#5
The pre-school series, which will be shown on the al-Jazeera's children's channel, is described by S4C as "a live action series following the exploits of an extended family of musical, multi-racial sheep".
MAZAR-E-SHARIF (Rantburg News Service): Afghan holy men and their minions have threatened violence against the government unless a Christian convert spirited out of the country is returned so they can indulge their blood lust. About 1000 hysterical rubes gathered in a mosque in the northeastern town of Kunduz on Sunday and demanded that Abdul Rahman, 40, be brought back from Italy and sentenced to slow, lingering death. Sheikh Mohammad Baqir, a holy man and organiser of the rally, said: "This act of the government is illegal," referring to Abdul Rahman's release. "We have a right to see his blood, to see all his blood! To dip our hands in it! To wallow in it! Blood is the very essence of Islam!"
"Either he should be tried or the government should go. We urge other provinces to raise their voices and if the government doesn't listen, we will resort to violence," he said, attracting calls of "Allah akbar" (Holy Shit God is the greatest) from the crowd. "Violence is the other essence of Islam!" Police refused to let the gathering leave the mosque and march through the town, for fear of it going nutz turning violent.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under:
#4
The West is still waiting for Binny's trial for apostasy. He is apostate from Islam, isn't he? Maybe not. Malaysia prohibits Christian conversion from Islam, and promotion of same, and jails offenders for 3 years. Yet they allow Al-Qaeda terror tapes to be sold anywhere:
http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/4/3/nation/13839613&sec=nation
I guess Binny gets the CAIR seal of approval.
Sudan denied yesterday accusations by Chad that it supported gunmen who battled Chadian troops in fighting that killed dozens, the latest tensions between the two nations. Chad's government claimed a day earlier that armed men "backed by the Khartoum government" crossed into Chad on Thursday and attacked the town of Modeina. Twelve Chadian troops and dozens of the attackers were killed, and some 4,000 civilians were driven from their homes, Chad said.
Sudanese Army spokesman Brig. Osman Mohamed Al-Aghbash said the accusations of Sudanese support for the fighters were "unfounded and lack substantiating evidence." Khartoum is fully committed to promises made last month in the Libyan capital Tripoli that Sudan and Chad would avoid backing rebels in each other's territory, Al-Aghbash told the official Sudan news agency. "What is happening inside Chad is an internal Chadian question and the Sudanese army has nothing to do with it," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
A fatwa issued by Egypt's top religious authority which forbids the display of statues has art-lovers fearing it could be used by Islamic extremists as an excuse to destroy Egypt's historical heritage.
Egypt's Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa, the country's top Islamic jurist, issued the religious edict which declared as un-Islamic the exhibition of statues in homes, basing the decision on texts in the hadith (sayings of the prophet).
Intellectuals and artists argue that the decree represents a setback for art -- a mainstay of the multi-billion-dollar tourist industry -- and would deal a blow to the country's fledgling sculpture business.
The fatwa did not specifically mention statues in museums or public places, but it condemned sculptors and their work.
Still, many fear the edict could prod Islamic fundamentalists to attack Egypt's thousands of ancient and pharaonic statues on show at tourist sites across the country.
"We don't rule out that someone will enter the Karnak temple in Luxor or any other pharaonic temple and blow it up on the basis of the fatwa," Gamal al-Ghitani, editor of the literary Akhbar al-Adab magazine, told AFP.
Gomaa had pointed to a passage from the hadith that stated: "Sculptors would be tormented most on Judgment Day," saying the text left no doubt that sculpting was "sinful" and using statues for decorating homes forbidden.
Gomaa's ruling overturned a fatwa issued over 100 years ago by then moderate and highly respected mufti Mohammed Abdu, permitting the private display of statues after the practice had been condemned as a pagan custom.
Abdu's fatwa had "closed the issue, as it ruled that statues and pictures are not haram (forbidden under Islam) except idols used for worship," Ghitani pointed out.
Novelist Ezzat al-Qamhawi said Gomaa's ruling would "return Muslims to the dark ages."
Movie director Daud Abdul Sayed said the fatwa "simply ignored the spiritual evolvement of Muslims since the arrival of Islam... Clearly, it was natural that they forbid statues under early Islam because people worshipped them.
"But are there Muslims worshipping statues nearly 15 centuries later?" he asked.
The notion sounds "ridiculous," Yussef Zidan, director of the manuscript museum at the prestigious Bibliotheca Alexandrina, told AFP.
"Why would anyone even bring up the issue in a country where there are more than 10 state-owned institutions that teach sculpting and more than 20 others that teach the history of art?"
Ghitani added: "It's time for those placing impediments between Islam and innovation to get out of our lives."
The wave of criticisms against the fatwa has put clerics on a collision course with intellectuals and artists, who say that such edicts only reinforce claims that Islam is against progress.
Some, including Sayed, compared Gomaa's edict to a similar one issued by the former fundamentalist Taliban rulers of Afghanistan that led to the destruction of statues of the Buddha despite international outcry.
Mainstream Islamic scholars, including Egypt's then mufti, Nasr Farid Wasel, and the controversial Qatar-based Islamic scholar, Yussef al-Qaradawi, all condemned the Taliban's actions in March 2001.
But Qaradawi joined Gomaa in declaring that statues used for decoration are "haram" or un-Islamic.
"Islam proscribed statues, as long as they symbolise living entities such as human beings and animals," Qaradawi said on an Islamic website.
"Islam proscribed all that leads to paganism or smells of it, statues of ancient Egyptians included," he added.
The only exception, he said, was "children's toys."
Gomaa was appointed as grand mufti by President Hosni Mubarak. The mufti's fatwas carry much weight and generally represent the official line.
His legitimacy is often challenged by other Muslims over his affiliation to the government and his edicts are not always followed.
The government can choose to enforce or ignore the ruling and its reaction in the past often depended on public opinion.
The Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's main political opposition force, dismissed the fatwa.
"The people are more concerned with corruption. What they would like to see is a fatwa banning the presence of the same people at the helm of the country for 25 years and not against statues," the movement's spokesman Issam al-Aryan told AFP.
Gomaa has already put out a few contentious decrees and appears set to break his predecessor mufti Wasel's record on notorious fatwas.
Wasel stirred a controversy in July 2001 for issuing a fatwa against a popular television show, the Arab version of "Who wants to be a millionaire?" that was airing on Egyptian television, saying it was forbidden by Islam.
"These contests are a modern form of betting," Wasel had said.
The show was eventually cancelled, although it was not clear if the move was related to the fatwa.
In another fatwa in May 2001, Wasel ruled that beauty pageants in which women appear half-naked in front of panels of male judges are haram. The authorities played deaf and Egypt continues to host them.
Wasel slapped a fatwa on watching solar eclipses and another on bullfights, but refused to support rights activists in their campaign to outlaw female genital mutilation.
#9
I'm beginning to think the Hadiths as currently interpreted by the Salafists are basically meant to implement a variation of Islam where only the Saudis are allowed to make a decent living.
#10
The KORAN/QURAN only says for Muslims not to have or display objects which induce or cause Muslims to engage in sin and hate God, which in my interpretation does not extend to one being proud of one's familial or national past, e.g. ancient Egypt and its Pharonic dynasties.
ON Christmas Eve, 1989, a small force of about 100 men led by an obscure former Liberian government official crossed the border from Ivory Coast into Nimba County in northern Liberia.
According to local legend, recounted by the Africa scholar Stephen Ellis in his book "The Mask of Anarchy," a baby born in Monrovia, Liberia's capital, miraculously spoke English straight from the womb. It told its mother that a rain of death would fall Christmas Day, and that it did not want to live in such a vicious world, and promptly drew its last breath.
On Dec. 25, in a driving rain, the news that Charles Taylor had attacked Liberia reached Monrovia. As the child predicted, a rain of death soon drenched West Africa. It would last 14 years.
On Wednesday, with the apocalyptic deluge at a halt, Mr. Taylor was arrested on the tarmac at Monrovia's airport and whisked immediately here, where he sat in a jail cell at an international court set up to try suspected war criminals in Sierra Leone's brutal, decade-long civil war, which Mr. Taylor is accused of starting and supporting.
In Mr. Taylor's rise and fall, one can glean the story of West Africa, a history of death, turmoil and tragedy. In many ways he was the perfect man to exploit the drawn-out ending of one era the slow demise of nationalist Big Man politics and the beginning of another, in which warlords presiding over small, nonideological insurgencies played havoc across much of the region, enriching themselves and laying waste to their homelands.
Indeed, the term Big Man, an overworked cliché of African reportage, seems almost too small in describing Mr. Taylor, and calling him a warlord fails to grasp the breadth of his ambition.
It was his blend of the two roles that proved so diabolical and deadly. By the time he was pushed from power in 2003, more than 300,000 people had died in conflicts he ignited. His forces and allies had looted Liberia and Sierra Leone, and parts of their neighbors, down to the studs. Millions of people had been scattered into half a dozen nations around West Africa. From Liberia alone he is believed to have stolen at least $100 million as president between 1997 and 2003.
"Taylor had a map he carried around with him called Greater Liberia," said Douglas Farah, an analyst and author who has written extensively about Mr. Taylor's links of criminal and terrorist networks. "It included parts of Guinea, diamond fields in Sierra Leone. It wasn't something abstract to him. He had a very clear idea of what he was trying to achieve. He had a grandiose plan, and he almost succeeded."
Mr. Taylor was born outside Monrovia, his mother a housekeeper from the Gola tribe and his father a teacher descended from the returned slaves who founded Liberia.
He was a student activist in the 1970's, railing against the corrupt regime of William Tolbert. Then he went to Bentley College in Massachusetts to study economics. He returned to Liberia in 1980, just in time to see a young army sergeant, Samuel Doe, topple Mr. Tolbert's government, murdering the president.
Mr. Taylor immediately insinuated himself into Mr. Doe's clique, and eventually took control of the government's purchasing arm. He fled back to the United States after falling out with Mr. Doe, taking with him $1 million he allegedly embezzled from the government.
He was jailed in Massachusetts, but escaped in 1985 by sawing through the bars of his jail cell. Once back in Africa, he met with Liberian dissidents in Ghana and then made common cause with revolutionaries in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and, most critically, Libya, where Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi was plotting and supporting a continent-wide revolution. In Libya, he trained in camps that also trained men who would later play starring roles in the great African tragedies of the 1990's; they included Sierra Leone's Foday Sankoh, whose rebel movement would become best known for hacking off the arms and legs of civilians, and the Congo's Laurent Kabila, the central figure in a complex civil war that ultimately killed four million people.
With money and arms from Libya and the political and financial backing of Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, he crossed into Liberia in December 1989. He had never been a soldier and had only a small force behind him. Still, he managed to wreak havoc on an almost unprecedented scale and dominate much of the region for more than a decade. How did he do it?
In part, Mr. Taylor was adept at using and even creating the language of his times. He blended a militant pan-Africanism that called for bloody revolutions against neo-colonialism with a muscular vernacular in which might was unapologetically right. The new pose fit well with the region's mood.
"There is a very strong current within West African diplomacy which basically says you make a deal with the strongest actor because if you don't that person will go back to the bush and fight or otherwise destabilize the situation," said Mike McGovern, an anthropologist with the International Crisis Group who has studied West Africa's conflicts.
At the heart of Taylor's horrific genius was an ability to manipulate West Africa's political, social and cultural values, seeming to smash deep taboos while subtly co-opting them for his purposes.
In societies where power had always come with age and young people grew frustrated under the authority of elders, he espoused a smash-and-grab philosophy. Unable to marry without "bride wealth," or dowries, and lacking means to start their own lives until their fathers and uncles died and passed on wealth and land, these young men proved ideal foot soldiers.
His commanders would force boys to kill their parents or other family members, breaking the ultimate taboo, then ply them with methamphetamines, marijuana and other drugs to keep their killing instincts keen. Often their pay came in the form of a license to rape and plunder.
Yet even as he undermined traditional respect for elders, he subtly substituted himself in those elders' place, simultaneously enthralling and enslaving a generation of young boys who slaughtered on his behalf.
This explains his supporters' chilling election campaign cry in 1997: "He killed my ma, he killed my pa, I'll vote for him."
Mr. Taylor also co-opted the secret societies that dominate life in many West African countries, like the Poro hunting society in Liberia. This gave him access to a world of unseen power and allowed him to project an aura of mystery and invincibility. Rumors that he practiced cannibalism, human sacrifice and blood atonement rituals merely added to his mystique.
"He created an aura around him of a man allied to powerful forces you cannot easily comprehend," said Mr. Ellis, the historian.
Mr. Taylor surrounded himself with objects of protection scepters carved from sacred trees and amulets of invisibility. It was impossible to say whether he really believed in these objects, or merely used them as props.
He used conventional Christianity as well, managing to convince the Rev. Jesse Jackson, former President Jimmy Carter and the evangelist Pat Robertson that he was at heart a good Baptist Christian.
Mr. Taylor also had plenty of money. In his hands, the Liberian state essentially became an adjunct to organized crime and terrorist networks that included Al Qaeda.
"He ran this amazingly complex criminal enterprise where the state could provide critical things like diplomatic passports and airplane registration to a range of criminal networks," Mr. Farah said.
Even before he was elected president in 1997, the vast countryside he controlled, with its rich endowment of diamonds, rubber and timber, generated an estimated $100 million in revenues a year. During his time as president, diplomats sometimes referred to Liberia as "Charles Taylor Inc."
Undoubtedly a greedy man, Mr. Taylor was not, however, stingy with his friends, Mr. Farah said. He was more than willing to share the wealth he looted with the regional powerbrokers who sponsored him, like Libya and Burkina Faso.
But mostly he ruled through fear. Even now, in a jail cell here, he made West Africans tremble. Liberia and Sierra Leone asked that he be transferred to the Hague for trial.
Tamba Ngawucha, whose hands were amputated by rebels backed by Mr. Taylor during the war in Sierra Leone, said he was glad the tyrant arrested. But when asked if he should be tried here, Mr. Ngawucha's eyes widened.
"We don't want any Charles Taylor here," Mr. Ngawucha said, flailing the dimpled stumps where his hands once were for emphasis. "We are too afraid he will hurt us again. We just want peace."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/03/2006 03:25 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
RIYADH (Reuters) - Tired of playing second fiddle to men in conservative Saudi Arabia, five women decided if you can't beat them, join them...
Al Watan newspaper said the five women underwent sex change surgery abroad over the past 12 months after they developed a "psychological complex" due to male domination.
Women in Saudi Arabia, which adopts an austere interpretation of Islam, are not allowed to drive or even go to public places unaccompanied by a male relative.
The newspaper quoted a senior cleric as saying the authorities have to fill what he described as a legal vacuum by issuing laws against sex change operations.
An interior ministry official told al Watan such cases are examined by religious authorities, and sometimes by psychologists, but those who undergo sex change are never arrested.
The mullahs are really looking to fill a vaccuum? Probably cause with fewer women to vaccuum they need to be more efficient. Hoover or Dirt Devil?
Posted by: Allah ||
04/03/2006 13:20 Comments ||
Top||
#2
But they need to allow the men to women change because when an Iman gets caught having sex with a guy, they can change the guy into a woman and not have to discipline the Iman. This (that is the w to m change to evade sin) has actually taken place a few times in various parts of the Islamic world.
#3
I don't remember exactly because I've got a short attention span born of too much surfing on cheezy porn sites, but there has been at least one story here of the iranian MM forcing homosexuals to undergo sex change operation, male to female.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,
a tale of a foreign land.
That has a most true tropic clime,
where bikinis can't be seen.
The king was a corrupt oil man,
the crown prince followed suit.
Five women said, "We've had enough!"
"We'll change our pluming now, change our plumbing now!"
The mullahs started getting mad,
there was no law against.
"If we don't stop all this madness now,
Paradise would be lost; Paradise would be lost."
The mullahs set forth to fill the serious legal vacuum there,
Where kites are banned, and chess is too,
Cut out your tongue...if you sing,
Where movies are banned,
The women all wear big black tents,
there Saudi Land!
At least 50 students were injured as the Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS) clashed with the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD) at Jessore Govt MM College yesterday. Assistant Superintendent of Police Jillur Rahman, Officer in-charge of Jessore Police Station Mostafa Kamal and Sub-inspector Abdul Karim were also injured as police tried to stop the students from fighting over supremacy on the campus.
The clashes were triggered as Shibir men allegedly attacked JCD activists Shobhan and Monir around 12:30pm on the campus. JCD and other student organisations including the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), Jatiya Chhatra Front and Biplabi Chhatra Moitri retaliated, leading to a series of clashes that continued till 2:30pm. Jalal Uddin, principal of the college, told the journalists the clashes took place as the student organisations were trying to establish their supremacy on the campus.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[5 views]
Top|| File under:
The laws of war need to be redrawn by the international community, John Reid, defence secretary, will say today, to eliminate the causes of legal anomalies, of which the US detention centre on Guantanamo Bay is the glaring example.
Talking to the Royal United Service Institute for Defence and Security Studies, Mr Reid will argue that the Geneva Conventions, signed in 1949, were written for a world of state-to-state conflict and fail to meet all the needs of today's battles against terrorist groups and insurgents.
"Until recently it was assumed that only states could cause mass casualties and our rules, conventions and laws are largely predicated on that basis," he will say. "That is no longer the case. I believe we now need to debate whether we - the international community in its widest sense - need to re-examine these conventions. If we do not, we risk going on fighting a 21st century conflict with 20th century rules."
One possible move, to which Mr Reid makes an implicit reference, would be to agree a new protocol to the Geneva Conventions to apply the same rules to battles with al-Qaeda-style insurgents, so both sides have a clear duty to obey the standard provisions.
Except that al-Qaeda won't, and hasn't, and wouldn't even if you changed the Convention. This sorta blows the whole theory, doesn't it?
At present the UK and the US say they are not bound by the Geneva Conventions in fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, although the UK obeys its dictates "voluntarily" and that the enemy side is operating in legal limbo.
The US has sought to develop an idea of enemy combatants, who when detained are neither prisoners of war nor ordinary criminals. Extending the conventions would make such fighters subject to criminal proceedings, so ridding the US of any need to detain them in Guantanamo-style centres.
Except that we don't see them as criminals, we see them as terrorists. If they were criminals we'd just return them to Karzai with a sotto-voce hint to dispose of the trouble-makers quickly. They're terrorists, and we're holding them for various reasons, one of the more important being, as long as we hold them, they won't be out there trying to kill Americans.
Mr Reid's speech will focus on updating the international legal system to deal not only with modern terrorism but also with issues of potential genocide and responses to imminent threats.
Sure, that'll go well, just what we need, another definition of 'genocide'. We have one of those already, it's just that no one will do anything about it.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/03/2006 02:57 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I couldn't agree more, we need new rules. Now, what was the penalty for those who don't follow the rules of war ? Cartoons would be made ? Name calling ? Scarlet letters issued ?
We need a phukan reality check.
#2
One possible move, to which Mr Reid makes an implicit reference, would be to agree a new protocol to the Geneva Conventions to apply the same rules to battles with al-Qaeda-style insurgents, so both sides have a clear duty to obey the standard provisions.
*sigh*
There's already a Protocol that would treat al'Qaeda, et. al. the same as regular army -- but the US (and apparently Britain) refused to sign onto the damned thing because it essentialy turns the entire GC into a circle jerk instead of something meaningful.
You can't unilaterally declare that both sides will follow rules. Both sides have to follow them, on their own initiative, and there has to be a penalty for violating them. You can make all the declarations you want, sign all the papers you want, and the terrorists of the world will still be aiming at children, the elderly, non-combatants in general.
There's only one way to put an end to that -- make terrorism and supporting terrorism to freaking dangerous that anyone even putting the idea forward is lynched by his neighbors.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/03/2006 9:24 Comments ||
Top||
#3
"Lessee...who's heading the GC rules re-writing committee this month? Is it Algeria or Chad? The US? No sorry, the US will have to sit this one out, I'm afraid, can't have the fox guarding the henhouse, you understand."
#4
I for one look forward to the day when we (the US) follows the letter and spirit of the existing Genevea Conventions that we have already signed.
Of course, that means that anyone caught in the battlefield carrying a weapon, but not wearing a uniform, is, ipso facto, an illegal combatant.
That brings an automatic firing squad after a VERY short tribunal.
When and if al-Quaeda signs and follows the Geneva convention, and their forces start wearing uniforms, protecting non-combatants, and all the other parts of the GC, then we can start treating their "soldiers" as soldiers.
#5
We don't follow the Geneva rules. We actually detain and later release terrorists. According to the rules, if you aren't wearing a uniform or a symbol of a recongnized country or government, you have no rights and the other side has every right to lynch, shoot or otherwise put you out of their misery.
The women, some trembling, grasp the assault rifles and awkwardly lower themselves into sniper positions as they take aim and fire at white targets in the distance. Dressed in jeans and sneakers, the women are the unlikely heart of a new civilian militia being trained as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warns his country must be ready for a 'war of resistance' against the United States. The U.S. government dismisses Chavez's claims of a possible invasion as ridiculous. But Chavez insists Venezuelans must be prepared for anything, citing a short-lived 2002 coup that briefly unseated him.
Housewives, students, construction workers, social workers and many unemployed have signed up for the Territorial Guard. Lt. Col. Rafael Angel Faria Villalobos, who led the training for 900 volunteers on their first day of bootcamp Saturday, said 20 weeks of instruction will turn them into resistance fighters prepared to defend their communities in the event of a conflict. 'Those who come here have never fired a shot in their lives,' he said.
Ten at a time, the volunteers lined up as officers coached them to fire the military's standard-issue Belgian FAL assault rifles from standing, kneeling and prone positions at numbered targets in an open field. Territorial Guard volunteers aren't issued weapons, but commanders said guns would be made available in emergency situations. 'It was exciting, too good,' gushed Yomaira Alas, a 28-year-old housewife, after firing the gun for the first time.
Officials say the force will be capable of defending communities, protecting hospitals and schools, keeping order and preventing looting. Some Chavez opponents have expressed concern the force could be used to quell internal dissent. But soldiers who led Saturday's drills made clear U.S. troops were the hypothetical enemy as men and women swarmed across an obstacle course of barbed wire, burning tires and concrete fortifications. 'Kill the gringo! That gringo is taking away your women,' yelled a soldier as he tossed a man a rifle to butt a target - a military uniform stuffed with straw. A siren wailed while the acrid smell of smoke hung in the air.
Besides the Territorial Guard, Chavez also has called for an army reserve of 1 million fighters and has sealed arms deals to supply regular soldiers with 100,000 new Kalashnikov assault rifles and helicopters from Russia. Despite Chavez's warnings of a possible U.S. invasion, many trainees said they feel it's a remote possibility. There were light moments during the drills as some snapped photos, stumbled on the obstacle course amid laughter and talked excitedly after target practice.
'I'm having a great time,' said Sujeidy Pereira, 25, through smiles. Giggling, she added: 'Fatherland or death.'
How sweet
Posted by: Steve ||
04/03/2006 09:09 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Officials say the force will be capable of defending communities, protecting hospitals and schools, keeping order and preventing looting. Some Chavez opponents have expressed concern the force could be used to quell internal dissent.
And one day they could break bad on El Presidente, himself.
#5
Assuming we did invade, I think someone else mentioned we had a 500-1 kill ratio against Sadr's militia. Militias might be good for keeping your own people down but they're not really effective as a military force.
#6
COASTTOCOASTAM.com had reference to a UT instructor-scholar named ED PIANKA? whom argued that 90% [or more?] of the world's human population must be eliminated in order for the earth to recover from various enviro crises, both natural and espec those caused by mankind. CTC's description/links all indic that Pianka's audience clapped and cheered when he finished his presentation. GUESS CHAVEZ HAS HIGH CONFIDENCE THAT HE WILL BE PART OF THE SURVIVING 10% [or less], INSTEAD OF THE APPROX 5.8Bilyuuuhn [or more]TO BE ELIMINATED.
His public image as a devout Muslim warrior who frets about the morals of Chechnya's population as much as he worries about separatist rebels has been carefully constructed by spin-doctors.
But Chechnya's pro-Moscow Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov has suffered a public relations reversal after allegedly becoming ensnared in an embarrassing sex scandal that has made his increasingly loud moral preaching look rather hollow.
Though the scandal has received little play in the Russian media, it is potentially embarrassing for President Vladimir Putin since the Kremlin has chosen Ramzan as its point man in the strife-torn republic.
Ramzan's aides have laughed off the scandal, which involves grainy video footage of a man identical in appearance and voice to Ramzan cavorting in a sauna with two prostitutes, as a "provocation."
The Chechen government publicly dismissed the clip and a criminal case into 'defamation of a government official' has reportedly been opened.
True or not, the footage is damaging for Ramzan, 29, since he is married with children and has made a name for himself by criticising the media for broadcasting "immoral programmes" and by urging Chechen women to wear headscarves.
In recent months he has made much of his Muslim credentials by outlawing gambling as a "corrupting influence," clamping down on alcohol sales, promising to build the biggest mosque in the region and by partially introducing Shariah law.
Indeed, so concerned is he to uphold the honour of Chechnya's women that he was recently reported to have issued an order for women's mobile phones to be monitored to ensure that young wives are not in contact with ex-boyfriends.
The offending sauna footage was shot on a mobile phone and first appeared on a Chechen rebel website.
The rebels regard Ramzan as a 'phoney Muslim' who is trying to hijack their religious beliefs to quell separatist sentiment.
Anna Politkovskaya, a veteran Russian reporter who specialises in Chechnya, has added credibility to the clip's authenticity by claiming that she, too, has been sent video footage of a man identical in appearance to Ramzan.
Her claims go beyond debauched infidelity.
"On them (the clips)," she told a website, "were the murders of federal servicemen by Kadyrovtsy (Ramzan's private army), and also kidnappings directed by Kadyrov.
These are very serious things; on the basis of them, a criminal case and investigation should follow.
This could allow this person to be brought to justice, something he has long richly deserved." However Ramzan has become too powerful for the Kremlin to remove easily and is expected in time to become the republic's president, a job his father did before he was assassinated.
Yesterday he was back on state TV - ironically he was talking about a beauty contest he is organising for 200 Chechen girls.
Like good daughters anywhere, Mayumi and Kaori Asahara worry about their father's declining health. They are alarmed that he looks so thin and won't see a doctor. They fret that he refuses to wear the new clothes they gave him to replace his fraying old ones.
But they desperately need something back from their father too. They are seeking an explanation of why the man who taught them to cherish life, even that of an ant, could be a cult leader responsible for Japan's worst terrorist attack.
"I need to ask my father directly what happened," said Kaori Asahara, who was 12 in 1995 when her father ordered the Aum Supreme Truth cult's sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway that killed 12 people and made thousands ill.
On death row, Shoko Asahara isn't talking to anyone. Not to the two daughters who visit him regularly, not to his own lawyers who have tried in more than 140 meetings to get him to help formulate a defense that might save his life.
Asahara, 50, has been sentenced to death, and his time for final appeals has run out. In Japan's secretive penal system, he could be sent to the gallows at any time. But the prospect that he will provide any insight into his motives is becoming slimmer and slimmer.
Still, Kaori and Mayumi say he should not be executed. They say that their father is mentally ill and incapable of understanding what is happening to him, that he is a helpless cripple who must wear diapers to keep from soiling his clothes. He sits in a wheelchair, head lolling to one side. His left hand scratches idly at a leg or his chest.
He does not speak. He only mumbles, making no requests and seeking no last-minute mercy.
Mayumi Asahara, who has visited her father 28 times over the last 19 months, said he was "like a doll."
That is not the image the rest of Japan holds of Asahara. Prosecutors and prison officials contend the cult leader is feigning mental illness in an attempt to escape justice.
And when Japanese close their eyes they still see Asahara as he was when he was orchestrating mayhem: A white-robed guru with a flowing black beard and glass eye, a man who twisted the minds of well-educated men and women who seemed indistinguishable from everyone's else's sons and daughters. The image has become the icon of evil in modern Japan.
But the man in the picture is also a flesh-and-blood father whose children are paying heavily for his sins.
They have been bullied and banned from schools and fired from numerous jobs. They say they still are trailed by police and chased by media that manage to find them every time they move.
Now in their 20s, Kaori and Mayumi grew up in the Aum cult and recalled a very happy childhood.
"We were told: Do not kill and be kind to other people," Kaori said in an interview with three foreign journalists at the offices of her father's defense team. "Now we are told my father directed others to kill people, so there is a very big gap.
"I think the image of the last 11 years is more famous now," she said, tears welling in her eyes.
It was the only time during the interview that either daughter, dressed in sober business suits, cried. Both acknowledged it was "a fact" that the gas attack victims suffered, but said they did not have words to express their feelings about what happened.
Their father's lawyer said they agreed to talk with foreign media because they saw it as their last chance to pressure authorities to provide psychiatric help to Asahara instead of executing him.
The sisters say there is no point talking to Japanese media, which they say are more interested in reporting salacious details about Asahara's prison life.
"Some Japanese media say you are the children of devils so you don't have any rights," Kaori said.
"Whatever I do is all broadcast and most of it isn't true . Rather than try to change our image, we just want them to forget about us."
But the family has not been able to drop below the radar.
Their mother was found guilty in 1999 of conspiring with her husband to kill another cult member. She was released from jail in 2002.
The Aum cult was declared illegal in the wake of the gas attack, but has been reconstituted as a legal group called Aleph. The sisters denied they were members of Aleph or any organized religion, and said they received no money from it.
"When the name was changed to Aleph, they sent us a form and asked if we would like to submit a subscription," Kaori said. "We did not."
The family name has cost Kaori part-time jobs as a golf caddy, convenience store clerk, waitress and grocery deliverer. She said she was fired from all of them when her identity was exposed.
"The managers would say, 'I'm sorry, but ,' " Kaori said. Her close friends know who she is, and some have been harassed by reporters seeking gossip.
Two years ago, Kaori went to court when three Japanese universities refused to honor acceptance offers after finding out who her father was.
The courts overturned the ban and Kaori is attending one of the schools, which she declined to name.
"I am studying psychiatry so I can understand about my internal condition and understand other people from a scientific point of view," she said.
She already has had rare insight into human behavior.
Years ago, when bullying at elementary school drove their elder sister to cut her wrists and they feared she would kill herself, the family sought a meeting with the school principal to ask him to intervene.
They received no sympathy.
"The headmaster said: 'Your sister's life is only one. But many people lost their lives in the sarin attacks,' " Mayumi said.
In February, a junior high school refused to admit Asahara's youngest son. The principal said he could not guarantee the safety of other students since the 11-year-old, who was a newborn when his father was arrested, could conceivably be under the influence of the cult.
"The school never even interviewed the son; they just acted on the basis of the Asahara image," said Takashi Matsui, one of Asahara's defense lawyers. He said the boy and Asahara's other son had been prevented from attending elementary school.
Mayumi, 25, says she has no friends and doesn't go out much because she fears being followed. Instead, she studies law by correspondence.
In visits since August 2004, she has recorded her father's condition in notebooks, page after page of his mumbles and her impressions. And she looks for signs that prison officials are lying about his condition.
Prosecutors and prison officials say he acknowledges questions with a mumbled Japanese phrase that means "I understand."
"But he says the phrase even when he's alone," Mayumi said.
The sisters would like to move on with their lives, but won't as long as their father is alive.
Kaori visited Toronto last year and reveled in the freedom of being someplace where no one knew her.
"It was only there that I finally understood about the heavy pressure I'm under in Japan," she said. She would like to leave permanently, but for the time being that is not an option.
"Of course many things are bitter," she says. "But I think I would regret it if I didn't do everything for my father's case."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/03/2006 03:15 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Change your name, if you refuse then you want the publicity.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/03/2006 13:07 Comments ||
Top||
#2
RJ: I doubt Japan has the English common law right to change one's name.
He's gonna die, no questions about it. There will be no explanations. Aum Shinrikyo is an arm of North Korean intelligence, and the Japanese government isn't about to admit that fact to anyone.
TWO Australian mining companies have signed contracts for the supply of uranium to a Taiwanese power company, a deal that will be done through US channels. Taiwan, which is not a signatory to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, confirmed the deals yesterday - the same day that China - Taiwan's arch-rival - and Australia signed a deal in Canberra for the supply of uranium.
Taiwanese officials said the deal had been signed by the electrical producer Taipower with BHP Billiton and ERA during the past 12 months. Osman Chia, from the Taipei economic and cultural office in Canberra, said the arrangement provided for indirect trade route through the US. "We don't have official relations with Australia so we go through the United States," Mr Chia said.
In the past, Australia has rebuffed approaches from Taiwan to sell it uranium, fearing a hostile reaction from China. Australia has also recently turned down requests from India to sell it uranium, citing the fact that it has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty as the reason.
Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said Taiwan was a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency and subjected itself to inspections by the organisation.
A group of asylum seekers from the Papua province of Indonesia have arrived in Melbourne. Forty-two men, women and children from the Indonesian province were recently granted temporary protection visas and they will settle in Melbourne.
The group will be given benefits until they find accommodation and jobs. They have been staying on Christmas Island since their arrival in January.
One of the men granted refugee status says he has spent years in jail and seen his friends killed in the province's struggle for independence. Herman Wainggai says he was jailed twice for protesting against the Indonesian military occupation of West Papua. Another man is still on Christmas Island awaiting the outcome of his visa application. The lawyer representing the group says young people are being targetted by the Indonesian military for abuse and mistreatment. Several of them are children who are here without their parents.
Refugee lawyer David Manne says while he cannot comment on the specifics, there is evidence young people are being singled out for abuse. "One of the things that parents of course guard against, is their young ones being targetted and certainly, I should say one other thing and that is there is excellent care being taken of those young people who have fled to safety in Australia," he said.
Neukoelln - A Ham Sandwich? Whoever eats that is a "pig". On schoolyards and even in kindergartens the "children's clash of civilization" rages - around head cloths and eating customs. In Neukoelln the children who do not believe in the Prophet Mohammed are on the retreat. One scene of combat is the Richard primary school in Neukoelln. It has approximately 400 pupils. The proportion of the German children is approximately 20 per cent; in the lower classes as little as ten per cent. "Christ is here a frequently used insult", head mistress Hannelore Mainusch had to admit at a meeting of the school committee of the district. And: "The German children are not really tolerated. We trying to work on that in the lesson plans." But the teacher evaluates the success of the "training" as limited. "Porkeaters stink!" "Whoever eats pork, is a pig." Non-Muslim children in Nordneukoellner daycare centers (Kita) have to listen to that meanwhile.
Under the theme "faith war in Neukoellner Kitas" the FDP local politician Sebastian Kluckert inquired what the district office was doing in response to such stuff. Youth town councillor Thomas Blesing (SPD) granted that such events had occurred. But there are hardly any German children left in the Nordneukoellner Kitas - and so pork was striken from the Kita meal plan. Blesing stated in his written answer: "Since the muslim food regulations were taken into account, there is no source of mutual recrimination in the the rules."
But this answer is for Kluckert a weak retreat in the face of Islamic demands. And it worries him: "What if I inquire, what is the district office doing in response to fact that in the schools girls without head cloths are mobbed? Perhaps I will get the answer someday: We are taking no more girls into school?"
#1
HHHHmmmmmm, okay, since whoever eats pork is allegedly a pig, then why does Islam, within the context of the occurrence of Islam-specific, extranormal/extra-human divine miracles and related divine works, give priority to pigs, etal. whom "talk" or have weird skin lesions, rather than human-looking apparitions/personages? BY THE ISLAMIC LOGIC USED/DESCRIBED IN THIS ARTICLE, GOD IS A HATED PIG, WHILE THE DEVIL LOOKS HUMAN, ERGO OBEY THE HATED PIG???
#2
JM:
Why the excitement? Only about a half dozen people will read your post. There might be 20,000 unique views here per day here, but most come for the news items. Few of the regular pukes ever post an article. And they are likely security-guards with obsessive-compulsive disorders. That is: life losers you wouldn't give the time of day to. .com won't post while i post, because he is a control freak and my presence disturbs his sandbox. His mother spanked him for shitting his diapers, thus began his control obsession. I have only been slumming here for a couple of weeks.
The ones who tell you to take your meds, are on high doses of medication.
Teachers at the school published a letter this week widely interpreted as saying conditions at their school had become so bad that it should be closed down.
The letter said teachers had lost all authority and were now so afraid that they only entered classrooms with a mobile phone so they could call for help in an emergency.
[...]
"The German (students) brown nose us, pay for things for us and stuff like that, so that we don't smash in their faces," said a foreign student from the school as quoted by the Berliner Kurier.
A gang of young Muslims wielding iron rods has forced a Paris cafe to censor an exhibition of cartoons ridiculing religion, the owners of the establishment said Friday.
Some 50 drawings by well-known French cartoonists were installed in the Mer à Boire cafe in the working-class Belleville neighbourhood of northeast Paris, as part of an avowedly atheist show entitled 'Neither god nor god'. The collection targeted all religions including Islam but there were no representations of the prophet Mohammed such as sparked the recent crisis between the West and the Islamic world, according to Marianne who is one of the cafe's three owners.
"We used to give glasses of water to a group of local boys aged between 10 and 12 who played football across the street. On Tuesday a few came in, flung the water on the ground and accused us of being racists," said Marianne, who did not wish to give her family name. Minors in france = virtual immunity from the law.
"Later more of them came back with sticks and iron rods and tried to smash the pictures. They managed it with a few of them. With the customers we chased them away, but they kept coming back," she said
Later the cafe-owners were approached by a group of older youths. "They said they did not approve of what the youngsters had done. But what we were doing was unacceptable too. They warned us that if we didn't take down the cartoons they would call in the Muslim Brothers who would burn the cafe down," said Marianne. "They kept saying: 'This is our home. You cannot act like this here,'" she said. "Where do you think you are, in a kufr country?"
Refusing to dismantle the exhibition, the owners have placed white sheets of paper inscribed with the word 'censored' over the cartoons that were targeted by the gang. "To take down the cartoons would have been a surrender. But on the other hand we cannot expose ourselves to this kind of violence. This way you can still see the pictures if you lift the paper," said Marianne.
And it's not like the police or the government will protect you.
One of the cartoons that aroused the wrath of the youths was a bar scene, in which the barman offers a drink to an obviously inebriated man who says "God is great." The caption is: "The sixth pillar of Islam. The bar pillar." In France a "bar pillar" is a barfly or drunk.
The aim of the exhibition was to poke fun at all religions, according to cartoonists who took part. "Putting on this type of show in this place was not in the least a provocation. Unless you think that freedom of expression in itself is a provocation," the cartoonist Charb told Le Parisien newspaper.
The Belleville neighbourhood of Paris's 20th arrondissement is racially mixed, with a large population of north African origin, but Marianne said there were few outward signs of religious extremism. "There are areas near here which do have a reputation for Islamists. But here it's different. These are street gangs for whom religion has become a kind of mark of identity," she said.
The owners of the Mer à Boire, which means "the sea you can drink" and opened in September, have filed suit with the police.
#2
"The owners of the Mer à Boire, which means "the sea you can drink" and opened in September, have filed suit with the police."
Dear kindly officer Krupke,
Da gangs here on da West Side is really outta hand, and we dont even see you comin by here for donuts and coffee no more. Derfore, I has contacted my attorney, and he will be filing suit against da precinct for damages to my establishment.
#4
The solution for this is so easy. Just get a van and hire a bunch of young thugs. Give each a bastinado that will leave an inch-long welt anywhere you hit someone with it.
Then have them charge the miscreants, give a bunch of them a good whapping, then when someone blows a whistle, they run back to the van and away.
Give each a hundred Euros, and on the way out give them tips and complements for good performance.
No connection at all with the cafe. No cursing, no shouting. Apparently no cause to the attack. None of the thugs live anywhere near the area, and are unknown to the police there.
Such unexplained assaults make people apprehensive and far less likely to be bold and aggressive.
In some ways, he's like a lot of 25-year-olds: After years of running from his upbringing and trying to blaze his own trail, he has become studious, stable and settled. But there's really no other 25-year-old like John Walker Lindh.
Oh, I'm sure there are. They're either dead or not arrested yet.
He will be forever tagged as the American Taliban, a California kid who converted to Islam and left home to find himself - and joined the radical Taliban to fight in Afghanistan. Now Lindh is serving a 20-year prison sentence, and is under a court-imposed silence.
My heart bleeds... No. Wait. It's the chili again...
But Lindh's family and supporters say he deserves a break, and America needs to take another look at what he really did. "His story is indeed a story that needs to come out, and needs to be shared with the world," said Shakeel Syed, who served as a religious adviser to Lindh in prison.
Yeah. He's just a poor, misguided kid. And he's still got his Muslim religious advisor in jug.
In his first-ever account of Lindh's life in a medium-security federal prison in Victorville, Calif., Syed said Lindh is a model inmate who lives as normal a life as possible behind bars - but also is a spiritual beacon to other Muslims there. "Prison has helped him become a better Muslim," Syed said. "He is a Malcolm X with a softer tone."
Just can't stay away from the turbans, can he?
Lindh lives with a lover cellmate, works a prison job and is allowed to mingle with other inmates, Syed said - but he is prohibited from talking about his experiences in Afghanistan, can't see visitors who aren't relatives or lawyers, and isn't allowed to conspire speak Arabic.
But come the caliphate, how will he be able to communicate with the master race?
While Lindh was taunted with cries of "Traitor!" when he first came to Victorville, and was once attacked by another inmate, he now faces no threats to his safety and even has gained a measure of respect, Syed said. "He is an extremely well-liked, well-respected, model inmate in the system by the authorities as well as by the inmates," said Syed, now executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. "Some of the inmates have come to sympathize with him because of his special restrictions."
Time passes, doesn't it? The 3000 dead are cold in their graves. Their names are forgotten...
Federal prison officials would not comment on Lindh or release information about him, citing privacy rules.
I'm guessing that if they did the story would be different than what his Islamic mouthpiece is putting out.
He burst into the public eye in November 2001, when CIA commandos working with the Northern Alliance, an Afghan group opposed to Taliban rule, found him among wounded and bedraggled Taliban fighters, who soon killed CIA operative Johnny (Mike) Spann.
That was at Qala-i-Jangi, where they sent the surivors of the siege of Konduz, and the survivors decided to unsurrender. Dostum, bless his vicious little heart, solved that problem by killing most of them.
The image of Lindh, filthy and exhausted, was beamed around the world - shocking the country with his unbelievable journey and stunning his parents, who hadn't heard from him in months. Lindh had converted to Islam as a teen and traveled to Yemen to study the Koran and Arabic. When his visa expired he went to Pakistan, then sneaked across the border to Afghanistan - where he trained in an Al Qaeda-funded camp and twice met Osama Bin Laden.
That makes him a traitor in my book. Binny declared war on us well before 9-11-2001. There were attacks on the WTC, our embassies in Africa, and the USS Cole, but here was young Johnny Jihad, hob-knobbing with him.
Lindh's father, Frank Lindh, said his son was well-meaning but misguided, never taking up arms against America or joining Al Qaeda in its destructive quest. "In simple terms, this is the story of a decent and honorable young man who became involved in a spiritual quest and became the focus of the grief and anger of an entire nation over an event in which he had no part," Frank Lindh told a San Francisco audience earlier this year.
It's the story of a man who loved his country so little that he went and fought against it, joining with the Chechens and Uzbeks and other riff-raff at the Battle of Konduz.
But in the angry months after Sept. 11, Lindh was held up as a candidate for the death penalty.
With damned good reason.
Barely 10 months after he was seized on the battlefield, Lindh accepted a plea deal admitting he aided the Taliban - not plotting terror attacks or battling the U.S. He agreed to a 20-year prison term with no opportunity to appeal or challenge the government's restrictions while he's in prison.
Too cowardly to fight it out to the end with the other Islamic fanatics, he was also too cowardly to take the risk of the death penalty.
Lindh's last public statement came when he was sentenced, where he tried to explain how he ended up in Afghanistan. "I did not go to fight against America, and I never did," Lindh said. "I understand why so many Americans were angry when I was first discovered in Afghanistan. I realize that many still are, but I hope that with time and understanding, those feelings will change."
I hope to God they never do. I hope that Johnny Jihad remains what he is, a symbol of the soullessness of a segment of our society that sees nothing wrong with turning on the rest of us...
His parents have said little since then, but his lawyers are hoping a change in public mood could help him. With few legal options available, they've petitioned President Bush in a long-shot bid to shorten Lindh's sentence. "I think we all have to realize that the odds are against it," Frank Lindh said in his San Francisco speech. "It is difficult to envision a situation where all those hotheads in Washington can turn around and recognize the kid got a raw deal and should be released."
First you'd have to convince the rest of us that he got a raw deal. We think he got off lightly.
Legal observers said the sentence was the byproduct of the national mood at the time, and note that many subsequent terror prosecutions in the U.S. have led to much shorter prison terms.
None of the subsequent cases were caught at Qala-i-Jangi, were they?
"He became an almost cathartic criminal case for the public," said George Washington University law Prof. Jonathan Turley. "Just as the public emotion was at a fever pitch, John Walker Lindh walked right out of central casting as a vicious traitor who betrayed his country. Upon further examination, he appears to be a confused kid playing a low-level role."
He was just cannon fodder, but he was willing cannon fodder, and he left his own side to join theirs. Piss on him.
#3
"He is an extremely well-liked, well-respected, model inmate in the system by the authorities as well as by the inmates," said Syed, now executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California. - "When will American wake up and see that we already have been invaded. Get ready to break out the shotguns and dogs boys, the south is ready to take this country back."
#4
Lindh's father, Frank Lindh, said his son was well-meaning but misguided, never taking up arms against America or joining Al Qaeda in its destructive quest.
He traveled to the biggest jihad hot spots in the world; he intended to take up arms. He was involved in the death of a US agent. He supported the jihadists that operated the 9/11 plot.
He should have fried in lard.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/03/2006 9:08 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I had tears streaming down my cheeks as I read this. Yes indeed release him and publically announce the day he will get out and where he will be living. That way other Americans can stop by and show Johnny Jihad how much we respect him. I did find it sad that he was in a medium security prison. Most cons in medium security wouldn't risk an upgrade to slap little Johnny around. If I were the guards I would make sure Johnny gets some additional charges and free upgrade to Folsom. That way he could earn the respect of the hardcore criminals (by becoming their bitch).
#7
Well he met OBL twice which doesn't jibe well with the claim that he never meant to join al-Qaida. But even if the claim were true that he only wanted to join the Taliban before 9/11, it's a pretty awful decision to make and it's sickening to hear his supporters describe this a some sort of 'spiritual journey.' Let's be clear about what that entailed, he went to a poor ravaged country to fight in a savage civil war on behalf of a fanatical religious government looking to impose their totalitarian beliefs ethinic minorities (the Northern Alliance).
#10
#9: But Lindh's family and supporters say he deserves a break ...
Hookay. Arm? Leg? Neck?
Both hands at the wrist, both ankles at the joint, both knees and elbows will do for a start.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/03/2006 13:12 Comments ||
Top||
#11
The CNN guy who was there at his capture has kept mum about Johnny Walker for some time but recently he grew disgusted by the parents rewriting Johnny's history that he came out and said what he really thought of Johnny Walker (hint, Al Queda hardcore).
#12
Note to Daddy Frank: 1) STFU, and 2) If you are stil alive when Junior gets out, you might spirit him away before he has his 'coming out' party realized upon him by those of us still able.
#13
It is difficult to envision a situation where all those hotheads in Washington can turn around and recognize the kid got a raw deal and should be released.
Pure comedy gold. Pick a better lawyer next time, not some bleeding heart from Marin....
#14
"His story is indeed a story that needs to come out, and needs to be shared with the world," said Shakeel Syed, who served as a religious adviser to Lindh in prison.
#15
Both hands at the wrist, both ankles at the joint, both knees and elbows will do for a start.
Look, make up your mind. Either go full-up by starting at each fingertip and working through the individual knuckles with a ball peen, then progressively through the wrists & elbows. Ditto the legs. Or just go for the neck and get it over with.
I suppose we could go for the big kahuna and start with the ball peen and end with the neck (mebbe a stop-off with the ball peen to visit his DNA factory). In fact, it might be fun.
MULTAN: Christians on Sunday protested against the desecration of the Holy Bible and arson attacks on their places of worship in various parts of the country, terming the incidents religious terrorism. Special services were held for those who had died in various incidents of violence against minorities. It is religious terrorism to set our church (in Mian Channu) ablaze during the period when we (Christians) fast. It is an attack on our religion and belief. We feel unsafe and insecure, said Chaudhry Naveed Amer Jeeva, MPA and the coordinator of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, South Punjab.
He said that the present regime had failed to protect churches, missionary properties and religious leaders. He said that churches had been burnt down in Sargodha and Sukkur, more than 300 copies of holy Bible were set ablaze in Sangla Hill and the cross desecrated and Christians killed in terrorist activities.
Not to worry. Sipah e-Sahabah's legal again.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[10 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Not to worry. I'm sure the MSM and talking heads will give this full coverage....
#4
Muslims are required to believe that the Quran abrogates all prior scripture. The Quran has sections which at least imply an obligation to read Jewish, Christian (and Sabian) texts, but they are also required to believe that Satan re-wrote prior scriptures. The "Satanic Verse" episode (disclosed in al-Tabari; al-Tirmidhi texts, etc), reveals Angel Gabriel berating Muhammad after the self-appointed, pedophile "prophet" included Satanic scripture in his Quran terror manual, after he was supposedly possessed by the devil.
Lesson: Muslims are spin-sotted savages void of objectivity, who you can trust as far as you can spit against a hurricane. Respect for freedom of conscience means: Occuping them all and cleaning the ideological dirt out of their brains:
2:087
PICKTHAL: And verily We gave unto Moses the Scripture and We caused a train of messengers to follow after him, and We gave unto Jesus, son of Mary, clear proofs (of Allah's sovereignty), and We supported him with the Holy spirit. Is it ever so, that, when there cometh unto you a messenger (from Allah) with that which ye yourselves desire not, ye grow arrogant, and some ye disbelieve and some ye slay?
2.091
PICKTHAL: And when it is said unto them: Believe in that which Allah hath revealed, they say: We believe in that which was revealed unto us.
---
And I believe that Scarlett Johannsen could personally win the WOT: http://www.geraldpeary.com/interviews/jkl/johannson.jpg
Nato plans to strengthen its strategic and military ties with Australia, New Zealand, Finland and Sweden a move that could give it a role far outside its traditional geographical influence. The initiative, led by Washington and supported by Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Nato secretary- general, would help reinforce the US-led alliance's political and military credentials at a time they have come under scrutiny.
The US would like to see regular Nato forums with other countries such as Australia, New Zealand and, later, Japan and South Korea. However, this plan has run into opposition from France, which sees the move as a gambit to bring in countries more likely to see strategic issues from Washington's point of view.
Last week, ambassadors from Natos member states discussed a US proposal to create a global partnership to rationalise Natos current web of partnerships and pave the way for advanced partnerships with Nordic, Asian and Australasian countries. We want one big box, so that countries can go at their own pace and not be the victims of their geography, said a senior Nato diplomat, who also identified the possibility of an advanced partnership for developed democratic countries that helped with Nato missions. We want to give those countries that are putting blood and treasure on the line with Nato a greater say at the table.
Stronger ties with countries with established democracies and accomplished militaries could help Nato generate the troops it needs for difficult missions such as Afghanistan. Natos James Appathurai said: It makes sense to consider making this community stronger. We need as many countries as possible that share our values and have effective forces on the same team to face all the challenges we are seeing in places such as Afghanistan.
The plans are set to be discussed at a Nato foreign ministers meeting in Sofia this month and at a summit in Riga in November, which Washington hopes will endorse the idea of a more flexible global partnership for countries that co-operate with Nato. But the idea of a special status for participating Asian and Australasian countries may have to wait until 2008.
The alliance already operates a Partnership for Peace programme with 20 countries, including several from the former Soviet bloc, and has formal ties to seven Mediterranean countries and six Gulf states.
But, while some partner nations such as Sweden and Finland provide troops for Nato's Afghanistan force, others such as Belarus and Uzbekistan have much frostier relations with the alliance. By contrast, New Zealand and Australia, neither of which has formal partnerships with Nato, have sent troops to Nato operations and are present in Afghanistan, either as part of Nato forces or under the US coalition banner. Some Nato officials hope that Japan can also be persuaded to send troops to Afghanistan when it redeploys forces from Iraq.
#1
NATO if we can get it into a global mind think would be a great counter to the UN. The NATO only has like minded nations who must meet certian standards before being accepted into the fold one being democracy.
I hope we can make this work and isolate or end the France element that sounds to me on most points like this one is more worried about France and her profits than the world.
On this issue here with Japan, Australia, NewZealand, S. Korea the French anger to thier acceptance is more about how that would spell the end to their push to sell the Chicoms weapons and may even force NATO involment to counter the Chicoms.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi political parties reached an agreement on Sunday on the bylaws for the functioning of the next government, Iraqi President Jalal Talabanis office announced in a statement. The decision marks the second achievement in as many days from the contentious negotiating sessions to form a coalition government, nearly four months after a landmark national election. It followed the announcement Saturday of a compromise on Iraqs security file.
Talabanis office said that a two-thirds cabinet majority would be required for any decisions on the national budget, financial agreements, contracts over 50 million dollars, border issues, security, high-ranking military promotions and questions concerning national sovereignty. Any issues involving the presence of US-led coalition forces in Iraq would also require a two-thirds cabinet majority.
The requirement for more than a simple majority dilutes the power of the dominant conservative Shiite bloc, which holds nearly half the seats in the 275-member parliament.
The parties also agreed that there would be a pair of deputy prime ministers charged with ensuring cabinet decisions get implemented. One of the deputy premiers will be in charge of the economy file, while the other will head be responsible for the countrys basic services, including electricity and water. Of the two, one will also supervise Iraqs security file in tandem with the prime minister, according to the terms of Saturdays deal.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/03/2006 00:53 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
GRAFENWÖHR, Germany In a change to Army tactics, U.S. soldiers will stand and fight instead of shooting and pressing on when their convoys are attacked on Iraqi roads, according to Harvey Perritt, spokesman for the Armys Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Monroe, Va.
In the first two years of Iraq, convoys (under attack) just fired and kept rolling, said Maj. Roger Gaines, the battalions operations officer said Thursday. That gave bad guys the perception that Americans run away. Now, convoys will stop and engage the enemy. Yes, this would be nice - the attacked force fights back to hold the asshats in place - while a quick reaction force - supported by attack helicopters and fast movers - closes in from all sides
The change is part of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomakers underlying philosophy of a more rigorous response to attacks, Perritt said in a telephone interview Thursday.
The training is mandatory for all soldiers, regardless of their military occupational specialty. Members of the 1st Armored Divisions 141st Signal Battalion tried out the new policy while practicing live-fire convoys this week at the Grafenwöhr Training Area. Ah, Graf - a true garden spot - second only to my old stomping grounds in "Beautiful Baumholder"
We are training to take the fight to the enemy, said Gaines, a 45-year-old Portland, Ore., native. If you stop and fight, you can at least neutralize them or take it to the point that they disengage. How about something simpler,like: "Kill then where they stand"?
#1
This is actually a sign that the insurgents are basically done, in terms of their ability to put together attacks involving hundreds of men. As long as they were able to do so, the convoys had to roll on or risk being annihilated. As long as they had that capability, they could destroy Iraqi police stations at will. Now that the guerrillas have been whittled down, both convoys and Iraqi forces can become more aggressive. This isn't a new idea or a fixing of past mistakes - it's a logical progression from one step to another. Just as it's necessary to attend high school before going to college - high school isn't a mistake, but a prerequisite for going to college.
#2
The Marines always stopped to fight. The drivers jumped out to guard their vehicles while the passengers engaged the enemy. I suspect that this was one reason why the insurgents preferred to attack army convoys.
#3
RWW's right, Zhang Fei is wrong here. It was always a mistake (in general) to flee, as opposed to making any enemy attack their last. Of course a given tactical situation had to determine the best course of action - but "hundreds" of bad guys were rarely, if ever, engaged against a convoy. Far beyond merely responding much more aggressively to attacks, we should have all along used deception (bait convoys with a large QRF standing by) and extended retaliation (pursuit of all assailants to the last one, with significant repercussions for any neighborhood that appeared to harbor or assist attacks).
Rice herself made a huge blunder - and got the facts wrong - when she idiotically "admitted" "thousands of tactical errors" in Iraq. The tactical errors of consequence, however, all fall on a different side of the ledger than the superficial "critics" assume - lack of aggressiveness and seriousness, not excess of force. The current MNC-I CG has made some alarming comments about more building and less fighting. While we have the best military in human history, I think it's arguable that Iraq, post-kinetic, has often not been their finest hour .....
More McMasters, less hearts-and-minds silliness. Who in the hell thinks Iraqis are conditioned to respect any formula that lacks clear authority, if not compulsion?
Posted by: Steve ||
04/03/2006 8:57 Comments ||
Top||
#7
I'm still waiting for them to use a bait smoking sputtering helocopter for a controlled 'crash' to bring the splodies into the open for some good killin'.
#8
The doctrine I learned was to try to continue ahead out of a "far" ambush, and the assault into a "near" ambush. Actually, the basic idea was that if you were caught in a near ambush, and the opponent knew what he was doing, your chances of survival were almost zero anyway, so you might as well die in attack mode. But - once you could close with the ambush line, it was then man-to-man - because the enemy could not shoot along his own deployed ambush line without hitting his own. Likewise, once you closed with him, he could not bring indirect fire down on you, without himself being in the impact zone.
A well-laid ambush is not simply opening up on a target. A good ambush thinks out the reactions of the target, and trys to get the target to move into a prepared kill zone. Example - ambush a file of troops moving along a road in the open - with a nice ditch running next to the road. Assume that once the ambush is "sprung", the targets will take cover in the ditch. So - you prepare the ditch by laying claymore mines along the entire length, facing upwards. Now - the ambush simply uses a couple of machine guns opening up, to get all the target troops into the ditch - and you then detonate all the claymores - and your targets are all toast. You just mop up the remains (or the few survivors).
Normally, you don't design your ambush to expect that the targets will attack into the ambush line - it takes well-trained troops, and BIG balls to assualt into plunging fire. So - that is generally a good way to avoid the planned "traps" of the ambush. But -you have to move FAST.
Interestingly, I noticed that US Army policy on attendance at Ranger School has recently changed, to begin allowing combat support and combat service support NCO's to attend. This is based on the growing awareness that - in the large-scale counter-insurgency type actions that will predominate in the future, the delineations between "front lines" and "rear area ops" are disappearing - and troops and units of all types need to be able to fight aggressively.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/03/2006 9:12 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Is it true the USAF is adding two weeks to Basic to better train Airmen to be trigger-pullers? And that Airmen will actually be issued firearms? And that they will be deployed in ways where they will need to use them?
#11
Glenmore - a lot of airmen are being used to operate those convoys in Iraq.
As to the change in tactical doctrine, remember the start of the Iraq war and the ambush of the convoy, the prisoner rescue, etc. The Army had for decades ignored proper tactical training for its combat support troops. Training resources and monies went to the maneuver brigades while the combat support elements actually had to operate daily in direct support of those brigades to keep them 'green' in operational status. Yep, you could run a bunch through a two week course and upgrade their immediate skills, but you need skill at each level of the command, and your usual officers and NCOs in the branches didn't have it. They were being thumped by the command chain on keeping their maneuver brigades skilled, not on their own tactical abilities. Now think. You should be seeing that same leadership now on its second, and possibly third, rotation into country. Now you have training with experience leadership. You now have tools to implement doctrine. Being streatched as the service has been, its not like you can take the bulk of the combat support off line for 6 months of intensive training without shutting down everything else. Its the evolution of doctrine, training, implementation, verification, and revision. Two years is about the historical norm.
#13
mojo - that's if you have training. If the last 'training' you had outside the twice annual requirement to simply fire your weapon, was basic prior to tech training, I doubt the probability of success against a well laid ambush.
#14
Why is army announcing changes in tactics? I would think it would be more effective to make opreational changes without announcing them to the enemy.
#15
DoDo -- odds are the change was announced to the field long before it was to the press.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/03/2006 12:13 Comments ||
Top||
#16
Just make sure you get the hell away from those 5 tons. They make damn good targets.
Yes, and have helos flying nearby for quick support. Ambush the ambushers. (or, as we called it, "F**k the F**king F**kers.)
#17
The next step could be a "Q-truck" convoy--looks like a harmless little bunch of softskins, but it's full of people loaded for bear.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/03/2006 12:53 Comments ||
Top||
#18
I agree with Mike on the Qtrucks but can't understand why it wasn't done a long time ago. Set up a well armoured truck or two and have airpower in the distance and ready and just drive around looking for ambushes.
Then again casualties are generally from IEDs so I'm not sure there's all that much ambushing excitement these past few months to begin with.
#19
I agree with Mike on the Qtrucks but can't understand why it wasn't done a long time ago.
We did it more than once in diyala, in early 2005. Didn't advertise the fact, cause we Knew the enemy were reading the news dispaches. Opsec was better than usual in a few places.
The expression on the survivors faces was priceless. "This is so unfair--Infidels aren't sposed to fight back!!!" They stopped attacking all our convoys by april.
Posted by: N guard ||
04/03/2006 14:44 Comments ||
Top||
#20
Speaking of soldiers with big balls defeating ambushes, let's not forget this one.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/03/2006 15:16 Comments ||
Top||
#21
Fighting back sounds all well and good unless you're driving a truck full of ammo or gasoline. I wouldn't be much for stopping and engaging if I were sitting on any cargo that volatile--and not just to protect my own hide but my mates in the potential blast radius.
Posted by: Dar ||
04/03/2006 16:01 Comments ||
Top||
#22
Dar,if they stand up and fight a few times their will be far fewer ambushes for that eventual convoy of gas to worry about. You also make seperate rules for the gas convoy.
#23
Agree with Lone Ranger and others above: it's all situational. Volume of fire, accuracy of fire, cargo, and friendly firepower will help the leader decide. Of course a good ambush is one where you're dead before you have a chance to decide.
Interesting to compare notes with you Lone Ranger. I was trained to charge a near ambush with weapon on full auto and keep running until you were _well_ past the assualt element. Then you'd try to link up with any other survivors and E&E the hell out of there.
#24
I'm not sure what they mean by "change in tactics" here. First and formost is to clear the "Kill Zone" of the ambush, always has been the rule, always will be. No one can fight and survive in a properly laidout kill zone. Call it running away or what ever, but you must first clear the kill zone. Then as others have said you flank, secure, and call in air and Arty. Catch you enemy on the move and destroy them. Basic tactics that are time and combat tested, and still in use. This sounds like good IO for the home front.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
04/03/2006 22:04 Comments ||
Top||
#25
11a5s,
ATW? Oh gawd folks we got us a paratrooper!
Posted by: 49 pan ||
04/03/2006 22:06 Comments ||
Top||
#27
Nothin like running on Ardennes at 6AM to remind you of the fun in the Army.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
04/03/2006 22:12 Comments ||
Top||
#28
Echoes in the misty morning stillness bouncing between the temporary tinderboxes barracks built in 1943 which required 4 men on fireguard all night long...
#30
WOT? 10 years ago, the government of Algeria launched search and destroy operations against the killers of Christian monks. Now there government is being forced to adopt kill-abandoners legislation, like the Neo-Talibanis tried to enforce in Afghanistan.
Real WOT progress. For those who actually visited the WTC pre-911, this will be interesting:
http://en.france-echos.com/?p=48
Iraqi political parties reached an agreement on Sunday on the bylaws for the functioning of the next government, Iraqi President Jalal Talabanis office announced in a statement. The decision marks the second achievement in as many days from the contentious negotiating sessions to form a coalition government, nearly four months after a landmark national election. It followed the announcement on Saturday of a compromise on Iraqs security file.
Before the back-to-back breakthroughs, talks on forming a unity government among Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parties had been deadlocked. Talabanis office said that a two-thirds cabinet majority would be required for any decisions on the national budget, financial agreements, contracts over 50 million dollars, border issues, security, high-ranking military promotions and questions concerning national sovereignty. Any issues involving the presence of US-led coalition forces in Iraq would also require a two-thirds cabinet majority. The requirement for more than a simple majority dilutes the power of the dominant conservative Shia bloc which holds nearly half the seats in the 275-member parliament.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under:
The top U.S and British diplomats made a surprise trip to Iraq on Sunday to prod the country's struggling leaders to end nearly four months of wrangling and form a new government. "We're going to urge that the negotiations be wrapped up," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw flew overnight to the Iraqi capital for meetings with the current interim government and ethnic and religious power brokers. Straw said the choice of leaders is up to Iraqis alone, but neither he nor Rice disguised the blunt nature of their mission. "There is significant international concern about the time the formation of this government is taking, and therefore we believe and we will be urging the Iraqi leaders we see to press ahead more quickly," Straw said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
An investigative judge will file new criminal charges against Saddam Hussein in the next few days charging him in the deaths and deportation of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s, a government prosecutor has said. Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi on Sunday said the new charges, which would be announced in the coming days, would involve Saddam's alleged role in "Operation Anfal", which included the 1988 gassing of about 5,000 Kurdish civilians in the village of Halabja.
In all, Kurds maintain that more than 180,000 of their people were killed in Anfal, which began in 1987 and ended a year later. Hundreds of Kurdish villages in northern Iraq were destroyed and thousands were forced to leave their homes. Al-Moussawi did not specify when the charges would be filed, but the Iraqi court which handles cases against the ousted ruler announced a press conference for Tuesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
How about you just convict him of the current charges and hang the SOB. (Why oh why didn't they just chuck a grenade or three into the "spider hole"?)
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Prime Minister They Call MeIsmail Haniyeh criticized the United States on Sunday for restricting diplomatic ties with the Hamas government, saying his people were being punished for electing the militant Islamic group.
That's the point, and you got it on the first try!
Seeking to end chaos in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian Interior Minister Said Siyam pledged the new government would pacify the area but appealed for patience. ``Let them bear with us as long as it takes to kill all the Jooooos for a year,'' he said. Four people were killed and 36 wounded in unrest over the weekend.
The United States said Friday that American diplomats have been forbidden to make contact with officials in any Palestinian government agency controlled by Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel's destruction. The Islamic group's new Cabinet controls every ministry. State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said diplomats would maintain contact with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and lawmakers from his Fatah movement, which favors peace talks.
Haniyeh accused the United States of violating its own principles of democracy by ostracizing his Hamas-led government. ``This government was elected in a free and honest election, and according to the democratic principles the American administration is calling for,'' Haniyeh told supporters who had come to his office to wish his new government well. ``We believe this is a punishment of the Palestinian people because of its democratic choice, and at the same time, it increases the people's suffering,'' he said.
Your people made a choice. Now we're making a choice. Your people chose to put a group of gun-toting terrs in charge. We've chosen not to deal with the thugs. Perhaps your people will choose better next time. Then again, they're Paleos.
The Palestinian Authority has received about $1 billion a year in foreign aid, much of which is now in jeopardy. The government is already having trouble making its payroll for March.
That's a shame. Darn. Shoot. Drat. Fudge.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/03/2006 00:59 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"We believe this is a punishment of the Palestinian people because of its democratic choice, and at the same time, it increases the people's suffering," he said.
Just another way of saying: Tam exanimis quam tunica nehru fio.
(I am as dead as the nehru jacket.)
#7
I say a decade, DB along with the military crunching of a couple of their patron states: Syria, Iran, and .....next up to the plate...Saudi (after the princelings lose power to extremists)
how's that for a prediction?
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/03/2006 20:48 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Sounds lovely to me, Frank. I would love to see you right on this one.
Hamas has said that its government will prosecute anyone involved in inter-faction fighting after three people were killed in clashes between rival groups. Said Siam, the Palestinian interior minister, said on Sunday: "We will ensure that nobody is above the law and demand an end to the instability and armed chaos."
He was speaking in reference to violence on Friday in which 36 people were wounded after the assassination of a commander from the Popular Resistance Committees. "We are giving the security forces all the authority and power to investigate this ugly crime and also the three killings and other casualties that followed," he said, referring to a commission of inquiry set up on Friday night.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Reap the whirlwhind, @ssholes. You have sown the dragon's teeth for so long that nobody can contain the chaos bred up thereby. Have fun with your so-called "government." Idjits.
A little-known organization based in the mountains of Iraq's Kurdish north is emerging as a serious threat to the Iranian government, staging cross-border attacks and claiming tens of thousands of supporters among Iran's 4 million Kurds.
The Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan, better known by the local acronym PEJAK or PJAK, claims to have killed 24 Iranian soldiers in three raids against army bases last month, all staged in retaliation for the killing of 10 Iranian Kurds during a peaceful demonstration in the city of Maku.
Three more soldiers from Iran's elite Republican Guard were killed last week in a gunbattle near the Iraqi border, Iran's official news agency reported.
But the greater threat to the Tehran regime may come from the group's underground effort to promote a sense of identity among Iranian Kurds, who make up 7 percent of that country's population. PEJAK leaders say the effort is spreading quickly among students, intellectuals and businessmen.
"The Iranian government's plan to create a global Islamic state is destroying our people's culture and values," said Akif Zagros, 28, a graduate in Persian literature who was interviewed in a simple stone hut at the group's headquarters. "So we fight back. But our aim is not just to bring freedom to Kurds, but to liberate all the peoples of Iran."
PEJAK units first began targeting the Iranian military in 2004. After attacking, the militants melt back into a supportive society or cross the Iraqi border to join several thousand guerrillas at the group's leafy main camp a few miles from the Iranian border.
"Because the Iranian government oppresses people and prevents demonstrations, we needed a way to defend ourselves," said Mr. Zagros, one of four men and three women who make up the group's leadership council.
"The Iranian government has provoked the people of Iranian Kurdistan to defend themselves," Mr. Zagros continued. "But at the same time, the government is quite weak in these regions, and so our people can respond if they are attacked."
Unlike most other rebel groups in the Middle East, PEJAK is secular and Western-oriented. When the group's members talk, their Kurdish is peppered with such Western words as "freedom," "human rights" and "ecology."
Iran has denounced it as a terrorist group and accused the United States of funding it. But at PEJAK's camp, there is no obvious evidence of American equipment or money. The only weapons on show are AK-47 assault rifles and grenades, and the funding is clearly limited.
Each recruit has a single pair of khaki fatigues, and even its leaders subsist on simple meals of bread, cheese and fresh vegetables at communal outdoor tables.
The group's leaders say that they have had no contact with the United States, but that they would be willing to work with Europe or America against the Tehran government.
"We demand democratic change in Iran," Mr. Zagros said. "And if the U.S. government wants to help us, we are happy to accept their support.
"The U.S. talks about bringing democracy to the region," he added. "But for 200 years, the Kurds have struggled against dictatorship and oppression and in defense of our human rights. And so far the West has not helped us. Why?"
PEJAK's ideology combines the Kurds' traditionally low-key Islam and pagan-influenced culture with the movement's political opposition to the dogmatic Islamic government in Tehran.
Nearly half the group's members are women, attracted by its promotion of sexual equality. Female volunteers receive the same training as the men, wear the same clothes, and greet visitors with a steady eye and firm handshake.
"Here in our camp, the women learn to be strong so that when they go back to Iran, they can teach women and, in fact, all people about our struggle for democracy and human rights," said Gulistan Dugan, 36, a psychology graduate from the University of Tehran and a member of the leadership council.
"The daughters of our movement take part in all our operations, including military ones."
#2
The KURDS = PALESTINIANS, etc > iff the Iranian Mullahs get their nukes and ultimately their empire, they get nuthin'. Their best chance to achieve statehood and democracy is to be patient and work wid Dubya and America, and yes even work wid Israel-Turkey.
Syria's state security court yesterday jailed a man for 12 years, commuted from a death sentence, on charges of belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, a human rights activist said. Another Syrian, himself a right activist, was sentenced to five years behind bars for belonging to a "secret organization."
Abdel Karim Rihawi, head of the Syrian Human Rights Organization, told AFP that Abdel Sattar Qattan was first sentenced to death before the term was commuted to 12 years in prison. Since the mid-1980s, convicted Muslim Brothers on death row have all had their sentences passed under Syria's emergency laws in force since the Baath party came to power in 1963 commuted to long jail terms.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/03/2006 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
The AMC Loews theater on Manhattan's Upper West Side took the rare step of pulling the movie trailer for the upcoming film "United 93," about 9/11, from its screens after several complaints, report Senior Writer Sean Smith and Reporter Jac Chebatoris in the April 10 issue of Newsweek. "One lady was crying," says one of the theater's managers, Kevin Adjodha. "She was saying that we shouldn't have [played the trailer]. That this was wrong ... I don't think people are ready for this.
Viewers in other cities are reacting as well. When the trailer played before "Inside Man" last week at the famed Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, audience members began calling out "Too soon!" And audiences generally seem to be split on the issue. "I don't think that's a movie I really want to see," says Jackie Alvarez, 73, of San Ramon, Calif., after seeing the trailer. "It gave me the creeps. It's way too soon."
Too soon? It's been 5 years
But 17-year-old Antoine Richardson of Memphis, Tenn., is looking forward to it.
"I don't think it's exploitative or too soon," he says. "It helps us remember."
Which could be the problem, some people want us to forget
Carole O'Hare, whose 79-year-old mother, Hilda Marcin, died on the flight, says she feels the criticism that Universal - the studio - is exploiting a national tragedy, is unfair. "This story has to be told to honor the passengers and crew for what they did," she says. "But more than that, it raises awareness. Our ports aren't secure. Our airlines still aren't secure, and this is what happens when you're not secure. That's the message I want people to hear."
Writer-director Paul Greengrass has gone to great lengths to be respectful in his depiction of what occurred, proceeding with the film only after securing the approval of every victim's family. "Was I surprised at the unanimity? Yes. Very. Usually there are one or two families who are more reluctant," Greengrass writes in an email. "I was surprised and humbled at the extraordinary way the United 93 families have welcomed us into their lives and shared their experiences with us."
A quick look at movies from 1942 dealing with Pearl Harbor and the war :
Remember Pearl Harbor
Submarine Raider
A Yank on the Burma Road
The Navy Comes Through
The Battle of Midway
Casablanca
Eagle Squadron
The Flying Tigers
Der Fuehrer's Face
The First of the Few
Attack in the Pacific
Bombs Over Burma
The Commandos Strike at Dawn
To the Shores of Tripoli
I don't seem to recall hearing about any protests about it being "too soon" back then.
I downloaded the trailer from the Apple website. It's very powerful, and I understand the emotional response. We need more of that, not less.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/03/2006 10:58 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[6 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I don't seem to recall hearing about any protests about it being "too soon" back then.
That's because back then people had something called "patriotism" and "the will to fight back" and also "cheering the home team". These concepts are extinct on the east and west shores.
#2
cmon, half of those movies were not about Pearl Harbor. I mean Casablanca, cmon. And Pearl was seen as an attack on the US military. The whole emphasis on the deaths of civilians, the individual obits, the focus on tragedy, wasnt there then.
All of which is only a quibble on the "we were so tough" in 1942 meme. Personally I have no problem with this movie being released now. I hope they do a good job of it, Id like to see it.
#4
cmon, half of those movies were not about Pearl Harbor.
Having reading comprehension problems, LH?
As for whining about the movie -- there are a hell of a lot of people who want us to forget. Look at Yale for a humongous concentration of them.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/03/2006 12:16 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Better too soon than too late.
Posted by: Matt ||
04/03/2006 12:19 Comments ||
Top||
#6
I am so going to this movie.
'Hawk: Casablanca takes place in the week before Pearl Harbor, and Rick's character arc is a bit of an allegory for U.S. entry into the war, as evidenced by my favorite bit of dialouge in the film:
Rick: It's December 1941 in Casablanca, what time is it in New York?
Sam: I don't know. My watch stopped.
Rick: I'll bet they're asleep in New York. I'll bet they're asleep all over America.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/03/2006 12:47 Comments ||
Top||
#7
That's because back then people had something called "patriotism" and "the will to fight back" and also "cheering the home team". These concepts are extinct on the east and west shores.
It was a little easier back then for Hollywood and the press to cheer for the home team, because the home team was fighting on the same side as their beloved Uncle Joe Stalin.
They were patriotic, all right; but not for America.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/03/2006 13:22 Comments ||
Top||
#8
I don't want to see this movie at all. I fear it will be FULL of inaccuracies and portray the terrorists of Flight 93 as "human". As for all this nonsense about "remembering", I have no need. I couldn't forget even if I wanted to. The image of those Towers coming down, the whole in the Pentagon, and the seen in Pensylvania is FOREVER engraved in my mind.
If you have to see this movie to remember the events of that day, you just plain out don't CARE. Sadly, to many Americans today have that exact problem. And yes I am angry about this. Something just doesn't sit right with me, thinking about each individual never going home. Mothers, daughters, wives, brothers, husbands, sons, all lost.
I don't seem to recall hearing about any protests about it being "too soon" back then.
War movies GENERALIZE people. You see the uniforms, the guns, the nameless ranks of soldiers. And the characters are almost always fictional. This movie will be about people, specific people, their last moments on earth, the calls of panic and terror on their faces as the plane went down into that field. Trying to picture, yet alone recreat that moment just doesn't sit well with me. To me it feels like we're belittling them by making this movie.
Posted by: Charles ||
04/03/2006 13:28 Comments ||
Top||
#9
I haven't seen a movie (made after 1964) in a movie theater in 20 years. I'm planning to see this one if it lives up to my expectations based on the approval of all the families.
#10
yeah, mike but we're not talking about something subtle, we're talking about a movie about the events of that day. And lets not forget, the events of that day werent an attack on a naval base - it was the deliberate murder of thousands of civilians. This would be more like a movie about the holocaust in 1942, or 1945. Which would have been a good idea, but I would understand some folks not wanting to see that.
#11
SOMERSET, Pa. - The Flight 93 National Memorial will receive part of the box-office revenue from the new movie about the airliner hijacked during the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Writer-director Paul Greengrass' "United 93" is scheduled to open April 28. Universal Pictures plans to donate 10 percent of the first three days' grosses to the memorial, the Families of Flight 93 announced Thursday.
Gordon Felt, whose brother Edward was a Flight 93 passenger, said the studio's efforts "to help permanently memorialize the bravery of the 40 passengers and crew of Flight 93 who chose to fight back in the face of violent adversity are remarkable." Last year, the official 9/11 Commission report said the hijackers crashed the plane as passengers tried to take control of the cockpit.
Chris T. Sullivan, who heads a $30 million fund-raising campaign for the national memorial, said he hopes "United 93" will result in worldwide support for the proposed monument in a field near Shanksville.
"United 93" chronicles in real time the hijacked United Airlines flight that crashed Sept. 11, 2001, killing all 40 passengers and crew. The film makes its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York this month.
The winning design for the memorial was modified after some critics protested that its initial crescent shape symbolized Islam. The memorial's name also was changed from "Crescent of Embrace" to "40 Memorial Groves."
Posted by: Steve ||
04/03/2006 14:29 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Is not Oliver Stone the Director? Inaccuracies? Yuh think?
#13
Writer-director Paul Greengrass, per the article.
Ergo, I think not.
Posted by: SLO Jim ||
04/03/2006 18:36 Comments ||
Top||
#14
Charles: this isn't a film exploiting "last moments on earth, the calls of panic and terror." It's about heroism, about ordinary people rising against terror and panic and doing something extraordinary. They died in the end, but they saved hundreds of others by their sacrifice--and came within an ace of retaking the plane.
The cable movie Flight 93 was a worthy tribute, and I expect this will be as well. If it's as good as I hope, it'll be a welcome antidote to Farenheit 9/11 and Syriana and Cynthia McKinney and Howard Dean and Charlie Sheen and all of the general free-floating moonbattery that's afflicting our media culture.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/03/2006 18:38 Comments ||
Top||
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.
MAZAR-E-SHARIF (Rantburg News Service): Afghan holy men and their minions have threatened violence against the government unless a Christian convert spirited out of the country is returned so they can indulge their blood lust. About 1000 hysterical rubes gathered in a mosque in the northeastern town of Kunduz on Sunday and demanded that 
Sudan denied yesterday accusations by Chad that it supported gunmen who battled Chadian troops in fighting that killed dozens, the latest tensions between the two nations. Chad's government claimed a day earlier that armed men "backed by the Khartoum government" crossed into Chad on Thursday and attacked the town of Modeina. Twelve Chadian troops and dozens of the attackers were killed, and some 4,000 civilians were driven from their homes, Chad said.
ON Christmas Eve, 1989, a small force of about 100 men led by an obscure former Liberian government official crossed the border from Ivory Coast into Nimba County in northern Liberia.
At least 50 students were injured as the 
A gang of young Muslims wielding iron rods has forced a Paris cafe to censor an exhibition of cartoons ridiculing religion, the owners of the establishment said Friday.
In some ways, he's like a lot of 25-year-olds: After years of running from his upbringing and trying to blaze his own trail, he has become studious, stable and settled. But there's really no other 25-year-old like 
MULTAN: Christians on Sunday protested against the desecration of the Holy Bible and arson attacks on their places of worship in various parts of the country, terming the incidents religious terrorism. Special services were held for those who had died in various incidents of violence against minorities. It is religious terrorism to set our church (in Mian Channu) ablaze during the period when we (Christians) fast. It is an attack on our religion and belief. We feel unsafe and insecure, said Chaudhry Naveed Amer Jeeva, MPA and the coordinator of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, South Punjab.
BAGHDAD - Iraqi political parties reached an agreement on Sunday on the bylaws for the functioning of the next government, Iraqi President Jalal Talabanis office announced in a statement. The decision marks the second achievement in as many days from the contentious negotiating sessions to form a coalition government, nearly four months after a landmark national election. It followed the announcement Saturday of a compromise on Iraqs security file.
The top U.S and British diplomats made a surprise trip to Iraq on Sunday to prod the country's struggling leaders to end nearly four months of wrangling and form a new government. 
"We're going to urge that the negotiations be wrapped up," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she and British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw flew overnight to the Iraqi capital for meetings with the current interim government and ethnic and religious power brokers. Straw said the choice of leaders is up to Iraqis alone, but neither he nor Rice disguised the blunt nature of their mission. "There is significant international concern about the time the formation of this government is taking, and therefore we believe and we will be urging the Iraqi leaders we see to press ahead more quickly," Straw said.
An investigative judge will file new criminal charges against Saddam Hussein in the next few days charging him in the deaths and deportation of thousands of Kurds in the 1980s, a government prosecutor has said. Chief prosecutor 
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Prime Minister 
Hamas has said that its government will prosecute anyone involved in inter-faction fighting after three people were killed in clashes between rival groups. 
Syria's state security court yesterday jailed a man for 12 years, commuted from a death sentence, on charges of belonging to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, a human rights activist said. Another Syrian, himself a right activist, was sentenced to five years behind bars for belonging to a "secret organization."
