The author is correct...The paramilitaries are thick in that area of the country. The "farmers" must've been guerrilla sympathizers...
The act occurred when the farmers, inhabitants of the municipality of San Jacinto del Cauca, were heading down the Cauca River towards the town of Nechà in the Colombian Department of Antioquia, where they were to buy food & provisions.
Yeah, provisions, like machine guns, ammo, landmines, RPG's, ski masks, etc...The usual provisions for a poor farmer from the thick jungles of Colombia...
The official said that even though some farmers indicate that the kidnappers wore E.L.N. armbands, the possibility that it was the paramilitaries, who also operate in the region, cannot be left out.
He added that the victims were made to stop the boat and get out in a remote rural area in the neighboring municipality of Montecristo, very near SerranÃa de San Lucas.
Men of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and of the Russian Interior Ministry troops have staged a special operation in Chechnya, which disrupted the channels of financing the gangs and the system of training would-be women suicide bombers, General Ilya Shabalkin, representative of the Regional Operational Staff for controlling the counterterrorist operation in the Northern Caucasus, told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.
According to his information, Natalia Khalkayeva, a would-be woman suicide bomber, who is also known under the name of Heda Khalkayeva, was arrested as a result of the operation. She is the sister of Hasan Khalkayev, who maintained contacts with Arbi Barayev and Islam Chalayev the ringleaders who were destroyed physically. According to the information of the Regional Operational Staff, they engaged in abducting people living in the Krasnodar Territory with the aim to get a ransom for them.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 2:11:55 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"the ringleaders who were destroyed physically".
Translations are fun. One may hope that they were, as well, destroyed spiritually--may they rot in hell.
#2
TERRORISTS IN CHECHNYA PHONED SUBSCRIBERS IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES
Terrorists in Chechnya phoned subscribers in the Untied Arab Emirates, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria and Turkey.
It has been reported that the security services had detained Natalia Khalkayeva, aged 31, an active member of illegal armed groups who provided the funds and trained female suicide terrorists. "The detainee is a contact of bandit leader Yunadi Turchayev, on whose orders she acted as a courier and contact with other bandit leaders," said Major General Ilya Shabalkin, of the Regional Staff of the counter terrorist operation in the North Caucasus.
In his words, a satellite telephone was bought and registered in an Arab country and delivered to Khalkayeva in Chechnya. "She used the phone to talk with subscribers in the Untied Arab Emirates, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, Turkey and several other countries in Europe and the Middle East," said Col. Shabalkin.
"They discussed the delivery through bank transfer of funds collected by agents of international terrorist organizations for terrorist attacks and recruitment of young girls to act as suicide terrorists," the general said. Besides, Khalkayeva also discussed the purchase and delivery of weapons, military uniforms and technical equipment for bandit groups in Chechnya.
She has recently traveled outside Chechnya several times for meetings with the accomplices of the illegal armed groups, who handed to her funds collected by representatives of international terrorist organizations abroad. "The funds Khalkayeva brought to Chechnya were used by bandit leaders to organize terrorist attacks and recruit young girls as suicide terrorists."
Khalkayeva has been charged with involvement in illegal armed groups and illegal transfer of weapons and munitions. She has been arrested by court decision and put in a pre-trial detention ward.
General Shabalkin had told RIA before that the FSB, working jointly with the Interior Troops, held a special operation, delivering a serious blow at the system of financing and training female suicide terrorists. The general said Khalkayeva, a.k.a. Kheda, is a blood sister of Khasan Khalkayev, who in 1998 went to the Krasnodar Territory jointly with the bandits of Arbi Barayev and Beslan Chalayev (they were killed in 2001-2002 in Chechnya), where they kidnapped several local residents for ransom. Khasan Khalkayev was put on the federal wanted list for his crimes.
http://en.rian.ru/rian/index.cfm?prd_id=160&msg_id=4884434&startrow=1&date=2004-09-22&do_alert=0
Russia's parliament drafted proposals for an anti-terrorism law on Monday, the day it began an inquiry into the Beslan school siege that killed more than 320 hostages, half of them children. Russia has tightened security after a spate of attacks which Chechen rebels say they carried out, including the Beslan tragedy, and has vowed pre-emptive strikes on "terrorist bases" anywhere. "We believe it is necessary to prepare and adopt a federal anti-terrorism law, because existing legislation doesn't fully enable us to solve those tasks arising from the situation in the country," upper house speaker Sergei Mironov said after a meeting of the chamber. The Federation Council upper house called for a law that would deal out tougher punishments for people who collude with terrorists — by financing them or by helping them through professional negligence. It also sought better definitions of terrorist threats and the varying degrees of danger they present and called for a full inventory of weapons used by security forces. The document, approved in principle, will be examined again next week. All legislation must be approved by the State Duma lower house and signed into law by President Vladimir Putin.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 1:13:40 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A Potentially explosive device has been found in the cargo bay of a jet at Sydney airport - and accidentally carried into the passenger terminal. An initial NSW Police report has concluded the substance was thermite, a chemical used in grenades. It was found wrapped in a cardboard toilet roll tube with a firework sparkler attached as a 30-second fuse. The Daily Telegraph has learned the device was discovered in a knotted plastic bag, along with matches, in the cargo hold of a Virgin Blue 737-300 jet by baggage handlers at 11.30am on Monday. But the find was kept quiet, with Australian Federal Police attempting to trace its origin. A spokesman for Virgin last night played down the threat, declining to comment about the substance. But he confirmed it was "a flammable substance, powder and matches" and Virgin was reviewing how staff inadvertently carried the package into the airport. "The point to make is that the device was not checked baggage or hand luggage, that is, it was not screened and appears to have been left [in the aircraft] by someone with access to the airfield," he said.
Thermite is widely used by the military for its armour-piercing capabilities. It burns without oxygen at 3000C and melts metal on contact. Its civilian use includes welding. The package was found lying loose in the baggage hold of the airliner on Monday on flight DJ-747 from Maroochydore to Sydney. Despite handlers not knowing what the roll was, they carried it into the Mascot domestic passenger Terminal 2 to be X-rayed. A NSW Police report has concluded it was a "non-electrical improvised explosive device [IED]" containing the compound thermite. The AFP is now having the substance more throroughly analysed by laboratory technicians.
Investigators have not ruled out the possibility it was planted by a disgruntled airport or aircraft worker. It may also have been designed to burn the plane while it was on the ground because it is impossible for passengers or crew to get into the plane's hold during flight. Virgin is at the centre of an angry exchange over its handling of the incident. The airline failed to immediately alert the airport's security teams of the find, instead carrying it into the airport. It was then that airport security were alerted who sounded an immediate "duress alert". The package was then moved to a quarantined area in a valet car park, which was sealed off and the bomb squad called in. A NSW Police spokesman last night confirmed police were not told of the incident until one hour and 40 minutes after the discovery.
Continued on Page 49
Dark skinned, shifty eyed mop heads. It's always, "eh mate" this and "eh mate" that. Big ol toothy grins! There's that giant stone devil's rock out in the bush by god!
Prosecutors launched an investigation this week into suspicions that French Islamic radicals have gone to Iraq to fight with the resistance there, judicial officials said Wednesday. Information from the magistrates' other probes into terrorism networks and from French counterintelligence prompted the prosecutors' decision to open the investigation, said the judicial officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Anti-terrorist magistrates Jean-Francois Ricard et Jean-Louis Bruguiere will lead the investigation.
The formal opening of an investigation gives the two magistrates a legal framework in which to work, and allows them to question suspects and approach authorities elsewhere for information. So far, French officials suspect that only small numbers of French radicals perhaps no more than a dozen have sought to travel to Iraq. The body of a French citizen of North African origin was found in Fallujah in Iraq in July, judicial officials said. The daily Le Figaro reported Wednesday that police believe he had gone to Iraq to fight.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 10:28:43 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A group of 10 alleged terrorists arrested by Italian and Lebanese authorities planned to blow up the Italian Embassy in Beirut in a car bomb attack, an Italian news agency and the Defence Ministry in Rome said. Plans for the attack were in an advanced phase, news agency ANSA said Tuesday. Police also seized about 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of explosives, ANSA said, citing unspecified Lebanese and Italian sources. Defence Minister Antonio Martino issued a statement to thank the Italian military intelligence service, SISMI, for the "brilliant operation carried out in Lebanon." It also thanked Lebanese and Syrian secret services for their cooperation.
The statement offered no details on the operation. A Defence Ministry spokesman declined to comment. A Lebanese Foreign Ministry spokesman told The Associated Press in Beirut that he had heard the report, but had no information. Lebanese security officials could not be reached late Tuesday for comment. According to ANSA, the arrests were carried out in Lebanon. It didn't say when. The suspects, whose nationalities were not immediately clear, were alleged to be members of a Lebanese cell of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, an extremist organization believed to have ties to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda, ANSA said. Among those arrested, ANSA said, was a Lebanese man suspected to have had a role in an attack on a McDonald's restaurant in Beirut in April 2003, as well as in other attacks on US and British interests in the country last year. ANSA said the attack on the Italian Embassy, which is in central Beirut, was to be the first in a serious of strikes planned by the suspects against Western interests in Lebanon, including the US Embassy.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 2:01:12 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
gpsc in Lebanon? shouldnt that be be Tawhid's. or someone elses turf? Are the AQ subsidiaries stepping on each others toes?
#5
"Crimes against innocent bystanders taken hostage in any circumstance have no foundation whatsoever in the life of Islam and the model example of Prophet Muhammad, piss peace be upon him."
Thank you for that pearl of wisdom Cat. Maybe you should try telling that to the animals you share your beliefs with, you might find yourself on the short end of a fatwa.
#7
I dont think Cat has condemned Hamas attacks in Israel. Also '"Islam(Stevens) drew some negative attention in the late 1980s when he supported the Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence against Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses."'
Peace train a coming, but Cat aint pulling it, it seems.
#8
Another person who found Western life too hard and could only find happiness as a 'bitch' of allen hopping when he says hop and sticking his butt in the air five times a day for no good reason other than to appease the deity.
Cat Stevens is just another person who believes that utopia can be achieved through the surrender of liberty and the surrender of the independence and neutrailty of the state in matters of religion.
Hey Cat, did you ever hear the one about Mohammed watching 500 Jewish men being beheaded? Or how about the assination of a woman poet who satirized your so called model example. Some model, huh?
or did Cat just sell his soul, as so many have, in exchange for having someone else dictate his every move? People like him think that they have found peace when what they are really feeling is the comfort and ease that comes from giving up.
He is a traitor. I think all converts to this stupid religion are traitors who are willing to ignore and explain away islams dark side in favor of some "real" islam of their own invention and very selective reading. They ignore the dark side for a false spirituality which is really a masquerade where they get to dress and act all bohemian and exotic and they get to protest our way of life by adopting an alien way of life.
I say keep them all out but especially the ones who claim that islam is modern and peaceful and "not incompatible with democracy" whatever that means. We dont need them here.
Didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Bangor
A beautiful day, we had lunch on the way and all for under a pound you know
But on the way back I cuddled with Jack and we opened a bottle of cider
Singing a few of our favourite songs as the wheels went around et-fookin-cetera...
Posted by: Howard UK ||
09/22/2004 10:03 Comments ||
Top||
#10
Appropriately, Sung to
"Morning has Broken"
Jetplane has landed, they have found me out
Canât go to D.C., canât go there now
Allah you failed me, I canât make trouble
Theyâll send me back to London now...
Bangor is so lonely, no one is here
Marshalls are coming, to take me away
They may not feed me for a whole day
Please donât send me to Guantanamo
People are angry but Iâm on a Jihad
Wahabi folks want to hear all I say
Where you taking me? Donât like the room.
300-pound sergeant questions me now..
#11
"Crimes against innocent bystanders taken hostage in any circumstance have no foundation whatsoever in the life of Islam and the model example of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him."
This is, of course, a complete and utter lie. Ol' Mo ordered every man in a tribe to be beheaded, and raped one of the widows that very night.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/22/2004 11:45 Comments ||
Top||
#12
This may be treading on thin ice but...
RC - You know, you never hear about mainstream historians talking about anything remotely connected to this in regard to Jesus, or Buddha, or Moses...
In fact, the only thing you hear about Jesus in regard to women, is the legend that during the missing years he MAY have traveled to England (Then part of the Roman Empire as well) and had a wife and kids there, who were left behind, as he was hoping he would one day return, when he went to the Mid-East to begin ministry.
Moses was very domestic.
Buddha, a prince, had a "good life" until the conversion to a monastatc life, but was as far as I have read, never cruel to anyone.
So, it is left up to Mohammed to be the one with the debauchery...
#13
And lets not forget that all the women and children of that tribe were parcelled out as prizes by mo himself to his loyal followers. All of them became islamic slaves.
Some model huh?
Hey, no wonder islam spread so fast, what with the free slave girls being handed out as victory prizes.
But Cat might say that it was the womens fault for belonging to any group of people who didn't automtically surrender everything they held dear including their right to self determination at once whenever muslim bandits and mauraders led by mo pulled up in front of their towns. If they had just surrendered they would have seen mo's good side instead forcing him to show them proof islams superiority at the edge of sword.
Cat Stevens was a hippy idiot. An idiot can change their name and start wearing flowing really "spiritual" looking robes and renounce a worldly "materialistic" career, but the fact that he's a pie in the sky idiot is something that can't be changed and never will change the facts notwithstanding. Once one always one.
#14
I agree completely about the former Cat Stevens, Peggy. And, unless Mr. Islam gave away all that he earned in those heady rockstar days, he would be a hypocrite to claim that he gave up the materialism of his youth.
Relatedly, I've read that Cat Stevens thoroughly approves of terror attacks on Israeli civilians, which is why he's been persona non grata over there for some time.
well, i dont know, he spent all that time leading the people, did he make time for his wife and his kid Gerson? Sounds like good material for a sermon.
Course he left the dirty work to Joshua. Folks want to look for genocidal stuff can look at Joshua and the Canaanites. Course our tradition says that aint no justification for killing anyone now, those Canaanites were like totally defiling the land through horrible practices. Which just shows to go ya that ya cant look at a religious text in isolation, gotta look at it in the context of its tradition. I assume the "nice" muslims have something parallel. Now if only they could apply it to Israeli children, as well as Russian children. That they dont is do to their own moral lack, not mohammeds.
Anyway, I suspect Cat was caught cause his name matched somebody else.
Too bad they couldnt have held him over a Saturday night in Bangor. "Another Saturday night, and i aint got Hamadi ...."
Among those abominable practices was child sacrifice.
I know its no use to try and convince you that eliminating child sacrifice and the religions that condoned it was truly a good thing and advancement for human kind. But to those who don't have a chip on their shoulder and a bias against all religion, its seems rather obvious that tough measures would have have to been taken.
Historical evidence however, shows that the Hebrews did not in fact eliminate all the people who lived in the land that they settled. The process was more gradual and the Hebrews continued to live alongside these people and some even emulated them, including adopting the practice of sacrificing their own children.
The Biblical command was a statement of principle which I am sure that any Jewish rabbi could tell you. It was a perscription which when it wasn't followed proved its necessity.
What would you have done? Would you have walked up to some village who practiced child sacrifice and reasoned them out of the practice? With what argument? How would you have proved that it was wrong? By demonstrating that it wasn't in their best interests to kill the occaisional child? And in your experience, how easy is it to reason a whole group of people out of their beliefs?
If it was up to you, we might still have some people today practicing child sacrifice. It was something that needed to be eliminated and the Bible's unequivocable condemnations of such practices was the catylast which began the end the practice first in the region where the Jews lived and then outward from there.
Or are you going to argue that child sacrifice is just something that the Jews should have let people do, no big deal, no justification for harsh tactics.
#17
"I think all converts to this stupid religion are traitors who are willing to ignore and explain away islams dark side in favor of some "real" islam of their own invention and very selective reading. They ignore the dark side for a false spirituality which is really a masquerade where they get to dress and act all bohemian and exotic and they get to protest our way of life by adopting an alien way of life . . ." --peggy
Cat Stevens, the performer, playing "holy man" with his own, sanitized version of Islam. He even names himself "Islam." And he gets attention and a big pretend which he can trot around the globe and make money with. The mullahs love him because he can bullshit Westerners with his "pick and choose" version of Islamic puke nonsense, and ensnare some of them, or at least make them less hostile to Islamic aims regarding proselytizing. Wonder if he's spoken out in condemnation of the beheadings in the last couple of days. Nope.
I think Winston Churchill told the truth about Islam best: "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world . . . "
#19
That's not a moon shadow following you, Cat. That's an FBI shadow. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Posted by: Tom ||
09/22/2004 14:22 Comments ||
Top||
#20
geez peggy. If today we found child sacrifice, wed have to try the folks who did the child sacrifice - NOT kill an entire village. And thats Jewish law, not just my opinion. The actions in Canaan were unique, based on G-ds word, for his reasons that arent clear to us mortals - or they may not have actually happened at all, as you imply (Im a tad radical about that - but I wasnt discussing actual late bronze age Canaan/israel based on historical analysis, but what some hostile person could say about Judaism - i didnt discuss christianity only because im less familiar with how Christian traditions justify the situation)
My point remains - while there are indications in the bible of the actions of the Canaanites, and of the Amalekites, these are fleshed out in later rabbinic literature, which makes clear the reasons for Joshuas actions, and why they are unique to that time and place. Again, I presume that Muslims have something similar re Mo and what he did in his time.
#21
I'm proud to say that as an AFRTS dee-jay, I boycotted his pop music stuff after he came out in favor of the fatwah on Rushdie for the "Satanic Verses".
Easily done, since there were only those two mouldy oldie hits of his in the AFRTS library!
It's the thought that counts
They do have something similar but the justification is by far weaker. What mo did was always about ensuring that islam would dominate the world. Period. Thats the entire justification. muslims attacked polytheists but not child sacrificers. He attacked Christian and Jewish and Zoroastrian communities and lands or exhorted his followers to do so.
The Jews were only to clear their land of evil doers and then stop. Christians were commanded to spread the Gospel but the violence option wasn't open to them and whatsmore Jesus never sopke at all about Christians having a duty to subjugate the whole world to Christianity. He said only to tell people about him not conquer in the name of his religion. He never taught that it was Christian destiny to rule the whole world.
geez peggy. If today we found child sacrifice, wed have to try the folks who did the child sacrifice - NOT kill an entire village
My point is that if the practice hadn't been condemned back then as an intolerable abomination, we would not have the sense today to have laws against it to try some individual with. As in the days of the Israelite conquest, we would have pockets of people who still practiced it and pockets of people who didn't practice it but tolerated those who did. There is nothing in the practice of child sacrifice that would strike someone as inherantly wrong if they lacked the moral training and traditions that we have today. to us its obvious. To someone else it wouldn't be. The Biblical command in the Bible to not tolerate it under any circumstances was a monumental moral turning point in human history that we today cannot fully appreciate because we take it for granted that its wrong to kill any child for any reason. We automatically acknowledge a child's inherant right to life because it began back then with people who belived they were obligated to stop the practice.
What happened then was that these folks the Jews were the first to take a moral stand about the behavior of another group. Noone else did the same for 2000 years until the Christians came along. Thats huge and we can't underestimate what that means to us today who can now afford to try the occaisonal freak of nature who practices abominations on the innocent. Back in those days the whole region was full of people like that.
If you think that the issue is that muslims believe that the things mo did were one time only and time specific, I only ask you to think about what he did, what his options were and what his situation was. The only conclusion is that he was not a moral exemplar like Moses or Jesus or even Joshua. The comparison does not hold up no matter how much muslims try to justify his actions.
Muslims also believe that they must follow moshammeds example and that that example is eternally valid for them. When muslims do not feel threatened, they emulate mo's good side. When they feel threatened they trun to his eternal and perfect example for how to deal with a threat. Its not a thing of the past for them. nor will it ever be.
Tell me, do you see some small parallel between Muslims who tried to justify the killing of 3000 people in the WTC ("you have to understand their history, the context of the fight, blah blah blah") and this statement:
[Regarding child sacrifice] The actions in Canaan were unique, based on G-ds word, for his reasons that arent clear to us mortals...
I see a parallel-it's called rationalization of inhumane acts(not to be confused with reason).
#25
Sgt Mom - I hear you. I profile, in my own way. I participate in one of those illegal (per RIAA, anyway, fug'em) kazaa-style networks sharing MP3's and other stuff. I have a fairly awesome collection of files - many very hard to find - in total several thousand of the best of the best, heh. I get tons of D/L requests - which occupy a fair chunk of my expensive big bandwidth. And I whack anyone who wears his dhimmitude or asshattedness on his sleeve, er, posting nym. My favorites so far: BushLied, TheCaliph, and Beheader. They get bounced immediately, of course. And I boycott the products of a wide range of countries who have elected Dhimmi-shit-for-brains leaders.
#26
Sgt Mom - BTW - THANK YOU for your work as an AFRTS dee-jay - although we prolly didn't cross paths in time, I want you to know the music mattered a lot to me and everyone I served with! THANX! Do you have any MP3 requests? I'll find 'em for you, heh.
#27
jules - muslims (And anyone else for that matter) who justifies 9/11 is a bastard, no ifs ands or buts.
I WAS making a comparison, however imperfect between the actions of Big Mo in the Koran and the actions of Joshua in the Bible, since someone said all muslims should be excluded from the US cause of whats in the K. I was trying to make some explanation of how moderate muslims may deal with it, since im aware of how Jews deal with the Joshua stories. I was comparing religious texts with religious texts, NOT religious texts with contemporary political situations. I have a great deal of difficulty with applying ancient religious texts to contemporary situations, at least when said texts havent evolved through a long tradition of interpretation and commentary.
#29
Correction noted-you intended to compare religious texts to religious texts.
I despise religious self-immunization. My hackles go up when an effort to protect a religion at all costs comes at the expense of naming evil AS IT OCCURRED, in the Bible, in the Torah, in the Koran, or whatever other book. People were different then, yes, and it is good to point out that each book is a historical recounting of what people did then, but people cannot "deal with it" if they excuse it simply because it happened a long time ago. Humans grow, but let's name things for what they are.
OK. I feel better now. By the way, I like "Big MO".
It seems to have escaped your notice that Liberalhawk is a practicing Orthodox Jew (one clue is that he writes G-d, not even spelling out the word God, out of respect to the Deity). A Jew of great erudition, by the way, who is knowledgeable not only about the Torah, Talmud and Mishnah, and the 2000-year mass of rabbinic Oral Commentary, but the historic development of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the many secular flavours of Socialist and Communist thought.
I suggest you re-read his posts in light of this background information, and in future argue with him on the merits rather than resorting to ad hominim attacks. I can't speak for him, of course, but I certainly would appreciate it.
#31
quibble - im a CONSERVATIVE Jew, and im not nearly as observant as id like to be. I have a lot of respect for Orthodoxy and for the Jewish tradition, and so I may not come off as C rather than O here.
I appreciate the complement of being mistaken for O based on my knowledge, since C jews generally (unfortunately IMHO) have less knowledge on these things than O jews (the jewish stuff, not the lefty stuff). AS for not not writing out the name of G-d, while many C jews dont follow the practice, i see no good reason not to. I like to follow traditional practices where possible. (the kinds of issues where you might see me as very different from an O jew, like say gay marriage, are ones i avoid commenting on here, since they inevitably become useless flamefests - of course they tend to on Jewish sites as well ;) )
#32
and in any case Peggy still has every right to disagree with me on the Bible, the Koran politics or whatever. Im glad some appreciate my posts, but i claim no privilege.
You have my apologies because I thought you were an athiest. I personally have never seen you make one positive comment on religion but I guess that doesn't mean that you never have. Athiests bring out the ugly in me
I was wondering about your comments on Joshua which seemed out of the usual from what I've seen from you before. This explains it.
I still don't think that Joshua's case justifys what mo did a couple thousand years later. It simply doesn't hold up. The situations were different and the goals were also different. The muslims may think they can apply that one-time principle to mo but it doesn't carry into a far more modern era where there wasn't so very much at stake and where there were many many options open to him.
My favorite example of course is of Jesus who found himself in the remorseless grip of the all powerful Roman government. He had nothing to fight them with. He could have encouraged his followers to uselessly immolate themselves trying to take it on in order to save him or to avoid capture all together. But he went to his death as gentle as he had gone through life and his movement survived and in 400 years was dominant in the empire without a battle being fought by any Christian army.
If Jesus could do that, then mo had no excuse whatever to do as he did. None.
You simply can't equate religions. Some are better than others. And you always seem to be equating Christianity and islam in one lump as equally bad when their founders were such vastly different moral examples.
Criticise Christians all you want for our failure to live up to our moral example, but we have a truly moral example for our religious conscience and he usually gets the better of us in the end. But the muslims have no true moral exemplar. they have an imposter to such and they are blind to it.
#35
I always thought the creep hippy sounded like a cat singing out of key, it was much worse.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
09/22/2004 22:03 Comments ||
Top||
#36
Islam drew some negative attention in the late 1980s when he supported the Ayatollah Khomeini's death sentence against Salman Rushdie, author of "The Satanic Verses."
"The Quran equates the murder of one innocent person with the murder of the whole of humanity."
I'd sure like to know exactly how this @sshole manages to reconcile the above two facts. That is, unless Mr. Islam advocates the death penalty for blasphemy or apostasy. If indeed he does, then he is just another bloodthirsty tyrant trotting about covering up the violent aspects of his militant faith.
#37
Quibble noted, LH. I was reared a freethinker within a Conservative synagogue, but with Daddy being an Israeli and an academic, we kids got all the comparative literature and archeology stuff. In general the Conservatives spend more time on Jewish history, Bible, and comparative religion than they do on rabbinic commentary, which is indeed why I assumed you were an Orthodox Jew.
I wasn't looking to privilege you, just a little less unneccessary flaming. It distresses me, even though you are clearly able to hold your own. :-)
The brother-in-law of Sami Al-Arian was indicted Tuesday in the terrorism financing case against the former University of South Florida professor. Mazen Al-Najjar, a Palestinian, was deported from the United States in August 2002 and is believed to be in Lebanon. Besides facing racketeering and conspiracy charges, Al-Najjar was specifically charged with perjury for denying to an immigration court judge that he was a member of the Islamic Jihad, knew other members or provided the group with financial support. The U.S. Attorney's office declined comment. Al-Najjar was named as an unindicted co-conspirator when Al-Arian and eight others were indicted in 2003. Prosecutors allege the men used an Islamic charity and academic think tank at the university as fund-raising covers for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al-Arian and three others are scheduled for trial in January. They have denied the charges.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 12:59:04 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Terror suspects arrested for allegedly planning to bomb the Italian and Ukrainian embassies and assassinate Western embassy staff in Beirut were affiliated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, Lebanese security officials said Wednesday. Interior Minister Elias Murr identified the leaders of the plot as Ahmed Salim Mikati and Ismail Mohammed al-Khatib, both Lebanese, and said eight Lebanese and Palestinian accomplices were arrested. Khatib "is an al-Qaida operative. ... His role was to recruit fundamentalist youth to carry out operations against coalition forces in Iraq," Murr said at a news conference.
Prosecutor General Adnan Addoum said both men "had links to al-Qaida," the militant Muslim network that has sworn enmity to the West. The group planned simultaneous bombings of the Italian and Ukrainian embassies and a few Lebanese "security and judicial targets," Murr said. He said the group was also planning to assassinate employees working in Western embassies in Lebanon. The ministry earlier said the group's unnamed leader has confessed to planning and preparing to send a car packed with 660 pounds of TNT to blow up the Italian Embassy in downtown Beirut. Most members of the terrorist network, "which had links and received funding from some extremist cells in Europe," were arrested Tuesday, it said without elaborating.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 9:21:02 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
09/22/2004 21:54 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Helloooooo Stockholm Syndrome!
This looney liberal "journalist" gets kidnapped, beaten, and tortured -- several times, by successive terrorist groups -- and he still does his damnedest to humanize the thugs who did it to him.
The real tragedy isn't the hell he went through, it's the fact he evidently didn't learn a thing from it!
Dr. Steve, Emily and I had dinner last night, and ended up closing the restaurant. If they hadn't closed down, we might still be there chatting.
One of the things we discussed was the way the front page closes up when the comment count goes over over 300. I do that to cut page load times, which for a dialup connection can be horrendous when loading 100 articles and 500 comments, all of which have to be retrieved and sorted.
But some people have fast connections and they're data gluttons, and we confess that we look at everything at once on the editors' page. So I've put a link to the PHP version I've been toying with for the past couple months on the front page. It'll give you all the articles — WoT and non-WoT — and all the comments, but for the current day only. It's laid out bass-ackwards from the .asp page, and articles continue on Page 49, but other than that it works approximately the same as the .asp version. Keep in mind that it's still full of bugs, because I've been busy with other stuff, but use it if you want. One of the bugs is that when you comment, it'll take you back to the .asp version. The server should handle the load, and if it doesn't, I'll let you know before taking it down.
Another thing we talked about was an editorial page. I think I'm going to build that as a second page — I've got a site I started for someone who backed out of the deal that I can rearrange and drop in. It'll have its own comments and such. Should be ready in a week or so, if I don't get sidetracked into something else.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 3:11:41 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[2 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Will there be an editorial board? he asked in a concerned voice.
Q: What would be required for your average Rantburger or blogger to create, via streaming video, alternative newscasts and live interviews? In other words, create our own realtime, 24/7 rival to Russert, "60 minutes" etc?
Q: What would be required for your average Rantburger or blogger to create, via streaming video, alternative newscasts and live interviews? In other words, create our own realtime, 24/7 rival to Russert, "60 minutes" etc?
Bandwidth, investment needed-- anyone know?
Basics:
video camera, editing software, basic audio equipment
The camera doesn't need to be great, since you're looking at streaming, but it needs to be reliable. A good miniDV camera goes for around $600. Figure two in case one breaks: $1200.
Editing software: Best value for functionality out there is, IMHO, Vegas. About $800, though you can get it for $600 on the street. Their stripped-down Vegas Movie Studio might work, and it's $100.
Basic audio equipment: If you're interviewing, you want to get the questions and answers the first time, and you want it CLEAN. You can get a good audio card for, I think, around $200. Microphones are a different matter. Good wired lapel mics start at $300; for streaming you might get away with a cheaper mic, or with using a boundary mic for both sides, but sound is generally more important than pics.
For streaming interviews you really need a solid color backdrop and good lighting. A basic 3-point lighting kit can be had for about $100; a cheap chromakey backdrop goes for around $100. You wouldn't really key out the background, but a solid color makes the subject stand out better and compresses better.
Bandwidth? Dunno. $$$$$ I'd imagine. Lots of $$$$$. Video, even compressed for streaming, takes up a lot of disk space, and lots of bandwidth. Both of those things take $$$$$ to host.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/22/2004 19:52 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Yay! Thanks! I've been secretly wanting this feature for a while, and here it is. It's no wonder why Rantburg is my favorite site on the web!
#12
Lex: I had suggested earlier, in another thread a while ago (but please don't ask me to find it, searching comments is difficult here), that the editors at Rantburg do a once-or-twice a month radio show about recent events in the WoT.
The more I think about this, the more sense it makes; it would be much easier to actually get voice reports from American military and Iraqi bloggers in Iraq, for example.
Streaming audio by itself ought to be easier to handle than streaming video, too.
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
09/22/2004 21:32 Comments ||
Top||
#13
Robert, Phil - thanks for the insights. The key, I think, is to move beyond the blog format and create a parallel or alternate linked media that sifts and edits, as the legacy media do, but with far greater reach, 24/7 coverage and without the ridiculous pomposity and pretentiousness.
I hear there are areas in and around Baghdad that are anti US and Britian. I don't understand why we don't carpet bomb these cities and villages. They are filled with people who hate us and who would kill us given the chance. These are the enemy and this is war! We will never win a war of public opinion with the Arab world or those patsy Europeans so lets just go for it and get it over now.
That's a suggestion, I guess. But it's based on emotion, rather than a sense of what we're trying to accomplish. The problem is that there are lots of people in Baghdad and even in Fallujah who aren't anti-US and Britain. Sure, we could carpet bomb everything in sight "making a desolation and calling it peace" is the phrase I occasionally use. I stole it from Livy. And in some cases we'll end up doing that, eventually.
But we're at war with an ideological movement, not with Islam itself, despite how closely the adherents of the ideology identify it with the religion. I'm not fond of Islam as a religion, and the fact that the Bad Guys chock their mosques full of weaponry emphasizes how closely the ideology and the religion are intertwined. But not all Muslims are nutbags, and probably most of them aren't. So we've somehow got to kill and/or capture the adherents of the ideology while leaving the non-nutbags alone as much as we can.
Islam's made up of a large number of sects and cults: not only Sunnis, but also Shias, Sufis, Ismailis, Brelvis, Ahmadis and even, if you stretch the point, Ba'hais. Only two of those are actively engaged in conducting terror operations: Sunnis and Shias. Within the Sunni branch, only the Wahhabis have really gone gonzo; the occasional adherent of a different Sunni strain will usually have some political cause, like the PFLP and DFLP in Paleostine. Within Shiism, the Qom school in Iran is the driver behind "international Islamic revolution." The Najaf school's not politically aggressive, which is why the Medes and the Persians were pushing their proxies to take it over. Some of the sects, or portions of them, are allied with us people like the Kurds, who're mostly Sufis, and portions of Pakland who haven't swilled the Koolade and/or who can guess which side's going to win eventually.
I'd also add that there shouldn't be a death penalty associated with merely disliking, or even hating, us. We actually are occupying Iraq, and there will naturally be a fairly large segment of the population who'll be happy to see us go. We'd feel much the same if the U.S. had lived under a bloody-handed dictatorship for the past 35 years and it had been removed by foreigners. We'd be glad to see the bloody-handed dictator gone, but we'd be wanting to run our own affairs, even before we were remotely ready to do so. That's human nature. Add in the traditional Arab difficulty with the concept of "gratitude," and the problem's aggravated further.
What we're actually trying to do is to make those distinctions in the war we're carrying out. The Bad Guys are quick enough to point to the dead babies when we take out a snake pit that's been set up in a residential neighborhood, and they howl even louder when we actually do make a mistake. That means force when applied has to be proportional and well-aimed. When we're not using military force, we're using diplomatic tactics to try and talk the fence-sitters onto our side and to further isolate the Bad Guys. The while, we're using the guys with the green eyeshades to try and track the money flow to cut off the funding that buys all those arms and ammunition. The intel guys are trying to build the order of battle, so we know who to chase down and who's a front man and who's mere cannon fodder. We didn't have to kill any Libyans for Muammar to change sides. According to today's posts, both Egypt and Syria are kinda-sorta thinking about making plans to get ready to loosen up their societies.
So don't take an over-simplified view of what's going on. If we're not shooting someone, we're talking to someone, and sometimes talk works. Or we're picking his pocket. Or we're looking at his friends. If all that doesn't work, we can always shoot them later.
#3
freds response is one of the most concise and well worded explanations of the overall WOT and its relationship to Islam. It should be up permanently, and all absurd posts from left (stop killing the poor muslims) and right (lets kill all the damn muslims) should simply be referred to it.
#4
Fred is right, right. Moreover, I can only shake my head at comments I have read in the past couple of years urging we make Mecca or Medina a parking lot. Sorry, it might feel good to vent, but are you serious?
I don't need to have the love of Islam and the appeasing Left, or PEW polls as a measuring stick to indicate the eradication of Islamofascism. As if there's a connection! You hate me? Fine, but don't cross the line of contributing money, materiel, intel, or manpower to my enemy. Just sit there and brood or get off your ass and make the rule of law lord over your land, you in Araby/Muslim world. Just sit there and brood, you Leftists, until you pick up the Collected Essays of George Orwell, and see how your actions and words are only destroying what you supposedly find so dear to your existence. But don't act so pre-Sept. 11 to me. It won't work.
Yeah, we've got tons to do, like making sure that those who cross our borders, esp. from Mexico, are legit. No offense to Mexicans, either, but can't W figure this out, in spite of what Rove may think? I'd feel so much better if he did.
Posted by: chicago mike ||
09/22/2004 14:14 Comments ||
Top||
#5
Sorry guys, I'm still convinced there are the seeds of evil in islam. I have no problem with the destruction of mecca, medina, the golden dome et all. I have no problem with taking this thing to a head. I'm not into nukeing vast populations or Tehran and the like. But until the thing is kilt, kilted good and dead I fear a Paleo/Israel festoring sore.
I don't fear Mexicans, Iranians, Iraqies, Pakis or whomever. I fear islamic cut throats.
Medved is reporting right now that Al Shami was killed today. A prominate jihadie allied with Zarqawi
#7
Sounds reasonable, Fred, except for a few sticking points:
1. The Wahhabis are busy establishing missions all over the world while their royals play a double game and try to placate Washington. Wahhabis are financing religous infrastructure everywhere from Pakistan to the U.S. to teach an Islam that is nothing but trouble for the western world. We are still losing on this front.
2. The vipers nest in Qom makes no apologies for their intention to wipe us off the planet. They have been giving us a hard time directly and by proxy for 25 years. After 25 years, we are still losing on this front too.
3. Muammar is a sly devil. It remains to be seen whether he has truly seen the light or is just cashing in now so he can backstab us later. By experience he is a backstabber. Feed the Libyan economy and he will use the wealth to do it again. So I suspect that we are ultimately losing with Libya too.
4. Iraq is packed with hold-overs from the old regime who still have a lot of weapons and will hold a grudge against us forever unless they win. It's a pity they retreated so fast that we couldn't disarm them. There's a lesson in that; I hope we learn it.
I do not advocate carpet bombing in Baghdad, but I do advocate facing up to the fact that this whole clash of civilizations is going to get worse before it gets better. The enemy has faced our Jimmy Carter and our Bill Clinton and has been emboldened by them. They have seen Dubya whack the Taliban and Saddam and their response has been to pursue uranium enrichment. Unless Dubya smacks them down really, really hard in term two, they're eventually going to kill millions of Americans. So I can empathize a bit with the writer's sentiments.
So how does Dubya smack them down really, really hard? Not with ground troops, that's for sure. I advocate bombing Iranian nuclear facilities and military facilities beyond restoration. I have suggested using nukes because that would make the devastation total and quick -- and it would scare the hell out of everyone who opposes us. I see us as being at the same point that we were with Japan in 1945: we must finish it but we are not willing to shed the blood of a hundred thousand of our troops to impose our will.
It's not pretty either way.
Posted by: Tom ||
09/22/2004 15:54 Comments ||
Top||
#8
And also. I'm okay with the way we are fighting in Iraq as per what Fred opined. Sweet reason is cool but lets not play a holding game.
"they" spend more time trying to kill "them" - IE the islamist terrorists spend most of their time killing muslims, from algeria to iraq to turkey to KSA to Pakistan to Afghanistan.
This is a clash WITHIN a civilization. Which is NOT to say that the evil ones are few in number. If they were, it wouldnt be much of a clash, now would it? Its a huge thing, with its outcome an open question precisely because the numnber of supporters of the Islamist death cult is a huge portion of all muslims (20-30% id wager) and the number of genuine moderates relatively small (15 to 25%, maybe) and the mushy middle is terribly confused, misguided, and sometimes just plain stupid. But it remains a war WITHIN a civilization above all. The leaders of the Islamist death cult want above all else to turn it into a war BETWEEN civilizations, since that would grant them dominance of the Islamic civilization, and take away the power of their enemies in Pakistan, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, etc. While we must be PREPARED for that eventuality, we must do all we can to avoid it.
#11
This is why I like Rantburg. We have articles posted that get into all phases of the WoT. Some are thoughtful, some make your blood boil. All of them together give us a much better picture of the situation than we can get anywhere.
Yes, there is alot of snarkyness.
Yes, there is alot of KTALGSEO (Kill them all let God sort em out).
But when things get carried away too much, someone comments about the big picture and all the ramifications and a critical examination of the alternative actions occurs. With help from Fred and the editors, the site maintains itself and we go on looking for the truth.
This WoT that our country (and the world, willing or not)is in is even bigger than Islamofascism. We are talking about the survival of our species, as we humans are at the door where most any Joe can get a Nuke, CBW weapon, or anything that can cause mass destruction. There will have to be built in checks and balances to prevent our self destruction.
There are people studying this now, and, in the long run, it will be vital to understand our nature for stopping the cycle of violence that the human species have been doing for so long to each other. It is psychological, it is biological, it is cultural, it is the whole ball of wax. And folks, the solution will be more than singing Kumbayah and hugging each other, that's for sure.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/22/2004 16:32 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Also on record as saying that it's not for us to democratize the muslim world.
ISTR he DID say that democracy COULD spread in the muslim world, and that Iraq was a place to start.
#13
AP, Feith actually has a pretty good idea: start to build support for the notion that terrorism is analogous to the slave trade, ie an abomination that should be resisted and cracked down upon by all civilized nations regardless of their ideological or cultural bent.
A long-term, uphill fight, I know, but a coherent and viable proposition, and one that does not make our success dependent upon the vagaries of political change (or lack thereof) in the muslim world. Beslan could be a turning point here.
#15
I want to be clear. I only support nuking Mecca, Medina et al, if we suffer another September 11th. Unitl we get a resolution to the WoT I say talk to islam when you can and kill when you can't. If a nation has a problem dealing with controling it's citizens who are funding or participating in attacks on us they are fair game for a wacking.
#16
Lex-you note that Bernard Lewis believes it is a clash within a civilization and that it's not for us to democratize the world.
OK-then if the world chooses to be undemocratic-ie, terrorist-supporting, religion-suppressing, misogynistic, etc., and wants us out of their faces, they should expect simultaneously that we have no money to place in the outstretched palms of their governments.
#17
Np with that. I think we're reaching Phase II of this war, in which we scale back some of the more sweeping and unrealistic goals of the Iraq Phase. Namely, recognizing that the threat is greater but more specific than we thought and that there are many more failing and failed states than we anticipated. Greater but more specific in the sense that there are potentially thousands of jihadist cells that, cancer-like, metastasize independent of each other and that Iran will soon have enough fissile material to give one of these cells what they need to slip a durty bomb or two into a container that will come to a port near you.
And that there are many more straddle states than we anticipated, and that some of those states have enormous potential to hurt or help us (Pak, Russia, Saudi, Turkey, India...) while others, previously viewed as crucial, are in fact not likely to help or harm us very much and therefore simply don't matter as much as the above (France, Germany, other "allies" like Canada...).
So time for us in short to dispense witht he fiction of the solidarity of
"the West" and be ruthless, cunning, double-dealing, playing nation off against nation etc.
#18
I think theres a logic to shifting coalitions of the willing, but i think we still have more in common with the market democracies, even the wimpy market democracies with their own agendas, than with other states.
#19
This is a pretty good summary and response to why we need to be in Iraq, and why we shouldn't "just nuke 'em". Though I admit I have thought and said that sometimes...like right after 9-11, or after an atrocity, like the most recent beheading. The fact is, most Muslims aren't nut jobs...
On the other hand, I gotta say it feels to good to know we could just nuke 'em if we had to...and if Iraq does not work, it may come to that.
Posted by: Mr. K ||
09/22/2004 17:25 Comments ||
Top||
#20
Sauce for the gander, Gentlemen. The very same nuclear development and proliferation that poses a threat to civilized society also provides an opportunity to "entrepreneurs" on the side of *GOOD*. If those "entrepreneurs" determine that the nations of the world lack the willpower to strike down the illusion that is Islam, perhaps they will decide to take matters in their own hands and nuke that stupid black rock themselves.
"What would it accomplish?" you might ask. Well, for starters, it would immediately trivialize the notion that "Allah" will provide victory for Islam--the symbolic value of such a strike alone would be tremendous.
Is that likely tommorrow? No. But if the world sits on its hands for another decade or 2, don't be surprised if the urge to take matters into one's own hands doesn't become more popular.
#21
In some ways we are victims of our own success. Who does the heavy lifting in keeping key choke points in sea lanes open? The US Navy. NATO countries have thrived because they do not share the heavy defense burden that the US does. We have thrived DESPITE having these burdens.
On the subject of the ME countries and Islamofascism, the only reason that we are out there and give a rat's behind about what happens to Saudi, Kuwait, etc is that through an accident of Nature, 40% of the worlds proven oil reserves are smack dab underneath a bunch of the most perverted and backward thinking cultures on the globe. We are talking about the life blood of the industrialized world, and that is not just the US, EU, Japan, but also Chicoms, etc.
A byproduct of the sale of oil in this region is the accummulation of huge wealth to a relatively few. Now it is their business what they do with their money, EXCEPT for when they use it to finance our destruction. Then it becomes OUR business.
We have mulitple paths to take to deal with this situation:
1. Encourage or force these leaders to stop with the destructive financing of terrorism.
2. If they do not, take over their oil fields, run it ourselves and put the money in trust for the people.
3. Destroy the bastards and take the oil.
4. Develop alternate sources of energy in order to leave these people high and dry to pound sand.
I suspect that a combination of paths is what will be needed to solve the problem. But one thing stands out: the UN is part of the problem and not part of the solution. I like Liberalhawk's ideas on shifting coalitions of the willing. We cannot ever make our sovereignty second to anyone.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/22/2004 17:37 Comments ||
Top||
#23
Posts disappear. ??? Does this statement have meaning?
Anyone who says that Iraq is being pacified and that nation-building is yielding a pro-American government in Iraq, is wallowing in self-deceit. Iraq is being pacified. That's why most of the violence is Arab-on-Arab, and most of the kidnappings as well. You would know this if you bothered to read their local press and weblogs. Anyway, we aren't looking for a pro-American government as such there, just one (unlike the Baathists that used to rule) that isn't a safe haven for terrorists and actively working against civilization.
#24
"urging we make Mecca or Medina a parking lot. Sorry, it might feel good to vent, but are you serious?"
Islam has been at war with the world for over a millenium (1000 years) now. Are you serious? Of course its time to stamp out this disease. It has no place in a world where nuclear weapons are common.
Islam is at war on all fronts. Most moslems aren't nutjobs, but those who are honest about what islam says about the world are the ones we are fighting. Don't look for education to moderate them, the more education they have the more likely they are to understand exactly what the message of islam is: Kill non moslems.
Being sympathetic doesnt make you any less of an infidel, just more likely to be at the end of the line for killing.
#25
We didn't have to kill any Libyans for Muammar to change sides.
Nitpick, Fred. Ghadafi only started writing us love letters when we offed some of his family after the Gulf of Sidra incident.
The biggest problem confronting us is that due to the very nature of Islam, there will be an endless supply of terrorists. There will always be some Abu or Ali that insists the Caliphate must happen.
All indications are that Islam neither has the will nor inclination to reform from within. The religion's continuing inability to unanimously condemn terrorism and initiate reform-from-within all point towards constant terror attacks.
At some point the civilized world will need to confront the necessity of banning Islam or simply begin wholesale destruction of every location that teaches violent jihad.
As I have repeatedly mentioned, the horrendous diversion of resources required to fight Islamic terrorism is literally killing untold hundreds or thousands of innocent people each day. Whether they are starving to death, dying of AIDS or being tortured by some tyrannical regime, it matters not. Vital funds are tied up by having to fight this incredibly small but virulent handful of theocratic fanatics.
We must weigh the consequences of wiping out a small portion of the world's population in exchange for the chance to save a much larger chunk of humanity. I am not saying that we should kill all Muslims, but at some point, killing all of the Iranian mullahs, decapitating the governments of Sudan and Syria or holding hostage the Arabian shrines may have to happen.
Islam must reform or die. While they have to change from within, there is no reason for us to put up with the glacial pace they allow themselves. There must be a price connected with their lackluster attitude. Some form of both an incentive and a deterrent is needed to motivate this change. I say that we should begin to implement these measures before a nuclear terror attack upon America and not wait until after one has claimed a million lives.
We must disabuse Islam of its lust for theological ascendancy, by force if necessary.
#26
um, Zen, the wahhabis still have the oil. Nothing would more quickly bring down a US president than a doubling or tripling of gasoline prices at the pump.
Unless and until we can smash OPEC's power over us-- probably through a combination of helping Russia get vastly more efficient and productive, drilling in ANWR, and conservation-- we're going to have to play the realpolitik balancing and containment game. And play it ruthlessly, which means recognizing that Blair own't help us with Iran, that France is on the other side entirely, and that we need Russia to take our side 100% and cease dealing with the mullahs.
#27
lex, it may well come down to America finally having to have the courage to press forward with the one trillion dollar lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. Should they refuse to pay, then (per .com's suggestion) we should take the 40 km strip of concetrated oil producing area by force as a form of restitution. The Saudis have contributed massively, both financially and via government propaganda, to intense anti-Americanism in their country. They bear direct responsibility for the 9-11 atrocity.
I fully concur with you about Russia. However, it's far from encouraging that they still show not one single sign of admitting any connection between Iran and Beslan. Therefore, I do not hold out a lot of hope vis bringing their petroleum production up to speed.
It's really quite sad that we cannot bring the African reserves into play better. I feel that big oil was allowed far too free a hand and they have thoroughly scotched the situation there. We should also consider training an elite cadre of Iraqi security personnel who would receive a small commission on the profits if oil flow is not interrupted. Such incentive would quite possibly motivate them to eschew all participation with terrorists who continually disrupt delivery. Truly aggressive protection of Iraq's production would help ameliorate our dependence on Saudi reserves.
I have serious doubts about developing the ANWR fields. Although recently developed slant-drilling methods have drastically reduced the footprint of modern wellheads, the arctic environment is incredibly fragile, on a par with desert ecologies. Additionally, the ANWR doesn't represent such a vast amount of deliverables.
It would be better to invest the same money into alternative vehicle designs. Finally, I have little hope for the current administration doing squat if it goes counter to big oil. Time and again, the republicans have been bought and sold by big business and big oil, not that the democrats aren't either. They just don't happen to be in power right now.
Merely consider current trade policy regarding China. We are effectively financing China's nuclear proliferation to Iran which we now may have to counter by insanely expensive military force. This makes no mention of our outlay for troops in South Korea. We protect them from the North who is financed by China using the massive trade surplus they have with America.
At some point, the United States must realize that inexpensive manufactured goods aren't so cheap when we have to pay enormous defense bills to counter the damage done by handing over vast sums of money to our enemies. So long as politicians are swayed by campaign contributions from those who directly profit by doing business with communist China, this isn't going to happen.
#29
Posts disappear. Anyone who says that Iraq is being pacified and that nation-building is yielding a pro-American government in Iraq, is wallowing in self-deceit.
The IDF and Shin Bet are expected to increase efforts to capture Fatah Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade commander Zakariya Zubeidi, with operations in Jenin and an adjacent refugee camp. In the past weeks security forces have carried out a number of operations in the city, both covert and overt, including intelligence gathering. Early on Tuesday morning, soldiers from the Golani, Nahal and Paratroopers Brigades arrested 13 Palestinian suspects, including Zubeidi's younger brother Abdel Rahman Zubeidi and cousins Naim Jamil Zubeidi and Anton Jamal Zubeidi.
Security officials said that while Zubeidi's brother is not suspected of being involved in terrorist activities, they will seek to obtain details of his brother's whereabouts. The officials, however, did not reveal whether Zubeidi's cousins are suspected of being involved in terrorist activities. In the past security officials have often arrested relatives of wanted suspects in an attempt to pressure the family into revealing the suspect's whereabouts. On September 13, Zubeidi's right-hand man Mahmud Abu Khalifa, 25, was killed along with Yamen Abu Faisel and his brother Amjad in an Air Force missile attack on their car in Jenin.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 12:31:41 PM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
"I am Zubeidi! Thief and archer!"
"Why are you chained like that?"
"Food for wolves."
"Ahahahahaha!"
Islamic militants fighting to create a Taliban-style state in northern Nigeria launched their first attacks since January, assaulting two police stations in the northeast and killing six people, police said Wednesday. At least 20 armed men attacked the two stations Monday night in Bama and Gwoarza — towns 25 miles apart in Borno state, said state police commissioner Ade Adekanye. Two civilians and four police officers, including the commander of the Bama station, were killed. In Gwoarza, assailants also took four civilians hostage, Adekanye said. Local vigilantes rushed to assist outnumbered policemen during the attack on Gwoarza, forcing militants to retreat to hills near the border with neighboring Cameroon. Security forces were tracking them, Borno state spokesman Adamu Jiri said.
Militants of Nigeria's radical Al-Sunna wal Jamma sect, comprised mainly of university students seeking to create a Taliban-style state in Africa's most populous nation, launched their first wave of attacks on New Year's Eve, targeting several police stations in northeastern Yobe state. As violence continued in January, President Olusegun Obasanjo's government launched a crackdown on the 200-member group, whose name in Arabic means "Followers of Mohammed's Teachings," killing at least 20 and arresting more than 40 others. Some of those who remained at large regrouped to avenge the deaths of their colleagues in Yobe, Adekanye said.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 11:48:35 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
A female Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up at a bus stop in Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing one person and seriously wounding at least three others. The explosion occurred at a busy intersection in French Hill, a Jewish neighborhood close to the West Bank. The neighborhood has been attacked by suicide bombers in the past. Israeli rescue workers reported one dead and three others with serious wounds. Others suffered lighter wounds. It was the first Palestinian suicide bombing since an attack in the southern city of Beersheba on Aug. 31 that killed 16 people. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 10:28:55 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
Doubtful; past reports say it takes a couple weeks to run a bomber through the cycle. Plus, they've been trying CONSTANTLY. This one just happened to get through.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
09/22/2004 10:53 Comments ||
Top||
#3
wall's not finished there...speed it up
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/22/2004 10:55 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Respect the remains of the victims, but any remains of these homicide bombers should be sent to a medical waste dump.
#7
hard to tell one piece of remains from another I think. Hope that no remains of a Jew are sent to a pig farm or pork rind shavings. OTOH if part of the bomber is given a proper Jewish burial that might be just as troubling to wouldbe bombers, and somehow more appropriate
#9
Saw this on Fox News. The clean-up crew was putting things in a bag. One of the things was quite clearly a leg. Hope that's from the bomber, and not one of the "seriously wounded".
#10
These morons really need to purchase a clue and cease all terror attacks in Jerusalem. The Palestinians will finally cross a certain point where some hardcore Israeli wingnut is going to fire a shoulder launched missile into the Dome of the Rubble Rock and then all hell will break loose. Not that the Islamic community isn't a hair's breadth away from deserving this already, it's just that they (as usual) seem totally blind to the likely consequences of their constant atrocities. One can only imagine the indignant outcry over such an "unprovoked" assault upon one of their shrines as they blithely ignore how the Church of the Nativity was desecrated by their own thugs.
The spiritual leader of a militant group that claimed to have beheaded two American hostages in Iraq has been killed in a U.S. airstrike, and his Jordanian family is preparing a wake, a newspaper and Islamic clerics said Wednesday. Sheik Abu Anas al-Shami, 35, was killed when a missile hit the car he was traveling in on Friday in the west Baghdad suburb of Abu-Ghraib, said the clerics, who have close ties to the family. They spoke on condition of anonymity. Al-Shami was a close aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of the militant group Tawhid and Jihad. The al-Qaida-linked group is blamed for some of the biggest attacks in Iraq, including the bombing of the U.N. headquarters last year, and the beheadings of foreign hostages including two Americans this week.
Al-Shami, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent who was also known as Omar Yousef Jumah, was believed to be the voice on several audio tapes that Tawhid and Jihad released via the Internet. In one such tape in August, a speaker identified as al-Shami said the militants planned to kill Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, soldiers and police officers. "We will not allow you to destroy our hopes in this blessed holy war, and we will not let you steal our bright tomorrow, which is now appearing on the horizon," the speaker said on the tape. The independent Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad quoted al-Shami's family on Wednesday as confirming the death. It said the family was preparing a wake in the east Amman suburb where al-Shami lived before he went to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion last year.
The pan-Arab satellite television Al-Jazeera reported al-Shami's death earlier in the week, quoting unidentified relatives. A Jordanian security official said he could not confirm the death. The clerics close to the family recalled al-Shami as a calm, flexible person of moderate ideology. They were surprised to hear he had joined Tawhid and Jihad. When he left Jordan last year, he told friends he was going to Saudi Arabia. They said al-Shami was a leading member of a small Salafiyah movement in Jordan. The movement advocates the peaceful introduction of strict Islamic law, such as veils for women and gender segregation. Al-Shami studied Islamic theology in Saudi Arabia and lived in Kuwait until the Iraqi invasion of 1990, the clerics said. After further Islamic studies in Medina, Saudi Arabia, al-Shami returned to Jordan and preached Salafiyah theology at an Amman mosque. In the late 1990s, the government closed down an Islamic center that al-Shami had established in Amman on grounds that it was propagating a fanatical interpretation of Islam, according to the clerics and Al-Ghad newspaper.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 9:15:45 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
ooooooohhhh All Abu Grahib, all the time? Will the MSM trumpet this victory? Naaahhh, they'll focus on that prison story..
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/22/2004 10:20 Comments ||
Top||
#2
The clerics close to the family recalled al-Shami as a calm, flexible person of moderate ideology. They were surprised to hear he had joined Tawhid and Jihad. When he left Jordan last year, he told friends he was going to Saudi Arabia. They said al-Shami was a leading member of a small Salafiyah movement in Jordan.
#4
Killed when a missle hit his car? Exccccccccccellent. Did we heli-zap this guy? Looks like the intel situation is improving. Coming for you Zarq. Better get yer raisons ready.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
09/22/2004 11:07 Comments ||
Top||
#5
The spiritual leader of a militant group that claimed to have beheaded two American hostages in Iraq has been killed in a U.S. airstrike, and his Jordanian family is preparing a wake...
Unfortunately, we probably won't send the Air Force to offer our regrets.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
09/22/2004 11:39 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Hmmm... We are starting to invoke the Isralei Yassin Procedure...
As the Wizard of Oz Said, "Very Resourceful"
Zarqawi: What sort of virgins do you fancy? Tall or Short, Blonde, Brunette, or Redhead or a mix? Inquiring minds want to know...
#10
An6595-Wouldn't it be fun to be the medic assigned to that case...
"Well ya see, nurse, I accidentally spilled a bottle of honey on my crotch and then I accidentally spilled my fishing tackle, and then I tripped and felt into a swarm of scorpions...I don't know where this doll came from...
#11
LOL! That would be funny! An6595 was me btw. I can see even more...
" Well, ya see doc, I fell face first into this barrel of yogurt, stumbled blindly around because of the yogurt and right into a pit of slugs. The doll? It was possessed by a Jew and attacked me..."
Posted by: Charles ||
09/22/2004 12:22 Comments ||
Top||
#12
The clerics close to the family recalled al-Shami as a calm, flexible person of moderate ideology.
If the guy is "moderate" and "flexible", it means he could have taken into a more extremist position. The fact that the guy is now dead seems to bear that out.
#13
he told friends he was going to Saudi Arabia. They said al-Shami was a leading member of a small Salafiyah movement in Jordan. The movement advocates the peaceful introduction of strict Islamic law, such as veils for women and gender segregation.
A moderate by Saudi standards maybe. Not by Jordanian standards - he was a wahabite, and an in favor of full sharia as state law - just not openly in favor of violence. He didnt have far (if any) to go to become a killer.
#14
So who's next? Be he moderate or mild. This guys death means nothing. It's the evil thing that is the problem.
Has anything changed? Any closer to an end to the conflict?
Why yes Lucky, we've rolled up a nasty cell. They'll think twice now.
But okay. Until the time is right lets maneuver and help our allies until they are happy with their mullahs and okay with arrogant American foreign policy and the fence and all. Then...Then what?
The more I think about it the more I'm convinced. Either defund them ala PD's 40km master stroke and turn the hokey sites into a UN E ticket or put the sword to the whole thing like WW2.
BTW, I've been a big proponent of this type of targeting but this is so minor and after his wake Jordanians will curse us by god. Yes I'm being followed by a moon shadow, MOON shadow, moon shadow. Some body cut that asholes beard off.
#19
"We will not allow you to destroy our hopes in this blessed holy war, and we will not let you steal our bright tomorrow, which is now appearing on the horizon," the speaker said on the tape.
Guess again, @sshole. We just destroyed your "hopes", your "bright tomorrow" and we're working on your stinking "blessed holy war" too.
The clerics close to the family recalled al-Shami as a calm, flexible person of moderate ideology.
Yeah, he's really, really "flexible" right about now. He can move in all different directions at once. Well, at least bits of him did.
The movement advocates the peaceful introduction of strict Islamic law, such as veils for women and gender segregation.
That's f&%king rich! How in hell are you going to "peacefully" introduce the usual repressive Islamist misogynistic bullsh!t? So far, all I've seen indicates that it only happens at the end of a gun.
#20
--It said the family was preparing a wake in the east Amman suburb where al-Shami lived before he went to Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion last year.
A suspected suicide car bomber struck on Wednesday in a crowded commercial street in Baghdad, killing at least 11 people, as scores of men wanting to join Iraq's security forces queued up to photocopy their documents. The blast destroyed several storefronts and an ice cream stall. Dozens were wounded by shrapnel. Scores of sandals and shoes lay in pools of blood on the pavement. Iraqis covered burned flesh lying on the ground with store banners torn down by the explosion. Officials at Baghdad's Yarmuk hospital said 11 bodies were brought in from the blast site.
Insurgents have repeatedly targeted Iraqis queuing up to apply to join the police and National Guard. Last week, a suicide car bomb attack on a queue of recruits outside a Baghdad police station killed 47 people. At the scene of Wednesday's blast, glass from shop and car windows littered the street, overhead cables were severed and chunks of twisted metal were scattered across the area. U.S. soldiers riding armored vehicles cordoned off the area and firefighters doused water on burning cars. At least 10 cars were destroyed, one of them flipped upside down. "I was just standing here talking and then I heard two huge explosions," said Humam Abdul-Hadi, who owns an electrical goods store near the bomb site. He said an ice cream restaurant had taken the brunt of the blast.
"I don't even know who they were targeting," said Abdul-Hadi, who had shrapnel wounds to the face and neck and blood spattered on his T-shirt. "They just bombed people eating ice cream."
Police officer Ameer Sattar said he was nearby when the bomber struck. "When we turned into the street, we saw a car explode. There were more than 300 people here, it was so crowded," he said.
Mohamed Naim Hanoun, 43, said he no longer wanted to join Iraq's security forces. "I am not going to try to volunteer again. It is not worth it. I don't want their money," he said. "After what I saw, there is no money that could get me back my life if I lost it." He said he had been talking to a friend when the bomb detonated. "I saw some of the people flung through the air and then falling down, and then some started screaming," Hanoun said. "A young man was crying 'I don't want to die'. But then two minutes later, he did."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 9:17:40 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Ok, this is a horrible story, and I hear similar ones it all the time, but what stands out is the ice cream restaurant.
If conditions in Iraq are getting worse, how come people still have the money and leisure time to buy ice cream? They obviously feel safe enough to saunter out of their homes to buy luxury goods. Also, if the power is dodgey, how are they keeping the stuff frozen?
#2
According to LLL dhimmis, each civilian death caused by the United States (real and imaginary) results in a number of people joining the terrorists to fight against us, 10 or 12 per head seems to be the authoritative number of choice.
Why then does each terrorist outrage not likewise inspire dozens or hundreds to join us in massacring the terrorists?
Why, indeed, do the terrorists themselves not recognize the inexorable logic of their appeasement lobby and desist from their atrocities?
#3
It sounds brutal, but this is a good filtering mechanism. The Iraqis who join up will know the score beforehand. Only the ones who are in it to kill the guerrillas will sign up.
It's Debka, you know the drill ...
The dreadful moment - 2:44 am Iraqi time on Tuesday September 20 - when the Jordanian terrorist Musab al-Zarqawi applied a knife to the 53-year old American construction worker, Eugene Armstrong, from Hillsdale, Michigan, was meticulously recorded on one of al Qaeda's unspeakable videotapes for broadcast. US sound experts who checked the tape identified the voice reading the short statement before the "execution" as belonging to the masked man who dictated the terms for freeing all three hostages on the tape released soon after their capture, namely Zarqawi in person. The two remaining hostages, the American Jack Hensley and British Kenneth Bigley, now face the same dread fate as Armstrong within 24 hours unless Iraqi women prisoners are released from Baghdad jails.
In the White House and 10 Downing Street, president George W. Bush nor prime minister Tony Blair are holding firm against surrendering to the demands of al Qaeda's operations chief in Iraq. But they are quietly questioning why Zarqawi attaches so much importance to securing the release of the only five Iraqi women left in American hands.
Washington sources say the answer comes in two interrelated parts:
1. Zarqawi is smart enough not to pose wild ransom demands, such as the release of Saddam Hussein or top-flight Iraqi ex-generals like Chemical Ali Majid to buy the lives of hostages, because then, Bush and Blair's refusal would be fully backed by Western opinion. He is therefore setting the seeming inconsequential price of five Iraqi women. He reckons that if he keeps on snatching hostages and meting out the same barbaric treatment as he did to Eugene Armstrong on a series of videotapes, public pressure will build up and force the two Western leaders to put a stop to the savage slaughter by abandoning their dogged resistance to the hostage-takers' demands and setting the women free. Such surrender would then be hailed as a major triumph for the al Qaeda terrorist chief and augur a rising scale of increasingly steep demands.
2. The only five Iraqi women held by the Americans are a long way from being inconsequential. They include two senior scientists attached to Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program: Dr. Rihab Taha, a microbiologist known as Dr. Germ, and Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash, head of his anthrax project and member of the Baath ruling command council.
Syria handed the two women over to the Americans on April 28, 2003, together with Dr. Taha's husband, Gen. Amir Muhammed Rashed, director of Iraq's missile development program — as first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 107 five days later, on May 2, 2003.
According to DEBKAfile's intelligence sources, Zarqawi has been tipped off that one of the two Iraqi scientists is on the point of breaking under questioning and spilling the beans on Saddam's WMD to her American interrogators. He therefore interceded by seizing the three Western hostages, either to gain her release or scare her into holding silent.
Our sources also believe that Zarqawi has personal acquaintance going back five years with one or both the Iraqi women scientists. A poisons expert himself, the Jordanian terror master frequently passed through Baghdad in the years 1998 and 2002 on his way to the biological and chemical weapons laboratories made available to al Qaeda in the northern Iraqi town of Biyara. He may even have been supplied with equipment, materials and instruction manuals by those very women. The facility was located in an area controlled by Ansar al-Islam which it later transpired was an operational wing of al Qaeda. Zarqawi may be seeking their release so that they can be hired by al Qaeda to continue the biological weapons researches they performed for the deposed Iraqi dictator.
In any case, their loss would put paid once and for all to the Bush administration's best chance of obtaining evidence to prove Saddam Hussein was running an active banned weapons program. Outside Iraq, the argument over Saddam's weapons of mass destruction may have ended in favor of the gainsayers; not so on the battlefields against the terrorists.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 9:19:50 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Early this am I heard an ABC radio report that the women were going to be released. I was dreaming right? That would be crazy.
#2
Interesting, but NPR reported today from an Iraqi source that Dr. Germ's release on bail had been approved - no information on when the actual release will or did occur was given, nor was there any comment or confirmation from US sources.
I sure hope this wasn't the one ready to "sing".
#4
In the last hour (or so) an ABC News report said that they would NOT be released.
"Heads hacked off with a dull butcher knife" would be the most satisfying response. Instead of "Allan Akbar" (sidebar: what about Jeff?) perhaps a U-S-A chant? Nah, that would just be sick. Keep 'em in the jug.
Concerned over some foreigners seeking information about militant camps in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and other sensitive national issues, a worried Pakistan government has reportedly issued orders restricting their entry to the region. According to sources contacted by the Daily Times, Pakistan's law enforcement and intelligence agencies have warned the PoK chief secretary and its inspector general of police that foreigners, particularly those accompnaying NGO teams were found obtaining information about the militant training camps and other matters of national importance.
The authorities have reportedly warned the PoK government that the foreign NGOs and their delegations might try to get defence-related information, and therefore, have advised it to keep a strict vigil on foreigners' activities. It has also been reportedly advised to ensure presence of government personnel during any meeting between locals and foreigners. The local government has been advised to erect signboards inscribed with "No Entry For Foreigners Without Interior Ministry's Permission" at all entry and exit points.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
09/22/2004 3:49:56 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
ISI: Who sent ya?
Foreigner: Uh, nobody.
ISI: We don't want nobody nobody sent!
#2
So if I was Robert Pelton Young and I wanted to get some material on the latest version of the "World's Most Dangerous Places" could I get a permit from the Interior Ministry?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/22/2004 18:39 Comments ||
Top||
In stepped-up violence ahead of the Indo- Pak talks in New York, 13 militants, a politician and a civilian were killed, while the BSF arrested six Hizbul Mujahideen militants in Jammu and Kashmir, during the past 24 hours, an official spokesman said on Sunday. Militants shot at and critically wounded a National Conference leader Mohammad Ibrahim at Tahab village in Pulwama district of south Kashmir. Mr Ibrahim was immediately rushed to Srinagar hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. In an encounter on Saturday night between security forces and militants at Mela Mang Dhok last, Special Police Officer (SPO) Altaf Hussain laid down his life. Security forces killed three militants in a fierce encounter at Aham Sharief in Bandipora area last evening. Three AK rifles were recovered from the slain militants. One of the slain militants was identified as Abdul Gani Reshi. In another encounter which took place during a search operation at village Wani-Doorus Tehsil Lolab district Kupwara last nignt two Jaish militants -- Saif-ul-Rehman and Mohammad Aslam--were killed. Two AK rifles and other arms and ammunition were recovered from the slain militants.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
09/22/2004 3:46:27 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
South Korea's defense ministry said Wednesday it completed the deployment of around 2,800 troops on a relief and rehabiliation mission in northern Iraq. The deployment will be reinforced by another 800 troops in early November, defense officials said. The South Korean contingent, the third largest in the US-led coalition in Iraq, is taking up positions in Arbil, a Kurdish-controlled town in the north of Iraq, to operate from next month, the ministry said in a statement. The ministry announcement followed a tough media blackout on the troop deployment which began with a secret airlift on August 3, preceded by protest rallies by South Korean anti-war activists.
Seoul had defended the ban on media access, citing the security of South Korean forces and civilians in Iraq, since the execution of one South Korean translator by Islamic militants there in June. South Korea's parliament approved the dispatch of troops in February but stipulated that troops would engage in relief and reconstruction work only and would avoid combat.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 2:49:17 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
SK boys probably won't have much chance for a combat in Kurdistan, anyway.
#4
Very nice to see. However, I'm curious that SKor is the "third largest" contingent. Does that mean the order is USA, UK, SKor, and Australia?
Posted by: Dar ||
09/22/2004 14:19 Comments ||
Top||
#5
In July, the rank order was US, UK, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, Netherlands, Romania, SK, Japan. But with 3600 troops, SK would be #3, ahead of Italy. Coalition troops in Iraq July 2004
Posted by: ed ||
09/23/2004 0:05 Comments ||
Top||
The US occupation troups carried out a massive offensive against the city of Ramadi yesterday, with air strikes and incessant fire from Abram tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and armored Humvees, as soldiers carried out house-to-house searches for insurgents and weapons. The commander of the unit in charge of the operation declared that "we moved in to try to get the city back under control, re-establish a presence and provide the protection to keep the government firmly in control."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 2:47:46 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
and to kill the little bastards shooting at us.
Posted by: Douglas De Bono ||
09/22/2004 8:09 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Heavy US assult on Ramadi
BAH! We're too sensitive for that.
Its not a heavy assult untill the Giant Robot Killdozers(tm) arrive.
Posted by: N guard ||
09/22/2004 11:48 Comments ||
Top||
#4
I doubt this is the "big" assault on Ramadi we're all waiting for - sounds more like a heavy raid, to supplement air raids.
Fighting reported in Sadr City, and in Samarra. Further clean-up in former no-go areas that have been retaken.
Saw a report the other day, saying Ramadi more important to elections than Fallujah, since Ramadi is a provincial capital (as is Baqubah, but NOT Sammarra). Expect assault on Ramadi BEFORE assault on Fallujah. Also keeps to strategy of concentrating baddies in Fallujah.
An al-Qaida-linked group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed Tuesday to have killed the second of two American hostages - back-to-back slayings that have notched up the Jordanian militant's ruthless campaign of terror. The claim, posted on an an Islamic Web site, could not immediately be verified. Al-Zarqawi's group, Tawhid and Jihad, kidnapped two Americans - Jack Hensley and Eugene Armstrong - and Briton Kenneth Bigley on Thursday from a home that the three civil engineers shared in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood. Al-Zarqawi beheaded Armstrong, and the militants on Monday posted a gruesome video of the 52-year-old man's death.
The new posting followed the passing of the militants' 24-hour deadline for the release of all Iraqi women from prison, and after anguished relatives in the United States and Britain begged for the lives of Bigley, 62, and Hensley, who would have marked his 49th birthday Wednesday. "We do not have confirmation as of now that the body that has been found is Jack Hensley. We are still hopeful at this time that Jack Hensley is still with us," Hensley's wife, Pati, said in a prepared statement read by family spokesman Jack Haley outside the family's home in Marietta, Ga.
"The nation's zealous sons slaughtered the second American hostage after the end of the deadline," the first statement said. It was signed with the pseudonym Abu Maysara al-Iraqi, the name usually used on statements from al-Zarqawi's group. Claims on this Web site have proven to be accurate in the past. The brief statement did not give the name of the hostage killed. Several hours passed on Tuesday after the initial announcement with the promised video proof failing to appear. On Monday, by contrast, the video of Armstrong's killing was posted within an hour of the initial statement claiming he was dead. Late Tuesday, an expanded version of the statement saying a second American had been killed appeared on a different Web site and warned that Bigley would be the next to die. It did not contain any new deadline, and its authenticity was not known.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 2:09:59 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Here's one thing we do immediately, require all Americans to wear .45's on their hips at all time and have AK's or M-16s. If attacked or attempted kidnapping, fight for your lives, you know what's coming if your taken. I would arm every person in the country.
#5
How much of this shit do we have to tolerate before we drain the swamp? Let's get on with Falujah for pete's sake.
Posted by: Capt America ||
09/22/2004 4:38 Comments ||
Top||
#6
It could have been so muuc worse than a gruesome death. They could have put panties on his head instead. Any Donk can tell you that.
Posted by: Michael ||
09/22/2004 6:13 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Jabba I totally agree. They would NEVER take me hostage for even ten seconds and that goes for you bastard guerrillas in Colombia, too. I don't understand why any American would not be armed in Iraq and why they wouldn't shoot any attempted kidnappers. I mean, if you're walking down the street (which you shouldn't be doing in Iraq) or driving down the road and suddenly four men approach you, shoot at them! And for some crazy reason if they did get you...well fight them. Make them kill you OFF screen. Die like you've got a pair...not like some fucking wimp, making pig sounds from you're sliced throat. That guy Armstrong sounded like a squealing pig when he was having his throat cut. Sorry, but that's no way to die.
Pakistan has deployed more troops to beef up security in border areas of Chaman and Zhob ahead of the forthcoming presidential election in Afghanistan. "Deployment of more troops along the Afghan border is part of precautionary measures," officials told this correspondent on Tuesday, adding that unnecessary movement of people had been restricted in border areas.
Sources said that the army personnel have taken over security at the Chaman border. Normally, the Frontier Corps is responsible for protecting borders areas. New trenches, the sources said, were being dug up along a 40-kilometre stretch on the Chaman border to keep an eye on the activities of suspected members of Taliban and Al Qaeda network.
Taliban leaders, through various pamphlets, have also advised people to keep away from the Oct 9 presidential elections. The sources said that security officials had intensified scrutiny on the border to stop illegal crossings. Reports from Zhob suggested that security had been tightened in border areas of the district to check the influx of suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda members from the Waziristan tribal area and Afghanistan.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
09/22/2004 1:56:44 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
From the Dept. of Say It Isn't So...
One of two Iraqi female scientists in U.S. detention could be released on Wednesday, a senior Justice Ministry official said, in a move that may raise hopes for the release of a British hostage. Oh no. Don't even go there. Not after two innocent men were slaughtered like sheep.
The official, who asked not to be named, said that Rihab Taha, a biological weapons scientist dubbed "Dr Germ" by U.S. soldiers, could be freed as part of a review of her detention. "It is possible, God willing. Her case has been under review," he said. God willing? GOD WILLING!!!!!! I am willing for this "official" to be dismissed immediately, godammit. Unspeakably vile subhumans Militants who kidnapped two Americans and a Briton in Baghdad last week have killed two of them after their demands for female prisoners to be released from Iraqi jails were not met. The third hostage, Briton Kenneth Bigley, is believed to be still alive, god willing. Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Wednesday that Iraq's justice minister said the cases of Taha and a second female scientist, Huda Ammash, were being reviewed, but it had nothing to do with the hostage situation. Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, as well as President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair have repeatedly said that they will not negotiate with hostage-takers.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Seafarious ||
09/22/2004 1:55:03 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
#2
This is bull shit. The timing smells. Releasing Germ Girl is outright appeasement, the whole house of cards goes down. Now we start getting into the game of which life is more important than the other's. The bidding war begins...the terrorists grin.
Posted by: Capt America ||
09/22/2004 4:18 Comments ||
Top||
#3
Interesting spin from Debka. I think Germ Girl and Anthrax Annie may help Zarqawi in cooking up some of their secret recipe. Nothing like a little Anthrax on a warm summer day in advance of the elections.
This release would be very bad precedent for the Coaltion.
Posted by: Capt America ||
09/22/2004 4:28 Comments ||
Top||
#4
The only way this would be a reasonable step is if it was a lie to enable allied forces a little more time to try to track down the kidnappers. Remember, Zarqawi is supposedly amongst them, and the bodies have shown up in Baghdad, so it's a good chance he and they are still in Baghdad (although I wouldn't be surprised if all the hostages were killed pretty soon after capture, and the videos releases are staggered to make it appear that there is room for negotiations).
However that's the best spin I can put on an otherwise very unwise move.
#6
Regardless of the spin thatâs put on this possible probable release itâs bad juju because of the âperceptionâ that we will treat with terrorists.
#7
Well, it may be just psyops. Dunno. Release on bail has usually some conditions attached. Bad idea, in any case. The unfortunate equation of asymetrical warfare states that saving one life may result in scores of other lives lost. I would never allow myself to be in that kind of causality chain.
But if I had to release the harpy, I would arrange her vehicle hitting a road mine. Ooops! See, you terrs, now what you've done!
#8
Reported some time in the last 3 months is the ongoing assasinations of former Iraq scientists by dissident organizations to prevent disclosures of previous WMD programs. The Germ Girls will not be walking the streets with a smile.
#9
Especially after we put out enough rumor to make them believe she squealed.
Posted by: Mrs. Davis ||
09/22/2004 8:19 Comments ||
Top||
#10
#8, #9 - I hope so, but they should NEVER get out at all. If they have nothing to reveal, then kill them
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/22/2004 8:33 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Why don't we bury some GPS id chips under her skin and send her off to find Zarqawi? Then provide a firework show when they meet.
Posted by: Nick Vtx ||
09/22/2004 9:32 Comments ||
Top||
#12
I don't believe we would actually do this in response to the animal Zarkawi. There has to be more to the story.
Hopefully there is some ulterior something going on...Something like Nick in #11 suggests, or something like SMN and Mrs. D. suggest in #s 8,9.. Where she might prefer to stay with our snarling MPs, and refuse release.
U.S. tanks raided the Baghdad Shi'ite Muslim stronghold of Sadr City in the early hours of Wednesday as aircraft bombed the area and helicopters flew low overhead, witnesses said. A U.S. military spokesman in the Iraqi capital confirmed that an operation was under way but would give no details. One local resident said he counted up to two dozen U.S. tanks and other armored vehicles on the streets in the western part of Sadr City, a sprawling, poor neighborhood to the northeast of Baghdad's city center where anti-American insurgents have established large areas of control. U.S. officials have said they intend to eliminate armed opposition to the new Iraqi administration ahead of elections planned for January. Officials in Washington said on Tuesday that the military was tapping emergency funds in anticipation, partly, of heavy fighting in the coming months. Bombing had begun around 1 a.m. and was continuing. The district is a major power base for Moqtada al-Sadr.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 12:55:29 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Bulldoze every inch of that shit hole!! Every male that moves kill him!! Every woman that does not run naked through the street showing she is not wearing some sort of device Kill them!!! The Gloves need to hit the floor.
#5
Old Spook, some of the posts I'm seeing seem to be affected by negative talk in the media. I, personally, have been pleased that the Iraq/WOT policy has not ever become poll-driven. All I see is us slugging the enemy with repeated body blows. Each of these pockets of resistence are being deflated in a systematic fashion. Each time there is a set-back (like the Fallujah Brigade) the plan continues.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
09/22/2004 2:43 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Super Hose, WTF you had to do that?
If you don't know what would result, don't fuckin touch the html!
If I had you around, I'd slap'ya silly.
#14
Looks like I missed the formatting fun. Yes, yes....we're all pissed and wanna see some @$$ kicked but 1st things 1st and that means we get GWB another 4 years. That's crucial. Until that time we plan and get people an' stuff in place. After GWB wins, then we can take the gloves off, and I do believe they're gonna come off in a big way. My advice is by stock up on the popcorn and cold beverages. I'm predicting an unseasonably hot spell come mid November. And, any support that can be given to the troops will be much appreciated. OT I know..but what's this I hear about making "covorting with ladies of ill repute" a courts-martial offense when stationed abroad? Jeebus!
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
09/22/2004 11:00 Comments ||
Top||
#15
Our office manager's 23 year old son just went back to Iraq. He is in the marines and will be hanging out in Fallujah. Will let you format fiends know some dope when we hear from him. He is a machine gunner.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
09/22/2004 11:59 Comments ||
Top||
#16
..and he uses racial epithets constantly as well.
Don't see anything along that line in this thread. I miss something?
#17
AP - This young Marine should be gathered under LtCol Dave's wing at Greenside... Certainly let your friend, the office Mgr, know about this site. Your friend would probably find a friend in Dave, who feels like a parent to every Marine.
#18
#5 LHR, you are doing a pretty good imitation of an SS EinsatzGruppenFuhrer. Listen to yourself.
OldSpook, thank you for providing a little historical perspective. We are currently fighting a reincarnation of Nazism and we certainly have no need for their tactics, regardless of the incredible provocation we so regularly receive.
#19
This PC tolerance is going to get us all killed.
Did you have a problem calling Viet Cong "Gooks" do you have a problem calling the people being killed by US military during WW2 Krauts or Japs?
Call me anything but a Nazi. Call me a hater of Islam. But a Nazi...them are fighting words!!!
You put a face with the enemy, you give it a name.
Islam is not just a people, this is a religious political governmental belief. It seems to be beyond your comprehension to understand that they hate you.
I think these sheet heads are the work of the devil. There symbol is two swords crossing. My gods symbol is a dove with an olive branch in her mouth.
You want to except them as being misunderstood that is fine. I want that whole region to be remembered as what could have been. I could care less to what happens to them.
Don't call me a Nazi again!!! You got something you want to say to me. My email address is right there.
#22
The media may be a problem, but its no excuse to go flying off tha handle - and staying that way. We all get angry - but we on this side of things have to be better people than the lefties are.
And that means not talking like "Kill them ALLLLL" all of the time. Yes we all get pissed enough to do it, but LHR seems way over the top all of the time - and he uses racial epithets constantly as well.
DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Unidentified attackers have gunned down three members of a Shia family including father and sons in village Ratta Kalachi, seven kilometers from Dera City. The attackers fired at Manzoor Hussain and his two sons Muhammad Nadeem, 23, and Muhammad Waseem, 12, late on Monday night killing them instantly. Manzoor's daughter was injured in the attack. The family members of the victims cited Aziz, an activist of banned Sipah-e-Sihaba group in the first information report (FIR) for the murders. The FIR was lodged with the Sadar Police Station.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 12:38:09 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
A Pakistani national who came to New Delhi a month ago has been arrested along with another Indian man on charges of spying, Indian officials claimed. Asif Riaz, reportedly a Pakistani national, and Naushad were arrested on Monday in eastern Delhi after intelligence agencies gave Delhi Police Special Cell information about their whereabouts, Indo-Asian News Service reported. A senior Indian police official said Riaz originally belonged to Karachi and had come to New Delhi a month ago.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 12:24:02 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Punjab Law and Local Bodies Minister Muhammad Basharat Raja told the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday that the would-be assassins of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had been arrested and a challan against them would be presented in court within a few days. Replying to an adjournment motion by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, he said intelligence agencies and police arrested a number of people involved in the attempt on Mr Aziz's life and most of them were from religious organisations. He said the names of the criminals and their organisations could not be disclosed until an investigation was complete. One of the movers, Ehsanullah Waqas insisted on the names of the culprits but the law minister said that the names of the culprits and organisations would automatically come to light when the case would be referred to the court. Mr Waqas said that the incident took place due to the negligence of security officers. He said if agencies could not protect important personalities how could they protect the common man.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 12:21:55 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Pakistani police said on Tuesday it had detained a gang of sectarian militants trained in Afghanistan and suspected of involvement in the massacre of dozens of minority Shia Muslims. Police had "succeeded in tracing major cases of sectarian terrorism" which took place in Balochistan in the past five years, city police chief Pervaiz Rafi Bhatti said. "We have arrested 10 most wanted men accused of involvement in sectarian killings" in recent weeks, Bhatti told reporters late Monday.
Send out for a case of truncheons!
The detainees included the "mastermind" Daud Badani and his accomplices who belonged to the outlawed extremist Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), he said. Badani had told investigators he, along with some colleagues, went to Afghanistan where he met with LJ founder Riaz Basra who offered them training in subversive activities, Bhatti said. Basra, wanted in connection with about 100 sectarian killings, remained under Taliban's protection until US-led military operations ousted Afghanistan's fundamentalist regime in late 2001. Badani told police Basra gave him money to buy a motorbike for terrorist activities and he had sold his own oil tanker to purchase arms and ammunition for his group's activities.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/22/2004 12:15:04 AM ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The spiritual leader of a militant group that claimed to have beheaded two American hostages in Iraq has been killed in a U.S. airstrike, and his Jordanian family is preparing a wake, a newspaper and Islamic clerics said Wednesday. 
