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A.Q. Khan heart attack. Wotta surprise.
Today's Headlines
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Krauthammer’s Speech, "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World"
The text of a speech by Charles Krauthammer’s on February 12 to the American Enterprise Institute. The conclusion:

What is the unipolar power to do?

Four schools, four answers.

The isolationists want simply to ignore unipolarity, pull up the drawbridge, and defend Fortress America. Alas, the Fortress has no moat--not after the airplane, the submarine, the ballistic missile--and as for the drawbridge, it was blown up on 9/11.

Then there are the liberal internationalists. They like to dream, and to the extent they are aware of our unipolar power, they don’t like it. They see its use for anything other than humanitarianism or reflexive self-defense as an expression of national selfishness. And they don’t just want us to ignore our unique power, they want us to yield it piece by piece, by subsuming ourselves in a new global architecture in which America becomes not the arbiter of international events, but a good and tame international citizen.

Then there is realism, which has the clearest understanding of the new unipolarity and its uses--unilateral and preemptive if necessary. But in the end, it fails because it offers no vision. It is all means and no ends. It cannot adequately define our mission.

Hence, the fourth school: democratic globalism. It has, in this decade, rallied the American people to a struggle over values. It seeks to vindicate the American idea by making the spread of democracy, the success of liberty, the ends and means of American foreign policy.

I support that. I applaud that. But I believe it must be tempered in its universalistic aspirations and rhetoric from a democratic globalism to a democratic realism. It must be targeted, focused and limited. We are friends to all, but we come ashore only where it really counts. And where it counts today is that Islamic crescent stretching from North Africa to Afghanistan.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/16/2004 10:29:26 PM || Comments || Link || [336078 views] Top|| File under:


Group Blames Israel in Palestinian Exodus
Israeli policies have led to an exodus of Palestinians out of parts of the West Bank city of Hebron, an official of an international monitoring group based in the city said Monday. Roar Sorensen of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron, said difficult conditions in the area of the city under Israeli control had caused many Palestinians to leave, but he did not have exact figures. B'tselem, an Israeli group that specializes in Palestinian human rights issues, estimates as many as 15,000 of its 35,000 Palestinian residents have left the Israeli-controlled zone. Altogether, about 130,000 Palestinians live in Hebron. In a lengthy response, the Israeli military insisted soldiers take pains not to harm civilians but did not address the claim that many Palestinians have left parts of Hebron under Israeli control. The Palestinian governor of the Hebron area, Arif Jaabari, said many Palestinians have fled because of Israeli curfews and other harsh security measures. "People always feel afraid," he said. "Anyone who has an opportunity to leave the area will leave."
Have they considered ceasing hostilities?... I thought not.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 19:08 || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  No real surprises here. They're trying to get away from the terrorists, not the Israelis. The problem is that Palestinian terrorists are mounting their attacks and then hiding among non-combatants. If I were an ordinary Palestinian, I'd leave, too - but the problem has to do with the terrorists using ordinary people as human shields, not the Israelis.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/16/2004 20:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Roar Sorensen of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron

Huh? Who? What?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 20:52 Comments || Top||


Kuwaiti Prankster, Terror Threat at the Camel Market
Police responded to a frantic caller alerting them to an alleged plan for terrorist acts at the camel market. But on getting there, they found that the caller was a drunken man. He has been referred for investigations.
*giggle*, scroll to bottom of news feed
Posted by: TS || 02/16/2004 7:04:10 PM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:


Haitian Rebels Kill Police Chief
Haiti's rebellion spread to the central city of Hinche on Monday as rebels aided by former soldiers attacked a police station and killed at least three officers, including the police chief. The rebels descended on the police station in Hinche, about 70 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince, according to a Haitian security official. They killed district police chief Maxime Jonas, pushed police out of the city and threatened government supporters. At least 56 people have died since the rebellion aimed at ousting President Jean-Bertrand Aristide exploded Feb. 5 in the city of Gonaives. Rebels armed with machetes and rifles escorted an aid convoy led by the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross into Gonaives on Monday. The convoy was carrying 1.6 tons of supplies, including blood and surgical equipment. A surgeon and a physician were also sent to treat some 40 people wounded in the fighting.
Even though what's going to replace him is going to be just as bad, it looks like Jean-Bertrand might be toast, and that'll be a good thing. You've got to turn a compost heap every now and then.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 19:03 || Comments || Link || [336084 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How long before the Jesse Jacksons and Maxine Waters demand intervention without acknowledging Clinton put the boy in power? I can hear the calls that Bush must be racist not to intervene, a la Liberia. Let this action finish it's work before intervening, W!
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 22:32 Comments || Top||


Five Arrested in Iraq Official's Slaying
Police arrested five Iraqis suspected in the assassination of Aquila al-Hashimi, a member of Iraq's Governing Council who was gunned down last year as she drove from her Baghdad home, the Interior Ministry said Monday. The men were arrested 10 days ago in the city of Amarah, 180 miles southeast of the capital, Deputy Interior Minister Ahmed Kadhum Ibrahim told The Associated Press. They were arrested for using drugs but police uncovered "indications" they may have been involved in the al-Hashimi assassination, he said. Police were still investigating the possible connection.

Six gunmen in a truck attacked al-Hashimi on Sept. 20 as her convoy drove from her house in Baghdad. The attackers fired a rocket-propelled grenade at her vehicle but missed, then opened fire with assault rifles. Al-Hashimi, critically wounded in the abdomen, died five days later. She was the highest official in the post-Saddam Hussein administration to be killed in the persistent violence in Iraq since Saddam's fall. The former diplomat was also the only Governing Council member to have served in Saddam's government. Al-Hashimi, a Shiite, was one of three women on the 25-member Governing Council and was seen as a likely future Iraqi envoy to the United Nations. Salama al-Khufaji, a Shiite professor of dentistry at Baghdad University, replaced al-Hashimi on the council, which was put together by U.S. administrators.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 19:00 || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:


Scholarship Created for Whites Only
It should be interesting how this plays out.
A student group at Roger Williams University is offering a new scholarship for which only white students are eligible, a move they say is designed to protest affirmative action. The application for the $250 award requires an essay on "why you are proud of your white heritage" and a recent picture to "confirm whiteness."
Some people are gluttons for punishment...
"Evidence of bleaching will disqualify applicants," says the application, issued by the university’s College Republicans. Jason Mattera, 20,
see below
who is president of the College Republicans, said the group is parodying minority scholarships. "We think that if you want to treat someone according to character and how well they achieve academically, then skin color shouldn’t really be an option," he said. "Many people think that coming from a white background you’re automatically privileged, you’re automatically rich and your parents pay full tuition. That’s just not the case."

The stunt has angered some at the university, but the administration is staying out of the fray. The school’s provost said it is a student group’s initiative and is not endorsed by Roger Williams. Mattera, who is of Puerto Rican descent, is himself a recipient of a $5,000 scholarship open only to a minority group. "No matter what my ethnicity is, I’m making a statement that scholarships should be given out based on merit and need," Mattera told the Providence Journal. His group took out a full-page ad in last week’s issue of the university’s student newspaper to tout the scholarship, which was for $50 until two donors came forward to add $100 each during the weekend, Mattera said. It’s not the first brush with controversy for the group. The school temporarily froze the Republicans’ money in the fall during a fight over a series of articles published in its monthly newsletter. One article alleged that a gay-rights group indoctrinates students into homosexual sex.
ACLU Lawsuit in..5..4...3...2...1...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/16/2004 6:56:47 PM || Comments || Link || [336097 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "why you are proud of your white heritage"

LOL! While we embrace diversity in all things musical, did you known that Beethoven was a proud white man?

And while G.W. Carver invented peanute butter did you know that most food conglomorates are owned by proud white men?

While many minorities excell at the marshall arts, did you know that the term Marshall was named after a proud white man? Did you know that the Trident D5 was mostly built by caucasians?

This is just a part of our white heritage.
EyeOpener: The language we're speaking was invented by yes..... you got it.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 19:12 Comments || Top||

#2  I see a Wonder Bread sponsorship in their future
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 22:34 Comments || Top||

#3  Evidence of bleaching will disqualify applicants,
So Michael Jackson is disqualified? And he so needed the $250.
Posted by: GK || 02/16/2004 22:38 Comments || Top||


Two Iraqis arrested with barrel of uranium
Two Iraqis were arrested Thursday for carrying a barrel of material suspected to be uranium, a high-ranking police officer told AFP on Sunday. "Iraqi police stopped two Iraqis at a checkpoint north of Mosul. They were carrying a huge quantity of uranium to northern Iraq," said General Hikmat Mahmud Mohamed of the Nineveh province’s police department. One policeman was burned when he touched the barrel and was hospitalised, Mohamed said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 18:03 || Comments || Link || [336088 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hmm interesting....
Posted by: Valentine || 02/16/2004 18:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Uranium ore is very very heavy. The refined stuff is even heavier. I doubt two people could carry it and in fact it would break most carts. Something doesn't sound right about this.
Posted by: mhw || 02/16/2004 18:39 Comments || Top||

#3  AFP is a French wire service, yes? The French report on death, carnage, destruction, more death, and a hot and heapin' barrel of uranium was found vindicating President Bush and PM Blair. Ain't getting my hopes up....
Posted by: Garrison || 02/16/2004 18:43 Comments || Top||

#4  If the bit about the barrel being hot is true, then this is certainly radio-active material.

I think we may have just hit the WMD jackpot. Lets hope the idiots who were driving this stuff around live long enough to say where they got it. I'll give them 3 days before they are dead of radiation sickness.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/16/2004 19:10 Comments || Top||

#5  Is that a grenade in your pants or are you just happy to see me?
Posted by: john || 02/16/2004 19:29 Comments || Top||

#6  This sounds totally bogus. The PakiWakiTribune tosses it into an article as just another paragraph - and this is attributed to AFP... plus the physical attributes pointed out above... Nahh. I'll believe it when it's shouted from the rooftops by the CA.
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 20:50 Comments || Top||

#7  This story sounds like complete BS: a barrel of Uranium isn't going to burn somebody who touches it, unless it's so been so highly refined that it contains so much U235 that it's near critical mass and ready to explode or melt down.

AFAIK, a barrel of ordinary, unrefined Uranium is going to be only mildly radioactive.
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/16/2004 20:55 Comments || Top||

#8  Natural, Depleted, or Weapons Grade Uranium is not thermally "hot." The ore is even less so. This may have been reactor waste (in which case all the poor bastards are already dead) And Metallic Uranium is denser than lead. Was one of the guys named B. Banner?
Posted by: Dave || 02/16/2004 21:12 Comments || Top||

#9  If the can was that hot, I wouldn't bother imprisoning the couriers, as they should already be dead.
Remember the 25 dirty bombs that were shipped into Iraq from Iran on semis?
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 21:40 Comments || Top||

#10  You taste it.
No. You taste it.
No. You taste it...
Posted by: Hyper || 02/16/2004 22:18 Comments || Top||

#11  I can just see these 2 mutts lugging a slug of URANIUM down the road, tossing it back and forth like a hot potato.

I don't think so.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 02/16/2004 22:24 Comments || Top||

#12  Natural, Depleted, or Weapons Grade Uranium is not thermally "hot." - Nuclear reactor fuel definitely will be hot, assuming there is a sufficient amount.

I checked the AFP site and the story isnt there. So that it makes it highly suspect.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/16/2004 22:45 Comments || Top||

#13  Naural and depleted uranium have insignificent radioactivity. And they are not "hot". Just imagine an M1 in Iraqui summer if its ammo were
generating heat.

The former does not apply to U235.
Posted by: JFM || 02/17/2004 1:43 Comments || Top||


Car with explosives stopped by canada trying to enter Washington
BLAINE, Wash. - The biggest northern border crossing west of Detroit was closed Monday after Canadian guards found explosives in a car entering the country from the United States, Canadian customs officials said. They did not specify what type of explosives were found.
very skimpy details so far

Fox News says it was a grenade...
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 02/16/2004 5:05:52 PM || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Perhaps they were going to boom a Canucks game?
Posted by: eLarson || 02/16/2004 17:25 Comments || Top||

#2  could it be some sort of mining or oil 'drilling' industry explosives or maybe even dynamite for fishing kinda mick dundee style.Seems like he was travelling the wrong way though if he wanted to hurt the evil Ammerikaa or maybe he was following a packed school bus full of kids to bravely boom.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/16/2004 17:45 Comments || Top||

#3  grenades for fishing - kills em and debones em for ya - just make sure you get a good throw in
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 17:57 Comments || Top||

#4  False alarm -- "Lost Woman Causes Quite The Stir At Canadian Border" picked off http://www.komotv.com/stories/ "A 28-year-old woman from Houston, whose husband is stationed at Fort Lewis, got in her husband's car at the base near Tacoma to head to Vancouver, Washington -- about 2 1/2 hours south of the base.

Unfortunately, she somehow began heading north toward Vancouver, B.C. instead.

She was unaware that she was going the wrong way until she reached the Canadian border around 1 o'clock. There, Canadian Customs officials found what looked like a grenade in her glove compartment.

They immediately closed down the border in both directions and rerouted traffic to the Pacific Highway crossing while explosives teams were called in.

It appears the grenade was not active and might have been an old military dummy/souvenir grenade. Canadian officials were detaining the woman for questioning but it appears to just be a big mistake and no charges were likely to be filed. " I just hope her first name wasn't Amina or Fatima.
Posted by: Tresho || 02/16/2004 18:09 Comments || Top||

#5  I thought is wuz the myns who wouldn't stop and ask for directions...
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 20:26 Comments || Top||


Military troop exodus: Ain’t happenin’
No permalinks at StrategyPage, but it’s the first article on the page as of this posting. Edited for brevity.
Despite the media stories about troops dismayed by overseas service or combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, all the services (active duty and reserve) are suffering from the problem of too many people wanting to join, or stay in. This doesn’t get much publicity, but it’s a very real problem, because the number of people each service can have on the payroll is set by law. If the limit is exceeded, you have to get permission from Congress, and then find the money to pay and maintain the additional troops. It’s rare for there to be too many people. But since September 11, 2001, a combination of recession (which always attracts more recruits to the military) and patriotism (which is usually underestimated by the media) has brought in more people than the armed services are allowed to have. The Department of Defense expects a booming economy and never-ending war on terror to eventually solve this "problem." But in the meantime, the personnel officers have to keep coming up with more ways to deal with too many troops.
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 4:52:51 PM || Comments || Link || [336077 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I suspect we will see an exodus of some Army Reservists. A few that I know seem not to have ever considered they might actually be called up, and being so has been a shock to them.

This will matter less than it might, however, since Schoomaker is reorganizing to bring critical functions back to the regular army from the Reserves where they were stashed after Vietnam.
Posted by: rkb || 02/16/2004 19:40 Comments || Top||

#2  I had heard that the Navy has become a hard sell. Between overseas deployments, duty and local operations, you don't end up home much. Additionally, the work of the surface force usually lacks glory - the food is good though.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 20:45 Comments || Top||


Former Iraqi Parliament Speaker Released
The former speaker of the Iraqi parliament has been released after nine months in U.S. custody, his relatives said Monday. Saadoun ("Saddam, we will defend you with our blood!") Hammadi, 74, who was not on the U.S. military's list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis, was freed Saturday, relatives told Al-Jazeera Television. U.S. officials had no comment on the report. Hammadi was Sammy's shoeshine boy a U.S.-educated proponent of economic liberalization and developed reforms after the 1980-88 war with Iran that were blocked by the sudden collapse in oil prices in 1990. He was born into a wealthy family and earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Wisconsin.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 16:51 || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Does that make him the weakest link?
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 21:41 Comments || Top||

#2  "Saddam, we will defend you with our blood!"
I'd bet we stole a pint or two while he was in custody, just so he could save face. Being an Arab is so so hard...
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 21:56 Comments || Top||


Kerry’s intern: "Wudn't me!"
Hat tip: Drudge. Edited for brevity.
A woman who has been the subject of rumors linking her to Sen. John Kerry denied Monday that she ever had an affair with the Democratic presidential candidate. Breaking her silence four days after the allegations surfaced on the Internet, Alexandra Polier issued a statement to The Associated Press, saying, "I have never had a relationship with Senator Kerry, and the rumors in the press are completely false." Kerry already has denied reports that he had an extramarital affair. On Monday, his campaign said he would have no further comment.

Polier’s statement was released to the AP in Nairobi, where the 27-year-old freelance journalist is visiting the parents of her fiance, Yaron Schwartzman, an Israeli who was raised in Kenya. She previously worked as an editorial assistant for the AP in New York. "Whoever is spreading these rumors and allegations does not know me," Polier said, appealing to the media to respect her privacy and the privacy of her fiance and his family. Polier also took issue with reports that referred to her as a former Kerry intern. "I never interned or worked for John Kerry," she told AP over the phone.

In a separate statement, Polier’s parents, Terry and Donna Polier of Malvern, Pa., dismissed the "completely false and unsubstantiated" allegations about their daughter. "We love and support her 100 percent and these unfounded rumors are hurtful to our entire family," the statement said. "We appreciate the way Senator Kerry has handled the situation, and intend on voting for him for president of the United States."
The truth had better come out, and someone’s head should be rolling for it! Either the Sun reporter who started the rumor, or the AP reporters falsely debunking it--somewhere someone is toast!
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 4:26:42 PM || Comments || Link || [336095 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thank God... I was afeared it was terminal.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 16:30 Comments || Top||

#2  somewhere someone is toast; probably the same guy who squealed on Valerie Plame.
Posted by: Mr. Davis || 02/16/2004 17:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Mr Davis, the source for this rumor is Wesley Clark. Do you think he's also behind the Plame mess?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/16/2004 18:19 Comments || Top||

#4  Perhaps the parents got paid off...
Posted by: someone || 02/16/2004 18:53 Comments || Top||

#5  Nah. I'd sit on this and see what happens.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/16/2004 19:33 Comments || Top||

#6  Last week Terry Polier (reg. Republican) was quoted as calling Kerry a "sleazeball", this week he plans to vote for him??????
Posted by: john || 02/16/2004 19:35 Comments || Top||

#7  So he goes from sleazebag to the guy they're voting for in 3 days?
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm...ketchup flavored money. Is there anything it can't do?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 20:10 Comments || Top||

#8  she said she never had a relationship--clintonian parsing--she may have given blowjobs in the dark without going for dinner--she gets nothing for admitting a relationship--ie avoids becoming a lewinsky--where is linda tripp now that we need her?
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI || 02/17/2004 0:16 Comments || Top||


A sane voice from the Middle east
From MEMRI
I found this to be an interesting read, I wonder how quick a fatwa will be issued.

Editor of Egyptian Journal: ’We Should Feel Humiliated that Saddam’s Fall Came at the Hands of the U.S. and Britain... The Arabs Should Have Been the Ones to Bring Him Down’
What a marvelously original idea. I'm sure he'll be car-boomed for expressing it, but it would have been a really good idea...
Dr. Osama Al-Ghazali Harb, the editor in chief of the Egyptian quarterly Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya magazine and board member and advisor to the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, published a column in the most recent issue of Al-Siyassa Al-Dawliya. The article praised the capture of Saddam Hussein and denounced Arabs and Muslims who lament it and propagate conspiracy theories surrounding it. The following are excerpts from the article, as it appeared in the original in English:

’Saddam Surrendered in this Docile Manner Because He Knew His Captors Were Americans’
"The discovery of Saddam Hussein, the arrogant, cruel, and luxury-loving leader, hiding in an underground hole - bringing to mind the tale of the Thieves of Baghdad - and his surrender to his captors in a docile and cowardly fashion, was indeed something of a farce. But, the ’Mother of all Farces,’ to borrow Saddam’s famous idiom, is that Arabs and Muslims fail to grasp the true implications of the rise, and fall, of Saddam Hussein.

"Saddam Hussein is a true example of the despotic leader as described by the great Arab intellectual Abdel-Rahman Al-Kawakbi in his famous treatise ’The Nature of Despotism’ more than one hundred years ago: ’Once seated on his throne ... the despot regards himself as a man who has become a God... The despot is no more than a traitor and a coward who needs to be surrounded by a band of thugs to aid and protect him.’

"There is no doubt Saddam knew what his fate would be if captured by the Iraqis; he would have been killed and mutilated as other previous Iraqi leaders, less brutal than him, were. In this instance, Saddam might have preferred suicide - not out of honor, but in fear of torture and violent death. It is most likely that Saddam surrendered in this docile manner because he knew his captors were Americans...

"Saddam’s viciousness towards his own people was matched only by his inability to stand up to foreign powers - despite what his propaganda apparatus maintained. His arrogance to the Arabs, meanwhile, was revealed by his refusal to heed any advice from Arab leaders. His disregard for the repeated pleas from President Mubarak, before the war in Kuwait and again before the invasion of Iraq, are a case in point, as was the lackluster reception extended to Arab emissaries to Baghdad during this last crisis."

’Saddam’s Arrest is a Sign of Civility and Respect for the Law’
"Yet the farce of Saddam’s surrender is nothing compared to the ridiculous interpretations of this event circulating among Arabs and Muslims. The first of these interpretations regards the manner of Saddam’s capture as a deliberate and unprecedented insult to all Arabs and Muslims. This point of view implies that Saddam is in some form a symbol of Arabs and Muslims, a ’legitimate’ leader, whose actions were a true reflection of the aims and aspirations of Iraq and the Arab world. This cannot be further from the truth. Saddam never had any real legitimacy - his decisions and policies were in flat contradiction to Iraqi, Arab, and Islamic interests. Saddam’s arrest - the arrest of any criminal, anywhere - is neither an insult nor a humiliation, but a sign of civility and respect for the law.

"What we, as Arabs, should truly feel humiliated about are the prevailing political and social conditions in the Arab world - especially in Iraq - which allowed someone such as Saddam Hussein to become vice president in 1968 - and then, through an unparalleled bloody and conspiratorial path, to assume the presidency in 1979."

We Should Feel Humiliated that Arab Intellectuals Supported Saddam
"We should feel humiliated that Saddam was able to remain in power until 2003, and to single-handedly initiate a number of catastrophic policies that transformed Iraq, relatively rich in natural, human, and financial resources, into the poorest, most debt-ridden country in the Arab world, not to mention the hundreds of thousands killed and displaced.

"We should feel humiliated that some of our intellectuals, supposedly the representatives of our nations’ consciences and the defenders of their liberty and dignity, not only dealt with Saddam, but also supported him. Finally, we should feel humiliated that Saddam Hussein’s fall came at the hands of the U.S. and Britain, to protect their own interests. The Arabs should have been the ones to bring down Saddam, in defense of their own dignity and their own true interests.

"Another widespread interpretation views the entire situation as a grand conspiracy, skillfully executed not only against Saddam but against all Arabs and Muslims... Those who espouse this point of view put all the blame on evil, conspiring, external forces, who lure Arab and Islamic leaders and societies into making the wrong choices, and steer them away from making the right ones. That these leaders and societies allow themselves to become easy dupes through ignorance, naivety, and arrogance is, here, of secondary importance... There are ways and means to uncover plots and to defend ourselves. This, however, demands the existence of competent, democratic societies and legitimate systems of government... "

The Fall of Saddam Hussein - ’A Catalyst and Inspiration for Speeding Up Democratic Reform’
"More important, we must be clear on the fact that preserving national sovereignty and integrity in no way contradicts with the serious pursuit of real political and democratic reform in the countries of the Arab world. If the fall of Saddam Hussein proves to be a catalyst and inspiration for speeding up democratic reform in the region, it is not helpful to raise the specter of U.S. intervention. Reform is not a U.S. or British issue, it is first and foremost a domestic concern, espoused by the elite and society at large, not only at present, but also in the past.

"As for the future of Iraqi resistance, predictions of its growing strength are more a function of instinctive and legitimate resentment of foreign occupation than a realistic understanding of priorities in Iraq today."

First Priority is ’To Rebuild State and Society in Iraq’
"The first priority must be to rebuild state and society in Iraq in a manner that allows economic reconstruction and democratic reform to proceed. Since the operations of the U.S. in Iraq resulted in the destruction of the state and the political system, the U.S. is obliged to repair the damage it created before leaving - at least to some minimal level. The militant operations that injure and kill foreign troops and many Iraqi citizens impede the process of reconstruction, and have the precise result of lengthening the duration of the U.S.-British occupation in Iraq.

"The growing gap between domestic Iraqi disapproval of many of these operations ... and the encouragement afforded them by some Arab forces outside Iraq is not a good sign. It can only sow the seeds of discord between the Iraqis and their Arab brethren, which does not bode well for the future.

"In sum, it would indeed be a great and unfortunate farce if Arabs and Muslims were to focus on lamentations and the search for conspiracies, and neglect to finally and conclusively acknowledge the consequences of dictatorship, despotism and the absence of liberties and democracy."
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/16/2004 2:41:19 PM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  De Nile is just a river in Egypt.
Posted by: john || 02/16/2004 19:39 Comments || Top||

#2  Blame society. This guy's swimming upstream in a Level 5 Whitewater event. Indoctrinated from birth in a blame system with scapegoats always at the ready, only a tiny fraction of Arabs will even consider what this guy says. That it rings true to us and that there are glaring examples everywhere you look in the Arab Whirld has precisely zero bearing upon the intended audience: Arabs.
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 20:55 Comments || Top||

#3  The doctor reminds me of an Old Testament prophet. He is quite impressive - too bad he is casting pearls among swine. He will fit in well in teh US if he escapes before he is killed.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 21:34 Comments || Top||


Hamas Vows Revenge Over Damage at Jerusalem Shrine
The militant Islamic group Hamas vowed Monday to exact revenge
(REVENGE, REVENGE, Dire REVENGE™)
against Israel over the collapse of a stone embankment abutting Judaism’s Western Wall and leading to Islam’s third holiest shrine. "We warn the leadership of the enemy that the reaction of Palestinian resistance to the continued plans to destroy al-Aqsa mosque will be beyond their imagination and will topple the situation on their heads," Hamas said in a statement.
"Look out! The situation's toppling!"
"Run, Moshe! Run!"
Israeli engineers have not yet determined the cause of the collapse, during a rare snowstorm
(Weather control satelite?)
Saturday, of part of an 800-year-old stone ramp leading to the mosque in a compound that Muslims revere as al-Haram al-Sharif and Jews as Temple Mount. One theory being investigated was whether a small earthquake last week destabilized the Mameluke-era embankment which adjoins the Western Wall, or "Wailing Wall," an outer wall of the biblical Second Temple and one of Judaism’s holiest sites.
I'm going with the signs and portents interpretation, myself. Too many earthquakes, thunder-and-lightning snowstorms, freaks of natures, dogs sleeping with cats... Next week the dead rise...
But Hamas, which has carried out a suicide bombing campaign against Israel for over a decade, accused the Jewish state of trying to destabilize the al-Aqsa compound by carrying out construction in the vicinity. Israeli archaeologists have accused the Muslim Waqf which oversees the shrine of carrying out destructive and unsupervised building at the site, a charge it denies.
seems somewhat more logical
Israel is renovating
unformiliar concept for palestinians
the plaza in front of the Western Wall and has in the past carried out archaeological digs outside the mosque compound. But the Waqf and Hamas have accused it of digging under the compound itself, a charge never substantiated.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/16/2004 2:12:33 PM || Comments || Link || [336101 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's The Zionist Wall Collapse Ray!
Either that, or someone's in deep shit over at Queria Cement...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 14:42 Comments || Top||

#2  " Mahmoud, this pillar has a Zionist symbol on it! "
" It must be a Zionist pillar! Destroy it! "
*Crash*
" Abdul, those Zionist pigs have tricked us again! "
Posted by: Charles || 02/16/2004 16:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Question. Just how many "Holy Sites" does the Islamic World need?

Answer. All of them
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 02/16/2004 17:23 Comments || Top||

#4  Dumbf&*ks have been digging in the mosque compound for several years now. Cause, meet effect....Dire Revenge™ and seething to follow
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 17:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Why not just blow up the Mosque and get it over with. Put a Hooters on the site.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/16/2004 18:45 Comments || Top||

#6  Well Dataman that would make it the 3rd Temple for sure.... :)
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 19:17 Comments || Top||

#7  Frank - are you casting aspersions upon the engineering skills of Paleo True Believers? Don't you think Allah will make evertyhing they do copasetic? I mean, what's holding up a little dirt that's been undermined by excavation for a God? The One True God, no less!

dataman1 - was that a Hooters or a Shooters?
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 21:20 Comments || Top||

#8  I wonder if someone could blow up the mosque and somehow make Hamas resposnsible for it...forged letters etc....That ought to get a real civl war going.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/16/2004 22:16 Comments || Top||


IMU bomber gets death penalty
Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court on Monday convicted and sentenced to death a man with ties to al-Qaida for two deadly bombings in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. Azizbek Karimov, 25, was convicted of organizing and carrying out the bombings at a market in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, in December 2002, and at a Western Union office in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh in May 2003. Eight people died and many were injured in the two attacks, Judge Nuritdin Tuhliev said in announcing the verdict. Karimov was also convicted of being a member of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, or IMU, a terrorist organization linked to al-Qaida that in 2001 fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan against the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 12:59:37 PM || Comments || Link || [336078 views] Top|| File under:


40 Taliban jugged in Helmand
US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan have arrested 40 people, including two suspected mid-level Taliban leaders, in the southern province of Helmand, a US military spokesman said today. Colonel Bryan Hilferty told reporters in Kabul that US special operation forces raided compounds and houses in Mus-Qaleh district in Helmand province last morning. ’’No shots were fired and no one was injured,’’ Hilferty said. ’’Two of them we have identified and believe were mid-level Taliban leaders.’’ He added that grenades, mines, other ammunition and one rifle were found during the raids.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 12:57:43 PM || Comments || Link || [336078 views] Top|| File under:

#1  nice catch there,should get some info out of these idiots,then hopefully off to Gauntanamo Bay :)
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/16/2004 13:29 Comments || Top||

#2  "No shots were fired..."

Were they French soldiers?
Posted by: Raj || 02/16/2004 14:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Just don't turn them over to Karzai & Co...
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 20:15 Comments || Top||


Hambali’s bro tied to Marriott blast
THE detained brother of Hambali, the alleged operation chief of the Jemaah Islamiah terrorist network, is believed to have been involved in the Marriott Hotel blast that killed 12 people in Jakarta, Indonesian police said today. Rusman Gunawan was one of six Indonesian students taken into custody upon their extradition in December from Pakistan. Two have been released for lack of evidence. "Gunawan is believed to have been involved in the Marriott bombing," said Brigadier General Pranowo Dahlan, head of the police anti-terrorism department. He refused to elaborate, saying "police are still investigating and developing the case". Gunawan reportedly told officials in the Pakistani port city of Karachi that he sent $US50,000 ($A63,000) to Hambali.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 12:55:30 PM || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:


Abizaid says clear terrorist threat in East Africa
A clear terrorist threat still exists in East Africa, and greater military cooperation is needed to defeat it, a top U.S. general warned on Monday during a visit to Ethiopia. Gen. John Abizaid, whose Central Command is responsible for Afghanistan, Iraq and East Africa, said closer "military and intelligence cooperation" was needed between East African governments to prevent extremist groups like Al Qaeda from gaining an "ideological foothold" in the region. "The threat is clear, but the threat can be deterred and can be defeated," he told journalists in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. "This terrorist threat knows no boundary, and when we operate only on a nation-state basis we will be unable to really get at the heart of the terrorist problem which is transnational." Abizaid pointed out Somalia -- which has had no central government since 1990 -- as a potential trouble spot in the region. "We know the terrorists gravitate toward ungoverned spaces, and these are areas where they look for the opportunities to gain recruits, establish safe-havens and move money," he said. "We certainly have indications to believe that people associated with these groups operate in and around areas such as Somalia." Abizaid, who met with the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, said his visit aimed to assess the capabilities of the region’s forces for combating terrorism.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 12:54:02 PM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:


Study: Texas Not No. 1 in Death Penalty
Another urban legend discredited.
Despite its reputation as the nation’s death penalty leader, Texas is less likely than some other states to sentence convicted murders to death, according to a new study.
Bishop Tutu should read this article and compare Bush’s Texas to Saddam Husein’s Iraq.
It is, however, more likely than other states to carry out a death sentence once it is imposed, according to the study, sponsored by the Cornell Law School Death Penalty Project, which provides legal services to death-row inmates.
The governors of Texas follow state law. Whadda concept.
Texas actually trails the national average when it comes to the percentage of people convicted of murder who are sentenced to death, says the study, published in the new Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. As a percentage of murders, Nevada and Oklahoma impose the most death sentences, at 6 percent and 5.1 percent, respectively. The national average is 2.5 percent. In Texas, the percentage is 2 percent, but that is based on a larger number of murders than other states. ``Texas’s reputation as a death-prone state should rest on its many murders and on its willingness to execute death-sentenced inmates,’’ wrote the authors of the study. ``It should not rest on the false belief that Texas has a high rate of sentencing convicted murderers to death.’’
Are you reading this Desmond?
Texas had about 38,000 murders from 1976-1998 that resulted in the arrest of people older than 16, according to the FBI records. California was the only state that had more, at 50,000. During that same period, Texas used the death sentence 776 times. As of this past week, Texas had executed 319 people since 1976. By contrast, only 10 people have been executed in California, where 795 people were sentenced to death from 1976 through 2002.
Interesting statistics. Is California obeying their own laws oris it because they’re handicapped by the 9th Circus Circuit Court?
``It tells you there are absolutely massive post-sentencing differences,’’ Theodore Eisenberg, a law professor at Cornell and an author of the study, told The New York Times.
Posted by: GK || 02/16/2004 12:20:16 PM || Comments || Link || [336076 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What? Texas is gonna be pissed about this. You watch it's gonna be stir fry city pretty quick.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 16:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Ha! I picked well, Nevada is #1, heh...
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 20:28 Comments || Top||

#3  In states where there is a low percentage of actually executing the death sentence, the capital conviction is a political coup for the prosecuter that wants to appear tough on crime without offending liberals by actually sentencing a crimal to real death. California is an example.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 20:56 Comments || Top||


Reports: Helicopter attacks building in Gaza Strip
JPost - Reg Req’d
Palestinian eyewitnesses said that Israeli warplanes fired missiles at a target in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday evening. Israel Radio reported that the explosion could have been a gas balloon explosion, although eyewitnesses did report missiles fired from a helicopter.
WTF?? A gas balloon explosion?
The incident took place in the Shakti refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. Ambulances rushed to the scene.
anticipatory building swarm coming - photos should make LGF
Palestinians say that the incident was an assassination attempt on Islamic extremists. Channel 2 reported that the target was a building in the Makhousi neighborhood of Gaza City. According to the report, the target was either Hamas or Islamic Jihad. Israel last carried out a helicopter strike in Gaza City on February 7, killing Aziz al-Shami, an Islamic Jihad commander, and a 12-year-old bystander
Hope this was a success too
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 12:12:22 PM || Comments || Link || [336094 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sounds like a false alarm or Paleo-propaganda. According to the Ha'aretz news ticker (in reverse chronological order):
19:09 Palestinians: 17-year-old killed in Gaza house explosion; cause of blast not known
18:59 Palestinians: several people hurt in explosion in house in Shati refugee camp in Gaza; cause of blast unknown
18:46 Military sources deny Palestinian claims that IAF aircraft attacked targets in Gaza City
18:31 Palestinians: IAF aircraft attacks target in Gaza City; identity of target not yet known
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 12:16 Comments || Top||

#2  a gas balloon explosion Fire bugs and arsonists love 'em. Gives the perp time to exit stage left. It's an oldie goldie.
Posted by: Nuss Ratchett || 02/16/2004 13:33 Comments || Top||

#3  Work-accident 17 yr old kid.

OT

This was also on the haaretz ticker:

"17:35 Hamas vows revenge over collapse of stone embankment abutting the Western Wall and leading to Temple Mount "

Can anyone enlighten me as to why they are swearing dire revenge(TM) over the collapsing of a wall?
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/16/2004 13:42 Comments || Top||

#4  Don't be too hard on them Evert. When someone explained that, according to the laws of physics, their rampant and careless excavation was bound to collapse the wall sooner or later, their response was, "Phaugh! Don't speak to us about your decadant western laws!
Posted by: Dripping sarcasm || 02/16/2004 14:19 Comments || Top||

#5  Evert Visser:

The reason tehy swear dire revenge is because this is punishment for homosexuals: collapsing a wall on them.
Posted by: JFM || 02/16/2004 14:35 Comments || Top||

#6  Perhaps the Paleos came up with a hot air ballon to "surprise" the Israeli's and drop rocks and stuff....who knows what technology they may have. What next I wonder......I can just see it now...A bunch of Paleos in a hot air ballon cursing the infidels below....Have I completely lost it? Anyone?
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/16/2004 22:20 Comments || Top||


Kerry: Bush played race card at Daytona
ScrappleFace.
(2004-02-16) -- George W. Bush became the first presidential candidate in 2004 to "play the race card" by appearing at the Daytona Speedway Sunday, according to John Forbes Kerry, the presumed Democrat nominee.

"Mr. Bush has again divided this country," said Mr. Kerry. "By appearing at the Daytona 500 he has condoned an economic activity in which the elite win, and everyone else loses."

The junior Senator from Massachusetts called NASCAR racing "another sweet oil deal for the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton cabal. It’s more than coincidence that Mr. Bush would make a surprise visit to oil-rich Iraq, and then do the same thing at Daytona."

As president, Mr. Kerry said he would issue an executive order mandating that all NASCAR drivers use hydrogen-powered cars. The Kerry plan calls for the Daytona 500 to be held in Kyoto, Japan, under the supervision of the United Nations, with all drivers wearing baby-blue helmets.
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/16/2004 12:00:01 PM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The race card? I'd've thought it was the NASCARd.
Posted by: Mike || 02/16/2004 13:28 Comments || Top||

#2  If Kerry becomes president and when fuel becomes scarce. It'll be go-carts so that'll be NASCART.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/16/2004 14:05 Comments || Top||

#3  Jeez.... I remember when Jimmmuah the C. attended the Daytona 500(K) or was it the Indy 500(K) can't remember. Thank goodness they never tried the 2.4 Hours of Daytona.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#4  As satire, this would be a helluva lot funnier if the Democrats weren't already very, very close to this level of lunacy.

Thought experiment: take the "Scrappleface" label off this item. Is it really that implausible? Not at all.
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/16/2004 15:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Dave D - to reinforce your comment, I didn't catch the Scrappleface credit right away and got to the third paragraph before I went "WTF?! Even Democrats aren't this loopy!"

The line between satire and reality is way too thin these days .....
Posted by: Jeff Brokaw || 02/16/2004 17:19 Comments || Top||

#6  Mmmm! I watched Kerry's speech on Super Tuesday, and in a fair cross section of Leftist nonsense. He made the following statement, which I thought was outrageous.

'I will free American from dependence on imported oil.'

My reaction was - and how do you propose to do this? Mandate that every SUV sold has to have a windmill on its roof?'
Posted by: phil_b || 02/16/2004 18:34 Comments || Top||

#7  OMG... reality imitates Scrappleface!

Check out www.mudvillegazette.com and scroll down to "Kerry's NASCAR Envy", and excerpts from an AP story on Kerry's actual remarks about Bush's Daytona 500 appearance.

Dear God... the world is going mad.
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/16/2004 20:09 Comments || Top||

#8  Yes, phil_b. Every SUV except those in Hyannisport. They wreck the view.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 20:17 Comments || Top||


Tutu: You should be sorry the Iraqis are free!
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush ought to say sorry for waging "an immoral war" against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, according to excerpts of a speech Archbishop Desmond Tutu was to deliver.
Are you a bishop or a pawn, Desmond?
In an evening lecture to be delivered at Church House, Westminster, in central London, the Nobel laureate was to say that Bush and Blair would reap a revival in credibility if they apologise for waging a war that left the world "a great deal less safe".
*twang* "My harp!"
"How wonderful if politicians could bring themselves to admit they are only fallible human creatures, and not God, and thus by definition can make mistakes," according to excerpts of the speech published in Monday’s Independent newspaper, which is sponsoring the event.
Bush and Blair DO know this.
"Unfortunately, they seem to think that such an admission is a sign of weakness," Tutu said. "Weak and insecure people hardly ever say ’sorry’. It is large-hearted and courageous people who are not diminished by saying, ’I made a mistake.’ President Bush and Prime Minister Blair would recover considerable credibility and respect if they were able to say, ’Yes, we made a mistake’."

Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his non-violent struggle against apartheid in his native South Africa. In December, Tutu said Saddam should be put on trial before the International Criminal Court in The Hague on the understanding that he is innocent until proven guilty. In his speech Monday, Tutu was to draw a link between Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive attack on rogue regimes and the president’s support of capital punishment when he was governor of Texas.
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/16/2004 11:51:53 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Has Tutu ever apologized for the ANC's crimes? Or for the continuing and growing crime wave in South Africa?

In his speech Monday, Tutu was to draw a link between Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive attack on rogue regimes and the president’s support of capital punishment when he was governor of Texas.

Do you think it'll ever occur to Tutu that both policies make for a safer world for the innocent?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/16/2004 11:57 Comments || Top||

#2  "How wonderful if politicians could bring themselves to admit they are only fallible human creatures, and not God, and thus by definition can make mistakes,"

Could you add loud mouthed, sanctamonious holy men to that list, Des?
Thanks a lot.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 12:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Tutu and Mandela have long ago squandered any honor due them for past activities. Stupidity at the top of your lungs can do that
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 12:06 Comments || Top||

#4  No. We will not apologize for removing a murderous, facist tyrant responsible for the death of millions, you pompous sanctimonious wind-bag.

Even if he was your friend.

Sh*t. I used to object to people saying that there are too many hypocrites in the Church. Now, I just look at Desmond and mutter, "Y'know. Ya got a point there..."
Posted by: Ptah || 02/16/2004 12:33 Comments || Top||

#5  So, the Mullahs don't have a monopoly on the absurd afterall. Tutu should make clear how he planned to bring Saddam to the Hauge. Obviously talk alone was not enough.
Comparing the Bush doctrine to the Texas death penalty is idiotic. See "Study: Texas Not No. 1 in Death Penalty " posting.
Posted by: GK || 02/16/2004 12:40 Comments || Top||

#6  Tutu's just a Communist who happened to join the priesthood. Liberation theology, anyone?
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/16/2004 13:08 Comments || Top||

#7  wow makes me mad when pricks like tu tu start whining about the whole Iraq thing, they must be so really pissed off that Saddams captured and the Iraqis have half a chance at setting up a normal country with democratic goverment.Cocks like tutu need putting down or sending to North Korea where he can mix with people with his own opinions.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/16/2004 13:41 Comments || Top||

#8  I met Tutu when the apartheid regime was just crumbling. He had moral gravity then, although he was careful not to criticize the ANC.

As the ANC took power in South Africa, both he and Mandela seemed to grow in importance and in moral stature -- in their own eyes. Not an uncommon thing, but also not something I feel obliged to join them in.

The thing is, both of those men were at their best when they were in opposition and protest. Now that they are in charge, the ambiguities and difficulties of their positions hit them square in the face every day.

It's a lot more comfortable to find others to keep opposing than to be humbled by the task that is really theirs to do.
Posted by: anon Episcopalian || 02/16/2004 13:57 Comments || Top||

#9  What a coincidence, I recently mailed the chi-com embassy in Zimbawe and asked for an apology for them assisting and enabling the present situation in Zimbabwe to come about, by supplying/backing Bob during the "Liberation War". I think they are passing my e-mail on and reverse-engineering it. No-one will now get to the Lotus garden on a Butterfly until I have an apology/face-saving reply. Perhaps i can try again, in force. Feel free to join, that's what we're here for.
Date: 21/01/04
To: chinaemb_zw@mfa.gov.cn
Dear Ambassador,
Thank-you for your such kind interest in my home-land. You and your country have done a wonderful job of helping it to drag itself into the dust heap of humanity, by supporting the "liberation" and not following through. I cannot believe that you have placed just 3 teachers and 9 medical staff in the country since 1984, after all the damage that you caused with your AK's and land-mines, albeit in the hands of other people.
And as for the Trade figures, it seems obvious that "Zimbabwe" has something special that you want. Please define in a break-down of the figures, so that I can be a real friend of your
Heavenly Kingdom, and understand your position whilst the present regime lasts. And what exactly does Zimbabwe import from you?
I am hoping to become a Lotus flower in the next world, but I hope to see the Heavenly Kingdom first in order to truly blossom. I hope you take these thoughts to bed with you, even during the daytime too, and ponder enough on them to reply, in order that I do truly blossom, I must have honest and full answers, and no wishy-washy crap.
Your Humble Bowing,
Mike Addison, 110332, no rank.

Now there's a rant!
Posted by: Rhodesiafever || 02/16/2004 14:49 Comments || Top||

#10  I'm trying to recall all the things Desmond did to alleviate the sufferings of the Iraqis and mitigate the evil of Saddam Hussein.

I'm sure there was something...
Posted by: Fred || 02/16/2004 16:16 Comments || Top||

#11  they are passing my e-mail on and reverse-engineering it

Mike has anyone every said you have a mean streak? And you count the number of aid workers... hmmm. I just don't know anymore.

All I can say is Racist, Racist, Hailiburton.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 16:24 Comments || Top||

#12  Here's tutu's email address. Tell this idiot what you think about him. mpilo@iafrica.com
Posted by: Danny || 02/16/2004 16:42 Comments || Top||

#13  I think Tutu and Mandella are desperately hoping that the Western world will continue to believe that the ANC is an enlightened force for good in the world. Most people will obligingly refuse a peek behind the curtain in most circumstances.

As the great enablers call once again for us to buy another round of power for all the despots and crooks who have bellied up to the NGO bar, I chose to grab my hat and coat. That's just me, though, I'm sure there are many more who will pony-up.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 16:47 Comments || Top||

#14  Those of us who are still Anglicans, at least on paper, know that Des has been secular liberalism's house chaplain for decades now. In exchange for them declaring him a saint, he tries to put a "Christian" gloss on whatever the leftist cause of the moment happens to be. Uncle Desmond hasn't had anything worthwhile to say about anything for a very long time.
Posted by: Christopher Johnson || 02/16/2004 17:34 Comments || Top||

#15  Chris,
I don't think Tutu worships secular liberalism. He worships socialism.
Posted by: mhw || 02/16/2004 18:42 Comments || Top||

#16  Desmond is worthy of assasination. Spiritual, of course. Physical to follow.
Posted by: Mark || 02/16/2004 19:20 Comments || Top||

#17  He's already spiritually dead, Mark...
Posted by: Ptah || 02/16/2004 19:29 Comments || Top||


Belarus Chief Seeks Tighter Control
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Monday ordered the Justice Ministry to strengthen control over political parties, community organizations and unions, a move that may further stifle dissent in this ex-Soviet republic.
"Mikhail! Did my new boots arrive?"
"Yessir! All polished and ready to stomp!"

"Every demand by the ministry must be fulfilled," Lukashenko said during a meeting with Justice Minister Viktor Golovanov. "All community associations, parties and professional unions must strictly abide by the rules." Lukashenko said the "special controls" were necessary ahead of this year’s parliamentary elections.
Special controls, don’t leave home without them!
The Belarusian leader has been criticized by Western governments for holding unfair elections and for cracking down on opposition groups, nonprofit organizations and independent media. Lukashenko’s authoritarian rule has made this impoverished nation one of the most isolated in Europe.
Funnny how authoritarian rule and poverty seem to run together.
Last year, the Justice Ministry closed 10 opposition organizations, often citing minor infractions.
And major fractures for the violators.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/16/2004 11:15:12 AM || Comments || Link || [336085 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I thought Bush and Ashcroft were the only ones allowed to "stifle dissent"?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 11:23 Comments || Top||

#2  Silence, Edith!
Posted by: Raj || 02/16/2004 12:17 Comments || Top||

#3  I thought Bush and Ashcroft were the only ones allowed to "stifle dissent"?

Nah, rulers of former Soviets who take after Stalin also get a pass.
Posted by: Pappy || 02/16/2004 22:14 Comments || Top||


Kerry’s Girl’s Photo


"This is not going to go away," one American friend of Miss Polier said yesterday. "What actually happened is much nastier than is being reported."
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/16/2004 11:13:10 AM || Comments || Link || [336095 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The camera adds ten pounds. Or was it twenty?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 11:24 Comments || Top||

#2  It's equal opportunity tu.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 11:27 Comments || Top||

#3  almost Monica-ish.....we know she's a writer, wonder about her oral skills?

as a communicator, dammit! Get your minds out of the gutter
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 11:44 Comments || Top||

#4  No. She is not Monica-ish, but rather pretty looking. I could imagine Kerry wanting a fling with her.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/16/2004 12:35 Comments || Top||

#5  Gee, back in '92, the media was all over the "story" that the first Pres. Bush had an affair in his past. But now, the same media is upset that anyone would dare report on rumors about Sen. Kerry. I wonder why they would investigate one but not the other.

Drudge has some good examples.
Posted by: Les Nessman || 02/16/2004 12:36 Comments || Top||

#6  I wonder why they would investigate one but not the other.

Could it be that they want Kerry to be president? Naw, Never! After all they are "objective" journalist. Maybe I should quote mark the journalist instead!
Posted by: AF Lady || 02/16/2004 12:51 Comments || Top||

#7  Was she an embedded journalist in the campaign?
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 12:58 Comments || Top||

#8  I'd hit it.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/16/2004 13:01 Comments || Top||

#9  Or was the campaigner embedded in the journalist?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/16/2004 13:01 Comments || Top||

#10  Ba dum bump.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 13:07 Comments || Top||

#11  "I look a little heavy, the camera adds 10 pounds..." "So how many cameras were pointing at you?"
Posted by: JDS || 02/16/2004 13:07 Comments || Top||

#12  AP has a statement by her denying everything, and quoting her Republican parents as saying they'll vote for Herman Munster Kerry
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 14:10 Comments || Top||

#13  I would rather make "the beast with the two backs" with her then give monica "a high hard one" (or the hildebeast)
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/16/2004 14:20 Comments || Top||

#14  can someone explain to an European citizen why such an affair is so important to Americans? Shouldn't the debate center on other things, like for instance the war or the economy ? THis would not be possible in the 'old' Europe.. ;)
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/16/2004 15:45 Comments || Top||

#15  Over here, it's considered bad form to bang the help. And American 60-year-olds look ridiculous lusting after 20-year-olds. European 60-year-olds do, too, but they're reluctant to admit it. It's a self-control thing.
Posted by: Fred || 02/16/2004 16:04 Comments || Top||

#16  Anon--Doesn't it bother you that a man has vowed to the woman with whom he shares his bed and his most intimate secrets that he will remain faithful and then broken that vow? Are we really supposed to trust such a person to treat the public with any degree of respect or concern if he shows so little for the ones closest to him?

It's not just about sex--it's about putting the nation in the hands of someone who is untrustworthy. The President is the chief law enforcement officer and commander in chief of all branches of service. How are the men and women who live their lives by a code of honor defending the country and the people supposed to feel when they're led by someone whom his own wife can't trust?
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 16:19 Comments || Top||

#17  Kerry...I mean "Anonymous", If you can't figure it out, go outside and play. Leave the adults alone with their conversation.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/16/2004 16:27 Comments || Top||

#18  Dar makes good points. It's about integrity. If a member of the armed forces (even a young private) gets convicted of adultery they're thrown out & lose all benefits (usually). Yes, adultery is a violation of the UCMJ. Can't have the C-N-C pulling these kinds of antics. It sets a poor leadership example. Presidents have to lead by example.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/16/2004 17:16 Comments || Top||

#19  "It's about integrity."
Absolutely.

I have a better test than where people hide the sausage - too hard to catch that shit...

The test is very simple: Does the subject cheat at solitaire? You can give 'em cards and watch, ask them outright, whatever.

The key is simple, too: someone who cheats at solitaire is capable of any act. Think about it...
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 20:35 Comments || Top||

#20  .com, wouldn't a liar also lie about cheating at solitaire?

Anon, Americans don't understand why a person who is insincere at the most personal level, should be believed about anything else. I find it amazing that any constituent of a known liar could be outraged when the liar fails to honor a committment made during a campaign. An individual voter should expect a candidate with no honor to say anything to get elected and then dance to the tune of whoever bids the most.

Jarhead, with a leader who is a scumbag always, the organization always is chaotic and has low morale.
During the Clinton Years, the Corps seemed to be able to ignore a despicable and cowardly president. In that situation the Commandant just seemed to step forward and acts a CNC and the band of brothers continued on smartly. I hope we continued to be blessed with Commandants with charisma.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 21:23 Comments || Top||

#21  SH - I said you could watch him, too! ;-)
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 21:41 Comments || Top||

#22  .com, there is a Korean gentleman that works for me that purports to be a grand master in some marshal art. I observe him weasling, backstabbing and losing his temper. His golfing buddies also say he tries to get them to bet on each round even though they all know that he kicks the ball. I am quite sure that he cheats at Solitaire, possibly even marking the cards.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 21:57 Comments || Top||

#23  SH - I would suggest, after having studied some years under a sensei who I would instantly trust with my life and having met several others of different styles at numerous tournaments in my misbegotten youth, that your Korean gentleman is a lying sack of shit about holding any rank in any martial art with which I am acquainted! He may have learned a hardcore street style on the wrong side of Seoul, but... I'll wager you watch him rather more closely than your other employees, heh! Good luck!!!
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 22:41 Comments || Top||


U.S. May Veto Islamic Law in Iraq
KARBALA, Iraq (AP) - The top U.S. administrator in Iraq suggested Monday he would block any interim constitution that would make Islam the chief source of law, as some members of the Iraqi Governing Council have sought. L. Paul Bremer said the current draft of the constitution would make Islam the state religion of Iraq and "a source of inspiration for the law" - as opposed to the main source.
Still a sell-out.
Many Iraqi women have expressed fears that the rights they hold under Iraq’s longtime secular system would be rolled back in the interim constitution being written by U.S.-picked Iraqi leaders and their advisers, many of them Americans. U.S. lawmakers have urged the White House to prevent Islamic restrictions on Iraqi women. Asked what would happen if Iraqi leaders wrote into the constitution that Islamic sharia law is the principal basis of the law, Bremer suggested he would wield his veto. "Our position is clear. It can’t be law until I sign it," he said.
Good.
Bremer must sign into law all measures passed by the 25-member council, including the interim constitution. Iraq’s powerful Shiite clergy, however, has demanded the document be approved by an elected legislature. Under U.S. plans, a permanent constitution would not be drawn up and voted on until 2005.
Thus delaying the clerical grab for power.
Bremer used the inauguration ceremony at a women’s center in the southern city of Karbala to argue for more than "token" women’s representation in the transitional government due to take power June 30. "I think it is very important that women be represented in all the political bodies," Bremer said. "Women are the majority in this country, in this area probably a substantial majority," he said, referring to the Saddam Hussein’s 1991 purges of Shiite Muslim men. Those killings left the holy city of Karbala and other Shiite cities dotted with mass graves and brimming with thousands of widows.
Sorta like the Soviet Union after WWII.
In a speech to about 100 women - most dressed in flowing black abayas and some with tattooed chins - Bremer cited a 2003 United Nations report that found that productivity in Arab countries was being strangled because women had been kept out of the work force. Bremer suggested that women’s participation did not run counter to Muslim values. "Women who can read and write and understand mathematics are not prevented from being good mothers. Quite the opposite," Bremer told the gathering. "No son is better off because his mother and sisters cannot read."
My candidate for quote of the year...
Nawal Jabar, 44, whose husband was killed in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, said she joined the women’s center to learn a trade. "Either my mother or my brother has supported me from time to time since my husband died," Jabar said. "It’s a very bad situation. But I am hoping I can get a job here so that I can support my kids."
No different than a single mom anywhere else in the world.
Enshrining women’s rights in a constitution could be difficult. U.S. observers have predicted liberal reforms introduced in the transitional law could well be rolled back in a future constitution. Bremer acknowledged that U.S. influence on an Iraqi constitution would fade after the June 30 handover. "There will be a sovereign government here in June. The Iraqis then will then have responsibility for their own country," Bremer said. "There’s a real hunger for democracy in this country. It may not look like American democracy, but there’s a real hunger for it and we’re encouraging that."
We seem to have handled post-war Japan differently, and they turned out allright.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/16/2004 11:11:45 AM || Comments || Link || [336076 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Dear Steve:

This is the most important story of the year so far. Nothing has made me so crazy as the possible but formal institution of Shari'a.

That Bremmer is showing some backbone on this vital question is significant. It is not the what I would of recommended...(a Constitutional based Government of limited authority as against heavily protected Individual Rights), but it is at least a step in the right direction.
Posted by: Traveller || 02/16/2004 15:44 Comments || Top||

#2  "State religion" is an invitation for discrimination against other religons. It does not disconnect government from Sharia, it merely papers over the join. Take a lesson from the American Civil war, guys - get that stuff straight up front so you don't have a big bloody mess down the road.
Posted by: mojo || 02/16/2004 20:17 Comments || Top||

#3  I agree completely with Traveller (gulp!) and mojo - this is very big magik, IMHO. What have we accomplished in Iraq if it becomes a Shari'a Law / Tribal Clan / Same-old-shit Arab shithole called Demokratic Irak?

We've come too far to let anyone, Sistani or anyone else, turn this effort into their vision of the same old shit. They sat on their fucking hands or collaborated with Saddam for 35 years. They didn't do dick. If they don't like what we offer when we did all of the heavy lifting, tough shit. They can try 35 years of a Republic and then, if they don't like it - by a 2/3 majority of no-shit registered voters, we can talk. Meanwhile, do it right. Anything less makes a mockery of the effort of bona-fide heroes - and will make any future effort down the road a failure - in advance. No way, no how.
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 21:04 Comments || Top||


Heteroflexible Language
The San Francisco Chronicle informs us that the term "homosexual" is not appropriate when referring to gay people anymore ("too pathological and clinical") and that a whole host of new words are popping up to describe Bay Area folks who don't fit into the whole "binary male-female system."

"Genderqueer" is someone who thinks there are more than two sexes and doesn't consider himself or herself male or female. Someone who is "pansexual" is attracted to anything that walks people of multiple genders. In the transgender (someone with a "gender identity different from the one assigned at birth") community, a "trannydyke" is a transgender person attracted to people "with a more feminine gender" and a "trannyfag" is someone attracted to people with "a more masculine gender." A "boi" is usually a "biological female" with a boyish manner. She might feel like a boy with a "y," but since she doesn't have the "boy parts" then boi with an "i" is preferable. And among people of color, the Chronicle says, the term "queer" sounds too white so they prefer the terms "same-gender-loving people" or "men who sleep with men."

The list goes on: "boydyke," "trannyboy, " "multigendered," "polygendered," "queerboi," "transboi," "transguy," "transman," "half-dyke," "bi-dyke," "stud," "stem," "trisexual," "omnisexual," and "multisexual."

Hours of fun!
Ummm... What's the term for a black lesbian dwarf with a preference for circus midgets and baby green peas with pearl onions again?

Is this really the same language that Shakespear, Jonson and Spencer used to speak?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 10:33 || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Think they do this on purpose because they know it drives us nuts? But being a "breeder", what do I know...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 10:38 Comments || Top||

#2  Donna Brazile?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 10:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Watch out for those trisexuals. They'll "tri" anything!
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 10:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Gah! Gay community Newspeak!
Posted by: Steve from Relto || 02/16/2004 11:15 Comments || Top||

#5  "People are now supposed to use the gender-neutral term "magi" instead. The possibility that one or more of the magi were female cannot be excluded completely," said the committee that issued the new guidelines. "

Um, No. "Magi" may be a gender-neutral term in English, but it's definitely a masculine word in the original Greek of the New Testament -- there's no gender ambiguity at all in the original text.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 02/16/2004 11:17 Comments || Top||

#6  Aris--

I rather doubt that any of the magi were female, but the word in koine was "magoi" right (don't have time to check it from here at work)? Is not the masculine plural used for a mixed group? Be interested to know.
Posted by: BMN || 02/16/2004 11:59 Comments || Top||

#7  Hmm... it *could* be so used, but that seemed to me to be seriously stretching it.

But I admit that in my mind was the traditional idea of three magi, in which case if we had two female ones and one male, or two males and one female, anyone would clarify rather than use a masculine plural as default.

But true, if we are also contemplating the possibility of a larger group, like 10 or 20, people could use the masculine plural even if there existed women among them. So I concede the point.

Mind you personally I don't believe any such magi ever existed, so for me it all goes to what the original authors of the text intended, rather than what "actually" happened.
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 02/16/2004 12:41 Comments || Top||

#8  Aris--

Thanks, wasn't trying to be pedantic, just wanted to know. I'm an atheist myself but I sure think the gospels are an interesting artifact--prose fiction describing rather unlikely characters ("losers" even) like publicans, tax collectors, non-heroic centurions, even Jesus himself, is thin on the ground among Greek speakers. I really don't know to what else we ought to compare them.
Posted by: BMN || 02/16/2004 13:07 Comments || Top||

#9  Power to the transmetrosexuals!
Posted by: Hyper || 02/16/2004 14:24 Comments || Top||

#10  I thought the magi were Zoroastrian wise men, kind of a cross between a philosopher and a mullah. Sir Percy Sykes, who's, of course, probably too dead, white, and European to be trusted, describes them as the "Levites of the Zoroastrians," who slew the sacrificial victims and were deeply versed in astrology. I can't recall ever reading anywhere that the Zoroastrians had priestesses. So I think your original opinion was correct, Aris.
Posted by: Fred || 02/16/2004 14:45 Comments || Top||

#11  Steve: You hit the nail on the head with that comment about Newspeak.
Posted by: Korora || 02/16/2004 15:07 Comments || Top||

#12  Honestly, it would be interesting to have Oscar Wilde's take on the omnisexual idea. Kind of gives a whole new meaning to the phase:

Marge, pass the chicken and mashed potatos when your done with them.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 16:26 Comments || Top||

#13  Is it gay newspeak or is it a sign of the gay movement fracturing? Think of the Judean People's Front and the People's Front of Judea...
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/16/2004 18:29 Comments || Top||


Navy Jet Fighter Is for Sale on EBay
My wife says it’s not in the budget. Anybody else interested?
You can now have your very own Navy F/A-18A Hornet jet fighter — but some assembly may be required.
Ain’t that always the way?
The price for the jet, which formerly belonged to the Navy’s Blue Angels aerial demonstration team, is just over $1 million on the auction firm eBay, or about $9 million for a buyer who wants it assembled, painted and certified ready-to-fly.
8 million in labor? That’s kinda pricey.
Only legal U.S. residents can bid. The auction is scheduled to end Thursday. An F/A-18 in 1997 cost the military $28 million, according to the Blue Angels’ official Web site. Mike Landa, of Landa and Associates, the Washington state brokerage that has listed the fighter on the Internet auction service, told The Virginian-Pilot that the jet is in parts and came out of military service in 1994. Landa wouldn’t identify the owner, but said he came by it legally. "This thing obviously slipped through the system somehow," Landa said.
Yeah, obviously. Got any B-52’s on the lot?
The FBI came out to visit Landa after he put the jet up for bidding. They wanted to know "what are you selling here," he said. "They wanted to have the scoop on it." Landa said he has no doubt that someone will surface to claim the Hornet. The jet’s model can fly about 1,400 mph and climb 30,000 feet in a minute.
Makes a great Christmas gift...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 9:37:41 AM || Comments || Link || [336105 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ...If Mr. Landa has any smarts at all, when the Navy comes to collect its property he'll make them an offer they can't refuse - their airplane for letting him ride in one of the Angels' 2 seaters all the way through a practice session.
And if there ARE any BUFFS out there, go with the H models - faster and better mileage.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/16/2004 9:41 Comments || Top||

#2  8 million in labor? That’s kinda pricey.

Putting on all the decals takes a lot of fine detail work plus a really big pair of tweezers...
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/16/2004 9:42 Comments || Top||

#3  Sounds like it might be a good addition to the Rantburg Air Force. Anyone want to pass the hat?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/16/2004 9:45 Comments || Top||

#4  Seafarious is right. And how the hell is one supposed to twist those full size parts off the trees? You'd need like twelve friends just to twist off the fuselage!
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 9:48 Comments || Top||

#5  LOL Dar.
I want a B-58.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 10:10 Comments || Top||

#6  Here's the auction link. It's real (at least, the auction is real)!

It's going to take more than rubber bands to hold the pieces together while the glues dries, too. I hope whoever buys it doesn't glue the canopy and wheel wells shut like I always did. How embarassing!
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 10:22 Comments || Top||

#7  Are batteries included?
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/16/2004 10:24 Comments || Top||

#8  No, just the outrageous price of the jet fuel. A $1,000 a gallon! More like $900 a gallon. It's Airway robbery!
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/16/2004 11:48 Comments || Top||

#9  Only in America can you buy a fighter jet online.:)
Posted by: djohn66 || 02/16/2004 13:05 Comments || Top||

#10  Remember the controversy not too long ago when there was a contest, and the first prize was a Harrier Jet? The guy who won tried to collect. Ended up in a really NASTY lawsuit.

Personally, I think the F/A-18 is a bit overpriced. I'd personally rather buy something that has a better glide ratio than 1:800 - and doesn't drink JP-8 faster than my teenage daughter can spend money.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/16/2004 13:19 Comments || Top||

#11  If I were to bid, I would like to know whether the IFF still works and whether the ammunition must be purchased seperately. Is there a version of Carfax for fighter aircraft.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 16:31 Comments || Top||

#12  get a JetTrader at the 7-11, should have all the details and a polaroid of it
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 17:32 Comments || Top||

#13  We could ask Al-Aska Paul to give it a once-over before we bid...mebbe even take it out for a test-fly?
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/16/2004 17:38 Comments || Top||

#14  Hmmmm maybe it's time to give this old Messerschmidt in my garage a checkup?
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/16/2004 20:01 Comments || Top||

#15  "old Messerschmidt in my garage"

What model?????? Lol!

Isn't this the way of the world? $28M fighter new, drive it off the lot roll it out of the hanger and the resale drops to $9M. I know it was a Blue Angels bird, so you know the maintenance was top notch - can you imagine a bird from, say Saudi Arabia, being peddled?

"And what's this '?' mark mean on each of the maint checklist lines?"
"Oh, that, the '?' indicates 'Insh'allah'... Sir? Sir, where are you going? Sir?"
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 20:13 Comments || Top||

#16  Test flight will require a heavy front-end payment for fuel. Maybe we can borrow some tip-jar money from Fred....If we buy it for RB, where is it gonna be based? Wheelus? LOL!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/16/2004 20:56 Comments || Top||

#17  Geez, I got half an hour in the RAAF F/A18 sim. Took off out of Sydney at dusk, flew around did few aerobatics, beat up the tower, dealt with an engine fire and got it on the ground in one piece after a single engine ILS. Nice airplane!
According to the guy who organised this you can burn a ton(yep 2200 pounds or so ) of fuel doing a 360 at low altitude.
So pass the hat and don't be stingy.
Posted by: Aussie Mike || 02/16/2004 21:16 Comments || Top||

#18  It's up to $25,000,000!


Landa has a pretty clean eBay record. A member since 1998, he has a 97.3 percent positive feedback from more than 400 buyers. But the Blue Angels jet is just small potatoes. Landa is also selling a new aircraft "that climbs straight up" for $10 million.
Posted by: Tony (UK) || 02/16/2004 22:08 Comments || Top||

#19  Actually, TGA ain't all that far from the facts. As I recall, at Merrill barracks (aka Sudekaserne in Nuremburg), there were some old german weapons stored in the sub levels that we never bothered to retrieve because those levels were flooded. (I don't mean "a few feet of water" flooded, I mean "Holy Shit, where's the submarine!" flooded). Tanks, planes, all sorts of fun toys.

Germany is STILL pulling up bits and pieces that the National Socialist crew buried thinking they'd have a rainy day sometime when they'd be able to retrieve them for the "Glory of the Fourth Reich".

Fortunately, it didn't turn out that way.

Ed.
Posted by: Ed Becerra || 02/16/2004 22:45 Comments || Top||


2 PAF men charred as fuel tank of jet fighter falls over post
Two personnel of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) men were burnt to death when a fuel tank of a jet fighter of Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fell over the guard post of Peshawar Airbase on Sunday. Spokesman Sarfraz Ahmed Khan said that an F-5 fighter plane of PAF developed some technical fault soon after it took off from Peshawar base and one of its extra fuel tank fell over a guard post of same base, which claimed the lives of two PAF men performing their duties on the post. However, the pilot succeeded in landing the jet safely on the base. The deceased were identified as Hawaldar Muhammad Rashid, resident of Jhang and Ijab Hussain resident of Rawalpindi. The dead bodies were later sent to Combined Military Hospital (CMH) for an autopsy. The spokesman said that heirs of deceased PAF men would be compensated in accordance with the rules of the PAF.
"Mahmoud! Did you secure the spare fuel tank to that F5?"
"I thought you did it, Ahmed."
"Oh, well. At least the pilot wasn't hurt."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 09:21 || Comments || Link || [336084 views] Top|| File under:

#1  This is what happens when you buy PRC fighters and not American! About ten odd years ago the leading PAK pilot was killed when getting a 'joy ride' in a PRC 'fighter' jet. Bottom line: you get what you pay for.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 02/16/2004 10:36 Comments || Top||

#2  This is what happens when you buy PRC fighters and not American!

Actually, this is an American fighter. It doesn't say much for maintenance standards at the PAF that a wing tank could actually fall off. The T-38 is the trainer version of the F-5. I read somewhere that the F-5 is still in Singapore's armory, which means that it's still a useful airplane, despite its age, and the fact that it was manufactured for Third World air forces.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/16/2004 11:16 Comments || Top||

#3  The F-5 is a 50-60's US export fighter. You are thinking of the J-7/F-7, the Chinese clone of the MiG-21.
Posted by: ed || 02/16/2004 11:17 Comments || Top||

#4  Thanks ed. I should have distinguished between the two. I forgot about the F-5 Tiger. The F-5 is the Chinese export variant, they also have the F-6 and F-7 from the PRC. No match for the MiG-25 and MiG-29's India flies but they are'nt completly defenseless. We haven't sold aircraft to PAK for a while due to the Nuke issue.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge || 02/16/2004 11:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Isn't the MIG21 responsible for decimating the Indian Air Force? The problem with that is that they were flying them at the time.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 11:30 Comments || Top||

#6  Should've just flown over Pakistan and bail out. The planes would find a suitable target somehow, I'm sure. At least in theory, since they're good at beng the targets.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/16/2004 11:52 Comments || Top||

#7  It would be fun to see an F-5 match up with an Indian Gnat (I doubt any are left). Sort of a bantamweight championship.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 13:18 Comments || Top||

#8  According to all the TOEs I've looked up , the PAF didn't have US-built F5s, but rather the FT-5 (aka F-5, copy of Chinese J-5, MiG-17 variant). I gather they're either in use of trainers or phased out.

Currently the PAF operates F-16s, F-7s, Dassault Mirage IIIs and Dassault Mirage Vs, and the A-5 in the attack role. Maybe they got the A5 mixed up with the F5?
Posted by: Pappy || 02/16/2004 22:54 Comments || Top||


GaNGOs of New Europe
EFL from Tech Central Station
The presumption that NGO people have undergone a sudden transfiguration and become better than business people is nonsense. Their goals may differ, but their approach to problems is constrained by the same rules of the game as in society at large. Comparing the failures of individuals in the market and government with the presumed perfect individuals working for NGOs distorts reality. If corruption occurs in the market and the government, there is no reason to assume it does not occur in NGOs.

In fact, NGOs can be viewed as potential sources of corruption as well as criminal activities. As written by Robert Wade, a professor at the London School of Economics: "Unkind people might observe that al-Qaeda is an NGO, and one with extraordinarily high levels of social capital". Many may disagree with such a view, but it is supported in principle by the understanding that NGOs are often seen as ultimate and formalized representatives of "civil society." It would follow then, that the distinction between Greenpeace and al-Qaeda would be narrowed down to the question of a formal incorporation. While al-Qaeda may not be a "true NGO" in the formal sense and while its actions are believed uncivil by Western standards, it certainly would represent "civil society"...

But at least it considers the possibility that NGOs, as representatives of civil society, are open to a wide range of possibilities. A recent study titled "The 21st Century NGO" by SustainAbility for the United Nations demonstrates that NGOs are often less transparent and accountable than the businesses they tend to criticize. Obviously, organizations closed to external pressures will tend to become inward-looking, a habit which may lead to corruption. It goes without saying that incentives for potential NGO involvement in corruption are created by government financing. The European Parliament recently organized a public hearing on the awarding of EU contracts to NGOs and on their performance. In the words of Jan Mulder, a Dutch MEP: "It appears that annually EU funds worth €1.5 billion are awarded to NGOs, of which only a limited amount is subject to some form of tendering".

So, even if NGOs in developed democracies and partners of respected international organizations make many multinational businesses look like "choirboys," the expectations of these organizations should be significantly adjusted in Central and Eastern Europe. On the basis of this value-free and mechanical approach to civil society, it is obvious that NGOs are doomed to be the "Trojan horse" in the fight against corruption in the CEE. An idealistic NGO aiming to replace "discourse of power" with "communitarian discourse" would not beat criminal gangs in this competition. Hence, a civil society where gangs determine informal rules of the game will actually encourage the spread of corruption and criminal activities. Instead of putting efforts into encouraging and creating new NGOs for the fight against corruption, the advancement of the rule of law would work better. Creating trustworthy formal institutions reduces people’s reliance on informal criminal rules.
I have a problem with having money I pay to my governemnt for their operational expenses being funneled to NGO’s which are not transparant to me.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 8:57:11 AM || Comments || Link || [336083 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I have a problem with having money I pay to my governemnt for their operational expenses being funneled to NGO’s which are not transparant to me.

SH---So do I. It is too easy for agenda-driven groups to hide behind some humanitarian or justice-sounding name. Here is a site called NGO Watch that makes it their business to learn more about these catchy-name outfits.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/16/2004 14:23 Comments || Top||


Saddam trial two years away
Iraq’s deposed dictator Saddam Hussein is unlikely to stand trial for at least another two years. When the Iraqi special tribunal for crimes against humanity begins hearing trials in October or November, the first defendants to appear will be high-ranking Baath party officials. Muhammad Zimam Abd al-Razzaq al-Sadun, the former Baath party chairman and commander of the militia in Baghdad, was reportedly captured at the weekend, bringing the number caught since US authorities issued their "most wanted" deck of 52 cards to 44. Prosecutors are likely to focus on about a dozen of the most heinous accusations against Saddam, including the Anfal campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s, the crushing of the 1991 uprising, ethnic cleansing and persecution of the Shias.
I am surprized that it is taking so long
Posted by: Bernardz || 02/16/2004 8:50:03 AM || Comments || Link || [336091 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Might tie into this (from www.strategypage.com):

Senior Iraqi officials have made clear that they will demand Saddam Hussein be turned over to them for trail when the new Iraqi takes control on July 1st. The U.S. may not want to hand him over that soon, because the CIA is using some new and novel interrogation techniques that require long periods of time to break down the subjects resistance to providing information. The CIA knows that once the Iraqis get Saddam and try him, they will probably execute him. Saddam will take a lot of valuable information to the grave if it is not gotten out of him first. Saddam was in the middle of all manner of diplomatic and political dirty business for over three decades. Saddam knows who did what to whom, or tried to. Getting Saddam to talk would fill in a lot of blanks and make it clear who was reliable, or just a good liar, since the 1960s.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips || 02/16/2004 10:28 Comments || Top||

#2  I was right. They got him thinking the 70s, 80s, and 90s were all just chapters in the great Arab Novel they he got caught up in and went berserk. He's come out of the clouds and is now beloved as Iraq's greatest writer, an Arab answer to Burroughs.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 13:25 Comments || Top||

#3  "Some new and novel techniques"

They might try some old techniques the Russians used... place 2 scorching hot boiled eggs under the armpits of Saddam... he'll talk in five minutes.

Leaves no traces either.
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/16/2004 18:11 Comments || Top||

#4  Hmm....Eeeeexcellent. I like how you think TGA. (evil grin)
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 20:12 Comments || Top||


Allegation of FBI Team in Pakistan to Prepare for Large-Scale Operation
From Jihad Unspun
After rumors of the presence of Osama Bin Laden in the province of NWFP, four FBI agents have arrived in Kohat, Pakistan. One of the agents is a female. The agents have taken residence in government rest houses and the workers have been replaced by Pakistani intelligence agencies who have taken posts as the “butlers” for these agents. These FBI agents are rumored to be here to assess the possibility of a large-scale operation in Karam and Aurakzai agencies in the tribal area of Pakistan to search for Osama Bin Laden.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/16/2004 8:47:07 AM || Comments || Link || [336075 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Interesting. Tenet was in Pakistan last week, along with 2 dozen or so CIA people.

Train's getting ready to leave the station, Musharraf.
Posted by: rkb || 02/16/2004 9:41 Comments || Top||

#2  If the FBI is involved you can bet Al-Q knows all about it...
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/16/2004 9:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Fibbies. Sigh. This definitely means only one thing: there are some press conferences on tap... It might mean other things, as well, but the only sure thing that draws Fibbis, like ants to a picnic, is a bank 'o mikes and TV cams.
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 20:18 Comments || Top||


WMD and Decisions Under Uncertainty
EFL from Tech Central Station
"Tim Russert: But can you launch a preemptive war without iron clad, absolute intelligence that he had weapons of mass destruction?
President Bush: Let me take a step back for a second and there is no such thing necessarily in a dictatorial regime of iron clad absolutely solid evidence."
-- Meet the Press, February 8, 2004
I enjoy teaching statistics in high school even more than I enjoy teaching economics. Part of the reason is that the Advanced Placement exam in statistics is so much better than the exam in economics. You can pass the economics AP just by memorizing some verbal jargon and graphical tricks. For statistics, you really need to understand the subject.

Last year’s statistics exam, for example, had an excellent question about decision-making under uncertainty, which is what President Bush faced in Iraq. Instead of giving students an artificial exercise to crank out the answer based on a formula, the question described a realistic scenario and then asked: "Define the parameter of interest and state the null and alternative hypothesis... In the context of this situation, describe Type I and Type II errors and describe the consequences of each"...
-snip- illustration of statistical theory using the example of Florida elections
Next, let us describe Type I and Type II errors. A Type I error would be to back down from confronting Iraq and subsequently suffer a WMD attack. A type II error would be to invade Iraq when in fact we would not have been hit with WMD even if we left the regime alone... The goal of UN resolution 1441 was to get the Hussein regime to disarm in a transparent way. The regime failed to do so. In fact, the report of David Kay, the American inspector who was disappointed that he was unable to find weapons stockpiles, indicates that some weapons programs were still active, even though they apparently failed to produce usable weapons. To wait to invade until we had ironclad intelligence that Iraq had WMD stockpiles would have been to take a huge risk of Type I error. The costs of such a mistake would have been unacceptably high. To avoid going to war, I would argue that we needed clear assurance that the Hussein regime was co-operating with UN resolution 1441. To give the regime the benefit of the doubt would have been a dubious approach for dealing with the uncertainty.

If the United States has committed a Type II error, meaning that Iraq never posed a threat, then the blame should not fall on our intelligence. It should fall primarily on the Iraqi regime for its continued concealment, deception, and defiance. There is no way that we could have relied on intelligence alone to dismiss the notion that Iraq was a threat. Only the regime itself, by fully co-operating with inspectors and by dismantling suspect programs, could have averted war. In an essay on the role of Harvard Business School in shaping President Bush’s thought process, Thomas Lifson writes, "The very first lesson drummed into new students, as they file into the classrooms of Aldrich Hall, is that management consists of decision-making under conditions of uncertainty. There is never perfect information, and decisions often have to be made even when you’d really prefer to know a lot more. Given this reality, students are taught many techniques for analyzing the data which is available, extracting the non-obvious facets, learning how read into it the reasonable inferences which can be made, while quantifying the risks of doing so, and learning the costs and value of obtaining additional data."
This is standard decision making in the military as well. I thought Bush didn’t pay attention in any of his classes and was just Cheany’s puppet. This paragraph implies that Bush is capable of high-level thinking.
The question from Tim Russert that I quoted at the beginning of this essay implies that we should not have invaded Iraq unless we had "iron clad absolute intelligence" that Iraq had weapons stockpiles. Russert, and many other Americans, want to see the decision in black-and-white terms.
Wait a minute. I thought Bush was the simplistic Black & White thinker.
Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin described the challenge of making decisions in an environment with unknown parameters. In his portrait of Rubin in the New York Times, Jacob Weisberg wrote, ’"At Harvard and Yale Law School I learned to think about the uncertainties and the ambiguities of life intellectually," he says. "When I got to Goldman, Sachs, I learned it was a matter of financial life and death to learn to be probabilistic. If you thought in absolutes and black-and-whites, sooner or later you got wiped out. The odds would catch up with you."’ Decision-making under uncertainty means living with probabilities, not absolutes. Tim Russert needs to take a class in AP Statistics.
He would get no better than a 3 and would still be Valadictorian for network journalists
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 8:45:22 AM || Comments || Link || [336096 views] Top|| File under:

#1  OldSpook had an excellent comment on threat analysis quite similar to this from a post two weeks ago. If I could search the comments or if I were home (I saved it), I'd repost it.
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 11:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Here it is DAR. In the interest of saving Fred's bandwidth click on Calling Iraqs Bluff. Then scroll down to # 5. That will take you to Old Spooks comments on 1/30/04.
Posted by: GK || 02/16/2004 14:12 Comments || Top||

#3  Next, let us describe Type I and Type II errors but do it very slowly - the HE LIED crowd is not good at math.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 16:51 Comments || Top||

#4  I notice that "stockpiles" qualifier is being used here in every sentence here. Maybe I'm seeing too much into it...but I think it's going to become the meaning of is, when they find lots of wmds and wmd programs....just no "stockpiles".

Time will tell.
Posted by: B || 02/17/2004 0:09 Comments || Top||


A Valentines Day Cry for Moderation
EFL
An Italian man who reportedly broke the world record for non-stop kissing had to receive oxygen after his efforts. Officials at the St Valentine’s Day "kissathon" in Vicenza, northern Italy, said Andrea Sarti kissed girlfriend Anna Chen for 31 hours 18 minutes.
I’d need all four tires changed after that one.
After his marathon kiss Mr Sarti has to be resuscitated with oxygen by a first aid team while Ms Chen had to lie down. Mr Sarti reportedly entered the competition for the $12,700 prize money so he could marry Ms Chen. Competition rules were strict, with couples required to remain standing throughout the kiss. They were not allowed to eat, drink or go to the toilet, and could communicate only by using written or text messages the UK’s Guardian newspaper reported.
[my bicuspate itches]... [honey you need a TicTac.]
In addition to breathing problems, Mr Chen also suffered cramp, which Ms Chen attempted to alleviate by massaging him. "It was really difficult," organiser Lucaino Gaggia was quoted by the Guardian as saying.
(what an appropriatte name)
"We didn’t think they could do it. Their secret was concentration... and the ability not to think about time passing."
-And one descreetly placed television set playing highlights from the last ten World Cups. -
If confirmed by Guinness World Records, the kiss beats the previous record of 30 hours 59 minutes, set by an American couple in 2001.
Their Moms must be really proud of their accomplishments...
Meanwhile, in Rome, thousands of gay couples kissed each other in the historic Piazza Farnesse to call for legal rights for same-sex couples. The mass kiss itself only lasted about 10 seconds. But BBC correspondent Tamsin Smith says people taking part hoped to send a more lasting message of protest to Italy’s political and religious establishment.
I hope they publicize stuff like this thoroughly before it takes place. I would hate to happen accross it with the kids while on vacation. Hey, you. Get yourselves about a thousand rooms.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 8:25:12 AM || Comments || Link || [336091 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But BBC correspondent Tamsin Smith says people taking part hoped to send a more lasting message of protest to Italy’s political and religious establishment.

Did they tell him that or did he... you know, just make it up on his own?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 11:54 Comments || Top||


Soviet Soldiers Gone Native (Afghan)
EFL, of course, but you really should follow the link for a moment to take a look at their faces. Soldiers going native has always been a bit of a problem...and when captured who can imaginge the transformative stress they must go through? In any case, if you squint real hard, you might almost see yourself there.
Army veterans in the countries that made up the Soviet Union marked the 15th anniversary on Sunday of the withdrawal of the last of their troops from Afghanistan.

But, as Russian television has reported from Kunduz, actually some Soviet soldiers remained there. The fighting in Afghanistan had been going on for some four years when 18-year-old Gennady Tsevma from the Ukraine went into the Soviet army. His brother, Sergey, then 11, remembered that the whole street turned out to see Gennady off. But then came two letters from Afghanistan. The first accused Gennady of being a traitor. The second said he was absent without leave. In the northern Afghan town of Kunduz, "Nikmamat" earns his living as a driver - $180 a month to feed and clothe his wife and three children "I have grown old," Nikmamat, as Gennady is now called said. "Look, I’m 38 years old now. I’m like an old man. I miss my homeland." He did not desert from the army, he told Russian television. He fell asleep at his post and was captured by mujahideen. "They said to me: If you want to be a Muslim, accept this faith. If you don’t, we’ll kill you." The mujahideen forced Gennady to fight for them. "But I didn’t shoot at all", he said. Still he feared returning home to face a possible court-martial. More than 20 years after he left home, Gennady telephoned his brother. "Hi, Sergey. I’ll definitely come," he promised. "Don’t worry. Just wait, OK?"

Also living in Kunduz is Akhmat. Born Aleksandr Levenets in Ukraine, he deserted from his sapper battalion to escape abuse from his officers. Like Gennady, he joined the mujahideen. But unlike him, no one waits in the Ukraine for Aleksandr. The last of his family died long ago. In Afghanistan he has a wife and two daughters. "To be honest, I don’t want to go back", he confided. "Now I feel like an Afghan."
To be equally honest, I am surprised to see that Soviet era soldiers somehow managed to stay alive in Nothern Afghanistan and even forge a life. Go figure....
Posted by: Traveller || 02/16/2004 5:12:10 AM || Comments || Link || [336062 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I thought some of the T-55 drivers from the Northern Alliance looked Russian.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 7:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Neat post, may "It's a Small world After All" play sweetly on your mind. Or how about "Ever Gentle" on your mind.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/16/2004 13:48 Comments || Top||


Dozens killed in Sudanese army offensive - maybe
Dozens of civilians have been killed in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the past 48 hours in a major offensive staged by army troops and their militia allies, a rebel spokesman said yesterday. Bahr Ibrahim, spokesman for the Sudan Liberation Movement — the largest rebel group active in Darfur — said troops and militia had “killed dozens of civilians and burned more than 200 villages” in the offensive launched Thursday. Ibrahim said army Antonov aircraft had bombarded the area north and northeast of the village of Kuttum, in the north of the region — an area he said was entirely populated by civilians.

The spokesman accused the Sudanese army and its militia allies of pursuing a policy of “ethnic cleansing”, saying the attacks — which were ongoing yesterday — had targeted villages whose residents belonged to non-Arab ethnic groups. “They also destroyed every water source in this arid area,” Ibrahim said. “The local population fled to the bushes or the mountains.” Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir said Monday that the army had crushed a year-old rebellion in the Darfur region, declaring an end to hostilities there and offering a general amnesty to rebels who surrender. But on Thursday, a spokesman for the rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) said that the rebels had retaken several towns and road links from government forces in the semi-desert area.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:43:21 AM || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:


It’s Kimmy’s birthday ...
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has turned 62, basking in lavish praise from his country’s state-controlled media but under heavy pressure from an outside world trying to stop his quest for nuclear weapons. Kim was hailed as "the sun of the 21st century" and "the most prominent statesman in the present world" at official birthday celebrations in Pyongyang on Monday, while people from Nepal to Peru were marking the day with films and parties, state media said. "The great personality of Kim Jong Il as a political elder in the present world has been exalted by his unusual leadership ability," Yang Hyong-sop, vice-president of North Korea’s parliament, told a gathering of Pyongyang elite on Sunday.

North Korean publications describe Kim Jong Il as a renaissance man who has flown fighter aircraft, written operas and shot 11 holes-in-one in his first try at golf. Despite Kim’s reputed brilliance, his years in power have coincided with precipitous economic decline and deadly food shortages. About a third of all North Koreans are dependent on outside food aid, which is at risk of drying up.
Brilliant. Simply brilliant...
Isolated and demonised by the much of the outside world, the reclusive leader will cast a large shadow over six-party talks next week in Beijing, where five states will try to persuade North Korea to defuse a crisis that is largely his handiwork. Kim’s envoys will sit down on February 25 with diplomats from Russia, China, South Korea, the United States and Japan to try to resolve the second atomic crisis in a decade on the Korean Peninsula. Kim, who leads the planet’s only communist dynasty, is one of few North Koreans with unfettered access to news from the outside world through satellite television and the Internet. It may not be lost on the Web-surfing Kim that while his 23 million subjects are told daily of his leadership feats, outside his country many are hoping he may see the wisdom of following another country that was once similarly isolated. "North Korea needs to make a strategic choice -- and make it clear to the world as Libya has done -- that it will abandon its nuclear weapons and programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner," said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly, Washington’s chief negotiator with Pyongyang.

Kim’s official biography says he was born in the deep forests of sacred Mount Paekdu on February 16, 1942, at a secret camp on the Chinese border as Korean guerrillas fought the Japanese who ruled the peninsula as a colony. Outside historians say he was actually born near Vladivostok in the Soviet Far East. Groomed since 1980 by his father Kim Il Sung as the communist world’s first dynastic successor, he became North Korea’s "Great Leader" in 1994 when the elder Kim died. Kim Jong Il took his father’s place as supreme military commander in 1991 and formally succeeded him as communist party secretary in 1998. But Kim declined to assume the title of president. Instead, he designated Kim Il Sung "eternal president" and rules as Chairman of the National Defence Commission. Nearly all of his reported travels in North Korea are visits to army bases designed to maintain support among the powerful 1.1 million-strong army. Intelligence experts say Kim’s resume also includes ordering of a 1983 bombing in Myanmar that killed 17 senior South Korean officials and a 1987 bombing of a Korean Air jetliner that killed 115. In 2002, he apologised to Japan for the kidnapping decades earlier of more than a dozen Japanese.

Kim was rarely seen or photographed before he burst onto the world stage in 2000, holding an unprecedented summit with South Korean President Kim Dae-jung in June and later a landmark visit by then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in October.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:39:26 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Li'l Kims B-Day, time to bust open a keg of White Slag. I've been saving up some of my best lawn clippings for just this occasion. Party on!
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/16/2004 2:46 Comments || Top||

#2  Lets hope its the last one.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/16/2004 6:52 Comments || Top||

#3  shot 11 holes-in-one in his first try at golf.
I would love to see the scorecard. (and the course)

Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 7:33 Comments || Top||

#4 
Kim ... is one of few North Koreans with unfettered access to ... the Internet.

Maybe he's one of Rantburg's trolls.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/16/2004 7:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Shipman - I think the only hole that gave him any trouble was the one with the windmill!
Posted by: Doc8404 || 02/16/2004 8:28 Comments || Top||

#6  shot 11 holes-in-one in his first try at golf

I think this version's more accurate.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/16/2004 8:41 Comments || Top||

#7  Do you think Kerry and his wife have been invited to the party?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/16/2004 8:57 Comments || Top||

#8  Do you think Kerry and his wife have been invited to the party?
Naaah, Kerry prefers French internscusine.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/16/2004 13:59 Comments || Top||

#9  62 is gettin' up there. That's 434 in mad dog years.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 02/16/2004 16:35 Comments || Top||

#10  434... Heh. Mmmm. Snicker.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 16:42 Comments || Top||

#11  RC - think he was using a wedgie Makarov?
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 21:09 Comments || Top||


Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev: The Bio
Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who was assassinated yesterday in Qatar aged 51, became acting president of Chechnya after Dzhokhar Dudayev was killed by Russian forces in 1996; he was also accused of masterminding suicide bombings in Russia and of links with the al-Qa’eda terrorist network. Yandarbiyev’s brief spell as president came after Dudayev was blown up by a Russian missile on April 26 1996. Dudayev’s last words were: "Do not give up what we have begun. Continue to the end."

But doubts were immediately raised about Yandarbiyev’s ability to remain in control; he had only nominal support from tribal leaders and the military command. When he stood in 1997’s presidential elections, he came third, behind the relatively moderate Aslan Maskhadov, and the rebel leader Shamil Basayev. Maskhadov lost no time in sending him to the Middle East, ostensibly as his personal representative. His presence there, and his previous links with the Taliban (he had opened a Chechen embassy at Kandahar during their reign) led him to be identified as a supporter of Osama bin Laden - though he denied having described the al-Qa’eda leader as a "friend of Chechnya".

Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was born on September 12 1952 at Vydrika in Kazakhstan. When he was 17, he began working as a bricklayer, and later became a gas well driller; but he had greater ambitions than manual labour, and spent some time at the Chechen-Ingush University. He went on to a job as a proof-reader and an "engineer-technician" at the Chechen-Ingush Publishing House in 1976. After nine years in the job, his literary enthusiasms had developed sufficiently for him to sign up to the USSR’s Union of Writers; he chaired the Committee of Literature Promotion for a year, and then became editor-in-chief of the magazine Raduga. Meanwhile, he published several collections of verse and short stories under the pseudonym Abdul Muslim, and also produced a number of children’s stories. But most of his energies were devoted to the independence movement; by 1989, he was vice-chairman of the Association of Highland Peoples of the Caucasus.

Two years later, Yandarbiyev entered the Chechen parliament, and rapidly allied himself with Dudayev. As vice-president from 1993, Yandarbiyev was involved in talks with Boris Yeltsin during the shelling of Grozny in December 1994; after Dudayev’s death, he called for a jihad against Russia. Moscow announced Yandarbiyev’s death within a matter of days, but he appeared on television, volunteering to meet Russian leaders, though only if troops were withdrawn from Chechnya. Despite peacemaking attempts later that year, when Yandarbiyev praised the approach of General Alexander Lebed, the conflict continued. During his exile in the Middle East, Russian intelligence services believed Yandarbiyev had been instrumental in the attack on a Moscow theatre in October 2002, in which 130 hostages, and 41 Chechen rebels, died.
There’s also the LA Times version of the story that identifies him as Basayev’s top financier in the Gulf, so right now he looks like as much of a moneyman as anything else.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:35:38 AM || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Viewing at Foley's Funeral Home Tuesday:3:00-5:00, 7:00-9:00. Wednesday:3:00-5:00, 7:00-9:00. Funeral from Death to the Infidels Mosque, 123,908th Holiest Place in Islam, Thursday 10:00. Internment: Death to the Infidels Cemetary, 218,945th Holiest Place in Islam. In lieu of flowers, family requests that you go into the street and shoot a lot of guns in the air.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 10:09 Comments || Top||


Status of Ahmadis as non-Muslim to remain unchanged
The Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) of Pakistan has announced that the status of persons belonging to Qadiani group or the Lahore group who call themselves Ahmadis shall remain unchanged as provided in the constitution and form for non Muslim voters prescribed under electoral roll rule 1974 shall stand restored with immediate effect. As per notification issued by the election commission of Pakistan CE has decided that the Form-1V for Muslim voters containing oath/Declaration as to the belief about the absolute and unqualified finality of the Prophethood of Hazrat Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him) as well form-X for non-Muslim voters prescribed in the Electoral rolls rules, 1974 shall stand restored with immediate effect. The notification said that the separate lists for Muslim voters and non-Muslim voters will be prepared as a result of annual revision of electoral rolls, 2004. The election commission has also extended date upto April, 14, 2004 for filing claims, objections and applications for corrections.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 01:27 || Comments || Link || [336105 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What Bangladesh can look forward to in a few years.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/16/2004 1:46 Comments || Top||

#2  form-X for non-Muslim voters
And there you have it.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 7:22 Comments || Top||

#3  Am I reading this right? There are different ballots and different voter rolls for Moslems and Kaffirs in Bangladesh?
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 02/16/2004 13:27 Comments || Top||

#4  Do they even include the form-X (a.k.a. dhimmi votes) count? Is it, say, calculated as 4 dhimmi-votes = 1 Mooslum vote, kinda like if wymyn had the vote in the Mooslum world? I wonder what the dhimmi tax is in Bangleworld? Does it bother them than The Bangles were wymyns?
Inquiring minds are reeling...
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 20:41 Comments || Top||

#5  The different voter rolls are in Pakistan
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/16/2004 22:09 Comments || Top||

#6  Arrgghh!

Have to keep the looney stories straight. Have to keep the looney stories straight. Have to keep the looney stories straight. Have to keep the looney stories straight. Have to keep the looney stories straight.

Thanx, Paul! Too much to read. Too many threads. Shit!!!
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 22:44 Comments || Top||


US has murky picture of Iraqi insurgency
The capture of dozens of guerrilla leaders has left the U.S. military with a murky picture of a shadowy resistance here, with American and Iraqi officials divided about whether Iraqis or foreign fighters are responsible for recent attacks.
Prob'ly because they've got competing org charts, all of which look like bowls of spaghetti. With meatballs. Just because they're all doing the same thing doesn't mean they're all under the same control. See Ford-Chevy-Toyota competition...
A spate of arrests - including the capture of Saddam Hussein - have broken rebel command networks and forced fighters underground, a top U.S. military official told The Associated Press. Yet attacks persist, crowned by a bold daylight assault this weekend on security compounds in Fallujah that freed 87 prisoners and killed 25 people, mostly police.
Last hint we had was that was a Hezbollah or Iranian operation...
The emergence of al-Zarqawi has triggered a spate of competing statements by U.S. and Iraqi officials, with some blaming foreign terrorists for the car bombs and Saturday’s guerrilla raid and others pointing to Saddam loyalists. "We’ve really gotten into the guts of the insurgency," said a U.S. military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Now we've got to make sense of it, if any..."
The Dec. 13 capture of Saddam helped the Americans identify and capture a slew of operational-level leaders. The string of arrests convinced some rebels to give up the fight, while others may have turned to radical politics or religion to undermine the occupation. At the same time, U.S. officials here and in Washington have acknowledged a handful of Iraqi rebel groups remain active in Iraq. They include:
  • Muntada al-Wilaya, a Shiite group that has grown less troublesome since its leader’s capture.
    I don't even recall hearing about that...
  • The Return Party of former Saddam political allies that continues to mount attacks and distribute leaflets warning against cooperating with Americans.
    Al-Awda is the Arabic. The Baathists have split in 3 since Saddam’s capture per Amir Taheri, so this is one of the trifecta.
  • Muhammad’s Army, an umbrella group of former Iraqi intelligence and security agents.
    That’d be Jaish Mohammed. They’re also led by a Saudi al-Qaeda operative and probably under Zarqawi’s aegis.
  • And Ansar al-Sunna Army, which claimed responsibility for the Feb. 1 bombings in the northern city of Irbil that killed 109 people.
    Ansar al-Islam in drag ...
Despite U.S. gains, rebel attacks against U.S. troops in February have increased to between 20 and 24 a day, rising from 18 per day in January.
Skipping past what we already know ...
According to the Brookings Institution’s count, Iraq has had 39 suicide bombings since May. But others say attacks on Iraqi security forces are usually mounted by homegrown insurgents, not foreign terrorists. In Tuesday’s Iskandariyah bombing, Iraqi police Lt. Gen. Ahmed Kadhum Ibrahim said evidence pointed toward an Iraqi’s involvement, when investigators traced the engine number of the vehicle used in the blast to one of Saddam’s intelligence officers. A U.S. official in Washington also blamed Saddam loyalists for Wednesday’s suicide car blast on a Baghdad recruiting station - hours after a U.S. Army colonel on the scene said the attack was probably carried out by terrorists intending to show a U.N. mission that Iraq was too unstable for elections. Saturday’s Fallujah attack also inspired contradictory pronouncements.
I suspect they were intentionally contradictory, though I'm not sure why. Building an OB is not that complicated.
Administrator L. Paul Bremer told ABC’s "This Week" program on Sunday that he believed foreign fighters took part in the attack on the Fallujah police station. Iraqi officials echoed this claim.
But then...
However, a senior U.S. military officer discounted the role of foreign fighters saying the "complex, well coordinated attack" appeared to have been the work of former members of Saddam’s army or Republican Guard.
Right. The Lebanese and Iranian members of it...
"This was something put together by people with knowledge of small-unit tactics," the officer told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity. "This would not be the same tactics that al-Qaida would employ. These are military tactics. It points to former military members."
What does he think that al-Qaeda does in Chechnya?
The competing theories and lack of clear intelligence may stem partially from the U.S. military’s success. With their commanders in prison, the loose alliance of guerrilla cells has been disrupted and left leaderless and is fighting "with one arm tied behind their backs," the U.S. military official in Baghdad said. "Most commanders understood the insurgency would not fade after Saddam was captured, because all knew there were additional elements - religious extremists, terrorists, criminals, former regimists - who would continue to fight to gain their own specific form of power within Baghdad," said Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling, a deputy commander of the 1st Armored Division.
After Sammy's capture we saw a drop in the number of attacks. Then they picked up again and the tactics changed. That was when somebody else took over the reins, presumably Zarqawi and his compañeros. Presumably the new guys also brought their own funding with them, though they still have the weapons and equipment stocks that Sammy's boyz had, along with a proportion of their cannon fodder. Another proportion should also be going sleeper, while the third is actually going out of the bad guy business. I'd guess, also, that a good bit of Sammy's money has now been rolled into the Qaeda coffers.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:26:41 AM || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Muntada al-Wilaya, a Shiite group that has grown less troublesome since its leader’s capture

I wonder what its leader has had to say..in between the screams I mean..
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/16/2004 1:38 Comments || Top||

#2  US has murky picture of Iraqi insurgency
Could this be because the Iraqi insurgency IS MURKY ? No, no, it's a well defined, fully crystalized organization with strong central leadership and a clear structure.
Posted by: I_Heart_Monica || 02/16/2004 9:44 Comments || Top||


Soddies warn of imminent al-Qaeda attack
In an unprecedented move, Saudi Arabia has warned its citizens of an imminent Al Qaida attack. Saudi authorities said Al Qaida has prepared a car bomb for an attack in Riyad. They have called on citizens to be on the lookout for such a vehicle. The Saudi Interior Ministry said the car laden with explosives was registered to a fugitive sought by authorities. They also said the car was last seen in eastern Riyad in a section known for its Al Qaida sympathies. "The Interior Ministry would like to notify both citizens and residents, especially in Riyad, that we have confirmed information that a vehicle registered in the name of one of the suspects has been equipped with a large quantity of explosives to be used in a criminal act," the ministry said in a statement carried by radio and television.
Middle East Newline's behind the curve. We had it Saturday, from Arab News...
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:19:54 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How imminent is it, Johnny?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 11:26 Comments || Top||


More on the role of the Iranian al-Qaeda
Al-Qaida has been restructured and has a "board of managers" in Iran, a prominent Spanish judge told a newspaper on Sunday. Baltasar Garzon, who investigates "terrorism linked to Islamic fundamenatlism", told El Periodico that although Iran’s al-Qaida cell does not necessarily issue orders, its does coordinate operations. He said: "Currently there is coordination, a series of objectives clearly established (by al-Qaida), but there is no need for an order for an act to be executed... It’s diffused terrorism." Garzon issued an international arrest warrant last September for Usama bin Ladin in the framework of an inquiry into a Spanish al-Qaida cell.
That would be Abu Dahdah’s. Dahdah was one of the highest-ranking al-Qaeda operatives in continental Europe when 9/11 occurred (and it may be just a coincidence that his deputy, Yousef Galan, went to dinner parties at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid) and was the direct link by Mohammed Atta’s Hamburg cell and the top military commander Mohammed Atef in Afghanistan. The Spanished loads of documents when they shut Dahdah’s operation down, and it’d be interesting to see what they found.
President Muhammad Khatami said piously that "those who have committed crimes in Iran will be judged in Iran and the others will be extradited to their country of origin... "There is no place for al-Qaida, no place for any terrorist, for those who act against peace in the world." Khatami added al-Qaida was "very hostile" to the Iranian government.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:18:58 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In yesterdays article on the Board of Directors, Garzon said "This council has, on some issues, maintained positions critical of Osama bin Laden". Does that make the rumor of Bin Ladin being in Iran less likely, or does it mean that his lieutenants are now following their own agenda?
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/16/2004 1:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Unclear, which is why I'm looking around to get a full transcript of what all Garzon said. Though Saif al-Adel and Junior (Saad) both have extremely strong ties to bin Laden, so I'd be surprised if they've decided to implement their own agenda unless there's been some kind of a coup.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:41 Comments || Top||

#3  Or, if Osama's worm food. Then they'd be free to pursue their own agendas.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/16/2004 8:47 Comments || Top||


Hassan Ghul was Zarqawi’s delivery man
The Kurds had laid out bait for their prey. In early January, Kurdish security officials spread word in the villages along Iraq’s border with Iran that one stretch of the mountainous frontier was lightly guarded and thus safe for travelers who had reason to slip unnoticed in or out of the country. Then the Kurds waited. "It was like dropping seeds for a chicken, saying ’Come, come,’ and then catching it," a Kurdish official involved in the sting told TIME. It was a crisp morning in mid-January when the chicken fell into the trap.

The tall man in an open-neck shirt, jacket and trousers looked like any of the traveling merchants who frequent the area. When he was stopped at a Kurdish checkpoint near Kalar, officials made an intriguing discovery in his travel bag: two CDs and a computer flash disc the size of a cigarette lighter. With a hunch who their catch was—the CIA had given them a heads-up that he might be in the area—the Kurdish officials snapped a digital mug shot of the traveler and e-mailed it to their American intelligence contacts. The confirmation came back quickly: the Kurds had nabbed Hassan Ghul, one of the key al-Qaeda operatives still on the run. "When Washington heard we had him," said a Kurdish official in Baghdad, "they were doing cartwheels."

The satchel was at least as important as the suspect. On one of Ghul’s discs was a 17-page progress report and future plan of action in Iraq written to "You, noble brothers, leaders of Jihad." The letter’s author claims to have overseen 25 suicide attacks against various targets in Iraq, which would constitute almost all such assaults since the U.S. rolled into Iraq. The report and other files captured with Ghul suggest a long-term strategy by an international terrorism organization to turn occupied Iraq into the front line of the global jihad. Apart from the documents in Ghul’s satchel, U.S. military officials say they have other evidence that the resistance in Iraq is increasingly being fought and led by jihadists rather than Baathists. Since the capture of Saddam Hussein in December, officials say, supporters of the former regime have largely given up the fight. Their role as financiers and organizers of the diverse insurgency has been taken up by religiously motivated groups that are recruiting young foot soldiers to come to Iraq. It’s unclear, says a U.S. intelligence official in Washington, "how many are, quote-unquote, al-Qaeda." But it’s plain, says a U.S. intelligence official in Iraq, "this is the battleground. It is easy to get here and easy to get weapons." Al-Zarqawi is a central figure in all this. French terrorism expert Roland Jacquard notes that last month an audio recording of al-Zarqawi turned up in extremist circles, in which he urged holy fighters from around the world to join the fight in Iraq under his leadership. Jacquard says Western intelligence agencies believe al-Zarqawi has called for 1,500 to 2,000 jihadists to leave Chechnya for Iraq.
Um, according to the Russians, that’s all of them ...
Al-Zarqawi is the focus of a manhunt nearly on the scale of the searches for Saddam and his two sons. U.S. officials say they have no firm idea where he is, but they suspect that he is in the Sunni triangle. Al-Zarqawi operates so inconspicuously that U.S. intelligence is having trouble "tracking him through the traditional ways," says an official. The information yielded by the capture of Ghul, whom the Kurds turned over to the Americans, may help al-Zarqawi’s hunters. "The discs [Ghul carried] were jammed," says a Kurdish security official. "You could not fit one more single word on them." In a small, weathered blue notebook in Ghul’s satchel were names and telephone numbers from around the world, including a few in Western countries, the source adds. Says a U.S. intelligence official in Iraq: "We’ve been busy."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:13:22 AM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'm glad this happened, but why have we been permitted to know about this?
Posted by: Ray || 02/16/2004 2:35 Comments || Top||

#2  Jacquard says Western intelligence agencies believe al-Zarqawi has called for 1,500 to 2,000 jihadists to leave Chechnya for Iraq.
Um, according to the Russians, that’s all of them ...

-Hmmm, makes you wonder if the Russians are acting as Zarawi's ventriloquist.

I'm glad this happened, but why have we been permitted to know about this?
-planting seeds for the chickens?

and speaking of planting seed for the chickens - I can't help thinking that the Bush administration is doing the same for their Democratic opponents regarding the WMD issues....gleefully getting ready to pull the string as the "Bush lied" quacks get so much louder and emboldened near such an obvious trap...heh..heh.
Posted by: B || 02/16/2004 9:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Gosh, I sure hope so, B.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/16/2004 12:53 Comments || Top||


More violence in southern Thailand
Four more people were attacked yesterday, capping off a weekend of bloody violence in the South. A forestry worker, an assistant village headman and two border patrol police were seriously wounded in three separate attacks in Narathiwat and Yala provinces. The attacks were the latest in the spate of violence that started on Jan 4 when a military camp was raided and four soldiers guarding the camp executed by rebels at the scene. On Saturday, five people were shot, three fatally.

Police suspect all the attacks were carried out by separatist rebels. The attacks continued despite Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s visit to the South over the weekend. Sawad Kanchong, 55, a temporary worker at Narathiwat forestry office was found near a bridge across Nambeng in Tak Bai district, Narathiwat at 7.50 am, bleeding heavily. Police said he was attacked by five assailants on two motorcycles without licence plates, while he was bicycling to a greenhouse in Narathiwat. One assailant hacked at his head with a machete, inflicting two serious wounds. He was taken to hospital and was reported in safe condition. In the second attack, an assistant village head in Rangae district was attacked by two men on two motorcycles without licence plates. Annuwa Arlee, 31, sustained a serious knife wound in the head after he was attacked with a large knife. He was stabbed about 11am while delivering chickens to the local market. The attack was witnessed by many vendors and buyers. In Yala, two police patrol officers were shot by armed men in Bannang Sata district last night.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:09:24 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:


Japanese raid Aum Shinrikyo HQ ahead of cult leader verdict
Japanese agents raided key facilities of a doomsday cult Monday, searching for evidence of a terror plot before a verdict in the trial of the group’s guru for a 1995 nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subways. About 200 investigators poured into the Tokyo headquarters and 10 other centers of the Aum Shinrikyo cult in the latest raid on the group, which now calls itself Aleph. Investigators did not immediately detain any suspects Monday. The raids come ahead of the Feb. 27 verdict in the murder trial of Shoko Asahara, who is accused of masterminding the Tokyo attack that killed 12 people and sickened thousands, and a series of other murders. He faces the death penalty if convicted. The group has shown signs of greater devotion to Asahara in recent months, raising concerns it could mount a terror attack around the time of his ruling, a Public Security Intelligence Agency official said on condition of anonymity. Agents also want to pin down the whereabouts of group leaders, the official said. Despite a police crackdown after the March 1995 gas attack, the cult has regrouped in recent years and now has 1,650 members in Japan and 300 in Russia. The group remains under surveillance by the intelligence agency. So far, 11 of Asahara’s followers have been sentenced to death in connection with several cult attacks. None has yet been executed.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:05:24 AM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Here in Tokyo, there are still wanted posters at every police box for Naoko, Katsuya, and Makoto. Almost ten years after the event. Life-size cutouts, faded from the sun, so you can see how tall they are in relation to each other.

Let's not forget that Aum Shinrikyo drew its members from the educated portion of society that knew better. Something to remember next time you think that only idiots and hicks join cults.
Posted by: gromky || 02/16/2004 5:56 Comments || Top||


Sulawesi cafe boomer jugged
Indonesian police said Sunday they had arrested a key suspect in the deadly bombing of a cafe and karaoke lounge in South Sulawesi province. Salamun, alias Ahmad, was arrested on Saturday in the Central Sulawesi district of Poso, said a police spokesman in South Sulawesi, Adjunct Inspector Sukardi. ``He is one of the main suspects in the blasts,’’ Sukardi told AFP. Another detained suspect, Jasmin, has reportedly told police the attack was part of an Islamic holy war against vice. Police said Jasmin had admitted that he and Salamun had assembled the bomb and placed it under a table in the cafe. Police have so far arrested seven men over the cafe blast with four other suspects still on the wanted list.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 1:01:03 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:


Would-be Musharraf assassins shifted to Rawalpindi
A suspect held in connection with the two assassination attempts on President Gen Pervez Musharraf has been shifted to Rawalpindi to face further questioning, an official told Dawn. Adnan Afridi, who along with a Tunisian, Khalifa bin Hassan, was arrested from Jamrud last week following a raid conducted by the Intelligence Bureau, had been shifted to Rawalpindi to what a senior government official described ’tie him up’ to the investigations in the assassination attempts on President Musharraf. Adnan, in his early twenties, has been an active member of the banned Jaish-e-Muhammad organization. The 35-year-old Hassan, an Al Qaeda suspect, is being questioned by the officials of military intelligence in Peshawar. The two suspects, the official said, had confessed a link between the banned Jaish-e-Muhammad and Al Qaeda at the operational and training level. Investigators said that Adnan and Hassan, who had initially identified himself as Abdur Rehman from Morocco, had participated in the fight against Indian troops in occupied Kashmir.
Thought that sounded like a phony name...
An official who described Hassan as ’very sharp and intelligent’ said the man fits into the picture of a facilitator. Adnan, on the other hand, because of his ties with Jaish-e- Muhammad and recovery of sophisticated remote controlled devices, timers and impact devices from the house, had strengthened suspicion of his links with the two attempts on the life of the president. Officials said that the Arab, who was captured in a wounded condition, following a gun fight, in Jamrud the following day, has identified himself as Abdul Bari from Syria.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 12:58:07 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:


He walked the fine edge.
Via LGF
Former Tour de France winner Marco Pantani was found dead Saturday in the Italian seaside resort of Rimini, according to reports from the Italian newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport and the ANSA news agency. The flamboyant Pantani, who made an emotional comeback to cycling last year after years of wrangling with the authorities over alleged drug-taking, had not competed regularly on the professional circuit for the past two years. Nicknamed "The Pirate" in Italy for his wearing of earrings and colorful headbands, Pantani won the Giro and the Tour de France in 1998 with the Mercatone Uno team, which he joined in 1997. He was the last rider to achieve the prestigious double in the same year, and the first Italian to win the Tour de France since Felice Gimondi in 1965.
This is a major acheivement. Lance does not attempt this (He should)
"He paid a very high price," said Gimondi, who was Pantani’s manager for two years. "For four years he was at the center of a storm." After a successful career throughout much of the 1990’s as one of the best climbers in the peloton, his career hit the skids in the wake of the tough anti-doping laws introduced in Italy after the 1999 Giro, when he was targeted in a police raid on riders’ hotels. Tests showed his blood hematocrit levels to be abnormally high - an indicator but not proof that a rider may be using endurance-enhancing drugs - and he was disqualified from the race only 36 hours from winning the event for a second time. A year later, Pantani returned to compete in the Tour de France, where he scored his last major victory on the stage to Courchevel. He was then banned for eight months in June 2002 by the Italian Cycling Federation after a syringe containing insulin was found in his hotel room during the 2001 Giro. A month later, to the annoyance of the UCI, he won a successful appeal due to an absence of proof. The international governing body appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to reinstate the eight-month ban, which if upheld would have ruled Pantani out of the 2003 Giro. However, in March of last year, CAS ruled he should only serve a six-month ban, effectively paving the way for a comeback.

Instead, severe depression caused Pantani to spend the second half of June in a drugs and depression clinic near Venice. He was recently reported to be living with friends in the village of Predappio, but rarely rode his bike and was said to be overweight. Pantani was not registered with a professional team this year, and his father had said there was little chance of him ever racing again.

Still, his death at such a young age has shocked the whole of Italy. Italian cycling star Mario Cipollini said Pantani’s death was a great tragedy. "I am devastated," he said. "It’s a tragedy of enormous proportions for everyone involved in cycling. I’m lost for words." Franco Ballerini, coach of the Italian national cycling team, was quoted as saying: "It’s something that is so huge, it doesn’t seem true." And compatriot and colleague Stefano Garzelli compared Pantani to the legendary Fausto Coppi, who in 1949 became the first rider to win the Tour and the Giro in the same year - a feat Pantani repeated 49 years later. "Forty years on they remember Coppi, in 40 years’ time they will still be talking about Marco," said Garzelli. "Certainly he came under a great deal of pressure, not just from cycling. He was very strong but also very sensitive and took refuge in things he shouldn’t have. The pressure he was exposed to would have been difficult for anyone to cope with.
In the cycling rags there was an add for a cycling shoe with Pantani walking on water. Very Christ like. He was a star. He was a hard road cyclist. He put his life on the line. His Tour victory came over the "undefeatable" and defending Tour champion Jan Ulrich. This was Ulrich as the next Merkx and the main nemisis to Armstrong this past Tour. But Pantani attacked Jan when it got steep and Jan couldn’t match The Pirate. Time Trialist, such as Miguel Indurian, had been dominating the Tour until Pantani and that made his win special. His Tour victory also had an affair of doping that overshowdowed the event and sullied the name of the French hope, Richard Virenque, and the shame it brought on his Festina team. Pantani was beautiful on the bike.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/16/2004 12:57:17 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Are there any bicyclers who *don't* take drugs? They're as bad as Major League Baseball, or the East Bloc athletes in the 70s.
Posted by: gromky || 02/16/2004 0:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Gromky, I know what you mean. But I think things are pretty clean right now. I think US Postal is clean. But make no mistake. These guys are Formula One of the human body.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/16/2004 1:16 Comments || Top||

#3  RIP Elefantino..... Amazingly fast considering his aerodynamic handicap.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 7:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh God... I was big fan.I should add that Pantani was also the best "mountain climber" of his era,and the only rider of such type to win the Tour since the mid-seventies(usually it's the time-trialists with strong teams that win).If he did use drugs,so did everybody else.In pro cycling,that was just a fact of life.RIP,Marco.
Posted by: El Id || 02/16/2004 7:32 Comments || Top||

#5  Their is a close-up picture of Marco in the Official Tour Centinial. He is sitting next to his bike, crosslegged on the road. The other riders sitting allround. I think it's a protest. He stares, sadly, directly at you, his head slightly cocked to the left. He is beautiful, Grecian like. Outfitted in the Mercatone-Uno kit of baby blue w/pale yellow.

But what is so cool about the photo was the way Marco hid his spockness. His cycling cap is ringed by a team headband that neatly tucks in the top of his ears.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/16/2004 12:55 Comments || Top||

#6  Spookness is not pc, better to use aurally endowed.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 13:11 Comments || Top||


2 dead in southern Afghanistan bombing
A soldier and shopkeeper were killed and six other people were injured when a bomb exploded Friday in a building housing a military unit in southern Afghanistan. The explosion in All Shaire district of troubled Khost province came just two days after the province’s deputy intelligence director was shot dead in broad daylight while on his way to work. Khost district chief Lutfullah said the bomb exploded at 9:00 am in a ground floor shop of the building which has a military post on the upper floor. “This bomb was planted by al-Qaeda and Taliban in the shop and their aim was to kill soldiers on the second floor,” Lutfullah said. “In the explosion one soldier died, one soldier was injured and the shopkeeper also died and five other civilians were injured.” Meanwhile more than 20 rockets landed near a US-led military base in Khost overnight, prompting the US-led coalition force to bomb the area, officials said.
Hek’s boyz display their usual accuracy ...
“At about midnight last night, approximately 20 rockets impacted in the vicinity of our firebase in Khost,” US military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hilferty said, adding there were no coalition casualties. “After checking to ensure there were no civilian structures in the vicinity of the launch point, we did return fire with artillery and precision guided bombs. At this time there is no indication of anti-coalition militia casualties.” The rockets were fired early Friday morning near the US base in Khost, some 150 kilometers southeast of Kabul, military commander Khial Baz Khan told AFP by satellite phone. “Some 21 rockets were fired but fortunately none of them caused any casualties,” he said. Khost, a key province and city in southeastern Afghanistan and bordering Pakistan, has frequently been subjected to attacks by suspected militants believed to be regrouping.
Just a coincidence that happens to be adjacent to Pakistan, though ...
A spokesman for the ousted Islamic fundamentalist regime has claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack, saying the intelligence director was targeted because he had given information to US forces and was formerly a member of an Afghan communist party.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/16/2004 12:56:49 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:


AQ Khan suffers heart attack, condition critical
I'm certainly surprised. I thought he'd go in a helicopter crash...
Pakistan’s top scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, involved in clandestine nuclear sales to "rogue states", has reportedly suffered a heart attack. "Dr Khan is under treatment at his residence and his condition is stated to be critical," a local daily quoted officials of the of the hospital of the country’s premier nuclear installation, Khan Research Laboratories (KRL) formerly headed by Khan, as saying. Khan had been suffering from pain in his left hand since he was questioned by intelligence agencies for the past few months for his alleged involvement in transferring nuclear technology, Dawn said. The newspaper said Khan had never suffered from cardiac complaint before the incident, but he often felt pain in his left hand whenever he took extra burden and pressure of official work. The newspaper also quoted some family members of the other KRL nuclear scientists and officials as saying that the condition of Khan and his Dutch wife Hamdarina was "bad". "Both of them are suffering from high blood pressure and they have been given potency doses by the doctors of the KRL hospital," it said.
Under normal circumstances, heart attacks aren't contagious...
The newspaper also said Pakistan’s Defence spokesman Major General Shoukar Sultan and Senior Director of KRL hospital, Ali Raza Kazmi refused to comment on the condition of Khan.
Here's the original article, from Dawn...


More, from Jang...
The disgraced architect of Pakistan's nuclear programme Abdul Qadeer Khan is suffering from acute hypertension, high blood pressure, depression and sleeplessness, his doctor said Monday.
"We expect him to depart the gene pool without warning any time now..."
Speaking amid reports Khan had suffered a heart attack, Dr. Shafiqur Rehman told he last visited the scientist at his residence in the last week of January when he found him in "poor health."
"We expect it to deteriorate further as soon as we get that video tape back from his daughter..."
"He has a history of hypertension and I had been visiting him regularly until I was stopped by the authorities on February 4 after the last visit," the doctor said. Since then authorities have imposed strict restrictions on his movement and tightened security around his residence in Islamabad. Rehman said he was unaware whether Khan had suffered a heart attack, as reported by the leading Pakistani English newspaper Dawn on Monday.
"Though I expect he will, just as soon as they get that tape..."
The report, which was promptly denied by the government, quoted sources at the Khan Research Laboratories hospital as saying that a heart specialist and a cardiac machine were secretly sent to Khan's house on February 8. The report said Khan has "suffered a heart attack" and his condition was "stated to be critical" when he was treated. Pakistan's foreign ministry termed the report baseless saying Khan was in good health.
"Pooh and pooh. There's no reason to make the video public at this time..."
"This is fabrication. He is in good health and the report that he suffered heart attack is baseless," foreign ministry spokesman Masood Khan told. Dr. Rehman said he had learnt that a nurse was attending to Khan at his home but no doctor had been sent there. "Last week I asked the authorities to allow me to check up Khan in the presence of a magistrate but my request was refused." he said.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/16/2004 12:30:42 AM || Comments || Link || [336113 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Dear Abdul-
Just wanted to drop you a quick line to tell you how sorry the Mrs and I were to hear of your unitmely death tomorrow.

Signed,
Perv"
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/16/2004 0:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Under normal circumstances, heart attacks aren't contagious...
A man I know went to the hospital complaining of chest pains and a nurse began taking his medical history. When she got to the question: "Have you ever had stomach ulcers", he answered "no". Then quickly added: "but you can put me down as a carrier."
Doesn't sound too good for Khan (or his wife) does it?
Posted by: GK || 02/16/2004 0:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Two slices... Butter? Or butter and jelly?
Posted by: Fred || 02/16/2004 0:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Contagious heart attacks--funny how that works when you've become an Enemy of the State.
I don't suppose Bill or Hillary Clinton or Craig Livingstone were spotted in Pakistan per chance?
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/16/2004 1:46 Comments || Top||

#5  ???
Posted by: B || 02/16/2004 5:32 Comments || Top||

#6  I thought he'd go in a helicopter crash...

That's a very inefficient way to do someone in. It requires expending a very expensive helicopter, not to mention a highly-trained pilot.
Posted by: Mike || 02/16/2004 6:26 Comments || Top||

#7  Nuclear scientist 'in good health'
Pakistan has denied press reports that disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has had a heart attack. A military spokesman said doctors had examined Dr Khan over the weekend but added it had been a routine check-up. Earlier, a report in the prestigious Pakistani newspaper Dawn had described Dr Khan's condition as critical.
According to the Dawn newspaper, a medical team with cardiac machines had been sent to Dr Khan's residence - where he is under detention - after he suffered a heart attack over the weekend. The report described Dr Khan's condition as critical, but the military spokesman said it was not true.

Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/16/2004 7:20 Comments || Top||

#8  Sounds like they're giving the good Doctor a preview of how things could be.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 7:25 Comments || Top||

#9  Or lyng through their teeth.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/16/2004 8:21 Comments || Top||

#10  Oh! Oh! It's the big one Elizabeth! I'm coming Elizabeth!
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 10:23 Comments || Top||

#11  " I don't want you up here when I'm with my new man. Say hello honey. "
" KAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHNNNNNNNNN! "
Posted by: Charles || 02/16/2004 15:57 Comments || Top||

#12  Heh heh heh

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about. I wonder if it's a heart attack of the 'hole in the head' variety, or some anonymous Nasty Boys™ dosed him with some creative chemicals.

Figures his wife would be a euro, wouldn't it?
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 02/16/2004 16:26 Comments || Top||

#13  Just a dry run...
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 20:42 Comments || Top||

#14  "Don't cry for me Pakistanis...the truth is I always duped you...used Soddy money...bought Chinese blueprints...sold them to Libya...and then went shopping, such lovely shopping.

"Don't cry for me O Peshawar...I'm in my hotel in Mali...such lovely sunsets, and dancing women...with figs and honey...I'll send a postcard...."
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/16/2004 22:01 Comments || Top||


UAE Says No Evidence Yet of Tahir Nuke Links
The UAE Central Bank said reports that a Dubai-based businessman helped Libya and Iran develop nuclear programs were speculation, but that he would be investigated if proof emerged of illegal activities. Central Bank Governor Sultan Nasser Al-Suwaidi said the United Arab Emirates would only launch a probe into the affairs of B.S.A. Tahir — head of Dubai’s Gulf Technical Industries (GTI) — if proof of wrongdoing came to light.
Why doesn't it seem like they're searching for it?
Asked about reports of possible links between Tahir and the Iranian and Libyan atomic programs, Al-Suwaidi told reporters: “This is speculation. If we find something real then we’ll investigate it financially, but these are news items. If and when the time arises we might investigate.” US President George W. Bush has described Tahir as a deputy to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s atomic program, who has confessed to leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. Bush said Tahir was in Malaysia and an intelligence source there told Reuters that Tahir was under investigation, but was free to come and go.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:23 || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:


US searchlight moves from AQ Khan to PAEC-NDC
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s proliferation headache shows all signs of becoming even more severe. Sources say the Bush administration has now asked the Pakistan government to debrief scientists at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and the National Defence Complex (NDC), fearing Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan just might have been used as a decoy to divert the international community’s attention from these two bodies where substantial work on the country’s nuclear programme was undertaken. Diplomatic sources in Islamabad say the US demand is based on intelligence showing that most aspects of Pakistan’s nuclear programme—mining and processing of uranium, and designing and manufacturing—were assigned to the PAEC which, till April 6, 2001, was headed by Dr Ashfaq Ahmed. The enrichment of fissile materials to weapons-grade level was the responsibility of the Khan’s Kahuta Research Laboratories. Since Pakistan’s nuclear programme was covert, Khan was encouraged to pose as the ‘father of the bomb’, even though he was responsible for just one of the 24 steps required for producing nuclear weapons. Those entrusted with the other 23 steps worked under Dr Samar Mubarikmand, member (technical) of the PAEC, who reported to chairman Ahmed.

It was under intense pressure from Washington that Musharraf effected, on April 6, 2001, large-scale changes in the country’s nuclear establishment. Khan was retired as KRL chairman and made advisor to the chief executive; Ahmed was packed off from the helm of PAEC; so was Mubarikmand as member (technical). But there was one vital difference. Mubarikmand, on the same day, was anointed NDC head. This was in effect a promotion: earlier in the year the weapons programme had been transferred to the NDC, as the establishment feared the gathering proliferation storm—and fearing sanctions against organisations known for their roles in the nuclear programme. The US intelligence apparently believes all this drama could have been enacted to use Khan as a decoy and divert attention from the PAEC, where the real nuclear programme was carried out. Diplomatic sources say the Americans are aware that the KRL’s scientists constitute only a fifth of the PAEC’s and that it was grossly overmanned considering its workload. This was done to mislead those who would want to train the searchlight on Pakistan’s nuclear programme. In fact, the information acquired by the US suggests the PAEC’s top brass, including Mubarikmand, knew of Khan’s proliferation activities and his clandestine attempts at procurement for the programme. It’s felt that this is reason enough to debrief Mubarikmand.

The Pakistan government’s response to the US demand for the debriefing of PAEC and NDC scientists has been positive. The government has, however, communicated the implausibility of PAEC and the NDC scientists being involved in proliferation, largely because of the stringent security restrictions under which they work. Yet, diplomatic sources say, the welter of information the US possesses shows that Pakistanis were assisting North Korea and Iran in accordance with officially vetted agreements for clandestine training of nuclear scientists and mutual exchange of the nuclear know-how. They say no such agreement could have been possible without the military leadership’s approval. Sources say US intelligence sleuths stationed in Pakistan began to suspect North Korean involvement in Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programme after Kim Sin-ae, wife of Kang Thae-yun, North Korean economic counsellor in Islamabad, was found murdered. It was Kang Thae who had brokered a deal with an unidentified Russian company to bring to Pakistan Maraging Steel, a key component of missile bodies and nosecones. He and his wife, Kim, were close to Khan. The US agents believe Kim was probably killed by her own government after she approached a British agent, wishing to defect in exchange for Pak and North Korean nuclear secrets. US sleuths were also told a prototype centrifuge was smuggled with her coffin on a special flight from Islamabad.

Diplomatic sources cite US intelligence to claim that since January 2000, after Musharraf came to power, Pakistani nuclear scientists had been working in North Korea and the latter’s missile experts in Pakistan. It was part of the now infamous nuke-for-missile deal. With the US, the EU and Japan providing Pakistan increased economic assistance post 9/11, Islamabad began to pay cash for North Korean missiles. Diplomatic sources here say few believe the military establishment wasn’t aware of the role Khan and his colleagues played in proliferation. But they are willing to not name Musharraf or past governments as long as the US is provided detailed information on the nuclear blackmarket and assured that Islamabad will indeed cap the proliferation for all times to come.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/16/2004 12:12:37 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:


Nasrallah promises to continue attacking Israeli soldiers
"Every Israeli soldier who steps an inch into Lebanese territory... will be killed, wounded or captured," cautioned Hezbollah spiritual leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah Sunday, reports AFP. Nasrallah was ranting speaking at his first public appearance since the completion of the first stage of the Israel – Hibullah prisoner swap, in which 3 dead Israeli soldiers and businessman Elhanan Tannenbaum were swapped for 420 imprisoned Palestinians. Nasrallah said his movement reserved the right to stage roadside ambushes and plant anti-personnel mines on the Lebanese side of the border with Israel: "We are capable and ready to respond to any territorial violation of the international border and the blue line," he said, "including in the area near the Shebaa farms, which are Lebanese and which we want to liberate."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:10 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I really, really, don't like this guy
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 10:53 Comments || Top||

#2  Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 11:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Interesting comment because the implication is that Hizbollah doesn't want to go into Israel. There is no threat to help Hamas, there is no support for Palestinian violence. Not even any support for a PA state. Hmmm.
Posted by: mhw || 02/16/2004 18:47 Comments || Top||

#4  Let ol' Saruman rant - every appearance is a data point. Sooner or later, he'll get whacked.
Posted by: mojo || 02/16/2004 20:25 Comments || Top||


Palestinian mafia
To war-weary Palestinian eyes in this, the largest of the West Bank cities, it is hard to tell the good guys from the bad any more. Palestinians know the nearby Israeli army is the enemy. But as for those among their own people who can be counted as Palestinian patriots, few could say with conviction. Such is the dissolute state of Nablus, where more than 30 Palestinians have died in recent months, the victims of bullets fired by other Palestinians. The killing spree has brought into high relief the existence in Nablus of the other Palestinian struggle, a hidden war that is as much about organized crime as it is about national resistance.
Ahhh... The joys of anarchy. Emma Goldman and Mikhail Bakunin are no doubt standing hand in hand, looking up down from their final reward and smiling in satisfaction.
Buoyed by what is now a total absence of islah, or public order, a fragmented array of heavily armed criminal gangs has turned the intifada on itself. As many as eight separate factions in Nablus and the three refugee camps that ring the city lay claim to the title Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the radical offshoot of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. But the name doesn't mean much these days, not when so many who lay claim to it are fighting for the spoils of criminal racketeering, car thefts, drugs, gun running and extortion. "It is a mafia that controls our streets now," says Mayoub Abu Saliyeh, who last week witnessed a bloody turf battle from the vantage of the gas station he manages. "People get killed, nobody gets arrested, because there is no law, no security. I have never seen my city like this before, where any man with a gun can do whatever he wants. It is a dream for Israel, the way Palestinians quarrel with each other."
No doubt. And it's all their fault, too, I'm sure...
In a city ravaged by repeated Israeli armoured incursions since the onset of the September, 2000, intifada, few here hesitate to blame Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for the collapse of law and order.
Toldja so...
But as the chaos deepens, many are beginning to point just as strongly at Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat. A senior Western diplomatic source in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinian West Bank, likens the situation in Nablus to Afghanistan-style warlordism. "Basically, you've got competing factions so well armed, so beyond control and so preoccupied with each other, they are effectively doing Israel's job for it," said the source. "The danger to Palestinians is obvious. But the danger for Israel is there as well. People in Ramallah are complaining that Israel has been enjoying a kind of five-star occupation — having troops throughout the West Bank without the expense of being responsible for the people being occupied. The question is: How much more can Palestinians take before it all falls apart? If the Palestinian Authority collapses, Israel will have no choice to step in and take responsibility. That means hospitals, schools, policing, civil administration. The expense alone is a burden Israel can ill afford."
Actually, the could probably afford it better than continuous warfare...
Palestinian legislator Moawah al-Masri, an outspoken critic of Arafat's leadership, rattles off anecdotes he has witnessed from his office in downtown Nablus. "For the past two weeks," he says, "the Palestinian police have gone through the motions of spreading out in the streets to create the appearance they have things under control. But people make fun of them. Last week, one young man ran up to three of them and said: `Be careful, the Israeli army is coming.' They dropped their guns on the spot, tore off their uniforms and ran away, terrified. There was no army coming, of course. It was a ruse. And by the time they returned, their guns had vanished."
Yet another tale of Arab heroism. And probably apocryphal...
Masri holds Arafat directly responsible for the lawlessness, darkly suggesting the Palestinian leader is a direct beneficiary of the warring factions. "Arafat is not concerned with rule of law," says Masri. "He loves the fact that the leaders of the factions are beholden to him. All must beseech him, pay fealty. Because they know, if he truly had the will to do something about it, he could have the situation under control within 24 hours."
I think al-Masri's dreaming. Yasser's the emperor of Paleostine, and he's got this spiffy new suit...
Exactly who is fighting whom is a question few dare to answer on the record. Among the estimated 32 recent slayings were innocent bystanders, suspected Israeli collaborators and, in one particularly high-profile case, Ahmad Buraq Shaqa, the businessman brother of Nablus Mayor Ghassan Shaqa. The Nov. 25 ambush of Shaqa had all the earmarks of a gangland assassination. The fact that he was driving a car that belonged to his brother raised suspicions the mayor was the intended target. Both Mayor Shaqa and Nablus Governor Mahmoud Aloul, who survived a recent firebomb attack on his car, deny allegations linking them to the city's crime rings. The mayor now travels in an armoured car and is surrounded by gunmen day and night.
"Chicago! Chicago! Dat's my wunnerful to-o-o-own!"
Sources in Balata refugee camp on the southeastern outskirts of Nablus say the Palestinian police would fall short in firepower, even if they were backed by the political will to act. Various gangs operating in Nablus, they say, travel openly with German-made Heckler & Koch MP-5s, one of the world's most sought after sub-machineguns. Others carry M-16s — Israeli M-16s — smuggled and sold at prices upwards of 18,000 shekels ($5,500 Canadian) on the black market. Against such superior firepower, Arafat's Palestinian Authority policemen carry cheap, notoriously inaccurate AK-47s that are manufactured in Egypt. Small wonder the rank-and-file has no stomach for a confrontation. "This is supposedly a city under siege, with the Israeli searching everyone coming in at the checkpoint," says the Balata source. "Yet somehow, 20 to 30 stolen cars arrive from Israel every day. Somehow, guns come from Israel and land on the black market in Nablus. You figure it out.
Y'think the Israelis are stirring the pot, do you? Could be...
"There is a mafia in Nablus and it couldn't exist without help from the mafia in Israel. You have a war between the Israelis and Palestinians, but you have collaboration between the criminals on both sides." Masri's solution is as simple as it is drastic. If the Palestinian Authority is unable to restore law and order, he says, it has no other choice but to "liquidate itself."
... rather than continue rotting in the Mediterranean sun, fouling the air for miles outside its borders.
"Why give Israel a free occupation? Why bother presenting to the world a picture that implies Israel is facing another country? I believe if Arafat really cared, he would show the moral authority to walk away and let Israel fix this mess. As long as the occupation continues, Israel would have no choice but to accept the responsibility for a civil administration like the kind they ran before the creation of the Palestinian Authority.
... when you had it better.
"The financial aspect of this is in the range of 10 billion shekels a year ($3 billion). Israel would have no choice but to absorb the cost." The Palestinian Authority has been scrambling to address the criticism, which was capped yesterday when more than 300 angry rank-and-file Fatah members resigned en masse to protest internal strife and corruption. In an earlier telephone conference call with Canadian journalists, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia acknowledged the restoration of law and order as an urgent priority, not only for Nablus but also for the other cities of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And on Wednesday, PA national security adviser Jibril Rajoub told a press briefing in Ramallah about a wholesale reorganization of Palestinian security services, designed to unify nine disparate agencies under a unified command.
Is it just me, or did C. Northcote Parkinson just start laughing hysterically? I thought he was dead...
The Star obtained access to a sheaf of classified PA documents detailing the reforms later that day and, on paper, the changes are comprehensive.
Most changes that take place in Paleostine do so on paper...
A command flow chart indicates the heads of each Palestinian security agency are to be effectively removed from direct command, serving instead in an advisory capacity similar to that of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. The real power would instead be disseminated from two new Central Operations centres — one each in the West Bank and Gaza — charged with co-ordinating all police activity in the territories. The document comes complete with an ambitious, 18-point task list addressing everything from car thefts to the seizure of illegal weapons. But will the paper translate into real change on the ground?
Is my hair thick and curly?
"The plan is comprehensive. It means it'll never happen in a million years big change," one Western diplomatic source told the Star."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336092 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Israel will have no choice to step in and take responsibility.

Why? The problem has largely been created by the UN. Let them fix it!
Posted by: phil_b || 02/16/2004 0:34 Comments || Top||

#2  Israel will have no choice to step in and take responsibility. Why?

Perhaps Hamas would step in to fill the vacuum.
I wonder if Hamas members have the same problems as al Aqsa Brigades, or if their cadre are more focused and obedient.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/16/2004 0:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Paul, they are warming up for the civil war and the main protagonists will be Hamas and the PA (Fatah). My money is on Hamas who seem more ideologically committed, where the PA goons just seem to be 'rented' and will fade away as the money dries up.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/16/2004 3:53 Comments || Top||

#4  build the fence faster, please....this sickness needs to be quarantined
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 10:23 Comments || Top||

#5  Clue me in again. This changes what?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 11:01 Comments || Top||

#6  Fox is reporting an Israeli air attack in Gaza....no details yet
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 11:45 Comments || Top||

#7  The big problem is that this is not new. It's been going on since the late 1400's in Arab "civilization". It's all tribe-on-tribe warfare, complicated by religious and ethnic bigotry and tons of unearned income (from the UN, EU, and NGOs). Graft, corruption, and thuggery are par for the course.

All Israel has to do is finish the wall and withdraw behind it. Once the fighting is over, they can either make peace with whatever faction is still standing, or conquer them. There should also be a wall between Israel and Gaza, as well as the West Bank. Leave the "palestinians" to their own capacities, and watch them collapse back into the 15th Century nomads they were.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/16/2004 14:36 Comments || Top||

#8  "'Arafat is not concerned with rule of law,' says Masri. 'He loves the fact that the leaders of the factions are beholden to him. All must beseech him, pay fealty. Because they know, if he truly had the will to do something about it, he could have the situation under control within 24 hours.'"

Brave words!

And speaking of Palio mafiosi, the Arafish is making offers the Palis can't refuse.
Posted by: Korora || 02/16/2004 15:14 Comments || Top||

#9  Fred---Parkinson would never have dreamed to apply his law to the paleos. They just go beyond the scope of Parkinson's vision. Heh heh.

Israel does not have to do diddly squat with the Paleos, once the wall is built. The Paleos are reduced to asking the "Zionists" for a handout because even the EUs, Saudis, Iranians, and everyone else with money that are not utter morons are writing off the Paleos.

You guys and gals want to dance, ululate, and pass out sweets at 9-11, and blow up US security personnel escorting US aid people in Gaza? You want to make ANTI-US hate manual textbooks in your madrasses? Fine. The Consequences fruit in the Actions orchard just ripened up and are ready to pick, asshats. You lost your US Sugardaddy, too.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/16/2004 17:07 Comments || Top||

#10  This definitely looks like yet another reason to get the wall finished - at least the 2/3 - 3/4 that only leaves open the route to the true Palestine: Jordan.

Fred / AP - which law are you referring to? I have CNP as having authored 3:
1) Expenditure rises to meet income.
2) Work expands so as to fill the time alotted.
3) Complexity breeds decay, and decay death, therefore, the more complex, the sooner dead.

8^)
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 21:27 Comments || Top||

#11  I think the law you are looking for is that stupidity expands to fill a vacuum.
Posted by: M. Simon || 02/20/2004 1:31 Comments || Top||


Man commits suicide over Valentine rebuff
A young man committed suicide by setting himself on fire when his beloved refused to accept his gift on Valentine’s Day. According to the City Police Station, Ghulam Murtaza from Dhoke Kala Khan, had been in love with Huma for the last three years. He sent a bouquet to his beloved on the eve of Valentine’s Day, but she refused to accept it. He went to her house and sprinkled kerosene oil on himself and set himself on fire. He was taken to hospital where he died from his burns, the police said.
Oh, well. Guess she's rid of him...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I heard of carrying a torch for someone you love, but this is ridiculous.
Posted by: GK || 02/16/2004 0:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Poor bugger. He sounds a bit mentally unstable though so she did the right thing not getting involved with him.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 1:24 Comments || Top||

#3  This is what comes from Pakistanis celebrating those f***ing Xtian holidays, isn't it, Antiwar?

Oh, wait, multiculturalism says we should practice the holidays of other nations! I'm so confused! Help me, Dr. Dean!
Posted by: gromky || 02/16/2004 6:23 Comments || Top||

#4  And it burns, burns, burns. The ring of fire!
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 6:53 Comments || Top||

#5  I think (just this once) that AWs' right.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 7:27 Comments || Top||

#6  Gronky I've got one thing to say to you, try to be a little less prejudiced in your thinking.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 7:52 Comments || Top||

#7  What is his family's response supposed to be per tribal custom? Do his brothers have to kill decapitate her with sharpened spatulas?
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/16/2004 8:08 Comments || Top||

#8  You are so humorless, Antiwar. That can be a sign of mental instability as well. If you look around here you will see us laugh at others, and more importantly, ourselves. Lighten up, for in about 50 or 60 years we'll all be .
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 8:31 Comments || Top||

#9  dead. (Damn filtering software).
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 8:33 Comments || Top||

#10  ...God forgive me, but right now I just cannot get the Spike Jones version of 'My Old Flame' out of my head...

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/16/2004 9:09 Comments || Top||

#11  Redneck I am not humourless.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 9:16 Comments || Top||

#12  Odd -- you're not the least bit amusing.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/16/2004 9:33 Comments || Top||

#13  Robert neither are you.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 9:36 Comments || Top||

#14  Auntie War, will you be my Valentine ?
Come on baby light my fire
Tryin to set myself on...FAIYAAAAAAAHHHHHH
Posted by: I_Heart_Monica || 02/16/2004 9:38 Comments || Top||

#15  SOME people confuse earnestness and sincerity of belief with validity. Just as the medevial philosophers tried to find analogies for Christianity in the world, today's "thinkers" try to shoehorn all events into their worldview. Some events (probably most) have no meaning. Let me list a few RB "thinkers" and their particular manias: NMM (Bush lied, everything is his fault), Aris (you American's don't know compared to we cultured Euro's, we'll soon be one big happy Euro family), Murat (HA HA More Americans died in Iraq), and Faisal (excretory and ual insults). People like this in real life become tiresome and find that folks begin to avoid them. Laugh (especially yourself), poke fun at others, bring on a good fight. "Dickhead" and "You suck" are not valid debating positions.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 10:25 Comments || Top||

#16  Just a hunka hunka burnin' love...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 10:28 Comments || Top||

#17  "you American's don't know compared to we cultured Euro's"

I don't remember ever saying this.

"we'll soon be one big happy Euro family"

And I don't remember saying this as a definite either. Only as one of the most worthwhile efforts currently in existence worldwide (even if success is uncertain, even *more* so because its success is uncertain), and that you must be evil scumbags if you are opposing it. :-)

Or something like that. I'm, as always, paraphrasing myself. :-)
Posted by: Aris Katsaris || 02/16/2004 10:34 Comments || Top||

#18  LOL tu3031, Dude you're awful.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 10:41 Comments || Top||

#19  Aris, I did enjoy following your discussion with Murat over Cyprus. I couldn't add anything to the discussion as my knowledge of Cypriot history ends sometime after the Crusades.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 11:05 Comments || Top||

#20  Cut it out guys. I am sure his heart was all aflame over the girl and he just could no longer contain the burning flame of passion which was alit in his breast......

Either that or he was just a loser.....

(BTW: Good one tu3031....)
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/16/2004 11:06 Comments || Top||

#21  Speaking of humor, Frank J. solves Bush's N. Guard
controversy on this link

http://www.imao.us/archives/cat_in_my_world.html

Read and discuss it amongst yourselves.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 11:24 Comments || Top||

#22  Well, I've finally realized
that you don't love me
Though I sent gifts and love letters
all the time
When I speak to you
You whistfully ignore me
'Cause you got that Captain Quimby
on your mind.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/16/2004 15:41 Comments || Top||

#23  Without you my heart turns to ash...
Posted by: Charles || 02/16/2004 16:03 Comments || Top||

#24  ROFLMAO AP.... Keep taking the meds tho.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 16:36 Comments || Top||

#25  Shipman---without meds I am nothing but a dimmi pilot light in the breeze.....
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/16/2004 17:10 Comments || Top||


Castro: Bush Could Not Debate A Ninth Grader
On the other hand, he's pretty good at making dictators hide in the bottom of outdoor toilets...
Cuban leader Fidel Castro resorted to humor on Saturday to defend himself from U.S. hostility, ridiculing President Bush for his gaffes. "Bush could not debate a Cuban ninth grader, who knows more than he does," Castro said in a speech closing an international conference of economists hosted by his communist government.
Hey, that's very witty! Good thing he didn't have to debate Mullah Omar or Sammy, huh?
Castro had his audience of 1,400 economists in stitches when he read out some of Bush's more unfortunate statements. Among other gaffes, Castro quoted Bush as saying: "I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy;" "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family;" "More and more of our imports come from overseas;" and "The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case."
Slate's had a good time with that kind of verbal slip. I believe they've compiled a whole book of them. I don't know if this is a pep talk or if Fidel actually believes the "Bush is dumb" line. If he does, it's a mistake.
Looking cheerful and dressed in a dark gray business suit with a salmon-colored tie instead of this trademark uniform, Castro laid to rest recent rumors that he may have died by delivering a four-hour 20-minute speech in which he railed against White House efforts to get rid of him.
"See?" he cackled. "I ain't dead yet!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336091 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But he will be soon!
Posted by: phil_b || 02/16/2004 0:36 Comments || Top||

#2  ...by delivering a four-hour 20-minute speech ...
Just like old times. Does that mean that windbag Fidel railed for 4 hours to deliver a speech that normally would take only 20 minutes?
Posted by: GK || 02/16/2004 0:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Bush does not speak well particularly for someone in his position as a nation's leader. It makes him appear dumb even if he possibly is not.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 1:20 Comments || Top||

#4  I'd say that is the left's weakness in dealing with Bush. Bush is in fact a capable and intelligent leader who wasn't quite as slick as Willie, but far far more honest about his views and about what is right.

Tough choice. Slickie boy blowjob king, or an adult in charge of a nation.

Sodomy or leadership? That is a toughie.

I'll take leadership for $500, Alex.
Posted by: badanov || 02/16/2004 1:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Clearly, on your planet of Zog, Anti-war, black is white.
I find President Bush an eloquent and very inspiring speaker.
In fact, I have a book of his collected speeches since 9/11.

Back to Fidel, if you have to go to the bathroom during one of his 4-5 hour harangues, does he execute you?
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/16/2004 1:43 Comments || Top||

#6  Jennie check out the website Dubyaspeak and you will see how "well" the president speaks.You are obviously mentally ill.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 1:53 Comments || Top||

#7  must agree with Antiwar on this, speeches are one thing, there's time to prepare them and I doubt that Dubya writes his own, however he doesn't appear very quick on his feet, he's got some doozies there lol
Posted by: Igs || 02/16/2004 2:46 Comments || Top||

#8  I meant what I said, boys, and I'm not changing my mind because you 2 trolls hassled me.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/16/2004 2:56 Comments || Top||

#9  P.S. I don't remember a single thing Bill Clintoon said as Prez except "I did not have sex with that woman, Miz Lewinsky."
And don't forget his pointing finger for added effect.
Yeah, that Clinton was some orator and Bush is by comparison such a moron. Uh-huh.
As I said before, you both live on the planet Zog.
My fave Bush speeches begin like this, "On my orders,..."
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/16/2004 2:59 Comments || Top||

#10  No one is asking you to change your mind and no one is saying that prior presidents haven't come up with some rather off the wall quotes as well. However, steadfastly debying that Bush has made any weird quotes is ignoring reality
Posted by: Igs || 02/16/2004 3:06 Comments || Top||

#11  Jennie, the reality is that Bush is not a great improv speaker. If there is any correlation between this ability and intelligence, its probably weak. My anecdotal experience is good speakers tend not to be good thinkers. Anyway it doesn't matter. What matters in a politician is vision and the capacity to execute on the vision. Bush clearly has this.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/16/2004 3:47 Comments || Top||

#12  Jennie your problem is you can't accept people have different views to you.Try to be open minded you don't have to agree with mine or whoever elses views just accept that other views exist.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 4:18 Comments || Top||

#13  "More and more of our imports come from overseas"

This is not a gaffe, the US does import things from Mexico & Canada and they are definetly not "overseas".
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/16/2004 4:33 Comments || Top||

#14  "More and more of our imports come from overseas"

This is not a gaffe, the US does import things from Mexico & Canada and they are definetly not "overseas".
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/16/2004 4:33 Comments || Top||

#15  DOH!

Thats pretty strong coming from you ms Antiwar.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/16/2004 4:34 Comments || Top||

#16  phil_b, granted, but then he doesn't have the plain-speaking effectiveness of John Howard, either!;-)
Honestly, "ordinary people" I meet remember Bush's words and I indeed find his speeches stirring, almost inspirational.

As for you, Mizzzzzz Antiwar, by "different" you mean Leftist.
Yes, I reject the Leftist view completely.
Ergo, you probably would have loved the Bearded One's speech, all 4 and 1/2 hours of it.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/16/2004 5:04 Comments || Top||

#17  Jennie I am not particularly left wing. I assume you are right wing a bit like Hitler. I can accept you have different views I just do not agree with them. Evert you suck.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 5:11 Comments || Top||

#18  damn, can't wait till John Howard gets booted at the next election
Posted by: Igs || 02/16/2004 6:30 Comments || Top||

#19  Bush definitely could do better in his off-the-cuff remarks, although his prepared speeches have usually been quite good. Few speakers are as good as Tony Blair, though.

I'll take a Bush speech anyday over a four-hour Castro diatribe, regardless.
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 7:01 Comments || Top||

#20  The one and only time a ninth grader attempted to engage Castro in a debate, Fidel had her head bashed in by baseball bat wielding comrades.As for off the cuff remarks, I refer you to his rousing Ground Zero "I hear you...." speech.
Posted by: Garrison || 02/16/2004 7:38 Comments || Top||

#21  BZZZ- Sorry antiwar, you lose. You brought up Hitler first. BTW- what does the term SOCIALIST mean in the acronym NAZI? Jennie is right about you being from the planet Zog- what color is your atmosphere.
Posted by: Craig || 02/16/2004 7:39 Comments || Top||

#22  Craig you sound like a right dickhead however you are entitled to your view thats free speech.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 7:59 Comments || Top||

#23  I assume you are right wing a bit like Hitler

Hitler was a leftist:
The National Socialist German Workers Party had all the marks of socialism - the state was involved or regulated every aspect of day to day living, including a controled press and wage controls.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/16/2004 8:14 Comments || Top||

#24  "Antiwar" -- go away. Your "opinions" are nothing but the drool of a poorly educated brain running on wishful thinking and the fumes of hatred. If you EVER come up with a thought more sophisticated than "mean people suck", you might be welcome.

Until then: Go the hell away.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/16/2004 8:16 Comments || Top||

#25  What a small character antiwar has turned out to have, favoring fluff over substance, dictators and dictatorships over the rule of the people. I'm glad your hero, saddam, has been flushed, and I sincerely hope all your other friends go down the tubes as well.

Enjoy the next 20 years, you hypocritical tyrant lover..
Posted by: Ptah || 02/16/2004 8:21 Comments || Top||

#26  "Evert you suck."

AAAWww, did i hurt your feewings antiwar?

BTW i repeat my question to you from a couple of days ago:

why do you need to be so foulmouthed?
(i'm betting its that old PMS acting up again)
please try and answer it witout refering to hitler.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/16/2004 8:50 Comments || Top||

#27  I recall that Lincoln was laughed at during his administration for his manner. I thing George W is in good company.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/16/2004 9:21 Comments || Top||

#28  Robert I think debates should involve different views not everyone having the same opinion. Ptah Saddam is not a hero or a villain. Evert you sound quite bitter and twisted possibly misogynistic (if you are male?}
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 9:28 Comments || Top||

#29  Since when have Rantburg commenting sessions turned into the Anti-war spleen venting show?

Let's ignore the trolls folks...it only gets the mouthbreathers excited when we dignify their pap and vitriol with a response. It's gives them the false hope that they may, one day, actually reason their way out of a paper bag.
Posted by: mjh || 02/16/2004 9:37 Comments || Top||

#30  Antiwar...the real point is when has Fidel ever debated anyone?? I agree the Dubya isn't MENSA material, but you come out sounding like you think Fidel is some sort of godly being...
Posted by: steve d. || 02/16/2004 9:40 Comments || Top||

#31  Yes antiwar i am a male and proud of it.

now answer my question please.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/16/2004 9:43 Comments || Top||

#32  Antiwar--Saddam is not a villain? Perhaps you could define "villain" for me, then?

I fail to believe that a man who so brutally tortured, murdered, gassed, and raped thousands of people can not be a villain! Do you think he, or Hitler for that matter, is simply misunderstood? That he's some kind of artist trying to express himself via the medium of human suffering? Should we give him a f***ing NEA grant in such case?

I'm more than happy to see someone with an opposite point of view from the norm on Rantburg. For the life of me, though, if Saddam is not a villain according to your definition of the word, then you seriously need to stop hitting the bong and start hitting the books.
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 9:44 Comments || Top||

#33  Robert I think debates should involve different views not everyone having the same opinion.

Well, yes. But you don't have opinions. You have reactions. You're nothing but a collection of nerves wrapped around leftist twaddle. For example:

Saddam is not a hero or a villain.

I'm hard-pressed to find any description for Saddam that doesn't involve "villain" or "evil". That you don't says volumes about your moral blindness -- or amorality. After all, we're talking about someone that operated political prisons for children, who gassed villages full of civilians, who ran weapons programs focused not on battlefield weapons but genocide. His government ran rape squads to mete out punishment for political crimes; his police stations were equipped with torture equipment; he built his luxurious palaces with the money intended to buy the Iraqi people medicines.

Are you mentally feeble? Is that why you cannot recognize the grotesque evil of Saddam's reign? Or have you simply been brainwashed into refusing to believe there are real villains and real evil?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/16/2004 9:52 Comments || Top||

#34  RC, to be fair, whenever someone else posts an opinion which differs from the majority here, they are pretty much automatically labelled as a troll. I'm not referring to AW or NMM in this particular instance and I'm not arguing that SH is not a villain.

Next time I have an opinion on an issue which bothers me, I'll put something up - just watch the abuses fly. My experience from reading some comments is that some of the people here dismiss alternate views whether they have substance or not.
Posted by: Igs || 02/16/2004 10:19 Comments || Top||

#35  Igs--I much enjoy seeing a good debate with well-thought out opinions and bona fide, researched facts presented. I don't think you're going to manage to sway people much from their core beliefs, but you can get a concession now and then with a well presented argument.

Liberalhawk is, in my opinion, the best example of a Rantburger who can express an opinion or an opposing point of view eloquently yet concisely and without making it a personal attack. Anyone seriously expecting to debate an issue civilly on this forum should follow his example.
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 10:30 Comments || Top||

#36  RC, to be fair, whenever someone else posts an opinion which differs from the majority here, they are pretty much automatically labelled as a troll.

That's because they mostly are trolls.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/16/2004 11:02 Comments || Top||

#37  Igs, when Antiwar invokes Godwin's Law...well that's just trolling. Period.
Posted by: gromky || 02/16/2004 11:07 Comments || Top||

#38  I think there've been lots of opinions swayed on Rantburg, though always by facts and not by hollering "you suck." I find I agree with Aris just under half the time, with liberalhawk probably two thirds of the time or better. JFM's often muted the Frenchie-bashing here, and TGA regularly brings people up short on a wide variety of subjects. There are even times when I defer to Murat's knowledge of the subject matter. I haven't set foot in Europe in over ten years, and haven't lived there in twenty.

I have my own opinions on a wide variety of subjects - comes as a surprise, I know. They still retain a certain amount of flexibility. If I'm wrong about something, show me where I'm wrong, and why, and I'll modify my opinion. The only way you're going to do it is with facts. Accusing people of being or following Hitler isn't going to make it, certainly not when we're tracking the activities of fascism's successors on a daily basis.

There's actually a wide range of opinion here, and I don't think most of us object to seeing the range widened further. But you have to read the white parts of the posts, too, along with the yellow parts, and you have to make a tentative assumption of accuracy. Go back and browse last month's articles, and last year's, and the year before. After awhile it's pretty easy to spot the ones that are fluff or plants by interested parties, to assess the reliability of a source. Then form your opinion, based on a set of facts that hangs together. It'll make your arguments more coherent, and it might even change some of your opinions.
Posted by: Fred || 02/16/2004 11:29 Comments || Top||

#39  Thanks for sharing, Fidel. The leader of a fifth rate third world country's opinion really rates big here.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 12:32 Comments || Top||

#40  Mr Antiwar

Could you lend me a service? Change your pseudo. Pick one more suitable with your personality.

Pro-rape, pro-plastic shredder, pro-torture, pro-mass murder. Pro-Nazi since the official name of the Baas party you seem to like so much is
"National socialist Party of Arab renewal". Pro-racist since you consider Kurds and Iraqui Arabs as just toys who don't deserve freedom, untermenschen just good to be tortured, raped and gassed for the sake of you impressing daddy with your 2 bit "progressism".

I hope you have found my suggestions useful.
Posted by: JFM || 02/16/2004 13:04 Comments || Top||

#41  Antiwar: Saddam was neither a hero nor a villian?

There you go, PROVING you're the pal of tyrants, denying that there are moral distinctions when backed into a corner. What's the REAL reason, since you obviously want to retain the moral patina of righteousness by being "Antiwar"? Pining for a similar job, and thus making sure nobody can condemn you or boot you out once you settle your skanky ass into the throne?
Posted by: Ptah || 02/16/2004 13:05 Comments || Top||

#42  Hmm, does the "First person to bring up Hitler loses" rule apply here?
Posted by: Valentine || 02/16/2004 13:08 Comments || Top||

#43  "Ach-tung, Liebens-room" The crowed stood and cheered in wild emotion. Here's our leader.

"People are swealtering out there" The crowed stood and cheered in wild emotion. Here's our leader.

"We will be relentless" The country has a gut check, The volunteers get their gear ready.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/16/2004 13:17 Comments || Top||

#44  Lucky, I hope you mean Lebensraum. If you mean Liebensraum, I'm gonna get the hose!
Posted by: Dar || 02/16/2004 13:34 Comments || Top||

#45  I have no problems with heartfelt differences of opinion. I have serious problems with leftist trolls spouting the day's talking points. I agree that Bush doesn't come off well as an improvisational speaker. At the same time, he's proven quite brilliant at leadership, a far more necessary skill for a president. Anyone who cannot accept that Saddam Hussein is a villian, and the embodiment of true evil, is an intellectual fraud, or a White Slag addict.

The problem with the Left is that they've spent so much of their credibility on political correctness that they cannot admit there are such real concepts as villany and evil. They've tried to create the impression that the world is as they describe it, and when reality doesn't fit, they resort to lies and distortions. September 11 saw the scales drop from millions of eyes. Only the staunchest members of Looney liberal loser left are still blinded by their own bullshit.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/16/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#46  Bush is not a great improv speaker imho. However, he is a strong leader. Clinton otoh, was an excellent speaker, highly intelligent, & extremely charismatic but a lousy leader imho. Always reminded me of an insurance salesman (no offense to insurance salesmen) Clinton was the epitome of image over substance to me. BTW, every pres in modern era has speech writers.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/16/2004 17:26 Comments || Top||

#47  I'm sure that a Cuban ninth grader knows a lot of things Bush doesn't know... like marxist dialectics, the latest congratulation telegram from Kim Jong Il... you know, the real important stuff.

Ok he won't have answers to a few totally unimportant things... like

Why only children under 7 get milk
Why his 15 year old sister comes back tired in the morning with some dollars in her pockets to buy him milk
Why his older brother suddenly disappeared
Why his uncle drowned in the Florida Straits
Why you have to hold election which are won by the same old guy with 99 percent of the votes
What it actually means to have a "discussion"

You know... totally unimportant stuff.
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/16/2004 18:26 Comments || Top||

#48  LOL, good one TGA!
Posted by: Rafael || 02/16/2004 19:16 Comments || Top||

#49  Oh I forgot... serve the boy a T-Bone Steak and an apple for dessert and the discussion could really turn even more interesting...

You know apples, don't you?
Oh....
Ok, let's start with the steak first...
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/16/2004 19:28 Comments || Top||

#50  I think Castro himself has been quoted as saying that the three failures of the Revolution are breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Anyone want to imagine what things would be like if Castro instead of Bush were the commander-in-chief of the most capable military in the world?
Posted by: Matt || 02/16/2004 21:33 Comments || Top||

#51  Evert does swearing etc offend you if it does thats a pity because you'll hear a lot of it so get used to it. Sadddam is someone who has been psychologically impaired by a horrendously abusive childhood so its not surprising he behaved the way he did. I can however seperate the deeds from the person, I would say Saddam did an evil thing when he tortured people in prison,I would not say he was evil. The things he did should serve as a warning against child abuse. Some of you have something in common with Saddam Hussein you can't accept a view different to yours.
Posted by: Antiwar || 02/16/2004 21:37 Comments || Top||

#52  With respect to the imports gaffe, Bush could have been referencing the role of intermediary goods in the production chain.
Posted by: Mahmoud, the Weasel || 02/16/2004 21:46 Comments || Top||

#53  AW - #51. That's about as big a pile of moral relativism as one person can manage - without imploding (nature abhors a vaccuum) or just disappearing in a puff of well-deserved anti-logic. Beautiful. Brought a tear to my eye. Since it's all so clear and evil is so easily explained away, you must sleep the sleep of the angels. Big hug. Here's your teddy.
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 21:52 Comments || Top||

#54  Antiwar, I dare you to go to Iraq and tell the surviving relatives, if there are any, of all of those Iraqis who are in mass graves (somewhere between 200,00 and 1,000,000) that their loved one(s) were murdered because Saddam is a victim.
Ridiculous Liberal shite.
Your trolldom diverted everyone from the whole point of this post which was that Castro preached one of his 5-hour sermons using the Left's typical talking point criticizing the WOT: "Bush is a moron."
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/16/2004 22:01 Comments || Top||

#55  Oh, and Antiwar, Castro's treatment of political prisoners (which are the only kind of internees in Cuba) is only slightly more humane than Saddam's, mainly because he didn't have Saddam's vision.
The tales of torture and murder in Cuban prisons are legion.
The stories of how ordinary Cubans are forced to live aren't much better.
Fidel must have been less of a "victim" as a child or something.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/16/2004 22:06 Comments || Top||

#56  Antiwar, are you seriously blaming Saddams parents for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Iranians and Kuwaitis that are dead as a result of his regime?
Posted by: Scott || 02/16/2004 22:08 Comments || Top||

#57  Wow Antiwar!! I have typed three different responses to your last post. All of which contained the cursing you so coyly made reference to. OK, the family version. You are a sanctimonious, self righteous pig. There is no hope for you ever coming into contact with reality if you are as old as you say. You display no intelligence, reason nor logic. Your debating techniques are merely invective and earnestness. You really need to get out more. Your postings leave me in the same stunned silence as when I stumble across a particularly horrifying accident. You don't even qualify as a troll because I can no longer even find humor in your obtuseness. I am done with you.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/16/2004 22:57 Comments || Top||

#58  So, Antiwar, what kind of vice is it that you indulge in, whose consequences you don't want to pay for, and for which you want a pass?

Grow UP.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 12:05 Comments || Top||


Libya was supplied Chinese nuke design
US officials and arms experts in the US and Europe have said that the nuclear weapon designs obtained by Libya through a Pakistani network originated in China, according to a report in the Washington Post on Sunday. The report said the bomb designs and other papers turned over by Libya had yielded “dramatic evidence” of China’s role in transferring nuclear know-how to Pakistan in the early 1980s. One expert described the designs as “very, very old” but “well engineered”. Those who examined the blueprints are said to have expressed surprise at what they described as a wholesale transfer of sensitive nuclear technology by one to another country.
I'm actually surprised, though not overly. From a rational, 2004 standpoint it doesn't make any sense for the Chinese to hand out information that could lead to production of nuclear weapons that could end up being used against them. From a 1980 China-India rivalry point of view, I guess it makes a bit of sense. Pakistan hadn't quite assumed its current thoroughly Islamic character, Islamism wasn't yet a threat, there was no terrorist movement in Xinjiang, and Pakland was the counterweight to India. I wonder if they've shot the guys who shared the technology yet?
According to nuclear proliferation expert David Albright, “These documents also raise questions about whether Iran, North Korea and perhaps others received these documents from Pakistanis or their agents. This design would be highly useful to countries such as Iran and North Korea.” Pakistan’s first nuclear test in 1998 involved a more modern design than the one sold to Libya. Mr Albright said the Libyan documents “do not appear to contain any information about the nuclear weapons Pakistan has built”. Some investigators have speculated that the missing papers could have been lost, or hadn’t yet been provided possibly they were being withheld pending additional payments.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:


MMA Supreme Council meeting likely on 23rd
The Supreme Council of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) is likely to meet in Islamabad on February 23 once Senator Sajid Mir and Hafiz Hussain Ahmad return from Saudi Arabia, MMA member Jalil Naqvi told Daily Times on Thursday.
Ahah! A fresh set of orders from Riyadh. Or Assir...
According to sources in the religious parties alliance, the Supreme Council is likely to discuss the call for a strike by Qazi Hussain Ahmed, acting chief of the MMA, which got a poor response. The sources said MMA General Secretary Maulana Fazlur Rehman, Maulana Samiul Haq and Senator Sajid Mir were unhappy with Mr Ahmed for calling the strike unilaterally. “He did not consult the other leaders and announced a strike suddenly without any homework. Now he should explain why he took this decision,” an MMA leader said on condition of anonymity.
If it hadn't been a flop they'd be applauding him. That's the danger to being a caliph-in-waiting...
The council is also to discuss rumours that it is to join the government. “The government is trying to portray the MMA as its natural ally, which has widened the gap between the MMA and Alliance for the Restoration Democracy (ARD). A mass contact drive has become necessary to abolish this image,” a source said. MMA Deputy Secretary General Liaqat Baloch said rumours that the MMA could join cabinet were meant to destroy the alliance’s image. “It is our clear stance that we will not join the government because there is a hell of a difference between the government’s and our polices,” Mr Baloch said.
"We're ever so much better at being revolutionaries than we are at governing!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:


Aghajari says reforms at an end, urges passive resistance
One of Iran’s most prominent dissidents, jailed academic Hashem Aghajari, has warned his country that the reformist movement has now reached a dead end and passive resistance was now the only option. His open letter, published by the student news agency ISNA, comes just days before parliamentary elections overshadowed by the mass disqualification of pro-reform candidates by the Islamic republic’s powerful religious hardliners. “Organising an unfree election is an end point for reforms within the regime,” wrote Aghajari, who was condemned to death for blasphemy in 2002 after he questioned the Shiite clergy’s right to rule. “We are witnessing a comical repetition of history: in a very short period of time, the democratic face of the Iranian constitution is going to be turned into an autocratic face.”
Theocrats by their very nature need to rule, rather than to govern. It's the divine right thing...
“The current generation should be given the right to choose their own structure of government and constitution,” said the academic. “The Iranian people should..., with passive resistance, tell the totalitarians: No”.
At which point the totalitarians will kill large numbers of them...
But Aghajari also hit out at embattled pro-reform President Mohammad Karensky Khatami, who faces seeing his allies in parliament ousted by conservatives on Friday and holding office as a lame-duck leader until his second and final term ends in 2005. “Alongside this comical repetition of history we are also witnessing a tragedy: the tragedy of Khatami,” he wrote. “During the six years that have elapsed for the reformist government and the four years of the reformist parliament, because of a lack of will and courage great opportunities were missed.”
That's what happens to Mensheviks. Their intentions are good, their execution's lousy...
Khatami, the dissident wrote, “has reached a point where people are disappointed in him. People have discovered that, after six years of this experience, the preservation of the status quo will bring no developments or reforms.”
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mr. P. can you see any mass passive resistance movement having sucess in Iran? I figure there's always a chance but I don't have a clue about the size of the chance.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 16:39 Comments || Top||

#2  IIUC - it would have to be enough of the population to make it a tipping point, by shutting down the country, possibly provoking the hired thugs the blackhats brought in (Paleos, Soddys, etc.) to do the dirty work. A smaller protest will add to the cynicism and mute obediance
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 17:49 Comments || Top||


Satar denies terror link
U.S. authorities believe a prominent Yemeni politician roamed the city in late 1999 to secretly raise money for terrorist operations, according to testimony in a U.S. federal case. But Sheik Abdullah Satar is already denying the allegations that were made public for the first time this week at the trial of Numan Maflahi, a Yemen-born convenience store owner charged with making false statements about the alleged fund-raising scheme.
"Nope. Nope. Wudn't me."
During a four-day visit in late 1999, Satar was escorted by Maflahi, 31, as he collected donations - purportedly for an orphan charity - at mosques in Brooklyn and Manhattan, FBI agent Brian Murphy testified. The charity, Murphy alleged, was a front for radical Muslim groups. News accounts describe Satar, who has not been charged, as an outspoken opposition party leader in Yemen who has opposed the decision to allow U.S. forces to enter the country to train troops to combat terrorists after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. When the FBI confronted Maflahi about Satar last year, the defendant said he knew the sheik was a famous figure in his homeland, “like Hillary Clinton,” Murphy told jurors.
"... only with a turban."
But he allegedly insisted he had only met Satar in passing and denied helping him raise money - the basis for the false-statement charge. Maflahi’s attorney, Hassen Ibn Abdellah, reminded jurors that his client was not charged with any terror-related counts. He accused prosecutors of repeatedly mentioning terrorism “to inflame you, to prejudice you, to make you feel unpatriotic.” If convicted, Maflahi could face up to five years in prison.
That would be to cool him off, to render him more tolerant, to make him want to go back to the mother country, where things are more to his liking.
Satar, a prominent leading member of the Islah party and former MP, described such reports as “false and baseless” and that they are “a business in the war on terrorism.”
"You know how excitable those Americans are. A few thousand dead and they're looking for Islamists everywhere!"
F.B.I agent Murphy said in Brooklyn Federal Court that Satar was under surveillance during a fund-raising swing through Brooklyn in early 2000.
That was before 9-11...
Murphy testified that after Satar left the U.S., he flew to Milan to meet “the No. 1 operative for Al Qaeda in Italy,” according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Moore. Furthermore, sources have told The Yemen Times that a couple of months ago, Satar received Saudi Rials 500,000 (approx YR 25 million) from the Mecca Welfare Association, which he represents in Yemen. He then distributed the amount to residents in districts in Mareb where Islah had won in the last parliamentary elections.
"Thanks for your votes. Here's some Soddy dough..."
Satar denied that he was in any means involved in raising or transferring money for terrorist operatives adding in his speech to al-Sahwanet that “it seems that charitable work would be victimized due to the exploitation of some terrorist groups for charitable work.” He added that he would continue mobilizing and raising money for charitable purposes and that nobody can stop him from doing that because “we trust our goals and means.” He observed that there are many charitable associations in the US and that no one has accused them of having links to terrorism. He said that the US bases its charges for him on his preaching in Italy where he criticized the US policy and the Jews. “My criticism and opposition for the US support to the Zionist aggression in Palestine is a religion for me. I worship God in working against terrorism and injustice that the Palestinian people are going through, and I do not hide that at all.”
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
Numan Maflahi, a Yemen-born convenience store owner

Rantburg's previous article identified Maflahi as "Mr. Maflahi, 30, a gas station owner who lives in Little Ferry, N.J."
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/16/2004 7:21 Comments || Top||

#2  sells slurpees, gas, and collects funds for islamic terrorists...part of the franchise agreement.

Satar needs to have a hellfire missile wakeup call.
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 8:20 Comments || Top||

#3  It is noted that Satar represents the Mecca Welfare Assn., in Yemen. The Headquarters of the MWA is in Saudi Arabia, and its director is Abdallah Bin Abdel Rahman al Bassam, who is thought to be a major player in the Al Bassam Group (which has interests in oil and gas, and is a player in the computer technology field).
Posted by: Tancred || 02/16/2004 10:15 Comments || Top||


Saleh says new Arab federation can wait
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh announced in Cairo that Yemen is ready to give up its project to establish an Arab federation as an alternative for the Arab League. Saleh said following a meeting with the secretary general of the Arab League Amr Moussa that there are reservations by several Arab states to the project of the Arab federation in being unrealistic.
Most of them involving who's gonna be in charge...
He indicated Yemen’s readiness to adopt more realistic ideas to develop the Arab League and to give other serious proposals apart from what he called prejudice. Diplomatic sources in the Arab League stressed that the Yemeni project states to draw a new charter for the proposed organization similar to the project of developing the Arab League proposed by Libya.
... which is dropping out, as of last report.
The sources added that the AL chief prepared a project for development inspired, in particular from Egyptian and Saudi thoughts based on the need of preserving the AL and its charter, together with adding appendixes including mechanisms to develop joint Arab action. Moussa explained that he'd never be able to find an actual job Yemen made several observations on the mechanism of boosting the AL but simultaneously stressed accepting the current reality, stressing the importance of approval of next steps. Moussa stressed that the Yemeni President expressed readiness to accept what will be agreed on “during the meetings of the ministerial council of the Arab League and also during the forthcoming summit due to be held during the second half of March under Tunisia’s Presidency.”
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336062 views] Top|| File under:


2 MMA parties refuse NWFP ministries
Expansion in the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP) cabinet will not help end differences in the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) as two of the alliance component parties have refused to accept portfolios in the provincial government. NWFP Amir of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Samiul Haq (JUI-S) Qazi Abdul Latif told Daily Times that his party would not accept any such offer before the party Shura approved it. “Our party has some reservations and we will not join the MMA government until they are removed,” he said. He said that MMA leaders Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Maulana Fazlur Rehman should meet JUI-S chief Maulana Samiul Haq to remove his party’s misgivings. “If the MMA leaders fail to remove our reservations, we may quit the alliance for good,” he said.
"So there you have it. More boodle, or we walk."
The Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) has also expressed its unwillingness to accept the slot of the adviser to the NWFP chief minister. JUP Provincial Amir Owais Ahmad Qadri told Daily Times that his party had already separated from the MMA and there was no question of accepting a government slot. “As we are now not part of the MMA, there is no question of joining the NWFP government,” he said.
"We can organize our own lunacy, thank you."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336062 views] Top|| File under:


Kerry's popsie tells all?
THE beauty said to have had a fling with presidential hopeful John Kerry has recorded a bombshell tell-all interview. Journalist Alex Polier taped a talk with a US TV network at Christmas. The former Washington intern, 27, told all about an alleged fling with the 60-year-old super-rich senator in spring 2001. The channel is sitting on the tape until it has enough evidence to back her story. If the sex claims are true, they would shatter his White House hopes. Kerry, a married dad of two, has denied the fling. But Alex told pals she fled to Kenya on his suggestion. One TV source said: “She wants to tell her story. She has talked at length about her relationship with Kerry. But no one is believing her.”
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336097 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I heard that Kerry said there wasn't a story here.

So I expect/demand Fred to remove this post.

BTW, I bet she can't wait to tell her story. Sex and the twentysomething.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/16/2004 1:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Yesh, by all means, let's get the story out. I want this to be over with ASAP.

I want Kerry to talk about his socialist vision for the USA, and the sooner Kerry thinks he is safe to enegerize his leftist base, the sooner we can set to wreck his drive for the White House.
Posted by: badanov || 02/16/2004 1:31 Comments || Top||

#3  The same wing of the NBCABCCBS network that sat on the Juanita Broadrick rape interview, not wanting to taint Billy Clinton's job approval numbers prior to impeachment?
Posted by: Garrison || 02/16/2004 7:44 Comments || Top||

#4  the Fleet street tabloids will follow through, this will come out even if the US networks don't want it to. Should be interesting. It won't kill his candidacy, but Theresa might ;-)
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 8:30 Comments || Top||

#5  Frank G, Unless Theresa wants the 'First Lady -er- bitch -er- Spouse' job as much as Hillary wanted it.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/16/2004 9:03 Comments || Top||

#6  Umm I wonder if the sex was a little kinky...Spankings etc......Well we shall see.....If true couldn't happen to a nicer guy. This guy needs to be torpedoed.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/16/2004 9:24 Comments || Top||

#7  Drudge notes the media's tune changes depending on who's the accused:
FLASHBACK: MEDIA GRILLED BUSH OVER 'ADULTERY' CLAIMS
As main press players blast the DRUDGE REPORT and foreign outlets for revealing details of a behind-the-scenes campaign drama surrounding candidate Kerry and the nature of his relationship with a mystery woman -- just 12 years ago the same players peppered former President George Bush with questions surrounding an infidelity rumor!
In 1992 top reporters swiftly reacted to a footnote in a book quoting a long dead ambassador.
CNN rushed to get the rumor into the media stream as White House correspondent Mary Tillotson confronted President Bush as he hosted Israel Prime Minister Rabin in the Oval Office.
"There is an extensive series of reports in today's New York Post alleging that a former U.S. ambassador, a man now deceased, had told several persons that he arranged for a sexual tryst involving you and one of your female staffers in Geneva in 1984."
Asked NBC's Stone Phillips to the president's face at the height of the "rumor mongering":
"Have you ever had an affair?"
CBS' Harry Smith then confronted Bush spokesperson Mary Matalin over on-air morning coffee:
"Let me ask you about something else. There's a book out, or a book that's just about out that in a footnote names that then-Vice President Bush had an affair with an assistant when he was on a mission in Geneva. Well, that footnote has turned into frontpage news (holding up N.Y.POST), at least in New York, in the N.Y. POST. Albeit a tabloid, it is usually a conservative newspaper. Are you ready to say that accusation is a flat out lie?"
NEWSWEEK's Jonathan Alter defended the aggressive adultery rumor line-of-questioning of the first President Bush on ABC's NIGHTLINE on August 12, 1992, on a broadcast titled: "The Media Charges George Bush With Adultery."
"In this situation, the Oval Office isn't a temple," Alter explained. "The President is a candidate and he has to be asked tough, often distasteful, but nonetheless important kinds of questions."
UPI's Helen Thomas also defended the Bush affair reportage:
"Some people might have felt that it wasn't appropriate. But when you have the President there, I think it's very legitimate to ask him any question."

CUT TO 2004:
NEWSWEEK'S Alter blasted any and all coverage of the Kerry infidelity probe last week on a New York City talkradio outlet -- calling the investigation "sleazy."
The media outrage over an erupting story of possible infidelity of a presidential candidate -- 2004 -- peaked with Joe Conason's cover story in SALON late last week ["There he goes again! Matt Drudge and the GOP smear machine are back in the Democrats' pants"]
Conason lamented:
"But the kind of proof usually required by national news organizations isn't what Drudge needs in order to put innuendo into circulation."
But is this really the same Joe Conason who in the Summer of 1992 wrote a magazine cover story entitled "1,000 REASONS NOT TO VOTE FOR GEORGE BUSH?"
Conason's reason #1:
"He cheats on his wife."
The rumor of President Bush having an affair was never proved by the media.
The developing Kerry drama may or may not join it on the shelf.
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 9:26 Comments || Top||

#8  If the sex claims are true, they would shatter his White House hopes.
What a load of crap. Anyone who would vote for Kerry doesn't care, and would likely feel defiant against perverted old Republicans who got their jollies torturing poor Bill & Monica.
Posted by: I_Heart_Monica || 02/16/2004 9:29 Comments || Top||

#9  I dont think the media would show it even if there was a paris-hilton-type-video of the two banging each other in his Senate office.

And 'I_heart_monica'. President Clinton flat out lied to the american people and he lied under oath. Anyone who will cheat on his wife and his marriage will not get my vote -- he is a blantant LIAR and is not to be trusted. They were not tortured but properly investigated and he was found Guilty and impeached.

Personally I think the vast majority of americans do care of the president is cheating on his marriage.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/16/2004 9:42 Comments || Top||

#10  The news is already out and it doesn't seem to have hurt him. I think the issue will be security v/s hating Bush.

I predict Kerry gets the nomination - regardless.
Posted by: B || 02/16/2004 9:54 Comments || Top||

#11  LOL I_Heart_Monica Thank goodnes you didn't _Club_Monica.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 10:16 Comments || Top||

#12  He was a weasel a long, long time before this. This just makes him more "Clintonesque" which, sad to say, will probably help him with his Democratic constituents.
Unless, of course, Mrs. Ketchup cuts his balls off.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 10:20 Comments || Top||

#13  I think there is a world of difference between the infidelity of a candidate and a sitting president. The candidate presents himself for your vote and issues of character and personal morality do have weight in how you vote. The sitting president, on the other hand, really becomes an issue of how much effort it is to remove him from office. It is much easier to turf the guy before he reaches the office.
Posted by: john || 02/16/2004 12:22 Comments || Top||

#14  What this story might do, if it plays out, is to consolidate support for Bush among social conservatives who otherwise might not like his fiscal policies etc. I doubt it will affect Kerry's Dem base much.

It does, however, suggest the Dems should go softly with the "awol" meme.
Posted by: rkb || 02/16/2004 12:32 Comments || Top||

#15  "If the sex claims are true, they would shatter his White House hopes."

Don't be silly. Kerry is a Dim, paraphrasing somebody, the only way an affair would hurt him is if he was caught with a dead boy or a live dog.
Posted by: Harold || 02/16/2004 14:14 Comments || Top||

#16  dataman, ROFL...for some reason, I got such a visual when I read your "spankings" comment!
I can just see Kerry just giving poor wittle Miss Polier a real walloping!
The Democrats would just say it shows he can use "discipline" as a president.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/16/2004 22:37 Comments || Top||


Mosque preachers don’t like Western dancing. Really.
A significant number of preachers in Sana’a and other citizens heavily criticized the ministry of culture and tourism for allowing what they called “indecent acts” in celebration of the title of Sana’a as the Arab Cultural Capital for 2004.
Preachers. Yeah. That kinda fits with Arab culture, especially the capital of Arab culture...
They have accused the ministry of allowing unethical practices in bringing foreign musical and dance groups from Europe and elsewhere to celebrate the capital in a time the “city needs to go back to the ethics of Islam and Sharia and abandon any immoral Western behaviors.”
"The 7th century beckons! Let us swarm like lemmings to those thrilling days of yesteryear!"
The celebrations started last Wednesday in Sana’a to officially announce the proclamation of Sanaa as the Arab Cultural Capital 2004, amid expectations of various cultural and theatrical activities throughout 2004. Some hardliner preachers claimed that such practices have no relation to Arab culture, but are “imported values from the West that do not conform to our realities and tradition.”
"We do not have titties in Yemen! Period. Now, make them go away!"
Furthermore, many of the preachers reemphasized their usual accusations against the USA and other countries for supporting the festivities, which they claim are a step to destroy the country’s Islamic heritage and ideology. “They have started by hinting to changing our curricula, now they have moved to culture,” one of the preachers said.
"Those women... They're naked under all those clothes, you know. God told me, in a dream..."
It is noteworthy that mosque preachers have some significant influence on Yemeni citizens, especially as they consider them their guides who cannot go wrong, since they base their views on the Islamic Sharia.
Yep. They're all infallible...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:09 || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  riiight!!--about 95% of yemini men are so hopped up from chewing khat that the movements of the dancers will like a slo-mo peckinpah shootout to them
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI || 02/16/2004 1:11 Comments || Top||

#2  Dancing isn't alloed there? Should we send them Kevin Bacon now? Everybody cut loose!
Posted by: Eric Jablow || 02/16/2004 9:23 Comments || Top||

#3  ...and make sure to cue the strobe lights. That'll really freak them out.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 10:13 Comments || Top||

#4  Yah, but this mission is going to be dangerous. I suggest we send the invisible Kevin Bacon.
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 02/16/2004 13:20 Comments || Top||

#5  Well frankly I don't see what's so wild about the 2 step.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/16/2004 16:27 Comments || Top||


U.N. peacekeepers not turning the other cheek in Congo
Hmmm... That's unusual.
From positions on three hills, tribal fighters unleashed a surprise attack at sunset, their bullets smacking into the high sand ramparts around the U.N. checkpoint below. Then the peacekeepers did what the United Nations all too often is accused of failing to do: They fought back. Helicopter gunships, armored personnel carriers and infantry sent the assailants fleeing. Quiet returned, and people in this dusty gold-mining town of 15,000 breathed easier, knowing they had probably been spared another round of rape, murder and cannibalism.
They can probably expect a stern reprimand from Amnesia Internationl. Gunships and infantry are so... so... violent!
Peacekeeping has changed dramatically since the troops from more than two dozen nations arrived in eastern Congo in 2001 to protect U.N. installations and unarmed military observers monitoring the cease-fire lines that separate government and rebel armies. Nowadays, with a stronger U.N. Security Council mandate to pacify a volatile chunk of Congo twice the size of Colorado, the peacekeepers talk — and act — tough. "We need to intervene very forcefully and very quickly," said Dominique AitOuyahia-McAdams, the Frenchwoman who heads the U.N. mission in northeastern Ituri province and is headquartered in Bunia, the provincial capital 16 miles south of Iga-Barriere. The strategy may be risky, "but we all have to take risks because the price for the population is too high not to take any risk," she said. Backed by a fleet of 52 helicopters and transport planes and a $600 million budget, the 10,500 peacekeepers are helping the transitional government regain control of Africa's third-largest nation, curb armed groups and prepare for elections that could be held in less than two years. "U.N. troops first entered as peacekeepers and have been transformed into peace enforcers," said Taylor Seybolt of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an independent, federally financed think tank in Washington.
What a remarkably original idea. Wonder why nobody ever thought of it before?
"The U.N. is responding to events on the ground in a way they have not done in the past in other countries and other times," said Seybolt, who studies peacekeeping and ethnic conflict.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:08 || Comments || Link || [336096 views] Top|| File under:

#1  U.S. Institute of Peace, a federally FINANCED think tank?

WTF: Since when are our tax dollars going to think tanks?
Posted by: SamIII || 02/16/2004 7:47 Comments || Top||

#2  "We need to intervene very forcefully and very quickly," said Dominique AitOuyahia-McAdams, the Frenchwoman who heads the U.N. mission in northeastern Ituri province and is headquartered in Bunia, the provincial capital 16 miles south of Iga-Barriere.

Ah, it all becomes clear now: A Frenchwoman is in charge.

Of course, with a hyphenated name ending in "-McAdams", one has to wonder how "French" her background is.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/16/2004 8:04 Comments || Top||

#3  wow! A Dominique with more balls than De Villepin, and it's a woman?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/16/2004 8:08 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh-oh. When Kofi finds out will he send Capt. Willard up the river to terminate Dominique "with extreme prejudice"?
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/16/2004 9:04 Comments || Top||

#5  "...Kill her for killing people in the Congo...like handing out speeding tickets at the Indy 500..."
(CUE 'THE END' BY THE DOORS)

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/16/2004 9:11 Comments || Top||

#6  Our tax dollars have been going to think-tanks for decades. It they weren't every institution from the Rand Corporation to Johns Hopkins, from the Brookings to Harvard University and MIT would have to re-think their role in Society.
Posted by: Tancred || 02/16/2004 9:49 Comments || Top||

#7  The USIP is a Congressionally mandated and funded organization, run by a retired senior ambassador. It's the organization that took the heat to hire Daniel Pipes. They aren't just earth muffin folks; although they're interested in peace, there are people there who actually understand that shooting people is sometimes useful in pursiot of that goal.

I've worked with Taylor Siebolt; he's got his head together. He set up an interesting brief on Iraq before General Jay Garner got fired.

The USIP web site (usip.org IIRC) has interesting things to look at--they have some interesting conferences that are streamed to the Web. I haven't looked at it in a while but it's worth a peek. I still use the book they put out that translated between military, NGO and IGO.
Posted by: Chap || 02/16/2004 10:49 Comments || Top||

#8  They can probably expect a stern reprimand from Amnesia Internationl. Gunships and infantry are so... so... violent!

Nah, they just fired bullets around the tribesmen (think "A-Team"...)
Posted by: Pappy || 02/16/2004 21:24 Comments || Top||

#9  Joan of Arc,Sabine,Domi.Gotta wonder about those French Babes.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/17/2004 8:09 Comments || Top||


Hizbullah arsenal explodes in Lebanon
More signs and portents? Or doesn't Mahmoud believe in no-smoking signs?
A series of explosions Sunday destroyed a two-story ammunition dump in south Lebanon that belonged to Hizbullah, according to Lebanese security officials. They said the explosions were set off by a short circuit caused by lightning during a strong storm shortly before dawn Sunday. There were no reports of casualties. The ammunition dump was located in the basement of a building between the villages of Majadel and Shehabiyeh, some 20 km. from the border with Israel. The Lebanese Broadcasting Corp. said the dump contained mortar shells and rocket-propelled grenades.
We're all hoping the carnage was devastating...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/16/2004 00:08 || Comments || Link || [336089 views] Top|| File under:

#1  LOL.....
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/16/2004 8:56 Comments || Top||

#2  I wonder if it was lightening from the "Thunder Snow" mentioned in Rantburg yesterday? I have a hunch though that it was a blast from the Zionist Death Ray.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/16/2004 10:27 Comments || Top||

#3  The only thing that keeps me from thinking that the (insert your favorite organization/agency here)strikes again is the old dictum "never blame on enemy action that which can be expained by your own incompetence".

But it would be fun to see the Isrealys take credit antway, as they are going to get blamed anyway.
Posted by: N guard || 02/16/2004 10:31 Comments || Top||

#4  I blame Global Warming. I always do.
Posted by: al gore || 02/16/2004 10:34 Comments || Top||

#5  It's those damn gas balloons again...
Posted by: Carl in NH || 02/16/2004 13:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Okay sports fans so you don't believe me..... Take a quality childs ballons, fill full of your favorite heating gas (propane is good) hang it in the attic. Leave. Wait. 70% chance of boom.
Posted by: Nuss Ratchett || 02/16/2004 13:38 Comments || Top||

#7  Two story ammunition dump....oh, the imagery! They probably put up a lightening rod, but forgot to install a ground grid and wires from the rod to ground. All the top level electricians are parted out and they are down to mid-level management and custodians.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/16/2004 20:16 Comments || Top||

#8  "the top level electricians are parted out..."

LOL! Now that's a visual!
Posted by: .com || 02/16/2004 21:30 Comments || Top||


China Links with Saudi, Pakistan a U.S. Concern
The United States believes China is still cooperating with Saudi Arabia on missiles and with Pakistan on nuclear technology and missiles, despite Beijing’s promises to control arms proliferation. These are among the subjects expected to be discussed when senior U.S. and Chinese officials meet this week in Beijing. The Bush administration considers Iran and North Korea the greatest near-term proliferation threats. But it is also "concerned about what the Saudis are getting from the Chinese in terms of missiles," a U.S. official said. "They want to continue a relationship with the Saudis." Experts say ballistic missiles are most useful for delivering weapons of mass destruction and this would be especially worrisome if Islamic radicals took control in Riyadh or if the current Saudi rulers felt threatened by an Iranian nuclear bomb.

For some time, experts have speculated that Saudi Arabia helped bankroll the Pakistani nuclear program with the expectation that at some point it would gain access to a nuclear weapon. In recent interviews, several senior U.S. officials were cagey about a possible Saudi nuclear program. One said: "There is no evidence that Pakistan has helped Saudi Arabia with a nuclear program." But another official said: "There is always concern even if the information is flimsy." In August 2002, Beijing published a comprehensive missile export control system but a 2003 CIA report said China continued to work with Pakistan and Iran on ballistic missile projects. The unclassified version of the CIA report did not mention Saudi Arabia but two U.S. officials told Reuters the kingdom’s dealings with China are an issue. "We have unanswered questions. There is some cooperation we have seen" between China and the Saudis, one official said. U.S. officials also said China was continuing a nuclear relationship with Pakistan.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/16/2004 12:05:03 AM || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:


Of Pak’s missing N-men and the Myanmar-China link
EFL
Why then in January 2002 did the ISI whisk away two nuclear scientists Dr Sulaiman Asad and Dr Ali Mukhtar to Myanmar? Then CIA chief George Tenet had visited Islamabad that month to provide clinching proof that Dr Sultan Bashiruddin Mehmood headed a thriving racket supplying nuclear knowhow to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda in 1999. The Tenet visit had led to Musharraf ordering the arrest of Dr Mehmood and Chaudhury Abdul Majid. The CIA chief supplied copies of bank statements of the two Pakistani nuclear establishment personalities, proving they were receiving funds from Al Qaeda’s front organisations. Under interrogation, the two admitted to having met bin Laden and discussing with him designs of nuclear and chemical weapons. Four other scientists, Azfar Hasan Zaidi, Kishwar Ali, Taha Hussain and Jabbar Khan, were subsequently booked. The revelations stunned the world community, reeling as it was then from the shock of 9/11.

That was 2002. This is 2004. What happened in the interregnum? Have Bashiruddin Mehmood and his group been persecuted in a Pakistani court? No. Sure, they were put under "house arrest" for a while. Their bank accounts, presumably the known ones, were "frozen" on the UN Security Council’s recommendation which included their names in an old list of individuals and entities linked to Al-Qaeda. After that, they went back to their daily lives. Washington, grateful to Musharraf for allowing use of Pakistani bases (denied officially) and other logistics, let sleeping dogs lie. And where are those two - Asad and Mukhtar - who were sneaked out to Myanmar the moment the FBI team landed in Islamabad to interrogate the group? Well, New Delhi followed their fortunes for a while and applied pressure on Myanmaar to evict them. South Block sources reveal that by mid-2002 they had moved out, possibly to China. Very little is known about these two have answers to a lot of questions.

In January 2003, the lid was blown off another controversy. Many nuclear scientists, most of them trained in China and attached to the country’s nuclear power plant - CHASNUPP - had emigrated without official permission. Some had simply vanished into thin air. A memo sent from CHASNUPP to higher authorities, leaked to the Karachi-based web newspaper South Asia Tribune, listed nine absconders. It only speculated where they could have gone, for the absconders had not left a forwarding address. The ramifications of this are scary. Here too, the blame leads to the Pakistani Government, for it is illegal under its law for technical persons attached to the nation’s nuclear establishment to leave country for greener pastures. The memo stated that the defections began in April 1997. Between February and October 2000, six more scientists had walked away into the fog. It is anybody’s guess if the phenomenon is still continuing.
Off working freelance in Iran or somewhere?
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/16/2004 12:03:20 AM || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:



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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
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badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
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trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2004-02-16
  A.Q. Khan heart attack. Wotta surprise.
Sun 2004-02-15
  #41 snagged... Ten to go
Sat 2004-02-14
  21 Killed, 35 Injured in Falluja Gunbattle
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

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