KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan urged neighboring Pakistan to do more to curb militancy on their shared frontier, drawing an angry rebuke from Islamabad which has deployed 80,000 soldiers to the region.
You'd think 80,000 soldiers could put a dent in the problem ...
Some 2,500 American and Afghan soldiers are waging an ongoing campaign, dubbed Operation Mountain Lion, to hunt down extremists allied to this countrys toppled Taliban regime and their Al Qaida allies, along with armed criminals active in the region. Opposite Kunar on the Pakistani side off the border, Pakistani forces have deployed in remote villages to stop militants fleeing the US-Afghan operation seeking shelter in this countrys eastern neighbor.
They are among tens of thousands Pakistani soldiers deployed in its tribal regions to counter increased attacks on Pakistani forces, hunt extremists at large in the region and stop militants crossing back and forth across the border.
But Afghan President Hamid Karzais spokesman on Tuesday demanded Pakistan increase efforts to curb terrorism in their frontier region that stretches 2,450 kilometers (1,470 miles). We demand more and better cooperation from Pakistan, as well as the international community, against terrorism, Karzai spokesman Rahim Karimi told reporters. Afghanistan should shake hands as friends with Pakistan and work together in the struggle against terrorism.
Afghan officials suspect sections of Pakistans secret services may still be aiding extremist elements inside Afghanistan, claims Pakistan denies.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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You'd think 80,000 soldiers could put a dent in the problem ...
They could Doc, if they were on our side.
#2
I dunno, take 80,000; adjust downward for the inefficiency of Paki troops (and i assume they put their best opposite the Hindoos in Kashmir) and what have ya got? A force thats probably weaker than the 15,000 or so coalition forces + 30,000 afghan national army forces on the other side of the border, facing what is probably a stronger Taliban/AQ force, with more intense local support.
Previously unseen photographs reveal how religious zealots obsessed with idolatory have colluded with developers to destroy Islam's diverse heritage. By Daniel Howden
Published: 19 April 2006
There is a growing shadow being cast over Islam's holiest site. Only a few metres from the walls of the Grand Mosque in Mecca skyscrapers are reaching further into the sky, slowly blocking out the light. These enormous and garish newcomers now dwarf the elegant black granite of the Kaaba, the focal point of the four million Muslims' annual Haj pilgrimage.
The tower blocks are the latest and largest evidence of the destruction of Islamic heritage that has wiped almost all of the historic city from the physical landscape. As revealed in The Independent last August,the historic cities of Mecca and Medina are under an unprecedented assault from religious zealots and their commercial backers.
Writing in response to the article, Prince Turki al-Faisal said that Saudi Arabia was spending more than $19bn (£11bn) preserving and maintaining these two holy sites. "[We are aware] how important the preservation of this heritage is, not just to us but to the millions of Muslims from around the world who visit the two holy mosques every year. It is hardly something we are going to allow to be destroyed."
This rebuttal sits at odds with a series of previously unseen photographs, published today, that document the demolition of key archaeological sites and their replacement with skyscrapers.
Saudi religious authorities have overseen a decades-long demolition campaign that has cleared the way for developers to embark on a building spree of multi-storey hotels, restaurants, shopping centres and luxury apartment blocks on a scale unseen outside Dubai. The driving force behind this historical demolition is Wahhabism the austere state faith that the House of Saud brought with it when Ibn Saud conquered the Arabian peninsula in the 1920s.
The Wahhabis live in fanatical fear that places of historical or religious interest could give rise to alternative forms of pilgrimage or worship. Their obsession with combating idolatry has seen them flatten all evidence of a past that does not agree with their interpretation of Islam.
Irfan Ahmed al-Alawi, the chairman of the Islamic Heritage Foundation, set up to help protect the holy sites, says the case of the grave of Amina bint Wahb, the mother of the Prophet, found in 1998, is typical of what has happened. "It was bulldozed in Abwa and gasoline was poured on it. Even though thousands of petitions throughout the Muslim world were sent, nothing could stop this action."
Today there are fewer than 20 structures remaining in Mecca that date back to the time of the Prophet 1,400 years ago. The litany of this lost history includes the house of Khadijah, the wife of the Prophet, demolished to make way for public lavatories; the house of Abu Bakr, the Prophet's companion, now the site of the local Hilton hotel; the house of Ali-Oraid, the grandson of the Prophet, and the Mosque of abu-Qubais, now the location of the King's palace in Mecca.
Yet the same oil-rich dynasty that pumped money into the Taliban regime as they blew up the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan six years ago has so far avoided international criticism for similar acts of vandalism at home. Mai Yamani, author of The Cradle of Islam, said it was time for other Muslim governments to ignore the al-Sauds' oil wealth and clout and speak out. " What is alarming about this is that the world doesn't question the al-Sauds' custodianship of Islam's two holy places. These are the sites that are of such importance to over one billion Muslims and yet their destruction is being ignored," she said. "When the Prophet was insulted by Danish cartoonists thousands of people went into the streets to protest. The sites related to the Prophet are part of their heritage and religion but we see no concern from Muslims."
Lay people, and in some cases even US senators could be forgiven for thinking that the House of Saud has been the guardian of the two holy places for time immemorial. In fact, it is only 80 years since the tribal chieftain Ibn Saud occupied Mecca and Medina. The House of Saud has been bound to Wahhabism since the 18th century religious reformer Mohamed Ibn Abdul-Wahab signed a pact with Mohammed bin Saud in 1744. Wahab's warrior zealots helped to conquer a kingdom for the tribal chieftains. The House of Saud got its wealth and power, and the clerics got the vehicle of state they needed to spread their fundamentalist ideology around the world. The ruler of this fledgling kingdom needed the legitimacy afforded by declaring himself " custodian of the two holy places".
But that legitimacy has come at an enormous price for the diversity of Muslims who look to Mecca for guidance. Once in charge, the Wahhabists wasted little time in censoring the Haj. As early as 1929, Egyptian pilgrims were refused permission to celebrate the colourful Mahmal rites and more than 30 were killed. At the time Egypt severed diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. Few governments have stood up to them since.
Instead, the homogenisation of Islam's holiest sites was allowed to accelerate into a demolition campaign that now threatens the birthplace of the Prophet itself. The site survived the early reign of Ibn Saud 50 years ago when the architect for the planned library persuaded the absolute ruler to allow him to preserve the remains under the new structure. Saudi authorities now plan to "update" the site with a car park that would mean concreting over the remains.
"The al-Sauds need to rein in the Wahhabists now," warns Dr Yamani. "Mecca used to be a symbol of Muslim diversity and it needs to be again." But with oil prices and profits, at record highs, there is little sign the House of Saud is listening.
Sami Angawi, a Hijazi architect who has devoted his life to a largely doomed effort to preserve what remains of the history of the world's greatest pilgrimage sites, said that the final farewell to Mecca was imminent. " What we are witnessing are the last days of Mecca and Medina."
Mecca's skyline
Giant cranes and half-constructed skyscrapers tower over the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Six new property developments, including the Bin Laden group's Zam Zam Tower, are transforming the character of Islam's holiest city
Mountain of light
The mountain of light, or al-Nour, is next in the Wahhabis' sights. Home to the Hira'a cave, it was here that the Prophet is said to have received the first verses of the Koran. Hardline clerics want it destroyed to stop pilgrims visiting. At the foot of the hill there is a Wahhabi fatwa: " The Prophet Mohamed (PBUH) did not permit us to climb on to this hill, not to pray here, not to touch stones, and tie knots on trees..."
The Prophet's wife's grave
The ruins in the foreground are the remains of the grave of the Prophet's wife, Al Baqi, destroyed in the 1950s. The mutawi religious police are present night and day to prevent anyone placing flowers on the site, or even praying in the proximity of the graves
Al Oraid Mosque
The 1,200-year-old mosque, site of the grave of the Prophet's grandson al-Oraid, is seen here being dynamited. Gathered around the site are Saudi religious police with their distinctive red scarves, who appear to be celebrating
Posted by: john ||
04/19/2006 18:26 ||
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Dynamite?
The Saudis need to upscale .. PNEs (nuclear exposives) are the way to go.. that Kaaba thing is occupying valuable real estate space...
Posted by: john ||
04/19/2006 18:35 Comments ||
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Let them have free reign. Let them erase all signs of Mohammed's existence from the planet.
Save the rest of the world from a hell of a lot of trouble later.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/19/2006 18:52 Comments ||
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Maybe the Wahhabis seem to be doing an excellent job of destroying islam. All signs of a Profit all the holy places. the Wahhabi idolatry of power will do more to destroy islam than the west could do. Touble is, how much longer will muslims submit to lunacy disguised as "most pious expression"?
Decades more, I fear. But this is good press for the insanity of the House of Saud and their deal with the sand devils.
#4
The Wahhabis live in fanatical fear that places of historical or religious interest could give rise to alternative forms of pilgrimage or worship. Their obsession with combating idolatry has seen them flatten all evidence of a past that does not agree with their interpretation of Islam.
"Not Muslim enough" comes to Mecca. Must be their version of NIMBY...
April 19, 2006: One of the more successful counter-terrorism operations was pulled off in plain sight. Saudi and Jordanian counter-terrorism officers apparently set up a number of pro-terrorist sites on the web, and went on to acquire a reputation of providing accurate and reliable information for fans, and practitioners, of Islamic terrorism. The operation was revealed when some of the site users accused the site operators of playing a role in the prompt round up of Islamic terrorists after the recent failed attempt to bomb Saudi oil facilities earlier this year. Apparently, the web sites were collecting useful information on their users, which allowed counter-terrorism agencies to track many active Islamic terrorists in Saudi Arabia.
While several sites are now gone, more can be set up by counter-terrorism organizations. Moreover, many potential users of such sites are now reluctant to get involved. These pro-terror web sites have long been a powerful recruiting tool. Not so much any more.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/19/2006 09:26 ||
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Keep it up.
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/19/2006 16:50 Comments ||
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Ahle Hadith Andolan Bangladesh (Ahab) leaders at a public meeting on Monday night threatened to launch tougher programmes if its four top leaders, including its chief Asadullah Al Galib, were not released from jail before May 25.
"Launch tougher programs" means they're going to riot. So what else is new?
They will announce their programmes at a public meeting in Paltan in the capital on May 26, if their demand was not met. Ahab Satkhira unit and Ahle Hadith Jubo Sangstha jointly organised the meeting which was held at Banshdah Bazar with the district Ahab chief Abdul Mannan in the chair. Speakers at the meeting said a partner of the ruling four-party alliance misguided the government into arresting Galib. They said the party had Ahab chief and others arrested to cover up its links with militant outfits. They said the party would destroy BNP and that the party is gaining strength at the cost of BNP.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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Hang them May 24th, then "Release" their remains
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/19/2006 20:14 Comments ||
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About 100 people were injured yesterday afternoon as a group of BNP cadres and then police locked horns with a few thousand Jubo League members and supporters at Lalbagh in Old Dhaka. Local Awami League (AL) leader Haji Selim, some 15 policemen, and four journalists were among those wounded in the three-hour clashes.
"The bastards got Haji Selim! Medic! Medic!"
Witnesses said the skirmishing erupted at about 2:45pm when a Jubo League procession led by Haji Selim came face to face with a group of over 100 alleged associates and supporters of local BNP lawmaker Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu at Chaukbazar Crossroads.
"Harrrr! Ain't nobody stages a percession on my turf!"
According to a pre-planned schedule, members and supporters of the main opposition AL and its youth wing from Lalbagh and the adjacent areas were to assemble in Azad Playground before marching toward Paltan to join yesterday's Jubo League grand rally. But, BNP men had occupied the playground beforehand.
"We'll occupy the playground afore they gets here! Mahmoud! Take yer boyz over by the swing set! Ahmed! Dig in there by the merry-go-round! Mustafa! Get some landmines in that sandbox!"
To avoid any confrontation, the AL and Jubo League members assembled in Lalbagh Shahi Masjid area, instead of the playground.
"Hot damn! That playground looks more like the Western Front! Why don't we assemble over here by the old Masjid?"
From there they were marching towards Paltan through Chuakbazar when they confronted Pintu's men.
"Harrr! Youse can't percess through here widdout our say-so, an' we don't say so!"
After a heated exchange of words,
"A curse on yez, Jubo League!"
"Yer mudder wears combat boots!"
"Well, your mudder is sooooooo fat....!"
the BNP cadres pounced on the opposition men
"Get 'em, boyz!"
and then both sides engaged each other, wielding sticks and hurling brickbats, locals described. Soon two crude bombs went off.
[KABOOM! KABOOM!]
After about five minutes of the scramble, the BNP men retreated.
"Bring up the shutter gun!"
"Retreat! Retreat!"
But, the furious Jubo League members ran amok, setting fire to two motorbikes, damaging some three-wheelers, a vehicle of Dhaka City Corporation and a rickshaw-van,
"Yarrr! Smash the rickshaw!"
ransacking several shops,
"A ladies' underwear shop! Let's ransack it, boyz!"
throwing brickbats at police,
[HEAVE!]
[THUMP!]
"Ow!"
and burning banners, torn cloths and paper boxes in the compound of Lalbagh Police Station. A few hundred police led by Dhaka Metropolitan Police (South) Additional Deputy Commissioner M Shahriar Rahman then went into action
"Charge!"
lobbing about 300 teargas shells at the agitators, who pelted the law enforcers with brickbats in return. The two sides chased and counter-chased,
Was this produced by Hal Roach?
when police too threw stones at the demonstrators. Police also charged baton, and discharged salvoes of rubber bullets and pellets to scatter the opposition mob.
And a wonderful time was had by all...
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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According to a pre-planned schedule...
Assemble
March
Confront
Heated Exchange of Words
Pounce
Riot
Run Amok
Brickbats
Chase
Counter Chase
Tear Gas
Lunch
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
04/19/2006 13:21 Comments ||
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#8
Bangla Boyz make a big noise
Seething in the street gonna have big feets some day
You got mud on yo face
You big disgrace
Kickin your can all over the place
We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you
Playin youre a young man hard man
Shoutin in the street gonna take on the world some day
You got blood on yo face
You big disgrace
Wavin your banner all over the place
We will we will rock you
We will we will rock you
Luddy youre an old man poor man
Pleadin with your eyes gonna make you some peace some day
You got mud on your face
You big disgrace
Somebody better put you back in your place
April 19, 2006: Britain is converting one of its infantry battalions into a commando unit. The British Army, which pioneered the development of modern commando operations, disbanded all its commando units after World War II. But the Royal Marines, which also had formed commando battalions, kept theirs. Eventually, all Royal Marine infantry units became commandoes, as they are to this day. The British marines take a dim view of the new British army commandoes, and are planning to use the new army battalion for second line (guard duty and such) operations for a year or so. In that time, the army commandoes will have an opportunity to get the training they need to operate at commando level.
The original commandoes were formed after France fell in mid 1940. At that time, there were plenty of British soldiers eager to volunteer for a unit that was going to fight back right away. The major problem was the resistance of commanders reluctant to see their best troops volunteer for these new units. This was partly solved by forming two of the units from independent companies raised earlier in the year from reservists. These "independent companies" were sort of commandos, but mainly they were to be used when a small unit of infantry (an infantry company has about 150 men) were needed to land in a coastal area and destroy something an approaching enemy might want (port and communications facilities, air fields and the like.) These independent companies were formed using men who had been discharged from the army over the past few years after serving seven year enlistments and were now in the reserves. These men were thus experienced, a little older (and wiser) and not already part of a unit that didn't want to lose them.
The eleven "Independent Companies" were used for raids from the sea against German facilities, or small garrisons, in Norway. Four of these companies had already been used in a May, 1940 as part of the British operations around Narvik, Norway. So there were already many officers in the army who were open to the idea of commandos. But the "Independent Companies" were just volunteer infantrymen, who were willing to undertake very risky raiding operations.
The British had a tradition for raiding type operations, especially over the last two centuries. This sort of thing was not seen as totally alien. Officers who served in Britain's numerous colonies had developed and used raiding type operations to deal with bandits or guerillas. British historians had made much of the experience with "Rangers" in North America (both before and during the American Revolution) and light infantry units during the campaigns Napoleon in Spain in the early 19th century. More recent experiences, against Boers at the turn of the century, von Lettow Vorbeck's Askaris in Africa during World War I, and the German storm troopers at the end of World War I, had made a strong impression on the World War II generation of British generals. While some commanders muttered about commandos being "private armies', there was enough enthusiasm for the project to see it got going with a minimum of interference.
Initially, each "commando" was a battalion size unit of some 600 men, with the fighting elements being ten fifty man troops (a British term for platoons). In early 1941 this was changed to six troops of 65 men each. This was dictated by the capacity of the newly developed amphibious landing craft the troops used on many of their raids. An assault landing craft (LCA) could hold 35 troops (or 800 pounds of equipment), so each commando needed two LCAs.
By the end of the war, Britain had ten army "commandos" (as the commando battalions were called), and all were disbanded, along with all other commando units (like the SAS). The Royal Marines kept three of their nine commandos. The British revived the even more elite SAS in the 1950s, but the Royal Marine Commandos have the distinction of being the longest serving commando unit.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/19/2006 09:37 ||
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The werd "Revives" sounds much superior to "Transformation."
The British government said Monday it plans to argue that Saudi officials accused of torturing Britons should be immune from lawsuits in British civil courts. Britain will back the Saudi position in a hearing before Britain's highest court next week in a case brought by four men who say they were tortured into confessing to involvement in a series of bombings in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The infamous alk runners. The attacks in 2000-2001 killed an American and a Briton.
In October 2004, Britain's Court of Appeal ruled that while the Saudi government is immune from prosecution, individuals who conducted torture could be sued. Britain will argue that the court erred in making that distinction, said Peter O'Connor, a spokesman for Britain's Department of Constitutional Affairs. "You can't come to the (United Kingdom) and sue a foreign state for actions that occurred in that state," O'Connor said.
Justice officials said their involvement was purely intended to clarify the country's position in international law and not to justify the actions of the Saudi government. "This isn't about supporting torture," he said. "We condemn torture." The case is expected to be heard April 26.
Posted by: ed ||
04/19/2006 00:18 ||
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Does NOT bode well for the Left's future Commie-Socialist Secular Scientifist "Man is God" World Order, now does it!? Obviously not one or some of the 500,000-1.2Bilyuhn human survivors Lefty Radical intellectuals want to go living in the post-America world.
#2
Next, Fidel announces the publication of a Koran handwritten in his own blood.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/19/2006 6:20 Comments ||
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#3
Cuban leader Fidel Castro's government has long maintained good relations with most Muslim countries. It strongly supported Yasser Arafat, the late leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and had close contacts with former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Cuba also has close political and trade links to Iran, which is predominantly Shiite
#6
So the converts are now asking for permission to build a mosque in Havana. ''Cuba is the only Latin American country without a mosque, and where there's no mosque it is very difficult to establish social exchanges,'' Cossío said. For now, though, that would seem unlikely. For years, the Islamic diplomatic community asked for one but had to resort to makeshift prayer halls in diplomatic compounds. And Cuba has been all but barring other religions from building new temples.
Ah, but some "understanding" can surely be reached amongst the wise heads of Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran. What's a few souls when balanced with rivers of oil?
#11
Yeah, but the article talks about 70 diehards. That's a pretty good hard boy brigade, when the intifada goes live. It also seems to me that a lot of down-and-out cubanos would gladly receive Allan's message that it's all the fault of the Jooos. And I think that Abu al-Havani would not mind diverting his subjects' righteous anger, and undercutting all those meddlesome priests.
#14
Y'all are barking up the wrong tree.
Unka Fidel has spent better than 30 years telling his Subjects "It's all the Evil Americans Fault"
To suddenly switch the message to "It's all the Joos fault" would make too many people think "What the Fuck?"
The regeme could not stand the shockwaves, Fidel has surely hand picked his successor and would not want this turmoil so near succession.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/19/2006 20:24 Comments ||
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#15
Sorry, should read "Better than 50 years"
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/19/2006 20:27 Comments ||
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#16
Y'all are barking up the wrong tree.
Unka Fidel has spent better than 30 years telling his Subjects "It's all the Evil Americans Fault"
To suddenly switch the message to "It's all the Joos fault" would make too many people think "What the Fuck?"
You're forgetting that the prime element of "it's all the Joos fault" is that the Joos control America. Castro doesn't need to change his villains, just explain who's pulling strings.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/19/2006 20:46 Comments ||
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Indian base in Tajikistan to be operational in 2006
Rahul Bedi JDW Correspondent
New Delhi
India's first international military base is expected to become operational by the end of 2006 in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, as part of New Delhi's thrust into the oil-rich Central Asian Region (CAR).
Official sources said once the base is completed the Indian Air Force (IAF) is planning to deploy a squadron of Russian Aircraft Corporation MiG-29s to Aini, 15 km from Dushanbe, for varying periods in two of three hangars that are being built by India's quasi-military Border Roads Organisation (BRO).
The third hangar will be utilised by the Tajik Air Force which is being trained by IAF personnel following the April 2002 defence co-operation agreement between New Delhi and Dushanbe. For this purpose the IAF also plans on stationing trainer aircraft at Aini. The IAF is also helping Tajikistan retrofit its Soviet and Russian fighters while Indian civilian and military personnel are teaching Tajik service personnel English.
Military sources said the BRO, supervised by a contingent of army and air force personnel, is expected to complete the restoration of Aini by 9 September.
India's Ministry of Defence declined to comment on its military's role in rebuilding the Tajik air base, but defence planners said it would provide India with "longer strategic reach" in the CAR once IAF fighters begin landing and assist its efforts to secure much needed oil contracts. The air base's refurbishment includes restoring its runway, an aircraft taxiing track and parking apron, as well as building accommodation for a sizeable Indian defence contingent.
India's energy requirements are expected to more than double by 2010 from 1.9 million barrels per day to around 4 million barrels per day. India has also been seeking alternative fuel sources in the CAR through a combination of purchasing oil blocks, constructing pipelines and conducting barter trade. India's recent diplomatic thrust into the CAR has also been triggered by the region's security realignments. The ensuing conflict of interest in the area between India's Cold War ally, Russia, the US, its strategic partner and nuclear rival China is also fuelling Delhi's Central Asian policy.
Former Brigadier Arun Sahgal of the United Service Institution in Delhi said: "Though India remains powerless to engineer or overtly influence the ensuing New Game, its size, military and nuclear capability make it a not altogether insignificant part of the emerging complex jigsaw".
Indian Navy to lease station in Madagascar
The Indian Navy is planning on a high tech monitoring station in Northern Madagascar to combat piracy in the Indian Ocean, terrorism and other crimes.
Crime in the high seas has shot up in the last four years, particularly in the Indian Ocean, but there is lack of timely law enforcement in the absence of infrastructure and coordination among states.
India will pay $2.5 million to lease the station, because it apprehends threats to its strategic naval assets and its political, economic and military interests in Africa, which has become a second base for the Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.
The station will have high-tech digital communication systems.
Posted by: john ||
04/19/2006 19:11 ||
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Blending ancient martial arts theory and the knowledge of the high-tech era, the authors explain how the strong can be defeated by the weak through merciless unconventional methods: 'the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.'
Fifty years ago, China invaded Tibet. What was the first task of the 'Liberation's Army'? 'To defend the western borders', Mao stated.
On the ground, it meant building new roads leading to India (including the Aksai Chin road on Indian territory). The same roads were used 12 years later to invade India. The Chinese always plan years in advance.
The 'beyond Taiwan policy' [mentioned in the first part of this article] brings to my mind the railway line scheduled to reach Lhasa, the Tibetan capital in July 2006. In February 2001, the 1,118-kilometer railway stretch from Golmud (the current terminus of the Qinghai-Tibet railway) to Lhasa received the final approval from the Chinese State Council. Since then, work has been undertaken on a war-footing by the Chinese ministry of railways.
The arrival of the train will open new vistas for the PLA. It will allow the Chinese generals to open a new ballistic missiles theater in a very short time and will facilitate a rapid redeployment in case of need. Firepower could be directed to India in a much more effective manner using the railway to transfer missiles to launching silos hidden in the Himalayan region.
In a China Brief of the Jamestown Institute a couple of years ago, William Triplett described some of the rail advantages for the tactical and strategic new potentialities of China defense program: 'With this railroad in place the PLA will have excellent hiding places for its new rail-mobile ICBM, the DF-31A. If the PLA follows the Russian lead and rail-bases its ICBMs, each missile train could carry up to thirty nuclear warheads capable of destroying any strategic target in Japan and many in Western United States.'
This is all the more true for the Medium Range and the Short Range missiles; the extension of the rail track to Lhasa can be seen as the most important change in the Himalayan region since the building of strategic roads in Tibet in the '50s.
The missile launch brigades based in Datong and Wulan near Xining (Qinghai Province) could then easily be transferred to the Lhasa region. India would suddenly become 1,000 km closer for the Medium and Short Range missiles.
These 'details' are not mentioned in the Pentagon report as Washington is not too much bothered about India's interests. One has to admit that Delhi itself does not seem bothered about the train reaching Lhasa. After all, the relationship between India and China is said to have improved so greatly since the UPA is in power and according to many, the time has come to think positively.
While the 2005 report outlines ' China's national and military strategies, progress and trends in its military modernization, and their implications for regional security and stability', the grave threat caused by the train to India's security and the change of military balance brought by it to the Tibetan plateau is mentioned nowhere. The train is also not mentioned in the QDR, obviously it is not a security threat for the US.
In December 2004, an interesting White Paper on defense was published by the Chinese government. When reading it for the first time, I could not grasp a concept mentioned several times by its acronym RMA (Revolution in Military Affairs). This theory made full sense only after I read one of the most scary books on military affairs.
Unrestricted Warfare is written by two extraordinarily brilliant senior colonels belonging to the People's Liberation Army. The Literature and Arts Publishing House in Beijing published the research of Colonels Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui.
Qiao and Wang started their fascinating research with the US's success against Saddam Hussein's army during the Gulf War of 1990-1991. In fact, Unrestricted Warfare is a war manual detailing how a nation like China can face the technologically advanced US army, overcome this advantage and defeat the enemy.
The book came to the notice of the CIA after the September 11 attacks, because several times in Unrestricted Warfare China's military planners suggest ways in which terrorists (bin Laden is specifically mentioned), could wage a new, unrestricted war against America.
In their foreword, the editors of Unrestricted Warfare point out the authors' 'advocacy of a multitude of means, both military and particularly non-military, to strike at the United States during times of conflict.'
Blending ancient martial arts theory and the knowledge of the high-tech era, the authors explain how the strong can be defeated by the weak through merciless unconventional methods: 'the first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.'
They say: 'Whether it be the intrusions of hackers, a major explosion at the World Trade Center, or a bombing attack by bin Laden, all of these greatly exceed the frequency bandwidths understood by the American military This is because they have never taken into consideration and have even refused to consider means that are contrary to tradition and to select measures of operation other than military means.'
The mention of bombing the WTC resulted in US security agencies translating the book and circulating it widely.
The Chinese White Paper on Defense put it thus: 'The forms of war are undergoing changes from mechanization to informationalization... Confrontation between systems has become the principal feature of confrontation on the battlefield. Asymmetrical, non-contiguous and non-linear operations have become important patterns of operations.'
After reading Unrestricted Warfare I understood the meaning of RMA, or asymmetric warfare.
One chapter speaks of 'Ten Thousand Methods Combined as One: Combinations That Transcend Boundaries'. It is the art of combining different elements of these various forms of warfare. What are these forms?
Terrorism is of course mentioned the most often, but it is just one of the many ways of unconventional warfare identified by Unrestricted Warfare. To cite a few others:
*
financial warfare. Financial war is a form of non-military warfare which is just as terribly destructive as a bloody war, but in which no blood is actually shed.
*
psychological warfare (spreading rumours to intimidate the enemy and break down his will);
*
smuggling warfare (throwing markets into confusion and attacking economic order);
*
media warfare (manipulating what people see and hear in order to lead public opinion along);
*
drug warfare (obtaining sudden and huge illicit profits by spreading disaster in other countries);
*
network warfare (venturing out in secret and concealing one's identity in a type of warfare that is virtually impossible to guard against);
*
technological warfare (creating monopolies by setting standards independently);
*
fabrication warfare (presenting a counterfeit appearance of real strength before the eyes of the enemy);
*
resources warfare (grabbing riches by plundering stores of resources);
*
economic aid warfare (bestowing favour in the open and contriving to control matters in secret);
*
cultural warfare (leading cultural trends along in order to assimilate those with different views);
*
international law warfare (seizing the earliest opportunity to set up regulations);
* environmental warfare (weakening a rival nation by despoiling natural environment).
This last point reminds me of the recurrent floods of the Sutlej (and the breaching of the dam on the Pareechu river). Despite an official agreement with the PCR, Delhi has been unable to prevent or even monitor such recurrences.
Another type of warfare (not mentioned by the authors) could be added: demographical warfare which has already been 'successfully' experimented by Beijing in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet (and by Bangladesh in Assam).
The authors send a spine-chilling warning: 'When people begin to rejoice in the reduced use of military force to resolve conflicts, war will be reborn in another form and in another arena'.
It is perhaps time for the Indian 'thinking' generals to reflect in a more asymmetrical way.
While keeping a friendly attitude towards its neighbours, they should start surveying ways to counter these new forms of war which are not different from the ones taught by Sun Tzu in his Art of War over 2000 years ago or by Mao Zedong more recently.
This book makes interesting reading in the newly perceived threat coming from China and the recent QDR. The main debate on the separation of the nuclear and civilian facilities will probably continue to rage in India and analysts as well as political parties will be divided on the extent of compromise to be offered to President Bush.
This will probably overshadow the second point of the US plan: to use Delhi to counter the rise of China. The QDR makes it clear that the US objective is to: 'dissuade any military competitor from developing disruptive or other capabilities that could enable regional hegemony or hostile action against the United States or other friendly countries and it will seek to deter aggression or coercion.'
It is where India is needed, because for Washington, 'Should deterrence fail, the United States would deny a hostile power its strategic and operational objectives.'
Washington will need a base and a 'strategic partner' to fight its proxy war. Delhi has to be cautious not to be enticed by the United States in the nuclear business: there is no free meal from the superpower, and though China might be the major threat for India in the years to come, Delhi does not have to fight on behalf of others.
In the meantime, China has strongly protested against the QDR for 'playing up the China military threat.'
A foreign ministry spokesman said that China has lodged a serious representation to the US: 'The QDR irrationally criticized China's normal defense construction.' He added that the move 'interfered in China's internal affairs and could mislead public opinion'.
But this does not change the problem.
Posted by: john ||
04/19/2006 18:40 ||
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#1
international law warfare (seizing the earliest opportunity to set up regulations)
#4
international law warfare (seizing the earliest opportunity to set up regulations)
Its's been clear to me for a while that the primary function of 'International law' is bind and burden states who follow rules, while they have no such effect on states that don't.
#5
There ya go Phil_B. Right on the mark. International law works between nations that respect their own and other's laws. Our enemies use international law to attack us because they know that we try to follow the letter and spirit of the law. They don't, and they do not care. Nobody will call them on it.
NGOs like Am-Nasty International use international law as a tool to attack us, while they ignore gross and blatant violations of human rights and the laws of war that people like the Taliban or Iran, or Sammy's Iraq did. They do this to attack and diminish the US, which is what their real agenda is all about.
As far as the new Chicom railway line to Lhasa goes, I wonder how many major bridges the line spans. Critical nodes, ya know.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/19/2006 22:05 Comments ||
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#6
Rail Road Mounted Balistic Missles such a 1950's idea. Looks good on paper.
Better ask somone who actually works on a Rail Road how good an idea that really isn't.
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/19/2006 22:49 Comments ||
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#7
Let us all rest easy.
A "friend" works for a major "U.S." financial services company that is in the process of shifting most of its software development and systems admin to a subsidiary in red China. The short term goal is to unemploy the "overpaid" Americans now doing the work, the long term goal has not been considered.
This company performs the bulk of North America's securities processing, and is now ready to turn the system keys over to their red Chinese "employees."
While Sarbanes Oxley already has provisions that would lock up the executives until Kingdom Come for such a fiduciary breach, the Feds aren't enforcing SOX, so the near term bonuses are on schedule to be paid.
The one area within the company that could have blocked this, corporate security, has been placed under the management of the company's primary Sino-phile and director of software development.
When you think about your 401K, think about this.
Posted by: IT Insider ||
04/19/2006 22:49 Comments ||
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A terrorism expert says Australia is home to at least 50 suspected terrorists - five times the number questioned by ASIO last year.
The claim came as an audit of the terrorist threat in Britain by intelligence agency MI5, conducted after the July 2005 London bombings, revealed there were an estimated 400 al-Qaeda terrorist suspects in the country.
Media reports quoted British officials as saying the 400 include a hard core of between 40 and 60 trained fighters with the capability and the intention to carry out attacks, as well as Islamic extremists on the fringes who could become active at any point.
Australian National University terrorism expert Clive Williams said the figure for Australia was likely to be about 50.
ASIO questioned only 10 terror suspects under warrant in 2004-05, according to its most recent annual report.
"I would say the figure is somewhere around the 50 mark," Dr Williams told AAP.
"A friend of mine (in a spy agency) went through the same thought process and came up with the same figure.
"These are people who have been overseas and come back, or are of interest and we don't know where they have been, or there are suspicions about their travel and they had contact (with terror groups) previously.
"So there's a range of reasons why people would end up on the list."
He said some suspects could also have shown up on telephone records or be related to people who had been arrested on terrorism charges.
Dr Williams said the high number created a problem for spy agencies such as ASIO.
"You can't maintain surveillance on that number of people, because you need eight people to do a continuous surveillance and lots of resources and no one's got that kind of resources," he said.
"That's why control orders are desirable from the point of view of trying to track people."
New terror laws allow police and spies to seek control orders of up to 12 months on terror suspects, which could include electronic shackles or geographical limits on their movement.
The British report also said MI5 had started developing a map of terror hotspots.
But Dr Williams said he did not believe Australian intelligence agencies used such maps.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/19/2006 01:27 ||
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The "honour killing" of a young Turkish woman by her brother and his subsequent trial and conviction have further plunged Germany into heated debate on the integration of Germany's seven million Muslim immigrants, Germany's Deutsche-Welle radio website reports. Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) parliamentary group have demanded a "zero tolerance" policy for such murders, calling them "a shameful form of self-administered justice." Hatun Surucu, 23, was shot several times in the head at close range last year at a Berlin bus stop by her youngest brother Ayhan, 19. The murder caused revulsion in Germany, and led to street protests by Turkish women.
Ayhan, who a court last week sentenced to nine years and three months in prison, stated during his trial that he killed her for "bringing shame upon his family" by adopting a western lifestyle. She had returned to Germany after fleeing a forced marriage to her cousin in Turkey, and had chosen to bring up her small son alone. Two of Ayhan's other brothers were cleared of charges of conspiring to murder her.
The trial followed heightened debate on the German school system's ability to educate the children of immigrants after teachers in two violent inner-city schools in the capital, Berlin, said they feared they could not keep order in classrooms where 80 percent of pupils are the children of immigrants.
Germany's immigrant community forms nine percent of the country's population. Yet one-quarter of immigrants are unemployed and live on state benefits, half cannot speak German or speak it badly, and few have German citizenship.
Surucu's slaying and other high-profile incidents have increased concerns that the country mainly Turkish and Moroccan immigrants are becoming increasingly ghettoised and isolated from the rest of the country.
Politicians from across the German political spectrum have recently put forward proposals to better integrate immigrants, inclding compulsory language training and tests to ensure they share German society's basic social and cultural values, Deutsche Welle reports.
Some conservatives who claim that lax multicultural policies have led the authorities to turn a blind eye to abuses have said that immigrants guilty of serious breaches of German law should be deported.
Several prominent politicians from the CDU and also from the centre-left Social Democrat party, have called for the Surucu family to be deported. Cardinal Karl Lehmann, chair of the German Bishops's Conference, rejected calls for the expulsion of foreigners who prove unwilling to integrate in German society, terming such moves "acts of political desperation."
Lehmann however condemned practices such as arranged marriages and so-called honour killings, saying the German authorities should never tolerate parallel societies which seek to flout German law and traditions.
Surucu was the sixth victim of honour killings among Berlin's 200,000-strong Turkish community in as many months. The German police listed 45 cases between 1996 and 2004 - with 13 in Berlin.
Muslim leaders in Berlin have taken pains to stress that there is no basis for honour killings in the Koran. But they have also been criticised for not condeming such murders outright. Merkel has called for an integration summit involving some of Germany's Muslim leaders.
Successive German governments have been accused by many experts and critics of failing to develop policies to deal with the fact that millions of guest workers who entered the country in the 1960s and 1970s would settle permanently in Germany rather than returning home, Deutsche Welle said.
#1
The "honour killing" of a young Turkish woman by her brother and his subsequent trial and conviction have further plunged Germany into heated debate on the integration of Germany's seven million Muslim immigrants... .
Yes, you're exactly right, he should never have been convicted. Was the jury truly representative of his peers? (Saracasm not unintentional.)
I particularly like the last sentence of this article. Heh.
The United States is pressing Germany to accept 15 Chinese Uigurs ready for release from Guantanamo in Cuba but who are unable to return home for fear of persecution, the newspaper Die Welt said in a story published Saturday. Uigurs are a Turkic-speaking Muslim ethnic group with a large population in western China. The 15 Uigurs have been held at Guantanamo since 2002, but Washington fears they could be tortured or abused if sent back to China and has been looking for another country to grant them sanctuary. Germany was considered suitable because there is an Uigur exile community living in the southern state of Bavaria.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has so far ducked the issue, out of fear of offending China, which would regard such a move as an unfriendly act, the newspaper quoted diplomatic sources as saying. But the matter is likely to come up again when Merkel holds talks with US President George Bush during a visit to Washington early next month, according to Die Welt. The US feels countries such as Germany who have called for the closure of the Guantanamo camp have a moral duty to accept detainees being released, the paper said.
#3
They were probably training with al Qaeda because that was the only place they could get guerrilla training for free. Were they actually anti-American? I doubt it - there's not a lot of Western countries that have aggressively championed the Uighur cause in the way that Uncle Sam has.
Politicians in Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Party (CDU) called Saturday for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be barred from Germany during the World Cup. "It would be a welcome move if the government made clear through diplomatic channels that a visit to Germany by Ahmadinejad is undesirable," Wolfgang Bosbach told the newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Bosbach is the deputy floor leader in parliament of the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). CDU parliamentary spokesman Georg Brunnhuber called on football's governing body FIFA to declare Ahmadinejad persona non grata for the duration of the tournament. The CSU's spokesman on domestic affairs, Hans-Peter Uhl, said: "We should make it clear to Ahmadinejad that he should refrain from paying a visit to Germany."
Yeah, it's just political posturing, but at least the CDU is speaking up for Germany's interests.
#4
Ahmadinejad needs to know that when he makes statements that Israel will be wiped off the map and that the US will be destroyed, including attacks by 40K suicide bombers, his safety outside of Iran may also be in jeopardy. Travel at his own risk. People travelling with him are also at risk from collateral damage. Treat him like a leper, and everyone that can will scatter to protect themselves. Make him a liability to Iran.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/19/2006 23:11 Comments ||
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French banks in the Middle East, anxious to win business from wealthy Muslim investors, are adapting their practices to conform to financial precepts required by Islam. Financial operations under Islam are based on several cardinal principles: the proscription of interest payments, a requirement that transactions be based on tangible assets and a ban on dealings in such domains as arms, Zionists, alcohol, Zionists,pork products, Zionists, and pornography. Islamic banking clients pay no interest on the funds they borrow but are charged certain service fees.
"Nope. Nope. That's not interest, it's...something else."
In cases where the amounts involved are considerable, the bank will loan money to an investor while at the same time buying an asset that the investor agrees to buy back at a higher price, the difference representing in effect an interest payment.
Thereby violating the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. Allan won't be pleased.
French banks BNP Paribas, Calyon and Société Générale have lately raised their profile in Middle Eastern Islamic finance, a sector in which bank assets are worth between US $200 and 400 billion (EUR 165-330 billion), according to ratings agency Standard and Poor's. BNP Paribas, which has been active in the Middle East since the early 1970s, established an Islamic banking division in the Gulf state of Bahrain in 2003 in the face of "strong demand" from clients in the region, said Jacques Tripon, BNP's head of corporate banking in the Middle East. Calyon, the investment banking arm of Crédit Agricole, opened an Islamic banking unit in 2004. The two groups have boards of sharia scholars, or experts in Islamic law, that monitor products and operations offered by the banks.
That must be a sweet gig. The jizya available to the Learned Economic Elders of Islam must be absolutely dizzying. Plus the entertainment value of thoughtfully stroking their well-oiled beards while watching the stupid kufrs scurry to do their bidding.
Another French bank, Natexis Banque Populaire, last week announced that it had taken part in financing a new Kuwaiti airline in conjunction with Kuwait Finance House, the world's second largest Islamic bank. In September, BNP Paribas managed a one-billion-dollar transaction linking Abu Dhabi, part of the United Arab Emirates, and oil firms Total and Occidental Petroleum. BNP Paribas described the operation as the largest financial deal ever carried out under sharia principles in the gas sector. French banks have stepped in to help Islamic banks to "develop products that are more sophisticated than simple deposit accounts," said Trippon.
But for the moment, the Islamic retail banking market is largely out of reach for foreign institutions, according to a credit analyst at Standard and Poor's, Anwar Hassoun. BNP Paribas chairman Michel Pebereau, inaugurating a BNP branch in Kuwait in early April, said the bank can only operate in the private and investment banking sectors, as it lacks authorization to carry out retail banking operations. The only French bank to have a foothold in the Islamic retail banking sector is Calyon, which holds nearly a third of Banque Saudi Fransi, said Hassoun. He added that it was unlikely in the near term that Islamic banks would open branches in continental Europe, as residents of west and north African origin, as well as those from Turkey, are not particularly receptive to Islamic finance.
#3
What happens if you decide that you don't want to buy back the (whatever) you sold and agreed to buy back higher?
If the bankers can force you to buy it back, there's no difference in that and interest.
If the bankers cannot force you to buy it back, then it's a good way to get rid of something you didn't want anyway.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/19/2006 13:46 Comments ||
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#4
BNP Paribas was one of the banks involved in money laundering for the UN Oil-for-Food scheme...
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that retired generals' calls for his resignation are rooted in opposition to his push to streamline and restructure the Army.
In his first press conference since the six retired generals went public and since President Bush gave him a full vote of confidence Friday, Mr. Rumsfeld did not mention Iraq war planning or the war itself while discussing why some in the military establishment have called on him to quit. Instead, he talked about his other main objective: transformation for 21st-century threats.
"Change is difficult," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon. "It also happens to be urgently necessary. Transforming this department is important."
None of the four retired Army generals have mentioned Army transformation as the reason. Instead, they have criticized Mr. Rumsfeld's management style and what they considered deeply flawed planning for Iraq, after dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled. The two retired Marine generals have also cited planning for Iraq, where more than 2,300 U.S. troops have been killed and an insurgency seems as potent as ever in its fourth year.
"I don't think our generals feel comfortable providing Secretary Rumsfeld their honest beliefs," retired Army Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack told CNN last week. "I think it almost boils down to, 'explain the party line and stay loyal to me,' or you might end up as General Shinseki did, at odds with Secretary Rumsfeld."
Gen. Eric Shinseki, former Army chief of staff, was criticized by Rumsfeld aides for testifying, in response to a senator's question, that the U.S. needed more troops to occupy Iraq than had been planned.
Yet, a number of retired officers say privately that Mr. Rumsfeld is correct and that the resignation calls are rooted in how he has treated the Army during sweeping transformation. They also complain that the Army has too few soldiers to fight wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, in addition to keeping other global commitments. Mr. Rumsfeld has resisted any permanent increase in what is called "end strength," but he has authorized a temporary buildup of 30,000 soldiers.
At the White House yesterday, Mr. Bush again reiterated his support for his point man in the war on al Qaeda.
"I listen to all voices, but mine is the final decision. And Don Rumsfeld is doing a fine job," the president said. "He's not only transforming the military, he's fighting a war on terror. He's helping us fight a war on terror. I have strong confidence in Don Rumsfeld. I hear the voices, and I read the front page, and I know the speculation. But I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defense."
Asked about resignation calls yesterday, Mr. Rumsfeld delivered a history lesson on what a Bush-ordered transformation has done for the Army and how some generals, retired and active, do not like it.
He cited his decision to terminate the Crusader self-propelled artillery piece and the Comanche attack-scout helicopter, while taking the Army away from a division-centric force and toward smaller brigade combat teams that can deploy faster.
The defense secretary, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "has to make those kinds of decisions. And when you make a choice, somebody's not going to like it. It's perfectly possible to come into this department and preside and not make choices, in which case people are not unhappy, until about five years later, when they find you haven't done anything and the country isn't prepared."
He called the Army transition to modular brigades "an enormous accomplishment. And our Army will be vastly better than it was five, six years ago. And that's hard. That's hard for the people in the Army to do. It's hard for people who are oriented one way to suddenly have to be oriented a different way."
He said he is moving the armed services from "service-centric war fighting" to "interdependence. That's a hard thing to do, for services to recognize that they don't have to have all of the capabilities, but they have to work sufficiently with the others."
Mr. Rumsfeld then turned to his decision in 2003 to skip over a number of active-duty generals and pluck from retirement Gen. Peter Schoomaker, a career special operations soldier, to be Army chief of staff.
Gen. Schoomaker had become a close adviser to Mr. Rumsfeld on another pet project, revamping U.S. Special Operations Command. Aides said Mr. Rumsfeld developed a trust that Gen. Schoomaker would carry out transformation the way the defense secretary wanted, as opposed to the former chief, Gen. Shinseki, who opposed much of the agenda.
"The idea of bringing a retired person out of retirement to serve as chief of staff of the Army was stunning and a lot of people didn't like it," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "The fact that he was a Special Forces officer, a joint officer, added to the attitudes."
He added, "I look back on those decisions, and I'm proud of them. They caused a lot of ruffles. Let there be no doubt."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/19/2006 01:01 ||
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Posted by: Mike ||
04/19/2006 16:52 Comments ||
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#4
It is sad to think that what the truth is depends on one's politics. Ol' Maw Sheehan can lie thru her teeth, but she is considered to have told the truth because MSM judges her politix as pristine.
President Bush and U.S. policy-makers are receiving more intelligence from open sources such as Internet blogs and foreign newspapers than they previously did, senior intelligence officials said. The new Open Source Center (OSC) at CIA headquarters recently stepped up data collection and analysis based on bloggers worldwide and is developing new methods to gauge the reliability of the content, said OSC Director Douglas J. Naquin.
"A lot of blogs now have become very big on the Internet, and we're getting a lot of rich information on blogs that are telling us a lot about social perspectives and everything from what the general feeling is to ... people putting information on there that doesn't exist anywhere else," Mr. Naquin told The Washington Times.
Must mean JosephMendiola's latest comments
Eliot A. Jardines, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for open source, said the amount of unclassified intelligence reaching Mr. Bush and senior policy-makers has increased as a result of the center's creation in November. "We're certainly scoring a number of wins with our ultimate customer," said Mr. Jardines, who became the first high-level official in charge of the government's nonsecret intelligence in December. "I can't get into detail of what, but I'll just say the amount of open source reporting that goes into the president's daily brief has gone up rather significantly," Mr. Jardines said. "There has been a real interest at the highest levels of our government, and we've been able to consistently deliver products that are on par with the rest of the intelligence community."
Mr. Naquin said recent OSC successes have included the discovery of a technology advance in a foreign country. Also, most data on avian flu outbreaks come from open sources, he said. "Have we got coups out of it? Close to it," Mr. Naquin said. "But certainly we've had more insight than we've ever had before."
The OSC uses powerful computers and software technology to "sift" the Internet for valuable intelligence. It also buys information from commercial databases. In the past, open-source reports were used mainly by intelligence analysts. "But now our customer base literally ranges from the president to local police departments," Mr. Naquin said. The Fairfax County police use OSC products, as do police departments in San Diego, New York and Baltimore. The center also provides support to the U.S. military. A Defense Department official said Chinese military bloggers have become a valuable source of intelligence on Beijing's secret military buildup. For example, China built its first Yuan-class attack submarine at an underground factory that was unknown to U.S. intelligence until a photo of the submarine appeared on the Internet in 2004.
The center took over the CIA's Foreign Broadcast Information Service, known as FBIS, that was formed in 1941 to translate foreign broadcasts. The OSC is doubling its staff and bringing in material from 32 government agencies that also produce unclassified reports, Mr. Jardines said.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/19/2006 09:05 ||
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#1
Uh oh, prepare for another assault on Thugburg.
#2
Does this mean I'm being monitored each time I come here? Damn, I'd better clean up my cache, erase my cookies and all... I hope they can't browse through my PC content, especially my "special folders" private stash, or else they must be pondering to send me emails asking me if I'm ashamed of myself or something...
#4
Unfortunately, I doubt that they're finding Mendiola's rambling any more coherent...
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
04/19/2006 12:30 Comments ||
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#5
tu3031, I disagree. A quarter of century ago, it was a fine, mean, nasty (to evil totalitarians), sumbitches agency. CIA was badmouthed (to put it mildly) left and left in the Eastern European press on a daily basis. At that time, living there, I became quite fond of it. In the late 70's, some form of transformation began... I am not sure what happened, but "CIA now" and "CIA then" are images in my mind that have very little in common.
#6
If anybody's...ummmmmmmmmm... out there, twobyfour said that, not me. I for one think the CIA is the FINEST LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN.
#11
None of this should be a suprise. Even before Able Danger there was the 1994 CALEA Wiretap Act. It specified that a random 1/3 of all voice traffic and all data traffic be "Y"ed to your local FBI office for optional analysis. There was no explaination if Data Traffic included Broadband but there is no doubt it included Dial Up.
This was a Clinton Era Act that set the stage for mining operations like Able Danger.
So even if they were not mining webpages they were mining access to them and therefore mining web pages (later blogs). (also IRC, e-mail, usenet, ftp, telnet....)
Oh and for cellular? CALEA demanded location info to within a few feet. That explains the overlay networks to support 911 location info. The phone company and via datamining the Government have the ability to know where you are within a few feet as you wander making that cell call. If its one of the random 1/3 of the voice calls or involves data they also know what you send and receive in the USA.
Outside the USA the NSA records everything.
The problem is that its a after the fact datamining nightmare. Too much info. So what these guys bring to the game is emphsis on richer sources where analysis of raw data has already taken place in the bloggers minds. Look at it as integrated data (in the math sense) then the capture by OSC as further selective integration.
(double integral products?)
#12
If the CIA knows where I am within a few feet, and they occasionally listen in to my cell phone calls, I would very much appreciate if they would break in from time to time to tell me where I am when (entirely too frequently) I find myself lost. One of the reasons I was attracted to that engineer of mine is that he always can tell me where I am. ;-)
#15
Number six, I hate breaking it to you, but you're not funny. Work on it... although they say that who was not given from above, can't buy it in the pharmacy... perhaps with a bit of perseverance, you may, eventually, succeed in convincing people that you don't have a complete humorectomy.
#16
No real surprise here. For quite a while, I thought the Burg was a US government funded project to explore the possibilities of open source analysis. I'm still not completely convinced it isn't.
#19
TW - after the fact data mining. Not live monitoring and analysis. That would require a wiretap request and make lots of demands on hardware and people. After the fact is robot programs data-mining.
Thing of it this way. Instead of a tape its recorded in a file somewhere. A program not that much different from one of GOOGLE's robot spiders comes by and quickly scans some random sections of the file for keywords. Then it gets indexed into a database. Another spider comes along and looks who your talked to. A third may look at where you were an map your moving path into the moving paths of others (maybe cars and criminal acts). This will make a interaction database. This can then be crossreferenced with say the keyword database to link what you were talking about with what you were near....
Note at this time you are a few days after the call and all that is being created is more databases of possibilites.
Now if something really bad happens you start backtracking through all these possibiilites to hope to find hints of the perps.
CIA is America's Team. All their games are played on someone else's home court, You rarely hear when they've had a winning season but you will sure hear of the defeats. The Coaching staff changes regularly and the rules of the game can change drastically when you least expect it.
#22
Also, most data on avian flu outbreaks come from open sources, he said.
I used to be an active participant in the forum he refers to - Here
Incidentally, the plot of my next novel revolves around this scenario. I wrote this snippet of dialogue earlier today, which sums up my feeling about the site.
Jay, there are a lot of posts at ??.com.
I know. That's why we need someone to sort the wheat from the chaff, and there's a veritable blizzard of chaff at that site.
#25
Phil: so your next novel is a roman a' clef tell-all about Rantburg's Peyton Place-esque dark secrets?
I am so reading it!
:-)
Posted by: Mike ||
04/19/2006 17:03 Comments ||
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#26
I suggest you look at Data mining in the Manga Ghost In the Shell and the Amime by that name. That is where we are headed with inteligence gathering. Not in the way they do it but what they do and what they look at. Open Source Intel is a good way to get to secrets hidden in plain sight. Hunting down terrorists is what they do BTW.
This Agency know alot about my online doings. However it knows nothing about me because I have no information of interest to them. It's all about the searching and what it is looking for. The metric for measurment of real value is the quality of the product. From this PR we can see they represent it as useful to the customers. We can't be certain of that as being reality however. We can just hope it's true.
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/19/2006 17:03 Comments ||
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#27
That's twice you've hurt my feelings 2x4. You ought to be ashamed.
Give me a name / author. I'm always looking for new books in anything remotely resembling spy, mystery, techno thriller genre. Makes great airplane fodder and I fly way too often.
#29
6 is my man - he's got a list Ima hoping to make someday, 2X4. A stud you're NOT, a gentleman neither, and I question your parentage as well.... obviously a softwood, balsa perhaps?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/19/2006 18:39 Comments ||
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#31
In the late 70's, some form of transformation began... I am not sure what happened, but "CIA now" and "CIA then" are images in my mind that have very little in common.
Church Commission. Carter Administration. Boomers promoted into management positions.
Basically, a perfect storm of anti-Americanism, treason, and incompetency.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/19/2006 18:56 Comments ||
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#32
I'd be surprised (at least a little!) if the CIA wasn't using open sources. They have had "readers' for a long time. And like Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot just by watching."
I'd categorize both as geopolitical thrillers. I think Sea of Fire is a better novel, but both have the same main characters. So reading Autonomous Operation first gives you a better understanding of the characters.
Mike, I'm thinking of writing in a lightly disguised Rantburg as some of the plot revolves around people communicating through public forums like the Burg and the earlier link I posted. I might make JoeM's posts encrypted messages. ;-)
#38
3dc, that random information is archived, then possibly data mined later for key words and connections would be very comforting if I were paranoid... or had something worth hiding. It is not hepful, however, if (when, darn it!) I don't know where I am, or how to get to where I'm trying to go. I s'pose I'll have to invest in one of those GPS thingies instead. ;-)
But I am glad they're paying attention to the good work of intelligent amateurs and retired pros. It changes the probabilities in the right directions.
6, I don't always understand your jokes, but many others here make comments completely beyond my ken (possibly what the literary types term "rough barracks humour" or perhaps "man talk"? Neither of which I am qualified for, I'm afraid...) So I just enjoy you anyway. Here, have a nice macaroon. :-)
#39
3dc, TW, the big thing in data mining at the moment is realtime and quasi-realtime data mining with the intent of identifying illegal activities in progress or catch the perps immediately afterwards. Unfortunately it will be years before we hear about any successes this results in.
Businesses have been spending $billions to make their systems and data real time.
This neat military town lies 7,500 miles (12,070 km) from Baghdad but drive west down the road into the desert and the landscape resembles western Iraq. The hazards are similar, too: roadside bombs, ambushes, suicide bombers, hit-and-run raids, kidnappings.
Fort Irwin is home to the U.S. Army's National Training Centre, covering almost 1,200 square miles (3,108 square km) in the Mojave Desert. The base serves as the last stop for tens of thousands of U.S. troops before they ship out to Iraq and put into practice what they hope to learn here -- how to fight ruthless and innovative opponents without creating new enemies from the civilian population and without taking sides in Iraq's internal conflicts.
"What we provide here is military training at the graduate level," said Brig. Gen. Robert Cone, the training centre's commander. "It builds on what we are learning from Iraq. It's counterinsurgency, small-unit action. A fundamental change from the past."
In the past, the Mojave Desert served as a training ground for tank warfare. Exercises pitted American armoured forces against "Krasnovians" in tanks modified to look like Soviet T-72s. Parked in neat rows, the tanks are still here, standing idle.
They last went into action in a big army-on-army exercise in June 2004 as the insurgency in Iraq gathered pace and the U.S. death toll stood at around 800. It now exceeds 2,300. Widespread sectarian killings have added the prospect of all-out civil war to an already complex situation.
Once the emphasis switched from training for conventional war to counterinsurgency, the army built 12 mock Arab villages and populated them with 1,600 role players, including 250 men and women recruited from the Iraqi communities of San Diego and Detroit. Their roles range from sniper and suicide bomber to police chief and mayor.
During the three weeks of a "rotation," or training course, U.S. soldiers live full-time in the simulated Iraq, in conditions more spartan than on U.S. bases in the real Iraq.
They interact with the population -- real Iraqis and Americans in Arab robes -- on a daily basis, picking up Culture 101 in the process. Don't spit in front of an Iraqi, for example. Take off your gloves before shaking hands, don't show the soles of your shoes when you sit down.
"We are helping them (the soldiers) understand our traditions so that the mistakes made in Iraq before won't be repeated," said Bassam Kalasho, an Iraqi-American who plays deputy mayor of Medina Wasl, a dusty village with a mosque and a police station. "The most important thing we can teach them is our culture."
In December, the army magazine Military Review ran an article -- widely e-mailed among military commanders -- that said U.S. forces in Iraq had, on occasion, acted "like fuel on a smouldering fire" and displayed cultural insensitivity amounting to "institutional racism."
The difficulty of balancing respect and suspicion is often highlighted in Medina Jabal, one of the bigger villages, where a former U.S. tank commander has been acting as an insurgent bomb plotter for the past two years.
Looking convincingly Iraqi with a chequered headdress and a brown robe, Sgt. Tim Wilson of the Nevada National Guard in his role runs the only fast-food restaurant in the area, the Kamel Dog Cafe. Serving hot dogs and burritos, the cafe is popular with troops in a nearby Forward Operating Base.
"I'm a friendly kind of guy, and they get to know me, and little by little they let their guard down. Eventually I walk through a checkpoint without being checked. And then, boom, they are dead. And learnt a lesson."
More than 70 cameras on rooftops and tall poles record such incidents for what is known as AARs (After Action Reports), blow-by-blow discussions of what went wrong or right. "It's better to detect a unit's weaknesses here than there," said Gen. Cone.
The role-play scenarios, designed by psychological operations officers, echo events in Iraq. High tension between Shi'ites and Sunnis featured in war games days after the February 22 bomb attack on the Golden Mosque in Samarra triggered a wave of sectarian killings in Iraq.
A poster with photographs of the mosque before and after the bomb blew off the dome hangs in a shack used as an insurgent command post. "They are trying to prevent us from praying to God," says the Arabic legend. "Attack them!"
About 50,000 soldiers are expected to rotate through the training centre this year, most of them on their way to Iraq, others to Afghanistan. Parts of the area looks more like Afghanistan"s Helmand province than Iraq and the training includes combat in a network of tunnels such as those used by the Taliban and al Qaeda.
Nightly mortar attacks and frequent raids keep the troops awake and on edge. "We reckon that a day here equals two weeks in Iraq in terms of intensity," said Maj. John Clearwater, the centre's public affairs officer. "This is a very stressful environment, the most realistic training ground you can get."
To make it even more realistic, the army plans to build a town large enough to have traffic jams and recreate the urban bustle of an Iraqi provincial centre.
While there are no live-fire exercises, the success or failure of an operation is monitored by a sophisticated version of laser tag, the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES). Everybody on the rotation wears a harness with sensors that assess damage from the laser "bullets" the opposing forces fire at each other.
For many of the soldiers, firing their weapons is the easier part. The more difficult aspect of the exercises is, for example, negotiating with villagers who claim compensation for damage done to their crops by U.S. vehicles, yelling curses and rushing a checkpoint.
During a recent briefing on an operation to free two soldiers taken hostage by insurgents, Col. Michael Kerhsaw of the 10th Mountain Division threw up a slide that highlighted the task facing U.S. soldiers in Iraq. "Counterinsurgency is armed social work," the headline said. "An attempt to redress basic social and political problems while being shot at."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/19/2006 01:12 ||
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Somebody shoot the Reuters headline writer, because it looks now like there are Iraqi insurgents in California. Rewritten headline: US Training in California to Fight Insurgents in Iraq.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
04/19/2006 9:38 Comments ||
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Should read as follows:
US TRAINING TO FIGHT MEXICAN INSURGENTS IN CALIFORNIA.
Zacarias Moussaoui's behavior is abnormal even for an al Qaeda terrorist, a defense psychologist testified yesterday.
Xavier Amador diagnosed the September 11 conspirator with paranoid schizophrenia after observing his actions and writings since 2002. Mr. Amador cited delusional thoughts of Moussaoui, including his conviction that President Bush will free him from prison and that his court-appointed attorneys are in a conspiracy to kill him.
The psychologist also contrasted Moussaoui's erratic behavior with that of other al Qaeda terrorists who have been tried in U.S. criminal courts. The defense introduced affidavits filed by attorneys for Ramzi Yousef, who is serving life in prison for the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, and other al Qaeda members. All the attorneys said their clients actively assisted their defense and did not think their attorneys were working against them.
"What we see with this individual is unique to him," Mr. Amador said. "It's not al Qaeda."
On cross-examination, prosecutor David Novak suggested that Moussaoui's behavior is, indeed, consistent with that of other al Qaeda terrorists. He said that Yousef represented himself for an extended period of time and that another al Qaeda terrorist tried to take his attorneys hostage.
Mr. Amador said he would need more information about those incidents to reassess his opinion. The psychologist also said he gave several interviews about the case despite a court order barring such interviews.
Mr. Amador said his diagnosis was confirmed after an hourlong encounter with Moussaoui last April in which the defendant spit water on him more than a dozen times, repeatedly told him to go away and appeared to be talking to himself in a manner that did not seem to be prayer.
Moussaoui then complained that guards used excessive force in taking him from his Alexandria jail cell to a deposition at the federal courthouse. And he told Mr. Amador that Mr. Bush would release him from prison.
Expert witnesses for the government have reached conclusions that diverge from Mr. Amador's statements and are expected to testify later this week in rebuttal.
Moussaoui mocked the testimony about his reported schizophrenia. He said "beautiful terrorist mind" as he was led from court during a recess. After a second break, he said, smiling broadly, "Crazy or not crazy? That is the question."
Mr. Amador cited as other evidence of Moussaoui's paranoia his thought that an electric fan that he picked up from the curb outside his Oklahoma apartment in 2001 was bugged by the FBI.
Moussaoui previously said he thinks that all Americans, including his attorneys, want him killed. And he said in testimony that he was concerned the fan may have been bugged, but that he was not convinced of it.
Although prosecutors' experts have been able to examine Moussaoui, he refused to cooperate with Mr. Amador or any other defense expert.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/19/2006 01:03 ||
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blah, blah, blah. Going for the insanity defense. Yawn.
I've never quite understood the insanity defense. They are rabid dogs, poor things. Put them down. What difference does it make why these vicious creatures are the way they are. No need for a circus or revenge. No need to cage them for life - which is cruel. But if the hand wringers can't pull the trigger, than cage them to keep the rest of us safe. It's just an unpleasant necessity that we have to remove them from society. Even Adicus Finch understood, that for the common good, as well as for the dog, he had to shoot it. You can't leave a rabid dog out there to infect many, many, others and inflict damage on the innocent.
Only his mother and God care about him. Remove him from society, one way or another, and move on.
As the United States tries to push other nations to impose a travel ban on Iranian government officials over Tehran's nuclear program, a senior Iranian official has created embarrassment in Washington by slipping into the country for a visit this month.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said on Tuesday he had heard that Mohammad Nahavandian, a senior aide to Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, was in Washington but he had not met U.S. officials and his presence was being looked into.
"It's a matter of interest for us and if I have any other information to share on the matter today or in the days ahead, I'll do so," McCormack told reporters.
Nahavandian's successful entry into the United States is embarrassing for Washington, which is pushing hard for other countries to impose travel restrictions on Iranian officials in talks in Moscow this week.
The talks follow Iran's announcement last week that it had enriched uranium for use in fueling power stations for the first time in defiance of a March 29 U.N. Security Council demand that it halt its enrichment program.
McCormack declined to say how Nahavandian got into the United States, where strict restrictions are in place on Iranian officials wanting to visit.
Nahavandian was in the United States legally, but not enter with a visa. This could mean he holds legal permanent residency in the United States or be traveling on the passport of a country where visas were not needed, said McCormack.
"We have no record of issuing a visa to a person with this name," he said, noting that the United States does not have diplomatic ties with Tehran and there are clear restrictions on travel by Iranian officials.
For example, Iranian diplomats at the United Nations in New York can travel only within a limited area.
The Financial Times quoted an Iranian advisor this month as saying Nahavandian was in Washington to float the idea of direct talks between the two countries.
But McCormack ruled out any possibility of U.S. officials meeting Nahavandian and reiterated the United States would not hold direct talks with Iran over its nuclear program.
"We have not issued an invitation to any such individual and at this point have no plans to do so," he said.
While rejecting any talks over Tehran's nuclear program, the Bush administration has given its ambassador in Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, permission to meet Iranian officials. However, those talks will be limited to Iraq.
Leading Republican Sen. Richard Lugar (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has urged the Bush administration to hold direct talks with Tehran, a suggestion U.S. officials have rejected.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/19/2006 00:56 ||
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Purposely sent by Mahmoud to prove it can be done so easily. He alluded to such "power" in his recent puffery.
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Pennsylvania congressman is pushing a bill that would posthumously award a Congressional Gold Medal to the passengers and crew members killed aboard United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001. Rep. Bill Shuster, a Republican whose district contains the western Pennsylvania field in Shanksville, Pa., where the planed crashed, said their fight to bring down the plane may have prevented hijackers from crashing it into the Capitol or White House. "Their actions preserved the American symbols of democracy," Shuster said.
Last week, during the trial of Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, cockpit recordings were released that vividly revealed the struggle between passengers and hijackers - an action that had been described in the official 9/11 Commission report. The bill was filed on April 6, before the recordings were released, but Shuster's spokesman said they reiterated the heroic acts committed by the passengers and crew.
The Congressional Gold Medal is Congress' highest award. Civil rights activist Rosa Parks and Olympian Jesse Owens are among the approximately 300 individuals and groups that have received it since 1776. Two-thirds of all members in the House or Senate have to sign on to the effort before it will even be considered at committee level in either the House or Senate. Shuster's bill has 23 co-sponsors.
Previous recipients are listed here, starting with George Washington.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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He is right their heroism saved the people in the Capitol or White House from getting hit.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/19/2006 10:01 Comments ||
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Lets just to totally Aztec. Melt enough medals for the passengers and crew members, open Moussaoui's grinning yapping mouth, pour the molten metal down his worthless throat, recover it, re-stamp, and issue. I'm certain it would mean much, much more to the families and loved ones.
April 19, 2006: Recent developments regarding the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapons program have struck a nerve in India. As a result, India has greatly increased its intelligence efforts directed against Iran, and is looking for ways to cooperate with the United States and the European Union. This at the same time India is developing economic and military deals with Iran. The commercial and military people in Iran, that India works with, seem sane enough. But the senior Iranian officials, calling for the destruction of Israel, death to America and converting everyone on the planet to Islam, are worrisome. To put it mildly. So the Indians are taking a close look at their neighbor Iran, with the aid of anyone who will help. The Indians, in turn, have many prime contacts within Iran, a country India has had social and commercial relations with for thousands of years, and now India is sharing some of that inside information.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/19/2006 10:00 ||
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India could eventually be the unsung hero in the W.o.T. Shush. Stop writing articles about them working against our enemies.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
04/19/2006 17:48 Comments ||
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KATHMANDU - Thousands of people roaring Down with the monarchy demonstrated Tuesday and state employees were arrested for the first time in a two-week wave of anti-royal protests shaking Nepal. The demonstration came as Karan Singh, Indias new special envoy to Nepal, warned unrest was spinning out of control on the eve of his departure for Kathmandu for talks with King Gyanendra and political party leaders.
You'd really hope the Nepalese aren't stupid enough to toss a moderately backward king for a thoroughly degenerate group of Maoists, but they just might be that stupid ...
An international aid worker estimated over 20,000 people turned out in the western town of Nepalgunj to demand that the king give up his absolute powers, although a local journalist claimed the crowd was far bigger. Thousands of people shouting anti-monarchy slogans took to the streets, bringing the town to a standstill, said journalist Janak Pandey.
Police briefly fired tear gas and blank rounds but were vastly outnumbered and fled, he said.
The crowd attacked a construction site named after the king in the town 500 kilometres (300 miles) from Kathmandu. This is the biggest demonstration I have ever seen in Nepalgunj, Pandey said by telephone.
In the capital Kathmandu, at least 25 government employees were arrested for demonstrating, police said. Twenty-five workers from the Home Ministry were rounded up for protesting against the government, said a police officer on condition of anonymity. Home ministry spokesman Gopendra Pandey confirmed the arrests, but said he did not know to which ministry they belonged.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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Lets not degrade the Nepalese - we must remember that Mao Zedong/Tse-tung himself instructed his followers that the best kind of recruits were "blanks", those whom were mostly, if not totally, uneducated, unknowing, and basically too pure trusting God-fearing and naive, etc. to know what they're getting themselves into, for their own good. Mao himself derogat labeled most of his own Chinese people as "blanks", and whose very blank-ishness was to be exploited - abused iff necessary - for the good of China and Socialism. AS HAS OCCURRED IN OUR OWN COUNTRY AMERICA AND TOO MANY OTHERS, WE ARE VIEWING PEOPLE WHOM FOR THE MOST PART ARE BEING MISLED AND DECEIVED. TO BECOME WHAT THEY HATE.
Ghazeen Marri, the son of Nawab Khair Bux Marri, will be handed over to Pakistani authorities from the United Arab Emirates in the next few days, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said on Tuesday. Ghazeen Marri was arrested by the UAE authorities several days ago and faces several cases in Pakistan including for the murder of Justice Nawaz Marri, Sherpao told reporters. An Interior Ministry source said Ghazeen was arrested after the federal government banned the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), of which the tribal scion is considered the main financer.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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GENEVA - The United Nations committee against torture has demanded that the United States provide more information about its treatment of prisoners at home and foreign terrorism suspects held in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
In questions submitted to Washington, the panel also sought information about secret detention facilities and specifically whether the United States assumed responsibility for alleged acts of torture in them, U.N. officials said on Tuesday. It is the longest list of issues I have ever seen, Mercedes Morales, a U.N. human rights officer who serves as secretary to the U.N. Committee against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, told reporters.
And she made sure of it. Wonder how long the list is for Cuba?
Washington is expected to send a delegation of 30 officials to defend its record at a meeting next month in Geneva of the committee, composed of 10 independent human rights experts. The debate, set for May 5 and May 8, will focus on a report filed a year ago by the United States on its compliance with the Convention against Torture, which bans all forms of torture. Washington said at the time it was abiding by the treaty and that any abuses of detainees in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars were not systemic. Critics called the report a whitewash.
The U.N. committee has responded, asking firstly how memoranda from the US Justice Department declaring that torture covers only extreme acts is compatible with the treaty. It asked whether there had been any independent investigation into the possible responsibility of high-ranking officials for authorising or consenting to acts of torture committed during interrogation of detainees.
'Independent' being one run by Dennis Kucinich, or a UN apparatchik, or Bob Mugabe.
t seeks details on how many people are detained in Iraq, Afghanistan and the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as their exact legal status.
Go read the first four Geneva Conventions, and you'll find the answer.
On the Abu Ghraib facility in Iraq -- where photographs of torture and sexual abuse of detainees by US soldiers provoked outrage in 2004 -- the UN committee asked what measures had been taken to identify and remedy problems there.
Guess they missed the courts martials.
The UN panel cited reports of secret detention facilities, including on ships, and demanded a list of all detention facilities where inmates are held under de facto US control.
Our answer: none. Prove otherwise, and don't depend on 'published reports'.
Why have such secret detention facilities been established? Does the (United States) assume responsibility for alleged acts of torture perpetrated by its own public agents outside its territory but in territories under its jurisdiction or de facto control...? the UN committee asked.
As we were just saying, what secret facilities?
It also challenged some practices in US domestic jails, such as imprisoning juveniles with adults, banned under US law. It cited a report that detained women are kept shackled during childbirth, while other detainees are chained in gangs.
From very reliable al-Qaeda witnesses, too.
There is serious concern on the part of the committee at the situation of (US) prisons, the system and the conditions of detention which can be tremendously severe, Morales said.
Much worse than in any prison camp in North Korea, as we all know.
The UN panel, which meets twice a year, will also examine the records of Georgia, Guatemala, Peru, Qatar, South Korea and Togo at its May 1-19 session.
But not North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Zimbabwe, Belarus, ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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Geneva, eh? Why don't we put rockets on that Turtle Bay whorehouse and launch it to Geneva?
#3
Here are the current 10 members:
Mr. Guibril CAMARA , Senegal
Mr. Sayed Kassem EL MASRY, Egypt
Ms. Felice GAER, US
Mr. Claudio GROSSMAN, Chili
Mr. Fernando MARIÑO MENENDEZ, Spain
Mr. Andreas MAVROMMATIS, Cyprus
Mr. Julio PRADO-VALLEJO, Ecuador
Mr. Ole Vedel RASMUSSEN, Denmark
Mr. Alexander M. YAKOVLEV, Russian Federation
Mr. YU Mengjia, China
#2
Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist who spent over 8 months reporting from occupied Iraq. He presented evidence of US war crimes in Iraq at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration in New York City in January 2006.
Yep. Sounds like an "independent journalist" to me...
In the series of martyr biographies distributed amongst jihadist forums, akin in detail and structure to those distributed by al-Qaeda in Iraq, and now the Mujahideen Shura Council, the story of Abu Osman al-Yamai, the Paradise Lover, was recently published. Abu Osman, a man of Yemeni origin, is written to have traveled with haste to Iraq for jihad, bowing before Allah and weeping upon his entrance to the country unlike the young men nowadays who cry over a sweetheart or over a singer. According to the writer, he enlisted in the suicide brigade of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the al-Baraa bin Malik Brigade, and awaited his turn by providing assistance to his fellow mujahideen with general chores and buoying their spirits.
The biography indicates that Abu Osman was chosen to participate in a suicide operation targeting the new American barracks in Haseiba, in the area of al-Sanjak. The military commander in charge of the operation chose to use a suicide bomber in combination with sniper fire to ease the entry of the mujahideen and decrease the number of potential casualties and loss of equipment. The biography states: He went fast and attacked the enemy crushing their fortifications, causing them tens of killing and injured. It looked like a real battlefield. The medical helicopters were seen more than once to carry the injured.
Abu Osman, prior to his suicide car bombing, is describes as having consoled his brothers who were upset with his leaving, calming them as if he was going on a picnic, and not to death.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/19/2006 01:10 ||
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Hamas-Gaza denies Jordanian charge of smuggling weapons into kingdom. Amman abruptly canceled the Palestinian FMs visit Wednesday, April 19 until further notice. Government spokesman Nasser Judeh said missiles, explosives and automatic weapons were seized in the last couple of days along with Hamas activists who had smuggled the dangerous weapons into the country.
DEBKAfiles Amman sources report Jordan-Hamas rancor peaked in early March when Hamas Damascus-based chief Khaled Meshaal was accused of meddling in the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood branchs vote for a Chief Guide to bring Salem Thunaibat to office with Jamil Abu Baqar as his deputy. King Abdullah and his security chiefs are worried about the Hamas-led Palestinian government providing logistical backing for an attempt by their sister organization, the Muslim Brotherhood of Jordan, to seize power in Amman. In 1999, the Hamas was kicked out of Jordan for subversion. According to our sources, the contraband hardware would have been smuggled into Jordan from Syria or Lebanon rather than the West Bank or Gaza Strip.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/19/2006 08:49 ||
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The trial of an unsuccessful female suicide bomber charged over the killing of 60 people in deadly hotel bombings in Jordan will begin next week, the prosecutor's office said on Tuesday.
They said Sajida al-Rishawi, 35, an Iraqi, will stand trial on April 24 in a state security court for the al-Qaeda attack on Amman hotels on November 9 which killed 60 people.
Eight others who are also charged last March, including al-Qaeda's Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, are still at large.
Prosecutors charged her with conspiracy to carry out terrorist acts, causing death and destruction, and the illegal possession of weapons and explosives.
The charge of conspiracy and having explosives to use illegaly carry the death sentence.
Rishawi failed to blow herself up during the attacks. She was arrested shortly afterwards when she tried to seek refuge with the family of her sister's husband, a Jordanian killed in clashes with U.S. forces in Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/19/2006 00:59 ||
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RIYADH - Saudi Arabia told visiting Palestinian foreign minister Mahmud Zahar on Tuesday that it will pay its share of 92.4 million dollars to the Palestinian Authority, an aide to Zahar said.
Uncle Abdullah comes through again with the Danegeld ...
Zahar met in Riyadh with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud as part of efforts by the Hamas-led Palestinian government to muster Arab financial aid after the United States and European Union cut funds, citing Hamas refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence.
Saud told Zahar that Saudi Arabia would pay 92.4 million dollars, amounting to the oil-rich kingdoms contribution under a resolution adopted at an Arab summit in Khartoum last month, the aide told AFP. The sum covers the period from mid-October 2005 to mid-October 2006.
It covers about one month's salaries for the Paleo civil service, a group indistinguishable from the Paleo population in general. This still leaves them begging for cash on a month-to-month basis, which doesn't help their public image much.
Saudi Arabia also gave the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority 20 million dollars in emergency aid last month to help it pay civil servants salaries at the request of Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, the source said.
Again, the April payroll is coming up ...
He said Saud and Zahar discussed the deteriorating economic conditions in the Palestinian territories and ways of breaking the international isolation imposed on the new Palestinian government after militant Hamas took power following its upset victory in January elections. The Saudi minister stressed that the kingdom will continue to support the Palestinian people and their authority, both politically and financially, according to Zahars aide.
"Just don't boom us," he warned the Paleos.
The two sides agreed on the need for the Hamas-led government to coordinate fully with Abbas, he added.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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Oh, good. The world equivalent of crack whore nation gets to turn tricks and get high for at least another month thanks to their Saudi pimps.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened Tuesday that Secretary General of the Islamic Jihad Movement Abdullah Ramadan Shallah will be targeted as a revenge to the Tel Aviv operation that killed ten Israelis and injured many others, ten of whom are in serious conditions.
Israeli security sources said that Israel took this decision after the discussions held between Minister-designate Ehud Olmert and Mofaz. Shallah threatened two days ago that suicidal attacks will be performed in the heart of Israel. A suicide bomber blew himself up Monday near a bus stop in Tel Aviv. The Islamic Jihad claimed its responsibility for the attack.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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Just turn off the electricity and water until he is turned over and Palos agree to reject terrorism.
LAHORE: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) will assist the new Hamas government financially to help it tackle international economic sanctions, JI Secretary General Syed Munawar Hasan told party district and tehsil officials in a 3-day training convention in Mansoora on Tuesday. He said JI Ameer Qazi Hussain Ahmad would formally appeal to people for donations soon.
Munawar Hasan said JI was the only political party in the country that welcomed difference of opinion and made decisions after extensive debate. Veteran JI leader and former ameer Mian Tufail Muhammad also participated in the convention. Mian Maqsood Ahmad read the participants' recommendations. JI Earthquake Relief and Rehabilitation Chief Coordinator Niamatullah Khan presented a report on JI's relief operation in earthquake-hit areas.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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"appeal" "soon" Good luck with the fund drive. Inshallah.
#2
Hey, this is great. All the bad dudes who are willing to support Hamas is like a self-creating org chart of our enemies. Welcome to the field of view of the Duplex Reticule, gents.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/19/2006 22:44 Comments ||
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Israel and Palestinians have exchanged accusations over who is responsible for increasing violence after Monday's blast in Tel Aviv and Israeli attacks in Gaza. The Israeli and Palestinian envoys at the UN traded charges at an open Security Council meeting held on Monday. The meeting followed the recent upsurge in Israeli attacks in Gaza and after a Palestinian suicide bomber struck a crowded fast-food restaurant in Tel Aviv, killing nine and wounding dozens in the deadliest bombing in more than a year.
Israel said a new "axis of terror" - Iran, Syria and the Hamas-run Palestinian government - was sowing the seeds of the first world war of the 21st century. Dan Gillerman, Israel's ambassador, told the Security Council that Monday's "horrific act of terrorism as well as the ones that preceded it are the direct result of the new axis of terror" made up of Iran and Syria and the "terrorist organisations they have been harbouring, nurturing, financing and supporting, namely Hamas and Hezbollah".
Recent statements by Hamas leaders - refusing to recognise Israel, and by Iran's president who said on Saturday that Israel was a "rotten, dried tree" that was "on the road to being eliminated" - represented "the stated goal of this axis of terror", which was again executed in Monday's bombing, he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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Correction: Asses of Terror
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/19/2006 10:16 Comments ||
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Jordan says it has cancelled the Palestinian foreign minister's visit because members of his Hamas party have been smuggling missiles and other weapons into the kingdom.
Just can't behave, even when it's important, can they?
Smuggling arms isn't a habit for the Paleos, it's an addiction ...
It's their legitimate right. Ev'rybody knows that.
Sez so right in the Holy Book, you could look it up
Nasser Judeh, the Jordanian government spokesman, said the visit by Mahmoud al-Zahar, which was planned for Wednesday, had been "put off until further notice". He said "missiles, explosives and automatic weapons were seized in the last couple of days", but declined to say whether anyone had been arrested. Hamas spokesman Osama Hamadan declined to comment on Judeh's remarks, saying late on Tuesday that he had not seen the Jordanian statement. Government officials said privately that al-Zahar, the most senior Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, had asked to visit Jordan to meet Abdul-Illah al-Khatib, the foreign minister. They said they did not know what al-Zahar planned to discuss or whether he would have requested financial aid.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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Might be time to look elsewhere for the "financial aid". Try squeezing the Saudis for another $92 mill....
April 19, 2006: The U.S. Army has ordered another 306 Stryker wheeled armored vehicles, at an average cost of $1.52 million each. So far, about 1,500 Strykers are in use. Despite lots of criticism from various experts, Strykers have proved very popular with their users. The main reasons are;
@ Speed- The Stryker can move along at over 100 kilometers an hour.
@ Silence- Compared to tracked vehicles, the Stryker is very quiet.
@ Gadgets- The Stryker has the latest in computers, communication and night vision equipment. For a generation of troops raised on PCs and video games, this is a good thing.
@ Protection- RPG hits rarely cause any crew injuries, and Strykers have proved very robust when hit by roadside bomb blasts.
Captured enemy gunmen often complained of how the Strykers came out of nowhere, and skillfully maneuvered to surround and destroy their targets. This was often done at night, with no lights (using night vision gear.) The element of surprise is always a decisive battlefield edge. Both the Stryker troops, and the enemy fighters, call the vehicles "ghosts." Constant combat operations have created a constant stream of suggestions for improvements, and most of these have been made. This gives the Stryker a major edge in combat, and in battles with critics back home.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/19/2006 09:35 ||
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I'll take one
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/19/2006 10:14 Comments ||
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I'll take one
With the success of the Hummer, how long before there's a civilian version of the Stryker?
During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran's forces were no match for Saddam Hussein's professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child's neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.
At one point, however, the earthly gore became a matter of concern. "In the past," wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettelaat as the war raged on, "we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the minefields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone." Such scenes would henceforth be avoided, Ettelaat assured its readers. "Before entering the minefields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves."
These children who rolled to their deaths were part of the Basiji, a mass movement created by Khomeini in 1979 and militarized after the war started in order to supplement his beleaguered army.The Basij Mostazafan--or "mobilization of the oppressed"--was essentially a volunteer militia, most of whose members were not yet 18. They went enthusiastically, and by the thousands, to their own destruction. "The young men cleared the mines with their own bodies," one veteran of the Iran-Iraq War recalled in 2002 to the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine. "It was sometimes like a race. Even without the commander's orders, everyone wanted to be first."
The sacrifice of the Basiji was ghastly. And yet, today, it is a source not of national shame, but of growing pride. Since the end of hostilities against Iraq in 1988, the Basiji have grown both in numbers and influence. They have been deployed, above all, as a vice squad to enforce religious law in Iran, and their elite "special units" have been used as shock troops against anti-government forces. In both 1999 and 2003, for instance, the Basiji were used to suppress student unrest. And, last year, they formed the potent core of the political base that propelled Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--a man who reportedly served as a Basij instructor during the Iran-Iraq War--to the presidency.
Ahmadinejad revels in his alliance with the Basiji. He regularly appears in public wearing a black-and-white Basij scarf, and, in his speeches, he routinely praises "Basij culture" and "Basij power," with which he says "Iran today makes its presence felt on the international and diplomatic stage." Ahmadinejad's ascendance on the shoulders of the Basiji means that the Iranian Revolution, launched almost three decades ago, has entered a new and disturbing phase. A younger generation of Iranians, whose worldviews were forged in the atrocities of the Iran-Iraq War, have come to power, wielding a more fervently ideological approach to politics than their predecessors. The children of the Revolution are now its leaders.
In 1980, the Ayatollah Khomeini called the Iraqi invasion of Iran a "divine blessing," because the war provided him the perfect opportunity to Islamize both Iranian society and the institutions of the Iranian state. As Saddam's troops pushed into Iran, Khomeini's fanatically devoted Revolutionary Guard moved rapidly to mobilize and prepare their air and sea forces. At the same time, the regime hastened to develop the Basiji as a popular militia.
Whereas the Revolutionary Guard consisted of professionally trained adult soldiers, the Basiji was essentially composed of boys between twelve and 17 and men over 45. They received only a few weeks of training--less in weapons and tactics than in theology. Most Basiji came from the countryside and were often illiterate. When their training was done, each Basiji received a blood-red headband that designated him a volunteer for martyrdom. According to Sepehr Zabih's The Iranian Military in Revolution and War, such volunteers made up nearly one-third of the Iranian army--and the majority of its infantry.
The chief combat tactic employed by the Basiji was the human wave attack, whereby barely armed children and teenagers would move continuously toward the enemy in perfectly straight rows. It did not matter whether they fell to enemy fire or detonated the mines with their bodies: The important thing was that the Basiji continue to move forward over the torn and mutilated remains of their fallen comrades, going to their deaths in wave after wave. Once a path to the Iraqi forces had been opened up, Iranian commanders would send in their more valuable and skilled Revolutionary Guard troops.
This approach produced some undeniable successes. "They come toward our positions in huge hordes with their fists swinging," one Iraqi officer complained in the summer of 1982. "You can shoot down the first wave and then the second. But at some point the corpses are piling up in front of you, and all you want to do is scream and throw away your weapon. Those are human beings, after all!" By the spring of 1983, some 450,000 Basiji had been sent to the front. After three months, those who survived deployment were sent back to their schools or workplaces.
But three months was a long time on the front lines. In 1982, during the retaking of the city of Khorramshahr, 10,000 Iranians died. Following "Operation Kheiber," in February 1984, the corpses of some 20,000 fallen Iranians were left on the battlefield. The "Karbala Four" offensive in 1986 cost the lives of more than 10,000 Iranians. All told, some 100,000 men and boys are said to have been killed during Basiji operations. Why did the Basiji volunteer for such duty?
Most of them were recruited by members of the Revolutionary Guards, which commanded the Basiji. These "special educators" would visit schools and handpick their martyrs from the paramilitary exercises in which all Iranian youth were required to participate. Propaganda films--like the 1986 TV film A Contribution to the War--praised this alliance between students and the regime and undermined those parents who tried to save their children's lives. (At the time, Iranian law allowed children to serve even if their families objected.) Some parents, however, were lured by incentives. In a campaign called "Sacrifice a Child for the Imam," every family that lost a child on the battlefield was offered interest-free credit and other generous benefits. Moreover, enrollment in the Basiji gave the poorest of the poor a chance for social advancement.
Still others were coerced into "volunteering." In 1982, the German weekly Der Spiegel documented the story of a twelve-year-old boy named Hossein, who enlisted with the Basiji despite having polio:
One day, some unknown imams turned up in the village. They called the whole population to the plaza in front of the police station, and they announced that they came with good news from Imam Khomeini: The Islamic Army of Iran had been chosen to liberate the holy city Al Quds--Jerusalem--from the infidels. ... The local mullah had decided that every family with children would have to furnish one soldier of God. Because Hossein was the most easily expendable for his family, and because, in light of his illness, he could in any case not expect much happiness in this life, he was chosen by his father to represent the family in the struggle against the infidel devils.
Of the 20 children that went into battle with Hossein, only he and two others survived.
But, if such methods explained some of why they volunteered, it did not explain the fervor with which they rushed to their destruction. That can only be elucidated by the Iranian Revolution's peculiar brand of Islam. At the beginning of the war, Iran's ruling mullahs did not send human beings into the minefields, but rather animals: donkeys, horses, and dogs. But the tactic proved. "After a few donkeys had been blown up, the rest ran off in terror," Mostafa Arki reports in his book Eight Years of War in the Middle East. The donkeys reacted normally--fear of death is natural. The Basiji, on the other hand, marched fearlessly and without complaint to their deaths. The curious slogans that they chanted while entering the battlefields are of note: "Against the Yazid of our time!"; "Hussein's caravan is moving on!"; "A new Karbala awaits us!"
Yazid, Hussein, Karbala--these are all references to the founding myth of Shia Islam. In the late seventh century, Islam was split between those loyal to the Caliph Yazid--the predecessors of Sunni Islam--and the founders of Shia Islam, who thought that the Imam Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, should govern the Muslims. In 680, Hussein led an uprising against the "illegitimate" caliph, but he was betrayed. On the plain of Karbala, on the tenth day of the month of Muharram, Yazid's forces attacked Hussein and his entourage and killed them. Hussein's corpse bore the marks of 33 lance punctures and 34 blows of the sword.
His head was cut off and his body was trampled by horses. Ever since, the martyrdom of Hussein has formed the core of Shia theology, and the Ashura Festival that commemorates his death is Shiism's holiest day. On that day, men beat themselves with their fists or flagellate themselves with iron chains to approximate Hussein's sufferings. At times throughout the centuries, the ritual has grown obscenely violent. In his study Crowds and Power, Elias Canetti recounts a firsthand report of the Ashura Festival as it occurred in mid-nineteenth-century Tehran:
500,000 people, in the grip of delirium, cover their heads with ashes and beat their foreheads against the ground. They want to subject themselves voluntarily to torments: to commit suicide en masse, to mutilate themselves with refinement. ... Hundreds of men in white shirts come by, their faces ecstatically raised toward the sky. Of these, several will be dead this evening, many will be maimed and mutilated, and the white shirts, dyed red, will be burial shrouds. ... There is no more beautiful destiny than to die on the Festival of Ashura. The gates of the eight Paradises are wide open for the holy and everyone tries to get through them.
Bloody excesses of this sort are prohibited in contemporary Iran, but, during the Iran-Iraq War, Khomeini appropriated the essence of the ritual as a symbolic act and politicized it. He took the inward-directed fervor and channeled it toward the external enemy. He transformed the passive lamentation into active protest. He made the Battle of Karbala the prototype of any fight against tyranny. Indeed, this technique had been used during political demonstrations in 1978, when many Iranian protestors wore funeral shrouds in order to tie the battle of 680 to the contemporary struggle against the shah. In the war against Iraq, the allusions to Karbala were given still greater significance: On the one hand, the scoundrel Yazid, now in the form of Saddam Hussein; on the other, the Prophet's grandson, Hussein, for whose suffering the time of Shia revenge had finally come.
The power of this story was further reinforced by a theological twist that Khomeini gave it. According to Khomeini, life is worthless and death is the beginning of genuine existence. "The natural world," he explained in October 1980, "is the lowest element, the scum of creation. "What is decisive is the beyond: The "divine world, that is eternal." This latter world is accessible to martyrs. Their death is no death, but merely the transition from this world to the world beyond, where they will live on eternally and in splendor. Whether the warrior wins the battle or loses it and dies a Martyr--in both cases, his victory is assured: either a mundane or a spiritual one.
This attitude had a fatal implication for the Basiji: Whether they survived or not was irrelevant. Not even the tactical utility of their sacrifice mattered. Military victories are secondary, Khomeini explained in September 1980.The Basiji must "understand that he is a 'soldier of God' for whom it is not so much the outcome of the conflict as the mere participation in it that provides fulfillment and gratification." Could Khomeini's antipathy for life have had as much effect in the war against Iraq without the Karbala myth? Probably not.With the word "Karbala" on their lips, the Basiji went elatedly into battle.
For those whose courage still waned in the face of death, the regime put on a show. A mysterious horseman on a magnificent steed would suddenly appear on the front lines. His face--covered in phosphorous--would shine. His costume was that of a medieval prince. A child soldier, Reza Behrouzi, whose story was documented in 1985 by French writer Freidoune Sehabjam, reported that the soldiers reacted with a mixture of panic and rapture.
Everyone wanted to run toward the horseman. But he drove them away. "Don't come to me!" he shouted, "Charge into battle against the infidels! ... Revenge the death of our Imam Hussein and strike down the progeny of Yazid!" As the figure disappears, the soldiers cry: "Oh, Imam Zaman, where are you?" They throw themselves on their knees, and pray and wail. When the figure appears again, they get to their feet as a single man. Those whose forces are not yet exhausted charge the enemy lines.
The mysterious apparition who was able to trigger such emotions is the "hidden imam," a mythical figure who influences the thought and action of Ahmadinejad to this day. The Shia call all the male descendants of the Prophet Muhammad "imams" and ascribe to them a quasidivine status. Hussein, who was killed at Karbala by Yazid, was the third Imam. His son and grandson were the fourth and fifth. At the end of this line, there is the "Twelfth Imam," who is named Muhammad. Some call him the Mahdi (the "divinely guided one"), though others say imam Zaman (from sahib-e zaman: "the ruler of time"). He was born in 869, the only son of the eleventh Imam. In 874, he disappeared without a trace, thereby bringing Muhammad's lineage to a close. In Shia mythology, however, the Twelfth Imam survived. The Shia believe that he merely withdrew from public view when he was five and that he will sooner or later emerge from his "occultation" in order to liberate the world from evil.
Writing in the early '80s, V. S. Naipaul showed how deeply rooted the belief in the coming of the Shia messiah is among the Iranian population. In Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey, he described seeing posters in post-Revolutionary Tehran bearing motifs similar to those of Maoist China: crowds, for instance, with rifles and machine guns raised in the air as if in greeting. The posters always bore the same phrase: twelfth imam, we are waiting for you. Naipaul writes that he could grasp intellectually the veneration for Khomeini. "But the idea of the revolution as something more, as an offering to the Twelfth Imam, the man who had vanished ... and remained 'in occultation,' was harder to seize." According to Shia tradition, legitimate Islamic rule can only be established following the reappearance of the Twelfth Imam. Until that time, the Shia have only to wait, to keep their peace with illegitimate rule, and to remember the Prophet's grandson, Hussein, in sorrow. Khomeini, however, had no intention of waiting. He vested the myth with an entirely new sense: The Twelfth Imam will only emerge when the believers have vanquished evil. To speed up the Mahdi's return, Muslims had to shake off their torpor and fight.
This activism had more in common with the revolutionary ideas of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood than with Shia traditions. Khomeini had been familiar with the texts of the Muslim Brothers since the 1930s, and he agreed with the Brothers' conception of what had to be considered "evil": namely, all the achievements of modernity that replaced divine providence with individual self-determination, blind faith with doubt, and the stern morality of sharia with sensual pleasures. According to legend, Yazid was the embodiment of everything that was forbidden: He drank wine, enjoyed music and song, and played with dogs and monkeys. And was not Saddam just the same? In the war against Iraq, "evil" was clearly defined, and vanquishing evil was the precondition for hastening the return of the beloved Twelfth Imam. When he let himself be seen for a few minutes riding his white steed, the readiness to die a martyr's death increased considerably.
It was this culture that nurtured Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's worldview. Born outside Tehran in 1956, the son of blacksmith, he trained as a civil engineer, and, during the Iran-Iraq War, he joined the Revolutionary Guards. His biography remains strangely elliptical. Did he play a role in the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy, as some charge? What exactly did he do during the war? These are questions for which we have no definite answers. His presidential website says simply that he was "on active service as a Basij volunteer up to the end of the holy defense [the war against Iraq] and served as a combat engineer in different spheres of duty."
We do know that, after the war's end, he served as the governor of Ardebil Province and as an organizer of Ansar-e Hezbollah, a radical gang of violent Islamic vigilantes. After becoming mayor of Tehran in April 2003, Ahmadinejad used his position to build up a strong network of radical Islamic fundamentalists known as Abadgaran-e Iran-e Islami, or Developers of an Islamic Iran. It was in that role that he won his reputation--and popularity--as a hardliner devoted to rolling back the liberal reforms of then-President Muhammad Khatami. Ahmadinejad positioned himself as the leader of a "second revolution" to eradicate corruption and Western influences from Iranian society. And the Basiji, whose numbers had grown dramatically since the end of the Iran-Iraq War, embraced him. Recruited from the more conservative and impoverished parts of the population, the Basiji fall under the direction of--and swear absolute loyalty to--the Supreme Leader Ali Khameini, Khomeini's successor. During Ahmadinejad's run for the presidency in 2005, the millions of Basiji--in every Iranian town, neighborhood, and mosque--became his unofficial campaign workers.
Since Ahmadinejad became president, the influence of the Basiji has grown. In November, the new Iranian president opened the annual "Basiji Week," which commemorates the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq War. According to a report in Kayan, a publication loyal to Khameini, some nine million Basiji--12 percent of the Iranian population--turned out to demonstrate in favor of Ahmadinejad's anti-liberal platform. The article claimed that the demonstrators "form[ed] a human chain some 8,700 kilometers long. ... In Tehran alone, some 1,250,000 people turned out." Barely noticed by the Western media, this mobilization attests to Ahmadinejad's determination to impose his "second revolution" and to extinguish the few sparks of freedom in Iran.
At the end of July 2005, the Basij movement announced plans to increase its membership from ten million to 15 million by 2010. The elite special units are supposed to comprise some 150,000 people by then. Accordingly, the Basiji have received new powers in their function as an unofficial division of the police. What this means in practice became clear in February 2006, when the Basiji attacked the leader of the bus-drivers' union, Massoud Osanlou. They held Osanlou prisoner in his apartment, and they cut off the tip of his tongue in order to convince him to keep quiet. No Basiji needs to fear prosecution for such terrorists tactics before a court of law.
As Basij ideology and influence enjoy a renaissance under Ahmadinejad, the movement's belief in the virtues of violent self-sacrifice remains intact. There is no "truth commission" in Iran to investigate the state-planned collective suicide that took place from 1980 to 1988. Instead, every Iranian is taught the virtues of martyrdom from childhood. Obviously, many of them reject the Basij teachings. Still, everyone knows the name of Hossein Fahmideh, who, as a 13-year-old boy during the war, blew himself up in front of an Iraqi tank. His image follows Iranians throughout their day: whether on postage stamps or the currency. If you hold up a 500 Rial bill to the light, it is his face you will see in the watermark. The self-destruction of Fahmideh is depicted as a model of profound faith by the Iranian press. It has been the subject of both an animated film and an episode of the TV series "Children of Paradise." As a symbol of their readiness to die for the Revolution, Basij groups wear white funeral shrouds over their uniforms during public appearances.
During this year's Ashura Festival, school classes were taken on excursions to a "Martyrs' Cemetery." "They wear headbands painted with the name Hussein," The New York Times reported, "and march beneath banners that read: 'Remembering the Martyrs today is as important as becoming a Martyr' and 'The Nation for whom Martyrdom means happiness, will always be Victorious.' " Since 2004, the mobilization of Iranians for suicide brigades has intensified, with recruits being trained for foreign missions. Thus, a special military unit has been created bearing the name "Commando of Voluntary Martyrs. "According to its own statistics, this force has so far recruited some 52,000 Iranians to the suicidal cause. It aims to form a "martyrdom unit" in every Iranian province.
The Basiji's cult of self-destruction would be chilling in any country. In the context of the Iranian nuclear program, however, its obsession with martyrdom amounts to a lit fuse. Nowadays, Basiji are sent not into the desert, but rather into the laboratory. Basij students are encouraged to enroll in technical and scientific disciplines. According to a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guard, the aim is to use the "technical factor" in order to augment "national security."
What exactly does that mean? Consider that, in December 2001, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that "the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything." On the other hand, if Israel responded with its own nuclear weapons, it "will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality." Rafsanjani thus spelled out a macabre cost-benefit analysis. It might not be possible to destroy Israel without suffering retaliation. But, for Islam, the level of damage Israel could inflict is bearable--only 100,000 or so additional martyrs for Islam.
And Rafsanjani is a member of the moderate, pragmatic wing of the Iranian Revolution; he believes that any conflict ought to have a "worthwhile" outcome. Ahmadinejad, by contrast, is predisposed toward apocalyptic thinking. In one of his first TV interviews after being elected president, he enthused: "Is there an art that is more beautiful, more divine, more eternal than the art of the martyr's death?" In September 2005, he concluded his first speech before the United Nations by imploring God to bring about the return of the Twelfth Imam. He finances a research institute in Tehran whose sole purpose is to study, and, if possible, accelerate the coming of the imam. And, at a theology conference in November 2005, he stressed, "The most important task of our Revolution is to prepare the way for the return of the Twelfth Imam."
A politics pursued in alliance with a supernatural force is necessarily unpredictable.Why should an Iranian president engage in pragmatic politics when his assumption is that, in three or four years, the savior will appear? If the messiah is coming, why compromise? That is why, up to now, Ahmadinejad has pursued confrontational policies with evident pleasure.
The history of the Basiji shows that we must expect monstrosities from the current Iranian regime. Already, what began in the early '80s with the clearing of minefields by human detonators has spread throughout the Middle East, as suicide bombing has become the terrorist tactic of choice. The motivational shows in the desert--with hired actors in the role of the hidden imam--have evolved into a showdown between a zealous Iranian president and the Western world. And the Basiji who once upon a time wandered the desert armed only with a walking stick is today working as a chemist in a uranium enrichment facility.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/19/2006 01:20 ||
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It also motivates the Basiji to realize that iff he didn't go into the minefield or attack the enemy's guns, etc, the adult Iranian soldier behind him would kill him anyways. Perhaps the most glaring example of this was captured Iranian footage showing adults in IRGC or reg Army uniforms using heavy machine guns and individual weapons, includ grenades, to shoot or explode the ground next to tweeny, prob scared shitless/scared straight Iranian youths in order to get them to use their tweeny bodies to clear minefields for follow-on Iranian forces. WILLFUL MARTYRS - I DON'T THINK SO.
#3
Yup, good read, though the level of indoctrination of iranian society described here is not always consistent with what one can read elsewhere, especially when it comes to the large young population.
"The terrorists have no fear of dying, let's not be afraid of killing them". Works for Basiji too, I guess.
#5
Liberal you say? That explains why I feel sorry for the children.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
04/19/2006 11:36 Comments ||
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#6
Notice how the logic to solve the problem evolves.
Have a problem sir, good men will die.
Then, send bad men.
Yes sir.
Have a problem sir, no more bad men to send.
Send bad women. Then, send bad children.
How can I tell a bad child from a good one sir ?
The good ones will come back alive. Allan wills it.
We probably should tie one arm behind our backs for this coming war in Iran. But, naaaa.
#7
The sacrifice of the Basiji was ghastly. And yet, today, it is a source not of national shame, but of growing pride.
This alone stands as a perpetual indictment against the Iranians.
The Basiji's cult of self-destruction would be chilling in any country. In the context of the Iranian nuclear program, however, its obsession with martyrdom amounts to a lit fuse.
Too bad the rest of the world doesn't grasp this simple concept.
Consider that, in December 2001, former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani explained that "the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything." On the other hand, if Israel responded with its own nuclear weapons, it "will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality." Rafsanjani thus spelled out a macabre cost-benefit analysis. It might not be possible to destroy Israel without suffering retaliation. But, for Islam, the level of damage Israel could inflict is bearable--only 100,000 or so additional martyrs for Islam.
Combine this with Ahmadinejad's similarly psycho-lunatic war-mongering and the dire nature of this threat is undenaiable. That most of the world refuses to acknowledge this is a profound form of mass cognitive dissonance.
#8
I remember reading at the time that those young boys had another reason for being ready to blow themselves up--that many of them were being homosexually abused by older soldiers and that even death was preferable to continuing to live like that.
Posted by: mac ||
04/19/2006 17:22 Comments ||
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#9
The chief combat tactic employed by the Basiji was the human wave attack, whereby barely armed children and teenagers would move continuously toward the enemy in perfectly straight rows.
The most common counter-tactic used by the Iraqis was mustard gas, especially in the marshes. Nerve agents were rumored to have been used, but I don't remember seeing any reports.
The Central Intelligence Agency and Syria share a dirty little secret. It flows from a special relationship that has masked knowledge and possible involvement with individuals directly associated with the hijackers who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001.
Those individuals were members of al Qaeda, living in Hamburg, Germany. The startling thing is that these al Qaeda members also belonged to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members escaped to Hamburg, Germany, and other destinations throughout Europe after the late Syrian President Hafez Assad murdered some 20,000 of them in the Syrian city of Hama in 1982.
After September 11, the CIA had praised Syria for its help in the war on terror. There is some indication, however, that Syria conned CIA into thinking it was sincere on the war on terror by purposely training al Qaeda members only to turn them over to the United States.
Nevertheless, the CIA jealously covets its direct ties through the Syrian intelligence service that may reach to Bashar Assad's brother Maher who regards Bashar as weak.
Maher was closely allied with other Syrian elements who opposed Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon. Through Maher, who represents the Old Guard opposed to any reforms in Syria, the CIA maintains ties with Syrian intelligence elements still in Lebanon. This helps maintain CIA influence on events in Lebanon and keeps open its links into Syria itself.
After ouster of Iraq's Saddam Hussein in March 2003, the CIA and Syrian relationship had begun to sour following charges Syria harbored Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and fleeing Iraqi officials. This prompted former CIA Director George Tenet in October 2003 to pay a secret visit to Syria in an effort to mend fences.
Despite Bush administration pressure on Syria to stop insurgents from heading to Iraq to battle U.S. forces, a quiet relationship between Syria and the CIA continues. This also is manifested through the U.S. Embassy in Jordan and known contract workers and consultants who have since retired from the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. They not only travel frequently to Syria and Lebanon. They also maintain contacts with individuals associated with the Lebanese Embassy in Washington.
In Hamburg, Germany, where the September 11 hijackers planned their attack on the United States, the CIA had a history of contacts with the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which opposed the Syrian regime. Such ties began as early as 1986. Former CIA operative Bob Baer refers to this initiative in his book "Sleeping With the Devil."
However, German investigators believe Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members in Hamburg actually may have acted as double-agents for the Syrian intelligence service.
At least one Hamburg area company is believed to have been a front for the Syrian intelligence service, notwithstanding its Syrian Muslim Brotherhood connection. This concern is strengthened by the fact a former director of the Syrian intelligence service is a shareholder of the Hamburg company owned by a Syrian Muslim Brotherhood member.
German officials also believe Syrian intelligence tried to control the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members in Hamburg, including those who would become the September 11 hijackers.
Prior to September 11, a known CIA operative obtained information from federal German counterterrorism officials monitoring the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members. Such information had been coming into CIA since before 1999. The information collected also involved activities at the Hamburg apartment where the would-be hijackers lived.
At the same time, the CIA operative was in contact with Hamburg's counterintelligence officials who also were observing the same individuals. Without the knowledge of German counterintelligence officials, the CIA tried to recruit some of these Syrian Muslim Brotherhood members who also belonged to al Qaeda. This development created a strain between German officials and the CIA.
From 1999 to 2001, the CIA operative's reports based on interviews with German counterterrorism and counterintelligence officials were relayed to CIA headquarters. Defense Department policymakers never were made aware of these reports' contents prior to or after September 11.
It is apparent the CIA and the Syrians know more than what has been revealed to date. It will be imperative to learn what they knew and when they knew it, including possible attack plans.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/19/2006 01:05 ||
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#1
Talk about conspiracist spin. I could rewrite the article using the same facts and spin it as, the CIA was on the trail of the 9/11 hijackers when they were still in Hamburg. I'd probably throw in something like - Unfortunately, once they moved to the US, the Liberal conspiracy to prevent adequate surveillance of suspected terrorist in the US blocked efforts to monitor their activities.
London, Apr. 18 Against a backdrop of mounting international concern over Irans nuclear brinkmanship, Tehran has been abuzz in recent days with rumours about the rapidly deteriorating health of a senior ayatollah and the impact of his probable departure from the countrys political scene. Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, older than Moses 85, is chairman of the Assembly of Experts, a body of senior clerics entrusted with the task of selecting the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution.
Meshkini is reportedly afflicted with an advanced form of cancer and has been undergoing chemotherapy for the past three months. The frail and emaciated cleric delivered the opening speech of a three-day session of the Assembly of Experts in March, but he was so ill that he had to leave shortly afterwards. The rest of the session was chaired by Meshkinis deputy, former President Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Ayatollah Meshkini is also the Friday prayers leader in the holy city of Qom, Irans most important Shiite theological centre. Last week, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed a hard-line cleric, Ayatollah Reza Ostadi, to lead the weekly congregation in Meshkinis place. The senior cleric holds a number of other positions and is a leading figure in the powerful Association of Theological Scholars.
Sounds like a real Qur'an thumper.
In his sensitive position as the chairman of the Assembly of Experts, Meshkini has been an indispensable ally for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His strong ties to Khamenei were instrumental in helping the relatively junior cleric to assume the mantle of leadership after the demise of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in June 1989.
In January 1989, Meshkini was among a close circle of confidants who strongly urged Khomeini to sack his nominated successor, Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. Montazeri was publicly disgraced by Khomeini after he objected to the mass execution of political prisoners in Iran in 1988. Meshkinis son-in-law, Ayatollah Mohammadi Reyshahri, who at the time headed the countrys secret police known as the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), played a key role in Montazeris fall from grace.
I'm sure Dan Darling has a scorecard for all this.
The departure of Meshkini from the political scene will deprive Khamenei of a key ally and will lead to a new round of infighting within the clerical leadership as to who would succeed him. Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini, a respected senior cleric, is said to be ill and would not stand in next years elections for the Assembly of Experts. This leaves Rafsanjani as a likely candidate for the leadership of the Assembly. But senior clerics close to Khamenei are strongly opposed to such an eventuality and are already manoeuvring to have a Khamenei ally replace Meshkini.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/19/2006 00:09 ||
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#3
montazeri is generally seen as a moderate, who wanted to move the mullahs out of politics, a la Sistani. If Meshkini really was the one who put the quash on him, then hes a bad one indeed.
NEW DELHI: India will not tolerate another nuclear weapon state in its neighbourhood, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh told a delegation of Muslim organisations on Tuesday. "Iran has had a clandestine nuclear programme for several years and it is not in our national interest to have another nuclear weapon state in our neighbourhood," said Singh. He advised Iran to fulfil all duties of a signatory state to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT). However, Iran is also entitled to all the rights given in the treaty, he added.
The prime minister said that improved relations between India and the United States were in the country's interest. There is no question of New Delhi succumbing to external pressure regarding its foreign policy, he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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#4
Not direct Indian action. But with India's historic business relationships, contacts and inside intellegence teamed with our, or perhaps the supplier of India's new Phalcon systems, military capability DOES open new possibilities.
#5
"The prime minister said that improved relations between India and the United States were in the country's interest. There is no question of New Delhi succumbing to external pressure regarding its foreign policy, he added."
I love it when you get to put the queen back on the board.
#6
I suspect a number of countries feel the same way but are reluctant to side with the Great Satan against their Muslim brothers. When the dust settles, it will be like when the Israelis whacked Osirak - lots of public tsk-tsking while everyone sighed with relief.
The president of Iran has said that his country will cut off the hands of any aggressor and that the country's military has to be equipped with the latest modern technology.
Neatly done: a reference to your own barbarism couple with a hat tip to modern technology...
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made the remarks on Tuesday to commemorate Army Day. "Today, you are among the world's most powerful armies because you rely on God," Ahmadinejad told military officers before a parade of the armed forces in southern Tehran.
They rely on God because they can't rely on maintenance...
"Iran's enemies know your courage, faith and commitment to Islam, and the land of Iran has created a powerful army that can powerfully defend the political borders and the integrity of the Iranian nation and cut the hands of any aggressor and place the sign of disgrace on their forehead," he said.
Yes. They can be bravely pounded to paste. The U.S. military is not Sammy's army, which used to be the Fourth Largest Army in the World™.
Ahmadinejad said Iran's army "has to be constantly ready, equipped and powerful. It has to be equipped with the latest technologies, recognise the enemy and constantly be vigilant". However, he said Iran's army would "serve peace and security for mankind especially the region and its neighbours. Power of our army will be no threat to any country. Our army carries the message of peace and security ... it is humble towards friends and a shooting star towards enemies."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/19/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Rightists-Fascists do the chest- and drum beatings - meanwhile, Purge/Holocaust-happy Commies are quiet as crickets and winds on a clear night, ala Ollie Stone's PLATOON. FNC's Mary Kellogg interviewed an Iranian? diplomat-official this AM, and whom said that Iran's oil will be gone in 20-25 years - roughly ditto the same timeline the Russians have given for their own domestic reserves.
#4
You might have a point 3dc. Are they taking their cues from old DC/Marvel comic villians? To listen to them you expect them to be meeting with Solomon Grundy in a helmet-shaped building in a swamp like on "Superfriends".
#8
Dunno. This guy's not smart enough to be Pinky and his ego's too big to be Brain.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/19/2006 19:50 Comments ||
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#9
I hate to stir up bad memories, but wasn't the Iranian army the one that fought to a standstill against Saddam in a war that was eventually called on account of neither side being able to field enough players? The same Saddam whose army was steamrolled by Coalition forces in an engagement that set a new record for yards gained on the ground?
Here's a hint: the coming dust-up is going to be an air campaign. Unless, of course, those armor thrusts and special ops aren't simply a diversion. Hope you have lots of spare parts for the Shah's leftover Tomcats and the MiGs you poached from Saddam. Remember, a country without electric power is a country without a uranium enrichment program.
#10
middle of the dread Iranian Summer, a country without power is a country without air conditioning, and tempers grow short...the mood to hang a mullah grows long...
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/19/2006 22:32 Comments ||
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Does power moderate Islamists? That was the question of the moment just a few months ago, following Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections. And on the lips of those who were inclined toward optimism, you heard one word over and over again: garbage. The idea was that once Islamists were responsible for taking out the trash--and providing other mundane social services--they would have to think more like pragmatists and less like jihadists. "[T]he fact is Hamas is now responsible for the school system, the collecting the garbage, the electricity. ... I do believe that the burden of that responsibility is going to inevitably have to moderate their behavior," Tom Friedman told NPR. "My hope is that as a consequence of now being responsible for electricity and picking up garbage and basic services to the Palestinian people, that they recognize it's time to moderate their stance," said Barack Obama. Surveying all this, George Will came up with a name for such wishful thinking: the "Garbage Collection Theory of History." He also dryly noted that the God worshipped by Hamas had "not authorized moderation in the name of sanitation."
In Amman recently, I met a man whose story illustrates--albeit it in a very small way--why such skepticism may be warranted. Ibrahim Gharaybeh is a 44-year-old writer on Arab politics and former stalwart of the Muslim Brotherhood who has sought to distance himself from the organization. Gharaybeh is no secularist, but he isn't exactly your stereotypical Islamist either: He believes in an Islamism that tends to the social and ethical needs of its people, has no structural objection to Israel's right to exist, and yes, takes seriously the practical issues of governance--that is, issues like garbage collection. For espousing these views, he has earned a cold shoulder from his former Brotherhood peers. Which is why Tom Friedman, Barack Obama, and anyone else who believes that Muslim radicals will happily shift their focus from holy war to waste disposal might want to first consider the career of Ibrahim Gharaybeh.
Gharaybeh joined the Brotherhood as a teenager in the 1970s. But he recalls that within a few years he was already troubled by the easy inclination toward political violence within the movement. Jordan's branch of the Brotherhood was unlike Egypt's, which at the time was busy expunging factions that called for an armed campaign against the state. (Among the firebrands cast off in Egypt was a young Ayman Al Zawahiri, now Al Qaeda's second in command.) Urban society in Jordan was overwhelmingly secular, and most mosque worshippers were "either very old or young Brotherhood members like myself," he says. As a result, political Islam was a tightly knit "society within a society." The utopian Islamism teenage Gharaybeh dreamed about would have broken through these cliquey tendencies and remedied Jordan's ills--not by force of arms, but through the irresistible merits of Islamic tradition and values.
Since there was little possibility of all this coming about in Jordan, Gharaybeh moved on to Saudi Arabia, where religion has always been more broadly embraced and political parties have always been banned. There he studied at King Abdelaziz University in Jeddah. Among his professors was a stalwart of the Brotherhood from back home: the late Abdullah Azzam, one of Hamas's founding fathers and, by virtue of having mentored Osama Bin Laden, one of Al Qaeda's founding grandfathers. Azzam was renowned for his stemwinding sermons about Palestine, Afghanistan, and global jihad (and to this day, videos of those addresses are considered must-viewing for Islamist militants everywhere). But according to Gharaybeh, there was another side to Azzam that he saved for intellectuals--and for when the camera was turned off. "He was an entirely different person during the time we spent together," Gharaybeh recalls. "He knew his movement needed thinkers and builders, not just fighters."
Such was the context in which Gharaybeh resolved to move on to Afghanistan in 1986, where he spent four years. "I wanted to work in the world of the Mujahadeen and the Brotherhood," he says. He became a field researcher for the Saudi-funded Institute for Policy Studies, a Brotherhood think tank run by Egyptian-born Kamal Hilbawy. Gharaybeh describes his daily work back then as follows: "We would prepare studies on the development of general education, schools in villages and rural areas, hospitals, and we would hope that these studies would benefit the government and the institutions that served the Afghan cause. ... It was a lot like your book on rebuilding Iraq, but from an Islamic perspective rather than an American perspective." (Gharaybeh was referring to my book The New Iraq, which laid out ideas for reconstructing the country. He had previously written charitably about the book on Al Jazeera's website, and told me that it reminded him of "the kind of thinking I used to do about a new Afghanistan during the jihad against the Soviets.") He adds that throughout his years in Afghanistan, his colleagues and mentors at the institute were primarily concerned with building a viable Islamic economy and state in Afghanistan--that is, the practical matters of governing a country--and had little interest in the Palestinian problem.
At this point in the conversation, my own recollection conflicts with his narration. Hilbawy had visited the United States during those years and given speeches to the now-defunct Muslim Arab Youth Association. The talks were largely concerned with promoting jihad and anti-Semitism; and when he spoke of Afghanistan, as I remember, there was a lot of blood and glory, and little about nation building.
Gharaybeh nods his head sadly. "I wrote an article at that time," he recalls, "'Truths and Imaginations in the Afghan Cause.' It was bitterly opposed. I wrote that there were many differences between the Mujahadeen, and the problems were political and social and weren't really much about Islam." Palestine, he says, "represented a global and Islamic fancy. ... Nobody could talk about something mistaken in the Afghan cause. Not Kamal Hilbawy, not anybody. ... You couldn't tell people your opinion and convictions. You might be killed. The movement was like a wall."
In 1991, Gharaybeh came back to Jordan and tried out his ideas on a new audience: the Brotherhood in Amman, by now a broad-based political and social movement. "My experiences in Afghanistan gave me a new idea of public works," he recalls, "the role [of the Brotherhood] being to transform the broader society, and not be isolated from it." He says he made the case for a far-reaching agenda "based on tax issues, confronting government corruption, social inclusion, and overall policies of the society and state." On the Palestinian question, he wrote critically of Hamas during the '90s, arguing in several opinion pieces that armed confrontation with Israel was a mistake. "I felt that military operations only lead to destruction and prison, and resorting to [foreign] intelligence agencies and states, and the need for money and training from abroad. And that's what has happened, with Syria and Iran." By 1998, he had earned himself so much resentment within the movement that he felt it best to leave.
Today, Gharaybeh writes 50,000 words of freelance prose per month to make a modest living for his family. After distancing himself from the movement ("You do it by simply not participating; you just distance yourself in practice") he faced boycotts from the myriad Brotherhood-controlled civil society institutions and publications. Meanwhile, it took six years before a pro-government newspaper in Jordan, the semi-independent daily Al-Ghad, would publish his work. He competes for space with younger and less knowledgeable reporters in Amman, he says, who win the tacit approval he cannot from Jordan's intelligence services to join a local newspaper's staff. Gharaybeh's plight is the predicament of the independent thinker in polarized societies: After leaving the comfort and safety of a political movement, he finds that its enemies are still his enemies, but its friends are no longer his friends.
Eight years later, it ought to be springtime for Gharaybeh. The Muslim Brotherhood now controls a government in Palestine and a sizable parliamentary bloc in Egypt. On the east bank of the Jordan River, the movement has a shot at sweeping municipal elections nationwide this year and gaining considerably in Jordan's parliamentary elections next year. At least in theory, these wins and potential wins present an opportunity for principles of pragmatic Islamist governance to be put into practice. But Gharaybeh remains critical of the movement: "[The Brotherhood] is unable to acknowledge to itself that it won," he says. And his pessimism is understandable. Recent history is riddled with examples of power emboldening, not moderating, Islamists. Small examples include Hezbollah's failure to moderate after taking control of the energy ministry in Lebanon. Large examples include the failure of Islamists to moderate after seizing whole countries, like Afghanistan and Iran. Yet, for some reason, the idea that the mundanities of daily governance will inevitably and necessarily pacify Islamists continues to hold appeal in the West. As the career of Ibrahim Gharaybeh suggests, that view is garbage.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/19/2006 01:16 ||
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Garbage is very polite way to put it.
Utter, unadulterated bullshit would be my choice definition.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan urged neighboring Pakistan to do more to curb militancy on their shared frontier, drawing an angry rebuke from Islamabad which has deployed 80,000 soldiers to the region.
About 100 people were injured yesterday afternoon as a group of BNP cadres and then police locked horns with a few thousand Jubo League members and supporters at Lalbagh in Old Dhaka. Local Awami League (AL) leader Haji Selim, some 15 policemen, and four journalists were among those wounded in the three-hour clashes. 
and burning banners, torn cloths and paper boxes in the compound of Lalbagh Police Station. A few hundred police led by Dhaka Metropolitan Police (South) Additional Deputy Commissioner M Shahriar Rahman then went into action 
Politicians in Germany's ruling Christian Democratic Party (CDU) called Saturday for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be barred from Germany during the World Cup. "It would be a welcome move if the government made clear through diplomatic channels that a visit to Germany by Ahmadinejad is undesirable," 
French banks in the Middle East, anxious to win business from wealthy Muslim investors, are adapting their practices to conform to financial precepts required by Islam. Financial operations under Islam are based on several cardinal principles: the proscription of interest payments, a requirement that transactions be based on tangible assets and a ban on dealings in such domains as arms, 
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Pennsylvania congressman is pushing a bill that would posthumously award a Congressional Gold Medal to the passengers and crew members killed aboard United Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001. Rep. Bill Shuster, a Republican whose district contains the western Pennsylvania field in Shanksville, Pa., where the planed crashed, said their fight to bring down the plane may have prevented hijackers from crashing it into the Capitol or White House. "Their actions preserved the American symbols of democracy," Shuster said.
Ghazeen Marri, the son of Nawab Khair Bux Marri, will be handed over to Pakistani authorities from the United Arab Emirates in the next few days, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said on Tuesday. Ghazeen Marri was arrested by the UAE authorities several days ago and faces several cases in Pakistan including for the murder of Justice Nawaz Marri, Sherpao told reporters. An Interior Ministry source said Ghazeen was arrested after the federal government banned the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), of which the tribal scion is considered the main financer.
GENEVA - The United Nations committee against torture has demanded that the United States provide more information about its treatment of prisoners at home and foreign terrorism suspects held in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
RIYADH - Saudi Arabia told visiting Palestinian foreign minister Mahmud Zahar on Tuesday that it will pay its share of 92.4 million dollars to the Palestinian Authority, an aide to Zahar said.
Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened Tuesday that Secretary General of the Islamic Jihad Movement Abdullah Ramadan Shallah will be targeted as a revenge to the Tel Aviv operation that killed ten Israelis and injured many others, ten of whom are in serious conditions.
Israel and Palestinians have exchanged accusations over who is responsible for increasing violence after Monday's blast in Tel Aviv and Israeli attacks in Gaza. The Israeli and Palestinian envoys at the UN traded charges at an open Security Council meeting held on Monday. The meeting followed the recent upsurge in Israeli attacks in Gaza and after a Palestinian suicide bomber struck a crowded fast-food restaurant in Tel Aviv, killing nine and wounding dozens in the deadliest bombing in more than a year.
Jordan says it has cancelled the Palestinian foreign minister's visit because members of his Hamas party have been smuggling missiles and other weapons into the kingdom.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the Ayatollah Khomeini imported 500,000 small plastic keys from Taiwan. The trinkets were meant to be inspirational. After Iraq invaded in September 1980, it had quickly become clear that Iran's forces were no match for Saddam Hussein's professional, well-armed military. To compensate for their disadvantage, Khomeini sent Iranian children, some as young as twelve years old, to the front lines. There, they marched in formation across minefields toward the enemy, clearing a path with their bodies. Before every mission, one of the Taiwanese keys would be hung around each child's neck. It was supposed to open the gates to paradise for them.
Whereas the Revolutionary Guard consisted of professionally trained adult soldiers, the Basiji was essentially composed of boys between twelve and 17 and men over 45. They received only a few weeks of training--less in weapons and tactics than in theology. Most Basiji came from the countryside and were often illiterate. When their training was done, each Basiji received a blood-red headband that designated him a volunteer for martyrdom. According to Sepehr Zabih's The Iranian Military in Revolution and War, such volunteers made up nearly one-third of the Iranian army--and the majority of its infantry.
London, Apr. 18 Against a backdrop of mounting international concern over Irans nuclear brinkmanship, Tehran has been abuzz in recent days with rumours about the rapidly deteriorating health of a senior ayatollah and the impact of his probable departure from the countrys political scene. 
The president of Iran has said that his country will cut off the hands of any aggressor and that the country's military has to be equipped with the latest modern technology.
