German prosecutors said on Wednesday they were investigating a celebrity reality television show set in the Australian jungle for cruelty to people for making contestants eat live insects. the insect are the one get eatin and this is cruelty to people!
Prosecutors in Cologne said they were investigating producers of Germanyâs "Iâm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!" on the RTL network after a viewer complained it was cruel and dangerous to make the contestants complete challenges such as eating insects and bathing with creepy crawlies. im glad there good samaritan out there. this is cruel and dangrous for the poor animals.
The show pitches B-list celebrity contestants into the Australian jungle to fend for themselves while carrying out arduous and often distasteful tasks to win daily food rations. "The stars themselves havenât made any complaints, but a private individual said they were mistreated," Chief Prosecutor Regine Appenrodt told Reuters. She said the person also complained goldfish were killed in a challenge where 18-year old pop singer Daniel Kueblboeck was urged to put his head in an aquarium. nice to see blood sport still alife and well on tv. this barbarity need to go away.
"He was so disgusted and shocked that the aquarium tipped over, and the person alleges the fish fell out and died. By law we have to follow up the complaint," she said. more like the fish were shock and disgust he stick his fat ugly head in there home.
RTL said the fish were picked up by rangers and survived. "All the stars were there of their own free will and were not coerced by anyone or anything," an RTL spokesman added. all exept the animals.
#3
Well..why don't the producers just go to North Korea and film mealtime over there? Uh..no wait - they'd probably cite the producers for how cruel it was to make the Europeans watch it.
Posted by: B ||
03/04/2004 15:32 Comments ||
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#4
Muck, don't you know there's a war on?
These animal interest stories may be keen for you, oh simple one, but you're wasting Fred's bandwidth and our time!
And speaking of dumb animals, it is that TOUGH to learn how to use the Caps key?!
#7
Excuse, please, but cruelty to insects and goldfish is pretty far down on my list of current causes for outrage.
Nevertheless, I agree with your basic point, since I am even less worried about cruelty to no-account pseudo-celebrities who volunteered for this abuse in furtherance of their non-existent careers.
#8
Ms Taliaferro--your screed on 9/11 on your website takes the waste of bandwidth to a whole new level! Bush was in office and 9/11 happened on his watch! I know you brain dead people in Texas don't get it--but people in NYC have a true aversion to Repooplicans and their ilk. The fact that the GOP convention will be there this year is a major joke to all who live in the city. FYI NYC rejects the whole GOP right wing/nut agenda
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
03/04/2004 23:25 Comments ||
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#10
NMM, too bad your idiot followers don't know that the reason you know so much about NYC is because you live on the Upper West Side and not in a hovel in Flint, Michigan.
Time will tell how most NY-ers except you feel about President Bush and the GOP.
And one can "waste" bandwidth with impunity on one's own blog! :-)
A Benedictine nun could lose her driving licence after hitting a car parked outside her convent at Krzeszow in southeast Poland while drunk at the wheel of a tractor, a local police spokesman, Dariusz Waluch said. Waluch said the 45-year nun "was in no fit state to blow into a breathalyser" after the accident and police were waiting for the results of a blood-alcohol test before charging her. As the country song points out, they should have taken the keys to her old John Deere.
#4
1)In Poland she probably had a wee bit too much slivovitz(spelling?)-may have been first time and not realized how potent it is.The drunkest I've ever been was after drinking some w/Polish-American relatives in Baltimore.
2)If they didn't give her a test there is no record for a court to use.And the lab may "misplace" the results if the chapter she belongs to is highly regarded.
Posted by: Stephen ||
03/04/2004 17:12 Comments ||
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#5
âOssifer I wuz drinkinâ fer the Mother Superiorâs health. Ya see, ossifer, sheâs been constipated fer almosâ a week now and when she hears what Iâve done, sheâs gonna shit.â
Hey, Rockey! Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.
It was man versus moose in Summit County -- and both sides lost. Wildlife officers say theyâve never heard of a moose attacking a person in Utah, but thatâs exactly what happened when three men came upon a young bull moose in Toll Canyon this morning. 65-year old Nick Baldwin is being treated at St Markâs Hospital tonight. His injuries are serious, but not life-threatening. He has a deep cut in his leg and some trauma injuries to his head.
They started off the day snowshoeing up Toll Canyon when they met the moose. Bob Canestrini: âAll of a sudden it made a huge leap and landed right in the middle of my friend.â Bob Mitchell, Friend: âWhen the moose attacked we thought for sure after a minute or two he was killed because the moose kept spinning around and hoofing him." The moose continued making threatening moves... Bob Canestrini: âSo we climbed a big tree and we were trapped in the tree for 30-40 minutes.â Wildlife officials tranquilized the moose, allowing medical crews to get in and stabilize Baldwin. Then with the use of a hoist mechanism, Life Flight helicopter lifted him out and to an ambulance.
#2
Hey, Rockey! Watch me pull a antler rabbit out of my ass hat.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 12:23 Comments ||
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#3
Wildlife officials tranquilized the moose, allowing medical crews to get in and stabilize Baldwin. Then with the use of a hoist mechanism, Life Flight helicopter lifted him out and to an ambulance.
Was that the moose, or Mr. Baldwin, who got the chopper ride?
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2004 12:59 Comments ||
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#5
Moose don't like humans because some of us are known to eat them. I mean you can't blame them.
Posted by: Andrew Ian Dodge ||
03/04/2004 13:08 Comments ||
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#6
i just glad this story happy ending and they get the poor animal the help he need. thing can be solve peacefuly without having to call jackass in camo to knife him to death. andrew maybe if people stop eting moose they not be so mad anymore.
#9
I love to fish up in Grand County, Colorado, on Shadow Mountain Reservoir. I was coming back to my car one evening at dusk after fishing, and walked up within ten feet of a bull moose before I saw him. I stopped, waited to see what he was going to do, then s l o w l y walked around him to my car. That wasn't my first encounter with a moose in that area. Sounds like someone got excited, moved too fast or made too much noise, and paid for it. I sympathize, but that's what happens when you stumble into wildlife's living room, and don't act appropriately. I'm glad the guy's injuries aren't more severe - a moose can EASILY kill a man, either with his antlers or with his hooves. A full-grown bull moose will weigh in at three-quarters of a ton.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/04/2004 14:09 Comments ||
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#10
I've always had a policy of giving the right of way to any animal that outweighs me by a factor of 10.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 14:09 Comments ||
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#11
Ah, yes, the majestik møøse. A Møøse once bit my sister...No realli! Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti...
Posted by: Mike ||
03/04/2004 14:43 Comments ||
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#12
On an average late afternoon hike I will most likly see/run into a rattlesnake or Javalina(wild pig to you Gentlemen east of the Mississippi).
On rare occasion maybe bump into a bear or mouintain lion.
#14
when i was photographing in a Swedish part swamp part forest kinda thing, I walked around a bush and found myself standing four meters away from a fully grown moose, who (Hallelujah!) shared my thirst instinct that the best thing to do in these particular situations was to run away with my arms flapping and scream like a girl.
He looked at me in surprise, charged straight at me, for one 10th of a second i actually thought that OH SHI..... would be my last mortal thoughts, he dodged to the left about a meter from me, stormed past me an arms-length away and melted like a shadow in to the Forest.
I"m not easily impressed by big mammal's, I ride horses, I have been doing so for some time now, and I have come to find that i like the bad-guy horses, and was, am at times met with a lot of "attitude" from the boys and girls, among whome a 450+ kg, increadably moody, bigass*d Frissian asskickingmachine from hades called : "Sunny" (thanks to my efforts now prenounced as: "sunni")
I felt safe and secure in the knowledge that no animal of that aproximate size and shape could ever scare me. I was very, very wrong.
I am still pissed of that i did not get a photograph of the monster charging at me, it would have made it the alltime great beer & barbeque story ), this photograph here rather captures the bare essence of the sensation i felt that moment.
#17
Moose are docile until rutting season, when they will attack anyone who comes near them. They are easy to hunt, because they lack the stealth intelligence of deers. I only like the high protein meat in stews or caseroles, where you can hide the funny taste. Pets like it. Ancestral memory, I guess.
Posted by: Man Bites Dog ||
03/04/2004 22:41 Comments ||
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#18
And then the Laura Bush moose was flown back to Camp David at taxpayer expense with her two drunken daughters snorting tequila shots in the back of the plane
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
03/04/2004 23:34 Comments ||
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Hat tip: Grouchy Old Cripple
Part tribute to the troops, part snuff film--fun for the whole family! Must be from some Marine Super Cobra unit--I can only see about half of the images on my crappy work computer (itâs like a damn video/strobe light). This is an 18-minute video of around 40MB--may not be suitable for dial up (or small children or overly sensitive types, too, for that matter).
Posted by: Dar ||
03/04/2004 10:10:12 AM ||
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#1
Thanks for that post. That video demonstrates two things to me:
1.)The US Military is composed of the finest men and women this country, and the world, has to offer.
2.) John Kerry and John Edwards are right, there are two Americas, but not the ones they describe. Rather, one America knows that there exists a belief system that is a vital threat to our very existence that must be fought against and either extinguished or reformed. The second America believes the view of "Good vs. Evil" is an antiquated and useless construct in this post modern, unilateral world.
Bush represents the first America, and Kerry/Dems represent the second.
#4
fuckin superb! best combat video yet, even better then the AC-130 in Afgan and the 3 Iraqi's vs an Apache vid. Love watching the ones where you actually see the fuckers get blown 50 foot through the air :)
#11
Alaska Paul,the only way the mainstream media would air this would be as an attack on American troops as being vicious killers who refuse to use non-lethal means to arrest the misunderstood activists.The good news is the video was shot by Marines,because the Army has too many PC-Generals who would launch an investigation and crush a Low-ranking officers' career over something like this.
Posted by: Stephen ||
03/04/2004 17:24 Comments ||
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#12
The best part was when the 50cal gunner was letting it rip! Awesome just Awesome! BTW Nice nose art! Bet they put that on when they departed.
#13
looked like the Pelilieu at the start? They were leaving San Diego - 32nd street, going under the Coronado bridge - I remember watching them deploy from my office window - 11th floor. As always, welcome back, heroes!
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 19:23 Comments ||
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#14
At least John Kerry served in Viet Nam and didn't go to the head of the class for the National Guard and then go AWOL
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
03/04/2004 23:47 Comments ||
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#15
Thanks for the totally relevant comment, NMM! Time for your meds.
Posted by: Dar ||
03/05/2004 9:26 Comments ||
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EFL:
Security forces have arrested two leading al Qaeda members in their pursuit of militants in the south Yemeni mountains, security officials said Thursday. In Yemen, local officials were trying to negotiate the surrender of the remaining militants who have been surrounded by security forces equipped with tanks and helicopters, the officials said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. "Hey, yoose guys! Come out with your hands up!"
The officials said the senior al Qaeda agents Abdul Raouf Naseeb and Sayed Imam el-Sharif were among more than a dozen militants captured Tuesday and Wednesday in an operation in the mountains of Abyan province, 292 miles south of the capital Sanâa. A twofer! Excellent!
Earlier Thursday, the officials had named only Naseeb, who was sought by Yemeni police and U.S. officials and is believed to have survived the November 2002 attack by a CIA-operated drone that killed al Qaedaâs chief agent in Yemen, Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, said the officials. At the time of the drone attack, Yemeni officials did not say that any al Qaeda operatives had survived. On Thursday, security officials said Naseeb was wounded in the attack and then sheltered by tribal sympathizers. Hope it was painful.
Naseeb allegedly planned the breakout of 10 militants who escaped from an Aden prison in April 2003. The militants had been detained in connection with the suicide attack of the U.S. destroyer USS Cole in 2000, which killed 17 American sailors. Donât let him get away, Ok?
El-Sharif is a former leader and chief ideologue of Egyptâs Islamic Jihad, whose members killed President Anwar Sadat in 1981. He moved to Yemen in 1996, but is still wanted in Egypt in connection with Sadatâs assassination and cases of alleged terrorism as recent as 1999. If Yemen doesnât want him, Iâm sure Egypt would be glad to take him off their hands.
El-Sharifâs colleague in the Jihad leadership, Ayman al-Zawahri, joined forces with Osama bin Ladenâs militant group and is now the No. 2 figure in al Qaeda. Heâs also No. 2 on the FBI list of Most Wanted Terrorists, with a $25 million reward offered for information leading to his capture. Yemeni security forces surrounded the militants in the mountains late Wednesday. On Thursday, officials told reporters that the area had been cordoned off and the security forces were giving the militants a chance to surrender through the mediation of local figures. The crackdown came amid reports of planned attacks in Yemen. Security has been noticeably tightened in the capital, Sanâa, around embassies, foreign companies and government institutions. Just hold on to them till we pick them up.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 1:02:07 PM ||
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wow quite suprising that the Yeminese authorities have actually been helping us. Having tanks and helicopters to surrond the guys house must mean their serious about getting AQ
Yemeni authorities have arrested the person who fired at a military helicopter in al-Hadda, Dhamar governorate. There were conflicting reports over the cause of the emergency landing of the hit helicopter. While sources at the local authority of the governorate said the plane caught gun fire coming from party celebrating a wedding, a security officer at al-Hadda district said that the arrested man, Amran Saleh Saad, 24, was having gun sex firing his gun and when he saw the helicopter he shot it causing damage to the fuel store. Eyewitnesses said that the pilot, who was flying not far from the land, was able to make an emergency landing which caused no casualties or serious damage to the helicopter.
Except for the holes, of course...
The sources said the attacker surrendered himself to the authorities after a massive arrest campaign against suspects in the area. A security official confirmed that there is no political motive behind this incident.
"Nah. He's just stoopid..."
A team of pilots belonging to the air force went to the spot and were able to repair the damage and flew the helicopter back to Sanaâa. A political analyst said that it is usual that the authority denies any political motive behind similar incidents.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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#1
gun fire coming from party celebrating a wedding
In the civilized world, people refrain from even throwing rice at weddings, because of unfounded concern that birds might be harmed.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 0:42 Comments ||
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#2
Must have played Battlefield 1942 one too many times. And used the same tactics in real life by firing the stinger when some1 else took the heli instead of him.
#6
Sakattack, I am so-o-o-o with you on that one :-)
I spend way too much time in BF42. If anyone here plays, I'll meet you on a Desert Combat server sometime. I'm the slow guy with the sniper rifle, name "Gaius Marius".
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2004 11:10 Comments ||
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Yemeni security forces arrested more than a dozen wanted militants Wednesday in raids on the mountainous hideouts of Arab fighters, following reports of planned attacks within the country. Tanks, reinforced by aerial coverage, advanced on the hideouts in Abyan province and cordoned off the area. The crackdown came amid reports of planned attacks in Yemen. Security was visibly tightened in the capital around embassies, foreign companies and government institutions. An official said the troops were searching for Yemeni and Arab fighters, mainly Egyptians and Saudis, who took refuge in Yemen after fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Also Wednesday, the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reported that Sayed Imam el-Sharif, a leading member of Egypt's Islamic Jihad, was arrested in Yemen. El-Sharif, founder of the Islamic Jihad, moved to Yemen in 1996 and turned over control of the group to Ayman al-Zawahri, now al-Qaida's No. 2 leader.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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#1
Yeah, but if they promise to be good boys they'll be back on the street.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/04/2004 4:30 Comments ||
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If the human race as a whole, rather than 50 states plus the District of Colombia, could cast a ballot this coming November, John Kerry would surely win the presidency by a landslide. Silly, Stupid Americans choose leaders that cause them to be THE most prosperous country in the world. The Independent finds it sad that we donât use the same selection process as the rest of the 3rd World. "We at the Independent are dismayed that the voices of thugs and rebels world-wide, will not be able to cast their vote in this next American election. Hmmm...come to think of it, it would be interesting to see how the billions, who suffer a wretched humanity under tyranny, might might vote as opposed to the self-righteous, self-hating few at the Independent, ..
Unfortunately for President Bush-haters around the world, only the 200 million United States citizens of voting age will have that right - and the outcome is anything but sure. Hey!...maybe this is the authorâs way of coming out for Bush without actually getting fired by his liberal superiors.
Yesterday, Mr Kerry, the Massachusetts senator, sealed the Democratic nomination after a round of primary and caucus victories, clearing the way for a decisive presidential battle. It will be decisive, all right.
Posted by: B ||
03/04/2004 10:00:04 AM ||
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#1
This is an example of the Left's self-delusion. If all the people in the world got to vote for the US president, Bush would win by a massive landslide. Bush is popular (although not as much) for the same reasons Reagan was. A straight talking can-do guy who has a plan that ordinary people can see the sense of. In Asia there would be no contest.
#2
# define sarcasim
I wonder why no one has suggested that the rest of the world simply submit themselves to U.S. rule. If they were territories they would get the best of both worlds.
#undefine sarcasism
Posted by: N guard ||
03/04/2004 10:37 Comments ||
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#3
The Guradian has an article that has this great quote: "Senator Kerry carries the hopes not just of millions of Americans but of millions of British well-wishers, not to mention those of nations throughout Europe and the world."
Maybe John F. Kerry should moved to Europe and run for office in maybe France? He carries no hope for me and probably MOST of the people in the U.S. For me November can't come quick enough!
#4
1. The types of voters the Indy has in mind would have much preffered Howard Dean over John Kerry
2. Most of the world, if they were voting, might be more inclined to vote for an Asian American, seeing as most of the population of the world is Asian.
3. Independent may not be happy with what it gets if Kerry wins - these things have a way of turning out unexpectedly
#5
When is the next election in the UK? I want to vote for Margret Thatcher. Who's a good French guy?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/04/2004 11:31 Comments ||
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#6
4 out of 5 dictators prefer Kerry! [The fifth was forcibly removed from power and is awaiting trial for war crimes and, unfortunately, could not be reached for comment.]
Posted by: Dar ||
03/04/2004 11:38 Comments ||
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#7
Who's a good French guy?
Charles Martel. He's nearly a thousand years dead, but he'd still do a better job than the bootlickers running France now.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
03/04/2004 12:10 Comments ||
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#8
I could give a f#@$$% less what the Uk, France or the world thinks about the USA. My only problem is we have an Internationalist (Hanoi John) running. He appeals to the world but when it comes down to it the US voter won't be fooled by this self proclaimed, medal thumper. Americans vote on morals and character generally. In that case the Dimmy's have a big problem.
#9
4 out of 5 dictators prefer Kerry! [The fifth was forcibly removed from power and is awaiting trial for war crimes and, unfortunately, could not be reached for comment.]
I love it! Place this under a picture of Kerry on a T-shirt or placecard.
Posted by: Michael ||
03/04/2004 13:55 Comments ||
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#13
DAR & CF, what a great idea. A caricature of Kerry on the front with the slogan "4 out of 5 dictators prefer Kerry!" and on the back the "street person" photo of Saddam with the title "#5 couldn't be reached for comment!"
Who are the guys who did the "72 Virgins Dating Service" T-shirts? Maybe they would be interested.
I'd buy and proudly wear such a shirt this summer.
#14
yeah...and if the human race as a whole could cast votes they'd get rid of the dictators whom the EU coddles up to in the middle east. And the world would be a democracy. And the world would embrace the USA more than ever. So, BRING IT ON!
#15
Somehow I think most of the population of China (despite their leadership) would favor Bush in the next election. Add to that the people living in dictatorships hoping the US will notice them and overthrow their dictatorship and include the number of non-leftists throughout Europe. I think Bush would do very well.
Nguard. I wonder that myself, without sarcasm. Puerto Rico has done pretty well as a US territory, what would Haiti (or a dozen other hell-holes) have to lose? If they could convince the US that is.
#16
PlanetDan--Actually, the whole human race does have a voice if not a true vote, and, considering how many of them are so irate at the removal of someone like Saddam, it appears many wouldn't vote that way.
Besides, everyone knows the dictators get 100% of the vote anyway... ;-)
GK and CF--Ooh, I like that! I've just sent an email off to "ThoseShirts.com" suggesting just that (BCC'd CF, but don't have your email, GK).
Probably won't happen, but what the hell!
Posted by: Dar ||
03/04/2004 14:45 Comments ||
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#17
Ruprecht, if we put it to a vote I'm betting 80% of Haitains would vote to become a US territory/commonwealth/mandate for the next 50 years (followed by independence again), as long as we promised to help clean the place up. Wonder what the Left would say to that? Um, no, I don't wonder, I already know.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2004 15:02 Comments ||
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#18
regardles of who wins in november realites of geo-politica/military issues in the next few years will force the prez to follow our third major doctrine - The Bush Doctrine. Unless that prez wants to be intimidated by the likes of iran.
Posted by: Dan ||
03/04/2004 15:13 Comments ||
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#19
Dan: That's just it....Kerry IS intimidated. He's already said that if elected, he'll go cap-in-hand to the mullahs ang beg forgiveness.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
03/04/2004 15:26 Comments ||
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#20
Great thread, guys.
Since it's Bush's oh-so-ickey war in Iraq that these guys are mainly griping about, let's give Iraq thirty electoral college votes and see who gets them.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/04/2004 15:38 Comments ||
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#21
"Ruprecht, if we put it to a vote I'm betting 80% of Haitains would vote to become a US territory/commonwealth/mandate for the next 50 years (followed by independence again), as long as we promised to help clean the place up. Wonder what the Left would say to that? Um, no, I don't wonder, I already know."
I dont think the right would be very happy with it, either.
I'd buy and proudly wear such a shirt this summer.
Dang, GK! GREAT idea! Can you follow up on that one? Somebody's got to want to make it. I'd buy a shirt, too, and wear it everywhere.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/04/2004 17:21 Comments ||
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#25
Oh, and by the way, as an American I don't give a rat's ass in hell who the rest of the world supposedly thinks should win our election. They can collectively kiss my royal red, white and blue ass.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/04/2004 17:25 Comments ||
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#26
The T-Shirt idea is brilliant! Reminds me of some of the funnier things I'd seen over at Protest Warrior.
I wonder who the Independent used as a polling service.
The Irish Republican Army has shot or bludgeoned more than 50 people in "punishment" attacks in the last year, Northern Ireland's police chief said Wednesday. Chief Constable Hugh Orde said the IRA continues to assault its criminal opponents, a decades-old practice that enforces IRA dominance in hard-line Catholic areas and deters community cooperation with the police. But Orde said gathering evidence that could be used to charge IRA members with the attacks, which usually involve shattering the victims' limbs with bats or bullets, had proven next to impossible. "Their victims are simply too terrified to cooperate with the police," Orde told the Northern Ireland Policing Board, a civilian committee that oversees police operations here.
Kneecapping always makes me feel that way, too...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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a decades-old practice that enforces IRA dominance in hard-line Catholic areas ... which usually involve shattering the victims' limbs with bats or bullets
Wow, that really is hard-line Catholicism!
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 0:28 Comments ||
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#2
And people bitch about Mel Gibson...
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/04/2004 8:08 Comments ||
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#3
As long as they don't use those steel edged rulers like the nuns used to back in CCD class. I knew some who could do amputations with them.
Venezuelaâs ambassador to the United Nations said on Thursday he was resigning his post in protest at the policies of the government of President Hugo Chavez. Milos Alcalay told a news conference at UN headquarters that his key concerns throughout a 34-year diplomatic career were to promote democracy, human rights and a nonconfrontational foreign policy. âSadly, Venezuela now is operating devoid of these fundamental principles, which I still remain intensely committed to,â he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 22:39 ||
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Growing unrest over a frustrated attempt to hold a referendum on recalling President Hugo Chavez raised concern of more bloodshed in Venezuela, as Washington called on the opposition to âremain engagedâ with the countryâs electoral officials. Two people were killed in violent unrest in Venezuela after electoral officials said there were insufficient signatures to hold a referendum on recalling Chavez. Opposition activists were out in force for the fourth consecutive day Wednesday to âdefendâ the validity of signatures. Angry Venezuelans banged empty pots, blocked roads and set bags of garbage afire. Television showed fierce protests in the commercial district of El Rosal and in the anti-Chavez neighbourhood of Chacao.
Two youths, aged 21 and 22, were killed in clashes between opposition activists and National Guard troops in the Plaza Altamira, a hotbed of anti-Chavez protests, authorities reported. Two additional deaths in Caracas were under investigation to determine if they were related to the unrest. And former presidential candidate Enrique Salas Romer reported that an opposition leader died during unrest in the western state of Carabobo. One protester was shot dead Tuesday after election officials announced that only 1.8 million of the 3.1 million signatures collected were valid. Some 2.4 million valid signatures are needed to demand the recall. Government and opposition representatives began talks Wednesday with the National Electoral Council searching for a way to check thousands of signatures the government deems questionable. The US State Department spokesman for Latin America, Gonzalo Gallegos, on Wednesday called on all sides in Venezuela âto remain engaged with the national electoral council to ensure they are timely, transparent, viable and respectable of the petition signers constitutional rights.â
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 22:37 ||
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A major eruption at Montserrat's volcano sent a massive cloud of ash about 20,000 feet into the sky Wednesday, but no injuries or damage were reported, officials said. Pyroclastic flows went down the eastern flank of the Soufriere Hills volcano after the 3 p.m. explosion, said Peter Dunkley, director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory. The eruption came more than seven months after a major lava dome collapse July 12. No one was reported injured in the collapse, but volcanic ash settled on the ground up to four inches deep in places and left coatings of grit on surrounding Caribbean islands. Britain authorized $1.6 million in emergency aid to help the British Caribbean territory recover from the dome collapse. Montserrat's volcano sprang to life in 1995, eventually leading more than half the island's population to move away. Many moved to Britain. An eruption in 1997 killed 19 people and buried the capital, Plymouth. Scientists monitor the volcano and report any changes to the island's 4,500 residents, who live in northern areas declared safe.
Wonder if Iran has any volcanos? The black turbans don't seem to listen to earthquakes ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2004 00:10 ||
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Funny thing is, Steve, that earthquakes on a regular basis is a precursor to volcanoes. No garuantee though.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/04/2004 6:23 Comments ||
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#2
Following Irish tradition, Monserrat national holiday is March 17th. Looks like the party started early. More Guiness, please.
Posted by: john ||
03/04/2004 12:12 Comments ||
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#3
Following Irish tradition, Monserrat national holiday is March 17th. Looks like the party started early. More Guiness, please.
Posted by: john ||
03/04/2004 12:12 Comments ||
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#4
Obviously one too many already.
Posted by: john ||
03/04/2004 12:17 Comments ||
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I wonder if Al-Qaeda terrorists did some NOOKLEUR thingy under the volcano thus causing the eruption.
#6
Keep it up, John! You only got 13 more days to practice! ;-)
Posted by: Dar ||
03/04/2004 13:28 Comments ||
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A piece of trivia - An eruption by Monsterrat's volcano in the 19th century was one of the most lethal ever recorded. It killed everyone in the capital city with the exception of one person who was held in the city jail.
#8
Correction -the volcano that killed the entire population of a city occured in 1902 on Martinique (which is close by Montserrat), engulfing Saint-Pierre at its base and killing circa 40,000. And curiously occured one day after the Monserrat eruption
TOKYO (AP) - An appeals court has upheld a 10-year prison sentence for a former member of a doomsday cult involved in a deadly 1995 nerve gas attack on Tokyo's subways, news media reported. The Tokyo High Court on Wednesday rejected an appeal from Shinichi Koshikawa, 39, a former senior Aum Shinrikyo cult member, the national Yomiuri newspaper reported on its Web site.
Japanese judges are on a roll.
Presiding judge Koshi Murakami backed the Tokyo District Court's March 2002 verdict sentencing Koshikawa to 10 years in prison for the 1994 fatal strangling of 29-year-old Aum member, Kotaro Ochida. Ochida had helped another member escape from the group's former headquarters in central Japan. Two lesser charges against Koshikawa included threatening a fellow cultist who tried to leave the sect, and assaulting a police officer during questioning in 1995. Koshikawa has denied the charges.
"It wudn't me! It was, um, someone else!"
Wednesday's verdict follows the Tokyo District Court's conviction of former cult guru Shoko Asahara, who was sentenced to hang for masterminding the subway attack and other crimes that killed 27 people. Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matumoto, was the 12th person sentenced to hang. None of them has been executed.
Say hi to Himmler for us!
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2004 00:02 ||
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A religious vilification case has embarrassed the plaintiffs and shown the stupidity of the law, says PIERS AKERMAN.
IN a case being closely followed around the world, the Victorian Government has effectively placed Islam on trial under its controversial Racial and Religious Tolerance Act 2001. It didnât mean to, of course. The legislation was intended to shield religions â particularly Islam â from scrutiny and was championed by the Islamic Council of Victoria and other Muslim organisations before being passed by the Bracks Government in mid-2001. Bracks, the Premier of Victoria, is a Christian of Lebanese descent. Is this another case of dhimmitude fostered on unsuspecting Victorians, under the guise of " religious tolerence"?
Indeed, the current matter was the first brought under the flawed legislation when it came into effect early in 2002. The case in the Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission bears all the hallmarks of a set-up, but it has exploded in the equal opportunity industryâs face.
Consider the facts. The matter had its genesis in a seminar held under the aegis of Catch the Fire Ministries, one of the major opponents of the legislation. Three complainants, all Australian converts to Islam, were encouraged to attend the seminar by contacts within the Victorian Islamic Council. One of those who encouraged one of the female attendees was May Helou, who was then employed by the Equal Opportunity Commission and also involved with the Islamic Council as its womenâs education officer, the Australian Arabic Council, and Victorian Arabic Social Services. (Helou has apparently recently left her EOC position.) The principal speakers at the seminar were Christian pastors Daniel Scot and Danny Nalliah and they were charged under Victoriaâs appalling legislation with allegedly vilifying Islam.
Attempts at conciliation before the Victorian EOC and the Victorian Civil Administration Tribunal failed and the case is now being heard by Judge Michael Higgins at VCAT. Unfortunately for both the EOC and the Victorian Islamic Council, the three complainants â whose evidence is critical to the case â have scant knowledge of the Koran. Pastor Scot, on the other hand, has testified to having read the Koran more than 100 times and has made a study of Islam and Islamic scholars. Attempts to discredit his knowledge of the topic have backfired embarrassingly for the complainantsâ counsel, Brind Woinarski QC, and have highlighted some crucial differences between Christian and Islamic teachings.
Among the arguments Mr Woinarski has tried to develop is the claim that laughter during Pastor Scotâs reading of the Koran at the seminar may have breached the Actâs prohibition on "severe ridicule". The screwy law was already on dangerous ground concerning freedom of speech, but now freedom to laugh is also under threat in Victoria. Pastor Scot has also been asked to comment on the Koranic verse which calls for the cutting off of the right hand of a thief, and another verse which mentions repentance. As Pastor Scotâs barrister, David Perkins, noted, there is nothing about re-attaching the hands of those who later repent. Pastor Scot was also able to point out that Mohammed cut off the hands of thieves and that Muslim scholars, four schools of Sunni Islamic law, as well as Shiâa law, all say that a hand can be cut off and do not link the verse relating to repentance with the earlier verse about such punishment. Indeed, he explained that the Koranic law as well as the hadith (the collected teachings second only to the Koran) say that if a thief steals again they also will have their right leg chopped off. Islamic mercy, he said, was shown by the fact those who had been punished by having a hand chopped off did not have their leg similarly treated â so long as they changed their ways.
The case has even examined the question of differences between Allah in the Koran and God in the Bible. The hearing was also given chapter and verse references (or Koranic reference and hadith) to the role of women in Islam. The hearing was told that the Islamic view was that the testimony of a woman was worth half that of a man, that a woman was a "toy", was "not to be seen" and was as a "rib that is crooked". It was told that a husbandâs sexual demands must be met even if his wife is cooking a meal, that a wife is as property, that a "temporary wife" is acceptable and that a woman is "deficient in intelligence". Whether May Helou will be as energetic an exponent in promoting Islam when this matter is finally resolved will be interesting to see.
Perhaps the most telling moment to date came just last Friday when Pastor Scot was asked by the Islamic Councilâs barrister Debbie Mortimer to stop reading passages from the Koran and just give verses because the readings vilified Muslims. He replied: "If it is not for reading, it shouldnât be in the book." Relatively straightforward and accurate reports of the trial have been placed on the web by Pastor Scotâs church; certainly in all the pertinent facts they accord with the few reports that have appeared in the local press. Summing up in the case should begin next week. The greatest crime is that the politically correct Victorian Government ever enacted the shameful legislation which permitted the case to begin at all.
Posted by: tipper ||
03/04/2004 9:14:37 AM ||
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Perhaps the most telling moment to date came just last Friday when Pastor Scot was asked by the Islamic Councilâs barrister Debbie Mortimer to stop reading passages from the Koran and just give verses because the readings vilified Muslims. He replied: "If it is not for reading, it shouldnât be in the book."
Heh.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/04/2004 9:31 Comments ||
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Debbie Mortimer to stop reading passages from the Koran ..... because the readings vilified Muslims.
#3
Relatively straightforward and accurate reports of the trial have been placed on the web by Pastor Scotâs church
What the address of the website? And before I forget: Bwahahahahaahhaha!
Posted by: Charles ||
03/04/2004 10:55 Comments ||
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Typical cult behavior - "our religion is what we say it is, regardless of what you think or what's written anywhere". Islam has outlived any usefulness it may have ever had, and needs to be added to the garbage heap of history, along with dozens of other dead-end cults.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/04/2004 11:11 Comments ||
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Islam has outlived any usefulness
I think the acid test of a religion is how provides value to society/humanity. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc may have their faults, but they do challenge people to do and be better. Look at how adherents have created advancements in science, arts, culture, etc. I see nothing of the sort from Islam. Either nothing, or worse, death and destruction.
#6
I think the acid test of a religion is how provides value to society/humanity. Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc may have their faults, but they do challenge people to do and be better.
What was the quote from Hiwayee? They came to do good and they done right well.
#7
Note rant tags. If interested, read what follows - it's just some honest observations, Joycian-style, from an atheist. I know some will flip, but so what? Many are permanently flipped, IMHO. I am not inviting a debate - take it or leave it as you please, but don't try to engage me over it, I'm not interested in rehashing the oldest hash known to man.
[rant]
As an atheist, I always find discussions and articles like this fascinating. Much is along the pot calling the kettle black line -- usually nit-picking trivialities, while ignoring the surrounding mass of obvious ooga-nooga bullshit.
BUT. I agree with PlanetDan - and many others: I believe a religion can serve a useful, if not noble, purpose - or I believe it deservingly dies out. Where the purpose is essentially positive, that it demonstrably does much more good than bad, it is to be applauded - and its believers protected from unwarranted persecution - and the law of reason determines the sum of that latter judgment. Where the balance goes the other way, it is a pestilence - and the adherents are carriers deserving no quarter. All religions I have encountered (with one notable exception) have a jewel (or more) of obvious truth. It's just the massive BS baggage that converts are expected to swallow along with the goodies that leaves me cold.
One reason why I have relatively few critical comments about Christianity is that there is an elegance and profoundness present in its practical tenets and application. I've read the Bible, both Old and New Testaments. I've read the Book of Mormon. The Qu'uran. The Upanishads. The Dancing WuLi Masters. A raft of books trying to explain Zen in words. The Zen of Motorcylce Maintenance came closest to what I saw first-hand in practice in Asia. And I've read much more. Not much of the Torah, yet, but I guess I'll get around to it someday.
Contrasting Christianity and Islam, the topic here... What strikes me about the Bible is that some of it is so simply written, yet profound, that it is breathtaking - and timeless. I find nothing in the Qu'uran that even approaches the same way of speaking or the self-apparent wisdom, much less the positive effects. Islam is that exception - and it propagates for reasons other than positive choice and beneficial effect. Where the Bible gives simple rules that have a profound effect (e.g. Do unto others...) with absolutely no negative fallout, the Qu'uran is a book of pure fear of retribution and it is laced with dictated hate. It is a rant of hate and threats - thus I must conclude the author was a twisted individual seeking revenge for slights, real or imagined. The most dogmatic dire pedestrian writings of the Old Testament are of the same ilk as the whole of the Qu'uran. It never fails to rise above that mark - but the Bible does -- and it does it without requiring some "official" of the faith to explain away what is written or fill in between the lines and spin it for consumption. The good stuff is there in black and white. I have found nothing in the Qu'uran to match it, no profundity or vision or anything inspiring or worthy of further study. Some will say that is a defect of translation. Bullshit - in practice it proves my point. In practice, Christianity has many positive effects that exceed the negatives - which make the news on occasion. The qu'uran is a book of do's, don'ts, and unrelenting fear. Most religions offer the intellectually-challenging lame promise of an ooga-booga afterlife (what a word) usually one full of Earthly hedonistic rewards (Gee - I wonder why...) and continued subservience to some entity. Yawn. For me, this is of no consequence - it's the practice on Earth that matters - for that is the only provable reality. Islam is utterly barren of reason beyond the enrichment and empowerment of its status quo - in other words it has all of the negatives of religion, but lacks any saving-grace positive. It is an excellent example of a system that fails to balance its negative impact - in any way. Thus, IMHO, it deserves to be exterminated as the human pathogen it daily proves to be.
This just my opinion. Take it or leave it.
[/rant]
Mobile phone operators have been ordered to register pre-paid customers in a bid to clamp down on terrorism. The decision by the Swiss parliament follows revelations that senior al-Qaeda members had used pre-paid cards bought in Switzerland to coordinate their activities.
Previously, customers were not required to give any personal details when buying a card. Phone companies will have to keep this information for two years after the card is purchased.
The move comes days after Swiss authorities revealed they had evidence that senior members of Osama bin Ladenâs al-Qaeda network used Swiss Subscriber Identity Module â or SIM â cards to communicate with each other. "During the investigations we have discovered that [the cards] were used not only by the perpetrators of the [September 11] attacks but also by senior members of the [al-Qaeda] hierarchy," deputy federal prosecutor Claude Nicati said over the weekend.
The Federal Prosecutorâs Office has refused to confirm speculation that Bern provided information to US intelligence that led to the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected number three al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of the attacks. The revelations are thought to have won over parliamentarians previously opposed to the proposal; the vote was passed by 124 to 27.
Switzerland will become only the fourth European country to introduce such regulations, along with Germany, Hungary and Italy. However, opponents said the new regulations would not deter terrorists and other criminals, as they would still be able to buy pre-paid cards in other countries, including the US, without fear of being traced.....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 11:27:48 PM ||
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So how is this going to deal with Al Q and other terrorists who have nothing but fake identities, unless the calls can be quickly traced to location? Now we are talking real time data gathering issues.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/04/2004 23:39 Comments ||
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OK, so you thought the last one was a troll job, eh! Well, How about some good frog bashing?
A shady terror group is demanding $5 million from the French government - otherwise it will detonate ten bombs hidden around the French railway network. How does the government plan to combat this new threat? By paying them off, of course. Should have tried this one with the Germans in â40. Could have saved some French lives. To prove there is a trolling aspect but that even the worst trolls can frog bash with the best, Le Monde via the Guardian provides greater detail:
âLe Monde said there had been two failed attempts to pay the cash. A police source said: "If they blow up a piece of railway track and a TGV high-speed train runs over it, the carnage will be monstrous.â
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/04/2004 7:25:46 PM ||
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The organisation has also used personal columns in national daily Liberation - the in-house organ of France's far-left - to communicate with the government.
Picked that publication to be sure someone in the government would read it.
#3
Jacques' strategy: pay with Euros, then let your pathetic economic policy undermine the value of the Euro - ergo the value of the ransom! It's Simplisme!
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 20:29 Comments ||
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Let's all get a piece of that. Hey, I'd quit saying nasty things about the French if they would pay me even half that much.
#5
Should have tried this one with the Germans in â40.
Er, they DID. Remember the Vichy? They were the Nazi's whores up until the absolute last second; the only reason the Germans finally turned on them was French dithering (of course!) over what to do after French North Africa had been taken by the Allies.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/04/2004 21:47 Comments ||
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RC
That was after they had run up the white flag. Todays French would have offered cash as soon as Hitler invaded Norway.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/04/2004 22:24 Comments ||
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A Belgian man has been held in the Netherlands for the past five weeks on suspicion of belonging to the Al Qaeda terrorist network, local Dutch media reported Wednesday. The man, who has not been named and is of Moroccan origin, was arrested on Jan. 27 during a routine traffic control when police discovered he was the subject of an international arrest warrant. He is currently being held in custody in the Dutch city Vught but the court in Roermond must decide on May 18 whether to extradite him to Morocco. The Moroccan authorities believe he has met personally with Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and that he helped organize the May 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca, which left 45 people dead. If he were extradited and found guilty, he could face the death penalty under Moroccan law.
Which means he won't be extradited, no matter how many people he's killed...
The Dutch authorities have said they will reply to the Moroccan request "soon," but the manâs lawyer, Victor Koppe, has already expressed concern that his client would not get a fair trial if the extradition went ahead.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/04/2004 1:06:06 AM ||
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The 45 dead people would have opposed the extradition too. After all, he's a Belgian citizen.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 1:32 Comments ||
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Victor Koppe is also the attorney who got Mullah Krekar sprung from Dutch custody...
A Canadian family that has long denied ties to Al Qaeda now admits that they are not only terrorists but believe itâs noble for them to die for the cause. Abdurahman Khadr admitted to CBC-TVâs The National Wednesday that some of his brothers and father fought as Al Qaeda terrorists and that they even stayed with Osama bin Laden. And his mother and sister, interviewed in Pakistan, said they were proud of their familyâs connection to the terrorists behind the September 2001 attacks. "Until now everybody says we are an Al Qaeda connected family but when I say this, just by me saying it, I just admitted we are an Al Qaeda family. We had connections to Al Qaeda," Abdurahman Khadr said in Toronto. "My family in Pakistan will never admit this. They will deny it." But his mother and sister proudly admit to being adherents of the group, while admitting they were never really accepted by either the terrorists or western society.
Abdurahman Khadr, who was released from the U.S. jail and eventually returned to Toronto last year, says he wants to be a peaceful Muslim. He said he was "raised to become an Al Qaeda, was raised to become a suicide bomber, was raised to become a bad person. I decided on my own that I do not want to be that. I want to be a good, strong, civilized, peaceful Muslim."
Ahmed Said Khadrâs wife, Maha, and 23-year-old daughter, Zaynab, say that he was proud to die as a martyr, a soldier of Islam. "We believe that death comes when God had planned it, before He created the humanity, itâs planned, so I just accept, â but it hurt," Maha said.
Not as much as it hurt him, I hope... Gut shot... Holed up in a rathole... The sun beating down... No water...
"We can't get close to the rathole, captain-sahib!"
"Then burn 'im out!"
"Mahmoud! Light the torches! We're gonna do roasty-toasty!"
"We believe dying by the hand of your enemy," Zaynab told CBC. "My father had always wished that he would be killed... he would be killed for the sake of Allah. I remember when we were very young he would say, if you guys love me, pray for me that I get jihaded, which is killed."
And make it slow and painful, wouldja?
Maha said she would be happy if her children died the same way. "You know we are promised that we go to heaven," she says.
You can leave any time...
Zaynab says: "Iâd love to die like that. Iâd love my daughter to die, even if (it is) simple, very simple, naive."
Look on the bright side: in Pakland, you stand a good chance of that.
Abdullah, 22, escaped the fighting that killed his father and paralysed his brother because he was away from the house. He says his father talked about becoming a martyr. "Dying for Islam is hopeful for every Muslim," Abdullah said in Pakistan. "Everybody loves to die for his religion. Every Muslim dreams of being a shaheed for Islam, like you die for your religion. Everybody dreams of this, even a Christian would like to die for their religion."
I've never felt the urge to die for agnosticism...
Abdurahman Khadr said his family knew bin Laden and lived at the terrorist leaderâs compound in Pakistan in the 1990s. The Al Qaeda leader later attended the wedding of the daughter in September 1999, said the family. "He never jokes, very quiet person, very polite," Abdullah Khadr said of bin Laden.
"... no senzayuma at all. None."
"He can be a saint, something like a saint. I see him as a very peaceful man."
Laid out with a lily is the kind of "peaceful" I'm interested in for him...
Abdurahman Khadrâs reluctance to follow the stern Muslim strictures imposed in the bin Laden compound caused increasing tension with his father. He said his father tried three times to persuade him to become a suicide bomber, sitting him down with a radical cleric in the bin Laden camp and telling him the sacrifice would make him the pride of the family. "I was totally against it. I donât believe in blowing myself up and killing innocent people," Abdurahman said.
"Killing innocent people's okay, but blowing myself up â do I look like I'm nuts?"
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/04/2004 12:47:37 AM ||
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A Canadian family that has long denied ties to Al Qaeda
as Allan was their witness.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 0:55 Comments ||
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what a delightful family! I can just imagine an islamic "Make Room for Daddy" or the Beaver as Ibn Ward Cleaver....
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 10:47 Comments ||
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WTF is the US government doing releasing Guantanamo prisoners? These aholes have sworn to die in the process of killing as many infidels as they can. We've already seen released AQ and Taliban prisoners return to fight. If Canada and the Euros want these MFs, then ship them in a body bag with postage due.
Posted by: ed ||
03/04/2004 17:20 Comments ||
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Everybody dreams of this, even a Christian would like to die for their religion.
Nice fantasy, loser, but inaccurate. I've known Christians all my life, and never met one who was anxious to die for the religion - most of them want to live for it.
When Muslims think it's more important to live for their religion than to die for it, they'll have a future. It doesn't look promising so far.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/04/2004 23:03 Comments ||
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While a fair number of Christians would be WILLING to die for their religion, not too many would LIKE to die for their religion. Unlike these Islamic meshuganuts, many Christians view life as a great gift from God not to be squandered.
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/04/2004 23:33 Comments ||
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North Koreaâs state-controlled media are well known for reverential reporting about Kim Jong-il, the countryâs dictatorial leader. But the Dear Leader is not the only one getting deferential treatment from the communist stateâs propaganda machine: John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic candidate, is also getting good play in Pyongyang. Sounds kinda dirty ... was that why Bill loved the NKors?
In the past few weeks, speeches by the Massachusetts senator have been broadcast on Radio Pyongyang and reported in glowing terms by the Korea Central News Agency (KCNA), the official mouthpiece of Mr Kimâs communist regime. ... But both Mr Kerry (today, at least)
and Mr Bush are committed to North Korean disarmament. Mr Kerry, however, would renew unilateral bilateral appeasementkowtowinggrovelingbribing negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang, while Mr Bush has sought to manage the conversation with North Korea through multilateral talks. and a damn big stick
Mr Kerry has also been more forthright about setting out the nuclear economic rewards for North Korea if it disarms. If North Korea is hoping that a Democratic victory would herald a return to Bill Clintonâs policy of engagement with Pyongyang, then Gordon Flake, head of the Mansfield Centre for Pacific Affairs in Washington, cautions Mr Kim against expecting too much from Mr Kerry. "It would be harder for a Democratic president to do a deal because there would be a lot of pressure on him not to be a soft touch," he says. Then his head exploded.
Mr Kerry was first introduced to North Koreaâs information-starved people in early February, when Radio Pyongyang reported that opinion polls indicated he was likely to defeat Mr Bush. A few days later, the station broadcast comments by Mr Kerry criticising Mr Bush for acting on intelligence Kerry agreed with deceiving the world about Iraqâs elusive weapons of mass destruction. Later in February, KCNA welcomed Mr Kerryâs pledge to adopt a more "sincere attitude" towards North Korea if elected. But will it be sincere enough for The Great Pumpkin?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 20:27 Comments ||
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Iran. Hezbollah. Al Queda. Syria. NorKs. Kerry gets all the best endorsements.
Vote accordingly.
Posted by: Scott ||
03/04/2004 21:13 Comments ||
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The election is about Terror and 9-11. If Bush loses Bin Laden wins. Fundamentalist muslims and Arab nationalists hate Georgie The Tyrant Killer. He has destroyed the "great Arab hope" Bin Laden, destroyed the Taliban, destroyed Saddam pretty much without a fight, told the other Arab rulers democratize or disappear and exposed Arafat and the Palestinians as the nihilistic bloodthirsty murderers they are. America's enemies, the Jihadis and the Arab fascists and dictators will see a defeat of Bush as a victory. Even a pass to attack just like the good old days under Clinton when terror wasn't punished. I know my view is right. Just ask your Arab friends, if you have any. If you vote for Kerry, you vote for the enemy. It's as simple as that.
#4
Ricky, you are right. This is national voter registration week. We have got to get those voters out who are undecided, change their minds with facts and get them registered. Hanoi John MUST NOT BECOME CIC!
As an aside I have never been involved in politics, excep to vote ever, I am now trying to get 10 voters registered for November. IT's useless takling to a Dimmycrat. We need people who are undecided or just know what is at stake here.
My own personal animosity for Kerry is around his anit war activities and the assocaitions he made (Fonda et al). That is one reason for me not to vote for Kerry. In any case I have the highest respect for the man in the Whitehouse now. Bush is the MAN.
Generals defend militaryâs role in space at hearings on Bushâs space plan
The military plays an important role in U.S. space exploration and should continue to partner with NASA, Air Force generals said Thursday. The generals spoke on the second day of hearings before a commission studying President Bushâs proposal for manned flights to the moon and Mars. The generals defended the militaryâs role in space exploration when commissioner Carleton Fiorina asked why the military is involved. "Although we would like space to be a peaceful medium, (with all the correspondent fluffy bunnys, rainbows, and Chocolate Ice Cream
the fact of the matter is history says that it may not always be that way," said Gen. Gregory Martin, commander of the Air Force Materiel Command. "We should be prepared for that." To which Fiorina responded: "Can I pet the Bunnys?"
Martin said the military conducts space-related research projects and military equipment in space helps prevent conflicts on Earth. For example, military satellites detect buildups of armies on the ground, he said. Lt. Gen. Dan Leaf of the Air Force Space Command said that excluding the military from space efforts would decrease the chances of heading off conflicts on Earth and make a U.S. response to an attack on America less precise and more destructive. "Thatâs in nobodyâs interest -- not ours, not our adversaries," Leaf said. "We donât want to wage war in space. There is a peaceful place for the military to participate in space." However, itâs quite unfair that we have such a huge lead on our adversaries. So we plan on tying our shoelaces together. Now thatâs sporting.
On Wednesday, aerospace educators said manned flights to the moon and Mars would ignite a passion for space and science studies among young people. The Dayton hearing at the U.S. Air Force Museum is the second of five being held around the country as the Presidentâs Commission on Moon, Mars and Beyond prepares a report to be presented to Bush in June. Former astronaut John Glenn was to speak later Thursday.
Posted by: Daniel King ||
03/04/2004 2:15:14 PM ||
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hope the Militarys plan for the Space Based Laser constellation of 24 high power, rapid shot laser attack/defense satalites in orbit around the earth, havn't heard anything about it for about 2 years now so maybe it was cancelled or put on the back burner, maybe it went into the black world?
Sickening
Congressional Democrats criticized the Bush administrationâs handling of the crisis in Haiti yesterday and questioned whether the United States pushed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile. We shouldâve allowed the bloodbath to occur... of course, W would be blamed even worse for that
"You didnât want a diplomatic solution to this problem. You wanted to get rid of Aristide," said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-Far Rockaway).
Apparently we weren't the only ones.
news for Meeks: nobody gave a F&*K what happened in Haiti or to Aristide, as long as the boats stayed home
Others said the Bush administrationâs failure to support Aristide sent a chilling signal to democratically elected governments. we should support corruption - and look - Fidel was democratically elected too, Saddam as well, right?
Rep. Robert Menendez, a sleazy New Jersey Pimp Democrat, said people in this hemisphere were "watching this government turn its back on democracy .... The message is clear. This government will not stand up for a democratically elected head of state they do not like."
That isn't so! I lifted a finger to help. Wanna see which one?
Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega was the target of the grilling yesterday at a hearing of House International Relations subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere. Members of Congress wanted to know whether the United States was covertly involved in recent events that led Aristide to leave his country. Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said she and other legislators hope to find how much money was spent recently by the CIA and other U.S. agencies operating in Haiti. Conspiracy thinkers unite!
She and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) also demanded that Noriega produce proof Aristide himself composed the document which U.S. officials say is a letter of resignation. "Was the letter of resignation composed by - not just signed by - but composed by President Aristide?" Schakowsky asked Noriega. even video of him hiding in his closet and writing it could be faked
"I assume he wrote it, dumbass" Noriega answered. On Monday, Aristide made phone calls to some members of Congress, saying he had been taken out of Haiti the day before against his will and forced by U.S. diplomats and Marines to sign the document. He has ended up, at least temporarily, in the Central African Republic. Send his scheming, stealing, lying ass back to Haiti, watch how the people love him
Schakowsky said she had reason to doubt the official U.S. version of events in Haiti Saturday night. Schakowsky told Newsday in a telephone interview yesterday evening that she had spoken with Mildred Aristide, the presidentâs wife, at 6 p.m. Saturday, "and there was absolutely no hint that they were going to leave." "she never mentioned it, but asked me to open a checking account for her, as well as safe deposit box.... a big one"
"We are absolutely going to push for a full investigation," Schakowsky told Newsday. and make crazy accusations and stomp our feet...nobodyâs paying attention to us!
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 12:59:42 PM ||
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#1
Um, Dems? Wasn't there this matter Aristide's fraud, ballot stuffing and other shenanigans in the 2000 election?
if we did nothing - then we are ignoring the will of the people and supporting a tryant.
once we do something then we are meddling in the affairs of a soverign nation, making undemocratic changes. now where were this dems when clinton installed aristide? oh i forgot prez sleeze was also a dem.
Posted by: Dan ||
03/04/2004 13:28 Comments ||
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#3
Here's political cartoonist Chuck Asay's (3/4/04)take on the Democrat's hypocrisy.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 13:50 Comments ||
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#5
Screw it. Fly his skinny ass back. But make sure all the locals know the arrival time at Shithole International Airport so they can welcome the beloved leader back. If he won't get off the plane, boot his ass off.
#6
I wouldn't put it past the French to have put the conspircy ideas into Aristdes head and provided the rolodex numbers of idiot congressmen. The French would love to see Bush lose the election in Nov, and Aristide can do the libral lecture/book circuit into retirement in the South of France.
#7
you can find in the land of wanna be glory and ex-tryants --of course frogland
Posted by: Dan ||
03/04/2004 15:00 Comments ||
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#8
I'm not sure which is more important to my mornings, coffee or Chuck Asay! Every day, day after day, a priceless gem.
I think it's only proper that these congresscritters do their research on-site - and not in one of the major hotels in Port-au-Prince. They should be forced to do all their work in Cap Hatien, Mirebalais, and Saint Marc. Talk to the local people about how much they "love" Aristide and Baby Doc. Ask them about how much these tin rectums have done for them. Ask about how they hate the US "unilaterally" removing Aristide.
They may get some answers they don't like, but I think it's absolutely essential they do these things before we listen to a word they say.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/04/2004 15:09 Comments ||
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#9
Once again the Democrats prove themselves to be on the wrong side of a democracy-vs.-thugocracy debate.
Please make sure that your Democrat friends realize that it is no longer the party of Scoop Jackson or Truman or Kennedy. It is fully the party of the far left now.
#10
eLarson--take your head outta your ass--It's the Republican Party that has been hi-jacked by the loonie "Christians" and right wing nutz. The polite Country Club Republicans in Connecticut have been replaced by Tom DeLay and his fire breathing Texas posse
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
03/05/2004 0:04 Comments ||
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With Tuesdayâs attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq. But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself â but never pulled the trigger. The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.
Posted by: Mr. Davis ||
03/04/2004 11:05:48 AM ||
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#1
Oh, God. Another example of a Republican being damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, while a Democrat can do no wrong.
We can win this war, but first we're going to have to defeat the damned press.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/04/2004 11:45 Comments ||
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#2
It's pretty amazing how Democrats will lie at the drop of a hat about classified matters, that will then have to be disclosed in their entireity in order to squash the reckless and shameless Democratic lie. These disclosures then give the enemy an idea of what we know about them, potentially outing a whole host of agents carefully cultivated by CIA field officers (not Valerie Plame - can you imagine some bloodthirsty jihadi taking instruction from her)? People who disclose information like this are borderline traitors and ought to be taken out and shot.
#7
OK.. how about we show JF Kerry (who once served in Vietnam for a whole 5 months and manged to attain 3 purple hearts in that time so he could weasle he way out) marching under a North Vietmanese flag. Or him lying before congress after the staged and forged 'winter soldier' fiasco?
#8
Hmmm, we had a chance to kill a Jordanian long before we were attacked? Iâm sure that would have gone over well in the press: âBUSH MURDERS ARABS AT REFUGEE CAMPâ or something to that affect. Is this Troll Day at Rantburg? Seems to be a more than the normal amount.
#10
I hate to bring this up but it was sort of common knowledge that VN produced tons of medals that were tougher to get in previous wars. I hate to say it as I don't wish to tarnish anybody who recieved medals. But when that war was going it was talked about. I remember it. It was a problem.
#11
Let me throw this out on the table. In the source doc on MSNBC a Roger Cressey is the named source for this reckless statement. A quick search turned up this Bio
DIVERSINET APPOINTS CYBER SECURITY EXPERTS RICHARD CLARKE AND ROGER CRESSEY TO ITS ADVISORY BOARD
Roger Cressey served as chief of staff to the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board from November 2001 to September 2002. Between November 1999 and November 2001, he served as director for transnational threats on the National Security Council staff, where he was responsible for coordination and implementation of U.S. counter-terrorism policy. During this period, he managed the U.S. government's response to the Millennium terror alert, the USS Cole attack, and the September 2001 terrorist attacks.
Prior to his White House service, Cressey served in the Department of Defense, including as Deputy Director for War Plans. From 1991-1995, he served in the Department of State working on Middle East Security issues. He has also served overseas with the U.S. Embassy in Israel and with United Nations peacekeeping missions in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia. While in the former Yugoslavia, he was part of a United Nations team that planned the successful capture of the first individual indicted for war crimes in Croatia.
Me thinks soemone has an alterior motive here. This guy was responsible for the coordination and implementation of counter terrorism policy prior to the attacks on the USS Cole, Somalia, WTC?????
Posted by: Anonymous Tom ||
03/04/2004 12:32 Comments ||
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#12
This guy was responsible for the coordination and implementation of counter terrorism policy prior to the attacks on the USS Cole, Somalia, WTC?????
Great - another Clinton holdover puts out a bunch of horse manure. GWB is a great guy for letting so many Clinton people stick around in his administration. The problem is that Clinton seemed to have picked a nest of vipers to work for him. Some of these vipers are now working within the Bush administration. Great - just great.
#13
"coordination and implementation of U.S. counter-terrorism policy"??
sounds more like he was in charge of "post-attack ineffective cruise missile pinprick attack back on deserted camps"?
Ass-covering with both hands, huh?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 12:40 Comments ||
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About Cressey: "During this period, he managed the U.S. government's response to the Millennium terror alert, the USS Cole attack, and the September 2001 terrorist attacks."
We responded to the Cole attack? First I've heard of it.
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/04/2004 14:07 Comments ||
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We responded to the Cole attack? First I've heard of it.
Sure did. Clinton's military invaded Afghanistan in 2001.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/04/2004 14:53 Comments ||
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The Clinton Administration treated the Cole attack more as a criminal investigation than an act of war. Somewhere I read an account of the FBI guy in charge. It was insane what he had to put up with in regard to the Yemeni govt, as well as ours. They were staying in a hotel nearby, with the feeling that they were going to get seriously boomed. I am trying to find the article.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/04/2004 16:43 Comments ||
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President Bushâs re-election campaign on Thursday defended commercials using images from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, including wreckage of the World Trade Center, as appropriate for an election about public policy and the war on terror. Some families of the victims of the attacks are angry with Bush for airing the spots, which they called in poor taste and for the presidentâs political gain.
Are they still angry at the Bad Guys who killed their loved ones? The election's going to be about who's best qualified to avenge them...
"With all due respect, I just completely disagree, and I believe the vast majority of the American people will as well," Karen Hughes, a Bush campaign adviser, told "The Early Show" on CBS. "September 11th was not just a distant tragedy. Itâs a defining event for the future of our country. ... Obviously, all of us mourn and grieve for the victims of that terrible day, but September 11 fundamentally changed our public policy in many important ways, and I think itâs vital that the next president recognize that."
One candidate does. The other one's so far convinced me he doesn't.
The first three ads, unveiled Wednesday at campaign headquarters in suburban Washington, will run on broadcast channels in about 80 markets in 18 states, most of which are expected to be critical to the election, and nationwide on select cable networks. "Itâs a slap in the face of the murders of 3,000 people," Monica Gabrielle, whose husband died in the twin towers, told the New York Daily News for its Thursday editions. "It is unconscionable."
A slap in the face in what way? Did he not care at the time and he pretends he does now? Did he not take action against the perpetrators? Did he appear in public, shed a tear, warn the Bad Boyz to "make no mistake," that they'd be "brought to justice," and then do nothing?
Two of the spots show the destruction at the World Trade Center and include an American flag flying amid the debris. They also feature images of firefighters working through the wreckage. "Itâs as sick as people who stole things out of the place," said Firefighter Tommy Fee of Queens Rescue Squad 270. "The image of firefighters at ground zero should not be used for this stuff, for politics."
The reaction to the strike is the only issue I'm concerned about in this election. You can't have any of the other stuff — health care, jobs, care for the elderly, none of that — if we lose the war with the turbans.
The ads do not mention Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, focusing instead on improving Bushâs image after criticism by Democrats in recent months. "I would be less offended if he showed a picture of himself in front of the Statue of Liberty," said Tom Roger, whose daughter perished on American Airlines Flight 11. "But to show the horror of 9/11 in the background, thatâs just some advertising agencyâs attempt to grab people by the throat."
Good one, too. Expect to see more.
Hughes said the ads are a tasteful reminder of what the country has been through the last three years. "I can understand why some Democrats might not want the American people to remember the great leadership and strength the president and first lady Laura Bush brought to our country in the aftermath of that," she said.
Posted by: Zak ||
03/04/2004 10:24:21 AM ||
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#1
I. for one, am all for him using these images (tastefully done) for his campaign. The election will be a referendum on his handling of the WOT and the aftermath of the attacks, including the economic hit. If Bush had done badly (more attacks on American soil, Iraqi quagmire or mass civilan deaths) it would be thrown in his face every minute of every day by libs and the media. As it is, I think things could hardly have gone better than they have and his message says - "I'm responsible, and will remain so". I'm sure the NYDaily News had to find Dem partisans in the family/survivor ranks to hear complaints and the DNC whining shows how small they are
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 10:36 Comments ||
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TROLL ALERT! I have actually seen the ads and they are done tastefully. Commie Dowd chimed that maybe Kerry should show images of caskets coming home from Iraq (that would be tasteless). The Ad is about leadership in a time of crisis, not a sympathy plea. Look at the Ad before you comment, they are done very well. Like it or not 9/11 is part of Bush's legacy, like WWII was part or Rosevelt's and the hostage crisis was part of Carter's.
#3
"I can understand why some Democrats might not want the American people to remember the great leadership and strength the president and first lady Laura Bush brought to our country in the aftermath of that," she said.
Hit the nail onto the trolls head.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/04/2004 10:42 Comments ||
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#4
My brother died in tower 2 of the WTC. I will never forget, and I hope the next president never forgets either.
#5
This hypocrisy brought to you by the same party that produced the Kucinich ads, which DID display the caskets and names of US servicemen killed in action, and yet nary a peep was heard from the party criticizing those ads.
#6
I might add, the implicit assumption in my above post is that the innocents killed in the massacre on 9/11 and the troops who died fighting in Iraq are casualties in the same war. A war which is not even acknowledged by a large minority in this country...
#7
So they found two family members (and one fire fighter) out of ??? that took offense? If this had been Clinton or Gore, he would had himself standing at ground zero, a flag in hand (maybe burning), flanked by Firefighters and police. Please, EVERYONE was affected by 9/11 directly or indirectly. So when JF Kerry (who served in Vietnam) touts his âband o brothersâ can I be offended because I am a Vet? BTW it does offend me because I know what a FRAUD Kerryâs group is/was. The Dems are desperately trying to take the moral high ground and they have found it ALREADY occupied!
#11
Seems to me this is nothing more than another dose of the same ersatz "outrage" the Democrats have been trotting out every time any Republican tries to defend his record or say something positive about what we're achieving. Just like their "outrage" over the aircraft carrier landing. Just like their "outrage" over Bush's Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad. Just like their "outrage" over... well, anything Republican.
I'm ashamed that I ever belonged to the Democratic Party- today's Democrats are revolting hypocrites.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/04/2004 12:50 Comments ||
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Condolences Anon....Unfortunately I think this country needs to awaken once again to 9/11. The Planes crashing into the towers needs to be shown again on TV to remind those who don't know or who have forgotten what actually happened that day. I know our President hasn't forgotten 9/11. God bless America and George Bush.
#13
Ummm, weren't there Americans who died tragically in Vietnam? And I seem to recall that John Kerry might have once (maybe even twice?) mentioned Vietnam--and , egads, even run television ads with photos from the Vietnam war. What a monster!!! Trying to gain political advantage from the tragedy of soldiers killed in Vietnam. Call the FCC!! Politicians must be banned from mentioning historical events relevant to whether they should be elected!! It is too insensitive!!
#14
A good friend and 5 other people that I knew growing up or went to school with died on 9/11. I am confident that they would not be offended by these ads, and would appreciate the President's actions in avenging them. Does anyone recall whether Bubba used his Oklahoma City speech in any commercials?
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/04/2004 14:15 Comments ||
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If this is the best the Dems can come up with - they are in sad shape. While it probably plays well with rabid bush haters - they won't vote for him anyway. For the rest of the country, it just makes the dems look like they are in denial over 911, which they are.
Posted by: B ||
03/04/2004 15:18 Comments ||
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#16
Those images show nothing. American's need to see over and over images of the planes exploding into the World Trade center, the couples leaping hand-in-hand from 100th floor, choosing to die in the fall instead of being burned alive, the bravery of hundreds of men and women rushing into those buildings to save the trapped people. Americans need to know that most of those who were killed in the WTC will never be found, being ground into dust in the force of the collapse.
American's need to see and hear the vile preachings of government holy men exhorting their believers to kill, rape, and pillage the infidels. We need to see over and over the Palestinians and other Muslims celebrating and ululating at the images of the WTC. Americans need to see the videos of Al Queda and Saudi Clergy stuffing their faces and laughing at the images of the WTC inferno and collapse. American need to see the after images of the blown apart and mangled pieces of meat that were human beings in Isreal, Iraq, Turkey, Bali, ... Americans need to see the slaugher, rape, and slavery of Sudanese Christians and animists. Americans need to see the images of Muslim torture, the photos of Afgan Hazaras (Mongol descendants) who were skinned alive by the AQ and Pashtun fighters, the videos of the Arabs slitting the throats and cutting off the heads of their captives in Yugoslavia and Chechnia, and using them as soccer balls. Journalists need to see the video of AQ slitting the throat and decapitating one of their own, Daniel Pearl.
Treat them the same way way they treat the infidels. Make war on them, enslave them, pillage any and all propery, convert any survivors to Christianity. They like bombs? Bomb them into the stone age, bomb them in their homes, bomb them in their mosques, bomb them in the shit holes they hide in. They like slavery, it is well past time for the Southern Sudanese to have their shit shoveled by their Arab Sudanese slaves. They like to destroy churches and synagogues in Nigeria, Pakistan, Turkey and Isreal and kill the parishoners, then bomb their mosques at the height of Friday prayers. Any god damned mullah opens his filthy mouth about slaugthering the infidels must have him and his family slaughtered post haste. Arabs want to talk about raising the Muslim flag over the White House? It's well past time to turn Mecca into the world's largest tittie bar.
No, we have seen nothing. We have been shielded, coddled and lied to about the true intentions of our enemies. It well past time for all Americans to open their eyes. If the Democrats don't like that, then F 'em and the donkeys they rode in on.
Posted by: ed ||
03/04/2004 16:54 Comments ||
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#17
Well, Senator Kerry, Bush is Bringing it On. Just like you have perpetually asked.
I challenge U.S. Rantburgers to watch the beginning of the NBC Nightly News tonight, then call up your local station to complain bitterly about NBC's use of 9/11 images as part of the show's opening graphics!
(Maybe ABC & CBS use them, too -- I haven't the stomach to even watch those "news" programs anymore...)
#23
ed: the rant of the week - I bow to the master
Frank
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 19:11 Comments ||
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#24
ed kicks ass! I can only think of one thing - I'll be there for the Grand Opening of MekkaHooters... I think I can even see some featured dancers atop the Big Black Hole of 'Slam... Awesome, ed - Thx!
#25
Ed, Bravo and Megadittos!
And Anonymous, my sincerest sympathies on the death of your brother.
I will never forget 9/11 and the 3,000 innocents like him who were slaughtered on that black day.
#26
So Ed, I'm thinking we can count your vote in the "Bush" column?
Posted by: Matt ||
03/04/2004 21:04 Comments ||
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#27
LGF has the rundown on the idiots interviewed:
âIt makes me sick,â said Colleen Kelly, who lost her brother Bill Kelly Jr., in the attacks and leads a victims families group called Peaceful Tomorrows. âWould you ever go to someoneâs grave site and use that as an instrument of politics? That truly is what Ground Zero represents to me.â
Context, anyone? âPeaceful Tomorrowsâ is a far-left group of useful idiots, who often show up on stage at International ANSWER rallies, sharing the podium with representatives of groups connected to the very terrorists who murdered their relatives on September 11. I have sympathy for their loss, but absolutely no respect for their naive and suicidal political beliefs.
The article also quotes the head of a firefighterâs group that has endorsed John Kerry. No bias here.
Harold Schaitberger, the firefighter unionâs president, said: âWeâre not going to stand for him to put his arm around one of our members on top of a pile of rubble at Ground Zero during a tragedy and then stand by and watch him cut money for first responders.â
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 21:28 Comments ||
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#28
Harold Schaitberger- AFLCIO. Is that surprising. Since the AFLCIO (which of course only has its workers in mind)is basically a big city Democrat machine, nothing surprises me what comes from them. I wonder though how the members REALLY vote when the time comes. Anyone have a feel for prior elections?
#29
A trend in the last decade or so has been the "personification" of legislation, e.g., Megan's Law, Amber Alert, the Brady Bill, etc.
There's often some f***-in' politician exploiting some tragedy or heinous act to get his/her mug on camera for votes, many times it's a Democrat. Right now California is discussing "Laci and Conor's Law" to stop future Scott Petersons.
Let's call the war on terror "America's Law"--you kill our innocent citizens and guests and we will destroy the very societies that spawned you. I think that's fair.
#30
Thanks for all your praise. The rant burst out in one stream when I read the bury-your-head-in-sand-and-hope-the-monsters-go-away article.
Normally I vote for whoever takes the least from my paycheck and interferes the least in my life. I have Libertarian leanings. But now I care about one issue. I'd vote for Nader if he promised that the first thing he would do is to declare war on Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan to destroy their religious and governmental systems. I'll be damned if I will sit around and watch American cities be vaporized in a few years.
But since the Dems or Nader won't do anything to prevent this, I will send my first ever political contribution to the Bush campaign, and vote early and vote often.
Posted by: ed ||
03/04/2004 22:23 Comments ||
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WASHINGTON, DCâIn a move intended to dispel criticism over his Vietnam-era military record, President Bush announced Monday that he will spend the weekend at the Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, TX, to make up his missed National Guard service....
"I had to cancel dozens of appointments with cabinet members, congressional leaders, and foreign dignitaries," Bush said. "All that stuffâs going to have to wait, since this 30-year-old story is apparently a pressing national concern, or something." ....
At a press conference Monday afternoon, a reporter asked White House press secretary Scott McClellan why Bush wasnât making up his time in Alabama, where critics say he failed to report for drills during the entire time he was working on a family friendâs U.S. Senate campaign.
"Well, the president is familiar with the base in Texas, so he chose to do his service there," McClellan said....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 1:42:59 AM ||
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#1
scapple face is much funnier. I bet that bugs the people at the Onion.
#2
Huh? No, it's not...the other parody news sites will occasionally have a good laugh, but most of the stuff is just painfully unfunny. The Onion is consistent year in and year out. Though they are slowly declining.
A Palestinian accused of belonging to a militant Islamic group linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was charged Thursday with perjury for allegedly trying to conceal his activities in recruiting fighters and raising money to support a global jihad, officials said. Adham Amin Hassoun, 40, was charged with making false statements to Homeland Security and FBI agents, obstructing justice and five counts of perjury during his immigration hearing. He was previously charged with possessing a firearm, which is illegal for a nonimmigrant alien. If convicted, Hassoun could face 10 years in prison for the firearm charge and five years on each of the other charges.
Hassoun has been jailed at the Krome Detention Center west of Miami since his arrest by a terrorism task force in June. The computer programmer and father of three has lived in Florida since 1989, when he arrived on a student visa.
According to the indictment, Hassoun gave materially false statements to Homeland Security and FBI agents when they questioned him about his activities in recruiting and funding for jihad activities. He perjured himself when talking about the recruitment, funding and foreign travel of a person for the purpose of fighting a jihad and when asked if he spoke in coded language while discussing jihad activities, according to the U.S. Attorneyâs Office. Hassoun also falsely testified that he did not participate in conversations about killing a woman in Lebanon, according to the indictment..... [more]
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 11:13:15 PM ||
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Edited for length.
The FBI is warning that terrorists could potentially use pens filled with cartridges of poison as weapons, according to an FBI bulletin obtained by Fox News. A pen gun is a small-caliber, single shot weapon that resembles a fountain pen. In its weekly bulletin to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, the FBI said that bullet cavities of pen guns could be filled with poisonous chemicals or biological toxins, including cyanide, mercury, arsenic and ricin. "The FBI possesses no information indicating that chemical pen guns are currently being used or will be used in terrorist operations in the United States; however, law enforcement agencies should remain alert to the potential use of such devices," the FBI said in the notice.
The FBI noted, by way of background, that Indian authorities in December 2003 seized a pen gun during a raid on a suspected Islamic separatistâs home in Kashmir, India. Police also found 25 suspected chemical cartridges. An officer became lightheaded after breaking open a cartridge. However, the chemical agent, if any, has not been identified. "Pen guns are not new weapons; however, if the cartridges found in the Indian seizure were contaminated, that would indicate a new method of operation," the FBI said.
Since early 2001, several incidents involving pen guns have been reported overseas, according to the FBI. To describe a few:
â On June 18, 2003, Saudi Arabian border guards seized 10 pen guns from Yemini nationals.
â In January 2003, French police searching locations used by an arrested French Algerian baggage handler found a number of pen guns.
The bureau points out that pen guns can be easily concealed to evade detection at security checkpoints. "Except for its heavier weight, which is evident only when held, a pen gun closely resembles a standard fountain pen. There are no outward markings to indicate the pen is a firearm," the FBI said. "Furthermore, one type of pen gun has a tiny ink reservoir within the tip, so it will write if the operative is challenged. In a standard X-ray device, an unloaded pen gun may appear as a normal pen." As a big old gun nut I would normally say "How cool! How KGB!" But under these circumstances I would advise Rumsfeld not to borrow any fountain pens for a while....
#1
Not particularly cool. In the Philippines these pen guns have been made, generally as novelties, for at least 30 years. Sometimes street toughs used them, or tried to. I used to have one. Its just two brass tubes that screw together. One is the barrel. Unscrew them and you can insert a .22. There is a spring and striker in the other tube. The whole is machined to the shape of a pen.
The police generally classified them as "paltiks" - homemade guns.
#2
A one shot weapon is really best for asassinations rather than hijacking. Adding the ricin angle in is good to add a terror twist among regular Americans.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/04/2004 17:57 Comments ||
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The U.S. Army intends to court-martial a sergeant accused of tossing grenades into fellow service membersâ tents while stationed in Kuwait. The attack killed two officers. The court-martial, expected to take place this summer, could result in the death penalty for Sgt. Hasan Akbar, 32. Akbar faces two counts of premeditated murder and three counts of attempted murder for the attack on 101st Airborne Division (search) soldiers at Camp Pennsylvania in Kuwait on March 23, 2003, during the early days of the Iraq war. Sounds like a firing squad offense to me.
In addition to the two officers killed, 14 people were injured. Prosecutors have alleged that Akbar stole seven grenades from a Humvee he was guarding, then walked to the brigade operations area an hour later to attack the officers. An attorney for Akbar said last year that no eyewitnesses placed the soldier at the scene and that other soldiers were too quick to assume that he committed the crime because he is Muslim. The race card. (Yes I know islam is not a race - I just hope the military court doesnât buy this âraceâ and âprofilingâ crap).
The soldiers killed were Army Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert, 27, of Easton, Pa., and Air Force Maj. Gregory Stone, 40, of Boise, Idaho. To be sentenced to death, Akbar would need to first be convicted by a unanimous verdict of the jury, then sentenced to death by a similar unanimous vote after a separate sentencing phase. The sentence would then be reviewed by an Army appeals court, a general military appeals court and, ultimately, the president before it would be carried out, said Fort Bragg spokesman Lt. Col. Billy Buckner.
Akbarâs case was transferred to Fort Bragg from Fort Campbell, Ky., because most of the 101st has been in Iraq and cannot handle the case. Fort Bragg is home to the 18th Airborne Corps headquarters, which oversees the 101st and other divisions. No date has been set for the court-martial. Akbar is being held at a military prison at Fort Knox, Ky., where an arraignment is to be held next week, said Lt. Col. Jon Guden, a lawyer with the 18th Airborne Corps. Akbar is represented by two military attorneys and one civilian lawyer. He is expected to be moved to a North Carolina military prison once pretrial hearings begin at Fort Bragg, Guden said. Akbar is allowed to receive a jury trial by at least 12 soldiers, with at least four of them enlisted, as is the defendant.
#1
funny that only the other day me and a mate were discussing this bastard and what happened to him and now i know. hope he does get the death penalty
#2
..Always find it interesting that when a court-martial story appears, the media mentions the part about the defendant (if enlisted) is entitled to have a certain number of enlisted on the jury.
It may have just been USAF urban legend, but I was always told that if it ever happens, DON'T ask for the EMs. They would invariably be E8s and E9s, who would probably vote to have you flayed alive, whereas officers seem to be a bit more lenient. Not that this would apply in this case - Akbar deserves a firing squad. He wanted martydom for his faith, let's give it to him.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/04/2004 13:43 Comments ||
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#3
"just hope the military court doesnât buy this âraceâ and âprofilingâ crap"
Not in a Military Court. Sgt Akbar was absent from a post and there were missing hand grenades from a vehicle he was guarding. Additionally his weapon had been fired hard to blame race on that! I bet he gets off on some psycho plea. If not BURN BABY BURN!
#4
If he get's off on the murder charges the prosecutors may refile charges of unauthorized destruction of govt property. You can rarely outflank that one if they really want you.
My vote is for a cigarrette and a blindfold - Bastard!
#5
My vote is for a cigarrette and a blindfold - Bastard!
I guess I'm just the mean, vindictive sort. I can't see how a firing squad would be appropriate. We need to give this piece of unexpunged fecal matter a last meal of expired K-rats, lock him in a concrete room without windows, and explode a couple of hand grenades in the room. Leave him there for a couple of days, then see how he is.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/04/2004 14:45 Comments ||
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#6
O.P. Only after covering him with a thick coat if pig fat.......
#9
The slimy little Cock-Sucker-Head will probably get life @ FL and spend the rest of his days making Dry-Sweep out of granite boulders. I remember when that shit happened, there was a lot of speculation on if he was going to make it out of Kuwait in one piece. The opening rounds had already been fired, thus putting him under a little different article under the uniform code of military justice. I would have gladly filled him up with a load of MP5 goodness, as would have all of my team mates.
Five men were convicted of federal charges for their role in a multi-state ring trafficking in untaxed cigarettes. U.S. Attorney Michael Battle says the men were found guilty Wednesday after a three-and-a-half week trial before Chief District Judge Richard Arcara in Buffalo and five days of jury deliberations. Convicted were 54-year-old Mohamed Abuhamra of Lackawanna; 27-year-old Aref Ahmed of Niagara Falls; 52-year-old Rmzy Abdullah of Buffalo; 31-year-old Nagib Aziz of Cheektowaga; and 36-year-old Azzeaz Saleh of Dearborn, Michigan. Well, well, well. Another group of turbans from New York and Michigan. Must have been profiled.
They were found guilty of money laundering and trafficking in untaxed cigarettes. They could face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, a fine of at least $500,000 or both. The men were accused in a massive scheme that used an Indian reservation smoke shop to put millions of dollars of untaxed cigarettes for sale on the black market in Michigan and New York. Canât short the government on their tax revenue, they get real upset about that.
Prosecutors say Ahmed provided about $14,000 to five of the so-called Lackawanna Six so they could travel to Afghanistan and train at an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp. Any plan to charge him with funding terrorists? Hello?
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 11:27:25 AM ||
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This ties in with Tipper's post the other day about a truce in the war on drugs to help us with the war on terror. Any excessive tax on a high demand item leads to black marketing. The high producer surpluses from black marketing will be used for criminal or terrorist activities. I know that there is a lot of opposition to legalizing "hard" drugs, but can't we at least stop the stupidity with regard to punitive tobacco taxes?
#2
but can't we at least stop the stupidity with regard to punitive tobacco taxes?
What, and give up all that money? It's easier for a crack head to give up his dope than for a politician to give up tax money. That's why even if they legalize drugs, you'll still have drug smugglers. All the proposals for legalizing drugs call for taxing them to provide for drug treatment and anti-drug education. Just like the tobacco settlement was and like the proposed "fat tax" on fast food to fight obesity. It's all about the money. That's why there are still moonshiners, people don't want to pay the alcohol tax.
Oh, and if you think any drug company is going to want to jump into the market to sell legalized drugs, just think about all the lawsuits they'd face for selling a real addictive drug. Look what's happening to tobacco companies. Would you want that kind of headache?
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 12:23 Comments ||
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it's still stupid policy that's hurting us all around.
If we did away with all the "stupid policy that's hurting us", we would need to fire half the federal government - they wouldn't have anything to do. It's a nice thougth, but remember the truism: "There's nothing more permanent than a 'temporary' government agency". Add to that Jefferson's comment that government, by human nature, was a beast whose only goal was to grow, and you know how difficult it is to "control" government growth. That's what revolutions are for - to reduce the size of bloated government. It's the only known, effective process.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/04/2004 15:46 Comments ||
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OP, I've often thought the same thing. Another example: I've been told that due to improvements in building construction and household appliance design, we need significantly fewer fire fighters than we did 50 years ago. (Note to fire fighters and relatives thereof: you're great people and I appreciate what you do. Please don't take this personally.) But if you were to publish that in Newsweek for example, you'd be pilloried. It's not open for discussion. You're right. It will take a revolutionary event on the order of the Civil War or the Great Depression before we can start even talking about these things.
#7
Reform is needed across the board - including tort law which makes Steve's observation true.
It looks like we are due for a rethink across that board. What works and what doesn't in our little experiment. Everything should be in, nothing left out. I agree with 11A5S and OP wholeheartedly - I figure that if we ever actually do this, there will be another Civil War. Sometimes we need to clean house - and I think it has come in some quarters - and is not far off in others. The Internet can make this possible for individuals to participate (not just the elected reps who sometimes "forget" from whom their power is derived) - where it hasn't been prior. Interesting times are afoot and even more are approaching - at an ever-increasing pace.
Two defendants admitted their roles Wednesday in a plot to sell Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the Taliban and al-Qaida. The pair admitted they planned to sell 5 tons of hashish and a half-ton of Pakistani heroin in exchange for cash and four shoulder-fired Stinger missiles, which they intended to sell to the Taliban. Such missiles can be used to shoot down airplanes, including commercial jets. In a plea bargain, Ilyas Ali, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in India, and Muhamed Abid Afridi of Pakistan pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to distribute heroin and hashish, according to the U.S. Attorney's office The case against a third defendant, Syed Mustajab Shah of Pakistan, is pending. Both defendants who pleaded guilty Wednesday knew that the Taliban and al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, were "virtually synonymous," prosecutor Michael Skerlos said. The men are to be sentenced in federal court June 29. The plea agreement recommends 5-year prison terms for both.
I'd recommend a blindfold and a last cigarette, myself...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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5-year prison terms
Any more than that would be harsh, especially for Ali, who is a US citizen.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 0:46 Comments ||
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5-year prison terms
Then they will be taken out and shot. Right?
Posted by: ed ||
03/04/2004 15:40 Comments ||
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I'm kind of shocked by the light sentence myself. Still, there could of been problems of proof or the Defendants provided valuable counter-terrorism information.
There's more to this story, me thinks. Or at least I hope so.
One of Malaysiaâs most wanted Jemaah Islamiah (JI) leaders, Amran @ [aka?] Henry Mansor, has been arrested in Solo, Indonesia, while operating a burger stall near his hideout.
"Yar! Yez want two jihadiburgers an' a banana shake? Yez want fries widdat? Yar!"
An Indonesian JI suspect is said to have led police to Amranâs hideout on Feb 26. Indonesian authorities say Amran, 40, is among several Malaysians involved in the bombing of the JW Marriot Hotel in Jakarta on July 5 last year. âAmran was linked to the preparation of explosives,â Indonesian police spokesman Brig-Gen Sunarko Danu Ardanto said. The other two Malaysians still on the run are explosives expert Dr Azahari Husin and new JI commander Nordin Mohd Top.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/04/2004 3:35:25 AM ||
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I guess the Paks tribunes " Burger Osama " wasn't an exagerration after-all.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/04/2004 6:25 Comments ||
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that one shack of death down with abunch more to a go on the war on meat. this is good arrest and some cow will be happy now.
POLICE said that they have arrested two men allegedly behind a 2002 bombing in the southern Philippines that killed a town mayor and 16 others. Senior Supt. Romeo Rufino, police chief of South Cotabato province, said Abdulrahman Bedes Binago, 41, and Akmad Daril, 39, were arrested Tuesday at a shopping mall.
"... and Binago was his name-oh!"
The two men, wanted for the December 2002 bombing in Datu Piang town, were carrying unlicensed firearms at the time, and have been charged with illegal possession of firearms and violation of a weapons ban ahead of the May 10 presidential polls. Rufino said the suspects admitted to being members of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front but denied involvement in the blast.
"Nope. Wudn't me."
He said police seized documents from the suspects that would establish their links to Jemaah Islamiyah. He did not elaborate. MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu confirmed Binago is a field commander with the group but denied he was linked to any terrorists.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/04/2004 1:18:35 AM ||
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's prime minister on Wednesday called an early national election that will pit the long-ruling secular coalition government against a fundamentalist Islamic opposition. The opposition vowed to wage its campaign on the prime minister's handling of a nuclear trafficking scandal. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi will almost certainly extend his coalition's 50-year grip on power. But he wants his own mandate as Malaysia's first new leader in a generation and to reverse gains that the party's biggest rival, the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party, made at the last election in 1999. The election comes as the government grapples with allegations that a Malaysian company owned by the prime minister's son played a key role in a nuclear black market, led the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, to traffic nuclear technology and know-how to Libya, Iran and North Korea.
All in the family, eh?
A police probe cleared the company of knowingly making nuclear components. Abdullah, whose government keeps tight control of the domestic media, has sought to shut down debate on the issue. His campaign themes instead have been his promises to curb corruption and scale down the claimed excesses from the era of his predecessor, Mahathir Mohamad.
Except when it comes to family. Man's got to be loyal to his kin, ya know.
The Islamic opposition said Wednesday it would try to expose the contradiction between the treatment of Abdullah's son and the anti-corruption campaign - as well as the detention without trial of some 70 terror suspects over the past three years. "The government has been quick to put away people on mere allegations they were involved in militant activities, yet nothing is done when evidence is produced against Abdullah's own son," Kamaruddin Jaafar, a senior member of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, told The Associated Press.
Don't you hate it when an Islamist is right?
Abdullah's United Malays National Organization, which has supplied every prime minister since Malaysia's independence from Britain in 1957, leads a 14-party ruling coalition that holds 152 of the 193 seats in the current Parliament. The government's five-year term does not expire until November, but early polls have been expected since Mahathir left. Both government and opposition officials said they expect the election will be held on March 20-21. Moderate but with strong Islamic credentials, Abdullah is viewed as better suited than Mahathir to check the influence of the Pan-Malaysia Islamic Party, which wants to make Malaysia a theocracy and advocates a Taliban-style criminal code.
One wants jihad, the other sells nuke parts. Is there a third party?
Abdullah will likely try to exploit fear of the Islamic party's hardline rhetoric and revelations since that extremists linked to al-Qaida and the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group operate in Malaysia.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2004 00:02 ||
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An Indonesian court has jailed two men for two years for bombing a Jakarta discotheque and a hotel almost two years ago, a report said Wednesday. Samsuddin and Lulu Rosidin admitted planting the bomb in the parking lot of Eksotik discotheque in June 2002, a judge at Central Jakarta district court was quoted by Media Indonesia newspaper as saying Tuesday. The disco blast injured two people. The two also admitted placing homemade bombs at Hotel Jayakarta and the Sarinah shopping center in Jakarta. The blast at the hotel caused no injuries and the device at the shopping mall did not explode. Last month the same court jugged another suspect in the attacks, Bambang Irsyadi, for one year. No details were given of the motive for the attacks.
A disco... People dancing... Having fun... Let me think...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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How come Bambang got only one year and Bamsuddin and Lulu got two?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 1:25 Comments ||
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One year? That's pathetic for someone who could potentially kill many people.
With the disappearance of the last vestiges of hope for democratic transformation within the existing political system, the Iranian opposition to clerical dictatorship is closing ranks and converging on a common agenda for the future of the country. At the beginning of Mohammad Khatamiâs presidency, even many of those Iranians who were sympathetic to the Islamic Revolution privately felt reform was the regimeâs last chance. They argued that either Khatami would succeed in transforming the religious state into a democracy, or his presidency would be remembered as the final nail in the coffin of the Islamic republic. Unsurprisingly, a term and a half into his presidential mandate, Khatami is looking increasingly like an undertaker. His public credibility has all but vanished and the political movement that became synonymous with his name lies in tatters.
For instance, one leading Iranian dissident, Hashim Aghageri, has reacted to the Guardian Councilâs massive disqualification of reformist candidates by declaring that Iranâs reform movement is finished. In an open letter published by ISNA, the Iranian news agency, this history professor â a reformist himself â said that hopes for mending the system from within are over, and advises Iranians to oppose the regime through passive resistance.
Iranian activists from all over the political spectrum are uniting over the issue of passive resistance and other methods of civil disobedience. A book published two years ago, entitled Winds of Change, has helped to inspire the movement: The author is Reza Pahlavi, son of the late shah of Iran, who is leading a campaign to overthrow the mullahsâ dictatorship from his home in exile in the U.S. Arguing that violence breeds more violence, he has been insisting on a peaceful plan of bringing down the regime through political non-participation. He has also proposed a democratic referendum on the future of the country as the only way out of the present political quagmire.
Many of the reformist intellectuals who once vehemently supported Khatami and his effort to change the republic from within now have also come to see such a referendum as the only viable option. One of these people is the prolific satirist Ebrahim Nabavi. Reflecting on the legacy of the reformist movement in a recently published article, this hugely popular writer says: "What we can all do at this moment is to make up for our past mistakes. We have no choice but to carefully navigate our countryâs vessel through its surrounding stormy waters and towards the free and democratic world. The reformist movement at this point should concentrate on forcing the hardliners to accept a national referendum on the future of the country."
What Nabavi means by "forcing the hardliners" is to persuade them to see that a quiet departure is their only route to self-preservation and the most generous deal they can expect from the nation. Twenty-five years of mismanagement and impetuous policies in the name of revolutionary Islam has brought the country to the verge of collapse. Iranians are left unprotected not only against man-made and natural calamities, but also against a government that has consistently assaulted their human rights and freedoms. How a government with such a disastrous record has been able to survive for so long has mystified even those Iranians with long political experience. Fereydoun Hoveyda, Iranâs ambassador to the U.N. during the time of the shah, blames the British, French, and Germans for propping up the Islamic republic, thus preventing its downfall.
In an article published on February 13, 2004, he asked "how a group of incompetent and often corrupt lower ranking clerics" who have brought nothing but misery and bankruptcy to our nation have been able to survive except with the backing of those powerful European governments in whose economic benefit it is to keep them in power."
East Europe shook off the commies at the precise moment when Splotch-Head refused to use the Soviet Army to back up the thugs, at which point the citizens were able to ask the question they'd been wanting to ask: "You know, you guys are kinda stoopid. Who put you in charge?"
Whether or not one agrees with this theory, it is true that the Islamic republic has succeeded in defrauding (or as Hoveyda argues, bribing) key European countries â and even elements within the Democratic party â by creating the impression that the mullahs are interested in democratic reform. One should keep in mind that a dictator like the Ayatollah Khomeini, who thought nothing of ordering the mass execution of hundreds of his opponents, also found it expedient to call himself a democrat. Many Iranian activists who had a soft spot for Khomeiniâs revolution turned a blind eye on profound and irreconcilable defects of the system. They waited patiently, hoping that one day a democratic state would emerge.
One of these activists who supported the 1979 Revolution was Shirin Ebadi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Faced with the mass disqualification of candidates, she has declared that she will refuse to vote in an undemocratic election where people are deprived of the right to vote for whomever they wish. The decision of the influential Nobel laureate to stay away from the polls is bound to give a moral boost to the advocates of political non-participation and civil disobedience.
Ironically, the reform movement, which was an ineffective force in its prime, is showing signs of vitality on its deathbed. Disgruntled candidates have not only boycotted the polls, but have also broken a taboo by openly criticizing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei â Iranâs supreme leader â as duplicitous. The recognition that the Islamic republic is the common enemy of freedom and democracy has induced the countryâs political activists â monarchists as well as republicans â to form a united front against dictatorship.
â Reza Bayegan is an Iranian-born commentator currently living in France.
Posted by: tipper ||
03/04/2004 9:28:02 AM ||
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But wait! Won't Kerry's policy of engagement and dialogue solve everything?
Iranâs former president and the current chairman of the Expediency Council, Hashemi Rafsanjani, on Tuesday condemned the deadly explosions in the Iraqi cities of Karbala and Kazimayn and the Pakistani city of Quetta, stressing that these crimes once again demonstrated the anti-human and bloodthirsty nature of the enemies of Islam to the world. Following these explosions, Rafsanjani urged Iraqi Muslims including Sunnis and Shiites to shun differences and instead close ranks against the enemies.
I wonder if he's referring to the Wahhabis or to us? Whaddya think?
Rafsanjani sent condolences to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution (Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei), the Iraqi and Iranian nations and other Islamic states over these inhuman crimes. The attacks struck as Shiites from Iraq -- as well as pilgrims from Iran and other Shiite communities -- traveled to both cities to mark the 10th day of the month of Muharram. Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's top Shiite cleric, reportedly issued a statement from Najaf calling for unity and calm, but rebuked the United States for failing to bring security to Iraq.
We're not the ones with the turbans, though, are we?
Iraq has begun three days of mourning after a series of coordinated bomb attacks in Baghdad, Karbala and Kazimayn killed scores of people. The Al-Qaeda operatives have been blamed for Tuesday's simultaneous attacks. The attacks came as thousands of worshippers jammed the streets to mark the most important holy day on the Shiite Muslim calendar.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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but rebuked the United States for failing to bring security to Iraq
Ayatolla Ali al-Sistani is a turd.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 1:09 Comments ||
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Mike, not to be critical, but you left out duplicitious, gutless, and totally insane. He is a Holy Mullahfuckah, after all. As Allan is my witness. ;->
#3
Maybe the Mullahs should start becoming worried that, with a few more stunts like this one, the Iraqi Muslims including Sunnis and Shiites, just might not be as stupid as they hope, and will shun differences to close ranks against their real enemies. People are stupid - but the Iraqi's aren't this stupid and freedom is a bright beacon.
#4
Oh cmon, if theres a crimewave in your neighborhood, somebodys gonna complain about the police, right? They may be incorrect, but it doesnt make them duplicitous, gutless, or totally insance, let alone a turd. Sistani is playing politics, at a time when his constituency is angry BOTH at the USA and the Wahabis. His rebuke sounds mild, and may lay the groundwork for support for tougher measures.
Would we rather he kept silent, and allowed Al-sadr to gain??
Once again - 1991 is remembered by the Shiites, as it apparently isnt remembered here. Its not handwringing but realism to acknowledge that they dont quite trust us because of that.
... Less than two hours after the attacks in Iraq, at least three attackers in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta opened fire and hurled grenades at a procession of Shiite worshippers, then blew themselves up as troops moved in. Two attackers died and the other was in custody in critical condition. At least 43 people were killed, including the attackers....
Daud Badini, a leading suspect in a July 2003 attack that killed 50 Shiite worshippers in Quetta, was a brother-in-law of Ramzi Yousef, who is serving a life term in the United States for the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Badini remains at large, but four other suspects from the outlawed Pakistani Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi have been jailed for 2003 killings in Quetta.
Allama Mahdi Najfi, the chief Shiite Muslim cleric in Quetta, blamed pro-Taliban and al-Qaida militants within Pakistanâs main Sunni extremist organizations - Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi - for Tuesdayâs attack.
"We know that pro-Taliban and al-Qaida people were involved in previous terrorist attacks against our people," he told AP. "We are certain that the same people did it today." ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 11:21:19 PM ||
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U.S. forces searching for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan will soon implement high-tech surveillance tactics in the region, enabling them to monitor the area 24 hours a day, seven days a week, CNN has learned. Itâs believed that the constant surveillance of the border region and the "squeeze play" by U.S. and Pakistani forces surrounding the mountainous frontier will present the best chance ever to net the worldâs most-wanted terrorist, who has eluded capture since U.S. troops launched a search for him in late 2001.
Among the devices that will be in place within days are U-2 spy planes flying at 70,000 feet, taking pictures, using radar and intercepting communications. Unmanned Predator drones, flying closer at 25,000 feet, are equipped with cameras that can spot vehicles and people and special radar that can operate through clouds. Some of the Predators may also carry Hellfire missiles. Ground sensors may also be placed along mountain passes to listen for vehicles. Data from the planes and sensors will be sent via satellite to analysts for quick action. The U.S. military has bought up satellite transmission capacity in the region, to ensure it can respond quickly.
But none of the measures are being acknowledged officially. "Of course youâve heard and seen in the press that Osama bin Laden is surrounded, we have him cornered and we know where he is, etc., etc. And of course, we donât know that," said Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, in an interview with PBSâ Jim Lehrer. . . . But, he said, "I think that we will make it very painful for al Qaeda between now and the end of the year." Happy hunting, boys. Iâd like to see OBLâs head mounted over the fireplace in the White House--that would make a good campaign ad for GWB.
#1
Of course now we're kinda busy in Iraq to secure the oil for Halliburton--so the war on terror is on the back burner while we outsource jobs and bankrupt the Treasury to downsize government
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
03/04/2004 23:58 Comments ||
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Ouch! This is just a taste of the future battlefield, unstoppable. This spring will be a milestone in war and I hope peace will be made.
But wow, in the future one day a million mass-produce predators filtering out the enemy, all by touch-command! Crazy!
#3
"Of course youâve heard and seen in the press that Osama bin Laden is surrounded, we have him cornered and we know where he is, etc., etc. And of course, we donât know that," said Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, in an interview with PBSâ Jim Lehrer. . . . But, he said, "I think that we will make it very painful for al Qaeda between now and the end of the year."
Hmmm...that is the best denial to date - though it still is a bitty wobbly.
Don't know what, General?
You know, "that".
Well I suppose it all depends on what the meaning of that is, doesn't it?
Libya has completed the destruction of 3,300 non-operational chemical warheads under international supervision, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) announced on Thursday. The exercise took place between last Friday and this Wednesday, said the OPCW, based in The Hague. Libya decided in January to adhere to the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention, the treaty overseen by the OPCW, after announcing in December that it would renounce the development of weapons of mass destruction. Last month Tripoli sent the OPCW a provisional inventory of its chemical weapons stock, and plans to send a full on Friday. The Chemical Weapons Convention calls for the destruction of all such weapons as well as the capacity for developing them.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 22:40 ||
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This is how a disarming country behaves -- destroying the stuff with everyone watching.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/04/2004 23:50 Comments ||
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Yup--because otherwise Condi and Co would lie and invent something--and we'd be invading Libya next
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
03/05/2004 0:07 Comments ||
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The mother of Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, suspected of links to Al Qaeda and of masterminding the massive suicide bombings in Iraq this week, has died at her home in Jordan, a daughter said on Thursday. âMy mother passed away on Sunday and has been buried. God has called her back to Him,â Zarqawiâs sister said.
He wants to have a little talk with her about Sonny...
The woman, who would not give her name, defended her brother against US accusations that he orchestrated a series of bombings in Iraqâs holy city of Karbala and the capital Baghdad Tuesday that killed at least 170 people. âHe is innocent,â she said. âIt is impossible for him to be linked with attacks that have any religious connotation.â
"Couldn't o' been him! Musta been somebody else..."
After the coordinated attacks, US Central Command chief General John Abizaid said Washington has âclear intelligenceâ tying Zarqawi to the bombings and to the former Iraqi intelligence services. Washington, which also holds Zarqawi to be a top chemical and biological weapons expert for Al Qaeda and leader of an Iraqi affiliate of the terror group, recently doubled to $10 million a bounty posted on him in October.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 22:33 ||
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Wazir tribe elders in South Waziristan have contacted former Afghanistan prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar after Pakistani paramilitaries and troops started search operations in the tribal belt and arrested and killed many tribesmen, sources told Daily Times on Wednesday. âThe tribes have sent a message to Hekmatyar that if things get worse, they would be in a dilemma as to whether to help Pakistani forces or the mujahideen,â sources added. The elders told Hekmatyar that they would support him if search operations continued or allied forces in Afghanistan started operations in the tribal belt, they added.
They said a close aide of Taliban commander Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani delivered the message to Hekmatyar. âHekmatyar was contacted after 13 people were killed by paramilitaries in Waziristan. Four of the deceased were from the Wazir tribe,â they added. Sources also said these tribes always kept their economic interests in mind and supported Pakistan in this regard. âThis is the first time that they (tribes) have sent a message to Hekmatyar indicating their frustration. This side of the Durand Line touches Afghanistanâs Khost province, which used to be Hekmatyarâs stronghold. He can still influence the people of Khost,â sources added.
That's an interesting development. We tend to think of Hek as an Afghan phenomenon, but he's back and forth across the Durrand Line, with support out the Wazir on both sides. It's not only a hideout thing — he's also a player.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 22:28 ||
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In other words, Hek has friends coming out of the Wazir... on both sides!
#2
Hopefully they used one of the sat phones with the Swiss prepaid phone chips when they contacted old Hek.
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/04/2004 23:27 Comments ||
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Hek needs the heat turned up on him, too. Waziristan needs to be neutralized just like we did to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Just like OBL and Biker Omar, Hek is unfinished business that needs closure. The more closure we get, the greater our credibility. Who cares if we are loved? The Waziris need to realize that sheltering these clowns is going to cost them dearly, and could threaten their very way of life if they continue harboring terrorists.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/04/2004 23:36 Comments ||
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Pakistan and Nigeria on Thursday denied that Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Gen Aziz Khan this week offered to help Nigeria acquire nuclear power.
"No, no! Certainly not!"
The need for a denial arose after Gen Aziz met with Nigerian Defence Minister Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in Abuja and a Nigerian Defence Ministry statement claimed that the Pakistani general had offered nuclear power to Nigeria. The Nigerian Defence Ministry statement said, âGen Aziz told Mr Kwankwoso that his country is working out the dynamics of how it can assist Nigeriaâs armed forces to strengthen its military capability and to acquire nuclear power.â
They need nuclear weapons for... ummm... peacekeeping operations in Liberia.
When Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri was asked about the report at a joint press conference he was addressing with British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, he said, âThis is rubbish and we deny it.â
"Lies! All lies!"
Mr Kasuri asked, âHow could a Pakistan Army general make such an offer at this time?â
"Is he outta his mind?"
âWe are denying it. This is baseless. He said nothing of this kind,â military spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan said.
"What he actually said was... ummm... something else."
Nigerian Defence Ministry spokesman Bellu Nwachukwu said the earlier claim that Pakistanâs top general had offered to help Nigeria acquire nuclear power was a mistake and it should be ignored. âThe reference to nuclear power in the statement earlier issued was a mistake, a typographical error,â he said, confirming the reaction of the Pakistani authorities to the issue.
"Yes, that's it! You know how those stenographers are!"
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 22:12 ||
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A typographical error.....That's rich! It is just like Iran. Why in hell does an oil rich country with 34 billion barrels of reserve like Nigeria, and 100 billion barrels like Iran need nuclear power? Especially Nigeria. They have no enemies that require Nukabilityâ¢. Sounds like the Paks just wanted to create some foreign exchange so they would have a favorable trade balance. The dems will never mention it, but liberating Iraq and bagging Sammy was the best thing that could happen to the world, or we would have nukes in Libya, NORK, Iran, and other places. Or one gone off in our own back yard.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/04/2004 23:25 Comments ||
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An unknown attacker hurled a handmade bomb at the car of Awami League legislator Talukder Abdul Khaleque at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University Hospital last night, causing damage to his car. The lawmaker for Bagerhat-3 constituency went to the hospital to see Jami, the ailing son of slain AL leader Monzurul Imam at 8:15pm. While Khaleque was visiting Jami, the bomb exploded, breaking the front left door glass. The attack coincided with the killing of vice-president of Jamaat-e-Islami's Rampal unit Moulana Gazi Abu Bakar Siddiqui in Bagerhat in a drive-by attack earlier on the day. Confirming the attack on Khaleque's vehicle, Ramna police said nobody was injured in the attack. Police could not give the motive for the attack immediately.
Either it's Dire Revenge™, or somebody's trying to set them at each other's throats...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 21:53 ||
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Unidentified assailants bombed to death the vice-president of Jamaat-e-Islami Rampal unit in Bagerhat in a drive-by attack that also killed his rickshaw-van-puller early yesterday, prompting police to arrest a local ruling BNP leader and an activist. Moulana Gazi Abu Bakar Siddiqui, nayeb-e-amir of the ruling coalition partner's local chapter, came under attack on Khulna-Mongla Highway near his home village of Solakurha in the outlaw violence-scarred southwest region, dubbed as the valley of death.
Oooh! Mom! Take me there!
Deputy Inspector General Abdul Aziz Sarker closed Officer-in-Charge Badruddoza of Rampal Police Station to Bagerhat Police Lines, whom local Jamaat leaders blamed for his role in the murder at a protest rally at 11:00am yesterday. Witnesses said 35-year-old Sultan Mallik of the three-wheeler was pedalling the Jamaat leader back home from Shanatonia Madrassa, where he attended a waz mahfil (religious congregation) as the chief guest. The killers on a microbus threw three bombs at the van, killing Abu Bakar instantly and smashing the head of Sultan who died on his way to hospital. The demonstrators, protesting the first-ever murder of a Jamaat leader in a long line of killings over the years in the region, alleged the police officer threatened him several times with dire consequences for his protest against his extortion from fish farmers and links to outlaws. Police arrested Rampal BNP leader Mohammad Ali and activist Gazi Humayun linking them to the killing of the 60-year-old and quoted the worker as confessing to his role in the murder that he said was planned by Ali. According to law enforcers, the killing stemmed from Abu Bakar's protest against the alleged grabbing of a shrimp enclosure and land by some BNP leaders including Ali. The BNP leaders, refuting the allegation, said Abu Bakar verbally abused the OC at a meeting of Bagerhat law and order committee last month with Whip Ashraf Hossain in the chair. A senior member of Bagerhat district unit of Majlis-e-Sura, the highest decision-making body of Jamaat, Abu Bakar lost out to main opposition Awami League lawmaker Talukder Abdul Khaleque in the last parliamentary elections.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 21:46 ||
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.... A government delegation that traveled to Herat last week said at least 52 women in the province have killed themselves in recent months through self-immolation. A Herat regional hospital last year recorded 160 cases of attempted suicide among girls and women between the ages of 12 and 50. But Virdee says the real number is probably much higher. "The official statistics which the hospitals have are for the women who have actually come to the hospital, who can receive treatment. There are many other cases of women burning themselves in the villages, in the city, in some of the provinces. But these are women we canât give any estimates on, partly because they never reach the hospital or because they die in their villages or city. These are the cases that never come to the attention of any public authorities," Virdee said. ...
Afghan officials say poverty, forced marriages, and lack of access to education are the main reasons for suicide among women in Herat. Domestic violence is also widespread. "A lot of women are saying that their husbands donât allow them to go and visit their families. There are severe restrictions on their movement, and also there is violence towards them -- both physical and psychological -- and intimidation and isolation," Virdee said.
Ahmad Bassir is a Herat-based correspondent for Radio Free Afghanistan. He says women see no difference between their lives now and under the Taliban, and that desperation drives them to attempt suicide. "They say we were hoping that after the fall of Taliban and after the transitional authority took power, the situation would improve for women, and there would be fewer restrictions. But we see that there have been no changes, and women are using this very violent act [of self-immolation] to show their protest. Most of these girls are literate, they are knowledgeable, and several of them are students," Bassir said. Bassir adds that the despair is especially strong among women who once lived as refugees in neighboring Iran, where women enjoy far greater rights. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 6:49:34 PM ||
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actually, it's just the women (who've worn it all their life) throwing off the Burqa without sunscreen!
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 20:30 Comments ||
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Unfortunately, at this time, Herat under Khan is under strong Iranian influence.
Posted by: ed ||
03/05/2004 0:35 Comments ||
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Al-Qaeda statement, quoted in Jihad Unspun
Today a great misfortune has happened and is part of the US conspiracy to ignite the fire of sedition between the Muslims in Iraq. The US forces today perpetrated a massacre to kill the innocent Shias in their polytheist city of Karbala and in Baghdad. The Americans are trying to attribute these actions to the Mujahideen of Al-Qaida who have inflicted pain and suffering on the United States in Iraq and elsewhere. The United States wants to distort the image of the Mujahideen. And we are today telling all Muslims that we disassociate ourselves from this action and disassociate ourselves from what the Shia Muslims worship other than Allan Allah.
So that our aims may be clear to everyone, we strike the American Crusaders and their allies and we strike the Iraqi puppet police, the tail of America and the stick that America uses to strike the Mujahideen in Iraq. We hit Americaâs stooges in the infidel council, the so-called Governing Council and those who collaborate with them, both Sunnis and Shiâis. Oh, heroic people of Iraq. The Mujahideen are a people who love Allan Allah and His Messenger and only do what pleases Allan Allah, and they do not slay such life as Allan Allah has made sacred, except for just cause. This includes the heretic Shia groups that do not insult the companions of Muhammad, may the peace and blessings of Allan Allah be upon him, and do not contravene the Quran and do not tamper with Allanâs Allahâs Shariâah... Beware!! The United States wants you to help it against the Mujahideen and the Mujahideen want you to turn the tables against it and to declare war on the United States. Come on, rise with your brother Mujahideen against the idol of the age, the United States...
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 6:39:37 PM ||
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Ohm heroic people of Iraq.
Looks like they're trying to talk directly to the resistance.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/04/2004 21:48 Comments ||
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I am suprised this hasn't generated a storm of comments. Every single person detained at Gitmo is a Sunni. Sunnis by and large fear and loathe the Shiias. This statement brings a whole knew meaning to the term schitzophrenic. It alternates between kill all the unbelievers rhetoric, and we want to be your friends and by the way you need to convert to the Sunni faith first.
This is going bring Shia recruits by the busload (sarcasm off)
#3
phil_b - from what I saw in Saudi, the Sunni are the more mercenary, pragmatice, and organized - thus, far more dangerous. The Shi'a are considered more, uh, wild-eyed and fanatical -- though this was not evidenced in Aramco where they were a cowed minority and very lucky to have jobs. If the Shi'a ever got organized - and I guess this would take some kind of universally accepted ranking of the Mullahfuckahs which has zero likelihood of happening - they'd create more chaos. The Sunnis are the prime source of grief. The Shi'a are just typically ungrateful back-stabbing shitheads... in a mob. :-)
A Jordanian woman knocked her husband out by hurling a tear gas canister at him during a domestic fight, Al Rai daily newspaper said Thursday. The husband started shedding tears after he was hit and then blacked out. He was treated by medics. you probly cry to you know your friend find out you got ko.
Police were investigating the incident in the outskirts of the capital Amman, particularly the source of the tear gas canister. The paper did not say what the couple had been arguing about. anyone know what happen to muslim wifes that beat they husband.
#2
Will whoever's playing the muck4doo POS please drop the game? It got old about two minutes after it started. Seriously, the world has enough barely literate twits without someone having to invent another one.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/04/2004 14:47 Comments ||
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Aw... RC... M4D is an RB asset. Altho I'd love to know who he is.
#4
I remrmber reading about a Turkish woman who killed her husband in the 60s, I don't remember if it was because he beated her or cheated on her but it was not about money or other sordid motive. She fled Turkey because the courts EVER sentenced muderous wives to death whatever the motive. Even out of Turkey she had to hide because Turk citizens felt "honor bound" to kill her.
This was fourty years ago so things could have changed in Turkey but Arabs lag Turks by over a hundred years.
Pretty neat. We had the info Saturday.
Egypt acknowledged for the first time Thursday that it is holding Mohammed al-Zawahri, the brother of Al Qaedaâs No. 2 man. Al-Zawahri had been believed to be in Egyptian police custody for at least three years, but the government never acknowledged it. He was sentenced to death in absentia for his role in Islamic Jihad attacks inside Egypt. Interior Minister Habib el-Adly said al-Zawahri would stand trial soon but did not say when. Ayman al-Zawahri, the top aide to Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden, allegedly once led the military wing of Egyptâs Jihad group. He also was sentenced to death in absentia in 1999.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 11:32:08 AM ||
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oops
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 12:27 Comments ||
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U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police arrested 14 Iraqis, including a militant suspected of leading a terrorist cell made up of followers of the extremist Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, the military said Thursday. Sami Ahmed, a former Iraqi intelligence service officer under Saddam Hussein, was captured late Wednesday, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle of the Tikrit-based 4th Infantry Division. She said Ahmed, along with 13 other Iraqis, were arrested near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, in a hotbed of anti-coalition activity within the Sunni Triangle. Wahhabism is the strict, fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam from which al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden draws spiritual direction. But, I thought Saddamâs people didnât have any contacts with fundamentalist groups?
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 10:14:56 AM ||
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A Jordanian extremist suspected of bloody suicide attacks in Iraq was killed some time ago in U.S. bombing and a letter outlining plans for fomenting sectarian war is a forgery, a statement allegedly from an insurgent group west of the capital said. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniyah mountains of northern Iraq "during the American bombing there," according to a statement circulated in Fallujah this week and signed by the "Leadership of the Allahu Akbar Mujahedeen." "He couldnât have done it, heâs dead. Honest!"
There was no way to verify the authenticity of the statement, one of many leaflets put out by a variety of groups taking part in the anti-U.S. resistance. Sounds like heâs feeling a lot of heat
The statement did not say when al-Zarqawi was supposedly killed, but U.S. jets bombed strongholds of the extremist Ansar al-Islam in the north last April as Saddam Husseinâs regime was collapsing. It said al-Zarqawi was unable to escape the bombing because of his artificial leg. I knew he had been wounded in the leg and had to recover in a Iraqi hospital, didnât know he had lost it.
The statement said the "fabricated al-Zarqawi memo" has been used by the U.S.-run coalition "to back up their theory of a civil war" in Iraq. The more they deny it, the more it must be true
"The truth is, al-Qaida is not present in Iraq," the Mujahedeen statement said. Though many Arabs entered the country to fight U.S. troops, only a small number remain, the group said. Killed that many of them, did we?
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 9:52:12 AM ||
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More info showing he's not dead: A senior U.S. official said the claim al-Zarqawi is dead was false and that the United States had information showing the Jordanian militant was alive well after the bombing campaign. In al-Zarqawi's hometown in Jordan, an associate of his family told The Associated Press that according to the family, al-Zarqawi had been in contact with his mother until four months ago, when the communication ended after police came to question the mother. In a telephone call Thursday to the family home, a woman answered and said, "He's not in contact with us. We don't know anything about him. Don't call again." She then hung up.
Before the Iraq conflict began last March, Secretary of State Colin Powell said al-Zarqawi received hospital treatment in Baghdad after fleeing Afghanistan. U.S. intelligence sources said he apparently was fitted with an artificial leg. He was believed to have taken refuge in northern Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion, and then possibly moved on to Iran. It was widely believed that he then was still coordinating closely with Ansar al-Islam in Kurdish areas.
The owner of a car repair shop in Zarqa said he was told by al-Zarqawi's nephew that al-Zarqawi had been in contact with his mother, Umm Sayel. In their last communication four months ago, al-Zarqawi called his mother at a Jordanian hospital where she was undergoing surgery, the garage owner told AP on condition of anonymity. The phone was tapped and police soon arrive to question Umm Sayel, and since then al-Zarqawi has not restored contact, the man said he was told by the nephew. He would not give the nephew's name or disclose his whereabouts. The AP repeatedly has tried to speak with al-Zarqawi's family.
Someone is trying to throw us off the track by saying he's dead. He must be feeeling us breathing down his neck. Excellent!
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 10:26 Comments ||
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maybe that $10 million reward is turning up the heat?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 10:38 Comments ||
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More likely it's the dead bodies from Tuesday that's turning up the heat. He's pissed everyone off with that little stunt. Big mistake on Zarqawi's part for messing with a religious holiday.
Posted by: Charles ||
03/04/2004 10:48 Comments ||
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Zarqawi just lost lots of places to hide out, and friends to hide him. More people will come forward to rat on him after his last show. You do not blow up your friends and get away with it. In a terrible way, this last deed may be the incident that starts the tide moving big against the terrorists.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/04/2004 11:23 Comments ||
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How has Zarqawi blown up his friends? Certainly the Iraqi Shia are not friends of Zarqawi, and never have been.
Perhaps you mean hes lost friends among the Iranian rulers? We've debated the possible motives of the Iranian rulers, even before this incident.
My take is that the Iranian rulers are ruthless SOB's, and are deathly afraid of a working democracy in Iraq, ESPECIALLY one dominated by Shiites with a strong position for the Shiite clergy like Sistani, and they'll cooperate with AQ and Zarqawi to stop that, even at the cost of IRAQI shia blood. In considerable quantities, apparently.
One hopes that we are quietly doing psyops in Iran to help the local population make the connection between the actions of their hardline rulers and the bloodshed among their fellow shias in Iraq.
African health campaigners have accused western countries of deliberately ignoring an effective weapon against malaria. They say the chemical DDT could help fight the disease, which kills about a million people each year - 90% of them in Africa. But whatâs a million black people when we can save the lives of a few birds?
Sprayed annually onto the inside walls of houses, DDT is the main method of malaria control for countries such as South Africa, Madagascar, Ethiopia and Swaziland. Used in this way, in small amounts under strict control, there is no conclusive scientific evidence that it damages human health or the environment. Whatâs evidence got to do with it, the enviromental movement sez DDT is evil.
A number of other African nations including Uganda and Kenya are considering reintroducing DDT. But according to Richard Tren, Executive Director of the pressure group Africa Fighting Malaria, the western donors on which they depend will not help them. "The reason that DDTâs not used in the US and Europe is because they donât have malaria," he says. "They did use DDT, and they got rid of malaria. Not a single donor agency will support the use of DDT or any other insecticide in indoor residual spraying." An investigation by the BBCâs Earth Files produced evidence to support this claim. The Swedish aid agency Sida will not allow its funds to be used for buying DDT. The UKâs Department for International Development funds 13 malaria-only projects in eight African countries, none of which uses DDT. The programme also found that some leading researchers believe the United Nations agency Roll Back Malaria is ignoring the potential of indoor spraying, which the researchers say has produced better results than treated bednets. These agencies all deny having blanket policies preventing involvement with DDT programmes. But activists maintain that western concerns over the very real environmental danger from widespread DDT use in agriculture is denying poorer African nations a choice in how they fight malaria. Donât they realize that the enviromentalists know whatâs best for them? They should be quiet and listen to their betters.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 9:10:50 AM ||
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DDT on lead paint chips is considered a delicacy IIRC
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 9:17 Comments ||
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The title should read 'The Left stands accused'.
Grotesque as it sounds I would personally deliver the bodies of dead african babies to these self proclaimed caring people. Frankly they disgust me.
#3
There's an idiot letter to the editor in today's Gazette, here in Colorado Springs that the reason DDT isn't used is because the mosquitos are "resistant" to it. The person that wrote the letter is a PhD - in European history. I'm sure he's so knowledgable...
DDT works. It still works for those few countries that manufacture and use it, despite the "worldwide" ban. It's just another example of how we sometimes kill people by trying to "do good to others". The whole thing's a farce, and those responsible for imposing this policy on others are guilty of killing a million people every year, period.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/04/2004 10:58 Comments ||
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Yes DDT works and yes overkill is poisonous. You folks are all forgetting the "if one is good two is better and then three is outstanding" mentality that used to apply to using pesticides. There is a position between digging up Rachel Carson to drive a stake through her heart and declaring mosquitoes to be protected species.
#5
ddt is evil. why dont just send them some deep woods off and skeeto nets. the can maybe get malaria vacsine to. skeeto eating fish also very helpful. you dont need kill envirement for solution.
#6
"why dont just send them some deep woods off ..."
Muck! You almost had a complete sentence (except for lack of a question mark at the end).... but then you had to go back to the typos and bad grammar. Keep working on it!
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 13:05 Comments ||
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Old Patriot
"It's just another example of how we sometimes kill people by trying to "do good to others".
No, it is not trying to do good but having some momma boys a la Hanoi Fonda, piss industry and feel good.
BTW my English is limited how do you call those people who were born rich, drive a Porsche at eighteen (bought with daddy's money), act like spoiled brats, are part of the jet set and never worked in their life? (Hanoi Fonda is prime example). There is an expression in French "fils a papa" (son of a daddy) that I am presently translating as momma boy but I am not sure it is
the right one.
#10
Is the entire continent of Africa in some sort of perpetual childhood? If DDT (or something similar, if there are patent problems) is so marvelous, then why don't Africans manufacture it and use it in Africa? Why is Daddy always getting blamed for Africa's boo-boos?
Posted by: SLO Jim ||
03/04/2004 13:30 Comments ||
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The Rhodesians had the matter in hand (pre-2nd- Chimurenga-of-Bob) without DDT, after it was learnt that it made the shells of bird's eggs weak and was decimating flocks. Wise decision.
Left/Right question? I would much prefer to see an African Fish Eagle do what it does than 100 African people/Let the mossies get'em, and get'em quick.
#12
JFM - where I come from, we call them "Kennedy classmates".
Mucky, there is no guaranteed malaria virus. Quinine is used to treat it, and the raw ingredients come from the bark of trees that grow in Africa. But once you've got it, it bothers you the rest of your life (my FIL got it in India, where malaria is no longer a major threat, but where DDT is still manufactured and used). The reason Africa doesn't use huge quantities of other pesticides or ingredients to fight malaria is simply cost - DDT is still ten times cheaper to manufacture, store, and use than ANY other agent.
Africa does produce DDT, but not in the quantity needed. "World Opinion" keeps fighting them. As for fish eagles versus people, I'm sure the "people" involved won't sympathize. The limited use of DDT would do wonders, without causing massive destruction of the environment. It takes TONS of that stuff to cause problems. Unfortunately, we used to use it that way.
I can remember having the trucks come by, spraying DDT on the ditches of Louisiana and Panama to kill mosquito larvae before they could become full-grown mosquitos. I think the proper use of DDT, carefully and controlled, could to far more good than harm. I think our demanding that other nations NOT use it at all is high-handed, stupid, and arrogant.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/04/2004 14:39 Comments ||
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I think some of the folks in Africa are missing the big picture. The hard core environmentalists expect them to die. They believe humans are a plague on Gaia.
#14
I remember when I travelled Sicily our guide told us that for centuries villages had to be built on hills because malaria made the flat lands virtually unhabitable. Then there was WWII, and the American Army drained the marshes and liberally sprayed DDT. No more malaria and no more Germans.
#16
JFM - Your English vocabulary is more than sufficient to come up with a name for such people.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/04/2004 16:27 Comments ||
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#17
Is no one going to thank Bill and Melinda Gates for the hundreds of millions of dollars that they are putting into medical research for the benefit of African? Oh, I forgot, they are evil, monopolistic capitalists from the imperialist heartland.
#18
closet n-c - You're dead right. Last number I heard was that Gates was giving away almost $2M / day - but not to LLL causes or half-assed programs (must drive the NGO's mad)... The philosphy applied is, believe it or not folks, simple common sense: drill wells, instead of trucking in water; teach fishing, instead of giving them fish dinners. And no big staff of sycophants wearing $2K suits. Check it out for yourself. Here's an interesting place with links to others. The man's got it right, too.
[rant]
This is my world - software / puters, so I have some rather hard-won opinions here. 30 years as a programmer has taught me that there is a lot of stupidity and myth crap in the game - and ABMers (Anyone But Microsoft) are the LLL ideologues of my working world. 10% of what they say & espouse makes some sense... but that leaves 90% being wild-eyed socialistic utopian moron dogma. And they are at least as screechy as the goofiest Deaniac or other variety of LLL twit. Blinded by their zeal.
Someday, when the ABM crowd finally gets a clue from an exceptionally large and painful ClueBat, Gates will be credited for doing more actual good than all the scummy NGO's ever did - with other people's money. I use the best tool I can find (and who gives a rat's ass where it comes from?) - and often it comes from the evil M$. Life's really a bitch for the ideologically (though illogical) blind. ABMers: it really must suck to be you.
[/rant]
#19
JFM - Silver spoon assholes would work nicely (as in : born with a silver spoon in their mouth)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 19:34 Comments ||
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.com - my only argument is MS's predatory actions to crush competition and their clumsy attempts at Activation Codes (well, they haven't been making great advances lately either). If they would allow competition to survive, it would be in MS's interests as well. Bill Gates does donate well, but also to causes I don't agree with. I emailed him about this, haven't heard back.....
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 19:40 Comments ||
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Frank G - Lol! So Billy stiffed you on a reply? Sorry, bro, heh. Prolly bizzy counting his money, to use one of the fav diatribes against him. Crushing competition is capitalism. He's a really good capitalist. People who produce nothing, such as Buffett and Soros, are good capitalists, too. Yet, even though they make nothing of value, their activities are seldom vilified. I wonder why... Buying, or not, is your voice & vote - don't buy his stuff if you don't like it. Back to competition, when there is a competing product that is better, what would you do different than M$? Just wondering! I don't love Gates or M$. I don't hate Gates or M$. I just choose s/w tools based on merit. ;-)
JPost - Reg Reqâd. Donât want to get my hopes up, but.....
Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafatâs wish to be buried on the Temple Mount is stirring an emotional debate among Palestinians. Leaflets distributed in Jerusalem on Wednesday by the Muslim Liberation Party called for thwarting Arafatâs plan I think it would be a bad mistake - better to scatter him at sea, and donât wait for him to be dead, either
Sources close to Arafat confirmed that the PA chairman has asked his supporters in Jerusalem to check the possibility of burying him near the Aksa Mosque. Not feeling well, Yasshole?
Jerusalem police recently detained three Arab residents of Jerusalem on suspicion they were putting pressure on the Muslim Wakf (religious trust) to agree to allocate a plot on the Temple Mount for the burial of Arafat. The three were served with orders banning them from entering the Temple Mount for three months. Palestinians said some of Jerusalemâs prominent Arab families are opposed to Arafat being buried on the Temple Mount. The last Palestinian to be buried on the Temple Mount was Faisal Husseini, the former PLO representative in Jerusalem, who died of a heart attack in 2001. Burn your trash, donât bury it, in the 3rd or 43rd or whatever number holiest place in Islam...
Husseini was buried at the site despite fierce opposition from some Palestinians, who said the privilege should be reserved only to devout Muslim figures. The Liberation Party, a tiny Muslim faction with a strong presence on the Temple Mount, spearheaded the opposition, but Husseiniâs aides managed to enforce their will. Yasserâs got a tougher row to hoe, with his declining influence and corruption scandals. Once he dies, itâll be a free-for-all, and nobody will have the time to quit killing in order to push for this decrepit POS to be buried anywhere. We arenât talking Ghandi....
A leaflet distributed in Jerusalem by the party said its members are also strongly opposed to plans to bury Arafat on the Temple Mount. Referring to Arafat, the leaflet said: "We warn this wicked infidel, who married a Christian infidel, against contemplating desecrating the holy Aksa Mosque." Oooooh, Suhaâs getting drug into this, LOL!
Earlier this year, members of the Liberation Party prevented Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher from praying at al-Aksa. They threw shoes at him and shouted slogans accusing him and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak of betraying the Arabs and Muslims.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 8:58:05 AM ||
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...the privilege should be reserved only to devout Muslim figures...
In lieu of the required "holiness points" there must be SOME way to grease the path to paradise?
4th Infantry Division soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment conducted a raid Tuesday southwest of Abu Sayda. The raid was to capture an individual responsible for sniper attacks against coalition forces. The soldiers captured the individual along with two others, but discovered no weapons.
The Iraqi Police discovered an IED south of Baqubah Tuesday. The IED was a series of four partially buried 152 mm artillery rounds and was wired in a "daisy chain" for remote detonation. The police secured the area, and Iraqi Explosive Ordinance Detachment with Task Force Ironhorse soldiers from 558th Engineer Group disarmed the IED and removed it for later destruction.
Task Force Ironhorse aviators observed two individuals attempting to loot a weapons storage site Tuesday. The individuals were contained by the flight of OH-58D Kiowa Warriors until a combat patrol from 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment captured them. While on the scene, the soldiers discovered a cache of expended mortar rounds, 50 high-explosive mortar rounds and 21 mortar fuses. The cache was destroyed in place and the captured individuals were turned over to the Iraqi police.
A 4th Infantry Division, 4th Engineer Battalion combat patrol discovered a weapons cache west of Abu Shakur Tuesday. The soldiers secured 2,000 14.5 mm antiaircraft rounds and transported them to a secure location where explosive-ordnance-disposal personnel destroyed them.
4th Infantry Division aviators and soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team worked together using aircraft and a tactical unmanned aerial vehicle to observe six individuals attempting to emplace IEDs near Zaghiriyah Tuesday. An AH-64 Apache engaged the would-be attackers. Two individuals fled toward the town after the Apache broke contact. The TUAV provided surveillance over the site and observed one of the individuals who appeared to be wounded being helped into a vehicle by two others. Later the TUAV showed several individuals attempting to recover the remains of casualties from the site. An AC-130 gunship fired one round into the area and the individuals fled back to the town in vehicles. The TUAVs trailed the two vehicles to houses and soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment conducted a hasty raid on the residences. They captured five men, three of whom were wounded. One of the more seriously wounded was transported to the Baqubah hospital for treatment and is under guard by the Iraqi police. The others were taken to a nearby forward operating base for medical treatment and questioning.
Pakistan yesterday offered to share military assistance, including "nuclear power" with Nigeria, in defiance of President George Bushâs new counter-proliferation initiative.
Perv's asking for it, isn't he?
The offer was announced by the Nigerian defence ministry in a statement saying that General Muhammad Aziz Khan, chairman of Pakistanâs joint chiefs of staff, had made the offer to the Nigerian defence minister, Rabiu Kwankwaso, during a visit to the west African stateâs capital, Abuja. "Speaking at the opening of the discussions, the Pakistani chairman of joint chiefs of staff ... said that his country is working out the dynamics of how they can assist Nigeriaâs armed forces to strengthen its military capability and to acquire nuclear power," the Nigerian press release said. Neither the Pakistani nor the Nigerian governments clarified what Gen Khan had in mind. Nigeria is currently lead by a Christian, so I donât know how big a role Islamic solidarity would play in the assistance given, itâs probably more cash related, although I donât know how a country like Nigeria can afford to pay much of anything.
They've got oil money to piss away on prestige projects, of course.
A week after AQ Khanâs confession, President Bush launched a counter-proliferation initiative based on international cooperation to curb transfers of nuclear technology and materials. Gen Khanâs offer to Nigeria appeared to be in blatant defiance of that initiative. The general made clear that the snub was intentional, declaring: "Pakistan had to take its destiny into its own hands to become a nuclear state because of the regular threats posed by hostile neighbours with special reference to the Kashmir conflict," according to the press release. General Khan is the highest ranked Islamist in the Pakistani Army, being the 2nd most important General and of Kashmiri descent. He and a couple other Islamists brought Musharaff to power in the â99 coup, and is due to retire at the end of the year, which may be why Musharaf will be stepping down as Army Chief at the end of this year too.
US officials are also baffled at Nigeriaâs intentions, nearly five years after the country restored civilian rule, and at a time when it is under no threat from its neighbours. Two months ago, the Nigerian vice presidentâs office announced that it had struck an agreement with North Korea to gain access to Pyongyangâs missile technology. The offer was subsequently denied by North Korean officials and played down by a spokeswoman to Nigeriaâs president, Olusegun Obasanjo.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/04/2004 4:25:53 AM ||
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My initial reaction to this was wondering if Nigeria had any natural uranium deposits. According to the CIA world factbook, Nigeria does not, but it's northern neighbor Niger does. It would be interesting to study this angle some more, but I don't know enough off hand about the geography there to indicate if there would possibly be deposits in the north, close to Niger.
#2
I'd stop looking at the military potential uses, and rather look at who holds the command of the Nigerian military and just as importantly look at the black market in that area. This country has a major rep in the world as a smugglers haven for both drugs and weapons. I suspect this would definitely be a conduit for smuggling these sorts of weapons to terror groups.
#3
Isn't it funny how they are still in a pissing contest over Kashmir when the world is falling apart around them? As one who didn't know the difference between Iraq and Iran before 911, I would have thought that India and Pakistan would have come together to help us fight the WOT - as nobody but a few religious freaks can want the Wahhabi's to win this war.
Way to go ME countries - you can choose the Western culture, a life as close to Utopia that has ever existed - or you can have religious police caning people for smiling or listening to music in public...and 50 percent of you are women - do you really want your status to be far, far, lower than an American dog? Apparently - this is a tough choice in the middle east. The people(TM) better get their act together and decide if it's more important for them to hate Americans and Jews than it is to avoid an outright war. If Syria, Pakistan, Iran and Turkey(YES TURKEY) join to wage war, there will be no guarantees for them how this will turn out. I'm guessing that Russia will eventually line up on our side - out of naked self-interest.
#4
I would have thought that India and Pakistan would have come together to help us fight the WOT - as nobody but a few religious freaks can want the Wahhabi's to win this war.
Sadly, Pakistan -- "the land of the pure" -- was founded and is largely run by those very same religious freaks.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/04/2004 8:00 Comments ||
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#5
Way to go ME countries - you can choose the Western culture, a life as close to Utopia that has ever existed - or you can have religious police caning people for smiling or listening to music in public...
The religous police only bother the common people, the Generals, Mullahs and Princes are free to do whatever they like; which is why Islamism is encouraged by the ruling elites of many Muslim nations. There isn't a better system than theocracy when you want to maintain your corrupt rule and expand it on a global basis.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/04/2004 8:04 Comments ||
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#6
Denial in 3..2..1.. Pakistan Thursday rejected Nigerian claims that its armed forces chief offered this week to help the African state acquire nuclear power. 'We are denying it. This is baseless. He said nothing of this kind,' military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan said. Nigeria's defence ministry has accused the chairman of Pakistan's joint chiefs of staff General Muhammad Aziz Khan of offering to 'strengthen (Nigeria's) military capability and acquire nuclear power.' In a statement it said Khan made the offer with Nigeria's Defence Minister Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso in Abuja.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 9:18 Comments ||
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#7
I'm kinda hoping the Pakis become a glowing sheet of glass sooner rather than later. They, along with their Soddy overlords, seem bent on widening the bloody frontier of Islam at an ever-increasing place. Time for some targetted assassinations of holy men and military trolls?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 9:22 Comments ||
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#8
Denial Part 2: Nigeria said today an earlier claim that Pakistan's top general had offered to help Nigeria acquire nuclear power was a mistake and it should be ignored. "The reference to nuclear power in the statement earlier issued was a mistake, a typographical error," defence ministry spokesman Bellu Nwachukwu, told AFP, confirming the reaction of the Pakistani authorities to the issue.
"It should have read that we were going to help them acquire new Clear Powder Sure deodorant. They sweat a lot in Nigeria."
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 9:35 Comments ||
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I am Rabiu Kwankwoso, a minister in the Government of Nigeria. I have 100,000 tons of uranium ore in a Swiss bank account that I am unable to access due to tragic circumstances. If you provide me with 1000 P-2 gas centrifuges I will transfer the Uranium ore to your account. I will then withdraw 70,000 tons of the ore, leaving you with 30,000 tons in payment for your generosity and consideration.
PakiWakiLand, the suicidal dupe army of the Saoodis, is steadily creeping toward the center ring of the radar. All of the arm-waving (read: stories about all of the total fucking morons they have offered or given nuke tech to) makes it unavoidable: They must either figure it out for themselves and commit suicide, or be given their last cigarette. Disarm or die. Nothing redeeming so kill it.
said that his country is working out the dynamics of how they can assist Nigeriaâs armed forces to strengthen its military capability and to acquire nuclear power
The odds of that are 1 in 26^162 or 1.68x10^229 power. Too bad that is way way larger than the number of subatomic particles in the universe.
Posted by: ed ||
03/04/2004 19:14 Comments ||
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Edited for the info on Ayatollah as-Sarkhi (nice name)
Many posters were up of the previously unknown Ayatollah Seyid Mahmud al-Hasani as-Sarkhi, as well as papers posted with his verdicts on subjects like the French ban on headscarves. Sheikh Haidar al-Abedi, as-Sarkhiâs representative in Karbala, had immense prayer blisters on his forehead from his turba, a stone placed on the ground and on which the forehead rests when the devout bow in prayer. "We reject the occupation and in the future we will resist like the Palestinians," he said. He explained that the Ayatollah as-Sarkhi was a former student of Muhammad Sadiq Sadr and he now had 25,000 to 30,000 followers in Iraq. As-Sarkhi had declared himself an ayatollah, the highest level of Shiâite religious leadership, like a Jedi knight, in 2001, and had also announced that he was the wali of the faithful, a position first held in Iran by Khomeini, who applied the "Walayat al-Faqih", or rule by jurisprudence, for the first time. As-Sarkhi believed he was the wali for the entire world, above Iranâs current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Al-Abedi explained that his leader had boycotted Friday sermons and remained at home since the American occupation. He showed the door and walls at the entrance to the office. They were riddled with bullets from an American and Polish attack that he claimed killed six of his students and guards.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/04/2004 3:40:53 AM ||
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Ayatollah Wali of the Faithful Wali of the Entire World Seyid Mahmud al-Hasani as-Sarkhi is a turd.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 4:02 Comments ||
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US and British special forces hunting Osama bin Laden have narrowed down the location of his hiding place along the Afghan-Pakistan border by identifying unique vegetation seen in his last propaganda video, according to intelligence sources. The mountain shrubs in the background of the tape grow only along a swathe of high-altitude territory stretching from Khost in eastern Afghanistan southwards to Angoorada in Waziristan. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 1:57:34 AM ||
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Seems like good science to me, remember the older video of Binny sitting in front of a cave. A geologist identified the possible location by looking at the rock formations in the background. Of course, the video in question here was most likely shot while Binny was still alive.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 8:43 Comments ||
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#3
Hell, an accountant brought down Capone, why not a geologist and botonist for OBL. Let's hope the next expert they have to call in is a goologist, to ID the Binny puddle
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - An Israeli helicopter strike killed three Hamas militants riding in a car Wednesday, the second such targeted attack in five days and a possible sign that Israel is stepping up its campaign against militants ahead of a planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Two missiles slammed into the car, triggering a fire that bystanders tried to put out with sand and their jackets. One man, using a blanket, lifted a charred body out of the car and heaved it onto a stretcher.
"Hey! Save that for the car swarm!"
The Israeli military said one of those killed, 24-year-old Tarad Jamal, was behind several roadside bombings and rocket attacks on Israelis. The other two were identified as Ibrahim Deri, 34, and Amar Hassan, 21. On its Web site, Hamas indicated that the three were about to carry out an attack. "The three martyrs were on a holy mission when the Zionist U.S.-made helicopters fired two missiles toward their vehicle," the statement said.
Zionist U.S.-made helicopters: when you care enough to send the very best.
Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin said the Islamic militant group would keep up attacks against Israel. "The Palestinian people will continue their resistance despite this aggression," Yassin said.
"We shall have Dire Revenge!â¢
Early Thursday, Awani Kaloub, a well-known member of the Popular Resistance Committee - an umbrella organization of militant groups responsible for several successful attacks on Israeli tanks - was killed in an explosion in his house in Rafah in southern Gaza. Palestinian security officials said he was apparently preparing a bomb that exploded prematurely. Seven of his relatives in the house were injured, they said.
"No ... no ... no, ma'am, Mutual of Gaza does not cover medical expenses for relatives injured in a work accident ... no, ... no, not that either."
Wednesday's strike, near the Jewish settlement of Netzarim, came just five days after Israeli helicopters fired missiles at a car in the same area, killing three militants of the Islamic Jihad group.
#3
Time for an old-fashioned Soviet-style artillery barrage. Walk it from one end of Gaza to the other, then back again. Give no notice, tell no one, just start pounding. When you're done, go in and pave the rubble.
These people do not want to live in peace. If they didn't have the Jews to fight, they'd fight among themselves (and probably will anyway, once Arafart dies). They waste space and breathe oxygen that could be better used by a herd of emus - which would actually be worth something.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/04/2004 16:04 Comments ||
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Fierce fighting has erupted in southern Sudan between the Sudan Peopleâs Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and Ugandaâs Lordâs Resistance Army (LRA) rebels, a senior SPLA official told IRIN on Wednesday. George Riek Machar, the SPLM/A spokesman in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, said scuffles broke out after the LRA ambushed an SPLM/A position near the front line with Sudanese government forces. "We fought back and chased them out," he told IRIN. "We lost two men when they brought reinforcements for a counterattack, but we have since taken some prisoners." Machar said the LRA had been killing civilians and looting food and cattle in the area. He said pursuit of the group was part of increased SPLM/A pressure on the LRA in the run-up to the expected peace deal with the Sudanese government. "The LRA are killing more people in Sudan than in Uganda. All the displacement near the border is because of them. The SPLM/A would very much like to finish them once and for all," he said, "Once the peace deal is in place, our full attention will turn to the LRA."
That's probably more for Kony to worry about than the Ugandans chasing him...
According to SPLM/A intelligence, the rebels are operating out of Khartoum-government-controlled territory. "The latest group came from Katire in the mountains near Torit. And we have intelligence they are hiding in a place called Gorajabor: this is very far behind enemy lines," said Machar. He said no agreement to cooperate with the Ugandan army had yet been struck. "They only have to call and we would be willing to help them in Sudan," he noted.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/04/2004 1:22:22 AM ||
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Rebel attacks and land mines killed five Russian soldiers in Chechnya over the previous day, an official in the Moscow-backed Chechen administration said Wednesday. Three of the Russian soldiers were killed and another five were wounded as federal outposts came under rebelsâ fire 20 times, the official said on condition of anonymity. Two others were killed and one wounded in two separate land mine explosions, he said.
On Wednesday, the top federal military commander in Chechnya said up to 80 guerrilla units are still operating in Chechnya, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Col-Gen. Valery Baranov also warned of possible attacks on polling stations before or during the presidential elections on March 14, the agency said.
In political developments, Chechnyaâs Kremlin-backed leader Akhmad Kadyrov announced that Chechen Prime Minister Anatoly Popov would be replaced, news agencies reported. Popov was medically evacuated five months ago after what some claim was an attempt to poison him. He has not returned to Chechnya.
"No, and I ain't gonna return to Chechnya! Those people are crazy!"
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/04/2004 1:11:24 AM ||
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The commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region yesterday blamed Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian with ties to al Qaeda, for the suicide attacks Tuesday that blasted crowds of Shiite Muslim worshipers at two shrines in Iraq. Army Gen. John Abizaid, who heads the U.S. Central Command, said terrorist plans for "even greater carnage" were thwarted as a result of raids Monday by U.S. Special Operations forces against "Zarqawi network operatives." The operatives, Abizaid said, had been plotting to set off car bombs in Baghdad and Karbala. He also said that before Tuesdayâs attacks, U.S. authorities had obtained other intelligence warnings of terrorist strikes and had passed the information to Iraqi security forces. But the information, some of which pointed to possible assaults against prominent Shiites, lacked specifics about when, where or how the attacks would occur, Abizaid added. Nonetheless, he said, Iraqi authorities were able on the day of the attacks in Baghdad and Karbala to block another strike intended for a holy site in the southern city of Basra.
Abizaid declined to provide details of the evidence linking Zarqawi to the suicide bombings but said it was convincing. "I personally believe that there is no doubt that Zarqawi is behind this," the four-star general told reporters after an appearance before the House Armed Services Committee. "The people that planned this outrage also planned to blame it on the United States," Abizaid said in testimony. "And there is some indication that they planted leaflets very shortly after the explosions in Baghdad that claimed that the United States had mortared the worshipers."
One development that Abizaid described as particularly disturbing was evidence of cooperation between Zarqawiâs network and remnants of deposed Iraqi president Saddam Husseinâs intelligence force. The two groups, he said, were uniting behind the common aim of attempting to prevent the formation of a moderate Iraqi government. Zarqawi has worked with al Qaeda in the past, intelligence officials have said, but has a network that operates independently of Osama bin Ladenâs organization. Abizaid predicted that sectarian violence in Iraq will escalate as a June 30 deadline approaches for the handover of authority to a transitional Iraqi government. He said "civil war is possible" as a result of missteps by Iraqi political leaders or violence by militants. But he doubted that such a war was probable. "I think there is a much greater chance that Iraq will emerge through this political process as a stable and modern state," he said.
He acknowledged that Iraqâs fledging security services remain among the "weak spots," warning that terrorists are likely to continue to target them. Many policemen, army soldiers and civil defense corps members still suffer from equipment shortages and inadequate training, and efforts to build a chain of command from field units to the ministries of defense and interior are just beginning. Abizaid said addressing these shortcomings remains a high U.S. priority.
Asked about the role Iran is playing in both Iraq and Afghanistan, Abizaid said it had "not actively tried to disrupt" U.S. operations in either country. But he said Iran has "probably turned a blind eye on terrorist groups moving through" its territory and, in so doing, has put its own people at risk. "After all, Zarqawiâs attack on the Shia minority, or the Shia Ashura holiday in Karbala and Baghdad yesterday, should indicate to the Iranians that these people do not share a common cause with them," Abizaid said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/04/2004 1:03:24 AM ||
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The U.S. military had advance warning and launched raids by Special Forces teams to head off Tuesdayâs deadly bombing spree against Shiite Muslim worshipers in Iraq, the top U.S. general for the region revealed Wednesday.
But the intelligence was too vague to enable U.S. troops to stop the terrorists from carrying out their synchronized suicide bombings and mortar attacks on mosques in Baghdad and Karbala that left more than 100 dead and hundreds injured.
"The terrorists have gotten themselves established," said Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command. "They must be defeated."
Abizaid assessed the situation in Iraq in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee. Though he expressed optimism that a stable and peaceful society could emerge from the U.S. occupation, he said it was not a sure thing.
He warned that unless the United States, its allies and Iraqi moderates prevail, Iraq could fall to radicals who could launch "the Talibanization of the Middle East."
Violence has been the main reason civilians have avoided Iraqi duty. Abizaid predicted the violence in Iraq will get worse leading up to the scheduled U.S. handover of political power to the Iraqis June 30. The radicalsâ goal is to prevent the installation of a moderate Iraqi government, he said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair offered a similar assessment Wednesday. "Terrorists literally from every extremist group round the Middle East are pouring into Iraq" to target innocents, Blair said.
Abizaid said Tuesdayâs bombings, the deadliest since Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was captured in December, would have been worse without the pre-emptive raids. The Shiite city of Basra in southern Iraq was also a target, he said, but those attacks did not happen.
The general declined to describe the source of the intelligence but said it was not specific about the attacksâ time, place and method.
He said the terroristsâ plan was to create even greater carnage and blame the United States. Pamphlets prepared by the terrorists claimed the blasts were U.S. mortars. Several additional planned car bombings were thwarted, Abizaid said.
Even with perfect intelligence, a skilled terrorist in an Iraqi city can get "through any type of security cordon," he said.
Abizaid said intelligence established that Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was behind Tuesdayâs bombings. Zarqawi heads a terrorist group that cooperates with al-Qaeda. Abizaid said Zarqawi is also working with former members of Saddamâs intelligence service.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/04/2004 12:57:55 AM ||
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these people need to get their s..tuff together faster.
The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Secretary General and JUI-F Amir Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on Wednesday the alliance was not launching any movement against President Musharraf but their Supreme Council meeting on March 5 would discuss its future strategy.
"The MMA is not launching any movement against Gen Musharraf at the moment. However, the Supreme Council meeting on March 5 will discuss the possibilities of the movement besides the readiness of the alliance and other opposition parties to evolve its future strategy," Fazl told newsmen during the JUI-F Central Shoora meeting at Jamia Madania.
"We have no plans at the moment. But check back with us after the meeting, and we might have a plan to whack Perv then."
Responding to a question, Fazl said: "The MMA has re-established contacts with the ARD and Supreme Council would review the entire situation and take any decision to support any mass movement in this regard." He maintained MMA was in touch with ARD. "The ARD must understand we share the same future. They blame us for supporting Musharraf on 17th Amendment but never realised their reaction to it helped Musharraf even more," he said.
Fazl termed the Quetta carnage on Ashura and similar incidents in Iraq as part of the same conspiracy, adding it was simple to identify the elements trying to create Shia-Sunni strife since Muslims from both sides were unanimously against the US occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and demanding return of its forces.
He expressed grave concern over Quetta firing incident saying the escape of culprits after opening fire under the extreme security measures raised doubts about the loyalty and efficiency of the law-enforcing agencies in Balochistan. He indicated Balochistan police chief earned bad name for lawlessness and terrorism during his posting in Sindh and now such incidents were happening in Balochistan. He demanded high-level inquiry into the incident asserting its report be published at the earliest to identify and punish the criminals. He deplored the inquiry reports of earlier incidents in Balochistan were concealed.
He said MMA supreme council would discuss the events and chalk out the strategy.
He also condemned the government for military operation in Wana and said Musharraf regime was antagonising the patriotic tribal people at the behest of the US. He said NWFP government had offered its services to the federal government to solve the issue of terroristsâ presence in the tribal areas peacefully and Centreâs reply was awaited in this regard. He castigated the rulers for killing civilians in the name of al-Qaeda and Taliban, saying the people of tribal areas were not a product of Taliban or al-Qaeda. He said they were Mujahideen living in the area for two decades and they fought against Soviets on the request of Pakistan government and Army. He said the US would not vacate the bases on Pakistani soil and MMA had already launched protests against that. He said the rulers were committing mistakes after mistakes but not taking any lessons.
Fazl warned secessionists were getting strength due to wrong polices of Musharraf regime. About the demands of new constitution, he said such demands were damaging the democratic fibre.
Regarding the reports of nuclear programme rollback, he said, MMA wanted to maintain national independence and sovereignty at all costs and for that, the unity among opposition parties was vitally important. He said MMA avoided reacting to ARDâs criticism of 17th amendment only to maintain unity.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/04/2004 12:54:36 AM ||
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the people of tribal areas were not a product of Taliban or al-Qaeda
The problem is that the Taliban and al-Qaeda are a product of the people in these tribal areas.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 1:00 Comments ||
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I believe Fazl, the guy once served in Benazir Bhutto's government, when every self-respecting Jihadi was screaming that no mere woman could rule an Islamic country. He is more of a politician than an assasin.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/04/2004 4:33 Comments ||
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Paul - interesting. He sounds like Jessie Jackson...make that Louis F.
Rifle-toting Shiite Muslim militiamen, some in crisp uniforms and others in civilian attire, deployed in force Wednesday around a bomb-scarred shrine in Baghdad, setting up dozens of checkpoints on bustling streets devoid of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police officers.
The militiamen, loyal to various Shiite political parties, joined a contingent of armed guards from the Imam Kadhim mausoleum in asserting control over the neighborhood surrounding the gold-domed shrine, which was attacked by three suicide bombers on Tuesday morning as tens of thousands of Shiites gathered to commemorate a religious holiday.
The attack on the mausoleum and simultaneous blasts in the holy city of Karbala have intensified Shiite demands to retain militias affiliated with political parties and other unofficial armies. Shiite leaders insist their own security forces, not the Iraqi police or American troops, are their best defense against terrorist attacks.
In Washington, the commander of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf blamed Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian allegedly tied to al Qaeda, for the attacks. Army Gen. John Abizaid, who heads U.S. Central Command, said at a congressional hearing that plans for "even greater carnage" were thwarted as a result of raids Monday by U.S. Special Operations forces against "Zarqawi network operatives." The operatives, Abizaid said, had been plotting to set off car bombs in Baghdad and Karbala.
Shiite leaders said Tuesdayâs attacks should force an immediate change in U.S. security policy. "These attacks make it very clear that we need to take a different approach to security," said Adel Abdel-Mehdi, the Supreme Councilâs political director. "We know the security issue better than they know it."
"We donât want the police or the military," said Mohammed Hussein, a burly, gun-wielding member of the Badr Brigades. "We donât trust them. We prefer to handle the security here."
Many angry Shiites blamed Sunni Muslim radicals for the blasts. But Shiite political leaders urged people not to be goaded into a civil war. "This crime in Karbala has nothing to do with the Sunnis," insisted Muhammed Bahr Uloum, a Shiite cleric and the current president of the U.S.-appointed Governing Council. "There is no Sunni who would do that."
Mowaffak Rubaie, another Shiite member of the council, accused former members of Husseinâs Baath Party government and foreign terrorists of perpetrating the attack and said, "Weâre nowhere near a civil war in this country."
Shiite religious leaders, seeking to deflect blame from Sunnis, issued statements faulting U.S. forces for not doing more to combat terrorism. "We lay on the occupying coalition the responsibility of lawlessness throughout Iraq," Grand Ayatollah Bashir Najafi, a top Shiite cleric, said in a decree.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/04/2004 12:52:33 AM ||
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Grand Ayatollah Bashir Najafi is a turd too.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 1:16 Comments ||
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Mike, it's annoying that we have to take the blame but I think the ayatollahs are playing this relatively correctly. We'll see how it works out but this is my take on it.
That don't want to blame the sunnis in order to avoid civil war. They correctly blame the terrorists for the massacre. So far so good. But then they blame the americans for lack of security... but this must be put into context. The shiite mullahs only half control their flocks, if they go to far and look like american lackeys then their flocks will turn to more extremist mullahs. So they were stuck in a situation where they had to refuse american security or risk being called american puppets and losing their power. By calling out america for not providing security on these attacks they have given us a backhanded way to allow us to reenter holy sites and provide the security we want to while making them look good to their followers for standing up to america and getting us to "fold". It's a win-win. They just must be careful not to overdue the anti-america act. Remember it's one thing for people to be yelling at you because you didn't help them enought (the case now). It's quite another for them to call us the enemy (which they are not doing).
The government authorities detained at least 15 tribal leaders in the remote border region near Afghanistan on Wednesday after they failed to honour a government ultimatum to turn over suspected al-Qaeda fugitives, a senior government official said. The Ahmadzai Wazir tribe leaders had promised to help trace foreigners suspected of terrorism but reneged on the deal, said Rahmatullah Wazir, a senior government official in Wana. Local authorities suspect that some members of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe have been sheltering al-Qaeda fugitives. "We have detained these people because they kept promising but did not come with practical help in efforts aimed at arresting some terrorists and their local supporters," Wazir said. The arrests of the men came three days after authorities imposed a fine of Rs 5.4 million on the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe for failing to stop rocket attacks from their land against troops deployed to hunt down suspected terrorists. The tribe has promised to pay the money, but has not yet done so.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
03/04/2004 12:49:04 AM ||
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We have detained these people because they kept promising
as Allan was their witness
The tribe has promised to pay the money
as Allan is their witness
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 1:03 Comments ||
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#2
actually Mike, it's not Allan, it's Allah, and he has a blog....
Today's topic is Thomas Hobbes' "State of Nature" (i.e. nasty, brutish, and short) - Allahpundit sez it's "Palestine"
;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 9:30 Comments ||
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I hope the fruit wasnât soaked in booze like my gram used to do,(or maybe thatâs the secret) via Lucianne:
Claxton fruitcakes have now contributed to world peace, or at least theyâve made Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Bramhall of Spartanburg a popular American in Afghanistan. SNIP (HEY, HOW DO I GET THE PRETTY CORALLY COLOR?
The US commander shared his "Southern delicacy" during teatime with an Afghan general, who devoured it and demanded to know which "secret" bakery in Kabul baked the cakes, because his people had never had such a delicacy. ... Faith called Sandy Sanders, a longtime Civitan, and asked for 5kg of cakes. Then Sanders called to say he had been to the warehouse and could send at least 10kg. "Later, he called and said, `What about 25kg?â" He called again and upped it to 50kg. In the end, Sanders and the Civitans mailed 70kg of fruitcake -- or six cases -- to Bramhall in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Anonymous2U ||
03/04/2004 12:21:00 AM ||
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I have eaten many of the most wonderous looking fruit cakes in my youth. And every one tasted like, like...
#2
Ever had Bread Pudding at Brennan's in New Orleans? Or Baked Alaska at Antoine's? Melike. The truth is they might qualify as decent warmups, but they can't hold a candle...
Yeah, I know the reputation and the jokes, but that just proves how rare is rare... pity the poor souls who've never had the good stuff. Sorry, folks! And no, there's not enough to go around as it is, so don't ask! :-)
#3
Fruitcake is a magnificent foodstuff. As I understand the history, the fruitcake originated as a staple among the Roman Legions capable of sustaining the warriors during long campaigns. It is the perfect backpacking food. Five pounds of fruitcake -- along with tea and a few other food items -- will sustain me for seven days. Whatever odious ingredient made the odd bite of the fruitcake of my youth taste unpleasant -- probably some sort of peel of citrus -- is no longer present.
#4
The last one I got as a Christmas gift made a wonderful doorstop
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 8:08 Comments ||
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#5
Fruitcakeium is one of the densest materials known to man and can be used as a replacement for depleted uranium in anti-tank weapons.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/04/2004 8:27 Comments ||
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#6
The very best fruitcake comes from Claxton, Georgia, just a piece of US 280 east of Vidalia and the War College.
Of course, "best" is a relative term: Fruitcake literally gives me siezures. The muscles in my back start spasming, then jerking my back into a bow, as if I was a flopping fish.
And I still occasionally get the damned stuff as a gift. I will be more than happy to forward it to afghanistan as a good will gesture. Do I use the same shipping company who shipped my uneaten spinach to the starving children in India and Africa?
Funny thing about taste: Py parents-in-law, via The Ambassadors, has hosted two sisters of a friend in Russia, one during the Atlanta Olympic games. They simply would NOT EAT firm, white bananas. The bananas had to be so ripe, they'd bend in half if you held them upright on one end. They'd devour, with delight, bananas that I would have regarded as being long past the "dispose by" date.
Once you think about it, you realize, of course, why that is: It's a loooong way from the Havana Banana trees to Moscow...
#7
It's all a plot. and the Afghan warlords are now eating the entire world supply of fruitcake. There are no factories...no one in America has ever eaten a fruitcake. We accept them as presents..and then give them away next Christmas.
Doesn't the colonel know that at this rate fruitcake will be extinct?
#10
My wife is a secret fruitcake lover. She HAS to have some every Christmas. When she has time, she bakes her own. If she can't, she buys the Claxton brand. It only takes a little bit, and she's the only one here who eats it (I can't - on a zero-sugar diet). Of course, it's impossible to bake a small fruitcake, so when she does make them, we usually put two or three in the freezer for future years. They don't freeze well...
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/04/2004 10:48 Comments ||
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#11
I read all the comments and now I'm HUNGRY.
...waiting for lunch....
Fruitcakes don't freeze well...around here they usually back out of the freezer for a couple of slices so often they never get a chance.
Posted by: john ||
03/04/2004 11:34 Comments ||
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#12
Hell John, you don't need to freeze fruitcake... properly made they have a half-life of 328 years.
#14
Fruitcakes are bloody evil! I hate them with a passion...eew.
Posted by: Andrew Ian Dodge ||
03/04/2004 13:10 Comments ||
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#15
When I saw this headline, I thought it was a proposal to export America's "gay marriage problem."
Posted by: Tibor ||
03/04/2004 16:51 Comments ||
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#16
Claxton fruit cakes are the South's gift to the US--they are abso-lutely the best in the world
Posted by: NotMike Moore ||
03/04/2004 23:53 Comments ||
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#17
'The Afghan Fruitcake Affair' (as this event will surely come to be named), will go down in history as a pivotal event in the 21st century's clash of civilizations. It will certainly provide both the keys to peace and incontrovertible evidence that 'those people over there' really are different and we will never truly understand one another.
Shiite clerics joined Sunni preachers in a march of thousands of mostly black-clad men Wednesday, trying to keep sectarian passions in check after a horrific attack on Shiite pilgrims that raised fears of civil war. U.S. and Iraqi officials disagreed over how many people died in Tuesday's bombings in Baghdad and Karbala - the deadliest here since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi Governing Council said 271 people were killed. U.S. officials put the toll at 117.
"I think this arm goes with this leg."
"Nope, don't think so, they look different to me."
"Fine, keep the count your way, I'll keep it mine."
No group claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attacks. However, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, said Wednesday the United States has evidence that al-Qaida-linked Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was behind the bombings. In what appeared to be a nod to criticism from Iraq's top Shiite cleric, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer said the coalition would help strengthen border security, saying it was "increasingly apparent" that "a large part of terrorism" comes from outside Iraq. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani and other Shiite leaders accused the coalition of failing to provide adequate security for the worshippers and of not doing enough to prevent extremists from crossing Iraq's porous borders. "There are 8,000 border police on duty today and more are on the way," Bremer said. "We are adding hundreds of vehicles and doubling border police staffing in selected areas. The United States has committed $60 million to support border security."
No more flypaper.
In an attempt to play down sectarian divisions, Shiite Muslim clerics and Sunni preachers led thousands in a march from a Shiite suburb in eastern Baghdad to the Kazimiya district where the bombings in the capital took place. "We and our Sunni countrymen are, have been and always will be, brothers," said Shiite preacher Amer al-Hussein, a senior aide to firebrand cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an outspoken opponent of the U.S.-led occupation.
"Only now our Sunni brothers will be the little brothers!"
Members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council also stressed the need for unity between Shiites and Sunnis. "It was a crime directed not only against Shiites, or Islam, but against humanity," said Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a prominent Shiite council member. "Anyone who kills a Sunni is against the spirit of Shiism. And anyone who kills a Shiite is against the spirit of Sunnism," he said. Governing Council members also sought to discourage speculation that the attacks would trigger a wave of reprisal killings that would spiral toward civil war. "We are nowhere near civil war," said Mouwafak al-Rubaie, a Shiite member. "It will never happen in this country."
His lips are peeling.
In Baghdad, the current Governing Council president, Shiite cleric Mohammed Bahr al-Ulloum, and other council members spoke graphically of the devastation of the attacks, apparently hoping to stir revulsion among Iraqis of all factions, ethnic groups and creeds. In the streets of this teeming capital, many Shiites echoed the need for unity. "What happened yesterday is indescribable," Salah Abu Mahdi said as he served Iranian pilgrims at his grocery story in Kazimiya. "We and the Sunnis have always lived in peace."
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2004 00:02 ||
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I can't believe anybody hasn't taken "credit" (yes, you've got credit, very well) for the booming. Hell you did such a super job. C'mon jihadi, take your fifteen minutes of fame.
#2
Al'Qaeda rarely claims responsibility immediately after an attack. They prefer to take their time.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
03/04/2004 8:06 Comments ||
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#3
Overall, it seems that the Iraqis understand that there are foreign enemies trying to goad them into civil war--and they are not falling for it. The terrorism may even have the opposite effect: uniting the Sunnis and Shia against their percieved common enemy. Fingers crossed.
President Bush said Wednesday he will retain U.S. economic penalties against President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and dozens of officials in Mugabe's government. An executive order Bush signed in March 2003 blocked all property and financial holdings in the United States of Mugabe and 76 government officials. It also barred U.S. citizens from having financial dealings with the listed people. The new document Bush signed Wednesday does not name the officials who are the subject of the order. But he used language from the original order in announcing he was keeping it in effect. It again stated that the policies of "certain members of the government of Zimbabwe" are "contributing to the deliberate breakdown in the rule of law in Zimbabwe, to politically motivated violence and intimidation in that country and to political and economic instability in the southern African region." Last month Mugabe pledged to fight what he views as the efforts of Britain and the United States to topple his government.
I'd be happy to see Bob proven right on that one.
Mugabe also signed a decree authorizing detention without bail for up to four weeks for political and economic offenses such as corruption or money laundering.
Wonder if any ZANU boys will be included?
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2004 00:02 ||
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ZANU-PF? Corruption and crime are their bread and butter, and only the opposition goes without food ;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 8:15 Comments ||
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#2
Ack, it's ZANU, not ZAPU. Thanks for the correction, Frank.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2004 11:06 Comments ||
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#3
Like all criminals, they think everybody's doing the same thing they are, and it makes a good excuse to lock up the competition.
#4
I hope we are not trying to topple Bob. That would be a truly senseless act, akin to grabbing a crowbar and chasing after a bolder already rolling down a mountain slope at 20 MPH.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
03/04/2004 11:42 Comments ||
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#5
No Problem, SW - ZAPU is my new acronym for the laser hi-energy weapons ;-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 12:34 Comments ||
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#7
Mugabe also signed a decree authorizing detention without bail for up to four weeks for political and economic offenses such as corruption or money laundering.
Given the current economic disaster Zimbabwe is, corruption charges could be used against anyone trying to survive. No doubt the money laundering is to be used where anyone, particularly the opposition, has money in banks outside the country.
Rage, much of it directed at the United States, reverberated through Iraq Wednesday as citizens mourned victims of massive bomb attacks against Shia Muslim pilgrims. The U.S. military officials put the death toll at 117, but Iraqi officials said up to 271 were killed and nearly 400 wounded. Top U.S. officials who deal with Iraq directed blame at foreign Islamic militants and Gen. John Abizaid, the U.S. military commander for the Middle East, said Washington has evidence the assaults Tuesday were led by a Jordanian, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
That's been my guess from the first...
But in Baghdad and other cities, grandmothers wailing over injured relatives and throngs of young men carrying victims' coffins through the streets condemned the United States for failing to prevent the attacks. "The Americans did it to keep our country unstable so they'll have an excuse to stay in Iraq and steal our oil," said Ahmed Rashid Mussawi, 36, an agricultural engineer. "If they cared about us, why would they leave our border open to let anyone in?" Mussawi spoke outside Baghdad's Kadhimiya mosque, where three suicide bombers blew themselves up among crowds massed for the final day of Ashura, Islam's most mournful Shia holiday. At the same time, several blasts ripped through Ashura ceremonies 60 miles south in Karbala. Near Mussawi, throngs of mourners carrying the coffin of a 6-year-old boy who died in the Kadhimiya blasts chanted, "There is no God but God, and America is against God!"
It wasn't Americans who boomed themselves...
Iraqi police have arrested 15 suspects, five of whom speak Farsi, the language of Iran, U.S. officials said.
I'd call that very significant. I hope they're beating questioning them thoroughly at this very moment...
In Washington, Abizaid told the House Armed Services Committee the "level of organization and the desire to cause casualties among innocent worshippers is a clear hallmark of the Zarqawi network, and we have intelligence that ties Zarqawi to this attack." U.S. and Iraqi officials fear al-Qaida or other militants want to spark civil war between Iraq's Shia majority and the small but powerful Sunni minority, which was favored by ousted leader Saddam Hussein.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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Man these guys (and girls) are motivated. 110% is all that Mo asks. So very sad.
"Abu"
"Yes Iman"
"Blow shit out of the population so as to bring them to heel".
#2
grandmothers wailing over injured relatives and throngs of young men carrying victims' coffins through the streets condemned the United States for failing to prevent the attacks.
Perhaps all those grandmothers should tell they're children too report insurgents instead of aiding them? Either way, I don't believe many reports with " Wailing about US, all our fault".
Posted by: Charles ||
03/04/2004 6:41 Comments ||
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#3
This sounds like your typical propaganda sound-bite. Wonder if they had to ask six people before they found one who spewed what they were looking for.
And this makes no sense - "If they cared about us, "why would they leave our border open to let anyone in?" Uh...so do you want us to leave? Or do you want us to seal your borders?
#5
Antiwar. I'm glad your antiwar. Could you give us what you would have done regarding Iraq. Start with the cease-fire agreement after the Gulf War, oil for food, no fly zones, weopons inspectors being checked. Or how about a manifesto of sorts about being antiwar.
Indian troops shot dead on Monday a commander of Kashmir's dominant group, officials said. India's Border Security Force (BSF) shot dead Abdul Rashid, a senior leader of Hizbul Mujahideen in a clash that erupted after security forces raided a freedom fighters hideout in occupied Kashmir's central Budgam district, they said. "Rashid was serving as battalion commander for Hizbul," BSF spokesman Tirtha Acharya said, accusing him of involvement in many killings and "motivating and even forcibly recruiting the youth for militancy." There was no immediate comment on Rashid's death from Hizb, the major Kashmiri group fighting New Delhi's rule.
It's almost like they're being set up...
Meanwhile, suspected freedom fighters shot dead a man and his son in a village in southern Pulwama district late on Sunday. Sixteen people were wounded in occupied Kashmir on Monday when suspected Kashmiri fighters hurled a grenade at a security patrol and missed their target, police said. The grenade exploded near the main women's hospital in Srinagar, hitting bystanders and causing panic.
I think this is errant grenade number 17,248...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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Since these grenade throwers are Moslems, I assume they were throwing grenades at the women's hospital.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 0:49 Comments ||
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Since these grenade throwers are Moslems, I assume they were throwing grenades at the women's hospital.
And that they throw like four year olds.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2004 1:24 Comments ||
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Indian Air Force is negotiating with French, Russian and US bidders for the purchase of 125 frontline multi-role fighters to partially replace its fleet of about 300 MiG-21 aircraft.
"In the interim, we're using '53 Studebakers. They're really much safer, even when we fly them..."
Major French aircraft manufacturer Dassault is currently the frontrunner with its offer of upgraded Mirage 2000-5 aircraft, while Lockheed-Martin is offering technology transfer of its F-16 Fighting Falcon. Two major Russian fighter companies Mikoyan-Gureyvich, makers of the MiG fighters, and Robensoexport, makers of Sukhoi aircraft, were reported to have formed a consortium to jointly bid for the Indian contract, officials at India Defence Ministry were quoted as saying here. The IAF had projected an immediate need for some 125 new fighter planes, with the selection expected to be completed in a few months, officials said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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Fred, that's just propoganda. The Mig-21 is perfectly safe.
...
Bwahahahahahahhahaha!
Posted by: Charles ||
03/04/2004 6:31 Comments ||
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You know, Fred, I think you're cackling a little too loudly. I thought the original Indian Air Force plan was to have replaced these planes with the LCA, which got delayed the better part of a decade when we stopped selling them the engine for it and put an embargo in place on warplane technology, in response to nuclear tests.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
03/04/2004 9:16 Comments ||
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...Phil, I was under the impression that LCA has actually been a goner for some time now - is it still officially 'under development'?
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
03/04/2004 10:47 Comments ||
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#4
So these guys are open to replacing MiGs with newer MiGs? Sheesh. As far as replacements go, let them go for the Mirage. I don't see any compelling reason to sell them our top-notch stuff.
#6
I don't see any compelling reason to sell them our top-notch stuff.
In addition to jobs, as LH mentioned, here are a few other reasons, just off the top of my head:
1. The export version (except for the F-16i) is late 1980's technology, not "our top-notch stuff".
2. The F-16 requires a SIGNIFICANT learning curve for most US pilots, so the Indians that actually master the aircraft will be very, very good. They're also much closer to Pakistan than we are.
3. Any such sale would also require a large number of technicians come to the United States to learn to maintain the aircraft. Most will leave with a favorable impression, which they will spread in their home country (check with the Germans who trained at Alamagordo, NM).
4. It'll tighten a jaw or six in China, not to mention Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Burma (Myanmar, excuuuusse me), and the rest of South/Southeast Asia.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/04/2004 11:39 Comments ||
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#7
It will also piss of the paki's cause they got a much older type of F-16.
#8
So, what's wrong with the Mig-21 (new Nato codename "Kamikaze")? :-)
I agree with OP... if it cheeses off the Chinese and convinces the Pakistanis that selling nuke technology overseas is a no-no, it's a good thing. Besides, the maintenance contracts for the aircraft will be a long-term military relationship with the Indians of a sort that we haven't had with them for quite a while.
#9
AFAIK, the LCA is still an active program. But if they were going to cancel it and buy something else, the way we showed ourselves to be an unreliable supplier with it would probably put us at a disadvantage for providing a replacement.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
03/04/2004 20:26 Comments ||
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An Ethiopian immigrant accused of circumcising his daughter with a pair of scissors when she was 2 years old denied the charge Wednesday and said he is being framed by his ex-wife.
"Wudn't me. It wuz her! The bitch!"
Khalid Adem, 28, said he believes his ex-wife or someone associated with her injured the girl to ensure that he wouldn't see his daughter during a custody dispute. "I am challenging them to take a lie-detector test with me and let the truth be known," Adem said. "I have been quiet this long because I thought that due process would bring out the truth." Adem was indicted this week on charges of cruelty to children and battery. Police said a doctor discovered a scar on the girl's genitals in 2001. The child, now 4, is in her mother's custody and Adem does not have visitation rights. Adem's ex-wife, Fortunate Adem, denied having anything to do with the injury. Female circumcision, which may involve the removal of the clitoris or all the external genitalia, is a traditional procedure in some African cultures but it has been condemned by the United Nations. The federal Prohibition of Female Mutilation Act of 1995 prohibits the removal of certain sexual organs on girls under age 18 unless it is medically necessary and only then if performed by a licensed medical practitioner. Fortunate Adem said Wednesday that her ex-husband is trying to avoid being blamed. "If he believes he was a hero and man enough to do this to his child then he should be man enough to come forward and tell the truth," she said.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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If these Muslims think Allan commands them to circumcise their daughters, then why do they publicly deny they do it?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester ||
03/04/2004 0:35 Comments ||
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i just wondering what they do with it when it removed. maybe they put it in jar for old kepsakes.
Jana Libyan News Agency
The Leader of the Revolution confirmed the Libyans do not want animosity with America, the superpower. The Leader of the Revolution, addressing the opening session of the General Peoples Congress, said the Libyans say we do not wish to remain hostile to advanced Europe and advanced America. We want to co-operate with them in industry, agriculture, medicine, education and all areas. He added that Libya is strong in the Mediterranean area. It is a major effective factor in Euro-African and Euro-Mediterranean co-operation in the Barcelona process and in the group of five plus five. It is a highly influential factor. They used to rush to us: the President of the European Commission, the Italians and the Spanish. They all said for your own sake and in Libya's interest do not leave Barcelona. Let us resume five plus five. Let us engage in co-operation in the Mediterranean. We used to say "no - we have a position". They replied those for whom you have adopted such a position are reconciled with us.
Translated from the excruciating revolutionary rhetoric, he's saying it's time for a 180...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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#1
Well then "Come on Barbie, let's go party."
Let bye gones be bye gones. "So sorry for the massacre."
It was a something thing, Ya know, No big deal now, Ya know, shake, hugs, Pop the keg, it's party time.
#2
Folk in the West who want to hold grudges strike me as not much different from Muslims still smarting over some "humiliation" that occurred seven hundred years ago. We get along with the f-ing Japanese and Germans, we can get along with the Libyans. Yesterday reports indicated the North Koreans were looking into getting the same deal Moammar got. If bad regimes can be neutralized without firing a shot in anger or a US soldier dying, God bless President Bush.
#4
Garrison I concur. The carrot and the stick. Watch Qadafi closely but if he continues to walk the walk then I'll be glad to end our antagnostic relationship. I've got to same I'm a little stunned regarding his actions... never would have dreamed he would turn 180 that fast, or at all to be honest. Then again maybe he hasn't...
Kim in North Korea is a different issue. His leadership is causing millions of north koreans to starve and he runs torture/death camps that remind me of the type that hitler ran. He is an evil bastard and needs to die. We can't stand by and make friendly with a regime that tortures it's own people. It's immoral.
#5
Well written, DPA. I am not suggesting friendship with Libya or North Korea. I am interested only in neutralizing the nations as WMD threats and state sponsors of terrorism without our guys having to shed American blood to do it. Absent an untimely death of the self-described "rat turd": If Kim takes the decision to do a verified Kadaffy 180, I'll feel a whole lot less like a USEFUL FOOL providing humanitarian aid to North Koreans.
#6
Ally, no. But as a living example of what happens when you throw down your WMD and start playing nice, yes.
We just have to hope that the U.S. actually gives some carrots for this, instead of merely insiting that proper behavior is its own reward as it tends to do.
#7
Great discussion. It would be interesting to think that in twenty years our relationship with Libya would be the same as our relationship with Japan in 1965. Heck, maybe the Libyans will start manufactoring small, inexpensive, well-made cars for export.
Kimmie, on the other hand, must die for all the reasons DPA noted. Anyone -- anyone -- who builds concentration camps can never be allowed to have a peaceful relationship with the United States. My hope is that whatever GWB and Co. say in public to further our diplomacy, when he, Condi, Rummie, Colin etc sit around a table for a private meeting, the agreed bottom-line is that Kimmie must die.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/04/2004 11:03 Comments ||
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#8
gromky, I gather that you're from some other country that is a recipient of "NOT ENOUGH" American taxpayer dollars. Send some of your own carrots. We've been sending carrots for decade after decade, to an ungrateful, backward world, determined to remain that way. It's time some of you other countries bear some of the burden. Ante up, dude. Put your money where your big mouth is.
Posted by: Danny ||
03/04/2004 23:33 Comments ||
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By Kenneth R. Timmerman
Libyan leader Col. Muammar Gadhafi said that Libya has turned the page on terror and weapons of mass destruction and seeks better relations with the United States. After meeting with visiting U.S. congressional delegations, the Libyan leader was interviewed by United Press International and two other American correspondents.
Q: What impact did Iraq war have on your decision to give up weapons of mass destructions? Gadhafi: We made our own decision and our analysis on the current world situation, and we came to the conclusion ... that we can't forward, we can't go ahead, with having these programs.
Of course Iraq had an effect. So did having the "line of death" clobbered. So did Afghanistan being dismantled in a month. Muammar's not stupid, though he may be insane. He got on board the socialist bandwagon when it was fashionable and it crashed. Now it's time to try and join the winning side.
Q: So Iraq was no factor at all then?
A: We are part of the world. This is the reality of the world. This is the policy of the world.
That's what I said...
Q: As part of internal reforms, will Islamic organizations be permitted to operate?
A: I would say that there isn't any justification or reason for that. The people themselves actually assume power and have the power to decide for themselves. Each one who has a word or a say or an opinion is free to do so in the People's Congress. Furthermore, we don't want to involve Allah, or God, in material affairs like infrastructure and sewage. He has nothing to do with that. We are talking about material things, we need policy for that. We need technology for infrastructure. We're talking about infrastructure -- sewage, water. This is policy. God is another thing. How can we involve Allah in (such things) of daily life? We're talking about houses and electricity.
On the other hand, he's not at nutty as the current opposition, is he? It's not a very long leap from that position to one of religious freedom, the right of the individual to attend to the salvation of his own soul. I'll bet that statement sounded really unusual in Arabic...
Q: You made an incredibly courageous speech last night and talked about Libya's past involvement with liberation movements, and you said that times have changed. How have you prepared your people for this change? I imagine a lot of people were surprised last night by what you said.
A: Our people are very much enlightened and aware and practicing daily politics in the People's Congresses, and they are aware of the new reality in the world. Going back 27 years ago to the establishment of the People's Authority, the whole Libyan people starting practicing and exercising policies and authority. They are very much involved.
Muammar's been making these points for at least the past year. The oil money's been pissed away on adventures and not spent on building Libya into a prosperous country, which it was in ancient times.
Q: You just met with two delegations of U.S. members of Congress, one from the Senate, one from the House. How do you see the future of relations between Libya and the United States?
A: We are very much interested (in the fact) that we are able to understand each other. The problem before was that we were not able, we did not have a chance to sit down with each other and have a dialogue. Now we are able to understand each other.
See the first question...
Q: Your government has accepted responsibility for Pan Am 103. But in your heart, do you believe the government of Libya was responsible for this act of terror?
A: (Discussion with aides... He asks for detailed translation.) Lockerbie is buried, and we don't want to dig it out. It has a bad reputation. We don't want to dig it out when somebody is buried. It is old.
"I'm staying away from that question. We just got in hot water trying to wiggle off the hook last week. I'm not gonna do it again."
Q: But last night you said you were going to reveal things and tell Libyan people the truth, the whole truth. Were others involved besides the two people taken to the Scottish court -- other countries?
A: (Discussion with aides. Translator mistranslates question, and head of protocol steps in.) We're finished with Lockerbie. It's something of the past.
"I'm going to keep my mouth shut and save myself some money."
Q: Last night you talked about Libya rejoining the Barcelona initiative. Do you want this to have relations with Israel? Or is this not part of your plans?
A: About Israel, our opinion is very much explained in the White book, namely the establishment of "Isratine" or "Israeltine." They should let us rest and have one country that is one state together. (The "White Book" is Gadhafi 2002 plan for merging the Jewish and Arab populations into a single state.)
"It's a goofy idea, I know, but nothing else has worked, either. I can't think of anything better. Can you?"
Q: The Bush administration has praised you for cooperation on al-Qaida. Can you give us one example of what your government has done, or your intelligence agencies have done, to win a battle against al-Qaida, that led to an arrest or foil a plot?
A: Terror or terrorism is the enemy of all of us, not the enemy of America. When we fight terrorism, we do that for ourselves.
"I'm not going to give you any examples because the Medes and the Persians are already after my hide. We'll just keep the truncheon and moustachio stuff under the rug. Maybe in 20 or 30 years it can come out..."
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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they keep asking him to admit Lockerbie. Well, he did, by ponying up the money. Everyone knows it and he knows everyone knows it and he'll never come out and say: "yeah, I signed off on that". Give it a rest, but never let them rewrite the history books....
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/04/2004 8:13 Comments ||
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And he did pay the money. So he's good to go.
Q. If he did "sign off on that", what then?
No skin off his ass! No Hague trial, just cash. Very Islamic, no.
#3
Contrary to Muammar's suggestion, there probably is an Islamic way to build a sewage system. That is, not to build it at all. If the Almighty Creator of the Worlds wants this mess cleaned up, he'd darn well do it himself, don't you think? Besides, the Prophet lived his whole life without a sewage system. You're not suggesting there was anything deficient about the Prophet's lifetstyle, are you Muammar? Mecca and Medina in the 7th century represent the pinnacle of Allah's plan for all human beings, and if crapping in the gutter was good enough for them it should be good enough for you. Sewers are a Western innovation designed to weaken and corrupt the ummah. Allah knows best.
It's from Tishreen, so you know you can trust it...
Iraqi officials said the Israeli Intelligence Service Mossad supervises the file of Iraqi scientists and is leading a campaign of liquidation against them. ß The chief of the Iraqi Higher Education Ministry's Department of Research and Development Osama Abdul Majeed said in a statement published by the Jordanian As-Sabeel weekly magazine on Tuesday that 15,500 Iraqi scientists, researchers and university professors were dismissed from their jobs in terms of the fierce Israeli campaign. ß Another Iraqi official who refused to be identified said the dismissal plan was drawn up in Tel Aviv with a view to taking revenge against the executive producers of Iraq's scientific programmes. ß Well-informed sources in Baghdad said the Israeli Mossad had asked the US CIA to submit the file of the Iraqi scientists to Mossad agents in Iraq. The sources said the Mossad wants to displace the scientists or assassinate them if they refuse to cooperate. ß
"That's right, Mahmoud. You cooperate, or it's curtains for you!"
"Cooperate on what?"
"We'll think of something!"
The former chief of the International Studies Section at Baghdad UniversityHussein al-Fitlawi expressed his fear that the Mossad would assassinate those Iraqi scientists lest they should leave for Arab or Islamic states. ß
I wonder why he's the former chief?
Iraqi strategists meantime said the US occupation authority will not allow Iraq to make use of the Iraqi network of scientists even if a pro-American regime is set up in the Arab country.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/04/2004 00:05 ||
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There are two different issues wrt Iraqi scientists.
One, of course, is that some had substantial connections to WMD programs.
The other is that all of the PhDs earned in the last 15+ years were from within Iraq. Baghdad Univ. had lab equipment and textbooks from the 60s and early 70s, no access to international conferences or journals, no oversight for PhD research from other scholars.
A huge effort is underway to remedy some of that ... excess govt computers have been identified to ship there, textbooks, consulting on programs etc.
But there is, of course, the pride issue.
Posted by: heard about Baghdad U ||
03/04/2004 8:52 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
