[An Nahar] Washington and Kabul have failed to keep track of hundreds of thousands of weapons provided to Afghanistan, raising the risk that some could end up in the hands of hard boys, a U.S. audit said Monday.
The United States also had delivered more weapons than Afghan forces now needed, partly because Kabul officials had revised their requests over time, the report said.
Since 2004, the American military has delivered more than 747,000 AK-47 rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers and other weapons to Afghan forces worth about $626 million.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/29/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
But the U.S. and Afghan governments have botched record-keeping for the weapons....
"Botched record-keeping" of weapons to Mexico as well. Can't blame that one on the Afghans.
[An Nahar] Egypt on Monday condemned Israel for using what it said was "excessive force" against civilians in the Gazoo Strip.
After generations of anti-Israel propaganda, the peepul must be given a bit of a show.
It also urged Israel and Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,, the Paleostinian movement that dominates the Gazoo Strip, to abide by the "humanitarian truce ..The purposes of a truce are twofold: 1.) bring up more arms, ammunition, and reinforcements; and 2.) get the enemy to relax his vigilance. A truce is not the same thing as a ceasefire, and a ceasefire doesn't mean you have to stop shooting... " proposed by Cairo and backed by the United Nations
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/29/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
"Egyptcondemns the excessive use of force from the Israeli side against civilians"
OK. If we run across a civilian in Gaza, we won't use excessive force.
The freaking FRENCH are offering aid to CHRISTIAN refugees?
The freaking FRENCH are not blaming their plight on the Christian fanaticism?
Will the EU censure France?
There seems to be big differences between French Progressive politicians and US progressives.
The French, I think, are the ultimate Middle Eastern realists. The Brits have all of this romantic notions and guilt over screwing up the region after WWI, and the Russians for all of their fortitude and testosterone do not understand the Moslems.
Maybe we can swap Hollande for Obama? At least Hollande understands economics.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
07/29/2014 10:57 Comments ||
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#4
Wonder if France will offer asylum to French Jews being attacked on the streets of Paris...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/29/2014 14:15 Comments ||
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#5
They have realised middle east christians offer more to the economy than middle east muslims.
The Jews and indians are business minded and successful and that upsets inferior complex muslims!
Posted by: Paul D ||
07/29/2014 15:12 Comments ||
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[DAWN] Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan ...Currently the Interior Minister of Pakistain. He is the senior leader of the Pak Moslem League (N) and a close aide to Nawaz Uncle Fester Sharif. He is noted for his vocal anti-American railing in the National Assembly. However (comma) Khan told the U.S. ambassador that he was in fact pro-American but he and the PML-N would have to be critical of US actions in order to remain publicly credible. Khan cited his wife and children's US citizenship as proof, which means he's lying to one side or the other and probably both. He wears a wig, but you probably guessed that. since hair doesn't grow naturally in that shape or texture... has said that major politicians, including Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... Chairman Imran Khan ... aka Taliban Khan, who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree... , are facing threats to their lives.
Addressing a presser here on Sunday, he said information about the threats had been received from foreign sources and he had informed the PTI chief about it.
About the government's move to summon the army under Article 245 of the Constitution to aid police and other law-enforcement agencies to ensure Islamabad's safety, he said the decision had been taken days before the launching of military operation in North Wazoo because of the experience gained during operations undertaken in cities in 2009. The notification about the summoning of the army had been issued in consultation with the military leadership.
He said that 352 troops were being requisitioned and they would operate under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 to assist the civil administration and police. Decision about places of their deployment will be taken by the district magistrate.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/29/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] The U.N. Security Council on Monday backed a Russian initiative to bar trade in oil with Islamists in Iraq and Syria.
The 15-nation Council warned in a joint statement that buying oil from groups such as the Islamic State and Jabhat Al-Nusra fighting in Iraq and Syria could lead to sanctions.
"Such engagement constitutes financial support for turbans and may lead to further sanctions listings," the council said.
Russia presented the statement in late June, seeking to clamp down on middle-men who are selling the oil from Islamist-controlled areas.
Islamic groups such as ISIL, which rebranded itself as the Islamic State and Al-Nusra have seized oilfields and pipelines to bankroll their offensives.
The council said control of oil facilities "could generate material income for terrorists, which would support their recruitment efforts, including of foreign terrorist fighters, and strengthen their operational capability to organize and carry out terrorist attacks."
Trade of oil with the Islamists is in violation of U.N. resolutions and "all states are required to ensure that their nationals and any persons within their territory do not trade in oil with these entities," it said.
The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights said last week that Islamic State (IS) fighters in Syria were selling oil and gas to Iraqi businessmen.
IS gunnies took control of large parts of Iraq's north and west in a sweeping offensive that began on June 9, preventing Baghdad from exporting oil via a pipeline to Turkey and by road to Jordan.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/29/2014 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] The Islamic State, which advocates public stoning for adultery, has opened a "marriage bureau" for women who want to wed its fighters in territory they control in Syria and Iraq.
The jihadist group's office is operating from Al-Bab, a town in Aleppo province of northern Syria, for "single women and widows who would like to marry IS fighters", said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The Britannia-based monitoring group, citing residents, said interested parties were being asked to provide their names and addresses, "and IS fighters will come knocking at their door and officially ask for marriage".
The IS has also expanded into tourism, taking jihadists on honeymoons and civilians to visit other parts of its "caliphate".
Running twice-weekly tours from Syria's Raqa to Iraq's Anbar, IS buses fly the group's black flag and play jihadist songs throughout the journey.
IS proclaimed a "caliphate" last month straddling the two neighboring Arab states.
It firmly controls large swathes of northern and eastern Syria, the Iraq-Syria border, and parts of northern and western Iraq.
The group has been accused of responsibility for a number of atrocities, including mass kidnappings and killings, stonings and crucifixions.
IS has its roots in Iraq, but spread into Syria in late spring 2013.
In June, IS spearheaded a lightning offensive in Iraq that saw large swathes of the country fall from Iraqi government hands.
Rebel groups fighting Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Oppressor of the Syrians and the Lebs... 's regime since March 2011 accuse IS, which has attracted thousands of foreign jihadists, of having "hijacked" their uprising.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/29/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
eHarmony for Islamacists? That creates cognitive dissonance in most civilized people.
Emirates airlines, one of the world's biggest carriers, will stop flying over Iraq after concerns about the missile threat posed by Islamist militants, The Times reported on Monday.
Tim Clark, president of Emirates, said he believed other airlines would follow, as the industry began to review assessing the risk of flying over conflict areas after the Malaysia Airlines disaster in Ukraine. Flight MH17 was reportedly shot down by pro-Russian separatists using a surface-to-air missile, Al Arabiya reported.
"The horrors that this created was a kick in the solar plexus for all of us," Clark said. "Nevertheless having got through it we must take stock and deal with it."
By the end of the year airlines will have a system through which they can share information on troubled flight routes, Clark said. Political sensitivities between governments should not bar input from government intelligence agencies about what airspace is considered risky, the British president of the Dubai-based airline said.
"This is a political animal but . . . the fact of the matter is MH17 changed everything, and that was very nearly in European airspace," Clark told The Times. "We cannot continue to say, 'Well it's a political thing'. We have to do something. We have to take the bull by the horns."
The Times reported that the United States was urgently investigating the possibility of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria fighters in northern Iraq acquiring missiles stockpiles from neighboring Syria capable of shooting down a civilian aircraft at 30,000ft or higher.
Wonder what the airline knows that we don't?
Hundreds of flights pass over ISIS-controlled territory in Iraq every day. A predominantly preferred route flies directly over the Iraqi city of Mosul, an ISIS stronghold.
Clark said that he was "not comfortable" with the situation. More than 50 flights travel from and to British airports cross Iraqi airspace, most of which are operated by Emirates.
Hundreds of Emirates flights en-route to and from major European airports received instructions to re-route flights that use Iraqi airspace daily. The changes will be implemented over the next week to ten days.
"We can't do it all at once because we have got an awful lot going through it, but yes we will be doing that," Clark explained.
Alternative routes being considered by the airline would take aircraft across Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea, over Cairo and finally into European airspace, adding add up to 45 minutes to flight times. Flying over Iran is another alternative being explored.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/29/2014 00:00 ||
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Bibi totally outmaneuvered Obean when he politely told members of his regime to go pound sand in their collective @$$. Because he's an ignorant megalomanic, Obean will get nasty if he can find a way, but it will not play well for the Dems. Golf, anyone?
While much of the rest of the world watches the Gaza war in horror and scrambles for a cease-fire, U.S. lawmakers are pressing the Obama administration to take no action that puts pressure on Israel to halt its military operations.
Many even have criticized the administration's effort to stop the violence that has killed more than 1,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and more than 50 Israeli soldiers and three civilians this month.
"At times like this, people try to isolate Israel," House Speaker John Boehner said Monday. "We are here to stand with Israel, not just as a broker or observer but as a strong partner and a trusted ally.
"What does that mean? Well, it doesn't mean issuing vague, on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand statements. No, it means backing up our words and showing solidarity with our friend." Uh oh, Obean and his cronies aren't going to like this at all.
This week, legislators will discuss a $225 million request from the Defense Department to urgently bolster Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system.
Republicans and Democrats are clashing over whether to approve the funds in a larger spending bill or separately, though no one publicly opposes the payments. Senate appropriators already have approved doubling next year's money for the system.
Whereas the Obama administration and lawmakers agree on Iron Dome, other actions in Congress are more contentious.
Until Monday, Sen. Ted Cruz was hindering the appointment of several U.S. ambassadors to key allies by vowing to block all State Department nominees awaiting confirmation.
The Texas Republican said he was releasing his holds after the Federal Aviation Administration answered his questions about its 36-hour ban last week on U.S. airline flights to Israel. Cruz had claimed the prohibition was an "economic boycott" of Israel to pressure it into a cease-fire with the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
In a weekend call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Barack Obama stressed the need for an "immediate, unconditional, humanitarian cease-fire." Obama, a White House statement said, suggested larger questions would then come later.
Such talk has alarmed lawmakers of both parties. Who are actually up for reelection next time around.
In a letter last week to Obama, Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Ben Cardin, and Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, said a cease-fire must eliminate Hamas' ability to fire rockets into Israel and place no restrictions on the Jewish state.
"Israel must be allowed to take any actions necessary to remove those threats," the senators wrote a position that presaged by two days the Israeli government's unanimous rejection of Secretary of State John Kerry's cease-fire proposal.
Over days of intense diplomacy, Kerry has tried to secure commitments from both sides that would lead to peace. Congress, by contrast, has focused its energies on Palestinian actions and critics of Israel.
Cardin and Graham joined three Republican senators Marco Rubio, Mark Kirk and Kelly Ayotte in sending a sharply worded letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after he described Israel's military operations as an "atrocious action."
Bipartisan resolutions making their way through the House and Senate would condemn Hamas' use of human shields.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, formerly the bane of the Israel lobby for suggesting a U.S. aid cutoff, has said no one should question Israel's actions in a time of war.
The ebullient bipartisan support for Israel is also leading many House of Representatives and Senate members to rev up their opposition to the Obama administration's nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Those talks were extended through November after a series of meetings in Vienna earlier this month that coincided with the first week of fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Israel opposes any nuclear deal that would ease pressure on Iran while allowing it to maintain a uranium enrichment program.
As part of the extension, Tehran is gaining access to $2.8 billion in Iranian funds that have been frozen in overseas bank accounts.
Kirk, Ayotte and fellow Republican Sen. John Cornyn last week proposed a series of conditions on the money.
Their bill demands Obama block transfers until he certifies the money won't fund terrorism, nuclear or ballistic weapons development, or human rights violations. It would be almost impossible for Obama to certify those elements. The administration has rejected similar efforts as attempts to derail diplomacy.
Senate and House panels were holding hearings on the Iran diplomacy Tuesday. Wendy Sherman, the State Department's negotiator, and David Cohen, the Treasury Department's sanctions chief, were to testify.
Pyongyang on Monday denied western media reports alleging that it is planning to supply hundreds of thousands of US dollars' worth of missiles and communication equipment to Hamas, ITAR-TASS reported. The North Korean Foreign Ministry dismissed these reports as "a pure concoction".
"Lies! All lies! Sea of Fire! Your mustache! Your mother! Infidels! Running dogs!"
A ministry spokesperson told the country's KCNA news agency that such false reports "prove the intention of the United States and its allies to artificially link Pyongyang to events in the Middle East in order to mar the DPRK's image in the international scene and isolate" the country.
The Foreign Ministry said such reports indicate to "the US wish to justify Israel's crimes in Gaza, which have resulted in numerous casualties".
Washington is trying to present proof of North Korea's ties with Palestinian organisations in order to "distract international attention (from Israel) and focus the criticism on Pyongyang", the ministry said. The ministry added that "it is the US that is undermining global peace and stability by acting as the main terrorist state" and by "supplying heavy weapons to South Korea and trying to draw its leadership into war with the DPRK".
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/29/2014 00:00 ||
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#2
They would never do such a thing. The same way as they would never work on a nuke reactor for Assad. You know, the one the Israelis bombed; the one he got from Saddam at the fall of Iraq.
Nothing to see here, move along.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
07/29/2014 7:45 Comments ||
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#3
I'd be concerned about a bit more than small arms. A gazookian super tunnel under the wire into Israel would be a tempting venue for a Nork mini-bomb. Sorry, those people simply have to be moved elsewhere.
[IsraelTimes] Figures from an Israeli intelligence center highlight how, in the Israeli-Paleostinian wars, even the awful tangibles of counting and sorting the dead have become part of a non-fact-based narrative that plays a decisive role in Israel's asymmetric conflicts.
Paleostinian sources in Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,-controlled Gazoo claim that roughly 75 percent of all the dead were civilians. As of Friday at 3 p.m., the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported, 857 Paleostinians had been killed, 649 of them civilians, of whom 194 were children.
That final figure is crushing. Even if it is highly inflated, and some of the children are actually teens who took part in the warfare, there is no stepping around the enormity of the tragedy for the families in Gazoo. And this article in no way seeks to make light of those losses.
But the 75 percent figure is more than merely tragic. It calls into question the very legitimacy of Israel's actions, of its right to defend itself in the manner it has chosen.
Yet while it has been widely quoted as fact, a recent Israeli report, along with the facts stated about each fallen Paleostinian in Gazoo in an Al Jazeera list, reveal a far more reasonable balance, one that would seem to be very much in line with recent NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... offensives and other US foreign wars.
"On the average, half of the deaths caused by war happened to civilians," Wikipedia quotes him as writing in the study "Civilian deaths in Wartime." That ratio, he wrote, "remained at about 50% from century to century."
The Meir Amit Intelligence and Information Center found, on July 23, that 775 people had been killed in Gazoo, of whom 229 were bully boyz or Death Eaters (135 Hamas, 60 Islamic Jihad ...created after many members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah... , 34 from other terror organizations); 267 were civilians; and 279 could not yet be classified.
Many of the Paleostinian figures subsequently quoted, by the UN and other international organizations, "are not worth the paper they're written on," Reuven Erlich, the director of the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, told The Times of Israel. "They're based mostly on Paleostinian sources in Gazoo, who have a vested interest in showing that we're killing many civilians."
His center, he said, thoroughly researches the casualties. In order to ascertain an accurate identity of the dead, the center's staff researches the person's background on Paleostinian websites and searches for information about their funerals and for other hints that could shed light on the person's true occupation.
The authorities in Gazoo generally count every young man who did not wear a uniform as a civilian — even if he was involved in terrorist activity and was therefore considered by the IDF a legitimate target, military sources said.
This can be particularly misleading in the current conflict, where, as Patrick Martin noted in the Globe and Mail during the battle for Shejaiya, some gunnies "bore their weapons openly, slung over their shoulder, but two, disguised as women, were seen walking off with weapons partly concealed under their robes. Another had his weapon wrapped in a blanket and held on his chest as if it were a baby."
Noru Tsalic, a blogger for The Times of Israel, went through a list of the dead as posted on Al-Jazeera ... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means the Peninsula, as in the Arabian Peninsula. In recent years it has settled in to become slightly less biased than MSNBC, in about the same category as BBC or CBS... on Saturday, July 19. It had 307 names, 85% of them male. "In fact," he wrote, "more than two-thirds of the fatalities are males aged 18 to 60, despite the fact that they represent around 20% of Gazoo's population."
In Operation Cast Lead in 2008-9, 1,166 Paleostinians were killed. Paleostinian human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. organizations, at the time, stated that two-thirds of the dead were civilians. The Israeli army, several months after the close of the operation, presented an inverse figure of 61 percent Lion of Islams, 25 percent civilians, and the remaining 14 percent — although all male — in the category of unknown.
If one merely splits the difference between the Israeli and Paleostinian figures, the corpse count would be very much in line with the comprehensive study done about the history of civilian deaths during war conducted by Professor William Echkardt — the chief prosecutor in the My Lai Massacre case during the Vietnam War and a former colonel in the US Army Judge Advocate General's Corps.
"On the average, half of the deaths caused by war happened to civilians," Wikipedia quotes him as writing in the study "Civilian deaths in Wartime." That ratio, he wrote, "remained at about 50% from century to century."
Figures from the Korean War and Vietnam War are probably far from exact but several online sources put the ratio of civilian to combatant deaths, at the hands of US forces, at roughly 2:1. Wikipedia puts the ratio from the First Chechen War at 10:1.
The, point though, is probably not the numbers, which are clearly capable of masquerading as facts. The point, one might argue, is the world's fixation on them, even during a week in which, the BBC reported, 1,700 people were killed in Syria, several hundred of them civilians.
#1
In Viet Nam the press never caught on to the fact that the VC did not wear uniforms and would scream bloody murder over every civilian death.
They whined and sniveled over every woman killed when women would carry grenades into our positions and walk the battlefields shooting our wounded...when the NVA wasn't bayonetting them and children would throw grenades at soldiers or carry landmines out into roads for our troops to run over.
The same in the Middle East. The media just doesn't want to understand that in an asymmetrical environment (who the hell came up with that? Its a freaking GUERRILLA war!!!) most of the combatants are not wearing uniforms. Women and children are active combatants in guerrilla warfare...going back to Mao who sorta wrote the book on how to conduct a guerrilla war.
AND finally the media always takes the bait on the false information, PSYOPS, and blatant propaganda about civilian casualties.
If you every have seen video footage of a Hamas parade in Gaze, you will see thousands of women and children brandishing weapons.
The press coverage of the current events is too heavily tilted toward Hamas. They conveniently NEVER mention the fact that the IDF bombs these civilian targets because Hamas deliberately stores their weapons there...daring the IDF to come get them and bait them into another misinformed PR victory for Hamas.
BAH HUMBUG on the press coverage.
Posted by: Bill Clinton ||
07/29/2014 11:07 Comments ||
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#3
I have been say for a week now that the actual number of civilian dead is half what Hamas is claiming. For the 21 days, the total is less than 400 civilian dead, with 750 terrorists dead.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/29/2014 11:16 Comments ||
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#4
It calls into question the very legitimacy of Israel's actions, of its right to defend itself in the manner it has chosen.
No, it doesn't. Not to sensible people, anyway.
Want numbers? Current score is roughly 1200 Paleo deaders vs 50 Israelis - a better than 20:1 ratio. With the population of Israel around 8 million, to kill all the Juices you are going to need a whole lot more Paleostinians.
Question: can we tell from these images whether the damage came from Israeli destruction, Gazan rockets that missed Israel, surface expression of tunnel destroyed tunnels, or secondary explosions from stored Gazan weaponry (or booby traps going off)? Or must we conclude that, "Yup, that's damage all right. War is hell, so don't start one."
[IsraelTimes] Satellite images provided by a United Nations training organization showed the damage to buildings in the Gaza Strip from Israeli airstrikes over the three weeks of Operation Protective Edge.
The images, snapped by the Pleiades satellite, published over the weekend by the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, compared the way a northeastern section of Gaza looked on July 6 — two days before the start of Israel's offensive — and July 25. Damage could be seen to Gaza City, Toffah, Shejaiya, and Shaaf.
In case OldPatriot and others would like to exercise their skills, the UN provides the images for examination here.
Shejaiya was the scene of heavy fighting as IDF forces clashed with hundreds of Hamas fighters in the densely built-up area.
UNITAR said analysis showed some 604 destroyed structures with another 236 severely damaged. There were an additional 46 moderately damaged structures. Roads, as well as agricultural and non-urbanized areas, were pockmarked with 66 craters from ordnance dropped by the Israeli Air Force.
However, UNITAR noted that the analysis and estimates have not been verified in the field.
According to its website UNITAR is a training division of the UN that conducts hundreds of research and development activities around the globe to aid organizations in decision-making.
Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on July 8 to try and stem rocket fire aimed at Israeli towns and cities by Palestinian terrorists in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. After days of airstrikes, a ground operation began with the goal of destroying dozens of Hamas-dug tunnels that burrow under the border and that have been used by terrorists to stage attacks inside Israel.
Palestinian sources say over 1,000 Gazans have been killed in the fighting. Hundreds of them are gunmen, Israel says. Forty-three IDF soldiers, two Israeli civilians and one foreign worker have been killed, including six IDF soldiers killed by Hamas gunmen emerging from tunnels inside Israel.
#1
Our thanks to UNITAR and it's French satellites and [talented imagery analysts] for this informative product. Do you have anything you might wish to share regarding recent events along the Ukraine - Russian border, or are you strictly focused on Israeli human rights abuses....?
#4
Really CRAPPY photography. What that image doesn't tell you is how many of the places that were destroyed or heavily damaged were places where tunnel activity was found. I hope Google Earth updates their imagery soon... I might be able to trust it a tad more.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/29/2014 15:41 Comments ||
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#5
"Yup, that's damage all right. War is hell, so don't start one."
Wars, like large parties, are best held at someone else's place.
Thank you for the professional perspective, OldPatriot. If this is the UN's best R&D effort, it'll be a while before they pose any competition for the serious war-making countries.
[IsraelTimes] A high-profile Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, critic, and son of one the group's leaders, struck out at the terrorist group for its "worship of death" and its plans to establish a global caliphate, in a recent interview.
Mosab Hassan Yusef, a Hamas defector who worked for 10 years as an informer for the Shin Bet, explained to CNN last week that, for Gazoo's rulers, human life is of no consequence.
"Hamas does not care about the lives of Paleostinians, or the lives of Israelis, or Americans; they don't care about their own lives," Yusef said. "They consider dying for their ideology a way of worship.
"Hamas is not seeking coexistence and compromise; Hamas is seeking conquest," he added. "The destruction of the state of Israel is not the Hamas final destination."
Hamas, Yusef asserted, wants to build an Islamic state "on the rubble of every other civilization."
Yusef, who converted to Christianity and was disowned by his father, West Bank Hamas leader Hassan Yusef, recalled that the extreme indoctrination is preached in mosques at young children.
"In the mosques, Hamas told us that without shedding innocent blood for the sake of the ideology we will not be able to build an Islamic state," he said. "At five-years-old, that is what they were feeding us."
Yusef gained fame by going public about his experiences in a book, and more recently a film, "The Green Prince."
Israel has claimed that Hamas is using Gazoo civilians as human shields to protect its military infrastructure during the ongoing Operation Protective Edge aimed at stemming rocket fire from Gazoo at Israeli cities and destroying cross-border tunnels used to launch terror attacks.
Yosef's father Hassan was placed in durance vile Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try! last month as part of the massive search to find three Israeli teenagers — Eyal Yifrach, 19; Gil-ad Shaar, 16; and Naftali Frenkel, 19 — who were kidnapped in June as they hitchhiked near Hebron. The teens' bodies were later found in a field near the city.
[IsraelTimes] Several Western journalists currently working in Gazoo have been harassed and threatened by Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, for documenting cases of the terrorist group's involvement of civilians in warfare against Israel, Israeli officials said, expressing outrage that some in the international media apparently allow themselves to be intimidated and do not report on such incidents.
The Times of Israel confirmed several incidents in which journalists were questioned and threatened. These included cases involving photographers who had taken pictures of Hamas operatives in compromising circumstances — gunnies preparing to shoot rockets from within civilian structures, and/or fighting in civilian clothing — and who were then approached by Hamas men, bullied and had their equipment taken away. Another case involving a French news hound was initially reported by the journalist involved, but the account was subsequently removed from the Internet.
Officials in Jerusalem said incidents like these underline Israel's claim that Hamas doesn't shy away from violence to control the flow of information out of Gazoo and that the terrorist group intimidates and threatens journalists in the Strip who seek to report objectively about the conflict.
"We have no doubt that Hamas, through coercion and violence, limits the freedom of foreign journalists in Gazoo," an Israeli official told The Times of Israel. "Walking around Gazoo with a camera and asking people what they think is not like walking around New York or London. People are not free to say their true opinions. It's a bit like asking Syrians in government-controlled areas of Damascus if they like President [Bashar] Assad."
Hamas has indisputably used violence against news hounds who have covered stories it doesn't like, the official said. And it has emphatically limited news hounds' access to aspects of Hamas operations that would reflect to its detriment. One example of this relates to Gazoo's Shifa hospital, the official added. "We know that downstairs there is a Hamas command and control center and that Hamas leaders are hiding there. No news hound is allowed to go anywhere downstairs. They're only allowed to work upstairs to take pictures of casualties, the pictures that Hamas wants them to take."
Shifa has indeed "become a de facto headquarters for Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices," the Washington Post reported on July 15. The Wall Street Journal's Middle East correspondent, Nick Casey, wrote on Twitter that Hamas uses Shifa "as a safe place to see media," but removed the post afterwards.
"A few meters from the emergency room, where the injured from the bombings kept on coming in, in the outpatient ward, [the news hound] was received in 'a small section of the hospital used as an office' by a group of young combatants,'" the article read. "Surprisingly, they were all well-dressed, 'in civilian clothing, with a gun under the shirt, and some had walkie-talkies.'" He was ordered to empty his pockets, to remove his shoes and belt, then was taken to a hospital room that appeared to serve the men as their command office, the news hound recalled.
The journalist, who has family living in Gazoo, was then interrogated by one of the Hamas men. "Who are you? What's your name? What are you doing?" The Hamas fighter also asked the journalist whether he spoke Hebrew or had any ties to the Paleostinian Authority in Ramallah. "The young Hamas supporters insistently ask the question: 'Are you a correspondent for Israel?'" he recalled in the article. The news hound asserted that he works for French and Algerian media only, but was eventually told to leave Gazoo and stop working.
Photographers documenting gunnies dressed in civilian clothing and bully boyz shooting rockets from within schools are routinely the subject of Hamas harassment, a well-placed Israeli official said. "Whenever they're here [in Israel], they [foreign journalists] complain about restrictions and censorship and so on. But when they get bullied in Gazoo, they're too scared to say anything, and so this is swept under the rug."
Reporters Without Borders, a group advocating press freedom and the freedom of information, last week published a lengthy article about the Gazoo conflict, harshly criticizing Israel for various alleged offenses. It made no mention of Hamas harassment of foreign journalists in Gazoo.
#3
Re: "other border"
Sounds like a member of parliment trying to investigate the King. Not much he's gonna accomplish and could be getting in real trouple.
[An Nahar] The obscure group known as the Free Sunnis of Baalbek Brigade threatened on Sunday to target Maj. Suzan al-Hajj, chief of the Internal Security Forces' Cyber Crime and Intellectual Property Protection bureau.
The shadowy group urged al-Hajj in a tweet using a new account on Twitter to reconsider her tactics and "stop meddling with fire."
"Not you nor your cyber crimes (office) are capable of locating us and inflicting harm to us," the group's emir Saifullah al-Shayyah said in a tweet, advising al-Hajj to "take care of her family and to sit in the company of women like her instead."
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Posted by: Fred ||
07/29/2014 00:00 ||
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[4 views]
Top|| File under: al-Nusra
[IsraelTimes] The head of a Paleostinian terrorist group told a Lebanese news outlet that Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, has received arms and training from Syria, Iran and Hezbollah.
PFLP-GC Secretary-General Ahmad Jibril spoke to Leb's Al-Manar TV on July 17 and said that the Islamist terror group controlling the Gazoo Strip has received "a lot of help both in the scientific sense and in transferring weapons and equipment" from Tehran and its allies in Damascus and Leb.
"After 2008, hundreds of our young people left the Gazoo Strip for Syria, Leb, and Tehran, to train and to learn how to improve these weapons," Jibril said referring to Hamas's missiles. "Allah be praised, these weapons indeed were improved."
In the interview, translated by MEMRI, Jibril described the route by which arms were smuggled from Syria to the blockaded Gazoo Strip, explaining that the armed from Iran can't be transferred by the Persian Gulf because it "is under surveillance."
"We transferred [the missiles] from the airports in Damascus to Khartoum, from Khartoum to Port Sudan, and from there to the Sinai. From the Sinai, they were transferred via tunnels to the Gazoo Strip," the Paleostinian faction leader explained. "The brothers in Hezbollah established cells of Bedouin and so on in the Sinai Desert. You could transfer the weapons to them, and they would get them into Gazoo."
Israel intercepted an arms shipment earlier this year in the Red Sea which the IDF said was destined for Hamas via Iran, Syria and Sudan. A US official and two Middle East analysts postulated that the arms shipment may have been bound for Sinai rather than the Gazoo Strip.
Israeli Naval commandos intercepted 40 M-302 missiles, 181 122-mm mortars, and 400,000 7.62 caliber rounds in the arms cache on the ship while it was sailing off the coasts of Eritrea ...is run by the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), with about the amounts of democracy and justice you'd expect from a party with that name. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. The president, Isaias Afewerki, has been in office since independence in 1993 and will probably die there of old age... and Sudan.
[Atlantic] Two years after bombing a Bulgarian airport, the group remains as strong as ever on the continent.
Two years ago this month, Hezbollah operatives murdered six people—five tourists and their bus driver—and maimed many more in a bus bombing at the airport in Burgas, Bulgaria. The incident brought global attention to the extent of the group's operations in Europe, far afield of its traditional home base of Leb, where it was founded with a mission to fight Israel. But today, despite a European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... ban on the group's military wing, Hezbollah is just as strong on the continent as it was two years ago.
Hezbollah's European networks are so strong, in fact, that just this month it was revealed that Hezbollah procurement agents bought parts and technologies in Europe for the surveillance drones the group deploys in Syria and Israel. And U.S. politicians are worried. On Tuesday, the House unanimously passed a bill that, if enacted into law, would allow the U.S. to take the unprecedented step of sanctioning European banks found to be doing business with the group.
Nor was the Burgas plot Hezbollah's only operational venture in Europe at the time. Indeed, a similar Hezbollah plot targeting Israeli tourists en route to a Bulgarian ski resort had been foiled just six months earlier. To be sure, Hezbollah had been active in Europe for decades, but evidence uncovered in the weeks leading up to the Burgas bombing indicated Hezbollah's financial, logistical, criminal, and even operational activities in Europe were on the upswing, and those activities have not diminished. How did it get to the point that the U.S. would consider sanctioning banks in Europe to combat a movement spawned in Leb? Last year, Bulgarian Sherlocks lifted the veil on Hezbollah's growing operational efforts in Europe when they found the group responsible for the Burgas bombing, which killed not only Israeli tourists but a Bulgarian bus driver.
h/t Instapundit
A Facebook page calling for the death of Israeli Jews does not violate the social network's "community standards," according to multiple messages sent by Facebook in response to user complaints.
The page in question, is named, "Death to zionst baby killer israeli jews." The page, which spells "Zionist" incorrectly, features an Image of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire with blood dripping down his chin as he feasts on a child. It was started on July 25.
Individuals complaining about the page were greeted with the following message (screen captured below):
We reviewed your report of Death to zionst baby killer israeli jews. Thank you for taking the time to report something that you feel may violate our Community Standards. Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment. We reviewed the Page you reported for containing hate speech or symbols and found it doesn't violate our Community Standards. Them Jews are all stick together, eh.
#4
I do have a Facebook account. I started it to keep an eye on the trailing daughters and especially temporary daughter, who is very bright but lacked judgement. I've met some interesting people there. But I'm afraid I'm not very profitable for the company, as I don't pay any attention to their ads, either the ones on the sidebar or the ones that show up in my "newsfeed".
Posted by: Vespasian Oppressor of the Visigoths8235 ||
07/29/2014 9:18 Comments ||
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#9
I also have a FB account - use it to communicate with friends and family and get information from various groups (NRA, Arduino, etc...). It would be nice if there was an alternate tool just as good.
I don't give it private information (not even birthday). It's a tool - a public tool. Treat it like a public billboard.
And I have no doubt that any 'death to Hamas' page would be taken down in an instant.
#12
It's not that they eventually took it down, it's that someone there made the initial judgement that such horseshit was ok and left it up after initial complaints. THAT shows the nature of the political culture at "Bookface".
#16
I used to have a FB account. It was good posting up field work, trips, interesting things. But FB started manipulating contacts posting, and after a while, felt that I was being used and spied upon. So I gave it the olde heave ho. Would like another forum, but I found that my life is quite good w/o FB.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/29/2014 14:40 Comments ||
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#17
I still don't see why Facebook is so huge and without competition. Doesn't seem that what makes them good should be all that impossible to duplicate. Myspace did most of it 5 years earlier, Facebook just made it bare-bones and more of a restricted club (at least initially).
Someone needs to come up with an alternate. Not even a conservative alternate, just a non-political one.
#19
It takes a number of complaints. I'm glad they took them down, there were three of the death to Israel sites. I files complaints on all of them. I think they give standard responses until a number of people complain. Conservative people, by nature, do not complain publicly. In chat groups but not publicly. We need to get our voice heard more. Keep it up.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/29/2014 18:41 Comments ||
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#20
I agree, Glenmore. I liked to post projects, like the water plant in the Aleutians, Iceland geothermal plants, neat scenery in the Faroe Islands. Hated to pull out, but it was becoming too much with FB policies. I post once in a while in the O-club.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/29/2014 18:58 Comments ||
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#21
The page is back up.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
07/29/2014 20:26 Comments ||
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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 Nahar] Washington and Kabul have failed to keep track of hundreds of thousands of weapons provided to Afghanistan, raising the risk that some could end up in the hands of
Currently the Interior Minister of Pakistain. He is the senior leader of the Pak Moslem League (N) and a close aide to Nawaz 
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
... an Arab news network headquartered in Qatar, notorious for carrying al-Qaeda press releases. The name means 
