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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Chineese Capitalist Finds Industry Niche
From SHM via WND
A 28-year-old man in western China is making a living as a "human punchbag", charging stressed-out people 50 yuan ($A9) to beat him up, a news report said today.
Will he wear a red wig and immitate an ATT commecial while you beat him?
The man targets people in bars and discos in Chengdu, Sichuan province, and gives them two minutes in which to rain punches and kicks on him in return for his fee, the South China Morning Post reported. The newspaper quoted him saying he was providing a valuable service to those suffering from tension and work-related pressure.
I guess he learned everything he needed to know to suceed in life in Kindergarden.
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 10:55:06 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Looks like the Chinese have a serious need for "self help" books. Oh, Oprah... Dr. Phil? A HUGE market has a need for you.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/13/2003 13:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Seriously, I once read something similar about a japanese "human punchingbag" renting himself in bars; the guy was basically an out-of-luck ex prof. boxer, I reckon, and his customers were mostly drunken salary men, something he could handle better than the unfortunate occasionnal martial artist or bruiser.
Posted by: Anonymous || 09/13/2003 13:08 Comments || Top||

#3  My uncle gave me a punching bag and workout gloves when I was about 14. I'm sure they were the main reason I didn't kill someone before I graduated from high school. Can't beat 'em for stress relief. Picture any face you want on it, and go to it!
Posted by: Old Patriot || 09/13/2003 16:39 Comments || Top||

#4  I was thinking that Jackass the Movie ought to be translated into Chineese.
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 16:40 Comments || Top||


Legless prisoner escapes from South African hospital
South African police are searching for a prisoner with no legs who managed to escape unnoticed from a hospital, the Saturday Star reported.
"Feet... ummm... stumps, don't fail me now!"
"Two months later, he is still on the run (or should that be crawl?) and the law enforcement authorities appear to be stumped," it said.
So to speak...
The newspaper said that Francois Johannes Pieterse, who had been serving a 10-year sentence in the east coast city of Durban for fraud and impersonating a doctor, was taken to a hospital in Johannesburg but escaped in July.
"Of course I'm a doctor, madame. I'm just a legless doctor..."
The guard assigned to him has been charged with negligence.
"Negligence? C'mon, boss! When was the last time a guy with no legs ran away?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 09:43 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It appears they forgot the first rule of prison escape management -- "When the prisoner doesn't have any legs, look under the bed first."
Posted by: snellenr || 09/13/2003 11:31 Comments || Top||

#2  What do you call a man with no legs in a South African jail? An escapee.
Posted by: Anonymous || 09/13/2003 11:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Was he impersonating a podiatrist?
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/13/2003 13:05 Comments || Top||

#4  "Come, Watson! The game is afoot!"

Errr...maybe not.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/13/2003 14:04 Comments || Top||

#5  Truncated, I say, Watson.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul in Nome || 09/13/2003 22:38 Comments || Top||

#6  A legless man on the run? Sounds like a job for Richard Kimble...

Er...he DOES have arms, I assume? Should we list him as armed and dangerous?
Posted by: mojo || 09/13/2003 23:49 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Karzai tells Pakistani clerics not to support Taliban
Afghan President Hamid Karzai told Pakistani Muslim clerics on Friday to stop backing the ousted Taliban and reiterated an amnesty to members of the radical militia who had not been involved in ‘bloody oppression’. Speaking to a group of Afghan clerics at his heavily fortified presidential palace, Mr Karzai said Pakistani clerics and preachers were involved in recruiting and sending members of the Taliban to destabilise Afghanistan. “I am addressing those who, in the name of madrassas, are building a force of war against Afghanistan,” he said, referring to Muslim religious schools. “I am calling on Pakistani clerics to stand by their Afghan counterparts and not cause misery for Afghanistan.” Many of the first wave of Taliban fighters emerged from religious schools on the Pakistani side of the border in the early 1990s. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance controls the North West Frontier Province and has a power share in Balochistan, the two Pakistani provinces bordering Afghanistan. While local officials in Pakistan deny that religious seminaries near the Afghan border are being used to breed Taliban fighters, some young militants caught in Afghanistan said they were recruited in Pakistani madrassas and mosques.
"They're lying, of course..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 16:12 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Arabia
The Arab News Version: 9/11 Special Tragedy Revisited (DOH!)
I wanted to hear what an official mouthpiece of the House of Saud had to say about the second anniversay of 9/11. I wondered what aspects they would find important - and what their take would be on them.

But as of 9/13/2003 3:20 AM EST, the links to the topics they choose to address are all broken - only the main page is functioning.

Whaddya know. Mebbe it’ll come back online. Mebbe it’ll be worth taking a look. In the mean time, you might find it interesting to see what topics they did find worthy of "revisiting" - at least until it broke or the plug was pulled.
Posted by: .com (Prez for Life - My Isles of Langerhans) || 09/13/2003 3:17:57 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Saudis: It's All About Us, the Poor Victims"
at LGF
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 10:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Hani Wafa, unless one of the greatest symbols in your nation was hit by a airplane, and you lost around 3,000 people, then STFU!

Their religion didn't guide them? Your religious leaders are praising and urging the attacks! They ( Terrorists ) are doing this in the name of Allah! Their convictions are too kill us for their religion! They did do this for their religion! I'm just repeating myself over and over again in anger and frusteration over these idiots!

P.S. I support carpet bombing.
Posted by: Charles || 09/13/2003 11:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Targeted attacks at those who have been preaching "death to America" would be more "civilised". They are enemy combatants in this "new kind" of HOT war. Hit them, deny it. Hit them again, deny it again. Repeat as necessary. As I have said before, Saudi Arabia doesn't have a real government. It's a royal flush with many little fiefdoms of power. It is a dirty job and I hate even thinking this way but the sheetheads have only theirselves to blame. Once the jihadies start to fall those left will come around. Isolate and eliminate.
Posted by: Lucky || 09/13/2003 12:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Charles, I was going to ask if that was an incitement towards bombing the Grand Makkah Masjid ;)
Posted by: Brian || 09/13/2003 14:42 Comments || Top||


Britain
British Muslims condemn radicals
Moderate Muslims joined Britain's opposition Conservative Party yesterday in calling for a crackdown on militant Islamists in the country.
That's pleasantly unusual...
The demand came one day after a Muslim group turned September 11 into a tribute to the "magnificent 19" hijackers who killed more than 3,000 people in the attacks two years ago. "This is a sickening abuse of the freedom of speech that this country provides to all those who live in it," said Oliver Letwin, who would become Home Secretary if the Conservatives win the next election. Mohammed Nasim, chairman of the moderate Central Mosque in Birmingham — previously named the Saddam Hussein Mosque in honor of its sponsor — accused the British authorities of "letting ordinary Muslims down by not taking a stronger stance." Both men want to see arrests and prosecutions of radical Muslims, especially when they publicly spout hatred and make threats. The government has to do its part and intervene when people cause racial hatred, Mr. Nasim said. "This group is giving Islam a bad name and the Home Office is letting all Muslims down by refusing to act when it openly incites violence."
I do tend to agree with him, despite my feeling that the moderates could spend a lot more time referring to the Muhajiroun lunatics as what they are...
The uproar followed calls on Thursday by speakers from Britain's radical Al Muhajiroun for more jihad, or holy war, against the West. The popular Daily Express newspaper dubbed them the "faces of evil," including an eloquent bearded lawyer, Anjem Choudray, the group's British leader. "Boot Out Bin Laden Monsters in Britain," screamed the front-page lead headline of the conservative Express newspaper, describing what its sub-headline called "fury as mullahs gloat over world's worst terror attack." Al Muhajiroun was planning demonstrations this weekend, despite the loss of its four announced sites in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester when the owners withdrew permission for the rallies.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 16:35 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mr. Nasim said, "This group is giving Islam a bad name and the Home Office is letting all Muslims down by refusing to act when it openly incites violence."

Sigh, the Swedish virus is at work here. Nasim doesn't need to wait on the Home Office. He and his fellow "moderates" can handle this quite effectively. Cricket bats, tyre irons, chains, etc. would do nicely.

TGA, please note that in the US, when the auto workers wanted the communists out of their union, they didn't wait on the Truman administration, they took care of it themselves. The "moderate" Muslims need to adopt the same attitude.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 18:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Horace Greely would tell thenm to "go east young men." Griping about the West is inconsistent if you refuse to leave. Don't let the door knob hit you...
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 21:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Was taslking to a gentleman from the Midlands today( in WI as if you didn't know )he absolutely nothing nice to say about any of the muslim immigrants to the UK he's met
Posted by: Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire || 09/13/2003 23:07 Comments || Top||

#4  I do believe that 'moderate' muslims in Britain may now be starting to see the writing on the wall. This whole terrorism thing could well backfire on ALL of them really bad. THey are about one or two 9/11 incidents away from having all muslims being rounded up in concentration camps and shipped out.
Posted by: jlc || 09/14/2003 2:00 Comments || Top||


Europe
France accused as UN summit on Iraq stalls
Foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council failed to overcome differences on a timetable for handing over power in Iraq yesterday as France came under fire for making "unrealistic" demands.
Sez it ain’t so, Dominique (who is reputed to be a man)
Colin Powell, the United States secretary of state, said he was "encouraged" by talks in Geneva aimed at agreeing the framework for a UN resolution to set up a multinational force in Iraq. Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, said consensus was both "essential and achievable" meaning squat
There was no sign, however, that France was backing down from its insistence that the coalition must hand over all powers to the interim Iraqi authority within a month - a deadline Britain and America regard as impossible.

Mr Powell sharply rebuffed French demands for power to be transferred to the interim Iraqi authority next month.
"I don’t think so, ass..."
"Nobody wants to turn sovereignty back to the Iraqis as fast as the United States does, President Bush does and I do," he told French television before the meeting. But the handover deadline proposed by Dominique de Villepin, France’s foreign minister, in a newspaper article last week was "totally unrealistic".

Mr Powell added: "It would be delightful if one could do that, but one can’t do that. I cannot anticipate us agreeing to any language that would buy into what Minister de Villepin has been saying."
"We are not Moammar, paying whatever gratuity whore fee is necessary to buy the French spreading of the legs approval"
Diplomats said that Mr de Villepin did not explicitly repeat his call during the talks, but said the handover should be completed "by the autumn".

Later, Mr Annan said the five foreign ministers - from Britain, China, France, Russia and the US - had agreed that power should be transferred to the Iraqis "as soon as possible". He was encouraged that the talks had shown "many points of convergence", and promised to resume work on a resolution in New York this week, but admitted that difficulties remained. Diplomats were downbeat about the prospects for a quick agreement.

The proposed US resolution would create a multinational force under a unified UN command but with an American commander.

President George W. Bush is urgently seeking help from other nations over peacekeeping and reconstruction, in an effort to reduce the burden on the US treasury and enable him to scale down the number of American troops in Iraq.

French demands for almost immediate restoration of Iraqi sovereignty were echoed yesterday by Adnan Pachachi, a member of the US-appointed governing council in Baghdad. He said he and his 24 colleagues wanted the fastest possible transfer of authority.

France also wants a new constitution for Iraq to be settled by next spring, and a commitment to May elections. During yesterday’s meeting, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, pointed out that London and Washington had already said they hoped to see a new constitution in place by next summer, with elections to follow soon after.

He said later: "What we’ve agreed that we all want to see is the transfer of power to the Iraqi people as quickly as possible, but we must do so in a way that ensures security and good government.

"The issue is: what are the steps and staging posts for getting from where we are to where we want to be? I am reasonably confident that we can do that."

Colin Powell was on his way to Iraq from Geneva last night, said the American State Department, making him the most senior US politician to visit the country since Saddam Hussein was toppled
We run own it, and I’ll visit it as I wish
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 7:49:28 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Mark Steyn: Anna Lindh was a victim of a "bystander" mentality
The Telegraph, 9/13/03. EFL.
Miss Lindh was a charmer, even if you didn’t agree with a word she said. It wasn’t until afterwards that I found out she liked to refer to Bush as "the Lone Ranger" and that she’d complained about America dropping bombs on six al-Qa’eda terrorists in Yemen. She believed in the "Swedish model", a phrase that to Don Rumsfeld probably means Anita Ekberg, but that Swedes understand as the most advanced form of European cradle-to-grave welfare democracy.

But, for the second time in as many weeks, I find myself wondering where European statism is heading. In France, where the death toll in the brutal Gallic summer is now up to 15,000, the attitude of Junior to the funny smell coming from grandma’s apartment was the proverbial Gallic shrug and a demand that the government do something about it. On Thursday, Swedes, though more upset, took much the same line: "This can happen to anyone, anywhere," said Annika, described as "a 24-year-old bystander", at the scene of the attack. "She should have had bodyguards."

There seem to have been an awful lot of bystanders to Miss Lindh’s stabbing - in broad daylight, in a crowded department store, after being pursued by her assailant up an escalator. Granted that many of the people bystanding around were women, it still seems odd - at least from my side of the Atlantic - that no one attempted to intervene or halt the blood-drenched killer as he calmly left the store. I’m inclined to agree with Jimmy Hoffa that I’d rather jump a gun than a knife - and even Jimmy’s luck ran out eventually - but, if just a handful of the dozens present had acted rather than bystanding, Miss Lindh might still be dead, but her killer would be in jail and not en route, like Olof Palme’s, to becoming yet another man that got away.

. . . The lone exception [of those interviewed in Swedish media] was Lanja Rashid, a Kurdish immigrant. "If I had been there at the stabbing, I would have ripped his face off," she said. "How could people just stand back and watch?"

You can blame it on a lack of police, as everyone’s doing. But Miss Lindh’s killer didn’t get away with it because of the people who weren’t there, but because of the people who were: the bystanders.
Class: compare and contrast the response of Swedish bystanders with those of passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 on 9/11/01. Which do you consider more effective, and why?

When I bought my home in New Hampshire, I heard a strange rustling one night and, being new to rural life, asked my police chief the following morning, if it had turned out to be an intruder, whether I should have called him at home. "Well, you could," said Al. "But it would be better if you dealt with him. You’re there and I’m not." That’s the best advice I’ve ever been given.

This isn’t an argument for guns, it’s more basic than that: it’s the difference between a citizen and a nanny-state baby. In Lee Harris’s forthcoming book Civilization And Its Enemies, he talks about the threat of societal forgetfulness: "Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen or their children sold into slavery by a victorious foe."

But Anna Lindh would have thought that was just American cowboy talk, too raw, too primal to be of relevance in Europe. After 9/11, my wife bought me a cellphone, so that, in the event I found myself in a similar situation, I could at least call my family one last time. It’s not much use up here in the mountains, so I never bothered getting it out of the box. If I ever am on a hijacked plane, while everyone else is dialling home, I’ll be calling AT&T or Verizon trying to set up an account.

But, of course, no one will ever hijack an American plane ever again - not because of idiotic confiscations of tweezers, but because of the brave passengers on the fourth flight. That’s why the great British shoebomber had barely got the match to his sock before half the cabin pounded the crap out of him. Even the French. To expect the government to save you is to be a bystander in your own fate.
*Lee Harris is also the author of an important essay, "Al Qaeda’s Fantasy Ideology," which appeared last summer in Policy Review. From what I’ve seen, it appears that the book is an expansion or continuation of the Policy Review piece.
Posted by: Mike || 09/13/2003 12:05:54 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "...and in this case are are the remains of the last member of Scandinavius Domesticus, which like the dodo, let itself be hunted into extinction..."
Posted by: Pappy || 09/13/2003 14:11 Comments || Top||

#2  I would disagree. The lamentable "bystander mentality" has little to do with being a welfare state or nor. I could name quite a few U.S. examples for it (including personal experiences in NY, where a man in a business suit was lying down motionless and passers by stepped over him without giving a damn (I called 911). Ok that was NY in the 70s, might be different now.
But Sweden is the wrong example. I know the country fairly well and I found the locals to be rather caring about each other. They'd still have that Scandinavian "mind your own business thing" (but isn't that very American, too?), but if help was needed it was given freely. The Swedish don't see their state as something remote, "above them", they have much stronger ties to it as being "them" than Americans. For most Americans state and government is the idea of bureaucrats spending tax dollars in far away Washington while the Swedish see the state like a "commonwealth". The state is among them, not above. Maybe that's why they refused to give Mrs Lindh her bodyguards: The state doesn't need protection from its people, it IS the people.
To compare Flight 93 with that incident simply isn't fair: The brave passengers knew what had happened. They not only knew that they were on their way to die without remedy, they knew that their plane was used to kill a lot more people. They had nothing to lose, so they decided they might just as well do something about it. Maybe the Swedish bystanders just weren't "the right stuff". But to blame it on the different concept Americans and the Swedish have when it comes to society and the state is not fair and does not apply. Bravery and resolve of individuals occur in any society. The real reason for by-stander mentality is the growing anonymity in our societies. Whether the place is Paris, Stockholm or New York doesn't matter. In close knit communities you are far less like to experience this mentality.
Posted by: True German Ally || 09/13/2003 14:22 Comments || Top||

#3  TGA, I understand your argument, but the basic premise does hold: what does one do when one sees a serious crime happening right in front of you, and you have time to do something about it?

For the passengers of Flight 93, the decision was obvious if you have the mindset to consider the decision in the first place. Unfortunately, while the Swedish people may see their government as among them and not above them, they don't see their fellow citizen as someone worth defending. Ms. Lindh was stabbed over a time period of a couple of minutes. No one intervened, because intervention just isn't part of the national psyche there.

Whereas I think it is in America, especially now. Not just 9/11 but the various school shootings and like have convinced a large number of Americans that if we want safety, we'd better be ready to stand up and fight when necessary. You're right about certain past incidents in our history (e.g., the Kitty Genovese murder in New York), and it's shameful. We were shamed by it, and we're not inclined to let it happen anymore. We may be more anonymous in our society, but there is the recognition that we're Americans, and we're going to look after each other (witness the behavior of New Yorkers versus Torontoans in the blackout).

No disrespect to the Swedes -- there's a lot about them and their country to admire. But the article is right in its premise that the Swedes have become nanny-state babies.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 15:46 Comments || Top||

#4  I agree with both Steve and TGA.

I lived in Sweden for a year and I'm quite sure the Swedes I became friends with would have no second thoughts in jumping in to help Mrs. Lindh. The problem is that NK, the very tony department store in Stockholm (think Harrod's), is not likely to have very many studly Vikings hanging around. Most (all?) the witnesses were women and the killer was a big man. He was pursued but lost his pursuers by running out into the heavy foot traffic of the central city. It happens.

However, Steve is right that socialism does breed and encourage by law a certain passivity. Steyn's piece reminds me of a piece written in The New Republic a decade ago of a Czech ex-pat who returned from NYC after Communism fell and ended up stabbing a neo-Nazi skinhead in self defense after being set upon by the gang. The man found himself in a legal nightmare (Kafkaesque?) for doing what most Americans would've gotten an "attaboy" from the cops for doing. See also the Brit farmer who killed an intruder then got prison for it.

Ironically, in the US, courts have thrown out "malpractice" lawsuits against the cops because the cops are NOT legally bound to save you. Lesson: You're on your own so do what you gotta do and let the chips fall where they may. Now stay safe out there!
Posted by: JDB || 09/13/2003 16:19 Comments || Top||

#5  There is a lot to blame on socialism (and I'm the first to jump in there) but I don't think that the Lindh case qualifies (btw Sweden has already done away with many of its welfare excesses). But in communist Eastern Europe people helped each other much more than in the "cold" capitalist states.

I'm also rather convinced that if a blackout strikes Stockholm or Berlin, things wouldn't be that much different.

It's the anonymity that makes people not care.
Posted by: True German Ally || 09/13/2003 17:31 Comments || Top||

#6  Some commentators here in Finland have wondered about the bystanders' reactions too.From what I know,I wouldn't be so confident as to pass judgment.One eyewitness said she didn't realize what was going on until Lindh had fallen to the ground and she saw the blood.I don't think one should jump to conclusions based on one incident.
Posted by: El Id || 09/13/2003 19:35 Comments || Top||


Spain pursues napalm suspects
A Spanish judge has reopened a case against four men after tests suggested they could have used household chemicals to make napalm. The four were among 16 arrested in January in the northeast region of Catalonia and subsequently released. A High Court judge on Friday summoned the men to testify after an FBI report said the substances found in their home could have been mixed with petroleum products to produce "homemade napalm," which can be used in incendiary bombs. The men, who had been freed on bail, are charged with cooperation with an armed group. They had been accused by the Spanish government of belonging to Algeria's Salafist movement, a splinter group of the Armed Islamic Group with alleged links to al-Qaida.
That would be the GSPC, of course...
Separately, the Interior Ministry said Spanish police had arrested Youb Saoudi, one of the 16 originally detained in January, at the request of Algeria. Algeria wants to extradite Saoudi, an Algerian citizen, to face charges of setting up "an armed terrorist group", the ministry said in a statement. It was not clear if he was also one of the four men summoned by the judge, because officials did not release their names. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said at the time of January's arrests his government had smashed a "major terrorist network". Authorities later released all but two of the men in March after suspected chemical weapons material found at their homes turned out to be laundry soap.
Which isn't necessarily as innocuous as it appears...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 10:11 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In France soap would be suspicious, but Spain? Naaaahhhhh. Now, the bottles with the wicks stuffed in the necks? Maybe...
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 10:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Umm, everyone knows that all you need to make napalm is gasoline and soap, right? I think every household in the North America has those ingredients!
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 09/13/2003 10:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Umm, everyone knows that all you need to make napalm is gasoline and soap, right?

Actually, Scooter, you don't even need that much. There are over a dozen working recipes for jellied gasoline (napalm is just the name for one SPECIFIC type, napatha palmitate). *I* was taught them by the army, but you can find similar recipes all over the damned net. All it is, really, is just a thick liquid soap that burns. Very simple, and I'm told that the folks who invented the first version actually wondered why they hadn't thought of it decades earlier. Then realized, hey, they'd just RE-invented Greek Fire. Duh.

Ed Becerra
Posted by: Ed Becerra || 09/13/2003 13:20 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Foreign students leaving madrassas
Foreign students are leaving Pakistan's Islamic seminaries, known as madrassas, in droves for fear of arrest under the government crackdown against Islamic extremism, a seminary official said.
Somehow, I doubt they're going to go under any time soon...
"Pakistan is no longer a safe place for foreign students studying in our madrassas," said Mufti Mohammed Jamil, spokesman for the Federation of Madrassas. "About 500 have already moved to South Africa in a year. Others are also planning to pack their bags."
Welcome to the next Islamic hellhole...
The students, most of whom hail from Arab and African nations, were reluctant to leave Pakistan, but feared they could be arrested in the name of al Qaeda, Mr. Jamil said. "They used to feel Pakistan was their second home, but not anymore," he said. "Pakistan now looks like an American colony."
"You can see it in the number of red-white-and-blue turbans on the streets..."
There are around 10,000 religious schools registered with the Wifaq-ul-Madaris central board of seminaries, which prepares syllabi and holds examinations, but another 10,000 are thought to run independently in rural and remote tribal areas — particularly along the Afghan border.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 16:40 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They could of course have tried to get into a real university and get a real education and a real job.
Posted by: True German Ally || 09/13/2003 17:38 Comments || Top||

#2  It must be the proximity to Kashmir that draws all the kooks to Pakistan. The madrassas don't appear to offer anything in the way of teaching that would draw students from outside the country. Mecca, Medina or Najaf would have more religious significance to honest Moslems.
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 17:51 Comments || Top||

#3  I feel bad for south africa... that country is going down the tubes fast and this won't help matters...
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 09/13/2003 19:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Damn_Proud_American ???
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 19:58 Comments || Top||

#5  Why would South Africa welcome militant muslims?
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 21:22 Comments || Top||

#6  Why would South Africa welcome militant muslims?

S.A. is a logical destination. It's a relatively advanced, geographically remote, African country with an existing Muslim minority, run by the ANC(which doesn't care if they are militant, as long as they aren't militant against the S.A. government), and it isn't under WoT scrutiny.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/13/2003 23:48 Comments || Top||

#7  Frank G,

I'm assuming the question marks are because I found the negative with what appears to be good news. I guess my issue is that these people are just gonna move to another place and destroy another country. After we're done with the arab/south asia muslim countries, Africa will be the next problem. South Africa should be a great country... it's got great weather, incredible tourists sights... but with these islamists moving in they're gonna destroy the country. They're like a cancer and we're watching it spread as we eliminate from one place it moves to another...
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 09/14/2003 3:39 Comments || Top||


‘Extremists will be eliminated’
President Pervez Musharraf has vowed to overcome extremism by eliminating extremist elements from Pakistan.
Does that mean shooting them dead? Hanging them? Or exporting them to Kashmir and Afghanistan?
President Musharraf said this during a meeting with Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat in Rawalpindi on Friday. Sources told Daily Times the president and the interior minister vowed to continue the operation against the Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan. The interior minister briefed the president on the law and order situation and the meeting continued for more than one-and-a-hours, the sources added.
Trying to discuss law and order in Pakland would definitely call for a lengthy conversation, especially as it woudl have to allow time for extended bouts of weeping. Perhaps they should do it more often?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 16:24 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Hizb ut-Tehrir condemns Musharraf’s comments on caliphate
Hizb ut-Tehrir (HT) spokesman Naveed Butt on Friday said President Pervez Musharraf’s comments that caliphate was unworkable in the present age was an insult to Islam.
That's the way Islamists say "He must be killed!"
Criticizing President Musharraf interview with BBC, he said Mr Musharraf was playing into the hands of the West and afraid of the Muslim unity. He said the West wanted to confine Islam to mosques. He said the Muslims all over the world would stand up against the present system.
Having a guy with a jewelled turban and some dancing girls being in charge of every aspect of your life is a sure way to bring about a prosperous and happy society...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 16:19 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Pakistan rejects Rocca’s remarks
Pakistan on Friday expressed surprise at and denied US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca’s remarks about cross-border infiltration. Pakistani officials asked the United States to persuade India to stop repressing people in occupied Kashmir and stop putting off dialogue with Islamabad. “Pakistan is at the forefront of the war against terrorism,” a Foreign Office spokesman said, adding that in a telephone conversation with President Pervez Musharraf a few days ago, US President George Bush commended Pakistan’s role in this regard. The spokesman said especially after September 11, 2003, Pakistan had suffered a ‘blowback’ from Afghanistan. “In its own interest, Pakistan is determined to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations,” he said.
"Except for Lashkar e-Taiba, Jaish e-Muhammad, SSP, Hizbul Mujaheddin, and that sort of thing, of course..."
He also dismissed allegations of any cross-border infiltration. “There is no infiltration along the line of control (LoC). Pakistan is not backing any cross-border movement,” he said.
Then his lips fell off and he could say no more...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 16:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Court acquits Malik Ishaq, seven aides
Multan anti terrorism court No I headed by Abdul Qadar Shad on Friday acquitted Malik Ishaq, the former chief of banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi and his seven accomplices giving them benefit of the doubt in the murder of three men. “The prosecution failed to prove the charge against Malik Ishaq, Ijaz Ahmed, Ghulam Rasul, Zubair Ahmed, Muhammad Yousaf, Usman Ahmed, Muhammad Zafar and Dilawar Hasnain,” the court official said. According to the first information report, three masked motorcyclists with automatic weapons allegedly entered the hotel of a shia activist in Faisalabad in 1997 and sprayed the place with bullets killing three men Sajjad Hussain, Abdul Hameed and Shafaat Hussain instantly. However, none of them could be released because they were convicted in other cases of sectarian killing.
They can be released for those later.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 16:05 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


India says 'no' to US Iraqi troop request
India cannot send soldiers to help the United States in Iraq because its forces are too busy fighting Islamic separatists in Kashmir, a senior Indian defence official said on Friday.
And Pakland can't send them because they're busy training the guys the Indians are fighting...
US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca raised the issue again in New Delhi this week after India turned down Washington's request in July, saying there was no clear United Nations mandate for an international force. "The ground situation in the northwest sector (Kashmir) is such that we cannot afford to send our military personnel at this point of time, but this is not a flat no," the official said. India has previously indicated it could consider sending troops if the UN sanctioned an international force. The US has request that India deploy a division, about 15,000 to 20,000 soldiers. It is the first time officials in New Delhi have linked India's ability to help in Iraq with violence in disputed Kashmir.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 00:36 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Makes you wonder how sincere their offer was to send troops if only the UN blessed it. Well no, I don't wonder at all.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 0:41 Comments || Top||

#2  India is, well, insanely jealous - of just about anyone else's success, but particularly the US. Being painfully aware of their own backwardness just makes it that much worse for the Delhi DingDongs. It's a toss-up between India and China for the title of
"Biggest chip balanced on a shoulder in the History of The World", methinks.

Pakistan is easier - they're just plain insane.
Posted by: .com (Prez for Life - My Isles of Langerhans) || 09/13/2003 2:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Weelllllllll, I'm sure that the next round of H1-B quotas can be trimmed back a bit. (with the definition of "a bit" still pending of course, heh heh)
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 09/13/2003 2:12 Comments || Top||

#4  We have been wrong to look at all these conflict zones throughout the world in isolation. In each seperate case the problem is guys with guns and the solution is peacekeepers. The solution is is the problem.

The world doesn't actually need more peacekeepers, it needs an effective exchange program. If the US needs more boots on the ground in Iraq, Lybia nd Somalia has them. Just cut a deal with one of the warlords that doesn't stand a chance in hell of being the sole survivor in his individual setting.

I might take some time to knock the rough edges off of some of their techniques. Spray-and-pray is not the most effective answer to every situation afterall, but removing an entire army of soliders from Somalia and replacing them with some an effective group of trained hired guns peace-keepers from Liberia can't be worse than sending in boys from Uraguay.
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 9:45 Comments || Top||

#5  yeah, like I said. No troops, no money. But we'll get sweet 'legitimacy'. Just bribing the Europeans so they'll SHUT UP about having international cooperation.
Posted by: eyeyeye || 09/13/2003 10:17 Comments || Top||


Iraq
US nabs 80 foreign fighters in Iraq
About 80 foreign fighters who were captured in the northeast region of Iraq within the past 24 hours were in the U.S.-led coalition’s custody Thursday and being interrogated about why they were in Iraq.
The fighters were nabbed between the city of Mosul and the Syrian border. The operation, only a day old and set to conclude shortly, was conducted by elements of the 101st Airborne Division and the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Officials said the foreign fighters come from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Sudan and Syria. They were found with nearly 1 million Iraqi Dinars, and some $75,000 in U.S. currency. Initial reports indicate they were relatively lightly armed — mostly with machine guns, shot guns and sniper rifles.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 09/13/2003 2:04:33 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Captured? Why? Maneuver them into a favorable position, then drop a MOAB on them.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 09/13/2003 2:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Lightly armed - but loaded with money to buy what they needed in-country (easier than lugging the hardware around - and there's plenty to be had) and that funny gleam in their eye that sez, "Go ahead, make my day, arrest me before I can even reach the Sunni Traingle!" Being gracious gentlemen, the 101st and the 3rd obliged. "It was the least we could do - some of them had come so far." said Pvt Buddy "Rat-a-tat" Roberts, SAW Specialist. "They looked real tired - and when we jumped 'em, they saved us a whole bunch of ammo by just giving up right there. Mighty considerate of 'em, I'd say."

Perhaps this Op should grow some legs and be extended a bit... since they struck gold and all... Hold off on that MOAB, B-a-R... Replicate this on the Eastern and Southern borders and who knows? Might nab enough of these clowns that the Saudis & Black Hats will end up paying for the occupation! (snicker)
Posted by: .com (Prez for Life - My Isles of Langerhans) || 09/13/2003 2:30 Comments || Top||

#3  I guess it would be too much to ask for US democrats to STFU about criticism of Iraq, now that we know foreign fighters are infiltrating into Iraq. The war is still on and their silence will be far more useful than their traitorous yammering about the war that is still going on in Iraq.
Posted by: badanov || 09/13/2003 5:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Bomb-a-rama: Intel my boy, intel. What is left after a MOAB does not say much. Better the giggle juice.
Posted by: Ben || 09/13/2003 5:58 Comments || Top||

#5  Following the money. Say jihad, where'ja get these 'death to america' flyers, and the 20 grand ?
Posted by: eyeyeye || 09/13/2003 10:20 Comments || Top||

#6  "About 300, er, make that 80 foreign fighters who were captured..."
Posted by: Anonymous || 09/13/2003 11:17 Comments || Top||

#7  Next step is to incorporate them into a chain gang to lay a minefield from the Iraq-Kuwait-Saudi corner, up to the Jordanian border, then north and east across the Jordanian border, along the Syrian border, and up to the Turkish border. Lay it in a neat pattern - a box/12 overlapping a second, random grouping, all capable of being activated/deactivated electronically. About a half-mile wide sounds right. Add a paved road just beyond the minefield, with both ground-based and air-mobile surveillance crews. Go out once a day, turn the field off long enough to clear the "catch", then turn it back on again.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 09/13/2003 17:33 Comments || Top||

#8  I recommend pink underwear for all my friends on Old Patriot's chain gang.
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 17:55 Comments || Top||

#9  right after they finish the minefield, perhaps they can get to work burying the oil pipelines so that they can't be sabotaged quite so easily. Yes, I know it's easier to just lay them across the top of the sand, but you'd think that security would have been considered -- considering the neighborhood...
Posted by: snellenr || 09/13/2003 23:14 Comments || Top||


Shiite Leader Wants U.S. to Cede Security
NewsMax.com Wires
Saturday, Sept. 13, 2003
BAGHDAD --
The United States should cede some authority over internal security to Iraqi groups, but the powerful Shiite organization, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, will immediately cooperate with U.S. efforts to disarm their military wing, Abdul Aziz, their leader told United Press International.
"We want what we want when we want it!"™ (The warcry of the 3 yr old)
"But, um, okay, we’ll stop waving our guns around."

In the chaos of Iraq’s security problems, Aziz, the new head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, told UPI that he would tell the militia he controls to accede to a call by U.S. military authorities to disarm by Saturday.
Oh goodie, another Abdul Aziz... A Supreme, no less...
And the other militias?

Speaking at his first public appearance as the new leader of SCIRI, he urged the United States to allow Iraqi groups to "take responsibility for the security of the Iraqi people," adding Iraqis should "deal with the full responsibility to protect the interests of Iraq."
Yes, yes indeed, this would be a good thing. But you could take responsibility for yourselves sans a big gold star pinned on your turban.
Both his role as the head of a militia and the killing of his brother Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim by unknown factions two weeks ago framed the statements he made to reporters on security and tensions with the U.S. occupational authority.
Yes it did, Mr UPI uber-reporter... Thanx for that. Uh huh.
The Iran-backed SCIRI’s Badr Brigades have taken a visible role in protecting various Shiite neighborhoods and mosques since the killing. Their presence has alarmed U.S. authorities who wish to avoid a confrontation with the group that has, at least for now, been willing to reluctantly accept the U.S. presence.
Ah, the legendary Badr Brigades. Yes, a colorful past of, uh, um, 2 months. So many titles and groups, so few followers. Will there be enough to go around?
Aziz said the United States had failed to provide security for Iraqis by implementing "the wrong policies. ... The Iraqi people can take responsibility for many security issues, we have a lot of experience in these issues."
Really? Did you collaborate with Saddam? If not, then your last experience is about 40 yrs ago. AA is yet another classic all talk, read my mind, no not that mind, the other one, blame specialist. Good. Just what Iraq needs. Regards what security was present in Najaf, you asked for it demanded the soldiers stay away, you got it, and then your brother went *boom*. QED.
He said failure to heed his warning would lead to "more dead U.S. soldiers" because of the continued bloodshed.
That’s about as clearly written as solid mud. Good, Mr UPI. Thanx.
But when pressed by United Press International, Aziz said that despite his criticism of the U.S. security measures, he would ensure that the Badr Brigades cooperated with disarmament efforts. U.S. authorities have set an unofficial deadline of Saturday for such a move.
Blatant plug... Mr UPI saves the day, extracts the crucial intel, and we’ll all live happily ever after, I guess.
"We do not want them to fight the U.S. forces," Aziz said.
Cuz they get very dead when they do.
Highlighting complications surrounding such security issues, on Friday at least eight Iraqi security personnel involved in a car chase were reportedly killed by U.S. forces, apparently mistakenly, in Fallujah, only 30 miles from Baghdad.
Yup. We know about that.
The Iraqi policemen in three cars were pursuing suspects in a fourth car, the BBC reported. Apparently, U.S. troops opened fire at a checkpoint when the vehicles passed through, also killing those in the car being chased.
That happens when you approach an armed force at a checkpoint at high speed and sporting arms. Hard to tell the Good Guys from the Bad Guys in Iraq. Might be because there are so few reliably good guys - and the majority of those are up in Kurdistan, er, the North.

No Ethnic Militias
In his interview with UPI, Aziz clarified his position as opposing individual ethnic and religious groups providing their own unilateral militias -- like the Badr Brigade -- for security, but called for a group operated by a multi-ethnic council that would oversee security and coordinate with the U.S. forces.
"I will, of course, be happy to lead such a force..."
"We don’t want to see militias formed," he said. "We would rather see one military or security service formed by a government. But we are at the urgent stages of the occupation and must find a quick treatment. This group (the Badr Brigade) can play an important role (in such oversight)."
"Yes, um, it’s for the good of Iraq, you see."
In reference to his brother’s killing outside the shrine of the Imam Ali in Najaf, Aziz placed the blame on remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime as the single largest threat to the development of a sovereign Iraq.
"Yeah, the Ba’athists did it, that’s the ticket. Saddam always did like me best."
"Followers of Saddam are the biggest and most dangerous threat to the Iraqi people," he said. "The martyrdom of Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim is very important for the Iraqi people to understand the plans being laid against them to create (divisions) in the Iraqi community.
"The Ba’athists are behind everything - why haven’t you killed them all, yet?"
"I will fight to maintain Iraqi sovereignty and not let the enemies of Iraq succeed in shredding (a free and multi-ethnic) Iraq."
Funny you should mention shredding, but it doesn’t make much sense in this context, AA.
In a recent statement believed to be from Saddam, the former Iraqi leader denied involvement in the killing. And while many Iraqi Shiite suspect the killing was conducted by fundamentalist Sunnis from outside Iraq, Aziz did not make any reference to outside forces. He did, however, rebuke Arabic-language satellite news networks, such as al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya, whom he accused of giving credibility to the remnants of the Iraq regime and those who would come to Iraq to commit acts of violence.
Don’t like being the Arabic killing fields huh? Don’t want to acknowledge the external jihadis, either. Typical... Saving it for another interview, I guess.
He said the stations should stop spreading disinformation and warned them against "participating in separating Iraqis from each other and the calling for killings, support for terrorist groups and defending them and their motivations."
An Arab who knows that the Arabic "news" outlets are active participants instead of observers, and not sympathetic to stability in Iraq, either. Who’da thunk it?
He specifically chided them for describing opponents of a unified Iraq as a resistance force and for calling their casualties "martyrs," which has religious connotations in Islam. Although Aziz lacks the stature of his brother, who was considered a top cleric in Shiite Islam, he is widely considered both religiously conservative and reluctant to support the U.S. occupation.
"My brother was taller than me, so he was the big dude at home. Hang on there - ’martyr’ is religious stuff! See this turban!???!? I will decide who is a martyr and who is just a deader!"
Copyright 2003 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
Posted by: .com (Prez for Life - My Isles of Langerhans) || 09/13/2003 1:30:24 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The United States should cede some authority over internal security to Iraqi groups,..

That was done once already. The result? A bombed mosque and a dead Shiite mullah. Any other bright ideas?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 09/13/2003 2:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Then the first time they get hit they'll be screaming "Where the fuck were you?!"
How many chromosomes do you have to be missing to become a Muslim?
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/13/2003 12:43 Comments || Top||

#3  How many chromosomes do you have to be missing to become a Muslim?
Can't tell you, tu, I don't know any researcher could answer that question. All I do know is that you have to have at least one more than a clam before you can be accepted...
Posted by: Old Patriot || 09/13/2003 17:36 Comments || Top||


Wolfowitz Retracts al-Qaida, Iraq Claim
EFL
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon’s No. 2 official retreated Friday from his assertion that key lieutenants of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden are plotting with Saddam Hussein loyalists to kill Americans in Iraq.

In a television interview on Thursday’s anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said "a great many" bin Laden operatives were working to link up with remnants of Saddam’s regime to attack Americans. "We know it (Iraq) had a great deal to do with terrorism in general and with al-Qaida in particular, and we know a great many of bin Laden’s key lieutenants are now trying to organize in cooperation with old loyalists from the Saddam regime to attack in Iraq," he said Thursday on ABC’s "Good Morning America."

But Wolfowitz - an architect of U.S. policy in Iraq - said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press that he had misspoken. He said U.S. military forces were still trying to identify foreign fighters flowing into Iraq and whether they are collaborating with Saddam loyalists resisting the U.S.-led occupation forces.

On the subject of bin Laden deputies, Wolfowitz said he was referring to only one man - bin Laden supporter Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of the few names that Bush administration officials previously have cited to assert links between al-Qaida and Iraq before the war. Al-Zarqawi allegedly helped train Iraqis in the use of poisonous chemicals and once received medical care in Baghdad, U.S. officials have said.

"Zarqawi is actually the guy I was referring to - should have been more precise," Wolfowitz said Friday. "It’s not a great many - it’s one of bin Laden’s key associates - probably better referred to that way than a key lieutenant."

"On the specific issue of cooperation (between al-Qaida and insurgents), I have to emphasize this is a very hard target to penetrate," Wolfowitz said. "Our highest priority in Iraq is to get better intelligence on these people."

"There are some indications that they work together and they certainly work at common purpose," he said, declining to say what the indications are.

Wolfowitz’s original claim suggested a dangerous new development for the U.S.-led forces trying to stabilize the country. Wolfowitz made his assertion Thursday after an ABC interviewer asked why the administration had put resources into the campaign in Iraq, which the interviewer said had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks, while bin Laden was still at large.

"I appreciate the chance to say it a little more carefully because this was sort of unanticipated," Wolfowitz told the AP in retracting his statements. "I went ... to talk about Sept. 11."

In another Sept. 11 interview, Wolfowitz told The Washington Post that hundreds of fighters from al-Qaida and other groups were now in Iraq. "There are some thousands of former Baathists (members of Saddam’s Baath Party) and some hundreds of al-Qaida and other foreign terrorists who are ... killing Americans and Iraqis and U.N. officials and moderate Shiite leaders in order to destabilize Iraq," Wolfowitz said in that interview. On Friday, he said he couldn’t say how many of the hundreds of foreigners might be al-Qaida because U.S. military forces were still trying to identify them.

The Bush administration has outlined only limited evidence of Iraqi-al-Qaida contacts before the war, and no conclusive evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida plotted joint terror operations. Likewise, U.S. officials have said they have a poor picture of who is arrayed against U.S. forces in Iraq now, and how coordinated their activities are.
Kevin Drum at Calpundit is (as a liberal-left blogger) making noise about how sinister this is. After reading this I think Wolfowitz was just caught off guard in the first interview and -- correctly -- moved fast to correct himself.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 1:02:24 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes - the infallibility of the LibLeft is legendary - only The Pope™ has a better record (and that's the straight poop direct from the Vatican!) - so Wolfie had better be vewy vewy caweful! Bushies are not allowed mistakes! 8-)
Posted by: .com (Prez for Life - My Isles of Langerhans) || 09/13/2003 1:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Langerhans Delenda Est!
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 10:38 Comments || Top||


Powell Rejects French Timetable for Iraq
GENEVA (AP) - Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday rejected as "totally unrealistic" a French timetable for the full transfer of authority in Iraq to local control, starting with the establishment of a provisional government next month.
Everything the French propose is unrealistic. This is news?
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin allegedly a man outlined the proposals on the eve of a meeting here Saturday involving U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and representatives of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. Powell will meet separately with each of his colleagues, including de Villepin, who has been a persistent foe of American policy in Iraq since before the American-led invasion. Given the differences with the views of France and other countries, Powell predicted that the debate will be "spirited."
Colin hunts around for the Clue Bat™ ...
In an opinion piece in the French anti-American newspaper Le Monde, de Villepin wrote that a provisional government should be established in Iraq in a month, a draft constitution by the end of the year and elections next spring.

"It would be delightful if one could do that but one can’t do that," Powell told reporters while en route to Switzerland.
Colin then picks up the Clue Bat™ and says ...
The French, in effect, are proposing that "we stop everything we’re doing," he said. "We have invested too much to consider such a proposal."
Batter up!
In comments that appeared to be directed at France, Powell said the United States has a long record as a liberator of countries and not as an occupier. "We’ve done a lot of liberation in Europe after other Europeans had occupied parts of Europe," Powell said.
"For example, we liberated the French from Vichy!"
In the discussions here, Powell will defend a U.S. proposal before the Security Council that invites the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council to cooperate with the United Nations and U.S. officials in Baghdad to produce "a timetable and program for the drafting of a new constitution for Iraq and for the holding of democratic elections." It contains no time frame, and it leaves the key decisions in the hands of the Governing Council. The resolution also calls for the creation of a multinational force under a unified U.N. command with an American commander.

Russia and Germany, a rotating member of the Security Council, have joined France in opposing the U.S. draft resolution.
Oh well, we tried.
Powell said he believes the draft has the required minimum of nine votes for approval - assuming there is no veto. "I think we’re pretty far up the ladder," he said.
"Please, Miss Mr. De Villepin, feel free to veto."
De Villepin, in his article, wrote, "Today, it is urgent to transfer sovereignty to the Iraqi people themselves to permit them to fully assume their responsibilities."
De Villepin and responsibility in the same sentence? Isn’t that illegal in some countries?
He added that continuing on the current path in Iraq runs "the risk of entering into a spiral with no net return for TotalFinaElf."

In a Thursday interview with France’s TV2 network, a copy of which was made available Friday, Powell said he agrees that sovereignty should be returned to the Iraqi people but only when conditions are ripe. "To whom do we give it?" he asked. "We have to create a government. We have to create a parliament. We have to put in place a constitution after it’s been written. We have to have elections. Nobody wants to turn sovereignty back to the Iraqis as fast as the United States does, President Bush does and I do."

Asked if the United Nations should play a leading role, Powell replied: "I said vital. I don’t know what leading means."
"And I’m not interested in finding out!"
Powell said Wednesday in an interview with Al-Jazeera, the Arab satellite network, that Iraq would face "total chaos" if the United States surrendered to demands for a hasty U.S. transfer of authority to Iraqi control.
Interesting what this resolution has done -- it has smoked out the Indians and Paks since neither will commit troops after all. It shows us who our real enemies opponents are in the UNSC. And it sets the stage for GWB to say, "we tried but they won’t work with us", which will buy 14 months some time to let Iraq stabilize.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 12:54:43 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Iraq is already stabilizing as it is. Sure, we might get attack here and there, but it's nothing like whats it used to be.
Posted by: Charles || 09/13/2003 1:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Dubya has to disinvite Prez Putty from his announced upcoming visit to Da Ranch. The guy's just a total loss and waste of space. I'd call him a political whore, but that'd be an insult to all whores. The kind I know, and love, are the most honest people on the planet. Putty's the inverse variety.
Posted by: .com (Prez for Life - My Isles of Langerhans) || 09/13/2003 2:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Meanwhile, Big Daddy and the Heavy Crew are in Mockba talking Turkey...
Posted by: mojo || 09/13/2003 3:10 Comments || Top||

#4  ... de Villepin wrote that a provisional government should be established in Iraq in a month, a draft constitution by the end of the year and elections next spring.

Elections which the Phrawnce would be more than happy to... suggest... candidates for. After all, part of the "responsibilites" is paying off those Phrench IOUs
Posted by: Pappy || 09/13/2003 11:14 Comments || Top||

#5  Ironic that after over 12 years of foot dragging on Iraq before with no intent to do anything, they want an overnight change of power?

Hey France, "Go F*@K yourself!"

Indian and Pakland troops are useless anyways. (Good to know who wear the "yellow" turbans.)

Oh, wait...they do make excellent hat racks.
Posted by: Paul || 09/13/2003 15:12 Comments || Top||

#6  Occupation timetables for Germany and Japan are dated and not applicable to this situation. The timetable for the Syrian occupation of Lebanon would be a closer model, right? ...
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 17:57 Comments || Top||

#7  Good call. We need more time for inspections. Stop this "rush to war". Give inspections as long as it takes. And NOW ? Where's the patience ? Assholes.
Posted by: eyeyeye || 09/13/2003 18:02 Comments || Top||


Turkey, U.S. Agree on Joint Action Plan
The United States and Turkey agreed Friday on ``a joint plan of action’’ regarding Turkish Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, U.S. officials said.
I sure hope this doesn’t cost us anything.
Turkey, NATO’s only Muslim member, is considering a request by Washington to send peacekeepers to neighboring Iraq, but wants help in dealing with an estimated 5,000 rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, that are based in northern Iraq. A U.S. team headed by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State B. Lynn Pascoe met with Turkish government, military and intelligence officials in Ankara Friday to discuss cooperation on the issue of Kurdish rebels, who fought a 15-year war for autonomy in southeastern Turkey. After the talks, Pascoe told reporters that Turkey and the United States had agreed on a ``a joint plan of action,’’ but provided no details. ``We’re very sympathetic with the problems that Turkey has had on this issue,’’ Pascoe said.
Kiss yer heinies goodbye, KADEK!
The State Department has branded the PKK, which now calls itself KADEK, as a terrorist organization. The possible deployment of peacekeepers is deeply controversial in Turkey. A recent poll indicated that a majority of Turks oppose the move. Turkish officials have said that a U.N. resolution backing the deployment of foreign troops in Iraq would make the Turkish deployment easier.
Alternately, some help whacking KADEK would seal the deal.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 12:44:24 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think they better start hiding on Mt. Ararat again to avoid our cruise missles.
Posted by: Charles || 09/13/2003 1:40 Comments || Top||

#2  The Turkish military of today is not the NATO ally of the last 50 years. This bunch has abdicated. How far can you throw them? Well, you know why I ask...
Posted by: .com (Prez for Life - My Isles of Langerhans) || 09/13/2003 1:50 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Terrorism: The Research Problem
Raphael Sagarin argues that we should learn from evolution to tackle the problem of terrorism:
The planet’s diversity tells us that evolution works. But the number of failed life forms is sobering. Even once dominant organisms such as dinosaurs could not avoid extinction. The United States is the most dominant presence on Earth today, but terrorist networks such as al Qaeda represent a ruthless adversary. Terrorism poses an evolutionary challenge; it should be treated like one.

Indeed. If ever there was a need for "out of the box" thinking, now is it.

At the same time, valuable research initiatives such as terrorism futures and total information awareness are being nipped at the bud for no good reason other than not conforming to some catch-all ill-defined notion of political correctness.
What’s made DARPA unique is its willingness to challenge convention. Conceived during the Cold War, the agency is tasked by the government to think big about technology. When brainpower gets turned loose, it doesn’t always follow a straight line: Sometimes the research winds up getting abandoned, other times it results in spectacular inventions....
Hanging DARPA out to dry may satisfy some people, but the agency’s job is to explore new ideas and research with an eye on how to enhance national security. If the United States is going to defeat a shadowy network of terrorists that has already attacked once, the key is going to be information. But if you junk the system, you’re trusting your fate to the winds.
Posted by: Vivek || 09/13/2003 10:45:44 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Absolutely correct! Terrorism futures may not have worked at all; but for them to be so soundly mocked and hammered BEFORE they could even be tried is an organization killer!

What we are going through is truly a cultural war: should people have the opportunity to live within some rules and have an opportunity to influance what those rules are; or will we have to live by strict rules that are laid down by someone else with no chance of modification by the people? Call it Islamism vs Democracy or what ever, that is what all this boils down to. We fought just about the same war for 50 years against a different mind-set (Communism) and won; it is up to a new generation to show its stuff and do the same or go the way of the Dodo.
Posted by: SamIII || 09/13/2003 13:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Speaking of WOT Futures, can I ask why the Davis recall election is on the list here? What does that have to do with anything?
Posted by: mojo || 09/13/2003 15:01 Comments || Top||

#3  The very technology over which we are communicating, the Internet, was conceived, funded, and pushed forward by DARPA. The World Wide Web is just one application out of many that run over it.

I say let DARPA go for it: They and the American Research community saved our collective ass before, and they can do it again.
Posted by: Ptah || 09/13/2003 21:15 Comments || Top||


Middle East
IDF finds 3 explosive belts in E. Jerusalem
Security forces thwarted three suicide bomb attacks on Israelis after finding three 'ready-to-use' explosive belts hidden inside a washing machine in a butcher's shop in the East Jerusalem village of Al Azzariya north-east of Bethlehem.
"Honey! Have you seen my suicide belts?"
"I put them all in the washer, dear. They were filthy."
Border Police sappers blew up the belts that contained 20 to 30 kilograms of explosives, nails and metal balls. The information that led the Border Police to find the belts, to be used by suicide bombers, was supplied by several Palestinians who were detained in the past few days by the General Security Service (Shabak).
"Oooch! Ouch! I'll tell you where, if you'll just get off my head!"
Reports indicate that the belts belonged to Hamas terrorists who were planning a suicide attack in the capital in the near future.
I'm trying to come up with another likely use for them, but for the life of me, I can't...
Meanwhile, Israeli troops chased Palestinian
militants through the narrow alleys of Nablus' Old City early Saturday, setting off intense gunbattles that killed an elderly man who watched the fighting from a window, Palestinian witnesses said. At 2:30 a.m. (23:30 GMT), witnesses saw 15 Israeli army jeeps enter the Old City in search of members of militant groups. In heavy gunbattles, the troops exchanged fire with gunmen, chasing after them through the dark alleys. A resident of the city, Fathi Bolbol, 80, died from bullet wounds, said doctors at Rafidya Hospital. His son Bashar, 35, said the elderly man was found dead on the floor next to his bed and that apparently he had gone to the window to see what was happening when he was struck by gunfire.
"Lookitdat, Fatimah! They havin' a gunfight with the Zionists! I can see everything for my window! Fetch me an iced tea... Ow!... Forget... the ... iced... tea..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 16:51 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wonder if they thought to video a vest detonation. Would have made an interesting clip to hand out to the world media.
Posted by: Bulldog || 09/13/2003 17:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Bulldog, the video is coming...

"Try this one on, Mista Arafat. One size fits all!"
Posted by: john || 09/13/2003 20:52 Comments || Top||


Arafat fears "Zionist death rays!"
Gulf News Online Edition. Does not appear to be intended as the Arab version of a ScrappleFace posting.
Palestinians have thrown a tight security cordon around President Yasser Arafat fearing his assassination by unconventional means that could be construed as "a natural death", highly misinformed sources told Gulf News yesterday.
No death Yasser dies will be "natural"...
The new security steps include searching and close monitoring of all Arafat’s visitors. The sources said that one speculated method of assassination could be the direction of poisonous rays towards Arafat’s brain.
Zionist Death Rays! Bwahahahahahahaaa!
These rays can cause palpitations in the heart leading to a failure of brain resulting in gradual stop in breathing and ultimate death.
The death ray was assembled by the IDF’s leading weapons research scientist, Dr. Zarkov, (that’s a Jewish name, isn’t it?) in his secret fortress in the Negev Desert, and smuggled into the West Bank in a crate of Jewish Barbie dolls! Bwahahahahahahaaa!
"It is only curable by a specific antidote as in the bungled assassination of Khaled Mashal the head of Hamas political bureau in Jordan several years ago," the sources said.
The story about it having been poison is obviously made up, along with the details of the chase and the Clinton involvement in getting Sheikh Yassin freed...
Meanwhile, sources in the Islamic group Hamas, said that Dr Rantissi and other leaders have recently refused to give interviews to foreign television channels, especially after the failed assassination of Al Rantissi and the Israeli intention to assassinate the entire Hamas leadership. "There are fears that the Mashal assassination attempt will be repeated on other leaders by a device emitting poisonous rays embedded in a video camera," the sources explained.
Or we could use a satellite- or wire-guided device emitting lethal overpressure and shrapnel from an intense chemical reaction--fired by a nefarious, super-secret black helicopter or UFO. Bwahahahahahaaa!
Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz has revealed to his inner circle that the expulsion of President Arafat is the least the Israeli political leadership can approve, and that they should not rule out physical liquidation.
(Well, at least they got one thing correct.)
Posted by: Mike || 09/13/2003 12:47:49 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why don't they just sneak in there and put a pillow over his face. Shouldn't be too hard since his body guards probably have the proficency of the average rap star's.
But if the IDF have "death rays", will they be wrapping him in tin foil?
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/13/2003 12:58 Comments || Top||

#2  The sources said that one speculated method of assassination could be the direction of poisonous rays towards Arafat’s brain.

He's been talking to Kucinich again...
Posted by: Pappy || 09/13/2003 14:02 Comments || Top||

#3  I'd rather try the Noriega tactics. Didn't Metallica music work wonder during interogations of terrorists? For title, I suggest: "For Whom The Bell Tolls".

Rock over Ramallah!
Posted by: True German Ally || 09/13/2003 14:30 Comments || Top||

#4  ...the direction of poisonous rays towards Arafat’s brain

But wouldn't they need to be remarkable shots? Such a tiny target...
Posted by: mojo || 09/13/2003 14:45 Comments || Top||

#5  Dr Rantissi and other leaders have recently refused to give interviews to foreign television channels ...

They'd certainly know about this tactic, since it's a favored al-Qaeda one. Just ask Massoud in Afghanland. He's easy to find, stays in one place these days.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 15:58 Comments || Top||

#6  TGA - great thought, but the most appropriate Metallica song (yeah, I like 'em) is "King Nothing", don't you think....ahhhh the pathos
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 16:36 Comments || Top||

#7  alternate metallica choices: "I Disappear"; "Enter Sandman (Exit Light)" and "Fade To Black"....see a theme here Yasshole?
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 16:59 Comments || Top||

#8  ..and that they should not rule out physical liquidation.

One 2,500 pounder would be all that's needed for that.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 09/13/2003 17:47 Comments || Top||

#9  Where's the Lee Harvey Oswald of the Palestinian world ?
Posted by: eyeyeye || 09/13/2003 18:04 Comments || Top||

#10  If youre referring to Sirhan Sirhan, he's doing time in Chino Correctional right now......

Why cant Arafat fall in the shower, or slip on some tea?
Posted by: frank martin || 09/13/2003 22:06 Comments || Top||

#11  I'd like to see a picture of Arafat with his head wrapped in tin foil. Maybe that would convince the rest of the arab world what most of the rest of us already know: most of the "leadership" there are pretty well gone mentally.
Posted by: Anonymous Troll || 09/13/2003 22:40 Comments || Top||

#12  B-a-R:
One 2,500 pounder would be all that's needed for that.

A large car bomb would be more appropriate, I think -- it's not like they don't know where he's located...
Posted by: snellenr || 09/13/2003 23:16 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
Moroccan democracy put to test
Moroccans voted in local elections on Friday in what is being seen as a test of the king's promise to democratise the country. But despite the government's portrayal of the vote as key to Morocco's future, it seemed unlikely to significantly reshape a crowded and fragmented political landscape. Political analyst Mohamed Darif said: "These elections won't change anything, the political map has already been drawn."
It got drawn when the boomers exploded. Question is, which side is the fez in the street on?
The country's two main secular parties, the Socialist Union of Popular Forces (USFP) and the centre-right old-guard Istiqlal (Independence) still dominate the political scene. They head the coalition government of Prime Minister Driss Jettou but represent a political class seen as corrupt, aloof and with no interest in bridging the chasm between rich and poor. With entrenched disillusionment with local government and almost all things political, turnout was expected to be low. And results were not expected until Saturday. The vote is also being seen as a test of the electorate's support for the only tolerated Islamist party. The Justice and Development Party (PJD) emerged as the main opposition force in parliamentary elections a year ago. But that was before 12 bombers killed 33 people in Casablanca in May - an act blamed on Islamists.
"Though, really, it coulda been anybody. Anybody with a turban, anyway..."
Under apparent government pressure, the PJD has decided to field candidates for barely 20% of the 23,689 seats of local councillors up for grabs. The elections are the first at local and municipal level since King Muhammad, 40, came to the throne in 1999. Nearly half the 30 million population is illiterate and five million live under the poverty line.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 10:36 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nearly half the 30 million population is illiterate ...

And how exactly is that unusual in an Arab society?
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 15:33 Comments || Top||

#2  If I were running for office and I knew half of the voters were illiterate, I would change my name to Mr X.
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 16:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Gufaw!!, Super Hose that's a fine sentiment! :)
Posted by: Tony || 09/13/2003 17:32 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Three ’ready-to-use’ explosive belts discovered in E. Jerusalem
JPost Reg Req’d
Security forces thwarted three suicide bomb attacks on Israelis after finding three ’ready-to-use’ explosive belts hidden inside a washing machine in a butcher’s shop in the East Jerusalem village of Al Azzariya north-east of Bethlehem.
Ahhhh the peace process is alive
Border Police sappers blew up the belts that contained 20 to 30 kilograms of explosives, nails and metal balls.
hope they had the owner strapped to them when they did it?
Palestinians also fired two mortars at an IDF position near the Jewish settlement of Morag in the southern Gaza Strip Saturday afternoon. There were no injuries in the attack and no damage was caused. Palestinians also shot light weapons fire at an IDF position near Rafiah close to the Egyptian border. Soldiers returned fire, and no casualties were reported on either side.
run away!
Meanwhile security forces remain on high alert throughout the country due to warnings of plans by terrorists to perpetrate attacks.

The information that led the Border Police to find the three explosives belts, to be used by suicide bombers, was supplied by several Palestinians who were detained in the past few days by the General Security Service (Shabak).
Ow! Stop hitting me!
Reports indicate that the belts belonged to Hamas terrorists who were planning a suicide attack in the capital in the near future.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops chased Palestinian
militants through the narrow alleys of Nablus’ Old City early Saturday, setting off intense gunbattles that killed an elderly man who watched the fighting from a window, Palestinian witnesses said. An Israeli army spokeswoman had no immediate comment and was checking the reports.
Yep, he stuck his head to catch the action, and was successful
At 2:30 a.m. (23:30 GMT), witnesses saw 15 Israeli army jeeps enter the Old City in search of members of militant groups. In heavy gunbattles, the troops exchanged fire with
gunmen, chasing after them through the dark alleys, witnesses said. apparently the search was successful?

A resident of the city, Fathi Bolbol, 80, died from bullet wounds, said doctors at Rafidya Hospital. His son Bashar, 35, said the elderly man was found dead on the floor next to his bed and that apparently he had gone to the window to
see what was happening when he was struck by gunfire.
His room was riddled with bullets, his son said.
If his room is riddled with bullets, how do they know he went to the window? Nice creative narrative
Israeli soldiers routinely search Nablus and its Old City for members of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups that have dispatched suicide bombers and other attackers. Hundreds of Israelis have been killed in those attacks.

Gunmen in the Old City have taken to sleeping during the day and keeping on the move at night to try to hide from Israeli troops. Curfew and night vision glasses should help with that(With The Associated Press)

Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 10:14:27 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Arafat revives spirit of Oslo. Really.
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has said an Israeli threat to exile him is meant to eradicate the self-rule Palestinians won in peace deals a decade ago.
Actually, I'd say it was meant to get rid of Yasser, but who'm I to say?
"The danger here concerns Israel's determination to cancel the Palestinian partner and the Palestinian Authority," Arafat told visiting diplomats at his battered headquarters in the West Bank city of RamAllah.
"Dominique! Yasser is in great danger! We must dispatch diplomats to protect him!"
"Immediately, mon president!"
Arafat said the peace process was "facing the most critical time since the signing of the Oslo agreement in 1993 ... but I reaffirm before you that despite the incitement and Israeli threats, the Palestinian people and the Palestinian leadership are committed to the peace process.
"Yes! We are determined that the entire Middle East, the entire world in fact, will be dumped into the peace processor and pureed!"
"No one can deport me from my homeland, and the homeland of my fathers and forefathers," Arafat, 74, said as thousands demonstrated for the third day running to show support for him both on his own doorstep and elsewhere in the occupied territories. Saturday was the 10th anniversary of Oslo's signing, which Palestinians hailed as the first step to independence. Arafat's co-signatory, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated by a Jewish extremist two years later.
See how far we've come in only ten short years? Just think where we can be in fifty!
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 10:06 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "no one can deport me!"

Actually I'm thinking they can leave your fly-bitten bloated carcass in an unmarked grave in your beloved homeland, Arafish. Take him out, damn the consequences
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 10:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Yasser's obviously gone totally senile. He's an Egyptian, born in Egypt to Egyptian parents. His homeland is Egypt, not Israel. Duh!
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 09/13/2003 10:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Yasser's obviously gone totally senile. He's an Egyptian, born in Egypt to Egyptian parents. His homeland is Egypt, not Israel. Duh!

Remember the Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al Husseini, a nazi collaborator, who broadcasted propaganda in Germany, and went to Bosnia to bless muslim waffen-SS units he personnally helped to create, thus actively participating in the fianl solution?
From "whitewashing the palestinian leadership part II" : After Hajj Amin al-Husseini's death in 1974, the relatives of this fascist anti-Semite continued to wield decisive influence in Palestinian organizations. Case in point: Yasser Arafat. As Howard Sachar explains (my emphasis): “The Fatah leader’s actual name was Abd al-Rahman abd al-Rauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. He shortened it to obscure his kinship with the discredited ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini.”[17]
[...]
Here is what Arafat told an interviewer from the pro-PLO, London-based, Arabic-language newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat. His comments were picked up by a leading Palestinian daily:

Interviewer: “I have heard voices from within the [Palestinian] Authority in the past few weeks, saying that the reforms are coordinated according to American whims…”

Arafat: “We are not Afghanistan…We are the Mighty People. Were they able to replace our hero Hajj Amin al-Husseini? ...There were a number of attempts to get rid of Hajj Amin, whom they considered an ally of the Nazis. But even so, he lived in Cairo, and participated in the 1948 war, and I was one of his troops.”[18]

Arafat is an egyptian, was born in Egypt, studied in Egypt, lived in Egypt along with the exiled Husseini family. Bury him in his native town, Cairo.
Posted by: Anonymous || 09/13/2003 13:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Actually, when Israel finally gets around to grinding him into the dust, I personally hope there isn't enough left for anyone to bury, anywhere. I think the Israelis should dig up the dirt Arafart is ground into and flush it into the Red Sea somewhere, just so there won't be anything anywhere left for the Paleos to rally around.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 09/13/2003 17:46 Comments || Top||


Iran
Iran threatens to end cooperation with nuclear watchdog
Iran has threatened to cut off cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog after it ordered the country to prove it is not pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued Iran with an October 31 deadline at a meeting in Vienna on Friday.
Sammy got a deadline, too, not that the UN wanted to do anything with it...
The Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, walked out of the meeting.
"Oh, y'wanna be that way, huh? Well! This is what my back looks like!"
In a written statement afterwards, Mr Salehi warned Iran would be forced to review its cooperation with the agency. "All I have to say is in my statement and I would advise you that all of you to get hold of one of these statements and all the questions that you may raise are answered in this statement," he said. Mr Salehi has since described the IAEA resolution as "political" and labelled the United States, Britain, Germany and France as "extremist countries".
Every once in awhile, one of these guys makes a statement so stoopid it takes my breath away. The ventilator, please!
"Iran cannot take part in a political process, " he told the official news agency IRNA. "The Western group in the (IAEA) board of governors, in line with their political goals, have made illegitimate, illegal and impractical requests from Iran. Even if all the claims on Iran's program's shortcomings are true, they cannot be resolved within the 45 days given to Iran."
"Well, how long'll it take?"
"'Bout 35 years..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 09:56 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  labelled the United States, Britain, Germany and France as "extremist countries".

as opposed tour Chinese Communist mainstreamers? He's just alienated 4/5ths of the UNSC in one statement....nice. Looks like the blackhats don't understand that by their intransigence, they've basically pre-empted the international outrage when someone (who could that be?) takes their reactor back to it's basic components...
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 10:19 Comments || Top||

#2  "tour"? Ummmmm how about "to"? Not enuf coffee yet
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 10:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Sort of makes you wonder how the U.S. weapons replenishment project is progressing...
Posted by: snellenr || 09/13/2003 11:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Frank G.> A nitpick: Germany's not of the permanent members of the Security Council so that's 3/5ths not 4/5ths.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 09/13/2003 20:54 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Jordan uncovers new terror cell
Jordan is reported to have uncovered a terrorist cell led by members of the Al Qaeda network and another radical Islamic group. Newspaper reports quoting from charge sheets prepared by a military prosecutor says those being held include 13 Jordanians and two Iraqis. It says they are accused of "conspiracy to carry out terrorist attacks against US and Israeli targets across the world." The reports say the accused also plotted to attack tourists, foreigners and members of Jordan's security forces within Jordan itself. The prosecutor says the 15 belonged to Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam, an extremist Iraqi Kurdish group. The reports say he built up his case after the arrest in March of a Jordanian suspect, Ahmad al-Riyati, by US troops in Iraqi Kurdistan and his subsequent extradition to Jordan.

I don't know that it's a "new" terror cell, since one of Ansar's components is al-Tawhid, which was originally a stand-alone operation dedicated to tormenting the Jordanian government. Zarqawi seems to be the effective leader of the reconstituted Ansar, and its cadres are probably Tawhid bad guys who were out of the range of fire while the Kurdish yokels were being blown away back in the early days of the war.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 09:50 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


David Warren: "Removing Arafat"
EFL

The news is that the Israeli security cabinet has provided Ariel Sharon with a "licence to kill" Yasser Arafat, at a time of Mr. Sharon?s own choosing. (Their word was "remove" and might also include expulsion, isolation, or imprisonment.) The mystery is, why didn?t this happen many years ago?

Before reaching their decision -- predictably execrated in capitals around the world -- the security cabinet reviewed recent evidence linking Arafat directly to several of the terrorist hits within Israel?s Green Line. To their information, he didn?t just know about them, he ordered them.

And he did that, not out of any psychopathic desire to see more dead Israelis on TV, but rather out of cold political calculation. He decided it was time to rid himself of Mahmoud Abbas, a.k.a. Abu Mazen, the prime minister he appointed to be the "acceptable face" of Palestinian terror for the Israelis and Americans to negotiate with. It was time to remind both the foreigners, and his colleagues, who is boss.

. . .

The idea that Arafat had been sidelined was one of the more ludicrous of the "pious frauds" circulated by all partners to the "peace process" recently. I ?m sorry to say President Bush invested some of his credibility in this.

Arafat was never sidelined, and the appointment of Abu Ala to replace Abu Mazen changes nothing. The men of Arafat?s diplomatic wing are as interchangeable as the men of his military-terrorist wing, it?s all one bird. The strategy remains, wear Israel down by both terror and diplomacy, as opportunities arise, and continue wearing her down, patiently, until eventually she collapses.

The domestic propaganda of the PLO -- also under Arafat?s control -- has never made any bones about this. Nor has Arafat recently, or ever, ceased to utter incitements to the Palestinian mob. An occasional, contrastingly benign remark in English to the Western media is all he requires to remain semi-respectable to the outside world.

Israel is a country as diverse in its opinions as any Western land. It contains more Jews than New York, and at least as many "liberals". Israel itself has taken ten years to come to terms with the hopeless situation that was created by the Oslo accord, in which a man dedicated to Israel?s destruction was given unchallenged dictatorial power over a de facto country as far away as Hull from Ottawa, while being internationally accredited as Israel?s "peace partner".

At several points in her past -- most memorably when she struck first in the Six-Day War of 1967, and when IDF pilots levelled the Osirak reactor in Iraq in 1981 -- Israel became convinced that she must ignore world opinion and do what she must to survive. This is another of those times.

. . .

The verbal threats of retaliation against Israel for anything done to Arafat are now running very shrill. But there is a Baghdad Bob quality about all of them. In practice, the actual dangers associated with leaving Arafat in power exceed the likely dangers of removing him.

By pre-announcing their decision, the Israeli leadership gave themselves the opportunity for sober second thought, should any unexpected danger present itself. Their one hesitation is over the reaction of the Bush administration. Would it, too, be purely verbal? I think the consensus of Israeli politicians is that domestic views in the U.S. will prevent the Bush administration from abandoning Israel, after Israel has done precisely what the U.S. did in Afghanistan and Iraq -- "regime change". It would look too much like hypocrisy.

They have given Arafat, in effect, the equivalent to President Bush?s last warning to Saddam. They cannot expect it to be heeded.

We shall see: but I think under the present circumstances, Arafat will actually be removed. The man is the regime, as throughout the Middle East; and regime-change is necessarily quite personal.

A couple weeks ago, I put the question of Arafat?s life expectancy on the WoT Futures market. The betting has been running against the proposition that he will be assasinated, but after the events of the last week and a half, I think that should perhaps be reconsidered.
Posted by: Mike || 09/13/2003 6:54:16 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Anyone else seeing apostraphes displayed as question marks here or is it just me?
Posted by: Parabellum || 09/13/2003 11:37 Comments || Top||

#2  That seems to happen when I post from my home machine, but not when I use the one at the office. I use Netscape at home and IE at the office; could this be the reason?
Posted by: Mike || 09/13/2003 12:08 Comments || Top||

#3  I get the question-marks too, and I'm using Opera. Guess it's a transliteration problem. I've seen it before - in fact it's quite prevalent on Christian Science Monitor, and on a couple of other large sites. You get used to it.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 09/13/2003 20:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Their one hesitation is over the reaction of the Bush administration. Would it, too, be purely verbal? I think the consensus of Israeli politicians is that domestic views in the U.S. will prevent the Bush administration from abandoning Israel, after Israel has done precisely what the U.S. did in Afghanistan and Iraq -- "regime change". It would look too much like hypocrisy.

About time someone put two and two together over there and decided that they can count on the vocal support of the American people. This may be time to write a letter and let our representatives know how we feel about this.
Posted by: Ptah || 09/13/2003 21:08 Comments || Top||

#5  Jumping into the "question mark" discussion a day behind... The problem is Microsoft-related. They use
"...their own "extension" to Latin-1 [the standard character coding for English-language web pages], in which a variety of characters which do not appear in Latin-1 are inserted in the range 0x82 through 0x95--this having the merit of being incompatible with both Latin-1 and Unicode... These characters include open and close single and double quotes, em and en dashes... [T]he result that the owners of these [Microsoft generated] pages look like semi-literate morons when their pages are viewed on non-Microsoft platforms (or on Microsoft platforms, for that matter, if the user has selected as the browser's font one of the many TrueType fonts which do not include the incompatible Microsoft characters)." --Demoroniser man page
When your browser doesn't understand a character, it substitutes a "?". Usually the culprits are MSFT's ?smart? opening and closing quotes, or the use of a "right single quote" [?] in place of the apostrophe [']. There's probably more than you want to know about this at the link above.
Posted by: Old Grouch || 09/14/2003 13:42 Comments || Top||


The Arab News Version: Global Outrage Over Israeli Decision
Nazir Majally, Asharq Al-Awsat
EFL and Fair Use
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 13 September 2003 — Saudi Arabia yesterday led a chorus of worldwide protests over Israel’s decision to exile Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.
Yawn.
“The decision constitutes a dangerous Israeli escalation of the regional situation and a violation of international law and UN resolutions,” an official spokesman said. The Kingdom urged the quartet states as well as the international community to take quick and decisive steps to force Israel into revising the decision and save international peace efforts from failing.
more...
Global Outrage. Yup. We get juicy tidbits from Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Kofi, Russia, China, the EU, Spain, Germany, the UK, Turkey, Greece, and even a former Israeli FM, Schlomo Ben Ami, on this topic. All with that selective special touch from the Arab News, aka The Green Truth™.

Of course, now that there is precisely ZERO chance for peace, here they come out of the woodwork to second-guess and pontificate and wave their arms. Yawn. But it’s worthwhile to get the flavor of the response from each of these Govts. Hypocrisy and idiocy run rampant, such as the "OCCUPIED JERUSALEM" screamer dateline at the top.
Posted by: .com (Prez for Life - My Isles of Langerhans) || 09/13/2003 3:04:21 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I am globaly outraged that they wasted troop strength on Arafat that should have been used to kill more Hamas guys. Isreal left the first roadmap that looked encouraging to me. The world shall demand: resume targetted assasinations, immediatedly.
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 9:55 Comments || Top||

#2  I think "Occupied Jerusalem" refers to that Arab piece of crap built atop the Temple Mount
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 10:40 Comments || Top||

#3  I am also globally outraged that the Saudis are *still* blowing smoke out their collective bungs when they are the problem (BTW it is a beautiful sunny day here on St Lawrence Island in the Bering Sea). But the Saudis have more mouth than substance....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 09/13/2003 22:35 Comments || Top||


Home Front
U.S. Seeks Death Penalty for Pakistani Hijacking Suspect
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. government is trying to execute a hijacker for the first time, seeking the death penalty for the leader of a group of Palestinian terrorists who took over a Pan Am jet in Pakistan in 1986 and killed 22 people. Zayd Hassan Abd Al-Latif Masud Al Safarini won the first round in the legal battle, convincing U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan that the death penalty does not apply in his case. Prosecutors have asked Sullivan to reconsider. A hearing is expected this fall.

New York City attorney Gerald Lefcourt, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the case is an example of Attorney General John Ashcroft aggressively seeking the maximum penalty for a crime rather than a desire to send a message to would-be hijackers in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. "Ashcroft has established a policy of seeking the death penalty," Lefcourt said. "It’s about his view of the death penalty and not 9-11. It’s about his belief that the death penalty should be used in just about every circumstance it can be used."
And this is a problem because ...
Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo agreed, but added that would-be hijackers should take note, too. "Whenever the government seeks the death penalty in a federal case it is meant to send a message to not just those who would commit these types of barbaric crimes but to the public that justice is applied equally from coast to coast," said Corallo, who knows of no other time the government has sought the death penalty for a hijacker.
Someone has to be first. Congrats to Safarini!
Court papers say Safarini led a group of four men, all members of the Abu Nidal Palestinian terrorist organization, who boarded Pan Am Flight 73 on Sept. 5, 1986, while the Boeing 747 jet was parked at Karachi Airport in Pakistan. The men said they wanted to be flown out of Pakistan and demanded that prisoners in Cyprus and Israel be released. After a 15-hour standoff, the hijackers gathered the passengers and crew in one area of the plane and began shooting and throwing hand grenades. In all, 22 people were killed and more than 100 wounded before the men were apprehended.
Okay, I’ve heard enough to think he deserves the DP.
The four hijackers, and a fifth mastermind, were convicted in Pakistan and given death sentences that were commuted to life imprisonment. Four of the terrorists remain behind bars, but Safarini’s sentence was reduced by a series of amnesties and he was released Sept. 27, 2001. U.S. law enforcement agents apprehended him the next day as he traveled to Jordan to join relatives.
Paks tossed him and tipped us, eh?
With Safarini behind bars, defense lawyers in October 2002 offered a guilty plea in exchange for a life sentence, court filings show. Prosecutors rejected the offer.
That was their first clue that they were in deep doo-doo.
In court filings, defense lawyer Robert Tucker said the death penalty could not be applied in this case. The Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 but it took Congress 12 years to write a new death penalty law, making some drug-related crimes capital offenses. Dozens of other crimes, including air piracy, were added in 1994.

Tucker said the 1994 law can’t be retroactively applied to a 1986 hijacking. Sullivan agreed, ruling April 10 that the government could not seek the death penalty. Prosecutors asked Sullivan to reconsider, saying a 1974 air piracy law should apply. "It certainly makes no sense to conclude that Congress, in greatly expanding the reach of the death penalty ... silently intended to eliminate all procedures for carrying out a death sentence for all air piracy offenses committed before 1994," Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregg Maisel wrote.
Govt’s case actually sounds pretty weak; the 1976 ruling wiped the DP slate clean. Safarini will die in Marion.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 1:10:50 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Just send him to Rikers. I'm sure someone there will be more than happy to slit Safarin's throat.
Posted by: Charles || 09/13/2003 1:35 Comments || Top||

#2  New York City attorney Gerald Lefcourt, former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said the case is an example of Attorney General John Ashcroft aggressively seeking the maximum penalty for a crime rather than a desire to send a message to would-be hijackers in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Just WHAT kind of message does seeking the death penalty send in this idiot's world?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 09/13/2003 2:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Islamsists tend to interpret conciliatory moves or clemency as signs of weakness. They have lots of haddiths telling this.
Posted by: JFM || 09/13/2003 5:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Sentenence his ass to life in a Texas Prision Farm,mucking out pig pens.
Course we will have to listen to the ACLU bleating like sheep about violating his religious rights.But who cares.
Posted by: raptor || 09/13/2003 7:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Release him into a skyscraper that is rigged for demolition. Allow a relative of one of gernade boy's victims to operate the plunger.
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 9:34 Comments || Top||

#6  entenence his ass to life in a Texas Prision Farm,mucking out pig pens. Course we will have to listen to the ACLU bleating like sheep about violating his religious rights.But who cares.
Hmmmm, you may be on to something here. If the ACLU DOES complain, then they're not really unhappy with the mixing of religion and government - just Christianity and government - and they're proven to be both bigots and frauds. Then we can sentence the ACLU scumlawvermin to work beside him for aiding and abetting the establishment of a state-sponsored religion. Wonder how long it will take those "brilliant" scholars to figure out what they're doing 'wrong'.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 09/13/2003 17:15 Comments || Top||


Africa: Southern
Zimbabwe's inflation more than 425pc
Zimbabwe's official inflation rate has risen to a record high at more than 425 per cent. Shop owners are increasing prices on a daily basis to keep pace with Zimbabwe's runaway inflation rate. The Central Statistical Office has released the latest monthly figures, which show that inflation is now running at 426.6 per cent. Food, fuel and foreign currency are in short supply. Zimbabwe's mint is struggling to print enough bank notes to keep up with demand. Economic forecasters are warning that inflation could reach 1,000 per cent by the end of the year. Government attempts to control prices have failed with inflation more than doubling since the start of the year. Consumer prices have risen dramatically, despite government assurances of economic stability. Government officials have promised that inflation will be reduced to less than 100 per cent by the end of the year.
Yeah. Bob's gonna tell somebody to make it stop...
But economic forecasters fear the real figure could be up to 1,000 per cent. The United Nations World Food Program says more than five-million people are now reliant on food aid.
In the former Breadbasket of Africa...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 00:59 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If only they read Capitalism and Freedom.

Scratch that, if only they read...
Posted by: Brian || 09/13/2003 2:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Government officials have promised that inflation will be reduced to less than 100 per cent by the end of the year.

Typical leftist bullsh*t. Like 100 percent inflation is an improvement. The only acceptable 100 percent I can think of is Mugabe's non-residence status in Zimbabwe.
Posted by: badanov || 09/13/2003 5:23 Comments || Top||

#3  So the price of goods and services will double,what?
Every day,week month,etc.
What a load!
Posted by: raptor || 09/13/2003 6:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Brian, maybe Fidel can go over and give Bob some tips on how to have full literacy while still being a jackbooted despot!
Posted by: debbie || 09/13/2003 8:23 Comments || Top||

#5  I have trouble understanding how you get out of being a recipient of food aid in a case like Zimbabwe.

1. Free food would eliminate the incentive to produce food for local production.
2. Farm land has been redistributed to regime paracites that have neither the ability nor the inclination to do anything with the land otehr than sell it for profit.
3. None of the paracitic speculators will be willing to sell for currency (other than dollars) during an inflation.
4. Foriegn investors (other than Lybia) will steer well away from "opportunities" in countries where property rights are not secure.

I guess its time to find a new breadbasket for the foreceable future.
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 9:28 Comments || Top||

#6  "...inflation is now running at 426.6 per cent. ... Zimbabwe's mint is struggling to print enough bank notes to keep up with demand."

Gee, you don't suppose all that money being printed has anything to do with causing the inflation do you? Naaahh, can't be.
Posted by: Biff Wellington || 09/13/2003 11:02 Comments || Top||

#7  I don't even want to know the details about how the got 426.6% inflation. My head might explode from all their mistakes if I do find out.
Posted by: Charles || 09/13/2003 11:27 Comments || Top||

#8  They should call Jimmy Carter. I'll bet he can get it down to a mere 20 to 30%. Like he did here.
Why Bob isn't hanging from a lamp post by now is beyond me. I guess you do get the government you deserve.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/13/2003 12:31 Comments || Top||

#9  Capitalism and Freedom

Picked up the fortieth anniversary edition recently, to re-read it. It's like a treasure chest of quotes that pertain to most of the stories posted in Rantburg.
Posted by: Rafael || 09/13/2003 13:31 Comments || Top||

#10  They still have quite a way to go to top Germany in 1923 when one dollar bought you a trillion Reichsmarks or so.

Note to Zimbabwe mint: Just add more zeros and save paper.
Posted by: True German Ally || 09/13/2003 14:35 Comments || Top||


Africa: West
UN says Chuck still trying to run Liberia
A top United Nations envoy has warned that Liberia's ousted president Charles Taylor was still trying to run the country from exile and that Nigeria may want to reconsider its agreement to serve as his new home. Jacques Klein, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan's special representative for Liberia, said Mr Taylor was believed to have taken an estimated $US1 billion in government money with him, leaving the western African nation with an empty treasury as it tries to start rebuilding after 14 years of civil war.
Just a simple Baptist preacher, serving his pee-pul...
Mr Klein said Mr Taylor was believed to be still taking kickbacks on Liberian purchases of fuel and other goods through intermediaries and there was "good evidence that over the past three weeks at least one or two government officials and several business leaders had gone to Nigeria to see him".
One thing Chuck isn't, is subtle...
"We had a president who was his own treasury," Mr Klein said, a former US diplomat and Air Force major general who has called Mr Taylor a "psychopath". "Whatever resources Liberia had - the ships registry, the rubber plantation, the import and export of fuel - all that money went to him," he said. When he left for Nigeria, "there was an agreement Taylor would maintain a low profile and be apolitical, and we hope that he will honour that commitment that he made," Mr Klein said. "If he is violating that, obviously at some point the government of Nigeria will have to reassess how it views his continued presence." Mr Taylor, now living in Calabar in south-eastern Nigeria, told Liberians as he left, "God-willing, I will be back".
"Maybe I'll even bring the money..."
A new government is due to take over in Liberia on October 14, but the country is still largely in the hands of faction fighters, many of them once loyal to Mr Taylor. Nigeria has no extradition treaty with the Sierra Leone court but has said it does not want him meddling in Liberian politics from there.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 00:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Did he deposit the cash somewhere? Perhaps it's time for John Clark and Ding Chavez to take on a mission ...
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 0:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Lets do what we always do with our trash. Send Taylor to France.
Posted by: Charles || 09/13/2003 1:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Taylor obviously is not one of the world's great thinkers. My advice to him is, "dude, you took all the money, already. There is no reason to go back. It's OK to go to Disney Land more than once but Liberia doesn't qualify as a frequent destination.
If you're homesick, buy a junk yard and empty 11 port-o-jonnies onto the ground in your new kingdom. It will be a smaller kingdom but the smell will be the same, and you can own a nice place to live a goodly distance from the flies and paracites.
With $1B you can buy a nice place on the Cayman islands where the beer is cold and buy a pardon once Hillary is president.
Posted by: Super Hose || 09/13/2003 9:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Thank God colonialism is gone in Africa. Things are just great there now that the evil white man isn't in charge.
Posted by: tu3031 || 09/13/2003 12:35 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
UN Security Council lifts Libya sanctions
Fifteen years after the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the United Nations Security Council has lifted sanctions against Libya, triggering the release of up to $US2.7 billion to the families of the attack's 270 victims. France and the United States, which has its own separate sanctions on the Tripoli government, abstained in the 13-0 council vote to end the embargoes imposed on Libya after the 1988 mid-air attack of the Boeing jumbo jet over Lockerbie, Scotland. Passage was assured on Thursday when France withdrew a threat to veto the measure after relatives of the victims of a separate 1989 bombing of a French UTA airliner won a promise of additional compensation from the Libyan government.
Guess it was important enough to Muammar to make him pay up...
The United States and Britain first called for adoption of the resolution last month after Libya accepted blame for the Lockerbie bombing, renounced terrorism and agreed to put $US2.7 billion into a special account for compensating the victims, capping 15 years of international pressure and negotiations. The payment - enough to provide up to $US10 million to each of the Lockerbie families if certain conditions are fulfilled - deeply embarrassed France, which accepted far less a few years ago for the midair attack on a French UTA airliner over the African nation of Niger that claimed 170 lives. France then threatened to block the US-British resolution unless it could get more money from Libya for the UTA victims. Their patience wearing thin, Britain and the United States agreed to five separate delays in the sanctions vote before the UTA families' announcement their efforts had born fruit.
This is Muammar's opportunity to turn Libya into something resembling a normal state. It'll be interesting to see how he goes about it...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 00:46 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What I want to know is how much he's giving the French to shut up. Sounds more like a bribe than a 'settlement'.
Posted by: Charles || 09/13/2003 1:26 Comments || Top||

#2  hmmm, undisclosed sum = $ for Chirac and cronies, most of the remainder going to some of the victim's families
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 10:23 Comments || Top||

#3  Hope CIA is looking into the financing details, with an eye to "managing" French votes in the future...
Posted by: snellenr || 09/13/2003 11:32 Comments || Top||

#4  Yet to be confirmed, but french businesses operating in Lybia may have to contribute to the indemnisation fund; in this case, french interests would actually be the ones handing out cash, ironically. Still, no matter how base was the quai d'Orsay's blackmailing, I have no objection to the victim's families getting more money.
Posted by: Anonymous || 09/13/2003 13:16 Comments || Top||

#5  ..I have no objection to the victim's families getting more money.

What is contemptible is the manner in which French government officials acted when they found out that their settlement amount (presumably negotiated in good faith) was surpassed by the Lockerbie settlement. When the UTA settlement was negotiated, they had gotten what they had wanted, didn't they?

Let this be a lesson: Do not expect the French to act in good faith, and do NOT expect them to have any sense of honor.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 09/13/2003 17:55 Comments || Top||


U.N. Votes to Lift Sanctions on Libya
Substantial EFL
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N. Security Council on Friday lifted 11-year-old sanctions on Libya after Moammar Gadhafi’s government took responsibility for bombing a Pan Am jet over Scotland and agreed to pay the victims’ families $2.7 billion.
I’ll believe they took responsibility when they offer up the head honchos that ordered the bombing.
The council’s decision to end the ban on arms sales and flights to Libya was more symbolic than substantive because the sanctions have been suspended for over four years. But Libya wanted a formal end to sanctions to help restore its standing in the international community.

Thirteen of the 15 council nations voted to lift sanctions but the United States and France abstained - Washington to protest against Libya’s human rights violations and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and Paris to pressure Libya to finalize a deal to increase compensation to victims of the 1989 bombing of a French UTA jetliner.
French didn’t veto -- was there an under the table understanding, or did they just realize how bad they would have looked?
U.S. deputy ambassador James Cunningham said Libya had met the U.N. requirements for sanctions to be lifted. But he warned Libya and the world community not to view the U.S. abstention ``as tacit U.S. acceptance that the government of Libya has rehabilitated itself.’’ He said U.S. sanctions would remain ``in full force’’ and accused Gadhafi of actively developing biological and chemical weapons and upgrading its nuclear infrastructure. Libya is also seeking ballistic missiles to deliver weapons of mass destruction and is receiving assistance, including from unnamed countries ``that sponsor terrorism,’’ he said.
Who’d like to name the unnamed countries?
``The United States will intensify its efforts to end Libya’s threatening actions,’’ Cunningham warned.

But close ally Britain, which sponsored the resolution, and many other council members expressed hope that Gadhafi’s government would open a new oil leases chapter in its dealings with other nations. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Libya’s acceptance of responsibility for the bombing, agreement to pay compensation, renunciation of terrorism, and pledge to help future Lockerbie investigations, ``demonstrates that terrorists will be brought to justice.’’
Sorta.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/13/2003 12:40:54 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Latin America
Venezuela's electoral council rejects Chavez petition
Venezuela's President, Hugo Chavez, has been handed a big win over the opposition parties. Venezuela's new electoral authority has rejected a three-million strong petition demanding a referendum to remove Mr Chavez from power. The National Electoral Council says there were serious errors in legal procedural practice and administration in collecting the petition and an unacceptable six-month time lag in handing it over so it is totally invalid. This presents a huge boost and another invaluable political breathing space for President Chavez, who surely gambled the other day by insisting that the council's decision, whatever it was and it was still unknown then, must be respected. Unabashed, the Opposition is vowing to start from scratch and gather yet another petition. The Opposition want to force a referendum to democratically remove President Chavez from power.
The coup idea didn't work well. This didn't work well. Next step is a crowbar...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/13/2003 00:32 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Next step is a crowbar...

What? The workers can't even afford to buy a gun with bullets?
Posted by: Charles || 09/13/2003 1:37 Comments || Top||

#2  The Venezualans elected this 60's era Commie thug throwback. And that was a helluvalot easier than unelecting him has proven to be... Much of South America continues to insist on being backward and retarded. Sigh. So much potential, so much wasted.
Posted by: .com (Prez for Life - My Isles of Langerhans) || 09/13/2003 1:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Much of South America continues to insist on being backward and retarded.

As long as they don't try the Mexico Gambit and export their peasants illegally to the U.S. to poach our dollars to send back home, then they can otherwise do as they please. Those guys were dumb enough to put a Commie into office? Well then they're going to have to oust the guy themselves.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 09/13/2003 2:30 Comments || Top||

#4  Too bad we're distracted in the Middle East because there are events in Latin America that warrant serious attention.

The leftists are coming back into vogue because the politicos who represented capitalism and free market reform that emerged in the 90's were corrupt and incompetent - Fujimori is especially contemptible because he had so much promise and initial success with economic development and fighting terrorism. But he blew it when he tried to rewrite the constitution and rig the elections - just another President-for-life-wannabe in the end (some of my Peruvian friends still insist that he's their country's saviour and he should come back and rule).

Venezuela is in serious trouble and there's something like 3 or 4 more years left in Chavez's term. I doubt that he's the type of guy who will allow himself to get voted out - he's 100 times more of a power-hungry iconoclast than Fujimori was. He's a Marxist dictator-wannabe through and through.

The other leftists are not so worrying, at least not yet. Kirchner and Lulu seem to be responsible, committed democrats, guys with mild socialist leanings are much preferable to Castro groupies like Chavez.

Despite the economic chaos, most of L. America went democratic in the '90's and those changes may be permanent.

The 30th anniversary of the Chile coup has brought out some disturbing nostalgia and whitewashing. The romanticization of Allende bugs the hell out of me. Pinochet was a bloody dictator and America should not be proud of supporting his reign of terror. But Chile is much better off today for the fact that the whole economy was not collectived and allied with Cuba and the Soviets.

It's the same story all over the continent.
Posted by: Tokyo Taro || 09/13/2003 4:19 Comments || Top||

#5  WOT futures bet that Chavez negates the next round of elections when the time comes...the only thing that can diminish him is if Fidel dies soon as that's where much of his support, intel boys' training etc. comes from
Posted by: Frank G || 09/13/2003 10:44 Comments || Top||

#6  Chavez, when on active duty years ago, tried to overthrow the government. For which he was given five years in jail. WUWT? (What's up with that?)
He wasn't taken out and shot?
I used to half believe the lefty stuff about how the US and United Fruit and Alcoa and Toys 'r Us messed over Latin America in the Fifties and afterwards, if not beforehand.
Now, I see the indigenous personnel can do it just fine themselves.
You think accusations of baleful US influence were just an excuse?
Posted by: Richard Aubrey || 09/13/2003 11:15 Comments || Top||

#7  The leftists are coming back into vogue because the politicos who represented capitalism and free market reform that emerged in the 90's were corrupt and incompetent..

The problem though, is that the leftists aren't proving themselves to be an improvement over what they replaced. Unfortunately, Venezuela is having to find this out the hard way.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 09/13/2003 14:51 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Sat 2003-09-13
  Arafat fears "Zionist death rays!"
Fri 2003-09-12
  Syria gets new prime minister
Thu 2003-09-11
  Yasser to get the boot?
Wed 2003-09-10
  Another miss: IDF strikes at Zahar
Tue 2003-09-09
  Two Hamas booms today
Mon 2003-09-08
  Toe tag for al-Ghozi?
Sun 2003-09-07
  Yassin promises Dire Revenge™
Sat 2003-09-06
  Missed, dammit! IAF rockets Sheikh Yassin
Fri 2003-09-05
  U.S. Says Talibs on the Run, 70 to 100 Toe Tags
Thu 2003-09-04
  Army raids suspected rebel hide-out in Indian Kashmir - 7 Dead
Wed 2003-09-03
  Caucasus train boom kills four
Tue 2003-09-02
  Car boom at Baghdad cop shop
Mon 2003-09-01
  Two more Hamas snuffied zapped in Gaza
Sun 2003-08-31
  Five Paks held in Thailand for terrorist links
Sat 2003-08-30
  Two more Hamas snuffies zapped

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