Barely three weeks after the Taliban killed two Indian engineers in a suicide attack on the Zaranj-Delaram road in Nimroz province of Afghanistan, India is set to carry out its heaviest airlift operation for transporting five mega transformers to light up Kabul.
The first flight takes off on Sunday. Three 40 MVA transformers weighing 64 tonnes each and two 160 MVA transformers weighing 90 tonnes each will be sent this month in two phases aboard specially arranged AN-124 planes, the largest transport aircraft in the world that can carry up to 120 tonnes of cargo.
The second lot will surpass the 70-tonne gas turbine BHEL had sent to Malaysia in 2003, which is considered the heaviest airlift in India.
These transformers will be installed at the Kabul sub-station by BHEL, which is responsible for the project and is committed to completing the task by August. So, the 40 MVA transformers will be moved in three flights on May 4, 5 & 7. The 160 MVA transformers will move towards the month-end.
With Pakistan still denying India transit rights into Afghanistan, India has been sending aid and assistance material through a circuitous route via the port of Bandar Abbas in Iran. From Iran, the goods are transferred by road through the some of the most troubled areas of Afghanistan like Herat and Kandahar.
After the recent suicide attack in that area, there is an increased threat perception about the Taliban possibly targeting convoys carrying Indian goods and material.
Given that these are bulky transformers which have to travel for days together on road and could prove to be easy targets, New Delhi did not want to take a chance as any loss or damage would only delay completion of the project. More so, bringing electricity to Kabul is among Indias most prestigious infrastructure projects in Afghanistan.
Currently, diesel generators, for which US provides over $100 million worth of fuel, serve Kabuls power needs. In a massive effort to draw electricity from the Uzbekistan border, India is building the last leg of the transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri to Kabul and setting up the main sub-station in the city to this end. India, it may be noted, has shipped some 700 pre-fabricated towers that are being set up to lay the transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri. With only 25-odd AN-124 in-service aircraft available in the world, sources said, it was difficult to book the flights. In the end, two windows in May were found suitable.
Posted by: john frum ||
05/02/2008 18:41 ||
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#1
India really is showing up Pakistan in that part of the world.
Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle.
Vice President Cheney pinned Brown, of Lake Jackson, Tex., with a Silver Star in March for repeatedly risking her life on April 25, 2007, to shield and treat her wounded comrades, displaying bravery and grit. She is the second woman since World War II to receive the nation's third-highest combat medal.
Within a few days of her heroic acts, however, the Army pulled Brown out of the remote camp in Paktika province where she was serving with a cavalry unit -- because, her platoon commander said, Army restrictions on women in combat barred her from such missions.
"We weren't supposed to take her out" on missions "but we had to because there was no other medic," said Lt. Martin Robbins, a platoon leader with Charlie Troop, 4th Squadron, 73rd Cavalry Regiment, whose men Brown saved. "By regulations you're not supposed to," he said, but Brown "was one of the guys, mixing it up, clearing rooms, doing everything that anybody else was doing."
In Afghanistan as well as Iraq, female soldiers are often tasked to work in all-male combat units -- not only for their skills but also for the culturally sensitive role of providing medical treatment for local women, as well as searching them and otherwise interacting with them. Such war-zone pragmatism is at odds with Army rules intended to bar women from units that engage in direct combat or collocate with combat forces.
Military personnel experts say that as a result, the 1992 rules are vague, ill defined, and based on an outmoded concept of wars with clear front lines that rarely exist in today's counterinsurgencies.
"The current policy is not actionable," concluded a Rand Corp. study last year on the Army's assignment of women. "Crafted for a linear battlefield," the policy does not conform to the nature of warfare today and uses concepts such as "forward and well forward [that] were generally acknowledged to be almost meaningless in the Iraqi theater," it said.
In Iraq and Afghanistan, noncombat units in which women serve face many of the same threats that all-male combat arms units do and are performing well, commanders say. "Army personnel were consistent in their perception that a strict adherence to the Army policy would have negative implications" and that the policy should be revised or revoked, the Rand study said...
#5
What a hero. But still, the man in me says take this special girl out of harms way. With a Silver Star, she has already left a historical legacy for men and women today and tomorrow to look up to.
#6
Sorry, Barbara, I was overwhelmed with the irony of it all, perhaps even to the point of being bitter.
Posted by: Bobby ||
05/02/2008 17:05 Comments ||
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#7
i would consider being in afgjhanistan or iraq being in harms way no matter where you where stationed. remember all the fuel and supply convoys in the earlty days of the iraqi campaighn
Almost no one in Canada has the slightest idea who Jahid Mohseni is. Until recently, most of his own countrymen in Afghanistan also had no idea who he was. However, all that changed overnight as Jahid Mohseni, director of Tolo TV, Afghanistan's most popular television station, found himself locked in a battle over freedom of the press and media with conservatives and Muslim clerics.
The showdown between Mohseni and conservatives arose when the Afghan minister of information and culture, Karim Khurram, backed by senior Afghan Muslim clerics, demanded all commercial TV stations quit broadcasting Indian soap operas. They denounced the programs as un-Islamic and against Afghan cultural traditions. The programs in question had become a cause célèbre for conservatives, claiming they were examples of foreign values corrupting Afghan society. They denounced the soaps for showing uncovered areas of female actors' bodies, men and women mixing together, plus dancing and singing, and the display of Hindu gods all against Afghan values.
Many TV stations had already bowed to earlier pressure from the clerics, cutting scenes of Hindu worship and blurring areas of bare flesh exposed by the Indian actresses. Nevertheless, such efforts clearly did not appease conservatives who called for a total ban of the soaps. Subsequent threats by the information ministry to punish unco-operative TV stations caused several to cease broadcasting the programs.
But despite further repeated threats, Tolo TV's Mohseni refused to capitulate. He even went on the offensive, denouncing the information ministry's order as completely illegal, insisting he had no intention of removing the five Indian soap operas. He also took on the minister himself, saying his action was purely personal and violated the constitution's commitment to freedom of expression and the media law.
Unfortunately, the banning attempts by the minister of information and culture are not isolated actions. In recent days, members of Afghanistan's democratically elected parliament have also entered the picture. In a declaration they proposed measures going beyond banning soap operas. They want a prohibition against loud music, women and men mingling in public, billiards, video games, playing with pigeons all measures similar to regulations imposed by the fundamentalist Taliban during their 1996-2001 rule. Opponents of the Indian soap operas cite Afghan law that forbids publication of anything "... contrary to the principles of Islam."
For his part, President Hamid Karzai has maintained that media freedom will be upheld but has qualified this by saying "unsuitable material should not be broadcast." Commenting on the soaps controversy at a news conference the president said, "There will never be interference with media freedom but media freedom should be compatible with the culture of the Afghan people."
Unfortunately for television stations, they also have to contend with forces within Afghan society that see foreign TV programs as a threat to traditional cultural values. During Friday prayers at Kabul's largest mosque, Enayatullah Balegh, an influential religious cleric (and university teacher) denounced the soaps and warned he and his followers would not sit idly by if such unwanted programs continued. "We are 6,000 people in this mosque; our intention is to go and blow up all the TV antennas if they do not stop it."
Individuals like Jahid Mohseni of Tolo TV warn that the attempts by conservatives and clerics to ban programs they dislike is "... hobbling the development of free media and debate in Afghanistan." Mohseni and others also see conservatives using religion to advance their own agendas, especially as next year's elections approach. Some increasingly are concerned over where all this is leading. Perhaps rightly so, if one is to take seriously remarks of Afghan parliamentarian Qazi Naseer Ahmad, who recently said: "We have the same ideas as the Taliban."
#1
They want a prohibition against loud music, women and men mingling in public, billiards, video games, playing with pigeons all measures similar to regulations imposed by the fundamentalist Taliban during their 1996-2001 rule.
Pigeons are un-islamic too? Too much like Pig, or not enough like goat?
#4
Cripes, the Afghan traditions these a-holes yearn for are killin, blowin stuff up and givin it to the goat. Frikin cavemen. I am far more interested in saving Iraq than this dump. IMO the whole pashtun crescent is little more than an above-ground special weapon testing ground.
#5
This is one of the reasons that most foreigners have stuck to Kabul and left the countryside to rot, over the centuries. The population of Kabul has traditionally been much more receptive to outside ideas and freedoms than the countryside.
A statement posted in the name of a Somali militant group on Thursday vowed to avenge the killing in a United States air strike of its commander, said to be Al Qaedas leader in the African country.
Ethiopian officials and rebels in Somalia said on Thursday that a US air strike killed at least 12 people, including Aden Hashi Ayro.
American fighters targeted a house in Dhusamareb, around 500 kilometers north of the capital Mogadishu, where some of the leaders of your brothers in the Young Mujahedeen Movement were present, the Young Mujahedeen Movement (YMM), better known as the Shabab, said in the statement.
Those who joined the caravan of martyrs included the valiant commander and hero Abu Mohsen al-Ansari (Sheikh Adam Hashi Ayro), who terrorised the infidels, said the statement posted on a website often used by militant groups.
The statement, whose authenticity could not be independently verified, vowed that militants in Somalia would exact revenge from America, holder of the cross, and her agents. The YMM is a Somali Islamist group that was placed on the US governments terror blacklist in March. The militant killed on Thursday, whose full name was Moalim Aden Hashi Ayro, was the groups military leader.
Ayro trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and had been linked to the deaths of foreign aid workers in Somalia. He had been a target of a US air strike in 2007. Another senior Shabab member, Sheikh Muhyadin Omar, was also killed in the strike.
In Washington, the Pentagon confirmed an attack on an Al-Qaeda military leader in Somalia but declined to identify him and would not initially say whether the mission had been successful.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
that's gotta send a chill (not a good Chris-Matthews-listening-to-Obama-kinda-chill either) down Ayro's #2's leg. Here they wuz having a good time in a nondescript "safe house" in Bumfuck, Somalia, and a missile, probably launched from a submarine off shore, turns the Boss, precious associates, and fambly into Tender Vittles. Who talked? How'd the Infidels know? Is my phone safe? Must make for a sleepless night. Enjoy!
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/02/2008 0:24 Comments ||
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A blast from the past...
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) A former professor who pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid a Palestinian terrorist group but has refused to testify in a related investigation has ended a nearly two-month hunger strike, his supporters said Wednesday. Oh, good. I was so worried. Actually, I didn't even know. Which kinda defeats the purpose... Sami al-Arian, 50, suspended his fast Tuesday after 57 days. The Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace says family and friends urged the former University of South Florida computer science professor to resume eating after he collapsed last week in the Hampton Roads Regional Jail because of low blood pressure and blood sugar levels.
Attorneys for al-Arian also encouraged him to resume eating so federal authorities could not cite the hunger strike as a reason to further delay his deportation."He had lost almost 40 pounds and was experiencing serious physical consequences from the hunger strike," al-Arian's lawyer, Jonathan Turley, said in a telephone interview. "The government indicated that it would not be able to deport him in his current chronic medical condition." Good planning, Sami...
Al-Arian could be deported either to the Middle East or to one of a few countries that have expressed interest, including Norway and Germany, Turley said. Enjoy him...
Al-Arian has completed his nearly five-year prison term but remains in custody because of his refusal to testify before a grand jury investigating Muslim charities and businesses. Turley said that al-Arian should have been deported a year ago, but that the government "stopped the clock with a series of contempt citations." The last contempt citation was lifted in December. Turley said that he is negotiating for al-Arian deportation, but that the government "continues to insist it will seek further sanctions and perhaps a criminal indictment if he does not testify before the grand jury." Screw em, Sami. You can do infinity standing on your head.
Jim Rybicki, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria, said al-Arian has been transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He declined to comment further.
The government's prosecution of al-Arian has drawn international attention since he was taken into federal custody in 2003. Prosecutors alleged that al-Arian was a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which the United States calls a terrorist organization, but his 2005 trial ended in acquittal on some charges and a hung jury on others. Prosecutors decided to retry him, and he entered a plea bargain on lesser charges. He was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison with credit for time served. Government critics have said the case against al-Arian reflected overzealous prosecution of Muslim Americans in the war on terror. Hmmmmm. Must be why he pled guilty...
In his plea agreement, al-Arian admitted helping a family member with links to the terrorist group obtain immigration benefits and lying to a reporter about another person's ties to the group. Al-Arian says terms of the deal exempt him from testifying before a grand jury investigating Muslim charities and businesses, but two judges have rejected that claim. Nice lawyers ya got there, Sami...
#4
I'd prefer Atlantis; or at least the general coordinates of same......
since he lost so much weight he should be able to bob around on the waters quite nicely.
#5
Turley, you lowlife POS, you heard their opinion. This dogdip is too weak to deport. We're going to keep the worthless bastard on bread and water for two more months until he's strong enuff to travel.
#6
Well Sami, after reading this It made me hungry. Guess I'll go chow down. You are lucky you don't have to think about what you are going to eat tonight. Things are so simple for some people.
A cameraman from the al-Jazeera television station has been freed from US detention in Guantanamo Bay, the channel says. Sami al-Hajj had been in US custody for more than six years. Mr Hajj was freed from Guantanamo and was being flown to Sudan, al-Jazeera said, quoting unnamed sources. The channel said that he was expected to arrive in Khartoum shortly.
"We are in a state of high expectation and we are overwhelmed with joy," said Wadah Khanfar, managing director of al-Jazeera's Arabic service.
Mr Hajj was working as a cameraman for al-Jazeera when he was arrested by Pakistani troops near the Afghan border in December 2001 and later handed over to the US military. Sami al-Hajj, who was 38 at the time, was accused of links to militant groups but has not been charged. The US military alleged that he'd been involved in funding Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya in the 1990s.
He denied the allegations against him and his employers at al-Jazeera say the charges are politically motivated. Mr Hajj began a hunger strike at the beginning of 2007. His lawyers said he'd been force-fed on several occasions.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
whenever these assholes are released, we should say that "they have been rehabilitated, proven by the actionable information they provided in the WOT. We thank them for their cooperation and wish them well in their new duties"
let nature take its' course
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/02/2008 0:27 Comments ||
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#2
That and surgically implant a tracking GPS device in their ass.
Posted by: Ebbusolet Oppressor of the Wee Folk7609 ||
05/02/2008 0:31 Comments ||
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#3
Hell you don't even have to implant it. Just give them a small scar and mention it to the NYT.
Posted by: Ebbusolet Oppressor of the Wee Folk7609 ||
05/02/2008 0:36 Comments ||
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#4
I suspect that we are soon going to start heaving a lot of the Gitmo inmates back to places like Sudan, with a good riddance. If they stay in Gitmo, they will just attract sharks.
DUBAI - Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif said on Thursday after crucial talks with coalition partner Asif Ali Zardari that a reinstatement of judges that had threatened their alliance will take place as previously agreed.
"It has been decided and reiterated that the restoration of the judges will take place as per the Murree declaration," Sharif said after two days of talks with Zardari in Dubai. He was referring to their agreement in March to reinstate the judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf. "There is no ambiguity, there is no doubt about it. You will soon see the results of the discussions," Sharif told reporters.
"The committee has made substantive progress on this issue," Sharif said of the negotiators from both sides, who met at a Dubai hotel. "The restoration will take place through a (parliamentary) resolution. The details will be revealed tomorrow ... You won't have to wait too long."
Sharif will fly back to Pakistan on Thursday evening, an aide said. Zardari, leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), left the negotiations before Sharif, telling reporters only that the talks were meant to improve their relationship.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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The Awami National Party (ANP) has criticised the Islami Jamiat-e-Talba (IJT) for carrying out an armed attack on Pakhtun Students Federation (PkSF) activists at the Malakand University on Thursday. In a press statement issued here, ANP NWFP Information Secretary Arbab Muhammad Zahir alleged that some IJT terrorists opened fire on peaceful PSF students at the university, injuring three students.
He said that the condition of one of the injured was critical, adding that the IJT was a terrorist student organisation that has opened centres of terrorism at educational institutions. Through such activities, he added, the IJT was trying to postpone student union elections because the IJT has left with no future after the revival of students unions. The ANP leader demanded that the police immediately arrest those responsible for the incident.
Separately, the PkSF has also condemned the IJT over the incident. PkSF NWFP President Shakilur Rehman Barki alleged in a press statement that the IJT was a terrorist organisation. We demand that the government impose a ban on the IJT, arrest those involved in the incident and bring them to justice.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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Pakistans new government is clashing with the military over peace deals that the military has secretly initiated with militants, former Interior minister Aftab Sherpao has said, according to a report published in the McClatchy newspaper on Thursday.
They were started by the agencies and the army in the caretaker period, said Sherpao. The agreements are either done by the army or the governor. The federal government doesnt have anything to do with it.
Citing an unidentified senior Pakistani official, the newspaper said the new government found out about the militarys initiative only after it took power, and has since tried to rein in the armys plan of pulling out troops and leaving local tribes to police the area. We gave clear instructions (to the army) that there will be no agreements with anyone who does not relinquish their weapons, said the official. The agreements are part of a carrot-and-stick deal. The stick, the army of Pakistan, will not be removed.
The government does not want to get into a situation where it is more appeasement than an agreement, Khalid Aziz, a former top bureaucrat in the North West Frontier Province and a member of a task force that is developing a counter-terrorism economic strategy for the provincial government, told the newspaper. If we have to talk, lets talk something which is concrete and is not an embarrassment.
Zahid Khan from the Awami National Party told McClatchy his administration wasnt involved in the negotiations with militants in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
Washington and Kabul: The newspaper said Washington and Kabul say the withdrawal of the Pakistan Army after the previous peace deals allowed Taliban and Al Qaeda to regroup and launch attacks against North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces in Afghanistan. It is giving them (Pakistani militants) carte blanche to do whatever you want, but not here in Pakistan, Afghan Ambassador to Pakistan Muhammad Anwar Anwarzai told the newspaper.
This is going to put us right back where we were in January (2006), when the US bombed Bajaur, to pre-empt the Bajaur agreement, said Christine Fair, an analyst at the Rand Corporation.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
NEWSMAX > DE BORCHGRAVE - TALIBAN CHIEF: IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP US.
#2
I can't believe these guys don't know how it works in Pakiland. Being elected officials and all, you'd think that they'd know not to get in the army's way.
The local Taliban have started sending their militants to Afghanistan to fight United States-led NATO forces after announcing a ceasefire in Pakistan, BBC Urdu reported on Thursday.
A Taliban leader told BBC on condition of anonymity that the local Taliban leadership had started sending militants into Afghanistan after announcing a ceasefire in Pakistan following an agreement with the new government. He said that many Pakistani Taliban had crossed into Afghanistan in groups over the last few days to attack the US and NATO forces. He added that the Taliban used unusual paths to cross the border because of the presence of Pakistani and foreign troops.
When contacted, Taliban spokesman Maulvi Umar neither denied nor confirmed the recent movement of militants into Afghanistan. He said that the infiltration of Taliban into Afghanistan had been continuing for the last several years. He said the real jihad was continuing against foreign forces in Afghanistan, adding that the Taliban were merely defending themselves in Pakistan.
ISPR: ISPR spokesman Major General Athar Abaas told BBC that he had not received any confirmed reports regarding Talibans cross-border movement. He said that 120,000 Pakistani troops, armed with latest weapons and equipment, had been deployed at 1,000 checkposts on the border to check the movement of militants.
He said that cross-border terrorism was also reviewed in the meetings of the tripartite commission comprising Pakistan, Afghanistan and NATO, adding that he had not yet received any complaint from other members of the commission in this regard.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
O'REILLY > HILLARY INTERVIEW - OR told Hillary that as per his 2007 visit, IHO Pakistan is deliber allowing Islamist Terror bigwigs and units to repeatedly cross into Afghanistan and back again from OUETTA, PK,+ SURROUNDING AREA, and wid little to no Paki intervention.
#3
The treatment of Taliban as a legitmate political group is perverse. When they held most of Afghanistan, they enforced political oppression and enable foreign aggression. Remember 9-11? Some don't. I don't want them to vote; I want them to die.
KHAR: A senior Taliban leader on Thursday warned national newspapers, particularly Aaj-Kal and Express, to stop publishing pictures of women which offend them. I warn newspapers which are publishing photos [to stop] and have set a two-week deadline, otherwise we will boycott and take action against these papers, Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, deputy head of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), told reporters. He did not elaborate what action the Taliban would take against the newspapers after the deadline expires.
He said his militants would target government employees if the army takes action. We will not retaliate against the army if we come under attack. We will target government employees in response to any army action, he said.
This article starring:
MAULVI FAQIR MUHAMAD
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan
Posted by: Fred ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Better watch out Fred! The DSTP is on their list (I think it was the pics of the bathing beauties:-)
BAGHDAD - Iraqi envoys stepped up pressure on Iran during a mission Thursday that seeks to bolster claims that Tehran is arming and training Shiite militias in Iraq and bring the suspected aid to a halt. Iran has already denied it; I think the reason the Iraqi govt officials are doing this (despite the fact that some of them are likely currently taking bribes from Iran) is pressure from the ISF and Iraqi police commanders. It will, IMO, have to be followed up with more envoys -- with more Iran denials and eventually with a major anti-Iran demo (burn a mullah in effigy) - that, I think would be a game-changer.
Posted by: mhw ||
05/02/2008 09:25 ||
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#1
Interesting event.
Your view could be right, MHW. It could also be "look, we arent against you, but we HAVE broken with Sadr, hes not willing to follow our strategy, and you providing him arms in a BIG way is really proving embarassing for us, couldnt you tune it down a bit?"
Last month, I visited one of the largest Islamic schools in the Middle East. It's run by the US military - for detainees in Iraq. The suspected insurgents also participate in discussion programs about Islam - and are being trained to be carpenters, farmers and artists. It's all part of the US military's radically new approach to detention in Iraq - an integral part of its counterinsurgency effort.
For the past nine months, Task Force 134 (9,000 personnel from all the uniformed services) has been experimenting with such unconventional initiatives at two large "camps" that hold 23,245 suspected insurgents. The officer in charge is Maj. Gen. Douglas M. Stone, USMC, who oversees civilian detention in Iraq. The goal is not only to speed up the identification and release of those falsely accused of "jihadi" activity, but also to deradicalize and rehabilitate other detainees. Judging by the early results, the new approach seems to be working - at least for the vast majority. A relatively small hard core probably can't be safely released anytime soon, but US officers say that the overwhelming majority, probably more than two-thirds, will likely be freed by year's end.
Of the 8,000 detainees released since last September, only 21 have been recaptured as a result of suspected insurgent activity - a rate officers say is unprecedented. "It means that only 0.2 percent of those detained have returned to the fight," Stone told me. "At no time in the history of collected data in Iraq do we have anything remotely like this."
In my five days with the task force, I wasn't permitted to talk privately with detainees. But I visited both Camp Cropper (near Baghdad) and Camp Bucca (outside Basra). I also sat in on classes - and watched three-member military panels question detainees and review their records to decide their fates. I also interviewed more than a dozen US soldiers and Iraqi teachers, social workers and clerics working in the program.
Ahmed, a 30-year-old Sunni, talked with me as he was being released. He told me he'd never been physically abused or mistreated during his 11 months there - and had learned how to read, write, do carpentry and play chess. "Because I had never played chess before, I had to cheat to win," he joked. "None of this would have happened in an Iraqi jail."
The military tries to involve detainees' families in their rehabilitation via frequent visits, letters and cell-phone contact. At Camp Bucca - the largest detention facility in Iraq, with 20,000 of the 23,000-plus detainees - more than 1,200 family members visit interned relatives each week. At Camp Cropper, some 100 families visit each day.
The training/education effort is the reverse not only of Abu Ghraib, but of the military's former "feeding and warehousing system" - which wound up breeding an insurgency in America's own internment facilities, officers told me.
The programs also tell us much about the causes of Islamic extremism and how best to defeat such impulses. The task force's data show that 81 percent of the suspected insurgents are Iraqi males and Sunni. (Only 14 women are being detained, plus 575 juveniles, whose average age is 15.) The 240 non-Iraqi fighters hail from 21 countries. Most detainees are ages 18 to 29. And most are motivated mainly by money, or lack of it. Some 78 percent said they'd participated in attacks against Coalition forces to feed their families, and 79 percent have children. Only one in three said that they had a strong religious belief. Some 64 percent are illiterate.
A major tipping point, say officers, was when detainees began volunteering for the classes being offered. Although al Qaeda detainees and the Takfiris (another group of religious extremists) pressured fellow Iraqis against joining in, more than 3,000 detainees have done so. "After Iraqis here learn how to read and write, they can read the Koran themselves for the first time," says Sheik Ali, a Sunni who counsels detainees. (Like most Iraqis working in the program, he declined to give his surname; he must live in a US-guarded compound to avoid reprisals.) "I've seen detainees break down and cry when they realize that the conduct they thought was sanctioned by God is actually a sin."
The program's not cheap. The task force will spend about $1 billion this year, including new-facility construction. But a continued insurgency would be even more costly - in American and Iraqi lives.
And it has its critics. Marc Sageman, a psychiatrist, former CIA case officer and expert in Islamic radicalization, sees promise - but says that it's too early to call the program a success. He also fears that many detainees deemed to be de-radicalized, and then released to the still-unstable outside environment, may eventually revert to their former militancy and violent habits.
Human Rights Watch complains that it (along with a UN monitor) hasn't been allowed to interview detainees privately to ensure that they're not being mistreated or abused. But the US military argues that in time of war, only the Red Cross is entitled to make such unescorted visits - and has routinely done so.
Officers insist that a UN resolution authorizes them to detain anyone who endangers Coalition forces, and that those detained aren't traditional POWs. But the US military's program applies Geneva Conventions standards to those it now holds. Indeed, the Geneva rules are posted in many locations at both camps, along with the task force's unofficial motto for how it wants all detainees to be treated - with "respect."
LONDON - General David Petraeus, commander of US forces in Iraq, on Thursday reaffirmed his concern about Iran's role in unrest in Iraq after a meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Petraeus also gave his his backing to Baghdad's efforts to broker a deal with radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Speaking after an hour-long meeting with Brown, Petraeus said there was widespread concern about Iranian backing for attacks against the coalition in Iraq, despite the Islamic republic's denials. But he said the Shia-led Iraqi government "has very rightly" sent a delegation to try to end clashes between coalition troops and fighters loyal to Sadr who have been "armed, trained and equipped" by Iran.
Petraeus said: "The important focus has to be on the way ahead and Iran truly wanting its neighbour to the west... a fellow Shia-led government, to succeed, so there can be a constructive relationship."
He added: "I think it's very important to recognise that the Sadr trend, as a political movement, has every reason to be engaged in the political spectrum, in the political arena, in Iraq. It represents an important constituency in the citzenry of Iraq.
"But clearly it cannot have a militia that cloaks itself in the name of this respected martyr who gave the name to the movement and carried out what are very, very lethal activities and have been very harmful to the Iraqi public."
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Mahdi Army
#1
Some hudna and taqqiyah for thee?
Posted by: Angavins Scourge of the Munchkins9583 ||
05/02/2008 11:06 Comments ||
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#2
Petraeus isn't an idiot - it's called Politics of the Souk.
LONDON - The United States would look favourably on a request from the Palestinian Authority for more funds to plug a budget shortfall, the top U.S. aid official said on Thursday. Henrietta Fore, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, is in London for a meeting on Friday of international donors who last December pledged $7.4 billion to the Palestinians over three years to support efforts to find peace in the Middle East.
A report from the International Monetary Fund, released in advance of Friday's meeting, said the Palestinian Authority faced a $400 million budget shortfall in the second half of the year.
Asked if Washington would be amenable to a request for more money to help with the budget shortfall, Fore said: "Yes, we think that this is an important part of the world. It's important to support and back strong efforts of progress of people who are working for peaceful, prosperous solutions."
Oh, geez ...
At the December donors' conference in Paris, the United States pledged $555 million for Palestinians over the next year, including $150 million in budget support.
That's $150 million I'd put into wind turbine farms off Nantucket ...
Fore said there was a problem with some countries not disbursing the funds they had promised in Paris. "It is important that we keep up with the good progress of the Palestinian Authority and Prime Minister (Salam) Fayyad's government," she told Reuters in an interview. "So no doubt we will focus (at Friday's conference) on making sure that governments and organisations that have made pledges are making good on their pledges, and in a timely fashion to be useful," she said.
Fore was due to hold talks with Fayyad on Thursday to hear about the situation first hand.
"From what we are seeing there has been good solid financial progress," she said. But the Palestinian Authority's needs had increased both because of the weaker dollar and because it was paying its bills more quickly, she said. "So I'd like to look at that, I'd like to see what their financial needs are and what their progress is," she said.
Henrietta, any chance you could, say, tie the money to getting the krazed killers to back down?
She did not expect the United States to pledge new money on Friday however.
U.S. aid finances economic development, building of infrastructure and humanitarian aid in the Palestinian territories.
Thus allowing the Paleos to use their own money for the Widows Ammunition Fund ...
U.S. humanitarian aid to Gaza, run by the Islamist group Hamas, is stolenthrown awayburned channelled mainly via through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Why is Bush and Congress borrowing printing money to give to terrorists while the US dollar drops in value hourly? Oil hasn't got more expensive the Dollar has got worth LESS. Congress and the President can do something about this they can stop printing money for stupid crap like bankrolling terrorists.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/02/2008 11:12 Comments ||
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#6
Greed is never satisfied.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353944,00.html EFL U.N.'s World Food Program Cried Poverty While Sitting on Cash Stockpile of More Than $1.22 Billion
Just weeks before it announced the onset of a global food crisis and the urgent need for donors to provide at least $775 million in additional funding, the World Food Program (WFP) was sitting on a cash and near-cash stockpile of more than $1.22 billion.
The startling figure is contained in the latest audited statements of the WFP, which were endorsed by WFPs executive director, Josette Sheeran, on March 31, 2008 just a month before Sheeran announced at an international aid conference on April 22 that a silent tsunami in rising food prices demanded the huge infusion of cash for WFPs latest budget.
In an op-ed article published in the International Herald Tribune on May 1, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon further declared that the WFP had just $18 million cash in hand in the wake of its appeal for emergency funding.
The audited statements are due to be presented to the annual Rome meeting of WFPs supervisory executive board in June.
Ever since WFP first announced the looming crisis of food aid for the worlds poorest people based largely on dramatic international hikes in food costs the World Food Program and other United Nations spokesmen, including Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, have been steadily ratcheting up the tab required to top off WFPs budget to meet 2008 needs.
Initially, Sheeran announced that some $500 million was needed, though she added that would not fully fund such things as school food programs for some 20 million hungry youngsters. By the time of the aid conference, attended largely by U.N. agencies and World Bank representatives, the needed funding had risen to $775 million.
By the time the conference ended, Secretary General Ban put the shortfall at roughly $1 billion.
Ban also announced that a U.N. task force dealing with the food crisis would need as much as $1.6 billion in additional funding for seed programs and other means of expanding the global food supply.
On Thursday, President George W. Bush called on Congress to add $770 million in new international food aid to some $350 million in new aid he announced after WFP announced the silent tsunami crisis.
Jewish leaders concocted the mass murder of handicapped Jews in order to keep from having to support them, and this murder is what the Jews term "the Holocaust," according to a documentary special that aired on April 18 on Hamas's Al Aqsa television station.
Palestinian Media Watch located and translated the contents of the footage, which it uploaded to YouTube under the headline "Hamas: Jews planned Holocaust."
According to the documentary's narrator, Israel's first prime minister David Ben Gurion decided that Jewish "disabled and handicapped are a burden to the state," after which "the Satanic Jews" - the film cuts to a picture of a hassidic Jew - "thought up an evil plot to be rid of the burden of disabled and handicapped" - the film then cuts to piles of emaciated corpses - "in twisted criminal ways."
"This is official Hamas TV," explained PMW director Itamar Marcus. "It's owned and totally controlled by the Hamas leadership in Gaza, and it goes out by satellite to the whole Arab-speaking world."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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Egypt says 12 small Palestinian factions have agreed to Egyptian proposals for a truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Only 394041 42 more to bring on board...
Egypt's state news agency (MENA) quotes officials as saying the Palestinian groups approved the cease-fire offer at a meeting Wednesday in Cairo. It says the truce would begin in Gaza and be extended later to the West Bank. No timeframe was given.
The larger Hamas militant group that controls Gaza told Egypt last week it would support a six-month cease-fire with Israel in Gaza, to be followed by a similar truce in the West Bank.
Egypt has been trying for months to mediate an Israeli-Palestinian deal that would include a truce, an exchange of prisoners and an opening of Gaza's border crossings. Israel has expressed doubts about the latest Palestinian truce offers, arguing they would give militants time to re-arm.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/02/2008 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[1 views]
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#1
And when they get food supplies, it is back to jihad. You can trust a Paleo as far as you can spit against a hurricane.
#5
Let Egypt open their borders and supply Gaza. Why should Israel? Egypt does not want the headache, and they don't want to throw their money down a rathole. They just want Israel to be the sucker.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
05/02/2008 16:56 Comments ||
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#6
"Egypt says 12 small Palestinian factions have agreed to Egyptian proposals for a truce with Israel in the Gaza Strip LIED"
There - fixed.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/02/2008 21:46 Comments ||
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#7
Egyptian merchants tried to cash that Monopoly money the Paleos printed up and got nuthin for the goods they sold... guess they wised up
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/02/2008 21:55 Comments ||
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H/T Boortz
Ranchi, May 1 (IANS) The University of Ranchi Thursday hurriedly cancelled its post-graduation history paper after thousands of Muslims took to the streets protesting against a reference to Prophet Mohammed they said was derogatory. A five-member committee has been constituted (to probe) the question paper. The examination has been cancelled, Vice Chancellor A.H. Khan announced, shortly after his meeting with Chief Minister Madhu Koda.
The question in the history paper referred to Prophet Mohammeds life. The examination took place Wednesday.
On Thursday, Muslim organisations organised a march and ransacked the university office to protest against the offending question. I recall some Partial Differential Equations exam questions that had me wanting to ransack things.
The police used force to control the mob.
The university then held an emergency meeting of its top officials.
Chief Minister Koda said: We have asked the vice chancellor to probe the matter and take suitable action against the person who prepared the question. We appeal to people to maintain calm.
If they could do that there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place ...
#1
So what was the question?
Were they rioting because it asked if Mohammed was a murderous pedophile? Or because they asked the students to compare Mohammed (kill the infidel) with Jesus (love your enemies; do good to those who hurt you)?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
05/02/2008 13:18 Comments ||
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#2
Something about Mo being a steaming pile of pigshit, but don't quote me...
#3
Something about filty, unclean infidels just talking about old mo'; the mohamedans don't take lightly to have their own God (this is what old mo' really is, much more than the mercurial allan)'s name taken by the kufrs.
#5
Via: Times of India
RANCHI: Angry groups of Muslims ransacked the main building of Ranchi University on Thursday protesting against the contents of a PG History question paper that sought comments from students on Prophet Muhammad who was described as a "trader" whose career ended as a "raider".
Posted by: Albert Flereting3207 ||
05/02/2008 14:49 Comments ||
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#6
Ritoting over trurth, nice. (Even more so since muslims actually seem to be rather proud of old mo's warring and warleader days, and of islam's conquering and imperialistic streak, though when Learned Elderds are confronted about this when asked about the RoP bit, all of his 72 or so IIRC warring raids were done "in self defense", or so they say).
#7
interesting that the question itself was not mentioned.
Allows for ones mind to wander and consider many other probable questions.
good one Tu ;
Posted by: Jan ||
05/02/2008 17:28 Comments ||
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#8
You know if anyone had the nerve to start shooting rioters, there would be a lot less of it. As it stands, rioting is Muslim recess. I think that if they can't play well with others, they should be expelled from the school and given NO government benefits. Let them go live somewhere foolish enough to be a theocracy.
#9
Muslims are allowed to get away with it for two reasons, one third world muslims (and they all are, no matter where they live) aren't considered civilized and hence aren't expected to act like civilized men, and two, people are afraid that if they say anything these bastards will come for them in the night and their governments won't do anything to protect them.
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.
Pfc. Monica Brown cracked open the door of her Humvee outside a remote village in eastern Afghanistan to the pop of bullets shot by Taliban fighters. But instead of taking cover, the 18-year-old medic grabbed her bag and ran through gunfire toward fellow soldiers in a crippled and burning vehicle.
Almost no one in Canada has the slightest idea who Jahid Mohseni is. Until recently, most of his own countrymen in Afghanistan also had no idea who he was. However, all that changed overnight as Jahid Mohseni, director of Tolo TV, Afghanistan's most popular television station, found himself locked in a battle over freedom of the press and media with conservatives and Muslim clerics.
DUBAI - Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif said on Thursday after crucial talks with coalition partner Asif Ali Zardari that a reinstatement of judges that had threatened their alliance will take place as previously agreed.
The local Taliban have started sending their militants to Afghanistan to fight United States-led NATO forces after announcing a ceasefire in Pakistan, BBC Urdu reported on Thursday. 
Last month, I visited one of the largest Islamic schools in the Middle East. It's run by the US military - for detainees in Iraq. The suspected insurgents also participate in discussion programs about Islam - and are being trained to be carpenters, farmers and artists. It's all part of the US military's radically new approach to detention in Iraq - an integral part of its counterinsurgency effort. 
LONDON - The United States would look favourably on a request from the Palestinian Authority for more funds to plug a budget shortfall, the top U.S. aid official said on Thursday. Henrietta Fore, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, is in London for a meeting on Friday of international donors who last December pledged $7.4 billion to the Palestinians over three years to support efforts to find peace in the Middle East.
