Hi there, !
Today Tue 06/08/2004 Mon 06/07/2004 Sun 06/06/2004 Sat 06/05/2004 Fri 06/04/2004 Thu 06/03/2004 Wed 06/02/2004 Archives
Rantburg
531694 articles and 1855967 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 91 articles and 274 comments as of 12:49.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area: WoT Background                   
Reagan passes away
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 1: WoT Operations
1 00:00 smn [] 
1 00:00 smn [] 
0 [] 
1 00:00 smn [] 
0 [1] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
39 00:00 TerrorHunter4Ever [1] 
4 00:00 Pappy [1] 
1 00:00 Zenster [] 
23 00:00 Eric Jablow [] 
3 00:00 Mark Espinola [] 
2 00:00 Frank G [] 
1 00:00 mojo [] 
0 [] 
1 00:00 Mark Espinola [] 
5 00:00 Aris Katsaris [1] 
2 00:00 .com [] 
0 [] 
4 00:00 Raj [] 
0 [1] 
0 [] 
1 00:00 button [] 
0 [1] 
6 00:00 Anonymous4617 [] 
12 00:00 Zenster [] 
0 [] 
1 00:00 smn [1] 
7 00:00 Mark Espinola [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
4 00:00 Steve White [] 
0 [] 
8 00:00 Mark Espinola [] 
3 00:00 Zenster [] 
1 00:00 Frank G [] 
9 00:00 Zenster [] 
1 00:00 Steve White [1] 
1 00:00 JFM [] 
1 00:00 Edward Yee [] 
3 00:00 PBMcL [] 
2 00:00 Zenster [] 
2 00:00 Frank G [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
9 00:00 Dan [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
25 00:00 Antiwar [] 
5 00:00 Zenster [1] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
2 00:00 .com [] 
3 00:00 Zenster [] 
Page 2: WoT Background
0 []
2 00:00 Bomb-a-rama []
4 00:00 .com [1]
0 []
0 []
2 00:00 .com []
0 []
0 []
0 []
0 []
0 [1]
4 00:00 Bomb-a-rama []
2 00:00 Super Hose []
3 00:00 .com []
0 []
0 []
1 00:00 Garrison []
0 []
2 00:00 Mike [1]
0 []
14 00:00 Lucky []
0 []
3 00:00 OldSpook []
22 00:00 Chris Smith []
3 00:00 muck4doo []
3 00:00 Lucky []
0 []
5 00:00 Anonymous5134 []
0 []
0 []
1 00:00 Raptor []
3 00:00 Super Hose []
3 00:00 Anonymous5187 [1]
0 []
AP: Reagan has passed away
WASHINGTON - Ronald Reagan, the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was "morning again in America," died Saturday after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, a family friend said. He was 93.
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 06/05/2004 4:53:26 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  God rest him at last and now Nancy, Patty and the family can stand down, too.
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Come aside and rest awhile."
What a guy. What a great American President.
Thank God for this man's life which was such a blessing to our country and the world!
Posted by: Jen || 06/05/2004 16:57 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm watching Dan Blather cut in teh PGA golf with the news, and tears come to my eyes. Farewell and Godspeed President Reagan.
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 16:58 Comments || Top||

#3  very sad news. :(
Posted by: Shep UK || 06/05/2004 16:59 Comments || Top||

#4  I think he's up there with Washinton, Lincoln and Roosevelt as one of our most important presidents.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 17:04 Comments || Top||

#5  Damn, just damn. I can't begin to express my sorrow over the passing of this great man.
Posted by: Charles || 06/05/2004 17:06 Comments || Top||

#6  Condolences to the Reagan family. Nancy Reagan is my hero.
Posted by: Seafarious || 06/05/2004 17:18 Comments || Top||

#7  Rest in peace, Presidenat Reagan.
Posted by: Brass || 06/05/2004 17:22 Comments || Top||

#8  A truly great man!
Posted by: Phil_B || 06/05/2004 17:27 Comments || Top||

#9  A true American hero has passed on today. May God bless him for all the lives he saved during his time on Earth, and may we remember how he lived so that we may carry on his memory. If we can do even a tenth of what we did, our time will not have been ill-spent.
Posted by: The Doctor || 06/05/2004 17:27 Comments || Top||

#10  My prayers are with the Reagan family. Goodbye Ronald, you will be missed.




Posted by: Destro || 06/05/2004 17:32 Comments || Top||

#11  Ronald Reagan was the tip of the spear in the fight to free literally hundreds of millions of people from bondage that is communism.

May we continue on our most recent quests toward freedom - he would have it no other way!
Posted by: GenoRock || 06/05/2004 17:44 Comments || Top||

#12  The Greatest Generation is passing into the shadows now, led by the greatest of them all. We are all diminished by his passing.
Posted by: Joe || 06/05/2004 17:45 Comments || Top||

#13  I'm in the car driving home and had NPR on the radio (good blues on Saturday afternoon). Anyway they're interviewing Hanes Johnson. When asked where Reagan will rank amongst all presidents, Johnson says: "I don't think he can be called a "great president" because his economic policies hurt the country far too much."

Hearing that I almost drove off the road screaming at the radio.....I know...it's my own fault for listening to NPR.

Posted by: Mark || 06/05/2004 17:54 Comments || Top||

#14  R.I.P. Ronald Reagan, 1911-2004
Posted by: Edward Yee || 06/05/2004 18:00 Comments || Top||

#15  The greatest president of my lifetime, I was born in 1939.
Posted by: Harry || 06/05/2004 18:01 Comments || Top||

#16  He is amongst the greatest in history.
Posted by: Jake || 06/05/2004 18:04 Comments || Top||

#17  Mark, I can't bring myself to watch CNN or BBC because I know they will indulge in sneering put-downs of the man, who did more to make a better future for more people than anyone else in my lifetime.
Posted by: Phil_B || 06/05/2004 18:05 Comments || Top||

#18  The father of us all, and the greatest President I expect to see in my lifetime.

It's still morning in America.
Posted by: someone || 06/05/2004 18:05 Comments || Top||

#19  Reagan has his own style and never apologized for his lifelong political aim: the destruction of communism. Were we all so successful in such an important endeavor.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 18:33 Comments || Top||

#20  RIP GIP, the world became a better place because of you.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 06/05/2004 18:34 Comments || Top||

#21  Peggy Noonan says it all in the title of her book, "When Character Was King."

R.I.P.
Posted by: Matt || 06/05/2004 18:37 Comments || Top||

#22  I always wondered why Ronald Reagan was so optimistic. Perhaps you need only consider the year he graduated from High School, 1928. Imagine starting your adult life on the precipice of the Great Depression. Who but a very optimistic, sunny person gets the job when there are 100 other desperate people applying. Take note. Even in the darkest moments, the true believers carry the day.
Posted by: Zpaz || 06/05/2004 18:39 Comments || Top||

#23  I had the distinct pleasure of meeting one of America's greatest man of the 20th century, Ronald Wilson Reagan.

America and the world is just beginning to fathom the incredible greatness of President Reagan's legacy.

President Reagan is now at peace.

May God bless his family.

Gipper, we shall see you again!
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 20:29 Comments || Top||

#24  God Rest You Gentle, Ronald Reagan.

One of the greatest presidents this nation has ever had.

Repaired our nation when capitalism was on the edge of failure due to big government (Remember double digit inflation, doubl digit unemployment and double digit interest rates under Jimmy Carter?), won the Cold War which threatened the very existence of the Nation and the Free World (Mr Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall), and set the tone for our nation since that time - Its Morning in America.

Thank You Gipper - you made today possible, we owe you large. Rest well, you've earned it for more than anyone since, and all but a handful before.

Present Arms!

(One of the few times tears have worked up into my eyes for somone I never knew personally).
Posted by: OldSpook || 06/05/2004 21:04 Comments || Top||

#25  A great man who came at the right moment in our history.

By the way, CNN has been fairly reasonable in its coverage. Big piece on Nancy right now. We ought to thank her, she was the "other half" of what made Ronnie great.
Posted by: Steve White || 06/05/2004 21:08 Comments || Top||

#26  Someday when things are tough, maybe you can ask the boys to go in there and win just one for the Gipper.
Posted by: OldSpook || 06/05/2004 21:15 Comments || Top||

#27  #17

Actually, you should be watching MSNBC. Their coverage has been, IMO, first-rate thus far, and they've had Reaganites on nonstop to talk about him and his legacy. Hell, even Bill Clinton has been classy for once today; MSNBC just carried an interview with him in which he had nothing but good things to say about RR.
Posted by: Joe || 06/05/2004 21:22 Comments || Top||

#28  I didn't vote in the 1980 election. There was no way I could have voted for Carter, but the thought of a movie actor as president didn't do anything for me, despite his record as governor of California. Four years later I had no hesitation about voting for him.

No tears come to my eyes with Mr. Reagan's death. Only his body died today. Ronald Reagan died at some point in his struggle with Alzheimer's, probably about five years ago.

He did bring tears to my eyes on a number of occasions. The most notable was the fall of the Berlin Wall, something I never expected to see in my lifetime. Another was the death of Ceaucescu. Yet another was the way he joked with his doctors when he'd been wounded by John Hinkley.

In November 1987 Reagan and Gorbachev signed the INF treaty. Serious historians will regard that treaty and the diplomacy that led up to it as the high point of Reagan's administration and as the breaking point of the Cold War. Five years later the Soviet Union was dead.

There were times I was on the edge of my chair during Mr. Reagan's administration. I was afraid he was going to get snookered when he met Gorbachev at Reikjavik. I wasn't at all sure what was going to happen in the wake of the KAL007 shootdown. I mourned with the rest of the country when our Marines were murdered in Lebanon, and along with the rest of the country I tuned out the predictable carping when we invaded Grenada.

I went from being neutral, maybe doubtful about Ronald Reagan to being an enthusiastic supporter of Ronald Reagan. I think a lot of Americans made the same transition. He was a great man, and I hope he's honored in coming years as the great man he was.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 21:52 Comments || Top||

#29  I'd remember him as the man who made Fidel Castro ramble on for hours, impotently. It was so encouraging for those of us who were under Castro's yoke. I imagine that's how the people in the Soviet Union felt when he spoke his "Evil Empire" speech.

Today I honor Ronald Reagan; hail to the fallen chief!
Posted by: Sorge || 06/05/2004 21:53 Comments || Top||

#30  Rest in peace. You will be missed, and thank you for ending the Cold War.
Posted by: Korora || 06/05/2004 22:06 Comments || Top||

#31  Korora: Ending? Winning.
Posted by: someone || 06/05/2004 22:16 Comments || Top||

#32  That's what I meant to say.
Posted by: Korora || 06/05/2004 22:24 Comments || Top||

#33  A giant of the 20th century has gone to his final reward. I am proud to say that in my small way I worked on his campaigns in 1980 and 1984.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono || 06/05/2004 22:50 Comments || Top||

#34  I had the honor to meet Ronald Reagan on June 12th 1997, the day he gave his famous Brandenburg Gate Speech.

He may not have won the Cold War alone, but without him we might still have a Cold War going on. Or worse.

I hope he'll make it to Mount Rushmore.
Posted by: True German Ally || 06/05/2004 22:57 Comments || Top||

#35  It is a terrible irony that, after ten years of Alzheimers, President Reagan died as one of the very few people who did not know and appreciate what a great man he was and the place he holds in the hearts of his fellow Americans. No one who did not live through the turbulent 60's, the assassinations of the Kennedys, Martin Luther King. George Lincoln Rockwell, Malcom X, et. al., Watergate, the Fall of VietNam, and the horrible debilitating death spiral of the Carter administration can truly understand what Reagan did for this country. He almost singlehandedly reminded us who we were and what we were capable of. He made us proud again to be Americans and started the American ascendancy of the last 25 years. Had he not lived, the world would be a different and lesser place. Ronald Reagan truly made it morning again in America. We shall not see his like again.
Posted by: RWV || 06/05/2004 23:23 Comments || Top||

#36  Thank you, President Reagan, for your efforts to defeat communism. You deserve at least some credit from everyone of Eastern European descent for freeing the lands of their ancestors.
Rest in peace, sir.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 06/06/2004 0:23 Comments || Top||

#37  Certain people seem to be divinely sent and equipped to do certain tasks. (SEEM to be? I must be getting squeamish) Reagan seemed to have a grace for leadership, especially for the direction in which he led. He was conservative when it wasn't nearly cool. He stood for the power of morality, when morality was sneered at. He was a believer, without the religiosity. He preached the greatness of America, when America was truly in decline. And he led us in HIS direction. And America is in a much better place because of him.

Don't expect history to treat him overly kind. Those who write history books, for the most part, have an opposing ideology. He wouldn't have cared. Those of us who know will be able to set our grandchildren straight, when they come home from school with the Current Dim View.

Posted by: scott || 06/06/2004 0:25 Comments || Top||

#38  So passes one of the greatest men of our time and one of the greatest presidents of all time.

God bless you Ronald Reagan -- and your family.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 06/06/2004 1:04 Comments || Top||

#39  I have served under four commanders-in-chief during my military career and three since as a civilian public servant. None of them were even remotely in the same league as RR. Oh Captain...my captain....RIP
Posted by: TerrorHunter4Ever || 06/07/2004 9:41 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Seven Convicted in 2002 Attack on U.S. Marines in Kuwait
A criminal court on Saturday convicted seven Kuwaiti Islamic extremists of involvement in the 2002 shooting attack on U.S. Marines that killed one and injured a second during training in the oil-rich country. Three of the militants were sentenced to jail. They received four- and five-year prison terms for joining an illegal organization and weapons possession. Three others were fined from $680 to $17,000. One was given two years probation and five were acquitted. The Oct. 8, 2002, attack by two Muslim extremists was the first on U.S. forces in this small Gulf state, which has been a major ally of Washington since the 1991 U.S.-led Gulf War liberated it from a seven-month Iraqi occupation. Cousins Anas al-Kandari, 21, and Jassim al-Hajiri, 26, opened fire on the Marines as they took a break from urban assault training on the Kuwaiti island of Failaka. They killed one Marine and injured the second other Marines killed the pair on the scene. The trial of 12 people, most of them religious extremists, accused of conspiring with the cousins or belonging to their terrorist cell opened March 1 of last year. Some faced charges of illegal possession of arms and ammunition only.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 06/05/2004 11:19:31 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


The evacuation of Saudi Arabia
The steady exodus of expatriate workers from Saudi Arabia is set to gather pace in the coming weeks following the latest terrorist assault against foreigners in the Kingdom. JID assesses whether Al-Qaeda's long-standing strategy of destabilising the increasingly embattled House of Saud stands any real prospect of success. Although the ousting of the Saudi royals has been predicted for some years the monarchy in the desert Kingdom has managed to survive thanks to support from the USA and its own policy of buying off or otherwise silencing its domestic opponents. However, with the US Department of State now urging its citizens to leave and the British Foreign Office issuing warnings to its own expatriates, the steady outflow of skilled Western workers is almost certain to gather pace - raising serious questions about the impact of an exodus of foreign technicians on the country's oil industry.

Of course, that is precisely the reaction that those who planned the attacks in Khobar on Sunday which left 22 dead are hoping. Of equal concern is the escape of three of the assailants amid mounting allegations by survivors that a deal was done between the militants and the Saudi security forces in return for the release of the remaining 41 hostages. For some experienced Middle East analysts, there are significant parallels between the current situation in Saudi Arabia and the final months of the Shah of Iran before his flight into exile, followed by the Islamic revolution which swept the ayatollahs into power (and cost the USA one of its key regional allies). As one foreign policy veteran told JID: "The collapse of authority tends to be the end result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once there is the perception that the old regime is doomed, it is usually a matter of time before it actually collapses. We saw precisely this sequence of events in Iran in 1979."
Posted by: Dutchgeek || 06/05/2004 03:07 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  However, with the US Department of State now urging its citizens to leave and the British Foreign Office issuing warnings to its own expatriates, the steady outflow of skilled Western workers is almost certain to gather pace - raising serious questions about the impact of an exodus of foreign technicians on the country's oil industry.

What, all those BILLIONS of petrodollars and the royals could never be bothered to institute technical colleges for the education and training of competent engineers who might operate their refineries?

While American support for the House of Saud may have propped them up, it is the Saudi's "policy of buying off or otherwise silencing its domestic opponents" that has truly undermined their power. Too long have the bones of their lavish feasting been thrown to the seditious Wahhabist clergy they turned such a blind eye to.

All western governments have seen this as the price of doing business in the gulf region. Because we have helped to institutionalize this arrangement and permitted the world's economy to dangle by such an ever-fraying lifeline we are obliged to confront some truly dire possibilities.

First off; Should Saudi Arabia collapse, it may well be necessary to expropriate their oil fields in order to prevent their falling into Wahhabist hands.

Secondly, if such an economic invasion proves inevitable, serious thought should be given to acquiring possession of Saudi Arabia's holy cities of Mecca and Medina. If we go to the trouble of securing the oil fields, why not give ourselves a "hole card" and gate all access to the Islamic shrines as a way of coercing the global Islamic population's cooperation in the war on terror?

After all, militant Islamists are seeking to violently coerce the policy of national governments (i.e., Spain, Italy, Japan, etc.). Perhaps it is time for payment in kind.

To have become so overly reliant upon Saudi oil is a crime of negligence which the last several decades of political leadership needs to answer for. Since it is all a done deal, we must now unblinkingly confront the few alternatives this leaves us.

If we go to the trouble of securing Saudi Arabia's oil fields, why not go for the whole shooting match and bag Islam's shrines as well? In for a penny, in for a pound.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 13:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Wouldn't Mecca and Medina be "holy" cards?
Posted by: RWV || 06/05/2004 15:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Wouldn't Mecca and Medina be "holy" cards?

Only after we shoot 'em up a bit, RWV. Good catch!
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 16:37 Comments || Top||

#4  No way. Let a true descendant of the Prophet (PTUI) handle Mecca and Medina. Jordan's King Abdullah or Morocco's King Muhammed would do just fine as care-takers. They'll need an appropriately trained police force, naturally.

.com -- please update your operational plans for the Republic of Eastern Arabia, I think we're going to need them. Special emphasis on initial moves by the Rangers and anti-demolition efforts for our Seals. You know the drill :-)
Posted by: Steve White || 06/05/2004 17:06 Comments || Top||

#5  And the claim that the Zionists have let their agents known that something has been planned in five, four, three . . .
Posted by: The Doctor || 06/05/2004 17:32 Comments || Top||

#6  My concern would be that after Al Quieda takes over Arabia they would let the French in to run the oil production. Errr, invade France again? This time don't leave. Act like Germans and they will love us again? That is if anyone cares what they think anymore.
Posted by: toad || 06/05/2004 17:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Exactly why would they let the French in on things?
Posted by: The Doctor || 06/05/2004 17:37 Comments || Top||

#8  SW, I don't know if you aware of this but Jordan's King Abdullah is a direct decendant of the keeper of the holy shrines that the Saudi tribe kicked out of Mecca.
Posted by: Phil_B || 06/05/2004 17:41 Comments || Top||

#9  Should Saudi Arabia collapse, it may well be necessary to expropriate their oil fields in order to prevent their falling into Wahhabist hands.

Zenster, it is statements like this that make me suspicious of you. The oil fields are already in Wahabist hands. That is the problem.
Posted by: Phil_B || 06/05/2004 17:45 Comments || Top||

#10  We shall all be deeply sad when the royal Wahhabi walking bedsheets fall from total petrol power.....ya right :)
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 20:42 Comments || Top||

#11  Hey, Dr Steve... I've had connectivity problems for the last few hrs or I would've responded earlier. Hmmm. It's now so late in the day that I'd rather republish the plans to free The Republic of Eastern Arabia when there would be time for some good feedback. Mebbe tomorrow or Monday, eh? I still have the sand board set up and... Lol!
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 22:07 Comments || Top||

#12  Zenster, it is statements like this that make me suspicious of you. The oil fields are already in Wahabist hands.

Nothing that some depleted uranium can't cure. I know what you mean, Phil_B, but the moles in place can be extracted by force even if we have to use something like C-CLAW to disable them.

Perhaps this is all the more reason to start with their shrines first. Get 'em by the short and curlies and their hearts and minds are sure to follow.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 22:40 Comments || Top||


Shootout in Jeddah
Saudi police and suspected Islamists have exchanged fire in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, security sources have said. The shooting in the early hours of Saturday morning between police and armed men, who were firing from moving cars, came nearly a week after a major attack in the world's biggest oil-exporting country killed 22 people in the city of al-Khobar. "Police are currently pursuing a number of cars," one source said. "They are trying to surround them."
Does the Arabic definition of "surround" differ from the English definition?
On Friday, al-Qaida's top leader in the kingdom, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin, called on Saudis to support the the organisation's campaign to topple the US-allied Saudi monarchy. He praised an al-Qaida attack in the Saudi city of Yanbu in early May, the killing of a German in Riyadh two weeks ago and Wednesday's shooting on US military personnel near Riyadh. He also rejected a Saudi claim that two men killed near the western city of Ta'if on Wednesday had links to the Khobar attack. Saudi Arabia has been battling al-Qaida fighters for over a year and Muqrin has vowed 2004 will be "bloody and miserable" for the kingdom.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 1:02:43 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "surround" in Saudispeak means, 'to allow terrorists escape route out back door' English translation from Arabic :)
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 1:09 Comments || Top||

#2  It means lets make a circle around the terrorists with a large enough radius where their bullets will not reach us. Of course, they are too stupid to realize that their bullets will not reach the terrorists either.
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 06/05/2004 1:55 Comments || Top||

#3  It's a mis-translation of the word for "crescent" - there's always a gap.
Posted by: PBMcL || 06/05/2004 2:08 Comments || Top||


Time to Rescue Islam From Islamists
Abdul Rahman Al-Rashi
In the same way that we combat smoking and other vices with awareness and health campaigns, so we should combat terrorism, which has harmed every Muslim on the face of the earth. We must heal souls and minds of the addictions and obsessions of extremism that have afflicted parts of our society.
Yeah. Public service announcements on the teevee. That oughta do it...
Islam’s enemy has always been first and foremost, extremism. The people who should fight them are the preachers themselves. It is their duty to publicize middle-of-the-road Islam and back moderate preachers with enlightened preaching programs that remind people that the first enemy of the state that emerged at the time of the Caliphate was the Khawarij — extremists who declared it permissible to kill their brethren in the name of Islam.
... as opposed to killing infidels in the name of Islam.
Fourteen centuries later history is repeating itself, and what the Khawarij did in Algeria and what is taking place in a number of Islamic countries puts everyone in position for a dangerous mission — confronting the new Khawarij. Since these people tried to use Muslim funds under the pretext of a jihad that killed more Muslims than members of any other group, it is the duty of charities to turn around and back the awareness campaigns against extremism. The concern for Muslims today cannot come from outside but must come from inside. It is time to rescue Islam from the Islamists and save its reputation.
Yup. He's concerned about Islamists killing Muslims. The stacks of dead infidels don't bother him.
As the most famous convert to Islam of our time, Muhammad Ali, said when he visited the site of the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York: “This is not the Islam I know”.
Didn't get the memo, huh?
We repeat the same to others. This is not the Islam that forbids cutting down a fruitful tree, which urges the protection of animals and declares that religion is about conduct. Islam’s image has been tarnished and its foundation wrecked by the acts of these people, and their reputation has been linked to preachers and Islamic charitable organizations.
Things were better when the infidels didn't know too much about Islam, weren't they?
In order for the preachers and the charities to save their reputation, they must confront, they must fight, that extremism from their platform, with their funds, instead of getting entangled in fruitless arguments with their accusers. If preachers don’t do it, who will?
So far nobody has...
This is an important time. The intentions of these people have become clear and their crimes have arrived at our doorstep. The dangers of extremist thinking have become abundantly clear. They are indisputable.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 12:43:22 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Can't everyone tell how much in love Abdul Rahman Al-Rashi really is with the 'infidel' West?
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 1:11 Comments || Top||

#2  In order for the preachers and the charities to save their reputation, they must confront, they must fight, that extremism from their platform, with their funds, instead of getting entangled in fruitless arguments with their accusers. If preachers don’t do it, who will?

As always, my only question is:

Where are all the nonviolent imams who're willing to gloriously martyr themselves by preaching the doctrine of moderate Islam to their militant brethern in the Middle East?

At some point in the not too distant future Islam is going to successfully paint itself into a very small corner. Moslems seem to forget how once they're all bunched up in that corner they'll make a very tempting target for those who are unprepared to accept any more excuses for jihadist atrocities.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 2:21 Comments || Top||


Ex-Haramain Chief to Challenge US Charges in Court
A former chief of the Al-Haramain Charitable Foundation, which Saudi Arabia announced it was dissolving, said in press remarks yesterday he would defend himself in court against US allegations he had funded terror while heading the organization. “I intend to (file) a judicial appeal and be represented by a lawyer in the United States to counter an American decision to carry my name on a list of those who finance terrorism,” Aqeel Al-Aqeel was quoted by Okaz Arabic daily as saying. This measure is “an injustice”, said Aqeel, who headed the charity until the end of 2003. In a similar statement published in the London-based daily Al-Hayat, Aqeel said he was determined to clear his name in the United States. “These accusations are wrong and we will prove it,” he said, adding that he had “helped the poor, the orphans and widowed, and provided all necessary humanitarian aid” for 25 years of his life. Adel Al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to Crown Prince Abdullah, said Wednesday that the Al-Haramain charity and other private groups would be dissolved or have their international operations and assets folded into the new Saudi National Commission for Charitable Work Abroad.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 12:34:30 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Fatwa urges Saudis, expats to squeal on terror suspects
Issue a fatwah? Brilliant! Simply brilliant!
Saudi Arabia’s highest Muslim authority on Friday issued a fatwa calling on both citizens and expatriates to inform on suspected Islamist extremists engaged in terrorist activities. The committee that issues religious rulings, headed by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, “urges citizens and (foreign) residents to inform on anyone planning or preparing to carry out an act of sabotage,” said the fatwa, carried by the state SPA news agency. The aim is to “protect the people and the country from the destructive effects of such actions and to shield the planners themselves from the consequences of their actions,” it said. The edict also called on the Islamist extremists to “fear God Almighty and come back to their senses.” The committee said it had issued its edict in response to inquiries about “the appalling events of the past few weeks,” which have seen an escalation in the terror campaign blamed on sympathizers of the Al-Qaeda terror network. Friday’s edict reinforces repeated calls by Saudi officials on the population to inform on terror suspects, coupled with warnings that those who turn a blind eye to terrorist activities will be seen as accomplices of the extremists.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 11:39:20 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Princes must have threatened to cut off funding.
Posted by: Stephen || 06/05/2004 2:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Like pigs. Yeah, squeal like pigs.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 2:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Now why didn't I think of issuing a fatwa on that? Must be fatwa burnout....

Al-Aska Paul
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 06/05/2004 14:41 Comments || Top||

#4  Observe the lack of specified instructions to turn in individuals plotting strikes against the West.
Posted by: The Doctor || 06/05/2004 17:40 Comments || Top||

#5  Immediately after the 9-11 atrocity, I inquired at another message board about why there was no fatwa issued against bin Laden. Here is the text of my inquiry:

----------------------------

After giving Islam the blackest of eyes, I have yet to see any Muslim cleric or council issue a fatwa seeking the death of bin Laden. If anybody is aware of this please post a link. I have seen nothing of the sort in any news, anywhere. As so many Arab Muslims proclaim unwarranted persecution subsequent to the 9-11 atrocity I remain amazed at a profound dichotomy in a lot of their rhetoric.

It has been claimed by Muslim anti-American elements that the 9-11 atrocities were actually implemented by the United States or Jewish subversives, seeking some pretext for a purge of Islam's followers. Yet, in the same breath many of these same people also say, "America had it coming..." One cannot have it both ways. Was this a non-Arab conspiracy or terrorist atrocity?

Such sanctimonious attempts to make both claims at once perfectly expose the hypocrisy and overarching malignancy of this sort of mentality. Osama bin Laden's evil acts have so tainted the global perception of Islam that one would think several fatwas would have been issued already. A death fatwa, like that decreed against Salman Rushdie, would be one of the few concrete actions to persuade world opinion that bin Laden acted against all Islamic principles.

It is impossible not to believe that many fundamentalist Muslim clerics and practitioners maintain the dichotomous precepts mentioned above. The complete absence of any Islamic death warrant against bin Laden stands as stark testimony to the undercurrent of retribution sought by these fanatics. The deafening silence of so many Muslims concerning the apprehension and trial of bin Laden for his crimes constitutes a tacit approval and utterly contradicts their cries of unwarranted persecution.

----------------------------

Some very well versed Islamic scholars answered that moderate Islamic factions refused to issue the same ultra-violent edicts as employed by their more rapacious counterparts.

While that sounded fairly reasonable at the time, lately it has become a lot less acceptable. I still maintain that bin Laden has blackened Islam's eye in so severe a fashion as to taint its name for decades to come (if not forever).

At some point, a religion that has beheading and other numerous violent penalties within its own code of punishment must confront the fact that bin Laden is chief among its apostates. According to so much rhetoric being bandied about, Islamic apostasy is punishable by death.

Here we arrive at the crux of the matter. If bin Laden has indeed besmirched Islam's reputation so heinously in such a way as to refute all it stands for, isn't this a form of apostasy and therefore punishable by death?

If, instead, bin Laden's actions represent all that Islam seeks to bring to the world, then shouldn't they drop all pretence and just admit it openly? Duplicity of intent will usually be interpreted in the least desirable way by those who are confronted with it.

In its refusal to issue a death fatwa against bin Laden, Islam has tacitly declared a degree of sympathy for the barbarity of al Qaeda's atrocities. Again, moderates will point out that it was the virulent Iranian Shias who issued the death fatwa against Salman Rushdi and not the more mainstream clerics.

While this may be so, Islam needs must face up to the fact that outsiders will not feel so obliged to draw such fine distinctions. If an author can be condemned to death for mere writings, how is it that another more violent individual can murder thousands and in doing so bring shame and calumny upon Islam without much more than a hiccough?

It is becoming increasingly difficult to appreciate how moderate Muslims are adequately divorcing themselves from bin Laden and al Qaeda. While there has been some renunciation, a palpable undercurrent of approval for terrorism (especially Palestinian) remains as an unspoken refrain in so much of all that issues forth from Islamic sources where little time is left to correct this perception (no matter how erroneous it might be).

As mentioned, even if such a perception were erroneous, it would make it all the more important to correct on the part of moderate Muslims. The daminingly faint protestations issuing forth from Islam's quarter are insufficient to divert overwhelming public suspicion as to a hidden agenda. Better that they issue a death fatwa on bin Laden than continue to equivocate on terrorism.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 18:21 Comments || Top||


Britain
Queen and Thatcher Lead Tributes to Ex-President Reagan
The Queen and Baroness Thatcher tonight led the tributes to former US President Ronald Reagan, who has died at the age of 93. Mr Reagan died with his wife Nancy and their children at his side at the family’s home in California tonight. A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: “The Queen is saddened by the news.” Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher hailed Mr Reagan as “a truly great American hero”. She told PA News: “President Reagan was one of my closest political and dearest personal friends. He will be missed not only by those who knew him and not only by the nation that he served so proudly and loved so deeply, but also by millions of men and women who live in freedom today because of the policies he pursued. Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired. To have achieved so much against so odds and with such humour and humanity made Ronald Reagan a truly great American hero.”

Conservative leader Michael Howard told PA News: “This is an enormously sad day. President Reagan was one of the towering figures of our time, the man who with Margaret Thatcher won the Cold War for the West. It is so sadly ironic that he should have died as we prepare to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day, the day when the Allies began the liberation of Europe. We in Britain, as in so many other places around the world, owe him an ever-lasting debt. May he rest in peace.”
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 9:48:16 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Welsh Truckers Stage Gas Protest
(If you guys think we pay a lot of gas ,,,read on)
About 200 truckers drove with horns blaring through Cardiff Saturday to protest rising fuel prices, but other demonstrations were called off after the government said it might reconsider plans to hike fuel taxes. Surging world oil prices have pushed the cost of gasoline to (((($5.79 per gallon)))) in Britain, drawing threats of protests and blockades by haulers and other drivers. Protests scheduled for several British cities were called off this week after Prime Minister Tony Blair said the government had not committed to increasing fuel tax by 13 cents per gallon in September. Britain’s fuel taxes account for nearly three-quarters of the cost of gasoline and are among Europe’s highest. The issue is a touchy one for the government. Four years ago, a loose coalition of truckers and farmers blockaded fuel depots across Britain for several days, leading to shortages, after rising world oil prices pushed up prices at the pump. Protest organizer Martin Palmer said more demonstrations might be held to keep up pressure on the government. "We’ll see what the government comes up with," he said. "We intend keeping the pressure on and not waiting until August or September." Environmental groups criticized calls for petrol tax to be cut. Two members of Greenpeace hung a banner reading: "Global warming kills - keep the fuel tax" along the truckers’ protest route. "We need fuel taxes as a vital part of the fight against global warming," said Greenpeace director Stephen Tindale.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 8:38:11 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Kilroy-Silk Still Might Be Prosecuted for Inciting Hatred for Moslems
From The Muslim News
Robert Kilroy-Silk “could still face prosecution” over his infamous article in The Sunday Express on January 4, 2004, in which he described Arabs as “suicide bombers, limb-amputaters, (and) women repressors” according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The CPS told Muslim News Online Friday that it was still deciding on whether to charge former BBC presenter for inciting racist hatred in his controversial article that demonised the entire Arab nation.

The delay could embarrass Kilroy-Silk, who is now standing as a UK Independence Party (UKIP) candidate to represent the East Midlands in the European elections, on June 10. According to the 2001 Census, the East Midlands has a 28% Muslim population. The Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) referred the article ‘We owe Arabs nothing’ to the police to consider whether it incites racial hatred under the Public Order Act. .... The police confirmed that the Racial Violent and Crime Task Force sent a file to the CPS for advice regarding the allegations .... a CPS spokesperson said, “Quite a lot of people are involved in this decision making-process. They’ll will be looking at the intentions behind the words and the effects of those words, whether it was it inciting racial hatred.” The CPS denied there was any connection between the fact that no decision has been made in 5 months since it received the police file and Kilroy-Silk’s election campaign. The controversial article has already led to the 61-year old presenter lose the weekday chatshow, he hosted for the BBC for the past 18 years. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 3:51:31 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  they can't touch him or they already would have - or cut his throat, i can imagine the savages doing that in revenge
Posted by: Shep UK || 06/05/2004 7:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Hopefully the CPS is aware of the tone from the mosques from the middle east against all infidels, ie., everyone else outside the muslim world every friday. What Silk commented is nothing, even wrt Britain itself. Don't disgrace yourself CPS.
Posted by: wits0 || 06/05/2004 8:55 Comments || Top||

#3  Here is a link to Silk's article. While he uses a rather broad brush to tar all Arabs, it is not a hair's breadth wider than the that used by hostile elements in the Middle East to smear Israel and other western nations.

At the very least, Silk's comments perfectly embody the ever-growing and impossible-to-ignore rise in public sentiment against militant Islamists and (however disputably) Islam in general. If moderate Muslims are unable to refute the arguments put forth by Silk et al in a ready and highly vocal fashion, they should prepare themselves for the ugly spectacle of watching their religion, its places of worship and general tenets as a whole being dismantled before them.

Unlike those who are so quick to seethe and do violence, civilized society is much slower to anger. But, once ired, it will be nigh well impossible to placate until Islam is wiped from the face of this earth.

Islam's dearth of recent invention or innovation extends to such conveniences as advanced guided weaponry and global communications. Should these barbaric hoodlums within their midst finally manage to rouse the sleeping dragon of western civilization, this marked lack of facility will prove their undoing as they perish wholesale under the might of modern arms.

Quite soon, Islam will find itself on short notice to reform. Such a message has may as well already have been sent, merely in unofficial terms. Official notice will soon follow, or lacking that, private citizens will take it upon themselves to eliminate that which shelters even a scintilla of terror's assets no matter where they may be.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 15:29 Comments || Top||


BBC editors suppressed own journos over damning Stop the War Coalition revelations
From an article in the left-wing screamer, the New Statesman. Registration may be required. Hat tip Instapundit.
Turns out some BBC staffers felt anti-anti-war stories were being suppressed by senior staff. Anyone surprised?

Slightly EFL. Very ERL. AoS.
Just before the war against Iraq I began to receive strange calls from BBC journalists. Would I like information on how the leadership of the anti-war movement had been taken over by the Socialist Workers Party? Maybe, I replied. It was depressing that a totalitarian party was in the saddle, but that’s where the SWP always tries to get. Why get excited?

Oh there are lots of reasons, said the BBC hacks. The anti-war movement wasn’t a simple repetition of the old story of the politically naive being led by the nose by sly operators. The far left was becoming the far right. It had gone as close to supporting Ba’athist fascism as it dared and had formed a working alliance with the Muslim Association of Britain, which, along with the usual misogyny and homophobia of such organisations, also believed that Muslims who decided that there was no God deserved to die for the crime of free thought. In a few weeks hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, would allow themselves to be organised by the opponents of democracy and modernity and would march through the streets of London without a flicker of self-doubt. Wasn’t this a story?

It’s a great story, I cried. But why don’t you broadcast it?

We can’t, said the bitter hacks. Our editors won’t let us.
More at the link, RTWT.
Posted by: Bulldog || 06/05/2004 1:24:49 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's not required :)
Posted by: Edward Yee || 06/05/2004 3:15 Comments || Top||


Protesters clash with Muslims at London mosque
LONDON: Right-wing British protesters clashed with Muslim worshippers and police during Friday prayers outside a London mosque where jailed radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri had given sermons. Around 20 demonstrators, calling themselves members of the United British Alliance, waved Union Jack flags and shouted anti-Muslim slurs from behind a barricade set up by police. A couple of the men managed to jump the barrier and interrupt prayers being held in the street in front of the mosque in Finsbury Park, in the north of the capital. Police broke up the skirmish immediately, and prayers were resumed while protesters sang traditional British national songs.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 12:30:14 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  members of the Manchester United United British Alliance

Woohoo. Go football hooligans!
Posted by: ed || 06/05/2004 2:32 Comments || Top||

#2  It's on!! This could get really ugly once the beer starts to flow. The Brits can get very creative.
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 06/05/2004 2:10 Comments || Top||

#3  The jihadists are getting their jihads kicked! :)
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 2:13 Comments || Top||

#4  members of the Manchester United United British Alliance

Woohoo. Go football hooligans!
Posted by: ed || 06/05/2004 2:32 Comments || Top||

#5  If the British Muslims think that this is bad, just wait until a few of their renegade brethern commit some sort of atrocity on Britain's soil. This little skirmish will look like a love-fest by comparison.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 2:33 Comments || Top||

#6  damn wish i was there :)
Posted by: Shep UK || 06/05/2004 7:48 Comments || Top||

#7  Go thee their Shep. You could be a voice of moderation in the United British Alliance. A ray of sunshine:)
Posted by: Lucky || 06/05/2004 12:15 Comments || Top||

#8  Say what you will about British society. Some of those folks still sling around some huge balls.
Posted by: badanov || 06/05/2004 12:43 Comments || Top||

#9  voice of moderation??? please how is it that the west has to be the moderate - can't we all just get along types while our enemies have nothing but hatred and contempt for us? no the time of moderation on our part is over - only moderation i want to see is the so called moderate muslims taking care our their own house of cards!
Posted by: Dan || 06/05/2004 14:06 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Aussie Extremist Muslims seek Saudi funds
An extremist Australian Islamic group with links to several accused terrorists is trying to raise millions of dollars in Saudi Arabia to expand its operations in Sydney. The group operates from the controversial Haldon Street prayer hall in Lakemba but is fund-raising among cashed-up Saudi sympathisers to buy a nearby unused mosque. A Sun-Herald investigation has found the Sydney group used emails, mobile-phone text messages and faxes to tell rich Saudis that if they couldn’t raise $2.65 million by the end of July the mosque could be bought by Jews or Buddhists.The horror!

The group is headed by Sheik Abdul Zoud, a radical cleric whose prayer hall was attended by alleged terrorists Willy Brigitte, Bilal Khazal, Saleh Jamal, Mamdouh Habib, Faheem Khalid Lodhi and Izhar ul-Haque. Extremist clerics in Saudi Arabia were asked to back the fundraising. They included Safar al Hawali, who justified the September 11 attacks on religious grounds, and Sheik Aaed ben Maqbul al-Qurni , who has urged Islamic states to get nuclear weapons.
The move has rung alarm bells in security agencies. A spokesman for Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said it was known the Haldon Street group was trying to raise large amounts of money in the Middle East. But he could neither confirm nor deny whether the group’s fundraising activities were being monitored. "If they are contacting, or in discussions with, people who espouse violence, it would be seen as entirely inappropriate or not helpful for the image of Islam in Australia," the spokesman said.

Terrorism expert Neil Fergus of Intelligent Risks said security agencies could not ignore an expansion of Sheik Zoud’s prayer hall group. "There are questions over Sheik Zoud and his connections to those who patronise his prayer centre," Mr Fergus said. "What assurances can he give that he will preach Islam as the prophet wrote it instead of the al-Qaeda version?"
I’ve been wanting to say this for a long time...And then his lips fell off! ;)
Community leaders said the fund-raising was unnecessary as the prayer hall was only 10 minutes’ walk from the largest mosque in Sydney, at Lakemba, run by the leading Imam Sheik Taj el-Den Al-Hilaly.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 06/05/2004 11:46:59 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
The Longest Day D-DAY 1944-2004
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 20:47 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


HEROES GATHER IN FRANCE FOR D-DAY
A weekend of events to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings in France has started. The course of the Second World War was changed as Allied soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy, and many of those involved are travelling to France to remember their colleagues. The veterans are being joined by world leaders and well-wishers. A flotilla of ships will set sail from Portsmouth later this morning to mark the anniversary, with the cross-channel ferry Normandie sailing in convoy with Royal Navy, Allied warships and other historic vessels Prince Charles will be attendance throughout, meeting veterans and unveiling a replica of the Horsa glider used by British troops in their raid on Pegasus Bridge, the first assault of the D-Day invasion. He will also watch a mass parachute jump by serving members of 1 Para at nearby Ranville - the scene of the original first drop into occupied France on June 6th 1944. In addition, he will inaugurate a British Garden of Remembrance in Caen, capital of the Calvados region in which most of the D-Day beaches are sited.

Members of the Normandy Veterans Association will pay tribute to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, commander of ground troops for Operation Overlord, at Colleville-Montgomery, the French village renamed in his honour. The army’s highest-ranking officer, General Sir Mike Jackson will unveil a statue of Brigadier James Hill - at 93, D-Day’s oldest surviving senior officer. The day will conclude with a march-past by veterans of the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry at Pegasus Bridge. A massive security operation involving around 17,000 French military personnel and police is looking after proceedings.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 1:54:25 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If Chiroc so as much, say one word about America and her importance in the war, and how grateful Europe is over that hallowed outcome; I will throw up all of the soup I've had today!!
Posted by: smn || 06/06/2004 0:32 Comments || Top||


Serb boy killed as tensions rise in Kosovo
A Serb teenager has been shot dead in Kosovo and police quickly arrested two Albanians suspected of trying to ignite another round of ethnic violence in the United Nations-run province. The killing in the Serb enclave of Gracanica on Saturday was the first since 19 people were killed in mid-March when the U.N. protectorate was engulfed in the worst violence in five years of international administration. NATO peacekeepers later said the riots were clearly orchestrated.

U.N. police spokesman Malcolm Ashby said 16-year-old Dimitrije Popovic was killed when gunmen fired from a car into a group of young Serbs at a hamburger kiosk at 2 a.m. Police in Pristina later stopped a suspect car and seized two Albanians with guns. It was not clear how the suspected gunmen managed to drive in and out of the village undetected. The NATO-led peacekeeping mission KFOR re-established permanent checkpoints on the outskirts of the Serbian town after the March riots.

Serb spokesman Oliver Ivanovic blamed the U.N. and NATO for failing to stop Albanian militants. "There is no living together here... We must seal off all roads through Serb districts," he told the SRNA agency.

"We were right when we demanded a full demilitarisation of Kosovo, disarmament of all extremist groups and introduction of a state of emergency after the March 17 riots," said the head of Serbia’s Kosovo Coordination Centre, Nebojsa Covic.
Covic said the latest murder was "a message to the EU foreign policy chief (Javier) Solana who is arriving in Pristina on Monday, (and) a farewell message to Kosovo’s outgoing UN Administrator Harri Holkeri". Holkeri, Kosovo’s fourth U.N. governor since 1999, quit two weeks ago under pressure. He was due back in Kosovo on Saturday afternoon for a final meeting with Solana.

NATO said it was investigating how a car carrying armed Albanians "managed to cross the KFOR checkpoint after the incident", said spokesman, Colonel Jim Moran. Checkpoints were re-established after the March riots, but some may have been relaxed, he added. It was a similar shooting in another Serb enclave, quickly followed by the drowning of three Albanian boys in a river, that ignited mob violence in March. Albanian media were condemned for blaming Serbs for the drowning and fomenting ’revenge’ attacks.

The U.N. and KFOR admit they were caught off-guard by that spasm of violence and came close to losing control. On Saturday, Serbs in Gracanica again blocked the road from Pristina to east Kosovo, as they did three months ago, but later dispersed. By afternoon, police said the region was calm and under control but the road to Gracanica was sealed off until Monday.

Serbs were targeted for revenge after Kosovo came under U.N. control in 1999 following NATO’s 11-week bombing war to halt Serb repression of the independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.
Belgrade has complained bitterly that those Serbs who chose to stay as 200,000 fled north are not adequately protected. It wants the enclaves to be made autonomous and protected by Serbian police. But the Western powers that ordered intervention in Kosovo are against its partition.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 06/05/2004 1:21:08 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Here we go again ? Yugoslavmania!
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 20:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Geez, can Europe do NOTHING without our help (except atake bribes from Saddam)? Where is the famed EU solidarity? Poseurs!
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 21:00 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Dose of Reality
Dose of Reality

As Americans we have been given a dose of reality by Abu Ghraib. When Sept. 11 occurred, we in the US were quick to point out that the majority of the terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. Now the coin has been flipped. Americans are collectively being blamed for what happened in that Iraqi prison. Now, like then, some Americans won’t care — if they are in the US. But if you live abroad and in the Middle East, it does matter.

When I talked to my brother about Sept. 11 shortly after it occurred and tried to explain the anger at the US always supporting Israel, he said “ I don’t care; they should not have done that to us.” Now, that same rationale is being applied to the Americans here and elsewhere in the world associating us with the soldiers who committed the acts in the prison.

Those of us who voted against Bush and his unelected group that instigated a war for the sake of his Zionists advisors have to deal with his
Zionists? he is either a convert or a member of the Leftist Fifth Column.
inept legacy. No American will be able to escape the worldwide stigma. My only hope is that this incompetent president will be defeated in November. But it won’t erase or ease the hate. The damage has been done.

This is not the first letter this asshole has written using America support of Israel to excuse all the evil his muslims friends/brothers are doing.
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 06/05/2004 3:10:26 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think I'll email this twit and tell him to piss off.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 06/05/2004 10:09 Comments || Top||

#2  No American will be able to escape the worldwide stigma.

If detestation of terrorism is a "stigma" go ahead and nail sign me up.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 13:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Brian's gone native...truly the Heart of Darkness
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 13:58 Comments || Top||

#4  Nolen suffers from the Saudi version of Stockholm Syndrome. I knew several Expats who had, in the Israel vs Paleo dispute, found a comfortable position somewhere between reality and the Paleo Passion Play of the Arabs. I know this results from their desire to make "friends" and "fit in" there. Of course, in conversation with them, when I suggested they had gone "native" and were waay off the mark, they became angry and said that it just "proves" the world and the US don't understand. Right.

The majority, even after 15-20 years of the constant attempts to convert them to lunacy, know what's what. Ignore this fool - he's self-deluded and trying to buy favor with his Saudi "managers" and "friends" with this tripe. The Abu Grhaib reference is classic - equating a trivial (in the big scheme of things) event as if it was the big scheme of things. Fool fits well.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 14:22 Comments || Top||

#5  I just noticed the "@aramco" part of his email address.

Maybe his yearly merit increase review is coming up and he's trying to curry favor with his Saudi lovers bosses.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 14:42 Comments || Top||

#6  What I would really like to ask this useful idiot is, how does the slaughter of Sri lankans, Indians and Philipinos fit into his theory of muslim terrorists driven to kill because of America's support for Israel?
Posted by: Anonymous4617 || 06/06/2004 0:43 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
World Pays Tribute to President Ronald Reagan
Political leaders and other prominent figures paid tribute on Saturday to former President Ronald Reagan, who died at his Los Angeles home at the age of 93. Here are some of their remembrances:

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH
"It’s a sad day for America. A great American life has come to an end. He leaves behind a nation he restored, and a world he helped save."

FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON AND SENATOR HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON, who called Reagan "a true American original."
"Hillary and I will always remember President Ronald Reagan for the way he personified the indomitable optimism of the American people, and for keeping America at the forefront of the fight for freedom for people everywhere. President Reagan demonstrated his strength and resolve after leaving office when he shared his struggle with Alzheimer’s disease with the world."

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER BILL FRIST
"President Reagan’s bold leadership in difficult times provided Americans with tremendous strength and inspiration. Above all, he was a true patriot, whose endless optimism inspired America’s continued ascent to greatness. Undoubtedly, Ronald Reagan has left an indelible mark on our country and our global community."

SENATE MINORITY LEADER TOM DASCHLE
"America has lost an icon. Ronald Reagan’s leadership will inspire Americans for generations to come. His patriotism and devotion to our country will never be forgotten."

FORMER BRITISH PRIME MINISTER MARGARET THATCHER
"President Reagan was one of my closest political and dearest personal friends. He will be missed not only by those who knew him and not only by the nation that he served so proudly and loved so deeply, but also by millions of men and women who live in freedom today because of the policies he pursued.
"Ronald Reagan had a higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty and he did it without a shot being fired."

FRENCH PRESIDENT JACQUES CHIRAC
"A great statesman who through the strength of his convictions and his commitment to democracy will leave a deep mark in history."

QUEEN ELIZABETH OF BRITAIN
"The Queen is saddened by the news," said a Buckingham Palace spokeswoman.

DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE JOHN KERRY
"Ronald Reagan’s love of country was infectious. Even when he was breaking Democrats hearts, he did so with a smile and in the spirit of honest and open debate. He was the voice of America in good times and in grief. When we lost the brave astronauts in the Challenger tragedy, he reminded us that, ’Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue.’ Today, from California to Maine -- ’from sea to shining sea’ -- Americans will bow their heads in prayer and gratitude that President Reagan left such an indelible stamp on the nation he loved."

DEMOCRAT SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY OF MASSACHUSETTS
"We often disagreed on issues of the day, but I had immense respect and admiration for his leadership and his extraordinary ability to inspire the nation to live up to its high ideals. The warmth of his personality always shone through, and his infectious optimism gave us all the feeling that it really was "morning in America."

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN ED GILLESPIE
"Ronald Reagan was a president of great historic impact who led the United States with strength and conviction, and the positive impact of his policies is still felt today here and around the world. More than two decades after he was first elected president, the Republican Party still bears his imprint. Because Ronald Reagan lived, people across the globe live in greater freedom and prosperity."

LT. COL OLIVER NORTH, NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL OFFICIAL under Reagan
"Ronald Reagan was easily the greatest president of my lifetime -- and he will be regarded as one of the greatest leaders this country has ever had. "...a man of extraordinary vision, great compassion and resolute leadership. He brought down the Evil Empire and made the world safer for my children and theirs."

SEN. CHRIS DODD, DEMOCRAT FROM CONNECTICUT, who battled Reagan over aid to the Contras.
"Ronald Reagan was a patriot who reflected the eternal optimism of our nation. His charm, wit and character were evident throughout his long life, and his public service will never be forgotten."

We miss you so much
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 8:57:01 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Newspaper editorial coverage of Saddam- 9/11 link
Nothing here is news to Rantburgers, but its good to see papers like Investors Business Daily focus on this.
The U.S. investigation into Iraq ties to al-Qaida (a small operation compared to the hunt for WMD) has started analyzing the hard documentary data on Saddam’s regime and its dealings with terror groups. Up to now, most of the arguments over the Iraq connection to al-Qaida have been conducted in the more shadowy zone of classified reports and speculation. With actual documents that name names and record meetings, it will be easier (though it will take patience) to get a handle on the truth rather than to just fire opinions back and forth. What’s starting to emerge is evidence that poses real problems for the anti-war case.
Posted by: ne1469 || 06/05/2004 11:47:38 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: WoT
Bush - Chirac Speeches & Press Conference Comments
Comments?

Myself, I am continually amazed by the wonders of French cuisine...
Crow, Yummmmmm! Who’da thunk it?

Whaddya think Rantbergers?
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 2:06:55 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  .Com -
eeeehhhhh, I am trying to read it but there seems to some kind of malfunction....
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 06/05/2004 14:26 Comments || Top||

#2  The transcript hasn't been posted, yet - I'll put the link up as soon as they have the speeches & Press Conference commentary available.

You watched it? What did you think? What stuck in your mind or craw?

I though Chirac looked incredibly desparate - extremely animated with huge gestures - which probably looked sincere to French viewers.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 14:30 Comments || Top||

#3  extremely animated with huge gestures

That just looks gay to us unsophisticated Americans. Put a wig and dress on Chirac and get him a headliner gig at La Cage aux Folles.
Posted by: ed || 06/05/2004 14:59 Comments || Top||

#4  .com -
Sorry I don't own a T.V., they are just to painful. Doing a little reading and looking at some photo's.....it looks like Chirac is ready to get down on his knee's to GWB.
Looking forward to your comments ".com" regarding the Press Conference.
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 06/05/2004 15:00 Comments || Top||

#5  LHR - I'm no authority - just a very interested observer! I will offer that Chirac is in "nuance" mode. Still pretending to be the bastion of freedom and the best friend of the Arab world, while trying to accomodate the reality on the ground. Pretty funny stuff, IMO!

I'm looking for something sustantial, but it takes time to generate the transcript of the Press Conference. You'd expect the speeches were already polished and would be available, by now - but nothing yet. Only things I've seen posted thus far are fluff anticipation pieces.

I'll post links as soon as I locate something with substance!
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 15:06 Comments || Top||

#6  WaPo is first in with a "take" on the scene.

Login, when needed:
bugmenot@fastmail.us
privacy
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 15:12 Comments || Top||

#7  Chirac "history does not repeat itself and it is very difficult to compare historical situations that differ because history is not repetitive."

Does anyone other than me to find this quote "gauling" no pun intended. But this coming from a Frenchman just seems astounding to me.
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 06/05/2004 15:17 Comments || Top||

#8  AP Breaking News has a few more of the specific comments, in context.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 15:21 Comments || Top||

#9  LHR - Chirac's in a box. He wants a piece of the action, but just cannot retract anything he said or disavow anything he did, it appears. What struck me was that while Chirac was in his animated mode, Bush seemed quite calm and composed. One of the French Press questioners tried to make him uncomfortable with a 2-part question about WMD's & Abu Ghraib. Bush just answered that everyone, incl France had intel that there were WMDs and Abu Graib was being handled in the correct judicial venue and would be done transparently and publicly.

Then Chirac said that France's intel did not agree that there were WMDs, and how could he know what he didn't know - or soemthing like that. I've forgotten the specifics other than he was saying that Bush and reporters who said this were wrong. Butt coverage. There was some slippery dancing of the greased pig variety. It was funny and infuriating at the same time. I can't wait for a transcript.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 15:31 Comments || Top||

#10  Ummmm....Chirac, didn't your country supply Saddam with those WMD's there buddy????
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 06/05/2004 15:37 Comments || Top||

#11  I've gotta bail... here are the 3 breaking news sources I've been following looking for updates:
Google World
AP Breaking
Blacksheep

Back later! Mebbe we'll have the transcripts available -- sans spin!
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 15:43 Comments || Top||

#12  Long Hair Republican,

Yah, I was shocked by that statement too, is he really that stupid?
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 06/05/2004 16:45 Comments || Top||

#13  "history does not repeat itself and it is very difficult to compare historical situations that differ because history is not repetitive."
J Chirac

"Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times."
Gustave Flaubert

Posted by: doc || 06/05/2004 17:08 Comments || Top||

#14  Chirac reminds me visually of a gay -leaning LBJ
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 17:09 Comments || Top||

#15  Don't you love the way the Partisan Media portrays this, AS IF it was President Bush was the one who was having to suck up to Jacques!
ChIRAK is such a dick and even though he's telling Bush he's going to approve the UN resolution on Iraq, I hope the President doesn't trust him as far as he could throw him...and I'm sure he doesn't!
Viva Bush!
Posted by: Jen || 06/05/2004 17:14 Comments || Top||

#16  The only lesson to be learned from history is that history never repeats itself. Yesterday, I urged to go read Karl Popper. You should specifically read The Poverty of Historism. In it he argues that people who claim to know the future course of history are deeply dangerous people.

Chirac is right, but the correlary is that history doesn't stop and if you don't try and make the future you want, then rest assured others will.
Posted by: Phil_B || 06/05/2004 17:37 Comments || Top||

#17  Next thing you know Chirac will propose the rebuilding of the Marginot line. LOL.
Posted by: Ol_Dirty_American || 06/05/2004 17:37 Comments || Top||

#18  Transcript of Press Conference:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,121882,00.html
Posted by: Anonymous5133 || 06/05/2004 17:44 Comments || Top||

#19  Anyone who doesn't know history repeats itself doesn't know history.
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 06/05/2004 18:15 Comments || Top||

#20  A5133 - Thx for the transcript link. I've just finished it and I must say that reading the weasling is much worse than hearing it. Grrrrrr. I do not want us to forget this asshat's actions. As for forgiving, I guess that depends upon what is on offer. Kneepads are in order, just to take the phonecall, IMHO.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 18:30 Comments || Top||

#21  history does not repeat itself, and it is very difficult to compare historical situations that differ, because history is not repetitive.

Monsieur Chirac does not know what he is talking about. History does and will repeat itself especially if we don't learn from the lessons learned. It may not be exactly the same but the basic formats are still there...Nazi Germany and the Holocaust...Saddam Husseien and his mass graves. Chirac didn't want to learn from history. Bush did learn!
Posted by: AF Lady || 06/05/2004 21:04 Comments || Top||

#22  This on the Corner...from Normany speech by Reagan.

The leaders of [the WWII generation] saw the growing menace and talked of it but reacted to the growing military might of Germany with anguished passiveness. Will it be said of today's world leaders as it was of the pre-WWII leaders: "They were better the catastrophe than they were at preventing it"?

Chirac needs to take heed!
Posted by: AF Lady || 06/05/2004 21:07 Comments || Top||

#23  To quote Chirac's favorite historian, Karl Marx:

Hegel remarks somewhere that history tends to repeat itself. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.

The Eighteenth Brumiare of Louis Bonaparte
I think that France's lack of honor makes one want to ask what the tenth repetition signifies.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 06/05/2004 22:25 Comments || Top||


Bring on Giuliani
Just as every assassination in history is murky, so the resignation of the director of central intelligence is always surrounded by fantasy and speculation. In Washington today, no more than 1 percent of the population believes that George Tenet resigned, really, for "personal reasons," if by personal reasons one means what we normally mean in everyday life: bad health, want to spend more time with the family, grandchildren arriving, not getting any younger, and so forth. And so, from the belly of this great national digestive tract have emerged two main theories: One, that "he quit because" and two, that "he was fired because." As we paddle through all this detritus, keep in mind that nobody knows anything real. It’s all being filtered through the thumb of the theorist.

Theory One: He Quit Because . . .
My favorite is that he quit because he knows he’s about to be savaged in the forthcoming 9/11 Commission report, and he was going to leave after the elections anyway, but he thought it would look really bad if he quit under siege, so he quit now. It’s better for him, better for the president, better for the agency. Then there’s the Marxist explanation: He quit now because his market value is plummeting and he’ll get more money now in his next job, for his memoirs, as an NFL analyst, whatever, than he thinks he would six months from now. Notice this also assumes, I think correctly, by the way, that he always intended to leave after the elections.

Then there’s the simpleminded version: His health really is bad, his doctor told him that his blood pressure is out of control, he’s fat and his skin tone is gray-to-transparent, he has atrial fibrillation--most everyone who’s anyone in Washington has atrial fibrillation, by the way, which often made me wonder why people rely on polygraphs so much, since heart rhythm is one of the "indicators of prevarication"--and he really shouldn’t wait another five or six months.

Theory Two: He Was Fired Because . . .
One: In keeping with my announced preference for the first theory above, my favorite "He Was Fired" is that the White House knew he was going to be savaged in the forthcoming 9/11 Commission report, and wanted to steal a beat on the press by getting rid of him now. That way, if he’s savaged, he’ll be out there on his own, and the administration can say, "What do you want from us? We fired him."

Two: He was fired because of the Ahmad Chalabi fiasco. On this line of thumb-sucking, he was kicked out because it’s becoming clearer with every passing day that Mr. Chalabi was framed, and that the intelligence community framed him, and somebody’s got to pay for this blunder, and that somebody is the DCI.

Theory Three (a variation on the first two): He was fired because, when you sit down and look at all the intelligence that the community has provided on Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, it’s very meager gruel, and the president decided it was time for a decisive change. In this view, Mr. Tenet’s departure is only the first among many, with the head of operations, the head of analysis, and several others headed out the door in the next month or two.

As I say, nothing is known, so any one of these theories is as good as any other. What we can, indeed, say is that it comes nearly three years too late. I wrote on September 11, 2001, that Mr. Tenet should have been replaced right then and there, quite aside from his personal qualifications. (I hasten to say that Mr. Tenet has done many excellent things, people both inside and outside the community really like him, and the president obviously esteems him. But that is beside the point.) Rarely has there been such a manifest intelligence failure as the one exposed on September 11, and good leadership requires fast, clear, and dramatic punishment of those atop the community. Mr. Tenet should have resigned, and, lacking that, Mr. Bush should have fired him. What now? We need a new director of central intelligence quite quickly, and the new director should come from outside the Beltway. The president should take this as a real opportunity to shake up intelligence, and that cannot be done by an insider.

Mayor Giuliani is exactly the right sort of person, as is Bobby Knight, the basketball coach at Texas Tech (only kidding, but he’s got the perfect personality for it). The president’s advisers will undoubtedly tell him that he needs someone really knowledgeable in "spycraft," but I think that’s entirely wrong. The intelligence community has performed badly for years, indeed, for decades, and badly needs a great leader with the total trust of the president, an unbreakable will to win this war, and total intolerance for failure.

Faster, please.
Posted by: tipper || 06/05/2004 11:55:28 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ledeen writes well.

Mayor Giuliani is exactly the right sort of person, as is Bobby Knight, the basketball coach at Texas Tech (only kidding, but he’s got the perfect personality for it).

Knight is like a neolithic version of Rumsfeld.
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/05/2004 14:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Yeah - crossing Vince Lombardi with Adm Bobby Ray Inman - that would be my ideal "reformer" CIA Director. Just Bobby Ray would be great if the Agency wasn't in dire need to de-Clintification -- or is that deChurchification? I think it would be apropos to dig up Frank Church, mummify what's left, and stand him in the corner of the Director's office. What a grandstanding asshole.

I wonder how ol' Bobby Ray's doing... still kicking around Austin?
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 14:52 Comments || Top||


WND: ’I love it,’ badly wounded GI says of service
A U.S. soldier who lost an eye and had his jaw wired shut after being hit by shrapnel says he wants to go back to Iraq. "I love it," 20-year-old Simon Garcia told KATU-TV in Portland, Ore. "It’s a great feeling going down there and seeing the people and helping them." Garcia, a gunner atop a Humvee, was on patrol in Baghdad nearly a month ago when an improvised explosive device went off. "We’re about 10 feet away from it and shrapnel came at me, went through my jaw all the way inside my face up to my left eye, and took out my left eye," he told the Portland station. Garcia, a member of the Oregon National Guard’s Second Battalion 162nd Infantry, said he fell back into the Humvee bleeding. He then began to pray. "The first thing that came to me is ’the Lord is my shepherd’ and I started praying right then and there - don’t take my life here," he recounted. "I was not thinking about pain." Garcia was taken to a hospital in Germany and now is at home in Portland. He will be fitted with a prosthetic eye, but his hopes of becoming a police officer have been dashed. "I’ve pretty much gotten over that," he told KATU. "I’m going to join active duty and continue as long as I possible can." He’s seeking an administrative position, the TV station said.
I hope he gets a spot.
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/05/2004 2:51:02 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Indonesian Muslims told not to vote female as president
Several Indonesian Islamic clerics have issued an fatwa telling Muslims not to vote for a female presidential candidate, reports said Friday. Incumbent Megawati Sukarno-putri is the only woman among five candidates for the July 5 poll, when Indonesians for the first time will directly elect their leader. The clerics, members in East Java province of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), met Thursday to en-dorse the candidacy of former miliary chief Wiranto and his running mate Solahuddin Wahid, NU’s deputy head.
“It was noted that the prohibition on women to assume positions of leadership was no longer a question still in dispute but already something that has been generally accepted among Muslim clerics,” one of them, Anwar Iskandar, told Antara news agency.
Megawati’s party won the 1999 parliamentary election. But Islamic parties in the legislature, which at the time chose presidents, blocked her bid for the leadership – partly on the grounds of her sex. She was appointed vice-president and then became president in July 2001 after parliament sacked her erratic predecessor Abdurrahman Wahid. Despite Thursday’s fatwa, analysts expect that the vote of NU’s claimed 40 million supporters will be split. NU leader Hasyim Muzadi is running for vice-president alongside Megawati. An NU official said the edict from the East Java clerics was not binding.
“NU members are free to vote for any pair of candidates,” NU deputiy secretary general Bachari Ansori was quoted as saying by Antara.
Koran Tempo in an editorial criticized the edict. “Not only does such a fatwa have no weight but the public can also consider it cheap,” the paper said.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 06/05/2004 12:10:32 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I hope that Koran Tempo's right - I prefer apostate Muslims over fundie Muslims anyway ...
Posted by: Edward Yee || 06/05/2004 12:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Does anyone else get the feeling that fundamentalist Islam is some sort of crude attempt to overcome the historically greater number of women in any given population? The degree of subjugation and oppression embodied by so much of Sharia law and Koranic teaching comes off as a pretty ruthless effort at overcoming the biologically favorable birth rate for females.

At some point all Moslem women will need to realize that their own self interest, nay, even their very safety and survival depend upon them voting against the installation of any Islamists in public office. I'm confident that election rigging and the nearly virtual house arrest many Islamic women live under intentionally interferes with such a possibility.

This is just one more reason to openly declare that all theocratic governments represent a fundamental and intrinsic violation of human rights. For some grand poobah to publicly avow that women are not entitled to elected representation instantly voids any legitimacy they seek to maintain. Islam must quickly realize that it is these sort of oppressive and blatantly unfair interpretations of religious law that give their faith all the authority (and airs) of a school yard bully.

The degree to which fundamentalist Islam manifests as an entirely self-serving and retrogressive form of male-entitlement-parading-as-religious-authority would be downright laughable if women were not being gang raped by edict, having acid thrown in their faces and being beaten half-to-death on such a regular basis.

Between jihadist atrocities and institutionalized misogyny, Islam has reached a crossroads in its viability as an acceptable religion. The torrent of abusive conduct and revolting barbarity incurred in Islam's name is rapidly eroding its last shreds of credibility as a valid religion of any sort. Civilized society must eventually stand up and take notice of this constant outrage against over half the world's population. Nations that refuse to do so, as with disavowing terrorism itself, eventually must be lumped with those who perpetuate such barbarity. Silence is consent and be it through overt participation or tacit approval, any who sustain this continuous affront to humanity must be made to account for it.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 13:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Zen - I think the subjugation bears more on the muslim male's self-knowledge of their own true sad-ass pile of insecurity, ineffectiveness, and lack of self control. They truly are the weaker gender in Islam, and have adapted the Koran to keep the women down. Once Islamic women wake up and shed the hijab, Mahmoud's gotta get a real job, quit seething, and help around the house. no honor, no shame
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 13:53 Comments || Top||

#4  I think the subjugation bears more on the muslim male's self-knowledge of their own true sad-ass pile of insecurity, ineffectiveness, and lack of self control.

However much this goes against my own tendency to think the best of people, I cannot possibly disagree with you, Frank G. There is a "blame-the-victim" (i.e., women, Jews, Americans and everybody-on-the-planet-but-their-f&%king-selves) mentality that is so prevalent in the Middle East that I can no longer argue this point.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 14:29 Comments || Top||

#5  For balance's sake, let me remind people that Turkey has had a female prime minister in its recent past (Tansu Ciller), when many a Christian country haven't yet had a female prime minister or president. I don't believe France or Germany or Spain or Italy has ever had a female leader for example. I know that Greece and the USA haven't.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 06/05/2004 21:21 Comments || Top||


Malaysia hedges over IAEA bid to question Tahir
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia hedged on Friday over whether it would allow a UN watchdog to question a detained agent involved in the nuclear black market scandal.
Yep. Something to hide there...
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, whose son was embroiled in the scandal, told reporters the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was in talks with Malaysian security authorities over questioning the agent, Sri Lankan businessman BSA Tahir. But he would not say whether they would be given permission. “I do not want to give assurances of something which is a subject of discussion between the concerned authorities,” he said. Abdullah, who is also the internal security minister, said he would leave it to the Malaysian security authorities to decide. Asked to comment on reports that Libyan technicians were brought by Tahir to train in Malaysia, Abdullah said: “I am not aware of Libyans being trained.” Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar, however, told reporters last Saturday that Libyans involved in that country’s nuclear weapons programme had been secretly trained here.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 12:18:45 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Ayatollah: US, UK, Israel Citizens Should Be Made to Feel Unsafe
From IranMania
Top Iranian hardline cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Janati on Friday accused the United States, Britain and Israel of "warring against God" and said their nationals should be made to feel unsafe wherever they are. "If the Muslims do not know security, the Americans, British and the Israelis should not know security, for they are "moharebs" (warring against God)," Janati said at Friday prayers in Tehran, broadcast by state media. "It is the duty of all Muslims and ardent non-Muslims to stand against the Americans, the British and the Israelis and to endanger their interests worldwide."

His comments sparked chants of "Death to the United States", "Death to England" and "Death to Israel" from the thousands who gathered for Friday prayers at Tehran University campus. ....

He urged Iraqis to unite behind Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the top Shiite cleric in Najaf, a holy Shiite city where Sadr’s men are battling US troops. The Americans "are here to fight Iraqi people, Kurds, Arabs, Shiites and Sunnis, in addition to Islam, so do not fight one another, and come under the umbrella of Ayatollah Sistani, for the clerics are your path to salvation," he said. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 3:56:17 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How many FIGHTIN' WORDS and INCITIN' PHRASES have to spew out the orifices of Iranians like they poured out of Usama's mutton hole before the carnage of Bloody Tuesday, before President Bush orders the US MILITARY to preemptively grease the freaks? Is preemption OUT, and taking a major hit before we attack back in vogue?
Posted by: Garrison || 06/05/2004 8:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Agreed, Garrison. Lat week it was a raving lunatic speech that can only be read as a declaration of war against us, and now it's threats against Western citizens.

I'd like to resurrect the phrase "We begin bombing in five minutes".
Posted by: Raj || 06/05/2004 12:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Ayatollah: US, UK, Israel Citizens Should Be Made to Feel Unsafe

Perhaps it's time to make Ayatollah Ahmad Janati and all the other Iranian mullahs feel dead "unsafe" as well.

America needs to seriously consider a decapitating strike upon a full session of the Guardian Council. Few other short term solutions present themselves to us right now and such outright declarations of hostile intent by the Iranian government should not go "unrewarded."

After all, Iran's continuing pursuit of nuclear power weapons constitutes a blatant and virulent threat to all civilized cultures. It's time to deflate these windbags before all their hot air gives them any lift.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 13:48 Comments || Top||

#4  I hope that Administration officials are taking note of all this for future reference and making plans accordingly. This incitement can't keep going on unchallenged.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/05/2004 14:47 Comments || Top||

#5  Actually, I think that he meant to say that ayatollahs and mullahs are beginning to feel unsafe, and for more than a few very good reasons.
Posted by: RWV || 06/05/2004 16:12 Comments || Top||

#6  The other thought that might occur to them is that since Khomeini and friends purged the Iranian military in the 80's, it has been on a par with France. The best they could manage in eight years of fighting was a draw with Iraq, a country less than half the size of Iraq.
Posted by: RWV || 06/05/2004 16:14 Comments || Top||

#7  The best they could manage in eight years of fighting was a draw with Iraq, a country less than half the size of Iraq.

Semantics cleanup on aisle six!
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 16:44 Comments || Top||

#8  Mad demented Iranian mullahs issue bombastic statements when they are fully cognizant all that crap about the 72 virgins awaiting them is pure rubbish!
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 20:53 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Austrailian Moslem Terrorist Flees Trial But Arrested in Lebanon
From News.Com.Au, crediting The Sunday Telegraph
Sydney-based terror suspect Saleh Jamal was trying to contact terrorist groups in the Middle East when he was arrested in Lebanon, authorities there claim. Jamal was acting on instructions from a Sydney-based man already under investigation, they say. Beirut prosecutors told The Sunday Telegraph Jamal, 29, had admitted links to al-Qaeda. He has been charged with planning terrorist attacks, being involved with al-Qaeda and possessing weapons - and faces 10 years’ jail in Lebanon. ....

Jamal, who lived at Lakemba, is believed to have fled Sydney in March, leaving a wife and a young child. He had been facing trial for his alleged role in a shooting attack on the Lakemba police station in 1998. The trial transcript reveals Jamal upset just about everyone involved in the case, including the judge. But the jury was discharged when he convinced the court he was too sick to continue. The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that before he skipped bail, Jamal had been a target of the secretive NSW Crime Commission’s counter-terrorism unit.

He arrived in Lebanon on a Jordanian passport. After being alerted by Australian authorities, internal security officials began intercepting his mobile-phone calls. Along with Haythem Melhem, 37, also facing terrorism charges, Jamal is alleged to have tried to make contact with Islamic fundamentalist groups.

The recent arrests and charges have re-focused police attention on the Haldon St prayer hall at Lakemba. Jamal, Willie Brigitte - held by French authorities - and a third man, Mukhtar Mohamed, an Australian resident recently arrested in Nairobi, all prayed there, according to police. One security source said the prayer hall appeared to be a common link between some of the main targets.

Before he found religion, Saleh Jamal was in a notorious Sydney gang and made his money from drug trafficking and car re-birthing. At that time, he was also known as Ray Jamal. He carried a 9mm pistol and was allegedly involved in at least three shootings. The Sunday Telegraph has been told he was also adept at obtaining fake identity papers and specialised in forging Greek birth certificates. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 2:29:41 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Before he found terrorism religion, Saleh Jamal was in a notorious Sydney gang and made his money from drug trafficking and car re-birthing.

"Drug trafficking and car re-birthing," you say? Maybe while he's inside some hopped up bunkmate will properly service Jamal's troublesome little tailpipe.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 14:39 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
US soldiers die in (Islamic terrorist) Baghdad blast
The cowardly jihadi thugs have continued on their mindless rampage of murder & chaos taking the lives of two Americans troops. Their deaths shall not be forgotten!)
Two US soldiers have been killed and two others injured in Iraq after their vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb in the capital, Baghdad. The bomb went off at dawn on Saturday in the eastern slum district of Sadr City, near the site of an attack in which five soldiers died on Friday. Witnesses said the injured men were taken away by military helicopters. The attack was just one of a spate of attacks, despite a truce taking hold in the holy city of Najaf. Unconfirmed reports suggested a convoy of two sports utility vehicles - the favoured vehicle for foreign civilian contractors - had been ambushed on the road to Baghdad airport. Two or three people had been killed, news agencies quoted both American and Iraqi sources as saying - one describing how the bodies had been burnt and mutilated after the attack. However, there has been no official confirmation of the deaths.

There has been a string of similar attacks in recent weeks, prompting fears of an increase in violence in the run-up to the 30 June transfer of sovereignty. On Friday, five US soldiers were killed and five others wounded in an attack on a convoy near Baghdad’s main Shia Muslim district.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 9:41:56 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A 100 to 1 ratio (100 of their guys for every one of ours) would be a very effective and frightening aforethought for Iraqis. But God forbid, should it drop to 1 to 1, even the kindest civilian will see it as an 'sensible trade off'! They may be angry, but the're not stupid!!
Posted by: smn || 06/06/2004 0:05 Comments || Top||


U&Q informant’s brother dead
Gunmen killed the brother of a man widely regarded as having revealed the location of Saddam Hussein’s murderous sons to U.S. troops in an attack on his car on Saturday, police said. Saddam’s sons Uday and Qusay were killed in July 2003 when soldiers stormed a villa in Mosul belonging to Nawaf al-Zeidan, who is distantly related to Saddam. Locals said Zeidan had tipped off U.S. forces that Saddam’s sons were staying at his villa. Zeidan’s brother, Salaah al-Zeidan, was killed and three of his male relatives traveling in the same vehicle were wounded, including an eight-year-old boy, during the attack on Saturday. "There was an attack on Saalah Zeidan’s car, he was killed," said a police officer in Mosul, who declined to be named. It was not clear whether the killing in the city’s northern al-Hadbaa neighborhood was a targeted assassination. The U.S. military confirmed it had been tipped off about the whereabouts of Uday and Qusay, and said the informant had been paid a $30 million reward and was resettled in a Western country. It never confirmed whether Zeidan was the informant.
Posted by: Korora || 06/05/2004 2:04:05 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Like thats going to take the grapes out of the mouth of the informant, as he or she is sitting back at the beach; with feet up counting the $30 million...one bill at a time!!
Posted by: smn || 06/06/2004 0:10 Comments || Top||


Najaf, No cease fire we crushed them!
Just telling it like it is here kids, Mr Sadre gambled and lost maybe even his life. I know I get a little impatient with the news and our progress, but I think the war has gone pretty damn good if you ask me. Just consider what has been done in 15 months to the country of Iraq and compare it to anything else in history. It’s darn impressive.

Sadr’s militia defeated: US
From correspondents in Baghdad
June 6, 2004

THE US military said today it had defeated the outlawed militia of flamboyant Shi’ite cleric Moqtada Sadr across central Iraq, and denied that there was any truce with the radical preacher.

"The Moqtada militia is militarily defeated. We have killed scores of them over the last few weeks, and that is in Najaf alone," Brigadier General Mark Hertling, one of the top US commanders in charge of Najaf, told AFP.

"Over the past several days, Moqtada’s militia has lost much of their stomach for fighting," he said, also declaring victory in the central cities of Kut, Diwaniyah and Karbala, dogged by fighting over the past two months.

"We have also destroyed their weapons stores and their offensive capability," he said.

"What remains of them, which is a very small force, will take advantage of the governor’s announcement to disperse if not disband."

Hertling praised Najaf governor Adnan al-Zorfi, appointed last month, for playing a political role in the defeat and stressed that US patrols and checkpoints were still active around Najaf and its twin city of Kufa.

"There is no truce between the coalition forces and the militia ... We have not conceded anything to Sadr. We have told him that when we encounter any armed forces, we will destroy them. We have done just that," Hertling said.

"We have not pulled back from anything. We are conducting the same patrols we have already conducted, and we are executing checkpoints in Najaf and Kufa right now."

Calm returned to Najaf late yesterday after Zorfi announced that Iraqi police would patrol in sensitive areas around the shrines, which include some of the world’s holiest sites in Shi’ite Islam, the US military said.

"That was a brilliant move on his part, because it was one of the things the militia was asking for... (and) made it possible for the militia to lay down their arms and leave town," said Hertling.

"The governor has taken his city back under control, in an unbelievably historic and courageous act. He has re-established his police force, and we are helping them train and we are helping him to arm them.

"Bottom line, yesterday was a good day for Najaf. The militia have been defeated, or have left."

Hertling denied any similarities to what was seen by Iraqis as a US defeat when marines withdrew from Fallujah, leaving the troublesome Sunni Muslim city in police hands after weeks of fierce fighting in April.

"The people of Najaf did not ask us to leave; in fact, many of the businessmen and moderate clerics have asked us to help them get rid of Sadr’s militia," he said.

The firebrand cleric unleashed a deadly uprising against US-led coalition forces in early April after the coalition shut down one of his newspapers for inciting violence and arrested one of his key aides.

The US military has repeatedly insisted that he face justice for his alleged role in the murder of a rival cleric last year, and a warrant for Sadr’s arrest has been issued.

Agence France-Presse

Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 06/05/2004 3:33:25 PM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  God bless the souls of those lost this week. But it was a GREAT week for the good guys. Stick a fork in this one as soon as Sadr is in custody.
Posted by: Frank || 06/05/2004 16:56 Comments || Top||

#2  or dead...nice name, BTW
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 17:13 Comments || Top||

#3  "The Moqtada militia is militarily defeated..."

I dunno, I don't like the sound of this. The guy is defeated when he's in custody and his forces have been totally destroyed. Until then, it makes no sense to be making proclamations of this sort. When the job is done, then and only then is it appropriate to declare victory.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/05/2004 21:12 Comments || Top||

#4  When the job is done, then and only then is it appropriate to declare victory.

Not if you're trying force a result. One of two things will happen. Sadr's remaining militia will attack, or they'll slink away. In either case, they're finished. Sadr loses all stature. He'll run for exile, or someone will get him.
Posted by: Pappy || 06/05/2004 23:37 Comments || Top||


Africa: Subsaharan
(More oil supply problems?) Nigerian Troops, Militants Clash in Delta
Another chapter in the "Keep up the Economic Pressure on the Infidels Project"? Or just the usual display of ignorance and brutality by ignorant brutes?
Soldiers in gunboats clashed with ethnic militants in the rivers of Nigeria’s oil delta Friday, and militants and villagers claimed that dozens of fighters and civilians were killed. A navy spokesman denied there were casualties.
"Nah. We didn't hit nobody..."
Nigeria’s military regularly plays down ethnic, political and religious violence in an effort to stem retaliatory attacks. On two occasions - in 1999 and 2001 - authorities denied army massacres of hundreds of civilians until witness accounts made them indisputable. Political, religious and ethnic unrest has killed more than 10,000 since President Olusegun Obasanjo was first elected in 1999, ending 15 years of brutal military rule.
How many'd it kill before Ollie was elected?
On Friday, residents of Port Harcourt, the oil-rich Niger Delta’s main city, reported hearing pre-dawn gunfire at the time of the attack. Port Harcourt is several miles from where the clashes occurred. Hundreds of soldiers and police have deployed to the nearby villages of Ogbakiri, Buguma and Tombia since last week, apparently to stem months of fighting between two rival ethnic Ijaw militant factions. Villagers in Oduoha said they woke to gunfire before dawn. Community leader Lloyd Eyime said he went outside his house and saw soldiers in gun-mounted speedboats firing upon his riverside community. "They have been burning houses and shooting at people, both young and elderly," Eyime said. Residents fled into mangrove swamps and dense bush. When Eyime returned, he said, he found about 30 bodies lying about the otherwise abandoned village. A senior navy official in Port Harcourt denied anyone had been killed or injured. Most villagers deserted their communities during fighting before security force members began arriving, he said.
"Nope. Didn't get the chance to kill nobody!"
"We’ve been sending troops there since last week. They heard we were coming and they deserted towns and villages. There has been no killings. Everything is quiet," the navy officer said, speaking on condition he not be identified.
Nigeria is the world’s seventh-largest oil exporter and the fifth-largest source of U.S. oil imports.
No link on this one...
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 2:09:44 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  c'mon Mark - you know the rule....
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 13:56 Comments || Top||

#2  We need to revisit the idea of plunging oil wells off the coasts of Florida, California and the Alaskan wilderness with the wild card of Seizing Mexican oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, we just tell Mexico "it's just business".
Doesn't the USA have "vast amounts" of Crude?
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 06/05/2004 14:06 Comments || Top||

#3  We do indeed have vast amounts of 'over regulated' crude oil which needs to be deregulated.

Oppsssss, I goof up on the news source,,,,I think this story was either BBC or Oil World. If I run across the link again it shall be posted. Sorry about that.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 20:34 Comments || Top||


UN aid workers kidnapped in Darfur
About 16 UN aid workers have been kidnapped in the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur, the state minister for foreign affairs has said. Nejib al-Khari Abdel Wahab said contact had been made with their abductors and negotiations were under way. There has been no confirmation by the UN, which is trying to tackle a looming humanitarian crisis.
"The abduction of 16 of the workers and employees of the United Nations in Darfur took place five hours ago and the government is currently communicating with all sides," Mr Wahab told Reuters news agency by telephone from Khartoum on Saturday.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 06/05/2004 1:01:15 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Are we having a "fuckin' DUH" moment yet?

Send in aid workers only with armed backup.
Posted by: mojo || 06/05/2004 15:51 Comments || Top||


Sudan blocks Ugandan delegation from meeting LRA leader
Former minister Betty Bigombe’s peace mission to Sudan ended in heartbreak this week after Sudanese officials blocked her from meeting rebel leader Joseph Kony. Bigombe has been in Sudan since April 24 and made two visits to southern Sudan. Bigombe and her team were due to leave Juba yesterday afternoon "after Sudanese military officials persistently blocked all planned meetings with Kony", according to a source in the team who preferred anonymity.

The Bigombe team said they have spent three weeks in southern Sudan, received two emissaries sent by Kony but this week, the Sudanese army blocked even the emissaries from meeting them. In a telephone interview with The New Vision, LRA commander ’Brigadier’ Livingstone Opiro, who said he was coordinating the communication between Bigombe and the LRA chief, said Kony had decided to "come back to Uganda and continue contact with the Uganda government from inside the country since the Sudanese have frustrated everything".

Bigombe said Opiro had been coordinating the meetings but refused to discuss the problems her team has been facing in Sudan. A team member said upon their arrival in Sudan, military officials led by Major General Awad Ibn Ouf, the head of Sudan’s military intelligence, denied that they knew Kony’s whereabouts. "The most insulting was when they told us on Monday this week that Kony had sent a four-man team led by General Khamis to meet us. They returned later to say that the general sent by Kony did not want to meet us. They probably thought we were too ignorant to know that there is no such person as General Khamis in the LRA," the member said by phone from Juba.

On previous occasions, the team said they went to within four kilometres of Kony’s camps, "but the Sudanese army officers told us Ugandan troops were nearby and had dangerous guided missiles that could kill us and they are blamed." He said on many occasions, Sudanese officials dealt with them "as if they were dealing with five-year-olds".

According to information from the team, Sudan’s foreign minister Mustafa Osman Ismail and Maj. Gen. Awad and another general, sent a message that they were travelling to Juba this weekend with the British ambassador to Khartoum, to meet Bigombe before announcing that the "LRA has refused to meet the team and has rejected peace talks". Mustafa Ismail was then scheduled to travel to Kampala for the COMESA summit. The Bigombe team said they were infuriated and were returning to Khartoum "to go home and sort things out from there but the outside world should know that our hosts never wanted us to meet Kony for reasons they know best".

Apparently, President Yoweri Museveni had secured a personal commitment from Sudanese president Omar el-Bashir that the Khartoum officials would facilitate the meeting between Bigombe and Kony. "But his officials in the army seemed to know nothing," the team said.
The source said Kony said he would move back to Uganda from where talks would continue. If Kony returns to northern Uganda, it would the first time the rebel leader spends a considerable amount of time in the region since he first set up base in Sudan in 1994. It would also indicate that Kony’s demands that he would negotiate with the Government only outside the country, would be difficult to meet.
Bigombe is expected to brief Museveni about her Sudan mission sometime next week either in Kampala or in the US where Museveni has been invited by President George Bush for a summit comprising six other African leaders.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 06/05/2004 12:55:13 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa: North
’Un-Islamic’ books seized in Cairo
One of Islam’s most-prominent religious institutions is seizing extremist books and pamphlets sold on Cairo streets, and has been granted the authority to confiscate materials deemed un-Islamic. Egyptian rights activists worry authorities are creating a religious police force akin to Saudi Arabia’s Committee for the Protection of Virtue and Prohibition of Vice that roams streets looking for violators of strict Islamic social norms. Unlike the Saudi religious police, the roaming clerics in Cairo have a narrow mandate and do not have the power to make arrests, though they can report suspicious activity to police for further investigation.
Can't wield the rubber truncheons themselves, can they?
A cleric with al-Azhar, the foremost theological institute in the mainstream Sunni sect of Islam, said Saturday that ``secularists have nothing to fear from this decision.’’
"Unless, of course, they do something ... secular."
``I believe that this decision leans more toward targeting the fundamentalist religious movement,’’ Abd el-Azim al-Mataani, a member of al-Azhar University’s faculty, told The Associated Press. He said the aim appeared to curb extremist literature that leads to ``so-called terrorism.’’

The Muslim world has been under pressure since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States to reign in extremist rhetoric that could incite terrorist acts. Justice Minister Farouk Seif el-Nasr’s decision last month to empower al-Azhar with search-and-seizure powers - something normally reserved for law enforcement - came in response to al-Azhar’s long-standing desire for more authority to confront and confiscate material that violates Islam as well as extremist writings readily available on the streets but printed without official permission.

The independent daily newspaper Nahdet Masr reported Saturday that the first search conducted by clerics of al-Azhar’s Islamic Research Academy was Thursday and involved searches of bookstores and publishing houses for religious material that had been circulated without permission. Nahdet Masr said the clerics had confiscated a couple hundred illegitimate copies of the Quran and several Islamic tapes that had been released without al-Azhar’s consent, as required by law in Egypt. Police officials confirmed the search and confiscation but gave no further details. There was no answer Saturday at the academy.
Wonder what an illegitimate copy of the Quran says? Does it reference virgins or raisins?
Al-Azhar’s influence among Sunni Muslims is considerable. Its decisions and religious edicts have far-reaching influence in the Muslim world and its clerics, called Azharis, are widely respected. During the 1980s and 1990s, President Hosni Mubarak’s government cracked down heavily on Egyptian militant groups, jailing thousands. A wave of fundamentalism in Egyptian society has led many to believe that al-Azhar, fearing marginalization by more radical interpretations of Islam, is seeking to appease extremists by cracking down on publications and behavior that is deemed un-Islamic.

Rights groups fear having al-Azhar take on a policing role could infringe on freedom of expression. ``A disaster’’ is how Hisham Kassem, head of the Egyptian Organization of Human Rights, described the decision. ``We were shocked by this.’’ ``We condemn this,’’ Kassem said. ``The lines are not clear. ... We are fully against widening the search and seizure powers of al-Azhar.’’ Powers of search and seizure normally have been restricted to police and other branches of Egypt’s security apparatus. Crackdowns regularly target items deemed sexually explicit or religiously unacceptable. Aides to several Justice Ministry officials said nobody was available to comment on the issue.
"We can say no more!"
Controversy over books or other publications is not unusual in Egypt, where the secular government, in a precarious balancing act, tries to satisfy a traditional, religiously conservative majority by portraying itself as no less Islamic than its critics. Bloody confrontations erupted three years ago between protesting students and police when the government published a novel by a Syrian writer that was deemed blasphemous.

In 2001, three state-published novels were banned after coming under fire from Islamists in parliament for alleged indecency, and last month al-Azhar urged the Egyptian government to ban a novel by an outspoken feminist writer, saying it violates Islam. ``This is the beginnings of a religious police in Egypt,’’ prominent journalist and writer Adel Hammouda told the AP. `This is very, very dangerous,’’ he warned. ``It is a subjective power that gives the religious establishment an executive authority when it should only be consultative.’’ Even having a permit to publish material will not be enough now, Hammouda said, adding that ``they can now be judge, jury and executioner.’’
That last job is particularly appealing to them.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 06/05/2004 12:44:14 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Shades of the Brown Shirts.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 20:49 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Grenade Attack on Job Seekers Wounds 17 Iraqis
Terrorists fired rocket-propelled grenades at Iraqis queuing up outside an army recruitment center in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, wounding 17 people in the second such attack in a month. "Unidentified assailants fired rocket-propelled grenades at a line of civilians waiting at the gate of the recruiting center to get jobs in the new Iraqi army," army Captain Ahmad al-Deen said. "Sixteen civilians have been wounded, as well as one security guard." Guards said the attackers fired the grenades from a car before driving away.
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 06/05/2004 11:25:02 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Reuters finally used the dreaded 'terrorist' label? Quick, Ehthel, my pills!
Posted by: Raj || 06/05/2004 12:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Sorry Raj, I changed that to terrorists, Reuters used the word "Guerrillas".
Posted by: TS(vice girl) || 06/05/2004 12:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Terrorists fired rocket-propelled grenades at Iraqis queuing up outside an army recruitment center in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday, wounding 17 people in the second such attack in a month.

If there ever was a way to evaporate support for your cause, this would be it.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/05/2004 14:41 Comments || Top||

#4  I knew it was too good to be true...
Posted by: Raj || 06/05/2004 14:58 Comments || Top||


Opinion: The president was chosen by an election not by a tank
Excerpted from IWPR daily summary of Iraqi News
By Mohamed al-Asadi
(Al-Adala, 03 Jun 04) – It is a really unique and distinguished step that took place in the last few days as the president, the prime minister and the cabinet were chosen in a democratic way. It happened on the ground and not in dreams. We have started to follow the international example in choosing the president by means of an election and not by means of a tank. The president along with the cabinet feel they are strong because they came to power through the will of others. As a result, they should work to express the people’s ambitions, and they should work to meet the people’s expectations. Their responsibility is huge in the difficult and dangerous situation of building a democratic Iraq composed of freedom, peace and stability. What happened is the first step of getting rid of the inferiority complex of keeping hold of power forever.
(Al-Adala is issued daily by the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.)
I find the source for this opinion quite surprising.
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/05/2004 4:16:13 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraqi Paper: Yawir will prove a capable leader
By Ismail Zayer
(Al-Sabah al-Jadeed, 02 Jun 04) – At last, US administrator L. Paul Bremer III surrendered to the Iraqi will and pulled out his nominees after 24 tense hours during which the Governing Council expressed its unity in choosing al-Yawir as president of Iraq for the transitional period. Bremer was astonished at the united stance of the Iraqi side as represented by the Governing Council members to enhance their democratic choice. The democratic practice of the GC revealed the strong ties between Kurds and Arabs, Sunni and Shia and all different elements of the Iraqi people. They discovered the moral values in being united to stop Bremer from penetrating them to re-arrange things. This is a new dawn for Iraq, full of hopes for the leadership that holds control of complete sovereignty to solve the problems our people and economy have been suffering from and to rebuild a democratic, modern and federal state. Yawir, supported by different elements of Iraqis, will lead in order to guarantee a permanent constitution, to organise a comprehensive national conference and to end the transitional period well.
(Al-Sabah al-Jadeed is an independent daily paper.)
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/05/2004 4:18:20 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I believe that the editor of this publication recently just narrowly evaded an assassination attempt. He must be ticking somebody off-- I wonder who.
Posted by: button || 06/05/2004 13:37 Comments || Top||


Africa: Subsaharan
Chuck Taylor - AQ Middleman?
Posted by: Super Hose || 06/05/2004 03:57 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan/South Asia
Mullah Omar Not Attacking Afghan Police, Because Many Are His Agents
From Jihad Unspun
In the Samangan province of Afghanistan, Nawaiwaqt is reporting that an American camp came under attack from Taliban, resulting in deaths of two Americans soldiers. Five others were wounded. ... After the attack, 11 Afghan police personnel including a high ranking local police officer were arrested by American soldiers who suspected the Taliban to have infiltrated the police and used the police uniforms and vehicles to attack the base. This attack verifies why the Commander of the Faithful Mullah Omar is entirely committed to his policy of not actively targeting Afghan rank and file police and soldiers. The Taliban intelligence has successfully infiltrated the police and army to such an extent that any attack on rank and file might accidentally kill Taliban operatives.
Perhaps we should introduce these jokers, I rather like the idea of 'red-on-red' violence.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 9:50:06 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  As long as WE know that THEY know, that WE don't know; thats find with me! I'm sure the CIA can weed out rats with the time tested 'color coded disinformation' techniques we've used before!
Posted by: smn || 06/06/2004 0:25 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
US Bombed Wedding Because Locals Helped US Soldiers Defect
From Jihad Unspun, credited to The Free Arab Voice
The background to American bombing raid on a village wedding party on May 18 that killed the bridegroom along with over 40 other villagers has remained largely a mystery in the international media. After the bomb raid, which the Pentagon claimed was an attempted assault on Resistance fighters in the area of al-Qa’im on the Syrian border, the AP broadcast video of the wedding contradicted the official US story.

Now an Iraqi resident of the area has come forward with information, published by Quds Press and carried on Mafkarat al-Islam’s website, indicating that the real reason for the US attack had been to strike at a village and its elders who were involved not in fighting the occupation, but in helping US troops escape from military service in Iraq.

“The American occupation forces knew full well that we were having a wedding party. They intentionally bombed the wedding because the guests included several tribal chiefs and prominent persons from the western part of Iraq. The occupation forces hated the people of this region because they have been helping occupation soldiers to escape from Iraq,” said the uncle of the martyred bridegroom, a local Iraqi resident who gave his name as Abu ‘Azzam. “The village of Makr adh-Dhib,” Abu ‘Azzam explained, “is between ar-Rabtah and al-Qa’im, and is 125km from Husaybah on the Iraqi Syrian border. The people who live in the village are of the al-Bu Fahd tribes, a part of the large Arab Dulaym tribal federation in Iraq. They have played a big role in providing the Resistance with supplies, equipment, weapons, everything.”

The American forces came to the village lots of times,” Abu ‘Azzam said, “searching for weapons and Arab Resistance fighters. But they never found anything. But the thing that caused matters to come to a head was that we in Makr adh-Dhib were carrying out organized operations to smuggle American soldiers who wanted to flee the hell in Iraq out of the country. We were able to smuggle large numbers of those soldiers through our ‘windows’, windows that only a small number of people in the village know about. We would smuggle them for a price, that could go as high as $10,000 in some cases, plus the equipment that the soldier carried,” Abu ‘Azzam explained.

Abu ‘Azzam told QudsPress, “we were able to smuggle a number of US Army officers who were fleeing from Iraq out of the country. The last operation we carried out was just a few days before the Americans bombed the wedding. In that operation we smuggled 13 American soldiers out of Iraq. But apparently the American forces got wind of what we were doing. They encircled the village and took people in for questioning. It was then that we came to understand that they meant to do us harm, because they were very angry. After that smuggling operation and the interrogations, we realized that they were planning something against us. We became wary and started to make preparations to confront them. But we didn’t know that they would respond in such a cowardly way,” Abu ‘Azzam explained.

“It was on the night of the wedding of my nephew Muhammad Rakad al-Fahdawi, and after the invited guests had come – people of the village and the surrounding area including tribal shaykhs and prominent personalities. During the afternoon the bride was brought from ar-Ramadi and it was after that that the American forces showed up with their Jeeps and tanks and helicopters and closed off the area. They pounded the wedding with 10 rockets of various types and also fired automatic weapons,” Abu ‘Azzam recounted. The AP video, released days after the US attack, showed the wedding in progress before the US attack on May 18 that left more than 40 Iraqi wedding guests dead.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 9:43:49 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yeah US Army Officers often have $10,000 in their pockets.

What is interesting is that as the story fails to hold up it is slightly changed to give it new life again. Jenin, part 2.
Posted by: Yank || 06/05/2004 10:13 Comments || Top||

#2  And just when we thought Baghdad Bob wouldn't find work again, he signs on with The Free Arab Voice.
Posted by: GK || 06/05/2004 12:17 Comments || Top||

#3  US Army Officers often have $10,000 in their pockets.

"I'd like to escape the hell in Iraq, Achmed, but I don't have 10 large on me. Do you take personal cheques, VISA, MasterCard or American Express?"
Posted by: Raj || 06/05/2004 12:48 Comments || Top||

#4  "The Free Arab Voice"
Isn't that qoute an oxymoron? I had know idea that the "little sheet heads" could put those words together.
Hilarious to say the least
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 06/05/2004 14:12 Comments || Top||

#5  This twaddle reads like something out of a Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer novel (think; "The Ugly American" or "Sarkhan"). The fingerprints of misinformation and flat-out lies are smeared all over this like a botched amateur heist.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 14:23 Comments || Top||

#6  Jeezus Christ - do these clowns sit up nights thinking this stuff up?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 06/06/2004 0:26 Comments || Top||

#7  What is the media source for this leftist slanted pro-jihadic refuse?

This is pure piffle & Bush bashing debris!

Now the neo-commies call the low life terrorists "the Resistance"...please, I am about to be ill.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/06/2004 0:56 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Constitutional Objection Raised Against Women’s Songs in Afghanisan
From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai told a gathering of the Ulama Council of Afghanistan that the broadcasting policy of Afghan radio and television stations is contradictory to the country’s constitution.... Ahmadzai specifically cited the airing of songs by women artists as being un-Islamic. The new Afghan Constitution gives equal rights to men and women and does not specifically ban songs by female singers. However, Article 3 of the document stipulates that "no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam" -- a clause that can easily be used by conservative religious forces to block legislation that they deem to be un-Islamic. Ahmadzai was a member of the conservative Islamic Unity Party Of Afghanistan led by Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf and was a high-ranking member of the mujahedin administration in the early 1990s.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 9:25:48 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Charitable Organization Suspends Operations in Afghanistan
From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has suspended all of its operations in Afghanistan as of 3 June after five of its staff were killed in the northern Afghan province of Badghis a day earlier .... "For the time being our activities will be suspended nationwide," MSF acting head of mission in Afghanistan, Samuel Hauenstein, said in Kabul. MSF staff in Afghanistan are being moved to safer areas of the country. MSF has been working in Afghanistan since 1979. The organization is currently working in 12 provinces with around 80 expat and 1,400 local staff giving primary health care and support to provincial and regional hospitals.

In a statement released on 4 June, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that at least 32 aid workers have been killed in Afghanistan since March 2003 and the neo-Taliban have been implicated in many of these attacks. Commenting on the five workers killed on 2 June, John Sifton, an Afghanistan researcher for HRW, said, "These were people who had devoted themselves to helping and healing Afghans," adding that attacks against "relief workers directly harms the millions of Afghans who rely on humanitarian aid for their food and health." HRW called on the neo-Taliban to cease attacks on civilians and humanitarian staff and denounced neo-Taliban leaders for suggesting that such attacks were justified.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 9:22:06 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq-Jordan
A Detailed Account of the Life of Army Spec. Charles Graner
From The Washington Post
.... Army Spec. Charles A. Graner Jr., 35, ... has become the infamous guard of Abu Ghraib. But there are other, lesser-known images of him: In 1991, he was a 22-year-old soldier in Saudi Arabia, calling home at all hours to see if his wife was there. In 1992, he was working at a county prison in Pennsylvania with guards who acknowledge beating up prisoners as a means of control. In 1994, he made a fellow prison guard sick by spraying Mace into his coffee. In 1997, he was accused by his wife of threatening to kill her. In 1998, when he was working as a guard in a state prison, he was accused by one inmate of slipping a razor blade into his food. And in 2001, he was accused by his now-ex-wife of grabbing her by the hair, dragging her out of a bedroom and trying to throw her down the stairs. .... From interviews with people who had close contact with Graner at various points in his life, however, a portrait emerges of someone who went from "always smiling, always laughing" to angry by the time he left for Iraq. ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 7:09:58 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Who cares what the man did in his personal life? If he had fist-intercoursed those hooded Iraqis -- indistinguishable from the hooded freaks who offed Berg's head -- at abu ghraib to death, I would still consider him a HERO.
Posted by: Garrison || 06/05/2004 8:51 Comments || Top||

#2  The murderous animals held in that prison ought to feel lucky all they got was slapped around abit. Pork chops and bacon should have been the only thing on the menu there.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 06/05/2004 9:15 Comments || Top||

#3  That's your call - I hope you don't LIKE the bastard, because there's no way I would, regardless, due to his personal life.
Posted by: Edward Yee || 06/05/2004 12:26 Comments || Top||

#4  Garrison and JM, both of you are way off base.

Spec. Garner shouldn't have been allowed into the Army. He was a fuck-up in the Marines, a fuck-up as a prison guard and a fuck-up in life. He is no way shape or form a hero. He's a brute and a swine.

The good soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors who serve with honor, who obey the rules, who treat civilians with decency, who fight with valor -- they're the heroes. Not Garner.

I want Garner punished. Severely. I want the Top Sargeant who failed to keep Garner under control cashiered, and I want the company commander to resign his commission. Both of these individuals failed the Army.
Posted by: Steve White || 06/05/2004 17:32 Comments || Top||


Military Intel Troop Exonerates His Unit and Superiors of Prisoner Abuse
From Yahoo News, crediting The Los Angeles Times
U.S. Army Spc. Israel Rivera had just returned to duty at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq last October after minor surgery to remove shrapnel from his face. He was checking his e-mail, he recalls, when another military intelligence soldier approached. "Hey Izzy, did you hear about those detainees that raped that one kid?" asked the other soldier, Spc. Armin J. Cruz. Rivera hadn’t heard of the incident and asked what was going to happen to the prisoners. Cruz, Rivera said, responded with an invitation: "Do you want to go see what’s happening?"

The two army intelligence analysts from a reserve unit in Texas walked over to the isolation cellblock at Abu Ghraib and into the middle of the prison abuse scandal that came to light in April. Their faces were among those captured in disturbing photographs of inmates being mistreated. In a telephone interview with The Times, Rivera described his involvement in the case for the first time, saying that he visited the cellblock largely out of curiosity and that he was stunned by what he saw: detainees being stripped naked, made to crawl on their stomachs and chained into a ball of limbs and flesh on the prison floor.

Rivera, 20, is the first military intelligence soldier to come forward publicly and say that he witnessed a fellow intelligence soldier, Cruz, taking part in the abuse of prisoners in the isolation cellblock at Abu Ghraib. .... Because they are among only a handful of intelligence soldiers directly tied to the abuse in photographs, Rivera and Cruz are potentially important witnesses for military investigators seeking to determine the scope of the scandal — specifically whether the torture of detainees had any connection to the interrogation operation at Abu Ghraib.

Rivera disputed such claims, saying the abuse he witnessed had nothing to do with "softening up" prisoners to get information from them. He insisted that his superiors did not know about the abuse, let alone sanction it. .... Rivera said he never informed his superiors and still hasn’t shared his account with military investigators. When he met with an Army Criminal Investigation Division agent in January, he refused to talk unless he was provided with an attorney. ....

The episode Rivera witnessed came about two weeks before some of the most serious abuses took place, including nude prisoners being stacked up in pyramids or forced to masturbate in front of guards. ....

Rivera’s account is the most detailed description to date of prisoner abuse that is believed to have occurred Oct. 25. According to military records, Rivera appears in photographs taken that night that show as many as seven U.S. soldiers and one civilian interpreter huddled around three naked detainees on the floor. .... Rivera was among at least four intelligence personnel at the scene, including Cruz; Spc. Roman Krol, an Army interrogator; and Adel L. Nakhla, a civilian interpreter employed by Titan Corp.

Several of the seven MPs charged in the case have said they were encouraged or directed by interrogators to mistreat prisoners as a means of softening them up for questioning. Rivera said that was not the case. "Anyone who says this was condoned by MI — no, absolutely not," he said, adding that Cruz knew about the activities in the cellblock only because he was friends with an MP, Spc. Sabrina Harman, who has since been charged. ....

Rivera did not accuse Nakhla of abusing detainees, but said Nakhla translated the MPs’ shouts and orders. .... Rivera said that he did not personally take part in any abuse that night. In the pictures, "I’m shown doing exactly what I did that night — stupidly watching, like a moron," he said. ...

After about 15 minutes, Rivera said, he left the cellblock. The next day, Rivera said, he described what he saw to another soldier from his unit, Spc. Hannah Schlegel. Schlegel urged informing superiors, Rivera said, but he refused. Later that day, she indicated that she had done so herself. "She comes back and said, ’Izzy, you know that thing, don’t worry about it, I took care of it.’ " Rivera said he and Schlegel also sought to discourage Cruz and Krol from taking part in any future incidents by telling them that military investigators had heard about the incident in late October and were "sniffing around." ....
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 6:57:07 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine
Nightlife, in Jenin?
Should be titled - Separation Wall results in big improvement in Palestinians lives. EFL
Stoop-shouldered and bespectacled, Hader Abu Sheikh, a 33-year-old official for the Palestinian Legislative Council in Jenin, is hardly a party animal. But that did not stop him from noticing that "there is 70 percent more nightlife in Jenin than a year ago."
"I like the nightlife,
I like to disco,
I like to boogey,
Oh, woe woe woe!"
"We are talking about the resumption of traditional Palestinian nightlife," explains Abu Sheikh. "Weddings, men sitting in cafes late at night, women visiting each other... The point is, people are no longer confined to their houses at night, because Israel has left the city."
"I'll be down to getcha in a taxi, honey!
Y'better be ready 'bout half past eight!
Now, honey, don't be late!
I wanna be there when the band starts playin'!"
Nightlife, in Jenin? Rattled for three years by Israeli raids against local terrorists, Jenin is recovering – partly due to the controversial security fence that Israel credits with stopping Palestinian terrorism in its tracks. For few is the change as tangible as for Ziad Mifleh, director-general of the Jenin Chamber of Commerce – the man responsible, among other tasks, for distributing Israeli entry permits to locals. Whereas half a year ago the Civil Administration, the Israeli body that oversees life in the territories, doled out 100 permits to local merchants, Mifleh explained, it issued 1,000 this month. He signed 174 himself on Thursday, he noted proudly. In the past three months, "We have seen the beginning of a breakthrough," he said, absently nudging a stubbed cigarette. "There are positive business indicators, as people are starting to think of capital and investment and commerce again."
Instead of thinking about exploding, y'mean?
Over the past six months, as the number of "martyrdom operations" decreased, the number of permits increased, noted Mifleh.
Cause -> effect, see?
Jenin’s markets are packed. Merchants complain that locals spend only on necessities and cheap trinkets, that the increased quiet and stability have yielded little or no economic dividend. The front displays at the jewelry shops on Abu Bakr Street brim with gold, yet the shelves inside the stores are entirely bare. Before the intifada, remittances from legal and illegal laborers in Israel (and a good deal of auto theft) fueled the local economy. But crossing into Israel illegally is now a thing of the past, a task too difficult and too dangerous. Back outside the Chamber of Commerce, marijuana and cigarette smoke mingled as several dozen men waited, some in vain, for permits. They hoped to gain permission to purchase or sell cheaply made clothes in Israel, or fruit, or anything that would put food on the table. In perfect Hebrew, the men there explained that stability had returned, but jobs remain elusive. It seemed like the town’s new mantra.
I mean, it's been, what? A month? C'mon! Where're the results?
Israel too has started to take pride in a city it used to call a "suicide capital." Instead of exporting dozens of suicide bombers, said Brig.-Gen. (res.) Baruch Spiegel, head of the Security Fence Team, a group appointed by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz to administer Palestinian humanitarian needs regarding the security fence, "they are exporting cucumber farmers." Spiegel, a no-nonsense career officer who last served as the IDF’s deputy Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, adds that some 2,500 men are allowed to enter Israel to work "because of the quiet there. The decline in terror to a ’manageable’ level has enabled the IDF to remove an entire system of roadblocks and checkpoints within the Jenin Governorate." Fatah officials such as Palestinian Legislative Council member Sakhri Turkuman concede that by reducing terrorist attacks and, therefore, incursions, the security fence has "created some stability in Jenin."
Posted by: Phil_B || 06/05/2004 3:48:20 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  sounds same as the positive reports from Tul Karm. Maybe (at least some of) the Paleos will put away their victimhood and hate for the Jooos?
Too early to tell, but the aftermath of Arafat's death will be a wild time if those that want peace don't gain the upperhand
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 17:19 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
What’s Right With Islam: A New Vision for Mulsims and the West
From Slate, an article by Lee Smith
.... It is vital to U.S. security interests that Muslim moderates rout their opponents, and Americans need to do whatever they can to help that happen. In What’s Right With Islam: A New Vision for Muslims and the West, Feisal Abdul Rauf explains how both the American government and private citizens, non-Muslim and Muslim, can take the initiative. ... As Americans helped shape and reconfigure the beliefs and practices of Christianity and Judaism around the world, Abdul Rauf argues that the future of Islam as a moderate, tolerant, and progressive faith rests with American Muslims.

What’s Right With Islam is an important and often intellectually exciting book that describes Islam as an extension of the Judeo-Christian heritage. The three monotheistic faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—constitute "the Abrahamic tradition," whose core principle is in the second commandment: "To love our neighbors," Abdul Rauf writes, "our fellow human beings, regardless of race, religion, or cultural background, as we love ourselves." .... The idea of a Judeo-Christian heritage is American-made, and not an eternal verity of Western civilization; it was forged by a society comprising many cultures that had to coexist. The uproar over The Passion of the Christ indicates how fragile that idea still is.

Raised in Kuwait, and educated in Egypt, England, and Malaysia, Abdul Rauf, who came to the United States in 1965, is a natural born pluralist. He is imam at a mosque a few blocks from the World Trade Center that is fairly well-known for its open-door, open-arms attitude. Some of the mosque’s visitors are just curious about Islam, or more particularly about Sufism, a sect that’s tolerant of other ideas and creeds. Influenced by Greek and Hindu philosophy and Christianity, Sufism is usually referred to as Islamic mysticism, but up until the beginning of the last century, it was also essentially mainstream, or popular, Islam, a hodgepodge of beliefs and practices that places great emphasis on mediators, or auliya’, who intercede with God on behalf of righteous petitioners. ....

... contrary to the beliefs of many Western commentators, the Muslim world has had plenty of Martin Luthers; the problem is that so far none of their reformations resulted in anything looking like the E.U. And yet the once-disdained and inclusive creed of Sufism might just redeem the ironic narrative of Muslim reform—at least if Abdul Rauf has his way. Sufis are known for their inner-directed orientation and disregard for worldly affairs. ....

A potential audience, Abdul Rauf writes, "may be a young American Muslim woman or man confused between the picture of Islam 
 projected in the American media by Osama Bin Laden and that practiced by your sweet grandmother." Of course it’s essential that, like all Americans, American Muslims engage the "Abrahamic tradition," instead of triumphalist politics. .... typically Muslim immigrants have come here to partake of the same liberties and opportunities that every ethnic and religious group has sought in America. Indeed, it’s worthwhile noting that for many Muslims, their coming to the United States also meant fleeing places where there’s an awful lot that is not right with Islam. .... It’s time for an American Muslim leader to translate the best of the American dream to the Muslim world. After all, Islam has had plenty of Martin Luthers, the next Muslim reformer needs to be a Martin Luther King.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 06/05/2004 3:33:49 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If Islam wants to "reform" itself, fine - it's their internal matter as long as it does not involve non-Muslims. Of course, it is the ultimate understatement to note that the conduct of Islam today does, indeed, involve non-Mulsims - mainly as innocent victims of their hatred and attempts to spred Islamic dominion.

I'm afraid Mr Lee is a sucker or apologist, though. Rauf tosses in this classic bit of Muslim Bullshit:
"...he believes that "eliminating suicide bombing will require that we address its underlying causes," which means re-evaluating U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding the Palestinians."

Game. Set. Match.

Fuck off Rauf - and take your "American Islam" with you.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 3:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Oops, I take it back about Lee - he gets it and clearly sees Rauf as another disingenuous Muslim apologist - sorry Mr Lee! My bad.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 4:03 Comments || Top||

#3  "eliminating suicide bombing will require that we address its underlying causes," which means re-evaluating U.S. foreign policy, especially regarding the Palestinians." When anyone starts rabbiting on about "underlying causes" just direct them to this link.
The Market for Martyrs
Posted by: tipper || 06/05/2004 6:44 Comments || Top||

#4  remember its all about root causes and its all our own fault :(
Posted by: Shep UK || 06/05/2004 7:54 Comments || Top||

#5  "After all, Islam has had plenty of Martin Luthers, the next Muslim reformer needs to be a Martin Luther King."

No, what they need is a pope. One with lots of property, perhaps a country or two to run. A pope who can say, "Knock it off, the American's are coming for my Sistine Chapel!" First have a pope, then we can talk about a reformation.
Posted by: Zpaz || 06/05/2004 10:52 Comments || Top||

#6  How bout this one,
as an American I am great insulted by the way Arabs treat the West, until this "death to American shit" ends, I say let's
bomb Arabs until they talk nice about us.
How's that for an underlining cause . . . .
Talk nice or die
learn to be human or feel the pain
grow up or shut up
Posted by: Anonymous5075 || 06/05/2004 11:22 Comments || Top||

#7  A5075 - Offer them "Cake or Death"? ;->
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 11:42 Comments || Top||

#8  There is that koran thing too. As long as that piece of fakeness is taught and "a hodgepodge of beliefs and practices that places great emphasis on mediators, or auliya’, who intercede with God on behalf of righteous petitioners. ...." then it's just a mind control, geopolitical threat to everbody. I say outlaw the koran. Bring that up at the UN and let the debate begin.

It's either submit or not!


Posted by: Lucky || 06/05/2004 12:06 Comments || Top||

#9  "eliminating suicide bombing will require that we address its underlying causes"

Yes, the underlying cause we need to prevent is the detonation of their explosives after they've left the confines of their mosque, barracks or bomb-factory (use as appropriate). Preignition seems to be solving a lot of the problems Israel is having with these two-legged vermin.

#5 "Knock it off, the American's are coming for my Sistine Chapel!"

Due to its origins in nomadic climes, Islam is by nature a decentralized religion. They will never have a primary figurehead like the Catholic pope. If only due to their internecine warfare, it will not happen.

However, this doesn't mean that they do not have a "Sistine Chapel." That they do indeed have in the form of Mecca and Medina. If and when we are obliged to appropriate the Saudi oil fields, a similar appropriation of these Islamic holy sites should be a top priority.

We have neither the time nor luxury of hoping for any sort of "reformation" coming from within Islam. Far too many of their adherents have adopted militant jihad and will not blanch at using the most horrific weapons imaginable.

This we must counter with the horrific notion (for them) that not a single Muslim on the face of this earth will ever again be allowed into their precious shrines until they purge their ranks of these barbaric psychotics.

Rest assured that if the Catholics were out advocating nuclear terrorism, the Sistine Chapel would be at the top of my Christmas list. The notion of universal Sharia law is so simultaneously repugnant and intolerable that it must be snuffed out like a birthday candle in a hurricane.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 16:21 Comments || Top||


Africa: Subsaharan
While his soldiers rape and pillage, the rebel general insists: ’We come in peace’
An air of colonial grandeur hangs over the governor’s residence in Bukavu. The white, Belgian-built mansion commands spectacular views over picturesque Lake Kivu. Its sprawling lawns would be ideal for a diplomatic cocktail party. But yesterday the governor was out. A pair of combat fatigues drying on the first floor balcony hinted at the new occupant - renegade army commander Brigadier-General Laurent Nkunda, who stormed into Bukavu at the head of a 1,000-soldier column last Wednesday. "We have come here in peace," said the lanky, lean-faced 36-year-old soldier with a coy smile. Brig-Gen Nkunda’s surprise offensive has plunged the democratic Republic of Congo into turmoil and stoked nervous fears of impending war. As his force advanced, the government defences crumbled. Some soldiers defected; others cast off their uniforms or fled to the surrounding hills.

The next day the furious Congolese President, Joseph Kabila blamed neighbouring Rwanda for being behind the attack. Rwanda has sparked two rebellions against Congo in the past eight years, and has close ties with Brig-Gen Nkunda. Across the country furious mobs surged through the streets holding anti-UN protests. Massive crowds burned UN vehicles, stoned officials and surrounded the UN headquarters in the capital, Kinshasa. In Bukavu, Brig-Gen Nkunda’s troops embarked on an orgy of pillage and rape against the city’s civilians. Yesterday, most of them had retreated to make-shift barracks near the city centre, but their leader remained at the governor’s mansion. The rebel leader said accusations of Rwanda involvement in his offensive were completely false: "That is a misunderstanding. Yes, they are our allies. Sometimes we speak by phone. But Rwanda is not behind this operation."

He said his troops had seized Bukavu to halt the "genocide" of the Banyamulenge - a minority Tutsi tribe with historical links to Rwanda. "They day they began to kill Banyamulenge, I started my march on Bukavu, my war," he said, stabbing the air with his finger. UN officials refute any suggestion of a genocide in Bukavu. So do some of his own troops, some of whom seem to be soldiers of fortune. "That is just a lie," said a soldier lounging on a chair by the mansion gate. Nevertheless ethnic tensions are accompanying the violence. Some Banyamulenge citizens were attacked after the attacks on Bukavu started last week, said UN officials. Another 2,000 people fled across the border to Rwanda.

There is little doubt that Brig-Gen Nkunda has strong links with Rwanda. Born into an ethnically Rwandan family in Congo, in 1993 he joined the Tutsi rebellion that seized control of Rwanda a year later. Since then he has fought with Rwanda or its proxies, and his long, gaunt face has drawn comparisons with the Rwandan president, Paul Kagame. But the rebel leader insists he is a Congolese like any other - and not just a fighter, but also a farmer. When not waging war he looks after his three farms in North Kivu province, where he has 800 cattle, he boasted. Their milk is so tasty that his troops carried 200 kilos of home-made cheese on their march to Bukavu.
It’s the cheese!
"They were our dry rations," he said. A former commander with the Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) rebels, Brig-Gen Nkunda refused to join the new Congolese army after a peace deal was signed last June. Now his attack on Bukavu has placed peace in great jeopardy.
I’ll take "African Genocide" for $800, Alex.
A game of cat-and-mouse with the UN is underway in Bukavu. On Thursday night the Swedish military commander, Brig-Gen Jan Isberg, announced Brig-Gen Nkunda had agreed to withdraw his troops "well outside" Bukavu. But yesterday Brig-Gen Nkunda said he was only leaving the city centre. The next move may be made by the Kinshasa government. After initially furious outbursts, President Kabila sounded a more conciliatory note on state television yesterday "The insurgents must lay down their arms and the Rwandan troops must retreat," he said, asking the UN to "get involved with more determination."
Next comes the stern lecture, then the furious finger shaking.
Brig-Gen Nkunda has laid down a list of conditions for the government, one of which is an investigation into the alleged Banyamulenge genocide. Human rights workers say this is ironic given that he is also wanted on war crimes charges. In May 2002 RCD-Goma brutally quelled an attempted coup in the northern diamond trading city of Kisangani. Over 160 suspected mutineers were executed, some of whom had their heads cut off before being thrown into the Tshopo River. Brig-Gen Nkunda was commander of the RCD Brigade in Kisangani at the time. "Basically he is a pretty nasty character who has committed numerous crimes and has never been brought to justice," said Anneke van Woundenberg of Human Rights Watch in London. Brig-Gen Nkunda has promised to complete his troops’ withdrawal by this afternoon. Yesterday some troops remained on the streets, including a small cluster who stood before a factory gate. "The beer factory," explained their commander. "We are very proud. It hasn’t been touched."
That’s just the alcohol talking.
But for many Bukavu residents, Brig-Gen Nkunda’s word of retreat do not mean much. As night fell, about 1,000 people bedded down on the lawn of the UN compound, sleeping behind a razor wire fence and the protection of 800 peacekeepers. One team of UN officers has rescued over 1,200 people, plucking them from their houses at night and racing through the deserted streets to safety in the fortified compound. "One family had been hiding in the roof for three days, others had been completely looted. There were many cases of rape," said UN officer Marcos Lorenzana. Another officer, Naomi Miyashita, crammed 30 people into her pick-up truck. "They were really terrified," she said. The two young officers prepared to go out in the deserted town again last night.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 2:43:34 AM || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sounds like part of the grand scheme for 'Greater Tutsiland'. Hutus, Congolese and other assorted riff-raff need not apply.
Posted by: Steve White || 06/05/2004 17:01 Comments || Top||


Nigerian state bans Muslim march
The Nigerian authorities have banned a procession by Muslims in the northern city of Kano, after appeals from Christian leaders. The police outlawed Saturday’s march by the Qadiriyya Sufi sect. It has been held annually for 59 years. Dozens of Christians were killed in communal clashes last month in Kano. The Christian Association of Nigeria said it had received information that the march would be hijacked by "agents of mass killing and destruction".

Religious tensions have been high in Nigeria since the massacre of hundreds of Muslims in the central Plateau State in May. "The police have no choice but to ban the procession. This is to avoid hoodlums from hijacking it and causing more mayhem," Kano State police spokesman Mohammed Baba said. "Many people are still displaced, and many wounds are yet to heal," he said. Kano is predominantly Muslim but there is a small Christian community, who were targeted in last month’s riots. The annual procession is held to commemorate the founder of their order Abdulkadir Jilani, who lived in Iraq in the 11th century. More than 10,000 people have been killed in ethnic, religious and political violence in the country since the end of military rule in 1999. Nigeria’s combined Christian and animist communities are roughly equal in size to its Muslim population, with the Christians living predominately in the south.
Posted by: Mark Espinola || 06/05/2004 1:13:35 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Once again we see journalit's bias and hipocrisy at work (probably funded by Saudi dollars). Religious tensions have not been high since the massacre of hundreds of Muslims a few weeks ago. They have been high since the continuous pogroms Muslims have been perpetrating for years. The news is that now the Chritians have begun to retaliate against Muslims.
Posted by: JFM || 06/05/2004 3:10 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
A Primer for Wymyn - Learning Your Place in Islam
via Taipei Times
The piece captures the situation quite well. Anti-Logic and Gentletwit should take it to heart and study it well. This should could be their future.

Silence is the dress code for women
AP , NAJAF, IRAQ
Saturday, Jun 05, 2004

Muqtada al-Sadr, the rebel cleric, has just finished his Friday sermon and his militiamen are securing the area around his car. One notices a woman, swathed in robe and head scarf. Everything but her face and hands are covered. Yet she is told to go stand in a corner, because the guards have to be alert and her "presence here confuses us."
"Is it because I’m a woman?" I ask.

"Yes. Please stand there."

"Why do you treat women as though we are the devil?"

"No, on the contrary, we respect them."

Another day, another skirmish. For a woman reporter, doing one’s job in Iraq’s holiest city is a constant battle of the sexes.

NO EXPOSURE
Each day begins with important dress decisions, depending on where one is going. Najaf, a city of several hundred thousand, is the home of the shrine of Ali, Shiite Islam’s most beloved saint, and to visit it, or call on any of al-Sadr’s lieutenants who congregate in the neighborhood, maximum coverage is advisable -- an ankle-length cloak called an abaya, plus head scarf and socks. Nothing must show but eyes, nose, mouth and hands -- never wrists.

A single strand of exposed hair will provoke shouting in the street.

Iraqi journalist Bushra Juhi adjusts her head scarf before going to work in Baghdad on Monday. For a woman reporter in Iraq, a hair out of place can cause an uproar. PHOTO: AP

I was first plunged into Najaf life a year ago, after the fall of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s regime freed pilgrims to converge in the hundreds of thousands on Ali’s shrine. It was a nightmarish experience in 38oC heat. To juggle a notebook, pen, handbag and cell phone, while constantly having my robes knocked askew by the jostling human lava pouring down the street, was impossible. Yet each tiny slip -- an errant strand of hair, a hem lifted to avoid the mud -- provoked shrieks from disapproving males.

"Haram!" -- it’s a sin -- they yelled.

Najaf people could be forgiven for erupting as they did after dec-ades of enforced secularism and oppression of Shiites. It seemed then that everyone was free to make up the rules as they went along -- and the tougher, the better.

Thirteen months later, things have eased somewhat. To visit a tribal leader, or a professor or businessman, the dress code is less stringent. But still, the pressure never lets up in Najaf, and it is applied to all women -- Western and Arab, Muslim and non-Muslim, journalist or not.

Perhaps worse than the asphyxiating dress code is to not be acknowledged as a professional, a reporter, a human being.

COLD SHOULDER
Because it is considered inappropriate for a woman to be out on her own and daring to ask questions, the man you’re talking to -- bureaucrat, cleric, armed militiaman -- won’t talk back to you. He’ll look away when you talk to him, and will talk back to the floor, the wall or any man who happens to be with you -- usually your driver.

The woman is supposed to be chaperoned by a mahram, a close male relative, but the driver will do if no one else is available.

Driving around presents its own challenge. It is considered shameful for a man to be seen in the back seat of the car with a woman in front next to the driver. A male Iraqi colleague from Najaf pleaded with me to let him sit in the front as we left a meeting with tribal chiefs who came to the door to say goodbye.

"They will say he is not a man to let a woman sit in the front," he said. I stayed put and told him it’s time the men got used to it.

MAKING MEN SIN
These constant clashes over stray hairs are exhausting, but can lead to interesting verbal exchanges. Last year a guard at the Ali shrine told me to cover my hair. I told him to mind his own business. He said it was his duty to "guide" me. But hadn’t he sinned simply by looking? No, he explained; I was the sinner, for making him sin.

Once a mullah walking toward me lifted his robe to avoid the mud, so I did the same. Wagging his finger, he yelled: "It’s wrong to pull up your abaya!"

So why was it OK for him?
"I am a man of religion, that’s different." he replied.

At one point, as I stood outside a mosque, a woman walked up and tried to rearrange my scarf for me. By then I was so frustrated that I lost my temper and tried to pull off her scarf.

She was stunned and appeared apologetic. She pointed to a man standing nearby and said he had told her to do it.
This is the easy stuff, there’s so much more.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 12:46:19 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Damn, I hosed the photo properties. Here's the missing (and telling) photo.

Apologies.
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 0:49 Comments || Top||

#2  learn your places, "gentle" and Antisemite!
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 13:45 Comments || Top||


Africa: Subsaharan
Rebels massacre 35 in Uganda camp
At least 35 people have been slaughtered in an attack by Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels on a displaced people’s camp in northern Uganda, UN aid officials and a priest said on Friday. “The rebels attacked Kalo-Obong Internal Displaced People’s camp in Kitgum district towards midnight on Thursday, killed 35 people, and 10 others were admitted at Kitgum Hospital with injuries,” said Farah Muktar, an official at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), by telephone from Kitgum. A Roman Catholic priest in Kitgum, Father Joseph Garnar, confirmed the attack. “We have not gathered detailed information about the attack, but many people were hacked to death, while others were burnt in their huts,” Garnar added.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 12:32:31 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa: North
Terror Suspect Said to Be Held by Algeria
NYT via Instapundit
Algerian forces took custody on Friday of a man believed to be one of North Africa’s most powerful Islamic terrorists in a highly unusual multinational operation
The Algerians can do multinational, why can’t the US?, asks the NYT
deep in the desert of Niger, according to an official from one of the countries involved. "From everything we’re hearing it is Al Para," the official said, referring to Amari Saifi, a terrorist with ties to Al Qaeda.
Also reputed to be the head of the GSPC...
Mr. Saifi is known as Al Para because he was trained as a Algerian special forces paratrooper before joining the country’s violent fundamentalist Islamic rebellion in the 1990’s. He is wanted in connection with many crimes, including his suspected role in the killing of 43 Algerian soldiers and the kidnapping of 32 European hostages,
So whose side is he on?
both last year.
Not a bad year.
Germany paid Mr. Saifi nearly $6 million in ransom for the hostages’ release, American and Algerian officials say.
Suckers!
He is reported to have used the money to recruit fighters and buy weapons for the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, which is fighting to establish an Islamic state in Algeria.
The Germans were shocked, Shocked!, I say, to hear that he did not donate the money to Oxfam
In March, Chadian rebels captured 17 members of the group after a battle near the border with Niger.
And didn’t kill them? Smart.
Mr. Saifi is believed to be among those captured. The rebel organization, the Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad, approached the United States and other countries involved in the American-led campaign against terrorism in hopes of delivering the prisoners and reaping a political benefit from its good deed.
These guys could be a source of CIA recruits.
But the group’s leaders insisted that someone go to them to retrieve the terrorists, complicating negotiations because the group lacks internationally recognized legal jurisdiction over territory in Chad.
Is there legal jurisdiction over anything in Chad except at the end of a gun barrel?
The controversy may have contributed to a split that erupted late last month among the Chadian rebel forces.
Bwana, we have a split erupting. Take shelter.
One commander took the three most senior members of Mr. Saifi’s group, all Algerians and including the man believed to be Mr. Saifi, and disappeared.
At least they didn’t bury him in a secret location to be dug up after the coast had cleared.
That set off a scramble by all parties involved to get Mr. Saifi from the Chadian commander.
Thus the classic party game, "Where’s Saifi?"
Other rebel leaders, the Algerian government and representatives of the Islamic group each negotiated with the commander by satellite telephone.
Thinking that the NSA coverage area didn’t extend to Africa. But now they do.
The Islamists are believed to have offered a substantial payment for Mr. Saifi’s release. It is not clear what the Algerians offered, but they appear to have been the high bidders won. The rebel commander, whose surname is Allatchi,
No Christian name.
according to his associates, agreed to a secret rendezvous with the Algerians in Niger on Friday. Hundreds of troops were involved in the operation, according to a rebel official who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said the chief of the Algerian Army, Gen. Muhammad Lamari, had directed the transfer.
No doubt he, or his soon to be widowed wife wil soon be e-mailing me regarding another lucrative transfer.
The remaining 14 members of the Islamic group who were caught are dinner still in the custody of the rebels, according to Aboubakar Rajab Dazi, a Paris-based spokesman for the group. His faction has continued to insist that the Algerians go to territory held by the group to retrieve the prisoners, who now include one from Mali, five from Nigeria and eight from Algeria.
Sounds like a UNICEF fundraiser. Does Kofi get a cut?
If Mr. Saifi is indeed in custody, he is expected to soon meet his 72 raisins stand trial in Algeria. Germany, which has issued an international warrant for his arrest, would also like to try him for the kidnappings last year, during which one hostage died of exposure.
Must have held him in Abu Ghraib
How far the Germans have fallen. First to pay ransom, then to issue a warrant to the kidnapper. How will they convince the next kidnapper a warrant won’t be issued?
Posted by: Mr. Davis || 06/05/2004 12:31:24 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan/South Asia
Two arrested suspects admit Al Qaeda link
A man who hurled a grenade on a Pakistani military checkpoint near the Afghan border and two other men arrested nearby were Uzbeks and members of Al Qaeda, a security official said on Friday.
Oh, I am just so surprised!
The attacker was shot dead by security forces at the checkpoint in North Waziristan on Thursday. Two paramilitary soldiers were injured in the incident. In a separate incident near the same checkpoint, security forces on Thursday arrested two Uzbeks, identified as Abdul Rahman and Abdullah. Earlier, army spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan confirmed the grenade attack and the arrest of several “foreigners,” but refused to disclose their identity or nationality.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 12:27:42 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq-Jordan
Fallujah adopts Taliban theocracy
In the wake of the U.S. Marines pullout, the Sunni city of Fallujah has become a Taliban-style theocracy, reports Geostrategy-Direct, the global intelligence news service.

In the city of 300,000, about 30 miles north of Baghdad, al Qaida-inspired clerics are the ruling authorities, backed by the guns of Saddam loyalists who have imposed their own version of Islamic law.

The comparison to Afghanistan under the Taliban is not coincidental.

Many of the clerics who have taken over Fallujah either studied in Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia or were urged to adopt the Taliban example.

As a result, women must cover their hair and faces. If they don’t, they are beaten in the streets. Naturally, beauty parlors have been shut down.

Men have been ordered to grow beards and barbers have been warned not to shave customers. Indeed, the barbers have been given strict guidelines on what kinds of haircuts are permissible.

Those selling or imbibing alcohol are now flirting with death. Already, several dealers have been flogged naked in the streets of Fallujah in full view of passersby. A man found drunk in Fallujah was also beaten to a pulp.

People have been encouraged or ordered to participate in the beatings.

The United States has deployed the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps in Fallujah. But security officers have not intervened as Al-Qaida-inspired gunmen direct traffic, harass businessmen and look for victims on the streets.

The Coalition Provisional Authority has a presence in Fallujah, but hasn’t done anything either.

Last month, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would not object to an Iraqi theocracy.

Posted by: tipper || 06/05/2004 12:21:10 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I set let them suffer until they come crying to us to save them from the mullahs and terrorists.
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 06/05/2004 1:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Hey, make that, a city of 299,000! More like it.
Posted by: smn || 06/05/2004 2:08 Comments || Top||

#3  I guess opening a bar with mud wrestling is right out then, eh? Likewise the pork processing plant?

Darn.

Shouldn't take these sorry, fun-hating bastards long to clear out anybody with a lick of sense, after which we can just raze the whole place.
Posted by: mojo || 06/05/2004 2:52 Comments || Top||

#4  Be very careful about what you wish for because someday you may get it.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 5:05 Comments || Top||

#5  [Off-topic or abusive comments deleted]
Posted by: Antiwar TROLL || 06/05/2004 6:38 Comments || Top||

#6  you'd rather have more Iraqis dead than living temporarily in flux, huh, Antisemite? Your blathering is tiresome, your logic undiscernible, you are truly a troll.
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 7:46 Comments || Top||

#7  An ugly, loathsome troll.
Posted by: docob || 06/05/2004 8:29 Comments || Top||

#8  I used to write that troll off as a naive kumbaya singer, but she continualy exposes herself as truly stupid. Maybe I should change my opinion on the matter.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 06/05/2004 9:07 Comments || Top||

#9  You sure do like that BDSM sex thing don't you Anti.How else do you explain your love of Saddam and his Rape Squads.This Taliban like thing won't go very far.
Posted by: Raptor || 06/05/2004 9:17 Comments || Top||

#10  Who got rid of the Taliban in the first place, Antisemite? You were in favor of that one, right?

I am looking forward to your words of support when the US flattens Fallujah and then Tehran.
Posted by: BMN || 06/05/2004 9:27 Comments || Top||

#11  not sure the veracity of this site, but check out the counterpoint to above:

Marine POV of Fallujah..
Posted by: Anonymous5131 || 06/05/2004 9:50 Comments || Top||

#12  actually, I was off the mark on Anti-semite in rereading her comment, she was just being truthful: "...Hi reap, this is Sow"
Posted by: Frank G || 06/05/2004 11:56 Comments || Top||

#13  Strategypage has a different take than Geostrategy-Direct. Then again, the latter is a 'professional' outfit, while the former merely has a lot of connections to troops in the field.
Posted by: Pappy || 06/05/2004 12:00 Comments || Top||

#14  #11 Anonymous5131

Your post of the link to the Marine point of view is really good. Thank you. It is interesting that the best reporting of the on the ground reality has not been from the press or embedded reporters, it has been from the marines and soldiers themselves.
Posted by: Jake || 06/05/2004 12:22 Comments || Top||

#15  Neat Link A5131. Reads like the real thing to me. So okay fine, the WoT is best fought in the dust of Iraq. It is a good thing.
Posted by: Lucky || 06/05/2004 12:31 Comments || Top||

#16  Pappy, the Take link confirms what Lt Suits said on his radio interview a few days ago.
Posted by: Lucky || 06/05/2004 12:37 Comments || Top||

#17  Jo antiwar this link is for you, check it out.
Posted by: Evert V. in NL || 06/05/2004 13:10 Comments || Top||

#18  Antiwar, are you delusional or just praying for the bad guys to win so you won't have to admit you're a babbling moron?
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 06/05/2004 13:24 Comments || Top||

#19  Has anyone seen the latest National Geographic.
A pretty good magazine right, it's got a good reputation right.
Iraqi Shiia under Saddam 5 to 7 million people murdered!!!

What a complete idiot this thing called "antiwar" is.
How do idiots like this live with themselves?
Is this the same person who says "partial birth abortion" is ok, but also say's smoking a cigarette on the beach should be outlawed?!?!?

These people make me so very very sick, the left is a sickness that must be crushed to be cured!be crushed to be cured!
Posted by: Long Hair Republican || 06/05/2004 14:49 Comments || Top||

#20  LHR,
I think that 5-7 million "disappeared" number in the Nat Geo article is misleading. The number includes 4-5 million exiles. The best guesstimate I have seen is 1-1.5 million dead during Saddam's reign, still a very substantial portion of the population.
Posted by: ed || 06/05/2004 15:12 Comments || Top||

#21  1-1.5 million dead during Saddam's reign

And yet, it seems, they have very short memories.
Posted by: Rafael || 06/05/2004 18:04 Comments || Top||

#22  Troll, maybe. Loathsome, definitely.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 06/05/2004 21:22 Comments || Top||

#23  Pappy, the Take link confirms what Lt Suits said on his radio interview a few days ago.

I've heard a lot good about him. BTW, Austin Bay, who contributes to Strategypage, is either in or on his way to the region.
Posted by: Pappy || 06/05/2004 23:42 Comments || Top||

#24  Pappy, cool!
Posted by: Lucky || 06/06/2004 1:18 Comments || Top||

#25  Hi Reap this is Sow, Sow this is Reap. This Islamic Theocracy would never have happened with Saddam.
Posted by: Antiwar || 06/05/2004 6:38 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Shakai operation will begin today
Yeah, yeah. We're impressed. Call us when the bodies have been counted...
WANA: A tribal operation against foreign terrorists in the Shakai region of South Waziristan Agency was not carried out on Friday. The search operation will start today (Saturday).
But don't tell the Bad Guys, okay?
The 4,000-strong lashkar could not leave for Shakai as Ahmedzai Wazir tribesmen did not attend a jirga (council meeting) in Azam Warsak because of a communication problem, a tribal elder said. However, some members of the lashkar’s 36-member advisory committee reached Shakai to arrange for the operation where a similar attempt was made last month, but the tribal army returned empty-handed, saying no foreign terrorists were found there.
"We asked around, and nobody'd seen any. Honest."
Tribal elders Malik Ba Khan and Malik Shirin Jan told the jirga that Yargulkhel sub-tribe members were barred from joning the lashkar because the clan was “responsible for the problems regarding foreign terrorists.”
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 11:55:45 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Brownturbans shut down Karachi
One man was killed and 12 others, including four policemen, were injured in Karachi on Friday during a strike called by the MMA against the assassination of Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai and the bomb explosion in Imambargah Ali Raza. Two vehicles were also set on fire in the evening. At least six policemen and an equal number of people were injured when mobs attacked Pirabad Police Station in the western part of the city. “The mobs attacked the police station, which left the police with no option but to fire teargas on the protestors in self-defence,” Imran Shaukat, head of the SITE Town police, told the Daily Times. He said the mobs broke into the police station, damaged two police mobile vans and three private vehicles and pelted the policemen with stones. Though police officials denied firing directly into the mobs, bullets injured six people who were also hospitalised. Witnesses said the police opened fire and lobbed teargas shells to disperse the rioters.

People barricaded the road leading to the Super Highway. Mostly residents of Afghan refugee camps, these rioters did not allow police and law enforcement agencies to clear the route till late evening. All bazaars, business centres, educational institutions remained closed while attendance in offices was minimal. Public transport did not run while only a few private vehicles were plying the roads. The city police chief, Tariq Jamil said there were sporadic incidents of violence but the city remained calm. He said 18,000 police and paramilitaries were deployed in sensitive localities of the. “We have intensified our patrolling and are carrying out aerial surveillance,” Mr Jamil said.

The strike was effective in all parts of the city, regardless of the party affiliations of the inhabitants. The former District Central, a stronghold of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, was completely shut down, including Azizabad where the party headquarters are. The city’s southern parts, including the PPP stronghold Lyari, were completely shut down. The city’s eastern and western parts were also closed down.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 11:34:53 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Bomb explodes in Sialkot bazaar
SIALKOT: A bomb exploded near a government school on Circular Road on Friday morning. The explosion, which damaged the building of Pall Science Secondary School and the office of a cellular phone company, did not cause any casualties. The explosion smashed the windows of nearby buildings. According to the police, a local explosive device weighing one pound was placed near the school building and the phone company office and went off at 4:37am. An additional superintendent of police told reporters that the bomb was meant for a nearby van stand and not the school since the latter opened at 8:00am. He said that SHO was responsible for the security of the area.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 11:43:05 PM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


34 held as Gilgit operation continues
GILGIT: The Northern Areas (NA) administration would continue its operation until miscreants were flushed out of their dens, Inspector General of Police (IGP) for the NA Sakhiullah Tareen told journalists on Friday. “We began an operation on Friday morning in Domiyal and arrested at least 34 miscreants involved in torching the Northern Areas Legislative Council Hall, damaging Gilgit Circuit House and burnig two Northern Areas Transport Corporation vehicles besides blocking River View Road,” the IGP said. Mr Tareen said some Army and police vehicles were also damaged when miscreants fired indiscriminately during the curfew hours. He said talks on the syllabi issue were progressing in a positive direction. He said that according to a formula, the Shia syllabi would be taught in Shia areas and students in Sunni areas would be taught their syllabi. Mr Tareen said curfew might be relaxed today (Saturday).
This is the rioting over the religious content of schoolbooks, not the rioting over dead mullahs and bombed-out mosques...
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 12:02:38 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thanks for the clarification. Heh heh. This rioting has subtleties that I never knew about.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 06/05/2004 14:34 Comments || Top||

#2  "This is the rioting over the religious content of schoolbooks, not the rioting over dead mullahs and bombed-out mosques..."

How can you tell, Fred? Cuz it's Saturday?
;-)
Posted by: .com || 06/05/2004 14:37 Comments || Top||


Dos and Don’ts of terrorism
LAHORE: A set of guidelines for militants, called a hidayat nama (or book of instructions), that was recently seized from a Harkat-ul-Mujahideen Alalmi (HMA) militant, instructs them not to divulge information if they are arrested, avoid meeting family members, not keep organisational literature and militants’ addresses on their person while they travel, always use code names, not to discuss operational matters with family and not to rely on Punjabis, among other directions.
I always make it a point not to trust Punjabis, too. Or Sindhis. And certainly not Pashtuns or Baluchis...
The booklet in Urdu and Arabic, Daily Times learned, was seized from HMA militant Murtaza, who was arrested from Karachi a few weeks ago. Murtaza was reportedly in charge of supplying weapons to militants in Pakistan and was in contact with Al Qaeda. The booklet also instructs militants on how to conduct themselves in public and what measures to take before and after they are arrested. It starts with the Islamic concept of martyrdom and says this should be every Muslim’s foremost goal.
Not enough of them make the trip to suit me...
“Don’t discuss personal matters with your companions. You are chosen in the way of Allah and family relationships and friendships should become insignificant in the way of God”, the booklet directs. The intriguing direction to militants - especially Arab and Afghan – against trusting Punjabis is thus explained; “Don’t rely on Punjabis if on mission or in transit, because most intelligence officials are from Punjab”. The booklet also instructs militants to be law-abiding, especially as far as vehicular documents are concerned, and not to quarrel with traffic police and police at check posts. The booklet also instructs militants not to lose their temper if lawmen insult members of their family, a routine tactic the booklet says law enforcement officials employ. An observer told Daily Times the instructions seemed similar to standard operating procedures that intelligence agents followed.
Posted by: Fred || 06/05/2004 12:05:51 AM || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hmmm, maybe some of Egypt's protection money foreign aid should be shifted to the Punjab.
I would advise terrorists to avoid contact with Reuters, the BBC, or Al Jazeerah, since these agencies employ nothing but CIA and Mossad spies. Every really knowledgeable terrorist knows that the laughably crude bias and thinly veiled propaganda are just a smokescreen.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 06/05/2004 1:33 Comments || Top||

#2  WHAT? You mean this is a public forum? HOLY SHIITE! Our media agents are in mortal danger.

Send out an emergency directive: all Reuters/BBC/AJ operatives out of Iraq and Palestine at once!

We can only hope that the terrorists are too stupid to pick up my error. Oh, the humanity!
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 06/05/2004 1:38 Comments || Top||

#3  They left out that part about the red wire and the blue wire.
Posted by: Zenster || 06/05/2004 2:47 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
91[untagged]

Bookmark
E-Mail Me

The Classics
The O Club
Rantburg Store
The Bloids
The Never-ending Story
Thugburg
Gulf War I
The Way We Were
Bio

Merry-Go-Blog











On Sale now!


A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Sat 2004-06-05
  Reagan passes away
Fri 2004-06-04
  Iraqi Police Nab Associate of al-Zarqawi
Thu 2004-06-03
  Tenet resigns
Wed 2004-06-02
  Chalabi Told Iran U.S. Broke Its Codes
Tue 2004-06-01
  Padilla wanted to boom apartment buildings
Mon 2004-05-31
  Egypt to Yasser: Reform or be removed
Sun 2004-05-30
  Khobar slaughter; 3 out of 4 terrs get away
Sat 2004-05-29
  16 Dead in Al Khobar Attack
Fri 2004-05-28
  Iran establishes unit to recruit suicide bombers
Thu 2004-05-27
  Captain Hook Jugged!
Wed 2004-05-26
  4 arrested in Japanese al-Qaeda probe
Tue 2004-05-25
  Sarin confirmed!
Mon 2004-05-24
  Toe tag for 32 Mahdi Army members
Sun 2004-05-23
  Qaeda planning hot summer for USA?
Sat 2004-05-22
  Car Bomb Kills 4, Injures Iraqi Minister

Better than the average link...



Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
3.89.72.221
Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
WoT Background (34)    (0)    (0)    (0)    (0)