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Soddy troops head to Mecca
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
Plan for UN to run internet ’will be shelved’
An attempt by developing countries to put management of the internet under United Nations auspices is likely to be shelved at next month’s World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva - but the issue is now firmly on the international agenda, summit sources say. It will be one of the main bones of contention this week as government negotiators and non-governmental organisations descend on Geneva for the final round of preparatory talks on the draft declaration and plan of action due to be endorsed by heads of state and government at the summit on December 10-12.
However, UN officials say they see no compromise emerging. They expect governments to decide instead to continue talks on internet governance with the aim of reaching accord by 2005, when the second stage of the two-part summit is due to take place in Tunisia."They’re no longer going to try to agree on this," a UN official said last week.
Poorer nations such as Brazil, India, South Africa, China and Saudi Arabia, as well as some richer ones, are growing dissatisfied with the workings of California-based Icann (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), the semi-private internet address regulator set up five years ago.
Just what we need...China and Saudi Arabia administering the internet.
The critics argue that the internet is a public resource that should be managed by national governments and, at an international level, by an intergovernmental body such as the International Telecommunications Union, the UN agency that is organising the information summit.
All so very International, of course. Are there little French fingerprints on any of these documents?
However, the US and the European Commission are staunchly defending the Icann model, which is based on minimal regulation and commercial principles. Icann members are predominantly drawn from industrialised countries and the established internet community.
I smell a capitalist plot to oppress the proletariat by providing instant global communications and free pr0n.
Defenders of the status quo say handing over power to governments could threaten the untrammelled flow of information and ideas that many see as the very essence of the borderless internet.
Just ask Al Gore.
But these arguments appear to be losing force against the emergence of new challenges such as unwanted advertising ("spam"), privacy and security worries, hate speech and child pornography, which have convinced many governments of the need for international regulation and enforcement.
"Think of The Children™."
The question of internet governance, which erupted at a relatively late stage in the preparatory summit negotiations, is just one of many issues negotiators must try to resolve this week. Rich and poor countries are also at odds over creation of a "digital solidarity fund" that would finance investment to bridge the "digital divide" in access to information and communications technologies.
More money from "rich America" to poor and unaccountable UN bureaucrats.
Other unresolved disputes concern the balance between intellectual property protection and access to information, the role of the media, and acceptable boundaries to freedom of expression.
Blogosphere? Report to duty stations immediately!
Posted by: Seafarious || 11/10/2003 6:56:36 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If they do, you can bet they'd find an excuse to shut anyone they didn't like down.
Posted by: Atrus || 11/10/2003 19:16 Comments || Top||

#2  That'd be... ummm... us.
Posted by: Fred || 11/10/2003 19:50 Comments || Top||

#3  definitely top 10 along with LGF, Fredmeister. That's something to be proud of!
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 20:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Other unresolved disputes concern the balance between intellectual property protection and access to information, the role of the media, and acceptable boundaries to freedom of expression.

Acceptable boundaries to freedom of expression. In UN speak is itself cause for decreased international regulations on what can and cannot be displayed on the internet.

Right now, UN's unqualified support for 'holocaust on the installment plan' alone oughta tell you where the UN wants to drag the world should they be allowed to regulate the internet in their own, weird, twisted visions.
Posted by: badanov || 11/10/2003 20:54 Comments || Top||

#5  The United Nations can't keep the staff from raiding the till (the power outage/cafeteria fiasco), can't track down lost UN property, and can't function well enough to know who's already where, and to what extent. If they get hold of the internet, expect 4-hour waits to get online with Broadband, and forget dial-up! Nobody can mess things up to the extent the UN does!

This whole thing is the result of people in suppressed countries being able to get information not readily available, to communicate without 'supervision', and to access information the "government" (whatever one it might be) doesn't want them to have. The governments are losing control of their citizens - who knows, the next thing you know, they might be demanding free elections, government accountable to the electorate, and personal freedoms. Can't POSSIBLY allow that!
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 21:29 Comments || Top||

#6  I'd expect expedited connects, OP, but only to "approved" sites....everything else would get redirected.
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 21:39 Comments || Top||


Well-said response to idiotic remarx
Hat tip ProtestWarrior
Responding to a study showing a gross imbalance of Democrats over Republicans on the faculty of Wells College, located in Aurora, NY, a Wells professor distributed a campus-wide email calling for Republicans to be forcibly lobotomized and labeling Republicans “stupid.”
"They support freedom and oppose infanticide and perversion!"
On Thursday, November 6, the Wells Republicans issued a press release describing the study they had conducted of the political party registrations of the members of the social sciences and humanities faculties at the college. The study revealed that members of parties of the Left (Democrats, Greens, Working Families) outnumbered members of parties of the Right (Republicans and Conservatives) by a ratio of 92 percent to 8 percent. The online FrontPage Magazine promptly picked up the story. Responding to the press release and study, Wells Professor Tom Vawter sent an email to all members of the Wells community calling Republicans “stupid.” He closed his email with this quote: “’Lobotomies for Republicans: It’s not just a good idea; it’s the Law!’ --Yellow Dog.”
Yellow is fitting; that beauzeau has a to yellow a streak for honest debate!
Wells Republican Chairman Kristy Lee Hochenberger, a junior from Syracuse, NY, responded to Vawter’s comments: “We are outraged by Professor Vawter’s comments. Calling Republicans ’stupid’ is wrong and misguided. Calling for all Republicans to be forcibly lobotomized is frightening,” said Hochenberger.
Imagine if a Rep had called for the lobotomization of all donks!
“A conservative professor saying a similar thing would be gone. If a professor made an analogous comment in response to a press release from a liberal women’s group, he would be out of a job by sundown. Cries of ‘hate crime,’ ‘threats of violence,’ and ‘misogyny’ would echo through the land. Feminist and liberal leaders would be flying into Aurora from around the country to support the beleaguered students and call for the punishment of the professor. The national media would focus on the story.”
But double standards are the norm at campuses.
Added Hochenberger: “In yesterday’s press release, we cited the experience of a number of Wells students who are reluctant to express their Republican or conservative views, given the intimidating atmosphere that some of the liberal professors on the faculty have created. Prof. Vawter has unwittingly given a perfect illustration of the kind of intolerant, intimidating attitudes that the Republican students described in yesterday’s press release.”
Spoken like a true supporter of free speech!
Concluded Hochenberger: “We call on the Wells College administration, and in particular Wells College President Lisa Marsh Ryerson, to condemn Prof. Vawter’s intemperate language and to take measures to ensure that Republicans at Wells will be free to express themselves without fear of this kind of hateful and threatening response.

Now, that's why I'm a supporter of post-natal abortion until the age of 23. When Prof. Vawter was just a baby I'm sure he was nice and cute and cuddly and all that, but by the time he was approaching his majority his parents must have known that something had gone horribly wrong. If my proposal was adopted, they could simply have taken a coat hanger to him at age 18 and tried again.
Posted by: Atrus || 11/10/2003 10:53:43 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sounds like he used official email to make a threat of violence, creating a hostile environment to work and learn in - a hate crime. All of the rules and punishments for hate speech and hate crimes and un-PC thought which have been so misused need to be properly brought to bear on this little man and crush him and his career. If the school admin refuses, the Justice Dept needs to be brought in. Enjoy your 15 minutes of spotlight, cockroach Professor Vawter
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 11:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Its only a hate crime is comitted by the right or white.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/10/2003 11:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Its only a hate crime if comitted by the right or white.

I hate mondays.......
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/10/2003 11:54 Comments || Top||

#4  When faced w/superior logic and rationale, always refer to your opponents as just plain "stupid". No better way to display your own intellectual superiority then by the art of the blanket epitaph......
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/10/2003 12:22 Comments || Top||

#5  'Called for Republicans to be forcibly lobotomized.' This is to 'level' the intellectual playing field between Liberal and Conservatives.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 11/10/2003 12:34 Comments || Top||

#6  "..a Wells professor distributed a campus-wide email calling for Republicans to be forcibly lobotomized..”

Such actions would only create more Democrats.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/10/2003 13:46 Comments || Top||

#7  "the study they had conducted of the political party registrations of the social sciences and humanities faculties" well DUH! That should be a REAL BIG surprise--why don't they take the survey at the College of Business Administration? I went to biz school and was subjected to all kinds of idiotic Conservative quackery like: " the Democrats always leave deficits, supply side/trickle down/voodoo economics, Adam Smith as God and I didn't complain like these crybabies!
Posted by: Not Mike Moore || 11/10/2003 14:57 Comments || Top||

#8  C'mon guys, it's Wells College.

Who actually gives a shit? Hands?...
Posted by: mojo || 11/10/2003 15:44 Comments || Top||

#9  C'mon guys, it's Wells College. Who actually gives a shit? Hands?...
Unfortunately, Wells College is NOT unique, or even outside the 'mainstream'. This is the attitude of more college professors than just those at Wells College. They are teaching this crap to a continuing flow of young minds as they pass through our university system. They are doing their best to create the next generation in their image. Thankfully, after four years of this crap, these young people hit the real world, and have their egos deflated about 99%. "Thank you, and we'll keep your resume on file if we ever need a person with a degree in 14th century Tibetan literature."

Two things today's colleges fail at more than ever: they don't want people to learn to think for themselves, so they discourage it, and they don't want conservative messages anywhere NEAR the campus, afraid some poor little 20-year-old dweeb will hear something that conflicts with the mass hysteria preached (most appropriate word) on campus. The biggest suckers are the parents that still send Johnny or Jane to school to get an education. They should all sue for fraud.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 18:11 Comments || Top||

#10  Come on OP, tell us what you really feel. Don't hold back now!

There is nothing more satisfying than watching a recent collage grad's face when he finally realizes that he is not 'Gods Gift to -insert-profession-here-" but rather just another average joe... and not a very good one at that.

"No, you dont have 3 weeks to complete the design and coding. We need to tomorrow".
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/10/2003 19:18 Comments || Top||

#11  I can't get into this conservative crusade to take back the campuses. One of Mark Steyn's great themes is his line:
"Remind me to never complain about liberal media bias again..."

He revisits this theme after every Republican electoral victory.

I suspect that the same applies to Radical Lefty control of education. Sure there are some harmful consequences but we exaggerate the grip these people have over young people's minds. In fact, there is reason to suspect that they are inadvertently helping America shift to the right. I was subjected to large doses of neo-Marxistinfluenced indoctrination education. The result was more like an immunity shot or getting the chicken pox. I suspect it's that way for a large majority of American college kids. The lefties are now the old, tired, pathetic scolds with the cement-headed ideology. Young people will rebel from that, they will be repulsed by it. Those that don't will as soon as they go out into the real world. Of course, the one's that stay lefty probably wont make it in the real world and go on to graduate school - which ensures that the institution will remain dominated by these groups.

In any event, as mojo indicates. These campaigns for fairness smack too much of whining.
Posted by: Tokyo Taro || 11/10/2003 21:24 Comments || Top||

#12  I can't get into this conservative crusade to take back the campuses.
Truthfully, neither can I. I'm well beyond going back to college, and the only child I have left that might be interested plans to go into the sciences, where this crap has less of a death-grip. Still, I think it's grossly unfair to the parents to part with $40-$50,000 for a four-year indoctrination course in bullshit cubed. I'm also quite tired of having to explain to each of the nutcakes that calls my telephone number trying to sell me something that a), no I don't want a new chinchilla bedcover, and b), yes, I understand you got gyped in college, so sue THEM, don't CALL me. I'm also tired of the snide comments and arrogant looks when I drive through the local ultra-liberal college campus (sits right smack dab between the two main streets downtown, and spreads out beyond both) with my DV plates. I've done more, made more happen that has affected this world for the good than 99% of these idiots can imagine. They have no clue - it's just automatic to them: DV plates, base sticker = former military = loser.

I want to be there the first time they get turned down for a job because they have no education. Give me my 30 seconds to gloat over reality versus life on college campuses. Sweet Victory!
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 21:48 Comments || Top||

#13  OP, I thought you resided in Louisiana? I didn't know they had any ultra-lib colleges in Bayou country. I thought LA Tech was good ole down home conservative college.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/10/2003 23:18 Comments || Top||

#14  Jarhead, I grew up about twelve miles north of Alexandria, La, but left home at the tender young age of 17. Colorado's been "home" since about 1965, solidified by marrying a 'native' in '66. I currently live in Colorado Springs. I do have (far too) many connections to Louisiana, including both my relatives and some of my wife's, plus a few small pieces of property and a load of folks in a Pineville cemetary. It'll never be home again, though. If possible, I plan to ditch Colorado Springs for somewhere smaller - still in Colorado, but with a population of 500 or less.

There are three ultra-liberal colleges in Louisiana: two in New Orleans (Tulane, New Orleans Theological Semitary), and one in Natchitoches (Northwestern Louisiana State). Might be more, but I don't go there often enough to find them.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/11/2003 0:32 Comments || Top||


Spam harmed economy more than hackers, viruses
Spam caused more economic damage than hackers and viruses last month, despite indications that the amount of unwanted e-mail actually declined. London-based computer-security firm mi2G said in a report on Thursday that computer outages and lost productivity because of spam led to $10.4 billion in worldwide economic losses in October. Meanwhile, the company said viruses and worms caused $8.4 billion in losses, while hackers contributed to $1 billion in financial damage worldwide. "In the beginning, we thought that hackers were more damaging than malware, and malware was more damaging than spam," said DK Matai, executive chairman of mi2G, in a press release. "October has shown the reverse to be true." Brightmail, a Los Altos, Calif.,-based developer of spam filters, said it scanned about 70 billion e-mail messages in October, and 52 percent were identified as spam. In September, 54 percent of messages scanned were spam.
I've had Outlook running all weekend. There are 479 messages in my Deleted box, all of it spam. Most of it's intercepted by SpamAssassin — which I heartily recommend — but I still end up seeing more ads to stretch my doinker or make me rich than I do real messages.
In recent months, antispam groups and operators of "blocklists" that identify spammers have been subjected to massive spam attacks that flood servers and crash computer systems. These attacks have forced some blocklists to shut down, and many have had to spend thousands of dollars in extra bandwidth and protection.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 04:58 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Why do I get the feeling Microsoft funded this study.
Posted by: Yank || 11/10/2003 13:30 Comments || Top||

#2  That's EASY! Just put up a bounty on spammers. Two grand a head or so. Maybe a bonus if the hit is deemed "spectacular" or "edifying"...
Posted by: mojo || 11/10/2003 17:41 Comments || Top||

#3  There is nothing better than Self Propelled Armormed Meat.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/10/2003 17:59 Comments || Top||


Beauty prize for Miss Afghanistan
The first Afghan woman in three decades to take part in a beauty pageant, has won Miss Earth’s "beauty for a cause" award. Miss Afghanistan Vida Samadzai took home the inaugural prize at the event in Manila even though she failed to make it to the contest’s semifinals. Miss Honduras Dania Prince was crowned Miss Earth. Samadzai, 23, won her award for "symbolizing the newfound confidence, courage and spirit of today’s women" and for "representing the victory of women’s rights and various social, personal and religious struggles."
"Fatwa in 5, 4, 3..."
But her achievement is unlikely to subdue much of the storm her parading in a bikini caused in her native Afghanistan. Samadzai — who left Afghanistan in 1996 to study in the United States — was condemned for treading the catwalk in a red bikini and may even face prosecution if she returns home. A senior Afghan justice official said Samadzai had betrayed Afghanistan’s Muslim culture and could have even broken the law.
"...2, 1"
"I hope that this lady regrets her actions," Manawi told The Associated Press, adding that Samadzai may be investigated but declining to say what charges or penalties she could face. Samadzai’s parade in a red bikini is certainly a radical departure from the traditional image of Afghan women. Under the hardline Taliban — which ruled Afghanistan from 1995 to 2001 — women were required to wear head to toe burqas when appearing in public. Though harsh dress codes have eased since the Taliban’s fall, the Koran calls for both Muslim women and men to dress modestly in public.
The Koran calls for a lot of things...
For women, this usually means wearing loose fitting clothes that conceal form and completely cover the body except for her hands and face. Samadzai has said that though she felt uncomfortable wearing the bikini, she wore the skimpy attire to qualify for the contest and raise awareness of the plight of women and children in her homeland. She said she was "appointed" as a contestant by people aware of her work as a volunteer fundraiser and as a founder of an Afghan women’s rights organization. "It gives me a chance to speak up and send my voice out there and let people know that the Afghans are in great need of help," she said, according to The Associated Press.
Mission accomplished. But please stay away from Afghanistan for the time being, ok?
Posted by: Rafael || 11/10/2003 1:17:14 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  She might want political asylum for a while.
Posted by: Atrus || 11/10/2003 10:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Sure hope Ms. Samadzai doesn't have to get used to a Salman Rushdie life style (all he was guilty of was writing a bad novel, she actually showed skin, so she's definitely got to die!).

She has the potential (at least the circumstantial opportunity, if not the personal convicion) to be Afganistan's Susan B. Anthony, et al.

The furor this walk-down-the-ramp has caused proves the men of the M.E. can't control themselves yet . A couple of decades of rolled-up-newspaper-on-the-snout reality will chip away at the weak, horrific woman-hating, and help them "get their minds right".

The Middle East's spiral into hell will only reverse itself when women are finally accepted as equals in all M.E./Islamic countries.That will be the real sign that the Middle East has begun the long turn-around toward peaceful modernity.
Posted by: Hyper || 11/10/2003 11:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Hey, Manawi, c'mere... I wanna give you a hearty handshake!
Posted by: Old Grouch || 11/10/2003 18:54 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan
Talibs retaking districts in Zabul province
Afghan authorities have lost control of at least seven districts in troubled southeast Zabul province, the deputy governor said Monday.
"We’ll let you know when we find them again."
But tribal chiefs and elders, rather than resurgent Taliban forces, were in control of the areas, Mawlawy Mohammad Omar said.
This guy is a maulavi, not a mullah like everyone’s favorite cyclopsean theocrat.
Yeah! So he outranks Mullah Omar!
"There is no government control over Atghar, Naw Bahar, Shinkay and Shamazai in the south of the province," deputy Zabul governor Omar told AFP by satellite phone from the provincial capital Qalat. "There are some other districts such as Shahjoy, Dai Chopan and Khak-e-Afghan where the government has no control but the Taliban do not control these areas either."
I’m guessing Omar is referring to "the government" as being him in this instance given that Karzai doesn’t appear to wield much power outside of the immediate vicinity of the capital. And if this is that much of a problem, why doesn’t Omar use his satellite phone to call the capital?
He said Taliban were fighters were moving around the districts on motorbikes. "But they aren’t powerful enough to threaten the administration," Omar said. Government militiamen were unable to go to the seven districts due to a lack of men and equipment, he said.
I’d guess that the mad turbans on motorbikes would be part of that group of "Omar’s Angels" that we heard so much about in Quetta last month.
He said government forces withdrew last month when US-led coalition forces disarmed them due to "wrong information" from the governor of southeast Ghazni province. "Government troops in Naw Bahar district left the area when Americans detained the district chief and disarmed his men," Omar said. He said government forces could return to the districts if the coalition returned their weapons.
Okay,so that explains why the New Bahar district doesn’t have any weapons ... what about the others?
Omar had earlier told the private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press that "Taliban or their supporters" were in the districts, and that they were preparing to try and take Qalat.
That’s not good. Do they have any weapons there? This is Afghanistan, for God’s sake, I thought that everybody was supposed to have guns! Maybe it might be a good time to phone up the Merkins at Kandahar Airport to call for a little help instead of talking with the media, Omar.
Zabul, which neighbours Pakistan, is on the frontline of increasing attacks by Taliban fighters regrouping in southern Afghanistan and in Pakistani border regions.
Borders Pakland, does it? Boy, ain't that a coincidence...
Around 150 suspected Taliban were killed in September during a major joint US-Afghan offensive against mountain hideouts in Zabul. A powerful bomb went off Saturday at the headquarters of Zabul’s governor but no-one was hurt in the explosion or in another blast at an arms depot.
Hek’s boys at it again?
The province is deemed "high risk" by the United Nations, which has banned its personnel from working there.
A description that could easily apply to most of Afghanistan ...
UN Undersecretary General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guehenno told the Security Council on October 24 that the Taliban had established de facto control in "several border districts" neighbouring Pakistan, including Barmal and Gayan in Paktika province and Maruf in Kandahar.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 11/10/2003 3:02:36 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Appeasement Alert: Mullah Omar Replaced as Taliban Leader... as Part of a Deal?
KABUL, November 10 (Online): Taliban leader Mulla Muhammad Omar has been replaced by Mullah Momin Sabir. Radio Tehran reports from Kandahar that group leader Mulla Muhammad Omer has been sidelined and has been replaced by Mulla Momin Sabir. The United States has been holding talks with the Taliban for the last two months. Washington wants Mullah Muhammad Omer to be sidelined while Taliban group demands total withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan.
If it is true the Taliban has accepted to replace Omar as its leader, this was done in exchange for what? The Taliban was directly responsible for 9/11, cutting a deal with them would constitute an outrageous moral crime.
Posted by: Sorge || 11/10/2003 12:42:55 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Oh, please! This is the Pak Tribune reporting on a report by Radio Tehran. The only way Mullah Omar would be replaced is if he caught a bad case of lead poisoning.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 12:55 Comments || Top||

#2  I can imagine Mullah Omar being replaced because as far as the Taliban is concerned he's pretty much been a huge failure. I would doubt any American involvement in the matter, however. The US would prefer the loser in charge.
Posted by: Yank || 11/10/2003 13:32 Comments || Top||

#3  well, maybe he has a future in Stadium Supercross. Still riding that 125cc Honda Omar?
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 14:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Mullah Umar has already caught a case of lead poisoning. Only that it is the slow variety: the one who makes crazy and stupid
Posted by: JFM || 11/10/2003 14:40 Comments || Top||


Arabia
In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate....
From LGF:
11/8/2003: "Slavery Is a Part of Islam"
The main author of Saudi Arabia’s religious school curriculum comes out unequivocally in favor of legalizing slavery. (Hat tip: AD.) And this raving freak’s books are also used in Islamic schools in Washington DC. Leading government cleric Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan is the author of the religious books currently used to teach 5 million Saudi students, both within the and in Saudi schools aboard – including those in the Washington, D.C. metro area. “Slavery is a part of Islam,” he says in the tape, adding: “Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam.”
Logos: If A is part of B and A is part of C and C = B then eliminate B
Government spokesman Adel Al-Jubeir and other officials have repeatedly claimed religious curriculums are being reformed, but Al-Fawzan’s books continued to be used according to the minister of education’s statements published by Al-Watan daily September 14th, 2003. Al-Fawzan is member of the Learned Elders of Islam Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia’s highest religious body, a member of the Council of Religious Edicts and Research, the Imam of Prince Mitaeb Mosque in Riyadh, and a professor at Imam Mohamed Bin Saud Islamic University, the main Wahhabi center of learning in the country. Al-Fawzan refuted the mainstream Muslim interpretation that Islam worked to abolish slavery by introducing equality between the races. “They are ignorant, not scholars,” he said of people who express such opinions. “They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel.”
Allah whispers in MY ear, alone.
Al-Fawzan’s most famous book, “Al-Tawheed – Monotheism”, is taught to Saudi high school students. In it, he says that most Muslims are polytheists, and their blood and money are therefore free for the taking by “true Muslims.”
Sounds like the cheerleader for the Al Qaeda’s who just boomed the Soddies. Wanna know why they killed you? Ask the Fawnzie. Seems you’re just as bad as the crusader infidels.
Posted by: mercutio || 11/10/2003 3:47:01 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We ought to bankroll some poor country that needs cash to introiduce UN resolutions that denounce this guy and his views on slavery. It would be an interesting Roll Call vote.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/10/2003 17:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Al-Fawzan’s most famous book, “Al-Tawheed – Monotheism”, is taught to Saudi high school students. In it, he says that most Muslims are polytheists, and their blood and money are therefore free for the taking by “true Muslims.”
A true Muwhahhidun then, unlike that wimpy Shaykh Abdullah ibn Jibreen (another SCC boy), Jibreen issued a fatwa calling for the extermination of the Shi'a idolaters alone! No mention at all of killing deluded so-called Sunnis - revolting isn't it?
AFAIK Shaykh Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab was of the opinion that any Muslims who didn't his follow particular brand of Islam were kafirs & 'twas OK to wage Jihad against them. I wonder if the Sa'udis like to publicise this aspect of their official ideology, it would make OIC conferences kind of interesting: 'Listen to me - you're not really Muslims, you're all Mushirkoun! It's our divine duty to slaughter you like sheep & deliver you to eternal hell-fire!'
The Sa'udis only got round to abolishing slavery (or at least pretending to) in 1963 (well you can't rush these things can you?) so it isn't really surprising that some of 'em have slightly old-fashioned ideas on the subject.
Posted by: Dave || 11/10/2003 17:51 Comments || Top||


Intelligence failed to stop Saudi attack
Bombers succeeded in attacking a residential compound in Saudi Arabia, despite western intelligence warnings that an attack was imminent. The attack on a residential compound in Riyadh killed 18 people and injured over 100 others on Sunday evening. The bombings came despite warnings from the American, British and Australian governments that an attack in the country was ripe.
"Take this away, Mahmoud! This is Western intelligence. To read it would be un-Islamic."
"Yes, effendi!"
The warnings were issued over a five week period, starting on 6 October when the US issued a statement saying ''known terrorist operatives'' were watching the movements of westerners in the kingdom.
"Feh! They're watching Westerners. What's that got to do with us Soddies? Mahmoud, bring me my camel!"
A further warning was issued last Friday, with the US stating that 'terrorists' were in an ''operational phase'' able to launch an attack at any time.
"Western intelligence! What do they know?"
"Yes, effendi."
"Bring me some dates. And have the eunochs fire up a dancing girl for me."
Last week a senior western diplomat admitted that ''a group linked to al-Qaida are in the final stages of planning a major terrorist attack. Frustratingly we didn't know the target or the timing.''
"Couldn't be anything important or we'd have caught them by now. Mahmoud! My burnoose! I shall go hawking!"
"Yes, effendi!"
After Sunday's attack on the compound, the same diplomat said that he could not rule out that armed groups weren't planning to launch further attacks in the kingdom. Questions are being asked about the reliance on western intelligence in being able to thwart future bombings in Saudi Arabia and around the world. The Saudis criticised the British government last month for failing to coordinate security warnings with Saudi officials.
"All intelligence reports must be routed through Mahmoud the Weasel at the Bureau of Intelligence Coordination in triplicate. All reports must be written in Arabic, and will be returned for improper grammar or punctuation."
For the Saudis the warnings undermine investor confidence in the kingdom and makes the government appear as if they have no control over security in the country.
I think I'd put my money in Sri Lanka before I'd put it in Soddy Arabia. Luckily I don't have any.
Security analysts however insist that intelligence gathering is improving all the time, as is the monitoring and penetration of Islamist dissident groups in the kingdom, despite failing to prevent Sunday's attacks.
"Mahmoud! My .50 caliber! I'll be out shooting bustards this afternoon!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 15:29 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  from the Al Jaz report

"For the Saudis the warnings undermine investor confidence in the kingdom and makes the government appear as if they have no control over security in the country."

Maybe the Saudis won't get their Jihad cola deliveries on time if this keeps up.
Posted by: mhw || 11/10/2003 15:57 Comments || Top||

#2  ah! the chickens are coming home to roost,heh!
Posted by: chriskarma || 11/10/2003 16:13 Comments || Top||

#3  The Saudis criticised the British government last month for failing to coordinate security warnings with Saudi officials.

Can the British trust the jihadi-riddled Saudi security services? I think not. Everything the Brits tell the Saudis probably becomes known to al Qaeda almost immediately.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 11/10/2003 16:33 Comments || Top||

#4  I think the Suadis were worried that the information might have come from muslims wire-tapping other muslims. By the Koran ther're not supposed to do that to each other, so the reports had to be discounted.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/10/2003 17:25 Comments || Top||

#5  The more I read Rantburg, the more I'm convinced that the Religion of Peace is actually the Religion of Pieces, and the whole scope of ISLAMISM is to make more and more pieces. The turbantops aren't terribly worried about what those pieces were originally, not even other turbantops.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/11/2003 0:36 Comments || Top||


U.S. Offers to Help Saudis in Terror War
Saying the bloody attack on a housing compound in Riyadh bore the earmarks of al-Qaida, the Bush administration on Monday offered to widen its support for Saudi Arabia in countering terror. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who arrived in the Saudi capital on Sunday, the day after scores of people were killed or injured in the bombing, made the offer to Crown Prince Abdullah. Armitage told the Saudi leader "we will be full participating partners if that is the desire of the kingdom," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said.
It's not. Too many jewelled turbans to be implicated...
Saudi Arabia has taken a number of steps since a similar attack last May in Riyadh, Boucher said. "They have been very aggressive in raids, going after terrorist operatives who have been using the territory of the kingdom for evil attacks," the spokesman said.
They've also been crummy on follow-up — a few always seemed to manage to get away and the cops were too busy directing traffic or beating up women who showed an ankle to chase them down...
For its part, the United States has helped the Saudis increase security and shared information on financing of terrorists, Boucher said. But, he added, "There is always more we could be doing, until we prevent attacks like this. And that has to be our primary concern now: What more can we do in terms of our assets, our support, and our cooperation with the Saudi government?"
"What the hell does it take to wake you guys up?"
Boucher said the U.S. government did not actually have evidence that al-Qaida, the terror network headed by Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, carried out the attack. But, he said, "it looks like Al Qaida, it smells like Al Qaida, it has all the earmarks of Al Qaida."
It does whiff strongly of al-Qaeda. If they're not Qaeda they're close enough for gummint work...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 15:04 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I say, let al-Q destroy the Fraudis, and then we attack and destroy al-Q. Win-Win.
Posted by: BH || 11/10/2003 15:12 Comments || Top||

#2  BH, actually, that is what I have been hoping for, for the last 2 years.

In fact, I am hoping that somebody comes up with a way of stoking the inevitable conflict, sort of like a preventative burn when fighting forest fires.

Win-win, indeed.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 11/10/2003 17:03 Comments || Top||

#3  The Saudis are fighting AQ. They are fighting the kids who march for personal freedom and democratic reforms.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/10/2003 17:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Mr. P.

Too many jewelled turbans to be implicated

How do you get a jewelled turban.... is it a sign of wealth or rank?
Posted by: Shipman || 11/10/2003 18:05 Comments || Top||


Tribal Backing for Saudi Rulers Ebbs
DEBKA has a theory, salt to taste. EFL:
Though similar in operational method to the May 12 triple suicide attack in Riyadh, al Qaeda’s suicide assault on the al-Muhaya housing complex in the Saudi capital Saturday night November 9 exposed two new features. Osama bin Laden’s terrorists have taken a threatening step closer to one of their premier targets, the Saudi royal house; and their recruitment base of non-Saudi zealots is expanding.
On November 3, Saudi police killed two armed men and captured six.

On November 6, two terrorists blew themselves up in a shootout to evade capture. On the same day, the Riyadh police shot a third terrorist who had reached the capital from Mecca.

November 9, the suicide bombers struck. The Saudis found to their surprise that, while two of the captured terrorists were Saudis, four were Nigerian. They revealed under questioning that their al Qaeda commanders had exploited the stream of Ramadan pilgrims making for the Muslim shrines to plant several African killer cells in the kingdom, assuming Saudi counter-terror agents would be watching out mainly fro Muslims from Arab states or the Far East.
Each of these cells has two or three Saudi “escorts”, who take them to hideouts where they pick up weapons and explosives and are then led to target. The number of these infiltrator-cells is unknown. They are thought to have scattered among the pilgrimage cities of Mecca and Medina as well as other cities, primarily Riyadh.
Saudis today moved about 5000 troops to Mecca and Medina.
The two terrorists who blew themselves up in Mecca on November 6 turned out to be the remainder of the cell which moved to Riyadh. The investigation is probing to find out if this cell executed or supported the attack on Muhaya. Two of its members preferred to die rather than betray the operation scheduled three days hence, the third got away.
Hard core true believers.
Similarly, three or four days before the May 12 attacks, Saudi and US intelligence discovered and encircled the bombers’ hideout in advance of their operation, but enough escaped to regroup at prepared alternative secret bases and pounce from there. This time too, the Americans and Saudis knew a fresh assault was imminent. On November 8, Washington released information that terrorists had moved from the planning to the operational stage and shut all diplomatic missions in the kingdom.
And the Saudis condemmed the closure saying they had things under control, just before the boomers struck.
...thereby splattering egg all over Prince Nayef's face.
DEBKAfile’s terrorism experts note: The sequence of events lays bare a major obstacle in the capabilities of the royal Saudi authorities and the intelligence resources at their command to fight al Qaeda. On top of the conventional terror prevention methods, like human and electronic surveillance and intelligence gathering, the Saudis are confronted with the need to bargain perpetually for the cooperation of local tribal, clan and clerical leaders in handing over al Qaeda suspects. Saudi security officers in pursuit of terrorists dare not venture into a district before the local chiefs and imams have been won over. The alternative is wholesale war against one or more of the tribes that are the backbone of the kingdom’s population.
Here’s where DEBKA beings to speculate:
Shortly after the May 12 attack, our sources reported that Crown Prince Abdullah and other influential princes rebuked Prince Nayef, accusing him of falling down on the job of prevention. This charge would not be warranted now. Nayef and Saudi intelligence performed to the limit of their ability to prevent the Muhaya attack.
But their abilities are limited by the fact that despite its autocratic structure, Soddy Arabia is still organized into competing clans the same way Yemen is...
Their efforts this time were defeated by the widening rift between the throne in Riyadh and the local chieftains and clerics, especially the teachers at the local madressas. The situation now is that local leaders often let security forces believe they are are operating in friendly territory when those leaders give the game away to their al Qaeda quarry and help them elude capture.
Hey! Just like what happens in NWFP. Maybe the Paks learned it from the Soddies, or maybe it's a feature of primitive tribal-based societies where ignorance and brutality are treasured personal qualities...
This lack of local sympathy for the royal house and its efforts to fight terror is particularly striking in the southern provinces and the Hijaz region of Mecca and Medina on the Red Sea coast, where the Ramad Tribe reigns. For the decades that the Sudeiri branch of the royal house has ruled the government in Riyadh, the southern and eastern tribes have been left in the cold while royal favors were bestowed on the tribes of the central Nejd region.
The ones that know how to read and write?
The alienated tribes, long denied privileges and senior positions in central government, are now settling their scores with Riyadh by granting solidarity to the anti-royal resistance posed by al Qaeda.
Maybe someone is whispering in their ears that they should be in charge instead of the Saud family.
The Saudi Interior minister’s efforts to clamp down on terrorists and foil attacks are seriously cramped by this lack of support in key regions of the kingdom.
They are caught in a vicious circle, they have to crack down because of lack of support, and when they crack down they loose support.
A further danger is posed by al Qaeda’s success in developing another center of recruitment, Kuwait. DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources reveal exclusively that since mid-October, hundreds of al Qaeda recruits in Kuwait are entering Iraq directly or through Saudi Arabia. The scale of this traffic is beginning to rival the movement of Arab and other al Qaeda fighters into Iraq from Syria. The Kuwaitis find it easy to enter Iraq posing as merchants with business in Baghdad. At the border, they are picked up by former Iraqi military intelligence officers loyal to Saddam Hussein and transferred to flashpoint zones in Baghdad, Ramadi, Falluja, Samarra and Tikrit where they join the battle against the coalition.
I keep wondering, just how many are making it through? CENTCOM is very closed mouthed about how many al Qaeda "recruits" we are killing in the desert. There’s a lot going on out there we don’t know about.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 10:11:38 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  CENTCOM is saying nothing either because:

a) They're slaughtering them in the desert, where no self-respecting media are present to raise the human-rights hue and cry.

b) The Iraqis are slaughtering them in the desert, where no self-respecting media are present to raise the human-rights hue and cry.

c) They don't know what the hell is going on.

My thoughts: if there really are hundreds of these Jihadis streaming across the borders every day, I would think that we should be seeing more attacks than we have been. The threat could be exaggerated (c), or being eliminated (a,b).

The American military, when in theatre, are flexible and inventive: a virtue of an army of free peoples. Necessity is the mother of invention, so even if we don't know what's happening, I would hope our men out there know what's going on, so they can come up with countermeasures.
Posted by: Ptah || 11/10/2003 10:32 Comments || Top||

#2  I'll take A and B for $500.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 10:40 Comments || Top||

#3  The Saudis found to their surprise that, while two of the captured terrorists were Saudis, four were Nigerian.

Yeah, most of the terrorists were Nigerian. Just like all them bombs from before were set off by western alk runners...
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 11/10/2003 11:17 Comments || Top||

#4  sounds like the Madrassahs need shutting down......tap tap
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 11:32 Comments || Top||

#5  For some reason, after reading A and B, Dawn of the Dead popped into my head. The part where the boys are target shooting.

Didn't Patriot recently post 1 in 25 are getting thru and the Iraqi Police are shooting first and asking questions later????
Posted by: Anonymous-not above || 11/10/2003 11:36 Comments || Top||

#6  Steve, I take your $500 and up double it. You don't need no stinking media to figure that one out!
Posted by: B || 11/10/2003 12:45 Comments || Top||

#7  The media would actually make an issue of "human rights" where Al Qaida is concerned? Hah, what are the chances that Al Qaida members would actually give a rat's ass if the situation were reversed?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/10/2003 13:57 Comments || Top||

#8  My guess is we're talking about a small number of relatively well-trained AQ operatives and a large number of untrained but enthusiastic young men whose main function is to play catch with our .50 caliber rounds.
Posted by: Matt || 11/10/2003 14:38 Comments || Top||

#9  Here is one theory about CENTCOM's silence. The rest of that site makes for some good reading.
Posted by: growler || 11/10/2003 17:50 Comments || Top||

#10  Hope the folks at growler's link are right. I have my doubts. I'll bet the new grand strategy is the same one used in Korea after the Chineese intervened....

They gamble 7 to 1 again Coalition firepower.
Result is 49 to 1 and run out of money.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/10/2003 18:12 Comments || Top||


Saudi troops head to Mecca
EFL:
Saudi security officials are deploying thousands of troops to the city of Mecca because of concerns that terrorists may be planning new attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, government sources told CNN.
They’re worried. Good.
Seventeen people, including five children, were killed and 122 people were wounded in Saturday’s suicide car bombing in a mostly Arab neighborhood in Riyadh, the Saudi Press Agency said. Officials expect the toll to rise as rescuers continue searching the rubble for any other victims. The Saudis blamed al Qaeda for the attack and pledged to track down those responsible.
"We will get the perpetrators no matter how long it takes," Interior Minister Prince Nayef told Saudi state television as he inspected the devastated compound. "All those who are propelled to do these acts must stop or surrender because it would be better for them and their salvation. There is no crime more heinous than this."
"Why can’t they stick to killing infidels?"
Expecting another terrorist attack at any time, Saudi security officials have ordered 4,600 troops to Mecca for the remaining three weeks of Ramadan.
Hope they are "trustworthy".
The car that exploded Saturday night left a crater in the center of the neighborhood, which was littered with rubble and burned-out vehicles. The attackers stormed the affluent neighborhood near Riyadh’s diplomatic quarter late Saturday, first firing on security guards and then driving their explosives-laden cars through the gates. Sources said the attackers apparently had stolen a jeep from Saudi security forces to disguise themselves. Saudi guards opened the gate upon seeing the jeep before the attackers opened fire, the sources said.
That’ll teach them. First you check IDs, then you open the gate.
The attack came a day after the United States said it was shutting its embassy and consulates in Saudi Arabia, citing intelligence of an imminent terrorist attack. Westerners who work in Saudi Arabia are considering sending their families home because of the dangers there and moving their companies out of Saudi Arabia until it becomes safer, some Western businessmen told CNN. In addition to Saudi and Egyptian fatalities, a Sudanese and an Indian were also killed in Saturday’s attack, the Saudi Press Agency said. The 122 wounded included Jordanians, Palestinians, Indians, Pakistanis, Sudanese, Ethiopians, Eritreans, Indonesians, Filipinos, Turks, Sri Lankans, and Romanians, the agency said. Officials, citizens, and journalists were shocked at the attack because it hit a target where most of the people are Arabs.
This had to be deliberate, AQ’s intel should be pretty good in Saudi land.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 9:23:33 AM || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  but, but, but Mecca is only open to members of the Religion of Peace! Surely it is the most peaceful place in the world! Why would they need soldiers? And on such a peaceful holiday as Ramadan?
Posted by: BH || 11/10/2003 10:11 Comments || Top||

#2  I guess this is a simplistic thought, but I am a simple minded person. It seems to me that AQ having lost their hold in Afghanistan need a new base of operations in the ME and they think that Saudi Arabia is the easiest prey. Other governements have sympathetic players, but already established power-bases that would be far too difficult to overcome.

I note from one of Fred's blubs on Muslim brotherhood: "Al-Ikhwan believe that ruling a government should be the step which follows preparing the society for accepting Islamic laws. Preparing the society is achieved thru plans for spreading the Islamic culture, the possible media means, mosques, and da'wa work in public organizations such as syndicates, parliaments, student unions. Parallel to that, muslims should be trained to administer political, economical, social, and student organizations efficiently (and Islamically). Moreover, the Ikhwan don't demand rule for themselves; they welcome any leader who wants to establish a TRUE Islamic government to have all the Ikhwanic ..."

but is it too simple minded to attribute this to AQ and affiliates being anxious to move to the "ruling a government stage". When viewed in that light, the efforts to unstabilize SA make perfect sense. Afterall, let's be real, like most power struggles, this isn't really about Islam or jihad or any other buzzwords. It's about wanting to be the ones in charge. SA is weak and it looks to me like they are going for it.

Posted by: B || 11/10/2003 10:59 Comments || Top||

#3  it is also about purity and it is also about opportunity.

Al Q wants purity of Islamic belief and the place they want it most is SArabia because of the black rock.

Also, the number of Saudis sympathetic to Al Q type dreams is greater than the number of any other sympathizers. This makes operations easier. It makes finding safe houses easier.
Posted by: mhw || 11/10/2003 11:28 Comments || Top||

#4  mwh..good point. But re: Black rock...are you refering to just the money in general? I don't think negotiating with Russians would be ultimately beneficial to AQ.

http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=8200
Posted by: B || 11/10/2003 12:03 Comments || Top||

#5  "Black Rock" == that chunk of meteoric iron in Mecca around which the pagan temples were built. Old Mo', in the time-honored tradition of all religions, usurped it for his upstart religion.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/10/2003 12:41 Comments || Top||

#6  ok..thanks RC and mwh. It's funny how confusing things suddenly make sense when you view them in the right light.
Posted by: B || 11/10/2003 12:56 Comments || Top||

#7  Can some one tell me these "troops" are? When I read the word "troops" I think of the regular army. The Minister of Defense, Sultan's people. But Saudi Arabia has a White Army, the National Guard, who are accountable to the Crown Prince, Abullah to protect the royal family.
Is their a third army of security forces. Who do they belong to? Nayef? Damn, does every prince have his own army?
Posted by: Gasse Katze || 11/10/2003 14:25 Comments || Top||

#8  I think that this was supposed to be a bold move, on a par of 9/11. It wasn't only because much of the plot was foiled.

Like 911, AQ hit hard, but not hard enough. Like 9/11 it's going to cost them dearly.
Posted by: B || 11/10/2003 14:53 Comments || Top||

#9  Still think 9/11 was a dreadful miscalculation on the part of AQ. They thought the US would fold and were wrong. Do they now think that the US would allow AQ to take over Soddiland and all it's oil?
Posted by: Sgt.DT || 11/10/2003 16:05 Comments || Top||

#10  Can some one tell me these "troops" are?

Doesn't matter. Sending any Arab soldiers against any organized force is like sending a Pee Wee football team against year 2003 Oklahoma Sooners.
Posted by: badanov || 11/10/2003 22:28 Comments || Top||

#11  Can some one tell me these "troops" are? When I read the word "troops" I think of the regular army.

That is a good question. It does tend to indicate regular army, but more likely National Guard. In any case, still a dubious proposition. With the exception of the air force, the Saudi forces have been infiltrated. Kind of like the Chicago Black Sox in the World Series.
Posted by: Pappy || 11/10/2003 23:07 Comments || Top||


Yemen anti-terror cops foil $2m ripooff from Canuckoil
"The anti-terror police in the city of Sanaa foiled an attempt to steal more than $1.7 million from the Canadian Nexen and 460,000 Saudi riyals from a Yemeni bank," a state-run newspaper quoted a responsible source in Interior Ministry as declaring. The source, however, did not point out whether the robbers had contacts with terrorist groups.
Coulda just been crooks, I guess...
Three men, the source added, were arrested after they had withdrawn $740,000 out of $1.7 million from the Nexen Company's account in collusion with the computer officer in the company who transferred the money to the company's account in Canada, then to a Washington-based bank, then to Malaysia, and eventually to a commercial bank in Sanaa. Further, the robbers withdrew 460,000 Saudi riyals from the same bank to which the remittance has just arrived after they had played an electronic trick on the bank's computers, and all this took them only minutes. The accused, two of whom were in Malaysia and one in Sanaa, could have decoded Nexen's financial accounts by entering the Internet and dropping the sum and transferring it to their interest, to the order of 'Abdullah Mohammed Al-Qarmani', a forged named used by the robber in Sanaa. They also replaced the sender's name with a forged name of one of the two men who carried out the operation in Malaysia. The three accused conspired with one of the Nexen company's officers, who is their relative, to steal the $740,000. Police now are looking for the company officer who is still at large.
Another family affair. Have they looked for the guy in the nearest mosque?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 09:16 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  then to a Washington-based bank

which one?
Posted by: B || 11/10/2003 12:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Bank robbers? Any of these guys from Charlestown (MA)?
Posted by: Raj || 11/10/2003 12:30 Comments || Top||


Yemen security balks at thug release
Yemen’s security authorities have expressed reservations over a presidential decree to release around 150 detainees with charges of terrorism and having links with al-Qaeda elements for ‘they still represent a challenge and threat to national security’.
Seems even more apropos after the weekend's festivities in Riyadh...
Reliable sources told Yemen Times that high ranking officials are reserved to get these fanatics released and informed the political leadership their resentment over the presidential instructions to set them free in response to the committee of clerics involved in dialogue with the detainees. Security officials argue that they do not trust the undertaking made by the detainees that they would give up their fanatic views and not target foreign interests in Yemen.
Trust them about as far as you can throw them, guys...
These extremists, according to security officials, depend on a juristic rule that they can lie in issues relating to Jihad duties and therefore they lie to authorities and the committee that they have relinquished their extremist ideas and therefore go to practice or plan for terrorist operations after they are released.
I guess lies among Islamists are harder to pull off than lies to infidels, huh?
Some weeks ago, the Minister of Interior, Dr. Rashad al-Alimi, confirmed that some of the released fundamentalists were found red-handed, planning or taking part in some terrorist operations. Security authorities insist that they are not obliged to carry out recommendations of the committee of clerics set by President Ali Abdullah Saleh to convince those extremists to give in their fanatic beliefs and live normally in the society. They believe that it is they who should decide whether to release or continue holding those extremists in custody.
That's because it's their guys who get shot trying to run the bastards down. I wouldn't trust anything an Islamic cleric told me, either, and they know about it better than I do — they get the Islamic Truth™ first hand...
The sources said that the number of the detainees mount to 240 militants and that the number of those who will be tried is to raise to 65 including those extradited to Yemen by some countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Oman, instead of 40 as announced by the committee.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 09:11 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yemen’s security authorities have expressed reservations over a presidential decree to release around 150 detainees with charges of terrorism and having links with al-Qaeda elements for ‘they still represent a challenge and threat to national security’.

The solution is simple: hire foreign assassins to follow these terrorists around and bump them off at the first opportunity.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/10/2003 10:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe it's time for a gas leak in the Yemen prison system.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 15:10 Comments || Top||


Terrorist activity killed the AFZ: Bajammal
Prime Minister Abdulqader Bajammal recently responded to Yemeni media reports over the purchase of the operation of the Aden Free Zone from its previous owner, Yeminvest, for U.S. $200 million. In a statement to the 26th September weekly newspaper, the organ of the Yemen’s armed forces, Bajammal focused on different phases of the Aden Free Zone, and bodies that took part in its operation. He indicated that the Aden Terminal Container started its operation in 1997, “but terror incidents that that took place in Yemen such as, the explosion of the USS Cole destroyer and the French supertanker, Limburg have led to a withdrawal of activities at the terminal. It led also to a 300 per cent increase of the insurance duties on the part of ships coming to the Yemeni harbors.” As a result of those conditions, the investors at the Aden Free Zone have decided to discard continuing working in the project due to some circumstances, said the prime minister.
Thank you, Osama bin Stupid. But jihad's ever so much more important than mere filthy lucre. Who needs jobs when there are infidels to kill?
The Yemeni government’s purchase of the AFZ project at a cost of US $200 million, will bring positive results and benefit to Yemen’s troubled economy, said Bajammal.
Until something else blows up.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 09:05 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Prince Nayef Vows to Hunt down Terrorists
I thought he said that last time...
Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, the minister of interior, Sunday lashed out at terrorists who perpetrated what he called one of the ugliest crimes ever as they targeted innocent citizens, Arab and Muslim residents and non-Muslims.
But especially the Muslims...
In remarks to the press following a tour of the site of Saturday night’s explosion at Riyadh’s Al-Muhaya residential compound, Prince Naif said those who committed this crime never belong to this nation or its religion. He brushed aside doubts that such acts might weaken this country as it totally depend on Allah Almighty and its military and civilians, calling on the entire nation to show their role in their country’s strength and consistency. The minister of interior called for no mercy against the criminals, urging the relatives to report to the nearest police on their whereabouts, if they know, and spare their lives rather than let them forcibly be brought before justice.
I think he means they can turn themselves in or be killed in sporadic shootouts...
"However, the authorities will sooner or later reach those fugitives and those who are at large for the time being and save our country from their evils", Prince Naif concluded.
Probably not the way they've been going...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 08:41 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Way to earn your title, Prince Naif.
Posted by: BH || 11/10/2003 10:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Prince Nayef is going to need national unity to take care of this cancer. There is no unity in SA, so like Super Hose said yesterday, there will be repression and the reform minded people will take it on the chin. SA will 1) go down the long slippery slope, or 2) will reform. My money is on No. 1. If al Q takes over Saudi or makes it fall, the money pipeline will start drying up. So either way, from a strategic point of view, in a perverted way, things work out.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/10/2003 13:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Paul, on the contrary, the Soddis are already a nuclear power. Their bomb? The billions of dollars the nation and the many princes have at their disposal. A tiny fraction of this wealth has been spent to promote Whahabism, and succor terrorists worldwide. If they wanted to, they could put a lot more effort into it, and the effect would be the equivalant of a nuke.

They have enough money that they could disrupt, economicly, the United States. Not enough to send us into recession, I think, but enough to stall the current boomlet. The market, stocks and bonds, could easily be tanked by Soddi action, as could real estate.

And if they just wanted to buy violence, we cannot imagine what they could buy. ETA, FARC, Shining Path, ELF, every two bit terror group in the world getting (for them) nearly unlimited funding?

I would strongly suggest that the United States and its Western Allies have plans to immediately sieze all Soddi assets in the event of a change in government.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 11/10/2003 13:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, the minister of interior, Sunday lashed out at terrorists who perpetrated what he called one of the ugliest crimes ever as they targeted innocent citizens, Arab and Muslim residents and non-Muslims.

At the risk of sounding bloodthirsty, I have to say that this has brought on a bit of schadenfreude.

Go ahead Soddies, bankroll and spread more of your Wahhabi poison. In the meantime, enjoy your harvest.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/10/2003 14:04 Comments || Top||

#5  if schadenfreude is the taking of delight in the woe of one's allies, then the Saudis have been doing that to Americans for years. Their silent glee in seeing the big bad America beat up on, could result in their downfall.

I think it's important that we take care not to fall victim to the same mistake. Delighting in the fact that Saudi's are getting their comeuppance will do us no good. Like it or not, we need to work together with them against AQ.
Posted by: B || 11/10/2003 17:14 Comments || Top||

#6  It's just a battle in an on-going war. They started the war 30 or 40 years ago, without telling us. We've got a lot of catching up to do.

Soddy Arabia isn't going to fall soon. Eventually it has to either fall or surrender. When they do surrender, it'll probably also be without telling us.
Posted by: Fred || 11/10/2003 18:43 Comments || Top||

#7 
Delighting in the fact that Saudi's are getting their comeuppance will do us no good. Like it or not, we need to work together with them against AQ.

I for one am not delighted that any child dies, no matter what the circumstances. At the same time, I can comprehend the fact that one of the very societies that started this Islamic fanatic blood bath, is now finding themselves the target of the very freaks they created. There's nothing good about it, but I won't shed a tear if the dictatorship that created this mess falls to their own monsters. Then we can go in and kill the monsters.
Posted by: Islam Sucks || 11/10/2003 18:52 Comments || Top||


‘We should wake up now:’ an interview with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
Bin Talal is the guy Giuliani told to keep his check. His mother was Lebanese, and he was thinking of buying the country last year. He's been touted by syncophants and toadies as prime minister material...
Q: In your opinion, which is more important, political or economic reform?
A: They are equally important. Politics is linked to the economy and vice versa. Also, there is no true reform without a comprehensive political and economic reform. (Crown) Prince Abdullah prioritized changing people’s way of thinking over political reform and political reform over economic reform. Like Prince Abdullah, I believe the change in mentality should be prioritized.
Unlike the princelings, I think the two are intimately connected...
Q: Prince Abdullah always asserts his disavowal of extremism and warns against it. What do you think about the extremism we suffer from? Is it just armed terrorism?
A: Extremism influences a small number of our people. Extremists have tried to impose their narrow perspective on the whole of society. We have to stop them. After the Riyadh events (the May 12 bombing that killed 35 people), the leadership took a clear political decision to strike extremism with an iron fist. Prince Abdullah, in his famous speech delivered after the events, conveyed the same meaning as President George W. Bush’s words after the Sept. 11 attacks, that is, ‘either you are with us or you are against us.’ They did not agree on what is to be said, but it was a spontaneous reaction. When one defends his country, he uses that strong logic. There is no place for choices here, because the country is at stake.
Prince Abdullah's words weren't quite matched by his deeds, nor was the Soddy security establishment up to the job of actually hunting down and exterminating AQ. They're much better suited to beating up women who show an ankle in public. Despite the evidence of the corpses, he still tried the accomodation route with the vitriol-spewing clerics, and they didn't run to ground the Bad Guys who got away in the sporadic shootouts they've had in the past five months. The results could be seen this weekend, with the corpse count up to 17 and probably to rise some more.
Q: You spoke about the need for reform in the Arab and Islamic world, and Crown Prince Abdullah addressed that issue at the recent Organization of the Islamic Conference in Malaysia. However, some say that these are US demands and that focusing on reform is a US demand. Are these concerns legitimate?
A: We live in a globalized world. Anything that affects America, the West and the rest of the world will doubtlessly affect us. The Sept. 11 events shook and harmed the whole world. Therefore, what’s wrong with combining internal demands for reform with the international trend to treat the cause of fundamentalism and terrorism? This does not mean that we yielded to US or international demands. America came to our region after the shock it received and after the toppling of the Taleban in Afghanistan and the Iraqi regime. We now have direct borders with America, whether we like it or not.
"And we don't!"
Syria has borders with America, as well as Turkey and Iran. We should take these matters into consideration. No doubt there are internal demands to start the reform process, but international events have sped up the reform movement. We might be embarrassed to reveal such a thing, and our values and independence might prevent us from saying it publicly. No movement will be successful unless it comes from the inside. The municipal elections announced by Prince Abdullah and Prince Sultan through the Cabinet are an answer to people’s demands and a clear sign of the leadership’s vision of the future. Reforms came from the inside, but we live in a world similar to a small village and there is no question that international demands sped up the reform movement. This is not a source of shame, but rather comes from awareness and a good understanding of the situation.
"Hain't nobody tells us what to do!... But we thought of it ourselves!"
Once again — as usual — they're much more concerned with their "dignity" than with their accomplishments.
Q: Just as there are forces in the country and within the leadership that lead and stimulate the reform process, it is natural that other forces call for patience, a case not specific to Saudi Arabia only. Are you optimistic that Saudi society, which you know very well, will welcome reform swiftly and broadly?
A: I am optimistic because all parties want reform. The greatest evidence lies in the positive reception that was expressed after the intention to hold municipal elections was announced. We should not underestimate the electoral process, which will start with municipal councils.
"Kind of like the Americans did in Iraq — no, no! I mean, nothing like the Americans did in Iraq! Nothing like it. Our way is... ummm... different."
It is the green light to what will eventually come. I tell you that women must vote and that there will be elections for the Shura Council. Some people may not like what I say, but I am predicting what will happen in a few years. Yes, some people fear that their personal interests may be harmed, but they are a few. The reform process might seem slow.
"And believe me, we'll make it as slow as we possibly can..."
Q: There is certainly a dialogue between your generation and the old generation. Can you tell us about that dialogue?
A: I assure you that we have a dialogue with our leadership. They are aware of the country’s aspirations. We talk with the utmost transparency.
"We also avoid taking long drives in the countryside and we have food tasters..."
Q: What is the problem then? The Cabinet made important decisions, such as the recent decision to hold elections. But until now, no committee was formed to determine the elections’ procedures. Decisions are being made, but is execution slow?
A: I admit that the implementation of decisions is slow. Governance decisions in Saudi Arabia are faster than the government.
"We try not to pay much attention to the kicking and screaming. We're trying to reform a system that's ossified, using the ossified mechanisms of the system. It doesn't make much sense, except that it's the only mechanism we've got."
Q: What is the solution then?
A: The solution is to carry out governance decisions. Frankly, those who cannot do that should leave or be changed, like what happened in the last Cabinet reshuffle. Many ministers departed for those reasons. The economy minister, for instance, departed due to his lack of control over the issue of Saudi Arabia’s membership in the World Trade Organization. After his departure, the membership process was sped up. Europe has approved our membership and we have serious negotiations with America, Canada and Japan, which are the three remaining countries that have not approved our admittance yet. Has nobody asked why the former economy minister departed? He left for that reason. We have unsuccessfully negotiated for seven years with the WTO.
"If a relatively simple matter like that is so convoluted, what's bringing the country out of the 7th century and into, say, the 18th or even the 19th century going to be like?
Q: In addition to the problem in the government, we have an old and conservative mentality. Doesn’t it affect reforms? Let us take you for example. You are a businessman, open to the world, but you live in two different worlds. You own companies that open cinemas throughout the world, but you cannot open a cinema in your own country. You own large shares in companies that strive to make the internet faster than light and you are aware of the restrictions imposed on the internet in our country. How do you adapt yourself to that contradiction between how you live abroad and the desires you have for your country?
A: It is a good question. Rationing the access to internet abolishes the purpose of the internet. This rationing process is ridiculous. You cannot stop those who have access to the internet. Even if they have to pay more, they would go through Bahrain or America and reach their goal.
"You simply can't keep people away from the titty sites. Once they find a way to the titty sites, it's all down hill. Pretty soon they've moved on to the hard stuff — National Review, the Washington Times, or Rantburg. Then we're in big trouble."
As for the issue of cinemas, I am surprised that there is any reason to prevent their opening. All artistic production distributed in the kingdom is censored. If an individual is allowed to watch a video at home, why wouldn’t he watch a film with other people at the theater? Of course, men would be separated from women.
"I mean, God knows what'll happen when the lights go down if you're sitting in a theater next to a close female relative..."
Q: Do you believe we have asked ourselves why there are young people who kill themselves and kill other Muslims? Have we sincerely established this dialogue among ourselves?
A: No, we have not. We have not asked the question frankly and directly. I believe that question should have been asked just after the Sept. 11 events, and not after the May 12 attack. We should have asked why 15 young Saudi men perpetrated the Sept. 11 terrorist act. Let’s stop being naive and say that Israel was behind them or that their scheme goes beyond Saudis’ thinking. We should have asked that question before May 12. Do we need another operation?
The interview was obviously before this weekend...
Let’s stop beating around the bush. We should wake up now and ask ourselves why we have fundamentalism. Why this extremism, this fanaticism? We have started to recognize the problem, but not deeply. For instance, we arrested some sheikhs in the mosques and prohibited them from saying illogical things such as calling for the destruction of Christians and Jews while Islam permits marriage to Christian or Jewish women. Prohibition is not sufficient. I want to eradicate these thoughts from the mind.
The problem lies with making fastidious distinctions between Hamas and al-Qaeda. The Paleostinians are probably right in saying that there won't be peace in the Middle East until the problem of Paleostine is solved — but the solution has to involve the eradication of the boomer organizations, as Bush demanded as a precondition for the road map, and preferably the boomers themselves. When you justify one form of eye-rolling, AK-rattling extremism you've justified them all. The roots of both Hamas and AQ lie with the same set of Soddy sheikhs and princes, the money flowing down the same sorts of charity-driven pipelines. The one is "good" terrorism — I beg your pardon, freedumb fighting — and the other, by virtue of being a threat to the princes, is "bad" terrorism.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 04:51 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  There was a line in the same paper that sez the bombing is a infidel plot:

Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani said the attacks coincided with a campaign started in the American media against the Islamic regime in the country. Qabbani said the purpose of the attacks was to provide foreign powers with the incentive to intervene in Saudi Arabia.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 9:43 Comments || Top||

#2  I didn't notice this royal stuge naming any names. Like, "were going to arrest and eliminate Grand Mufti Shiekh Mohammed." They need to aggressively move against the mad mullas and his royal cousins. Sort'a like uncle adolph did to the SA. I think the house of saud is toast.
Posted by: Lucky || 11/10/2003 12:35 Comments || Top||


Britain
Algerian in N.Irish Court on Terrorism Charges
An Algerian man arrested in Northern Ireland on suspicion of having links with al Qaeda appeared in court on Monday accused of receiving bomb-making instructions. Abbas Boutrab, 25, who has been in custody for six months awaiting deportation for immigration offences, faces three charges under British anti-terrorism legislation.
He was already in the jug, gave them time to look through his stuff.
Bearded and wearing a white T-shirt, Boutrab did not speak during the 10-minute hearing at Belfast’s Laganside Magistrates’ Court, but listened intently to an interpreter who stood beside him in the dock. He is charged with receiving instruction or training in the making or use of explosives, possessing floppy disks, CD-Roms and false identities likely to be of use to terrorists and possessing documents likely to be useful to terrorists.
Sounds like he was tasked with training and support.
Defense lawyer Joe Rice said Boutrab would plead not guilty to all three charges. He said his client admitted breaching immigration laws in a number of European countries, but denied having any links with terrorism. He believed he was the victim of racial discrimination, he added.
"Lies, all lies! They’re picking on him cuz he’s a furriner!"
Boutrab was arrested on November 3 at Maghaberry Prison, southwest of Belfast, where he had been held for the past six months awaiting deportation as an illegal immigrant. He was remanded in custody until December 8.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 8:51:59 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  --He said his client admitted breaching immigration laws in a number of European countries, but denied having any links with terrorism--

So, how did he get in these countries and where's his money coming from???
Posted by: Anonymous || 11/10/2003 11:49 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Enola Gay Flies into History Controversy
Tip to WND.
In a determined effort to rewrite history and cast the U.S. as the bad guys
..
Fifty-eight years after turning Hiroshima into a nuclear Hell, the US plane that dropped the first atomic bomb used in combat has detonated a fierce row over its debut at America’s top museum. Controversy is raging over plans to put the restored Enola Gay, which dropped the "Little Boy" bomb, on public display in a new wing of the world-renowned Smithsonian Institution next month.
(I have no ‘Controversy’ over this historic plane)
Activists want the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space museum to detail the death toll from the August 6, 1945 blast alongside the shiny, metallic Boeing B-29 Superfortress with its characteristic fishbowl window nose. A total of 230,000 people are thought to have perished, both in the initial firestorm which consumed the Japanese city and in subsequent years from toxic radiation.
(A good IDEA! How about we also include the death toll of Americans that died in WWII?)
230,000 is a significant fraction of the millions who would have died in an Okinawa-style invasion of the Japanese mainland...
Angry survivors of the Hiroshima blast will steel themselves to come face to face with the plane when they travel to Washington when the Enola Gay goes on public display on December 15.
(Boo FRIGGIN HOO, don’t start a war if you can’t handle the consequences)
"They will see in all its glory, the plane that incinerated the city," said Kevin Martin, Executive Director of Peace Action.
Activists are not opposed to the aircraft going on display, but want to see it presented in the context of the raid in the dying days of World War II. They also hope to stir debate about the tens of thousands of warheads in the current US nuclear stockpile and plans for mobile, battlefield nuclear devices. "We don’t want this just to be an argument about what happened in 1945 ... the first concern was about current US nuclear policy," Martin said.
(What concern? We have yet to use it again.)
The National Air and Space Museum says its display will reflect the fact that the Enola Gay was, in its time, the most technologically advanced aircraft in the skies. A decision to put it on display "does not glorify or vilify the role this aircraft played in history," it said. But the descriptive label attached to the exhibit will mention the notorious raid only in passing. The aircraft "dropped the first atomic weapon used in combat on Hiroshima, Japan," says the label. This, the museum says is consistent with the mission entrusted to it by US Congress, which is to display and preserve historic and technologically significant air and space craft. "In the end, the Enola Gay played a decisive role in World War II," the museum said in a press release prompted by the controversy. "It helped bring the war to an end in that after the bombing of Nagasaki, shortly after the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, surrendered unconditionally. "But perhaps more critically, it profoundly affected our concept of major conflict and the importance of maintaining global peace."

One survivor of the blast, speaking in his home city in August, savaged the decision to put the Enola Gay on display. "For us, the Enola Gay just equals the atomic bomb," said Sunao Tsuboi, 78. "Displaying the plane is not only an insult to us but also glorifies the bombing," said Tsuboi, scarred by burns to the head and suffering from cancer believed to be caused by radiation exposure. (I am squirting tears here Tsuboi! Do you cry for those that died in the Philippines? Nan King? Burma?)
The activists, under the umbrella of the Committee for a National Discussion of Nuclear History and Current Policy on Wednesday presented the museum with a petition calling for changes in the exhibit.
(Which they the put in the circular file.)
Signatories include the mayor of Hiroshima Tadatoshi Akiba, author and activist Noam Chomsky and film director Oliver Stone.
(Usual suspects here)
Akiba has been harshly critical of President George W. Bush and in August accused Washington of worshipping nuclear weapons as "God."
I was not alive in WWII but my Grandfather was. He was VERY happy not to invade the Japanese Islands because of the Enola Gay. Did a lot of Japanese suffer from the blasts? Yes. But even after the first blast, the Japanese refused to surrender. Mr. Martin thinks the country should carry some shame because we did use the weapons but overlooks the deaths caused by the Japanese Army/Navy. Dead is dead, be it by nuclear of by a sword.
P.S. I would add that ’war is hell’ but that is a given.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 11/10/2003 12:29:26 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Let's send Japan a few planeloads of Korean "pleasure girl" survivors, some Chinese victims of chemical and biological weapons, and the few survivors of Bataan that are left alive. Personally, I'm sick of the peoples that started WWII acting like they were the victims.

Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/10/2003 12:36 Comments || Top||

#2  While they're at it, see if they can find one of the B-29s that took part in the firebombing raid on Tokyo in March 1945... same death toll (~100,000 killed). While we're on the subject, let me know when Japanese society begins to feel true remorse for Nanjing, Manchuria, and the other involuntary members of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.

I'm glad we finished it when we did -- my father was scheduled for transshipment from the Europe to the Asian theater when the war ended -- I'd hate to have missed playing Doom for the first time...
Posted by: snellenr || 11/10/2003 12:46 Comments || Top||

#3  The Enola Gay is an important part of history. Having that aircraft on display brings another dimension to understanding the war for people who want to know. At the RAF Museum in Hendon (north of London), there are numerous displays of V-1 and V-2 rockets and German aircraft. They also cost the British thousands of civilian casualties, but there they are, bigger than any history book.

Being revisionist about history and the Enola Gay just enables future generations of ignorance. My dad was with the 1st MarDiv on Okinawa at the time. He said that there were literally miles of rows of equipment staged for the invasion of Japan. Okinawa cost us thousands of casualties. The invasion of Kyushu was going to cost the Japanese and the Allies hundreds of thousands if not millions. The dropping of the two atomic bombs was the shock that finally moved the Japanese to surrender. Now we know how terrible those weapons are. The Enola Gay was part of that history, like it or not.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/10/2003 12:48 Comments || Top||

#4  This story fits nicely with the articles I've read lately about Germans boohooing about the firebombing of Dresden. Don't start sh*t you can't finish.
Posted by: BH || 11/10/2003 12:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Sunao Tsuboi should be damn grateful for the atomic bomb: the alternative, a U.S. invasion of the Japanese mainland, would have ended up exterminating millions of Japanese, perhaps tens of millions.

The Bomb knocked some sense into Japan's militaristic leadership- and it is that leadership, not us, that Sunao Tsuboi ought to blame for what befell Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Posted by: Dave D. || 11/10/2003 12:57 Comments || Top||

#6  Cause and Effect, morons.

You attack somebody, you have no room to bitch when they kick your ass.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 11/10/2003 13:08 Comments || Top||

#7  The Filipinos cheered when they heard of the bomb.
Posted by: buwaya || 11/10/2003 13:16 Comments || Top||

#8  "Attica" Tsuboi, bummer for you that Japanese people followed it's military and started it's war. My dad, US Army, was on a troop ship from Tacoma heading to Manilla when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the Philappines. Lucky for me his ship was diverted to Australia. How he loved to watch Auzie's march. Ya see Tsuboi, if he had set sell a few days earlier and made port in Manilla, I would, most likely, not have made it to this world. Batan Death March and all. Banzi Bro.
Posted by: Lucky || 11/10/2003 13:20 Comments || Top||

#9  Screw these jerks. They've had their opinions aired, and that's it. Freedom of speech does not grant these people a "right" to provide some sort of response to a museum exhibit. Put the plane on display and be done with it.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/10/2003 13:43 Comments || Top||

#10  Oh..hell, why not placate every politically correct group? Has anyone here ever been to the Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor? I have several times and due to the large percentage of Japanese tourists that go there, the original movie/documentary as well as the exhibition that visitors are to see before being ferried over to the ship have all be sanitized to reflect almost zero (pardon the pun) responsibility behind the Japanese government's action.
Posted by: jim || 11/10/2003 13:51 Comments || Top||

#11  Hey about condemning the Japanese efforts to nuke us!

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/japan/nuke/
Posted by: Greg || 11/10/2003 14:00 Comments || Top||

#12  My uncle died last Friday - he was also a Marine waiting for the invasion, having been through the rest of the South Pacific. Frankly his life was worth more than 230,000 Japanese IMHO
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 14:13 Comments || Top||

#13  Jeebus. It was 58 years ago. Get over it already.

And next time, pick on somebody who can't kick your ass.
Posted by: mojo || 11/10/2003 14:23 Comments || Top||

#14  "We don’t want this just to be an argument about what happened in 1945 ... the first concern was about current US nuclear policy," Martin said.

-Ah yes, waste people's time w/an argument on one thing in order to further your ajenda on another.

I was stationed on Okinawa for 4 months and on mainland Japan for 2 months. I don't feel the least bit bad we dropped two big-ones on them. An invasion of the mainland would've cost us a million men and a 10 year land war (that's U.S. mil historian estimates based on Japanese defenses on their island in '45). It would've also cost the Japanese millions of other deaths due to seppuku and hari-kari suicides when eventually "embarassed them" by taking their homeland. F*ck peace action and the horse they rode in on. Save your belly-aching for someone who cares - pussies. F*ck the mayor of Hiroshima to. Don't like nukes? Then don't act like such an asshole that we have to use them on you. Won't matter in about 10 years anyways because most of the survivors will be gone. Get over it you bunch of b*tches. If they had the bomb in '41 they wouldn't of hesitated to drop it on us from the get go. This 'gaijin' laughs at you. The more terrible war is, the quicker its over according to WTS.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/10/2003 14:51 Comments || Top||

#15  The bomb saved American lives. Of course. It also saved millions of Japanese lives: given the habit of Japanese military to suicide in verge of defeat and force Japanese civilians to suicide, the Americans estimated thare would be ten million Japanese dead. Finally, the bleeding heart liberals seem to forget (or perhaps they don't care) that the Japanese Army was killing about 250,000 Chinese and Filipinos a month
so if the bomb shortened the war by a mere month then the number of Chinese spared exceeds the number of Japanese killed. It is a pity that Nagasaki was one of the cities bombed since it was predominantly Catholic and its population didn't share the agressive and genocidal nationalism of the Shinto regions. But see above.
Posted by: JFM || 11/10/2003 14:54 Comments || Top||

#16  hey Jarhead, Happy Birthday!
Posted by: BH || 11/10/2003 14:56 Comments || Top||

#17  AP, re. the Imperial War Museum exhibits at Duxford – there’s also one of each of the V-weapons on display in the atrium of the main IWM in Lambeth, London proper, along with a small number of other aircraft, vehicles, guns and even a sub or two! I spent most of the day there on Thursday, and spent the majority of that time in a new holocaust exhibition they have upstairs. If anyone’s going to London: that exhibition’s a definite must-see (but children under a certain age won't be permitted to enter). It’s far and away the most affecting exhibition I’ve ever been to.

Museums aren't there to show what's palatable - they're repositories for what's been important. Pull the Enola Gay because it's "controversial" and there's no end to what horrors the sensitive public will have to be 'protected' from.
Posted by: Bulldog || 11/10/2003 15:01 Comments || Top||

#18  We should do this just as seen as Japan makes an offical apology and reparations to the [comfort] women it forced into sexual slavery and the descentants of the Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, etc... the Imperial Japanese murdered during the war, and the Death March victims and their descentants....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/10/2003 15:27 Comments || Top||

#19  Jarhead

A couple of days ago you asked me a question I didn't see until after rantburg had warpped over. If you are still interested (or for future cases) send me your e-mail address

Regards
Posted by: JFM || 11/10/2003 15:39 Comments || Top||

#20  The atomic bombs saved millions of Japanese lives, as well. Check out the death toll from the firebombing of Tokyo - far higher than from both atomic bombs together (one raid destroyed 16 square miles of the city, and caused 185,000 deaths. No mention of other casualties). Without the atomic bombs, we would have continued to use firebomb raids on Japanese cities until none were left. The Japanese should be thankful we ended the war when we did, before even more of their nation was turned to cinders.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 15:43 Comments || Top||

#21  Anyone who is interested in the point about the lives saved should take a look a Downfall by Richard B. Frank, which is a masterpiece of history. It especially crushes the argument that the Japanese government was about to surrender.
Posted by: Matt || 11/10/2003 15:50 Comments || Top||

#22  The father of my best friend was a gunner on an Avenger torpedo plane flying from an escort carrier in the Pacific in mid-1945. My friend, quite the liberal actually, tells his own children the following:

"You're alive because I'm alive.

I'm alive because your grandfather is alive.

And he's alive because Harry Truman dropped the bomb."
Posted by: Steve White || 11/10/2003 15:57 Comments || Top||

#23  At the end of the war B-29s were used to drop thousands of shallow water mines throughout the home islands. Imports of food were next to impossible. Japan was saved from starvation.

BTW Jarhead. Happy B-Day... Regimental Night?
Posted by: Shipman || 11/10/2003 16:06 Comments || Top||

#24  "Activists are not opposed to the aircraft going on display, but want to see it presented in the context of the raid in the dying days of World War II."

Dying days of World War II? That would have been an appropriate name for the period of time around a U.S. invasion of the Japanese mainland.

There's also this:

"They also hope to stir debate about the tens of thousands of warheads in the current US nuclear stockpile and plans for mobile, battlefield nuclear devices."

I am not up on the numbers of warheads in the U.S. stockpile, but I'd bet it's a lot fewer than "tens of thousands."
Posted by: Tibor || 11/10/2003 16:28 Comments || Top||

#25  BH & Shipman, thanx. It is indeed a happy B-Day! We had our USMC Ball over the weekend. We had today off. I actually have to go to my MBA night class tonight - freakin' bummer. However, afterwards I will prolly drink a 6-pack of PBR, toast Chesty Puller wherever he is, then watch my old version of the D.I. with Jack Webb.

"228 years of rompin', stompin' death, my father was the devil and my mother was an M-16, I was conceived in a trench and born in a bomb crater, I eat barb wire and piss napalm, I am a minister of death, every night I pray for war...." (or something like that) ;)
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/10/2003 17:02 Comments || Top||

#26  JFM, copy your last, & thanx. I will see if Fred can send you my home email address. If not, I'll just post it next time.
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/10/2003 17:05 Comments || Top||

#27  1. One account I recently read (can't find the cite) says 80,000 killed at Hiroshima, 40,000 at Nagasaki. I think this was estimates of initial effects.

2. Here is an article giving some numbers for immediate and 5-year death tallies.

3. Japanese still count those people who pass away today as "victims of the atomic bombs". Reference this article from 2003.

4. Interesting letter to the Smithsonian
in 1994, in the context of the previous controversy over the Enola Gay exhibit, which excoriated the US and glossed over Japanese culpability in the War which of course led to the bombing.

Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 11/10/2003 17:26 Comments || Top||

#28  Hiroshima - 40,000
Nagasaki - 80,000

Bringing the war to an abrupt and decisive end - Priceless
Posted by: BH || 11/10/2003 17:37 Comments || Top||

#29  Sorry, got those numbers backwards.
Posted by: BH || 11/10/2003 17:38 Comments || Top||

#30  Last night I was watching a rerun of the Longest Day. In it one of the characters made a statement to the effect that "they were in an operation that would be talked about long after all the partipants were dead and buried."

In reading what is available about the intended invasion of Japan I cannot help but think that if it had happened the aftermath would have been so terrible that D-Day would hardly be a blip on the map of history.

BH, backwords or farwards, amen to to your observation.
Posted by: Michael || 11/10/2003 18:00 Comments || Top||

#31  Chesty Puller wherever he is

You don't know where he is? New assignment:
Commander of God's Bodyguard. :)

Posted by: Shipman || 11/10/2003 18:18 Comments || Top||

#32  Hey, in lieu of the Enola Gay being put on display, we could present the Japanese with the (open) containers of mustard gas they left behind in China.
Posted by: Bill || 11/10/2003 18:23 Comments || Top||

#33  New assignment: Commander of God's Bodyguard. :)

What does God need with a starship bodyguard?

Sorry, couldn't resist.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/10/2003 23:16 Comments || Top||

#34  See "Views of American Military Leaders on the Atomic Bombings of Japan" for more info.
Posted by: Anonymous || 11/16/2003 17:56 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
11 detainees escape from SWA lockup
As many as 11 dangerous accused managed to escape from the lockup of Political Administration here on Sunday. The detainees fled away from the possession of Khasadars at Wana, the headquarter of political administration of South Wazirastan Agency, in the early hours of Sunday.
This should be good...
When a Khasadar opened the door of lockup to give meal to the prisoners for Sehri, the detainees overpowered him, snatched his AK-47 rifle and fled away.
Uhuh. A lockup full of dangerous bad guys, and Mahmoud strolls in carrying a bucket of soup with his AK slung over his shoulder and nobody to cover him. One detainee surrepitiously ties the end of his turban to one of the bars, and then another one sneaks up behind him and pulls his pants down, and a third shoves him over backwards...
On receiving the news pertaining escape of detainees the political agent of SWA Azam Khan taking serious action dismissed the in-charge of lockup Farooq and arrested other seven Kasadars for negligence in duty.
"Pull your pants up and get in the lockup. Might as well use it on you guys, since you let the bad guys get away..."
"Would you untie my turban, chief?"
He appointed Assistant Political Agent Shahab Ali Shah as inquiry officer in this incident.
"I'll get to the bottom of this! Legume! My cape!"
"Yes, effendi!"
Those who were manage to escape from the lockup include Murtaza, Doast Muhammad, Habibullah, Noordai, Ghafar Khan, Khairzaman, Nazam, Gul Muhammad and Faqir.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 16:04 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  arrested other seven Kasadars for negligence in duty

al-Larry, al-Moe, al-Curly, al-Harpo, al-Chico, al-Groucho, and al-Zeppo
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 16:23 Comments || Top||

#2  What, no al-Margaret Dumont?
Posted by: mojo || 11/10/2003 17:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Inspector Al-Dreyfus: "excellent! get Al-Clouseau on it"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 18:10 Comments || Top||


Pakistan squarely behind US shield
At a recent hearing on the "Challenges of terrorism in Asia" on Capitol Hill, several Congressmen persistently raised questions about Pakistan and its commitment to fighting Islamic fundamentalism, curbing the resurgence of the Taliban and clamping down on the thousands of madrassas (religious schools) which continue to be incubators for militants.

But these concerned congressmen were stonewalled equally persistently by Bush administration officials who gave their assessment of the current situation. It was as if the two sides were talking about a different country, a different time and a different place. On every question about Pakistan’s failure to honor its pledges to stop cross-border infiltration into India, or to arrest Taliban leaders moving about in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas, administration officials walked a fine line, declining to even admit the premise of the questions that terrorists were walking across from one country to the other. The long and tedious dance went on for nearly three hours, during which congressmen continued to throw punches and the witnesses continued to successfully duck them. Representing the Bush administration were Christina Rocca (aka Pakistani envoy to the State Department), Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, and Cofer Black, the department’s coordinator for counter-terrorism.

Efforts by Democrats to cajole the Bush administration to put conditions on US aid to Pakistan met with opposition, and suggestions for closer scrutiny were ignored. The message was clear: it is a Republican White House, a Republican House of Representatives and a Republican Senate. They don’t need or want ideas from the opposition. Sources on Capitol Hill said that this White House brooks no dissent or discussion on foreign policy issues, and this hearing was no different. Since the Democrats don’t have the legislative clout, all they can do is make some noise.

The Congressional hearing raised wider questions about where the "war on terrorism" is headed and how best to prosecute it. It also became clear that the State Department is not prepared to put any public pressure on Pakistan to adhere more assiduously to promises made by none other than President General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. Since Pakistan is a key ally in the "war on terrorism", the Bush administration is keen not to embarrass the leadership and ruffle feathers. US officials claim that they are putting enormous pressure on Musharraf to do more and better to stop infiltration into Kashmir, but in private. But Democrats on Capitol Hill don’t want US taxpayers’ money flowing to Pakistan without public accountability and clear markers of progress on the ground. They would like conditions put on the US$3 billion aid package for Pakistan announced by President George W Bush in June. For the past six months, US media reports have consistently criticized Pakistan for failing to arrest Taliban leaders who live openly in Quetta.

But the State Department has strongly resisted any overt conditionality. During the Congressional hearing, Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, the ranking Democrat on the House sub-committee on Asia and the Pacific, once again tried to push, but failed to elicit a response. "I do not believe we should provide billions of dollars of aid to Pakistan with no strings attached," he said. The three unwritten conditions that have been talked about are for Pakistan to stop proliferation of all nuclear technology and material, end cross-border terrorism into India and return the country to democracy. Of the three, the only condition Pakistan is close to obeying is the one on nuclear proliferation, because US officials have drawn a clear red line, according to analysts.

As for shutting down terrorist camps and preventing terrorists from crossing into India, it appears that Pakistan and the Bush administration have reached an accommodation - while the goal may be desirable, it is not attainable for now. The Bush administration appears willing to live with terrorism in Kashmir as a price for Pakistan’s continued cooperation on hunting down al-Qaeda. Evidence of this can be seen in Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage’s public climb down in holding Musharraf’s feet to the fire on the question. In 2002, Armitage publicly announced that he was confident that infiltration into India would end following Musharraf’s personal assurances to him. But a year later, both Armitage and Musharraf backed off from their clear public pronouncements.

Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, said that it was not just a matter of porous borders. "There is significant evidence that the Pakistani intelligence service provides critical support to terrorists operating in both India and Kashmir. The US cannot solve the Kashmir problem, but it can do more to impress on our Pakistani friends that their opposition to terrorism must be universal and apply to its relationship with India, not just its relationship to the United States and its concerns in Afghanistan," he said.

Musharraf asserted during a visit to Washington in June that he was doing the best he could, but if the Indian army couldn’t plug its borders, he couldn’t guarantee a sealed border. Armitage, a tough diplomat, seemed to accept the explanation during his trip to Islamabad in July this year, while admitting that terrorists were still coming across the Line of Control into India.
As far as I’m concerned this argument doesn’t hold. The Indians have to find and plug every possible inflitration path. The terrorist have to find only one. This is made easier since they have complete logistical support from the Pakistani establishment and are even provided with an artillery barrage to occupy the Indian troops.

"India has not crossed the line of control since 1972. In fact, India has exercised incredible restraint in not waging full-scale war to defend itself against these terrorist acts," noted Faleomavaega, who has tried to attach conditions to US aid, but so far his amendment has languished in legislative wilderness.

Rocca, the State Department’s representative, defended Pakistan’s efforts and cooperation in the "war on terror". "We’ve seen the government of Pakistan take on efforts against these groups [operating in India]. I think it’s harder - these groups may be harder to go after than al-Qaeda and the Taliban, because they have a fair amount of domestic support. But we’ve also seen them take action against them. We would like to see more."

Independent South Asia analysts say that the US might be making a mistake by handling Pakistan with kid gloves. Unless there is some public pressure, Musharraf will not feel the heat and will not take the action necessary against jihadis operating in Kashmir. Walter Andersen, a former State Department official and now deputy director of the South Asia program at Johns Hopkins University, says that the message to Musharraf is too mild to be taken seriously. Musharraf knows the Americans will back him so long as he occasionally delivers al-Qaeda operatives. Andersen is particularly upset by the conclusions Pakistan’s government may draw from this policy - terrorism against the US is bad, but against India, or lately against Afghanistan, is acceptable.

A senior Afghan diplomat said that Pakistan had crossed the Durand Line - the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan - recently and taken vantage positions deep inside Afghan territory. "We alerted the Americans immediately and they saw it with their own eyes. They have the record of the troop movement," the diplomat said. The issue was also raised this summer in the trilateral commission - a group of officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the US crafted to discuss differences and common goals.

"We have asked the US to ensure that these incursions don’t occur. We see a lack of sincerity on Pakistan’s part," the Afghan diplomat said in an interview. Other analysts say that Pakistan is playing too clever a game with these short-sighted tactical moves while radicalism breeds on its own territory. Manipulating militant elements to serve its purpose in India while hoping they won’t gain political ground in Pakistan is a mirage. Musharraf has told US officials privately that he can’t push religious parties too far because they will come back against him with more vigor.

But as Jim Leach, a Republican and chairman of the House sub-committee said in his opening statement: "As we think about what must surely be the long-term nature of the terrorist challenge in Asia and its implications for the United States, it’s critically important that we strive to maintain the right balance of our policies. In this region and elsewhere, policymakers would be wise to remember Teddy Roosevelt’s admonition that America should speak softly but carry a big stick."
Posted by: rg117 || 11/10/2003 3:17:16 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "I think it’s harder - these groups may be harder to go after than al-Qaeda and the Taliban, because they have a fair amount of domestic support"

thats the crux of the matter - pushing Perv really hard to stop the infiltration into Kashmir, would likely lead to a break between Perv and the ISI and segments of the military. Could lead to a coup, civil war, or collapse. Are we willing to risk that NOW, with US forces tied up in Iraq, Iran edging toward something, Afghanistan still only part way stabilized and lots of AQ still on the loose. I dont think so.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 11/10/2003 15:25 Comments || Top||

#2  I think it’s harder - these groups may be harder to go after than al-Qaeda and the Taliban, because they have a fair amount of domestic support" thats the crux of the matter - pushing Perv really hard to stop the infiltration into Kashmir, would likely lead to a break between Perv and the ISI and segments of the military. Could lead to a coup, civil war, or collapse.

Precisely - Musharraf is someone who has helped us before - we don't need him replaced with an anti-American general or mullah. Another point is that we are pushing on a string - if we pressure him, he could just as easily decide to side with the mullahs and the jihadist elements of his military. (What people don't realize* is that Musharraf doesn't actually have to work with us - if we give him enough reason to do so via sanctions, he can easily decide to start working against us - his survival does not depend on our support - it depends on the support of his political and military establishment). If he does that, are we going to go to war with Pakistan?

* in their simplistic assessment of American omnipotence
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 11/10/2003 15:39 Comments || Top||


Pakistan grills British al-Qaida suspect
I prefer a charcoal grill, myself:
A British national suspected of links to Usama bin Ladin’s al-Qaida is being interrogated by Pakistani authorities, the foreign ministry said on Monday. Tariq Mahmud, 30, who has dual British and Pakistani nationality, has been "detained by our authorities," spokesman Masud Khan told reporters, scotching rumours that he was being held by US forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. "He is being investigated on suspicion of having links with al-Qaida... I cannot tell you his whereabouts and how the investigations are being carried out."
"I can say no more!"
Mahmud, from Birmingham in central England, was arrested in late October from a house in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. The British Foreign Office was aware of the arrest and is seeking further information from Pakistani authorities, a spokesman told Aljazeera.net earlier on Monday.
’’We are pressing the Pakistanis to allow our consulate to make contact with this individual. We have sent the Pakistanis a photocopy of Mr Mahmud’s passport and some photographs to assist them with their inquiries,’’ said the spokesperson.
"Yup, that’s him. Or at least, that’s what he looked like before we questioned him."
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 2:49:24 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Tariq Mahmud, 30, who has dual British and Pakistani nationality, has been "detained by our authorities," spokesman Masud Khan told reporters

And is assisting our torturers with their inquiries...
Posted by: mojo || 11/10/2003 15:46 Comments || Top||


Hidden bomb rocks Pakistani city
A small rocket struck a residential area of Quetta in southwestern Pakistan overnight, and when authorities arrived at the scene a bomb hidden nearby exploded, injuring at least seven people, police said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in Quetta, which recently has been the scene of scattered violence against its Shi’ite minority. The rocket struck an electric pole, snapping the wires but causing no other serious damage, policeman Mohammed Nadeem said.
The lure....
About an hour later, when police and journalists arrived at the scene, a bomb hidden in a nearby garbage bin went off, injuring five policemen and two reporters, Nadeem said. One of the victims, a policeman, was seriously hurt.
The strike. The first explosion draws in emergency services, then the second larger blast goes off. An oldy, but goody.
In separate attacks earlier this month, two rockets hit another residential area of the city, and a hand grenade exploded at a police checkpoint, wounding two policemen. No one claimed responsibility for those attacks in the city, the capital of Baluchistan province.
So many suspects, so little time.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 2:39:27 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
General Warns Iraqis Attacks Must Stop
America's top general in the Middle East has warned community leaders the U.S. military will use stern measures unless they curb attacks against coalition forces, an Iraqi who attended the meeting said Monday. Gen. John Abizaid, chief of the U.S. Central Command, delivered the warning to tribal sheiks and mayors in the "Sunni Triangle" city of Ramadi west of Baghdad, according to Fallujah Mayor Taha Bedawi. "We have the capabilities and equipment," Bedawi quoted the general as saying at Saturday's meeting.
"And you asshats have short memories..."
The warning was another sign of a "get tough" campaign against insurgents, who have accelerated attacks against U.S. and coalition forces in recent weeks. U.S. forces had eased off on raids during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began in late October. Hours after Abizaid's warning, U.S. jets dropped three 500-pound bombs in the Fallujah area after three paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were wounded in an ambush. There was no report of casualties from the bombing. "Neither America, nor the father of America, scares us," said one resident, Najih Latif Abbas. "Iraqi men are striking at Americans and they retaliate by terrifying our children."
Y'know what, Najih? I don't care if they flatten your kids, as long as they take you out with them.
Fakhri Fayadh, a 60-year-old farmer, said reprisal attacks "will only increase our spite and hatred of them. If they think that they will scare us, they are wrong. Day after day, Americans will be harmed and attacks against them will increase."
Oderint dum metuant, buddy.
The U.S. military said insurgents struck again late Sunday, firing a rocket-propelled grenade at a military police convoy near Iskandariya, 40 miles south of Baghdad, and killing a soldier from the 18th Military Police Brigade.
Show a stack of Iraqi bodies within 24 hours and that sort of crap will stop. Make sure Fakhri and Najih are in the pile.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 15:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Damm, 30 seconds too late.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 15:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Oderint dum metuant, buddy.

Can someone translate that for me, please?
Posted by: Seafarious || 11/10/2003 15:17 Comments || Top||

#3  "Let them hate me as long as they fear me."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 11/10/2003 15:18 Comments || Top||

#4  These people need to learn fast - if they dont respond to the tougher US rules of engagement, the next step will likely be to unleash the Peshmerga and the Shiite militias on them. THAT wont be pretty.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 11/10/2003 15:20 Comments || Top||

#5  Thanks for the translation, Dan. Your blog has become a regular stop for me, along with Winds of Change. Thanks for your research and analysis!
Posted by: Seafarious || 11/10/2003 15:24 Comments || Top||

#6  Corpses don't hate anybody.
Posted by: mojo || 11/10/2003 15:31 Comments || Top||

#7  Lots of checkpoints. Intrusive body checks. Physical barriers and helicopter strikes on bad guys in vehicles. Just like what works in Gaza.
Posted by: mhw || 11/10/2003 15:54 Comments || Top||

#8  You go out one morning with 400 tanks and other armored vehicles. You surround Fallujah completely, with 6-7000 infantrymen backing up the tanks. You start a house-by-house search, making sure every human being and as many belongings as they can carry are taken out, marched beyond the perimeter, and made to kneel in the sand. Then you totally destroy their city. Bomb it into dust, and then blow away the dust. MAKE THEM WATCH. Then have one person walk out to them and tell them, "next time, we'll do it with you still there". You may still have problems, but they won't be from Fallujah.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 23:09 Comments || Top||

#9  I like the way you think, O.P.
Posted by: snellenr || 11/10/2003 23:49 Comments || Top||


US nabs 35 in Baghdad hotel attack
Edited for topic:
US forces arrested 35 people thought linked to a deadly rocket attack on US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz’s hotel, as the US-led coalition turns increasingly to Iraqis to help defeat its opponents.
Yesteerday the number was 18. Guess they're still working on it. Use the red leather truncheons, guys. They're the highest quality...
The capture of the 35 men believed connected to the October attack on the heavily-fortified al-Rashid hotel showcased the military’s new strategy of sending out Iraqi operatives to catch Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters. "After the Rashid attack, intelligence became one of our priorities," a senior military officer told AFP of the rocket attack which killed a US colonel and wounded 17 others.
As if it wasn’t before.
He said that the military had found a welding shop in the capital’s upmarket Mansour district, where they found pieces of metal painted the same royal blue colour as the rocket launcher, and the shop’s walls.
CSI Baghdad is on the case.
Iraqi informants identified members of an alleged cell in Mansour, and one was given a camera and detailed to carry out surveillance on their homes. Asked if the Iraqi was a full-fledged agent employed by the US government, the officer refused to say. "These men are patriots ... They are doing it for a better life," he said. With the men’s addresses and shots of their homes, four combat-ready companies swooped down on the Mansour area early Saturday. Of the 35 men captured, 10 were on the army’s top list of suspects. During the raid, the military also seized computers and cellphones, along with 50,000 dollars and seven million dinars (3,500 dollars), the officer said.
And now they are sifting through the hard drives and the cell phones memory.
The raid boosted the theory championed by top US military brass in Iraq that the only way for the coalition to defeat insurgents is through human intelligence. Alone, the US military appears unable to penetrate Iraq’s underworld of Saddam loyalists, gangsters and foreign fighters. But since the August suicide bombings of the Jordan embassy and the United Nations in Baghdad, the coalition has apparently started to build an apparatus of Iraqi intelligence. The coalition had also started recruiting former members of Saddam’s intelligence services to track militants slipping in from Syria and Iran, Iraqis close to the coalition told AFP in September.
I'd imagine they're running things through the Iraqi police, and probably paying a bonus per dead turban.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 10:38:10 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Asked if the Iraqi was a full-fledged agent employed by the US government, the officer refused to say. "These men are patriots ... They are doing it for a better life,"

Ooo, good answer. Wish I could think of responses like that when I need them...
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 11/10/2003 12:03 Comments || Top||


Mosques on Front Line of Battle With U.S.
It was Friday prayers at Haibat Khatoun mosque in Mosul, and the imam faced worshippers to deliver a fiery sermon accusing American troops of insulting the Muslim holy book and trampling the honor of women. "It's not enough for them to defile the land, they also wanted to defile God's book and then violate the sanctities of Muslims," the preacher shouted, his words carried into the street by loudspeakers. "The grandsons of monkeys and pigs, who don't know their mothers or fathers, trespass on the book of God!"
Shut him down and lock him up.
Moustafa Mohammed, a 19-year-old college sophomore squatting in the mosque, listened in anger and pain. "Islam today is being humiliated," he said. "We ask God to make us victorious. They are hurting Muslims. ... It's horrible."
Poor baby turbans. They're so humiliated. They're always being humiliated, aren't they?
This northern city has been much safer for U.S. troops than Baghdad and the "Sunni Triangle" north and west of the capital. But even here, U.S. patrols draw fire, like the four attacks on American convoys Wednesday that killed three Iraqi civilians and wounded five soldiers. Some mosques in Mosul have become channels for anti-American rhetoric, drumming on Muslim resentments over perceptions of Western dominance and painting the occupation as a religious struggle. While wearing rose-colored glasses arguing that many clerics espouse pro-occupation views, American officials say they are keeping an eye on mosques that could be fueling resistance to the coalition administration. But they say local Iraqi authorities have removed only one imam in Mosul for anti-U.S. speeches.
Sounds like they'd better remove another one. It's a trick of the trade that it's the worshippers who get shot while the imams remain all snug and cozy with the money still rolling in. That's 'cuz they're so holy...
American authorities tread lightly because any direct attempts to control mosques or interfere in what preachers say could lead to a backlash from Iraqis and increase perceptions of a religious war.
Instead of a cultural war...
The preacher at Haibat Khatoun talked about an Oct. 21 incident in which U.S. soldiers sparked outrage when they tried to use a sniffer dog to search the handbag of a female employee at the Oil Ministry in Baghdad. The woman's bag contained a copy of the Quran, and Muslims consider dogs to be dirty animals. Witnesses said that when the woman resisted the search, the soldiers threw the Quran on the ground and arrested her. Military officials have had no comment on the incident. The imam also said "the forces of the infidels" went to arrest three people in the Khaldiya area but took away their wives instead when they didn't find the men. In traditional societies like Iraq's, men's honor is linked to what happens to the women of their families. "Oh brothers, the Muslims today ... have been humiliated and disgraced in their own homes," the preacher said.
They were disgraced by kissing the ankles of a tin-hat dictator for 35 years. They got out and marched and shook their fists and vowed to defend him with their blood. He and his cronies and his sons picked and chose which of their women they wanted to use for sex toys. And they bitch about this?
Across the Middle East, Friday sermons are a traditional way of measuring popular sentiments. The faithful unite around mosques for guidance and support, especially in times of chaos and crisis. A group of Sunni clerics in Mosul, the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq, issued a statement Friday warning people against cooperating with U.S. forces. "Beware of supporting the occupiers and know that contacting them, without a legitimate necessity, is sinful," it said. Ironically, criticizing those in power is part of the post-Saddam Hussein changes; clerics weren't allowed to speak up against the regime of Saddam, whose security forces made sure religious leaders toed the official line and crushed any signs of Islamic fundamentalism. At al-Shaheed Bashar Qalander mosque, Sheik Abdel Jawad Mohammed Safo said mosques have a responsibility to direct people and raise their awareness. "I always stress that the people ruling over us are nonbelievers," he said. "We always say that this war is a religious war. ... It's a war between Arabs and Jews; America is a mere toy in the hand of the Jews."
I always stress that this war is a cultural war. It's a war between liberty and enlightenment on our hand, ignorance and brutality on theirs. I think we see pretty clearly which side the sheikh is on. And I notice he's not carrying a gun, either.
Safo said his pulpit "is always one of jihad." Asked if that includes armed jihad, he answered: "Yes. We call for it in public, without any hesitation."
Lock him up. And his family with him.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 08:57 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And they bitch about this?

They know we won't toss them into shredders.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/10/2003 9:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Safo said his pulpit "is always one of jihad." Asked if that includes armed jihad, he answered:
"Yes. We call for it in public, without any hesitation."
Lock him up. And his family with him.

I have a better idea: a sniper rifle at an appropriate distance.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/10/2003 10:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Fight words with words. Fire up the pro western propaganda. These uneducated morons are so easily lead. This sheik could easily made a mockery of. I shouldn't say easy as high quality mockery making is a skill. But from what I hear we are just broadcasting bullshit.
Posted by: Lucky || 11/10/2003 13:51 Comments || Top||

#4  CGI DVD's released around town showing our friend the Imam on all fours getting cornholed by a big ol'potbellied pig. Technology is our friend
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 18:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Frank, I doubt you'd need special effects, just a sick enough pig.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/10/2003 20:17 Comments || Top||

#6  We need to bring back a couple of batteries of 175MM self-propelled howitzers. I'm sure some Guard unit somewhere still has them. Load them up with a beehive round, fire them from about a half-mile away, and watch the fireworks. Then go in an "put out the fire, gather up the victims, and help the living". Make sure our cleric friend is NOT counted among that number. Also spread the word that it was an Arab rocket attack. Third or fourth time it happens, attendance at mosques preaching "jihad" will suddenly fall off tremendously.

Serendipity will occur when there are significant secondary explosions, indicating we've also eliminated somebody's stash of terror ammunition.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 23:30 Comments || Top||


US troops ’clash’ with PKK rebels
American troops have clashed with Turkish Kurd rebels based in northern Iraq, the Turkish authorities say. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said the clashes between US forces and PKK rebels took place on Sunday. His comments followed Turkish media reports that an Iraqi Kurd was killed when PKK rebels fired on US troops and Iraqi Kurdish fighters. The US-led coalition press office in Baghdad confirmed there had been an incident, but gave no details.
"I can say no more."
Mr Gul, speaking to reporters in Ankara before leaving for a visit to Rome, said there were clashes involving US troops, Iraqi Kurdish fighters and the PKK. He said some US helicopters were also sent.Last month, Sunday’s are the first known clashes between US forces and PKK rebels. Turkey and the US agreed on an action plan to eradicate the PKK, which is thought to have around 5,000 members living in northern Iraq. Details of the plan have not been released, but a US official said at the time that any military action would be carried out by US troops.
Happy, Murat?
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 8:37:06 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I heard about it yes, but happy I am not because the incident seems to be coincidence in which the Iraqi/US joint patrol ran into a group of PKK terrorists who tried to cross the Iraqi Turkish border and not a planned action to eradicate the PKK terrorists. So I have no reason to believe in a sincere fight against terror by the US. Maybe things change when the PKK shoots a few US soldiers, I guess one of the reasons the US do not attack the PKK is because they posses stinger manpads handed out by the US itself.
Posted by: Murat || 11/10/2003 10:08 Comments || Top||

#2  As long as they're in Iraq and don't start shootin' they're just Kurds, Murat. They become terrorists when they cross the northern border.
Posted by: mojo || 11/10/2003 10:56 Comments || Top||

#3  If we killed 'em all, Murat would complain about the smell...
Posted by: PBMcL || 11/10/2003 11:07 Comments || Top||

#4  Do you apply the same standards on the Al Qaeda Mojo? As long as they don't leave Afghanistan, they are not terrorists? Whether they keep carrying weapons and continue their terrorist training in camps is of no matter, right!

I guess with your logic the US wasted valuable fuell by dispatching few apache helicopters to the area while no American soldiers where hit, just a few peshmerga wounded by some PKK border tourists.
Posted by: Murat || 11/10/2003 11:07 Comments || Top||

#5  This may be a naive question, but how is it in the best interest of the PKK to attack us?
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/10/2003 12:31 Comments || Top||

#6  I think we should just tell the PKK we have no problem with them, as long as they only kill Turkish civilians. That's Murat's standard, so it's mine too.
Posted by: BMN || 11/10/2003 12:37 Comments || Top||

#7  Actually, I do. AQ boomers are free to blow up anything they like in Afghanistan, and the Afghan troops are free to do anything they like to AQ.

In Afghanistan. They go anywhere else, they get popped catch-as-catch-can.

It's called "self-determination".
Posted by: mojo || 11/10/2003 14:12 Comments || Top||

#8  More details: A KURDISH fighter working for the Iraqi border guard was killed and 13 others wounded at the weekend in a clash with gunmen near the Turkish border, a US army spokeswoman said today. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul identified the gunmen as members of the Turkish Kurdish rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK, also known as KADEK), but the US army said it was not clear who the attackers were.
"Iraqi Border Patrol members on patrol in northern Iraq came under attack from unknown forces November 8 near Dohuk," the military spokeswoman said from the northern city of Mosul. "One Iraqi border patrol guard was killed and 13 others were injured." US forces called in Apache helicopter gunships, which opened fire on the gunmen, who then fled, she added. The dead border guard was identified in the Turkish press as belonging to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of Massoud Barzani, one of the two main Kurdish groups controlling northern Iraq.


So the only one saying that the PKK was involved is Turkish FM Gul. Just how does he know who is involved, anyway? Maybe it was, but why would they shoot up a Kurdish Iraqi border patrol? Hell, it could be a Turkish SF patrol posing as the PKK.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 14:30 Comments || Top||


Success Measured in Cement: Iraqis Rebuild Factory at Fraction of Estimate
Way too long to post in full here so just the first few paragraphs.
The rumbling, rust-colored cement factory tucked into a valley in the northwest corner of the country here stands as a monument to the success of the reconstruction effort. Burned and looted in the aftermath of the war, it was up and running again by mid-September. But it was not put back together by the U.S.-led interim government and the fleets of contractors being paid billions of dollars to fix the country. In fact, had the plant managers gone the "American way," the factory might still be in pieces. U.S. Army engineers who came to survey the damage proposed rebuilding the plant into a shining showcase for the best in modern technology. They suggested buying a fleet of earth-moving equipment and importing machinery from Europe, estimating it would take $23 million and up to a year to complete the job. The Iraqis had more modest ambitions — they just wanted to get the factory running again, even at minimal capacity. With the help of $10,000 from the U.S. military, and $240,000 left over in factory bank accounts, they used scrap electronics, tore up one production line to get parts for the other, and fixed the plant in three months. It was not the state-of-the-art facility that the Americans envisioned, but it got the job done.
More at the link. Article illustrates the big differences in the mindsets of two peoples, but just as importantly shows that there are a lot of Iraqis who can make their country work.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/10/2003 1:02:55 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ..just as importantly shows that there are a lot of Iraqis who can make their country work.

Proof that the best course of action is to get things working first, then upgrade to something even better when circumstances allow it.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/10/2003 10:37 Comments || Top||

#2  They've got what it takes. Let's see more of this!
Posted by: Ptah || 11/10/2003 10:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Nice article and I note the Japanese also sent in some engineers to assist....think they see some business opportunities on the horizon...
Posted by: Anonymous || 11/10/2003 12:48 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Gun Registration, License Brings Rape and Murder to the Unarmed of Papua New Guinea
This is what anti gun morons want for your family
A horrific attack on a family in Port Moresby has prompted calls for Papua New Guineans to be granted the right to arm themselves against murderers and rapists. In an incident that shocked a city accustomed to a high level of violence, 10 drunken bandits last week attacked a family home, murdering a man who tried to protect his wife and two daughters, aged nine and 13. The woman and her daughters were forced to watch as their father was shot and chopped up with an axe. The three were then dragged outside and pack-raped. The wife said the criminals then placed her husband’s body in their bed and set fire to the house.

While police have charged seven men with murder, rape, abduction and arson in relation to the attack, the alleged ringleaders remain at large. PNG is expected next month to sign off on an Australian plan to deploy at least 200 police officers to combat crime. Prominent PNG commentator Frank Kolma yesterday called on authorities to grant citizens the right to bear arms,
(And was promptly attacked by the candidates running for the USA Democrat Party Presidental nomination)
and to implement a permanent curfew in lawless Port Moresby. Kolma said PNG’s law enforcement agencies "do not have the capacity, resources or brainpower to bring criminals to justice".
Don't have the brainpower? Do they import cops from South Waziristan?
"And do you think anything will come of this latest incident?" he asked in his column in The National newspaper.
Yeah! The internet will allow a lone gunman from the other side of the globe will spread the word of your plight!
"If past performance is anything to go by - absolutely nothing. We will wait, as always, for the day when a politician or a businessman or an expatriate family is attacked in a similar fashion before action is instituted." He said citizens should be allowed to use firearms to protect themselves.
Liberals, like Nazis were appalled at this affront to their bureacracy
"It would be best, under the prevailing circumstances, to allow the citizen to arm himself and take his chances than to leave his life, family and property in the hands of an inept state and its agents," he said.
They are not only inept,they fear an armed citizen would not obey them
PNG has similar gun laws to Australia, whereby permits are issued only for specific purposes such as hunting and, in a few cases, protection.
Yeah protection of the wealthy,in traditional liberal fashion,the poor can get raped and killed for their own good
The issue of new gun licences was suspended two years ago, sparking a lucrative market in the transfer of existing licenses which at more than $5000, are out of reach for the average citizen.
Smells like Liberal $$ scheme
Mr Kolma said there was little to deter criminals in Port Moresby.
(& NY,UK,DC,LA,SF etc)
"Crime has become a profitable and even attractive venture.
How did the Kennedy’s become so rich?
You do not have to work for it, just steal it. If you want sex, go out and rape.
(Rapist prefer unarmed victims)
If somebody is successful, bring him down - permanently.
(Sounds like Democrats & Union Organizers to me!)
"This is fast becoming the way of life in Papua New Guinea."
(and NY City,DC,LA etc)
The attack, in the squatters’ settlement of Tete, was one of numerous murders and rapes reported each year in Port Moresby’s sprawling outlying suburb of Gerehu. While many Gerehu residents wrap their homes in barbed-wire and steel mesh,
(for that real cool prison look)
often the best protection is for residents to band together with fellow tribesmen. However, this has also led to incidents of broader, more dangerous ethnic violence in the settlements.
Now they can band together and wipe out other unarmed families,just like Rwanda!
Posted by: chriskarma || 11/10/2003 4:01:13 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Cool! Someone fixed the San Serif trible bold.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/10/2003 18:25 Comments || Top||

#2  That's triple bold with a fatty.

Still always the temptation to use a drop shadow, small cap, negative leaded blinker.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/10/2003 18:28 Comments || Top||


One dead, three wounded in southern Philippines clash
An army officer has been killed and three others wounded in a clash with a group of armed men believed to be Abu Sayyaf rebels in the southern Philippine island of Basilan, the military said. Soldiers on routine patrol came under fire from a huge suspected Abu Sayyaf unit near the town of Sumisip on Sunday, the military said. A junior army officer leading the patrol was killed on the spot, while two soldiers and a pro-government militiaman accompanying them were seriously wounded in the hour-long battle.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 9:36:49 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iran
Update: Iran Concealed Its Nuclear Program, U.N. Report Finds
EFL/FU - read it all
Small Amounts of Enriched Uranium and Plutonium Manufactured
By Joby Warrick and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, November 10, 2003; 7:56 PM

Iran manufactured small amounts of enriched uranium and plutonium as part of a clandestine nuclear program that operated in secret for 18 years, according to a confidential United Nations report. The report harshly criticizes Iran for deliberately hiding evidence of its nuclear program from international inspectors and committing numerous "breaches" in its nuclear treaty obligations.

The 29-page report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said so far there is "no evidence" that Iran had sought to build a nuclear weapon, as asserted by the Bush administration, but the U.N. nuclear watchdog said it would keep investigating this claim. Given Iran’s "past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes," the report said.

***snip***
guess we know why Israel didn’t take it out yet
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 9:49:56 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Question: why would someone actively HIDE an enrichment process being used for "peaceful purposes"?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/11/2003 10:28 Comments || Top||


On the Riyadh attacks...
Our own (well, actually we share him) Dan Darling has a masterful analysis of this weekend's Riyadh attacks up on Winds of Change. If you haven't read it, go do it now. Dan notes that
The financial side of al-Qaeda, best personified in a report submitted to the United Nations Security Council that documents the top seven financiers of al-Qaeda: Khalid bin Mahfouz, Saleh Abdullah Kamel, Abdullah Suleiman al-Rajhi, Adel Abdul Jalil Batterjee, Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi, Wael Hamza Julaidan, and Yasin al-Qadi, remains largely untouched. All of these men are extremely wealthy Saudi business magnates and all of them have been allowed to operate freely within the Kingdom even after the Riyadh bombings. Nor are these individuals the only major Saudi al-Qaeda financiers, according to al-Qaeda documents recovered from Bosnia, the organization's financiers also at least thirteen additional Saudi magnates, including members of the Bin Laden Group.

Then there's the case of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, Bin Laden's brother-in-law. Khalifa financed and helped to establish the al-Qaeda infrastructure in the Philippines that enabled the organization to plot Oplan Bojinka, the prototype for 9/11. Khalifa was arrested shortly after the 9/11 attacks but subsequently released by Saudi authorities. As of this date, he remains a free man in the Kingdom.

... The ultimate test of whether or not the Saudis are prepared to fully sever their ties to al-Qaeda will be whether or not the Kingdom is willing to cut the financial umbilical chord for international terrorism once and for all. Until that occurs in some fashion or another, everything that happens in the Kingdom should be the subject of intense skepticism, particularly claims to the press or even by public figures that the Saudis are no longer turning a blind eye to terrorism. The royal family has known about the activities of these individuals for well over a year at this point, and to date have done absolutely nothing to hinder them.

The money boyz are the canary in the coal mine in Soddy Arabia. We'll know for sure they've decided to fight seriously against al-Qaeda when the money men start having "unfortunate accidents." It's doubtful they'll be jugged — too many secrets that could come trickling out, even in a closed society, though some of them might "retire."

We probably won't notice it, since they're not princes. Their demises probably won't make Arab News or Arab Times or Riyadh Daily. (A few of the higher echelons of the Council of Boskone Learned Elders of Islam might, though, if they're prominent holy men.) Intel will probably be able to track the diminution of funding, but we won't hear about that, either.

Damn. I hate being in the dark. But if Saturday's bombing doesn't jolt them into taking it seriously, they're not going to take it seriously. They're still differentiating between Hamas and Qaeda at this moment, so I have my doubts.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 21:11 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  more "misadventures" in the desert? you'd think that in this day and age they'd have/use GPS and cell phones to help rescue them....but then again, they didn't have those in the 7th century, did they?

(/irony)
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 21:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe instead of putting the Enola Gay on display in the Smithsonian we should put it on display in Riyadh. The exhibit can include a picture of Pearl Harbor labelled "Cause" and a picture of Hiroshima labelled "Effect". Just to illustrate the concept, mind you.
Posted by: Matt || 11/10/2003 21:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Aww gee, thanks Fred ...

*wipes tear*

Let me just say that this, like all of the other stuff I do for Winds of Change, would never have been possible without Rantburg (as the numbered of sources that I mirror that are saved only here should demonstrate). Thanks a lot for bringing this site online and maintaining it to begin with.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 11/10/2003 22:15 Comments || Top||

#4  pretty impressive stuff Dan Darling! - Needs to be disseminated to the anti-war media. SA is another stepping stone to victory over the islamofascists, whether they like it or not!
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 22:36 Comments || Top||

#5  Debka says the Riyadh bombing was carried out by a cell of Lebanese, and aimed at a Lebanese Christian area of the compound. It was not aimed at Moslems. If this is so, predictions of a PR disaster for AQ may be wrong, given the relative values placed on innocent lives over there.
Posted by: Grunter || 11/10/2003 22:42 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Dem Experts: Twenty-Six House Democrats Push to Fire Rumsfeld
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of more than two dozen House of Representatives cowards and leftists Democrats on Monday said they had introduced a resolution urging President Bush to fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Separation of powers? We don’t need no badges!
"This resolution would make official what so many unfit members of Congress already believe -- that the soldiers in Iraq and America’s foreign policy would be helped greatly if Donald Rumsfeld would leave," Rep. Charles Rangel of New York said in a statement.
you knew I was gonna say something about ol’ Chollie - he of the "draft reinstatement" bent to destroy our military; the lie that minorities made up a disproportionate "tip of the spear" instead of supply and REMF’s; He of the clinton-defending party....bastard

Rangel said he so far had 25 co-sponsors to the resolution who were "willing to stand up and say what so many policy makers know, that the first step to bringing our troops home is to send Donald Rumsfeld home."
let me guess - maxine waters et al?

The resolution said Rumsfeld misled the American public on assessments of progress in the war and occupation, sent U.S. forces to Iraq "without adequate planning and sufficient equipment," and "demonstrated a lack of sensitivity" in statements on the war and U.S. casualties.

With members of the deeply divided, Republican-controlled Congress pushing for adjournment before the end of November, the resolution would be highly unlikely to come up for a vote.
"hell will freeze over and Osama will rise from the dead"
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 9:05:53 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  By all means publish the list of the 25 if they exist. I'm sure they are all in very safe Democratic districts. Even then I hope their electorate has some brains and tosses them out.
Posted by: Yank || 11/10/2003 21:16 Comments || Top||


Maybe it's a matter of style...
Donald Sensing reviews the Jessica Lynch teevee movie. He liked it, but he notes that
The Nasariyeh battle sequence was well done. My only complaint would be showing the fedayeen just standing in the middle of the street, hip shooting their AK-47s. That's a good way to (a) get killed, as a fair number of them did and (b) shoot the sky, not your targets. But for all know, the fedayeen there really did that.
I'm quite convinced they did, of course — and we have the pix from Paleostine to prove that's the preferred way Islamic heroes get dead. Note the heroic stance of Mahmoud, the guy on the right, with the keffiyeh. Definitely more heroic looking than his partner, Abdull, with his ski mask pulled so low over his eyes he can't see what he's shooting at, if anything. Both, note, are out in the middle of the street, in front of God and everybody, just waiting for a very brief splitting headache, which Mahmoud proceeds to receive. I'd guess that's because the IDF guys were making use of cover — they don't need to impress the Paleogirlies — and taking the time to get a good site picture and sque-e-e-eze off that round.

Alas, poor Mahmoud. We knew him all too well.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 19:14 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  as the text said - right through the brain (if any)....I wouldn't trouble myself too long worrying - proof is in the pudding, or whatever's in that head of his
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 20:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Well, according to Drudge, the New York Daily News will report in tomorrow's edition that Hustler has gotten its syphilitic claws hands on topless photos of Lynch and intends to publish them soon.
This raises a question: How many of
HO'-llyweird's terror-loving sluts anti-war female stars have posed nude and gotten the money themselves?
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 11/10/2003 23:21 Comments || Top||

#3  My own take on Hustler's plans (also First Amendment protected):
It's quite unfortunate that Larry Flynt was shot by an anonymous criminal and not after due process of law.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 11/10/2003 23:58 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Arafat’s Billions -- 60 Minutes reports
(Link via Damian Penny) Not much new in this report for Rantburg and blogosphere regulars, but posting here FYI...
(CBS) Yasser Arafat diverted nearly $1 billion in public funds to insure his political survival, but a lot more is unaccounted for. Jim Prince and a team of American accountants - hired by Arafat’s own finance ministry - are combing through Arafat’s books. Given what they’ve already uncovered, Arafat may be rethinking the decision. Lesley Stahl reports. "What is Mr. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority worth today?" asks accountant Jim Prince. "Who is controlling that money? Where is that money? How do we get it back?"
Read the rest at the link.

And we ain't gonna get it back, so just forget that idea — unless you want to repo Suha's wardrobe.
Posted by: Seafarious || 11/10/2003 5:25:50 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Damn shame when you know this stuff months before the "reputable" news sources deign to cover it.
Posted by: BH || 11/10/2003 17:35 Comments || Top||

#2  The best part of that segment was whent he PLO guy tried to deny and then defer that the accounts even exists. A classic Clintonian statement if the ever was one.
"What money?"
"Oh, you mean he ones with my signature?"
LIES LIES LIES JEWISH LIES!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 11/10/2003 18:33 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Ice Cream Shop Busted in Terror Raid
EFL:
At dawn, armed FBI agents assigned to an anti-terrorism unit converged on an unlikely front in the war on terrorism: a tiny ice cream shop in Brooklyn. The agents arrested the Yemeni proprietor, a naturalized U.S. citizen, who lived three floors above. Based on a tip, they said, they had learned that $20 million had passed through the bank accounts of his business from 1997 until the raid in January.
That’s a lot of ice cream.
The proprietor, Abad Elfgeeh, pleaded guilty last month in a proceeding that escaped notice, perhaps because the illegal money-transfer charge against him never mentioned terrorism. But a review of court files by The Associated Press revealed that prosecutors believe Elfgeeh was an associate of Sheik Mohammed Hasa Al-Moayad, a prominent Yemeni cleric charged with funneling millions to Al Qaeda in the years before the Sept. 11 attacks. Elfgeeh has denied any connection. Al-Moayad is being held in Germany, where he is fighting extradition to the United States. The allegations of an illicit connection between the two men stem from the federal government’s crackdown on informal money transfer networks known as "hawalas." Muslim immigrants have used the networks — which rely on wire transfers, couriers and overnight mail — to send cash to their families overseas. But since the Sept. 11 attacks, authorities have worked to dismantle the system, fearing it allows terrorists to raise and launder money. Usama bin Laden has boasted that hawalas created cracks in the Western financial system that "were as familiar to him and his Al Qaeda colleagues as the lines of their own hands," a recent congressional report warned. Offices of companies providing hawala services have been shuttered in cities around the United States. In Brooklyn alone, more than a dozen Arab or Muslim men have been charged with transferring money without a license. One, an American of Egyptian descent, was convicted in July of trying to smuggle $659,000 in boxes of Ritz crackers, Quaker Oats and baby wipes stuffed in a suitcase on a flight to Egypt.
Baby wipes? Well, that explains the box we keep seeing on Yassar’s desk.
Defense lawyers call the crackdown overkill and say prosecutors have unfairly linked their clients to extremist causes and subjected them to interrogations and severe jail conditions without actually charging them with terrorism. Some of the defendants were naturalized U.S. citizens with clean records. Most were guilty only of trying to send money home to loved ones, said Peter Mollo, an attorney for Mohamed Ali Alriany, a Brooklyn man who pleaded guilty in a case in which investigators say he made millions of dollars in unreported transfers to Yemen through his gift shop. "They’re looking for a bigger fish," Mollo said. "There is no bigger fish."
"If there is a bigger fish, ask if he needs a lawyer."
On the surface, Elfgeeh seems an unlikely threat to national security. He arrived in the United States 30 years ago with an eighth grade education and became a citizen five years later. He was in the ice cream business for 20 years and had no previous arrests.
Break out the nano-violin.
In his plea after the Jan. 18 raid on his ice cream shop, Elfgeeh, 48, said he began informally transferring money for family and friends for a fee in 1995. He said he "intended to get a license, but never got around to it." Testifying about the morning of his arrest, Elfgeeh told a judge that he was asleep with his pregnant wife when the armed federal agents pounded on his door. The agents, who had a material witness warrant, intimidated him into consenting to a search, he said. "I was terrified, very scared," he said. "Of course, we are hearing a lot since Sept. 11 about what happened to Arabic men, what happened to Muslims who look like me."
Bwahahahaha! Everyone trembles at the very name of - Gitmo!
But authorities said documents seized in his shop revealed a pattern of deception.
Oops, it’s that damm evidence again.
Tax records showed the shop had average annual revenue of about $185,000, but court papers said that from November 2001 to November 2002 alone, Elfgeeh’s bank accounts had deposits of more than $5.3 million — money later transferred to banks in Yemen and elsewhere. Investigators say they connected Elfgeeh to the Yemeni cleric, Al-Moayad, following a sting operation in Germany in which Al-Moayad told an FBI informant that he supplied $20 million, recruits and weapons to bin Laden. Al-Moayad allegedly named four men in New York — including Elfgeeh — he claimed had secretly transferred funds to him in Yemen.
Awkward, that.
He also "said he received money for ’jihad’ that was collected from the Al Farouq mosque in Brooklyn," court papers said. Past investigations identified the mosque as a place of worship for terrorists, including the men who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. Mosque leaders have dismissed any current connection.
"Nope, no terrorists worshipping here. We’re a Religion of Peace, haven’t you heard?"
During a sealed proceeding in July, Elfgeeh testified he had heard of Al-Moayad, but added: "I do not personally know him." He is now awaiting sentencing on the illegal money-transfer charge and could face up to 10 years in prison.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 4:10:07 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Terrorist Tootie Fruitie anyone??
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/10/2003 16:21 Comments || Top||

#2  I need a pint of Martyr Mint Medley and a pint of Fatwa Fudge Swirl, please.
Posted by: Dar || 11/10/2003 16:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Make mine a hot fudge sundae with one scoop of Iraqi Road, and one scoop of Hawala Heath Bar Crunch. And serve only after sunset...it's still Ramadan!
Posted by: Seafarious || 11/10/2003 16:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Raw Pork Ripple please...two scoops.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 11/10/2003 17:22 Comments || Top||

#5  "Of course, we are hearing a lot since Sept. 11 about what happened to Arabic men, what happened to Muslims who look like me."

Yes, we've heard a lot about nothing.

Anyone else getting as sick of the whining as I am?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/10/2003 17:22 Comments || Top||

#6  Of course, we are hearing a lot since Sept. 11 about what happened to Arabic men, what happened to Muslims who look like me.


"Shaddap and gimme jimmies on that !"
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 11/10/2003 17:43 Comments || Top||


Iran
"Existence of Israel contrary to Iranian interests"
The mere existence of Israel is contrary to Tehran’s national interests, press reports said Monday, quoting former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, now a top advisor to Iran’s supreme leader.
So he’s one of the shadowy figures behind the throne.
"One of the elements of progress in a country is regional cooperation. Israel was created to prevent unity and cooperation between Islamic countries, that is why the existence of Israel is in contradiction with the national interests of Iran," Velayati was quoted as saying by the conservative Ressalat newspaper.
Gee, and here I thought Israel was the only thing that unified the Islamic world. Silly me.
"Today, there is a close spiritual relationship between Palestinian fighters and the Islamic republic, and this cannot be ignored," he added, saying that the "new step in the Palestinian struggle has been influenced by the Islamic revolution and the Lebanese Hezbollah."
So you’re admitting your responsible for Hezbollah?
Iran refuses to recognise Israel and top officials frequently call for the destruction of the Jewish state. But Tehran denies giving material support to Palestinian militants.
Guess not, huh?
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 3:37:50 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  hezbollah arent Pals, they're Shiite Lebanese.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 11/10/2003 16:27 Comments || Top||

#2  So we're coming up with lists of regimes whose very existence are contrary to our national interest. Let's go with a list for the US. I'll start: Iran .....
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/10/2003 17:22 Comments || Top||

#3  LH - Hezbollah is helping to fund/arm the Pals - useful tools and all that
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 18:12 Comments || Top||

#4  Dissing countries that can terminate your national SURVIVAL seems like a really dumb idea.

Do these people WANT to provoke an Israeli anti-nuke raid?
Posted by: Hiryu || 11/10/2003 18:39 Comments || Top||

#5  Remember that they are nutcases, Hiryu. What they do is based upon religious fanaticism and not rational thought. They bring their own semtex to the suicide party.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/10/2003 22:00 Comments || Top||


Africa: Southern
5 Killed As Burundi Rebels Attack Capital
Hutu rebels bombarded Burundi's capital Monday with rockets, killing five people, destroying part of the Chinese Embassy and striking the home of a U.S. military attache, officials said. Fighters from the National Liberation Front attacked two northern neighborhoods of Bujumbura, including an area where diplomats and senior government officials live. "The attack started at midnight and was really very intense as rebels attacked shooting in all directions and exploding grenades," said Mathias Karimwabo, the official in charge of the Kamenge neighborhood. Four civilians were killed, including a young girl and three boys, before the rebels withdrew into the hills north and east of the capital, he said.
A girl and three boys is a pretty hot military target, if you're a Hutu, I guess...
Karimwabo said rebel fighters have attacked the area several times in recent weeks, but not with such intensity. "It seems the rebels want to besiege some parts of the capital, but they meet army strong resistance," said Col. Augustin Nzabampema, an army spokesman. Another civilian was killed when the rebels fired four rockets into the wealthy Kiriri neighborhood. The home of a Chinese diplomat living inside that country's embassy compound was destroyed by a rocket, and an automobile belonging to the U.S. military attache was destroyed when a rocket hit his home.
Sounds like Riyadh on a Saturday night...
The National Liberation Front is one of two main Hutu rebel groups in the central African nation. The other, Forces for the Defense of Democracy, signed a peace deal with the government earlier this month.
So all its troops signed up with NLF and kept on raping and looting fighting...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 15:19 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  National Liberation Front - pretty unimagiantive name. Whatever happened to the grand old days of the Shining Path and the Red Brigade. These guys should pick something more street. May I suggest the Bad Ass Mofos with Guns.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/10/2003 17:29 Comments || Top||

#2  I have an even better name for them, and all those like them: TARGETS OF OPPORTUNITY. Now, all I have to do is get the opportunity, oil up the old M1, pack a bunch of 8-round clips, polish off the retianer pin that requires single-chambering rounds, and I'm ready to hunt... TARGETS!
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 18:17 Comments || Top||


Middle East
Israel Expels Palestinian Suspect to Gaza
The Israeli military expelled a suspected Palestinian militant from the West Bank to Gaza on Monday, a tactic that has angered Palestinians.
Since everything under the sun angers Paleostinians, what's that matter?
Kamal Idris was sent to Gaza, a military statement said, charging that he was a member of a Palestinian cell that carried out attacks in the Hebron area. The military said the expulsion was meant to prevent his involvement in further attacks. The military statement said the court had rejected Idris' appeal against the expulsion order.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 15:12 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  his head remained in the WB?
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 20:23 Comments || Top||

#2  There's only one way to prevent this guy's involvement in future attacks, and everyone knows what it is.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/11/2003 10:12 Comments || Top||


Africa: East
U.S. Embassy in Sudan Suspends Operations
They’ve closed another one.
The United States Embassy in Khartoum will suspend normal operations beginning Wednesday as the result of terror threats to American interests in Sudan, the embassy said Monday. A warden message was distributed to Americans living in Sudan,
How many could that be?
which does not have full diplomatic relations with the United States. The embassy urged all Americans there to maintain a low profile, and to avoid large gatherings of foreigners, which may attract attention. In the statement, the embassy said it was already closing Tuesday for the Veterans Day holiday, and its operations would remain suspended for the rest of the week. The embassy hopes to resume normal operations next week.
After the explosions...
U.S. citizens who remain in or travel to Sudan despite the warning were encouraged to register with the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum and to obtain updated information on travel and security in Sudan.
Don't forget to fill in the next-of-kin forms and whether you want to donate any remaining body parts...
The warning follows Saturday’s car bombing attack in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that killed 17 people at a compound housing mostly Arab foreigners. The U.S. Embassy there had closed its offices earlier that day to review security procedures after receiving credible information about planned terror attacks. Restrictions on staff and families were slightly eased Monday, but security was tight elsewhere in Saudi Arabia, amid fears of more attacks. After a review of the threat level, U.S. Embassy staff and their families were told they could travel outside Riyadh’s heavily guarded diplomatic quarter, to which they had been restricted since the attack, an embassy spokeswoman said.
But if it was me, I wouldn't...
The embassy is shut indefinitely. The State Department has made no decision to evacuate diplomats or dependents. Saudi authorities, who have clashed recently with suspected Al Qaeda militants, said earlier this month they were increasing security in the holy city of Mecca. Security officials were particularly concerned about the last 10 days of the fasting month of Ramadan, when some 2 million Muslims are expected to perform the "omra," or minor pilgrimage, to Mecca. Ramadan ends around Nov. 24. After a Nov. 3 shootout in Mecca that left two suspects dead, Saudi authorities confiscated a large cache of weapons in the city, birthplace of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, leading to fears a strike was planned in Mecca.
They couldn't get to the Vatican because of the Swiss Guards. Maybe the Soddies should hire some?
The United States joined countries around the world in expressing condolences and pledging to stand by Saudi Arabia in the war on terror. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who was in Egypt on Monday after visiting Saudi Arabia the previous day, said the attack was more evidence the war on terror was far from over. "Our president, after the events of Sept. 11, said he was preparing our nation for a long war, and the more we looked at the phenomenon of Al Qaeda, the more we became convinced there is going to be a long struggle," Armitage said. In Riyadh, Armitage pledged Americans "will be fully participating partners, if that is the desire of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia" in its anti-terror fight.
"if that is the desire..." When the boomers start actually knocking off the "royal" scum, then we’ll see how much they desire help.
They'll just pick up and move to Miami...
Armitage, echoing initial Saudi assessments, said he was "personally quite sure" Al Qaeda was behind the car bombing. Such attacks appear to be directed "against the government of Saudi Arabia and the people of Saudi Arabia," Armitage said, adding that he expected more.
"especially against those nasty alk running westerners"
The Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki al-Faisal, cited similarities between Saturday’s bombings and previous Al Qaeda strikes. Saudi officials blame Al Qaeda for a series of car bombings May 12 on three Riyadh compounds housing foreigners. Those attacks killed 35 people, including nine homicide bombers.
You mean 26 people then.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 11/10/2003 3:00:58 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Other than serving as a convenient target, why do we have an embassy in the Sudan? I hope we aren't issuing Visas to these people. I don't feel any obligation to provide services to American citizens feel the need to risk their lives in such a dangerous country.

While I'm sure there are missionaries doing excellent work in the country, what is the purpose of putting embassy personnel at risk to support their mission. If the Sudanese goverenment has anything to say to us, let them e-mail us. Our ambassador can telecommute until the Sudanese have control of their country.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/10/2003 17:54 Comments || Top||


Home Front
Plane Escorted Out of Restricted Air Space
A private airplane that entered restricted air space over the Capitol was escorted out of the area by fighter jets, Secret Service spokesman Dan Dluzneski tells WTOP. Dluzneski says at about 11:15 Monday morning the plane was intercepted and directed out of Temporary Restricted Airspace because of the plane's direction of travel. An emergency response plan was immediately put in motion. "Once the airplane was diverted outside of the restricted airspace, normal operations resumed at the White House," Dluzneski said.
The AP account says that Cheney and Andy Card were moved...
"The pilot of the plane complied with all instructions from the intercept aircraft. At this point, the FAA is tracking the aircraft and the pilot will be interviewed upon landing."
He'd better not be wearing a turban...
WTOP listeners from the Lafayette Park area said this included armed officers all around, and even outside the White House fence. In the past when planes have violated the exclusion zone to the east and west, it has not typically triggered that response.
Course was taking him a little too close, I take it?
Master Sergeant Gary Carpenter of the North American Aerospace Defense Command said the pilot was allowed to continue on his journey to Jacksonville, Florida. "Once we did make an intercept, we did identify the aircraft, we got its tail number, and then escorted it out of the restricted airspace." Aircraft from the Bureau of Customs and Immigration Enforcement continued to accompany the plane after it left the D.C. area. Planes are prohibited from flying from the Kennedy Center to east of Capitol Hill, roughly from K Street to Southwest Freeway, says WTOP's Traffic Reporter Bob Marbourg.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 14:46 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  When my older brother was a flight instructor, his students would have to plan and fly a cross country trip at a certain point. He says he was distracted once looking at the chart and one student headed into the airspace reserved for the Cincinatti Interantional airport. I guess it can happen to anyone.
Posted by: Super Hose || 11/10/2003 18:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Situational awareness, folks. Plan your route, highlight your route, any restricted areas on the map. Write down freqs and any other info you need. A well planned flight will avoid these embarassing and possibly grounding and license jerking incidents. That is the responsibility of the pilot in command, whether he or she flys big iron or a supercub, it is all the same.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/10/2003 21:54 Comments || Top||


Supremes to Hear Cases of Gitmo Detainees
The Supreme Court will hear its first case arising from the government’s anti-terrorism campaign following the Sept. 11 attacks, agreeing Monday to consider whether foreigners held at a U.S. Navy base in Cuba should have access to American courts. The appeals came from British, Australian and Kuwaiti citizens held with more than 600 others suspected of being Taliban or Al Qaeda foot soldiers. Most were picked up in U.S. anti-terrorism sweeps in Afghanistan following the attacks of two years ago. The court combined the men’s appeals and will hear the consolidated case sometime next year. Lower courts had found that the American civilian court system did not have authority to hear the men’s complaints about their treatment. "The United States has created a prison on Guantanamo Bay that operates entirely outside the law," lawyers for British and Australian detainees argued in asking the high court to take the case. "Within the walls of this prison, foreign nationals may be held indefinitely, without charges or evidence of wrongdoing, without access to family, friends or legal counsel, and with no opportunity to establish their innocence," they maintained.

Also Monday, the high court refused to hear another appeal dealing with the U.S. government anti-terrorism campaign. The court did not comment in rejecting an appeal from an Islamic charity whose assets were impounded three months after the terrorist attacks. The Global Relief Foundation argued that the government put it out of business without proof that the Illinois-based charity was funneling money to terrorists. Since the attacks, the United States and other governments have frozen the assets of several groups they claim assist groups like Al Qaeda. Global Relief has not been charged with a terror-related crime. It has said that it provides humanitarian relief in about 20 different nations, mainly those with large Muslim populations. The case is Global Relief Foundation v. Snow, 03-46.

In the Guantanamo case, the appeals come from men who do not even know about the lawsuit, lawyers from the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights told the court. The lawsuit brought on their behalf claims they are not Al Qaeda members and had no involvement in Sept. 11. The Bush administration replied that a lower federal appeals court properly looked to a Supreme Court case arising from World War II to determine that foreigners held outside the United States cannot bring the kind of court challenge at issue now. The 1950 case said German prisoners detained by the United States in China had no right to access to federal courts.

The Guantanamo base is a 45-square-mile area on the southeastern tip of Cuba. The land was seized by the United States in the Spanish-American War and has been leased from Cuba for the past century. The lease far predates the communist rule of Fidel Castro. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia had rejected the detainees’ claim that Guantanamo Bay is under the de facto control of the United States, even though it remains a part of Cuba. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, whose wife was killed aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, told the court that the prisoners’ lawsuit has great "potential for interference with the core war powers of the president."

President Bush has recommended that six of the Guantanamo detainees, including Australian David Hicks, be the first to face military tribunals established for the global war on terror. Hicks also is among the inmates named in the appeals. He was captured while allegedly fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Many of the inmates have spent nearly two years in confinement.
Wonder how long the people they killed are going to be dead?
A group of prominent former judges and diplomats had asked the high court to hear the men’s case. Former prisoners of war also asked that the case be heard, as did Fred Korematsu, whose name is on a Supreme Court case that upheld U.S. detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II. The cases are Rasul v. Bush, 03-334 and Al Odah v. United States, 03-343.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/10/2003 1:17:09 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I just hope the hell the Supremes try the case based on US law, rather than some stupidity from a foreign nation. The Government of the United States needs to wake up to this filth-column in its midst that intends to push us into a world government, whether we want it or not.

Those that refuse to obey their oath to 'bear true faith and allegiance' to the US Constitution need to stretch a rope.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 15:49 Comments || Top||

#2  IIUC any treaty that is signed by the President and ratified by the Senate, and that the US has not withdrawn from IS US law. Thus Hague and Geneva conventions ARE US law, while International Criminal Court and Kyoto treaty are NOT.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 11/10/2003 16:30 Comments || Top||

#3  I think OP was referring to Bader-Ginsburg and O'Connor statements referring to "international standards" as a higher law/standard. They both seem to have fallen more in love with "international law" rather than the constitution they vowed to uphold. Anything we sign to is subordinate to our Constitution regardless of what yahoo signs and senate fools can be corralled to consent
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 18:09 Comments || Top||

#4  The Supremes have turned conservative since Dianna left and Tina Turners acting a a friend of the court.... it doesn't look good for these guys.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/10/2003 18:22 Comments || Top||


Islamic Charity Loses Supreme Court Appeal
The Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday from an Islamic charity whose assets were impounded three months after the terrorist attacks. The Global Relief Foundation argued that the government put it out of business without proof the Illinois-based charity was funneling money to terrorists.
"Lies, all lies!"
Justices refused to consider whether it was unconstitutional or illegal for the government to freeze the foundation’s bank accounts. Since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the United States and other governments have frozen the assets of several groups they claim assist groups like al-Qaida. The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the foundation last December, turning down multiple arguments, including that it was unconstitutional for the court to consider secret evidence. The Treasury Department ordered the freezing of the foundation’s accounts in December 2001, at the same time agents raided the group’s headquarters in Bridgeview, Ill. The government said they found evidence of communication between Global Relief offices and the former personal secretary of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, Wadih El-Hage.
That would be the proof they say doesn’t exist.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 12:50:07 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  it would be interesting to know who represented the Global Terrorism Foundation and, more interestingly, what were their fees and who paid the fees
Posted by: mhw || 11/10/2003 13:09 Comments || Top||

#2  mhw---good point. Same with the mouthpieces for the Gitmo Guys in my post above about the Supremes hearing the case brought on behalf of the GG's.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/10/2003 13:20 Comments || Top||

#3  My money is on the ACLU...
Posted by: mjh || 11/10/2003 13:31 Comments || Top||

#4  Here's their mouthpiece:
Foundation attorney Roger C. Simmons of Frederick, Md., told the court in a filing that the government has "instilled a fear in the Muslim community that they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs."

He works for Gordon & Simmons, Ltd. From their website:
Since the creation of Gordon & Simmons in 1987, Roger has specialized in construction litigation, in major defamation litigation, legal malpractice, Patriot Act litigation, and litigation for investigative journalists.

Just your normal liberal legal firm.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 15:02 Comments || Top||

#5  If he's been specializing in legal malpractice, shouldn't he be disbarred? I'd think most lawyers would want to AVOID that, not specialize in it.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/10/2003 15:10 Comments || Top||


Gore arrested- NOT! ’Tis satire!
ScrappleFace pointing out that things could be worse.
(2003-11-10) -- Federal agents this morning arrested virtual-president Al Gore, duct-taped him into a C-130 transport plane and whisked him to the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo, where he is being held without charge as a "suspected enemy of the Homeland".

The arrest comes just hours after Mr. Gore gave a speech criticizing President George Bush for using the USA Patriot Act to clamp down on civil rights while failing to effectively prosecute the war on terror.

A spokesman for U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said, "Mr. Gore’s dissension is tantamount to rebellion against the Bush regime. American freedom depends upon the silence of the minority. Perhaps this will serve as a lesson to other traitors."
Posted by: Atrus || 11/10/2003 12:37:23 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I just saw Gore on CNN-I; he looked like a waxen dummy during that speech. And for his weight - he's become Lawrence Fishburne-esque again.
Time for Atkins, Al!
Posted by: Baltic Blog || 11/10/2003 12:45 Comments || Top||

#2  The guy is a classic bore.
Posted by: Lucky || 11/10/2003 13:35 Comments || Top||

#3  Mr. Gore's speech is a good example why the liberals are going to take a ASS KICKING in the next election. This 'Hate America' attitude has worn thin on Americans of all stripes. For ads all you need do is replay their latest hate America speech and ask 'Do you want this person to lead America?' Except for the looney fringe the answer will be NO!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 11/10/2003 14:38 Comments || Top||


Pipe Bombs Found in California Mailboxes
SUISUN CITY, Calif. -- At least eight pipe bombs have been found this month in mailboxes and near homes in this rural community about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco. Five of the homemade devices exploded. While no one was injured and the bombs did not appear to be rigged to go off when a mailbox was opened, Solano County Sheriff Gary Stanton described the incidents as "domestic terrorism." The incidents began the first weekend of November when pipe bombs destroyed five mailboxes in Suisun City, a town of about 26,000.
We must ask ourselves, why do they hate mailboxes and why didn’t Bush stop it?
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 10:50:50 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  maybe they should check on a map to see if the locations of the bombs produce a frowny face :-(
Posted by: B || 11/10/2003 11:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Somebody did thiss about a year ago in a attempt to form a symbol or word via the bombs location on the map. Sounds like somebody decided it was a good idea again.
Posted by: Charles || 11/10/2003 11:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Also need to see if there's been any releases from mental institutions lately, or if any liberal state employee has been fired or forced to retire. The term "going Postal" doesn't always mean it's a postal employee that exhibits the symptoms.

As a follow-up, where was Gray Davis during all of this????
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 22:08 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
Egypt Bans Foreign Belly Dancers
Egypt's foreign belly dancers have been given their marching orders. The government says it wants to protect homegrown practitioners of the seductive Middle Eastern dance form and is no longer granting new work permits to foreign dancers or renewing existing ones. The victims, who include Europeans and Americans, say it's unfair and illogical, and they are backed by one of the Arab world's most respected dancers, Nagwa Fouad, who is urging the government to reverse its ban. "There is not enough Egyptian talent, so obviously people need foreigners," says Palestinian-born Fouad, who retired from dancing in 1997 after a career of four decades.
"Well, it's cuz them furrin wimmin have... ummm... titties."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 09:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Another hot-(belly)button issue.
Posted by: Mike || 11/10/2003 9:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Perhaps we should send in the fleet to protect navel resources?
Posted by: Fred || 11/10/2003 10:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Do you suppose the issue of H1BellyDancer visas will be an important talking point in Mubarak's next presidential campaign?
Posted by: Seafarious || 11/10/2003 12:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Okay... someone has to do it.
What do you call a 2x4 with a nail in then end.

Yep... navel destroyer.
Posted by: Shipman || 11/10/2003 18:02 Comments || Top||


Africa: East
Al-Turabi Calls for Democracy
Opposition leader Hassan Al-Turabi is urging the government to allow the Sudanese to elect their leaders, protest freely and set up media outlets without a license, a newspaper reported Sunday. “Freedom has been guaranteed by Allah to the people who must be given the opportunity to freely elect their rulers,” the independent Akhbar Al Youm daily quoted Turabi, secretary general of the Popular Congress Party, as saying. President Omar Al-Beshir last month freed Turabi, a former ally turned rival, from more than two years of house arrest as part of a campaign to promote political reconciliation in the north.
Purely as a matter of positioning them on the scale, he'll probably get away with that statement in Sudan; in Soddy Arabia he probably wouldn't, but might. And in Zim-Bob-We he'd be back in jug before he was done speaking.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 08:44 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  “Freedom has been guaranteed by Allah to the people who must be given the opportunity to freely elect their rulers,”

Sura and verse, please, on the above.
Posted by: Ptah || 11/10/2003 10:17 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon
Khalil leads chorus of criticism aimed at Bush
So far the condemnation is unanimous...
US President George W. Bush was strongly criticized for his strategy to spread democracy in the Middle East. Agriculture Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, who attended a remembrance service in the Nabatieh town of Dweir on Sunday on behalf of the Amal Movement, slammed Bush’s remarks about freedom and democracy. “We shall never, in this part of the world, fall for such traps of calling for new democracies,” the minister told an audience that included a number of MPs.
"We're perfectly happy with our dictatorships and our kleptocracies, 'cuz that's our culture and we ain't never, ever gonna change. We'll continue worrying about our dignity much more than we'll ever worry about our accomplishments."
He cited Bush’s recent remarks, in which the latter pledged to “achieve new and modern democracies” in the Middle East. Khalil added that he was unwilling to believe democracy slogans uttered by Bush, and questioned what kind of democracy Bush would want if he “signed on $87 billion to finance the war in Iraq in support of invasion, thus preventing people from exercising the right of political self-expression.”
Notice he's using the Baathist frame of reference. The People™ are the faceless Masses™. They are personified by the Leader™, with freedumb accruing to The State™, which exercises it. Therefore, Bush — by dumping Sammy — prevented the Iraqi People™ from exercising their right to political self-expression. Humpty Dumpty might understand the logic, otherwise it's opaque to anyone who's not a fascist...
“What democracy does he (Bush) want when he finances wars and bloodshed and pretends to champion human rights and international law?” Khalil asked. “What kind of logic is this that causes millions of people to die of starvation?”
Seems like a lot more Iraqis have died from car bombs lately than have kicked it due to starvation.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 04:07 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The only people likely to die of starvation are those in countries with idiots like this as "agriculture" ministers.
Posted by: Spot || 11/10/2003 8:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Not entirely unanimous:

"Many people ask whether we have heard the President's speach. Yes we have. Immediately the Chorus of AlJazeera, Al Arabiya, etc. and amazingly, CNN, BBC etc, started their spoiling, doubt-semming, bitchy insinuations, interviewing, this character from egypt and that 'analyst' from Syria etc. ( seldom an Iraqi is asked, or if they find one, a well known former close associate of the Saddam regime or someone like that ). Pretending to be objective, pretending to be 'balanced', they try their best to kill the joy that the shining reassuring words bring to our frightened hearts."

http://messopotamian.blogspot.com/

Hat tip to Sullivan.
Posted by: Matt || 11/10/2003 10:59 Comments || Top||


Sfeir promises to help parents of prisoners in Syria
Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir promised on Sunday that he would do his best to help parents of detainees in Syrian prisons find more about their sons’ fate. After his Sunday sermon in Bkirki, Sfeir received a delegation of parents who said that the issue of the Lebanese should be “a national obsession.”
Somehow it's not, though...
Ghazi Aad, speaking on behalf of the delegation, said Syria had confessed to a UN Human Rights Committee that there were Lebanese men in its jails. He also said that former Syrian Interior Minister Ali Hammoud confirmed, before the parents’ delegation which visited him in July 2002, the presence of Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons. Aad added that Lebanese officials were indifferent in handling the case, and that they “justified their shortcoming by pretending that parents were politicizing the issue.”
... by pointing out that the pols were kissing the toes of their Syrian masters.
He went on to say the issue of detainees should be a top priority in the dialogue with Syria, adding that Lebanese-Syrian relations “would never be healthy with hundreds of prisoners crying for their freedom in Syrian jails.”
Nobody has to pay any attention to Sfeir, though. He's just a dhimmi...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 03:58 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Jumblatt urges Arabs to open borders for attacks on Israel
Chouf MP Walid Jumblatt demanded Sunday that Arab countries open their borders for anti-Israeli operations and criticized the US occupation of Iraq, saying America was not in a position to give the world lessons in democracy.
"Better to look to Syria and Lebanon..."
“We are all happy when an American soldier is killed (in Iraq), not because he is American, but because he represents an imperial country dominating the world,” Jumblatt said during the Progressive Socialist Party’s (PSP) general assembly, which saw his re-election to its presidency for a three-year term.
We'd all be happy when Lebanese die, too, if we had the sort of barbaric Islamic values people like Jumblatt do. As it is, I'd be happy to see Jumblatt standing against a wall counting muzzle blasts, not because he's Lebanese, but because he's a rat bastard.
Jumblatt argued that deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was a liability rather than an asset for the Iraqi resistance. He said that Americans may have intentionally left Saddam on the run as a means to justify their occupation, in the same way they left Al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden free. “Saddam is kept alive to make people fear his possible comeback, thus organized resistance against the Americans would be deterred. We know how much of a criminal Saddam has been and that he must be removed,” Jumblatt said.
Why don't you send some of your Heroic Fighters™ to bump him off?
He also criticized statements of the current chair of the Iraqi Interim Governing Council, Jalal Talabani, who earlier accused Syria of interfering in Iraqi affairs. “We’ve all survived challenges 
 (this time) the Middle East is facing the coming of chaos, but a new Middle East will emerge and this will certainly need some sacrifices while all old and personal regimes will topple,” he said.
Like Syria's...
“Who is (US President George W.) Bush or America to give the world lessons in democracy? Over 50 years ago during the Cold War America supported all rightist dictatorships in Latin America, Asia and the Arab world,” he added.
"So why pick on us Syrians Lebanese now?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 11/10/2003 03:54 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Oh Wally. "Progressive Socialists" eh? How about the OxyMoron Party?
Posted by: Spot || 11/10/2003 8:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Sure this didn't happen at that A.N.S.W.E.R. rally in Washington D.C. last month? They sound about the same.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 11/10/2003 9:20 Comments || Top||

#3  How old is this turd? I remember his name being mentioned in the 80s.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/10/2003 11:05 Comments || Top||

#4  We know how much of a criminal Saddam has been and that he must be removed,” Jumblatt said.

Funny, I don't remember Wally saying anything about this before the war. Must of missed it.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/10/2003 11:25 Comments || Top||


Africa: West
Ex-Saddam supporter, now U.S. ally, is reelected in Mauritania
EFL
The president who has led this Saharan nation for the past 19 years, moving it from support of Saddam Hussein to close ties with Washington and Israel, won reelection, his government declared Saturday. The top challenger, who was backed by Islamic hard-liners, fled into hiding, claiming fraud.
This is Africa. Fraud is a given.
President Maaoya Sid Ahmed Ould Taya’s victory ensured that Mauritania — a nation dominated by its Arab population — will remain a rare ally in the region of both Israel and the United States. After all votes were tallied, the Interior Ministry declared Taya the first-round winner with 67 percent of Friday’s vote. The results must still be validated by the courts.
Only 67%? Old codger is learning how to stack the deck just enough.
His strongest competitor among five challengers, fundamentalist-backed Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla, trailed with 19 percent, the Interior Ministry said. The country has never seen a peaceful and democratic transfer of power since independence from France in 1960. Taya himself seized control in a 1989 coup, overthrowing Haidalla, then a military dictator.
These two have a long history!
Haidalla, an Arab like Taya, went into hiding as soon as polls closed Friday, fearing detention. He was arrested on election eve, only to be released later. From hiding, Haidalla and other opposition figures denounced the election, and demanded a new one.
"It was unfair! We lost!"
Isolated as a supporter of Saddam in the Gulf War, Taya’s administration recognized the obvious shifted political alliances dramatically in the mid-1990s. In 1999, Mauritania became one of only three countries in the Arab League to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel. That same year, Mauritania broke ties with Iraq, despite the common Baath Party membership of many Mauritania leaders and Saddam’s regime.
Perhaps Taya was tired of running a dirt-poor country and saw the light?
Taya’s government banned anti-U.S. rallies earlier in the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and blocked what it claimed were fundamentalist attempts to use mosques to recruit fighters against the Untied States. In Israel, Shalom Cohen, deputy director of the Middle East division at that country’s Foreign Ministry, congratulated Taya on his proclaimed victory, calling him a "visionary and a courageous leader." In the 22-nation Arab League, only Mauritania has kept full diplomatic relations with Israel during three years of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Bet that straightens some curly-toed slippers.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/10/2003 1:27:06 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Middle East
More on Israel’s Insane Prisoner Swap
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s Cabinet narrowly approved on Sunday a prisoner exchange with the Lebanese group Hizballah that had run into strong opposition in Israel over the exclusion of a long-missing Israeli airman.
If Israelis saw the exclusion of the airman as the main problem, then Israel might in fact be ready to give up.
Some 400 jailed Palestinians and Lebanese are to be traded for Elhanan Tannenbaum, a kidnapped Israeli businessman, and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers. It was not immediately clear when or where the exchange would take place.
Four hundred prisoners, many of them have killed Israelis already, for a lone businessman!
Hizballah declined to comment immediately upon hearing that Israel had accepted the deal. Hizballah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said on Saturday the swap was off if it did not include all Lebanese prisoners.
After such unequal deal, the murderous Sheik still asks for concessions!
The army chief, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, was in favor, saying the price to be paid was reasonable, while the head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, warned the exchange would boost Hizballah’s standing in the Arab world.
You mean to tell me it takes the head of the Mossad to see such elemental truth?
Sharon brushed aside the criticism, and told ministers that the ailing Tannenbaum — who reportedly was tortured and had all his teeth pulled by his captors — would die in Lebanon if the deal was rejected.
And many more Israelis will die due to the foolishness of the exchange.
However, opponents said the price is too high. “The message that will be given by a yes vote is clear, that kidnapping really pays,” said Uzi Landau, a Cabinet minister without portfolio. “I shall vote against.”
Worse yet, it will send the message that Israel is a morally weak State, ready for its destruction. But the enemies of Islam were not always this feeble....
As narrated in Warriors of God, a book I recently reviewed, Richard the Lionheart approached negotiation in a decidedly different manner. After Richard negotiated a prisoner swap with two of Saladin’s subordinates, Saladin begins to stall, hoping to delay the Crusaders while reinforcing his own Army every day. Richard would take none of it, and thus sent the Sultan an ultimatum: abide by the agreement, or watch every prisoner die. Saladin probably thought such threat a desperate bluff. On the day the swap was to take place, Crusaders marched the muslim prisoners to a field, where they all died by the sword on Richard’s orders. The Crusader King was not bluffing at all.
Posted by: Sorge || 11/10/2003 1:15:30 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  No doubt there are legit concerns with the deal. Remember however that of the 400 prisoners, some will be Israeli agents who will have a chance to get close to some real Hizb biggies. Also, some of the 400 will go to Paleo camps in Lebanon and scout out the AlQ and Hamas presense there.

A
Posted by: mhw || 11/10/2003 7:51 Comments || Top||

#2  "Remember however that of the 400 prisoners, some will be Israeli agents who will have a chance to get close to some real Hizb biggies"

You really don't know that for certain. You are just hoping. I do hope you are right, but it's again just that: a hope.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 11/10/2003 8:13 Comments || Top||

#3  as I noted yesterday, the Hizb paranoia will kill many of these prisoners. They don't know who turned or not...
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 8:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Here's another option:
Israeli Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, has hinted that his country was ready to stage a massive hostage-taking campaign against Lebanon that could include the abduction of Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli newspapers said Monday the mood of Ariel Sharon's cabinet is one of wresting the abduction initiative from Hizbullah by kidnapping scores of Lebanese figures, including high-ranking Hizbullah leaders, if Nasrallah rejects the last-minute terms the Israeli cabinet has added to the swap deal. According to Monday's reports, Mofaz had, when he was army chief of staff, drawn a carefully thoughtout plan for the abduction of Nasrallah from his headquarters in south Beirut, but that the government at the time refused to approve this plan.
The resurrection of Nasrallah's abduction is seen by Israeli media analysts as a psychological gimmick designed to terrorize Nasrallah into taking Israel's new stance on the swap deal into careful consideration and avert a reckless reaction. They are convinced that Israel would never be able to grab the heavily guarded Nasrallah.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 9:01 Comments || Top||

#5  Israel should have problems sending its own agents with the group. Remember these are prisoners Hizbollah asked for, and so are unlikely to be turned.
Posted by: Sorge || 11/10/2003 9:07 Comments || Top||

#6  Implants, buddy, implants.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 11/10/2003 9:25 Comments || Top||

#7  If I had 400 insane prisoners, I would get rid of them too. The cost of the meds...
Posted by: john || 11/10/2003 9:49 Comments || Top||

#8  Israeli Defense Minister, Shaul Mofaz, has hinted that his country was ready to stage a massive hostage-taking campaign against Lebanon that could include the abduction of Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

If the trade ratio currently is 400:1, what do you get for snatching Nasrallah?

They are convinced that Israel would never be able to grab the heavily guarded Nasrallah.

But if he fights to the death during the attempt would that be a bad thing? And if his bodyguards defended him with all their blood (minimum 4 liters each), would that be so terrible?
Posted by: Steve White || 11/10/2003 11:37 Comments || Top||

#9  I sure hope that Israel has a Brilliant Plan™ behind this swap, because on the surface, it seems insane. My little voice that keeps me alive says this is all wrong. I hope my little voice is wrong this time.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 11/10/2003 11:47 Comments || Top||

#10  Four hundred prisoners, many of them have killed Israelis already

The news this AM said the deal was that the 400 to be exchanged did not kill anybody. The current sticking point is that Hamas changed the terms of the deal to demand the release of some Mo that actually has killed somebody, and the Israelis will not release him.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 11/10/2003 12:12 Comments || Top||

#11  d'oh - for "Hamas" in the above read "Hizbullah". Yeah, I can't keep them straight, good thing the nation's security does not depend on me...
Posted by: Carl in N.H. || 11/10/2003 12:14 Comments || Top||

#12  Carl; the 400 prisoners have not been convicted of killing Israelis, that's rather differnent that not having actually killed Israelis.
Posted by: Sorge || 11/10/2003 12:18 Comments || Top||

#13  ..the 400 prisoners have not been convicted of killing Israelis,

They haven't killed any Israelis YET. This exchange is likely to provide a second chance (and more, even) to remedy that little oversight....
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 11/10/2003 14:14 Comments || Top||

#14  Before release, I would surgically insert a C-4 capsule into the base of their neck. Put a radio chip w/it. Kind of like a dog collar & an invisible fence. If they attempt to come back into Irsaeli territory the C-4 explodes enough to take their head clean off but that's about it. Human rights' f*cks would bitch but it would be damn funny to see.......
Posted by: Jarhead || 11/10/2003 15:00 Comments || Top||

#15  Jarhead, you've been watching "Running Man". Of course, that was a collar around their neck. Just implant a tracking device, or just start a rumor that you did.
Posted by: Steve || 11/10/2003 16:34 Comments || Top||


Africa: West
Nigeria warning over Taylor bounty
Nervous, Chuck?
Nigerian officials warned the United States on Sunday not to try to capture ousted Liberian leader Charles Taylor, thought to be the target of $2 million bounty posted by the United States. Taylor, a former warlord who was behind 14 years of genocide bloodshed in Liberia, faces war crime charges for sponsoring a vicious 10-year civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone. Besieged by rebels, he resigned under international pressure in August after Nigeria offered him exile in exchange for a pledge to allow a peaceful handover of power in Liberia. Taylor now lives in the Nigerian jungle city of Calabar, where he, his family and aides occupy several mansions paid for by the Nigerian oil money government. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s spokeswoman, Remi Oyo, said Nigeria "would not be harassed by anyone" into handing over Taylor to a U.N.-backed war crimes court in Sierra Leone. "Neither do we expect any country to violate our sovereignty" by attempting to capture Taylor, she said. "That would not be the act of a friendly nation."
So maybe we aren’t that friendly.
"Grampaw, how did the war with Nigeria start?"
The reward is part of a $87 billion military funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan signed into law by President Bush on Thursday. The legislation doesn’t mention Taylor by name, referring to the bounty only as incentive for the capture of an unnamed person indicted by the court in Sierra Leone. Police have stepped up security around Taylor’s mansion, a senior officer said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Oyo said Taylor "is very well secured" and Nigeria would protect him as long as he stays out of trouble and doesn’t meddle in Liberian or Nigerian politics. When asked if the Liberian was keeping his side of the bargain, Oyo said: "We would like to think so, yes."
"We’d also like to think that all those e-mails my cousins clan associates have been sending to the West would make us some money."
Taylor has been restricted from speaking to the media while in Nigeria. One of his close associates said Friday the ex-Liberian leader fears bloodshed if bounty hunters attempt to capture him.
Is that a bug or a feature?
The United States and a number of African and European leaders had pressed Taylor to step down, seeing him as a prime cause of instability in West Africa. With varying degrees of reluctance, international leaders privately agreed to the asylum offer from Nigeria, seeing it as the best way to remove Taylor and end the bloodletting.
Those clucking sounds are the chickens coming home to roost.
Posted by: Steve White || 11/10/2003 1:11:35 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the ex-Liberian leader fears bloodshed if bounty hunters attempt to capture him.

he only fears his blood being shed. Why capture him? Kill him
Posted by: Frank G || 11/10/2003 8:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Tack another zero on the sum, fer cryin' out loud.
Posted by: Ptah || 11/10/2003 10:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Somebody in State finally figured out a way to shut Taylor up, and he and his Nigerian 'hosts' are angry about it. Expect to see Taylor sink into the sunset and disappear. If you don't make telephone calls, if you don't send emails, if you don't talk on the radio or television, it's easier to hide. This man has two million reasons to want to hide. That seems to be the only way to keep him from interfering in Liberia's still tempestuous political situation. If he gets whacked, it's only icing on the cake.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 11/10/2003 14:57 Comments || Top||



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