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Taha Yassin Ramadan escorted from gene pool
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Page 1: WoT Operations
5 00:00 USN, ret. [4] 
16 00:00 Zenster [5] 
3 00:00 Anonymoose [3] 
1 00:00 Alaska Paul [3] 
9 00:00 OldSpook [3] 
6 00:00 Shipman [6] 
5 00:00 Chuck Simmins [3] 
7 00:00 3dc [3] 
9 00:00 Steven [3] 
10 00:00 Zenster [4] 
11 00:00 Floluger Peacock1136 [4] 
3 00:00 liberalhawk [3] 
2 00:00 gromgoru [3] 
8 00:00 Verlaine [4] 
0 [3] 
6 00:00 Zenster [3] 
14 00:00 RD [3] 
8 00:00 SteveS [4] 
6 00:00 Ebbang Uluque6305 [3] 
17 00:00 Verlaine [4] 
16 00:00 RD [3] 
1 00:00 liberalhawk [3] 
1 00:00 liberalhawk [3] 
2 00:00 sinse [3] 
2 00:00 Shipman [3] 
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2 00:00 Ebbang Uluque6305 [3] 
3 00:00 Ebbang Uluque6305 [3] 
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Page 2: WoT Background
2 00:00 tu3031 [3]
4 00:00 Glenmore [3]
10 00:00 Zenster [3]
5 00:00 RD [3]
12 00:00 Verlaine [4]
4 00:00 gromgoru [5]
5 00:00 Procopius2k [3]
2 00:00 Nero Cloluse5219 [3]
4 00:00 Redneck Jim [3]
3 00:00 Verlaine [4]
2 00:00 Flaimp Fleremble4835 [3]
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3 00:00 tu3031 [3]
2 00:00 newc [4]
5 00:00 newc [3]
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10 00:00 newc [3]
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1 00:00 RD [3]
1 00:00 Verlaine [5]
1 00:00 Excalibur [3]
10 00:00 Zenster [3]
6 00:00 Frozen Al [3]
4 00:00 gromgoru [3]
9 00:00 CB [3]
11 00:00 OldSpook [3]
Page 3: Non-WoT
5 00:00 USN, ret. [4]
18 00:00 Uneamble Fillmore6406 [4]
14 00:00 RWV [4]
7 00:00 Mac [3]
4 00:00 Verlaine [4]
3 00:00 RD [3]
10 00:00 RD [3]
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1 00:00 Frank G [3]
2 00:00 rhodesiafever [3]
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16 00:00 frank martin [3]
6 00:00 wxjames [3]
20 00:00 Eric Jablow [4]
1 00:00 rhodesiafever [3]
Page 4: Opinion
1 00:00 gromgoru [5]
12 00:00 Eric Jablow [5]
3 00:00 Zenster [4]
3 00:00 Frank G [3]
7 00:00 Verlaine [4]
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5 00:00 DarthVader [3]
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10 00:00 eLarson [3]
5 00:00 Zenster [4]
2 00:00 RD [3]
4 00:00 Old Patriot [3]
15 00:00 the Prophet [4]
8 00:00 Old Patriot [3]
6 00:00 Mac [4]
Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
6 00:00 Zenster [4]
6 00:00 OldSpook [3]
7 00:00 anonymous2u [4]
8 00:00 eLarson [3]
4 00:00 USN, Ret. [3]
11 00:00 Anonymoose [3]
5 00:00 Zenster [3]
13 00:00 Jim Rome [3]
Afghanistan
Islamist Websites Congratulate Taliban For 'Prisoner Swap'
Kabul, 20 March (AKI) - Congratulatory messages for the Taliban have appeared on Islamist forums on the Internet over the reported release of five Taliban leaders in exchange for the Italian journalist, Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who was freed by the Taliban on Monday after being held prisoner for two weeks. "Participate to the congratulatory messages to be sent to the Taliban for the exchange of prisoners with the Italian unbeliever," read the title of the pages in some Islamist websites.

Congratulatory messages have been posted on these web pages by al-Qaeda supporters over what they describe as a positive outcome in the reported release of five Taliban leaders in exchange for the 52 year old journalist for Rome daily La Repubblica. There has been no official confirmation of the release of the five Taliban leaders by Afghan authorities.

Since Sunday evening, the websites which carry messages by terrorist groups, have been celebrating the initial reports that two Taliban leaders, Ustad Yaser and Mufti Hakimi, had been released by Afghan authorities. At the time, a message by a Taliban spokesperson Muhammad Yusuf, said that such an exchange had taken place. At the same time in Italy, it was still uncertain that Mastrogiacomo had been released.

The websites close to the Taliban told their supporters that "the Mujahadeen of the Islamic Emirate released at midday today (Sunday) the Italian journalist together with his interpreter who have been prisoners of the mujahadeen for the past two weeks. This has occured based on the exchange for the mujahadeen Ustad Muhammad Yaser and Mufti Latif Allah Hakimi who have been detained in the prison in Bul Tshkuhi for the past two years. The exchange was carried out through a third party in the province of Helmand."

However, it was only on Monday that these Islamist websites also began mentioning the release of another three Taliban fighters in the same exchange deal, unleashing a stream of joyful messages for the Taliban. "What great news," wrote Sanafi al-Nasr. "We also want the release of our other brothers who have been detained," he said.

Following the first message, within a few minutes, more than 20 messages were reportedly posted, including a photo of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin laden and compliments for the Taliban. Messages also encouraged the Taliban to continue their fight against NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Steve || 03/20/2007 09:14 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hope the injected them with plague before releasing the "leaders".
Posted by: 3dc || 03/20/2007 9:55 Comments || Top||

#2  The Soviet army had a longstanding rule that if you were absent from your unit for 48 hours, you would be shot, because the assumption was that you had been "turned" by the enemy.

With these birds, by now we should have re-written their entire minds to the point where they think they are James Bond, and their entire purpose in life is to kill Taliban.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/20/2007 10:01 Comments || Top||

#3  Wishful thinking, Anonymoose.
Posted by: gromky || 03/20/2007 10:32 Comments || Top||

#4  We are too chicken-sh*t to turn them. We would have the bunny-lovers yelling "victim".
Posted by: DESNC || 03/20/2007 10:43 Comments || Top||

#5  I do NOT have an anal GPS probe...
Posted by: Cartman || 03/20/2007 10:52 Comments || Top||

#6  Surgeon + Equipment + Jihadi = Found Leadership

http://www.garmin.com/products/astro/

(already ruggerized)

http://www.gizmag.com/go/5352/

(open the photos to see just how small this devise is "global GPS")

You also must remember when looking at these photos the Size as small as it even is almost entirely the Battery. One of those 20k dollar rare earth metals batteries would either shrink it drasticly or give you life span by a multiple.


If we only had the balls to take full advantage of our technology edge? Or maybe we do who knows? I know if I was in charge I would be taggin these guys ASAP the human Body Cavity is a rather suprisely large area of space.
Posted by: C-Low || 03/20/2007 11:31 Comments || Top||

#7  It appears the natives are restless...

LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Protesters blockaded an Afghan hospital where a newly freed Italian journalist hostage was staying on Tuesday, demanding details of the death of his beheaded driver.

More than 200 relatives and friends of the executed driver, Syed Agha, protested outside the Italian-run Emergency hospital in the capital of southern Helmand province, Lashkar Gah, demanding to talk with the Italian, who was kidnapped by the Taliban two weeks ago. His translator, Ajmal Nakshbandi, is still being held.

"He is not able to make a gasp. They clean the knife on his tunic. They tie his severed head to his body. They bring it to the river and let it go."

The main Afghan journalists' rights association appealed for the translator's release. "Our message is clear. We are very much concerned about his life and his future," spokesman Halim Fedaye told reporters.

In his Tuesday article, Pakistani-born Mastrogiacomo did not explain why he was in a place most foreign journalists regard as too dangerous to visit, what he was doing to free his translator or what compensation would be offered to Agha's family.

The Taliban say they freed him after the Afghan government handed over four of five insurgent leaders, including the brother of military commander Mullah Dadullah.

A spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said a deal had been struck, but would not give any details. "The president ... had instructed security authorities to find out any possible way for the release of the Italian journalist in recognition for the friendship with Italy and its cooperation with Afghanistan," he told reporters. "A series of demands were made and they were met to some extent."

In Italy, there was concern the government had paid too high a price. "The government sold out," ran the front-page headline in the right-wing Libero newspaper. "Reporter released in exchange for 5 Taliban," said leading daily Corriere della Sera. La Stampa daily questioned whether the negotiations to free the La Repubblica journalist were hypocritical, given Rome had 1,900 peacekeepers in Afghanistan meant to help NATO secure the country after the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. "If this is the just price chosen to pay to save the life of Mastrogiacomo, it's up to (the government) to show Italy is still able to continue fulfilling its role in Afghanistan without becoming the weak link in the international alliance."

Amid the protest in Lashkar Gah, Afghan security personnel arrested the head of the Emergency hospital, but did not say why. The hospital had also been involved in negotiations to free another Italian reporter, Gabriele Torsello, late last year.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/20/2007 11:45 Comments || Top||

#8  Amid the protest in Lashkar Gah, Afghan security personnel arrested the head of the Emergency hospital, but did not say why. The hospital had also been involved in negotiations to free another Italian reporter, Gabriele Torsello, late last year.

because he's a Talib supporter? Just a wild guess.....
Posted by: Frank G || 03/20/2007 11:52 Comments || Top||

#9  Cartman: It's called a "proctoneuroscope". Or is it "neuroproctoscope"?
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/20/2007 14:12 Comments || Top||

#10  "In Italy, there was concern the government had paid too high a price. "The government sold out," ran the front-page headline in the right-wing Libero newspaper. "Reporter released in exchange for 5 Taliban," said leading daily Corriere della Sera. La Stampa daily questioned whether the negotiations to free the La Repubblica journalist were hypocritical, given Rome had 1,900 peacekeepers in Afghanistan meant to help NATO secure the country after the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001. "If this is the just price chosen to pay to save the life of Mastrogiacomo, it's up to (the government) to show Italy is still able to continue fulfilling its role in Afghanistan without becoming the weak link in the international alliance."

Toughminded folks from "oldeurope" watch.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/20/2007 14:30 Comments || Top||

#11  one admittedly speculative term: "R-Fids"
Posted by: Floluger Peacock1136 || 03/20/2007 16:48 Comments || Top||


Talibs cut off head, sez Italian reporter
(BBC) An Italian journalist freed after being kidnapped by the Taleban in Afghanistan says he saw his captors cut off the head of one of two Afghans with him. Daniele Mastrogiacomo, who works for the La Repubblica daily, was seized two weeks ago in southern Helmand province. Mr Mastrogiacomo was said to be in good health in hospital. His driver's body has yet to be handed over, while his translator was also freed on Monday. The men were kept in chains and moved 15 times while in captivity, he said. Mr Mastrogiacomo was abducted while trying to interview senior Taleban officials.
One wonders how such a thing could have possibly gone wrong
"I'm very happy, I thank you all. I knew you wouldn't abandon me, and that gave me strength and courage," he said on Monday via La Repubblica's online television station. He said his Afghan driver had been decapitated in front of him by their Taleban guards.

"I saw him being decapitated, it was horrific," he told Italian TG3 television. "I was shaking. Obviously I thought 'it's my turn now."

Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said the release had not been "simple" and that more details would be released later. Italian officials say the journalist will arrive in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Tuesday and then fly home to Italy.

One Taleban leader, military commander Mullah Dadullah, told Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location that Mr Mastrogiacomo had been freed after Afghan authorities released five senior Taliban officials, including his own brother.
So our policy is now officially that we will negotiate with terrorists
Let's see if Signore Mastrogiacomo has attained new insight from his experience.
Posted by: Ebbomong Cloting7438 || 03/20/2007 00:21 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Let's see if Signore Mastrogiacomo has attained new insight from his experience"

Doubtful the MSM can find anything that can equal the atrocities done by the American guards and Abu Grahib!
Posted by: Hupusong Borgia3495 || 03/20/2007 1:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Anyone who goes over there to interview Taliban to get a Pulitzer Prize ought to understand that they are on their own. Mr. Mastrogiacomo should know he has helped to contribute to the deaths [either directly or through the money for guns and ammo or additional Taliban manpower and morale] of many others now and is a total tool. Do you think the release of five Taliban was the end of the deal?

The results of this kind of ploy should be an additional 100 Italian troops for each hostage taken, and 500 for each hostage killed. But no, they go the other way. Watch. Another Italian hostage to be taken in 5..4..3..
Posted by: gorb || 03/20/2007 2:13 Comments || Top||

#3  "I saw him being decapitated, it was horrific," he told Italian TG3 television. "I was shaking. Obviously I thought 'it's my turn now."

I blame the CIA! Maybe the Italian courts can issue some additional arrest warrants.

Posted by: Besoeker || 03/20/2007 3:23 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm still interested in seeing if they actually gave up 5 mooks for this clown. If they did, they should try to give him back.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/20/2007 9:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Signore Mastrogiacomo = force multiplier for the Talibs.
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 11:59 Comments || Top||

#6  What gorb said. This story stinks.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 03/20/2007 15:32 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Darfur-like crisis brewing in Chad, CAR:
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A "perfect storm of violence" is spilling from Sudan into Chad and Central African Republic (CAR), creating a possible new humanitarian crisis, a senior US official told a US Congress panel Tuesday.
Because you can never have too many crisis
Inter-ethnic violence which has plagued Sudan for years is now roiling the two countries bordering its western Darfur province, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State James Swan told lawmakers.

Swan told the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa that millions of lives could be in jeopardy in the emerging humanitarian crisis. "This rise in communal tensions, coupled by a security vacuum, has left local populations vulnerable to attacks by ethnic militias that engage in violence to settle scores, loot villages and raid cattle and livestock," he said.

As in Sudan's Darfur region, where ethnic Arab Janjaweed militias have led ruthless raids that have dispossessed and displaced hundreds of thousands of their countrymen, violence in neighboring Chad for the most part "seems to be conducted by Chadian Arabs," Swan said.
Arabs don't play well with others
"The recent increase in violence in Chad has endangered the lives of civilians, who are subject to attack by rebel groups, government forces and ethnic militias, and has reduced the number of secure humanitarian corridors," he said.

Swan said that recent travelers to the Central African Republic report a "grave humanitarian crisis" brewing there as well. He added that humanitarian aid groups working in both countries have curtailed their efforts because of the growing security risks. "Attacks on civilians are widespread in both Chad and CAR, and have left thousands of civilians without livelihood, shelter or food."

Swan said deployment of UN peacekeepers to Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic offers the best chance of protecting civilians and fostering regional stability. "Our position remains that UN peacekeeping forces in Darfur, eastern Chad and northeastern CAR remain essential," said Swan.
They're DOOMED!
"The United States' priorities in Chad and CAR include limiting the regional impact of the Darfur conflict, fostering stability, protecting civilians, refugees, internally displaced persons and humanitarian workers, and further transformational diplomacy by promoting political reform and good governance."

The UN Security Council last month began drafting a resolution to address the volatile situation on Sudan's borders, as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon recommended sending up to 11,000 peacekeepers to Chad and CAR.
Posted by: Steve || 03/20/2007 16:46 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So the UN was working on a plan for Darfur full steam, if I recall the term. What happened to it? Catering budget cratered, or what?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 03/20/2007 19:02 Comments || Top||


Bangladesh
Tales from the Crossfire Gazette© - Return to the Mango Orchard edition
A criminal was killed during a shootout between Rapid Action Battalion (Rab) and his accomplices at a mango orchard at Belgharia in Natore early yesterday.
I don't know, hiding out in a fruit orchard doesn't have the same flair as a smoke filled bar in the hood.
Ramjan, 35, also known as Humayun, of Malipukur in Atrai upazila, was allegedly hiding at his father-in-law's house in Bonbelgharia. Following a tip off that Ramjan and his accomplices were planning subversive activities in a secret meeting, ...
Well, where else would you plan them?
... a Rab team raided Bonbelgharia around 3:40am, a Rab press release said.
Well when else would they go out for a 'raid'?
As Rab personnel reached the mango orchard, armed thugs of Ramjan's gang opened fire on the elite force.
"It's the law! Open fire, boys, or it's curtains for sure!"
Rab retaliated but the gang fled following a 10-minute shootout.
Leaving no trace they were even there. Except for...
Ramjan was discovered critically injured after the shootout.
"Ouch....mommy....gasp...rose...bud.."
He was taken to Natore Sadar Hospital where on-duty doctors declared him dead.
"He's dead, Jim"
Once again they go to a hospital without a Level I trauma center, and once again it doesn't matter.
Rab personnel recovered a locally made gun, two bullets of .303 rifles and a 20-inch-long dagger from the scene.
One home-made zip gun, two .303 rounds and a shive.
Ramjan was accused in several criminal cases with twelve systems different police stations in Raninagar and Atrai upazilas including two murder cases and two extortion cases, Rab sources said.
Now doing the horizontal Mango Tango
Posted by: Fred || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  a 20" dagger is actually more like a small sword, but still doesn't help you much when you're tied up and taking a bullet or two behind the ear, eh Ramjan?
Posted by: Frank G || 03/20/2007 9:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Underneath the mango tree
Me honey and me can watch for the moon
Underneath the mango tree
Me honey and me make boolooloop soon
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 03/20/2007 15:36 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Ruskies to Iran: Stop Enriching Uranium

(NYT) PARIS, Mar. 18 — Russia has informed Iran that it will withhold nuclear fuel for Iran’s nearly completed Bushehr power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council, European, American and Iranian officials said.

The ultimatum was delivered in Moscow last week by Igor Ivanov, Russia’s Security Council Secretary, to Ali Hosseini Tash, Iran’s deputy chief nuclear negotiator, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because a confidential diplomatic exchange between two governments was involved.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: garbagecowboy || 03/20/2007 02:25 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What does this have to do with the 'War on Terrorism'?

Iraq and now Iran are foreign policies which start as something separate from 'terrorism'
Posted by: Bruce from MS || 03/20/2007 8:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Foreign policy shift, my ass..

Recently, however, Moscow and Tehran have been engaged in a public argument about whether Iran has paid its bills, in a dispute that may explain Russia’s apparent shift.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/20/2007 9:15 Comments || Top||

#3  dunno. It could be Russians are motivated by the money, and are trying to get some political brownie points with us. Or it could be that they are motivated by carrots and sticks from us (and from our European ALLIES, thank you very much) and are using the money as cover with the Iranians.

If the former, is this really the first time the Iranians are unable to pay? What does that say about how hard even the very limited sanctions are hurting them?
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/20/2007 11:10 Comments || Top||

#4  and from our European ALLIES, thank you very much

ha ha! LH, what a kidder!
Posted by: Frank G || 03/20/2007 11:40 Comments || Top||

#5  Iran is the world largest sponser of terrorism and Russia is the worlds largest supplier of weapons.
Posted by: Jesing Ebbease3087 || 03/20/2007 12:00 Comments || Top||

#6  JE3087 has it. The Russians now realize the Americans won't attack the Iranians and their support for the Iranian nuclear and missile programs is going to blow up in their faces. They will have a hard time intimidating the mullahs to stop islamist support when Volgograd is 5 minutes from destruction and Moscow 10 minutes away.
Posted by: ed || 03/20/2007 14:13 Comments || Top||

#7  Ruskies to Iran: Stop Enriching Uranium

This is like a bunch of crooked cops arresting their favorite call girls. Only the fools are being fooled. Putin wants his payoff and global security can go whistle.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/20/2007 16:57 Comments || Top||

#8  "Stop enriching uranium and pay us, dammit."
Posted by: SteveS || 03/20/2007 18:29 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Detainee Says He Was Abused While in U.S. Custody

Yes, it's our boy David's latest Sad Tale of Big Bad Jihadi Woe. Which is eaten right up by the New York Times, of course...
LONDON, March 19 — David Hicks, the first detainee to be formally charged under the new military tribunal rules at Guantánamo Bay, has alleged in a court document filed here that during more than five years in American custody he was beaten several times during interrogations and witnessed the abuse of other prisoners.
Just "several times"? I'm disappointed.
In an affidavit supporting his request for British citizenship, Mr. Hicks contends that before he arrived at Guantánamo, his American captors threw him and other detainees on the ground, walked on them, stripped him naked, shaved all his body hair and inserted a plastic object in his rectum.
I wonder if he liked it?
The abuse, Mr. Hicks asserts, began during interrogations in Afghanistan, where he was captured in late 2001. It then continued while he was shuttled between American naval ships, aircraft, unknown buildings and Kandahar before he was taken to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in early 2002, according to the affidavit. While Mr. Hicks did not claim that he was tortured at Guantánamo, he said he was given regular, mysterious injections that “would make my head feel strange.” He also said he witnessed or heard about mistreatment of others there. A detainee with only one leg was “set upon” by a special military team and its dogs, he said. The man was dragged out of his cell, and there was blood on his face and the cell floor. “It put me in such fear that I just knew I would ‘cooperate’ in any way with the U.S.”
David! Is that any way for a Big Brave Jihadi to act?
A spokesman for the military commission, Cmdr. J. D. Gordon, described Mr. Hicks’s allegations as “false,” and “completely lacking in merit. Hicks has make a number of allegations in the past, which have proven to be unsubstantiated and completely lacking in merit,” Commander Gordon said. For example, he said Mr. Hicks had once alleged that he was shackled to the floor for 22 hours a day, which Commander Gordon said was untrue.
We wish it were true, but it's not.
Mr. Hicks is Australian, but his mother was born in Britain; he has been seeking citizenship here because he believes that the British government has done more to secure the release of its citizens in Guantánamo than Australia has.
And Weenie Boy wants out!
At an American military commission hearing scheduled for March 26, Mr. Hicks will plead not guilty to a single charge of providing material support for terrorism, his military lawyer, Maj. Michael Mori, has said. The initial charges against Mr. Hicks, including attempted murder and aiding the enemy, have been dropped. Major Mori’s aggressive defense of Mr. Hicks continues to draw fire from the chief prosecutor of the military commission, Col. Morris Davis. In an e-mail message last week to the judge who oversees the military commissions, Colonel Davis said that Major Mori appeared to have violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which prohibits an officer from using “contemptuous words” against the president, vice president, secretary of defense and other senior officials. Colonel Davis cited numerous statements by Major Mori on his trips to Australia that he said could be considered insulting or rude. A copy of the message, from Colonel Davis to Judge Susan Crawford, was provided to The New York Times by someone who supports Major Mori.
I wonder if they could be arrested for that? Maybe become David's new roomate?
Major Mori declined to comment on Colonel Davis’s latest criticisms. Earlier this month, after Colonel Davis first voiced disapproval of Major Mori’s conduct, Major Mori said that it might force him to withdraw from the case. Commander Gordon, the commission spokesman, declined to discuss Colonel Davis’s message, calling it “an internal staff matter.”
Sean Penn is,.."Major Mori". Coming soon to a theatre near you!
In Australia, Major Mori is widely credited with having changed the public attitude toward Mr. Hicks. At the time of his arrest, Mr. Hicks was often described in Australia’s tabloids as “Australia’s Taliban.” Now, across the political spectrum, there is pressure on Prime Minister John Howard to have Mr. Hicks returned to Australia soon. Major Mori has also been praised by former detainees for his representation.
Thanks, major. We'll kill you last...
Australian intelligence officials have said that Mr. Hicks went to Afghanistan to train with Al Qaeda. For his part, Mr. Hicks said he was seized by the Northern Alliance, which was fighting with the Americans against the Taliban, and was treated well for two weeks.
Yeah, I'll bet it was a real party. They loved the Taliban...
“When the U.S. interrogators showed up my treatment changed,” Mr. Hicks said in the affidavit, which was filed in December but has remained largely unnoticed. He said he was interrogated by five Americans, who were dressed in black combat gear without any insignia.“The U.S. interrogators would question me,” he said, “and after my responses I would be slapped in the back of the head and told I was lying.” At one point, he said, he was forced to sit on a window ledge, and outside there were six American soldiers with their weapons pointed at him, he wrote. One interrogator, “obviously agitated, took out his pistol and aimed it at me, with his hand shaking violently with rage.” It was at this point, he said, “I realized that if I did not cooperate with U.S. interrogators, I might be shot.”
So what? You'd be a martyr. I thought that was the big jackpot all you mooks were looking for?
He said was taken to the amphibious assault ship Peleliu, which he knew because of announcements over the public address system. Among the detainees was John Walker Lindh, the American who later pleaded guilty to serving with the Taliban and is now serving 20 years. Commander Gordon said the military would not discuss whether Mr. Hicks was held on ships, but noted that it was a matter of public record that Mr. Lindh was held on the Peleliu. On board, Mr. Hicks said he could hear other detainees “screaming in pain” when being interrogated.
That's why they call it an "amphibious assault" ship, moron...
He said he was later transferred to the amphibious assault ship Bataan, where he said conditions became “drastically” worse. He was fed only a handful of rice or fruit three times a day, the affidavit asserts, and on several occasions, he and other detainees, blindfolded, hooded and handcuffed, were thrown onto helicopters and taken to hangar-like buildings in an unknown location. They were forced to kneel for 10 hours, during which time “I was hit in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle several times (hard enough to knock me over), slapped in the back of the head, kicked, stepped on, and spat on,” he said. “I could hear the groans and cries of other detainees.”
He was flown back to the ship, and a few days later back to a hangar. A week or so later, he was flown to Kandahar, where he and other detainees “were forced to lie face down in the mud while solders walked across our backs.” He was stripped, his body hair shaved and a piece of “white plastic was forcibly inserted in my rectum for no apparent purpose,” he wrote. Soldiers made crude comments about the insertion, he said.
Jeez, David. Not what you signed up for, was it?
Commander Gordon said he had no knowledge of such treatment. Some former detainees have made similar accusations, including Mamdouh Habib, an Australian who was picked up in Pakistan, turned over to the United States and delivered to Egypt, where he says he was badly tortured. At Guantánamo, Mr. Hicks said he was also shown a picture of Mr. Habib. “In the photo, Habib’s face was black and blue,” Mr. Hicks wrote. “I first thought it was a photo of a corpse,” he said, adding that an interrogator told him that if he did not cooperate he would be sent to Egypt “to suffer the same fate. This regular brutality left me in a heightened state of fear and anxiety about my own safety,” Mr. Hicks wrote in the affidavit.
Now, now, my Brave Jihadi. Wipe those tears away. Allah will make it all okay...
After Mr. Hicks was formally charged earlier this month, Australian officials said publicly that they hoped a plea bargain allowing Mr. Hicks to come home could be negotiated. Two American officials close to the case said they expected that the deal would be for Mr. Hicks to plead guilty to the one charge, in exchange for the five years he has already been held.
They should've shot this pussified bag of shit when they had the chance, if only so we wouldn't have to listen to him whine like a little girl for the last five years.
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/20/2007 16:02 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And I should believe anything this lying piece of shit says because...??
Posted by: mojo || 03/20/2007 16:47 Comments || Top||

#2  this asshole gets more ink than Al Bore.
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 16:47 Comments || Top||

#3  Isn't directive #1 in the Jihadi Manual "Claim Abuse if You Are Caught"?
Posted by: eLarson || 03/20/2007 16:55 Comments || Top||

#4  He should have died from a 'heart attack' after he spilled his guts.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/20/2007 17:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Too bad we can't fly in the RAB and arrange a "cross-fire" for clowns like this.
Posted by: Jonathan || 03/20/2007 17:06 Comments || Top||

#6  I hope Major Mori's career and pension are gone too. He's exceeded any proper and necessary client assistance, and taken the enemies' side.
Posted by: Frank G || 03/20/2007 17:47 Comments || Top||

#7  He's not only an Unlawful Enemy Combatant, he's a pussy too!

If we'd shot him on the battlefield 20 minutes after we captured him none of this nonsense would be happening.

TAKE NO PRISONERS!
Posted by: Parabellum || 03/20/2007 17:53 Comments || Top||

#8  He was fed only a handful of rice or fruit three times a day. What a maroon, that was bleached pork rinds and uncooked pork in light syrup.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/20/2007 18:21 Comments || Top||

#9  Straight out of the Al Qaida manual.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/20/2007 18:21 Comments || Top||


Mastermind of USS Cole Attack Confesses
A Yemeni portrayed as an al-Qaida operative and a member of a terrorist family confessed to plotting the bombings of the USS Cole and two U.S. embassies in Africa, killing hundreds, according to a Pentagon transcript of a Guantanamo Bay hearing. The transcript released Monday was the fourth from the hearings the military is holding in private for 14 "high-value" terror suspects who were kept in secret CIA prisons before they were sent to the U.S. facility in Cuba last fall.

Last week, Waleed bin Attash said he helped plan the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed more than 200, according to the transcript. He also said he helped organize the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in which suicide bombers steered an explosives-laden boat into the guided-missile destroyer, killing 17 sailors. "I participated in the buying or purchasing of the explosives," bin Attash said when asked what his role was in the attacks. "I put together the plan for the operation a year and a half prior to the operation, buying the boat and recruiting the members that did the operation."

Also alleged to have been Osama bin Laden's bodyguard at one time, bin Attash is in his late 20s and is a Yemeni who was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, authorities have said. Said to be an al-Qaida operational chief, bin Attash is known as Tawfiq bin Attash or Tawfiq Attash Khallada or simply Khallad. He was captured in 2003.

U.S. intelligence documents allege that bin Attash is a "scion of a prominent terrorist family" that includes his father, Mohammed, who was close to bin Laden, and younger brother Hassan, who has been held at Guantanamo since 2004, arriving at the age of 17. Several brothers attended al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in the 1990s and two have been killed, one in a 2001 U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan, the U.S. says.

Bin Attash told a March 12 hearing that he met with the man who did the embassy bombings just a few hours before the operation took place, according to the transcript released by the Defense Department "I was the link between Osama bin Laden and his deputy Sheikh Abu Hafs Al Masri," who took over the leadership of al-Qaida in Iraq after its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in a U.S. airstrike last June. Bin Attash also said he was with bin Laden when the Cole was attacked while refueling in Yemen's port of Aden.
Posted by: Fred || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That depends on whether the true/real Zarkey was actually killed, now wouldn't it.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 03/20/2007 2:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Wonder if this is a new tactic. Confess and publicly take credit for everything. Then other lawyers can jump up and say; "My client didn't do it, your honor. That other guy said he done it! My client was tortured into saying he did it."
Posted by: Steve || 03/20/2007 7:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't worry about it. Just hang 'em all.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 03/20/2007 15:42 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Two Students Die In Clashes With Militants In Tribal Areas
Tank, 20 March (AKI/DAWN) - Two school students were killed and six others injured when their bus was caught in crossfire between local Taliban fighters and Uzbek militants in Pakistan's restive tribal area of South Waziristan on Monday, witnesses and local people told the Pakistani daily Dawn. They said that the bus of the Musa Public School taking the students to their homes came under fire at Jaghundai area near the Pakistan-Afghan border. It is not clear whether the bus was hit by bullets or a rocket.

According to information received in Tank, tension had been mounting between local Taliban and Uzbek militants in the past three days after the killing of an Arab militant. According to local people, Taliban leaders suspected the involvement of Uzbek militants in the killing of the Arab national.
Ah, so the local Taliban thugs are upset that the Uzbek gang wacked a Arab militant. I love the smell of Red on Red bloodshed in the morning
“The Uzbeks tried to clarify the situation to the Taliban leaders and claimed that he (the Arab militant) was killed during a training session when a bullet hit him,” they said, adding that the main Wana-Azam Warsak road had been occupied by Uzbek militants belonging to the Tahir Yuldashev group and the local Taliban led by Maulvi Nazir had taken positions on nearby hills and thoroughfares.
"It was an accident! Honest, he fell in front of my gun!"
They said that vehicular traffic on the road was suspended at about 1 pm local time. They also said that two Uzbeks had been killed on Saturday night and the Uzbek fighters suspected that local Taliban militants had carried out the killing.
"Hatfields, meet McCoys. McCoys, Hatfields."
They said the issue caused extreme tension between the two groups and there had been rumours that an important personality from Afghanistan was due in the agency to pacify the two groups.
Bringing in the Godfather to mediate the conflict? I smell a target rich enviroment
A clash on March 6 between local tribesmen of Darikhel tribe and Uzbek militants had left 17 people, including 12 foreigners, dead.
More please
Posted by: Steve || 03/20/2007 09:01 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  More Details: However, the local intelligence official said the latest clash was not a simple conflict between pro- and anti-government forces in South Waziristan. He said the fighting broke Monday over the killing of an unidentified Arab with suspected links to al-Qaida, who was an ally of local tribesmen led by a pro-Taliban leader called Maulvi Nazir. The Arab's body was found on the outskirts of Wana.

The local militants blamed the death on the Uzbeks, triggering a gunbattle between the two groups in Kalosha, a village west of Wana, he said. Some 13 Uzbeks and seven local tribesmen were killed in the fighting, and 35 others were wounded, he said.

Among the wounded were five women injured when a rocket hit their home, he said on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media. During the clash, a stray mortar round hit a school bus, killing six children and wounding 20, the intelligence official said. Another security official said only two children were killed.
Posted by: Steve || 03/20/2007 12:20 Comments || Top||

#2  AFP cites a death toll of 51.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/20/2007 13:41 Comments || Top||

#3  AFP seems to think its red vs blue (if you count folks cooperating with Perv as blue) and doesnt mention the Arab feller
"
WANA, Pakistan (AFP) - Uzbek Al-Qaeda militants and pro-government tribesmen in northwest Pakistan fought pitched battles that left at least 51 people dead including four children, officials said Tuesday.

Heavy exchanges of rocket and mortar fire rang out for a second day around Kalusha town in the mountainous tribal region of South Waziristan, which borders Afghanistan, security officials said.

The fighting started after ex-Taliban commander Mullah Nazir, who backs President Pervez Musharraf's moves to expel foreign fighters from the troubled area, ordered followers of Uzbek militant Tahir Yuldashev to disarm.

Yuldashev, the head of a group called the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, was sentenced to death in absentia for bombings in the Uzbek capital Tashkent. Security officials say he had links to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

A mortar round hit a group of private school students who had been left outside the town by a bus driver because of the violence. Four were killed and 27 were wounded, the security officials said on condition of anonymity.

Thirty-eight of Yuldashev's supporters were killed and 22 were detained, the officials said, while nine local tribesmen including some of Nazir's men also died and 64 others were wounded, the officials said.

Twelve seriously wounded civilians, all women and children, were evacuated by helicopter to hospital in the northwestern city of Peshawar, they said.

Military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad earlier told AFP that he had reports that "around 30 people have been killed in clashes between local tribesmen and militants" but that the toll could rise.

Residents said tribesmen told the foreign insurgents late Tuesday to lay down their arms by midnight or be killed, while announcements over mosque loudspeakers urged locals to be ready for more fighting.

Meanwhile hundreds of Uzbek militants and their supporters blocked the road from Wana, the main city in South Waziristan, to the town of Angoor Adda in order to "show their strength against their rivals," officials said.

The local administration gave them a 48-hour ultimatum to end the blockade otherwise military action would be started against them, the officials said.

Arshad said the army did not intend to step in.

The fighting ended a ceasefire negotiated about two weeks ago after 19 people died in fierce gunbattles between Yuldashev's supporters and tribesmen in the nearby town of Azam Warsak.

Yuldashev and his men were among thousands of militants who fled the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 and sought shelter with ethnic Pashtun tribesmen in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt along the border.

Officials said Yuldashev was wounded during major battles with Pakistani forces in the Azam Warsak area in March 2004.

Pakistan has signed controversial peace deals with elders and militants in the South and North Waziristan regions after military offensives against Taliban and Al-Qaeda members, including Uzbeks."

Total deaths 38 Uzbeks, 9 Pashtuns, 4 civvies, total of 51.


Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/20/2007 13:46 Comments || Top||


Army convoy attacked, militants deny involvement
MIRANSHAH: Suspected militants attacked an army convoy with a remote control bomb near Mir Ali in North Waziristan on Monday, but there were no casualties, security officials said. They said that the military convoy was headed towards Bannu from Miranshah when it came under attack. The explosion slightly damaged a vehicle, the security officials said. Abdullah Farhad, a purported spokesman for pro-Taliban militants, told Daily Times that militants were not involved in the attack on the army convoy.
"Wudn't us."
Farhad said the militants would publicly denounce their peace agreement with the government before any such attack. He said that militant leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur had asked the government to fulfil its remaining obligations under the September 5 peace accord, which include restoration of tribal incentives and removal of military check posts. AFP adds: In another incident, militants shot dead a traffic policeman at a bazaar in Tank on Monday. Local police officer Mir Abdullah told AFP that two unidentified armed attackers shot dead 35-year-old traffic police constable Samiullah at a main market in Tank before fleeing. The shooting appeared to be linked to a string of attacks on policemen by suspected pro-Taliban militants in the region since January, he said.
Posted by: Fred || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm thinking jinns...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/20/2007 9:30 Comments || Top||

#2  We don't talk about jinns here Tu, especially the boreal variety.
Posted by: Shipman || 03/20/2007 16:14 Comments || Top||


Uzbeks, tribesmen clash in Waziristan
WANA: At least 10 people were wounded on Monday in festivities fighting that erupted between Al Qaeda-linked Uzbek militants and Pakistani tribesmen in a region near the Afghan border, residents said. South Waziristan has been tense since 17 people, 12 of them militants, were killed in a battle between the foreign militants and tribesmen on March 6. Hundreds of militants, most of them Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs, have been hiding in Waziristan and other tribal areas since fleeing Afghanistan when US-led forces defeated the Taliban in 2001.

The recent clashes have been the most significant between the region’s ethnic Pashtun tribesmen and the foreign militants, and follow government efforts to convince the tribesmen to help keep order and stop militant raids into Afghanistan.

The latest violence erupted in Shin Warsak, a village seven kilometres west of Wana. Both sides fired rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars at each other, residents said. “The situation is very tense,” said a resident of Wana who declined to be identified. “I counted 10 wounded tribesmen were brought to Wana,” he said, adding he had no idea about casualties on the other side. The cause of the clash was not known. The March 6 fighting erupted after the militants tried to kill a pro-government tribal leader.
"Ahmed, git yur shooting iron. Dem Uzbeks took a shot at da chief. And dey bin eying our women folk!"
Posted by: Fred || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Uzbek AQs? Pashtuns fighting AQ? Has the world gone topsy turvy or does this reporter just have the facts mixed up?
Posted by: garbagecowboy || 03/20/2007 0:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Have AK, will travel.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/20/2007 0:51 Comments || Top||

#3  one of the articles said the Uzbeks had killed em an arab, and the Pashtuns were taking Dire Revenge. OTOH it also said the Pashtuns were pro-govt, which seems odd, as an Arabs around there would be AQ, no?

A confused situation, to be sure.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/20/2007 11:07 Comments || Top||

#4  The truth is: somebody didn't like the way somebody else looked at his favorite ewe.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/20/2007 12:31 Comments || Top||

#5  Too confusing a mess to spend any serious time trying to sort out. Kill 'em all and let Allan settle who was right or wrong.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/20/2007 12:38 Comments || Top||

#6  Loyalties, other than to clan and tribe, are flexible in that part of the world.
Posted by: ed || 03/20/2007 14:29 Comments || Top||

#7  The truth is: somebody didn't like the way somebody else looked at his favorite ewe.

Heh heh
What we got then is a righteous war.

Posted by: Shipman || 03/20/2007 16:16 Comments || Top||


Militant Attack in Srinagar Foiled:Police
(KONS) Jammu and Kashmir police today claimed to have foiled a plan of Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) to strike in the city when they arrested a militant, A police spokesman said acting on a tip--off, police conducted searches at different places in the city since early this morning. A Lashkar-e-Taiba militant Assadullah was arrested by the police, he said. He said the arrested militant later confessed during interrogation that he was planning with other LeT militants to strike in the city.
Posted by: Fred || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:


Two HuJ Men Killed in Shopyan Gunbattle
KONS: Two Harkat-ul-Jehad militants were killed and a residential house gutted during a prolonged encounter in Shopyan outskirts on Monday while a group of militants gave the security forces the slip in a Lolab village where a house was destroyed in an exchange of fire. The encounter in the Chak Tscholan area of Shopyan erupted after militant’s holed up in a residential house opened heavy fire on troops who had been following them from the Harmain village.

SOG personnel from the Gagran and Imam Sahib camps together with 62 RR and 166 CRPF, who had been stalking the militants after a tip-off, sealed off the area just as they (the militants) took shelter in house, reports said. Heavy firing from the militants sparked off a fierce exchange of fire lasting for five hours during which troops used mortar shells to blast the house, the police the police said. The bodies of two militants were retrieved from the debris later, it said.

According to the police, the slain militants belonged to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen group, and one of them was identified as Salman Bhai of Pakistan. Two identity cards, bearing the names Basheer Ahmad Mir of Parmari, Kupwara and Ghulam Hassan Khan of Aargam, Bandipur, were said to have been recovered from the militants. Two AK rifles, five magazines, ammunition and a diary were retrieved from the scene of the encounter, the police said.

A group of militants hiding in a residential house in the Pattu Shahi area of Lolab, managed to slip through a security cordon after engaging surrounding troops in a fierce gunfight on Sunday night, reports said. Troops had asked the besieged militants to surrender, but the latter had turned down the offer and launched an attack during which they escaped.

Gunfire was heard in the Chatragam area in Shopyan during an army crackdown of the village and adjacent localities today. Details of the search operation were not available, but the cordon was in place when reports last came in. Meanwhile, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s IED blast at the Tengpora by-pass in Batmalu.
Posted by: Fred || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq
More From the Religion of Pieces (of Children)
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Insurgents in Iraq detonated an explosives-rigged vehicle with two children in the back seat after US soldiers let it through a Baghdad checkpoint over the weekend, a senior US military official said Tuesday.

The vehicle was stopped at the checkpoint but was allowed through when soldiers saw the children in the back, said Major General Michael Barbero of the Pentagon's Joint Staff.

"Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back," Barbero said.

The general said it was the first time he had seen a report of insurgents using children in suicide bombings. But he said Al-Qaeda in Iraq is changing tactics in response to the tighter controls around the city.

A US defense official said the incident occurred on Sunday in Baghdad's Adhamiyah district, a mixed neighborhood adjacent to Sadr City, which is predominantly Shiite.

After going through the checkpoint, the vehicle parked next to a market across the street from a school, said the official, who asked not to be identified.

"And the two adults were seen to get out of the vehicle, and run from the vehicle, and then followed by the detonation of the vehicle," the official said.

"It killed the two children inside as well as three other civilians in the vicinity. So, a total of five killed, seven injured," the official said.

Officials here said they did not know who the children were or their relationship to the two adults who fled the scene. They had no information about their ages or genders.

"The brutality and the ruthlessness of this enemy hasn't changed," said Barbero, deputy director of regional operations of the Joint Staff. "They are just interested in slaughtering Iraqi civilians, to be very honest."
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/20/2007 18:21 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ah more courage fromthe Lions of Islam.

If ever a case is made for their extermination, this will be entered into evidence for the cowardice and sadism Islamist display.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/20/2007 18:28 Comments || Top||

#2  "Children in the back seat lowered suspicion. We let it move through. They parked the vehicle, and the adults ran out and detonated it with the children in the back,"

Islam devours its young. Few, if any, other cultures display such rapacious capacity. This one predisposition must simultaneously distinguish and utterly condemn Islam as being wholly inimical to human life. It remains an eternal mystery how a culture of such violence has persisted for so long without extinguishing itself. I can only suppose that Islam's longevity is stark testimony to how badly other cultures routinely underestimate its predatory and parasitic nature.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/20/2007 18:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Assuming these were there own children. They could easily have been Christian children kidnapped for this purpose.

Whatever the case: I demand a Holy Crusade. I mean this literally.
Posted by: Excalibur || 03/20/2007 19:24 Comments || Top||

#4  Disgusting and so clear. Why we don't fire the ex-CNN producer Larry Register of Al-Hurra and keep pumping this kind of stuff out is inexcusable
Posted by: Frank G || 03/20/2007 19:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Assuming these were there own children. They could easily have been Christian children kidnapped for this purpose.

Whose children and where they came from matters not the least. That innocents are so cheerfully hurled into the furnace damns Islam to eternal Hell.

I'll echo what Old Spook said. When Islam has committed their final stupendous atrocity and the West is teetering in indecision upon the brink of a massive nuclear retaliation, it is heinous acts of this sort that will serve to disinhibit those who must make the choice.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/20/2007 19:41 Comments || Top||

#6  If we still have any flame throwers left, now is the time to break them out. No need to worry about inhumanity, the people we are fighting have just proved that they are not human beings and have no respect for human beings. Children have no political leanings, to kill them is a sin in any religion.

There can be no excuse for this. It is time to pull out all the stops. Don't waste another million dollar JDAM on an insurgent safe house, burn it down.
Posted by: crosspatch || 03/20/2007 19:54 Comments || Top||

#7  and this is from AFP

wow
Posted by: mhw || 03/20/2007 20:38 Comments || Top||

#8  I just read the same story on LGF a few moments ago.

As a parent, words don't seem sufficient. Just when I think I have a understanding of this religion, I read stories like this.

It is impossible to imagine what the effects of this will be for the soldiers who witness this incident. This is likely to be remembered years after these folks return home.

Children to me are the most precious things to me. I watched them come into this world, see them grow, live and learn. This kind of behaviour is to me, the most reprehensible and are nothing more than a another example of barbarism that exists. The insurgents who carried this out as just another act of militancy, are lower than animals.

May God have mercy on these two childrens lives and for the all of the others who given their lives, including the coalition military and civilians in trying to restore stability to this part of the world.

From Mozarts Requiem:

Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ets.
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam,
ad te omnis caro veniet.
Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ets.

Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,
and may perpetual light shine on them.
Thou, O God, art praised in Sion,
and unto Thee shall the vow
be performed in Jerusalem.
Hear my prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come.
Grant them eternal rest, 0 Lord,
and may perpetual light shine on them.
Posted by: delphi2005 || 03/20/2007 21:48 Comments || Top||

#9  Ahhh... Freedom fighters.....
Posted by: CRay || 03/20/2007 22:21 Comments || Top||

#10  Michael Moore's freedom fighters....

Hey Cindy Shehag - these are the fuckers who killed your son. These are your allies!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 03/20/2007 22:22 Comments || Top||

#11  The religion of frying children in the BACK SEAT?
Brave warriors of , I forgot.

Curse you, you infidel. Curse the lot of you.
Posted by: newc || 03/20/2007 22:33 Comments || Top||

#12  GOD is not with you, Moslem on this account. Your sacrifice of Abel will never be sufficient, Cain.
Posted by: newc || 03/20/2007 22:36 Comments || Top||

#13  I sit here crying. My 12 yr old son is in his room reading and drawing, my 10 yr old daughter is with my wife of 24 yrs. I will pray for the souls of those children tonight and ask God for justice for them.
Posted by: Steven || 03/20/2007 22:37 Comments || Top||

#14  You said it beautifully for all of us, dephi2005. We must win this war. Losing is not an option.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/20/2007 22:38 Comments || Top||

#15  I will pray for the souls of those children tonight and ask God for justice for them.

As a scientific agnostic, such actions are not among my usual repetoire, Steve. Please permit me to ask that you repeat the same words in my name too. If there is a God, I dread to think what awaits so many of Islam's followers. Even the eternally damned would shrink from envying them.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/20/2007 23:37 Comments || Top||

#16  I beg your pardon, that would be Steven and not Steve.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/20/2007 23:38 Comments || Top||


FLASH: In Progress, Iraqi Tribes Battle al-Qaeda. 39 Terrorists Killed
ht/ ITMBy Omar Fadhil, PJM editor, Baghdad
The Al-bu Issa tribes in Amiriyat al-Fallujah, backed by local police and the MNF, clashed today with members of the al-Qaeda linked “Islamic State in Iraq” terror organization, according to al-Hurra TV.
The tribe involved in the clashes has opposed al-Qaeda for months now and is part of the Awakening Council.
sic Sunni Tribes fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The battles that are still ongoing have so far left 39 terrorists killed including the “ministers of oil and war” of the terror organization. Six policemen and 11 tribal fighters were also killed during the fighting.
w00t
The report adds that US troops found and securely detonated a tanker filled with chlorine gas the terrorists were planning to use in chemical attacks on the area.
together we stand, spread the woid
Meanwhile, a police force of 500, conducting raids in northern and central parts of Ramadi, captured weapons and bomb-making material, and arrested dozens of suspects.
Tracking….
UPDATE: More on the tribes involved — “These tribes have been sending thousands of young men to join the government security forces or their paramilitary units to cooperate with US and Iraqi commanders to fight insurgents.” (AFP)
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 17:27 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nice too see tribal cooperation.
Posted by: DarthVader || 03/20/2007 18:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Turning point.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/20/2007 18:20 Comments || Top||

#3  When the public decides to participate, the battle is over.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/20/2007 19:55 Comments || Top||


American forces liberate more than 200 abducted in Muqdadiya (?true?)
American forces liberated more than two hundred hostages yesterday in villages in the district of Muqdadiya the majority of which are Iraqi police.

In Diyala police source who wished to remain anonymous confirmed that American forces repositioned in the villages and Ashakragh Sensl close to the town of Muqdadiya carried out raids, searches and range of regions and the surrounding orchards.

He added that the American forces had found several prisons belonging to al-Qaeda and containing more than two hundred abducted hostages. The source explained that the majority of the abductees are the elements of the police who had been abducted at different times and over a period of months.

Linked source is in Arabic; translation is from Free Republic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1803814/posts
Haven't seen it elsewhere yet, and seemed potentially significant enough to post here.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/20/2007 12:59 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good catch, Glenmore.
Posted by: Brett || 03/20/2007 13:12 Comments || Top||

#2  The original source seems to be a SCIRI outlet. The whole thing could be fiction, or part fiction, or largely true. If even significantly true, there could be good reason to delay official release, in order to exploit intel value. If not true, I have not figured out a motive for the story - beyond that of outlets like Weekly World News, etc. (entertainment), and SCIRI doesn't strike me as an entertaining outfit.
Posted by: Glenmore || 03/20/2007 13:28 Comments || Top||

#3  For a strange reason, I suspect this is true.

It has several elements that would seem to fit. Maybe trying to turn the hostages, fear of tribal revenge if they were executed, blackmail the tribes.

Add it all together and just maybe...
Posted by: Anonymoose || 03/20/2007 14:07 Comments || Top||

#4  It doesn't make any sense that al Q would feed 200 prisoners. To what end would a covert gang take on such responsibility ? Baffling !
Posted by: wxjames || 03/20/2007 14:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Glenmore, salt..hope it's true tho. ;-)
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 14:14 Comments || Top||

#6  Strykers did net a huge cache on Friday. May be related. LINK


The search resulted in the discovery of large amounts of munitions to include direct-fire
weapons systems such as a recoilless rifle, rocket-propelled grenade munitions, more
than 1,000 rounds of small-arms ammunition, indirect fire munitions containing more
than 30 mortar rounds, and mortar-firing systems; and improvised-explosive device
materials to include approximately 300 blasting caps, detonation wire, batteries and
timers, and other terrorist documents.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 03/20/2007 15:27 Comments || Top||

#7  wxjames
No mention of well fed or lacking drill holes to the brain.
Posted by: 3dc || 03/20/2007 18:35 Comments || Top||


National Police enter two mosques, seize weapons caches
Iraqi National Police entered the Al Houda and Al Aqsa mosques during a daytime operation in a southern district of the Iraqi capital March 18.

The National Police received tips from neighborhood residents of insurgent activities being conducted at the mosques.

Iraqi Security Forces seized two caches of weapons, munitions and bomb-making materials at each mosque. A total of five people were detained in connection with suspected anti-Iraqi activities and are being held by the police for questioning.

Six AK-47 assault rifles and a shotgun were found at the Al Aqsa mosque, along with small caliber ammunition and bomb-making materials. Two AK-47s, and several mortar rounds and bomb-making material were confiscated in the Al Houda mosque.

The 1st Battalion of the 7th Brigade National Police entered the mosques, while MND-B forces provided the outer cordon for the operation. No MND-B troops entered the mosque or immediate premises.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 03/20/2007 11:17 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  sunni or shia mosques?
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/20/2007 11:18 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm guessing Sunni, since al Huda is a common name for mosques, one in Tikrit, one in New Jersey.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 03/20/2007 11:28 Comments || Top||

#3  I agree. Al Aqsa is also probably a Sunni mosque since the authoritative Shia indictment of the Sunni includes the charge that the mosque in Jerusalem was built to copy the infidels (since the Paleos have been active, this ruling has been largely 'forgotten').
Posted by: mhw || 03/20/2007 11:47 Comments || Top||

#4  They seriously need to bulldoze any building used for weapons storage.
Posted by: BrerRabbit || 03/20/2007 12:04 Comments || Top||

#5  They seriously need to bulldoze any building used for weapons storage.

Aww come on! Where would the kids go to pray play
Posted by: tipper || 03/20/2007 12:10 Comments || Top||

#6  Ohhh...I really hope they took off their boots before going in so as not to offend anybody.
Posted by: DepotGuy || 03/20/2007 13:59 Comments || Top||

#7  I hope they offended everybody, and took a dump before leaving.
Posted by: wxjames || 03/20/2007 14:12 Comments || Top||

#8  They seriously need to bulldoze any building used for weapons storage.

Over my dead body!
Posted by: Rachel Corrie || 03/20/2007 20:36 Comments || Top||

#9  find a gun = level the building and sow the ground with pigs blood
Posted by: Steven || 03/20/2007 22:40 Comments || Top||


Mobile AA Guns Found, Destroyed in Iraq
Note: On February 4th, I named heavy gunfire as the likely culprit in the downing of a US helicopter during the "orchard battle" near Najaf.
I mentioned a report I had received that a "20mm Oerlikon gun" had been captured after the battle. It is likely that my source, who is not familiar with European weapons, mis-identified a heavy Soviet MG.


Mobile Helicopter Killers Found and Destroyed in Iraq

March 19, 2007: American troops in Iraq figured out how Iraqi terrorists had managed to ambush American helicopters with heavy machine-guns and get away with it. The Iraqis had used trucks with the machine-gun mounted in the back, and a tarp over metal supports (a common feature of military trucks) to conceal the weapon. The tarp was rigged so it could be quickly pulled aside, as well as the metal supports for the tarp. This enabled the heavy machine-gun to immediately open fire. There were four of these trucks, and they roamed around areas that American helicopters were operating above. One of these trucks was spotted, with its machine-gun revealed, by a UAV, after informants indicated that this was probably the weapon responsible. U.S. intelligence then analyzed video and other data they had, and put more UAVs over areas believed frequented by the trucks. On the ground, intelligence operatives began beating the bushes for information on these mobile flak traps. Soon the four trucks were identified and, one by one, destroyed with smart bombs.

Vehicles like this are particularly popular in Africa, where they are called "technicals" (and the heavy machine-guns are used mainly against ground targets.) The Iraqi innovation was the hide the machine-gun, until it had to be used against a passing helicopter. The Iraqis came up with this concept because, in the past, when heavy machine-guns were used against aircraft, U.S. aircraft and ground troops were usually all over the area before the 14.5mm heavy machine-gun could be moved or hidden. These machine-guns weigh several hundred pounds, and even when disassembled, the lightest component weighs 176 pounds. It took four years for an Iraqi to realize that heavy machine-gun would only work against the American helicopters if the weapons were mobile, and not easily identified. But that will be difficult now, as the Americans know what to look for, and the word is out in Sunni Arab areas (where the Iraqi "technicals" operated, so reduce the chances of an informer turning them in), that there is a reward for anyone providing information on additional systems like this.

Eight helicopters have crashed in Iraq since January, most from heavy (14.5mm) machine-gun fire. In some of those cases, the hostile fire appeared to be carefully planned. That is, multiple machine-guns, including at least one heavy machine-gun were placed along a route used by helicopters, and fired in a coordinated matter. This tactic is called "flak trap," and dates back to World War II (or earlier). This tactic works if you can use surprise, and the concealed, truck mounted, heavy machine-guns did that.

The enemy has also been using portable surface-to-air missiles since 2003, including more modern models, like the SA-16 (which is similar to the American Stinger.) American helicopters are equipped with missile detection and defense (flare dispensers) equipment. Thus the most dangerous anti-aircraft weapon is the machine-gun. However, despite the recent losses, aircraft losses to ground fire have been declining every year, since 2003, mainly because of good defensive tactics. Moreover, the most vulnerable aircraft, helicopters, have been spending more time in the air. In 2005, U.S. Army aircraft (mainly helicopters) flew 240,000 hours over Iraq. That increased to 334,000 hours last year, and is expected to go to 400,000 hours in 2007. The more time helicopters are in the air, the more opportunities someone has to shoot at them.

Since 2003, the United States has lost 60 helicopters in Iraq. Most of them belonged to the U.S. Army, the rest were marine or civilian (mainly security contractors.) In the last year, helicopters were fired on about a hundred times a month, and about 17 percent of the time, the helicopters were hit. In Vietnam (1966-71), 2,076 helicopters were lost to enemy fire (and 2,566 to non-combat losses). In Vietnam, helicopters flew 36 million sorties (over 20 million flight hours). In Vietnam, helicopters were about twice as likely to get brought down by enemy fire. As in Iraq, the main weapons doing this were machine-guns. Today's helicopters are more robust, partly because of Vietnam experience, and are more likely to stay in the air when hit, and land, rather than crash.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 03/20/2007 07:29 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  they must be talkkingn about guns like the one vid posted on liveleak the other day being blown too shit and the guys shooting it wheree strafed in the treeline at night.
Posted by: sinse || 03/20/2007 10:30 Comments || Top||

#2  14.5 mm= 50 cal.
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 03/20/2007 17:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry, RJ. 25.4 mm to the inch, so 14.5 mm is 57 caliber.

50 cal is 12.7 mm.
Posted by: Bobby || 03/20/2007 18:03 Comments || Top||

#4  I though caliber had to do with the length of the barrel of the gun as a ratio of the bore. Thisn confuser. Ah well.

/War is hard.
Posted by: Shipman || 03/20/2007 18:34 Comments || Top||

#5  Ship, caliber refers to the diameter of the bullet, therefore the bore of the gun. Nothing to do with length. A .22 short means it's a shorter cartridge than a .22 long but the diameter of the bullet stays the same.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 03/20/2007 18:45 Comments || Top||

#6  I've always argued diameter is more important than barrel length..for personal reasons I don't want to go into...er, wanna see my kingcab 4X?
Posted by: Frank G || 03/20/2007 19:32 Comments || Top||

#7  You're both right. "Caliber" itself means inner diameter of barrel (sometimes outer diameter of projectile; they are not always equal).

But the length of an artillery tube is often measured in "calibers," like the 5"/38 of WWII fame, or the 88/70. This is to regularize the length measurement, as weapons with similar length in calibers (and all else being equal, which it never is) will have similar performance even though of different, um, caliber.
Posted by: Jackal || 03/20/2007 20:40 Comments || Top||

#8  Jackal, is that why those beautiful, sensuous, alluring barrels on the Iowa-class are called "16 inch, 50 caliber, naval rifles". Or perhaps I am mis-remembering that. Or the Australian wine is talking.
Posted by: Verlaine || 03/20/2007 23:15 Comments || Top||


[Some] US troops in Iraq want out
For US troops from 9th Cavalry Regiment bumping around the dangerous streets of Baghdad in Humvees after dark on Monday, news that their deployment in Iraq could be extended fell like a hammer blow.
And I'll bet they swore like they hit their own thumbs with that hammer!
Their commanders had cautioned that their second one-year tour due to end in October could be prolonged while US President George W. Bush later warned troops it was too soon to "pack up and go home."

The expletives during the four-hour night patrol turned the air in the Humvee, already thick with cigarette smoke, a dark shade of blue.
That's what young tense Army guys do. As long as it doesn't interfere with the NV goggles!
"We just want to get out of here as soon as possible," said one vehicle commander in one of his few printable comments.
Speaks for himself. That's OK. Don't re-up.
"It's because the Iraqi army is so scared that we have to come here to die," he added, asking not to be named.
Why bother when US soldiers will do it?
"Ninety-five percent of Iraqis are good but five percent are bad. But the 95 percent are too weak to stand up to the five percent."
Then give 'em guns and see what happens.
"Bush should send all the Death Row prisoners here and they can be killed fighting the terrorists. We've had enough," said another soldier, as the Humvee accelerated past a roadside car in case it exploded.
Hmm, sending Couey and the like over there with no training and a sandwich board saying something like "Saddam Rules!" sounds like a good idea to me!
Added yet another, "Bush can come fight here. He can take my 1,000 dollars a month and I'll go home."
But he can't have my renlistment bonus!
Commander of the night operation, Lieutenant Brian Long, said the anger was understandable. "One of the men has five children, another has three. Another has a boy aged four -- he's missed two of those years. He'll never get them back," said Long.
This I understand. There should be some special consideration. Period.
"It is like the movie 'Groundhog Day'. Each day is the same and nothing ever changes," he added, referring to the 1993 movie in which the principal character is doomed to repeat the same day endlessly.
Would renlisting count for a "Groundhog Day"-like comment?
"It's tough. Everyone just wants to get home to their families," said the officer.
Funny, how come dropout low-IQ losers want to go home to their families?
Bush, after speaking to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the top US military commander in Iraq, said in Washington that his new plan to pacify war-wracked Iraq would take months.
If it works in months, I'll be happy.
"It could be tempting to look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude our best option is to pack up and go home," Bush said, four years to the day after he announced that American troops were fighting to depose Saddam Hussein. "That may be satisfying in the short run, but I believe the consequences for American security would be devastating," Bush said, warning that a US departure would spark chaos in Iraq which would engulf the region.
Makes sense to me. Gotta finish what you start here.
Platoon commander of the 9th Cavalry Regiment, Captain Christopher Dawson, said he understood the need for troops to stay in Iraq. "We are starting to make a difference," he said. "The violence is dropping. We are training Iraqis to take over responsibility for their own security. We are helping them see their future ahead of them. It is in their hands."
Reporter must have had a lapse. The editor, too. :-)
But the lower ranks were in rebellious mood, especially after publication of a poll on Monday, commissioned by the BBC, ABC News, ARD German TV and USA Today, which showed only 18 percent of those questioned had confidence in US and coalition troops, while 78 percent opposed their presence.
I don't remember getting polled. Oh yeah, I was at work.
"If no one wants us here we are quite ready to get out tomorrow," said the outspoken vehicle commander.
Looks like you'll be staying a while longer.
One of the few Iraqis the troops met during their night patrol -- most stay indoors once the 8pm curfew kicks in -- said he feared the day the US forces pulled out.
Aha! They found a guy who actually likes us! I wonder how they're going to spin it.
"They can stay for 100 years if they want," said Salam Ahmed, a security guard at a shoe warehouse on the outskirts of the city. "If they go, the bad guys will certainly come for me."
Only takes one or two percent of anonymous bad guys with guns to beat down a population.
Posted by: gorb || 03/20/2007 03:12 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think the author is confusing the immediate disappointment these troops are suffering as their tours are being again extended with his own feelings that the mission should be abandoned. I'm sure the author has not been on the firing line for two years so there is a disconnect, not to mention the regular AP bias!
Posted by: Jim || 03/20/2007 9:03 Comments || Top||

#2  "They can stay for 100 years if they want," said Salam Ahmed, a security guard at a shoe warehouse on the outskirts of the city. "If they go, the bad guys will certainly come for me."

Yeah, and most of the troops didn't want to be in Europe either, but that's what Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, etc said was necessary too. What's up to now, 60+ years. Little under 40 to go to make that 100. Salam learns well from the Germans and French and etc. Didn't Bill promise us the troops home in a year from Kosovo? Not that Hillary would miss that piece of dirty trade off to another prez?
Posted by: Procopius2k || 03/20/2007 9:45 Comments || Top||

#3  "If they go, the bad guys will certainly come for me."

But that's okay. Nancy Pelosi will feel your pain...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/20/2007 9:52 Comments || Top||

#4  i say, let the shias ans sunnis kill each other off and let kurdistan have their own country that WE arm very well. they seem too be the only ones with any real intelligence in this country.
Posted by: sinse || 03/20/2007 10:27 Comments || Top||

#5  i mean shit we are talking about where civilization began here, and look how far they have came from the days of nebachanezzar(sp).
Posted by: sinse || 03/20/2007 10:28 Comments || Top||

#6  In any large group of soldiers (or sailors, marines or airmen) you will always find a few who are unhappy. A reporter can look for them, and get a quote. Then with a little wordsmithing, the reporter can make it look like the sentiment is widespread, and that general griping is about to explode into general mutiny.
Posted by: Rambler || 03/20/2007 11:04 Comments || Top||

#7  Consider the source: AFP - THats the French Press Agency. No agenda there, right?


And obviously never hear the old soldier's adage: If they aint bitchin they aint happy.
Posted by: OldSpook || 03/20/2007 11:21 Comments || Top||

#8  As we used to say on the ol' BB, a bitchy sailor is a happy sailor.
Posted by: Dreadnought || 03/20/2007 11:22 Comments || Top||

#9  I spent a year in Vietnam and rotated home, like a lot of people. Some of the guys extended for up to two additional years. We bitched - my daughter was 22 months old when I left. All soldiers bitch, especially when handed a piece of bad news such as an extension to what you considered a set tour. The MSM will post what they consider the worst news, because they don't want the MNF to succeed. Even the local newspaper follows the lead, and it's not as liberal as most. The same soldiers who are bitching will fight like he$$ if attacked.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/20/2007 12:51 Comments || Top||

#10  So what you're saying is that Iraq is like Vietnam.
Posted by: Uneamble Fillmore6406 || 03/20/2007 14:49 Comments || Top||

#11  Korea was like Vietnam too, matter of fact Vietnam is like Vietnam, some say Missouri was like Vietnam back in 1861, but rarely is North Dakota likened to N. Vietnam, which is a damn mystery wrapped in an eggroll sold by an airhead.
Posted by: Shipman || 03/20/2007 16:21 Comments || Top||

#12  All soldiers bitch, especially when handed a piece of bad news

what OP said and...human nature.

Korea was like Vietnam too, matter of fact Vietnam is like Vietnam, some say Missouri was like Vietnam back in 1861, but rarely is North Dakota likened to N. Vietnam, which is a damn mystery wrapped in an eggroll sold by an airhead.

ship lol, you always crack me up!

/[olde China proverb..women who fly upside down..]
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 17:00 Comments || Top||

#13  it's a damn shame, RD, to see you sink to our level of humor. Ima embarrassed
Posted by: Frank G || 03/20/2007 18:01 Comments || Top||

#14  Ima am too... LOL!
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 18:22 Comments || Top||


Iraq steps up anti-Israel boycott
The US-backed Iraqi government is enforcing the Arab boycott of Israel with increasing frequency, The Jerusalem Post has learned, with the number of boycott-related incidents involving US firms operating in Iraq nearly quadrupling last year, according to official US statistics.
Some people might say that this shows what the democratization process in Iraq is worth.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sadly, there are few truly desirable elements in Iraq. The best we can hope for is to weaken and disempower the worst elements, from the Sadrists to al Qaeda types.

In truth, even Saddam Hussein had a few positive qualities - under him Iraq stood as a bulwark against Iran's imperial ambitions, and since he was a secular fascist (as opposed to the Islamofascists now ascendant in the region) women enjoyed a greater degree of personal freedom than in many Middle Eastern countries.
Posted by: Grumenk Philalzabod0723 || 03/20/2007 1:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Yea... I have had this B.S. session with my friends a couple times...

Wouldn't it be great if we could impose order in Iraq with some sort of secular strong-man? He'd have to be a Sunni, of course, to counter the growing Iranian factions, but you know, a Sunni who doesn't really go in for all the Wahabbi nonsense of the Saudis...

Yeah, that would be great... kind of reminds me of somebody...
Posted by: garbagecowboy || 03/20/2007 2:21 Comments || Top||

#3  Remember when Kuwaiti officials suggested that relations with Israel would be different once they got back their country from Saddam?

Posted by: John Frum || 03/20/2007 6:44 Comments || Top||

#4  We were going to liberate these folks and then they were going to have a light flash in their eyes on the way to Damascus and all love each other. Right. This is who they are. Democracy allows them to express it, suffer the consequences, learn and, hopefully, improve.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/20/2007 6:49 Comments || Top||

#5  So what negative "consequences" is Iraq experiencing by boycotting Israel?
Posted by: Jules || 03/20/2007 8:18 Comments || Top||

#6  So what negative "consequences" is Iraq experiencing by boycotting Israel?

The same ones every other country that boycotts Israel suffers. Maybe there ought to be a lesson in that for the US and Israel.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/20/2007 8:35 Comments || Top||

#7  Not trying to be obtuse, NS. Of those countries boycotting Israel, what are the consequences?

From http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Arab_boycott.html
"In late 2005, Saudi Arabia was required to cease its boycott of Israel as a condition of joining the World Trade Organization. After initially saying that it would do so, the government subsequently announced it would maintain its first-degree boycott of Israeli products. The government said it agreed to lift the second and third degree boycott in accordance with an earlier Gulf Cooperation Council decision rather than the demands of the WTO. In June 2006, the Saudi ambassador admitted his country still enforced the boycott in violation of promises made earlier to the Bush Administration (Jerusalem Post, (June 22, 2006)."
Posted by: Jules || 03/20/2007 8:45 Comments || Top||

#8  Not trying to be obtuse, NS. Of those countries boycotting Israel, what are the consequences?

Not trying to be obtuse, either, Jules, but the fact that there are no consequences for boycotting Israel was exactly my point. If they suffer no negative consequences why should any of them, including Iraq, change their behaviour?

I don't see how you can knock Iraqi democracy for doing what the Iraqi people want it to. That's how it's supposed to work. Nor do I see how we can treat Iraq significantly worse than we treat Arab tyrannies for the same behaviour.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 03/20/2007 8:54 Comments || Top||

#9  I agree with you about consistency. However, I don't see anything in my comment about knocking democracy.

If we look at democracy as delivering what the will of the Iraqi people is, what does that portend for American soldiers, given that consistent majority percentages of Iraqis think American soldiers are legitimate targets for attack? Is American policy, in supporting the democracy in Iraq, simultaneously buttressing the idea that it is ok to attack American soldiers? I am not saying it is, but there is a serious disconnect going on there.
Posted by: Jules || 03/20/2007 9:07 Comments || Top||

#10  I wouldn't be too worried about it. The Kurds have extensive contacts with the Israelis and have no intention of boycotting them. They're also the ones with a functioning economy.

Al
Posted by: Frozen Al || 03/20/2007 10:05 Comments || Top||

#11  Israel produces half the fresh produce and fruit consumed in the Middle East. Those nations that boycott Israel have to buy their fresh produce and fruit from somewhere else, usually India, South Africa, or South America. It's not quite as "fresh" as the Israeli products. As the result of the boycott, more Israeli products are sold to Europe, at a greater price. The only people being hurt by the boycott are the people doing the boycotting.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/20/2007 12:55 Comments || Top||

#12  what the Arabs say [pose, posture, put on paper] is way different than what they DO. If a buck can be made, it will.
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 14:53 Comments || Top||

#13  The problem is Islam.

The problem will continue to be Islam.

"Solutions" that don't acknowledge that the problem is Islam won't solve anything.

"Liberating" a country while not liberating it from Islam isn't liberation at all.

We had our chance, and chose to ignore the obvious.
Posted by: Crusader || 03/20/2007 17:06 Comments || Top||

#14  pose, posture, put on paper

Where'd you get that? If original my apologies and slam down a © on that puppy. PPPOP.
Posted by: Shipman || 03/20/2007 18:55 Comments || Top||

#15  What Crusader said.

I no longer care if muslims are "free". This is a memetic plague and public health measures must be taken to eradicate it. A nuclear powered islam means it is the light or the dark; the West or a new Dark Age and nothing in between.
Posted by: Excalibur || 03/20/2007 19:34 Comments || Top||

#16  +1 to what Crusader said.

Bottom line: is there more, or less, Islam in the world since we invaded Iraq? Almost certainly there is more. Which ain't good.
Posted by: Ebbereck Brown5372 || 03/20/2007 20:42 Comments || Top||

#17  Shipman .... "watch the hand, not the mouth", as the Arab expression goes.
Posted by: Verlaine || 03/20/2007 23:19 Comments || Top||


Iraq violence claims another 30 lives
At least 30 people were killed in violence across Iraq on Monday. A bomb exploded during prayers at a Shia mosque in Baghdad, killing at least eight worshippers, police said. Police initially blamed the attack on a suicide bomber trying to enter the building but later said the blast was caused by a bomb placed in the corner behind the preacher’s podium.

Three car bombs and two roadside devices killed 18 people in Kirkuk on Monday, police said. The blasts happened in different parts of the city but exploded within a few minutes. One car bomb targeted the local offices of the secular political party of former prime minister Iyad Allawi, another one targeted a government building and the third exploded in a commercial street, Brigadier Sarhat Qader said. The three roadside bombs targeted Iraqi police and army patrols, Qader said.

Gunmen killed three civilians in broad daylight in Hilla, south of Baghdad, a police officer said. Police in Hilla also found large caches of weapons, including 500 mortar rounds and artillery shells.

The mayor of a small Shia village south of Baghdad was kidnapped on his way to work on Monday, and his bullet-riddled body was later found dumped along a highway, police and morgue officials said. Police said Khalaf Ghargan, the mayor of Dijelah, was abducted by gunmen about 300 metres from his home. Ghargan’s body was later found dumped on a highway and brought to the Kut morgue. A roadside bomb exploded on Monday near a police patrol in Mosul, wounding two civilians, police said.

Separately, nine alleged insurgents, including a roadside bomb maker, were detained on Monday in raids in Baghdad and Ramadi, the US military said. A man accused of making roadside bombs aimed at US-led forces and two other suspects were captured in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province, while four others were detained in Fallujah, 50 kilometres to the east, according to a statement. Two others accused of helping Al Qaeda in Iraq bring foreign fighters into Iraq were seized in eastern Baghdad, it said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki insisted sectarian killing had come to an end in his country, blaming ongoing daily violence on Al Qaeda in a television interview on Monday.
Posted by: Fred || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  so of the thirty, only 8 were in Baghdad, plus a ninth very close to Baghdad. The rest was Kirkuk or Hillah.

Not inconsistent with the rest we've been hearing about the surge.
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/20/2007 11:12 Comments || Top||


25 killed in Iraq bombings
BAGHDAD - A series of bombings and shootings killed 25 people in Iraq on Monday, 15 of them in a series of blasts in the oil hub of Kirkuk. The biggest attack there, a car bomb near two mosques, killed 10 people and wounded eight, police Colonel Taha Salaheddin told AFP.

The bomb went off in central Kirkuk’s Sector 90 district which houses the two mosques, one Shia and one Sunni, as well as the emergency police command, Salaheddin said.
Posted by: Steve White || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:


Taha Yassin Ramadan to depart gene pool today
Taha Yassin Ramadan, Iraq's former vice president, will be hanged on Tuesday for crimes against humanity, Iraqi legal sources have said. The Iraqi governement was reported on Monday to have requested that US officials hand over Ramadan into Iraqi custody ahead of his execution.

Badie Aref, a lawyer in the case, said on Monday that he was told about the planned execution by Ramadan's lawyer. "The Americans called Ramadan's lawyer and asked him to be ready as Ramadan was to be hanged tomorrow at 2.30am [2330 GMT]," Aref said.

He said: "They [the US military] also allowed Ramadan to call his family. He was very calm and composed. He asked his family and friends to pray for him and said that he was not afraid of death."

Ramadan was convicted over his role in the killing of 148 Shia Iraqi citizens from the town of Dujail in the 1980s. An appeal court upheld the death sentence against him last week. The killings took place in response to a failed assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein, the former president. Ramadan will be the third aide of Saddam to be hanged for crimes against humanity. Saddam himself was hanged for the Dujail killings on December 30 while Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and Awad Ahmed al-Bandar were executed on January 15.
Update: he's a deader, as reported by the Guardian. Hanged before dawn. My favorite part:
The official, who witnessed the hanging ... said precautions had been taken to prevent a repeat of what happened to Saddam's half brother and co-defendant Barzan Ibrahim, who was inadvertently decapitated on the gallows.
To borrow from what one Rantburger said before, sounds like this time, they remembered that the drop table is calculated in feet, not meters. More:
Ramadan appeared frightened and said words that indicated he was remorseful, the official said, although he was not more specific.
Translation -- "I wuz a rat!"
Posted by: Fred || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He was as quiet as a mouse during the Dujayl proceedings - can't recall him speaking except at the defense case phase towards the end.

Luxury guest suites out at Cropper must be gettin' kind of empty .....
Posted by: Verlaine || 03/20/2007 0:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Toodles, Taha.
Posted by: Seafarious || 03/20/2007 0:54 Comments || Top||

#3  "If I had known about the concept of consequences, I would never have done it!"
Posted by: gorb || 03/20/2007 2:18 Comments || Top||

#4  I remember when that loudmouthed scumsucker was bragging to all the world that the US could never conquer Iraq and that Americans were all cowards. I wonder if he thought differently as he stood on the scaffold? Nah, he was a Muzzy. Some people never learn.
Posted by: Mac || 03/20/2007 8:12 Comments || Top||

#5  SNAP CRACKLE POP goes the weasel.
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 16:52 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
WND : Ex-Jewish cities now for Hamas terror training
Conversion of Israeli towns 'sign from Allah' Palestinian resistance works - By Aaron Klein

TEL AVIV – Two Jewish communities in the Gaza Strip evacuated by Israel have been turned into advanced Hamas militant training centers, a senior member of Hamas' so-called military wing told WND today.

Last night, Israelis living near Gaza and Palestinians inside the territory heard loud explosions coming from the northern Gaza Strip area. Israeli security officials at first feared the blasts were terrorist attacks, while some Palestinians immediately reported the explosions as an Israeli raid. Israel has refrained from carrying out military operations in Gaza since a cease-fire was forged last November.

It turned out the blasts were part of Hamas explosives training exercises conducted in the former Jewish communities of Eli Sinai and Dagit in Gaza, according to Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important operational members of Hamas' Izzedine al-Qassam Martyrs Brigades, Hamas' declared "resistance" department.

Israel Defense Forces officials confirmed the explosions were attributed to Palestinian terror groups inside Gaza.

Abu Abdullah told WND Hamas turned Eli Sinai and Dagit into advanced training zones, which he said include areas for "physical shape exercises; use of weapons training; practice lands for ambushes of Israeli forces; courses for the reading of maps and [production and use of] explosives and many other trainings; military techniques, fighting in open fields and in built and populated areas; and rockets shooting."

The two former Jewish communities were located in Gaza, north of Gush Katif, a slate of former Jewish neighborhoods of the Gaza Strip. The areas were entirely evacuated by Israel in August 2005.

Abu Abdullah called the utilization by Hamas of the former Jewish towns for anti-Israel activity a "big sign from Allah that the settlements that were the strongest symbol and proof of the Zionist injustice are now turned into tools at the service of the Palestinian resistance against the enemy plans and are proof that the resistance works."

The Hamas terror leader said his group stepped up the pace of its training the past few weeks because of a "coming" confrontation with Israel.

"We think that the confrontation with Israel is not a question of if but a question of when. We have no doubt that the Israelis are not ready for a full withdrawal from the Palestinian territories and that they will try to escape from this withdrawal by trying to invading Gaza and cities in the West Bank," Abu Abdullah said.

"The Israeli officers say everyday that a big operation in Gaza is being prepared and is waiting for the decision of the enemy government," he said.

Hamas sources said that until recently, Palestinian training in Gaza was conducted quietly. They said last night's testing of explosives should be taken by Israel as a "warning" Palestinian groups are "ready" for a confrontation.

In November, Israel agreed to a truce with Gaza militants in which the Jewish state vowed to suspend anti-terror operations in the Gaza Strip in exchange for quiet. Since then, more than 160 rockets have been fired from Gaza, but the IDF has been restrained from operating in the territory. Yesterday, Hamas carried out a shooting attack against an Israeli civilian near Gaza.

Last week Yuval Diskin, head of Israel's General Security Services, told the Knesset Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip aided by Iran used the four-month-old cease-fire to improve the range of their rockets, smuggle in mass quantities of weapons, construct underground bunkers and build guerrilla-like armies.

He said Palestinian advances during the cease-fire period will now make it more difficult for the Israel Defense Forces to confront Gaza's terror infrastructure.

In December, three weeks after the Nov. 23 truce was forged, WND quoted top Gazan terror leaders explaining they would use the truce to smuggle in weapons, increase the range of their rockets, construct underground bunkers, fortify military positions and build guerrilla armies.

Diskin said Hamas was sending hundreds of Gaza-based militants to Iran for prolonged periods of advanced training. He announced smuggling of weaponry into Gaza from the neighboring Egyptian Sinai desert recently increased six-fold and that Palestinian terror groups were taking advantage of the cease-fire to enhance rockets and create a complex system of underground bunkers.

Last week, Yoav Galant, chief of the IDF's Gaza-area division, told reporters the Gaza truce enabled Hamas to grow from a ragtag terror group into a well-organized militia resembling an army – complete with battalions, companies, platoons, special forces for surveillance, snipers and explosive experts.

Galant compared Hamas to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia which last summer engaged in 33-days of confrontations with the IDF, bombarding northern Israeli population centers with thousands of rockets.

The use of Eli Sinia and Dagit as Hamas training zones are the latest in a string of reports Gaza's former Jewish communities are being utilized for terror.

WND reported a Hamas-affiliated university with a history of involvement in terrorist activity opened a branch earlier this month in Nitzarim, a former Gush Katif community, building on the foundations of evacuated Jewish structures.

Last month, WND broke the story the ruins of two large synagogues in Gush Katif's former capital city, Neve Dekalim, were transformed into a military base used by Palestinian groups to fire rockets at Israeli cities and train for attacks against the Jewish state.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 03/20/2007 16:17 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...two large synagogues in Gush Katif ... were transformed into a military base used by Palestinian groups to fire rockets at Israeli cities and train for attacks against the Jewish state.

If Palis believe that IDF won't fire on this base, they're in for a huge surprise. Without the Torah scrolls in them, those are just two more buildings.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/20/2007 16:37 Comments || Top||

#2  When will Israel wake up? The first hint these sites were being used as bases against the Jewish people they should have been destroyed. Not to do so is immoral, reckless, suicidal...
Posted by: Excalibur || 03/20/2007 19:31 Comments || Top||

#3  No One ever told you that you had authority to populate the Gush Katif. No One. Nor did you ever ask. All I know was that Israel was to withdrawl.
NO ONE has authority to live there by law.

Who signed it over to these guys?

Ferris?
Anyone?
Posted by: newc || 03/20/2007 22:00 Comments || Top||

#4  I say EVERYONE leave Gush Katif. Immediately.
Posted by: newc || 03/20/2007 22:06 Comments || Top||

#5  No One ever told you that you had authority to populate the Gush Katif. No One.

Many of us feel that we don't need anybody's permission. In fact, some of us feel that it is long past time for the rest of the world to grasp that we don't need their permission to live. Since ethical arguments appear to fall on deaf ears, consider this "What happens when the defenders of Metzada have an equalizer?"
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/20/2007 22:43 Comments || Top||

#6  So live already. Get on with it.
Posted by: Shipman || 03/20/2007 23:39 Comments || Top||


Alan Johnston gets to see how accurate his story was
Wonder if he thinks it's harmless fun now?
Palestinian security services are still searching for the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston who, it is thought, was abducted in Gaza on Monday. Alan has reported from conflict zones including Afghanistan as well as Gaza as these extracts from his previous reports show.

Jan, 2006: ABDUCTIONS IN GAZA

In Iraq an abduction can end in the most brutal murder. But fortunately Gaza is not Iraq, nothing like it. So far, all the foreigners kidnapped here have been freed quite quickly and unharmed. Often they have been used as bargaining chips, a way for a group of gunmen to get attention.

Gaza is awash with bands of militants: the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, the Jenin Brigade, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigade and so on. They used to attack the occupying Israeli troops and settlers. But the settlements were abandoned in the autumn when the army pulled out, and now the boys from the Brigades find themselves with time on their hands.

They want proper jobs in this poverty-stricken place, and usually they want to be allowed to join the security services. It is ironic really. Gaza is the only place in the world where your kidnapper's one demand is that he should be allowed to become a policeman.

And the kidnap craze has thrown up moments of black humour. The gunmen are not always crack division militants, more Keystone Kidnappers. While an Italian journalist was being led off to a hideout he had to climb a fence. And when one of his abductors started the climb he absentmindedly handed the Italian his gun. Surely it is the first thing they teach you at kidnapper's school, never give the hostage your machinegun.

And the whole business of kidnapping goes very much against the local social grain. Palestinians are extremely hospitable people, and one of the dangers of being abducted here must be that you could get fed to death.

And the other day I heard that a foreign journalist wrongly thought he was about to be lifted, and being Japanese, he went into martial arts mode. Just part of the madness of Gaza, a Japanese journo mistakenly Kung Fu fighting in a refugee camp. I wonder how long he went at it before they could persuade him that it was not necessary.

What you fear most is a bungled rescue attempt. Winkling out a hostage safely is not easy - even for the world's best trained police - and Gaza's finest could not really be described in that way.
Oh, for crissakes, give them their big bags of money so I can come home and sign my book deal!
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/20/2007 10:34 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Oh, for Allah'scrissakes, give them their big bags of money so I can come home and sign my book deal!"
There. Fixed it for you - he will have to convert to Islam, and then he should be freed. Or not.
Posted by: Rambler || 03/20/2007 11:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Fantasy alternative: Johnston was abducted by American or Israeli vigilantes and has been spirited away to a safe house in............

London.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 03/20/2007 11:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Someday, Atomic, someday...
Posted by: Destro in Panama || 03/20/2007 11:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Kung Fu? Kung Fu is a Chinese martial art. Pretty typical for a liberal Western reporter to make mistakes of fact like this, and then (probably) laugh it off afterwards, even though it comes darn close to being a racist joke. Heck, if I said a Japanese went into Kung Fu mode, I'd be up to my eyeballs in liberals laughing at me for being a parochial ignoramus from flyover territory.
Posted by: gromky || 03/20/2007 11:22 Comments || Top||

#5  The mills of the Gods...
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/20/2007 12:26 Comments || Top||

#6  While America is making every effort to win the hearts & minds of the Iraqi people..and Israel struggles to get it's message of survival out to the world..
The Islamo terrorists and paleos have won the hearts & minds of the Main Stream Media Orgs effortlessly.

The BBC has a hard on for Israel and America, it's one of the worst, they are as anti-American and anti-Israeli as the USSR and Saddam were.

As far as I'm concerned the BBC is our enemy, and the incredibly stupid retards, the paleos can go about cutting both of Alan Johnston's duplicitous heads off.

a win, win, win if you follow.
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 14:48 Comments || Top||

#7  The Beeb is our enemy and has openly admitted as much. They KNOW their corporate culture and perceived message is anti-American, anti-Western, and pro-Muslim terrorist.
Posted by: Mac || 03/20/2007 17:38 Comments || Top||

#8  But fortunately Gaza is not Iraq, nothing like it.

He may soon find out otherwise. Let's all hope that this maroon had the extremely poor judgement to boast about how he's such a well-respected journalist and well-known to the hoity toity and blah, blah, blah ...

Maybe that will result in his captors holding him for an extended period of time as they seek an even larger ransom. Perhaps then Johnston will have a golden opportunity to get up close and personal with the thugs and savages he glorifies so constantly. The BBC has been in the enemy's camp for so long that they seem to have gained a deep sense of familiarity. For those of us with any brains, Muslims long ago proved exactly what familiarity breeds ...
Posted by: Zenster || 03/20/2007 17:51 Comments || Top||

#9  Palestinians are extremely hospitable people, and one of the dangers of being abducted here must be that you could get fed to death.

That explains the people exploding at cafes, restaurants, and holiday feasts. They're not strapped with explosives -- they're overfed.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 03/20/2007 19:02 Comments || Top||

#10  They're not strapped with explosives -- they're overfed.

MR. CREOSOTE: [groaning]

MAÎTRE D: And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint.

MR. CREOSOTE: Nah.

MAÎTRE D: Oh, sir, it's only a tiny, little, thin one.

MR. CREOSOTE: No. Fuck off. I'm full.

MAÎTRE D: Oh, sir. Hmm?

MR. CREOSOTE: [groan]

MAÎTRE D: It's only wafer thin.

MR. CREOSOTE: Look. I couldn't eat another thing. I'm absolutely stuffed. Bugger off.

MAÎTRE D: Oh, sir, just-- just one.

MR. CREOSOTE: [groaning] All right. Just one.

MAÎTRE D: Just the one, monsieur. Voilà.

MR. CREOSOTE: [groaning]

MAÎTRE D: Bon appétit.

MR. CREOSOTE: [groaning]

[suspenseful music]
[music stops]
[crash]
[BOOM]
[goosh]
[goosh]
[mayhem]

MAÎTRE D: Thank you, sir, and now, here's ze check.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/20/2007 19:32 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
U.S.S. Jason Dunham, DDG-109
R News

A Navy Destroyer will bear the name of the Allegany County Marine killed in Iraq two years ago.

The Navy's newest Guided Missile Destroyer, DDG-109 will be named the USS JASON DUNHAM.

Dunham is the Marine Corporal from Scio who died battling insurgents in Iraq in April, 2004. Dunham dove on a grenade and saved the lives of other Marines.

Dunham became the first Marine in the Iraq War to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor.

His parents, sister and brother received the medal in his honor from President Bush in January.

Secretary of the Navy Donald Winters will take part in a naming ceremony for the Destroyer Friday in Scio.


This is all I can find as of this moment. The Dunham will be an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, one of the deadliest warships afloat.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 03/20/2007 19:08 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Newsday has it, too.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 03/20/2007 19:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Good name for a ship like that.
Posted by: Mike || 03/20/2007 20:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Too bad they didn't rename the sub Jimmuh Peanut after him.

I'm more worthy of having a fighting ship named after me than that traitor loser is, and I don't deserve it at all.

Cpl. Dunham deserves this honor and more.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 03/20/2007 22:04 Comments || Top||

#4  Bless the U.S.S. Jason Dunham.
Posted by: newc || 03/20/2007 22:38 Comments || Top||

#5  I can only hope its first deployment is in the Persian Gulf.
Permit me to wonder aloud for a moment: is it still permissible to refer to a ship as a 'she' when it bears a masculine name? I am just a poor airdale sailor and not one of those honorable Blackshoe types so I need a bit of guidance in mattters such as this.
Posted by: USN, ret. || 03/20/2007 23:09 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Thai military recruits women to curb insurgency
For the "Wimmin 'n Guns" file
When Muslim wives, mothers and children recently mounted a demonstration in insurgency-wracked southern Thailand, the army sent a 27-year-old woman named Mariya into the crowd to chat, glean information and check whether any men were hiding out among the protesters.

Mariya is a Muslim and one of 140 female rangers recruited by the military in a search for nonlethal ways to curb the three-year insurgency that has claimed more than 2,000 lives. A former registrar at a local government office in Pattani, one of the three provinces where the insurgency is raging, she said she joined up because she disagrees with the insurgents' aims. "It is impossible to separate from Thailand. We were born in this land; we have to be Thais," she said.

Natchaphat Kongchuen is a Buddhist. Dressed in black fatigues and combat boots, she said she quit her job as a receptionist at a police station in the southern town of Yala and enlisted as a ranger after her father, a military officer, was killed in an ambush last year. "I wanted to take part in solving the country's problems after my dad died," Natchaphat said.
More at the link. There's a pic, and a bigger version's here. There's another pic here. Awwww. Both are from foreign Yahoo versions, but the captions are in English. This article and the pics were in the local paper this morning.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 03/20/2007 14:26 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
Mariya is a Muslim and one of 140 female rangers recruited by the military in a search for nonlethal ways to curb the three-year insurgency that has claimed more than 2,000 lives.

A former registrar at a local government office in Pattani, one of the three provinces where the insurgency is raging, she said she joined up because she disagrees with the insurgents' aims.

"It is impossible to separate from Thailand. We were born in this land; we have to be Thais," she said.



Moderate Thai Muslim watch
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/20/2007 15:27 Comments || Top||

#2  Mariya is a Muslim

And Thais are slow learners.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/20/2007 16:39 Comments || Top||

#3  Nothing's gonna change unless one of the women is Loreena Bobbit.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/20/2007 16:41 Comments || Top||

#4  LH, the term "moderate" is misleading. In my view, there are "nominal" muslims, sometimes also called "secular", e.g. people that were "born" into the religion, but usually not partucularly thrilled by that fact.

"Moderate" muslim wants jihad, but in non-violent fashion, until such time when the stage is set for a guaranteed takeover-victory. "Radical" muslim is not that patient. That is all the difference.
Posted by: twobyfour || 03/20/2007 16:50 Comments || Top||

#5  So, the new rule of thumb is "Curb your insurgent"?
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 03/20/2007 20:11 Comments || Top||


Southern Thai towns increasingly rely on militias
Posted by: ryuge || 03/20/2007 07:50 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "In this kind of situation we better rely on ourselves," La-ong said Monday as he cleared brush at the village's jungle-shrouded Buddhist cemetery.

Smart man...
Posted by: tu3031 || 03/20/2007 11:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Good for them.
Posted by: gromgoru || 03/20/2007 12:26 Comments || Top||


Thai jihadis burn school, bomb police, shoot man
Insurgents set fire to a school in Yala province, and wounded a policeman when they denotated a roadside bomb against a patrol early Tuesday.

Ban Bayor school in Yaha's district of Yala, which is currently under curfew, was set on fire at around 2 a.m. but police did not go to investigate until this morning for fear that insurgents might use this arson attack to lure police out and ambush them. Patrol police from unit 4402 responded to the scene at around 7.30 a.m. When their pick-up was still two kilomotres from the school, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb, damaging the vehicle and injuring a police officer. The blast also blew a hole of about a metre deep and three metre wide, police said.

After the blast, police arrested five to seven teenagers whom they thought might be responsible for the blast. The men, however, claimed that they were rubber tappers and were simply working at a plantation near the blast. They are being interrogated by police.

Villagers let police into murder school

Villagers in Songkhla's Sabayoi district Tuesday lifted their cordon after blocking access to an Islamic boarding school crime scene for the third consecutive day. After barring police from entering Bumrungsart Witthaya Pondok (Islamic boarding school), the villagers allowed authorities to inspect the scene where invaders fired on the school and set off a bomb Sunday, killing two students and wounding eight other persons.

Police have been trying to enter the school to gather evidence, but the villagers had demanded that only five unarmed officials, one journalist, and the police officer in charge of the case enter that school. Authorities rejected the conditions, because they needed specialised equipment to work at the crime scene. Sabayoi district chief Preecha Damkengkiart negotiated with the villagers. The school owner and the villagers themselves wanted the investigation to be conducted, but they required a journalist, they said, who will report unbiased news and they said they don't trust officials.

Meanwhile, police had feared that if they acceded to the villagers request, they could be attacked and taken hostage as in an incident when two Marines were beaten and killed while blindfolded, with their hands tied behind their backs during a dramatic 18-hour hostage ordeal at Tanyong Limo village in September 2005.

Meanwhile, in Narathiwat, a local resident was shot and wounded by a gunman in Sungai Kolok municipality. The man, Mahanwa Nimae was rushed to hospital.
Posted by: ryuge || 03/20/2007 07:04 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:


Sri Lanka
Jets bomb rebel naval base: Lankan Air Force
COLOMBO - Sri Lankan air force jets bombed and destroyed a Tamil Tiger naval base near the northeastern district of Mullaittivu, the military said on Monday, but had no immediate details of any casualties.

The attack at Chundikkulam came a day after the navy sank two large ships off the east coast it said were transporting arms for the Tigers, and as the government pushed on with a declared plan to destroy the rebels’ military machine. ‘We have taken selected targets,’ said air force spokesman Group Captain Ajantha de Silva. ‘This is a Sea Tiger base we have identified. We believe it is fully destroyed.’
Posted by: Steve White || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Go go Sri Lankans. Keep this up, and it'll turn out like the Phillipines - lots of progress resolving a decades-old rebellion.
Posted by: gromky || 03/20/2007 7:01 Comments || Top||

#2  i agree they are kicking some serious ass here lately
Posted by: sinse || 03/20/2007 10:29 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Right on Cue: Iran stops inspectors visiting nuclear site: diplomats
Iran stopped UN inspectors from visiting an underground bunker where it is building an industrial-scale plant to make enriched uranium but the inspectors will try again, diplomats told AFP Monday.

Iran had however promised "frequent inspector access" to the site in Natanz, the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in February.

The highly sensitive inspections, and talks over how they are to take place, came as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was expected to plead Iran's case this week before the UN Security Council, which is considering tightening sanctions on the Islamic republic over fears that it seeks nuclear weapons.

A centre of concern is the uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, in central Iran, where the Iranians are already operating above-ground a pilot plant carrying out research levels of enrichment, the process which makes what can be fuel for civilian nuclear reactors but also the explosive core of atom bombs.

A diplomat said Iran had last Saturday refused to let IAEA inspectors into the underground hall at Natanz where the Iranians have set up hundreds of centrifuges in what is to be a 3,000-centrifuge facility for enriching uranium.

Centrifuges are the machines used to refine uranium for the U-235 isotope that is valuable for fuel or weapons.

Such a facility could make enough highly enriched uranium for an atom bomb in about 10 months, according to the IISS think-tank in London.

Other diplomats, all requesting anonymity due to the extreme delicacy of the issue, said IAEA inspectors are set to return this week, possibly Tuesday, to the plant and that delays in inspections were normal and could just be a matter of schedule changes or working out legal issues.

Iran's blocking access definitively to Natanz would be a violation of its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Iranian officials were not immediately reachable for comment.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had reported on February 22 that the agency wanted to put cameras in the centrifuge hall in accordance with "safeguards measures that needed to be implemented . . . prior to the introduction of nuclear material into the facility."

The report said that Iran was spinning centrifuges empty, without uranium feedstock gas, in two 164-centrifuge production lines, and was finishing installing two other similar cascades, also totalling 328 centrifuges.

ElBaradei said the IAEA had "agreed to interim verification arrangements" at Natanz's underground site "involving frequent inspector access but not remote monitoring."

"Iran was informed that these arrangements (which are now in place) would be valid only for as long as the number of machines installed ... did not exceed 500, and that, once that number was exceeded, all required safeguards measures would need to be implemented," ElBaradei said.

A diplomat said the IAEA was already considering what to do if Iran did not comply.

Iran has however challenged the agency "to provide a detailed legal basis" for putting in cameras, as it contests the legality of the 500-centrifuge limit, according to the report.

The first diplomat said Iran did not want the IAEA to see "that it now has more than 500 centrifuges functioning underground" and that was the reason for the delay.

Tehran is defying the UN's calls for it to suspend uranium enrichment. Iran insists its nuclear programme is a peaceful effort to generate electricity.

Iran warned Monday that it would make a "proportionate" response to any new UN sanctions.

Diplomats in Vienna speculated that cutting off access to Natanz might be part of this response.

The Security Council is to meet Wednesday to review a draft resolution against Iran agreed last week by the body's five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany.

New sanctions would include barring Iran from exporting arms and buying weapons such as missiles.
Posted by: gorb || 03/20/2007 04:05 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The first diplomat said Iran did not want the IAEA to see "that it now has more than 500 centrifuges functioning underground" and that was the reason for the delay.

Sounds worrying
Posted by: Ebbolump Glomotle9608 || 03/20/2007 10:54 Comments || Top||

#2  A diplomat said the IAEA was already considering what to do if Iran did not comply.

I'm going to guess "nothing," but maybe they'll send a sternly-worded letter.
Posted by: WhitecollarRedneck || 03/20/2007 12:06 Comments || Top||

#3  A big enough nuke would destroy the bearings in that centrifuge, no matter how well shock-stabilized it is. Probably take something in the range of 1-2MT. Do it right, and the entire city would be uninhabitable for about 100 years. THAT would certainly slow down their attempt to make a bomb, especially if some or most of their nuke technicians and scientists were there at the time. Sometimes, brute force is the quickest and easiest way to solve a problem. Diplomacy only works when both sides want it to work.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 03/20/2007 13:09 Comments || Top||

#4  OP, start with some MOABs, strategically deposited at the blast doors and ventilation outlets. Use their isobaric shifts to pump down the entire complex. Between crap flying around and people's lungs getting sucked out of their bodies, I doubt the centrifuges will make it out intact.

I especially agree with you about hitting them during prime time. Part of dismantling Iran's nuclear weapons project is nailing the maximum number of its scientists and support staff. Given what I've seen in my own technical field, Iranian documentation must be the pits. This means that their workers are a huge repository of methodology and expertise. Exterminating them will represent one of the greatest setbacks of all.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/20/2007 16:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Thought provoking point about documentation, Zenster.
Posted by: trailing wife || 03/20/2007 18:47 Comments || Top||

#6  Thank you, tw. I've worked for some of the very biggest high tech companies in the entire world. Almost uniformly and with a very few exceptions, most of them had incredibly crappy documentation. I recently had the supremely disgusting experience of watching poor documentation cause reversed cooling connections and similar easy-to-avoid mistakes that, in less than two weeks' time, cost a company well over two years worth of my personal salary in damaged and ruined equipment as I struggled to correct and get accurate procedures and specifications in place.

Iran can only be orders of magnitude worse in this respect. Imagine how many crucial lab notebook entries go unwritten because the author had to race off multiple times a day for prayers. Beyond that, imagine how difficult it must be to convey scientific ideas in a concise fashion when the language is definitely not conducive to doing so.

I tried to find some data on comparative vocabulary by nation and could not locate anything of significance. I've heard that the average French adult has a daily vocabulary of about 10,000 words. The same source placed an American adult's vocabulary at about 40,000 words with a ten year-old child already having some 10,000 words at their command. Well educated American adults can have vocabularies exceeding 100,000 words. Now, consider how this must impact cultures which place a low priority upon scientific learning or technical expression.

What I was able to find is a comparison of adult IQs per a given nation. Here are some randomly selected results intended to highlight the disparity in adult IQ per given region and culture.

China - 100
Cuba - 85
Denmark - 98
Equitorial Guinea - 59 [lowest]
Hong Kong - 107 [highest]
Iran - 84
Iraq - 87
Israel - 94
Japan - 105
Russia - 96
Sweden - 101
USA - 98

The above rankings show that Iran occupies an unenviable percentile in this world's intelligence ratings. Considering that these same Iranians (albeit from their nation's cream), are attempting to operate some of the most sophisticated equipment on earth, it is fairly easy to imagine how likely it is that these complexities are not being completely documented.

It beggars the final point that much of Iran's expertise with nuclear technology almost exclusively dwells within the brains of those who work upon it. This simple fact places a huge priority on ensuring that Iran's nuclear science community is destroyed in place along with its loathsome apparatus.
Posted by: Zenster || 03/20/2007 20:42 Comments || Top||


2 wounded in Inter-Palestinian clash in northern Lebanon
Two Palestinians who belong to the mainstream Fatah movement were wounded late Monday in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon during a clash with a member of a fundamentalist Palestinian group, Palestinian sources said. The sources said two Fatah members were wounded in the legs when an armed member of the new Fatah al-Islam movement opened fire on them in the Naher al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp. Sources inside Fatah al-Islam said, 'The incident was the result of a personal dispute.'

The Islamist Fatah al-Islam on Friday denied it had links to al- Qaeda after it was accused by the Lebanese authorities of being responsible for a February 13 twin bus-bombing north-east of Beirut that killed three people and wounded 20 others. The leader of the new group, Chaker Abssi, has been linked by security officials to Syrian militant groups, to the 2002 assassination of a US diplomat, to al-Qaeda in Iraq and to Sunni militants who have fought in Iraq.

Last week Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa said that four people had been arrested in connection with the bombing, and that they were Syrian nationals who belonged to a group called Fatah al- Islam He said the group was connected to the Syrian-based Palestinian group Fatah Uprising and charged it was controlled by Syrian intelligence.

Abssi disputed the charges, saying that the suspects were not connected to his group and insisting that his group was not connected to any other groups 'on earth.' The emergence of the new group inside the refugee camps has stirred concerns among Palestinian groups in Lebanon, who said the group was not affiliated with any Palestinian organizations. Abu al-Anian, a Palestinian official and Fatah spokesman in Lebanon, said there is the fear that the presence of such a group inside the Palestinian camps could present 'a real danger.'

Since the accusations were raised against Fatah-al Islam by the Lebanese authorities, the Lebanese troops who control the entrance to Naher al-Bard have tightened security measures around the camp. Some 150-200 members of Fatah al-Islam have established their base since arriving from neighboring Syria into Lebanon in November 2006 inside the Naher al-Bard camp, which is located on the outskirts of the northern port city of Tripoli.
Posted by: Fred || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  so mainstream Fatah vs Syrian backed fundies, hmmm?

Wonder what the strains are like WITHIN Hamas right now? Are the Damascus based folks really copacetic with the coalition with Fatah?

Maybe the Dahlan appointment was a way to force the local "moderate" Hamasniks to break with Damascus?
Posted by: liberalhawk || 03/20/2007 11:15 Comments || Top||


Good morning...
Danish cartoon editor wins free press prizeTaha Yassin Ramadan to depart gene pool todayEU will wait to restore Paleo tiesSix Pakistani judges quit in chief justice rowIraqis 'pessimistic' about futureBrammertz & Mehlis agree: Political motive behind Hariri murderZimbabwe threatens envoys
Posted by: Fred || 03/20/2007 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hachi-machi look at those gams
Posted by: garbagecowboy || 03/20/2007 2:18 Comments || Top||

#2 
Story at Wikipedia if you're interested! ;-)
Posted by: gorb || 03/20/2007 6:16 Comments || Top||

#3  The real deal. Mandy never held a candle to her.
Posted by: John Profumo || 03/20/2007 6:45 Comments || Top||

#4  Little thin for my taste
Posted by: Steve || 03/20/2007 7:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Makes me understand John Profumo a little better.
Posted by: Mac || 03/20/2007 8:07 Comments || Top||

#6  She's so fine, there's no telling where the money went.
Posted by: Robert Plant || 03/20/2007 8:29 Comments || Top||

#7  stealing my lines?
Posted by: Robert Palmer || 03/20/2007 9:45 Comments || Top||

#8  I believe the technical term for a girl like that is "honeypot."
Posted by: Mike || 03/20/2007 10:56 Comments || Top||

#9  Now I get the picture...
Posted by: CB || 03/20/2007 15:16 Comments || Top||

#10  Only launched a few careers and 2 yachts, give it 20 MiliHelens.
Posted by: Shipman || 03/20/2007 16:11 Comments || Top||

#11  flesh is weak, so i've been told.

;-)
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 16:54 Comments || Top||

#12  RD, that's why they make Vigra.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 03/20/2007 18:35 Comments || Top||

#13  oh my goodness
Posted by: Jiggs Thravith2000 || 03/20/2007 18:38 Comments || Top||

#14  oh my goodness
Posted by: Jiggs Thravith2000 || 03/20/2007 18:38 Comments || Top||

#15  LOL DB
Posted by: Shipman || 03/20/2007 18:55 Comments || Top||

#16  DB, the winner LOL!
Posted by: RD || 03/20/2007 19:15 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Tue 2007-03-20
  Taha Yassin Ramadan escorted from gene pool
Mon 2007-03-19
  5000+ kilos of explosives seized in Mazar-e-Sharif
Sun 2007-03-18
  PA unity govt to meet officially on Sunday
Sat 2007-03-17
  Gaza gunnies try to snatch UNRWA head
Fri 2007-03-16
  Syrians confess to Leb twin bus bombings
Thu 2007-03-15
  9 held in Morocco after suicide blast
Wed 2007-03-14
  Mortar shells hit Somali presidential residence
Tue 2007-03-13
  Lebanese Police arrest a Palestinian carrying a bomb
Mon 2007-03-12
  Talibs threaten Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Mexico, Samoa
Sun 2007-03-11
  U.S. calls Iran, Syria talks cordial
Sat 2007-03-10
  Captured big turban wasn't al-Baghdadi. We guessed that.
Fri 2007-03-09
  Ug troops arrive in Mog
Thu 2007-03-08
  Pentagon Deploys more MPs to Baghdad
Wed 2007-03-07
  Split in Hamas? 2 Hamas officials move to Syria
Tue 2007-03-06
  CIA Rushing Resources to Bin Laden Hunt

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