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Haiti uprising spreads
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Page 1: WoT Operations
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Caribbean-Latin America
Haiti Uprising Spreads As PM Seeks Help
Haiti's prime minister warned Tuesday of an impending coup and appealed for international help to contend with a bloody uprising that has claimed 57 lives. But the United States and France expressed reluctance to send troops to put down the rebellion.
Why bother getting somebody hurt, when we know the same thing's gonna happen all over again in a few years?
Aid agencies called for urgent international action, warning Haiti is on "the verge of a generalized civil war."
When isn't it?
The U.N. refugee agency met with officials in Washington to discuss how to confront a feared exodus of Haitians. On Tuesday, airlines in Port-au-Prince canceled flights to the northern port of Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second largest city, after witnesses in the barricaded city saw a boat approach and rumors swept the town that rebels were about to attack.
"It's a boat!"
"Run!"
In the western port of St. Marc, an American missionary said his life has been threatened by supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
That's their style. That's why they're having the current civil war, isn't it?
"We are witnessing the coup d'etat machine in motion," Prime Minister Yvon Neptune said Tuesday, urging the international community "to show it really wants peace and stability."
Oh, we do. That's why we're staying as far from Haiti as possible.
Haiti's 5,000-member police force appears unable to stem the revolt, but Aristide and Neptune stopped short of asking for military intervention.
They're pretty good at slapping missionaries around, though.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday "there is frankly no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or police forces to put down the violence."
"Maybe we can talk to any survivors, if they have anything to say."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/17/2004 21:26 || Comments || Link || [336135 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I confess to not having watched the Haiti situation very closely. But I was probably in favor of the restoration of Aristide as President whenever that happened in the early 1990's.
How could it all have gone so very, very dirty? There was that moment of hope that Haiti might even right itself...it was a vain hope. Sad.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/17/2004 21:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Anon, the book of Haitian history has been produced on an eight-track tape.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 21:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Anon for a thumb nail sketch of the Haiti situation check this link: Why Haiti's Such a Mess (And Why Bill Clinton Was So Wrong to Prop Up Aristide)
I think you can contribute to the discussions. Please pick a name so we don't get confuse you with those who really should remain anonymous- -the trolls.
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 22:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Anon, don't be fraid. Gk speaks truth. This is bigger than ever with the current world situation.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/17/2004 23:59 Comments || Top||

#5  Tis' me, Traveller, that was the Annon Poster above. I am not quite sure how this happened...I hit submit, and it came up....with No Name.

Maybe my computer was ashamed to admit that I supported the Clintonian intervention in Haiti. It was just trying to protect my frayed reputation from more battering.

Hey, even .com agreed with me yesterday. Albeit with a gulp...lol
Posted by: Traveller || 02/18/2004 0:16 Comments || Top||


A little Irony - hold the starch
Rooters- Mexico Fears Spread of Central American Gangs

EFL - echoing the Tailand/ Malasia border crisis which mirrors the Yemen / Saudi Wall Crisis which echos the Palestinian/ Israeli fence fiasco...

Hunted down by new governments in Honduras and Guatemala, members of the feared "Salvatrucha" and "Mara 18" gangs have turned up in recent months in eight Mexican states from Chiapas in the south to Tijuana on the U.S. border, leaving a trail of killings and rape. The gangs, known as "maras," prey on illegal migrants who travel from Central America up through Mexico by hopping cargo trains in the hope of reaching the United States.

While crime figures are hard to come by, local legislators say gang-related violence is on the rise. "The southern Mexican border has very few controls, which is why in recent years illegal trafficking in arms, drugs and stolen cars has grown. There is also a rising flow of migrants using Mexico to get to the United States," said left-wing PRD deputy, and former Chiapas governor, Emilio Zebadua. And without even demonstrating the common curtesy of providing a reach around.
"Migrants fall victim to these gangs who attack them, rape them, rob them and kill them. The cash they have on them to pay traffickers is attractive and they are vulnerable as there is no authority protecting them," he told Reuters. A string of arrests suggests the El Salvador-based Salvatrucha is recruiting in Mexico and becoming entrenched along the southern border.

In the past few days, police in Chiapas have arrested some 100 gang leaders, said Zebadua, who believes Central American gangs are setting up bases along the border for arms and drugs trafficking and forced prostitution rings. "This kind of behavior is always a risk for national security and it should be seen as such," Chiapas public security secretary Horacio Schroeder Bejarano told the Mexican daily Reforma on Sunday.

Local governors accuse President Vicente Fox, AKA the pivot man, who has pledged to bust violent crime, of focusing too much on crime in the capital and the U.S. border and turning a blind eye to problems along the southern border. Salvatrucha emerged in Los Angeles in 1969 and is now one of the biggest gangs in Central America. Comming to a suburb near you...
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 4:50:01 PM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I'll bet Vincente will have no problems with shutting down that border.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 16:53 Comments || Top||

#2  tu, Unless *he* is getting a reach-around from the gangs.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/17/2004 17:14 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Caucasus Corpse Count
Chechen fighters clashed with federal troops and shelled a military convoy, killing at least 10 soldiers and wounding 10 others in the latest fighting in the war-battered region, an official in the Kremlin-supported Chechen administration said Tuesday.
  • Five of the soldiers were killed and three injured when federal outposts came under rebel fire 19 times in the past 24 hours, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Insurgents also shelled a military convoy outside the Borzoi village in the Shali region, killing three soldiers and wounding six.

  • The other two soldiers died in a clash with rebels outside Bamut in the Achkhoi-Martan district, the official said. Three rebels were also killed in the fighting. A second clash near the Chechen capital, Grozny, injured one soldier.

  • Russian forces pounded suspected rebel bases and groups of rebels with heavy artillery, and rounded up at least 190 people in so-called "mopping-up operations" over the last 24 hours, the Chechen official said.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Solomon Passy, chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said during a visit to Moscow on Tuesday that the 55-nation security organization was ready to cooperate with Russia to improve the situation. "We cannot do miracles but we have to start somewhere," Passy said, according to an OSCE statement issued after the Bulgarian’s meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Ivanov as saying that Russia was "ready to cooperate... We can find solutions to various problems, including the Chechen problem, only through frank dialogue."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/17/2004 11:35:25 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:


Europe
Dutch To Expel Masses of Immigrants
EFL but this is an Important Story.For all of our criticism of our European Friends, I am not sure that they are not, "Getting It," better than we are on this side of the Ocean. I do not believe that a comparable law could be passed or implemented here in the United States. First the Danes, now the Dutch, Germany is waking up, as is even maybe France. Certainly something to think about.
The Dutch plans to forcibly remove tens of thousands of asylum seekers may sit ill at ease with Holland’s long-standing reputation as a bastion of liberalism and laissez-faire attitudes. But the expression "Normen en waarden" - norms and values - has become a catchphrase in the country, whose residents have in recent years expressed increasing unease with sharing their homeland with foreigners who they say do not subscribe to Dutch values.

The meteoric rise of the populist Pim Fortuyn - who campaigned on an anti-immigration, anti-Islam ticket prior to his assassination in 2002 - was widely interpreted as a wake-up call for Dutch politicians who had studiously avoided questions of immigration and integration. The Netherlands was full, and those without permits should be deported, Mr Fortuyn declared. His party achieved stunning election success after his death, and although in-fighting has since taken its toll, his politics - as Tuesday’s vote makes clear - live on. "A lot of people feel we have been too tolerant over the years - hence the appeal of Pim Fortuyn when he started breaking taboos. The government is acting on that - what we are seeing is indeed his legacy."

The clampdown on asylum seekers is seen as inextricably linked to a wider debate about multi-culturalism in the Netherlands - a policy which has of late been called into question. A recent Dutch all-party parliamentary report concluded that efforts to create an integrated multi-ethnic society has failed, leaving first and second-generation immigrants alienated from mainstream Dutch life. To those who oppose the plans to expel the 26,000 failed asylum seekers - many of whom have lived in the country for years and have worked hard to integrate - the deportations will only exacerbate this problem. "I think it’s the only way to stop things getting out of hand. I’m with the government on this," says Roy, a software consultant in the north-eastern town of Zwolle. "The Netherlands must always be a place where those who are genuinely fleeing persecution can come, but it should not be a place for people who want to abuse the system and who have no interest in accepting their responsibilities, learning the language, trying to fit in."

While the Netherlands may be about to embark upon one of the largest deportations in modern European history - the country is not alone in questioning the merits of multi-culturalism and ongoing immigration. New measures have been adopted in the UK and Germany to repatriate those whose claims to asylum on the grounds of persecution are rejected. Italy and France say they will not repeat the periodic amnesties which have been granted in the past to illegal immigrants. Mainstream parties across Europe have been jolted into action by the gains made by anti-immigrant, populist parties in a string of elections. While these parties - as Pim Fortuyn’s movement illustrated - are rarely able to maintain a prolonged period in government, if they enter office at all - their policies are frequently absorbed by ruling parties.
Posted by: Traveller || 02/17/2004 6:54:59 PM || Comments || Link || [336078 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Sorry, this is somewhat of a double post. However, the other Dutch article was not up when I started this. Still, this article takes somewhat of a different slant.
Posted by: Traveller || 02/17/2004 19:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Same reason those other religious radicals were forced from Leiden to seek shelter at Plymouth Rock. Atleast the Indians didn't try to assimilate them.
Posted by: Mr. Davis || 02/17/2004 19:41 Comments || Top||

#3  This is a pretty big deal, Eurowise. The Dutch are a respected, enlightened, bunch. I think they know it's crunch time. Are there any Dutch Rantburgers?
Posted by: Lucky || 02/17/2004 23:42 Comments || Top||

#4  Smart move by Holland.
France would be smarter to do something like this rather than Jacues Chirac wasting everyone's time on head scarves!
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/18/2004 2:13 Comments || Top||


Mullah Krekar released by authorities
Police released the founder of suspected Iraqi terror group Ansar al-Islam late Tuesday as Norwegian media reported that rival Kurds had forced some witnesses to testify against him. On Tuesday, Mullah Krekar, smiling and carrying his belongings in a white plastic bag, walked out of jail. "Jail is not good, but the people were good. And I was busy with books," he said before being whisked away.
"I worked out several excellent plans to kill them all, except for their women, who will be enslaved..."
"There has been new information in the past few days that results in us not finding grounds to hold him longer," Einar Hoegetveit, the head of the Norwegian economic crime police, said in a telephone interview. The economic crime police started the investigation into Krekar based on possible financing of terrorism. Hoegetveit would not say what the information was, whether any or all charges against the Kurdish leader would be dropped, or if the investigation was continuing. "This just happened this evening," he said. "Whatever happens now will take a few days to decide." Defense lawyer Arvid Sjoedin told the Norwegian news agency NTB that he understood Norwegian police had re-questioned Kurdish witnesses when not supervised by the rival Kurds of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. The witnesses claimed to have been tortured into making claims against Krekar, he said. Another defense attorney, Brynar Meling, said police had released Krekar without a court order. Chief prosecutor Erling Grimstad declined to comment Tuesday night.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/17/2004 6:13:37 PM || Comments || Link || [336080 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How come we couldn't pay some thug to shiv this guy in the clink? This guy better have a microchip implanted in him so we can see what he's up to on the outside.
Posted by: Tibor || 02/17/2004 18:24 Comments || Top||

#2  a microchip? Shove a handheld GPS up his ass-sideways. He shouldn't be allowed a moment's privacy or peace.... deport his ass back
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 18:47 Comments || Top||

#3  For a second there I thought I was reading the India/Pakistan section. Mullahs mysteriously released. Witnesses tortured. Spokesmen making outrageous claims.
Posted by: 11A5S || 02/17/2004 19:04 Comments || Top||

#4  Can’t we screw Norway?
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/18/2004 0:25 Comments || Top||


Dutch MPs approve asylum exodus
The Dutch lower house of parliament has approved a controversial bill from the centre-right government to expel 26,000 asylum seekers. The plans would force the failed applicants, many of whom have lived in the Netherlands for years, to leave over a three-year period. About 2,300 others will be given leave to stay. The new policy is bitterly opposed by large sections of the traditionally tolerant society.
But apparently it’s supported by an even larger section of the the traditionally tolerant society. Gawd democracy sucks if you’re smarter than everyone else.
One man facing deportation has sewn up his eyes and mouth in protest.
Just the kind of assylum seeker I’d want in my town. Click the title to see the picture and scroll down. Gross.
The bill - which still has to be endorsed by parliament’s upper house - was backed by 83 votes to 57, and the lower house rejected a series of motions designed to soften the plans.
That’s almost 60% of the lower house voting "yes" on this measure. I’d rather see an active assimilation program than deportation. But assimilation programs are "tough love" solutions and are hard to sell. If I could get someone to give me a big fat grant, I’d research how the US did it during the first 20 or so years of the last century.
Posted by: 11A5S || 02/17/2004 5:37:16 PM || Comments || Link || [336104 views] Top|| File under:

#1  what an idiot...
Posted by: Dan || 02/17/2004 17:41 Comments || Top||

#2  So he's sewn his mouth and eyes shut -- let him starve in darkness, if that's what he wants.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/17/2004 18:00 Comments || Top||

#3  You dont need a big fat grant to figure that one out...it's called capitalism.
Seems to me assimilation and socialism doesnt mix.
Also America has people from many different cultures, religions, etc, assimilating at the same time, so its not a polarized situation like in Europe where most of the immigrants are muslim.
Just my two cents.
Posted by: TS || 02/17/2004 18:09 Comments || Top||

#4  Sounds like the Tulip Snappers are back on track. Gouda for them.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 18:24 Comments || Top||

#5  The US had its problems when large populations hit the beach, but we worked through it, even though there were some very hard times. Assimilation is not too much of a problem when the immigrant population is controlled and limited. Overwhelm the system and it gets ugly. The Dutch are going to have difficulties dealing with the 26,000 to expel. That idiot with the sewed up mouth and eyes definitely needs to go. People asking for asylum are negotiating from a position of weakness, and depend upon the goodwill of the host country. Making demands as an asylum seeker is really stupid!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/17/2004 18:53 Comments || Top||

#6  Now, with a good set of ear plugs he can imitate all three monkeys at the same time. Whudda maroon.
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 19:18 Comments || Top||

#7  The U. S. did it with public schools that hadn't heard of bi-lingual education or the welfare state.
Posted by: Mr. Davis || 02/17/2004 19:45 Comments || Top||

#8  good point Mr.D; plus the fact that our immigrants had no dole to go on and were more then willing to bust their butts for a living. During the civil war, more then a few Irish picked up a musket as soon as they got off the boat to show their patriotism for their new country.
Posted by: Jarhead || 02/17/2004 21:08 Comments || Top||

#9  The article says that Yugoslavs, Iraqis and Afghanis comprise a major portion of these asylum seekers. Why can't they all go home now?
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/17/2004 22:28 Comments || Top||


Ex-terrorist writer faces extradition from France
EFL
A reformed Italian terrorist turned successful crime writer has been arrested and faces extradition from France, despite a longstanding promise that Paris would always provide a safe haven for one-time Red Brigades militants. The arrest last week of Cesare Battisti, who has lived peaceably and openly in the French capital since 1990, has prompted a storm of protest. "France offered judicial protection to these men and women," a Socialist party spokesman, Julien Dray, said yesterday. "Not to respect that promise would be unworthy of France’s traditions and an insult to our history."
For all those people living in an EU member state who are wanted for a criminal activity in an another EU member state, its time to leave.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 4:37:12 PM || Comments || Link || [336089 views] Top|| File under:

#1  goddam the frogs are slimy.......
Posted by: Dan || 02/17/2004 17:39 Comments || Top||

#2  despite a longstanding promise

HAH! Stupid commutards actually expect the despicable franch swine to follow through? Suckahs! The scorpion will always sting, that's its nature.
Posted by: 4thInfVet || 02/17/2004 18:37 Comments || Top||

#3  Why did the French give him asylum in the first place? The Red Brigades were terrorists.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/17/2004 22:30 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Al-Qaeda hijacking team deployed in US
Al Qaeda has deployed operatives to hijack planes and fly them into targets in an echo of the September 11 attacks and is looking at derailing trains possibly carrying hazardous material, according to a top US intelligence official. Robert Hutchings, chairman of the National Intelligence Council which reports to the CIA director, did not give details of the plots but provided the most recent public outline from an intelligence official of the al Qaeda threat. "Soft targets, including the US stock market, banks, major companies, and tall buildings are a primary focus of active al Qaeda planning," he said. Those targets are seen as easier to hit than US government buildings and major infrastructure, which have higher security, Hutchings said.

Al Qaeda has looked at derailing trains, perhaps carrying hazardous materials, to attack US interests, he said. Nuclear power plants, water treatment facilities, and other public utilities are high on al Qaeda’s target list, he said. The US government is concerned that al Qaeda will try to take its ability to build truck bombs as demonstrated by past attacks in Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and marry it with toxic or radioactive material to increase the damage and psychological impact of an attack. "My biggest worry, however, is how far al Qaeda might have progressed in being able to deploy a chemical, nuclear, or biological weapon against the United States or its allies," he said. US authorities have found several examples of al Qaeda adjusting its tactics to circumvent increased airline security, Hutchings said, without providing details. "Although we have disrupted several airline plots, we have not eliminated the threat to airplanes," he said. "There are still al Qaeda operatives who we believe have been deployed to hijack planes and fly them into key targets." US authorities have succeeded in disrupting the network, Hutchings said. "We have disrupted scores of plots at home and abroad -- plots that were audacious in terms of the numbers of attacks under consideration and their global scope," he said.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/17/2004 6:15:33 PM || Comments || Link || [336089 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I haven't posted before, but I'd like to add something to this discussion.

I know some people who fly for a few airlines, and they've told me about some very suspicious things that have been happening. Most of the instances revolve around a few Arab looking passengers who go to the bathroom during the flight. Later, the crew found a very specific portion of the bathroom wall removed or tampered with. Also, it just so happens that the removal of this section reveals an emergency route to the cargo hold. I've heard of this happening numerous times.

Seems like they're trying to work out some scheme where they plant material useful for a hijacking over a series of flights. Then when they actually do an operation, they have all of the tools there waiting for them. Plus, they seem to have done their homework in an effort to find specific weaknesses in certain aircraft, such as knowing which panel in the bathroom to remove.

These could all just be some sort of coincidences, but I hope DHS and the FBI are, nevertheless, all over this stuff.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/17/2004 19:18 Comments || Top||

#2  And of course Anon you failed to mention that you of course at least reported this to someone like the flight attendant. I don't buy that you saw it, but it is plausible.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/17/2004 21:50 Comments || Top||

#3  Al Qaeda has looked at derailing trains, perhaps carrying hazardous materials, to attack US interests, he said.

I already see the railroad police eyeing railfans with obvious suspicion, and these declarations of wanting to derail a train can't be helping much. At some point in time I suspect that I'll be harassed for simply watching a train go by, and it's quite likely that I'll end up being really, really ticked off.

Go ahead, Islamofascists. Piss off the American public even more, and watch as more of your comrades-in-arms' nations fall.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/17/2004 21:58 Comments || Top||

#4  dataman -- He's telling us something he's been told, not something he saw. Something that I also heard on the news last week.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/17/2004 22:12 Comments || Top||

#5  The very venerable targets for terrorists are the old radiation machines with radioactive cesium and cobalt sources in many university research facilities. You can not expect more from the paper tigers who feel secured in protecting these machines with policies and procedures on papers only and with the flimsy locks. It will be a stupidity to rule out the presence of militant Islamic sleepeer cells in several of our universities. The question is of prevention and my only hope is that reaching to these highly radioactive sources is not as easy as removing screws on a panel or two.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/18/2004 0:18 Comments || Top||

#6  Anonymous: By "venerable" I'm assuming you meant 'vulnerable'. We've heard of the possible risk posed by these sources of radioactive material...though I'm not sure that they pose a great risk. I'm unaware of sleeper cells in our universities....other than the 5th Column that poses as faculty in much of these institutions.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/18/2004 1:14 Comments || Top||

#7  Anon
That ties in rather nicely with the fact that the same flight (226 IIRC) has been canceled several times since christmas.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/18/2004 4:51 Comments || Top||


Witness: Defendant in Virginia jihad trial trained with terror group
Just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, three Americans spent a month on a remote Pakistani mountaintop, training with a militant Islamic group, AK-47 assault rifles and anti-aircraft guns and hoping to eventually fight in Afghanistan against U.S. troops, one of the men testified Tuesday. Khwaja Mahmood Hasan described the scene during the trial of four members of what prosecutors call a Virginia-based "jihad network." Hasan testified that he and the other two Americans--Yong Ki Kwon and Masoud Khan--left the training camp run by a Pakistani militant group called Lashkar-e-Taiba only after it became apparent that they would not be able to cross the border into Afghanistan and fight alongside the Taliban. "We started hearing reports from the BBC that the war was coming to a quick end," Hasan testified, recalling his time at the mountaintop camp called ibn Masood. He said Taliban leader Mullah Omar was no longer calling for Muslims to come to Afghanistan’s aid.

Khan, of Gaithersburg, Md., is one of the four defendants on trial and faces the most serious charges, including conspiracy to levy war against the United States and conspiracy to provide material support to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network. Three other defendants face lesser conspiracy and firearms charges; prosecutors allege the group used paintball games near Fredericksburg in the summers of 2000 and 2001 to prepare for holy war against India and other nations with whom the United States is at peace. Hasan and Kwon, who trained with Khan at the Lashkar camp, have already pleaded guilty to firearms and conspiracy charges and been sentenced to 11 years in prison. Both agreed to testify for the government as part of their plea agreements and could have their sentences reduced for their cooperation. Khan’s lawyers said in opening statements last week that their client, who was born in Pakistan, traveled to that country primarily to take care of family affairs and that his visit to Lashkar camps was simply a way to fulfill his Islamic duties of learning self-defense.

Hasan said the three spent five weeks at three different camps run by Lashkar, which was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government in December 2001. He said the group learned to use weapons including AK-47s, handguns and rocket-propelled grenades. They took turns firing an anti-aircraft gun at the side of a mountain. Their first trip to the camp was thwarted by a government checkpoint, because Kwon’s Korean nationality drew suspicion. They made it to the camp a second time when they were personally escorted by Lashkar’s leader. While at the camp, they once had to hide from Pakistani intelligence officers who swept through the camp looking for foreigners. "They took us and hid us on the side of a mountain" for several hours when the when the intelligence officers made their sweep, Hasan said. Hasan, a northern Virginia resident and graduate of Marymount University in Arlington, said he and the others trained in a group of 12 to 15 along with British and Saudi citizens. Hasan said he decided to fight for the Taliban after a Sept. 16, 2001, meeting in Fairfax, Va., in which a Muslim scholar named Ali al-Tamimi told members of the paintball group that Islam required them to defend the Taliban against the imminent U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. The group viewed Lashkar as a means to obtain the training necessary to join Taliban fighters. "I knew they (Lashkar) could get us to Afghanistan," Hasan said.
Posted by: TS || 02/17/2004 4:34:15 PM || Comments || Link || [336103 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
... traveled to ... Lashkar camps ... simply ... to fulfill his Islamic duties of learning self-defense.

Not only is he a traitor, he's also a liar.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/17/2004 22:37 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Al-Shara reiterates there are no infiltrators across borders
Foreign Minister Farouk al-Shara stressed that meeting of the states neighbouring Iraq recently held in Kuwait was one of the most successful meetings. The results of the meeting was positive, he added.
“Yep kill the Jews”
In a press statement to a number of Kuwaiti journalists and personalities, given at the Syrian Embassy in Kuwait in the conclusion of the deliberations of the meeting on Sunday, al-Shara pointed out that all want to support the Iraqi people.
“as long as they see things the true Islam way like all of us idiots”
The meeting has killed
"that’s a word you don’t hear much over there"
fears over partitioning Iraq, indicating that Iraq has passed through many crises. Al-Shara also denied the presence of any difference during the meeting, but he confirmed that there were long, deep and frank debates.
"We disagreed a little about sending more money to the Paleos"
He denied that there are any infiltration from Syria.
“we are just trying to help the sagging tourist industry”
He indicated that keeping security inside Iraq is the responsibility of occupation authorities.
“It’s all the USA’s fault that these bombs keep going off all over the place”
He clarified that what is said on infiltration through the Syrian borders is no more convincing.
"those buses coming in are just a mirage"
Scores of infiltration cannot affect security in a country like Iraq with 25 million population and 150,000 American soldiers.
“ya what’s a few hundred mad terrorists going to do to a country that size?”
He added that there are internal conditions in Iraq such as the Americans failure to deal with these conditions because of the dissolution of the Iraqi army and establishment and the American soldiers failure to understand the ways and traditions in Iraq.
“It’s shameful the way the GI’s are giving the Iraqi children real clothes- where are the gunny sack robes? Outrageous-insensitive to the whole culture"
At the end of the meeting, al-Shara described the Syrian-Kuwaiti relations as deep and built on long history of cooperation embodied by the Syrian stand towards the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
“One big happy family aren’t we all”
The statement was published by the Kuwaiti papers yesterday.
“um they needed us a while back I think”
“Atypical press crap from Syria. We aren’t doing anything, it’s all the USA’s fault etc etc
yadda yadda”
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/17/2004 9:38:18 PM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:


Iran Reformers Criticize Supreme Leader
In a daring protest described Tuesday as a "cry of agony," more than 100 reformist lawmakers accused Iran's supreme leader of allowing freedoms to be "trampled" and rigging upcoming parliament elections in favor of hard-line backers. The attack - in a letter sent to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - raised political dissent to levels unimaginable just a few weeks ago and shattered taboos about public criticism of Iran's unchallenged political and spiritual authority.
Should be a stomp-down coming soon...
The letter struck right at a core complaint: that Khamenei's regime has corrupted the spirit of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled a Western-backed monarchy. His supporters believe he is incapable of error and answerable only to God.
And how many other places have divine-right monarchs? Even the Shah wasn't a divine-right monarch, by Gad!
"The popular (1979) revolution brought freedom and independence for the country in the name of Islam. But now you lead a system in which legitimate freedoms and the rights of the people are being trampled in the name of Islam," the legislators said in the letter, made public Tuesday - a day after being sent to Khamenei. The missive also underlined a new and aggressive form of defiance by liberals booted from the political process. Critics call Friday's parliamentary elections a charade after the disqualification of more than 2,400 pro-reform candidates. "It is a cry of agony for what's happening to our country," said Reza Yousefian, a letter supporter and parliament member who has joined appeals for a mass boycott of the balloting. "We may see a strong social backlash."
I'd call it a head-thumping, myself. But you'll never get rid of the black hats without it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/17/2004 21:37 || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:


Israel-Palestine
Well, That Explains It....
Today’s Non Sequitur cartoon. (Link won’t be good tomorrow.) Here’s a description:

Fred, delete if you don’t think this is appropriate. Or maybe you know how to get the picture to paste?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut bskolaut@hotmail.com || 02/17/2004 6:57:21 PM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Fred, you are a freakin' genius! (But we knew that.) Thanks.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 02/17/2004 20:58 Comments || Top||


Palestinians press man to death, Blame Israel
Hundreds of Palestinian workers blocked the entrance to the Erez Crossing in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning to protest new security restrictions and the death of a fellow worker they blame on Israel. Security at the Erez crossing, the main entryway to Israel for Palestinian workers with permits, has been greatly heightened since a Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up there on January 14, killing four Israelis. The protest was prompted by the death Monday of a 41-year-old Palestinian worker, Mohammed A-Sheikh, trying to cross. The Israel Defense Forces said he had a heart attack while waiting on line. Initially, Palestinian hospital officials said he had suffocated to death amid the cramped conditions at the crossing point, but later refused to confirm the information.
"He's dead. That's all that matters. It's their fault. Somehow."
At least seven other people needed medical attention due to the press of the crowd, Palestinian sources said Monday.
"Yeah! They forced 'em to press like that!"
Hours before dawn Tuesday, hundreds of Palestinians gathered in front of the crossing, blocking the road with concrete blocks to enforce a daylong strike against working in Israel. "Erez is the checkpoint of death," they chanted. "I am a worker and I have the right to live."
Find a job somewhere else, then...
Sheikh was among the estimated 15,000 Gazans who have passes to enter Israel and start waiting hours before dawn to get through the security check and go to work in Israel. The wait has grown much longer since January 14 when Israel tightened security checks - and reduced the entire exit from Gaza to two one-person "carousel gates" after a suicide bombing at the crossing demolished a new security check area and killed three soldiers and a guard.
"Blew up the new security checkpoint. Guess you'll have to use the old one. Tough, ain't it?"
The Palestinian side of the border crossing has a terrible reputation among the Palestinian workers, and the IDF says it is up to Palestinian police to maintain order in the chaos that reigns there. On Monday morning a joint Israeli-Palestinian security team conducted an inquiry into what exactly happened leading to the death of the worker but no conclusions were drawn.
Posted by: TS || 02/17/2004 6:33:43 PM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the Pals don't like it the way the Jooooos choose to operate it? Close it with a big sign:
"Cause=>Effect; STFU"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 18:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Hundreds of Palestinian workers blocked the entrance to the Erez Crossing in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning to protest new security restrictions and the death of a fellow worker they blame on Israel.

Good heavens, these dumbasses still don't get it. Why do Israeli businesses still employ these damn dim bulbs? Find non-Palestinians to replace them and let them rot in their own self-made hell until they snap to. If they never do, well, tough shit then.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/17/2004 21:47 Comments || Top||


Afghanistan/South Asia
Bandit Queen's suspected murderer flees jail
EFL
Phoolan Devi was one of India's most famous outlaws
The prime suspect in the murder of Indian bandit-turned-politician Phoolan Devi has escaped from jail. Sher Singh Rana, arrested after Devi was killed two years ago, was due in court on Tuesday but went missing from Delhi's high security Tihar prison. Men posing as policemen helped him in the daring escape.
This is right out of a Hogan's Hero script. Bob Crane should sue. ... Never mind.
I'd call it more out of a really bad novel. Phoolan Devi was no doubt betrayed by the ruthless von Schtinken after she helped him swipe the Eye of Patou right out of the idol's forehead in the dead of night. After being chased by indignant, spear-flinging natives, he dumped her as soon as he got the Eye away from her. She swore to avenge herself and attracted a following of minions willing to carry out her every command. She was as renowned for her beauty as for her mercilessness. You can prob'ly guess the rest...
Devi became one of India's best-known political figures after giving up years of crime, and starring in a film of her life which was shown worldwide. She was shot dead at the age of 38 in front of her official residence in Delhi in July 2001. Police say Sher Singh Rana confessed to the murder. They have offered a reward of 50,000 rupees (about $1,100) for information leading to his arrest. He is one of 11 people charged with the murder. Rana's absence was noticed at morning roll call. We got a shock when another police party turned up at the gates of Tihar with a warrant to take Rana away Jail officials in the Indian capital were expecting police from Uttaranchal state to take him away for a court appearance. Instead, a bogus police escort turned up and spirited him away. "It is an unlikely and unbelievable incredible jail break. At 7 am, we handed Rana over to a policeman from Uttaranchal as he showed us a warrant saying he had come to collect Rana to produce him before the court," a jail warden told AFP news agency. "There were other 'policemen' waiting near a police van. We did not suspect a thing.
They had badges so we thought they were policemen.
"Later we got a shock when another police party turned up at the gates of Tihar with a warrant to take Rana away."
Boy did we have red faces.
Phoolan Devi was part of India's bandit folklore. A member of the lower castes, she rose to notoriety in 1981 when she had 22 upper caste men massacred on Valentine's Day to avenge her gang rape.
Now thats a Candygram.
She surrendered to the authorities in 1983 and served a prison sentence until February 1994. Two years later she became a member of the Indian lower house of parliament. She lost her seat in 1998, but made a comeback the following year. Her life was immortalised in the film Bandit Queen by Indian director Shekhar Kapur.
How did NBC miss out on that story? It has mini-series written all over it. I'd even spend extra to film the multiple homicide in Matrix-vision.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 4:27:28 PM || Comments || Link || [336134 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Shamu's gonna get your ass one day SH ;>
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 18:32 Comments || Top||

#2  I still have paranoia attacks entering a dark pool or lake at night. I wish I had at least pitched an alarm clock down his gaping toothy pie hole. Then I could keep beter track of him. As I lean over the edge of a dock at night, I am always hopeful that he will just plant a slobbery kiss on my cheek.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 20:41 Comments || Top||


Update: Buy a MIG-29 to Match your Hornet
EFL
A US company is offering aviation fans the chance to buy a Russian MiG-29 fighter jet online. The brokerage firm is selling the intact plane - which can reach speeds of up to 1,500mph (2,450kph) - through the eBay auction website. As of Tuesday the plane, whose actual owner has remained anonymous, had attracted a bid of $99m.
Alaska Paul strikes again.
Earlier this week broker Mike Landa put a US Navy Hornet fighter up for sale on the site on behalf of its owner. Mr Landa, whose firm is based in Washington state, told local papers that Hollywood film studios had also expressed interest in buying the planes. However, it is not clear whether the Hornet sale was completed. Normally, decommissioned US Navy jets are dismantled or leased to museums once they become worn out, but Mr Landa said this one had "slipped through the net" largely intact. Mr Landa said he received two concerned visitors once the Hornet sale became public knowledge - from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Before anyone bids, better check to see if there is significant sand dune damage to the MIG.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 4:14:10 PM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:

#1  99 million wow the bidder must be nuts, i wouldn't pay more then 20mil
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 16:17 Comments || Top||

#2  Somehow I'm guessing that the winning bidder is going to be getting some negative feedback.
Posted by: remote man || 02/17/2004 17:08 Comments || Top||

#3  Wasn't me. I'm still figuring how to pay for the fuel for the F-18.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/17/2004 17:21 Comments || Top||

#4  If this is a 2nd country MIG (unless its FRG) it's essentially a Gate Guard.
I'll go $75,000
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 17:27 Comments || Top||

#5  "Like new MiG for sale. Never flown and only buried once."
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/17/2004 18:10 Comments || Top||

#6  I wonder if the MIG was one of those found buried in Iraq? If it is, I'll offer ten dollars and a bag of tootsie rolls.
Posted by: Charles || 02/17/2004 18:20 Comments || Top||

#7  I hope Alaska Paul's next door neighbor buys the MIG. Next time there is a dispute over a fence, the neighborhood will be treated to a Cold War dogfight.
Posted by: Tibor || 02/17/2004 18:28 Comments || Top||

#8  No way, Tibor. My neighbor has a skid loader and he plows the driveway when the BIG DRIFT hits. We have no fences and I keep on his good side. Bears patrol the open spaces. LOL.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/17/2004 20:57 Comments || Top||

#9  The pictures we saw of buried jets in Iraq was a Mig-25. That jet is capable of Mach-3 and has on many occasions outran U.S. f-15's before the war started. The Mig-29 is a much cheaper jet that is more comparable to our F-18 and F-16. Perhaps it is one of the original jets sent to Iran during Gulf I. They may not be worried about the original owner demanding them back.
Posted by: Patrick Payne || 02/17/2004 21:58 Comments || Top||


The Mufti of Australia sez ’Australia was Discovered by Afghan Muslims’
The Mufti of Australia and New Zealand, Taj Al-Din Hamed Abdallah Al-Hilali, was born in Egypt’s Suhag district in 1941. He graduated from Al-Azhar University and served as a preacher in Egypt, Libya, and Lebanon. In 1982 he came to Australia, and in 1988 he was appointed to his present position by the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils. Sheikh Al-Hilali claims that Afghan Muslims preceded Captain Cook in his discovery of Australia:
"Australia is an old-new continent. The Europeans issued a false birth certificate for it when the British seafarer Captain James Cook reached it. However, Australia already had the most ancient race of men on the face of the earth - the Aborigine people... They continue to live their primitive lives to this very day. But when you become acquainted with their traditions among their tribes, you find that they have customs such as circumcision, marriage ceremonies, respect for tribal elders, and burial of the dead - all customs that show that they were connected to ancient Islamic culture before the Europeans set foot in Australia.
"No other cultures on the face of the earth practice any of these things!"
"That is, Islam had roots deep in the Australian soil and read the Quran and called to prayer before the bells of the churches rang in Australia. The best evidence of this is the hundreds of mosques in the center of Australia built by the Afghans. Some of them were destroyed, and others were turned into Australian archeological museums, and still others remained unharmed, and they bear a history that proves that Islam has roots and ancient connections to Australia. But because they did not have the proper conditions to continue to exist, such as schools, propagation of the religion, and connection to the Islamic world, the first generation of our Afghan ancestors dissolved...

"I visited the town of Alice Springs in central Australia, and found there a map [of Alice Springs] under the name Mecca. Alice Springs is surrounded by high black mountains, similar to the mountains of Mecca. Summer there lasts 10 months, and winter only two months. The temperature is above 50 degrees Celsius. There are several kinds of dates and palm trees there. We did not believe that dates could grow there. Now that we know the reason, we no longer wonder. We found that our ancestors the Afghans were among the first Muslims, and they settled this area and called it Mecca.

"The strange thing was that when our muezzin [who accompanied Sheikh Al-Hilali on his visit to Alice Springs] stood up to call for prayer, the old people of the town came out, and so did men and youths, and they looked different than the black Aborigines. They were a mixture of Afghan and Aborigine, as a result of marriages of Afghan men and Aborigine women. When the muezzin called ’Allahu Akbar,’ they said, ’We have heard this song from our ancestors...’ When they asked us ’What is this song you are singing?’ we told them that this was an announcement of prayer time. When we asked them their names, they answered John, or Steve, but their names ended with Saraj Al-Din, Abdallah, or Muhammad..."
And you know what that means, once Islamic land, always Islamic land. I guess the mufti will be calling for the shaheeds to free the occupied Australian territories anyday now, if he isnt already.
Posted by: TS || 02/17/2004 4:08:03 PM || Comments || Link || [336107 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The Europeans issued a false birth certificate for it when the British seafarer Captain James Cook reached it.

Hmmm, a custom that shows that they were connected to modern Islamic culture...
Posted by: Raj || 02/17/2004 16:14 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe if the Momos ask really nicely, the Aussies will let 'em build a casino.
Posted by: BH || 02/17/2004 16:41 Comments || Top||

#3 
They were a mixture of Afghan and Aborigine, as a result of marriages of Afghan men and Aborigine women. When the muezzin called ’Allahu Akbar,’ they said, ’We have heard this song from our ancestors...’

All these descendents are apostates from Islam. Allah wants you to kill them all.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/17/2004 16:51 Comments || Top||

#4  "Australia will be free, from the sea to the sea!"
Posted by: Matt || 02/17/2004 17:09 Comments || Top||

#5  WTF? It sounds like Joseph Smith converted to Islam and moved to Australia.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/17/2004 17:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Afghan workers were brought to Australia to construct a railroad from Adelaide into the heart of the continent, terminating at Alice Springs. It's known as The Ghan (short for Afghan). It was recently extended all the way to Darwin. Wild camels are found in some places in the desert now, descendants of the ones brought to work on the Ghan. So it's not surprising to find Muslims of a sort there. Needless to say, though, they did not find their own way there, nor did the Aborigines bring them in.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 02/17/2004 17:21 Comments || Top||

#7  Oh I'll agree to the fact that there were Islamic sailors and fishermen making landfalls on Australia long before Cook. After all Indonesia ain't that far away. But establishing any kind of permement presence. Kiss my Royal Irish Ass. The Chinese most likely touched Australia too. And before the Muslims. In truth just about every place the Europeans "discovered" was landed on by somebody else first. But the Europeans came to stay and changed the world in the doing.
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 02/17/2004 17:25 Comments || Top||

#8  Angie know of any books on the building of the Ghan? I've a tiny railroad Jones and it sounds interesting.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 17:35 Comments || Top||

#9  So now the imams have staked their claim to Australia AND the US.

It's LONG past time to put an end to this, folks. They're delusional, and the delusions keep getting more and more bizarre.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/17/2004 18:07 Comments || Top||

#10  Don't worry RC we're scouting out sites for the Arabo-Martian Re-Education Camps now.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 18:20 Comments || Top||

#11  throw another mufti on the barbi, mate
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI || 02/17/2004 18:28 Comments || Top||

#12  And this Muslim birth certificate is registered where? Islam didn't seem to take a toe hold did it. Aborigines are smarter than your average Arab.
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 18:47 Comments || Top||

#13  When will they start bitching about the "Aboriginist Entity"? You know it's coming...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 21:07 Comments || Top||

#14  Ah, yes, a great sea-faring people, the Afghans.

Given the popularity of these idiotic racist conspiracy theories multicultural histories, I would like to share a brief excerpt from my own effort in this field, Afrocentric Technology. (This is as yet unpublished, but I hope to see it adopted as a standard text at Harvard, CUNY, and UC-Berkeley by the end of 2005):
...as we have seen, European intellectual looting was not confined to the Arab Muslim world. It has been established beyond a reasonable doubt, for instance, that the steam engine was invented by the advanced African empire of Songhai some time in the 14th century. The noble and peaceable Songhai naturally used this only for peaceful and benign purposes; to operate sugar mills, coacoa processors and complex mahogany contraptions that made chocolate cherry bonbons (also invented in Africa, don't you know).
Sometime in the mid-17th century, unfortunately, the notorious Scottish pirate James Watt led a band of British cutthroats to the domain of the Songhai on a slave-napping expedition. Watt had learned the rudiments of mechanical art during an earlier trip to the Africa, and soon realized the perverse uses to which this dazzlingly advanced technology could be put in his cold, fog-shrouded native land.
Being European, and therefore irredeemably greedy and bloodthirsty, Watt was especially interested in making guns and steamships for further slave raids.
Through trickery, he and his evil minions stole the steam engine. The Songhai, noble and peaceable as they were, chose to endure this outrage rather than kill the Europeans, whom they had somehow mistaken for fellow human being. Following the usual pattern in these deplorable cases of intellectual theft; the Watt expedition's chief druid, John Locke, then invoked his dark Celtic magic to deprive the Songhai of any knowledge of the machine's existence.
Next: Chapter IX, The "Maxim" Gun, Masai fertility symbol turned European Killing Machine

The new book will be published by Time/Warner/AOL, 39 pp paperback, priced at either $179.95 or $209.99, depending on whether Bushitler/AshKKKroft can be persuaded the student loan limits.
Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy || 02/17/2004 22:34 Comments || Top||

#15  LOL,AC, considering your target market, it should sell well.
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 23:05 Comments || Top||

#16  Shipman---Sorry I didn't see your comment earlier.

Naw, I emitted just about all I know about it in the comment. I picked this stuff up while I was living in Oz. Never got to ride the Ghan.
Posted by: Angie Schultz || 02/17/2004 23:27 Comments || Top||

#17  Shipman
Here's a link that might help you get started
Posted by: tipper || 02/18/2004 6:50 Comments || Top||

#18  Thanks Tipper.... interesting indeedy.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/18/2004 7:00 Comments || Top||


Israel Navy mulls Integrated Deep Water System platform
Remember those Saudi jets that moved up close to the northern border? And a discussion about Israeli airforce vulnerability to a massive strike on planes and airfields? Seapower is one interesting way to ensure the Israelis can and will strike back ...
The Israel Navy is mulling linking its requirement for a multimission-capable platform to US Coast Guard’s (USCG’s) Integrated Deep Water System (IDWS) programme, senior navy sources have told JDW. The navy was expected to issue a $20 million request for proposals (RfP) last month for parallel $10 million project-definition activities for the contractual design of multimission corvettes, equipped with an advance phased-array radar, to the two competing consortia: Advanced Frigate Consortium (AFCON), comprising Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics Bath Iron Works (BIW) and Izar; and a joint team of Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, Raytheon and Elta Electronic Industries (JDW 3 December 2003). However, the estimated $1 billion programme has met strong resistance among other branches of the Israel Defence Force - particularly the Israel Air Force - which fear that it will consume the remaining available US Foreign Military Financing (FMF) funds and hinder other IDF procurement programmes (JDW 28 January).

In an effort to minimise the impact on the FMF funds, the navy has decided to withhold the scheduled issuing of RfPs to the two consortia and is instead exploring the possibility of procuring two or three Northrop Grumman Ship Systems Offshore Patrol Cutters (OPCs) - one of the three classes of cutter in the USCG IDWS programme. An Israel Navy delegation is scheduled to visit the USGC on 17 February to negotiate Israeli participation in the project. "The opportunity to join the production process of 25 USCG platforms already on order, compared with purchasing two specially designed ships alone, would offer a significant reduction in costs," a senior navy source told JDW. "We believe that joining the OPC production line could save us 15% of the platform cost. The 2,922 tons [fully loaded] OPC is basically the size of platform we were seeking, allowing the installation of an advanced radar, an S-70 Seahawk compatibility and is capable of carrying the Mk 41 vertical launch systems we require. Should we opt for the OPC, we will issue a separate contract for the ships’ systems."

Separately, the navy is seeking to augment its fleet of three Howaldtswerke-Deutsche Werft (HDW)/Thyssen Nordseewerke Dolphin-class diesel-electric submarines by an additional two boats. Given budgetary constraints, in the interim the navy and HDW have concluded a feasibility study looking at the installation of a fuel-cell air-independent propulsion system in the Dolphin submarines. "Basically, this will give our submarines extended underwater endurance," said the navy source. "We are not aware of any political problem in Germany that might obstruct such a project, but we are bitterly aware of a funding problem in Israel," he added. "Such a project would require around $1 billion in local currency [NIS4.46 billion], as we will not be allowed to use the US FMF to fund it."
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 3:53:16 PM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  intelligent idea this, Israel needs more optioins and more importantly more control of the vital shipping points nearby. Be nice to see a more hardcore Israeli Navy
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 16:05 Comments || Top||

#2  The FFG-7 class would do fine for them off the shelf, if they are looking to interdict sea lanes to cease weapons shipments.

I am having trouble picturing verticle launch on a cutter. You could put harpoon canisters on anything bigger than a tugboat. I don't know why you couldn't canisterize the tomohawk as it is smaller. A realistic AAW capability necessitates installing radar systems that I would think would be too big for a corvette, cutter or even a frigate. We can probably deal them a Spruance DD with low miles and verticle launch. Invite them over to kick the tires.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 21:43 Comments || Top||

#3  I don't understand some of the 'innovations' that the USN is involved in either. I saw this article on commissioning an oil platform based aircraft carrier on Global Security.

A fully manned - except some of the nukes - carrier that can't move out of it's own way sounds like a combination money pit and death trap
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 21:50 Comments || Top||


JDAM stocks to be replenished
Amateurs study tactics, the professional studies logistics ....
The US Air Force has awarded Boeing $642 million for Lot 8 production of 32,570 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs). The company will build 500 lb (227kg), 1,000 lb and 2,000 lb variants for the air force and the US Navy, with deliveries expected to be complete by February 2006.
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 3:38:30 PM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  good news again, that and the new Tactical tomahawk are gonna be needed in huge numbers and probably sooner rather then later
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 15:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Hmm stockpile going up again? Looks like someone's about to feel some pain.
Posted by: Valentine || 02/17/2004 15:53 Comments || Top||

#3  Looks like someone's about to feel some pain. you bet, with Iran and the Norks competing to see who gets the the first serving.
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/17/2004 16:06 Comments || Top||

#4  Looks like someone's about to feel some pain

Not if Kerry wins. What a nightmare.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/17/2004 16:55 Comments || Top||

#5  I have heard from one radio commentator with intelligence ties that we can expect regime change in Syria (where the Iraqi WMD and Nork missiles are buried) AND Lebanon in the Spring (maybe within 90 days). According to this guy (John Loftus of john-loftus.com), it's no accident that the 3ID and the 1st MEF are returning to Iraq. He's also said that bin Laden is in a known geographic box in Western Pakistan and that Perv will look the other way while US special forces "capture" him and his AQ buds and bring them to the Eastern border areas of Afghanistan where they will be officially captured. All in time for GWB's triumphant reelection. BTW, Loftus is a Dem that is very pro-war.
Posted by: Tibor || 02/17/2004 17:17 Comments || Top||

#6  Feb 06 seems a little late. I assumed our next "festivity" would occur in Spring 05.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/17/2004 17:17 Comments || Top||

#7  Did Kerry vote against the JDAM, too? Just askin'...
Posted by: eLarson || 02/17/2004 17:19 Comments || Top||

#8  This gives me hope. I'd hate to think we're through after just Afghanistan and Iraq. There's more work to be done!
Posted by: Dave D. || 02/17/2004 17:41 Comments || Top||

#9  I expect Boeing isn't going to be the only company getting Gvt contract's. Looks to see someone getting orders for bullets and Helocopters in the near future.
Posted by: Charles || 02/17/2004 17:51 Comments || Top||

#10  Cool. Looks like we are getting ready to open another can of whup-ass.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/17/2004 19:26 Comments || Top||


Increase in Special Ops strength
Some of the details on the plans to increase Special Ops strength. Note the timeframes - this isn’t a brief or temporary increase ... it reflects a real realignment.
US special operations forces in all branches are receiving a boost in personnel, according to US military planners, who say that the unconventional enemy they face in Iraq must be met by strengthening the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM). During the next three to four years the Naval Special Warfare Command (NAVSPECWARCOM) will add two Sea, Air and Land (SEAL) commando teams to the existing five; the US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) will form a new MH-47 Chinook battalion and receive a large increase in personnel; and the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) will increase personnel involved in directing airstrikes and co-ordinating with foreign forces. "The special operations community represents the future of fighting," said Frances Fragos Townsend, deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism. "We will use [them] more, not less, as we go into the future."

The US has already budgeted for 5,000 additional USSOCOM personnel to be fielded by 2009 and will ask for more by 2011, said USASOC Chief of Staff Col Charles Cleveland. The extra troops will include more snipers and medics as well as additional support troops. Starting in 2008, USASOC plans to add 742 soldiers to the Operational Detachment Alphas (A Teams), 550 to the five active-duty special forces groups and 192 to the two Army National Guard groups. In the short term, before adding any additional soldiers, USASOC plans to shift its forces so that A Teams are available for operations rather than assisting in command and control, as is the case now. Col Cleveland, who commanded the 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne) during operations in northern Iraq last year, said the hand-held unmanned air vehicles that his troops had were used up quickly and that USASOC is working towards expeditiously fielding more hand-held UAVs.
check out my other post about tactical UAV use
USASOC officials said the UAVs would be distributed primarily at the A Team level, though not all A Teams would get one. Some would also be fielded at the Operational Detachment B (company headquarters) and C (battalion headquarters) levels, and the three battalions of the 75th Ranger Regiment will get them at the platoon level. The officials said the decision on which UAV to buy has not yet been made. The navy will form a new SEAL team in 2006 and another in 2008, said NAVSPECWARCOM Commander Rear Adm Burt Calland.

AFSOC is also looking to add personnel, especially in special tactics teams - which call in airstrikes - and as combat aviation advisers, who teach combat commanders and foreign armies to plan air operations. Currently AFSOC can only support one out of 10 theatre command requests for combat aviation advisory troops, said Maj Gen John Dorris, mobilisation assistant to the commander of AFSOC. To rectify this, the command plans to bolster its force of 105 advisers to 310 and base some of them overseas in the next three to five years.
hmmmmm
Congress has allotted money to convert four C-130H Hercules tactical transport aircraft to the AC-130U gunship configuration to add to the 13-strong AFSOC fleet and for more MH-47 Chinooks for the army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (160th SOAR) to be fielded in 2006 or 2007. The army’s long-term aspiration is to add 36 MH-60 Pave Hawk helicopters and 40 MH-47 Chinooks, Col Cleveland said. He added that the first phase of growth would be to field the Chinooks in company-sized strength to Europe and the Middle East and also base some in the US. USASOC also plans to standardise the number of aircraft in each company at 10 MH-60 Black Hawks, eight Chinooks and 14 MH-6 Little Birds. The 160th SOAR is forming a fourth battalion at Ft Lewis, Washington, to support USSOCOM forces on the Pacific coast. In the longer term, USSOCOM commanders are looking for further boosts in aircraft. "One of our immediate needs is an improved vertical-lift platform," Gen Dorris said. "Our MH-53 platforms are about 40 years old and are a challenge to maintain." He said the air force plans to replace the 34 MH-53 Super Stallion heavylift helicopters with 50 CV-22 tilt-rotor Ospreys. He also said AFSOC will face a shortage of air-to-air tankers in the next eight to 10 years. In the longer term, by about 2020, the air force is expected to have an entirely new fleet of stealthy aircraft to replace AFSOC’s C-130s, including a new tanker (JDW 29 October 2003). "The prediction is that the C-130 will no longer be survivable past about 2015," Gen Dorris said.
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 3:28:04 PM || Comments || Link || [336074 views] Top|| File under:

#1  So the US has an increase in special forces around the same time as the J-Dams are replenished.

Coincidence?
Some say that does not excist.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/17/2004 16:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Shhhhh....Not so loud.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/17/2004 17:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Unification will take place by growth occurring in the SOC budgets only. Look for purple dress uni's about 2018.
Posted by: Mr. Davis || 02/17/2004 22:01 Comments || Top||


China now selling manportable thermobaric weapons
Sigh. It’s the "man portable" and "offering for sale" part of this that bothers me.
North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) is offering manportable weapons fitted with thermobaric warheads, it has been revealed. At least two weapons with a thermobaric warhead are being marketed by NORINCO: one for the widely deployed Russian RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher and the second for the locally developed portable Type PF89 anti-tank rocket launcher. The Chinese version of the RPG-7 is called the 40mm rocket launcher Type 69-1, the 40mm being the diameter of the launch tube, not the warhead. The recently introduced thermobaric rocket has a calibre of 105mm and weighs 4.2kg. The overall length of the fin- stabilised rocket is 884mm.

The maximum range and accuracy of the unguided rocket depends on a number of factors, especially wind and training of the operator. According to NORINCO, it has a maximum range of 1,000m. However, effective range is considered to be less than this. While the RPG-7/Type 69-1 is a highly flexible weapon system and can fire a wide range of unguided rockets, it has a number of drawbacks, including significant launch signature. It also cannot be fired from within a confined space because of back blast. However, the operator can rapidly select a projectile to suit the type of target being engaged, for example anti-armour, high-explosive or thermobaric.

The standard PF89 disposable rocket launcher, with a calibre of 80mm and weighing 3.7kg, has been in service with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for some years. It fires a fin- stabilised high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) projectile which will penetrate about 200mm of conventional steel armour at an angle of 65º. Muzzle velocity is about 147 m/s and maximum effective range is about 300m. The version that launches a thermobaric warhead is designated the Type WPF89-1 and weighs 7kg. Maximum range is being quoted as 850m with an effective range of 200m. The projectile used with the Type WPF89-1 is very similar in appearance to that used with the Russian RPO-A Schmel shoulder-launched system. This 93mm disposable system was developed in the 1980s. It was used in combat for the first time in Afghanistan in 1983-84 and proved to be highly effective against guerrillas in caves. More recently it has seen combat service in Chechnya.

Thermobaric weapons are highly effective, relying on blast and heat to neutralise the target, although there is concern in the West about the more widespread fielding of this type of weapon on the grounds of human rights and legality. NORINCO has for some years been marketing the Red Arrow 8 anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) family. This is offered with a single HEAT warhead, tandem HEAT warhead and a special bunker buster. It is possible that in the future this and other Chinese ATGWs could be marketed with thermobaric warheads. Russia has for some years marketed most of its ATGWs with the option of a tandem HEAT or thermobaric warhead. It has also developed a thermobaric warhead for the RPG-7. The US has for some years been developing thermobaric type warheads for a variety of air and land applications and some of these were used during Operation ’Enduring Freedom’ in Afghanistan (JDW 3 December 2003). The UK has a requirement for an Anti Structure Weapon, understood to be of the enhanced blast type, as opposed to the true thermobaric type.
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 3:15:07 PM || Comments || Link || [336084 views] Top|| File under:

#1  great thats all we need.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 15:37 Comments || Top||

#2  What, no nuclear hand grenades?
Posted by: mojo || 02/17/2004 15:51 Comments || Top||

#3  Didn't the Russian variant have a nasty tendancy of blowing up prematurely?
Posted by: Valentine || 02/17/2004 15:56 Comments || Top||

#4  Hard to see something like this in an anti tank role. Sure would mess up a tightly bunched convoy and clear out a house. In that application you could do with one rocket what used to take a dozen. Effective range of 200M? You problably do not want to be that close to it.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/17/2004 16:51 Comments || Top||

#5  Yeah ... but using the Russian rpg launcher, could be nasty from a rooftop in Baghdad ... or NYC for the martyr types
Posted by: anon || 02/17/2004 16:57 Comments || Top||

#6  So long as we stay out of caves I think we'll be okay.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 17:39 Comments || Top||

#7  And the Chinks insist on Most Favoured Nation Status? Anybody who thinks they are our friends is an idiot.
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 02/17/2004 17:39 Comments || Top||

#8  Hey, Cheddarhead -- be nice and call them ChiComms :P

But yeah ... somehow I don't think Johnny Chung was a coincidence ... and possibly not even entirely a restricted-to-the-US affair ... National Review was more right than anyone would admit ...
Posted by: Lu Baihu || 02/18/2004 3:08 Comments || Top||


’Khan visited Timbuktu for Uranium’
Story from rediff.com. EFL:
The London accountant who accompanied Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to Timbuktu on three occasions in 1998, 1999 and 2000 says the ’father’ of the Pakistani bomb witnessed the digging of a well, toured an ancient Islamic library and enjoyed the views of the desert. A remote outpost in the middle of the West African desert, Timbuktu usually attracts explorers associated in the popular mind with the adventures of the comic character Tin Tin.
Timbuktu has always meant the backside of beyond to me.
And Pakistani dissidents told rediff.com the reason for Khan’s visit to Timbuktu, part of landlocked West African state of Mali, was to prospect for uranium. They say Khan’s purchase of a hotel in the town, which he named the Hendrina Khan Hotel after his wife, was a cover to his real interest in the precious uranium needed for nuclear bombs.
Ah, a light dawns. I wondered why Khan would buy a hotel in such a out of the way place like Timbuktu.
But Abdul Mabood Siddiqui, a partner in the London accountants firm Reddy, Siddiqui and Watts, says he has no knowledge of any uranium prospecting. "What uranium is there in Timbuktu?" he asked when he was contacted on the telephone.
From the CIA Country Factbook: Mali Natural resources: gold, phosphates, kaolin, salt, limestone, uranium, hydropower
note: bauxite, iron ore, manganese, tin, and copper deposits are known but not exploited

Siddiqui is the author of a book on Timbuktu that Hurmat publications of Islamabad published in 2000. In it the author describes three journeys he made to Timbuktu in the company of the renegade scientist who has been pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf for his role in disseminating nuclear weapons technology to Libya, Iran and North Korea. "In February 1998 I received a call from Tahir Mian, a dear friend of mine and a very close associate of Dr Khan. He lives in Dubai and is a computer businessman. He said that Dr A Q Khan is planning a visit to Timbuktu and you are invited to join him.
What a coincidence! Bukhary Syed Abu Tahir is a computer businessman from Dubai and a friend of Dr. Khan as well. I wonder if they are one and the same? What a small world it is.
"My joy knew no bounds at the prospect of spending a few days with Dr Khan. I reached Dubai on February 19, 1998 and met Dr Khan. He had with him one Mr Hank, a Dutch businessman dealing in air filtration system, solar energy, metallurgical machinery and materials; Lt Gen Dr Chauhan, former surgeon general of Pakistan Army and now director general of KRL (Khan Research Laboratories); and Brigadier Sajwal. Dr Khan told us that we would fly to Timbuktu via Casablamca in Morocco and Bamako, capital of Mali." After stopping over in Casablanca and attending a dinner where Pakistani ambassador to Morocco Azmat Hussain was also present, the group flew to the Mali capital of Bamako and then chartered a private plane to fly them to Timbuktu. "We had only a few hours in Timbuktu, which we spent in sight seeing. We returned to Dubai by the same route", Siddiqui writes.
All that way just to look around for a few hours, must have been a budget tour.
One year later in February 1999 Siddiqui again agreed to accompany a Khan-led group back to Timbuktu. This time Khan was accompanied by his chief scientific adviser, Dr Fakhrul Hasan Hashmi, Brigadier Tajwar, director General of Security at KRL and other senior officials of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. This time the group flew via Sudan, Nigeria, Niger and Chad.
Niger?
In February 2000 Siddiqui describes how ’we were again air borne for Timbuktu’, this time from Dubai to Khartoum, then to Niamey, capital of Niger, where ambassador Brigadier Nisar, hosted a dinner in honour of Khan. "Niger has big uranium deposits," Siddiqui notes without further comment.
Yes, we’ve heard all about Niger and its uranium deposits. I notice Niger shares a long border with Mali. Bet it’s not watched very well either.
On February 29, 2000 the group returned back to Dubai after visiting 10 African cities.
Amazing what you find in the oddest sites.
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 3:08:39 PM || Comments || Link || [336101 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gee, do ya think Saddam was buying Niger uranium from Khan? Nahhh, Bush lied.

Wonder if Mr. Wilson and Quadir ever met?
Posted by: john || 02/17/2004 19:23 Comments || Top||

#2  No doubt Khan's the one that fed Novak the Plame story.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/17/2004 20:37 Comments || Top||

#3  RC, too funny and in our world today, too plausible.
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/18/2004 2:18 Comments || Top||


Expanding the F-1117 Nighthawk mission: JDAMS, daylight flights
Lots of acronyms, but check out the boldfaced comment re: 24 hr stealth presence over battlefields

Lockheed Martin F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighters of the US Air Force’s (USAF’s) 49th Fighter Wing (FW) at Holloman Air Force Base (AFB), New Mexico, are gearing up to take on new roles with new capabilities.

Following the well-publicised involvement of the 8th Fighter Squadron (’Black Sheep’) in Operation ’Iraqi Freedom’ in 2003, the USAF has started to implement new upgrade programmes for the type.

The USAF F-117 Combined Test Force (CTF) successfully released the first Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) from a YF-117A during a weapons test mission on 21 January at the Precision Impact Range Area at Edwards AFB, California. The 410th Flight Test Squadron (FLTS), F-117 CTF, released two types of JDAM 2,000 lb GPS-guided bombs.

This is understood to be part of a $30.3 million Block II upgrade to give the F-117 the capability to employ standard US inertial navigation system/GPS-guided weapons, which started in April 2001.

Block II is a software programme that updates the F-117 Operational Flight Program to integrate advanced weapons, including the Enhanced GBU-27 (EGBU-27), JDAM and Wind Corrected Munitions Dispenser (WCMD). Hardware upgrades, including a MIL-STD-1760-compatible Stores Management Processor, are also being introduced.

Lt Col Jim Bierstine, 410th FLTS commander and test pilot for the mission, said: "It is good to see the test force’s hard work and preparations pay off during a test mission. This is just the first step; we will be testing these kinds of weapons through 2005. We are upgrading the F-117 to carry JDAMs and other similar weapons currently used in the USAF inventory. This test will eventually allow the warfighter far greater flexibility during deployed operations."

The GPS-guided JDAM has become the weapon of choice for many of the USAF’s attack platforms; and the F-117 is looking to benefit from the same technology. The variants used on the first test were the GBU-31(v)1/B and the GBU-31(v)3/B.

The GBU-31(v)1/B, based on the Mk 84 bomb, is used for its large blast and explosive force. The GBU-31(v)3/B is a BLU-109 variant used to penetrate hardened targets. Capt Ted Conklin, F-117A weapons flight commander, said: "There’s really nothing new about these particular JDAMs. They are separation test vehicles, or STVs, used purely to test the separation characteristics of the weapon from different platforms."

This first JDAM trial for the F-117 served to validate and provide data for upgrading the F-117 CTF’s JDAM separation model and is the first in a series of planned JDAM separation tests. Capt Conklin added: "We have three more single-release separations planned for each variant [of JDAM]. On completion of this testing, we will proceed with dual-release separation testing. By September, we should have fully defined the operational JDAM envelopes for the F-117A. Coupled with the aircraft’s Block II software upgrade, this capability means significantly increased flexibility and lethality for the F-117A."
Efforts are under way to accelerate this programme; JDAM integration for the F-117 has been on the drawing board for some time. The USAF initially commenced the Mid-Life Improvement Study (MIPS) for the F-117 in early 1995 to analyse weapons, signature reduction and other upgrades. The planned improvements also included a MIL-STD-1760 databus to allow the F-117A to employ the GPS-guided weapons. The USAF has modified around 24 of its F-117s to use the EGBU-27 precision-guided bomb: a version of the standard Lockheed Martin GBU-27 laser-guided bomb, designed to penetrate hardened targets.

The Block II software upgrade is set to begin testing in May 2004, continuing until August 2005. The 49th FW at Holloman AFB expects to receive the upgraded capability in two phases, with initial operational capability in early 2005 and full capability in early 2006.

Further upgrades are planned under the F-117 Combat Capability Sustainment Program (CCSP), which is gearing up for initial developmental activity, according to the F-117 System Program Office at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. This programme focuses on avionics components that will pose support problems in the years ahead and replaces or refurbishes those components. Systems targeted include the data transfer system, the colour multi-function displays and the infra-red acquisition and designation system.

In parallel, the USAF is also involved in trials that could see the F-117 taking on a daylight attack role JDW 24 December 2003). The 53rd Test and Evaluation Group Detachment 1 (Det 1) at Holloman AFB has painted one F-117A in a new two-tone scheme for the trial. The aircraft, nicknamed ’The Dragon’, is due to participate in tests as part of a programme called Global Strike Task Force, with the F-117 flying alongside the F/A-22 Raptor in several tests. ups the ante significantly

Lt Col Buck Rogers, Det 1 operations officer, said: "The chief of staff wants to have a 24-hour stealth presence over future battlefields. We know our current black paint scheme wouldn’t be a good colour for daytime operations." He added: "Air force leaders will approve additional jets for the grey scheme only if the test results show the change is warranted."

Maj Tre Urso said: "We use the F-117 for everything from new tactics development to the evaluation of new software or hardware. Det 1 has been involved in all the F-117 modifications and upgrades over the years. This trial provides a great opportunity for us to learn about our daytime capabilities and limitations."
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 3:08:06 PM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Cool, now they won't have to hang around painting the target with a laser.
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 15:19 Comments || Top||

#2  imagine that say F-117s, Raptors, JSF's, B-2's, Global Hawks, Locass, and god knows what other high tech shit hidden in the black world America could well prove utterly invincible in the air by say 2015, Also consider say 8 b-2 bombers and say 24 F-22's as a quick reaction force. you wouldn't want to be thier enamy
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 15:20 Comments || Top||

#3  I don't get the bit about daylight missions - stealth warplanes are invisible to radar, not to eyes of enemy fighter pilots. I've also never understood how the F-117 is described as a fighter - stealth warplanes do not seem to have the performance characteristics of fighters - rapid climb rate, rapid acceleration, maneuverability, high top speeds, etc.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/17/2004 15:24 Comments || Top||

#4  trials that could see the F-117 taking on a daylight attack role

That's plain nutz or disinformation.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 15:30 Comments || Top||

#5  The F-117 is stealthed with regard to its electromagnetic and radar signatures. It is also "low observable" visually, with black paint for night runs.

The Nighthawk is a fighter-bomber, not an ace-to-ace shoot-out fighter. A handful of them dropped a significant proportion of the bombs in Gulf 1 without suffering any losses.
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 15:33 Comments || Top||

#6  You can see some photos of the Nighthawk here
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 15:34 Comments || Top||

#7  i think the Nighthawk would be up so high and with a very low sunlight reflective paint job, apparently its scientifly proven that grey is the best colour for low visibility and a large plane can be rendered almost invisible to the human eye.There was also a method once tryed successfully a few decades ago that involved fighters being equiped with some sort of real bright lamp or lamps that when switched on would make the aircraft 'inviable' to the human eye or at least very difficult to see, think the tests were by either Lockheed or the USAF.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 15:35 Comments || Top||

#8  Lt Col Buck Rogers It took a while but the Captain finally got his promotion.
Posted by: domingo || 02/17/2004 15:35 Comments || Top||

#9  on deployment timing, Jane's is now saying "an initial JDAM capability for the Nighthawk fleet in early 2005, while the fleet is due to be fully capable to operate the munition in early 2006".

Assuming Bush is re-elected, expect an interesting next few years. 24-hr stealth presence over battlefields with UAVs doing armed escort as well as surveillance / reconnaisance, JDAM stocks replenished by the end of this year and Special Ops guys beefing up.
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 15:44 Comments || Top||

#10  Actually, Shep, we owe most of this to your country. The majority of work done to render a plane optically invisible (or at least extremely difficult to see) by playing tricks with light was done by that famous Brit magician Jasper Maskelyne. The man actually made the Suez Canal impossible to see! (Granted, you knew where it was, but when you went there, you couldn't find it with ENOUGH accuracy to hit it with the bombs of the time...)

Hats off to one of your very best, Shep.

Ed.
Posted by: Ed Becerra || 02/17/2004 15:44 Comments || Top||

#11  yeah good point about old jasper, a very clever guy he was, interesting if rather worrying is there was nothing about the future intergration of the Small diamiter bomb on the NightHawk, a weapon like that would be a huge force multipler.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 15:54 Comments || Top||

#12  Zhang Fei: I seem to recall watching a History Channel show that claimed that the F-117 was classified as a fighter in order to get the pilots excited about testing it. IIRC, it has no air-to-air capability.
Posted by: BH || 02/17/2004 16:33 Comments || Top||

#13  Am i paranoid, or could there be more reasons to the fact that the three most interesting articles (J-dam, increase in spec ops and this) from today, all speak of things that come into service in 2005-2006?
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/17/2004 16:45 Comments || Top||

#14  re: fighter vs. bomber, it is true that the Nighthawk does not carry a cannon and is not believed to be capable of firing air to air missiles. It can carry 2 Mark 2 nuclear weapons if desired. It also has been retrofitted with the ability to disperse smaller munitions charges over an area, so it can serve to suppress ground to air attack on itself or B-2s, which Nighthawks sometimes accompany.

Re: paranoid, well you just got my cull of interesting articles from Janes (smile) but yes, by a year from now there will be replenished stockpiles, lessons-learned that are integrated into new training and tactics and some reorg of forces.
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 16:51 Comments || Top||

#15  I like the sound of that.
I like the sound of that very, very much.
;-)
Thx.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/17/2004 16:55 Comments || Top||

#16  Invisible airplanes overhead 24/7 . . . armed with a 1,000-pound bomb that can literally be put into a pickle barrel from 30,000 feet. You could take down any target before they even knew you were there. Any target--or any person.

I love this.

Feeling safe, Mr. Kim? Mr. Arafat? M. Chirac?
Posted by: Mike || 02/17/2004 17:05 Comments || Top||

#17  Now all we need is to make sure we have political leadership with the stones to use the hardware where it's needed the most.
Posted by: Matt || 02/17/2004 17:14 Comments || Top||

#18  Hear! Hear! Matt. What's the fun of having all this cool stuff if you can't use it because the frogs and the krauts won't go along with the plan? For me, there is only one issue in this election -- who will kill more of America's enemies (before they kill us)? The answer is obviously GWB, especially now that Lieberman, the only Donk candidate serious about the WoT, is out of the race.
Posted by: Tibor || 02/17/2004 17:29 Comments || Top||

#19  U.S. Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson AFB,Ohio has an F-117 stealth fighter and a B-2 stealth bomber on display. That's an awesome museum for anyone interested in aviation history.

Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 18:19 Comments || Top||

#20  Shipman, I believe testing daylight stealth capability is preparation for long duration loiter UAVs that can stay on station for 24 hours plus. Just hang around waiting for a target of opportunity to drop a JDAM on.

This will severely curtail out door activities for the likes of Kimmy and Osammy. No dictator will feel safe when he knows there is an aircraft up there he cant see, carrying a bomb with his name on it.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/17/2004 19:45 Comments || Top||


Predator was used as armed escort
This is significant
The US Air Force’s MQ-1 Predator medium-altitude remotely piloted aircraft undertook a new role during the US-led Operation ’Iraqi Freedom’ in 2003 that has received little fanfare to date: armed escort. Already used in combat as an overhead surveillance asset and armed platform to attack time-critical ground targets, JDW has learned that an MQ-1 substituted for an AC-130 Spectre gunship to provide ingress and egress cover for army helicopters during a mission to extract senior Iraqi Republican Guard officials who wished to defect
Also check out this article about lessons learned from Marine use of tactical UAVs in Iraq. The Corps too sees a role for armed UAVs as escorts for Ospreys. Think about these technologies as you consider Rumsfeld’s insistence that more soldiers isn’t the complete answer ...
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 2:59:59 PM || Comments || Link || [336102 views] Top|| File under:

#1  these UAV's can be good assets definatly,incidently USMC are apparently very interested in purchesing some of thier own AC-130's.As for Rummys ways of wanting less troops but higher tech i think he's spot on really,Rummy seems a very intelligent guy when it comes to future defence stratagys,he dosn't fuck about either when he says he wants to do something,be a shame when he go's.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 15:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Think about these technologies as you consider Rumsfeld’s insistence that more soldiers isn’t the complete answer

Rumsfeld is absolutely right - more troops mean less advanced weapons systems. We went into WWII with second-rate weapons systems and took fearsome casualties in its early innings. Men can be trained up in a hurry - weapons systems take years to develop, by which time major battles could already have been fought and lost.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 02/17/2004 15:15 Comments || Top||

#3  We went into WWII with second-rate weapons systems and took fearsome casualties

I tend to disagree with that ZF... are you thinking of a particular instance?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 15:49 Comments || Top||

#4  Ship - you'd know better than me but what about the Navy's Mark IV torpedoes at the beginning of the war in the Pacific, compared to the Japanese Long Lances? We lost a thousand sailors at Savo Island.
Posted by: Matt || 02/17/2004 17:03 Comments || Top||

#5  Our tanks were inferior to the Panzers all the way through WWII. However, I remember reading about a German tank commander. To paraphrase he said he would blow up 3 tanks and 4 more would come over the hill. He knew the Germans would lose because they could not replace losses in manpower and equipment like the US could.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/17/2004 17:31 Comments || Top||

#6  The difference today is that we still had a robust R&D program and didn't abandon the military after the end of the cold war like we did after WWI. Thank God for the evil Military Industrial Complex.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/17/2004 17:37 Comments || Top||

#7  Savo Island was a failure of training in night combat, even though the US had a huge lead in radar technology.

German tanks were better than US tanks , but US fighter bombers were better than either.

It was the massive no... fearsome casualties that ZF was alluding to that made me prick up my ear...
US casualties were light.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 18:43 Comments || Top||

#8  The Japanese Long Lance was superior to every other country's torpedo during WWII in both range and size of the warhead.
The problem with the U.S. torpedo was not the body of the torpedo itself but the "high tech" magentic warhead. The magnetic warhead failed to go off as designed and caused the torpedo run 10-15 feet deeper then what it was set for (which tended to prevent the torpedo from actually striking the target).
Many of the defeats at the beginning of the war
can be attributed to poor leadship and/or bad training, Savo Island being an example of both.
Much of the U.S. equipment was equal to or superior of the rest of the world's.

Posted by: Lurks often || 02/17/2004 20:15 Comments || Top||

#9  The Sherman tank (Ronson) was a death trap, but I'm sure that part of the design problem was the necessity to transport the tank across the ocean. We are having simular issues with logistics for moving hummers and strikers versus the old fashioned jeeps.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 21:16 Comments || Top||

#10  Ship, how about

- Kasserine Pass
- Philippines
- Wake Island (okay, they were really badly outnumbered, so maybe that doesn't count)
- early Pacific Air War; even Midway counts IMO -- the story of all those Devastators wiped out depresses me to this day
Posted by: Carl in NH || 02/17/2004 22:27 Comments || Top||

#11  The problem of the Sherman was not logistical but conceptual.

"He [Patton] said that the tanks of an armored division were not supposed to fight other tanks but bypass them if possible and attack enemy objectives to the rear."
Posted by: Mr. Davis || 02/17/2004 22:27 Comments || Top||


Kerry the gymnastic chameleon
Heavily Edited - but good read
just some new stuff I hadn’t heard before

As a result, veterans have formed several groups opposing John Kerry’s presidential ambitions. The root cause of their anti-Kerry sentiment is summarized by the publication U.S. Veteran Dispatch, which notes that Kerry’s aforementioned testimony “occurred while some of his fellow Vietnam veterans were known by the world to be enduring terrible suffering as prisoners of war in North Vietnamese prisons.” Indeed, Senator John McCain has stated that his North Vietnamese captors had used reports of Kerry-led protests to taunt him and his fellow prisoners.
I guess we can stop wondering about a Kerry/McCain ticket. Be interesting to see how McCain handles this.
One anti-Kerry group, Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry (VVAJK), recently formed a national coalition with two other groups: Vietnamese-Americans for Human Rights in Vietnam (VAHRV), and Vietnamese-Americans Against John Kerry (VAAJK). “We represent hundreds of thousand of American veterans,” says VVAJK founder said Ted Sampley.
Seems the Vietnamese didn’t appreciate his efforts to allow them to be slaughtered in the killing fields.
A formal VVAJK statement reads, “As a national leader of VVAW, Kerry campaigned against the effort of the United States to contain the spread of Communism. He used the blood of servicemen still in the field for his own political advancement by claiming that their blood was being shed unnecessarily or in vain . . . Under Kerry’s leadership, VVAW members mocked the uniform of United States soldiers by wearing tattered fatigues marked with pro-communist graffiti. They dishonored America by marching in demonstrations under the flag of the Viet Cong enemy.” In a similar spirit, VAAJK member Dan Tran says, “On behalf of tens of thousands of Vietnamese-Americans, we are determined to demonstrate against Senator Kerry all across this nation . . . John Kerry aided and abetted the Communist government in Hanoi and has hindered any human rights progress in Vietnam.”
Tens of thousands? Gosh..Kerry must be relieved that so many were murdered before they got here - or those numbers would be even higher.
As chairman of the Select Senate Committee on POW/MIA (Prisoners Of War/Missing In Action) Affairs, which was created in 1991 to determine whether any American POWs or MIAs were still alive in Vietnam, Kerry doggedly pushed the panel to conclude all Americans were dead. According to U.S. Veteran Dispatch, “[N]o one in the United States Senate pushed harder to bury the POW/MIA issue, the last obstacle preventing normalization of relations with Hanoi, than John Forbes Kerry.” Controversy erupted in December 1992, however, when, according to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, “Hanoi announced that it had awarded Colliers International, a Boston-based real estate company, an exclusive deal to develop its commercial real estate potentially worth billions. Stuart Forbes, the CEO of Colliers, is [John] Kerry’s cousin.”
Killer deal on killing fields.
Despite his consistently leftist stance on the issues, John Kerry has staked out public positions all over the political map since the early 1970s. But one thing has remained troublingly consistent: He prefers to hide his three decades of left-wing activism from the American public. We hope the American people will not be so easily fooled.
sigh...don’t count on it.
Posted by: B || 02/17/2004 2:00:42 PM || Comments || Link || [336075 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Was it here at RB or some minor blog that I read of Senator Kerrys' plan to reduce the national debt?

Find an older rich country like Switzerland and marry it.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 15:34 Comments || Top||

#2  scrw those Vietnamese Americans ..Kerry fought bravely for their stinkin asses now they condemn him...where was Bush when they needed him to fight for them...If the Vietnamese ppl in the North could fight for themselves the southerners should have too. those wimps couldnt fight for themselves. Those who cant defend themselves should be left to perish.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/17/2004 16:18 Comments || Top||

#3  Anonymous

Pfffft, whatever.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/17/2004 17:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh wahhhh.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/17/2004 17:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Death to the Quakers!
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/17/2004 17:46 Comments || Top||

#6  Tell you what Anon, you go and tell that to those ungrateful Vietnam vets in nursing homes or at some of their rallies and tell us how long before your balls are ripped off it goes.
Posted by: Charles || 02/17/2004 17:56 Comments || Top||

#7  Anonymous - I'd rather have a friend who might fight for me rather than one who has already stabbed me in the back.
Posted by: B || 02/17/2004 18:21 Comments || Top||

#8  "Controversy erupted in December 1992, however, when, according to the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, “Hanoi announced that it had awarded Colliers International, a Boston-based real estate company, an exclusive deal to develop its commercial real estate potentially worth billions. Stuart Forbes, the CEO of Colliers, is [John] Kerry’s cousin.”

That is the first I heard this. I wonder when the media is going to start asking some tough questions about this two faced (fill in the blank - I prefer dishonorable traitor to his uniform). Unfortunatley as we all know the Liberals have control of most of the press and media in this country. Thank God for FOX at least. To their credit they did have on an EX-POW today. He left no doubt in my mind what he and other POW's think of Mr John Fonda Kerry.
Posted by: dataman1 || 02/17/2004 20:01 Comments || Top||

#9  I wonder when the media is going to start asking some tough questions

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Oh, God! That's the funniest thing I've read all day!

Wait -- were you serious?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/17/2004 20:43 Comments || Top||

#10 
#2 scrw those Vietnamese Americans ..Kerry fought bravely for their stinkin asses now they condemn him...where was Bush when they needed him to fight for them...If the Vietnamese ppl in the North could fight for themselves the southerners should have too. those wimps couldnt fight for themselves. Those who cant defend themselves should be left to perish.

Lots of other people fought bravely for their stinkin asses, too. To include the South Vietnamese, who took much heavier casualties than the Americans did, and in most cases fought very well. The Vietnamese ppl in the north were fighting for themselves, with Chinese and Soviet arms and equipment. They didn't make it themselves. The South Vietnamese ppl were fighting them off, and sometimes beating the shit out of them, until Congress -- the U.S. Congress, not the Vietnamese parliament -- cut the arms and equipment we were shipping to them.

I knew lots of damned good South Vietnamese soldiers, bub. If you think they were wimps, you obviously never met any. Tell ya what. Sometime when it's 100 degrees outside, and humid enough that you can hardly breathe, grab a WWII-era M1 carbine, some ammo boxes, a chicken, four pounds of rice, and some fish sauce, and go spend a couple or three weeks in the woods. When you come back, tell us how wimpy they were. Jerk.
Posted by: Fred || 02/17/2004 20:44 Comments || Top||


DARPA Goal: Foodless Fighters
caught via instapundit
Soldiers’ moms will no doubt be horrified. But the Pentagon is looking into ways for GIs to fight for up to five days -- without eating a single meal. During a mission, soldiers in the field typically don’t have the time, or the inclination, to chow down. That lack of food can affect their battlefield performance. So Darpa, the U.S. military’s far-out research arm, wants scientists to figure out if soldiers can operate at top levels -- without lunch breaks. "The question is: ’Are there temporary biochemical approaches we can use to squeeze the last ounce of performance out of soldiers when they’re already worked to exhaustion?’" said a Darpa life sciences consultant, who asked not to be named.

The agency has a couple of ideas on how this might be done: A cocktail of nutrients or so-called "nutraceuticals" could help build endurance. Lowering soldiers’ core body temperature might keep them from overheating. Or, perhaps, the change could be made at the microscopic level, by turbo-charging mitochondria --the cell’s energy suppliers. The Darpa project, called "Metabolic Dominance" or "Peak Soldier Performance," is part of a wider, future-facing Pentagon research push to develop grunts who are pretty much immune to normal human demands.
the DefenseTech link has links to other articles about same
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 1:08:10 PM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Ummm... Have a Snickers.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/17/2004 13:15 Comments || Top||

#2  In a related story... has anyone seen the new kitchen in a box?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 13:15 Comments || Top||

#3  As far as I know, methamphetamines ("speed") work well for short periods... and the military's been using it for years! Or I could be wrong. Can anyone confirm or deny?
Posted by: Scooter McGruder || 02/17/2004 13:16 Comments || Top||

#4  not having to take lunch or potty breaks would certainly be helpful to seals and delta types hiding in plain sight.

I wouldn't mind being able to skip meals when I'm busy. I think it's a good idea - as long as they don't take it too far.
Posted by: B || 02/17/2004 13:21 Comments || Top||

#5  imagine the free'd up logistical chain - no food to deliver = more free men and equipment, lets hope they can pull this one off, wish i could not eat for a week - save lots of cash.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 13:42 Comments || Top||

#6  From The Telegraph magazine, 14/02/04, entitled "Slim Pickings", concerning the appetite suppressing plant, hoodia gordonii:
"The men could go out and hunt for days and return with plenty of food...because the hoodia gave them stamina to keep them going. They didn't feel hungry or thirsty". And this is in the Kalahari. However, the article misses the stamina point and promotes the plant as a cure for obesity.
Posted by: Rhodesiafever || 02/17/2004 13:59 Comments || Top||

#7  I dunno... I think the time it takes to eat an MRE is more than made up for when you consider that you won't be having a bowel movement for the next whole week.
Posted by: BH || 02/17/2004 14:01 Comments || Top||

#8  The enemy can expect to see a whole bunch of Jean Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren lookalikes coming after them....
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/17/2004 14:33 Comments || Top||

#9  would they have a big junk truck thing to blaze about in too like in Universal Soldier?
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 14:49 Comments || Top||

#10  Foo Fighters....foodless fighters without the less?
Posted by: john || 02/17/2004 14:49 Comments || Top||

#11  Hey! Just like the North Koreans! Not that they have a choice...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 15:42 Comments || Top||

#12  Um, I'm not too sure about that Rhodesiafever. It seems to be more of an appetite suppressant. There are times when thats useful, but not really in combat situations. Average soldier needs around 3500 calories a day, the body's caloric need doesn't change even with hoodia. The need to INTAKE those calories gets suppressed though. What the DoD is looking for is a combo of a suppressor and a way to get the body those caloric numbers it needs at the same time.
Posted by: Valentine || 02/17/2004 15:52 Comments || Top||

#13  Great article, Frank. Turbocharged mitochondria---great term. I read this article during my lunch break. LOL!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/17/2004 16:10 Comments || Top||

#14  Mitochondria produce heat as well. There are a whole lot of variables to address. I would hate to have a test subject spontaneously combust.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/17/2004 17:25 Comments || Top||

#15  Peanuts.
Posted by: Bobby Lee || 02/17/2004 17:47 Comments || Top||

#16  The thing is, the human brain might not be able to cope with the changes. It could also be addictive. Very fine line they're treading.
Posted by: Charles || 02/17/2004 18:03 Comments || Top||

#17  Then what would all the BAMs in the Corps do if they're not cooking?
Posted by: Rawsnacks || 02/17/2004 20:32 Comments || Top||


Saudi denies missile ties with China
Saudi Arabia denied today that it was cooperating with China on missiles and might seek nuclear weapons from Pakistan.
A day without a Saudi denial is a day without sunshine.
A US official told Reuters in Washington that the Bush administration was "concerned about what the Saudis are getting from the Chinese in terms of missiles". One US official said there was no evidence Pakistan had helped Saudi Arabia with a nuclear programme, but another official said "there is always concern even if the information is flimsy".
I think it’s a little more than "flimsy", and a little less than "smoking hole in the ground".
The Saudi Press Agency said today that a responsible source at the defence ministry "denied the Reuters report, the substance of which was that US officials believe that China is cooperating with the Kingdom over access to Chinese missiles". A defence ministry official said the report was "fabricated and baseless, and reiterated that the kingdom continues to seek a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction," the agency said.
AKA - The "Disarm the Jews" program.
The Reuters report quoted US officials as saying senior US and Chinese officials meeting this week in Beijing were expected to discuss the US concerns about continuing Chinese cooperation with Saudi Arabia on missiles. The report said ballistic missiles’ ability to deliver weapons of mass destruction would be especially worrisome if Islamic radicals took control in Riyadh or if the current Saudi rulers felt threatened by an Iranian nuclear bomb. It said experts had speculated that Saudi Arabia had helped bankroll the Pakistani nuclear programme with the expectation that at some point it would gain access to a nuclear weapon.
Well, it is known as the "Islamic Bomb", not the "Pak Bomb".
The Reuters report quoted Richard Russell of Georgetown University as saying the Saudis "already have in place a foundation for building a nuclear weapons deterrent". In the mid-1980s, Riyadh secretly negotiated a US$3 billion ($4.29 billion) purchase of 50 to 60 Chinese CSS-2 missiles with a range of 4000km, US officials have said.
Must be typo, CSS-2 "East Wind" has a reported range of 2,500km with a 2,000kg payload.
Riyadh and Beijing said the missiles had conventional warheads and rebuffed US requests to inspect them, Russell said.
Conventional warhead? Not with a 2.5km CEP, it don’t. That’s a nuclear warhead carrier, period.
"It is well past time for Washington to renew calls for independent inspection of the Saudi missiles to ensure that they are armed as the Chinese and Saudis claim, and that ballistic missile modernisation efforts are not under way," he said.
See if the Chinese technicians are still there as well. They were supposed to be doing installation and maintenance, which is the only reason I’d expect them to be able to fly.
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 12:46:21 PM || Comments || Link || [336082 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Read the Gold of Exodus by Howard Blum! It is not a religious book. It's about treasure seekers attempt to find the gold of exodus and instead discover a top secret missle site at what they believe is the true Mt. Sinai (in Saudi - not Egypt).

The US has known since the mid 1980's that the China has been working with the Saudi's Project Falcon, the King's project to build a nuclear bomb at any cost.

I must have read that book 10 years ago, at least. But if we knew it then, why is it such a big surprise now?
Posted by: B || 02/17/2004 13:18 Comments || Top||


Saudi Valentine’s Day Arrests
More than 200 workers from Bangladeshi and Myanmar have been arrested in Saudi Arabia for celebrating Valentine’s Day. The men, aged 16-28, had been employed to clean up after the Hajj pilgrimage near the holy city of Mecca. But they were found partying inside a tent that had been used by the Muslim devotees. To compound their error, they were found drunk in a country where alcohol is banned.
"Here! What are you people drinking?"
[Hic!' "I shink it's English Leather..."
Valentine’s Day is banned in the kingdom as an "infidel tradition" and is not recognised by Islam.
All Valentine’s Day-related celebrations are banned.
"No kissing, damn you!"
Saudi media reports said the men were found partying at dawn by the religious police next to a site where Muslims gather to "stone the devil" during the pilgrimage. Some of the group, including members of a band that had been hired, escaped. It is not known whether the men will be prosecuted. The kingdom’s grand mufti and highest religious authority, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, said: "What these workers did in a holy place by celebrating and singing and drinking alcohol is a very grave sin. Committing a sin in a holy place is doubly sinful. Valentine’s is an infidel tradition that has no place in Islam."
"That's cuz feeling affection for anybody is un-Islamic! And, yes, I mean you, too, Mom!"
The religious police bar shops from selling red roses, teddy bears, greeting cards or even red-coloured gifts to celebrate Valentine’s Day. They also warn shops, hotels, restaurants and public parks not to stage any special activities on the day named after the Christian patron saint of lovers.
"If you're staying in the honeymoon suite, just do your business and get the hell out. There are others waiting to use it, you know."
Posted by: TS || 02/17/2004 12:29:34 PM || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Committing a sin in a holy place is doubly sinful.

and doing it with chainy is triplee sinfull.
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/17/2004 12:42 Comments || Top||

#2  So. Love is offically outlawed?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/17/2004 13:13 Comments || Top||

#3  Saudi media reports said the men were found partying at dawn by the religious police next to a site where Muslims gather to "stone the devil" during the pilgrimage.
Some of the group, including members of a band that had been hired, escaped.


Cheese it, the coppers! Ali, here, hold this...
Posted by: mojo || 02/17/2004 13:13 Comments || Top||

#4  Of course, Paleos taking a dump in the Church of the Nativity during their cowardly standoff a couple of years ago can be rationalized... Christainity is a lesser religion.
Posted by: Capsu78 || 02/17/2004 16:28 Comments || Top||

#5  I once considered handing a Christmas card to an Arab friend to mail from Mecca to a Jewish friend in St. Louis. After realizing the serious trouble Ali would be in if the Muttawa’a discovered the card, the plan was abandoned.
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 19:10 Comments || Top||


Russia denies failure of missiles
The Russian navy has denied reports that two ballistic missiles failed to launch from a submarine during a military exercise in the Barents Sea. A spokesman for Russia’s Northern Fleet said there had been no "unforseen incidents" during Tuesday’s exercise. But Russian news agencies quoted a Northern Fleet official as saying the launch had failed, apparently because of a satellite error. President Vladimir Putin was on a submarine watching the manoeuvres. The reported missile failure comes weeks before the presidential election, in which Mr Putin is widely expected to win a second term.
... and has zippo to do with the election.
Interfax and Itar-Tass, quoting an unnamed navy officer, reported that a signal from a military satellite had blocked the launch. No further explanation was given. The missiles had been due to take off from a nuclear submarine, the Novomosskovsk, with Mr Putin watching from another submarine, the Arkhangelsk. Itar-Tass said the Novomosskovsk was to test-fire two ballistic missiles in succession at a practice target more than 5,000km (3,107 miles) away on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East. The president’s arrival at Severomorsk naval base, on Russia’s Arctic coast, had received wide television coverage in Russia. Mr Putin was filmed wearing navy gear on Monday night as he chatted with sailors on board the Arkhangelsk submarine. The planned manoeuvres had been described in the Russian media as the largest show of military might since Soviet times. Ten ships and six nuclear submarines had been due to take part.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/17/2004 12:08:36 PM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  At least Putin didn't order the launch to continue.... at least one of his predesessors did, killed a heap of engineers in the explosion.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 12:38 Comments || Top||

#2  lol, the russian military just seems to be going from bad to worse.... what a shame eh
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 12:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Disregard my last it was the Russian headman it was the head of the Strategic Rocket Forces:

Marshal Nedelin, commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, ordered the engineers and technicians to fix the problem without the long delay of defuelling and refurbishing the missile. He personally had a deck chair brought out to the pad from Astronauticx.com

He croaked in the accident.
I believe Haliburton may have been a subcontractor at Baikaur.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 13:00 Comments || Top||

#4  The big boss comes to watch a launch, the press is on hand, push the button and ...nothing. Game of "pass the buck" begins, last man standing pulls point in Chechenville.
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 13:36 Comments || Top||

#5  Their combat aviation is also in shambles, according to Janes.

A Russia in total chaos is Not A Good Thing. Where there is no work for weapons specialists, pilots etc. there is a void that will be filled in ways we won't like, I suspect.
Posted by: rkb || 02/17/2004 16:00 Comments || Top||


1992 Revisited
James Lileks looks back:
Looking back from these Olympian heights, 1992 seems like a dream; so little was really at stake. The boom was yet to come. The war was on, but we could shrug it off. The Communists had somehow inexplicably imploded; wonder why? Whatever.

But the pages of the paper are full of despair and portents. Haiti’s instability threatens the region; British skinheads are a portent of nascent facism. But the editorial pages’ predictions of ruin and despair failed to materialize, as they usually do. The failure to nationalize medicine did not lead to millions dead in the emergency rooms. The Mall of America had just opened, and there were weepy op-eds about the rapacious maw of American consumerism eating the planet alive. Gorbachev was warning us about something or other; Somalia had suddenly emerged as a troubled nation we must all now regard with worried furrowed brows.

And in the back of the A section, day after day: Iraq. Iraq. Iraq. Iraq blocks inspectors, Iraq admits inspectors, Iraq blasts food-for-oil program, Iraq fires on US planes, Iraq protests to Security Council, Iraq, Iraq. If anyone seriously thinks Iraq never had WMD, you need to go back to 1992 and read the stories about UN press releases concerning the newly constructed “mustard gas incincerators,” OKAY? There was even a story about Iraq promising to institute democratic reforms. It quoted Qusay. He was quite hopeful about giving the citizens a voice.
(Of course, that voice said ARRRRGGHIIIIEEEE Turn it off I confess! )
There was a story about Kuwaiti citizens hoping Bush won, because they were, you know grateful.

There were stories about Iraqgate, too. You remember that. US loan guarantees to Iraq might have been diverted to the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. The Democrats wanted a Congressional investigation.

You want to know why we invaded Iraq in 2003? Go back and read the papers in 1992. And you’ll find this quote:
“’If they’re such whizzes at foreign policy, why is Saddam Hussein thumbing his nose at the rest of the world?’”

Albert. Gore. Junior.
In the same paper: “Fundamentalist rebels attacked Kabul with rockets in an assault that killed at least 100 people and wounded hundreds more. As the shelling intensified, a United Nations agency said it was removing its staff from Kabul.”

Nice to know some things never change.
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 11:35:37 AM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Yup, and its still al Bushes fault
Posted by: Cheddarhead || 02/17/2004 17:34 Comments || Top||


Malaysia Kicks Off National Service Call-Up
More than 28,000 youths from different ethnic groups reported yesterday for Malaysia’s first national service call-up aimed at boosting patriotism and racial integration.
Uh oh
They are from among some 85,000 teenagers who have been chosen at random from Malaysia’s more than 480,000 girls and boys born in 1986 for three-month stints in 41 camps around the country. Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is also defense minister, said there was no political agenda behind the program, but the main opposition Islamic Party has charged that it is aimed at indoctrinating Muslim youths to support the ruling coalition.
"We object! Indoctrinating youths is our job!"
The government says the objective of the 500-million-ringgit ($132 million) pilot program is to build a generation of self-confident, patriotic youths with noble values and develop multiracial harmony and unity.
Now where have we heard that phrase before?
The trainees and some 4,000 camp instructors have been picked to mirror the country’s ethnic make-up, officials say. Muslim Malays account for some 60 percent of Malaysia’s 25 million people, while ethnic-Chinese make up some 26 percent and Indians eight percent. The program does not involve weapons handling but physical training includes unarmed military-style exercises such as basic self-defense and jungle survival skills. Recruits will be given paramilitary-style uniforms along with boots and berets, but will also undergo community service and classes on patriotism, nation-building and character-building.Boy Scouts or Hitler Youth?
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 11:05:51 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:


Going Out With a Bang
An English widow has commemorated her gun-loving husband by having his ashes loaded into shot cartridges for use by his close friends in the last shoot of the season, the Daily Telegraph reported Monday.
This is from Brunei-online, so I guess they can be forgiven for being slow with it. We carried it on Sunday, of course, prompt as we are with all important, breaking news...
Joanna Booth organised the shoot at the end of last month for 20 close friends on an estate in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, after asking a cartridge company to mix the ashes of her husband James with traditional shot. James Booth had been an expert on vintage shotguns until his death at the age of 50 two years ago. He had been in a coma for 18 months after suffering food poisoning. The Telegraph reported that a total of 275 12-bore cartridges were produced from the mix and were blessed by a minister before they were used to bag pheasants, partridges, ducks and a fox on Brucklay Estate.
PETA will have a fit.
Mrs Booth, of Streatham, south London, said it was a marvelous day out and her husband would have loved it.
Any day hunting is a good day.
Julian McHardy, of the Caledonian Cartridge Company, said it was the first request he had received to put ashes into shotgun cartridges. "He was loaded in our Caledonian Classic, a 28 gramme load, No 6 shot with degradable plastic wadding," he said.
Humm, wonder who I’d have to see to get my ashes loaded in a JDAM?
Alistair Donald, the Church of Scotland minister from the nearby village of New Deer, who blessed the cartridges, said he had no qualms. "It was a perfectly normal scattering of ashes, a few words and prayers. After all, he had a lifelong interest in ballistics," he said.
"Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition."
I wonder where they found the old-fashioned vicar? I didn't think there were any left.
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 10:44:32 AM || Comments || Link || [336087 views] Top|| File under:

#1  time to break out the ole check book again. did he get the food poisining from the animals he murdered? birds are the greatest cymbals of freedom and even america has an eagle for its mascot and would you like to see someone shooting them and making them dead? i cant believe this was blessed. nice to degradable plastic while spreading led through the envirement! this family is probably friends of the chaineys.
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/17/2004 10:57 Comments || Top||

#2  Amen!
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 10:57 Comments || Top||

#3  Not to muck4doo, but to "Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition."

This is indeed a good idea. I not only see Kim du Toit doing this, but I wouldn't mind being part of the load that'll blow away asshats like doo4brains, er, muck4doo.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 10:59 Comments || Top||

#4  Where have all the good trolls gone?
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/17/2004 11:10 Comments || Top||

#5  WTF is this drivel ?
cymbals = a brass percussion instrument
led = light emitting diode
chaineys = people made of chains, I guess
degradable plastic = not degradable
envirement = the state of being envired
muck4doo = doo4brains indeed
Posted by: D-Kaff_247 || 02/17/2004 11:11 Comments || Top||

#6  muck4doo, I give this a 3.6 on the troll meter. No mention of bush lying about it. While there is a cheney reference no haliburton or blood-for-oil reference. Not even a spittle.

You did earn .6 for the spelling errors :)

Over all a very disappointing troll.....
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/17/2004 11:43 Comments || Top||

#7  I think somebody's having some fun with us. Nobody can be as bag of cement dumb as muck4doo on purpose.
I don't think he's a troll, but he could play one on TV.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 11:56 Comments || Top||

#8  bush didnt lie. he stated what may possibly be bad information that he and others received. that is not the same as lying. also saddams sons ruined the envirement in iraq and drained the marshes and deserved what they has comin to them. sorry just cuz i believe in animal rights doesnt mean you should paint me with a broad bush. so i support bush. there is no excuse for chainey thoughh.
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/17/2004 12:01 Comments || Top||

#9  The answer my friend is blowing in the wind.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/17/2004 12:11 Comments || Top||

#10  muck4doo, you might be reassured to know that many shotgun shells have been using steel rather than lead pellets for years.

I do support animal rights - in particular, the right of my flushing spaniels to find and bring back upland game birds in accordance with their inate skills and instincts. And the right of my sighthounds to course and catch, if they can, rabbits and hare.

And both of them to eat the meat-rich diet that they evolved for over many millenia, along with their canid brethren the wolves and foxes.

Me, too.
Posted by: sporting fan || 02/17/2004 12:20 Comments || Top||

#11  Lets not forget Pointers have rights too! :-)
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/17/2004 12:23 Comments || Top||

#12  Muck4doo is right on target with this chainey thing, even my Goldies know Haliburtons' ruined the environment.
Sporting Fan what kind of upland birds ya hunt?
I favor the Southern Quail or partridge if you're sensitive.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 12:30 Comments || Top||

#13  Pheasants and woodcock - my spaniels are (the original, English) cockers. Great for heavy brush ... & they're show dogs too. Birds, brains, beauty as the Gordon Setter folks say.

Don't have a problem giving rights to Pointers too, but I enjoy having a dog that will put the bird up and bring it back as well as telling me where it's hiding ..... (smile)

Posted by: sporting fan || 02/17/2004 14:11 Comments || Top||

#14  A good friend of mine who sells fine antique arms was present at this event, as James Booth is an old acquaintance of his. He even fired off one of the cartridges containing the old fellow's ashes. I've had the privilege of spending some time rabbit hunting in rural England, the inhabitants of which have a different (and IMAO superior) attitude toward life than their urban counterparts. It's a shame that Londoners now totally dominate the social and political landscape of that nation. They're all the worse off for it.
Posted by: Secret Master || 02/17/2004 15:03 Comments || Top||

#15  I hear ya Sporting Fan, half the time I flush by accident (the Goldies not known for paying attention) but if I do my part, they usually find the bird and bring it back. (With a smile of course).
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 15:18 Comments || Top||

#16  Crazy Fool: I think there should be an automatic deduction because he forgot to mention juche.
Posted by: Phil Fraering || 02/17/2004 15:49 Comments || Top||

#17  Getting in really, REALLY late tonight. Gave up hunting the year I came back from Vietnam - got caught in the same hunting area with two absolute idiots, and came very close to deliberately blowing the head off one of them. I miss it. Now I just go for long walks in the mountains (when and where I can) until I can get my own piece of land to walk on. Can't wait until then, and until I can get a decent bow. Shotguns make too much noise, and rifles are nasty to arthritic shoulder joints. Adding a hundred pounds of venison or elk to the freezer makes life even easier!

The best hunting dog I ever owned was an American Foxhound. Would tree anything, chase anything, and usually catch it. She'd even retrieve game when I missed.....
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/18/2004 0:04 Comments || Top||


Imports on the Rise
Al Qaeda’s chief terrorist in Iraq is trying to bring in hundreds of hardened Islamic fighters from Chechnya to help launch his offensive against U.S. forces, The Post has learned. Documents discovered on a computer disk of a captured high-level al Qaeda courier revealed that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the military commander of Ansar al-Islam, has proposed transferring up to 2,000 jihadi veterans from Chechnya to Iraq over the next few months, U.S. officials said.
This ain’t good. Those Chechens fight harder and better than your average al-Q cave dweller.
The officials said al-Zarqawi needs the Chechen fighters to help him carry out a terrorist campaign aimed at promoting a religious civil war inside Iraq in the run up to the June 30 deadline for the sovereignty transfer.
In the face of this news, go here for a good laugh at an asshat of denial and lies.
Posted by: growler || 02/17/2004 10:33:06 AM || Comments || Link || [336099 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Are there even 2000 Chechnyans left? I thought it was the "widows club" that has been the boomers of late in that neck of the woods.
Posted by: Dave || 02/17/2004 10:42 Comments || Top||

#2  Are Chechnyans ehtnically seperate enough from Arabs to the extent that they can be easily picked out? If not, I doubt they effectively speak Arabic with a Baghdad accent.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 11:49 Comments || Top||

#3  They are very different ethnically (mountainers from Caucasus) and their language is from the Turkish group while Arab is semitic and Kurdish is Indo-european. They would stand about as clearly as Michael Jordan (Peace and Blessings upon him) at at congress of Ku Klux Klan dwarves.
Posted by: Anonymous || 02/17/2004 16:13 Comments || Top||

#4  "Al Qaeda’s chief terrorist in Iraq is trying to bring in hundreds of hardened Islamic fighters from Chechnya..."

If true, you're fucking welcome Putin (you stand-on-the-sidelines, French-licking, German-sucking pimple), for draining your swamp for you, and putting up U.S. & coalition members' kids to handle your domestic concerns.

Nice pass...
Posted by: Hyper || 02/17/2004 19:50 Comments || Top||

#5  The Chechen language is of the Caucasian group, which includes Ingush, Georgian, Mingrelian, Abkhaz, it is not TUrkic, nor are the Chechens themselves.
Posted by: KLange || 04/14/2004 19:55 Comments || Top||


Arafat says, "Mo’ Money!"
International aid to Yasser Arafat has been cut in half because of suspicions of corruption and a Palestinian failure to show the money is being spent properly, Western diplomats and officials in the West Bank said yesterday.
"suspicions" of corruption? failure to spend properly? But hasn’t this reporter seen the ultramodern schools and hospitals that have been built with that aid money? And the luxurious housing, which has eliminated the refugee problem? Someone’s not paying attention.
Palestinian Finance Minister Salam Fayyad said aid from the European Union, which used to run $120 million a year, had fallen to $80 million. The union is Arafat’s biggest financial supporter and had earmarked the money for relief aid and to cover the salaries of 120,000 Palestinian civil-service employees. Fayyad gave no figures for donations from Arab states but said all international aid to the Palestinians had dropped "by around half" over the last two years. Western diplomats said more than $50 million in European Union aid was being held back until the Palestinian Authority paid salaries for its security services through bank transfers - rather than by cash that cannot be traced.
All right, it’s a drop in the bucket. But you’ve got to start someplace.
Posted by: growler || 02/17/2004 10:26:46 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Damn! Even the EU isn't buying the bullshit anymore! This is serious, Yasshole! You might have to hit your personal stash!
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 10:47 Comments || Top||

#2  Even the arab countries realize that the PA is a black hole for money and are holding back. If the EU wants to throw its money down a rathole, then have a ball. If I were an EU citizen, I would be raising hell over my tax Euros being thrown away, hey, but it is their show.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/17/2004 11:11 Comments || Top||

#3  But....but...but.... They can see Arafish's wife's new clothes and jewelry right there in Paris! Are they blind?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/17/2004 13:09 Comments || Top||

#4  If total aid has dropped 50% and the EU aid has only dropped 33% (form $120M to $80M), it implies that somebody has cut aid more than 50%. Could it be that the Saudis have finally had enough Arafat?
Posted by: mhw || 02/17/2004 14:37 Comments || Top||

#5  The U.S. cut aid by a BIG chunk. We asked them not to use our funding for terror activity and they said they couldn't promise that. At least they were 'honest' about it. No more Saddam funding. No more U.S. Funding. And I bet no one else wants to give Arafat a dime. Sounds like he might have to wire his wife for a few francs?
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 02/17/2004 15:45 Comments || Top||

#6  This. Is. An. Outrage! Arafat deserves better than this!

Don't the infidels know that Ya-bidi Ya-bidi Ya-bidi, Arafat! (sorry, I was channeling porky pig for a second) is keeping all those dollars and euros safe, for when there's a Palestine proper, and all the Jews are finally dead. Then he'll unleash his secret plan to rename Jerusalem to Mohammedburg, and triumphantly cruise the new JEWel pearl of the Mediterranean, throwing the stashed cash to the masses as if Caesar in his chariot, thereby providing the financial seeds to kick off the genesis birth of the most enlightened, prosperous, happy, Lallah-fearing damned paradise ever known to man.

I mean, it’s SO fucking obvious! (There. Is that $50 worth? Cool. Call me again sometime…)
Posted by: Hyper || 02/17/2004 19:22 Comments || Top||


Pakistan Arrests Pearl Murder Suspects
Pakistani police have arrested two Islamic militants, including one suspected of involvement in the kidnap and killing of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl, a senior police official said Tuesday. The two men, Sajid Jabbar and Mohammad Athar, were arrested in an overnight raid in the port city of Karachi and belong to the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group, he said.
Outlawed in name only
The official, who did not want to be named, said Jabbar was suspected of involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl in 2002 as well as several other militant attacks.
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 10:11:11 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Additional: Police arrested two suspected members of a banned Islamic militant group Tuesday, seizing weapons and 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of explosives in a raid on a home in the port city of Karachi , an official said. The two alleged Lashkar-e-Jhangvi members, Mohammed Athar and Sajid Jabbar, were arrested in Karachi 's central residential neighborhood of Nazimabad.
An assault rifle, nine pistols, six grenades and 200 kilograms (440 pounds) of an unspecified type of explosive material were also seized, Awan said.


Must have been getting ready for elk season.
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 14:11 Comments || Top||


Taliban reduced to cowardly attacks
Afghanistan’s Taliban guerrillas have been battered so badly they are reduced to "cowardly" acts such as bicycle bombings, a senior Pentagon official says. U.S. Undersecretary of Defence Dov S. Zakheim, the fourth-ranking official at the Pentagon, also said on a visit to Kabul that Washington was pushing ahead with plans to pattern a national guard in Afghanistan after one being built in Iraq. "A year ago the Taliban still thought it could mount attacks with numbers of people," he told a news conference. "Now it tries even more cowardly things like a kidnapping or a bicycle bomb. It is a very different kind of operation and that is because we are beating them. So, in that regard, I believe we have made tremendous progress." Zakheim said planning was proceeding for a national guard that would fill holes while a new Afghan National Army is formed, a process that is proceeding more slowly than expected.
The national guard idea is actually a better idea than using the army. Countries that use the army for internal security are generally not places you'd want your kids growing up. A national police force, even one with a heavy-duty SWAT function, makes more sense.
"We are looking at that, we have put together a programme that we hope to model on what we consider to be very successful in Iraq," he said. "We have 200,000 Iraqis now in different kinds of units. We have a civil defence unit, we have a unit that protects facilities, we have a border protection unit as well as the Iraqi army. "So we have seen a lot of success there, and this is building on that idea, and with time you will see it will materialise. We are asking our Congress for funds to support that."
It'll probably be pooh-poohed as a "jobs for warlords" program, and it could become that. It could also continue the process of trying to turn Afghanistan into something resembling a normal country.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/17/2004 9:40:36 AM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  the Schwinn of Doom™ strikes!
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 9:44 Comments || Top||

#2  Not that the execution of women in a soccer stadion was that brave...
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/17/2004 9:46 Comments || Top||

#3  ...This assumes that the Taliban - memorably described by Newsweek as 'a cross between the SS and the Marx Brothers' - ever had any courage in the first place. For those idiots, 'cowardly' would ahve been a step up.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/17/2004 10:22 Comments || Top||

#4  "Taliban reduced to cowardly attacks"

Ya think?
Posted by: Unmutual || 02/17/2004 10:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Afghanistan’s Taliban guerrillas have been battered so badly they are reduced to "cowardly" acts such as bicycle bombings, a senior Pentagon official says.

Oh, those poor, poor mountain bikes.....
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/17/2004 10:23 Comments || Top||

#6  "And you mother gives birth to pigs and dogs!"

(There's more to this than meets the eye: Calling your opponent a lily-livered coward is fightin' words. The Talibs either come out swinging (and get cut down when weather conditions allow us maximal maneuverability), or they stay in their holes and lose traction with their constituency.)

Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 11:07 Comments || Top||

#7  when the snow and ice melt and springtime come,time for the taliban to run. Wow kinda poetic that.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 11:46 Comments || Top||

#8  LOL BAR actually they target the defenseless bikes with training wheels, not mountain bikes.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 15:22 Comments || Top||


Thailand to build fence around Malaysian border
Is this fence thing something that's catching?
Thailand will build security fences along part of its 650-km border with Malaysia to try to stop militant Muslims escaping after attacking Thai forces, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said on Tuesday.
He's making the assumption the real culprits are from Malaysia, which could be so...
The army would build the fences across suspected escape routes used by militants in predominantly Buddhist Thailand’s largely Muslim south, where a new wave of violence began last month when gunmen raided an army base, he said. "We will focus on areas with cross-border smuggling problems which are not too many. We don’t have to build fences all along the entire 600-km border," Thaksin told reporters in Bangkok.
Just most of it...
Thaksin has said the government would pour money into the south, focusing on economic development in Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat provinces near the Malaysian border, where a low-key separatist insurgency was fought in the 1970s and 1980s. "I will spend about three years making them places for tourism, investments and jobs," Thaksin said in his weekly radio address on Saturday. "People will also have better education."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/17/2004 9:38:48 AM || Comments || Link || [336083 views] Top|| File under:

#1 
Is this fence thing something that's catching?

If only it would catch where it really counted, like at the southern end of California, Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/17/2004 10:25 Comments || Top||

#2  Who was it that said that an electrified fence -440V minimum, liberal amounts of concertina wire and a minefield makes good neighbors?
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 13:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Ariel Sharon? ;-)
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 14:23 Comments || Top||

#4  personally think the whole fence idea is brilliant, everywhere has fences right, i mean fences and boundrys are everywhere in life yet imagine when you go for a walk down to the shops you don't avoid the boundrys and fences but you climb over them all through other peoples gardens and terrotrys - be very rude wouldn't it, my point is why should countries borders be treated any differently?
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 15:51 Comments || Top||


US trains Mali troops to tighten desert borders
U.S. military experts have begun training soldiers in Mali to tighten border controls on the fringes of the Sahara desert, where Washington fears Islamic militants could be moving along ancient trade routes.
That'd be GSPC, of course, plus any local group they might have gotten off the ground...
Three U.S. teams are training units in the capital Bamako, the eastern town of Gao and the desert city of Timbuktu to combat arms trafficking and banditry in the north, Mali’s chief military spokesman, Abdoulaye Coulibaly, said on Tuesday. "We’ve selected three units -- one at Timbuktu, one at Gao and one based in Bamako, each one with around 100 members," he said. Around 10 U.S. experts are training each unit. The support, which includes around 40 off-road vehicles and communications equipment, is part of a U.S. scheme to help four nations on the southern edge of the Sahara -- Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad -- combat security threats. The region is known for bandits and smugglers -- 32 European tourists were kidnapped in the Sahara last year and last month’s Paris-Dakar rally was interrupted because of ambush fears -- and some worry it could also be a breeding ground for militants. The chief prosecutor of Sierra Leone’s U.N.-backed war crimes court said last year his team had evidence that al Qaeda members were operating freely in West Africa, saying they came to the region to "rest, relax, refit and refinance".
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/17/2004 9:36:54 AM || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  We must be trying to show them that if you tighten down for a while, the bribes that you can demand later are much more lucrative.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 11:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Now if we can just get someone to tighten the borders on the Sonoran desert...
Posted by: Jackal || 02/17/2004 14:25 Comments || Top||

#3  They'll be much more prepared for next year's Paris-to-Dakar road race this way.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/17/2004 15:56 Comments || Top||


German Interior Ministers says he’s foiled terrorist attacks
Interior Minister Otto Schily said on Monday that German authorities had foiled terror attacks planned following the September 11, 2001 suicide plane strikes in the United States, but urged continued vigilance. Opening a European police congress, he said German law enforcement agencies were currently involved in 182 probes against suspected extremists. Schily said the BKA federal crime office had chased up around 25,600 leads in just under two and a half years since the deadly attacks in Washington and New York. Authorities succeeded in undermining plotting for attacks and preventing terrorist actions, but he warned that despite their outstanding and successful work, the terrorist threat must not be under-estimated. "The Al-Qaeda network blamed for the 2001 attacks was still functioning and capable of action," he went on. It meant the fight against terrorism remained a highly acute task for the international community.

In an interview earlier on ZDF public television, he said Germany must be prepared for the worst so that "we are aware of plotting for attacks as early as possible." But he said the US system of alerts, colour-coded depending on how serious they were assessed, was not suitable for this country. "We must be very careful that we don’t spread panic among people," he told ZDF, while still maintaining the highest level of watchfulness.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/17/2004 9:34:53 AM || Comments || Link || [336086 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Thank you!
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 11:16 Comments || Top||

#2  Schily is one of the few competent ministers in Schroeder's chaos crew. Maybe the only one actually.
Posted by: True German Ally || 02/17/2004 13:45 Comments || Top||

#3  i have very little faith left in Germany after watching them side with the french and slashing thier military budget, i can't help but think there becoming a weaker and weaker since the fall of the wall
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 14:47 Comments || Top||


Avengers and Spooks are ’cool TV’
Nothing like a "Best Of" list to inspire well reasoned discourse:
The Avengers, Miami Vice and BBC hit Spooks have been included on a list of the "coolest" TV programmes ever made. The decades-spanning list, published in this week’s Radio Times, extends from political drama The West Wing to cult shows like Twin Peaks and The Prisoner.
"At its best cool TV makes you want to leap from your armchair and shout ’Yes! I want to live like that,’" said Radio Times TV editor Alison Graham. "It makes you think, ’I want to wear sunglasses to work and walk down corridors in slow motion!’"
"I want to nail a different hot chick every week!"
Here is the list in full, in alphabetical order:
The Avengers (1961-69)
Mrs. Peel in her leather cat suit, sigh!
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2001-)
If you like hot chicks at room temperature
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1965-68)
They had the coolest toys
Miami Vice (1985-90)
And yes, I had a white jacket, why do you ask?
Murder One (1996-97)
Huh?
The Prisoner (1967-68)
Number Six, your Balloon of Death is waiting
Queer as Folk (1999)
Don’t ask
The Saint (1962-69)
Very cool
Seinfeld (1993-2001)
Very funny, but not cool. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The Sopranos (1999-)
Tony will be happy
Spooks (2002-)

State of Play (2003-)

Twin Peaks (1990-91)
Strange, not cool
The West Wing (1999-)
It’s a BBC list, what can I say.
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 9:31:31 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What does the BBC know about cool? All they know is how to compose biased information, a tactic that they are using to great advantage here.

Any list of "the top 10 most" whatever is subject to great scrutiny whenever it appears. The biases of the list composers are on full display. You might as well get a Grammy or Oscar award, they're just about the same thing.
Posted by: gromky || 02/17/2004 10:00 Comments || Top||

#2  Where's Chimmey Rockford?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 10:05 Comments || Top||

#3  Secret Agent -- Coolest theme music ever
Mission: Impossible -- Cool, clever spies
Twilight Zone -- being a Zone afficianado is cool
Jonny Quest -- Coolness for those under 15. (I had a crush on Race Bannon's girlfriend Jade at age 7.)
Posted by: Mike || 02/17/2004 10:38 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm an Ernie Kovacs man, myself. Funniest routine I've ever seen was when he played a real estate agent showing a house. On a hill. During an earthquake.
Posted by: Fred || 02/17/2004 10:46 Comments || Top||

#5  The Avengers as #1? Unquestionably correct.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 11:00 Comments || Top||

#6  what!!! no mutual of omaha? that jim guy was the best!
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/17/2004 11:08 Comments || Top||

#7  I am not a number, I am a free man!!
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/17/2004 11:09 Comments || Top||

#8  Screen American Chopper for the BBC crowd.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 11:23 Comments || Top||

#9  fuckin meddling BBC,can't they spend my fuckin license money intelligently!
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 11:53 Comments || Top||

#10  What, no "Hat Squad? No "Misfits of Science"?
What bullshit!
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 12:05 Comments || Top||

#11  Marlin Perkins was tight with chainey and made Jim do all the work. I remembe Marlin watching from a helicopter as Jim wrastled with an anaconda at the end of the tussle Marlin sez "We've got him!"
By the way Mutual of Omaha is dominated by bilderbergers.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 12:33 Comments || Top||

#12  The Rockford Files
Posted by: Unmutual || 02/17/2004 13:06 Comments || Top||

#13  Actually, Shipman, it was after Marlin dang near got drug into a river and squished by an Anaconda that he started staying in the chopper and letting Jim wrestle the various beasties...

Never get off the boat, man...
Posted by: mojo || 02/17/2004 13:11 Comments || Top||


Arafat Blocking Key Palestinian Reform
EFL

Absolutely amazing. How much clearer can it be - Arafat is a corrupt, despicable leech who uses the plight of the palis for his own political and financial gain. And yet, somehow the world blames Israel for the current situation.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is preventing his prime minister from carrying out a key financial reform, and the dispute is threatening to hold up much-needed foreign aid, Cabinet ministers said Tuesday.
Oh, gee, golly. I am so surprised. Couldja help me up off the floor, please?
Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia denied reports that he threatened to resign over the row. However, similar disputes with Arafat pushed Qureia’s predecessor, Mahmoud Abbas, to quit last fall... The argument between Arafat and Qureia broke out after the Palestinian Cabinet decided Saturday to pay members of the security forces through deposits to their bank accounts, Cabinet ministers said. Currently, security officers are given lump sums of cash and then distribute the money to their employees — an invitation to corruption. Qureia needed the Cabinet decision ahead of a trip to European capitals this week, ministers said. Qureia knew European leaders would ask him about the issue and might condition further aid on the reform. The Palestinian Authority relies on foreign assistance for about 60 percent of its annual budget. Most of that aid comes from the European Union.
We've caught on to the game, though any that we give is too much...
After Saturday’s Cabinet meeting, Qureia and Arafat had a heated argument over the direct-deposit issue and Arafat refused to implement the Cabinet decision.
"Hell, no! That's where all the beaks are wet!"
Arafat was especially adamant about blocking salary transfers to 30,000 national security personnel who are under his direct authority, the ministers said. "There were tough discussions about the issue of security, but neither Abu Ala (Qureia) nor any other minister talked about resignation,"said Cabinet minister Jamal Shobaki.
Eventually Qurei will be forced out, unless he turns into the complete toady.
In the Gaza Strip, meanwhile, some 1,500 angry Palestinians early Tuesday shut down the crossing point Gaza residents use to reach jobs in Israel. The laborers were protesting new security restrictions and Monday’s death of a fellow worker they blame on Israel. Israel said the 41-year-old man had died of a heart attack.
So now acts of God are Israel’s fault too?
Also in Gaza, hospital officials said a 24-year-old Palestinian had died from wounds sustained in an explosion last Wednesday at his home in the Khan Younis refugee camp. Residents said he had been wounded while preparing explosives.
Did his friends swear Dire Revenge(tm) against the Israelis for this?
Posted by: PlanetDan || 02/17/2004 9:11:26 AM || Comments || Link || [336063 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Arafish can't maintain even the minimum level of influence he now has if he can't control the distribution of goodies. This row, combined with the investigation into his (and Suha's) accounts must keep him from sleeping well. I'm concerned about his health....like, I hope it doesn't take much longer to get reaaalllllly bad
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 9:33 Comments || Top||

#2  Instead of climbing up the ladder of reform out of a hole, the Arafish is down at the bottom, digging.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/17/2004 11:14 Comments || Top||

#3  like, I hope it doesn't take much longer to get reaaalllllly bad

Don't count on it. If Arafart's health begins to fail, the Palestinian sheeple will rally around the little worm and the current focus on corruption and graft will lose steam in a hurry. Oh, and a new round of suicide/murder bombing attempts will begin in earnest to help shift everybody's attention.
Posted by: Bomb-a-rama || 02/17/2004 14:20 Comments || Top||

#4  BAR: by reeaallllly bad, I'm hoping we're past his health failing, to the level of odoriferous decay (even worse than usual)
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 15:05 Comments || Top||


Haiti Revolt Spreads, France Threatens
A rebellion by opponents of Haiti’s embattled president has spread further with a new attack north of the capital. About 50 men attacked a police station in the town of Hinche, killing three people - one of them the police chief. The rebels are now reported to control the town and two major roads leading into the north of the country. France has raised the possibility of an international peace force being sent to Haiti, where the recent wave of unrest has left about 50 people dead.
Bwahahaha...I’m sory, it wasn’t a joke?
"We have the capacity to intervene and... many friendly countries are ready to do so," Foreign Minister Dominique De Villepin said.
Call us when the Charles De Gaul is standing off shore to provide air support for the landing.
His comments followed an appeal by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for the international community to help put down the rebellion which has seen armed opponents take over a string of towns in the north.
HHHEEEELLLLLPPPPP!!!!!!!
Neighbouring Dominican Republic has expressed alarm about the unrest, warning it could not cope on its own if there were a mass exodus of Haitians.
And expresing alarm is about all they can do.
On Monday it closed its 360km border with French-speaking Haiti.
Which explains the French interest.
In an attempt to restore calm in the central town of Hinche, the police chief in the capital Port-au-Prince, about 130 km to the south-west, said reinforcements were being sent. But reports from the town said local police had been forced out and were re-grouping 55km to the south.
Can they be much farther away and still be in Hati?
On Monday, rebels escorted a Red Cross convoy carrying much-needed supplies including medical goods to Gonaives, where the unrest began on 5 February. To keep the police and government supporters from retaking Gonaives, the rebels have pushed shipping containers blocking the highway leading to the town. Although the rebels are thought to control about 11 towns and cities, their number is also thought to be less than that of Haiti’s 5,000 police force. However they have been joined by exiled paramilitary leaders and police.
Who came in from the Dominican Republic before they closed the door.
"Our fight is for a better country. We are fighting for the presidency, we’re fighting for the people, " said Guy Philippe, a former police chief who is accused of trying to organise a coup in 2002.
"We are fighting for a bigger piece of the action, such as it is."
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 9:00:44 AM || Comments || Link || [336065 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Our fight is for a better country. We are fighting for the presidency, we’re fighting for the people, "

When have I heard that before? Oh, yeah. The last time this happened.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 9:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Maybe we let the Munroe Doctrine slide just this once.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 10:09 Comments || Top||

#3  Ok, lissen up: France, you get a free pass to send military shipping into "our hemisphere" (a la M. Monroe) for the purpose of cleaning up the Haitian mess. If you can find some.

And mainly because we just need something amusing to happen down there.
Posted by: mojo || 02/17/2004 10:20 Comments || Top||

#4  Since Haiti is a French speaking country, and because France does so love coalitions,let France lead a coalition of Francophones such as Belgium, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, Djibouti, Rwanda, to name a few.
But you they don't get to borrow the Louisana National Guard with it's Cajuns and Creoles.
No Coon Asses for the dumb Asses!
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 11:56 Comments || Top||


Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Ramzi Yousef (part 1)
Timothy McVeigh’s lawyer Stephen Jones, in his book Others Unknown: The Oklahoma City Bombing Case and Conspiracy, raised a suspicion that McVeigh’s collaborator Terry Nichols served as an intermediary to Islamic terrorist Ramzi Yousef in the Philippines. In a nutshell, Nichols and Yousef were both in the Philippines during a period from November 22, 1994, until about January 18, 1995, so maybe Yousef somehow contributed to the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995.
That'd jerk my head up if I was working the problem. It's a fairly long coincidence. But if it's not coincidence, there should be some other sort of evidence to flesh it out...
Jones wanted to develop this suspicion at McVeigh’s trial as part of a legal defense that McVeigh had been manipulated by foreign terrorists and was therefore culpable to a reduced extent. Jones was not able to present that defense to the jury, but his argument has influenced many people’s thinking about the Oklahoma City bombing. McVeigh himself disapproved of Jones’ argument and criticized it through his interviews with Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, the authors of American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing. McVeigh insisted that he, basically alone, had planned and accomplished the bombing. Nichols did help him mix the explosive materials the day before the bombing, but only reluctantly, because McVeigh had threatened Nichols and his family.
It didn't take an al-Qaeda network to put together the boom. I'd be interested in learning where McVeigh's money came from, though...
This book’s account of McVeigh’s preparations for the bombing is entirely plausible. These preparations were well underway before Nichols traveled to the Philippines and were not altered significantly after Nichols returned. Nichols' enthusiasm for McVeigh’s plan dissipated during and after the trip to the Philippines, which is why McVeigh eventually had to threaten Nichols on the eve of the bombing.
That doesn't suggest Ramzi was the controller, and probably implies he wasn't...
The book’s account is compellingly supported by the testimony of another collaborator, Michael Fortier, who was involved with McVeigh’s preparations for several months before the bombing. Michael and his wife Lori Fortier accepted plea bargains to testify fully about their own detailed knowledge of McVeigh’s preparations. The Fortiers were well informed about those preparations and were ignorant of any participation of foreign terrorists.
Another hint there might not have been any, at least not directly...
The relationship between McVeigh and Nichols during the period when Nichols traveled to the Philippines is illustrated by Nichols’ robbery of gun collector Roger Moore on November 5, 1994. Basically, McVeigh told Nichols that Nichols could make a lot of money by robbing Moore, and so Nichols robbed Moore. McVeigh explained to Michel and Herbeck that he himself had no monetary interest in the robbery but rather was interested primarily revenging Moore for various perceived insults.
Did he finance the operation using Moore's money? That implies no shadowy princes or intel agents in the background, unless the robbery was used as cover — they took $1000 from Moore, for instance, and spent $10,000...
Fortier, who later discussed the robbery with McVeigh and Nichols, explained the robbery as an arrangement in which McVeigh helped Nichols make a lot of money as a rough compensation for lodging, food and other assistance that Nichols had previously provided to McVeigh. Nichols considered the loot to be entirely his own. After Nichols returned from the Philippines and learned that McVeigh had given some of the loot to Fortier, Nichols rebuked McVeigh. McVeigh apparently accepted that rebuke as somewhat justified. When Nichols traveled to the Philippines, he might have intended to similarly profit from his association with McVeigh. At about the beginning of October, the two had burglarized a quarry business in Marion, Kansas, and stolen a large number of explosive materials, including more than 500 electric blasting caps and 80 spools of shock tube. I speculate that Nichols took some of this loot with him to the Philippines in order to sell for money and to demonstrate his resources.
I'd have been reluctant to go through customs with such things, even prior to 9-11. I wouldn't have been too happy flying with a suitcase full of blasting caps, either...
Nichols could have used his foreknowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing to establish himself as a valuable contact for terrorists he met in the Philippines. After the bombing occurred as predicted, Nichols would be able to solicit contributions and sell his own expertise and materials to those contacts. His financial future would be assured.
To be continued.
BTW, there's no link given...
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/17/2004 8:41:10 AM || Comments || Link || [336066 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In short, McVeigh did the deed, but Nichols wanted to take credit for it to boost his side-business.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 11:15 Comments || Top||

#2  i read in an Air forces monthly article just after sept 11 that McVeigh was tied up with these terrorist fuckers,i'll dig the article out but the guy saying it was an ex US intelligence guy
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 11:48 Comments || Top||

#3  Uh, does this story have a link to an article? Duh. I can't find it.
Posted by: Quana || 02/17/2004 15:56 Comments || Top||

#4  I wrote it myself.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/17/2004 16:42 Comments || Top||

#5  I remember hearing an interview by J. Diamond on a NY radio show with Jayna Davis and David Shanks.
She was a reporter who covered this story and supposedly has over 20 witnesses and over 2000 pages of supporting documents that make a middle eastern connection. She's no crank and neither is he....he was the lawyer for the Clinton impeachment hearings. This thing has legs......
Posted by: milford || 02/17/2004 18:49 Comments || Top||

#6  correction....David Shippers
Posted by: milford || 02/17/2004 18:59 Comments || Top||


Iraq oil cash funded British MPs’ campaigns
EFL - Still no coverage of this by US big media - even FOX TV
Money illicitly siphoned from the UN oil-for-food programme by Saddam Hussein was used to finance anti-sanctions campaigns run by British politicians, according to documents that have surfaced in Baghdad. Undercover cash from oil deals went to three businessmen who in turn supported pressure groups involving the ex-Labour MP George Galloway, Labour MP Tam Dalyell, and the former Irish premier Albert Reynolds, it is alleged in documents compiled by the oil ministry...
[bet Al Sharpton would have liked to have gotten in on this scam but maybe Saddam thought he was too unreliable]...
These files do not implicate Mr Galloway in personal corruption. Nor do they suggest that Mr Dalyell and Mr Reynolds, who always paid their own way, had any knowledge of what was going on......
[some people support mass murder because they are bribed, others do it on principle]
Posted by: mhw || 02/17/2004 8:19:39 AM || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Both Galloway and Dalyell are big time pinko-sleazeballs on the order of Jesse and his ilk. But Reynolds is just a typically misguided PC Irish politician but perhaps a rich one by now!
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 02/17/2004 8:26 Comments || Top||

#2  some people support mass murder because they are bribed, others do it on principle

It seems to me that most politician's principles (if you can even use those 2 words in the same sentence)go out the window when the sack of cash is big enough.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/17/2004 9:08 Comments || Top||

#3  lol i feel another e-mail to gallaways website comin on. Its a real hoot writing to them as some guy who works for slimey Gallaway always writes back trying to defend him, wonder what his defense over this will be? 'Nope nope never happened maybe?
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 11:55 Comments || Top||

#4  Actually, I heard someone mention this on Fox and Friends this morning. I think it was one of their Bagdad reporters.
Posted by: SamIII || 02/17/2004 13:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Gorgeous George has quite a reputation for taking baksheesh from foreign governments, the saga of the pro-Kashmiri paper East being a case in point
Give him credit though, if there were gold medals awarded for arse-kissing...
"Consequently I now face creditors to the tune of £141,000. Now that Parliament is back, they are literally coming through my door at Westminster demanding money. My dear Prime Minister, if these creditors are not paid they will take me to court on a winding-up petition. This level of debts cannot be quietly forgotten. Events thereafter would be disastrous for me - probably your best friend in the new Parliament - and would badly damage the reputation of Pakistan. I beg you, Sir, to please instruct the High Commission in London to honour the country's commitments. There are literally only days to spare."
I think it was Galloway who had Dundee twinned with Nablus, he certainly used to regard Abdur-Ra'uf al-Husseini (aka Yasir) as a good friend, until he found Saddam that is...
Posted by: Dave || 02/17/2004 13:59 Comments || Top||


Italian police seek huge breasted woman
If you think I’m going to make a sexist comment, think again.
Oh, hell. I'll do it for you...
Italian police are looking for a woman with huge honkers breasts who has gone on the run after failing to pay for £5,000 implants.
"What're y'gonna do? Repo 'em?"
The 46-year-old woman, who has been identified only by her initials AM, slipped out of her hospital bed following the surgery and disappeared.
Took the boobies and beat it, did she?
Doctors at the clinic in Rome say that apart from the unpaid bill they are also concerned for her health as she requires close monitoring following the surgery.
"I mean, she's gotta learn how to stand up all over again with those things!"
Dr Jamal Salhi said: "She told me that she needed the surgery because she worked in a hostess bar and that clients preferred big baby milk factories chested women. She went from a size four to a size eight which is the largest you can get in Italy. When she came to my surgery she said: "I want the biggest groodies chest possible. It has since emerged that she gave false information when she arrived at the clinic and apart from running off without paying, as with any surgery she needs to be monitored afterwards."
"Cheeze! If she tries to turn around too quick those things could snap her spine!"
Dr Salhi then revealed it was not the first time he had been the victim of a fraudster. He said: "This has happened to me several times before, the most recent was last December. A man had a penis enlargement and disappeared without paying. We still have to be paid for that operation."
"I got my revenge, though. I saw him standing on a street corner onces, so I ran over the end of it with my car."
Police spokesman Adriano Lauro said: "We have issued a warrant for the woman’s titties arrest and also one for her husband following the complaint from the clinic."
"Awright, Luigi! The jig's up! Drop the titty and put your hands in the air!"

Posted by: tipper || 02/17/2004 8:07:20 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A number of male Italian citizens have volunteered to help the Police.
Posted by: JFM || 02/17/2004 8:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Italian police are looking for a woman with huge breasts -- who works in hostess bars.

Well, at least they have a better story to tell the wife for all that overtime they'll be putting in.
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 8:40 Comments || Top||

#3  Aren't we all.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 8:51 Comments || Top||

#4  She could really use our support right now. I hope we can all stay abreast of developments in this story. If police catch her, it could be the biggest bust ever. She'll probably get jugged for this. Italian police have stated that her identifying marks include incredibly poor posture and nipples the size of Guam. If you see this woman, do not attempt to apprehend her...stick a dollar bill in her G-string and call the authorities immediately! She'll never be convicted though...after the evidence is presented, I predict a hung jury. Her lawyer will say all the evidence was implanted.

I think I've milked this subject for all it's worth.
Posted by: gromky || 02/17/2004 9:02 Comments || Top||

#5  Gromky - well done! You know she'll get off. Juries are always a bunch of boobs.
Posted by: B || 02/17/2004 9:30 Comments || Top||

#6  re: the pic

"help! I've fallen and can't get up!"
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 9:36 Comments || Top||

#7  her initails AM - Augmented Mammaries?
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 9:37 Comments || Top||

#8  They aren't breasts, they are dock fenders!
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/17/2004 10:47 Comments || Top||

#9  Underwire isn't going to do it for her. She will need joists.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 11:33 Comments || Top||

#10  Number Six. Your baloon of death has morphed.
Posted by: Lucky || 02/17/2004 12:07 Comments || Top||

#11  She will need joists

Or some sort of block-and-tackle arrangement...
Posted by: Seafarious || 02/17/2004 12:10 Comments || Top||

#12  I wonder if this will be their biggest "Bust" - budda-bump!
Posted by: Yosemite Sam || 02/17/2004 13:16 Comments || Top||

#13  The caption for the photo could be, "grunt, argh, struggle ... grrrrr One. Phew."
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 13:21 Comments || Top||

#14  Does she wait for the tide to come in and just float to her feet? Doesn't look like she has a helluva lot of other options short of a crane.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 14:40 Comments || Top||

#15  Situps might be tough for her, but for jogging she would need a neckbrace and a helmet.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 16:08 Comments || Top||

#16  "Know when to hold 'em...know when to walk away"


Someone's been listening to Kenny Rogers.
Posted by: Stephen || 02/17/2004 16:55 Comments || Top||

#17  SH: I'd pay money to watch her jog. Serious money.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 20:44 Comments || Top||


Ban on dog-eating ’racist’
Well I’m still going to have a hot dog when I want one.
A SOUTH Australian independent MP says he will oppose a bill banning the eating of dogs and cats in the state, as it plays on racist fears. Under legislation proposed by the state government, anyone caught eating a cat or a dog would be fined $1250. But independent MP Kris Hanna said there was no legitimate reason to outlaw such practices. "Apart from the principles underlying vegetarianism, there does not appear to be any justification at all for this bill," Mr Hanna said in a statement. "The force behind it is racism, it plays upon unfounded fears about people from our own cultures who have different eating habits to our own." However, he said the bill would become law regardless of his views, as it had the support of the Liberal opposition.
Posted by: tipper || 02/17/2004 8:00:38 AM || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  At least they are not having sex with them.
Posted by: Dragon Fly || 02/17/2004 8:05 Comments || Top||

#2  Vote for the sexual liberation of animals! Archaic laws against sex with animals make criminals out of honest people!
Posted by: gromky || 02/17/2004 9:03 Comments || Top||

#3  Yes! Our forefathers had this in mind when they wrote the Constitution. How farsighted they were.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 9:17 Comments || Top||

#4  leave it to this hanna man to call people racist for not eating animals. dogs and cats are not put here to be eating by a bunch of cannibals that dont lover their pets! hanna and chainey probably buddies!
Posted by: muck4doo || 02/17/2004 9:27 Comments || Top||

#5  Troll - it's CHENEY you frickin dumbass!
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 9:40 Comments || Top||

#6  I'm a bit worried about someone that "lovers" their pets.
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/17/2004 9:56 Comments || Top||

#7  "Here, Fluffy! Time for your special treat!"
Posted by: Fred || 02/17/2004 10:59 Comments || Top||

#8  My biggest concern is that often animals eat other animals; that is really insensitive to animals that are vegans.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 11:27 Comments || Top||

#9  Here is another case where racism is being charged in an eating case involving a cat. It is an update from the post of the other day when two guys fed a bad worker to the lions.

PHALABORWA, South Africa -- Police dropped murder charges Tuesday against one of four men accused of feeding a dismissed farm worker to lions at a northern game park.

Contending the alleged attack was racially motivated, hundreds of ruling African National Congress and South African Communist Party supporters protested outside court Tuesday. Riot police barricaded the road, the South African Press Association reported.


I guess tehy are saying that a lion can be racist too.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 16:06 Comments || Top||

#10  It's not racism.... it's a genetic preference. There's less fat and a zero chance of mad Englishman disease.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 17:38 Comments || Top||

#11  Ban on dog-eating ’racist’
Tipper, are wallaby-eating racists forbidden also?
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 18:03 Comments || Top||


Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
I like the Spider Hand Technique
Posted by: tipper || 02/17/2004 3:36:29 AM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Drunken temple boxing a rare technique indeed.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 7:36 Comments || Top||

#2  Drunken temple boxing a rare technique indeed.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 7:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Reagans' tax cuts.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 7:38 Comments || Top||

#4  Twin cobra rulz!
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 7:48 Comments || Top||

#5  C'mon, Fist of the West Side!
Rum representin', nowamsayin? No DOUBT.
Posted by: D-Kaff_247 || 02/17/2004 9:22 Comments || Top||

#6  very good link that one, had me in stiches
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 11:44 Comments || Top||

#7  "Everybody was Kung Fu fighting ...."
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 13:22 Comments || Top||


Abdullah, Saleh to Discuss Border Fence
EFL. Meanwhile, Hansa Luftbild is leaning on its shovels with a US$ 986 million contract in the pocket.
Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is expected in Riyadh for talks with Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, in a bid to calm tension over a Saudi border screen, Yemeni official sources said yesterday.
They’ve been arguing for over 70 years and with each treaty S.A. inches further south. This disagreement will run on a few more years.
Saleh’s talks in the Kingdom follow last week’s meetings that brought together Yemeni and Saudi border and security officials for discussions over the fence, which Yemen says is being built in a common area designated by a 2000 border treaty as a free grazing area.
See map at this link.
Yemeni officials say the barrier violates the 2000 Jeddah treaty, which stipulates that an area of 20 kilometers along the line of the border be allocated for pasturing activities from both sides of the border. However, Lt. Gen. Talal Angawi, director general of the Saudi Border Guard, said in remarks last week that the concrete-filled pipeline, was being laid inside the Saudi territory. He said the fence aimed to curb infiltration and arms smuggling operations across the borders into Saudi territory. Angawi also dismissed comparisons in some Yemeni opposition newspapers between the Saudi barrier and Israel’s barrier through the West Bank.
And the difference is

.?
“What is being constructed inside our borders with Yemen is a sort of screen ... which aims to prevent infiltration and smuggling,” Anqawi told Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News. “It does not resemble a wall in any way.”
M-W online: Wall 1 a : a high thick masonry structure forming a long rampart or an enclosure chiefly for defense 6 : something resembling a wall (as in appearance, function, or effect)
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 12:48:26 AM || Comments || Link || [336075 views] Top|| File under:

#1  OK, if it doesn't resemble a wall, what does it look like? A picket fence?
Posted by: Robert Crawford || 02/17/2004 9:57 Comments || Top||

#2  "It's not a wall ! It's a, uh, a pedestrian obstructive device. Yeah, that's what it is !"
Posted by: Carl in N.H || 02/17/2004 11:50 Comments || Top||

#3  RC: It's a concrete filled pipeline. You know, like in that Robert Frost poem - "Something there is that doesn't love a concrete-filled pipeline, that want's it down".
Posted by: SteveS || 02/17/2004 13:18 Comments || Top||

#4  Actually, most of Israel's "wall" is just a fence. The wall is only a small portion of it.
Posted by: Jackal || 02/17/2004 14:29 Comments || Top||

#5  O'er the ramparts we watch as the Arabs equiv-o-cate....

Anqawi, if it functions like a wall, then it's a wall.
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 17:28 Comments || Top||


Kadyrov wants control of anti-terrorist ops in Chechnya
According to Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov, the republic’s Interior Ministry should control the counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya. "On Thursday Moscow will host a meeting of the regional counter-terrorist operation staff and I am going to raise the issue on the transfer of control functions to the Chechen Interior Ministry," Kadyrov told a press conference in Grozny on Monday. The Chechen law enforcement bodies are all ready for counter-terrorist operations, he said. In his words, the transfer of the operative control functions will make counter-terrorism and law enforcement in the republic more efficient. At present, the counter-terrorist operation in Chechnya is controlled by the Russian Interior Ministry.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/17/2004 12:42:22 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:


Muslim Americans raising money to back Bush
The Times says Arab Americans, but somehow feels the need to toss Iranians and Pakistanis into that mold. One would hope that those so sensitive about racial diversity amongst us proles would exercise a little of it in its editing, but alas ...
Wealthy Arab-Americans and foreign-born Muslims who strongly back President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq are adding their names to the ranks of Pioneers and Rangers, the elite Bush supporters who have raised $100,000 or more for his re-election. This new crop of fund-raisers comes as some opinion polls suggest support for the president among Arab-Americans is sinking and at a time when strategists from both parties say Mr. Bush is losing ground with this group. Mr. Bush has been criticized by Arab-Americans who feel they are being singled out in the fight against terrorism and who are uneasy over the administration’s Palestinian-Israeli policies.

Yet the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the war in Iraq have been a catalyst for some wealthy Arab-Americans to become more involved in politics. And there are still others who have a more practical reason for opening their checkbooks: access to a business-friendly White House. Already, their efforts have brought them visits with the president at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., as well as White House dinners and meetings with top administration officials. The fund-raisers are people like Mori Hosseini, the Iranian-born chief executive of ICI Homes, a home builder in Daytona Beach, Fla. Mr. Hosseini is a Ranger, gaining the top designation after raising $200,000 from his family and acquaintances. (The minimum level of money raised for a Ranger is $200,000, while it takes $100,000 to be a Pioneer.)
Ummm... He's not an Arab, unless he's an Iranian Arab.
Never before has Mr. Hosseini been this active politically. But he said he was inspired by Mr. Bush’s "decisive" action, especially in Iraq, and Mr. Hosseini’s efforts have led to an invitation to a White House Christmas party and a private meeting with the president and a handful of other donors at a recent fund-raiser at Disney World. "He has saved Iraq," said Mr. Hosseini, who left Iran when he was 13. "He’s the savior, if not of Iraq, but also of the other countries around Iraq. They want freedom. I am so sure of this because I am from that part of the world."
So he can see the possibility of a free Iran, too. He didn't make all that money being stoopid, did he?
Mr. Hosseini’s enthusiasm runs counter to what some polls say is a drop in Mr. Bush’s popularity among Arab-Americans.
Maybe they need a second poll for Iranian-Americans?
In a recent release, the Arab American Institute, a nonprofit organization representing Arab-American interests in government and politics, said Mr. Bush’s support had fallen sharply since the 2000 election. A January poll conducted for the group by Zogby International, which is headed by John Zogby, a Lebanese-American, found that Mr. Bush’s approval rating among Arab-Americans had fallen to 38 percent from as high as 83 percent in October 2001.
I wonder what the support level is among specifically Iraqi-Americans?
The biggest reason for this drop-off, according to the institute’s poll, is concern over Arab-Americans’ No. 1 issue, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. To many Arab-Americans, the administration’s actions are seen as more pro-Israel than evenhanded, especially its support of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister. In addition, a program begun after 9/11 that required thousands of Arab and Muslim men to register with the immigration officials has sent chills through Arab-Americans, as has the antiterrorism law known as the USA Patriot Act, which Arab-Americans say is a threat to their civil liberties. Even so, prominent Arab-Americans have kept the money flowing. "It’s like the Catholic Church," said Mr. Zogby, whose brother, James, is president of the Arab American Institute. "The total dollars are up, but the number of donors is down." One reason may be that Arab-Americans are not a monolithic group.
I was just asking about that...
The term is used generally to refer to people from Arab countries, but they may have diverse religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds, like Lebanese and other Arab Christians or Muslims from Egypt and Pakistan. Many Arab-Americans left their countries because of political and economic oppression and are now small-business owners or entrepreneurs who say the Republican Party best represents their values.
... rather than trying to rebuild the hellholes they left here.
Fred Pezeshkan counts himself among the Republican hard core. For the past 25 years, Mr. Pezeshkan has lived in Naples, Fla., where he is president of the Krate Construction Company. He is also a first-time Ranger, having raised $200,000 for Mr. Bush. In previous years, except for voting Republican, the Iranian-born Mr. Pezeshkan was not politically active.
They keep talking about Arab-Americans and using Iranian examples...
But to Mr. Pezeshkan, the invasion of Iraq shows "a strong American interest to go to those countries in the Middle East and bring democracy, culture, education, hospitals and the things that they need."

George Salem, chairman of the Arab American Institute and a political adviser to Presidents Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush, said the younger Mr. Bush was "a more difficult sell to some segments" of the Arab-American population, especially because of the new antiterrorism law. Mr. Salem, a Washington lawyer, said Mr. Bush had two big selling points: he was the first president in recent memory to call for an independent Palestinian state, and he made two high-level Arab-American appointments, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and the director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., whose father is from Syria.

One of the largest concentrations of Arab-Americans is in Detroit, home to Yousif Ghafari, a Lebanese Christian who came to the United States in 1972 and now heads his own engineering firm.
As a Nabataean Christian, he's not really what I'd call representative of "Arabs and Muslims," either...
For years Mr. Ghafari donated to the Republican Party, but this year he stepped up the pace, raising $350,000 to become a Ranger. He said that "the 9/11 situation was a bad situation for us" but that he supported Mr. Bush for "taking the initiative" to oust Saddam Hussein and believed that Mr. Bush had the capacity to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. "The Western-educated and business-motivated know that the whole Middle Eastern region has to change," said Mr. Ghafari, who collected donations from non-Arabs as well.

One of those Mr. Ghafari tapped is Tim Attallah, a Dearborn lawyer and a first-generation Palestinian-American. Mr. Attallah, who donated $2,000, said he was having a hard time reconciling his personal beliefs with some of the Bush administration’s policies. In 1993, Mr. Attallah stood on the White House lawn as an invited guest when the Israeli-Palestinian peace accord was signed. But now, he said, he is troubled by the administration’s stance in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and is concerned about the antiterrorism law and the lack of Republican leaders campaigning for Arab-American votes. "These are tough times for us, and we have not seen our friends," Mr. Attallah said.
At least the Times managed to find an Arab...
Big donations have brought high-level access for Dr. Malik Hasan, a native of Pakistan and the former chief executive of Foundation Health Systems of Denver, one of the largest health maintenance organizations. In the past decade, Dr. Hasan has given several hundred thousand dollars to Mr. Bush and the Republican Party, including a $100,000 check to the Bush inaugural committee. This year, Dr. Hasan is a Pioneer. In the past few months he has met personally with Mr. Bush, once at a White House dinner and again at a fund-raiser in Washington. He visited with Mr. Bush at the president’s ranch, and Dr. Hasan’s wife, Seeme, has been brought into high-level meetings on Arab-American concerns.
Ummm... Paks aren't Arabs, either...
The couple say they are still fans of Mr. Bush, even though, Mrs. Hasan said, their American-born son was recently surrounded by the police and detained at an airport for no apparent reason other than his ethnic background. "As a Muslim I felt it was wonderful that Saddam Hussein was removed," Dr. Hasan said. "The rest of the Muslim countries were standing there doing nothing. Honestly, I wrote to the president and said I adored his accomplishments."
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/17/2004 12:37:11 AM || Comments || Link || [336071 views] Top|| File under:

#1  instead of becoming rangers--why don't these guys start a group "moderate muslims for reform"--or are they afraid they'll be offed by the jihadis
Posted by: SON OF TOLUI || 02/17/2004 0:54 Comments || Top||

#2  Trolls, dingbats, and antiwar are reminded that Businesses provide JOBS, not trees.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 7:46 Comments || Top||

#3  As the approval rate for President Bush fell from the highly inflated 83 percent post-Bloody Tuesday to the more recent 38 percent, how precisely did his views on the Palestinians' terror war against Israelis change? It did not. Zogby is horribly compromised and tainted. His is no longer a reliable polling outfit.
Posted by: Garrison || 02/17/2004 8:44 Comments || Top||

#4  I got news for ya Garrison: the only approval poll that means a damn thing happens in November.
Posted by: mojo || 02/17/2004 10:23 Comments || Top||

#5  ya gotta luv the NYT.

Story: Muslim Americans back Bush

Problem: Muslims are supposed to feel intimidated by the war's backlash.

NYT Solution: Put the word "wealthy" in front of Muslims and thereby dismiss them as the evil rich.

NYT Story: Teresa Heinz-Kerry money is being used to allow Kerry to circumvent campaign finance restrictions.

NYT Problem: Kerry is a member of the "evil rich".

NYT Solution: ...they're working on it.
Posted by: B || 02/17/2004 10:43 Comments || Top||

#6  I work with several Iranian engineers, and they pretty much support Bush as they feel his policies most likely will lead to an overthrow of the Mullahs. Kerry may have sealed that deal with his email to Mehrnews
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 10:59 Comments || Top||

#7  CBS poll on Bush's numbers


You appear to be illnumerate...
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 12:12 Comments || Top||

#8  Sure the NYT threw in their slant(s), but I still loved this story--it proved that not all Muslims are insane jihadis and that they actually appreciate what we're doing (via the Bush Doctrine) in the Middle East!
Let these Muslims lead their brethren both here and in their homelands into moderation, democracy and capitalism.
And may peace be upon them.
They sound like fine U.S. citizens!
Posted by: Jennie Taliaferro || 02/17/2004 12:14 Comments || Top||


IMU member was Chechen-trained
Uzbekistan’s supreme court on Monday sentenced to death a man it said was a Chechen-trained member of an Islamic group responsible for bloody raids on neighbouring Kyrgyzstan. "From May to August of 1997 he underwent special training in the Russian republic of Chechnya at military camps of the international terrorist Khattab," the spokesman said, referring to a Jordanian-born Chechen guerrilla leader with suspected links to al Qaeda who was killed in 2002. A Kyrgyz military court is due to pass judgment on Thursday on five Uzbek and Kyrgyz citizens accused of organising an IMU-sponsored explosion at a market in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek in December 2002 that killed seven people.

Russia’s FSB security service detained a leader of another banned group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, last Friday at Uzbekistan’s request, Itar-Tass news agency reported on Monday. Officials were not immediately available for comment on the Tass report. Hizb ut-Tahrir, which wants to set up a Islamic state in Central Asia, was named last week in the case of a 62-year-old Uzbek woman whose son was a member of the group. The woman, who accused prison guards of torturing her son to death, was sentenced to six years in jail on Thursday on what supporters said were trumped up charges that included fomenting racial hatred.
Posted by: Dan Darling || 02/17/2004 12:29:54 AM || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:


India, Pakistan Begin Kashmir Peace Talks
EFL to just the new event.
Nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan cited optimism and a "new momentum" in their peace talks that run through Wednesday, aimed at setting a timetable to resolve decades of conflict over Kashmir, terrorism and other issues. As the two countries back down from the brink of their fourth war in 2002, the three-day talks - their first such meetings in 2 1/2 years - are to lay the groundwork for ending a half-century of tension since their 1947 partition. "There is realization in India and Pakistan that war is not an option, that you have to look at ways to find a peaceful resolution of the outstanding disputes between the two countries," Pakistani spokesman Masood Khan said Monday after a meeting between Foreign Ministry officials of the two countries. "There’s new momentum; this momentum must be maintained," he said.
At least til the next Kashmir boom.
The two sides discussed dates for future talks, and a formal timetable was expected to be decided during meetings Tuesday and Wednesday. The future talks are to address eight issues, including Kashmir, confidence-building measures in the nuclear field, terrorism and drugs, economic cooperation and a river dispute. "I am quite optimistic over the outcome of this round of talks," Yashwant Sinha, the Indian foreign minister, said in New Delhi.
At least til the next Kashmir boom.
Jalil Abbas Jilani, a director-general in Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, and Arun Kumar Singh, a joint secretary in India’s External Affairs Ministry, shook hands and smiled before the start of the Monday meeting. The talks run through Wednesday, culminating in a face-to-face between the countries’ foreign secretaries.
At least til the next Kashmir boom.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/17/2004 12:23:39 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If the Kasmir insurgency has been bolstered by funds from international terrorism or the Afghan opium trade, it will be interesting to see whether this attempt at peace will be more successful than previous attempts.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 11:43 Comments || Top||


US House Members Pay Tribute to Iraqi Police
Members of the House Select Committee on Intelligence paid tribute Monday to the hundreds of Iraqi police killed by insurgents in suicide bombings, shootings and other attacks. The delegation, led by Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert, R-N.Y., visited Baghdad’s police academy and laid a wreath in honor of the fallen policemen. Hundreds of Iraqi police stood by as the delegation arrived under heavy security. Members shook hands with some of the officers after the ceremony. Others in the delegation included Rep. Jane Harmon, D-Calif.; Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.; Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.; and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md. Rep. John E. Sweeney, R-N.Y., was in the delegation but is not a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence.
Decent thing to do.
Jim McDermott was no doubt there with them in spirit.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/17/2004 12:19:49 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What, Baghdad Jim didn't go along with them?
Posted by: Tibor || 02/17/2004 0:35 Comments || Top||

#2  No, Tibor, "Spider Hole Sammy" wasn't available to sponsor him on this trip.8-)
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 1:11 Comments || Top||

#3  Jim wasn't interested in paying tribute to Iraqis; he liked it better when Iraqis were paying the tribute.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 11:53 Comments || Top||


Mass Migration Redraws Northern Iraq Map
In a quiet mass migration, Arabs are fleeing their villages in northern Iraq and Kurds are moving back in, reversing Saddam Hussein’s campaigns of ethnic cleansing and effectively redrawing the demographic map. At the same time, politicians in Baghdad are trying to negotiate a formula for the future of Iraq, ahead of the July 1 planned transfer of power to Iraqis and the end to the U.S.-led occupation. The United States and some Iraqi leaders are pushing for a federal system they hope will maintain the country’s unity while satisfying Kurds, who want to preserve the autonomy they have held for years in the north. That would mean eventually defining the frontiers of a Kurdish federation. And with more Kurds moving back into their ancestral lands, Kurdish leaders’ claim over a larger area in a future federal division is strengthened - raising tensions with Arabs. Amid the bitterness and suspicion, even the concept of federalism is poorly understood in a country accustomed to centralized rule from Baghdad. Many Arabs see it as code for Kurdish aspirations to split from Iraq.
And the Kurds aren’t exactly dissuading them of that view.
Saddam’s military destroyed more than 4,000 villages in a 1987-1988 campaign to crush Kurdish rebels. Since then, the regime moved Arabs into Kurdish villages. Now, as Arabs pull out, Kurds are moving back to the towns and hamlets they fled over the past decades, bringing the ethnic makeup closer to what it was before Saddam’s campaigns.
No overt violence but lots of threats.
Kurds are insisting on retaining - or expanding - the system of self-rule they enjoyed under U.S. protection after Iraq’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. Kurdish militiamen, known as peshmerga, fought alongside U.S. soldiers last year and now expect a political payoff for that support. Creating a federal system in Iraq will be messy. Some officials have spoken of using the 18 existing provinces as the basis for federal regions. Those political boundaries don’t match up with the ethnic lines, however - particularly in the complicated case of the Kirkuk region. Kurds consider oil-rich Kirkuk the heartland of a Kurdistan but it also has Arab and Turkoman populations and is not in the Kurdish autonomous region.
And the claim causes the Turks up north to suck the gas pipe.
In his attempt to keep Kirkuk province firmly in Arab hands, Saddam detached four largely Kurdish districts - out of an original seven - and attached them to the neighboring Sunni Arab provinces of Salaheddin and Diyala. Drawing the federal borders along current provincial lines would keep them out of the Kurdish-run areas. But the more Kurdish returnees come back to those districts, the stronger Kurdish leaders’ claim to them will be. Kurds regard the Hamreen Mountains as the natural borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. The range runs across the country from the Mosul area in the northwest to meet the Iranian border nearly as far south as Baghdad.
Kurdish version of Manifest Destiny?
The mood is even less compromising in the Kurdish cities, where for many activists, federalism means the first step to full independence. "Now is not the right time to call for independence," said Ferhad Pirbal, a writer and university professor in Irbil. But "federalism is the means to reaching that goal."
Scenario: Sistani pulls a fast one to get the Shi’a in charge of the "federal" government. He quietly invites the Kurds to pull out and rules everything south of the Hamreen from Najaf. Sunnis end up big losers.
Posted by: Steve White || 02/17/2004 12:17:53 AM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The only scenario I can come up with which doesn't make the Sunnis *BIG* losers is a close alliance with the US.
Posted by: phil_b || 02/17/2004 0:29 Comments || Top||

#2  Judging from the daily events in Fullujah, Tikrit and Samarra the Sunnis have a strange way of seeking an alliance. Maybe they're destined to be losers.
Then of course there's always the cleansing effect of a messy civil war.
Posted by: GK || 02/17/2004 1:02 Comments || Top||

#3  Any scenario that ends with the words sunnis and big losers in the same sentence is fine by me.
Posted by: Evert Visser || 02/17/2004 4:03 Comments || Top||

#4  Fredom loving Kurds to the North.
Cleric led Shia's to the South.
You would think the Sunnis would be trying to keep a low profile.
Do you think(maybe)the Sunnis have that cause/effect thing ass-backwards.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/17/2004 7:23 Comments || Top||

#5 
Arabs are fleeing their villages in northern Iraq and Kurds are moving back in,

Both of these migrations will snowball. The recent bombings of Kurds by Al Qaeda were really, really bad news for the now shrinking group of Arab colonists in Kurdistan.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/17/2004 8:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Kurds are insisting on retaining - or expanding - the system of self-rule they enjoyed under U.S. protection after Iraq’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. Kurdish militiamen, known as peshmerga, fought alongside U.S. soldiers last year and now expect a political payoff for that support.

Which is being overlooked in the Arab world, since it is probably the best success story in the middle east, right after Israel. NOT that there was much competition, mind you.

Kurds regard the Hamreen Mountains as the natural borders of Iraqi Kurdistan.

Natural barriers as a natural border. All of Gaza and half of the West Bank should remain Israeli for the same practical reason.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 12:00 Comments || Top||

#7  Do you think(maybe)the Sunnis have that cause/effect thing ass-backwards.

Not possible -- they're all degreed graduates of the Palestinian College of Political Science. They're simply maneuvering to miss their next opportunity...
Posted by: snellenr || 02/17/2004 12:22 Comments || Top||

#8  They're simply maneuvering to miss their next opportunity...
Praise allah, someone understands... it's not as easy as it looks.
Posted by: YesSir ImaFat || 02/17/2004 18:50 Comments || Top||


Sharon Survives Vote Over Settlements
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon survived no confidence motions Monday, even though some legislative allies abstained amid deep divisions over his plans to evacuate some Jewish settlements. With the cracks showing in his center-right coalition, Sharon appealed for a broad-based government of national consensus. The parliament voted against the three motions by 53 to 45 margins, with 22 members either abstaining or not showing up for the session. The opposition needed 61 of the 120 members of parliament to topple the government. But two of Sharon’s three coalition partners used the votes to emphasize their threat to quit if he goes ahead with his plan to evacuate almost all the settlements from the Gaza Strip and a few in the West Bank as part of his "unilateral disengagement" steps if peace talks with the Palestinians remain bogged down. "Whenever the prime minister wants to expel Jews from their land, he needs to resign," deputy Education Minister Zvi Hendel of the National Union Party told Israel TV. Hendel did not take part in the no-confidence votes as a protest against Sharon’s policies.
Good idea. Most Israelis support evacuating Gaza. Put it to a vote.
Hendel’s party and the equally pro-settlement National Religious Party say they will resign if Sharon makes a move toward evacuating settlements. That would deprive Sharon’s government of its parliamentary majority. The dovish opposition Labor Party has promised it would back Sharon if he carries out his plan to remove settlements, but that might not prevent a toppling of the government if hard-line parties pull out, leaving Sharon vulnerable on other issues. Without mentioning his dovish rivals by name, Sharon emphasized his preference for a broad-based government - one option if his present coalition collapses. "I am a great believer in the strength of national unity," Sharon said. "I call on all the members of this house ... to join in this effort that is so important to us."
"Back me or the nuts might take over!"
"National unity" is the term applied to broad ruling coalitions including Labor and Sharon’s Likud. Sharon headed a national unity coalition for 15 months before Labor pulled out over a settlement issue in November 2002, forcing an election. Meanwhile, Sharon’s pro-settlement coalition infuriated the dovish opposition by approving an additional $21 million in funding for settlements. Some communities receiving the funds are unauthorized settler outposts. Sharon has vowed to dismantle the outposts to comply with the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan, which starts with a halt to three years of violence and leads to a Palestinian state by 2005.
One step forward, one step back.
The opposition harshly criticized the allocations, noting that none of the funds were going to communities inside Israel proper and complaining that some of the settlements are due for dismantling under Sharon’s plan. Meanwhile, German foreign minister Joschka Fischer on Monday welcomed Sharon’s proposal to dismantle most settlements, but he urged Israel to make "substantive" changes to the route of the West Bank barrier. Speaking at a conference on Israel’s relations with the European Union, Fischer said the EU objected to the international court considering the legality of the barrier. He said Israel has the right to protect its citizens from attacks.
So even the EU doesn’t back the court, eh? Wonder if it’ll make any difference ... naaah!
Posted by: Steve White || 02/17/2004 12:09:54 AM || Comments || Link || [336070 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gotta move those settlements before the wall is finished.
Posted by: D-Kaff_247 || 02/17/2004 9:41 Comments || Top||

#2  It would be interesting to see - note this is one of my very few serious ideas - the Arab League take over the job of policing the West Bank and Gaza Strip after the Israelis disengage.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 13:15 Comments || Top||


Kite deaths mar Pakistan festival
Now I feel bad for laughing at the Anti-Kite Flying Democratic Front
Up to nine people have been killed and dozens injured during an annual kite-flying festival called Basant in the Pakistani city of Lahore. Three people were electrocuted when banned metal wires they were using to fly kites - or catch stray ones - fell onto electric power lines. A young girl’s throat was slit by a stray metal kite string stretched across a road, witnesses said. At least two more people fell from roofs during the spring festival. Two men were also reportedly killed when they were hit by cars while trying to catch stray kites. Despite a ban on firing guns, several people were injured by stray bullets. Officials at a Lahore hospital said 42 children and 60 adults had been treated for kite-related injuries, the AFP news agency reported. Each year the festival spells tragedy for many families, the BBC’s Paul Anderson in Pakistan says. It has become a highly competitive event in which people employ extraordinary skills to bring down - better still, capture - an opponent’s kite. Sometimes they use string coated in pulverized glass to cut an opponent’s kite; other times metal wire - which is often coated in corrosive chemicals, our correspondent says.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/17/2004 12:09:46 AM || Comments || Link || [336067 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I still can't agree with the Kite Killing Democratic Front. I had too much fun flying them as a kid. I agree that metal wires should be banned, but a string coated in pulverized glass to cut an opponent’s kite isn't that bad. Here's an idea -- what about imposing responsiblity on kite flyers for their actions? Like, also, maybe imposing responsibility on people for firing guns into the air? Is the US the only country that demands personal accountability?
Posted by: cingold || 02/17/2004 7:07 Comments || Top||

#2  Daayum,that be some serious kite-flyin.
Posted by: Raptor || 02/17/2004 7:20 Comments || Top||

#3  Time to build Whispering Death the US brand stealth kite.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 7:43 Comments || Top||

#4  What to make of a group of people who have a knack for even turning something as lovely as kite flying into TERRORISM, tribal and ethnic conflict, bloody carnage and mayhem.
Posted by: Garrison || 02/17/2004 8:50 Comments || Top||

#5  No matter what passtime these clowns take up, they find a way to add danger to endeavor. I imagine the Pakistani kids must sharpen their Tiddly Winks to a razor's edge also.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 11:46 Comments || Top||

#6  jesus these fuckers can't even have fun without maiming and killing each other. These people need to grow brains badly
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 11:57 Comments || Top||

#7  It's the turbans. They're way too tight. I guess the Prophet wore his that way...
Posted by: Fred || 02/17/2004 12:03 Comments || Top||

#8  THE US IS THE ONLY COUNTRY THAT DEMANDS PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILIT? I'M FAT SO IT'S MCDONALD'S FAULT, I HAVE CANCER FROM SMOKING FOR 30 YEARS SO IT'S THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY'S FAULT, I'M AN ALCHOHOLIC SO IT'S THE DISTILLER'S FAULT, I KILLED MY NEIGHBOR WITH A HAND GUN SO IT'S THE FIREARM'S MANUFACTURER'S FAULT. THE LIST GOES ON. WE ARE ALL VICTIMS.
Posted by: DEACON BLUES || 02/17/2004 12:17 Comments || Top||

#9  Um....Your point is? Also your Caps Lock is stuck. There is no need to shout.
Posted by: whitecollar redneck || 02/17/2004 12:57 Comments || Top||

#10  The guys at Whammo Corporation are probably developing a business plan for unloading all the Jarts - lawn darts - that became illegal to sell in the late 70's.

I bet ACME Corporation will soon open up a Lahore office as well. :-}
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 12:59 Comments || Top||

#11  what the fuck is this Deacon blues fella on about and what the fucks it gotta do with paki's flying deadly kites? Please tell us deacon otherwise were left thinking your some kinda fuck wit.
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 13:00 Comments || Top||

#12  SH I once tried to interest the Whammo Corp. in my almost pantented SABOT blow gun. This was a few years after the Jarts fiasco... the corporate lawyers took one look at my design and told me to get lost yesterday.
True Story.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 13:06 Comments || Top||

#13  Jon--Deacon's commenting on cingold's comment(#1), and he's got a point. There are fewer and fewer people in the US willing to take accountability for their actions. Any moron who decides to use a power tool as a suppository then sues the manufacturer for not putting a label "Do Not Use as a Suppository" on the product and has a good chance of winning thanks to those soak-the-rich juries and trial lawyers.

Ever looked at an old Coleman lantern next to a new one? The new one is covered with stupid warnings ("Lantern gets hot"--no sh-t!). It's a wonder we didn't kill ourselves camping back in the 70's!
Posted by: Dar || 02/17/2004 13:10 Comments || Top||

#14  Shipman, how 'bout the ACME Rocket Pogo-Stick?
Posted by: Sparks || 02/17/2004 14:59 Comments || Top||

#15  How long before they start mounting AK47s on those kites??
BTW, like Dar said, Deacon has a good point.
Posted by: Rafael || 02/17/2004 15:37 Comments || Top||

#16  For real Sparks? I remember a gas operated one...
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 15:39 Comments || Top||

#17  Thanks, Dar. I realized my comments had little to do with Pakistani kite flying. The point I was trying to make is exactly what you said. It is a reality that more and more we are being told and even encourged to belive that we are not responsable for what we do. Common sense is almost a thing of the past. "We are all victims." Opus from Bloome County.
Posted by: DEACON BLUES || 02/17/2004 16:10 Comments || Top||

#18  Sorry Shipman, the Rocket Pogo-Stick prototype was destroyed during user testing. Condolences to Mr. W.E. Coyote (Genius).
Posted by: Sparks || 02/17/2004 16:55 Comments || Top||

#19  Re the warning labels on the Coleman lanterns. There was a woman in my office that actually tried to iron the wrinkles out of her polyester dress during work. The dress of course melted on her legs and burned the hell out of here. After the squad evac'd her, I checked out the box the iron was in. Yep, it said "Not for use on clothes while on your person". That must have confused her. BTW - she had an MBA from Syracuse.

I'm sure that most of us have heard in one of our leadership or management classes something like "Winners always find a way to win". The equally true collorary is "Losers always find a way to lose".

I think that applies to our friends with the kites. Darwin calling. . .

Posted by: Doc8404 || 02/17/2004 16:59 Comments || Top||

#20  If some bastard cut my string, I'd nail the bastard in the throat with a lawn dart. I always keep one on my person - it's one of the few lethal weapons not on the TSA list of prohibitted items.

Shipman, I also modified it with a special styrafoam disk about four inches in diameter mounted about two inches down the shafte from the highly sharpened point - just in case I need to block the airway of large predatory sea mammal. Shamu thinks he is stalking me, but sometimes the hunted becomes the hunter.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 20:50 Comments || Top||

#21  Sparks: That's (Super Genius) to you, bub.
Posted by: W.E. Coyote || 02/17/2004 21:15 Comments || Top||


Scared Dawood gets new face surgically?
Dawood Ibrahim, who is reportedly living in the VIP area of Islamabad under heavy security comparable to senior most generals and ISI chief, has been undergoing plastic surgery to alter his looks ever since October last year when the US declared that he was linked to the money-laundering of Al-Qaeda funds, according to Pak sources based in London. The US Treasury Department has found that he was funnelling funds for Al-Qaeda, Taliban and other terrorist organisations including Lashkar-e-Taiba. It also found that Dawood had struck a deal with Osama bin Laden to use his wide network to acquire funds from various charitable organisations. The Treasury Department with the approval of the UN declared Dawood, in mid-October last year as a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist".
Every once in awhile, I get the feeling that when this is all over we're gonna find out the really, truly criminal mastermind behind all of Islamism is actually Dawood Ibrahim, the current alias of Ernst Stavro Blofeld. I also expect to discover that he doesn't give a fig about Islam, that he was in it for the money and babes.
"Just like in the case of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, most in authority in Islamabad thus cannot afford to let Dawood out of the country and made to talk. He has surely been used by the ISI in Afghanistan or has at least enjoyed its benevolence." According to reports he was last seen quite a few months ago at a wedding but since then he has not been spotted in public. But, according to recent reports Dawood has been more worried for his safety since the start last November of investigations into Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan’s selling of nuclear weapons technology and his nexus with the underworld for acquiring N-material and laundering his ill-gotten wealth.
I wonder what Dawood's connection is with BSA Tahir?
"The report that Dr Khan was in critical condition after a sudden heart attack or even the amended report that he was in very bad health must have made the ever suspicious Dawood even more concerned." There is one report that like Dr Khan who possibly sent out of Pakistan through his daughter Dina, documents and a taped statement incriminating General including President Musharraf in his proliferation activities to ensure his own safety, Dawood has done the same. He has kept papers with his trusted men outside Pakistan.
"So you see, Professor, as soon as anything happens to me those letters go directly to the police. It would be in your interests to ensure I remain well and happy, wouldn't it?"
The name of Dawood has not so far been mentioned as one of the underworld links of Dr Khan but the fact that Dubai was the main channel for leaking the N-technology and for sending out and receiving material surfaced quite early in the investigations about Dr Khan’s activities. Dawood’s network in Dubai is well-known and it is now being said that his set-up with its wide-reach and large number of trusted operatives "came in handy" for the surreptitious proliferation and money-laundering. Dawood was, it is alleged, part of the group of people linked with Dr Khan’s proliferation and money-laundering activities.
Doesn't surprise me in the least. See above... No, not there. Further up.
It included one known as Bullion king, a major player in the Pak Stock Exchange, a big gold dealer in Dubai and two army officers, a colonel and a major, both of whom were conduits for transfer of N-technology to Libya.
They forgot the Albino. And the Bullion King's beautiful daughter, who wants to leave the life of crime...

I've decided, when the war on terror is all over, I'm going to write a book about it. It's going to be a bad novel. I think I'll title it "Out of Stock" just to cheeze off Amazon.com.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/17/2004 12:04:01 AM || Comments || Link || [336073 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hey, it worked for Farrah Fawcett...she's totally unrecognizable after her most recent plastic surgery.
Posted by: gromky || 02/17/2004 2:12 Comments || Top||

#2  Why did she do that to her nose?
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 7:45 Comments || Top||

#3  Looks like she's entering her Norma Desmond Phase.
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 9:51 Comments || Top||

#4  Tu-
Get out your copy of 'Sunset Boulevard'- she DOES look like Gloria Swanson.

"...I'm ready for my closeup now, Charlie..."

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/17/2004 10:28 Comments || Top||

#5  #1 gromky---Farrah's nose looks like the nose protector on Eomer's helmet in The Two Towers. What ever happened to aging gracefully? That is grotesque.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/17/2004 11:01 Comments || Top||

#6  "Is that Farrah Fawcett? Damn! She looks like Gloria Swanson!"
"Ummm... Nope. See the turban? That Dawood Ibrahim!"
Posted by: Fred || 02/17/2004 11:04 Comments || Top||

#7  I heard that Ryan O'neill busted her nose two or three times as well as her having a fondness for obscene quantities of Peruvian marching powder. I guess the surgeon salvaged what was left. I'd sue him anyway if I were her.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/17/2004 11:27 Comments || Top||

#8  Looks like she plowed into a door or something...
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 11:50 Comments || Top||

#9  Looks like she's entering her Norma Desmond Phase. TU, I was thinking that she should have ditched the number for Michael Jackson's plastic surgeon. I hope this fad stops immediately.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 13:02 Comments || Top||

#10  Speaking as a former 13 year old....
This is wrong just plain wrong on so many levels.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 18:36 Comments || Top||

#11  Shipman, its time to take the poster down, buddy. Just subscribe to Sports Illustrated; it will be allright.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 20:53 Comments || Top||


N Korean leader threatens US during birthday celebrations
North Korea has marked the birthday of the country's leader, Kim Jong Il, with fresh threats to destroy the United States.
Hmmm... Should I still send a card?
Kim Jong Il is celebrating his 62nd birthday and the event is one of the communist country's biggest holidays. According to the official Korean Central News Agency, people in more than 50 countries are also celebrating, or in its words, "greeting the sun of the 21st century". In a speech, a senior party official declared that if the US begins a war with North Korea, the US will be mercilessly destroyed by the North Korean military.
"Yar! Gonna wipe 'em out, 'at's what we're gonna do, by Gar! Soon's they send us some groceries..."
Next week, six nations including the US and North Korea will meet to discuss ways of resolving the crisis surrounding Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/17/2004 22:30 || Comments || Link || [336064 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Soon's they send us some groceries..."

Dang, Monday's trash pick-up day on our block, and I left the lawn clippings out ...
Posted by: Steve White || 02/17/2004 0:02 Comments || Top||

#2  The way to resolve the problem is to get the Chinese to put Kimmy back on the leash. The easiest way to do that would be to whisper to the Chicoms that the US is so concerned with Japan's safety that we've decided to start stationing ICBM's there.
I'd wager that would twist a lot of knickers.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 02/17/2004 8:04 Comments || Top||

#3  Soon's they send us some groceries..."

Any bets that the party was with U.S. grown food?

Is it me? Or does anyone else think it is just plain stupid to send groceries to a nation so bent on our destruction?
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/17/2004 9:02 Comments || Top||

#4  The one thing that really burns me up is that I have to share my birthday with 'Dear leader.' If someone is looking for a birthday present (belated) you can make sure I don't have to share this day with him anymore!
Posted by: Cyber Sarge (VRWC CA Chapter) || 02/17/2004 10:34 Comments || Top||

#5  Did anybody get him with the trick candle gag? I hear that all tyrannical despots have a good sense of humor. They say that Idi Amin was a real cut-up.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 11:56 Comments || Top||

#6  fuckin Kimmie wuldn't be laughing if he realised what America could do to his shitty little country. Wonder if any Ohio class subs are lurking near Kimmies coastline...
Posted by: Jon Shep U.K || 02/17/2004 12:00 Comments || Top||

#7  They have to be near Jon.
;)
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 13:11 Comments || Top||

#8  Jeez.... make that they don't have to be near...
Posted by: Shipman || 02/17/2004 13:14 Comments || Top||

#9  Tonight on "North Korea's Funniest Home Videos":
On his birthday, someone sends the Dear Leader a floral baskets with a little surprise. It squirts water on him when he bends down to sniff it!... which causes that cutup Kimmie to have the sender's entire town burnt to the ground! Immediately following "CSI: Pyongyang", tonight at 8 on the NKWB...
Posted by: tu3031 || 02/17/2004 15:21 Comments || Top||

#10  Uh, Kim, would you like to celebrate your 63rd birthday??? Then STFU...
Posted by: Old Patriot || 02/17/2004 17:31 Comments || Top||

#11  Can somebody kill this bastard.
please.
Posted by: djohn66 || 02/17/2004 18:28 Comments || Top||

#12  I'm also waiting for the translation of Chavez's State of the Union Address - he could do standup.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 21:22 Comments || Top||


Khatami appeals for Iranians to vote
Reformist President Muhammad Khatami has urged Iranians to turn out and vote in parliamentary elections this week to prevent hardliners from winning.
"Please vote. If you don't, they're gonna kill me!"
"What has happened has satisfied some and angered many others, but this anger should not push people not to take part in the elections," the embattled president said on Monday in a statement carried by the official news agency IRNA. "Many people have the feeling that in many constituencies, they cannot vote for their preferred candidate. But with a little tolerance, they can search to find those candidates who are closest to their views," Khatami wrote. "Even if they cannot send the person they want to the Majlis, they can prevent those they do not want from entering," he added.
"Though, actually, they'll just go anyway. I mean, Rafsanjani lost the election before, so the mullahs put him in charge anyway. It'll prob'ly happen this time, too."
In a clear reference to religious hardliners, he warned that "non-participation in elections would allow a minority to take control of the destiny of the country."
"They've already got it, of course. But they won't be hiding it anymore, not even as little as they have been."
"Nobody can force our people from adhering to a point of view they do not believe in, but at the same time one cannot not participate in the elections ... even if the people, the candidates and the deputies have been mistreated." He called on voters to "choose the best possible candidate", but admitted he was "writing with a heavy heart".
"It's kinda like a coup, only they haven't shot us. Yet."
"We must fight with all our strength to defend religious democracy," said the president. Iran's conservatives are expected to oust reformists from the parliament after a hardline political watchdog, the Guardians Council, disqualified some 2300 candidates from even standing. Most on the blacklist are reformists. The reformist camp behind Khatami is now in disarray, with the main party led by the president's brother boycotting the polls and the remaining moderate groups only able to contest around 200 of the 290 seats up for grabs on Friday.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/17/2004 22:30 || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  What a chickenshit. It's a good thing that the US government has not involved itself with him.
Posted by: Mike Sylwester || 02/17/2004 7:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Psssst... Hey Iran... about them ayatollahs...
The make a lot less noise with their throats cut.
Posted by: mojo || 02/17/2004 10:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Yeah, youse guys needs to get out and vote 'cause otherwise the whole election thing just looks like a farce. Sure we gots a Supreme Leader and those old farts on the Guardian's Council what actually runs the country. But that don't mean we can't at least pretend we gots a democracy.

Help me out here. Do you want people thinking the whole election is rigged?
Posted by: SteveS || 02/17/2004 13:01 Comments || Top||

#4  Somebody clue the Iranians in about the old "write-in Mickey Mouse," protest vote. Its always good for a few laughs and it looks like you're actually voting so the secret police stay off your butt. If they figure out a way to track you down, just give them the old "butterfly ballot" excuse.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 13:10 Comments || Top||

#5  The "moderate reformists" just don't get it.They should be doing all they can to show just what a farce the election is,including telling voters they have the right not to vote.Posters should be plastered all over walls w/photos of members of Parliament who are not allowed to run w/muullah's weak excuse of member not being qualified.Then when the mullahs claim a high turnout,the mullahs will be discredited even more,putting more pressure on them.
Posted by: Stephen || 02/17/2004 16:51 Comments || Top||


Iran’s Reform Movement Will Go on: Karoubi
A top Iranian reformist vowed yesterday his embattled movement’s effort to democratize the Islamic republic would go on after Friday’s elections, even though moderates are poised to lose polls he said had been rigged by conservatives. “We consider these elections to be unfair, but have decided to take part because our participation is more productive than our absence,” said parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karoubi, an Islamic scholar close to embattled President Mohammad Karensky Khatami. “The rights of a lot of people have been trampled on, but this means we should modify the electoral law,” asserted the Majlis speaker at a press conference.
But since you can't modify the electoral law without the approval of the people abusing it, you're up the creek.
Karoubi’s Association of Combatant Clerics is one of the few reformist parties that has chosen to take part in the polls, although on Sunday the spokesman for the reformist coalition it has joined conceded there was no chance of heading off a conservative victory. The main reformist parties are boycotting the elections after a conservative-run political vetting body, the Guardian Council, barred some 2,300 people — most of them reformists — from even standing. They are the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), which is headed by the brother of the president, Mohammad Reza Khatami, and the Organization of Mujahedeen of the Islamic Revolution (OMIR), on the left of the reform camp.
Just glancing at the nomenclature, I can see why the support isn't what you'd call overwhelming...
The Association of Combatant Clerics is taking part under the banner “Coalition for Iran”, a grouping of the few reformers approved to stand and some independents. Their spokesman on Sunday said that winning just a handful of seats in the 290-seat Majlis would represent a victory. Karoubi said those boycotting the polls “have the right not to take part, but should not campaign for a mass abstention.”
"If they do, the mullahs might have me bumped off..."
“If we get or do not get votes, we will continue our activities. The future of reforms depends on the people, and they will continue through different means,” added the scholar, seen as a pillar of the Islamic regime. Karoubi also stood by the president, under fire for failing to deliver on his promise to shake up the way Iran is ruled and widely criticized for being too weak in the face of opposition from entrenched hard-liners in the judiciary and political oversight bodies. Campaigning has far been a lackluster affair marked by widespread apathy, and turnout is expected to be low, despite calls from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for mass participation.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/17/2004 22:30 || Comments || Link || [336075 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Campaigning has far been a lackluster affair marked by widespread apathy, and turnout is expected to be low, despite calls from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for mass participation.

Staying away is their only way to protest Ali's dictatorship.
Posted by: Ptah || 02/17/2004 11:54 Comments || Top||


JUI leader shot dead
A Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) leader from the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) party was shot dead by unknown men in Fareed Town Scheme III in Sahiwal on Sunday. Family members said that Rana Sultan Ahmed, member of the JUI provincial council and a seasoned lawyer, was shot dead by unknown killers when he opened the door of his house to answer the doorbell. Mr Ahmed’s family termed the killing terrorism because they said that Mr Ahmed was popular in the area and had no enemies. “We are investigating the incident from all aspects and it would be premature to say anything about it. However the possibility of an enmity cannot be ruled out,” said Malik Khuda Bakhsh Awan, District Police Officer (DPO) of Sahiwal. DPO Awan said that two police teams were investigating the murder and Mr Ahmed’s killers would be arrested within 24 hours.
"Mahmoud! It's a dead lawyer with a turban. Who we gonna question?"
"Uhhh... Chief? Is it okay if I take my vacation starting tomorrow?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/17/2004 22:30 || Comments || Link || [336072 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "a seasoned lawyer..was popular in the area and had no enemies"???

riigghhhttt
Posted by: Frank G || 02/17/2004 11:12 Comments || Top||

#2  A seasoned lawyer? Did they marinate him first, or just rub him thoroughly with coarse salt and cracked red pepper?

^_^

Ed.
Posted by: Ed Becerra || 02/17/2004 15:33 Comments || Top||


Five tribesmen handed over to political admin
A Wazir sub-tribe handed over on Monday five wanted men to the South Waziristan Agency political administration. The five men are Gulistan, Abdul Ghafar, Kastoor, Shahmeer and Akbar Khan, all from the Khojakhel sub-tribe, administration sources said. “These men were wanted by the administration in connection with links to Al Qaeda,” they said. The administration might declare the Khojakhel sub-tribe ‘cooperative” for bowing to the administration’s demand to surrender all the wanted men belonging to this tribe. The administration issued a list of 129 wanted men last year after the Khojakhels supported “undesirable” elements referred to as Al Qaeda and Taliban.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/17/2004 22:30 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:


Afghanistan/South Asia
Cracks in MMA widen as JUI-S looks for allies
Breaks in the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) ranks in Mansehra district were visible recently, as Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Sami (JUI-S) leaders has got closer to NWFP opposition leader Shahzada Mohammad Gustasap Khan. MMA Mansehra district Ameer and JUI-S spokesman Maulana Qazi Rafiqur Rehman Qamar on Monday told journalists that the unnecessary delay in enforcing Sharia law in the NWFP, the MMA leadership’s policy of sidelining the alliance’s smaller component parties and holding the provincial government hostage by non-elected people had compelled the JUI-S to contact like minded parties and groups to chalk out a future strategy.
"Sami's ego's outgrown the MMA, y'see..."
He said Senator Maulana Samiul Haq, National Assembly Deputy Speaker Sardar Mohammad Yaqoob, NWFP Deputy Speaker Ikramullah Shahid, Shahzada Mohammad Gustasap Khan and MMA National Assembly member from Karachi, Maulana Qari Gul Rehman Hazarvi, would reach Mansehra on February 22. He said the leaders would meet to plan strategy and a number of disgruntled JUI-F NWFP Assembly members were likely to join them. Maulana Samiul Haq would brief the meeting about the basic objectives behind the Pak-Afghan Defence Council, Milli Yakjehti Council and MMA’s formation and would give reasons for parting ways with the six-party religious alliance.
Pak-Afghan Defense Council organized the riots when we attacked Afghanistan. It was a larger, more loosely linked version of the MMA, which spun off from it.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/17/2004 22:30 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Milli Yakjehti Council was an attempt to get all the Mullahs, Ayatollahs and others from the differenct sects of Islam to come together and stop killing each other. It wasn't very succesfful.
Posted by: Paul Moloney || 02/17/2004 0:06 Comments || Top||


Court rejects bail pleas of JUI-F leaders
A Batgram District and Sessions Court on Monday rejected the bail applications of three Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazlur Rehman (JUI-F) leaders accused of demolishing a Jamiat Ahle Hadith (JAH) mosque and desecrating copies of the Holy Quran.
Oh, horrors! Oh, hold me, Fatimah!
Police arrested the JUI-F leaders from the court premises soon after the judge rejected the bail applications. After hearing the arguments of counsels from both parties, Judge Syed Qabool Shah denied bail to Maulana Najmuddin, Maulana Khurshid Ahmad and Khalil Ahmad. The court confirmed the bail for three other JUI-F leaders, Maulana Sultan Mahmood, Maulana Abdullah and Maulana Fariduddin. As many as 1,500 JUI-F workers protested outside the courtroom and chanted slogans. Later, they brought a protest rally led by Haji Tehmas Khan that ended peacefully on Mansehra road. Law-enforcement agencies tightened security in Batgram.
I dunno why, but I love it when they demolish each other's mosques.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/17/2004 22:30 || Comments || Link || [336068 views] Top|| File under:


3 injured in Gilgit Imambargah blast
A bomb exploded at an Imambargah in Gilgit, injuring three people on Monday.
That's a Shiite mosque, of course...
Police said the injured were taken to the Gilgit District Headquarters hospital. One of the injured had an arm blown off in the blast. The homemade device also damaged the Imambargah building situated in Nagaral town at the Shaheed Millat Road. A local resident, Iqbal Hussain, told Daily Times that the low-intensity device was packed in a pickle jar inside the Imambargah. He said they were set to perform Isha prayers when a namazi smelled a foul odour. He said he threw the jar outside the Imambargah and lost his arm when the device exploded.
[Sniff! Sniff!] "What the hell is that odor?"
"That's Granny's special pickles. They're for the mosque social."
"The smell's makin' the goat sick. I'm throwin' 'em out!"
"Well, don't blame me if it blows your arm off!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/17/2004 22:29 || Comments || Link || [336069 views] Top|| File under:

#1  If you loose your arm saving the mosque, do you get a free upgrade to Imam?
Posted by: Steve || 02/17/2004 8:34 Comments || Top||

#2  ...packed in a pickle jar inside the Imambargah. He said they were set to perform Isha prayers when a namazi smelled a foul odour. Actually, Steve, I think Iman is an improper title for a partial martyr. I think the proper title is relish.
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 13:06 Comments || Top||

#3  Is this another Karosined Cucumbers thread?
Posted by: O. Taylor (gourmet) || 02/17/2004 15:44 Comments || Top||

#4  Are these Vlassic? They seem a little heavy on the pimentos. Matter of fact that pimento looks like it has a fingernail on it. Is that kosher?
Posted by: Super Hose || 02/17/2004 21:03 Comments || Top||



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Tue 2004-02-17
  Haiti uprising spreads
Mon 2004-02-16
  A.Q. Khan heart attack. Wotta surprise.
Sun 2004-02-15
  #41 snagged... Ten to go
Sat 2004-02-14
  21 Killed, 35 Injured in Falluja Gunbattle
Fri 2004-02-13
  Yandarbiyev boomed in Qatar
Thu 2004-02-12
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Wed 2004-02-11
  Another 50 killed in Iraq car boom
Tue 2004-02-10
  Car Bomb At Iraq Cop Shop, 50 Dead
Mon 2004-02-09
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Sun 2004-02-08
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Sat 2004-02-07
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Fri 2004-02-06
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  Ricin in the mail

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