Islamic extremists in Iraq are providing military training and other assistance to Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters from eastern and southern Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas, U.S. intelligence officials told Knight Ridder.
A small number of Pakistanis and Afghans are receiving military training in Iraq; Iraqi fighters have met with Afghan and Pakistani extremists in Pakistan; and extremists in Afghanistan increasingly are using homemade bombs, suicide attacks and other tactics honed in Iraq, said U.S. intelligence officials and others who track the issue.
Several Afghan and Pakistani "exchange students" volunteered to join the fight against American and Iraqi forces in Iraq, but they were told to return to Afghanistan and Pakistan to train others there, two U.S. intelligence officials said. They and other officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the intelligence is highly classified.
Intelligence suggests that if the trend continues, U.S. forces, already contending with escalating violence in Iraq, could face the same thing in Afghanistan in the coming months, further complicating the Bush administration's plans to withdraw some troops.
"The worst case," one U.S. intelligence official said, "would be if the terrorists in both places are becoming more connected, and that they either want to take some of the heat off the jihadists in Iraq or that they figure we're stretched too thin in both places, so they're going to try to turn up the heat in both."
Seth Jones, a specialist on Afghanistan at the Rand Corp., a consulting firm that advises U.S. government agencies, said: "I think there is absolutely no question that the partial evidence strongly suggests that there have been increasing contacts between Afghan insurgents and Iraqi insurgents either in Iraq itself or in Pakistan; the trail is going in both directions."
Extremists traveling to or from Iraq mostly are making their way on routes used by drug traffickers and smugglers through Pakistan's province of Baluchistan, where government forces are facing a tribal insurgency, and southern Iran, the two American intelligence officials said.
They said there was no solid evidence that Iran's Islamic regime was arranging, financing or aiding what one of the U.S. intelligence officials called "terrorist Route 66."
Afghanistan has witnessed a surge in attacks by the Taliban, many of them apparently aimed at testing NATO troops from Britain, Canada and the Netherlands as they begin taking over security duties in the south from American forces.
Tactics that have proved effective in Iraq, especially homemade bombs, suicide and car bombs, and secondary ambushes - in which troops, police and emergency workers are hit as they respond to an initial attack - increasingly are being used in Afghanistan, they said.
"Everybody accepts that there has been a qualitative shift in the sophistication of these attacks," said Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department intelligence expert who is now at the Middle East Institute, a nonpartisan research center.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/02/2006 04:08 ||
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What? Things got a bit too "boring" in Iraq that they decided to move on to something "more exciting"?
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdallah bin Abdulaziz on Saturday warned of the dangers of deviant thoughts on the Islamic nation and the image of Islam.
"We're warning you! You'll grow hair on your palms!"
In a speech delivered on his behalf before the Learned Elders of IslamUnity of Islamic Nation gathering, organized by the Muslim World League, King Abdallah stressed the importance of Islamic scholars in uniting Muslims, protecting the youth against deviant thoughts, and confronting campaigns targeting Islam and its image. He touched on the Saudi vision for confronting such challenges through following the true teachings of Islam, improving relationships with world communities, and achieving Islamic unity.
"Da'wa, da'wa, and more da'wa, by gum," said the king. "A little more da'wa, and we'll have the world on a string!"
Mufti of Saudi Arabia and Head of the Establishing Council of the Islamic World League Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Alsheikh said in a speech that the path to the nation's unity is through the true teachings of Islam. He stressed importance of the role of Islamic scholars and thinkers in uniting the Islamic nation and spreading the teachings of Islam, which are valid for every time and place and capable of handling any issue, even modern ones.
Good. Let's see one of those Islamic scholars plot us a trajectory or two to Jupiter.
"Well, maybe not *all* the modern issues, but us Elders don't really look at that as a problem," he added. "More like a challenge. We'll just have the Lions drag the world back to the Seventh century, or maybe the Sixth. We'll do it properly the next time, never fear."
The gathering is held with the participation of over 300 Learned Elders Islamic scholars and thinkers to reinforce solidarity among Muslims and unite the stands of their leaders and scholars.
#1
What a great deal. The Wahabis get to fund mosques and Islamic centers worldwide, while banning the preaching of other faiths in the desert kingdom. President Bush1 once had to vacate the kingdom, to celebrate Thanksgiving Day on a US aircraft carrier. Not much respect there.
#2
yep - those evil Bushes....still don't get it, do ya? OCD boy? The point of Fred's post is that "Islamic Scholar" is an oxymoron, unless we're talking medieval achievements and that the Saudi ruling circle aids this.
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/02/2006 1:08 Comments ||
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Innovation ("bidah") is a major offense in Islam, and the Muslim reluctance to any change leads to social stasis. Still Muslim clerics claim that Islam is a blueprint for utopia, and Western education is blamed for their current stagnation.
http://www.king.igs.net/~kassim/nyaraka/Elimu2.html
Seafarious: re. the above invitation (don't need it) to another juvenile attack-response thread, these impulse driven exchanges both alienate unique visitors and subvert the WOT focus.
BSF director general AK Mitra has said the border force is facing a major challenge from Islamic terrorists from Bangladesh who are using eastern India to operate in different countries of the region.
Mitra, making his first visit to the country's eastern frontiers after assuming office, told reporters here last night that Indian insurgents were also using Bangladeshi soil to conduct subversive activities in the country.
Asked to comment on observations by defence experts that Bangladesh is emerging as "an exporter of global terrorism", Mitra said "the Islamic terrorists from Bangladesh have chosen a route through eastern India to enter into different countries. Our force is facing a major challenge to contain the menace."
BSF director-general also said "the 4000-km long eastern border is porous. So we are alert and would increase strength of forces in the border and modernise it with sophisticated gadgets".
He, however, added that although the Bangladesh government has recently taken some initiative against the fundamentalists in their country, "we have to remain alert about them".
Conceding that a large number of madrasas have come up on both sides of the border and also on the Indo-Nepal border, Mitra said he had "no direct evidence they are using them as the factory for producing Islamic militancy".
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/02/2006 04:13 ||
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SPY chiefs have warned Tony Blair that the war in Iraq has made Britain the target of a terror campaign by Al-Qaeda that will last for many years to come.
A leaked top-secret memo from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) says the war in Iraq has exacerbated the threat by radicalising British Muslims and attracting new recruits to anti-western terror attacks.
The four-page memo, entitled International Terrorism: Impact of Iraq, contradicts Blairs public assurances by concluding that the invasion of Iraq has fomented a jihad or holy war against Britain.
It states: It has reinforced the determination of terrorists who were already committed to attacking the West and motivated others who were not.
It adds: Iraq is likely to be an important motivating factor for some time to come in the radicalisation of British Muslims and for those extremists who view attacks against the UK as legitimate.
The memo was approved by Eliza Manningham-Buller, the head of MI5, John Scarlett, the chief of MI6, and Sir David Pepper, head of GCHQ, the governments eavesdropping centre.
The leak of the JICs official assessment marked top secret will alarm Blair as it appears to be directed at undermining the public statements in which he has denied that the war in Iraq has increased the terror threat from Al-Qaeda.
In a speech shortly after the London bombings last July, Blair blamed an evil ideology, not the war, for motivating the suicide bombers. He said: If it is Iraq that motivates them, why is the same ideology killing Iraqis by terror in defiance of an elected government? In a separate speech he dismissed claims that the London attacks were sparked by Iraq, saying: What they want us to do is to turn round and say, Oh its all our fault.
He added: The people who are responsible for terrorist attacks are terrorists.
At the same time Charles Clarke, the home secretary, accused those who said that the attacks were caused by the war of serious intellectual flabbiness.
The JIC report contradicts these ministerial statements. It says: There is a clear consensus within the UK extremist community that Iraq is a legitimate jihad and should be supported. Iraq has re-energised and refocused a wide range of networks in the UK.
Written in April last year and circulated to Blair and other senior ministers before the July attacks, it says: We judge that the conflict in Iraq has exacerbated the threat from international terrorism and will continue to have an impact in the long term. It has reinforced the determination of terrorists who were already committed to attacking the West and motivated others who were not.
The document says the war is providing an additional motivation for attacks against Britain; is increasing Al-Qaedas potential; and energising terrorist networks engaged in holy war. Equally worrying, Iraq is being used as a training ground and base for terrorists to return to carry out attacks in Britain and elsewhere.
The JIC is the senior intelligence body in Britain and is responsible for issuing assessments of the gravity of threats to Britains national security.
It says that while attacks outside Iraq since the war began in 2003 have not been motivated by the war alone, in some cases we judge that it has been a major additional motivation. It cited the example of the 2004 Madrid bombings in which 201 people died, even though, in a speech two months later, Blair denied that those attacks had been sparked by Iraq.
The intelligence committee named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, as a key figure behind the growing threat. It describes him as an increasingly iconic figure who is fast becoming the new [Osama] Bin Laden. It warns that Zarqawi is seeking to use his status in Iraq to co-ordinate attacks against other countries, including those in Europe.
The JIC analysis presents a disturbing picture of the growth of the terrorist threat and suggests that there is a regular flow of terrorists to and from Britain and Iraq.
Some jihadists who leave Iraq will play leading roles in recruiting and organising terrorist networks, sharing their skills and possibly conducting attacks. It is inevitable that some will come to the UK, it says.
A government report, compiled by a senior civil servant using intelligence from the security services and due to be published in the next few weeks, is also expected to recognise that the July 7 bombers were motivated by the invasion of Iraq.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/02/2006 04:04 ||
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The Brits provoked the foreign and homegrown Fascists in World War II as well. That's something to be proud of.
The singer Billy Bragg, in a different context, had a lyric: "If you've got a blacklist, I want be on it"
Being on al Qaeda's 'black list' would leave me rather chuffed.
Tony's right in that if it weren't Iraq, it'd be something else so what's the difference?
The first official recognition that the Iraq war motivated the four London suicide bombers has been made by the government in a major report into the 7 July attacks.
Despite attempts by Downing Street to play down suggestions that the conflict has made Britain a target for terrorists, the Home Office inquiry into the deadliest terror attack on British soil has conceded that the bombers were inspired by UK foreign policy, principally the decision to invade Iraq.
The government's 'narrative', compiled by a senior civil servant using intelligence from the police and security services, was announced by the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, last December following calls for a public inquiry into the attacks.
The narrative will be published in the next few weeks, possibly alongside the findings of a critical report into the London bombings by the Commons intelligence and security committee.
Initial drafts of the government's account into the bombings, which have been revealed to The Observer, state that Iraq was a key 'contributory factor'. The references to Britain's involvement in Iraq are contained in a section examining what inspired the 'radicalisation' of the four British suicide bombers, Sidique Khan, Hasib Hussain, Shehzad Tanweer and Germaine Lindsay.
The findings will prove highly embarrassing to Tony Blair, who has maintained that the decision to go to war against Iraq would make Britain safer. On the third anniversary of the conflict last month, the Prime Minister defended Britain's involvement in Iraq, arguing that only an interventionist stance could confront terrorism.
The narrative largely details the movements of the four bombers from the point when they picked up explosives in a rucksack from a 'bomb factory' in Leeds to the time when the devices were detonated on the morning of 7 July.
Alongside Iraq, other 'motivating factors' for the bombers, three of whom came from west Yorkshire and one from Buckinghamshire, are identified. These include economic deprivation, social exclusion and a disaffection with society in general, as well as community elders. A videotape of Mohammed Sidique Khan was released after the attacks, in which he makes an apparent reference to Iraq, accusing 'Western citizens' of electing governments that committed crimes against humanity. Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, also appeared on the tape, repeating his claim that Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq was responsible for the outrage.
The Home Office account of the July atrocity also chronicles in detail the trips to Pakistan made by Khan and Shehzad Tanweer and is understood to confirm that the two met al-Qaeda operatives. However, the final report will not name the militants known to some of the London bombers in case criminal proceedings are taken against them.
Leaks last week from the intelligence and security committee similarly confirmed how Khan, the mastermind of July 7, slipped through a security net. MI5 called off surveillance on him in the months before the bombings, in which 52 people were killed. The Home Office narrative supports the parliamentary committee's general view that the security services are not to blame. Despite the trips abroad, however, the narrative says that the London suicide bombers were only ever peripheral players in terrorist organisations and that, on the whole, there was 'nothing exceptional' about them before the attack.
Recent letters to the Home Office from the law firm Leigh Day & Co - acting for the family of one victim - warned that an independent inquiry was essential to explore 'what could be done to prevent such attacks happening again, and how to protect and save lives in the future'.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/02/2006 04:02 ||
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Or that it was a Thursday. Thursday is Saturday in Islam. Could've been that. Or that they were Muslims. Could've been that. Or that they agreed chocolate was their favorite flavor so they had to kill someone. It's all very complex.
#3
There was no Iraq war when the mooselimbs were shooting down passenger planes over Scotland, or flying jets into buildings in NY , or blowing up embassies in Africa. Just another justification to employ violence against civilians/nonbelievers. Islam is a scourge,in my considered opinion.
The Government is to hold secret talks with defence chiefs tomorrow to discuss possible military strikes against Iran. A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran. It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran's ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is "inevitable" if Teheran's leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme. A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence. Tomorrow's meeting will be attended by Gen Sir Michael Walker, the chief of the defence staff, Lt Gen Andrew Ridgway, the chief of defence intelligence and Maj Gen Bill Rollo, the assistant chief of the general staff, together with officials from the Foreign Office and Downing Street.
Saturday, April 1, 2006
CHURCHS FURNITURE TORCHED IN PAKISTAN
By Sheraz Khurram Khan
Special Correspondent for Assist News Service in Pakistan
MULTAN, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- Some unidentified people attacked a church in Mianchannu, a small town of district Multan on Thursday night, March 30.
According to the AFP a group of people allegedly broke into the church and set to fire its furniture.
We have started an investigation into the incident but we think it was designed to create religious unrest in the area the AFP quoted a local police official as saying.
Amid the tense situation in the town a local Christian politician told the AFP that the attack was meant to create conflict between the local Christian community and Muslims. CAIR/ISNA: you have members from the Punjab. Tell us what you have done to prevent these attacks on Christians abroad. If someone sneers at a Muslim on a bus here, you call it: harassment.
In February, a churchs door and windows were torched in Sargodha, whereas a church was torched in Sukkur and the other was ransacked by a Muslim mob over rumors that Quran, the Muslim holy book had been desecrated.
The fresh attack on a church in Mianchannu situated in the eastern Punjab province of Pakistan calls for employing strict measures to thwart possible attacks on churches in the country.
Posted by: Listen to Dogs ||
04/02/2006 01:52 ||
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The largest Kashmiri militant group fighting Indian rule on Saturday derided a peace process between India and Pakistan and said separatists talking with the two governments were gaining nothing. The fact is that the ongoing dialogue process between India and Pakistan is useless, futile and a waste of time, Hizbul Mujahideen said in a statement. Those Kashmiri politicians who have joined this process are not going to get anything except breakfast, tours and media coverage, because India is not sincere in resolving this issue, the groups spokesman, Saleem Hashmi, said in the statement.
On Thursday, a local news agency published an interview with Sayed Salahuddin, leader of Hizbul Mujahideen, saying that the group could consider a truce only if India recognised Kashmir as disputed territory and Kashmiris were given a place at the table in peace negotiations. India considers Kashmir an integral part of the country.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2006 00:00 ||
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He looks a lot like Chevy Chase in The Invisible Man.
"Iraqis are right to attack troops", say Islamic clerics and Two Christian archbishops
LONDON Two years after U.S. authorities ceremoniously declared Iraq to be sovereign again, top religious leaders say Iraqis remain under military occupation, have a right to fight foreign troops and still don't govern themselves. and by fatwa I have the right to piss on your ancestors graves.
Their statements, made at the conclusion of a peace® conference in London on Tuesday, provided a stampof approval from Iraq's most influential Sunni and Shiite Muslim clerics for their countrymen to step up attacks aimed at hastening the withdrawal of U.S., British and other troops.
Two Christian archbishops and ethnic Kurdish leaders, whose community has previously supported the foreign military presence, joined Jordan's Prince Hassan bin Talal in endorsing a communiqué underscoring the "legitimate right" of Iraqis to resist what they called the occupation.
A Defense Department spokesman, Air Force Maj. Todd Vician, praised the religious leaders for holding their dialogue in London because "when they're talking, they're not fighting." But he said it is important for them to understand "that the violence is brought about by the terrorists who try to attack Iraqi security forces, civilians and coalition forces as well." WTF?
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her British counterpart Jack Straw make a surprise visit to Iraq, carrying a sharp message of international impatience with delays in the formation of a new government.
"I would assume that the fact that we are going out to have these discussions with the leadership is a sign of the urgency that we attach to the need for a government of national unity," she told reporters.
The weather forced the two top diplomats to take road transport under high security on the dangerous road between the airport and the heavily guarded Green Zone where they immediately plunged into talks with Iraqi officials.
Straw pointedly recalled the heavy investment the United States and Britain had made in Iraq in lives and resources since the March 2003 invasion to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Asked whether the involvement could be sustained without greater effort from the Iraqis on the political front, he said, "We're committed to Iraq, very committed. But we need to see progress."
Rice and Straw were to confer with President Jalal Talabani, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari and other leaders whose attempts to form a permanent government were stalled three and a half months after landmark legislative elections.
US officials have repeatedly called establishment of a government bringing in majority Shiite Muslims, Kurds and minority Sunnis, the key to their exit strategy for the eventual withdrawal of some 130,000 US troops in Iraq.
But the Iraqis have been squabbling over Jaafari's bid to stay on as prime minister as the candidate of the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, which controls nearly half the seats in the 275-member parliament.
The discontent has now spread to Jaafari's own party, with several members for the first time at the weekend openly calling for the prime minister to step down so as to ease the arduous negotiations.
Leaders of four of the seven parties in the alliance have expressed their reservations over Jaafari's candidacy and have given him the next few days to placate his opposition or they will remove their support.
Kurdish and Sunnis leaders are opposed to Jaafari, arguing he has been unable to contain Iraq's raging insurgency and is too sectarian for a country seeking to avoid collapsing into a civil war.
Media reports have suggested that US President George W. Bush was seeking an alternative to Jaafari. But Rice and Straw insisted they had no intention of taking sides in the jockeying for power in Baghdad.
"We'll recognize and respect whoever emerges as a leader through this system," Straw said. "Our concern, however, is that they (the Iraqis) have to make swift progress to secure a leader."
The two chief diplomats also urged quick resolution of a dispute between Shiite and Sunni leaders over who would land the all-important job of supervising security forces in the troubled Gulf state.
The Iraqis appeared to have taken a large step towards settlement of the issue by announcing Saturday an agreement to put security in the hands of a committee that would be headed by the prime minister and his deputy.
The trip was Rice's third here since she became secretary of state in January 2005 and the third for Straw this year. Officials said the ministers had been speaking about a joint trip for two weeks and finalized plans only last Tuesday.
Officials acknowledged that it was a gamble to stage such a high-profile meeting at a critical time in the political process.
Bush has been lobbying for domestic support for his policies but Rice gave critics new ammunition on Friday when she said Washington had made "thousands" of tactical errors in Iraq. She said Saturday she was only speaking "figuratively."
#1
Yes, thousands of tactical errors. I think that the MSM could get the Bush Administration's attention if they showed how helpful they can be in reducing mistakes in other arenas. First, they could work on baseball. Even the greatest hitters of all time are a joke, only able to get a hit around 40 percent of the time. With 24/7 coverage , there should be no trouble raising batting averages to at least 60-70 percent (that is, a D or a C). Next, they should work on pro golfers. Those over-rated chokers sometimes miss putts of UNDER 2 FEET, when HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars are at stake! The MSM should have no trouble raising the putting average to 90 percent for all putts within 10 feet. Then those uninformed, single-minded droids in the White House will have to pay attention and within two years, Islam and the West will be reconciled to a life of mutual respect, peace, and prosperity.
Leaders of the Shiite Muslim alliance that governs Iraq have given Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafari until Sunday to convince his opponents he should retain his job in Iraq's next government or face being pushed aside, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.
In another sign that support for Jafari is weakening within his coalition, Qasim Dawood, an independent member of the Iraqi legislature, on Saturday became the first member of the alliance to publicly call for Jafari to withdraw his name for prime minister.
"I call on Jafari to take a courageous step and set a fine example by stepping down," said Dawood, according to the Reuters news agency. "We have stood behind him for 50 days, and today we have reached the conclusion that there should be a prime minister for all Iraqis, not just one group."
A senior adviser to Jafari, Adnan Ali Kadhimi, said no formal demand had been made for Jafari to step down, and he would not do so. "No one is saying, 'We are giving you an ultimatum,' " Ali said. "Dr. Jafari is not going to kneel to the demand of this person or that person. He is the candidate of the alliance. He got the most votes."
Violence continued across the country, meanwhile, with at least 20 people killed. The U.S. military said one of its helicopters had gone down southwest of Baghdad while on combat air patrol. The status of the crew was unknown, a military statement said.
Reuters reported that the Rashedeen Army, an insurgent group, said in an Internet posting that it had shot down a U.S. helicopter near the town of Yusufiyah, about 15 miles southwest of Baghdad, and that residents of the area had reported hearing gunfire. No further details were available.
In Ramstein, Germany, American journalist Jill Carroll disavowed comments she made in a video recorded the night before she was released from nearly three months in captivity in Baghdad. In the video, which her kidnappers posted on the Internet after Carroll was set free on Thursday, she expressed support for the Iraqi insurgency and criticized the American occupation.
But in a statement released Saturday by the Christian Science Monitor, her primary employer, Carroll said: "Things that I was forced to say while captive are now being taken by some as an accurate reflection of my personal views. They are not."
The 28-year-old reporter called the people who kidnapped her and killed her translator on Jan. 7 "criminals, at best . . . . They put me, my family and my friends -- all those around the world who have prayed so fervently for my release -- through a horrific experience. I was, and remain, deeply angry with the people who did this."
More than three months after nationwide parliamentary elections in which the Shiite coalition known as the United Iraqi Alliance won the largest share of seats, negotiations over the formation of a government have reached an impasse. Iraqi and U.S. officials have stressed that a government that represents all of Iraq's factions would be instrumental in stemming a recent wave of sectarian violence, but the factions have been unable to agree on who would be included -- or who would serve as prime minister.
In February, the Shiite alliance chose -- by a one-vote margin -- to nominate Jafari, who has been transitional prime minister for about a year, to head the next government. His selection immediately drew strong opposition from blocs representing Iraq's Kurdish and Sunni Arab communities and a slate of secular, independent candidates. They reaffirmed their desire for Jafari to be replaced in a letter to the Shiite alliance this week.
Within the alliance, some members -- particularly those from the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which backs its own candidate, Adel Abdul Mahdi -- have criticized Jafari's performance as transitional leader, but none had opposed him openly. Four of the seven parties that make up the alliance, including the Supreme Council, told Jafari on Thursday they would withdraw support for him if he could not win over detractors within 72 hours, Shiite leaders and a U.S. official in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Saturday.
Jafari retains the support of the other three parties in the alliance, including his Dawa party and a group allied with the influential cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr, which helped secure Jafari's selection in February.
As negotiations to form a government languished, U.S. officials have stepped up pressure on Iraqi leaders to move more quickly. While Iraqi politicians say American diplomats have privately encouraged opposition to the prime minister, they have publicly maintained their neutrality.
The U.S. official said Saturday that any prime minister should be competent and able to unify Iraqi factions, and that Jafari might not meet that standard.
The potential alternatives could also pose problems. Abdul Mahdi, narrowly defeated by Jafari in the February balloting, is considered the most likely replacement. But his party, the Supreme Council, is perceived in some quarters as too cozy with neighboring Iran, and its militia, the Badr Organization, is accused by many Iraqi Sunnis of operating death squads tied to Iraq's Interior Ministry.
In the day's violence, at least 10 people were killed and 14 wounded when three car bombs exploded, just yards and moments apart, in the Abu Dsheer bazaar in the south Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, a predominantly Sunni area.
In Amiriyah, about 45 miles southwest of Baghdad, three "suspected terrorists" were killed and three others captured when coalition forces tried to raid a house that was a suspected haven for people bringing foreign fighters into Iraq, the U.S. military said in a statement.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/02/2006 04:15 ||
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Khalilzad would be their best choice, of course. No axes to grind, doesn't need the / a job, and knows everything they don't about freedom and governance.
As a US tank comes into view on a street in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, three fighters in civilian clothes and headscarves aim their weapons and wait. They claim to be part of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
"This is a message to America," one insurgent says to the camera.
"Look at your might and power, yet you are unable to walk the streets of Ramadi, which belongs to the mujahideen."
He turns back to the tank, which has paused a few blocks away. "I swear by almighty God we will destroy them," the insurgent says.
We received this footage while making a documentary about the Sunni insurgency fighting the Coalition Forces in Iraq.
We had asked local fixers and stringers in Baghdad if they would be prepared to take a camera and a list of prepared questions into the heart of the Sunni Triangle to speak directly with insurgents. Few accepted such a dangerous task.
Of those that did, one person got past the roadblocks with the film of al-Qaeda in Ramadi.
Cases of US heavy handedness or the abuse in Abu Ghraib have provided fertile ground for the insurgents to recruit from.
"A number of the insurgents keep saying to me that this is what I was trained for," journalist Michael Ware explained to us.
"They say the next generation is going to be worse than we've ever been. And it's in this way that it's al-Qaeda that are one of the main beneficiaries of this war.
"The Bush administration is the midwife to the next generation of al-Qaeda. And that's a generation that is principally being shaped by Zarqawi," Mr Ware said.
The normal methods of making a documentary about the evolution of the Sunni insurgency are not possible in Iraq.
Our contact with the insurgency came in two other ways.
Firstly, through two journalists - Michael Ware, who has had contact with members of the insurgency from the very beginning; and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who has travelled throughout the Middle East to understand more about the foreign fighters coming to fight in this war.
And secondly we embedded with US and Iraqi forces. We filmed the raids they were making to counter the insurgency.
The officers we spoke to were exceptionally candid about the realities of the situation and the problems resulting from past mistakes. Something we were not expecting.
But what did we learn?
That the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the Baath Party had been a monumental mistake.
At the end of the war, there was a moment when a policy of inclusion might not have pushed people into opposition.
That the insurgency consists of three main groups - the foreign element led in part by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi; the nationalist element of former Iraqi soldiers and Baathists; and a middle ground of Iraqi Islamic nationalists.
That the insurgency has developed into an organised, structured force, leading an increasingly effective campaign.
"Falluja was a moment of transformation for the resistance. It became a secure area for the resistance to work," Abu Mohammed, a representative of the national resistance, told us.
A marriage of convenience between these groups took root during the first battle of Falluja in April 2004 when US troops could not take back the city.
We also leant that post-Falluja, this co-ordinated insurgency spread across Iraq.
Some cities fell completely under the control of the insurgents.
We travelled to Talafar, in the north of Iraq near the Syrian border, and spoke to residents who had lived through a horrific reign of terror when al-Qaeda ran the city.
"The terrorists shot my brother with two bullets in his stomach - they cut open his stomach and put explosives inside," said one man.
"My father wanted to go and pick him up. They blew up my father, beheaded him and put his head on his corpse."
Foreign fighters, estimated at only 15% of the insurgency, have had an enormous impact.
They have provided men, money and weapons to trained officers from the former Iraqi army.
And they provided an ideology that has struck a chord with some disenfranchised Iraqis.
An ideology witnessed by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in Falluja before the Americans retook the city in November 2004.
"A Yemeni fighter would tell me about his pregnant wife, his children and the young daughter that he loves very much. And then you see tears running down his eyes and then he would dismiss this, oh no, no, this is the devil trying to tempt me away from my Jihad by reminding me of my family."
So would Iraq be better off if US and British troops withdrew?
It may remove one motivation for the insurgency.
"The resistance is a natural reaction to any occupation," says Abu Mohammed. "All occupations in history faced a resistance - this occupation is an insult to me and my people.
"Since I'm an officer, the responsibility falls on my shoulders. So I have to finish this occupation."
But above and beyond the motives of the nationalists, there is the "game plan" laid out by Zarqawi in a letter in early 2004.
One of the primary aims was to foment civil war between the Sunnis and Shias. Recent events in Iraq show this agenda is still being vigorously pursued.
An Iraqi officer we spoke to said that if the international coalition were to pull out of Iraq, "You can forget about a country called Iraq. There'd be massacres in the street - Sunnis will kill Shias and Shias will kill Sunnis".
"The Muslim will kill the Christian and the Christian will kill the Muslim. The Arab will kill the Kurd and the Kurd will kill the Arab. It is very, very important that the coalition forces stay in Iraq," the officer told us.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/02/2006 04:09 ||
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Lock thier journalists up in the Bay, no time for traiters specially when im partially payong for them!!!! furious.
#3
yes they came to that conclusion even before the war had started too! most odd, i often have seriously wondered if the BBC were being payed by the Baath party for pro Saddam reporting. I honestly wonder what will happen if i ever meet up with a BBC employee, hostage taking, a severe thrashing, murder? I guess they have to start expecting this sort of thing to happen when they choose to support the other side and align themselves with Saddamists. How long before anti AQ and Saddamist 'insurgents' and 'freedom fighters' start to target AL-BEEB?
#4
This kind of 'reporting' just bends my mind! I can't figure out what they're advocating. It's a given that the BBC hates Bush but there's a chicken/egg quality to this.
Al Qaeda is bad and Bush makes them worse (it's his fault after all) but if Bush surrenders then al Qaeda will go back to picking olives or will continue to impose their fascism and terror? US troops are heavy handed frat boy pranksters but al Qaeda shoots innocent civilians in the mouth. But the US is worse?
US law required regime change (yes-mission accomplished) yet displacing the Ba'athists screwed up the mission?
This shit is like a Buddhist koan (One hand clapping, etc). Are these BBC people serious journalists or sophmore potheads?
#5
Stuff like this is one of the reasons if anyone ever announces they work for the BBC in my presence I will beat them with in an inch of their misspent life.
They are not impartial. The BBC are anti american cheer leaders and enablers. Their offices should be burnt to the ground.
Posted by: SPoD ||
04/02/2006 6:38 Comments ||
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It's not the BBC's opinions that are troubling. First, there is the complete and utter lack of comprehension of what is really happening. Readers of this website are familiar with truly thoughtful analyses such as those available at The Belmont Club, for example, and of the long post here at Rantburg yesterday. Second, the notion that there were opportunities to nip everything perfectly in the bud is the sheerest of speculation -- the enemy is thinking and intelligent, and can adapt as well. The relationship between reality and MSM's coverage is the same as that between reading Shakespeare and Classic Comics.
#7
I heard Ware on Hugh Hewitts show and I found his stance eye opening and scary at the same time. I though that LLL Moonbat reporters had limits, but this guy has no qualms about reporting from their side. I dont wish it, but a fitting end to him would be to be caught in the crossfire with insurgents and elements of the Iraqi, American, and British forces.
#8
re: BBC, MSM, General Michael Ware &
General Kevin Sykes.
2 Glory Whores who the MSM [BBC] proffer on a daily basis as Islamic tribal experts, Insurgency Geniuses, JAG Lawyers, Combat squad leaders, Company Comanders, Black Robed Judges from the Haig, The Second Comming of Carl Von Clausewitz, Logisticians or all of the above..
and Lucky for us, the bozos with ever so humble gratitude accept the mantle.
#9
CS - Ware is a tough guy who has been intimidated by Zarq's death threats. In his Devil's Bargain, he has opted to slant towards Zarq because to report the truth is more threatening to his personal safety than what the U.S. could possibly do to him for being Zarq's propagandist.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/02/2006 15:57 Comments ||
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#10
As for BeBS, this is old spit in a different chalice.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/02/2006 15:59 Comments ||
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One can blame the Bush Administration for creating the next generation of Al Qaida.
One could also assume these guys would have remained mosque monkeys if the War on Terror never happened.
I would not be such a drunk if it wasn't for the damn beer producers.
Posted by: john ||
04/02/2006 16:39 Comments ||
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CA, ALL the world has a vested interest in the West (and the U.S.) being successful in Iraq and Afghanistan. These organizations are no more powerful than the Leftist groups that were roamed the earth 1960-1990. The only thing that the Islamofacists have now is better PR and a willing press. The reason we no longer hear of the Red Brigade (et al) is that the press didnt go out of their way to champion their cause AGAINST the rest of the world. And yes there are enough leftists around to fund them if they had any kind of following. I have been to the Middle East and these radical clerics and their followers are a very small portion of the population, but the MSM goes out of its way to seek them out and glorify their position. Ware and his ilk have chosen sides so let them share the fate of their comrades.
Egypt will not re-dispatch the ambassador to Iraq unless security conditions and stability are restored in this country, Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Gheit said in remarks published on Saturday. Abul Gheit, in remarks to the mass-circulation Al-Ahram, affirmed that all Arab states intended to restore diplomatic representation in the Iraqi capital, "but the problem lies with the (recurring) explosions and killings taking place there. "We cannot send our diplomats there while the killings continue." The minister alluded in particular to assassination of the Egyptian ambassador in Baghdad, Iahb Al-Sherif, after he was abducted in the middle of last year. He added that Egypt, at the recent Arab summit in Khartoum, campaigned for boosting inter-Iraqi dialogue to restore normalcy to this Arab country.
ARAB PRESS MORE ANTI-SEMITIC THAN EVER
Jerusalem Post
By Hilary Leila Krieger
Apr. 2, 2006
The Muhammad cartoon controversy greatly increased the amount of anti-Semitic material in Arab and Muslim newspapers, according to a report issued by the Anti-Defamation League over the weekend.
The report highlighted cartoons and opinion pieces that demonized Jews, Israel and the Holocaust in media across the Arab world and in Iran.
The publications cited depicted Jews in "outrageous and deeply anti-Semitic caricatures and themes, including anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of Jews plotting to control US foreign policy and dominate the world," the report said...
... While anti-Semitic tropes have long filled the Arab media, ADL Israel office spokesman Arieh O'Sullivan said the intensity of such material "skyrocketed" when Muslim rage exploded over the controversial Muhammad depictions carried in the Danish press and elsewhere...
Posted by: Listen to Dogs ||
04/02/2006 01:59 ||
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#1
...ADL Israel office spokesman Arieh O'Sullivan...
Faith, I wasn't expecting that family name for the ADL spokesman.
#2
And of course our own MSM won't report a word of this. Just as they don't report a word of prosecution of Christians and other non-muslims in muslims lands.
Or even the prosecution of non-arab muslims in muslims lands (i.e. Dafur).
If an infidel farts in the presence of the unholy Koran its front page news. If the 'religion of peace' burn down churches and murder christians its not worthy of page F-30...
#4
It is a total miscarriage of justice that world governments are not publicizing the malignant filth that passes for everyday political cartoons in the Arab world.
Bush unabashedly conceded a critical point of contention to the radical Muslims by not boldly taking them to task for doing themselves what they were so hypocritically protesting. Likewise for all Scandinavian countries and much of Europe.
Rantburg has long discussed how it is a common Muslim strategy to begin its infiltration by demanding preferential treatment, even when it flies in the face of established law and order of whatever host nation.
None of us could have hoped for a more sterling example of this treachery than the cartoon jihad. How is it that our leaders folded so completely in the face of a direct threat to freedom of speech, one of the hallmarks of a free and open society?
I'll repeat that Bush's overemphasis upon religiosity has come full circle to interfere with America's national security. To see such a crucial pivot point slip silently beneath the waves without the least hue and cry is simply disgusting.
Hmmm. So Gaza has a new Fatah head bully. D'ya think Hamas will let him fester, like we did with Tater, or d'ya think Meshaal will have this boil lanced?
Dozens of gunmen fired wildly into the air as a Gaza Strip strongman on Saturday rejected calls for an end to public displays of weapons, raising the risk of new factional violence. Samir Masharawi, a senior member of the Fatah Party in Gaza, spoke a day after four people were killed and 36 wounded in political unrest sparked by the killing of a top, Hamas-linked militant in a car bombing. His followers accused the Fatah-dominated Preventive Security Service and top Fatah officials in Gaza, including Masharawi, of involvement.
Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, appealed for calm Saturday and pledged to remove rogue gunmen from the streets of Gaza. But Masharawi, one of the most powerful figures in Gaza, rejected the call. Returning to Gaza from Egypt in a heavily armed convoy, Masharawi told reporters that he was offended by the "baseless" allegations against security forces and Fatah leaders and he would not be able to persuade his followers to hide their arms. "It seems that the brothers in Hamas forget that they are in power and represent a Palestinian government and are responsible for defending security institutions," he said. As he spoke, dozens of bodyguards fired repeatedly in the air.
Israeli counterterrorism expert Boaz Ganor said Hamas is in a "Catch-22" situation, wanting to gain international legitimacy while not yet willing to abandon its violent ideology. "They are trying to hold the stick from both ends," he said. "Maybe they can stop their own fire, but they can't speak out against others."
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/02/2006 00:00 ||
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Indonesia tightened security in key places after the United States and Australia warned of possible attacks against Westerners in the country on Sunday, police said.
Authorities deployed additional police at potential targets in the capital Jakarta and were also on guard in the resort island of Bali, a popular destination among Western tourists that has been a target of bomb attacks in the past.
"Police have increased security at several vital places and police officers are scattered at places that are known to be centres for foreigners," said Anton Bachrul Alam, deputy national police spokesman.
Antonius Reniban, Bali police spokesman, told Elshinta radio that the situation in Bali was normal but police were on high alert, especially at major tourist sites and religious places.
"We are committed to secure the safety of people in Bali by increasing the number of personnel at several tourist sites such as Kuta, Sanur, and Jimbaran," Reniban said.
"We have also increased security at ferry ports and are checking every vehicle that enters Bali. As for the airport, it's not a problem because it has the necessary security equipment like metal detectors to avoid an unwanted situation."
The heightened security came after the United States and Australia said last week that Sunday could be a potential date for an attack against Westerners and Western interests in Indonesia.
However, they also said that attacks could occur at any time, anywhere in Indonesia.
Canberra told Australians to reconsider travel to Indonesia and Bali, saying Westerners were priority targets for attacks and kidnappings.
"We continue to receive a stream of reporting indicating that terrorists are in the advanced stages of planning attacks against Western interests in Indonesia against a range of targets," the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/02/2006 04:01 ||
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However, they also said that attacks could occur at any time, anywhere in Indonesia.
Over the last three years, captured Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has given his CIA jailers a tutorial on the inner workings of his network's clandestine tradecraft - and how to keep members in line. Mohammed's terror seminar is detailed in a 58-page summary of his CIA interrogations that was entered last week in Zacarias Moussaoui's death penalty trial.
Lesson one is loyalty.
For command and control of its fanatics, al-Qaida has revived the almost medieval rite of "bayat," described as a "solemn spiritually bonding commitment to obey the commands of a single leader, or emir."
That emir, of course, is Osama bin Laden.
To become "made" in al-Qaida, a member would vow to bin Laden, "I listen to you, to listen and obey, and to die in the cause of God," Mohammed told his interrogators.
Lesson two: Keep it simple.
Mohammed scoffed at the bureaucratic system in Western intelligence agencies.
"I know the materialistic Western mind cannot grasp the idea ... but we do not submit written reports to higher-ups," he said.
Mohammed said he would travel for days to brief bin Laden. "I conducted the Sept. 11 operation by submitting only oral reports," Mohammed boasted. "Sometimes I scratched my notes on a small piece of paper 10-cm long," the size of a playing card. "But in the end, the operation was a success."
Secrecy is also vital to al-Qaida's survival.
"When four people know the details of an operation, it is dangerous," Mohammed explained. "When two people know, it is good. When just one person knows, it is better."
The vow of "bayat" allowed Mohammed to send most of the 19 members of the Sept. 11 teams to the United States without telling them why.
He said one top operative helping the hijackers was sent to the United Arab Emirates and told to send them money. "I never told him anything about the nature of the (Sept. 11) operation," Mohammed wrote.
As an example of the "need to know" rule, Mohammed said that 10 of the "muscle" hijackers on Sept. 11 were trained by butchering sheep and camels with Swiss army knives. They were also taught when and how to assault an airplane cockpit.
To make sure even the hijackers didn't know what was being planned, they also learned to hijack trains and blow up trucks and buildings.
Another rule was to keep your enemies guessing.
"We sent meaningless letters of a few lines. We spoke nonsense on the telephone," Mohammed said, assuming someone was watching and listening.
Mohammed conceded that sometimes simple wasn't good. He admitted his frustration in trying to teach Muhammad al-Qahtani to use telephone codes and e-mail. But Qahtani was valuable because he was one of the few al-Qaida members who had a U.S. visa.
When Qahtani arrived at a Florida airport in 2001, he acted so suspiciously that he was sent back on the next plane.
Mohammed concluded that Qahtani was "too much of a bedouin" - a desert tribesman - to function well in the West.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/02/2006 04:07 ||
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It is Al Qaeda policy to stage terrorist incidents in the West so that Western governments turn on Muslims, which will eventually radicalise the latter, bringing them on the same ideological wavelength as the organisation that Osama Bin Laden heads.
That's the standard objective of terrorism, to cause a state to become what the terrs already say it is. Objective One is to split the world into "us" and "them," with the "us" being defined as the terrorists' side. Read up on the FLN in Algeria. It's the classic case study. The state it led to was also a classic of brutality, not that Binny would be dwelling on that aspect of it with the Moose limbs.
Anatol Lieven, a former British journalist and now a resident scholar at a leading local think tank, speaking at an event at the Johns Hopkins University to launch Peter Bergens new book on Osama Bin Laden, said Al Qaeda colonised Afghanistan, taking advantage of the simplicity and naivety of the Taliban and their leadership, which was deeply deferential towards someone who hailed from Saudi Arabia, the heartland of Islam, and who also was wealthy.
They lorded it over the rubes, and the rubes ate it up. That Talibs had a harder time of it in the west and north of the country, which are rooted in Persian civilization. The pre-ayatollah Persians weren't nearly as impressed with the Arabs, since they had a genuine civilization of their own.
He said it should be remembered that the Soviet Union left Afghanistan not because it was driven out but because it was worn out. He said most Muslims, including Arabs, do not support the Al Qaeda philosophy or agenda.
But many sympathize with it, even if they don't overtly support it.
Lieven said alienated European Muslims, with their large population, are a danger to the United States. If the millions of Muslims who live in Europe become radicalised and democratic freedoms keep shrinking, that being the Al Qaeda objective, this large body of disaffected men would be a source of danger and instability to the West and the terrorist threat would become much worse than it is today.
The situation is reversed in Europe from what it was in Algeria. The pieds noires where a substantial minority, but they were still a minority. They now live in France. The European Muslims are a substantial minority, but if they push their collective luck they could end up living back in Ratholistan. They might not like it, but the ones who aren't slaughtered will be dumped. I'd say ask the Moriscos, but they are the Moriscos. They've just forgotten that part.
It is Al Qaedas strategy to keep hitting Western governments and societies so that they become radicalised and intolerant of Muslims, which, in turn, will pull Muslims into the Al Qaeda ideological net. This is the spiral that Al Qaeda wants Western Europe to get into, he added.
They're just not considering the possibility that they might lose the confrontation. I'm sure our grandchildren will be deeply ashamed of how barbaric we got, but if backed into the corner the Euros will fight them with the same viciousness they fought their historical wars.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/02/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Stephen Hayes from the Weekly Standard has unmasked MSM crony, Peter Bergen. I recommend the following:
#3
Koran "prophecy" dictates Muslim optimism concerning an army arising in "Korasan" (parts of Iran and surrounding states), and defeating armies of the "Dajjal" (Anti-Christ), to the West. The fact that the West is allowing hostile Muslims to immigrate, en masse, and treating their inherent aggression as a free exercise of conscience, delivers them a salient. Western academics are finally discovering that fostering "democracy" where there are no constitutional protections of human rights, is indulgence of tyranny. Yesterday, I posted this cause of al-Qaeda terror: "...polarization of Muslims and Westerners, in context of the West's engorgement on multi-cultural poison." Thank you. Closed-minded Westerners who hold to untenable spin-fictions about the enemy, are al-Qaeda's player-pianos.
Recently citizen scientist Forrest Mims told me about a speech he heard at the Texas Academy of Science during which the speaker, a world-renowned ecologist, advocated for the extermination of 90 percent of the human species in a most horrible and painful manner. Apparently at the speaker's direction, the speech was not video taped by the Academy and so Forrest's may be the only record of what was said. Forrest's account of what he witnessed chilled my soul. Astonishingly, Forrest reports that many of the Academy members present gave the speaker a standing ovation. To date, the Academy has not moved to sanction the speaker or distance itself from the speaker's remarks.
If the professional community has lost its sense of moral outrage when one if their own openly calls for the slow and painful extermination of over 5 billion human beings, then it falls upon the amateur community to be the conscience of science.
Forrest, who is a member of the Texas Academy and chairs its Environmental Science Section, told me he would be unable to describe the speech in The Citizen Scientist because he has protested the speech to the Academy and he serves as Editor of The Citizen Scientist . Therefore, to preclude a possible conflict of interest, I have directed Forrest to describe what he observed and his reactions in this special feature, for which I have served as editor and which is being released a week ahead of our normal publication schedule. Comments may be sent to Backscatter . Shawn Carlson, Ph.D., Founder and Executive Director, Society for Amateur Scientists.
There is always something special about science meetings. The 109th meeting of the Texas Academy of Science at Lamar University in Beaumont on 3-5 March 2006 was especially exciting for me, because a student and his professor presented the results of a DNA study I suggested to them last year. How fulfilling to see the baldcypress ( Taxodium distichum ) leaves we collected last summer and my tree ring photographs transformed into a first class scientific presentation that's nearly ready to submit to a scientific journal (Brian Iken and Dr. Deanna McCullough, "Bald Cypress of the Texas Hill Country: Taxonomically Unique?" 109th Meeting of the Texas Academy of Science Program and Abstracts [ PDF ], Poster P59, p. 84, 2006).
But there was a gravely disturbing side to that otherwise scientifically significant meeting, for I watched in amazement as a few hundred members of the Texas Academy of Science rose to their feet and gave a standing ovation to a speech that enthusiastically advocated the elimination of 90 percent of Earth's population by airborne Ebola. The speech was given by Dr. Eric R. Pianka (Fig. 1), the University of Texas evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert who the Academy named the 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist.
Something curious occurred a minute before Pianka began speaking. An official of the Academy approached a video camera operator at the front of the auditorium and engaged him in animated conversation. The camera operator did not look pleased as he pointed the lens of the big camera to the ceiling and slowly walked away.
This curious incident came to mind a few minutes later when Professor Pianka began his speech by explaining that the general public is not yet ready to hear what he was about to tell us. Because of many years of experience as a writer and editor, Pianka's strange introduction and the TV camera incident raised a red flag in my mind. Suddenly I forgot that I was a member of the Texas Academy of Science and chairman of its Environmental Science Section. Instead, I grabbed a notepad so I could take on the role of science reporter.
One of Pianka's earliest points was a condemnation of anthropocentrism, or the idea that humankind occupies a privileged position in the Universe. He told a story about how a neighbor asked him what good the lizards are that he studies. He answered, What good are you?
Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, We're no better than bacteria!
Pianka then began laying out his concerns about how human overpopulation is ruining the Earth. He presented a doomsday scenario in which he claimed that the sharp increase in human population since the beginning of the industrial age is devastating the planet. He warned that quick steps must be taken to restore the planet before it's too late.
Saving the Earth with Ebola
Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures . Then, and without presenting any data to justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number.
He then showed solutions for reducing the world's population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse . War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved.
Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one of which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets.
AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world's population is airborne Ebola ( Ebola Reston ), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. However, Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow and torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological calamities inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal organs.
After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully said, We've got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that.
With his slide of human skulls towering on the screen behind him, Professor Pianka was deadly serious. The audience that had been applauding some of his statements now sat silent.
After a dramatic pause, Pianka returned to politics and environmentalism. But he revisited his call for mass death when he reflected on the oil situation.
And the fossil fuels are running out, he said, so I think we may have to cut back to two billion, which would be about one-third as many people. So the oil crisis alone may require eliminating two-third's of the world's population.
How soon must the mass dying begin if Earth is to be saved? Apparently fairly soon, for Pianka suggested he might be around when the killer disease goes to work. He was born in 1939, and his lengthy obituary appears on his web site .
When Pianka finished his remarks, the audience applauded. It wasn't merely a smattering of polite clapping that audiences diplomatically reserve for poor or boring speakers. It was a loud, vigorous and enthusiastic applause.
Questions for Dr. Doom
Then came the question and answer session, in which Professor Pianka stated that other diseases are also efficient killers.
The audience laughed when he said, You know, the bird flu's good, too. They laughed again when he proposed, with a discernable note of glee in his voice that, We need to sterilize everybody on the Earth.
After noting that the audience did not represent the general population, a questioner asked, "What kind of reception have you received as you have presented these ideas to other audiences that are not representative of us?"
Pianka replied, "I speak to the converted!"
Pianka responded to more questions by condemning politicians in general and Al Gore by name, because they do not address the population problem and "...because they deceive the public in every way they can to stay in power."
He spoke glowingly of the police state in China that enforces their one-child policy. He said, "Smarter people have fewer kids." He said those who don't have a conscience about the Earth will inherit the Earth, "...because those who care make fewer babies and those that didn't care made more babies." He said we will evolve as uncaring people, and "I think IQs are falling for the same reason, too."
With this, the questioning was over. Immediately almost every scientist, professor and college student present stood to their feet and vigorously applauded the man who had enthusiastically endorsed the elimination of 90 percent of the human population. Some even cheered. Dozens then mobbed the professor at the lectern to extend greetings and ask questions. It was necessary to wait a while before I could get close enough to take some photographs (Fig. 1).
I was assigned to judge a paper in a grad student competition after the speech. On the way, three professors dismissed Pianka as a crank. While waiting to enter the competition room, a group of a dozen Lamar University students expressed outrage over the Pianka speech.
Yet five hours later, the distinguished leaders of the Texas Academy of Science presented Pianka with a plaque in recognition of his being named 2006 Distinguished Texas Scientist. When the banquet hall filled with more than 400 people responded with enthusiastic applause, I walked out in protest.
Corresponding with Dr. Doom
Recently I exchanged a number of e-mails with Pianka. I pointed out to him that one might infer his death wish was really aimed at Africans, for Ebola is found only in Central Africa. He replied that Ebola does not discriminate, kills everyone and could spread to Europe and the the Americas by a single infected airplane passenger.
In his last e-mail, Pianka wrote that I completely fail to understand his arguments. So I did a check and found verification of my interpretation of his remarks on his own web site. In a student evaluation of a 2004 course he taught, one of Professor Pianka's students wrote, "Though I agree that convervation [sic] biology is of utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that 90% of the human population should die of ebola [sic] is the most effective means of encouraging conservation awareness." (Go here and scroll down to just before the Fall 2005 evaluation section near the end.)
Yet the majority of his student reviews were favorable, with one even saying, I worship Dr. Pianka .
The 45-minute lecture before the Texas Academy of Science converted a university biology senior into a Pianka disciple, who then published a blog that seriously supports Pianka's mass death wish.
Dangerous Times
Let me now remove my reporter's hat for a moment and tell you what I think. We live in dangerous times. The national security of many countries is at risk. Science has become tainted by highly publicized cases of misconduct and fraud.
Must now we worry that a Pianka-worshipping former student might someday become a professional biologist or physician with access to the most deadly strains of viruses and bacteria? I believe that airborne Ebola is unlikely to threaten the world outside of Central Africa. But scientists have regenerated the 1918 Spanish flu virus that killed 50 million people. There is concern that small pox might someday return. And what other terrible plagues are waiting out there in the natural world to cross the species barrier and to which scientists will one day have access?
Meanwhile, I still can't get out of my mind the pleasant spring day in Texas when a few hundred scientists of the Texas Academy of Science gave a standing ovation for a speaker who they heard advocate for the slow and tortuous death of over five billion human beings.
#3
Never that, Shep. Dr. Pianka is obviously Too Important to the Movement® to be among the casualties. Only the best and the brightest ought to survive, you know.
#5
I had a hard time believing this, for various reasons.
But then I found this account of Pianka's talk by someone who admired it. It pretty much jibes with Mims's recollections.
Here are course evaluations from 1998 which show that Pianka was harping on about ebola at least eight years ago. This 2004 course description witters on about the same thing.
Morality aside, I find it pretty shocking that a biologist can't grasp the fact that humans have, to an extent, risen above biology. A disease that wiped out humanity would have to spring up very fast, before we had time to study it, and kill even the young and healthy very quickly.
And, I'll point out, if he thinks that humans have little use for biologists now, just wait until there's only 10% of us left.
Still don't know what this is doing on Page 1, though.
#10
"...evolutionary ecologist and lizard expert..."
Figures.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/02/2006 15:27 Comments ||
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Professor Pianka began his speech by explaining that the general public is not yet ready to hear what he was about to tell us.
Maybe that's because members of the general public might want to track down and kill someone espousing such dangerous and psychotic notions as an intentional pandemic release of Ebola.
Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, We're no better than bacteria!
Au contraire, I think a bacteria like brewer's yeast, for instance, serves a far more noble and valuable role in this world than does our lunatic Mr. Pianka. It is precisely full-goose-bozo wingnuts like this rectal cavity that propel the perjorative notion of the "mad scientist."
I would like to see this individual monitored and surveiled 24-7. His access to all microbiological R&D facilities and sequencing laboratories should be banned entirely. A thorough psychological review and personality index should be performed upon this individual immediately.
What we have is self-loathing brought to pinnacle elevation. This has nothing to do with ecology, liberalism or science.
He spoke glowingly of the police state in China that enforces their one-child policy.
You are staring into the face of naked elitism locked in the embrace of pure evil.
#13
We've been talking about this here for as long as Rantburg's been around -- this subconscious death wish that so many seem to have. And when someone gives voice to that death wish, he gets a standing ovation.
I almost wrote "this subconscious death wish that so many in the West seem to have." Then I pulled back and realized that it's almost everywhere. The industrialized countries aren't breeding. Dar al Islam is edging closer to Allah-daemerung every day. Africa is killing itself with AIDS. Scanning the whole world, only the US, India, Australia, and parts of Latin America seem to have escaped the death wish. Even in the US, the coastal elites would just as soon drag us down into the morass.
It's almost certain then, isn't it? The nexus represented by the Evironmental Liberation Front is at some point going to launch a war virus attack from within even while we battle Islamism in its quest to destroy itself and take the world down with it.
It will be interesting to see if the environmentalists try an indiscriminate attack or if they attempt to innoculate the "chosen" before releasing a weaponized agent. This reminds me a lot of the scenario in Vernor Vinge's Peace War, where environmentalists use weird physics and bio-war to reduce the human population and gain global dominance.
#20
OK, I'm going into full Joe M mode here. I don't know if I believe this myself, but I'm throwing it out there for discussion.
Education level seems to be the number one correlating factor for low fertility, both on an individual and national basis. What if that is masking a real correlation? What if the enviros are fighting a memetic war? Perhaps they have so infiltrated the educational establishment that the longer you are in it, the more you are exposed to their memes and the less likely it is that you'll reproduce?
I'll go even further out on a limb. We know from dealing with Salafism, that highly networked organizations tend towards multiple factions with common goals but different means. What if the militants in the environmental movement have lost faith with the moderates. What if they are tired of wandering around the wilderness and want the promised land right now, dammit!?
What would the promised land look like? If we take the 90% population reduction at face value and read between the lines of other environmentalist goals, then it would have a total population of 600M. The equatorial and polar regions would be human free and given back to "nature." The bulk of humanity would reside in the temperate zones. Of the remaining population, 2/3 to 3/4 would be farmers operating at a near subsistence level -- the indigenous peoples and peasants that the enviros always claim to be protecting. Above the peasant class, there would be another stratum analogous to the "bourgeoisie specialists" of the early Soviet era. They would only exist in numbers sufficient to keep the lights on, bits flowing, hospitals open and in general maintain a late 20th century quality of life for the elites.
The elites would certainly be no more than 100 million (though this could grow is they were open to allowing more modern farming techniques). They would be areligious, amoral, and free in their own minds to exercise whatever form of coercion necessary to maintain control over the lower social substratums. Their state would have totalitarian police powers. No dissent would be allowed on the basic social structure and the means required to maintain that structure. Otherwise, limited debate could be practiced. Technological progress would be zero.
#21
Our own home grown death cult. I agree that this guy should be denied access to microbio labs, and I'd flag his audience as suspicious also. The Unabomber only killed a few.
Posted by: James ||
04/02/2006 17:52 Comments ||
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#22
If you chart the statistics of lethal epidemics, it is obvious that they kill "from the bottom of the pyramid". This means that the poor, uneducated, in ill health, ill-fed, and in countries with poor sanitation and no concept of hygiene die off far more than healthy, educated people in wealthy and advanced countries.
I'm sure the "scientist" is aware of this fact.
So what he is really saying that he wants third and fourth world peasants to die. This is because he is an elitist pig who despises such people primarily because he is an elitist pig. He would hate these people just as much, and want them to die, even if there were only 10 million people on the planet.
He hates their races, their cultures, their very existence in nature--which he sees to be unnatural and destructive. They put "footie prints" all over his pristine sand dunes. They infect "his" nature with their presence, and they do not and cannot appreciate his evolved "aesthetic" of environmentalism.
In a manner of speaking, "he is not a vegetarian because he loves animals, he is a vegetarian because he hates plants."
When pressured, certainly he will point to *some* of the people living in developed countries that he believes need to die, too. These would be those "hoi polloi" living in red States, no doubt.
But invariably *none* of them will be in his personal cocktail circuit of "superior intellectuals" and armchair political activists.
Not surprisingly, however, nature has the last laugh on his clique, as while they might be credentialed from the finest schools, they are so sorely lacking in common sense and judgement that a healthy percentage of them, too, are culled when culling is in order.
Poetic justice, I suppose. You can't fool mother nature. She can spot defectives from a long distance.
#23
NS, I'd add another 5.4 for Denmark just on general principle.
Yes, DD, I thought that Tom Clancy did it better in Rainbow 6, although I think Michael Crichton's State of Fear is relevant too. Guys like this should be dropped naked and alone into the interior of New Guinea for about a year to get a feel for what the earth would be like without 90% of us.
#24
They would be areligious, amoral, and free in their own minds to exercise whatever form of coercion necessary to maintain control over the lower social substratums. Their state would have totalitarian police powers. No dissent would be allowed on the basic social structure and the means required to maintain that structure. Otherwise, limited debate could be practiced. Technological progress would be zero.
Read "Larry Niven, his Police Creation (The ARM) sounds just like this idea.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/02/2006 20:07 Comments ||
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#25
Rainbow Six:
"The cause of the sudden outbreak of terrorism is radical eco-terrorists, who are coincidentally owners of a large and successful biotechnology firm. They engineer a modified version of the Ebola virus, codenamed "Shiva"; they also engineer a vaccine for themselves. Their plan is to infect the world, killing everyone but their selected few, who will rebuild the world in a scientifically and environmentally friendly way."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Six_(book)
#27
No better than the Nazis and their eugenics. Just less straighforward about who they intend the master race to be.
Hint to the Biologists: you're going find the survivors to be the guys with the guns and the isolationist tendencies. Not exactly your ivory tower eletists who cannot survive otuside of modern society and all the scaffolding it requires "from the bottom tier".
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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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.
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdallah bin Abdulaziz on Saturday warned of the dangers of deviant thoughts on the Islamic nation and the image of Islam. 
The Government is to hold secret talks with defence chiefs tomorrow to discuss possible military strikes against Iran. A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence at which senior defence chiefs and government officials will consider the consequences of an attack on Iran. It is believed that an American-led attack, designed to destroy Iran's ability to develop a nuclear bomb, is "inevitable" if Teheran's leaders fail to comply with United Nations demands to freeze their uranium enrichment programme. A high-level meeting will take place in the Ministry of Defence. Tomorrow's meeting will be attended by Gen Sir Michael Walker, the chief of the defence staff, Lt Gen Andrew Ridgway, the chief of defence intelligence and Maj Gen Bill Rollo, the assistant chief of the general staff, together with officials from the Foreign Office and Downing Street.
The largest Kashmiri militant group fighting Indian rule on Saturday derided a peace process between India and Pakistan and said separatists talking with the two governments were gaining nothing. The fact is that the ongoing dialogue process between India and Pakistan is useless, futile and a waste of time, 
But Masharawi, one of the most powerful figures in Gaza, rejected the call. Returning to Gaza from Egypt in a heavily armed convoy, Masharawi told reporters that he was offended by the "baseless" allegations against security forces and Fatah leaders and he would not be able to persuade his followers to hide their arms. "It seems that the brothers in Hamas forget that they are in power and represent a Palestinian government and are responsible for defending security institutions," he said. As he spoke, dozens of bodyguards fired repeatedly in the air.
It is Al Qaeda policy to stage terrorist incidents in the West so that Western governments turn on Muslims, which will eventually radicalise the latter, bringing them on the same ideological wavelength as the organisation that Osama Bin Laden heads.
Recently citizen scientist Forrest Mims told me about a speech he heard at the Texas Academy of Science during which the speaker, a world-renowned ecologist, advocated for the extermination of 90 percent of the human species in a most horrible and painful manner. Apparently at the speaker's direction, the speech was not video taped by the Academy and so Forrest's may be the only record of what was said. Forrest's account of what he witnessed chilled my soul. Astonishingly, Forrest reports that many of the Academy members present gave the speaker a standing ovation. To date, the Academy has not moved to sanction the speaker or distance itself from the speaker's remarks. 
