#4
I am with you Brother Jackel. Unkind heathens need to respect my book or else I'm getting back to my people's 7th century roots. I'm ready to get my riot on. My line of work leads to alot of pent up agression in need of a healthy outlet other than stone masonry. Hell I'll take my pick along just in case. Hope the cameras will be there. Can you wait for me to shave, shower and get my pajamas on please. Have to look your best for the cameras. Anyone able to get some barely literate appropriate slogans on posters in arabic? Where did I put that lighter fluid?
Absurdities generate such interesting POV responses, heh. I actually have wondered what they do with the stuff they confiscate. Being thoroughly briefed on the do's & don'ts in advance, I never had anything taken, but a few times I saw / heard folks getting excited and additional Saudi Customs guys joining the search of some poor fool's baggage. Stuff's gotta go somewhere.
One thing's for certain: the most extensive pr0n collection in the world is bound to be in Saudi Arabia. You don't think they'd destroy that, do ya? Kept for, um, training purposes, I'm sure, heh.
#2
tu3031 - Good memory on Joanne. Alot of people forgot it all too soon. Methinks Castro should come here and personally inspect and experience the conditions of the detention at issue. Nothing beats first hand knowledge as ill Duce of Cuba surely knows. But I must concede that Castro is quite familiar with the makings of a farce. 9/10 th's of his life has been devoted to one.
#3
Why does Venezuela want him? Was the plane not bombed off the coast of Barbados? Does it anybody here know the whole story? If yes, please share it with me.
A dissident leader recently released from prison died under mysterious circumstances during a crackdown on the Azerbaijan opposition involving 29 arrests in two days, opposition parties said Thursday. Ehtiram Jalilov, 35, deputy head of Azerbaijan's National Democratic Party, became the second opposition activist to die in unexplained circumstances this year, an allied opposition party, Musavat (Equality), said. Jalilov was sipping tea with a colleague on Wednesday when he slumped dead at the table, according to Qabil Huseynli, deputy head of Musavat, one of the former Soviet republic's best known opposition parties. In February, a 21-year-old Musavat activist died under similar circumstances.
Huseynli called for the creation of an international panel of doctors to investigate the deaths, saying that medics the party has consulted believe "the deaths could have been caused by an unknown powder used by the special services against undesirables." Twenty nine opposition activists, 18 of them Musavat party members, have been arrested over the past two days for minor infractions such as disturbing the peace and resisting arrest ahead of an anti-government rally planned for Saturday, Huseynli said. "We think this has to do with the protest. The authorities are concerned that it will be huge and are arresting those people they think are responsible for its organization," Huseynli said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2005 01:14 ||
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#4
Hawkins: I've got it! I've got it! The pellet with the poison's in the vessel with the pestle; the chalice from the palace has the brew that is true! Right?
Griselda: Right. But there's been a change: they broke the chalice from the palace!
Hawkins: They *broke* the chalice from the palace?
Griselda: And replaced it with a flagon.
Hawkins: A flagon...?
Griselda: With the figure of a dragon.
Hawkins: Flagon with a dragon.
Griselda: Right.
Hawkins: But did you put the pellet with the poison in the vessel with the pestle?
Griselda: No! The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon! The vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true!
Hawkins: The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true.
Griselda: Just remember that.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/20/2005 13:50 Comments ||
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KORASUV, Uzbekistan (AP) - Breaking through a wooden gate and firing only a single warning shot, Uzbek forces on Thursday captured a rebel leader who had proclaimed plans for an Islamic state in this border town. The arrest and takeover of the town of 20,000 quelled the last open bastion of resistance to the U.S.-allied government in the volatile Fergana Valley.
Followers of Bakhtiyor Rakhimov, a farmer turned rebel leader, had claimed control of Korasuv on Saturday. Rakhimov claimed to have 5,000 supporters in the town, who he said were prepared to defend themselves with knives. But there was apparently no resistance when government forces moved in before sunrise Thursday. At Rakhimov's two-story brick home on the edge of town, some 30 special forces broke down the gate, said his sister, Yulduz Rakhimova, displaying the wooden shards.
Now the 294,478th holiest site in all Islam. With relics.
The soldiers went to Rakhimov's room and ordered him to get dressed, and then proceeded to hit him, Rakhimova said. "They beat him with rifle butts on the head and back and kicked him," she said, adding that Rakhimov was unarmed. They arrested about 20 people, also including Rakhimov's 14-year-old son and three men who had been acting as unarmed guards at the home, Rakhimova said.
Later Thursday, helicopter gunships circled the gray skies above Korasuv while police roamed the streets wearing military-style helmets and bulletproof vests. A small knot of soldiers guarded the entrance to the local administration building on the main square while residents strolled by or rode bicycles, the main form of transport in the impoverished town.
Residents said they had been happy during their five days of self-rule, during which they rebuilt a bridge to Kyrgyzstan that the Uzbek government had destroyed a couple of years ago - cutting them off from the thriving bazaar with cheap goods in their Kyrgyz sister city of Kara-suu. "Now they will close the bridge, and there will be nothing to do," said Dilara Badarbayev.
Rakhimov had told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he would be "building an Islamic state here in accordance with the Quran." He didn't mention Hizb ut-Tahrir, the banned extremist group that aims to create a worldwide Islamic state and claims to eschew violence.
President Islam Karimov, who has outlawed all public Islamic practices outside station-controlled Islamic institutions, has claimed the group was connected to the Andijan uprising.
On the Kyrgyz side of the border across from Korasuv, a man who said he was a Hizb ut-Tahrir adherent disavowed Rakhimov's uprising as going against the group's philosophy. "Of course it's every Muslim's dream and aim to create an Islamic state," said Abdullo, who gave only his first name out of fear for his safety. "However, you can't build a caliphate this way, through an uprising."
First I've heard of that.
Rashad Kamolov, 27, wearing the white skull cap characteristic of observant Muslims here, said the Korasuv uprising would play into Karimov's hands. "This revolt will do no good to the Muslims. It will only bring harm," he said. "Now Karimov will be able to shout to the world, 'Look! It's Muslims."
Ask yourself why that's such an effective shout?
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/20/2005 00:13 ||
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#1
"They beat him with rifle butts on the head and back and kicked him,"
Beat on the brat
beat on the brat
beat on the brat
with a baseball bat...
#2
"they rebuilt the bridge in 5 days" the reporter breathlessly noted....
what a load of crap
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/20/2005 8:29 Comments ||
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#3
Perhaps it was a rope-and-board foot bridge? The kind boy scouts might build? Although I can't see such a thing attracting a journalist's breathless admiration.
Author and political activist Tariq Ali says Alexander Downer is an embarrassment, and he's urging Australia to quit the war against terror in Iraq.
Mr Ali, who will appear as a special guest at the Sydney Writers Festival starting this weekend, said the war was spinning out of control. "The war is a total mess, it is a disaster," Mr Ali said. "All attempts by the spin doctors of the war, whether it is your foreign minister Alexander Downer or America's Condoleezza Rice, isn't working."
Mr Ali has been an anti-war campaigner since the 1960s and said fighting a war to stop terrorism defied logic. He was born in Lahore, in the then British-controlled India. An atheist since the age of 12, he was educated in Pakistan and then at Britain's Oxford University. Mr Ali has often spoken out against the Australian government's policy on Iraq, and before that, Afghanistan.
Asked what Ali would say if given a meeting with John Howard, the author said he would tell the Australian Prime Minister that he had made a "big mistake".
"You (John Howard) are quite a hard headed realist guy, understand the mistake you have made and quit while there is time, don't get immersed in it more and more," Ali said. "The other thing I would say to him is, stop your foreign minister from making a fool of himself in his public statements."
Ali said Mr Downer was an embarrassment. "He basically, when you read an interview with him, is embarrassing," Ali said. "The level of ignorance is embarrassing."
The Sydney Writers Festival begins on Monday and runs through until May 29. More than 200 writers will engage an estimated 50,000 Festival visitors in some 210 events. International guests have come from all around the world, including countries such as Algeria, China, Palestine, South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom. They will join the likes of Australian authors including Robert Dessaix, Helen Garner, David Malouf, Louis Nowra and Thomas Keneally. "You are very lucky that the people organising the festival are actually people who like and read books," Ali said. "There are too many festivals I go to that are just run by people who do it for the money."
Ali has four books he will discuss during the festival - an update of his memoir, Street Fighting Years, A Sultan in Palermo and Speaking of Empire and Resistance. "I will be talking about politics, about literature, culture and writing," the author, who attended the festival for the first time last year and has been a guest of the Melbourne Writers Festival, said.
Most of the festival will take place at Wharf 4 in Sydney city but some events will be held in and around the city including Newcastle, Wollongong and the Blue Mountains. Other festival highlights are the NSW Premiers Literary Awards, Patrick White Playwrights Award and the inaugural Gough Whitlam Lecture.
#2
Tariq Ali is an American-hating, terrorist-loving marxist dog. On 9-11 he empathised with those who were rejoicing. Don't even mention his name without spitting on the floor. Evidence of his sordid beliefs is linked below.
DUSSELDORF - The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia said on Friday it has decided to expel a Jordanian national who formerly headed the now-banned Al-Aksa group. Without identifying the man by name, as is customary in German legal practice, the state's interior ministry said the man had been given six weeks to leave the country. After that he could be forcibly expelled. Interior minister Fritz Behrens said the suspect, by collecting donations in Germany in order to support the Palestinian extremist group Hamas, had violated the country's spirit of seeking understanding among peoples. "We will continue to operate firmly against worldwide Islamic terrorism," Behrens said. The Al-Aksa group based in Aachen was banned by the German federal interior ministry in 2003 for its activities to collect donations in support of the Hamas organisation.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/20/2005 11:25:20 AM ||
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Jim Geraghty, National Review OnlineA touch of EFL; links in original.
. . . Does it still really count as a 'news' magazine? I mean, for an opinion mag, doesn't National Review or the Weekly Standard do a better job of offering a full picture of Iraq and other issues? Heck, if you don't want a conservative example, how about the New Republic or the Atlantic? . . .
. . . I've worked a lot of places, and written for a lot of publications and newspapers with reputations and outlooks far from National Review. I think highly of a lot of people in a lot of places that aren't perceived as "conservative" — the Boston Globe, the Denver Post, Congressional Quarterly. Reporters are like any other field — they come good, bad and indifferent.
But some of the biggest names in the industry are now in the business of confirming their own viewpoint, regardless of the facts. After a bunch of young guys were caught making stuff up — Stephen Glass at the New Republic and Jayson Blair at the New York Times — a slew of big-names have been exposed as touting, murmuring, or breathlessly reporting stories that didn't turn out to be true or verifiable — Dan Rather, Eason Jordan, and now Michael Iskoff and the editors at Newsweek.
In every one of these cases, stories that were fake, unsubstantiated, or unreliable got through the highly-touted editing and fact-checking processes because the editors wanted them to be true. They 'rang true' to editors' ears. Of course, they thought, Bush's service record was 'sugarcoated.' Of course, U.S. troops would deliberately target and murder journalists whose coverage they didn't like. Of course, U.S. interrogators would flush the Koran. You read the coverage of some corners of the media world, from the New York Times, to the American Journalism Review to the Nation to the Huffington thing and elsewhere, the reaction in the face of retraction is the argument that, "well, this story could still possibly be true — it hasn't been disproven 110 percent." They surmise that the retractions are the result of Bush administration pressure and vast sinister conspiracies.
Those of us who don't espouse the mainstream media conventional wisdom have a responsibility to set a better standard. . . . We're writing for the audience that actually wants to know what's going on, that doesn't always assume that Pentagon officials are lying, that has a healthy skepticism of the word of a captured al-Qaeda terrorist, and that gives our guys in uniform the benefit of the doubt. (They've earned it.) When some of our guys foul up big-time, like Abu Ghraib, we want to know. But we don't want the gruesome abuse photos hyped into endlessly displayed news porn. We know it's a horrible sight, but it's not quite as horrible as what we saw on an autumn Tuesday morning a few years ago.
We want to know more about Iraq than the endlessly repeated quote from the grumpy cab driver that "things were better under Saddam." We want to know how their population is striding, bit by bit, to a genuine Arab democracy — even when it stumbles. We have faith they'll get there eventually.
When the Schiavo memo turns out to be actually written by a Republican, we have to say, 'Well, the Post and ABC botched it by saying it was 'distributed by GOP leadership', but they got a lot of key facts right, and our hunch that this was a Democratic dirty trick was off base.' Of course some Media Matters folks will hype it. Let them.
We know what's going on. What was the one moment that things looked darkest for the Bush presidency in the last three and a half years? During the endless all-Abu-Ghraib, all-the-time abuse coverage festival from last spring. When references to the prison abuse scandal were cropping up on the Washington Post's Sports, Arts, and Metro sections.
The Isikoff story — and the inevitable coming deluge of in-depth investigative journalism of additional tales of abuse from those utterly trustworthy al-Qaeda prisoners — are a return to the "good old days" of last spring. When Teddy Kennedy could compare the U.S. military's handling of prisoners to Saddam's torture chambers with a gleeful, hearty grin. When our guys on the front lines could be portrayed as sadistic, black-hearted villains. When the face of our guys wasn't the stoic loyalty of a Pat Tillman, the pride and dedication of a Jeffrey Adams, or any other one of our heroes but the nauseating sneer of Lynndie England.
Boy, did those days feel good to the media.
Call that whatever you like. But don't call it journalism.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/20/2005 12:12 ||
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#1
An opinion piece arguing all opinion pieces are rubbish journalism?
#2
At any point, is Newsweak really journalism? :-(
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/20/2005 12:53 Comments ||
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#3
An opinion piece arguing all opinion pieces are rubbish journalism?
Don't read much, do you?
It's actually an opinion piece arguing that the crap you get from "news" organs like Newsweak is less reliable than the information you get from opinion magazines.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/20/2005 15:34 Comments ||
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#4
It's MSM Meltdown time.
Now the New York Times has printed a love letter to Newsweek disguised as "news" about a military incident from 2002 that was investigated and punished and disposed of long ago.
Shades of Howell Raines. Paranoia precedes the fall.
A federal judge issued a second 10-day restraining order Thursday that again blocks U.S. congressional efforts to obtain documents that a former investigator took with him when he quit a probe of the Iraq oil-for-food program. The U.N.-backed Independent Inquiry Committee agreed to the new delay after consulting with the two congressional committees which are seeking the documents. They earlier had failed to reach a deal under the first 10-day order issued May 9. Both came from a judge in Washington. The former investigator, Robert Parton, quit the probe in April, reportedly because he believed it ignored evidence critical of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The chief of the probe, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, denies there was a cover-up.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2005 00:53 ||
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#1
Is this the same judge as before, or a different Clinton appointee?
QOM, Iran (Reuters) - Iran's Islamic system has been abused to deny the president real power, sapping public interest in next month's election, the country's top dissident cleric says. Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, an architect of the Islamic revolution, told Reuters Iranians would not vote in large numbers on June 17 because real authority lay not with the president but with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"Some figures have power, while responsibilities have been given to the president," Montazeri, one of the authors of Iran's constitution, said on Thursday at his office in the holy city of Qom, a center of Shi'ite Muslim learning. "That is why young Iranians do not want to cast their votes. That is why I have remained silent about this election," he said, adding that the constitution had been misused by people who wielded Islam "as a tool to put pressure on people." Opinion polls have predicted a low turnout in the presidential election.
Montazeri, a frail but mentally sharp 83-year-old, called the seizure of American hostages at the U.S. embassy in 1979 a mistake and said Tehran should now resume ties with Washington. He also said the United States had done well to topple Saddam Hussein, but should get out of Iraq for its own good. "Some people criticize America, saying they invaded Iraq in search of an atomic bomb while there was no bomb. "I say that Saddam himself was more dangerous than 1,000 atomic bombs. It was a great job, but they should let Iraqis enjoy their freedom," Montazeri said.
Asked whether Iraq's new Shi'ite-led government could quell a raging insurgency on its own, he said: "The presence of Americans in Iraq causes the insurgency. If they leave, then this thing will be finished."
Montazeri was hailed as "the fruit of my life" by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, spiritual father of the 1979 Islamic revolution, who designated him as his successor. He fell from grace in 1988 after criticising Iran's rulers and was kept under house arrest in Qom from 1998 until 2003. Montazeri helped develop the political system in Iran, which is based on a theory called the "rule of the jurisprudent" that says clerics should directly supervise political life.
He said the constitution he helped to write had not only been misused but also was flawed -- a mistake he put down to inexperience. He said it should be changed to give the president control over state matters, including the military, the police and official media. "There is a contradiction in our constitution. It gives a lot of responsibilities to the president without giving him enough authority," Montazeri said. "Responsibility and authority should come together. You cannot give responsibility to someone (the president) without giving him authority." He said Iran's Supreme Leader should limit his role to religious matters and to ensuring that laws conformed to Islam.
Montazeri said he had an important message for the United States -- that it had lost popularity in the Middle East by seeking to impose democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan. "You cannot impose democracy on Islamic countries. You should help people to develop their country and decide their own fate," he said.
Montazeri was among leaders who endorsed the 444-day occupation of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, when radical Islamic students held 52 hostages. The event led Washington to break diplomatic ties, which Montazeri said should now be restored. "What Americans are doing in the region is against their own interests. One of the mistakes was occupying Iraq. One of our mistakes was occupying the American embassy," he said. "Our Prophet says all human beings make mistakes but the wise learn from their mistakes."
Posted by: Steve ||
05/20/2005 9:37:35 AM ||
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Moderate Muslim watch, to the max (despite his politically correct, for Iran, stance on US troops remaining in Iraq)
The Lebanese general who fought the Syrian army in the 1980s sharply criticized the anti-Syrian opposition Thursday and warned that upcoming elections could return to Parliament the same politicians that long followed the lead of Damascus. Gen. Michel Aoun came back to Lebanon nearly two weeks ago after 14 years in exile in the wake of Syria's military withdrawal, hailed by his supporters and vowing to use his stature to help build a broad opposition alliance. But opposition figures have been putting together their own election deals that leave him out in the cold.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Aoun called the entire political class corrupt, accusing opposition politicians of betraying their popular base and of coming only recently to their anti-Syrian stances. "This is an old habit. They (politicians) are looking for their own interests ... there is a big difference between the people's wishes and the interest of the political class," he said. "Most of them are responsible for 15 years of corruption and misleading of the country," he said. "They were pro-Syrian all the time and now they are using Syria to scare people and (get them to) vote for them," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2005 01:02 ||
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Pressure is growing on the United States to respond to allegations that its agents were involved in spiriting terrorist suspects out of three European countries and sending them to nations where they may have been tortured.
In Italy, a judge said this week that foreign intelligence officials "kidnapped" an Egyptian suspect in Milan two years ago and took him to a US base from where he was flown home.
In Germany, a Munich prosecutor is preparing a batch of questions to US authorities on the case of a Lebanese-born German who says he was arrested in Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003 and flown by US agents to a jail in Afghanistan.
And in Sweden, a parliamentary ombudsman has criticised the security services over the expulsion of two Egyptian terrorism suspects who were handed over to US agents and flown home aboard a US government-leased plane in 2001.
Campaign group Human Rights Watch said there was credible evidence the pair had been tortured while being held incommunicado for five weeks after their return. One was later convicted in a "patently unfair" trial.
"We know it's not right to send people back to torture. That's criminal. That's the one factor that ties all these cases together right now," Julia Hall of Human Rights Watch said.
"But whether they're kidnappings, whether they're abductions, whether they occur always with the collaboration of security services in the host country - these are things that still have yet to be determined."
Secret transfers of suspects to foreign states for interrogation are an acknowledged tool of the United States in the war on terrorism, but it denies charges that the practice - known as rendition - amounts to outsourcing torture.
"(In) the post-9/11 world, the United States must make sure we protect our people and our friends from attack ... And one way to do so is to arrest people and send them back to their country of origin with the promise that they won't be tortured," US President George W Bush said in March.
"We seek assurances that nobody will be tortured when we render a person back to their home country."
Human Rights Watch argues such assurances are worthless.
The latest twist came in the case of Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who disappeared from a Milan street in February 2003.
Italian judge Guido Salvini said in a court document: "It is now possible to affirm with certainty that he was kidnapped by people belonging to foreign intelligence networks interested in interrogating him and neutralising him, to then hand him over to Egyptian authorities."
Although he did not identify the foreign agents responsible, Judge Salvini said Nasr had been "taken to an American base, interrogated and beaten and taken the next day on board a US military plane" to Egypt.
It was not until a year later, Judge Salvini said, that Nasr was heard from again in phone calls, including one to his wife. Italian media have reported he told her he was tortured in Egypt and partially lost his hearing.
Judge Salvini is investigating suspects linked to Nasr and is not responsible for the probe into his disappearance.
That case is being handled by the Milan prosecutor's office, which said the judge did not have access to all the documents and expressed surprise at his conclusions.
But his comments were the hardest yet by judicial authorities in Europe on the alleged renditions.
In Germany, Munich prosecutor Martin Hofmann said he was finalising an official request to the United States for information on the case of Khaled el-Masri.
The German citizen says he was arrested in Macedonia on December 31, 2003 and flown by US agents to an Afghan jail.
Only five months after being seized was he flown back to Europe and dumped without explanation in Albania, from where he made his way home.
#2
I agree - they should be repatriated ....at 15,0000 feet from an AC-130
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/20/2005 21:09 Comments ||
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#3
Pressure is growing on the United States to respond to allegations that its agents were involved in spiriting terrorist suspects out of three European countries and sending them to nations where they may have been tortured.
In Italy, a judge said this week that foreign intelligence officials "kidnapped" an Egyptian suspect in Milan two years ago and took him to a US base from where he was flown home.
#4
The reason we have to do this is that Europe is less than worthless in dealing with these jihad supporting scum. Europe gives them scantuary and puts them on the dole so they can plan their terrorist attacks and subvert western life while living a life of ease.
Human Rights watch grow up or get out of the way. Go find some real torture victims.
DUBAI - Lawyers representing Saddam Hussein plan to sue the British tabloid that published intimate photos of the deposed Iraqi leader, Al-Jazeera television reported Friday, quoting the head of the defence team. The photos in The Sun, one of which shows Saddam wearing only his underpants, are a "violation of human rights and in contravention of the Geneva Convention" on treatment of prisoners, Ziad Khassawneh was quoted as saying. Khassawneh said his team would "pursue all the necessary legal steps to see to it that those who commit such base acts against any prisoner, and especially against president Saddam, are punished."
"Analysis of the photos shows that they were taken inside the place where (Saddam) is being detained, he said, adding that their publication in The Sun "adds to a series of violations of the Iraqi people's rights committed by the American administration."
Piss. Off.
US President George W. Bush said he did not fear a new fear a violent reaction in Iraq to the release of Saddam's photos wearing only his underwear in detention.
"I don't think a photo inspires murders. I think they (insurgents) are inspired by an ideology that is so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the western world to comprehend how they think," Bush told reporters at the White House when asked about the impact of the photos on the Iraqi insurgency.
Sweet
Under the headline "Tyrant's in his pants," The Sun ran a front-page photo of a bare-chested Saddam standing in white underwear and holding an item of clothing as he appeared to be getting dressed. In the accompanying article, along with other intimate photographs of him, the mass-circulation daily quotes US military sources as saying they handed over the photos in the hope of dealing a body blow to the resistance in Iraq.
The fabled "un-named military source"
"Saddam is not superman or God, he is now just an ageing and humble old man. It's important that the people of Iraq see him like that to destroy the myth," the source was quoted as saying. "Maybe that will kill a bit of the passion in the fanatics who still follow him," the source said. "It's over, guys. The evil days of Saddam's Baath Party are never coming back - and here's the proof."
Not bad
In Baghdad, a US military spokesman said the military was investigating the photos of Saddam to find out who took them and decide what kind of disciplinary action should be taken.
Al-Jazeera itself said that it chosen not to publish the photos for "professional and moral reasons."
Yeah, right..
US tabloid newspaper, the New York Post, ran the same photo on its front page as did The Sun, under the banner headline "Butcher of Sagdad." The intimate photo, along with three other pictures, were billed as an "exclusive" borrowed from The Sun. Both newspapers are owned by Australian-born media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/20/2005 1:04:08 PM ||
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#1
Oh the this is just dripping with irony. Dripping!
#4
The photos violated my human rights this morning at 4am when I tuned into the news prior to work. Sadaam in his Hanes briefs was the last thing I wanted to see at that hour ... or ever. I demand that the FCC exact some heavy retribution.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/20/2005 17:56 Comments ||
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#5
Cue the nanoviolins!
Posted by: Mike ||
05/20/2005 19:00 Comments ||
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Osama bin Laden, the world's most wanted fugitive, is alive and on the run with a small group of fighters, Pakistan's foreign minister says. "Osama bin Laden is alive and moving around from place to place, but not with a large group of people," a news report quoted Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri as saying. Kasuri wouldn't say whether Pakistan possessed specific information on the whereabouts of Osama.
Kasuri said Pakistan's army had "paralysed al-Qaeda's communication network," and vastly reduced its capability to strike, according to the English-language newspaper The News.
Pakistan's intelligence service captured Abu Farraj al-Libbi, reputed to be al-Qaeda's No 3 leader, on May 2. Al-Libbi - who remains in Pakistan's custody - was wanted for allegedly masterminding two December 2003 assassination attempts against President General Pervez Musharraf, who escaped unharmed. Seventeen other people were killed, however. Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, has handed over more than 700 al-Qaeda suspects to US officials, including al-Qaeda's then-No 3 Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was arrested in March 2003 during a raid near Islamabad. Two other alleged al-Qaeda leaders, Ramzi Binalshibh and Abu Zubaydah, were also arrested in Pakistan.
A picture of Saddam Hussein in his underpants was splashed across the front-page of Britain's biggest-selling newspaper on Friday. The Sun newspaper quoted U.S. military sources as saying they had handed over the pictures "in the hope of dealing a body blow to the resistance in Iraq." Other photographs showed Saddam, with short, dyed-black hair and a mustache, washing clothes by hand and asleep on his bed.
But a U.S. military statement said the pictures might be a year old, contravened Saddam's rights as a prisoner and could have broken the Geneva Convention. "Multi-National Forces-Iraq is disappointed at the possibility that someone responsible for the security, welfare, and detention of Saddam would take and provide these photos for public release," the statement said. "This lapse is being aggressively investigated to determine, if possible, who took the photos, and to ensure existing procedures and directives are complied with to prevent this from happening again," it said. ... Torture! Panties! Abu Graib! Aggghh, my eyes! Boxers or Briefs: The world gots to know.
Posted by: ed ||
05/20/2005 07:41 ||
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#1
His decor includes a pink chair , and he's allowed to use black hair dye . He's also grown back that moustache . I think he's been listening to too much Village People , or perhaps he's living in hope they'll visit him :)
#6
Much as I like to see this cheap thug humiliated, whoever leaked these photos needs to be slapped upside the head. This does not help our case or our image, and -- unfortunately -- Saddam is one of the few exceptions where the Geneva Conventions apply.
Posted by: Dar ||
05/20/2005 10:53 Comments ||
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#13
'cuz if it was Photoshop, he would be wearing the leather studded thong nothing.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/20/2005 15:34 Comments ||
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#14
Someone needs to get this photo on some gay Israeli porn sites and circulate the photos, this time with hebraic superscript and links to callboys, to the arab world
#17
It wasn't that long ago the Yanks were moaning about the Geneva Convention being ignored.
(U.S. Central Command report, March 23 2003)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2003/iraq-030323-usia04.htm
Iraqi government television aired footage of what it said showed the
captured American military personnel, a move Abizaid said was
"disgusting" and a violation of the Geneva Convention. But he added
that the incident will not damage U.S. military morale nor lessen the
resolve of the American people.
#23
It you that seems to have the fixation on Saddam's underpants. You must be desperate. You're not in the White House are you? They into gay rent boys just like yourself.
#26
Sorry about the spelling, I didn't know Americans were so fussy, if they are they shouldn't be. Nope it's getting late here and I'm just having a bit of fun with some dozy yanks before bedtime.
Egyptian prosecutors on Thursday extended the detentions of 79 members of the Muslim Brotherhood, including four group leaders, arrested in a government crackdown sparked by a wave of pro-reform protests by the banned Islamic movement. A total of 754 group members have been detained because of the protests, which the group has held in several Egyptian provinces during the past month as part of a growing opposition campaign for reform. The 79 group members were ordered held for another 15 days for further investigation, prosecution officials said. The four leaders — including Essam el-Eriyan, one of the movement's most prominent members — were arrested May 6 for belonging to a banned organization and organizing unauthorized protests. Under emergency laws imposed in 1981, suspects can be detained up to six months without trial.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2005 01:04 ||
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A Palestinian official Thursday dismissed Israel's planned withdrawal from Gaza as a "recipe for continuing Palestinian suffering" as long as Israel continues to build settlements on the West Bank and there are no negotiations for an overall peace accord.
Everything's a recipe for continuing Paleostinian suffering, isn't it? Including feeding them cake and ice cream...
While Israel prepares to give up its settlements in Gaza it is building many more on the West Bank, constructing a separation barrier and insulating Jerusalem, said Hassan Abu Libdeh, the Palestinian minister of Labor and Social Affairs. In those circumstances, "the disengagement does not represent a step forward," the Cornell-educated economist said at the 20th anniversary dinner of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a private research group. "It is a recipe for continuing Palestinian suffering."
"Nope. Nope. Just won't do. Bring us a better offer."
"And a pony"
"The Israelis have to stop violence against Palestinians everywhere," he said. Sharing the platform with him, Israeli Transportation Minister Meir Shitrit also spoke warily of the Israeli pullback from the contested territory where 7,000 Israelis will lose their homes, probably this summer. "There will be no more unilateral disengagements," he said. "They will depend on stopping terror."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/20/2005 00:36 ||
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#1
In those circumstances, "the disengagement does not represent a step forward," the Cornell-educated economist said at..
As always, it is the Israelis that are expected to make some move that can be considered to be a "step forward". Never any mention of, or action against, terrorism by the Paleo leadership. It's always Israel this, Israel that. Blah, blah, blah. Mr. Shitrit is right on the money, but I'd go a bit further: no more disengagements of any kind until the Paleos do something about their little addiction to terrorism.
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A dissident leader recently released from prison died under mysterious circumstances during a crackdown on the Azerbaijan opposition involving 29 arrests in two days, opposition parties said Thursday. 
DUSSELDORF - The German state of North Rhine-Westphalia said on Friday it has decided to expel a Jordanian national who formerly headed the now-banned 
A federal judge issued a second 10-day restraining order Thursday that again blocks U.S. congressional efforts to obtain documents that a former investigator took with him when he quit a probe of the Iraq oil-for-food program. The U.N.-backed Independent Inquiry Committee agreed to the new delay after consulting with the two congressional committees which are seeking the documents. They earlier had failed to reach a deal under the first 10-day order issued May 9. Both came from a judge in Washington. The former investigator, 
The Lebanese general who fought the Syrian army in the 1980s sharply criticized the anti-Syrian opposition Thursday and warned that upcoming elections could return to Parliament the same politicians that long followed the lead of Damascus. Gen. 
Egyptian prosecutors on Thursday extended the detentions of 79 members of the 
