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MILF founder Salamat Hashim departs vale of tears
Today's Headlines
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
StrategyPage roundup
Love the news nuggets on Strategy Page--just hate the f’ing popups.
"Gun-Vees": The Somali technical American-style
Russian T-95 tank proposal--152mm smoothbore autoloader


Infantry riding tanks into battle still
Marines get new helmet design


The venerable M2 "Ma Deuce" .50 MG is being replaced.
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 11:57:24 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dar:

Try AdSubtract Pro. I hardly ever see a popup. They have a free trial period I think.

www.adsubtract.com

Posted by: Whiskey Mike || 08/04/2003 13:16 Comments || Top||

#2  try netscape 7.x or mozilla 1.4 pop-up suppression is native
Posted by: Anonymous || 08/04/2003 13:40 Comments || Top||

#3  WM--Thanks for the recommendation! I DL'd the trial version and it works great. I hate those %#*$ popups/popbehinds/whatever!
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 13:41 Comments || Top||

#4  Panicware.com
Popupstopper - free edition works for me
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 13:59 Comments || Top||

#5  I use Smasher. It blocks all sorts of ads...popups, popunders, flash ads, system messages, etc. Also blocks unwanted cookies, and cleans your history and cache on shutdown. It's got a free trial too.
Posted by: dave || 08/04/2003 16:42 Comments || Top||


Pix from Navy SINKEX operation
Edited for brevity. Hat tip to Hell in a Handbasket.
On 21 July 2003 in a SINKEX operation by the US Navy, the USS Samuel Gompers AD-37 and two other ships were sent to the bottom of the Atlantic ocean off the coast of North Carolina. The ships involved in the SINKEX included the famed USS Cole. Of the three ships destroyed, the Gompers was the last to be sunk and slipped beneath the waves at 0006 22 July 2003. The first Harpoon missile to strike the Gompers was from the USS Cole, designation: Cole 4. Reports indicate it took 16 Harpoon missiles (400 lbs each) and over 40,000 pounds of ordinance to sink the Gompers. When the Harpoons finished, a squadron of bombers dropped 2,000 pound bombs on her to sink her.
They have a few pix of the Harpoon launches, but they’re working to get a video and more pix of the actual sinkings, so it might be worthwhile to bookmark and check back periodically.
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 10:59:25 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Cool pics and hopefully more to come. There's a reference to a USS Gonzo on some of the photos. Is that actually the USS Gonzalez?
Posted by: Patrick Phillips || 08/04/2003 11:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Gonzo? We named a ship after a Muppet?
Posted by: Jim K || 08/04/2003 13:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Still waiting on word of the USS Duke
Posted by: mojo || 08/04/2003 14:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Why are they sinking a perfectly good destroyer? Couldn't they just mothball it? Given the amount of ordnance they used up, I'm real impressed at the sturdiness of the hull. I've got to figure that decommissioned ships like this could come in handy if we ever need to get a bunch of replacement ships out on the ocean in a hurry. So why did they sink it?
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 14:25 Comments || Top||

#5  Because they cost cubic dollars just to maintain. And you can't hardley maintain them if they never get any use, which means you have to have at least some sort of minimal crew just to use them once and a while. Which cost more money. Might as well not have decommisioned it.
Firing up a car that hasn't been used in ten years is miserable. It takes a lot of money and even more work to get them back into condition. And that can still take me a year or more.
For a friggin' car!
I can't imagine what a destroyer would be like after a decade or two. I shake thinking about it.
Posted by: Mike N. || 08/04/2003 14:52 Comments || Top||

#6  Zhang Fei, the Gompers wasn't a Destroyer. It was a Destroyer Tender (repair ship) as was one of the other two ships that were sunk. These ships had reached the end of their life-cycle. At that point, it is better (and more cost effective)to replace them, than attempt to keep them in service.
Posted by: Bill || 08/04/2003 15:05 Comments || Top||

#7  I just love the idea of naming ships after the Muppets. It would be a great taunt: after destroying an enemy vessel, you could shout: "You've just been wasted by a bunch of muppets!".
Posted by: A || 08/04/2003 15:07 Comments || Top||

#8  Firing up a car that hasn't been used in ten years is miserable.

I understand, but a car is just sheet metal that can be put together in just hours, whereas a modern ship's hull takes years. Maybe what I'm missing is how ships are designed. With a car, when you need a new engine, you unbolt the engine mounts, take out the old engine and plop in a new one. Perhaps with a ship, you might have to take the hull apart and put it back together again after the engine's installed. So installing a new engine or weapons systems might actually involve as much work as building a ship from scratch.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 15:12 Comments || Top||

#9  Anyone else bothered by the fact that a defenseless ship with no damage control parties (and I assume all watertight doors wide open) took over 16 Harpoon hits and still needed more to sink? OTOH, there weren't any spectacular flammables on board, like munitions, but still--maybe we should be phasing the Harpoon out as well?
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 15:18 Comments || Top||

#10  Anyone else bothered by the fact that a defenseless ship with no damage control parties (and I assume all watertight doors wide open) took over 16 Harpoon hits and still needed more to sink?

How's this reconcile with the USS Cole, which took one hit from Yemeni terrorists and was reported to be in bad condition (maybe a little journalistic license there). Was the damage really all that bad?
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 15:29 Comments || Top||

#11  When the Navy sets up a ship as a target for an exercise like this. All flammable materials are taken off, the hatches are all welded shut and the interior space is filled with a material that floats making them very difficult to sink.
Posted by: PJAnonymous || 08/04/2003 16:19 Comments || Top||

#12  PJAnon--Ah ha! Thanks for the info--this ignorant landlubber appreciates it! Guess since it was a live fire exercise they wanted the targets to stick around for a while so everybody could share in the fun. Makes sense...
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 16:32 Comments || Top||

#13  Man! Welding all the hatches shut puts a whole new light on General Quarters! Heh heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 08/04/2003 16:51 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Afghan forces capture 20 Taliban
SPIN BOLDAK: Afghan forces captured 20 Taliban suspects, several of them local commanders, in operations in the south in the past week that killed five guerrillas and two government troops. Khalid Pashtun, spokesman for Kandahar province, told reporters on Sunday at least 19 Taliban suspects had been detained there. Authorities in neighbouring Uruzgan said they had captured a guerrilla chief trying to plant a bomb near the governor’s house. State media have reported other arrests of Taliban suspects in Helmand province, without giving figures. Pashtun said the arrests in Kandahar province took place in operations to the north and south of Kandahar city involving 500 pro-government troops backed by U.S.-led coalition forces. He said one Taliban fighter was killed trying to attack a government post on Friday, while the US military has reported that its helicopter gunships killed another four on Thursday. Kandahar corps commander General Khan Mohammad said two Afghan soldiers were killed during the operations. Pashtun said that Taliban prisoners included three important local commanders, Mullah Abdul Hameed, Mullah Abdul Hakim and Mullah Zahir. The governor of Uruzgan province, Jan Mohammad Khan, told reporters that another commander, Mullah Noman, had been arrested early on Sunday trying to place a remote-controlled bomb on a road leading to his residence. He said Noman had admitted receiving training in Quetta, and had given details of Taliban activities in Pakistan.
Ohoh! Singing, is he?
In Kandahar city, journalists saw police escorting several Taliban prisoners with their feet in chains. One, who gave his name as Mullah Rahmatullah, said he had been paid to fight. “We have been told to fight against the government,” he said. “They were giving us money to fight and were saying that the Americans are here now so you have to go for holy war. That is why we joined them.”
Golly. I wonder who might be paying them?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 16:15 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Dostum begins disarmament in north
Afghan warlord and Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rashid Dostam has started to disarm some of his thousands of militiamen in northern Afghanistan where factional clashes have left dozens dead. Around 1,000 fighters were disarmed at the weekend, Dostam told reporters Sunday in Aqcha in his home province of Jawzjan, 380 kilometres (240 miles) northwest of Kabul. Rifles and ammunition were collected from the militiamen in five Jawzjan districts and brought to Aqcha for transportation to Mazar-i-Sharif, northern Afghanistan’s main city, 100 kilometres (62miles) to the east.
Where they had a little work accident.
Dostam said the disarmed men were likely to be sent to Kabul to join the new Afghan army, which currently numbers 5,500 against a planned eventual strength of 70,000.
"Don’t worry, boys. The Army will give you a brand new shooting iron when you join up."
Dostam’s efforts are separate from an internationally-backed national program to disarm, demobilise and reintegrate some 100,000 militiamen across Afghanistan. Dostam, an Uzbek warlord and former communist general, said he had appointed 200 militiamen to take responsibility for security in the five disarmed districts.
"Disarmed" in Afghanistan means only one crew-served weapon per household.
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 2:36:14 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


13 Warlord’s Soldiers Killed in Afghan Blast
Thirteen soldiers loyal to a northern Afghan warlord were killed and 21 hurt in a explosion while they were loading weapons on a truck, police said on Monday.
"Hey, don’t drop that......"
The incident happened on Sunday evening at Aqcha, a district of Jozjan province not far from the border with Uzbekistan, Mohammad Qoul Zahri, deputy police chief of Jozjan said. He said all the soldiers were loyal to Abdul Rashid Dostum, a northern warlord who is also a defence adviser to President Hamid Karzai. Zahri said they had been loading the weapons during a disarmament drive in the province.
Well, that’s one way to dispose of them.

Guns don't kill people. Ineptitude does.
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 2:28:06 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fewer we'll have to kill someday.
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 18:29 Comments || Top||


High-ranking Taliban arrested
Afghan intelligence officers have arrested a high-ranking Taliban official in northern Afghanistan, the official Bakhtar news agency said today. "Taliban deputy education minister Zabihullah Zahid was arrested by intelligence officers in Balkh province recently," it said, citing national security officers. No further details were available. It was not clear what Zahid had been doing since the fall of the Taliban 20 months ago.
On a sabatical?

Probably educating people.
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 1:24:55 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Betrayed by Dostum ? Thats his area.
Posted by: buwaya || 08/04/2003 14:40 Comments || Top||


Arabia
2 Dead Saudi Militants Were On Wanted List
Two militants killed in a shootout with Saudi police last week were part of a cell of 19 suspected terrorists linked to al-Qaida and thought to be behind the deadly May suicide bombings in Riyadh, a newspaper reported Monday. The Al-Watan daily, quoting "informed sources," identified the men as Ahmed bin Nasser al-Dekhiel and Hamad bin Abdullah al-Aslami.
We’ll be watching to see if they get better.
The men were killed during the July 28 raid on a farm in the al-Qassim area, 220 miles northwest of the capital, Riyadh. Four other suspected militants and two police officers also died. The two were on a list of 19 suspected militants sought since police uncovered a large arms cache in the capital, Riyadh, on May 6. The deaths mean at least 10 of the suspects on the list have been killed or captured.
Or have really good conections in the Saudi government. My, I’m cynical this morning.
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 11:08:34 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Britain
UK: Trojan horse downloads child porn on victim’s computer
Edited for brevity. Hat tip InstaPundit--OT, but disturbing for any computer user (e.g. you!).
A man accused of storing child pornography on his computer has been cleared after it emerged that his computer had been infected by a Trojan horse, which was responsible for transferring the images onto his PC. Julian Green, 45, was taken into custody last October after police with a search warrant raided his house. He then spent a night in a police cell, nine days in Exeter prison and three months in a bail hostel. During this time, his ex-wife won custody of his seven year old daughter and possession of his house. This is thought to be the second case in the UK where a "Trojan defence" has been used to clear someone of such an accusation. In April, a man from Reading was found not guilty of the crime after experts testified that a Trojan could have been responsible for the presence of 14 child porn images on his PC.
Three questions come to mind after reading this disturbing article: 1) What justification did the police have for a warrant? 2) Who stood to benefit (the ex-wife certainly did) from making an anonymous tip? 3) How widespread is this? It certainly appears targeted, not random, if only two people have been affected--that they know of, anyway.
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 1:59:09 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good questions. This just doesn't make sense as a random event. What are the odds of visiting a particular pernicious website out of the millions? Being drawn there - by an email, perhaps? I write webapps - and the user's machine is more open than many would like to believe, so doing something like this isn't impossible - it's just improbable as hell. Lessee, back to the cop's creed: Motive, Means...
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 16:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Actually, this stuff has already been reported in professional papers and sites -

New trojan peddles porn while you work
Posted by: Don || 08/04/2003 17:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Don - Thx for the link...

The operation of the trojan (migmaf? WTF?) is, indeed, interesting. P2P file-swapping apps like Kazaa, and before it Napster and 3 or 4 others, are rife with shitheads spreading viral files and pgms. Remember one of the first such gambits, AOLFree, about 7 yrs ago? Burned a LOT of people and it was a real bitch virus: a disk-wiper.

Good article - Thx, again.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 18:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Re: 3 questions
1.) This is the UK not US; they don't need a search warrant.
2.) Obviously, the ex stood to gain, but sometimes the answer is not obvious
3.)Probably much more widespread than has been reported
The best defense against computer hackers and terrorists alike is common sense (which, regretably, isn't all that common).
Posted by: Anonymous Troll || 08/04/2003 23:57 Comments || Top||

#5  AT: Don't need a search warrant?! What sort of police state do you think the UK is? It actually states in the article "police with a search warrant".
Posted by: Bulldog || 08/05/2003 4:20 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Different rules for Muslim leaders in Sydney
Muslim leader’s arrest ordeal put to restBy Linda Morris
August 5 2003

Seven months after Sydney’s most high profile Muslim leader was handcuffed and arrested in a roadside fracas over a minor traffic infringement, three outstanding charges were withdrawn against him yesterday.

on the TV news it has been reported as ’all charges dropped, Sheikh Hilaly vindicated’ and suchlike.

Police are dropping charges on a technicality:
Police need ’reasonable suspicioun’ to search a vehicle. The info on the computer that Sheikh Hilaly might have a gun in the car was 4 years old and out of date. Arresting officer did not know this and searched the car. Hence all charges now thrown out:

despite that the other charges had nothing to do with the search, and everything to do with the way the conflict was escalated by SHeikh Hilaly and the attending muslim brothers.


Sheik Hilaly, 62, was originally stopped by highway patrol police on a street in Wiley Park in January for having a piece of metal protruding from the driver’s side of his vehicle.

The confrontation escalated, the search was made, and Sheik Hilaly was arrested, handcuffed and issued by summons for charges relating to assaulting police, hindering police and resisting arrest.

Superintendent Richardson said the incident was regrettable but denied it had harmed the good relations between police and the Islamic community,especially now they’ve dropped all charges and gave the police officer his full backing.


Sheik Hilaly was issued with a traffic infringement notice, carrying a $400 fine, for driving an unregistered vehicle and has been issued a caution for driving with a dangerous load.

Sheik Hilaly, who accused police at the time of "Rambo" tactics, issued a one-line statement through his spokesman, Keysar Trad, saying he was glad the matter was finally put to rest.PR lessons have been learned. Nicely timed simultaneous media release regarding how he is also requesting Ruddock ban fundamentalist preachers. He is really making sure the public love him and think he is the moderate. Keysar Trad is a professional PR man now

The Minister for Police, John Watkins, yesterday denied that the dropping of the charges or the timing of the announcement was in any way politically motivated.
no, we often drop charges just for the hell of it.

Opposition police spokesman Peter Debnam said the decision to withdraw the charges against the senior imam was "very embarrassing" for police and the Government and asked why it had taken so long to conclude their case was weak.

off on a technicality, doesn’t look weak to me, looks like Hilaly did escalate things as per the charges but politics and lawyers have obstructed justice!

PS: has ANYBODY heard of Khalid Yasin? He is a preacher soon to tour Australia, and I want to know about his background


Posted by: Anon1 || 08/04/2003 9:16:04 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  what was the excuse for officer assault? "It's OK, we're holy men"? Jeebus ....The "rot" (see the other deep thoughts in posts today) in our culture is the fact we defer to those who would kill us or piss in our churches, yet claim "insensitivity" when you confiscate the AK-47s in a mosque
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 22:25 Comments || Top||


Lakemba terrorist links, but Gitmo detainee clean
Terrorism suspect had clean bill from policeBy Linda Morris
August 5 2003

Mamdouh Habib, one of two Australians arrested on suspicion of terrorist links and held at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay, was cleared by NSW police of being a violent threat to government authorities a month before he was detained in Pakistan.

The police protective security group, forerunner to the counter-terrorism group, prepared a detailed security assessment on Mr Habib in 2001, says his then local MP, Alan Ashton.

Mr Habib’s family says that far from being a terrorist he was banned from his Lakemba prayer group, which was under ASIO surveillance, after his Muslim brothers branded him a CIA agent.
paranoid Islamists looking for CIA everywhere

The Herald has learnt that Mr Habib complained extensively to police and politicians of the falling out he had with the hardline prayer group, or musalla.

He brought charges against one fellow worshipper, alleging he had beaten and threatened him in the main street of Lakemba.

The Herald has verified that police charged a member of the Islamic Youth Movement with assault and violence causing fear after an alleged attack on Mr Habib on November 3, 2001.

Islamic Youth Movement are a radical young outfit promoting Jihad and kill-the-kaffir style ranting. Got thrown out of Lakemba mosque a year or two ago as Mufti Hilaly (keysar trad is the mouthpiece) realised it was no longer tenable to have this PR nightmare in a post-911/Bali world).

According to Mr Habib’s police statement, he was beaten about the back, head and legs with a "black weapon the same as police use".

The man he accused of attacking him recently denied claims of a CIA report identifying him as an al-Qaeda operative.
as a hard-boy of the Islamic Youth Movement it is all too possible
He also denies going to Afghanistan to train in a military camp and has threatened defamation action against the ABC’s Four Corners, which broadcast the claims.
and now 4 corners will roll into a ball and all other media outfits will back off. No chance of him losing in court due to judicial activism on perceived prejudice against a minority.

The man denies ever attacking Mr Habib and in February 2002, with Mr Habib in Cuba, police withdrew the charges.
they do that a lot when it’s bad PR with the Islamic community I’ve noticed: most recently dropping charges against SHeikh Hilaly though it isn’t clear to me whether his car WAS or WAS NOT unregistered and it certainly was clear at the time that ’Threaten Police’ did in fact occur , being that the squad car was quickly surrounded by approx. 30 enraged muslims.

Mr Habib and his alleged attacker attended the musalla, or prayer hall, two storeys above the Civic Arcade, in busy Haldon Street, Lakemba.
red alert: this is a Sydney epicenter of Islamism

Mr Habib prayed there until September 2000, says his wife, Maha Habib. Then, suddenly, he was banned. "They said he was CIA agent," she said. "They didn’t trust him."

The events, she argues, support the family’s longstanding claim that Mr Habib had booked a return air fare to Pakistan intending to relocate the family and escape harassment, not to take part in terrorism.

Mr Habib has been held without charge for 20 months at the United States military’s Camp X-Ray. His case has been overshadowed by that of his fellow Australian detainee, David Hicks, whose father recently staged a dramatic protest in New York, posing as a prisoner in a cage.

Mr Habib was allegedly detained in Kurduz, Pakistan, after crossing the border from Afghanistan.

An Egyptian citizen, he first arrived in Australia in 1982 and came to the attention of ASIO in 1991 when he attended the court case of El Sayyid Nosair, who was found guilty of murdering the anti-Arab Rabbi Meir Kahane.

That should red-flag him to all of us. Still, difficult to know (and some would say irrelevant) whether it was simply an ideological/community sympathy that brought him there or an organisational relationship.

In September 2000, Mr Habib wrote to Mr Ashton, the Labor MP for East Hills, claiming that he had been banned from the musalla because he had taken up the cause of a visiting Dutch national, M. Ofkeli, also known as Abu Zer, who had complained that the prayer group had confiscated his passport, return airline ticket and some cash.

Mr Habib later named a member of the musalla whom, he said, had sworn that Mr Habib was a CIA agent and had caused the jailing of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman over the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.

In fact, police and MPs came to know the Habib family well. They had written to and phoned Mr Ashton’s office many times.

Within days of the alleged assault, Mr Habib had complained to Bankstown police at least four times. He said he phoned the office of the then police minister, Paul Whelan, at least twice.

"His are not the actions of a sleeper terrorist," Mr Habib’s lawyer, Stephen Hopper, said. "Mr Habib’s behaviour in constantly contacting the authorities, including police, and drawing attention to himself is the antithesis of the modus operandi of a sleeper terrorist. He was out with the group that had been under surveillance by ASIO."

Mr Habib was a vexatious complainant, police had told the MP, and there was "little credibility to any threats or allegations he may make".

Ten days later, ASIO raided his home in his absence, and on October 5 he was detained.
Posted by: Anon1 || 08/04/2003 9:01:28 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Extremist Clerics to visit Australia

Dear Rantburg: this is a snipped story from earlier this week: I rang SBS news and they told me the Cleric coming out next month is one Khalid Yasin. Has anybody heard of Khalid Yasin doing the Islamic Speakers tour in Britain (Bulldog) Canada or America? Does anybody know where I can find more info on him? Google turned up nothing as did a quick look at some Australian Islamic sites.

I am going to try to get a list of the speakers and write an article on who is coming and what they’ve said/done in the past. Also, another angle is that the Jewish Museum’s Courage to Care exhibition got vandalised last night: there is a rising tide of anti-semitism and i want to alert the public.


AUSTRALIAN MUSLIM CLERIC WARNS AGAINST RADICAL PREACHERS


Australia’s most senior Muslim cleric has warned against what he calls the radicalism of some visiting Islamic preachers. Sheik Taj Din el-Hilaly says they’re promoting disharmony and intolerance, and has called on the Federal Government to stop them coming here.

KEYSAR TRAD: They are nurturing rigid views and rigid views, if they are not treated, will fester and grow and lead to more divisiveness. I don’t believe they will lead to terrorism but they may lead to small-scale violence.

The company that sponsors many of the visiting international speakers says there’s nothing to fear.

ABU ABD AL-RAHMAN, ONE ISLAM PRODUCTIONS: I personally filmed these lectures and I edit them, and I listen to them over and over, and it’s exactly the opposite. They’re actually saying, "You’re living in a country where you have to respect the law," and that’s it.

He means Sharia law only

Ordinary Muslims who spoke to SBS today agree.
SBS’s version of the only Muslims that actually count. SBS actively promotes Islamism. They’ve dismissed Sheik Hilaly’s concerns as an attempt to grab the media spotlight, claiming he has no support among Muslim youth.

Posted by: Anon1 || 08/04/2003 8:31:39 PM || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's likely that Australia's immigration department is going to look those guys over real good. Nothing is assured.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 08/04/2003 21:01 Comments || Top||

#2  He's Islamic - how many passports/ID's is he traveling, preaching under?
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 22:27 Comments || Top||

#3  no idea, don't know any more details about him but am very keen to profile them all, find out all about who is coming out and what they preach.
Posted by: Anon1 || 08/05/2003 2:31 Comments || Top||


Europe
Gunmen Shoot Dead UN Policeman in Kosovo
EFL
Gunmen have killed an Indian officer in the first deadly attack on Kosovo’s U.N. police force since the 1999 war, U.N. officials said Monday. The ambush late Sunday on a U.N. police vehicle in northern Kosovo is likely to heighten security concerns after several violent incidents across the U.N.-governed province in recent weeks, although officials cautioned against linking them.
"Nope, no linkage. We’re looking for several different lone white guys."
"This was a direct attack on international forces of law and order," said the acting head of the United Nations in Kosovo, U.S. diplomat Charles Brayshaw.
"How dare they attack the U.N.! Don’t they know we are a multilateral culturally-diverse force?"
A U.N. spokesman said the police vehicle was apparently forced to slow down because of rocks lying on the road to the town of Leposavic. "That’s when the shooting started," he said.
Someone read his Ambush 101 textbook.
The attack took place in an ethnically mixed region, populated mainly by Serbs but also with some ethnic Albanian villages, U.N. officials said. They did not yet know who was responsible nor the motive. Police spokesman Barry Fletcher identified the victim as 43-year-old Satish Menon from India and said he was "the first U.N. police officer killed in the line of duty" in Kosovo. There are currently some 4,450 U.N. police from more than 50 countries in Kosovo, with India one of the largest contributors.
Indian, huh? Wonder if there are any Pak "volunteers" around assisting the Albanians, or if just any U.N. cop would have been a target?
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 11:50:36 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Nope, no linkage. We’re looking for several different lone white guys."
"Likely Presbyterians or Baptists. They're a rough lot. Right up there with Seventh Day Adventists."
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 13:05 Comments || Top||

#2  The Blue helmets make good targets.
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 13:53 Comments || Top||


Ireland Arrests 10 at Suspected IRA Camp
DUBLIN (AP) - Irish police Sunday arrested 10 men while raiding a suspected training camp for a breakaway Irish Republican Army group that has been mounting sporadic attacks in neighboring Northern Ireland. The men, suspected members of the Continuity IRA, were gathered inside the woods near Clonmel, County Tipperary, at a secluded site being used for firearms training, police said. Two rifles and two shotguns were seized at the site, police said.
Guess it’s not a long way to Tipperary.
Two dissident Irish Republican Army groups - the Continuity IRA and Real IRA - oppose the 1998 peace accord for Northern Ireland and have been trying to destabilize the British territory with occasional bombings and shootings.
"And faith knows we’e the real IRA."
"Aye, faith knows you’re an imposter, anyone can see that we’re the real IRA."
"Sean Patrick, I’ve a mind to drop you here and now, we’re the real IRA."
"Is that so, John Patrick, why I’ve a mind to .. [BLAM]"

Most of their attacks have been thwarted by police.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/04/2003 12:33:16 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  These two groups currently lead the Terror League in own goals. With any luck, the last terr standing will blow his own brains out.
Posted by: Chuck || 08/04/2003 8:32 Comments || Top||

#2  "Most of their attacks have been thwarted by police." Ho-hum. What, me worry, Mr. AP? We're supposed to feel good about that? Senseless writing. I think he forgot to say that the cops have to be lucky every time, but the perps only once.

Care to mention, Mr. AP, which attacks have not been thrwarted? Does Omagh come to mind?
Posted by: Michael || 08/04/2003 9:20 Comments || Top||

#3  The Perpetual IRA and the Eternal IRA are gonna be pissed when they read this...
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 14:03 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Father burns son to ground
MULTAN: A man and his second wife confessed to a magistrate in Lodhran to setting fire to his 25-year-old son after dousing him with kerosene oil, sources told Daily Times on Sunday. Police said Allah Bakhsh Bhatti (70), his wife Manzoor Mai and their driver, Allah Wasaya, murdered Muhammad Ramzan (25), after he discovered his stepmother was having an affair with the driver.
Cheeze. Maybe those women really can't keep their pants on...
“Manzoor was much younger than Allah Bakhsh, and convinced him to hire Allah Wasaya as driver. She then began an affair with him,” a police official said.
"I just wanted to relieve a little tension..."
One day Muhammad Ramzan reportedly saw his stepmother and driver having sex
"You, there! Get that dipstick away from my step-mother!"
and asked his father to divorce her but he refused,
"Piss off, kid. I like to watch!"
prompting Ramzan to beat his father.
"Won't divorce the bitch, huh? Take that, you old coot!"
Manzoor then allegedly began plotting to kill Muhammad Ramzan, and enlisted the help of Allah Wassaya and Allah Bakhsh.
"Summbitch hit me. Hit me, his own father! Why, I'll... Put that dipstick away, dammit! You're distracting the little woman!"
She allegedly drugged him into sleep on August 2 as he was about to leave for Lahore in search of a job. The three then allegedly poured kerosene oil on him and then set him on fire.
"No one will ever know!"
Neighbours found him dead when they forced their way in.
"Cheeze! Is he dead?"
"Careful! Don't step in the gravy!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 16:57 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is an all time Rantburg classic.
Posted by: 11A5S || 08/04/2003 17:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Awesome.

The woman has an affair, and the person who busts her gets burned down.

When did women get rights?
Posted by: Mike N. || 08/04/2003 17:29 Comments || Top||

#3  And I might add, that if Muhammed had done the right thing and got three of his buddies to witness the next time his step mom was having sex with the driver, he could have skedaddled right over to the Sharia court and had her stoned. Plus he woulda had three friends for life!

Sharia -- ignore it at your own peril. Muhammed did and now he's toast.
Posted by: 11A5S || 08/04/2003 17:55 Comments || Top||

#4  I can only wonder what would have happened if this wasn't the religion of peace.
Posted by: Matt || 08/04/2003 19:10 Comments || Top||

#5  OMG!!! HAH!! I will be sending Rantburg the bill for my new keyboard--anyone wanna make this a class action?!
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 22:10 Comments || Top||

#6  NMM ? no
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 22:20 Comments || Top||

#7  Hey Frank--in the US, in the English language, we have these two things called humor and irony--sorry -- but for a Pig Latin speaker like yourself they get lost in the translation
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 22:37 Comments || Top||

#8  NMM,kiss-off knob-bobber!
Posted by: raptor || 08/05/2003 9:10 Comments || Top||


Committee recommends ban on stage dances
LAHORE: A steering committee formed to make recommendations on how to regulate morality in theatres decided on Sunday that no dances should be allowed in stage plays. Speaking at the meeting in the town hall, Executive District Officer (EDO) for Coordination Zahid Aziz said the district government was not against dance, but against the “vulgarity and obscenity” form of dance common in Punjabi plays.
"I mean, some o' them broads wiggle their boobies and everything! 'Tain't right. Wimmin shouldn't have boobies..."
“DCO (District Coordination Officer) Khalid Sultan wants to promote art and theatre so families can watch plays and enjoy themselves. But he will not allow objectionable dances that offend the morality of audiences,” Mr Aziz said. The committee also asked theatre owners to ensure “vulgar and obscene” dances do not take place in their auditoriums. If they do, the performers responsible should be banned for three months all over the Punjab and producers and director must not cast them. Plays should end before midnight.
"And remember: No titties!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 16:46 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


MMA wants Sharia enforced in Balochistan
After the approval of the Sharia Bill in the Frontier Assembly, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) now wants to enforce an Islamic system in Balochistan. Talking to Voice Of America (VOA), the head of a special commission for enforcement of Shariah in Balochistan, Maulana Abdul Bari, said that for this purpose, a fourteen-member committee consisting of MPAs and government officials had completed the task of excluding un-Islamic clauses from the laws of the province. He criticised some laws, particularly those made by the British still being followed in the province. He said that nobody was powerful enough to change these laws even after fifty-six years of independence. “It is strange that Muslims living in Balochistan have to follow three kinds of laws. Sharia is the foundation of a simple judicial system which provides cheap and speedy justice to people and it is the demand, requirement and belief of the province’s people,” said Maulana Bari.
Yep. Everybody's sitting around just yearning for sharia, except for the people who already have stumps...
Maulana Bari said parts of the Sharia bill referred to the court system, police and forces reforms, educational reforms and giving women the right to an education. Maulana Bari, who also represents the MMA in the provincial assembly, said Islam gave rights to women but certain tribal societies, on their own, had declared their customs and traditions part of the Islamic system. “There is no precedent in any law, act or religion around the world that matches the status given to women by Islam. We want to ensure through the Sharia bill the basic human rights of women which Islam gives them,” he said.
Such as the basic human right to be buried alive under a pile of flung rocks...
He said their Shariah system was not like that of the Taliban. There was a marked difference in Afghan and Pakistani societies and in the social life of the Frontier and Balochistan provinces.
"Oh, yasss... We're ever so much more sophisiticated in these here parts!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 16:43 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "There's people in Hell wantin' ice water, and they're not gonna get it either, know what I mean?"
Posted by: mojo || 08/04/2003 19:12 Comments || Top||

#2  mojo - you really don't post that often, but when you do? I wish I'd said it ;-)
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 22:28 Comments || Top||


One killed in Dera Ismail Khan blast
PESHAWAR: Unidentified attackers hurled a grenade into a house in Dera Ismail Khan early on Sunday, killing one person and wounding another. No one claimed responsibility for the attack. The grenade explosion took place near the central headquarters of Jamait Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) a few hours before the arrival of North West Frontier Province Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani on a three-day visit to D I Khan. The chief minister was scheduled to meet JUI leaders in the party’s headquarters. “We are investigating the matter, but apparently it is not an act of terrorism,” said Usman Zikraya, police chief in Dera Ismal Khan.
"It's, ummm... something else."
He gave no other details and only said “everything will be clear in a day or so.” The police have registered a case and are searching for the culprits.
Prob'ly just another divorce case...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 16:38 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Underworld strife boils over
Yesterday, 11A5S asked about the mafia references in Indian press accounts of terrorism. It isn’t a "code", their is a nexus in the subcontinent between Jihadis, the ISI, and members of the Indian underworld, which is dominated by Muslims. The Indian mafia used to be composed of gangsters of all religions, but after serious anti-Muslim riots in the early 90’s, it split along religious lines, with the most powerful underworld Don, Dawood Ibrahim, used his ISI contacts to carry out serial bombings in Bombay that killed 200 plus people on order to avenge the Muslims who had died in riots. After this he and his closest Muslim associates fled to Karachi where they were given safe have by the ISI in return for lending out some of his hitmen to the ISI. The Hindu gangsters left behind in India had a similar arrangement with the Indian counterpart of the ISI.
The latest terror attack in Pakistan, on the Crown Plaza building in Karachi last Friday in which two people were killed, was another in a long saga of underworld clashes in the region, and could herald that more are on the way.
The building, known as Kawish Crown Plaza, like many others on the same stretch of road, was constructed in violation of building rules, but no action has been taken against it as it was built by the don of all dons, Dawood Ibrahim, a kingpin in the underworld across South Asia and beyond.

Dawood (David as he is called by some friends) hails from Mumbai in India, where he is wanted in connection with a number of criminal acts, including the infamous Bombay blasts of 1993. He has lived in Karachi for some time, although he was not in the port city at the time of the attack.
"Yez can't pin nuttin' on me. I got me a alibi! I wuz outta town!"
Indeed, his absence emboldened the attackers, who were from the rival Chota Rajan group, according to another well-known mafia figure who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity. He said the attacks were meant as a warning that Jamal Memon, alias Tiger Memon, the trusted lieutenant of Dawood Ibrahim who uses the building, was vulnerable.

Chota Rajan was once a part of Dawood’s team, but they parted company in acrimonious circumstances several years ago over Chota Rajan’s attempts to muscle into Dawood’s control over much of Bollywood in Mumbai. It is a virtual open secret that India’s external intelligence outfit, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), has cultivated Chota Rajan against Dawood. Chota Shakeel, another trusty lieutenant of Dawood, plotted to kill Chota Rajan in Bangkok some years ago, aided by Karachi underworld members who included Shoiab Khan, Ibrahim Bholo and Khalid Shahenshah. The scheme failed but a few of the Rajan’s gang were killed. Since that time, the gangs have been at war, with the intelligence agencies of both Pakistan and India trying to extract some benefit.

While Chota Rajan was been nurtured by RAW, Dawood has managed to use Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence to his advantage for operations in India. Chota Rajan is believed even to draw financial support from RAW, while Dawood generates his own resources through his illegal businesses, such as gambling dens in South Africa, Bangkok, Dubai and Mumbai. At the same time he has established very powerful crime syndicates in Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Nepal, India and Pakistan. These syndicates are his real strength and keep him ahead of other underworld leaders. The syndicates are involved in murder, the heroin trade and smuggling. Dawood Ibrahim is the charismatic leader who holds these at times feuding syndicates together. Apart from real estate and films (where leading actresses still fawn over him to secure parts), Dawood has his fingers in many other pies. He is known to be involved in illegal gambling on cricket, and can still be seen entertaining players and officials. He has even developed his own religious circle, which is dead against jihadis. His circle of "Breilvi" clerics sing poetry in praise of the Prophet Mohammed.
Many other gangsters in Pakistan and the UAE do not mind working with Jihadis. A gangster called Aftab Ansari recruited some jihadis to attack the US consulate in Calcutta a couple years ago, while other gangsters contribute funds to groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
A few months ago Dawood lost a daughter, after which he became more religious, apparently gave up drinking and began praying five times a day. However, a few weeks ago he was very much back to his old habits and presenting guests with the finest whisky, and enjoying some himself. Dawood appears, though, to be spending more time out of Karachi, and is nested somewhere else, possibly in the capital Islamabad. But he is still the undisputed don, and a long way from the clutches of his bitter enemy Chota Rajan, or RAW for that matter.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 08/04/2003 1:39:43 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  India's intelligence services clearly have no problems getting their hands dirty. And yet terrorist attacks occur on a regular basis. I wonder how much of it is the result of corruption among the guardians of the peace and what is attributable to demographic facts (10% of India's population is Muslim).
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 9:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Thanks for squaring me away, Paul.
Posted by: 11A5S || 08/04/2003 12:01 Comments || Top||

#3  Mumbai=Bombay no? Jeez, I want Peking, Rhodesia, and Burma back!
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 16:24 Comments || Top||

#4  Mumbai=Bombay no? Jeez, I want Peking, Rhodesia, and Burma back!

Actually, I don't think any of these countries has ever called us USA. The Korean name for the US is mee gook, or rice country. The Chinese name for the US is mei guo or beautiful country. I have no idea what the Indian name for the US is, but I doubt it's USA or even America. And these are just a few examples. I don't really see why we should change our traditional names for these countries just on their say-so. Would they change what they call us on our say-so (esp. Iran, which calls us the Great Satan)*?

* Israel being the Little Satan
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 16:53 Comments || Top||

#5  And these are just a few examples.

The Japanese call the US beikoku. See any resemblance to either USA or America? NMM, if you have a problem with the English language, feel free to adopt another one - French, for example.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 17:02 Comments || Top||

#6  Zhang--I'm very happy with English and was lamenting our changing names of cities/countries to suit the whims of Third World asshats--but French is fine too! We already pronounce Niger the French way so as to avoid an appointment with the Rev Jackson!
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 22:15 Comments || Top||


Iraq
New Iraq Army Recruits Head for Training
EFL
The U.S. military took 400 volunteers for the new Iraqi army to the northern city of Kirkuk on Monday to begin two months basic training, and American forces passed a third straight day without reporting the loss of a soldier in combat. According to the military authorities in the Iraqi capital there had not been a U.S. soldier killed in action since late Friday night.
But, but, that can’t be right!
In recent weeks, American forces have seen near daily casualties in attacks by Saddam Hussein loyalists and others.
What happened to the quagmire?
The Iraqi army recruits were taken to Kirkuk and on to a U.S. base under heavy guard for fear Iraqi resistance fighters would attack the convoy of red and white buses. The recruits sent north Monday make up about half the first batch due to begin training under U.S. instructors this month.
"Welcome to Kirkuk! NOW GET OFF MY BUS!"
More than 12,000 Iraqi soldiers are scheduled to be ready for service by year’s end and 40,000 by the end of 2004.
Some Iraqi guerrilla fighters have said the Iraqi recruits are collaborators aiding the occupation force. American officials denied reporters permission to talk to the Iraqi recruits for fear of exposing them or their families to retribution. Those eligible to join the army must be between 18 and 40 and must not have held the rank of colonel or above in Saddam’s military. During the two-month training period, they will be paid $60 monthly. Recruits who complete training must serve at least 26 months. Their salaries will be determined according to rank, with top pay of $120 a month.
West of Baghdad, in the town of Khaldiyah, angry residents stormed and ransacked an Iraqi police station on Monday after an incident that began with an ambush on a U.S. convoy. Witnesses said a U.S. soldier was injured in the ambush and carried into the police facility as American forces opened fire against their attackers. The U.S. military confirmed an incident in Khaldiyah, 50 miles west of the capital, but would provide no details and said there were no U.S. casualties.
Witnesses said Iraqi police joined U.S. soldiers in fighting the attackers and then withdrew inside the police station.
Thanks, boys. Hope there’s a little something extra in your paycheck.
The crowd later stormed the station looking for the American forces and Iraqi police, who apparently escaped. The crowd dispersed when U.S. Kiowa helicopters appeared in the skies and started to circle low overhead.
"Oops, look at the time. Gotta run."
Some hours later, Iraqi police reinforcements reclaimed the burned out building.
Buildings we can replace, Iraqi cops that back us up when needed are priceless.
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 3:28:44 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  American forces passed a third straight day without reporting the loss of a soldier in combat. According to the military authorities in the Iraqi capital there had not been a U.S. soldier killed in action since late Friday night.

The Democrats must be pissed about this!
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 18:32 Comments || Top||

#2  I can see some response strategies that I'm sure the troopers see. A slightly delayed follow-up force arriving on-scene (like the choppers) about the time they get themselves all whipped up to kill some troops or cops would've been interesting. The fact that they walked away after burning out the copshop is bad. That notion needs disabusing fast. The Iraqis with the balls to be cops should not have to wonder if they'll get mobbed every time they do the right thing. While the forces are there, the shitheads who think they can mob together and do whatever their imagined outrage demands need a little re-education regards civilization.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 19:16 Comments || Top||


’US army arrests Kurdistan spiritual guide’
Jordan Times via aljazeerah:
US forces have arrested the spiritual head of a Kurdish Islamist group, Ali Abdul Aziz, and 14 other people in the northern town of Halabja, an official of the group said Sunday. "Some 2,000 US soldiers, supported by two helicopters, laid siege to Abdul Aziz’s house in Halabja at 5:30pm (1330 GMT) on Saturday before taking him and 14 other people away," the official said from the Iraqi Kurdish town of Erbil.
No mention of the battleship covering the back door.
Mullah Omar, brother of Abdul Aziz, and bodyguards of the spiritual leader were among those arrested, he said, adding that the group was taken to an "unknown destination."
I don’t think it’s that "Mullah Omar".
"The group is surprised that the Americans can arrest its spiritual guide who has long since declared war on the Baath Party and the former regime in Iraq," the official said, accusing US forces of now attacking "supporters of freedom and enemies of Saddam Hussein’s regime."
Blah, blah, oppression, blah, blah, occupation, blah, blah.
While the official gave no reason for the arrests, sources close to the group said that US forces had asked the movement to vacate its Arbil office to the coalition, without elaborating.
Most likely Ali just moved in and set up shop in the office. We asked him nicely to leave, he said no, and now he’s evicted.
The Islamist group said last month that its chief, Ali Baper, "emir" of Al Jamaa Al Islamiya, was arrested along with three aides and a number of bodyguards on July 10 en route to a meeting with an American officer in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Yup, just going around arresting people for no reason, that’s us. Of course the "a number of bodyguards" part might have had something to do with it.
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 2:55:29 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  You have to take the "reporting" here with a grain of salt - about the size of a cow-lick. It's great fun to read, but it's classic Al Jizzwadi "News Service" misinformation. One or two grains of truth surrounded by a mountain of spin and howling lies. The Jordan Times swallowed it whole, of course, without a thought.

Steve, we gotta talk. It's troubling that you're hanging out in such, uh, er, interesting places! My personal laugh-riot site is islamonline. I'm thinking of asking the resident Mullah for a few fatwas to keep me on the straight & narrow, myself. Personalized service for the sincerely confused faithful. ;-)
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 18:32 Comments || Top||


Shi’ites renaming Baghdad streets
Edited for brevity.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — There’s no Yasser Arafat Street in Baghdad anymore, and a main thoroughfare along the Tigris River once named for an 8th century poet has a new name as well. Both have been renamed for Shiite Muslim imams whose memory had no place in Saddam Hussein’s rule, when Sunni Muslims dominated despite being a minority in Iraq.

The obvious tributes to Saddam’s megalomaniacal 23-year-rule went long ago. Signs at Saddam International Airport, Saddam Bridge, Saddam University, Saddam Hospital and the Saddam City neighborhood came down as the capital fell in April, along with countless statues and posters of the dictator. Less dramatic changes in recent weeks illustrate the shifting political tide in Iraq, where Shiites make up 60 percent of the population but have never ruled.

"These old names did not reflect the will of the people," said Abu Sajjid, guardian of a Shiite shrine just off the newly renamed Imam al-Mehdi Street. Most Shiites consider al-Mehdi, who was born in 869, to be Islam’s 12th and last imam, and believe he will return.
I’d leave the plastic on the sofa for this guy.
Saddam had named the street for Yasser Arafat when Israel put the Palestinian leader under virtual house arrest in 2000. Signs bearing Arafat’s name disappeared overnight in late June, and new ones with the imam’s name went up.
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 2:40:05 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  al-Medhi: aka Mahdi (the expected one)
Posted by: mojo || 08/04/2003 15:51 Comments || Top||

#2  "the will of the people"
Do the alarm bells go off for you when you see this?

"I’d leave the plastic on the sofa for this guy."
ROFLMAO!!!
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 18:38 Comments || Top||


UK may back new UN move on Iraq
The UK government is for the first time talking openly about backing a new United Nations security council resolution on Iraq with the aim of giving India, Pakistan, Turkey and other states the domestic political cover they need to contribute to a multinational force.
Oh dear, someone’s getting wobbly.
As the US and UK look at ways of sharing the military burden of post-war Iraq, a top government officials has said preliminary negotiations over such a resolution could begin at the UN within a few weeks.

In an interview with the Financial Times, John Sawers, the Foreign Office’s political director, said : "We are exploring among ourselves - and we are exploring with the Americans - what the pros and cons [of a new UN resolution] might be."

Mr Sawers, who has just finished three months duty as the UK’s special representative in Iraq, acknowledged that governments in India, Pakistan and Turkey would find it much easier to send troops to Iraq if they could tell their electorates that there was explicit UN authority to do so.

However, he indicated that London and Washington were waiting to see what kind of demands France and Russia - two of the permanent five security council members - might make about boosting the UN role in Iraq. "We are all conscious of idiocies tensions in the UN security council," Mr Sawers said. "They have not gone away. But before we go down the road of seeking a new UN resolution, we would want to be confident it was achievable in a way that would support the coalition’s present efforts."

There are concerns in London and Washington that France will insist on the UN having a far bigger role in Iraq than even the UN secretariat wants.
I’m sure M. DeVillepin (who is still allegedly considered a man) will have a lot to say.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/04/2003 12:59:59 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If we take the hit vis-a-vis the UN, and I mean it's just on paper and not to the fundamental underpinnings, we can host 1 Indian and 1 Pakistani division and act as a facilitator for military-to-military exchanges like the ones between the US and the Soviets that helped as the end was near in Moscow.
Posted by: Brian || 08/04/2003 1:46 Comments || Top||

#2  I swear the UN acts like in-laws on a cross country trip. "Can we come by and visit for a tiny bit?" and they stay for the duration, yet they complain if you offer them a motel room instead.

Take Kofi and his family out for dinner and then offer them a stay at the Holiday Inn.
Posted by: badanov || 08/04/2003 7:41 Comments || Top||

#3  If Dubya can dismiss the hysterical hysterics of Dear Leader, certainly he can withstand the perstering whining entreaties of multilateralist wannabees. I hope he simply smiles and tells them the facts: if you want to join us and contribute, then do so... if not, then join the other dregs as history passes you by. We have a real job to do - there's no room for impostors.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 8:14 Comments || Top||

#4  a quick reminder on the UN in general.

1. Technical agencies - often very valuable, though we should still be wary of political biases.

2. Security Council - The agency FDR hoped would organize great power co-ordination, and prevent war. Cold war (IE soviet intransigence on the council) prevented that for 40 years. Since end of cold war the situation has been confused. At first some may have thought that in the absence of the USSR the UNSC could act as orignianlly envisioned. At this point it looks like the security council is a valuable piece of the world system, but is definitely NOT the be-all and end-all to international security issues FDR may have thought it would be. We must and will retain the ability to act when our own security demands it, regardless of the UNSC. On the other hand we should certainly not ignore the importance of the UNSC as a source of legitimacy, and our recourse to it as assurance to others that we are NOT on a course to hegemony. We should not undermine the council, but on the other hand we need to recognize the machiavellian manipulations there for what they are, and we need NOT refrain from using our oon hard power (IE bribes and threats) to gain the soft power that goes with UNSC approval.

3. All UN political agenicies other than the UNSC - The general assembly, commision on human rights, UNESCO (which has functioned as much as a political body as a technical one)
Generally of very little worth - the one state one vote rule leads to more distorted outcomes than in the UNSC, where the veto and permanent membership at least recognizes the role of the great powers(even if the list of such is anachronistic) Nonetheless these bodies do carry some legitimacy in the eyes of many in the less developed world, and our departure from them would be unlikely to help the situation (and would force us off the UNSC, which is much more important) We should continue here to exert what influence we can (which is considerable) and minimize the influence of these bodies.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 08/04/2003 9:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Every British Foreign Office hack thinks of himself as Lawrence of Arabia, the man who will unite the Arabs. Like many Foreign Office proposals on the Mid East, this one's the product of an overactive fantasy life.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 9:38 Comments || Top||

#6  wrt Iraq:

of coruse we should not undermine UNSC 1483, which is the basis for many aspects of our presence, and for polish-spanish-italian-ukrainian etc assistance. OTOH we should realistically accept that its not enough for India, Pakistan, Germany, etc (or at any rate to get assistance from any of those under 1483 alone will require unacceptable bilateral concessions) A further UNSC res would therefore be highly desirable. It is unlikely that any UNSC that is acceptable to us (IE that does NOT place Iraq entirely under the UN) would get French troops on the ground, but thats okay, we dont really need French troops. All we need is that France not veto, so Indian, Paki, Germans, etc can go. It is not clear at this point what France will insist on to not veto - that will have a big impact on whether we do reconcile with France any time soon. We need to balance in our approach to this - more troops would help alot, both to out overstretched army, to local legitimacy, and to our overall international position, where confirming that we are not hegemonists is to our benefit. On the other hand a UN role that is both strong enough and controlled by certain states on the UNSC such that it would endanger the fragile political path in Iraq would not be worth it. In that case we simply do without the UN, and get what help we can from the coalition of the willing.

In this go round we should certainly get agreement from all permanent members before introducing a resolution - forcing a confrontation is less valuable to us now then in it was.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 08/04/2003 9:41 Comments || Top||

#7  wrt to the humand right commish vote

note well - France and Germany voted WITH us on that = weasels or not, they still share values and interests with us that China and even Russia do not.

consultative contract - i mean a "consultant" tells an org that certain members of its board are abusing the org, and the board, led by those members, tosses the consultant? I mean thats hardly surprising, is it? And how do you keep dictatorial memebers of the UN GA off the commish? So essentially you have to write the commish off as useless, and try to abolish or minimize it. Doesnt mean you have to do the same to the rest of the UN.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 08/04/2003 9:46 Comments || Top||

#8  LH makes some good points. One thing to keep in mind, too, that the article seems to gloss over is that the UK and US are also Security Council members and have the same veto ability France so gleefully wields. Working with the UN in good faith shows we're willing to find a common solution and compromise, but with the veto power nothing's getting rammed down our throats, so there's nothing to lose and a lot to gain.
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 9:58 Comments || Top||

#9  OTOH we should realistically accept that its not enough for India, Pakistan, Germany, etc (or at any rate to get assistance from any of those under 1483 alone will require unacceptable bilateral concessions) A further UNSC res would therefore be highly desirable.

It's a mistake to get the UN involved. I think we can train and staff up an Iraqi militia that will be more sympathetic to our goals in the region without Indians and Pakistanis fouling up Iraqi minds with their conspiracy theories about US motives. I really don't see why India, which is even less helpful than France, and Pakistan (for obvious reasons) should be allowed to deploy troops to Iraq. If they want in, they can do so under our terms, or not at all.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 10:15 Comments || Top||

#10  Every country participating now in Iraq, and perhaps others when they recognize that the press coverage of Iraq is the classic snow-job of ax-grinding and wheedling losers, is there sans any UN resolution. The situation is stabilizing and it will continue to do so. Participation by those who need the obviously bogus imprimatur of the UN should be encouraged to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, posthaste.

We don't need no stinking resolution - to paraphrase the Treasure of the Sierra Madre line.

LH - As for your analysis of the UN - you are far far too kind, in parts and in whole. I've stated my thoughts, before - as have you. This exercise goes nowhere, just as the one before the war. You have to admit that, no matter how vaunted the original principles or laden with good intentions it might have been in the past - that day is, indeed, in the past. Today it is merely a stage for posturing and prevarication and obfuscation and impeding those founding principles.

You want to carve it up and break off the parts that demonstrably and obviously don't work (e.g. Un Commission on Human Rights chaired by Libya) - fine. But I don't want to pay for it. Any of it. Even those orgs which can work, such as WHO, are more and more frequently hijacked and prevented from doing so by political idiocy - can you say SARS & Taiwan? PRC - People's Republic my ass. And, in a terrific case of disingenuous duplicity, the PRC started the problem in the first place, then covered it up, and then exacerbated it with their games over Taiwan. They reduced the WHO to spectators - and then the WHO began to show signs of political partisanship idiocy dominating the medicine. An unnecessary debaucle. A few more episodes like SARS (which isn't gone - it will resurface again) will finish WHO off. Regards paying a large portion of the tab, many people feel the same way I do. More everyday. Soon, it will be most Americans. Then it can join the dodo.

BTW, I'd like to invite Steve White to comment on SARS and WHO and China. As a Doc, he will have a unique and important take on what happened. If he sez I'm full of shit - I'll apologize and take it as a man.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 10:23 Comments || Top||

#11  "The situation is stabilizing and it will continue to do so. Participation by those who need the obviously bogus imprimatur of the UN should be encouraged to take a flying fuck at a rolling donut, posthaste. "

Im not there and dont know. There is evidence the situation is stabilizing, I agree. Thats no guarantee. And even if it continues to stabilize it would be advantageous to have more international troops. Some countries - India, Pakistan, and now Argentina - want more UNSC cover before they go in - to the them the UNSC is not bogus - ergo it isnt bogus - if some will act with it, but not without it, then it represents real power. Why should we tell them to fuck off? Especially before knowing the political cost of a UNSC res.

WHO - IIUC WHO does lots of things other than SARS. And would PRC not have covered up in th absence of WHO? did WHO make it worse? Just cause the UN, or any given agency, cant solve all the problems in the world, doesnt mean their not incrementally helpful.

Is the cost benefit of membership worth it? Well the cost is easily calculated in dollars and cents - the benefit gets to intangibles in diplomacy, legitimacy and soft power. If you dont think diplomacy, legitimacy, and soft power have any valuable, either cause youre an isolationist who doesnt want the US to act in the world, or you believe that we can do everything we need to do with our own hard power alone, i suppose withdrawl from the UN might make sense. I happen to believe that we cannot afford not to act in the world, yet cannot afford to act alone. Therefore we need diplomacy, legitimacy, and soft power. Therefore the UN, while only one source of the above, is probably a good deal for the relatively small price - as long as treat it realistically.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 08/04/2003 10:38 Comments || Top||

#12  "and perhaps others when they recognize that the press coverage of Iraq is the classic snow-job of ax-grinding and wheedling losers"

The more the situation stabilizes, the less we need another UNSC res. Agreed. OTOH, the more the situation stabilizes, the less we need to offer to get another UNSC res. IE our negotiating leverage improves. This is not a reason not to negotiate, but to take a tougher line in negotiations.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 08/04/2003 10:40 Comments || Top||

#13  "It's a mistake to get the UN involved. I think we can train and staff up an Iraqi militia that will be more sympathetic to our goals in the region without Indians and Pakistanis fouling up Iraqi minds with their conspiracy theories about US motives. I really don't see why India, which is even less helpful than France, and Pakistan (for obvious reasons) should be allowed to deploy troops to Iraq. If they want in, they can do so under our terms, or not at all."

To the extent we can staff up Iraqi forces quickly, that certainly lessens the need for international forces. Indeed that was probably the original Pentagon plan for Iraq - some combination of exile led forces, and Iraqi regular army units coming over. But apparently the State Department/CIA vetoed any large use of exiles ("INC - we dont need no stinking INC") and Iraqi army units tended to dissolve rather than defect. So we are where we are. Local iraqis we can raise now would be good - OTOH, the more we can stabilize the situation first, the safer it is for Iraqis to cooperate and join such militias. Pakistanis - it would be good to have muslim forces on the ground, for lots of reasons. Perv clearly puts his own interests above ours, but do you really think that Pak army units would help AQ in Iraq? Indian troops would likely help as well - you really think India army troops will run around spreading rumours about the US - I thought India had a disciplined army.

They should go in on our terms - we need to make sure any UNSC resolution reflects our terms.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 08/04/2003 10:48 Comments || Top||

#14  The problem with having non-European allied troops in Iraq is a combination of corruption, racketeering and atrocities. We don't need any of these just to give the UN legitimacy. If the UN wants legitimacy, it can earn it - by resolving the situation in Liberia instead of hectoring us about the mess there.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 11:03 Comments || Top||

#15  Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz on Tuesday told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that while the administration "would welcome any resolution that would make it easier for countries to contribute peacekeeping troops," he would be "very concerned" about one that would "put limitations on what Ambassador Bremer and our people can do in Iraq."

this seems a pretty reasonable approach to me.

zhang - why do you think corruption, racketereering and atrocities would be problems with Indian or Argentian troops, but not Ukrainian or Nicaraguan troops?

And you seem to have misread my words - the goal is not to GIVE the UN legitimacy, its to give the occupation additional legitimacy. UN approval may not add legitimacy for you or me, or even for the people like the Kurds with whom we most sympathize in Iraq - but it probably does for many other Iraqis.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 08/04/2003 11:09 Comments || Top||

#16  UN approval may not add legitimacy for you or me, or even for the people like the Kurds with whom we most sympathize in Iraq - but it probably does for many other Iraqis.

I suspect these are the same Iraqis who oppose us anyway. Note that India and Pakistan were some of Saddam's biggest boosters. I really fail to see how appeasing the Baathists is going to get us anywhere - if anything, it will strengthen their hand by showing ordinary Iraqis who would otherwise help us that we're too weak to stay the course.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 11:14 Comments || Top||

#17  why do you think corruption, racketereering and atrocities would be problems with Indian or Argentian troops, but not Ukrainian or Nicaraguan troops?

I have a real problem with Ukrainian or Nicaraguan troops being deployed, but they're only token contingents. Having entire divisions of Indian or Pakistani troops in Iraq is asking for trouble - UN auspices or not.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 11:16 Comments || Top||

#18  "I suspect these are the same Iraqis who oppose us anyway."

I suspect it will include Sunni Arabs who were either neutral to Saddam, or lukewarmly anti-Saddam - or even anti-saddam but not pro-US ,folks like blogger Salaam Pax, or like ex-FM Pachachi. Also probably at least some Shiites. Any international forces would be expected to support the iraqi governing council and continue policy of attacking Baathists - this would not represent appeasement.

So you would oppose Ukrainians, if they could send a whole division? This is far from admin policy, who are looking for as many troops as they can get, if they can get them without UN auspices.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 08/04/2003 11:34 Comments || Top||

#19  This is far from admin policy, who are looking for as many troops as they can get, if they can get them without UN auspices.

Actually, it's a lot more qualified than that - the administration is looking for troops that don't have to be babysat. This is why half the Ukrainian army isn't on Iraqi soil - they'd just add to Saddam's target list.

The weird thing is that they're not really targeting the other coalition members. By contrast, the Soviets made a point of targeting Hitler's allies, because they were typically ill-trained and under-supplied. Non-German sectors were where the Soviets made the biggest gains of the war. Saddam definitely needs to hire a better guerrilla war planner.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 11:50 Comments || Top||

#20 
The Non-US Army occupation sectors are generally quiet ones - The US Marines, the British, Poles, etc. are deployed in the Sunni south.

The sea the Sunni fighters swim in is in Baghdad and points north. They are most likely unable to operate in a hostile Shia environment.
Posted by: buwaya || 08/04/2003 12:56 Comments || Top||

#21  I have to side with ZF. I'm against non-European, non-Anglosphere troops in greater than token amounts also for the following reasons:

1. Whenever we use foreign troops, there is either a front end or backend payment. Sometimes it is a loan. Sometimes it's credits for military equipment. Sometimes the money gets laundered through the UN, KFOR, or the MFO. But Uncle Sam always gets stuck with the bill.

2. In the past, armies other than the US and British have shown little motivation to get involved once the shooting starts. The Pakistanis in Somalia and the Dutch at Srbrenica come to mind immediately.

3. Our worst reserve units are several orders of magnitude better than their best conscript units. Taken together with #1 and #2 above, you would get more combat power for a lower economic cost -- especially once you take into account all the skimming (bribe taking!) that will inevitably accompany any of the wealth transfers described above.

4. Your typical third world leader and soldier aren't going to be much interested in nation building as evidenced by the fact that they aren't doing a very good job of building their own nations. At the very best, they would be neutral. At the worst, the graft and corruption endemic to those societies would have a negative effect on nation building.
Posted by: 11A5S || 08/04/2003 13:06 Comments || Top||

#22  I'm against non-European, non-Anglosphere troops in greater than token amounts also for the following reasons

Ditto. The record of Indian pacification efforts in Kashmir is of incompetence, corruption and an unending series of terrorist attacks over decades.* In a word, quagmire. And now they're going to show us how it's done in Iraq? Thanks, but no thanks...

* Note also that the Sunnis might not necessarily be thrilled about having Hindu infidels patrolling the streets. Christians are at least people of the Book.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 13:44 Comments || Top||

#23  I'm against non-European, non-Anglosphere troops in greater than token amounts also for the following reasons

Your reasons are valid as these people are smart enough to not let us use them as cannon fodder (which is the only military value they provide).
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 13:59 Comments || Top||

#24  LH,when you can get rid of the murdering dictators,the lovers of murdering dictators.When you can chase off the terrorists states and thier loverboys.
Then I might think about going with the U.N.
Until then the U.N.can go piss-up a rope.
Posted by: raptor || 08/04/2003 14:38 Comments || Top||

#25  PD (oops, * com), I don't have any special insight on the WHO, SARS and China, other than what I've read from the CDC, the New England Journal of Medicine and the press. It does seem that the WHO was a little slow on the uptake (though Canada was much worse and paid for it), but the Chinese are the main culprits here. The usual Commie-inspired emphasis on secrecy at the expense of the citizenry is what let this spread initially.

South China is a sea of virii and bacteria just waiting to infect humans. The close proximity of humans to agricultural livestock and birds, the ability of virii and bacteria to mutate, antibiotic pressure, and near 3rd-world standards for cleanliness and disinfection make these things inevitable. The WHO was lucky this time, because SARS (for all the hype) actually wasn't that infectious and wasn't that fatal.

It would be better to get the politics out of the WHO, but I'll admit that it's nowhere near as bad as the UNHRC. It would be better to get a non-Communist government in China -- one that might actually give a damn about its people.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/04/2003 15:42 Comments || Top||

#26  China is, indeed, a fertile breeding ground - as you point out, and just about the least cooperative WHO member imaginable. Some of the things I've read indicated that this would have been a scientific curiosity, caught and contained quickly, had it originated almost anywhere else. The fact you have read the journals means you're infintely better informed than 99% of us - thanx for your take. Now if Hunta was native to China, we'd be in some deep shit.

I read "The Coming Plague" about 7-8 yrs ago when it first came out and that sparked my fear interest. The data on the Spanish Flu was an eye opener - like many I had never heard the stats or the anecdotal information before. It will happen again - gene jumpers & retros will do it I think - 10-fold with our global travel. I don't believe the various orgs, WHO, UNHCR, et al will be very effective when it does, primarily due to gamesmanship such as China's before the gravity of the threat is realized. Then it'll prolly be too late. As a smoker, I'll be one of the first to go as it's very likely that an airborne agent - your specialty! - will be the one. You'll prolly be among the last - don't forget to turn out the lights, 'kay? 8-)
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 18:56 Comments || Top||

#27  Hey Steve--Monsieur de Villepin may be moving to California where he will be protected by law for his prediliction for men's suits
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 22:21 Comments || Top||


Pneumonia draws Army’s attention: Medical teams sent to Iraq after soldiers get sick
Followup to a question asked here a couple days ago. This tells us pretty much what we already know. EFL.
The Army is sending two special medical investigation teams to Iraq and Germany to look into pneumonia-related cases that killed two soldiers and sickened about 100 others who were deployed as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Office of the Army Surgeon General made the announcement Thursday, the same day MSNBC reported that mysterious cases of pneumonia had been surfacing among U.S. troops in Iraq.

That news report came following a July 16 account in a Missouri newspaper reporting the death of a 20-year-old Missouri National Guardsman. Family members of Spc. Josh Neusche told the Springfield News-Leader that the young soldier collapsed July 2 while in Baghdad. He was taken to an Army hospital in Germany where doctors diagnosed him with what they believed to be pneumonia. His lungs filled with fluid and his liver, kidneys and muscles began to fail rapidly, family members said. Neusche died July 12.

In a statement released Friday morning, the Army surgeon general’s office said about 100 soldiers -- operating in and around Iraq -- developed pneumonia since March 1. About 14 of those cases were "serious enough to warrant medical evacuation for ventilator support," the surgeon general said. Of those cases, Neusche and another soldier died, three soldiers remain hospitalized while nine soldiers have recovered from their illnesses. The name of the other dead soldier was not available.

The Army surgeon general’s office said the number of cases "does not exceed expectations" of pneumonia-related illnesses in the Army. About nine of 10,000 soldiers get pneumonia each year, the surgeon general’s office said, adding that, from 1998 to 2002, pneumonia or pneumonia-related illnesses claimed the lives of 17 soldiers.
Sure, but the composition and circumstances of those deaths are likely very different from what we’re seeing now.
One of the surgeon general’s newly activated Epidemiological Consultation, or EPICON, teams will assist medical staff in Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany, looking into the cause of the illness. (Most of the pneumonia cases have been evacuated to Landstuhl.) The other EPICON team will supplement investigations in Iraq. The Landstuhl-based EPICON team will review patient records and laboratory results. The Iraq-based EPICON team will conduct soil, water and air samples.

Officials with the 3rd Infantry Division said Friday they were not aware of any of the division’s soldiers suffering from pneumonia. The division’s 1st and 2nd brigades remain in Iraq. The division’s 3,700-soldier 3rd Brigade returned home to Fort Benning last month, but none of them have reported suffering pneumonia-related symptoms, said division spokeswoman Laurie Kemp.

Capt. Paul Jacobson, the division’s officer-in-charge of the medical post-deployment of returning soldiers, said the Army has intensified post-deployment health monitoring of its troops since the first Gulf War. "After Desert Shield/Desert Storm we didn’t have the greatest track record," Jacobson said. "So this time we’re trying to be extremely proactive with the medical needs of our service members."

Returning soldiers are required to complete forms addressing questions that deal with mental and physical health, Jacobson said. Army officials review the evaluations, determining if soldiers require further treatment. Blood samples also are taken from each soldier. Those samples become part of a national repository that can be cross-checked with inexplicable ailments suffered by other soldiers. "If we have soldiers who present signs and symptoms that aren’t specific to a disease that we are not aware of -- as we were unaware in Desert Storm," those samples will be "pulled from the shelves for that group of soldiers who were in that particular area and tested," Jacobson said.
They learned from GW I. That’s good.
The Operation Iraqi Freedom pneumonia cases were geographically dispersed, came from different units, and were spread over time, the surgeon general said. Of the serious cases, two cases of them occurred in March, three in April, two in May, three in June and four in July. The Army surgeon general said no common infectious agent has been found in the cases and that there is "no evidence that any of the pneumonia cases being investigated have been caused by exposure to chemical or biological weapons, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) or environmental toxins."
Posted by: Steve White || 08/04/2003 12:49:05 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lungs are the weakest point in the human body's defence system.

Many young people get pneumonia, some don't even know if it's mild: change of temperature, change of virus/bugs in the environment (new country: new bugs) means that a cold/flu is much more likely. A cold/flu that settles in the chest will devolve into pneumonia if not treated properly with rest, mucous-drying agents (eg: sudafed, pseudo-ephedrine), anti-inflam steroids (eg: drixine for the nasal passages, pulmicourt for the lungs) and antibiotics (for secondary mucous-residing infection).

I've been in hospital with it twice in the past and I'm only 29.

Respect your respiratory system. If you have a cold with lots of mucous, make sure you take drixine and sudafed at night so mucous doesn't block your nose/run down the back of your throat into your lungs. Mouth-breathing at night makes you more prone, also. Need to open those nasal passages and clear those sinuses.
Posted by: Anon1 || 08/04/2003 1:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Sounds like an opportunistic infection due to HIV ANON--play safe in the future
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 1:53 Comments || Top||

#3  NMM: ???
Posted by: Raphael || 08/04/2003 3:15 Comments || Top||

#4  NMM: that was really uncalled for. I at least apologised for my pointless ad hominem attack on Stevey. You owe me an apology for that bit of crap.

Pneumonia is really a lot more common than people think.
Posted by: Anon1 || 08/04/2003 7:01 Comments || Top||

#5  I've been hospitalized once with pneumonia. I've also had numerous sinus infections. In my case, NMM has some vague connection to reality in that the root cause did involve blood. That's where his connection with reality ends, though. In my case, the blood was a direct result of a center expressing his opinion of how I played nose tackle. It doesn't show, but my face has never worked quite right since then.

It only took one bout of pneumonia to teach me that I needed to stay on top of things.
Posted by: Dishman || 08/04/2003 7:52 Comments || Top||

#6  My, my. NMM, our resident court jester, strolls into the comment venue, takes a bona-fide dump on the virtual living room floor, and cruises on out the virtual door sans a backward glance. From such a posturing, preening, banal, self-absorbed, and self-appointed conscience of the masses you would certainly expect a response - too many, in fact - regards his asinine comment. Defending the indefensible is his faux forte as he putters about the 'Net, like his mercenary windbag namesake, tilting at farcical windmills created for convenience and pretentiously declaring his pablum Dom Perignon. But being NMM, inveterate IndyNazi Repeat-O-Matic and debonair Multilateralist Mass Apologist, apparently means never having to say your sorry. Fuck off & Toodles.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 7:56 Comments || Top||

#7  Real nice, NMM. I see you've decided to take the low road along with "Not NMM", lashing and flailing out at anyone and making a general ass of yourself. Well, congratulations--you're doing a fine job of it.
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 8:26 Comments || Top||

#8  The big news here is the services prep for future claims of Gulf War syndrome. It'll be much harder to prove if they have a healthy medical profile of you at the end of your tour.
Posted by: Chuck || 08/04/2003 9:02 Comments || Top||

#9  Dar - I find it weirdly fascinating that you didn't get it about "Not NMM"... As was observed by someone else on that thread, the comment was aimed at NMM. Why else would it be from Not NMM? I agree there were too many "Nots" (knots?) in the stream. confusing the message, but hey, "not" everyone can be Shakespeare, I guess. Anyway - I agreed with the other Rantburger and am sure NMM was the guy he thought would make a fine prison bitch. Vile? Perhaps. Accurate sentiment regards NMM, absofuckinglutely, IMHO. ;->
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 9:15 Comments || Top||

#10  ·com--No, I understand that it was directed at NMM. However, NMM's comment above was just as base and immature. If he disagrees with Anon1, he should say so and counter with his own opinion or advice. Attacking her as he did is childish and insulting, just like "Not NMM"'s attack on him was.
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 9:52 Comments || Top||

#11  Dar - Okay - I hear you. And differ. I recall Not NMM said that NMM was intellectually dishonest - did that get lost in the spilled coffee over prison bitch? I thought it spot on - as I've elaborated a couple of times today responding to simplisme` NMM comments. Losing sight of the whole message seems to have been a common reaction to that post - sad, it was, indeed, an accurate sentiment from my POV.

NMM is a troll. He comes to Rantburg to bait and play and practice his obvious desire to be a pluperfect prick, not to debate or inform. NMM deserves no defense from you. He comes here voluntarily to fuck with us. Okay, that's my 2 cents - and I'll stop bugging you (in particular).
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 10:39 Comments || Top||

#12  ·com -- Yes, that nuance got lost in the "prison bitch" comment. It's just my opinion, and I'm not about to declare myself Rantburg cop, but any valid, well-constructed arguments get lost when a poster includes banal crap like that. I didn't think much of "Not NMM" for his attack on NMM, and I in turn don't think much of NMM for his swipe at Anon1. But to each his own, and Fred can clean up if he chooses to.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Dar resumes his Monday blog and news junkie routine...
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 10:56 Comments || Top||

#13  Pneumonia is nothing to be sneezed at (no pun intended). I've been hospitalized with it twice (first time was during Christmas break my senior year of high school - what a downer!). Now, I have some permanent lung scarring that most doctors indicate is from the pneumonia. Makes life just a tad more difficult when I get above about 12,000 feet. There's a considerable part of this state that high or higher. Good news is, most pneumonia these days never gets that severe, primarily due to the expanded number of drugs that can be used against it.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 08/04/2003 11:15 Comments || Top||

#14  I had what I thought was a bad cold for a couple of weeks until my wife had enough of my coughing and made me go to the doctor. Sure enough, it was pneumonia. It's the strong young guys who deny that they are sick who tend to drop dead, just look at the NFL players who have died from heatstroke. You try to tough it out, not show any weakness and keep going until it's too late. You catch most any illness early enough and it can be cured, wait too long and even a toothache can get infected and kill you.
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 14:06 Comments || Top||

#15  Oh crap, I have a wisdom tooth that's been giving me problems for two years...
Posted by: Raphael || 08/04/2003 15:28 Comments || Top||

#16  My apologies Anon1 -- meant that for *com (Can't keep up with all his puerile witty name changes and additions to Rantburg's vocabulary, ie, Jack-o-Matic, etc)
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 17:05 Comments || Top||

#17  LOL. You're a treasure, NMM, and a smooth liar. Kudos, you'd make a fair-to-middlin' Arab.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 17:42 Comments || Top||

#18  Well thank you *com! Actually my ethnic background is Italian and Scottish--hate to disappoint ya!
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 21:47 Comments || Top||

#19  PS *com hope you're enjoying all those boys in Thailand--PD-o-phile
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 23:17 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Alleged Bali bombing mastermind claims ignorance
The alleged mastermind of the Bali bombings angered judges when he claimed ignorance about aspects of the attacks while testifying at the trial of an alleged bombmaker. "You have sworn to tell the truth," one of the judges cautioned Abdul Azis, alias Imam Samudra, who frequently replied "I don't know" to questions at the trial of Ali Imron. Though charged with terrorism and both facing possible death sentences if convicted, Imron and Samudra have brought different attitudes to the courtroom. Samudra has remained defiant, appearing bearded and in traditional Muslim garb, while Imron has worn a jacket and tie to court and apologised for his actions.
Seems to be making the assumption that his Islamobuddies will get him off or spring him before he takes the high jump...
Samudra, 33, testified he did not know who carried out the attacks and whether they were linked to a particular organisation. He has already said in his own trial that he intentionally did not want to know the details of the attacks to protect himself and other members of the group in case of arrest. On Monday he admitted he had travelled to Bali with others accused in the attack but said this was because he had wanted to open a cargo business and Internet cafe there. He said he had always tried to wage jihad, or holy war, but when asked whether the Bali bombings were part of a jihad, he replied, "I don't know."
"Duh. I dunno."
Prosecutors say Samudra masterminded the bombings, picked the targets and assigned a man called Amrozi to buy one tonne of bomb-making chemicals and a van to carry a bomb. He has previously denied acting as a planner of the Bali attack but said he was morally responsible for the bombings. Imron, also 33, admitted before his trial to helping to assemble one of the bombs. He is accused of helping a fugitive Malaysian called Dr Azahari to help build from chemicals and TNT a bomb that was placed inside the van that exploded outside the Sari Club in Bali's Kuta strip. Imron is also accused, together with a man called Idris who was arrested in June, of teaching a suicide bomber how to detonate an explosives-stuffed vest. The bomber, named Feri alias Isa, wore the vest that caused the first explosion at Paddy's, a bar across the road from Sari Club.

Imron is the only Bali bombing accused to publicly express remorse for the attack. He made another apology on Monday when a hotel owner testified about the massive financial loss he suffered because of the bombings. Ketut Warta said he lost 350 million rupiah ($US41,000) when his Hotel Sari Kasuma, located near Paddy's, burned in the explosions. "I can personally say I'm sorry because that situation has brought a great loss...," Imron said.

His trial was adjourned until Wednesday. A total of more than 30 people have been arrested in connection with the Bali bombings. Amrozi, the first to be tried, will receive his verdict on Thursday local time.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 15:35 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  World media. Enough with the "mastermind" bullshit, all right?
Posted by: tu3031 || 08/04/2003 23:22 Comments || Top||


MILF founder Salamat Hashim decomposing
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairman Hashim Salamat has died of acute ulcer, Office of Muslim Affairs Undersecretary Datu Zamzamin Ampatuan confirmed Monday night. He was 62.
Dead. Deceased. Departed this vale of tears. Struck dead in his prime — well, maybe a few years past it... I hope it was very painful...
Ampatuan said Salamat died on July 13 and was buried on July 14 in Lanao del Sur. He said the MILF declined to announce Salamat's death because of fears of a power struggle in the leadership of the Moro rebel group. Ampatuan added the MILF leadership had also feared the announcement of Hashim's death could affect the resumption of peace talks with the government.
Too bad the PI is distracted by the recent coup attempt. Just the right push in the right direction now, and they could have the turbanned egos shooting it out among themselves...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 13:58 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Only his fleas will mourn him.
Posted by: Seafarious || 08/04/2003 15:58 Comments || Top||

#2  A cute ulcer. I like it.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 08/04/2003 16:32 Comments || Top||

#3  No Lumpia For You!
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 19:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Maybe this should have been subtitled "and the world is a little less of a vale of tears BECAUSE of his departure."
Also, I think MILF has another meaning, but my memory isn't what it used to be, so I'll let some one else decipher it.
Posted by: Anonymous Troll || 08/05/2003 0:16 Comments || Top||


Philippines to prosecute senator over leading failed coup
President Gloria Arroyo's government on Monday filed a criminal complaint against Gregorio Honasan, accusing the opposition senator of leading an alleged coup attempt against her. Interior Secretary Jose Lina lodged the complaint before the Justice Department against Honasan and six others belonging to a civilian group that had allegedly helped rogue soldiers carry out the July 27 mutiny at the Makati financial district.
Can't say much for their tactics. If I was staging a coup, I wouldn't worry about the financial district first...
``Definitely, he is one of the leaders. There are other politicians and some other financiers whom we are gathering evidence against,'' Lina said of Honasan, a former army colonel who led several coup attempts in the 1980s.
Oh, it used to be a habit, did it?
Honasan, who was pardoned in 1995, was the first senior political figure publicly implicated by the government in the coup attempt. He denies the allegation.
"Wudn't me."
If they shoot him this time, he won't be able to deny it next time, will he?
The government last week also arrested Ramon Cardenas, a member of the cabinet of deposed Filipino leader Joseph Estrada, for his alleged role in the coup. The complaint included a deposition by a military intelligence officer, Major Perfecto Ragil, who alleged that he met with Honasan and the other plotters at a suburban Manila house on June 4 where the senator allegedly discussed the power grab. ``The discussion concluded that we must use force, violence and armed struggle™ to achieve the vision'' of Honasan's political platform, called the National Recovery Programme, the sworn statement said. Ragil alleged that Honasan vowed that ``colleagues who would be traitors'' to the cause would be killed. The senator also presided over a bizarre ceremony wherein he and the other conspirators cut themselves with a knife and then used their own blood to imprint their thumbmarks on documents and flags used by the group, Ragil said. In a telephone interview on Monday Honasan, who has not been seen in public for a week, told reporters: ``I was never in any secret meeting where there was a blood pact where the plot to launch the Makati incident took place. I categorically deny that.''
All you need's a bloody thumbprint...
Ragil also said that one of the detained mutiny leaders, Captain Gary Alejano, went to see him early last month and asked him to shut down the telephone system of Malacanang presidential palace ``when the D-Day arrives''. Lina asked the justice department to put the officer under its witness protection programme.
Yeah. If the witnesses are dead, there's no case, is there? Funny how that works. And how often.
At least 355 soldiers — 108 junior officers and 247 enlisted men — took part in the July 27 siege, nearly double the original estimate, military chief of staff General Narciso Abaya said. Arroyo said an official inquiry into the rebellion was ``now in an advanced stage and will soon account for all those involved. The evidence is mounting and is substantial and solid,'' she said without elaborating. At the height of the mutiny, the authorities had estimated the number of military participants to between 150 and 200. Abaya said 348 have been detained, while two officers and five enlisted men are at large. ``As early as 2001'', the cabal began recruiting elite units to carry it out, Abaya told reporters.
The definition of "elite" appears to have some flexibility to it...
The rebels wanted to ``institute totalitarian rule'' through a 15-member junta, Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes told the same forum.
So the PI could be as successful a state at Burma...
Abaya said he deployed a battalion of infantry, comprising about 500 men, in Manila last weekend ``just in case there are again some happenings as in the other weekend.''
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 13:53 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Honasan was a participant in the 1986 coup attempt that was rescued by "People Power" and ultimately succeeded in overthrowing Marcos. He then was allied with the then Minister of Defense Juan Ponce Enrile. Again allegedly in alliance with Enrile, he participated in one or two attempts to overthrow President Aquino; it was widely assumed that Enrile was behind these as well, but he was never indicted, unlike Honasan.

Enrile was part of the alliance that backed Estrada, and Honasan, a senator by that time, was also an Estrada backer. So it is widely assumed that this coup was backed by a cabal of the usual suspects.

Holding the financial district is typical; the same happened in 1989. It is the most high-profile symbol of power and the center of the "civil society" power base of the opposition to this group of ambitious politicians. It also is a perfect target to cause economic jitters. I can't think of a more sensitive piece of real estate that could be held hostage in Manila. An Army base could be a target but the government would be more free to use weapons in such a situation, as was the case with an earlier coup attempt. The bases are out of sight and out of mind.

The Scout Rangers are considered the elite of the Army, and Honasan et al were always associated with it. Note the lack of enlisted men - if this had been a popular revolt even in the Army they would have been able to bring whole units over, but apparently not.
Posted by: buwaya || 08/04/2003 14:38 Comments || Top||


Worsening Indonesia mess spells trouble for U.S.
This is troubling.
Turmoil in Indonesia is surging onto American radar screens in Washington, D.C. and at the U.S. Pacific Command’s headquarters in Hawai’i, where an officer with access to comprehensive intelligence lamented what he called "a chaotic situation."

Particularly troubling are terrorist organizations, notably the Jemaah Islamiya, despite the arrest of 130 suspects since a bombing last October that killed 200 people on Bali. The threat of terror, plus other ills, has prevented Indonesia, with the world’s largest Muslim population, from emerging as a leader of a moderate Islam that many Muslims — and the U.S. — would like.

The chairman of a congressional subcommittee on Asian affairs, Rep. James Leach, R-Iowa, asserted that in Indonesia "extremist networks are larger, more capable, and more active than was previously believed." Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of U.S. forces in the region, agreed: "Indonesia is a key battleground in the struggle against terrorism and radicalism."
Posted by: kgb || 08/04/2003 1:31:55 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The barbarians are boiling...
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 14:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Best for them to boil amongst themselves, in order to aid the natural selection process and overpopulation.
Posted by: TJ || 08/04/2003 14:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Turn down heat. Stir in spices and let simmer 20 minutes. Serves 4.
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 15:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Add yet another trouble spot to the Islamic barbarian stew....
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 08/04/2003 16:06 Comments || Top||

#5  Just recall the insipid smile of the first guy put on trial for Bali - and his remarkably disconnected / disaffected statements. Clueless and oblivious to any notion that following his IJ spiritual leader, Bashir, might not be acceptable behavior - even to a coupla hundred million fellow IndoMuzzies. But he'll die happy.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 19:24 Comments || Top||

#6  But he'll die happy.

As long as he dies. Too bad it couldn't be the way his victims did.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 08/04/2003 20:57 Comments || Top||


Home Front
’Dress for Transgender success in California’
(edited for brevity)
California Gov. Gray Davis added fuel to his opponents’ recall fire by signing a controversial bill that authorizes fines of up to $150,000 for companies or nonprofit groups, such as the Boy Scouts, that discriminate against cross-dressers, transsexuals or drag queens.

The governor signed the measure Saturday along with the $71.1 billion budget for fiscal year 2003-4. The move fell under the radar screens of most California media outlets.
(He snuck it in)

The law, which will take effect Jan. 1, 2004, adds "gender identity or expression" to the characteristics protected under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act and specifically protects residents whose "perceived gender characteristics are different from those traditionally associated with the individual’s sex at birth."
(What the hell does that statement mean?)
The Politburo Assembly approved the bill in April by a vote of 41 to 34,the minimum needed to pass. The state Socialists Senate, led by Democrats,followed suit earlier this month with a vote of 23 to 11.

Homosexual-rights advocates hail the law as a victory that’s been a long time in coming.

"It’s a very big issue for the LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] community in California," Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, told the Associated Press. "It’s something we’ve been working on for three years."

The measure, titled AB 196, was one of a package proposed this year by the five-member Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus. Earlier this year, the state Assembly passed a bill that would award virtually all the rights of marriage to homosexual "domestic partners." The Senate is expected to take it up next month.

"Having a law that specifically states who’s protected makes it clear to employers that the majority of people in California want transgender people to be able to work in a nondiscriminatory environment," said Chris Daley, co-director of the Transgender Law Center in San Francisco.
(His mom must be proud!)

Arguing for its necessity, the bill’s sponsor, Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco (where else) ,cites a 1999 study by the San Francisco Department of Public Health indicating the city’s transgender population
had a 70 percent unemployment rate.
(I bet the way they dressed (pun intended) for the interview has a lot to do with why they are not hired.)

"We must do everything in our power to protect such fundamental human rights," he said.

Opponents call the move bad for business. Employer groups such as the California Chamber of Commerce and the California Manufacturers and Technology Association warn the law’s overly subjective definitions will spawn frivolous lawsuits. Just about any comment or action between workers could be grounds for a lawsuit, they contend.
(Frivolous lawsuits? This is California, we invented that!)

Assemblyman Dennis Mountjoy of Monrovia was one of several members who spoke about how the measure harms California businesses during debate in the Assembly.
(Jobs, exit stage right)

"If I have a Christian bookstore, how could I possibly follow this law?" he asked. "How could I possibly have an employee that’s here today in a dress, tomorrow may come in a suit, and then stay in a dress? How can I possibly employ this employee and still have the Christian bookstore and live by my faith?"

Randy Thomasson, executive director of Campaign for California Families, a statewide family issues leadership organization, describes the law as "attacking persons of conscience."

"Average people think it’s outrageous to force the sex-change lifestyle upon businesses and Boy Scouts. Gray Davis has apparently lost his senses," he said. "With his signature on AB 196, Davis has declared war on Californians who object to sex-change operations."

As WorldNetDaily reported, Davis’ signature will likely motivate opponents to turn out in greater numbers for the Oct. 7 recall vote.
(You bet! Watch the voter turn out next month)

Opponents of the "cross-dresser bill" plan to hold a news tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. at the State Treasurer’s Building in Sacramento to highlight the law’s detrimental effect on business. Speakers will include Thomasson and other pro-family leaders, including local ministers representing black, white and
Latino voters.

"By supporting the transsexual agenda that hurts everyone else, Gray Davis has earned his recall," said Thomasson. "The in-your-face transsexual agenda makes voters very angry. ... Gray Davis tried to hide his actions by signing this radical sex-change bill under cover of the budget, but he won’t get away with it."

As a personal note I think that anybody should have the right to live anyway they want. You want to a cocktail dress and your a man, go for it. However, I should have the right to hire whomever I please and whomever I feel would help my business. If I lose business because my customers don’t (or care to) ’understand’ the guy in the dress, will the state make that up. Note: I have NEVER seen any of these transgender types working at the Capital. If Davis and gang are so ’tolerant’ why don’t they hire them?
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 08/04/2003 5:54:58 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They won't outlaw Christianity outright. They don't have to. They just make its practice illegal with laws like this.
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 18:40 Comments || Top||

#2  The true effect of this is to limit employment. That metaphorical guy owning a Christian book store is not going to put a Help Wanted sign in the window or an ad in the paper. He's gonna go to his church and find out if anyones kid needs a job.

Same with the boyscouts but in a different way. It will create inbreeding promote old boy network type stuff to ensure that nobody sneaks in and drags the law with them.

Some jobs it won't matter, others it will make a huge difference. Treating all jobs equally is just stupid.
Posted by: Yank || 08/04/2003 18:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Note: I have NEVER seen any of these transgender types working at the Capital. If Davis and gang are so ’tolerant’ why don’t they hire them?

Hey Sarge, only 70% are unemployed. The other 30% may be legislative assistants and governor's aides. That would explain a lot.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/04/2003 19:13 Comments || Top||

#4  Nobody's addressed the restroom use issue. Think NOW will? Doubt it
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 19:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus...or was that Circus?
Posted by: Sgt.DT || 08/04/2003 19:51 Comments || Top||

#6  So California has the biggest budget crisis in its history and cannot get a bill passed until a few days ago, and this is what the legislature produces? I have been following this one for months going through the legislature.

I hate to bring up the analogy of the decline and fall of Rome, because it is overused, but here it is: Rome sets up good institutions, but morally rots on the inside. The leaders bring no moral leadership to the table, only buggery, so to speak. Rome rots, strong enemy attacks, Rome collapses and falls. Does anyone think that the Islamofascists are not thinking about the rot of the US and use it as a lever to destroy US (us)? This crap legislation is basically suicide. Sure the market will find a way around this lunacy, but I sure hope that we collectively as a nation wake up pretty soon. Could you imagine being the governor of the State of California and signing something like this with your own signature? Godzilla Louise!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 08/04/2003 21:13 Comments || Top||

#7  There's moral rotting and then again there's moral rotting.

A law like this, which right or wrong is aimed as banning unequality and prejudice, isn't the worst specimen of moral rotting that you can hope to find.

If you want moral rotting, see the people that e.g. want to destroy the teaching of science at schools by raising creationism fairytales to the level of literal scientific truth.

*That's* moral rotting. Having the schools lie to your children and thinking it as virtuous.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 08/04/2003 21:42 Comments || Top||

#8  Hmm doesn't California have more important issues than whether a few Transsexuals get to work at Dunkin' Donuts? Like a major deficit and lowered credit rating--but no! The right wing nutz will turn this into an issue while ignoring the 800# gorilla in the room. Meanwhile the populace wants great roads, libraries, public services--they just don't want to PAY for them!
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 22:07 Comments || Top||

#9  Aris - thanks for preaching about something you know absolutely nothing about. There are NO schools in California paid for by public $ (and even the Catholic, which I am, private schools) that preach creationism. The schools do lie every day in teaching PC subjects, but that's another subject (Heather doesn't have two mommies, she has one with a turkey baster loaded with someone elses'....think Melissa Etheridge). Our Gubbner, Joe Davis, will soon be on the street, looking for work, but in themeantime is pandering to anyone willing to prostitute their votes. Current outrage: Drivers' Licenses (a gateway document to others) for illegals...soon we'll let convicts vote (90% Dem?), and illegal amnesty push
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 22:12 Comments || Top||

#10  NMM - HIV boy? don't you have a rock to slime under?
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 22:12 Comments || Top||

#11  We must do something to help the LURDs who'll soon be flooding in...
Posted by: mojo || 08/04/2003 22:15 Comments || Top||

#12  AP: it's just a question of when, although it is still some time away. Might I add though, that the typically American mistrust of government will only hurt and not help. That's why from now on it will become vitally important who you vote for.

Aris - can you disprove that God created the world in 6 days?
Posted by: Raphael || 08/04/2003 22:17 Comments || Top||

#13  Frank G Thank you so much for your interesting insightful remarks!
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 22:29 Comments || Top||

#14  you're welcome - said with the same sincerity
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 22:30 Comments || Top||

#15  Take a look at the penalties for violating the law and anyone is wide open. How would you like to own a small business with this over your head?

Answer to creationism:

The world was made in six days
and finished on the seventh
according to the contract
it should have been the eleventh
but the painters wouldn't paint
and the workers wouldn't work
so the quickest thing to do
was to fill it up with dirt.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 08/04/2003 22:31 Comments || Top||

#16  Aris!

This law is NOT aimed at banning unequality and prejudice. We already have laws for that, and all they have to do is enforce them.

This law is aimed at forcing us to like homosexuals. Not just tolerate them, let them enjoy equal protection under the law, etc, all of which are already law. Now we have to like them.

Further, it is aimed at recruitment. There is a sustained emphasis in the media on the "coolness" of homosexuality, on the appeal of easy sex to oversexed teens, and now even on separate schools for "homosexual" 13-year-olds.

But mostly, this law is about a desperate, incompetent governor, who has turned a $12 billion surplus into a deficit about 1/3 the size of the gross domestic product of all Greece in 4 years.

You are not here. You are preaching to Californians about the motives of a governor with his back to the wall, fighting the first recall in state history, with every dirty trick and underhanded means available. He is pandering to every special interest group in the state, in the hopes of turning out one more vote for him.

If you were here, you would see just how much of a threat the teaching of creationism in our schools is... what on earth are you reading? Speaking of reading, our schools don't teach that here, and despite the highest per capita spending on students in the US, we are at the bottom of English proficiency. But you bet that those kids are experts on sexual preferences.

You are trying to comment from Mt. Olympus on what is actually a very tawdry political battle for survival by an old-line socialist with New Age fringe groups and bureaucratic dependents for his sole remaining support.

Please stick to badgering the British into swimming toward a sinking ship, and let us try to pick up the pieces of financial viability in this very large and deeply wounded state. You will need this economy when it is time to rescue the Euro.

Posted by: Mark IV || 08/04/2003 23:54 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Arafat decides not to transfer militants
The Palestinian leadership has abandoned plans to remove some 20 wanted militants from the West Bank town of Ramallah, as demanded by Israel as a condition for ending the isolation of Yasser Arafat. “It’s been decided that they will not be transferred to Jericho or Gaza,” minister of state without portfolio Abdelfatah Hamayel told AFP. Instead the leadership was seeking “international guarantees” that the detainees, along with the rest of the “hundreds of wanted Palestinians” would not be targetted by Israeli attacks, he said.
"And... and... and we want pensions for them, too! And ponies! We each want a pony!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 15:51 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  what about those cretinous bastards who defiled the Church of the Nativity, and eventually were exiled to Med countries? Are they still alive? why?
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 15:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Frank has it right. It is a one way street with these scum. Arafat wants international guarantees for everyone of his gunnies and himself, but he gives nothing. This appeasement has got the paleos and the Israelies nowhere in the real road to peace. The sooner the Arafish is removed from the pond the better. And don't get me going on the use of the word "militants" when it should be "terrorists" in news reports. Sheesh!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 08/04/2003 16:30 Comments || Top||

#3  what about those cretinous bastards who defiled the Church of the Nativity, and eventually were exiled to Med countries?

What's worth noting here is that the Christian world retained its sanity after this outrage. Now if infidels had defiled a mosque, would there have been the same muted response? I suspect that the answer would have been a resounding "no".
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 08/04/2003 16:53 Comments || Top||

#4  B-a-r - Shit man, they'd talk about that for thousands or years as long as they lasted. Rank right up there with the Crusades! And what does it take to defile a mosque, uh, how about a woman entering by the front door? OR a woman not veiled? Doesn't take much to prick the thin skin of a prick! ;->
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 19:05 Comments || Top||

#5  I'm thinking a well placed 15k pounder would end the discussion. And clear up a lot of Paleo leadership problems. Ditto on the church rant earlier. If that had been infidels in a mosque, we would NEVER here the end of it.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 08/04/2003 19:39 Comments || Top||

#6  MO-AB! MO-AB!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 08/04/2003 21:29 Comments || Top||

#7  And besides--the Ritz-Carlton was booked
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 23:06 Comments || Top||


East Asia
Standoff with Iraq’s former envoy to Beijing ends
EFL
A tense two-month standoff between Iraq’s former ambassador to Beijing and his staff ended peacefully after the envoy voluntarily left the embassy, an Iraqi diplomat said on Monday.
The standoff, which began on June 7 and ended on July 31, was a problem for China, reluctant to expel the former ambassador Muwafak al-Ani, lest the move upset Chinese Muslims and some Arab countries.
Mostly the Arab countries.
Mr al-Ani was appointed in January by ousted President Saddam Hussein. The United States has asked China to expel Mr al-Ani who was recalled by Iraq’s post-war administration in June, said two independent sources -- a Western and an Asian.
"The US has requested that the Iraqi ambassador be made PNG," the Western diplomat said, referring to the acronym for persona non grata. It was unclear if Mr al-Ani had left or would be allowed to remain in China. China has dragged its feet on the US expulsion request, hoping al-Ani would quietly leave the country. "We don’t want to offend the Americans, but we also don’t want to offend our Muslim friends around the world," said a Chinese government source.
Note to China: See how long they stay your friends when your Chineese muslims act up.
Talal Al-Khudairi, now the de facto Iraqi ambassador in Beijing, said al-Ani is wanted by Iraqi authorities for "armed assault" on the embassy and preventing staff from working.
"We now have control of the embassy and the ambassador’s residence. Things are back to normal," he said by telephone.
Mr Al-Ani is no stranger to diplomatic scandal. In 1991, the Philippines expelled al-Ani, then a first secretary, after he was linked to an attempted bombing of a US library in Manila.
We’d like to talk to him about that, I’d wager.
China is eager to recover billions of dollars in debts from the post-war Iraqi government.
Bwahahahaha
But it is also wary about upsetting about 80 million Chinese-Hui Muslims, many of whom are anti-American and sympathetic towards Saddam Hussein and Mr al-Ani.
Assuming they have even heard of him.
Mr al-Ani was reported to have resisted the recall order because he considered the post-war Iraqi authorities a puppet of Washington.
That, and the Phillipine bombing thing.
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 3:47:35 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wonder if there was a "robbery" of the Embassy safe here too? Isn't that the weirdest thing? Seems to be a gang roaming the world, targetting Iraqi Embassy safes....
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 15:59 Comments || Top||

#2  But it is also wary about upsetting about 80 million Chinese-Hui Muslims, many of whom are anti-American and sympathetic towards Saddam Hussein and Mr al-Ani.

This is another Chinese excuse for sticking it to Uncle Sam. These Muslims are secular in outlook - hard not to be, given that the Chinese have banned mullahs from abroad and required Muslim college students to avoid all Muslim religious observances or face expulsion.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 17:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Purrfekt - my thoughts exactly. And the gang has extensive knowledge so precise that one would assume only the immediate thieveing assholes staff would know. Such a puzzler. OTOH, I do so enjoy hearing that China got it's tit caught in yet another ringer. 80 million Chinese-whateverflavor Muslims. A drop in the bucket of China, but shit - that's prolly 100 MOABs - if they cooperate and bunch up real close...Thx!
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 17:13 Comments || Top||


Africa: Southern
Zimbabwe opposition trims anti-Mugabe stance
Zimbabwe's opposition says it will stop questioning the legitimacy of President Robert Mugabe even though you can't get much more illegitimate it has not dropped a court challenge to his re-election, in a move analysts say is aimed at reviving stalled talks. Zimbabwe is grappling with a political crisis and the meltdown of what was once one of Africa's most prosperous economies. Talks between the government and opposition are widely viewed as crucial to pulling the country out of its impasse. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change outlined its position in an "agenda for dialogue" that it gave on Friday to church leaders trying to broker talks between it and the government, but made available to the media only on Monday. The MDC said there must be agreement on new electoral laws, a repeal of tough security and media laws, and the disbanding of pro-government militias, among other issues.
Do that, and Bob will dissolve...
The MDC declined to comment on why it had dropped the issue of Mugabe's legitimacy, or on its calls for a re-run of the 2002 presidential polls, which it says Mugabe won fraudulently.
Probably because Bob's going to announce his retirement to someplace noted for its fine restaurants and lack of African governance, so they can be in a position to actually do something other than watch the ZANU-PF fill the seat with the most senior remaining kleptocrat.
"The MDC has an opportunity to raise some of the contentious issues once the negotiations get off the ground. The difficulty at the moment has been to get (the ruling) ZANU-PF to the negotiating table and that is what the MDC is working on," said Brian Kagoro, the coordinator of an NGO called Crisis Zimbabwe. In its agenda, the MDC said Mugabe's government should accept that the issues of governance and lack of political freedoms were at the core of Zimbabwe's crisis. "We need to return to a situation where we can hold elections whose results are not contested and are palpably a reflection of the will of the people," it said.

A bit off topic, but have you noticed that American blacks give their kids African names, like Ashanti or Urhuru or Kwame, and Africans name their kids Brian or even Festus? Whassup widdat?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 15:47 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Africans don't feel like they've gotta saddle their younguns with ridiculous names to make themselves feel/appear more in touch with their African roots...they're too busy trying to escape their roots
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 19:42 Comments || Top||


International
Syria assumes presidency of United Nations Security Council
JPost - Reg Req’d
Syria assumed the presidency of the United Nations Security Council yesterday morning for the month of August, marking the second time the terrorist-sponsoring nation has held the prestigious post.
JPost calling it like it is
Syria, which was elected in October 2001 by 160 nations out of 177 to a two-year term as a non-permanent member, plans to concentrate its presidency on discussing peace initiatives in Africa, following the situation in Iraq, hearing reports on the International Criminal Court and pressing for the inclusion of Syria and Lebanon in road map negotiations, Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe told reporters yesterday.
Oh yeah, also: avoiding American military action while we try and hide these packages Sammy sent us for safekeeping
Speaking only in Arabic, Wehbe declined to answer questions on Syrian support for the road map or the fate of Israeli MIA’s kidnapped by the Syrian-backed terrorist group Hizbullah, saying only, "There cannot be security without peace, and there cannot be peace if it’s not comprehensive and just."
and that means no Joooos
During Wehbe’s last term as council president, in June 2002, the Damascus-based Islamic Jihad terror group claimed responsibility for killing 17 Israelis in a suicide bombing at the Megiddo junction.

Britain takes over from Syria as president of the 15-member council on September 1.

Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 3:46:08 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  One more reason...
Posted by: tu3031 || 08/04/2003 16:51 Comments || Top||

#2  Man, I love the U.N.
Posted by: Mike N. || 08/04/2003 17:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Perfect. And no, LH, I don't need to hear it - I know how the UNSC operates, its rules, and its current lack of relevance to the real world. I know your head's in what you say, and I respect the effort - but it's damned hard to believe your heart's really in it.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 17:34 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh THIS should be fun.......I suppose that North Korea is next in line.
Posted by: SOG475 || 08/04/2003 17:55 Comments || Top||

#5  God must be really chuckling at this little joke.
Posted by: Tom || 08/04/2003 20:17 Comments || Top||

#6  that's about as funny as Libya heading the Human Rights Commission.
Posted by: jacques || 08/04/2003 22:49 Comments || Top||

#7  Why in hell are we a part of this bunch of assholes!
Posted by: raptor || 08/05/2003 9:27 Comments || Top||


Africa: West
Rebels to leave Monrovia when peace force arrives
Rebels besieging Monrovia will withdraw immediately from the Liberian capital once west African peacekeepers arrive on Monday, rebel leader Sekou Damate Conneh has said in Rome. "We are prepared to receive the peacekeepers in Liberia as soon as they deploy in the city and the port to save the civilians there. We are prepared to withdraw immediately," the head of Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) told reporters.
Don't do it, guys! Wait til you see what Chuck's back looks like, at least!
As a first wave of Nigerian troops that will form the bulk of a peacekeeping force for Liberia arrived on Monday outside Monrovia, US Ambassador John Blaney said he believed the rebels would pull back.
Yeah. But do you believe that Chuck's gonna go away?
Mr Conneh also called on the international community "to put pressure on Charles Taylor to leave Liberia because he has promised to leave on several occasions but he never left".
Funny thing, that...
He accused Mr Taylor's forces of shelling the civilian population and diplomatic headquarters in the Liberian capital. Taylor has vowed to leave the country on August 11, and Mr Conneh said the rebels would leave it to the peacekeepers to ensure that he does so. "If Taylor does not leave, the international community has forces on the ground and they can use them," Mr Conneh said.
But do they have the guts to do so? More precisely, do the people who put them there have the guts to allow it?
He told AFP later that his forces, which have been fighting against Taylor's government troops for almost five years, would "begin disarming as soon as we have an interim government".
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 08/04/2003 15:24 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front
Indiana legislators pack heat
Edited for brevity.
One in six Indiana lawmakers has a permit to carry a firearm, and some even pack their guns when they saunter onto the floor of the Indiana House and Senate, The Journal Gazette in Fort Wayne reported Sunday. These pistol-packing politicians have no problem with the availability of weapons in the Statehouse, and some even welcome the guns given the lax security at the state Capitol. "If someone opens fire from the balcony, I want all the guns I can shooting back. Unless, of course, there are school kids up there," said Rep. Matthew Whetstone, whose small .22-caliber pistol weighs no more than a set of keys in his pants pocket.
With that .22 you’ll be lucky to annoy the shooter, much less hit him.
Whetstone, R-Brownsburg, is one of 25 House and Senate members with valid permits to carry firearms, according to a review of the Indiana State Police firearms database by the newspaper. That is about 17 percent of the General Assembly, compared with about 7 percent of the eligible state population with permits.
Of course, I imagine there’ll be a big flap about this in IN, even though it’s likely happened for years and years without a single incident.
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 3:00:39 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Seems reasonable to me. I carry a Glock 19 with one of those evil high capacity magazines.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono || 08/04/2003 22:55 Comments || Top||

#2  I dunno if I like this or not. I assume that the honorable legislators can hit what they aim at? Most of the people who carry a "small .22 that weighs no more than a set of keys" are not exactly proficient at pistol useage. If you are going to carry, then it seems to me you should make the primary armament worth your while and get something substantial, with a good track record of reliability, accuracy, and stopping power. A Colt M1911 comes to mind.
Posted by: Anonymous Troll || 08/05/2003 0:05 Comments || Top||

#3  What are the gun laws in Indiana?
Az.is a Secound Amendant State.
Posted by: raptor || 08/05/2003 8:58 Comments || Top||


Africa: East
U.S. Embassy Links Terrorist Who Killed Himself to Al-Qaida
EFL
Two suspected terrorists targeted in a raid last week, one of whom killed himself during the arrest, were part of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network, the U.S. Embassy said Monday. The raid came in Kenya’s Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, sparked by the arrest early Friday of one of the suspects.
(wack) "OK, I’ll tell you where they are."
Acting on information he provided, Kenyan police went after the other suspect later that day at the edge of the maze-like warren of alleys in the city’s Old Town. As the suspect was being taken into custody he detonated a grenade, killing himself and a policeman. The U.S. Embassy said the suspects had "evident ties to the al-Qaida terror network" and praised the Kenyan police as "swift and fearless" in acting against them.
While my sympathies go out the the policemans family, if he had been a bit less swift and a little more fearful, he might still be alive.
The embassy statement Monday did not identify either man or give details on their alleged connection to al-Qaida. The arrested suspect remains in Kenyan custody.
"(wack)I didn’t(wack)know he(wack)had a(wack)grenade!"
A third suspect escaped in the chaos after the explosion during Friday’s raid, which took place just yards from Mombasa’s Central Police Station.
Ah, the old hide next to the police station ploy.
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 1:53:27 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gitmo (all together now: "ooooooooooooowwww!") strikes again.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 16:47 Comments || Top||


Iran
Religious Police--The Iranian Übermenschen
Edited for brevity.
A few nights ago, our good friend who got us invited to the wedding, went to the pre-wedding party, a kind of rehearsal dinner for family only, in a private garden outside of Tehran far from other people. “You should have seen all of the women, they were so chic. I looked like a slob next to them.” There were tables of food, a good band, and about 250 “just family” there.

About 2 hours into the party, my friend heard shouts of “Scarves! Manteaus! The religious police are here!” The women ran for their manteaus. The band disappeared. The men went to the door to bribe the two religious police at the door. After about five minutes, they were successful and the two bearded guards of Islam left.

45 minutes later, however, the religious police were back. This time it was a different group with about 20 18-year old representatives of the religious police charging in with guns and rifles ready. These guys did not want to be bribed; they wanted to make arrests.
This blog is written by a foreigner (American?) visiting Iran, who tries to remain nameless for good reason. Read a few articles and be thankful (if) you live in a free society.
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 1:30:38 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Didn't work for booze and it won't work for beards and manteaus.
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 14:04 Comments || Top||

#2  These are the kids of the Iranians who fought the SAVAK and the Shah for the very same reasons. Looks like they are in line for another revolution.
Posted by: TJ || 08/04/2003 14:24 Comments || Top||

#3  The mutawas (religious "police" in Arabic, not sure about Farsi) took their money - and 5 will get you 10, squealed on them. Perfectly rounds out the hypocrisy. When you're 18, in the badass mutawa squad, and have no prospects of losing your virginity for at least another 5 years, working out your hormonal rage on those who don't share any of your personal demons apparently relieves the tension. Shitforbrains asshats. The Iranians deserve better lives - and they'll have them when enough have been dealt with like this. In the meantime, this is truly a sad situation.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 17:53 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Israeli Prisoner Release List Angers Palestinians
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel on Monday published a list of 342 Palestinian prisoners it plans to free on Wednesday to bolster a U.S.-backed peace plan and reformist Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, but Palestinians cried foul.
Foul! Actually they were referring to the smell emanating from Arafat and the 20 "militants" cooped up in Ramallah
Palestinian officials noted that 31 men were to have completed their sentences this month anyway, and that Israeli officials said earlier 540 would be freed. Palestinians want a general release of all 6,000 of their brethren in Israeli jails.
um......how about...no
"This is a complete deception, a trick," said Palestinian Security Affairs Minister Mohammed Dahlan. "What the Israelis are doing will complicate the peace process and frustrate the peace supporters among the Palestinians."
both of them?
In another blow to peace hopes, the local branch of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militant group in the West Bank city of Tulkarm threatened to break a three-month truce to avenge the killing of one of its members by Israeli soldiers.

The Brigades leader in Tulkarm said the local branch would otherwise stick to the cease-fire declared on June 29 by it and other Islamic militant groups. Other branches of the Brigades said they would adhere to the truce.

The publication of the prisoners’ names on the Internet was aimed at giving any Israeli opposed to a prisoner’s release time to appeal to Israel’s Supreme Court to keep him in jail.

Israel gave no explanation why only 342 prisoners -- 183 convicted by Israeli courts of activities ranging from stone-throwing to membership in "terrorist organizations" and 159 detained without trial -- were being released.
we’re tired of feeding them, and they stink
MOFAZ SAYS NO PULLBACKS BEFORE CRACKDOWN

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, responding to a Palestinian shooting attack that wounded a Jewish settler and her three children on Sunday, said there would be no further releases or West Bank pullbacks until Abbas reined in militants.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a group within President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, said it was behind the attack.

"For now, we will not transfer any more Palestinian cities until we see that the necessary steps are being taken against the terror and definitely against the group that carried out the shooting," Mofaz told reporters.

Israeli forces quit Bethlehem in the West Bank last month under the peace plan that envisions an end to almost three years of violence and creation of a Palestinian state by 2005.

Militants have said anything short of a general release of all Palestinian prisoners could jeopardize the truce.
Everything could jeopardize the truce!
Convicted prisoners’ sentences ranged from four months for throwing stones to 15 years in jail for "activity in Islamic Jihad."

A spokesman for the Organization of Israel Terror Victims, a group representing the families of Israelis wounded or killed in Palestinian attacks, said it was "studying the list for any specific names we might object to."

A statement prefacing the list on the Hebrew-language Web site at http:/list.ips.gov.il said: "It should be emphasized the list does not include any prisoners or detainees with ’blood on their hands’."

In a move that could help end his confinement to the Israeli-surrounded West Bank city of Ramallah, Arafat said he intends to move some 20 militants he has been sheltering there to Jericho or the Gaza Strip.

Israel has proposed the transfer in an apparent attempt to pave the way for a pullback from Ramallah, a withdrawal that would help Abbas show his people that peacemaking is working.
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 12:12:28 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How about a nice Arclight to cover the withdrawal?
Posted by: mojo || 08/04/2003 12:45 Comments || Top||

#2  In the sense that "news" implies something that you didn't know before, I'm not sure that the headline "Israeli Angers Palestinians" qualifies as news...

"What's Arabic for 'calm down'?" I yelled.
"As far as I can tell," said Miss Phillips, "there's no such word."
P.J. O'Rourke, Holidays in Hell
Posted by: snellenr || 08/04/2003 12:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Gah... make that "Israeli [anything] Angers Palestinians"... gotta learn to *not* use the angle brackets for such things...
Posted by: snellenr || 08/04/2003 12:49 Comments || Top||

#4  Pals would receive manna from heaven and cry, "Deception! Foul! It's a trick! No butter and no honey - and where's that double-latte I ordered?!!?!"

The phrase "casting pearls before swine" has never, ever, been more apropos.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 12:57 Comments || Top||

#5  snellenr - not to upstage P.J. (a favorite of mine), but the Arabic word is pronounced "shway" and means, approximately, relax or cool your jets - or so the contexts I've seen it used in suggested.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 13:01 Comments || Top||

#6  sounds a lot like Schwing! (Apologies to Waynes' World™)
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 14:15 Comments || Top||

#7  Mojo - only if it covers Ramallah and Gaza at the same time. And make sure the bas$$$$ is home at the time...
Posted by: Old Patriot || 08/04/2003 17:26 Comments || Top||


Korea
Hyundai tour boss suicide
A top official with the Hyundai group has committed suicide by jumping off a building that is part of the company’s headquarters, South Korean media has reported. Chung Mong-hun, chairman of Hyundai Asan Co.,...killed himself at about 6 a.m. Monday by leaping from his 12th-floor office. Chung was being investigated in connection with an alleged payment of hundreds of millions of dollars to North Korea in exchange for its holding a summit between South and North Korean leaders. He was also being investigated for alleged doctoring of company books and siphoning billions of dollars into slush funds. ... Chung was found dead on the ground by his female secretary. So far, eight former government officials and Hyundai officials have been indicted in the scandal. If convicted, some could face up to five years in prison.
He jumped for fear of doing five years?? That is some cruel prison system they have.
Posted by: Raphael || 08/04/2003 3:08:34 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Leading Nork appeaser offs self?! Let the conspiracy theories begin. Theory #1: He was being pressured to cover for former president and Nobel Peace prize winner Kim Dae Jung and the leading Korean multinational conglomorate. (I apologize if this seems obvious).

Any other theories out there?
Posted by: Tokyo Taro || 08/04/2003 3:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Oh Tokyo, surely it was the CIA and also the jewwws covering up for their zionist-American plots!
Posted by: Anon1 || 08/04/2003 6:34 Comments || Top||

#3  #2 The CIA did it.
Posted by: raptor || 08/04/2003 6:39 Comments || Top||

#4  Well, in case you were not aware we trained the mujahadeen in Afghanistan... Oh, this is South Korea, never mind, misplaced diatribe. But I'm sure it was the CIA. I hear Charlie Wilson drives a Hynduai.
Posted by: af || 08/04/2003 6:49 Comments || Top||

#5  I suppose it's not the prison term, it's the Asian concept of "losing face".
Posted by: True German Ally || 08/04/2003 6:56 Comments || Top||

#6  "Is this part of the tour?"
Posted by: Dar || 08/04/2003 8:18 Comments || Top||

#7  I worked for Symbios Logic, a chip manufacturer, that Hyundai bought, then sold when they were strapped for cash in 2000. Hyundai did little to manage the company, other than ensure the bottom line showed a profit - the bigger the better. It did focus the attention of several of us on the company that was ultimately responsible for our paychecks. We learned there is NOTHING in Korea that doesn't have some affiliation with Hyundai.

My take would be that the information currently made public is only the tip of the iceberg, and when the rest of the story leaks out (if it ever does), it will show that Hyundai was operating as a quasi-government, making diplomatic deals with the North that the South couldn't or wouldn't support.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 08/04/2003 10:39 Comments || Top||

#8  From the Herald Sun:
"Hyundai shares fell on news of the death"
Posted by: Steve || 08/04/2003 13:07 Comments || Top||

#9  Hyundai exec is KIA.
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 14:01 Comments || Top||

#10  ..it's the Asian concept of "losing face"

He lost his face all right. Now if only the other NK appeasers would do the same.....
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 08/04/2003 20:55 Comments || Top||

#11  and worse, hyundai makes crappy cheaparse cars. Give me a toyota any day!
Posted by: Anon1 || 08/04/2003 21:25 Comments || Top||

#12  If only the American kleptocrats business executives had that sense of "honour" Wall Street would be littered with their corpses--starting with Ken/Enron -- enjoying your higher utility bills Californians?
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 23:05 Comments || Top||

#13  If only the American business executives had that sense of "honour" Wall Street would be littered with their corpses--starting with Ken/Enron -- enjoying your higher utility bills Californians?

This guy's suicide wasn't a matter of honor - it was a matter of protecting his political masters. Because of this suicide, Kim Dae Jung will probably get off scot free. Note that Kim Woo Choong, the chief of Daewoo* who inflated his company's assets to get new loans, actually fled Korea rather than face the music. (As usual, NMM is wrong on the facts, which doesn't, by the way, prevent him from coming to his usual spurious conclusions). Suicide doesn't solve any problems - it just makes the prosecution of the suicide's accomplices that much harder. Suicide is the easy way out - it's staying alive to face long prison terms and large inmates named Bubba that takes courage.

* the Korean equivalent of Chrysler, United Technologies and Honeywell put together
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 23:59 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Powell, Armitage goners in next cabinet- Post
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, have signaled to the White House that they intend to step down even if President Bush is reelected, setting the stage for a substantial reshaping of the administration’s national security team that has remained unchanged through the September 2001 terrorist attacks, two wars and numerous other crises.
That’s a big, not unexpected shake up. No matter where you stand on issues, we’ve gotten our money’s worth out of Powell, IMO.
Armitage recently told national security adviser Condoleezza Rice that he and Powell will leave on Jan. 21, 2005, the day after the next presidential inauguration, sources familiar with the conversation said. Powell has indicated to associates that a commitment made to his wife, rather than any dismay at the administration’s foreign policy, is a key factor in his desire to limit his tenure to one presidential term. Rice and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz are the leading candidates to replace Powell, according to sources inside and outside the administration. Rice appears to have an edge because of her closeness to the president, though it is unclear whether she would be interested in running the State Department’s vast bureaucracy.
The thought of Wolfie in State should have the mullahs sprucing up their hiding caves.
With 18 months left in Bush’s current term, many officials said talk of a new foreign policy team is highly premature — particularly because Bush’s reelection is not assured. No one inside or outside the administration agreed to be quoted by name or affiliation in discussing possible Cabinet choices. But on the eve of the country’s first post-Sept. 11, 2001, presidential campaign, in which foreign affairs will play a prominent role, the national security lineup for a second Bush term is already a major topic of conversation, at least among those who make and analyze U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet is already the third longest serving CIA chief and is expected to depart, perhaps before the current term ends. Tenet’s role in the Iraq weapons controversy has led to calls on Capitol Hill for his dismissal, fueling speculation he will quit soon.
But I doubt if he will if it looks like it's in response to pressure from the libs...
The current administration has been characterized by fierce policy disputes, often between Powell and more hawkish members, and a reshuffling likely would significantly change the tenor and character of the foreign policy team. (etc....)
Courtesy the Watchful Eye of Drudge.
Powell could go down in history as one of our most successful Secretaries of State. The stately good cop-bad cop polonnaise with Rumsfeld has been masterful. I'll bet his memoirs are going to be interesting — and probably hair-raising in places.
Posted by: Mark IV || 08/04/2003 12:56:58 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  IMHO Much to my chagrin, there is no way a Democrat will be in the White House in the forseeable future
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 1:27 Comments || Top||

#2  NMM, the last Democratic president who did not embarrass the whole country... who could arguably have led America to a slightly different version of the same bright future... was JFK.

If the JFK of 1963 ran today, I suspect that the entire left would denounce him as a reactionary pterodactyl. His policies and world-view would probably be well to the right of the supposedly conservative GWB. If his name was changed and he ran on policy only, I suspect most of the contributors here would welcome him with a sigh of relief, even if he was a Democrat. I think a lot of former Democrats would welcome him with even more relief.

This presupposes that he would not have had 40 years of conditioning by media and academia, and appeared as his '63 self. Even a modern populare would quickly size up the shifts in the power structure, and marvel at what the DP has done to lose the support of almost every decent working man in America.

Two since have gotten by the electorate, and the results were not lost on a mainstream that would like to be represented, too. Your chagrin notwithstanding, the last time the Dems came close to running an acceptable choice for the Presidency was Henry Jackson.

I hope the next time, it is not Colin Powell.
Posted by: Mark IV || 08/04/2003 2:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Interesting analysis Mark IV, but I beg to differ on the final point about "decent working men" because people like that, my father and grandfather who worked in steel mills are diehard Democrats and remember when Hoover and the Repooplicans were in charge back in the 20's and 30's and capitalism unrestrained ruled the workplace--whoever brought the boss some wine, a ham etc got to work that day--finally the workers said Enough! An interesting footnote to the story is now high tech employees are getting interested in unions due to the usual corporate malfeasance that screws the people who actually produce something of value (OK Rantbourgeois--insert Commie accusations)
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 08/04/2003 2:28 Comments || Top||

#4  Nmm,Carter,Clinton,J.Jackson sertiling ex-amples of the Democratic Partty.
Posted by: raptor || 08/04/2003 6:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Your socialist/democratic teacher/union types failed to teach you American history. That's to be expected.

In the 1930s we have Franklin Delano Roosevelt in office with a republican majority in congress. By 1930s under the auspices of this Evil Republican Congress(TM) many of the institutions which bolster unions was established. Congress continued with these institutions through the 30s 40s, etc. You get the picture.

An interesting footnote to the story is now high tech employees are getting interested in unions due to the usual corporate malfeasance that screws the people who actually produce something of value

I can see it now:
Boss: The network is down.
Tech Employee: I know.
Boss: Do something about it.
Tech Employee: I can't.
Boss: Why not? Don't you know your job?
Tech Employee: Oh, I can bring the network back up, but the work rules state that as a network administrator 'B' I can bring up the network only if there is not a network administrator 'A' in the shop.
Boss: Well he/she called in sick. Get the network running.
Tech Employee: Okay, but I want to file a grievance.
Boss: For what?
Tech Employee: Because I am being underpaid.
Boss: You make the second highest wages for a network admin.
Tech Employee: I know but I am being asked to perform the work of a 'A' network adminsitrator as a 'B' network administrator.
Boss: Fine, just the the network running.
Tech Employee: The entire day: I get paid as a network administrator 'A'.
Boss: Fine, just get the network running.

(Next day, network administrator shows up for work)

Network administrator A: I want to file a grievance.
Boss: For what?
Network administrator A: For paying a 'B' network administrator A wages.

(OK Rantbourgeois--insert Commie accusations)

Accusations? I figure its a badge of honor with your commmies to be called commie from a right wing website.
Posted by: badanov || 08/04/2003 7:20 Comments || Top||

#6  NMM - Very touching. I'm, uh, moved - yeah, that's the ticket. Your story merely confirms what most of us here in Rantburg already know: as with the majority of your ilk you live in the past, fight the battles of the past in your fertile imaginations and, eyes glittering like burning embers, fantasize slaying the dragon. Great - except that dragon's long gone - dead and stone cold in the past. Check your wrists and ankles - you'll find strings attached if you look closely. You're a tool, a puppet, a jester in the grand play of ideologies - and you've been co-opted by the Bad Guys. Its a shame, perhaps, but you've voluntarily chosen to make yourself an irrelevant nuisance - background noise.

There are new, improved dragons to be fought - and we will need all the help we can get to fight them, but you and your like-minded sign-totin' tools are MIA - lost in your fantasy. Consider it a coalition of the willing - willing to live in the present, filled with real dragons which are commanded to destroy life as you know it and fight them instead of each other. Many of us have seen them - and they truly breathe destruction and spew hatred more vile than even your childlike imagination can conjure. One thing is certain, you require freedom to pursue your view of life just as much as those who are defending that freedom, in spite of your mindless support for the enemies of freedom.

If you pull your head out of your ass in time, you will actually get your chance to fight a real dragon or two. Until then, assuming that magic moment ever arrives, you can simply phuck off and jack into your Jack-O-Matic. At the moment, you're just taking up space, son.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 9:03 Comments || Top||

#7  The biggest problem with State is that there is a large entrenched group of very liberal pro european, anti-isreal, pro-arab types running the middle east desk.

There are a number of state types who were hired out of college in the 70's and 80's that are very left leaning in their thinking. This leads to some very interesting diachotomies in US foreign relations.....which explains why many of the insiders at Foggy Bottom do not like Wolfie or Colin...they loved Madeline.

That is why in my uninformed and sometimes mercurial opinion that many of the problems with terrorists such as Arafat, Saddam, the Assads and the Saudis are due to a lot of pro-arab manueverings by State. Why else would Arafat have survived for so long and why hasn't he been "outed" by leaks from state about his fatherhood of most of the really violent antiamerican terrorism? I also think our problems with NK and our continuing peculiar approach to the PRC are a result of some lingering romantic political ideas about communism. AND in some ways the absolutely astounding blind eye turned by State toward the Cambodian disasters and the Sudanese atrocities were/are due to the sometimes hard left view that many insiders at state have. This goes all the way back to the fawning and sniveling and breast clutching over the Sandanistas. Remember all of the pro-sandanista press that was flying around DC? All of that crap and blather came from inside state. Those dimwits thought Ortega was some kind of saint instead of the Cuban sponsored thug that he was.

I would say that a complete house cleaning is needed at state. I have never liked those guys, the insiders always seem to be running games and agendas completely counter current to the best interests of the US and they seem to more often than not fall on the side of the arabs and marxist/communists regimes.
Posted by: SOG475 || 08/04/2003 10:45 Comments || Top||

#8  SOG - on the money! Armitage has been a striped-pants set buttboy for quite a while, and Colin's supported him way too long. I agree with the house cleaning - you get with the Presidents' program or get your EU-Arab loving ass out
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 11:31 Comments || Top||

#9  I think that NMM's post was a fairly polite, if anecdotal, one so lets not come down on him like a ton of bricks, shall we? He seems be working harder towards achieving the "polite, well-reasoned discourse" ideal of Rantburg; we should encourage not discourage that. I'd rather have another Liberalhawk than another troll any day of the week.

For my money, the last great Democratic president was the late, great, and ever knuckle-headed LBJ - the last, and probably final, truly redneck Democrat president. Three cheers for superbird!

Look, up yonder in the sky, now, what is that I pray ?
It's a bird it's a plane, it's a man insane, it's my President LBJ
He's flying high way up in the sky just like Superman,
But I have got a little piece of kryptonite,
Yes, I'll bring him back to land.
Said come out Lyndon with your hands held high,
Drop your guns, baby, and reach for the sky.
I've got you surrounded and you ain't got a chance,
Gonna send you back to Texas, make you work on your ranch,

-Country Joe and The Fish
Posted by: Secret Master || 08/04/2003 13:37 Comments || Top||

#10  I think the best policy comes from hearing an exchange of views, within the limits of acceptable policy, and then making a decision with all relevant voices heard. Reagan ran one such cabinet, and by most accounts GWB runs another.

Though I'm a hawk, I would not want Big Decisions made, with only the input of Superhawks heard. There's more to every story. Powell has often fulfilled this role, and as aptly stated above, allowed the good-cop-bad-cop routine to work in many foreign policy scenarios (furriners will tell him things they won't tell a Rummy). His first memoirs, My American Journey, were a very good read.

Parties do change over time, don't they? At least one segment of the electorate seems to have gotten past the historical record of the Dems as slave-holders metamorphosed into apartheidists (and Republicans as the liberators of the slaves, and the passers of the civil rights legislation of the 50s), and now sees the DP as their salvation.

I don't think Hoover will be on the GOP ticket in '04, and some voters seem to have gotten that message.

The Dems own poll shows only 22% party ID among white males. No doubt this is because of their selfish preoccupation with national security, lower taxes, and ranking sexual issues as somewhat lower in terms of Presidential priorities.

Those "die-hards" do die, eventually, and the up-and-coming wave of voters and wage earners is accustomed to a DP that treats them as a traditional enemy, and whose priorities are so out of whack with the average guys' own values that they seem surreal.

There are all kinds of "malfeasance" and professing leadership while promoting class warfare is one of them. Explaining the effects of the global economy as "corporate malfeasance" is like blaming winter on coat manufacturers. Good luck with the outreach program.
Posted by: Mark IV || 08/04/2003 14:11 Comments || Top||

#11  SOG457 may well have the true reason Powell is leaving - there IS a well-organized "resistance" within State to President Bush's programs, and Colin is tired of fighting them with little support.

If you're a commander under fire, and you can't trust the intelligence your G2 gives you, you find yourself standing in the midst of disaster. I think Powell is tired of being in the middle of two forces, and wants to call it quits. Someone, and I think Rice is the best candidate, needs to do some major house-cleaning at State, and get rid of some of the striped-pants deadheads who have been wrong every time a decision has to be made. She might need the help of the 101st, but then, she's a tough one herself. I'd be glad to lend a hand (holding a white-ash axehandle) in support.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 08/04/2003 16:53 Comments || Top||

#12  I remember a Wash. Times article within the past few months which talked about the caricatures that abound at State portraying Bush as stupid, arrogant, and unsophisticated. Like out of Le Monde's Platu. So, OP, maybe this is the type of mindset Powell got sick of.
Posted by: Michael || 08/04/2003 17:03 Comments || Top||

#13  SM - OK, so you have an opinion or ten. Good. It's America. Knock yourself out. No, we shall not - obviously you hadn't read all the posts before you plopped this one down, did you? And I have friends who would dearly love to discuss LBJ - oh and let's toss in his good buddy and unparalleled history revisionist McNamara, too. Some of them can't do the talking for themselves, however, but the slack will be taken up by others.
Posted by: ·com || 08/04/2003 17:23 Comments || Top||

#14  Now that Colin has gone ballistic at the Wash press corpse, I would conjecture that this rumor was floated by the leftist cabal in State trying to put a twist in Colin's knickers.

Whether he stays or leaves, I think that a thorough house cleaning is in order, starting with the pencil neck that floated the rumor to the Wash Post.

Much like faculties at west coast universities, state is full of whiney academics that took way too much polisci in college and read way too much Hegel, Marx and Malreaux.
Posted by: SOG475 || 08/04/2003 18:01 Comments || Top||

#15  Sorry, y'all are letting Colin off the hook too easily. It was his job to clean out the Foggy Bottom muck and he's failed miserably at doing it. Compare Rumsfeld, who reengineered the Pentagon in no time flat.

If State is dominated by a bunch of anti-American fifth-columnists -- and it is -- it means Powell is either sympathetic or incompetent. In either case he has to go.
Posted by: someone || 08/04/2003 23:49 Comments || Top||


War relics: collection chronicles infantry’s role in Iraq
As history is being made overseas, the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning is busy preserving it. The museum is slowly accumulating artifacts from the war with Iraq, and one of the more striking displays is a large oil painting of Saddam Hussein. Museum director Frank Hanner opted to place it on the floor, covered in glass, rather than hang it on the wall like most paintings. "Someone came in crying, asking why we had a picture of Saddam on display," Hanner said. "It’s a symbol of our victory, not of our defeat. It’s on the floor -- you can walk on his face!"
Heh.
The 2002 painting was captured by members of the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, on or about April 8 when the Rangers secured the Hadithah Dam on the Euphrates River.

Hanner said that Saddam put former President Bush’s image on the floor of the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad for visitors to step upon. In Islamic culture, showing someone the bottom of your foot or the sole of your shoe is one of the highest forms of insult. When Saddam’s statues were taken down in Baghdad, civilians beat them with their shoes. The head of Saddam from one of those statues is on its way to the Infantry Museum.

The most interesting and expensive artifact, Hanner says, is a 10-year-old 9.3x74R (.345 caliber) game rifle made in Germany for Saddam. It was captured by the soldiers of the 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry from one of Saddam’s palaces in April.
Wonder if one of our special ops guys would like to borrow this for a while. You know, to hunt ... elks. Yeah, elks. Near Tikrit.
Hanner is in the process of preparing other items for display, including an Iraqi soldier’s winter boots, early night-vision goggles, load-bearing equipment vest and Gortex jacket. The soldier’s helmet has the name of his wife and two children written on the inside. Also on display is an Iraqi flag captured on March 22 by Scout Platoon, 2nd Battalion, 69th Artillery Regiment, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division. During the Gulf War, the Revolutionary Command Council chaired by Saddam placed the words "God is Great" between the flag’s stars.

Hanner said it’s important to have tangible remnants from wars. "You can have a facsimile of a flag, but what would that mean to anyone? We try to have the real thing at the museum. If you’ve got something from the past to remind you of your accomplishments, it lays the foundation for the future. Our soldiers went into battle, fought a fight, and this is the result of that combat."

Hanner and his staff created a list of artifacts that he wanted the soldiers to return with. He said that bringing back these artifacts is not considered contraband because they belong to the people of the United States. Hanner has gotten complaints about not putting out the artifacts quickly enough, but the Infantry Museum has a staff of five, he said, compared to Columbus Museum’s staff of 35.

The National Infantry Museum has exhibits from the Gulf War and the war on terrorism. On display is the yellow POW uniform of Sgt. Troy Allen, one of 21 U.S. soldiers captured in the Gulf War. The museum also has an original copy of the famous June 1985 issue of National Geographic with an Afghan refugee girl with haunting green eyes on the cover.

Another project in the works is a book of photographs depicting all Army infantrymen killed in action and those who’ve earned medals. "Our primary purpose is to train the next generation of soldiers to remember their past and be proud of their heritage as infantrymen. It’s a unique story. They’re not paying us to be a tourist attraction. Ours is a living, breathing museum."
Something worth seeing next time one is near Fort Benning.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/04/2003 12:56:21 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  National Infantry Museum

Tours may be arranged by calling the museum at (706) 545-2958.

Infantry Museum hours: Bldg 396, (706) 545-6762
Mon - Fri 1000 - 1630
Sat & Sun 1230 - 1630
Posted by: Chuck || 08/04/2003 9:05 Comments || Top||


Africa: West
Liberia Prepares for Wary Peacekeepers
People in Liberia’s besieged capital readied to welcome the first peacekeepers Monday, but the commander of the West African force tempered expectations by saying that the first contingent would only secure the airport outside the bloodied city.
Can anyone say, "Beirut"?
Residents bought white T-shirts and gathered white cloths to wave — the most festive greeting Monrovia’s people could offer for Monday’s promised deployment after two months of rebel sieges that sparked fighting that killed more than 1,000 people in the city of more than 1.3 million and nearly cut off food and clean water. The first troops were expected Monday in helicopters, from bases in neighboring Sierra Leone. Nigerian Brig. Gen. Festus Okonkwo, the future force’s commander, said planners weren’t sure how many troops they could get in on Monday, or whether there were enough aircraft overall. ``We are going in with as much troops as possible,’’ Okonkwo told reporters late Sunday in Sierra Leone. ``We know that the situation is bad in and around Monrovia.’’ The first forces would only secure the now government-held airport, Okonkwo said. The airport is about a 45-minute drive on a government-held road from the capital, where fighting has raged daily between President Charles Taylor’s fighters and rebels battling to overthrow him.
Chuckles won’t be able to flee by air unless the peacekeepers let him. Noose gettin’ a little uncomfortable, Charlie?
Okonkwo said he expected no attacks upon Monday’s deployment, and said he had called upon both sides to tell them to return to their positions at the time they signed a June 17 cease-fire that has been repeatedly broken. About 300 Nigerian troops were to be deployed Monday, but it was unclear whether the West Africans would be able to get that many troops on the ground the first day. They are to be the vanguard of a 3,250-member West African force. On Sunday, a small West African assessment team laying the groundwork for the peacekeepers was gathering generators, food and fuel. Some of the goods were provided by U.S. suppliers through an already-announced US$10 million U.S. support contract for the mission, said Col. Theophilus Tawiah of Ghana, the force’s chief of staff. Debt-strapped Nigeria says it needs far more international backing for the mission, expected to eventually cost at least US$2 million daily.
Nobody has to comment on why oil-rich Nigeria happens to be cash strapped. We've all gotten the e-mails...
On Atlantic Ocean beaches, fishermen and fighters took occasional glances at the horizon - where the U.S. Defense Department said two of three U.S. warships being sent to support the West African peace force waited, newly arrived but out of sight to Monrovia’s people. Taylor’s camp on Sunday hedged on Taylor’s recent promises to go into exile in Nigeria — saying that Taylor’s agreement to yield power should be enough. ``The international community should give him a break. He’s made the ultimate sacrifice,’’ by handing over power, Information Minister Reginald Goodrich told The Associated Press.
We have something else in mind for the ultimate sacrifice.
``No one should ask him to do more than that,’’ Goodrich insisted.
Really? Come to Rantburg for a while.
The United States has demanded the departure of Taylor, correctly blamed in 14 years of conflict in Liberia that have killed more than 100,000 since 1989, and properly accused of trafficking and arming insurgents across much of the region. Taylor made, and broke, repeated cease-fires, peace accords and power-sharing deals in the 1990s, often launching attacks on past deployments of West African forces here. Taylor’s government said Saturday that Taylor would leave Liberia only when an adequate number of peacekeepers are on the ground, and when the war-crimes indictment is dropped.
Or when the rebels plug him.
U.N. prosecutors are adamant that Taylor face justice, heightening prospects of a standoff with the international peacekeepers and foreign powers.
Funny how it looks like that’s exactly what GWB wants.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/04/2003 12:41:36 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Beirut, you mean the game with beer and pong...
Posted by: Brian || 08/04/2003 1:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Nigerian Brig. Gen. Festus Okonkwo, the future force’s commander,

American cultural imperialism at work? Glad his folks didn't watch the Andy Griffin show.
Posted by: Shipman || 08/04/2003 8:21 Comments || Top||

#3  Shipman, his aide de camp is Captain Goober Lionoko.
Posted by: Chuck || 08/04/2003 9:01 Comments || Top||

#4  dare i say that africans are solving african problems? Well, assuming they solve it.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 08/04/2003 9:05 Comments || Top||

#5  Chuck lol..... The name Taylor rings a bell. Perhaps Ernest T. Doe can be sent to stone him out of the country.

Posted by: Shipman || 08/04/2003 9:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Festus?

Was he ridin' a mule?
Posted by: mojo || 08/04/2003 10:02 Comments || Top||

#7  Nigerian Field Marshall Dillon?
Posted by: Frank G || 08/04/2003 10:25 Comments || Top||

#8  Is the Spriggs Payne airfield out of commission?
If not, Taylor might still get out that way--it
isn't far from his home.
Posted by: James || 08/04/2003 10:44 Comments || Top||

#9  Festus is an old and respectable Roman name!
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 14:05 Comments || Top||

#10  Festus is an old and respectable Roman name!

Porcius Festus, Roman Procurator of Judaea, 59-62 A.D.
"But Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, "Do you wish to go up to Jerusalem, and there be tried on these charges before me?" But Paul said, "I am standing before Caesar's tribunal, where I ought to be tried; to the Jews I have done no wrong, as you know very well. If then I am a wrongdoer, and have committed anything for which I deserve to die, I do not seek to escape death; but if there is nothing in their charges against me, no one can give me up to them. I appeal to Caesar." Then Festus, when he had conferred with his council, answered, "You have appealed to Caesar; to Caesar you shall go." -Acts 25:9-12
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/04/2003 15:22 Comments || Top||

#11  So Festus appealed to Matthew?
Posted by: Shipman || 08/04/2003 16:29 Comments || Top||

#12  Something like that. But I think Nero would handle this Liberia thing a little differently.
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 18:15 Comments || Top||

#13  Something like that. But I think Nero would handle this Liberia thing a little differently.
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 18:15 Comments || Top||

#14  But then his first name was Porcius...
Posted by: SPQR 2755 || 08/04/2003 18:16 Comments || Top||



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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.
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2003-08-04
  MILF founder Salamat Hashim departs vale of tears
Sun 2003-08-03
  Beirut car bomb kills at least two
Sat 2003-08-02
  17 injured in Turkey blasts
Fri 2003-08-01
  Dozens Arrested As Security Forces Raid Mosque
Thu 2003-07-31
  Soddy Fatwah on Weapons of Mass Destruction
Wed 2003-07-30
  Foday Sankoh rots!
Tue 2003-07-29
  U.S. troops capture Sammy's bodyguard
Mon 2003-07-28
  8 killed in Soddy shoot-'em-up
Sun 2003-07-27
  Woman blows herself up at Chechen security base
Sat 2003-07-26
  Casablanca Trial of 35 Extremists Starts
Fri 2003-07-25
  Fazl sez Mujahideen should cease operations
Thu 2003-07-24
  Canucks yank ambassador to Iran
Wed 2003-07-23
  Indo brigadier killed in camp attack
Tue 2003-07-22
  Uday & Qusay: Doorknob dead!
Mon 2003-07-21
  Paleos Outlaw Violent Groups. Really.

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