Posted by: ed ||
12/01/2005 11:04 ||
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I fear that the "peace and love" crowd in the West has refused to understand how Islamism endangers Western values and lives, beginning with our commitment to women's rights and human rights. The Islamists who are beheading civilians, stoning Muslim women to death, jailing Muslim dissidents, and bombing civilians on every continent are now moving among us both in the East and in the West.
The piece is long but the above captures an important part of this woman's message. Thanks ed for the posting.
December 1, 2005: The proposed cure for the Somali pirate problem has some interesting undertones. An American security firm has been hired, for two years, to patrol the Somali coast and eliminate the pirates. They will probably get some help from the U.S. government. CENTCOM (the American military command that deals with events in the region) has monitored the activity of the Somali pirates closely. There are daily intel updates about it, and U.S. Fifth Fleet devotes a lot of intel to it. Overhead (aircraft and satellites) provides great info. The locations of the captured vessels are known, as are the sites of the pirate bases, which are also known is some detail. Apparently the pirates have actually been seen in the act.
There's more than enough info for SEALs or other American special operations forces to take action. So the question is, why not act? Perhaps there's a relative shortage of special operations troops, given the large number of missions they're already doing for the war on terror. Or perhaps it's a matter of policy? CENTCOM may be trying to do more than just remove the pirates themselves, but also develop leads on who's responsible up the ladder (sort of like how the cops often don't bust street-level drug dealers in order to get leads on the distributors). Another possibility is political. Somalia is almost totally broken up into tribal and warlord fiefdoms. The pirates may be bad guys, but the folks they work for may be friendlier to us than some others there. It's a pattern that we've certainly seen in the past. And one that usually comes back to bite us in the ass.
Finally, Somalia and "Another Mogadishu," are political hot buttons. No one in DC wants to take the heat for allowing another swing at that tar baby. Spending $60 million to let contract security folks go after the problem seems a safer approach. Maybe the Germans are paying for it as well. One can make a case for NATO doing the anti-piracy work, as there is no taint of Iraq about it, and these pirates have harmed Europeans.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/01/2005 09:53 ||
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...and these pirates have harmed Europeans.
So sorry - the Europeans are busy doing such marvelous work on the Sudan problem. Then there's that little matter of finding just the right venue for chatting with the Iranians. Oh, and those simply dreadful CIA flights...
#2
Not only that, Pappy, but they have this wonderfully equipped, trained and effective peacekeeping force they could use. I mean, just look at Bosnia!
#4
Guys, how can you leave out the stupendous job they're doing in Paris? I hear the number of car burnings is down to five a night, and rapes are down to fifty!
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/01/2005 13:05 Comments ||
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Why doesn't the Navy take care of the pirates in a conventional way? Dispatch planes from a carrier, blow the pirates out of the water, or put a missile into their craft. Take care of the pirates in open water never to be heard from again. End of problem. Why are special ops even needed?
#7
I am pleased to see this development, but I am disgusted to continue to hear that Somalia is still some kind of "tar baby" in DC. Post-Fallujah and post-Afghanistan takedown, I'm pretty sure that Mogadishu is no longer much of a boggeyman.
As for the pirates, the threat doesn't warrent a carrier battle group. They are piss-ants. I'm sure that the CO of the cruise ship could have capsized the Boston Whaler if he had wanted to - an RPG round may have splintered the teak on the Lido deck, though.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/01/2005 18:53 Comments ||
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Morocco is pursuing a dual strategy to tackle Islamic radicals, cracking down on militants since the 2003 Casablanca bombings and combating poverty with a plan to eradicate slums seen as breeding grounds for extremists.
The arrests of 17 suspected members of an al Qaeda cell, who were questioned by an investigating judge last week about an alleged plot to blow up landmark buildings in Casablanca, Morocco's business hub, and its capital Rabat, suggest the threat of more attacks is real.
Tough security measures in the North African country under King Mohammed, a strong U.S. ally whose 6-1/2 years in power have seen some liberalising reforms, coincide with U.S.-backed efforts to stamp out an al Qaeda-linked group seen by Washington as trying to export its holy war from neighbouring Algeria.
The United States aims to deny havens in the Sahara desert to militants from the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), operating out of Algeria, a major oil exporter only starting to emerge from more than a decade of civil war that human rights groups say killed up to 150,000 people.
U.S. initiatives include military training for nine West and North African states to fight arms smuggling and extremists, but the GSPC was able to claim its first attack outside Algeria in June, killing 15 soldiers at a remote post in Mauritania.
Some analysts say U.S. assumptions the group wants to thrust out from Algeria, where it seeks to set up a purist Islamic state, are wide of the mark.
"The GSPC has little reality in the Sahara outside the fact that Mokhtar Belmokhtar is originally a smuggler and has excellent contacts there," British-based North Africa analyst George Joffe told Reuters, referring to a GSPC desert chief who one U.S. military source has described as the group's most active and dangerous militant.
"The explanation for alleged terrorism, al Qaeda-style, lies in Algiers, not in Rabat, and has more to do with American gullibility than with any reality I know of," added Joffe.
But others say the GSPC does have ambitions beyond Algeria.
"To set up a group called 'Al Qaeda in North Africa', that's the objective," Mohammed Darif, political scientist at Mohammedia's Hassan II University, told Reuters.
Both Algeria and Morocco are Arab allies in U.S. President George Bush's "war on terror" and both have been targeted for their support for the U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
Al Qaeda in Iraq said this month it would "execute" two kidnapped Moroccan embassy employees, having earlier this year killed two Algerian diplomats working in Baghdad.
After the Casablanca attacks, which killed 45 people including 12 suicide bombers, four men received death sentences for an operation authorities say was bankrolled by al Qaeda.
The bombings shocked Moroccans who believed themselves safe from Islamic radicalism convulsing Algeria since the scrapping in 1992 of elections an Islamist party had been poised to win.
Morocco has jailed more than 1,000 people on terrorism charges, mostly for belonging to the outlawed Salafist Jihad, since the Casablanca blasts. About half have been pardoned.
The government has combined a clampdown on Islamists with measures to confront hardline Islamic preachers in a country which promotes a tolerant form of Islam yet has seen many Moroccans accused in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings and the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Of six men who have faced court proceedings worldwide linked to the Sept. 11 attacks, four have Moroccan backgrounds. One of them, Mounir El Motassadeq, was jailed for seven years by a German court in August for belonging to a terrorist group but acquitted of a second charge of abetting mass murder.
Most of the more than 100 people held in connection with the Madrid train bombings, in which Islamists killed 191 people, are of North African descent, largely Moroccan.
Aware of the risk of a violent backlash to tough security measures, Moroccan authorities have tried to improve conditions in the state of 30 million people where nearly 14 percent live below the poverty line and over 40 percent are illiterate.
In May, around the second anniversary of the Casablanca bombings, King Mohammed unveiled a national development plan expected to cost 1.0 billion dirhams ($114.3 million) a year, which initially targets the worst slums and is to extend to hundreds of rural councils and dilapidated urban areas.
"Morocco's problems relate to global poverty, not to global terrorism," said Joffe.
The main source of popular opposition in the kingdom, the Islamist group al-Adl wal-Ihsane (Justice and Charity), which shuns violence and has a strong following in universities and poor districts, is banned from politics but allowed to carry out charity and other work linked mainly to education.
Morocco's moderate Justice and Development Party, the only Islamist political grouping allowed to operate legally, surged in 2002 parliamentary polls to become the biggest opposition group in the assembly, trebling its seats.
Attending a European-Mediterranean summit in Barcelona this week on countering terrorism, Rabat's Minister-delegate for Foreign Affairs Taieb Fassi Fihri insisted each country should go at its own pace on democratic reforms.
"We are doing it for ourselves, by ourselves and because it matches a uniquely Moroccan vision," he told France's Liberation newspaper on Monday. "But in this area, just as with terrorism, we have a dialogue (with Europe). And it stops there."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 00:56 ||
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"But in this area, just as with terrorism, we have a dialogue (with Europe). And it stops there."
Egyptian police have rounded up almost 600 Muslim Brotherhood activists in the two days before the last stage of legislative elections in what the opposition Islamist group said was an attempt to disrupt its campaign. The Brotherhood, fielding independent candidates because the authorities refuse to let them form a party, has shaken up Egyptian politics by winning 76 of the 444 elected seats in parliament, two-thirds of the way through the process. The first day of voting for the final 136 seats is on Thursday. The Islamists are contesting 49 places. "The authorities have resorted to these detentions because most of the means they have used in previous stages have not worked," said deputy Brotherhood leader Khairat el-Shater.
Shater, quoted on the Brotherhood website, said practices such as thuggery, preventing Brotherhood supporters from voting and the mass registration of voters resident in other constituencies - abuses corroborated by independent monitoring organisations - had not stopped Brotherhood victories.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2005 00:00 ||
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The UAE Central Bank has been approached by foreign law enforcement agencies and UN bodies seeking information on clients suspected of financing terrorism.
Sultan bin Nasser Al Suwaidi, Governor of the UAE Central Bank, has confirmed the news and said that the bank replied to the agencies through the proper channel.
Suwaidi said the bank welcomed international cooperation in identifying and isolating the sources of terror. He added that the UAE had been catching up with international achievements in tackling crimes.
The bank received 524 inquiries on which necessary procedures were taken. The Central Bank governor underlined that with the rise in money laundering activities around the world, the UAE has prioritised a number of elements in its strategy to combat the menace in accordance with several measures which include joining world efforts to combat money laundering; endorsing and implementing 40 recommendations to combat money laundering, including the nine recommendations to fight terror financing issued by a world group and other initiatives.
They also include the enactment of laws to criminalise money laundering and terror financing and impose penalties on criminals.
He said the UAE was amending laws and regulations to bring the country on a par with those applied at the global level.
The Central Bank governor said that with the rise in money laundering activities around the world, the UAE has prioritised a number of elements in its strategy to combat the menace. It has adopted several measures like joining world efforts to combat money laundering, and endorsing and implementing 40 recommendations to combat money laundering, including the nine recommendations to fight terror financing issued by a world group and other initiatives, he said, adding that they also include the enactment of laws to criminalise money laundering and terror financing and impose penalties on criminals; and putting together systems and measures to combat money laundering at financial institutions and subjecting them to scrutiny; and reporting mechanisms on crimes and the verification and documentation of information.
Al Suwaidi said the UAE strategy was also to educate people on combating terror financing and money laundering and how to uncover such crimes.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 00:15 ||
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Saudi television aired on Wednesday confessions by purported former members of the Al-Qaeda network talking about their recruitment, training and fighting experience in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We dunnit and we're sad. Can we have our guns back?"
The statements by the three Saudi nationals were part of an interior ministry-sponsored media campaign called "Experiences in the name of Jihad" and were shown on state television and Saudi-owned news channel Al-Arabiya, which is based in Dubai. All the men sported thick long beards, a hallmark of strict and conservative Saudis. "The prince of the Uzbek mujaheedin (holy fighters) in Afghanistan came to Taef and I met with him and told him about my strong desire to go to Afghanistan or any other place to fight for God's cause," said Abdullah al-Khoja, a native of the western Saudi city of Taef. Another former Qaeda fighter spoke about his experience at a training camp called Al-Sideeq in Afghanistan. "We trained with light arms for two to three weeks and there were daily drills about the Christian and Jewish conspiracy against Muslims," said Ziad Ibrahim.
Can you picture reveille at Camp Shaheedawannabe? "Oh how I love to get up in the morning. Time to get up and kill some Jooos..."
He said he was part of a group of about 30 led by two men named Mamduh al-Beiruti and Abdulrahman.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 00:13 ||
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Inspector General of Border Security Force S K Dutta on Wednesday expressed concern over the growing fundamentalist activities in neighbouring Bangladesh. Addressing a press conference here today, Dutta said that the series of bomb blast and the recent attack targeting the Judicial was an attempt of the fundamentals to terrorize the Judiciary and legal set up of Bangladesh. Things there were going in the Al-qaida manner with ISI very much active in that nation for quite some time, he added.
The IG said that the entire border has been sealed after the twin bomb attack of yesterday to prevent criminals from crossing over to Indian territory. However, he did not overruled the possibility of nexus between the militants of northeast India sheltered in Bangladesh and the fundamentalist groups there, but accepted that some military attempts have taken from Bangladesh side recently against the Indian militants there though not up to the satisfactory.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 00:43 ||
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The first government investigation to announce its findings on the terrorist attack on School No. 1 in the southern Russian city of Beslan in September last year criticized law enforcement agencies for a confused and uncoordinated rescue effort and blamed them for allowing the attack in the first place, a lawmaker who led the inquiry said on Tuesday.
The investigation -- carried out by a commission appointed by the regional legislature -- did not corroborate the official versions of some key events during the convulsion of violence that ended the siege on Sept. 3, though it also cast doubt on alternative theories that had been fueled by rumor and outrage over the government's actions.
The commission's report, which totals 40 pages, according to the lawmaker's spokeswoman, has not yet been made public but was summarized by its chairman, Stanislav Kesayev, during a legislative session in Vladikavkaz, the capital of the North Ossetia region.
While the investigation added few new details about the storming of the school, which left 331 hostages dead, more than half of them schoolchildren, the commission's findings amounted to a rare official rebuke of the federal authorities for their actions during the attack.
"Without any doubt the school seizure in Beslan was the result of insufficient measures by law enforcement bodies," Kesayev told his fellow legislators, the Interfax news agency reported. "Among other faults, law enforcement bodies did not do enough to stop a large number of armed people from reaching Beslan, a major rail and air hub, unnoticed."
The investigation failed to establish "with absolute conviction" that a bomb wired by the gunmen who seized the school had accidentally exploded, touching off more explosions and a frantic attempt to rescue the hostages inside, as Russian federal officials have asserted.
Kesayev cited inconsistent reports from different agencies for the inability to resolve the question.
At the same time, he said, there were "no grounds" to believe that a sniper's bullet -- fired by forces outside the school -- had set off the explosion, even as he diplomatically acknowledged that victims' relatives continued to doubt the official account.
Kesayev said that those held responsible for negligence should be punished and that the agencies should be reorganized to prevent future incidents like the one at Beslan.
There was no immediate response by federal officials, but President Vladimir Putin and others have shown little willingness to acknowledge errors in the rescue attempt, laying blame on the man who claimed responsibility for the siege, Shamil Basayev, a leader of secessionist rebels in the nearby region of Chechnya.
North Ossetia's investigation is one of three under way. Russia's prosecutor general is overseeing a criminal inquiry that is to continue at least until March, officials announced on Tuesday.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 00:54 ||
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We've got to put the blame SOMEWHERE and we've decided it's not the "terrorists" fault, but the fault of Russian Security for not executing an immaculate intervention.
#2
Too bad RasPutin will never have to take one iota of blame for his continuing support of terrorist sponsoring nations like Syria and Iran. Russia is still buying itself boatloads of grief and nobody in the Kremlin can bring themselves to pull the plug on their love affair with terror sponsors. Any more of this idiocy and my sympathy meter is going to null out permanently.
The European Union (EU) has added Hizbul Mujahedeen, the Pakistan-based outfit carrying out terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir for over a decade, to its list of terrorist organisations.
The EU's decision strikes a major blow to the group as restrictive anti-terror measures will be applied to it, including a freeze on its funds, assets and economic resources.
The Hizbul Mujahedeen (HM) is among the groups active in Jammu and Kashmir and reportedly has strong ties to the Muslim fundamentalist group Jamaat-e-Islami.
Founded in late 1980s, the group's primary focus is Indian security forces and politicians in Jammu and Kashmir. It also occasionally strikes at civilian targets.
It reportedly operated in Afghanistan and is led by Syed Salahuddin.
The outfit claimed responsibility for a car bomb late last month that killed a border guard and injured 21 people on the outskirts of Srinagar.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 16:47 ||
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"The EU's decision strikes a major blow to the group..."
I don't understand why this would be a major blow to HM. I doubt the ISI is laundering HM funding through EU controlled banking institutions. If this is even a significant will be obvious based on whether HM bothers to change their name.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/01/2005 18:07 Comments ||
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"Hizbul Mujahedeen? Why no! We're...uh...Hizbul Al-Mujahedeen...yeah...that's the ticket!"
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/01/2005 19:46 Comments ||
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A small group of students at the University of Colorado confronted Ward Churchill outside his classroom Wednesday about his essay on the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.
"Who do you think deserved to die?" asked Ian VanBuskirk, 23, chairman of the College Republicans.
"Why don't you circle the names?" he said as he tried to hand Churchill a marker while pointing to a large banner carried by other students that listed the names of all the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Churchill, who was surrounded by students, as he made his way to his basement office, gave a cryptic reply:
"I'll circle names when you start circling names of babies," he said to VanBuskirk...
#4
"I'll circle names when you start circling names of babies," he said
Doesn't he know the Republicans are pro-life?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/01/2005 14:38 Comments ||
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#5
Personally, I am wait for the Ward Churchill, Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke, Cindy Sheehan, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Dixie Chicks victory tour. Sponsored by Err Amerika.
#6
Not cryptic - he was referring to the babies killed in Iraq by the republican stooges of the Halliburton OILOILOIL secret cabal.....drone on....
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/01/2005 16:23 Comments ||
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#7
Personally, I am wait for the Ward Churchill, Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke, Cindy Sheehan, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Dixie Chicks victory tour. Sponsored by Err Amerika.
probably not good idea to group these together
WChurchill and CSheehan are openly pro terrorist
Dixie Chicks, Al Gore, etc. are pro terrorist but unwilling to admit it and instead just spout anti-Bush nonsense.
* Anti-war NGO with a strong, pro-Palestinian militant, anti-Israel agenda
* Repeatedly condemns Israeli government policies, while making no mention of the Palestinian terror campaign
* Maintains a seasonal presence along the Arizona/ Mexico border, where it conducts what it describes as "a campaign to challenge U.S. immigration policies that result in hundreds of migrant deaths in the desert every summer"
* Maintains a continuous presence in Iraq, protesting the U.S.-led invasion and blaming America for inflicting great suffering on the Iraqi people Rest at link.
Posted by: ed ||
12/01/2005 00:00 ||
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Hell, if that's the case, we should dare Al Qaeda to cut their heads off just so they do it.
Posted by: ed ||
12/01/2005 10:52 Comments ||
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We should rescue them with an armored D-9. However, a waiver needs to be signed absolving our forces of collateral damage, both to property and persons. I have not figured out the mechanics of getting the waivers signed, but that is just a detail and the St. Pancake D-9s should not be held up from their rescue mission.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/01/2005 15:35 Comments ||
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How gratifying it is to finally see stupidity being painful, for a change.
Maintains a seasonal presence along the Arizona/ Mexico border, where it conducts what it describes as "a campaign to challenge U.S. immigration policies that result in hundreds of migrant deaths in the desert every summer"
Someone let me know when these microencephalic imbeciles finally begin to protest Mexico's endemic corruption that forces its people to flee here in droves. No wonder these poltroons love the Palestinians so much. They, too, are equally unacquainted with that deepest and most mysterious of all scientific enigmas, Cause & Effect.
The Green Party of the United States has endorsed a statement calling for a comprehensive strategy of boycott and divestment that would pressure the government of Israel to guarantee human rights for Palestinians.
The resolution, introduced by the Wisconsin Green Party and passed in the Green Party's National Committee, seeks reversal of Israel's current policies. The text is appended below.
"Israel's treatment of Palestinians -- those who are Israeli citizens as well as those in the territories -- is comparable in many ways to South African apartheid, and has resulted in a cycle of violence and lack of security for both Israelis and Palestinians," said Mohammed Abed, a member of the Green Party of Wisconsin. "A stable and just resolution of the conflict requires the full realization of the human rights of Palestinians and Israelis."
Greens allege that the 'peace process' will ensure neither peace nor human rights, and have called the Gaza Disengagement Plan a smokescreen to buy time and accumulate political capital for the Sharon government while it pursues a plan to force Palestinians into disconnected reservations on less than half the West Bank.
The Green Party is already on record as supporting the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and to receive compensation for their losses; immediate Israeli withdrawal from all lands acquired since 1967, including the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (see news.independent.co.uk...); maintenance of Jerusalem as a shared city open to people of all faiths; suspension of U.S. military and foreign aid to Israel; complete dismantling of the Israeli separation wall; and serious consideration of a single secular, democratic state as the national home of both Israelis and Palestinians. Greens have affirmed the right of self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis...
#1
The old Greens may in fact be on to something here but lets kick it up a notch. Since they have already accepted Mohammed Abed "The Green," whats say we immigrate all the poor Palestinazis that want to come here to lovely Madison Wisconsin. Gets em away from the Jooooooos (might be one or two in Milwaukee), access to free state University Education, soccer, good fishing eh, health care, etc. Lets see if the fine volk of Wisconsin will go for it... or will they invoke the only Afrikaans word most people know, yes that four letter favorite... apartheid and say keep em away eh! Any bets?
"The only Republican congressman who did not offer to have sex with John Murtha on the House floor was Jean Schmidt, R-Ohio. While debating Murtha's own proposal to withdraw American troops from Iraq in the middle of a war waged to depose a monstrous dictator who posed a threat to American national security, Schmidt made the indisputably true remark that Marines don't cut and run. (She was right! Murtha voted against his own proposal.)" Ann Coulter
Republican poll numbers may resemble a bowling ball dropped down a well, but that doesn't mean Democrats should feel particularly buoyant.
A recent poll indicates seven of 10 Americans think Democrats' attacks on our illegal, incompetent, Halliburton torture-rama oil war depress the morale of troops. The survey, reported by that wild-eyed intemperate rag The Washington Post, also found the majority of Americans think the Dems' 24/7 gloom-gab isn't intended to win the war, but to "gain a partisan political advantage."
Power over principle? In Washington? Clutch your heart and find a fainting couch. Still, it must baffle the true believers. Dissent is patriotic, you know.
George W. Bush lied, Saddam Hussein was in a box labeled Secular He-Man al-Qaida Haters' Club, Israel is the problem, and American troops are either hapless bomb-fodder or sadistic torturers. Building a democracy in the heart of the Arab world is a distraction from finding Osama, the death of whom will cause the entire radical Islamist movement to stop fighting and take up Amway.
Everything is going wrong, the world hates us, and if you vote for us we will give every terrorist in a secret CIA jail a lawyer, fresh underwear, urine-proof holy books and a Powerball ticket.
To say that's not inspiring would be a misunderestimation, as the president might note. That doesn't mean the Dems are wrong; just because Cassandra didn't set her predictions to an Andrew Lloyd Webber show tune doesn't mean she wasn't right. But the message appears to have had the opposite of its intended effect.
The Democrats have convinced most Americans that they'd have left Saddam chuckling in his palaces after 9/11, that they'd oppose any war against a sworn enemy of the United States unless Richard Clarke personally saw its president give a ticking nuke to terrorists and lead them in a stirring rendition of "New York, New York."
Worst of all, they seem to want it to be 1973 again -- as if the nation yearned to bob for horse-apples in the vat of shame.
Granted, the loss of Vietnam was great for the Democrats. But it really wasn't very good for the rest of the country, to say nothing of the Vietnamese.
There's a curious nostalgia for the '70s among the old-guard institutional left; America had been humbled, which was good for humanity, and we were facing a future of scarcity and decline, which was good for the planet.
Beneath it all runs a rushing river of adolescent nihilism, roiling with contempt for that vast human stain known as Western Civilization. If it hasn't given us universal health care, gay marriage and the replacement of Wal-Marts with local co-ops by 2007, well, to hell with it. And those co-ops had better offer reusable bags for our groceries. Hemp bags.
This strain of American defeatism never died; it just slank away and chewed its tongue until the time was right. And that's now!
According to a Drudge Report story on the TV season-in-planning, we can expect several post-apocalyptic shows about the End of America, either by plague or societal collapse. This isn't a case of Hollywood mirroring a nationwide sense of malaise and decline; this is the collective depression of L.A. liberals longing for the good old days when Robert Redford could bring down a president and people cheered -- or at least bought tickets to watch.
It could work. If the Democrats preach doom and decline long enough, people might vote for them, just so they'll shut up. But the Dems might recall how their last successful standard-bearer billed himself: a man from Hope. That doesn't mean "hope we lose."
Finding themselves in a hole, the Democrats haven't only kept digging, they're shouting louder. As if seven of 10 Americans haven't already heard them loud and clear.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/01/2005 10:01 ||
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There's a curious nostalgia for the '70s among the old-guard institutional left; America had been humbled, which was good for humanity, and we were facing a future of scarcity and decline, which was good for the planet.
And you could buy an ounce of "Maui Wowie" for only $20 too. Even adjusted for inflation, that is a good deal, man...
#3
I still waiting for the Sedition Laws to be restablished into law and a Mcarthism council setup. I hate to take their but the fact is that this nation in our current state with the Media and the LLL's with disregard kicking the good of the nation down the toilet for personal gain puts in a situation were we are just incapable of fighting a major conflict. Like the Japaneese mayor said the US would have no chance against China today our grim milestone 2000 dead soldgiers would be met in the first hours of the war with the Dragon if it happened. But lets look even more realistic and say a war with Iran we could overrun the military rather easily but the occupation think grim milestone every month for awhile. The peace love and happiness movement in this nation has done what no other nation could nuetered the most powerfull military in the worlds ability. I believe in time this will fix itself but tha will be along time coming think generational easy 20+yrs. Sedition Laws with Deportation and pernament revocation of citizenship would get alot of screams of facism but in short order the problems would either be gone or shut up more discreate either way our ability to rage war would be restored. We live in a dangerous time and we need the ability to boo our enemies like Iran and Syria so we are not forced to invade at heavy cost, our current situation makes that boo impossible if we see you better believe our enemy see's it too making invasion the only option.
#4
Hey, you wanta hear some real wasters...try to get a copy of this morning's Imus Show. Here's Imus telling The Donald that the only reasonable way out of Iraq is to apologize to Saddam, re-install him as prez of Iraq...and leave.
And the Donald's take? Yeah...we're losing and we're never going to win.
Don and The Donald. Why do I want to say something derogatory about their intelligence or manhood? Am I a bad man for wanting to call them names? I am perplexed.
#6
It will be interesting to see what happens in a year or two. Iraq will be settling down, and probably half of the 150K troops will be back in their home districts. I can't imagine they'll be very happy with the politicians (and media)who are fairly openly advocating their defeat, deriding their efforts, and giving aid and comfort to the enemy and I'd be surprised if they kept it to themselves.
#7
I say to heck with the Pottery Barn rule. Go in break the mullahs and leave. If the people form another terrorist government, rinse and repeat. Same for the pencil necked opthamolgist, the oil-ticks and that Korean troll doll. Kick 'em over and see what happens.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/01/2005 13:03 Comments ||
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#9
The Dem's are not only digging deeper they're playing a very very dangerous game. Human behavior is pretty consistant for the last few thousand years, that is why the concept of 'repeating history' gets attention. In desperation for power, they're dragging the entire republic down. The numbers for politicians and journalists are soon going to join used car salesman, mass murders and child molesters. However, if history is a record of what not to do, it is never ever make the military mad at you. The last time our petty politicos did that it was Newburgh and it took another George to put a stop to it. There are just somethings you should never do and really making the military your enemy is one of them. It'll be more of an invitation of an alienated people absolutely at their end with the bankrupt behavior of them all. Do not tempt fate.
#11
No silly. That's The Donald, Donald McDonald. Ronald's goofy, bad tupee wearing brother.
Posted by: ed ||
12/01/2005 15:38 Comments ||
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#12
Granted, the loss of Vietnam was great for the Democrats. But it really wasn't very good for the rest of the country, to say nothing of the Vietnamese.
Wasn't particularly good for several million Cambodians either.
#1
It futher fuels my suspisions that V Flame and Hubby are just part of an overall coup op against POTUS.
I hope Porter stings some of these leaking traitors with tailored intel, ASAP.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
12/01/2005 2:55 Comments ||
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#2
So lets presume that Valerie Palomino/Flamonino, Zarkey-babe, and the OKC "Missing Man No. 2", etal. all ate from the same Penn State Sub Shop and Fed FBI-CIA-NSA, etc. PYWAR/Undercover cafeterias as Joe Paterno, and Mama Cindy and her Commie Airborne Army from NOLA - the question behind Door No. 3 is why would elements of the United States Government and collusory US-State Agencies, Academia, and the MIC wilfully and deliberately kill 3000 American citizens on 9-11, and before-after like a Global Oliver STone movie!?
#5
The bottom line is that CIA is packed with "corporate cancer" schoolboys from Yale and Harvard. It is the same "honorable schoolboy" problem that Britain had in the Cold War.
In this case, once you let in Ivy Leaguers, they are more concerned with setting up their little empires and cabals then they are at doing their job. They are the most unethical group of schemers short of an equal number of racetrack touts.
The only salvation would be following a gigantic purge of these foul ones from the ranks, to have the equivalent of ROTC to bring in new blood. By going to the red state universities, instead of relying on overrated Ivy League cesspits, they will get ten times the number they do now, and of superior quality.
#7
First off let me tell that I am dead serious with my comment that there need to be some arrests, trials, and probably some sentences handed out over at the CIA and State. I forget which LLL said it but he called the current administration a âcabalâ for wanting to forward âtheirâ agenda through the State Department. Excuse me but Bush is the duly elected leader of this country and the job of State (and the CIA) is to carry out the policies of the government (i.e. Bush). I have never worked there but I am positive that the President fits somewhere into their management structure. The same goes for the CIA. Only the CIA is MUCH worse off because they directly put us in danger when they donât do their Job. Lets face it they really dropped the ball when it came to Islamofacists, but that was the end of a string of miscues that somehow got overlooked by the MSM. Nobody saw the collapse of the Soviet Union, its satellites, or the rise of state sponsored terrorism. Fact is they would be hard pressed to point to a single success in the intelligence realm in the past 25 years. The only way to fix this is to ask some people to retire/leave and DEMAND that others leave. Those that can be found culpable in usurping official U.S. policy should be tried for treason. I would note about Ms. Plame being a member of the Middle East WMD analysis team (sic), which for some reason NEVER published a single document that questioned Iraqâs WMDs capability, but then that seem too obvious for the MSM to no cover.
#8
People (rightfully so) are hung up on the CIA leaks re: Plame.
They seem to be forgetting something much bigger, and much more damaging. The leaks from the CIA to the hack Seymour Hersh. Some of his hit pieces:
"The Stovepipe" â How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraqâs weapons. The New Yorker, October 27 2003
"Torture at Abu Ghraib", The New Yorker, May 10 2004 issue (posted April 30)
"The Coming Wars" â What the Pentagon can now do in secret, The New Yorker, January 24 2005
"Get Out the Vote" â Did Washington try to manipulate Iraq's Elections?, The New Yorker, July 25 2005
#10
The only way to clean out the CIA is to make some major changes in the way the United States does business, and that's going to take shooting some people.
The CIA, the State Department, and every other US agengy uses Civil Service rules. You cannot fire a civil servant, and you really can't make him or her do their job. The Civil Service Union will see to that. We need another Ron Reagan shutdown of government, clean out the civil service ivory tower, shut down the IRS, and THEN, maybe, with the help of the military, we can regain some small portion of control over the Bureaucracy that is self-perpetuating and self-serving. I'm in the midst of writing an article for my blog about the need for a second revolution - for pretty much the same reason we had the first: the government we have doen't represent US, it represents the government.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/01/2005 18:43 Comments ||
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#11
You cannot fire a civil servant, and you really can't make him or her do their job.
Like a busted Saturday Night special, it won't work and you can't fire it. Totally useless.
#12
Guys, I've been telling you all about the corrupt old-boy network for how many years here on Rantburg?
The problem is that so much has be obfuscated that you really cannot tell who is the deadwood, and who is keeping the tree alive. It will take some time to clean out all the sh*tbirds. Especially from non-ops people, like managers and analysts.
If nothing else, I do have great admiration for all those desk pilots in terms of the incredible level of asscovering, budget protecting, and buck-passing skills they developed under Bush I and Clinton, while those in the field withered away.
If we had that much effort, resourcefulness, doggedness and dedication applied to real intelligence ops instead of political infighting and cronyism, OBL would have been a greasy spot in Somalia a decade ago, and Saddam would have been buried with the remains of a .50 cal in his noggin shortly thereafter.
Give Goss time and support - and pray that he doesnt run out of energy.
#13
You cannot fire a civil servant, and you really can't make him or her do their job.
Bullshit. I've personally supervised teh termination of two engineering employees in my 20+ yrs. You just have to do it by the rules, document, and persevere. In the case of the CIA - announce 10% budget cuts and selectively apply them. The bad apples will get the message and leave/retire...then you hire better replacements
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/01/2005 20:06 Comments ||
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#14
You've got to be creative. You do away with the office or division. The 'displaced' employees get an opportunity to apply for jobs elsewhere in the government, unless of course the President has directed a 'hiring freeze' to limit growth, meet budget, etc. Yep, you can certainly dump civil servants. You just have to employ other means. With Rummey's approach to outsource work, I don't expect the guilty parties will be able to shift over to DoD very well, since most of it is desk work rather than field work.
#15
Frank, 2 in 20 years..how many more employees than those two needed firing at your workplace?
The CIA has 30,000 thousand +/- employees.
http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/ciastaff.htm
2% would be 600 employees.
a good friend and ex biz partner was the shop steward for the Park Service SF Presidio. He grieved every single case for good and bad employees alike, but mostly bad employees the Park mangement had problems with and won those cases anyway. Whether a Park Police officer was caught with drugs or failed a UA. or a painter stole property it didn't matter, there are way more examples but my point is it's too damn diffulcult to fire the poor performing, unethical, or just plain rotten apples in government.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
12/01/2005 21:31 Comments ||
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#16
only those two - the rest understood what "unacceptable" meant, and either shaped up or found another place to f*&k off
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/01/2005 22:17 Comments ||
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#2
The big question is why Murtha was chosen in the first place to be point man. Of course he's from a safe district, and he served in the military. But what "tier" was he from in the democrat leadership?
Before now, he was a nobody. This indicates that they are desparate for anybody to stand up and be recognized as a national class anything.
#5
Well if it was true, we would have already heard it from the e-mails of thousands of GI's and not George Bush's most stalwart Democratic Super Hawk.
I think Murtha's full of it, however the military needs to respond to his "broken", "worn out", "hand to mouth" comments and respectfully tell him that he's full of shit.
#6
Back in the olden days of the Democrat majority in Congress he was the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, so I'd call that a pretty high tier.
He is exposing the poverty of the Democrat leadership in the House. This cannot help their candidate recruiting for the few seats in contention in the House. Even if the candidate does win a knock out fight with the Republican, the fruits of victory are to be a junior member in a minority party led by ideologues who live without assistance of contact with reality. Not an attractive prospect.
Without denigrating his prior service to the country in the USMC, my question is, has Murtha
a) been lusting after TV air time in hopes of a run for the Democrat Presidential Nomination,
b) been talking to members of the military about what things were like under Clinton,
#7
I got $20.00 this will be lead article over at Aljizz tommorrow morning. Even if it is true our military being broken the fact that Murtha (supposidly a pro-military Dum even thou he is first one ready to retreat cough redeploy once it gets a little harry not just this war either try every engagement he was present for) the fact he would make a press conference to proclaim it to the world AP is treasonist at worst Sedition at best. Murtha if he really gave a crap and beleived the military was broken he would instead be on the hill demanding a increase in the military budget I think right now we are at what 3.5-3.6 of gdp something like half what is was in the Regan years and previous wars were triple or more. And by the way he would be saying that as discreatley as possible maybe one of those close quarter meetings they wasted on Bush lied crap.
#8
I recall another distinguished colonel. One who lead the Mississippi Rifles and played a very important part of the victory at the battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War*. Unfortunately, he choose later that other loyalties were higher than that of to the United States of America. That individual was Jefferson Davis. Old military records can not make up for loyalties to party over country or stabbing its military in the back when it is on the road to victory in the field.
* He led his well disciplined command in a gallant and successful charge at Monterey, September 21, 1846, winning a brilliant victory in the assault on Fort Teneria. For several days afterwards his regiment, united with Tennesseeans, drove the Mexicans from their redoubts with such gallantry that their leader won the admiration and confidence of the entire army. At Buena Vista the riflemen and Indiana volunteers under Davis evidently turned the course of battle into victory for the Americans by a bold charge under heavy fire against a larger body of Mexicans. It was immediately on this brilliant success that a fresh brigade of Mexican lancers advanced against the Mississippi regiment in full gallop and were repulsed by the formation of the line in the shape of the V, the flanks resting on ravines, thus exposing the lancers to a converging fire. Once more on that day the same regiment, now reduced in numbers by death and wounds, attacked and broke the Mexican right. During this last charge Colonel Davis was severely wounded, but remained on the field until the victory was won.
#10
It sure does look that way sometimes, don't it?
Posted by: too true ||
12/01/2005 20:12 Comments ||
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#11
Unfortunately, he choose later that other loyalties were higher than that of to the United States of America.
I beg your pardon sir. He did not speak alone or for himself as did Senator Murtha. Davis was elected by citizens who's legislatures for better or worse, had already led their states toward a seperate nation. A comparison to Senator Murtha is unfounded. The military historical data on the former president is much appreciated.
#12
"We're gonna hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree.
We're gonna hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree.
We're gonna hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree.
Glory, glory hallelujah!"
Although the Democratic party had broken apart in 1860, during the secession crisis Democrats in the North were generally more conciliatory toward the South than were Republicans. They called themselves Peace Democrats; their opponents called them Copperheads because some wore copper pennies as identifying badges.
A majority of Peace Democrats supported war to save the Union, but a strong and active minority asserted that the Republicans had provoked the South into secession; that the Republicans were waging the war in order to establish their own domination, suppress civil and states rights, and impose "racial equality"; and that military means had failed and would never restore the Union.
Peace Democrats were most numerous in the Midwest, a region that had traditionally distrusted the Northeast, where the Republican party was strongest, and that had economic and cultural ties with the South. The Lincoln administration's arbitrary treatment of dissenters caused great bitterness there. Above all, anti-abolitionist Midwesterners feared that emancipation would result in a great migration of blacks into their states.
As was true of the Democratic party as a whole, the influence of Peace Democrats varied with the fortunes of war. When things were going badly for the Union on the battlefield, larger numbers of people were willing to entertain the notion of making peace with the Confederacy. When things were going well, Peace Democrats could more easily be dismissed as defeatists. But no matter how the war progressed, Peace Democrats constantly had to defend themselves against charges of disloyalty. Revelations that a few had ties with secret organizations such as the Knights of the Golden Circle helped smear the rest.
The most prominent Copperhead leader was Clement L. Valladigham of Ohio, who headed the secret antiwar organization known as the Sons of Liberty. At the Democratic convention of 1864, where the influence of Peace Democrats reached its high point, Vallandigham persuaded the party to adopt a platform branding the war a failure, and some extreme Copperheads plotted armed uprisings. However, the Democratic presidential candidate, George B. McClellan, repudiated the Vallandigham platform, victories by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman and Phillip H. Sheridan assured Lincoln's reelection, and the plots came to nothing.
With the conclusion of the war in 1865 the Peace Democrats were thoroughly discredited. Most Northerners believed, not without reason, that Peace Democrats had prolonged war by encouraging the South to continue fighting in the hope thatthe North would abandon the struggle.
Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" Edited by Patricia L. Faust
#14
A better comparison than Davis is Benedict Arnold. He had an honored military career until he felt unappreciated by the Contintental Congress.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/01/2005 21:27 Comments ||
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#15
"Why do I get the feeling some are actively working against us?"
Because they are.
Nothing-- and I mean NOTHING-- is more terrifying or repellant to the leadership of the Democratic Party than a strong, confident, purposeful, assertive America which uses its power to bring about positive change in the world.
The only America Democrats can truly believe in, and love, is a nation of poor, helpless, whining, pathetic "victims" who cannot so much as wipe their own asses without the "help" provided by the oh-so-caring Democrats and their engine of perpetual dependency, the Federal Government.
To Democrats, our only purpose in life is to be needy supplicants; and for us to not need them, is a betrayal they simply cannot bear.
Hence the proliferation of dismal sad sacks among the Democrats, and also the relentless drumbeat of negativism from their paid propagandists in the press.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/01/2005 21:29 Comments ||
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#16
Is anybosy get that feeling we have been down this "Hero Dem" before? What is the story on this guys service? I realize he got a BS and two PHs but whats the story on these and how where they awarded? Calling John Kerry!
#17
This comment by Murtha is no less a comment to attempt to present a broken down military. No doubt it would be a HUGE lift to terrorists. Since Vietnam our society has allowed anit-war on thug types the run of the world with impunity. The consequences are improved moral amongst the enemy resulting in the continued deaths of young men and women in uniform.
Arrest Murtha and Fonda. We are at war for crying out loud.
#18
Ok I did some web searches and can find NOTHING that indicates John Murtha ever saw a shot fired in anger. Does anyone have a link to the unit he served in Vietnam? Kind of a black hole when he earned a Bronze Star and Two Purple Nerples. Also on his book couldn't see one military comrade in arms that endorsed it. Does anyone have any further information on John Murtha?
#19
Last time I checked I might be a little older but far from worn out. As far as the rest of the troops go, reenlisment is up but the troops are flat F*&king tire of trash like Murtha spewing his hollow retoric. When is he up for reelection?
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/01/2005 22:17 Comments ||
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#20
pan
Wikepedia has limited stuff. But I will search his unit in Vietnam.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murtha
Owned a car wash before becoming a politician. :-)
#21
Encouraging retreat is viewed as aiding the enemy by the Marines and is a violation of Article 104 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which is punishable by death. Currently serving Marines, active duty or reserve, who encourage surrender are in violation of Article 100 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, an offense also punishable by death. Because Murtha is retired, he is virtually assured of not being prosecuted.
#22
See what I mean? The crux of his creds are glossed over and not expounded. He smells like a poser, sounds like a poser, and looks like a poser. Please prove me wrong here.
#23
I just discovered that Murtha has enough dirt on him to be mecilesly yanked around by the Democrats at their liesure. Pelosi's nephew is in on Military Contracts that Murtha has steered his way. In other words, Pelosi and another Democrat hooked him enough to have him say whatever they want him to save his honor.
Was this speech a means to cover up Murtha's brother and Pelosi's nephew? From the Corner on Friday:
Republican lawmakers say that ties between Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and his brother's lobbying firm, KSA Consulting, may warrant investigation by the House ethics committee...
According to a June 13 article in The Los Angeles Times, the fiscal 2005 defense appropriations bill included more than $20 million in funding for at least 10 companies for whom KSA lobbied. Carmen Scialabba, a longtime Murtha aide, works at KSA as well.
KSA directly lobbied Murtha's office on behalf of seven companies, and a Murtha aide told a defense contractor that it should retain KSA to represent it, according to the LA Times.
In early 2004, Murtha reportedly leaned on U.S. Navy officials to sign a contract to transfer the Hunters Point Shipyard to the city of San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. A company called Lennar Inc. had right to the land, and Laurence Pelosi, nephew to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was an executive with the firm at that time.
Murtha also inserted earmarks in defense bills that steered millions of dollars in federal research funds toward companies owned by children of fellow Pennsylvania Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D). ..
A federal appeals court threw up a surprise obstacle on Wednesday to the Bush administration's plan to transfer Jose Padilla from military custody to face terrorism charges in a civilian court.
A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., issued a brief order suggesting it might withdraw an earlier opinion that gave President Bush sweeping powers to detain Mr. Padilla, an American, indefinitely without trial.
Despite being armed with that earlier court ruling, the administration shifted course last week and said it would no longer hold Mr. Padilla as an enemy combatant but instead try him on criminal charges in a federal court. To do so, the Justice Department sought permission from the appeals court to transfer Mr. Padilla, a former gang member from Chicago, from a Navy brig in South Carolina to the federal prison system.
To the apparent surprise of lawyers on both sides, the appeals court did not agree to give its permission. Instead, it issued an order requiring both the government and Mr. Padilla's lawyers to submit briefs on whether the court should withdraw its earlier ruling.
The significance of the action was unclear, but some lawyers thought it signaled annoyance with the government. Eugene R. Fidell, a Washington lawyer who closely follows detainee issues, said, "It's hard to tell, but this appears to be a rebuff to the administration."
Mr. Fidell said it was possible that the judges felt ill used in expending the court's institutional capital on issuing its Padilla ruling only to have the government decide to leave it unused.
The government initially asserted that Mr. Padilla was an operative of Al Qaeda who had planned to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in some American city. In its indictment on Nov. 22, the Justice Department said only that he was part of a North American terrorist cell that supported violent acts overseas.
The shift to the civilian courts was interpreted by many as a decision by the government to avoid risking a test in the Supreme Court of the Fourth Circuit's ruling.
In indicting Mr. Padilla, the Justice Department said it believed the issue of Mr. Bush's authority to detain him as an enemy combatant was moot.
Prof. Judith Resnik of the Yale Law School said the issue was still alive because if Mr. Padilla was acquitted, the government could easily turn around and again declare him an enemy combatant.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 00:35 ||
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Talks between the European Union and Iran on winning guarantees Tehran is not making nuclear weapons may take longer to restart than expected as the two sides are bickering over substance and form, diplomats told AFP Wednesday. A first meeting was hoped for next week but "it's more likely it will be in mid-December or early January," said a Western diplomat, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. The diplomat said there is still no confirmation of a date or site for the meeting, which could be in Moscow, Geneva, Vienna or Brussels. Beirut is nice this time of year. Iran could probably swing them a deal on hotel rooms...
Late Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said preliminary negotiations on resuming talks would begin by mid-December. Iran wants the main meeting to be at the ministerial level while EU negotiators Britain, France and Germany want it only at the level of senior foreign ministry officials.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani "is really keen on Iran getting respect" from a high-level meeting, the diplomat said. Must be getting pointers from Kim and Chavez
However, the Europeans want a lower-level meeting "to talk about talks" -- to see if formal talks that were broken off in August can be resumed.
In addition, the so-called EU-3 have insisted they will not "resume formal negotiations with Iran until Iran fully re-suspends uranium conversion work," another diplomat said. That diplomat said EU-3 ambassadors told Iran of this last Sunday in verbal comments made when they handed over a letter on resuming talks.
"The verbal demarche was reportedly quite tough," said the diplomat, who was briefed on the meeting. Yeah, them Euros can write some mean letters
EU-Iran talks collapsed in August when Iran ended its suspension of uranium conversion, the first step towards making enriched uranium, which can be used to fuel nuclear reactors or as the explosive core of atom bombs. Iran has repeatedly said it will continue with conversion work.
The UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency last week put off taking Iran to the UN Security Council after the EU-3 agreed then to give more time for new Russian diplomacy to work. Last week's meeting at its Vienna headquarters of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors was to review progress since September 24, when it found Iran in non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Such a finding requires eventual referral to the Security Council, which can impose sanctions.
If the Euro's can just get the right wording, the right adjectives on a piece of paper, then it will make Iran's nuclear/worldwide domination problems all go away. Perhaps James Lileks could be of service to end the dangers that we face?
BAGHDAD -- A controversial oil exploration deal between Iraq's autonomy-minded Kurds and a Norwegian company got underway this week without the approval of the central government here, raising a potentially explosive issue at a time of heightened ethnic and sectarian tensions.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party, which controls a portion of the semiautonomous Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq, last year quietly signed a deal with Norway's DNO to drill for oil near the border city of Zakho. Iraqi and company officials describe the agreement as the first involving new exploration in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Drilling began after a ceremony Tuesday, during which Nechirvan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish northern region, vowed "there is no way Kurdistan would accept that the central government will control our resources," according to news agency reports.
In Baghdad, political leaders on Wednesday reacted to the deal with astonishment. "We need to figure out if this is allowed in the constitution," said Adnan Ali Kadhimi, an advisor to Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari. "Nobody has mentioned it. It has not come up among the government ministers' council. It has not been on their agenda."
The start of drilling, called "spudding" in the oil business, is sure to be worrisome to Iraq's Sunni Arab minority. They fear a disintegration of Iraq into separate ethnic and religious cantons if regions begin to cut energy deals with foreign companies and governments. Sunnis are concentrated in Iraq's most oil-poor region.
Iraq's neighbors also fear the possibility of Iraqi Kurds using revenue generated by oil wells to fund an independent state that might lead the roughly 20 million Kurds living in Turkey, Iran and Syria to revolt.
The Turks will be tearing their hair out. Heh
Iraqi legal experts and international oil industry analysts have questioned the deal. Oil industry trade journals had expressed doubts that it would come to fruition.
Iraq's draft constitution, approved in an Oct. 15 national referendum, stipulates that "the federal government with the producing regional and governorate governments shall together formulate" energy policy. However, it also makes ambiguous reference to providing compensation for "damaged regions that were unjustly deprived by the former regime."
Iraq's Kurds have argued that the country's existing oil fields and infrastructure, such as those in the largely Kurdish cities of Kirkuk and Khanaqin, should be divvied up by the central government but that future oil discoveries should be controlled by each oil-producing region.
In his speech Tuesday, Barzani, the nephew of Kurdish politician and former guerrilla leader Massoud Barzani, eschewed the language of the law and couched the deal in political terms. He invoked the Kurds' years of deprivation at the hands of the Sunni Arab-dominated government of Saddam Hussein. "The time has come that instead of suffering, the people of Kurdistan will benefit from the fortunes and resources of their country," he said during the ceremony in the western portion of Kurdish-controlled territory.
The Kurds, who during the last several years of Hussein's rule maintained sovereignty in northern Iraq under the protection of U.S. warplanes, made millions in transit and customs fees as the Baghdad government smuggled oil to Turkey in violation of United Nations sanctions. Since the end of the sanctions, the Kurds have sought ways to make up for that lost income. The eastern administrative half of the Kurdish region also is rushing to sign energy deals with foreign companies without Baghdad's approval. The government of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, based in the city of Sulaymaniya, has signed an electricity agreement with a Turkish company and explored a possible oil deal with a foreign partnership near the city of Chamchamal, the site of several dormant oil wells.
During months of painstaking constitutional negotiations, Kurds insisted on the authority to cut energy deals without Baghdad's approval. Under the draft charter, the task of determining how oil resources will be allocated is left to the National Assembly that will be elected Dec. 15. The language in the constitution regarding the power of regions to pen such contracts was a major reason that the vast majority of Sunnis voted against the charter in October.
The announcement of the DNO drilling took many Iraqis by surprise Wednesday. "This is unprecedented," said Alaa Makki, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab group. "It's like they are an independent country. This is Iraqi oil and should be shared with all the Iraqi partners." Makki said Kurds were trying to have it both ways, controlling the Iraqi presidency and several powerful ministries in the national government while also trying to lay claim to extra-constitutional powers in the north. Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, is the Iraqi president.
However, Helge Eide, managing director of Oslo-based DNO, said he believed Iraq's new constitution gave the Kurdish north jurisdiction over certain drilling and oil exploration activities. "That was clearly pointed out by Mr. [Nechirvan] Barzani," said Eide, who attended the Zakho ceremony.
Oil companies have become used to operating in hostile and unstable territories. DNO, founded 25 years ago, is considered an upstart in the oil business, with projects in Yemen, Mozambique and Equatorial Guinea, the site of a coup attempt last year, as well as northern Europe. Eide said his company was more than willing to work with the government in Baghdad, though it had not yet signed a deal with the capital for oil exploration. In April, the company signed a deal to provide the Iraqi Oil Ministry with training and technology as "the first steps" to being invited by Baghdad, as well as the Irbil-based Kurdish government, for future oil and exploration work.
Iraq, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, holds an estimated 115 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, mainly in the south, according to Oil & Gas Journal, an industry publication. That places Iraq among the top five nations in oil reserves. Iraq could contain significantly more undiscovered oil where energy exploration hasn't occurred, an area that stretches across about 90% of the country, the U.S. Energy Department said.
Iraq exports about 2 million barrels of oil a day, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/01/2005 12:48 ||
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#1
The problem for the Kurds is that they are completely surrounded by countries (and other part of Iraq) that do NOT want them to assert themselves. We are talking Iran, Turkey and Syria..... and Iraq. How are they going to get oil out?
#2
The start of drilling, called "spudding" in the oil business, is sure to be worrisome to Iraq's Sunni Arab minority. They fear a disintegration of Iraq into separate ethnic and religious cantons if regions begin to cut energy deals with foreign companies and governments. Sunnis are concentrated in Iraq's most oil-poor region.
WTF did these guys expect? Instead of thinking about Iraq as a whole, all they worry about is Sunni this, Sunni that. Why didn't they participate in the first elections?
"This is unprecedented," said Alaa Makki, a leader of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni Arab group. "It's like they are an independent country. This is Iraqi oil and should be shared with all the Iraqi partners."
Ohhhh, they're partners now, huh? I guess that's to be expected when there's money to be had....
#3
Brett, it depends on where it is going. If it's to us, we'll build them a pipeline, of course. I hope they do break away and make themselves a nifty little country. Ever heard of Kurdistan?
#4
This is a wise move on the part of the Kurds. If you ask enough people, somebody will say no. However, if you have already inked a deal, it's a lot easier to get forgiveness than permission.
One of the essential characteristics of federalism is that the central government doesn't control everything. Logically, they should ask the Kurds to pay a tax on their profits; this would be the federal solution, instead of insisting that they get all the money and just give the Kurds a cut.
#5
Brett - via the free Kurdish Syria in the new MidEast order. Turkey can f*&k off...just oull old newscasts of them screwing us in the Iraqi invasion. Kurds have their act together and should be rewarded by alliance with us
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/01/2005 20:30 Comments ||
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DC Examiner "One Word" for the LA Times - "Propped-Up Agenda" .pdf file, page 18
American articles in Iraqi newspapers
The L.A. Times Wednesday reported that the U.S. government has been paying Iraqi newspapers to run articles written by American servicemen in order to more positively portray the American presence in the country. Many in the journalism industry have lamented the practice, saying it undermines journalistic integrity. How many would know it, if it came up and bit them? The L.A. Times might want to be careful who it lectures on journalistic integrity, however: In 1999, the paper made an agreement with the Staples Center â L.A.âs sports arena â to give the facility special coverage (disguised as a pure editorial) in exchange for advertising assistance and profit sharing.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/01/2005 10:06 ||
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#2
Fact: Anytime you read, see, or hear a story quoting the "Center for Science in the Public Interest", that story came from a press release from that group. They provide the story, the quotes, the "experts" to interview, everything. There are other groups that receive similar treatment, notably the Democrat Party.
That, to me, is a much more troubling practice than subsidizing the Iraqi press in exchange for a few (a dozen!) stories being printed.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/01/2005 11:45 Comments ||
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#3
RC - Big difference between using a press release as part of the sourcing for a story and paying for the release to be run as a story.
#4
Ummmm, Ima be anon on thisn 1249. Little newisies all over this wonderful country sell their ass each week/day.
Posted by: in no way ||
12/01/2005 14:00 Comments ||
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#5
Hell, CNN paid Saddam and his cronies to report good news from Baghdad censoring the real information. So whats this crap about jounalistic integrity. You got to have some in order to loose it.
The president of the United States, responding to criticism about a lack of strategy in Iraq, recently spelled out the U.S. strategy in a speech at the Naval Academy. The strategy was simple. Help train police and soldiers of the elected (by a majority of the population) government. As more police and troops become available, fewer American troops will be needed to deal with rebellious minority Sunni Arabs. Eventually, American troops will be gone entirely. What's strange about this is that it has been the strategy since before Iraq was even invaded in early 2003. In fact, this has been American strategy for over a century. Such a strategy was successfully pursued in the Philippines and Cuba a century ago, and in many other places since, So what's going on here? Politics is going on here. It was in the interest of the president's opponents for it to appear that there was no strategy. It was in the interest of the media to go along with this "there is no strategy" charade, as it made for spectacular headlines, and breathless stories of a president mired in controversy and lost.
The recent presidential speech won't change anything. The training and counter-terror operations will continue in Iraq, and opponents of the Iraq operation will continue to preach gloom and doom, and insist that there is no strategy. This bizarre situation is rarely remarked on in the media, since most journalists have bought into the fiction that "there is no strategy", and to admit that the criticisms are based on wishful thinking, would be, at the very least, embarrassing, and definitely harmful to ones credibility.
Historians and troops in Iraq puzzle at this situation, concluding that it's all some cultural aberration that they have no control over. It should be noted, that in earlier wars of this type, and American wars in general, it was common for the opposition politicians, and journalists in general, to make the same odd claims that, "there is no strategy", when there clearly was.
So the next time you feel inclined to tag Arabs as illogical and given to fanciful (and unprovable) beliefs, just take another look at this battle over "where is the strategy" in the American and Western press.
Posted by: ed ||
12/01/2005 08:59 ||
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#1
one of my favorite lines from ...12:00 High.
German Propaganda is on the radio...talking about how many Allied pilots have died, saying, "you've already lost the war. Go Home"
The only thing different today is that it our own press who cites the same propaganda. Don't you ever wonder if the reporters who mindlessly parrot this stuff ever ask themselves what excactly it is that they want to leave to their grandchildren? How lame do you have to be to support brutal dictators over your own peaceful homeland?
The terrorists are getting desperate. They have resumed political kidnappings, something that fell out of favor after a flurry of it last year. Normally, nearly all the hundred or so kidnappings each week are criminal operations, often yielding as little as a few hundred dollars. But in the last week, four Western peace activists and a German academic were taken by a new terror group. Shia pilgrims were also seized. Since last year, when 41 Westerners were killed by kidnappers, people who are choice targets (foreign reconstruction workers, diplomats) improved their security to the point where the seizures stopped. So now the terrorists are going after "soft" targets. That is, people who support the terrorists (in the case of the peace activists, who want coalition troops out, which is the main goal of the Sunni Arab terrorist groups). Taking Shia pilgrims just inflames the passions of Shia gangs and militias, bringing more attacks on Sunni Arabs. Grabbing the peace activists actually helps the government, as it forces many Sunni Arab leaders to assist in negotiating to get the Westerners freed. This gives more Sunni Arab leaders more reasons to break with the terrorists, and make a deal with the government. These deals involve extensive discussions on who will get amnesty for crimes committed during Saddam's rule. Some Sunni Arabs even want to keep property they stole from Shia Arabs or Kurds during that time. In Iraq, you can't just say no, you have to discuss it at length. A lot of these discussions are going on right now, just judging from the mentions, in the Iraqi media, of various Sunni Arab leaders who are now negotiating. In the next two weeks, before the December 15th parliamentary elections, a lot more of these amnesty discussions are expected to get started.
Increasingly the Sunni Arab terrorist groups are seen, by Sunni Arabs, as losers. Even foreign Sunni Arabs are not volunteering as much as in the past. The core of the terrorism campaign are the technicians who can build the bombs, and the leaders, with cash, who can meet the payroll. Taking the lead from the Israeli experience, American troops have been following an increasing flow of intelligence, to hunt down the bomb factories, and the people who work in them. Each bombing gets gone over by a crime scene investigation team, and the identity of the bomb maker, increasingly, is determined. There are not too many of them, and the U.S. operations in western Iraq are taking them down, one or two at a time.
The use of roadside bombs, as seen inside Iraq, is a PR nightmare for the terrorists. Most of the bombs that go off, do not hit their intended targets, and end up killing mostly civilians. Since more and more of the bombs are set up in Sunni Arab areas (it's futile to try and do it in Shia Arab or Kurdish neighborhoods), the civilians who get killed are the very people the terrorists are depending on for support. The terrorists need that support, and without it, more and more Sunni Arab religious and tribal leaders start negotiating with the government. Whereas a year ago, many Sunni Arabs believed they could eventually regain control of the country, now the majority opinion is that one must cut a deal before a Shia or Kurdish death squad, or a war crimes indictment, gets you. While Iraqis love their illusions, when death or destitution gets really close, logic becomes more of a factor.
Posted by: ed ||
12/01/2005 08:57 ||
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It is a most startling image: a life-sized figure of a Kurdish rebel hanging by his wrists from a metal hook, his arms bound behind his back -- a position intended to use the prisoner's weight to dislocate his shoulders. He is dressed in the traditional Kurdish "sharwal" baggy pants and his shirt is partly untucked. Two electric alligator clips are attached to his earlobes from where wires run to a green hand-cranked electrical generator on a metal desk. His face is frozen in a moment of agony. The room is paneled in wood to muffle his screams.
It is only a museum display. But before 1991, what happened in this room was all too real for the Kurds who dared to oppose the regime of Saddam Hussein. This compound of cinderblock buildings in the northern Iraq city of Sulaymaniyah was once one of the most feared places in the region. Known as Red Security, it was the northern headquarters for Saddam's military intelligence. "There were many kinds of torture," says Nabaz Mamhoud, a translator at the museum. "Some of them were executed or slaughtered by Saddam Hussein; some of them were imprisoned for the rest of their lives. The other people were kept in jails while security forces of Saddam Hussein tortured them in the most severe way." More at the link
Itâs kind of possible now, this website offers an interesting interactive âElectionnaireâ that will ask you 25 questions on the top political topics in Iraq.
You answers will be compared to the answers of 10 top Iraqi parties and will give you in percentage which party you have more in common with.
A lot of Americans would be PUK or KPD party members. See comments at this Iraqi Blog.
#3
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) 56%
Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) 40%
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) 36%
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) 36%
Iraqi National Congress (INC) 36%
Iraqi National Accord (INA) 32%
Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) 28%
Islamic Dawa Party (IDP) 24%
Iraqi Turkman Front (ITF) 20%
Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) 20%
#5
Ok, I went back and took the test more carefully. Here's the result:
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) 76%
Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) 64%
Islamic Dawa Party (IDP) 60%
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) 56%
Iraqi National Congress (INC) 44%
Iraqi National Accord (INA) 44%
Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) 40%
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) 40%
Iraqi Turkman Front (ITF) 32%
Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) 24%
All the same, I would guess that Fadhila doesn't seem THAT unreasonable to the average Iraqi. They will probably all do there what we do here: pick the least terrible political party.
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) 60%
Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) 56%
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) 48%
Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) 44%
Iraqi National Accord (INA) 40%
Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) 36%
Iraqi National Congress (INC) 32%
Islamic Dawa Party (IDP) 32%
Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) 28%
Iraqi Turkman Front (ITF) 24%
My official platform is more patriotism, less dawa!
A growing number of Iraqi troop battalions -- nearly four dozen as of this week -- are playing lead roles in the fight against the insurgency, and American commanders have turned over more than two dozen U.S.-established bases to government control, officials said yesterday.
Lt. Col. Fred Wellman, a spokesman in Baghdad for the U.S. command that is responsible for the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, said approximately 130 Iraqi army and special police battalions are fighting the insurgency, of which about 45 are rated as "in the lead," with varying degrees of reliance on U.S. support.
The exact numbers are classified as secret, but the 45 figure is about five higher than the number given on Nov. 7 at a briefing by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who previously led the training mission. It is about 10 higher than the figure Gen. Petraeus offered at a Pentagon briefing on Oct. 5.
An Iraqi battalion usually numbers between 700 and 800 soldiers.
As another measure of progress, Col. Wellman said about 33 Iraqi security battalions are now in charge of their own "battle space," including parts of Baghdad. That figure was at 24 in late October. Col. Wellman said it stood at three in March.
Also, American forces have pulled out of 30 "forward operating bases" inside Iraq, of which 16 have been transferred to Iraqi security forces. The most recent and widely publicized was a large base near Tikrit, which U.S. forces had used as a division headquarters since shortly after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003.
At a Nov. 22 ceremony marking the Tikrit base transfer to Iraqi control, insurgents delivered a reminder of their resilience by firing a mortar nearby; the round failed to explode, and U.S. officials declared the turnover to be an important step in replacing U.S. forces with Iraqis.
The Bush administration has been citing the Iraqi efforts as evidence that the Iraqis not only want more responsibility on the security front but are capable of handling it with less assistance from U.S. troops.
The steps toward lessening the U.S. military role in Iraq come amid mounting political pressure on the Bush administration to reduce the American presence in the face of rising casualties and an unrelenting insurgency.
There are now about 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. They have trained and equipped about 212,000 Iraqi security forces, including infantry, commandos, special police battalions and a variety of military support units. The figure is supposed to reach 230,000 by mid-December and top out at 325,000 by July 2007.
Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said the transfer of authority at formerly U.S.-controlled bases is an important part of the long-range plan for stabilizing the country.
"As you continue to either close or turn over these bases, it's just self-evident that there would be some reduced need for the American presence in those areas," Mr. Di Rita said.
The spokesman said no decisions on future troop levels were likely until after the Dec. 15 election of a new Iraqi government. He suggested, however, that signs point to reductions during the course of 2006, so long as the political process remains on track.
Pentagon officials acknowledge that there are significant gaps in the Iraqis' ability to defend their own country, and they are unwilling to commit to any specific drawdown of U.S. forces next year, beyond the announced plan to pull back 28,000 troops who were added this fall for extra security during the elections.
The remaining shortcomings range from the institutional (a lack of administrative and leadership support from the ministries of Defense and Interior) to the personal (a sometimes faintheartedness among Iraqi troops.)
Some in Congress have expressed worry at what they see as sluggish progress in training Iraqi security forces, even as U.S. commanders insist that measures of progress have been widely misunderstood.
Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is continually assessing the security situation, Mr. Di Rita said.
"He's presented a variety of alternative approaches that could occur after the election, but again it's all based on waiting to see how it goes and waiting and watching as we continue to hand over responsibility to the Iraqis," Mr. Di Rita said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 00:38 ||
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The Iraqi defense minister described his country's border with Syria as a "source of evil," as U.S. President George W. Bush refused Wednesday to set a pullout timetable for Iraq and said his goal was "complete victory." Shortly ahead of Bush's speech, Defense Minister Saadoun al-Dulaimi warned Syria that his government's patience was running out. "My brothers, this is historic, national and legitimate mission. You are protecting this gate at the western border that used to be a source of evil to Iraq and a source for the entrance of vampires into Iraq," he said during a visit to the western border town of Husaybah.
Dulaimi said: "We tell our neighbors, take care of your own affairs and don't interfere in Iraq's affairs ... Iraqis are heading for the future and they will not be stopped by a car bomb or a filthy body rigged with explosives. You should not be a gate of evil to us. I hope you will be a good gate. I also tell them don't let our patience run out." He added that "this evil alliance between Muslim extremists and Baathists in Iraqi will not succeed."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2005 00:04 ||
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A Christian peace group said it blamed the US and Britain for the kidnapping of four of its activists in Iraq, saying their capture was the direct result of the occupation of Iraq. After a long hiatus in the abduction of foreigners, video footage broadcast on Tuesday showed the four held captive by masked, armed men. Christian Peacemaker Teams, a group that has had activists in Iraq since October 2002, said it was saddened by the footage of their workers, who they said were working against the occupation of Iraq. "We are angry because what has happened to our teammates is the result of the actions of the US and UK government due to the illegal attack on Iraq and the continuing occupation and oppression of its people," the group said.
Be as angry as you like. See if gets them out with their heads still attached.
Those abducted were listed as American Tom Fox, 54, Briton Norman Kember, 74, and Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
I personally think its the Christian Peacemaker Teams fault for sending their representatives there in the first place .. Not like its a lovely place for hardline Christians to go anyway .Bunch of well meaning muppets if you ask me .
A top Palestinian Muslim cleric also issued an appeal for the captives' freedom on Wednesday, saying three of them had spent time in the West Bank helping Palestinians. The Palestinian group International Solidarity Movement said in a news release issued Wednesday that the activists had protested against the construction of Israel's security wall, harvested olives and helped Palestinian children get through Israeli army checkpoints. "They subjected themselves to grave dangers when they stood in front of Israeli bulldozers," Shawkat Samha, the mayor of the West Bank village of Jayyus, said in the release. Source.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/01/2005 2:04 Comments ||
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#3
Christian "Peacemaker" Teams. Yet they clearly decided to take a side. Hypocrites.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/01/2005 2:08 Comments ||
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#4
You know the RINO = CINO DemoLefties - they wanted Dubya and the USA to obey a UNO and World Community whom lawfully/legally authorized said illegal attack. They want the American Federal-level of Govt and only the Amer Fed to take over abd have Regul oversight over anything and everything, anyone and everyone, aka "progressing forward", unto Marxism and Socialism for the safety and security and protection of all Americans, so that they can then cut back and take away both civil and natural rights in the name of permanent anti-deficit deficit budget accounting. They want the Amer Fed to payout the $$$$ and make everyone rich in order to ultimately make us poor, i.e. "progress forward" in order to "regress backward"!? WW2 = Civil War, the USN wilfully sank its own Battleship USS ARIZONA, killing 1100 of its own men; and "...Americans are oppressed [ = impressed] with the progress [ = defeat???] in Iraq...".
#5
I read the following this morning, and realized it was quite appropriate for this situation:
Proverbs 1:20-33:
Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks: "How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge? Give heed to my reproof; I will pour out my thoughts to you; I will make my words known to you. Because I have called and you refused, have stretched out my hand and no one heeded, and because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when panic strikes you, when panic strikes you like a storm, and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently, but will not find me. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel, and despised all my reproof, therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way and be sated with their own devices. For waywardness kills the simple, and the complacency of fools destroys them; but those who listen to me will be secure and will live at ease, without dread of disaster."
To man belong the plans of the heart,
but from the LORD comes the reply of the tongue.
All a man's ways seem innocent to him,
but motives are weighed by the LORD.
Commit to the LORD whatever you do,
and your plans will succeed.
The Lord works out everything for his own ends--even the wicked for a day of disaster.
The LORD detests all the proud of heart.
Be sure of this: they will not go unpunished.
Proverbs 16:1-5
LORD in capitals is the word for I AM, seldom written out by the Jews and awkwardly transliterated "Jehovah" by Roman christians.
"Commit your plans to the LORD and they will succeed" does not mean "I make a plan and commit it to God and he'll accept it." It means truly seek the Lord before you make a plan.
Jesus had a few things to say to people who claimed his name for dubious projects:
Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord" wil enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and drive out demons and perform many miracles? I will tell them plainly, "I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers."
THese points work both ways. We would be wise not to rush to judgement in favor or against anybody who claims to be acting on God's word. We would also be wise to make sure that when we point out bad logic we do it kindly.
#9
Rafael's post suggests the likely scenario: after an 'appeal' to the 'Wise Elders' of Islam, the captives are released with a statement showing that all must submit to Islamic judgement, but that suitably dhimmi'd ones may be granted leniency which they don't deserve ... so long as they turn on those who oppose Islam.
The Amman bombings on November 9 were widely condemned by the Islamic world, particularly that many victims were civilians celebrating a wedding. This condemnation has again raised questions about support for al-Qaeda among Muslims, especially in a country like Jordan, an ally in the war against terrorism, but which, at the same time, has previously recorded high levels of support for al-Qaeda among its population. The bombings and their ramifications have drawn a number of observations regarding the future of the Salafi-jihadist movement in the region.
The bombing appears to indicate that the mujahideen from Iraq can act freely throughout the Levant. Clearly, the mujahideen constitute a security problem for countries neighboring Iraq, just as the Arab volunteers did, or "Afghan Arabs," returning from Afghanistan in the nineties. Many from the latter were from Saudi Arabia, Syria, Kuwait and Jordan, meaning that their return to their countries, or transferring their activities to other recruits, will be accompanied by heightened security problems, especially given that they believe in the ideology of the "near enemy" and the "far enemy."
There has been much speculation about Zarqawi's objectives in carrying out the Amman bombings. The targeting of hotels and tourist attractions is a hallmark of the Salafi-jihadists. Since September 11, 2001, jihadists affiliated with al-Qaeda have targeted tourist attractions throughout the Islamic World, such as Bali, Casablanca, Istanbul, Sinai, Sharm el-Sheikh, Aqaba, and even Saudi Arabia, where the attacks targeted foreign residents. Two possible objectives in these target selections are: 1) attempting to show that the governments of those countries cannot protect themselves or tourists in their countries, which in turn undermines their authority; and 2) forcing Westerners to return to their countries or leave the Islamic World, thus setting the stage for a broader confrontation. Another indication is that the targets in the West, whether in Madrid on London, were civilian ones, further demonstrating that jihadists are targeting Westerners while making life difficult for Muslims in the West in order to achieve their ultimate goal of a confrontation between the two sides.
The facts surrounding the Amman bombings shed light on the jihadist movement in Iraq; most importantly, that those in Iraq are third-generation Salafi-jihadists who are unknown to security agencies and have adopted a closed-cell strategy in order to avoid infiltration in their ranks. Despite the limited information she gave, the confessions of Sajida Atrous Rishawi, the Iraqi woman whose explosives belt failed to detonate in the Amman attacks, have given authorities significant information about al-Qaeda in Iraq. Her brother, Thamer Atrous, was Zarqawi's right-hand man and was killed in Fallujah. Moreover, Sajida was captured in Salt while looking for the house of her sister's father-in-law, Nidal Arabiyat, who was described as an explosives expert and was Zarqawi's aide until his death in northern Iraq.
This generation of Salafi-Jihadists appears to be following the pattern of their predecessors in establishing closed circles through marriage and kinship relations. Zarqawi's second wife is the daughter of one of his followers, the Iraqi "Yaseen Jarad" of Palestinian origin, whom reports indicate was the suicide bomber in the attack that targeted Shi'ite cleric Mohammad Baqir Hakim in Najaf in 2003 (al-Hayat, December 14, 2004).
A Pew public opinion poll released in July 2005 noted that there was a regression in the support of violence against civilians in "the defense of Islam" among the majority of Islamic countries included in the survey [1]. In Morocco, support went from 40% in 2004 to 13% in 2005. In Indonesia, it did not exceed 15% in 2005, compared to 27% in 2002. This indicates that the Bali bombings (2002) and Casablanca bombings (2003) resulted in a decline in support in the Muslim world for the use of violence to achieve political goals. Ironically, in Jordan support had increased, as opposed to other countries, from 43% in 2002 to 57% in 2005. Another survey conducted by the Center for Strategic Studies in the University of Jordan in the second half of the year indicated that 70% of the Jordanian public considers al-Qaeda an armed resistance organization and not a terrorist group.
Yet, following the November 9 bombings, a public opinion poll conducted by Ipsos Stat for the Jordan-based al-Ghad Newspaper revealed that 64% of the respondents have adopted a negative view of al-Qaeda, compared with 2.1% who have adopted a positive view. In the answer for the questions: "Do you think al-Qaeda is a terrorist organization," 87.1% answered with "yes," 7.4% with "no," and 4.6% with "I do not know." (See the Jordan-based al-Ghad newspaper, November 16, 2005, front page).
There is evidence that the brutality of terrorist acts in the Muslim world does lead to a decline in support for jihadist movements in general, as was seen in the demonstrations in Morocco protesting the abduction of two Moroccan diplomats at the hands of al-Qaeda. Those who follow Islamist forums on the Internet also noted a regression in support for al-Qaeda following the al-Muhayya, Saudi Arabia bombings in November 2003, where the majority of victims were civilians, as they were in Amman.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 01:11 ||
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After Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's November 9 attacks in Amman, Jordan, public discussion and official statements in the West carried a clear sense of the tide turning against al-Qaeda and its allies. Some media headlines even smacked of triumphalism: "Zarqawi misjudges impact of killing Muslims;" "Amman attacks show al-Qaeda can only hit soft targets;" "Zarqawi's Big Mistake;" and "thousands of Jordanian damn al-Qaeda" are a few examples. Two weeks after al-Zarqawi's strike, much public and official commentary in the West concluded that al-Qaeda had suffered a self-inflicted strategic defeat because of the Amman attacks.
This article is not meant to refute these conclusions, but rather to suggest that on the basis of al-Qaeda's strategic design for war against America and its allies, an assessment of the facts pertinent to the Amman attacks can yield a result far different from that so far arrived at in the West. In the first instance, al-Qaeda's organizational strength appears to have emerged unscathed from the attacks. The post-attack period finds, for example, that the group has suffered no significant manpower loss, no telling blows to its logistics, communications, or procurement capabilities, no loss of the safe haven in Iraq from where the attack was staged, no retaliatory offensive against its Afghan strongholds, and no loss of hard-to-replace leaders. In terms of volunteers flowing to al-Qaeda and its allies, nothing that occurred in Amman can put more than a minor dent in the religious inspiration and drawing power derived from the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.
In regard to public attitudes toward al-Qaeda, al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaeda superiors surely judge that they suffered no great loss because of the Jordan attacks, especially after al-Zarqawi publicly apologized for the loss of Muslim lives and clearly explained that, in terms of the attack's intention, Muslims were not targeted. True, al-Qaeda's assumptions may be wrong; it is possible that the attacks will yield a permanent loss in public sympathiesâonly time will tell. From al-Qaeda's perspective, however, the days after the Amman attacks found Iraq still occupied and no changes in U.S. foreign policies toward the Islamic world andârightly or wronglyâbin Laden, al-Zawahiri, al-Zarqawi, et. al believe that as long as these realities stand, the appeal and popularity of the mujahedin fighting their impact can only rise. It also is reasonable to think that al-Qaeda's leaders are getting a good laugh over the belief of Western governments and media that the hundreds of thousands who turned out to demonstrate against al-Zarqawi in Jordan represent the true sentiment of Jordanians. All the mujahedin, leaders and foot soldiers alike, know that the security services of every Muslim king, dictator, and coup-installed general can produce "angry-crowds-on-demand," ranging in numbers from hundreds to hundreds of thousands. Indeed, bin Laden and others would welcome the West continuing to delude itself by believing such Potemkin demonstrations as those in Jordan are meaningful expressions of Muslim opinion.
In terms of advancing al-Qaeda's strategic agenda, it is unlikely that the organization's leaders and its allies look at the Amman attacks in isolation. Instead, they probably view the Jordan attacks as the latest in a six-month string of successful offensive operations that show the emerging Western view that al-Qaeda and its allies are spent forces. Most satisfying is the West's consensus that al-Qaeda has been so weakened that it can only hit such "soft targets" as hotels, restaurants, buses, open-air markets, subways, etc. While there is no denying these facilities have been struck, the more important reality is that the series of attacks since July 2005 have occurred in places where intense and effective internal security networks had to be defeated before the soft targets could be accessed and attacked. Al-Qaeda and its allies struck twice in London in July; at Sharm al-Shaykh, Egypt, later in month; in Bali, Indonesia and New Delhi, India in October, and in Jordan in November. It seems likely that al-Qaeda leaders are satisfied with an operational capability that produced three attacks in well-policed capital citiesâtwo of which are, in fact, the capitals of police statesâand two heavily protected resorts which are important foreign exchange-earners for their countries. The second London attack, on July 21, may have been the most satisfying because it showed that the best urban security force in the West could be beaten at its highest level of alert and fullest state of deployment.
From al-Qaeda's perspective, a second yield from the attacks can be viewed as a significant strategic advance. In each of the countries attacked since July 2005, the governments have adopted stricter anti-terrorism legislation and/or engaged in severe security crackdowns. In India, Jordan, and Egypt large groups of the "usual subjects" were rounded up and face an uncertain fateâthe new, fragile rule of Jordan's King Abdullah II can ill afford thisâwhile new laws in Britain and Indonesia have elicited opposition from a broad spectrum of Muslim organizations, and, at least in Britain, an increasing sense that the government is discriminating against Muslim citizens. The recent, serendipitous occurrence of three weeks of nightly rioting in Franceâmany rioters were Muslim immigrants or their childrenâalso complement al-Qaeda's London attacks by increasing anti-Muslim attitudes in France and across Europe, a trend that has been developing since the al-Qaeda attack in Madrid, Spain, in March, 2003. If the rioting produces new anti-terrorism legislation in France and elsewhere in Europe, as have previous al-Qaeda attacks in the UK, Spain, and Turkey, so much the better because they are likely to be deemed anti-Islamic by European Muslims.
If, for the sake of argument, it is assumed that the foregoing is a plausible alternative analysis of the results of the al-Qaeda-associated bombings since July 2005, a possible conclusion is that the West is analyzing those events from its perspective, not al-Qaeda's, and is thereby missing some important points. The most obvious mistake is to judge that popular demonstrations in Jordanâor elsewhere in the Middle Eastâmean what they would mean in North American or European societies. It is more likely that the Jordanian crowds were nothing more than an impressive demonstration of a talented and ruthless security service's ability to turn out large crowds, complete with professionally made banners and placards, when the king wants them. Moreover, the West's beliefânow close to being the always-dangerous "common wisdom" âthat al-Qaeda's capabilities are diminished because of its strikes on so-called "soft targets" tends to forget or even ignore the reality that al-Qaeda's access to such targets in the last half-year has been possible only after operatives have beaten skillful, pervasive, and often brutal security services. From this angle, al-Qaeda's clandestine operational capabilities remain formidable.
Finally, and most dangerous, the United States and the West may be mistaken to conclude that the 2005 attacks mean anything regarding al-Qaeda's ability to attack inside the United States. Each of the 2005 strikes fit nicely as a continuation of al-Qaeda's secondary campaign against states assisting America in the Iraq and Afghan wars, the start of which bin Laden and Zawahiri announced in 2002. From this perspective, there is no logical reason to believe al-Qaeda's attacks on what the West deems "soft targets" indicate an inability to attack in America. Indeed, it would be a classic and possibly fatal piece of analysis to conclude that al-Qaeda and its allies have chosen to attack in the UK, Indonesia, Egypt, India, and Jordan because they cannot attack in the continental United States.
The war against al-Qaeda and its allies is likely to not only be a long one, but also a subtle one. It behooves the West at all times, therefore, to analyze the war's events with one eye focused on the enemies' perspective of how the struggle is unfolding. While it is true that there is no certainty that the enemies' perspective is accurateâand it does not merit empathy of sympathyâthe fact remains that he and his allies will plan and act on the basis of their analytic conclusions not ours. As always, the ability to consistently think like the enemy remains an indispensable component of the West's ability to wage war successfully.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 01:09 ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2005 00:00 ||
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Sharon will probably take up to half the likud votes with him. Then Israeli Labor will probably do I dead with Sharon. Together they will give up more to the PA.
It looks like the PA will get another last chance.
There was consternation at Rantburg regarding this posting, Sydney Jones banned from visiting Indonesia, and rightfully so. THE END OF THE STORY, THOUGH, IS THAT YUDHOYONO HAS A PAIR.
Indonesiaâs president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday ordered immigration authorities to lift a one-year ban on a prominent American terrorism expert, declaring the reasons for the ban âirrelevant,â according to a presidential spokesman.
* * *
[I]t appeared unlikely Ms Jones would be allowed to return. But in a rare public rebuff of Indonesiaâs powerful bureaucracy President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono intervened on Tuesday, asking to be briefed by ministers on the reasons for Ms Jonesâ ban and subsequently declaring them âirrelevantâ.
* * *
Ms Jones, who said she planned to return to Jakarta on Thursday or Friday, said she was never informed of the reason for the latest ban.
* * *
I know this is still less than persuasive to a number of Rantburgers that Indonesia is a valuable ally, but these developments are encouraging to me, at least.
#2
I thought we noted this before, though it might have been lost in the previous shuffle. The ban was a bureaucratic holdover from the previous administration and I'd be quite interested in knowing whether or not Hamza Haz had anything to do with it.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 3:54 Comments ||
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Dan, right you are; and (might I add) you're always beating me to the punch with very insightful stories on Indonesia. I posted this article because it added a couple points missing in the article you posted Tuesday. Namely, that Yudhoyono had called the bureaucrats on the carpet; and that he appears to be reining in some loose cannons.
The Arroyo administration is coming under increasing pressure to deal with a mounting communist insurgency. The past week has seen a series of attacks against military and business targets that have caused damage to property and left a dozen Filipino solders dead and more than 30 injured.
On Monday the New Peopleâs Army, which is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines attacked a tower in Sampaloc town in the province of Quezon. Globe Telecom, the countryâs second-largest mobile phone company, owns the tower.
Police believe that the attack came because Globe Telecom has refused to pay ârevolutionary taxes.â The attack killed three soldiers and wounded nine others. The communists have been fighting the government for the past three decades and government sources confirm that their ranks have swelled in the last few years. It is estimated that the New Peopleâs Army has armed regulars numbering 8,000 to 10,000.
The authorities and commentators believe that the reason behind the intensification of the fighting is due to the Community Partyâs desire to undermine the government. Luz Lorenzo, research director of the ATR Kim Eng, an investment house in Manila said, âThe New Peopleâs Army is doing this because it wants to increase the level of dissatisfaction against the government, especially because the new law will result in price increases.â
In a separate development, intelligence officials confirmed at a hearing of the House Committee on Appropriations on Tuesday that members of Jemaah Islamiah are out to âdetonate 1,000 kilos of super bombâ targeting embassies, particularly the US Embassy. The Jemaah Islamiah were behind the Bali bombing in October 2005 and the bombing of the Australian Embassy in Indonesia in 2004.
Mayo testified, â[The national security] threat is still terrorism. In fact, we have received reports that [some] Indonesians in the country are plotting suicide bombings . . . [by detonating] 1,000 kilos of super bomb.â
Commenting on the âsuper bombâ retired Gen Cesar Garcia, the director general of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, explained that the terrorists have manufactured âan improvised explosive device targeting the US Embassy and other areas representing US interests.â
According to the Department of National Defence, 33 members of Jemaah Islamiah have been operating in the Philippines since 2004, and they are all Indonesians. The Department believes that the 33 Indonesians form a group called the âWakalah Hedeibiah,â who allegedly are led by a certain âMantiqui 3.â Wakalah Hedeibah is the local JI chapter, while Mantiqi 3 is the JI command node responsible for the Philippines.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 01:38 ||
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How much support - and direction - is the 'New People's Army' getting from Beijing? The Philippines would seem a logical place for China to 'invest' in expanding a New Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.
Interior Minister Kongsak Wanthana has played down the significance of website claiming to represent an al-Qaeda group plotting attacks against Thailand.
Intelligence and security officials are yet to trace the website called "al-Qaeda Southeast Asia" which claims to put Thailand on a list of four Southeast Asian states under terrorist threat.
The interior minister said insurgents in the southern border areas of Thailand could be involved in the making of threats via the internet to divert authorities from taking offensive action against them.
Air Chief Marshal Kongsak denied the insurgency in the mainly-Muslim south had international terrorist connections, arguing that the country had never been considered an international terrorist target.
He said international terrorist groups usually attacked western countries or western interests, such as tourist, hotel and entertainment venues.
Nevertheless, the interior minister said, authorities in charge of tourist spots and other sensitive areas nationwide had been alerted and told to step up security.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 00:21 ||
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Don't worry, international Islamic fascism is no match for our Oragami Defense Shield. Now go back to sleep everyone.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated three individuals for their senior leadership roles in the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), a notoriously violent separatist group operating in the Southern Philippines. The individuals have supported and/or committed terrorist attacks on behalf of the ASG.
The individuals named today, Jainal Antel Sali, Jr., Radulan Sahiron, and Isnilon Totoni Hapilon, were designated pursuant to Executive Order 13224. This action freezes any assets the designees may have located under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits transactions between U.S. persons and the designees. The U.S. and Australia are submitting these three individuals to the United Nations 1267 Committee, which will consider adding them to its Consolidated List based on ASG's association with al Qaida and Usama bin Laden.
The U.S. Government, through the Department of States Rewards for Justice Campaign, has offered to pay up to 5,000,000 Philippine Pesos (about US $90,910) for the capture of individuals belonging to the ASG, including Sali. Additionally, the Department of Defense's U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) has added Sali, Sahiron and Hapilon to the USPACOM Rewards Program Wanted List as ASG members. The Rewards Program offers up to $200,000 for information leading to the capture of each person.
The Philippine Government also has an outstanding reward of 5,000,000 Philippine Pesos for the capture of individuals belonging to the ASG, including Sahiron and Hapilon.
Jainal Antel Sali, Jr.
AKAs: Abu Solaiman
Abu Solayman
Apong Solaiman
Apung
DOB: 1 June 1965
POB: Barangay Lanote, Bliss, Isabele, Basilan, the Philippines
Jainal Antel Sali, Jr. has planned and perpetrated several brutal acts of terrorism involving kidnapping U.S. and foreign nationals and bombing civilian targets. In April 2004, Sali helped supervise members of the ASG's Urban Terror Group, concentrated in the Zamboanga Peninsula of the Philippines, for planned bombing activities. Additionally, as of May 2003, Sali reportedly commanded and deployed approximately 20 ASG suicide bombers to Zamboanga City, the Philippines, in preparation for unspecified operations.
Philippine authorities filed charges against Sali and two other ASG leaders for their involvement in a series of bombings in October 2002 in Zamboanga City, the Philippines. The bombings occurred at shopping centers and near a restaurant, killing 11 Filipino civilians, an American soldier and wounding more than 200 others. Sali also headed the unit responsible for the October 17, 2002, bombings of two department stores in Zamboanga City. He had instructed five ASG members to bomb targets in the city and helped assemble the bombs detonated by the ASG.
In addition, Sali planned the May 2001 Dos Palmas resort kidnapping operation in the Philippines. Sali and eight other ASG members took 20 hostages, including U.S. nationals Martin Burnham, Gracia Burnham, and Guillermo Sobero. During the movement of the hostages in June 2001 by the ASG, two hostages, who were foreign national employees of the resort, were beheaded on Basilan Island. The ASG along with 17 of the hostages then proceeded to a hospital in Lamitan, Basilan Island, the Philippines, where they seized and detained additional hostages. Later in June 2001, the ASG beheaded American national Guillermo Sobero. Sali was the primary negotiator in the ransom demands for the Dos Palmas kidnapping victims, which resulted in the ASG receiving a ransom payment.
In January 2002, Sali made statements during a radio interview denouncing the arrival of U.S. military advisors in the Philippines to participate in joint military exercises with the Armed Forces of the Philippines designed to locate and combat the ASG and rescue the hostages.
Sali has held several senior positions of influence within the ASG. In February 2005, Sali accompanied ASG leader Khadafi Janjalani and ASG second-in-command Isnilon Hapilon to a meeting with in the Philippines with senior leaders of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an al Qaida-linked terrorist organization operating in Southeast Asia. The JI leaders included a top bombmaker, a JI intelligence officer and a JI member suspected of playing a role in the 2002 Bali bombings.
Sali has served as a spokesperson for the ASG, taken part in decision-making meetings among leaders of the group, and was an advisor to ASG leader Khadafi Janjalani. In late 2002, for example, Sali and other ASG leaders met to discuss the possibility of conducting terrorist activities in Davao City, the Philippines. The operations were placed on hold, however, pending receipt of funding for the operations.
Radulan Sahiron
AKAs: SAHIRON, Radullan
SAHIRUN, Radulan
SAJIRUN, Radulan
Commander Putol
DOB: 1955
ALT. DOB: Circa 1952
POB: Kaunayan, Patikul, Jolo Island, the Philippines
Radulan Sahiron has perpetrated several brutal acts of terrorism involving bombings of civilians and kidnappings of U.S. and foreign nationals. He ordered the bombings conducted by the ASG on Jolo Island in 2004, as mentioned above, resulting in the death of 11 Filipino civilians and an American serviceman and wounding more than 200 others. The improvised explosive devices used in the bombings were initially assembled at Sahiron's headquarters, Camp Tubig Tuh-Tuh, on Jolo Island.
Sahiron was considered to be the key leader of the April 2000 Jolo/Sipadan kidnappings of 21 foreign tourists, including Westerners, Malaysians, and Filipinos, conducted by Sahiron and four other ASG members. Following the June 2002 ASG kidnapping of four hostages from a ship, the MT Singtec Marine 88 vessel, three of the four hostages were turned over to ASG leader Sahiron and held captive. In June 2002, Sahiron promised to end kidnappings on Jolo Island if the ransom was paid. In August 2002, Sahiron received and held four kidnapped women Filipina nationals on Jolo Island. In November 2002, Sahiron demanded 16 million Philippine Pesos (about US $312,195) for the freedom of seven hostages, including the four Filipina women. As of December 2003, Radulan Sahiron had received a total of 35 million Philippine Pesos (about US $636,000) in ransom payments from his participation in kidnappings.
Like Sali, Sahiron has held several senior positions of influence within the ASG. As early as 1999, he was one of fourteen members of the ASG's Majlis Shura (consultative council). In mid-2002, he acted as an advisor to ASG leader Khadafi Janjalani. Additionally, Sahiron has held several leadership positions over ASG fighters in the Sulu Archipelago area of the Southern Philippines.
From 2000 through 2003, Sahiron was described in various roles, including the leader of the ASG's Putol group, composed of an estimated 100 members operating on Jolo Island in the Sulu area of the Southern Philippines; as the head of the Sulu-based ASG consisting of 18 armed groups; as the ASG Chief of Staff in Sulu; and as the overall ASG commander on Jolo Island with an estimated 1,000 fully-armed followers.
Isnilon Totoni Hapilon
AKAs: HAPILUN, Isnilon
HAPILUN, Isnilun
Salahudin
Abu Musab
Tuan Isnilon
DOB: March 18, 1966
ALT DOB: March 10, 1967
POB: Bulanza, Lantawan, Basilan, the Philippines
Isnilon Totoni Hapilon has perpetrated several brutal acts of terrorism including kidnappings of U.S. and foreign nationals. In May 2001, Hapilon and other ASG members seized, detained, and transported 20 hostages, including three U.S. nationals, from the Dos Palmas Resort in Palawan Province, the Philippines, on behalf of the ASG. In June 2001, one of the U.S. nationals, Guillermo Sobero, was beheaded. Hapilon and the other ASG members moved, hid and marched the hostages through the dense jungles and mountains of Basilan Island, the Philippines. During that time, the ASG took over a church and hospital on Basilan Island and held 200 people hostage, including three Americans from the ASG kidnapping at the Dos Palmas Resort.
In August 2000, Jeffrey Schilling, a U.S. citizen, was kidnapped by members of the ASG and held hostage for more than seven months on Jolo Island, the Philippines, by the ASG. In December 2000, Hapilon and 20-armed ASG members guarded a U.S. citizen-hostage who was believed to be Jeffrey Schilling. Schilling was rescued in April 2001.
Hapilon has held senior advisory positions of influence within the ASG, including adviser to ASG leader Khadafi Janjalani. Hapilon also served as a deputy or second-in-command to Khadafi Janjalani and commanded certain other members of the ASG. At various times, Hapilon took part in decision-making meetings between and among the leaders of the ASG. Prior to the death of ASG founder Abdurajak Abubakar Janjalani in December 1998, Hapilon was a member of the ASG central committee.
Additionally, since 1997, Hapilon has held several positions of operational leadership in the ASG. As of August 2004, Hapilon commanded approximately 70-armed followers. In August 2003, Hapilon and approximately 100 ASG members were present in "Camp Usama," an ASG training camp established in 2002 by Hapilon in the Southern Philippines. In late 1999, Hapilon served as an instructor at an ASG camp where classes included military tactics. As of November 1997, Hapilon was an ASG commander.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 00:18 ||
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Great post! But unless State dept has changed the program in the last year the rewards program is payable up to $5M US. Not that we would have to pay that much but these three are at the top four on the list .
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/01/2005 6:47 Comments ||
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Hezbollah had planned to unleash a massive barrage of rocket attacks on civilian targets in the north, Military Intelligence chief Major General Aharon Ze'evi (Farkash) revealed Wednesday.
Ze'evi told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that last week's assault by Hezbollah on the northern village of Ghajar and on Israel Defense Forces posts along the northern border had been a way of encouraging an Israel Defense Forces reaction, in response to which the Lebanon-based organization had planned to launch rockets, including long-range Katyushas, at Israel's northern border last week.
Ze'evi also gave a detailed description of the Ghajar attack, during which some 20 Hezbollah gunmen infiltrated the Israeli side of the village. At the same time, he said, some 30 militants attacked the Gladiola military outpost and Hezbollah members opened fire on some 25 IDF posts between Rosh Hanikra and Har Dov, firing some 330 mortar shells.
Ze'evi said Hezbollah had plans to damage the IDF and kidnap soldiers, noting, however, that the military had advance intelligence information on the planned attack and was therefore able to prepare for it.
He said Hezbollah leaders expected the IDF to launch an extensive reprisal and were prepared for major activity, including attacks on civilian targets.
Ze'evi also said he expected Hezbollah to continue attempting to kidnap soldiers or Israelis abroad and send drones into Israeli air-space.
The Hezbollah attack was carried out with Iranian knowledge and Syrian support, said Ze'evi, and was calculated to ease the international pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad in the wake of the investigative report on the assassination of Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Commenting on other matters, Ze'evi said diplomacy would have failed if Iran was still working on producing nuclear weapons by March.
"If by the end of March 2006, the international community does not manage to use diplomatic means to block Iran's effort to produce a nuclear bomb, there will no longer be any reason to continue diplomatic activity in this field, and it will be possible to say that the international attempts to thwart [Iran's efforts] have failed," Ze'evi said.
Several MKs said they thought Ze'evi was saying military efforts would become necessary by April.
"The comments by the head of Military Intelligence convey a harsh, worrying and dark picture," said committee chairman MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud). "Iran is going to become a nuclear power in the region and the world is helpless (against this development)."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 01:36 ||
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"Iran is going to become a nuclear power in the region and the world is helpless (against this development)."
The now infamous Syrian witness Houssam Taher Houssam has pleaded with Lebanon's highest religious figures to protect his Lebanese fiancee from "pressures inflicted upon her by Lebanese officials."
Too late. She's already on her way to Malaysia...
In the second news conference from Damascus in two days, Houssam called upon Lebanese Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir, Grand Mufti Mohammed Qabbani, and Higher Shiite cleric Abdel-Amir Qabalan to do their best to protect his fiancee Tharwat Hujeiri and her family. He said Wednesday that his fiancee and her family were being "harassed, pressured and subjected to bribery" to testify against him by the same politicians who had pressured him.
Houssam, who spoke very briefly while his lawyer Omar Zouhbi, did all the talking, added that his fiancee and her family shouldn't be put through this "because they are innocent, and have nothing to do with what is happening."
In his previous news conference on Monday, Houssam had said he had given false statements to the UN probe into the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri. Houssam had earlier said he fled back to Syria from Lebanon, "in a sudden flash of conscience" after giving a false deposition against top notch Lebanese and Syrian officers, which led to the arrest of four Lebanese security chiefs. He also said he had several pieces of evidence which he didn't present during his previous conference, but that he "will not reveal anything except to the Syrian independent commission in the assassination of Hariri," and that this evidence is best kept away from the media "to preserve the secrecy of the investigations."
Reporters were not allowed to direct any questions to Houssam, who said "40 percent" of the UN probe's interim report was based on his statements, possibly to prevent Houssam from giving contradicting statements as he did on Monday. Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa called Houssam "a liar" on Wednesday, adding that Mehlis' report "relies on the depositions of a large number of people, and not only Houssam." Sabaa also said Houssam had approached with "important information on Hariri's assassination," and that Sabaa directed him to the UN probe.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2005 00:08 ||
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UN investigators probing the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister are due to question five Syrian witnesses in Vienna next week, according to a senior UN official. The team was scheduled to interview the Syrians, whose names were not released, starting on 5 December and ending on 7 December in the Austrian capital, Ibrahim Gambari, the UN undersecretary-general for political affairs, said on Wednesday. But diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said later it appeared the head of the probe, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, would not go to Vienna to interview the five officials.
That's probably to avoid mysterious auto accidents and/or plane crashes on the way...
And lemme guess. They'll have all the meetings in windowless rooms on the first floor.
Instead he would send other investigators from his team. Gambari was not immediately available for comment.
"Fritz, I forgive you for grabbing my wife's butt at last year's Christmas party."
"Oh! Thanks, boss! I really am sorry and..."
"I'm sending you to Vienna for the Hariri investigation!"
Gambari also told a news conference he expected the investigation into the 14 February killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri in Beirut to continue past its 15 December deadline "with or without Mehlis". He said the prosecutor may have other commitments and would not want to serve indefinitely.
Carla's probably willing to serve indefinitely.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/01/2005 00:00 ||
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The latest Sawt al-Khilafa (Voice of the Caliphate) broadcast by the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF) was distributed on the forums on November 20, and again demonstrated the strategic value of the media for the mujahideen. With a new interview format, entitled "To Be Continued," the presenter questioned the GIMF public relations director Sayf al-Din al-Kinani on the purpose of the media campaign and the identity and affiliation of the Sawt al-Khilafa team. Al-Kinani outlined the role of the campaign as one of "galvanizing the fight against the enemy" and underscored the Internet's role "as a new form of recruitment method." He also underlined the need for active participation by the "youth of the jihadi forums."
Al-Kinani was at pains to downplay the affiliation [by the enemies of jihad] of his media group with the Organization of al-Qaeda in Iraq. He argued that the group actually occupied itself "with the affairs of the Muslim Nation in general, and of the mujahideen in particular," and asked why it was, then, "that they do not say we are affiliated, say, with the Islamic Army in Iraq, even though we mentioned news about them and their operations? These are some of [the enemy's] known methods of deception and cunning, by which they intend to retain their enemy as a single symbolâal-Qaeda." The purpose of this deception, al-Kinani explained, was to "divert the gaze from [the existence of] the new generation of mujahideen, a generation with the same fierceness as al-Qaeda, and spread out all over Iraq and the other occupied lands."
Al-Kinani argued that the jihad is becoming, thanks to the Internet, a worldwide phenomenon of "reawakening" among the Muslim youth, a reawakening that requires its own, independent media propaganda to feed it. To serve this internationalization of the jihad, he explains: "Sawt al-Khilafa is a self-standing organization of the Islamic Nation, designed for the sons of the mujahideen, and impartial vis-Ã -vis the jihadi groups that conduct themselves according to the correct way, and that it is fighting against the domination of the Zionist American media." Al-Kinani emphasizes that this media wing of the jihad, now that it has been inaugurated, is to progress to the next stage in order to reach its full potential. "The day will come when anything that does not offer something to the Nation, the Faith and the Brothers, will be expelled," he warned. "It is high time," al-Kinani concludes, "for the jihadi forums to become a beacon of continuity, and a support for the jihad and its exponents."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 01:16 ||
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CIA Director Porter Goss, saying his agency struggles to penetrate terrorist sanctuaries overseas, insists that âwe know more than weâre able to say publiclyâ about Osama bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
In a rare television interview, Goss defended the CIAâs track record, which has been tarnished by allegations ranging from erroneous or hyped intelligence leading to the war in Iraq to reports the agency runs secret prisons abroad for terrorism suspects and uses harsh interrogation techniques amounting to torture.
âWhat we do does not come close to torture,â Goss said, though he declined to elaborate on the agencyâs interrogation techniques.
Al Qaida leaders Bin Laden and al-Zarqawi havenât been found âprimarily because they donât want us to find them and theyâre going to great lengths to make sure we donât find them,â Goss said in the interview broadcast Tuesday on ABCâs âGood Morning America.â âWeâre applying a lot of efforts to find out where they are.â He insisted the CIA knows âa good deal moreâ about the men âthan weâre able to say publicly.â
Goss said one of the hardest parts of the CIAâs mission is to âpenetrate into some of the sanctuary areasâ â whether harsh terrain or âat the heart of a city, in a ghetto or slum area where people donât regularly go.â
âKnowing how to find those places and getting to penetrate them is going to be the hardest part of this business,â he said.
Even with the CIAâs mistakes, Goss said, the agency is âthe gold standard by any measureâ in terms of human intelligence.
âWe donât get it right every time,â he said, âbut I donât think thereâs anybody who could even come close.â
Reports have surfaced recently that the CIA runs secret prisons in Europe for detaining and interrogating suspects. The U.S. has not confirmed those reports, and Goss did not address them directly.
âWeâre fighting a war on terror,â he said in response to a question about the prisons. âWeâre doing quite well. Inevitably, weâre going to have to capture some terrorists and inevitably theyâre going to have to have some due process. Itâs going to be done lawfully.â
The interview was taped inside the operations room at the agencyâs headquarters in suburban Langley, Va. A red light flashed throughout the interview, indicating there was someone in the room who did not have a security clearance â the interviewer, ABCâs Charles Gibson.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/01/2005 00:48 ||
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The CIA has been too worried about trying to take down a US president to worry about petty things like Al Qaeda.
#2
And yet, thier best efforts to crash the Bush administration have been none too good. You'd think they'd set their sights lower and bask in the glow of some kind of success.
Nah. Makes too much sense...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/01/2005 9:55 Comments ||
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#3
If he knows the area they are in put SmartDust and Cams - with motion sensors, voice recog. for Biney etc, and an IUD attached.
Also consider attaching one of those electric fired mine replacement guns.
Binny is in voice sensing range - automatic BOOM with no override.
Binny is visual recog range (where recog is by computer to 90% accuracy) - automatic BANG as he is shot.
Mine the whole area with these intelligent killers.
#4
Goss needs to uncover every individual in his organization that's even remotely connected with any sort of effort to discredit the President, shove them out the front door and then kick them down the stairs. The sooner this happens, the better.
#5
Things always get up front and personal when it happens at home, or at the office. The Klingons didn't know anything about Mir Aimal Kasi before he gunned down a couple of agency employees with his AK at their front gate in 1993. Kasi a Pakistani national, described his actions, as "retaliation against the US Gov't" for policies, etc, etc, the standard muzzie line. Had they not done so already, after the Kasi attack they should have really gotten serious about the muzzie terror threat, maybe started some heavy trend and predictive analysis, etc. Instead, nearly 15 years later their director says they "struggle to penetrate." Allowing Secretary Powell to go before the UN with "WMD trailers" that were NOT! ..well, that was just stupid. Appears they also "struggle" to completely verify. Changing leadership and implementing new security measures and high-tech system at the front gate hasn't helped the rest of us. I suspect it's time for a major house cleaning. Let them golf, smoke pipes, and do navel studies in the comfort of their homes.
The redesigned flight 93 memorial, announced today, still contains all of the features that made it a terrorist memorial. Architect Paul Murdoch's infamous red crescent is still there, still planted with red maple trees, still inscribed in the exact same circle as before, and with the same two crescent tips still intact. Thus the crescent bisector defined by these crescent tips is also the same as before. It still points almost exactly to Mecca, making the crescent a Mihrab (an Islamic prayer station, where the believer faces into a crescent, towards Mecca, to perform his ritual prostrations). The design still incorporates a separate upper terrorist-memorial wall, centered precisely on the red-maple crescent. There are still 44 translucent blocks on the flight path to the crash site, matching the total number of dead, instead of just the forty translucent blocks that are dedicated to the forty murdered Americans. Lastly, the Tower of Voices part of the memorial is still an Islamic prayer-time sundial.
#1
Time to kick Paul Murdoch in his dhimmi balls and start over. I recommend a statue of the flight 93 passengers choking the shit out of the hijackers.
Posted by: ed ||
12/01/2005 10:35 Comments ||
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#2
time to establish the names of the elected officials stupid enough to sign off on this an make examples out of them.
#3
I concur. Enough of this crap. The need to expunge all trace of the murderers' symbols is crystal clear. Should we have a billboard for Mannlicher-Carcano rifles erected across from the Eternal Flame in Arlington?
After enough of this bull's pizzle I am now also in the camp of having an Iwo Jima style monument showing the heroic passengers engaged in their struggle to avert what could have been a monumental travesty.
The loss of life in New York was profound, make no mistake about that. However, if an airliner had been slammed into the Capitol Dome or White House, this would have been a penultimate victory for the terrorists. They, truly, would have stabbed into the heart of America in a most vivid way.
That the passengers of Flight 93 prevented this merits them more than some tainted design which is all too easily misconstrued by those who connived against us. Scrap the entire design and start over. Preferrably, with constant input from the families off all those who were aboard Flight 93.
#4
If they build that piece of crap with even a hint of Islam in it, I'm pretty certain their design will be "altered" after its completed. If that's what they are wishing for, I suggest they won't be disappointed--Americans have limits as to what they will put up with.
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.
Egyptian police have rounded up almost 600 
Saudi television aired on Wednesday confessions by purported former members of the Al-Qaeda network talking about their recruitment, training and fighting experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. 
Talks between the European Union and Iran on winning guarantees Tehran is not making nuclear weapons may take longer to restart than expected as the two sides are bickering over substance and form, diplomats told AFP Wednesday. A first meeting was hoped for next week but "it's more likely it will be in mid-December or early January," said a Western diplomat, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue. The diplomat said there is still no confirmation of a date or site for the meeting, which could be in Moscow, Geneva, Vienna or Brussels.
The Iraqi defense minister described his country's border with Syria as a "source of evil," as U.S. President George W. Bush refused Wednesday to set a pullout timetable for Iraq and said his goal was "complete victory." Shortly ahead of Bush's speech, Defense Minister 
Indonesiaâs president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday ordered immigration authorities to lift a one-year ban on a prominent American terrorism expert, declaring the reasons for the ban âirrelevant,â according to a presidential spokesman.
The now infamous Syrian witness 
UN investigators probing the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister are due to question five Syrian witnesses in Vienna next week, according to a senior UN official. The team was scheduled to interview the Syrians, whose names were not released, starting on 5 December and ending on 7 December in the Austrian capital, 
