The European Union has allocated â¬1bn (£680m) to Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion. It provides over two-thirds of the 10,000 peacekeepers in Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). Nearly half the cost of September's parliamentary elections, seen as a democratic milestone, was met from EU funds.
But, despite its efforts, the EU lacks collective clout and a coherent policy in Afghanistan, a new report said yesterday. And it is ill-prepared to take on larger political, reconstruction and security responsibilities that will be required next year as the US begins to scale back its military commitment.
That conclusion is particularly worrying for Britain, which takes command of Isaf next spring. It is to deploy up to 4,000 additional troops, half of them to southern Helmand province, at a time of intensifying violence, a Taliban resurgence and al-Qaida-linked suicide bombings. "How the multinational force functions when countries have different rules of engagement is a real difficulty," said David Drew MP, who recently returned from Afghanistan. "The Americans can't do peacekeeping and the Europeans won't. Britain needs help in the south and with counter-narcotics."
"We believe there will be a 3,000-5,000 reduction in US troops next year," said Dai Havard MP, a member of the defence select committee. "The US is very clearly telling Nato, and the EU element of Nato, to step up and do your part."
A Nato meeting next week will attempt to finalise contributions to an expanded 16,000-strong Isaf force. But many EU countries worry their troops will be sucked into war-fighting. In the Netherlands domestic opposition has cast doubt over plans to send 1,100 extra troops to the south. A decision is due today.
Partly as a result, Britain is looking to Canada, Australia and New Zealand for support. "Isaf's effectiveness has been adversely impacted by national caveats on functions and acceptance of risk. Many troops are based in the safest areas of the country instead of where they are most needed," the report by the independent International Crisis Group said. "As Isaf embarks ... into the more dangerous south, only a few EU states appear prepared to commit troops."
If they aren't there to do the work, why are they there at all?
The ICG's Joanna Nathan also highlighted problems with civil-military units known as provincial reconstruction teams, eight of which are led by EU states. Each PRT had its own ideas about what it was supposed to do - and some achieved very little, she suggested. The British PRT in Mazar-i-Sharif focused on security "in an area of considerable factional animosity" while the Italians in Herat stressed "cultural interaction".
Surprise meter didn't budge on that one.
'All the PRTs are surreally different. National caveats are crippling inter-operability. This has given rise to the phrase 'peacekeeping tourism'," Ms Nathan said. The PRTs should prioritise security and stabilisation. Afghanistan's situation remained "extremely fragile". But the EU's nation-building efforts were handicapped by a lack of policy coordination between members and between the EU and Nato; and by its resulting inability, relative to the US, to influence the Afghan political process, corruption and human rights issues, the report said
"The EU must be more assertive," said Emma Bonino, a former EU commissioner. "Europe will be involved in Afghanistan for many more years - not just two or three years. This has to be made clear to European public opinion. We have to be transparent about this."
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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December 2, 2005: Why has the United States, and some of its NATO allies (especially France, Britain and Germany) been doing with the several thousand troops stationed in the Horn of Africa. The troops are based in Djibouti, but are keeping an eye on the entire region (so called because Djibouti looks, on a map, like a âhornâ coming out of Africa) because they anticipate that, as Iraq is pacified, the Islamic radicals will seek safe havens and new battlegrounds elsewhere in the arc of instability in the Middle East. The region to which they are most likely to head, in CENTCOM's view, is the Horn of Africa, where large areas are not effectively controlled by central governments or, such as in Somalia, where there has been no functioning central government for over a decade. Sudan, for example, is run by a bunch of Islamic fundamentalists and most of the East African coast is poorly policed and contains a significant Arab minority population. The eastern end of the semi-desert Sahel region, just below the Sahara desert, plugs into the Horn of Africa, and has long been the hideout of all sorts of desperadoes.
So far, Islamic terrorists do not seem to be flocking to the area. Iraq is still a big draw, despite the high death rate among the Islamic terrorists who show up. Those now deterred by this are instead going off to Chechnya (where the danger is about as great as in Iraq), or Afghanistan (ditto, at least for Arabs, who are not liked much by the locals). Why the reluctance to move into what should be terrorist-central? The main reason is that thereâs no there there. Or at least not much.
The Horn of Africa region is poor in all manner of resources that Islamic terrorists find essential. Things like lots of roads, airports, Internet connections, banks and local warlords you can do business with. The leadership in the area doesnât really want any Islamic terrorists around. Too much potential trouble with all those Western soldiers up in Djibouti. While the people in the area tend to be Islamic conservatives, they are also quite poor, and have much to loose if Islamic terrorists move in. Some of the locals have sworn allegiance to al Qaeda, but nothing much has come of it, what with the regional hostility to that sort of thing. Indeed, most of the locals have shown more enthusiasm for capturing or turning in Islamic terrorists, and collecting rewards.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/02/2005 10:10 ||
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#1
Yawn... France has been there for many years. Djibouti gov't and cits are very anti-terror, anti-radical Islam. There are worse places stage from.
Riot police restricted access to some polling stations in the final stage of Egyptian elections on Thursday in what the Islamist opposition said was an attempt to cap its gains in parliament. The Muslim Brotherhood has increased its seats in the chamber more than fivefold in voting so far, exceeding the expectations of its own leadership and posing the strongest challenge to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP).
Riot police surrounded a polling station in the Nile Delta town of Kafr el-Sheikh and let only a trickle of voters through their lines to cast ballots. "I'm going to vote for the Brotherhood but they're only letting NDP supporters in," said one of about 400 people waiting to vote.
Police arrested more than 550 Brotherhood activists this week in what the group also said was an attempt to weaken its chances. The Brotherhood, which had 15 seats in the outgoing parliament, has won 76 of 444 elected places so far. The NDP has boosted its number of seats by readmitting winners who broke party lines to stand as independents against officially endorsed party candidates. The ruling party has 214 seats so far, state media reported on Thursday. The final stage, which is spread over two days, will decide 136 seats. The Brotherhood, which is officially banned, is contesting only 49 places as part of its strategy not to provoke the authorities. Islamist candidates stand as independents.
The Brotherhood said police had closed four polling stations and detained campaign workers in Kafr el-Sheikh. Islamist activists were also arrested in Damietta and candidates' delegates were unable to monitor polling, the Brotherhood said. Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera said security forces detained for half an hour its crew covering the election in Kafr el-Sheikh and destroyed their tape. Police detained and harassed journalists and confiscated their equipment in the last stage of voting. At least one reporter was attacked by police.
But voting has so far been less violent than in the last elections in 2000, when 10 people were killed. Two people have so far died this year in election-related violence. Run-offs between the top two candidates will be held on Dec. 7 for seats where no candidate wins a clear majority.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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Nov 17, 2005
Johannesburg - Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka says the country's presidency was not awarehad no recollection of oil-company Imvume chief executive officer Sandi Majali posing as an adviser to President Thabo Mbeki in alleged irregular dealings with the former Iraqi government over the oil-for-food programme. In the National Assembly, the Deputy President was asked by official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) leader Tony Leon about the United Nations report which stated that Majali had claimed to be an adviser to Mbeki and whether this did not present a conflict of interest for the South African Government.
Mlambo-Ngcuka - who did not rule out the possibility that an independent inquiry could transpire into allegations of irregular South African involvement in the oil-for-food programme - said: "People talk about these things when they want business it's the African way. Business people take chances and they don't always go and ask the permission of the person ... whose name they are going to drop.
"The presidency was never asked as far as we know ... about Mr Majali having to be posing (sic) to be an adviser," said the Deputy President. Earlier, Freedom Front Plus leader Pieter Mulder asked whether South Africa would not follow the lead of other countries - such as Australia and Jordan - which had appointed official oil-for-food inquiries since the recent publication of the United Nations report pointing to alleged irregularities. Mlambo-Ngcuka said that the South African justice department had called in an international expert to help it sift through the material relating to South African alleged involvement in the kickbacks and to "help them (to) guide themselves to take the kind of action that you are talking about". Nice Try Piet old boy.
They would consider what South African laws had possibly been broken by any action in Iraq. Majali is accused of receiving kickbacks from the ousted government of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. The questions to the Deputy President were resumed an hour late in the Assembly on Wednesday after a power outage delayed its business.
Photographs of Osama Bin Laden on a visit to Oxford in 1971 have come to light after their owner recognised him in widely-publicised pictures from the same year.
The pictures are owned by a Spanish woman and one has been published in a Spanish newspaper showing 14-year-old Bin Laden with two of his brothers and two glamorous Spanish girls as they attended a language course.
Their owner said she had made scribbled diary notes by the photos, and remembered Bin Laden sounding educated, and seeming "deep" for his age.
But she said she did not recall him being interested in politics, or particularly concerned with religious duties.
Saudi-born Bin Laden did not appear to be into rock music or fashion, and did not like the 1970s London scene, the El Correo newspaper reported.
He used to tell the Spanish girls that the foreigners who walked around London were a bit crazy.
The photograph (above) was taken in an Oxford park, where the woman recalled going for a walk one evening after taking tea.
Bin Laden (far right) appears with his older brothers and seems a gangly teenager, with a slightly awkward smile.
The other, as yet unpublished, pictures are reported to show the group having a picnic, and Bin Laden punting a boat.
Their owner recalled Bin Laden's sadness when he told how the three brothers had different mothers and that his mother was a concubine.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said Thursday that only his personal intervention had dissuaded the United States from occupying the southern port city of Aden after the bombing of the destroyer USS Cole there in October 2000. "There was a plan to occupy Aden," Saleh said in a speech to mark the anniversary of the former south Yemen's independence from Britain in 1967. "By chance, I happened to be down there. If I hadn't been, Aden would have been occupied as there were eight U.S. warships at the entrance to the port," he said. "The tension was enormous but we succeeded through our diplomatic efforts and firmness in preventing what was about to unfold and had been planned."
Seventeen U.S. sailors were killed in the suicide attack by militants aboard a small boat packed with explosives, which was later claimed by Al-Qaeda. Saleh lashed out at the Islamist network whose leader Osama bin Laden counts Yemen as his ancestral homeland. "These terrorists are causing their country great misfortune; they're damaging the economy and tourism," the president said. "They chant: 'Death to America,' 'Death to Israel,' but these slogans are misplaced, because they are really chanting: 'Death to the Homeland.'"
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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#4
What the Yemeni President is missing is that the Navy had to ask their commander in chief before occupying a foreign city. That commander in chief was a pussy named Bill, and that "dissuaded' U.S. from occupying Aden after Cole attack.
The United Arab Emirates, UAE, will hold its first elections witn a vote to pick half the members of a consultative council, the president announced. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan said on Thursday that the Federal National Council, the closest body the country has to a parliament, will have half of its members elected and the other half appointed. "In light of the changes and reforms our region is witnessing ... we decided to begin activating the National Assembly by electing half of its members," Sheikh Khalifa said in a speech to mark the UAE's national day.
The speech, carried on state news agency WAM, gave no date for the election to the council, whose 40 members are currently all appointed by the seven semi-autonomous emirates that make up the UAE. UAE citizens are a small minority in the oil producing region, which has a population of 4 million. Although there is no political dissent or Islamist violence in the UAE, it is the only country without elected bodies in the mainly conservative Gulf region after Saudi Arabia held municipal elections this year.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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Outside the Jebay mall, a bustling hive of black market shops guarded by men with pistols and shotguns, a motorcycle taxista shouts from inside his helmet: "They want to control all this. They think terrorists are here."
"They" means the US military.
The recent arrival of US troops in this landlocked nation of 6 million is brewing fears of the repeat of cold-war intervention in the heart of South America. And in cabs, newspapers, courtyards, and restaurants throughout region, conspiracy theories about Washington's intentions are spreading like wildfire.
In May, Paraguay rankled neighbors by hosting 400 US troops for 13 joint military exercises that began this summer and will end in December 2006. Washington is paying $45,000 for each exercise, some of which are humanitarian, and Paraguay reportedly hopes to land $35 million in extra aid.
When President Bush arrived in Argentina for the Summit of the Americas last month, civic groups in Paraguay simultaneously announced a forum to address the US troop deployment in the country. Many here fear the troops are laying the groundwork for a permanent base similar to the Pentagon's Manta Base in Ecuador. But US and Paraguayan officials are vehement. "The United States has absolutely no intention of establishing a military base in Paraguay," said an official at the US Embassy in Asunción, Paraguay's capital.
Skeptics point out, however, that the US initially denied the Manta base would be permanent back in 1999.
"One day a Pentagon official came to our office to assure us that Manta would only be peripherally used, with no hardened structures or overnight facilities," recalls Larry Birns, executive director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington. "A week later, he telephones us and says that things had dramatically changed and that Manta now was scheduled to be made into a 'multimillion-dollar' major US military facility. This is what worries us about Paraguay. What the Pentagon has in mind for Paraguay today may be different from what it may decide down the road."
Before and immediately after 9/11, US officials suspected that Al Qaeda was active in the so-called Triple Border area where Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil meet. Those fears have dwindled to allegations that Arab businessmen in Ciudad del Este use profits from pirated goods to fund Middle East terrorist groups. The Brazilian government has estimated that $6 billion of illegal funds are wired out of Ciudad del Este annually.
State Department officials say they are concerned about terrorist-related activity in the area, but a July statement from the US Embassy in Asunción said the US had "no type of intervention" planned for Ciudad del Este, except for programs to boost employment in the city. Yet this hasn't stopped locals from speculating that the Pentagon wants to monitor people of Arab descent living in the area.
Others here voice a more radical theory: that the US wants to control strategic gas reserves in neighboring Bolivia. Many Paraguayans don't go that far, but do claim that Washington wants more of a presence nearby because it is worried leftist candidate Evo Morales would nationalize Bolivia's natural gas industry and decriminalize coca growing if he wins the presidential elections on Dec. 18.
"The US has a long and resented history of intervening in Bolivia's internal affairs," says Jim Shultz, executive director of The Democracy Center, a think tank based in Bolivia. "With the arrival of soldiers so close to Bolivia's border, people here are understandably worried that the US is cooking up something even more drastic."
The US official in Asunción firmly denies any links between the Paraguayan exercises and Bolivia.
Dr. Birns says that expansion of military ties with Paraguay could have "damaging regional geopolitical ramifications far beyond anything that Washington may have anticipated as of now. We would like to remove this temptation before it gets Washington into trouble."
Brazilian officials have complained publicly about the US military presence. Celso Amorim, Brazil's foreign minister, told media outlets that Paraguay's position within MERCOSUR, a four-nation trade bloc that also includes Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, could be jeopardized by its decision.
Officials in Asunción have complained that MERCOSUR, which is dominated by Brazil, unfairly hurts their country's exports, especially beef and textiles. It is reportedly seeking permission from MERCOSUR partners to pursue trade deals with the United States without having to leave the bloc, something Uruguay has done.
"This is all about trade," says Anderson Siglkicki, a restaurant manager in Foz de Iguaçu, Brazil, just across the Parana River from Paraguay. "Paraguay thinks MERCOSUR is unfair, so they want to make friends with the United States. Paraguay wants to join the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas."
But Milda Rivarola, a Paraguayan political analyst and historian, says officials will feel little domestic pressure to kick the US troops out of the country.
"Most Paraguayans are indifferent," she says. "Progressive sectors and leftist groups have protested, and the press made it an object of debate. But in the country, few people are going to complain, especially if they get free services and some money."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/02/2005 00:39 ||
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The Arena tank active protection system belongs to the latest generation of Russian APS, together with Drozd-2 APS.
Arena's direct predecessor is Shatjor APS that was installed on o.478M Molot MBT.
The system has been developed at the Kolomna-Based Engineering Design Bureau together with other allied enterprises. It has no foreign counterparts for the time being.
Arena is intended to protect tanks from antitank grenades and ATGMs, including top-attack ATGMs...
#1
good for ambushes in the field, but hell on your own dis-mounted infantry and non conbatants in the area in a city.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
12/02/2005 1:02 Comments ||
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#2
i'm guessing fck all tanks actually have the Arena or Arena type system fitted at all though do they being as they are russian millitary, perhaps 5 or 6 tanks maybe lol. I'm sure i read on tank net the USMC or amry not sure which one has a crash program ready if need be to set up a system like this. Didn't Israel also develop such a system that will be/is cabable of knocking down the dart from a SABOT round. still the infantry nearby or civilians near by when used is problem .
Posted by: Shep UK ||
12/02/2005 5:58 Comments ||
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#3
Surely having a radar broadcasting on top of a tank just says "i am here kill me" like with anti radar asms i.e. ALARMS and HARMS. might be ok against low tech rpg's though
#4
perhaps a LPI type radar but agreed it will somewhat show your position to those who may have the knoladge and tech to monitor any electronic emmisions,
Posted by: Shep UK ||
12/02/2005 7:37 Comments ||
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#5
perhaps a LPI type radar but agreed it will somewhat show your position to those who may have the knoladge and tech to monitor any electronic emmisions,
Posted by: Shep UK ||
12/02/2005 7:37 Comments ||
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The government plans to extend the mission of Japanese troops engaged in reconstruction work in Iraq for another year, sources at the ruling Liberal Democratic Party [LDP] said Wednesday. It plans to make a formal decision on the extension on Dec 8, according to a senior LDP member.
Japan is considering withdrawing the Ground Self-Defense Force troops in Samawah, southern Iraq, around next May, but a one-year extension will give it flexibility in deciding the pullout timing in the event of changes in the situation there, according to the sources.
#5
Domo arigato. I imagine the troops are making known their pleasure at being so far from the parade ground... And the more practical experience they are seen enjoying by China, the better, in terms of medium term relations between the two countries. After all, how much real life experience have the Chinese troops -- even the new Special Forces type units -- had lately?
How could a young woman turn from Belgian baker's assistant to Baghdad suicide bomber?
Belgium has been shocked by revelations that Muriel Degauque, an unassuming woman who grew up near the rust belt city of Charleroi, had entered Iraq from Syria and detonated explosives strapped to her body in a failed attack against US troops.
Liliane Degauque, the 38-year-old's mother, told local TV networks that her daughter was "so nice", but began to change when she married an Algerian man and turned to Islamic fundamentalism.
The case underlined the growing reach of international terrorism.
"It is the first time that we see that a Western woman, a Belgian, marrying a radical Muslim, and is converted up to the point of becoming a jihad fighter," said Glenn Audenaert, the federal police director.
In her younger years, Muriel Degauque lived a conventional life in an industrial belt of southern Belgium. Media reports said she finished high school before taking on several jobs, including selling bread in a bakery. They also said that as an adolescent she had run into problems with drugs and alcohol.
Authorities say Degauque went on to become a member of a terror cell that embraced al Qaeda's ideology. It included her second husband, who died in a separate terror attack in Iraq. "This is our Belgian kamikaze killed in Iraq," read the headline of yesterday's La Derniere Heure newspaper, over a picture of a smiling young woman looking into the camera.
When Liliane Degauque saw police coming to her doorstep on Wednesday, she immediately knew what it was about.
She had heard reports that there had been a terrorist attack on November 9 by a Belgian woman.
Ms Degauque said: "For three weeks already I tried to contact her by telephone but I got the answering machine."
Authorities yesterday formally arrested five of the 14 suspects detained in dawn raids the day before and charged them with involvement in a terrorist network that sent volunteers to Iraq, including Degauque.
Nine were released. Those placed under arrest were a Tunisian and four Belgians, three of whom had North African roots.
"This action shows how international terrorism tries to set up networks in western European nations, recruit for terror attacks in conflict areas and look for funds to finance terrorism," said Guy Verhofstadt, Belgian prime minister.
In France on Wednesday, police in the Paris area arrested a fifteenth suspect, a 27-year-old Tunisian man thought to have had contacts with the Belgian group.
Authorities said the Belgian network had been planning to send more volunteers to Iraq for attacks.
The raids in Brussels and three other cities across the country, involving more than 200 police officers, followed media reports of the Belgian woman's suicide.
Belgium has been mentioned as a breeding ground for terrorists in the past and there are currently 13 Belgian and Moroccan nationals on trial for allegedly being members of an Islamic group suspected in recent bomb attacks in Spain and Morocco.
Islamic radical groups linked to al Qaeda are suspected of setting up networks in Belgium and other European nations with large Muslim communities.
For many in Belgium, however, Wednesday's arrests were a chilling reminder that that no-one is immune.
"Belgium is directly involved in the terrorist threat," said Laurette Onkelinx, the justice minister.
The US military yesterday reported that suicide bombings fell in November to their lowest level in seven months after joint US-Iraqi operations west of the capital.
In Ramadi, the US military played down reports by residents and police of widespread attacks against American and Iraqi installations there, saying only one rocket-propelled grenade was fired at an observation post, and there were no injuries.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/02/2005 00:29 ||
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#2
The answer is Islam, that is what. That is not a bigoted statement it is a fact. Her act was an act of faith to her. Why is hard so hard for the chatering classes to understand?
#9
To be honest we probably don't know if she volunteered or if she did it by threat. Not a few suicide bombers have blown themselves up (or failed as she failed to kill anyone) because of threats to family members and friends.
#1
I admit sheepishly that I'm a posting newbie, but I thought this article worthy of my first. It is infuriating that the so-called re-design has resulted in the knee-jerk reaction so predominant amongst the lefty academe-elite complex: to make the reference to Islam subtle enough that "Red-Staters" do not grasp it. Hence putting the thumb in the eye of those who refuse to ignore the pervasive sedition that runs rampant in so many of our present day institutions.
It is exhausting to counter this constant assault, but it must be done. For those interested, the email form for comments on this memorial is found here: http://www.nps.gov/flni/pphtml/contact.html
#2
My experience with having my house built leads me to suspect that the designer just wants to hurry up and get this done, get his money, and get out. He figured he could change it just enough to end the controversy and get paid without having to redesign the whole thing from the ground up.
#3
Thanks for posting, mjh. You got all the basics right: relevant subject material, title and link in the right boxes, correct category and page. Just add some pithy commentary with Fred's handy hiliter tool and you'll be a posting pro!
#4
I read some background on the designer, crescents of embrace are just about all he does. The whole story needs a bit of exposure, as an agenda grabbing exercise this is even more blatant than the WTC fiasco. The plan badly needs killing.
#7
There needs to be a concerted effort by all Americans to put an end to this insult. Whether by accident or by plan, the similarities is enough that any any red blooded American would cringe at the thought of this plan being implemented. Does anyone know where objections to this piece of trash can be lodged with our government?
Posted by: Black Powa! ||
12/02/2005 17:41 Comments ||
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#9
Your email:
JerseyMike@Islamistsaremurderingscumbags.com
Subject:
Try being an American for a change
Your message:
What is wrong with you people?
You're project proposal is simply offensive to the memory of the hero's of that day. I would suggest you try erecting a 50 foot high statue of the hero's attempting to break down the cockpit door with the words "Let's roll" emblazoned on the bottom.
Thank you for the touchy feely bullshit - but no thanks, murders are murders you PC paper pushers would do well to remember that.
Thanks for the link BP, I may just stay up all night hitting that link!
Sen. Joe Lieberman stands virtually alone among Democrats after expressing his staunch support for the Bush administrationâs handling of the war in Iraq. An official with the liberal activist group MoveOn.org said the group might go so far as to back a Democratic challenger to Lieberman in next yearâs Senate race, according to the Hartford Courant.
On Tuesday Lieberman published an editorial in the Wall Street Journal â reported by NewsMax â saying that his recent trip to Iraq convinced him further that the U.S. should not abandon "27 million Iraqis to 10,000 terrorists.â The next day in an address on the progress of the war, President Bush said those who have called for withdrawal timetables, including 38 of the Senateâs Democrats, are "sincerely wrong.â He went on: "As Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman said recently, setting an artificial timetable would âdiscourage our troops because it seems to be heading for the door. It will encourage the terrorists. It will confuse the Iraqi people.â "Senator Lieberman is right.â
That's the kiss of death right there as far as MoveOn is concerned
Lieberman was one of five Senate Democrats to oppose a Democratic-backed plan to require the president to set timetables for American troop withdrawals.
That has drawn some sharp criticism from the left. Tom Matzzie, Washington director of MoveOn.org, said: "The war on Iraq has all the characteristics of Joe-momentum,â recalling a slogan Lieberman used during the 2004 presidential campaign. "Just like he didnât realize his presidential ambitions were in trouble, he doesnât understand the war in Iraq isnât going anywhere.â
Matzzie â whose organization claims more than 50,000 Connecticut members, according to the Courant â said that if his members ask, his group would back a Democratic challenger to Lieberman. He added that when he was in New Haven last month, he found "the No. 1 question people asked me was, âWhat are we going to do about Joe Lieberman?ââ
Norman Orstein, political analyst at Washingtonâs American Enterprise Institute, highlighted Liebermanâs isolation among Democrats. He told the Courant: "A consensus on the war is forming in the Democratic center, that itâs virtually impossible to set a withdrawal date, but there should be a change in our approach to the war. "Joe is not in that center, and I donât see anyone else in the party where he is.â
The Democratic "center" has shifted so far left they're about to drop off the edge of the earth.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/02/2005 13:18 ||
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#1
Good. Lieberman should wear MoveOn's opposition as a badge of honor. It takes some mighty big cojones to do what Lieberman has done -- in effect, buck the trend in his party -- and he should be proud of his stance.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
12/02/2005 13:44 Comments ||
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#2
Do the Republicans run against Lieberman? As I recall, Bill Buckley got him to run to defeat Weicker. Any one know if there's truth to this?
#3
Question: how many of MoveOn.org's sponsored candidates have won their elections? If the percentage is low, then what difference does their support/opposition make?
#10
#4 - TW's question is not relevant to the left, but is of interest to me, and I LOVE the answer in #5. The lefties STILL haven't figgered it out!
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/02/2005 15:53 Comments ||
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#11
Lieberman is posturing for the next election. If he can pull the moderate dems from the moonbat pool he could stand a chance next election. He has all the "I support the war and troops" platform pluss the liberal union and minority support. Looks like he has just declaired his intentions.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/02/2005 20:01 Comments ||
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#12
Joe L won't stand a chance when someone like Biden and Kerry is willing to apply his lips to every leftist buttock to get the nod. I doubt he'll even be allowed to speak at the convention. BTW I actually think he's doing this on principle, not pandering. He's to be saluted. Hell, he's more Republican than Specter
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2005 20:12 Comments ||
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#13
Frank
I might just be getting cynical about the motives of anyone from the left. But You are right that he is to be commended for his stand and I would hope it's on priciple.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
12/02/2005 20:54 Comments ||
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#14
he'd be 0 for 2 after the first two primaries, and the way the Donk party is drifting to port, he won't have substantial $. I see a quick campaign fold, but he'll stay on message. In my mind that's an indication of some principles of belief....
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2005 21:07 Comments ||
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Newly-released US documents suggest the US escalated the war in Vietnam based on skewed intelligence. The documents cast doubt on the existence of an attack on a US warship by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf of Tonkin on 4 August 1964. The incident prompted President Lyndon Johnson to ask Congress, in effect, to declare war on Vietnam. The revelations, released by the National Security Agency, were written by its own historian in 2001.
Robert Hanyok declares his review of all the intelligence shows beyond doubt that "no attack happened that night". The USS Maddox had been attacked two days earlier. He claims errors were made in the translation of the intercepted signals from the North Vietnamese, and officials gave too much weight to flimsy evidence. But he clears President Johnson and his ministers of any blame. They were only shown intelligence supporting the claim of an attack, not a wealth of contradictory material, he says.
Plus, Lyndon Johnson is a Democratic icon for his expansion of the wellfare state. They never mention all those people chanting about "Johnson's War".
Instead, he blames the intelligence-gathers. "They walked alone in their counsels," he wrote.
Three days later, President Johnson asked Congress to empower him to take "all necessary steps" in the region, opening the way for a war that resulted in the deaths of 58,000 Americans and three million Vietnamese.
The US government is said to have fought the declassification of the documents over fears of comparisons with the handling of Iraq, says the BBC's defence and security correspondent Rob Watson.
"If we can't sell the story that Iraq is Vietnam, then maybe we can make Vietnam into Iraq."
Posted by: Steve ||
12/02/2005 09:18 ||
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#2
The USS Maddox had been attacked two days earlier.
Doesn't leave much room for disagreement. Too bad Johnson was interested in the War on Poverty than a real one.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 10:29 Comments ||
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#3
Maybe if they looked into ALL the intell people would know exactly why he started the war.He owned or owned stock in three of largest companies building stock for wartime. Time to push up profits!! That's why he wacked JFK!!
#4
*shrug* All intelligence is incomplete until the enemy files in his headquarters have been read through... That's why the analysts provide probability levels with their analyses. One does the best with the information he has at the time; if the enemy wants one to think differently about things, he need only admit the true situation and provide definitive proof. Intelligence isn't like rocket science, where the answers are absolute and calcuable. But we've learnt not to expect clear thinking from the "journalists" at the BBC.
#5
*double shrug* Don't like flawed? then please pass the aged and perfected intelligence. Oh, there ain't any? Well then be glad you've at least got some intelligence, to include the flawed. It might enable you to move out with a 60 or 70 percent solution, which, when emplemented with enthusiasm and DETERMINATION, WILL MORE THAN LIKELY PRODUCE SUCCESS!
#10
Tired, dear, think of Muckyspeak as the local Rantburg dialect. When, one day not long ago, the trailing daughters laughed about a Muckyspeak variant used by a poster at the site, I knew we'd truly become a Rantburg family. Or you can think of it as a subset of, as my brother the computer perfesser put it, "I type 120 words per minute, or 60 words per minute after I fix all the typos." ;-)
#11
Wasn't LBJ from Texas? Isn't Bush from Texas? There has to be a conspiracy in there somewhere. Texas has oil. Iraq has oil. Vietnam must have oil! Get 'em!
#13
Ima thinkr I dont given f*&k ifn you dont lik it
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2005 19:37 Comments ||
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#14
...as honest injun as the US Marine Brigade wilfully and undeniably attacked and destroyed several innocent German divisions on RR near Belleau Wood,; as Davey Crockett bayonetted himself at the Alamo; and Colunbus secretly worked for the Ming Dynasty; ...@etc. Yep, America can't be trusted for anything, and we're all Asians and Commies anyways vv the US Ninth.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, seen in a meeting with Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern, will make a statement on the row over reported secret CIA prisons when she visits Europe next week, Ahern said. If US leaders want to look resolute, then the last place they should table information that could aid the enemies of America is: off American soil. No matter what Condi reveals, the Euro-snots will call it: grovelling. The Anglicism "row" connotes a diplomatic dispute, that will inevitably draw fire from upwardly mobile Euro-Socs. Condi shouldn't set herself up for media-political pillorization.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will make a statement on the row over reported secret CIA prisons when she visits Europe next week, Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said. Ahern also said after talks with Rice here that she gave him categoric assurances that Ireland's Shannon airport had not been used for "untoward" purposes as a transit point for terror suspects.
The Irishman said Rice, due to make a four-nation swing of Europe next week, told him she would answer a formal query from the European Union on reports of clandestine interrogation centers in Europe. Condi: just say, "I'll get back to you on that," and let it hang for a year.
"She will be answering the (EU) letter. She made that quite clear," Ahern said. "She will also be making a statement when she goes to Europe." He said the top US envoy would make it "quite clear that as far as Americans are concerned, they have not infringed any international human rights laws in relation to this."
The United States has been under mounting pressure to come clean about reports of the "black site" prisons in Europe as Rice prepared to leave Monday on a trip to Germany, Romania, Ukraine and Brussels for a NATO meeting. The State Department on Thursday released the letter from Britain asking, as acting EU president, for clarification of media reports "suggesting violations of international law" in the detention or transport of terror suspects. Condi: just say, "I will leave all speculation to consumers of that type of pseudo information."
Ahern said he was satisfied with Rice's explanation concerning Shannon, a refueling stop for the US military where some 270,000 servicemen transited between January and October of this year. "As a friendly nation, I totally accept the categoric assurances that they have given us," he told reporters after meeting with Rice. He said Ireland would not open any investigation of the matter.
Belgium announced earlier Thursday that it had launched a probe last week to see if any of its military or civilian airports had been used as transit points for US planes transporting Islamic militants. Belgium: first, you stop sending Islamonazi convert-skanks to Iraq for blow-up terror.
The inquiry found that no military airport had been used but Belgian authorities were still looking at the more heavily frequented civilian facilities, Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said.
Ahern was asked about the possibility Shannon might have been used by CIA planes that were not carrying any prisoners on board but were en route to a third country to pick up some. He said press reports were unconfirmed. "If anyone has any evidence of any of these flights please give me a call and I will have it immediately investigated," the Irish envoy said. "Nobody has come forward." Once when the Ranger carrier group docked off San Francisco, the Mayor asked the Admiral if the Ranger carried nuclear weapons, and she was told: "We neither confirm nor deny anything concerning the armament status of our ship." That's all anyone out of the loop needed to know.
Ahern hits it on the head and the MSM ignores it. All we have in this 'affair' are allegations. There are not facts, no breathless Seymour Hersh articles in the New Yorker, nothing that anyone can say, "Aha!" to. Nothing except inneundo.
"The secretary of state has given the firm assurance that ... nothing has happened in Ireland which in any way infringes international law. As far as I am concerned, that will cover all of those circumstances."
#1
We Demand that Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern fully disclose all the IRA & political arm Sien Fein's foreign networks and home locations.
Futhermore all wire, bank transaction, and secret meetings with the Republic should be made public.
WE await the Republics prompt discloser as our own intel assets await the audit.
Posted by: Red Dog ||
12/02/2005 9:34 Comments ||
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#2
Sounds like she's going to give a reprise of the Ranger comments or a flat out denial. She may also tell them to grow up. The Bushies are getting more offensive and pro-active in the PR battle. I sense a new front opening up as Condi has never been a wimp.
#3
She should walk in with a stack of documents detailing EU aid to the PA, funds flowing from Eurabian mosques to al'Qaeda, and the tolerance Europe has shown for terrorists in general. Follow those details with, "We have to be quiet about our actions, because we have no idea what side you are on!"
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/02/2005 9:42 Comments ||
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#4
I prefer the wennies worries about Ghost Fliers In The Sky.
And drop a few hints about new found hovering ability.
#5
This all makes great fodder for the anti-war crowd and tranzi ankle-biters. But the real leaver-pullers know, now more then ever, their very way of life depends on sound intel sharing. Sorry media hacks, best check out whats going on in Aruba 'cause this one won't even rise to a vapor-scandel.
#6
Who is the source of these "allegations"? These are same old war preotesters still bent they lost out on all the sanction-breaking kickbacks from Saddam. They are probably still reeling over the American Revolution but they need to be shut up. If terrorists target Shannon because it is used for US troops, or any other target for that matter, the Euro's will blame it on US policies. The leaks need tracked down.
#7
seems to me that this particular issue isn't going to fire up anyone but the true-believers and continues to move the ankle-biters into the shrill wife who is never satisfied category.
The people kept in these ghost prisons aren't exactly cuddly bunnies that your average citizen is going get too excited over. Oh sure, we'll all give a nod to the fact that we are uncomfortable about the idea of secret prisons, but I won't be opening my wallet for the cause.
#8
re#7: Please rephrase your sentence to read something like: " Some of us will give a nod..." please leave me out because personally I don't give a rat's rear end if any of the terrorists / insurgents/ name de joure get a free breath ever again. And the EU weenies can perform aeronautical acrobatics at a rotating pastry. And the MSM can try to catch 'em!
The only thing Condi ought to put on the table is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's head. "Tell me , boys, is this (plunk) the kind of thing you're worried about?"
Posted by: Matt ||
12/02/2005 14:37 Comments ||
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#10
Ditto, Matt, I wouldnunt trust the Euros with my trash.
Posted by: Captain America ||
12/02/2005 17:23 Comments ||
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#11
The only thing Condi ought to put on the table is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's head
LOL! I'll have to clean the coffee off my keyboard.
JOEY BOZIK had no right to survive the blast that blew off both his legs and his right arm. The landmine that maimed the young US Army sergeant made him one of the hidden statistics of the Iraq war â one of 400 amputees among nearly 16,000 US troops wounded since the invasion. Yet, despite his horrific injuries, Sergeant Bozik has joined the growing ranks of disabled veterans who are determined to fight for their country again. Only this time the medals they dream of are gold.
The unprecedented number of troops who are returning from Iraq with missing limbs has given the US Paralympic Team an unexpected recruitment boost and the chance to become âunbeatableâ at the next Games in Beijing in 2008. More than 60 potential recruits have already been identified in sports as varied as powerlifting, archery and table tennis.
John Register, a veteran of the Gulf War in 1990, who manages the US Paralympic Academy, said: âThis has been a shot in the arm of the Paralympic movement and an immediate boost. The Paralympics is a huge motivating factor for injured service members. It exponentially increases the individualâs idea of what is possible.â
Mr Register, 40, knows what it takes to make it as a Paralympian. As a track and field athlete he had Olympic trials for 1988 and 1992, but thought his career had ended two years later. âI suffered a crippling injury when I overextended my leg hurdling and severed my artery. Gangrene set in and I ended up having an amputation. But I was able to get back through sport.â He won silver at the Sydney Paralympics in the long jump.
âI have been through all these questions: Who am I? What are my parents going to think of me? All this gives me insight into whatâs happening with these young servicemen and women from Iraq.â
Mr Register has contacted almost 200 of the Iraq amputees and identified 61 with the potential for the Paralympic squad. He has run two training events in California so that veterans can try out sports, and another is planned next month in Georgia. None of his funding comes from the Pentagon but he refuses to be critical of the Government. He says that he prefers his Paralympic military training programme to be independent and paid for by the US Olympic Committee.
His next battle is to ensure that military Paralympians can join able-bodied Olympic hopefuls in the US Army World Class Athlete Programme. This will enable them to stay on as fully paid members of the military rather than have to retire on benefits. The necessary legislative change has been attached to a Bill going through Congress.
For the US Paralympic movement, the influx of Iraq veterans brings it full circle from its foundations after the Second World War when many young troops returned home disabled. Subsequent wars have brought new recruits but not in anything like the numbers of Iraq, where more amputees are surviving thanks to better body armour and improved medical care. Advances in prosthetics technology make taking part in sport easier.
Mr Register said: âI think he could well be a Paralympian. I was not sure how much he could do as a triple amputee (in volleyball) but he was batting the ball with two hands, his artificial limb and regular arm. He is beginning to realise, âI could be on that trip to Beijingâ.â
Islamic radicals, and their supporters in the media, are waiting for an opportunity to avoid a PR disaster in earthquake ravaged northern Pakistan. Over three million people were made homeless by the disaster, and over 100,000 were seriously injured. Nearly 80,000 died. For Islamic radicals, the real nightmare began after the quakes, when they not only found many of their terrorist training camps wrecked, but the area was flooded with infidel (non-Moslem) relief workers. At first, the Islamic radicals tried to cajole, then threaten locals to refuse help from the infidels. But the locals were desperate, and the infidels had much more assistance available than the more acceptable (to the armed and increasingly dismayed, Islamic radicals) Islamic charities.
This is all a replay of what happened earlier in 2005, when the earthquake off Indonesia, and tidal waves generated by it, killed over 100,000 people in western Indonesiaâs Aceh province. This was a place long noted for Islamic conservatism. But most of the aid that showed up was from infidels. Even the U.S. Navy soon arrived, with supplies and huge helicopters. The Islamic radicals in Aceh took a beating in the PR department. Years of painting foreign infidels as devils, gone in a few weeks.
But in Pakistan, the Islamic radicals see some hope in the coming Winter. Aceh was in the tropics, northern Pakistan is in the highest mountains in the world, with brutal Winters. The homeless are in danger of dying in large numbers from cold, hunger and disease. With a little cooperation from the media, this disaster can be blamed on the Western relief effort. One can get away with insisting that if the Western relief organizations had âdone more,â then people in northern Pakistan would not be dying in large numbers from the cold weather. This is the kind of story that media will jump on after a disaster anywhere, so thereâs no reason why it wonât work in northern Pakistan. In the Moslem media, an additional, religious, angle will be used, accusing the Western countries of intentionally screwing up the relief effort in order to kill Moslems. Naturally, some of the Western media will try to counter this, pointing out the large number of Western relief workers in the area and the extent of their relief operations. The Pakistani government will be under much pressure to agree with the Moslem media, even though the senior people know full well the extent of the Western relief operations and realize that without it, many more Pakistanis would have died. In Pakistan itself, the media spends most of its time bashing the Pakistani government for not doing enough, but the international Moslem media will play that down, so as not to make all Moslem governments look bad.
The Islamic radicals will be making a maximum effort to turn around their fortunes. However, in northern Pakistan, the people will know the truth, that the Western relief efforts are saving lives. But some people can be found, that journalists got to, but relief efforts did not, who will provide eyewitness reports of the crimes being committed by the false Western relief efforts in northern Pakistan, and the damage being done to desperate Moslem victims of the earthquake. The local Islamic radicals will embrace this version of events, and insist that âall good Moslemsâ do so as well. If this works, it will be an other example of âno good deed goes unpunishedâ, and the reasons why.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 09:17 ||
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With a little cooperation from the media, this disaster can be blamed on the Western relief effort.
Yeah, but what are the odds the media will go along with the lie? No more than, what, 99.999999% chance they'll spread jihadist lies?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/02/2005 9:44 Comments ||
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Last night one of the late network news programs said the death toll might be as high as 300,000, but no one knows the real number because of the remoteness and lack of communication.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 10:22 Comments ||
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#3
The other article I posted sez NATO's official mission runs out in February and won't be renewed. By any reckoning it's still plenty cold and snowy in Kashmir until sometime in late April, when it becomes time to slink back down the mountain and resume killing the heathen Hindoo.
#4
One can get away with insisting that if the Western relief organizations had âdone more,â then people in northern Pakistan would not be dying in large numbers from the cold weather.
Well then, had Western relief orgs done nothing at all, they'd be blameless, right? RIGHT?
#5
Last night one of the late network news programs said the death toll might be as high as 300,000, but no one knows the real number because of the remoteness and lack of communication.
Like when the town of Beaver Dam was flooded, leading to the deaths of millions. "No, we have no information on that, it's just what we're reporting."
(South Park, natch.)
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/02/2005 10:37 Comments ||
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#6
Who knows Robert. But do you have confidence that the 70-80,000 reported is complete and accurate? Helicopters are still ferrying wounded from remote villages and many have yet to be visited.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 10:51 Comments ||
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#7
it would be interesting to know the number who survived the quake but died because they were fasting during the daytime and couldn't find infidel food after sunset
#8
Not to mention all the wimmen-folk who have been forced to remain behind at deathly frozen high altitudes so as to avoid being leered at by us infidels while their courageous warrior men filter down to warmer climes and pick up free aid parcels.
December 2, 2005: The issue of piracy is again a concern as it was in the early 19th century, when the United States went to war with the Barbary pirates on two occasions (1801-1805 and 1815). These were, for all intents and purposes, real wars â in some cases involving deployments ashore and blockade operations. Modern pirates have learned from this. These days, the gangs rely on short-range speed boats and attack in places like the Straits of Malacca of off the coast of Somalia. These pirates are usually equipped with guns (including assault rifles like the AK-47) or knives. Piracy has also occurred off Bangladesh, Nigeria, Iraq (six attacks since April despite coalition naval units in the area), and the South China Sea. The latest circular from the International Maritime Organization (for the month of September) reported 29 attacks. In most cases with some measure of success, stores and equipment were stolen.
Pirates today have a few advantages. First, target identification is much easier. Warships tend to look very much like warships, while merchant vessels and civilian vessels also are easily identified at a great distance. Pirates also have the initiative. They decide when they will attack, and what their target will be. Finally, they tend to melt away into the coast when they heat is too high. The current calls to send warships will not necessarily solve the piracy issue. First there is the fact that the pirates can tell that a ship is a warship at a greater distance than they could in the early 19th century. Warships today cannot masquerade as merchant vessels as was depicted in the 2003 film Master and Commander. Any pirates who might have been dumb enough to mistake a present-day warship for a merchant ship probably were killed off a long time ago.
So, how will the modern-day pirates be dealt with? Already, some merchant ships and ocean liners are being equipped with non-lethal weapons to make them tougher targets. In one recent incident, a sonic weapon was used in the successful repulsion of a pirate attack on an ocean liner. Ships will also sail as far away from the coast of hot spots as possible (pirates primarily rely on visual acquisition of targets â usually using small boats). Reducing the number of successful attacks will make it harder for the pirates to recruit new members and to get the supplies they need (pirates often will take the cargo and sell it, or they take prisoners and ransom them).
Surveillance is another option. UAVs can also provide a great deal of surveillance where pirates are known to operate. This can help cue in military forces to where the pirates are based. The problem is getting military forces there in time to take down the pirates before they make their getaway. If forces are not in the right place, all that will be accomplished is the ability to know that an attack has happened.
There is a third option. In 2002, pirates in the Strait of Hormuz mistook the USNS Walter H. Diehl for a merchant vessel and attempted to attack. They were driven away with machine-gun fire. This does lead to the possibility of using 21st-century version of the âQ-shipâ to lure pirates in and to destroy them. Not only would this kill off pirates, but it would provide a deterrent effect (pirates would wonder if the container ship was really just a container ship, or if it was bristling with enough firepower to blow them out of the water).
I believe we've mentioned this about, oh, couple hunderd times
Piracy has been a problem throughout history. Pirates have adapted their tactics to deal with changing times, and counter-piracy operations will have to do the same.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/02/2005 09:41 ||
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It's either a warship or a registered merchie. Can't do both, bad biz. Old, where's Pappy?
#3
Fight speed boat with speed boat. Clive Cussler's Floodtide uses high-tech equipment with submersibles disguised as old fishing trawlers. Or check out Paul Allen's yacht the Octopus...this is more a CIA-style enticement. The mother ship lurking out to sea worries me....couldn't they know beforehand which cargo ship has contraband stashed? Exchanging cargo at sea could be a real problem if UAV's aren't used extensively, too.
#4
:> Glenmore, the Constitution would be an interesting case. Recently brought back to sailing form I understand, still a US Naval Vessel (unclassified miscellaneous still?). Upgrading the smoothebores with a few 20mm would be an intresting exercise. Not to mention the Marines in the netting with M-14s :)
December 2, 2005: As the Iraqi military and police are rebuilt, they have found their greatest success in forming specialized units. The troops are paid more, and recruiters are very selective. One of the most elite of these units (commandoes, SWAT and the like) is the Emergency Response Unit (ERU). Used for hostage rescue, EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) and any high-risk missions, the ERU gives the government some troops for missions that previously had to be left to the Americans.
A year ago, this outfit had only about a hundred members. Now, there are over 300 in service, and at least that many going through the four month training program. U.S. Army Special Forces are involved in the training, which is a big plus. Most of the Special Forces troops speak Arabic, making the training much more effective. There arenât many of these Arab speaking Americans available, so they rarely act as trainers. More often, they help set up training programs and supervise.
The training is pretty intense, and despite the careful screening of applicants, about 15 percent of the trainees are washed out or quit. Once a member of the ERU, there are hardly any absences or desertions. But there will ultimately only be 750 men in the ERU. While the government would like to have an army of these elite troops, there are just not many men in Iraq who can meet the qualifications and handle the training. Another, unspoken, reason is the fear of having too many commando grade troops around, who would be capable of staging a coup. This is a little out there right now, but in the Middle East, overthrowing governments with elite troops happens more often than fair elections.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/02/2005 10:09 ||
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Suicide bombings fell in November to their lowest level in seven months, the American military said Thursday, citing the success of U.S.-Iraqi military operations against insurgent and foreign fighter sanctuaries near the Syrian border.
But the trend in Iraq has not resulted in less bloodshed: 85 U.S. troops died during the month, one of the highest tolls since the invasion.
In Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, the U.S. military played down reports by residents and police of widespread attacks Thursday against American and Iraqi installations in the city. The military said only one rocket-propelled grenade was fired at an observation post, causing no casualties. Insurgents left behind posters and graffiti saying they were members of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
Nevertheless, Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a coalition operations officer, warned that al-Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian terror mastermind Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, will likely step up attacks in the next two weeks to try to disrupt parliamentary elections Dec. 15.
Lynch told reporters that suicide bombings declined to 23 in November as U.S. and Iraqi forces were overrunning insurgent strongholds in the Euphrates River valley west of the capital.
Communities along the river are believed used by foreign fighters, who slip into the country from Syria and travel down the river highway to Baghdad and other cities.
Lynch called suicide bombings the insurgents' "weapon of choice" because they can inflict a high number of casualties while sacrificing only the attacker. Classic infantry ambushes draw withering American return fire, resulting in heavy insurgent losses.
"In the month of November: only 23 suicide attacks â the lowest we've seen in the last seven months, the direct result of the effectiveness of our operations," Lynch said.
Car bombings â parked along streets and highways and detonated remotely â have declined from 130 in February to 68 in November, Lynch said.
However, suicide attacks have not consistently decreased over the past year. After more than 70 such attacks in May, the number fell in August by nearly half and then climbed to over 50 two months later.
And despite the decline over the past month, there has been no letup in the relentless toll of American deaths at a time of growing discontent in the United States over the Iraq war.
The U.S. command said Thursday that four American service members were killed the day before, three of them from hostile action and the fourth in a traffic accident. The deaths raised the American fatality toll for November to at least 85.
That was down from the 96 American deaths suffered in October â the fourth deadliest month since the war began in March 2003. But it was well above the 49 deaths in September. U.S. monthly death tolls have hit 80 or above during 10 of the 33 months of the war.
There also has been no decline over the past six months in the Iraqi death toll from suicide attacks, according to an Associated Press tally. In November, at least 290 Iraqis were killed in such attacks, more than double the figure from the previous month. The count shows the Iraqi toll ranging from at least 69 deaths in August to at least 356 in September.
November's suicide attacks included near-simultaneous bombings at two Shiite mosques in Khanaqin, killing 76; a car bombing at a Shiite funeral north of the capital, killing 36; and a car bombing near a hospital in Mahmoudiya, killing 30.
In Ramadi, police Lt. Mohammed al-Obaidi said at least four mortar rounds fell near the U.S. base on the city's eastern edge. Residents also said scores of masked gunmen, believed to be members of al-Qaeda in Iraq, ran into the streets but dispersed after launching attacks with mortars.
An AP Television News video showed masked insurgents walking down a shuttered market street and a residential neighborhood, as well as firing four mortar rounds. The gunmen appeared relaxed, and the U.S. command dismissed the video as little more than a publicity stunt.
Ramadi is the capital of Anbar province, a Sunni Arab stronghold, where clashes between insurgents and U.S. and Iraqi troops have left hundreds of people dead over the past two years. U.S. and Iraqi troops launched a joint operation near Ramadi on Wednesday, sweeping through an area used to rig car bombs.
The brief burst of insurgent activity in Ramadi appeared aimed at diverting attention from a meeting between U.S. officials and local tribal leaders in a bid to ease tensions in the city.
In the posters and graffiti they left behind, insurgents claimed responsibility for shooting down a U.S. drone. There were no reports of any U.S. drones being shot down, however.
Also Thursday, the top official for human rights in the Interior Ministry was dismissed in connection with an inquiry into allegations of torture by government security forces.
Nouri al-Nouri, the ministry's chief inspector for corruption cases and human rights violations, was fired on the order of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, an official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Al-Nouri, a Shiite, had been in the post since the handover of sovereignty to Iraqis in June 2004.
Al-Jaafari, also a Shiite, ordered an investigation into the alleged mistreatment of up to 173 detainees after U.S. forces entered an Interior Ministry lockup Nov. 13 and found that some of those held there showed signs of torture.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/02/2005 00:33 ||
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Here is a small sampling of the insurgent groups that have claimed responsibility for attacks on Americans and Iraqis in the last few months:
Supporters of the Sunni People. The Men's Faith Brigade. The Islamic Anger. Al Baraa bin Malik Suicide Brigade. The Tawid Lions of Abdullah ibn al Zobeir. While some of them, like the Suicide Brigade, claim an affiliation with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and Al Qaeda claims them, others say they have acted alone or under the guidance of another group.
While on Wednesday President Bush promised nothing less than "complete victory" over the Iraqi insurgency, the apparent proliferation of militant groups offers perhaps the best explanation as to why the insurgency has been so hard to destroy.
The Bush administration has long maintained, and Mr. Bush reiterated in his speech Wednesday, that the insurgency comprises three elements: disaffected Sunni Arabs, or "rejectionists"; former Hussein government loyalists; and foreign-born terrorists affiliated with Al Qaeda.
Iraqi and American officials in Iraq say the single most important fact about the insurgency is that it consists not of a few groups but of dozens, possibly as many as 100. And it is not, as often depicted, a coherent organization whose members dutifully carry out orders from above but a far-flung collection of smaller groups that often act on their own or come together for a single attack, the officials say. Each is believed to have its own leader and is free to act on its own.
Highly visible groups like Al Qaeda, Ansar al Sunna and the Victorious Army Group appear to act as fronts, the Iraqis and the Americans say, providing money, general direction and expertise to the smaller groups, but often taking responsibility for their attacks by broadcasting them across the globe.
"The leaders usually don't have anything to do with details," said Abdul Kareem al-Eniezi, the Iraqi minister for national security. "Sometimes they will give the smaller groups a target, or a type of target. The groups aren't connected to each other. They are not that organized."
Some experts and officials say there are important exceptions: that Al Qaeda's leaders, for instance, are deeply involved in spectacular suicide bombings, the majority of which are still believed to be carried out by foreigners. They also say some of the smaller groups that claim responsibility for attacks may be largely fictional, made up of ragtag groups of fighters hoping to make themselves seem more formidable and numerous than they really are.
But whatever the appearances, American and Iraqi officials agree on the essential structure of the Iraqi insurgency: it is horizontal as opposed to hierarchical, and ad hoc as opposed to unified. They say this central characteristic, similar to that of terrorist organizations in Europe and Asia, is what is making the Iraqi insurgency so difficult to destroy. Attack any single part of it, and the rest carries on largely untouched. It cannot be decapitated, because the insurgency, for the most part, has no head. Only recently, American and Iraqi experts say, have they begun to grasp the new organizational structure that, among other things, is making the insurgency so difficult to stop.
"There is no center of gravity, no leadership, no hierarchy; they are more a constellation than an organization," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corporation. "They have adopted a structure that assures their longevity."
The insurgency's survivability presents perhaps the most difficult long-term challenge for the Iraqi government and American commanders. The primary military goal of groups like Al Qaeda and Ansar al Sunna is not to win but simply not to lose; to hang on until the United States runs out of will and departs. Even killing or capturing the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, many Iraqi and American officials say, will not end the rebellion.
In a war as murky as the one in Iraq, details about the workings of the insurgency are fleeting and few. But what is available suggests that the movement is often atomized and fragmented, but no less lethal for being so.
A review of the dozens of proclamations made by jihadi groups and posted on Islamist Web sites found more than 100 different groups that either claimed to be operating in Iraq or were being claimed by an umbrella group like Al Qaeda. Most of the Internet postings were located and translated by the SITE Institute, the Washington group that, among other things, tracks insurgent activity on the Web.
Of the groups found by SITE, 59 were claimed by Al Qaeda and 36 by Ansar al Sunna. Eight groups claimed to be operating under the direction of the Victorious Army Group, and five groups said they were operating under the 20th of July Revolution Brigade.
The complex nature of the insurgency was illustrated on Oct. 24, when three suicide bombers, one driving a cement mixer full of TNT, staged a coordinated attack on the Palestine and Sheraton Hotels in central Baghdad. The attack was one of the most sophisticated yet, with the first explosion ripping open a breach in the hotels' barriers. That allowed the cement mixer to come within a few yards of the Sheraton before being hung up in barbed wire.
An American solider opened fire on the driver of the truck, and the bomb was apparently detonated by remote control. Twelve people died, and American and Iraqis agreed later that the attack had come very close to bringing both towers down.
Within 24 hours, Al Qaeda, in an Internet posting viewed round the world, boasted of its role in attacking the "crusaders and their midgets."
But in the small print of the group's proclamation, Al Qaeda declared that the attack had actually been carried out by three separate groups: the Attack Brigade, the Rockets Brigade and Al Baraa bin Malik Suicide Brigade. The three groups, the Qaeda notice said, had acted in "collaboration," with some fighters conducting surveillance while others provided cover fire.
Rita Katz, the director of SITE, which is now working under a United States government contract to investigate militant groups, said the attack on the Palestine and Sheraton Hotels had probably been planned and directed at the highest levels of Al Qaeda.
The leaders may have brought the three "brigades" together to stage the attack, she said, and probably provided expertise as well as the suicide bombers themselves. "This was something that was coordinated at the highest level," she said.
But for most of the attacks, such top-down coordination is uncommon, Ms. Katz and American and Iraqi officials said. Most, they said, are planned and carried out by the local groups, with the leaders of the umbrella groups having little or no knowledge of them.
American and Iraqi experts also say there appear to be important distinctions among the umbrella groups. While Islamist groups like Al Qaeda and Ansar al Sunna attack military and civilian targets at will, other organizations, like the Victorious Army Group, which is believed to be associated with followers of Saddam Hussein's government, appear to attack only American or Iraqi solders.
In recent months, some insurgent groups have refined their target goals even further. In July, Al Qaeda said it had formed a group called the Omar Brigade to focus on killing members of Shiite militias like the Badr Brigade. Since then, the Omar Brigade has taken responsibility for dozens of killings.
Some insurgent groups appear to be limited to exclusive geographic areas. The Zi al Nourein Brigade, whose exploits are regularly proclaimed by Ansar al Sunna, appears to operate almost exclusively in Mosul, in northern Iraq.
Each week, more such groups announce their presence.
"Following Allah's orders to his worshipers, the mujahedeen, to join together and stand in one line against Allah's enemies," a posting on the Internet said July 12, "Al Miqaeda Brigade Groups announced that they are joining Ansar al Sunna."
American and Iraqi officials say they are not always sure that the groups' public claims of responsibility are valid. It is an old trick that guerrilla movements use to exaggerate their size and power.
Other experts who track jihadi Web sites say it is possible to authenticate the claim of an attack by a particular group. Most of the claims of responsibility appear on Web sites that tightly control access to their message boards.
The array of insurgent groups has prompted competition among them. On the streets of Ramadi, the violent city west of Baghdad, a leaflet found on the street, signed by a group called the Islamic Army, said that "the growing number of mujahedeen groups, which grew in number when the people realized their value," had caused confusion about which group was speaking for which.
The Islamic Army leaflet read like an advertisement offered by a product manager worried about imitators.
"We are asking people to reject any statement signed by the Sajeel Battalion of the Islamic Army that does not carry their slogan or seal," the leaflet said.
One question that remains unsettled is the nationalities of suicide bombers. American and Iraqi officials have long said they believe that the majority of suicide attacks are carried out by foreigners.
In June, in an apparent answer to that question, Al Qaeda announced the formation of the Ansar Brigade, which it described as an all-Iraqi suicide unit. Since then, the Ansar Brigade has taken responsibility for few such attacks.
One place where the Ansar Brigade did apparently strike was Jordan last month, when suicide bombers struck three hotels in Amman. The police there determined that Iraqis had carried out the attack.
In a message posted on the Internet, Al Qaeda announced that the Ansar Brigade, its Iraqi suicide group, had carried out the attack.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/02/2005 00:21 ||
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"Only recently, American and Iraqi experts say, have they begun to grasp the new organizational structure..."
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A commission in charge of removing senior members of Saddam Hussein's Baath party from government posts has recommended that nearly 90 people be banned from running in the Dec. 15 elections, an official said Thursday.
The panel has provided the elections committee with the names 86 candidates planning to run the parliamentary ballot, said Ali al-Lami, the commission's executive director. A list with another 60 names will be sent in the next days, he said.
Abdul-Hussein Hendawi, an official with the electoral commission, confirmed they have received lists of names and said the panel would make a decision within the next days.
He said senior Baath officials and former members of Saddam's intelligence agency's would not be allowed to run.
An estimated 1.5 million Iraqis belonged to the Baath party - formally known as the Baath Arab Socialist Party - at the time of Saddam's fall in April 2003. Many say they joined for practical reasons, arguing that membership was needed for career advancement, to secure places at prestigious colleges, or to get specialized medical care. However, analysts say those who advanced in the party were expected to spy on fellow Iraqis and join militias, which were accused of helping suppress Shiite and Kurdish revolts after Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War and participating in mass killings of Shiites and Kurds.
Hendawi said about 7,500 people have applied to run the elections and some 100 were expected to be prevented from taking part.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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BAGHDAD - The US military on Thursday defended its policy of feeding articles to the Iraqi press as part of a campaign to counter what it said were lies spread by Al Qaeda militants.
On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times a newspaper on the other side in this fight revealed that the US military has been paying the fledgling Iraqi press to run articles which US troops have written that focus on the positive aspects of the occupation and reconstruction. âWe donât lie, we donât need to lie, we do empower our operational commanders with the ability to inform the Iraqi public,â said US military spokesman Major General Rick Lynch. âWhat Zarqawi is doing continuously is lying to the Iraqi people, lying to the international community,â he said at a press briefing.
Gawd forbid we'd tell the truth. Gawd forbid we'd try to set the record straight in-country.
What the general and his assistants would not comment on, however, was whether they paid these newspapers to run the material, saying they would not comment on the specific mechanics of the process.
Knight-Ridder newspapers on Thursday reported that the military also was paying Iraqi reporters up to 200 dollars a month to write favorable stories. It said the payments were made to members of the Baghdad Press Club, an organization set up by US army officers more than a year ago.
If they can get the Sunnis to quit the insurgency, I'd give them 400 dollars a month.
In Washington, Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman who had said the disclosures were âtroublingâ if true, would not comment on whether the military was paying for stories. âI donât have all the facts. I donât have a lot of facts at all. I have very few facts,â he said.
"And the facts I have, I'm not sharing with you!"
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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"And the facts I have, I'm not sharing with you!"
#2
The Lefties are going gaga today over this issue as they see yet one more thing in liberal/ libertarian = Socialist, anti-Marxist Marxist anti-Commie Commie Clintonian Americana than sorely and grievously lacks any = insufficient US Federal-level, and only US Federal-level, oversight and secular Govt-centric regulatory control.
#3
On November 28th, the LA Times ran a story that uncritically accepted the white phosphorous == chemical weapons bullshit. They even repeated the lie that the US itself referred to WP as a "chemical weapon" -- the source of that quote was actually a transcript of a phone call between two Kurds.
Yesterday the AP -- and many radio and TV stations -- treated us to a planted story about Ramadi being taken over by the jihadis. The story was crap; apparently none of the supposedly professional reporters bothered to ask anyone who would know for sure before they ran with the story.
The LA Times and other press agencies routinely run false propaganda from our enemies. They expect us to be outraged over true propaganda from our government?
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/02/2005 8:03 Comments ||
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#4
N.B. Its ok if it is to help white Europeans as with Radio Free Europe or Voice of America, but to practice propaganda during wartime to help the little brown man is insufferable for the left and MSM.
MSM would rather pay a murderous dictator to carry his good news propaganda than to even give their own government support by actually reporting good news. Heck, they paid bribes to be the lackey scribes of Saddam.
#5
Pity the US military doesn't have a small fraction the press access Saddam's Mukhabarat still has with the press corps. The same Mukhabarat agents who were the western press's minders, gofers, news sources, photographers, drivers, security are still at their jobs, only now the western press pays them and eagerly publishes their propaganda (e.g. yesterday's "massive offensive" in Ramadi).
The best solution is acknowledge the reality that the press are participants in this war and shoot the unfriendlies on sight.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 8:45 Comments ||
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#6
And this take shows that a hundred years makes no difference -
Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman was a good hater, and he hated few things more than newspapermen. His encounter with the correspondent Floras B. Plympton of the Cincinnati Commercial in September 1861, five months into the Civil War, was typical. Plympton approached the general on a railroad platform in Kentucky and asked him for an interview. He handed over letters of introduction, including one from Shermanâs brother-in-law. Shermanâs response was a fierce glare and the demand that Plympton take the next train back to Louisville and out of the war zone. âBe sure you take it; donât let me see you around here after itâs gone!â
âBut, General!â Plympton protested. âThe people are anxious. Iâm only after the truth.â
âWe donât want the truth told about things hereâthatâs what we donât want! Truth, eh? No, sir! We donât want the enemy any better informed than he is. Make no mistake about that train!â
As the war progressed, Sherman warmed to his theme that the press was a âset of dirty newspaper scribblers who have the impudence of Satanââdefamers of the army and publishers of military secrets for which they deserved punishment as spies...
If the American public has a distorted picture of the combat readiness of Iraqi troops, the U.S. military is largely to blame for it, the most senior American military officer said Thursday.
"We have done ourselves a disservice in the way that we have defined how we are tracking the progress of Iraqi forces," Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told an audience of military and civilian students at the National Defense University...
Pace's point was that even though only one Iraqi battalion is rated at "level one," there are nearly 40 rated at "level two," which is defined as capable of taking a lead role in fighting the insurgency with some degree of U.S. support. About 80 others battalions at rated at "level three," meaning that are capable of fighting, but with U.S. troops in the lead.
#1
The military has been saddled with the Vietnam-era image of overselling its success and underplaying its failure so today it overcompensates by whispering its explanations so the journalists who cover the Pentagon won't get upset at them. Unfortunately, this tactic basically concedes the battlefield to its enemies, the MSM. Time to emulate the CINC and stop turning the other cheek.
Posted by: Jonathan ||
12/02/2005 13:40 Comments ||
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#2
"For your information the Marine Corps is the Navy's police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin's."
-President Harry S. Truman, 1950
Perhaps that is why Pace is CJCS and the USN is starting to train Naval Infantry.
Actually, I heard that it was because the Navy does in fact need a "police force" -- there was an incident where one ship's crew asked the Marines and even the Army to do shipboard security, only for both to be called away. Fortunately, these new naval infantry (I've heard that they're a semi-speical forces/Marine hynrid called Expeditionary Combat Battalions) should be comprised of almost-SEALs...
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
12/02/2005 14:50 Comments ||
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Two U.S. Allies Leaving Iraq, More May Go
AP - Thu Dec 1, 4:20 PM ET VIENNA, Austria - Two of America's allies in Iraq are withdrawing forces this month and a half-dozen others are debating possible pullouts or reductions, increasing pressure on Washington as calls mount to bring home U.S. troops. Bulgaria and Ukraine will begin withdrawing their combined 1,250 troops by mid-December. If Australia, Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland and South Korea reduce or recall their personnel, more than half of the non-American forces in Iraq could be gone by next summer. Gloom. Doom. Tragedy. FAIRBANKS! Where IS that photo???
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Lets cut down on the CNN and BBC bad news fodder. Smart money would be to survey the entire lot and gauge their future intentions. You in mate, or are you buggering the pooch? Anyone who yawns, blinks, or looks at his Rolex should be mustered out immediately, your Gulf Air charter is waiting hot. We don't need slackers.
A Bosnian force of 25 military experts in mines headed to Iraq on Thursday to take part in de-mining operations within the US-led forces in the war-torn Arab country, said a statement issued by the Bosnian Defense Ministry. The force is the second Bosnian military unit to be sent to Iraq, as the ministry had already sent the first force around six months ago to participate in de-mining operations in residential areas and roads around Fallujah and other areas north and west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. The Bosnian government had made a decision last May, based on a call from Washington, to take part in the US-led troops in Iraq with a limited force of military mines' experts. The decision was taken as a "middle solution" that is aimed to satisfy Bosnian blocs backing such participation, and other blocs who stand against any Bosnian military involvement in Iraq.
A coalition of Sunni Arab parties has called for US troops to withdraw from restive Iraqi towns before the 15 December elections to encourage voting. "We call on the American forces to leave Iraqi cities, especially the unstable ones, to allow for their residents to exercise their electoral rights in a normal fashion," the Iraqi Concord Front (ICF) said on Thursday.
I think we did something like that in Fallujah for awhile. Worked well, didn't it?
The ICF said continuing military operations in these areas, mostly north and west of Baghdad, were a "deliberate marginalisation of those who did not participate in past elections."
That's also where the head-choppers are, isn't it?
"As the election approaches, an escalation can be seen in military operations in those provinces that reject the occupation," it said. That was a particular reference to al-Anbar, west of the capital, which is a key area of rebel activity.
That tells me it's to place to be hunting bad guyz.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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That's also where the head-choppers are, isn't it?
#3
"We call on the American forces to leave Iraqi cities, especially the unstable ones, to allow for their residents to exercise their electoral rights in a normal fashion," the Iraqi Concord Front (ICF) said on Thursday.
Seems to me that "unstable" cities with no U.S. forces present are places where fundies/terrorists could intimidate people into voting for candidates supportive of their aims/actions, or worse, into not voting at all.
Same speech as Fred's article, but a couple of additional points. EFL.
Israel "can't accept a situation where Iran has nuclear arms" and "is making all the necessary preparations to handle a situation like this," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday. Iran's enemies have "the capability" to use military force to disrupt Iran's bid for nuclear arms, he said at the annual Editor's Committee gathering in Tel Aviv, adding that "before exercising it, every attempt should be made to pressure Iran into stopping its activity."
Sharon stressed that "Israel doesn't lead the struggle" to keep Iran nuclear-free, and he hoped the UN Security Council would neutralize "this great danger." Sharon's comments raised Israel's rhetoric against Iran and came on the heels of assessments by IDF brass that, after March, diplomatic efforts to curtail Iran's nuclear program will be pointless. Then they go to Plan B.
"Israel is not without hope and is taking all necessary measures, as it should," he said. Including having the US radars turned off in Iraq???
#1
More likely defeating them through either SLCM attack, ECM attack or Liberty repeat. If They want to pull the plug, they won't let anything or anyone stand in their way. These public announcements are as much to put the US and UN on notice as the Iranians.
#2
I came across an interesting quote at IraqtheModel supposedly from a Saudi, to the effect a nuclear armed Iran scares the shit out of them and if only the Israelis are prepared to do something about it, then so be it.
Now consult a map. The most direct route to Iran from Israel is straight over SA.
TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will visit the Middle East next month for talks with Israeli, Palestinian and Turkish officials and hopes of playing a mediating role in the region, a newspaper reported on Friday. Koizumi is to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit, expected to start around Jan. 5 and to last for around 10 days, the Sankei newspaper said, quoting Japanese government sources.
Japan has sought to play a role in efforts toward peace in the Middle East, and it invited Abbas and Sharon to visit Japan earlier this year. Abbas visited Japan in May and urged Tokyo to exert its political influence for Middle East peace, saying Japan had balanced relations with the region.
In Turkey, Koizumi will meet Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to discuss strengthening bilateral ties, the newspaper said, adding that Koizumi would be the first Japanese prime minister to visit Turkey in 15 years. Another aim of his trip to Turkey will be to discuss policies toward Iraq, the paper added. Asked about the report, Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said no decisions had been made regarding such a trip by Koizumi.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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Maybe. On the other hand, maybe there will be an economically viable substitute for Persian Gulf oil. And the entire Arab "civilization", including the Palestinian pseudo-nation will go to Hell.
#2
Tough shit for the Paleos. Had thy taken their agreements and obligations seriously, this would probably not have come about, as there would be no reason to build a wall.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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Since the MSM itself has reported on Iran's dev of the dual-use SHIHAB series of BM's, methinks what old war lion Sharon is trying hard NOT to say is that we have weeks, NOT MONTHS OR YEARS, before an Israeli-Iran incident of regional or geopol consequences occurs.
#3
Jews faced extinction once, my money is on them not doing it twice regardless of what anyone be it the Euro's, or the UN with their latent anti-semitism thinks.
Bombs away Ariel, the world will be a better place.
#4
They don't have the capability. Only the US has, and we will sit paralyzed as the Iranians mate nuke warheads on their missiles, planes, subs, and ships. Get your kids prepared for a VERY dangerous world.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 8:57 Comments ||
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#5
At 15:55 on 07 June 1981, the first F-15 and F-16's roared off the runway from Etzion Air Force Base in the south. Israeli air force planes flew over Jordanian, Saudi, and Iraqi airspace After a tense but uneventful low-level navigation route, the fighters reached their target. They popped up at 17:35 and quickly identified the dome gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. Iraqi defenses were caught by surprise and opened fire too late. In one minute and twenty seconds, the French built Osiraq reactor lay in ruins. The international outcry (pissing and moaning) lasted about a week. That was 25 years ago. The IDF still has the technology.
#6
methinks what old war lion Sharon is trying hard NOT to say is that we have weeks, NOT MONTHS OR YEARS, before an Israeli-Iran incident of regional or geopol consequences occurs.
Just a few days ago DEBKA and the Jerusalem Post cited the Israeli Chief of Staff, a LtGen, as saying the Iranian leaders are not rational and that their possession would be a threat to Israel's existence. Another leader recently said we have until March before Iran has nuclear capabilities IIRC - can't find the reference at the moment and am pressed for time. So a few months, but not many.
#7
1. F-16s and F-15s don't have the range to strike Iran. They won't be landing in Iraq to refuel. Iraqis, Saudis and Jordanians are still muslim.
2. We don't know the number or location of all the facilities. Most of them are underground in miles long tunnels, dug by subway tunneling machines bought for just this purpose.
3. Even if all the locations were known, it is doubtful bombs could penetrate deep enough to destroy the sites.
An Israeli attack will be ineffectual and would be a godsend to the mullahs. I think the Israelis are trying to goad the US administration to attack, but it won't happen in this political climate.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 10:19 Comments ||
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#8
Can't run a weapons program without electricity. Destroy every single generator in the country and leave them in the dark, permanently.
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats ||
12/02/2005 10:53 Comments ||
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#9
Should the Israelis attack, I don't think it will be via aircraft. The logistics make it very difficult. There's also the problem of asking US forces in Iraq to not look at what they'll see on their radar screens. The Moose-limbs won't buy an American denial of, "we didn't see a thing."
I suspect, if it is done, it will be done with cruise missiles launched from Israeli Dolphin-class submarines in the Arabian Sea. We know they're there but we won't know before-hand what they're going to do. The cruise missiles can hit a number of critical targets; they won't destroy the Iranian nuke program but they'll slow it dramatically for a while. Is that worth the risks of 1) world condemnation and 2) a guarantee from Iran that if and when they can strike back, they will?
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2005 11:20 Comments ||
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#10
I'll bet a Guinness and some chips at Irelands Four Courts that it will take place after normal duty hours, on or just before Mawlid al-Nabi (Muhammad's Birthday) April 11, 2006. Any takers?
#11
Sure Besoeker. I take the negative side of the bet. Send me an estimate. But sure to include VAT and tip.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 11:43 Comments ||
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#12
It wasn't so long ago that the U.S. sold Israel a bunch of bunker-busters. And how effective would the bomb development effort be, if the scientists are trapped in their tunnels a mile underground?
#14
A 2 ton bunker buster will penetrate a somewhat over 100 feet of earth. But think of tunnels as deep as the Russian subway system which were designed to survive megaton H-bomb blasts.
Let's take a small example. Say a 1 km long tunnel exists under Tehran and we sorta even know the route. Which of the thousands of buildings would you bomb in hopes to destroy the exits? Even if you were sucessful, would it even take rescuers 72 hours to dig past the blast damage?
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 12:01 Comments ||
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#15
OK. I'm in the US so lets say $10. If I'm wrong, I will send an International money order. I don't think I have but 2 or 3 Pounds in the house, and I think all the Deutsch Marks I have left over are now worthless. Are you in Ireland and do they use English Pounds or Euros (or that fake stuff each bank issues)? What's an R50? South African Rand?
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 12:09 Comments ||
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#16
Dr. Steve, I agree on the delivery system but not the effect.
1) World condemnation? It could get worse for Israel at the UN? On the contrary, I wouldn't be surprised if the US and perhaps even Euro (though I don't offer to bet, only to not be surprised) reaction is "When you threaten to wipe a country off the map, you've got to expect some response. Perhaps it's time for some jaw jaw?"
2) Probability of an Iranian attack is currently pretty close to 1 once they have nukes and delivery systems. Do you really think Israel will face a higher probability of attack after a pre-emptive strike? In fact a strike could, in addition to its immediate physical damage, introduce a modicum of fear and respect into the Iranian Mullocracy. An especially nice touch would be targeting one of Ahandjob's unoccupied houses. The MMs were all good at sending the cannon fodder off to be ground up by Saddam. But they might have a different attitude after they see that the Israelis can reach out and touch them personally. Together with the ABM testing Iran would get the message that Israel may not be able to stop once and for all development of nukes by Iran, but they can make it far from certain that an Iranian attack would be successful nor that Iran would escape a serious counter attack. It could establish the equilibrium of MAD in the ME.
Iran under Ahandjob is becoming as clearly wacko and irrational as Norkland under Kimmie. Israel will wait till the moment when it is clear Iran has pretty well isolated itself and then attack. This mitigates the world condemnation considerably.
It is hard for me to see the downside to Israel from a successful attack.
#17
Darn it, ed, you're going to make me acknowledge the superiority of experience & knowledge to ignorance & hope! All right then, smarty-pants, how can the Israelis stop Iran? ;-)
#18
TW, Israel can't. Nuclear weapons are popular with all classes of Iranians. Sometimes all the options suck and sometimes the odds overwhelm you. Sometimes nations and people die and survivors are scattered. The only way to be assured of stopping the program is to invade and occupy Iran for a very long time, not something Israel can even fantasize about or the US is united to do. Well, Israel can nuke the crap out of Iran before the mullahs, as they have said they will do, do it to them. But that is out of the Israeli bounds of morality. So I think Israel, the US and much of the unoccupied west will eventually end up getting nuked.
As for conventional strikes, the mullahs would welcome it as an opportunity to unite all the muslims to grind down the jews.
As for revolution, I hold out little hope. The mullahs control 125,000 Revolutionary Guards, Palestinians to thump student troublemakers, and are building up to 2 million basij to guard their corner of paradise. That's not a force that students or the middle class are going to overwhelm. And unlike the Shah and the army, the mullahs will use their guards and thugs.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 13:01 Comments ||
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#19
B - You're on if you could find it in your heart to multiply the drink by a factor of five, throw in a cadbury bar (fruit and nuts) for my boy, and a nice plate of rashers (not that danish or polish stuff mind you) or "lammie" with new potatoes and brown bread with butter. I'm of the mind they will have to do it soon enough though 4/06 is a bit early.
#20
cruise missiles launched from Israeli Dolphin-class submarines in the Arabian Sea
Too few, 16? Conventional warhead too small. But, maybe, just maybe an air launched version of Popeye turbo, if enough could have been built, I doubt it.
#21
They don't need to be launched from a submarine. some useless oil tanker could be fitted with any number of tubes for one time use with the crew evacuated by sub then sunk by same sub. The Israelis are very resourceful and I am sure they have come up with a lot more creative solutions to the problems they have with in the box conventional Americans' solutions. I can't wait to see which one they select.
#22
It's one thing for a US Prez like Clinton to make empty threats against nations and groups that can't do much more than harass us (9/11 being their worst/best). It's quite another for Israel to consistently make these statements against a nation that will soon have the capability to wipe them out or nearly so. For Israel to be seen as a paper tiger in the ME would be foolhardy to the point of being suicidal.
#23
The oil tanker with cruise missiles idea is interesting. I don't think 'outside the box' on these things very well, so that one would never have occurred to me. I'm sure the Israelis have some very creative people thinking about how to pop the Iranians.
But as noted, the political risks of doing an incomplete job are very high. And the risk of doing an incomplete job itself is very high. The Israelis could find themselves in the situation of having stung the Iranians but not put them down. That is going to be a problem for them.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2005 15:27 Comments ||
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#24
Israel can't do more than sting unless it wants to try a full first strike; highly unlikely. But it can:
set back Iranian development efforts by n years where n<3 must be considered a disappointment and n>10 a huge success.
build up the credibility of Israel's ability to strike Iran in response to an Iranian first strike
attain some level of strategic standoff with Iran not unlike the Cold War.
To use a regrettable phrase, the solution to Israel's problem is political, not military. Iran is going to get nukes some day. What is important to Israel is that the Iranian government in power thereafter not be inclined to use them to wipe Israel off the map. The big problem is this is an Iranian decision. The challenge is to find a way to stave off nuke development until this government arrives and to do so in a manner that hastens rather than retards that arrival.
#25
How about flying thru Turkish airspace? They have been doing allot lately together.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
12/02/2005 17:06 Comments ||
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#26
That's a pretty long detour, aerial refueling required. That's why I expect something from the sea or special ops. It's also why I would expect Israel to try to become good buddies with the iraqis as soon as they can, my enemy's enemy...
#28
Interesting take by TigerHawk. Yes, there are a number of ways to handle this, and an airstrike/cruise missile strike isn't the only one.
Watch out -- oh dang, another key Iranian nuclear scientist slipped on a bar of soap. One could say that it's happening a lot lately, but unfortunately nobody knows a thing about it.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/02/2005 17:39 Comments ||
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#29
Interesting comment by Phil_b at this post. Somehow, I suspect Israel is pursuing all of them and leaking the falf they won't use to psyche out the Persians.
Jordanâs king urged parliament yesterday to pass new anti-terror laws to prevent the kind of attacks in which 60 people were killed last month, saying the country faced its biggest ever security challenge. Addressing a joint session of parliament in full military attire, King Abdallah called for a comprehensive strategy capable of dealing effectively with every threat to the countryâs status as âan oasis of security and stability.â
âWe have to stress here that security and stability are the first priority,â the monarch, a staunch US ally, said in a speech punctuated by applause from the assembled lawmakers. After last monthâs bombings at three luxury hotels, Abdallah made a major shake-up of the royal court and appointed a new government headed by his national security chief.
With old guard military and intelligence figures gaining in influence at the expense of liberal reformers, the king gave new Prime Minister Marouf Al-Bakheet, 58, a strong mandate on Sunday to wage âall out warâ against militancy. Bakheet boasts a long career in military intelligence and has a track record in handling top security briefs, Officials say the deadly bombings, for which the Al-Qaeda wing in Iraq led by Jordanian Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility, were a wake up call for extra vigilance. âWe know that Jordanâs position and its stance make it a target, and the attacks imposed upon it the largest security challenge ever to confront it,â Abdallah said.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia plans to sell more than $1 billion worth of tactical surface-to-air missiles and other defense hardware to Iran, media reported on Friday. Our âgood friendsâ the Russians are at it again.
Moscow is already at odds with the West over its nuclear ties with Tehran but has sought to use its warm relations with Iran to be recognized as a key mediator between the West and the Islamic Republic.
U.S. Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, visiting Moscow, told Ekho Moskvy radio he had raised the issue of arms sales to Iran with Russia's Foreign Ministry.
"For the past 25 years, in our opinion, Iran has supported terrorists in the Middle East, in the United States, and that is why we have very bad relations with them. You can understand why we do not support the sale of weapons to such a country," he said in comments simultaneously translated into Russian. Nick is telling it like it is. Thatâs something at least.
The Vedomosti business daily cited military sources as saying Iran would buy 29 TOR-M1 systems designed to bring down aircraft and guided missiles at low altitudes. Question for Rantburg tech types: how good is this stuff?
The paper, calling it the biggest sale of Russian defense hardware to Iran for about five years, said Moscow and Tehran had already signed the contract.
Interfax news agency separately quoted a source as saying the deal, which would also include modernizing Iran's air force and supplying some patrol boats, was worth more than $1 billion.
The move, likely to irritate Israel and the United States, could strain Moscow's efforts to broker a deal between Iran and European negotiators aimed at breaking a deadlock over Tehran's nuclear program.
Israel in particular is nervous about Iran's military potential after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in October that Israel should be "wiped off the map" -- comments condemned by Russia at the time. But, as my uncle used to say, money talks, bullsh*t walks. Even in Cyrillic.
#2
The TOR-M1 is the former Soviet SA-15 missile. It is mobile and short range. A high flying fighter or bomber will be out of range. Should make an excellent target for HARMs. The Iranians are trying to buy S300 and S400 systems which are considered Patriot class and longer ranged. Don't know the status of that, but I imagine the Russians will sell that too, just as the Russians sold subs, nuclear tech, and solid fueled missile tech to the Iranians.
Posted by: ed ||
12/02/2005 15:13 Comments ||
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#5
Sure would be nice if the freighter transporting a lot of this hardware was mysteriously "lost" at sea. Screw Russia, they are trying to extinguish the smoldering Middle East crisis by pouring gasoline on it. Israel ought to target a few of their warheads for Moscow in case they are ever nuked. Russia is now complicit in Iran's threat to Israel.
Chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis accused Damascus of using a Syrian witness in the inquiry into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister as a Communist-like propaganda tool. German prosecutor Mehlis, quoted by a number of Lebanese and Arabs newspapers yesterday, said his investigation had not been undermined by witness Hosam Taher Hosam, who recanted his testimony. Hosam appeared on Syrian television this week to accuse Lebanese officials of an elaborate scheme of threats, bribery and torture to induce him to testify falsely against Syria and said the inquiryâs initial findings rested largely on his lies.
âIâm used to this kind of propaganda,â Mehlis was quoted by Beirutâs as-Safir daily as saying. âIâve spent 40 years in Germany and we used to see such things in former eastern European countries.â Mehlisâ interim report in October into the Feb. 14 killing of Rafik Al-Hariri cast suspicion on senior Syrian officials and suggested the assassination was planned by top security officials in Damascus and their Lebanese allies. Syria has denied the accusations and called the Mehlis report politically motivated, saying Hosamâs testimony was the main source implicating Syrians. âThere is no main witness. There is a witness who might give information to the (investigation) commission. What Hosam said in Syria is different to what he told us,â Mehlis said. He said his team would ask to question Hosam again because he was trying to hamper the investigation.
Other newspapers gave a similar account of Mehlisâ briefing and an-Nahar newspaper said he expressed his astonishment as to how a Syrian committee also investigating Haririâs death had showed Hosam on television before questioning him. A Syrian official did not wish to comment on Mehlisâ remarks but said Damascus has conveyed to him the outcome of an investigation with Hosam in Damascus. âContrary to what has been published, Hosam was questioned in Syria and the minutes of the questioning were sent to Mr. Mehlis on Tuesday,â the official told Reuters.
The German was also quoted as saying he might seek to question more Syrian officials after his team quiz five of them in Vienna next week, denying there was a deal with Damascus over whom he could summon. The city was a compromise after Syria balked at Mehlisâ request to question them in Lebanon. âEveryone we ask to question, we will question... Cooperation is either total or there is no cooperation,â he said. âIf the investigations result in a request for arrests, the commission would recommend their arrests and the Syrian authorities would have to do it.â
His October report slammed Syria for failing to cooperate with the investigation. The UN Security Council, which authorized the probe, subsequently warned Syria to cooperate or face the prospect of further action. Mehlis is scheduled to submit his final report on Dec. 15.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/02/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Stop the investigation, start the bombing runs.
Posted by: Captain America ||
12/02/2005 17:41 Comments ||
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Kidnapping is okay -- so long as it serves political or financial goals for a terrorist organization. It's also fine if it draws attention to a political issue like, say, Chechnya. You should also stay distant from hostages -- literally -- lest you get to close to them, both physically and mentally. These are just a few of the parting tips offered by a top al-Qaida strategists before he was killed in 2004.
On Friday last week, 43-year-old Susanne Osthoff became the first German citizen to be taken hostage in Iraq. She joins a growing list of more than 200 foreigners who have been nabbed in the country since a wave of kidnappings began in 2004. Her hostage-takers are demanding that the German government suspend any ties it has with the Iraqi government in Baghdad. If Berlin doesn't budge, they are threatening to kill her.
It remains unclear who kidnapped Osthoff -- the signals are mixed and it is uncertain whether it could have been al-Qaida. Still, security officials say the presence of a political ultimatum increases the likelihood that it is linked to a jihadist group in Iraq.
Whether or not it is directly linked, al-Qaida operatives have been instrumental in helping to spur these kidnappings in Iraq. Within months of the first wave of kidnappings in 2004, a top al-Qaida strategist posted a "HOWTO" guide aimed at helping would-be extremists define the purposes of their kidnapping and providing tips for protecting themselves. After all, if they get caught before achieving their political goals or receiving lucrative ransom -- which could be used to finance other terrorist acts -- the kidnapping would have been for naught.
The author of the Web missive was Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin, the former head of al-Qauida in Saudi Arabia. Shortly after writing his treatise, which in its simplicity reads a lot like a "Idiot's Guide," security officials in the kingdom caught up with al-Muqrin and killed him. Published in the 10th issue of the al-Qaida-produced online magazine Mu'askar al-Battar in May 2004, the essay serves the apparent goal of spurring more kidnappings while at the same time trying to add a bit more professionalism to them. No more garage jobs, this is Kidnapping, Inc., seems to be the subtext.
Since its publication, the under-reported document has been mirrored on countless Web sites used by Islamic extremists. SPIEGEL Online has translated excerpts that provide a glimpse of the internal workings of al-Qaida's kidnapping operations -- a potentially lucrative business that helps keep the terror coffers full.
Goals and circumstances for kidnapping
A kidnapping, described here as "the arrest of one or more people from the opponents' side," should serve the following purposes according to Muqrin:
1. Force the government or opponent to fulfill a specific set of demands.
2. Create a difficult situation for a government in its relations with the countries where the kidnapped persons come from
3. Obtain important information from the hostages
4. Obtain ransom money -- as, for example, our brothers in the Philippines, Chechnya and Algeria made happen and as our brothers in "Mohammed's Army" in Kashmir did when they obtained $2 million in ransom. This money can then serve as financial support for an organization.
5. To draw attention to a specific concern -- as occurred at the start of the Chechnya question or in Algeria, when our brothers hijacked a French plane.
Though the paper does not name killing hostages as a goal of kidnapping, it does not rule out the acceptance of ransom money -- indeed, it encourages it.
Al-Muqrin also characterizes two main types of kidnapping: public mass hostage-takings and "secret" kidnappings of individuals.
In a "secret kidnapping," he writes, a "hostage is kidnapped and brought to a secure location without officials finding out anything about it. This is the less dangerous of the two types. Al-Muqrin cites the example of "US-American Jewish journalist" Daniel Pearl, which he says was kidnapped in a public location and taken to a clandestine hiding spot. No one suspected he had been kidnapped until he went missing and the hostage-takers made contact. The essay also points to the hostage-taking of Jews by Chechens in Moscow or the kidnapping of tourists in Jemen as examples of clandestine hostage-takings.
Under the category of "public" hostage-takings, the al-Qaida strategist names the storming of the East West Theater in Moscow by Chechen terrorists -- an act he describes as "100 percent successful" because it "once again catapulted the agenda of (Chechen warlord) Shamil Basayev to the world stage."
Al-Muqrin offers no shortage of practical advice for would-be kidnappers to make their work more efficient and safer. A group in charge of conducting kidnapping should also split up into smaller subgroups -- each with their own responsibilities.
Early reconnaissance group. They inform the kidnappers about the movements of the targert, for example if it has already reached the requisite location."
Protection group. They organize the protection of the kidnappers from all outside dangers (...).
Kidnapping group. They transport the hostages and transfer them to the group that is responsible for security.
Take-down group. Its responsibility is to take down possible pursuers or defend the kidnappings from outsiders who seek to expose them."
The hostages, al-Muqrin writes, should be housed in a place that can't be seen by the "eyes of the state." The hiding spot should be "far away from other neighborhoods" but not so desolate that it would "draw attention." In addition, it must have several exits and be an advantageous location for a possible gun battle.
Al-Muqrin also provides details on how to treat a kidnapping victim:
How to treat a hostage
1. Search the hostage. Any weapon or anything that can be used as one or anything that can be used to draw attention to a place should be taken from the hostage.
2. Separate the hostages -- men, women, young and old. One must be particularly careful with young men, since they could be capable of resistance. Immediately kill security officers because that will discourage the others from resisting.
3. Treatment of hostages should be based on the Sharia.
4. Unless it is unavoidable, one should remain distant from hostages -- at least 1.5 meters
5. One should speak a different language or a different dialect than one's own with the hostages in order to make it difficult for them to determine (the origins of the kidnappers)
6. Hostages should be blindfolded so they can't recognize the kidnappers. Likewise, the faces of the hostages should be masked.
Al-Muqrin wrote his treatise on hostage-taking more than a year ago and today it is difficult to determine exactly how much influence it has on current kidnappings in Iraq. Al-Muqrin's HOWTO is also missing crucial details for kidnappers, like how to deal with the messy question of whether a hostage should be killed or spared. Nor does it mention what to do if a hostage turns out to be a Muslim, like Osthoff, who is a convert to the faith.
Given the author's considerable influence in jihadist circles and other militant movements that have long used al-Qaida as their model, it's conceivable that Osthoff's kidnappers took their queue from al-Muqrin. But with so many questions left unanswered, it does little to shed light on Osthoff's possible fate.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/02/2005 00:42 ||
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Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, AKA Abu Musab al-Suri, one of this decade's most important leaders of the international jihadist movement, published a 1,600 page book in December 2004 entitled "The International Islamic Resistance Call" which outlines future strategies for the international jihadist movement. Al-Suri is not only a founder of both al-Qaeda and the Algerian GIA, but also widely acknowledged as a master of both urban warfare and the usage of explosives. His book begins by dictating that armed jihad must be supported through a "âŠbackground of political thinking and understanding and programming".
Once the jihadist groups have created a sustainable civil society, they can begin al-Suri's three stage battle: ⊠[first] all forms for war presence [sic] of the enemy in our land ⊠other world countries second, and at their homeland third". Throughout his book, al-Suri names these enemy countries as the "âŠJews, Americans, British, Russian, and any and all the NATO countries, as well as any country takes the position of oppressing Islam and Muslims". He further provides a clear indication that only by carrying out terrorist attacks and decentralized urban warfare would the jihadi network win. Al-Suri explicitly calls for attacks on all sectors of the enemy's influence, both civilian and military. According to his book, the "âŠpolitical, military, economical, educational, missionary, and tourist presenceâŠetc in our countries" are the primary targets of jihad.
Al-Suri then describes the "third generation of mujahideen" as a generation currently in the process of being defined, born after the "September happenings, the occupation in Iraq, and the Palestinian Intifada". While extorting the third generation to keep to their roots in the international movement, al-Suri describes his 1990 decision that jihadist groups can not hope to confront America and its allies directly. The groups must move from the classical structure for an underground organization, which a hierarchical "pyramid" shaped chain of command, to a "secret gang-war [structure], which has different and numerous cells untied together [separate cells]."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/02/2005 00:37 ||
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A recently issued statement from the spokesman for Abu Musab al-Suri, Abdul al-Tawab al-Shami, confirms the arrest of the al-Qaeda operative, and in addition, includes a speech from al-Suri, over one hour in length, as well a 17-page transcript of this oration, concerning his alleged complicity in the July 7, 2005 London bombings and the new British government regulations concerning Muslims. In the speech, al-Suri alleges innocence and having no connection with the attacks in London, or those in Madrid in 2005 and Paris in 1995; however, confirms his support to these attacks. Further, he castigates those governments who maintain a military presence in Muslim lands and urges the mujahideen residing within Europe to âmove fastâ to attack Britain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Germany, France, as well as Russia, Australia, and Japan.
The statement from Abdul al-Tawab al-Shami indicates that al-Suri was arrested approximately three months ago, rather than âlatelyâ as reported by the media, and the speech regarding London was withheld due to âsecurity reasons.â For additional information, Al-Shami directs readers to al-Suriâs will , as well as his 1,600-page book,
âThe International Islamic Resistance Call. â
Abu Musab al-Suriâs message calls for an immediate jihad amongst the mujahideen from Syria and Lebanon against France, stating: âOn this occasion I asked for the mujahideen from Syria, Lebanon, and al-Sham as well as othersâŠto hit France and target it now in all of its land and its interests everywhere just as they hit and attacked othersâ.
Al-Suri elaborates upon three points in his speech: the collective argument of the âjihadistsâ against their enemies, his innocence in the explosions in London, Madrid, and Paris, and warning to the British and European governments, as well as other âgeneral enemiesâ. He argues that al-Qaeda made it explicit to the Western governments that their continued abuse and encroachment upon resources and politics within Muslim lands would end fruitless debate and the Muslims would take up arms. Al-Suri indicates that the British received the sternest of warnings in this regard. He explains the position the jihadists in Britain during the mid-1990âs through the ascendancy of Tony Blair to Prime Minister, and of some of their exit to Afghanistan.
Though he took pleasure in the London bombings, al-Suri states he had nothing to do with its planning or execution. He reiterates this same claim about Madrid and Paris, though he ârevealsâ that he is the one who drew the picture of an âEiffel Tower exploding in pieces.â Al-Suri saves his harshest vitriol for France, condemning its government and promising attacks for its aggression in Syria, Lebanon, Bosnia, Algeria, Afghanistan, and for an âactive role in NATOâ and forbidding Muslim women to wear hijab. Concerning Spain, he urges its government to ask the European Union to accept the truce for non-aggression as laid out by Usama bin Laden. However, for those states he condemns, al-Suri states: âLet our sleeping cells wake up, the war is at its apex. The enemy is about to collapse. This is obvious now. Those who sleep now maybe will not participate when they wake up.â
Media reports indicate that a suspect believed to be Abu Musab al-Suri was captured in Quetta, Pakistan during the beginning of November 2005. Abu Musab al-Suri, AKA Mustafa Sitmaryan Nassar, or Umar Abd al-Hakim, is an al-Qaeda operative who ran terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and instructs in poison and chemical warfare. On November 18, 2004, the U.S. State Department offered a $5 million for information leading to his arrest. Al-Suri, meaning âThe Syrian,â was indicted in Spain in 2003 for allegedly training al-Qaeda sleeper cells for deployment in Spain, Italy, and France and is believed to have masterminded the Madrid train bombings in March 2004.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/02/2005 00:36 ||
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Take a good, long look at the people on this list and you can decide for yourself whether or not you have any problems with this. I sure don't.
1. Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi
Reportedly arrested on November 11, 2001, Pakistan.
Libyan, suspected commander at al-Qaeda training camp.
2. Abu Faisal
Reportedly arrested on December 12, 2001
3. Abdul Aziz
Reportedly arrested on December 14, 2001
Nationality unknown. In early January 2002, Kenton Keith, a spokesman at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, produced a chart with the names of senior al-Qaeda members listed as killed in action, detained, or on the run. Faisal and Aziz were listed as detained on Dec. 12 and 14, 2001.
4. Abu Zubaydah (also known as Zain al-Abidin Muhahhad Husain)
Reportedly arrested in March 2002, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
Palestinian (born in Saudi Arabia), suspected senior al-Qaeda operational planner.
6. Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi
Reportedly arrested in January 2002
Nationality unknown, presumably Iraqi, suspected commander of al-Qaeda training camp. U.S. officials told Associated Press on January 8, 2002 and March 30, 2002, of al-Iraqi's capture. This is a different Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi who was placed in command of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan yesterday (who had previously been in command of Brigade 055 rather than a training camp), for those keeping score.
7. Muhammed al-Darbi
Reportedly arrested in August 2002
Yemeni, suspected al-Qaeda member. The Washington Post reported on October 18, 2002: "U.S. officials learned from interviews with Muhammad Darbi, an al Qaeda member captured in Yemen in August, that a Yemen cell was planning an attack on a Western oil tanker, sources said." On December 26, 2002, citing "U.S. intelligence and national security officials," the Washington Post reports that al-Darbi, as well as Ramzi Binalshibh [see below], Omar al-Faruq [reportedly escaped from U.S. custody in July 2005], and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri [see below] all "remain under CIA control."
8. Ramzi bin al-Shibh
Reportedly arrested on September 13, 2002
Yemeni, suspected al-Qaeda conspirator in Sept. 11 attacks (former roommate of one of the hijackers).
9. Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (or Abdulrahim Mohammad Abda al-Nasheri, aka Abu Bilal al-Makki or Mullah Ahmad Belal)
Reportedly arrested in November 2002, United Arab Emirates.
Saudi or Yemeni, suspected al-Qaeda chief of operations in the Persian Gulf, and suspected planner of the USS Cole bombing, and attack on the French oil tanker, Limburg.
10. Mohammed Omar Abdel-Rahman (aka Asadullah)
Reportedly arrested in February 2003, Quetta, Pakistan.
Egyptian, son of the Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted in the United States of involvement in terrorist plots in New York. See Agence France Presse, March 4, 2003: "Pakistani and US agents captured the son of blind Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel Rahman. . . a US official said Tuesday. Muhamad Abdel Rahman was arrested in Quetta, Pakistan, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity." David Johnston, New York Times, March 4, 2003: "On Feb. 13, when Pakistani authorities raided an apartment in Quetta, they got the break they needed. They had hoped to find Mr. [Khalid Sheikh] Mohammed, but he had fled the apartment, eluding the authorities, as he had on numerous occasions. Instead, they found and arrested Muhammad Abdel Rahman, a son of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Egyptian cleric. . ."
11. Mustafa al-Hawsawi (aka al-Hisawi)
Reportedly arrested on March 1, 2003 (together with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad), Pakistan.
Saudi, suspected al-Qaeda financier.
12. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Reportedly arrested on March 1, 2003, Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
Kuwaiti (Pakistani parents), suspected al-Qaeda, alleged to have "masterminded" Sept. 11 attacks, killing of Daniel Pearl, and USS Cole attack in 2000.
13. Majid Khan
Reportedly arrested on March-April 2003, Pakistan.
Pakistani, alleged link to Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, alleged involvement in plot to blow up gas stations in the United States. Details about Khan's arrest were revealed in several media reports, especially in Newsweek: Evan Thomas, "Al Qaeda in America: The Enemy Within," Newsweek, June 23, 2003. U.S. prosecutors provided evidence that Majid Khan was in U.S. custody during the trial of 24-year-old Uzair Paracha, who was convicted in November 2005 of conspiracy charges, and of providing material support to terrorist organizations.
14. Yassir al-Jazeeri (aka al-Jaziri)
Reportedly arrested on March 15, 2003, Pakistan.
Possibly Moroccan, Algerian, or Palestinian, suspected al-Qaeda member, linked to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
15. Ali Abdul Aziz Ali (aka Ammar al Baluchi)
Reportedly arrested on April 29, 2003, Karachi, Pakistan.
A Pakistani, he is alleged to have funneled money to September 11 hijackers, and alleged to have been involved with the Jakarta Marriot bombing and in handling Jose Padilla's travel to the United States.
U.S. Judge Sidney Stein ruled that defense attorneys for Uzair Paracha could introduce statements Baluchi made to U.S. interrogators, proving that he was in U.S. custody. Former Deputy Attorney General James Comey also mentioned Baluchi during remarks to the media about the case of Jose Padilla on June 1, 2004
16. Waleed Mohammed bin Attash (aka Tawfiq bin Attash or Tawfiq Attash Khallad)
Reportedly arrested on April 29, 2003, Karachi, Pakistan.
Saudi (of Yemeni descent), suspected of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, and the Sept. 11 attacks. See Afzal Nadeem, "Pakistan Arrests Six Terror Suspects, including Planner of Sept. 11 and USS Cole Bombing," Associated Press, April 30, 2003. His brother, Hassan Bin Attash, is currently held in Guantanamo.
17. Adil al-Jazeeri
Reportedly arrested on June 17, 2003 outside Peshawar, Pakistan.
Algerian, suspected al-Qaeda and longtime resident of Afghanistan, alleged "leading member" and "longtime aide to bin Laden." (Possibly transferred to Guantanamo.)
18. Hambali (aka Riduan Isamuddin)
Reportedly arrested on August 11, 2003, Thailand.
Indonesian, involved in Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qaeda, alleged involvement in organizing and financing the Bali nightclub bombings, the Jakarta Marriot Hotel bombing, and preparations for the September 11 attacks.
19. Mohamad Nazir bin Lep (aka Lillie, or Li-Li)
Reportedly arrested in August 2003, Bangkok, Thailand.
Malaysian, alleged link to Hambali.
20. Mohamad Farik Amin (aka Zubair)
Reportedly arrested in June 2003, Thailand.
Malaysian, alleged link to Hambali.
21. Tariq Mahmood
Reportedly arrested in October 2003, Islamabad, Pakistan.
Dual British and Pakistani nationality, alleged to have ties to al-Qaeda.
22. Hassan Ghul
Reportedly arrested on January 23, 2004, in Kurdish highlands, Iraq.
Pakistani, alleged to be Zarqawi's courier to bin Laden; alleged ties to Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.
23. Musaad Aruchi (aka Musab al-Baluchi, al-Balochi, al-Baloshi)
Reportedly arrested in Karachi on June 12, 2004, in a "CIA-supervised operation."
Presumably Pakistani. Pakistani intelligence officials told journalists Aruchi was held by Pakistani authorities at an airbase for three days, before being handed over to the U.S., and then flown in an unmarked CIA plane to an undisclosed location.
24. Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan (aka Abu Talaha)
Reportedly arrested on July 13, 2004, Pakistan.
Pakistani, computer engineer, was held by Pakistani authorities, and likely transferred to U.S. custody. (Possibly in joint U.S.-Pakistani custody.)
25. Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
Reportedly arrested on July 24, 2004, Pakistan
Tanzanian, reportedly indicted in the United States for 1998 embassy bombings. U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials told UPI that Ghailani was transferred to "CIA custody" in early August.
26. Abu Faraj al-Libi
Reportedly arrested on May 4, 2005, North Western Frontier Province, Pakistan.
Libyan, suspected al-Qaeda leader of operations, alleged mastermind of two assassination attempts on Musharraf. Col. James Yonts, a U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan, "said in an email to The Associated Press that al-Libbi was taken directly from Pakistan to the U.S. and was not brought to Afghanistan."
This article starring:
ABD AL HADI AL IRAQI
al-Qaeda
ABD AL RAHIM AL NASHIRI
al-Qaeda
ABDUL AZIZ
al-Qaeda
ABDUL RAHIM AL SHARQAWI
al-Qaeda
ABDULRAHIM MOHAMAD ABDA AL NASHERI
al-Qaeda
ABU BILAL AL MAKKI
al-Qaeda
ABU FAISAL
al-Qaeda
ABU FARAJ AL LIBI
al-Qaeda
ABU TALAHA
al-Qaeda
ABU ZUBAIDAH
al-Qaeda
ADIL AL JAZIRI
al-Qaeda
AHMED KHALFAN GHAILANI
al-Qaeda
ALI ABDUL AZIZ ALI
al-Qaeda
AMAR AL BALUCHI
al-Qaeda
HAMBALI
al-Qaeda
HASAN GHUL
al-Qaeda
IBN AL SHEIKH AL LIBI
al-Qaeda
JOSE PADILLA
al-Qaeda
KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMAD
al-Qaeda
MAJID KHAN
al-Qaeda
MOHAMAD FARIK AMIN
Jemaah Islamiyah
MOHAMAD NAZIR BIN LEP
Jemaah Islamiyah
MOHAMED NAIM NUR KHAN
al-Qaeda
MOHAMED OMAR ABDEL RAHMAN
al-Qaeda
MUHAMED AL DARBI
al-Qaeda
MULLAH AHMED BELAL
al-Qaeda
MUSAAD ARUCHI
al-Qaeda
MUSAB AL BALUCHI
al-Qaeda
MUSTAFA AL HAWSAWI
al-Qaeda
OMAR AL FARUQ
al-Qaeda
RAMZI BINALSHIBH
al-Qaeda
RIDUAN ISAMUDIN
al-Qaeda
RIYADH THE FACILITATOR
al-Qaeda
SHEIKH OMAR ABDEL RAHMAN
al-Qaeda
TARIQ MAHMUD
al-Qaeda
TAWFIQ ATTASH KHALLAD
al-Qaeda
TAWFIQ BIN ATTASH
al-Qaeda
UZAIR PARACHA
al-Qaeda
WALID MOHAMED BIN ATTASH
al-Qaeda
YASIR AL JAZIRI
al-Qaeda
ZAIN AL ABIDIN MUHAHAD HUSEIN
al-Qaeda
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
12/02/2005 00:12 ||
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#1
How about a list of the Islamic terror victims?
The number of Mexicans leaving their country â almost all for the United States â has reached 400,000 per year and will continue to grow for several more years, the head of Mexico's National Population Council said on Friday.
The increase in migration has coincided with the United States increasing security on its southern border. Build the friendship fence!
"The effort to increase control of the (U.S.) border has not reduced migratory flows one little bit," Council Secretary General Elena Zuniga said. "After 15 years, what we have seen is a growth in migration, and growth in a way that is much less safe." Not true - if the San Diego/Tijuana fence weren't in place - we'd see a FLOOD.
She said increased border controls have largely served to help fuel growth in migrant trafficking organizations.
The migration is fueled mainly by demographic pressure politically corrupt oligarchy and a lack of jobs in Mexico, Zuniga said. It will eventually turn downward when those pressures ease, mainly through economic growth and reduced birthrates, she said. Not our problem to be your pressure relief valve, babe
"We predict that we will not be able to sustain the growth in migration," because of a drop in birth rates here, she said. Hokay, we'll have to allow Central Americans in, then
The country's population is currently rising by about one percent per year, but that rate is expected to cool to 0.59 percent per year by 2030, and emigration is expected to fall to about 380,000 per year by 2025. drop of 20,000....what a bargain!
Zuniga spoke at a U.N. Population Fund conference on migratory issues in Latin America, where experts reported on recent trends in migration.
Arie Hoekman, the population fund's representative in Mexico, said that "lately, we are seeing a greater flow in undocumented migrants with very low educational levels."
Experts at the meeting noted that migration not only affects the lives of the migrants and the countries to which they emigrate, but also their own hometowns, where relatives receive the money they send home.
"In some places, they've stopped working the land, and live off the money (remittances)," Hoekman said.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/02/2005 20:21 ||
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#1
We already know the Lefties on the LeftCoast are exploiting these immigrants in order to demand more $$$ from Washington, which has only intensified since KATRINA-GATE - is Mahico indirectly arguing that they are yet another Socialist country that demands to be invaded by Dubya???
#2
We already know the Lefties on the LeftCoast are exploiting these immigrants in order to demand more $$$ from Washington, which has only intensified since KATRINA-GATE and its premises of grotesquely defective Amer Federalist Federalism, when Clintonian Fascist authoritarianism just iisn't enuff for the good of the nation or anything - is Mahico indirectly arguing that they are yet another Socialist country that demands to be invaded by Dubya???
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.
Riot police restricted access to some polling stations in the final stage of Egyptian elections on Thursday in what the Islamist opposition said was an attempt to cap its gains in parliament. The 
Photographs of Osama Bin Laden on a visit to Oxford in 1971 have come to light after their owner recognised him in widely-publicised pictures from the same year. 
Yemeni President 
The United Arab Emirates, UAE, will hold its first elections witn a vote to pick half the members of a consultative council, the president announced. 
The government plans to extend the mission of Japanese troops engaged in reconstruction work in Iraq for another year, sources at the ruling Liberal Democratic Party [LDP] said Wednesday. It plans to make a formal decision on the extension on Dec 8, according to a senior LDP member.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, seen in a meeting with Irish Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern, will make a statement on the row over reported secret CIA prisons when she visits Europe next week, Ahern said. 
JOEY BOZIK had no right to survive the blast that blew off both his legs and his right arm. The landmine that maimed the young US Army sergeant made him one of the hidden statistics of the Iraq war â one of 400 amputees among nearly 16,000 US troops wounded since the invasion. Yet, despite his horrific injuries, Sergeant Bozik has joined the growing ranks of disabled veterans who are determined to fight for their country again. Only this time the medals they dream of are gold.
December 2, 2005: The issue of piracy is again a concern as it was in the early 19th century, when the United States went to war with the Barbary pirates on two occasions (1801-1805 and 1815). These were, for all intents and purposes, real wars â in some cases involving deployments ashore and blockade operations. Modern pirates have learned from this. These days, the gangs rely on short-range speed boats and attack in places like the Straits of Malacca of off the coast of Somalia. These pirates are usually equipped with guns (including assault rifles like the AK-47) or knives. Piracy has also occurred off Bangladesh, Nigeria, Iraq (six attacks since April despite coalition naval units in the area), and the South China Sea. The latest circular from the International Maritime Organization (for the month of September) reported 29 attacks. In most cases with some measure of success, stores and equipment were stolen.
Suicide bombings fell in November to their lowest level in seven months, the American military said Thursday, citing the success of U.S.-Iraqi military operations against insurgent and foreign fighter sanctuaries near the Syrian border.
VIENNA, Austria - Two of America's allies in Iraq are withdrawing forces this month and a half-dozen others are debating possible pullouts or reductions, increasing pressure on Washington as calls mount to bring home U.S. troops. Bulgaria and Ukraine will begin withdrawing their combined 1,250 troops by mid-December. If Australia, Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland and South Korea reduce or recall their personnel, more than half of the non-American forces in Iraq could be gone by next summer. 
A coalition of Sunni Arab parties has called for US troops to withdraw from restive Iraqi towns before the 15 December elections to encourage voting. "We call on the American forces to leave Iraqi cities, especially the unstable ones, to allow for their residents to exercise their electoral rights in a normal fashion," the Iraqi Concord Front (ICF) said on Thursday. 
Jordanâs king urged parliament yesterday to pass new anti-terror laws to prevent the kind of attacks in which 60 people were killed last month, saying the country faced its biggest ever security challenge. Addressing a joint session of parliament in full military attire, King Abdallah called for a comprehensive strategy capable of dealing effectively with every threat to the countryâs status as âan oasis of security and stability.â
Chief UN investigator 
