloway's intermediary in Iraq was Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian. In a letter found in one foreign ministry file, Mr Galloway wrote: "This is to certify that Mr Fawaz A Zureikat is my representative in Baghdad on all matters concerning my work with the Mariam Appeal or the Emergency Committee in Iraq." The intelligence chief's memorandum describes a meeting with Mr Zureikat in which he said that Mr Galloway's campaigning on behalf of Iraq was putting "his future as a British MP in a circle surrounded by many question marks and doubts". Mr Zureikat is then quoted as saying: "His projects and future plans for the benefit of the country need financial support to become a motive for him to do more work and, because of the sensitivity of getting money directly from Iraq, it is necessary to grant him oil contracts and special and exceptional commercial opportunities to provide him with an income under commercial cover, without being connected to him directly." Mr Zureikat is said to have emphasised that the "name of Mr Galloway or his wife should not be mentioned".
I sincerely hope Mr. Galloway goes to prison for a long time. He is a money grabbing liar. Yet another example of the complete corruption and moral bankruptcy of the Left.
Posted by: Phil B ||
04/21/2003 11:15 pm ||
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Man, this is a massive story. Given the UK's libel laws you gotta know that the Telegraph has something real or they're finished as a publication.
Posted by: R. McLeod ||
04/21/2003 23:39 Comments ||
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Hint: should a similar situation ever pop up where the link is really LONG, go to http://tinyurl.com to get a reduced length link that points to the original.
#6
This is a fantastic story, but I'm not sure if it has legs. The establishment media are curiously reluctant to cover the exposure of "agents of influence" for some reason. The open, undisputed financial connection between ANSWER and the Saddam regime is a case in point. This came in the form of "legal fees" paid to ANSWER's top shill and point man, former Attorney-General Ramsey Clark, who also happens to have been Saddam's official legal representative in the United States. This has received little attention from the media, though, again, the facts are not in dispute. ANSWER simply dismisses the idea that they could be so low as to be influenced by mere money, while hypocritically suggesting that the Bush Administration would commit practically any crime to sharpen the profit margin of any company with whom it has the slightest association.
From the Weekly Standard: Irwin N. Stelzer
NOW THE RECONSTRUCTION BEGINS. What it will cost no one yet knows. Nor do we have a clear idea where the many billions will come from. But we do know this. The amount of outside aid that Iraq will require will depend on a prior decision: How much of the country's oil and other resources should be devoted to paying off the debts and obligations incurred by Saddam Hussein to pay for his wars, his weapons programs, and his palaces? We do not know enough yet to answer that question. But the data already in hand suggest that debt repudiation might play an important part in the rebuilding of Iraq's economy.
Well over 2,000 years ago Aristotle wrote what might serve as the executive summary for any policymaker wrestling with the finances of postwar Iraq. "At the time when a democracy replaces an oligarchy or a tyranny . . . some do not want to fulfill [public] agreements on the grounds that it was not the city [i.e., the government] but the tyrant who entered into them, . . . the assumption being that some regimes exist through domination and not because they are to the common advantage." Would a current-day wonk, his copy of "The Politics" tucked under his arm, tell the president to have the new, democratic Iraqi government forget about past debts? Not necessarily. I am told by my Hudson Institute colleague Ken Weinstein, whose understanding of philosophers' musings far exceeds that of this mere economist, that Aristotle intended to provoke a discussion rather than provide a clear guide to policy. So let's discuss.
Americans will probably be torn by our natural inclination to support the sanctity of contract, and the contradictory feeling that the Iraqi people should not have their futures blighted by debts incurred by a bloody tyrant. Such debts are known by students of the subject as "dettes odieuses"--odious debts--a concept developed by Alexander Nahum Sack, a government minister in czarist Russia and, after the revolution, professor of law in Paris. Sack argued that when a government changes hands, the liability for public debt remains intact, with one important exception: If a despotic power incurs a debt not for the needs or in the interest of the State, but to strengthen its despotic regime, to repress the population that fights against it, etc., this debt is odious for the population of all the State. This debt is not an obligation for the nation; it is a regime's debt, a personal debt of the power that has incurred it, consequently it falls with the fall of this power. There is lots more of this article - go and read it.
#1
The Saddamites owed the Russians billions. The Russians clearly did not expect to collect unless they could save Saddam's ass and keep him in power. I think the new Iraqi regime should not disappoint them.
Link courtesy of "Best of the Web." English translation is a little ragged.
IslamOnline.net: After three tough weeks in Iraq, Tunisian volunteers who fought against the U.S.-led invasion forces returned home with haunting memories and bitter feeling of betrayal and hatred. The "haunting memories" are probably memories of U.S. firepower; the "betrayal" came from their own mullahs.
"We left for Iraq as volunteers to join the Iraqis who are die-set [dead-set?]to defend their country, but returned victims to betrayal by some Iraqi army members and hatred â and even attacks â by some Iraqi civilians," recalled Al-Tayeb Bin Othman, a 27-year-old teacher. "They were only using us! Imagine that!"
"Upon reaching Baghdad, we stayed for four days without any sort of military training and were later given standard jihadi fashion accessories Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades after lightning [perfunctory? brief?] training," Othman told IslamOnline.net. But since the first days of war, unleashed on March 20, Othman's group of volunteers was deserted by their Iraqi commander who suddenly vanished in thin air. "Beam me up, Ali! It's too hot down here!"
"Amid the conflicting showdown, the governor of the eastern town of al-Kut called on the Arab volunteers to counter the attack by the U.S. forces in the absence of Iraqi army units," he recalled. The Iraqi army units had wisely decided to go somewhere else.
"The battle was so ferocious and we lost 26 martyrs, all Arab volunteers," asserted Othman. That's 26 we don't have to haul to Guantanamo, I guess.
He said that the Iraqi regular forces pulled out of the area in large and organized numbers and donned civilian clothes. It's called "desertion."
"This left the situation on the ground as intense," he bitterly remembered. I think he means "lonely," as in "the Marines were coming and we were standing out there all alone."
Talk about betrayal by some Iraqi army members were also rumored among the thick palls of smoke that turned reality of the situation there as blurry. Cheeze, enough with the metaphors there, Hemingway!
"Arab volunteers were put in the frontlines to stop all the bullets while the Republican Guard units were in the back working on their exit strategies in the battle around Baghdadâs Saddam International airport," said Al-Assad Jirad in disgruntle. . . "Disgruntle?" Does he work for the Tunisian Post Office or something?
. . . adding 400 Arab volunteers breathed their last during the fighting. Good shooting, boys!
We were stun-founded [stunned? dumbfounded?] when a Yemeni was about to "fire on a U.S. Apache helicopter gunship only to be ordered by an Iraqi officer 'Do not shoot⊠it is an Iraqi aircraft', he recalled. Who was that masked officer? Mohammed Saheed al-Shahaf?
To add up to the plight of people leaving their country for the defense of another, the inhabitants of southern town of Nassiriyah welcomed Arab volunteers with nothing but gunfire. "We were fired at by the town residents, who killed three of us. They just shouted asking us 'why you are here? Did you came to defend Saddam?'" Emad, another volunteer, asserted. Maybe they were trying to tell you something--Like, maybe, they didn't want you there.
. . .
Selim, standing outside the Palestine Hotel 15 minutes before the U.S. marines drove in amid surprisingly scant resistance, gave up on the whole "martyrdom" gig found no way out but to desert hide among human shields after taking off the Khaki suit which he felt would leave him less secure. Brave Sir Robin ran away! Bravely ran away away!
"I was nabbed by the invading forces along with western human shields, then escorted by them back to my country through Jordan," he recalled. Selim was lucky he found a French acquaintance that helped shave and join the human shields. A Frenchman who shaves! Will wonders never cease.
Aint it hilarious when the cannon fodder discover they're just cannon fodder, bullet stoppers for guys who're too important to die? And ain't it hilarious when you discover that the people who were screaming "Saddam, we will defend you with our blood" a week ago aren't really as dumb as you are?
Posted by: Mike ||
04/21/2003 05:04 pm ||
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This has to be the funniest story of the entire war. "Hey what the f**k are you guys doing here? Helping Saddam?
"Uh, yeah."
"Say hello to my little friend..."
Posted by: R. McLeod ||
04/21/2003 23:42 Comments ||
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This is a whole new level of pathetic phantasist meets reality.
Rhetorical question:
Who is the ultimate tool & fool?
a) Western weenie human shield
b) Arab Jihadists who give up all to fight for Taliban / Saddam / ???
#4
Well, I am glad he survived his ordeal, and I am glad that he survived and was traumatized. Now he can go home and tell his story and in doing so, put some more cracks in the Jihad Fascade.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/21/2003 17:51 Comments ||
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"And I tell you, Mahmoud, I was just about to kill 2 marines -- no, make that five-- with my bare hands when this old Iraqi lady sneaks up behind me and starts giving me a wedgie..."
Posted by: Matt ||
04/21/2003 18:02 Comments ||
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Too bad they all did not get a chance to die for Saddam! If you think these idiots learned a lesson? Think again. These are just the types of yahoos who sport a chubby everytime some Iman issues a fatwa. Do they really think God was on their side this time, last time, or ever?
#7
So much for Arab Solidarity!
For the life of me I can't figure out why these people are being repatriated.We will have to deal with these ignorant fools agin.
At the least they should be held as unlawfull combatants,held until Iraq has a Judicial System up and running.Figure 2 or 3 years,meanwhile put them through an intense regiemen of deprograming and re-education.
Mohammad Hamza al-Zubaidi, one of the 55 Iraqi terrosristskleptocrats officials wanted by the United States, was taken into custody by US troops, US Central Command said in a statement. A member of the Iraqi National Congress, Haidar Ahmad had told AFP earlier that the Free Iraqi Forces (FIF) "captured Mohammad Hamza al-Zubaidi in Hilla," 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Baghdad, "and handed him over to US troops."
"For us? Oh, you shouldn't have..."
Zubaidi, the queen of spades in the "most wanted" deck of cards issued by the US military, was a former member of the Revolutionary Command Council, the all-important decision-making body of Saddam Hussein's regime. The Queen of spades; hmm⊠that's 13 points.
The capture of Zubaidi brings to eight the number of former Iraqi officials arrested since Washington issued the playing cards with the order to capture or kill on April 11.
The INC said Sunday that Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Jamal Mustafa Abdullah Sultan had given himself up, but the information was not confirmed by the US military.
The US military on Saturday captured Iraq's former higher education and scientific research minister Human Abd al-Khaliq Abd al-Ghafar.
Former finance minister and deputy prime minister Hikmat al-Azzawi was captured April 18,
while Samir al-Aziz al-Najim, a former oil minister and senior Baath party leader, was apprehended a day before.
Two of Saddam's half-brothers, Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti and Watban Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, were captured on April 17 and 13 respectively.
General Amir al-Saadi, a rocket specialist and Saddam's chief weapons advisor, surrendered to coalition troops April 12.
A leading Republican lawmaker said on Sunday it could be at least five years before a new government is up and running in Iraq. As the U.S. administration was reportedly considering a long-term military arrangement in the country, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar said the U.S. effort led by retired Gen. Jay Garner to begin rebuilding post-war Iraq had "started very late" and gaps were being filled by Shi'ite Muslims and others who seek a theocratic state over a democracy. No, it started two months early, sinced the war plan called for 90 days and not 30 days of fighting.
"I would think at least we ought to be thinking of a period of five years of time. Now, that may understate it," Lugar, an Indiana Republican, told NBC's "Meet the Press" program. Might take fifty years.
Lugar was one of several U.S. lawmakers and former officials appearing on Sunday morning talk shows in the aftermath of the successful U.S. military assault on Iraq that brought down the government of President Saddam Hussein. The New York Times on Sunday reported that the United States was planning a long-term military relationship with the new government of Iraq that would give the Pentagon access to four military bases in the country. Such an arrangement could spark additional concern in the Middle East where general Arab sentiment is for the United States to leave Iraq quickly. Tap, tap, tap ...
Speaking to reporters in Texas, President Bush would not predict how long U.S. troops would remain in Iraq, saying he would not declare the war over until the commanding general, Tommy Franks, said so. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said U.S. troops would remain as long as it took to secure the country and then would leave. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, shied away from saying there would be a "permanent" U.S. military force in Iraq but said the United States would be required to keep a presence in the region. "We've come to stay, but we've come to leave," Roberts said on "Fox News Sunday."
What? What'd he say?
"I remember when President (Bill) Clinton indicated we would be in the Balkans for about a year. Now it's a decade later. We're still there, and we still need to be there," Roberts said. The NATO-led peacekeeping operation in Bosnia began in December 1995 and, although much reduced, still numbers over 10,000 troops. I don't recall any discussion of an exit strategy for the Balkans before Bill sent us in. Sen. Evan Bayh, an Indiana Democrat and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he would expect U.S. troop presence to be "an evolutionary process" with a significant number early on until the situation settled down. "We're going to have to be there for a while, not permanently, but for a while, because we don't want to win the war and then lose the peace," Bayh told the Fox program.
Oh, Lordy. That's already become a clichè. Somebody tell him: real men don't eat cliche.
Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, one of the strongest advocates for military action against Iraq, was more optimistic, telling CBS's "Face the Nation" that "a transition could be short — a matter of months. I would hope that it would only be a matter of months."
I think the Shiites will try and prevent that, perhaps inadvertently...
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told CNN's "Late Edition" U.S. troops would likely "stay longer than two years." Former CIA Director James Woolsey said the United States would have to maintain a military presence of "some substantial degree" in the Gulf region. Good news is, we can close our Saudi bases!
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2003 03:59 pm ||
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Just like a sports contract: a signing bonus (out of Soddy), a base contract 5-7 years with incentives (taking out Iran and Syria), with incentives (Lebanon and Soddy).
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2003 18:05 Comments ||
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The U.S. Army was expecting roughly 200 applicants Monday at a job fair aimed at hiring residents of the Iraqi capital for critical work aimed at getting the city back to normal. Instead, officers said, more than 1,000 showed up. Either a whole lot of folks are happy to be liberated or that's a heck of a lot of collaborators. Let's ask the French, they have lots of experience in collaboration.
The U.S. military needs doctors, lawyers, engineers, interpreters and teachers to restore basic services, said Capt. Stacey Simms, an officer with the 422nd Civil Affairs Battalion. While some hospitals remained open during fighting in Baghdad, most closed and the demand for medical care is high, he said. U.S. civil affairs officers have been traveling all over Baghdad, assessing basic services. Simms said teams checked schools, hospitals as well as water, power and sewage systems to list all work that needs to be done. ``We have to create a legal system,'' Simms said. ``We have to make sure medical facilities are up and running, we need teachers to get the schools running.'' I like the approach, it's starting at the bottom and working up rather than at the top and working down.
Applicants began arriving at 8 a.m. outside the civil-military affairs center, established in a government building in central Baghdad. Two tank platoons and an engineer platoon set up lanes and holding areas outside the office to screen potential applicants. The applicants were asked to line up according to their skills. That caused a bit of opportunism. ``When we said we needed plumbers and electricians, everyone became a plumber and electrician,'' said Lt. Col. Philip DeCamp, commander of the task force. ``When we asked for people with credentials to line up, most people left the line. People are so anxious for work, they're willing to do anything.''
Abdul Wahab Jamal, 50, was hired as an interpreter on the spot to help control the lines. A former Kuwait Airways aircrew chief, he spoke flawless English - a skill badly needed as U.S. soldiers try to work with Baghdad residents. ``These people really want jobs, and they are beginning to trust the Americans more,'' Jamal said. Hear that, Kofi?
Simms said they military will pay cash to the people they hire. They will be assigned all over Baghdad. Eventually, the new government will take responsibility for paying and supervising the workers. In some areas - water, electricity and police, among others - Simms said the military hired supervisors who worked for the old government and authorized them to rehire people. The military will also hire U.S. government contractors to take over some responsibilities. Just make sure we de-Ba'ath these supervisors.
On Tuesday, Simms said he planned to start hiring unskilled labor to start clearing away debris left by the war. ``If you look at some of these buildings, they need a lot of cleaning,'' he said. Which will put some more money in the hands of average Iraqis. Not a bad start.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2003 12:50 pm ||
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"Just make sure we de-Ba'ath these supervisors."
Nearly 1,000 political prisoners slaughtered by the Iraqi regime are buried in secret graves at a cemetery on the outskirts of Baghdad, news agency AFP has reported. Other secret cemeteries in the city could take the number of dead to 6,000, the agency said. "The Ba'ath regime has gone and now we can talk freely with you," the manager, Mohymeed Aswad, told the agency. "They are all political. Ten to 15 bodies would arrive at a time from the Abu Ghraib prison and we would bury them here."
Mohammad Moshan Mohammad, gravedigger at the cemetery, said the dead were mainly political prisoners. Those buried in the last three years had been shot or hanged and were males and females aged between 15 and 30. "The civilians were hanged. Sometimes a soldier would come through and they were all shot. I could distinguish them by their uniforms," he said. As hard as I try, I can't get mad at Mohammad and Mohymeed. They were doing a loathsome job, and any protest from them would have guaranteed their joining those executed folks in the grave.
AFP said each grave was numbered rather than having a name inscribed on a tombstone. Yet another thing Saddam borrowed from Stalin.
Another five cemeteries could take the number of dead to around 6,000, the gravedigger said. "There are another five cemeteries in Baghdad with secret grave sites so in this city alone there are about 6,000 (political) corpses." I'm just betting that other cities have their own mass graves as well. I do appreciate the outrage voiced today by the peaceniks over the finding of the mass graves -- Sean Penn was especially heartfelt and moving.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2003 12:36 pm ||
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Alas, "I am outraged by mass graves" gets pitched as a "man bites dog" story-- while "mass graves, no problem" becomes a viable fashion statement for selling pop culture to unthinking teenagers. {This is the consequence of having a commercially-oriented media, rather than diverse media with a variety of organizational, personal, and governmental missions.) Just to make the point that peace activists are not necessarily oblivious to the activities of the secret police in Iraq, here's a story from a peace activist attempting to assist the former Director of the Baghdad Symphony Orchestra in the wake of the looting of the music school.
Edited for brevity.
The pilot and crew of a B-1B bomber from Ellsworth Air Base (near Rapid City, SD)have received Distinguished Flying Cross medals for their April 7 strike on a house in Baghdad where Saddam Hussein was believed to be meeting with other Iraqi leaders. Military officials in Washington, D.C. announced Sunday that they gave the medals to Capt. Chris Wachter, commander; Lt. Col. Fred Swan, weapons-system officer; Capt. Sloan Hollis, pilot; and 1st Lt. Joe Runci, offensive-systems operator.
The Central Command, which is in charge of military operations in the Middle East and Persian Gulf, announced the awards along with another set of commendations for the pilots of two U.S. jets that bombed a complex March 19 where Hussein and his sons were thought to be staying.Lt. Col. David Toomey and Maj. Mark Hoehn were flying the F-117A attack jets that night. Both overcame equipment problems and short notice to perform the mission effectively, the military said.
The bomber crew is part of Ellsworth's 34th Bomb Squadron. The bomber was in the air and had finished refueling when the crew received the mission call. It took 12 minutes to reach Baghdad. With F-16 fighters for cover and Navy EA6 Prowlers jamming the radar of Iraq air- defense systems, the crew confirmed target coordinates and dropped four 2,000-pound bunker-buster bombs. The bombs penetrate the ground 10 to 20 feet before exploding. Military officials hoped the bombs killed Saddam, his sons and other top Iraqi officials. But that hasn't been confirmed either way.
After striking the "leadership target" the crew hit six additional sites in Baghdad, then moved on to nine more targets. They included missiles, radar and support vehicles. One bomber, SIXTEEN targets. Hot damn!
Posted by: Dar ||
04/21/2003 12:25 pm ||
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Yep, and now the "bad guys" have the personal ID (names) to go with it.
Wonder who's minding the synapse store at DoD?
Posted by: Larry ||
04/21/2003 15:11 Comments ||
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I've kinda been waiting after I posted this to see what comments it gets. I'm curious if the DFC is really warranted in this case.
Please understand I think what these guys did was terrific, but when one considers what the bomber pilots in WWII went through--and how few of them got the DFC--this mission just screams "milk run" to me.
Perhaps there's more to this mission and its inherent dangers and challenges than I, with a security clearance rating of Joe Public, am aware of, but how many fliers braved flak, Messerschmidts and Focke-Wulfs, and limped home with one or two fewer engines to receive nothing more than their combat pay?
Posted by: Dar ||
04/21/2003 16:15 Comments ||
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Argh--as usual, my mouth/fingers engage before my mind. In looking at the USAF order of preference, I see the medal is actually ranked between the Silver and Bronze Stars, which would seem more appropriate. I mistakenly thought the DFC was only second or third to the MOH. Thirty seconds on Google would have saved me from publicly appearing like an idiot (again).
Did find a very cool intro on the DFC Society home page, too.
Regardless, these crews did perform exceptionally and deserve commendation.
Posted by: Dar ||
04/21/2003 16:25 Comments ||
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Edited for brevity.
After winning some of the Iraq war's hardest fighting, Britain's Royal Marine Commandos began packing up hovercraft and landing vessels Monday to begin a long journey home. The departure over the next few weeks of the 2,000 troops of the 3rd Commando Brigade - among the British army's best-trained forces - is quiet proof that the war is over. What?! It's not over! It's quagmire, I tell you! Quagmire!
The 3rd Commando Brigade was in the thick of the war at the outset, and eight members died in an American helicopter crash in the first hours. Other units roared over mud flats in the Faw peninsula with squat, black hovercraft and employed grappling hooks to tear down obstacles of barbed wire and steel girders. The noisy, low-slung craft moved so fast over the marshland that when they triggered mines, they had usually passed over them before the devices exploded. Never heard of this before--I can't imagine it's the funnest experience, but it's nice to know you can traverse a minefield when absolutely necessary.
The squadron's four hovercraft have been scarred by bullets and shrapnel and generally beaten up by weeks of hard use - and by a 16-hour slog in choppy seas Sunday from Iraq to a naval base south of Kuwait City. Marines were preparing to load them Monday - along with four drop-ramp landing vessels capable of carrying a Land Rover and four bigger ones that can haul a tank - onto a ship making a six-week trip to Britain. The soldiers will fly home and the entire brigade should be back home by mid-May to overhaul their gear and get ready to redeploy, wherever, by Aug. 1. Thanks again for your help! Enjoy your time at home--you've earned it!
Posted by: Dar ||
04/21/2003 11:42 am ||
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We Yanks know who are real friends are: they are the ones who come when things are tough and come despite criticism and danger. And they bring some of the best and bravest troops in the world. Bravo Brits - and thanks again!
#2
So much for the it's all about the oil and "ocuppying Iraq. The Marines are also pulling out of Bahgdad and the north of Iraq which puts them farther from Syria. If we had any ambition of going after Syria would we do that. I think that all of the heavy units will be out of Iraq in six months tops and all that will be left is MPs and engineering battalions. And the Arab street will still be pissed off. If the Arab nations were so worried about civil stability in Iraq they should of been willing to supply the cadre for the training of a new Iraqi National Police Force. And one thing. The "cops" currently on the street in Bahgdad, get them the hell out of military style uniforms and take the AKs away and leave them in the station house. If they need a side arm fine. The AKs just send the wrong message in my opinion
Posted by: Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire ||
04/21/2003 12:36 Comments ||
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"Like being in prison, with the added possibility of drowning..."?
#4
Love them Brits! You know what I like best? Their units have really cool names like Royal Dragoons, Beefeaters, etc. Does anyone have a link to those UK units that served? Long live Tony Blair! How soon before they give him a Title?
#5
Sure hope they left their MOUT skills with the 3ID and USMC - after years of Ireland exprience the Brits are the best at street-fighting strategy in the world at present, and we may very well need that knowledge 'lest we learn the hard way.
Posted by: Larry ||
04/21/2003 15:16 Comments ||
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Good, multi-page article about the confusion on the ground in combat and the tragedy of civilian casualties when fighting an enemy who has no qualms about using civilian garb, suicide bombing, and other desperate measures. It's neither a rah-rah piece nor a condemnation of the troops, but a sobering view in any case. Of course, phrases like "connoiseurs of close-combat" aren't exactly Shakespeare, but it's still a worthwhile read.
Posted by: Dar ||
04/21/2003 10:16 am ||
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Danm, I finally had to break down and register on the NYTs web site. All the news that's fit to print as long as you tell them who you are. This is why it's called the fog of war. This comandding officer had the right idea. It's not supposed to be a fair fight. If our tropps get involced in a "fair" fight then there officers haven't done their job as far as training and planning goes. The line from Patton was quite correct. The one about making someother poor bumb bastard die for his country.
Posted by: Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire ||
04/21/2003 12:57 Comments ||
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The commander of a U.S. tank unit that hit a Baghdad hotel, killing two cameramen during the battle for the Iraqi capital, says he was unaware the building was packed with journalists, according to a French magazine.
Reuters cameraman Taras Protsyuk and Jose Couso, a cameraman for Spanish channel Tele 5, were killed when a tank shell hit the 15th floor of the Palestine Hotel. Three other members of the Reuters team were wounded.
Captain Philip Wolford, who led the Abrams tanks defending a bridge near the Palestine Hotel on April 8, was quoted as saying he authorised the attack after his men spotted what appeared to be someone using binoculars on the roof of the same building.
"We had been engaged in fighting for several hours," Wolford said in an interview with French weekly Nouvel Observateur.
"Firing was coming in the whole time, from that area as well as others. I returned fire. Without hesitation -- that's the rule," he said, according to a Reuters translation of his remarks, which were reported in French.
"I learnt 20 minutes later that we had hit...a hotel with journalists. I feel bad, my men feel bad."
Asked whether he knew the building was being used as a base for most of the foreign media in Baghdad, Wolford said: "No, I hadn't received any information of that kind.
"I can't imagine for an instant that any information sent by divisional headquarters would not have reached me."
A U.S. official, who asked not to be identified, said on Monday the incident was under investigation but declined specific comment on the magazine report.
Criticised by international media groups for the attack on the Palestine Hotel, the Pentagon initially said its troops were responding to sniper fire. Journalists at the scene said they had heard no fire coming from the hotel.
Wolford said his unit had been under fierce attack as it defended the Jumhuriya bridge and that it had been difficult to tell where incoming rockets or shells were being fired from.
The sighting of someone at the Palestine Hotel holding what appeared to be binoculars had suggested the fire was being directed from there.
"On the bank I counted 20 or 30 teams of four men equipped with RPGs. Some of them were trying to board boats to get under the bridge where our position was. It was the biggest resistance we met entering Baghdad. Four of my men were hurt."
Posted by: rg117 ||
04/21/2003 10:14 am ||
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Hey stevey--boyee (oops, fergot to capitolize your first name) if you want to know true cold-blooded murderous treachery, just follow us as we escort a convoy of humanitarian relief trucks and the Fedayeen Saddam Death squads hit us. Convoy leaves the A/O, relief not delivered, (civilians don't like to operate in a combat zone) another innocent civilian passes away from lack of food/water/medicine etc. Sucks to be the people on the non-recieving end, but as soon as the Iraqi people eradicate the FSD guys (which is happening as we speak) the flood gates will open for a new life for this once and future great nation. Don't talk unless you have been downtown. Fucking pig.
#9
Little Stevey's a bigot. The status-seeker conformist class has been forced by PC to give up racism, at least overtly, but their natural arrogance and prejudice still need an outlet. They would have to face the reality of their own misery and futility otherwise.
You shouldn't make us angry, stevie. You wouldn't like us when we're angry.
*sound of shotgun pump action*
Posted by: Dar ||
04/21/2003 14:15 Comments ||
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"Americans are murderous"
Man, I miss Murat. These other trolls are pathetic. I give this rant a 3. No originality, nothing really relevant to the subject matter (it could apply to any story regarding people getting in the way in a war zone), and he can't find the shift key to capitalize his name.
Better luck next time, stevey.
Posted by: Baba Yaga ||
04/21/2003 15:47 Comments ||
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stevey- go play with yourself. If we were really murderous the death toll would be in the hundreds of thousands. Kinda' like Saddam's own record.
#14
"Americans are murderous". Reminds me of a line I read in a book about the Vietnam War years ago. Army officer type in SF airport. Woman war protester comes striding up and calls him a murderer. His reply was precious!
"Madam, I am NOT a murderer. I am a killer. I am a trained killer in the service to my country. That's what the military does - it kills people. It kills enemies of the United States of America. The more I listen to you, the more I believe you are one of those enemies."
How can you top that?
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/21/2003 16:45 Comments ||
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Pointing things at people in the middle of a firefight ain't to bright.
(AP) Amid toppled statues and paint-splattered murals, one image of Saddam Hussein endures in postwar Iraq: the stoic portrait of the former president in a suit and tie that graces pastel-colored bank notes. But the so-called Saddam dinar, which has lost half its value with the collapse of the Iraqi government, could soon go the way of the Confederate dollar.
Part of the U.S. reconstruction push is introducing a new Iraqi currency that officials hope will hold its value and undoubtedly be expunged of the mustachioed former dictator. Establishing a stable currency is seen as key to rekindling Iraq's tattered economy and rebuilding a national identity. But many hurdles remain, including the lack of an Iraqi government and a general mistrust of anything other than U.S. greenbacks.
The dinar was officially pegged at a rate of just over 3 to the dollar. But it traded at around 2,500 to the dollar on the black market before the war and has plummeted to 3,500 with the ousting of Saddam. Merchants who have opened shops are already jacking up prices to compensate for the currency's hollowed-out value.
These things are showing up on eBay already - I bought a 10,000 Dinar note to go with my old 10,000 Zloty note...for 30 bucks.
Posted by: mojo ||
04/21/2003 09:57 am ||
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Maybe the best way to stabilize Iraq ecnomically is to use the Quito approach. Just abandon the local currency and switch over to a Dollar based economy. It already seems to have semi-offical status most places anways.
Posted by: Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire ||
04/21/2003 12:40 Comments ||
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Here's a suggestion for the new, post-war Dinar...
http://starfleetcommand.us/dinar
#3
Hey mojo, you sure it's an original? I heard they were xeroxing the stupid things because the official mint couldn't print them fast enough.
Posted by: Baba Yaga ||
04/21/2003 15:56 Comments ||
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Yeah, BAba, it's real. Has two (count 'em, 2) printed sides, crisp "Bank of England" type paper. Uncirculated, I think, but it's hard to say for sure. The copied ones were single-sided, though.
As the U.S. administration was reportedly considering a long-term military presence in Iraq, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut voiced Sunday, April 20, his misgivings about the possibility of setting up an Islamic regime in post-Saddam Iraq. "Obviously, we don't want this to turn into a theocracy. We've got to work hard to win the peace in Iraq and transform the nation's political structure into a representative, democratic government," Lieberman told CBS's "Face the Nation" news show.
Pretty much the opposite of an "Islamic Republic."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 09:18 am ||
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Damn--if this is what the Iraqi people want, it's going to be interesting to see if we let them. My fear, though, is if they do set up a theocracy we'll find ourselves back there again in 12 years.
What is it with dictators and jihad-spouting imams that appeals to these fools anyway? Democracy and personal responsibility too much to stomach? Easier to blame the West and the Jews than actually solving your own problems?
Posted by: Dar ||
04/21/2003 10:28 Comments ||
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What is it with dictators and jihad-spouting imams that appeals to these fools anyway?
Don't know, but a good move would be to undermine Iran's mullahs. If there's any instability or unrest in the ME, chances are they have some sort of hand in it.
#4
let the Iraqi people vote...so what is zionist liebermanns business in Iraq anyway..isnt taking care of Israel enough for him...Iraq for the Iraqis...and if the mullahs win election so be it...that is what freedom is all about ...one man one vote ....no two ways to it.....
#5
"let the Iraqi people vote...so what is zionist liebermanns business in Iraq anyway..isnt taking care of Israel enough for him...Iraq for the Iraqis...and if the mullahs win election so be it...that is what freedom is all about ...one man one vote ....no two ways to it....." Posted by: stevey robinson 4/21/2003 12:05:58 PM
First things first, you're not going to find the sledding here all that smooth if you toss around phrases like "zionist"--all too often, that word precedes a long spittle-filled rant from an Islamic facist.
Secondly, the problem with the mullahs winning an election is that the "one man one vote" doctrine you espoused tends to get washed away and replaced with an Islamic theocratic state in rather short order.
If the coalition went to all of the trouble to remove ONE dangerous totalitarian regime, there is not a reason in the world why it should not ALSO take careful steps to make sure we're not going to have to repeat this effort in a few short years. No matter how much you may dislike such a notion, doing so is only prudent.
#8
Steve reminds me of a point I pondered long, long ago, back when I was young, and T. Rex roamed the Earth. ^_^
I look at it this way.. I was certain that *I* was perfectly capable of handling all the freedom I wanted when I was 15. My parents begged to differ. Unfortunately for my macho ego, my parents were right.
I'm wondering if America and the rest of the Anglosphere are merely semi-responsible teenagers in a world full of irresponsible children...
Ed Becerra
Posted by: Ed Becerra ||
04/21/2003 21:04 Comments ||
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Oh STEVEY don't you wanna let the WOMEN vote too?
#11
stevey, stevey, stevey. Give it a rest, ok?
This rant is even more pathetic than the previous one. Automatic -5 for using "zionist", then your inability to spell Lieberman's name correctly when it has been used in the article you are commenting on cancels out more points. If you're going to spew like this, style is everything.
Nice twist, however, using a more Germanic spelling along with the word "zionist", and not capitalizing either one. Sprechen Sie deutsch, meine stevey??
Look, dear, in English, we capitalize proper nouns, such as names, even when those names belong to a Jew. Yeah, I know you probably don't even see them as people, but Americans in general are funny that way.....we do.
I give this rant a 2.
I don't think stevey is Murat, guys. stevey probably doesn't even know what an Armenian IS, and thinks Kurds are something he finds in his cottage cheese. However, if he is a German, calling him a Turk would not be something he would enjoy.
Posted by: Baba Yaga ||
04/21/2003 16:10 Comments ||
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#12
Steve reminds me of a point I pondered long, long ago, back when I was young, and T. Rex roamed the Earth. ^_^
I look at it this way.. I was certain that *I* was perfectly capable of handling all the freedom I wanted when I was 15. My parents begged to differ. Unfortunately for my macho ego, my parents were right.
I'm wondering if America and the rest of the Anglosphere are merely semi-responsible teenagers in a world full of irresponsible children...
Ed Becerra
Posted by: Ed Becerra ||
04/21/2003 21:00 Comments ||
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#13
Islamic Republic are mutually exclusive.
A republic by it's very nature is inclusive of all citezens,not just Muslems.
One of the basic tenants of Islam is that no other religion has a ligitimate reason to be involved in government,much less have in right to exist at all.
History has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt the necessity of"Seperation of Church and State".Theocratic control of governement is a formula for repression and disaster.
#14
Iraq needs a secular government-PERIOD! This would protect everyone whether Muslim, Christan or something else. The women of Iraq need a say representative of their numbers.
So far, the number of women the US has involved in making decisions concerning the future of the Iraqi government is pitiful.
Retired US general Jay Garner, who arrived in Baghdad earlier today to take the reins of post-war Iraq, has been given his first glimpse of the devastation and destruction in a brief visit to one of the city's hospitals. Mr Garner toured the wreckage of Yarmuk hospital in the south of the battered capital, walking through dark corridors littered with broken glass and wards stripped of everything except for beds by looters. It is his first visit to Baghdad as he begins the uphill task of rebuilding the nation after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
At least we're started now...
Hospital chief Zayed Abdul Karim told Mr Garner the hospital's biggest problem was lack of electricity and said the 1,000-bed facility had been the main dialysis centre and the only cardiology unit in the area. The doctor said looters had ransacked the coronary and respiratory units, and that there were problems getting new equipment because the old system in place under Saddam's centrally planned economy had fallen apart.
Before or after the war?
Mr Garner addressed staff and student doctors but, as elsewhere in Iraqi society, there was wariness over US intentions as the military man takes charge of the civilian administration that will rule the country in the coming months. "Of course they will help us, but nothing is free," said one doctor. "I want to cry, because these are only words," said another. "If they give us anything it is not from their own pockets. It is from our oil. Saddam Hussein was an unjust ruler, but maybe one day we could have got rid of him, and not had these foreigners come in to our country."
I have to remind myself to be patient with these people. Perhaps there was something to the condecension with which the old-time colonialists treated them.
They had Sammy for thirty-odd years, and now they're complaining because the Promised Land hasn't been delivered in less than a month, most of it spent in getting him out.
For those thirty years they believed in Sammy and his promises â "Saddam, we will defend you with our blood!" â but they can't bring themselves to believe G.W. Bush, who's kept his word to this point.
They've gone through 30 years of people disappearing, being being tortured, raped, murdered, an iron-fisted police state, and now they're worried about a few infidels.
They had Sammy and his goons for 30 years, and before him they had another dictator, and before that one they had a Baathist dictatorship, and before that another dictator, and before that a king whom they either killed or chased out â I forget which and it's not worth looking up. Aned now they demand to be allowed to govern themselves.
Nobody needs sympathy like Garner needs sympathy.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 09:18 am ||
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"It is from our oil. Saddam Hussein was an unjust ruler, but maybe one day we could have got rid of him, and not had these foreigners come in to our country."
The salaam pax line. From a doctor in Baghdad, not surprisingly. Probably is a widespread viewpoint among Sunni Arabs, especially the educated class.
#2
One also has to wonder if the hospital in question was a public hospital, or one of the many that only party members had access to. Just as in the Soviet Union, there were facilities and stores that only party members could use. Little or no mention is being made in the media to differentiate the two types, which were looted and which were not, etc.
The bodies of two British soldiers, who their government says may have been executed, have been found in a shallow grave in Iraq, a spokeswoman for Britain's Ministry of Defence said on Monday. The bodies of 36-year-old Simon Cullingworth and 24-year-old Luke Allsopp were found near Al Zubayr, outside Basra in the south of the country. "The circumstances of the soldiers' deaths remain unclear," the spokeswoman said. Last month, the Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera showed pictures of two dead Britons in uniform surrounded by an exultant mob. The British Government said the two soldiers "may well have been executed", though Iraqi Information Minister Mohammad Saeed al-Sahaf [Comical Ali] said Iraq had not executed anyone.
He also said we were committing suicide on the walls of Baghdad...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 09:18 am ||
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In another development, senior Muslim clergy in Iraq called on Shiite and Sunni Muslims, Monday, April 21, to act in unison and let bygones be bygones. Converging on Al-Aâzamia district in Baghdad, the clergymen decided to demonstrate before Palestine Hotel on Monday and the Mosque of Abdul Qader al-Gelani on Friday, April 25, in protest at the arrival of U.S. civil administrator of post-war Iraq retired Gen. Jay Garner. âYou (Muslims) [are] the overwhelming majority in Iraq and the U.S. troops cannot trespass on you when the new Iraqi government is formed. We must leave no room for sectarian sedition of which our Prophet Muhammed (peace be upon him) warned,â IslamOnline.net quoted head of Iraqâs Muslims society Sheikh Ahmad al-Kabessi as addressing a crowd of Shiites and Sunnis.
"That's right, brethren and sistern! The only good government is a government that's been appointed by God, and that's answerable only to God! That means a government by men who know God, men whom God calls at home to chat! Pious men! Men with turbans! Men with automatic weapons! We know best! We know what's good for you, better'n you!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 09:18 am ||
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You know, with all this B.S. going on, I'm tempted to just say screw the whole thing and pull all our forces outta there and let all those imams frack it all up so that we can go in there again and sweep it clean and do it OUR way, no ifs ands or buts.
NYT Free Reg req'd, EFL
A scientist who claims to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons program for more than a decade has told an American military team that Iraq destroyed chemical weapons and biological warfare equipment only days before the war began, members of the team said. I bet not all were...
They said the scientist led Americans to a supply of material that proved to be the building blocks of illegal weapons, which he claimed to have buried as evidence of Iraq's illicit weapons programs. The scientist also told American weapons experts that Iraq had secretly sent unconventional weapons and technology to Syria, starting in the mid-1990's, and that more recently Iraq was cooperating with Al Qaeda. Well, that can't be true - Assad assured us, and Al-Qaeda cooperation would be a causus belli for the war
The Americans said the scientist told them that President Saddam Hussein's government had destroyed some stockpiles of deadly agents as early as the mid-1990's, transferred others to Syria, and had recently focused its efforts instead on research and development projects that are virtually impervious to detection by international inspectors, and even American forces on the ground combing through Iraq's giant weapons plants. An American military team hunting for unconventional weapons in Iraq, the Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, or MET Alpha, which found the scientist, declined to identify him, saying they feared he might be subject to reprisals. But they said that they considered him credible and that the material unearthed over the last three days at sites to which he led them had proved to be precursors for a toxic agent that is banned by chemical weapons treaties.
The officials' account of the scientist's assertions and the discovery of the buried material, which they described as the most important discovery to date in the hunt for illegal weapons, supports the Bush administration's charges that Iraq continued to develop those weapons and lied to the United Nations about it. Finding and destroying illegal weapons was a major justification for the war. The officials' accounts also provided an explanation for why United States forces had not yet turned up banned weapons in Iraq. The failure to find such weapons has become a political issue in Washington.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2003 08:44 am ||
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Makes sense: That's why the Iraqi Scientists didn't want to be interviewed alone, but the inspectors were able to roam freely. Once sanctions were lifted, he'd be able to restart the programs.
"This could be done within a couple of weeks as it is obvious that there are no such weapons there," an unnamed Foreign Ministry official told Itar-Tass.
Joseph Cirincione, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment and the author of "Deadly Arsenalsâ¦Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction." He questions the whereabouts of the weapons and warns thereâs a far more serious concern.
#4
Sammy, as you call him, was evil but not totally stupid; he went, in a large way, for dual use stuff so he could pretend to be not doing what he was really doing, I bet.
For a change, justified use of scare quotes by Auntie...
Saddam Hussein and at least one of his sons are being tracked as they move around Iraq, an opposition leader has told the BBC. Ahmed Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress says his supporters have not yet caught up with the ousted dictator but reports of his movements arrive within "12 to 24 hours". Mr Chalabi once tried to initiate an uprising against Saddam Hussein but repeated that he did not seek a high political post in the new Iraq. He added that he doubted that Iraqis would welcome a significant role for the United Nations, saying the body was viewed as a "de facto ally" of the old regime. They should know.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Chalabi said his intelligence suggested Saddam Hussein was still in Iraq, and was on the move. While supporters had not yet managed to catch up with the wanted former leader, Mr Chalabi said: "We are aware of his movements between 12 and 24 hours after he has been there. We received intelligence about his son Qusay yesterday," he said. "The night before he was seen in Aadhamiya."
Either Sammy and Qusay or a pair of their doubles...
Mr Chalabi, 58, repeated his denials that he wanted a high-profile political role in the country he fled as a boy in 1956. He was flown into Iraq by US forces a few days before the fall of Baghdad and has the support of Vice-President Dick Cheney and a number of other leaders in the Bush administration. But he told James Naughtie that he preferred less of a prominent role than in the mid-1990s when he tried to organise an uprising against Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq. "I have waited all my life to come home," he said. "I want to work on building civil society as a basis for democracy." He said he was confident a liberal democracy would work in Iraq, though he has had to travel encircled by private armed guards since returning. "People are fed up with totalitarianism and repression... They think they have won against Saddam," he said. "[They] feel victorious... which is ironic because there is a foreign army here. But they feel that they are the allies of the foreign army."
Mr Chalabi said the apparent rise of Shia clerics as local leaders and political organisers was a "distorted view". "No-one has control over towns... over streets. It is a euphoria of expression [where] piety becomes a political act because [the people] have been denied that." It was a transitory movement with "no momentum", he said.
Any UN ambition to take a role in rebuilding Iraq would not be popular, Mr Chalabi said. "The Iraqi people view the UN as a de facto ally of Saddam" because they had seen UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "smoking a cigar with Saddam", he said. "The reality of the situation will imply that the UN cannot have a role."
Mr Chalabi has been dogged by a past conviction in Jordan for embezzlement and false accounting that led to the collapse of his Petra Bank. But he said: "Everybody knows [the conviction] was a naked act of aggression, of the Jordan Government acting on behalf of Saddam." He pledged to soon provide evidence that the conviction was unsound. Would be helpful if you could, Chabbers.
Posted by: Bulldog ||
04/21/2003 08:43 am ||
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#1
today Josh marshall runs a column dissing Chalabi, and promising future columns explaining (defending?) why State and CIA distrust him. Meanwhile its not clear whether new self-proclaimed governor of Baghdad is connected to Chalabi or not.
There seem to be several powers emerging - A. INC - pro-US and those locals interested in working with them (including Kurds) - B. pro-Iranian Shiites - mainly clerics (not all of the clerics though) and their supporters C. Pachecho (sp?) pro-UN, and with some support from State.
D. Sunnis in Baghdad and Mosul, very nervous, many formerly close to regime, trying to find an angle neither pro-US nor pro-Iranian.
#4
power - ap reports thats one plant in NE Baghdad, powering up one neighborhood (including traffic lights) and an oil refinery. US officer says 1% of city has power, maybe 10% in a few hours.
Vague reports that its better in southern cities, but nothing more specific.
#5
centcom reported over weekend that water restored in Nassiriyah on 6 hour per day basis. 2 of 3 hospitals functioning, police and fire departments have started functioning. Still working on electric and sanitation
#6
I'm not very happy about this Chalabi guy. I mean he hasn't been in Iraq for decades and he won't be seen as anything else but an US puppet. I'd prefer by far that the US run the show for now. Let's see if there is an opposition guy (must be some left?) from Iraq who shows sense and a can do attitude. In Germany Adenauer emerged. Maybe there is one in Iraq, too?
In any case we had more time in Germany. In Iraq we have heavy pressure to have an Iraqi govt fairly soon.
Is Chalabi seen as a US puppet - why dont we wait and see what Iraqis say. Some do see him so - but many of those would see anyone not a cleric that way. Kurds dont see him that way.
What do we mean by "an opposition guy"? That wasnt a job inside Iraq under Saddam. We either get a "reformed" Baathist, a cleric, or an exile - aint no other leadership that I can see. Chalabi has been outside longer than other exiles, but his INC includes many recent exiles and has had important contacts inside.
#12
so post war Germany was governed by a mix of locals and exiles. In Iraq something like 20% of the population went into exile (in contrast to Germany, where, IIRC, few other than Jews and communists went into exile.) So naturally the exiles will play a larger role in Iraq.
Kanan Makiya, an INC exile, on his meeting with locals in Nassariyah.
"The much-vaunted divide between the so-called "exiles" and the so-called "authentic Iraqis" who never left Baathist Iraq, never materialized, as the near-unanimity on the de-Baathification question demonstrated. This was contrary to years of soi disant expert analysis from the State Department and the CIA. It turned out that many of the "internals" knew who Kanan Makiya was, and even, God forbid, liked a thing or two that he had to say. Why, they even mentioned his name in pleasant tones from the podium. "
Seven Indonesian soldiers have been found guilty of murdering Papuan pro-independence leader Theys Eluay. He was strangled in a car on the way home from a dinner hosted by Indonesia's Kopassus soldiers a year-and-a-half ago. It is the first time members of the notorious Kopassus special forces have been convicted over a political killing. Today a military tribunal in Surabaya jailed Lieutennant Colonel Hartomo for three-and-a-half years. He was found by the court to have motivated his subordinates to mistreat Mr Eluay, the 64-year-old political leader, who was pushing for Papuan independence. A Kopassus Private, who claimed in court that he had only covered the victim's mouth to silence him, also received a three-and-a-half year sentence. Two other soldiers received three-year sentences and were allowed to remain in the army.
Since they've got that desirable hands-on experience...
Papuan pro-independence figures have described the sentences as unjust, claiming the military court process was a sham designed to hide senior figures who ordered the killing.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 09:18 am ||
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Papua (West Irian) is part of the larger island of Papua New Guinea. The eastern half is the independent nation of Papua New Guinea, a former British colony and Australian protectorate. Prior to 1949, the western half of the island was the Dutch colony of New Guinea. The Papuans are split between West Irian and Papua New Guinea, and want to unite the island. The Indonesians invaded in 1960 and took control of western Papua. They have never been welcome there, being mostly Muslim in a pro-Christian and animist area. The Papuans consider themselves under foreign occupation. There is an intense but low-level guerilla war going on in the area, with Papuan head-hunters murdering Indonesian soldiers when they get the chance.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/21/2003 9:47 Comments ||
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At least 10 people were killed and around 30 injured after unidentified gunmen attacked a bus full of students in Laos, early Sunday morning local time, diplomatic sources say. The attack occurred on route 13 between the Laotian capital Vientiane and the ancient northern city of Luang Prabang. According to a western source in northern Laos, the bus drivers say the vehicle was carrying students travelling from Phongsaly in the far north who were travelling back to Vientiane after new year celebrations. One of the drivers says the bullets from the gunmen had hit the bus' petrol tank, which had exploded, the Western source added.
I have no idea what the genesis of this one might be. As far as I know, Laos has no Muslims at all, much less Islamists. There were isolated groups of Hmong tribesmen who weren't reconciled to the government back in the 70s, but I thought they'd be either wiped out or run out by now. There's always been a certain amount of banditry in the country, but a school bus doesn't sound like really lucrative pickings...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 09:18 am ||
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According to an ICT article from this February, the perps are likely Hmong guerrillas fighting against the communist government. They've also carried out bombings in Vientiane.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/21/2003 9:29 Comments ||
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The only groups I know active in that area of Laos are the Burmese poppy-growers and heroin smugglers. The Chinese built a road from Gijiu down to Luang Prabang during the mid-1970's, and rumor had it the road wound down through Laos into Burma. This was considered a "smuggler's road" past Luang Prabang. Burmese warlords and opium smugglers are a law unto themselves, and are quite active in that part of Laos. I'd be tempted to place the guilt there rather than on any other kind of activity.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/21/2003 9:33 Comments ||
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Lebanon's army says it has arrested the head of a network blamed for a series of bomb attacks on fast food restaurants and other Western targets. Lebanese authorities launched a campaign of arrests and charged over 30 people with belonging to a "terrorist" group, after a car booby-trapped with 55 kilograms of explosives was discovered outside a Beirut McDonald's in April. A smaller bomb went off inside, causing light injuries. That incident is the most spectacular in a string of attacks on restaurants identified with the United States.The United States is the target of considerable hostility in Lebanon for attacking Iraq and supporting Israel, which invaded Lebanon in 1982. "On May 3, 2003, the intelligence directorate - with help from Syrian security - was able to arrest the head of the network which carried out the bombing," the army said in a statement. It says the detained man is being interrogated. The frequency of the attacks picked up after US-led forces invaded Iraq in March. Since then, the Beirut offices of the British Council have been bombed and a man armed with a grenade stormed a branch of the HSBC bank in the capital.
No name or affiliation yet, apparently...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 02:12 pm ||
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TONY JONES: Mr Kim, after watching the war in Iraq, has North Korea now decided it must have nuclear weapons?
KIM MYONG CHOL, CENTRE FOR KOREAN-AMERICAN PEACE: The Iraq war totally justified North Korean decision to acquire nuclear weapons. North Korea also increasing confident that they can handle American attack.
TONY JONES: They're increasingly confident because they already have nuclear weapons or because they believe they will soon have nuclear weapons?
KIM MYONG-CHOL: No, no, already. Already North Korea have nuclear capability to fight war with America at any time.
TONY JONES: Alright. Has North Korea already begun to reprocess fuel rods at the Yongbyon nuclear plant?
KIM MYONG-CHOL: Yongbyon is nothing. Yongbyon is a joke.
North Korea already has more than 100 nuclear warheads.
TONY JONES: More than -
KIM MYONG-CHOL: Yongbyon facility has 100 nuclear war heads, including hydrogen bomb.
TONY JONES: They certainly haven't done any testing of those, sir, how can they have 100 without anybody knowing?
KIM MYONG-CHOL: That is a North Korean technique. America CIA intelligence always failure, blunder. Pakistan did testing for North Korea. That was no problem.
TONY JONES: Can I ask you about the statement that North Korea issued on Friday, last Friday?
It was a very confusing statement.
At first they said the Iraq war teaches us a lesson - to defend the security of a country, it is necessary to have a powerful, physical deterrent.
Then the English translation went on to say they were reprocessing fuel rods at the Yongbyon nuclear plant.
KIM MYONG-CHOL: Whatever the precise language of North Korean statement be, North Korea already processed - we processed fuel spent, no problem about it.
North Korea will not give up nuclear weapons program. But North Korea may give up Yongbyon facilities in return for American compromise.
TONY JONES: What sort of compromise? What would they be asking for?
KIM MYONG-CHOL: If America agrees sign no aggression but peace treaty with North Korea, North Korea ready to give up Yongbyon facility. Nothing more, nothing else.
TONY JONES: You're saying if the United States signs a treaty saying it will never invade North Korea - is that what you're saying?
KIM MYONG-CHOL: If not America sign that peace treaty or no aggression pact, North Korea allow American inspector investigate the Yongbyon facilities, nothing more. But North Korea will never allow an American inspector watch North Korean military sites.
TONY JONES: You're saying that North Korea will not allow inspectors ever to come into their country again, because there were inspectors in the country before, were there not?
KIM MYONG-CHOL: No, no, no, no. North Korea ready to allow American inspector come to Yongbyon, the nuclear facility.
But will not allow American inspector visit military site.
So American come in to North Korea, Pyongyang, watch Yongbyon, that's OK, no problem. But they not allowed military places.
TONY JONES: Alright, but you're saying those military places actually have nuclear weapons.
If the powerful voices in the Pentagon actually believed that what you're saying is true, they would not allow the White House to go ahead and have these talks with North Korea, would they, because the first thing they want to know is that the nuclear weapons program will end?
KIM MYONG-CHOL: OK, in that case the North Korea declare that their nuclear status in public. If North Korea become nuclear status, the American nuclear umbrella over Japan, South Korea become irrelevant. That deprive American forces of the rationally of deployment of Japan and South Korea. It's up to America.
TONY JONES: The great danger, though, isn't there, if North Korea continues to reprocess fuel rods, continues to make plutonium with the potential to make more nuclear weapons, that South Korea will begin to make nuclear weapons and, ultimately, Japan may try to make nuclear weapons, there will be an escalation in your region. That can't be in North Korea's interest, can it?
KIM MYONG-CHOL: Before China or Japan or South Korea or Russia become nuclear power, United States already nuclear power - that's dangerous. Dangerous is American behaviour, not North Korean behaviour. North Korean behaviour just responds American aggressive behaviour. So, if America wants stabilising station - If America wants..
TONY JONES: I'm sorry to interrupt you there. Let me ask you this - what would happen if the US used its missiles for a pre-emptive strike on the Yongbyon nuclear plant to stop North Korea developing plutonium and possibility more nuclear weapons?
KIM MYONG-CHOL: It is very important remember that Yongbyon facilities operating nuclear reactor. American pre-emptive strike on Yongbyon facility resulting very dangerous massive spill over nuclear material into China, Japan and South Korea.
That is very dangerous. If that means there is a nuclear war - if Yongbyon attacked, North Korea immediately retaliate Japanese nuclear reactors, South Korean reactors, also American reactor that they use mainland. That means the end of Japan, the end of South Korea, end of America. There is no legal basis for America attack Yongbyon facilities. If America attack North Korean Yongbyon facility, North Korea attack New York, Washington, Chicago in less than 20 minutes. So Rumsfeld must prepare. If he's ready to take over all the responsibility, that's fine.
TONY JONES: So your message is to Donald Rumsfeld, is it? You're saying he must prepare for that possibility?
KIM MYONG-CHOL: Yes. You know, Japan, South Korea, China is a major supplier to America. Yongbyon attack means the end of Japan, South Korea, China. That means American prosperity is finished. Too much risky for America. North Korea has nothing to lose. America has too much to lose. Japan has too much to lose, South Korea too much to lose. If Rumsfeld has the guts, why not try attack Yongbyon?
TONY JONES: Alright, I'm afraid, Mr Kim, we will have to leave it there.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
04/21/2003 09:30 pm ||
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Christamighty... this is like negotiating with tree rats.
This is truly the nuttiest thing I have read here in a while...
Yongbyon attack means the end of Japan, South Korea, China.
This is the kind of pre-Sesame Street logic that makes the military option so seductive.
We know that reading that "North Korea has nothing to lose" is supposed send a chill down our spines, but it's also a heckuva marketing slogan for 50 years of Stalinist systems.
You need radical Islamic fundamental jihadism to keep places like NK "centered"... who else'd a'thunk of strapping a suicide vest on an entire nation?
Posted by: Mark IV ||
04/21/2003 22:56 Comments ||
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And the end of China and SK is a bug or a feature?
As always....EFL. Not as entertaining as Info Man, but about as factual.
It is clear that Russia may have to give up any hope of getting its Iraq debts settled and have a chance of participation in the Iraqi economy. However, it seems that some Russian governmental officials stick to a different point of view after visiting Washington. Recently, Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin made some rather confident statements on the issue. According to finance minister, nowadays Iraq "is a quite solvent state" that is able to pay off its debts. At first glance, this seems to be true. If we disregard the fact that Iraq's industrial infrastructure is seriously damaged after the war and the whole of the country is racked with chaos, massacres and plundering. The oil reserves in Iraq really are very impressive. In Kudrin's professed opinion, any new government introduced in Iraq must become the legal successor to Saddam's government, which means that it is to be responsible for its debts. Iraq's debts to Russia are among these. Taking the post-war situation in Iraq and the still-active sanctions regime into consideration, Kudrin demonstrated unwanted generosity and said Russia was ready to negotiate the possibilities of rescheduling of debt repayment.
Let's consider the sanctions and the United Nation's Oil for Food program, in the framework of which Russian companies have managed to earn up to $2 billion a year with Iraqi oil. The United Nations [sic] has plainly asked the United Nations to abolish all sanctions. It says that Saddam has been overthrown, and Iraq is on its way to freedom and democracy. France in its turn declared that the problem of sanctions abolishment would call for very serious bargaining. However, there is practically no doubt that all sanctions will soon be lifted in Iraq. There is no other alternative, in fact. Otherwise, proud France and the United Nations will not only find themselves marginalized, but will instantly turn into meaningless pygmies doomed for extinction. This is because only what "the American people approve" can exist and flourish on Iraqi territory.
We can draw a logical and believable conclusion: Even if Iraq is perfectly solvent, this does not at all mean at all that it will immediately start settling all of its debts, especially the debts to Russia that supplied tanks, guns and planes to Saddam. It is clear that Iraq will first pay off its debt to the liberator and its allies for the "freedom" they have brought to the country. Next will be payments to the liberators and its allies' corporations that are meant to restore the economy of the country. The new Iraqi government will also have to pay Iraq's Arab neighbors, who disliked the war very much, but were strong enough to subdue their anger and behaved prudently and loyally. These actions require not only much time, but also much money. What is more, it is unlikely that the liberator will allow the released debtor to forget about the noble mission of making up for the military expenses borne by the United States. Therefore, the new Iraqi government will be unlikely to have an opportunity to pay billions of dollars back to Russia, to a country that supplied Saddam with weapons and, consequently, supported the Iraqi regime during the period of the UN sanctions and during the war. As for the United Nations, the organization declared itself to be in political opposition to Iraq's liberator and threatened to use veto rights at the UN Security Council. Now, it demands that the debts must be settled, oil contracts concluded with Iraq under Saddam must be preserved and that it must participate in restoration of the Iraqi economy, for which "holy American blood" was shed.
The possibility cannot be ruled out that, if the finance minister had an opportunity, he would be able to persuade the U.S. president of the consistency and validity of his position. It is unlikely that it is evident to George W. Bush that, at a time when Russia isn't being coddled and is managing to settle its debts ahead of schedule, debts to it should also be repaid on time.
Besides, Bush prefers to listen to the advice of other people, even if one of them had to quit an important post because of a lobbying scandal. One such adviser of the present-day American authorities, unlike the optimistic Russian vice premier, thinks that Russia has nothing to hope for in Iraq. And this sounds quite right and fair.
Today, Richard Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, said it is dubious that contracts of Russian oil companies in Iraq will be resumed. He states that "It is highly likely that contracts previously concluded with Russia will be declared worthless." The adviser added at that the issue lies in the provenance of the new Iraqi government. It would certainly be extremely surprising to him if the new Iraqi government demonstrates the same attitude to Russia that Saddam Hussein did.
Posted by: Baba Yaga ||
04/21/2003 06:14 pm ||
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If russia is looking for compensation, institute a search for all the cash that went to russian politicians over the last 7 years, in doing so maybe they can clean up two birds with one stone.
#2
I read this as, "We are quite willing to hold the population of Iraq hostage by denying it much needed aid in order to blackmail the Americans into securing our debt payments and restoring our oil contracts."
#3
"It is highly likely that contracts previously concluded with Russia will be declared worthless."
Ohh, THAT would just be a tragedy, wouldn't it?[/SARCASM]
#5
Are the sanctions needed?
No
Should a resolution to lift the sanctions be submitted?
Yes,immediatlly.Let France and Russia take the heat for vetoing.Let the CoW trumpet Fr./Russ.veto far,loud,wide and often.
While French officials like to argue that it is all right for friends to disagree, their arguments are not widely accepted in Washington. Doves in the US state department are already trying to re-build bridges with some anti-war countries in Europe but "special enmity" is reserved for French President Jacques Chirac, the Washington Post reported this week.
Egad! Even the State Department is cheesed at them? They're gonna become what Bulgaria was, during the Brezhnev years...
The hawks, meanwhile, are out for revenge. "I think France is going to pay some consequences, not just with us, but with other countries who view it that way," Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the senate last week. Pentagon adviser Richard Perle told the International Herald Tribune that the crisis in relations was not something that could be dealt with in the "normal diplomatic way" because anti-French feeling now ran very deep in US society. He said he doubted there could ever be a constructive relationship between the two governments.
Paris... A gray city, formerly great, now fallen on hard times. Where once traffic jostled on its beautiful streets, now the only cars to be seen are the occasional Moscvitch knock-offs hauling high party functionaries to meetings with visiting UN undersecretaries for Eurorelations...
Experts say the rift between the two countries is greater than any since 1966, when General Charles de Gaulle forced US troops out of France and pulled French troops out of Nato. Mr Perle has suggested that France could now be thrust even further towards the sidelines of the alliance. When France was blocking Nato moves to shore up Turkey's defences in February during the run-up to the Iraq war, the decision was eventually made not by Nato's governing body, the North Atlantic Council, but by the Defence Planning Committee on which France does not sit.
"Ah, sir," an old man in a ragged coat told me, "before the falling out, I was an apache dancer. Paris was at its height then, sir. A city of lights, it was..."
Mr Perle's idea is that more decisions should now be made without French involvement. There have also been suggestions that France could be frozen out of contracts to rebuild Iraq. The US congress, for its part, has proposed a ban on US participation in this year's Paris Air Show in June — though this would be unpopular with US defence industries. The Pentagon is still considering whether to take part.
"Yes, sir. We had shows back then, back in the good times. Back when we were a Great Power. Now what are we? Without the Bulgarian and Slovenian tourists bringing in some hard currency... Well, I don't know what we'd do."
US diplomats, however, describe attempts to take revenge on France as "majorly stupid". The US Ambassador to France, Howard Leach, told French television on Saturday that he hoped French people would not listen to Mr Perle, whom he described as a "private citizen". Officials say the state department wants to move forward and focus on future co-operation and is arguing for a more measured response.
"No, dammit! I don't want to be ambassador to Sofia thirty years ago!"
France took its first major step to heal the rift on Tuesday, when President Chirac called his US counterpart George W Bush. He said that Paris would play a "pragmatic" role in Iraq despite its preference for the UN, rather than the US, to run the country until the establishment of a new Iraqi administration. US officials have suggested that this kind of conciliatory approach could help to mend fences — or at least that the absence of such a rapprochement will make it worse.
"Condi, I just talked to Todor Zhivkov. I thought he was dead?"
"He is, Mr. President. That was that Chiraq guy."
"Chiraq who?"
They have been sending the same message to Russia — that their role in rebuilding Iraq will be influenced by their attitude. The key, say the officials, is not to focus on "ideological issues" such as a leading role for the UN, but helping to solve problems. One of the first of these, from the US perspective, is ending the UN sanctions on Iraq, so that Iraqi oil can begin to flow again. The Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov, has indicated that Moscow is opposed to such a move until it is proved that Iraq no longer has weapons of mass destruction.
We'll let you know. Would you like to borrow some smart bombs to use in Grozny?
Jacques Myard, a member of the French parliament's foreign affairs committee from Mr Chirac's governing party, told the BBC on Thursday that he did not think France would obstruct such a move. However, he emphasised that France was still keen to avoid any step that would "legitimise" the US-led war.
Posted by: Baba Yaga ||
04/21/2003 05:49 pm ||
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OP - Spot on. Don't worry about Foggy Bottom, it was their idea for the US to try the UN - and they pushed it very hard. They burned all of their chips and markers on it - yet it turned out to be a debaucle... so their "advice" is a rung or two below Ann Landers'. Say, isn't she DEAD? Well, so is the UN - and the State Dept is looking mighty poorly, too...
Though I believe it, it still amazes me that Putin turned out to be so amazingly stupid.
We should take due care when boycotting French, German, Belgian, Turkish, Russian, and other asshat countries' goods - to make sure we don't hurt our own who operate franchises or similar. BUT. I started my own personal commercial jihad 2 months ago - and will forgo the BMW I was looking over, not to mention Mercedes & Chrysler. Funny, I never considered a Citroen. (snicker)
#3
I'm beginning to wonder if there's anyone in our State Department that actually has the US's best interest at heart. They're beginning to sound a lot like the United Nations.
France, Germany, Russia, and any other country (Syria, Jordan, Iran, Turkey?) that violated the sanctions in place should be barred from participation in the rebuilding of Iraq. That's just plain common sense. Bush should tell the UN, "You wouldn't help, we did it on our own, so we'll finish on our own. Thanks, and have a nice day."
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/21/2003 18:46 Comments ||
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#4
"This country fought a war of national liberation with France - and we should never forget it."
- Dennis Kucinich
Posted by: Lady Liberty ||
04/21/2003 18:48 Comments ||
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#5
However, he emphasised that France was still keen to avoid any step that would "legitimise" the US-led war.
Hah, the war has come and gone already. It's all a part of history now, France or no France. Whether the French think it's legit or not is totally irrelevant.
Human rights organisations are protesting at the inclusion of countries with some of the worst records of abuses on a list of candidates for election to the main United Nations watchdog. It's about time, guys.....
North Korea, Iran and Nigeria are likely to win membership of the UN Commission on Human Rights in an election either at the end of this month or early next. Egypt is another candidate and, even though its abuses are not on the same scale as the others, it has been conducting a vigorous campaign against homosexuals. The chair of the commission, which is holding its annual meeting in Geneva, is held at present by Libya, another member with a list of deplorable violations.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are among the organisations which are complaining that the inclusion of these countries makes a mockery of the organisation, and are urging reform of the process. The New York-based Human Rights Watch described the list of candidate countries as "a Who's Who of the worst human rights abusers." Seeking re-election are other countries with poor records: Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Russia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The body has a membership of 53, each serving a two-year term. It catalogues human rights abuses, investigates claims and puts pressure on governments to change. Very successfully, too (snort)
A group of countries with poor records can block or slow the work of the commission. Hmm....think that might be the point of it all?
Other members seeking election this year are Eritrea, Mauritania, Bhutan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Qatar, Hungary, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal. Seeking re-election are Britain, Costa Rica, Guatemala, India, Peru, South Africa and Thailand. Amnesty International said it would like to see a benchmark set for membership: each candidate would have to ratify guarantees of basic human rights and open its borders to investigators. Melinda Ching, a spokeswoman for Amnesty, said that without such a benchmark, the signal being sent out was that the commission "lures those countries that have been under the body's spotlight - North Korea, Iran - into gaining membership to the UN's supreme human rights body for the very purpose of deflecting criticism of each other's human rights situations". The problem for the UN is that if it was to apply such a strict benchmark, relatively few countries could stand for election. Why is this a problem? While deploring their records, the UN believes there is a better chance of changing these countries if they are included rather than excluded. Yeah, you might damage their self-esteem....can't have that.
North Korea has no right of free speech or religion, and carries out public executions. It also known for extensive use of torture. Executions are commonplace in Iran, and Nigeria was in the spotlight last year over the stoning of women under sharia law for alleged infidelity. Doesn't the same kind of thing happen in Libya, the country chairing the commission? Why discriminate against these guys?
No, no! Those are political executions and assassinations. Those are different...
Already on the commission are Zimbabwe, whose government has been terrorising its political opponents, and Sudan, another country where human rights are regularly abused. Hey, if Bob Mugabe is good enough for Chirac, he's good enough for the commission!
Michael Cashman, the British MEP, yesterday accused Egypt of seeking to block a new UN declaration against discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation that is being put forward at the Geneva meeting. Mr Cashman said: "Not only does the Egyptian government openly and repeatedly violate human rights through their entrapment and torture of homosexuals, but now they are lobbying countries in the UN to allow these medieval attitudes to sexuality to continue."
Posted by: Baba Yaga ||
04/21/2003 04:15 pm ||
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excuse me but torture, imprisonment and murder of homosexuals is not a medieval attitude but a muslim attitude.
Just ask Dr Mahatir - how is Anwar these days?
Or next time Al-Muhajiroun rally in Trafalgar Square, ask for their pamphlet on the solution to 'homosexual perversion'. I think you'll find it involves a number of rocks being thrown at a person buried up to their neck in the ground until they are dead.
#2
Well, I hope that they enjoy themselves in another useless debating society division of the UN. I would like to see a financial report of the UNCHR, if it is not "classified." I would particularly like to see if we (the US) are throwing any money down this rathole, and how much.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/21/2003 16:30 Comments ||
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Sounds like AI is finally getting the message. While I may not always agree with them they should finally start to show some backbone. If the organization is about human rights then they should put their money were their mouth is.
Posted by: Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire ||
04/21/2003 16:36 Comments ||
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Why did the UN let those countries in in the first place whose definition of a human rights abuse is to give any rights to the people!?
#6
All those who come down on the side of staying with the U N despite the fact that the U N is full of thugish regimes who continuously violate human rights just dont seem to understand that with a little out of the box thinking the US could set up a new organization with like minded states who put Human Rights above all else. If this is not the central issue for Government, what is? If Human rights and government are not the central issue of each other, than the very notion of nation states is deminished to the extent that those who believe governments are not about standards of living of citizens, than those governments are nothing but power brokers for potential human suffering.
In these cases, Politics is the ruling metric, politics goes hand in hand with corruption, and these are unacceptable standards by which the worlds business is conducted.
Political hegemony is the root of all evil, no case lives outside this simple statement. Not one example can be made that refutes this truth.
All corruption, all human rights abuses flow from the current metric where politics over rides morality and ethics. We need a New U N based on the courage of leaders willing to break with the past and move into a future where every individuals rights are as valued as every others.
Coast Guard cutters operating off South Florida's shores have picked up fewer Cuban migrants in the first three months of the year than Haitians and Dominicans combined. But the absence of large numbers of Cuban migrants headed for South Florida may be the calm before the storm.
A wave of repression in Cuba in recent weeks has been so alarming that U.S. officials have begun to wonder whether Cuba may unleash a new Mariel-style exodus -- a typical Cuban response in times of crisis. American officials are so worried that they have already quietly advised Cuba not to attempt any such action. "Our jails are full enough, don't send anymore of yer criminals to us!"
But if a new exodus occurs, officials say they will activate a classified federal contingency plan designed to deal with migrant surges. Operation Distant Shore would trigger a dramatic escalation in the number of Coast Guard and other military vessels patrolling the Florida Straits -- a veritable floating wall designed to interdict as many migrants as possible at sea.
Talk of the plan is all the more relevant in the wake of reports last week that President Bush was preparing punitive steps against Cuba along with a possible public warning to Fidel Castro not to resort to a new exodus. No one will say when Bush would deliver the warning, but officials at the White House's National Security Council and the State Department have left no doubt that Washington is concerned.
''The United States remains committed to safe, legal and orderly migration from Cuba to the United States,'' National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack said. ''We make clear to Cuba that the United States expects it to live up to its commitments under the migration accords,'' a State Department official said. He said this last part with a straight face, I gather.
While neither official would say what the administration is planning in response to a recent crackdown against Cuban dissidents, administration sources have floated anonymous reports that among the more drastic measures are a possible halt to cash remittances to exiles' relatives in Cuba or an end to direct flights to the island.
Responding to U.S. threats, the Cuban government published a statement Friday saying that U.S. sanctions would not bother Cuba but might make Fidel very pissy encourage illegal migration.
''The presumed measures that are being announced of prohibiting flights and remittances would stimulate illegal immigration,'' the Cuban statement said.
Some American officials expect fear that if the United States enacts new steps to inflict punishment on Cuba, then Havana might retaliate by unleashing a new migrant exodus to punish the United States. It's not an idle fear.
Three times since Castro seized power in 1959, Havana has deliberately encouraged thousands to reach South Florida on boats or rafts. After Mariel, in 1980, officials on this side of the straits came up with a plan, which has been periodically updated. The exact plan remains secret, but a few details are known:
⢠The first step would be to determine whether an exodus is under way.
Luis DÃaz, a Coast Guard spokesman in Miami, said it would require the spotting of hundreds of migrants headed to South Florida in one day to trigger a decision on whether to activate the plan.
⢠Once the plan is operational, DÃaz said, the Coast Guard would pull reinforcements in from other districts, adding extra cutters to patrol off South Florida shores.
⢠If senior federal officials agree, military vessels would rush to assist the Coast Guard in picking up migrants.
⢠Once military personnel are involved, command for military activity would switch to the U.S. Southern Command in Miami-Dade County.
''If there was a mass migration, we would be the unified command,'' said Lt. Cmdr. Chris Loundermon, a Southern Command spokesman.
⢠If Cuba does not take back interdicted migrants, some might be pushed over the fence brought to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and others to other countries in the region.
⢠Finally, while the plan is designed to prevent the bulk of exodus migrants from reaching U.S. shores, components of the plan assume that some may get through. If that happens, federal, state and local authorities would collaborate under the emergency plan to house and process exodus migrants who reach shore.
A senior federal official who has seen copies of the plan said that while the migrants would be received in South Florida, they would likely be taken eventually to military installations around the country for processing.
Some Cuba analysts in the United States believe that the Camarioca departures in 1965, the Mariel boatlift in 1980 and the rafter exodus in 1994 were ''engineered migrations'' -- political weapons designed to punish the United States for real or imagined actions and coerce it into softening policies toward Cuba. We had a Democrat in charge each time. Does Fidel really think GWB is going to tolerate this?
Cuba expert Kelly M. Greenhill argued in a landmark study last year of Cuban mass migrations that Castro launched the rafter exodus to ''manipulate'' fears in the United States of another Mariel to compel a shift in U.S. policy toward Cuba.
The exodus ended when the United States and Cuba began to negotiate new migration accords under which Washington eventually agreed to return migrants stopped at sea to Cuba. Until then, Cuban migrants rescued at sea were brought to the United States and allowed to stay. While Cuba welcomed the change in migrant policy, it was not totally satisfied, since Cuban migrants who manage to reach shore still get to stay. Fidel's playing a particularly cruel game: encourage people to leave, then demand that we hand them over to him. So then he knows exactly who to throw into prison camps.
''I don't think it's impossible we could see another outflow,'' Greenhill said, ``but if I were Castro, I'd think long and hard about launching an engineered migration this time around, given the prevailing environment in the aftermath of Sept. 11 and Iraq. The world looks different today than it did in 1965, 1980 and 1994.'' Don't make us come in there Fidel!
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/21/2003 04:05 pm ||
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A 60-day blockade of all shipping would be all it would take. Cuba cannot feed itself, and there's no stockpile of food to speak of. Cuba is a basketcase, and everybody knows it, even Fidel.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/21/2003 16:25 Comments ||
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Another prediction of the confusion of the left: Even as they protest our unwillingness to issue immediate citizenship to every poor soul fleeing such an obviously horrible place as Cuba ("we can't send them back!" they will cry), they will criticize our government's refusal to deal fairly with such an obviously beautiful place as Cuba. Thus far, the left appear to be arguing - when they argue at all - that Fidel's being an evil dictator has nothing to do with Fidel's being an evil dictator.
#3
FormerLiberal sez: "Even as they protest our unwillingness to issue immediate citizenship to every poor soul fleeing such an obviously horrible place as Cuba ("we can't send them back!" they will cry), they will criticize our government's refusal to deal fairly with such an obviously beautiful place as Cuba."
I knew thet the moonbats were chock full of doublethink.
NEW YORK - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld recently sent a memo to top officials at the Pentagon suggesting that the United States, with China's help, should try to oust the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il from power, the New York Times reported Sunday. That is in contrast with Washington's official policy objective - to disarm North Korea of its weapons of mass destruction.
The report quoted U.S. government officials as saying that Mr. Rumsfeld's team was not proposing a military solution to depose Kim, but diplomatic pressure. But the classified memo, drawn up by officials opposed to opening talks that could eventually end up benefiting North Korea economically, shows how the handling of the crisis has become the newest subject of internal struggle over how to pursue U.S. President George W. Bush's determination to stop the spread of unconventional weapons.
Posted by: g wiz ||
04/21/2003 03:46 pm ||
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#1
Don: you forgot "millions of voters brainwashed to hate America". Whoops.
#2
Regime change. Could we please be a little more specific this time as to what we want this regime to change into? North Korea's in pretty rough shape, so simply herding the population into a voting booth, yelling "Democracy," and heading home won't solve things. It may appear politically expedient at the moment to start talking about "regime change" instead of "Korean re-unification." However, in the long run, only solid working relationships between South and North Koreans can provide the stable, ongoing partners needed on a day-by-day basis, for the task of (*gasp*) nationbuilding and reconstruction.
#3
My prediction: The same loony left who decry our own use of nuclear power and yell for us to abandon it will protest for North Korea's right - nay, moral imperative - to become a nuclear power.
#5
Since when does anybody, except Machiavellians, experience a "moral imperative" to become a nuclear power? My point is that North Korea needs to go back to being a regular old everyday kind of place, where people have a chance to focus on a few other activities besides political repression, generating electricity, and blowing stuff up.
#6
Ah, but Sassafrass, the truly committed "left" are really incapable of seeing anything outside of the context of "political repression, generarating electricity, and blowing stuff up." My use of the term "moral imperative" is sarcastic, but not absurdist, and I meant nuclear in terms of weaponry, not the generation of electricity (I'm a supporter of solar, myself). The "left" *will* want NK to have exactly the things they want the United States to NOT have. At least, that's my prediction based on having listened to these guys my entire freakin' life ("Boomer" conservatives should feel lucky; at least they got one or two decades withOUT having 60's radicalism shoved down their throats).
Anyway, winks and grins and all that, I stand by my prediction.
#8
How about a regime without KIM, with no secret police, no million-man army trained to kill anybody and everybody, no nuke weapons, and no DMZ. That's just for starters. Follow that with the ability to own property, the right to be secure in your home without some government flunky barging in at any time, and the right to a little peace and quiet. How about the ability to move freely around inside your own country, and even (gasp!!!) travel to the south to visit family members separated for 50 years without being shot either leaving or returning? We can work on refinements after these "minor" points are taken care of.
As for Dr. Spock, the best thing I can say about him is he's no longer an important part of the "boomer" experience.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/21/2003 18:39 Comments ||
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Sassafrass - regime change. Like Germany. Unification. Capital Seoul. Capitalistic democracy. Bigger trade with China rather than a drain. Non-nuclear. No need for American troops on the Asian mainland. It's a feature, not a bug.
Posted by: Don ||
04/21/2003 18:47 Comments ||
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TOKYO, April 20 -- The United States and at least 10 other countries helped arrange the defections of up to 20 top North Korean officials, including key nuclear scientists, in an operation that began in October, according to an Australian newspaper.
The Weekend Australian reported that a man it identified as the "father" of the North Korean nuclear program, Kyong Won Ha, was among the defectors and is providing intelligence information to Western officials.
Kyong and the other officials had escaped to China and went on to other countries with the help of consulates and embassies, the newspaper reported. The United States helped set up -- and pay for -- an embassy in Beijing for the tiny Pacific Island of Nauru specifically to help move the defectors, though none went to the embassy, the Australian said.
Nauru, an eight-square-mile island in Melanesia northeast of Australia, was persuaded to cooperate in part because of a promise that the United States would help it avoid financial sanctions being considered for the island nation as a "non-cooperative country." It has been singled out for sanctions by Washington as a "primary money-laundering concern" under the U.S.A. Patriot Act.
The Chinese route for defections from North Korea has become an increasingly sensitive issue. China, an ally of North Korea, does not accept Koreans who cross the shallow river border as refugees, and has forcibly returned many people.
But other Koreans have been helped out of China by church groups, aid organizations and some diplomatic offices in China. According to the newspaper, the diplomatic route was galvanized by the United States under the code name "Operation Weasel" to get the top North Koreans out of the country. The report could not be independently verified by The Washington Post.
According to the Weekend Australian, the plan took the defectors in China through a network of other countries. In the past, China has chosen not to challenge the underground route operated by diplomats, who in return have tried to be discreet about it.
Defectors who ended up in South Korea, for example, were instructed by that government not to disclose that they had gone through China, to avoid embarrassing Beijing.
Some defectors in this latest group, which the newspaper described as members of the "military and scientific elite," have ended up in the United States or other Western countries. Kyong, the nuclear scientist, is "believed to be in a safe house in the West," according to the Weekend Australian. The newspaper said Kyong had provided "unprecedented insight" into North Korea's nuclear program, but no specifics were reported. The United States is scheduled to meet with North Korea and China in Beijing on Wednesday in their first negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
The newspaper said one organizer of the defection network was a Washington lawyer named Philip Gagner. He had contacted the president of Nauru in October and asked the country to agree to open embassies in Washington and Beijing, free of charge.
"Some of the governments involved, including governments in the Pacific and the United States government, would like to have the assistance of the Nauru Government in a diplomatic matter of very great sensitivity," Gagner wrote Nauru's president then, Rene Harris, according to the report.
The matter "involves a country -- not Iraq -- which may have acquired weapons of primary concern to other governments and other countries in the region and the world," said the letter, according to the paper. He added, "This is a matter of sufficient concern that the government of the United States would likely recommend removing Nauru from the list of non-cooperative countries."
"We were going to get a [North Korean] nuclear scientist and his family from a farm in China and then take them in a Nauru consulate car to an embassy," the paper quoted Kinza Clodumar, Nauru's former finance minister, as saying.
Among the other countries involved in the operation, according to the paper, are New Zealand, Vanuatu, Thailand, the Philippines and Spain. The newspaper said it had uncovered the network "through confidential documents and interviews with key players in Washington, the Pacific and North Asia." It said Australia was not involved and that the operation "has now been wound up."
Wow! fake countries, hidden support by otherwise unsupportive countries. This could be a "movie of the week".
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
04/21/2003 12:49 pm ||
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"Kim Jong Il: Father of Nuclear Fission", Tuesday at 8 on KCNA...
#2
Kimmie's got to be more nervous than a Russian tank salesman.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/21/2003 13:40 Comments ||
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Actually, none of those are "fake" countries. Nauru is a small island most famous for phosphates and Internet domain names (Steve Den Beste's "USS CLUELESS" is registered in Nauru). Vanuatu used to be called the New Hebrides. Today, it's (in)famous for 900-numbers and whopping telephone bills for unsuspecting dialers.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/21/2003 15:21 Comments ||
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If memory serves, Vanuatu was also famous for being the home of the "cargo cults". Primitive native cultures developed a religion that worshipped US Army cargo planes as deities, seeing as how during WWII they were frequent visitors to the strategic island, bringing in military cargos of goods that impressed the natives as being positively god-like.
(Hat Tip to Laurence Simon) EFLRAMALLAH, West Bank (CNN) --Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is starting to approach other candidates about becoming prime minister after failing to agree so far with Prime Minister-Designate Mahmoud Abbas on a list of new Cabinet members, Palestinian sources said Monday. Who wants to be a millionaire?
Arafat and Abbas are engaged in a power struggle, with the Palestinian Authority president seeking to retain as much control as he can, sources told CNN. Abbas -- commonly known as Abu Mazen -- has said he wants genuine authority in the job. But that would take power from "aging despot, drama queen, terrorist, and baby wipe guru, Arafat"
A senior U.S. State Department official said that Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke Monday with European Foreign policy chief Javier Solana and other officials in the region in recent days in an effort to break the deadlock between Arafat and Abbas. It's very simple - ignore Arafat, and annoint abbas as head of the next regime. Nothing will go forward until the upcoming Paleo Civil War is over
Powell's message: It's "time for Arafat to back off," the official said.
Senior Palestinian officials unsuccessfully worked through Sunday night to come up with a compromise proposal, but they were pessimistic that a new government will be cobbled together and approved by a Wednesday deadline, sources said.
Abbas and Arafat disagree over whether former Gaza Preventative Security Chief Mohammed Dahlan will be included in the new government. Among other appointments they disagree on...but really it's all about the power Abbas wants Dahlan to be in charge of security, but Arafat favors Hani el-Hasan, the interior minister and an Arafat puppet loyalist, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz.
Israel Radio reported that Arafat and Abbas are considering a compromise government list that would not include Dahlan. He's replaceable as long as the rest of the list pisses Arafish off just as much This proposal has 24 ministers, 14 of whom were part of the previous Cabinet, Israel Radio reported.
Israel Radio said Dahlan on Sunday offered to give up a seat in the Cabinet to help both men reach an agreement.
The report cited Palestinian sources as saying that Abbas won't hold more meetings with Arafat. Abbas, sources said, is ready to walk away from the job rather than give in to Arafat. Bluff?
Under pressure from the international community to reform the Palestinian Authority, Arafat agreed to the creation of the prime minister post, giving it significant powers.
Arafat then nominated Abbas, the Palestine Liberation Organization's longtime secretary-general.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has refused to reopen peace negotiations with Arafat.
Ra'anan Gissin, an adviser to Sharon, has said that the Israeli leader would invite Abbas to Jerusalem for talks once a new Palestinian government is sworn in. Shows Arafat how relevant he is, hmmm?
Under Palestinian legal procedures, if a new government isn't formed by the deadline, Arafat would have to appoint someone else to come up with a Cabinet list.
Abbas was one of the first Palestinian leaders to make contact with Israeli peace advocates. According to the PLO, Abbas was a signatory of the 1993 Declaration of Principles that launched the Palestinian-Israeli peace process. Two years later, Abbas signed the Interim Peace Agreement, known as the Oslo Accords, with Israel.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2003 12:17 pm ||
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"Israel Radio reported that Arafat and Abbas are considering a compromise government list that would not include Dahlan." He's replaceable as long as the rest of the list pisses Arafish off just as much
General rule for Abu Mazen - Arafat negotiations - if Arafat insists on X, its a sure sign giving in on X will stop peace. Arafat wants Dahlan out so he can retain control over security - if Arafat retains control over security, whole thing is doomed, whater else Arafat gives up on. If Abu Mazen gives in on Dahlan, I will be very concerned, and will join the ultrahawks in their skepticism of Abu Mazen. West has to press Abu Mazen to stand firm.
Two Dearborn men were being questioned by the FBI today after police said they saw them videotaping the Ambassador Bridge and found dynamite and shotgun shells in their car. Patrol officers saw the men during a routine patrol at about 10 p.m. Sunday, Detroit police spokeswoman Bernadette Najor said. The men, who were not identified, were taken into custody and were being questioned by the FBI, she said. "Even though the homeland security level has been lowered, we're still patrolling our borders, and we're not taking any chances with our city," she told the Detroit Free Press.
Police were holding the 26- and 30-year-old men, both described as Arab-Americans, on a felony charge of possessing a dangerous weapon because the officers found a collapsible baton inside the car, Najor said. The baton is similar to one carried by police. Police were evaluating whether further charges should be brought against the men for carrying two quarter-sticks of dynamite, which are comparable to M-80 firecrackers, Najor said. The men also had a handheld audio tape recorder and photographs of immigration papers, which were turned over to the FBI, Najor said. Tsk, tsk, another human rights outrage against innocent touristas.
Posted by: Mark IV ||
04/21/2003 11:46 am ||
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Have no fear! The Saudis will supply them with lawyers.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/21/2003 12:22 Comments ||
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I don't think the 10 Million cars crossing is the busiest - San Diego/Tijuana crossings are 5 million a month
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2003 12:31 Comments ||
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Holy Profiling, Batman! 26 and 30 year old Arab Americans, who would have thunk it? I certainly hope that the police charge these touristas with unlicensed possession of explosives. Jeeze Louise! Glad to see the police on their toes. Thanks, guys, you may have saved many lives through your vigilance.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/21/2003 12:45 Comments ||
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"Dynamite? Of course it's dynamite. We're Arabs. We always carry dynamite. It's a cultural thing. You wouldn't understand."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2003 17:40 Comments ||
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#5
What do you think the odds are that either one of these guys is named Mohammed and is a Muslim?
Posted by: Ed ||
04/21/2003 19:15 Comments ||
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Oh SO racist!
Shame on YOU!
I certainly hope those nasty please-men go and raid the houses/cars of 20 Irish catholic nuns now to prove to society they are not racist nor racial profiling.
Idiots - they seem to breed in the SF BAy area for some reason. Check out this genius:
"I wish to propose an immodest remedy for this sorry situation: We, the people of the Bay Area, need to leave the United States. We are held prisoner by a foreign power, colonized by an alien civilization. We require cultural and social self-determination. We demand, in short, a declaration of independence -- and our own nation."
Yo, Pascal! You weren't paying attention in American History, were ya?
Look up the unpleasantness that took place between 1861 and 1865, ok?
And then go get a job, ya dumb-ass hippie slacker...
Posted by: mojo ||
04/21/2003 10:29 am ||
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Who the hell is this idiot to think he speaks for "the people of the Bay Area"??? I have to live in this cesspool (due to my career field) and they surely don't speak for me.
Zachy can take his "remedy" and place it VERY far up his own rectum.
#3
Sorry, beauzeau. I'm sure that at least ten percent of Californians are unwilling to secede. Ergo, you can't form you socialist republic cruel dictatorship.
#7
I live in the Bay Area and I can say this freak does not speak for many of us, unfortunately his views are shared by far too many for my taste. I have to deal with these idiotarians on a daily basis and it's almost more than I can take at times.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
04/21/2003 12:08 Comments ||
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#8
dripping sarcasm; we use logical reasoning, ergo we are foreign to the moonbats.
#9
Lets give 'em back to Mexico. See how they like troops armed with automatic weapons patroling the streets. See how they like really corrupt politics. Oh and by the way when they leave the US and California money supply gets shut off too.
Posted by: Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire ||
04/21/2003 12:27 Comments ||
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#10
Bomb-A-Rama, penguin & Rex Mundi: I live out in Antioch. That's about 50 miles away from the city. C'mon out here when the shootin' starts and we'll hold 'em at the border.
:-)
On a serious note - some people just can't stand it. They have to stir the pot and there's all too many people I know who are getting ready to deal with these nutbars when the fecal matter hits the rapidly rotating air oscillation device. Some people actally want revolution and civil war in this country. They'd welcome it. They're on both sides of the issue as well, but the ones over here are a lot more prepared to deal with it if it ever comes.
#11
"I told the geeks that in Omaha, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles or even my native New York City they might be assailed by Americans who now view Germans as an enemy"
The article would have been mildly entertaining but this is rather infamous.
#12
Apologies to G. Dipshit from the great unwashed, ignorant, intolerant, imbecilic American public. We're sorry, but we seem to have let down our moral and intellectual superiors in the Bay Area once again. We just don't know any better. Again, profuse apologies...
#14
As one who lives in Corte Madera,I wish eveyone of these anti-violence flower toters lost someone close to them in an act of terrorism.Then maybe they would realize how fragile thier little myopic world of peace is.
#16
I am still waiting for Nancy Pelosi to display her parties "outrage" at the awarding of the Bechtel bid... which is HQ'ed in the SF Financial area, right in the heart of her congressional district. That does not sound like the kind of pork her parties "moral compass" would allow her to eat. I would like to see her complain about this big bid being awarded to a company in her ditrict. Might have fundraising implications, but I am sure doing what is right is much more important!
#17
I say give it a shot. Let Frisco, Berkeley and Marin County hit the bricks. Of course they wouldn't get any money or other support at all after the next big earthquake but I guess all the hippies wouldn't mind that too much. It'd let them get back to nature or something.
Posted by: Christopher Johnson ||
04/21/2003 13:29 Comments ||
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I here ya FOTSGreg...and thanks for the offer. You know the saying, "Best defense is a good offense". I'm up north in Santa Rosa (about 56 miles out of Baghdad By The Bay), so I've got the Northern Flank covered....you carry the East. When the whack jobs start agitating for their "leibensraum", we drive in from the North and East. They can either head south (Bakersfield?) or end up in the ocean.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
04/21/2003 13:37 Comments ||
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OK guys, when the effluent hits the propeller, you will probably be calling for close air support. As an ex bay area chap (Richmond, Pleasant Hill, Berkeley (almost got a purple heart for riot debris hit)I will heed the call and fly down in my little Cessna 172P. Better give me a few days warning, cause it takes about 2.5 days to get there from Alaska. Heh heh....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/21/2003 14:16 Comments ||
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#20
Hey Formerliberal, the southeastern corner of Iraq has lots of oil. Make sure you give them the southwestern corner, where's there's nothing going on.
Posted by: Tibor ||
04/21/2003 14:38 Comments ||
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#21
Are Canadians allowed to participate?? Hey it's funny how what you regard as a joke, we Canadians have to deal with for real every now and then: Quebec. I can advise you all that in their provincial elections a few days back, the separatists were defeated (they were in power until now). The guy that will become Quebec's premier is a federalist. The seperatists' leader and until now premier of Quebec, made a statement around 9-11 saying something to the effect that 9-11 is what happens when people are driven to desparation and their plight is ignored. This of course was an allusion to Quebec politics vis-a-vis the rest of Canada. Well, it seems he flew into a building himself and became the first casualty of foot-in-mouth disease. This was a sound defeat too, not a 49-51 type of deal.
Some of you may say, if they want to leave, let them! But you see, 80% of the tech industry is in Quebec. Hey, sort of like the Bay Area, right?
#22
I'm in Newark (CA) myself.
Some things to keep in mind about the Bay Area...
The Digital Division runs Sun hardware.
A lot of guided munitions and aircraft use systems designed by Systron Donner.
VTA trains have a "Lockheed" station.
The engineers who build those "wizard weapons" know exactly what they're used for. They do it because they believe in it.
"Field Poll notwithstanding..."
Sorry, it should have said "Reality not withstanding..."
Seems to me the author is more interested in secceeding from reality.
#23
TGA -- Please consider the source. This dork probably rarely leaves his precious little corner of the country, and thinks the rest of us between the coasts are illiterate morons.
I live in Phoenix, and about 2 weeks before we invaded Iraq, there was an airshow out at Luke Air Force Base. It's a major training facility, not just for the USAF but also for German pilots. There were some German student pilots milling around, and nobody bothered them. The worst I heard said about them when they went past was "I guess they're still our allies." No threats, nothing like that at all.
There's been nothing aimed at Lufthansa out here (we have a daily nonstop to Frankfurt). I haven't heard of any attacks on Germans, and I work for the City government. If there would have been something, I would have heard about it.
If you or some friends still want to come out to the States on vacation, they have nothing more to fear than they did last year. Us 'Merkins might be a touch uncivilized compared to the sophisticated Bay Area, but we're smart enough to determine the difference between a people and their government.
Posted by: Baba Yaga ||
04/21/2003 15:29 Comments ||
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#24
man sure are alot of post for some comment from the bay area. you must remember where the comment is coming from!
Posted by: Dan ||
04/21/2003 15:31 Comments ||
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#25
One posting about a statement made by a nutcase in the Bay area is like a visit from Murat (taking a look down memory lane.....heh heh)
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/21/2003 15:58 Comments ||
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EFL
Technological savvy could turn 600 million tons of turkey guts and other waste into 4 billion barrels of light Texas crude each year. "This is a solution to three of the biggest problems facing mankind," says Brian Appel, chairman and CEO of Changing World Technologies, the company that built this pilot plant and has just completed its first industrial-size installation in Missouri. "This process can deal with the world's waste. It can supplement our dwindling supplies of oil. And it can slow down global warming."
Pardon me, says a reporter, shivering in the frigid dawn, but that sounds too good to be true. "Everybody says that," says Appel. He is a tall, affable entrepreneur who has assembled a team of scientists, former government leaders, and deep-pocketed investors to develop and sell what he calls the thermal depolymerization process, or TDP. The process is designed to handle almost any waste product imaginable, including turkey offal, tires, plastic bottles, harbor-dredged muck, old computers, municipal garbage, cornstalks, paper-pulp effluent, infectious medical waste, oil-refinery residues, even biological weapons such as anthrax spores. According to Appel, waste goes in one end and comes out the other as three products, all valuable and environmentally benign: high-quality oil, clean-burning gas, and purified minerals that can be used as fuels, fertilizers, or specialty chemicals for manufacturing. Unlike other solid-to-liquid-fuel processes such as cornstarch into ethanol, this one will accept almost any carbon-based feedstock. If a 175-pound man fell into one end, he would come out the other end as 38 pounds of oil, 7 pounds of gas, and 7 pounds of minerals, as well as 123 pounds of sterilized water.
There would, of course, be several lawyers waiting at the other end to represent his estate...
While no one plans to put people into a thermal depolymerization machine, an intimate human creation could become a prime feedstock. "There is no reason why we can't turn sewage, including human excrement, into a glorious oil," says engineer Terry Adams, a project consultant. So the city of Philadelphia is in discussion with Changing World Technologies to begin doing exactly that.
"The potential is unbelievable," says Michael Roberts, a senior chemical engineer for the Gas Technology Institute, an energy research group. "You're not only cleaning up waste; you're talking about distributed generation of oil all over the world."
"This is not an incremental change. This is a big, new step," agrees Alf Andreassen, a venture capitalist with the Paladin Capital Group and a former Bell Laboratories director.
Sounds kinda like it's recommended by four out of five doctors...
The offal-derived oil is chemically almost identical to a number two fuel oil used to heat homes. Andreassen and others anticipate that a large chunk of the world's agricultural, industrial, and municipal waste may someday go into thermal depolymerization machines scattered all over the globe. If the process works as well as its creators claim, not only would most toxic waste problems become history, so would imported oil. Just converting all the U.S. agricultural waste into oil and gas would yield the energy equivalent of 4 billion barrels of oil annually. In 2001 the United States imported 4.2 billion barrels of oil. Referring to U.S. dependence on oil from the volatile Middle East, R. James Woolsey, former CIA director and an adviser to Changing World Technologies, says, "This technology offers a beginning of a way away from this."
But first things first. Today, here at the plant at Philadelphia's Naval Business Center, the experimental feedstock is turkey processing-plant waste: feathers, bones, skin, blood, fat, guts. A forklift dumps 1,400 pounds of the nasty stuff into the machine's first stage, a 350-horsepower grinder that masticates it into gray brown slurry. From there it flows into a series of tanks and pipes, which hum and hiss as they heat, digest, and break down the mixture. Two hours later, a white-jacketed technician turns a spigot. Out pours a honey-colored fluid, steaming a bit in the cold warehouse as it fills a glass beaker. "The longest carbon chains are C-18 or so," says Appel, admiring the liquid. "That's a very light oil. It is essentially the same as a mix of half fuel oil, half gasoline." Long article, exerpted here. Worth a complete read. This may be the biggest news the Middle East ever hears. While it may still be easier to get some oil products from the ground, this will help reduce our dependence on imports, and stop some of the BS flying around.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/21/2003 10:18 am ||
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Hmm... Whenever I read something like this I think of the Perpetual Motion Machines and the alchemists trying to turn lead into gold.
I can only hope it is feasible, though--I'd love to see us pull out of the Middle East, thumb our nose at OPEC, and leave the whole "Arab Street" to suck on rocks.
Posted by: Dar ||
04/21/2003 10:32 Comments ||
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#2
"feathers, bones, skin, blood, fat, guts" Yuck. That sounds like a perfectly offal way to make petroleum...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/21/2003 10:38 Comments ||
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#3
Saw a somewhat more in-depth report in some such magazine this month. As I happen to believe nothing short of the direct and miraculous intervention of God will bring order to that ridiculous region, we should be grasping to anything that'll pull us out of there.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2003 11:20 Comments ||
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#5
We'll see. We already are spending money to take care of waste, so if the cost per barrel is competitive AND takes into account how much it costs to dispose of the original stuff, then its possible.
#6
http://www.sagia.gov.sa/whyinvest/EconomicSectors.asp "The cost of production is $1.50 per barrel in Saudi Arabia, compared with a global average cost of $5 per barrel and more than $10 per barrel in some areas."
So at $8-12 (see article) this would be extremely uncompetitive with Saudi light crude. But it might be competitive with domestic production, especially if they could hit the low end of their estimate. I'm not an economist but it seems to me that the main effect of this would be to bring OPEC prices down by some amount, not wipe out OPEC alltogether. It would probably also need massive government subsidies since the ROI would suck. Still, you might want to do it for strategic reasons.
Another area where it might make sense to do this is in semi-closed, developing economies like India and China. It provides jobs, uses up garbage, and doesn't mess up your foreign exchange balance, therefore saving cash for capital investment.
#7
At $8-$12 cost per barrel, this oil would be EXTREMELY competitive by world standars. Last time I heard, extracting oil from Alberta tar sands is just slightly more expensive(around $13/barrel), and development of this resourse is going on at breakneck speed. In fact, they were developing it even when oil was at $15-$18 a barrel 10 years back or so. In the oil buisness, as little as a $2 diff between cost and price is enough to get you a great ROI (at least better than most investments). That's why they keep developing the deepwater offshore fields in the Gulf of Mexico. You cannot compare cost of producing oil in Saudi to anything else. They hit the lottery, that's all that is. And you have to remember, this is only the 1st generation of this technology, subsequent generations will undoubtably drive costs down. Plus, producing this bio-oil in low cost third-world countries would lower costs considerably. This is tremendous news. At the very least it will drive down oil prices and shut out the high-cost producers. Bye-bye Canada, Venezuela and Russia. And oil at $15/barrel will HUMBLE mid-east producers. Saudi is already in debt. In the mid-seventies, their average wage rivalled the US at around $18,000/year, now it is around $8,000/year while the US is about $27,000/year. This technology would bring about the complete humbling of Saudi, as oil would then be just another commodity where it is a buyers market. They would be reduced to third-world status with little superfluous cash to finance Wahabhi-inspired Islamic terror gangs. This is wonderful news.
#8
I'll be interested to hear Policy Pete's take on this. I'm not sure how often he updates his site, but it seems to be a site for people in the know regarding the petroleum industry.
Posted by: Dar ||
04/21/2003 13:13 Comments ||
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#10
Other thought to consider is that most people PAY to have there waste carted off. If this works an outfit like this could start to charge people less than most landfill prices, decreasing the real cost per barrel.
a) too expensive
b) uses too much energy to extract the fuel in the first place - uses more than it produces!
i know this is pessimistic, after all i know nothing about the machines at all bar what is written here. It just sounds too good to be true...
i mean it takes anything - from ground up computers to people...
naaah too good to be true.
why aren't we just burning ethanol now , that is far simpler? it's been around for ages... why haven't car manufacturers started making ethanol-compatable engines for the domestic car market? Why isn't ethanol getting burned in power plants?
why aren't there fields of non-THC (ie: non smokable, no drugs at all) hemp being grown to service this?
if the simple options aren't being pursued, why would the complex/expensive options stand a chance?
#13
But what about the Environment? What about all those poor pigs and turkeys, cruelly slaughtered to further our fuel interests? What about the loss of earth biomass that would otherwise be destined for green and growing things? I demand an enviromnental impact assessment. It'll only take about 15 to 20 years.
/sarcasm *off*
But really folks, you're probably going to be hearing this.
And it really does sound too good to be true. Nobody's invented perpetual motion--but it is possible to turn lead into gold. It just tends to be highly radioactive and consumes more energy than it's worth.
#14
I hope this is for real,but there's been like millions of scams that start just like this.After the investors have lost all their money,someone finally looks inside the machine and finds an empty oil barrel with a hose attached.
Posted by: El Id ||
04/21/2003 13:53 Comments ||
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#15
jlc: I don't disagree with any of your political analysis. I just believe that from a business standpoint, it will be difficult to incentivize most investors to fund such a project. (Throughout all of this, I am assuming that Offal Oil's cost projections aren't overly optimistic. If you've ever worked with start ups before, then you know how risky this can be.) If I can invest in ARAMCO (even if I can't invest directly, there are ways to invest indirectly) which has gross margins of $27.50 per barrel ($29 spot price - $1.50 production cost), why the heck am I going to invest in Offal Oil that only has gross margins of $19 per barrel ($29 spot price - $10 average production cost). I bring up this point because this is where these kinds of projects always fail. Investors get tired of all of the years of poor returns and then move their money to more profitable investments. The result: the project goes into bankruptcy. The way to prevent this is through subsidies. I assume that this is what the Canadians have been doing with the oil sands project. American governments have been wary of subsidizing non-defense and agriculture related businesses since the late 70's, which is one of the reasons that we have such a great economy. This is why I think that it would be good project for India or China where the governments aren't so subsidy-adverse and have strong economic reasons to develop their own energy businesses.
#16
Do you suppose they'll be modernizing the old Exxon slogan: "Put a Turkey in Your Tank"?
Posted by: Dar ||
04/21/2003 14:13 Comments ||
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#17
Well being a chemical engineer I can tell you that nothing is more cheap than free. Which is essentially what crude oil is. You stick a pipe in the ground and it comes out. Any time you have to produce anything it cost much more than getting it for free. I work in alternative energy, and my experience has told me when oil runs out we're going to natural gas. The US and Canada have the worlds largest supply enough to last 90 years. When that's gone we go to Coal, we're tied with Russia at 25% each of total worls supply; that's about 300 years. There is no miracle, because even if you can produce it cheap enough the raw material is not sustainable. I know it sounds like it is--until you do the math.
Posted by: George ||
04/21/2003 14:17 Comments ||
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#18
George, sticking a pipe in the ground and having a gusher only works in a few place, like the ME. That's why Saudi's cost is $1.50/ba. Everywhere else, producing black gold COSTS! But the problem (or good thing, depending on your POV) is that the ME cannot pump it out fast enought to suppy all the world. The US alone uses 4.2 billion barrels per year! Saudi, the biggest producer in the world (Russia is close), produces about 7.5 million ba/day when it is going full kilter. That's only 2.7 billion ba/year.
Canada's experience with tar sands was that it was subsidized in the 70's in the hopes that prices would eventually reach around $50/ba which would then make it economical at the then current cost of producing the stuff. Technology then gradually reduced costs until subsidies were no longer necessary. In fact technology and economies of scale improved so much that even when prices hit rock bottom at bet. $15-$18 / ba, oil companies (including US ones) were still making money there and investing! This is because, even with only a few $'s spread between cost and price, you still get a great ROI with oil. The reason being that once production gets going, you can pump out large quantities of this stuff (like millions of ba/year). As far as investing in cheap oil producers goes, there is only so much of that to go around, and the price of thoses share usually reflect their potential value, which means MORE. There is no free ride. The question is, what is the ROI for expensive oil, as opposed to investing in OTHER businessses. The answer is usually good! With the added benefit that there is always a market for the product for the foreseeable future.
As for the bio-oil, especially this method, the pilot plant was built, it operated and made the grade with flying colors. They are now building a full scale actual production plant. The only problem I can forsee is that for some reason the technology does not scale up very well. But I'm sure that they have studied this pretty well. Even with some unforseen circumstances, oil at $30/ba will make this a very profitable enterprise. Even at $15/ba it would still probably be a great investment. If after a few years in operation, the annual reports show a thriving, successful enterprise, these things will start sprouting up like mushrooms all over the world.
#19
George- I wonder how many BTUs they have to put into this process? I'd be surprised that getting usable fuel out of this is any more efficient than the dubious route of ethanol production.
#20
Craig,
According to the article (need to read the entire thing to find it), they get 150btus for ever 15btus invested - 10 times as much. Since most of the material going into the hopper is stuff that COSTS to get rid of (turkey guts, medical refuse, even grass clippings, if I read it correctly), the return would be even higher in places where there's a premium paid for waste disposal. While I don't think it'll every put Saudi Arabia out of business, it may be a good bet in the long run just to reduce the amount of space required for landfills. Getting the organics out of garbage allows the reduction of other products (metals, glass, etc.) to be done almost economically.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/21/2003 17:01 Comments ||
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#22
In just reducing waste and green house gass' alone makes this a viable enterprise .
Turning byproduct into usable full is gravy.Besides Large cities(N.Y.,Chicago),ask any major hog farmer what he would do if he could turn his waste into usable fuel.Even a drop of 25% operating expense would be a substaintal savings.
Couple this with fuel cell/fusion tech. and it is possible we could be enrgy indepentant,or close to it.
(via Command Post)
A US spy satellite monitored a strong explosion that rocked North Korea's test site for ballistic missiles in November last year, according to South Korean reports. Washington had passed information concerning the explosion to South Korean military authorities, the Yonhap news agency said today.
The blast occurred during a missile engine test and crippled operations and facilities at North Korea's missile launch site at Musudan-ri, Hwadae county, north-east of Pyongyang, Seoul's Chosun Ilbo newspaper said. Well, no wonder they were showing restraint on testing missiles...they couldn't launch...DOH!
The launch site in North Hamgyong province has been closely monitored by US spy satellites since Pyongyang sent shockwaves around the world by test-firing a Taepodong long-range ballistic missile that flew over Japan and into the Pacific in 1998.
Chosun said the November explosion caused extensive damage and had been delaying the development and test launch of North Korea's Taepodong missiles. Quality control is Job 487 One in the DPRK It claimed fragments and debris flew several hundred metres across the launch site. Coooll South Korean military officials declined to confirm the reports. "We neither confirm nor deny the reports," a defence ministry official said.
According to South Korean defence ministry data, North Korea is currently testing Taepodong-1 missiles with a range of 2500km and is also developing a longer-range Taepodong-2. Taepodong-2 could be capable of reaching parts of the continental United States. People's republics of Berkley or Santa Monica or Seattle?
North Korea launched at least two short-range land to ship missiles off its coasts in February and March, sparking speculation that it would test fire another ballistic missile. Remember all the curiousity on the these? that's all they could launch, now we know why
North Korea, which is locked in a nuclear standoff with the United States, has indicated that Japan's recent spy satellite launch would free it from its commitment to a testing moratorium. If they fix their site earlier, they would've launched earlier. They don't feel constrained by treaties and agreements
At a summit between the leaders of Japan and North Korea in September last year, North Korea pledged to extend its moratorium on ballistic missiles beyond 2003.
More recently, it has vowed to boost its military strength, fearing a pre-emptive US military attack to snuff out its suspected nuclear arms ambitions. Snuff out more than that
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2003 09:16 am ||
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Once again! It's the red wire, dammit. Don't cut the green one!
The entire crew of a North Korean ship suspected of being involved in Victoria's largest ever heroin seizure has appeared in a Sydney court. Authorities intercepted the Pong Su yesterday after a four-day chase from Victoria. The 30-strong crew have been charged with aiding and abetting the importation of a prohibited substance. All are now facing extradition to Victoria. They will appear in court again tomorrow. Another four people were arrested in Victoria. One of them will appear in the Melbourne Magistrates court tomorrow. Graham Ashton, from the Australian Federal Police, says investigations are continuing despite the arrests. "It is a very large area of coastline so we're following up on crime scene issues, conducting searches of the area to make sure that no other evidence is left behind in relation to the landing of the heroin on Wednesday morning," he said.
The solicitor appearing for the crew, Scott Schaudin, says there is no evidence to support the police charges. "I said on the facts that I read I thought they [would] have difficulty proving their case, grave difficulty," he said. No application for bail was made.
But don't worry. "Y'got nuttin' on us, coppers! Nuttin'!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 09:18 am ||
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It could be worse.....at least they weren't caught in Malaysia or some other country with the death penalty for trafficking. I think I'd rather be in an Aussie jail than Pyongyang, myself.
Posted by: Baba Yaga ||
04/21/2003 17:48 Comments ||
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North Korea has issued a corrected version of an official statement whose original language indicated the Stalinist state was reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods. A new version of Friday's statement is now posted on the website of Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency. A foreign ministry spokesman was quoted on Friday by the news agency as saying North Korea was "successfully reprocessing" 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. The dispatch posted on the website, posted today but dated Friday, replaces the language with "successfully going forward to reprocess" the rods, stopping short of saying actual reprocessing had begun. The rest of the statement was unchanged. KCNA has given no explanation for the replacement of the original dispatch.
That's what comes of picking your translators for party loyalty, rather than language skills...
Friday's statement threw into doubt three-way negotiations scheduled for Beijing this week bringing together senior officials from Washington and Pyongyang for the first time since the crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions erupted in October. The new English-language version of the foreign ministry spokesman's statement appeared closer to the original Korean-language version carried Friday by KCNA. Friday's Korean-language statement, monitored in Seoul, said North Korea had progressed "to the point of reprocessing fuel rods".
Oh. Well. That's different, then.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
04/21/2003 09:18 am ||
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Exploding missiles (on the ground), spoof press releases, scientists defecting by the truckload...
Is anyone else reminded of the Keystone Kops?
Posted by: Tony ||
04/21/2003 18:11 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
