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Yandarbiyev boomed in Qatar
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-Short Attention Span Theater-
The BEST "Rant" I’ve read in a while
A MAJOR hattip to 11A5S
#5 A failed civilization and a failed culture coupled with a holy book that is manual for successfully infiltrating a fractured society, taking it over, and using it as a base for rapid expansion and cultural domination. Throw in Leninist agitprop (the many Saudi-funded dawa efforts), indoctrination (madrassahs), and cell structure and you have something that is short lived, violent, and very dangerous before it collapses in on itself.
Posted by: 11A5S 2004-2-13 12:23:56 PM
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/13/2004 2:39:44 PM || Comments || Link || [336074 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Having read most of the posts and comments today I'm ROTFLMAO. Is there a full moon tonight?
Posted by: GA || 02/13/2004 14:46 Comments || Top||

#2  thanks for fixing my screwup Fred.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/13/2004 14:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Shit, GA - just check your AlQ-issue Almanac, boy! (Or girl, as the case may be...)
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:59 Comments || Top||

#4  .com, I shortened Gasse Katze to GK a few days ago. I did check AlQ'S almanac,but it only lists 1/4 moons.:-)
Posted by: GA || 02/13/2004 15:25 Comments || Top||

#5  GA / GK - what's a letter among friends, eh?

But GA is not same as GK - Who are you, again??? If GK, then use GK! If GA, then stop masquerading as GK with nefarious comments designed to sew confusion amongst the RB population! We'll sic the Commando Elephants on you after they finish with the SUV's!
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 15:29 Comments || Top||

#6  GK it is. it's that Damn keyboard,.com.
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 16:05 Comments || Top||

#7  Are the commando elephants still abailable? Nuss Ratchett say I have Alp issues I need to deal with.
Posted by: Napoleon VII || 02/13/2004 16:40 Comments || Top||

#8  Coming from you guys, this is a great compliment. I need to hit the tip jar.
Posted by: 11A5S || 02/13/2004 17:23 Comments || Top||

#9  well, the K and A are so close together...


©¿©
Posted by: Frank G || 02/13/2004 19:11 Comments || Top||

#10  11A5S - Sheesh, man - wotta buncha maroons, eh? Lemme have that crescent wrench... and the ball peen hammer... Okay, try this:

In the bestest of the positive RB traditions, I doth believest you've been rightly raised upon the shoulders of the masses, thus elevationed, and heretofore and without ado or furthers, cheered and turned, with teak clusters, into an official statuesque pigeon roost... And yea, so very verily, the hardcore have gathered and mumbled off topic, as is their wont, but didst not quibble, nay nay they didst mill about, jostling a little but holding true to the course and, thusly, everafter, is the proof that ist proven in the pudding that they took comfort and saw the truth of the post and by their Peshawars shewed that it was good. Amen.

Yeah, that's better. Isn't it?

On-topic: let there be no doubt about it -- your rant Kicks Ass! An instant Classic.
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 20:16 Comments || Top||

#11  Great rant 11A, but .com takes the Rantburg Pulitzer (even for the time long ago when he was known by just two letters).
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 21:10 Comments || Top||

#12  Yeap.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/14/2004 0:14 Comments || Top||


SUV wanted in rape and kidnapping case
Police are releasing a description of a stolen SUV they think may be involved in the rape and kidnapping of a 16-year-old girl in Mecosta County.
Damm SUVs are running amuck!
Police tell 24 Hour News 8 the teenager was abducted last Friday while walking home from school in Big Rapids. Officers think the suspect took the girl to an empty summer home, broke into the house, and assaulted her. A Colfax Township resident found the girl tied up in the snow off a roadside embankment. Police are looking for a 1997 Jeep Grand Cherokee that was stolen from Antrim County February 4. The vehicle is a four door, deep amethyst or deep purple in color, with license plate RDB-089. It was last seen in Big Rapids being driven by a white male on the night of February 5.
Is the white male a suspect or the SUVs latest victim?
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 2:08:36 PM || Comments || Link || [336085 views] Top|| File under:

#1  SUV's why do they hate us? - I had to.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 14:15 Comments || Top||

#2  White males: why do they hate us?

Sorry...had to fill the bill...

In all seriousness, if you live near Grand Rapids, MI, pay attention!
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 14:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Last night my boyfriend and I went into downtown (Houston). At one point we were becalmed on I-10 near the Galleria. "Honey, don't panic," I said, "but we're surrounded by SUVs!" It was true: every other vehicle around us was an SUV.

They're taking over! They're here already! You're next! YOU'RE NEXT!
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 02/13/2004 14:39 Comments || Top||

#4  There's only one thing to do, Angie - buy an SUV! You're either with us, or you're with the wimpy, ultimately-squishable little doink Civics and Rios.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 14:44 Comments || Top||

#5  Buy an SUV!!!?? Never---- they'll pry the Very Elderly Volvo out of my cold, dead hands!!!
Posted by: Sgt. Mom || 02/13/2004 14:48 Comments || Top||

#6  Maybe they should send out the commando elephants to subdue the rogue SUV...
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/13/2004 15:23 Comments || Top||

#7  Don't worry about SUVs... fight back. Want to deflate an SUV owner? Call it a station wagon. I've been doing this for about 3 months... I expect the price of station wagons to crater in about 8 months. At which point I will be able to afford a Grand Ayatollah, in deep amethyst, with double multiple drink holders and the limited edition Janaweed upholstery.

Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 16:03 Comments || Top||

#8  well, not to brag, but new 2004 Ford F-150 Lariat Supercrew 4X4 meets passenger car emission standards, so the Auto/Truck companies must be listening
Posted by: Frank G || 02/13/2004 19:20 Comments || Top||

#9  Shipman, I have been calling a particular SUV a station wagon ever since I saw the first commercial.
Posted by: Charles || 02/13/2004 23:06 Comments || Top||


Taiwanese Motorcyclist Hit by Jackpot
EFL
Lu Fang-nan, 57, was knocked off his motorbike after a relative of a kidnap victim dropped the money from a highway overpass, local media reports said. The stunned man re-mounted his bike and sought medical help for a swollen leg - and the kidnappers fled with the cash. The person who dropped the money was following orders from kidnappers who had seized an electronics merchant. Mr Lu said he did not realise he had been hit by the falling fortune until television news reported the businessman’s release and the delivery site of the ransom payment. "Such a way to pay ransom is dangerous. It could get people killed," the unlucky cyclist told the United Daily News. The incident paid off for the kidnapping victim, who was released unharmed. Police say they are hunting several suspects.
The guy should be happy that the ransom was paid in bills.
No source on this...
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 1:25:06 PM || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Something must be wrong with the way I posted these. Here is the BBC link.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 14:21 Comments || Top||


Hungary protesters fend off fellers
EFL
Security guards were on Friday unable to remove local people and activists who had chained themselves to trees. Police say they cannot interfere as the dispute takes place on private land. Activists are trying to hold out until Sunday, when an eight-month long ban on tree-felling in environmentally-sensitive areas comes into force. In temperatures of 10 degrees below zero, some 25 local people and 15 environmental activists chained themselves to trees on the Zengo mountain peak, as yellow-clad security guards tried to move them aside. Scuffles followed but the guards failed to take control of the area, according to activists who are taking part in the protest action. Police arriving at the scene said they could not interfere, as there was no request from the owner of the land - in this case a local council which also opposes construction. This was the third day of the protest action to try to prevent the construction of the 18 metre-high tower. The Hungarian Ministry of Defence has been planning this and two other radar stations since 1995 and have promised Nato they will be ready in 2006. The protesters say the radar installation would spoil an area of great natural beauty and have appealed to Nato to reconsider.
As a US Taxpayer, I salute these Hugarian pacifists’ efforts to save me cash. I think that the probablity of suicide airliner or ballistic missile attack on Europe is unlikely. If I am wrong, I don’t really see a downside .... for me.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 1:14:17 PM || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ten below zero? Sounds like this problem will solve itself naturally in a couple of days...
Posted by: PBMcL || 02/13/2004 13:24 Comments || Top||

#2  Is this what they call a Hungary Strike?
Posted by: BH || 02/13/2004 13:37 Comments || Top||

#3  No, this is tree-huggarys. touches cymbal with stick Three Hungarians hug-a-tree. Tree huggers hungary.

Limit one joke per comment. Void where prohibited. Those under 18 must leave now.
Posted by: john || 02/13/2004 14:58 Comments || Top||

#4  LOL John....
Magyars Mount Maples, Maimed, Ma?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 16:45 Comments || Top||

#5  Enjoy yourselves, folks. We'll be back...sometime.
We'll have a blowtorch to try and melt you off the trees.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 22:29 Comments || Top||


Atheists, Humanists Push Campaign for ’Darwin Day’
EFL - this is not Scrappleface, but it should be.
Atheist, agnostic and humanist organizations in the Americas, Europe and Asia are gearing up for a five-year campaign aimed at achieving international recognition of Feb. 12 as "Darwin Day." Their target date is 2009 -- the bicentenary of the birth of British biologist Charles Darwin whose own faith in a deity who created the world collapsed before the theory of evolution he set out in 1859 in his ground-breaking "The Origin of Species."
There are agnostic organizations? I'm not sure I believe in them, but I guess I'm open to proof...
Why push for an annual celebration of Darwin now? His ideas are widely shared and even religious leaders from churches that once denounced him as a heretic accept that life on Earth evolved over 3 billion years from primitive forms. "Because a Darwin Day would send out a signal that science matters in an era when pseudo-science and fear of science seem to be gaining ground," argues the British Humanist Association, which is playing a key role in the campaign. In the United States, where a survey in 2002 found that 45 percent of the population believe an all-powerful deity created the universe and all life in it within the last 10,000 years, this concern has even stronger force. Under the administration [of] President Bush, who says he is a born-again Christian, U.S. humanists and atheists say there has been a broad offensive by "creationists" aimed at undermining or even halting the teaching of evolution in schools. The creationist stance has been boosted by a newer movement arguing that, while the Earth may indeed be billions of years old, evolution leaves open many questions that can only be answered by the existence of an "Intelligent Designer."

"It is very, very scary," says Amanda Chesworth, head of the U.S. Darwin Day movement which works to counter the trend by organizing community festivals marking the biologist’s birthday. "Creationism is spreading further and further. Our nation went from the Earth to the moon a few years ago and discovered these worlds date back billions of years. Now it is sticking its head in the sand, claiming the whole lot was made in a flash a few millennia ago by one entity"...

Other schools may follow, Keith Porteous Wood of Britain’s National Secular Society says, unless critics speak out. In India, where humanism and atheism have a strong tradition and are not so distant from traditional Hindu thought, which rejects "ultimate truths," rationalists are alarmed at the rise of an aggressively militant version of Hinduism.
The worlds most urgent problem - militant Hinduism ???

The world's most urgent problem — whether God created the universe in six days in 6006 B.C., or if he took billions of years to do it. How long is one of God's days, by the way? I surely wish I had enough time on my hands to spend it on pondering the subject, but I've got more important things to do. Like wash my hair.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 12:47:20 PM || Comments || Link || [336087 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I want FESTIVUS
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/13/2004 13:09 Comments || Top||

#2  YS,

Wouldn't it be a wonderful occasion to hand out Darwin Awards? The whole country would have a day off. It would be bigger and better than the Oscars. The next-of-kin could walk the red carpet.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 13:36 Comments || Top||

#3  SH - all that snippin' going on... did you circumscribe circumcise this article? If so, which tool did you use?
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 13:45 Comments || Top||

#4 

I buy into Darwinian thinking because that would put the right about 100 million years ahead of the left which only now has moved from the bottom of some murky pond to now devour other life forms.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/13/2004 14:23 Comments || Top||

#5  .com, LOL your link reminded me of the rant that Aris did awhile back begging Americans to stop the madeness and quit snipping our boys.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 14:28 Comments || Top||

#6  Hell, SH, if we didn't snip 'em they wouldn't be able to fit into those Super Large Shiekh's and Trojans... Poor Greeks - and I do mean poor Greeks (!!!) - it must be hard soft to have missed out on all the advantages that cross-breeding being a melting pot offers, heh... I love being that kind of mutt, but we'll have to come up with something new - I don't wanna be called a Heinz 57 mutt anymore...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:43 Comments || Top||

#7  I just want to say that these people (the Darwin Day promoters) are embarrassing me. Thank you.

...I've got more important things to do. Like wash my hair.

You still have hair, Fred?
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 02/13/2004 14:43 Comments || Top||

#8  Nope.
Posted by: Fred || 02/13/2004 14:46 Comments || Top||

#9  That's right YS. Festivus for the rest of us!
Posted by: Sgt.DT || 02/13/2004 15:02 Comments || Top||

#10  Like many intelligent Christians, I came to the conclusion that the early part of Genesis is an allegory, rather than rote "truth". How could God have explained things to Moses (who supposedly wrote Genesis) any other way, and have him understand? Could you see God trying to explain the "Big Bang" to him, or Schrodinger's Principle, or plasma physics? At the same time, Stephen Hawkings claims that there MUST have been intelligent design working in the creation of the Universe, since there are literally thousands of things that could have gone differently, and created a universe innimical to life as we know it.

Like any really TALENTED Engineer, God created a feedback mechanism into a system designed to change, so that those creatures that exist have a way of adapting to those changes. Darwin wants to claim the credit for God's handiwork - he's about 20 billion years late, and only sees a tiny part of the Big Picture. Most environmental sciences experts today say there are major flaws in Darwin's theories, and that they need significant modification to account for all the changes that take place.

Darwin, like Newton, Aristotle, and hundreds of scientists from early man to today, aren't discovering anything new, they're merely learning just how significant God's attention to detail really was! Tell them all to bugger off and fly a kite - in Pakistan!

/rant - my $.02 worth.

BTW, Angie, I, unlike Fred, do still have hair - it's thin, there isn't much of it, but it still exists! 8^) (I'll bet that Fred and I are close in age, too)
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 15:37 Comments || Top||

#11  Geek joke:

Why did it take God only six days to created the universe ?

Because he had no installed user base to deal with...
Posted by: Carl in N.H || 02/13/2004 15:44 Comments || Top||

#12  LOL. Carl.... tho I understand that he promised the universe in 3 days.... small bugs... crept into the eleventeenth deminsion allegory, screwing up channel 1 for future earth betas.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 16:07 Comments || Top||

#13  The odd coincidence is that Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day, February 12, 1809. I am not sure what significance this has.

The coincidence of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both dying on July 4, 1826 is quite poetic, though.
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 02/13/2004 17:04 Comments || Top||

#14  Hmmm. Interesting idea. Just one question though. On said Darwin Day, could we kill off those we deem to be ruining the gene pool? I'm sure there are a number of people who could benefit from this day...Mass murderers, rapists, terrorists etc.
Posted by: S || 02/13/2004 17:29 Comments || Top||

#15  I suggest the last Monday of each August.

Be a nice place to plant three day weekend between July 4th and Thanksgiving.

Is evolution great or what?
Posted by: Michael || 02/13/2004 18:22 Comments || Top||

#16  Elvis's Birthday. I want it.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 22:00 Comments || Top||

#17  hokay godheads--you can be a right wing supporter of capitalism liberty and the war on islamic terrorism without being a mystical believer in the sky god of your childhood--cf randian objectivists--without enlightenment guys like darwin you'd be living under the "soft" oppression of a clerical christiandom or the caliphate--so give him his props and a day--i mean you give a day to a groundhog--grow up--sheesh
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI || 02/13/2004 23:47 Comments || Top||

#18  "Darwin, like Newton, Aristotle, and hundreds of scientists from early man to today, aren't discovering anything new, they're merely learning just how significant God's attention to detail really was! Tell them all to bugger off and fly a kite - in Pakistan!"

For people that supposedly so much helped enlarge humanity's understanding of God's wonders, you definitely seem to have something of a contempt for them.

Are you sure that's not a sin? Certainly seems akin to cursing Virgin Mary or St. Peter or any of the prophets. :-)

"Darwin wants to claim the credit for God's handiwork"

I'm pretty sure that Darwin never claimed to have personally created the universe or *any* species for that matter, so you are simply being rabidly incoherent, OP.

Fact remains that people who think that the universe was created 4004 BCs (or the people who are against evolution) are fundamentalist idiots who are doing their outmost to destroy the teaching of science at schools.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/14/2004 0:36 Comments || Top||

#19  Last comment was by me - forgot to write my name.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 02/14/2004 0:37 Comments || Top||


Hard-Line Hindus Protest on Eve of Valentine’s Day
Hard-line Hindus burned cardboard cut-outs of hearts on the eve of Valentine’s Day in the western Indian city of Bombay, promising to stop lovers from marking the Christian saint’s day. Radical Hindu groups across India have set fire to Valentine’s cards and threatened to blacken the faces of couples celebrating Feb. 14, which honors a third-century martyr considered the patron saint of lovers. "We condemn Valentine’s Day. Down with Western culture," shouted more than two dozen activists of the Hindu Shiv Sena party, carrying saffron flags and placards while protesting in front of a prominent city college.
"We don't like anybody, and we forbid anybody else from doing so!"
"We will not allow Valentine’s Day to be celebrated. Be warned or else wait and watch Saturday," threatened Bal Thackeray, firebrand chief of the Bombay-based ultra nationalist Shiv Sena, in his party newspaper "Saamna." Three years ago Thackeray called for a complete ban on Valentine’s Day. He has said the celebration is "cultural corruption" which offends Indian social values.
These social values, of course, disallow male-female affection. They're against roses. They're against chocolate. They're against kissing. They're against hugging. They're against full, rounded bosoms, the well-turned derriere, smooth, inviting thighs... I think I might see why they're so irritable.
Hard-line Hindu groups such as Shiv Sena, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal have in the past ransacked gift shops, burned cards and stopped celebrations. City police tightened security around several stores crowded with customers buying red balloons, cards and gifts to mark the occasion. But students at the college where the protest took place were unfazed by the threats. "Valentine’s Day is the only day you can express love. If you ban this day, then there will be no love in this world," said student Gordon Rodrigues, who plans to woo his girlfriend with a ring, a card and red roses.
‘Don’t the extremists have anything better to do than protest Valentines day.’
Posted by: Crux || 02/13/2004 11:48:03 AM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Don’t the extremists have anything better to do than protest Valentines day.

In India, the cops are enforcing the law by protecting stores selling Valentine's Day material. In Muslim countries, the cops are enforcing the law by raiding stores selling Valentine's Day material. That's the difference - in India, private individuals express their disapproval whereas the cops protect the right of other private individuals to celebrate the occasion. In Muslim countries, the government infringes on the right of private individuals to celebrate the occasion.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/13/2004 11:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Spot-on, ZF. Reminded me of this jewel...

From The Devil's Dictionary (Ambrose Bierce):

"INFIDEL, n. In New York, one who does not believe in the Christian religion; in Constantinople, one who does. A kind of scoundrel imperfectly reverent of, and niggardly contributory to, divines, ecclesiastics, popes, parsons, canons, monks, mollahs, voodoos, presbyters, hierophants, prelates, obeah-men, abbes, nuns, missionaries, exhorters, deacons, friars, hadjis, high-priests, muezzins, brahmins, medicine-men, confessors, eminences, elders, primates, prebendaries, pilgrims, prophets, imaums, beneficiaries, clerks, vicars-choral, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, preachers, padres, abbotesses, caloyers, palmers, curates, patriarchs, bonezs, santons, beadsmen, canonesses, residentiaries, diocesans, deans, subdeans, rural deans, abdals, charm-sellers, archdeacons, hierarchs, class-leaders, incumbents, capitulars, sheiks, talapoins, postulants, scribes, gooroos, precentors, beadles, fakeers, sextons, reverences, revivalists, cenobites, perpetual curates, chaplains, mudjoes, readers, novices, vicars, pastors, rabbis, ulemas, lamas, sacristans, vergers, dervises, lectors, church wardens, cardinals, prioresses, suffragans, acolytes, rectors, cures, sophis, mutifs and pumpums."
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 12:28 Comments || Top||

#3  I was trying to figure out why NMM and Antiwar are out and about, since, According to the Old Patriot Theory of Troll Activity, there has been no catastrophic loss of anything Idiotarian, or any spectacular victory incurred by the Anti-Idiotarians.

Then it struck me: Valentine's day is tomorrow, and the trolls are reacting to something personal in their lives which, as we all know, in their minds far outweighs the sorrows and woes of people killed by dictators, islamists, and other unsavory characters in power...
Posted by: Ptah || 02/13/2004 12:45 Comments || Top||

#4  Ptah- It's more than that.....not only is it Valentine's Day, but today is Friday the 13th. AND Monday is President's Day (a day set aside to honor all those dead white males who oppress the third world and destroy the planet, blah blah blah.)
Talk about a bad weekend for Rantburg's moonbats! (All except Faisal, who as we all know is enjoying the attentions of dozens of supermodels while living on the couch in his daddy's basement. :) )
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/13/2004 13:40 Comments || Top||

#5  "Yeah! Ya gotta go strangle strangers for the glory of Kali, infidels!"
Posted by: mojo || 02/13/2004 14:26 Comments || Top||


Microsoft is anti Nazi
Well maybe not. But they did remove a certain symbol and for balance, also removed the Star of David.
Microsoft today released a critical update to remove "unacceptable symbols" from Bookshelf Symbol 7 font. Just 58-odd years after the Red Army hoisted its standard on the roof of the Reichstag on 30 April 1945, effectively ending the European war, MS has finally flushed the swastika from its last hiding place - an otherwise innocent font shipped with Office 2003. This has hardly been a Blitzkrieg on Microsoft’s part. The company has been aware of the presence of the Mark of the Beast since December. At the time it promised an immediate utility to remove the characters. It also passed the buck onto the hapless Japanese (from whose happy land the font apparently originated), and launched a damage-prevention campaign by contacting Jewish organisations before the whole thing got out of hand. Which is interesting, because the update has taken the airbrush of history to another well-known character: [the Star of David].

What does it mean? Well, we leave it to the black helicopter brigade to construct a conspiracy theory around this one. In any case, it would be a bit rich for El Reg (Motto: We put the "typO" in "typographical") to get sniffy about font outrages. Older readers may recall the scandal which saw us spread profanity and filth across cyberspace by using Wingdings in a headline to spell out our opinion on conspiracy theorists in a plug for a new Cash’n’Carrion t-shirt. What we didn’t know, however, was that the font would not render in some browsers, thereby displaying the original word in all its glory to millions of innocent women and children. Suffice it to say the reaction was similar to that caused by Janet Jackson’s nipple jewellery on prime-time TV. Mind you, our t-shirt sales went through the roof, so some good came of the fiasco.

We hope Microsoft can gain something equally positive from its gaffe. Still, it’s all fixed now, and ten weeks is precious little time for white supremacists to exploit Bookshelf Symbol 7 for the promulgation of neo-Nazi ideology. Pity the poor old Buddhists, though. How in future will they represent the footsteps of the Buddha if not with Microsoft’s help? Suggestions on a postcard please to Sir Bill Gates of all the Microsofts.
Posted by: tipper || 02/13/2004 10:30:23 AM || Comments || Link || [336062 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Microsoft is anti Nazi
Don't try telling that to the Macintosh User's Group unless you really want to see a jihad.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 10:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Bah. I remember a few years ago when some Wingdings font turned "NYC" to a skull and a Star of David, so of course there was a flap that this "intentionally" demonstrated Microsoft promoted death to all Jews in NYC. *yawn*

I'm sure you could have typed in "Poughkeepsie" and, if sufficiently baked with some of Saddam's stash, translated the result to find out where Jimmy Hoffa is, how the '86 World Series was fixed, and how the oil companies are suppressing 100+ MPG carburetors.
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 10:46 Comments || Top||

#3  I thought that the font was Far Eastern. In Taiwan and Vietnam, the Buddhist temples are plastered with swastikas. My hosts tell me that they are good luck symbols. It's an interesting case in cultural conflict. What do you do when when culture's good luck symbol is another culture's symbol of hatred and genocide? Plus one use is a couple of thousands or years old while the other dates back only a few decades.
Posted by: 11A5S || 02/13/2004 11:13 Comments || Top||

#4  The swastika is also an American Indian symbol as well--at least, a Lakota symbol, IIRC, for the sun. The Alex Johnson hotel in Rapid City, SD, has several swastikas imbedded in the tile and lobby decor from when it was built in the 20's. I'm sure the staff has addressed many questions and complaints in that regard since the mid-30's.

In any case, it's pretty much a universal symbol.
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 11:23 Comments || Top||

#5  One important note is that the Buddhist symbols are backwards from the swastika, so should not really be too confusing to everybody except the easily outraged...
Posted by: Carl in N.H || 02/13/2004 11:53 Comments || Top||

#6  IIRC, the Lakota and Far East symbols are backward from the NAZI symbol, with the arms bending left instead of right. Of course, most people don't pay enough attention to see that...
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 12:02 Comments || Top||

#7  Which way is Hindu and Lakota and which way is ro'Hitler's version?
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/13/2004 12:03 Comments || Top||

#8  The Nazi swastika has arms that radiate clockwise from the "+" center (think of a windmill with streamers on the end as it rotates counter-clockwise). I haven't seen that the Hindu or Lakota symbols are necessarily the opposite all the time, though.
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 12:16 Comments || Top||

#9  one way's said to be "male" and the other way "female", as i've seen it expounded upon in various esoteric texts.

makes you wonder which gender's reputation Hitler trashed. Funny thing was, even Europeans were using it as a good luck symbol up until the Nazis figured it would bring their party luck as well...
Posted by: Querent || 02/13/2004 13:10 Comments || Top||

#10  I saw the symbol in Nam at Monasterys. I thought it weird to see but it is a religious symbol. The Dimmycrats, even as we speak, are probably looking at holding an investigation because of this flap, especially since the Whitehouse uses Microsoft Products..
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/13/2004 14:38 Comments || Top||


Arabia
Close call on border
This is good! Check out the map at link.
A prominent sheik of the Wayilah tribe, which lives along the border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia, told Yemen Times that up to 3,000 tribesmen are preparing to fight Saudi forces unless Saudi Arabia pulls out of Yemen.

Tribal threats
The sheik claims that Saudi Arabia has already built a security fence 4 to 7 km beyond the neutral zone inside Yemen, stretching from Jabal Hobash to Jabal Al Fara.
“Saudi Arabia has already built a security fence inside Yemen,” said the sheik, “and we are ready to fight any time if Saudi Arabia doesn’t remove what they have built in our country.”
On February 7, leaders of the Wayilah tribe issued a statement protesting the Yemeni-Saudi border committee’s memorandum which demands tribesmen to identify their properties outside the international borderline.

Sheik Mohammed Bin Shagaa, once the head of the Wayilah tribe, died in April 2002 in a car accident, considered by many as a mysterious accident. He was fully against the 2000 border agreement.
I expect this to go to the World Court any day now
Posted by: phil_b || 02/13/2004 7:47:02 PM || Comments || Link || [336102 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This oughta be interesting. It has the potentional of the Saudi 'military' against a Yemeni tribals. Anyone here want to take bets on who can hit the broadside of a barn?
Posted by: Valentine || 02/13/2004 20:31 Comments || Top||

#2  "In a bid to unseat the fabled Afghani fighters, today more than 300 Yemeni tribesmen clashed with a similar force from the Saudi National Defense Forces. After more than 4 hours of pitched battle, both sides withdrew as night fell. There were no casualties reported.

However, in Peshawar, the price of small arms ammunition rose significantly, as did the prices of certain brands of sunscreen and lip balm."
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 20:59 Comments || Top||

#3  This is probably another case of tradition vs technology. More likely it's a disagreement between the Shiek and his own government.

In June 2000, the Republic of Yemen and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed The Treaty of Jeddah 2000. Article 3 (extracted and EFL) of the treaty called for
1.an international company, commissioned by S.A. & Yemen, to undertake a field survey of the entire land and sea borders and set markers.
2. the work carried out by the company, along with representatives of S.A and Yemen, must follow absolutely the distances and directions the other specifications attached to the Treaty
3. The company shall prepare detailed maps of the line of the land border between the two countries. These maps, when signed by representatives of Yemen and S.A. will be official maps demarcating the border between the two countries.
If the work has been completed and the maps signed,and if the Soddies have followed the borders on the map, then the Shiek is about to start something he can't finish.
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 21:17 Comments || Top||

#4  ...considered by many as a mysterious accident.

Yeah, lot's of them over there...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 22:12 Comments || Top||

#5  I could have sworn we let some SCUD missles go through to Yemen about a year ago. Wonder what they were for?
Posted by: Charles || 02/13/2004 22:59 Comments || Top||


Saudi security arrest teacher in suspected terror case
Saudi Arabian security forces have arrested a chemistry teacher on suspicion of links to “terrorism” and possession of weapons and material used in making explosives, a local newspaper said on Friday.
Chemistry teacher, bet his was a popular class.
The daily Okaz said the secondary school teacher was arrested in Assir region and was being questioned. It gave only his last name as al-Shihri, the same family name as that of a top wanted militant who has reportedly been killed.
Family affair, again.
A pro-Al Qaeda Web site said on Tuesday that the militant, Amer al-Shihri, had been killed in a clash with security forces in the capital Riyadh but did not say when he died. His name was on a list of top 26 suspects issued by Saudi Arabia last year.
Saw another report that the saudis were testing the dna of that body "found" in the desert to see if that was al-Shihri.
Saudi officials were not immediately available to comment on the Okaz report.
They never are.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 2:42:15 PM || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Here it is: One of Saudi Arabia's most-wanted terrorism suspects has died from injuries in a November shootout with security forces, a US official said. Amer Mohsin Moreef Al Zaidan al-Shihri made it to a safe house where he was treated by a nurse but later died, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Slow and painful lingering death, excellent.

The Saudi Interior Ministry said in November that the five-hour shootout in a residential neighbourhood of the Saudi capital, Riyadh, left one suspected militant dead and eight policemen wounded. Witnesses said several other militants escaped. The Saudi government has never declared al-Shihri to be dead. Messages left with Saudi officials were not immediately returned.
Al-Shihri's death also was reported on a Web site run by a group called the al-Qaida Organisation in the Arabian Peninsula. The site's statement, dated Monday, also said another militant, Abul Illah al-Otaibi, was killed in the same clash.
Neither the US official nor the Web site said when al-Shihri had died. The site said the group buried al-Shihri in a remote part of Riyadh but that authorities later found the grave using information supplied by detained militants and exhumed the body. It gave no date for the exhumation.


Yup, the stiff in the desert.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 14:48 Comments || Top||


Dubai Company Denies Pretty Much Everything
EFL:
Computer salesmen and technicians wandered around in shock, and the receptionist could not handle the number of calls that were coming in from around the world on Thursday to the sleek headquarters of SMB Group, an information technology company.
"You have reached the offices of SMB Group. For computer support, press 1. For centrifuge support, press 2..."
The cause of the disruption was President Bush’s speech to the National Defense University on Wednesday, in which he described the nuclear black market network created by the Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. Mr. Bush said that Dr. Khan’s deputy was B. S. A. Tahir, who "ran SMB Computer, a business in Dubai," which was a "front for the proliferation activities of the A.Q. Khan network." In a telephone interview on Wednesday, Seyed Ibrahim Bukhary, the owner and manager of SMB Group, said it dealt only in legal computer sales. He said the man Mr. Bush mentioned, Bukhary Sayed Abu Tahir, has no ownership in the group, and is not involved in the management at any level. Mr. Bukhary is Mr. Tahir’s younger brother.
And he wouldn’t lie about his older brother, would he? And is there anyone in these operations who isn’t related by blood or marrige?
Like the SMB Group, another company that said it did not intentionally take part in Dr. Khan’s network was Scomi Precision Engineering, a manufacturing firm in Malaysia.
Which is partly owned by the son of the Malaysian president. BSA Tahir is married to the daughter of a former Malaysian diplomat, see what I mean.
A Scomi corporate executive said Thursday that the company had negotiated the contract for the parts with Mr. Tahir, but he had never mentioned SMB Computer. "I have never heard of it," the executive, Meena Kanthaswamy, said in a telephone interview, referring to SMB Computer. "None of us have." Scomi executives said that Mr. Tahir said he was representing Gulf Technical Industries, a Dubai trading firm that, according to American and British investigators, put the shipment of centrifuge parts aboard the Libya-bound ship. Gulf Technical was founded and is partly owned by Peter Griffin, who supplied material to Dr. Khan when he first developed Pakistan’s nuclear capabilites, according to Mr. Griffin.
Really? He was denying everything the other day.
According to government records in Dubai, Mr. Tahir, a resident, established SMB Computer, a limited liability company, in 1981. At the outset he owned 49 percent. As required by law, 51 percent belonged to a citizen of the United Arab Emirates.
I guess that means Mr. Bukhary is a liar when he says his brother had nothing to do with the company.
After the company expanded, SMB Group was formed, with SMB Computer as one division.
I see, Mr. Bukhary runs SMB Group, Mr. Tahir started SMB Computer, different division, nothing to do with each other, never heard of him, blah, blah..
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 10:33:39 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "We're just simple businessmen, trying to make a living in a down market..."
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/13/2004 10:54 Comments || Top||


Computer firm in Dubai was hub for black market nuke network
A Dubai-based company in the United Arab Emirates has been cited as the linchpin in the lucrative nuclear weapons black market that has supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea. The United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency have determined that the UAE company served as the hub for the traffic of nuclear weapons components. Officials said the company coordinated with a range of nuclear suppliers for orders from such countries as Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Somebody had to be the hub.
The Bush administration identified the UAE firm as SMB Computers, a key element in the nuclear weapons black market operated by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The company was found to have served as a clearinghouse for nuclear components ordered by Iran, Libya and North Korea. Another UAE company involved in the nuclear black market was Gulf Technical Industries, which worked closely with SMB’s Tahir, Middle East Newsline reported. The Dubai-based Gulf Technical, founded by British engineer Peter Griffin, an associate of Khan, contracted with Malaysia’s Scomi Group Berhad for the manufacture of centrifuge equipment identified as P-2. "The supply network will grow, making it easier to acquire nuclear weapon expertise and materials," IAEA director-general Mohammed ElBaradei wrote in the New York Times on Thursday. "Eventually, inevitably, terrorists will gain access to such materials and technology, if not actual weapons."
No thanks to you for stopping them.
The company was said to have processed orders for such goods as uranium hexafluoride – used for the centrifuge process that can produce enriched uranium for nuclear bombs – as well as components and complete centrifuges. The shipments were said to have been disguised and often relabeled in Dubai to avoid detection. SMB was operated by a deputy of Khan. Officials said the deputy, identified as Bukhari Sayed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan native, employed his Dubai company as the front for the nuclear network that sought to provide up to 1,000 centrifuges to Libya.
Wonder if he was a Tamil?
"Tahir acted as both the network’s chief financial officer and money launderer," President George Bush said in a speech on Wednesday. "He was also its shipping agent, using his computer firm as cover for the movement of centrifuge parts to various clients. Tahir directed the Malaysia facility to produce these parts based on Pakistani designs, and then ordered the facility to ship the components to Dubai. Tahir also arranged for parts acquired by other European procurement agents to transit through Dubai for shipment to other customers." Dubai served as the port of destination for these shipments. Officials said Tripoli acquired nuclear weapons components manufactured in Malaysia, shipped and processed in Dubai and then sent to Libya. "As a result of our penetration of the network, American and the British intelligence identified a shipment of advanced centrifuge parts manufactured at the Malaysia facility," Bush said. "We followed the shipment of these parts to Dubai, and watched as they were transferred to the BBC China, a German-owned ship. After the ship passed through the Suez Canal, bound for Libya, it was stopped by German and Italian authorities. They found several containers, each forty feet in length, listed on the ship’s manifest as full of ’used machine parts. In fact, these containers were filled with parts of sophisticated centrifuges."
You don't often find a gun that smoking...
In 2002 and 2003, officials said, Gulf Technical maintained a representative from Dubai to Malaysia to oversee the production of P-2 for Middle East clients. The P-2, made of maraging steel, has double the uranium enrichment capacity of the earlier model P-1, which is composed of aluminum. For its part, the IAEA has questioned European businessmen suspected of having helped supply orders from Iran and Libya. They included executives from the German firm Leybold Heraeus, a leading maker of vacuum technology and a unit of the Swiss firm Unaxis AG. The agency cited four former Leybold employees that transferred centrifuge components to Iran and conducted business with other countries interested in nuclear technology, such as Saudi Arabia and Syria.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/13/2004 1:15:02 AM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wonder if he was a Tamil?

'Bukhari Sayed Abu Tahir' is a Muslim name, and in Sri Lanka the Muslims side with the government against the Tamils.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/13/2004 1:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Okay, thanks Paul.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/13/2004 1:35 Comments || Top||

#3  In 2002 and 2003, officials said, Gulf Technical maintained a representative from Dubai to Malaysia to oversee the production of P-2 for Middle East clients.

Gee, does this mean Mr. Griffin lied when he said he doesn't know anything about them? :)
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 8:14 Comments || Top||

#4  A German firm that's part of a Swiss firm? So are these firms just doing illegal activities or are they actively participating in this war?

Does a monetary fine mean squat? There's a target of the type I rant about. Boom, so sorry, need a new Jag, Hienz? How about you Fritz, a new AMG? No, oh your plants are gone, who would do that?
Posted by: Lucky || 02/13/2004 12:50 Comments || Top||


Britain
Saddam’s Brother-In-Law Refused Asylum
EFL
A brother-in-law of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein who sought asylum in Britain last year was refused the right to residency, the government said Friday. British authorities had not previously spoken of the application by Emad Noures, but in response to a question from a local lawmaker, the Department for Constitutional Affairs said the asylum application was turned down in October.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 12:49:53 PM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So Emad does not get asylum and Hookboy Hamza still is in country? What gives?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/13/2004 17:28 Comments || Top||


Caribbean-Latin America
Dissident Todos Unidos group offers solutions to Cuba’s problems
The Todos Unidos opposition group has issued 36-point report on its recommendations for a better Cuba. The report asks: "How is it possible that a country that has received greater economic aid than that given to Europe for its reconstruction after World War II presents so many different social problems? How can you explain that after the receipt of such aid there are in Cuba today children who go without milk from age seven, buildings and houses that crumble after the least rain, families in shelters, any number of citizens trying to leave the country any which way and levels of prostitution, drug use and delinquency never before seen in the history of the country?" Todos Unidos spokesperson Vladimiro Roca said: "We put this document at the disposition of all Cubans with a view to initiating the changes that Cuban society needs to start solving the grave problems, above all economic, that the Cuban people have faced for many years."
I have a few recommendations myself that I doubt are included.
No source on this...
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 1:33:58 PM || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All Together, now. Heave!
Posted by: mojo || 02/13/2004 14:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Fred, at least I am consistent in my total incompetence. It is from a CubaNet link.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 14:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh man, is this guy a promising deader, or what??!!?! To even dream of criticizing Castro's Utopia! Methinks this be a brave man talking dead man walking...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:48 Comments || Top||

#4  "How can you explain that after the receipt of such aid...levels of prostitution, drug use and delinquency never before seen in the history of the country?"

Um, it's called 'establishing the right climate for European tourism'?
Posted by: Pappy || 02/13/2004 14:54 Comments || Top||

#5  Pray for Cuba if you got 'em. It's time is not far off.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 16:33 Comments || Top||


Baffling us all, US rejects Haiti ’regime change’
EFL and WTF
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s time in power had been disappointing, but "regime change" was not the way forward. Mr Powell will discuss sending foreign police to Haiti in talks with Canada and Caribbean countries on Friday. Mr Powell said the US was not happy with Mr Aristide’s behaviour since US forces restored him to power following a coup a decade ago. But, he said Sadaam Yasser, Mr Aristide is the democratically elected leader, and that the policy of the administration was not to seek his overthrow.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 1:06:46 PM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  SH - Perhaps this should be titled, "Beeb Attempt at Snarky Double-Entendres Falls Flat On Its Ass" - whaddya think? Boob, pfeh. Aristide, pfeh.
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 13:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Well, he couldn't very well just come out and admit that nobody really gives a shit who runs Haiti, could he? But after all, it IS Haiti.

Maybe we could get the Dominicans to help out?
Posted by: mojo || 02/13/2004 14:13 Comments || Top||

#3  .com, the "baffling us all" part is mine. I don't understand why we would want Aristide in power, or how his elections could be thought to be more legitimate than Georgia's. Maybe we are honoring some kind of three-strike principle.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 14:14 Comments || Top||

#4  SH, it's simple. Aristide is bad, but who do you replace him with? From what I read today, we're talking about providing transport for some cops. Fine, but that's as far as it should go. We're busy right now and there really is no good solution that I can think of to this problem.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 14:21 Comments || Top||

#5  SH - I wasn't criticizing your headline, heh, just making fun of the article (which I read and found to be possibly pregnant with their idea of subtle double-entendre...) and the Boob.

Aristide was elected, and Haiti is one of the cornerstones of the Clintonian Presidency's Incredible Success Story - Kosovo being the other, I think. Or was it the capture and rehabilitation of OBL? So many successes, I get confused. Help me out, here, guys...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:54 Comments || Top||

#6  Haiti was a French colony, so they will fix it, like they did with the Ivory Coast, non?
Posted by: Mr. Davis || 02/13/2004 17:01 Comments || Top||

#7  Mr. Davis, seriously, do you think that is why Powell is talking to Canada. Quebec French and Hatian French are probably quite dissimular, but may be close enough to allow French-Canadian troops/police to patrol in a simular fashion to the British in Northern Ireland. I would hate doing crowd control in a country where communication with the local population was through sign-language only.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 17:19 Comments || Top||

#8  Last year my son made a report in school on Haiti, which was the country selected for him. We first went to the CIA website with the summary on Haiti. Big depression set it. Maybe more hope of improvement than Chechnia, but I cannot supply you any backup to that statement. *sigh*
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/13/2004 17:24 Comments || Top||

#9  What the CIA website for Haiti should have had this for its listing:

Haiti: Mostly Useless.


(Hehe sorry for the rip from Doug Adams).
Posted by: Valentine || 02/13/2004 20:40 Comments || Top||

#10  Regime change? What the hell difference would it make?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 22:18 Comments || Top||


Europe
Future French aircraft carrier to be "Classic"
The French government has decided to use classic rather than nuclear propulsion for a future aircraft carrier that is slated to enter service in 2014, French President Jacques Chirac said on Friday. "On the recommendation of the Prime Minister, the President has chosen the classic propulsion option for its second aircraft carrier," a statement from the Elysee Palace said.
Classic propulsion - Row, row, row your boat?
Chirac said that the choice opened the way for better cooperation with Britain, which last year ordered two non-nuclear aircraft carriers to be designed by French defence electronics company Thales and built by Britain’s BAE Systems Plc.
Designed by a electronics company?
France currently operates one hamster nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, named the Charles de Gaulle.
Enough said
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 2:31:28 PM || Comments || Link || [336084 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They're going to burn copies of Voltaire to fuel their boilers? Or some other classics?

Whether or not they put a ram on the bow will be a dead giveaway.
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 02/13/2004 14:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Government paper shredders are hard at work producing fuel for the new carrier.
Posted by: john || 02/13/2004 14:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Power who needs power? It ain't going anywhere anyway.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/13/2004 14:46 Comments || Top||

#4  The French better make sure that they get along well with at least one middle eastern oil supplier to keep their flattop steaming. The French are heavily into domestic nuclear power, so it is not like they are hurting for nuclear fuel. They need some power to run the steam catapult AND steam into the wind. Try a couple of reactors instead of the underpowered unit on the Toulon Maritime Museum Charles de Gaulle.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/13/2004 14:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Hey, guys, at least this will be one less nuke reactor the Izzoids will have at their disposal after the fall of the Fifth Republique...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 15:02 Comments || Top||

#6  wtf does france need with an aircraft carrier, anyway? the only military action they'll be seeing in the near or mid term future is when there is a civil war/jihad in country. Other than that, as long as the thing goes in reverse, they're all set.
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/13/2004 15:20 Comments || Top||

#7  Who wants to bet it floats out of the shipyard and right into a passing tanker? Or just plain out sinks?
Posted by: Dameus@zahadum.com || 02/13/2004 15:29 Comments || Top||

#8  Ack! How the hell did I do that?
Posted by: Charles || 02/13/2004 15:56 Comments || Top||

#9  "classic" aircraft carrier:

excellent, looking forward to seeing a trireme-class carrier...
Posted by: Carl in N.H || 02/13/2004 16:07 Comments || Top||

#10  Dammit, Carl, you stole my thunder!
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/13/2004 16:23 Comments || Top||

#11  It'll be interesting to see how they launch aircraft around the masts, and land them without losing the sails...
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 16:40 Comments || Top||

#12  We shall name her Yorktown!

(a good one no?)
Posted by: Napoleon VII || 02/13/2004 16:42 Comments || Top||

#13  OP: Properly designed and constructed sails can serve as dual-purpose catapults and catchers. I've actually see this work at the cinema (usually before the main feature)...
Posted by: snellenr || 02/13/2004 16:56 Comments || Top||

#14  Maybe they want it to be abe to make a courtesy port call in NZ so they can appologize for deep sixing the Rainbow Warrior
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 02/13/2004 17:32 Comments || Top||

#15  Good old Phwance! The only country ever to loose a war with Greenpeace!
Posted by: Secret Master || 02/13/2004 17:43 Comments || Top||

#16  I wonder if they every considered dilithium crystals as a power source, and give 'er all she's got...
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/13/2004 19:31 Comments || Top||

#17  A very responsible choice by the Frenchies. Fuel oil will have a much shorter half-life than nuclear fuel rods when this bustrucket sinks and dumps everything into the ocean.
Posted by: The Other John Hawkins || 02/13/2004 20:11 Comments || Top||

#18  Ramming speed!!!
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 22:22 Comments || Top||

#19  Disinformation. The entire French military operates on hot air alone.
Posted by: Mr. Davis || 02/13/2004 23:49 Comments || Top||


Chirac: Stop Calling Us Anti-Semites!
President Jacques Chirac said in an interview with an Israeli newspaper that his country is being unfairly criticized in Israel as anti-Semitic while France is leading a "tireless struggle" to institute Sharia against such discrimination. "France works relentlessly to condone combat the scourge of anti-Semitism," he told Yedioth Aharonoth in an interview days before a visit by Israeli President Moshe Katsav. "Israeli criticism of anti-Semitism in Europe singles out France," he said. "I am surprised at this. I am told that in the streets of Tel Aviv, in newspaper cartoons and in conversations, the image of France as an anti-Semitic country is gradually spreading.
Not just in Israel, buddy....
These caricatures deeply hurt French people."
"But since we all know greedy Jews and ignorant Americans don’t have feelings, our caricatures in our newspapers are just good clean fun....."
"No, France is not an anti-Semitic country yet, but we’re trying, dammit! But we must remain highly vigilant. With the government, we lead a tireless struggle against anti-Semitic language and acts," he said. He acknowledged there has been a "resurgence of anti-Semitic acts" in Europe in the past three years,
mainly in La Belle France
which he termed "revolting and unacceptable" and which he linked to the Middle Ages East conflict.
Here comes the condemnation of the JOOOOOOS!
"People of Muslim descent across Europe react to events in the Middle East, and more specifically to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is a fact."
So is the French government’s reluctance to do anything about enforcing laws within their own territory when the lawbreakers are Muslim.
Last month, Israel’s Minister for Jerusalem and Diaspora Affairs Natan Sharansky described the situation for Jews in France as "very problematic". While anti-Semitic incidents across the globe fell by almost half last year to 983 from 1,979 in 2002, Sharansky said, they doubled in France to 141 from 77, figures disputed by French officials. A tough new law against racially- and religiously-motivated attacks as long as the victims aren’t Jewish or deceased foreign soldiers who thought France was worth dying for came into force last year, and the French government ordered even stronger measures to protect Jewish sites after a fire-bombing of a Jewish school in the Paris suburbs last November.
Good start....now if you would only enforce the damn law, maybe you would have something worth talking about.....
In the interview with Yedioth Aharonoth, Chirac also reaffirmed his opposition to Jews defending themselves instead of laying down and dying the route of Israel’s West Bank separation barrier. "Israel is entitled to exercise its right to legitimate self-defence and security as long as it doesn’t inconvenience a suicide bomber. But the chosen route for the barrier, which diverges from the Green Line, dispossesses thousands of Palestinians of their land..."
where they raise baby ducks, bunnies, kittens and puppies in an environmentally friendly manner
He said the barrier will thus "trigger more frustration and anger." The Israeli government insists the barrier is vital to the security needs of Israel in the wake of a string of suicide attacks since the start of the Palestinian intifada in September 2000. But the Palestinians have argued that its route, which often juts deep into their farmlands inside the West Bank,
second most valuable in the Middle East, right after those Saudi ranches!
is proof it is an attempt to pre-empt the borders of their promised future state.
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 02/13/2004 1:29:47 PM || Comments || Link || [336087 views] Top|| File under:

#1  DB - Kudos! Hysterical inline commentary! Big improvement to original! Thx!
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary describes
antiSemitism as hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group. However, M-W also defines a Semite as a member of any number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs and the descendants of these peoples.

I always wondered why hositility towards the Jews (Hebrews) is called antiSemitism but not when it's directed at the other members of the semite group. Aren't French laws discriminating against Arabs wearing head scarfs also antiSemitism? Just wondering.


Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 14:14 Comments || Top||

#3  GK -- the term "antisemitism" was invented because it sounds better than "Jew hatred", which it replaced. It has NOTHING to do with Arabs except that many Arabs are antisemites.

Others can give you the details, such as the name of the author that coined the term.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/13/2004 14:22 Comments || Top||

#4  is proof it is an attempt to pre-empt the borders of their promised future state

Once Chirac learns a new word, he likes to try using it over and over and over again, until he finally grasps its proper meaning.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 14:27 Comments || Top||

#5  B - LOL! It took me a minute, but I finally 'got it'! Good one!
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 15:04 Comments || Top||

#6  Either Chiraq does not read Le Monde, watch French public TV, read the writings of France's most celebrated "intellectuals and attend concerts featuring Jewish performers; or Chiraq is so blinded by his own internal "Jew hatred" he cannot see it all around him.
Posted by: Garrison || 02/13/2004 15:42 Comments || Top||

#7  Either Chiraq does not read Le Monde, watch French public TV, read the writings of France's most celebrated "intellectuals" and attend concerts featuring Jewish performers; or Chiraq is so blinded by his own internal "Jew hatred" he cannot see it all around him.
Posted by: Garrison || 02/13/2004 15:43 Comments || Top||

#8  Thanks, .com!
Posted by: Desert Blondie || 02/13/2004 16:48 Comments || Top||

#9  #2,#3. You can learn a lot from .com with the help of Google. It was William Marr, a German, who coined the word anti-Semitism in 1879 for reason you stated, .com. THX
[GA GK :-)]
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 17:47 Comments || Top||

#10  GA GK - wait a minute, what did I step in now? Is this a reference to an ancient (anything older than yesterday, heh) post? Indeed, zee Arabs be semites and, as such, among the mostest confusedest of the scatteredest people of the Earth. Abraham, Meeshak, Chirac, and Abindigo didst lose their way - and thus didst they scatter 10 or 11 of the tribes. But Abdul Aziz (pbuh) married them all together and brought unto the world harmony and peace. Amen.
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 20:27 Comments || Top||

#11  Garrison, He has to be blinded. His wife was at the concert, and he talks to her. Sorta..,maybe..,uh..I think..,never mind.
Posted by: Mike H. || 02/13/2004 21:11 Comments || Top||

#12  Okay they aren't anti-semites. How about Jew hating bastards? Would that work for jake?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 22:25 Comments || Top||


Netherlands to Send Extra Troops to Iraq
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - The Cabinet on Friday approved dispatching an additional 108 troops to Iraq, increasing the number of Dutch forces in the region to 1,260. The soldiers will help train Iraqi security forces, according to a Defense Ministry statement. They will stay for four months. Dutch troops have been stationed in the southern Iraq since August, operating under British command.
Thanks guys
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 1:29:49 PM || Comments || Link || [336075 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So the Danes bail and the Dutch up their ante... Is that like Rhode Island pulling out and...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Go Holland!
Go Holland!
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/13/2004 17:07 Comments || Top||


"You’ll have Muslims on one side, and everyone else on the other
Young French Muslims in the Lyon suburb of Les Minguettes - which 20 years ago saw angry protest marches as Muslims fought for full French nationality - are again angry at what they see as continued exclusion. Already frustrated by poverty and what they perceive to be discrimination, their anger has been further increased by the French Parliament’s passing of a law banning headscarves and other religious symbols from schools.
Did you ever get the feeling that you are not wanted?
Why do you think that is?

Some have even said that there is a risk French Muslims may choose to live in their own "state within a state".
Seems like they're already doing that, preparatory to expanding their state to encompass the existing state...
"French society needs to accept us, because if they don’t, it’s going to lead to Muslims opening their own schools," said Lokman, a 22-year-old student and part-time teacher in Les Minguettes, told BBC World Service’s "Looking For God In Les Minguettes" programme. "Then they’ll really keep to themselves. Already, there isn’t much dialogue between the two groups. Then there won’t be any at all.
I wonder what is going to happen then?
Sarcasm off

"You’ll have Muslims on one side, and everyone else on the other. "It will be like having a state within a state." Les Minguettes is home to 21,000 people of North African origin. It was the place where, in 1981, the first riots by a second generation of French immigrants took place. By 1984, large numbers of these people were marching, in the belief they would eventually become equal to the French. But today, many of them have effectively abandoned France, arguing that Islam is their home. "When young people work, they want to work in a firm with Muslims - so it’s happening a little already, this state within a state," Lokman said. "They know they’ll be given time to recite their prayers; they know that during Ramadan they’ll be able to go home a little earlier, because their boss is a Muslim, so he understands. If they had a choice, they would work with a Muslim."

Another of the frustrated young Muslims in Les Minguettes is Sami Hamaclouf, a 22-year-old studying Arabic literature at the University of Lyon. Sami, who also works as a secretary for a halal meat wholesalers, said her headscarf had prevented her from working in many places. "I never even went looking for a job, because I was afraid of the refusals I would get because of my headscarf," she said. "You just don’t hire a veiled girl. So I work for Muslims. This discrimination has pushed me to stay among my community, even if Muslims are much-criticised for that. I’m no different to anyone else here in France, except my faith is in Islam."
How nice. And you know what Islams objective is, surely? And still you wonder why?
Lokman also said he had struggled to get a job because, although he dresses in Western clothes, he has a beard. "When I go for a job interview and the boss sees my beard, he’ll start wondering if I belong to an Islamic group," he said. "People do not understand many of the Islamic practices. For us, the beard is part of the Islamic code of dressing, as found in the Koran. It’s a way of covering the body, like the veil or headscarf for the woman."
Hint: No one gives a sh*t
Sami said she had started wearing the headscarf at 14, and that it was a "spiritual and religious choice" inspired by her older brother. "I think what really bothers people is that along with being Muslim, I am also totally French."
Yeah sure. And you are also a Martian who is misunderstood.
Ain’t life a bitch?

If you're totally French, let's see you do some apache dancing...
She added she had learned that wearing a headscarf was a commandment of God.
If you try hard you will learn somethig new to prove your idiocy everyday.
However, in first year of wearing it, she was "straight away summoned to the headmaster’s office, and told to take off my headband and show off my hair," she recalled. "Then the headmaster started lecturing me about the Taleban and the oppression of women in Algeria. I didn’t know about any of this. I’d been brought up in France. Algeria was the country of my holidays. It was then that I realised people did not understand me, or my quest for my own identity."
Which is to make everyonein the world understand that they must become muslims or die. Nothing wrong with that surely? Afterall it’s in the Koran.
Many of the Muslims in Les Minguettes feel not enough has changed in 20 years. Their parents who marched 20 years ago to demand their rights sang a deeply ironic version of the classic French song Sweet France. The same concerns still appear to be there - prime among them, Sami said, that politicians "still take us for idiots".
I wonder why?
"They cleared themselves of responsibility by saying that they have Muslim friends. It looks nice, and it’s supposed to mean they understand us," she said. "But I ask them, ’do you listen to us, do you really understand us?’ No!"
And you then go on to explain how you listen to others.
You don’t. Why would that be? Not arrogance surely?

However, she did concede that the Les Minguettes marches had produced a positive effect. Sami said that while first-generation Muslims had been afraid of being expelled, and so "kept their Muslim side hidden," young French Muslims now felt their fight was more "anchored."
"They're stuck with us now. They're too wimpy to throw us out..."
"We can be French, aware of our citizenship, happy in this country - and still practise the religion and culture that belongs to our parents," she said. "I think what really bothers people is that along with being Muslim, I am also totally French."
As long as that means being Arab, of course
Posted by: tipper || 02/13/2004 9:51:50 AM || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  French Muslims fear ’state within state’

They 'fear' no such thing. They are beginning their push for separatism.

Some have even said that there is a risk French Muslims may choose to live in their own "state within a state".

There it is right there. Good luck, Phrawnce. They are going to nibble and nibble until there's nothing left of you.
Posted by: BH || 02/13/2004 10:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Ghettos. Great idea, guys. Worked so well for the Jews.
Posted by: mojo || 02/13/2004 10:30 Comments || Top||

#3  yeah..well how are they going to pay for those schools when all the Saudi money for Madrassas dries up??
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 10:50 Comments || Top||

#4  very very simple and easy solution for these filthy parasites, they just move back to where they came from. yes as easy as that.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/13/2004 11:47 Comments || Top||

#5  A failed civilization and a failed culture coupled with a holy book that is manual for successfully infiltrating a fractured society, taking it over, and using it as a base for rapid expansion and cultural domination. Throw in Leninist agitprop (the many Saudi-funded dawa efforts), indoctrination (madrassahs), and cell structure and you have something that is short lived, violent, and very dangerous before it collapses in on itself.
Posted by: 11A5S || 02/13/2004 12:23 Comments || Top||

#6  "It was then that I realised people did not understand me, or my quest for my own identity."

Sorry folks, but this whole headscarf issue begins to sound like the lament of any other teenager in every other part of the world. I'm having a hard time seeing how this is any different from some kid in America being told she can't wear her nose ring or bare her midriff in school.

I realize what makes this different is that you have adult men blowing themselves and others to smithereens over such issues, but really now, that's the only difference I see. Granted, that's a big difference, but still...

Which makes it even more comical when you realize Chirac has erased for himself 30 years of careful cultivating of cozy relations with Muslims. All over a bunch of teenage girls seeking their own identity by dressing like everybody else in their little clique.
Posted by: mva30 || 02/13/2004 12:32 Comments || Top||

#7  11A5S - A dead-solid-perfect summation. Awesome!

JFM - This should be carved verbatim on the Fifth Republic's tombstone. I'm sure the Sixth Republic will look quite different... all those white thobes and packs of ninjas running around Gay Pray Paree in their abayas...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 12:39 Comments || Top||

#8 
it was a "spiritual and religious choice" inspired by her older brother.

... inspired specifically by her observation that her older brother can beat up.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 12:48 Comments || Top||

#9  No wonder that cleric gave Chirac the thumbs up for banning the veil...now they have an excuse to make their sharia state within France.
Posted by: TS || 02/13/2004 12:48 Comments || Top||

#10  ... can beat her up.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 12:49 Comments || Top||

#11  State within a state? Isn't this what the muslims want? They dont want to be assimulated (sp?) but want everyone else to bow down to their customs -- look at what is happening in Thailand. And in Indoneasia they are burning churches.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/13/2004 13:06 Comments || Top||

#12  I hope some French officials are re-thinking that idea about how great it would be to have more muslim immigrants.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 13:18 Comments || Top||

#13  Thank you .com
Posted by: 11A5S || 02/13/2004 13:33 Comments || Top||

#14  11A5S - Tis perfect, bro -- I hope JFM sees this before he hits the sack - he'll certainly have some pithy thoughts!

The Perfect Republic v5.0? Lol! So when d'ya think Ms. Sabine Herold will finally make an impact, beyond being a novelty? They need a large dose of reality - fast!
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:14 Comments || Top||

#15  comical when you realize Chirac has erased for himself 30 years of careful cultivating of cozy relations with Muslims.

All of his crimes, who would have guessed that this is what would get him in the end.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 14:41 Comments || Top||

#16  Muslims to the left of me /
Frenchies to the right /
Here I am, stuck in the middle with Joooos
Posted by: BH || 02/13/2004 14:55 Comments || Top||

#17  #5 11A5S :

Sounds pretty much like a description of a virus....
Posted by: Carl in N.H || 02/13/2004 16:04 Comments || Top||

#18  BH, good one!
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 16:23 Comments || Top||

#19  Sami, who also works as a secretary for a halal meat wholesalers, said her headscarf had prevented her from working in many places. "I never even went looking for a job, because I was afraid of the refusals I would get because of my headscarf," she said. "You just don’t hire a veiled girl. So I work for Muslims.

- I didn't bother looking for a job, beacuse my friend told me that I was going to be the victim of discrimmination. She read it on the internet. Some website from the US. She said it was a poster with the initials NMM.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 17:31 Comments || Top||

#20  6 5 4 3 2 1 degree of separation. It is all so verry skeery...
[screw Santa Clause - the Internet is watching. ed]
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 20:32 Comments || Top||

#21  Damn, BH! Give a gal a drink alert, willya? :-p
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/13/2004 21:41 Comments || Top||


Nuclear suspect’s computers seized
British and French intelligence officers seized computers from the home of a British businessman named as a central suspect in the secret network supplying Libya, Iran and North Korea with nuclear equipment, the London-based Guardian newspaper has learned. They were taken last June from the French home of Peter Griffin by agents trying to penetrate the black market in nuclear secrets established by the disgraced scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Last June? They’ve been looking into this network for a long time then. The German ship carrying the centrifuges was seized in Oct, Griffin must have felt confident they didn’t find anything.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 8:34:39 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  terrorists beware - just because you think they aren't out to get you, doesn't mean they aren't.

We are apparently seeing top down arrests from a sting op. If Sadaam was illegally pursuing nukes, then maybe some of that will start to wrap up here soon too.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 8:44 Comments || Top||

#2  The whole"Gordians knot"is coming unraveled.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/13/2004 12:07 Comments || Top||

#3  and Dubya's wielding the knife...

Methinks he needs four more years. Then eight more with McCain/Rice (or similar no-BS ticket) and we oughtta be getting close to some closure...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 12:43 Comments || Top||


Fifth Column
Teresa Heinz Kerry: Uses Daddy’s Money to Fund Anti-American Left
VERY HEAVILY edited for length
With Matt Drudge’s recent revelation that John Kerry is as faithful to his second wife as he was to his old Vietnam “brothers,” the senator’s presidential campaign may depend more than ever on the actions of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. While the mainstream media has thus far overlooked the alleged infidelity, media outlets have also overlooked a far more important story: The former Mrs. John Heinz is also in bed – financially – with the radical Left. Teresa Heinz Kerry has financed the secretive Tides Foundation to the tune of more than $4 million over the years. The Tides Foundation, a “charity” established in 1976 by antiwar leftist activist Drummond Pike, distributes millions of dollars in grants every year for some of the most extreme groups on the Left. And who are the beneficiaries of this money?

The Anti-War Movement
Tides established the Iraq Peace Fund and the Peace Strategies Fund to fund the antiwar movement. These projects fueled such hysterical protest organizations as MoveOn.org... and Indymedia received $376,000 from the Tides Foundation. The Institute for Global Communications which during the 1990s was the leading provider of web technology to the radical Left, links to “recommended sites” such as the War Resisters League (a group whose purpose is enabling peaceniks to refuse to pay taxes) and the leftist American Friends Service Committee. Most disturbing is the link to Ramsey Clark’s International Action Center, which has supported Slobodan Milosevic and North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Il. The IAC is the force behind International ANSWER, which sponsored the major antiwar (and anti-Bush) rallies before the invasion of Iraq. When ANSWER was outed as a Communist organization, United for Peace and Justice, headed by longtime Communist Party member Leslie Cagan was created as a "moderate" alternative. UFPJ is also a Tides grant recipient.The Tides-funded “A Better Way Project,” which opposed war in Iraq, also coordinated efforts of United for Peace and Justice and the Win Without War Coalition. The celebrity-laden Win Without War Coalition, along with the Bill Moyers-funded Florence and John Schumann Foundation, ran full-page ads in the New York Times opposing the War on Terrorism. This will not be the last overlapping of far-Left causes.

The Islamist Front
Immediately after 9/11, Tides formed a “9/11 Fund” to advocate a “peaceful national response” to the opening salvos of war. Part of the half-million dollars in grants the 9/11 ... The Foundation replaced the 9/11 Fund with the “Democratic Justice Fund,” which was established with the aid of George Soros' Open Society Institute. (Currency speculator and pro-drug advocate Soros is, like Teresa Heinz Kerry, a major contributor to Tides, having donated more than $7 million.) The Democratic Justice Fund seeks to ease restrictions on Muslim immigration to the United States, particularly from countries designated by the State Department as “terrorist nations.”

Tides has also given grant money to the Council for American Islamic Relations. Ostensibly a “Muslim civil rights group,” ...many CAIR officials are on the record supporting terrorism. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad openly stated in 1994, “I am a supporter of the Hamas movement.” Community Affairs Director Bassem Khafagi has been arrested for visa and bank fraud. Randall Royer, a Communications Specialist and Civil Rights Coordinator at CAIR, was arrested along with a group of Islamic radicals in Virginia for allegedly planning jihad. CAIR has defended terrorist “charities” shut down by the Bush administration. Every few months some CAIR campus official is arrested for aiding and abetting terrorism.

The Legal Matrix
The Tides Foundation has funded a number of the pillars of the radical legal establishment. Chief among these is the National Lawyers Guild, which began as a Communist front organization and is proud of its lineage. At its recent convention last October, the concluding speaker was Lynne Stewart, an indicted terrorist NLG lawyer arrested for helping her client – convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman – communicate with his terrorist cells in Egypt. More recently, the NLG has endorsed the March 20 call to End Colonial Occupation from Iraq to Palestine & Everywhere” organized by International ANSWER, and has posted a petition for “Post-Conviction Relief” for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Tides’ Peace Strategies Fund has funneled money to the Center for Constitutional Rights. The CCR was stablished by Sixties radical William Kunstler, defender of the Chicago 8, and Arthur Kinoy. The two also had plans to establish a new Communist Party. Executive Director Ron Daniels has been honored by the Communist Party USA for his work. Daniels also has a long and cordial relationship with racist, anti-Semitic “poet laureate” Amiri Baraka. Since 9/11, CCR has channeled its efforts into fighting every effective Homeland Security measure. ...CCR has also defended Lynne Stewart’s “innocence” in aiding Sheikh Rahman’s Islamic Jihad.

Tides also funds the Alliance for Justice, a group dedicated to stopping Bush judicial appointees (a cause John Kerry can agree wholeheartedly endorse). Other Tides grants have gone to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and the Asian Law Caucus... and ...the Ruckus Society, a group of anarchist Greens who rioted and looted Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization riots and Greenpeace is a well-known Tides grant recipient.

Lest one think only Tides’ money is going to radicals, not funds directly controlled by Teresa Heinz Kerry, remember that Heinz money has repeatedly found its way to the Earth Island Institute. On September 14, 2001, the Institute’s website bore the headline “U.S. Responds to Terrorist Attacks with Self-Righteous Arrogance.”

Heinz family philanthropic funds have also had some dubious effects on the presidential race. The League of Conservation Voters has recently endorsed John Kerry’s presidential campaign. The Heinz Family Foundation gave LCV at least $20,000 and donated almost $250,000 to a member of the LCV board.

Perhaps this circular rotation of cash and endorsements should not surprise anyone. The grant-making institutions of the Left and their feverish recipients ultimately form an amorphous, leftist entity. One never needs to search very far to find connections between a leftist foundation and extreme advocacy groups. Teresa Heinz Kerry, George Soros, Bill Moyers and the Ford Foundation fund the Tides Foundation/Center; Tides funds the National Lawyers Guild, CAIR, MoveOn.org and United for Peace and Justice; those organizations then unite in fluid coalitions to protest against their common political enemies (Republicans). Ultimately, their representatives end up on Bill Moyers’ PBS programs or active within the Democratic campaigns of their fundraisers. Between now and the election, these organizations will run constant interference for the Democratic presidential nominee (presumably Kerry himself): they will march en masse against the Bush administration again and again; they will file more lawsuits against the administration’s Homeland Security measures, decry any effective response to terrorism, claim the United States is guilty of slaughtering Iraqi civilians and petition leftist judges to open America’s borders to Islamist terrorists. After they help his election, President Kerry will be indebted to them. And then they will insist he begin implementing their political agenda.
I cut out lots of stuff cause there is so much - if interested, click the link.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 10:14:09 AM || Comments || Link || [336074 views] Top|| File under:

#1  oops..sorry. I forgot to file it in the right spot.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 10:17 Comments || Top||

#2  I donna know,B, fifth column sounds right to me.
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 10:46 Comments || Top||

#3  That's cuz I moved it...
Posted by: Fred || 02/13/2004 11:00 Comments || Top||

#4  Getting back on TOPIC here, it doesn't sound like we want this bitch as First Lady.
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/13/2004 11:03 Comments || Top||

#5  She makes Hillary look nice.......
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/13/2004 11:29 Comments || Top||

#6  The "Ruckus Society"? Well, at least the name is more honest than the other societies who proclaim they're for "peace" and "justice".
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 11:33 Comments || Top||

#7  She's not going near the water, though, lest she melt.
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/13/2004 11:36 Comments || Top||

#8  Do you think any of this will be reported in the media? Anyone?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/13/2004 11:39 Comments || Top||

#9  Wrong!

She doesn't use "daddy's money", but the money of her late husband, Republican Senator John Heinz. That's right folks, Kerry is running using the money made by generations of Republicans.

(Memo to self: If ever fabulously wealthy, marry young, beautiful right-wing fanatic.)
Posted by: Sorge || 02/13/2004 11:40 Comments || Top||

#10  Oh...my...god! She helps fund the glorius Islamic anti-semites at Indymedia?!?!? SHE HELPS FUND INDYMEDIA?!?!? What the hell is this, the damn 1930's? Sweet Jesus, where's that Bush-Cheney '04 donation slip I got the other day? It has to be around here somewhere....
Posted by: Secret Master || 02/13/2004 12:06 Comments || Top||

#11  If the Republicans are attacking Kerry now they should back off until he is locked in as Democratic candidate.
Posted by: Grunter || 02/13/2004 12:22 Comments || Top||

#12  The Tides Center also provides financial and communications support to the Gay Student Alliance (www.gsanetwork.org)and its left wing agenda.
Posted by: Tancred || 02/13/2004 13:26 Comments || Top||

#13  Poor Secret Master, he has ADD and can only concentrate on one paragraph. It's ok SM, go take your ritalin and maybe you can work on another paragraph later.
Posted by: anonymouse || 02/13/2004 14:35 Comments || Top||

#14  While Ritalin is in the lead, Wellbutrin is closing the gap. Many times adult ADD walks hand in hand with depression and therefore the shrink will write a script for Prozac or Buspar too. So don't be so hard on Secret Master - if I had his slate of candidates, I would be positively suicidal.
Posted by: Doc8404 || 02/13/2004 15:21 Comments || Top||

#15  Anonymouse & Doc8404
Actually I did read the entire article. I just happen to find the posters at Indymedia, with their boldly "progressive" desire to kick off Holocaust 2: The Sequel, even more repugnant than your average gang of group-think liberal racist muckadoos. Which is really saying something. By the way boys, what are you doing hanging out here with the serious people? Are they mopping out the cages down at Democratic Underground or something?
Posted by: Secret Master || 02/13/2004 16:05 Comments || Top||

#16  Huh? I thought you were being sarcastic. Oh well...love ya, man.
Posted by: Anonymouse || 02/13/2004 16:51 Comments || Top||

#17  Anonymouse:
Heh....nope. I really do hate those bastards over at Indymedia. No sarcasm intended - that was an actual real live rant. Sorry about the Democratic Underground comment; I know those are fighting words.
Posted by: Secret Master || 02/13/2004 17:21 Comments || Top||

#18  As I said yesterday, its the Left's dirty secret. They (including the democrats) are largely funded by rich people. Whereas the Right is largely funded by small contributions from working people.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/13/2004 19:06 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Bush Orders Release of Military Records
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush, trying to calm a political storm, ordered the release of all of his Vietnam-era military records Friday to counter Democrats’ suggestions that he shirked his duty in the Texas Air National Guard.

Hundreds of pages of documents detailed Bush’s service in the Guard in Texas and his temporary duty in Alabama while working on a political campaign there in the early 1970s. Democrats have questioned whether Bush ever showed up for duty in Alabama.

"The president felt everything should be made available to the public," White House press secretary said. "There were some who sought to leave a wrong impression that there was something to hide when there is not."
OK Kerry! We showed ours now you show yours... lets see your actual, unedited, military records....
Bush’s service record has been an issue in each of his presidential campaigns and resurfaced this year when Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said Bush had been AWOL - absent without leave - during his time in Alabama.

Democrats hope to capitalize on the issue and undermine Bush’s election strength on national security issues by contrasting his service in the Guard, where he was a pilot who did not see combat, with that of Sen. John Kerry, the decorated Vietnam War veteran who is the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Didn’t Kerry state, on the record, that he killed a civilian mother and baby? And didn’t his superior say that he liked to go after ’non-military’ targets? Lets see Kerry’s record.
Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington Air Force Base on May 27, 1968. The last day he was paid for Guard duty was July 30, 1973. He was placed on inactive Guard duty six months before his commitment at his request because he was starting Harvard Business School. He was honorably discharged.

While he performed most of his service in Texas, Bush transferred to an Alabama guard unit in 1972 because he was working as the political director for the Senate campaign of Winton Blount, a Bush family friend. White House officials say Bush recalls serving both in Texas and Alabama. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the White House provided a dental record and payroll information from his file.

The pay records show Bush, who was a 1st lieutenant, was paid for 25 days of service between May 1972 and May 1973, the year Democrats have been questioning. The pay records, however, do not say what Bush did to receive pay, or where he did it.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/13/2004 7:47:40 PM || Comments || Link || [336097 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Just heard the BBC news and it had a fine example of the Beeb's 'balance. A report on Kerry closing in on the nomination, had no mention of the bimbo issue, but they got their balance by saying at the end of the report that Bush was being accused of being 'AWOL'.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/13/2004 21:02 Comments || Top||

#2  SH, that was Bob Kerry.
Former Sen. and Gov. Bob Kerrey, often mentioned as a potential Democratic presidential candidate, says he has never been able "to make my own peace" over a mission he led in Vietnam that resulted in the deaths of "only women, children and older men." Kerrey said he initially believed his squad was attacking a Viet Cong district meeting.
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 21:31 Comments || Top||

#3  CF not SH. It's my darn keyboard again Frank and .com. :)
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 21:43 Comments || Top||

#4  GK - Elmo Zumwalt is reported to have said the John Kerry f**ked things up for the Navy by indiscriminately killing civilians in the Mekong Delta. EZ is dead, so who knows if it's true, but maybe Kerry's records show something.
Posted by: Tibor || 02/13/2004 22:05 Comments || Top||

#5  GK, In that case I apologize to Senator Kerry.

I got my information from Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry. Not an -er- unbiased site I admit.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/13/2004 22:26 Comments || Top||

#6  Tibor and CF there's plenty to support your positions. I read an ambiguos article the other day where Zumwalt said Kerry was a pain in the a** and killed civilians. An accompanying comment said he referred to Bob Kerry.
Here are two articles, I just found, that support your and CF's belief that Kerry was involved in civilian deaths.
Definitely weren't written by John Kerry's campaign.
Tour of Duty
Heroism, and growing concern about war
So as CF said:.We showed ours now you show yours...
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 22:36 Comments || Top||

#7  Dems are going after blood on this and believe they have the press on their side. I believe the theory is that Bush crashed a plane while taxiing due to cocaine use/drinking and was made to do community service ... they think they can prove it from the records or that the absence of some details shows the records were altered.

A bunch of the posters over on Kevin Drum's site are open about the fact that they don't care whether it's true or not, they just want revenge over Clinton investigations.
Posted by: anon || 02/13/2004 22:52 Comments || Top||

#8  The sad part about dredging up 30 year old "sludge" could be that it is harming some of our veterans. I imagine there are many vets who fought ghosts from that era for years and perhaps were just now putting the haunting memories where they belong. Only to have those nightmares resurrected by blind political ambitions. That would be most unfair and shameful should it occur.
Let me be clear. I am no fan of John Kerry.
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 23:45 Comments || Top||

#9  GK - you get a pass for sheer enthusiasm LOL
Posted by: Frank G || 02/14/2004 0:37 Comments || Top||


I was a LT with Bush
A letter to the editor from a retired ANG officer who served with Bush in the TANG. It gets me that the people making the most hay out this were either trying to get to Canada or thinking up new student defferments. Did GWB join the guard to avoid "Nam? Maybe he did. But he had one hell of a lot of company.
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 02/13/2004 6:24:54 PM || Comments || Link || [336092 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All in all a truly pathetic episode. I keep waiting for the first reporter to ask Bush "...so when did you stop beating your wife?"
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/13/2004 18:59 Comments || Top||

#2  This Gurad issue is a bunch of crap. Bush flew FIGHTER JETS in the Air Guard. Not everyone gets to fly and fewer get to fly jets. The press wants to demean this like he was serving in Canada or Eastern Air lines. Flying fighters is not easy nor is it safe. If Bush wanted to be 'safe' he should have enlisted in the Air Force and stayed on the ground and got out after two years. Less danger thatn at 30k feet trying to intercept a bomber. None of the press have flown Jets so they think it's some kind of easy duty. Screw them, Mike Moore, and terry mcliar! Let's see their military record!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 02/13/2004 21:44 Comments || Top||

#3  I believe Moores record goes back to the Iraq War. We used him in the April 15 (date right?) attaempt to kill Saddam. You remember the crater on TV, right?
Posted by: Charles || 02/13/2004 23:02 Comments || Top||


Nothing To See Here, Move Along...
According to news reports across the Internet and in various international publications, Democratic Presidential front-runner John Kerry may have had an extramarital affair with a 22-year old blonde intern. As first reported by the Drudge Report on Thursday, a full-scale investigation into this is underway at Time Magazine, ABC News, the Washington Post, the Hill, and the Associated Press. But the real story today may be the lack of coverage by the major American news media.
Tap, tap...nope
According to a story published today in MensNewsDaily.com, "A source at one of the major television networks (said) that they are specifically forbidden to talk about (the Kerry sex scandal) on the air until one of the other major television networks reports on it first."
As opposed to the hint of a rumor about Bush
A quick search on Google News at this hour shows that only two major U.S. newspapers are running stories on the emerging Kerry sex scandal: The Philadelphia Daily News and the Chicago-Sun Times. Yesterday, MensNewsDaily.com (MND) posted a brief story on the Kerry sex scandal, but the story was never indexed by Google News.
I looked as well, only overseas publications had the story.
The last time Google News failed to index and MND news item was when MND published the name of Kobe Bryant’s accuser.
Internationally, the Kerry sex scandal story has been covered by the UK Sun, the UK Telegraph, various Australian papers.
Many more have it today.
The New York Times today published a piece defending Kerry against Republican attacks, declaring "the beginning of what party officials said would be an attempt to undercut Mr. Kerry’s reputation at a time when he is riding high from repeated victories in primaries and caucuses." The Times piece did not mention the sex scandal by name.
Didn’t have to check the meter
According to an exclusive report released overnight by political gossip guru Matt Drudge, Kerry is preparing a response to the groundswell of questions surrounding this developing story.
"I did not have.......
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 11:53:54 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I love it when the left accuses Republicans of "Dirty Tricks" when they call the President AWOL and focus on his National Guard attendance 30 years ago. Kerry has a lot of dirt in his closet. It won't take long to shovel it out.
Posted by: remote man || 02/13/2004 12:33 Comments || Top||

#2  I don't see any Republican fingerprints on this one; I see some Democratic prints (Lehane, anyone) from the "Anyone But Kerry" movement.

I might actually donate to the ABK if they get their act together.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/13/2004 12:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Let's see so far Kerry's resume:
1) Medal thumping "war hero"
2) Viet Vets think he's a traitor or close to it for his anti-war activities
3) Jane Fonda association
4) Anti defense (based on voting record
5) Wife contributed to far left organizations (she would make a great 1st lady lol)
6) Following in Dimmycrats "womanizer" policies and a real moral leader for our nation.
7) Unclear on anyting except that Bush is evil
I know I've missed a lot else but a start.

Posted by: dataman1 || 02/13/2004 14:15 Comments || Top||

#4  Fascinating. I wonder who's fingerprints are on the knife?
Posted by: mojo || 02/13/2004 14:17 Comments || Top||

#5  Amazing. The elephant is in the room but nobody can see it.
Posted by: john || 02/13/2004 15:08 Comments || Top||

#6  #4
Chris Lehane has a reputation for digging up dirt.
Lehane worked in the Clinton White House.
Lehane worked for Gore's 2000 campaign and knew of Kerry's philandering then. Gore endorsed Dean- 2004.
Lehane worked for Kerry, knifing Dean, 'til he got fired.
Lehane then worked for Clark. Clark leaked that Kerry had an intern problem that was about to explode.
Intern problem is now in the news.
Still wondering MOJO or was that just a rhetorical question?
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 15:11 Comments || Top||

#7  "A source at one of the major television networks (said) that they are specifically forbidden to talk about (the Kerry sex scandal) on the air until one of the other major television networks reports on it first."

Is anyone else struck by the irony of this statement? What happened to getting the story first before the other guy?
Posted by: Doc8404 || 02/13/2004 15:26 Comments || Top||

#8  a big problem for Kerry is that he may have canoodled (or tried to canoodle) with more than one intern - even if one of the interns is now in Africa, another may sell a story
Posted by: mhw || 02/13/2004 15:33 Comments || Top||

#9  At the same time, we have no proof of anything, and John Fitzgerald Kennedy Kerry denies it. Since there's no proof the media shouldn't be reporting it.

Same principle as the Bush Texas Air Guard story -- there's no proof of any wrong-doing whatsoever, and the media shouldn't have reported that either.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/13/2004 18:49 Comments || Top||


Skeery Kerry’s Medals
As promised, here’s John Kerry with the medals he’s really earned. Click on title.
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 10:34:23 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Can you say "Classic"?
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/13/2004 11:44 Comments || Top||


Kerry's popsie?
PRESIDENTIAL hopeful John Kerry was branded a “sleazeball” last night by the parents of a young woman he allegedly tried to woo. Alex Polier, 24, was named as the woman at the centre of a scandal that threatens to damage Democrat Kerry’s bid for the White House. Her mother Donna claims Kerry, 60 — dubbed the new JFK — once chased Alex to be on his campaign team and was “after her”.
But didn't catch her? No blue dress?
There is no evidence the pair had an affair, but her father Terry, 56, said: “I think he’s a sleazeball. I did kind of wonder if my daughter didn’t get that kind of feeling herself. He’s not the sort of guy I would choose to be with my daughter.”
Most non-Islamists wouldn't want to put their 24-year-old daughters to stud with 60-year-old married men...
Terry, of Malvern, Pennsylvania, added: “John Kerry called my daughter and invited her down to Washington two or three years ago.
When she was barely old enough to drink...
“He invited her to be on his re-election committee. She talked to him and decided against it.”
"No, thanks. I'm seeing someone. And put that thing away, wouldja?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/13/2004 09:59 || Comments || Link || [336096 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yes I do have a bottle of Heinz ketchup in my pocket and I'm happy to see you.
Posted by: mhw || 02/13/2004 10:05 Comments || Top||

#2  He was just testing out a concept for a new Fox reality show "My Old Sleasy Obnoxious Senator", but it nevermade it into production
Posted by: Capsu78 || 02/13/2004 11:01 Comments || Top||

#3  So he's just as sleazy as Clinton, but less successful. The American public won't tolerate failure.
Posted by: Matt || 02/13/2004 12:13 Comments || Top||

#4  This is really sad. Kennedy beds so many starlets everyone has lost track. Clinton gets stuck with overweight interns and forcing himself on middle-aged volunteers. Now Kerry can't even seem to hook up. What is this country coming to.
Posted by: bthomasgriffin || 02/13/2004 13:14 Comments || Top||

#5  Bronze and Silver stars, 2 or 3 Purple Hearts. Don't knock the guy, he did his 365.
Posted by: mojo || 02/13/2004 14:19 Comments || Top||

#6  After suffering three flesh wounds which took him out of service about two days, Kerry invoked the Navy's "3 Purple Hearts and you can go home rule", ended his tour of Viet Nam after 150 days, left his boys behind on the swift boat he skippered, applied for and received an early out of the Navy, and aided and abetted the enemy in his role as Hanoi John.
Posted by: Garrison || 02/13/2004 15:56 Comments || Top||

#7  Sleazeball, huh? So I guess dad actually met him?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 22:49 Comments || Top||


Kerry: "Nothing there to report" -- Candidate dismisses allegations of scandal
World Net Daily; EFL
In a television interview this morning, Sen. John Kerry dismissed allegations of infidelity published yesterday by the Drudge Report.
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman..."
MSNBC host Don Imus, who has endorsed Kerry for the Democratic presidential nomination, asked the Massachusetts senator if there were anything in the Drudge allegations that should cause him to withdraw support. "There’s nothing to report, nothing to talk about 
 no," said Kerry on the "Imus in the Morning" show.
What else do they expect him to say? "Well, yes, Don, I’ve been such an alley cat, ’Kerrying’ on with my little 20-year old ’tomato,’ that I’m unfit to be president. You should drop me like a live grenade and endorse Kucinich." Real likely, that.
Earlier this week, according to Drudge, Gen. Wesley Clark told a dozen reporters in an off-the-record conversation, "Kerry will implode over an intern issue . . . ." Just two hours after the report was posted, Clark aides said the candidate, who dropped out Wednesday, would endorse Kerry.
"He sent over a coupla babez, and they... ummm... talked me into it."
Drudge said "reporters who witnessed Clark making the stunning comments marvel at the general’s reluctance to later confirm they were spoken – only to later endorse Kerry for the nomination."
"Mary" must have told him to change his story.
Clark’s press secretary Bill Buck refused to comment on the allegations. "We do not respond to right-wing Internet postings in any way, shape or form," he said.
"But we do post at Democratic Underground pretty regularly."
Meanwhile, the London Telegraph said diehard Dean supporters exulted at the news on Internet forums, where there has been considerable bitterness about what they perceive as the media’s destruction of their candidate. The Kerry campaign Internet forum, in contrast, was seething with anger over "Republican dirty tricks."
Posted by: Mike || 02/13/2004 8:57:56 AM || Comments || Link || [336085 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Republican dirty tricks."

-yes, that damn repug-plant Clark! I smell some Hillary.......
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 9:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Meanwhile in Britain,Sun newspaper names names.It's a Murdoch paper!The left will really go bonkers now.
Posted by: El Id || 02/13/2004 9:19 Comments || Top||

#3  hmm...it's not like lots of people didn't know about this already. The blogosphere is reporting that this is one reason why Al Gore didn't pick him for VP in 2000.

We know that Clark already about this before he dropped out as he alluded to it last week - it's curious that he didn't attempt to float this before he dropped out. And why did his support of Kerry come on the same day.

I think the Dems think that they can fill the airwaves 24/7 with Kerry's infidelity and keep the issues off of his anti-war leanings and the rest of his dismal history, by constantly deflecting to this slop instead.

Frontpage has a great article today on Teresa-Heinz's funding of anti-American subversive groups.

Sometimes when you look at the connections between the Democrats and the ol' communist party types, and their love of Fidel and all things Anti-American, you really have to wonder sometimes.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 9:20 Comments || Top||

#4  B, the only thing I wonder is why they just don't admit they're Commies or Marxists! ('Course they love $$$)
Ms. Heinz-Kerry has no problem with all those millions made off of the capitalistic sale of ketchup and pickles.
Kerry's so obviously a lying scumbag--about our military in Vietnam, about his Botox, about his Senate votes, about his 20 year-old concubines, too.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/13/2004 9:31 Comments || Top||

#5  This is really unfortunate. For the Republicans, Kerry would have made at least as good a target in the general election as Dean, with far more ideological baggage to root around in.
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/13/2004 10:02 Comments || Top||

#6  Jeannie - I'm sure she and Jane discuss what's good for the little people over $400 lunches.

Dave - you know, I have to agree. Kerry's no Clinton and times have changed since 9-11. Dems are still operating on a 60's mindset. I guess I still hope Kerry gets it (if Dean can't pull it off).
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 10:36 Comments || Top||

#7  "Republican dirty tricks." ?
I just did not know that Chris Lehane was a Republican. Lehane is Hill&Bill's plant in this campaign.
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 11:03 Comments || Top||

#8  Why can't I just one time hear "Yeah, I banged her like a cheap gong"?
Posted by: Raj || 02/13/2004 12:54 Comments || Top||

#9  Dave, I quite agree. Let's hope that Kerry keeps lying and keeps running.
He's a wonderful (terrible) candidate to run against President Bush.
An intern will be the least of his problems! Talk about baggage!
He has about 37 (used) Louis Vuitton steamer trunks full.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/13/2004 13:20 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
VDH: Just imagine

Hat tip LGF.
After listening to a variety of American, Middle Eastern, and European pundits, I wish that their understanding of the way the world works were true — or at least even that they believed it to be true. If so, just imagine the following...
I wish it would work that way too.
That when all the Israelis vacate the Gaza Strip and, like most of the Arab world elsewhere it is free of Jews, indigenous Palestinian consensual government will at last quickly bring peace and tranquility there to its own delighted native citizenry.

That Arab-Israeli communities near the border are agitating to be annexed by Palestine in order to join their brethren under the aegis of Mr. Arafat’s non-Zionist utopia.

That with the promised two-state solution and a return to the so-called Green Line, a few thousand Jewish émigrés can choose to live in safety in newly autonomous Palestine in the same manner as hundreds of thousands of their Arab counterparts now do in Israel.

That Pakistan, Iran, and Libya, either in fear or out of admiration, bowed to pressure from the EU and the UN to release information about their WMD programs.

That Saudi Arabia is now hunting down al Qaedists due to belated sympathy and concern about 9/11.

That Syria and Iran believe that the United States is in a "quagmire" in Iraq, and that because of such failure there they are now more bold and aggressive in their relationships with America.

That in accordance with the angry themes of the Arab state-run media, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia will shortly announce that they can no longer allow their citizens to visit such a satanic place as the United States.

That had Mr. Carter been allowed to employ his patented Nobel-Prize winning Korean model of curbing nuclear proliferation with Muammar Khaddafi, Libya would now be free of nukes.

That Democratic senators in anguish over zealous scrutiny of immigrants from the Middle East will soon repeal their near-unanimous prior support for the Patriot Act and demand a return to a more enlightened pre-9/11 visa policy.

That there will be a special inquiry of Senate and House members who voted for regime change in Iraq on the basis of their flawed analyses of intelligence information — as well as post-facto investigations of Operation Desert Fox in December 1999 and other previous preemptory strikes against perceived terrorist threats.

That South Korea will further promote its Sunshine Policy by asking the rest of the American forces on the DMZ to relocate to Pusan or return home.

That in exasperation with American unilateralism and in accordance with the "German Way" Mr. Schroeder will ask the United States to transfer its remaining troops to Eastern Europe.

That smaller European countries like Holland, Denmark, Spain, Poland, and others are bewildered by Mr. Rumsfeld’s crude suggestion of an "Old Europe" — and his equally inappropriate hint of a bullying Paris-Berlin Axis that purportedly tries to stifle expression and independence in Europe.

That Greece and Turkey, after the fiasco in Iraq, find a "unilateral" United States "intrusive" and "disruptive" to their efforts to adjudicate problems in the Aegean and on Cyprus — and thus jointly ask for a withdrawal of American troops from their shores.

That in humanitarian concern over 50,000 needless civilian deaths last year from heat and earthquake, France will ask the United States for cooperation in installing air conditioners in Paris and Iran will request building inspectors and American architects for advice on seismic retrofitting.

That the Europeans will invest $100 billion or so in an EU rapid-reaction strike force to provide the United Nations at last with some real muscle that can be used in a more sober and judicious fashion under the proper aegis of Security Council wisdom.

That after Iraq we can now agree that the careful, multilateral, and decade-long approach toward Mr. Milosevic is the lawful and most humane way to deal with a purported mass-murderer.

That the United Nations has emerged stronger and won respect for its institutions as a resolute and disinterested adjudicator of the world’s problems.

That because Mr. Kerry voted against the 1991 war, he opposed sending troops under U.N. auspices to the Middle East; that because he voted for the 2003 deployment, he advocated sending American troops without the U.N. to the Middle East; and that because he later voted in 2003 to deny funds to troops in the field, he opposed U.S. deployment unless it was under the auspices of the U.N.

That the Democrats will end the mistaken Iraqi commitment, bring home the troops, turn Iraq over to the U.N., craft a new burden-sharing agreement with our a host of willing allies in Afghanistan, and pledge that the United States renounces any sort of further preemption

That we will reopen investigations into why we removed Mr. Noriega, Mr. Milosevic, the Taliban, and other late fascists who, in fact, may have not really posed an "imminent" threat to the safety of the people of the United States.

That bin Laden will shortly announce an end to his war against America just as the last American soldier in Saudi Arabia — his oft-stated prime grievance against the United States — leaves the kingdom.

That when bin Laden is captured, critics of the administration will praise American efforts to have taken out both the Taliban and the Baathists, along with the capture of both their odious leaders.

That the suicide bombing of the last three years in the United States, Russia, Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Bali may be attributable to a variety of unconnected Christian, Jewish, and Hindu religious extremists — and is a reaction to understandable provocation.

That a long-term, scholarly study of the social and economic background of the Hamas suicide bombers, the Hezbollah killers, the al Qaeda leadership, and the suicide-murderers of September 11 will soon reveal a consistent, predictable, and unfortunate pattern of impoverishment, lack of education, and absence of contact with or knowledge of the West.

That the newly created intelligence commission finds that Mr. Bush is too gullible and ignores inferences from raw intelligence and thus is culpable for September 11 — and that Mr. Bush is too hair-triggered and over interprets inferences from raw intelligence and thus is culpable for invading Iraq.

From what I read and hear, I would expect that all these propositions might be credible. But if these logical inferences do not come to pass, then there is something else going on that suggests what many people are writing and saying is not quite plausible — or even what they themselves privately believe to be true.

* * *

Why is this? For all the most recent invective about his lack of spontaneous televised eloquence, almost every necessary and dangerous initiative Mr. Bush has undertaken since 9/11 — protect American shores, destroy the Taliban, scatter al Qaeda, take out Saddam Hussein, promote democracy in the Middle East, put rogue regimes with weapons of mass destruction on notice — has worked or is in the process of coming to fruition.
And the LLL are screaming because they know deep down that Bush is right but they want their people in office.
In response to that success often we have met dissimulation, pretext, and rhetoric of those who have much to lose and very little to gain by seeing the old way of business — status quo alliances, deductive anti-Americanism, corrupt Middle East policies, and bankrupt ideologies such as moral equivalence, utopian pacifism, and multiculturalism — go by the wayside.

And so we get fantasy in place of reality.
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/13/2004 11:41:05 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hey Antiwar, hey Not, any comments on this?
Posted by: Lucky || 02/13/2004 13:18 Comments || Top||

#2  VDH, Myth Buster! The guy's got a helluva memory - some of those goodies had faded off my radar screen. He must use a system... I'd bet Vegas would ban him as a card counter - no matter how many decks they're using...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Thanks VDH: I've been posting in a comment thread over at CalPundit along similar lines, with predictable reception.

Unlike many here, I'm not a reflexive conservative .... I know what I believe but it doesn't fit that cubby exactly and in fact, I've been a registered Democrat for 30 yrs (albeit uneasily of late). The intellectual bankruptcy the Dems are bringing to 9/11, other current events and the upcoming election has pushed me into the "vote for Bush" camp hard.

I'm not thrilled about that wrt some of his policies, but he has it RIGHT on strategy in a very changed world, thank goodness.
Posted by: rkb || 02/13/2004 15:05 Comments || Top||

#4  The scariest problem with the Dummycheats is their total inability to change. The entire world changed on 9/11 - except for the Democratic Party of the United States. They still plow along with their totally repudiated loony leftist, socialist,feel-good, semblance over substance, waffling bullshit ways, as if we were still in the middle of the 1970's, instead of well into the 21st century. They are totally lost, adrift without ideas, and totally disconnected from the real world. I'd have pity on them except they constantly want to drag me into their fantasy-world with them. That's a very, very dangerous place to be - just ask the average citizen of France.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 17:34 Comments || Top||


Ujaama once treated by al-Zawahiri
During one of James Ujaama’s trips to aid the Taliban government in Afghanistan in late 2000, the former Seattle native fell ill and was treated by Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the most-wanted terrorists in the world and Osama bin Laden’s adviser, confidant and personal physician. "It gives you an idea of the circles in which Ujaama found himself," noted one federal law-enforcement source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It would be like you or me getting a bellyache and having the U.S. surgeon general show up at the door."

On the eve of Ujaama’s sentencing in federal court on charges of illegally aiding the Taliban government, three sources familiar with Ujaama’s statements to agents said he detailed the meeting as part of a plea agreement. The deal reduced his possible 10-year prison sentence to two years. He will be formally sentenced in Seattle tomorrow and likely will be sent to a halfway house to serve the remainder of his sentence. It is expected the 38-year-old Ingraham High School graduate will be freed in July, two years to the day after his arrest in Denver on a material-witness warrant.
That'd better be because he spilled his guts...
Ujaama has testified at least once before a federal grand jury in Manhattan, where counterterrorism prosecutors are building a case against Abu Hamza for his role in helping Ujaama with his plans in Bly. At Ujaama’s sentencing, the New York prosecutor overseeing that investigation, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Bruce, is expected to appear on the behalf of the government.

It was as an emissary of Abu Hamza that Ujaama traveled to Afghanistan in late 2000 in violation of a presidential order prohibiting U.S. citizens from providing services, goods or aid to the Taliban. "We have said that we believe James Ujaama had made important contacts that justified the plea agreement," said U.S. Attorney John McKay, who otherwise would not comment. Ujaama’s attorneys, Peter Offenbecher and Robert Mahler, declined comment. When Ujaama pleaded guilty last April, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the government expected Ujaama’s cooperation "to lead to the arrest of additional terrorists and the disruption of future terrorist activities." A sentencing memorandum filed by prosecutors Feb. 3 states, "security concerns" prohibit the government from telling the court the "full nature and scope of Ujaama’s cooperation."
Oooh, good. He spilled lots...
Despite the activities in Bly, Ujaama was never the primary target of the investigation. The probe has focused on Abu Hamza and other of his followers for their role in helping finance and set up the camp. The various charges filed against Ujaama, including the felony to which he pleaded guilty, refer to an "unindicted co-conspirator" in London whom sources have identified as Abu Hamza. Ujaama’s attorneys and supporters have framed his visit to Afghanistan as a "humanitarian" trip to give computers to a girls school. But charging papers provide additional motives.
They are so big on "humanitarian" trips...
"It was also part of the conspiracy that members of the conspiracy, including Ujaama, provided and attempted to provide funds, goods and services to the Taliban including Jihad fighters, currency, computers, software, computer disks and other items," the papers state. On that trip, Ujaama was accompanied — at Abu Hamza’s direction — by a young Briton identified by federal law-enforcement sources as Feroz Abassi. Abassi has been identified by several sources as the unnamed, unindicted co-conspirator in the complaint who desired "to undergo violent Jihad training." Abassi was captured fighting U.S. troops in the battle at bin Laden’s stronghold in Kandahar, Afghanistan, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He is being held as an enemy combatant at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. According to the charges, Ujaama attempted to enter Afghanistan a second time with money and computers for the Taliban in the days immediately after Sept. 11 but was turned away "because of the local response to the attacks." The plea agreement prohibits Ujaama from discussing his activities and information he has provided to the government for up to 10 years after his release.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:56:24 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Ujaama’s attorneys and supporters have framed his visit to Afghanistan as a "humanitarian" trip to give computers to a girls school"

must've been for them to repair, they certainly would never allow women to operate a computer
Posted by: Frank G || 02/13/2004 6:37 Comments || Top||

#2  Can anyone tell me why don't we shoot traitors any longer?
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/13/2004 7:17 Comments || Top||

#3 
a "humanitarian" trip to give computers to a girls school

Um, that's not a believable lie. Change it to "boys school."
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 7:37 Comments || Top||

#4  Change it to "boys school.

Change it to "madrassas". Wonder if he included MS Flight Simulator at no extra charge?
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 10:08 Comments || Top||


Freed Gitmo detainees rejoining al-Qaeda
Terrorists freed from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay have rejoined Taliban and al-Qaida cells in Afghanistan, sources tell the New York Daily News. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is expected to make the bombshell admission Friday in a speech in Miami. But Rumsfeld’s revelation about the few prisoners in Cuba who shouldn’t have been let go will be used as justification for indefinitely detaining approximately 650 terror suspects still held there.
Makes sense to me. If somebody is saying "let 'em go," and you don't think it'll produce good results, it makes sense to let a few go and see what happens. If it doesn't produce good results, then you don't have to release anymore, and the people bitching are reduced to saying "those weren't the ones we meant."
The Pentagon chief will argue for greater scrutiny of each detainee, but he’ll also "talk about the intent to release more" than the 87 freed to date, the official said. Pentagon officials have refused to discuss one reported case of a Taliban commander, Mullah Shehzada, who rejoined comrades in Afghanistan after his release from the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba last October. Shehzada convinced his interrogators he was an innocent civilian captured by Northern Alliance troops and turned over to the United States, Time magazine reported late last year.
Is he the one who was saying he's 108 years old and why're they picking on an old man like that?
"(Shehzada) is not the only one," said a source briefed on the speech Thursday. "They’re about to be a lot less tight-lipped about it." Rumsfeld is also expected to reveal that detainees have provided intelligence about human smuggling rings in Latin America aimed at sneaking al-Qaida thugs into the United States. Other officials are skeptical that Osama bin Laden’s terror network is active there. A senior diplomatic source in the region told The Daily News that reports of al-Qaida operations south of the border have been touted by Army brass without hard proof.
"Qaeda? Here? Oh, pooh! And pooh! There ain't no sech thing..."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:38:51 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  That's alright. Next time there won't be any negotiating. And no tribunal either, hint, hint ;)
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 1:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Good. Now the GPS chips in their heads will start providing info.
Posted by: Henry E. Pankey || 02/13/2004 8:15 Comments || Top||

#3  Turn'em loose, have a spook team ready to shadow them back in their home country, then quietly dispatch them. Or spread the rumor that they squealed info to us.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 8:27 Comments || Top||

#4  human smuggling rings in Latin America aimed at sneaking al-Qaida thugs into the United States.

And we still lie here, spread eagle, with a wide open southern border just waiting to be f*cked over!
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/13/2004 9:42 Comments || Top||

#5  It must be a "two strikes and you're dead" policy.
Posted by: BH || 02/13/2004 10:45 Comments || Top||

#6  I think we're doing this on purpose. Either they are working for us now or we're watching them to see where they go. Come on guys, we're not that dumb. They are Johnny Nobodies - expendable
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/13/2004 11:38 Comments || Top||

#7  Three Strikes program? One strike and a walk just became dead batter up!
Posted by: john || 02/13/2004 11:48 Comments || Top||

#8  And we still lie here, spread eagle, with a wide open southern border just waiting to be f*cked over!

All in the name of cheap labor. What they don't realize is that it isn't really all that cheap. The real cost comes later on in more ways than one.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/13/2004 13:31 Comments || Top||

#9  "She looked so helpless, lying there spread-eagle on the floor. I beat the eagle off and..."

I can't resist a Firesign Theater reference...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 13:38 Comments || Top||

#10  And we still lie here, spread eagle, with a wide open southern border just waiting to be f*cked
Ah, Valentine's Day. Pass the Astroglide.
Posted by: Henry E. Pankey || 02/13/2004 14:34 Comments || Top||

#11  yep, our southern border does lie open, mainly due to pussy politicians on both sides of the aisle who won't do the right thing to fix it.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 14:37 Comments || Top||

#12  This is why anyone caught with terrorists should be executed. No ifs, ands, or buts -- execute them.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/13/2004 15:14 Comments || Top||


VA jihadi wanted to join the Taliban after 9/11
One of four defendants charged in an alleged terrorist conspiracy advocated fighting for the Taliban in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks, saying that ``cowards and weak ones are the first to run away’’ when Muslims face attack, according to court testimony Thursday. Masoud Khan faces the most serious charges of the four on trial in U.S. District Court. Prosecutors say he left the United States for Pakistan just a week after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to join a Pakistani terror group that would train him so he could join the Taliban and help repel the pending American invasion of Afghanistan. Khan, of Gaithersburg, Md., is charged with conspiracy to levy war against the United States and conspiracy to provide material support to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network.

Three other members of what prosecutors have called a ``Virginia jihad network’’ face lesser conspiracy and firearms charges. Prosecutors allege the group used paintball games near Fredericksburg to prepare for holy war against India and other nations with whom the United States is at peace. Muhammed Aatique, who traveled with Khan to Pakistan and has already pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy, testified that Khan advocated coming to the Taliban’s aid at a Sept. 16, 2001, meeting in Virginia. At the meeting, the men’s religious leader, Ali al-Tamimi, sought to rally his followers to a violent holy war against the United States. When one of the group members expressed skepticism about the practicality of joining the Taliban, Khan responded that ``when these things happen, cowards and weak ones are the first to run away,’’ according to Aatique.

Aatique, a Pakistani citizen, had already planned a Sept. 19 trip to Pakistan for a family wedding, but al-Timimi’s speech inspired him to amend his plans and travel to a training camp run by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group seeking to drive India from the disputed Kashmir region. Aatique said he now believes that attacking American troops would be wrong, but he had been confused by the paranoid teaching of al-Tamimi, who claimed that the Sept. 11 attacks were justified and a sign that Armageddon between Muslims and infidels was imminent. Al-Tamimi has not been charged. Khan’s lawyers have said their client, who was born in Pakistan, traveled to the country primarily to attend to family business and that he attended the Lashkar camp only for physical training and self-defense, in accord with Islamic teachings.
Seems like Islamic teachings also extend to taking part in Armageddon...
Prosecutors also played a tape of a phone call between Aatique and Khan in 2003, after federal agents had raided their respective homes. A shaken Aatique tells Khan that he told the agents ``about everything,’’ including the paintball training and the trip to the camp. Khan, who advised Aatique that the phone was probably tapped, responded, ``What camp? I didn’t go to any camp.’’ He then advised Aatique to get a lawyer before speaking again with investigators.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:35:22 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:


More on the probable traitor at Fort Lewis
A member of the Washington State National Guard was taken into custody on Thursday to face possible charges that he tried to pass information to Al Qaeda terrorist network. Army officials said the soldier, Specialist Ryan G. Anderson, whose 81st Armor Brigade is scheduled to deploy to Iraq next month, is being held at Fort Lewis, near Tacoma, where the authorities will determine whether enough evidence exists to charge him. The arrest followed a brief investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Justice Department and Army officials after they said they learned that Specialist Anderson used a computer to try to contact Al Qaeda cells in the United States and, as one Army official said, "offer his services."

Specialist Anderson is a tank crew member of the 81st Armor Brigade, a 4,000-member unit headed for a one-year deployment in Iraq. The deployment is the biggest for the Washington Army National Guard since World War II. The Army now has several weeks for the unit commander and a military lawyer to determine whether there is probable cause for formal charges to be filed against Specialist Anderson. If probable cause is found, he would face the equivalent of a grand jury investigation, after which the commander would decide whether to initiate a court-martial.

The Army released only sketchy information about Specialist Anderson. But his hometown newspaper, The Everett Herald, reported on Thursday that he was 26 and was a member of a Fort Lewis tank crew. It also said he graduated from Cascade High School in 1995 and from Washington State University in 2002 with a degree in military history, specializing in the Middle East. The newspaper also said he converted to Islam five years ago. Aziz Junejo, who is the host of an Islamic talk show on public access television in Seattle, said Specialist Anderson joined a local Muslim e-mail group two years ago, using as his Internet names Abdul Rashid and Gunfighter. Mr. Junejo said Mr. Anderson bragged about being an expert marksman and said he wanted to teach other local Muslims to use assault rifles. Mr. Junejo said that he angrily confronted Specialist Anderson regarding his e-mail, and that eventually he stopped sending such messages. Specialist Anderson also made irregular visits to a mosque in Mountlake Terrace near Seattle, Mr. Junejo said. "The really careless thing was that his demeanor and behavior, whether in the e-mail or in the mosque, was noticeable, and it didn’t fit with the community," he said. "He mysteriously came into the community a couple years ago," Mr. Junejo said, "and then just as mysteriously disappeared."
So they thought he was a plant...
Dr. Marina Tolmacheva, a history professor at Washington State, said that Specialist Anderson took three classes from her in 1996 and 1997 focusing on Middle Eastern history and Islamic civilization and that his grades were substandard.
I’ve seen the photo floating around the net and the guy is almost certainly Caucasian, incidentally.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:14:30 AM || Comments || Link || [336085 views] Top|| File under:

#1  he converted to Islam five years ago.

Ah yes, here's the kicker. Another disaffected youth. Let me guess, his heart became attached to AQ, shortly after 9-11.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 1:42 Comments || Top||

#2  A photo has surfaced of Anderson wearing what appears to be a nazi-era German army field cap. This matches well with Anderson's high school yearbook photo as published by AP.

This is from a firearms website devoted to shooters of the British SMLE rifle which, oddly enough, was well-known for killing Muslims and nazis. (I own two SMLEs, including one of the rare "jungle carbine" versions)
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 02/13/2004 2:18 Comments || Top||

#3  I hear Leavenworth is pretty in the spring time.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 7:15 Comments || Top||

#4  The really careless thing was that his demeanor and behavior, . . . didn’t fit with the community

huh? so he should have simply been more careful?
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/13/2004 8:29 Comments || Top||

#5  Forgive my ignorance, but I thought Arabs are Caucasians. Do you mean he doesn't appear to be of Middle Eastern descent? But why is that important? Whether he's a Muslim is important. Not what he looks like.

I say this because I believe if we're thinking of "Muslims" within some particular visual parameter (i.e., dark, hairy, homely), we're not going to be as alert as we could be.
Posted by: Quana || 02/13/2004 8:36 Comments || Top||

#6  Quana, you're right they are considered caucasian (at least the military categorizes them that way). Prolly shoud've said he looks anglo-saxon.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 9:02 Comments || Top||

#7  Yeah, what Jarhead said. The reason I brought it up was to point out that profiling is a fuzzy art at best and that jihadis come in many colors.

And speaking as one who lives there, Leavenworth does look quite charming this time of year ;)
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 9:19 Comments || Top||

#8  Dan--Oh, I'm sorry! I don't think any of us realized you were in there.

I'll FedEx the cake with the file this afternoon. Hopefully we'll spring you by tomorrow night! ;-)
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 10:04 Comments || Top||

#9  Dar: Nah, that would take too long. I'll get a team of horses, you bring a strong rope to tie to his cell window bars.

I saw it once in a movie, so that means it'll work...
Posted by: Carl in N.H || 02/13/2004 11:50 Comments || Top||

#10  Michelle Malkin over at NRO has several of his postings from usenet. He's pretty pathetic.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 12:04 Comments || Top||

#11  The region's politics is the tip-over reason why I dropped Washington state from my list of potential places to live. I love the climate, the terrain, etc., but when I discovered that the atmosphere there was such that it had supported a Palestinian daily newspaper, The Palestine Chronicle (which today seems to be offline - demised, perhaps? one can hope...), I knew that ex-flippie + grunge + PaleoSymp was a combo I would not enjoy.
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 13:02 Comments || Top||

#12  .com--One thing that I noticed on the new Topix news site is rather interesting. If you click on the news link for an area, like Seattle, you can scroll down that same page and get a listing from Amazon of the most popular titles delivered to that area. Seattle lists Al Franken and Micheal Moore as being #1 and #3 currently. What do you suppose that suggests?!
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 14:07 Comments || Top||

#13  "What do you suppose that suggests?!"
Wow! Rock-solid confirmation!

Hey, Thx for the link - that's actually very revealing. For some reason, they don't list Las Vegas, but do list Reno... High Altitude Baking is #1 -- and Horton Hears a Who! made the list. Guess it's a hotbed of normalcy! WoT? What's that? Are you gonna ride in the Sheriff's Parade this weekend? Lol!

Thx!
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#14  Oops, they do have North Las Vegas...
1. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
2. The Ultimate Weight Solution
3. Bleachers by John Grisham
4. Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore
5. Who's Looking Out for You? by Bill O'Reilly
Uh, oh...

What a hoot!
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:29 Comments || Top||

#15  There is a "generic" Las Vegas link... doesn't show on the main left menubar for some reason.

1. Of Rats and Men by John L. Smith
2. Madam: Inside a Nevada Brothel --LOL! Go figure!
...
6. Mucusless Diet Healing System --I don't even want to know...
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 14:43 Comments || Top||

#16  Jeeez.... Pear Buck's The Good Earth is number 3 in Tallahassee.... it's a small market so maybe American Lit semester II is kicking in or something.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 17:01 Comments || Top||

#17  If you read the requirements for being a good Muslim, then compare them with the first ten amendments to our Constution (the so-called Bill of Rights), you see that Islam is incompatible with US citizenship.

Dan, I've been through Manhattan a dozen or so times, and have a good friend that lives down near Lawrence, but nothing in Kansas calls to me. You need to scrape all those sand hills into one good mountain before I'd feel at home!
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 17:52 Comments || Top||

#18  Dar thx for the link.
OP, the link for COS is http://www.topix.net/city/colorado-springs-co
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 18:49 Comments || Top||

#19  Don't knock the Kansas plains until you have enjoyed the vast skies and the solitude on a hot June day :).
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/13/2004 20:02 Comments || Top||

#20  If Al Queda is seen tromping around Afghanistan singing the Washington State fight song, they'll really have this bastard by the balls
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 22:52 Comments || Top||


FBI director says al-Qaeda cell could be active in East Tennessee
During a visit to Knoxville on Thursday, the nation’s FBI director says terrorists could be operating here in East Tennessee. FBI Director Robert Mueller III stresses that there is no more of a threat or danger in our area than in the rest of the country. But what about reports of terrorist activity in East Tennessee? He says al Qaeda could very well be here. Mueller says he came to Knoxville to thank the local FBI and law enforcement for their strong work, but he also made the trip to answer local security questions. One of those comes from a report about al Qaeda cells possibly operating in East Tennessee. WVLT VOLUNTEER TV News first uncovered that possibility three weeks ago after we learned that a homeland security official told authorities that terrorists are in the area. "You may have some in the area covered by East Tennessee, but I can tell you and them that we are effective in identifying them, knowing their activities and prosecuting them," Mueller says. He says it not necessarily terrorist camps that the FBI is looking for; instead, agents are tracking those trying to recruit and finance terrorists. He acknowledges that such activities could exist at many well-regarded schools like the University of Tennessee. "As with any area where you have a diverse population, you may have persons who feel ill of the U.S., and what we look for are persons who might be financing or recruiting," Mueller says.
Isn’t UT where Glenn Reynolds teaches at?
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:08:48 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  BOO! Let's scare the rednecks some and make sure they vote Republican--God knows East Tennessee is the linchpin of the American economy! But I bet they get just as much $$ for "Homeland Security" as those minor cities like NY, Boston and Chicago!
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/13/2004 1:28 Comments || Top||

#2  Yes Dan, the instapundit teaches law at UT.
Here's more info on Glenn.
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 5:48 Comments || Top||

#3  NMM - bad couple of years for a cretin like you huh?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/13/2004 6:52 Comments || Top||

#4  Al Qaeda's first decree in the Islamic Republic of East Tennessee will be that all alcohol is prohibited.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 7:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Ah,Mikey.I know it is a hard concept for a wennie like you to except.But try a page from the the"Rednecks"playbook,buy a nice Ruger and learn to defend yourself.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/13/2004 8:05 Comments || Top||

#6  Still miss the midwest NMM?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 8:16 Comments || Top||

#7  I'm a redneck and I ain't skeered!

I do wonder how much recruitment can go on at UT. What's the Arab pop there? .01% maybe. Plus, Arabs would stick out like a sore thumb, unless they got some way to recruit the local blacks or disenfranchised white youth's like that moron Anderson from WA. I don't forsee too many young blacks going that way w/all the strong Baptist background in the region unless they're in the penal system.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 8:20 Comments || Top||

#8  hey NMM -- is it even conceivable to you that perhaps the FBI is telling the truth and there really is a group there? I know, I know, you think that there's some sort of Republican conspiracy at play here, and facts won't dissuade you from your belief.

By the way, as NYC's mayor just pointed out, the Homeland Security budget is allocated based on the degree of threat and vulnerability. So, I know it's disappointing for you to read, but in fact NYC gets appreciably more than East Tennessee. And as a Manhattanite, I'm very glad it's that way.
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/13/2004 8:24 Comments || Top||

#9  If they're here in E T at all, they are probably either students or professors at U T.
Posted by: N Guard || 02/13/2004 8:42 Comments || Top||

#10  NMM forgets (or more likely, never bothered to learn) that there was a senior al'Qaeda operative arrested in Peoria.

Hell, anyone remember where Steve Emerson first ran into jihadis in the US? Oklahoma City.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/13/2004 9:44 Comments || Top||

#11  NMM, I suppose you are too dense to know that there is a major Dept. of Energy facility in Eastern TN as well as 2 or 3 civilian nuclear power plants. It is a logical place for enemies to locate themselves.
Posted by: remote man || 02/13/2004 12:48 Comments || Top||

#12  Remote Man... you're right NMM is not that familiar with the US outside of his hometown, 3 large cities (he visits) and Raleigh (which he hates).

Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 17:05 Comments || Top||


Southeast Asia
Philipine Communist Party Leader Killed in Clash
Four communist guerrillas, including a ranking party leader, were killed in fierce clashes in the southern Philippines, a military report said yesterday.
Among those reported killed were Jose Adora, front secretary of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which is currently holding peace talks with the Arroyo government.
Well, he’s peaceful now.
Adora was killed along with three other rebels in a weekend gunbattle in the village of Cecilia in San Luis town, Agusan del Sur province, the military’s Southern Command in Zamboanga City said. The report said the rebels retreated to the hinterlands, dragging the bodies of their dead, but they left Adora’s behind as soldiers pursued them.
"He’s too heavy, and he ain’t my brother"
Manila yesterday resumed peace talks with the CPP and its political wing the National Democratic Front (NDF) in Oslo, Norway. The talks hit a snag, however, after rebel leaders demanded a resolution from Manila to pressure the United States and the Council of the European Union into removing the CPP-NDF and their military arm, the New People’s Army (NPA) from their list of foreign terrorist organizations. The United States and the European Union tagged the CPP-NDF and the NPA as foreign terrorists and froze its assets abroad on Manila’s recommendation. The rebel’s peace panel chief, Luis Jalandoni, said the tag and the subsequent freezing of CPP founder Jose Maria Sison’s assets and violated the provisions of the 1992 Hague Joint Declaration.
"Tell them to quit calling us terrorists or we’ll blow stuff up!"
Both the United States and the European Union blacklisted the local communist groups on Manila’s recommendation after NPA rebels executed two lawmakers despite a the peace negotiations and an existing cease-fire agreement in 2001.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 3:34:57 PM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:


JI may hit Indonesia during national elections
Indonesia’s two most wanted terrorists may launch terror attacks to disrupt campaigning before national elections this year, the country’s police chief warned Wednesday. "There are two men who are dangerous, terror bombers (Azahari bin Husin and Noordin Mohammed Top)," Gen. Da’i Bachtiar said. "If they use their abilities to make bombs, they can disrupt political campaigns. We will keep tracking them down." Indonesia is set to hold parliamentary elections April 5 and its first-ever direct presidential election on July 5.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:45:43 AM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:


JI linked probed to Philippines bus boom
A former Philippine Muslim rebel reportedly linked to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) terror network has been arrested for the 2002 bombing of a bus that killed 17 people, officials said Friday. Kasim Usman, a former member of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was detained in the nearby town of Pikit Wednesday for the bus attack in nearby Kidapawan City that left 17 people dead and wounded 23 others. Local army commander Colonel Isagani Catchuela said Usman was identified by witnesses as the one who planted the bomb and that they were looking into his possible links with JI. "Since it was a terrorist act, we are looking into the possibility of his links to international terrorist groups like JI," Catchuela said. Usman was formerly a member of the MILF rebel group but later surrendered to the government and was working as a bus inspector at the time of the bombing, the colonel said.
Talk about putting the fox in charge of the henhouse...
Local radio reports said Usman was suspected of being a key aide to Indonesian Islamic militant Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, the JI bomb-maker who was slain in a shootout with security forces in Mindanao last October.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:16:03 AM || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
US to hit Syria with sanctions
Thats the nice thing about change. Once you start to change things its hard to know where to stop. But Syria looks like being next on the list for regime change. Its certainly the lowest hanging fruit.
The US plans to impose sanctions on Syria in accordance with the Syria Accountability Act, US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate panel on Thursday. During the hearing, Powell also placed the burden for moving peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians on the Palestinians.
Since the Paleos are doing nothing but seething and exploding over the existence of Israel, I'd say build a wall around them and leave them alone until they come to terms with it. Then you can talk.
Asked whether the US intends to begin implementation of the Syria Accountability Act sometime in the near future, Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "Yes. We’re examining now what sections of the act we want to use." That the administration has been reviewing which sanctions might be imposed within the next few months has been known in Washington. But it was the first time a senior US official stated publicly that sanctions would definitely be imposed. The president has the ability to waive sanctions if he deems it in US national security interests.
Pretty unlikely!
The act, signed in December by President George W. Bush, directs the president to ban US sales of weaponry and dual-use items – items that could be used for civilian or military purpose – unless Syria abandons its support for terrorism, removes its troops from Lebanon, stops the flow of terrorists into Iraq, and abandons its pursuit of nonconventional weapons. It also calls on the president to impose two or more sanctions from a list of six: an export ban; ban on US businesses operating in Syria; restrictions on Syrian diplomats in the US; exclusion of Syrian-owned aircraft from US airspace; a reduction of diplomatic contacts with Syria; or freezing of Syrian assets in the US.
Why stop at 2? I though we had got past that graduate and proportionate response nonsense.
Powell said during the hearing that Syria had not yet closed the offices of Palestinian terrorist groups or expelled Palestinian terrorist leaders from Damascus as the US has demanded. He also said he could not confirm or deny whether a Syrian plane had brought back weapons for Hizbullah from Iran after an earthquake-relief mission there. On the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Powell said that this week, through European intermediaries, he urged the Palestinian Authority leadership to "come forward with a security plan to start taking action against terrorists in a very significant and decisive way." He urged Israel not to enact a disengagement plan that would preclude long-term stability in the region.
There is an embedded premise here that there are Israeli actions that would create long term stability. Something I seriously doubt.
"The Israelis are now making some unilateral moves. We don’t want to see a solution that is so unilateral that it doesn’t really provide the kind of stability that we’re looking for. But the Palestinians must move, and we’ve made it clear to them," Powell said. In a radio interview Wednesday, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said "the majority of the blame has to be on the Palestinians who have not completely and totally eschewed terrorism as an instrument of policy."
They haven’t ’eschewed’ terrorism at all. Never mind ’completely and totally’.
In his testimony, Powell also said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is inspiring anti-American sentiment in the Middle East and affecting US reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
I wonder how much truth there is to this meme. My guess is not a lot.
"We fully understand that this conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis is the source of a great deal of the anti-American feelings that exist in that part of the world, and does affect what we’re doing in Iraq, and that part of the world," he said.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/13/2004 12:35:56 AM || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The president has the ability to waive sanctions if he deems it in US national security interests
As if! The President has the ability to scare up some more saber rattling to scare the sheeple is more accurate!
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/13/2004 1:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Right, now that US gas made a dog's breakfast out of Iraq, it moves on to Syria to do the same ,bloody brilliant,not! Trust the US Govt to try and ruin another country, whose next after Syria
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/13/2004 4:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Probably Iran.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 5:06 Comments || Top||

#4  Then the Norks!

Then Sudan!

So many vicious murdering dictatorships! So little time!
Posted by: phil_b || 02/13/2004 5:44 Comments || Top||

#5  If what we did in Afghanistan and Iraq was "ruining", then several other coutries in the greater ME region need the same.
Posted by: Craig || 02/13/2004 5:49 Comments || Top||

#6  Then the Norks! Then Sudan! So many vicious murdering dictatorships! So little time!
Too right, phil! (And too funny after those trolls' comments!)
Great post.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/13/2004 6:16 Comments || Top||

#7  Oh my GOD, *sob* , we've RUINED AFGHANISTAN! *sniff* and after the Taliban put in all that good work to spruce the place up so nice, *sob* , and now we have taken all the fun out of those precious little mass graves *sniff* *sniff* , ooooooh, what WILL the world think of us now, *sob* . Tito, get me a tissue.
Posted by: Henry E. Pankey || 02/13/2004 8:12 Comments || Top||

#8  Your right antiwar, Aghan/Iraq were just fine, great places to live. You've been there right? So you know how wonderful they were, and how efficient, democratic, peaceable and enlightened their gov'ts were right? A threat to no one at all I agree, we should've even got rid of the no-fly zones, even though Hussein shot more then 200 anti-air missiles in 12 years at our planes. I know this first hand from friends who patrolled the damn thing.

I especially liked the soccer field in Kabul much better when the Talibano's were in business. Such pleasant upstanding folks, taking care of the populace, especially the women. We really fucked that place up, I'm so ashamed.

-"whose next after Syria"

hopefully Iran, NKor, Yemen, unfinished business in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, & asshole Mugabe. As one of my personal heros would say, "your all next".
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 8:46 Comments || Top||

#9 
I can't believe that these fools actually believe that the most blood thirsty Dictatorships in the last sixty years have a right to exist.
What in hell is wrong with you fools?
I am stun at your open support people who slughter thousands at the drop of Quran.
How about that short meglomanic with the bad hair(Not Sharpton)thats uses whole faimilys for bio/chem warfare experiments.
You guys are worst than evil bastards themselves!
[end Rant]
(crap,dubf$%%ks)
Posted by: Raptor || 02/13/2004 9:24 Comments || Top||

#10  ...and in related news, deers agree that "halogen bulbs is better bulbs, 'cause they's brighter"...
Posted by: Hyper || 02/13/2004 10:26 Comments || Top||

#11  Raptor, short memory, I would rate Pol Pot and Stalin a bit above SH

Jarhead with regards to women's rights, it should be pointed out that they always have been screwed in Afghanistan. Things were slightly better under the communists (weird huh?) but that was in the large cities. In the countryside, things are just the same and they will be. So before preaching on just how wonderful woman's rights are there, get your facts right.

Jarhead, correct me if I'm wrong but the n-fly-zone was imposed by the US, Britain and France after the first war. It has never been endorsed by the UN. The aim was to protect Shia Muslims in the south and Kurds in the north. As you probably are aware, this did help the Kurds considerably but unfortunately the Shias were nevertheless slaughtered, as such it failed miserably in its goal. Now, technically speaking, since there was no UN approval (US claims that there was under resolution 688), it can be deemed that in fact it was a violation of a country's air space and as such it had the right to fire as many missiles as it liked. While the original intention for the no-fly-zone was indeed humanitarian, it was only after pictures of the Kurds and stories of the Shia uprising were reported in the media that the US, Britain and France were forced to act (as I recall France withdrew in 1998).
Posted by: Igs || 02/13/2004 10:33 Comments || Top||

#12  Antiwar - explain how iraq is a "dogs breakfest" - whatever that means.

You and your type can accept nothing less than a diminished US. Iraq today is better off, yes there are some problems with Iraq's fucking jihadi arab brethren who kill and maime them. At least the Iraqis can protect themselves, which they could not do under saddam.

You have no idea what's going on.
Posted by: Dan || 02/13/2004 11:17 Comments || Top||

#13  good to see anti war making a fool of himself again, i just can't work out why he hasn't decided to emigrate to North Korea yet, he'd fuckin love it there just like he would if he visited 95% of Arab countries. What a Sucker!
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/13/2004 11:43 Comments || Top||

#14 
"What in hell is wrong with you fools?"

Theory: parents used cattle prods during potty-training.
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/13/2004 11:44 Comments || Top||

#15  Jon, Auntie-War is clearly a girl. And a Brit I'm soorry to say.
Posted by: Henry E. Pankey || 02/13/2004 12:10 Comments || Top||

#16  Igs, was the burka the norm before Taliban? Or just taken to new extremes. Friends of mine who visited Kabul in early 70's talked of a pretty much cosmopolitan city for that time w/out the burka and other hostility. I was being tongue in cheek about women's rights being great during taliban, maybe they are still not on par w/what we would like now, but you mean to tell me they're worse off then before? Re-read my post, you may just get my sarcasm.

AFAIK, nf zone was signed off on, resolutions 678,687,688,947. France fell away from NFZ in 98.
Many have criticised nfz's i.e. your war protestors, malaysia, bbc, and that ilk, if you like that angle then that's your opinion.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 12:12 Comments || Top||

#17  Don't get all relativistic on me,IGS.I don't care if a mass murderer kills 10 people or 10,000.
A mass murder,Dictatorship,that slaughters people has given-up it's"Right to Life".
Posted by: Raptor || 02/13/2004 12:29 Comments || Top||

#18  Henry, your right about gender, wrong about nationality.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/13/2004 12:37 Comments || Top||

#19  Aww, poor NMM and Antiwar! No hunnybunnies to snuggle up to tomorrow? Is that grievious situation outweighing the suffering of human beings oppressed and killed by the dictators, tyrants, and strongmen you're defending?

Go away, you people of small minds and even smaller characters.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/13/2004 12:47 Comments || Top||

#20  Hank, I believe antiwar is an Aussie.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 12:58 Comments || Top||

#21  Jarhead your right about nationality. Ptah you are a wanker.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/13/2004 13:14 Comments || Top||

#22  Ptah, Tomorrow is a busy day for them: Remember V-Day is the time to warm up the old Vagina!

Igs, France has/had an Air Force??? Shocking!
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/13/2004 13:14 Comments || Top||

#23  I'm all for "ruining" more countries. Syria and Iran sound like real good candidates.

Jarhead your right about nationality.

One small stain on a largely great bunch of people down there. A shame.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/13/2004 13:24 Comments || Top||

#24  Antiwar, that previous info being confirmed. Is your age bracket: 18-22, 22-30, 30-40, or 40+? If I had to guess I'd say you're probably under 24. Are you of middle eastern descent or just opposed to the war, Bush, etc. on left wing principals? Just wondering.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 13:34 Comments || Top||

#25  i think she must be your typical lefty antiwar hippie that comes from a decent background and dosn't realise quite how lucky she is to live in Oz, love to see you move to a Arab dictatorship or North Korea and see how much you love it, when will your type realise that the countries you so long to defend are the countries that are nothing but crap spewing, dictatorship ruled hell holes! I wish the world could be all nice and peacefull with with no war and lots of flowers and the birds tweeting all around but it ain;t gonna happen if we don't clean the planet up and rid these countries of thier filthy self indulgent leaders and make it alot better for everyone!
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/13/2004 14:04 Comments || Top||

#26  Antiwar is a female.

Nope, the needle on my surprisemeter did'nt even move a nanometer.

Why do you feel the need to be so foulmouthed Auntiwar? frustration? lack of self-image? PMS? ( i still think that osamanaut would have made a better nick )
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/13/2004 14:21 Comments || Top||

#27  Jarhead age bracket 30 - 40. Of irish descent actually born in Ireland. Not left wing just opposed to war.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/13/2004 20:59 Comments || Top||

#28  Not left wing just opposed to war.

Also opposed to logic as is evident.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 21:18 Comments || Top||

#29  Rafael , ?????????????!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/13/2004 21:31 Comments || Top||

#30  Antiwar, interesting, our backgrounds are similar - I'm third generation Irish from Derry, same age bracket as well. I'm not left wing or opposed to war though.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 23:44 Comments || Top||

#31  Jarhead, as I did indicate, things were relatively free for women in th major cities (under the communists). You just confirmed my point.

With regards to UN resolutions, I just re-read them and fail to see any mention of no-fly zones. I would appreciate if you could point exactly where it is mentioned.

Raptor, I'm concerned that you fail to see the difference between killing 10 and 10,000 people. But since you are feeling this way, what are your plans for Uzbekistan...oooops...sorry, their allies, silly me.
Posted by: Igs || 02/14/2004 0:21 Comments || Top||

#32  "things were relatively free for women in th major cities (under the communists). You just confirmed my point."

-early 70's prior to soviet invasion, read my post again. Though I don't doubt the soviets kept things the same or even improved them for women. Plus, just had friends return from there who have said the same that I did. Unless your a recently returned Marine or mil guy from Aghanistan, I'll take their word over yours.

-You just re-read all 4 resolutions?
probably in 687 where it says that the security council decides to remain seized of the matter and to take such further steps as may be required for the implementation of the present resolution and to secure peace and security in the area. -you'll probably say you want specifics as to which parallel they can fly up to blah, blah, the US took it as an implied task & the UN afaik never aggressively tried to stop it, so there you go.
The Uzbek comment is off the mark btw, with that reasoning we would never take on anybody because someone is just as bad or worse, good moral relativism. We can only take'm one at a time.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/14/2004 5:27 Comments || Top||

#33  The Uzbek comment was directed at Raptor and it wasn't off the mark. He indicated that he doesn't care whether a dictator kills 10 or 10,000. I was pointing out the irony since Uzbekistan is considered an ally in WOT.

Yes, I did read all 4 resolutions and I must disagree. However, assuming that the resolution did allow for the no fly zone to 'to secure peace and security in the area' then it was a failure as the Shia massacres occured at that precise time.
Posted by: Igs || 02/14/2004 8:50 Comments || Top||

#34  True, Shia massacre was a failure. We should've imho intervened w/what air power we had at the time. Though air power alone would've not been enough, boots on the ground would've needed as well to do it right. Again, Uzbek is not only allie we have w/unsavory internal human rights problems. Some look a Turkey's dealings w/Kurds in similar light, again, one at a time.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/14/2004 16:26 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Navy Given Right to Search Liberian Ships
U.S. Navy forces may board thousands of commercial ships in international waters to search for weapons of mass destruction under a landmark deal signed this week between the United States and Liberia, the world’s No. 2 shipping registry.
Gee, you don’t suppose this has anything to do with our little visit to Liberia last year, do you?
The accord comes amid persistent fears that terror networks would use ships for attacks, and effectively hands oversight of vessels under the Liberian flag to the U.S. military, industry analysts say.
Bwahahaha!
"The boarding agreement provides authority on a bilateral basis to board sea vessels suspected of carrying illicit shipments of weapons of mass destruction, their delivery systems or related materials," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington. Boucher said the deal, signed Wednesday, is modeled on similar accords in counter-narcotics work.
Now no one can say we are violating international law when we board Liberian ships on the high seas.
Liberia, which is emerging from nearly 15 years of civil war, has hosted a U.S.-based shipping registry since 1949. It now ranks second to Panama in total shipping tonnage in U.S. ports, under so-called "flags of convenience." Liberia says more than 2,000 vessels worldwide are registered under its flag. One-third of imported oil arrives on Liberian-flagged tankers.
Now we can search them far away from our ports before they deliver any surprises, excellent!
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 11:20:57 AM || Comments || Link || [336076 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The "big three" cruise lines (Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Princess) also register most ships under Liberian or Panamanian flags.

"Excuse me, Miss, but I'll need to search your bikini for WMD."
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 11:27 Comments || Top||

#2  "authority on a bilateral basis" Does this mean the Liberian Navy will be searching U.S. ships as well?
Posted by: Grunter || 02/13/2004 12:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Gyude Bryant, the chairman of Liberia's National Transitional Government, described his recent trip to the United States as "highly successful" and expressed hope that U.S.-Liberian relations will soon "enter a new and more dynamic stage."
After emerging from his February 10 talks with President Bush at the White House, Bryant told waiting reporters that he thanked Bush for helping Liberia "strengthen our fragile peace. ... We are very grateful..." Bryant also said he pledged to President Bush that U.S. resources would be spent wisely to build a new and peaceful Liberia that would be at peace with herself and her neighbors and would be a point of stability for all of West Africa.


Well, well, well. I guess we know one thing that was discussed, don't we.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 12:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Expect a mass exodus of ships and shipowners from the Liberian flag to the Panamanian Bolivian Czech Samoan Esquimauxan flag.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/13/2004 12:40 Comments || Top||

#5  Arrrrr! Heave to, ye Liberian lubbers!
Posted by: mojo || 02/13/2004 14:09 Comments || Top||

#6  Wonder if we'll see Malaysia and Indonesia set up 'flags of convenience'?
Posted by: Pappy || 02/13/2004 14:49 Comments || Top||

#7  Coasties gonna be busy.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/13/2004 16:20 Comments || Top||

#8  I doubt seriously that many ships will change registration, and I would be suspicious of those that do. Many ship-owners will welcome this, rather than feel threatened by it. They have as much (and perhaps more) to lose if one of their vessels is involved in anything resembling the use of WMDs.

The ships that we all need to be worried about are the ones with fake registration. The number of those isn't small, and is probably growing. THERE are where the problems originate.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 16:22 Comments || Top||

#9  I don't like to quibble but I believe the US Navy has the right to search any and all ships any time and place of their choosing. We inheirited this right from the the United Kingdom and it is enforceable under the Law of the Sea. It is technically known as Rule Britannia.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 16:27 Comments || Top||


Al-Qaeda’s new leaders behind recent attacks
Even as Osama bin Laden remains at large, Al Qaeda may be anointing new, younger leaders to carry on his cause. Some experts go so far as to call this coterie terrorism’s next generation. These men may be behind a recent wave of attacks in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. Abu Musab Zarqawi, the main suspect in this week’s bombings in Baghdad, is but 37 years old. Most of this generation looked to Mr. bin Laden for inspiration, not direction. Most trained in Al Qaeda’s Afghanistan camps. Most are so devout they have memorized the Koran. They are better educated than their predecessors - and, as independent operators, they may be more difficult to control.

This new generation has emerged, government officials and outside terror experts say, as a result of both the success in prosecuting the war on terror and because of Mr. bin Laden’s planning for the future. Some two-thirds of the original Al Qaeda leadership has been captured or killed since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US. And there’s no doubt, these sources say, that bin Laden and the remaining members of his top echelon are hiding and unable to easily communicate with their followers. But, they add, bin Laden knew this might happen. "What you are looking at is a second or third generation, but it’s a successor generation," says a senior intelligence official. "In an insurgency, which I think this is, you always have succession planning in order to survive. You always expect to lose leaders because you are fighting a more powerful opponent."

Among the new leaders, all a generation younger than bin Laden:
• The Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi is suspected of orchestrating this week’s suicide bombing attacks in Baghdad, in which some 100 Iraqis were killed. Mr. Zarqawi allegedly traveled to Afghanistan in the late 1980s, when he was 20 years old. He returned to Jordan in 1992, where he reportedly plotted to overthrow the monarchy. He was jailed for several years and apparently memorized the Koran while in prison - something many of these leaders have done.

• Saudi-born Abu Walid is believed to have taken the lead role in Chechnya’s rebel movement, according to US and Russian intelligence sources. They think he is behind the suicide bomb attack in a Moscow subway last week that killed some 40 people. He also trained in Afghanistan, specializing in explosives.

• Saudi Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin is the suspected mastermind of the May and November suicide bomb attacks in Saudi Arabia, in which 53 people died, including nine Americans. Abdul Aziz al-Muqrin fits the same basic mold. He’s in his 30s, and he also traveled to Afghanistan when he was 17 for training and later joined the war in Bosnia. He, too, spent time in a Saudi prison, where he learned the Koran by heart.
THE new fighters are probably not as dynamic and swashbuckling as their former counterparts, jihadists who came of age during the early 1980s fighting the Soviets alongside bin Laden in Afghanistan. These recent attacks, for example, are much less spectacular than the 9/11 strikes. The younger acolytes, though, are believed to be at least as religiously zealous, better educated, more computer savvy, and better organization builders. "It shows Al Qaeda’s enduring attraction, at least to the constituency it’s directing its message toward," says Bruce Hoffman, a terror expert at the RAND Corp. in Washington. "Even despite the loss of Afghanistan, the call of jihad remains a compelling voice to this new generation of recruits populating the ranks."

All these fronts - Iraq and Chechnya, particularly, but also Saudi Arabia - are part of Al Qaeda’s original strategy, these officials and experts say. The attacks are not spectacular, as the 9/11 attacks were, but nonetheless are designed to wear down the resolve of the West. Moreover, they show how Al Qaeda has evolved over the past decade, becoming much less of a command-and-control operation and more ideologically driven. "For the first time we’re seeing the crystallization of the network in Iraq," says Mr. Hoffman. "What you see in Iraq is much more disparate.... They will form alliances with whoever is adopting their cause - even secular alliances with Baathist forces - and they will split apart afterward." The intelligence official concurs: "[bin Laden] wants to kill Americans and people who support Americans. They are putting a lot of effort into that."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:06:29 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Al Qaeda may be anointing new, younger leaders to carry on his cause

So are they baby-boomers?
Posted by: phil_b || 02/13/2004 1:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Not to mention that this war-mongering Administration has probably increased the number of Al Qaeda recruits by 400%
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/13/2004 1:38 Comments || Top||

#3  So then, shall we capitulate, NotMike? Oh my, 400% more AQ! Run away! Run away!
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 1:44 Comments || Top||

#4  NMM would you care to enlighten us on the methodology used to reach the 400% figure?
Posted by: phil_b || 02/13/2004 2:28 Comments || Top||

#5  NMM

And that is bad how?
Looks like the perfect chance to kick quite a lot of jihadi-DNA out of the gene-pool.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/13/2004 3:03 Comments || Top||

#6  They would hate us anyway and what's not to say recruitment would not go up either way. When dealing w/a culture of their mentality you fight them w/that mentality, that's all they know or respect. They do not aspire to western ideals of freedom, individual rights, or enlightenment. They mistake kindness for weakness. Let them increase 10 fold for all I care, and let's keep destroying them. Too many touchy feely pussies trying to put a band aid on this when the problem rates a hand-grenade enema.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 8:24 Comments || Top||

#7  Second generation is always dumber and sloppier and fails to inspire a third generation. First you get Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, then you get posers like Poison and Whitesnake. Third time you get 'piss-off, blokes' and something new like Sex Pistols.
Posted by: Henry E. Pankey || 02/13/2004 8:25 Comments || Top||

#8 
What you see in Iraq is much more disparate.... They will form alliances with whoever is adopting their cause - even secular alliances with Baathist forces - and they will split apart afterward.

They'll have a huge problem with infiltrators, turncoats and heretics.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 8:28 Comments || Top||

#9  Henry, nice Zeppelin/Sabbath tie-in. Though a cock-rocker like myself would say that Beatles/Stones as first gen just prior to Zep (w/overlap of course) and Van Halen (w/DLR not Hagar) was good third gen. Poison/WSnake - actually decent musicians caught in a bad fashion era easily mocked by today's trendies who prolly had their albums as 10 yr old kids but deny it today. I.E. - how did they sell & all the other hair bands sell millions of albums and yet no one admits to having one?
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 8:59 Comments || Top||

#10  Better to kick the base boards and see if the roaches scurry,and easier to kill,NMM.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/13/2004 9:51 Comments || Top||

#11  Q: Why do Jihadis hate us?
A: Because we are not them.
Posted by: eLarson || 02/13/2004 11:07 Comments || Top||

#12  #7 & #9 didn't understand a word either of you wrote, but I like #7's handle: Henry E. Panky. Rock I don't dig, but hanky-panky I do understand. LOL
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 11:26 Comments || Top||

#13  Not to mention that this war-mongering Administration has probably increased the number of Al Qaeda recruits by 400%

Not a problem. It simply means that 400% more jihadis can be dispatched. My choice for taking the added riffraff out would be a "Spooky" experience.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/13/2004 13:35 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Purity Day mañana
Hat tip Drudge Report
Melissa Millis feels bombarded by everyday messages of sexual promiscuity, whether it’s Janet Jackson’s bare udder titty breast during the Super Bowl or her classmates’ casual sex talk. So Millis, a high school senior in Michigan, and thousands of other students across the nation plan to wear white T-shirts to school Friday, the day before Valentine’s Day, to publicly show their commitment to not having sex outside marriage. They’re calling their effort the "Day of Purity," and they will distribute pro-abstinence pamphlets to their peers. "The way sex is talked about, it’s so casual, like it’s an everyday thing, like going to McDonald’s," said Millis, 17.
"No Big Mac for you!"
The grass-roots effort is supported by Christian groups nationwide and organized by Liberty Counsel, a conservative religious rights group based in Orlando. It comes as President Bush is pushing in his budget proposal to double federal funding for sexual abstinence programs.
Because they work.
But the Day of Purity is being watched with a wary eye by groups that promote sexual tolerance, such as the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and the Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. The Day of Purity Web site accuses those groups of "a concerted effort in the schools and media to turn our youth away from traditional values."
I'm really stuck here. I admit to having a fondness for depravity and occasional debauchery, and have even been closely acquainted with a few 15-year-old Thai hookers. I've never been known to avert my eyes from the sight of a scantily-clad maiden. On the other hand, I'm trying to figure why the Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays seem to have gotten together to encourage their children to diddle each other.
"The word ’purity’ in this context is morally self-righteous," said Alice Leeds, a spokeswoman for Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. "It’s redefining it in their context to conform to their frankly bigoted agenda."
Ahah! Maybe that's it! I'm simultaneously put off by the fact that Melissa sounds like a self-righteous little thing, while the Parents, Families, Friends, Lovers, Agents and Managers of Lesbians and Gays sound like they're requiring her to join their own orgy, under penalty of vilification...
Eliza Byard, deputy executive director for the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, said in an e-mail that her group applauded any effort to promote healthy sexual choices by young people.
So you've got nothing against it, huh?
"Unfortunately, this program seems to have a limited idea of what that means and doesn’t appear designed to provide the kind of information students really need," she said.
Then her lips fell off.
I wonder what part about "no" she had trouble with?
Day of Purity touches on a controversial social issue — how to teach sex education in schools, said Bill Barker, a spokesman for Advocates for Youth, a Washington-based group that helps youth make responsible decisions about sex. "You’re walking into one of the fiercest debates out there," Barker said.
Which kinda reinforces my feeling that schools should be reserved for math, science, lit'rature, and that sort of thing, with the sex part left for street corners, where it belongs...
Participants said having the Day of Purity right before Valentine’s Day is especially appropriate since teenagers often feel pressure to have sex with their girlfriends or boyfriends on the holiday.
"Awwww, c'mon, baby! They're Godiva choc'lates!"
"Well, okay, Brad. Go ahead. Make me pregnant. But just this once..."
"A lot of girls feel that in order to keep their relationship, they have to have sex," said Kelly Cruse, 16, who plans to pass out sexual abstinence literature at her high school in Illinois. "I think this need for acceptance is very destructive to a girl."
And a lot of Parents, Friends, etc. of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, etc. seem to have the opinion that if you don't there's something wrong with you. Now, to me, despite some mighty fond memories from the heady days of my youth, it seems that the very idea of sexual freedumb should also include the right not to indulge. Whether as a matter or mood or principle is irrelevant. Once something becomes mandatory all the fun goes out of it.
Posted by: Korora || 02/13/2004 3:06:01 PM || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "A lot of girls feel that in order to keep their relationship, they have to have sex,"

Jeebus, and here I thought not pressuring was the best way to go...

I resent the GLBT's efforts to force anyone not enthused by their proselytising to wear the bigot sign. I know and like several gays, each of whom is discrete and not in-my-face about their lifestyle, and that's OK with me. I resent being branded when I say that I'd prefer that my kids marry straight, make me a grandaddy, and conform to, oh....3000 yrs of societal rules? However, hot girl-on-girl porn is OK with me
Posted by: Frank G || 02/13/2004 19:04 Comments || Top||

#2  Ok, let's be honest here: the idea of sexual restraint makes the folks at these Gay, Lesbian, and So Forth groups extremely uncomfortable. After all, their entire world view centers around not denying oneself those pleasures which are traditionally viewed as sinful, antisocial, and unnatural. Promoting the idea that homosexual or merely promiscuous behavior is perfectly normal as well as ethically acceptable is pretty much the bulk of their agenda. Any group or person who's beliefs or behavior even implies indirectly that their agenda might be.... uh, well, even an agenda is going to get attacked, let alone this chick who is actually implying that such behavior is unacceptable. Also, the purpose of these organizations is basically to recruit new members by getting their message out to kids while they are adolescent, vulnerable identity-questioning phases. Which is kind of yucky, actually.

That said, I don't have some major axe to grind with gays and lesbians. I live in San Francisco and I can tell you for a fact that gays for the most part don't make bad neighbors or fellow citizens. Nor do I want to see gay youths getting beaten up in high schools or anything: if your organization is trying to stop than, than bully for you. Only I have my doubts about the motives of these groups. After all, if you belong to a minority group that cannot by definition biologically reproduce to replenish its ranks it HAS to recruit actively. If it doesn't, it goes the way of the Shakers. Does anybody remember them?
Posted by: Secret Master || 02/13/2004 19:31 Comments || Top||

#3  Frank, agreed on all points. I have an uncle who is gay. Doesn't phase me, what he does in his house is his business. I just don't want them serving openly in the military nor do I want to hear their rhetoric that they're somehow worthy of special rights since they're outside the mainstream. I also believe marriage is man & woman not same-sex. If they want a civil union for fiscal purposes, fine by me, so long as they don't try to call it marriage. I also don't think they should make every state that doesn't agree w/same sex couples have to honor another state's civil union.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 19:32 Comments || Top||


The real score about Valentine’s Day
Found this yesterday. Off-topic but seasonal. Feel free to remove if needed Fred. EFL.

“IF you must write about Valentine’s Day,” my wife Leonor admonished me the other day, “don’t be a spoilsport. By all means take a break from your grammar columns, but don’t try to take away the romance from Valentine’s.”
--snip--
“Not with this one, Leonor. I have a new thesis: that people should thank their lucky stars they can celebrate Valentine’s Day not so different from how the ancient Romans did it. As you know, those people started it all almost a thousand years before the Christian evangelists came to Europe. They had this much-awaited love festival on February 14, precisely the same day as today’s Valentine’s Day. It went by another name, of course. They called it the Lupercalia.”

“Umm...interesting,” Leonor said. “Tell me more about it.”

“The Lupercalia, in plain English, was the ‘Feast of the Wolf-God.’ It was an ancient fertility rite in honor of a god who protected sheep from the wolves. Its high point was a mating game, a lottery for young, unmarried men and women. The organizers would write the names of qualified, interested women on small pieces of parchment, then drop them into a big vase. Each qualified male drew one piece from the vase, and the woman whose name was on that piece became his date or ‘steady’ for one whole year.”

“That simple? Unacquainted couples were paired with no courtship, no legal and religious mumbo-jumbo?”

“Yes, Leonor, and they had a whole year to find out if they were temperamentally and sexually compatible. If they were, of course, they married and raised a family.”

“How wonderfully uncomplicated, but how unromantic! And my heart bleeds for the young couples that had an eye for each other beforehand. With, say, 1,000 women’s names in that lottery, the probability of a woman getting picked by a man she already liked would be next to zilch; so were the chances of a young man picking the woman he really liked. And the chances of a mutually attracted pair being mated? That’s 1/1,000 multiplied by 1/1,000 or one in a million, right?”

“Right, Leonor! A priori romances simply couldn’t bloom unless the partners decided to mutually violate the rules. But there was one good thing going for that lottery, I think: it leveled the playing field for love and procreation. It must have exquisitely churned and enriched the gene pool of the ancient Romans.”

“Maybe so, but don’t you think their ritual was so elemental, so...shall we say, ‘uncivilized’?”

“That’s saying it mildly, Leonor. It scandalized the early Christian missionaries. They found it decadent, immoral, and, of course, unchristian. So they tried to change it by frying it with its own fat, so to speak.”

“How?”

“Well, the clerics simply revoked the practice of writing the names of young, unmarried women on the pieces of parchment. They wrote on them the names of the Christian saints instead. And you know what they offered to the young, unmarried man who picked the name of a particular saint?”

“What?”

“The privilege of emulating the virtues of that saint for one whole year.”
That sounds fun.....
“What spoilsports, those clerics! Why would any sensible lover whether male or female want to play that sort of game? For Pete’s sake, that lottery was for love and romance and chance encounters, not for sainthood!”

“That’s right, so the Romans resisted the new mechanics and stuck to the old. It was two centuries before the evangelists again tried to stamp out the Lupercalia in a big way. In 490 A.D., Pope Gelasius canonized a Roman by the name of Valentine. He was, by tradition, a priest martyred 220 years before for violating a ban on performing marriages during wartime. Valentine was stoned to death on a February 14, Lupercalia Day, so his feast day was conveniently made to coincide with it. In a sense, the clerics finally succeeded in Christianizing the ancient rites, but only in name and only edgewise, in a manner of speaking. As history would prove, no power on earth could stamp out its earthly and earthy attractions.”

‘You’ve got a lovely story there,” Leonor said, “and you kept your promise of not being a spoilsport. So Happy Valentine’s Day, my love!”

“For you, Leonor, Happy Lupercle’s Day just this once, OK?”
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/13/2004 2:11:56 PM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thnx,CF,, such an enlighting article. For example;
Each qualified male drew one piece from the vase, and the woman whose name was on that piece.... So now we know where the term getting a piece comes from.
Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 14:40 Comments || Top||

#2 
Nice article, but Lupercalia was celebrated on February 15, not 14. And the ritual described in the article in no way resembles what really went on:

http://lonestar.texas.net/~robison/lupercalia.html

http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~snlrc/encyclopaedia_romana/calendar/lupercalia.html

http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/dunkle/romnlife/luprclia.htm
Posted by: growler || 02/13/2004 16:20 Comments || Top||


Africa: Subsaharan
Zambia satirist on fresh charge - Govt can’t take a joke
EFL
Roy Clarke was arrested on Thursday after he allegedly shoved police officers when he went to report the abduction of his daughter. Mr Clarke, is expected to appear in court on Monday. Last month the satirist compared President Levy Mwanawasa to a "foolish elephant" in a newspaper column. The news editor of the Post newspaper, Amos Malupenga told AFP news agency that Mr Clarke’s daughter was allegedly abducted in her car by three men dressed in police uniform. Mr Malupenga said the men drove around with her for several hours, before dumping her at the roadside and driving off with her car. Mr Clarke has lived in Zambia for more than 40 years and is married to a Zambian women’s rights activist. His article in the Post last month incensed the government, who ordered him to leave the country within 24 hours. He obtained a court order to block the deportation and is still awaiting a ruling by the Lusaka High Court.
No source on this...
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 1:17:34 PM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Please call BR549 for maw informatshun.
Posted by: Junior || 02/13/2004 13:54 Comments || Top||

#2  Sorry, Fred. The article is from this BBC Link.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 14:10 Comments || Top||


Organ traffickers say nuns are bad for business
Four Catholic nuns say they have received death threats after exposing an organ trafficking network allegedly operating in northern Mozambique. The traffickers are said to target the sex organs of children, which are sold to make magic charms.
As Sam Kinnison used to point out, some guys don’t want to wait in line when they go to hell. These guys deserve the Express Lane treatment.
The nuns from the Sisters Servants of Mary Immaculate order say they have gathered evidence of the trade. They say they have spoken to victims who managed to escape and photos of dead children with missing organs. Ritual murders have been reported in many African countries, as some witchdoctors say using human organs in magic charms makes them more powerful. These are believed by some to bring financial or sexual success to those who use them. "We have received some very clear threats," order spokeswoman Sister Juliana told Portuguese radio. "Several countries are involved in this iniquitous game and the victims are the poor, those who have no voice or defence, or the strength to defend themselves, we are convinced that Nampula is part of an international ring," said Sister Juliana. She said there have been several attempts to abduct children from the orphanage they run in Nampula. Mozambican, South African, Brazilian and Portuguese nationals were involved in the ring, she said. The BBC’s Jose Tembe in Mozambique says the government had sent a team of investigators to the area to probe claims of the existence of the network. The organs are reportedly smuggled into neighbouring Zimbabwe
- anyone surprised?
and South Africa. The Spanish Embassy in Mozambique is also investigating the claims after receiving reports from the nuns, who have lived in the area for 30 years.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 1:02:42 PM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  At least 10 different comments, mostly snarky, came to mind, but this is just so incredibly disgusting and beyond the pale that I can't do it. I swear, Kin Du Toit's take on Africa, though depressing as hell, is spot-on. Every bend in every river...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 13:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Unfortunately, this isn't new. It's been going on for at least twenty years, and involves several dozen groups. There are organ-doner abductions in India, Bangladesh, all of Southeast Asia, Latin America, and even some unconfirmed cases in the United States. There have been rumors for years that Chinese prisons were a ready source of non-donated organs used in transplants.

There are too many people who have far more money than they have scruples. If they need a transplant, they don't care where the organ comes from, as long as it works. There are other unscrupulous people who are willing to harvest those organs, and have no thought for where - or whom - they come from. It'll get a lot worse before there's enough attention brought to bear to overcome the bribes that keep police looking the other way.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 16:09 Comments || Top||


Uganda is a terrible place to live - but the beer is good.
EFL
Just about every month, there are horror stories in the African press about locally-produced alcohol which has poisoned some unfortunate drinkers. There’s a public outcry about the health risks of home-brew, and governments are called to ban the offending substances.
Hey, this is serious.
The problem is that home-brewed alcohol is so widespread that it would be virtually impossible to stamp it out.
Phew, I was worried.
A new global study has shown that it outsells commercially produced alcohol by as much as four times in some countries. And surprisingly, its quality is generally much better than expected. Marcus Grant from the International Centre for Alcohol Policies in Washington took part in the research.
I wish I would have thought of founding that think tank.
"There certainly are examples of very dangerous home brews out there. For instance, in Swaziland I sampled a brew that had fertilizer and human faeces added to it," he told the BBC’s World Business Report.
I guess it was a dark beer.
"But we found that these (brews) exist as the exception - either you have a bad batch, or you have unscrupulous producers. I wouldn’t want to in any way diminish the public health importance of that, but there is a perception that that’s what it’s all like, and it clearly isn’t." One company which has seen the commercial benefits of tapping into the market for home brews is SABMiller. Its operation in Uganda has produced a cross between sorghum beer, made from a locally-produced cereal, and conventional lager. It’s being marketed as Eagle Lager.
Is beer with no fecal material considered Lite?
Ian Mackintosh, technical director at Uganda’s Nile Breweries, explains how his product differs from the traditional brew. "The traditional African sorghum beer is generally opaque. It’s a fairly thick, chewy product, like a thin porridge," he says. "Our sorghum beer which we have developed - Eagle Lager - looks exactly like any standard lager from Europe or America. It’s golden in colour, completely crystal clear - profoundly different from the traditional sorghum brew." Economic difficulties in Uganda have caused a sharp drop in disposable income, and the idea behind Eagle Lager was the need to produce a low-cost beer. Eagle Lager currently sells at a 30% discount to mainstream lagers, largely because it is eligible for a reduced rate of excise tax.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 12:39:00 PM || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How can it be a terrible place to live if the beer is good?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 13:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Ship - Germany has the best beer in the world, but TGA can give you chapter and verse about the problems there. Beer-making and politics do not proceed from the same mental mix, and the two together usually lead to trouble.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 15:52 Comments || Top||

#3  LOL OP... Maybe not politics, but I've found that a country that makes a good beer is usually industrious, if they drink wine they can usually make pretty things, if they favor distilled products they're usually insane. In order the UK, Italy, Russia.

Japan makes excellent beer.... OTOH so does Mexico... never mind.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 16:12 Comments || Top||

#4  in Swaziland I sampled a brew that had fertilizer and human faeces added to it

Instead of a head, it comes with a floater.
Posted by: ed || 02/13/2004 17:00 Comments || Top||

#5  oh crap, thanks Ed
Posted by: Frank G || 02/13/2004 19:33 Comments || Top||


Ugandan villians foiled by meddling kins army vexed by Priest
Father Carlos Rodriguez, from Spain, had accused the army of starting a fire at a camp for displaced people and then shooting at people as they escaped. The army was unhappy with this and a security committee meeting in Gulu recommended the priest leave the area. An army spokesman said the priest should leave "for his own safety".
What does that mean?
The LRA has been fighting a brutal war against the government of President Yoweri Museveni since 1987. The BBC’s Will Ross says it will now be up to the national security committee whether or not the Spanish cleric can remain in the north of Uganda. "He is always misrepresenting what is happening on the ground," army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza told the BBC Network Africa programme. He denied the attempt to get him to leave the area was a bid to silence army critics. "He is not the only person in this country that has criticised some aspects of our failings," he said.

Father Rodriguez has been working with northern religious leaders trying to broker peace between the army and the LRA. The world court is investigating the LRA’s alleged atrocities The priest says he is playing a positive role in persuading rebels to give up the rebellion, but he has had public disagreements in the past. When priests held a meeting with rebels in the bush in 2002, the army attacked - and accused the priests of being rebel collaborators. Father Carlos and his colleagues survived but sustained injuries. He once stated "Nobody is winning this war -we are all losers." He has also criticized the operation of the Ugandan army saying: "So many innocent people have perished and have been gleefully counted as rebels killed." President Yoweri Museveni responded saying: "Father Carlos’s arguments like most arguments of pacifists are misleading and erroneous."
In this case, I tend to beleive the pacifist priest. I am biased, though, as I recognize the monk standing next to Father Carlos in the BBC article. He was been in Uganda since the Idi Amin years, returing to the states once every year or too to solicit parishes for humanitarian donations. He expressed his preference for the company of African Catholics, who have more convictions with respect to religion - and don’t leave church directly after communion. The brother caught me red-faced on that one. He related that he actually has to return CONUS periodically because his is partial to Frosted Flakes.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 12:25:12 PM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The BBC also had a good article on the origins of the LRA. I would post it but it may be common knowledge on Rantburg - it was news to me.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/13/2004 12:29 Comments || Top||

#2  What does that mean?
It means the good Father is scheduled for a close encounter of the 7.62 kind.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 13:10 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
UN Official: Early Iraq Elections Unlikely
EFL. HT Drudge.
Focus seems to be on scuttling the US caucus plan. Goodbye any new constitution. Hello Sharia.
A U.N. official said Friday it was unlikely elections could be held before a U.S.-set June 30 deadline for handing power to the Iraqis, and several Iraqi leaders said there was growing support for scrapping the U.S. blueprint for establishing a new government. U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, meanwhile, warned Iraqis to be aware of the risks of civil war as they try to find an acceptable formula for sovereignty.[....]

Some members of the U.S.-picked Governing Council were pushing an alternative to the U.S. plan that would call for transferring sovereignty to an expanded council on June 30. The council would then arrange elections before the end of the year.

Doubts about the complex U.S. plan were expressed Friday to Brahimi during a meeting with the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council. Brahimi arrived Sunday to try to break an impasse between the Shiite Muslim clergy and the U.S.-led occupation authority on how to establish a new Iraqi government.

Under the American formula, 18 regional caucuses would pick a new legislature, which in turn would choose a provisional government to take power June 30 and serve until elections in 2005.

The U.S. plan, announced Nov. 15, lost ground when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani demanded legislative elections before June 30. Al-Sistani called the caucuses method "illegitimate."
[....]
Opposition to the U.S. plan among the Governing Council is significant because it was a signatory of the Nov. 15 agreement, along with the U.S.-led occupation authority.

Brahimi told reporters Friday that he would return to New York and submit his recommendations to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a week to 10 days. Asked if the caucus plan was dead, Brahimi said that decision was not his to make but "I think the people who put it together realize that, at the very least, it needs to be improved considerably."
This should be interesting- - the UN making a decision to help.
More at link

Posted by: GK || 02/13/2004 11:52:21 AM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  bet this comes from kofi's orders,that barstad would do anything to slow progress and fuck it all up.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/13/2004 12:30 Comments || Top||

#2  No no, folks, this is good. We wanted to persuade Sistani that early elections were a bad idea but he didn't buy it. So now the UN says the same thing. Sistani's going to listen to them (since they're [cough] neutral) and back down gracefully. The caucus plan and new constitution go forward with elections in a couple of years.

Caucus is easier for us to, ahem, influence, and that guarantees no Sharia in Iraq.

Nope, Kofi got the message from us and is actually helping for a change. In return the UN gets to look relevant.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/13/2004 12:54 Comments || Top||

#3  This should be interesting- - the UN making a decision to help.

The last thing Iraq needs is UN "help".
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/13/2004 13:06 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Hamas to "Reluctantly resort to violence"
ScrappleFace.
(2004-02-12) -- Following Israeli attacks in the Gaza strip yesterday, the leader of Hamas, the Palestinian social services agency, said Israel’s action "has finally forced us to reluctantly resort to violence."

"Apparently, our years of sincere negotiations have failed to win over the Israelis," said Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, "As abhorrent as violence is to us, we are left with no other option but self-defense. It may take us a while to muster the weapons and soldiers, but we will eventually retaliate."
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/13/2004 10:03:51 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Reluctiantly?????
Posted by: Raptor || 02/13/2004 12:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Call saddam, he's got, oops. Or call Kadafi, he's, well maybe not now. Ok a quick call to?

And sleep well while you muster your arms and do your social work.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/13/2004 12:57 Comments || Top||

#3  So I take this to mean that Hamas is going out of the Greeting Card business?
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/13/2004 14:44 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Aide: Hussein was high when he invaded Kuwait
Hat tip: Drudge. Edited for brevity.
A former senior aide of Saddam Hussein claims the dictator was probably high on drugs when he decided to invade Kuwait in 1990. Issam Rashid Walid, Iraq’s ex-Chief of Protocol, says Saddam frequently used drugs such as cannabis and heroin. Walid, who is now based in London, is releasing a book titled In Saddam’s Shadow, which is due to be released in French. He said: "Saddam was heavily into drugs. He began in 1959, with cannabis, and then when he seized power (in 1979), he used heroin at times. "He decided to invade Kuwait because he was probably not in his normal state. He was on drugs and drugs made him lose his mind."
My theory is he was baked, and Kuwait was the nearest place that stocked Doritos.
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 9:32:29 AM || Comments || Link || [336154 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Kuwait was the nearest place that stocked Doritos

"Dammit, I said to get some Kuwait takeout, not take over Kuwait!"
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 9:43 Comments || Top||

#2  We're seeing the Defense of Saddam in the making: he wasn't really responsible for all those things he did, he was just high at the time and had psychological problems due to a difficult childhood.

Which might be true - but it doesn't relieve him of responsibility for the results.
Posted by: rkb || 02/13/2004 9:47 Comments || Top||

#3  scene: somewhere chic

camera: zooms on actress

dialogue: Dammit, people, can't you see he's only a victim here!

fade out

(background audio: Thanks, Miss Garafalo!)
Posted by: Bubblehead || 02/13/2004 10:36 Comments || Top||

#4  If this is true, it would make one hell of an anti-drug campaign. Show the picture of hobo Saddam after he was pulled out of his spider hole with the caption, "Drugs ruin lives".
Posted by: BH || 02/13/2004 10:38 Comments || Top||

#5  This is your face. This is your face on drugs. Any questions?

This goes into the Classix!
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/13/2004 11:27 Comments || Top||

#6  Walid was quoted as saying "yeah dude, me and the boss used to do mucho 'shrooms and chill out to jerry & the dead man......."
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 13:26 Comments || Top||

#7  Well, I don't recommend drugs to anyone. But they've always worked for me... or at least till Leipzig.
Posted by: Napoleon VII || 02/13/2004 17:09 Comments || Top||

#8  If it makes anybody happy, we'll hang the SOB as a doper instead of a mommy-killer. Who cares what label we hang on him, as long as we hang him.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 19:36 Comments || Top||

#9  most potheads and heroine junkies [who can score at will] are passive--5 to 1 he was shooting crank or doing blow
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI || 02/14/2004 0:22 Comments || Top||


Caucasus
Former Chechen Leader Yandarbiyev Boomed
Former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, an Islamic extremist linked by Moscow to al Qaeda, died on Friday from injuries sustained when his car was hit by a blast in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, police said.
I always like starting the morning with good news.
The blast seriously injured Yandarbiyev, who died later in the intensive care unit at Hamad Hospital in the capital Doha, and killed two people traveling with him.
A triple! Wonder who the other two are, er, were?
The cause of the explosion was still unclear.
He was a big shot, so I’d rule out work accident.
A hospital spokesman told Reuters Yandarbiyev was leaving a mosque after Friday prayers in Doha’s northern Dasma district when the blast occurred.
That seems to happen a lot, doesn’t it?
Al Jazeera television showed pools of blood beside the charred remains of a white off-road vehicle and bodies covered with sheets being taken away by ambulance as a police sniffer dog circled the wreck.
Sigh, it’s a beautiful word picture.
Yandarbiyev, who had been living in exile in Doha for more than three years, was the first Chechen separatist to be added at Russia’s request last year to a U.N. list of groups and people with suspected ties to Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network. Russia, which has been battling separatist insurgents in predominantly Muslim Chechnya on and off for nearly a decade with the loss of tens of thousands of lives, considered him a leading Islamic extremist. Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov told Interfax news agency: "Yandarbiyev was the chief ideologue of the separatists and later of their terrorist organizations which brought such tragic consequences to Chechnya. "You will find no one (in Chechnya) who will regret what happened to Yandarbiyev."
"Maybe his Mom, but she's been dead for years. He shot her."
Kadyrov, elected in polls organized by Moscow last year as part of a plan to stabilize the region, would not say who might have been responsible for Yandarbiyev’s death. "Thousands of people, whose relatives had died or suffered as a result of Yandarbiyev’s actions, might have had a reason to do this," Kadyrov said.
"Reach out, reach out and touch someone!"
Moscow suspects Yandarbiyev of links to the seizure of a Moscow theater and 700 theatergoers by extreme Chechen rebels in October 2002. The seizure ended with the death of 129 hostages and 41 guerrillas when Russian troops stormed the building using a lethal gas. He has been on the Interpol wanted list since 2001 along with Maskhadov and other prominent Chechen rebels.
KGB hit, perhaps? Internal power struggle? Oh, well, he’s dead either way.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 9:25:41 AM || Comments || Link || [336119 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Additional from al-Jaz:
Former Chechen President Salim Khan Yandarbiyev has died after a car bomb attack in Qatar. The explosion in Doha on Friday also killed two of the bodyguards travelling with him. Police have not given any details except to confirm the death and identity of the former separatist leader.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 10:02 Comments || Top||

#2  A bomb in car to get an islamopig ? Someone is learning fast. A good education is the strength of every society...or: live and learn and then pay back.
Posted by: Poitiers-Lepanto || 02/13/2004 10:20 Comments || Top||

#3  From Islam Online: A Qatari Interior Ministry source told the official Qatar News Agency that Yandarbiyev was killed and his 13-year-old son wounded when a bomb blast targeted their car as they returned from weekly prayers at a Doha mosque. Another source at Al-Hamad hospital, where Yandarbiyev succumbed to serious injuries sustained in the blast, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that his son, Daoud, was in stable condition.
Qatar's Al-Jazeera news channel earlier said two bodyguards were killed in the attack. But the hospital official said there were no dead bodyguards and the Interior Ministry statement made no mention of bodyguards.
A witness has told AFP that the blast occurred in the Al-Dafna residential area at 1:00 pm (1000 GMT) and the ex-Chechen leader's four-wheel drive vehicle was burned by the explosion.


Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 10:59 Comments || Top||

#4 
Yandarbiyev was leaving a mosque ... when the blast occurred.


When that mosque issues its "religious materials" it ought to also issue instructions for proper handling.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 12:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Sounds like our Russian cousins reached out and touched someone. Think they'd contract out?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 22:16 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Top US official pays secret visit to Pakistan?
A top US official paid a secret visit to Islamabad on Wednesday, sources said. The sources said the official with a 24-member delegation arrived at the Chaklala airbase at around 7pm on Wednesday and left the country on Thursday afternoon.
Anyone hear anything?
Foreign office spokesman Masood Khan denied the presence or a ’short visit’ by a US delegation to Islamabad. "I can tell you flat that this is not true," he told Dawn.
Thanks, we believe you.
ISPR director-general Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan said he was not aware if any senior US official had visited the capital. Other sources claimed that most members of the US delegation checked into two leading hotels in the city while the top man himself stayed at the US Embassy. They said there was a movement of the American VIP in the morning because of which traffic remained jam for quite some time in all directions on the VIP route between Rawalpindi and Islamabad.
Powell? Rummy? Michael Jackson?
These sources also claimed that ’something important’ was likely to happen shortly because the international media - teams of NBC, CBS, CNN and BBC - had started converging in Islamabad.
That’s always a bad sign.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 8:43:55 AM || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The spies have arrived to find out what's going on.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 8:49 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe they have located Osama in Pakland and need permission to send in sp. ops.
Posted by: Mustang || 02/13/2004 11:16 Comments || Top||

#3  I think its to mushroom slap the Paki leadership after letting Khan off the hook.

Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/13/2004 11:35 Comments || Top||

#4  oooh, curiouser and curiouser...possibilities abound.

1. We got that bastard bin laden

2. We're gonna get that bastard Khan

3. We got some other bastard.

Posted by: Carl in N.H || 02/13/2004 12:00 Comments || Top||

#5  Or there are some negotiations going about that spring-offensive, after that Khan thingee, Pakistan might find it wise to cooperate.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/13/2004 13:33 Comments || Top||

#6  please be spring offensive,please be spring offensive
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/13/2004 14:06 Comments || Top||

#7  We have a winner, spies it is!

Asian News International
Islamabad, February 13

The chief of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), George Tenet, and several other top-ranking Bush Administration officials clandestinely paid a 12-hour visit in Islamabad reportedly to discuss the nuke leak damage-control exercises being undertaken by the establishment. Sources in the know of the "hush hush" visit told the Daily Times that the American team had arrived on Wednesday night and departed by Thursday afternoon. Pakistani officials are said to have briefed the visitors about the nuclear scandal and the current situation in Afghanistan.


Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 16:03 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
Liberation Day: part 4 of a frontline account
Brian Taylor, a Marine reservist, servied in Fox Company, Second Battalion, 23rd Marines during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The Wall Street Journal is publishing his diary in serial form. Parts 1 and 2 appeared in previous weeks, and part 3 on Monday. Here’s an excerpt from the latest installment:

9 Apr 03 0354Z

Spent the night on the roof of some house in the Al Mathana neighborhood of Baghdad. We stopped our foot patrol around 1300Z yesterday afternoon and began looking for a building to stay in. My team was on the third floor of a shell of a structure when the fight began. I stood up and looked out the window across an intersection and a dirt field to the northwest.

I monitored radio traffic on the individual squad radio between Sgt. Ewert, First squad’s leader, and Cpl. Houschouer, one of his team leaders. The sergeant was irate because it wasn’t immediately obvious to Houschouer how to control a large five-way intersection with only four Marines. I thought to myself that it wasn’t at all obvious to me either.

I saw a man step out from behind the southwest corner of an Iraqi security compound. He was 180 meters away and looked like an unarmed civilian, although the sun made him just a silhouette. Then he fired a RPG, which streaked into the Marines standing near the intersection. Cpl. Scott Lee and Lance Cpl. Roger Anderson, members of my own squad, were hit and sustained minor head and arm wounds, a miracle since it hit right by them.

I began firing 5.56mm rifle rounds and 203 grenades at the man. The machine guns began. He did the strangest arms-flying-in-air jig when he realized he was being shot at. He ducked behind the wall and machine guns followed. I lobbed 203s over the wall, and they landed with great clapping noise.
Posted by: Mike || 02/13/2004 6:19:04 AM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is a great series of articles. It's fascinating how many different emotions and circumstances the author faced every day. I also like his use of italics to separate comptemporary reflections from the older journal entries.
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 9:56 Comments || Top||

#2  Indeed, great articles -- Mike, Dar's comment reminded me to thank you for following this series - I've read and saved the links. So, again, Thx!
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 15:14 Comments || Top||

#3  We don't deserve these guys.
Posted by: Rutherford || 02/13/2004 17:21 Comments || Top||

#4  These are reservists none the less. Great stuff, great work.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 19:21 Comments || Top||

#5  You're most welcome, guys. Be sure and read The March Up if you haven't already; this serial is a good companion to the book, or vice versa.
Posted by: Mike || 02/13/2004 20:55 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Arafat’s bodyguards recruited for suicide attacks
Bodyguards of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat have been recruited for suicide operations against Israel.
"Yes! Me! Anything! Just get me away from that old goat!"
Israel military sources said special operations forces have arrested at least one member of Arafat’s Force 17 from Navaronne praetorian guard. Force 17 is responsible for Arafat’s security and has branches throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Arafat’s ruling Fatah movement has been cited for being the leading force in suicide operations against Israel. But the Israeli arrests marked one of the first times that Arafat’s bodyguards have been involved in such attacks.
Maybe they’re running out of al-Aqsa splodydopes.
Israeli security agents captured Muhammad Abu Lil, 18, on Dec. 13 along with another Fatah agent from the West Bank city of Nablus, both of whom were on their way to bomb a restaurant in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva. The statement said Abu Lil’s accomplice, Ahmed Abu Hawila, had been recently recruited to Force 17.
"The #4 truncheon, Moshe."
A Fatah commander was said to have recruited suicide attackers from Force 17. The sources identified Nader Abu Lil, a 25-year Fatah commander, for responsibility for the recruitment of Force 17 and other Palestinian security officers, as well as planning operations.
Makes no sense unless they’re running short of people.
The information of Fatah’s recruitment from Arafat’s guard came in wake of the arrest of suspected suicide squads in December. The suicide squads were said to have been recruited and organized in Nablus. Nader Abu Lil was also accused of having planned to launch a suicide attack in January 2004. The military statement said an Israeli raid on Jan. 2 in Nablus’s old city quarter yielded two large bombs meant for use in Israel. A suspected suicide squad composed of Palestinians from Nablus-area refugee camps was captured. Military sources said the use of Arafat’s bodyguards for attacks has been encouraged by Iran and Hizbullah, which finance up to 90 percent of Fatah insurgency operations. They said that in many cases Fatah has teamed with the Iranian-sponsored Islamic Jihad or Hamas to launch operations in Israel.
Joint US-Israeli operation to clear out the Bekaa sounds better all the time.
On Wednesday, Israel’s military reported that troops captured a Fatah commander in the northern town of Tubas in the West Bank. The commander was identified as Jihad Sawafta, who survived a previous assassination attempt by Israeli forces.
And now he wishes he hadn’t.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/13/2004 1:34:33 AM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The future is getting bleaker and bleaker for the worlds oldest terrorist & his cronies. Cool.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/13/2004 3:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Military sources said the use of Arafat’s bodyguards for attacks has been encouraged by Iran and Hizbullah, which finance up to 90 percent of Fatah insurgency operations.

So GWB, what are you waiting for?
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/13/2004 13:18 Comments || Top||

#3  lol having to use up his own body gaurds as suicide dummies, what a joke
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/13/2004 14:47 Comments || Top||

#4 
Arafat’s bodyguards recruited for suicide attacks
Against Afarat? Whoopee!

(Well, I can dream, can't I?)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/13/2004 14:52 Comments || Top||

#5  Military sources said the use of Arafat’s bodyguards for attacks has been encouraged by Iran and Hizbullah...in many cases Fatah has teamed with the Iranian-sponsored Islamic Jihad or Hamas to launch operations in Israel.

Fatah is waaaay behind in the PR campaign(aka the intifada)and in danger of being the 'weak sister' when Arafat croaks. Hence the recent and seemingly desperate moves.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/13/2004 16:23 Comments || Top||


Caucasus
Israel, Turkey plan joint weapons deals for Azerbaijan
Israel and Turkey are planning joint weapons projects in Central Asia. Turkish diplomatic and industry sources said Ankara and Jerusalem are discussing the prospect of a weapons sale to Azerbaijan. They said Israel would supply components and technology for the assembly of weapons platforms in Turkey. Turkey would then deliver the weapons to Azerbaijan.
How interesting. Wonder if the black turbans in Tehran feel a choking sensation?
Israel and Turkey have discussed the prospect of joint ventures in Central Asian states. But few deals were reached and governments in the region have preferred to deal directly with Israeli suppliers. Azerbaijan could be the first major market for a joint Israeli-Turkish arms effort. On Jan. 9, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul discussed a range of cooperation during his two-day visit to Baku, Middle East Newsline reported. Baku has retained Israeli contractors for security systems, particularly in airport and border security.
When in trouble go with the best.
Azerbaijan’s military has also sought help from Israel and Turkey amid a deterioration in Baku’s relations with Iran that stems from a dispute over the energy-rich Caspian Sea. "At any rate, Israel has agreed to sell its military equipment -- assembled in Turkey -- to Central Asia and the South Caucasus," the Baku-based Zerkalo reported on Jan. 7. "Should the Azerbaijani authorities and Gul agree on this, Israel will start supplying military equipment to Azerbaijan." Turkey could sell its aging systems to Azerbaijan as Ankara implements its military modernization program. Israel and Turkey were also said to have been discussing the upgrade of Soviet-origin equipment in Azerbaijan’s military. On Thursday, the Ankara-based Hurriyet daily reported that Turkey’s deputy military chief of staff visited Israel on an unannounced trip. Hurriet said the deputy chief was accompanied by a 45-member delegation from the Defense Ministry and state-owned defense companies. Hurriet said the meeting discussed cooperation in military and defense cooperation as well as intelligence exchange.
Israel and Turkey, the strongmen of the Middle East. Let Iraq heal and get going and you’d have an interesting triumverate.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/13/2004 1:26:34 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Is your link correct? I can't find the news.
Posted by: Murat || 02/13/2004 5:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Scroll down on the left to "Europe".
Posted by: Henry E. Pankey || 02/13/2004 7:59 Comments || Top||

#3  Why is Israel trusting Turkey? Turkey has consistently proven itself as a very poor ally. They better watch out, I bet that equipment will be used against them someday.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 8:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Welcome back, Murat. Actually B, Turkey has been a good longtime ally of Israel. Many joint ops over many years, though kept quiet for sake of both sides.
Posted by: Sparks || 02/13/2004 9:24 Comments || Top||

#5  I fixed the link. I hate frames.
Posted by: Fred || 02/13/2004 9:48 Comments || Top||

#6  Sorry, my bad. Tell me how to fix it in the futre and I'll save you some work.

Welcom back, Murat. If Turkey plays its cards right it can help contain Iran, keep things calm on the Iraqi border and help the Israelis. That would go a long way in fixing Turko-American relations.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/13/2004 10:39 Comments || Top||

#7  Sparks - true, but I still maintain that was the Turkey we used to know, pre-Tapyip Edogan... whose rise to power was too cozy with Islamists for my taste.

America doesn't act the same since GW and 9-11 and I think Turkey's denial of the Iraq war front, proves they don't act the same either.

I don't think I'd want Turkey to watch my back, if I were Israel.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 10:47 Comments || Top||

#8  Good morning,Murat.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/13/2004 12:12 Comments || Top||

#9  Good morning (AK) evening (Turkey) Murat, how's things on the Greenwich side of the globe?
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/13/2004 13:14 Comments || Top||

#10  HEY - Enough of this nicey nicey crap. BUSH LIED - LONG LIVE THE KURDS IN THEIR NEW INDEPENDENT STATE ON LANDS STOLEN BY THE TURKS. I EAT TURKEY FOR DINNER, etc etc.
Posted by: LargeKurdCottageCheese || 02/13/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#11  LOL! I don't know what to say, but that was one damned funny post!

** 8.5 ** for mixed message delivered in fervent strident lookit-me caps and a creative posting nym!
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 14:57 Comments || Top||

#12  Hey LKCC---we are having a group therapy session here, getting in touch with our feelings. If we can get through Israel/Turkey, we are on our way. Heh heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/13/2004 15:43 Comments || Top||

#13  Wow!
Posted by: Raptor || 02/13/2004 16:23 Comments || Top||

#14  LargeKurdCottageCheese
Jeeez... just when I thought I was getting the hang of this... a pro arrives. LOL!
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 16:36 Comments || Top||

#15  Did someone get the serial number of that out-of-control LLL wombat?
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 16:37 Comments || Top||


Israel-Palestine
Red Crescent nurse suspected as terrorist go-between
A Palestinian woman from East Jerusalem has been arrested on suspicion of mediating between Tanzim militants staying at Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat’s headquarters and their Hezbollah operators in Lebanon.
These "militants" are wanted for terrorist offenses and have taken sancturary in Arafat’s headquarters. Israel can’t touch them there because of pressure from the US and various European nations. They are also major icons and propaganda clients for ISM and other terror-enabling "peace" groups.
The woman, Fada Abdullah, 28, who works as a nurse for the Palestinian Red Crescent organization, was arrested on Wednesday. She is a divorced mother who lives in East Jerusalem. Due to her job, she frequents Arafat’s Muqata in Ramallah, and has freedom of movement between Jerusalem and Ramallah. Abdullah admitted during questioning that for the past months she has been working for Tanzim militant Khaled Shawish, who is wanted by Israeli security forces for the murder of Israelis, and who is staying at the Muqata. Abdullah said that in recent days Shawish has been planning to carry out a suicide attack inside Israel.
As a divorced woman, Abdullah herself might be a candidate, which could account for her willingness to talk.
Security officials have said that Tanzim militants staying at the Muqata who were operating cells in the Ramallah area, were receiving finance and orders from Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon.
It may be that Abdullah, as an RC employee, would not have been subject to search at Israeli checkpoints, lest Euro NGOs howl. This would multiply her usefulness as a courier.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 02/13/2004 1:21:31 AM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wow, who'da thunk it, eh? A Nurse of the Red Crescent Islamo-Thingy working for terrorists! Next thing you know, they'll be using Red Crescent Islamo-Thingy ambulances to shuttle arms...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 13:27 Comments || Top||


Palestinian Authority sells off assets to make payroll
C’mon down to the fire sale!
The Palestinian Authority has begun to sell assets to pay salaries to employees. Palestinian officials said the PA sold its share in the Palestinian cellular phone company Jawal. The PA sold its 35 percent in Jawal for $42 million to pay salaries of PA employees. Officials said the PA sold its stake in Jawal to PalTel. PalTel already owns 65 percent of Jawal shares.
Exploding cell phones now 2 for 1, wotta deal! But the Isreali-made ones are more expensive, since they’ve been field-tested.
PA Communications Minister Azzam Ahmed said the sale was approved by Finance Minister Salam Fayyad. Fayyad is meant to supervise all of the business activities of the PA. "The transaction was carried out because of the financial difficulties of the authority and if it had not been done we would not have been able to pay the salaries of our employees last month," Ahmed said.
I’d suggest you break the piggy bank, but I bet a good jihadi doesn’t have one of those.
In January, PA officials warned that the Finance Ministry was broke and would not be able to pay salaries for February. Officials said the international community has been slow in fulfilling pledges to donate money to the PA amid concerns of a lack of transparency in accounting.
"Marvin! What’s the latest on the accounting scandel at the PA?"
"Mr. Secretary, they can’t account for 90% of what’s sent to them, and the other 10% is wasted."
"Sounds worse than the Dean campaign. That’s a political joke, Marvin."
"Yes sir."

The lack of transparency has also blocked foreign investment in the PA. Azzam said the PA has failed to attract an Arab or Western investor in the Palestinian cellular phone market.
Step right up for your chance to be looted and pistol-whipped!
Posted by: Steve White || 02/13/2004 1:20:10 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Not to worry, the EU will happily oblige. All it takes is one phone call.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 1:52 Comments || Top||

#2  well that took care of last month's payroll...what about this month?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/13/2004 6:45 Comments || Top||

#3  hmmm.

Earlier about 400 resigned from arafat's group. Now this.

I think the Palestinian Authority will soon not have neither palestinians nor authority.
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/13/2004 8:33 Comments || Top||

#4  Palestinian Cellphone Service? Oh, boy, where do I sign!
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 8:48 Comments || Top||

#5  This is great news. It means that the terror funding really is drying up. 42 million won't go all that far. The Soros, Heinz-Kerry's and Ford Foundations of the world can only front so much before it starts to hurt their own pocketbooks, and the've got an election to fund this year. The EU is cash strapped and not getting any extra from Sadaam to cover the shortfalls showing up in the books. Kimmy's a little short and Putin's got a few extra expenses this month too.

Waging war is expensive - and it looks like the hate-America crowd is a little overextended right now.
Posted by: B || 02/13/2004 9:01 Comments || Top||

#6  "Sounds worse than the Dean campaign. That’s a political joke, Marvin
That's not funny.
Posted by: Joe Trippi || 02/13/2004 9:02 Comments || Top||

#7  So who owns Pal Tel? Maybe an Israeli front group what uses the cell network to locate terrorists.
Posted by: mhw || 02/13/2004 10:04 Comments || Top||

#8  If Bush sends them one dime I will never vote for him. I will encourage others to do the same. Goodbye Fatah, Arafish, and Al irksa brigade. Btw...do they still have money for bombs and rockets?
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 02/13/2004 10:43 Comments || Top||

#9  How much did the portrait of St. Pancake bring in?
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 11:35 Comments || Top||

#10  Good observation, B!

However, I WAS hoping for the explosion this month. Maybe Arafat'll skim a good deal of this deal and they'll have to sell something else next month.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/13/2004 12:23 Comments || Top||

#11 
Palestinian Authority sells off assets to make payroll
The PA has assets? (Other than AraRat's Swiss and French bank accounts, that is.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/13/2004 14:55 Comments || Top||

#12  I've heard their bake sale *bombed*.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/13/2004 15:04 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Qazi feels threatened by Bush’s speech
And this is bad why?
The MMA acting president, Jamaat-i-Islami amir Qazi Husain Ahmad, has said the United States is likely to attack Pakistan and Gen Pervez Musharraf will not be able to counter the threat alone. "Gen Musharraf’s policies have endangered us, and it is not difficult to guess from Bush’s threatening speech that he is looking for an excuse to strike Pakistan," the Qazi told hundreds of participants in a week-long training session of his party here on Thursday. The situation, he said, demanded that the whole nation was united and cooperation of all parties sought. If Gen Musharraf did not do so, Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali and Chaudhry Shujaat Husain should come forward and do the job, he said.

The Qazi recalled that whenever the country was attacked in the past the Treasury and the Opposition had displayed exemplary unity. Criticizing the US president for the arrogance he had shown in his speech, he said the country needed national cohesion and harmony and it was the need of the hour to warn people of the impending dangers and formulate a strategy for countering the same. The exiled political leadership must also be included in the consultation process, the MMA leader stressed. He demanded that the whole nation must be taken into confidence while making policies and taking decisions because the country was not a jagir of army generals. He held Gen Musharraf responsible for the situation Pakistan was in. He alleged that the United States had been able to devastate Afghanistan only because Gen Musharraf gave it airbases, logistic support and vital information on the plea that this would save Pakistan. But, he regretted, the policy had endangered the country by eliminating chances of resistance on its western borders where Nato forces were ready to assault it under the garb of an operation for searching Osama bin Laden. The Indian army would be there on the eastern borders to encircle the country.
"Infidels to the west of us! Infidels to the east of us! We're surrounded!"
He said the nation had made sacrifices to generate $42 billion for its nuclear programme which, he said, was necessary for regional peace but the US was bent upon eliminating it. Answering a question, he said America created anarchy in a country before attacking it and MMA’s policy of uniting the army and the masses could avert this danger as Washington would dare not attack Pakistan if the nation was united.

Replying to another question, he said denials from Libya, Iran and Iraq to allegations that they secured nuclear technology from Pakistan had exposed the American lie. The lies Washington told regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq had already shown that it could do anything to secure its interests. Answering a question about the 17th amendment, the Qazi denied the impression that by supporting it the MMA had provided a justification to Gen Musharraf to rule the country. "The MMA is against Gen Musharraf’s pro-US policies. It has neither signed any deal with the government nor secured any gains." He said had the religious alliance not entered into an agreement with the government to avert a constitutional crisis, the parliament would have been dissolved and martial law imposed.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:58:19 AM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
Qazi feels threatened by Bush’s speech
Good!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/13/2004 1:02 Comments || Top||

#2  The Qazi? Is that a title, or does he suffer from Trump Complex?
Posted by: BH || 02/13/2004 10:34 Comments || Top||

#3  There are lots of people named Qazi, but there's only one Qazi.

We're talkin' ego nearly as large as his belly...
Posted by: Fred || 02/13/2004 10:39 Comments || Top||

#4  Why is this guy still alive? Send a bearded guy on a motorcycle after him and blame it on the Shia.
Posted by: Cog || 02/13/2004 11:02 Comments || Top||

#5  There are lots of people named Qazi, but there's only one Qazi.

Is that the guy's real last name? Maybe he can produce a son and name him Qami.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/13/2004 12:45 Comments || Top||

#6  BAR: LOL! At least we already know that this guy is an Islamic Qazi!
Posted by: BH || 02/13/2004 13:45 Comments || Top||


Africa: Horn
Somali gunmen forcing farmers to grow pot
Armed Somali factions are taking over small-scale subsistence farms in southern Somalia and are forcing the farmers to grow marijuana, Somali human right groups say. Gunmen have "confiscated" some 150 farms in the Lower Shabelle region, most of which are now being used to grow the narcotic plant, 13 rights groups said in a joint statement Wednesday. "These drugs are sold inside the country and smuggled to foreign countries," said Maryan Owrea, chairwoman of the Ismaiil Jumaale Human Rights Center. Owrea said some of the farmers had been either killed or tortured. The rights groups complained that human rights abuses in Somalia are getting worse, 13 years after the Horn of Africa nation descended into chaos following the ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:53:11 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
rights groups complained that human rights abuses in Somalia are getting worse
You want some human rights? Arm the people, not just the thugs, and things might change for the better.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/13/2004 0:57 Comments || Top||

#2  This a dreadful piece of journalism. 13 human rights groups getting worked up about a few gangsters growing some MJ in the middle of various wars and armed conflicts with large scale slaughter. Also Somalia doesnt exist as a unitary state. So any statements about human rights in Somalia as a whole are meaningless.

Then I check the link and Suprise! Suprise! Its CNN!
Posted by: phil_b || 02/13/2004 3:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Good! Maybe it can calm down the natives!
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/13/2004 9:44 Comments || Top||

#4  most of which are now being used to grow the narcotic plant,

Dreadful journalism, indeed.
Posted by: Raj || 02/13/2004 12:30 Comments || Top||

#5  Kinda gives new meaning to the phrase "baked in the desert", don't it?
Posted by: mojo || 02/13/2004 14:07 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
US warns Libya over African adventurism
The United States warned Libya on Thursday that its climb down on weapons of mass destruction must be matched by a commitment to stop destabilising activities throughout Africa. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Senate Foreign Relations committee that Libya’s agreement to stand down in its quest for banned weapons was a ‘real breakthrough.’ But he signalled that Libya could not expect a full relationship with Washington until it moderated its behaviour in other areas. "Libya, over the years, has shifted its attention and focus to different parts of Africa. When it sort of fails in one part of Africa, it sort of pops up elsewhere, fomenting difficulty. We have made sure that what we discussed is their activities in Africa, which must cease to be destabilising, cease to fund (alleged) despotic regimes and cease to cause trouble," Powell said. "We are not unmindful of the nature of that regime still, and we are not unmindful of some of the unhelpful activities they have participated in over the years, to include unhelpful activities in all parts of Africa."
It's like he reads Rantburg...
Powell did not elaborate on the Libyan activities to which he was referring, but in the past, the State Department has expressed concern at Libyan involvement in sub-Saharan Africa, and its role in disputes in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Powell on Wednesday told the House International Relations committee that Libya was doing ‘very, very well’ in dismantling its weapons of mass destruction and has exceeded expectations. Meanwhile, Undersecretary of State John Bolton said that the United States was considering lifting sanctions on Libya but the timing would depend on how fast Tripoli dismantled its arms programmes. "The precise way in which the various applicable American restrictions on dealings with Libya will be removed is a subject we’ve been considering internally. We’ve discussed it with the Libyans and I think you’ll see it unfolding," Bolton said. But he told journalists in Berlin: "There’s no deadline or timetable that we’re operating under."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:52:01 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bet Mo is beginning to wonder if Christmas is ever going to get here. He's been good, for 3 weeks already. Course he's gotta stay good for quite awhile before he gets his international drivers license. Also bet he makes funny faces at his when we aren't watching.

Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 13:52 Comments || Top||


Africa: Horn
Sudanese rebels say they downed choppers
Rebels in western Sudan said Thursday they shot down two army helicopters and cut off roads leading to the Darfur region’s main city, disputing the Sudanese president’s claim that the military crushed the yearlong insurgency. The fighting comes after the Sudanese government canceled plans to attend scheduled peace talks in Geneva next week with western rebels. A presidential spokesman said President Omar el-Bashir wanted the peace talks held in Sudan. In the days after el-Bashir’s victory claim, the rebels have been launching hit-and-run raids against government positions around el-Fasher, the capital of northern Darfur, said Abdulrahman Zakaria Hassib, a spokesman for Gibril Abdulkarim, a senior commander in the rebel Justice and Equality Movement.

JEM forces are fighting alongside another rebel group - the Sudan Liberation Army - and about half of the combined 27,000 troops are involved in the current attacks, Hassib told The Associated Press from an unidentified location along the Chad-Sudan border. The rebels are using small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. The rebels currently are moving south and east of el-Fasher to cut off the roads linking Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, and Nyala, the main city in southern Darfur, Hassib said. =The army helicopters were shot down Monday near el-Fasher, about 500 miles southwest of Khartoum. Hassib did not know whether there were any government casualties. "We don’t count the government casualties, we just take whatever we can take from them, vehicles, ammunition, weapons," he said.

Zakaria Mohammed Ali, JEM secretary-general, said the rebel actions were intended to prove that the rebellion had not been crushed. "He (el-Bashir) doesn’t want to talk about peace so we will teach him a lesson ... until he accepts peace," Ali said from Germany. He said the rebels will only negotiate with the government in a neutral venue outside Sudan under international mediation.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:50:02 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This the model for war in Sudan. The government advances down the main roads and takes the towns. The rebels move around them and ambush their supply lines. Strange as it may sound the main consequence apart from the body count seems to be the rebels get re-armed
Posted by: phil_b || 02/13/2004 1:03 Comments || Top||


Russia
Putin says Russia failed to notice separatist trends until it was too late
Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that the country’s authorities had for a long time failed to give an adequate rebuff to separatist trends and Russia at a certain point began to lose the attributes of a united state. “Separatist processes continued in Russia for years and the authorities failed to provide an adequate response,” Putin said at a meeting with his electioneering agents. “Those separatist processes received the backing of international extremist organizations and eventually developed into terrorism in the North Caucasus, Chechnya first and foremost. After the conclusion of the Khasavyurt deal Chechnya and the Chechen people were left at the mercy of their fate and it might seem to some that the nightmare of the civil war was over. It was not. Having felt our weaknesses, the authorities’ negligence and the low morale of society large gangs of international terrorists in the summer of 1999 went as far as to openly attack Dagestan. As a matter of fact it was an aggression to annex territories from Russia and make these territories subordinate to criminal influences. It will be redundant to explain how dangerous it was for the Caucasus and Russia in general. It will be enough to recall the tragedy of Yugoslavia’s breakup to make all necessary conclusions. Russia has always been a very complex state structure and it required cautious and professional treatment. By the late 1990s Russia had begun to lose the fundamental properties of an integral state. The authorities have since had to spend much time and effort to clear away the piles of problems and protect the country’s territorial integrity.”
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:42:53 AM || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gimme back the old Evil Empire--at least they controlled the Islamonutz within their borders
Posted by: NotMike Moore || 02/13/2004 1:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Whatever. Same shit different pile. Welcome to the WoT Mr. Putin.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 1:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Going back to 30 minutes away from nuclear annhilation at all times? No thanks, I'll gladly take today's state of affairs.

Not surprised at the sentiment on the far left, though.

"When Communist U.S.S.R. was a superpower, the world was better off."
-- Janeane Garofalo
Posted by: gromky || 02/13/2004 4:55 Comments || Top||

#4 
It will be enough to recall the tragedy of Yugoslavia’s breakup to make all necessary conclusions

One necessary conclusion is that Russia better act better than Serbia acted.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 7:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Kept the Kulaks under control too.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 8:09 Comments || Top||

#6  Interesting that Janeane apparently can't tell the difference between Communist and Socialist states. I guess one totalitarianism is pretty much like another, huh?.

Stupid bint.
Posted by: mojo || 02/13/2004 10:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Gimme back the old Evil Empire--at least they controlled the Islamonutz within their borders

Too bad they also spent tens of billions of dollars fomenting and organizing Communist guerrillas around the world. I'll take Islamic terrorists over the threat of thousands of Soviet nukes any day of the week.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/13/2004 12:03 Comments || Top||


Africa: North
7 Algerian coppers iced in GSPC ambush
ARMED Islamic extremists last night killed seven Algerian gendarmes and injured three others in an ambush at Toudja in the north-eastern Kabylie region, security officials said. About 50 members of the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) took part in the attack on a mountain road about 30 kilometres west of the Petite Kabylie town of Bejaia, a security source said. They ambushed three vehicles in which the paramilitary police officers were patrolling at around 10.30am, made the attack, seized seven firearms and drove off with their vehicles.

The GSPC, led by Hassan Hattab, has stepped up its operations in the Kabylie region of Algeria in the past two weeks, after a period of relative calm around the end of the year, targeting mainly the security forces. It is held by Washington to have links with al-Qaeda and it is the best organised of the extremist groups at war with Algeria’s secular government, with an estimated 400 to 500 members, according to the Algerian army.

The GSPC was also blamed for an bomb attack in which two French construction workers and their Algerian police escort escaped largely unscathed in the Lakhadaria region early today. Two explosive charges were detonated from a distance in an attack on a road convoy in a wooded mountain area 70 kilometres south-east of Algiers. One of the Algerian gendarmes was slightly injured in the blasts, which damaged the targeted vehicles in the convoy, an informed source said. The French nationals, who were not named, are workers at a dam building site in a part of the Atlas mountains frequented by armed guerrillas of the Salafist Group.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:31:13 AM || Comments || Link || [336061 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dan, first let me thank you for staying on top of all these stories...I do tend to look for your byline.

In any case, Algeria has been going on for soooo long now, is this all we have to look forward to Iraq also....just endless years, decades of attacks?

When DeGaulle & France left Algeria I thought it was a mistake and would lead to this result.

In retrospect, is it better that Algerian gendarmes are being wounded and killed than French? Hummmmm........
Posted by: Traveller || 02/13/2004 2:20 Comments || Top||

#2  I'd like to second that thanks. Thanks, Mr. Darling!

(So much information, so little time...)
Posted by: Quana || 02/13/2004 8:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat?
I guess they're sorta like Jehovah's Witnessesexcept they shoot you if you don't take their magazines.
Posted by: Ray || 02/13/2004 10:12 Comments || Top||

#4  I guess they're sorta like Jehovah's Witnesses

Then treat them like Jehovah's Witnesses and shoot them when they knock on your door.
Posted by: Steve || 02/13/2004 10:43 Comments || Top||

#5  Kabylie and Lakhadaria... so they're up in the mountains now. Sounds like standard guerilla tactics. Kabylie is an easier area to get supplies from Egypt as well. At least they're not down on the coast.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/13/2004 14:46 Comments || Top||


Iraq-Jordan
US wary of Iranian imperialism influence in Iraq
They’d call it imperialism if any Western state was doing this ...
The Bush administration is increasingly concerned about a buildup of Iranian spies and militants in Iraq and about Iran’s support for groups with a history of anti-U.S. terrorism.
Although the administration has not openly criticized Iran about the influx recently, four high-ranking U.S. military and State Department officials, who spoke on condition they not be named, said they worry that Iran is trying to influence, and possibly disrupt, plans for a transition to Iraqi rule.
Zarqawi seems to be running an operation along the same lines. He’s also reputed to be moving back and forth between Iraq and Iran. Think there’s a connection?
Iran is setting up civilian and armed cells in Iraq to intimidate Iraqis and covertly influence elections, says one of the four officials, a high-level officer with the U.S. military command in Baghdad.
Ah, the local Hezbollah chapter.
Because the topic is so sensitive, U.S. officials won’t discuss it on the record. Iranian officials deny trying to manipulate the transition or set up terrorist cells in Iraq. "None of these accusations have any foundation," says Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations. "We seek a stable Iraq, the return of sovereignty and the establishment of a democratic and representative system."

With a June 30 deadline looming to transfer political power to Iraqis, the Bush administration hopes Iran will not derail the transition, but it has no guarantees. "One coalition official told me candidly, ’We’re relying on Iranian goodwill,’ " says Jonathan Schanzer, a terrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Schanzer returned from Iraq last week.

Since the fall of Baghdad in April, Iraq’s 900-mile border with Iran has not been patrolled as strictly as it was under Saddam Hussein. Thousands of Iranians have entered Iraq, apparently with their government’s blessing. Most are believed to be pilgrims visiting Shiite Muslim shrines. But some have a political agenda, the U.S. officials say.

The key question: What are Iran’s intentions?

Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert at the Congressional Research Service, says Iran has little interest now in disrupting a transition that seems likely to turn Iraq into a more overtly Islamic state.

"The Iranians believe their ship is coming in and that Shiite Islamicists will achieve dominance," Katzman says. Shiites account for 60% of Iraq’s 25 million people.

Among U.S. concerns:

• Iran is trying to build support for groups like Hezbollah. Hezbollah was organized by Iran after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982. The group was responsible for anti-U.S. terrorism in the 1980s; its attacks on Israeli soldiers prompted Israel to end its occupation of southern Lebanon four years ago.

Schanzer says three different organizations calling themselves Hezbollah have offices in the mainly Shiite southern city of Basra. One is next door to the Basra governor’s office.

Raymond Tanter, another Middle East expert at the Washington Institute, quotes Iranian dissidents as saying Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards also have established a covert Iraqi Hezbollah organization with headquarters in the southern city of Al Amarah and branches in other cities. "The Iranians are setting up an intelligence infrastructure in Iraq," Tanter says. "They can use it for political influence and/or military action."

Iran is building on links with other Iraqi Shiite groups, including the Dawa, or "Islamic Call," movement. The group was banned while Saddam was in power, but it now operates freely as a political party. Iran also has long ties with the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), an Iraqi group based in Iran during Saddam’s rule. Dawa and SCIRI have representatives on Iraq’s U.S.-appointed Governing Council. SCIRI has its own Iranian-trained militia, the so-called Badr Brigades.

• Iran is letting terrorists linked to al-Qaeda infiltrate Iraq. "Iran is the segue from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Iraq," Schanzer says.

• Iran is supporting social services for Iraqi Shiites in another bid to gain influence.

State Department officials say the Iranian presence in Iraq could be a form of insurance policy to deter the Bush administration from efforts to undermine the Iranian regime, which is facing a surge of protests from moderates.

Mindful of Iran’s leverage in Iraq, the United States has recently been more conciliatory. Last month, U.S. authorities in Iraq shut down a radio station operated by the Mujahedin el-Khalq (MEK), an Iranian dissident group that had been harbored by Saddam. U.S. authorities also took DNA samples from several thousand MEK members under U.S. guard in apparent preparation to charge some with terrorist crimes.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:20:10 AM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "relying on iranian goodwill"--oy--more taqqiyya for the kufr--i got a bridge to sell this ignorant schmuck
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI || 02/13/2004 2:05 Comments || Top||

#2  And those Iranian asshole mullahs have the nerve to complain about U.S. "meddling"?

It's high time the Bush administration started squeezing Iran. Those mullahs and their proxies have been causing trouble and skating by for too long. The days of Jimmy Carter are long gone, and this needs to be driven home.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/13/2004 13:16 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Admissions surge for Karachi madrassas
Registration required
Despite the authorities’ campaign against foreign students in Karachi’s Salafi seminaries, the flow of these students has not ebbed. That this year has seen a liberal inflow of such students to Karachi is clear from admissions to the Abu Bakar Islamic University, the seminary from where Hambali’s brother was arrested last year and deported to Indonesia. Nearly all the religious schools in the city have seen the admissions graph go up. The admissions, which ended last month, have seen some 20,000 students join various seminaries, more than half of these registered with Jama Binoria, which is one of the leading chains of these schools in Karachi. Last year saw about 14,000 admissions.
Binori is where Osama Bin Ladin first met Mullah Omar, it is also home to a group of scholars like Mufti Shamzai who make up the Shura council that influences all the Deobandi outfits in Pakistan, whether political parties like the JUI or Jihadi outfits like Jaish-e-Mohammad.
The overwhelming response has overshadowed the government’s campaign against foreign students in the city’s Salafi seminaries. Last year security agencies arrested six Indonesians and 13 Malaysian students from two seminaries in Karachi. One of them was Rusman Gunawan, brother of Hanbali, a leader of the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiyah. Figures obtained by TFT from the officials of Abu Bakar Islamic University, located in Karachi’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal, show a total of 142 foreigners, around 15 per cent of the total number of students have taken admission there. Out of this number, 69 (49 per cent) foreign students came from Thailand, while 17 each belong to Malaysia and Uganda. Eight pupils each come from Indonesia and Somalia, five each from the Philippines and Ghana, four from Cambodia, two each from Djibouti, Nigeria and Maldives and one each from Niger, Cameroon and Kenya.
Interesting about all the Thai students, it’s safe to assume that the nascent Jihad in southern Thailand is being assisted by graduates of such madrassas, and when Talibs of 2004 graduate they’ll be heading home with some uncomprimising ideas
The operators of the Deobandi seminaries, which are in a majority and admit a major chunk of students, say they had to close the admission process well before the scheduled time. “There were too many students. We didn’t have the resources and the space to accommodate all those aspiring to be admitted,” most administrators at various schools told TFT. “We are gaining momentum again and our seminaries are flourishing. We are back to the days before the government started putting curbs on us,” he says. Jama Binoria represents the Deobandi school of thought and is one of the leading organisations in Pakistan. It has a total capacity of 9,000 students in its 19 branches, 17 of which are in Karachi. “This year more than 12,000 candidates applied for admissions to our schools. We had to turn down thousands of requests for lack of accommodation facilities and resources,” Iqbal says.

Estimates show at least 10 percent of all seminarians in Karachi are from outside Pakistan. And this percentage excludes the Afghan students. While a huge number of Afghans take admissions in seminaries, they are generally counted as local students rather than foreigners. There are also at least 26 Shiite seminaries in Karachi. Together, they admit nearly 4,000 students. This year they also turned down more than 500 requests, according to Allama Abbas Kumaili, a leader of the Jafaria Alliance. The seminaries, particularly Deobandi schools, were targeted in the government’s initial campaign after September 11, 2001.

Jama Binoria became prominent in Karachi after 1996 when the Taliban movement intensified in Afghanistan and a large number of its students went to join the Taliban. Officials of the Binoria schools have adopted a strict policy of saying nothing on record of the Taliban and jihadi movements. But a former student, who called himself Jamal, proudly says, “We were the first who rallied in favour of Osama, because he is our hero.” An Islamic government “is the destiny of this country”, he declares, adding that what he calls the Islamic political movement would gain impetus in Pakistan in the near future.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/13/2004 12:10:48 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Pakistan; the only place in the world where students of religion know how to reload an RPG in less than 20 seconds.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 1:25 Comments || Top||

#2 
This year more than 12,000 candidates applied for admissions to our schools

Keep in mind, though, that Pakistan's population is about 150 million.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 8:10 Comments || Top||

#3  The Flypaper Strategy redux infinitum. Create concentrations, nexii, to accentuate the efficacy of the response...
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 13:14 Comments || Top||


Taliban planning spring offensive
Gearing up for the "final" battle against US-led forces in Afghanistan, Taliban was regrouping in the Khyber Agency region of Pakistan for the crucial offensive to be mounted in spring under a new commander to recapture major cities, media reports said. "The resistance under a new commander is regrouping in the remote Khyber Agency region of Pakistan, using the infrastructure of people and fortifications laid by Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda several years ago," Hong Kong-based Asia Times online said in a report. Quoting Taliban sources, it said the new commander for the proposed "spring offensive" would be Mullah Sabir Momin of Urugzan province.

Uptil now, Pakistan has aided some commanders in Afghanistan belonging to the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. "Pakistan’s purpose was not so much to damage the US interests, but to establish a counter-force to the growing pro-India presence along the Afghani border areas with Pakistan," though it worked against the US interests also, the report said. American intelligence agencies "tracked HIA recruiting offices in Pakistani cities such as Karachi and Peshawar and pointed to the various locations in Pakistan where HIA volunteers were being given training, money and arms".

The report said "legendary" Afghan commander Jalaluddin Haqqani - who joined Taliban, became a minister in the erstwhile Afghan regime and is now the "main force" behind the resistance in Khost and Paktia - visited Miran Shah in Pakistan several times, but authorities turned a blind eye". It said that the Taliban would now "step up their struggle to include more suicide attacks" which would be the "prelude to a broader struggle that will start in spring in which the Taliban will attempt to retake the major cities in Afghanistan that they held before being ousted by the US in late 2001".
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/13/2004 12:10:41 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sounds like MOAB time.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/13/2004 1:01 Comments || Top||

#2  the "final" battle against US-led forces

Oh goodie. Enjoy those raisins.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 1:28 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh please oh please oh please, let this be their final battle.
Posted by: Ben || 02/13/2004 5:51 Comments || Top||

#4 
... the growing pro-India presence along the Afghani border areas with Pakistan

What's this all about?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 7:27 Comments || Top||

#5  "the Taliban will attempt to retake the major cities in Afghanistan that they held before being ousted by the US in late 2001"."

-they must've had one helluva poppy season, their delusions of grandeur are breath-taking.

-I'm glad the word "attempt" was used, 'cuz that's about all it's gonna be.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/13/2004 7:42 Comments || Top||

#6  Think we have plans too. Perhaps there will be a meeting battle.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/13/2004 7:45 Comments || Top||

#7  The resistance under a new commander is regrouping in the remote Khyber Agency region

we should thank 'em for getting together. It makes the strafing and bombing runs so much easier.
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/13/2004 8:26 Comments || Top||

#8  It was nice and considerate of them to announce their intentions.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/13/2004 11:26 Comments || Top||

#9  wow exciting news! hopefully will tie in with the timing of the Allies spring offensive,me-thinks the taliban know times running out for them what with Musharaf turning against al-Qaeda. Maybe this will be the talibans last stand
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/13/2004 11:50 Comments || Top||

#10  JS UK - I wish, bro, but nawwww - the leadership, such that it is, will be far far away... at least until Pakiwakiland is no longer a sanctuary, which prolly won't be until it's a smokin' hole. Hmmm. glow-in-the-dark Taliban. That's be a real bitch of a burden since we like playing at night!
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 13:50 Comments || Top||

#11  I think it's real nice of the Taliban to fertilize the poppy fields of Afghanistan with their corpses. All it's gonna take is a single tell-tale going off, and a couple of AC-130's getting airborne. After that, all that's left is the flushing clean-up.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 15:41 Comments || Top||

#12  I think it's real nice of the Taliban to fertilize the poppy fields of Afghanistan with their corpses. All it's gonna take is a single tell-tale going off, and a couple of AC-130's getting airborne. After that, all that's left is the flushing clean-up.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 15:41 Comments || Top||

#13  So will this be the actual "final battle" or the final battle before the final battle before the final battle, etc. etc.? I suppose it depends on how bad they get their ass kicked.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 22:03 Comments || Top||


Agencies fear more suicide attempts on Musharraf
Reg required
While the country’s premier intelligence agencies are investigating the possible nexus between the two groups allegedly responsible for the two attempts on the life of President Pervez Musharraf, officials are keeping the details of investigations very hush-hush. The intelligence teams working on the cases also fear there may be more suicide squads out there trying to kill Musharraf.
I'd expect that. They've only got to succeed once...
“Our information says there could be eight, possibly ten suicide squads still after the president,” a senior official told TFT on the condition of anonymity. Most of these groups comprise local jihadis but some of them might well be taking directives from the “foreigners,” a clear hint to Al Qaeda. Meanwhile, senior investigators in Karachi are trying to bust a hitherto unknown group that calls itself “Brigade 313”. The wall-chalking by the group appeared in the city after the arrest of Shami, an important leader of the banned Lashkar-e Jhangvi. Shami was arrested and found in possession of huge quantities of explosive material. “We have never heard of it [Brigade 313] before, but they could be militants on suicide missions,” a senior police officer told TFT. The number 313 presumably refers to the number of Muslims who fought the first battle at Badr alongside the Prophet (PBUH).

Since the December 25 attack, security agencies have arrested several militants belonging to various former jihadi outfits as well as seven suspected Al Qaeda members. There is not much information available on the Al Qaeda suspects and there is still confusion about the identities of one or two of them. The arrests, made from various parts of Pakistan, show the two attacks in Rawalpindi were mounted by militants of various groups coordinating among themselves. “It seems they are now pooling their resources and expertise,” says an officer familiar with the investigations. Indeed, the suspects arrested so far range from Jaish to LJ to SSP to the banned Lashkar-e Taiba and Harkat-ul Mujahideen activists.
It's almost like they were part of one big organization...
Many of them were picked up from mosques in Lahore and other parts of Punjab. So far two different groups, assigned the same job, have failed to eliminate their target, though in the second attack Musharraf had a very close brush with death. The attack claimed many innocent lives. Intelligence officials in Karachi told TFT the mastermind of Daniel Pearl’s kidnapping, Sheikh Ahmed Omar Saeed, may well be aware of the people who carried out the attack. Omar was shifted from Hyderabad Jail to a jail in Rawalpindi for security reasons. Investigators believe that some of those who were behind the attack could be from Omar’s group. During his trial, when he was sentenced to death, Omar was quoted as saying that it remained to be seen who would die first, he or Musharraf.
Perv always has the option of letting Omar Saeed win that particular race...
However, federal Interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayat says “Omar was not required in Musharraf’s case. He has been shifted for some security reasons.” Some insiders say the investigators are perhaps trying to get Omar’s cooperation to bust the suicide squads that are trying to get Musharraf. “He is a tough guy and it won’t be easy to break him,” says an official. Omar is facing the death penalty in the murder of Pearl and his appeal is pending in the high court for the last one year. Interestingly, neither the prosecution nor the defence council has shown any urgency in pursuing the appeal.
The author of Who Killed Daniel Pearl? would not be suprised at the legal limbo Omar seems to be exist in
Political observers believe that the proliferation charges against some scientists and what has transpired since then as part of the government’s investigations is likely to further endanger Musharraf. “The episode has even put off the common man. Most people think all this is being done at the behest of America and will result in a rollback of the programme,” says an analyst, adding: “That does not bode well.”
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/13/2004 12:10:37 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Political observers believe that the proliferation charges against some scientists and what has transpired since then as part of the government’s investigations is likely to further endanger Musharraf.

Yep, Pakistan has been proliferation's best friend.

“The episode has even put off the common man. Most people think all this is being done at the behest of America and will result in a rollback of the programme,” says an analyst, adding: “That does not bode well.”

Doesn't bode well, indeed. Killing Musharraf and then turning into the equivalent of Iran with working nukes doesn't do anything to assure Pakistan's long-term survival.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/13/2004 13:01 Comments || Top||

#2  How fast can you say war with India when Mussharraf is gone and the Islamazoids take over. This guy's gone sooner or later and with nothing resembling a democracy it doesn't look real promising.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/13/2004 13:56 Comments || Top||


The Father of the Bomb and the Urdu Press
EFL
Mr Abdul Qadeer Khan is supposed to have given Pakistan its nuclear device and transformed it in more ways than one. Pakistan’s defence and security policy was jerked into new gear with his 1986 ‘leak’ about Pakistan’s nuclear capability. It also kicked off a gradual change in Pakistan’s nationalism. The Pakistani man began to think more aggressively about India. The warrior state suddenly found the prospect of conquest a realistic possibility. Jihad was made possible by the bomb, which caused the religious parties to regard Dr Khan as a key person in their scheme of things. The people felt secure and began endorsing increased adventurism in policy. This brought the military leadership centre-stage. Civilian governments began to come under pressure from military leaders willing to take risks. The Urdu press, which scrutinises the state of the nation as opposed to the English press – which scrutinises the functioning of the state – fixed on Dr Qadeer Khan as their mascot. Below is a sampling of Urdu press opinion about him.

Hair-trigger Dr Qadeer Khan
A Jang columnist narrated how he found Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of our bomb and Ghauri missile, when he visited him last. He described him as a descendant of a general of Muhammad Shahabuddin Ghauri, the Turk commander from Afghanistan who defeated the ruler of Ajmer and Delhi, Prithvi Raj, in 1196. Dr Qadeer had ‘found’ the tomb of Ghauri in Suhawa, near his Kahuta stronghold, and reconstructed it. The Ghauri missile (earlier Hatf-5 meaning ‘death’) is supposed to kill India’s Prithvi missile. A friend of Dr Qadeer Khan told the columnist that Dr Sahib was wont to lose his senses when talking of Hindus and might launch the weapon on India in a fit of rage.
Many of Pakistan’s Islamists see themselves as the natural descendents of the Turkish and Mughal invaders who conquered India before the British came. Although most Pakistanis are the descendents of Hindu or Buddhist converts to Islam, many of the leaders like to think of themselves as related to foreign Islamic conquerers.

Dr Qadeer Khan dying to come into politics
Khabrain reported Jamaat Islami’s leader Liaquat Baloch as saying that the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb Dr Qadeer Khan was dying to come into politics and is begging prime minister Nawaz Sharif to allow him to do so.
Some of these quotes must be pretty old, as Nawaz Sharif was deposed years ago.

Dhaka surrender fired me!
Daily Pakistan quoted the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb Dr Qadeer Khan as saying that he had decided to make the bomb on the day Pakistan army surrendered at Dhaka. He was then working in Holland where he saw the ceremony of surrender on Indian TV. He resolved to take revenge there and then.
Ahhh! Dire Revenge™!
Dr Qadeer Khan against Sunday
According to daily Din, the father of Pakistan’s atom bomb, Dr Qadeer Khan said that switching the weekly off-day from Friday to Sunday had brought no flood of dollars, nor had the economy improved. He said he had requested the former government to restore Friday as weekly holiday but it was too surrounded by dubious advisers to listen.

Nuclear scientists should go to Afghanistan!
Quoted in Ausaf, leader of JUI Balochistan Hafiz Husain Ahmad said that all retired scientists should proceed to Afghanistan to help the country advance technologically. He asked Dr Qadeer Khan and Dr Ashfaq, both retired recently from their nuclear jobs in Pakistan, to transfer their services to Mulla Omar. He also said that America was offended with Buddha-bashing not because it cared for culture but because it was envious of Mulla Omar getting all the diamonds discovered inside the statues destroyed by him.

Dr Qadeer Khan spends big in Timbuktoo
Famous columnist Abdul Qadir Hasan writing in Jang said that once Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan took a group of friends to Africa and once there demonstrated the most astounding generosity with his money by giving gifts to local people. The broken-sandalled guide who was given the best shoes available in Africa broke down and cried most copiously at the gesture of Pakistan’s father of the nuclear bomb. He also bought the entire lot of fried fish from a vendor and gave them to a poor woman sitting alongside with a bevy of hungry children, who also broke down and wept copiously at the generosity of the father of the nuclear bomb. In one museum in Africa the local African king was shown sitting on a throne while white Europeans sat like minions at his feet. The great Dr Qadeer Khan was greatly inspired by this piece of art and said: soon it will be like this, meaning that the people of Africa will rule over the Europeans and humiliate them.
I doubt he had the people of Africa in mind as the ruler of the Euros.

Dr Qadeer Khan owns no land!
Quoted in Jang, Pakistan’s father of the bomb, Dr Qadeer Khan said that he had said goodbye to a handsomely paying job in Holland to come to Pakistan. His Dutch wife had given up her Dutch nationality for the sake of Pakistan. He said when he came to Pakistan he was employed at the salary of Rs 3000 with no other perks but he accepted that and abstained from acquiring any land to improve his financial position.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/13/2004 12:10:20 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
He also said that America was offended with Buddha-bashing not because it cared for culture but because it was envious of Mulla Umar getting all the diamonds discovered inside the statues destroyed by him.

Anybody who believes that Mohammed was Allah's messenger can easily believe this lie too.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 8:16 Comments || Top||

#2  What is this guy, the Kim Jong Il of Pakistan? Is there anything he can't do?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/13/2004 10:19 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm sure he can stop a pig-fat covered bullet with his head. That would do us all a large favor.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/13/2004 19:26 Comments || Top||


Hindu Group Issues Valentine’s Warning
Hindu nationalists who claim they are fighting against Western cultural influence have threatened to shave young lovers’ heads and beat them if they exchange Valentine’s Day cards and gifts. Valentine’s Day, which falls on Saturday, has in recent years gained popularity in India -- a predominantly Hindu nation whose constitution guarantee freedom of religion. ``The faces of those not heeding our request will be blackened and their heads will be shaved,’’ Ved Prakash Sachchan, of the militant Hindu organization Bajrang Dal, said Thursday in Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state. ``We will not allow any foreign festival which is a violation of Indian culture.’’ On Wednesday, another Hindu hard-line group, the Shiv Sena, which is a part of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee,
I think AP means his government
waved bamboo sticks at a rally in Lucknow threatening to beat people who observe Valentine’s Day. Despite the threats, some people said they would not be dissuaded from celebrating Valentine’s Day. ``Such celebrations are not against Hinduism,’’ Gujarat University student Anish Patel Patel said. ``I will definitely celebrate Valentine’s Day along with my girlfriends.’’
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/13/2004 12:10:07 AM || Comments || Link || [336061 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Girlfriends? hehe...nice job man! ;)
Posted by: Valentine || 02/13/2004 0:45 Comments || Top||

#2  Girlfriends plural? Methinks the "Hindu nationalists" won't be the one beating this one up. :-)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/13/2004 0:54 Comments || Top||

#3  ``We will not allow any foreign festival which is a violation of Indian culture.’’

What's that Indian festival where they get all doped up and throw colourful paint all over each other?? Valentine's day seems mild by comparison.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/13/2004 1:33 Comments || Top||

#4  University student Anish Patel Patel
just might be a woman with friends, hence girlfriends
Posted by: Adriane || 02/13/2004 1:49 Comments || Top||

#5 
... have threatened to shave young lovers’ heads and beat them ...

Our choice on that day is either to do that or to go get jobs.

Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/13/2004 8:20 Comments || Top||

#6  Sickening... I guess the Muslims have no monopoly on sharia-like b.s.
Posted by: Dar || 02/13/2004 10:07 Comments || Top||

#7  "they get all doped up and throw colourful paint all over each other"
The Festival of Colours

I witnessed this interesting celebration on the beach in Goa back in 2000 - and 5 Hindus were shot dead on the beach that day... seems they got a little rambunctious and accidentally splashed some Sikhs during the day. Penalty: death. To paraphrase a line from Full Metal Jacket, "I wanted to visit an ancient cultured land, and watch them kill each other..."
Posted by: .com || 02/13/2004 13:21 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Fri 2004-02-13
  Yandarbiyev boomed in Qatar
Thu 2004-02-12
  Abizaid Unhurt in Attack, Press Disappointed
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

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