Heads Up, Border Patrol!
WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans and Democrats closed in on a last-minute compromise Thursday on legislation opening the way to legal status and eventual citizenship for many of the 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally.
President Bush praised the lawmakers' efforts, noting the details were unfinished, and encouraged them "to work hard and get the bill done." Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said he had been assured the president supports the emerging measure. I'm telling you, Bush is losing me more and more every day.
As outlined, it would provide for enhanced border security, regulate the future flow of immigrants into the United States and offer legalized status to the millions of men, women and children in the country unlawfully. "Unlawfully"? That's a new one. "Illegally" too...yucky?
"We've had a huge breakthrough" overnight, said Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, agreed, but cautioned that the agreement had not yet been sealed. More "Profiles in Courage"...
Even so, the presence of both leaders at a celebratory news conference underlined the expectation that the Senate could pass the most sweeping immigration bill in two decades, and act before leaving on a long vacation at the end of the week. So you know it'll be a done deal by then.
The developments marked a turnaround from Wednesday, when it appeared negotiations had faltered. The key sticking point involved the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, and the struggle to provide them an opportunity to gain legal status without exposing lawmakers to the political charge that they were advocating amnesty for lawbreakers. Which...they are.
While final details were not available, in general, the compromise would require illegal immigrants who have been in the United States between two years and five years to return to their home country briefly, then re-enter as temporary workers. They could then begin a process of seeking citizenship.
Illegal immigrants here longer than five years would not be required to return home; those in the country less than two years would be required to leave without assurances of returning, and take their place in line with others seeking entry papers. Let's see, 11 million illegals in the country, and since they're "undocumented", I will guess that...11 million of them have been here longer then five years. And they'll all of a sudden have the "documents" to prove it. There'll be forgers who can retire by the time this is all over.
Standing before television cameras after an appearance Thursday in Charlotte, N.C., Bush said he was pleased that Republicans and Democrats were working together. "I appreciate their understanding that this needs to be a comprehensive immigration bill," the president said. "I recognize that there are still details that need to be worked out. I would encourage the members to work hard to get the bill done prior to the upcoming break." ...more and more, every day.
Not everyone was satisfied.
"I'm not impressed," said Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, who has criticized earlier versions of the measure as too lenient on lawbreakers. Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona joined him in criticizing the measure, as did Georgia Republicans Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson.
Beyond the illegal immigrants, there were other thorny issues to be clarified. Senate leaders had yet to publicly unveil draft legislation to make sure that only legal workers were hired in the future, for example. Yep, when we're back from vacation. We'll get right on that. We'll include it in the new immigration bill in about 4 or 5 years when we'll need another one.
Nor was it clear what type of assurances, if any, Democrats had received from the White House and Republicans about compromise talks with the Republican-controlled House later this year. The House has approved legislation limited to border security, and while GOP leaders have signaled support for a broader measure, Democrats have expressed concern in recent days that they will be pressured to make unacceptable additional concessions to achieve a final compromise. Maybe they'd be happy if we put carpool lanes through the "wall"?
The breakthrough occurred overnight, after Frist had unveiled a revised Republican proposal that he credited to Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Mel Martinez of Florida. Officials said McCain and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who have long been trying to show the way toward bipartisan agreement on the issue, spoke by phone several times to review potential changes.
"Our plan is tough and fair, and I'm encouraged that the President now supports it," said Kennedy in a statement. "The American people have made their voices heard in their churches, in their schools and in the streets and the Senate has listened," he added, referring to the large rallies in recent weeks by protesters calling for rights for immigrants. Well, Ted, if this has your seal of approval, it must be total bullshit. That's one of my "control factors".
The closed-door negotiations proceeded as the Senate moved toward a test vote on an earlier, Democratic version of immigration legislation. Democrats needed 60 votes to prevail, and as expected, they fell far short. The attempt gained only 39 votes, while 60 senators were opposed.
In an ironic juxtaposition, the vote unfolded at the same time Frist, Reid and more than a dozen other senators were celebrating the breakthrough at the news conference.
"While it admittedly is not perfect, the choice we have to make is whether it is better than no bill, and the choice is decisive," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The issue has exposed divisions within both political parties and already left an imprint on the midterm election campaigns for control of Congress.
Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles provided evidence of the emotion it has generated from 3,000 miles away when he urged Catholics to pray for passage of legislation allowing illegal immigrants to gain citizenship. The debate marks "one of the most critical weeks in the history of our country," he said. ...and another "Great Moment in Catholicism".
lovely. So much for their vaunted neutrality and moral superiority
Sweden helped the Nazis stop Germans and Jews marrying and suppressed criticism of Hitler and reports of atrocities, according to new research suggesting neutral Sweden accommodated the Nazis more than previously thought.
"We are finding new areas of collaboration which we didn't know about," said Stockholm University historian Klas Amark, who coordinated the research commissioned by Prime Minister Goran Persson in 2000 in connection with a Holocaust conference.
The series of studies released yesterday into Sweden's Nazi links shows it did not just avoid invasion by selling iron ore to Adolf Hitler and letting his troops through to invade Norway. Swedish pastors stopped marriages between "Aryan" Germans and Swedish Jews for violating the Nuremberg laws promoting Aryanism. This was done on the advice of the foreign ministry.
"From 1937, Swedes wanting to marry Germans of so-called Aryan blood had to give assurance that none of their grandparents belonged to the Jewish race," reads a study on Sweden's church by Anders Jarlert of Lund University.
Newspapers gagged criticism of Hitler, of the occupation of Norway or the murder of millions of Jews in concentration camps, while cultural links between the Nazis and Sweden flourished.
"The government and authorities did what they thought was necessary to keep peace but I think they did more than was necessary," Amark told Reuters in an interview. There was not much rationale for a German attack as Germany got what it wanted from Sweden," he said. It was easier to buy iron ore from Sweden than invade and risk it sabotaging iron mines.
He blamed Sweden's attitude to Hitler on the ruling class's links with Germany and on anti-Semitism that meant Sweden had - and still has today - its own small National Socialist party.
An Iraqi-born U.S. citizen suspected of being a foreign intelligence agent was employed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to rule on asylum applications, including those from unfriendly Middle Eastern nations, according to documents obtained from Congress by The Washington Times. Michael J. Maxwell, the former head of the Office of Security and Investigations at USCIS, is expected to testify about the Iraqi case and other breakdowns at the agency to a House subcommittee today. Mr. Maxwell will tell legislators that the immigration system is being used by enemy governments to place agents in the United States.
Well, isn't that special
The suspected agent, whose name has not been released, judged 180 asylum applications while at USCIS, the agency that also rules on green cards, citizenship and employment authorization. A database check during Mr. Maxwell's investigation turned up national-security questions about nearly two dozen of those cases.
Mr. Maxwell will also tell the panel about criminal accusations pending against USCIS workers and that top USCIS officials have deceived Congress and obstructed the duties of his office, the agency's internal affairs division.
"The immigration system as a whole is so broken that our adversaries can game it," Mr. Maxwell told The Times when asked about the documents this week. "I can assure you they're using it against us; they can with impunity." His testimony comes as the Senate debates whether to enact a guest-worker program that would allow current illegal aliens and future foreign workers a new path to citizenship.
An opponent of a guest-worker program, Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House International Relations subcommittee on terrorism and nonproliferation, which is holding the hearing, said USCIS is "deeply flawed" and focuses too much on processing applications and not enough on security, according to his prepared statement. The House immigration-enforcement bill passed in December included an amendment by Mr. Royce, California Republican, that puts law enforcement at the top of USCIS' priorities.
Emilio Gonzalez, the agency's new director, told reporters last month that he has made national security the top priority. "The minute I walked through these doors here, I let it be known -- under my watch, it's all about security," he said. Mr. Gonzalez said the lack of access to databases for some adjudicators -- another subject Mr. Maxwell is expected to testify about -- hasn't hurt the agency because other agencies can do those checks and share information.
USCIS officials said they will wait to see Mr. Maxwell's testimony to respond specifically, but Angelica Alfonso-Royals, a USCIS spokeswoman, said, "We take any allegations of potential misconduct seriously and are investigating them fully." Mr. Maxwell now works as an independent consultant on security matters, and a client is Numbers USA, which lobbies for stricter immigration controls and against a guest-worker program. He said this week that the Iraq case was not an isolated case. "We know the asylum process is in shambles. We know fraud is rampant," he said, adding that documents show top officials know this and refuse to do anything about it.
In the case of the suspected agent, whose name was blacked out in the documents The Times obtained, Mr. Maxwell said there were many red flags. "There are indicators throughout this entire case that I saw, professionals within the FBI and the intelligence community saw, that all pointed one way -- we were dealing with an individual who was a member of a foreign intelligence agency that had been working within CIS," Mr. Maxwell said. "The danger was that he was granting asylum to anybody that he wanted to, with impunity, at a time of his choosing. Who was he letting into this country?"
The man was in demand at USCIS because of his language skills. He was able to do interviews without the need for a translator. At the time, that seemed to be a big benefit to the speed of the process, but in retrospect, Mr. Maxwell said, it posed a security risk. Mr. Maxwell said they first became suspicious of the man when, while on a yearlong assignment to the Defense Department in Iraq, he walked outside the Green Zone in Baghdad and disappeared. According to documents, authorities first thought he had been taken hostage but concluded he had left of his own accord.
Mr. Maxwell began an investigation that found that the man had been hired by USCIS even though negative "national security information" in his background check caused other federal agencies to pass on him. A national security polygraph showed repeated deception on his part, and in interviews with Mr. Maxwell, he denied having traveled to Iran, Syria and Jordan while he worked for USCIS, even though electronic databases showed he had made the trips.
And you didn't think this would have been a good time to slap the cuffs on him?
The man also made "persistent requests" that Mr. Maxwell help him achieve secret or top-secret clearance so he could go back to work for the Defense Department. Mr. Maxwell said that request was weird because Defense would have had to do its own background check anyway. The man has since left USCIS and the United States so Mr. Maxwell closed his investigation. But Mr. Maxwell said that despite his findings, USCIS doesn't even have the ability to go back and see whether any of the 180 cases the former employee approved should be revoked.
"With no internal audit function at CIS, we don't know who he let into this country," Mr. Maxwell said.
Excuse me, I need to go outside and SCREAM!
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
14:55 ||
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Oh-oh. Looks like all is not well in Hugoland...
CARACAS, Venezuela - Troops fired tear gas in Venezuela's capital to disperse protesters demanding a crackdown on crime following the slayings of three young Canadian brothers, while the justice minister acknowledged police forces were in need of sweeping reforms.
Protests erupted in five parts of Caracas on Wednesday. In one of the demonstrations, hundreds gathered to block a highway near the affluent neighborhood of Altamira in eastern Caracas, a stronghold for opponents of President Hugo Chavez. As the protesters were pushed back, some set tires and trash bins afire on nearby roads.
"Chavez always criticizes the United States and talks about thousands of innocent people killed in Iraq, but what about the thousands who are killed here," said protester Gustavo Marin, 26.
The unrest was touched off by the discovery Tuesday of the bodies of the three Faddoul brothers John, 17, Kevin, 13, and Jason, 12, with dual Canadian-Venezuelan citizenship. The bodies of the boys, who were shot in the head and neck, were found outside Caracas more than a month after they were kidnapped at a bogus police checkpoint on their way to school.
The body of their 30-year-old driver was also found. The possibilty that they were actual cops hasn't been ruled out.
Justice Minister Jesse Chacon said every police force in the crime-ridden South American nation needed to be purged of corrupt cops. He urged Venezuelans to unite against violent crime, but not to turn the incident into a politically motivated attack against the Chavez government. CIA inspired riots charges in 3..2...
Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez said investigators have questioned two police officers in the killings, which drew widespread mourning and a sudden outburst of frustration at the constant anxiety Venezuelans feel over their security.
"Today it was them, but tomorrow it could be my sister and me," said Fady Rahal, a 16-year-old classmate of John, as she spoke through tears at a protest. "What kind of a country is this?"
A Venezuelan photographer died after being shot on his way to cover a protest Wednesday at the Central University of Venezuela. The photographer, Jorge Aguirre of the newspaper El Mundo, was approaching the university when an unidentified man on a motorcycle tried to stop his car, then shot him and fled, said Jose Gregorio Yepez, an editor at the paper.
Aguirre managed to take a picture of his killer's back as the man wearing a blue jacket and helmet rode away. Chacon said the photograph would help solve the crime.
Earlier Wednesday, some 400 demonstrators halted traffic at a different spot on the highway. As two police on a motorcycle approached, the crowd chanted "Respect!" and "We want justice!" while other police holding gas masks looked on from a distance.
About 200 protesters also gathered in front of the Justice Ministry in downtown Caracas, accusing authorities of failing to fight crime effectively. Dozens of cars and buses passing through downtown had "mourning" scrawled in white shoe polish across their windows.
Earlier, dozens of the boys' classmates some with black ribbons tied on their wrists shed tears after a Mass at their Catholic school. The Venezuela-born brothers lived with their Canadian father and Venezuelan mother, both of Lebanese descent, in a gated community in an upscale Caracas neighborhood.
The boys were abducted Feb. 23 when unidentified men dressed as police stopped their car at a roadside checkpoint on their way to school. Officials said the kidnappers demanded more than $4.5 million a ransom too steep for the parents to pay, their lawyer, Santiago Georges, said.Two of the victims were still clad in their school uniform beige shirts, Federal Police Chief Marco Chavez said.
Violent robberies, kidnappings and murders are frequent in Venezuela, which has a population 25 million. There were 9,402 homicides reported in 2005, down slightly from 2004, according to government statistics.
Kidnappings also rose from 51 in 1995 to 201 in 2002, according to the latest government statistics available. Independent observers believe the real figures are much higher because many do not report kidnappings for fear of endangering their families. No wonder they all want AK-47's.
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) -- Authorities captured a former air traffic controller suspected of planting homemade bombs at an aviation company's office in Tennessee and the Colorado homes of four of its employees and a Federal Aviation Administration worker. No one was injured by any of the explosions.
Robert Burke, 54, had been wanted on a federal arrest warrant in the March 24 explosions at three houses in Grand Junction. Law enforcement officers were able to disarmed the bombs found at the two other homes. Burke was arrested late Wednesday in Provo, Utah, and was scheduled in federal court later Thursday in Salt Lake City. Grand Junction Police spokeswoman Linda Bowman said a tip led police and federal officers to Burke.
Burke was an early suspect in the bomb attacks. He had been fired by Serco, a United Kingdom-based company that operates the air traffic control tower at Walker Field Airport in Grand Junction.
A foreign company running air traffic control? Does Congress know about this?
The first bomb, in February, exploded at a Serco office in Murfreesboro, Tenn.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
14:37 ||
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WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.
If it was authorized, it wasn't a leak, it was a release.
Before his indictment, I. Lewis Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
They go on to say that the papers didn't specify which info was to be divulged. The whole article also doesn't mention earlier information I saw that said the NIE from the prewar period was being declassified at this time. According to this item at the nortoriously uberneoconservative think tank the Federation of American Scientists, large parts of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq were being declassified in UJuly 2003.
#2
OK where is the story? Bush allowed intelligence inforamtion to be disseminated? Ok he can do that simply by ordering it done. The story tries to tie the act with the non-criminal discloure that Plame worked at the CIA. Nice try but no cigar.
#3
ABC Radio news said that it was scoped toward Iraq's nuclear ambitions and NOT anything to do with the release of the name of "a CIA officer" (Valerie Plame). And THAT turned out not to be a crime in any event.
#4
Went over to that cesspool called DU. The DUmmy's are doing a happy dance about this. Don't know what they put in the Kool-aid over there, but the pitcher is empty.
Giuliani testifies in Moussaoui trial
Thu Apr 6, 2006 12:36 PM ET
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (Reuters) - Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani described watching desperate people jump from the burning World Trade Center in emotional testimony to a jury that will determine if September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui should die.
Jurors and spectators, including relatives of the September 11 victims, also watched a video of two planes hitting the trade center and then about five minutes of footage of people jumping from it. Many spectators gasped and dabbed at tears while watching the video.
"I saw several people, I can't remember how many, jumping," Giuliani said as he described his actions that day. "There were two people right near each other. It appeared to me they were holding hands.
"Of the many memories, that's one that comes to me every day."
Last year, Moussaoui, an admitted al Qaeda member and the only person charged in the United States with the September 11 attacks, pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy. Three of the charges carry the death penalty.
On Monday, the 12-person jury found Moussaoui was eligible for the death penalty. The jurors agreed with the government argument that Moussaoui's lies when he was arrested three weeks before the attacks led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 people on September 11.
In this final phase of the sentencing trial, jurors will decide if Moussaoui should be sentenced to death or life in prison.
This phase will focus more on emotions than the legal arguments of the initial stage of the proceedings. The government is expected to produce dozens of witnesses, including family members of people who died in the hijackings and people who were injured in the attacks, to talk about how they were affected by the hijackings.
Giuliani, who won high praise for his handling of the September 11 crisis, was the first major witness to do so. He described where he was that day, what he saw and what he felt.
"By the time the second plane hit, we knew for sure it was a terrorist attack," he said.
Calling September 11, 2001, "the darkest day in American history," federal prosecutor Robert Spencer told the jurors they needed to sentence Moussaoui to death for his part in the disaster.
"Now it's time for you to hear the voices," he said. "In this part of the trial you will hear the voices of the victims."
But Gerald Zerkin, one of Moussaoui's court-appointed lawyers, urged jurors to keep an open mind and listen to evidence that the defendant had a mental illness that caused him to be involved in the conspiracy.
He called Moussaoui a "wannabe al Qaeda suicide pilot who could not fly and did not have a crew."
The government is expected to bring scale models of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center into the courtroom as part of the dramatic effect when they present evidence from victims and witnesses of the attacks.
I don't know if I'd wanna be jumping on one of these things...
A Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey at the air base in New River, NC, suffered major damage to its wing and right engine in a mishap March 27, according to a statement issued by the service after the incident.
The aircraft damage resulted from an inadvertent takeoff followed by a hard landing on the base's flight line during a post-maintenance functional check flight, according to the statement. No one was hurt, the service said.
It is not yet clear what caused the mishap. The Marine Corps is investigating the incident. There will be two investigations -- one led by a mishap board and another by the judge advocate general.
The base at New River is overseen by the 2nd Marine Air Wing at Cherry Point, NC. Maj. Shawn Haney, a spokeswoman at Cherry Point, said the incident has been labeled a class A mishap, which is the most serious and expensive kind. By definition, any mishap costing more than $1 million is in this category.
The Osprey damaged in the incident belongs to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Training Squadron 204. At press time, Haney did not have the identifying numbers for that particular aircraft.
Bell Helicopter Textron and Boeing make the Osprey mainly for the Marine Corps, but also for the Air Force component of U.S. Special Operations Command. Bell spokesman Bob Leder had no comment on the mishap and referred questions to the Marine Corps.
#1
Oh this is sad, i had such big hopes for that beast as did many but it looks so troubling its very scary. Mind you didnt the F-111 have alot of probs to begin with and turned out a real top craft though, F-15 was a hanger queen to start to i think for its first couple of years in service. Just pray they Iron the problems out. I still wouldnt want to go into action in one - simply way to big, any Jihadi within half a mile is gonna be hitting it so easy because of its gigantic size. Drop me off a few miles out from the enemy and thats ok - go trying to fast rope onto a building in one and the chances of getting it hit and knocked out i fear are almost 100%. Helicopters are just way to brittle too.
#2
...Reality check: In FIFTEEN YEARS of flight tests and development, this beast is still not reliable. if the money had instead been spent on a CH-47 replacement, we'd have had something much more reliable in more numbers.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
04/06/2006 12:34
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#3
but do remember that this is a pretty much untried and tested design so it would take longer but when you say 15 years it does kinda make you go wow i guess, thats long time for any aircraft
helicopters beat the air into submission so you'd think eventually it should be feasible and reliable but like many I've had my doubts for quite awile...
The life of our ours [sic men and women] are more important than the project 'Osprey'.
#5
The aircraft damage resulted from an inadvertent takeoff followed by a hard landing on the base's flight line during a post-maintenance functional check flight
That statement screams pilot error. Sounds like the pilot wound it up to check the engine, the Osprey lifted off unexpectedly, and he chopped the throttles rather than easing them back. Plane dropped like a rock and got dinged. Note the JAG's office is involved, not just the mishap board. That tells me they think someone made a major screwup and they may bring charges.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006 14:32
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#6
If you look at X-type craft... for some reason the government has been trying to make something like the Osprey since the late 30's.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/06/2006 15:37
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#9
The Osprey strikes me as an example of what technology can do when pushed to its limits, even though there was no real need to approach those limits. As in, a solution looking for a problem. The craft's wingtip motor axles and engine mounting bolts must be phenomenal.
Sometimes it takes an unlikely hero like South Park to step up and put things into perspective. If there is such a thing as "The Cartoon Wars," then animated sitcoms like South Park are on the front lines.
From what I could gather from the cliffhanger ending, South Park creators Matt Parker and Trey Stone have forced Comedy Central to stand at the same crossroads that hundreds of newspapers and periodicals across America stood at not a month ago. Next week they will guest star Mohammed in all of his animated glory, and they have let Muslims know in advance that it's a-coming.
Comedy Central has a choice. They can either stand by their longtime stars in Parker and Stone, or succumb to cheap threats from petty thugs. Should Comedy Central make a decision endorsed by the First Amendment, I will be glued to my tv next Wednesday at 10pm.
If you all want to catch this evening's South Park, it should rerun April 6th at 10pm.
A good history lesson on the world view via Islam
Islam's Imperial Dreams
BY EFRAIM KARSH
Tuesday, April 4, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT
When satirical depictions of the prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper sparked a worldwide wave of Muslim violence early this year, observers naturally focused on the wanton destruction of Western embassies, businesses, and other institutions. Less attention was paid to the words that often accompanied the riots--words with ominous historical echoes. "Hurry up and apologize to our nation, because if you do not, you will regret it," declared Khaled Mash'al, the leader of Hamas, fresh from the Islamist group's sweeping victory in the Palestinian elections:
This is because our nation is progressing and is victorious. . . . By Allah, you will be defeated. . . . Tomorrow, our nation will sit on the throne of the world. This is not a figment of the imagination but a fact. Tomorrow we will lead the world, Allah willing. Apologize today, before remorse will do you no good.
Among Islamic radicals, such gloating about the prowess and imminent triumph of their "nation" is as commonplace as recitals of the long and bitter catalog of grievances related to the loss of historical Muslim dominion. Osama bin Laden has repeatedly alluded to the collapse of Ottoman power at the end of World War I and, with it, the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate. "What America is tasting now," he declared in the immediate wake of 9/11, "is only a copy of what we have tasted. Our Islamic nation has been tasting the same for more than 80 years, of humiliation and disgrace, its sons killed and their blood spilled, its sanctities desecrated." Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's top deputy, has pointed still farther into the past, lamenting "the tragedy of al-Andalus"--that is, the end of Islamic rule in Spain in 1492.
These historical claims are in turn frequently dismissed by Westerners as delusional, a species of mere self-aggrandizement or propaganda. But the Islamists are perfectly serious, and know what they are doing. Their rhetoric has a millennial warrant, both in doctrine and in fact, and taps into a deep undercurrent that has characterized the political culture of Islam from the beginning. Though tempered and qualified in different places and at different times, the Islamic longing for unfettered suzerainty has never disappeared, and has resurfaced in our own day with a vengeance. It goes by the name of empire.
"I was ordered to fight all men until they say, 'There is no god but Allah.' " With these farewell words, the prophet Muhammad summed up the international vision of the faith he brought to the world. As a universal religion, Islam envisages a global political order in which all humankind will live under Muslim rule as either believers or subject communities. In order to achieve this goal, it is incumbent on all free, male, adult Muslims to carry out an uncompromising "struggle in the path of Allah," or jihad. As the 14th-century historian and philosopher Abdel Rahman ibn Khaldun wrote, "In the Muslim community, the jihad is a religious duty because of the universalism of the Islamic mission and the obligation [to convert] everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force."
As a historical matter, the birth of Islam was inextricably linked with empire. Unlike Christianity and the Christian kingdoms that once existed under or alongside it, Islam has never distinguished between temporal and religious powers, which were combined in the person of Muhammad. Having fled from his hometown of Mecca to Medina in 622 c.e. to become a political and military leader rather than a private preacher, Muhammad spent the last ten years of his life fighting to unify Arabia under his rule. Indeed, he devised the concept of jihad shortly after his migration to Medina as a means of enticing his local followers to raid Meccan caravans. Had it not been for his sudden death, he probably would have expanded his reign well beyond the peninsula.
The Qur'anic revelations during Muhammad's Medina years abound with verses extolling the virtues of jihad, as do the countless sayings and traditions (hadith) attributed to the prophet. Those who participate in this holy pursuit are to be generously rewarded, both in this life and in the afterworld, where they will reside in shaded and ever-green gardens, indulged by pure women. Accordingly, those killed while waging jihad should not be mourned: "Allah has bought from the believers their soul and their possessions against the gift of Paradise; they fight in the path of Allah; they kill and are killed. . . . So rejoice in the bargain you have made with Him; that is the mighty triumph."
But the doctrine's appeal was not just otherworldly. By forbidding fighting and raiding within the community of believers (the umma), Muhammad had deprived the Arabian tribes of a traditional source of livelihood. For a time, the prophet could rely on booty from non-Muslims as a substitute for the lost war spoils, which is why he never went out of his way to convert all of the tribes seeking a place in his Pax Islamica. Yet given his belief in the supremacy of Islam and his relentless commitment to its widest possible dissemination, he could hardly deny conversion to those wishing to undertake it. Once the whole of Arabia had become Muslim, a new source of wealth and an alternative outlet would have to be found for the aggressive energies of the Arabian tribes, and it was, in the Fertile Crescent and the Levant.
Within twelve years of Muhammad's death, a Middle Eastern empire, stretching from Iran to Egypt and from Yemen to northern Syria, had come into being under the banner of Islam. By the early 8th century, the Muslims had hugely extended their grip to Central Asia and much of the Indian subcontinent, had laid siege to the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, and had overrun North Africa and Spain. Had they not been contained in 732 at the famous battle of Poitiers in west central France, they might well have swept deep into northern Europe.
Though sectarianism and civil war divided the Muslim world in the generations after Muhammad, the basic dynamic of Islam remained expansionist. The short-lived Umayyad dynasty (661-750) gave way to the ostensibly more pious Abbasid caliphs, whose readiness to accept non-Arabs solidified Islam's hold on its far-flung possessions. From their imperial capital of Baghdad, the Abbasids ruled, with waning authority, until the Mongol invasion of 1258. The most powerful of their successors would emerge in Anatolia, among the Ottoman Turks who invaded Europe in the mid-14th century and would conquer Constantinople in 1453, destroying the Byzantine empire and laying claim to virtually all of the Balkan peninsula and the eastern Mediterranean.
Like their Arab predecessors, the Ottomans were energetic empire-builders in the name of jihad. By the early 16th century, they had conquered Syria and Egypt from the Mamluks, the formidable slave soldiers who had contained the Mongols and destroyed the Crusader kingdoms. Under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, they soon turned northward. By the middle of the 17th century they seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe, only to be turned back in fierce fighting at the gates of Vienna in 1683--on September 11, of all dates. Though already on the defensive by the early 18th century, the Ottoman empire--the proverbial "sick man of Europe"--would endure another 200 years. Its demise at the hands of the victorious European powers of World War I, to say nothing of the work of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the father of modern Turkish nationalism, finally brought an end both to the Ottoman caliphate itself and to Islam's centuries-long imperial reach.
To Islamic historians, the chronicles of Muslim empire represent a model of shining religious zeal and selfless exertion in the cause of Allah. Many Western historians, for their part, have been inclined to marvel at the perceived sophistication and tolerance of Islamic rule, praising the caliphs' cultivation of the arts and sciences and their apparent willingness to accommodate ethnic and religious minorities. There is some truth in both views, but neither captures the deeper and often more callous impulses at work in the expanding umma set in motion by Muhammad. For successive generations of Islamic rulers, imperial dominion was dictated not by universalistic religious principles but by their prophet's vision of conquest and his summons to fight and subjugate unbelievers.
That the worldly aims of Islam might conflict with its moral and spiritual demands was evident from the start of the caliphate. Though the Umayyad monarchs portrayed their constant wars of expansion as "jihad in the path of Allah," this was largely a façade, concealing an increasingly secular and absolutist rule. Lax in their attitude toward Islamic practices and mores, they were said to have set aside special days for drinking alcohol--specifically forbidden by the prophet--and showed little inhibition about appearing nude before their boon companions and female singers.
The coup staged by the Abbasids in 747-49 was intended to restore Islam's true ways and undo the godless practices of their predecessors; but they too, like the Umayyads, were first and foremost imperial monarchs. For the Abbasids, Islam was a means to consolidating their jurisdiction and enjoying the fruits of conquest. They complied with the stipulations of the nascent religious law (shari'a) only to the extent that it served their needs, and indulged in the same vices--wine, singing girls, and sexual license--that had ruined the reputation of the Umayyads.
Of particular importance to the Abbasids was material splendor. On the occasion of his nephew's coronation as the first Abbasid caliph, Dawud ibn Ali had proclaimed, "We did not rebel in order to grow rich in silver and in gold." Yet it was precisely the ever-increasing pomp of the royal court that would underpin Abbasid prestige. The gem-studded dishes of the caliph's table, the gilded curtains of the palace, the golden tree and ruby-eyed golden elephant that adorned the royal courtyard were a few of the opulent possessions that bore witness to this extravagance.
The riches of the empire, moreover, were concentrated in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. While the caliph might bestow thousands of dirhams on a favorite poet for reciting a few lines, ordinary laborers in Baghdad carried home a dirham or two a month. As for the empire's more distant subjects, the caliphs showed little interest in their conversion to the faith, preferring instead to colonize their lands and expropriate their wealth and labor. Not until the third Islamic century did the bulk of these populations embrace the religion of their imperial masters, and this was a process emanating from below--an effort by non-Arabs to escape paying tribute and to remove social barriers to their advancement. To make matters worse, the metropolis plundered the resources of the provinces, a practice inaugurated at the time of Muhammad and reaching its apogee under the Abbasids. Combined with the government's weakening control of the periphery, this shameless exploitation triggered numerous rebellions throughout the empire.
Tension between the center and the periphery was, indeed, to become the hallmark of Islam's imperial experience. Even in its early days, under the Umayyads, the empire was hopelessly overextended, largely because of inadequate means of communication and control. Under the Abbasids, a growing number of provinces fell under the sway of local dynasties. With no effective metropolis, the empire was reduced to an agglomeration of entities united only by the overarching factors of language and religion. Though the Ottomans temporarily reversed the trend, their own imperial ambitions were likewise eventually thwarted by internal fragmentation.
In the long history of Islamic empire, the wide gap between delusions of grandeur and the centrifugal forces of localism would be bridged time and again by force of arms, making violence a key element of Islamic political culture. No sooner had Muhammad died than his successor, Abu Bakr, had to suppress a widespread revolt among the Arabian tribes. Twenty-three years later, the head of the umma, the caliph Uthman ibn Affan, was murdered by disgruntled rebels; his successor, Ali ibn Abi Talib, was confronted for most of his reign with armed insurrections, most notably by the governor of Syria, Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufian, who went on to establish the Umayyad dynasty after Ali's assassination. Mu'awiya's successors managed to hang on to power mainly by relying on physical force, and were consumed for most of their reign with preventing or quelling revolts in the diverse corners of their empire. The same was true for the Abbasids during the long centuries of their sovereignty.
Western academics often hold up the Ottoman empire as an exception to this earlier pattern. In fact the caliphate did deal relatively gently with its vast non-Muslim subject populations--provided that they acquiesced in their legal and institutional inferiority in the Islamic order of things. When these groups dared to question their subordinate status, however, let alone attempt to break free from the Ottoman yoke, they were viciously put down. In the century or so between Napoleon's conquests in the Middle East and World War I, the Ottomans embarked on an orgy of bloodletting in response to the nationalist aspirations of their European subjects. The Greek war of independence of the 1820's, the Danubian uprisings of 1848 and the attendant Crimean war, the Balkan explosion of the 1870's, the Greco-Ottoman war of 1897--all were painful reminders of the costs of resisting Islamic imperial rule.
Nor was such violence confined to Ottoman Europe. Turkey's Afro-Asiatic provinces, though far less infected with the nationalist virus, were also scenes of mayhem and destruction. The Ottoman army or its surrogates brought force to bear against Wahhabi uprisings in Mesopotamia and the Levant in the early 19th century, against civil strife in Lebanon in the 1840's (culminating in the 1860 massacres in Mount Lebanon and Damascus), and against a string of Kurdish rebellions. In response to the national awakening of the Armenians in the 1890's, Constantinople killed tens of thousands--a taste of the horrors that lay ahead for the Armenians during World War I.
The legacy of this imperial experience is not difficult to discern in today's Islamic world. Physical force has remained the main if not the sole instrument of political discourse in the Middle East. Throughout the region, absolute leaders still supersede political institutions, and citizenship is largely synonymous with submission; power is often concentrated in the hands of small, oppressive minorities; religious, ethnic, and tribal conflicts abound; and the overriding preoccupation of sovereigns is with their own survival.
At the domestic level, these circumstances have resulted in the world's most illiberal polities. Political dissent is dealt with by repression, and ethnic and religious differences are settled by internecine strife and murder. One need only mention, among many instances, Syria's massacre of 20,000 of its Muslim activists in the early 1980's, or the brutal treatment of Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish communities until the 2003 war, or the genocidal campaign now being conducted in Darfur by the government of Sudan and its allied militias. As for foreign policy in the Middle East, it too has been pursued by means of crude force, ranging from terrorism and subversion to outright aggression, with examples too numerous and familiar to cite.
Reinforcing these habits is the fact that, to this day, Islam has retained its imperial ambitions. The last great Muslim empire may have been destroyed and the caliphate left vacant, but the dream of regional and world domination has remained very much alive. Even the ostensibly secular doctrine of pan-Arabism has been effectively Islamic in its ethos, worldview, and imperialist vision. In the words of Nuri Said, longtime prime minister of Iraq and a prominent early champion of this doctrine: "Although Arabs are naturally attached to their native land, their nationalism is not confined by boundaries. It is an aspiration to restore the great tolerant civilization of the early caliphate."
That this "great tolerant civilization" reached well beyond today's Middle East is not lost on those who hope for its restoration. Like the leaders of al Qaeda, many Muslims and Arabs unabashedly pine for the reconquest of Spain and consider their 1492 expulsion from the country a grave historical injustice waiting to be undone. Indeed, as immigration and higher rates of childbirth have greatly increased the number of Muslims within Europe itself over the past several decades, countries that were never ruled by the caliphate have become targets of Muslim imperial ambition. Since the late 1980's, Islamists have looked upon the growing population of French Muslims as proof that France, too, has become a part of the House of Islam. In Britain, even the more moderate elements of the Muslim community are candid in setting out their aims. As the late Zaki Badawi, a doyen of interfaith dialogue in the UK, put it, "Islam is a universal religion. It aims to bring its message to all corners of the earth. It hopes that one day the whole of humanity will be one Muslim community."
Whether in its militant or its more benign version, this world-conquering agenda continues to meet with condescension and denial on the part of many educated Westerners. To intellectuals, foreign-policy experts, and politicians alike, "empire" and "imperialism" are categories that apply exclusively to the European powers and, more recently, to the United States. In this view of things, Muslims, whether in the Middle East or elsewhere, are merely objects--the long-suffering victims of the aggressive encroachments of others. Lacking an internal, autonomous dynamic of its own, their history is rather a function of their unhappy interaction with the West, whose obligation it is to make amends. This perspective dominated the widespread explanation of the 9/11 attacks as only a response to America's (allegedly) arrogant and self-serving foreign policy, particularly with respect to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
As we have seen, however, Islamic history has been anything but reactive. From Muhammad to the Ottomans, the story of Islam has been the story of the rise and fall of an often astonishing imperial aggressiveness and, no less important, of never quiescent imperial dreams. Even as these dreams have repeatedly frustrated any possibility for the peaceful social and political development of the Arab-Muslim world, they have given rise to no less repeated fantasies of revenge and restoration and to murderous efforts to transform fantasy into fact. If, today, America is reviled in the Muslim world, it is not because of its specific policies but because, as the preeminent world power, it blocks the final realization of this same age-old dream of regaining, in Zawahiri's words, the "lost glory" of the caliphate.
Nor is the vision confined to a tiny extremist fringe. This we saw in the overwhelming support for the 9/11 attacks throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds, in the admiring evocations of bin Laden's murderous acts during the crisis over the Danish cartoons, and in such recent findings as the poll indicating significant reservoirs of sympathy among Muslims in Britain for the "feelings and motives" of the suicide bombers who attacked London last July. In the historical imagination of many Muslims and Arabs, bin Laden represents nothing short of the new incarnation of Saladin, defeater of the Crusaders and conqueror of Jerusalem. In this sense, the House of Islam's war for world mastery is a traditional, indeed venerable, quest that is far from over.
To the contrary, now that this war has itself met with a so far determined counterattack by the United States and others, and with a Western intervention in the heart of the House of Islam, it has escalated to a new stage of virulence. In many Middle Eastern countries, Islamist movements, and movements appealing to traditionalist Muslims, are now jockeying fiercely for positions of power, both against the Americans and against secular parties. For the Islamists, the stakes are very high indeed, for if the political elites of the Middle East and elsewhere were ever to reconcile themselves to the reality that there is no Arab or Islamic "nation," but only modern Muslim states with destinies and domestic responsibilities of their own, the imperialist dream would die.
It is in recognition of this state of affairs that Zawahiri wrote his now famous letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, in July 2005. If, Zawahiri instructed his lieutenant, al Qaeda's strategy for Iraq and elsewhere were to succeed, it would have to take into account the growing thirst among many Arabs for democracy and a normal life, and strive not to alienate popular opinion through such polarizing deeds as suicide attacks on fellow Muslims. Only by harnessing popular support, Zawahiri concluded, would it be possible to come to power by means of democracy itself, thereby to establish jihadist rule in Iraq, and then to move onward to conquer still larger and more distant realms and impose the writ of Islam far and wide.
Something of the same logic clearly underlies the carefully plotted rise of Hamas in the Palestinian Authority, the (temporarily thwarted) attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to exploit the demand for free elections there, and the accession of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran. Indeed, as reported by Mark MacKinnon in the Toronto Globe & Mail, some analysts now see a new "axis of Islam" arising in the Middle East, uniting Hizballah, Hamas, Iran, Syria, the Muslim Brotherhood, elements of Iraq's Shiites, and others in an anti-American, anti-Israel alliance backed by Russia.
Whether or not any such structure exists or can be forged, the fact is that the fuel of Islamic imperialism remains as volatile as ever, and is very far from having burned itself out. To deny its force is the height of folly, and to imagine that it can be appeased or deflected is to play into its hands. Only when it is defeated, and when the faith of Islam is no longer a tool of Islamic political ambition, will the inhabitants of Muslim lands, and the rest of the world, be able to look forward to a future less burdened by Saladins and their gory dreams.
Mr. Karsh is head of Mediterranean Studies at King's College, University of London, and his new book, "Islamic Imperialism: A History," on which this article is based, is about to be published by Yale. This article originally appeared in the April issue of Commentary.
Colombian authorities claim to have dismantled an extensive counterfeit passport ring in January 2006 that allegedly supplied an unknown number of Pakistanis, Egyptians, Jordanians, Iraqis, and others purported to be working with al-Qaeda with Colombian, Portuguese, German, and Spanish citizenship, enabling them to travel freely in the United States and Europe. Bogota also mentioned that the network had ties to Hamas militants (al-Hayat, January 28; Caracol Radio, January 26).
In contrast, U.S. Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security officials expressed surprise at Bogota's announcement while emphatically disputing its claim, alleging that they had no knowledge of known links between the document forgery operation and any brand of Islamist terrorism, let alone al-Qaeda. Instead, they acknowledged that the sting operation involved Colombians posing as members of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the country's largest and most powerful rebel group, interested in purchasing forged documents and possibly even weapons (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Report, January 27). Washington classifies FARC as an international terrorist organization.
Since the September 11 attacks, Washington fears that radical Islamist terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda may exploit Latin America's porous borders, endemic corruption, and weak institutions to gain a foothold in the region in order to infiltrate U.S. territory or to stage attacks against vital U.S. interests in the region. Many observers believe that Colombia, a strong ally of Washington, with its vibrant narcotics trade, ongoing insurgencies, robust energy reserves, and proximity to the Panama Canal and other vital shipping lanes, represents an ideal target.
FARC's extensive involvement in the drug business and its documented ties to regional and international drug cartels and organized crime, coupled with the control it wields over large swathes of Colombian territory out of Bogota's reach, is of particular concern. In a worst case scenario, Washington worries that al-Qaeda may cultivate alliances of convenience with organizations such as FARC or others involved in the drug trade in order to raise finances or procure armaments. At the same time, it is important to note that there is no credible evidence pointing to this kind of formal cooperation. At the very least, however, terrorist organizations can exploit established money laundering and finance networks used by narcotics traffickers and organized crime syndicates in the region, especially the Black Market Peso Exchange (BMPE), to fund future operations (El Siglo, June 25, 2003).
It is against this background that Colombian and regional governments have played on U.S. concerns by moving to curry favor with the U.S. to further their own domestic agendas and international standing in the context of the Bush Administration's war on terrorism. In doing so, they often highlight the alleged threat of al-Qaeda or other brands of radical Islamist terrorism within their own borders.
Based on the evidence, this latest attempt by Bogota is a case in point in that it likely represents an effort to enhance its position in the eyes of Washington and the international community in its longstanding war with FARC guerillas. Since one of the alleged members of the smuggling ring, Jalal Saadat Moheisen, happened to be of Palestinian descent, it is likely that Colombia seized the opportunity to win political points in Washington by pointing to a possible link to Middle East terrorist networks.
What makes Colombia's bold claims especially interesting is that the sting operation was in fact led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials and other investigators, who worked in concert with their Colombian counterparts in the Department of Administrative Security (DAS).
Normally, references to alleged al-Qaeda infiltration are enough to gain the attention and headlines governments in Latin America seek. For example, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Honduras have pointed to alleged al-Qaeda links with the Maras street gangs that terrorize their cities. Mexican officials have hinted at al-Qaeda involvement with rebel indigenous groups in Chiapas. Trinidadian authorities have employed similar tactics when it comes to discrediting their own homegrown Islamist opposition centered in the Afro-Trinidadian Muslim community.
U.S. concern over the strong showing by Hamas in the recent Palestinian elections is likely responsible for Bogota's decision to include Hamas alongside al-Qaeda in its recent claims of radical Islamist involvement in the document forgery ring.
Islam in Colombia
Colombia is home to a small, albeit diverse, Muslim population. Most Colombian Muslims are of Lebanese, Syrian, and Palestinian origin, but Arab Christians from the Levant with a long history in the country dating back to the Ottoman era far outnumber their Muslim counterparts. In contrast, unlike elsewhere in the region, Arab Muslims made their presence felt in Colombia beginning in the late 1960s and 70s after a wave of migration from the Middle East that was prompted by the Lebanese Civil War and other regional tensions (Los Cromos, April 1, 2005).
Recent Muslim migrants from the Middle East tend to be more pious and traditional compared to their second and third generation kin who have become assimilated into Colombian society. For example, many still speak Arabic and live in tight-knit communities, not unlike immigrant communities elsewhere. Demographic assessments on Colombia's Muslim population vary. According to some local reports, Colombia's Muslim population numbers approximately 15,000 adherents (webislam.com, January 4, 2005).
As a result of intermarriage and religious conversion, Islam has become one of the fastest growing faiths in Colombia and Latin America. Growing disenchantment with the Roman Catholic Church establishment in Colombia and elsewhere in the region has also led many to seek spiritual guidance elsewhere. Many former Roman Catholics that have strayed from the Church have come to see Catholicism as a European colonial tradition that was imposed on the peoples of the Americas. Therefore, conversion to Islam represents an assertion of ethno-national, as well as spiritual, identity. Protestant missionaries have been making inroads into Latin America for many of the same reasons for decades, especially among underserved communities and indigenous populations.
Colombian Christians who become Muslims find solace in Islam's reverence of Jesus Christ and Mary. Other Muslim converts see Islam as a native tradition untainted by the region's colonial experience. Many Muslims in Colombia also emphasize what they believe are their natural cultural and even ethnic links with Arabs and Muslims, stemming from Spain's Moorish heritage. In this regard, conversion to Islam symbolizes a reversion to their original state, which they see as having been suppressed by colonialism. There is also evidence suggesting that Colombian Muslims are becoming more open about asserting their identity, especially since Bogota abolished Catholicism as the official state religion in an effort to promote a broader definition of Colombian identity.
Many analysts are alarmed by increasing Muslim conversion trends, which they interpret as a sign of radicalization, especially in light of al-Qaeda's proven successes in luring Muslim converts to their cause. Despite these concerns, there is no evidence that Muslim conversion in Colombia or elsewhere in Latin America stems from a turn to political radicalization.
Maicao
Although accurate demographic measures are hard to come by, the municipality of Maicao, in northeastern Colombia in the department of La Guajira, an indigenous reserve located along the border with Venezuela and the Caribbean, is home to Colombia's largest Muslim community. Maicao's Muslim population is believed to number anywhere between 4,000 to 8,000 adherents. Maicao is also home of the Omar Ibn al-Khattab Mosque, which was completed in 1987. It is Colombia's largest mosque and is counted as one of the largest in South America (Latino Muslim Voice, December 2003).
Most of Maicao's Muslims are Sunni Arabs from the Levant, especially Lebanon, while a minority originates from Syria and Palestine. Maicao is also home to a small Shiite Arab population. The region's Arab community lives alongside the Way'uu, an indigenous group. As a result of its position on the coast, La Guajira has always lured immigrants seeking potentially lucrative trade opportunities and jobs, especially migrants from the Middle East.
Maicao is also a free trade zone (FTZ) and a known center of smuggling of counterfeit goods such as cigarettes and electric appliances, arms, and narcotics, money laundering, and other illicit forms of commerce to Venezuela, Central America, and the Caribbean. According to some reports, recent efforts by Bogota to enforce tax codes and root out corruption and smuggling hit Maicao's merchants particularly hard, especially Arab Muslims who figure prominently in the local economy. This includes merchants engaged in both legal and illegal business. As a result, Maicao's Arab Muslim population is said to be dwindling, as local merchants seek out opportunities elsewhere in Colombia and in the region (Los Cromos, April 1, 2005).
Many observers worry that al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations can exploit Maicao and the Colombian island of San Andres, another FTZ located off the coast of Panama, to raise funds to finance operations. San Andres is also home to a sizeable Arab Muslim and Christian community. FTZs in Colon, Panama, Iquique, Chile, Margarita Island, Venezuela, and elsewhere in the region are frequently cited as potential terrorist finance centers.
Conclusion
Despite a lack of concrete evidence to date, Colombia appears susceptible to al-Qaeda infiltration, but it is highly unlikely to come in the form of an alliance with FARC or the radicalization of Colombia's Muslims. In contrast, Colombia's weak institutions and ongoing conflict may present an opening for radical Islamists to gain a foothold. Given this background, it is important to consider the politics behind allegations of al-Qaeda infiltration, as they may divert attention away from the far more pressing themes shaping the threat at hand.
He was a quiet boy... A San Francisco man has been convicted of murder and mayhem for using a meat cleaver to castrate and kill his father, whom he blamed for coddling him and fostering his drug addiction, authorities said Tuesday. It's not my fault! I have issues!!
After deliberating three days, a San Francisco jury on Monday found Jan Erickson, 28, guilty of second-degree murder and aggravated mayhem in the Oct. 10, 2004, attack on Stephen Erickson, 65. ...AND aggravated mayhem?
Residents of the Graywood Hotel on Mission Street heard the father's screams for help in the midst of the savage attack. He was stabbed 37 times, castrated and his eyes stabbed in a case that police said was one of the most horrific crime scenes in recent memory. The defendant, who did not testify at the trial, freely admitted killing his father out of rage. His attorney, Stephen Rosen, did not return calls seeking comment. Probably trying to forget he ever met this guy.
According to prosecutors, the family did everything they could for Jan Erickson to have a better life. His parents, wanting the best education for their children, moved to Kentfield in suburban Marin County. The father sold health food supplements, and the family lived in a rental unit. Jan Erickson graduated from Redwood High in Larkspur with a B average. His older sister, Ava, went on to college and is now a graduate student at UC Berkeley. She declined to comment Tuesday. In court, she testified that the family had a nice life in Marin. She said her brother was in a high school band and was jealous of his peers for having more money. Here's an idea, kid. Get a friggin job!
The parents divorced when he was 17 and, once out of school, he began to drift. At age 24, he became addicted to crack cocaine, prosecutors say. Nonetheless, the father, then a cab driver who lived in a single residency hotel in the city, let the troubled, unemployed son get free rent and food. The defendant's mother, who is on disability, testified that she too indulged her son. She said that while she shopped and went job hunting with him, she also used methamphetamine with him and took him to solicit transvestite prostitutes. Sound like Mother of the Year...for San Francisco.
The slaying came as the father was sleeping in the room's bunk bed. Jan Erickson, allegedly high on crack cocaine, attacked the sleeping man in the lower bunk, the same bed the son sometimes slept in, prosecutors say. While the defendant did not testify, he told psychiatrists that he hated his father for not being more strict with him while his life fell apart to drugs. Aw, Jeez. Can ya blame him?
He provided a variety of other explanations. He said he loved his father but was tired of his own plight, sick of fighting people in the neighborhood and sick of his father's lectures. At the same time, he resented his father taking care of him and blamed his father for his troubles. ...and Bush. I blame Bush, too.
"The defendant, unquestionably, had some mental issues,'' said Assistant District Attorney Bob Gordon. "But we were able to show that he intended to kill his father. He freely admitted to killing his father.'' Erickson's defense portrayed him as having an unspecified psychotic disorder. Note to defense lawyers: Always SPECIFY your client's psychotic disorder.
At the end of the trial, the defendant was prevented from hugging his mother, who was standing with open arms to embrace her son. With the jury watching, the defendant had an outburst, he struck a bailiff in the face with an open palm, shouted abuse, and had to be restrained. Awwwwwwwwww. Who's ma gonna do methamphetamine with now?
In the end, the jury returned its verdict of second-degree murder on Monday after three days of deliberation. Erickson was found not guilty of torture. A date for sentencing has not been set. He faces a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. Make sure you pull your "poor little me" act inside, Jan. They just eat that shit up.
#1
I certainly hope this ungrateful bastard rots in a cell for the rest of his life. To kill your own father just because his best wasn't good enough for you? Despicable.
Posted by: Charles ||
04/06/2006 12:14
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#2
"Erickson was found not guilty of torture."
Whos says the whole plea bargain system doesn't work?
#4
While the defendant did not testify, he told psychiatrists that he hated his father for not being more strict with him while his life fell apart to drugs.
Heck, and during that time, he'd have fought his dad tooth and nail.
The Cold War is over, and the 20th century is over. Our willingness to extend the presence of substantial U.S. forces in northern Europe while slighting the Greater Indian Ocean (GIO) (apart from the Middle East) makes no strategic sense. The future lies below the Tropic of Cancer, in the emerging postmodern empire built overnight by post-apartheid South Africa, in the enormous potential of Indonesia to pioneer a more successful, modern path for Islam, in the awakening capacities of India and even in the enduring importance of Singapore, perhaps the most vital city-state since Athens.
The GIO harbors terrible threats, as well (and not merely that possible, but unlikely, military confrontation between the U.S. and China): Nuclear-armed Pakistan is a Hamlet among nations, unsure of its identity and unable to decide on a decisive course of action. As in the play, the last act could litter the stage with bodies. Bangladesh, a human disaster, is prey to Islamist militancy. Beyond the familiar struggles in the Horn of Africa, the growing tension between jihadi Islam and the African Church Militant has already resulted in regional bloodlettings, from Sudan west to Nigeria. Saudi Arabia is doomed its violent collapse only a matter of time, be it years or decades. And Iran remains a powerful short-term threat, but is also a potential U.S. ally in the longer term (Persians are a friendless, proud, hated people in a very nasty neighborhood). For now, the world continues to gulp Middle-Eastern oil, creating an immediate set of problems. Tomorrow, a diminished appetite for oil and the implosion of bankrupt regional states may generate other challenges entirely.
No other region of the world offers such potential and presents so many intractable problems.
How might the future of the GIO look, if the United States thinks clearly and acts deftly (admittedly a tall order)? We should strive to build a new regional alliance aligning the United States with, in the first rank, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, India, Iran (in the out-years) and South Africa. Desirable secondary allies would include New Zealand, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Kenya (if its government can be reformed), the islands with flags, and, perhaps, Tanzania, Mozambique and Malaysia. The challenge, of course, is for all of these governments, including our own, to move beyond the past centurys prejudices and petty bickering to grasp our commonality of interests.
A greater Indian Ocean strategic alliance could be to the 21st century what the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was to the 20th: A military alliance that prevents a catastrophic war and fosters regional cooperation. But we need to have the vision to see beyond yesteryears divisions of the world and to grasp that command of the Indian Ocean will be decisive to the global future.
#1
Yeah, thank god for such scintillating originality and clarity of thought. Bush ought to consider doing some kind of nuke deal with India. Glad I thought of it.
#2
The Chinese are establishing a line of bases along the east coast, primarily Burma. The Indians are building bases in the Nicobars and other local islands.
The time has come for Americans to wake up and face the facts. Our nation is currently engaged in a bloody war that will last for decades. The outcome of this conflict will not only impact the security and well-being of future generations but will ultimately cost thousands of lives. Yet, little has been done to educate our citizenry with respect to properly identifying the "enemy." In fact, the more "dependable" members of the mainstream media have gone to great lengths to block such disclosure from reaching the general public.
Make no mistake, we are not combating "terrorism" but have been forced into fighting a war that was declared against us by a religious ideology with political aspirations -- against a dangerous enemy that may be fixated in the 7th Century but armed with the modern implements of warfare. Needless to say, it is this same savage ideology that embraces acts of terrorism as an effective tool to undermine the resolve of civilized nations. For a variety of reasons, radical Islam poses a far greater threat to our national security than did the Third Reich. In support of this argument, one must only consider the following:
The Nazis had a homeland or nation, with discernable borders, that could be targeted for counter-attack and invasion.
With the exception of clandestine operations, the majority of Nazis fought in uniform as disciplined soldiers.
Unbridled political correctness has enabled the Islamists to infiltrate our infrastructure to a level far beyond Joseph Goebels wildest dreams.
The emergence of a menacing "fifth column" that is committed to the destruction of our nation.
Terrorist-front organizations are freely operating in at least forty of our states.
Guaranteed constitutional protections have provided the Islamists with opportunities to seek sanctuary behind a "veil" of religious freedom.
For years, American universities, prisons and religious institutions have served as "hotbeds" for recruitment of homegrown terrorists and their sympathizers.
Our enemy's unyielding quest to secure nuclear weaponry for the sole purpose of slaying the "Great Satan."
Many citizens are beginning to question whether we are currently fighting against radicalized fundamentalists or against the very pillars of the religion that these barbarians embrace. The realization that a major world religion would support the long term geo-political objectives of ruthless terrorist organizations -- in particular, advocating world domination through violent conquest and/or genocide against those of other faiths is troubling at best.
As a case in point, attention should be focused on the following statements that were recently asserted by so-called "moderate" Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradhawi:
"We don't disassociate Islam from the war. On the contrary, disassociating Islam from the war is the reason for our defeat. We are fighting in the name of Islam. Religion must lead the war. This is the only way we can win."
"Everything will be on our side and against Jews on [Judgment Day], at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with our without words, and say: 'Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' They will point to the Jews. It says 'servant of Allah' not 'servant of desires,' 'servant of women,' 'servant of the bottle,' 'servant of Marxism,' or "servant of liberalism' . It said servant of Allah."
"When the Muslims, the Arabs, and the Palestinians enter a war, they do it to worship Allah. They enter it as Muslims. The hadith says: 'oh Muslim,' not 'oh Palestinian, Jordanian, Syrian or Arab nationalist.' No, it says: 'Oh Muslim.' When we enter a war under the banner of Islam, and under the banner of serving Allah, we will be victorious."
Indisputably, Islam is on the move. In terms of growth, it is outpacing every other religion on our soil. One must consider the grim reality that fundamental defects may actually be attributable to the religion itself -- a topic of conversation which wouldn't be comfortably undertaken by a majority of Americans. However, ignoring these warning signs could prove far more deadly in the long run.
These issues and more will be discussed at the upcoming symposium being sponsored by America's Truth Forum. With stakes this high, few can afford to not be in attendance.
I know youre still monitoring my Web site. At least you kept monitoring me long after the two of us stopped talking if "talking" is the right word. One of my colleagues said you told him Im blacklisted because of what I wrote about you in the LA Weekly. You wont give me quotes anymore. You wont give him quotes anymore either because hes tainted by his association with me.
What do you people expect? Its one thing when you trot out your impotent Death to America slogans. Its another thing altogether when you threaten and bully us personally. Im not a wire agency reporter. When you talk to me youre on the record. When you say We know who you are, we read everything you write, and we know where you live, youre on the record. Of course Im going to quote you. If you dont want to look like an asshole in print, dont act like an asshole in life.
Some journalists may cave under that kind of pressure. I almost did myself until my Lebanese friends who know you much better than I ever will reminded me that you guys like to puff up your chests to make yourselves look bigger and scarier than you actually are.
It kills me how the job title printed on the business card you gave me says Media Relations. Whoever says Hezbollah has no sense of humor doesnt know you like I do. Youre a real card, Hussein. A regular bucket o laughs.
Ill admit it feels a bit slimy knowing that Im under Internet surveillance by a group listed by the United States government as a terrorist organization. Its nothing, though, compared to the palpable paranoia on the streets of Hezbollah-occupied Lebanon. You guys really need to calm down. Breathe. Take up yoga or Pilates or something. The CIA, the Mossad, and the Lebanese army pretty much know what youre up to all the time as it is. Learn to accept the things you cannot change. Dont stir up too much trouble at any one time and you should be fine, anyway.
Let me give you some personal advice, Hussein. Maybe we can be on the same page for a change. Get out of the suburbs and go hang out in Beirut once in a while. Dont tell people who you work for. Just strike up conversations in restaurants, coffeeshops, and bars. Lebanese are friendly, so thats easy. Ask Sunni, Christians, and Druze what they think of Hezbollah. Listen to what they have to say. Remember that you have to live with these people. I suppose you could turn your guns on them. We all know you can beat the Lebanese military in a one-on-one fight. Who knows, though? There's always a chance the Israeli Defense Forces might intervene against you on Lebanons behalf. How much would that suck?
Youre not doing so well in the PR department these days. And you cant entirely blame people like me who work for the Zionist media. The fact that you take orders from a hostile foreign dictatorship, the very same regime that assassinates Lebanons elected officials and journalists, makes you look, well, a bit on the treasonous side.
Anyhoo, I dont live in Lebanon anymore. I'm back at my house in the United States now. You wont see my face, my camera, or my notepad down in Haret Hreik any time soon. Its time to remove me from your daily routine. There are other journalists who need to be hassled.
Youre a one-man bad press generator, Hussein. If I were your boss, I would fire you.
Some believe the infiltration of militant Islamic ideology in Lebanon comes not only from outside sources, but from social conditions of the area as well.
By Murad Al-Shishani for The Jamestown Foundation (6/4/06)
In July 2005, French scholar Olivier Roy argued that Iraq and Palestine are not factors in the prevalence of the Salafi-Jihadist movement. He based his argument on the fact that there are no Iraqi or Palestinian members in the Salafi-Jihadist organizations. Now, however, this argument must be reconsidered. Afghan authorities have expressed their concern over the "hordes of Iraqi suicide bombers" following the arrest of Noman Eddin Majid, aged 35 years, from Diyala governorate as he was trying to sneak into Afghanistan (al-Hayat, 3 February). In addition, the perpetrators of the Amman bombing on 9 November 2005, and most of those in the recent disbanded terrorist cell in Amman as well, were Iraqis (Terrorism Focus, 7 March). As for the Palestinians, the attention is becoming increasingly focused on Lebanon with its Palestinian refugee camps, particularly Ain El-Hilweh, instead of the West Bank. (Approximately 400,000 Palestinian refugees live in Lebanon.)
While the recruitment of Salafi-Jihadists in Lebanon is not restricted to Palestinians and includes some Lebanese nationals, young men from refugee camps are more fertile material for recruitment. Following the news of the arrest of Salafi-Jihadists in Lebanon and the announcement made by the movement of its responsibility for blowing up a location for the Lebanese army on February 1 (the movement delivered the threat through a phone call to the Sada al-Balad newspaper a day before, according to the paper), Lebanese authorities arrested 31 suspected jihadists. In light of this claim of responsibility and the arrests, it is important to examine the forms of recruitment that the Salafi-Jihadists use in Lebanon (al-Watan, 8 February).
It seems that the activities of the Salafi-Jihadist movement focus on the poor Lebanese and Palestinian communities. The increasing connection with the Iraq factor is due to two reasons: the unattractiveness of the secular Palestinian organizations in the refugee camps compared to the increasing attraction of the Islamist groups, and the waning control of the Future/Hariri Party over the Sunni community.
Palestinian refugee camps
Ain El-Hilweh refugee camp was the base for Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in the 1980s. The camp was a stronghold for the "Palestinian revolution" organizations, and it remains to this day under the power of Palestinians to the extent that the Lebanese army does not venture inside it (al-Hayat, 26 February). The power of the secular organizations, however, is moving to the Islamist organizations, especially since the secular organizations have been implicated in cases of corruption and have not met the demands of the Palestinians. The commander of Fatah's militias in Lebanon, Colonel Mounir Maqdah, proposed "forming a Lebanese-Palestinian military force to eradicate this fundamental group [from Ain El-Hilweh]." This clearly indicates the increase in the power of Islamist groups and the Palestinian organizations' fear of losing their control, especially when newspaper sources talk of "returnees from Iraq" who aim at declaring "Lebanon's loyalty" to the "Foundation of Jihad in Iraq" (al-Sharq al-Awsat, 4 February).
An indication of the spread of the influence of the Salafi-Jihadist movements amidst Palestinians in Lebanon, promoted by the "returnees from Iraq," is what Hazem Amin in al-Hayat calls the "al-Qaida terminology." The volunteers in Iraq are in touch with their parents in a way that connects the parents with information about jihad activities. This terminology is so widespread that Shiites are now described as "heretics" (al-Hayat, 25 January), which is a new feature in the Lebanese sectarian system. In addition, death threats were made by the al-Qaida organization in Bilad al-Sham to Shiite Lebanese figures (al-Sharq al-Awsat, 27 July 2005).
While this is the situation of Palestinians in Lebanon, the influence of the Salafi-Jihadist movement is not restricted to them. There are Sunni Lebanese nationals who have headed to Iraq to volunteer in fighting the Americans (al-Hayat, 26 January). Likewise, there was a transformation in the village of Majdal Anjar, which used to be the stronghold of "traditional Salafism," since the arrival of Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani, who later became a close companion of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi after he reached Iraq with his 16-year-old son, and where they both later died. Abu Muhammad al-Lubnani was Mustafa Ramadan. He began to spread his jihadist ideas since his return from Denmark around 2003 (al-Hayat, 26 January), and was able to form a nucleus for the jihadist movement. The influence of those ideas applies to the Sunnis in Lebanon - not just to the Palestinians.
Sunni Lebanese
Lebanon-based Addiyar newspaper indicated on 7 February, following the burning of the Danish Embassy and the riots in Beirut, that Saad Hariri is losing control over the Sunni scene by eliminating the subsidies for the poor among the Sunnis and making the al-Mustaqbal movement exclusive for the rich and powerful. As a result, Salafi-Jihadist movements (al-Qaida, Usbat al-Ansar, Jund al-Sham) and the Islamic Liberation Party are, according to Addiyar, now controlling 90 percent of the Sunni scene (Addiyar, 7 February).
Despite the reliability of the 90 per cent figure, the Salafi-Jihadist movement is attracting a host of poor Sunnis who were badly affected after the death of Rafiq Hariri. The media always spoke of the role Hariri played in restoring the balance between the Sunnis and the other sects in Lebanon. This becomes evident if we review the backgrounds of the people who volunteered in or returned from Iraq; they were mostly poor who did odd jobs like selling coffee and steamed beans in the street, or were unemployed in the first place.
Hezbollah's role
The developments related to the Salafi-Jihadist presence in Lebanon show that those influenced by the ideology will begin to move out of the Palestinian refugee camps and into southern Lebanon. This development means that Hezbollah will be threatened in its historically-controlled region. For Hezbollah, this development comes at a time when the party is under pressure to disarm and to end ties with Syria. This means that Hezbollah will not allow the Salafi-Jihadists to extend into their influenced region. While Salafi-Jihadists consider Shiites as infidels, on 23 February Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah listed, for the first time, the "Jama'at al-Takfeer" (Excommunication Groups, which is how officials in Arab governments describe Salafi-Jihadists), as one of the three beneficiaries of the bombings of Shiite shrines in Iraq, along with the United States and Israel.
Conclusion
The above factors show that the Salafi-Jihadist presence and movement into Lebanon is facing many obstacles, but is also becoming a new force in the country. At the same time, however, the socio-political developments in Lebanon are creating the conditions for that presence.
While Sunnis in Lebanon were historically led by old families like al-Huss, Karami and al-Sulh, from the 1990s until his assassination in 2005, Rafiq al-Hariri became the most prominent leader of Sunnis and enjoyed their support. That is why he was described as the "most Sunni personality" (al-Jazeera, 13 February). One of the most important factors in the popularity of Hariri among Sunnis was his concentration on the grassroots level by helping poor Lebanese.
Among the implications of the assassination was that Sunnis have become prone to polarization by different ideologies, among which is the Salafi-Jihadist ideology. Due to the positions of the above-mentioned political forces - such as the Palestinian organizations and Hezbollah - there will be conflict between them and Salafi-Jihadists. The result will be that the spread of the Salafi-Jihadist ideology in Lebanon will become a destabilizing factor in the country.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
10:18 ||
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gold futures in New York shot to a 25-year high atop $600 an ounce Thursday morning, while silver climbed a 22-year peak at $12 an ounce a down dollar and rising oil prices fueled buying by investors and speculators. By 8:35 a.m. EDT, gold for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division edged back to $598.50 for a gain of $6. It traded from $592 to $601.90 which marked the loftiest level for futures since January 1981. COMEX May silver was up 25.5 cents at $11.96 after rising as high as $12.08 in the early going. It's hard to believe this is based on inflationary expectations, so who is buying and what do they expect?
#1
Iranian gold reserves withrawn, etc. I expect many Iranian overseas assets (most Iranian private assets are held offshore) are being converted to something that can't be frozen.
That and maybe Arabs expecting trouble. They flee to gold quickly.
#4
"the loftiest level for futures since January 1981"
Seems like gold peaks every time The Great Satan and the Mad Mullahs are about to duke it out in the Persian Gulf.
#5
United Arab Emirates, in particular Dubai, have been steadily buying up gold over the last year. Don't know what's driving their decision. Preparations for what? A global economic collapse due to a crash of our stock market in response to another attack here at home?
Apple Computer Inc., abandoning its historic practice of running only its own operating system on its personal computers, yesterday rolled out software enabling buyers of Apple's new Intel-based Macintosh computers to install the Windows platform built by rival Microsoft Corp.
But God help you if you try to run OS X on a non-Apple pc.
The move, which caught much of the technology world by surprise, was seen as a bid to boost Apple's share of the PC market -- estimated at less than 5 percent -- by reaching beyond its base of Mac loyalists to the larger universe of ordinary computer users more familiar with the ubiquitous Windows. ''It's a huge departure," said Ted Schadler, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge. ''It's a big deal. But it's tied to their business model: Apple is a hardware company."
Schadler, who posted a blog entry yesterday titled ''Apple Runs Windows, Pigs Fly," projected that Apple could double its market share by appealing to consumers who first learned Windows on office computers and later bought home computers powered by Windows. Many have been drawn to Apple Stores over the past few years to buy iPod music players and have admired Mac designs, but they are intimidated about switching to Mac OS. Down the road, Apple could target the bigger market of businesses and other enterprises by licensing, supporting, and pre-installing Windows on future Macs, Schadler suggested.
OK, explain why I'd want to pay a lot more for a Mac computer to run Windows?
Happy to answer that, m'boy:
Mac OS X is simply better. You're not waiting for Vista, are you? OS X doesn't crash, doesn't get infected, doesn't spawn gigabytes of crap, etc.
Macs are sleek, clean, uncluttered, and have everything you need. I have an iMac intel (with both systems installed as of last night) at home and a Mac dual G5 at work. They simply are designed better.
Intel-based Macs cost little more than an Intel-based PC (comp specs, of course) -- for that modest upcharge you get 1) both operating systems 2) better industrial design and 3) oh, did I mention it was a Mac?
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
09:51 ||
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#1
If one doesn't like Windows, then the ability to run something one doesn't like is useful only when one HAS to run a Windows-only app, and if one likes Windows, seems to me that PCs are more customized towards Windows than Macs, considering that the Mac build and the Mac OS have grown up together like PCs and Windows have.
Posted by: Edward Yee ||
04/06/2006 10:57
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#2
OK, explain why I'd want to pay a lot more for a Mac computer to run Windows?
Price performance is now fairly comparable. Ease of use, reliability, elegance and simplicity are the primary reasons.
I use both and prefer the Mac more with each Windows release. I look forward to seeing if Vista is worth installing.
#3
I think it's about gamers, the big selling pc games take ages to get ported over to Mac, if at all.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006 11:10
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#4
(1) Knowing there will be head-to-head competition on exactly the same hardware Microsoft will tweak their OS to work better on that hardware (they can't tweak for the billion other changing hardware variations but they can tweak for one). If you like stability it could be worth paying more. (2) If you wanted to go Apple but have lots of legacy apps for the PC you are unwilling to part with you might now consider Apple hardware as an option. This is particular important for corporations. (3) Assume you have a Windows box but mostly run Linux on it and use the Windows side for games. You've wanted a full blown BSD Unix but the Mac has no games. Now you have an option.
And from the Mac side there has always been a select number of programs (Games primarily although few admit it) that are Windows only. This allows you to have the games without buying a seperate box or dealing with the gimped down Softwindows or other emulators.
#5
I like the idea. I like the looks and some of the technical features of Apples, but have a large investment in Windows software. I would like to see how they perform price / performance / ergonometrically. I like their hugish 16:9 screens, I don't like the mice, etc. The consumer comes out the winner here, if only from the point of view that it broadens choices. That may sound motherhood and apple pie-ish, but I think it is still true.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/06/2006 11:20
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#6
Notice there really aren't any Microsoft computers. Other people make the hardware. You can still go down to local shops to get a customized box. You can buy an average bundled off the shelf system for around $500.
For all the continued hype about Apple, they're still locked into a proprietary box. They sell hardware. The only thing that keeps them from scalping the consumer even more on price is the competition from the Intel world of MSBorg.
So now post about how incredably terrible the MS-Intel systems are. Yep, beta was better than VHS. There were a lot of 'better' technologies out there which in the end lost because of incompetent marketing strategies and corporate egos.
#7
but games always come out on Macs a year to late!!! thats what stops me from wanting one as great as they are all the games are always delayed from when PC games are out :(
#8
OK, explain why I'd want to pay a lot more for a Mac computer to run Windows?
I agree...whats the point? The attraction to Mac, for some, is the OS. Partitian the hard drive and run dual OS. It's really not all that expensive, complicated, or cumbersome.
Game companies are expecting such higher levels of sales for the console games (Xbox and Playstation) that the PCs are the new Macs when it comes to game sales (and Macs fall off the chart totally).
#11
My Powerbook and I survive quite nicely in the Windowed halls of corporate America. The only Windows only app that I have to put up with is Microsoft Project. For that, I use Virtual PC. The advantage accruing to the Mac is that not having to worry about the constant barrage of viruses that infest our PC networks. Not an inconsequential consideration. Nevertheless, I will probably upgrade to an intel based MacBook Pro when the next operating system (Mac OS 10.5 aka Leopard) comes out in August with the capability to dual boot, Windows when I have to and Leopard the rest of the time.
#12
#9 Really? Civ4 has redeemed that franchise, Galciv2, the Sims2, Simcity4, Children of the Nile, AOE3, Rome Total War, Europa Universalis 3 coming, I mean this is going to be looked at as the golden age of PC gaming.
#13
Liberalhawk, nice list of strategy games, notice that there are no First Person shooters or sports games on that list. Also note that Xbox 360 is still trickling out and the Playstation is coming soon. I think you're seeing the last hurrah.
Strategy games may survive on the PC because the nature of game play doesn't sit well with a game controller, but that's not the largest segment of games and I think second place is warranted.
#14
With the Intel chip on a Mac, how long would it be before some third-party technology allowed dual-booting of any OS anyone desired? This was a pre-emptive move by Apple, and a smart one at that. Good for them. Previously I wouldn't have considered a Mac, but now it's an option.
#17
I have a 17" PowerBook 1GB/80GB G4 with Tiger and it is, by far, the best computer I have ever had (4th MAC along with 8 or so PCs). Apples are elegant, well-designed, relaible, fully-featured, advanced, in short, everything a laptop should be. And yes, Apple is overpriced.
Apple OS X is based on BSD 4.3 UNIX and it is, to say the lease, a robust OS. I know as I run a lot of alpha and beta publishing software tests and I can count the number of crashes on one hand. On OS 9, one could easily have 5-10 crashes a day (yes, we were pushing them beyond their limits) Compared to Windows or OS 9, OS X is a freaking M1A2 Abrams tank. Invincible and indefatigable. And the MAC still has a 'personality', i.e. the image of a bomb when older OS versions crashed! Sa-weeet. Does soul-less WINTEL offer this?
And when I pull it out in the airport, everyone with their little Dells and HPs furtively look over and wonder: "Who IS that guy?". Sa-weeet!
While there are some applications I don't have (IE, MS-MessenegerEntourage, not Outlook, etc), I NEVER have to worry about viruses, registry problems, spyware, MS holes everywhere, etc. Unless, of course, one installs a dual boot version. *SIghs*
Even if a MacBook Pro is $2500 full-boat, at least $1000 more than a comparable PC box, it is well worth it. You will live in OS X and only use XP when you have to. It is that good, my friends.
I will be getting my new (work) MacBook Pro with 2GB/100GB/g wireless/bluetooth/FW400/built-in webcam. It will be going in as a dual boot, for sure. Wish me luck!
Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) captured the sixth Majlish-e-Shura member of the outlawed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) Khaled Saifullah at a bordering village of Shibganj upazila in Chapainawabganj last night. Lt Col Lutfar Rahman, commanding officer (CO) of BDR 6 Rifles Battalion, acknowledged the arrest, reports our staff correspondent in Rajshahi. With the latest arrest, six out of seven members of the JMB top decision-making tier have been put behind bars. Salahuddin is still at large with a Tk 10 lakh bounty on his head.
A BDR patrol team of Telkupi border outpost (BOP) led by Havildar Yakub arrested Saifullah at a tea stall, 500 yards off the BOP around 12:30am when he was having tea. The outpost is about one and a half kilometres away from the Indian border. BDR members were quizzing the top terror at their Chapainawabganj headquarters before Rapid Action Battalion (Rab)-5 took him in its custody around 2:00am today.
BDR sources said the government sent photographs of the two absconding Shura members to the border areas on March 15 and alerted the border guards. A source seeing resemblance with the photograph informed the nearby outpost guards, who immediately raided the area and trapped him. Saifullah first did not admit his identity but eventually confessed that he was the JMB Shura member. He went to the locality on March 31 and was staying at different mosques and madrasas, a BDR source said. Saifullah lived in the area on donation, the source added. Saifullah claimed he did not have any intention to cross the border.
PROFILE
Name: Md Faruk Hossain alias Khaled Saifullah
Father: Nurul Islam, a freedom fighter, who was killed by Pakistani occupation forces in 1971.
Permanent address: Goalata village in Kaukhali upazila in Pirojpur.
Occupation: Teacher of Aysha Siddique Salafiya Islamia Girls' Madrasa in Chhoto Gurgola in Dinajpur.
Links unfolded: JMB members during interrogation said their chief Abdur Rahman and Khaled Saifullah trained them up how to make and detonate bombs. Investigators believe the JMB supremo and Saifullah learned bomb making in Afghanistan when they visited the Taliban-ruled country. The investigators have an authentic piece of information that Saifullah was a leader of outlawed Harkatul Jihad al Islami (HuJi) in Bangladesh before he joined the JMB.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
09:46 ||
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Two weeks ago, the FBI's chief information officer admitted that the bureau couldn't afford to provide e-mail addresses for 8,000 of its 30,000 employees. The e-mail shortfall is only the latest in a series of embarrassed confessions the FBI has made about its information technology. The most significant mea culpa came when an attempt to upgrade the bureau's case-management software had to be scrapped last year after $170 million had already been spent. A Justice Department report listed all kinds of excuses, from poor "enterprise architecture" planning to shifting design requirements. But behind the management analysis is a more implacable problem. Until very recently, being computer-savvy hasn't been considered much of an asset in the FBI, and clues were something you kept to yourself.
Agents say things are changingthat there's a new spirit of cooperation and new task forces designed to dig up what's buried in investigators' files. But decades-old habits die hard. The FBI's old fiefdoms still linger. Some are regional: An agent from Los Angeles would be strongly discouraged from chasing leads in Chicago. Others are functional: The Counterintelligence Divisionthe investigators assigned to catch the next Aldrich Amesstill gets into turf battles with the Bin Laden-hunters in Counterterrorism.
For those who do want to share data, it can be more trouble than it's worth. Investigators are supposed to document everything from warrant requests to stakeout summaries in the FBI's Automated Case Support database. But agents can't point and click to add a record to their digital files. Instead, they have to tab through 12 different functions on a pre-Windows-era green screen. Pictures of suspects can't be scanned in. And complex searches are impossibledon't bother looking for "aviation" and "schools" at the same time. Many agents stay away from Automated Case Support and stick with paper. The 100,000 tips that came in during 2002's Washington, D.C., sniper case were circulated by fax.
Until 9/11, the consequences of being backward seemed pretty small. This was an investigative agency, after alla team of cops looking into crimes after the fact. There was little pressure to stop things before they happened; you don't arrest a bank robber before he orders the teller to stick 'em up. Nor did there seem to be a need to swap clues as they were coming in.
Then, suddenly, the pressure to share information leapt from nonexistent to crushing. Plans begun in 2000 to revamp the bureau's hardware and softwarethe new system was to be called "Trilogy"went into overdrive. Funding for FBI information technology jumped from $223 million to $507 million. In 2002, Sen. Chuck Schumer, then the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Trilogy's accelerated schedule was still too slow. "I find it impossible to believe that we cannot, for the safety of our nation, implement Trilogy any faster."
The problem was finding people with enough geek know-how and enough project management experience to get Trilogy done. The FBI's stars are the guys who chase down leads in the field, not the ones keeping servers from crashing. Former Director Louis Freeh reportedly had his PC taken off of his desk. Some agents proudly declared their inability to type.
In November 2001, the bureau named ex-IBM executive Bob Dies its first chief information officer. But Dies had virtually no authority over the FBI's technology budget, which was divided up among the various offices and divisions. He quit in May 2002. In the 19 months that followed, the FBI went through four more CIOs, and 15 key managers rotated through the Trilogy project.
Perhaps that's why many of the basic principles of running a multimillion dollar, high-tech effort were ignored. The bureau didn't bother with an overall assessment of its technology needs. Instead, IT managers made assumptions about what Trilogy should contain. Simple requirements documents, meant to lay out the system's basic functions (like searching multiple phrases at once), became detailed descriptions of logos and look-and-feel. Commercial software was eschewed in favor of complicated, hand-coded alternatives.
Eventually, the FBI got its hardware: new PCs and some higher-speed network connections (although a Congressional report would eventually uncover $10 million in questionable contractor payments and $7 million in missing gear). But Trilogy's software componentVirtual Case File, the system that was going to replace the old "green screen" investigation managernever came to be. VCF was supposed to let agents import audio and video into its digital files, search all FBI databases simultaneously, and let approval forms be authorized online, instead of by hand or by fax. With a hyper-aggressive, 22-month schedule and a series of ever-shifting demands from the bureau, the contractors were never able to deliver.
Today, agents still struggle with the antiquated system VCF tried, and failed, to replace. According to current and former intelligence analysts throughout the government, the FBI's technological infrastructure is still decades behind that of other agencies.
The bureau is making progress. CIO Zalmai Azmi has been in place since December 2003. Unlike his predecessors, he has control over the FBI's entire technology budget and direct access to FBI chief Robert Mueller. Azmi recently signed a $425 million deal with Lockheed Martin to develop Sentinel, the software the Virtual Case File never grew to be. The company has four years to deliver, not 22 months. The software will rely on commercial components, like Oracle databases, and it will be rolled out in increments rather than a single chunk.
For agents in the field today, these changes still seem like they're a long way off. In New York, only about 100 agents out of 2,000 have BlackBerriesthe e-mail-capable phones carried by seemingly every traveling salesman, congressional staffer, and mid-level executive on the East Coast. Headquarters nearly cut off the 100 BlackBerry owners until an assistant director "raised a stink" and saved his G-men from being disconnected. Score one for progress.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
09:38 ||
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#1
In November 2001, the bureau named ex-IBM executive Bob Dies its first chief information officer. ... He quit in May 2002. In the 19 months that followed, the FBI went through four more CIOs, and 15 key managers rotated through the Trilogy project.
This is quite impressive in a pitiful and frightening way. Organizations large and small have been automating with greater degress of success for the last couple decades.
One thing that always gets missed in giant techno-makeovers is the principle that something is better than nothing. A man with a simple spreadsheet can run rings around the guy with a yellow pad. A word processor beats a typewriter. (unless you are forging documents!) Start small and don't try to do it all at once. All large working systems have been grown from smaller working systems.
We have discussed previously how even a simple wiki would be better than the FBI's non-existant case file system. No email? Someone needs to send these lusers a truckload of discarded 486s and a box of linux disks.
#2
I have said it before and will say it again. Just duplicate the CIA's and NSA's computer systems.
Same software.
Same hardware.
DONE!
Fire all the current IT folks in the FBI and the managers that try to define IT. JUST FIRE THEM!
April 6, 2006: Although the number of suicide attacks in Afghanistan has gone from a handful in 2005 to about six per month so far this year, the casualty rate has not increased significantly. Most Taliban suicide bombings appear to kill only the attacker. The problem is the lack of adequate support staff. As the Israelis discovered over the last six years, the only way to shut down a terrorist suicide bomber campaign is to go after the support teams.
The suicide bombers themselves are relatively easy to recruit. But assembling the team of technicians and support staff needed to select, train, equip and deliver a suicide attacker effectively, is much more difficult. The Taliban apparently got all the technical instructions, on how to run suicide bombing operations, from the Internet and data CDs al Qaeda was passing around. There were rumors of "Iraqi experts" coming to Afghanistan, or Afghans going to Iraq for training, but neither of these appear to be true. It's basically amateur hour in Afghanistan, with the Taliban sending suicide bombers to a lonely death, as the support teams try to learn to be as efficient at killing people as their Arab brothers in Iraq are, or were. Iraqi suicide bomb support teams have taken a major beating over the past two years, and many Iraqi operations are as ineffective as those in Afghanistan.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
09:31 ||
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#1
Let's face it, the occupation doesn't afford a career ladder.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/06/2006 10:02
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#2
The solution to this problem is a new al-Jizz program to be called Arabian Idiot. It would show Arabians casing the target, building the bomb, recording their message of inspiration, etc. Whoever is alive for the final show wins $20,000 from Saddam Hussein.
#4
The relative success of bombers in Iraq is attributable to having operatives on hand to get the bomber to the target and then remotely detonating the explosive.
The Taliban does not yet appear to have the support staff inside Afghanistan.
#5
No, no, I've got it. You get two terror cells each of which considering blowing up 1 of 3 different targets. But get this -- they TRADE PLACES!! In return, each team will be aided and abetted by a spiritual leader and a fabricator. Each team only gets $1,000 for materials, but 1 of the 3 targets is a bonus target, in which case they get $2,000.
#7
But assembling the team of technicians and support staff needed to select, train, equip and deliver a suicide attacker effectively, is much more difficult.
April 6, 2006: When new weapons come on line in another country, many people tend to seize on one characteristic of the system that stands out, whether or not it is relevant to the system's mission. This leads to misleading reports about what the new weapon can really do. The fact is, hype about weapons can often exceed their actual performance. This tends to cause problems, not only because intelligence services are going to try to find out what the real deal is, but also because they engender panic. Rampaging pundits draws the attention of politicians. Often this hype occurs because the United States doesn't have a similar weapon in service.
Perhaps one of the more recent cases of a weapon being hyped is the Russian Shkval, a rocket-propelled super-cavitating torpedo. On paper, it looks deadly with its high speed (360 kilometers per hour), and its nuclear warhead (which could destroy even a carrier). However, a closer look reveals that this system has several Achilles' heels. First, it is unguided. This means that even with it going at a kilometer every ten seconds, the submarine that fires it is going to have to get close to the target. This leads into problem number two for anyone using Shkval. A five-kiloton nuclear warhead detonated underwater creates shockwaves that will cause damage to a submarine that gets too close to the detonation point. One kilometer is well within that range. In other words, if a submarine fires a Shkval at a carrier, it might get the carrier, but will probably be seriously damaged in the effort. For the United States, which used the Mk 48 ADCAP from very quiet submarines, a system like Shkval is more trouble than it's worth.
Another one of these hyped weapons is the SS-N-22 Sunburn. It is fast (top speed of Mach 2), with a big warhead (700 pounds of high-explosive), a range of 120 kilometers, and has the ability carry out terminal maneuvers to throw off a ship's last-ditch defenses. However, in this case, again, there is part of the story that is untold. The missile flies as low as 23 feet over the surface of the ocean. That is not a problem on a calm day, with little or no wave action. But in a storm, that low flight altitude means that the missile could hit a wave and fly out of control (or detonate before it reaches the target). The room for error decreases even more when one considers the terminal maneuvers. Plus, it is out-ranged by the Harpoon, which has a range of 140 kilometers (other versions have even longer range up to 315 kilometers). The Sunburn might be a nice weapon, but its launch platform has to come within range of an American ship's anti-ship missiles for the Sunburn to even have a snowball's chance in Miami of hitting its target.
This is not a new phenomenon. In the 1970s, the object of panic was the MiG-25 Foxbat. Many pointed to its high speed (3,000 kilometers per hour), and wondered if it was unstoppable. A closer look soon revealed that the plane had electronics at the level of the 1950s, and it had short range. The plane it was designed to counter, the B-70, never entered service. This was a plane stuck without a mission. Try convincing the panic-stricken politicians of that. The MiG-25 has had only one confirmed kill in its service and that was fratricide. Syria claimed one of its MiG-25s claimed to have shot down an Israeli F-15. On the other hand, at least 17 have been confirmed as having been shot down by opponents. When people talk about new "wonder weapons", most of the time, it is just hype, and these systems often fall short in combat.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
09:27 ||
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#1
Not to be "that guy" who points out fallacies in an otherwise spot-on piece, but the MiG-25 does have at least one confirmed enemy kill. On January 17, 1991, an Iraqi MiG-25PD shot down a U.S. Navy F/A-18C on a bombing run over Iraq. It's the only air-to-air victory the IQAF had in the war. Incidentally, the downed U.S. pilot is still listed as MIA.
#2
A lot of air went out of the FOXBAT balloon when Lt Viktor Belenko defected and landed one in Japan. The AF Foreign Technology Division got to participate as the Japanese dissected it. There were some interesting things in it, but more strange ones. One in particular, that I recall, was that the systems were designed to be cooled with 100% ethanol but that the actual fluids were only about 20 proof. Seems the ground crews had been drinking the coolant and replacing it with water.
April 6, 2006: After receiving initial deliveries of Russian AK-103 assault rifles, the Venezuelans quickly discovered that some of the weapons are not new, but older models "remanufactured" to newer standards. As a result, they have suspended the contract (for 100,000 rifles). The Russians have long pulled stunts like this, and have acquired a shady reputation as a result. Even some of their major customers, like India, get hit, and come back with lawsuits and cancellations and renegotiations. Apparently the Russian arms industry can't resist any opportunity to put one over on a customer. These scams often work, but when they don't, the blowback is ugly.
In this case, the Russians may believe that that Venezuelan president Chavez has alienated too many other weapons suppliers, and will tolerate some Russian skullduggery. Apparently the Russians missed all the Chinese arms merchants visiting Venezuela lately.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
09:26 ||
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#1
I got a bunch of stuff to sell Chaves,but only if he opens it himself!!!!
#5
My guess is this is not about rooski scamming, but more to do with the fact that the concept of customer service and satisfaction did not exist on Soviet Russia. The old 'we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us'.
"Go ahead and ship it, Boris. If they wanted working guns, they would have said so on the purchase order."
#6
You mean we haven't accumulated nearly a half a million of those little pop guns by now with all the colorful tourist packages in Afghanistan and Iraq? Me Ghads. I'd dump a million of those things in Venezuela along with about a hundred rounds apiece into the country, just not to the select 100 thousand that Hugo baby wants to have them.
#7
It's the same the world over. I remember being grossed out from an Alaskan friend when they provided canned salmon for a Russian contract--made from *lake* salmon, half-rotted and falling apart in chunks. At one point the canners quit because the smell was so intense.
April 6, 2006: The Tuareg tribes are again in rebellion against the Mail government. One of Africa's few real democracies, with more than a decade of orderly elections and presidential successions, Mali has about 12.3 million people, but is nearly twice the size of Texas, and sprawls across the Sahel and parts of the Sahara. Although most of the people are Moslems, religious radicalism does not seem to have put down any roots.
The desert regions of the far north of the country, up against the Algerian frontier, are not only the most thinly populated region, but also the least well-controlled by the central government. Banditry and feuds among the largely Tuareg Berber tribes are common in the north. In addition, the region seems to have attracted Islamist fundamentalists fleeing defeat in Algeria, who have reportedly set up base camps in order to regroup. This is causing concern not only in Mali, but also in Algeria and nearby Mauritania. All three countries have recently reached a number of agreements to promote greater security in the region, and these include rights of "hot pursuit" during operations against extremists.
To strengthen its control of the north, Mali is preparing to deploy a major part of its small armed forces to the north and asset government control, in cooperation with Mauritania, which has pledged to provide some personnel and other support. Peace has been made with the rebellious Taureg tribes twice (in 1995 and 2001) in recent history. But these deals never last, mainly because old habits are hard to break.
The Taureg tribes have, for centuries, had a hostile relationship with the peoples to the south. The Tauregs, who are lighter skinned (they are distant cousins of the ancient Egyptians and Semitic peoples) than the sub-Saharan Africans, speak different languages (again, related to ancient Egyptian, not the Bantu, and other language groups found to the south) and have a different lifestyle. The sub-Saharan governments, especially in Niger, have played up the racial differences, tagging the Taureg as evil "whites" and urging the destruction of the hated nomads. The southerners do have a beef, in that the nomadic Taureg have been raiding the more settled blacks for a long time (like thousands of years.) So the animosity is nothing new. But Islamic terrorists taking advantage of Taureg hospitality is.
That hospitality may not last forever. The Taureg take their Islam in a decidedly Taureg fashion. That is, many ancient religious practices were incorporated into the Taureg version of Islam. This sort of thing is anathema to al Qaeda, in particular, and Islamic radicals in general. Leave the Taureg and al Qaeda together long enough, and you can expect some homegrown Taureg counter-terrorist action. But the Mali government doesn't want to wait, for they know that al Qaeda might get into some local mischief first. And the Western nations don't want al Qaeda to have a sanctuary, not matter how transitory, anywhere on the planet, even in the middle of the desert.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
09:09 ||
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"Taureg"
I think VW has had it's "Cressida" moment.
Posted by: SLO Jim ||
04/06/2006 12:20
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GUANTANAMO BAY US NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A Canadian teenager charged with killing a US Army medic in Afghanistan told a Guantanamo tribunal on Wednesday he had been unfairly punished with solitary confinement and would no longer participate in the hearing. Omar Khadr, a 19-year-old accused by the US military of being trained by al Qaeda, addressed the presiding officer softly at his pretrial hearing at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Omar, of the world famous Kanadian Khadr Killer Klan
I say with my respect to you and everybody else here that I am boycotting these procedures until I (am) treated humanely and fair, the Toronto native said. One of his military lawyers, Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, said Khadr had been moved to solitary confinement for no reason on March 30, making it difficult to prepare a defense. Vokey shouted and slapped the table during a heated exchange with presiding officer, Marine Col. Robert Chester, who recessed the hearing and asked to see Vokey in private.
"Vokey, I think you've been watching too many episodes of Boston Legal. Straighten up, or you'll be defending penguins on Ice Station Zebra."
The hearing resumed later under protest from defense attorneys. They said it was unethical for them to continue against their clients will. Chester said he would take up the issue later in the week.
Khadr is charged with conspiring to commit war crimes and with murdering US Army Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer with a grenade during a firefight at a suspected al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan in 2002. A spokesman for the prison camp said in a written statement that neither Khadr nor any other Guantanamo detainees were held in solitary confinement. He said Khadr had been moved from a medium-security camp, where prisoners live in groups, to a maximum-security building where they live in individual cells but can still communicate with one another.
He's got a private room and he's bitchin' about it?
The spokesman, Cmdr. Robert Durand, said the move was routine for those in pretrial status and largely for the protection of the detainee.
The testy exchange came during a daylong hearing where defense attorneys complained repeatedly about rules they said were unclear, unfair and not based on any legal framework. It began when Vokey questioned who had authority to grant Khadrs request for a Canadian lawyer to join the defense team. Chester said he would decide if he had that authority once Vokey made the request in writing. Theres no precedent here, Vokey fumed. I dont know what rule to look to. I dont know what law to look to.
That's the whole *point*, Vokey. These scumbags have the entire Western system of jurisprudence tied up in knots and chasing its own tail while the Sons of Allan continue their plottings and slaughter in the name of all that's *holy*.
The US military says Khadrs father, Ahmed Said Khadr, an al Qaeda financier and close friend of Osama bin Laden, moved his family between Canada, Pakistan and Afghanistan and sent his son to al Qaeda training camps to learn how to use guns, grenades and explosives. The elder Khadr was killed in a shootout with Pakistani security forces in 2003. Khadr was 15 when he was captured. His lawyers believe that trying him for crimes allegedly committed as a juvenile violates international law. Khadr would face life in prison if convicted.
Plus, he's half a orphan, so show some mercy already...
Ten of the 490 Guantanamo detainees have been charged with war crimes. Khadr is one of four scheduled for pretrial hearings this week. The Supreme Court heard a challenge to the legitimacy of the tribunals last month and is expected to rule by July.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
08:55 ||
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#2
Yah know.. That Ice Station Zebra comment -- If we kept them at the South Pole instead of a tropical paradise they might be a bit better behaved...
Solitary outside could be interesting.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/06/2006 9:39
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#4
Trade him to Fidel for a dozen political prisoners languishing in his prisons and a first round draft choice of a designated pitcher for MLB. That way he can have dinner with El Jefe, Danny Glover and Harry Belefonte and we can get some coverage of real detention experiences on the island.
#5
"defense attorneys.. said it was unethical for them to continue against their clients will."
WTF am i missing something? Our client doesn't wan't to be tried for murder so don't. Isn't that what the're saying. Sheeez this legalese makes my head hurt.
Determined Manhunt Leads to Major Catch: Iraqi Terrorist Leader Wanted for Murders, Kidnappings, Assassination Attempts and Intimidation Iraqi terrorist leader Muhammed Hila Hammad Ubaydi, aka Abu Ayman, was captured and arrested by Iraqi Forces in the Al Mahmudiyah neighborhood in southern Baghdad March 7. Investigators held notice of this capture until now due to DNA testing, which has confirmed this is Abu Ayman. Aymans capture was the result of a determined manhunt conducted by Iraqi intelligence professionals and several intelligence agencies within the Coalition.
Until his capture, Abu Ayman, the former aide to the Chief of Staff of Intelligence during the Saddam Hussein regime, was the leader of the Secret Islamic Army in the Northern Babil Province. Abu Ayman has strong ties to terror leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, still considered the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Abu Ayman is the prime suspect in the kidnapping of Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena and for assassination attempts on Iraqi Government and Iraqi Security Forces officials. Abu Ayman is also the prime suspect in the kidnapping and killing of several hostages in Iraq and for committing some of the most lethal IED attacks on Coalition and Iraqi Forces and on Iraqi citizens since the fall of the regime.
Iraqi and Coalition Forces consider Abu Aymans capture significant in their pursuit to lay to rest the terror cells that have caused death and destruction in Iraq. Officials believe Abu Aymans capture will not only disrupt some of these attacks, and that his capture will undoubtedly save lives, but that he will also provide valuable information leading to the capture of other terrorists he has worked with in the past.
Abu Aymans lieutenant Abu Qatada, a Syrian born terrorist who was wanted for multiple IED attacks, the assassinations of two Iraqi government council members, and the murders of several truck drivers in order to use their trucks in vehicle borne IED attacks, was captured by Iraqi and Coalition Forces on Dec. 27 during a raid on his house where Abu Qatada was found hiding in a nearby canal. In the months following his capture Abu Qatada has provided valuable information on the Abu Ayman terror network.
The Iraqi Central Investigating Court in Baghdad had issued an arrest warrant for Abu Ayman on Oct. 17, citing his violation of Iraqi Penal Code 194 -- committing terrorist acts.
#2
I'm sure Guiliana Sgrena is really saddened by this news.
Posted by: ed ||
04/06/2006 9:36
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#3
Guiliana is probably going to bave Abu's offspring, after planting a few IEDs.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/06/2006 9:45
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#4
Interesting. They waited over a month before announcing. IIRC, wasn't there a blurb a few weeks back about the capture of Z-man himself? Maybe they used the same DNA lab?
KABUL - A mortar exploded close to the US air base in Bagram, north of the capital, Kabul, on Thursday and killed one Afghan civilian and wounded at least two others, a police official said. Gen. Abdul Rahman Sayedkhail, chief of Parwan province, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of Kabul, said the mortar landed about 1 kilometer (0.60 miles) from the main gate of the Bagram base and destroyed a truck delivering food to US military personnel there.
There were no US casualties, but one Afghan national was killed and at least two wounded, Sayedkhail said. Police detained two Afghan males at the scene of the explosion for questioning, he added.
The Bagram base is the largest US military facility in Afghanistan, where militants loyal to the toppled Taliban government have launched a stepped up campaign of violence targeting coalition and Afghan forces.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
08:51 ||
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#1
the day when cheap practical systems to shoot down these peky morters couln't come sooner really. What happened in the Green Zone in Bagdad didnt they use/set up a modified Phalanx close in ship defensive gatling gun to blast the incoming rounds from the sky, any one know if it worked or did it just cause problems raining shells down on the city, seemed like a good solution at the time till a laser weapon is practical to use but that shouldnt be more then a decade away from the clips on the net we've seen of incoming arty rounds getting vaporized by the THEL.
Qassam missile from Gaza sets factory on fire at Kibbutz Zikkim south of Ashkelon. The direct hit Thursday left 2 victims in shock. Wednesday, 7 missiles exploded on the Israeli side of the border. Two landed near Sderot.
After three landed south of Ashkelon, Mekorot evacuated in chlorine plant. No casualties or damage were reported. Earlier, a Qassam landed harmlessly in an open area between Netiv Haasara and Kibbutz Yad Mordechai.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
08:49 ||
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#1
Wow. They actually HIT something after firing HOW MANY?
#3
I hope Israel makes a raid and levels the area where these little ditties came from. The Paleos need to realize that there are serious consequences to actions like this. So far, only the occasional Hellfire missile. ANY missile landing in Israel should be considered an act of war.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/06/2006 17:10
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#4
And the death by a thousand cuts continues unopposed and unabated...
China has says it has no plans to play host to the newly-appointed Palestinian foreign minister, two days after the Hamas politician announced he would visit the country. Mahmud al-Zahar said on Tuesday he was planning to tour countries in East Asia, starting with China, in late May. "We are going to visit China and we have let the ambassador know," al-Zahar said in Gaza after meeting Yang Weiguo, the Chinese envoy to the Palestinian territories.
But in an apparent denial the Chinese foreign ministry said on Thursday no such visit was yet on the cards. "China at the present stage does not have such a plan yet," the ministry said in a statement, although it added that China planned to continue friendly ties with the Palestinians. "At the same time [China] hopes the new Palestinian government will undertake active steps to continue to push forward the Middle East peace process," the ministry said.
China was cautious, but relatively welcoming, in its response to the Hamas election victory in January. A visit to Beijing would have made China the second United Nations Security Council member after Russia to host Hamas leaders since they won a surprise victory in January's Palestinian elections.
A Saudi al Qaeda operative captured ten months ago is in an Israeli jail. Saudis want him handed over. Sources in Riyadh report the Saudis seek custody of Abdul Rahman Al-Atwi, 36. If the handover takes place, it will be the first time Israel has ever passed an Islamic terrorist to Saudi Arabia, a country which has no diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. DEBKAfiles counter terror sources reveal how the episode developed - up to the point Wednesday, April 5, when Saudi foreign minister Prince Saudi al-Faisal told a news conference in Riyadh that he had asked the UN and Red Cross to obtain his release.
Saudi sources report the al Qaeda operative went on a hunger strike two weeks ago. He was placed in Ramleh prison hospital and is being force-fed. After apprehending him at the Allenby Bridge crossing last year, Israeli security services questioned Al-Atwi repeatedly to find out if he was a lone wolf or a member of a band of Saudi al Qaeda operatives, some of whom may have made it to the West Bank and Israel. Israel allowed American and Egyptian agents access to the prisoner for questioning.
The information emerging from interrogations was that Al-Atwi took the ferry from Saudi Arabia to Egypt and went straight to Cairo, where he rented an apartment in the upper middle class Al-Muhandiseen neighborhood. He appears to have been assigned to carry out an attack in Cairo. He was to await al Qaeda contact-men in the Egyptian capital for further instructions. For some reason, the plan was ditched and he was told to get out.
Egyptian security searchers reached the apartment shortly after his departure. There, they found his cell phone number. A phone call established that he had crossed the Suez Canal at Ismailiya and reached Sinai. The al Qaeda operative eluded an Egyptian security unit detailed to detain him. From Sharm el Sheikh he took a ferry boat to Jordan and disembarked at Aqaba. There, too, he slipped through the fingers of Jordanian security. It is believed that al Qaeda men on the spot secreted him north to the Allenby Bridge crossing, where he was finally captured by Israeli security before he carried out his presumed mission of a terrorist strike against Israel.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
08:28 ||
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#1
Saudi Arabia should not get their citizen-terrorist back until they sign a real peace treaty and concommitant trade agreements with Israel, and revoke the law making it illegal for Jews and Israelis to live and work in Saudi Arabia. If the man dies an Israeli prisoner in the meantime, the Saudi princelings can take full responsibility for their choice.
#3
The royal knickers must be in a right royal knot to-day.
One of their Own, deviant and dangerous though he may be, dwindling away in Israeli durance vile. Bet he's from one of the best and most powerfullest tribes.
I hope the Israelis hold him for a good long while, and let him send a note to his mom once a month.
Algiers, 6 April (AKI) - Some 300 Algerian teachers have in the past belonged to the al-Qaeda linked Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), the country's education minister has said. Bakr Bin Buzayd, quoted by the website of the Al-Arabiya satellite network, said that over the past decade of violence in Algeria, close to 300 teachers had left their classrooms to join the GSPC terror cells in the mountains. "To date we have not received any requests from these people to resume their teaching roles" said Buzayd. "Despite this, there is no reason why in the future they could not be gradually reintegrated into the teaching staff" he said.
He said his government had studied this phenomenon closely as part of the charter, approved by parliament and endorsed in a referendum last October, which includes an amnesty for any former terrorists who have not been involved in rape or mass killings. The so called "charter for peace and national reconciliation" grants a pardon to Islamic militants who rose up against the army-backed regime in 1992, after it cancelled elections that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win. It bans top Islamists from politics, a move analysts say was intended to ensure the support of Algeria's powerful army. The charter also praises the army for its role in protecting state institutions during the civil war.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
08:22 ||
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Here I am thinking it was the NEA.
Posted by: ed ||
04/06/2006 9:21
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Cagliari, 6 April (AKI) - Italian interior minister Giuseppe Pisanu said on Thursday that security forces prevented two terrorist attacks against the church of San Petronio in Bologna and Milan's underground rail system. Pisanu said seven people were involved in the plot and that three were expelled from the country, two were arrested, one is under police surveillance and another is on the run. "Now I can say it: there was a terror project against our country and the control and prevention action of our police was able to foil it," Pisanu said on the sidelines of a rally in Cagliari of the leading cabinet party, Forza Italia, ahead of a general election over the weekend.
"The operation was successfully carried out. There was a terrorism project which was quickly discovered, also thanks to the precious cooperation of allies," Pisanu said. Pisanu did not give any further details on the plot.
"I can say no more"
"Our prevention system, based on the relentless control of the territory and suspected milieus, has once again proven to be quite efficient."
Additional: Mr Pisanu said one of the targets was the church of San Petronio, in Bologna. The church has a painting of the Prophet Muhammad in hell, which has been criticised by Italian Muslims in the past.
The Italian Corriere della Sera newspaper reported that the suspects had planned to carry out attacks before the elections. According to the AFP news agency, Moroccan police arrested nine people in March who were "planning terrorist acts in Paris and Bologna".
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
08:20 ||
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The church has a painting of the Prophet Muhammad in hell, which has been criticised by Italian Muslims in the past.
Obviously a very high priority target. Are prints available?
#2
Mohammed inHell
As the link states, it's not the first time Mohammed worshippers have tried to blow up the church.
Posted by: ed ||
04/06/2006 9:29
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"three were expelled from the country"
You've got to be kidding me. What is this, like a "Better luck next time" sendoff. Send them to Trinidad Colorado, give them a sex change, then send them back.
Baghdad, 6 April (AKI) - The key suspect in the kidnapping of Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena has been captured, the U.S. military said on Thursday. Mohammed Hila Hammad al-Ubaydi, a former senior intelligence official under Saddam Hussein with close ties to the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was arrested on 7 March, the statement said. Sgrena was freed last year but an Italian intelligence officer escorting her to freedom was shot and killed by U.S. forces at a checkpoint near Baghdad airport. Al-Ubaydi was sought for questioning in several assassination attempts the statement added..
The military said Ubaydi was the former aide to the intelligence chief of staff under Saddam Hussein, and now heads a group it identified as the Secret Islamic Army in northern Babel province. Ubaydi, also known as Abu Ayman, was captured a month ago, but the news had not been announced until DNA testing could verify his identity, the military said.
Plus it gave us time to suck out his brains
The Iraqi Central Investigating Court in Baghdad issued an arrest warrant for Ubaydi on October 17 last year, accusing him of committing terrorist acts. As well as his involvement in the abduction of Giuliana Sgrena, Ubaydi is also suspected of kidnapping and killing several hostages in Iraq and is believed to have carried out attacks on military forces and citizens. Authorities said he had been the target of an intense manhunt by Iraqi and other intelligence agencies and was picked up in the Al-Mahmudiya neighborhood of southern Baghdad.
Italian freelance journalist Giuliana Sgrena was kidnapped in Baghdad on February 4, 2005, and was freed a month later after her release was negotiated by Italian agent Nicola Calipari. He was escorting her to the Baghdad airport when he was shot to death by U.S. troops at a checkpoint. Sgrena was wounded in the shoulder. The US dismissed the shooting was an accident, and no disciplinary action was taken against the soldiers involved. However, the Italians disputed the conclusion.
Posted by: Steve ||
04/06/2006
08:17 ||
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BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- A first-of-its-kind Muslim-American television network launched a year ago has gone from being a premium pay channel to a basic-cable offering on several cable and satellite systems, broadening its reach from 10,000 to more than 1 million U.S. homes.
Bridges TV, featuring Muslim-American lifestyle and cultural programming, also has been approved by the Canadian Radio & Television Commission to start broadcasting in Canada.
Founder and Chief Executive Muzzammil Hassan said the transition in markets including Detroit, Chicago, Boston and Washington means viewers while channel-surfing between Fox News Channel and CNN are coming across the English-language network and its coverage of issues like the Dubai ports controversy.
"That completely changes and gives America a completely different and unique perspective that America has never had available before," Hassan said. "That has been the biggest driving factor."
Bridges TV, with a staff of 25 to 30, produces a daily hourlong newscast at its studio in suburban Orchard Park. Broadcasts also include children's educational programming, current affairs, cooking and travel shows, soccer and cricket matches, documentaries and sitcoms.
As a premium channel for $14.99 per month, virtually all Bridges TV subscribers were Arabs and Muslims, Hassan said, giving the sense the network was preaching to the choir rather than advancing its goal of bridging understanding of American and Muslim cultures.
The network "really fills a void," said Adnan Mirza, a director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "There's a clear disconnect between popular American media and the Muslim audience. ... Americans are increasingly interested in better understanding Middle Eastern cultures, and Muslim Americans want to be better understood. Bridges TV creates a public platform for this dialogue."
The Buffalo office of the FBI has taken notice and will use the network for an "FBI Townhall Meeting" May 15, during which an FBI agent will field on-air questions and comments from Muslim and Arab-American viewers.
Over the last several weeks, the network has been added to the basic cable packages of WOW! Cable, which has a presence in Chicago, Detroit and Columbus; Buckeye Cable in Ohio; and Shrewsbury Cable in Massachusetts. Verizon FiOS, a broadband service, and Globecast Satellite reach markets in Boston, Dallas, Tampa, Fla., and Washington, D.C. Bridges TV will soon launch on Rogers Cable in Canada.
A charter sponsorship by Ford Motor Co. has offset the loss of premium subscription revenue, Hassan said.
In its hometown market of Buffalo, Adelphia Communications will keep Bridges TV as a premium channel. A spokesman, Thomas Haywood, cited a low subscriber rate.
#3
I won't be replacing my Mustang with another Ford.
Posted by: ed ||
04/06/2006 9:15
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#4
This is why foundations should have to spend themselves out of business within a specified time, as did the Olin Foundation. Henry, anti-Semitic as he was, is spinning in his grave.
#7
Broadcasts also include children's educational programming, current affairs, cooking and travel shows, soccer and cricket matches, documentaries and sitcoms.
Hold it? at the risk of still being undecided on this story, what is wrong with programming targeted to this demographic?
It is likely more "center of the road" than Al Gore's "Current"... (Sorry, how could it be any lefter than that?
#9
The network "really fills a void," said Adnan Mirza, a director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "There's a clear disconnect between popular American media and the Muslim audience.
#10
Real simple. How much of their religious commentary is derived from Wahabbist or Salafist imams? Where does the majority of their overseas funding come from? What is the station's stated views on Islamist terrorism and Israel's right to exist? They need to put themselves on record, right away. If Saudi Arabia has any prominent role in this, shut it down.
#11
"broadening its reach from 10,000 to more than 1 million U.S. homes"
Reach is different than viewership.
"Broadcasts also include children's educational programming"
Keep a close eye on that.
"for $14.99 per month, virtually all Bridges TV subscribers were Arabs and Muslims"
With only 10,000 homes subscribed, advertising revenue must have been zilch.
"the FBI has taken notice and will use the network for an 'FBI Townhall Meeting'"
Don't try this on other minority-oriented networks or Jesse and Al will have seizures. On second thought...
"charter sponsorship by Ford Motor Co."
Ford doesn't expect its automotive business to make a profit in 2006. Look to Renault to kick in just as soon as Ford and Paris are lost.
I hear they're going to run a version of "Leave it to Beaver" that has a burkha digitally added over all the women.
They considered doing the same for "Andy Griffith", but Don Knotts scares the hell out of them.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/06/2006 13:10
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#13
The network "really fills a void," said Adnan Mirza, a director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Yeah, my life's been... so empty without this shit.
Think if cable had been around in WWII we could've gotten "The Nazi Channel" or "Cooking with Tojo" on our basic cable package?
Here's what I predict. After a while watchdog people will get bored with the programming and slack off. That's when the muzzies will air mad mullah rantings, etc.
I'm going to get in trouble for this, I just know it.
A toned-down edition of Playboy will go on sale tomorrow in mostly Muslim Indonesia, defying protests from Islamic leaders who have called on the government to ban the magazine. The magazine does not feature nude women, and its photos of female models are much less risque than those in other magazines already for sale in the country.
I can't wait for the "Jihad Girls Gone Wild" issue
Avianto Nugroho, the magazine's promotion manager, said the magazine would go on sale tomorrow.
#8
In the early 70s the wife graduated from college and went to be with her father who was building a huge factory in Indonesia. They spent a long time touring Bali as the rural women were still topless in those days and her dad liked looking...
She swore that they had the most beautiful breasts on the planet. She's never showed me any photos to prove that statement.
I guess this Islamic Playboy won't be printing rural scenes from Bali.
(Of course Bali is Hindu and Buddhist with only minor Islamic population)
An odalisque was a female slave or concubine in the Ottoman Seraglio, tending to the harem of the Turkish sultan. The word appears in a French form, and originates from the Turkish odalık, meaning "chambermaid", from oda, "chamber" or "room". Various writers spell the word as odahlic, odalisk, and odaliq.
An odalisque was not a concubine of the harem, but she could possibly become one. Odalisques were the virgin slaves of the harem, where they were at the bottom of the social ladder, serving not the sultan himself but rather his concubines and wives as personal chambermaids. Odalisques were usually given as gifts to the sultan, and many Georgian and Caucasian families even urged their daughters to enter the harem as slaves in the hopes that they would become a palace concubine, favored slave, or wife of the sultan.
An odalisque was generally never seen by the sultan, but instead was under the direct supervision of the Valide sultan. If an odalisque was of extraordinary beauty or had exceptional talent in dancing or singing, she would be trained as a possible concubine. If called for, an odalisque trained as a concubine would serve the sultan sexually, and only after such sexual use would she change in status, becoming thenceforth a concubine. In the Ottoman Empire, concubines provided the equivalent of a one-night stand in modern times, and would only see the sultan again if they were especially skilled in dance, singing, or the sexual arts, and had thus caught his attention. If by chance the concubine's time with the sultan resulted in the birth of a son, she would become one of his wives.
In popular usage, the word odalisque may also loosely refer to a mistress, concubine, or paramour of a wealthy man.
* In Western culture odalisques became common 19th century fantasy figures in the artistic movement known as Orientalism; they feature in many erotic paintings from that era.
* A song by The Decemberists speaks of the Odalisques with some fairly provocative lyrics: "Lay your belly under mine/Naked under me, under me/Such a filthy dimming shine/The way you kick and scream, kick and scream"
#11
Article: An odalisque was generally never seen by the sultan, but instead was under the direct supervision of the Valide sultan. If an odalisque was of extraordinary beauty or had exceptional talent in dancing or singing, she would be trained as a possible concubine. If called for, an odalisque trained as a concubine would serve the sultan sexually, and only after such sexual use would she change in status, becoming thenceforth a concubine. In the Ottoman Empire, concubines provided the equivalent of a one-night stand in modern times, and would only see the sultan again if they were especially skilled in dance, singing, or the sexual arts, and had thus caught his attention. If by chance the concubine's time with the sultan resulted in the birth of a son, she would become one of his wives.
This practice may have been imported from China, where it was the norm for thousands of years until the abolition of the Chinese monarchy in 1911. It was also widely copied by China's neighbors, including Japan, Korea and Vietnam. The hugely-popular (among East Asian countries) Korean costume drama Dae Jang Geum (available with English subs) provides an entertaining look at the court politics surrounding the king's women, essentially indentured servants - those who were neither concubine nor consort - during the Choson dynasty 400+ years ago. Emperor Hirohito was the first Japanese emperor not to have a harem. Both of his parents were the issue of concubines.
This practice wasn't limited to the royal family. Members of the nobility and wealthy individuals of common birth had the same traditions. It is only with the wholesale adoption of Western mores a century or so ago that polygamy in the Far East was abolished both for members of the royal family and commoners.
Pretty stupid move. If the West wants to win over the largest Moslem nation in the world, I suggest they show more respect for Indonesian social mores and customs. It would be different if the mag was generated by Indonesians, but it will be seen as an offense at bes,t and as an outright encroachment and attack on the society, at worst-- and the extremists will use it to justify trouble--which will be blamed on every Westerner, regardless. And look at Thailand. Porn leads to child porn. It's the nature of the industry. Too bad IMO.
KARACHI, April 6 (Reuters) - A prominent Pakistani Shi'ite Muslim cleric survived an assassination attempt on Thursday when his car was hit by a remote-controlled bomb in the restive southern city of Karachi, police said. They said that cleric Allama Hassan Turabi was unhurt in the attack but one of his guards and a passerby were wounded.
The bomb, concealed in a cart, exploded as soon as Turabi's car crossed a bridge in the eastern district of the sprawling city, said Karachi police chief Niaz Siddiqui. "I think it was a targeted attack, and we are investigating," Siddiqui told Reuters.
Sectarian violence is not uncommon in Pakistan, where more than 100 people have been killed in tit-for-tat attacks by militants from majority Sunni and minority Shi'ite Muslim sects in the past year. Most of the victims have been Shi'ite Muslims, who account for about 15 percent of a Pakistan's predominantly Sunni population of 150 million.
The Shin Bet security service on Thursday released Khaled Abu Arafa, the Palestinian Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, a few hours after they detained him as he made his way from Jerusalem to Azzariyeh, close to the eastern part of the city. Border Policemen in jeeps appeared to have been waiting for Abu Arafa, Hamas officials said, and stopped his car as it headed toward Azzariyeh.
Abu Arafa, an independent in the Hamas-led government, was apparently en route to the office of his Fatah predecessor Ziad Abu Ziad for a handover ceremony. His bodyguard was also detained. "They stopped the car and asked the minister to get out and when he refused they forced him by pointing the rifle in his face," a Hamas source said.
Israeli security sources confirmed the arrest, saying Abu Arafa, a resident of the East Jerusalem village of Abu Dis, was detained for trying to enter the Palestinian territories with his Israeli ID card. He was released a few hours later. Israelis are banned from entering the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Ahmed Jalajel, a photographer for the Arabic Al-Quds daily, was in the car with the minister when he was taken into custody. "They asked us for ID, they said 'get out.' He [Abu Arafa] said 'I am not getting out.' They opened the car and pushed him out," Jalajel told The Associated Press. "They asked him to sit down on the ground, and then they checked the IDs. They asked him to get into their jeep. He refused, then they pushed him into the jeep," Jalajel said, adding that he tried to take a picture but the security forces broke his camera.
This is the first time Israel has arrested a minister in the Hamas-led government, sworn in last week after winning a landslide victory in January's parliamentary elections. Abu Arafa, a Jerusalem resident born in 1961, has been arrested by Israel several times in the past.
"We kill the young, along with their mothers and fathers, in acts of terrorism every week. We use 'deadly force' in an ideological battle, just as insurgents and terrorists organizations do. Does it matter to the dead and injured that we claim to do so as 'liberators'?"
Texans for Peace, describing the U.S. military in Iraq
There are, it seems, some things that self-described advocates of peace are willing to fight about. Expose an uncomfortable truth about their beliefs, and the peace brigades are more than happy to go on the warpath.
That's what happened after I wrote a recent column criticizing the organization Christian Peacemaker Teams for its lack of gratitude to coalition forces who rescued three of its members from a terrorist safe house near Baghdad.
As I noted, the original CPT statement was filled with denunciations of British and American forces in Iraq, but contained not a single word of thanks to the individuals who risked their lives to save those of the Christian Peacemakers.
Christian Peacemakers Teams issued an addendum acknowledging, "We have been so overwhelmed and overjoyed ... that we have not adequately thanked the people involved with freeing them." Give the group credit for at least admitting its error.
Texans for Peace, on the other hand, is still clinging to the fantasy that the CPT hostages were "released" presumably by the same kind folks who murdered American hostage Tom Fox rather than freed by American, British and Iraqi troops.
"3 Peacemakers friends released" is the headline Texans for Peace maintains on its Web site. Rather than correct a single word, the peace group went on the attack against me for drawing attention to its misleading headline, labeling me an anti-Muslim bigot and suggesting I should not write about events in Iraq or Sudan.
Why would Texans for Peace be so belligerent about using language that reflects favorably on the hostage-takers while discrediting the role of military rescuers?
It might be because Texans for Peace doesn't want anyone to believe the military is capable of doing anything positive. On the contrary, the American military, indeed all Americans, are guilty of being baby killers. "American soldiers, directed by Commander-in-Chief Bush are killing babies," the group says, "and as citizens of the U.S. we share the blame."
About the "release" of the three CPT hostages, Texans for Peace explains elsewhere: "Details of how they were found, who their captors actually were (none was found at the site), and why they were taken in the first place, and who actually murdered Tom Fox still need to be investigated."
Texans for Peace founder Charles Jackson elaborated the point on the All Things Conservative blog in a discussion about the subsequent release this time the word is accurate of reporter Jill Carroll:
"There are many undercover operations going on in Iraq, by groups from a variety of foreign nations, including the U.S. Since she, and the CPT hostages, were taken by a 'previously unknown group' and no hostage takers were found in either instance, a great deal is still unknown as to the identity and motives of the kidnappers and who, if what, was behind it."
Follow the line of reasoning here. There's no moral difference between terrorists who behead captives and set off bombs to deliberately and ruthlessly murder civilians and American soldiers, Marines and airmen fighting those terrorists who inadvertently and tragically kill civilians.
And don't be so certain those previously unknown "terrorists" are who they say they are. The United States wink, wink has undercover operations going on Iraq.
As I have written for more than three years, there are principled reasons to oppose the use of military force in Iraq. And I admire the dedication of people who are willing to risk their own lives and spend their own money to advance those principles in a war zone.
What's not admirable is an ideological agenda that turns hostage takers into hostage releasers, murderers into martyrs and men and women fighting to save lives into baby killers.
#1
BABY KILLERS?????? Hey Charley J. Crawl back under your rock you peice of SHIT has been.
Texans for peace> Why would Texans for Peace be so belligerent about using language that reflects favorably on the hostage-takers while discrediting the role of military rescuers?
I don't even want to answer this.WHAT A BUNCH OF LOOOOOOOSERS
#2
And I admire the dedication of people who are willing to risk their own lives and spend Saudi, Iranian and other Gulf their own money to advance those principles in a war zone.
#3
Recently the local puppy trainer printed a eulogy of sorts from a personal friend and colleague of Christian Peace Maker activist, Tom Fox. Some may view her lack of denunciations for the barbarians that maliciously slaughtered her friend for headlines as an admirable display of Turn the other Cheek. After all, it appeared that this tribute was a celebration of a heroic friend. And no one should really be surprised, given the stated agenda of CPM; there were no accolades for those responsible for the rescue of the rest of their colleagues. However, the author couldnt resist reserving the last two paragraphs to blame the misguided troops and their psychotic leaders. The pathetic disconnect that these groups display is truly shameless.
#4
IF, the US went so far as to create death squads that would capture NGO idiots and journalists it's unlikely they'd shy away from beheading said captives to make the Jihadists look bad. Win/Win and no risk of the double-dealing getting out.
A lot of conspiracy folks need to look at that next logical step in their arguement from time to time.
EFL'd to get to a (not "the") good part. Go read it all, you'll be glad you did.
. . . Freedom of conversion is at the core of freedom of religion -- indeed, at the core of freedom of any kind. If you cannot change your mind, your stated beliefs, and the religious community you choose to associate with, you are not free.
What I find most amusing is the widespread belief among Muslims that this Sharia law is essential in order to preserve Islam.
Don't they see that it is exactly this law that destroys Islam wherever it is enforced?
To the degree that the law demanding the death of anyone who converts away from Islam is actually enforced, to exactly that degree the nation that enforces it is not a Muslim nation.
Indeed, there are no Muslims at all, wherever that law is enforced.
Because religion is absolutely not about mere outward compliance with the law. It is about belief -- it is about what a person believes in his heart. But in a nation where conversion away from Islam means death, then no believer can be sure that his own obedience is purely a matter of conscience.
If a person "believes" in Islam, but there has ever been a moment when he thought, "since I can't convert to another faith anyway, what's the point of learning about any other way of thinking?" then that person is not a Muslim.
There is no faith under compulsion. Any nation where Sharia is enforced is not a Muslim nation, and none of its people are Muslims. If they cannot choose not to be Muslim, then they have not chosen to be Muslim. Without freedom not to believe, faith is a sham even if you think you are sincere. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
04/06/2006
07:12 ||
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#1
I like OSC but he completely misses the point here. All ideologies are in a Darwinian struggle. In the end it doesn't matter how you win, it only matters that you win. Death to apostates works in maintaining adherents. Why they adhere is immaterial.
As I have said here many times, the issue is winning. How we win doesn't greatly concern me (assuming it works).
#2
There is no faith under compulsion. Any nation where Sharia is enforced is not a Muslim nation, and none of its people are Muslims. If they cannot choose not to be Muslim, then they have not chosen to be Muslim.
There is no Islam without Sharia, and since there cannot be Muslims with Sharia, then neither Islam nor Muslims exist.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/06/2006 8:43
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#3
OSC says, "There is no faith under compulsion."
To put it simply, that's not the way Islam looks at it. Allah really doesn't care what you believe as long as you pray, go on the haj, kill infidels, etc.
#4
Sounds like the same things I was saying a while back on my final turn from dislking Islam to my view now that it must either be reformed or eradicated.
Its all about faith and force, beleif and compulsion.
Glad somone in the "public eye" is saying these things.
#7
I think these words are well worth the time and careful consideration.
Card represents my views on faith and force quite well, and the need for an Islamic reformation from within.
The reformation needed is one like the Catholic Church and the Protestant reformation - it ended up saving both the Catholic Church and freeing up protestant Christianity. Islam need to find their Martin Luther and (Pope) St. Pius V. I personally do not hold out much hope that they will.
If you read between the lines, I think you can draw my view that either Islam undergoes a reformation from within, or else we will be forced to destroy Islam as a fascist cancer on the world.
Here are just a select few of the "Money quote" parts...
"Any religion that believes itself entitled to kill anyone who deviates from or stands in the way of their holy law poses a danger to everyone else, until they give up that belief and renounce that entitlement.
...
The truly faithful of any religion will insist on the right of people to lose faith and leave the religion. Any other position is, in fact, a confession of one's own lack of faith.
...
A religion that refuses to compete on a level playing field with other ideologies is a religion that confesses its own inferiority.
...
it is also certain, if history is any teacher, that a failure to resist Islamic terrorist-fundamentalism will have an even more terrible outcome. For, bad as war is, and frightful as a holy war would be, they would pale in comparison with the living hell of being subject to universal Sharia as interpreted by the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
...
But tolerance of other religions does not mean we have to tolerate any religion that claims the right to kill unbelievers. To paraphrase Lincoln, freedom of religion is not a suicide pact. "
You really need to read the whole thing - it is worth making the time to see this and think about it.
#8
Even if Card makes a brilliant point, its not as if the followers of Islam are going to care much. A religion is what the practicioners do, not what the Holy Books say.
The idea of militant Islam is to remove any and all distractions from a pure life because they seem to believe (with some evidence) that the Jihad happy guys can't avoid the stripclub when given a chance. By that same logic removing all other religious options is the only sensible thing to do.
#9
the need for an Islamic reformation from within.
Islam has zero motivation to reform. By its own doctrine, it is far more glorious to die resisting the least alteration of doctrine than to submit to another's vision of their faith. The death cult nature of Islam is precisely what will carry it, lemming like, over the precipice of self-immolation.
When a Muslim accuses another of irreligious conduct, one of them must be guilty of apostasy. So it is that no one (or an extreme few) has any motivated to cause genuine reassessment within Islam. They will see it as better to all join each other as one in hell paradise than tolerate the least erosion of doctrine.
This has already been shown in how very few of the moderate Muslims ever raise a significant voice against their radical imams. Yes, they may parade in public denouncing terrorism, but that amounts to taquiya little if the founts of radicalism remain in full flow. In a through-the-looking-glass version of this, the cartoon jihad's violent outrage completely ignored how the exact same malign portrayal of other cultures and faiths is standard practice within Islam's four walls.
Finally, such demands for preferential treatment give us full view of the lopsided world Islam reserves for itself. It demands full recognition of its tenets, right down to family law courts in non-Islamic countries abiding by sharia law, yet persists in forbidding any other religions to practice in nations where Muslims are in the majority.
This theological one-way street is just that. Not a route to ascension, but an irreversible path to self destruction. It is now a question of whether Western nations will idly sit by and watch their quality of life and overall security crumble at the hands of Islam, or begin to make Islam's dreams of glorious martyrdom come true.
Unless Islam, somehow, finds a path towards reformation, all that awaits them is death. Most likely it will not be their much sought after glorious martyrdom but, instead, perishing en masse upon a nuclear pyre.
#12
OSC is correct in his assessment of what makes a faith vital. I agree with him 100% in that respect.
All the critical commenters are not criticizing Card on what makes a good religion and what constitutes religious freedom: rather, it seems to me that they are evaluating the possiblity of Islam to have it's "reformation" given the dynamics within the religion itself. I feel the problems people talk about are relevant, but not causitory: they are the inevitable results of some core decisions made within the religion that give it its character, and which, in turn, influence people by means of what acts are approved and disapproved.
The core decision I think Islam made was to set up Mohammed as the Ideal Muslum Incarnate, the template all Muslims must fit, as a counter to the Christian core decision to set up Jesus as the Ideal Christian, the template all Christians must fit. (Judaism did not even entertain the decision.)
Now I submit that the Jesus, as depicted in the Gospels, is a pretty nice all-around good guy: he tells stories, he goes to parties whose raucousness makes the Pharisees suggest he's fond of the bottle, can't stand pretentious pricks, and pulls scandalous people out of trouble: If you had the option of choosing him as a neighbor, he'd be on your short list.
More importantly, when one of his pals, in an obvious sign of loyalty, cut a guy's ear off to defend him, Jesus REBUKED him. Forget about patching the ear back miraculously, and realize that the guy was adverse to violence being done on his behalf. The Gospel of Thomas was rejected from the canon partly because his depiction of the Child Jesus is totally unrecognizable: I read it, and I kept thinking, "This is SO wrong." because I was reading about a brat using miracles to zap people who bullied him. Heck, I have a hard time convincing people that Jesus Might, as a child, have punched out some bully's lights for picking on the new kid in the block, but killing the bully for insulting himself. Just. Not. Right. Even if you want to believe everything was forged, the forgery was consistently spun to portray a pacifistic Jesus.
Now, I won't detail what we all know about Mohammed, but just ask yourself this: would you want HIM as your neighbor? Did he PERSONALLY discourage ALL violence done on his behalf?
#13
phil_b got it in one. Doesn't matter if treating your women like livestock is a bad thing. What matters is that it results in a boatload of chilluns.
#14
Besides the fact that nobody could conceive of Mohammed being a nice guy ... nobody can conceive of Islam ever letting a book like LAMB be made about Mohammed.
It would be worse than the explosion about to hit SouthPark.
#15
Not all Muslims demand death for "apostasy." I try to keep abreast of activities of Baptist missionaries in sub-Saharan Africa, some of whom work in Muslim areas. They do not find many converts among Muslim tribes, but they do find some, and the converts survive. Ostracism may feel worse than death, but you live.
The problem is that the speakers for Islam and the suppliers of Imams to the world are the Saudis and Egyptian Qutb-ites and their ilk. And they, as Card says, are too hate-filled and afraid to dream of risking freedom of religion.
If there is going to be any reformation in Islam, where will it start? It can't start in Egypt or Saudi-controlled Arabia anytime soon; they're already swamps where it'd take a lot of courage to stray from the party line. Pakistan and Afghanistan seem to be trying to be more "Muslim" than the Arabs. Turkey seems to be falling into the Muslim Brotherhood camp too. And I'm not aware of any major Muslim theological schools in sub-Saharan Africa any more; certainly nothing as respected as Al-Azhar in Cairo. And scholars from within the "Great Satan" have a hard row to hoe to get respect around the world. They'll be asked why they don't change their own country first: Not a pleasant prospect for the rest of us.
If there is a reformation, it is only going to succeed to the extent that it can convince other Muslims that the new way is holier than the Wahhabi way. And that's a big problem. As long as the debate has to do with how many rules you can keep, the only way to beat the Wahhabis is to be more anal and aggressive than they are.
Even if the reformation is Sufi-type, with a focus on the inner life, there will have to be enough outward expression of this inner life in holiness (as understood by Muslims) to make an impression. We might be able to live with this "holiness as understood by Muslims," but that's not certain either.
I leave out the Shiites because I don't see them transforming the Sunnis; the accumulated differences seem too great.
Posted by: James ||
04/06/2006 17:01
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Suppose, reader, that you were a mad Iranian mullah determined to obtain nuclear weapons at the earliest opportunity. Would you brag and boast and taunt the West--before you had actually finished your work? Or would you keep very still and quiet, denying everything until you had the bomb safely in your clutches?
The choice seems obvious, right? And yet the Iranian mullahs consistently choose option 1--with all the risk of provoking an air war against a nuclear program they must certainly greatly value. Why?
Three possibilities present themselves.
FIRST: The Iranians are so confident in their own defenses that they think they can defeat or deter an allied air strike.
This very week for example they announced that they had obtained a powerful new torpedo from an unnamed second country, presumably Russia--implying that Iran might try to close the Straits of Hormuz if attacked from the air.
But can the Iranians really believe that their capacity to inflict pain on the United States is greater than Americas capacity to inflict pain on them? Their boasts about their torpedo (for example) are hollow, even absurd. They say their torpedo can attack groups of warships--but only a nuclear-tipped weapon could do that, and not even the Russians would sell the Iranians such a thing.
More generally, the more violent any US-Iran conflict becomes, the more certain Iran is to lose. Perhaps Iran can cause even more trouble in Iraq than it is causing now (although it may already have reached its limits). Perhaps it can push up the price of oil. But the US can smash the foundations of Iranian military power and the repressive capacity of the Iranian state. It hardly seems a trade even the most apocalyptic mullah would wish to make.
SECOND: The Iranians believe that American willpower has been so weakened by Iraq that the United States will not dare to attack them, despite American military superiority.
And certainly the Iranians have often professed to believe this. In August 2005, newly elected Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent the Iranian parliament a policy document that declared Iran a sunrise power and America a sunset power, in its last throes.
But even still--even if the mullahs do believe this--why hasten to a confrontation with the declining power before you can face it on equal terms? Whatever fantasies Ahmadinejad may delude himself with about the world of 10, 20, or 30 years from now, surely even he understands that if conflict erupts tomorrow, the result would be unfavorable to Iran, to put it mildly?
Which leaves this THIRD possibility: The mullahs do not want war--but they do want this confrontation. For some reason of their own, they believe they profit from prolonged, bitter, fruitless negotiations with the West.
If so, we have to wonder--are these endless negotiations truly in the interests of the West. Are we not giving the Iranian rulers all the internal political benefits of intransigence and extremism--without any of the costs?
Is there any reason to think that the Iranian population would welcome a true crisis, with all its attendant hardship and danger? We are often told that in such a crisis, the Iranian people would rally to their corrupt and oppressive leaders--but there is little evidence for such assertions, and much evidence against it.
What we do know is that the current path is working very well for the rulers of Iran. They are moving steadily toward a bomb while impressing the most radical constituencies within their own society.
The present path, however, is signally failing to work for the West.
We are watching Iran move closer to nuclearization--and our restraint is making us no new friends.
#1
The CIA should release (by accident and through secret channels of course) a new map of Iran/Iraq/Pakistan region showing Independent Kurdistan, Independent Shia Arab region, and Independent Baluchistan. This would wake a few people up.
If Iran pushes it will cost them territory before the dust is settled. We don't need to invade, all the good stuff is in the areas likely to go independent.
#2
There is a fourth possibility...the Iranians may have the nukes and the missile systems to deliver them, as well as plenty of suicidal jihadis unconcerned about survival and willing totake the world to hell with them.
Excerpt:
Pope John Paul II viewed Islam as a useful ally against Communism and secularism. Front Page Magazine's "The Vatican's Pro-Saddam Tilt?" also chronicled how the late pope sought to engage Islam to promote world peace through ecumenism, even at the expense of Christian minorities in Muslim nations. But Benedict XVI subtly announced a radical change from the outset.
At his installation Mass, the new pope welcomed fellow Catholics, other Christians and Jews in his greeting, but not Muslims. Later, two selected speakers delivered intercessory prayers for oppressed Christians. One prayer was in Arabic.
However, Benedict and his bishops must confront what French historian Alain Besancon called the "indulgent ecumenicism" that dominates the Christian response to Islam
Posted by: ed ||
04/06/2006
07:02 ||
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#1
Coming fromthis Catholic, it looks like many parts of the Church have come awake and are realizing the threat of, and duplicity inherent in, fundamentalist Islam.
#3
I have no problem with a Vatican Swiss Guards manpower plus-up/transformation, ie., providing them a SOF and AC-130 capabilitly, MTT's, etc. Don't be fooled by the pike, XLG black beret and multi-coloured, Michelangelo designed uniform, they are very capable. Louis XI hired some of them as contractors and instructors for the French army as did the King of Spain. At the end of the 15th Century, with Charles VIII the Italian Wars began, the Swiss Guards were described by Italian historian Guicciardini, as "the nerve and hope of the army." In 1495 the life of the King of France was saved thanks to the immovable firmness of his Swiss foot-soldiers.
#4
That proven capability is the reason that the Swiss are not permitted to be mercenaries, excepting serving in the Papal Guard. There are some centuries old treaties that bind the Swiss from letting their citizens serve in any other countries armies, the Swiss pikemen were the elite shock troops that all of Europe feared for a long time.
The peace deal with the southern rebels is falling apart. The government is not honoring key aspects of the deal, especially those involving integrating rebels into the army, and hiring, and paying, southerners to perform government jobs. While the rebels have disarmed, the government has not. A resumption of the civil war would begin with a lot of death and destruction in the south.
Posted by: ed ||
04/06/2006
06:35 ||
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#1
The government is not honoring key aspects of the deal
Well, why should it? They're just infidels, the Master Religion(tm) doesn't have to comply to its word.
While the recent Darfur mess is at ten of thousands of (muslim) deaths and counting, the civil war/genocide in the south claimed about 2,5 millions lives, christians and animists, in the general indiferrence.
Weird thing is that the southerners actually held their own quite good, despite being hopelessly outgunned and outnumbered, in part because of their superior martial organization, which IIRC may be at least partly due to the involvement of a few white mercenaries/freelance advisors like the late Rudolf Steiner.
Islamic militants in Europe pose a direct threat to U.S. national security, more than 4-1/2 years after Europe-based plotters planned much of the September 11 attacks, senior U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
While small in number, pockets of Islamic extremists exist across Europe and have generated militants such as convicted shoe-bomber Richard Reid, September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, and those behind bombings in London and Madrid, said Daniel Fried, assistant secretary of State for European affairs.
"It is now well known that the terrorist cell that conducted the 9/11 attacks did much of its planning from a base in Europe," said Henry Crumpton, the State Departments counterterrorism coordinator who spoke at the Senate foreign relations committee alongside Fried.
"Five years later, and despite many counterterrorism successes, violent Islamic extremism in Europe continues to pose a threat to the national security of the United States and our allies," Crumpton said.
He said some Europe-based Muslim militants were directly affiliated with Osama bin Laden s al Qaeda network and associated groups such as Abu Musab al Zarqawis followers in Iraq or northern Africas Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.
Fried said one to two percent of western European Muslims were involved in extremist activity. Of those, he said "only a small fraction has the potential to cross the threshold into actual terrorism. But a handful of extremists can carry out a devastating terrorist attack."
Some 15 to 20 million Muslims live in western Europe, where they are the fastest growing and largest religious minority.
Fried said European Muslims struggles with unemployment, discrimination and integration had created fertile ground for extremist exploitation. Militants also took advantage of broad free speech laws in some European states to spread their ideologies, he said.
"Add to this a deeply negative perception and a distorted perception of U.S. foreign policy among Western European Muslim communities, and relative freedom of movement across the Atlantic, and you have a particularly dangerous mix," he said.
Citizens of most European countries do not need a visa to travel to the United States, although they must have a fingerprint scan and digital photograph taken by an immigration officer as they enter the country.
Fried said widespread opposition to U.S. and Western policies in the Middle East, including support for Israel and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, had helped increase the allure of Islamic extremism among alienated European Muslims.
"We and our European allies are vigilant concerning the potential consequences of the insurgency in Iraq on European Muslim populations, but to date there have been only a handful of European-residing Muslims who have gone to become foreign fighters," he added.
Among the most dramatic examples of this was Belgian Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old convert to Islam who blew herself up last November in a suicide attack on the outskirts of Baghdad.
Crumpton and Fried said European states understood the gravity of the threat from local Islamic militants, and said overall counterterrorism cooperation was strong.
"But despite this shared perception of the threat, there is disagreement over the most effective means to counter the threat. Some European countries continue to argue that terrorism is merely -- or mainly -- a criminal problem," Crumpton said.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/06/2006
01:53 ||
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Backed by helicopter gunships, Pakistani security forces today killed at least five militants in the restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan after an overnight rocket attack on their camp left four soldiers dead.
Five militants were killed and 15 others surrendered when security forces launched an operation after the rocket attack on their camp in the Shawaal area of North Waziristan tribal agency left four soldiers dead and several others injured, the military said.
The security forces used helicopter gunships to hit vehicles of the attackers who were trying to flee after firing rockets, Army spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan told the state-run PTV.
In a separate attack, nine rockets were fired on a camp of security forces in Datta Khel area, some 12 kilometres from Miran Shah, the centre of North Waziristan, injuring two soldiers, Sultan said.
Ground forces were also sent to the areas used by the militants to fire on the security forces' camps, reports reaching here said.
Situation has been tense in North Waziristan since the security forces launched an operation against al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects on March one. The military says that some 150 militants have been killed since the launch of that operation.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/06/2006
01:51 ||
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Pakistani security forces and Pakistani opposition fighters battled for a second day yesterday near the Afghan border, leaving four soldiers and 16 fighters dead.
Another 19 militants were captured in the fighting in the North Waziristan tribal region, military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said.
Eight militants were killed on Tuesday night after troops retaliated to a rocket attack by the fighters on a military base, and the eight others died in the ensuing fighting with security forces yesterday, he said.
The fighting that follows a spree of bloody clashes between pro-Taleban tribesmen and Pakistani troops in recent weeks erupted after a rocket attack late Tuesday on a military base in Mana, a village about 50 km west of the main town of Miranshah, that left at least two soldiers dead. Two more soldiers were killed in fighting yesterday.
Helicopter gunships backed ground troops in yesterdays fighting that had ended by late afternoon, Sultan said. He refused to identify the militants who surrendered or give their nationalities, adding that troops have the bodies of eight of those who were killed in the clashes yesterday.
The latest clashes came as Pakistans Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz visited the United States and US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher made his first visit to Pakistan.
Asked to comment on a perception that Pakistan often launches crackdowns against militants when a senior US official is visiting here or a Pakistani leader travels to the United States, Sultan said: Did we ask them to attack (the troops) last night?
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Boucher told Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that Washington wanted a lasting strategic relationship with Islamabad.
Musharraf briefed Boucher on Pakistans economic growth and said its expanding energy needs would be met through a variety of sources including nuclear power, the statement said.
Pakistan responded to last months US civilian nuclear deal with India by demanding equal treatment.
The official statement did not say whether Musharraf raised the issue with Boucher.
However, Boucher told a news conference later that the India-US nuclear deal came up during discussions with Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri. We are not oblivious to the effects of what we are doing. We dont do similar things that we do with Pakistan and India, he said. The question is, are we meeting the needs of Pakistan, its aspirations for economic growth and education assistance, helping toward building a secure society?
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/06/2006
01:50 ||
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April is becoming one of the deadlier months for U.S. troops in Iraq, perhaps dashing the hopes of commanders that a three-month-long downward trend in fatalities meant the insurgency was becoming less effective.
In the first four days of this month, 16 Marines and Army soldiers have been killed by hostile fire or in accidents, about half the total in all of March.
It is threatening to erase a more favorable trend: The first three months of this year experienced a 25 percent decline in the number of U.S. deaths, a drop the military credits to a more robust Iraqi security force and to better armor protection.
The number of fatalities in the first quarter is still far more than what the Pentagon expected at this point three years ago, after the invasion to oust Saddam Hussein and his regime.
Pentagon and private-group tabulations show that 148 American service members have been killed in Iraq this year as of March 31, compared with 199 in 2005.
Both tolls exceed the 119 who died in the first three months of 2004. But that was when the insurgency was not thought to be at its height in terms of its ability to carry out bombings and ambushes. The 31 killed in March was the lowest monthly fatality rate in two years. The numbers are based on Pentagon postings and on the private Iraq Coalition Casualty Count Web site.
The 2006 trend closely parallels the rise of Iraq's security forces. They number 242,000, about 100,000 more than a year ago. Their police, army and commando units have taken on more missions and geographic sectors. And they are increasingly the target of attacks, perhaps drawing fire away from the 132,000 U.S. forces deployed in the country.
Army Maj. Gen. James Thurman, who commands the 4th Infantry Division in Baghdad, attributes the lower death toll to added experience for U.S. and Iraqi troops.
"The Iraqi security forces' capability is getting better," he told reporters at the Pentagon.
The number of suicide bombings, principally carried out by al Qaeda terrorists, has averaged 24 a month in 2006, down from 50 per month in the summer, the command reports.
The number of wounded also is on a downward path. January 2006 showed 280 wounded, compared with 498 in January 2005. Pentagon's numbers are not complete for February and March of this year. Overall, the number of those wounded dropped from 7,989 in 2004 to 5,944 in 2005. As of Tuesday, 2,344 U.S. troops have been killed since the war began.
Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the military's chief spokesman in Iraq, said the insurgents and members of al Qaeda in Iraq have increased attacks on Iraqis and their security forces by 35 percent in the past six months.
"The enemy knows the Iraqi security force is increasing in capability, and he's now targeting the Iraqi security force," Gen. Lynch said. Of U.S. casualties, he said, "I know they're as low as they've ever been."
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/06/2006
01:48 ||
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#1
"... increased attacks on Iraqis and their security forces by 35 percent ..."
But have they increased the casualties on Iraqi security forces by 35% as well? It seems like they may be attacking more but accomplishing less. If so, what does that say about the state of the enemy in comparison with the Iraqi forces?
#2
Glenmore, it doesn't matter. Any increase of anything remotely deemed "Bad" makes the MSM giddy with excitement. They are looking to publish an article furthing there own ends, not one that tells facts
Posted by: Charles ||
04/06/2006 8:25
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#3
It is really quite simple. B-52's bring people to the talkie talkie table. Back off the B-52's and they resume old habits. Gloves need to come off and stay off.
#4
Just yesterday I read comments from unnamed US officials saying it was troubling that losses and attacks had not decline, despite US offensive operations and successes. So now we have both disappointment that losses have not declined, and "dashed hopes" that declining losses would be a continuing trend. If one took this "reporting" even somewhat seriously, one might be confused ....
#5
Verlaine
1) Average IQ is 100 so 1/2 are below that.
2) Katie Couric - is a) considered a journalist by the MSM and b) given a contract to anchor the evening news - which she doesn't have the slightest IQ to understand.
Four days does not a month make: a bone-head linear extrapolation indicates that 16*30/4=120 PREDICTED deaths. Of course, they won't mention that statistic since it would blow the scam.
Then again, they may not mention that statistic since they may not have the IQ to calculate it.
I say we put this in the freezer, pull it out later, and use it as a yardstick for this person's predictive abilities.
At the same time, every death DOES hurt, accidental and combat caused.
It hurts even MORE now: It's been THREE years since this started, and these fine soldiers either signed up or re-signed up KNOWING what was in store for them. No more soldiers by the name of Ahmed or Mohammed backing out because they changed their minds fighting their brothers. The letter from Ben Stein posted yesterday was golden: every word of it. God not only bless them, but God forgive us for being so unworthy...
A video posted yesterday on the Internet in the name of an extremist group claimed to show Iraqi insurgents dragging the burning body of a U.S. pilot on the ground after the crash of an Apache helicopter.
Parts of the video were blurry, and the face of the man was not shown. His clothes were tattered, but he appeared to be wearing military fatigues.
The U.S. military condemned the posting and said that although reports of a Web site video "suggest that terrorists removed part of a body from the crash site, the authenticity of the video cannot be confirmed."
The U.S. military said an AH-64D Apache Longbow crashed about 5:30 p.m. Saturday because of what it suspected was hostile fire west of Youssifiyah, about 10 miles southwest of Baghdad, while conducting a combat air patrol.
The video has a date stamp of Sunday, April 2, and runs from 4:03 to 4:08 p.m. The time stamp shows the minutes and seconds do not run sequentially and the scenes appear disjointed, suggesting the tape was altered.
"We are outraged that anyone would create and publish such a despicable video for public exposure," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington said.
On Sunday, the military said the pilots were "presumed dead" and that recovery efforts were under way, indicating they had not fully secured the site or retrieved the bodies. The military later identified the dead pilots as Capt. Timothy J. Moshier, 25, of Albany, N.Y., and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Michael L. Hartwick, of Orrick, Mo.
The video was posted by a group calling itself the Shura Council of Mujahedeen. The group claimed its military wing had shot down the aircraft.
Statements on Islamist Web sites said the council was organized in January to consolidate al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgent groups. The move was seen as a bid by insurgents to lower the profile of al Qaeda leader Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian, whose mass attacks against Shi'ite civilians have tarnished the image of the insurgents among many Iraqis.
Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein was cross-examined for the first time in his six-month-old trial yesterday, saying he approved death sentences against Shi'ites in the 1980s because he thought the evidence had proved they were involved in an assassination attempt against him.
Saddam, standing alone as the sole defendant in the courtroom, dodged some questions from prosecutors over his role in the crackdown, giving long speeches calling the court illegitimate. He accused the current Shi'ite-led Interior Ministry of killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis and bickered with Chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman.
On Tuesday, prosecutors indicted Saddam on separate charges of genocide, accusing him of trying to exterminate Kurds in a 1980s campaign that killed an estimated 100,000 people. The charges will be addressed in a separate trial.
In the current trial, Saddam and seven former members of his regime are charged in a crackdown against Shi'ites launched after the 1982 assassination attempt in the town of Dujail.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/06/2006
01:47 ||
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#1
Same "play" as in Somalia only a decade later. Makes one want to make the entire country into a parking lot.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/06/2006 9:50
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#2
I would hope this moves the Shura Council of Mujahedeen way, way up on our list...
The son of warlord Charles Taylor who was hiding out in Trinidad and Tobago before being held in the United States last week may be connected to the Al Qaeda network. The Daily Express understands that the Liberian Human Rights and Refugee Welfare Organisation based in the US has notified the US Justice Department through a letter to hold Charles 'Chuckie' Taylor Jr for more investigation, unrelated to the passport fraud for which he has been arrested and detained in Miami.
Taylor Jr was held at the Miami International Airport on Thursday night with a fraudulent US passport he had obtained from the US Embassy in Trinidad. He had lied about his father's identity in obtaining the passport. He had been hiding out in Trinidad for the last three years after sneaking into the country from Virginia.
The LIHRRWO has informed the United States government it has information from Monrovia that Chuckie, a US citizen, had close connections with Arabs suspected to be Al Qaeda members and who were in diamond deals with his father, Charles Taylor, who is now before a war crimes court in Sierra Leone. Soon after the 9/11 terror attacks, Taylor Jr had been seen giving out Osama Bin Laden shirts in the United States and had been heard singing the wanted terrorist's praises.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
04/06/2006
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#1
Ahhhh, it's a Kofi & Kojo father and son thing. How nice they could all work together for the betterment of mankind. XL Long on my T-Shirt please Jr. Important to make sure it fits snuggly over my pistol range silhouette.
AUSTRALIA faces having a very limited renewable energy sector because of the Federal Government's decision to block a proposed wind farm, the peak industry body said today.
The Australian Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said it was puzzled the Government had decided to knock back an application by developer Wind Power to build 52 turbines at Bald Hills, near Tarwin Lower in East Gippsland.
The decision sparked a state rights brawl between Canberra and Victoria.
Federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell blocked the project this week, citing concerns about the endangered orange-bellied parrot species.
The report said only between 99 and 200 of the adult birds remained in Australia, and the wind farm could kill one of the parrots a year due to projected wind turbine collisions. I think the subtext here is that the government is showing the greenies that laws to protect the environment have consequences. Also there is probably an element of frustrating urban greenies, who want 'clean' energy from wind farms as long as they are far away from them. The rural communities that get stuck with the wind farms, hate them.
#2
5,000 windmills at Altamont are *claimed* to clip 4,700 birds a year. including 500 raptors such as golden eagles, red-tail hawks and burrowing owls..
the older designed mills are more problematic for our feathered friends, you'd think there should be some work arounds for the boids..like signage for instance.
#3
Birds are actually pretty smart - after a few get whacked by the windmills, the rest (except for a few slow learners) would figure it was better to go around. I mean, the crows learned real fast that if I came out of the house carrying the .22 it was time to flee, but otherwise, 'party on, the garden is great'.
#6
wow solar tower? never heard of that but i heard of a space elevator - but thats got nothing to do with it. I'm gonna go find out about this solar tower - sounds like a cool place to live too.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has assumed security control over the Gaza Strip's border crossings. Al Jazeera said on Wednesday that Abbas issued a presidential decree putting the General Administration for Crossings and Borders department under his responsibility. The decree stipulates that the department must enjoy an independent financial, commercial and security status and be affiliated to the Palestinian presidency.
That's assuming they ever see any money again, of course...
The Islamist resistance group, Hamas, which ousted Abbas' long-dominant Fatah faction in January elections on a platform of fighting corruption and Israel, squealed like stuck little piggies decried the move as a violation of power-sharing agreements. Officials close to Abbas said he had been under pressure from the European Union, which threatened to withdraw its monitors from the key Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt in response to Hamas's political rise. Citing security concerns, Israel has also repeatedly closed the Karni commercial crossing - a lifeline for Palestinians in Gaza, from which Israel withdrew last year after 38 years of occupation. Israel continues to control major crossings in the West Bank, another territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war and where Palestinians seek statehood.
I guess if you start a war you should be prepared to either win it or lose territory.
The Hamas government said Abbas's announcement ran counter to understandings whereby control of borders would remain in the hands of the Palestinian government. "Any attempt to reduce the authorities of the government will harm its performance and its ability to carry out its duties," said cabinet spokesman Ghazi Hamad.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2006
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#1
Isn't this more about baksheesh on crossing points
The U.S. military on Wednesday called a video posted on the Internet purportedly showing the dragging of a U.S. flier's remains from a downed copter's wreckage "despicable."
Referring to the video, dated April 2, the military said Wednesday it could not confirm its authenticity. "We are outraged that anyone would create and publish such a despicable video for public exposure," military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Withington said in a statement. "The terrorists continue to demonstrate their immoral disregard for human dignity and life."
The U.S. military reported Sunday that an Army AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopter went down, likely from enemy fire, west of Yousifiah on Saturday evening while conducting a combat air patrol. The video shows what appears to be a helicopter ablaze -- and later with no flames -- and insurgents dragging what appears to be "part of" a burning body away from the wreckage. On Wednesday, the military reaffirmed that it had removed soldiers' remains. "The soldiers' remains were recovered following aircraft-recovery operations at the crash site," a military statement said Sunday.
#2
Advice to the military; quit "crying in your beer", over the 'despicable' nature of the enemy; and get down in the 'trenches' and show them whats horrifying!! Must I be censored on this site in suggesting how to recompense?! Geesh!!
#6
We have crimminals wearing civilian clothing slithering around amongst civilian populations. They publically broadcast corpse mutilation in attempt to humilate their enemy. Tell me again why that after we capture these people they deserve to be treated under the Geneva Convention protocols.?.
#9
I like the idea of a moab. It would work on so many levels.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
04/06/2006 11:11
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#10
Ya know, when you stand back and assess this mess, it's very clear no progress and no real objectives have been met there. There is no way to rationally deal with Muslims. The only real objective should be to eliminate them. Permanently. Everywhere. What do we want in this shithole? The oil? It will still be there in 50 years or so when the radiation levels drop. Let's get our people out of there and start taking care of business.
#11
SOP35, perhaps it's best to think of Iraq as a kind of cultural recon by fire. We had to know if they were truly interested in becoming civilized.
Afghanistan has answered in the negative; I think the Iraqis are still mulling it over.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/06/2006 11:33
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#12
we have to get serious with the 'wreckege party' they always hold afterwoods. Note to US miltary/ Next time a chopper goes down locate the wreckege fast, wait for the festival to start and the corpse burning then fcking flatten it with anti personel cluster munitions or napalm. / I dont give a flying fck if kids are hoping on the wreckege either ,even if thier in wheel chairs rolling over the corpse! I for one am sick of these propagnda tapes and the way we just sit back and comment on how awful it was without actually taking any action to stop it happening again. I bet you could kill and maim at leat 300 Jihadis and their inbred familys that dance on our corpses and wreckage. Tough sht for them! they shoulda engaged thier brain and not acted like the little Koranimals they are. I honestly woudn't mind if we sent an unmanned chopper laced with nasty toxins and anthrax and ditch it in a jihadi hotspot and wait for the wreckege fest to turn into a nasty mess of disease for those who choose to act like animals.
#13
perhaps it's best to think of Iraq as a kind of cultural recon by fire. We had to know if they were truly interested in becoming civilized.
Hear! Hear! RC!
Abdul Lateef Naushad, 34, who was languishing in a Dammam jail for partially blinding a Saudi national, has been released following a royal pardon. Naushad, according to Indian Ambassador M.O.H. Farook, was taken directly from the jail to the Dammam airport to board a Gulf Air flight bound for the southern Indian city of Trivandrum last night.
Naushad, who hails from Kerala, was jailed for damaging the eye of the Saudi national during a scuffle at a petrol pump where the former was employed. The incident took place in April 2003. The Saudi man reportedly lost sight in one eye several weeks later. Naushad was sentenced by a court to have one of his eyes gouged out. The victim, Naif Al-Otaibi, a computer professional, pardoned Naushad making the granting of clemency possible following appeals by the Indian government. The workers wife and mother petitioned Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah during the kings visit to India earlier this year.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Would-be immigrants to Britain are being treated like parcels at detention centres in Calais and at Heathrow airport, the chief inspector of prisons said in a report published on Wednesday. Conditions on the French side of the channel were particularly bad. At the Coquelles freight terminal in Calais, detainees were housed in wholly inadequate rooms which staff nicknamed the dog kennels.
If they're detainees, that implies they're not legal immigrants, of course...
There was little for detainees to do, no hot food (and) poor hygiene provision, HM Inspectorate of Prisons said in a statement.
Guess they shoulda brought lunch, huh? What's that saying about "Poor planning on your part doesn't constitute an emergency on my part"?
There was also a lot of confusion in the Calais centres about whether French or English law applied, the report said.
Calais used to be part of England, but hasn't been for several hundred years. My guess would be that French law would apply.
Staff did not know whether they had the power to use force to stop attempts at suicide or self-harm, intervene in fights or prevent escape, it found.
Maybe they should just call the French cops and not worry about it?
The report was based on unannounced inspections of three centres in and around Calais last August and five centres at Heathrow last October. The centres on the French side are run by private firm Securicor on behalf of the British government. They house detainees caught while trying to get into Britain via its ports or through the Channel Tunnel. These centres operate outside the public gaze, Chief Inspector of Prisons Anne Owers said. Our reports raise serious concerns about safety and decency.
I'd say there should be some serious concern about truculent Third Worlders trying to swarm into Britain.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
Truss 'em up, shove 'em in a box, slap a "return to sender" label on it, and drop it in the mail.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/06/2006 7:20
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A bomb has ripped through offices of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on the outskirts of Istanbul, injuring two people, a local party official said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the explosion happened against the background of a week of street clashes between police and Kurdish protesters in which 16 people have died. Much of the demonstrators' anger over high unemployment, poverty and Ankara's refusal to grant more autonomy to the mainly Kurdish region has been targeted against the government, and AKP offices have been damaged in the latest protests.
Posted by: Fred ||
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A man pleaded guilty to weapons of mass destruction charges for sending a mail bomb to a Chicago surgeon he said botched his penile enlargement surgery, though his attorney questioned whether the charges fit the offense.
Brett R. Steidler, 25, of Reamstown, Pa., mailed the explosive device in February 2005 because he was "extremely unhappy with the results" of the $8,000 surgery, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said in court filings.
But Steidler alerted authorities before the bomb arrived and it was retrieved from the mail and disarmed. His attorney, Luis A. Ortiz, said Steidler is mentally ill and noted the difference between the roughly 2-year sentence for mailing a letter bomb and the 4- to 8-year sentence for using a weapon of mass destruction.
"You shouldn't group this guy with people who drive truck loads of explosives to buildings or gather anthrax or do things for political reasons," Ortiz said.
Sentencing is scheduled July 7 before U.S. District Judge Lawrence F. Stengel.
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/06/2006
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#1
Figures...give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile!!
#2
If an explosive device the size of a letter is a WMD then Saddam must have had thousands, or more, weapons of mass destruction. Obviously, WMD needs to be better defined.
#5
Well, perhaps this guy's penis is now bloated, crimson with engorged black-blue veins, in constant erection, and painfully sensitive, BUT, it is quite *longer*.
PASSENGERS and relatives of victims of a 1986 hijacking in Pakistan today registered a lawsuit demanding $US10 billion ($13.91 billion) in damages against Libya and the hijackers. The action was filed on behalf of 176 passengers and families of some of the 20 people killed in the hijacking of Pan Am flight 73 at Karachi airport by the Abu Nidal group on September 5, 1985. The suit demands damages from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan government and the five Abu Nidal Organisation hijackers.
During a 16-hour hostage ordeal, one Pakistani-American was shot in the head in front of passengers and his body then dumped on the tarmac. The hijackers finally opened fire and threw grenades into the cabin, killing about 19 people and wounding scores of the 380 people on board. Thirteen of the families of the dead have joined the suit, according to a statement released by the lawyers who registered the action.
Prabhat Krishnaswamy of Columbus, Ohio, who was on the jet and whose father, Seetharamiah, was killed, is one of the lead plaintiffs. Mr Krishnaswamy said in the statement it was only when one of the hijackers was caught by the US Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) and tried in the United States that the families found out about Libyan involvement in the attack by the Abu Nidal Organisation, a radical Palestinian group.
Zaid Hassan Safarini, a Jordanian, was sentenced to 160 years in prison by a US court in May 2004. He was caught by US agents after being freed from a Pakistani jail where he spent 15 years. The other four hijackers are still in Pakistani jails. "We formed a unified group determined to seek the truth behind this hijacking and hold Libya accountable," said Mr Krishnaswamy. "Libya has attempted to get off the list of state sponsors of terrorism and earn some sort of legitimate place in the world. But the victims remember," he said. "We are still here, and we are not standing down until we achieve justice. We owe this to the memory of the 20 innocent people who were murdered that day."
Thailand has appointed a new interim prime minister a day after the resignation of Thaksin Shinawatra, but uncertainty remains over the country's political future. Chidchai Vanasatidya, Thaksin's former deputy, will take up the office while Thaksin is "taking a rest", a government spokesman said on Wednesday.
Posted by: Fred ||
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Sudan has said it will allow Jan Egeland, the UN undersecretary, to visit Darfur, three days after it barred his flight to the conflict-ridden region of the country. Elsamani Elwasilah Elsamani, Sudan's state minister for foreign affairs, said in a press statement on Wednesday that "we reiterate our commitment to receive concerned officials from the United Nations and all other those who are engaged in extending humanitarian aid and assistance". The visit of Egeland, the UN Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs, had been postponed for 10 days because of "internal reasons", the statement said, without elaboration.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The Netherlands' new entrance test for would-be immigrants has been condemned by some as Islamophobic and even detrimental to the economy.
That's because you can always find somebody to be against something, even a good thing...
The "civic integration" test - the first of its kind in the world and part of a broader policy on immigration - came into effect last month. It includes the compulsary viewing of a film with scenes featuring gay men kissing and a topless sunbathing woman.
Not titties? Oh, horrors! Quick, Ethel! My pills!
Critics say the film, which forms part of a study pack, is designed to discourage applicants from Muslim countries who may be offended by its content.
I'd be a lot more offended by two fellows rubbing whiskers, but it wouldn't make me come down with the vapors. If I had a serious desire to become a Dutch citizen I'd somehow make myself suffer through it.
Arzu Merali, spokeswoman for the London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission, says the move indicates that Muslims are not welcome.
Only a certain segment of same, I'd guess.
"Sadly the Dutch authorities are now openly exhibiting the type of Islamophobia that sends a very clear message to wider society. Muslims are not only unwelcome ... but those that are already there do not conform to a uniform idea of what should be a citizen."
Maybe they should take the hint: At least some in Euroland swung over to the low end of the patience scale when Muslims started slaughtering them in the streets. I have no idea why, of course.
But, Maud Bredero, spokeswoman for the Dutch Ministry of Justice for Integration Policy, denies such a notion. "No, certainly not this is, of course, not the case," she told Aljazeera.net. "Everyone is welcome."
"But if you come in, you're gonna see the occasional honker and sometimes you'll see a pair of fellows sharing tongues. We're not planning on changing to please you, so maybe you should plan on changing to please us, since it's our country. If we go to Ratholistan, we'll keep our shirts on and our tongues in our mouths."
Some 54% of all non-Western foreigners living in the Netherlands are Muslim, with 95% of them originating from Turkey, Africa, Latin America and Asia, according to the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). The controversial film has been made available at 138 Dutch embassies in the Middle East and Asia. Adding to concerns that the test is not friendly towards Muslims, is the fact those seeking entrance from other EU countries, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan do not have to take the test.
Most of us have seen a bosom before, or know where we could see one...
However, Rita Verdonk, the Dutch immigration minister, defends the initiative, saying it is aimed at instilling Dutch values. "It is important that you not be afraid to make clear demands of people - that they subscribe to our European values, that they respect our laws and learn the language," she told Reuters.
"When we go to their countries there are enough restrictions put on us, fergawdsake."
After viewing the 105-minute film, which is available in most languages, applicants are required to take an exam - costing $417 - on facts about the country such as the number of provinces that make up the Netherlands, Queen Beatrix's monarchical functions and the role played by William of Orange in the country's history. As part of the test, applicants, who need a basic command of the Dutch language, will also be tested on their knowledge of Dutch culture.
Silly me, I'd think that'd be a pretty basic demand. I'm sure a Dutchy in Soddy Arabia would be expected to know something about Arabia before being allowed to live and work there. They'd be required to change religion if they were to stay, too.
Karel Steenbrink, a Dutch theologian, describes the immigration minister's move as "strange".
And some of us would call the Dutch theologian's objections "strange."
"She is looking at the immigrant issue mostly from the aspect of security and how to, more or less, get the Netherlands to be a right-leaning country," Steenbrink, based at the Utrecht University in the Netherlands, told Aljazeera.net. "Verdonk does not see immigrants as people enriching our culture and country... That is why she ordered this film."
Of course she doesn't. She sees them as people who slaughter Dutchies in the streets, and who've put out a fatwah on her own head.
The professor questioned the inclusion of some of the graphic images in a general film on the Netherlands. "You can only see it (the topless bathing) a few weeks a year in the Netherlands because it is so cold here. And then only in restricted places. You seldom see it," he laughed.
On the other hand, you can see a certain number of udds 12 months a year on a stroll through certain parts of Amsterdam, can't you?
"Verdonk knows the reaction to the film would be one of fear, anger ... she works like that." Verdonk has also said that pending legislation in the Netherlands may introduce penalties for long-term foreign residents, some of them with Dutch nationality, who fail language or culture classes. Immigrants wanting to settle in the Netherlands to marry or form a relationship, will be required to take the test, according to the immigration ministry. Steenbrink said: "The whole package - the film, Dutch language courses, higher cost of a visa, etcetera - has already reduced the number of immigrants. Even asylum-seekers are affected." Immigrant numbers fell by 25% last year, Steenbrink said, quoting figures released by the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics.
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GAZA - The new Palestinian government under Islamic militant group Hamas said on Wednesday it was freezing administrative appointments made by the previous, more moderate caretaker leadership so they could be reviewed.
The cabinet announcement, issued after the first full meeting of Hamas ministers, underscored long-running tensions between the group and the Fatah faction that had dominated Palestinian politics until it was toppled in Jan. 25 elections. The cabinet will form a ministerial committee to reconsider these decisions and ensure they were just, said a statement, adding that the reviews would be completed within two months.
Assuming the money lasts that long.
The Palestinian caretaker government was in place from last November, when ministers running for re-election had to resign, until March 30, when the Hamas administration was sworn in. Among appointments overturned were ministry positions assigned by Fatahs leader, President Mahmoud Abbas. The Hamas government also reversed a decision to place the Palestinian university al-Quds -- and its revenues -- under the Fatah-led national umbrella group Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).
Hamas will have to provide the teaching faculty for all the terrorism and arms majors, something I'm sure they can do.
The Hamas ministers also agreed to provide documents about their personal finances for cabinet inspection within two weeks.
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KABUL - An Afghan expert on Islamic law on Wednesday defended the death penalty for Muslims who convert to other religions, as debate continued over the case of a Christian convert who fled to Italy. Sher Ali Zarifi, head of religious jurisprudence in the countrys Science Academy of leading intellectuals, did not refer to Abdul Rahman by name but told a meeting of scholars that punishment for apostasy under Islam was death unless the convert recanted.
Rahman was last month secretly flown to Italy after being released from jail amid pressure from Western countries. They said his apostasy trial violated the UN Declaration on Human Rights to which Afghanistan is a signatory. Zarifi, whose organisation is government-funded, said the UN declaration did not apply in this case since conversion away from Islam violated a system and not merely the rights of an individual. Converting is not a matter of one persons rights but it is against an administrative structure. Afghanistans administration is based on Islamic law, he said.
And there's no room for the rights of an individual in Islamic law.
Citing Islamic teachings, Zarifi said male converts should also face other punishments, including the seizure of their wealth and nullification of their marriage.
Because death just isn't good enough.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#3
They said his apostasy trial violated the UN Declaration on Human Rights to which Afghanistan is a signatory.
Not a problem, the Moderate Muslims(tm) did edict their own version of the UN human rights chart, which sez human rights are to be assigned accordingly to the Sharia(tm).
So, to continue on Gromgoru's cue, the system does work! Neat-O!
#5
Reminder, Mr. Al Zafiri: We are in your country because this kind of thinking killed 3000 of our folks. We are not going to allow all-encompassing Islam to murder its way into power again in Afghanistan. We are there to snuff out this same mentality-the one that allowed the pestilent Taliban to gain power in Afghanistan in the first place. Had you folks had the balls and common sense to stand up to this psychopathic mindset in the first place, your country would not now be regarded as tied with Sudan and Rwanda as the most primitive, most barbarous nations in the world; the WTC, Pentagon and Shanksville would look today as they did in 2000, and 3000 of our loved ones would still be walking this earth. No Islam-by-the-sword allowed anymore-you can thank the "Magnificent 19" for your being subdued by your new guardians. When you grow up, maybe you'll be allowed to play by yourselves.
#6
Zarifi, whose organisation is government-funded, said the UN declaration did not apply in this case since conversion away from Islam violated a system and not merely the rights of an individual.
So, that brand-spanking-new constitution thingy of yours, you know, the one that declares freedom of religion and empowers a system of law means nothing after all, eh? Afghanistan needs to be put on notice that any reversion to theocratic rule will be given the "rinse and repeat" treatment.
I'm now at the point where theocratic rule needs to be declared a fundamental violation of human rights. Since it is difficult to imagine a theocracy that permits freedom of religion, I don't see too many contradictions in this stance. Ergo, even countries that democratically elect a theocratic government are entitled to a free dose of foreign sponsored regime change.
This falls in line nicely with my own theory that democracy and representative government are fundamental human rights.
Rahman's case should never have been allowed to be swept under the carpet. However fragile Afghanistan's cooperation might be, this critical issue should have been spotlighted. Just as Western defiance regarding the cartoon jihad should also have been the order of the day.
#7
Yeah, that's the problem with "democracy" Islamic style. I mean, "Converting is not a matter of one persons rights but it is against an administrative structure. Afghanistans administration is based on Islamic law . . ."
So they all turn out to vote, and then vote in this crap.
BAGHDAD: Saddam Hussein returned to court on Wednesday to face genocide charges by immediately accusing the country's Interior Ministry of killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis, remarks aimed at inflaming sectarian tensions. "It's the side that kills thousands in the street and tortures them, " he said, criticising the Shia-run ministry that Sunni Arabs have accused of running death squads against them. Saddam was the only defendant in the chamber.
After chief judge Raouf Abdel Rahman dismissed Saddam's comments that it was a trial under occupation, one of his lawyers pointed across the courtroom to an American. Abdel Rahman threatened to arrest her for 24 hours and then cut off the sound system when Saddam started to recite poetry.
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#1
Funny, I don't recall the outrage from the Sunni community for the continuous slaugher of innocents at markets, workplaces, funerals, weddings, soccer matches, and other everyday events by foreign nutcases and home-grown extremists drawn from or sheltered by Iraqi Sunni towns and neighborhoods over the last two years. Suddenly even Saddam, one of the great killers of modern history, is quotable for his touching concern about innocent Iraqi life. As many have noted, when Shi'a are slaughtered it's an "insurgency," but when a comparative handful of Sunni dies it's "civil war" (and described in tones far more ominous than you'll find used for your typical terrorist outrage, for which clinical neutrality is the accepted mode of western media).
LUCKNOW: Indian police have arrested six men, including an Indian cleric, over triple bombings that killed more than 20 people in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi last month, an official said on Wednesday. Police suspected the six belonged to a Bangladesh-based Islamic militant outfit and were holding them on charges of murder and conspiracy, said Uttar Pradesh Home Secretary SK Agarwal. In a late-night swoop (Tuesday), police arrested six men who are part of a module that took part in the blasts, he confirmed.
Police arrested the six in twin raids in Lucknow and its outskirts, Agarwal said, adding that the explosive material RDX, grenades and an assault rifle were also seized. Police sources confirmed that an Indian cleric, Waliullah, was among those arrested. They accused him of acting as the local commander of the Bangladesh-based Islamist militant group Harkatul Jihad-al Islami, (an offshoot of Jaish-e-Mohammed which is fighting New Delhis rule in Indian-held Kashmir), and as a conduit for three Bangladeshis who carried out the Varanasi blasts.
HuJI is an organization in its own right. It's the real al-Qaeda affiliate in Bangla. JMB's just a home-grown Taliban.
Waliullah is the mastermind who got his contacts in Bangladesh to send three militants to carry out the Varanasi blasts, said senior police officer SK Bhagat, while addressing a press conference. The cleric, from a rural mosque in Uttar Pradesh state where Varanasi is located, provided the bombers with shelter ahead of the blasts and carried out reconnaissance of targets in Varanasi, including an historic temple, police said.
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MULTAN: On the intervention of Sardar Ziaullah Khan Jatoi, the brother-in-law of the Muzaffargarh district nazim, kidnappers freed a woman, Jindo Mai, who had been kidnapped and raped six days ago. Jatoi police took her to Civil Hospital where Dr Saadia examined her and sent her internal and external swabs to medical examiner for analysis. Police failed to arrest all kidnappers and only one of them was caught. Inspector General of Police Maj (r) Ziaul Hassan has called a report from the Muzaffargarh district police officer and ordered him to arrest all kidnappers involved in the crime. Police confirmed the release of Jindo-Mai on Wednesday.
Jindo told police that the kidnappers kept her in a cottage in the middle of River Indus and did not take her to Rajanpur or any other area. She said they raped her every day to avenge the elopement of one of the kidnappers daughter, Shahida. The kidnapper suspected that Shahida had eloped with Jindos brother.
A first information report states that at least 20 armed men brok into the house of a farmer, Muhammad Nawaz, in his absence in Joiya (Rampur) in Jatoi on March 28 night and gang raped his two daughters, Jindo and Sughran, at gunpoint. Later they took them to River Indus where they stripped Sughran and let her go home. The attackers suspected that Shahida, the daughter of Amir Bukhsh, had eloped with Muhammad Javed Joiya, the son of Muhammad Nawaz. Nawaz told reporters that he and his son were away from home, when Muhammad Essa, Khalil Ahmed, Bashir Ahmed, Muhammad Ismail, Malik Sawan, Muhammad Ashiq, Muhammad Abbas, Riaz Ahmed, Wazir Ahmed, Ghulam Fareed and their 10 accomplices broke into his house. Three of them, Khalil, Essa and Khalid, raped his daughter, he said. This incident took place near Meerwala, the native village of Mukhtar Mai.
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#1
Perfect graphic, even though this is beyond primitivism. I suspect hunters-gatherers treated their wimmen much better than thoses warped people. Takes some efforts to be as evil.
The Darakhshan police have registered a case against former Balochistan CM Akhtar Mengal and others for kidnapping three personnel of an intelligence agency. In an FIR registered with the Darakhshan police station, the Balochistan National Party (BNP) president has also been charged with interference in official duty, unlawful detention and torture.
On Wednesday, Mengal and his guards reportedly intercepted four law-enforcement personnel. They took three of them to the Mengal residence off Khayaban-e-Shamsheer. In the meantime, the police surrounded the house and recovered the three. Late Wednesday night, Akhtar Mengal handed over three of his guards and three firearms to the police, said TPO Clifton ASP Imran Minhas.
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TEHRAN: Iran has successfully test-fired its third new missile in week during war games in the Gulf, Iran's Arabic language satellite television Al-Alam reported on Wednesday. "Today we have successfully tested a new air-to-sea-and-ground missile capable of being fired from planes and helicopters, which can evade anti-missile missiles," war games spokesman Rear Admiral Mohammad Ebrahim Dehqani said. "The missile, which is labelled Nour (light in Arabic), has a tremendous destructive ability and has an antenna in its warhead which gets activated near the target," he added.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
oo... sounds scary.... ooh ooh ooh..
Even has an antenna ... scary..
#2
Exciting war games with brand new missiles and torpedoes going every which way. I wonder how much useful intelligence a fellow might pick up just lurking around. Not that gentlemen would ever stoop to spying, mind you.
#3
I'm somewhat concerned about this capability; the suppressed conclusion out of the Pentagon concerning the downing of one of our Stealth Fighters by the Serbs during that war was rumored to be Line Of Sight+Night Vision+ Delayed Tracking Activation by that missile! Unless our ships can turn on a dime, or Aegis is 'all seeing' with our Awacs; I can relax!
#4
Taken collectively it likely is minor how many super-weapons Iran says it has - the Mullahs and MadMoud are willing, fanatical, and desperate enuff to risk geopol confrontation between the Cold War powers, war and invasion of their own country, to include PC MSM-verified anti-American "People's War". Will say again that Iran's ultimate aces are the anti-American Americans pols already within the NPE, and PC "Amer Hiroshimas", i.e. terror attacks which in reality are disguised decapitation strikes against Dubya and the GOP-NPE, and which in all likelihood is what the Clinton-led Dems truly want and are inducing. THe DEms surviving any GOP-caused/blamed new 9-11's/AMer Hiroshimas = Saving America + world from GOP-caused/blmaed nuclear "brinkmanship", just as America unilater "volunteering" to give up its sovereignty, Govt. freedoms and endowments to OWG and a [Russia-China dominated]coalition of world states = America being militarily forced to by same, by the "world community". The Lefties are RINOS-CINOS and agenda-less for a reason, people -remember, the Left > Dubya is both Adolf Bushitler whom needs to be stopped iff not wiped out, as well as an unruly, little brat, know-it-all ideo half-brother to Marx, Stalin, and Mao, in dire need of "proper" guidance from his Regulation-, Welfarism-, Centralism, Hyper-Govt. Empire and Holocaust-happy, etal. Commie-Socialist Mother.
#5
"conclusion out of the Pentagon concerning the downing of one of our Stealth Fighters by the Serbs." Your right! The generals really should come clean and publish their conclusion in the newspapers, that way other enemies can use the same method to shoot down other stealth aircraft. Are you that stupid or just naive?
Posted by: Captain America ||
04/06/2006 10:01
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Um.. I hate to break it to you, but the stealth aircraft was downed because of our own stupidity. The asshats in the Clinton chain of command were just SURE that the serbs wouldn't fire at our planes from "safe area". The F-117 was flying how it shouldn't, doing what it shouldn't in an area that it really shouldn't have. (ie, flying medium altiude, with lights on, with radar on)
Radar tracking stations in Sibera could have picked it up.
#9
Something I forgot to add ... flying OVER a radar site. Stealth is not invisable. Fly BETWEEN radar and you won't get seen, fly over it ... well ... BOOM for starters.
#10
And the Serbs were using a standard Soviet air defense technique, tracking with radar in one location with hardwire guidance relayed to the shooters in another, presumably unexpected location. Same thing Saddam tried in the later years of the No-Fly zones.
#11
no no the airdefense the serb had was actually a modified set of Soviet gear - recently the Guy in charge of the group that shot down the F-117 told the whole story and its fasinating stuff, they actually modified there systems (cant remeber how) and were a very professional group. Its worth googling up on. Interestingly when the 117 went down there was actually a mig (cant remeber which type) within a few miles and it never knew the 117 was there at all. Yes spies in NATO and stupid flightpaths didnt help one bit but it was not a lucky shot, it was a skilled piece of air defense.
#12
I still call bullcrap Shep, especially a story from the enemy. I work with many air force pukes and several of them were with that air squad during the Clinton years. We did so much political stupid shit, JUST like we did in vietnam that it is a miracle more aircraft were not shot down. The f-117 is not designed to be prevented from being seen, just reduce the signature return. It flys between radar sites at low altitude to keep from being detected and it can't have its radar on.
The one that was shot down did everything that you AREN'T supposed to do to keep being seen (kinda like the Monty python skit on how not to be seen). The civilians in the pentegon and the yes men air farce pukes wanted it to be seen to show the Serbs "See, we could have killed you, but we didn't" (also see bombing of open field in Panama invasion). The Serbs replied back "We don't care, and we will shoot down your plane now."
A lot of lower level air force guys are extreamly disgusted on how stupid the Kosovo campaign was. If we tried that crap against Russia or China, we would have had nearly 30-40% loss rate.
One more example of not letting the real warriors do their job and some civie moron take charge to make a political point. Also another reason never to let the Clintons or the Democrats back in office.
#13
well i agree with you that clintons bunch did make a hell of a meal outa it and it shoulda been fought very diferantly. But to dismiss the guy as being a liar isn't really fair on him. Its an official fact he was in chrage of the unit and they did some very clever tricks with it to bring down the 117. The guy isn't the enemy anymore - he just has his side of the story to tell and a very interesting story it is too. Ok we definatly fcked up very big time on the flight paths thing ,using the same one over and over but you can't take what they did as all our own fault. Sure we made mistakes and those mistakes combined with a very compitant air defence unit cost us a f-117. Those guys in that missle unit were not dummys and had had done alot of prior research into knocking down any stealth jets that might attack that for them payed off when they did take one down. Mind you i'm not saying there amazing because to shoot one plane down does not give you a capability to do it, shoot 3 or 4 and yes you have that capabilty but one does not prove much at all. The radar they used was mobile to and was moved about every 3 hours i think he said, always hiding in heavily forested areas. the Serb airdefence unit that shot it down also didnt lose any of it vehicles or equipment during the conflict either which to me is somewhat bad on our part.
#14
ShepUK, strategypage did a whole article on it which provided additional data. Essentially what happened was this, the F117 flew the same ingress and egress route over to the target, REPEATEDLY, it then took off at time while it was being watched by observers who relayed the info back to the Serb battery commander who himself by now had crossed the equivalent of over 100,000 km of land back and forth just trying to avoid the bombings. When the stealth finally came over (this being in broad friggin daylight) they didn't bother to use the radar still, they used optical guidance to make final corrections to the target. Top it off range to target was 13km (in broad friggin daylight no less). Stupid schmucks at the ops planning deserve the blame for this one.
#15
yeah agreed we made some big mistakes on route planning but Zoltan still did a good job, even at the end of article the last words were 'never underestimate your opponent' ,we did just that and Zoltans boys . I'm honestly not to sure about the being in broad daylight bit though. thats something i'm gonna look into but im sure you'll find that no 117 ops were ever flown in daytime back then and thats why the grey scheme has now been tested recently on the 117 so it can go daylight hunting. I don't wanna argue over this though lol, i just think our side fcked up and thier side wernt the dummies many of us thought they were at that time.
#17
Oh I'll agree with the planning fark up wholeheartedly, but you'll also note the major rethink that has caused at virtually all levels of ops. The particular article we're addressing seems to be focused on the ballistic missiles Iran has been testing, Iran's been also making noises about how they could be used against both the USN and shipping in and around the Gulf. Thats a valid concern because they may decide that attacking civilians will force us to withdraw. Not necessarily true that we will.
#18
Well I ain't rich, and I ain't socialist.
Why don't you let me know where you are and I'll come down and kick you in the balls and we'll call it even?
#19
Hitler and Stalin didn't listen to even one point of view, my dear Chomsky. They spoke only, and left it to others to do the listening. Please do learn your history before venturing to pontificate upon it, lest you continue to demonstrate that you aren't even so much as a pretty face. The Chomskys are not an attractive family, as we all know, although one of them was at least clever enough to fool the masses of pseudointellectuals into believing him clever.
#20
Off topic, a bit, but interesting aftermath between muzzies and the Serbs here, then scroll down to see a list, with photos of what happened in Serbia under UN
peacekeepers"--pretty sick, and not unlike the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, except more pervasive. Don't think we ever should have been there, but Bill had to cover up his bjs with Monica.
There is a good chance that Mukhtar Mai will be murdered, it was claimed by New York Times columnist Nicholas D Kristof on Tuesday. In a piece datelined Meerwala, Kristof, who has become an ardent fan of Mai and who has helped her get famous in this country through his columns, quotes Mai as saying, The traditional landowners want me dead. And the government doesnt want me around either.
Kristoff writes, President Pervez Musharraf is a modern man, and Im sure he is privately repulsed by acid attacks and rapes. In some respects, hes doing a fine job above all, hes presiding over a stunning eight percent economic growth. But Mr Musharraf seems to feel that Mukhtar is casting a spotlight on Pakistans dark side, so he is leading an effort to bully her into silence. The authorities confiscate Mukhtars mail and feed vicious propaganda to sympathetic journalists, portraying her as a liar, a cheat and an unpatriotic dupe of India (and of me). Kristof goes on to charge that a top police official has threatened to imprison her for fornication, which would discredit her and remove her from the scene. He does not name the police official. According to him, Mukhtar Mai told him, For the first time, I feel that the government has a plan to deal with me, the plan being to kill her or throw her into prison.
According to Kristof, The threats have come from high up. He says that a top intelligence official, a buddy of President Musharrafs, travelled to Lahore in December to deliver a personal warning. He met Dr Amna Buttar, an American citizen who has interpreted for Mukhtar in the US and heads a Pakistani-American human rights organisation that is supporting her. According to Dr Buttar, this official started by defending the Presidents record on womens rights. But then, alluding to a planned visit by Mukhtar to New York, he added, We can do anything We can just pay a little money to some black guys in New York and get people killed there.
Daily Times phoned Dr Buttar on Wednesday to confirm if that was what she had told Kristof. Yes, she responded, I was in Lahore last December when this official came to my family home to meet me. He expressed displeasure at the role that she (Dr Buttar) was playing in bringing a bad name to Pakistan by highlighting cases such as those of rape victim Mukhtar Mai. He told me that he knew everything about me and even when I had arrived in Pakistan and my movements subsequently. Then he said that it was very easy for him to pay money to a few blacks in New York to have Mukhtar Mai killed there.
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#1
One can't expect Musharraf to crack down on Lashkar, Sipah-e-Sahaba and the rest when dangerous terrorists like Mukhtar Mai are still loose and threatening the nation.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
04/06/2006 4:21
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#2
Hi, Mr. Moloney, welcome back for your second coming here (hé!), after an another comment a little ago. I was always impressed by your extensive knowledge of the byzantine pakistani political maze, nice to have you back, if only shortly.
And, yes, what's happened and is happening to this woman is a shame, and a stain on Pakistan's honor. Oh, wait... did I say "honor"? I meant "feodalistic, primitive, repressed society".
#3
Thanks 'anonymous5089', I didn't actually go anywhere, I just don't have the opportunity to read the burg during the day so I usually end up skimming over the previous days posts at home.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
04/06/2006 5:07
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#4
above all, hes presiding over a stunning eight percent economic growth.
(a) doctored statistics - Pak for instance claims imports of used cars as "industrial machinery imports"
(b) inflated by infusions of billions in American aid money
(c) "equal-equalitis" - the Pak need to be somehow the equal of India - in all spheres.
If India has >8% economic growth, so must Pakistan
Posted by: john ||
04/06/2006 7:24
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#5
Well by dingy, Paul, we just have to fix that! :-)
As a sidenote, why can't we give Dr. Mai asylum in the U.S.?
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2006 11:56
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#6
IIRC, we buckled to Pak gov't types the last time she was here. She was prevented from addressing the UN so she wouldn't embarass Perv.
Jacques Chirac, the French president, has been issued a deadline of April 15 to surrender repeal a youth jobs law, French trade unions said. Amid continuing mass protests, students on Wednesday blockaded roads in several cities a day after at least one million people joined marches and threatened to force Dominique de Villepin's conservative government to back down on the law.
Scrapping the law could be the last nail in the coffin for Villepin's premiership. His authority is under heavy public pressure, the government has suffered sliding poll ratings, and his arch rival, Nicolas Sarkozy - interior minister and the main conservative rival for the 2007 presidential elections - is gaining political capital from Villepin's misfortune. Union leaders held talks with conservative legislators after Chirac last week effectively took Villepin off the case and promised parliamentary amendments to soften the "easy hire, easy fire" law in the euro zone's second-largest economy.
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#1
And thus France begins a new chapter in it's glorious history - Chapter 13
#2
LeftSocialist nations around the world are demographically suffering/dying becuz thier ideo is telling economy-dependent/competitive males women, Guvmint, and society, etc. in general don't need them or want them for squat, that someone else or some other entity will take care of everything and anything, everyone and anyone. French Muslims, students, and now Unions are demanding Paris make promises everyone knows can't be afforded or kept.
TEN al-Qa'ida-affiliated terrorists have infiltrated the Gaza Strip in recent weeks to lay the infrastructure for strikes against Israel, the Ha'aretz newspaper reported yesterday.
Israeli officials say the Gaza Strip has been open to large-scale smuggling of weapons and terrorists since Israel's withdrawal last September.
The entry of militants aligned to global jihad factions is of concern to many Palestinians because any new conflict may drag in the local population.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas warned several weeks ago of an al-Qa'ida presence in Gaza.
The attitude of Hamas towards the new development is unclear, although the Islamic group has maintained a ceasefire with Israel for the past year.
The al-Qa'ida operatives, mostly Egyptian citizens, reportedly include men trained in Lebanon and Afghanistan in sophisticated explosive devices and large-scale attacks.
Israel announced last month the arrest of two alleged al-Qa'ida operatives on the West Bank - local Palestinians said to have been recruited in Jordan by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a leader of the insurgency in Iraq.
An Israeli army source told Ha'aretz yesterday: "The focus of global Islamic terror on our region has already become a distinct phenomenon - we're not talking about gut feelings."
Two peripheral strikes on Israeli-held territory in recent months have been attributed to al-Qa'ida. One was a rocket launched at an Israeli town from across the Lebanese border and the other a rocket fired from Jordan that struck the airport at Eilat in the south. There were no casualties in either case.
The chairman of the outgoing Knesset foreign affairs and defence committee, Yuval Steinitz, told Israel Radio yesterday the Israeli army might have to go back into the Gaza Strip to destroy weapons workshops said to have been set up there.
"It's still in an initial phase," he said, "but it's worrisome."
Israeli forces have stepped up reaction to the almost daily firing of rockets into Israel by artillery shelling close to populated Palestinian areas and firing missiles at a helicopter landing pad in Gaza City used by Mr Abbas.
One Palestinian was killed and eight wounded, including a mother and her baby, by Israeli artillery fired on Tuesday at Bait Lahia in the northern strip.
Until now, the Israeli artillery attacks on Palestinian areas were intended mainly as a deterrent. In recent days, however, Israeli military officers have indicated they will embark on a more aggressive strategy in view of the use of longer-range rockets, which threaten the coastal city of Ashkelon.
An army spokesman said the artillery shells that caused the casualties in Bait Lahiya had been fired at a Palestinian launch site.
"The terror organisations fire from civilian areas so the responsibility falls on them," he said. "The army regrets any innocent casualties but the Palestinians know where the rockets are being fired from and they know we will react."
#1
Could be al Qaeda has decided that the Great Satan is too tough on them so they have gone to plan B.
Focus on the Little Satan while they lick their wounds and recruit among the Hamas and endless brigades of martyrs. Who knows, maybe the Great Satan will go back to sleep.
#3
"The terror organisations fire from civilian areas so the responsibility falls on them," he said. "The army regrets any innocent casualties but the Palestinians know where the rockets are being fired from and they know we will react." Yes, every dead prairie dog, honey bee, and cactus in the empty desert where our artillery lands will be on the heads of the Palestinians.
#5
although the Islamic group has maintained a ceasefire with Israel for the past year.
This $#!^ just drives me crazy. Are all those rockets launching themselves? People have to stop letting this abrains get away with disclaimers about "wadn't us, it was two other fellers altogether". This is the exact same BS that Arafart was spewing. You're the government, you bought it, you own it.
MIRANSHAH: Sixteen militants were killed and 19 arrested after security forces retaliated to two deadly attacks at two sites in North Waziristan on Wednesday, military spokesman said. Four troops were killed and eight injured in the attacks, Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan, the very model of a modern major general Inter Services Public Relations director general, told Daily Times.
A purported spokesman for pro-Taliban local militants in North Waziristan, Tariq Jameel, confirmed attacks on the security forces but denied any loss of militants. He said the late Tuesday night attacks were revenge against the killing of two militants in Mir Ali town on Monday. The Wednesday losses on militants side were the second heaviest since March 24 when the security forces clashed with pro-Taliban tribal militants in Dattakhel area and killed 20 of them. The army spokesman said that around 200 pro-Taliban fighters had been reported dead in clashes with security forces since the Saidgai operation on March 1.
On Wednesday, militants first attacked a security check-post in Dattakhel, an area with difficult mountain terrain which is 30 kilometres west of Miranshah, while another check-post was attacked in Mana in the of heavily forested Shawal region, some 70 kilometres west of Miranshah. Three soldiers were killed in the Mana attack whereas a trooper was killed when security forces launched counter-attack in the morning, the military spokesman said.
The army used ground troops, heavy guns, artillery and gunship helicopters to comb the Mana area where the security forces took six bodies of the killed militants in custody from a compound. A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in Peshawar, said that huge caches of weapons were also seized from two compounds the security forces searched. It was unclear whether foreign militants were among the killed. I cannot say that foreign militants were among the dead, the military spokesman said. The two places are far from Miranshah and it was not known whether civilians were caught in the crossfire.
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04/06/2006
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RAMALLAH, West Bank - Palestinian Finance Minister Omar Abdel-Razeq said on Wednesday that the Hamas-led government expected to receive $80 million from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to help pay March bills for guns and ammo salaries.
But he said it was unclear when the Palestinian Authority would secure the funds. March salaries totaling about $118 million were scheduled to be paid earlier this week. Asked if the government was concerned it would not be able to pay salaries, Abdel-Razeq told reporters: There is a concern, but I do not think about it.
Why would he think about it -- he's only the Finance Minister.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/06/2006
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#1
He doesn't think about it because his check cleared.
#5
IF they make haste Hamas could probably get a pretty good deal on some refurbished, low mileage Kalashnikovs with Venezuelan cartouches stamped on the receivers.
The new Hamas-led government is broke and missed the April 1 monthly pay date for tens of thousands of Palestinian public workers, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday. It was the Islamic militants' first admission they will have difficulty running the West Bank and Gaza without massive foreign aid.
Haniyeh offered no solutions to the cash crunch, pledging only to do his best to make up for tens of millions of dollars in aid being withheld by international donors and appealing to the Arab world to send more donations. The Palestinian Authority is the largest employer in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, providing salaries for 140,000 people that sustain about one-third of the Palestinians. Haniyeh said it was unclear how the government will meet its payroll. "The Palestinian Finance Ministry has received an entirely empty treasury in addition to the debt of the government in general," Haniyeh told the first meeting of his Cabinet. "We are going to do our utmost as a government to pay the salaries of the Palestinian Authority employees despite the cash crisis that we are facing."
Finance Minister Omar Abdel Razek said he is waiting for $80 million from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. "If they pay, and I hope they will, we will be able to pay salaries by the middle of the month," he told The Associated Press.
A collapse in the Palestinian Authority would devastate an economy where 44 percent of the population lives under the poverty line of about $2 a day and nearly one-quarter of the work force is unemployed, according to the World Bank. In a symbolic step, Haniyeh said Cabinet members would not be paid until the financial crisis is solved. "We are not going to receive our salaries until everyone from the Palestinian Authority is paid," he said.
Haniyeh's Cabinet, sworn into office just a week ago, needs to find ways to make up for foreign aid that Western donors are threatening to withhold, largely because of the Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence. In the past, Palestinians received about $1 billion a year in foreign aid. Israel also froze the transfer of tens of millions of dollars in tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians since shortly after Hamas' January election victory. The United States and Canada already announced they are severing ties with the new government, and the European Union is to decide on its aid program next week. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told the European Parliament on Wednesday that "talking about business as usual simply isn't possible" until Hamas renounces violence and recognizes Israel.
Hamas leaders have rejected calls to moderate and until recently claimed they would be able to cover any shortfall with help from Arab and Muslim countries. However, Haniyeh conceded Wednesday that Arab pledges are insufficient, and his ministers soon would embark on a tour of the Arab world to drum up more support. The Arab League last week resolved to send the Palestinians about $55 million a month, but Arab nations have largely failed to honor such commitments in the past. Israel has welcomed Western efforts to continue humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, as long as the money does not reach Hamas, which it considers a terrorist group. The United States and EU also classify Hamas as terrorists.
Wednesday's Cabinet meeting was held via videoconference, with simultaneous sessions taking place in Gaza and the West Bank because Israel does not permit Hamas ministers to travel between the two territories through Israel. The Palestinian legislature also meets this way. The Cabinet voted to freeze decisions made by the more moderate Fatah-controlled Cabinet just before it left office, including transferring some powers to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and promoting Fatah functionaries, Palestinian officials said.
Hamas has softened its statements since taking power last week but stopped short of meeting the international community's demands. In the latest mixed message, Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday that the new Hamas government believes its struggle against Israel's military occupation is just, but it wants to live side-by-side and in peace with its neighbors. Zahar's letter also referred to Israel's "illegal colonial policies," which he said "will ultimately diminish any hopes for the achievement of settlement and peace based on a two-state solution." Diplomats said the reference to a two-state solution by Hamas, which calls for Israel's destruction, could be a sign it is moderating. However, Zahar denied that he in any way recognized Israel's right to exist or a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The English translation of Zahar's letter to Annan, including the reference to a possible two-state solution, was sent to the AP by the Palestinian Observer Mission to the United Nations. Haniyeh also sent mixed signals on contacts with Israel. He said Hamas has "no problem to contact the Israelis to discuss issues related to our people's daily lives." But he ruled out political negotiations.
Paleos at Brink of Default (Rantburg Financial Times) Apr 6: Paleostinian Prime Minister and Hamas Big Ismail Haniyeh admitted today that the Paleo state is about to go belly-up unless malleable governments in Europe and Arabia pony up more cash for the sinking enterprise. It was the latest in a series of admissions and moves by the terrorist group to generate cash to continue terrorist operations against Israel, and incidentally to buy off enough of the Paleo civil service to prevent civil war, should one actually be noticed in the Gaza Strip.
Haniyeh offered no new solution to the cash crunch other than calling on gullible Y'urppeons and brother Arabs to fork over the dough. " We are going to do our utmost as a government to extort the dhimmis and our Arab brothers, though the cash crisis we're facing is one that even the U.N. can't fix," he told the first meeting off his War Council, referring to the $335 million USD passed onto the Paleos by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East in 2005.
Despite aid estimated by the World Bank at $1.1 billion dollars in 2005, and an economy that generates about $660 per capita income for its 3.8 million people, nearly half of the Paleos survive on less than $2 a day, though various Islamic groups can still afford guns and ammunition. In a symbolic step, Haniyeh and his War Council will not take their state salaries until the civil servants are paid, relying in the meantime on overseas revenue and the usual extortion and money laundering activities at home.
Hamas has begun to get a clue that its mission statement calling for the destruction of the Jooos has been both long on rhetoric and short on delivery, and has upset even the more prissy elements of the international community. Trying to cut it both ways, Paleo Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar (not related to the notorious Mahmoud the Weasel) informed U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Tuesday that the Hamas government would put its struggle against the evil Zionists on hold if someone would just fork over the boodle. Zahar, not wanting to die at the hands of his own people, reiterated diaphoretically that in no way did this amount to a recognition of the Zionist entity.
#1
Hamas' cronies and fellow travellers from Tehran to Jo'burg are pressing the 'Arab world' to give more dough, whilst trying to lay a guilt trip on the 'West'. We'll see who coughs up the money first.
#7
Perhaps they should think about getting a dayjob? You know, start making a living through honest work... Or otherwise emigrate en masse to France to get welfare benefit? This is a very complex issue.
#11
The only way the squeeze play works is if you have the will to see it through and are prepared to accept the ramifications. In this situation, if brought to fruition, the term stick to your guns will take on a quite literal meaning.
#12
You don't see too many national economy's where the major product is "international begging" make it in today's world. Although the PA appears to be trying to become a pioneer in the effort...
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
04/06/2006 13:17
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#15
Too bad they looted everything the Israelis left behind when they pulled out. Those greenhouses might actually have generated some income. Problem with a rent-a-mob economy is that after awhile, your act gets old and it gets harder to find rubes willing to pay to watch you seethe.
Taliban guerrillas shot dead an Afghan intelligence official on Wednesday, the second senior security officer to be killed in 24 hours. The provincial intelligence official, Abdul Hakim, was gunned down as he was walking to his office in Ghazni province, southwest of the capital, the provincial police chief said. One of the gunmen was captured as he tried to flee on a motorbike, said the police chief, Abdur Rahman Sarjang, who said the attackers were Taliban.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/06/2006
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#1
prediction: by the powers vested to all the Great Clairvoyants, I see the previous comment disapearing before 12:30 13:30. ZULU.
LAHORE: The Punjab home secretary ordered the release of two activists of banned group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). Qari Allah Ditta and Naeem Commando of the SSP were being held in Faisalabad Jail under the Anti-Terrorist Act for 90 days. Both had filed a request to the home secretary to be released.
The home secretary ordered the detainees' release and directed them to deposit surety bonds to the Jhang district police officer. He also ordered the transfer of all men detained during a protest on February 14 from Mianwali Jail to Kot Lakhpat Jail, Lahore. Detention orders against the men, held by the Home Department under the Maintenance of Public Order, were withdrawn.
Posted by: Fred ||
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The United States is losing patience at North Koreas boycott of six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons ambitions, US ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow said Wednesday. He urged the Stalinist North to revive the nuclear talks which have been stalled for five months. Everyone in Washington would like to reach a negotiated solution, but everyone in Washington is also running out of patience, Vershbow said in a message on a website run by the embassy. The two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have held talks aimed at ending North Koreas nuclear weapons programme since 2003. In September 2005 the North agreed to abandon nuclear programmes in return for receiving a US-led security guarantee and economic and diplomatic benefits. But the talks are in limbo following the last meeting in November, after Washington accused Pyongyang of counterfeiting US dollars and laundering money. The North denies the charge and demands the US lift financial sanctions before it returns to the talks.
Posted by: Fred ||
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#1
It's 'Too Late' for the Norks to be compelled back into the six-party talks; any idiot will now realize they're going to 'sit this out' until we play our cards with the second leg of the 'Axis Of Evil'! My prediction is that once Iran is crushed from it's defiance and set back a few decades, The Nork's will become so terrified of nuclear annihilation, they'll 'cry uncle' (unless the Chicoms come a callin [ala Vietnam])!
#2
STRATEGYPAGE and other blogs are reporting that JAPAN is in the process of reorganz its Govt. and eventually its armed forces to exert and support Japanese regional, and dare global, interests - read, the Chicoms may expect Japan to eventually exert other than diplomatic or economic muscle in Asia or around the world. The Commies and thier God-based Lefty Radical Muslim allies are encircling us, and the USA-West is encircling back. THe Iranian Mullahs may want nukes and Empire but, unfortunately for North Korea, unless something changes wid CHINA the NKCP-North KOrea per se can look forward to remaining a PERMANENT, lawfully un-annexed, Chicom province and slave/peon state.
WASHINGTON - The United States should set a May 15 deadline for Iraqis to form a unity government and then plan to withdraw its troops by years end, Democratic Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry said in commentary published on Wednesday in The New York Times. If Iraqis arent willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, theyre probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave, Kerry said.
Which is what JFK wants us to do anyway.
Joining a growing chorus criticizing the US-led occupation of Iraq, Kerry said it was immoral ... to engage in the same delusion as in Vietnam, where half of the US casualties occurred after Americas leaders knew our strategy would not work.
Except our casualty rate is going down, not up. The civilian casualty rate is going down. Doesn't quite sound like a 'quagmire', does it John?
Kerry described the current situation as the third war in Iraq in as many years. The first was against Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction. The second was against terrorists whom, the administration said it was better to fight over there than here. Now we find our troops in the middle of an escalating civil war.
The civil war isn't escalating, and indeed it isn't a civil war. Right now it's a) the remanents of the Jihadis and al-Q trying to start a civil war and b) dead squads going around getting payback. Neither is good, and neither is a civil war.
Iraqi leaders so far have responded only to deadlines -- a deadline to transfer authority to a provisional government, and a deadline to hold three elections, Kerry said. Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military.
Which tells the jihadis and death squaders that they need a maximum output between now and May 16th.
If Iraqs leaders succeed in putting together a government, then we must agree on another deadline: a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by years end, Kerry said.
To get things rolling, Kerry suggested bringing all the leaders of Iraqi factions together in a neutral setting where, working with US allies, the Arab League and the United Nations, they would be compelled to reach a political agreement.
What does this guy have with the UN? And why does his proposal sound like the Paris negotiations during the Vietnam War?
Kerry dismissed the US governments reluctance to put pressure on the Iraqis for fear of making things worse. In fact, terrible things are happening now because we havent gotten tough enough. With two deadlines, we can change all that, said the senator from Massachusetts.
JFK trying to sound tough is like Barney Fife threatening to fire his pistol.
Posted by: Steve White ||
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#1
Its great that he lost.
Now just get lost Kerry.
#3
Just tell the Iraqis what MacArthur told the post-WW2 Japanese, in paraphrase - either work together to govern yourselves and your new democracy, or I'll make the decisions for you and govern Japan by myself wid the US Army. The Japs quickly got their act together, the people demo and famously elected a hooker, and the rest is history.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/06/2006 7:12
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#6
This is the most logical I have seen Sen. Kerry. On count 1, "Iraqi leaders so far have responded only to deadlines ...", I think he's right (isn't that true of most of us?.
Second, he implies, but does not state explicitly, that the Iraqi leaders would/should not want us to withdraw our troops immediately - such that the threat of doing so under a deadline would push them to resolve their political impasse; again, I suspect he's right. (This was probably the basic message taken to Baghdad by Rice and Straw last week.)
It's only when he demands a schedule for withdrawing troops by year end (schedule by year end or withdrawal by year end?) that I think he's wrong; I think the administration position there is clear and correct - 'circumstances will determine the schedule, and here are the broad circumstantial requirements.'
All-in-all, this is a less Kerry-ish statement than usual, and may be indicating a move a bit toward the center by either Kerry himself or the Democrat party.
#7
All-in-all, this is a less Kerry-ish statement than usual, and may be indicating a move a bit toward the center by either Kerry himself or the Democrat party.
The only reason why leftists like Kerry "move toward the center" during a war is for the purpose of killing more Americans.
#9
Kerry is wrong. As Khalilzad said, this culture has a different sense of time than we do. Progress on negotiations that makes folks like us, who actually pay retail, impatient, is forward movement in a society of bazaar merchants. The fact that it takes 5 months, does NOT prove they wont come to a deal in month 6.
But thats not only a criticism of Kerry. Its a criticism of EVERYONE who looks at the region without making allowance for cultural differences, and who judge them accordingly.
#10
Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military.
Even coming from John Kerry, the stupidity of this statement is stunning. Has he given any thought whatsoever to the consequences of doing that???
No matter what excuse we were to give for picking up our marbles and going home, both friend and foe alike would see our departure for precisely what it is: an admission of defeat.
Moreover, it would be Mogadishu writ large: it would be taken as proof positive that Osama bin Laden was absolutely right about America when he inferred, from our bugging out of Somalia, that we no longer have the stomach for a long fight; that we are a weak-willed, irresolute paper tiger; and that Islam WILL win in the long run because the West has lost its nerve and the will to survive.
I cannot imagine ANYTHING that would encourage our enemies more.
God have mercy on us if we ever allow these feckless dingalings in the Democratic Party back in power.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
04/06/2006 12:16
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#11
And yet another reason why the democrats will never return to power unless they clean up their act.
#2
A better version would have had a guilt ridden time travel explaining how Islam was eradicated and we all felt bad.
"It started with the Iranian nuke strike on Tel Aviv that was followed by retalitory strikes on Damascus, Tehran, Rihad, Qom and Cairo.
The Israeli atack on Mecca failed due to the pilots unwillingness to deploy the bombs. Unfortunately for the Muslim world a terrorist/biologist who had created a particularly nasty strain of Small Pox to attack Israel had accidentally infected himself and visited Mecca for that years Haj and the nuclear fire might have prevented hundreds of thousands of Muslims from returning to their nations and decimated the bulk of the Islamic world.
The West was overloaded taming the Small Pox infection and found it easier to seal the Islamic world off and handle their own problems rather than help the dying masses of the Muslim world. Those of us in the west felt bad about that. Really bad. but what can you do? Islam died in less than two years of the Iranian attack. Well dead is a strong word, but there are more scientologists these days than Muslims so it's about as good as dead."
Posted by: Time Travelor ||
04/06/2006 1:15
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#7
hhhmmm not sure about the three word messege being 'Message from Dan'. He says the messege will be something everyone undrstands and knows what it is. I think its the name of a person who carries out a evil act or the name of 3 places that get detroyed by atomic weapons. Was an amazing read though ty for linking it. heres another guess on the three words 'religion of peace' but even that dosn't really fit. God lets just fckin bombard him with emails saying we demand to know the three words lol.
#11
'I love malteasers' ,no sorry lol that cant be it, another thought though are thier any cities in America or allied Europe that have a three word name? I cant think of any but im no wise head. Now a three worded diesease? again i cant think of one but there must be a few nasty ones that could fit. Sheesh you know this is actually buggin me alot lol.
Nope, already explicitly told in the text, Enjoy these last days and months and years of your slumber, Grandfather, said the scarred old man. Your wake-up call is coming soon.
#15
Nah, the point of the story is that 'Message from Dan' is something everyone in the future knows about, because they read the warning (widely disseminanted by email) and ignored or discounted it and it came true and everyone regrets they didn't do something about it.
#17
so this is the warning yeah - but only a miniscule fraction of people in the west will even read this story as great as it is - pretty pointless if you ask me cos 99.999% of people wouldnt know what the hell 'messege from dan, means. I must say though i have a feeling if someone said to me in a few years time 'messege from dan' i'd remember this story though which is kind of odd i guess but cool. Oh well i'm gonna stop overloading my tiny mind with this stuff now lol.
#30
'kill the orcs' lol, Statford upon Avon - ive been there and thats where my asthma started on holiday at some foul campsite there lol. Never go to Stratford upon Avon unless you want to get ill lol. No its a lovely place though seriously but jihadis attacking it? stranger things have happend i guess.
#36
Somehow I think Dan doesn't know the three words but the intent was to get folks debating exactly that. As he has done. Masterful in that, sort of like the end of Basic Instinct that Esterhoez intentionally left vague to get folks talking the next day and seeing it again. He had to fight producers to keep it vague.
Part of me thinks its brilliant and part of me recoils at the manipulation of an audience.
I like "Exterminate the Brutes" best of all so far. Either that or "Nuke Mecca now!"
Some have suggested that the words were something like "Goodbye, Mr. President". Which would be a good ending if he were not using the conceit that he was the one who received the Time Traveler. As it is, that idea is just a little smarmy.
I cannot see how "Message from Dan" could be the three words. The words would have to be either a farewell or an an injunction, and these are neither. If you're saying that he himself was the Time Traveler -- well, that's what I thought, too, but it seems more likely that the TT is his grandson, as anonymous5089 (#14) has pointed out.
On his website's forum several people have pointed out that this was posted on April 1, and therefore this could be an April Fool's joke. "Great satire!" they say. But satire requires exaggeration.
#42
If the people owned all means of production, then these imperial assaults would be a thing of the past.
Of course Chomsky Tooth Fairy. It all worked so well the last time. I'll go out and give all my mutual funds to the vanguard of the proletariat as soon as I finish typing. Do you have a PO Box I could send them to?
My last nomination for the three words: Love ya gramps!
#44
I see. It was just Stalin. The fact that he stole all of his ideas about collectivization from Trotsky has nothing to do with all of the killing, I'm sure. I'm also certain that you'll agree with me that the GULAG being so similar to Trotsky's Labor Armies was just a coincidence too.
How am I sloganeering? By giving the means of production over to the workers you are disappropriating my wealth, aren't you? How do you propose to do that without violence? Because I'm sure as hell not going to give away my share of the means of production without a fight.
#46
My half-arsed guess is it is another date, like "June twenty-fifth" or something like that, when something as horrible or maybe worse than 9/11 will happen in the future.
Either that or maybe the first words of the Constitution, "We the People", since there is the underlying theme of civil liberties, having the right to vote restricted, etc.
But ultimate nightmare scenario...."President John Kerry".....
#47
I was looking up the ghost of christmas future to see if he left with three words. Couldn't find it, but I did find another future scenario from the SF Chronicle. link
Yes, yes .. we are being deeply oppressed by the heavy hand of the administration. Some no doubt secretly long for the peace and justice offered by the sharp beheading sword and heavy stones of sharia instead, but though that beckons it hasn't quite reached our shores .....
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
An Iraqi-born U.S. citizen suspected of being a foreign intelligence agent was employed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to rule on asylum applications, including those from unfriendly Middle Eastern nations, according to documents obtained from Congress by The Washington Times. Michael J. Maxwell, the former head of the Office of Security and Investigations at USCIS, is expected to testify about the Iraqi case and other breakdowns at the agency to a House subcommittee today. Mr. Maxwell will tell legislators that the immigration system is being used by enemy governments to place agents in the United States. 
A San Francisco man has been convicted of murder and mayhem for using a meat cleaver to castrate and kill his father, whom he blamed for coddling him and fostering his drug addiction, authorities said Tuesday. 
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gold futures in New York shot to a 25-year high atop $600 an ounce Thursday morning, while silver climbed a 22-year peak at $12 an ounce a down dollar and rising oil prices fueled buying by investors and speculators. By 8:35 a.m. EDT, gold for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange's COMEX division edged back to $598.50 for a gain of $6. It traded from $592 to $601.90 which marked the loftiest level for futures since January 1981. COMEX May silver was up 25.5 cents at $11.96 after rising as high as $12.08 in the early going.
Apple Computer Inc., abandoning its historic practice of running only its own operating system on its personal computers, yesterday rolled out software enabling buyers of Apple's new Intel-based Macintosh computers to install the Windows platform built by rival Microsoft Corp. 
Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) captured the sixth Majlish-e-Shura member of the outlawed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) Khaled Saifullah at a bordering village of Shibganj upazila in Chapainawabganj last night. Lt Col Lutfar Rahman, commanding officer (CO) of BDR 6 Rifles Battalion, acknowledged the arrest, reports our staff correspondent in Rajshahi. With the latest arrest, six out of seven members of the JMB top decision-making tier have been put behind bars. Salahuddin is still at large with a Tk 10 lakh bounty on his head.
Two weeks ago, the FBI's chief information officer admitted that the bureau couldn't afford to provide e-mail addresses for 8,000 of its 30,000 employees. The e-mail shortfall is only the latest in a series of embarrassed confessions the FBI has made about its information technology. The most significant mea culpa came when an attempt to upgrade the bureau's case-management software had to be scrapped last year after $170 million had already been spent. A Justice Department report listed all kinds of excuses, from poor "enterprise architecture" planning to shifting design requirements. But behind the management analysis is a more implacable problem. Until very recently, being computer-savvy hasn't been considered much of an asset in the FBI, and clues were something you kept to yourself.
April 6, 2006: The Tuareg tribes are again in rebellion against the Mail government. One of Africa's few real democracies, with more than a decade of orderly elections and presidential successions, Mali has about 12.3 million people, but is nearly twice the size of Texas, and sprawls across the Sahel and parts of the Sahara. Although most of the people are Moslems, religious radicalism does not seem to have put down any roots. 
GUANTANAMO BAY US NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A Canadian teenager charged with killing a US Army medic in Afghanistan told a Guantanamo tribunal on Wednesday he had been unfairly punished with solitary confinement and would no longer participate in the hearing. Omar Khadr, a 19-year-old accused by the US military of being trained by al Qaeda, addressed the presiding officer softly at his pretrial hearing at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Iraqi terrorist leader 
Until his capture, Abu Ayman, the former aide to the Chief of Staff of Intelligence during the Saddam Hussein regime, was the leader of the Secret Islamic Army in the Northern Babil Province. Abu Ayman has strong ties to terror leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, still considered the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq. Abu Ayman is the prime suspect in the kidnapping of Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena and for assassination attempts on Iraqi Government and Iraqi Security Forces officials. Abu Ayman is also the prime suspect in the kidnapping and killing of several hostages in Iraq and for committing some of the most lethal IED attacks on Coalition and Iraqi Forces and on Iraqi citizens since the fall of the regime. 
Baghdad, 6 April (AKI) - The key suspect in the kidnapping of Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena has been captured, the U.S. military said on Thursday. Mohammed Hila Hammad al-Ubaydi, a former senior intelligence official under Saddam Hussein with close ties to the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was arrested on 7 March, the statement said. Sgrena was freed last year but an Italian intelligence officer escorting her to freedom was shot and killed by U.S. forces at a checkpoint near Baghdad airport. Al-Ubaydi was sought for questioning in several assassination attempts the statement added..
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- A first-of-its-kind Muslim-American television network launched a year ago has gone from being a premium pay channel to a basic-cable offering on several cable and satellite systems, broadening its reach from 10,000 to more than 1 million U.S. homes.
The son of warlord Charles Taylor who was hiding out in Trinidad and Tobago before being held in the United States last week may be connected to the Al Qaeda network. The Daily Express understands that the Liberian Human Rights and Refugee Welfare Organisation based in the US has notified the US Justice Department through a letter to hold Charles 'Chuckie' Taylor Jr for more investigation, unrelated to the passport fraud for which he has been arrested and detained in Miami.
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has assumed security control over the Gaza Strip's border crossings. Al Jazeera said on Wednesday that Abbas issued a presidential decree putting the General Administration for Crossings and Borders department under his responsibility. The decree stipulates that the department must enjoy an independent financial, commercial and security status and be affiliated to the Palestinian presidency.
Abdul Lateef Naushad, 34, who was languishing in a Dammam jail for partially blinding a Saudi national, has been released following a royal pardon. Naushad, according to Indian Ambassador M.O.H. Farook, was taken directly from the jail to the Dammam airport to board a Gulf Air flight bound for the southern Indian city of Trivandrum last night.
Would-be immigrants to Britain are being treated like parcels at detention centres in Calais and at Heathrow airport, the chief inspector of prisons said in a report published on Wednesday. Conditions on the French side of the channel were particularly bad. At the Coquelles freight terminal in Calais, detainees were housed in wholly inadequate rooms which staff nicknamed the dog kennels. 
A bomb has ripped through offices of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on the outskirts of Istanbul, injuring two people, a local party official said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the explosion happened against the background of a week of street clashes between police and Kurdish protesters in which 16 people have died. Much of the demonstrators' anger over high unemployment, poverty and Ankara's refusal to grant more autonomy to the mainly Kurdish region has been targeted against the government, and AKP offices have been damaged in the latest protests.
A man pleaded guilty to weapons of mass destruction charges for sending a mail bomb to a Chicago surgeon he said botched his penile enlargement surgery, though his attorney questioned whether the charges fit the offense.
PASSENGERS and relatives of victims of a 1986 hijacking in Pakistan today registered a lawsuit demanding $US10 billion ($13.91 billion) in damages against Libya and the hijackers. The action was filed on behalf of 176 passengers and families of some of the 20 people killed in the hijacking of Pan Am flight 73 at Karachi airport by the Abu Nidal group on September 5, 1985. The suit demands damages from Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan government and the five Abu Nidal Organisation hijackers.
The Netherlands' new entrance test for would-be immigrants has been condemned by some as Islamophobic and even detrimental to the economy.
GAZA - The new Palestinian government under Islamic militant group Hamas said on Wednesday it was freezing administrative appointments made by the previous, more moderate caretaker leadership so they could be reviewed. 
KABUL - An Afghan expert on Islamic law on Wednesday defended the death penalty for Muslims who convert to other religions, as debate continued over the case of a Christian convert who fled to Italy. 
BAGHDAD: Saddam Hussein returned to court on Wednesday to face genocide charges by immediately accusing the country's Interior Ministry of killing and torturing thousands of Iraqis, remarks aimed at inflaming sectarian tensions. "It's the side that kills thousands in the street and tortures them, " he said, criticising the Shia-run ministry that Sunni Arabs have accused of running death squads against them. Saddam was the only defendant in the chamber. 
MULTAN: On the intervention of Sardar Ziaullah Khan Jatoi, the brother-in-law of the Muzaffargarh district nazim, kidnappers freed a woman, Jindo Mai, who had been kidnapped and raped six days ago. Jatoi police took her to Civil Hospital where Dr Saadia examined her and sent her internal and external swabs to medical examiner for analysis. Police failed to arrest all kidnappers and only one of them was caught. Inspector General of Police Maj (r) Ziaul Hassan has called a report from the Muzaffargarh district police officer and ordered him to arrest all kidnappers involved in the crime. Police confirmed the release of Jindo-Mai on Wednesday.
The Darakhshan police have registered a case against former Balochistan CM Akhtar Mengal and others for kidnapping three personnel of an intelligence agency. In an FIR registered with the Darakhshan police station, the Balochistan National Party (BNP) president has also been charged with interference in official duty, unlawful detention and torture. 
TEHRAN: Iran has successfully test-fired its third new missile in week during war games in the Gulf, Iran's Arabic language satellite television Al-Alam reported on Wednesday. "Today we have successfully tested a new air-to-sea-and-ground missile capable of being fired from planes and helicopters, which can evade anti-missile missiles," war games spokesman Rear Admiral Mohammad Ebrahim Dehqani said. "The missile, which is labelled Nour (light in Arabic), has a tremendous destructive ability and has an antenna in its warhead which gets activated near the target," he added.
There is a good chance that 
Jacques Chirac, the French president, has been issued a deadline of April 15 to 
MIRANSHAH: Sixteen militants were killed and 19 arrested after security forces retaliated to two deadly attacks at two sites in 
The new Hamas-led government is broke and missed the April 1 monthly pay date for tens of thousands of Palestinian public workers, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said Wednesday. It was the Islamic militants' first admission they will have difficulty running the West Bank and Gaza without massive foreign aid.
Taliban guerrillas shot dead an Afghan intelligence official on Wednesday, the second senior security officer to be killed in 24 hours. The provincial intelligence official, Abdul Hakim, was gunned down as he was walking to his office in Ghazni province, southwest of the capital, the provincial police chief said. One of the gunmen was captured as he tried to flee on a motorbike, said the police chief, Abdur Rahman Sarjang, who said the attackers were Taliban.
LAHORE: The Punjab home secretary ordered the release of two activists of banned group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP). Qari Allah Ditta and Naeem Commando of the SSP were being held in Faisalabad Jail under the Anti-Terrorist Act for 90 days. Both had filed a request to the home secretary to be released.
The United States is losing patience at North Koreas boycott of six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons ambitions, US ambassador to Seoul Alexander Vershbow said Wednesday. He urged the Stalinist North to revive the nuclear talks which have been stalled for five months. Everyone in Washington would like to reach a negotiated solution, but everyone in Washington is also running out of patience, Vershbow said in a message on a website run by the embassy. The two Koreas, China, Japan, Russia and the United States have held talks aimed at ending North Koreas nuclear weapons programme since 2003. In September 2005 the North agreed to abandon nuclear programmes in return for receiving a US-led security guarantee and economic and diplomatic benefits. But the talks are in limbo following the last meeting in November, after Washington accused Pyongyang of counterfeiting US dollars and laundering money. The North denies the charge and demands the US lift financial sanctions before it returns to the talks.
WASHINGTON - The United States should set a May 15 deadline for Iraqis to form a unity government and then plan to withdraw its troops by years end, Democratic Senator and former presidential candidate John Kerry said in commentary published on Wednesday in The New York Times. If Iraqis arent willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, theyre probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave, Kerry said.
