One dead in suicide blast near NATO convoy in Afghanistan
A suicide bomber exploded a bomb-filled car near a convoy of NATO-led troops in southern Afghanistan, killing one person and wounding five, police and witnesses said. There were no International Security Assistance Force casualties in the blast in the southern city of Kandahar but a military vehicle was damaged, an ISAF spokesman told AFP.
Police at the scene said one person, who appeared to be a Pakistani national, was killed. Five Afghans were wounded, police colonel Abdul Ali told AFP. Parts of the attacker's body littered the site. "It was a suicide attack," Ali said.
Reeeeaally?
Kandahar suffers most of the suicide attacks in Afghanistan that are claimed by the Taliban movement that is waging an insurgency against the government. There have been around 40 suicide blasts in Afghanistan this year, according to ISAF figures. More than 100 people, almost all civilians, have died in those attacks which are usually targeted at troops.
BRITISH special forces have played a key role in a defeat of the Taliban as part of Operation Medusa, the largest combat operation ever mounted by Nato. Over the past fortnight Nato troops, led by the Canadians, have driven the Taliban out of the strategically important Panjwayi district between Maiwand and Kandahar. Go Brits and Canadians
Last week members of the newly formed British Special Forces Support Group (SFSG) pulled out of their hides to the southeast of Maiwand with their commanders satisfied that the Taliban had been defeated and expelled from the area. "Chief, there were no Taliban left to kill. Please send us where there are more talibunnies."
They chose to take us on, said a senior Nato officer. They have suffered heavy casualties. In fact, they havent suffered such extensive casualties since the fighting in 2001-02. Something about primitives who can barely handle the complexity of an RPG facing-off against first class western Mech Infantry. Just another one-sided slaughter for the last 125 years when the (non-french) West fight muzzies.
The British special forces had spent the first 10 days guarding against any Taliban reinforcement from the west, and the last few picking off fleeing insurgents. "Cpl. Wiggins got 7 with his .338 in 42 minutes."
Senior officers cautioned that while Operation Medusa had been a tactical success, there was no room for complacency and nobody was about to use the word victory. It has a tendency to come back and bite you on the arse, one officer said. "Puh-lease come back, talibunnies. We are locked, loaded and now battle-tested. But, we can't yet declare victory until each and every one of you is dead."
This battlefield has a profound historical resonance. Maiwand was the scene of one of the most devastating defeats ever suffered by the British when, in July 1880, 2,700 British and Indian troops were outnumbered 10 to one by Afghan tribesmen. More than 1,000 British and Indian troops died but 7,000 of the enemy were killed in what was a pyrrhic victory for the Afghans. So, in 1880, the Brits lost 1,000 men and now they lost......14 and other soldiers maybe totalling 20. It seems like the loss rate has improved.
The British suffered losses in the latest battle 14 dead when a Nimrod spyplane crashed on the first day, including signallers from the Special Boat Service (SBS) and the SFSG who were relaying intelligence collected by RAF colleagues. Five Canadian and two Afghan soldiers were killed on the ground. But Nato claimed that more than 500 Taliban a third of those making a stand at Panjwayi were killed. And there is nothing about the Aussie SAS who in their AO have gotten 150 Talibunnies. I also understand that the French have their own AO and are actually in combat and killing talibunnies, but I have only seen few, oblique references.
The Taliban were using the area as a forward operations base to put pressure on the city of Kandahar, which is seen as the key to controlling the south.
During the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, the mujaheddin occupied the area, which is covered with grapevines, wheat and poppy fields, making it an ideal supply base for an insurgent army. It is riddled with drainage ditches and high walled compounds providing perfect cover for a marauding guerrilla band and there are scores of escape tunnels and trenches built during the mujaheddin days. Every one is now completely mapped digitally.
General David Richards, the Nato commander, chose the area to demonstrate to the 70% of the population who, he believes, will back whoever appears stronger, that Nato and not the Taliban is in charge. "Watch this, afghan citizens. We will wait here for the talibunnies to come back and taunt them with the smell of cooking pork chops. When they come, we will kill them in great numbers."
Thus spoke the strong horse ...
Richards had prepared the ground carefully. His commanders talked to tribal leaders to persuade the 40,000 population to leave for their own safety and to convince them that the alliance would rebuild once the Taliban had left. The battle, which pitted more than 2,000 troops against 1,500 Taliban, opened on Saturday September 2 with a salvo of gunfire from Canadian and Dutch artillery. A company of 150 men from the Princess Patricias Canadian Light Infantry advanced across the Arghandab river. Add a Dutch arty battery to the Brits, Canucks, Aussies and French who are in on this. Der Wehrmacht still limits itself to those areas of Afghanistan where there is no combat. Wimps, sheesh.
That's okay, they're holding the area safe and doing the reconstruction work. Somebody's gotta do it.
But the Taliban were lying in wait and the company took the brunt of their aggression, coming under intense mortar and machinegun fire that killed four Canadians. The Canadian commander temporarily withdrew his forces and replaced them with Taskforce Grizzly, comprising 200 Afghan infantry backed up by US troops. Hmm. It seems the prep didn't kill enough talibunnies or the Pats had a poor attack plan. "Grizzly". Heh. I think of the bearded pashtun muzzie that is often here and think he looks kinda grizzly.
On the left flank, Taskforce 31, comprising SBS and US Army Special Forces, were used temporarily to shape the battlefield, seizing the initiative from the Taliban. So, a NATO combines SF operation goes off and POOF!, done.
Two other companies of the Princess Patricias were making slow progress against a Taliban trench system in the north. The third company was redirected to join the push, along with US infantry. They were backed up by direct fire support from Canadian and Dutch artillery and by air support from Apache attack helicopters, US B1 Lancer bombers, F16s, and US A10 Tankbusters one of which killed a fifth Canadian soldier with friendly fire plus RAF Harrier GR7s. Complete combined arms integrated NATO mutinational attack. WOW.
While the SBS and the US Special Forces gave the Nato advance a kick-start from the south, other US special operations troops spread across the area to the south of the battlefield. They were ordered to keep out Taliban reinforcements and supply columns attempting to make their way along the desert roads from the Pakistani towns of Nuski and Quetta. Layin' in wait, cuttin' 'em down. Sa-weeet. Good work, boys.
Classic hammer and anvil operation.
The UK and US special forces boosted the southern advance considerably and after a few days the SBS were withdrawn and reassigned to other tasks. No talibunnies left to kill so we moved to a more target-rich area.
To the north, the Canadians, whose light armoured vehicles were vulnerable to rocket- propelled grenades, were struggling. By the beginning of last week, an operation scheduled to last only 10 days looked like lasting a month. But sustained aerial and artillery bombardment were beginning to tell on the Taliban. "Looked like a month, but it ended up being 10 days after all. And 2 of those days were for burying all of the stinking talibunny corpses. And then a group of them is hit by 10 or s0 A-10 30mm shells, we need scoops and such to clean up."
Suddenly one company of the Princess Patricias made a breakthrough, pushing forward to hold a position well ahead of the Canadian lines. A second company pushed forward and very soon all three Canadian companies were leap-frogging each other to the point that the American infantry could be withdrawn. "We killed all of the resisting talibunnies and pushed on."
The effect was like a vice, squeezing the Taliban out to the west where they were awaited by Dutch infantry, a Danish armoured reconnaissance company and, further out towards Maiwand, the British SFSG, mostly former paratroopers. Danes, too! Dayum. This is actually fucking NATO fighting. Does the West have a chance to pull together? Dayum
By the end of last week, the vast majority of the Taliban were thought to have fled. "fled or dead, we say."
Senior Nato officers expressed astonishment that the Taliban had abandoned traditional guerrilla tactics that would have seen them dispersing the minute heavy artillery and aerial firepower were introduced. "They were incredibly stupid tactically, almost as if they believed they were immortal. When your only protection is shouting 'allan akbar', you just don't last very long with the arty, Warthogs and Apaches raining death. We cut 'em down just like the Maxims cut down the muzzies at Omdurman. We hope they come back really soon and play some more with us."
The next three to six months is a crucial period here, Richards said. We are establishing psychological ascendency over the Taliban in Panjwayi. "All those left will be driven to a frenzy by our relentless taunting and will attack into our mass combined arms teams. Then they will be dead as there is no better path to psychological ascendency than killing all of your enemies."
Operation Medusa has not been about killing for no reason. The people there want to believe we can win and were beginning to demonstrate that we will win." It's only about killing cause when the enemy is all dead, the war is over, we have victory and we can go home to our families and loved ones in peace." US, Brits, Canucks, Dutch, Danes militaries all working together in a combined arms attack on islamofascists. Is that a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel?
#4
I get the impression that the French are fighting very effectively but under the radar so that they can avoid domestic publicity and because some of their tactics might not hold up as well in scrutiny from the MSM, i.e. they're taking it to the enemy.
A5089 or JFM, hearing anything from the domestic press?
#5
Nice find, Brett. Love the comments! It's starting to look like the poor Taliban are going to have to spend the winter in Pakistan after all, where it sounds like they won't be as safe as heretofore.
#9
I don't think their numbers are fixes, new recruits are still showing up.
But there are less and less of the deluded willing to blow themselvs up, so we are winning.
I doubt we'll ever get them all, but we can get enough that they'll crawl back into the woodwork for a few hundred years.
That will have to do.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/17/2006 10:14 Comments ||
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#10
(excerpt from Rudyard Kipling poem about the battle of Maiwand)
"There was thirty dead an' wounded on the ground we wouldn't keep -
No, there wasn't more than twenty when the front began to go;
But, Christ! along the line o' flight they cut us up like sheep,
An' that was all we gained by doing so.
I 'eard the knives be'ind me, but I dursn't face my man,
Nor I don't know where I went to, 'cause I didn't 'alt to see,
Till I 'eard a beggar squealin' out for quarter as 'e ran,
An' I thought I knew the voice an' - it was me!
We was 'idin' under bedsteads more than 'arf a march away;
We was lyin' up like rabbits all about the countryside;
An' the major cursed 'is Maker 'cause 'e lived to see that day'
An' the colonel broke 'is sword acrost, an' cried."
#11
"Senior Nato officers expressed astonishment that the Taliban had abandoned traditional guerrilla tactics that would have seen them dispersing the minute heavy artillery and aerial firepower were introduced."
If I may venture a hypothesis (which, like any hypothesis, could be flat-out wrong):
In traditional guerilla warfare, one starts out with non-conventional tactics and organisation. As one gains more and more control over the strategic situation, one shifts to more conventional tactics and organisation. But -only- after one has gained control.
Obviously, the Taleban in this region are using more or less conventional tactics. One could sumrise either that:
The Taleban, for reasons historic and tactical, thought they had a solid and long-term control of the district and thus emplaced their conventional force. or
The Taleban or their handlers have thrown the more-conventional force into the fray as a desparate effort.
I guess it all depends on who one thinks is in charge.
#12
So just how many talibastards are there? Anybody know?
What's the male population of Pakistan, under 30, not counting those employed in recruiting (aka "religious authorities")?
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/17/2006 11:59 Comments ||
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#13
The Taliban concentrated their forces last year because their guerilla tactics were inflicting so few casualties on coaltion forces. They've now managed to kill a few more of our guys at the cost of getting wiped out themselves. The seal on the victory will be Afghan government forces and police in control of the South.
#15
What's the male population of Pakistan, under 30, not counting those employed in recruiting (aka "religious authorities")?
Her's a handy reference 9Scroll down)
#16
It's stories like this that remind me we aren't alone in fighting this War. Thank you Brits and Canadians.
Posted by: Charles ||
09/17/2006 13:28 Comments ||
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#17
I hope Russia (and all the newly-minted members of NATO) is watching. NATO is gaining battle experience working as an alliance. We still need to get the new (Eastern European) members up to speed and integrated, and get them some battle experience as well. Russia REALLY wants to regain control of the areas of the old Soviet Union. A battle-hardened, war-experienced NATO will certainly throw a monkey-wrench into those plans.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/17/2006 14:30 Comments ||
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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A bomb blast south of the Afghan capital killed three people and wounded another on Saturday, police said. The remote-controlled device went off as a car carrying four people passed by on the main road in Musayi district, Kabul province, said Ali Shah Paktiawal, a police official.
The victims were all Afghans working for a local private security firms that provide services to local and international non-governmental organizations, said Mohammad Daud Nadim, regional police chief.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/17/2006 00:00 ||
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UNIDENTIFIED gunmen shot and killed an elderly Italian nun at a hospital in the Islamist-controlled Somali capital, witnesses and medical workers said. The attackers entered the Austrian-funded SOS Hospital in southern Mogadishu's Huriwa District and opened fire, killing the nun before escaping in the ensuing confusion, they said.
They came into the compound and shot the nun and then ran away
They came into the compound and shot the nun and then ran away, one medical worker said. We don't know who they were.
The nun, believed to be in her 70s, was one the longest-serving foreign members of the Catholic church in Somalia, a former Italian colony, officials said. Details of the incident were sketchy and there was no immediate indication of a possible motive for the attack but it came amid fury among Somalia's powerful Islamist movement over comments made by Pope Benedict XVI deemed insulting to Islam.
We call on all Islamic communities across the world to take revenge on the baseless critic called the Pope...
On Friday, a prominent hardline Mogadishu cleric called for Muslims to hunt down and kill the pontiff for his remarks. Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim, Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin told worshippers at a mosque in southern Mogadishu. We call on all Islamic communities across the world to take revenge on the baseless critic called the Pope, he said.
Their cowardous killing of elderly unarmed women are earning them a richly deserved place in history. My shoe is too good to slap them upside the face.
#2
Those mighty and brave warriors of Islam attacked an old nun. I assume that no children or pregnant woman were in the vicinity they could have targeted
Posted by: Joe of the Jungle ||
09/17/2006 8:44 Comments ||
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#3
Can anyone say they're surprised to read this sad story?
As best I can tell, this is the first confirmed death of a Christian murdered by the hands of muslims since news of the pope's speech broke.
Hers will not be the last death connected to the story.
Posted by: Mark Z ||
09/17/2006 8:51 Comments ||
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#4
is everything that you do or someone else does or says a reason too murder in this religion?
#6
Sorta like the liberals who dont want a wind farm to spoil their view pontificate how American dependency upon foreign energy creates the Middle East problem?
#7
Reading the headlines I think the whole of Islam just stomped on their own dick.
They've just pissed off every Catholic in the world, and most Christians not Catholic as well, any attack on the Pope, whether successful or not, will cause an uprising you'd never believe until you see it.
They'll be bodies in the street twice to three times the worst day in Baghdad all around the world. The difference this time is that 95% will be dead Muslims.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/17/2006 10:31 Comments ||
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#8
No Mark, this is the first reported killings by muslims as they prove the Pope's words.
Who knows what might be being held back by the MSM in order to protect their masters...
#9
A second, serious comment, we even date our calender from the time of Christ, Christians have been around 2006 plus years, but Mohammed only showed up 600 odd years later.
They don't have a clue what they've started here.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/17/2006 10:40 Comments ||
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#10
They choose war. Get westerners out of these infected areas. This woman had probably been there for years providing aid. This is her thanks. Make certain the target zones are clear. Then let's begin taking them out. These acts, murder, burning churches , rioting over cartoons and what have you, are finally getting attention of those who previously paid no attention. This changing of minds is necessary before we can proceed in the proper manner. When we do strike and take out hundreds of thousands, no one will have misgivings or second thoughts. Keep it up you mad dogs, and we are forced to put you rabid bastards out of your misery.
#13
They've just pissed off every Catholic in the world, and most Christians not Catholic as well, any attack on the Pope, whether successful or not, will cause an uprising you'd never believe until you see it.
They'll be bodies in the street twice to three times the worst day in Baghdad all around the world. The difference this time is that 95% will be dead Muslims.
It now occurs to me that Pope Benedict knew quite well that Christians around the world were already being martyred by Muslims. Three Indonesian schoolgirls spring to mind. He also knew that many more would fall before the swords of Islam before this is over. I can only imagine this is why he has placed himself in the line of fire with the Regensburg speech. In the same way that all Christians were purified by the blood of their crucified Christ, so will this world once again be purified by Christian blood.
Just as Christians progressed in moral stature by learning to shed their own blood instead of that of others', so has their sphere of industry and technological endeavor expanded too. The tent they have erected has room for all and not just the chosen few. This broad canopy has sheltered some of history's greatest minds that rewarded them with tools beyond the comprehension of many on this earth.
Islam, on the other hand, continues to revel in the feckless taking of life. In its insular and xenophobic, hidebound shell all advancement and the pursuit of enlightenment has ground to a seething screeching halt. As they inflict their morally retarded ideology on the surrounding world, it barely occurs to them to consider what awaits at the hands of those who refused such stagnation and retrogression. Instead, they gleefully sally forth and think nothing of the consequences awaiting their endless string of atrocities.
The powerful tools put into the hands of Western Christian nations are there for a reason. The monumental restraint shown by those who control them is being eroded on a daily basis.
It is quite possible that Pope Benedict may well lose his life by having faced down all Islam from his bully pulpit. While such a mournful loss may not represent the penultimate tipping point, it cannot but help shift the fulcrum towards that precarious center. Perhaps some other travesty will be required to counterweight the lever and pull it over. Perhaps not.
What is guaranteed is that Islam will continue to add impetus and mass to that lever until it tips. Only then will the powerful tools that so many free minds delivered into the hands of Western Christianity be brought forward. And brought forward they will be to burnish the sands of Islam with stellar fire.
#16
"They've just pissed off every Catholic in the world, and most Christians not Catholic as well, any attack on the Pope, whether successful or not, will cause an uprising you'd never believe until you see it."
I doubt it. Although you'd think that would be the perfect occasion to peel back the Islamic world's Foreskin Of Ignorance and apply briskly the Wire Brush Of Enlightenment, I doubt it'd happen: most of Christendom seems to have sunk into passivity, self-blame, and a burning desire to avoid being offensive.
It'd take a LOT more than that to light much of a fire under their butts.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
09/17/2006 14:56 Comments ||
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#17
peel back the Islamic world's Foreskin Of Ignorance and apply briskly the Wire Brush Of Enlightenment
Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Eff all, I needed a good laugh. Thank you, David D.. And yes, sadly I, too, do not foresee even Pope Benedict's murder as enough to galvanize the outside world into action against Islam.
Four members of Al Qaeda who were planning attacks in Yemen's capital Sanaa were arrested on Saturday in possession of powerful explosives, the interior minister said. "The security services have today arrested in Sanaa a cell of four terrorists with links to Al Qaeda who were planning terrorist attacks" in the capital, Interior Minister General Rashad al-Alimi told a news conference.
The four men, he added, were found with 200 kilogrammes of explosives and were likely connected to foiled twin suicide bombings against oil installations on Friday. The bombers, in explosives-laden cars, tried to attack an oil refinery in Maarib.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
I wonder how Joe Blow Yemeni would accept a tripling of the local gas proces after a sucessful refinery attack,
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/17/2006 1:55 Comments ||
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#2
They would blame Israel and demand revenge.
Posted by: Baba Tutu ||
09/17/2006 2:47 Comments ||
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#3
Revenge is greatly complicated when you have to walk from Yemen to Israel.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/17/2006 10:18 Comments ||
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#6
Does anyone really doubt any longer that Islam will continue to push their flimsy luck until we glass and Windex their pathetic asses?
I am past sick and tired of living with Islam's constant threats. Just for the peace of mind I am almost willing to say, "launch and get it over with".
#8
Abu Dawood told Hamid Mir, a reporter who has covered al-Qaida and met with Osama bin Laden, the attack is being coordinated by Adnan el-Shukrijumah and suggests it may involve some form of weapon of mass destruction smuggled across the Mexican border.
And how quickly afterward would Iran be flattened, the border fence completed, and Muslims affiliated with know radical mosques and illegal aliens shipped back home? Such intelligent people.
#10
It is about time the Bush Administration pulls out some plan to dump oil and move our economy over to nuclear and other non-Islamic cash generating means. That way no matter what kind of tool takes over the White House in 2008 it won't be too bad.
Oh, and its about time for someone to stand up and ask the question: Islam: Must it be destroyed totally?
I'd love to see the seething and ranting but I'm sure a germ of fear would start to spread amung the psychos about how close they really are to total destruction if the west decides we've finally had enough and that we can't live beside them in peace.
#11
These guys do not have the capability to detonate a real nuke. Enabling a triggering mechanism is beyond the physics, and engineering capability of a renegade group doing this in secret. It could be a dirty bomb...but even that would have a limited kill radius. More likley it could be a bio-attack. Just my opinion.
However, if it does occur, I guarantee that the immigration issue and the border fence is a done deal. There would be a mass deportation of 100s of 1000s of illegals of all stripes and nationalities. Then we would eliminate terrorist enclaves in Pakistan and Syria...and maybe even confront iran.
#12
It's sad, but I believe it will take just such an attack...and maybe several, before America wakes up to the threat in our midst and finally calls this war what it is: a clash of civilizations between Islam and everyone else.
#13
What AQ is likely to be planning is to boom 4 radiological bombs with 134Cs and/or 137Cs. It has a long half-life and it is a pain to clean it up. It may be easier obtainable than U isotopes as it is used in medical research and a right bribe in a right country may just be the way to get it despite a tight control.
(There has been a shipment of Cesium going from UK through Bulgaria to Iran MoD, and Bulgarian Customs halted it. But who knows how many shipments went through previously, or through different routes.)
The likely locations are at exit routes from 4 major cities, to disrupt the economy and create panic. The likely bomb setting would be a tractor trailer or similar, left at the proximity of the city exit route.
The candidate cities are LA, Seattle/Portland and on the East Coast New York and Washington, but instead of Washington, Chicago or Atlanta may be on the list.
This information has been gleaned by someone who frequents jihadi forums to collect intel. Unfortunately, no specificic date has been given, but based on the article, it may be within 6 months, if not several weeks.
#14
Can they wait until after I'm recovered from surgery?
I'm not as good a shot left-handed.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
09/17/2006 14:31 Comments ||
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#15
It is about time the Bush Administration pulls out some plan to dump oil and move our economy over to nuclear and other non-Islamic cash generating means.
With an administration that relies upon the petroleum industry as a chief source of their personal wealth, don't count on this happening anytime soon.
#16
These guys do not have the capability to detonate a real nuke. Enabling a triggering mechanism is beyond the physics, and engineering capability of a renegade group doing this in secret.
The ISI is virtually the Siamese twin of dozens of jihadi groups. While it may not be possible for al'Qaeda to make its own bomb, it's entirely possible that Pakistan would loan one out.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/17/2006 15:05 Comments ||
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#17
With an administration that relies upon the petroleum industry as a chief source of their personal wealth, don't count on this happening anytime soon.
Funny you should say that; it's the same excuse the Dems give every time they vote to continue limiting drilling on the North Slope, or off of some 85% of the seaboard of this country... they talk about how they're "striking back" against the oil cartels, and as a result they just import more from hostile foreign governments instead.
Ask not who the useful idiots are. The useful idiot is you.
Posted by: Phil ||
09/17/2006 15:17 Comments ||
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#18
I am an oil rich robber barron, ahhhh moneyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!
#19
Is Pakistan a member of the IAEA group? A quick search did not reveal much. If they are, we would have isotopic "fingerprints" of their fissile materials and could backtrack fallout from a terrorist nuclear attack that used a device supplied by them.
This is what makes Iran's unauthorize enrichment program so dangerous. We have no exact way to trace fissile material directly back to them.
Once again, Mrs. Davis's solution springs to mind. Simply notify each and every single one of the rogue regimes and Islamic majority nations that a single terrorist nuclear attack on American soil gets all of them glassed and Windexed.
#20
Give it a rest, Phil. I'm all for intelligent development of domestic energy resources, especially responsibly operated nuclear power. The current administration has done jack-all to get us off of the oil teat and I find their rather substantial ties with big oil to be a definite conflict of interest.
#21
"Intelligent development of domestic energy resources" wasn't derailed by Halliburton, Bush, or Cheney. It was derailed in the House and Senate, with virtually all of the Democratic officeholders joined by some 15-20% of the Republicans. And it's been going on like this for a long while. And your statements are very close to the same bloody-minded excuse those cretins give when when they derail said "intelligent development of domestic energy resources."
Posted by: Phil ||
09/17/2006 15:33 Comments ||
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#22
As I pointed out earlier today, the zealots all wiped out each other; the Romans just went on to mop up the remainder before enslaving the civilians. Blathering on about how you think the People's Front of Judaea made too much money in their youth in oil and is therefore helping the Romans... is helping the Romans.
Posted by: Phil ||
09/17/2006 15:35 Comments ||
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#23
Borders, language and culture. Michael Savage had it right. This is the only mantra which will save this country. Secure the borders first.
Posted by: Art ||
09/17/2006 15:37 Comments ||
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#24
O Muslims! Pack your bags and leave infidel America and its scantily clad women, allowance of only 1 wife to a Muslim man, and lack of prayer facilities at workplaces. And American authorities even question our attacks on Christians and Jews.
You saw what short-range missiles did to Israeli civilians. Make haste to your homeland, and prepare to build ICBMs for use against America.
#25
"Intelligent development of domestic energy resources" wasn't derailed by Halliburton, Bush, or Cheney.
Exactly where have I ever said that it was? Purchase a clue, all right? My comments intend to point out a remarkable degree of disinterest by this administration in unhooking us from Arab oil and the immense potential for conflict of interest. While over-emphasis of ecological concerns is clearly strangling much of this nation's attempts to develop realistic alternative energy (i.e., not solar, wind or geothermal), it is incumbent upon the administration to show leadership towards this and they have not. And please do not cite opening up ANWR as any sort of realistic effort. Its entire oil supply is a hiccup in comparison to our nation's energy requirements.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.
#26
Thank you Abu-Hatem il-Yerbouti
Concentrate all the assholes in one place for easier disposal.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/17/2006 16:11 Comments ||
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#27
And please do not cite opening up ANWR as any sort of realistic effort. Its entire oil supply is a hiccup in comparison to our nation's energy requirements.
The production off of Louisiana is a similarly "small" amount of our requirements, of about 5-10% per annum. And when it got torn up by Katrina and Rita, prices went up a lot more than the inverse of the contraction in supply.
Incremental steps matter. Blocking of incremental steps matters more, because it adds a "politics" risk premium to any private-sector investment in energy development, renewable or otherwise.
(Which is why the litigation around those wind farms off of Long Island hurt so much, even if the wind farm itself isn't that large; it's the legal classes' way of saying "Nice portfolio you have there. Be a shame if something happened to it."
Posted by: Phil ||
09/17/2006 16:16 Comments ||
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#28
Here's some news, # 27. Anonymous baiting doesn't work on me. Get a 'nym, post regularly and get back to me then, emkay?
I'm one of the moderators on duty. Pick a nym and stick to it. We know your IP anyways so you might as well.
Also remember that the Burg is about 'civil and well-reasoned' discourse. Civility is a key part of that. Act like a troll and two things will happen: 1) the regulars will use you as a chew-toy and 2) I'll ban you.
Hope that's clear.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/17/2006 16:47 Comments ||
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#34
ok fair enough. This is my name and I'm sticking to it until I am banned. Nevertheless, my point remains valid. Thoughts don't need names to be valid.
Posted by: tired and beat down ||
09/17/2006 16:57 Comments ||
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#35
Oooooh, a series of spittle flecked drive-by posts. Another sure sign of towering intellects at work.
#36
spittle flecked? Drive by? My point stands without a name. Bush allowed 15,000 Arab students in the US as exchange students. This is tantamount to an army. Do you need my name to dispute this? Besides, since when are you a fan of Bush?
Posted by: tired and beat down ||
09/17/2006 17:35 Comments ||
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#37
Calm down, tabd. I wasn't referring to you. Our dispute has already been settled by the moderator, thank you very much. Enough of this already.
Posted by: tired and beat down ||
09/17/2006 17:45 Comments ||
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#39
Well, aside from all the fly specks, I did see a headline last week in the MSM about 15K so-called Saudi students being allowed to come here. What are the details? This is setting off alarms in me head---big time.
OK, HERE is a linky through See-BS News. The basic story is this: The Saudis are giving full scholarships to 15K students (I doubt for any wimmen). Colleges and universities are competing fiercely like 'hos in a street corner for the sleeper cell people students because they need the money. End of story.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/17/2006 17:48 Comments ||
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#40
AP, they "want" the money. Whether they "need" it, is anuther question altogether.
#41
AP: The basic story is this: The Saudis are giving full scholarships to 15K students (I doubt for any wimmen).
What TABD has missed is the fact that Uncle Sam admits foreign students based on ability to pay. And the Saudi students who are being sent here don't have a problem with paying since the Saudi government is footing the bill. Note that none of the Arabs who mounted the 9/11 operation were here using Saudi government money, either for their stay here or their flight training.
#42
43: Note that none of the Arabs who mounted the 9/11 operation were here using Saudi government money, either for their stay here or their flight training.
The actual terror funding - although original sources are not fully established - came through the UAE. Interestingly, an opportunity to kill bin Laden was missed, because a UAE holy family member was seen with him on a falcoln hunting trip to Afghanistan. Bill Clinton was President at the time.
As for Saudi money, most Saudi students come to the US on government scholarships. They are screened, not that they don't bring Wahabi indoctrination with them.
#44
Well , here we are back in 600 ad
The battle is actually ideologicall based on the illegitamate father of the arabs Ishmael [ Abraham's son of convenience who was prophesised by God to be a wild ass of a man] and Isaac[ Abraham's son of the promise whos son Israel is the father of the 12 tribes of Israel who inhereted the promised land Israel] -- so , are we surprised?
The heart of the matter is Jesus, the saviour of the world and a resurrected jew ... and the Only way to Heaven
Now doesnt that get a lot of Muslim people pissed
Posted by: Same as last time ||
09/17/2006 23:05 Comments ||
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#45
"Can breach America security again...We can attack America at any time [they choose]". > you hoo, Dubya-GOP, can we have a draft now. THE TRAITOR-CRATS, WAFFLE-CRATS, DEFEAT-CRATS, BLAME-CRATS, MOTHER-CRATS + COMMIE-CRATS, ETAL. PROMISE TO CRY AT YOUR FUNERALS AFTER THEY KILL YOU + FREE AMERICA + WESTERN/GLOBAL DEMOCRACY.
Three separate gun battles in Indian Kashmir killed at least six suspected militants and wounded two policemen on Saturday, police said. The Indian army's special forces shot and killed three suspected militants in a densely forested area of Gurwatan, 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir, said army spokesman Colonel Hemant Juneja. Other details were not immediately available.
Earlier Saturday, police and the army cordoned off the village of Wahipora following a tip that some suspected militants were hiding there, said police officer Imtiaz Hussain. Suspected rebels opened fire as government forces converged on their hideout in the village, 40 kilometres (25 miles) south of Srinagar, said Hussain. A gun battle left two suspected rebels dead and two policemen wounded, he said. Hussain said the suspected guerrillas belonged to the Hezbul Mujahedeen, Kashmirs largest militant group. There was no independent confirmation of the police claim.
In another joint operation in a nearby forested area by the village of Narwani on Saturday, the army and police shot and killed one suspected militant, officials said.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2006 00:00 ||
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The Lahore police on Saturday arrested a trainer of terrorists, Tameem alias Umar alias Abdur Rehman alias Tahir alias Wakeel, from Darbar Baba Haider Saeen near Lorry Adda. Police seized explosives, four hand grenades, detonators and material on various missiles and audio cassettes on jihad. A police spokesman said that Tameem was involved in the August 29 Liberty Market bomb blast. Police said that he was suspected of planning an attack on Christians. A senior police investigator said Tameem, an alleged member of a banned militant group, "wanted to attack Christians next week".
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Tameem alias Umar alias Abdur Rehman alias Tahir alias Wakeel, from Darbar Baba Haider Saeen near Lorry Adda.
It's a sob story, but has lots of interesting details.
In the few short years since the first shackled Afghan shuffled off to Guantanamo, the U.S. military has created a global network of overseas prisons, its islands of high security keeping 14,000 detainees beyond the reach of established law.
Disclosures of torture and long-term arbitrary detentions have won rebuke from leading voices including the U.N. secretary-general and the U.S. Supreme Court. But the bitterest words come from inside the system, the size of several major U.S. penitentiaries. "It was hard to believe I'd get out," Baghdad shopkeeper Amjad Qassim al-Aliyawi told The Associated Press after his release - without charge - last month. "I lived with the Americans for one year and eight months as if I was living in hell."
Captured on battlefields, pulled from beds at midnight, grabbed off streets as suspected insurgents, tens of thousands now have passed through U.S. detention, the vast majority in Iraq. Many say they were caught up in U.S. military sweeps, often interrogated around the clock, then released months or years later without apology, compensation or any word on why they were taken. Seventy to 90 percent of the Iraq detentions in 2003 were "mistakes," U.S. officers once told the international Red Cross.
Defenders of the system, which has only grown since soldiers' photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib shocked the world, say it's an unfortunate necessity in the battles to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan, and to keep suspected terrorists out of action. Every U.S. detainee in Iraq "is detained because he poses a security threat to the government of Iraq, the people of Iraq or coalition forces," said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Keir-Kevin Curry, a spokesman for U.S.-led military detainee operations in Iraq.
#1
Critics protest that penalties have been too soft and too little has been done, particularly in tracing inhumane interrogation methods from the far-flung islands of the overseas prison system back to policies set by high-ranking officials.
In other words, the critics are whining that the people in charge -- who HAVEN'T approved any real abuse of anyone -- haven't been punished for crimes they didn't commit.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/17/2006 13:04 Comments ||
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#2
Rob - exactly, because ultimately anything that goes wrong anywhere on the planet (and possibly beyond) is George Bush's fault.
#3
I can report that the AP writer who wrote this has expressed, in what seem to be frequent unguarded moments, exactly the sort of mind-boggling, anti-American, morally inverted sentiments one assumes but secretly hopes are not characteristic of the reporters who churn out this sort of thing.
One would need lots of space and patience and time to catalogue the distortions and errors here, but this article does serve as a nice compendium of the slander that passes for "journalism" regarding US detention policies.
No doubt the detention situation is fairly assed up, but by historic standards it's not bad at all, and of course one can completely dismiss the baseless "legal" arguments state or implied in the article. My favorite is the preposterous and illiterate yet breezy reference to habeas corpus - which of course is utterly irrelevant in a war-time detention operation against war criminals (which, ipso facto, the "insurgents" are - oh, that's if you take the Geneva Conventions seriously).
I know it's a tired theme of mine, but the Conventions are being ripped to shreds by the "critics," the truly bizarre and laughable US Supreme Court and its risible hallucination on Common Article 3, and even by the ICRC, which can't bring itself to imagine that the most significant change in warfare in centuries merits, oh, a wee little examination of the Conventions that naturally took absolutely no account whatever of such warfare.
I blame Bush - for his administration's five-year silence in the face of relentless, growing, high-impact distortion. The damage this administration is doing to the US, and to the civilized world, by refusing to even be a factor in discussion of US policy and world events, will be arguably its worst legacy.
#5
The kooks are blowing up about 50 innocent civilians per diem - about the best possible case for the suspention of the Writ of Habeas Corpus I have ever heard of. Certainly a better case than Abraham Lincoln had.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/17/2006 23:22 Comments ||
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BAGHDAD Combined operations by Iraqi and Coalition forces continue to target al-Qaida terrorists at the same time as reconstruction projects continue throughout Iraq, Coalition officials told reporters on Thursday. I musta missed the MSM story on Friday. In a joint press conference, Multi-National Force Iraq spokesman Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell, IV, and Maj. Gen. William H. McCoy Jr., commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Gulf Region Division, discussed progress being made on both the operational and reconstructions fronts.
Since August 30th, over 150 focused operations have been conducted in Iraq, Caldwell said. The operations resulted in 66 terrorists killed and over 830 suspected terrorists detained, as well as the discovery of multiple weapons caches. About 60 percent of the operations were carried out in al-Anbar province.
On the evening of Sept. 12 there was a series of 25 raids conducted in and around Baghdad, targeting al-Qaida in Iraq activities. The raids resulted in the capture of over 70 suspected terrorists, one of which was a personal associate of Abu Ayyub al-Masri. The al-Masri associate was the leader of assassination, kidnapping and IED cells in Baghdad. He is known to have directly participated in numerous terrorist acts, including kidnappings and executions, directly contributing to enflaming sectarian violence throughout the city. He also played a key operational role in terrorist activities prior to and during Coalition operations in Fallujah in November 2004.
The Baghdad Security Plan is working, Caldwell said, with the levels of attacks, murders and other violence reduced in focus areas. However, the general cautioned, terrorist and death squads are targeting civilians outside of the focus areas, thus continuing to drive high levels of violence.
Overall, Baghdads level of ethno-sectarian violence has been reduced by Operation Together Forward, but remains above the levels of violence we saw before the Golden Mosque bombing in Samarra in late February, said Caldwell. As we approach Ramadan, we know there is generally an increase in violence, and the Government of Iraq has ongoing planning to address this.
The generals also reminded that security operations do not take place in a vacuum. As combined forces work to secure Iraq, thousands of reconstruction projects under way are providing another critical contribution to the countrys long-term success, McCoy said.
The United States has contributed almost $22 billion toward a massive rebuilding effort thats critical to progress toward democracy, he said. Understanding the extent and impact of these projects is important to assessing conditions in Iraq, McCoy explained. He noted the American public is bombarded with news about violence in Iraq, No! but also needs insight into successes of the reconstruction program to get a balanced view of how we are making a difference in the lives of the Iraqi people every day.
McCoy told reporters about an ambitious reconstruction plan thats helping address health, education, electricity, water, sewer, transportation, communications and other needs around the country. It ranges from short-term, relatively easy fixes like trash removal to an ambitious effort to increase power generation around the country.
We are making incredible headway in Iraq and in Baghdad, he said. As of Sept. 12, more than 2,800 of more than 3,800 projects planned under the Iraq Reconstruction Program had been completed. Work has started on another 600.
McCoy described how an initiative called Iraqi First is ensuring as many contracts as possible for this effort go to Iraqi-owned businesses. This empowers the citizens of Iraq to play a major role in rebuilding their nation and helps boost the nations economy, McCoy said. Likewise, in virtually every project that we are working on today, we work hand-in-hand with the (Iraqi) ministries at the national level and the local director generals.
By teaming with our Iraqi partners, we are building the foundation for continued success, he said, and helping build a brighter future for Iraq.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/17/2006 11:16 ||
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CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq, Sept. 13, 2006 Americas Battalion Marines made a midnight run to rush to the aid of a 7 year old Iraqi girl after she fell from a three-story building. Marines rushed the girl to Camp Fallujahs surgical center for treatment after local police were unable to get her proper medical attention.
The incident occurred late at night in Gharmah, a small city north of Fallujah. Iraqi police there tried to rush the young girl to the Jordanian hospital in Fallujah, but had difficulty getting to the hospital, according to 1st Lt. Joshua R. Rosales, a 25-year-old platoon commander who responded to the call for help.
We got the call from the commanding officer to link up with Iraqi Police at the police station, explained Rosales, from Raleigh, N.C. We met up with them in Gharmah, and they had the little girl. They wanted us to be careful. She's going to be OK. More details and some photos at link.
Its hard to show were working for hearts and minds in the infantry, Nelson said. This was an example of it tonight.
This shows the people were out here for them. In our line of work, thats sometimes hard to do, Ross said. It shows that when someone gets hurts, we can step out and let that other side shine.
Rosales said he was proud of his teams reaction to the call for help. They maintained cool heads and were able to adapt from combat operations to the midnight mercy run without missing a beat. They put themselves at risk for this little girl, Rosales said. Thats something I see all the Marines doing. They put themselves at risk for the Iraqi people.
This mission, though, is more rewarding than some of the routine operations. They were able to ease the pain of a little girl, help a family and do something good for the community. You want to do things like this, especially for the kids, Nelson said. The little girls are always the sweet, shy ones that come up and ask for candy.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/17/2006 11:10 ||
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#1
Curiously enough this story didn't make the pages of the New York Times or for that matter, any other major US newspaper.
#2
Of course not. She didn't die, heartbreakingly, at the last moment. She wasn't pushed or otherwise caused to fall off the building by US forces. As far as we know, none of the Marines raped, fondled, or exposed themselves to the little girl, although that could not be independently verified.
I hate the MSM.
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/17/2006 15:47 Comments ||
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The Iraqi Ministry of Defense is ready to gain operational control of the 4th Iraqi Army Division as early as next week, the Multi-National Coalition said in a draft statement received Saturday. The move would be the second transfer of an Iraqi division from Coalition control this month.
"It's all about becoming independent and self-sufficient," said Lt. Col. Michael Negard, the spokesman for the Multi-National Security Transition Command. MNSTC-I is the group in charge of training the Iraqi Defense Forces.
On Sept. 7, Coalition Forces transferred operational control of Iraq's Air Force and Navy to the Iraqi Joint Headquarters, the top military level of the Iraqi chain of command. At the same time, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense activated the Iraqi Ground Forces Command (IGFC). The Coalition then transferred control of the 8th Iraqi Army Division to the command.
Continued on Page 49
Iraqi police said on Saturday that they had found 47 more bodies of death squad victims dumped in Baghdad overnight, following Washingtons announcement that it was diverting troops from other parts of the country to secure the embattled capital.
The US military also on Saturday denied American media reports that Iraq would dig a giant trench around Baghdad in the next phase of a massive month-old security crackdown, but confirmed access would be tightened by forcing drivers to pass through checkpoints. The military has acknowledged a spike in execution-style sectarian killings in the capital this week, but said that violence had been reduced in the scattered neighbourhoods it was targeting in Operation Together Forward. Police said that most of the victims had been bound, tortured and killed. Twenty-six bodies were found in the mainly Sunni western part of the capital with the other 21 found in eastern Baghdads predominantly Shia side.
Meanwhile, a suicide bomber killed one civilian and wounded 22 outside a well-fortified police station in southern Baghdad. Also in the capital, three bomb blasts killed at least 16 people. Baghdad is our main effort right now, Lieutenant General Peter Chiarelli, the top US operational commander in Iraq, told Pentagon reporters in a briefing from Iraq on Friday. He said that some troops were being drawn down from Anbar province, the vast western desert that has been the heartland of the Sunni insurgency and base of Al Qaeda in Iraq, to be sent to the capital. He denied abandoning Anbar.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
47 death squad victims
Do you like sweetness and light...well you'll love this report by al Guardian about their fav people in Iraq, la résistance or as the expert cultural elites are fond to remind us, The Mesopatamian Geniuses.
warning you are about to enter Jaish al-Mahdi Tater country.
* Surrounded by her remaining children in the courtyard of her modest home, Karima bursts into tears. 'I am so scared. We don't have any news of them. We can't sleep at night we are so terrified. We are so poor. My family relies on my husband and my son for their wages to live on.' The soldiers of Bravo Battery of the 4-320th Artillery of the US 101st Airborne Division, who came to Zafaraniya on Friday to follow up abduction cases involving Sunnis in the area, are shocked by Karima's plight. They empty their Humvees of anything they can find to help her and her children.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi police found 47 bodies around the capital Baghdad in the past 24 hours, most of whom appeared to have been the victims of sectarian violence, police said on Saturday. Most of the bodies were found with their hands bound and some bore signs of torture, shortly signs of sectarian death squads who execute people briefly after their kidnapping.
The US military has confirmed a spike in such killings this week despite a major month-old security crackdown, Operation Together Forward, that has seen US troops have their service time in Iraq extended to reinforce the capital.
Twenty six bodies were found in the mainly Sunni western part of the capital with the other 21 found in eastern Baghdads predominantly Shiite side.
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/17/2006 00:00 ||
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The spiritual leader of Lebanons Sunnis, the Grand Mufti Sheik Mohammed Rashid Kabbani, said the popes remarks emanated either from "Ignorance and lack of knowledge or were deliberately intended to distort Islam."
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said there should be no controversy; the pope has already explained his true intentions. The religious dialogue and the respect for every religion is a necessity, and religion doesnt justify violence.
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said of Benedict XVI: He is a great pope, with great intelligence.
Right-wing politician Roberto Calderoli said I ask myself some crazy member of the Left will come forth and demand the popes resignation. According to the crazy people, he has offended the Muslim world. The holy fathers message is that of peace and dialogue.
Five churches throughout the West Bank were attacked by Palestinians wielding guns and firebombs.
Firebombings left black scorch marks on the walls and windows of Nablus Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches. At least five firebombs hit the Anglican church and its door was later set ablaze. Smoke billowed from the church as firefighters put out the flames
In a phone call to The Associated Press, a group calling itself the "Lions of Monotheism" claimed responsibility for those attacks, saying they were carried out to protest the popes remarks in a speech this week in Germany linking Islam and violence.
Later Saturday, four masked gunmen doused the main doors of Nablus Roman and Greek Catholic churches with lighter fluid, then set them afire. They also opened fire on the buildings, striking both with bullets.
In Gaza City, militants opened fire from a car at a Greek Orthodox church, striking the facade. A policeman at the scene said he saw a Mitsubishi escape with armed men inside. Explosive devices were set off at the same Gaza church on Friday, causing minor damage.
On Friday night about 2,000 protesters gathered outside the Palestinian parliament building to express their anger at the popes statement. "This is a new crusade against the Arab Islamic world. It comes in different forms, in cartoons or lectures ... They hate our religion," Ismail Radwan, a local Hamas official, told the rally.
During one rally gunmen in Gaza city opened fire at the Greek Orthodox church; no injuries or damage were reported. An unknown organization named The sword of Islam claimed responsibility for the incident.
We want to make it clear that if the pope does not appear on TV and apologize for his comments, we will blow up all of Gazas churches, the group said in a statement.
Posted by: john ||
09/17/2006 16:42 ||
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#1
Then every mosque in Gaza should have the same fate.
#2
"Lions of Monotheism" claimed responsibility for those attacks, saying they were carried out to protest the popes remarks in a speech this week in Germany linking Islam and violence.
We want to make it clear that if the pope does not appear on TV and apologize for his comments, we will blow up all of Gazas churches, the group said in a statement.
Soooo, the Lions of IslamTM are actually confirming the linkage (This is just a note to any moonbat that may be reading this and not getting it).
Unfortunately after Mass today at Westminster Cathedral it was shoved in my face. Holy Mass on a Sunday is the very source and summit of the Catholic week, so my family decided this Sunday to make the trip to Westminster Cathedral together. As we came out about 100 Islamists were chanting slogans such as "Pope Benedict go to Hell" "Pope Benedict you will pay, the Muja Hadeen are coming your way" "Pope Benedict watch your back" and other hateful things. I'll post more pictures of it when I get more free time. It was a pretty nasty demonstration.
Coming soon to a parish near you. Stand firm, Holy Father!
#5
the morons don't realize that the parishoners of Westminster Cathedral would not be Catholics nor that wars were fought over the differnce between the two. What the hey. An infidel is an infidel.
Posted by: tired and beat down ||
09/17/2006 18:07 Comments ||
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#6
So, none of this vitriolic spewing constitutes religious hatred? WTF is going on in Britain? I thought they were the world leaders in fighting religious hatred (with useless legislation).
#7
Westminster Cathedral in London, England is the mother church of the Roman Catholic faithful of the Archdiocese of Westminster and the metropolitan church of the Westminster Province, located at 42 Francis Street SW1 in the City of Westminster. It is the largest Roman Catholic church in England and Wales. Not to be confused with Westminster Abbey of the Church of England, Westminster Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, shepherd of the Archdiocese of Westminster.
#19
appears to me the Christians in Gaza and West Bank need Refugee status and UNHRWA funding to establish their own protected enclaves. What's good for the self destructive goose....
the funding should be taken from Paleo HR payments by the UN and EU
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/17/2006 20:57 Comments ||
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#20
It would be better to evacuate all the Christians and non-muslims from Gaza and make it a free-fire zone.
#21
Religion of Pieces, which is why they're so willing to blow themselves into pieces. We need to help them achieve their heart's desires and speed up the piece-making process.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/17/2006 22:00 Comments ||
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#22
I tried to post the following in The Guardian but they wouldn't let me. So I will post it here: Madam and all Brits related to Uncle Chamberlain: Radical-Islam facists are a violent and ignorant religion. (Please note that I am not talking about Sufis, etc)
Witness their response to the Danish cartoons.
Witness their response to the comments of the Pope.
Witness the burning of Churches, Anglican and Orthodox, in the Holy Land.
Witness their response in front of Westminster.
Londonistan is very much interested in imposing global shaaria.They demand this and that, and you Madam appeaser must be closely related to Chamberlain.
I also, in the name of democracy and equality, would like to see a Christian Church, a Buddhist temple, a Synagogue, etc.,etc.in Saudi Arabia, and in any other Muslim country where they are not allowed to exist.
BUT I AM NOT SURE WHETHER THE GUARDIAN APPROVES OF SUCH PRINCIPLES OF EQUALITY .................
One person was lightly wounded and two others were treated for shock Sunday morning when two Qassam rockets fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fell in the Negev town of Sderot.
The first rocket caused the injuries; the second, which fell shortly afterward, killed dozens of chickens and caused damage to farm equipment. I knew the Palis didn't like pigs, but what have they got against chickens?
#3
PETA is now rioting in the streets chanting death to chicken terrorist. Hollywood, lead by Sean Penn and susan Sarandon, have stood up the chicken defence fund and U2 will be headlining the fund raising concert. George cLooney will be traveling with the NYT to see how Israel could have better defended the chickens. In his last statement cLooney accused Israel of failing to properly protect the chickens and the NYT is investigation the coverup.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/17/2006 10:03 Comments ||
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#4
G-2 reports the attack was planned and carried out by Colonel Abdullah Sanders
Posted by: Joe of the Jungle ||
09/17/2006 10:07 Comments ||
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#5
Colonel Abdullah Sanders
LOL! Coffee Alert!
Was Ronald Mohammend McDonald with them?
#10
Hummmm.... technical question, is it possible even with chicken to have a Kosher BBQ? If you did your chicken Cornell style it would seem so, but any application of sauce would be mighty iffy.
#11
Not to mention that animals killed in other than kosher slaughter are trayfe.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
09/17/2006 13:03 Comments ||
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#12
Chicken is meat rather than milk, while I believe unfertilized eggs can go either way (fertilized of course being meat). Nothing in the sauce at the link is milk, so that should be ok, although some of the suggested side dishes wouldn't do, but those are only suggestions anyway. Eric's point about non-kosher slaughtering is critical, for those who keep kosher. But then, most Israelis are not religious, so that wouldn't necessarily be a concern for them.
To the best of my limited understanding, there is nothing in theory preventing the bombed chickens from being turned into barbeque or soup, although I'd not be keen on working with bits scraped out of bloody mud. ;-) Perhaps those with more knowledge on the subject would like to weigh in with whatever additions/corrections are necessary.
One night farmer Brown,
Was takin' the air,
Locked up the barnyard
With the greatest of care
Down in the henhouse
Somethin' stirred
When he shouted "Who's there?"
This is what he heard:
There ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
So calm yourself,
And stop your fuss
There ain't nobody here but us
We chickens tryin' to sleep,
And you butt in
And hobble, hobble hobble hobble
With your chin
There ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
You're stompin' around
And shakin' the ground,
You're kickin' up an awful dust
We chicken's tryin' to sleep
And you butt in
And hobble, hobble hobble hobble
It's a sin
Tomorrow
Is a busy day
We got things to do
We got eggs to lay
We got ground to dig
And worms to scratch
It takes a lot of settin'
Gettin' chicks to hatch
There ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
So quiet yourself,
And stop your fuss
There ain't nobody here but us
Kindly point that gun,
The other way
And hobble, hobble hobble off and
Hit the hay
Tomorrow
Is a busy day
We got things to do
We got eggs to lay
We got ground to dig
And worms to scratch
It takes a lot of settin'
Gettin' chicks to hatch
There ain't nobody here but us chickens
There ain't nobody here at all
So quiet yourself,
And stop your fuss
There ain't nobody here but us
Kindly point that gun,
The other way
And hobble, hobble hobble of and
Hit the hay
"Hey boss man
What do ya say?"
It's easy pickens,
Ain't nobody here but us chickens
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/17/2006 15:06 Comments ||
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#17
Thinemp Whimble2412, thank you. You are a kind soul.
IDF forces arrested three infiltrators north of Mount Harif, adjacent to the Israel-Egypt border, on Saturday night. Two of the infiltrators, who were residents of the Gaza Strip, were in possession of a bag of food and cellular phones. The two are suspected of involvement in terrorist activities and were detained by security forces for interrogation. The third man, a Sinai resident, is suspected of transporting the Palestinians to the border.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2006 00:00 ||
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A hitherto unknown group calling itself the Swords of Islamic Right on Saturday threatened to blow up all churches and Christian institutions in the Gaza Strip in protest against remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI about Islam and Prophet Muhammed. The group, which claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on a church in Zaituon neighborhood in Gaza City on wounded in the attack. "What the Pope said is unforgivable," the group said in a statement. "We will continue to target churches."
Christians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip make up less than 10% of the population. Most of them are located in Bethlehem and its surrounding villages and towns. Fewer than 2,000 Christians are reportedly living in the Gaza Strip, which is a stronghold for radical Islamic groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
And don't ever call us violent again or we'll hurt somemore people and break some stuff.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/17/2006 1:28 Comments ||
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#2
First .com and now SH is back! Welcome home, boys. Seems like old times...
#4
I have a new job and am living as a geo-batchelor until my house sells. Ranturg is every bit as entertaining as I remember it to be.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/17/2006 2:52 Comments ||
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#5
Congratulations on your new job, Super Hose! And best wishes on a speedy and profitable sale of your old house - but not so quick that you don't have time to settle into your new responsibilities before your family joins you; it really is easier for all, if not quite as comfortable, in my experience.
Iranian hardline newspapers said there were signs of an Israeli-US plot behind remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that linked Islam to violence and created a wave of anger across the Muslim world. The daily Jomhuri Islami said Israel and the United States -- the Islamic republic's two arch-enemies -- could have dictated the comments to distract attention from the resistance of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah to Israel's offensive on Lebanon.
"The reality is that if we do not consider Pope Benedict XVI to be ignorant of Islam, then his remarks against Islam are a dictat that the Zionists and the Americans have written (for him) and have submitted to him."
"The American and the Zionist aim is to undermine the glorious triumph of Islam's children of Lebanese Hezbollah, which annulled the undefeatable legend of the Israeli army and foiled the Satanic and colonialist American plot," it said.
Fellow hardline daily Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said there were signs of Israeli inteference aimed at creating conflict between Islam and Christianity. "There are many signs that show that Pope Benedict XVI's remarks regarding the great prophet of Islam are a link in a connected chain of a Zionist-American project," it said. "The project, which was created and executed by the Zionist minority, aims at creating confrontation between the followers of the two great divine religions."
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2006 12:55 ||
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#1
The Pope's a Zionist? Who knew?
Insanity starts to float. Like poop, it'll rise until you can't ignore the sight of it in the bowl.
As all wingnuts are, bigjim-ky. Iran's just hacked off because no one's paying attention to their expensive Lebanese playthings.
The upside is that Iran continues to show itself to be so out of touch with reality that fewer nations should have any compunctions about slapping the mullahs awake.
#4
"The project, which was created and executed by the Zionist minority, aims at creating confrontation between the followers of the two great divine religions."
One of them they'd like to see wiped off the face of the earth, I'm sure. Right after Judaism.
Well, extremists, I guess you shouldn't have painted yourself into a corner. This is what happens when you keep the masses ignorant. Yes, I know they're ignorant because you are treating them as if they are, and who would know ignorance better than you? Why would you say such stupid stuff unless you believed your masses would belive it?
I don't know what you guys are so upset about. You have a perfect way out of this, you know. It's easy, especially for a great divine religion such as yours. It's called "meaningful dialogue". It's called "show me the peace". It shouldn't be too hard coming from such a wonderful religon as Islam, which is replete with pluralists, philosophers, and humanitarians such as yourselves. It shouldn't be too hard coming from "the religion of peace" which you proclaim to be.
Or is the momentum too much to overcome?
Disingenuous is as disingenous does. How do you do?
As far as I am concerned, if Pope Benedict stays the course on this, he should be made a saint during his lifetime. Whether you extremists know it or not, he may just save Islam from annihilating itself because of your medieval influences on the religion.
#5
As a JEW I am glad that the Iranian mullahs believe that I control not only the USA but also the POPE.........jeee.......Maybe the mullahs should ask MY PERMISSION to do nukes, after all I am a JEWsih controlling mama who supports the USA and Israel............
#8
I went to mass today and I think our priest let us down. He failed to denounce any apostates and we were only told to love others. Near the end of mass an activist from the Knights of Columbus mounted the pulpit to encourage us patronize their hotdog booth in the local festival. Maybe Hamas will do the same in 600 years. I hope that the Pope doesn't find out how badly our parish let down the needs of the international Zionist conspiracy.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/17/2006 23:16 Comments ||
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A HARDLINE cleric linked to Somalia's powerful Islamist movement has called for Muslims to "hunt down" and kill Pope Benedict XVI for his controversial comments about Islam.
Sheikh Abubukar Hassan Malin urged Muslims to find the pontiff and punish him for insulting the Prophet Mohammed and Allah in a speech that he said was as offensive as author Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. "We urge you Muslims wherever you are to hunt down the Pope for his barbaric statements as you have pursued Salman Rushdie, the enemy of Allah who offended our religion," he said in Friday evening prayers.
"Whoever offends our Prophet Mohammed should be killed on the spot by the nearest Muslim," Malin, a prominent cleric in the Somali capital, told worshippers at a mosque in southern Mogadishu.
"We call on all Islamic Communities across the world to take revenge on the baseless critic called the pope," he said.
Reached by telephone on Saturday, Malin confirmed making the remarks that were echoed in less strident form by other senior clerics in the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS).
Another SICS executive member, Sheikh Ahmed Abdullahi, vented similar anger at the pope's "barbarous criticism" but stopped short of calling for his murder. "He must apologise because he has offended the most honorable person who ever lived in the world," Abdullahi said. Even old Mo' probably never existed as an actual human being and is a composite of several caliphs.
The German-born leader of the Roman Catholic Church has been condemned in the Muslim world for comments he made at a Tuesday lecture, in which he implicitly denounced links between Islam and violence, particularly with reference to jihad, or "holy war." The pope also quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor who said innovations introduced by the Prophet Mohammed were "evil and inhuman."
#1
There isn't any historical evidence that Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth lived, nor Moses either. Nor the Buddha, nor... Absense of evidence isn't the same as evidence of absense, of course, so let's not worry about the existence or nonexistence of the founders of whichever religion, but on how the religion has developed to our time. And the Ummah are working themselves up for a major slap-down. The only question is whether they will learn from individual lessons like Iraq, Afghanistan, and whatever comes next, or whether (as is looking more and more likely) we will have to erase the Arab world, or even the entire Dar al Islam.
#3
tw I am sad to say, and I really truly am sad to say, without a bit of joy in me that it is the whole of the islamic world which we will have to deal. We will have to deal with theme in a vary harsh and merciless way. We pretty much have given them plenty of opportunity to show their adaptation to the reality of a world in which they must coexist with the rest of us. They have no apperent intention of doing so. All they do is ask for the impossible. islam is about to walk into the rotating blades of history again.
#6
I guess its time to armor up and don our tunics . Im a Knight, not a Saint
Posted by: Joe of the Jungle ||
09/17/2006 8:09 Comments ||
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#7
Part of the problem is that we keep pulling our punches. The 'primitives' only seem to understand primitive warfare. The West has evolved a sense of warfare, because of the vast destructiveness of its capacity, that is to mitigate destruction and loss of human life. Were two alien species trying to communicate over several hundred light years in distance and social development. Our problem is that, unlike the screaming seething heathens, we have this notion of cultural sin/guilt that makes our society go through all sorts of ritualistic behaviors before we act. To the enemy, that is seen as weakness rather than process. At the same time the ritual political dance within our own culture is creating dynamic stresses to its own structure that those trying desperately to head off the inevitable outcome only make more dangerous by delay.
#8
A 17th century text, in the history books, is repeated, and these people get this mad. I hope when the pope gives his apology, it's live for thw world to see, and starts it with "Islam, if the shoe fits".
#9
There isn't any historical evidence that Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth lived...
Actually, I think there is, from Roman documents regarding the administration of Pontius Pilate. Perhaps not by name, but by statements regarding unrest and related events.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/17/2006 8:52 Comments ||
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#10
GF7716 nails it: part of the problem is that we keep pulling our punches; and I think it's a BIG part of the problem.
The enemy does not understand our restraint, and because he sees it as weakness, it BECOMES weakness. As time goes on, I'm more and more inclined to believe that the best way we could have responded to the attacks on 9/11 would have been to obliterate, that very afternoon, a few dozen military installations throughout the Islamic world using the largest nukes in our arsenal, and then issue an ultimatum: "This shit has gone on long enough. It stops, RIGHT FUCKING NOW, or your cities will be next."
Yes, it would have been brutal, and extravagantly disproportionate. But I suspect that in the end, it would have proven the most humane response because the way things stand now, the Islamic world is pushing us as hard as it can toward a war of total annihilation.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
09/17/2006 9:13 Comments ||
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#11
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached," Pope Benedict quoted.
Yes, this statement seems absolutely true. So what's NEW that Mohammed preached that hasn't been there before AND that isn't evil or inhuman?
The Somali Muslims just made the pope's argument true, with this death threat and nun killing.
Next the pope should address Muslim's lack of anger control, that's the root problem, it should definalely hit a nerve.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/17/2006 11:28 Comments ||
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#13
Editor, please file under "Gross Stupidity is usualy Fatal"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/17/2006 11:30 Comments ||
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#14
There isn't any historical evidence that Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth lived...
Actually, I think there is, from Roman documents regarding the administration of Pontius Pilate. Perhaps not by name, but by statements regarding unrest and related events.
To the best of my knowledge, Rob, no there is not. Pontius Pilate was so evil and corrupt that he was eventually recalled by Rome for it, and because of the unrest he caused throughout his area of responsibility. For instance, he had the entire population of a city in Samaria put to the sword because they asked that their tax load be lightened temporarily, sometime before he ordered Jesus crucified. And, while there Josephus mentions John the Baptist by name in his Histories, the only mention of Jesus was clearly added by a Christian copyist sometime in the 4th Century AD. As for unrest, the entire former Herodian kingdom was on one side or the other of the border between unrest and outright rebellion throughout the 1st and 2nd centuries AD. There was that little revolt that led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple therein in the 65-73 AD that culminated in the siege of Masada, and Bar Kochba revolt ("Son of the Star", who was proclaimed the Messiah by Rabbi Akiva himself -- somewhat like the Pope pointing to Mr. Wife and pronouncing him "Jesus returned" today) in 125 AD, which resulted in crosses bearing Jewish bodies lining the road from Jerusalem almost the entire way to Rome.
Which, as I said, proves nothing one way or another about Jesus' existence.
#15
Dave D, I'm reminded of Tancredo's remarks about bombing Mecca.
Just as my dad taught me while faced with a group of dangerous folks, you only have two bullets in a 357 magnum, shoot one and say who's next.
Posted by: Jan ||
09/17/2006 12:52 Comments ||
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#16
trailing wife, I urge you to watch the superb Frontline documentary, "From Jesus to Christ" (The First Christians). There seems to be quite a lot of credible evidence that Jesus did exist. I will not enter into debate as to whether he was the son of God or any other manifestation of same, but, as Rob Crawford points out, historical records do indeed point towards his having walked this earth.
Good post, Gletle Flegum7716.
As time goes on, I'm more and more inclined to believe that the best way we could have responded to the attacks on 9/11 would have been to obliterate, that very afternoon, a few dozen military installations throughout the Islamic world using the largest nukes in our arsenal, and then issue an ultimatum: "This shit has gone on long enough. It stops, RIGHT FUCKING NOW, or your cities will be next."
Yup, David D.. I wanted Kandahar carpet bombed pour encourager les autres . We really should have done something incredibly disproportionate. Instead, all we've gotten for our restraint is constant pokes in the eye.
I'm no bible scholar but this I do know is recorded fact: Wise men followed a star to go to the birth of Jesus in a stable. We know this modern astronomy indicates that such a star would have been in the sky. We also know that wise men went to seek the birth of the king that was prophesied. We know this because history records that Herod asked the wise men to return to him and tell him where the baby was - but they did not. Herod then killed all the first born males under 3. History and Astronmy does record that the star was in the sky and that Herod killed the males.
You don't need to be religious to find it interesting that wise men followed a star to the baby Jesus, Herod killed all children under 3 and then amazingly, that particular child became the most influential child born until Mohammed's birth. Imagine the odds of that.
When Christ died on the cross, there was an earthquake that destroyed the temple. That's a historical fact. Imagine the odds of that.
#18
Happy Easter The Case for Christ's Existence
You might recall Luigi Cascioli, an Italian atheist who brought a stunning lawsuit against a local priest. According to Cascioli, in claiming that Jesus was born of Mary and lived in ancient Palestine, the priest was perpetuating a falsehood. You see, Cascioli insists that Jesus never actually existed.
In This Article...
The Scriptural Evidence
The Early Christian Evidence
The Non-Christian Evidence
(..., rest at link).
(After, of course, the various militant groups in the beseiged Jerusalem had spent much more effort fighting each other than they did fighting the Romans. It's one of the major reasons they lost. It happened to them, and it can happen to us too. All the signs are there.)
Posted by: Phil ||
09/17/2006 14:14 Comments ||
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#20
Ya all got sidetracked.
What about a nasty cleric in a failed state threatening to unleash murder with hell for a backlash.
Let's be honest. Would anybody really miss it if Somali disappeared from the face of the earth?
#22
"There isn't any historical evidence that Jesus son of Joseph of Nazareth lived"
TW, my dear, you know the last thing I would want to do is argue with you, but there is quite a bit of historical evidence, outside of Christianity, that Jesus indeed lived. The most important evidence though, is that Christians completely changed the social, political and religious landscape of the Roman empire within a few short decades after his death. If they could do so based upon a fictitious person, I'd find that very hard to believe. Some evidence here.
Quite unusual, really. Especially when you consider how steam locomotives forever changed the landscape of modern civilization. I mean, if God had meant man to fly, He would never have given us the railroads.
#24
Quit feeding people who want to kill us. Quit giving these people electicity generators. Quit providing these people with water treatment. Quit shipping our tax dollars to provide this these people with things allah will not. Quit importing thousands of them into the US each year. Quarantine, hunger and cholera is their future.
Posted by: ed ||
09/17/2006 16:31 Comments ||
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#25
Kill the pope? We nuke Mecca. Go ahead, make my day.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
09/17/2006 18:21 Comments ||
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#26
With apologies, Old Patriot, but you're coming across like the South Park underpants gnomes:
#28
The Problem is if they killed the Pope we would in reality do nothing. It would be attributed to a lone killer and a law enforcement problem.
SPoD, I think that we have progressed beyond that point. The last would-be Pope assassin had a much higher level of plausible deniability. If a Muslim does indeed murder Pope Benedict, there will be no way on earth that this cretin will not declare his act to be the will of Allah. (If in doubt, please refer to my posts about how Islam will forever overreach itself.)
We are not quite so low on the stupidity ladder anymore. Instead of being on the tenth and bottommost rung, we have attained unhearlded new heights and are now on rung number nine of Stupidity Hell.
Between Islam's inescapable exultation and what is sure to be a boatload of forensic analysis, it will be patently obvious that a Muslim did indeed commit this murder.
Personally, against my own desires, I doubt that this will trigger full scale religious war. What it will do is forever rip the mask of benignity from Islam. This shall represent but one small incremental step in polarizing this world to such a degree that the tipping point will finally be reached.
I dread to think what devastatingly heinous atrocity it will require for this planet to wake up and realize what Islam intends for it. I only know it will likely dwarf 9-11 to subatomic proportions.
#29
"I dread to think what devastatingly heinous atrocity it will require for this planet to wake up and realize what Islam intends for it. I only know it will likely dwarf 9-11 to subatomic proportions."
That's the question, isn't it: what's it going to take? 9/11, 3/11, 7/7, Bali, Beslan, etc. clearly were not enough to wake up more than a fraction of us for more than a few months.
How many of our cities are going to be sacrificed on the alter of political correctness and warmfuzzymulticultidiversityfeelgoodness, before we fucking GET IT??? Will it only take one American or European city, disappearing in a blinding flash, before we figure out that Islam is absolutely, utterly, irredeemably evil? Two? Five? Ten?
Posted by: Dave D. ||
09/17/2006 20:30 Comments ||
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#30
Or will all the empty people who simply cannot stomach the idea of the Christianity or Judaism of their ancestors find "true solace" in Islam?
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried. -- Chesterton
#31
And while I'm on Chesterton, this from The Dagger With Wings. Quite relevant to the modern relativist.
'You do believe it,' he said. 'You do believe everything. We all believe everything, even when we deny everything. The denyers believe. The unbelievers believe. Don't you feel in your heart that these contradictions do not really contradict: that there is a cosmos that contains them all? The soul goes round upon a wheel of stars and all things return; perhaps Strake and I have striven in many shapes, beast against beast and bird against bird, and perhaps we shall strive for ever. But since we seek and need each other, even that eternal hatred is an eternal love. Good and evil go round in a wheel that is one thing and not many. Do you not realize in your heart, do you not believe behind all your beliefs, that there is but one reality and we are its shadows; and that all things are but aspects of one thing: a centre where men melt into Man and Man into God?'
Hat tip Ltop; I thought you might want to see this nice example of Moderate Islam.
My friend Lorenzo Vidino, counterterrorism expert and author of al Qaeda in Europe, sent the above photo and this note:
Attached is a picture of the Pope that is circulating in Qaeda-friendly chat rooms and websites. Lovely (and predictable) that they call for his beheading.
The script in red calls for the Pope's beheading. The rest of the translation:
"Swine and servant of the cross, worships a monkey on a cross, hateful evil man, stoned Satan, may Allah curse him, blood-sucking vampire."
Will the dhimmis at the New York Times have anything to say about it?
#1
Damn, that has to be the most incompetent Photoshop job EVER. Sure hope whoever did this isn't trying to get a job at Reuters.
-2 for obscuring the subject's face completely, bad paste job on the insults, and lack of realistic blood flow down the sides of the "vampire's" mouth. And what's with the outlining of the nose?
#3
Gromgoru, just for the record, at least one of the items you linked to was full of half-truths; one of the officials in the Vatican, that Benedict could not fire (basically, the Sec. of State left over from JP2, a Cardinal Sodano), had made those statements re: Israel.
Take a look at these two links and read all the discussion:
By reporting Solano's comments as if they were Benedict's the press scored a major public-relations coup in its crusade to divide-and-conquer what's left of western civ.
And you're still falling for it, even when, given the opportunity to speak for himself, Benedict says things much different than you think.
Posted by: Phil ||
09/17/2006 10:57 Comments ||
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#4
good thinking. Direct your blame and anger at the Pope. Afterall he represents those Christians who have so brutally persecuted the Jews. The number of Jews burned at the stake in your life time by raging Christians has been what? Zero? Ah but those dirty looks and nasty comments.
I think it would be best if to acknowledge the reality of what is occuring here. Christians and Jews are being threatened and to simply call attention to it is to get a death threat. The New York Times will be finding ways to apologize for the fact that every Muslim sermon world-wide will be calling for extermination of Jews and Christians found moral outrage over the Pope acknowledging the obvious.
#8
oh bullshit. So some bullies beat you up one day in the name of Christ? Women get raped and beat up daily. By your logic, all men are all pigs who hate women. So some bullies were out there looking for a fight and chances are they beat you up because you were there. You could have been fat, or gay or Mexican or White or black or anything. So now you hold a grudge for which any and all Christians are good enough targets for your ire. Good for you.
You know, it occurs to me reading rantburg today - that we will not win this war. Divide and conquer is the most potent weapon of war. And we are a society/culture/civilization hopelessly divided. The pope has been threatened with death and rather direct the outrage where it belongs, it becomes an opportunity to kick those dirty, stupid Christians once again. Sad.
WE may be divided, but the Muslims are not. They are of one mind and of one purpose. To convert of conquer all under Islam. Unless something changes - as things stand right now I believe they will indeed win.
#9
Indeed, tw2412. I see you're from Toronto. That's not generally known as a hotbed of fervent Christian belief. So exactly where were you "beat up" by Christians? Since this was because of their "teachings" you will no doubt be able to tell us just what they said while doing it.
I certainly would like to know and I'm sure others here would as well.
#10
familiar with the "christians" that beat me half to death in the name of their "teachings".
You just keep on believing that. I don't know you, but you come across as someone I'd like to beat as well. And not in the name of Christ, but because you're an obnoxious puke.
Never attribute to Christ that which can be explained by your own obnoxiousness! Or something like that.
As security was beefed up around Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday night, the Mujahideen's Army movement in Iraq threatened to carry out a suicide attack against the Pope in revenge for his comments about Islam and jihad.
Okay. Think about the logic of that.
On a website used by rebel movements in Iraq, a message posted by the Mujahideen Army said members of the organization would "smash the crosses in the house of the dog from Rome."
Because he said Islam is too fond of violence?
European religious and political leaders have backed the Pope in the wake of the Muslim protests over his academic lecture at Regensburg University Tuesday, saying the pope's words had been misinterpreted. "Rather than criticizing Islam, the pope is actually offering it a helping hand by suggesting that it do away with the cycle of violence," Fr. Samir K. Samir, SJ one of the Vatican's leading experts on Islam wrote in the Catholic newspaper Asia News.
I'm not sure brandishing a zipgun and showing your colors will help terribly much in getting away from the reputation of being the juvenile delinquent of religions...
The pope's academic lecture "was trying to show how Western society-including the Church-has become secularized by removing from the concept of Reason its spiritual dimension and origins which are in God," Fr. Samir stated.
To the extent that reason probably came into being as the ground monkeys attempted to comprehend the world God had made them. I guess I can accept that.
While European Muslims were quick to attack the pope's words, the continent's political leaders declined to follow. "Whoever criticizes the pope misunderstood the aim of his speech," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an interview with the German newspaper, Bild.
That's one European leader. Has the count gone up since last night?
"It was an invitation to dialogue between religions," she said on Friday. Benedict "expressly spoke in favor of this dialogue, which is something I also support and consider urgent and necessary."
"Dialogue" to the Muslim world consists of us saying we're sorry and them telling us whether the apology had enough grovel in it.
"What Benedict XVI emphasized was a decisive and uncompromising renunciation of all forms of violence in the name of religion," Merkel noted.
In response to which we have threats of suicide boomings, attacks on churches, and calls from Muslim clergy for the Pope to be killed. Y'see where I'm trying to find the sense, here...
This is a "storm in a tea cup" the former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey told The Jerusalem Post. "Anything Pope Benedict says should be weighed carefully. He is not given to slight or idle remarks," he added, dismissing Muslim charges the Pope had "rubbished" Islam. "If he quoted something said 600 years ago, we should not assume that this represents the Pope's beliefs about Islam today," he said.
Yeah, Lord. Gotcha. I'm sure that reconciliation stuff's working just fine. It couldn't possibly be that the Learned Elders of Islam are just looking for each and every excuse to demand more and more apologies from the West, the bigger the figure the better, thereby putting the West collectively more and more on the defensive...
Lord Carey, who chairs the Foundation for Reconciliation in the Middle East has long been active in Christian-Muslim dialogue, and in 2002 signed an accord in Alexandria with the Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo and the Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel calling for an end to violence, suicide bombings and a resumption of the peace process in the Middle East.
That worked well, didn't it? The past four years have been... ummm... well...
"Muslims, as well as Christians, must learn to enter into dialogue without crying 'foul'," Lord Carey said. "We live in perilous times, and we must not only separate religion from violence but also not give religious legitimacy to violence in any shape or form."
Italian European parliament vice president Mario Mauro condemned as "monstrous" the manipulation of the pope's remarks by Islamic leaders which he claimed were used to "hit out at Christians and the West." The controversy was evidence of the "gravity of the danger we are facing" he told the ANSA press agency on September 15, and urged Europeans to "defend reason" against the onslaught of "Islamist-Nazi ideology that permeates fundamentalist thought."
The Western press was divided over the pope's remarks. The New York Times editorialized on Saturday that the pope must give a "deep and persuasive" apology for his remarks as "the world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly," it said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
The last two paragraphs...reversal of roles? I still think Europe is going to wake up, slowly but surely.
Posted by: Rafael ||
09/17/2006 0:39 Comments ||
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#2
Rafael, there is no reversal of roles. NYT is the N-M-E.
As for EUros, when they'll really wake up, they might realize it may be too late.
#3
The New York Times editorialized on Saturday that the pope must give a "deep and persuasive" apology
What does the NYT editor do in his spare time, stroke off Muslim visitors to his office? They may not be hijacking airliners, but these scribblers are hijacking the truth just as shamelessly.
#5
The following is a quote from the prepared text from which Pope Benedict XVI spoke as he addressed an academic audience at the Unviersity of Regensburg on September 12.
In the seventh conversation edited by Professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that surah 2, 256 reads: There is no compulsion in religion. It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under threat.
But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Quran, concerning holy war. Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the Book and the infidels, he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words:
Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.
The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul.
God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death....
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: "For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality." Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice idolatry.
Posted by: Joe of the Jungle ||
09/17/2006 1:08 Comments ||
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#6
The NYT's would like the Pope to please reverse his remarks and say that it's OK for Islam to convert the world via the sword. If he does, maybe Hezbollah will signal their acceptance of his appology by organizing and Easter egg hunt. A remake of Gillighan's Island starring Kevin Costner and Jim Bellushi is equally as likely.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/17/2006 1:44 Comments ||
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#7
The New York Times editorialized on Saturday that the pope must give a "deep and persuasive" apology for his remarks
If this is true, then the NYT obviously didn't read nearly as deeply as they should have, did they? Whoever was involved in the editorial process obviously didn't understand what the Pope had to say. All they saw were some words that taken out of context could be interpreted as a slam on Islam. I doubt whoever put together this editorial even comes up to the Pope's knee! Did they put some flunkie on it and not bother to review it before printing it?
#8
From what I've seen of the NYT, this is standard fare. By presenting an exaggerated miscasting of the Pope's actual words, they are creating a misconception that the Vatican has indeed backed down and that we are powerless before the awful might of terrorism.
They would probably rather shit a porcupine backwards than ever admit that, for the first time, a major religious leader has called whiney-ass Islam on the carpet.
#9
Somebody needs to come out and directly ask the followers of Islam to denounce violence as a means of furthering their religion.
Is violence necessary for Islam to exist?
I'm afraid the answer is yes.
#10
Is violence necessary for Islam to exist?
I'm afraid the answer is yes.
In its medieval form that seems to be all the rage today, I'll bet you're not far from the mark. Christianity and Judaism hold lots of stuff that is good food for thought for a philosopher. How about the more moderate versions of Islam? How about the medieval forms?
#11
Somebody needs to come out and directly ask the followers of Islam to denounce violence as a means of furthering their religion.
This is almost precisely what the Pope did, Gladys. He deftly quotes previous work to avoid dispensing his own opinion, though by his selection of text he makes his own position quite clear. The one he cites is by professor Theodore Khoury and deals with discourse between the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam, and the truth of both.
He quotes an early segment (sura) of the Koran:
In the seventh conversation ("diálesis" -- controversy) edited by professor Khoury, the emperor touches on the theme of the jihad (holy war). The emperor must have known that sura 2:256 reads: "There is no compulsion in religion." It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under [threat]. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war.
The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. "God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably ("syn logo") is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats.... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death...."
The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God's nature.
Benedict has effectively equated compulsion in religion with spreading faith through violence. He then goes on to demonstrate that unreasonableness is contrary to Gods nature and that violence or threats are of no proper use in convincing a person with respect to faith.
Im convinced that the Pope chose these words with extreme care and knew well enough what their likely impact would be. He also knew how critical it is to begin the unmasking of violent Islam. That he has put his own life on the line in doing so is leadership of a rare quality.
#13
"As security was beefed up around Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday night, the Mujahideen's Army movement in Iraq threatened to carry out a suicide attack against the Pope in revenge for his comments about Islam and jihad."
...thus suggesting that the Pope's remarks were both spot-on, and rather understated.
I give up. There will be no "dialog" with Islam; they want only murder, destruction and death, to force the rest of the world to bow down before their hateful, psychotic "god." There are no "moderate Muslims"-- only Muslims who are sitting out the fight for the time being, waiting for the day when they can force the rest of us to our knees at less risk to themselves.
This is going to become a fight to the death.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
09/17/2006 8:22 Comments ||
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#14
One silver lining to the dark cloud that would be Islamist world rule is that the NYT editorial office would be among the first groups to be subjected to the Final Solution.
#16
I see this as almost good news. Now Europe will have come out of their state of denial and realize it is not a war of Islam and America, but a global one for our civilization. The Pope will apologize, because thats how the pope is supposed to be, and the rest of the church will pick up this fight to defend. Once the muzzies make a direct attack on the church the politics of europe will change. This could be a very interesting year.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
09/17/2006 9:55 Comments ||
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#17
I actually don't see this pope as apologizing beyond, "I'm awfully sorry you've gotten upset about this," because this is rather his area of expertise, not something he picked up as along with the big hat and the little white skullcap underneath. Across all sorts of fronts the West it is starting to notice that Islam insists on making itself a problem, and not the sort of problem that can be "understood" away with soothing words and midnight basketball. It may or may not be too late for Europe -- that remains to be seen -- but at least they will not be a monolithic bloc fighting on the side of Dar al Islam.
#18
I do not believe "B-16" will apologize further. He will not fail to confront the truth on this matter as in many others. It pisses people off at the NYT when he opposes gay marriage and abortion. It will piss them off on this.
#19
I see the cartoon now; with the pope on his knees to Islam please forgive me via the NYT.
This weak front we keep up is sickening to me.
Stop your subscriptions! Shut them down!
Posted by: Jan ||
09/17/2006 13:08 Comments ||
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#20
Word, trailing wife.
Pope Benedict, at the risk of his very life, has set forward to potentially unify much of the fragmented non-Muslim world. I hope he succeeds.
#21
Pope Benedict, at the risk of his very life, has set forward to potentially unify much of the fragmented non-Muslim world. I hope he succeeds.
Nobody would like that more Zenster, but lets be real here. While I admire the Pope in many ways, I recognize him as a mere mortal. It would take something supernatural to unify the world against the muslim threat. Either that, or a cataclysmic event, such as muzzies committing terror acts on a scale much greater than 9/11, in many countries at once. If the non-muslim world is ever unified against islam, I think it will be due to the latter, rather than the former. Having said that, I admire the man for trying.
#22
When I said "unify", I meant it in the sense of jarring overall public opinion and its perceptions about Muslims with respect to recognition of Islam as a threat and not necessarily as galvanizing it into military action.
That may well require some unimaginable atrocity still fermenting as yet in a twisted Islamic mind somewhere, but should the Pope be murdered, it would certainly cement a large portion of world opinion including many who might have otherwise continued to sit on the fence.
#23
You should have a look at Le Monde recently, it's starting to read like the Weekly Standard in parts. Perhaps some small fraction of the lefties realize that Sharia ain't exactly compatible with topless bathing in San Trope, movie festivals in Cannes, or sipping wine in a sidewalk cafe.
#25
Pope Benedict's message was about more than Islam. The Muslims were just the ones who got upset about it.
Regarding the issue of the separation of religion from violence or rather violence in the name of religious proselytism, I was thinking more along the lines that some people need it stated in words of no more than two syllables. The less chance for misinterpretation by the msm.
#26
I was thinking more along the lines that some people need it stated in words of no more than two syllables.
I understand completely, Gladys. It's a pity the Pope was not more blunt, but the depth of his message may have forbade it. I still agree with you that some very plain speech is needed to make crystal clear exactly why Islam is outmoded, outdated and out of luck.
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - A series of bomb blasts ripped through three department stores Saturday night in Thailand's restive south, killing four people and wounding dozens, police said. The attacks in the region's main commercial center of Hat Yai came just hours after the military staged a peace rally in the south, the site of a Muslim insurgency, where it expressed hope that people would work with authorities to end the violence.
Authorities quickly blamed separatist insurgents for the attacks. Since 2004, they have waged a bloody campaign that has killed at least 1,700 people - most civilians. "We do believe that the insurgents are responsible for the bombs attacked," Lt. Gen. Palangoon Klaharn, the military spokesman, said. "Their intention is to spread fear in the region."
The bombs planted on motorbikes were triggered simultaneously at 9:15 p.m. in the Hat Yai business district in Songkhla province, Pol. Col. Pattanawut Angkanawin said. At least four people were killed, Pattanawut said.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
09/17/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
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#1
Bombs ?? I've never heard of Buddhists bombing anything before. Could it be the work of the Lions again ? Nah, they're peaceful. Just ask them. Wherever they crawl, trouble follows. Whenever I see rats, I immediately think of death. Theirs.
The United States pressed the top finance officials of the worlds leading industrial nations on Saturday to crack down on what Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said was the exploitation of their banking systems by at least 30 Iranian front companies involved in illicit activities.
Mr. Paulson said he had told the finance and economic ministers that the front companies were identified by American intelligence agencies as funneling money to terrororist groups using banks in Europe and elsewhere, many of them blue chip banks.
Mr. Paulson said that many leading trading companies in Iran with legitimate business operations were also involved in the illicit activities, and that it behooved any legitimate bank to realize that it was risky to continue doing even legitimate business with the companies.
He called on banks around the world to be vigilant in opposing such risks and to avoid inadvertently facilitating the kinds of activities that they wouldnt want to facilitate.
Iran is a country that has broad, deep and commercial relationships with much of the world that have gone on for some time, Mr. Paulson told reporters here. This was nothing more than an educational briefing to prepare financial institutions for dealing with some of the risks that are out there.
He said banks around the world also needed to stop doing business with North Korea, but added that North Korea was already almost entirely isolated from the worlds financial system. By contrast, Iran is still a major player globally.
The comments appeared to reflect the emerging Bush administration strategy on Iran as efforts to impose sanctions by the United Nations Security Council have faltered.
Last week, in what administration officials call a major escalation in the effort to squeeze Iran economically, the Treasury Department announced that Bank Saderat, a major bank in Iran, would no longer have even indirect access to the United States financial system.
Banking experts say that the decree means that Iran will have difficulty selling anything for dollars through Bank Saderat, because any commercial exchange that uses dollars normally obtains them from an American bank. Oil in particularly is always traded in dollars. Many banking experts say the administration may make other banks off-limits soon.
After the announcement on Bank Saderat, two senior Treasury officials visited Europe to try to persuade regulators and banks to stop doing business with Bank Saderat and any other banks that are alleged to be involved in illicit activities. Some European banks have already curtailed their activities with Iran, but many leading banks have refused.
#1
Warning shot across the bow. The next step presumably being what they did to banks that have dealings with the Palestinian Authority or with North Korea.
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/17/2006 11:12 Comments ||
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#7
Fred---That is the most jam-packed info front page I have ever seen with the RBDS&P!!! It's like a protein bar for the mind (and spirit)! And Hedy Lamar raises the morale for the troops, as an added bonus.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/17/2006 14:57 Comments ||
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#8
That's another Scooter page. I was inebriated at the time...
Posted by: Fred ||
09/17/2006 15:20 Comments ||
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#9
Very fine job, Scooter. Fred yours soar as well. The Good Morning is always welcome! I just noticed text is also there...
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/17/2006 15:22 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.
One dead in suicide blast near NATO convoy in Afghanistan
BRITISH special forces have played a key role in a defeat of the Taliban as part of Operation Medusa, the largest combat operation ever mounted by Nato. Over the past fortnight Nato troops, led by the Canadians, have driven the Taliban out of the strategically important Panjwayi district between Maiwand and Kandahar.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A bomb blast south of the Afghan capital killed three people and wounded another on Saturday, police said. The remote-controlled device went off as a car carrying four people passed by on the main road in Musayi district, Kabul province, said Ali Shah Paktiawal, a police official.
Four members of Al Qaeda who were planning attacks in Yemen's capital Sanaa were arrested on Saturday in possession of powerful explosives, the interior minister said. "The security services have today arrested in Sanaa a cell of four terrorists with links to Al Qaeda who were planning terrorist attacks" in the capital, Interior Minister General Rashad al-Alimi told a news conference. 
Three separate gun battles in Indian Kashmir killed at least six suspected militants and wounded two policemen on Saturday, police said. The Indian army's special forces shot and killed three suspected militants in a densely forested area of Gurwatan, 110 kilometres (70 miles) south of Srinagar, the main city in Indian Kashmir, said army spokesman Colonel Hemant Juneja. Other details were not immediately available.
The Lahore police on Saturday arrested a trainer of terrorists, Tameem alias Umar alias Abdur Rehman alias Tahir alias Wakeel, from Darbar Baba Haider Saeen near Lorry Adda. Police seized explosives, four hand grenades, detonators and material on various missiles and audio cassettes on jihad. A police spokesman said that Tameem was involved in the August 29 Liberty Market bomb blast. Police said that he was suspected of planning an attack on Christians. A senior police investigator said Tameem, an alleged member of a banned militant group, "wanted to attack Christians next week".
CAMP FALLUJAH, Iraq, Sept. 13, 2006 Americas Battalion Marines made a midnight run to rush to the aid of a 7 year old Iraqi girl after she fell from a three-story building. Marines rushed the girl to Camp Fallujahs surgical center for treatment after local police were unable to get her proper medical attention.
Iraqi police said on Saturday that they had found 47 more bodies of death squad victims dumped in Baghdad overnight, following Washingtons announcement that it was diverting troops from other parts of the country to secure the embattled capital. 
BAGHDAD - Iraqi police found 47 bodies around the capital Baghdad in the past 24 hours, most of whom appeared to have been the victims of sectarian violence, police said on Saturday. Most of the bodies were found with their hands bound and some bore signs of torture, shortly signs of sectarian death squads who execute people briefly after their kidnapping.
A hitherto unknown group calling itself the Swords of Islamic Right on Saturday threatened to blow up all churches and Christian institutions in the Gaza Strip in protest against remarks made by Pope Benedict XVI about Islam and Prophet Muhammed. The group, which claimed responsibility for a shooting attack on a church in Zaituon neighborhood in Gaza City on wounded in the attack. "What the Pope said is unforgivable," the group said in a statement. "We will continue to target churches." 
Iranian hardline newspapers said there were signs of an Israeli-US plot behind remarks by Pope Benedict XVI that linked Islam to violence and created a wave of anger across the Muslim world. The daily Jomhuri Islami said Israel and the United States -- the Islamic republic's two arch-enemies -- could have dictated the comments to distract attention from the resistance of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah to Israel's offensive on Lebanon. 
A HARDLINE cleric linked to Somalia's powerful Islamist movement has called for Muslims to "hunt down" and kill Pope Benedict XVI for his controversial comments about Islam.
As security was beefed up around Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday night, the Mujahideen's Army movement in Iraq threatened to carry out a suicide attack against the Pope in revenge for his comments about Islam and jihad. 
