RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - King Abdullah has told Saudi editors to stop publishing pictures of women as they could make young men go astray, newspapers reported Tuesday. Especially those ones with the come hither eyes in the hijab look.
The king's directive, made in a meeting with local editors, caused surprise as the monarch has been regarded a quiet reformer since he took office in the ultra-conservative country last August. DID HE SHOUT?
In recent months, newspapers have published pictures of women - always wearing the traditional Muslim headscarf - to illustrate stories with increasing regularity. Usually the stories have had to do with women's issues. The papers have also started publishing a range of views on causes that are not generally accepted in Saudi Arabia - such as women having the right to drive and vote. The spandex burka is nest to go.
The king told editors on Monday night that publishing a woman's picture for the world to see was inappropriate. "One must think, do they want their daughter, their sister, or their wife to appear in this way. Of course, no one would accept this," the newspaper Okaz quoted Abdullah as saying. The same thought crossed my mind everytime I read an article in Playboy.
"The youth are driven by emotion ... and sometimes they can be lead astray. So, please, try to cut down on this," he said. Although the king has broached topics - such as women eventually acquiring driving licenses - that were previously seen as nonstarters, his instruction to editors indicates that Islamic conservatives remain a powerful force in the kingdom and brake on reform. The country adheres to a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Women are not allowed to vote and stand in municipal elections - the only type of election permitted in the kingdom. The king also called on editors to stop printing stories that portray the country in a negative light. W should look into this one.
"Don't write anything that can be harmful to the country. Some reporters, they want to stand out and they end up going too far and this should not be allowed to happen," Abdullah said according to Okaz. The king added that newspapers should ignore the foreign press, especially when what it publishes is "against Islam or against Arabs." There goes the Onion.
All media in Saudi Arabia are either state owned or state guided.
Chatter amongst members of the jihadist Internet community continues to relate to the call of Usama bin Laden, Emir of al-Qaeda, which was part of his speech aired by al-Jazeera on April 23, 2006, urging for mujahideen preparations for jihad in Sudan, particularly in Darfur. Recently a member of a password-protected jihadist forum distributed a document titled: The Road to Sudan (Darfur), that elaborates on bin Ladens call and the viability for jihad on Sudanese land and Muslim African countries. The author places quotations of bin Laden throughout the text, as he notes his speech is not for mere consumption and propaganda. Rather, he believes it an important piece of al-Qaeda ideology which perhaps may spread out of the Sudanese epicenter to its Muslim neighboring countries. The author states: We can say that the foreign interference in Sudan, whatever it is, will create an appealing chance to all who belong to al-Qaedas ideology to fight those whom they see as unbelievers, Crusaders and Zionists. The areas surrounding Sudan, Arab and African, owing to its geographical position, will make it easy for the flow of Arab and African fighters to go to Sudan.
To support jihad in Sudan, the author illustrates a brief history of mujahideen fighting in Africa, outlining the growth of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) in Algeria, operations it conducts, and spread to neighboring Mauritania. He also points of a existence of sleeper jihad cells in several areas in the Horn of Africa that are waiting to become active, believing that for this reason American intends to create a task force of eleven African countries to combat terrorism. Dovetailing this American presence in Africa with the incitement of more Islamic feelings it causes, the author argues that a confluence of rancor towards the U.S. and the difficulty in controlling African borders presents a good place for the members and operations of al-Qaeda and its training and mobilizing in new members.
The author concludes by juxtaposing the current jihad in Iraq with that proposed in Sudan: there will be a fierce battle between al-Qaeda supporters and any foreign forces which interfere in Darfur. Maybe we are in front of a new experiment for the outside interfering which will be more than the experiment in Iraq. This will be a failure of an organized war and illogical war on terrorism, whose danger has increased more than before.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 03:16 ||
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The African Union ratcheted up the pressure on two rebel factions on Monday to sign a peace deal for Sudan's Darfur region, threatening international sanctions if they did not endorse it. Only one of the three Darfur rebel factions signed a May 5 accord with Khartoum to end fighting that has killed tens of thousands of people, and officials fear the two holdouts could instigate violence to scuttle the deal.
Alpha Oumar Konare, chairman of the African Union (AU) commission, urged a faction of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) led by Abdel Wahed Mohammad Nur and the smaller Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) to sign the deal unconditionally. "Should they embark on any action or measure likely to undermine the Darfur peace agreement, especially the ceasefire provisions, the [AU] should take appropriate measures ... including requesting the UN Security Council to impose sanctions against them," he said in a statement.
The warning came as the AU's Peace and Security Council met in Addis Ababa to discuss how to push forward the peace process in Darfur, which UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says is the world's worst humanitarian crisis. Konare called for more AU troops to be sent to Darfur and urged Khartoum to produce a plan to disarm pro-government Janjaweed militias accused of a campaign of murder and rape that has driven more than two million people into camps in Darfur and neighbouring Chad.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/16/2006 00:00 ||
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Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's son and presumed political heir talked briefly last week with President Bush while at the White House for meetings with top officials.
Gamal Mubarak, the Egyptian president's youngest son and a favorite in the United States, was granted a meeting Friday with Bush's national security adviser while in Washington on private business, Frederick Jones, a National Security Council spokesman, said Monday.
In addition to sitting down with Stephen Hadley at the White House, the younger Mubarak also met with Vice President Dick Cheney, the vice president's office said.
Bush saw Mubarak while he spoke with Hadley, dropping by to meet him and "convey his best regards" to his father, Jones said. Egypt is one of the United States' closest friends and the most populous nation in the Arab world.
Neither Jones nor Cheney's office would further discuss the substance of the meetings.
Gamal Mubarak is spearheading democratic reform within his father's ruling party. But many in Egypt question whether the changes aim to ensure his father's hold on power.
President Mubarak allowed the country's first multicandidate presidential elections last year. He easily won re-election, and promised further changes in a country he has ruled unchallenged for more than a quarter century.
But parliamentary elections in November and December were marred by violence that killed 14 people, and security forces in many cases barricaded polling sites to prevent opposition supporters from voting.
Still, the Muslim Brotherhood, the country's largest and most popular Islamic group, was able to increase its presence in parliament six-fold to 88 seats - making it the country's strongest opposition movement. Since then, the government has put off local elections for two years.
Last month, the government renewed emergency laws that it had promised to lift. And in recent weeks, scores of activists have been arrested during demonstrations to support two Egyptian judges facing disciplinary action after they blew the whistle on election fraud.
The United States restored full diplomatic ties with Libya on Monday, rewarding the longtime pariah nation for scrapping its weapons of mass destruction programmes and signalling incentives for Iran and North Korea if they do the same. Culminating a years-long rapprochement with the OPEC member, Washington will reopen an embassy and remove Libya from a list of state sponsors of terrorism within 45 days.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/16/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Damn sight more than I would have given them, but I guess we've forgotten all about Lockerbie now.
#4
It would appear Libya has met the post-Lockerbie requirements for restoring diplomatic status. If that status was NOT restored now, our credibility would be damaged in the eyes of others in the Islamic world who might want to improve relations with the US.
A man seen as a moderate Islamist has claimed victory in Sunday's election on the Comoros Islands. Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi was seen as the favourite and his aides say he won between 60% and 75% of the vote.
Although votes are still being counted, supporters of the cleric, known as "Ayatollah" after his studies in Iran, have been celebrating in the streets.
A moderate known as the 'Ayatollah'. Makes sense, maybe, in an Islamic sort of way.
The election is intended to herald the first peaceful change of power in the Comoros in 30 years of independence. The islands have been plagued by instability and have had 19 coups or coup attempts.
Following a 2001 constitutional settlement, the presidency rotates every four years between the three islands of the archipelago. This time, all three candidates were from the island of Anjouan.
Mr Sambi, a Sunni cleric and businessman, was opposed by two secular candidates - Mohamed Djaanfari, a former military pilot, and Ibrahim Halidi, backed by outgoing President Azali Assoumani.
Mr Sambi's aide Mohamed Djaffar was in jubilant mood. "It is a clear victory, he is the new president of Comoros," he said. "God willing and if the government doesn't stop us, the Ayatollah has won. The Comorans want change and he's the one to do it," said Djoauharia Said, a trader, as she danced to Mr Sambi's campaign song in the capital, Moroni.
An ayatollah with a campaign song?
Mr Sambi's opponents have said he is an Islamic extremist but he has denied this, saying the Comoros are not ready to become an Islamic republic.
But they will be when he's done.
He has promised he would not outlaw the famous Comoran lavish wedding ceremonies or force women to cover their hair.
Mr Azali, from Grand Comore, won the first election in 2002 after coming to power via a bloodless coup three years earlier.
The African Union has sent hundreds of mainly South African troops to help ensure a peaceful transition. Comoran troops have been confined to barracks.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 03:29 ||
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Saudi Arabia has relayed intelligence on Al Qaida to Britain, a report said.
The report said Saudi intelligence informed London of an Al Qaida threat to Britain. But the Saudi information was later determined to have been incorrect.
"We found that some information was passed to the agencies about possible terrorist planning for an attack in the UK," the House of Commons' Intelligence and Security Committee said in the report. "It was examined by the agencies who concluded that the plan was not credible."
The report, released on Thursday, examined the Islamic suicide bombings in London in July 2005. The parliamentary committee determined an Al Qaida link, saying two of the four bombers visited Pakistan several times before the coordinated suicide strikes in London's mass transit system, in which 52 people were killed.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 03:18 ||
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Several people in Al-Qaeda city, Ibb province, released a statement last week denouncing the acts of the Central Security soldiers who beat, badmouthed and threatened some locals without any obvious reasons. Soldiers on board a Central Security vehicle arrested Abduljalil Saleh Al-Samman for not lifting a new national flag during the passing by of the President's convoy.
In the statement, locals confirmed they bear witness on assaults against innocent citizens who are appealing to the President to liberate them from such oppression, "as the attack against a single citizen is an attack against everyone."
Victim Abduljalil Al-Samman said Central Security troops in Al-Qaeda assaulted him for not replacing the old national flag on the front of his shop with a new one because the Presidents motorcade was driving through Al-Qaeda to Taiz. Two Central Security vehicles forcibly grabbed me from inside my shop alleging that I refused to replace the old flag with a new one. They did not allow me to lock my shop and took me immediately to the Security Department without giving me any chance to speak, Al-Samman described his ordeal.
Soldiers on board one of the police vehicles returned to the shop and scorned the other workers saying that they will do whatever they want. When my cousin Fayez responded to them saying they could never do anything, they pointed their guns at him and dragged him, he went on. They beat him severely and took him forcibly to the Security Department, alleging they beat my cousin because he defamed the President of the Republic."
Al-Samman added: at the security department, officers ordered us to forgive soldiers who beat us since we defamed the president, but we refused to abandon our rights as there is a law protecting everyone.
Security Department Chief sent officers from the criminal investigation to Al-Sammans family members in an attempt to persuade them to forget about the case but they refused to abandon any oppression against them. They collected signatures of locals in the city to send a letter of appeal to the President urging him to ensure protection and rights of citizens.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 02:30 ||
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#2
And there is a Paris in Texas...
UBL's family is from the way east in the Hadramout and Ibb is in the middle of the country. Now I am not saying there's no AQ activity in Yemen...but I don't think this is it.
Nonetheless, arresting someone for not rasing a flag at the right time is kind of jacked...
Britains domestic spy agency failed to inform a parliamentary watchdog that it bugged the presumed ringleader of last years bomb attacks in London and heard him talking about building a bomb, the Sunday Times reported yesterday.
The newspaper claimed MI5 had a secret tape of Mohamed Sidique Khan talking about how to build the explosive device and leaving the country to avoid police detection, without citing sources.
It claimed transcripts of the tape were never disclosed to the cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) before it reported last Thursday on the attacks.
The report noted that Khan and two of the other bombers briefly crossed the security radar but they were considered peripheral figures and not pursued.
MI5 and other agencies were largely exonerated of security failings for not preventing the worst terrorist attack on British soil, leading to accusations of a whitewash by opposition politicians and families of victims.
A total of 56 people, including Khan and his three fellow extremist accomplices, were killed in the attacks on Londons public transport network.
The newspaper said it had spoken to an ISC member who admitted they had not seen transcripts of MI5s tapes, which also included Khan talking about his plans to wage jihad - or holy war - and go to Al Qaeda training camps abroad.
Instead, he reportedly said they took evidence from senior security officials and accepted their assessment that Khan was not deemed a serious risk.
The unnamed committee member said that if the transcripts showed Khan had discussed bomb-making and attacking targets, they had been seriously misled.
If that is the case, it amounts to a scandal. I would be outraged, he was quoted as saying.
The Sunday Times said the disclosures would heighten calls for an independent public inquiry into the bombings.
Meanwhile, Britains largest umbrella group for Islamic organisations has launched a plan to make mosques a focal point of communities to combat views that they are hotbeds of extremism.
The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said the London bombings last July 7 had fostered a negative image of mosques as places that require close attention in the war on terrorism.
Announcing a drive on Saturday night to open the doors of Britains 1,000-plus mosques to the wider community, MCB general secretary Iqbal Sacranie said: The tragedy of 7/7 spawned new and aggressive thinking in some quarters. These quarters contend that mosques and imams require close attention in the war on terrorism.
The perception outside the community is not very favourable. There is negative stereotyping that mosques are somehow related with criminal activity. This is totally untrue. There is no such activity taking place in the mosque.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 02:32 ||
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#1
MI5 seems to be afflicted with the same mindset as the U.S. intelligence agencies.
Q: What is it you would say you do here?
Intelligence Agency: Why, we gather intelligence!
Q: I see. Is that it? Anything else come to mind?
IA: Um, like what?
Q: Well, like act on said intelligence to prevent nefarious plots?
IA: Oh good Heavens no. That might interfere with our gathering of intelligence!
Still, when youre ordered to treat it like a police investigation and you actually have to wait for the crime to happen and then present evidence of said crime in a way that scores of bastard defense attorneys and inept prosecutors cant screw up a conviction well, its easy to see how they got to mindset.
Compulsory classes on how "core British values" of democracy, freedom of speech, fairness and responsibility have developed down the centuries could be introduced into the national curriculum as part of a drive to better integrate Muslims into society.
Existing citizenship classes in secondary schools would be expanded to trace the origins of those values through key events in Britain's social and cultural history, Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, said yesterday.
He announced a six-month review on how to take the proposals forward in a speech to the South Bank University.
Aides to Gordon Brown immediately suggested that the Chancellor should take credit for the ideas, as they merely built on themes he had floated in January.
The way that the Treasury leapt on Mr Rammell's speech is proof that if the Chancellor enters No 10 Britishness would become a central theme of his premiership.
Mr Brown, keen to reposition Labour as the party of patriotism, has suggested that British people should imitate the Americans and plant a union flag "in every garden". He also wants a "Britishness day" on which British ideas and values could be celebrated.
Mr Rammell began work on how to promote mutual understanding last August as part of the Government's response to the July 7 London bombings.
Yesterday he also announced a review on how to improve teaching of Islam in British universities. Both reviews were designed to improve understanding of differing beliefs within a multi-cultural society.
If Muslims better understood the values underpinning British society, and non Muslim Britons realised that extremist ideas were not common among mainstream Muslims, mutual respect would be enhanced, he said.
At present there are three strands to compulsory citizenship classes: social and moral responsibility, which encourages pupils to act in a morally responsible way; community involvement, encouraging them to become "helpfully involved" in life in their neighbourhoods; and political literacy, teaching about public life, government institutions and democracy.
Mr Rammell said he wanted to consider a fourth strand to "embed the British values of freedom, fairness, civic responsibility and democracy into the teaching of our cultural and social history". This would mean tracing the emergence of those values through British history.
John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, had mixed feelings about the plan. "We do need to encourage discussion of what constitutes British values," he said. "We do not want a government-imposed national curriculum on British values."
Boris Johnson, the shadow higher education minister, said Mr Rammell was missing the point and should promote more lessons on the heroes of British history.
"It is not a question of teaching British values, it is a question of teaching British history. There is nothing exclusive or divisive in pointing out the fantastic achievements of the British people."
#1
If you Brits want to maintain your culture, forget the training classes. Declare open season on all Muzzies. Round them up and ship them out. Better than polo. Better than fox hunts.
#4
Better if they start teaching such things in the primary grades. Given the dropout rate, those who most desperately need to be taught such things won't be there anymore.
#6
Hope this doesn't happen here, the ACLU will demand equal time for the study of Muzzie culture.
Could be a good idea. While investigating the backgrounds from people who joined Free France or the resistance in june and July 1940 (ie ven before the tiny ray of hope given by Battle of Britain) I found that many of them had read Mein Kampf.
So provided the teaching is not given by Muslims it would be a good idea to have people read the Coran and Muhammad's life.
#7
Yes, JFM, my grandfather was given a copy by his mother right before the war (he was about 20 at the time), and his mind was pretty clear about it, though he was in the armistice army (he was a professional soldier, chasseurs alpins/mountain troops), and didn't take arms until 1942 and the invasion of the french free zone.
#8
I'm talking about mein kampft, to avoid confusion, not the koran (he hasn't read it, and is pretty old and tired now, but he's very much aware of the muslim threat, though).
#9
This at least starts to go down the right track. The UK needs to get over the guilt of its impearlist past. British citizens are not proud of their past, nor proud of their church. They bend over backwards to be PC to their immigrant population. If they are not willing to defend their culture they will lose it.
ECUADOR today ruled out nationalising the state's energy sector, as industry officials accompanied by police held talks in the offices of Occidental Petroleum after the government moved to seize control of the US firm assets.
Petroecuador president Fernando Gonzalez told reporters the government has no plans to nationalise its energy sector such as Bolivia did earlier this month in a move that follows attempts by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez to tighten state control over his own oil sector.
Ecuador, South America's fifth largest oil producer, yesterday terminated its contract with US-based Occidental over accusations that the company illegally transferred part of an oil block without government authorisation.
Petroecuador officials, including Mr Gonzalez, are holding talks with Occidental's officials at the company headquarters in Quito to draft a plan for the take over of its operations.
Occidental is the country's largest investor and extracts 100,000 barrel of oil per day.
Energy Minister Ivan Rodriguez said Ecuador is studying the possibility of a joint venture with other Latin American state oil companies to operate Occidental's oil fields.
"There is a possibility and we are analysing a joint venture with a state oil company," Mr Rodriguez told a local television station.
He said some of the possible candidates include Brazil's Petrobras, Chile's Enap, Mexico's Pemex and Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA.
The dispute centreed on accusations that Occidental transferred 40 per cent of Amazon Block 15 to Canadian oil company EnCana without government authorisation in 2000.
Ecuador's move also comes amid growing nationalist sentiment in Latin America for more control over energy and mining resources in a move to direct more revenues toward helping its indigenous poor.
PRIME Minister John Howard has urged the United States to become more involved in international affairs, saying it is the only way to ensure world peace. Mr Howard made the plea to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during an official lunch at the State Department in Washington, a day after a private dinner with President George W. Bush.
He also said America's involvement in our region was key to its stability.
The Prime Minister has powered through a series of meetings with senior US officials, including Dr Rice, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman and the new chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke. The meeting with Mr Bodman appears to have ruled out Australia's involvement in a US plan to force countries which sell uranium to take back spent nuclear fuel rods for disposal.
Speaking from Washington Mr Howard also played down reports he is planning to hand over the Liberal Party leadership to Peter Costello by December.
This morning he was greeted by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the steps of the Pentagon, surrounded by a military guard of honour.
Dr Rice opened the earlier lunch for about 100 dignitaries, including former US ambassador Tom Schieffer and former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, with a toast to Mr Howard, his wife Janette and their son Richard. Describing them as "very, very good friends", she said the Howards were honouring America with their presence. She said that on her recent visit to Australia, she was able to witness the depth and breadth of the extraordinary relationship between the two countries.
She was able to thank the families of Australian soldiers who served side by side with Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan. "But all the way back, of course, to world wars that we successfully fought in the defence of freedom I was able to say to them that any time the United States is on the frontline in the defence of freedom, Australia is by its side. For that we thank you.
"I can't thank you enough for all that Australia does. Prime Minister and Mrs Howard, I'd like to raise a glass to this friendship, to this friendship based on shared sacrifice, ...this friendship based on an expectation of an even brighter future, given all that we've achieved in the past."
Mr Howard told the lunch that Australian and US forces first fought together in 1917, beginning a shared partnership in military conflict unbroken to this day. "In every major conflict our two countries have been engaged together," he said.
But it was the shared commitment to democracy and freedom, rather than the military association, that tied the countries together, he said.
He said the direction of America's power and purpose was vital to all the nations of the world. "Australia is one of those countries which is in the forefront of those who urge greater rather than lesser United States involvement in the affairs of the world," Howard said. "The involvement of your country in our own region is critical to its stability.
"And the energy and the intellect that you have brought to the position and the example that you represent in so many ways is a source of enormous admiration in my country and a source for very great respect around the world."
#2
Howard should see to it that his own churchmen are not presecuted for "hate speech" when speaking the truth about islamofascism
while muzzies are freely allowed their hateful literatures in Ozzieland. Such attention to details matters.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/16/2006 8:17 Comments ||
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#4
The Aussies were with us in VietNam too. Nations may have only interests instead of friends, but our two nations' interest always seem to coincide when it counts. Glad of it.
#5
We were only ever on opposite sides once, at the Battle of Brisbane, and that is still classified.
Seriously, this needs to be said and good on John Howard for saying it. The US is the cornerstone of Western Civilisation.
THE HAGUE, 17/05/06 - The Ayaan Hirsi Ali question has plunged the conservatives (VVD) into a deep crisis. The pivot is VVD Integration Minister Rita Verdonk, who has decided that the Somalia-born VVD MP and world famous Islam-critic is not a Dutch citizen. Verdonk surprised friend and foe on Monday evening by announcing that Hirsi Ali "has not received Dutch citizenship." Based on a ruling by the Supreme Court in 2005, she has with retrospective effect never become a citizen of the Netherlands, because her asylum application in 1992 was made on the basis of a false name and date of birth, according to the VVD minister.
Within the VVD, reactions were "emotional and shocked," said MP Annette Nijs yesterday afternoon after a specially-called party meeting. "The MPs are completely behind Ayaan," she added. Verdonk thereby appears to be isolated within the party of which she may become the leader on 1 June.
Many VVD MPs spoke in tremulous voices about Verdonk's decision, which preceded yesterday's decision by Hirsi Ali to leave the Lower House and the country. Prominent VVD MP Bibi de Vries had scathing words for the minister. "If something were to happen to Hirsi Ali, there are people within the VVD who have blood on their hands. (...) What if they kill her? That is my greatest fear."
MP Jozias Van Aartsen, who resigned as party leader on 8 March, said he was shocked, "just like many of my colleagues." "This shows that we cannot handle a woman like Ayaan in the Netherlands (...) "It cannot be that voices from the US are crying, 'Netherlands, what are you doing."
Verdonk said nothing in her letter to the Lower House on Monday evening about the possible consequences for Hirsi Ali. If she became a stateless person, she might lose her state-provided protection, introduced due to persistent death threats by radical Muslims. She has the opportunity to respond to the decision within six weeks, Verdonk wrote.
Verdonk's conclusion is particularly remarkable as it emerges from an investigation only launched two days earlier. Generally, results of such investigations take months. Sources in The Hague see the rapid and harsh decision as a campaign move; 'Iron Rita' likes to present herself as decisive.
Verdonk is currently battling with Education State Secretary Mark Rutte to become Van Aartsen's successor. The neck-and-neck race will be decided by the 40,000 VVD members, who have been able to vote since last week. The results will be announced on 1 June - many votes have however already been irrevocably cast.
Lower House Speaker Frans Weisglas said he was "shocked by the strong language" of Bibi de Vries on Verdonk. MP Charlie Aptroot also termed her remarks "scandalous." The minister "is doing no more than to carry out the law in an extremely consistent way," he argued.
But the general mood within the VVD yesterday was strongly pro-Hirsi Ali and strongly anti-Verdonk. VVD MEP Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert considers Verdonk's action "disgusting" and believes the Netherlands is making itself ridiculous internationally be treating Hirsi Ali so "unbelievably coldly."
Geert Dales, mayor of Leeuwarden and drafter of the VVD party manifesto, feels "bewildered" that the case could cut up so rough after years. He pointed out that Hirsi Ali had already admitted in 2002 that she had lied in her asylum application, though this is now been presented as news. Dales considers "what is being done to Hirsi Ali is going too far" after she has been guarded for years against terrorists "and her freedom of speech restricted".
Posted by: Steve ||
05/16/2006 13:55 ||
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#1
I will not deal with any bussiness located in the Netherlands. You Dutch people can go screw yourelves if you can't jerk the chain of this bigot pig dog Rita Verdonk and undo her criminal acts. Piss on you and your Queen. Dithering retards. Stick that in your hash pipe and smokle it.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/16/2006 19:22 Comments ||
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#2
Another light goes out in Europe. More like 1938 every day.
Hat tip to LGF: I came to Holland in the summer of 1992 because I wanted to be able to determine my own future. I didnt want to be forced into a destiny that other people had chosen for me, so I opted for the protection of the rule of law. Here in Holland, I found freedom and opportunities, and I took those opportunities to speak out against religious terror.
In January 2003, at the invitation of the VVD party, I became a member of parliament. I accepted the VVDs invitation on the condition that I would be the partys spokesman for the emancipation of women and the integration of immigrants.
What exactly did I want to achieve?
First of all I wanted to put the oppression of immigrant women -- especially Muslim women squarely on the Dutch political agenda. Second, I wanted Holland to pay attention to the specific cultural and religious issues that were holding back many ethnic minorities, instead of always taking a one-sided approach that focused only on their socio-economic circumstances. Lastly, I wanted politicians to grasp the fact that major aspects of Islamic doctrine and tradition, as practiced today, are incompatible with the open society.
Now I have to ask myself, have I accomplished that task?
I have stumbled often in my political career. It has sometimes been frustrating and slow. However, I am completely certain that I have, in my own way, succeeded in contributing to the debate. Issues related to Islam such as impediments to free speech; refusal of the separation of Church and State; widespread domestic violence; honor killings; the repudiation of wives; and Islams failure to condemn genital mutilation -- these subjects can no longer be swept under the carpet in our countrys capital. Some of the measures that this government has begun taking give me satisfaction. Many illusions of how easy it will be to establish a multicultural society have disappeared forever. We are now more realistic and more open in this debate, and I am proud to have contributed to that process.
Meanwhile, the ideas which I espouse have begun spreading to other countries. In recent years I have given speeches and attended debates in many European countries and in the United States. For months now, I have felt that I needed to make a decision: should I go on in Dutch politics, or should I now transfer my ideas to an international forum?
In the fall of 2005 I told Gerrit Zalm and Jozias van Aartsen, the leaders of the VVD, that I would not be a candidate for the parliamentary elections in 2007. I had decided to opt for a more international platform, because I wanted to contribute to the international debate on the emancipation of Muslim women and the complex relationship between Islam and the West.
Now that I am announcing that I will resign from Dutch politics, I would like to thank the members of the VVD for my years in parliament to thank them for inviting me to stand for parliament, and -- perhaps more importantly -- for putting up with me while I was there, for this has been in many ways a rough ride for us all. I want to thank my other colleagues here in parliament for their help, although some of our debates have been sharp. (Femke Halsema, thank you especially for that!). I would also like to thank the 30,758 people who in January 2003 trusted their preference vote to a newcomer.
But why am I not remaining in parliament for my full term, until next years election? Why, after only three and a half years, have I decided to resign from the Lower Chamber?
It is common knowledge that threats against my life began building up ever since I first talked about Islam publicly, in the spring of 2002. Months before I even entered politics, my freedom of movement was greatly curtailed, and that became worse after Theo van Gogh was murdered in 2004. I have been obliged to move house so many times I have lost count. The direct cause for the ending of my membership in parliament is that on April 27 of this year, a Dutch court ruled that I must once again leave my home, because my neighbors filed a complaint that they could not feel safe living next to me. The Dutch government will appeal this verdict and I grateful for that, because how on earth will other people whose lives are threatened manage to find a place to stay if this verdict is allowed to rest? However, this appeal does not alter my situation: I have to leave my apartment by the end of August.
Another reason for my departure is the discussion that has arisen from a TV program, The Holy Ayaan, which was aired on May 11. This program centered on two issues: the story that I told when I was applying for asylum here in Holland, and questions about my forced marriage.
I have been very open about the fact that when I applied for asylum in the Netherlands in 1992, I did so under a false name and with a fabricated story. In 2002, I spoke on national television about the conditions of my arrival, and I said then that I fabricated a story in order to be able to receive asylum here. Since that TV program I have repeated this dozens of times, in Dutch and international media. Many times I have truthfully named my father and given my correct date of birth. (You will find a selection of these articles in the press folder). I also informed the VVD leadership and members of this fact when I was invited to stand for parliament.
I have said many times that I am not proud that I lied when I sought asylum in the Netherlands. It was wrong to do so. I did it because I felt I had no choice. I was frightened that if I simply said I was fleeing a forced marriage, I would be sent back to my family. And I was frightened that if I gave my real name, my clan would hunt me down and find me. So I chose a name that I thought I could disappear with the real name of my grandfather, who was given the birth-name Ali. I claimed that my name was Ayaan Hirsi Ali, although I should have said it was Ayaan Hirsi Magan.
You probably are wondering, what is my real name?
I am Ayaan, the daughter of Hirsi, who is the son of a man who took the name of Magan. Magan was the son of Isse, who was the son of Guleid, who was the son of Ali. He was the son of Waiays, who was the son of Muhammad. He was the son of Ali, who was the son of Umar. Umar was the son of Osman, who was the son of Mahamud. This is my clan, and therefore, in Somalia, this is my name: Ayaan Hirsi Magan Isse Guleid Ali Waiays Muhammad Ali Umar Osman Mahamud.
Following the May 11 television broadcast, legal questions have been raised about my naturalization as a Dutch citizen. Minister Verdonk has written to me saying that my passport will be annulled, because it was issued to a person who does not hold my real name. I am not at liberty to discuss the legal issues in this case.
Now for the questions about my forced marriage. Last weeks TV program cast doubt on my credibility in that respect, and the final conclusion of the documentary is that all this is terribly complicated. Let me tell you, its not so complex. The allegations that I willingly married my distant cousin, and was present at the wedding ceremony, are simply untrue. This man arrived in Nairobi from Canada, asked my father for one of his five daughters, and my father gave him me. I can assure you my father is not a man who takes no for an answer. Still, I refused to attend the formal ceremony, and I was married regardless. Then, on my way to Canada -- during a stopover in Germany -- I traveled to the Netherlands and asked for asylum here. In all simplicity this is what happened, nothing more and nothing less. For those who are interested in the intimate details of my transition from a pre-modern society to a modern one, and how I came to love what the West stands for, please read my memoir, which is due to be published this fall.
To return to the present day, may I say that it is difficult to live with so many threats on your life and such a level of police protection. It is difficult to work as a parliamentarian if you have nowhere to live. All that is difficult, but not impossible. It has become impossible since last night, when Minister Verdonk informed me that she would strip me of my Dutch citizenship.
I am therefore preparing to leave Holland. But the questions for our society remain. The future of Islam in our country; the subjugation of women in Islamic culture; the integration of the many Muslims in the West: it is self-deceit to imagine that these issues will disappear.
I will continue to ask uncomfortable questions, despite the obvious resistance that they elicit. I feel that I should help other people to live in freedom, as many people have helped me. I personally have gone through a long and sometimes painful process of personal growth in this country. It began with learning to tell the truth to myself, and then the truth about myself: I strive now to also tell the truth about society as I see it.
That transition from becoming a member of a clan to becoming a citizen in an open society is what public service has come to mean for me. Only clear thinking and strong action can lead to real change, and free many people within our society from the mental cage of submission. The idea that I can contribute to their freedom, whether in the Netherlands or in another country, gives me deep satisfaction.
Ladies and Gentlemen, as of today, I resign from Parliament. I regret that I will be leaving the Netherlands, the country which has given me so many opportunities and enriched my life, but I am glad that I will be able to continue my work. I will go on.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/16/2006 12:58 ||
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works for me - let her in
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/16/2006 19:25 Comments ||
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"I did so under a false name and with a fabricated story"
The story is a week old but I don't recall seeing it here yet.
Turkey said Monday it had temporarily recalled its ambassadors in France and Canada for consultations over disagreements with both countries on whether massacres of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire should be termed genocide or not. "Our ambassador in Paris, Osman Koruturk, and our ambassador in Ottawa, Aydemir Erman, have been recalled to Ankara for a short time for consultations on the latest developments," the foreign ministry said in a brief statement. "We foresee that our ambassadors will return to their duties after the consultations," it said.
Last week, Turkey warned France that bilateral ties would suffer "irreparable damage" if the National Assembly passes a bill that would make it a punishable offence to "deny the existence of the 1915 Armenian genocide". If approved, the bill would provide up to five years in prison and a EUR 45,000 fine for any person who denies that the 1915-1917 massacres of Armenians were genocide. The bill, which follows a 2001 French law officially recognising the massacres as genocide, was proposed by members of the opposition Socialist Party (PS) and will have its first reading before the Assembly on May 18.
Turkey was also angered when Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper referred to the "Armenian genocide" as fact in a statement praising commemorations of the 91st anniversary of the killings on April 24. The foreign ministry said at the time that Harper's words were "appalling" and would "negatively affect" bilateral ties. In 2002, the Canadian Senate recognised the massacres as the first genocide of the 20th century and the House of Commons followed suit two years later.
Armenians claim up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings between 1915 and 1917, as the Ottoman Empire, modern Turkey's predecessor, was falling apart. Turkey categorically rejects the claims, saying 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian troops invading Ottoman soil.
#1
Isn't this kind of like beating a dead horse at this point? The Ottoman Empire is gone, its leaders deposed and dead. Turkey doesn't wipe out civilizations anymore, so why are they beating them over the head with this?
#2
While I'm bitching, 5years in prison and a EUR45,000 fine? The muslims who gangrape women in Europe don't spend that long in jail. What the hell is wrong with Europeans????
#5
"Turkey doesn't wipe out civilizations anymore, so why are they beating them over the head with this?"
Simple answer: cos 2 million odd people without a voice were murdered and the turks are in holocaust denial mode.
Realpoltic answer: France is awash with uneducated muslim immigrants and doesn't want to give Turkey EU status cos that would encourage a million odd more.
PARIS, May 15 The Dutch government on Monday abruptly threatened to revoke the citizenship of one of the country's most prominent members of Parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born woman who arrived as a refugee 14 years ago.
The minister of immigration, Rita Verdonk, said Ms. Hirsi Ali had provided inaccurate information when applying for political asylum in 1992 and seeking Dutch citizenship in 1997. As a result, the minister said, both applications were invalid. Ms. Hirsi Ali has been given six weeks to respond.
The move is likely to provoke a widespread reaction because Ms. Hirsi Ali, 36, has faced repeated death threats since 2002, when she became well known because of her outspoken criticism of conservative Islam and of the mistreatment of Muslim women, even in The Netherlands.
She was the writer of a short television documentary on violence against Muslim women made by the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was murdered in an Amsterdam street in 2004 by a Dutch-Moroccan who said his victim had insulted Islam. The killer pinned a note to the body of Mr. van Gogh saying that Ms. Hirsi Ali would be next.
Long before Mr. van Gogh's death, Ms. Hirsi Ali had been provided with full-time bodyguards by the Dutch government and had been living in a series of safe houses. Despite that, she continued speaking and writing on abuse of women in Islam and her view that the religion promotes intolerance.
"I'm speechless," Ms. Hirsi Ali said in a telephone interview from The Hague after she had received a call from Ms. Verdonk on Monday night. . Ms. Hirsi Ali said she considered the move to take away her citizenship, leaving her stateless, as an attempt to silence her. "I have been fully committed to my work in Parliament, and I have taken many risks," she said. "This will make others think harder before they speak out."
She said she was baffled by the unexpected uproar over her asylum procedure because she had told the story numerous times in interviews and in her own essays about how she changed her last name from Magan to Ali and changed her date of birth when she arrived in the Netherlands at age 22, escaping from an arranged marriage.
She tried to hide at first "in case my father or my brother or my husband looked for me with bad intentions," she said. "I'm now being picked on for lying, but I have admitted this for years." She said she discussed the matter with the leaders of the conservative political party VVD when they invited her to run for Parliament.
Her difficulty began over the weekend after a television documentary retraced her steps and she once more said on camera that she had changed some facts on arriving in The Netherlands.
As elections approach, the debate about immigration in The Netherlands has become increasingly tense, with Ms. Verdonk taking an ever harder line and recently expelling would-be immigrants who failed to meet the criteria for political asylum. Ms. Hirsi Ali has also come under criticism. Opponents say she has polarized the immigration debate, and some have called for her to be deported.
She said she would resign from Parliament on Tuesday and speed up her intended departure for the United States, where she has applied for a job at the American Enterprise Institute. She had intended to serve out her mandate, she said. But in April she was notified that she would have to vacate her secure government apartment because her neighbors won a lawsuit complaining that her presence exposed them to risk.
#1
We should all send flowers to her at the American Enterprise Institute to welcome her here, as well as make sure her ideas get the exposure they deserve in the future. It does make you wonder if she foreshadows a wave of intelligent, productive European refugees like the one we benefited from starting in the 1930's.
#4
This is a disgusting episode - which will become a signal chapter in the History of the Fall of Europe. The Dutch Govt is riddled with dhimmis - and soon-to-be dhimmis. That none of them seems willing to step forward and bitch-slap Verdonk (how appropriate) and her co-cowards slams the door, IMHO. Will the Dutch people allow such scum to continue to grease the slide?
Same goes for all of the other Europeans, are you also gutless?
#5
In 2005, 188,000 children were born in the Netherlands, a decrease of 6,000 with 2004. 2005 recorded 137,000 deaths.
In 2005, 121,000 Dutch emigrated, mostly to the neighboring countries Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom and to the Netherlands Antilles. About half of the emigrants were ethnic Dutch; the other half are both Western and non-Western foreigners returning to their country of birth, or rejected asylum seekers.
I suppose if you're going to crack down on immigrants you cant very well leave them a loaded gun to say: well look at Hirsi Ali, she lied, but she stays why can't I?
But seriously she should apply again and they should expedite the process and give her refugee status IMMEDIATELY.
she was a national treasure.
who will speak out for the oppressed muslim women now?
#7
who will speak out for the oppressed muslim women now?
No one in the Netherlands. That's the point.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/16/2006 5:31 Comments ||
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C n P here:
May 15, 2006
Netherlands: Hirsi Ali "Was Never Dutch"
Minister Verdonk tried to play the "tough on Islamism" card for a while. But she has proven herself to be the worst Dhimmi of all. She is selling her soul for 'peace' but doesn't know the Muslims don't pay those debts: Ayaan Not Dutch; According To Dutch Minister
Ayaan Hirsi Ali received her Dutch passport on false grounds. This wrote minister Verdonk in a letter to the VVD-MP. [...] The definitive results (re: of the investigation) will come later, but on the basis of the broadcast of the tv-show Zembla and the "now known facts", Hirsi Ali is "concidered as not having reveived the Dutch nationality" according to Verdonk. [...] Not having a Dutch passport will mean that Hirsi Ali is falsely a member of Parliament. Hirsi Ali has six weeks to (go in) appeal to the letter from Verdonk.[...] Shameless, shameless cowards. http://westernresistance.com/
#9
Last night I spoke to one of Ayaan Hirsi's American friends who helped arrange the AEI gig.
Ayaan is looking to meet guys in the Washington DC area; freethinkers, preferrably moslem ancestry, in their 30s with a decent job and a sense of humor. I know a few like that (or close to it) but I don't think they can deal with the fact that she is both intelligent and somewhat famous.
For those who are into physical beauty, Ayaan is a size 2 or 4, a great smile. She will need to learn a bit about American makeup and fashion but that's easy.
Before they get a date with Ayaan they will have to be interviewed by two or three fellows that Ayaan trusts - yes, I admit that's another turn off.
#10
I'm violating Godwin's Law here, but I think it has to be said.
The people tossing her out would also have notified the Gestapo of the hiding place of Anne Frank.
Posted by: Eric Jablow ||
05/16/2006 8:36 Comments ||
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#11
This lady rocks. My older brother in DC is single. Unfortunately for her we have no muslim background other then busting muzzy balls at gas stations back in Dearborn.
#13
"Ayaan is looking to meet guys in the Washington DC area; freethinkers, preferrably moslem ancestry, in their 30s with a decent job and a sense of humor."
You gotta be kidding. Her only legitimization in the country is gonna be by relationship to a man? That's only marginally better than what was offered to her in the first place by her Somali parents. If that is true, I wonder about her state of mind right now.
I hope she comes here and hope she meets a nice man and has children with him, if that's what she wants. But that shouldn't be her escape hatch out of a Dutch deathtrap.
It is true she won't be here long enough to date until Sept or Oct.
It is also true she will do a fair amount of traveling and put in a lot of hours on research and the like so she won't be able to have a clingy relationship.
However, policy heroines can have a life too. Michelle Malkin is married and has kids.
#18
mhw, you are a love. Thank you for being a matchmaking ray of sunshine on this dreary day. Jules, Ms. Hirsi has been single a looooong time. It says something that, when she already has a job waiting for her, that she trusts America enough to think that here she can finally find personal as well as professional happiness. How long must she wait before she applies for American citizenship?
#19
Other blog commentary (I think Dhimmi Watch) sez the Netherlands may strip her of her Dutch citizenship and attempt to deport her to Somailia. If she loses her Dutch passport, it may make her move to the US problematic if not impossible.
Folks, ya gotta vote GOP this fall. The nutbars on the left have been sharpening their swords with bile, venom, and blind hatred for six years now. We can't afford to unleash them at this time.
#22
Any man who lucky enough to marry her would presumably have his surname added to this (from her resignation statement):
I am Ayaan, the daughter of Hirsi, who is the son of a man who took the name of Magan. Magan was the son of Isse, who was the son of Guleid, who was the son of Ali. He was the son of Waiays, who was the son of Muhammad. He was the son of Ali, who was the son of Umar. Umar was the son of Osman, who was the son of Mahamud. This is my clan, and therefore, in Somalia, this is my name: Ayaan Hirsi Magan Isse Guleid Ali Waiays Muhammad Ali Umar Osman Mahamud.
A link to the whole statement is available at Little Green Footballs (my attempt to put the link in this comment was unsuccessful).
#23
On a historical note, fixed family names came about as a result of government Bureacracie's need to keep track of people. In many places they remain a flexible concept. I recall a friend of mine from south India telling me, that she needed a family name to get a passport, so she took her father's given name. The situation in Indonesia is similar where most people only use one name and will refer to their ancestry in the same way Hirst Ali does.
The European Union vowed on Monday to get a new aid mechanism for the Palestinians in place as soon as possible, but said Israeli support was crucial and it appeared the United States would not take part. EU External Affairs Commssioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said she hoped the mechanism, proposed last week by the quartet of Middle East peace negotiators to aid Palestinians but bypass the Hamas-led government, could be put in place by June.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/16/2006 00:00 ||
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but said Israeli support was crucial and it appeared the United States would not take part.
Now I'm confused. Is this merely EU posturing in order to suck up to the Muslims and raise my blood pressure?
The Federal Communications Commission should investigate whether phone companies are violating federal communications law by providing calling records to the National Security Agency as part of an anti-terrorism program, an FCC commissioner said Monday.
"There is no doubt that protecting the security of the American people is our government's No. 1 responsibility," Commissioner Michael J. Copps, a Democrat, said in a statement. "But in a digital age where collecting, distributing and manipulating consumers' personal information is as easy as a click of a button, the privacy of our citizens must still matter."
USA Today reported last week that AT&T Corp., Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. began turning over tens of millions of phone records to the NSA after the spy agency requested the records shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The paper reported that the NSA is building a massive call databank to analyze calling patterns.
The telecommunications company Qwest said it refused to cooperate with the NSA after determining that doing so would violate privacy law.
On Monday, Atlanta-based BellSouth issued a statement that it had found no contract to provide phone records to the NSA and had not been providing bulk customer calling records to the agency. Verizon has refused to confirm or deny whether it has participated in the program.
The New York Times reported in December that the NSA was eavesdropping on electronic communications in the U.S. and abroad involving suspected Al Qaeda members and operatives. Critics of the eavesdropping programs, Democrats and Republicans, have questioned whether the NSA has stepped outside the law by not seeking court-ordered warrants.
President Bush, while not discussing the details of any NSA programs directed at detecting terrorism plots, has repeatedly assured Americans that the initiatives he authorizes are within the law and the Constitution and are not violating the privacy of ordinary Americans.
When the NSA developed the programs it was under the direction of Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, now Bush's choice to replace Porter Goss as head of the CIA. The eavesdropping program and the phone call databank are likely to be the focus of questions Thursday when the Senate Intelligence Committee begins Hayden's confirmation hearings.
Sen. Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, has said he wants to gather testimony from phone company representatives about how they work with the NSA because they cannot decline to cooperate by claiming executive privilege.
An FCC investigation, if undertaken, would be the second attempt this year by the government to explore an aspect of an NSA program. The Justice Department sought to investigate the role of its lawyers in the warrantless eavesdropping program, but it ended the inquiry last week because its lawyers were denied security clearances.
Copps cited the federal Communications Act when he questioned the legality of the phone companies' reported cooperation with the NSA.
"We need to be certain that the companies over which the FCC has public-interest oversight have not gone or been asked to go to a place where they should not be," Copps said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 02:36 ||
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Just becuz the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor does not mean America is at war or has enemies. The Dems wanna protect America from the kind of government whose agenda it public rants against while covertly voting for.
WASHINGTON When Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced facts last week about international sentiment on Iran - shelving US demands for quick, tough action and signing on to another round of European incentives to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions - it was a move right out of the Bush playbook.
The first President Bush's diplomatic playbook, that is.
Confronted with less maneuverability in the wake of Iraq and buffeted by newly assertive forces abroad, US diplomacy under Secretary Rice is proving to be more patient and multilateral than in the first Bush term. To the consternation of some conservatives, especially in Congress, American diplomacy is much less supremacist, with Rice stressing the new importance of holding together like-minded partners with similar values.
Besides Iran, evidence of this new reality - and Rice's approach to operating within it - can be found in several events of last week. Among them:
On Hamas, Rice signed on to a test period of resumed aid to Hamas-governed Palestinians, bowing to European pressure and rising concerns of a humanitarian crisis in the territories. And, at least temporarily, the pro-Israel congressional lobby stood down.
On China, the Bush administration declined to label China a "currency manipulator" despite its "extreme dissatisfaction" with Beijing's baby-step efforts to tame a high-flying yuan. The decision drew barbs from congressional Democrats and Republicans alike, who say China's strong currency hurts US manufacturing, but it put off any confrontation with Beijing over the issue.
"The Bush administration in the second term has been much more mindful of the need to engage in diplomacy and cognizant of the fact that it needs to give ground to get others on board," says Charles Kupchan, a US foreign-policy expert at Georgetown University here.
"It's not a strategic or ideological about-face, but a shift born almost exclusively of necessity," he adds. "After the difficulties of Iraq, we see it on Hamas, we see it on Iran, and we've seen a reemphasis on the need for European strength and unity."
A rising challenge for the US is newly assertive players abroad, including Russia and China, but also Iran, Hamas, and oil-rich Venezuela, that like to publicly poke at the US.
Rice's adaptations have led some to worry that the administration is pursuing coalition-building as if it were an end in itself.
"If your goal is to be liked, then you're not going to do very much," says Danielle Pletka, a foreign-policy analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank that has generally had close ties to the administration.
Zeroing in on the US decision to join European countries in offering Iran incentives to drop uranium enrichment, Ms. Pletka says, "I'm all for improving ties with allies, but one has to ask how going along on this moves the ball forward. Someone has to remember," she adds, "that we're not about getting better cooperation with the French and the Germans - that's not the objective. What we're about is getting the Iranian nuclear program derailed."
Of course, others within the administration take different foreign-policy approaches. Vice President Dick Cheney's recent broadside at Russia for what he called a retreat from democracy and the use of energy supplies to "blackmail" neighboring countries reflects the first Bush term's moral certitude, some observers say. It also suggests that the internal tensions between aggressive neoconservatives and more traditional internationalists, which have marked the Bush administration since at least 9/11, still exist.
Those who know the secretary put her squarely in the second camp.
"Condi Rice has always leaned ideologically closer to father Bush and the traditional internationalism of that presidency, than to the neoconservative internationalism of the first George W. Bush term," says Georgetown's Mr. Kupchan.
What Rice brings to the table is not only the assumption that she has the president's full backing - something predecessor Colin Powell couldn't assert - but also an ability to manage, if not actually resolve, the conflicting foreign-policy visions.
"You need a good cop and a bad cop to deal with" the international powers and bring them together, "and Secretary Rice is playing the good cop," says Raymond Tanter, who worked with Rice on the National Security Council of President George H.W. Bush.
On Iran, Hamas, and other international issues, UN Ambassador John Bolton - a Cheney ally - is "playing the bad cop, the tough guy, and that is buying time in the Congress," says Mr. Tanter. "In the meantime, Rice is working with the P-5 [the Security Council's five permanent members] plus Germany, where the name of the game is incrementalism."
Rice "took a lesson" from UN deliberations on Iraq, says Tanter, now president of the Iran Policy Committee, a group advocating regime change in Iran. But that has not changed American determination on Iran, he insists.
"She's seen that to maintain the unity you have to move slowly, but at the end of the road is the same objective," he says, "and that is for Iran to take an exit ramp from the road to the bomb."
One change with Rice at the helm of US foreign policy is that the State Department no longer takes a back seat to the Pentagon in foreign-policy hierarchy.
"After a time there in the doldrums, we feel like we have the wind back in our sails," says one State Department official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to comment on administration turf battles.
The renewed primacy of the State Department in US foreign policy does not mean that one side has won or that tensions within the administration have ended. Some experts say the same divisions that mark American domestic politics will continue to roil US foreign policy even after the Bush presidency.
"The general thinking out there is that our foreign policy right now is a direct byproduct of Bush and his advisers, and that once they are gone we will have a return to ... a policy based on a centrist coalition of moderate Democrats and Republicans," says Kupchan.
But "the same factors dividing domestic camps are shaping foreign policy as well," he says. "I don't subscribe to this idea that the battle over foreign-policy visions will die out along with the Bush presidency."
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/16/2006 7:35 Comments ||
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What Rice brings to the table is not only the assumption that she has the president's full backing - something predecessor Colin Powell couldn't assert - but also an ability to manage, if not actually resolve, the conflicting foreign-policy visions.
"You need a good cop and a bad cop to deal with" the international powers and bring them together, "and Secretary Rice is playing the good cop," says Raymond Tanter, who worked with Rice on the National Security Council of President George H.W. Bush.
Powell had as much backing as Rice. What Powell didn't have was loyalty to the President. And the press knew it and the press played Powell like Heifitz. Powell, a great bureaucrat, a lousy general and statesman. Sort of the ultimate not-Marshall.
(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that Department of Defense will release a videotape to Judicial Watch at 1:00 p.m. this afternoon that allegedly shows American Airlines Flight 77 striking the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. The Department of Defense is releasing the videotape in response to a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act request and related lawsuit.
This is in response to your December 14, 2004 Freedom of Information Act Request, FOIA appeal of March 27, 2005, and complaint filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, wrote William Kammer, Chief of the Department of Defense, Office of Freedom of Information. Now that the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui is over, we are able to complete your request and provide the video
Judicial Watch originally filed a Freedom of Information Act request on December 15, 2004, seeking all records pertaining to September 11, 2001 camera recordings of the Pentagon attack from the Sheraton National Hotel, the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, Pentagon security cameras and the Virginia Department of Transportation. The Department of Defense admitted in a January 26, 2005 letter that it possessed a videotape responsive to Judicial Watchs request. However, the Pentagon refused to release the videotape because it was, part of an ongoing investigation involving Zacarias Moussaoui. Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit on February 22, 2006 arguing that there was no legal basis for the Defense Departments refusal to release the tape.
We fought hard to obtain this video because we felt that it was very important to complete the public record with respect to the terrorist attacks of September 11, said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77. As always, our prayers remain with all those who suffered as a result of those murderous attacks.
A copy of the video will be made available on Judicial Watchs Internet site, www.judicialwatch.org.
Judicial Watch is a non-partisan, educational foundation organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code. Judicial Watch is dedicated to fighting government and judicial corruption and promoting a return to ethics and morality in our nation's public life.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/16/2006 11:40 ||
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You mean Cheney and Haliburton didn't conspire to bomb the Pentagon? (scratching my tin-foil covered head)
#3
I can't tell you how many times I have heard that a plane didn't hit the Pentagon it was a cruise missle or something else. That it was the military that di it. Those people will not be convinced by this.
There is a small group of US citizens of non muslim background that cheer about and are happy aboout 9/11. There are people who actually post pictures of the twin towers in flame and make sick remarks and gloat over it. People who are US Cctizens. It makes me sick.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/16/2006 13:21 Comments ||
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#4
SPoD, here is a pic from a Tee-shirt sold in France that will prove you it'"s not just a bunch of non-muslim americans. Watch out for your blood pressure. Trendy, isn't it?
(from a France-echos article).
May 16, 2006: In the last seven months, the U.S. Army has met or exceeded all of its recruiting goals. In that time, over 160,000 people have enlisted, or re-enlisted. The total strength of the active duty and reserve forces are 1.2 million men and women, all of them volunteers.
Except for a few months in 2004-5, the military has been able to maintain its strength, despite wartime conditions. The biggest problem has not been casualties (only about 10,000 soldiers have been killed or disabled so far, less than one percent of overall strength), but the disruption to family life caused by so many troops getting sent to combat zones. This discouraged re-enlistments in reserve units, although mainly among the non-combat troops. In combat units, re-enlistments were at record levels.
The army adapted to the shortfalls by increasing signing and reenlistment bonuses for key jobs, paying attention to not sending troops overseas any more than needed, and allowing a few percent more of the recruits to come from the lower end of the recruit pool.
But the biggest asset in the recruiting effort has been the world-of-mouth from the troops themselves. They believe in what they are doing, and accomplishing. They believe they are well equipped, trained and led to do it. This angle has not gotten much press coverage, probably because so few members of the press know troops personally. The army recruits largely from the middle classes and non-urban areas. Just the kinds of places and people where you won't find journalists and pundits. When the media does address the recruiting situation, it is dismissed as not relevant. The troops are described as not "getting the big picture," or worse.
Just a bunch of stupid brain-washed hicks
Posted by: Steve ||
05/16/2006 11:24 ||
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#1
"The army adapted to the shortfalls by increasing signing and reenlistment bonuses for key jobs,"
Ok. Economics still works.
"paying attention to not sending troops overseas any more than needed,"
Which is fine with 138,000 troops in Iraq, and declining, and 10,000 or so in Afghan. Which is why we are barely containing the insurgency in Iraq. Hopefully there will be enough Iraqi forces to make the difference SOON. and hope we dont have any more large,extended commitments.
"and allowing a few percent more of the recruits to come from the lower end of the recruit pool. "
Hope its really only a few percent.
Still and all, this is good news. Whats the situation on midlevel officer retention (capts, Majors) which ive heard is the worst problem.
#2
The left immediately points out that "because" of these temporary recruiting shortfalls, the military lowered its goals so as to guarantee meeting them.
So until the military again raises its recruiting goals, and meet those higher goals, these stats will continue to be slandered.
Reporters are 100 times more likely to associate Islam with terrorism or militancy than all other faiths combined, an article quoted a word search on news stories published in major newspapers over the past decade as concluding. Such lopsided portrayal is indicative of deep-seated misunderstandings about Islam, and sometimes just plain prejudice, said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in an article on Monday. Surely, all terrorists are not Muslim. Neither are all Muslims terrorists.
All terrorists are not Muslim, but most are nowadays. There are still a few non-Islamists terror orgs around, but they're mostly in decline. They're vastly outnumbered in scale, if not always in viciousness, by the Muslims.
If I were to engage in some scienterrific analysis, might I find that the ratio of Islamic to non-Islamic terrorist acts with resulting blood, gore and mayhem is on the order of (just guessing here) 100:1 or so?
The European Union had noticed resentment among Muslims to the objectionable juxtaposition of Islam and terrorism, and was distributing new guidelines to its 25 members that recommended using non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalisation, Ahmed said in his article titled A sensible way to describe terrorists.
I'm not too concerned about the Muslim resentment. As I've noted on a number of occasions, it would seem fair that Muslims be concerned about Western resentment of their love for puddles of blood and explosions, but that seems to go right past them. Therefore, I'll withhold any concern I may have felt under other circumstances about injury to their delicate feelings. And I'll pass on the "non-emotive lexicon," thank you. I'll stick with calling a spade a spade.
EU officials say that the guidelines, which are not legally binding, would ask European governments to shun the phrase Islamic terrorism in favour of terrorists who abusively invoke Islam, Ahmed said.
How about "takfir assholes"? Can we use that? How about "bloodthirsty Salafists"? Is that okay?
Other terms being considered by the review include Islamist, fundamentalist and jihad, he said. He praised this first of its kind effort to separate terrorism from its perceived roots.
The Muddle East is chock full of people calling themselves Islamists. They're Muslim fundamentalists I really do prefer the term "Salafist" who find jihad is the answer to everything to include "what time is it?"
Time, of course, being a post-colonial construct, ontologically oppressing and imposing a reactionary, antithetical, and deliberately hostile teleology upon the victims of Zionist aggression.
Associating the criminal enterprise of terrorism with the faith of 1.4 billion Muslims, 99.99 percent of whom will never come near any act of terrorism, much less use Islam as a justification for their crimes, is just plain wrong, he said.
Associating the roots of terrorism with failed states like Pakistan, Yemen, and Sudan seems pretty fair to me, given the quaint local customs. Equating the roots of terrorism with the Grand Mosque in Mecca and its imam also seems fair, since he periodically calls on God to kill us all.
Ahmed said the 9/11 attacks had brought home the horrors of a new form of suicidal terrorism.
Lucky for Muslims the West has a damned short attention span.
More and more scholarly writings are delving deeper into this issue and offering us new insights, he said. The pioneering instigators and the largest purveyors of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are overwhelmingly Hindu.
The Tamil Tigers are also confined mostly to trying to subvert Sri Lanka, which is a pretty harmless Buddhist state. Much as I dislike the Tamil Tigers, they're not trying to subvert the rest of the world by exporting their violent ways. Al-Qaeda, Lashkar-e-Taiba, al-Tawhid, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Fighting, and their kindred groups are. See the difference?
Posted by: Fred ||
05/16/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
CAIR isn't peeing on my leg they are pooping on it.
Islam is the only group I worry about more than the Democrats.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/16/2006 0:13 Comments ||
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#2
Whine. De Nile. Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Islam [is] 100 times more likely to be associated with terrorism.
Got it in one. It's a statement. A perfect statement of the obvious, unintentional though it may be.
I'd put it closer to 1000, but that's just me.
So how're those lawsuits against Anti-CAIR coming along, eh?
#5
Time, of course, being a post-colonial construct, ontologically oppressing and imposing a reactionary, antithetical, and deliberately hostile teleology upon the victims of Zionist aggression.
ROFLMAO. That's precious - and accurate, LOL.
REQUEST:
PD's comment hit my curiosity bone... I'm sure that clever wordsmiths can create many such levels of "credibility" - and some just love to live in the gray zone, for whatever reason, but... I hit my tipping point rather recently and I think his post begs the question(s)...
A) How many RBers still believe in "Moderates" and deem them blameless?
B) How many subscribe to the idea that these "Moderates" will "reform" if we deal diplomatically, cooperatively (for lack of a better word), with the "Islamists"?
C) How many subscribe to the idea that these "Moderates" will "reform" if we deal harshly enough with the "Islamists"?
D) How many have, honestly now, given up on the idea that we (or anyone) can coexist with Islam? It's them or us.
Apologies for the OT request, but these stories, and the posted comments I've seen, make me wonder if I'm alone, on the fringe, mainstream or what. Thanks, in advance.
#6
Well, I'm not really the deep analyzing, well thought type, but...
A) How many RBers still believe in "Moderates" and deem them blameless?
IMHO, "Moderates" are the minority, and they're way too silent (though the real threat of violence, the islamic scriptures and traditions themselves, and the flow of money to the hardliners are to be taken into account, to be honest).
B) How many subscribe to the idea that these "Moderates" will "reform" if we deal diplomatically, cooperatively (for lack of a better word), with the "Islamists"?
Nope.
C) How many subscribe to the idea that these "Moderates" will "reform" if we deal harshly enough with the "Islamists"?
That might give them breathing space, I dunno.
D) How many have, honestly now, given up on the idea that we (or anyone) can coexist with Islam? It's them or us.
IMHO, it's us or them, and so far, we're (well, at least us Euros, the USA face a different challenge, you're the adversary, we're the prize) screwed, for various long term trends (demography, will & intent, values crisis).
#7
A) How many RBers still believe in "Moderates" and deem them blameless?
Who cares? They're irrelevant. Whether there's many or few doesn't matter. It's the terrs and their supporters who count. And there's enough of them to create mayhem, at least in Europe.
Think about that response for a long time, did you?
Must be very interesting to be an expert who summarily dismisses precisely the concern that most people have about Islam - separating the "good" from the "bad". Can you point me to the article comment where you demonstrated your deep understanding and expertise regards Islam and Islamists and proved yourself the definitive voice?
#10
IMHO, "Moderates" are the minority, and they're way too silent (though the real threat of violence, the islamic scriptures and traditions themselves, and the flow of money to the hardliners are to be taken into account, to be honest).
The supposed "moderates" fund charities that support jihad. They openly accept "holy" men who preach jihad. They get their tits in a bind when someone suggests looking into any of the above.
The real moderates try to expose all the above. They might be 1% of the Muslim population.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/16/2006 8:05 Comments ||
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#11
99% islamic, .5% Tamil, .5% Maoist/Marxist and others. And the last 2 don't rally affect Americans or CAIR.
Posted by: ed ||
05/16/2006 8:20 Comments ||
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#12
Yes Mr. Crawford, that's my understanding; to me, "Moderates" are secular muslims, or at least muslims who reject some of the most offensive tenets of islam incompatible with western democracies (and thus renounces to Jihad(tm), belive in equality between wimmen and men, in freedom of religion, in the interdiction of slavery, etc, etc...).
Problem is, they can easily and rightfully (according to scriptures) be classified as apostates.
The so-called "Moderates" à la CAIR, tarik ramadan, and countless apologists giving taqqya around... you talk about are IMHO the main threat to western civilization, far ahead of terrs (unless they somehow get hold of WMD), since they wage a very successful subversive war, both political, and civilizationnal (having the West "acknowledge" the "superiority of islamic culture", wich is not difficult given the multiculturalism/relativist/sucidalist cultural aids).
Add demography, and you've got a very viable conquest plan. See this.
And then, there is the bulk of muslims, not even obligatory supporters of terror, but who are quite ok with the idea of "striking back" (victimhood ideology), or having islam conquer new territories, especially if this means a revenge against the former colonizers (islam as the banner of antiwestern resentment, Hesperophobia 1 and 2).
Btw, the more likely a victory of islam will be, the more fence sitters will go for the jihadists and the advocates of the conquest of the West; they're now being passive not because they oppose this, but because they simply believe it's not the time, insh'allan.
#13
I think yall have got it all wrong. Those aren't acts of terror by Muslims. They are commanded by their Great Book of Lies and Halucinations to kill anyone who is not Muslim by any means possible. How can that be terrorism?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
05/16/2006 8:59 Comments ||
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#14
Speaking as my own personal 'mainstream'.
a) There are moderates and we should asume they are blameless.
b) Assumes a number of things, not least the moderates whatever their numbers are the ones we should worry about.
C) See b.
d) I think the main way to deal with militant Islam is down the sights of whatever weapon is appropriate for the situation.
The image of the barrel of a rotary machinegun on an aircraft with the words 'peacemaker' on it sums it for me.
#18
I'm not sure "Moderates" is the right term to use. My take on it is: The overwhelming majority of Muhammadans would quite contentedly view the downfall of the West and have no problem in theory with a universal Caliphate, especially if the Caliph comes from their tribe. On the other hand, the vast majority would much rather that somebody else arranged it for them--it doesn't rise very high on this month's todo list. ("I'll be happy to contribute to the jihad next month, but I'm a bit short this week.") They're formally enemies, but not viscerally enemies. Certain sects (let's lump all the Salafists and Khomeiniites in here for starters) and certain political demagogues have been working hard for years to stir up hatred, and have been quite successful. We've let them get away with this even in our own countries.
We can live with people who are formally enemies but who aren't that interested in attacking us. In that sense we can think of them as "Moderates."
So if we can find some way of distinguishing between the "Moderate" group and the jihadist groups--a way that "Moderates" can accept--we reduce the pool of enemies we have to fight. Maybe we'll have to fight them later--maybe the jihadists will succeed in enflaming the whole Muhammadan world. But if we're clever, maybe not.
Posted by: James ||
05/16/2006 11:31 Comments ||
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#19
"Must be very interesting to be an expert who summarily dismisses precisely the concern that most people have about Islam - separating the "good" from the "bad"."
The "good" what? The "good" people? The "good" aspects?
There are likely good people. They must separate, or at least delineate, themselves from the mass.
The good aspects may be there, but those aspects are most certainly subsumed by the bad.
If that is the only concern of "most people", then either they do not understand what is going on, or they are much naive.
#21
Fordesque - A couple of points. You know what I meant by "good" and "bad", but you just can't help being argumentative, I guess. I'm impressed. Wow.
People are naive and clueless. Sheesh. Apparently you presume far more people are reading blogs like Rantburg than is the case. Most people get their news from the MSM - by far. So what would they think? Pretty much what the MSM has told them. They do want the US to stake the high moral ground - and differentiate between those who are confirmed terrorists and those who, from outward appearance, are uninvolved and presumed innocent. Even well-informed RBers have stated this position. By far most still believe the Law Enforcement approach fits the WoT, because that is the only model they really understand. Most do not know about many things, the dancing in the streets at the news of 9/11, the handing out of sweets in celebration, the flush of aspiring jihadis that 9/11 generated, the donations Muslims make to "charities" with full knowledge that some or all will end up supporting jihadis, etc. They do not know because they do not have the access you do, they do not seek out alternative news sources. Some because they're Moonbats, some because they're lazy, and most because they don't have a broadband net connection and / or haven't run across sites like RB. What you take for granted about the WoT would be a huge paradigm shift for them.
I posed a simple question to the well-informed RBers which was relevant and honest. That's all. It was pissed on for reasons unknown and now you're cherry-picking something you can play with and striking a pontificating pose. Great. Thanks, so much.
Thank you, A5089, RC, phil_b, and James - I appreciate your feedback.
#22
"A couple of points. You know what I meant by "good" and "bad", but you just can't help being argumentative, I guess. I'm impressed. Wow"
Argumentative was not my intent. I did not understand what you meant by "good" and "bad". Do not take for granted that I speak the same "language" as you.
"People are naive and clueless. Sheesh."
Not necessarily. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is stupidity. Ask any policeman.
"They do want the US to stake the high moral ground - and differentiate between those who are confirmed terrorists and those who, from outward appearance, are uninvolved and presumed innocent."
The argument then becomes how does a nation differentiate. There lies the problem.
If my neighbourhood was being repeatedly harassed by a gang of unknown one-armed blond-haired men, unknown one-armed blonde-haired men going in to that neighbourhood would have some explaining to do. If my neighbourhood was being harassed by a gang of persons unknown, then strangers would get a very hard look and perhaps an interview with the police.
Thus it becomes incumbent upon the one-armed, blond-haired man or the stranger to explain that they are not in my neighborhood to harass.
Moderates in Islam must do the same. They must delineate themselves.
"Most do not know about many things, the dancing in the streets at the news of 9/11, the handing out of sweets in celebration, the flush of aspiring jihadis that 9/11 generated, the donations Muslims make to "charities" with full knowledge that some or all will end up supporting jihadis, etc. They do not know because they do not have the access you do, they do not seek out alternative news sources."
I do not understand. What is your point?
"What you take for granted about the WoT would be a huge paradigm shift for them."
It is not what I take for granted. It is what I have seen and what I have experienced. Some of us have not always been chair-bound warriors.
"I posed a simple question to the well-informed RBers which was relevant and honest. That's all."
Relevancy and honesty are in the eyes of the reader.
"It was pissed on for reasons unknown and now you're cherry-picking something you can play with and striking a pontificating pose."
How does one cherry-pick: "Must be very interesting to be an expert who summarily dismisses precisely the concern that most people have about Islam - separating the "good" from the "bad""?
"Great. Thanks, so much."
You are quite welcome. Next time, bring pastries. They make lectures much more endurable.
#25
"Most do not know about many things, the dancing in the streets at the news of 9/11, the handing out of sweets in celebration, the flush of aspiring jihadis that 9/11 generated, the donations Muslims make to "charities" with full knowledge that some or all will end up supporting jihadis, etc. They do not know because they do not have the access you do, they do not seek out alternative news sources.
That is a flatly wrong assumption or set of assunptions on almost all counts.
They know about dancing in the streets, who and why. Don't kid yourself.
They know perfectly well that neighbors friends and relatives are militant or radical and they know kids and losers joining up and traveling to Theaters of Jihad.
Those that give to charities ( A big deal in Muslim society) get to hear the come-on. They know what they are paying for.
AND, They largely all have computers, cell phones, western Union, Letters, radio and TV stations that you don't watch or listen to etc./
So your assertion that 'moderate muslims ' are unaware of the nature of jihad is sdead wrong.
Lot's of thewm turn their heads away and just keep plugging because if you are really a muslim (nut) that worldwide CAliphate sounds good even if you, yourself are not a head chopper.
#28
Fordesque - What the fuck, LOL, I'll play along. We don't seem to speak the same language. So much of what I wrote you declare as unclear. Interesting... Obviously I disagree with your assessment and why I considered your response argumentative and disingenuous.
You said "If that is the only concern of "most people", then either they do not understand what is going on, or they are much naive."
I did not say "only", but apparently you inferred it since I didn't elaborate. Pesky English, huh? Or did you need a strawman?
From that "naive" bit came the second paragraph. I spent quite a bit of time in there since I think it is the nub of the problem. I covered some of the obvious reasons (the Moonbats, laziness, access) - but I left out stupidity. I know some cops - I'm sure they'd agree to stupidity. I was, rather, addressing why they are stupid (i.e. uninformed, naive, clueless). I believe that paragraph more or less addressed your "Not necessarily..." bits.
The point at which you say "I do not understand. What is your point?" was part of that same "naive and clueless response", the why behind it thing. It was all in the same paragraph, you see, a collection of thoughts relating to the same sub-topic. I've written this response as a collection of mish-mashed bits, in the AP / BBC style. Probably more readable after all the conditioning we had from reading articles on RB. Let's see how it works out.
Your point about profiling is a good one, at least I presume that was your point in "the one-armed, blond-haired man" and "stranger" references, but that runs counter to the notion of fairness held by most Americans. I presume you know this, but we haven't connected on much else, so I'm not sure. RB is the first place I ever saw people actually take profiling as a rational response - and I applauded. The breakdown of the PC monolith here continues apace to my great appreciation. I wish more Americans could, with an open mind, read Rantburg. Breaking down PCism is key to our survival, I believe.
The uninvolved / innocent Muslims should, indeed, do the "delineating" themselves, from a Western POV. But they aren't Western. They have been indoctrinated or taught to think rather differently, wouldn't you agree? Isn't it naive of you (us) to presume they would share your opinion to delineate themselves? That is the main complaint I would have about many comments I disagree with on RB - that they do not take into account that we do not have much in common with Muslims raised outside the West - and a fair number who were educated in the West. I lived in the Middle East for almost a decade. I suggest they will not do the delineating. Ever. They will continue to support the jihadis at whatever level is demanded of them by their imams and peers.
What I meant about taking things for granted is that what you have determined as "truth" for yourself from experience and, I presume, research, is something you do take for granted. Do you not take your own opinions for granted as the truth? You are remarkable if you do not. I asserted that the "naive and clueless" did not share the level of knowledge or experience of RBers and, thus, occupy a very different paradigm of understanding. Is that better? Sigh.
As for being a chair-bound warrior, does serving in Vietnam count? I did. I toted an M-14. Fired it quite a bit, too. Hated the M-16 they forced me to take. That chair-bound warrior bit was a presumptuous and patronizing slur meant to lessen the value of my opinion. Tsk, tsk. If I was feeling uncharitable, I'd say you're an arrogant self-aggrandizing asshole. You don't have to be a combat vet to see what's going on - if you have access to the info. I do not denigrate people for their lives taking a different course than my own. I recommend this more charitable approach to you. I do jump them if they ignore and deny the truth when it is presented and proven.
Your "Relevancy and honesty are in the eyes of the reader." is either specious and disingenuous or that language barrier thing, again. Or both. I wrote a declarative statement. It served no purpose to argue it was merely my opinion by stating what is merely your opinion.
I'm on a diet, so I'm afraid you'll have to buy your own pastries.
BTW, you never addressed the original comment, which was a simple request that others had no trouble understanding. Go figure.
#29
Unomorong Whereck6576, my darling mother-in-law saw Muslim children dancing in the streets on 9/11. She lives in Lackawanna, NY (home of the Lackawanna 6, who were turned in by their community elders). My mother-in-law (blue collar, Christian, former French-Canadian who got her citizenship and her GED less than a decade ago) gets her news from the 700 Club (I think that's Pat Robertson's show?) and listening to the police radar. What she knows about Muslims she learned from her neighbors. We have lovely long discussions on the topic. My mother (Jewish, PhD, white collar, got her citizenship as soon as they let her after she arrived fom Europe in 1946) gets her news from PBS, NPR, 60 Minutes... and from me. And after she talks to me, she doesn't believe them anymore. What she knows about Arabs she learned from my father, who fought against them with the Haganah in Israel in the 1930s and '40s.
At one point Rantburg peaked at almost 10,000 hits a day -- during the Iraqi invasion, I think. And while Rantburg is special, lots of centrist and right wing blogs and radio talk shows take similar positions about the War on Terror being a war against Islamofascism, or expansionist Islam, if you will. And as many hear tales from friends/relatives who are Over There, either in or out of uniform. There are plenty of Americans, and others around the world, who, while not needing the level of detail we seek at Rantburg, nonetheless understand the essential point that we are at war, and that we must win.
They probably differentiate between the Muslims who are doing, and aiding those doing the bad stuff, and the rest, who are jest folks. Without, perhaps, noticing the largish group in the middle that enjoys the emotional hit of the rhetoric, gives money they know probably aids terror groups far away, and offers excuses for the local lads going off to look for adventure. Much like those who put a few dollars in the jar at the end of the bar for the IRA when band was playing the olde tunes.
The Journalism Guild would like to believe that most Americans get their news from the official sources, even if their own surveys say the main source of news in this country is the evening talk shows: Jay Leno, whatshisname on CBS, and Jon Stewart. I suspect, however, that if they were to look at blogs, talk radio and cable television, most people get their news from alternative sources. Remember, while President Bush's ratings are now in the high 20s, Congress is about 18, the mainstream/traditional media are in the single digits, and the U.S. military is above the 50th percentile. I imagine the American public isn't nearly as naive and clueless as you fear.
#31
trailing wife - I'm glad you're helping to spread the word. Trusted sources are always the most persuasive. Keep it up! I email links out regularly.
It wasn't until 2001 that over 50% of US adults had "access" to the internet - and that was work and home combined. When you consider that many of those work machines have firewalls that prevent access to many sites that aren't work-related, it's not really that rosy. You can bet that, if general info non-work site access is allowed, the MSM sites are available far more than the non-MSM variety.
Yes, there are many good sites out there, but note that the really big hitters are the wacko sites. Check the BlogAds.com site for specifics as if you were considering placing an online ad. I think you'll find that Daily Kos still gets more daily hits that the top 5 or 6 conservative sites combined. The numbers are staggeringly pro-Moonbat.
When you finally filter down to how many people are getting unvarnished info, and I consider the conservative sites to be the cleanest and most honest of the lot, the numbers who are getting past the MSM and the Moonbats is a quite bit smaller than you think. It's getting better as more of the flyover America people get connected and look for something other than the online edition of the broadcast TV news or local newspaper, but it's still a small percentage of the total.
#32
jim#6 - That was referring to the American public.
Sorry.
Isn't that our job ? To button hole our friends and neighbors and scare them to death about sharia law in Sweden ?
Because not one public official is out there making the case.
I don't EVER watch MSM for news (cept locals). I do read the papers, then I yell at them.
LOL. I know exactly what you mean. I live alone and yell at the TV regularly. It's a good thing I don't live in an apartment, else the neighbors would call the cops on me, LOL!
And you're right - so few people are calling it as we know it - except on the blogs and a few radio shows. Kudos on button-holing everyone who'll listen. It's actually very effective - when we have the goods on the idiots to make the points. RB presents more in one go on more topics than any other site I've ever seen.
#34
Unomorong Whereck6576, how many people listen to Rush Limbaugh, or to [that retired chemist whose name I can't remember] and others of their ilk while driving to and from work? I can't stand them -- they shout too much for my delicate ears ;-) -- but their ratings are considerably higher than the liberal, and failed, Air America or the NPR stations. And everybody knows about the Cartoonifada riots, even if they haven't seen the things themselves.
Those who desperately refuse to believe showed themselves to be in at least a slight minority last election, even if they are much noisier. And I've started to wonder if the sudden revolt against the multi-decade long flow of illegals across the Mexican border is tied to the realisic fear that Muslim terrorists could quietly come across with them. Otherwise, why the objections this year -- even before the stupid May Day festivities -- when the situation is not significantly different than a year ago, or two, or three? Then, most of the country appreciated those who struggled to come here and work toward the American dream.
*shrug* November will be an interesting election. After which, I most sincerely hope, the Iran problem will be fixed decisively -- no, I don't think better negotiating positions will get us there. And after that, the Muslim world will be forced to consider the possibility that Allah doesn't like them all that much.
#36
Jim #6: I listen to him occasionally and he doesn't cut Islamofacists slack....so if I catch it, it must be talked about even more..
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/16/2006 16:20 Comments ||
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#37
I prefer the "ex-Chemist"
I listened to Rush when he first went on in NY.
At the time he tried "logic experiments", to guage his audience.
Quotes:
"everyone who ate carrots in 1868 is dead therefore carrots must kill you."
" Trees make more air pollution than anything else.."
False logic and solipsistic demagoguery are all he offers.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/16/2006 18:51 Comments ||
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#39
Crickets???? What it's got quiet? I can't hear you
Unomorong Whereck6576? How is Germany today?
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/16/2006 19:38 Comments ||
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#40
"What the fuck, LOL, I'll play along. We don't seem to speak the same language. So much of what I wrote you declare as unclear. Interesting... Obviously I disagree with your assessment and why I considered your response argumentative and disingenuous."
Satisfactory for an opening salvo. The profanity keeps it from being "good".
"You said "If that is the only concern of "most people", then either they do not understand what is going on, or they are much naive. I did not say "only", but apparently you inferred it since I didn't elaborate. Pesky English, huh? Or did you need a strawman?"
Pesky English, indeed. A versatile language, but pesky.
"Your point about profiling is a good one, at least I presume that was your point in "the one-armed, blond-haired man" and "stranger" references, but that runs counter to the notion of fairness held by most Americans."
True. Regrettably, in my considered opinion and limited experience, that fairness may be a liability. It is during war.
It may also become an anachronism once there are more several thousands dead.
"Breaking down PCism is key to our survival, I believe."
Agreed.
"The uninvolved / innocent Muslims should, indeed, do the "delineating" themselves, from a Western POV. But they aren't Western. They have been indoctrinated or taught to think rather differently, wouldn't you agree? Isn't it naive of you (us) to presume they would share your opinion to delineate themselves?"
True, they are not Western. And they likely do not share my opinion. I do not care. If I am in a land far from my home, I cannot claim my citizenship as an immunisation to law-breaking or suspicion. When in Rome, et cetera. If moderates decide they should not delineate themselves, they should expect what follows.
"That is the main complaint I would have about many comments I disagree with on RB - that they do not take into account that we do not have much in common with Muslims raised outside the West - and a fair number who were educated in the West. I lived in the Middle East for almost a decade. I suggest they will not do the delineating. Ever. They will continue to support the jihadis at whatever level is demanded of them by their imams and peers."
So the conclusion is that, when the cheque is presented, the islamic moderates will stand with the jihadis. Perhaps. But it is a Western trait to look for moderates, to dig through the stable dung-heap to find a pony.
"What I meant about taking things for granted is that what you have determined as "truth" for yourself from experience and, I presume, research, is something you do take for granted. Do you not take your own opinions for granted as the truth? You are remarkable if you do not."
Then I am "remarkable", I suppose. I take the sun rising for granted, or a truth. Much of the rest I take as a matter of educated opinion, experience, faith, or my own biases and prejudices. I do not consider them as truth. Just an "operating system", if you will.
"I asserted that the "naive and clueless" did not share the level of knowledge or experience of RBers and, thus, occupy a very different paradigm of understanding. Is that better? Sigh."
Yes, thank you.
"As for being a chair-bound warrior, does serving in Vietnam count? I did. I toted an M-14. Fired it quite a bit, too. Hated the M-16 they forced me to take. That chair-bound warrior bit was a presumptuous and patronizing slur meant to lessen the value of my opinion."
No. The "chair-bound warrior" remark was an au contraire comment on the much-held perception that blog-posters and commenters have no experience in war, terrorism, or foreign affairs.
Then again, there are some of us who are indeed chair-bound. But that is more a matter of age or infirmity.
"Tsk, tsk. If I was feeling uncharitable, I'd say you're an arrogant self-aggrandizing asshole."
You left out "pompous". At least, that is what at least one of my former girlfriends would say.
"You don't have to be a combat vet to see what's going on - if you have access to the info. I do not denigrate people for their lives taking a different course than my own. I recommend this more charitable approach to you."
Then you and I are essentially reading from the same sheet of music.
"I do jump them if they ignore and deny the truth when it is presented and proven."
As is your privilege. But do keep in mind the Western versus non-Western. Or American versus non-American.
"I'm on a diet, so I'm afraid you'll have to buy your own pastries."
Pity. And here I sit through another lecture on an empty stomach and a missed tea-time.
"BTW, you never addressed the original comment, which was a simple request that others had no trouble understanding. Go figure."
It is simple. I never addressed it, because I chose not to address it.
#41
Well, if they want to say that the terrorists are not them and that they don't identify with it or support it fine--but they're not exactly saying that, are they?
#43
Fordesque - Apologies for my presumption you're American. How provincial of me, LOL. Fuck is just a word. Any individual's reaction is his or her personal issue. Sorry for asking such an evil question. I had no idea it would cause a brain fart and seed a giant snowball of nothingness. I'll be far more circumspect in the future. Maybe get approval from the regulars, first.
jim#6, tw - Actually, I was thinking of Tony Snow's radio show when I posted that tiny little tidbit. I'm going to miss him, I think. Sean Hannity is palatable on occasion, just strident ALL the time. I've never listened to Limbaugh, despite all the noise about him. Seeing him interviewed rather put me off on his style.
FrankG / SPoD - Germany's fine, why do you ask? LOL.
#44
your remarks are as substantial as the leaves I sweep off my porch - get an American IP?
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/16/2006 20:52 Comments ||
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Look waaay back at #5. It was a simple request.
Am I supposed to be afraid of you for some reason? Does your comment contain some deep dark meaning? Are they, like, scary leaves? Sheesh. What a load of bullshit and wagon-circling.
Are you regulars so afraid that the tiniest little challenge to a nasty pointless comment is threatening? Wow. Buddy shit can be cool and fun, but this is absurd.
#47
Sean HAnnity on ABC :
" I hate rent control. I can't find a decent apartment in the city. If these people can't afford to pay full price then they should sleep in their cars".
What a f&&kin' Prince.
He makes sure to describe the vilest things in gory detail at dinner hour which earned him a :"no play ".
A fire broke out late on Monday in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) premises, extinguished by the fire brigades departments of several districts after nine hours, sources said.
Authorities are of the view that a short circuit could have spread the fire. However, they have yet to identify the real cause.
More than 20 vehicles of the fire brigade departments of Dera Ghazi Khan, Multan, Rajanpur, Layyah, Muzaffargarh, and the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited managed to extinguish the fire after a nine-hour struggle. Authorities also closed down the DG Khan-Quetta highway and an emergency was declared in the area. No one was allowed to enter or come near the PAEC premises, except for the fire brigade vehicles. The authorities barred even the Punjab Police from taking part in the rescue operation with the area around the PAEC office and plant on fire. Sources said that losses from the fire were rumoured to be in millions but officials were yet to give a figure. staff report
Posted by: john ||
05/16/2006 21:04 ||
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"Until the nuclear explosions in 1998, Khan had sole claim over the making of the bomb, and to the Pakistani public, the name of Khan and KRL stood for Pakistan's nuclear program. After the explosions, however, the media reported an ugly battle, as both groups of scientists made their bid to appear as the real bomb makers. This bizarre situation went to such an extreme that the government of Nawaz Sharif had to intervene to silence the scientists and clarify the contributions of the two organizations: Uranium had been enriched by KRL; other processes, up to the explosions, were handled by PAEC."
Posted by: john ||
05/16/2006 21:11 Comments ||
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"Munir Khan was the architect of both the uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing programmes in Pakistan. The PAEC not only started the Uranium enrichment programme as Project-706 at Kahuta in 1974 under Munir's directions, but also the indigenous plutonium programme after France backed out of the reprocessing contract in 1978 and Munir Khan successfully completed the pilot reprocessing plant as New Labs at the Pakistan Institute of Nuclear Science and Technology (PINSTECH) by 1981 which gave Pakistan the capability to produce enough plutonium for at least one nuclear weapon a year.
6. The PAEC under Munir started the indigenous Plutonium production reactor at KHUSHAB in 1985 which has now been commissioned and is the centre piece of Pakistan's plutonium programme. Plutonium is used to develop advanced compact warheads and Khushab reactor will provide Pakistan with tritium to increase the yield of its nuclear weapons.
7. It was under Munir Khan that work was begun on the nuclear weapons design and development in a meeting called by him in March 1974 and this task was assigned to the Directorate of Technical Development (DTD) of the PAEC.
8. The PAEC under Munir Khan successfully conducted the first "cold tests" of nuclear weapons on 11th March 1983.
9. The Chaghi tunnels for nuclear test explosions were built and completed by 1980 by PAEC under Munir Ahmad Khan.
"
Posted by: john ||
05/16/2006 21:14 Comments ||
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A fire broke out late on Monday in the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) premises, extinguished by the fire brigades departments of several districts after nine hours, sources said.
Authorities are of the view that a short circuit could have spread the fire. However, they have yet to identify the real cause.
And they never will.
Halliburton Remote Firestarter Division
;-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/16/2006 21:19 Comments ||
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Islambad, 16 May (AKI/APP) - Pakistan and Iran are expected to take up the matter of launching a ferry service between the two countries on June 11-12.
What, the bus to Afghanistan isn't a big enough target?
The much-awaited ferry service would link Pakistan's strategic Gwadar port with Iran's Chahbabar port. Iranian officials have sent a fresh proposal for the two-day talks to be held in Tehran from June 11, private TV News channel reported Tuesday. The two countries are also going to discuss cooperation in developing a joint strategy to control sea pollution and rescue and research operations.
I'd put a rush on that rescue plan if I was you.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/16/2006 16:14 ||
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I thought Muslim hated gays to the point of issuing fatwas and killing them where ever they are found.
#2
Pakistan's strategic Gwadar port with Iran's Chahbabar port
China built Gwadar and India helped build Chahbabar.
Indian goods to Afghanistan go through Chahbabar.. that ferry from Pakistan will have interesting passengers..
Posted by: john ||
05/16/2006 18:14 Comments ||
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It will also be top-heavy, overcrowded and fall over a lot.
Pakistan said yesterday that the new Afghan foreign minister's claim that Osama bin Laden was living in Pakistan was "absurd" and, if the Al Qaeda leader was alive, he was more likely to be on the Afghan side of the border.
In an interview with Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper published on Saturday, Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta said Pakistani authorities were making "half-hearted efforts" to catch Bin Laden.
Reacting at a news briefing in Islamabad, Pakistan's foreign ministry spokeswoman described Spanta's comments as "outlandish".
"Nobody knows where Bin Laden is. If he is alive the chances are he might be in Afghanistan. But you can't say for sure," spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
She said Pakistan had deployed around 80,000 troops on its side of the long, porous border, and was "doing more than any other country in the war against terrorism."
"Afghans need to concentrate on taking action on their side instead of levelling accusations at Pakistan," she added.
A war of words erupted in February after Afghanistan said Pakistan was not doing enough to catch Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
Since late last year, a Taliban-inspired insurgency has gathered fresh strength and its fighters have increasingly used suicide bombers to attack US and Afghan troops.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 03:14 ||
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I've had this feeling for a while now that I just can't shake. That the Pakistanis are full of shit and just yanking us off to get the money they so desperately want from Washington. Paranoia? Xenophobia?
#4
I've had this feeling for a while now that I just can't shake. That the Pakistanis are full of shit and just yanking us off to get the money they so desperately want from Washington. Paranoia? Xenophobia?
You've been paying attention.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/16/2006 11:01 Comments ||
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Contrary to what Washington would have us believe, Pakistan was, is and remains a principal source of terrorists and terrorism to this day. I would not trust them with a ball point pen.
#6
Dunno, Zenster, I think Iran and Saudi Arabia are pretty high up on the list. I think the Pakis had the longest target list up until the fall of Saddam, but...
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/16/2006 18:25 Comments ||
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They all feed into the madrassas in Pakistan. It's a team creation.
#8
Yes, it is a team creation. That's why I said that Pakistan remains A principal source and not THE principal source. Consider where the Taleban were edumahcated. Sure the Saudis finance the madrassahs, but the programming happens in Pakistan. Notice how this one country keeps turning up on the passports of almost all apprehended terrorists. Their proliferation of nuclear technology zooms them to the top of the Christmas list if nothing else does.
British and Pakistani investigators are focusing on almost 200 phone calls made from Pakistan to one of the London bombers in a bid to uncover his links to al-Qaeda, security officials here said on Thursday.
One of the bombers may have also travelled to Waziristan, they said, as two British official reports released in London on Thursday said two of the 7/7 attackers, Muhammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, were in Pakistan from November 2004 to February 2005 and likely had contacts with al-Qaeda and received "operational training", but there was no concrete evidence.
A senior Pakistani investigator said on condition of anonymity that Khan, 30, received calls from dozens of phone booths and mobiles in the months after he returned to Britain and before the July 7 attacks on London Underground train and a bus. The investigators believe the person or people who made the calls - all from Rawalpindi - had prior knowledge of the attacks, although they have not been traced.
"A British team is due to arrive here to study an area around 50 square km near Rawalpindi from where nearly 200 phone calls were made to Khan's number in the months leading up to the bombings," he added. "The callers never used the same PCO twice. Also they used other mobile numbers on SIM cards that were issued unnamed," said the investigator, who has liaised with British officials, probing the background to the attacks.
"We have found no evidence so far to prove any direct links with terrorists ... but some of the mobile and fixed phone numbers in some cities and villages are still being monitored," said an official, familiar with the investigation. "There is no evidence that the attacks were planned or ordered from here," said another official, who is senior in the Interior Ministry.
A Pakistani security source said Khan and Tanweer arrived in Karachi in November 2004 and stayed for three days before going to Lahore, where they registered at the Raiwind Tableeghi centre. The pair registered there to perform 40 days of prayer but they disappeared after a day, thesource said.
He said Khan's uncle told investigators that his nephew also stayed with him for a week in Rawalpindi then went away. He has been ruled out as the source of the calls, along with Khan's other relatives and friends in Pakistan, officials said.
A separate security source said there was no record of Khan's movements after that but it has been suggested that he "went to Waziristan and metal-Qaeda operatives there." The official did not name the operatives.
Two official British reports - one by an influential parliamentary committee and another by the Home Office - suggest the two of the four suicide bombers had contacts with al-Qaeda and that the government security lacked resources to stop the atrocity.
British Home Secretary John Reid told parliament after the release of the reports that Khan and Tanweer are "likely to have met al-Qaeda figures" during their visit to Pakistan. "There were a series of suspicious contacts from an unknown individual or individuals in Pakistan in the immediate run-up to the bombing: we do not know their content," he said. Reid said there was no need for another inquiry.
The first detailed accounts of the July 7 bombings cleared the intelligence services of any failings in not preventing the terrorist strike. At the same time the reports highlighted the magnitude of the task they face in foiling such plots.
The parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee said in its 44-page report, it emerged after the bombings that they had been to Pakistan. "It has not yet been established who they met in Pakistan but it is assessed as likely that they had some contact with al-Qaeda figures," the report said - same comments echoed in the 37-page Home Office document. Committee Chairman Paul Murphy said the intelligence services were not to blame.
The committee noted both Khan and Tanweer had spent time in Pakistan and it was likely they had come into contact with al-Qaeda figures. But it said the extent of any direct al-Qaeda control over the attacks was unclear. "My instinct is that these were home-grown plots and that the links ... are not as great as some people might have thought in the past," Murphy said.
The report said security services had come across Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer but did not believe they posed an urgent threat Shehzad. The government insists little backgrounds of Sidique Khan, the group's leader, and Tanweer and Hasib Hussein, who all lived in the Leeds area, suggested they were vulnerable to radicalisation.
The fourth bomber, 19-year-old Jermaine Lindsay, also had a turbulent upbringing. With his own father absent, he had two stepfathers and followed his mother's example in converting to Islam in 2000.
The report said it was clear by 2001, when Khan was working as a much-praised mentor to children at a Leeds school, that he was "serious" about religion. "There is still much to be discovered about how the group were radicalised, how the bombings were planned and executed and whether others were involved," the report concludes. "This is still very much a live investigation."
Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema, head of Interior Ministry's National Crisis Management Cell, has issued the following statement in response to United Kingdom's Parliamentary Committee's report on the July 7 attacks in Britain.
"The two perpetrators of this act of terrorism, namely Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer were from Pakistani parentage but second generation British. They had been born, bred and educated in England.
The government of Pakistan afforded all possible help and support to the UK government in the investigation of the case. There is no denying the fact that these terrorists visited Pakistan from 19 November 2004 to 8th February 2005 but their contact or association with any organization for getting training here was not established.
The report itself says the two men probably received "operational training there (in Pakistan)." Obviously, the comment is based on probability and assumption which is without any proof or evidence."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 02:34 ||
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Had there only been a Data Mining program looking at patterns of phone calls...
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan said Monday that Osama bin Laden was likely to be in Afghanistan, rejecting a reported claim by Kabuls foreign minister that the Al Qaeda chief is hiding in Pakistani territory.
In the latest verbal salvo between the neighbours and allies in the US-led war on terror, Islamabad dismissed criticism by new Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta of its attempts to catch Bin Laden. Nobody knows where Osama bin Laden is. If he is alive the chances are that he might be in Afghanistan but we cannot say for sure, foreign ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said when asked about Spantas comments.
"Pshaw, pshaw I say!"
Spanta was reported to have told a German newspaper at the weekend that Pakistan was half-hearted in its efforts to track down Bin Laden and to crack down on Islamic militants. I think these allegations are absurd -- if anyone is making half-hearted efforts its on other side, she said.
"We went to each and every door in Peshawar and asked if Binny was there, and each and every time we were told 'no, he's not home'. Now you call that half-hearted? Huh? Huh?" she challenged.
Pakistan has sacrificed more in terms of the human lives than the combined loss of Afghanistan and ISAF (the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan), Aslam said.
Careful, those are our boys you're talking about.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/16/2006 00:00 ||
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Pakistan has sacrificed more in terms of the human lives than the combined loss of Afghanistan and ISAF (the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan), Aslam said.
That may well be true: Pakistani troops aren't nearly as good at not getting killed as our guys, and I'll venture to bet that the Afghani troops are already better trained in the critical arts of soldiering. But pointlessly sacrificing your troops is not a virtue in a real war such as this. Sorry.
#2
Most of the troops killed are paramilitary and from army units recruited from the region. Poorly trained, they are considered expendible by the Punjabi dominated Pak Army brass.
The overall jihad terror operation run by the ISI remains intact...
Posted by: john ||
05/16/2006 17:36 Comments ||
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There was stuff recently about paki troops trying to raid balochistan for (alleged)terrorist hideouts.
Their colonel was sincere, partly western educated, well intentioned, encouraging his troops saying they were the true soldiers of Allah, not the tribesmen.
He also had sufficient resources to do his job.
Every village he raided, every compound he visited every hideout he turned up at was empty, sometimes by minutes.
His superiors were deliberatly frustrating his efforts, members of the ISI continously leaked his orders to the tribesmen to the state where they were leaving notes naming his soldiers.
If you were a professional soldier in wackypakiland you would probably welcome a stand up fight with India, you would get slaughtered but at least you would know who your friends were.
Indian Opposition leader and former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani on Monday called for deportation of Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin from Pakistan to India for trial in various militant acts. Citing reports of his recent arrest in Pakistan as proof of his presence in the country, Advani said Salahuddin's name was mentioned in the list of 20 wanted people, including Dawood Ibrahim, given to Pakistan.
Right. The Paks are gonna give him up. This is just political background noise, a game of "you know that we know that you know..."
Initiating a debate in the Lok Sabha on an adjournment motion on violence in Doda and Udhampur districts, Advani also opposed any proposal of 'redeployment' of forces in Jammu and Kashmir. "As Pakistan has always dubbed Salahuddin as an Indian since he had contested an election in Jammu and Kashmir, the Government of India should ask Islamabad to hand him over since he has been guilty of many terrorist acts in India," Advani said. Advani said India should ask Pakistan to dismantle 'terrorist infrastructure'. He referred to Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement that 59 terrorist training camps still existed across the Line of Control (LoC).
Posted by: Fred ||
05/16/2006 00:00 ||
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That pic looks like a modern version of Mike Fink, the riverboat man, heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/16/2006 8:43 Comments ||
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That's a mighty impressive beard, bet he has a very hairy chest too... is he the pak version of Demis Roussos?
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI stressed Monday the importance of dialogue between the Christian and Islamic faiths, but said it must be reciprocal.
That's not going to happen.
He was speaking to members of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People for a conference on immigration to and from Islamic countries.
The pope said the question deserves particular reflection, not only because of its extent but also because of the religious and cultural characteristics of the Muslim identity. Inter-religious dialogue was part of the Catholic Churchs commitment to the service of humanity in the modern world, he said, singling out those who worked with migrants, refugees and the various categories of itinerants.
He expressed the hope that Christians who go to Muslim-majority countries find a welcome there and respect for their religious identity, in what was seen as a reference to Christian Filipinos working in Saudi Arabia.
And Nigeria, and Sudan, and Mauritania, and ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/16/2006 00:00 ||
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Not going to be a one way street with Pope Benedict.
#6
"Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People"
This is a reference back to his happy elysian days in the hitler youth and wermacht where many a day was spent immersing oneself in gypsy and jewish culture.
May 16, 2006: While, on the surface, Iraq might appear to lack personal security, what it lacks more is trust. Decades of living in a police state made people justifiably paranoid. Removing the dictator did not remove the dictatorship. The thousands of men who made the dictatorship work, are still there. So is the fear they worked so long and hard to create.
But dozens of dictatorships have been toppled since 1989. While they all have some similarities, there were vast differences in their aftermaths. Democracy, it appears, is not an automatic cure-all for people who have spent a long time under the control of a dictatorship. That's largely because not all dictatorships are the same. Most, however, are dirty. That is, they are run by men with criminal tendencies. When the dictator is out of power, his criminal minions are out of control. This was most spectacularly the case in Russia, but occurred in several other new democracies as well. In some cases, the new democracies took on only the façade of democracy, and reverted to being a police state. In all cases, the democracy survived only if it could restore order and get the economy going.
Where does Iraq end up among all these former dictatorships? The biggest difference is that all the others fell from within. Iraq required an invasion to remove Saddam from power. That meant that the men who kept the dictator in power (the secret police, not the army) were still around. Worse, in Iraq, it was one religious minority (the Sunni Arabs) who had been running Iraq for generations. The Sunni Arabs, or at least a large number of them, refused to give up power. When Saddam was captured, months after being overthrown, he was still involved in the Sunni Arab efforts to regain power.
Like many people living in new democracies, Iraqis care less about democracy than they do about peace and jobs. That's how dictators stay in power. They offer law and order, and some economic opportunities. Those who do not accept what is offered, face death. Saddam's secret police and street thugs are, as much as possible, showing Iraqis the alternative to Sunni Arab rule. It is chaos and violence. They can only get away with this in parts of central Iraq where the majority of police and soldiers are not Kurds or Shia Arabs. Increasingly, Sunni Arab terrorists, encountering non-Sunni Arab police at a road block, are likely to be found out, and arrested, or worse.
And it gets worse. Kurds and Shia Arabs have set up a large number of "hunting clubs" to go after Saddams thugs. They feel that Sunni Arabs believe, "if we can't have it (control of the country), then no one can." The Kurds and Shia Arabs are also tired of decades of Sunni Arab arrogance and cruelty. It's payback time, and to hell with arrests and trials. Let's just go out and kill those bastards.
The government has found that the largest number of these hunting clubs are found in an obscure corner of the Interior Ministry. Namely, the Facilities Protection Service (FPS). This started out as a few thousand men hired to guard important buildings. But as peace returned to more of Iraq, it was accompanied by the growth of the FPS, which now has nearly 150,000 personnel, and no centralized leadership or control. The FPS guards are paid for, and controlled, by the government agency or civilian firm that uses them. All the Interior Ministry provides is training (not a lot), uniforms and weapons. The job doesn't pay much, but then it's not as dangerous as being a cop or soldier. Being in the FPS does provide you with military looking uniforms, a gun and the company of like minded fellows. Many of the Kurdish or Shia Arab death squads that have been uncovered and broken up, have been composed of FPS guys. The Interior Ministry is trying to root the others out, but it's difficult. The killers are often popular in their own neighborhoods, and among friends and family. Until "hunting" for Sunni Arabs is no longer tolerated, the death squads will continue to survive.
The Sunni Arab death squads are another matter. Many are still kept going by cash. It's a job, just like it was when Saddam was in charge. But more and more of the Sunni Arab thugs are doing it as a form of self-protection, or as part of a criminal (as opposed to terrorist) enterprise. "Peace and economic security" for Sunni Arabs often means kidnapping for cash, or running a protection racket in Sunni Arab neighborhoods that need protection from death squads.
Iraq is going to stay violent until the fear, and the number of guys with guns, is reduced.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/16/2006 11:11 ||
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This batch of sentences seems a lot heavier than usual; typically I have only seen them give 'Life' to foreigners and terrorist leaders. Different judge?
CCCI Convicts 14 Insurgents: Twelve Sentenced to Life in Prison
5/16/2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq The Central Criminal Court of Iraq convicted 14 security detainees May 3 through May 9 for various crimes including possessing illegal weapons and joining terrorist groups.
The trial court found Ammar Fathi Hassan Hussein guilty of violating Article 194 of the Iraqi Penal Code for joining terrorist groups to endanger innocent peoples lives and to unsettle the stability and security of Iraq. They sentenced him to life imprisonment. Coalition Forces apprehended him for being a cell leader in Abu Talhas Mosul Terror Cell. Three Iraqis who had been tried and convicted of crimes related to their membership in the MTC testified at the trial against the defendant.
The trial court found Raad Dawood Salman Al Zobai guilty of violating Coalition Provisional Authority Order No. 3 for possession of illegal weapons and sentenced him to 15 years imprisonment. Coalition Forces apprehended him after discovering a weapons cache in his home where they found 1,500 rounds of 7.72 mm ammunition, 50 AK-47 magazines, a large quantity of soap, soldering irons, an electronic multimeter test set, and Iraqi police uniforms and documents. Coalition Forces searched the yard surrounding the house and discovered timers, batteries, blasting caps, thirty feet of detonation cord, five grenades, five pounds of C-4 explosive, bags of gunpowder, small arms ammunition, one artillery round, one RPK machine gun and three RPG launchers.
The trial court found Subhi Esmail Trad, Ahmad Eubayid Sumair, Khudir Abd Al Hamid Alwan, Auda Kalbush Mutuk, Saladin Subhi Jubayir, Hussin Silabi Authman, Rid Yusif Yakuh, Hussein Karim Muhammad, Sahir Hamadallah Adab, Abid Ibrahim Muhammad and Yasir Ismail Ibrihim guilty of violating Coalition Provisional Authority Order No. 3 for possession of illegal weapons and sentenced each of them to life imprisonment. Coalition Forces apprehended them after raiding a remote terrorist training camp and finding two Draganov sniper rifles, 200 armor-piercing rounds, four machine guns, one RPG launcher, 11 RPG rounds, five AK-47 rifles with seven loaded magazines, two 9 mm pistols, hundreds of rounds of small arms and artillery ammunition, body armor, night vision goggles, $10,000 in U.S. currency and four wired cordless phone base stations.
The trial court found Mohammed Kamel Mussa guilty of violating Coalition Provisional Authority Order No. 3 for possession of illegal weapons and sentenced him to six years imprisonment. Coalition Forces apprehended him after finding 60 sticks of PE-4 explosive and two anti-tank mines inside his residence and buried in his backyard. The defendant confessed in writing at the investigative hearing and at trial to the material facts.
Upon conviction, all defendants are turned over to the Iraqi Corrections Service to serve their sentences.
To date, the CCCI has held 1053 trials of insurgents suspected of anti-Iraqi and anti-Coalition activities threatening the security of Iraq and targeting MNF-I. These proceedings have resulted in 948 individual convictions with sentences ranging up to death.
STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas warned on Tuesday of an "explosion of anger" among Palestinians if international donors did not move fast to restore aid cut off in recent weeks. These clowns have been exploding (literally) for years. So what else is new?
International donors including the European Union and the United States have suspended aid to the Palestinian Authority because of the Hamas-led government's failure to renounce violence and recognise Israel since coming to power in March. In other words, they have been exploding... usually around women and children.
The EU, the Palestinians' largest dhimmi donor, has been charged with coming up with a way of restarting aid for the most urgent needs while bypassing Hamas officials. But the EU acknowledges it could take weeks to get a new aid mechanism working. I might feel worse if we had elected Theodore Kaczynski president. But we didn't, we threw him in a supermax.
"Life will be frozen and there will be an explosion of rat-poison-coated nail bombs anger and this would lead to a chaotic situation of which we cannot forsee the results," Abbas told a news conference after a speech to the European Parliament in the French city of Strasbourg. I think I can forsee the results. My magic 8-ball must be better than his.
"I would like to adopt the mechanism as quickly as possible so the crisis does not take place," he added. So the exploding will take place at regular intervals instead of a big clump?
"We are waiting, but we hope that we do not have to wait too long. We are in a race against time and therefore we have to be swift in the steps we undertake in order to avoid this catastrophe," he said. A hurricane is a catastrophe. A tsunami is a catastrophe. Idiots blowing themselves up by choice is not a catastrophe. They are the wages of insanity and sin. IMHO, of course.
#2
Think of it as an opportunity for mass learning, o Palestinians. You don't get aid because you commit terrorist murders. Stop committing terrorist murders and you can anticipate aid resuming.
#3
Palestinian "anger"? What a novel concept!
But we've all been there and done that.
Here's a couple you could maybe try. "Please"? And "thank you"? Maybe not blow people up?
Naaaaaaaaaaaah...
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/16/2006 10:53 Comments ||
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Explosion is just what we had in mind. I certainly wish we still had the 16 inch firepower of Iowa, Wisconsin , or Missouri available. We could park off the coast, and using computerised grid coordinates just blanket that hellhole until nothing was left but granulated sand. That's my concept of Palestinian explosions.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/16/2006 12:56 Comments ||
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#9
About time for him to realize that he is totally irrelevant and the only people other than Palestinians who could be hurt by a Palestinian anger explosion, the Israelis, are on the other side of an anger explosion proof wall. If you get too angry, the deliveries of gas, water, and electricity from Israel will stop. Then you can seethe, hot, thirsty and perennially in the dark.
#10
If Abbas doesn't watch out, Hamas will make sure his head does all the exploding. The irony of that is nothing short of heart-warming. All of these "warnings" are nothing but sheer, naked blackmail. The Palestinians have dug themselves deep into a cesspit of their own design. May they all rot in eternal flaming he||.
"Mo' money, kufr!"
The Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, on Monday threatened to strike at US and European interests in response to international sanctions on the Palestinian Authority. [T]he threat by Abbas's Fatah party came as Palestinians marked the 58th anniversary of the nakba, or catastrophe (the secular anniversary of Israel's independence).
"We won't remain idle in the face of the siege imposed on the Palestinian people by Israel, the US and other countries," said a leaflet issued by the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the Gaza Strip. "We will strike at the economic and civilian interests of these countries, here and abroad." The leaflet added: "Let the entire world know that we won't succumb in the face of the policy of blackmail, siege and starvation. In the past we did not capitulate in the face of the policy of assassinations, detentions and air raids." The group also urged the heads of Arab and Palestinian banks to resist US and Israeli pressure and to agree to transfer funds from Arab and Islamic countries to the PA.
Another armed group affiliated with Fatah, the Abu Rish Brigades, threatened to launch a new intifada unless the international community agreed to fund the PA. "This will be a merciless intifada that will destroy everything," said Abu Haroon, a spokesman for the group in the Gaza Strip. "We will plan and carry out more martyrdom attacks inside the Green Line regardless of the price and effort," he warned. "Those who are imposing the sanctions on the Palestinians will soon regret their decision." Abu Haroon, who was speaking at a rally marking the anniversary of the nakba in Gaza City, accused the US administration and some European and Arab countries of "acting as if they were receiving instructions from the Zionist Knesset." Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip to mark Nakba Day. Many carried old keys as symbols of the right of return for refugees to their original homes inside Israel. Hamas...said in a statement marking Nakba Day that there would be no compromise on the right of return for all refugees. Hamas also emphasized the Palestinians' right to pursue the fight against Israel until the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
#1
It will become quite interesting for the Palestinians should the AAMB actually follow up on its threats beyond the ususal attempts on Israel. I don't think they would enjoy getting what the Taliban got (although I imagine we would work through Israel on such an action).
#3
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've been hearing this shit for years now. They don't have the resources to keep themselves alive for the next six months much less go global on us.
I suppose we have to expect more of this sort of thing, as Fatah and Hamas try to show who's more "legitimate" by who can do more attacks on Israel. If stymied by Israel, they'll ramp up the rhetoric against the "distant enemies." Unless one side wins we'll eventually start seeing suicide bombers. I'm not looking forward to that.
Posted by: James ||
05/16/2006 11:52 Comments ||
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#11
Easy solution is make Palestinians persona non grata. Let them threaten each other until they develop ICBMs or, more probably, intercontinental bomb belts. Pissants.
#13
Reason being they are commited to: "the Palestinians' right to pursue the fight against Israel until the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital." That's not going to be over any time soon.
The Islamic Jihad movement denied the allegations circulated by the Israeli daily Haaretz about a plot to assassinate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
These reports are baseless and aimed at sowing the seeds of sedition in the Palestinian society, an Islamic Jihad statement said.
Concerned for the safety of their leader, Palestinian officials said they have boosted security around Abbas, heavily restricting traffic near his office and placing snipers in buildings near his West Bank residence.
The officials said there was no evidence of a concrete threat against Abbas, but the moves were necessary at a time of rising tensions with Hamas and other Islamic militant groups.
Meanwhile, Abbas urged Hamas to renounce violence. He said Hamas should honour existing peace agreements.
Palestinians should reject "fiery speeches and slogans that could only bring about international isolation", Abbas said, repeating his long-standing call for Hamas "to renounce all forms of violence".
Issuing an appeal to Israel, where Abbas is widely seen as a weak leader unable to engage in peacemaking while Hamas is in power, he said: "We want to make a just and permanent peace with you.
"Let's make this year the year of peace, let's sit at the negotiations table away from the policy of diktats and unilateralism.
Hamas, which defeated Abbas's Fatah movement in January and took office in March, is sworn to Israel's destruction and has ruled out any negotiations.
In a statement after Abbas's speech, the movement rejected any change in its attitude to Israel.
"Any talk about stopping resistance or illegitimate resistance is rejected as long as the occupation continues and the world continues to ignore Palestinian rights," it said.
h a r a m It is forbidden for a Pal to change their mind. It would indicate they might have been wrong and that would be Humiliating. And Humiliation brings us full back circle.
AMMAN - Jordans King Abdullah II has ordered the dispatch of a fourth batch of food aid to the cash-strapped Palestinian territories, the royal court said on Monday. A total of 25 trucks laden with 400 tonnes of food will head to the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the secretary general of the Hashemite Charity Organisation, Abdel Salam Abbadi, said in a statement issued by the palace.
Fifteen trucks will carry foodstuff to the Gaza Strip while the rest will make their way into the West Bank, he added. It will be the fourth convoy of Jordanian humanitarian assistance to be sent to the Palestinians in the past two months.
So who hands out the aid, and who monitors it?
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/16/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
While the question of who does the handing and monitoring is valid, at least there can be comfort in knowing that lima beans can't be used for weapons, unless you start throwing the cans. Unlike cash money. Watch out for the broccoli spears, however....
#2
USN ret., wait until this aid surfaces in the markets, with proceeds going into Hamas brass' pockets (fortunately, most will end in Swiss banks, rather than financing terrorism)
#3
HOw much can they get for it on the open market? Unless they hand it directly to the paleos, the govt will steal it and sell it, or it will go to the security forces(whatever those are).
#4
Why can't the paleos buy or grow or manufacture anything for themselves? They have had their bill paid by a collection of nations for over 50 years.
Why????
#6
Grom: agree that the pockets will get lined to 'expedite' the distribution and the vig will then buy the weapons that will only be used for show; what with the carry ban in effect and all...
President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday said the Palestinian government should dispatch a delegation to Jordan to tackle the seizure of arms Amman stressed were smuggled into the country by Hamas. The information I got from Jordan was not just staggering, but also dangerous, Abbas, on a visit to Russia, told Al Jazeera satellite channel. I am convinced of what Jordan said, unless Hamas proves otherwise.
Government Spokesperson Nasser Judeh yesterday reiterated that Jordan does not seek to escalate the situation and that Hamas should first dispatch a security team to uncover more hidden arms by the group in the country before any political talks between the two sides. Judeh was responding to statements by Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh that he was still convinced that any meeting between the two parties must be political in order to address the future of relations. Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar said Saturday he was ready to visit Jordan to defuse the row with Amman, but Judeh said there was a security problem that must be solved first.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/16/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
"...but Judeh said there was a security problem that must be solved first."
Translation: If its in our best interest we might be willing to help. However, no matter what we reveal, you cant tell anybody and must promise not to throw our guys in the jug as a result.
#2
Interesting to see this sandwiched between two Jordanian aid stories. "We want to kill you, but if you send us money...well, we'll still want to kill you".
King Abdullah on Monday ordered the dispatch of urgent relief aid to the West Bank and Gaza to help the Palestinians overcome their economic crisis. A convoy of 25 trucks laden with 400 tonnes of food and humanitarian assistance will leave for the Palestinian territories today, President of the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation (JHCO) Abdul Salam Abbadi was quoted by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, as saying.
Abbadi said 10 trucks will go to the West Bank and 15 to Gaza. It will be the fourth convoy of humanitarian assistance to be sent to the Palestinians in the past two months. Over the past few years, Jordan sent more than 200 aid convoys to the Palestinians, in addition to more than 30 fully equipped ambulances, according to the JHCO.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/16/2006 00:00 ||
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One of four men accused over last year's Bali restaurant suicide bombings claims Indonesia's anti-terror squad tortured him into revealing the whereabouts of bomb mastermind Azahari Husin, who was cornered and shot dead last year.
Moh Cholily said officers of the Detachment 88 group kicked and choked him and used electric shocks before he told them the location of Azahari's hideout in East Java.
He also accused them of sodomising him and placing a gun in his mouth.
The information led to a siege of the house by anti-terror officers and the shooting death of Azahari in gun battle last November.
Members of Detachment 88 are trained by anti-terror experts from Australia and the US as well as from Europe.
Australian Federal Police officers were near scene of last year's shootout and later helped examine the scene forensically, looking for evidence to thwart possibly future terror attacks.
Azahari was accused of being the architect of the bombs used in last year's attacks as well as the 2002 Bali bombing and the 2004 attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta.
"I was slapped, kicked in the stomach, they lit a match under my chin, they squeezed and pulled my genitals, tied a belt around my neck until I choked and chained my legs and hands until they bruised," Cholily claimed in a letter titled "Seven Days full of Terror".
The letter was read to the Denpasar District Court by Cholily's lawyer Bambang Triyanto.
Cholily, 28, is accused of helping Azahari assemble suicide bomb backpacks used attack three Bali cafes in 2005, killing four Australians among 20 bystanders.
He said the torture only stopped when the Detachment 88 anti-terror squad handed him over to Bali police, who treated him humanely.
Prosecutors allege the civil engineering graduate joined Jemaah Islamiah, the regional al-Qaeda-linked terror group, in 1999 and was taught by Azahari how to make bombs.
Along with three other men on trial in Bali, he faces a possible death penalty under Indonesia's tough anti-terror laws.
He said he felt guilty about giving away the location of Azahari's hideout, because the pair had been close friends and confidants.
"I was the apple of Azahari's eye. It made me very sad," he told AAP from the back of a police van ahead of his trial resumption.
Triyanto told the court that the prosecution indictment contained lies, including a false confession that Cholily had been with Azahari after the Bali attacks and on hearing of the carnage on BBC radio, Azahari shouted, "Allah hu Akbar. Our project was a success."
"In reality, these words never existed," Triyanto said.
He also denied that Cholily ever understood that coded references to a "cosmetic box" were in reality about the suicide bomb backpacks being prepared by Azahari.
The four trials being heard separately were continuing.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 02:45 ||
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What about the families of the victims? They are absolutely tortured/tormented by their losses all their lives. Not simply, "claim".
#2
SOP, straight from the handbook, though it could very well be true, given Indonesia's history; still, this story definitively needs the digital Sympathy Meter graphic.
The sodomy is a nice touch, though.
Somewhat OT it reminds me the russian troops supposedly have an habit of raping their male prisoners (a slave thingie? The serbs supposedly often did the same), which lets me hope many a Lion Of Islam(tm) was brang back to his cell in a state of shock, muttering to himself : "By the Holy pubic hair of the Prophet(tm), I didn't thought Jihad(tm) was going to turn out that way...", lol.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/16/2006 9:29 Comments ||
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#5
Perhaps he is a masochist ... ummm... and had been hoping for rougher treatment.. hmmm... and is hinting too the cellmate about missing that sodomising treatment... yawn...
TEHERAN - Irans supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday lashed out at world media coverage of the Islamic republics nuclear programme, accusing news organisations of deliberately distorting the issue.
Today the world media empire sees it as expedient to say Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, while the propagators know it is a lie, state television quoted the all-powerful leader as saying. Today the world media is totally monopolised by the ones who own the largest weapon factories and the most destructive atomic bombs, Khamenei was quoted as saying.
You might want to think on that last statement for a while
The media, dominated by the ones who have money and force, portray America as the symbol of human rights and democracy while identifying Islam with terrorism, he added.
He must not be reading the New York Times
The West fears that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon under cover of a civilian atomic energy programme. But Teheran insists it only wants to generate energy, and argues that fuel cycle work for peaceful purposes is a right upheld by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Posted by: Steve ||
05/16/2006 10:40 ||
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#1
What? No outright denunciations of the Jewish Global Media Syndicate? These guys are losing their touch.
#2
This turban is full of shit. The people who own the media would like to see his kind dominate the earth and trod the great democracies of the world under their sandaled foot.
THE key to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hardline policies may not be hidden in his revolutionary past, or in any of the nuclear facilities dispersed across Iran, but in a small farming village near the holy city of Qom.
Here, in what was until only a few years ago a shabby local mosque, Iran's new radical Muslim leader has become the chief sponsor of a messianic cult whose massed followers pray each week for the end of the world as we know it.
Since coming to power last year Mr Ahmadinejad has given a reported $US20 million ($26 million) and personal supervision to turning the tiny Jamkaran mosque into a massive complex of prayer halls, minarets, car parks and ablutions. Once completed, it will cater in comfort to the tens of thousands of worshippers who flock here every Tuesday night, hoping for the reappearance of the Mahdi or "Hidden Imam", Shiite Islam's equivalent of the Messiah.
When Mr Ahmadinejad sent an 18-page letter to the White House last week lecturing the President, George Bush, on religion and morality, many questioned whether the Iranian President was a religious fanatic, a megalomaniac, or merely playing to an Islamic gallery. Jamkaran is a place to start looking for answers.
In Shiite Muslim belief, the 12th Imam or legitimate successor to the prophet Mohammed was only five years old in the year 873 when he vanished beneath the ground in the city of Samarra, in modern Iraq.
Devout Shiites believe some day he will re-emerge to inaugurate a new era of perfect government on earth, which will in turn be followed by the return of the prophet Jesus to judge mankind. And those who flock to Jamkaran believe that this will happen very soon.
"We can see the signs of his emergence. Nobody can know the exact date of it, but it will be in the near future," explained Mohammed Mehdi Safariyan, 23, a theology student who travelled from Qom last week for the vigil. "One of the most significant signs is that people feel they have lost something, something they need and they look for and they can't find. This is happening everywhere in the world. Everywhere we go we see new religions, people who are looking for a way to escape."
It was dusk, and suitably apocalyptic. Storm clouds hung over the huge blue bulb of the half-finished shrine and lightning flickered as the wind began tossing the fir trees. Beneath the trees the first knots of people were already waiting for nightfall when the vigil would begin. Out on the road fleets of smoking buses beeped and shunted in the gloom, and a rising tide of people flooded through the gates, many having made the 15-kilometre pilgrimage on foot from Qom.
Suddenly there were screams, and a large whirlwind whipped through the trees and the startled worshippers and right into the mouth of the newly built shelter which covers the well where pilgrims deposit their wishes to the Mahdi, scribbled on printed prayers.
Farzaneh Hosseini said she had come to the shrine because she had heard that numerous miracles were performed there.
"This is the place that the hidden Imam likes to be and because of him we are here," said the 27-year-old Afghan refugee from Kabul. "The plans for this mosque were drawn by the Imam and given to a man in a dream, so people have built it here and that is why we come. I believe the dream came to a man a long time ago. I don't know when."
According to religious scholars in nearby Qom, the dream in question happened many centuries ago, but until recently the mosque's link to the Hidden Imam remained a purely local tradition, with little backing from the clergy.
"This thing at Jamkaran is a very recent and contemporary phenomenon," says Moytaba Lotfi, a senior aide to Iran's leading pro-reform cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri.
"As far back as I can remember it was only a very simple desert mosque. It wasn't a place that attracted pilgrims. It's only during the last 10 or 12 years, because of the propaganda on the state television and media, that lots of people have come to gather there."
A former close associate of Ayatollah Khomeini, Montazeri was suppressed and later placed under house arrest when he began to condemn the increasingly corrupt and autocratic nature of the Islamic Republic. The cult of Jamkaran has become a particular target of his small but influential movement.
"They are using it to distract people from paying attention to more serious things," says Lotfi, who is a mullah.
He is quite cynical about the choice of Jamkaran as a venue for worship. "In Iraq there is another place dedicated to the Hidden Imam [the holy shrine at Samarra] but this is the only one in Iran, so they've tried to promote it as much as possible."
But is Mr Ahmadinejad an artful schemer or a true believer, or is he both at the same time? As the West drifts closer to a showdown with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, attempting to guess Mr Ahmadinejad's real motives and intentions is fast becoming the 21st century equivalent of Kremlinology.
There was surprise and dismay in diplomatic circles last year when, having addressed the United Nations for the first time, Mr Ahmadinejad later claimed that the righteousness of his religious harangue had struck dumb the listening assembly. He did not demur when followers claimed to have seen a halo around him on the podium.
On the other hand, he recently earned stern rebukes from his supposed backers in the hardline clerical establishment when he suggested that perhaps Iranian women should not be legally compelled to wear the veil. He also said that he believed women should be allowed to attend soccer matches.
Some observers point out that his recent messages are not inconsistent with a desire to win broader popularity and use it to extract more power from his rivals in Iran's divided conservative establishment.
"He's a populist politician - he doesn't care about strict Islamic rules," believes economic and political analyst Saeed Laylaz. "Of course he's a religious man, but like most people if he had to select either power or religion I'm sure he'll select power, like a lot of other leaders today."
Some see Mr Ahmadinejad's aggressive promotion of his predecessors' more surreptitious nuclear program as another manifestation of a populist drive for domination.
"He tells ordinary people that the Imam is going to solve all the world's problems. In the same way, he tells them that having nuclear energy will miraculously solve all of Iran's economic problems by freeing up lots more oil for export," remarked one diplomat.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 03:27 ||
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#1
" . . . some day he will re-emerge to inaugurate a new era of perfect government on earth, which will in turn be followed by the return of the prophet Jesus to judge mankind . . ."
Is that why they kill Christians every chance they get?
I think Armadinejad is fixing to reveal himself as the "answer" to the Isalmic penchant for fantasy. He already thinks he's the Islamic "Messiah."
BEIRUT, Lebanon The Palestine Liberation Organization on Monday reopened its Beirut office closed since the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Hamas and other militant Islamic groups boycotted the ceremony, which was led by a Fatah official, and the Hamas representative in Lebanon played down the office's significance.
"The Palestinian representative office to be opened in Beirut represents only the PLO, which does not represent all the Palestinian people," Osama Hamdan said in a statement Sunday.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a political moderate and the Fatah leader, has been involved in an increasingly bitter power struggle with the new Hamas-led Palestinian government for control of the Palestinian security forces since the militant group won January legislative elections.
Abbas has repeatedly called on Hamas and other radical groups to renounce violence against Israel in an attempt to revive stalled peace talks with the Jewish state. Hamas has refused.
Abbas Zaki, the Fatah official, flanked by Lebanese Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh and Fatah officials, cut a ribbon and raised the Palestinian flag at the PLO building in a southern Beirut suburb.
"Today Palestine returns to Lebanon and Lebanon returns to Palestine," Zaki said. "I tell my Palestinian brothers that this office represents all Palestinians, be they in the political process or in the opposition."
Fatah, founded by former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, is the dominant faction of the PLO.
Zaki proposed the formation of a joint delegation representing Fatah and all Palestinian factions to hold talks with Lebanese officials on the conditions of the 350,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
In Iran, it will shortly be compulsory to wear a national costume that may be chosen from an official catalogue, and it will be forbidden to smoke even in ones own car. And, in a country where it seems as if characters from Kafka and the Tartuffe of Molière are in power, women will still be banned from entering stadiums, despite the promises of Ahmadinejad, because this is what the ayatollahs have decided.
Iran, however, is not a State of law; so it is far from given that the laws on smoking and obligatory outfits, although voted in by the Parliament in recent days, will be necessarily applied. Insciallah. Qualified from on high (by mullahs) and from below (by the population), laws in Iran do not have an absolute value. Fortunately! people say, ignoring the fact that it is the lack of clear rules and the possibility of personal exceptions that often ensure a long life to arbitrary regimes and a source of bribes for the forces of order.
To safeguard morality and national identity, the Iranian parliament has been at work with mullahs and designers to come up with a collection of common national clothes (obligatory). On 14 May, MPs adopted the bill of law. In a country where national minorities add up to around 50% of the population, this norm could mean an attack not only against globalization but also against internal cultural diversity. To make this farcical Islamic-Maoist project concrete, the regime has visibly understood that Sharia and state laws are not enough. The Trade Ministry is planning to impose very high taxes on imported clothes and to force banks (nearly all state-owned) to concede credit to Iranian clothes producers. There is good news for women: they will no longer be the only ones to wear Islamic clothes, because men will also be obliged to wear something in the Pakistani style ( perhaps because it is a nuclear power!). They would have to do so if Iran was a State of law. For the time being, in Tehran, women continue to walk around imperfectly dressed, courageously, facing not considerable, but real, risks. And men wear jeans and t-shirts. Only shorts are banned this is why no woman can go to stadiums to see football games.
As for the total ban on smoking in public places, including private cars, where the Islamic veil is a must (and which, according to Iranian laws, do not form part of the private sphere), this is a battle that the Health Minister, Kamran Baqeri-Lankarani, a doctor, has been fighting for a year. The fines imposed will be significant (10 euros, at least the first time, and then 1000 euros) if the law approved on 9 May by Parliament is not blocked by the Council of Guardians or by the Supreme Leader, and if the police accept to apply it across the board. This is a cruel irony: in Tehran, around 5,000 people die every year because of air pollution, emitted by cars without catalytic silencers, which consume 18 litres of petrol per 100km for a price of seven euro cents per litre. (subsidized by the State). But there are some things that are taboo in a country where petrol, a divine gift, costs less than drinking water.
The toughening of the ban on smoking, in a certain sense, stretches Ramadan to the other 11 months of the year and does not regard women they have been forbidden from smoking in public for 27 years now. Just like the matter of access to football stadiums. Two weeks after the announcement of Ahmadinejad that some women would be allowed to watch football games in special sections, the Iranian spiritual power blocked this opening. Some grand ayatollahs and extremist thinkers like the ayatollah Mezbah-Yazdi immediately expressed opposition to the popular measure proposed by the populist President. The Supreme Leader Khamenei is now asking the President not to apply this measure. Ahmadinejad has thus killed two birds with one stone: his popularity as a centrist has increased and morality has been preserved.
Iranian foreign minister Manouchehr Motaki on Monday welcomed any "positive proposal" that guarantees Tehran's legitimate rights over its nuclear program, saying the Islamic Republic was ready to hold dialogue over this issue.
"Any European proposal asking Iran to temporarily suspend or stop uranium enrichment operations is unreasonable and unacceptable request, and will be rejected immediately," Motaki warned during a meeting with the ambassadors of Britain, France and Germany.
A statement by the foreign ministry quoted Motaki any new proposal by the European Union (EU) should be "reasonable and based on facts." EU foreign ministers agreed earlier today in Brussels to extend incentives to the Iranian regime if the latter proved its nuclear program was peaceful and convince the international community that this program would not be used to manufacture nuclear bombs. Motaki said if the European proposals were not reasonable then its fate would be the same of the previous suggestion to halt the nuclear program, which was submitted last August. The foreign minister said the EU was careless about Iran's right to building mutual confidence "so Europe has to work on building confidence from its side."
The US and its Arab allies must expect an increase in attacks on their oil infrastructure in the next phase of the war by al-Qaeda targeting the US economy, the former Central Intelligence Agency official who was responsible for hunting down Osama bin Laden warns on Monday.
Writing for the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington security think-tank, Michael Scheuer says Mr bin Laden's intention to bankrupt the US economy by driving up world oil prices is very likely to lead to attacks inside the US by al-Qaeda, its allies or unrelated groups.
Houston's gas refineries, oil import facilities and ship canal and pipeline systems, and the trans-Alaska pipeline are potential targets.
Al-Qaeda's failed attack on Saudi Arabia's Abqaiq facility on February 24, which led to a $2 a barrel jump in world oil prices, should also be seen as the beginning of a new and more systematic phase of targeting of the kingdom's oil infrastructure. Two days after the attack, an al-Qaeda-affiliated cleric issued a religious justification for attacking oil processing installations.
The cleric, using the internet, also claimed that attacks on prominent Muslim oil officials were justified.
The militant organisation's media apparatus is also being used "to stir the troubled pot of oil-related international worries", Mr Scheuer writes, noting encouragement for Nigerian insurgents in the Niger Delta and "mujahideen" in the Caspian Sea region.
Tracing al-Qaeda's evolving strategy, Mr Scheuer, who left the CIA in 2004, notes that Mr bin Laden has never threatened to cut oil supplies to the US. Instead he is driven by the belief that Muslim oil is bought too cheaply. In December 2004, Mr bin Laden wrote that a minimum of $100 a barrel was a "fair price".
In his September 1996 "Declaration of War against Americans", Mr bin Laden argues that oil in the Islamic world is a treasure to be preserved for future generations of Muslims and thus should not be wasted through attacks.
As a result, Mr Scheuer says al-Qaeda's plans rule out attacks on oil wells but focus on the infrastructure needed for refining and transporting oil, as well as industry personnel.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/16/2006 02:29 ||
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Reporters are 100 times more likely to associate Islam with terrorism or militancy than all other faiths combined, an article quoted a word search on news stories published in major newspapers over the past decade as concluding.
Such lopsided portrayal is indicative of deep-seated misunderstandings about Islam, and sometimes just plain prejudice, said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the board of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in an article on Monday. Surely, all terrorists are not Muslim. Neither are all Muslims terrorists.
The European Union had noticed resentment among Muslims to the objectionable juxtaposition of Islam and terrorism, and was distributing new guidelines to its 25 members that recommended using non-emotive lexicon for discussing radicalisation, Ahmed said in his article titled A sensible way to describe terrorists. EU officials say that the guidelines, which are not legally binding, would ask European governments to shun the phrase Islamic terrorism in favour of terrorists who abusively invoke Islam, Ahmed said. Other terms being considered by the review include Islamist, fundamentalist and jihad, he said. He praised this first of its kind effort to separate terrorism from its perceived roots.
Associating the criminal enterprise of terrorism with the faith of 1.4 billion Muslims, 99.99 percent of whom will never come near any act of terrorism, much less use Islam as a justification for their crimes, is just plain wrong, he said. Ahmed said the 9/11 attacks had brought home the horrors of a new form of suicidal terrorism. More and more scholarly writings are delving deeper into this issue and offering us new insights, he said. The pioneering instigators and the largest purveyors of suicide terrorism are the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are overwhelmingly Hindu.
Quoting Robert Papes book Dying to Win, Ahmed writes: From Lebanon to Israel to Sri Lanka to Kashmir to Chechnya, the sponsors of every campaign have been terrorist groups trying to establish or maintain political self-determination by compelling a democratic power to withdraw from a territory they claim, Ahmed quotes Pape as saying. He said that occupation is the primary motivator and religion, at best, is an aggravating factor. Considering this, the Iraq war has only amplified the problem, he said.
Falsely associating Islam with terrorism weakens the efficacy of these efforts by creating the impression that the global war on terror is merely a euphemism for a war on Islam, Ahmed said. Terrorism is stateless and yet trans-national. ... it will never be defeated through force alone. It will have to be fought ideologically by attempting to win the hearts and minds of those vulnerable to terrorist manipulations, Ahmed said.
#1
Here is an article from almost a decade ago where the press addresses this issue.
HEBRON, WEST BANK - In an emotionally charged press conference Monday, crazed Palestinian gunman Faisal al Hamad expressed frustration over the stereotyping of his people.
"As a crazed Palestinian gunman, I feel hurt by the negative portrayal of my people in the media" said Hamad, 31, a Hebron area terrorist maniac. "None of us should have to live with stereotyping and ignorance.".....
Read the rest....from back when the Onion used to be funny.
#2
"Reporters are 100 times more likely to associate Islam with terrorism ..."
Only 100 times more likely? Just shows how biased towards the RoP the media is.
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.
The United States restored full diplomatic ties with Libya on Monday, rewarding the longtime pariah nation for scrapping its weapons of mass destruction programmes and signalling incentives for Iran and North Korea if they do the same. Culminating a years-long rapprochement with the OPEC member, Washington will reopen an embassy and remove Libya from a list of state sponsors of terrorism within 45 days.
PRIME Minister John Howard has urged the United States to become more involved in international affairs, saying it is the only way to ensure world peace. Mr Howard made the plea to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during an official lunch at the State Department in Washington, a day after a private dinner with President George W. Bush.
I came to Holland in the summer of 1992 because I wanted to be able to determine my own future. I didnt want to be forced into a destiny that other people had chosen for me, so I opted for the protection of the rule of law. Here in Holland, I found freedom and opportunities, and I took those opportunities to speak out against religious terror.
The European Union vowed on Monday to get a new aid mechanism for the Palestinians in place as soon as possible, but said Israeli support was crucial and it appeared the United States would not take part. EU External Affairs Commssioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said she hoped the mechanism, proposed last week by the quartet of Middle East peace negotiators to aid Palestinians but bypass the Hamas-led government, could be put in place by June.
Reporters are 100 times more likely to associate Islam with terrorism or militancy than all other faiths combined, an article quoted a word search on news stories published in major newspapers over the past decade as concluding. Such lopsided portrayal is indicative of deep-seated misunderstandings about Islam, and sometimes just plain prejudice, said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the board of the 
Islambad, 16 May (AKI/APP) - Pakistan and Iran are expected to take up the matter of launching a ferry service between the two countries on June 11-12. 
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan said Monday that Osama bin Laden was likely to be in Afghanistan, rejecting a reported claim by Kabuls foreign minister that the Al Qaeda chief is hiding in Pakistani territory.
Indian Opposition leader and former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani on Monday called for deportation of 
AMMAN - Jordans King Abdullah II has ordered the dispatch of a fourth batch of food aid to the cash-strapped Palestinian territories, the royal court said on Monday. A total of 25 trucks laden with 400 tonnes of food will head to the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Tuesday, the secretary general of the Hashemite Charity Organisation, Abdel Salam Abbadi, said in a statement issued by the palace.
King Abdullah on Monday ordered the dispatch of urgent relief aid to the West Bank and Gaza to help the Palestinians overcome their economic crisis. A convoy of 25 trucks laden with 400 tonnes of food and humanitarian assistance will leave for the Palestinian territories today, President of the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organisation (JHCO) Abdul Salam Abbadi was quoted by the Jordan News Agency, Petra, as saying.
