KABUL, May 18 (Reuters) - Pakistan is training militants and sending then into Afghanistan but Islamabad should realise it no longer has power to determine events in Afghanistan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai was quoted as saying on Thursday. Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan deteriorated sharply this year after Afghanistan said Taliban insurgents were able to operate from the safety of Pakistani soil.
"Pakistani intelligence gives military training to people and then sends to Afghanistan with logistics," the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) news agency quoted Karzai as saying.
I believe we've mentioned this a time or two
Taliban violence has surged this year and about 80 people were killed in fighting in various parts of Afghanistan on Wednesday and Thursday. Many Afghans blame Pakistan for supporting the Taliban, or at the very least turning a blind eye to Taliban operating from Pakistan's lawless border regions. Pakistan, which is battling Taliban and al Qaeda-linked militants on its side of the border, denies helping the Taliban.
"No, certainly not"
But a senior U.S. security official said recently Pakistan was not doing enough in the war on terrorism, and militant sanctuaries on the Pakistani side of the border had to be dealt with. Pakistan supported the Taliban until the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when it joined the United States in its war on terrorism.
Karzai said the influence Pakistan used to have over Afghanistan was a thing of the past. "Pakistan should know that gone are the days when Afghan governments were formed in Pakistan and dissolved there," Karzai was quoted as telling tribal elders and officials in the eastern province of Kunar, which is on the Pakistani border. "Afghans are now themselves masters of their country and the Afghan people themselves will take decisions," he said.
Karzai also descried fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar as a coward, AIP said. "If he is a man, he should come out ... now he is hiding in the other country and sending youth to kill our people," he said.
"I double-dog dare you!"
"Pakistan wants that Afghanistan be its military base but that dream will never come true."
Posted by: Steve ||
05/18/2006 12:49 ||
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OTTAWA - Lawmakers voted on Wednesday to extend Canadas combat mission in Afghanistan to 2009, on the same day a female Canadian soldier died in a major battle with Taleban militants in the war-torn country.
After six hours of debate in the House of Commons late Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harpers motion to keep Canadian troops in Afghanistan for two years beyond their planned February 2007 exit was passed 149 votes to 145.
Once again Harper scores a quiet, clear victory in the House. Amazing what competence and a little humility can do.
Canada currently has 2,300 troops in Afghanistan, mostly in the southern region where militants loyal to the Taleban government toppled by a US-led coalition in late 2001 are particularly active.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2006 00:54 ||
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IIUC the vote total doesnt reflect the substantive support in parliament. While BQ and NDP want a pullout, many Liberals voted no cause they didnt like that Harper didnt give them customary warning of a debate on a topic this important. Many more Grits are actually pro-deployment than voted for it.
#3
Everyone oughta go over to Captain Ed's blog and throw a little change in his tip jar and a note wishing his wife well. Without his coverage of Canadian politix last summer, Canada would still be stuck with the cretinous Paul Martin.
#4
Many more Grits are actually pro-deployment than voted for it
Then they have a funny way of showing their support. Harper made it clear that this vote was primarily a show of support for the troops in Afghanistan, so that they would know that Parliament stands behind them and their mission. Harper also said that he would extend the mission for one year, even without Parliament. So the only thing at play here was whether Afghanistan becomes an election issue for the next election (which will probably come in less than two years).
Apparently some Liberals took the low road, opting to go for cheap anti-war (and mostly anti-American) votes.
Posted by: Great White Polar Bear ||
05/18/2006 13:36 Comments ||
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I am glad a majority however slim voted to do the right thing.
Thank you Canada.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/18/2006 15:05 Comments ||
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What was that rumble? Ahhh, Canada just shifted ever so slightly to the right.
Harper is continuing to increase in popularity polls. I'm hoping the majority of Canadians can get behind his "We're not just extending our mission, we want to lead the Nato force." (as offered). I'm hoping this will appeal to national sense of pride, almost dead now, and recommitment and somehow better understanding of this WOT.
This continues, the majority may not be so slim the next vote.
A high-level government official in Afghanistan has blamed neighbouring Pakistan for helping Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters cross the border. Such fighters have been targeting Afghan and international forces.
Reeaaaallly? Gosh, that's never happened before. Glad to see the BBC finally noticed.
Thousands of British troops have been arriving in Afghanistan to a security situation that has been deteriorating over the last few months.
Which means the BBC has to set the stage for quagmire, withdrawal and defeatism.
Pakistan denies the allegations and says Afghanistan is trying to divert attention from its own failings.
"Lies! All lies!"
The Pakistan border stretches for hundreds of miles and Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters regularly cross it. But the governor of Khost province in the southeast has accused the Pakistani intelligence agency for not just turning a blind eye to the movement of insurgents but for actively encouraging the fighters from crossing over to launch attacks on British and international forces.
More than four years after the war, insurgents are returning to these areas and using them to launch suicide and roadside bomb attacks, or moving to the south, where British troops are based.
Posted by: john ||
05/18/2006 00:00 ||
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A fish with markings that resembled a Koranic text has disappeared from the Kenyan Fisheries Department in Mombasa.
The tuna fish, which had provoked intense interest from Muslims, was apparently stolen by people posing as National Museum officials.
The theft was discovered when the real official from the museum, based at Fort Jesus in Mombasa, came to get the fish.
The fish was being studied to find out if the Arabic inscription "You are the best provider" was natural or a hoax.
Sceptics say the writing was the work of someone who caught the fish and then threw it back into the sea.
But others say this would be impossible, and local imams are said to have been talking in the mosques about the fish.
Over the weekend, people thronged to the Takaungu Fish Shop in Mombasa's old town after the owner noticed the tuna fish's remarkable markings.
It had been caught by fisherman Said Ali at the end of last week at Vanga, a small fishing port on the Kenyan coast, 50km south of Mombasa.
For safekeeping, the 2.5 kg (five pound) fish was moved to the fisheries department.
After being asked by Muslim leaders in Kenya, Kenya's National Museum had offered to take custody of the fish and preserve it for the country's heritage.
The reported theft follows numerous attempts by locals and Muslim scholars to buy the mysterious fish.
An official at the fisheries department in Mombasa said someone had even offered to pay as much as $150.
Under normal circumstances the fish would fetch not more than $6.
Officials from the museum and the country's fisheries department have launched a low-profile search for the stolen fish, fearing possible anger from Muslims if they hear it has been stolen.
Posted by: john ||
05/18/2006 19:36 ||
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#1
Let the fish riots begin. The jooooos took 'im.
A few years ago, a local gang in Mogadishu kidnapped a young student and demanded a ransom from his family in return for releasing their son. This incident was one of countless other kidnappings and killings perpetrated by armed groups in the Somali capital who exploited the disintegration of the central government, after president Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted from power.
This even marked a turning point in the life of Sheikh Sharif Ahmad, head of the Islamic courts organization and considered by many as "Mogadishu's strongman," and accused of being the Somali equivalent of Mullah Omar, founder of the Taliban movement and leader of Afghanistan before the 2001 US invasion.
Born in Chabila, a town in central Somalia, in January 1964, Sheikh Sharif taught geography, Arabic and religious studies in Juba secondary school, where the young student was once a pupil. The kidnapping outraged him and prompted him to intervene to secure the boy's release.
Sheikh Sharif, a fluent Arabic speaker who attended university in Libya and Sudan, realized he no longer recognized the society in which he lived where violence prevailed and the poor suffered. He decided to search for a solution.
"I met with [the student's] teachers and decided to act. We issued a statement that attracted people's attention in Mogadishu. I began speaking to the residents of the neighborhood where kidnappers tended to hide their victims and implored them not to cover up for them," he told Asharq Al Awsat in a telephone interview.
Prior to the kidnapping, Sheikh Sharif had no affiliation to the Islamic courts organization, which was modestly established in 1996 and grew in 1998. He was surprised to be nominated to lead the organization that maintains a 5000-strong armed militia. "I was visiting a friend when I heard I was nominated for the post. I thought of turning it down and continuing to work as a teacher and guide pupils. But I soon agreed for fear that the organization might fail while still in its infancy."
The Islamic courts organization holds court proceedings, sentences defendants to prison or lashes if found guilty, according to Islamic Sharia and away from the law of the jungle that has taken hold in Somalia and especially in the capital.
Asked about the number of forces loyal to him, Sheikh Sharif said he could not discuss exact figures for security reasons. "This is top secret information. If I tell you, some parties might underestimate us if the numbers are small. We might exaggerate our force if we mention large figures. Since the beginning of the civil war, all Somalis are armed. We have not banned anyone from joining us. Some people are under the impression that we are a heavily-armed organization."
With armed clashes erupting around Mogadishu last week, Sheikh Sharif indicated that he might need to re-consider the security measures he takes to safeguard his life. "By nature, I do not like to have guards around me. But I was forced to seek the help of highly-trained and armed bodyguards" because of the recent flare up of violence which Sheikh Sharif blamed on "the devil's allies," in reference to US-backed warlords. "I used to go out quite often without guards and I enjoyed it. This is no longer possible," he added.
Despite these complications, Sheikh Sharif did not regret becoming the leader of the Islamic courts organization. "This is our fate and responsibility. Our aim is to serve the Somali people and defend their rights and dignity."
He expressed fear for his country's futures and worried about Somalia, which appeared to have been "forgotten by the world" and stroked off the world map.
Sheikh Sharif told Asharq Al Awsat he lives with his wife and two children, Ahmad, aged 9 and Abdullah, who is a toddler, in a modest house in Mogadishu . He does not own a computer or a satellite phone he added. "I live a simple life, like the majority of Somalis," he said, in response to those who accuse him of amassing a vast fortune as the new "uncrowned king of Mogadishu."
In order for peace and security to return to Somalia, the country's citizens should unite and cast aside their political and tribal differences, Sheikh Sharif said. However, he insisted he is no Mullah Omar who won popular Afghan support and came to power on the back of a destructive civil war and discredited warlords. "Our situation differs from Afghanistan's and we are not presenting ourselves as an alternative government or seeking control of the capital, as our enemies claim." But according to the latest UN Security Council report, militiamen loyal to twelve courts administered by Sheikh Sharif across Mogadishu now control 80% of the capital.
Denying receiving financial aid from aboard, Sheikh Sharif said the organization's popularity stems from people's love and appreciation for its actions, given the absence of a central government. "We rely on our limited resources and what ordinary citizens give us. We welcome financial contributions, however small they are, but do not oblige citizens to contribute."
He denied having any contacts with the transitional federal government led by President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi, currently based in Nairobi, adding that he did not object to future talks, if they serve the interests of the Somali people. Criticizing the US administration's role in the recent fighting, Sheikh Sharif said Washington was not acting in the interest of Somalis but was repeating past mistakes. President Bush's remarks on the presence of Al Qaeda in Somalia were "lies," to promote the US' war on terror, he added.
According to western intelligence sources, the Islamic courts organization is sheltering Muslim extremists, some of whom have ties to Al Qaeda, including three suspected of carrying out the attacks on US embassies in East Africa in 1998.
For his part, Sheikh Sharif emphasized that Osama Bin Laden's group did not have any presence in Somalia. "There are no fugitives from Al Qaeda or any other organization, as the US and Ethiopian intelligence services are claiming. This is an open country and strangers will be found out very quickly. Look at the number of lies Washington is telling about Iraq and Afghanistan. It is trying to repeat the same thing in Mogadishu but we will not let it."
As for the Islamic union organization, accused by Addis Ababa of involvement in a series of terrorist attacks that hit the capital in the 1990s, Sheikh Sharif said it was no longer active, after suffering heavy losses because of the violent campaign Ethiopian forces launched against it.
He also accused the Arab world of failing Somalia twice, the first time by ignoring the crisis in the country and the second by refusing to intervene to solve it and provide urgent humanitarian and financial aid to help save the lives of millions of civilians displaced by the civil war. "They [the Arabs] hear about us from the foreign media which exaggerates the news from Somalia and paints us in a way that suits its interest. None of [the Arabs] have thought of contacting us, like you did, to listen and learn about out our point of view. This is very sad."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/18/2006 00:40 ||
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Wow. Sounds like a regular Shangri La over there with this wonderful man running the show.
Nice interview. Makes Oprah look like Edward R. Murrow...
The White House said on Wednesday it was concerned al Qaeda is establishing a presence in Somalia but would not say whether Washington is backing Somali warlords fighting Islamic militants there.
Somalia lacks a functioning government and the United States fears Somalia is a potential haven for extremists.
Militia battles have been waged over the past week between militants linked to the Islamic courts, which have imposed order on parts of Mogadishu through traditional Islamic law, and a self-styled anti-terrorism alliance of warlords.
Asked whether Washington was working with the warlords, White House spokesman Tony Snow said "there is concern about the presence of foreign terrorists, particularly al Qaeda, within Somalia right now."
"In an environment of instability, as we've seen in the past, al Qaeda may take root, and we want to make sure that al Qaeda does not in fact establish a beachhead in Somalia," Snow said.
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack sidestepped questions over whether the United States was funding warlords but said Washington was working with "responsible members of the Somali political spectrum" whom he declined to name.
Americans have bad memories of U.S. involvement in Somalia. On Oct 3 and 4, 1993, 18 U.S. soldiers were killed and 79 injured in a battle in Mogadishu with Somali guerrilla fighters loyal to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.
As for the current situation, Snow said "the terrorists are going to seek to take advantage of the environment and use that kind of chaos in order to put together camps and therefore mount operations around the world."
"We will continue to work with regional and international partners wherever we can to crack down on terrorism and also to try to prevent its rising," he added.
Snow also said Somalia needs a functioning government and that Washington supports transitional federal institutions there that are trying to re-establish a central government that can end the civil conflict.
"We believe that these two things go hand in hand: fighting terrorism and then building up the institutions in Somalia, because if you have a well-governed state with strong governing institutions, then you are likely not going to have a safe haven for terrorism," McCormack said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/18/2006 00:28 ||
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A few weeks old; check also the other items on the page (my favorite is the hamas comic book drawn by a 7 years old kid riding to school on the short bus), and the cartoons elseswhere on the site.
With apologies. I posted Part II some hours ago, but only just found this at the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.com.
How Gadhafi Lost His Groove: The complex surrender of Libya's WMD.
As the Bush administration struggles to stop Iran and North Korea from acquiring nuclear weapons, it might recall how Libya was persuaded to renounce terrorism and its own weapons of mass destruction programs, including a sophisticated nuclear program purchased almost entirely from the supplier network run by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's bomb.
When Libya dramatically declared on Dec. 19, 2003, that it was abandoning its rogue ways, President Bush and other senior officials praised Libya and Moammar al-Gadhafi, the surviving dean of Arab revolutionary leaders, as a model that other rogue states might follow. In fact, the still largely secret talks that helped prompt Libya's decision, and the joint American-British dismantlement of its weapons programs in the first four months of 2004, remain the administration's sole undeniable--if largely unheralded--intelligence and nonproliferation success. And a key figure in that effort, Stephen Kappes, is now slated to be the next deputy director of the demoralized Central Intelligence Agency.
#1
It seems that this potential victory for the Bush Administration was allowed to slide into the jaws of defeat by not pandering to the Libyian's fast enough.
But, I didn't read the whole thing; it's late, and waaaaaaay too long!
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/18/2006 0:08 Comments ||
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True enough. Y'all definitely want a cup of coffee in hand before reading this through.
From East Asia Intel, subscription.
SEOUL Recent satellite imagery of smoke wafting from the North Koreas nuclear facility at Yongbyon suggests an intensified effort at building nuclear warheads.
Analysts were more impressed, however, by photos that showed not only the smoke but also vehicles and containers besides the main building at the site. The vehicles and containers were not seen in images taken earlier on March 5, 2003, South Koreas Yonhap news agency noted.
Speculation about activity at the site intensified after the Global Security website showed four satellite photographs that it said were shot on Jan. 5, 2006. The images showed what was described as a plume of smoke though there was speculation the smoke might have resulted from a rise in temperature and humidity. Satellite image of reactor area HERE.
The presence of the vehicles and containers, however, indicated that North Korean scientists might be revving up activity at the 5-megawatt reactor at Yongbyon, where they are believed to have built several nuclear warheads.
In addition to the vehicles and containers, the imagery shows that a dirt path had been paved seen as one of a number of clues of North Koreas determination to press on with its nuclear weapons program regardless of whether it returns to six-party talks in Beijing.
Analysts also said North Korea could be deliberately signaling activity at the site to spread alarm in South Korea and the United States as a negotiating tactic. I think that this US Administration is finished with appeasement. I damned well hope that they are.
Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the Japanese financial newspaper, reported that North Korea had resumed construction of two other, much larger reactors at Yongbyon, one of them 50 megawatts, the other 200 megawatts. Nikkei, as the paper is known, said sources in Washington reported that North Korea had indirectly intimated resumption of work on those reactors.
South Korean officials, anxious to downplay such reports while pursuing reconciliation with the North, said there was no substantiation of the report. Maybe the SKors should have said that they are investigating the validity of the report. Their quick dismissal of the report shows the length that they would go to appease the NORKS.
North Koreas Gen. Li Chan-Bok, a veteran negotiator who is often wheeled out for tough-sounding interviews with foreign visitors, has intimated from time to time that North Korea was resuming construction of these reactors, suspended after the signing of the Geneva Framework Agreement in October 1994 when North Korea also shut down the 5-megawatt reactor. The NORKS need an attention-getter, after we've been ignoring them at the fabled Six-Party catering event Talks.
That agreement unraveled in late 2002 when U.S. officials said North Korea had admitted the existence of a separate uranium enrichment program for developing warheads with uranium at their core rather than the plutonium in the warheads fabricated at Yongbyon. North Korea kicked out IAEA inspectors at the end of that year. And Madeline Albright sought out other venues for 5-star hotels and gourmet cuisine.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/18/2006 17:10 ||
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Madeleine: "This is my brooch with the frowny face - it demonstrates our very strong resolve"
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/18/2006 19:47 Comments ||
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Once again, little to no mention/reference in the MSM of North Korea breaching the Pyonyang Protocols during Saint Bill Clinton's tenure. And down under near TAIWAN ways?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is open to discussions with North Korea on a peace treaty at the same time as six-country talks on dismantling Pyongyang's nuclear programs, but it must first come back to the negotiating table, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
Commenting on a report in The New York Times, two officials said the concurrent efforts had been under way for months. They played down the Times' report that the Bush administration was considering a new approach.
But some experts said there seemed to be at least a slight change in U.S. emphasis designed to entice Pyongyang back into talks and keep Asian allies from blaming Washington for the moribund diplomacy.
"The approach with North Korea has always been the same, which is, when North Korea comes back and participates in the six-party talks, then we can proceed," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.
"Nothing happens until North Korea goes back and participates in the six-party talks. Dealing with the possibility of developing nuclear weapons, and to talk about any further steps is premature," he told reporters on Air Force One traveling with President George W. Bush to Yuma, Arizona.
The New York Times said if Bush allows talks about a peace treaty to take place on a parallel track with six-nation talks on disarmament, it would "signal another major change of tactics" for the administration, which has been divided about how to deal with Pyongyang through most of Bush's tenure.
North Korea has long demanded a peace treaty to replace the armistice that ended the 1950-1953 Korean war.
While officials denied a major shift, Jon Wolfstahl, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Reuters the U.S. position "opens up at least the option for a change in sequencing" negotiations.
The administration initially insisted Pyongyang dismantle its nuclear programs before receiving any economic or political returns but has softened that position over time.
A joint statement last September 19 by the six parties -- the United States, North Korea and South Korea, China, Russia and Japan -- foreshadowed talks on a broad range of issues, including a new peace treaty, within the context of the six-party process.
In that statement, the North promised to give up its nuclear weapons, while other parties expressed a willingness to provide oil, energy aid and security guarantees.
But the question of exactly when benefits might flow to Pyongyang has sharply divided the Bush administration.
Just a day after the September 19 statement, the North made comments significantly undermining the deal. There have been no negotiations since an inconclusive session last November.
South Korea and China have urged U.S. gestures that might bring Pyongyang back into the six-party process.
Concurrent discussions on a peace treaty "is one of the few things the administration can offer that the North Koreans said they want but doesn't provide Pyongyang with material aid," Wolfstahl said.
"It shows a recognition that they are not making progress (in curbing the North's nuclear programs) and they are losing the diplomatic game in East Asia. Increasingly, people see us as being as intransigent as North Korea," he added.
In recent interviews with Reuters, two senior U.S. officials were very pessimistic about persuading North Korea to return to the table and said they did not expect any movement until after Bush leaves office, in 2009, at the earliest.
The New York Times report surfaced as the United States and other major powers were engaged in efforts, so far fruitless, to persuade Iran to drop its planned nuclear program.
The North Koreans "need to come back to the talks, engage in a constructive manner and demonstrate they have clearly made a strategic decision to give up their nuclear weapons," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.
President Bush's top advisers have recommended a broad new approach to dealing with North Korea that would include beginning negotiations on a peace treaty, even while efforts to dismantle the country's nuclear program are still under way, senior administration officials and Asian diplomats say.
Aides say Mr. Bush is very likely to approve the new approach, which has been hotly debated among different factions within the administration. But he will not do so unless North Korea returns to multinational negotiations over its nuclear program. The talks have been stalled since September.
North Koreans have long demanded a peace treaty, which would replace the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War.
For several years after he first took office, Mr. Bush vowed not to end North Korea's economic and diplomatic isolation until it entirely dismantled its nuclear program. That stance later softened, and the administration said some benefits to North Korea could begin to flow as significant dismantlement took place. Now, if the president allows talks about a peace treaty to take place on a parallel track with six-nation talks on disarmament, it will signal another major change of tactics.
The decision to consider a change may have been influenced in part by growing concerns about Iran's nuclear program. One senior Asian official who has been briefed on the administration's discussions about what to do next said, "There is a sense that they can't leave Korea out there as a model for what the Iranians hope to become a nuclear state that can say no to outside pressure."
But it is far from clear that North Korea would engage in any new discussions, especially if they included talk of political change, human rights, terrorism and an opening of the country, topics that the Bush administration has insisted would have to be part of any comprehensive discussions with North Korea.
With the war in Iraq and the nuclear dispute with Iran as distractions, many top officials have all but given up hope that North Korea's government will either disarm or collapse during Mr. Bush's remaining time in office. Increasingly, they blame two of Mr. Bush's negotiating partners, South Korea and China, which have poured aid into North Korea even while the United States has tried to cut off its major sources of revenue.
In his first term, Mr. Bush said repeatedly that he would never "tolerate" a nuclear North Korea. Now he rarely discusses the country's suspected weapons. Instead, he has met in the Oval Office with escapees from the country and used the events to discuss North Korea's prison camps and the suffering of its people.
Mr. Bush has also been under subtle pressure to change the first-term talk of speeding change of government. "Focusing on regime change as the road to denuclearization confuses the issue," former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger wrote in a lengthy op-ed article that appeared in The Washington Post on Tuesday. Noting that the negotiations have been conducted by Christopher R. Hill, a seasoned diplomat who played a major role in the Dayton peace accords, which halted the civil war in Bosnia, he said, "Periodic engagement at a higher level is needed."
A classified National Intelligence Estimate on North Korea, which was circulated among senior officials earlier this year, concluded that the North had probably fabricated the fuel for more than a half-dozen nuclear weapons since the beginning of Mr. Bush's administration and was continuing to produce roughly a bomb's worth of new plutonium each year. But in a show of caution after the discovery of intelligence flaws in Iraq, the assessment left unclear whether North Korea had actually turned that fuel into weapons.
With the six-nation negotiations over North Korea's nuclear program appearing to go nowhere, the drive for a broader strategy was propelled by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and one of her top aides, Philip D. Zelikow, who drafted two papers describing the new approach.
Those papers touched off what one senior official called "a blizzard of debate" over the next steps that eventually included Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been widely described by current and former officials as leading the drive in Mr. Bush's first term to make sure the North Korean government received no concessions from the United States until all of its weapons and weapons sites were taken apart. It is unclear where Mr. Cheney stands on the new approach that emerged from the State Department.
Now, said one official who has participated in the recent internal debate, "I think it is fair to say that many in the administration have come to the conclusion that dealing head-on with the nuclear problem is simply too difficult."
The official added, "So the question is whether it would help to try to end the perpetual state of war" that has existed, at least on paper, for 53 years. "It may be another way to get there."
An agreement that was signed in September by North Korea and the five other nations involved in the talks the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia commits the country to give up its weapons and rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty "at an early date" but leaves completely unclear what would have to come first: disarmament or a series of steps that would aid North Korea.
It also included a sentence that paves the way for the initiative recommended to Mr. Bush, declaring that "the directly related parties will negotiate a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula at an appropriate separate forum." But it does not specify what steps North Korea would have to take first.
As described by administration officials, none of whom would speak on the record about deliberations inside the White House, Mr. Bush's aides envision starting negotiations over a formal peace treaty that would include the original signatories of the armistice China, North Korea and the United States, which signed on behalf of the United Nations. They would also add South Korea, now the world's 11th-largest economy, which declined to sign the original armistice.
Japan, Korea's colonial ruler in the first half of the 20th century, would be excluded, as would Russia.
A National Security Council spokesman declined to comment on any internal deliberations on North Korea policy and referred all questions to the State Department, which has handled the negotiations with the North. The State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack, declined to discuss the recommendations made to Mr. Bush and said, "The most important decision is with North Korea and that is the strategic decision to give up their nuclear weapons program."
"They signed a joint statement," he added, "but they have yet to demonstrate that they have made a decision to abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs."
In justifying its refusal to return to talks, North Korea has complained bitterly about the financial sanctions imposed by the United States, which have been aimed at closing down the North's banking activities in Macao and elsewhere in Asia. The United States has described those steps as "defensive measures" intended to stop the country from counterfeiting American currency and exporting drugs and missiles.
Even if peace treaty talks started, officials insisted, those sanctions would continue. A month ago, Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, told a small audience of foreign policy experts that the sanctions were "the first thing we have done that has gotten their attention," several participants in the meeting said.
Some intelligence officials say they believe the protests may have arisen in part because they affected a secretive operation in North Korea called Unit 39 that finances the personal activities of Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, providing the money he spends for his entertainment and to win the loyalty of others in the leadership.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/18/2006 02:37 ||
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Funny, Mad HalfBright was at the White House last week. Perhaps someone stupid listened to her.
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/18/2006 6:30 Comments ||
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There is nothing "new" about this approach. It was the Clinton approach for eight years...sheesh
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/18/2006 6:34 Comments ||
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But [Bush] will not do so unless North Korea returns to multinational negotiations over its nuclear program. The talks have been stalled since September.
#5
NKOR hasn't really "made out like a bandit" over their nuke program. The only thing it has gotten them is some sense of (misplaced)security that they will not be invaded and toppled from power. In the end, you can't eat plutonium and you can only sell so many missiles a year to the Iranians. Their little shithole has become far worse since they made the bomb.
#6
This is clever and I support it fully. It follows the strategy that Steven Den Beste, a couple years back, called 'engaged apathy'. We'll listen, and listen, and listen, polite as always, and not do anything. We'll let Mr. Bolton say a few words, and not do anything. We'll have six-party talks, two-party talks, and not do anything.
Not do anything because there's nothing to do except wait for the NKors to crater. That's the goal: Kimmie has proven that he can't be trusted, so trying to reach an agreement with him on his nukes is useless. Kimmie's also batshit crazy, so we don't want to do something to push him over the edge (think 15,000 artillery tubes pointed at Seoul; the loss of life would be enormous).
So the best response is to do nothing, all the while with a look on our face of engagement, of seriousness, of concern. It's what diplomats do for a living, and we need to let them do it.
Negotiate a peace treaty? Absolutely, sure, no problem. First, the size and shape of the table. Then the color of the tablecloth. Wait, wait, we need to call Washington on that, we'll get back to you ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2006 13:01 Comments ||
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#7
I agree with the engaged Apathy but I would include one additional bit. Let it be known by the Chinese (through back channels) that if Kimmie says anything provocative we'll be pushing hard for a change in the Japanese constitution so Japan can defend herself.
North Korea is the monster China built and China needs to take responsibility. If not they cannot expect the neighbors to just sit back and suck it up, not when those neighbors conquered the entire neighborhood with military efficiency within living memory.
FIJI'S indigenous Prime Minister was sworn in after a one-seat election win yesterday only to find himself still in confrontation with the military over his plans to grant amnesty to leaders of a 2000 coup.
Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase said his nationalist SDL party had won 36 seats in the 71-seat Parliament and also had the support of two independents after last week's racially charged poll. "That should give us a comfortable working majority," Mr Qarase told local radio before he went to the President's office in Suva, where he took the oath of office. He has promised to reintroduce a bill to grant amnesty to those involved in the 2000 coup, which toppled the nation's first ethnic Indian prime minister.
In Suva yesterday, outspoken military chief Frank Bainimarama said the army would take the necessary steps to stop Mr Qarase's amnesty law being passed. Before the election, he had threatened to topple the Government if the bill did pass. "We are going to fight them all the way if that is going to be their message whether they become government or not," Commodore Bainimarama said. He accused Mr Qarase of destabilising Fiji, which has had three racially motivated coups and an army mutiny since 1987. Indigenous Fijians make up 51 per cent of the country's 906,000 people but fear the increasing political clout of ethnic Indians.
Earlier yesterday, Commodore Bainimarama accused Mr Qarase of plotting to replace him. "I've heard on the grapevine that New Zealand is going to provide the next commander of the Fiji military," he said. "That is not going to happen. The Fiji military is not going to allow that." New Zealand denied Commodore Bainimarama's claim.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/18/2006 10:44 ||
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BERLIN - Germans are growing increasingly negative over Islam and concern is rising over the country's Muslim minority, a recently released poll shows.
"If one looks at this from a pessimistic viewpoint it could be seen as the start of a downward spiral toward conflict," said the Allensbach polling agency who conducted the survey for the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
Asked if they though Christianity and Islamic could co-exist peacefully, 61 per cent of those surveyed said they believed there would always be "major conflicts" between both faiths.
Some 91 per cent said they associated Islam with oppression of women, up from 85 per cent in 2004.
The statement that Islam was dominated by fanaticism was shared by 83 per cent, compared to 75 per cent two years ago, the poll showed.
A total of 71 per cent said Islam was intolerant, up from 66 per cent in 2004.
Asked if there should be a ban on the building of mosques in Germany as long as the building of churches in some Islamic states is forbidden, 56 per cent agreed, said the poll.
There is even considerable backing for ending Germany's constitutional right of freedom of religion with regard to Islam, the poll showed.
Asked if strict limits should be imposed on the practice of Islam in Germany to protect the country, 40 per cent said they would support such moves.
A total of 56 per cent said they believed "a clash of civilizations" had already begun, up from 46 per cent in 2004, the poll results showed.
"The clash of civilizations has already begun in the minds of (German) citizens," concluded the Allensbach Institute.
There are about 3.5 million Muslims living in Germany out of a total population of 82 million. Turks are the biggest minority and number about 2.5 million.
#1
If one looks at this from a pessimistic viewpoint it could be seen as the start of a downward spiral toward conflict," said the Allensbach polling agency who conducted the survey for the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper.
#6
They are racists! How else could you account for them getting the idea that Muslims are intolerant? Racism. And a little blame for the racist media for manipulating the sheeple by continuing to report all these "incidents" of violence and mayhem perpetrated by guys who shout, roll their eyes and wave Korans over their heads without enough disclaimers about the majority of moderate Muslims and qualifications about the sins of the colonialism and the West's own hypocracy and violence.
#3
Too bad. The Italians had a leader for awhile but have succumbed to the Spanish disease. Like the Spaniards, they have replaced a man with an invertebrate, a socialist (communist) antiAmerican jellyfish. They will be worse off for it. The Italian soldiers, like their Spanish counterparts acquitted themselves well while they were allowed to.
#4
Brave Sir Robin ran away,
Bravely ran away, away.
When danger reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about
And gallantly, he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat,
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin.
PARIS (Agence France-Presse) -- They are highly motivated, battle-hardened, mobile -- and therefore, dangerous. And the return of Europe's jihadists from Iraq is giving the Continent's intelligence services nightmares.
As far back as October, Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr warned that intercepted correspondence between Abu Musab Zarqawi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, and other figures in the movement had revealed a decision to send large numbers of Islamist volunteers back to their countries of origin to wage holy war.
Mr. Jabr said several hundred militant fighters had left for home by last fall.
Baltazar Garzon, a Spanish judge who has led inquiries into al Qaeda in Spain, said in an interview last week that there were indications that large numbers of veterans of the Iraqi jihad were returning to Europe.
"I cannot say how many cases we are talking about, but it is a question of logic. Up until now, inquiries were focused on volunteers traveling to Iraq. Now we are beginning to get indications that they have begun to return," he said.
"Infrastructures are being put in place to accommodate them," added the judge, who spoke from the French city of Lyon, where he was attending an Interpol meeting.
In the past three years, hundreds of jihadist volunteers from almost every country in Europe have traveled to Iraq, via Syria, Egypt, Turkey or Iran. Once there, they have been more or less integrated into the anti-U.S. resistance, often to commit suicide attacks.
In 2005, the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies in London estimated that the number of foreign volunteers in Iraq to be at least 1,000.
On May 11, the head of France's domestic-security service, Pierre de Bousquet, indicated that about 15 young French people remained in and around Iraq. At least nine have been killed there.
Foreign volunteers "have become a bit of a nuisance there and are being urged to return to Europe to pursue jihad there. We have seen a few examples," he said.
Claude Moniquet, director of the Brussels-based European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, estimates that there are "several hundred" former fighters from Iraq in Western Europe and says they are "potentially very dangerous."
"Given the high motivation and the youth of these Iraqi volunteers, the risk that they will start to commit terrorist acts on European soil is very real," he said.
"It is pretty much impossible to organize the surveillance of several hundred people across Europe," he said. "Effective surveillance of one person requires an absolute minimum of 12 to 15 officers. Multiply that by several hundred, and you need thousands. And even then, we're talking about a makeshift operation."
#3
Yeah "battle-hardened." Be careful, they might grab the shaft of a machine gun and melt their hand to it , coming to a villa near you! In their new balance, of course.
Posted by: ordu ||
05/18/2006 8:57 Comments ||
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#4
They are highly motivated, battle-hardened, mobile -- and therefore, dangerous. And the return of Europe's jihadists from Iraq is giving the Continent's intelligence services nightmares.
So why are they leaving Iraq? I thought the hated Merkins were on the run from the brave Lions of Islam, hounded at every turn, losing men by the hundreds and committing massacres in the thousands, losing the hearts and souls of the common Iraqui. I mean, that's what's in the European papers, isn't it?
#6
This has been predicted for several years. I've never seen any evidence of these "battle hardened heros" coming back. All their trips seem to be one way.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
05/18/2006 15:16 Comments ||
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The Dutch immigration minister has agreed to reconsider her threat to revoke the citizenship of a Somali-born member of parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, known for her opposition to fundamentalist Islam. Rita Verdonk said the threat was based on a television programme broadcast last week in which Ms Hirsi Ali admitted lying about her name and age on her asylum application when she fled to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage.
On Monday Ms Verdonk said that under Dutch law, Ms Hirsi Ali's naturalisation was automatically void since she had lied. Ms Verdonk said Ms Hirsi Ali would retain an immigrant visa, and would be eligible to reapply for citizenship.
Which Rita would then allow to twist in the wind ...
The developments caused amazement among the public and politicians, including the prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, who questioned the speed with which Ms Verdonk made her decisions.
"Rita, what are you doing to us?"
Yesterday Ms Verdonk agreed to reconsider her first decision, and to reprocess Ms Hirsi Ali's naturalisation as quickly as possible if necessary.
The sounds of backpedaling ...
Ms Verdonk, from the libertarian VVD Party, is in a tight race for her party's leadership in elections on May 31. She has built her reputation on taking a hard line in immigration cases, and is popular with Dutch people who say they are fed up with the perceived failure of Muslim immigrants to integrate.
Which wouldn't apply to Ms. Hirsi Ali, now would it, since she integrated into Dutch society, became an MP, and speaks passionately in defense of freedom ... oh, there's the problem.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2006 01:00 ||
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#1
libertarian? My ass. A Libertarian would never pull this crap. My Boycott of all things Dutch continues until this hag is history.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/18/2006 1:17 Comments ||
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#2
Reports are they debated this all night in The Hague. Clearly more than a few legislators were unhappy with this decision.
#8
Verdonk is strongly anti-immigrant, and has used technicalities to keep immigrants out. AFAIK theres no exception in the technicalities based on how integrated you are, and how anti-Islamist you are.
Being opposed to Islamism, and being opposed to immigration in general, walk together to a point. This is one of those points where they part ways.
The National Security Agency developed a pilot program in the late 1990s that would have enabled it to gather and analyze massive amounts of communications data without running afoul of privacy laws. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, it shelved the project -- not because it failed to work -- but because of bureaucratic infighting and a sudden White House expansion of the agency's surveillance powers, according to several intelligence officials.
The agency opted instead to adopt only one component of the program, which produced a far less capable and rigorous program. It remains the backbone of the NSA's warrantless surveillance efforts, tracking domestic and overseas communications from a vast databank of information, and monitoring selected calls.
The program the NSA rejected, called ThinThread, was developed to handle greater volumes of information, partly in expectation of threats surrounding the millennium celebrations. Sources say it bundled together four cutting-edge surveillance tools. ThinThread would have:
* Used more sophisticated methods of sorting through massive phone and e-mail data to identify suspect communications.
* Identified U.S. phone numbers and other communications data and encrypted them to ensure caller privacy.
* Employed an automated auditing system to monitor how analysts handled the information, in order to prevent misuse and improve efficiency.
* Analyzed the data to identify relationships between callers and chronicle their contacts. Only when evidence of a potential threat had been developed would analysts be able to request decryption of the records.
In what intelligence experts describe as rigorous testing of ThinThread in 1998, the project succeeded at each task with high marks. For example, its ability to sort through massive amounts of data to find threat-related communications far surpassed the existing system, sources said. It also was able to rapidly separate and encrypt U.S.-related communications to ensure privacy. No wonder Chloe always has such a sour look.
But the NSA, then headed by Air Force Gen. Michael V. Hayden, opted against both of those tools, as well as the feature that monitored potential abuse of the records. Only the data analysis facet of the program survived and became the basis for the warrantless surveillance program. Got the story out on day one. Good timing. Were your sources demoted by Hayden?
The decision, which one official attributed to "turf protection and empire building," has undermined the agency's ability to zero in on potential threats, sources say. In the wake of revelations about the agency's wide gathering of U.S. phone records, they add, ThinThread could have provided a simple solution to privacy concerns.
ThinThread was designed to address two key challenges: The NSA had more information than it could digest, and, increasingly, its targets were in contact with people in the United States whose calls the agency was prohibited from monitoring.
With the explosion of digital communications, especially phone calls over the Internet and the use of devices such as BlackBerries, the NSA was struggling to sort key nuggets of information from the huge volume of data it took in.
Both programs aimed to better sort through the sea of data to find key tips to the next terrorist attack, but Trailblazer had more political support internally because it was initiated by Hayden when he first arrived at the NSA, sources said.
NSA managers did not want to adopt the data-sifting component of ThinThread out of fear that the Trailblazer program would be outperformed and "humiliated," an intelligence official said.
#1
Developed in tate 1990s--the Clinton Era of Peace and Harmony and Groovy Love Vibrations, When All Was Right With The World, isn't that right Mrs. Thomas?
Innnterestingggg . . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
05/18/2006 17:02 Comments ||
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#2
Who here thinks the program actually did what's being described here?
Posted by: Phil ||
05/18/2006 17:04 Comments ||
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#3
Phil, good call. This reeks of sour grapes. A lot has happened in IT over the last 8 years. In particular the trend has been towards loosely connected, distributed systems. Google ADVISE data mining.
#4
Domestic Intel-Inform collection always bear the risk of running afoul of privacy laws - it comes down to intent of the collection, kinds of information being collected, and whether the information collected is used to prosecute criminals within prevailing legal limits or standards. The capabilities currently possessed by the US INTEL community is so superior or dominant America would be stupid not to use it against terrorists whom disguise themselves amongts the ordinary civilian comunities. To paraphrase a guest on Lefty national talkradio, out of 10,000 or more comms, imaging and mil satellites orbiting the earth, 9000 + belongs to America, either solely, or in collusion wid American allies where America is a major partner-user.
"It was a real privilege to sit around the Cabinet table and talk to your Cabinet officers, which followed a very extensive discussion between the two of us about all of those issues of which you spoke.
We remain a steadfast ally of the United States in the war against terror. I've made that clear on every occasion I've spoken here in the United States.
The war against terror will go on for a long time. I think we have to accept that. Progress is being made. But the challenge remains very, very strong. And there needs to be a continued commitment.
And we admire and respect the leadership given by you and by the United States in that war, and it's a war that confronts us all. Those who imagine that somehow or other you can escape it by rolling yourself into a little ball and going over in the corner and hoping that you're not going to be noticed are doomed to be very, very uncomfortably disappointed.
We did have an opportunity to talk extensively about some of the challenges in our immediate region. I spoke about the situation in East Timor and the Solomon Islands, and the importance of the role of Indonesia, the symbolism and also the tactical consequence of Indonesia being the largest Islamic country in the world.
HOWARD: And, therefore, the success and prosperity of moderate Islamic leadership in that country is itself a very important factor in the long term success of the fight against terrorism.
Because the fight against terrorism is not only a military and physical one; it is also an intellectual one. And it's a question of providing within the Islamic world a successful democratic model as an alternative to the fanaticism of those who would obscenely invoke the sanction of Islam to justify what they seek to do.
Can I finally say that of the many ties that bind Australia and the United States, as I said on the lawn earlier today, none are more important, of course, than the shared values and the belief that both of our countries have that the spread of democracy around the world is an important goal and an important responsibility?
It's been a privilege for our two peoples to enjoy democracy in an uninterrupted fashion for so long that we tend to take it for granted.
#1
Those who imagine that somehow or other you can escape it by rolling yourself into a little ball and going over in the corner and hoping that you're not going to be noticed are doomed to be very, very uncomfortably disappointed.
A US lawmaker and former Marine colonel accused US Marines of killing innocent Iraqi civilians after a Marine comrade had been killed by a roadside bomb. "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood," John Murtha told reporters. The November 19 incident occurred in Haditha, Iraq. "There was no firefight" that led to the shootings at close range, the Vietnam war veteran said, denying early official accounts, which said that a roadside bomb had killed the Iraqis. "There were no (roadside bombs) that killed these innocent people," he said.
So, you're calling them murderers?
Time magazine reported the shootings on March 27, based on an Iraqi human rights group and locals, who said that 15 unarmed Iraqis died, including women and children, when Marines barged into their home throwing grenades and shooting.
Iraqi human rights group and locals, yeah, no bias there
"It's much worse than reported in Time magazine," Murtha said.
At least three Marine officers are under official investigation, and no report has been released, Army Times said Tuesday. Murtha is a harsh critic of the war in Iraq and said that such incidents are the result of inadequate planning, training and troop numbers in Iraq.
#2
Maybe so, maybe no, but that kind of retaliation commands respect. We need a Marine as president. Then we'll get the borders closed and the Iraqis all in a line with a smile on their face. And how about a hot bayonet up fat Kennedy's ass while we're at it ?
Apparently the incident *did* occur six months ago, when it was reported, resulting in the Court Martial of three U.S. Marine Officers, and is being touted as "new".
In other words, they are re-broadcasting the story as new, to puff up Murtha. Check out the Newsbusters link above.
#4
It's also important to note that it would be a major, major humiliation for the anti-war forces for Murtha to be kicked out in the next election, so the MSM wants to give him as much help as possible.
"Babykillers!" then the spitting on in airports, etc.
But the lefty moonbats better not do it around me. They'll get me in their face so fast they will not know what happened. And spit on me, you better be ready to be eating soft food through your toothless mouth, because I'm beating the rest of the spit right out of you. Be thankful I'm trained, otherwise I would accidentally kill you like some amatuer would - I know where to stop and just which nerve centers to hit and bones to break for maximum pain and incapacitation without fatal effect. All this steel grey hair doesn't mean a thing if you have training and surprise and a good "walking stick" at your side.
The gives me an idea... Hey Mr Murtha, lets have a walk, one grumpy old ex-serviceman with another. Nevermind that I'm using a nice 68 inch hardwood close-grained japanese white oak bo staff with a 1/4 inch of taper at the ends as a walking stick - and no Mr Murtha, thats not woodstain for the "streaked brown and tan areas", thats sweat where I practiced with it nearly every day for over a decade.
(No Mr FBI agent, thats not a threat, its wish for a more old fashione world where you coudl give a scounrel like Murtha a good thrashing and send him on his way - not going to happen, and not prudent to make such a serious threat. I was intimating self defense were he to go batshit insane, as he seems to do, and attack me while I am peacfully trying to explain to him the error of his ways).
Egads, the world we live in where i have to put such a disclaimer on a pos thats obvious in sarcasm. I guess I'm not Colbert and liberal so I couldn't get away with it.
#6
Not to besmirch Mumia Murtha but the investigation is still ongoing. Yes officers were relieved but that is SOP and doesnt indicate guilt. ALL of the damning evidence comes from a human rights watch as far as I can tell and is probably the unnamed official in the recent story. Now really folks, do you honestly believe that a Marine combat patrol murdered 15 people, most of them execution style and thought for a moment they would get away with it? Of the two opposing forces in Iraq, which is prone to kill women and children (even execution style)? P.S. Who is Mumia Murtha's opponent and does he need cash?
#7
Right now, I'd even vote for a Hillary-clone if she were running opposite of Murtha. At least teach him the punsihmen for insolence and continued lying to teh detriment of the troops. I hate the Hildebeeste, but you will notice she has tiptoed very gently on these issues in the public forums.
#9
You "support the troops" though, right, Rep. Murtha? And they'll get an apology if you're proven wrong, right, congressman?
Remember those scumbags that used to call you baby killer when you got home from Vietnam? Well don't complain about them anymore because you've become one of them.
from all that I've read, I suspect that the "cold blood incident" was a total set up by "media stringers" and local "insurgents" sic terrorists after the Marines went back to their base.
#11
Never mind I found the site for his opponent:
http://www.dianairey.com/
Wouldn't hurt our side too much if Murtha (like Daschele) was sent packing.
#12
Today we say farewell to some brave Night Stalkers who died valiently defending our nation. So I'm not really in the mood to be f&*ked with today, and now this from the peanut factory is just making my day. As I read this drivel spewed from the senile old man, Murhta, who probably could not tell you todays date let alone spell his own name right, all I can feel is the bile and anger. I'm sickened by the fact there is a fool in the halls of congress taking part in the demoralizing of America and angered that a Marine would sell out his "once" fellow Marines for some action in the spotlight. This kind of reporting and grandstanding is just bullshit!
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/18/2006 10:59 Comments ||
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#13
"I'm sickened by the fact there is a fool in the halls of congress..."
49 Pan, there are LOTS of fools in both the House and the Senate. My mantra...Term Limits, Term Limits, Term Limits...you get the idea.
#17
Pony up! Here's the link to the donations part of his opponents web page.
http://www.irey.com/HowYouCanHelp.aspx
I'm sure her campaign could use a few $$, as well as the moral support.
And yes Im totally an old school sexist ass, but I am still a man, and she is quite easy on the eyes. A real woman, not one of these girls playthings that get all the headlines these days.
Why doesn't the R party in PA start publicizing her more? If she is well spoken, whe'd make a great fresh face for the party, expecially in Western PA where the Repub center tends to be.
#18
I'm in. Sending money today. I think your right OS about getting involved, even though I have never been in that state, their politics do affect me. I will be donating on behalf of my fallen friends.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
05/18/2006 11:44 Comments ||
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#19
He is jealous from Lee Harvey Oswald's title of "Worst Marine Ever".
#20
Take a look at this map and you'll see that this is a gerrymandered safe donk seat. That's why Murtha has never faced serious opposition since his election in 1974! I don't know what the polling numbers show, but I'd suspect Irey is not making much headway.
The real solution to a lot of our legislative problems is not term limits, but the end of gerrymandering. Look at that map. That's not a district with common needs and lots of opinions about how to meet them. It's a district of one party voters. What we need is to have congressional districts drawn by computer to minimize the sum of the length of district borders.
Then we would have more contested elections and more legislators who had to worry about answering to the voters. As it is now, only 10% of congressioanl seats are truly competitive. The rest are safe seats.
#21
49Pan (that a motorcyle reference I see there/ If so, tasty choice)...
Exactly. This isnt a local race for me either, but Murtha has made it national.
She could look like Bella Abzug for all I care, her politics are exactly where they need to be for the betterment of the nation. But I'll take the added bonus of her being attractive and fairly well spoken (watch the TV interview linked at her site).
From what I can see, she stands for smaller government, controlling spending, conservative judges, and open government (i.e. killing earmarks).
But her number one concern, the one she repeats first and foremost, from what I could see in the press clippings I dug up is: Winning The War On Terror. THAT marks her as a serious ally, the type we need in congress.
That fact that she would replace a cut-n-run traitorous asshole is just icing on the cake.
Someone want to ping Hugh Hewitt, the Milblogs,, Powerline, etc (even Rush Limbaugh?) about her site - and the publivity + support I'm sure she could use?
#22
Take a look at this map and you'll see that this is a gerrymandered safe donk seat.
Peeve: How hard is it to write a law saying "all districts shall be drawn in a way such that a chord from any point on an edge to any other point on an edge shall not pass through another district in the same state".
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/18/2006 12:17 Comments ||
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#23
I talked about this clown yesterday. Yes, he needs to be "counseled." What a douche bag.
#26
The Pa 12th may not be a democrat stronghold. Notice the smaller ones in the nearby Pittsburgh area. They are democrat strongholds, although, for the life of me I can't understand why the union types align with communists. Murtha is setting himself up as a bigmouth with bad breath.
I support Club for Growth, a right wing financial support group for spendthrift politicians. C4G does not support Irey, but those we do support often win. Join us, and eventually, America will be controlled by small government legislators. Just Tuesday, C4G backed anti-tax candidates upset 2 republican leaders in Harrisburg. Tuesday, we went 2 for 3 against incumbents.
#28
49 Pan, you carry our gratitude as well for your brave comrades who gave all for the fight.
It will be interesting to see how Murtha's election goes. Lots of old-fashioned Red Americans in Pennsylvania, and lots of veterens, for whom "former Marine colonel" isn't going to swing the kind of weight it used to.
Oldspook, I never noticed you being an old school sexist ass. Perhaps you need to work harder at it. ;-)
#29
There are a few companies (notably CTC in Johnstown) that used to do quite well on Murtha's earmarks. I suspect that that gravy train has been permanently derailed by his senility. I suspect Rep Murtha couldn't get a lobbyist to drink a cup of coffee with him now even if Murtha paid for it.
#31
Just got off the Phone with my Representatives offic. I demanded censure. How many of you have done so? Time to remind these gonks we are in a war. We can not tolerate this nonsense from the left.
I would not micturate on a Democrat if they were on fire.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/18/2006 15:17 Comments ||
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#32
Irey struck back"
I was shocked and dismayed by my opponents charge that U.S. Marines are responsible for murdering Iraqi civilians in cold blood. Why John Murtha would say such a thing in the wake of an ongoing investigation and accuse our troops of such horrific actions is beyond comprehension, Irey said.
Good - keep up the pressure on this senile old "ex-Marine".
I've always been told that there's no such thing as an "ex-Marine", but I'm sure the Corps will make an exception in Mr. Murtha's case.
OS - if you need someone to guard your back, I'll be there.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/18/2006 15:27 Comments ||
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What happened in Haditha we know not, but we can tell you that Murtha's description is false, for the simple reason that it is self-contradictory. If the Marines "overreacted," then the killings were not premeditated. They could not have killed both in the heat of the moment and in cold blood. Murtha therefore either is slandering the Marines by exaggerating their guilt or making excuses for horrific war crimes.
Why would he do such a thing? The key is that phrase "because of the pressure on them." They're depraved on account of they're deployed: Murtha seeks to maximize the evil of the alleged crimes while simultaneously deflecting blame from the actual perpetrators to those who have applied "pressure" to them--i.e., civilian leaders in the executive branch.
Sound familiar? This was just what John Kerry did back in 1971, when he told tales (many of them false) of war crimes in Vietnam. . . . War crimes do, of course, exist, even if Kerry told fabricated stories. To excuse war criminals by denying that soldiers are responsible for their actions is an insult to everyone who has ever worn a military uniform and conducted himself honorably and lawfully.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/18/2006 17:12 Comments ||
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#34
Rep. Murtha's statements were wrong because they will likely cause harm to this country, its troops, and its allies. They were also ill-advised, as the allegations have not been proven. However, I am very concerned the allegations will eventually be found to have substantial elements of truth, which will come out sooner or later. All should take advantage of any opportunity to mitigate future damage - remember what trouble Abu Graib caused.
A year ago, when Gen. Michael V. Hayden last sought Senate confirmation to a new job, protecting Americans' privacy from the global eavesdropping system he had overseen for six years at the National Security Agency was almost an afterthought on Capitol Hill.
General Hayden assured senators then that the agency acted "absolutely in compliance with all U.S. law and the Constitution," and sailed to easy confirmation in April 2005 as principal deputy director of national intelligence.
Eight months later, Americans learned that at the direction of President Bush, the N.S.A. had been skirting the law requiring court approval for wiretaps on American soil.
On Thursday, General Hayden again appears before the Senate Intelligence Committee, seeking its approval to add another job, that of director of the Central Intelligence Agency, to a résumé possibly unmatched in the history of American spying.
The question of whether General Hayden misled the committee last year is only one of several that could, in theory, cause trouble. Senators could press him on his role in costly, floundering modernization programs at the N.S.A., or his views on the C.I.A.'s secret prisons for terrorism suspects.
But people who have followed the rise of General Hayden, 61, from blue-collar Pittsburgh through Air Force assignments and into the top jobs in the spy bureaucracy, do not predict a major clash. Through careful cultivation of superiors, Congress and the news media, and a knack for mastery of arcane facts and homespun metaphors, he usually escapes such encounters unscathed.
Former Senator Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat who headed the Intelligence Committee until 2003, recalls coming away dazzled from tours in which General Hayden showed off satellite dishes and supercomputers at N.S.A. headquarters at Fort Meade, Md.
"He builds up your sense of confidence in him as both a visionary leader and one with his mind wrapped around the details," Mr. Graham said.
Brent Scowcroft, under whom General Hayden served from 1989 to 1991 on the National Security Council staff of the first President Bush, also piles on the superlatives.
"He's exceedingly smart, he's very hardworking, he has great integrity, and he knows the intelligence business," said Mr. Scowcroft, himself a retired Air Force lieutenant general who, as chairman of the current president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board until 2005, closely followed General Hayden's work at the N.S.A. "That's a combination that's really needed right now at C.I.A."
But Mr. Scowcroft, an experienced judge of Washington insiders, added, "It's easy to snow people on a subject few people know much about."
Whether with substance or with flair, General Hayden began impressing superiors long ago. Dan Rooney, now owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers, coached him when he was a 12-year-old on the football team at St. Peter's Catholic School and quickly picked him out as quarterback.
"He wasn't the biggest or the strongest kid on the team, but he was the smartest," Mr. Rooney recalled. "He exuded confidence, and the other kids gathered confidence from him."
Mr. Rooney later hired the young Mike Hayden, then a student at Duquesne University, to help in the Steelers' front office. But he was as surprised as other friends and relatives when the studious history major chose a military career.
"He was so interested in history that I guess he wanted to become part of it," General Hayden's younger brother, Harry, a truck driver in Pittsburgh, said in an interview last year.
Mr. Hayden's fans in Pittsburgh watched with pride as he rose steadily in the Air Force ranks and became director of the N.S.A., by far the most public chief in the secretive agency's history. He pays regular visits home, seeing the old North Side neighborhood or taking in a Steelers game.
His six-year tenure at the N.S.A., the longest ever, has drawn lavish praise for his undertaking urgently needed change at a time the agency was rapidly falling behind a revolution in communications.
"He changed the culture out there," Mr. Scowcroft said. "Typically, N.S.A. was run by the permanent staff, and directors passed through every couple of years without much impact. He shook it up when it needed shaking up."
That view is widely shared by many government officials. But there is also a pronounced minority view, expressed by some former senior N.S.A. officials and advisers: that General Hayden is better at public relations than at management, and that his record at the agency was far more mixed than his many admirers realize.
"He's masterful at spinning the facts to make himself look good," said one former senior N.S.A. official who worked with General Hayden for several years. Like a number of other critics interviewed for this article, he would not speak for attribution, because he now works for a company that depends on contracts with the N.S.A., the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies.
The critics, some of whom say they like General Hayden personally and admire his vision, maintain that he showed erratic judgment in crucial personnel decisions and embraced overly ambitious programs that became expensive failures.
Despite the secrecy that hides most of the agency's activities, there is at least some independent evidence to support the critics' claims.
The centerpiece of General Hayden's effort to modernize the agency's technology, a classified program called Trailblazer, ran up bills of more than $1.2 billion and produced few useful results, according to former N.S.A. officials and documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Trailblazer, undertaken in 2001, was intended to improve radically the agency's ability to sort through its haul of intercepted communications, estimated in a 2002 Congressional report at 650 million messages a day.
Another major effort, called Groundbreaker, contracted out the agency's basic computer functions to a consortium of companies starting in 2000. According to N.S.A. officers, the contract produced years of headaches for intelligence officers as they struggled with new software and endured computer crashes. The agency's computer woes were detailed this year in The Baltimore Sun.
In 2003, the Senate Intelligence Committee said in a report that it continued to be concerned with the N.S.A. purchasing process "and frustrated by the lack of progress realized in remedying this problem over the past three years." The same year, Congress stripped the agency of procurement authority over Trailblazer and certain other major classified programs, requiring Pentagon approval of all spending.
General Hayden declined to comment in advance of Thursday's hearing. But in testimony last year, he acknowledged the problems with Trailblazer, describing it as a "moon shot" with excessively ambitious goals. The delays, he said, were even more serious than the cost overruns, which he estimated at "a couple to several hundred million" dollars.
"Hayden had a lot of great ideas," said Matthew M. Aid, a onetime N.S.A. analyst who is writing a history of the agency. "But when he left N.S.A. last year, none of his modernization programs had been completed, and the agency's fiscal management was still broken."
But General Hayden's fans remain loyal. Mr. Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee when the problems with Trailblazer became evident, said he preferred to attribute the difficulties to worthy ambitions.
"There were failures, but in my judgment they were not failures of competence or management," he said. "When you're Christopher Columbus, you're not going to get to your destination on the first try."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/18/2006 00:17 ||
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I knew, but the second or third paragraph this had to be a NY Slimes article, and I was right.
May they be infected with every human and computer virus currently active on this planet - without innoculation or protection.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/18/2006 15:29 Comments ||
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The second edition of KONKAN, which is the name given to the generic series of exercises between the Indian Navy and the Royal (British) Navy gets underway on our west coast off Goa commencing today. The exercise, which will terminate in Mumbai with a debrief on 29 May, will comprise four surface combatants, one submarine, and a variety of shore-based fixed-wing and ship borne rotary-wing aircraft from the Indian side. The participating Indian units will be under the tactical command of the FOCWF (Flag Officer Commanding Western Fleet), Rear Admiral Anup Singh. His counterpart from the Royal Navy will be Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti.
The Indian Navy will be fielding the guided-missile destroyer Mumbai, the guided-missile frigates Ganga and Brahmaputra, the fleet replenishment tanker Shakti, and the submarine Shankush. The Royal Navy task force comprises the aircraft carrier Illustrious (with her own air group), the guided-missile destroyer Gloucester, the fleet replenishment tanker Fort Victoria, the submarine support ship Diligence and the nuclear-powered submarine (SSN) Sovereign. In conformance with current practice, the Royal Navy task force has one French frigate, FNS Surcouf, embedded within it.
One of the major thrust-areas would be DACT (Dissimilar Air Combat) and COMAO (Combined Maritime Air Operations) between the Indian Navys Sea Harrier aircraft operating ex-Goa, and, the Harrier GR 7A of the Illustrious. Other aspects that would be exercised by the two navies include intermediate and advanced ASW (Anti-submarine Warfare), MIO (Maritime Interdiction Operations), VBSS (Visit, Board, Search & Seizure) procedures, NGS (Naval Gunfire Support), and tactical manoeuvres. Some of the firsts of this exercise include combined maritime air operations by Indian Navy Sea Harrier aircraft and Royal Navys Harrier GR 7A, cross-deck operations by our jump jets from the deck of Illustrious and flying demonstration by the Red Arrows.
A DVP (Distinguished Visitors Programme) which would also include a few representatives of the print and electronic media has been scheduled on 23 May off Goa. The visit of Admiral Sir Jonathon Band, first Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff Royal Navy, is also scheduled from 27 May to 01 Jun to coincide with the exercise. The Konkan series of joint exercises between the Indian and the Royal navies commenced in 2004 and has grown in scope and complexity over the years. These exercises have been hugely successful in facilitating mutual learning and interoperability between the two navies. These skills would stand both countries in good stead in several facets of naval activities, such as disaster-management. The exercise also incorporates harbour-based professional, social, and sports interaction between the two navies.
The Indian Navy lays great stress on enhancing bilateral ties and improving mutual understanding and interoperability with foreign navies through professional and operational interaction. The exercise will, in addition, provide an opportunity to showcase Indian naval ship-building capability through the participation of indigenously-built front-line ships such as Mumbai, Ganga and Brahmaputra. Konkan-2006 is a significant indicator of the continuing and growing co-operation between India and United Kingdom.
Posted by: john ||
05/18/2006 20:39 ||
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when are the Pak navy exercises? :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/18/2006 22:34 Comments ||
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More than 40,000 Indian troops have been massed near the border with Pakistan since March for one of the Armys biggest land exercises. Code named Smash Pakistan Sanghe Shakti, the combat exercise in the desert state of Rajasthan and Punjab involves the air defense, artillery and infantry, led by the Armys 2 Corps, the most important of its three strike formations stationed in northern India.
The scenario for Smash Pakistan Sanghe Shakti, said an Army official, is that war has broken out between India and Pakistan, and 2 Corps has been tasked with invading and dividing its rival neighbor. The exercise ends May 19, the Army official said. The exercise also is designed to prepare the Army to fight in a nuclear-biological-chemical warfare environment.
The equipment India has gathered for the exercise includes T-90S main battle tanks, an array of artillery guns and unmanned aerial vehicles. The land exercise is the biggest since the adoption of the new military doctrine in 2004, advocating swift, lethal battles in the future.
Posted by: john ||
05/18/2006 00:00 ||
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war has broken out between India and Pakistan, and 2 Corps has been tasked with invading and dividing its rival neighbor.
I see subtlety and political correctness are not traits encouraged in the Indian army...
Posted by: john ||
05/18/2006 0:57 Comments ||
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But clear communication seems to be high on the list.
BAGHDAD -- Hardline Shia militias in Baghdad have issued a blanket death sentence for homosexuals, lesbians, prostitutes, liberal professors and booksellers.
Ali Hili, who ran a gay nightclub in Baghdad but fled to Britain this year after receiving death threats, told The Times of London that he knows of more than 40 men killed in recent months.
Hili claims that Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, the most revered spiritual figure in Iraq, provoked the slayings by saying on his Website in April last year that homosexuals should be killed in the "worst, most severe way".
"We could never envisage this happening when Saddam [Hussein] was overthrown," the 33-year-old Hili said. "I had no love for the former president, but his regime never persecuted the gay community."
Elsewhere in the city, a 34-year-old theater actor, who would only give his name as Bashar, said that he has gone into hiding after a death threat. Two close members of his family have been killed by militants, who say that they will carry on killing his relatives until he turns himself in.
#1
It says it all about the Islamonazi mentality, that when, freed from oppression, the rapidity with which they regress toward the primordial soup is astonishing - evolution in reverse... give them a few million years and they'll be chimps again..
Posted by: Howard UK ||
05/18/2006 7:54 Comments ||
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#2
If they keep boinking the farm animals, they'll by chimps by next February.
I expect the avaian flu will wipe them out. It will be God's gift to civilization.
#7
All the liberal gays and booksellers need to read this article and decide which side of the fence that they are on. Of course they won't, hanging around on the banks of DeNial.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/18/2006 19:24 Comments ||
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#8
first they came for the liberal professors, and I was Ok with that....
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/18/2006 20:20 Comments ||
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A message authored by Hussein bin Mahmoud, a Muslim scholar who supports the mujahideen and whose publications are posted to al-Qaeda-affiliated websites, and addresses to the leaders of the mujahideen, was distributed to a password-protected al-Qaeda-affiliated forum and dated May 15, 2006, responding to the fatwa of Sheikh Yusef al-Qaradawi deeming it permissible for Sunni Muslims to volunteer in the Iraqi army and police forces. This response follows a message on the forum by a member who asked that Mahmoud and Sheikh Hamed al-Ali rebuke Qaradawis fatwa, dismissing the argument that Sunnis should join the security forces to create an equilibrium with the Shiite contingent already part of these organizations.
Hussein bin Mahmoud provides quotes of Qaradawi and his fatwa from his website and appearance on al-Jazeera on May 14, 2006, noting that there is a stark contrast between his writing and that of 64 Sunni scholars from April 2005 that finds it permissible to join the army and police, but help the forces and abet the occupiers against Iraqi civilians. The crux of Mahmouds argument is the deviation from jihad and the harm to Muslims by volunteering for Iraqi security forces that is posed by this fatwa. He states that the mujahideen may become weaker, the capabilities of the nation will be wasted, and will purportedly make it easier for the occupiers to control security so that they may move their own forces to less occupied areas.
The Sunni Muslims in Iraq ostensibly have two choices, which according to Mahmoud, are volunteering for the Iraqi army and be humiliated by the Shiites and Americans, or participate in jihad under the leadership of the mujahideen leaders. He states of this choice: They [the Emirs of mujahideen] know your value and they are with you in front of you in the first line in the streets of Baghdad and Anbar. And you will have the bread of life under the shadows of your spears (as your prophet was). The unbelievers will fear you also their followers. And you will have pride between two best things, victory or martyrdom.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/18/2006 00:38 ||
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Let's see...my fartwa is bigger than yur fartwa
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/18/2006 6:28 Comments ||
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Yea Mahmoud they have two choices; Play ball or die.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he cannot guarantee that there will be substantial withdrawals of U.S. troops from Iraq this year, and warned instead that leaving that country precipitously could create a sanctuary for al-Qaeda and other terrorists.
Rumsfeld told a Senate panel yesterday that he still hopes a big troop cut will occur this year but added, "I can't promise it."
He also emphasized the possible negative consequences of a swift pullout. "For it to be turned over to extremists would be a terrible thing for that part of the world and for the free world and for free people everywhere," he said. There are about 133,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from a peak of about 160,000 earlier this year but near the average level for the last three years.
Administration officials have repeatedly said they hope to cut the U.S. presence in Iraq this year, and some lawmakers appear to be growing impatient as the year nears the six-month mark.
"We just seem to have a policy of more of the same," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) said. "The struggle to form a government goes on interminably. The president says there's a workable strategy in place that will allow for a significant troop withdrawal this year. But since he said that, we've seen a huge rise in ethnic violence, the proliferation of militias that seem out of control, certainly a lengthening of the American casualty roster."
Rumsfeld also reprised some of his past optimism about the war in Iraq, which has grown increasingly unpopular with the public and dragged down President Bush's poll ratings in recent months. With the formation of a new government almost complete, Rumsfeld said, Iraq has "entered a hopeful new phase in what has been a long and difficult journey."
Asked about Rumsfeld's disinclination to promise big troop cuts, Thomas Donnelly, a defense analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, commented, "Reality intrudes." He said it was his view that "it was absurd to think that this was going to be the year of withdrawal," when the reality is that a large U.S. troop presence will be required for several years. "It's probably better to put it on the table now, instead of closer to the midterm elections" in November, he added.
Retired Army Col. Richard H. Sinnreich, an expert on defense planning and strategy, offered a more negative interpretation -- that the Bush administration "is getting desperate." He said, "Midterm elections are approaching and the administration's in a fix: The Iraqis aren't ready and everyone knows it, but we're beginning to break the bank," in terms of straining the U.S. military.
Much of the hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee focused on Bush's decision earlier this week to place 6,000 National Guard soldiers on the U.S.-Mexican border. "It is not going to be a stress on the National Guard to do that function," Rumsfeld insisted. To the contrary, he said, "It will be beneficial to the Guard because they'll be doing the very same things they would be doing if they were training their two weeks on an exercise basis, as opposed to doing something that the country really needs."
Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, who also appeared, emphasized that the new border mission will use only about 2 percent of the 445,000 troops in the Guard. "We have sufficient soldiers to do the overseas war fight, prepare for the upcoming hurricane season, [and] still have the forces that we need to respond for terrorism in this country or a WMD event," Blum said.
On a related issue, Rumsfeld said he opposes giving the Guard a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which currently has six members: the chairman, the vice chairman, and the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force. Many lawmakers support an expansion, but Rumsfeld said that "the way we look at it is that the Army includes the total Army, and the Air Force the total Air Force, and that to begin to segment them inside the Joint Chiefs of Staff is not a good idea."
Blum said he is confident the Pentagon leadership will ensure that the Army and Air Force give the Guard better treatment than it has received in the past, saying that current officials are committed "to not repeating the long and sordid past that the Guard has had with its parent services."
But the hearing, the first since several prominent retired generals called for Rumsfeld's resignation last month, repeatedly returned to Iraq.
Asked about the generals' criticism, Rumsfeld minimized the number of critics as a handful out of several thousand, and attributed it to dislike of the changes he has brought to the Pentagon. "I really, honestly believe that if you undertake the kinds of transforming in this department, any big department, and if you do something, somebody's not going to like it," he said. "And we've done a lot."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/18/2006 00:36 ||
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Rumsfeld told a Senate panel yesterday that he still hopes a big troop cut will occur this year but added, "I can't promise it."
Uncertainty? In a war? Dang, we shoulda got the extended warranty. Or Congress-critters that aren't idiots.
#3
Once again by Congress' own action, the Goldwater-Nichols Act, it is the Theater Commander who decides how the operation is conducted. POTUS and SecDef can fire'em or cut resources, but otherwise it is his task to carry out.
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and his key co-defendants were back in court Wednesday, as Defence lawyers presented witnesses for the third day running in the trial for crimes against humanity.
The court session adjourned until Monday after hearing from nine Defence witnesses speaking on behalf of minor Baathist officials accused of helping Saddam's regime in a massacre of 148 Shiite villagers in the 1980s. Chief judge Rauf Rasheed Abdel Rahman told the court that to "establish justice, we prefer to bring in all defendants today with their lawyers."
Saddam and three high-profile former aides had been kept out of court on Tuesday as testimony focused on four lesser-known defendants, who had all been officials in the ruling Baath party. For security reasons, witnesses continued to testify anonymously on behalf of the four Dujail defendants from behind a screen. Their remarks, or those of the Defence lawyers, showed most of them to be family members or at least fellow tribesmen of the defendants.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/18/2006 00:00 ||
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Israel and the international community should consider carrying out strategic strikes now against Iran's nuclear facilities to stall its suspected uranium enrichment activities, Israeli Knesset member Effie Eitam told WND yesterday during an interview. Eitam, chairman of the National Union Party and a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, warned Israel would need to attack Iran by itself if the international community led by the United States fails to successfully halt Tehran's nuclear program within about a year.
He blasted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's administration for "failing to devise a coherent strategy toward Iran" and urged Israel to immediately make public a doctrine of deterrence that would assure "total destruction" of Iran should it contemplate a first strike against the Jewish state. "Iran is now at that kind of bottleneck junction where strategic sites that are known can be relatively easily and safely attacked with the goal of causing maximum delay," said Eitam. "Strikes now can stall the entire nuclear process by many years."
The Knesset member, a former Israeli Defense Forces general, said Israel may need to act alone against Iran. "With or without a world coalition, Israel will have to take action at some point when we are fully sure Iran's nuclear project is coming to a point of no return," he said. " I am worried all mechanisms of diplomacy used by the Iranians in response to the international movement against it are to buy time as they camouflage the real nature of their programs."
Asked to offer a timeline for the point at which he feels Israel would have to strike Iran by itself, Eitam replied, "We are talking about the period when Iran would have enough uranium to build a bomb. The information indicates this is not long away. Six months to a year or not much more. "It is clear Iran is already starting to enrich uranium, and they are nearing the completion of technology necessary to assemble weapons. It is true they may leave quantities of uranium unpacked and not processed as weapons-grade for a time, but they can soon bring themselves to the point where they can make weapons within short periods of time."
Iran is openly defying international calls to halt uranium enrichment activities. After Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was inaugurated last August, the country rejected European proposals aimed at curbing its nuclear programs and resumed nuclear projects, reopening a major uranium conversion plant in Isfahan. In January, Iran escalated the international confrontation by removing U.N. seals at one of its uranium-enrichment plants and resuming nuclear research.
Eitam deemed Iran "an international problem by far not just an Israeli problem. The Iran leadership threatens the entire free world. It is a source of evil and not just a typical enemy. This evil will not compromise. It is best if it is destroyed physically. If the world doesn't act by a certain point, then Israel must."
So far, Tehran has scorned most diplomatic initiatives. Yesterday, it rejected an EU proposal to cease uranium enrichment in exchange for economic incentives and the construction of a light-water energy reactor. Unlike the heavy-water plant Iran is building in the city of Arak, a light-water reactor wouldn't produce plutonium another ingredient for weapons as a waste product. Such a reactor would still need enriched uranium for fuel, though, which could be refined to weapons-grade material.
Eitam said military action is the best assurance against Iran's nuclear program. "With diplomacy and agreements you can never be sure unless the diplomacy comes to a point where the Iranians agree to dismantle their nuclear projects under intense international supervision. This looks extremely unlikely after so many years of negligence [by the U.S., Israel and Europe]. There is no second to physical destruction of Iran's facilities," said Eitam.
Security analysts contend any Israeli or international strike against Iran would result in retaliatory attacks by Palestinian terror groups and by the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, which is stationed alongside Israel's northern border and boasts it has over 10,000 missiles pointed at the country's civilian population centers.
But Eitam, who predicted Iran would also retaliate against international interests, said Israel is prepared for the expected onslaught of violence. "We are ready to defend ourselves against Hezbollah and are quite adept at dealing with terrorism," he said. "These Iranian threats are very cheap prices to pay relative to what an Iranian nuclear threat represents for the future of the state of Israel. The entire world may have some tough times while the Iranians try to retaliate by using terror internationally, hijacking embassies, targeting innocents like at nightclubs in Europe."
The Knesset member went on to blast Olmert and the current Israeli administration for what he said was "gross negligence" at failing to counter the Iranian threat. "I am extremely skeptical as far as Olmert, [Defense Minister Amir] Peretz and [Foreign Minister Tzipi] Livni being able to revive and renew a credible Israeli policy toward Iran. So far they are paralyzed. They have no program. They are just waiting for a miracle or for someone else to act. In a very short time if Olmert fails to provide a new approach, the real question becomes whether he should continue to be allowed to govern."
Eitam recommended Israel make public a policy of deterrence he says would render an Iranian first strike against Israel useless. "It is crucial to change Israel's current policy of vagueness to open deterrence. It needs to be made clear to the Iranians that Israel will not be the only country destroyed if it is attacked. Even if the Iranians have weapons, they wont enjoy any strategic advantage because Israeli deterrence will be clear and credible. They wont even think about destroying Israel because doing so will place them under the fear of being totally destroyed, too."
#2
Eitam recommended Israel make public a policy of deterrence he says would render an Iranian first strike against Israel useless. "It is crucial to change Israel's current policy of vagueness to open deterrence. It needs to be made clear to the Iranians that Israel will not be the only country destroyed if it is attacked.
#3
MadMoud of the Apocalypse has strongly inferred that any attack by Israel may or will be considered an attack by America-West, and would justify Iranian-sponsored terror strikes against Israel, America andor other vital Western targets in retaliation. IOW, the only way to prevent any new terror strikes from Moud vv any attack from Israel is for America-West to de facto enable total or complete "regime change" in Iran. America's choices is to do nothing period against Radical Iran, which means Iran gets its nukes + minima Regional Empire; or invade and take over the entire country.
WASHINGTON - US-led efforts to isolate the Hamas-led Palestinian government could radicalize the Arab worlds most educated population and increased contact could foster peace with Israel, Saudi Arabias foreign minister said on Wednesday. Prince Saud Al Faisal said refusing to deal with Hamas and blocking pay for Palestinian doctors, teachers and engineers reflected a twisted logic that could alienate the real supporters of the (Palestinian) peace movement.
Because the educated Paleos have been demanding peace all this time, y'know.
The Bush administration advocates a tough policy against Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israels destruction and regarded as terrorist by the United States, EU and Israel. All have severed ties with the Palestinian government, cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid.
Saud told a small group of reporters invited to the Saudi Embassy in Washington he has argued strenuously about the policy with the administration. If you use inclusion rather than exclusion, if you talk to them, they can be convinced of the advisability of pursuing a peace process, if they are assured of equal treatment that any conditions put on one side are not excluded from being applied to the other side, he said.
They're just mis-understood, after all.
By denying pay for Palestinian professionals, youre adding radicalism to the rank and file of these people and you are not harming the government, he said.
Hamas, which took office in March, has ruled out peace talks with Israel. Nevertheless, Saud said, I think we have a possibility of a fresh start with the new Hamas government and Ehud Olmert as Israels new prime minister. The two new governments are not tied to their fixed positions in the past and we hope that the start of (Israel-Palestinian) negotiations happens before they fix positions, he said.
Hamas certainly seems wedded to its original proposition of killing all the Joooos.
Saud criticized those who reject the Hamas government because they do not like the election result. We always warned against elections, that they sometimes bring results that you dont want, and thats why we havent applied this system yet in Saudi Arabia, he said.
"Because we saw what happened when the Paleos elected a bunch of thugs to run their government, and believe you me, we don't want that kind of trouble!"
He rejected claims there should never be negotiations with groups deemed terrorist, noting British and US talks with the Irish Republican Army when the group was still bearing arms. So the principle is not always followed, he said.
And that worked so well, Northern Ireland is a sea of tranquility -- oh, actually it is compared to Gaza.
Saud faulted Israel for demanding complete security before it starts negotiating a peace process. It is exactly the reverse -- you achieve peace and then you have security.
If you don't have any modicum of security you can't start negotiating peace, or else it becomes a discussion of how best to slit your own throat.
Saudi Arabia will recognize Israel when there is peace, he added.
Translation from the Arabic: 'never'.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2006 00:47 ||
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US-led efforts to isolate the Hamas-led Palestinian government could radicalize the Arab worlds most educated population
"Radicalize"? Oh, no. Not that!
And if they're the Arabs "most educated population" then I'm real impressed with Arabic education...
#2
jamming commercial airliners into skyscrapers isn't radical?
Posted by: ordu ||
05/18/2006 9:45 Comments ||
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#3
Hamas would be happier in Saudi. Now that I think about it, so would all the "Palestinians".
Posted by: ed ||
05/18/2006 10:07 Comments ||
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#4
Y'know, he's right.
I have seen the error of my ways, and am prepared to do my part to help Hamas in their time of need. I'll send these over toot-sweet. I'm sure ol' Princy Baby will be happy to forward them on.
(Yeah, it's amazing what kind of weird crap you can find on eBay.... ;) )
#6
According to Fortune mag, King Saud himself is worth something like $25 billion. Why, then, Allah tell, should he get so ticked that infidels won't pay for the livelihood of such precious, precious muslims? the infidels the Pals are suppose to kill among those SA rails against. WTF?
BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip - Edging closer to open conflict, the Hamas-led Palestinian government deployed 3,000 militants in its new security force in defiance of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, who tried to veto its creation.
Brandishing rifles and grenade launchers, the militants-turned-security force marched through the streets of Gaza on Wednesday in black shirts and military style fatigues. Many wore black masks. There were no clashes with Abbas Fatah loyalists, but the new forces showed a tendency to violence.
There's my nomination for 'understatement of the year': they showed a tendency to violence, did they? How'd they show it: the usual face-making, eye-rolling and mustache-wiggling?
In the southern city of Khan Younis, about 40 members pulled up to the Education Ministry, jumped from their jeeps and fired in the air to break up a peaceful protest of recent college graduates protesting an application fee for teaching jobs.
The gunmen moved into the building, where they bludgeoned protesters with clubs and rifles, demonstrators said. We were protesting peacefully, and suddenly these gunmen came and assaulted us, said a protester as he applied a bandage to a small gash on his head. We dont know who they are or why they came here. He identified himself only as Khaled, saying he feared retribution.
"We were just minding our own bidness!"
Outside the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, members of the new force stood near members of a security branch that answers to Abbas, but there were no clashes.
Pansies. C'mon already, my sno-caps are melting!
The new Hamas force is headed by Jamal Abu Samhadana, a bomb-maker wanted by Israel who is suspected of masterminding a deadly attack on a US diplomatic convoy in 2003. Hamas officials said the new forces aim was to bring order to Gaza, where marauding gangs of armed men routinely terrorize citizens.
Oh that'll work well, a bomb-maker knows everything about bringing order.
Tayeb Abdel Rahim, a presidential aide, urged Hamas to reverse the decision. This force doesnt serve security. On the contrary, it creates problems, he said Wednesday.
Not so that you can tell.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2006 00:35 ||
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Three Israeli diplomats have appeared on international terrorist organization Al-Qaedas hit list, published on the groups website under the heading, Our enemies.
Osama Bin Ladens terrorist group uses its website to encourage members to make efforts to murder officials who appear on the hit list, according to a report in Yediot Aharonot.
Photos of the three diplomats appear on the site, and Foreign Ministry officials believe they were taken from the ministrys own official website. Officials are taking the threat very seriously, intensifying security measures for its personnel and even removing photos of all its representatives from the ministrys website.
Israeli and American embassies are considered the most secure diplomatic offices in the world. Nonetheless, there have been a number of successful terrorist attacks on official Israeli offices in the past 25 years.
A 1992 attack against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires resulted in 29 deaths.
Israels Ambassador to Great Britain, Shlomo Argov, was also the target of an assassination attempt in 1982 which left him paralyzed.
Increased security and a heightened alert at Israeli embassies and missions in high-risk regions have been activated, said Foreign Ministry sources.
The three Israeli officials join diplomats from the U.S., Great Britain and Australia on the al-Qaeda website hit list.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/18/2006 00:33 ||
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Israel's new Defence minister on Wednesday reopened the main cargo crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, signaling a policy shift aimed at easing some of Israel's security restrictions on the Palestinians.
Israel had kept the Karni crossing closed for much of the year, citing warnings that Palestinian militants were trying to attack the site, Gaza's lifeline. The decision by Defence Minister Amir Peretz, leader of the dovish Labor Party, signaled a change in policy toward the Palestinians, the military officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because a formal announcement had not been made. Peretz is trying to ease some Israeli restrictions on the Palestinians, they said.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/18/2006 00:00 ||
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China on Tuesday urged Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel's destruction, to recognise the Jewish state and return to peace talks.
Yeah. That oughta do it.
Zhai Jun, director-general of West Asian and North African Affairs of China's Foreign Ministry, told reporters on Wednesday it respected the people's choice of Hamas, even though it did not agree with its policies. "If you don't recognise a democratically elected government, what kind of democracy is that?" Zhai said after a briefing on the second ministerial meeting of the Sino-Arabic Cooperation Forum which begins later this month in Beijing. "On this basis, we can urge the Hamas government to respect agreements previously signed with Israel, to recognise Israel and to return to talks." Zhai said China had invited the Palestinians to the Sino-Arabic forum. "China has been playing a constructive role in the Middle East, in all its problems," Zhai said.
I hesitate to point this out, but doesn't Israel have a democratically elected government, too?
Posted by: Fred ||
05/18/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
NEWSFLASH:
Communists give advice to barbarians on democracy.
#4
China's getting worried we and Israel may clean things up once and for all in the middle east. Or at least for the next 80 years. China needs an active proxy thorn in our side to beleed us until they are ready to take over. They don't want their proxy to disappear.
Palestinian Fatah sources said a meeting is planned Wednesday night with Hamas officials under Egyptian sponsorship here, to combat the impacts of the escalating tension between both factions on heels of the deployment of the Interior Ministry's auxiliary force in Gaza strip.
Also during the meeting, both factions will follow up the latest incidents and review the procedures agreed during previous meetings of the supreme coordination committee. After recent killings, bomb explosions and the destruction of cars in the last few days, relations between Fatah and Hamas have been strained recently, and both factions traded charges on responsibility for these incidents.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/18/2006 00:00 ||
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is writing a letter to Pope Benedict, following an unprecedented letter to U.S. President George W. Bush earlier this month, a newspaper said on Thursday.
"President Ahmadinjad's second letter is for Pope Benedict and will be sent in the next days," Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper, which is close to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, quoted unnamed sources as saying.
The newspaper gave no details of the letter's content. Iranian officials were not available to comment.
In the first direct communication between the two countries' presidents for more than two decades, Ahmadinejad wrote a long missive to Bush this month in which he questioned his commitment to Christian values and criticised U.S. foreign policy.
Some Iranian analysts and Western diplomats interpreted the letter as a veiled offer to open talks with Washington on the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme.
But Washington has said it has no intention of holding direct talks with Iran on the issue.
Britain, France and Germany, the European Union's three biggest powers, plan to offer Iran a package of incentives to try to induce Tehran to freeze a uranium enrichment programme which the West suspects could be used to make atomic bombs.
Ahamdinejad has ruled out halting nuclear fuel work in return for incentives, saying the Europeans were offering "candy for gold".
#2
No doubt Ahmadinejad will include a review of the Da Vinci Code in his call for the Pope to accept Allah and bow to Islam. Given Mahmoud's sense of whimsy, the Fibonacci Sequence will be prominently featured.
#7
Based on a recent article, it seems that these letters, much to the contrary of the MSM depiction, comply with the directions given for a declaration of militant jihad upon the recipients of the letter. (I believe I read this on Captain's Quarters Blog).
#9
Nuking the vatican would be very very bad. This would even provoke shock from Muzzies I suspect.
At least the Vatican would get advanced notice in the form of a nuked Israel.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
05/18/2006 17:31 Comments ||
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#10
This would even provoke shock from Muzzies I suspect.
Followed by cheering, followed by calls not to judge the cheering Muslims by the actions of a small minority of extremists.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/18/2006 17:38 Comments ||
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#11
If Mahmoud is on track, shouldn't Israel get the next letter? EU doesn't need one, he's poo-poo them as mental and anyway the letter to W covers all the western allies, I think. Unless Blair get's one first, just for the special attention and alignment. Anyone else due a letter?
If Israel does get one of these as well, I believe Mahmoud would be ready to strike within a day. Just after the official "drop dead" response hits the media.
TEHRAN, Iran In a surprising turnabout, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said Wednesday Tehran was willing to offer strong economic incentives to the European Union in return recognition of Iran's right to enrich uranium.
"We are prepared to offer economic incentives to Europe in return for recognizing our right (to enrich uranium)," Hamid Reza Asefi was quoted by state-run radio as saying.
CountryWatch: Iran
"Iran's 70-million population market is a good incentive for Europe," the radio quoted Asefi as saying.
European countries now have access to the Iranian market, but Tehran has in recent years turned more frequently to Russian and China for trade deals.
The comments followed Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad disdainful rejection of European plans to offer incentives to his country to give up its uranium enrichment program, saying it would be like trading gold for chocolate.
European nations have weighed adding a light-water reactor to a package of incentives meant to persuade Tehran to permanently give up enrichment or face the threat of U.N. Security Council sanctions.
But in a nationally televised speech before thousands of people in central Iran, Ahmadinejad cast scorn on the proposal.
"Do you think you are dealing with a 4-year-old child to whom you can give some walnuts and chocolates and get gold from him?" he said.
Senior diplomats and EU government officials said Tuesday that the tentative plans were being discussed among France, Britain and Germany as part of a possible package to be presented to representatives of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members and Germany at a meeting in London. All spoke on condition of anonymity because of the confidential nature of the information.
The London talks were postponed Wednesday until next week to allow more time for phone discussions of what should be included in the package of incentives and penalties to be offered to Tehran, said a diplomat, requesting anonymity for the same reason.
U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to say Tuesday whether a light-water reactor would be offered in the package. But he insisted that Iran would be required to halt its program of enriching and reprocessing uranium on Iranian soil, saying the United States and others "do not want the Iranian regime to have the ability to master those critical pathways to a nuclear weapon."
In his speech, Ahmadinejad said Iran "won't accept any suspension or end" to its uranium enrichment activities.
He said Iran had trusted the European Union in 2003 and suspended its nuclear activities as a gesture to boost negotiations over its nuclear program, only to have the Europeans demand Iran permanently halt its uranium enrichment program.
The 2003 deal called for guarantees that Iran's nuclear program wouldn't diverge from civilian ends toward producing weapons. Iran agreed to the request, but negotiations collapsed in August 2005 when the Europeans said the best guarantee was for Iran to permanently give up its uranium enrichment program.
Iran responded by resuming uranium reprocessing activities at its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan.
"We won't be bitten twice," Ahmadinejad said.
"We recommend that you not sacrifice your interests for the sake of others," he said in an apparent warning to the European Union about supporting the position advocated by the United States.
Ahmadinejad reiterated his threat to pull out of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if international pressure to give up uranium enrichment continued.
"Don't force governments and nations to renounce their membership in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," he said asserting that Iran had the right to a civilian nuclear power program.
With Iran's nuclear program now before the Security Council, the Americans are at the forefront of efforts to introduce a council resolution that would demand Iran give up enrichment or else face the threat of sanctions. Washington seeks to make such a resolution militarily enforceable, something opposed by Russia and China, which continue instead to favor talks meant to persuade Tehran to compromise.
In the latest sign of persisting differences, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Beijing and Moscow will not vote for the use of force in resolving the nuclear dispute.
In a gesture to Tehran, Lavrov also said Ahmadinejad will attend a summit next month in Shanghai, China, of leaders from Russia, China and four Central Asian nations.
"We cannot isolate Iran or exert pressure on it," Lavrov told reporters. "Far from resolving this issue of proliferation, it will make it more urgent."
A light-water reactor is considered less likely to be misused for nuclear proliferation than the heavy water facility Iran is building at the city of Arak, which _ once completed by early 2009 _ will produce plutonium waste.
Still, light-water reactors are not proliferation-proof, because they are fueled by enriched uranium, which can be processed to make highly enriched "weapons-grade" material for nuclear warheads.
#3
nah, even if they wanted to take it, the fact that he made a public offer makes it impossible to take. Its just one more jab, for internal consumption - so he can tell his internal public "see how compromising I am, and how they reject it" Says to me that Euro offer of a light water reactor may be playing well on the Iranian street, or at least the regime fears it is.
#5
Offering economic incentives back to EU gets a laugh out of me everytime I hear it. What a beautiful way to tell the Euros to stuff it.
Posted by: Mike N. ||
05/18/2006 12:22 Comments ||
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#6
LH has rose colored lenses surgically implanted in his eyes. If the mullahs gave a rat's ass what the Iranian street cared, they wouldn't be pulling crap like banning festivals.
It's another delay, another chance for the striped pantsed traitors to put off actually doing anything about Iran.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
05/18/2006 12:44 Comments ||
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#7
based on the headline I thought for sure this was on scrappleface but actually its just business as usual in the mullarky
#8
LH's comment "Its just one more jab, for internal consumption - so he can tell his internal public "see how compromising I am, and how they reject it"
makes sense if you assume that the public Ahmadi Nejad is worried about are the mullahs on the guardian council and the streets they have to worry about are the ones in front of the class A mosques in Qom.
#9
Mahmoud's having fun, isn't he? Offer "incentives" to the dhimmies and a letter requesting conversion to the Pope. On a roll. More bottom of the well stuff, but Mahmoud appears to think EU is ready to accept dhimmitude officially.
#10
Theres different "streets" in Iran of course. there are north Teheran secular middle class, antiregime students, and some ethnic minorities, who are dead set against the regime. But as others here have pointed out, theyre a minority, not enough to make a revolution. Theres also hardliners who SUPPORT the regime. And theres apparently a large group thats not wild about the regime, but not dead set against it, thats unhappy with the weak economy, but will listen to Ahmadinajads promises. The regime is working overtime through their media to convince them that the West is trying to stop them from getting nuclear ENERGY - this is a consistent theme in the regimes rhetoric. Its also a lie, of course - you dont need enrichment to have atomic power, you can import enriched fuel, and most countries with atomic ENERGY programs the size of Irans do so. The fixed costs of running a civilian enrichment program are high, and not worth it if you only have a few power reactors. But the regime doesnt want the Iranian fence sitters to get wind of that, cause the notion of being persecuted by the west accounts for much of what support they have. The EU proposal was an attempt to undercut that position, and this response is a counter attempt to blame the big bad "Western Imperialists"
and its not aimed ONLY at the internal arena - its also aimed at the larger muslim world, which theyre counting on to change the balance - an Islamic world that supports them will increase the cost to the EU of standing with the US, and will lessen cost to China and Russia of any vetos or other obstruction they engage in. The Iranian regime has attempted to play the Islamic world, with mixed success, since they took power.
The economic inducements theyve offered to Russia and China werent announced in public, so blatantly as this. If they wanted to make a serious bribe to Europe, theyd do it in private. Which would make it much easier for the Euros to accept.
Iran's president mocked a package of incentives to suspend uranium enrichment, saying Wednesday they were like giving up gold for chocolate defiance that appeared certain to complicate U.S. efforts to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
"Do you think you are dealing with a 4-year-old child to whom you can give some walnuts and chocolates and get gold from him?" President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked derisively.
He spoke before a huge crowd in the city of Arak, the site of a heavy-water reactor that is scheduled for completion by early 2009. Such facilities produce plutonium as a byproduct usable in building nuclear weapons.
Signaling the difficulties ahead, a high-level, six-nation meeting on Iran was postponed Wednesday, reflecting differences between the United States and its allies on one side, and the Chinese and Russians on the other.
The London meeting of senior officials from the five permanent Security Council members and Germany was to have been held Friday, but was postponed to Tuesday at the earliest, diplomats told The Associated Press.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the session was postponed because "we're trying to put together a package that would include incentives on one side and penalties."
"I don't think there is a full agreement on exactly what would cormpise the package," he said. "This is complex, multilateral diplomacy. It takes a little bit of time."
China and Russia have opposed bringing Iran's case to a vote in the U.N. Security Council, where the United States, Britain and France have pressed for sanctions.
Only a day earlier, European nations said they might add a light-water reactor to a package of incentives meant to persuade Tehran to permanently give up enrichment.
But Ahmadinejad heaped scorn on the offer in the nationally televised speech Wednesday.
"They say they want to offer us incentives," he said. "We tell them: keep the incentives as a gift for yourself. We have no hope of anything good from you."
His defiance was met with shouts of, "We love you Ahmadinejad!" from the crowd.
A light-water reactor is considered less likely to be misused for nuclear proliferation than a heavy-water facility, which produces plutonium waste.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi joined the president in the counterattack, mockingly offering the Europeans trade concessions if the EU dropped its opposition to the nuclear program.
"We are prepared to offer economic incentives to Europe in return for recognizing our right (to enrich uranium)," state radio quoted him as saying.
The fiery Ahmadinejad said Tehran had put its trust in the
European Union in 2003 and suspended its nuclear activities as a confidence-building measure as negotiations continued. The EU then demanded that Iran permanently stop uranium enrichment.
"We won't be bitten twice," Ahmadinejad said.
The 2003 deal called for guarantees that Iran's nuclear program was only intended for building reactors for electricity generation and was not being used as a cover to develop weapons. Iran agreed to the request, but negotiations collapsed in August 2005 when the Europeans said the best guarantee was for Iran to permanently give up its uranium enrichment program.
Iran responded by resuming reprocessing activities at its uranium conversion facility in Isfahan.
On Wednesday, Ahmadinejad underlined Iran's determination to continue enrichment and scolded the Europeans for what he viewed as doing the dirty work of the Americans.
"We recommend that you not sacrifice your interests for the sake of others," he said.
Ahmadinejad also reissued his threat to pull out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
"Don't force governments and nations to renounce their membership in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," he said asserting that Iran had the right to a civilian nuclear power program.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meanwhile, said Tuesday that Beijing and Moscow would not vote for using force to resolve the nuclear dispute.
In a gesture to Tehran, Lavrov also said Ahmadinejad was attending a summit next month in Shanghai, China, of leaders from Russia, China and four Central Asian nations.
"We cannot isolate Iran or exert pressure on it," Lavrov said. "Far from resolving this issue of proliferation, it will make it more urgent."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
05/18/2006 01:21 ||
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LAVROV > read, just becuz Russia-China are the ones engaging in the anti-US-West proliferation of weapons and nuke tech doesn't mean Russia-China is responsible for their actions. Gee whiz, everytime Russia-China hear the name America they have to proliferate, Have To, HAVE TO, H-A-V-E TO, they tell ya. Poor little Clintonian things can't stop, trust, or control themselves.
DAMASCUS - Syrian authorities on Wednesday detained four more people as part of a crackdown on activists who signed a petition calling for Syrian recognition of Lebanons independence, a human rights group said. A total of seven people, including prominent writer and journalist Michel Kilo, have been detained since Sunday in Syria as part of the campaign against signatories of last weeks Beirut-Damascus Declaration.
The petition, signed by 274 Lebanese and Syrian intellectuals and published in Beirut last Thursday, called for Syrian recognition of Lebanons independence and the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two neighbors.
Ammar al-Qorabi, president of the Human Rights Association in Syria, said the security services arrested on Wednesday activist and doctor Safwan Tayfur in the northern city of Hama and translator Mahmud Issa in the city of Homs, north of Damascus.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/18/2006 00:42 ||
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Iran has largely stood alone against Europe and America in its fight for the right to nuclear weapons. No nation of any real influence has completely thrown its weight behind Tehran. Though Russia, China and India all have a soft spot for Iran, even they have been fairly non-committaluntil recently.
In April, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (sco) announced that it was inviting Iran to become a full member.
Last year, the United States lobbied for observer status in the scoa request which was denied. Now, Asia Times has reported, Mongolia, Iran, India and Pakistan, which previously had observer status, will become full members (April 18).
Formed in 2001, the sco has until this point been a security organization comprised of the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, as well as Russia and China. Although it certainly hasnt been a central organization in global affairs, the membership of Russia and China definitely means the sco cant be marginalized. Now, with additions like firebrand Iran and economic powerhouse India, watch for the sco to begin to throw its weight around on the world scene.
The scos decision to welcome Iran into its fold constitutes a political statement (ibid., emphasis ours throughout). This invitation to Iran was essentially Russia and Chinas announcement that in the standoff between Iran and the West, they have decided to come down on Irans side.
Asia Times reported that the sco would now proceed to adopt a common position on the Iran nuclear issue at its summit meeting June 15. If sco members take Tehrans side, Europe and Americas task of halting Irans nuclear program will grow much more difficult.
Asia Times continued, The scos change of heart appears set to involve the organization in Irans nuclear battle and other ongoing regional issues with the United States. By embracing Iran, Russia and China are essentially making the sco a primary means to coordinate their efforts to challenge Western power and influence.
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/18/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
As of yesterday, officios on different Russ news medias Russian were still denying that Iran will be invited to join the SCO. Even iff Mongolia, India, Iran, and Pakistan do join, I doubt it will alleviate MadMoud's and Radical Iran's ambitions for Regional and later Global Caliphate - looks like Moud may end being a anti-US Globalist version of Bill Clinton, being wilfully protected by a politicized regional/bloc establishment wid said establishment also knowing full well Moud may try to destroy the SCO later on. In any case, iff America and allied takes mil action against Iran and the SCO does nothing to defend Iran, the SCO's credibility will be toast before the world.
#2
Joe, don't buy it. SCO is a proven counterweight to the west and particularly the US. One of the aforementioned "stans" moved to kick the US out of its country, which is a staging point into Afganistan.
The invitation to Iran, while effectively blocking any action on the UNSC, is a very troubling sign indeed.
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/18/2006 6:20 Comments ||
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#3
Oh, and by the way, the SCO represents an excellent means for the Ruskies to disavow any unilateral actions (or invites).
Not that one shouldn't always believe what the Ruskies have to say
/sarcasm off
Posted by: Captain America ||
05/18/2006 6:23 Comments ||
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#4
Russia, China Extend Hand to Iran
Remeber to count your fingers afterward.
The Senate has agreed to the Inhofe Amendment by a vote of 63-34.
"Another quick post to let you know that I am co-sponsoring Senator Inhofes amendment to declare English as the national language of the United States.
This amendment also makes English is the default language for government communication and redesigns the naturalization exam. The newly designed naturalization exam would require the following citizenship test goals:
Demonstrating sufficient understanding of English for usage in everyday life;
Understanding of common values;
Understanding American history;
Attachment to the Constitution
Understanding the rights and responsibilities of citizenship
We are - and will always be - a proud nation of immigrants. We welcome those who wish to become part of the American tradition. But immigration requires - to a certain extent - assimilation. And the simple fact is, the English language is the common thread that weaves our society together, and all U.S. citizens should learn it.
For me, this is a matter of principle, and on matters of principle there should be no compromise.
That is why I stand with my friend and colleague Senator Inhofe, and cosponsor his amendment that here in the United States of America, English is our national language.
I hope you will stand with us in supporting this amendment. I hope you will stand with us in declaring that this is a matter of national pride upon which we should all agree.
To learn about other amendments strengthening the border security and immigration reform legislation on the Senate floor, click here and listen to my new podcast."
Written by Bill Frist, M.D.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/18/2006 19:42 ||
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#1
Wake me up when they make bi-lingual bvallots illegal.
#8
Non, non, sacre bleu'!? * "DEFAULT" > iff I were to guesstimate, I would say it infers ENGLISH will be, or should be, the language of any and all Public Sector documentations and transactions, to include current or archival computer-based docs or recordations. While local Govs or voting districts may vote/elect to have public docs in languages other than English, NOTHING will be held legally legit by the Local-State-Feds, solely or jointly, unless it has a backup English translation(s).
#12
Yeah, this is good for a start. However, I watched CSPAN2 tonight and watched that miserable fuck Hagel try to do the old end around w/the temporary guest worker program he and Kennedy/McCain are behind - anything that fat shit bird Kennedy puts his meaty fingers on is already suspect in my book. OTOH, Sen Kyl (R-AZ) was good to go, wish he was my guy vice Levin/Stabbanow.
A Somali-born lawmaker who may lose her Dutch citizenship because she lied on her asylum application is welcome to move to the United States, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said on Thursday (May 18)...
Zoellick, on a visit to the Netherlands, told journalists Hirsi Ali would be admitted to his country. "The government of the Netherlands is still discussing her ultimate status and that is for the Netherlands to determine along the way, but she is obviously welcome to the United States," Zoellick said.
He added that if she did move to the United States her status would depend on decisions taken by the Dutch government and that her special security needs would be attended to.
"I am not going to comment on specific security matters but obviously she needs to be taken care of," Zoellick said.
#5
With Condi there, I would be extremely surprised if another Black woman of high character and achievement who succeeded despite threats of violence were turned away ...
I do think that the leftists that actually work and run the state department will cause her trouble however. My trust in the government bureaucracy is near zero.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/18/2006 15:01 Comments ||
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#9
Can she trade places with Cynthia Mckinney?
Posted by: john ||
05/18/2006 16:50 Comments ||
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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.
OTTAWA - Lawmakers voted on Wednesday to extend Canadas combat mission in Afghanistan to 2009, on the same day a female Canadian soldier died in a major battle with Taleban militants in the war-torn country.
A high-level government official in Afghanistan has blamed neighbouring Pakistan for helping Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters cross the border. Such fighters have been targeting Afghan and international forces.
The White House said on Wednesday it was concerned al Qaeda is establishing a presence in Somalia but would not say whether Washington is backing Somali warlords fighting Islamic militants there. 
How Gadhafi Lost His Groove: The complex surrender of Libya's WMD.
FIJI'S indigenous Prime Minister was sworn in after a one-seat election win yesterday only to find himself still in confrontation with the military over his plans to grant amnesty to leaders of a 2000 coup.
The Dutch immigration minister has agreed to reconsider her threat to revoke the citizenship of a Somali-born member of parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, known for her opposition to fundamentalist Islam. Rita Verdonk said the threat was based on a television programme broadcast last week in which Ms Hirsi Ali admitted lying about her name and age on her asylum application when she fled to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage.
A US lawmaker and former Marine colonel accused US Marines of killing innocent Iraqi civilians after a Marine comrade had been killed by a roadside bomb. "Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood," John Murtha told reporters. The November 19 incident occurred in Haditha, Iraq. "There was no firefight" that led to the shootings at close range, the Vietnam war veteran said, denying early official accounts, which said that a roadside bomb had killed the Iraqis. "There were no (roadside bombs) that killed these innocent people," he said. 
A year ago, when Gen. Michael V. Hayden last sought Senate confirmation to a new job, protecting Americans' privacy from the global eavesdropping system he had overseen for six years at the National Security Agency was almost an afterthought on Capitol Hill.
Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and his key co-defendants were back in court Wednesday, as Defence lawyers presented witnesses for the third day running in the trial for crimes against humanity.
WASHINGTON - US-led efforts to isolate the Hamas-led Palestinian government could radicalize the Arab worlds most educated population and increased contact could foster peace with Israel, Saudi Arabias foreign minister said on Wednesday. Prince Saud Al Faisal said refusing to deal with Hamas and blocking pay for Palestinian doctors, teachers and engineers reflected a twisted logic that could alienate the real supporters of the (Palestinian) peace movement.
BUREIJ REFUGEE CAMP, Gaza Strip - Edging closer to open conflict, the Hamas-led Palestinian government deployed 3,000 militants in its new security force in defiance of moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, who tried to veto its creation.
Israel's new Defence minister on Wednesday reopened the main cargo crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip, signaling a policy shift aimed at easing some of Israel's security restrictions on the Palestinians. 
China on Tuesday urged Hamas, an Islamic militant group sworn to Israel's destruction, to recognise the Jewish state and return to peace talks. 
Palestinian Fatah sources said a meeting is planned Wednesday night with Hamas officials under Egyptian sponsorship here, to combat the impacts of the escalating tension between both factions on heels of the deployment of the Interior Ministry's auxiliary force in Gaza strip.
DAMASCUS - Syrian authorities on Wednesday detained four more people as part of a crackdown on activists who signed a petition calling for Syrian recognition of Lebanons independence, a human rights group said. A total of seven people, including prominent writer and journalist 
Iran has largely stood alone against Europe and America in its fight for the right to nuclear weapons. No nation of any real influence has completely thrown its weight behind Tehran. Though Russia, China and India all have a soft spot for Iran, even they have been fairly non-committaluntil recently.
The Senate has agreed to the Inhofe Amendment by a vote of 63-34.
