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Another 50 killed in Iraq car boom
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Life Is Going to the Dogs
The lovely wife and I have spent the last two evenings watching most of the Westminster Kennel Club’s dog show on television. I wanted to watch because I’ve been following the exploits of Lacey, a Borzoi (Russian Wolfhound) shown by Greg Hlatky, who blogs at A Dog’s Life. Don’t go look at that link until Monday, February 16 or so. He’s been in New York City and the blog has rolled to a blank while he’s out at the show. Lacey won Best of Breed but did not place in the Hounds Group. I did think she could have taken fourth over the Irish Wolfhound. She appeared a bit distracted during the Group and the Group winner was a determined Ibizan Hound. Best of Show was a gorgeous Newfoundland, though the wife and I were torn about the runner up, a Corgi with a lot of attitude and stage presence.
Ch Soyara’s Chantilly Lace JC
Breed: Borzoi
Sex: Bitch
AKC: HM 76323403
Date of Birth: December 19, 1997
Breeder: Prudence G Hlatky & Sabrina Rhodes
Sire: Ch Rossak Of Enfield
Dam: Ch Soyara Misleading Lady Essar
Owner: Prudence G Hlatky & Dr Gregory G Hlatky

Congrats to to the Hlatkys.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/11/2004 11:27:02 AM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Corgi, really? I thought Sussex Spaniel was much nicer, with that friendly wagging tail and all. But Josh The Newfoundland was truly magnificent - and the regal way he responded to the cheering crowd! I'm sorry I missed Lacey, she was one of my reasons for watching the show, too.
My congratulations to G.Hlatky.
Posted by: Tatyana || 02/11/2004 12:52 Comments || Top||

#2  Well .... the Ibizan is the best example of the breed that I have seen and that people I know who are much more experienced breeders have seen. The Borzoi might have been tense ... her movement was a bit more stilted than I expect in that breed which may be why she lost the 4th place to the IW.

Gotta brag here - the English Cocker Spaniel breed winner is a litter sister of my foundation bitch (the girl my ECS line is based on). She is bred by my mentor and partner Judy Corbett & her mother is the top winning female ECS of all time: multiple Best in Show & multiple Best in National Specialty winner Champion Jaybriar's Heretic, who is also one of the top 3 mothers of champion offspring in the breed's history and competes in agility too. The father of the litter is a Best in Specialty and Best of Opposite Sex at the National specialty winner - his breeders own Roma, the littermate that won the Breed.

Anyway, *I* wished the Whippet had placed in the Hound group - she's lovely, but a bit West Coast in type. Judy and I have a half-brother to her who finished his show title quickly as a puppy.

The Sussex is a nice specimen of his breed, I like the English Setter a lot. The top English Springer didn't make it out of breed judging ... it would have been interesting to see what that judge would have done if he'd been there. I think she has given him some wins in the past ...
And yeah - the Corgi was great. That breed ring must have been something - I wish the breed judging were televised so I could tape & watch it. Didn't take time off to attend this year, alas.



Okay, end of brags. [smile]
Posted by: rkb || 02/11/2004 13:04 Comments || Top||

#3  ummm ... I think I got carried away & forgot this is Rantburg and not the Showdogs-L discussion list.

Sorry! Dog show people can get a little ... intense .... (red face)

It's awesome to get invited to the Garden and even more awesome to win the breed there - big congratulations to Lacey & her people!

On a funny note, I watched the group judging in our family room with the dogs all lounging on the sofas & easy chair. They took it all in stride *except* when spaniel breeds were in the camera. Then, all of a sudden, the cockers crowded around the TV and started "WOO WOO WOO !!!! STRANGE DOG ALERT!!! " - ing.

The Whippet puppy looked up, yawned and claimed the warm spot on the best chair while they worked themselves into a righteous frenzy.

Pretty funny ....
Posted by: rkb || 02/11/2004 13:14 Comments || Top||

#4  Now this is cool,wish I had known.Would of checked it out.I like watching the Westmin.Rest of the Faimly doesn't

Rantburg U.has a class in championship show dogs.

Had a Golden retreiver ounce upon a time,best damn kid lovin dog I ever had.
Had a couple of Chow-Chows,good family dogs.Even if they are a bit skittish.

Thanks
RKB
CS
Posted by: Raptor || 02/11/2004 13:53 Comments || Top||

#5  I own a Newf. Great big slobbery, shedding, teddy-bear. They're a bit on the high-maintenance side, and you can't even begin to keep the house clean, but we wouldn't trade him for anything.

Naturally, we were delighted to see Josh win it all.
Posted by: Steve YAO || 02/11/2004 15:16 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Two Inmates Nailed to Crosses in Bolivia - by their buddies
EFL
Two inmates were voluntarily nailed to crosses Wednesday by their fellow prisoners as part of a protest for better conditions and shorter sentences that was broadcast on Bolivian television.
"Mom? What's Sponge Bob doing?"
The two men at the Palmasola prison in this city southeast of La Paz screamed in pain as their hands were nailed to the makeshift crosses. Inmates Freddy Acosta and Walter Ortiz were removed from the crosses after a few minutes and taken to the prison infirmary for treatment of broken bones in their hands, said regional police commander Freddy Soruco.
You got to wonder whether they are thieves.
They were removed by police who rushed to the scene. "No one forced us to do this," said Acosta, 37. "It’s the authorities’ fault."
- and if they refuse to meet our demands Betty the prostitute has volunteered to let us pelt her with chunks of cinder block.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 9:07:42 PM || Comments || Link || [336078 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think this was just a publicity stunt for Gibson's new movie.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 21:59 Comments || Top||


Actress’s breasts cut in chainsaw accident
The title made me do it, sorry:
A German actress was taken to hospital after an artist injured her breasts while trying to cut open her bra with a chainsaw during a rehearsal for a stage show, she has told a newspaper.
Really, you can’t make this stuff up.
"It was the worst moment of my life. I thought, Sibylle, you’re going to die," the actress, former porn star Sibylle Rauch, 43, told Bild newspaper. The chainsaw operator, performance artist Marko Koenig, said Rauch was lying down during the rehearsal on Monday and suddenly bent forward just as he was applying the saw to her bra.
"Oops!"
"I couldn’t pull back the chainsaw quickly enough and cut her breast and stomach. It was terrible," he told Bild. The hospital in Karlsruhe, southwest Germany, where Rauch was treated declined to give details of her injuries.
Nearly had a career change from former porn star to topless dancer. (rimshot) Thank you, I’ll be here all week.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 2:23:57 PM || Comments || Link || [336090 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Just call me Sybylle Rrrrr-OUCH!
Posted by: BH || 02/11/2004 14:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Whudda buncha maroons. They need to put someone else in charge of props and get a new director. It doesn't have to be a real operating saw and it doesn't have to really cut the bra.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 14:48 Comments || Top||

#3  If Justin had similarly de-cupped Janet during the Super Bowl halftime, who among us would have been offended by the bleeding, bloody spectacle? It would have been soooooo cool, man....Ha....
Posted by: Garrison || 02/11/2004 14:49 Comments || Top||

#4  Just a reminder, I'm still in the market for tasteful B&W glossies of chainsaw accidents.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 14:50 Comments || Top||

#5  Ah, Ship - you're such a connoiseur! Only the best for you, my man! ;-)
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 15:07 Comments || Top||

#6  This is not performance art! If it was performance art, he'd have set her on fire, pissed on her to put it out and then gone after her with the chain saw...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 16:11 Comments || Top||

#7  Performance Artist: The last refuge of the Unemployed and Unemployable.
Posted by: LaBud || 02/11/2004 17:16 Comments || Top||

#8  My sympathy meter's pegged at zero. What the hell was she thinking?

"Too stupid to live" should be a valid diagnosis.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/11/2004 17:18 Comments || Top||

#9  "Porn star" and "rimshot." Very poor placement of terms.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 02/11/2004 18:33 Comments || Top||

#10  I've done quite a bit of chainsawing in my life. One thing my dad told me was,

"NEVER, NEVER, NEVER unhook a bra with a live chainsaw. What you gain in speed can be lost in chips."
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/11/2004 18:49 Comments || Top||

#11  LOL,AP. Silicon gets sprayed everywhere. Yuuck!
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 20:15 Comments || Top||

#12  LOL,AP. Silicon gets sprayed everywhere. Yuuck!
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 20:15 Comments || Top||

#13  I think the guy who wore the turkey on his head and pushed the peanut to the stairs of No. 10 Downing must have been more of a classic performance artist, while this guy is more edgy.

The way art is going, the guy who edits the Faces of Death series can still hope for an Oscar. If the wave passes him by and jumps right into rewarding snuff flicks maybe he can still get a lifetime achievement award down the road somewhere.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 21:49 Comments || Top||

#14  Did the show"Dumb Ass" have anything to do with this.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/12/2004 9:55 Comments || Top||


French Woman marries dead boyfriend
This belongs in the - Can’t make this up - category
A 35-year-old Frenchwoman became both bride and widow when she married her dead boyfriend, in an exchange of vows that required authorisation from the French president... According to French law, a marriage between a living person and a dead person can take place as long as preliminary civic formalities have been completed that show the couple had planned to marry. Before the ceremony can take place, it must be approved by the French president.
And I always thought that the French were the official arbiters of how to have sex! EUUUUUUUU I know this has nothing to do with the WOT, but too good to pass. Delete if you need to.
Posted by: SamIII || 02/11/2004 7:56:35 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Let's see, today's agenda:
1. Budget
2. Military
3. Unemployment
4. Foreign affairs
5. OK dead guy getting married
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/11/2004 8:43 Comments || Top||

#2  Does the widow receive the dead guy's pension?
Posted by: Crescend || 02/11/2004 8:44 Comments || Top||

#3  only if she has sex with him I think.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/11/2004 9:04 Comments || Top||

#4  At least we know he doesn't need Viagra... he's already stiff.
Posted by: Unmutual || 02/11/2004 10:02 Comments || Top||

#5  He'll have to endure a lot of nagging.
"sorry lazy ass never makes me breakfast in bed!"
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 10:23 Comments || Top||

#6  Reminder Alert: Saturday is Valentine's Day!
Please be my Rigor MortisValentine? Bwhahahah!
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 10:28 Comments || Top||

#7  Well, he's not going to complain if she sleeps with other guys.

BTW, isn't necrophilia a perversion?
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/11/2004 10:44 Comments || Top||

#8  They say a hard man is good to find.
Posted by: BH || 02/11/2004 10:46 Comments || Top||

#9  I've heard of dying from sex, but getting sex even after you're dead? Somebody move his face into a grin!
Posted by: Charles || 02/11/2004 14:39 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Saudi Religious Police Members Assaulted
Two members of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice were hospitalized with stab wounds after an assault in Al-Aflaj near Riyadh on Tuesday.
That's where they keep that poor duck in bondage...
The assault occurred as a man and his wife were traveling together by car. The driver saw a vehicle belonging to the commission behind him and felt that it was following him. He stopped and accused the two commission members of stalking him which they denied, explaining they were doing a routine patrol.
"Youse guys are followin' us, ain't you?"
"Just a routine patrol, bub."
The man refused to accept their story and prevented them from leaving as he phoned his father.
"Hello, Pop? Sonny, here. There's two beardo-coppers here, been followin' me around. I think they got the hots for the Little Woman!"
When the father arrived, an argument followed and he stabbed the two commission members who were then rushed to the hospital. “They have been released from the hospital and are now resting,” said a member of the commission.
"Ooooh! Spit! Mahmoud! Who wuz that guy?"
"I dunno, Ahmed. Is there any of that pain medication left?"
Posted by: TS || 02/11/2004 7:39:37 PM || Comments || Link || [336074 views] Top|| File under:

#1  About time someone gave the Muttawa’a a lesson.
Unfortunately, poor ole pa is going lose in the long run.
Another tale from the 70's. A German woman, wearing a mid-calf length skirt, was walking alone on a crowded street of Riyadh. A Muttawa’a came from behind and started whacking her on the legs with his punishment stick. Much to the delight and cheers of the onlookers, she wrested the stick from him and chased him down the street. If these hated clowns weren't protected by the Crown, there would be many more incidents such as the one described in TS's post.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 20:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Hope this kinda response to the thought police spreads.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/12/2004 9:57 Comments || Top||


Two wanted Al Qaeda men killed in Saudi Arabia
Two members of Al-Qaeda have been killed in Saudi Arabia where they were wanted by the security forces, according to a statement published today on the Internet in the name of the terror network’s Gulf branch.
The Gulf Branch? Can we get a copy of your org chart, please?
"Amer bin Mohsen al-Zeidan al-Shihri and Abdul Ilah al-Utaibi fell as martyrs during a clash with the forces of the apostate regime of the (ruling) al-Saud in the al-Suweidi district of Riyadh," says the statement.
No date as to when this happened.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 8:42:11 AM || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Enjoy getting ass fisted in hell your virgins
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/11/2004 10:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Wonder if they were RSAF pilots?
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 10:42 Comments || Top||

#3  I want to get this right but if a Saudi cop dies and the ALQ dies in the same fight are they both martyrs-or do they split the virgins 36 each. Questions questions questions.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/11/2004 11:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Good one. Guess you'll have to send it to "Ask the Imam".
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 12:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Awwww, did da widdle tewwowists go boom? Ain't that just too bad.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/11/2004 17:33 Comments || Top||

#6  Wonder if they were RSAF pilots?

Actually the RSAF is reportedly the least-infiltrated of the Saudi military and security forces.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/11/2004 18:36 Comments || Top||


Saudi Arabia enrages Yemen with fence
EFL & Buttloads of Fun!
Saudi Arabia, one of the largest suppliers of terrorists most vocal critics in the Arab world of Israel’s right to defend itself "security fence" in the West Bank, is quietly emulating the Israeli example by erecting a barrier along its porous border with Yemen.
No hypocrisy here. Move Along. Nothing to see....And what is it they are concerned about?
The barrier is part of a plan to erect what will be an electronic surveillance system along the length of the kingdom’s frontiers - land, air and sea. Behind the plan is a deep-seated lack of trust in the Yemeni authorities’ ability to arrest infiltrators before they became indentured servants make it into Saudi territory.
I was thinking maybe the Soddys were concerned about the Chat flow.
A Yemeni delegation arrived in Jeddah for emergency talks a puff on the Hookah and wad Chat on the issue yesterday, after submitting an official complaint. Saudi officials have combated drug, alcohol, luxury-goods and arms smuggling across the mountainous and porous border with Yemen for years. And they have paid a high price in their battles with the smugglers.
What kind of ‘luxury-goods’ could be flowing from Yemen to Soddy?
In 2002, 36 Saudi border guards were killed in Jizan, a southern Saudi border town. The government says the smugglers provide the explosives and weapons used by radical Islamists inside the kingdom, who carried out two suicide attacks against civilian targets last year, killing more than 50 and injuring hundreds.
WAIT! There are radical Islamists inside the kingdom? Since when?
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 02/11/2004 7:50:42 AM || Comments || Link || [336076 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is this the "cement filled pipeline" or are they branching out?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 8:54 Comments || Top||

#2  First of all, like everything in that area, it's tribal. And smuggling is a national sport for both Soddis and Yemenis.

The fence "could" be built though the geography makes it very expensive. And patrolling the fence relies on the Soddi forces being willing to get off their duff's and do some work for a change. My guess is that this is just an extortion attempt and once the right Soddi palms are greased, the issue will disappear.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/11/2004 8:55 Comments || Top||

#3  What kind of ‘luxury-goods’ could be flowing from Yemen to Soddy?
Ten year old wimmin?
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 10:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Damn--they're building fences like they're going out of style all over the Middle East! Time to buy some stock in Home al-Depot.
Posted by: Dar || 02/11/2004 12:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Just as "there is a difference between Socialist lobotomies and Capitalist lobotomies" (said by a leftist in Cuba), we need to understand there is a difference between an Arab wall and a Jewish/Zionist/Crusader wall.
Posted by: Jackal || 02/11/2004 22:04 Comments || Top||


Soddies deny thwarting al-Qaeda attack
An official Saudi source at the Ministry of Defense and Aviation on Tuesday denied a recent Israeli media report claiming Saudi Arabia had foiled an air suicide mission planned to be carried out by a Saudi pilot against an Israeli target. According to the report, Israel’s OC Air Force Maj.-Gen. Dan Halutz warned that "concrete intelligence information" suggested that Al Qaeda attempted to recruit pilots in order to attack Israel using airplanes. The report further said Saudi authorities foiled one such attempt. According to the Israeli report, the pilot, who was planning to launch the suicide attack against Israel under directives of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network, had been arrested. The Saudi Press Agency, however, citing the official source, said, "The report is entirely fabricated and false."
"No, no! Certainly not!"
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:05:13 AM || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Either way, he'll still manage to "escape" from prison.
Posted by: Nick M. || 02/11/2004 0:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Or die in a "prison-fire"
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/11/2004 9:40 Comments || Top||

#3  So if they didn't thwart it...did it happen?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 9:47 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Cuban Police Demands - Knock off the Auto Show
I didn’t have the heart to EFL this one very much. It stands as a tribute to those who love freedom and like classic cars as well.
Cuban police inspected a house and several auto repair shops Wednesday in a neighborhood where residents recently converted two 1950s cars into boats that refugees used in attempts to reach the United States. The search came a day after eight residents of the Diezmero neighborhood in Havana were returned to Cuba by the U.S. Coast Guard after their converted 1959 Buick was spotted floating off Key West, Fla. That was the second time in seven months such a trip was attempted. Last July, a group including some of the same refugees from Diezmero "set sail" in a converted 1951 Chevy pickup outfitted with pontoons and waterproofed doors. They too were stopped by U.S. authorities and returned to Cuba. On Wednesday, police said they were looking for a red 1951 Ford pickup belonging to the family of Marcial Basanta, one of the refugees returned to Cuba on Tuesday, according to Basanta’s father, also named Marcial. "They broke the door (of the family’s house) and said they were going to take the truck away," the elder Basanta said. But the authorities left without seizing the vehicle, which was parked in an adjacent garage.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 9:24:14 PM || Comments || Link || [336097 views] Top|| File under:


usama on mexican soccer team
The boos nearly drowned out "The Star-Spangled Banner," and a few dozen fans chanted "Usama! Usama!" as the United States was eliminated by Mexico in Olympic men’s soccer qualifying. A loud anti-American crowd yelled the first name of Usama bin Laden, the leader of the Al Qaeda terrorists who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, as Mexico beat the United States 4-0 Tuesday night in the under-23 tournament, claiming a berth in the Athens Olympics. As U.S. players left the stadium for their bus, several fans -- some clutching beers -- chanted "Usama! Usama!"

Police in riot gear held back the crowd and urged people to calm down. "I think the fans here in Mexico are terrific; I think their patriotism and support of their team is terrific," U.S. coach Glenn Myernick said. "But unless I missed something, not one of them came down on the field and kicked the ball. We were beaten by a better football team tonight, not by the fans."

For Mexico, the game partly avenged a 2-0 loss to the United States in the second round of the 2002 World Cup, a far more important tournament involving national teams. The U.S. men will miss the Olympics for the first time since 1980 -- when the entire American delegation boycotted the Moscow Games. Mexico also ended the United States’ 19-tournament streak of qualifying for every FIFA men’s outdoor event, including the World Cup, the Olympics, the World Youth Championship for players under 20 and the Under-17 World Championship. While both Mexican national television networks broadcast Tuesday’s game live in Mexico, there was no television in the United States, where the game was broadcast on closed circuit to about 190 restaurants.
leave it to chainey to be looking on the wrong continent
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/11/2004 4:10:03 PM || Comments || Link || [336079 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So muck4doo, let me get this straight? Your take on this story is that you think Usama Bin Laden is actually playing for the Mexican National soccer team, right?
No...No...this is too easy....
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 16:23 Comments || Top||

#2  The main thing that comes through from this story for me is how much of a gentleman Mr. Myernick is.

Oh, and the commentator is right - it's *far* better to beat Mexico to get into the World Cup than to not get into the Olympics. Far far better... :)

As an Englishman, and therefore feeling some pride in bringing football (sorry my American friends, but it's football, not soccer!) to the world (yes, I know we don't win the World Cup anymore), I do wonder what will happen when the Americans decide to take football seriously...
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 02/11/2004 16:38 Comments || Top||

#3  Let's see:

Misspellings - check.
Lack of capitaliztion - check.
Reference to 'Faux' News - check.

You might be a troll if...
Posted by: Raj || 02/11/2004 16:45 Comments || Top||

#4  I heard that some US sponsors are not going to Athens. This might be for the best.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/11/2004 17:10 Comments || Top||

#5  Soccer fans behaving deplorably. Whoever heard of such a thing????!!!!
Posted by: Tokyo Taro || 02/11/2004 17:18 Comments || Top||

#6  I actually read yesterday that the Osama cheer started the last time US played in Mexico. These are just "2 teams that don't like each other very much".
I would mention to Tony (UK) that I live in a major TV market and get 120 stations on my TV,and interest in this game was so high, not one station carried it!
There was an interesting public television broadcast documentary on, however, called "watching paint dry".

PS Whatever became of Bulldog? Still out there?
Posted by: Capsu78 || 02/11/2004 17:30 Comments || Top||

#7  Tony (UK) - When the US starts taking soccer ;) seriously then the Mexico's and El Salvadors of the world better hope we don't take their other habits seriously, like starting wars over games (ala Honduras - El Salvador in '68).
Posted by: Laurence of the Rats || 02/11/2004 17:30 Comments || Top||

#8  Where to begin? :)

TT: Yes, footy fans can be totally unreal - compare and contrast with Rugby fans (my game actually), where the players beat the living crap out of each other - then shake hands at the end of a game, but the fans can be tanked up at a match (common to have people drinking hard liquor from hip flasks) and you still get no aggravation.

Capsu78 - it is the qualifiers for the Olympics after all, so it's a real shame that it wasn't shown.

LOTR - too true!. There is something about football :) that can bring out the worst in people (and countries). South America has some of the worst examples of that, although there was the Heysel stadium tragedy in 1985 which was brutal.
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 02/11/2004 17:54 Comments || Top||

#9  Back in my high school here in the U.S. we used to call Rugby 'Butcher ball'. Too bad it isn't taken more seriously it is far tougher then 'american Football' even was.

Rugby players have balls of steel
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/11/2004 18:09 Comments || Top||

#10  Ok urban legend coming up here; (oh, and an 'ouch' alert!)



I heard about an "All Black" rugby player (NZ national side) that was involved in a match where his scrotum was ripped (this can happen as it's legit to step on blokes when they're on the ground and not getting away from the ball quick enough). He went off, had it stitched up and carried on until the end of the game.

Err, seems it is not an urban legend.
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 02/11/2004 19:01 Comments || Top||

#11  Well at least 'e 'ad thread. In my dad if we didn't honore debalzak we 'ad to use a staple.
Posted by: Cornishman 1 || 02/11/2004 19:35 Comments || Top||

#12  I have very mixed feelings about not qualifying.

Because I'm a huge soccer fan and proud American, I'm disappointed. (I'm bummed about the baseball team, too.)

On the other hand, I think the Athens Games are going to be a disaster on many levels and the likliest target for a major 9/11-style terror attack.

We've had successful (meaning safe and secure) World Cups, Olympics, Super Bowls, etc., around the world since 9/11 but only in countries that are prepared to take security seriously. For myriad reasons, I don't think Greece is one of those countries right now.

If I were an athlete (if pigs could fly...) I'd be nervous; as a fan, I wouldn't even consider going. The Athens Games will be horrible and I'm glad our future soccer stars (Adu, Donovan, etc.) won't be there.

PS--I'm sure Tony UK will back me when I say that an Olympic title is nowhere near as prestigious as the World Cup anyway.
Posted by: JDB || 02/11/2004 19:41 Comments || Top||

#13  Tony, aren't there two kinds of rugby (league and union?) What is the difference?
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 20:20 Comments || Top||

#14  SH, union is the original version, league is for pussies, no scrum, set number of plays before the ball is turned over
Posted by: Igs || 02/11/2004 20:30 Comments || Top||

#15  In the 1970 Sydney Rugby League grand final, South Sydney v Manly, John Sattler (Captain of Souths) had his jaw broken by a punch immediately after the start of the game. He stayed on the field and played out the match, which Souths won 23-12."I just went in harder. If they knew I was hurt they would have targeted me"
League is for pussies, indeed.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/11/2004 21:05 Comments || Top||

#16  Tony,

Watched a few games at Navy. Many guys that dropped off the football team picked up Rugby because they liked the contact. My bother's roomate got cut from the basketball team his senior year and joined the rugby team. He was evidently very good and continued playing for the USMC after graduation on and off through flight school. Evidently having a 6 foot 5 inch guy to jump when the ball is tossed in from teh sideline was a valued commodity on a rugby team.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 21:40 Comments || Top||

#17  Cornishman 1 - staple!, you mean you had metal!. We used to dream of metal! :)

JDB - absolutely agree with you, both on not going to the Olympics, and secondly that the Olympic title pales next to the World Cup.

SH - lgs and Anonymous have laid it out well (although there's no way *I'd* call a league player a pussy!). You'll also have noticed that the 6' 5" guy gets an assist from his mates on the ground, thereby putting him into the stratosphere.

I'd have thought that with all the guys playing American football, that the interest in rugby would be on the increase, and certainly some of the guys I've heard about would be ideal - very fast guys for the backs, the linebackers (huge buggers used to block tackles - I think?) would be good for the various places in a scrum etc.
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 02/12/2004 1:43 Comments || Top||


Puerto Rico Past 100 Killings for This Year
EFL:
Four people were killed in separate shootings in Puerto Rico, pushing the number of deaths past the 100 mark for this year in the U.S. territory, police said Wednesday. Since Jan. 1, there have been 104 homicides in Puerto Rico, an increase of 19, compared with the same period last year, police said. There were 780 killings in 2003, compared with 781 in 2002. Police say most of the violence on the island of 4 million people is drug-related. Police make arrests in fewer than half the cases, blaming poor cooperation by residents who feel either compelled to protect their neighbors or afraid to incriminate them.
No wonder we have so many soldiers enlisting from PR, you’re safer in Iraq than on the streets of San Juan.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 10:45:35 AM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Maybe the shooters were all pissed off that their Golden Goo, er, the Navy was hounded out of town.

I propose that Puerto Rico be made an EX-U.S. territory.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/11/2004 10:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Send in the Kurds
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 11:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Thank God the Navy's gone. Might be really dangerous down there if they were still shooting up Vieques...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 11:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Just insert PR everytime a hysterical journalists attempts to write anything about GitMo.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 02/11/2004 13:15 Comments || Top||


China-Japan-Koreas
N Korean defector ’held by China’
EFL
Kang Byong-sop, 58, was stopped last month in Yunnan province while trying to cross into Laos, Kim Sang-hun said. Mr Kim called on the UK to stop China handing Mr Kang to North Korea, where he faced possible torture or death. Pyongyang has described claims it used political prisoners to test gases for chemical weapons as "US propaganda". Mr Kang was the source of a North Korean document, or letter of transfer, which appeared to authorise chemical weapons testing on political prisoners. Mr Kim, a Christian activist who has helped dozens of North Koreans escape to the South, had contacted Mr Kang and encouraged him to flee North Korea with documentary proof of the testing. "We knew he had strong feelings that someone had to do something to stop this practise," Mr Kim told BBC News Online.

Mr Kang was an engineer at a chemical factory where the testing allegedly took place. On one occasion, according to Mr Kim, Mr Kang inadvertently witnessed what appeared to be tests being conducted behind a large glass window. "He saw human hands, scratching the window from the inside," Mr Kim said. Mr Kang was helped to leave North Korea and arrived in China in July 2003, before travelling across the country in secret. Mr Kang was detained, with his wife and son and two South Korean helpers, on 4 January, Mr Kim said. "It appears the North Koreans have found out papers are missing. They offered a lot of bounty money to the Chinese authorities, who were waiting for him."
Doesn’t look good for the man.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 9:34:54 PM || Comments || Link || [336105 views] Top|| File under:

#1  (NK)offered a lot of bounty money to the Chinese authorities, who were waiting for him.
Enough to feed a few starving citizens?
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 22:21 Comments || Top||


North Korea Claims Support From China
North Korea said Tuesday that it has received support from China for its proposal to freeze its nuclear weapons programs in return for free oil and other economic concessions from the United States. China signaled its support at a meeting in Beijing between North Korea’s vice foreign minister, Kim Kye Gwan, and top Chinese officials including Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.
Aren’t the Chinese great? They’re happy to give away our oil in return for nothing.
The Chinese side "recognized the rationality" of Pyongyang’s proposal to help end the nuclear dispute, a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman told KCNA. The United States, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia are scheduled to begin talks on Feb. 25 over U.S. demands that North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons programs in a "complete, irreversible and verifiable manner." North Korea has proposed to freeze all its nuclear activities, as a first step to resolving the nuclear dispute if the United States provides free oil shipments, lifts economic sanctions and removes the Communist country from its list of countries that sponsor terrorism. The Bush administration insists North Korea begin dismantling its nuclear programs before it makes concessions. China cautioned against expecting a swift resolution of the standoff, saying all sides should have "realistic" expectations about the upcoming talks. "The question is a very complicated one ... and we have different views about the issue," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said Tuesday. She added that the sides "should not expect to solve the issue within one or two rounds of talks."
"Even if we do give away their oil!"
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 12:40:34 AM || Comments || Link || [336061 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fine I say we give em snake oil then, they never specified what TYPE of oil we got to give them.
Posted by: Valentine || 02/11/2004 3:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Err china supports NKOR getting free oil from the US. I bet they do! As a sign of multilateralism, we now will support China feeding NKOR, giving them oil, and generally tying the lead anchor that is NKOR around their collective necks.
Posted by: flash91 || 02/11/2004 10:55 Comments || Top||

#3  C'mon over! We're having a duck dinner! You bring the duck...
Posted by: PBMcL || 02/11/2004 14:51 Comments || Top||

#4  I got a better proposition - NKs dismantle their nuke prog and their bombs/missiles, and we will think about allowing them to get oil/fuel shipped to their ports after getting other sucke^H^H^H^H^Hparties to extend credit. Anything that the NKs want that is "free" is NOT going to come from the U.S.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/11/2004 15:44 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Just Your Typical Aussie
Man drives car with shark biting leg
A MAN attacked by a small shark swam 300 metres, walked to his car and drove to a local surf club to get help while the shark was still attached to his leg.
"Mate, c'n y'get this thing off me leg? An' I'll have one of those sudsers, please!"
The wobbegong, or so-called carpet shark, attacked 22-year-old Luke Tresoglavic yesterday as he was snorkelling on a reef off Caves Beach, south of Newcastle. Mr Tresoglavic said today that when the 60 centimetre shark attacked him, he "instantly grabbed hold of it with both hands as hard as I could to stop it shaking. I just realised I had to swim in like that, hanging on to it. Once I got on to shore, a couple of people tried to help me but I could not remove it, it was stuck there. So I got up into my car and then drove to the clubhouse and luckily the guys down there had a clue what to do."
"Here! Pour some beer on it! That always works!"
Senior lifeguard Michael Jones could hardly believe his eyes when Mr Tresoglavic turned up. "The first we knew of it was a bloke lobbed up here at the lifeguard tower with a shark attached to his leg," Mr Jones said. "He basically asked the question, ’Can you help me get it off?’ – there’s nothing in our procedure manual for that type of thing. It latched on and wouldn’t let go, it was thrashing around and he’s lucky he didn’t get into difficulties in the water trying to swim with that thing thrashing around."
"Here, little wobbegong! Don't be thrashin' about like that! Henry, hand me that claw hammer, wouldja?"
With the help of another lifeguard, all three men took hold of the shark and attempted to flush its gills with fresh water to make it loosen its grip on Mr Tresoglavic’s leg. "I grabbed the tail and one jaw, Luke grabbed the other jaw and my partner, the other beach inspector, flushed it with water and we were able to get it off without creating too much more tissue damage," Mr Jones said.
"This fresh water isn't workin'! Gimme the Foster's!"
"Hey! I wuz drinkin' that!"
With blood oozing from 70 needle-like punctures in his leg, Mr Tresoglavic drove to hospital, taking the dead shark with him.
"Yes, Mr. Tresoglavic, you're going to be fine. But I have bad news for you: your fish died."
Mr Jones said Mr Tresoglavic remained in good spirits throughout the ordeal. "There was a side of humour to it," he said.
"Though I don't think it was quite so funny at the time..."
The last shark sighting at the beach was seven years ago, although it is common for them to linger around the reef flushed with fish. Wobbegong sharks can grow up to three metres in length, have razor-like teeth and are said to be moody and short-tempered.
Posted by: tipper || 02/11/2004 7:26:36 AM || Comments || Link || [336142 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wobbegong sharks can grow up to three metres in length, have razor-like teeth and are said to be moody and short-tempered.

Typical Dean supporters.
Posted by: Me2Boss || 02/11/2004 7:32 Comments || Top||

#2  it is common for them to linger around the reef flushed with fish.
Fits the classic shark MO.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 7:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Wobbegong sharks - why do they hate us?
Posted by: Sparks || 02/11/2004 8:59 Comments || Top||

#4  *** Coffee Alert ***

LOL - Good 'un, Sparks!
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 9:35 Comments || Top||

#5  Crikey, she's a naughty one.
Posted by: Unmutual || 02/11/2004 10:04 Comments || Top||

#6  You'd think that one of the people on the beach might have offered him a ride.
Posted by: BH || 02/11/2004 10:51 Comments || Top||

#7  "He basically asked the question, ’Can you help me get it off?’ – there’s nothing in our procedure manual for that type of thing.

"My name is John Kerry and I have this Al Gore shark on my leg"

"Sorry John, nothing in the FEC manual covering this"
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 10:52 Comments || Top||

#8  ...And these are the people that the Indonesians are trying to piss off...geez....

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/11/2004 11:26 Comments || Top||

#9  I don't know about the rest of you jokers, but I am taking notes.

Ya never know when shark removal techniques will come in handy....
Posted by: Carl in N.H || 02/11/2004 11:47 Comments || Top||

#10  Like terminating a lawyers' services, ya gotta pry them off with several hands
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2004 12:19 Comments || Top||

#11  Let it be know - a hacksaw and a roll of duct tape are now a suggested addition to the old beach kit.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 13:25 Comments || Top||

#12  sharks dont atack things bigger than them without a reason. im sure that guy did something to provoke that animal and now its dead.
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/11/2004 13:42 Comments || Top||

#13  Inside the head of the Wobbegong
by muck4doo

Whew! I guess that clears it all up. And here I thought it was one of those hate things requiring some group hugs. I wasn't looking forward to that.

As for it being dead, you're right. That hurts me, deeply. I guess we shouldn't respond with violence to violence - and just accept our dhimmitude fate as the main course.

Uh, I don't quite know how to say this... Oh, what the hell:
Are you clinically insane, or just trolling?
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 14:34 Comments || Top||

#14  (whisper)Hey AP,glad they're on our side.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/11/2004 14:34 Comments || Top||

#15  I'd hate to think what would happen if a shark actually drank somone's beer down there.

"Crike! Now I have to drink straight from the shark!"
Posted by: Charles || 02/11/2004 14:48 Comments || Top||

#16  Inside the head of the Wobbegong

LOL... I'm starting to like muck4doo he reminds me of a bizzaro-world Lucky.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 14:54 Comments || Top||

#17  Hey, muck4doo, isn't that chainey pulling up in front of your house?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 16:19 Comments || Top||

#18  Remember something from Panama about a screwdriver in the eye socket, but definitely only out of the water. Also, it helps if you hold the shark upside down. The internal organs aren't well attached, and they all slide down toward the nose. It won't make 'em let go, but they stop thrashing so badly. Kinda hard to swim that way, though - or drive a car.

This guy kinda reminds me of the Colorado dude that cut off his arm because it was pinned under a large boulder, then drove himself to the hospital. You have to admire someone with that kind of courage!
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/11/2004 22:38 Comments || Top||


Europe
French journalist murdered over hijab ban?
Egyptian singer Loay was asked to show up in front of an Egyptian district attorney for questioning and to investigate the death of a French journalist, Tornique Ado Yojo, who was found dead in her apartment in Almuhandiseen district of Cairo.
Hmmm... Sounds sordid...
Next to the victim a letter was found saying President Chiraq, Moslem women will continue wearing Hijab. According to Al Watan daily, Egyptian police had found out that Loay knew the journalist and had previously been seeing her going out with her six times during last December. Police had done genetic tests on Loay and had him write with both his hands for further analysis. Loay was introduced to the Egyptian public only a few months ago when he released his hit single “Ah Ya Leil Ah Ya Ein”, which witnessed great success among Egyptian and Arab youth.
Posted by: TS || 02/11/2004 10:31:11 PM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  pretty obviously his successful defense will be:
"the ankle and head-showing whore had it coming. I couldn't control myself...and I can't spell for shit"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2004 23:03 Comments || Top||


Ukraine: Ethnic Tensions In Crimea Bubbling Over
Crimea has a volatile ethnic mix of Tatars, Russians, and Ukrainians, and tensions are always high. This month, emotions boiled over and police fired shots over the heads of Tatars trying to break into a police station.
The Saudi’s are behind the scenes, stirring up the pot, as usual.
Posted by: TS || 02/11/2004 5:17:57 PM || Comments || Link || [336062 views] Top|| File under:


Is Germany waking up??
Via LGF: And TGA your insight is always appreciated!
The dominant party in the western German state of Hesse on Tuesday proposed legislation that would ban Muslim civil servants from wearing headscarves, a measure that goes further than three other states’ proposals to outlaw the veil for public school teachers. The conservative Christian Democrats’ leader in the state legislature, Franz-Josef Jung, argued that the headscarf is a political rather than a religious statement and a symbol of repression. The party, which has a majority in Hesse, hopes to push its so-called "bill to secure state neutrality" through by the summer... Although the court stated that any new laws must treat all religions equally, many in Germany argue, like Jung, that the headscarf is a political symbol. Crosses would be excluded from the proposed Hesse ban, which calls for authorities to take account of "Christian and humanist Western tradition."
TGA, what has prompted this? The exposure of the nuke black market? What else is going on there for them to get it?
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/11/2004 1:12:56 PM || Comments || Link || [336089 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think it's something else. Europe is waking up to the fact that Islam poses a threat to their belief in separation of church and state. Islam will in effect create another class of unequal citizens (muslims themselves). Europeans tend to worry about things like this.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/11/2004 13:26 Comments || Top||

#2  Rafael - I hope it's more than just the question of church / state separation. They are at risk, for while they are lesser Satans, they are still Satans! This headscarf thing is just a sparkle of light from the drop of water on the cherry atop the icing on the cake - I certainly hope it's not being taken seriously as the reality of Islam as threat - ala Phrawnce!

TGA, help! Perspective on Hesse and how this plays - is it just for public consumption, such as the Phrench move?
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 13:50 Comments || Top||

#3  There is a big difference between Germany and France in this regard: Pupils may still dress as they please, it's about the teachers who are forbidden by law to carry religious or political propaganda into schools.
One teacher sued the school authority of a German state, the case went up to the highest court which ruled that veils can be banned for teachers if the länder authority (education is in the hands of the 16 German länder) makes a law.
Religious neutrality has been an issue before: An atheist parent sued a school because it had a crucifix hanging in the school rooms.
Personally I think the teacher ban is ok, I'm less convinced about the civil servant's ban. Somebody who checks your tax declaration is a civil servant, too, and I really don't care whether she wears a scarf in the office or not.
But because of the Court ruling all länder have to pass a law regarding the use of veils for teachers. And Hessen has a prime minister who wants to become the next (CDU) chancellor of Germany.
I dont like him though, he's an opportunist with no character.
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/11/2004 14:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Now that seems reasonable, TGA, thanks. As I think about it, it seems Hesse is apparently just addressing the issue from the POV that the Teachers are role models and shouldn't convey a message that might be construed as advocacy. Other civil servants should be looked at in the same vein - where their role may uduly influence the young, it is of some significance. Otherwise, not - so no ban should not be imposed for it isn't of any consequence.

Is that a reasonable take on it?

BTW, thanx for replying, and for the detail!!! It's not reasonable for me to assume you're always hanging out at Rantburg!
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 14:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Well sometimes I'm hanging out at security conferences!
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/11/2004 14:50 Comments || Top||

#6  An atheist parent sued a school because it had a crucifix hanging in the school rooms.

TGA... recall the outcome of the suit?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 14:57 Comments || Top||

#7  I dont like him though, he's an opportunist with no character.

TGA, is John Kerry running for chancellor?
Posted by: Raj || 02/11/2004 15:02 Comments || Top||

#8  "Well sometimes I'm hanging out at security conferences!"
Heh... And was it interesting, useful, etc.?

I have to tell you, I envy your knowledge and access, but not the experiences and events you endured to reach the present moment - and I always keep it in mind when reading your responses. I have deep respect for your take on things - and appreciate that you take the time to give us your perspective. Sorry if this embarrasses you!
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 15:22 Comments || Top||

#9  What he said.
Posted by: Matt || 02/11/2004 15:41 Comments || Top||

#10  Thanks for the info, TGA, particularly about the politics. You da' Mann!

I lived in Hesse over 30 years ago, but admit I didn't pay much attention to local politics (though some to national). It was a beautiful place. I liked Frankfurt am Main, and loved the Hessischer accent (it's much easier for an American to pronounce!). :-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/11/2004 17:29 Comments || Top||

#11  I believe that once Europe comes face to face with its own Islamist problem,the response will be more along the lines of Jean-Marie Le Pen than the G.W.Bush's way.We don't have the power or the self-confidence to reach out over the seas and try to root out extremism at its source.If a 9/11-attack happened here,it would be a big boost for the far-right,xenophobic elements in Europe.
Posted by: El Id || 02/11/2004 17:39 Comments || Top||

#12  Ditto .com, Matt.
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 02/11/2004 18:11 Comments || Top||

#13  #13 "I dont like him though, he's an opportunist with no character."

Funny, that perfectly fits to my view of all politicians, everywhere.
Posted by: 98Zulu || 02/11/2004 18:41 Comments || Top||

#14  TGA, thanks for your reports and analyses.
Let me guess the crucifix case was in Oberbayern.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 18:54 Comments || Top||

#15  Some might take this wrong, but I like to see France and Germany challenging Islamic practices/traditions because I think it increase the chance that the Islamists will conduct terrorist activities against France and Germany. I know, I know, that sounds horrible, and I don't enjoy the thought of any terrorist attack. I will feel outraged if/when it occurs. But I think that might be the only way for the French and Germans to understand that there really is a war going on, and they need to understand that they cannot stay neutral or use the war to establish a "multipolar" world in which it makes sense for them to restrain the U.S. Civilization will have a better chance to win the war when the citizens of all civilized countries learn (hopefully in a less horrendous manner) the lesson that Americans learned on 9/11--we face an evil and dangerous enemy (Islamic fascism) whose adherents and promoters must be hunted down and killed, and whose message must be challenged and exposed as evil and futile.
Posted by: sludj || 02/11/2004 19:38 Comments || Top||

#16  In my own opinion the Germans are finally starting to realize the Turkish "guest"workers they started bringing in back in the '70s have bit them in the ass. Add in the other Islamic cultural aspects and they are starting to react. Fortunately or not the US and Canada seem to do better job of assimilating or at least absorbing minorities. But the day when we start reacting in an unfriendly manner is not too far down the road.
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 02/11/2004 22:14 Comments || Top||


Maoist terrorists, two more ETA ’commandos’ captured
Spanish police arrested Wednesday three suspected members of the violent anti-capitalist organisation GRAPO in two raids in the Basque region, authorities reported. Officers detained before dawn in the province of Vizcaya a man and a woman believed to be members of GRAPO, a Spanish-language acronym for "October 1st Anti-Fascist Resistance Groups." The two were named as Jon Kepa Preciado and Jon González González. Security sources said Preciado had taken part in at least five terrorist attacks between June and July last year.
He’s been a busy boy.
Authorities also arrested early Wednesday a third person, identified by the initials F.C.B., for alleged ties to the group. The arrest was made at the home of the third person in the Basque city of Vitoria, where police seized "many documents."
Another intel haul, excellent.
The Maoist group is blamed for the killing of more than 80 people in Spain and for numerous extortions, robberies and kidnappings. Meanwhile, French police arrested Wednesday two more suspected members of ETA.
Already reported, it’s been a productive year for the good guys.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 12:00:45 PM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:


Bush keeps France hanging for D-Day
US President George W. Bush has still not indicated whether he will join the leaders of 10 other nations in France later this year in a solemn ceremony marking the D-Day landings by Allied forces, the French minister for veteran’s affairs said Wednesday.
He’ll be there, it’s just fun making you wait.
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair have already said they would be by French President Jacques Chirac’s side for the June event, as have the Netherlands’ Queen Beatrix and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, the junior defence minister, Hamlaoui Mekachera, said.
Hope security is airtight, that’s a high value target list.
Commemorations marking the 60th anniversary of the decisive Allied offensive against the Germans in World War II are to take place in Normandy on June 5, 6 and 7 and in the south of France on August 15 with a final event celebrating the liberation of Paris to be held in the capital on August 25, Mekachera told a media conference.
I’ll wager President Bush will have a very special speech ready for this event.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 11:53:26 AM || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Glad to see the Germans can make it. The played a very significant part in the invasion.
Posted by: Michael || 02/11/2004 12:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Well, kinda. If it wasn't for them there wouldn't have been an invasion.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 12:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Don't even show up. Screw the frogs, it's a perfect way to let them know "next time you're ON YOUR OWN"...
Posted by: mojo || 02/11/2004 12:55 Comments || Top||

#4  I agree, mojo!
This was our party, then Chirac invited the Krauts, who, as tu3031 rightly points out, necessitated the whole invasion, not to mention starting the war.
Screw the Weasel Axis--hope Bush stays home.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/11/2004 13:08 Comments || Top||

#5  Dubya should offer to Kerry and some other people from the Congress the chance to represent us. They wouldn't be able to pass up the photo-op and opportunity to take a few shots. Eventually, it would backfire on them, as Americans (all but the incredibly toolish intellectual elitists) have innately figured out that the Phrench would rather see us burn than join us in achieving anything on the Int'l scene.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 13:11 Comments || Top||

#6  What is Schroeder supposed to say? "Thank you for kicking the Nazis' butt. Many Germans died as a result, but thank you nonetheless." Seems strange to commemorate something that resulted in the death of many your fellow citizens.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/11/2004 13:19 Comments || Top||

#7  Uh guys, I disagree. I'm as disgusted as anyone with the French, but this is a ceremony to remember our war dead. It would be wrong to dishonor them just to bitchslap France. We can do that economically.
Posted by: BH || 02/11/2004 13:44 Comments || Top||

#8  BH - You're right. Much as I'd like to give Chirac his due, you (and I think it was both JFM and TGA who correctly, but gently via logic, upbraided the hotheads like me last time this came up!) make the most important point: honoring those who died there to make us free today.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 13:54 Comments || Top||

#9  BH, sorry, but I couldn't disagree more.
I cannot see honoring our war dead in the presence of the Germans.
Those fine men wouldn't have been killed if it weren't for the Germans. PERIOD.
The Allies-minus the French--should have a separate ceremony.
(My dad served in the Army for 3 years in Europe in WWII, BTW.)
Jaques Chirac invited Schroeder on purpose to embarrass President Bush.
And if the Krauts are invited, why not the Russians???
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/11/2004 13:57 Comments || Top||

#10  It makes some sense to invite the former enemy to the ceremonies marking the peace. At least when you have won. :-)


But these are not peace ceremonies. I find utterly repugnant the idea of inviting the people who killed the poor guys who are lying in those graves. Bush should not show there, Blair should not show there and, since there where a few French who died on D-Day (the people of Commando Kieffer, Resistance, pilots) I think no French other than Rat Chirak should show at those ceremonies.

Posted by: JFM || 02/11/2004 14:30 Comments || Top||

#11  Jennie, I'm not sure what bothers me most about your response - the implication that people can't change, or the implication that current generations must be held accountable for the crimes of their forefathers. Either prospect gives me the creeps.

I don't know how Schroeder's presence would "embarrass" President Bush. But I would be deeply embarrassed if my president declined to honor our heroes merely to count coup on an assface like Chiraq.
Posted by: BH || 02/11/2004 14:35 Comments || Top||

#12  Anyone remember Clinton's pathetic appearance a few years back....If I recall he looked lost....I remeber this one scene where a flower had fallen over and he went over and straightened it up. The reason it fell over is because the dead GI's there were turning over in their graves at having him there. That was pathetic....I'm done.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/11/2004 14:43 Comments || Top||

#13  This is some very tough territory.

Should politics be involved in this ceremony? No.
Should we forgive subsequent generations? Yes.
Should we forgive Chirac? No.
Should we honor our dead, for they are truly heroes? Yes.

So is there an honorable and rational way to deal with this? I don't pretend to have the answer. Very difficult to separate out the factual from the emotional - and proceed from there. This is actually important, IMHO -- so I sincerely apologize for tossing in my stupid comment earlier.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 14:53 Comments || Top||

#14  Jennie would you feel the same way about Gettysburg? Seperate but equal ceremonies? If so, we may have issues.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 15:00 Comments || Top||

#15  My uncle died in Belgium, Battle of the Bulge, 101 Airborne. He's been dead a long time now, and doesn't really care one way or the other if we "honor his memory" by kissing up the the frogs.

But I don't like the idea. Screw 'em, and everybody that looks like them.
Posted by: mojo || 02/11/2004 15:07 Comments || Top||

#16  Right idea Dataman1, but I believe that was a small US flag at an American Battle Monument (military cemetery) in Italy where each grave had been adorned with a flag on Memorial Day. And, the reason it was laying there is because someone in his entourage laid it down so Clinton could be photographed picking it up.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 15:08 Comments || Top||

#17  For obvious reasons I can salute D-Day better than many other Germans. 20 years ago the then federal president Richard von Weizsäcker summed up the paradox of defeat and liberation of May 1945.
The heros of D-Day made their way to Buchenwald...that's all I can say. And I salute those who didn't make it.
Yes many Germans died in Normandy. Many more would have died without D-Day.
Without the second front the Wehrmacht could have hold out much longer in the East. Years longer? Millions more of Jews and others would have died in the camps. And maybe Germany would have had Hiroshima, not Japan.
No, D-Day celebration should not be about political bickerings. And I don't see Schroeder embarassing GWB either. If Schroeder is still chancellor in June btw.
The D-Day veterans of both sides have made their peace long ago. You should, too, JFM.
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/11/2004 15:15 Comments || Top||

#18  Another point is that Chirak had no right to cast invitations. It would be as if Israel invited some nation to ceremonies about teh Battle of Britain based on teh fact there was one Israeli pilot in it.
Posted by: JFM || 02/11/2004 15:16 Comments || Top||

#19  It might be more appropriate for Schroeder to host a ceremony to be held at Rheims, France
on the 7th day of May next year. That was the world's finest hour.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 15:17 Comments || Top||

#20  True German Ally

This is not intended to be a slam, just information

Not maybe but definitly. The original plan was that simultaneous nuclear strickes were to take place on both Germany and Japan. Fortunately for Germany, the war ended when it did.

Posted by: Michael || 02/11/2004 15:31 Comments || Top||

#21  TGA

One thing is to invite Germany to the 11/11 ceremonies (peace, even if it was defeat for them), another one is to invite them to D-DAY (a battle, where people died), one thing is to have joint ceremonies for a battle against Imperial Germany and another one is to have joint cermonies for a battle against pure Evil. And one thing is to invitate Germany ot whoever we want for 11/11 since France made most of the fighting and the dying in WWI, and another one to cast invitations for D-DAY where France had very few people in the ground and thus Chirac has lost an occasion to shut up.
Posted by: JFM || 02/11/2004 15:35 Comments || Top||

#22  JFM, IMO, the presence of the German Chancellor at the D-Day ceremony is more meaningful than at a peace ceremony. It's one thing to have a gathering of the leaders of all the countries that participated in WWII so they can make speeches and whatnot. But having the leader of Germany participating in a ceremony in honor of those who effected Germany's defeat is about the most absolute repudiation of their past that you could get. I think it should be encouraged.
Posted by: BH || 02/11/2004 15:48 Comments || Top||

#23  BH, let me relate what I'm saying to another experience.
I visited Nagasaki, Japan on an Asian trip in 1988: I was on a Greek ship with mostly Americans, but people from other countries, too.
Some of the Japanese tried to make we Americans uncomfortable because the USA had never placed a "peace statue" at Ground Zero where the bomb dropped as so many other countries had.
At the time, I felt bad about being American and felt almost personally responsible for all the people who died when we bombed them.
In the years since, particularly since 9/11, when I've really studied the war and understood why we had to deal the Japs a punishing blow to end the war and shame them out of the shame-based Shinto culture, I feel pretty comfortable about dropping the bombs on Japan.
It ended the war almost a year earlier and saved perhaps a million American lives of a whole new generation of soldiers.
Now, I hope we never, ever put a "peace" statue in Nagasaki or Hiroshima.
And I'm glad to see the Japanese have changed and become such close allies and friends of the US today.
To answer Shipman's question about Gettysburg, the situation's anomalous to WWII Japan, even though I'm a Southerner and my sympathies until a few years ago would have been with the South.
The South had to punished and shamed. as with Grant burning Atlanta and Richmond, to teach us a lesson.
Slavery was wrong and the Union was worth preserving, but I still get kind of touchy when it comes to states' rights sometimes.
A lot of stubborn and "well meaning" Johnny Rebs died at Gettysburg, but it had to be done.
And I had ancestors who fought and died in that one.
I still don't want to honor our WWII war dead with the Germans standing there smirking.
Nazi Germany wasn't really humbled the way the Civil War South and Shinto Japan were; the German people got a pass and all the horrors of the death camps were pinned on the Nazis, when it was the general Anti-Semitism of all the Germans that made the camps possible.
And from their behavior during the last 3 years, it's not clear at all that either the French or the Germans have "changed" and learned the lessons they should have learned from both WWII and the Cold War.
End of rant.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/11/2004 15:49 Comments || Top||

#24  BH

If there were marchs in Germany with penitents flogging themselves like in some catholic countries for teh Holy Week then that would be a repudiation, but why it wouldc be a repudaition for Germany to have those who carried the Nazi uniform treated the same way that the good guys?
Posted by: JFM || 02/11/2004 16:11 Comments || Top||

#25  JFM, exactly! Thank you!
You are a thoughtful, sensitive person and I appreciate the fact that you can relate to the way some of we Americans feel about this very emotional issue.
We not only gave American blood and treasure to liberate France and to defeat the madman Hitler, but we spent more blood and treasure keeping Western Europe free from Soviet aggression for 50 years and look at the thanks we got from France and Germany in just the past year for all of our care and trouble.
Rien. Niente. Nada. Just stabbed in the proverbial back.
The idea of President Bush having to look across the graves of American war dead (from both WWI and WWII) at the arrogant countenances of Herr Schroeder and his buddy Jacques is just de trop. Too much.
And who is Hamlouie Mekachera??? Do NOT tell me that the German defense minister is descended from Arabian Muslims!
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/11/2004 16:22 Comments || Top||

#26  Mrs Taliaferro

For all of France's sins at the end of the War, the survival rate for France's Jews was the highest after Denmark, two times higher than Belgium and three times higher than Netherlands and many, many times more than in Czechoslovaquia or Poland.

One thing is what Vichy told to the Germans, another one is how the orders were "interpreted" by the chain of command, a third one is what the
"soldiers and NCOs" in police and gendarmerie decided to do and a fourth one was the cooperation of the population.

If the French authorities, police forces and population had had half the enthousiasm for hunting Jews they had in say, Poland, there would have been far, far less Jewish survivors in France. So why aren't you bashing those who deserve it first?
Posted by: JFM || 02/11/2004 16:26 Comments || Top||

#27  So it basically sounds like Jennie holds todays German responsible for yesterdays sins. Pretty shallow and very shortsighted really. I assume as a white Southern then you will gladly pay for the sins of your forefathers? Your experience in Nagasaki is apples and oranges to this by the way. Why don't you wait and see what the Germans do at the ceremony before getting on your holier-than-thou high horse and casting judgement? I lost both grandfathers to that war and I as an American don't have a problem. I'll wait and see what will be said before I cast my judgement. So get over yourself.
Posted by: AllahHateMe || 02/11/2004 16:43 Comments || Top||

#28  JFM, i find myself in a rather weird position, but you are forcing me to defend German soldiers now. The large majority of German soldiers (especially in France) didn't wear "Nazi uniforms" but Feldgrau. I am sure that you as a very educated French know what this means. These were drafted soldiers, they were not asked their opinion, they were sent into France and then ordered to fight the invasion. Many may have favoured the Nazis, but by 1944 most of them were probably thinking how to survive the war.
You may also note that Mr Schroeder is too young to have been a Nazi, he may be as obnoxious as hell but he's not responsible for WWII.
Germans had to cope with a dreadful past and they certainly preferred to ignore it in the 50s and 60s. I think they have come quite a way ever since Willy Brandt knelt down in Warsaw (and he was a resistance fighter).
Yes we could have done more. We have certainly done more than Japan...
And JFM, don't get me started on Vichy, please. Jewish body counts simply don't cut it for me... there is too much to be said here.
Yes Michael, I know that Germany WAS a nuclear target. And re Hiroshima and Nagasaki... as terrible as they were, it spared the Japanese total destruction. The firebombing of Tokyo was "conventual" but probably not any better and Japanese towns would have ben systematically flattened. Only the A-Bomb was a shock big enough to make them surrender. It probably saved millions of lives (remember some Japanese still continued "fighting" on deserted Pacific islands for decades).
France and Germany are thinking about joint passports and you STILL think a German cannot attend D-Day ceremony?
Hamlouie Mekachera is French-Algerian btw.
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/11/2004 17:39 Comments || Top||

#29  Goes to show that even after 60 years, there is still much emotion, at least from those who pay attention. IMO, I say invite the Germans, and that Bush should go, and then tell them (not remind them) exactly why it is they're gathering there...and I mean school them real good - tell them to stand up and fall in or sit down and STFU because it is how we conduct ourselves now in the WOT that honors the fallen and what they sacraficed for.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/11/2004 17:40 Comments || Top||

#30  Granted it is true that when it came to rounding up the Jews the Poles display exceptionial enthusiasm what does that have to do with what happened in France under Vichy? Heck, the Italians had an even better record, if that actually means anything. Best ofter Denmark, althought I thought it was Norway.

Anyway, re the Germans at the D-Day memorial, there are some places and times when you are just not wanted under any circumstances. This is one of those times and it has nothing to do with what Germany or Germans might or might not be today.

Kind of like inviting the father of the murderer of your wife to a post trial victory celebration. Maybe not a really good example, it makes my point.

Posted by: Michael || 02/11/2004 17:46 Comments || Top||

#31  Say what you will but it is extremely awkward for Schroeder to attend. But imagine now, if Schroeder said no to Chiraq's invitation. The reaction would be equally negative as his attendance.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/11/2004 18:03 Comments || Top||

#32  I still don't want to honor our WWII war dead with the Germans standing there smirking

I Luv ya... but BS is BS.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 18:26 Comments || Top||

#33  The Froggies saved my uncle (a bomber crewman) after his plane put down in Normandy, so I suppose that's an excuse for going.
Posted by: Hiryu || 02/11/2004 19:21 Comments || Top||

#34  When I lived in Germany while serving in the AF our landlord was a man who served in the German Army and was in Stalingrad. He would never say much about the war but occasionally he would start talking. Now his wife, she was more than willing to talk about the war. I remember many things she told me but one of the strongest points she made was that had he not served he would have been sent to a camp or worse. I also remember the miniseries The Holocaust being shown on german tv while there. After the showing many Germans were calling in to the station in tears about what they learned. And most of those were Germans who lived during the war.

I cannot lay the blame on those who are now alive for what their ancestors or even fathers did. And I can't blame the common soldier either. It was a war that had to be fought and I thank God that we won. I visited Dachau and cried. And now I'm thankful GWB liberated Iraq and I cry for the thousands who were butchered by Saddam. But I will not blame the common Iraqi soldier nor the Iraqi civilian for the horror of Saddam.

This is something that though we must never forget, we must not allow ourselves to be blocked by something in the past to come between establishing a good relationship. That relationship has been damaged in the recent past, for good reason, but this is not part of the equation.

I think GWB should go and speak eloquently about the liberation of Europe and the liberation of Iraq and how we must work to never allow this to happen to future generations. And how today we can move beyond the past and work together to ensure that mass slaughter never occurs again.

Posted by: AF Lady || 02/11/2004 21:24 Comments || Top||

#35  I think Germany and France should be there.Why?So the prez can point at Chancellor and say them boys died kicking your ass so don't try takeing the world over anymore.Then point at Chirac and say them boys died saving your ass so quit being a punk.
Posted by: djohn66 || 02/11/2004 22:08 Comments || Top||


Four ETA suspects arrested in France
French police said Wednesday they had arrested four suspected members of Spain’s separatist Basque group ETA, including two men that Spanish officials considered to be senior ETA logistics operatives. Two of the suspects were apprehended in an apartment in Limoges, western France, early Wednesday. They were located thanks to information gleaned from the arrest Monday of two armed ETA suspects who tried to drive through a customs roadblock in the nearby town of Oriolles, police said.
Picked up some intel from them.
The Spanish interior ministry said one of the men arrested Monday was 46-year-old Luis Enrique Garate Galarza, a longtime ETA member who had been active in the banned organization since returning from Mexico, where he had been holed up since the late 1980s.
"Welcome back! Git your hands up."
Garate was believed to have been involved in the murder of five Spanish soldiers and police in the mid-1980s and the abduction of a Spanish magnate in 1986. The ministry identified the second man arrested Monday as 27-year-old Ibon Elorrieta Sanz, who had already been tried in absentia by a French court on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization and sentenced to five years in prison.
Go directly to jail.
Both were considered high-ranking members of ETA’s logistics arm and both were armed with pistols when they were arrested. In the stolen van they were driving, officers found explosives, detonators, grenades, two grenade launchers, a machine gun and ammunition.
Must be elk season.
The two men arrested in Limoges Wednesday had papers identifying them as Jon Kepa Preciado and Gonzales Gonzales Jon, both aged 29 and both of Spanish nationality. French police said they were verifying the documents.
They’ll be fake.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 11:45:50 AM || Comments || Link || [336062 views] Top|| File under:

#1  since returning from Mexico, where he had been holed up since the late 1980s.

So California isn't the only place that has murderers running and hiding there...
Posted by: Pappy || 02/11/2004 19:03 Comments || Top||


Europe wary of Pak nukes
Some European countries are of the opinion that Pakistan’s position with regard to its nuclear capability must be discussed at length at the UN Security Council.
That should take years. Maybe centuries...
According to a report in The News, these European members of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) apex board wanted to raise in the UN Security Council what they described as the core question: "Whether a country incapable of guarding nuclear secrets can be trusted with nuclear weapons".
Now there’s a hot potato if I ever saw one.
Eleven EU countries represented at the 35-member IAEA board are - Denmark, Germany, France, the UK, Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain (full members) and Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (EU accession countries). Quoting a diplomatic source, the report said that the EU members were against Washington’s paradigm of unilateralism in handling the sensitive issue like nuclear proliferation, and pleaded that the UNSC should play a key role in such problems.
They’ve done such a stellar job in the past.
According to the report, even European countries, including the UK and France, that had applauded the Pakistan government’s handling of the nuclear scientists, were raising the above mentioned question.
Visualizing their own cities glowing in the dark.
They pleaded that multi-lateralism, which was the cardinal principle of the "EU Strategy against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)", should be put to practice with its full force in the context of Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
I’d laugh if it wasn’t so serious.
Presently, the report added, Europeans were engaged in such consultations surreptitiously.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 9:44:58 AM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I take it they're within range?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 9:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Bout time they were concerned. The more eyes on the Pak nuks, the better I feel.
Posted by: Dogsbody || 02/11/2004 10:24 Comments || Top||

#3  According to a report in The News, these European members of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) apex board wanted to raise in the UN Security Council what they described as the core question: "Whether a country incapable of guarding nuclear secrets can be trusted with nuclear weapons".

What happens if they decide that the answer is no? Is Chirac going to package a frown and send it Musharraf's way?

They pleaded that multi-lateralism, which was the cardinal principle of the "EU Strategy against the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)", should be put to practice with its full force in the context of Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

And how much bite would their application of "full force" have? Not much, I would suspect.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/11/2004 10:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Diplospeak translation: We (the Board of the IAEA) have completely failed our mission, and are informing the Security Council that the Americans are now running the whole nuclear show. Resignations to follow, once the Riviera winter cocktail party circuit wraps up.
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 11:12 Comments || Top||

#5  Hey no big deal. The article states "Some European countries."
Posted by: Lucky || 02/11/2004 11:48 Comments || Top||

#6  Belmont Club has up the World's Scariest Posts on this issue (nuclear proliferation), and they're pretty convincing. We're past talking.
Posted by: Matt || 02/11/2004 12:29 Comments || Top||

#7  Well, as much as the administration has made a botch of things they do have a point. If being nice with non-proliferation doesn't get results, what do you intend to do about it besides get tough?
Posted by: Hiryu || 02/11/2004 13:08 Comments || Top||

#8  Hell,all the EU has to do is grow a pair.Both England and France have Nukes.And I pretty certain a hell'va better ability to deliver them.
Alot more population.
Certainly more industrial capacity.
Tell the Pakis to give-up the nukes,or take them by force.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/11/2004 14:37 Comments || Top||

#9  Totally agree with Matt.

The recent posts at the Belmont Club are terrifying.

Why? Because the logic is clear, simple and chilling. The same logic was followed in the Cold War where Megadeaths, MAD and 'Sunday Punch' were clinically studied by the RAND corporation and others.

You follow the arguments and the conclusions become apparent.

What are they? Essentially, if Islam gets nukes on a 'regular' basis (from a bazaar or the Paks) then the West (essentially the US) has no choice - after the *first* nuclear detonation the logical thing to do is to eliminate the entire Islamic world.

Read "The Three Conjectures" at the Belmont Club for more details.

Pakistan has let a genie out of the bottle. All bets are off - I don't think that the vast majority of people understand what a truly dangerous situation we're in now.
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 02/11/2004 18:55 Comments || Top||


EU sets out tough terms on relations with Russia
The EU formally set out its policy towards Russia on Monday with a strongly-worded statement saying the bloc would press Moscow on human rights and Chechnya while boosting ties with other ex-Soviet states. The European Union decided in December on a complete review of its Russia policy ahead of the bloc’s expansion in May to take in three former Soviet Baltic republics and several ex-satellite states of the former Soviet Union. The new document appeared aimed at establishing clarity after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, as holder of the rotating EU presidency in November, praised Russia’s Chechen policy -- a direct contradiction of executive Commission views.
"Mr. Berlusconi, please call your handler for instructions"
Monday’s Communication called for "policy coherence" over Russia, an economic power with vast resources, a major supplier of natural gas to the EU it will soon border. It reflects long-standing European concerns over what the union sees as Russia’s poor record on human rights. "The Communication calls for the EU to underline that the EU-Russia partnership must be founded on shared values and common interests, which implies discussing frankly any Russian practices that run counter to European values, including those on human rights, media freedom and cooperation on the environment," the EU’s executive Commission said in a statement.

NEW FOCUS ON SOUTHERN CAUCASUS
EU-Russian trade was worth 78 billion euros last year, but an EU official said last week the bloc was frustrated that the two sides were making slow progress in relations in other areas. Ties between Brussels and Moscow are set to rise up the agenda following EU enlargement, but the Communication setting out the new policy notes that "in many areas EU and Russian positions appear to have diverged" in recent years. Divergences include Russia’s failure to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, the need to make a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with all 10 acceding EU states work more effectively and the Chechen conflict.
The EU doesn't have an equivalent to Chechnya. Yet.
The Communication also recommended the EU upgrade its policy towards the southern Caucasus countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and the western states of the former Soviet Union -- Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. This is likely to prove contentious as Moscow sees these as firmly in its "backyard". The EU has already boosted ties with Georgia, where pro-western leader Mikhail Saakashvili took over in January from ousted President Eduard Shevardnadze. Saakashvili has asked Russia to remove its remaining military bases within three years, while Moscow originally said it needed to keep them for at least a decade, although it later softened its tone, saying they could go in seven to nine years.
Putin is not happy with growing US influence there
The EU document will be discussed by the 25 current and future bloc foreign ministers in Brussels on February 23.
As I’ve said here before, IMO the EU is beginning to expand beyond its ability to impose a single social, economic and political agenda on its members. With natural gas stocks very low all around the globe, and with Putin’s proposal to open an oil terminal in the northwest that would be ideal for shipping both oil and gas to the US, the triumverate of France - Germany - Russia was a very temporary one. Things will simmer in the ’Stans over the next few years, though, as the US consolidates relationships there.
Posted by: rkb || 02/11/2004 9:19:41 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:


Kiev courthouse toidy boom
The mayor of Kiev said Tuesday that a blast that ripped through a city courthouse and injured 11 people was caused by a bomb, not a gas explosion, as officials had claimed. Oleksandr Omelchenko said "criminal structures" had planted an explosive in a toilet, blowing a wide hole in the three-story Darnitsia district court building just before noon Monday, said the mayor’s spokesman, Serhiy Soshin. Omelchenko said the criminals had previously threatened court officials, but police could not confirm that claim. Police are investigating two potential causes of the explosion -- ignition of "highly inflammable materials" during repairs and a bomb, a duty officer said. Eleven people were hospitalized, two of them in critical condition, and the building was evacuated. No judges were among the six court employees and five visitors injured in the blast.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:26:47 AM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It sounds like the tragic consequences of untreated TF yet again.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 7:32 Comments || Top||

#2  caused by a bomb, not a gas explosion....it's like a scene out of the Austin Powers flick. Did Fat Bastard leave a floater?? gag..heh.heh!
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 9:16 Comments || Top||

#3  Sounds like they have bigger cherry bombs than we used to in high school
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/11/2004 9:23 Comments || Top||


Ukraine denies selling nukes to al-Qaeda
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday denied media reports claiming that a group of scientists had sold suitcase-sized nuclear weapons to (alleged) al-Qaeda operatives, saying the reports were disinformation. Egypt’s al-Hayat newspaper, citing unnamed al-Qaeda sources in Pakistan, reported on Sunday that Ukrainian scientists had provided tactical nuclear weapons to members of the alleged terrorist group. Ministry spokesman Markian Lubkiyvskyi told reporters that the report was absolutely groundless and cause for surprise. The al-Hayat report claimed the deal for an unspecified number of suitcase bombs had been struck in the Afghan city of Kandahar in 1998. The bombs were allegedly intended for attacking American targets. Lubkiyvskyi stressed that Ukraine had no nuclear weapons in 1998 because the ex-Soviet republic had transferred all of them to Russia by June 1, 1996. All transfers were verified three times by Ukrainian and Russian officials, he added.

In 1993, Ukraine signed a pact with the United States and Russia volunteering to lay down its arsenal of some 1,900 nuclear missiles inherited from the Soviet Union. In Moscow on Tuesday, Russian Deputy Chief of Staff General Yury Baluyevsky echoed Ukrainian denial of the report. "All weapons deployed in Ukraine were taken away to Russia. I am not aware of any event in which a single warhead went missing," he said adding "All nuclear warheads are in place and not a single warhead now belonging to Russia has been sold or stolen."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:04:18 AM || Comments || Link || [336062 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ukrainians are more notable as traders, not merchants. If anything they traded nuclear weopons rather than sold them. But traded for what?
Posted by: Lucky || 02/11/2004 0:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Standard (ex) communist response = flatly deny everything. Debka has way more credibility than a Ukrainian government spokesperson.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/11/2004 6:07 Comments || Top||

#3  These were the same guys who were not selling advanced targeting radar to Saddam?
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 11:23 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Jane Fonda. Never Forget.
Snopes.com gives a very succinct recap of what an utter monster this woman was. Please take a moment and remember.
Posted by: anonymous || 02/11/2004 11:32:10 PM || Comments || Link || [336062 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
Bush not AWOL/Media Lies
Two MUST-READ articles.

The first, a letter from one of Bush’s old squadron mates.


George Bush and I were lieutenants and pilots in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS), Texas Air National Guard (ANG) from 1970 to 1971. We had the same flight and squadron commanders (Maj. William Harris and Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, both now deceased)...

Second, an article about lazy and dishonest reporting.
Posted by: growler || 02/11/2004 3:57:02 PM || Comments || Link || [336079 views] Top|| File under:

#1  there is another letter from a woman who dated GWB in Montgomery

http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20040211-121217-6595r.htm
Posted by: Capt Joe || 02/11/2004 17:18 Comments || Top||

#2  nd the people trying to sread this where all probably using defferments and or trying to figure out a way to get to canada. Different war, different times and a way different worls situation between then and now. The Third World War started the day that the Ayatolla Cockamamie stepped off the plane in Tehran
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 02/11/2004 18:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Coverage of this in the media in 5....4....3....2....1....0....-1...-2...-3...-4...

Nah... the media isn't biased in the least!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/11/2004 19:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Seems as though Mike Moore and many others are AWOL from the truth. The problem is that the flower children and anti-American activists of the 70s now hold sway at todays newspapers.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 20:39 Comments || Top||

#5  I was just about to post the same article. I am sick and tired of all this! Kerry may have gotten some medals during the war, but what he did afterwards in my mind totally negates his heroics. He's a sham! I believe he has carefully calculated everything move he has made since college for his own goals. To H*** with what's best for the country. And I remember several commanders who knew their stuff while I was serving who I would never want running the country.

Sorry, had to vent! Had to deal today with a taxachusetts liberal today and am sick and tired of their better than thou attitude at times!
Posted by: AF Lady || 02/11/2004 20:57 Comments || Top||

#6  Who was that IDIOT reporter at the White House briefing? McClellan looked like he wanted to bitch-slap him and with good reason.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 02/11/2004 22:23 Comments || Top||

#7  I think Kerry joined up to be like JFK. He even wanted to be on a small partol (read: PT) boat just like JFK was.

From Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry posted here on Rantburg a few days ago.

When later asked about the severity of the wounds, Kerry said that one of them cost him about two days of service, and that the other two did not interrupt his duty. "Walking wounded," as Kerry put it.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/11/2004 23:30 Comments || Top||


Kerry called for U.N. control of troops in 1970
Ten months after returning home from Vietnam, a young John Kerry strolled into the offices of The Harvard Crimson on Feb. 13, 1970 as an obscure underdog in the Democratic Congressional primary. The decorated veteran, honorably discharged after a tour of duty in the Mekong Delta, spoke in fierce terms during his daylong interview with The Crimson’s Samuel Z. Goldhaber ’72. But almost 34 years later, Kerry’s remarks on American military and intelligence operations vastly diverge from opinions expressed by the present-day Sen. John F. Kerry, D.-Mass., the leading candidate in the Democratic primary for president. “I’m an internationalist,” Kerry told The Crimson in 1970. “I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.”
Only reason I can see for the Clinton’s to support Kerry. Bill gets appointed to UN to ’repair the damage.’
Kerry said he wanted “to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care.”
His Dim buddies did just that and now complain of the quality of human intel.
The Kerry campaign, celebrating primary victories in Virginia and Tennessee last night, declined to comment on the senator’s remarks. As a candidate for president, Kerry has said he supports the autonomy of the U.S. military and has never called for a scale-back of CIA operations.
Reincarnation of the God Janus.
Former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich defended Kerry’s 1970 statements as appropriate for their time. “In the context of the Vietnam War, those comments are completely understandable,” said Reich, who has endorsed Kerry. But a spokesperson for President Bush’s reelection campaign said Kerry’s 1970 remarks signaled the senator’s weakness on defense. “President Bush will never cede the best interests of the national security of the American people to anybody but the president of the United States, along with the Congress,” said the spokesperson, Kevin A. Madden.

The increasingly likely matchup between Kerry and Bush has already prompted comparisons of the senator’s record in Vietnam and the president’s domestic service in the National Guard. And the two Yale graduates, both members of the secret society Skull and Bones, appeared set to square off in future months under the specter of the ongoing war in Iraq. Goldhaber, whose first-person profile of Kerry ran in The Crimson Feb. 18, 1970, said yesterday he recalled the candidate as an emerging outsider whose campaign focused squarely on his opposition to the Vietnam War. “We lived, dreamed and breathed Vietnam,” Goldhaber said.

Still, Adam Clymer ’58, political director of the National Annenberg Election Survey at the University of Pennsylvania, said Kerry’s comments would likely find their way into Bush campaign materials. “If I were them, I’d use this,” said Clymer, a former Crimson president. “I’d use it in direct mail.”

Kerry’s conservative opponents have already begun painting the Massachusetts senator and former deputy governor as an elite, New England liberal, and his 21-year voting record in the Senate may provide considerable ammunition. Madden said the Bush campaign would highlight Kerry’s Senate votes should he win the Democratic nomination. And Reich forecasted G.O.P. research would extend far beyond Capitol Hill. “If Kerry is the nominee, Republicans will try and search back into everything he ever said on every issue,” Reich predicted. Kerry’s 1970 remarks to Goldhaber portray a fiery, novice politician inspired by his opposition to the Vietnam War. “He struck me as very ambitious,” Goldhaber said yesterday. “He struck me as the sort of person—even back then, newly returned from Vietnam—who was thinking about running for president.”
Was every hippie of the era thinking of some day running for president?
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 1:49:04 PM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Former Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich defended Kerry’s 1970 statements as appropriate for their time.

“In the context of the Vietnam War, those comments are completely understandable,” said Reich, who has endorsed Kerry.


Reich just wants another Cabinet position; that cushy job at Brandeis must be killing him.

Adam Clymer Guess he's not the same as NYT reporter Adam Clymer, AKA the 'major league asshole' that Bush spoke so fondly of back on the 2000 campaign trail, eh?

“If Kerry is the nominee, Republicans will try and search back into everything he ever said on every issue,” Reich predicted.

Brilliant, like I couldn't come up with that angle after twelve shots of whisky...
Posted by: Raj || 02/11/2004 14:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Would you guess, we got enought material floating around to write a book, release it just before Boston.....Quotable Kerry?
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 15:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Robert B. Reich defended Kerry’s 1970 statements
You mean Robert B. Reiiiiiiichuuuh?
(Napoleon VII always wanted the opportunity to do that)
Posted by: AntiPasto || 02/11/2004 15:06 Comments || Top||

#4  “He struck me as the sort of person—even back then, newly returned from Vietnam—who was thinking about running for president.”

That in itself is a damn good reason he shouldn't be president.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/11/2004 15:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Damn straight CF.... he should have been looking for women and a bong. BTW I have purloined Halfempty's PVC banger.
Posted by: AntiPasto || 02/11/2004 18:35 Comments || Top||

#6  The increasingly likely matchup between Kerry and Bush has already prompted comparisons of the senator’s record in Vietnam and the president’s domestic service in the National Guard. And the two Yale graduates, both members of the secret society Skull and Bones, appeared set to square off in future months under the specter of the ongoing war in Iraq. Goldhaber, whose first-person profile of Kerry ran in The Crimson Feb. 18, 1970, said yesterday he recalled the candidate as an emerging outsider whose campaign focused squarely on his opposition to the Vietnam War. “We lived, dreamed and breathed Vietnam,” Goldhaber said.

No you didn't. The poor sonsofbitches who were over there did. I don't mind the Left being Anti-War. I just they weren't so damn selective about it!
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 02/11/2004 18:42 Comments || Top||


Kerry Kartoons
Cox and Forkum have a good take on Kerry’s hypocrisy in today’s feature. Be sure to check out their posted comments and the links from their page.

The latest AJ-C columnist ends with:
"Bush’s honorable service in the National Guard bothers me less than Kerry’s abandonment of his brothers, his switching sides and his active contribution to an enemy’s efforts to kill Americans. Time often softens the dark edges of military service, leaving grown men the ability to sit around a kitchen table late at night to laugh about the exploits that left them less than whole. But the dramatic difference between Hero Kerry and Hanoi Kerry leave me to wonder who he might next abandon, and at what cost to America."
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 11:14:14 AM || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But the dramatic difference between Hero Kerry and Hanoi Kerry leave me to wonder who he might next abandon, and at what cost to America.

Uncle Sam; that's who. And at the cost of having Lady Liberty stoned to death.
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/11/2004 11:27 Comments || Top||

#2  I kinda wish they'd shown his burning uniform in the C&F toon... that would've worked for me.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 11:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Isn't it obvious by his 'letter' to the Mullah's of Iran?

Its our freedom he will sacrifice for a few pieces of gold.

Is there anyone who has ever actually served with him around? What do they think of the 'hero'?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/11/2004 11:55 Comments || Top||

#4  .com, Chuck Asay featured a cartoon about Kerry's medals in today's Gazette, but it won't be on line for a couple of days. OP mentioned Asay a couple of weeks ago and I posted the link.
Here it is again to another take on Kerry:
http://www.comics.com/editoons/asay/
The medals 'toon, "Feb 10", should be up in a day or two.
S/The political cartoon junkie
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 12:03 Comments || Top||

#5  GK - That's awesome! And Accurate, too. Kerry is Skeery - and I can't even remotely imagine how high a price we'd eventually have to pay if we elected someone like him. It wouldn't just set us back or waste the incredible efforts expended thus far, which includes many fine and true American heros -- it would set us up and extend a hudna to AlQ and its ilk so that the next time they got their act together the resulting hit would be devastating... and this is assuming the asshats have only a modicum of sense.

Skeery Kerry. Sucks like a cowardly fool, now, regardless of what he may have done 30-odd years ago... it's the cowardly fool who's running for Prez. Sigh.

Thx!
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 12:23 Comments || Top||

#6  The Democrats would have been a helluva lot better off if they'd stuck with Howard "I Have A Scream" Dean.

I don't think they have any idea how much of a turkey they've got in John F'ing Kerry; but they sure are about to find out.
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/11/2004 12:54 Comments || Top||

#7  John Kerry is about to wish the camera was never invented. Check out this picture of Johnny and Hanoi Jane in todays Washington Times. Seems like a lot of Vietnam veterans have long memories.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 13:37 Comments || Top||

#8  #7 link. So they met in 1970? Now we know where Jane got the inspiration for her 1972 trip to Hanoi. My guess is that Kerry's gonna get a lot fewer votes from Vietnam Vets than the press fantisizes.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 14:17 Comments || Top||

#9  Why, as the story asserts, would Vets be offended today? I don't believe that for a minute. It was deeply offensive then, when it happened, and nothing to date has changed that fact. This is probably why he has publicly said he doesn't want to be associated with those trying to smear Bush -- those things have a very nasty habit of backfiring.

I think Duke Cunningham has it right - and most Vets didn't know about Kerry's little reversion to gutless turd immediately upon his return to The World, until now.

Now they do. It has already backfired. Can you say "Oops"?
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 15:01 Comments || Top||

#10  Check out this picture of Johnny and Hanoi Jane in todays Washington Times.

Kinda fuzzy, but from what is visible, apparently not much has changed over the years. Add a whole bunch of gray hairs, a few wrinkles, and voila! It's 2004.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/11/2004 15:02 Comments || Top||

#11  Is there anyone who has ever actually served with him around? What do they think of the 'hero'?


A number of men from his unit were campaigning with him in Iowa and NH - don't know if they're still out there with him or not.
Posted by: VAMark || 02/11/2004 15:11 Comments || Top||

#12  #10 BAR, here's a better picture of the pair. The link was posted on RB 2/9/04.http://www.newsmax.com/images/headlines/Fonda_Kerry_arrow.jpg
Jane is up front and Kerry is to the LEFT of Fonda and back a row or two.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 15:47 Comments || Top||

#13  OOPs , sorry. I'll try again http://www.newsmax.com/images/headlines/Fonda_Kerry_arrow.jpgor try
http://www.rantburg.com/Default.asp?D=2/9/2004 and click on title.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 15:52 Comments || Top||

#14  I sent a copy with the URL of an AJC article on Kerry from a NAM Vet's stadpoint to our local (only newspaper) liberal newspaper. This is a start. Everyone needs to get the word out on this clown. Here is the link if you haven't already seen it. IT's time for some truth to be told.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0204a/09veteran.html
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/11/2004 17:49 Comments || Top||

#15  Sorry I wasn't more explict, dataman1. I could have saved you some trouble. It was one of the recommended links on the C&F page. The quote in my post was from the article you cite.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 20:09 Comments || Top||


Weasley calls it quits
EFL. Hat tip LGF.
Wesley Clark, battered by losses in his Southern base, was abandoning his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination and heading home to Arkansas to exit the race.
Adios amigos.
Matt Bennett, a senior adviser to Clark, said the political novice and retired four-star general wanted to return to his adopted home town of Little Rock for the emotional announcement. Clark made the decision after consulting with family members, who had been urging him to stay in. But Clark, who won only one of 14 contests, was under intense pressure to drop out because of John Kerry’s success and a desire by party leaders for a quick end to a nominating season he has come to dominate. "The mountain got too steep to climb," Bennett said.
"And the Sherpas bailed."
The decision ends a five-month run by Clark, his first for elective office, who hoped his military background and Southern roots would sell with swing voters as well as in the South.
Clark is a GENUINE war criminal, IIRC. He’s also farther left than the average Dem on infanticide abortion.
Of the contests to date, Clark was only able to squeeze out a narrow victory in Oklahoma. The final blow came after third-place finishes Tuesday in primaries in Virginia and Tennessee, states that were part of the Southern strategy he thought would ride him to the nomination. Clark had hoped to emerge as a Southern challenger to the front-running Massachusetts senator, but Tuesday’s outcome erased any hope of that happening. He got 23 percent of the vote in Tennessee, but only 9 percent in Virginia.
Ouch.
Still, the decision to quit was hard for a candidate described by aides as competitive and reluctant to admit defeat. He retreated for a late-night dinner with his family after reaching his decision.
"I’m thinking of quitting."
"Do so."
"Is there any more veal?"
"He’s at peace with it. He’s obviously disappointed," Bennett said. Aides said Clark would remain active in the campaign by stumping for Democrats in the South and other swing states and serving as an adviser on national security issues. He is the fifth candidate to drop out. Five remain: Kerry, Howard Dean, John Edwards, Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton.
They forget Lydon LaRouche...
Five to go

Other aides said Clark would use his speech to nudge the Democrats toward a more aggressive stance in challenging President Bush on issues of national security, faith, patriotism and values for the party.
"Make the Democratic pary line obligatory for all Amaricans."
Clark wrestled with the decision to end his campaign as election returns rolled in Tuesday night, with advisers urging him to quit and family pushing him to continue. Before deciding to quit, he thanked several hundred cheering backers at a downtown hotel. "We’ll leave Tennessee even more full of hope and commitment than when we began this journey five months ago," he said. "We may have lost this battle today but I tell you what, we’re not to lose the battle for America’s future."
"America must lose!"
New to politics, Clark may still have a future. At 59, he is young enough for another race and, with his military experience, he might fit on a wartime Democratic ticket. Clark became a candidate in September, late for a neophyte campaigner, but he quickly rose to the top of polls of Democrats and others considering an alternative to Bush.
Then he actually said something...
He decided to skip the Iowa caucuses to focus his efforts on New Hampshire, a move that some friends and family now call a mistake.
Blunder.
In appealing to voters, Clark relied almost entirely on his 34 years in military service, which included serving as supreme allied commander of NATO. He promoted his wartime record, from being wounded in Vietnam in 1970 to running the bombing campaign in the war in Kosovo in 1999, as the kind of experience needed with American soldiers in Iraq and concerns about security at home.
Go back to my earlier comment. Clark’s no GWB.
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/11/2004 10:17:59 AM || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  good - now he can relax and blink once in a while
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2004 10:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Where's Mary now?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/11/2004 10:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Clark was widely thought to be the Clintons puppet to keep a Democrat from taking Hillary's place in the Oval Office before she's ready. About time for them to start leaking stuff on Kerry.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 10:53 Comments || Top||

#4  General Clark will now attempt to restart his career as a lobbyist and pay-for-blather dinner speaker. I hope he fails miserably and does something honest with the rest of his life, like sell appliances at Walmart.
Posted by: mhw || 02/11/2004 11:21 Comments || Top||

#5  Clark shudda kept the towel. Anyone as ALL WET as he is needs towels.
#3, Steve, it's almost like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 11:34 Comments || Top||

#6  Chark, the Wall-Mart greeter......
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/11/2004 11:57 Comments || Top||

#7  About time for them to start leaking stuff on Kerry.

The hatchet job on kerry has already started with pics from the clinton archives of him and fonda popping up .
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 02/11/2004 13:08 Comments || Top||

#8  Never should have been photographed in that little red turtleneck number with the pancakes.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 15:08 Comments || Top||

#9  Uh, Steve from Relto? Why did you insult Harry Potter's friend in the title? You compared Ron's family to Clark!
Posted by: Korora || 02/11/2004 16:50 Comments || Top||

#10  And he asked for Swiss cheese on his steak sandwich. In Philly! And then he looked really, really dainty while eating it.
Posted by: eLarson || 02/11/2004 18:56 Comments || Top||


Moore: Clark’s a Deserter
The mighty ScrappleFace does it again.
(2004-02-11) -- Wesley Clark will reportedly announce Wednesday he’s abandoning his White House bid. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Moore, a vocal supporter of the Clark candidacy, immediately issued a statement calling the former Army general "a deserter." However, Democrat National Committee (DNC) chairman Terry McAuliffe said that Mr. Clark would be honorably discharged from his commitment to seek the nomination. Mr. Clark’s campaign released the following statement:

"General Clark has always said that if you begin a campaign under false pretenses, with little understanding of the consequences of your actions and then spend millions of dollars of other people’s money only to wind up in a quagmire, you need to cut and run. He’s a man of integrity, and it’s time to retreat."
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/11/2004 9:49:12 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Farewell to the "Lion of the Balkans".
The big question now? Who will Madonna switch her allegiance to?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 9:51 Comments || Top||

#2  Wes should find a small country in Latin America that's looking for a dictator.
Posted by: Matt || 02/11/2004 10:03 Comments || Top||

#3  And has posted at LGF.... Remember Mike it's food not love.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 11:35 Comments || Top||

#4  I have to follow up on this but I also believe Moore admitted he was a left wing, commie sympathising pig, with no morals or guts whatsoever and a traitor to his country, though he did admit he's making a ton of money from the morons who buy his crap and also on his Europe tour where he trashed the USA. I obviously will have to verify all that....Verfication complete... IT's all true.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/11/2004 17:37 Comments || Top||


Dean lectures 8th graders on Dog Urine - really
Looking Out for Number One
It’s a reliable sign that all is not well with a presidential campaign when the candidate finds himself grossing out eighth-graders
[unless some of these people had failed 8th grade 6 times, they aren’t actually voters]
with a spontaneous discourse on the relative merits of drinking toilet water or dog urine. Former Vermont governor Howard Dean prompted squeals of "Eeeew!" when he dropped in to teach a science class yesterday at Longfellow Middle School in La Crosse, Wis.,
[his must win State]
reports The Post’s John F. Harris. Though pundits have pronounced Dean’s campaign in the toilet, his lecture actually had nothing to do with politics: The class has been conducting experiments on microscopic particles found in everyday fluids. Making the point that good scientists must "never take anything for granted," Dean observed that water from a flushed toilet actually would be cleaner for drinking than water untreated from the nearby Mississippi River.
[what about that blue stuff my wife puts in the toilet tank - Howard must not use that at home]
"That’s disgusting!" one girl shouted. Another student volunteered that his experiment studied dog urine. "Now that we’re on dog pee, we can have an interesting conversation about that," Dean said. "I do not recommend drinking urine . . . but if you drink water straight from the river, you have a greater chance of getting an infection than you do if you drink urine." Before leaving, Dean pleaded with his pupils not to tell their parents that "Howard Dean came to my classroom and advised us to drink water from toilets."
Posted by: mhw || 02/11/2004 7:50:41 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Howard Howard Howard...yep the Dims must love you.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/11/2004 8:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Look soon for proposed Democratic legislation making drinking out of the toilet mandatory. It'll have something to do with Kyoto or Global Warming...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 8:38 Comments || Top||

#3  You can see why this guy's career as a doctor went nowhere, particularly if he tried to be a pediatrician!
I saw a clip of this on Fox and thought I was hallucinating!
I am going to miss this clown when he drops out of the race.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/11/2004 9:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Actually,I think Dean would have made a better commander-in-chief than Kerry.A guy like Dean,you certainly don't want to piss him off.
Posted by: El Id || 02/11/2004 9:23 Comments || Top||

#5  What about the health risks of swallowing Dean's bullshit?
Posted by: Unmutual || 02/11/2004 10:07 Comments || Top||

#6  I Allah's force is the only thing keeping Deano in the race.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 10:31 Comments || Top||

#7  Come on now Dean would be like have Perot in office. All hot aired and angry!
Posted by: Dan || 02/11/2004 11:04 Comments || Top||

#8  haha. very funny. there isnt even an article on that link. its just a blank page that says washinton post. ha ha. why do you guys make stuff up.
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/11/2004 13:30 Comments || Top||

#9  Gee that's funny. The article comes up for me....get a new PC maybe?
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/11/2004 13:33 Comments || Top||

#10  In this case, it's all about cookies... muck4doo is shutting himself off from sites such as WaPo by disallowing them to cookie his browser.

Now the only reason to do this is that someone else may come along and find out you've been browsing the titty-pix (or similar) sites. I write 'Net applications for a living and know the game -- and I'm also an adult and wouldn't give a shit if someone monitored my browsing habits.

Perhaps muck4doo fears being embarrassed by his wanderings...
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 14:01 Comments || Top||

#11  I got right in, muck4doo. Are you sure chainey hasn't been screwing around with your PC? Maybe while you sleep?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 14:01 Comments || Top||

#12  I love the fact that much4doo thought I could have made up the Dean article. Believe me, I'm not smart enough and not creative enough to invent the Howard Dean reality -- in fact, I doubt many Hollywood screenwriters could.
Posted by: mhw || 02/11/2004 14:32 Comments || Top||

#13  Drinking urine could not get you an infection but I find surprising that a doctor has forgotten that it is mildly toxic.

Sure this guy is a real doctor? And he hoped to become a real president?
Posted by: JFM || 02/11/2004 14:39 Comments || Top||

#14  Are cookies halfal?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 15:10 Comments || Top||


Rummy v. the Union
Via Bros. Judd:
Hundreds of federal employees are expected on Capitol Hill today to protest a new personnel plan for the Defense Department that union leaders say would strip unions of any meaningful role in protecting the workers’ rights and welfare. Members of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, plan to visit key lawmakers this week and urge them to limit Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s plans to overhaul the department’s labor relations system. Rumsfeld won authority from Congress last year to rewrite personnel rules affecting nearly 750,000 civilian employees. He argued that managers needed more freedom to rearrange money, workers and weapons in the war on terrorism. Union leaders, who opposed the legislation last year, said yesterday that new labor relations "concepts" released in a 13-page memo last week by the DOD go too far....
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/11/2004 12:16:50 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Reporters have been warned to expect the strikers to show up late and leave early.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 7:49 Comments || Top||

#2  I expect Kerry will arrive early and leave early.
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 11:26 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Article Implies WMD Stockpiles not found...but still no direct quote
EFL WASHINGTON (AFP)
A testy US Secretary of State Colin Powell denied that President George W. Bush "cooked the books" or "murdered" the truth to justify war on Iraq.
testy?
In a contentious House of Representatives committee hearing, Powell fired off the latest salvo in the democrat’s unproved allegations administration counter-offensive against Democrat’s claims that every intelligence agency worldwide Bush tailored intelligence to take the United States into an unnecessary war on Saddam Hussein.
prior use of WMD’s, rape rooms, paper shredders and mass murder are no reason for war
Powell snapped back, "the truth was not murdered Mr Ackerman, nobody shaped it, nobody told the intelligence community what to say."
does Powell say we haven’t find WMD’s? No...
He defended his presentation to the United Nations Security Council on February 5 last year, which argued that Saddam was deceiving UN weapons inspectors and pursuing banned weapons programs.
Did Powell say we haven’t found WMD’s? NO...
"I went into that briefing believing there were stockpiles, that there were weapons there, that we expected to find them.
Did Powell say we didn’t find stockpiles? NO...
"It was not a question of we knew nothing was there and we lied about it, what we did was we presented the facts that our intelligence community provided to us, nothing more nothing less.
Did Powell say we haven’t found WMD’s? NO...
"I did not go before the UN and tell anything but the truth as we knew it at the time."
Did Powell say we haven’t found WMD’s? NO...
Powell also rode to the defense of Bush, who beset by attacks on his handling of Iraq, last week announced an independent probe into US intelligence gathering on weapons of mass destruction. "I don’t think we have anything to be apologetic about and under no set of circumstances do I believe that anybody in America should think that the president cooked the books or in some way tried to mislead them."
Did Powell say we haven’t found WMD’s? NO...
Powell argued that although no weapons of mass destruction had yet been discovered in Iraq, there was proof that Saddam Hussein had been developing long-range missile systems.
Why... at first blush.. this appears to be an admission by Powell that no WMD’s have yet been found....but WAIT! THIS IS NOT A QUOTE!!. Did Powell actually say, "no WMDs had yet been discovered" or is that the reporter’s take on it??? Why, on this most important issue, does the reporter suddenly switch to spinning editoralizing rather giving us the quote of the YEAR!! And would it not be strange for Powell to note that WMD’s have not YET been discovered and then in the same breath say there was "proof that Sadaam was developing long range missles" ??
Ah...now that the editor has got in his editorial spin, he switches back to quoting Powell...
"He was developing long-range delivery systems and not to deliver popcorn."
snip for headshaking conflict
In a television interview Sunday, President George W. Bush insisted the Iraq invasion was a "war of necessity" [editorial alert] amid growing signs that the failure to find unconventional weapons has hurt his credibility before the November US presidential election.
Hmm..once again we are given carefully worded editorial here. Bush is quoted only as saying it was a "war of necessity". But the reporter has sandwiched Bush’s quote within his own unsourced commentary, to make it appear that even Bush acknowledges that there has been a failure to find WMD’s ....but Bush doesn’t really say that. We don’t know, now do we?
He told NBC television that Saddam "had the capacity" to make weapons of mass destruction. Bush suggested Saddam might have destroyed his arsenals, hidden them or transported them to a nearby country.
But Bush still never said we didn’t find them yet...now did he?
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 7:13:43 PM || Comments || Link || [336062 views] Top|| File under:


DoD News Briefing - Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers
Snippets
Rumsfeld: I suppose we may never know why Saddam Hussein made the choices he made, but we do know this. He chose war. If he had chosen differently, if the Iraqi regime had taken the steps Libya is now taking, there would have been no war.

Q: How should Americans -- as this debate about military service broadly emerges, how should Americans look back at military service in combat in Vietnam and military service in the National Guard?
Myers: And I can only do it from a narrow perspective of an Air Force pilot. And when I graduated from pilot training, there were several choices, and one was to go fly for, I think, what we called in those days Air Defense Command. I believe it was still called ADC in those days. And there were other options. And I took an option that -- took an airplane and went to Europe. And other people took the Air Defense Command option. What’s interesting is the National Guard -- a large part of their mission then and today is the air defense of this country, which I think is a noble mission. So I mean, people just kind of went with the airplane type and the mission type they thought they’d like. And I think that was the extent of the thought of it.

Rumsfeld: At my confirmation hearing, I was asked what kept me up at night in this job, what would keep me up, and I answered, "Intelligence." This is three years ago, in early January, right after the Congress came back. Why did I say that? I said it because I’ve been around long enough to know that in a big, complicated world with closed societies, people determined not to have you know something, and with the growing lethality of weapons and the increasing availability of those increasingly lethal weapons, your margin for error is less. We’re living in a time of surprise. Where it is possible to be surprised. And we were surprised on September 11th, and 3,000 people lost their lives.

It is -- you -- the question was to the effect was I -- am I satisfied or I’m -- do I feel good about it or something like that? No, I haven’t felt good about what I know most of my life. I always want to know more, and you always are hoping and praying that the -- that you’re going to be able to do that enormously difficult task of connecting those dots before something happens. Look at how -- look at the trouble these commissions and committees are having trying to connect the dots after the fact! Think how much harder it is before the fact, when you don’t have the leisure of doing it over a period of months, when you simply have to do it and establish priorities and weigh things continuously, not one thing, but a dozen things like that.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/11/2004 3:42:36 PM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:


Illegal Immigrant GI To Be Granted U.S. Citizenship
Pfc. Juan Escalante, who joined the Army and fought in Iraq after showing a fake green card he bought for $50, passed a civics and history test Wednesday morning and will be allowed to remain in the United States. Escalante, a Mexican, planned to take his U.S. citizenship oath at 3 p.m., during a ceremony at the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Welcome, Juan, and thank you.
The Army normally requires that any illegal immigrants who get caught after fraudulently enlisting be discharged. Once discharged, they may be deported. The service, however, said it aided Escalante in pursuing citizenship because he was a valuable soldier who would do the country more good as a citizen than a deported immigrant. Escalante served in Iraq for four months.
Wow, the Army doing the right thing. That pegged the meter.
Escalante’s immigration attorney, Glen Prior, has said the Army doesn’t plan to discharge his client even though he misled a recruiter.
However, somebody needs to talk to the investigator who did the backround check after his enlistment.
There are 37,401 noncitizens in the active-duty military. About 3,000 served in the war in Iraq. It’s not known how many are illegal immigrants.
I’d say a small percentage.
President Bush signed an executive order on July 3, 2002, speeding the citizenship process for active-duty personnel. The order helped Escalante avoid the lengthy process of having to get a green card before seeking citizenship.
A very good move.
Aren't Army ID cards still green?
Escalante was born in Mexico and he was 4 when he crossed illegally into the United States with his mother. He grew up in Seattle and signed a four-year contract with the Army after graduating from high school in 2002. He served as a mechanic in Kuwait and Iraq for four months as a member of the 1st Brigade of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, which launched the ground invasion that began the Iraq war. While the Army has worked to grant Escalante citizenship, federal immigration authorities are still planning to deport his parents, Bernardo and Silvia Escalante.
Somebody take a cluebat to these bozos.
The law allows illegal immigrants to become permanent residents if they’ve lived in the country for more than 10 years, have good moral character and can prove a U.S.-born dependent would suffer extreme hardship if they were deported. The Escalantes have lived in the United States for 15 years and have two younger U.S.-born children, ages 10 and 12. Seattle Immigration Judge Anna Ho last year denied their petition for legal permanent residency, though. She said they failed to show that being sent back to Mexico would cause exceptional hardship to their younger children. The couple have implored the Board of Immigration Appeals to reverse the decision. Prior has said that if Juan Escalante becomes a citizen, he will appeal the decision against Escalante’s parents, arguing the soldier would face a hardship if his parents were deported.
Can’t he sponsor his parents when he becomes a citizen? Don’t know much about this law, but I’d say it would be a piss poor way to thank him for his service to kick his parents out.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 2:59:45 PM || Comments || Link || [336061 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We definitely want this guy -- and his parents, too, for raising such a man. The topic of reforming our immigration policies has come up repeatedly. I believe we should stop putting patches on patches and assign a total rewrite, sans the PC crap - such as not allowing profiling, with an eye to making common sense the cornerstone.

It's not very hard to see that this case is not being handled well. Others, I'm sure, are much tougher, but there is a way to do this and it's called honest debate by intelligent people with no personal ax to grind. So, Dubya, delegate someone with common sense to put together a team and charge them with the task. Let's see if we can stop the idiocy that currently passes for policy and law.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 15:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Agreed.

Maybe if room is the problem we could ask Bill and Hillary to leave. That should free up a couple of chairs.
Posted by: Michael || 02/11/2004 15:35 Comments || Top||


Rummy Speaks
People listen. EFL:
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking in Munich February 7 during a question and answer session with participants at a conference on security, tackled the subject of how NATO might address strategic issues before they become military ones.
"[O]ne thing NATO might do," Rumsfeld said, "would be to do a better job of seeing that the intelligence capabilities of the respective countries are brought together and that the people in NATO and the capitals of NATO countries are kept tuned into those threats and the kinds of capabilities that we as free people face. We’re much more likely to get a faster common understanding to the extent we have a reasonably similar perspective with respect to what the facts are."
Asked for a good rationale to explain the doctrine of pre-emptive military action to European allies, Rumsfeld said what is at risk
"is something that we all, collectively, individually, are going to have to think through. ... What we’ve seen in the press is a ... private network in some instances ... moving around weapons of mass destruction and the abilities to produce them. If that’s happening ... one has to say, we know there’s an appetite on the part of terrorists to kill people. They’re training. People are being trained in schools to do that. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that at some point these private networks and these terrorist networks are going to connect, and at that moment people are going to have to face up to the realities of the 21st century."
Asked how the United States could contribute to relieving "stress" in the Middle East and Europe caused by the Israeli-Palestinian problem, Rumsfeld said,
"The United States needs to ... continue to work on it, Europe needs to ... continue ... working on it, but in the last analysis, a lasting solution in that part of the world is going to come because people are exasperated, exhausted and tired of seeing their opportunities for prosperity go down the drain and tired of listening to people shoot off their mouths and ... weapons and fire bullets and no one deliver a ... thing for the people."
Slap!
Following is the transcript of Rumsfeld’s question and answer session:
Read the whole thing, but here is the best:
Some Palestinian general(?) opens his mouth:

Q: [Palestinian general]: Mr. Secretary, You talked about countries that were trying to produce weapons of mass destruction. You talked about Iraq and you talked about Iran and North Korea. I have a question, a direct question to you. What are you doing with Israel? As far as Israel is concerned, Israel has more atomic weapons in the region than any other country. Why do you remain silent in regard to Israel? I think it’s important to answer this question because this has to do with the world, the strategy that we are pursuing today. I think that if the position towards Israel were different then the situation would be different in the Near East, and this is a great problem.
And Rummy hands him his head:
Rumsfeld: You know the answer before I give it, I’m sure. The world knows the answer. We take the world like you find it; and Israel is a small state with a small population. It’s a democracy and it exists in a neighborhood that in many -- over a period of time has opined from time to time that they’d prefer it not be there and they’d like it to be put in the sea. And Israel has opined that it would prefer not to get put in the sea, and as a result, over a period of decades, it has arranged itself so it hasn’t been put in the sea. Thank you very much.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 1:20:08 PM || Comments || Link || [336081 views] Top|| File under:

#1  One of the best Secretary's of Defense in quite some time.
Posted by: Daniel King || 02/11/2004 13:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Rummy is simply awesome.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 13:42 Comments || Top||

#3  Now that's what I call a righteous bitch-slapping!
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/11/2004 13:58 Comments || Top||

#4  Even at the age of 70, Rummy is the coolest guy with the biggest b*lls on the planet!
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/11/2004 14:01 Comments || Top||

#5  I agree..he was excellent at the conference
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/11/2004 14:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Rummy in 2008 with Rice as his VP!
Posted by: Charles || 02/11/2004 14:52 Comments || Top||

#7  Rummy didn't serve in Vietnam... so there.
Posted by: AntiPasto || 02/11/2004 14:55 Comments || Top||

#8  Bush/McCain 2004- McCain/Powell 2008.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/11/2004 14:59 Comments || Top||

#9  Antipasto just how childish and uniformed are you?
Rumsfeld was in the US house of representatives during the first half of the war. He resigned in 1969 and went to work in the White House for the remainder of that war. When was it you volunteered to serve your country in any capacity?
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 15:31 Comments || Top||

#10  A nuclear weapon in the hands of Israel and and nuclear weapon in the hands of the aformention idiots, which includes the Palestinians, is kind of like some guy with a bar-b-que on his patio having a pack of matches and a serial arsonist having a pack of matches.

Only the loonies of the world cannot tell why there is a difference.
Posted by: Michael || 02/11/2004 15:46 Comments || Top||

#11  Gotta agree with .com. This man is superb.

As for proliferation - things are getting much much worse since the unveling of what Pakistan has been up to. Read Belmont Club to see what he thinks of the situation. The terrible logic of the "The Three Conjectures" is almost upon us.

The next few years are going to be scary so I hope to God GWB gets re-elected.
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 02/11/2004 17:39 Comments || Top||

#12  When was it you volunteered to serve your country in any capacity?
Well it's not a country but I served 19 years in Napoleon VII's Legion of Slack. Does that count?
Posted by: AntiPasto || 02/11/2004 18:21 Comments || Top||

#13  "You don't play Dungeons and Dragons for all those years without learning a little something about courage."
Posted by: eLarson || 02/11/2004 18:41 Comments || Top||

#14  I already had you figured for a slackard. does that mean you're 19 years old.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 18:43 Comments || Top||

#15  Rummy didn't serve in Vietnam... so there.

Then again, he didn't play "hide the medal" with Jane Fonda either, so that's two strikes against him...
Posted by: Pappy || 02/11/2004 18:51 Comments || Top||

#16  Rumsfeld was a Navy pilot before Vietnam. He served 3 yrs as flight instructor and aviator in the early 50s and then did 18 more years in the ready reserve (i.e. drilling monthly) and then to the retired Reserve (who can legally also be activated to regular service) for 12 more years. He retired as an O-6 (Navy Captain = Army full Colonel).

Rumsfeld became SecDefense for the 1st time in 1975.
Posted by: rkb || 02/11/2004 19:40 Comments || Top||

#17  "You don't play Dungeons and Dragons for all those years without learning a little something about courage
Now that's just insulting... I'm more of a PanzerBlitz, PanzerBush sort of leader. Altho I've binked around with Sturm nach Osten I've never had the 3000 sq ft. of wall space to properly enjoy the experience.

Posted by: AntiPasto || 02/11/2004 19:43 Comments || Top||

#18  And between you and me and Faisal.... you need to read the posts..... I'm on your side.
Posted by: AntiPasto || 02/11/2004 19:45 Comments || Top||

#19  It's Okay AntiPasto, I got the joke, and I am sure a lot of others did...

I got to Avalon Hill First Class, but then puberty intervened. Now that I'm a happily married old fart, I have time to get back into some the of computerized versions of these sorts of games, and realize what I have been missing all these years.

Damn puberty.

Posted by: Carl in NH || 02/11/2004 20:26 Comments || Top||

#20  Oh, geez - I was rummaging in a closet yesterday and came across some of those old games. Long live hexagonal grids! My beloved brought one of those games for us to play on our honeymoon ... not our FIRST activity, but we did play for hours one cold afternoon, sitting in the lodge in the Blue Ridge while the rain came down, with a fire in the fireplace, glasses of port (I *like* port, okay?) while I tried to learn the rules to a game he'd been playing for several years.

That was 30 years ago come May. Yikes!!
Posted by: rkb || 02/11/2004 21:15 Comments || Top||

#21  The Palestinians have generals? Jeez, talk about your ultimate hack job!
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 21:52 Comments || Top||


US not keeping Arabs aware of its plans
The United States has kept most Arab governments in the dark about its plans for the Middle East, now taking shape under the title of the Greater Middle East Initiative, Arab diplomats and officials said on Tuesday.
Worried, are you?
The way Washington has handled the initiative so far has added to Arab feeling that the Bush administration is planning a future for the region behind their backs, they said.
Bwahahaha!
US officials say they want European support for the initiative in readiness to announce it in June when the Group of Eight leaders hold their annual summit, hosted this year by US President Bush at Sea Island, Georgia.
We’d like European support, but we don’t expect it.
Arab governments have read about the proposals from the media or through public statements by US officials, though US Secretary of State Colin Powell did discuss them on Monday with Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad of Bahrain.
Memo to Arab governments: Read Rantburg, Rummy posts his plans here all the time under a assumed name.
"The Arab leaders feel their future is on the table at a time when they themselves are not sitting around that table. They find that rather disturbing," said one Arab diplomat, who asked not to be named.
We asked you to come to the table, but you said no.
"Whenever a group of countries is being talked about or having their future planned for them, without them being consulted, that’s not something that people would accept whole-heartedly. In fact, quite the contrary," said another Arab official, who also asked not to be named.
Kind of like how Israel feels having their future discussed by the Arab League. How’s it feel?
The Middle East initiative is an extension of the Bush administration’s campaign for democracy in the Middle East, seen by many in the region as an insincere distraction from the Arab priorities — an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to the US-led occupation of Iraq.
They still don’t see it’s all connected.
Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri said on Tuesday that the gravest part of the US initiative was that the Arabs were not part of it so far. "The Arab nation and its leaders must know what’s being planned, so they can take the appropriate position," he told reporters here.
The appropriate position is hands on the wall, feet back and spread. Oh, and don’t make any fast moves.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal told a news conference it would be hard to apply one set of standards in a region with many diverse countries. "We do not have a clear picture of the project of the political, security and economic aspect of it. I would have to hear the details first," the minister added.
"Then I can refuse properly"
A senior Arab official, who asked not to be named, said the trouble with US policies is they ignore what he called ‘regional factors’. "Their compass is set on US and Israeli interests," he said.
We don’t use compasses much any more, we use GPS.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said this week that Egypt had not received an official notification of the US initiative. "I’m sure they will have to consult with us at some stage," said an Egyptian official.
"Hi, I’m with the 1st AD. Where do you want your remains sent?"
The Arab League, the main regional organisation, has repeatedly said it wants dialogue with the US and Europe and was willing to consider any of their proposals. "We think of ourselves as the right address but so far nothing has materialised," said an Arab League official.
Keep looking over your shoulder.
Arab intellectuals, even those who favour drastic political reforms, are suspicious of US intentions. They also say that due to Arab criticism towards US foreign policy, the democracy campaign may be counter-productive, complicating the reform efforts of domestic liberals. "It’s becoming increasingly embarrassing for people to champion the cause of democracy inside Egypt because so often it looks like they are jumping on the bandwagon of the United States," said Walid Kazziha, professor of political science at the American University of Cairo.
Seen any other examples of democracy in the region? Besides Israel, I mean. Didn’t think so.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 9:22:35 AM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wonder what will happen when they get wind of Rummy's...er, .com's 40km strip plan?
Posted by: N Guard || 02/11/2004 10:01 Comments || Top||

#2  wow, sounds like the Arab diplomats might start seething! I'll certainly lose sleep over that
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2004 11:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Ixnay, Steverino...
Posted by: mojo || 02/11/2004 11:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Arab intellectuals, even those who favour drastic political reforms, are suspicious of US intentions. They also say that due to Arab criticism towards US foreign policy, the democracy campaign may be counter-productive, complicating the reform efforts of domestic liberals. "It’s becoming increasingly embarrassing for people to champion the cause of democracy inside Egypt because so often it looks like they are jumping on the bandwagon of the United States," said Walid Kazziha, professor of political science at the American University of Cairo.

Because, like it or not, the U.S. is the model. If that thought is so terrifying, then fine, keep your corrupt Arab kleptocracies intact, and keep on seething in your own miseries. Just make sure that when you decide to engage in an orgy of killing in an attempt to make yourselves feel better about your pathetic lives, you kill YOUR OWN COUNTRYMEN, and leave everybody else alone.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/11/2004 13:13 Comments || Top||

#5  "they are jumping on the bandwagon of the United States," said Walid Kazziha, professor of political science at the American University of Cairo."

Yes. We can start with spelling. It is called A-m-e-r-i-c-a-n U-n-i-v-e-r-s-i-t-y. Got that, professor sir?

Must be something in the water at facilities of higher education.
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 15:35 Comments || Top||

#6 
The United States has kept most Arab governments in the dark about its plans for the Middle East

I find this immensely reassuring: it means that most of them are considered targets. Let's get this damned election over with, so we can get on with the job...
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/11/2004 17:59 Comments || Top||

#7  "...has added to Arab feeling that the Bush administration is planning a future for the region behind their backs..."

The really sweet part is that it is actually being done right in their faces! BWAHahahahahaha hahahahahaha ha ha FWAHahahahaha (...I have to wipe a tear...) HAhahahahaha
Posted by: Hyper || 02/11/2004 21:13 Comments || Top||


Binny’s driver to be one of the first to face military tribunal
A Yemeni laborer who worked as a driver on Osama bin Laden’s farm in Afghanistan is likely to be one of the first detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba tried before a military tribunal, his lawyer said last night. But Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, who represents Yemeni inmate Salim Ahmed Hamdan, said the 34-year-old father of two "was not a terrorist or a member of al Qaeda or the Taliban" when he worked as a chauffeur on bin Laden’s farm in Kandahar, Afghanistan. "He had a job there for the sole purpose of supporting himself and his family," Swift said.

Before his lawyer spoke publicly about the case yesterday, little information had emerged publicly about Hamdan except that he was in a group of six detainees designated last month as eligible to face trial by special military tribunals. Swift’s defense of Hamdan is one of the first for any of the detainees, but such legal advocacy could soon become common during the legal battles expected as the United States gears up for the tribunals. Military sources said Hamdan, who was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 by the Northern Alliance militia allied with the United States, has cooperated with interrogators at the U.S. Navy detention facility. He has been picked as one of the first to be tried because the government hopes he will plead guilty and testify about what he witnessed as bin Laden’s occasional chauffeur, the sources said.

Defense lawyers knowledgeable about Hamdan’s case said another option for the military was to consider granting Hamdan immunity in exchange for his testimony, instead of charging him to get it. "Mr. Hamdan freely admits he was employed by Mr. bin Laden, and on occasion drove him around," Swift said. "But he adamantly denies he was a member of al Qaeda or engaged in any terrorist act." Hamdan also denies ever taking up arms against the United States or anyone else, the lawyer said. "My client doesn’t understand why he’s being held," Swift said, adding that "he implores the president to allow him a civilian trial in which he may demonstrate his innocence." Swift said that Hamdan, a laborer in Yemen with a fourth-grade education, traveled to Afghanistan in 1996 with the goal of fighting with a Muslim militia in neighboring Tajikistan that opposed the government there. But bad weather and border guards prevented him from entering Tajikistan. Instead, he stayed in Afghanistan with his wife, and soon had a daughter.
"It's raining, honey. Why don't we just stay here?"
At some point in the late 1990s, he got a job on bin Laden’s farm driving workers, equipment, produce and sometimes the al Qaeda leader himself, who was then wanted by authorities around the globe. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Hamdan borrowed a car to take his then-2-year-old daughter and pregnant wife to safety in Pakistan, then drove back to Afghanistan to return the car. It was then that he was captured. Swift said he has been "specifically forbidden" by military superiors from discussing anything that happened to Hamdan at Guantanamo Bay before he visited him in the past two weeks for legal consultations, including whether officials had discussed the prospect of a plea agreement with Hamdan. Swift said that he also cannot discuss possible plea discussions.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:10:10 AM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is the guy who was feeding the rynos and giraffes. I bet he gets off with a fine.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/11/2004 0:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Jackels, Lucky, he was feeding the jackels.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 0:55 Comments || Top||

#3  Whodathunkit? I'd understand Susan Sarandon or Janeane Garofalo, but Minnie Driver? Tragic, just ... tragic.
Posted by: Dan (not Darling) || 02/11/2004 2:37 Comments || Top||

#4  another option for the military was to consider granting Hamdan immunity in exchange for his testimony.

Wouldn't that BE a death sentence once he is released? Where is Mike Farrell??
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 8:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Oh I ain't gonna work on Binny's farm no more....
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 8:35 Comments || Top||

#6  I'd like to see a fair trial and a quick hangin' for all of those mutts.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/11/2004 9:17 Comments || Top||

#7  You will see several acquitted in this first group to establish that the trials are honest. They will work their way up to the big fish using the testimony of the little fish on the way. I expect that the driver has actually been held as a material witness not for what we can prove he did himself. For example, the prosecuter will ask, "to your knowledge did OBL meet with that gentleman over there?"
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 11:40 Comments || Top||

#8  Another reason to start with the little fish is to work all the bugs out of the system before you get to the big boys. Think of it as a practice round before the main event.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 14:36 Comments || Top||

#9  This is the brother of Raptor. this is to AK Paul.I had the pleasure of working around Ak I had two brothers I worrked with that ended up going to the northern slope. There last name was Snow and they were from Mc Grath.There names were Paul and P.T. by chance did or do you know either of them?
I als worked at Candel,Platinume,Nome,47 creek(very good Moose country and on the caribue migration route} The golden zone aboute 25 miles fro the big igloo ont the HWY between Anchorage and Fairbanks .
any inf on theese places or people will be appreciated.
Thank You
Posted by: diamond driller || 02/12/2004 9:47 Comments || Top||


International-UN-NGOs
WTO Formally Grants Iraq Observer Status
Iraq was formally approved Wednesday as an observer to the World Trade Organization - a first step to gaining membership in the body. The WTO’s ruling General Council agreed by consensus to accept the Iraqi application. Observer status gives the nation the right to attend meetings and hold some talks with WTO member countries. Observers have no formal say in decisions by the body, which sets rules on international trade, but neither are they bound by them. Ahmad al-Mukhtar, director general of foreign economic relations at Iraq’s ministry of trade, thanked the 146-nation WTO for its approval. "After decades of isolation, Iraq is beginning to rejoin the international community and your decision today sends a positive signal to the people of Iraq that they are welcomed back and that the world really cares about their welfare," he said. Al-Mukhtar said that observer status would give the Iraqi government a better understanding of the WTO. "It will assist us in adopting WTO-consistent laws and regulations and Iraqis who have been forced into isolation by the previous regime will get the chance to benefit from the vast resources available at the WTO."
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 12:46:24 PM || Comments || Link || [336061 views] Top|| File under:


Southeast Asia
Two Suspected Islamic Militants Raid Thai Radar Station
Two armed men suspected of links with international Islamic militants broke into an air force base radar station in violence-hit southern Thailand and escaped before security forces could catch them, the air force chief said Wednesday. The incident took place last week at the Thai Air Force’s 56th Wing base in the Klong Hoykhong district of Songkhla province, Air Chief Marshal Kongsak Wanttana told reporters. He didn’t specify the date. The unidentified men - both believed to be Thais - may have used skills learned from overseas terrorist organizations to enter the facility, he said. "They may have learned abroad and come back to inspect this station to see if a sabotage effort would be successful, or were simply checking to see how good our security precautions were," Kongsak said. A senior air force officer at the base said the men broke in and escaped unhurt after security personnel opened fire on them. The incident came before Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s visit to the base, the officer said.
Posted by: TS || 02/11/2004 9:55:26 AM || Comments || Link || [336096 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the men broke in and escaped unhurt after security personnel opened fire on them.

Need to spend a little more time at the range.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 11:00 Comments || Top||


2 Abus jugged in Zamboanga
Military and police authorities here on Tuesday announced the arrest of at least two suspected Abu Sayyaf members during separate operations Monday. Southern Command chief Lt. Gen. Roy Kyamko said soldiers arrested Totoh Aling at the public market around 2:30 p.m. on Monday. Kyamko said Aling, a "follower of ASG sub leader Benang Andang and Khadaffy Janjalani," was arrested based on a warrant of arrest issued by a local court for his alleged participation in kidnapping. Supt. Mario Yanga, city police director, said that also on Monday, police authorities arrested a Nasser Muvin, who was identified by an informer as an Abu Sayyaf member.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:41:46 AM || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But what are their Abu Sayyaf Nom de Guerres? Sub-sub commander Hello Kitty and Private Edible Underwear?
Posted by: ed || 02/11/2004 2:50 Comments || Top||

#2  "Sub-sub commander Hello Kitty and Private Edible Underwear"
Lol! Excellent!

Sheesh. So, okay, where's the outrage? Here ed and below Frank are pointing out funny names. It goes by without a response, whereas I was attacked cuz it was bad and we needed all of these Muslims to like us and laughing at funny names would harm our chances of that happening -- as if. Pfeh. Pure hypocrisy and bullshit -- and pride so hidebound that a simple acknowledgement of overblowing such a triviality was a bridge too far.
Posted by: .com (Abu Secret Sauce) || 02/11/2004 11:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Ah yes! The Kabob war.... serious blue-on-blue as I recall.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 11:50 Comments || Top||

#4  .com, attacked by who? Abu Antiwar trollboy? Humor in the face of a no-honor/no-shame/no-humor culture like the Arabs have is the best medicine....barring cluster bombs and JDAMs, of course
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2004 12:17 Comments || Top||

#5  Frank - This is the article to which I refer, my good man.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 13:36 Comments || Top||

#6  Ah, yes... Calhoun.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 15:18 Comments || Top||

#7  Lol! Oh yeah?

I used to have to fight to defend it - can you believe that shit? Tis true. And that was damned frequently - I went to 13 schools in the 12 yrs of public school... and it got "funnier" the further North my mother took us, too. South to North - that was her "migration" pattern: backwards! It was hard then. Later I realized she was a hoot!
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 15:44 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Militant ’heir’ Wacked In Ein el-Hellhole
A Palestinian teenager whose father set up a militant group allegedly linked to al-Qaeda has been shot dead in Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in south Lebanon. Mohammed Shreidi was the last surviving son of Hisham Shreidi, the founder of the Asbat al-Ansar group.
Wiped them all out.
The 18-year-old reportedly tried - but failed - to lead a breakaway faction of Asbat al-Ansar after the killings of his father and brother.
Guess someone objected to them "breaking away".
Asbat al-Ansar and its breakaway faction, Asbat al-Nour, advocate strict Islamic rule; the former group features on Washington’s list of "terror" groups linked to al-Qaeda.
And the latter was trying to make the grade.
Both have clashed with other Islamist groups in the camp and with the mainstream Fatah militia.
"Yeah, we hate everyone!"
Three hand grenade explosions in the Ein el-Hilweh camp on Tuesday were reportedly linked to the long-running power struggle between these groups.
We heard about those.
Mohammed Shreidi is said to have antagonised the camp’s Fatah fighters, who blamed him for ordering grenade and bomb attacks on their members and property.
I can see why that might upset them.
His elder brother, Abdullah Shreidi, set up Ansar al-Nour group after their father, Hisham, was assassinated in 1991.
Nobody liked Dad either.
After the elder Shreidi brother died of gunshot wounds in July last year, a cycle of clashes between Islamist and Fatah militants claimed a further seven lives and wounded 24 people.
It’s the Dread Cycle Of Dire Revenge.
The atmosphere in the camp is said to be tense on Wednesday, with the sound of machine-gun fire being heard in the early hours of the morning - no casualties have been reported.
Is there any country in the region without machine gun fire in the wee hours of the morning?
Ein el-Hilweh is the largest of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. It houses 75,000 refugees and - although guarded from the outside by Lebanon’s army - is considered to be a law unto itself within.
And it’s the Law Of The Gun.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 10:28:06 AM || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nice name Asshat Asbat
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2004 10:48 Comments || Top||

#2  I'd call it Darwin's law.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 11:26 Comments || Top||

#3  A few more details:
Palestinian officials said two unidentified gunmen fired more than 15 shots at Mohammed Shreidi, an extremist whose late father, Hisham Shreidi, was the founder of the Asbat al-Ansar group. Beirut press reports have linked the group to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and Washington claims there is a connection. Its members, however, deny any links to al-Qaida.
The elder Shreidi was assassinated in Ein el-Hilweh in 1991. Mohammed's brother, Abdullah Shreidi, led the extremist al-Nour faction, an Islamic fundamentalist group that split from Asbat al-Ansar, which also urges strict Islamic rule. He died in July from wounds suffered in a May assassination attempt.
Mohammed Shreidi, Hisham Shreidi's only remaining son, was a member of al-Nour and had been blamed for several bombings and violent acts in Ein el-Hilweh. He had been warned several times to curtail his activities by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fatah faction in the camp. The attack took place around 1:30 a.m. local time as Shreidi was returning to his home in the camp's Safsaf neighborhood, a hotbed of Palestinian Muslim extremists. Shreidi was already dead when his bullet-ridden body was taken to a hospital in the camp, the officials said on condition of anonymity.


I love a happy ending.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 13:58 Comments || Top||

#4  No relation to Nabisco Shreidi?
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 15:24 Comments || Top||

#5  Lol!

john - you've been on a roll all day, bro! Puhleeze keep coming back to RB!
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 15:46 Comments || Top||


Unfair distribution of facilities in Bam
Let’s see. aid efforts in Bam are:
Slow..tick
Inefficient..tick
Corrupt..tick
Ridden with fraud..tick
Looks like everything is normal then.

After the passage of more than 40 days since the devastating earthquake which rocked the Southeastern Iranian city of Bam, the quake-hit people of the city are complaining of the poor services they have been rendered so far. According to Iranian Daily Hamshahri, many Bam residents are dissatisfied with the establishment of temporary settlements at the sites which they think are not suitable at all. They say that no one asked their opinion about the location of the camps. Thus many believe that many steps taken so far in the quake-torn city were no more than a waste of budget. The Hamshahri report indicates that the domestic and foreign aid packages sent to the city were not fairly distributed among the people. Even many of the local residents said that the aids have been blocked by certain organizations. Another problem the locals now face is a rather large population who has immigrated to the ruined city just to enjoy the facilities of the relief organizations. These immigrants have tripled the 90,000 population of Bam. Distinguishing between the locals and the outsiders is a big problem the officials in Bam are entrapped in.
Posted by: tipper || 02/11/2004 3:56:47 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A sad situation. Trying to remember a recent crises where greedy degenerates people migrated to the disaster scene to get in on the relief goodies. Anybody?

BTW, tipper:The US's fault ... tick
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 6:46 Comments || Top||

#2  GK - Hmmm... I'd wager that variations of this have happened in Iraq... methinks the Arabs and Persians have (at least) this trait in common.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 9:39 Comments || Top||

#3  All the good land deals are prolly gone. Man, you gotta move fast in real estate, location, location, location.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/11/2004 12:13 Comments || Top||

#4  It the system the Palestinians have been milking using for half a century.
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 12:20 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Al-Qaeda under pressure from leadership to carry out new attacks
Al Qaeda is under pressure to strike another "high-value" Western target and may be looking at attacking chemical plants or shooting down planes with surface-to-air missiles, a top German intelligence official said on Tuesday. "A substantial decline in activities in the next couple of years is highly improbable," Rudolf Adam, deputy head of German’s BND foreign intelligence agency, told a security conference in Berlin. "On the contrary, we would feel that pressure is mounting on al Qaida to reassert its effectiveness and its ability to strike another really big high-value target" in order to keep its "trade name" visible, he said. Adam said air transport remained a potential target, adding: "The next threat that we observe with great concern is the possibilities of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, so called MANPADs."

Adam said shipping, tourist sites and supply infrastructure such as oil pipelines, power stations, electricity grids and water supplies remained potentially at risk. "We have unspecified hints that plans have been made or are still under way to target the chemical industry and chemical infrastructure," he said, without giving details. Adam also said there was concern that al Qaeda might consider staging kidnappings - a tactic it has not previously used - as a bargaining chip to seek the release of prominent members captured during the U.S.-led war on terror. "We have some disturbing evidence that kidnappings have been planned," he said.
Hezbollah seems to be having some success with the tactic... with German help.
Adam said the "first generation" of al Qaida had been badly weakened in the war on terror, but even the capture or killing of its leader Osama bin Laden would leave behind a second generation of fighters, trained in Afghan camps, and a third generation currently being recruited. "The cancer has already proliferated into innumerable metastases," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:03:02 AM || Comments || Link || [336061 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Who's putting pressure on AQ, Rueters, AlJiz, Joe Ibn, Bill Abu?
Posted by: Lucky || 02/11/2004 0:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Well, well, 2-1/2 years later and they're finally paying attention.
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/11/2004 1:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Hey! Maybe he reads rantburg. I used that cancer analogy the other day!

Ok..ok...but ya just NEVER know!!
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 9:14 Comments || Top||

#4  Radiation has often proved effective has an anti-cancer treatment.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 13:38 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Gunman Kills Afghan Intelligence Chief
EFL

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A gunman killed an Afghan intelligence official and then blew himself up in a troubled eastern city Wednesday in the country’s third suicide attack this year.
The Taliban claimed it carried out the attack, adding weight to the group’s threat of a suicide campaign that began with the killings of two international peacekeepers in Kabul. The assault also deepens the parallels with the insurgency raging in Iraq.

Wednesday’s attack killed the deputy intelligence chief of Khost province, Maj. Mohammed Isa Khan, provincial government spokesman Hayatullah Taniwal said.

Now it gets strange.

According to Taniwal, the assailant stopped Khan’s car as he drove to his office Wednesday morning in the city of Khost, 90 miles south of Kabul. "When he opened the window to talk to him, (the attacker) pulled a gun out from under his blanket and opened fire," Taniwal said.

The man tried to flee, but three of Khan’s bodyguards chased the attacker. "Then he blew himself up," Taniwal said. No one else was injured.

Is this guy technically a suicide bomber or an assassin who boomed himself. Was he going for style points? Was he trying to save the bodyguards the trouble of chasing him down? Why not boom the car and kill more people?

-snip-

On Monday, NATO’s military commander said the number of hardcore Taliban and al-Qaida fighters resisting U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan has dwindled to under 1,000.

The insurgency is "running out of energy," U.S. Marine Gen. James L. Jones said after visiting Kabul.

However, alliance diplomats said intelligence reports indicate up to 60 potential suicide bombers may have infiltrated Kabul, which had been relatively calm until the two attacks in late January.

I hope they prove to be just as confused as this guy. The Taliban must be trying to stretch each suicide bomber over several missions.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 9:16:19 PM || Comments || Link || [336077 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sorry, double post. Please delete.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 21:51 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Peres Suggests Incentives for Mideast then practices barking awaiting moonrise
EFL
Speaking to the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, Peres said the United States and Europe could encourage the two sides to make peace. After a peace agreement is reached, he said, Israel and a Palestinian state could become members of the European Union and take part in the NATO Partnership for Peace program.
"And we'll all live happily ever after!"
He also said Jordan should be offered EU membership and that the new Jordanian-Palestinian-Israeli bloc could become "a modern Benelux."
"We could import diamonds, and the Jordanians could make chocolate, and the Paleos could... ummm... What does Luxembourg do again?"
"I see the new Middle East starting to come alive," Peres said, suggesting that the precedent of political change in Russia and China had positive implications for the Arab world, where reform has been slow. Peres said he had discussed the EU membership plan with former EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, and their reaction was "rather positive."
But did he discuss it with Luxembourg?
In his remarks, Peres did not address the potential problems for Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian EU membership. These include Israeli immigration law, which restricts the rights of non-Jews to settle in the country, and the large gap between EU requirements and Palestinian and Jordanian economic performance.
What're the seething requirements?
Israelis would object to the right of Palestinians living in Jordan and a Palestinian state to move to Israel -- which Palestinians have sought and which they could then do under the EU’s policy of free movement of people.
Slithering in through the back passage door, eh?
Peres said Europe and the United States should seek to guarantee the borders agreed on between Israel and the Palestinians, to allay fears by Israel that Palestinians would continue to demand more territory, and Palestinian concerns that Israel would retake theirs. He also suggested a charter to fight terrorism. Peres said he had already talked to European leaders about the proposal, and there was some support.
Ladies and gentlemen, I announce the founding of Cloud Coo Coo Land. Coco Puff buffet from 8 to 11 for all patients residents.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/11/2004 9:00:51 PM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan/South Asia
Pakistan to Strengthen Nuclear Capability
Gee. Wrong move. Wrong time...
Despite international criticism of clandestine nuclear transfers by Pakistani scientists, President Pervez Musharraf says the country is further developing its nuclear capability. Online news agency quoted Musharraf as saying that Pakistan would continue to develop its nuclear program and there would be no compromise on the issue. Musharraf was presiding over a special session of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, held at Aiwan-e-Sadr in Islamabad yesterday. The meeting was attended by several senior government and military officials. Underlining Pakistan’s nuclear power status, Musharraf said the nuclear program was peaceful in nature and essential for the nation’s security.
Posted by: TS || 02/11/2004 7:25:39 PM || Comments || Link || [336081 views] Top|| File under:

#1  release immediate release all domestic press

Got to keep the locals quiet.
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 21:06 Comments || Top||

#2  You want some nuclear weapons, Perv? Coming right up! Give us, oh, 20 minutes.
Posted by: Jackal || 02/11/2004 21:44 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
gibsons wife can go to hell
Mel Gibson has come under fire for being hard on Jews in his film “The Passion of the Christ” — but apparently, he feels that Protestants are also doomed to damnation. In fact, it looks like Gibson, a conservative Catholic, believes that his Episcopalian wife could be going to hell. Gibson was interviewed by the Herald Sun in Australia, and the reporter asked the star if Protestants are denied eternal salvation. “There is no salvation for those outside the Church,” Gibson replied. “I believe it.”

He elaborated: “Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She’s a much better person than I am. Honestly. She’s, like, Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she believes in that stuff. And it’s just not fair if she doesn’t make it, she’s better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from the chair. I go with it.”

Gibson also said in the interview that he was nearly suicidal before he made his controversial film. “I got to a very desperate place. Very desperate. Kind of jump-out-of-a-window kind of desperate,” he said in the interview. “And I didn’t want to hang around here, but I didn’t want to check out. The other side was kind of scary. And I don’t like heights, anyway. But when you get to that point where you don’t want to live, and you don’t want to die, it’s a desperate, horrible place to be. And I just hit my knees. And I had to use ‘The Passion of the Christ’ to heal my wounds.” Gibson’s rep wasn’t available for comment.
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/11/2004 3:46:30 PM || Comments || Link || [336081 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He claims it is a 'pronouncement from the chair' I don't know what he's talking about, but the current Pope and no recent one has ever said any crap about Protestants going to hell. Sounds like he has gone bye-bye. Shame too, I really enjoy his movies. I'm not judging his Christianity at all by the way. But his whole suicide thing and making this movie and all seems like he's gone crazy.
Posted by: Swiggles || 02/11/2004 16:04 Comments || Top||

#2  The belief that Non-Catholics are damned is called Triumphalism and is a heresy as stated by the Catholic church.
Posted by: domingo || 02/11/2004 16:22 Comments || Top||

#3  ... where she can play soccer with Usama Bin Laden and the Mexican National soccer team, right, muck4doo?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 16:35 Comments || Top||

#4  If he's like this at home then when her time comes as it does to us all she can truely say she's served her time in Hell
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 02/11/2004 18:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Gibson belongs to a cult-like splinter off (does that make them Protestants?/sarcasm off) the Roman Catholic Church known as the Tridentine Catholic Church. They reject the Second Vatican Council reforms and still say the mass in Latin. They think that the current church hierarchy is a bunch of heretics.
Posted by: 11A5S || 02/11/2004 18:36 Comments || Top||

#6  Not that Tridentine Mass isn't done in Roman Catholicism; on the contrary, I've heard that Pope John Paul II has been pushing for its reinstitution, at least where desired ...
Posted by: Lu Baihu || 02/11/2004 19:04 Comments || Top||

#7  I stand corrected. Gibson is in fact Roman Catholic, but attends Tridentine Mass. His views fit seem to fit in well with the TCC's, though.
Posted by: 11A5S || 02/11/2004 20:29 Comments || Top||

#8  And this crap is here because...
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/11/2004 20:54 Comments || Top||

#9  While agreeing this crap has no place here, I wanted to add that when Gibson was referring to 'from the chair' he likely was referring to the Pope speaking 'ex cathedra.' This essentially means hat the Pope declares he is speaking infallibly on a particular subject. Speakin 'ex cathedra' is extremely rare (I do not think the current Pope has done it) and in 12 years of Catholic school I never heard of such a pronouncement stating that Protestants would go to Hell.
Posted by: JAB || 02/11/2004 23:05 Comments || Top||


Africa: Horn
Sailor Employs First-Aid to Roadside Victims
A sailor supporting Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa was recognized Feb. 11 for providing life-saving medical care to a Djiboutian man and his family. Petty Officer 3rd Class Anthony L. Fuller was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal for his efforts in saving the life of a Djiboutian man who, along with his family, was involved in a vehicle accident Jan. 31. When returning from a leisure trip to Arta Plage, Fuller, who is the senior corpsman for Task Force Betio, and a group of fellow task force Marines noticed a vehicle that appeared to have overturned and four victims on the ground near the wreck. "When we came on there, everybody was pretty much on the deck. They definitely rolled it, looking at the roof. It looked like somebody probably pushed [the truck] back upright," said Fuller, who served as an emergency medical technician for six years prior to enlisting in the Navy. Fuller knew he could help and did his part as a first responder. According to his award citation, working in an austere environment with extremely limited resources, he recognized the severity of the injuries and potential loss of life. He continued critical treatment and life-saving measures until host-nation emergency personnel arrived.
Snip. Been there. Done that. The longest moments of your life are waiting for the sirens while somebody bleeds out.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/11/2004 3:26:38 PM || Comments || Link || [336080 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I once had a Chuck help me out. Thanks.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 18:15 Comments || Top||

#2  Kudos Doc! Navy Corpsmen make house calls!
Posted by: doc8404 || 02/11/2004 21:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Doing what Corpsmen do,saving lives.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/12/2004 9:57 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Last 101st convoy leaves Iraq
The last 101st Airborne Division convoy rolled across the Iraqi border just before 5 a.m. Kuwaiti time this morning, leaving behind a mission that spanned almost a year. Spc. Misael Santiago of Lawton, Okla., pulling rear convoy security with a .50-caliber machine gun, had the historical honor of being the final 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) “Screaming Eagle” to leave Iraq by vehicle. He was part of a seven-vehicle convoy, with elements of Company D, 3-502nd Infantry Regiment, and Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Division Support Command. “I just feel good to be almost home,” Santiago said, echoing sentiments of every other troop who undertook the three-day movement from Mosul in northern Iraq to Kuwait.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/11/2004 3:22:28 PM || Comments || Link || [336083 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thank you all, and God bless you.
Posted by: Hyper || 02/11/2004 20:44 Comments || Top||


US doubles Zarqawi bounty
Isn’t he worth more than Binny now?
The U.S. military on Wednesday doubled its bounty for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an Al Qaeda-linked Jordanian who officials suspect has been trying to spark an Iraqi civil war. American officials think al-Zarqawi was probably behind the Feb. 1 double attack on Kurdish political parties in Irbil, in which explosive-strapped bombers killed 109 people celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha. On Tuesday and Wednesday, vehicle bombings killed up to 99 people in Iskandariyah and Baghdad. Both attacks targeted Iraqis working with the coalition. "If I could draw on a relationship to his memo and also these attacks ... Yes, they are related," Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, said Wednesday.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:10:57 PM || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine
14 Palestinians Killed in Clashes in Gaza
Update on previously reported Clash. We got names!:
Israeli troops rode tanks into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday searching for Islamic militants firing rockets at nearby Jewish settlements, and the ensuing battle left at least 14 Palestinians dead and more than 50 wounded. It was one of the bloodiest days in Gaza in months, with the fiercest fighting occurring in the Shajaiyeh neighborhood of Gaza City. Twelve people, including the son of a prominent Palestinian leader and a senior Hamas activist, were killed and more than 40 were wounded, Palestinian doctors said.
Hunting season seems to have opened.
In a separate raid in the Rafah area along the Gaza-Egypt border, troops killed two Palestinians, including a militant, as they searched for arms-smuggling tunnels. The forces demolished three houses and razed citrus and olive groves.
Just because they hate trees, I guess.
The fighting in Gaza City erupted before dawn and continued for several hours. The army and Palestinian residents said the troops pulled out by early afternoon.
"Oops! Look at the time, see you guys tomorrow!"
During the fighting, dozens of young men stood in the streets watching as gunfire whizzed by.
Keep that up and you won’t get any older.
The dead Palestinians included 10 militants, Palestinian sources said.
Excellent!
They included Mohammed Hilles, 18, the son of Ahmed Hilles, the top leader of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction in Gaza, and senior Hamas activist Hani Abu Skhaila.
Guess Mohammed won’t be following in Dad’s footsteps any more.
Hamas said Abu Skhaila survived two previous Israeli attempts to kill him, including a June missile strike on his car in which he suffered shrapnel wounds.
Third time’s the charm.
Hamas, which called Abu Skhaila "the great brave hero," said he participated in several deadly attacks on Israelis, including a suicide bombing last month that killed four people at a border checkpoint.
Real brave sending others out to die.
At least nine of the wounded were in critical condition, doctors said.
Leaking fluids, infection setting in, long slow painful lingering death, it’s Miller Time!
Pray for sepsis...
The wounded included at least three young bystanders, witnesses and doctors said.
Remenber what I said about watching whizzing bullets?
When Abu Sakhalin’s death was announced at a Gaza hospital, Hamas militants in camouflage uniforms waiting outside fired guns in the air and yelled, "God is great!" before jumping in a car to return to the fighting, witnesses said.
Or heading to the hills.
"Okay. He's dead. Let's go kill somebody!"
Troops shot and killed gunmen in a house, Strick said. Later, soldiers searching the house found an explosives belt of the type worn by suicide bombers and other weapons. Soldiers arrested the family living in the house and blew up the building.
Urban renewal.
After the fighting subsided, three small rockets were fired into Israel, causing no damage, Israel Army radio reported.
"Take that! Ok, honor has been served, let’s go home."
In the other battle, Israeli forces, including more than 10 tanks and several armored bulldozers, moved into the Rafah refugee camp, residents said. Five Palestinians were wounded in gun battles, they said.
More good news.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 11:22:19 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Nearing that special time of the year when it's time to go long on Catepillar.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 11:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Excellent work. I think though there should be more competitive bidding on Dozers, Cat's is ok but Deere et al have some fine home destroying dozers too. Just a thought.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/11/2004 11:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Caterpillar D9's kick ass, though - with special Corrie-treads and IHOP stickers on the sides
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2004 12:09 Comments || Top||

#4  I'd love to see the Requests for Bids to Cat/Deere from the IDF.

"Section VIII. - Vehicles must be able to withstand taunts from seething, clueless uts and hand-wringing American "activists". Replacement parts, especially treads, must be procurred in accordance with Schedule XII . . . Blah, blah, blah.

Do you think the crew chief paints little mud hut symbols on the sides of the dozers after a successful sortie? Just a thought. . .
Posted by: Doc8404 || 02/11/2004 13:42 Comments || Top||

#5  Obviously a plot of the Joooooos for ruining Emperor Misha. Imagine the cost of all those pizzas he will have to buy to IDF.
Posted by: JFM || 02/11/2004 14:47 Comments || Top||

#6  Do you think the crew chief paints little mud hut symbols on the sides of the dozers after a successful sortie?

Now that's just plain mean.... and of course I sure wish I'd typed it.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 18:45 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
CPA Briefing 2-10-2004
Snippets
  • Ambassador Bremer today began meeting with members of the Iraqi Governing Council to make available to them the full copy of the Zarqawi al Qaeda memo. It is a 17-page memo, in Arabic, and he is beginning the process of allowing Governing Council members to read it closely.
  • Yesterday afternoon two U.S. soldiers were killed and five wounded near Sinjar when confiscated enemy ammunition was being moved to a demolition point. A rocket-propelled grenade exploded, killing one soldier instantly and wounding five others. A second soldier died en route to the 61st Combat Support Hospital. Three soldiers are in stable condition at the 61st, and two other soldiers have been returned to duty.
  • Yesterday Navy divers recovered the remains of an Iraqi policeman lost on 25 January while patrolling the Tigris River with U.S. soldiers. The remains have been positively identified and returned to Iraqi authorities, and the search continues for the lost U.S. soldiers.
  • A coalition patrol observed 10 men armed with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers north of Mukadiyah (ph) on the evening of February 9th, apparently establishing an ambush position. In the ensuing firefight, coalition soldiers killed 10 enemy and recovered five AK-47 assault rifles, four rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 2 RPK machine guns, two hand grenades, and a pair of night-vision goggles. The remains of those killed have been turned over to Iraqi officials.
  • Additionally, 2,040 persons in 66 buses crossed back into Iraq at the Arar crossing site as they returned from the Hajj. To date, 5,357 persons have returned from Saudi Arabia through this region.
  • Yesterday morning, 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers conducted a cordon and search in Ul Walium (ph) to kill or capture anti-coalition forces. The operation resulted in the capture of six enemy personnel, including three of the primary targets. Also confiscated were small arms weapons, five doorbells, six car-phone kits, phones, wire, identification cards and miscellaneous documents indicating that they were attempting to construct remote-controlled improvised explosive devices.
  • Yesterday, 50,000 Iraqis gathered peacefully in An Najaf in preparation for the election of the next Imam of the Ali Shrine on 17 February. The event was peaceful and concluded without incident.
  • Well, first of all, today was a tragic day for the Iraqi police service. They lost a number of police officers in the line of duty. I would like to report that this is the first day I’ve had to stand up here and say that; it is not. Nuri Badran has said that over 300 of his police officers have been killed since last April. Yet they continue to come back to work every day. They continue to get larger and larger; they continue to grow. We have approximately 70,000 persons in the police service right now. And I think the greatest compliment and the greatest credit to the Iraqi police service is that despite the fact that this is an almost daily event that they are attacked, threatened, terrorized, they still come back to work. And the overall number of the Iraqi police service gets larger and larger every day. And so we don’t think that after repeated attacks and repeated bombings directed against the Iraqi police service that the recruiting efforts will be swayed by this one event today, since they’ve had so many others before this.
  • At approximately 21:45 last night, military forces were -- reported that there was an explosion outside of Sheikh Antar’s (sp) house in Ar Ramadi. The suicide bomber was a male between 22, 27 years of age. He apparently was wearing a black male dress with a tan jacket. He had -- the bomb was strapped to his body in a vest around his waist. As you might expect, the suicide bomber has -- was killed, and the civilian authorities have taken four additional persons that were wounded in that event to the hospital. So we had a total of five persons injured from that explosion, and Sheikh Antar (sp) was not injured in that event.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/11/2004 10:55:10 AM || Comments || Link || [336076 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "...killed 10 enemy..."

Ten for ten. Nice shootin'...
Posted by: PBMcL || 02/11/2004 11:26 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
Libya denies ’selling out’ Khan
Libya has denied it shopped Pakistan and its chief nuclear weapons scientist, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to the US and UK, in a desire to worm its way into Western affections after nearly half-a-century out in the cold. In fact, Colonel Gaddafi’s emissary said Tuesday in London that West "already knew about him (Khan) they never asked and we never gave any information".
Yup, we had the evidence they were buying from him. That’s the reason Gaddafi folded. He just confirmed it after the fact.
Tuesday’s comments came from Libyan foreign minister Abdul Rahman Shalgam, whose UK visit was described by British foreign secretary Jack Straw as "historic". And offering a uniquely Arabic simile, Shalgam insisted that all its "know-how", which is thought to be acquired from Pakistan, and all its "scientists" did not lead Tripoli to develop a nuclear weapon. He said, "the presence of flour, water and fire does not mean that you’ve actually got bread".
It means intent to become a baker.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 9:54:35 AM || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Looks like duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck,
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 10:38 Comments || Top||

#2  ducks in bondage again? thought we'd finished that thread yesterday? AFLAC!
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2004 11:12 Comments || Top||

#3  ..."the presence of flour, water and fire does not mean that you’ve actually got bread".

Flour and fire, put together smartly can produce a hell of a boom. Forget the water. Bakers capable of dual-use technology can be dangerous to us all. Thus ends my morning fable. *quacks*
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/11/2004 11:38 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Khan’s Konfession Koncocted
Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s confession that he sold nuclear weapons technology to North Korea was a lie cooked up by the United States to justify an invasion, Pyongyang said on Tuesday.
"Lies! Imperialist Lies!"
In Pyongyang’s first reaction, a foreign ministry spokesman said the United States had fabricated Dr Khan’s story to derail the nuclear talks and lay the groundwork for an Iraq-style invasion. "The United States is now hyping the story about the transfer of nuclear technology to the DPRK (North Korea) by a Pakistani scientist in a bid to make the DPRK’s enriched uranium programmeme sound plausible," said the spokesman in a statement published by Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency. "This is nothing but a mean and groundless propaganda," the spokesman said, adding Dr Abdul Qadeer’s disclosures were such a "sheer lie that the DPRK does not bat an eyelid even a bit".
"We're becoming apoplectic with our eyes wide open!"
"This is aimed to scour the interior of the DPRK on the basis of a legitimate mandate and attack it just as what it did in Iraq in the end and invent a pretext to escape isolation and scuttle the projected six-way talks," KCNA said of Dr Khan’s disclosures.
"They’re trying to stifle our Jung!"
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 8:55:09 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  (* holds up card *) 2.5

Just no Juche in that half-hearted rant. Is the normal spittle guy on vacation?
Posted by: Raj || 02/11/2004 12:46 Comments || Top||

#2  ..."A mean and groundless propaganda...aimed to scour the Interior of the DPRK...invent a pretext to escape isolation and scuttle the projected six-way talks..."

Wow. Either Spittle Guy IS on vacation, or he needs a few Hershey bars to get his blood sugar up. Not good at all...*witholds rating entirely*

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/11/2004 14:04 Comments || Top||

#3  We're messin with their heads

If they trust Khannnnn! then they don't have to trust the US. If they don't trust Khannnn!, then they're trusting the lie, the US. Who do ya trust, Kimmie?

Bad case of delusional psychosis which shows in this very tentative effort. No score.

Unfortunately, in order to resolve this dilemma, they may have to hand a Khan designed device over to somebody to test on their behalf.
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 15:51 Comments || Top||

#4  You're right Mike... it's the blood sugar thingy. Rice is good but pure sugar is necessary for a fierce rant... it's a sign of the end times.
Posted by: AntiPasto || 02/11/2004 19:56 Comments || Top||


Suicide bomber kills intelligence official
The deputy intelligence director of troubled southeastern Khost province was killed in a suicide bomb attack on Wednesday, an official said. "The deputy intelligence director of Khost province, Mohammed Isa, was killed in a suicide attack by Taliban and al-Qaeda on Wednesday morning," Khost military division commander Khial Baz Khan told the news agency. "We are investigating the case." A spokesman for the ousted Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime claimed responsibility for the Khost attack minutes after it occurred. This is the third suicide attack in the past month in Afghanistan. On January 27 and 28 two suicide bombers targeted International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops in Kabul, killing one British and one Canadian soldier and wounding more than a dozen others.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 8:44:57 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, victim for a martyr. Welcome to the Religion of Pieces.
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 10:30 Comments || Top||

#2  More details on the story:
Khost town's deputy intelligence chief, Colonel Mohammad Isa, was on his way to his office when the assailant opened fire on his car and killed him in a bazaar, witnesses said. "The man started to run away, but blew himself up amid shouting when the soldiers tried to arrest him," said Pacha Gul, a shopkeeper near the scene.
Two Taliban officials said separately that members of the ousted militia were behind the attack on Isa, but gave different accounts of how the attacker died.
Taliban spokesman Hamid Agha said Afghan police killed the assailant, but Abdul Latif Hakimi, another Taliban official, said the man blew himself up after killing Isa. "The man was a Talib and an Afghan," Hakimi said.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press agency said Isa had escaped an assassination attempt last year, and a junior intelligence official was killed in the same town two months ago.


Afghan Taliban don't normally do suicide bombing. Sounds to me like he shot the intel officer, tried to get away, but couldn't make it. Might have boomed himself, might have just dropped a grenade he was trying to throw at the coppers.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 10:39 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Iraqis impatient with Japanese promises
They just got there, fergawdsake!
After months of dreaming that this dusty desert town will be transformed into a booming metropolis by the arrival of Japanese troops, some Iraqis in Samawa are already growing impatient. "We don’t need a hospital or a new water station. What we need is jobs and the Japanese are bringing their own workers," said 27-year-old Internet cafe owner Rasud Abbas.
"And they're short. And they got scraggly moustaches..."
Long repressed by Saddam Hussein’s Sunni Muslim-dominated regime, this Shiite town 270 kilometres south of Baghdad is ravaged by chronic unemployment and poverty. Tokyo’s decision to replace a Dutch contingent with 600 peacekeeping soldiers, the first Japanese deployment in a combat zone since World War II, injected the town with hope that investment would lift it from the doldrums. But for the next two to three months, the only reconstruction project on the cards is the building of a Japanese military base, about five kilometres (three miles) west of the town. A contracting firm has already been hired and a handful of jobs doled out.
"More! We want MORE!"
At the dusty lane leading down to the site, three unarmed Iraqi watchmen sit on the side of the road from 7 am to 5 pm for a monthly salary of 50,000 dinars (38 dollars). "If you want the truth the money is not enough, but it’s better than nothing," said Khalif Chither, a 35-year-old father of four. But for others, promises of bigger projects are wearing thin. "They promised a lot, but so far they did nothing," said electrical store owner Taha Aulaywi, 34. "They are nice people. We welcome them, but so far we haven’t seen anything. Only (Japanese) photographers," said another store owner Abbas Khudayer. "When someone gives you a promise, it should be the truth. Here you’re a guest for three days and if there’s no reason to stay, you should leave," said Yass Khudayer, 31, training as a civilian defence officer.
So I guess they can leave, huh? No pleasing some people, I guess. Is it true there's no word in Arabic for "gratitude"?
But for many others in Samawa, the Japanese are a gift from God. "The Baath party ruled for 35 years, change in a few months would be a miracle, so we are prepared to wait," said one money lender, jailed for five years after Saddam’s forces shut down his business in 1994. "We want (Samawa) to be a second Tokyo. All the citizens are ready to work to protect the Japanese," said Ahmed Hassan Haitham, 32, a former officer in the old army, now training for the civilian defence corps. "They are our friends. We don’t forget that foreign troops all saved us from the old regime," said his classmate Samir Abed, 26.
So not everybody wants them to leave right away? Is this a domestic altercation? Should we leave the room?
The Japanese, who stand out a mile in their bright green uniforms, vow that things will improve when all their troops are in place by March. "On behalf of the Japanese people I am honoured to be here. Our main mission is to reconstruct this region, for example the water supply, engineering support. I believe we will make a big difference," said Colonel Yasushi Kiyota. Dressed in green uniforms with matching knapsacks, the Japanese soldiers are a conspicuous presence in Samawa. Asked about the uniforms, the commander of the advance unit said: "We heard that the Iraqi people like the colour green. "There are no deserts in Japan," he added by way of explanation, fiddling with his helmet strap in the baking afternoon sun. But the colonel, who carries in a shoulder pouch a Thuraya satellite phone on which his wife can call him, laughed off reports that his soldiers had been advised to grow moustaches to blend in with Iraqis. "When in Rome do as the Romans do ... But it’s up to each soldier."
"Some of us thought about getting turbans, but that'd prob'ly be going too far..."
Japan’s upper house of parliament passed a bill Monday retroactively approving the dispatch of Japanese troops, who have been deploying in groups in the war-torn country and Kuwait since late December. On Sunday, 50 Japanese ground troops arrived in Samawa to be greeted by Iraqi well-wishers. The full contingent will be in place by the end of March.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/11/2004 8:39:32 AM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Phase I: The Iraqi Basic Carping and Whining and Mixed Signals advance team is up and running - while the Japanese have only just picked their uniform color.

Phase II: Advanced Carping and Whining and Mixed Signals in conjunction with We Hate Bright Green Uniforms and the Bite the Hand That Feeds You, Splodeydope Division, will be prepared well in advance of the Japanese actually reconstructing the water supply, or anything else.

No one has ever had the patience to make it to Phase III, whatever that is.

"We want (Samawa) to be a second Tokyo."
How, uh, um, Arab.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 9:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Eager for the Middle-East Co-Prosperity Sphere, are we?
Posted by: mojo || 02/11/2004 10:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Japanese way. Patience. Take what works and improove it.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/11/2004 12:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Get the locals to work with the sand... it can be soothing and enlightning.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 18:41 Comments || Top||

#5  Ship, you're on to something.

The Japanese should get a bunch of rakes, point the good falk of Samawa at the desert, and tell them to get busy recreating the famous Rock Garden of Ryoanji.
Posted by: Carl in NH || 02/11/2004 20:17 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Calls for "huge" suicide attacks
It will be interesting to see how many get to meet their 72 year old virgin.
THE armed wing of the radical Hamas movement on Wednesday called on its activists to carry out large-scale suicide attacks against Israel in retaliation for a major gunbattle which left nine Palestinians dead and 35 injured. "The leadership ... calls on all its fighting cells in Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Jenin, Tulkarem and Gaza and in all the towns and villages to respond quickly to hit all the enemy positions it can reach with huge martyr operations," the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.
Posted by: tipper || 02/11/2004 7:31:52 AM || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bring em on. These guys don't know what a real battle is anyways.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/11/2004 7:38 Comments || Top||

#2  C'mon, boys! Get out there and be martyrs for "the leadership"! They'll be right behind you.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 8:57 Comments || Top||

#3  This is probably the 20th or 30th time Hamas has made a similar announcement.
Posted by: mhw || 02/11/2004 9:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Evidence for continuing to build the wall. Show it to the World Court.
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/11/2004 10:10 Comments || Top||

#5  "The leadership ... calls on all its fighting cells in Jerusalem, Hebron, Nablus, Bethlehem, Jenin, Tulkarem and Gaza and in all the towns and villages to respond quickly to hit all the enemy positions it can reach with huge martyr operations," the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

Excellent. The more Hamas members and sympathizers come out to engage in martyr operations, the quicker they can be killed.

On another note, it's amusing how News.com.au still persists in calling Hamas members "activists".
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/11/2004 13:18 Comments || Top||

#6  "Gentlemen, I would have liked to go with you, but they need me here. However, I will be observing some 5000 yards offshore through heavy lenses."

--Jonathan Winters comedy routine
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/11/2004 13:55 Comments || Top||

#7  Oooh, cool. A MegaSeethe! Wow!
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 14:06 Comments || Top||

#8  AP, Jonathan Winters much like Nathan Bedford Forrest is always all caps or ital. as a sign of respect for original thought.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 15:15 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Masood Azhar eludes agencies
Maulana Masood Azhar, banned jihadi party Tehrik Kuddam-ul-Islam (TKI) leader, seems to be eluding law enforcement agencies looking to question him for the attack on President General Pervez Musharraf, sources told Daily Times on Tuesday.
"Have you tried his house?"
"Yeah, we knocked, but they said he wudn't there..."
“There are no orders for his arrest or to confine him at home but he is still missing from the time he went underground after the ban on his party,” sources said. Sources say he is in Lahore but that there are contradictory reports that he is in the custody of an intelligence agency, which refuses to accept that it knows about him.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/11/2004 1:47:26 AM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:


Russia
Girl killed by Russia ’racists’
A nine-year old Tajik girl has been stabbed to death in the Russian city of St Petersburg by suspected skinheads. Police said a group of youths armed with knives and bats attacked the girl on Monday night, stabbing her 11 times. Her father and an 11-year old boy were also hospitalized with head wounds. The attack was being widely seen in Russia as racist in origin. St Petersburg police named the man injured in Monday’s attack as Yusuf Sultanov, 34, from Tajikistan. He was with his daughter, Hurshida, and an 11-year old boy, Alabir, when they were attacked in a courtyard. A report by Russia TV said investigators were confident that St Petersburg-based skinheads were behind the incident. There have been several racist attacks in Moscow and other large Russian cities in the past, targeting foreign students, diplomats or immigrants from former Soviet Republics. An estimated 300 skinheads attacked market places in Moscow two years ago, killing three people. Chanting racist slogans, they smashed up market stalls and attacked anyone who appeared to be from the Caucasus region.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/11/2004 1:44:37 AM || Comments || Link || [336079 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Responsibility for the Stavropol train bombings was claimed by the notorious Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev. Investigators of the Moscow metro bombing assume that Basayev was also behind the latest attack."

Poor BBC - I've heard the new slogan is, "we never get the story right".
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 7:42 Comments || Top||

#2  This is really bad news - aren't those from the Caucasus region Caucasians?
Posted by: Tresho || 02/12/2004 0:27 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
Libya Accredits U.S. Diplomat As Monitor
The Libyan government has accredited a U.S. diplomat who is on temporary duty there to help monitor Libya’s promise to eliminate unconventional weapons, the State Department said Tuesday. The diplomat is the first to be accredited by Libya since relations were broken more than 20 years ago. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher expressed optimism about the possibility that exchanges of diplomats with Libya will become routine. "We’re going to have people in Tripoli on a regular and ongoing basis and I expect that sooner or later, probably sooner, the Libyans will have diplomats in Washington," he said. Boucher said the U.S. diplomat currently in Libya is attached to the Belgian Embassy, which has been handling U.S. interests in Libya since relations were severed late in the Carter administration.
Maybe the O-club at Wheelus will open this year?
Beers on me, in the Flightline Lounge...
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 12:53:13 AM || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  whatever we have on Gadhafi must be really good.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 7:53 Comments || Top||

#2  So how long until the US starts fast tracking Libyan visas and ramping up imigration?
Posted by: Lucky || 02/11/2004 11:37 Comments || Top||


British Leader Plans Meeting With Gadhafi
In a sign of strengthening ties and Libya’s progress in dismantling its banned weapons programs, Britain said Tuesday that Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to meet soon with Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi. No date has been set, but their first meeting would be a significant step in bringing the North African state - branded a sponsor of terrorism by the United States - back into the international fold.
The good cop makes his move.
The announcement came after Blair met the Libyan foreign minister in London, the highest-level contact between the countries in more than 20 years.
I think we reported it was gonna happen back in December...
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, in a joint news conference with his Libyan counterpart, Abdel-Rahman Shalqam, said Libya was "making good progress" in scrapping its nuclear, chemical and biological programs. Asked about the prospect of Blair’s visiting Libya, he said: "We’ve discussed that. We’re hoping very much that a visit can be arranged as soon as convenient, but no date has been fixed." Blair’s spokesman declined to comment on a timetable for a meeting or say where it might take place.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 12:46:13 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Khaddafi has always been an odious character in my book, I hope that the leopard is successfull in changing his spots.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/11/2004 9:11 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
At least 25 dead in Baghdad blast
UP to 25 Iraqis were killed early Wednesday in a car bomb explosion outside a recruiting station for the New Iraqi Army in Baghdad, the US military said. "A vehicle-borne improvised explosive device exploded near the Iraqi Army headquarters recruiting station this morning at about 7:40 am," a spokesman said. "Initial estimates are that there were 20 to 25 Iraqis killed in the blast. We have no report of coalition casualties."
Just broke, my guess is that at least somebody decided to answer Zarqawi’s request for more boomers.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:45:48 AM || Comments || Link || [336099 views] Top|| File under:

#1  More from the Guardian, 1:00 AM EST:

The U.S. military command reported 35 dead and 75 wounded but said those figures could be low since Iraqi authorities were handling the investigation. The Iraqi Interior Ministry said 40 to 50 people were killed and up to 100 wounded, including four policemen.

However, a local hospital director, Razaq Jabbar, put the number at 53 dead and 60 wounded - all believed to be Iraqis. ``This figure might increase,'' he said. ``There were some body parts that haven't been identified yet. Some more bodies may be trapped under the rubble.''
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 0:50 Comments || Top||

#2  steve that's a different suicide bombing... this one just happened and was on an iraqi army recriuting station.
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 02/11/2004 1:23 Comments || Top||

#3  DPA, yep. Welcome to Day 2 of Al Q's effort to kick-start the Iraqi Civil War.
Those poor good Iraqis who were killed today and yesterday: God rest them.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/11/2004 4:37 Comments || Top||

#4  How long before a troll comes and blames this on Bush...tick tock tick tock...I'm waiting.
Posted by: mhw || 02/11/2004 7:51 Comments || Top||

#5  They could start with Alley Oop, who invented fire, then follow up with Alfred Nobel for the dynamite and either Nickolaus Otto or Rudolf Diesel for the automobile motor that brung 'em, then Kiichiro Toyoda for the actual vehicle... A Neanderthal, a Swede, a coupla Germans, a Japanese... Yep, definitely Bush's fault. Burn 'im.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 9:47 Comments || Top||

#6  A Neanderthal pretty harsh, I prefer to think of Alley Oop as an Archao-American.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 10:35 Comments || Top||

#7  Cue up Anonymous...oh, he's ANTIWAR now, dum dada duuummmmm!

I feel bad for the poor Iraqi's who want nothing more than to build their country into a prosperous place for their kids to grow up in. But they have to face the twin evils of the Islamicists AND pandering of our own LLL.
Posted by: AllahHatesMe || 02/11/2004 10:40 Comments || Top||

#8  I thought this was the same attack as yesterday, but looking at the comments I gather this is an entirely new one. From what I saw on the news yesterday, it appears that they also attacked Iraqis waiting in line to apply for jobs. The only thing I can hope for is for more civilians to start pointing out the asshats in the country. I want to say I can't believe they are attacking the civilians like this, but then again, these people are not human at all.
Posted by: Lil Dhimmi || 02/11/2004 10:44 Comments || Top||

#9  UP to 25 Iraqis were killed early Wednesday in a car bomb explosion outside a recruiting station for the New Iraqi Army in Baghdad, the US military said.

As if more proof was needed that insurgents are NOT friends of the common Iraqi. A damned shame that innocent people end up paying with their lives as a result.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/11/2004 11:43 Comments || Top||


Russia
Moscow boom fits Basayev’s MO
New details emerged about a terrorist attack on a Moscow metro train last Friday. The Federal Security Service has established that the explosive device that detonated in the Moscow metro was very similar to explosives used to blow up two electric trains in the Stavropol region last year. Responsibility for the Stavropol train bombings was claimed by the notorious Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev. Investigators of the Moscow metro bombing assume that Basayev was also behind the latest attack.
Sounds like a reasonable conclusion to me. Abu Walid pays, Shamil rounds up the boomers, and the Mysterious Veiled Lady™ dumps them at the site.
On Monday, they finally concluded that the blast had been carried out by a suicide bomber, the Kommersant newspaper reported. According to Moscow Prosecutor Anatoly Zuyev, this conclusion is based on the preliminary results of a technical examination. The second and the third carriages of the ill-fated train, which were most affected by the powerful blast, were towed to an area where they could be examined in detail. Bomb experts examined the carriages carefully trying to collect as much information as possible about the type and size of the explosive device and how it could be transported. According to experts, this is the only real way to find the perpetrators of the bombing.
That, and reconstructing as much of their carcasses as can be found...
Investigators have already made some achievements. Firstly, they have established that an explosive device had been detonated. A battery and a switch with a small piece of electric wire were found on one of the bodies. Federation Security Service officers are convinced that this is part of the explosive device, and it shows that a suicide bomber was involved in the attack. “But it will take no less than a month to establish the gender of the suicide bomber, and a number of complex forensic and medical examinations will have to be conducted,” sources in the Federal Security Service told the newspaper. Secondly, the power of the home-made bomb was established. The bomb experts of the Federal Security Service believe that the explosion was the equivalent of 2.5kg of TNT. The bomb was made of a mixture of ammonium nitrate, TNT and RDX. Such mixtures were used by terrorists in the past, including in the Stavropol train bombings last year.

The death toll in the Moscow metro explosion rose to 40 after an unidentified man injured in the blast died in Moscow’s Hospital 53. However, the Moscow Healthcare Department denied that the man had died in the hospital. It is rumored in Moscow that there are other victim lists, much longer than the official lists. Allegedly, the Federation Security Service does not allow them to be published. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta is trying to clear the situation. According to the newspaper, officials in the Moscow administration and the Federal Security Service denied such reports. “We do not hide anything,” they said. However, sources in the Federation Security Service told the Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the real death toll was about sixty people. “The exact number of those killed in the attack is unlikely to be established. Many passengers in the second carriage were blown into pieces, and it is impossible to identify them,” the source said. Investigators noticed that all large recent terrorist attacks in Moscow, including the theater siege in October 2003, have happened not far from each other, the newspaper reports. “This area in Moscow attracts terrorists like a magnet. It is not ruled out that they have a hideout somewhere in this area, for example in a rented apartment.”
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:40:15 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan/South Asia
Afghans Get Death in U.N. Worker Slaying
A Kabul court convicted two Afghans for the murder of a French U.N. staffer last year and sentenced them to death, officials said Tuesday.
Wonder if Mike Farrell will protest?
The murder of 29-year-old Bettina Goislard, the first foreign U.N. worker to be killed in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, caused the running-away evacuation of U.N. international staff from southern and eastern Afghanistan. The court sentenced Zia Ahmad and Abdul Nabi to death for the Nov. 16 fatal shooting of Goislard, who was sitting in a U.N. vehicle at the time outside a bazaar in the eastern city of Ghazni, 80 miles south of the capital, Kabul. Ghazni Gov. Haji Asadullah Khalid said the men, whose ages weren’t known, had denied the crime and could appeal.
"We wuz framed!"
U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva confirmed the verdict, adding that the world body was seeking more information on the ruling. Afghan authorities said the two motorcycle-riding gunmen had initially confessed to the crime, and to being members of the Taliban. Khalid insisted there was no doubt about the men’s guilt and that the Kabul courts were perfectly able to decide their fate. "They killed Bettina in Afghanistan, and they are two Afghans," he said. "In French law they don’t have (the death penalty), but here we do."
Which makes them rather more sensible and civilized in a way. Fair trial, just punishment.
Human rights advocates have called on the moderate government of President Hamid Karzai to block executions at least until Afghanistan’s criminal justice system is overhauled.
The man just told you that the justice system was working fine.
Goislard was buried in Kabul; she had told co-workers that she wished to be buried in Afghanistan if anything happened to her.
Better to work there than to be buried there.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 12:37:46 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:


Iraq-Jordan
Jihadi’s diary gives the US insight into Iraq insurgency
The young Saudi drifted about the lawless Iraqi-Syrian border in the chaotic aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein, seeking a place where he could channel his urge for holy war. He made it to a training camp in the immense desert of western Iraq, U.S. officials say, before infiltrating the country’s Sunni Muslim heartland. He was captured late last year, the sole survivor of a squad of three Arabs from outside Iraq who launched a virtual suicide attack on a U.S. checkpoint east of here. Military officials say Mohammed Kadir Hussen’s odyssey from his hometown, Jidda, Saudi Arabia, to the battlegrounds of Iraq -- a journey outlined in a diary seized when he was arrested, a document now known as "the Book" -- provides a glimpse into what remains one of the murkiest aspects of the Iraq insurgency: the role of foreign jihadists, or so-called holy warriors of Islam. "’The Book’ talked about the jihad: how the jihad was going to happen whether Saddam Hussein survived the war or not," said Col. David A. Teeples, commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, which occupies a great swath of western Iraq and seized the young Saudi and his unusual travelogue. "People were coming from all over to fight and kill Westerners."
From the sounds of it, this sounds like an updated version of The Afghan Guide to Jihad, the al-Qaeda training manual, a good chunk of which was written by Ali Mohammed in the late 1980s. Looks like somebody’s had some time do some revising during the run-up to war in Iraq, my guess is that that someone is Saif al-Adel, given his background as a former colonel in the Egyptian special forces.
So many foreign fighters are said to have congregated in Qusaybah, a longtime smuggling hub, that the military nicknamed it "the jihad Super Bowl," Teeples said. The Army says the primary threat in Iraq remains loyalists of the former regime. The foreign contingent may represent no more than 5 percent to 10 percent of the overall insurgent force of up to 5,000 people, said Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the chief military spokesman in Baghdad. But commanders also say the foreign fighters’ impact has been significant and has probably yielded the bulk of what has become perhaps the insurgents’ most potent weapon -- suicide bombers. However, the Army adds that no successful suicide bomber has yet to be positively identified.
Not that much of them left, and Sammy didn't keep DNA records. Unless they were carrying passports, what're ya gonna do? Send their dental records to Soddy Arabia and Yemen? How many went to dentists?
But with borders porous in the wake of the invasion, highly motivated jihadists - eager to confront Americans on Arab soil - have infiltrated the country. These shadowy forces have largely remained under the radar screen as the Army concentrates on cells of Saddam loyalists, commanders say. "Perhaps with all the focus on former regime elements, some kind of screen is now down, and those terrorists who want to fight Americans are coming in," said Lt. Col. Brian Drinkwine of the 82nd Airborne Division, which patrols the Fallujah zone, a hotbed of the insurgency. There is no way to measure the influx of foreign combatants. They continue to arrive despite operations breaking down what Army officers call "rat lines" of support for jihadists arriving via Syria in the west and Iran in the east. In the last two weeks, the Army says, an Iranian and an Afghan were arrested in Baghdad while trying to put a roadside bomb in place, and a Jordanian with a rocket-propelled-grenade launcher was taken into custody. Several Egyptians and a suspected Yemeni extremist were picked up in Fallujah.

U.S. commanders say it is extremely difficult to determine if the detained foreign fighters are linked to al-Qaida or other terror organizations, such as Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish extremist group suspected of having connections to the twin suicide attacks last week at Kurdish political party headquarters in northern Iraq that killed more than 100 people. Some of those captured boast of international terror affiliations; others deny such ties. Proving or disproving it can be almost impossible. "No one is walking around with an al-Qaida identity card, as far as I know," said Col. Joe Anderson, who oversaw the occupation of the northern city of Mosul and surrounding areas with the 101st Airborne Division, which is returning home after almost a year in Iraq. Many fighters captured or killed carry no identification whatsoever, so their origins remain murky. In such cases, officials rely on clues such as foreign currency found in their possession or, in the case of prisoners, their accents. Foreign fighters, frequently embracing martyrdom, are also more likely to fight to the death than other insurgents, commanders say.

Many of the foreign jihadists appear to be disaffected young men harboring an abiding hatred of the West, but having little or no previous experience in training camps or the battlefield -- a common profile among Saudis and others who have gravitated to holy war venues such as Afghanistan and Chechnya. This seems to have been the case with Mohammed Kadir Hussen. "He was a poor Saudi guy without a lot of prospects," said a U.S. military intelligence official familiar with Hussen’s travelogue. "He started out wanting to help other Muslims, and it evolved into this jihad." Army officials agreed to talk in general terms about the young Saudi’s life and diary but declined to provide a copy. The document has been translated into English and distributed among intelligence agencies. U.S. authorities say they have traced efficient networks bringing in foreign jihadists. Middlemen known as "facilitators," mostly Iraqis, help guide the young fighters and direct them to safe houses where they can stay, arrange for basic training and acquire arms. Eventually they are deployed against U.S. forces.
The facilitators are likely a mixture of Baathists or actual trained al-Tawhid/al-Qaeda members working for Zarqawi.
The Army recently detained one such alleged facilitator, Madi Thiab Ruhaybi, an Iraqi man in his 50s known as Abu Mohammed who was captured near the bustling Trebil crossing point on the Iraq-Jordan border. "Abu Mohammed was kind of a runner, a go-to guy, a guy who gets things done," the military intelligence official said. "He would go to the border and pick someone up, move money from here to there, get weapons - he would make all that happen. He was a mid- to lower-level guy, certainly not a decision-maker. If you’re the boss, you need someone like Abu Mohammed to go out and do the dirty work. He knows where to go to get weapons. If you need coordination with your buddy in Syria to get foreign fighters in, he’s the guy who goes out and makes the connection." He is the kind of intermediary with whom Hussen probably hooked up when he arrived in Iraq. The fervent Saudi, in his 20s, is believed to have crossed the border in April or May, after Saddam’s fall. He arrived first at this border outpost, at the time virtually wide open, officials said, and probably made contact with pro-Saddam hard-liners aiding foreign volunteers.
That fits with what we know about various Ansar al-Islam members getting orders from al-Douri.
A marriage of convenience between former regime allies and foreign jihadists has marked the insurgency, U.S. officials say. "The jihad people who came in had their own agenda. They were not connected to former regime loyalists, but to Islamic extremists," Teeples said. "But as this thing evolved, it became obvious that the best network for anyone coming from outside to fight would be to contact former regime loyalists. Those were the people who knew who to call, where to find safe houses, where to get their hands on money, weapons, transportation. They had intelligence on where the coalition troops were moving convoys, where troops were stationed, where mortars could be set up." Many, including the Saudi, are believed to have passed through what U.S. authorities called a terrorist training camp near the town of Rawah in northwest Iraq, amid Iraq’s wadi country of rolling desert, gulches and wild sheep - ideal places to pitch a tent and lie low. U.S. officials suspect the camp was set up after Saddam’s fall to assist foreign fighters and Iraqis with weapons training and tactics, such as how to make and deploy roadside bombs. The facility didn’t escape the notice of U.S. reconnaissance aircraft.
That camp was run by Ansar al-Islam, by all accounts.
According to the military, Army and Special Forces, apparently zeroing in on the facility through aerial imagery, bombed the site in a surprise predawn assault in the second week in June, killing at least 57 combatants, mostly foreign fighters. Many died while they slept in their tents. An AH-64 Apache attack helicopter was shot down in heavy fighting, although no U.S. troops were killed. Hussen escaped death, along with several colleagues. But the experience embittered him. "He just kind of ended up in the camp in Rawah: He didn’t know that was going to be his destination until he got there," the military intelligence officer said. "He talked about the anguish of losing the friends he had been training with, his fellow terrorists."

Hussen continued drifting toward jihad. He wrote that he was involved in an ambush against U.S. forces in Fallujah. His description coincided with an ambush in which no one was injured, a fact that helped corroborate the Saudi’s story. Hussen’s journey ended on Nov. 19. That’s when he and two other foreign fighters approached a U.S. checkpoint in a vehicle, said Lt. Col. Butch Kievenaar, whose unit was manning the checkpoint. One got out of the car with a pistol and was gunned down. Another pulled out a grenade, which detonated, killing him. Hussen survived.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:35:49 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All this points out just how important it's going to be to upgrade, equip and train the Iraqi Border Guard. I was fine with the flypaper strategy last year but it's time to seal the borders and get some control.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 0:48 Comments || Top||

#2  Flypaper, from the fly's perspective.

Fighting us must be like fighting the Borg--"our tactics no longer work Achmed, they've assimilated them!!! What now---urk?"
Posted by: N Guard || 02/11/2004 8:16 Comments || Top||

#3  "He was a poor Saudi guy without a lot of prospects... He started out wanting to help other Muslims, and it evolved into this jihad."

I think this is actually very sad. Too bad the guy didn't find Christianity instead of jihad. I'm beginning to understand why Christian nations have fared so much better than the Muslim ones...they provided education, faith, hope and charity instead of jihad.

Nevertheless...this made me lol!
"Flypaper, from the fly's perspective"
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 8:41 Comments || Top||

#4  One got out of the car with a pistol and was gunned down. Another pulled out a grenade, which detonated, killing him. Hussen survived.

I take it this is not their "A" team...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 10:24 Comments || Top||

#5  Actually, from the Islamic Blame Society's POV, this guy's progression from point A to point B makes sense...

(Please pardon my pedantic tone in the following...)

When combined with a few other aspects, such as the fact that the currently passive Muslims always defer to the jihadis (yes, they do) and the "We're all Muslims first..." mantra (taught from birth), it demonstrates rather clearly (to anyone paying attention) the Myth of the Moderate Muslim... The group-think of Islam via deference to the Mullahs (who are dominated by the jihadi view, thanks to the Saudi-Wahhabi money), the whole religious society of Islam as practiced and taken in toto, means we will eventually have to fight or subjugate them all. They cannot be placated... and they are divided only momentarily - until the Mullahs can spread the word and reinforce the Muslim Mantra.

As for successfully dealing with them, we have to drop our own views out of the equation completely. A good example of our dilemma is the Clinton model of tossing a cruise missile at them. It is a useless gesture, though in his mind he obviously thought this would be very skeery to them, cuz the idea apparently was frightening to him. Pfool. Let's not repeat such idiocy.

What matters is how they think - and that means we have to be very selective about who is leading our fight and who is involved in our planning and strategy. The most dangerous problem for the West is the quaint, but very common and amazingly persistent, notion that we're all the same underneath. No, we're not. Not even close. It's called indoctrination - and they do a much more thorough job of it than anyone else I've ever come across. Bush gets it. Clinton and his precessors as well as the current crop of Presidential wannabees (with the likely exception of McCain) did not and do not.

I don't fear them - or the fight that has begun - I fear one thing: overconfidence that Bush will be re-elected. He is the key to doing this right on the first pass.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 10:35 Comments || Top||

#6  .com -- there are moderate Muslims, but they are scared to death -- and for good reason. In all Islamic leagal schools the penalty for apostacy is death, and any sign of moderation (for example, believing in the separation of mosque and state)is going to be viewed as apostacy by the jihadis. Question: can we reach out to, and make common cause with, moderate Muslims? I'm not
sure -- but it does seem vitally important. In the long run, what I really fear is "demographic jihad." The average woman in Yemen has more than 7 children.
Posted by: closet neo-con || 02/11/2004 11:49 Comments || Top||

#7  closet - excellent response. The key is that, when in the presence of jihadis or even knowing there will be a future meeting, the closet Muslim moderate will do what he / she thinks is expected of him / her by the jihadis. They fear them far more than us, because we play by civilized rules. Islam's rules are something else, as you pointed out: apostasy = death.

In repsonse to your question, I will say that there's nothing to reach out to. If you can tell me how to make this happen, using the logic of their indoctrination, I'll be ecstatic to hear it.

I currently believe they will have to do the reaching out. Will it come of their own volition? Not so far. Perhaps, and this won't sit well with you, I presume, they will reach out when they fear us as much or more than their insane jihadis.

We didn't invent Islam and its remarkably self-propagating dogma - which is specifically and logically tuned to achieve Islam's goal of World Dominion. We don't stop them from reaching out to us. We don't control their Imams who foment new jihadis. We don't run their dictatorships which impoverish them and leave many of their young men with no choices because they have no future. We don't run a charity system which promotes overpopulation to augment and intensify the no future demographics, thus producing more jihadi fodder. And, lastly, we didn't attack them - they attacked us.

We have been under attack diplomatically and economically via Saudi Sunnis since '73 when we resupplied Israel and were punished with the oil embargo. The Shi'a joined the game in '79 - when we became The Great Satan - resulting in a unified Islam vs. the US. We didn't create the direct confrontation, they did. They will have to stop it. I am afraid the only way is for us to give them the biggest reason available to do so: the "or else" option of annihilation.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 13:06 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
2 more Paleos Greet 144 more Doe-Eyed Virigins in Gaza
Israeli troops moved into a neighborhood at the eastern edge of Gaza City early Wednesday, killing two Palestinians and wounding six others, residents said.
"David! You wounded one!"
"Not my fault, Moshe, he was running backwards so quickly!"

The sounds of the battle reverberated throughout the city. One of the dead was a Palestinian policeman, and six people were wounded, three critically, residents in the Shajaiyeh neighborhood and hospital officials said.
"He’s mortally wounded, Moshe."
"He’s not dead yet, David."

The military said troops fired in response to missiles shot at tanks in the operation to search for militants responsible for firing rockets against area Jewish settlements.
Wonderous home-made missile against a Merkava. Wonder if they scratched the paint?
Also, Israeli forces including 10 tanks and three armored bulldozers entered the Rafah refugee camp on the Gaza-Egypt border, residents said. Three Palestinians were injured in exchanges of fire in the area, they said. The military said soldiers were looking for tunnels used by Palestinians to smuggle in weapons.
I know where they can get some inexpensive cement to fill in those tunnels.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 12:30:24 AM || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:

#1  from ArafatCementCo? He and his cronies have got control of critical industries....keeps Sooooooha happy, funded, and free from French inquiries (Jacques,check's in the mail, wink-wink)
Posted by: Frank G || 02/11/2004 0:45 Comments || Top||

#2  See the other story below, Frank, to see just who has control of the cement concession and what they're doing with it.

Gads, I'm still laughing.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 0:54 Comments || Top||

#3  Reuters is now reporting 9 dead paleos. Can't help thinking that these are organized suicide-by-cop or in this case the IDF to boost their position at the world court hearings.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/11/2004 3:28 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm not a cosmologist but could the 72 Virgins for every exploding moron explain the missing or duck matter of the universe?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 18:51 Comments || Top||

#5  It's Dark matter, Shipman...dark matter!!!

:)

I here Islamic paradise is openning a WalMart. They are importing virgins from a Chinese sweatshop.
Posted by: alaskasoldier || 02/11/2004 23:28 Comments || Top||


Russia
Missing Russian candidate surfaces
The fate of Russia’s disappearing presidential candidate cleared up Tuesday when he turned up alive and seemingly well in Ukraine. But the mystery of what really happened to him only deepened.
"I mean, I'd like to tell yez what happened, but I was drunk..."
Ivan Rybkin, a former parliamentary speaker mounting a long-shot challenge to President Vladimir Putin in the March 14 election, returned to Moscow on an evening flight, saying he had simply gone to see friends in Kiev and was stunned to learn that people were looking for him.
"There wuz this babe, named Brandy, see? An' she was jus' so-o-o-o friendly an' all, I thought I'd pop over an' see her. So I picks up a bottle..."
His explanation left no one satisfied -- not the police, who have spent the last several days scouring Russia for him; not his financial backer, who said it could spell the end of Rybkin’s political career; not his campaign manager, who fumed that she might quit over the episode; and certainly not his wife, who proclaimed that any husband who would go off on a secret vacation without telling her was hardly fit to govern the country.
"'Brandy'? Who the hell is 'BRANDY'?"
"I have the right to two or three days of private life," Rybkin protested when he called Interfax news agency to report his whereabouts. "I came to Kiev with my friends, had fun, turned off mobile phones and didn’t watch television. I decided last week to take a break from all the bustle around me." On landing later at an airport in Moscow, Rybkin suggested that he might drop out of the race because his family was so upset.
"I mean, cheeze! The little woman is steamed!"
"Poor Russia if this kind of man is trying to run it," his angry wife, Albina, told NTV television.
"I work and I slave, I give you the best years of my life, and what do I get in return? The back of your hand! THAT'S what I get in return! My mother told me not to marry you, but did I listen? No! I didn't listen! I coulda married Volodya, you know!"
While he had emerged as Putin’s most outspokenly critical challenger, Rybkin attracted far more attention with his absence than his presence in a presidential race where he is drawing less than 1 percent support in public opinion polls. Critics smelled a publicity stunt.
"Sasha, does this smell like antique flounder to you?"
[Sniff!] "I don't think so. More like a publicity stunt."
"How do you tell the difference?"
"It's a professional secret, Misha."
"For the last several days, Rybkin is the most widely used name" in the news, Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the upper house of parliament and also a presidential candidate, said in an interview a few hours before Rybkin resurfaced. "Even President Putin’s name is used not as often. We can think about whether that was done on purpose or not."
Uhuh. And what do you think.
Allies rejected that theory, saying Rybkin was a sober, responsible figure.
"I mean, I've never seen him that drunk before!"
"He’s not the kind who would be playing such games," Ruslan Khasbulatov, another former parliamentary speaker, said by telephone Tuesday while Rybkin was still missing. Yet even friends found it hard to believe that he simply left for five days without telling anyone; some wondered whether that was a cover story for something more nefarious, such as an unpleasant encounter with Russian security services or illicit figures associated with political rivals.
I'd go with the Brandy story, myself. Or maybe it was Tiffany...
Boris Berezovsky, a billionaire Putin critic who has bankrolled Rybkin’s campaign, said he reached Rybkin by telephone Tuesday afternoon after his reemergence and remained baffled by the incident. "It absolutely doesn’t coincide with my understanding of him," Berezovsky said in an interview from Britain, where he lives in asylum. "He’s very precise, very brave, very clever." Berezovsky said that in their conversation, Rybkin made a cryptic reference to Chechnya, where he has previously tried to broker peace in the long-running war between Russian forces and separatist rebels. "I felt that he was not alone," Berezovsky said without elaborating.
"Yersh, by Gawd! 'At's what I wuzh doin'! I wuzh makin' peash in Shesh-... Shesch-... the Caucasus!"
Berezovsky’s Liberal Russia political party has been wracked by violence. Six men are on trial in Moscow in connection with the murder last year of Sergei Yushenkov, a party leader who broke with Berezovsky. One suspect said in court this week that another party leader had given him $50,000 to have Yushenkov killed.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:25:17 AM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Update from the BBC, EFL:
A Russian presidential candidate, who went missing for five days, has arrived back in Moscow from Ukraine, saying he might drop out of the race. Ivan Rybkin said at Moscow airport what had happened since last Thursday was abuse, but gave no further details. Upon arriving at Moscow's Sheremetievo airport, Mr Rybkin looked pale and exhausted, a BBC correspondent said. He described the events of the last five days as the most difficult experience during his 15 years in politics. He said he was returning "as if I had been in a difficult round of Chechen negotiations". "I'm very satisfied that I returned," Mr Rybkin said, hinting at a possibility that he might not have come back alive.

Sounds like someone had a very long talk with him about his future.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 10:11 Comments || Top||

#2  "Sounds like someone had a very long talk with him about his future."

...Either that or the someone was named Natasha and was incredible...*G*


Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/11/2004 13:58 Comments || Top||

#3  Or maybe her name was Rebecca:

An American journalist reported missing in Russia's turbulent North Caucasus region made contact with her employer Wednesday and said she was fine, one of her editors said Wednesday.
Rebecca Santana, 32, a stringer for Washington-based Cox Newspapers, was "quite surprised" to learn of the concern over her whereabouts, said Chuck Holmes, foreign editor for the Cox chain.
The U.S. Embassy had filed a missing person's report on a journalist, but did not release the name because of to privacy concerns. Santana was to have flown Sunday from Moscow to the southern city of Mineralnye Vody and traveled by car to the nearby city of Mozdok, where Russia's military headquarters for the Caucasus is located. She planned to report on refugees and other issues in the region surrounding war-plagued Chechnya and then enter the secessionist republic. Santana's co-workers grew concerned when they received a call from a contact who was to have organized her meetings in the Caucasus, saying she had not shown up. Holmes said Santana went into Chechnya but did not know the details of how she got there or why she missed her planned contact. She was preparing to return to Moscow on Wednesday, he said.


Humm, Mr Rybkin looked pale and exhausted,and said he was returning "as if I had been in a difficult round of Chechen negotiations". So that's what they call it.
Posted by: Steve || 02/11/2004 15:15 Comments || Top||

#4  What ever happened to
Wiiiiiiiiiilbur Mills.
Posted by: AntiPasto || 02/11/2004 18:31 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Palestinian Panel Probes Qureia, Cement
I’m still chuckling over this one.
A Palestinian parliamentary committee is investigating whether Palestinian cement companies are providing Israel with material for a controversial West Bank barrier and have been selling concrete to Jewish settlements.
A parable about a rope comes to mind.
A Palestinian lawmaker, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday there is evidence that a company owned by Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia’s family is among them. But other lawmakers said Qureia was not part of the investigation.
Of course not: he’s the target of the investigation.
Israel’s Channel 10 TV also reported that the Al-Quds Cement Company - owned by Qureia’s family - has been providing the materials to help build the barrier, allegations Palestinian officials denied.
Even if it isn’t true it’s fun to report. And when Qureia "proves" it isn’t true, tell everyone the proof isn’t good enough.
The TV report said Qureia was providing the cement to build the concrete slabs right outside his house in Abu Dis, a town near Jerusalem divided by a 25-foot wall.
"And it certainly improved the view from the bedroom windows!"
Television footage also showed cement mixers leaving the Al-Quds company and driving to the Jewish settlement of Maale Adumim, just a few miles away.
"Where ya goin’ with dat truck, Mahmoud?"
"Um, off to bury the Zionist pigs in cement!"
"Oh, great! Can I come along and explode with you?"
"Um, no. Go ’way."

The lawmaker who spoke on condition of anonymity said there was "evidence" that Al-Quds was selling cement to Maale Adumim. He said Qureia transferred ownership of the company to another henchman member of his family a few months ago. The lawmaker said this strengthened suspicions that Qureia was involved in improper activities.
Qureia needs to take lessons from the outfit in Chicago. No way a Daley would ever leave fingerprints like this.
The Palestinian premier was in Rome and staying there until the heat’s off unavailable for comment. Qureia is one of the most vocal opponents of Jewish settlements and the barrier, and he is leading a Palestinian effort to garner global support for the Palestinian Cement Contractors Association position. Palestinian lawmaker Jamal Shati, a member of a parliamentary committee that is going to Jordan and Egypt on Thursday to investigate whether Palestinian cement companies are providing Israel with material for the barrier, denied Qureia was part of the investigation. "But when we open the issue of the concrete it will include everything, not only the wall but also the settlements, because building the settlements is the same as building the wall. There is no difference," Shati told The Associated Press.
First time in a while that a Paleostinian has said thing I agree with.
"This is a very dangerous national issue. This is something that belongs to the core of the Palestinian cause."
"My countrymen are exploding with anger!"
"But they’re always doing that."
"Well, they’re going to do MORE of that!"

Lawmaker Hassan Khreishe, who is also on the inquiry committee, also denied the team was investigating Qureia. Khreishe told AP the committee was investigating allegations - which originated in an Egyptian newspaper report published in November - that three Palestinian cement companies had illegally imported concrete from Egypt and sold it to an Israeli businessmen. "We want to know if this cement was used to build the barrier or any other Israeli needs. This is the information we are investigating," Khreishe said. "There are several names mentioned, but for sure, the name of Abu Ala (Qureia) is not mentioned in this issue."
"We won’t be mentioning it, we’ll just have a talk with him. The cement will come in handy when it’s shoe-making time."
Palestinian Cabinet minister Jamil Tarifi is among those being investigated, said Palestinian officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Excellent! Can I suggest more names? I’m sure I could implicate a whole bunch of these mutts just for grins and giggles.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/11/2004 12:24:02 AM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Abu Ala? Oh you mean Signore Rudolpho Laspari, of Palermo.."
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/11/2004 2:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Now I can't stop grinning! Damn you Steve!
Posted by: Charles || 02/11/2004 6:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Business is business, Steve. :-)
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 7:20 Comments || Top||

#4  "The capitalists will sell us the rope with whitch we will hang them" -- several prominent communists.

Who said irony was dead at Rantburg?
Posted by: N Guard || 02/11/2004 8:24 Comments || Top||

#5  Qureia is one of the most vocal opponents of Jewish settlements and the barrier

Now this is a businessman! Sell 'em cement to use, then tell 'em to destroy what they built so you can sell 'em more cement to build more stuff!

This is why he's rich and I'm not. That, and cuz he's a corrupt paleostinian.
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/11/2004 9:03 Comments || Top||

#6  Wait'll they hear about the Qureia Yarmulke Factory...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 9:08 Comments || Top||

#7  I looked up Yarmulke LOL a serious funny.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 20:00 Comments || Top||


Russia
FSB deputy director names terror donor countries
A top Russian security official has accused Arab countries of financing terrorist activities in Russia. The Deputy Director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Vyacheslav Ushakov told the State Duma deputies here that many terrorist organisations active in Russia are being financed from the West Asian region, in particular, from Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Commenting on the situation in Chechnya, Ushakov said that a number of foreign organisations had intensified their work to destabilise the situation in the region and to turn Chechnya in one of the world’s terrorist centres. Ushakov expressed the fear that there was a possibility that "terrorist acts might be committed on transport, the nuclear power plants and in the energy sector".
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:23:20 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:

#1  heh, heh...looks like Russians may be forced to cooperate with us....enemy of my enemy and all that.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 7:09 Comments || Top||

#2  He didn't mention Iran. What does that mean?
Posted by: Lucky || 02/11/2004 12:02 Comments || Top||


Caucasus
Caucasus Corpse Count
SIX pro-Russian servicemen were killed today when their jeep was blown up by a remote controlled explosive device in the heart of Grozny, the shelled-out capital of the separatist republic of Chechnya, ITAR-TASS reported. The six soldiers, all residents of Chechnya, worked in a military command post, the news agency quoted regional police officials as saying.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:21:06 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If these soldiers were pro-Russian, then who are the other guys?
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 10:45 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Taliban funded by Afghan opium
Hundreds of millions of dollars a year from Afghanistan’s illicit drug trade end up in the pockets of Islamic militant groups like the Taliban and al Qaida, the head of the U.N. drug-fighting body said today.
Comes as a surprise, doesn't it? Who'da ever thunkit?
U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa also said there were no signs of the country’s rampant opium output abating this year, meaning Afghanistan was in grave danger of becoming a narco-state. "We cannot call it a narco-state now, but Afghanistan is obviously at a critical juncture. It could go either way," he said. "The next 18 to 24 months are going to be critical," he added, a day after an international conference on fighting drugs in Afghanistan took place in Kabul.

The conference set five action plans, including strengthening law enforcement, developing alternative livelihoods and setting up a proper criminal justice system. Budgets for the proposals will go to an aid-pledging conference planned for late March or April in Germany. "With these five action plans, we can now establish a budget of what is needed so we can confront donors," Costa told reporters. He declined to say how much money was needed.

UNODC estimates Afghan opium production last year at 3,600 tons, a 6 percent rise over the previous year. More worrying, Costa said, was that surveys of farmers showed a further increase of opium -- from which heroin is derived -- was likely this year. Costa said he had no figures, but estimated that at least several hundred million dollars of Afghanistan’s estimated opium output of $2.3 billion ends up in the hands of groups like the Taliban and al Qaida. The militants are believed to control many of the smuggling routes across Afghanistan’s rugged eastern frontier into Pakistan, making collection relatively easy. That threatens Karzai’s efforts to establish a viable economy in the war-shattered country.

Costa said the political effort of the government was good, "but the more we allow the narco-economy to become ingrained in the behavior of the people ... the greater the risk the country will go the wrong way." Karzai has banned opium cultivation, but his government’s weakness in the provinces and the violence and insecurity caused by resurgent Taliban guerrillas and rival pro-government commanders have helped the trade flourish. Costa repeated a call for a NATO-led force and U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan to help cut off trafficking and shipments of opium and heroin. "Fighting drug trafficking equals fighting terrorism," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:20:14 AM || Comments || Link || [336062 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The UN catches on to the drug money - Taliban / AlQ connection. Doesn't this deserve at least one F**kin Duh?

"The next 18 to 24 months are going to be critical..."
How, uh, um, er, obvious. This reminds me of the Naisbitt / MegaTrends BS. When is the next 18-24 months of your life (or a country's life) not critical? Every step taken limits the options available at the next step... and if a step is mistaken, you usually don't know it until many steps later. That's the problem with those goddamned humans: they want life to be serial, when reality runs in parallel! In programmer-speak, this would be the procedural model vs. the event-driven model. Anyway, it's a jewel of disingenuous diplo-speak, so let's give this UN whiz another F**kin Duh, shall we?

"allow the narco-economy to become ingrained..."
And, uh, it isn't already? Oh, that must be his next revelation. He's saving it for when he needs another contract or grant, I guess. F**kin Duh.

Pledging money to the UN who would hand it to people such as Costa to administer would be remarkably foolish. He's way back there learning the primer, fully believing he's blazing a new trail, it seems... F**kin Dope. The UN. Pfeh.
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 10:59 Comments || Top||


Less than 1,000 Taliban, al-Qaeda left in Afghanistan
The number of hardcore Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters still resisting US-led forces in Afghanistan has dwindled to under 1,000, Nato’s military commander says, indicating the insurgency is "running out of energy".
Does that include all the Paks across the border? I doubt it...
"The level of the threat ... is quite a bit lower than I had thought," US Marine General James L Jones told reporters late on Monday as he flew back from a one-day visit to Afghanistan. "The estimate about the number of actual fighters, the really hardcore fighters that remain involved in the conflict is quite a bit less that what I thought ... under a thousand Taliban, al-Qaeda." Jones and other Nato leaders met Monday with US Operational Commander in Afghanistan Brig-Gen Lloyd J Austin III, at the US military base in Bagram, north of Kabul, before flying to the capital for talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other leaders. After talks with Austin and other coalition commanders, Jones said: "Their feeling is that the opposition is running out of energy."

The upbeat assessment came despite a Taliban claim that two recent suicide attacks that killed one British and one Canadian solider marked the start of a new campaign by the insurgents. Fears of more suicide bombings have led to heightened security in Kabul, where a Nato-led force of around 6,400 keeps the peace. "That’s always a worry, but it’s also a sign of desperation," Jones said. "What they try to do when they do that is to have these kind of attacks near simultaneously ... which gives the appearance of more mass than there really is."

Jones said that commanders would have a clearer idea of the continued Taliban and al-Qaeda threat when the melting snows make it possible for more coalition operations against the insurgents’ mountain hideaways. "We’ll get a better measure in the spring time as to how dormant it might be, or how reduced it may be," he said. "They could also come back ... so it’s not over yet." However, he stressed that the threat was increasingly focused on areas in the southeast near the Pakistani border, enabling international efforts in the rest of the country to focus on reconstruction and supporting the efforts of Karzai’s government to impose law and order. Jones said that the optimistic picture, he received from commanders on the ground, would influence plans he is drafting for Nato to expand its peacekeeping mission beyond the capital. So far, only Germany has send extra troops, about 200 to set up a team under Nato command in Kunduz. Jones sounded optimistic more nations would be coming forward to get up to five more regional teams in place by June, when Afghanistan is to hold key nation-wide elections.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:07:49 AM || Comments || Link || [336061 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The number of hardcore Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters still resisting US-led forces in Afghanistan has dwindled to under 1,000, Nato?s military commander says, indicating the insurgency is "running out of energy".

But . . . but . . . but . . . it's a quagmire, isn't it? It's supposed to be a quagmire! The Angry Left told me it was. Chomsky wouldn't lie, would he? How can John Kerry get elected if it's not a quagmire?
Posted by: Mike || 02/11/2004 6:33 Comments || Top||

#2  But...but...I've been told for the last month that we're failing because the Taliban has regrouped and is stronger than ever. Ted Koppel said so. The Soviets were forced to withdraw in shame just like we will. QUAGMIRE QUAGMIRE BUSH LIED HALIBURTON.
Posted by: Me2Boss || 02/11/2004 7:27 Comments || Top||

#3  The media have regrouped and are ready for a spring offensive which they hope will result in a John Quagmire Kerry by November.
Posted by: john || 02/11/2004 10:34 Comments || Top||

#4  Hey, if I was a mullah-kateer, getting my ass KICKED for a couple of years, I'd cross a border that the ass-kickers couldn't, in a second.

Besides. There's fresh hunting in Iraq...
Posted by: Hyper || 02/11/2004 21:04 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
US military believed Saddam had WMDs at the time of invasion
US military chiefs said on Tuesday they were convinced Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when they sent forces into battle last year. The heads of the navy, marines and air force testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that their views remained unchanged even though no weapons have been found. General Michael Hagee said he saw intelligence from throughout the government as he prepared for the war. "I was absolutely convinced that Saddam had chemical, if not biological weapons," he said.

General John Jumper, the air force chief of staff, said he had followed intelligence on Iraq’s chemical weapons since the 1991 Gulf War when the US and British air forces had enforced no-fly zones over Iraq. "The evidence then was compelling and continued to be throughout the years of our no-fly zone operations of stored chemical and biological weapons, even weaponizing on warheads," he said.

Admiral Vernon Clark, the chief of naval operations, quoted from a letter he wrote to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the outset of the war. "I said this: ‘For some it is about WMD, for others it is about al-Qaeda, for us it is about all of that and more: Iraq has been shooting at our aircraft for over five years.’ And I went on to say to him it was my belief that this cause was just," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 12:06:19 AM || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Even though it's at best indirect evidence, has there been any official comment on the existence of new chem-bio suits and atropine injectors in Iraqi military stores over-run during the war? As I recall from the ongoing media coverage, several Iraqi supply locations (often mosques or hospitals) held not just ordnance but the suits and the atropine. There has been public comment on other indirect evidence (Kay relaying the accounts of Spec. RG commanders who believed adjacent units had CW ordnance and planned to use it), but I've seen nothing on the suits/antidotes since the war.
Posted by: IceCold || 02/11/2004 0:58 Comments || Top||

#2  My understanding is that the assumption is that the Iraqi RG and Special RG were told that chem/bio weapons were going to be let loose any time now from adjacent units, Kay did document that Saddam Hussein ordered an all-out chemical weapons attack on US forces during the war. If both he and his generals believed that they had chem/bio weapons with which to use, it sounds to me as though it would be entirely prudent for them to stock up on protection in the event they actually decided to use their alleged doomsday arsenal.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/11/2004 1:05 Comments || Top||

#3  WMDS,MY ARSE! It's obvious they didn't exist. Saddam and Al-Queda?? BULLSHIT! The only wmds are the lies of mass deception spewed by the coalition.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 1:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Ohhh, a visitor from Old Europe???
Posted by: Anonymous2U || 02/11/2004 1:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Nah antiwar's an aussie and he believes that Israel shouldn't exist because the messiah hasn't come down to earth yet... just letting ya know so you can keep that in mind when you interpret his remarks..
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 02/11/2004 1:25 Comments || Top||

#6  You all seem to think the same. Do you share a brain? Well don't rack your brain you might split the pea. Re Israel there are jews who think the same so you can't call it antisemitic.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 1:41 Comments || Top||

#7  You all seem to think the same.

Mostly. (And like Martha says, that's a good thing)
Posted by: Rafael || 02/11/2004 2:06 Comments || Top||

#8  Don't you get it YET, "anti-war"? EVERYONE, including Saddam's commanders believed they had WMD. Why is this a difficult concept for leftists to understand?
Posted by: RMcLeod || 02/11/2004 2:14 Comments || Top||

#9  Leftists don't try to understand anything. They just spew for the sake of spewing. It's some sort of medical condition, probably brought on by drug abuse.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/11/2004 2:24 Comments || Top||

#10  Well you arselicking dogs of the three stooges of the coalition certainly have split the pea. Saddam USED to have chemical weapons SOLD TO HIM BY US CORPORATIONS but he did not have them before operation coalition bullshit. Joseph Wilson US diplomat went to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq tried to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger. He concluded the allegations were false. The White House ignored his report.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 3:54 Comments || Top||

#11  Moral relativist at work here folks, everyone else but is right but his own culture/society. I'm waiting for him to say when its actually okay to fight evil, oh wait I forgot, moral relativism says there isn't anything really evil because everyone's belief is right in some sort of way. Hey antiwar, come on at least use some spittle in your arguments, you're making this waaaaaaaaay to easy for us.
Posted by: Valentine || 02/11/2004 3:54 Comments || Top||

#12  It looks like we thought Saddam had weapons, because either 1) He thought he did. That his scientists, not wanting to be fed into the plastics shredder, told him he did. 2) He was actively trying to convince us he did. or 3) a lot of this intelligence came from defectors who wanted to free their country.

In any event, liberals supposedly care more about the little guys, like ordinary Iraqis than us conservatives. Yet what they are arguing is that removing Saddam from power was wrong. So much for the Iraqi people.

Antiwar: Joseph Wilson was not believed by the administration because Joseph Wilson himself characterized his trip as little more than sitting around the pool, drinking tea and asking folks if they sold yellowcake to Saddam. Not a very thorough investigation, by his own admission.
Posted by: Ben || 02/11/2004 4:29 Comments || Top||

#13  Who's using the communal brain now? It isn't you Ben and Valentine.Ever occur to you that defectors lied about wmd.It obviously takes a lot of people to lie ,the liars and the fools who believe them.Saddam destroyed his wmds if as you claim he had some Sarin and Tarbun for example have a shelf life of 5 years they're a pile of useless sludge by now.You should stop watching fox news (fair and balanced-NOT)The US Military is the greatest killing machine in history but I expect that makes you prowars proud. US was happy to support Saddam in the past but when he didn't kiss your President's (fill in presidents name here)ass it changed. US government has put my country of Australia at risk of a terrorist attack due to our PM kissing GWB'S backside and being one of the three stooges
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 5:29 Comments || Top||

#14  all I wanna say is that Bush harmed the intelligence community with his selective and creative use of what was known. This is an intelligence war. Thus, destroying the credibility of the CIA is the same thing as destroying the war effort. Bush was wrong to manipulate the public opinion with his stance on WMD.
Posted by: lyot || 02/11/2004 5:39 Comments || Top||

#15  Re: Antiwar, you have to remember that Australia has at least its fair share of Looney Lefties. And its media in my assesment is even worse than the US media, with a couple of notable exceptions.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/11/2004 6:03 Comments || Top||

#16  Phil you are right about the australian media channel seven for example is as bad as fox. Lyot you are almost right that Bush manipulated public opinion he actually wernt further and lied to the world.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 6:18 Comments || Top||

#17  Er, I must assume you have never seen Fox. Fox to its credit doesn't endlessly repeat the Leftist memes. Whereas watching Oz news reports or reading the Npapers the stuff peddled is almost indistinquishable.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/11/2004 6:31 Comments || Top||

#18  Yes I have seen fox. They peddle the lies of the Bush administration.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 6:36 Comments || Top||

#19  ** YAWN **

More spewings from the Marxist playbook.

Saddam's in no shape to go back to work and we are in no mood to let him go back to his old, bad habits, as much as this latest troll would prefer.

Old, tired, and worthless: kinda like Saddam.
Posted by: badanov || 02/11/2004 6:42 Comments || Top||

#20  Anti, would you say that people in Iraq have a more promising future now than they would have had if Sadam still ruled?
Posted by: Dan Canaveral || 02/11/2004 6:52 Comments || Top||

#21  What a novel idea. A troll who has a shift key, a spell checker, and can actually put two sentences together. Now if he only knew how to think instead of just spew.
Posted by: GK || 02/11/2004 7:10 Comments || Top||

#22  Badanov I rightfully condemn Saddam's torture of his countrymen/women.BUT are you willing to condemn the deceitful hypocritical actions of Bush.Dan I would say no. THEIR WILL BE A CIVIL WAR IN IRAQ THANKS TO THAT SWINE BUSH
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 8:05 Comments || Top||

#23  SWINE BUSH -OK give away. Antiwar is a moslem. Although its getting hard to tell the difference between Loony Leftists and Jihadis.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/11/2004 8:31 Comments || Top||

#24  Hmmm, this is a tough one...

Bush's putative deceitful hypocrisy versus murderous tyranny.

Deceitful hypocrisy... or murderous tyranny...

That's a toughie. I'll take hypocrisy for $500, Alex.
Posted by: badanov || 02/11/2004 8:58 Comments || Top||

#25  It looks like we thought Saddam had weapons, because... (drum roll please)...he had WMD's.

Please take note that not a single person here is quoted as saying we didn't find WMD's. Just lots of "we believed they did have WMD's. Not a single, "we didn't find any" to be found!!

Hello! Ignore the hype. Use your heads and put together the information available - there were WMD's.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 9:03 Comments || Top||

#26  Antiwar, You just don't know the joy and excitement you bring to RB. You're like a pinata at a 8 yr/old's birthday party. What will spill out this time?
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/11/2004 9:10 Comments || Top||

#27  Phil I am Christian.Re Saddam he should be tried before an international court and given access to lawyers and the in prison for life. Likewise Bush etc should also go before the court and given access to lawyers and prison for life. Like I SAID BEFORE Saddam did not have wmds at the time of the invasion.Where do YOU think they are if as you say no-one said we didn't find them?
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 9:22 Comments || Top||

#28  You are right Antiwar. I mean how dare FOX news give any ahem! facts other then what the left spews out! They got a lot of nerve!

Pretty soon people might actually think for themselves!

BTW: Is your bong still missing?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/11/2004 9:27 Comments || Top||

#29  Is there no one here who thinks that Bush went to far in selectivly using the available information?
Posted by: lyot || 02/11/2004 9:53 Comments || Top||

#30  The next time someone finds a quote that actually acknowledges the absence of WMD's in Iraq, could you please call my attention to it and make sure I see it???

And I don't mean any of this .."we believed before the war" stuff... Or blather about "intelligence reports being overestimated" or "no significant wmd findings have been reported".

I mean an actual quote by someone in the know, like Bush or Rumsfeld or Tommy Franks, or anyone other than democratic hopefuls or ususal suspects, that says - "we have not found WMD's in Iraq".

Thank you.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 10:02 Comments || Top||

#31  actually i dont blame bush. if you dig deep you will discover chainey is the one with the remote controller over at the white house. bush is just the front man because he is not bald with a pacemaker.
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/11/2004 10:02 Comments || Top||

#32  It's not a pacemaker it's a alien mind control device.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/11/2004 10:09 Comments || Top||

#33  I'll donate $20 to Fred's tip jar if someone can find me a quote where an important, believable (I'll be the judge) official in the American Administration states that we have not found WMD's in Iraq.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 10:14 Comments || Top||

#34  Re: my bet... anything that says, "has not been reported" doesn't count.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 10:18 Comments || Top||

#35  I don't think Bush selectivly used the information. I believe the left is selectivly using information and doing everything they can do to undermine his policy. The only thing the left is consistent in is undermining republican presidents in foreign policy and then turing 180 degrees when their guy is in charge. Bay of pigs? Gulf of Tonkin? Iran rescue? Somolia? Bosnia? Kosovo? Asprin Factory? Hell, I was told serbia was comitting genocide in Kosovo and that is why we went to war. Anybody following the trial? Six years later and the Huage cannot prove it. Instead they are going back to the Bosnian war.


Guess what guys, the president is elected to run foreign policy. Grow up and live with it. We are all on the same team and once a plan has been choosen the left acts as a bunch of sabatuers and does everything to screw up the plan. Can you imagine two years after Perl Harbor and the war effort by FDR being held up due to questions and investigations into how perl happened. I could be a repubican standing up and saying "I voted for this War Declaration believing that we had no idea Japan was going to attack! I voted to give the president the authorization to go after Japan. Here we are now learning that we knew may of known it was coming. We now learn that FDR may have selectivly used the intelligence to allow an attack to trick us into voting so FDR could get us into a reckless war with Germany! Germany did not attack us, Japan did, and now we are fighting in North Africa against the Germans. I voted to give this authorization to only force Japan back to the Leage of Nations. Instead FDR has illegally thrust us into a world war against Germany that has done nothing to us. There is NO evidence that Germany was involved with Perl Harbor. Instead FDR started this war to enrich his War Factory buddies and to change attention from the Depression!"


Well, if tables would have been turned and a republican had been president this very well could have happened!
Posted by: Patrick Payne || 02/11/2004 10:22 Comments || Top||

#36  You named yourself well crazyfool because you are that alright.B where do you think Saddam hid his wmds if you think he had them?
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 10:27 Comments || Top||

#37  I don't engage trolls. Put up the quote or shut up.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 10:28 Comments || Top||

#38  Damn I belive we have a record.... I deem him Abu EnduroTroll..... 9 hours of solid trolling.

8.9
Posted by: Shipman || 02/11/2004 10:41 Comments || Top||

#39  B YOU ARE A FOOL.Saddam HAD I REPEAT HAD wmds in the 1980's SOLD TO HIM BY AMERICA!!!!!!!! At the time of the invasion he had NONE. BUSH LIED.AMERICA HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS NOW! Is THAT ok with you?????
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 10:48 Comments || Top||

#40  AMERICA HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS NOW! Is THAT ok with you?????

Yes.
Posted by: Lil Dhimmi || 02/11/2004 10:51 Comments || Top||

#41  Antiwar - You only accept one point of view (just like you blame everyone hear the folks here).

For you no mattter what the US does, aside from capitulate, is no good for you. You state that there were no WMD's (I believe you said BullShit). Well Saddam did use them in the past, he did play games arount the UN for 10 years, and he did have a reason to strike at the US. If he did or if he didn't at the time we went in doesn't matter. He played a very dangerous game and miscaluculated bigtime. He acted like he had them, I pesonally believe he did and you can find them in syria.

But you are so blind that you cannot accept this. You have no understanding of what actually happens on the world geo politcal stage. You should feel lucky that someone out there is protecting you.

If it was up to you the US would put its head in her ass and go home. Well that is not going to happpen, with 9-11 and clear support of terrorts by countries that our enemies of the US going to be shaking things up.

G.W. Bush is the right man at the right time.

Antiwar - your a troll, you could at least try and post opinions that have some what intelligence.
Posted by: Dan || 02/11/2004 10:52 Comments || Top||

#42  Hey troll...here is my bet...don't talk to ME unless you can come up with a quote:

B's Bet:
I'll donate $20 to Fred's tip jar if someone can find me a quote where an important, believable (I'll be the judge) official in the American Administration states that we have not found WMD's in Iraq.
-anything that says, "has not been reported" doesn't count.

see also post #30

I'm waiting....
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 10:56 Comments || Top||

#43  Saddam HAD I REPEAT HAD wmds in the 1980's SOLD TO HIM BY AMERICA!!!!!!!!

The US sold him no such thing. Stop believing Mikey Moore and start reading the facts.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/11/2004 11:01 Comments || Top||

#44  $20 on the line. tick tock..tick tock...du-du-duu-du-duu-du-duuu....du-du-duu-du-DU!-DUdududu...du-du-duu-du-duu-du-duuu....DU! duu duu duuu duu duu duuuuuuuuuuu......
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 11:06 Comments || Top||

#45  Dan Bush is putting YOU and every other American in danger of a terrorist attack. Yes america should do the world a favour and go home.Lil Dhimmi you ae dim alright.Well I'M going to leave now and watch my Kath and Kim DVD.So toodles warmongers.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 11:17 Comments || Top||

#46  The American Public will never accept the truth that BUSH LIED and I'll never get my bong back.
Posted by: Halfempty || 02/11/2004 11:17 Comments || Top||

#47  Hey troll...I guess we can assume that you couldn't find a quote.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 11:19 Comments || Top||

#48  hey half good to see you back! i was geting losnesome over here. you should see this antiwar guy. he is a realy deep thinker
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/11/2004 11:25 Comments || Top||

#49  Only 48 entries? Come back! We were going to set a new endurance record. Too bad you'd rather watch TV than read. It might do you some good. I would recommend Socrates or Plato to begin with. Sorry for any hurt feelings, but we here at RB are awfully wedded to Facts and Logic. Give it a try. Ya'll come back now, ya heah?
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/11/2004 11:27 Comments || Top||

#50  Iyot (and others wondering about how intelligence was used) - I suggest you read Old Spook's comment from this Rantburg article a few days ago. It demonstrates an assessment process. There were many factors to consider, and competent professionals had to weigh them all, assign probabilities, allocate resources based upon the resulting output, and err on the side of safety. Regardless of whether you agree with my take, read OS's comment and decide for yourself.

Just remember, and this is where the LLL types are truly assholes - while everyone else (I hope) is actually trying to discern the truth:
It's utterly disingenuous and dishonest to judge others while enjoying the luxury of 20/20 hindsight and give no quarter to those who have to make the hard calls everyday without it.

The article was titled "Calling Iraq's Bluff"
Posted by: .com || 02/11/2004 11:29 Comments || Top||

#51  well...I can't wait all day. Contrary to what you might think...I do have a life. But I'll be back. I think someone should take me up on my $20 bet....for Fred's sake.

It's an open ended bet. I'll pay as soon as anyone finds a quote (see above).
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 11:30 Comments || Top||

#52  Hey, would Scott Ritter count? :)
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/11/2004 11:35 Comments || Top||

#53  Lil Dhimmi you ae dim alright.

Antiwar, coming from you, I'll take that as a compliment.
Posted by: Lil Dhimmi || 02/11/2004 11:37 Comments || Top||

#54  Saddam HAD I REPEAT HAD wmds in the 1980's SOLD TO HIM BY AMERICA!!!!!!!!

Sorry buddy, but while U.S. companies might sell technology and components that the Iraqis used to surreptitiously create their own weapons, selling actual weapons directly to Hussein didn't happen.

At the time of the invasion he had NONE.

And how exactly do you know this? Have you personally combed the entire land mass of Iraq and determined this with absolute certainty?

BUSH LIED.

This is better known as "Old Recycled Bullshit".
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/11/2004 12:03 Comments || Top||

#55  B, I'll give $20 to the democratic underground (yuck!) if someone can find that quote you mentioned.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/11/2004 12:06 Comments || Top||

#56  wow impressive list of distorted facts there antiwar! Whats even more amazing is that theres still people out there that would love to see Saddam reinstated as the Iraqi Dictator, some people must love these type of people and regimes i guess.Oh well even though Saddams gone maybe Kim Jong Il can set you up with a nice little property in his fabulous wonderland, you'd surly fit in well and love it there.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/11/2004 12:08 Comments || Top||

#57  Hey gang! What's going on? Did someone say something wrong?
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 02/11/2004 12:27 Comments || Top||

#58  antiwar: You're starting to bore me.
Posted by: 11A5S || 02/11/2004 12:30 Comments || Top||

#59  heh. this thread is great
Posted by: Dcreeper || 02/11/2004 12:35 Comments || Top||

#60  antiwar,

"Re Israel there are jews who think the same so you can't call it antisemitic. "

I never thought it was anti-semitic... just CRAZY!
Posted by: Damn_Proud_American || 02/11/2004 12:48 Comments || Top||

#61  crazy fool - ick...well at least it's a safe bet!! (not that I shouldn't hit Fred's tip jar anyway).

It is so interesting how everyone has jumped on the "the intelligence was wrong" bandwagon. Even conservative pundits have sung the tune - but why?

Oh sure, CNN, BBC, NPR etc. have all hyped the "how could we have been so wrong" stories ad nauseum. But has GW or Rumsfeld or anyone at the top ever said "we have not found WMD's in Iraq?" NO! NEVER to my knowledge.

The "how could we have all been so wrong stories" are all based on the fact that the discovery of WMD sites have not yet been REPORTED to the public. Well..gee, maybe they are classified (go figure) so as not to tip the bad guys as to where we are in the investigation.

Just like Bush never said the threat was "imminent", he has never said that we have not found WMDs. And just like "imminent threat" he probably enjoys watching his detractors publically discredit themselves.
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 13:09 Comments || Top||

#62  Yo peacehaters I'm back.Just for half an hour so here it is.Redneck I actually read quite a lot.B here's a quote " Iraq has no wmd and poses no threat to the US " Scott Ritter. can't say the same in reverse.Here's another "We've been to every ammunition supply plant from the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad but they're not there"LT GEN James Conway.Jon I said Saddam should be tried at the international court and prison for life.I did not say he should be reinstated.However I do think the USA was totally wrong to invade Iraq and wage war.The coalition leaders should be tried for this maybe the three stooges could share a cell. Blair and Howard could clean Dubya's shoes maybe.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 13:20 Comments || Top||

#63  Watch it, fellow peacehaters. He's using Scott Ritter as a credible source! Guess he showed us.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/11/2004 13:31 Comments || Top||

#64  I blame meth for this thread.
Posted by: AntiPasto || 02/11/2004 13:35 Comments || Top||

#65  Only a few minutes so here you go where is your quote of the evidence Saddam DID have WMD?
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 13:44 Comments || Top||

#66  OK does anyone still doubt Antiwar is f%&ked up?
Posted by: Rafael || 02/11/2004 13:50 Comments || Top||

#67  Well thats it from me I'm off to bed i will return at 8pm(australian time) so until then Dubya fans I bid you farewell.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/11/2004 14:05 Comments || Top||

#68  How would Scott Ritter know? He hasn't been back to Iraq since the war - and he's been kinda busy doing inspections at the local playground.

Here is the rest of the story that you left out, troll...but nice try.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/05/30/sprj.irq.wmd/

"Conway refrained from pointing fingers.

"Intelligence failure, I think, is too strong a word to use at this point," he said. "I don't think that we've given up on the search yet."

He told reporters gathered at the Pentagon for a teleconference briefing: "As we moved north [during the first weeks of the war], there were a couple of times when everybody was sleeping with their boots on and with their gas masks pretty close.

"One of the real surprises we all experienced is that we did not get struck with weapons of mass destruction as we crossed the Euphrates, or even as we crossed the Tigris and went up against the Republican Guard divisions.

"We truly thought that they were distributed, not to everyone, not to regular army divisions that we saw in the South, but my personal belief is that they probably did reside in Republican Guard units," he said.

He added that his troops are helping with the postwar search.

More than 1,300 investigators planned for Iraq
Later Friday in Washington, the general leading the new U.S. team that will search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq said he thinks there is credible evidence that Iraq has such weapons.

He echoed Conway's surprise at the failure of the searches conducted so far.

Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton told reporters that he will leave for Iraq on Monday to head a team of more than 1,300 investigators from the United States, Great Britain and Australia. Between 250 and 300 of those team members -- including some inspectors who were in Iraq before 1998, when all U.N. teams were expelled -- will visit suspected weapons sites, Dayton said"
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 14:12 Comments || Top||

#69  that was back in May. So...let me get this straight...your evidence is based on Conway saying he believes there are WMD's and Dayton saying there is credible evidence and they plan to visit suspected sites.

Now show me where they said they "didn't find any".
Posted by: B || 02/11/2004 14:16 Comments || Top||

#70  B here's a quote " Iraq has no wmd and poses no threat to the US " Scott Ritter.

Scott Ritter. Hm...... I wonder what NAMBLA's position is on Iraqi WMDs.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/11/2004 14:18 Comments || Top||

#71  LOL!! Antiwar, Dude, You're priceless. Don't go away.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/11/2004 14:20 Comments || Top||

#72  Ah watch that spittle fly! Anyone else notice antiwar has yet to use a single source to back up his claims? (No Scott Ritter don't count as a source, unless you want to claim his knowledge of pedophilia and that he took bribes from Saddam), go to google and check up the phrase "Scott Ritter Project", yep thats the term the Iraqi govt. used. As for the rest of your insanity, just remember antiwar, "Everybody needs a hug sometime" hehehehehe.
Posted by: Valentine || 02/11/2004 14:50 Comments || Top||

#73  Yo peacehaters I'm back.

Well there you go. Peace-at-any-price, is it?

"We've been to every ammunition supply plant from the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad but they're not there"LT GEN James Conway.

What dumbass would hide verboten weapons in ammunition supply plants???? And what dumbass would only look in those places?

Jon I said Saddam should be tried at the international court and prison for life.

Try Saddam in the ICC??? Do you think Hussein would have just gotten up and waltzed over to Belgium on his own with an army of lawyers to defend him? Please.

I did not say he should be reinstated.However I do think the USA was totally wrong to invade Iraq and wage war.

Oh yeah, another 12 years of useless UN resolutions and empty bluster would've done the trick.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/11/2004 15:37 Comments || Top||

#74  The coalition leaders should be tried for this maybe the three stooges could share a cell.

How fucked up does your moral compass have to be if you think people who put an end to government rape squads and childrens' prisons deserve to be imprisoned?

But, hey, that's the "peace" movement today: fascists, racists, and wanna-be totalitarianists.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/11/2004 21:00 Comments || Top||

#75  Someone, pass Me the "communal brain." (The pickles are staring at Me.)

I seem to recall finding 7 pounds of cyanide in Iraq. Of course, it was planted by Haliburton, I'm sure.

We know that the Russians were helping escort convoys out of Iraq right before the ground assault. Probably just women and children inside those windowless trailers.

It was certainly a clever trick to give orders to use weapons that didn't exist to fool our military, which they knew was tapping their comms.

Question to you anti-American War types: since we have Saddam, we can simply put him back in power, and leave, putting us back the way we were in 2002. We won't even need to fill in the mass graves we dug up, since he'll do it for us.
Is that what you want?
Posted by: Jackal || 02/11/2004 22:01 Comments || Top||

#76  I'll believe Scott Ritter once he goes on FOX.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/12/2004 0:58 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Wed 2004-02-11
  Another 50 killed in Iraq car boom
Tue 2004-02-10
  Car Bomb At Iraq Cop Shop, 50 Dead
Mon 2004-02-09
  Zarqawi letter sez insurgency failing
Sun 2004-02-08
  Seven nations tied to Pak nuke ring
Sat 2004-02-07
  Abdullah Shami's car helizapped
Fri 2004-02-06
  40 dead in Moscow subway boom
Thu 2004-02-05
  Surprise! Abdul Qadeer pardoned!
Wed 2004-02-04
  Bacha Khan Zadran snagged
Tue 2004-02-03
  Ricin in the mail
Mon 2004-02-02
  AQ Khan admits to leaking secrets
Sun 2004-02-01
  Saddam to Be Handed Over to Special Court
Sat 2004-01-31
  Pak sacks Abdul Qadeer Khan
Fri 2004-01-30
  Death for Japan cult chemist
Thu 2004-01-29
  At least 10 dead in Jerusalem suicide bombing
Wed 2004-01-28
  Thai jihadis threaten schools, 1000 closed

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