I think we've had this story before, but it does point out that all the Philistines don't live in Palestine.
The Saudi embassies in Washington, Ottawa and London are likely to be soon flooded with mail from shocked Muslims urging that the birthplace of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) not be bulldozed.
CAIR statement of outrage in 10...9...8...
A report in the London newspaper The Independent, says, "Now the actual birthplace of the Prophet Mohamed is facing the bulldozers, with the connivance of Saudi religious authorities whose hardline interpretation of Islam is compelling them to wipe out their own heritage."
American Muslim Council statement of outrage in 7...6...5...
According to progressive Canadian Muslim broadcaster and activist, Toronto-based Tarek Fatah, "In January 2002, Turkey accused Saudi Arabia of a 'cultural massacre' following the demolition of an historic Ottoman castle near the holy city of Mecca.
Muslim Student Association statement of outrage in 4...3...2...
The spat between Turkey and Saudi Arabia barely caused a stir anywhere in the Muslim world, let alone international circles. The Ottoman fort's destruction is not the only massacre of culture that the Saudis have done in the name of money and Islam. In the 1980s, they demolished part of the two hills of Safaa and Marwah to build a palace for the late King Khaled.
*Crickets chirping*
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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So?
Posted by: BA ||
08/11/2005 8:51 Comments ||
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Maybe they could just paint it? Or siding maybe?
#5
You mean it's not like the 235th most holy place in Islam? (Or something like that?)
Halliburton must be to blame somehow.
And what exactly is a "progressive Canadian Muslim broadcaster" anyway? Someone who will wait ten years for imposition of sharia? He allows his wimmin to show their faces in public?
#7
Wahabis dont like material manifestations of Islam, while lots of others do. This is like when Protestants in 16th century europe went around destroying statues and stuff in Catholic churches, out of hatred of images. Note Wahabis in Chechnya, and Bosnia, got locals upset with them for this kind of thing.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/11/2005 19:29 Comments ||
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This is mentioned in John Bradley's great book, Saudi Arabia Exposed.
The Wahhabis have for years been destroying relics and historic ruins that are part of the history of Islam. Their reasoning? To prevent idol worship. Geeezzzz!
Also, tells me something: If the Wahhabis are willing to destroy the relics of Islamic civilization, do you think they give a rat's ass about the Pyramids of Giza, the cathedrals of Florence, Rome, Paris, Chartres, ...skyscrapers in NYC?
American soldiers "accidentally" fired on a civilian car that entered a shooting range in which they were training on Tuesday, injuring two adults and a child, the U.S. military said.
"Honey, why don't we take the kids for a drive in the country!"
"Oh, yes, let's! It's such a pretty day! Where do you want to go?"
"How about down to the U.S. firing range?"
In a brief statement, the military said there were three other children in the vehicle. They apparently escaped unharmed. The civilian passengers were "not related to the U.S. military," the statement said. "The child sustained minor injuries and the extent of the adults' injuries are unknown at this time," according to the statement. They were taken to a local hospital.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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This was no accident, the Soddies were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/11/2005 8:45 Comments ||
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The accident is that they were not all killed. Had it been a Marine shooting range there would have been no survivors.
Posted by: Random thoughts ||
08/11/2005 14:02 Comments ||
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The following are excerpts from an interview with Egyptian professor Abd Al-Sabour Shahin, which aired on Saudi Channel 1 on August 8, 2005. Dr. Shahin is head of the Shari'a faculty at Al-Ahzar University, [1] the most prestigious seat of learning in Sunni Islam, and is also a lecturer at Cairo University.
"Our enemies weave many lies about us, which we are not necessarily aware of. For example: One day, we awoke to the crime of 9/11, which hit the tallest buildings in New York, the Empire State Building [sic]. There is no doubt that not a single Arab or Muslim had anything to do with these events. The incident was fabricated as a pretext to attack Islam and Muslims. The plan was to take over the world's energy sources, and to achieve this control by force and not by agreement or negotiations, by interests, free trade, or anything like that. This is what they wanted.
"So this incident was fabricated - and Allah knows that the Arabs and Muslims are innocent of it - in order to serve as a pretext to attack Islam and the Muslims. All of a sudden, after we had been accustomed to considering America a rational and balanced country... All of a sudden, it violates international conventions, cancels treaties, ignores the U.N., acts on its own accord, attacks nations, kills innocent people, and claims it has the right to do so - and all this is based on lies.
"These were lies from beginning to end, and we were not used to lying - not in policy, not in our discourse, and not in the media. Imagine what crisis the Arab and Islam nation finds itself in, in the midst of these peculiar events, which we cannot explain or believe. All of a sudden, we were framed for an international crime, on the basis of lies.
"I believe a dirty Zionist hand carried out this act. Zionism has taken the opportunity to escalate the war in Palestine, killing hundreds of thousands so far, while we watch from the sidelines in astonishment and ask: What's going on?"
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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#5
How do we know if the good doctor isn't really an amazingly lifelike Zionist built robot made to discredit Islam by making them look like total fuckin idiots?
#6
The small, ignorant minds that prevail in Egypt's cultural and educational elite can't ever escape the entropy of their own idiocy. They deserve themselves. Please, nobody tell these poor nutters that it is actually the Amish that pull all the strings behind the multiple facades visible.
To Baltasar Garzon, the Spanish judge as well known for his attempts to extradite General Pinochet as his prosecution of terrorism suspects, he was "Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe".
Today, Abu Qatada, 44, is facing deportation from Britain. Since October 2002 he has been confined without trial, firstly in Belmarsh prison and, for the last few months, in his own home, under Charles Clarke's control orders.
He was held under the emergency anti-terrorism legislation enacted after the September 2001 attacks in the United States. Qatada was considered too dangerous to live at liberty, too difficult to prosecute and too much at risk of torture or execution to be extradited to Jordan, which had convicted him in absentia on terrorism charges.
Yesterday Britain finalised an agreement with Jordan that could see Qatada deported. The agreement amounts to a guarantee Qatada would be safe from torture and the death penalty, but human rights groups are sceptical Jordan will stick to its side of the deal. Amnesty said the agreement was "not worth the paper it is printed on".
Qatada entered Britain on a forged United Arab Emirates passport and was granted asylum for himself and his family in 1994. From the introduction of the anti-terrorism legislation in November 2001 to his arrest the following October he was on the run in Britain. Over 6ft tall and weighing more than 20 stone, he is a conspicuous figure, though, and there was persistent speculation he was supplying information to MI5 in return for his freedom. Senior police sources denied the allegations.
The cleric himself denied he was Bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe, or spiritual ambassador to the continent. He denied he had ever met the al-Qaida leader. Speaking to CNN in November 2001, he said he would have been "proud" to but such a meeting never happened.
Investigators have, however, linked Qatada to terrorist cells in Spain, France, Italy and Belgium. Videos made by the cleric were found in the Hamburg flat used by Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the 9/11 attacks. He also has links to would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty in a US court in April to training for a "broader conspiracy" than 9/11 to use aircraft as weapons.
Judge Garzon claimed that money raised in Spain was sent to Qatada so he could send it on to Mohamed al-Maqdasi, a Jordanian imprisoned for planning bomb attacks in his own country.
Justice Collins, chairman of the special immigration appeal tribunal that heard an appeal against Qatada's detention in March 2004 said he was at the centre of terrorist activity in Britain associated with al-Qaida.
"He is a truly dangerous individual," he said. "We have no doubt that his beliefs are extreme and are indeed a perversion of Islam for the purposes of encouraging violence against non-Muslims and Muslims who are or have been supportive of Americans."
In 1999, Qatada reportedly made a speech advocating the killing of Jews and the attacking of Americans in which he also stated there was no difference between English people, Jews and Americans.
In the CNN interview, he said he belonged to no organisation but there was nothing to stop "anyone who belongs to al-Qaida or any other organisation to listen to me, ask my opinion or learn from me".
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/11/2005 12:21 ||
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ISLAM needs to go through a new Reformation to bring the faith into the modern era, novelist Salman Rushdie wrote in a British newspaper today. Rushdie said a broad-minded interpretation of the religion would lead to better relations with Western communities and lessen the alienation which led young British Muslims to become the alleged suicide bombers who killed 52 innocent people in London in July.
Rushdie was forced into hiding after the former Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or religious edict, in February 1989, calling for his execution because of alleged blasphemy and apostasy in his novel The Satanic Verses. Rushdie, Indian-born into a Muslim family, had a $US2.8 million ($3.68 million) bounty placed on his head by a Tehran-based foundation.
"What is needed is a move beyond tradition - nothing less than a reform movement to bring the core concepts of Islam into the modern age," Rushdie wrote in The Times. "A Muslim Reformation to combat not only the jihadi ideologues but also the dusty, stifling seminaries of the traditionalists, throwing open the windows of the closed communities to let in much-needed fresh air."
Rushdie wrote that many Muslims in Britain lead lives apart from the rest of the community, and in such insular circles, "young men's alienations can easily deepen".
The novelist said very few Muslims had been permitted to study the Koran as an historical document and it was "high time" believers could. "The insistence within Islam that the Koranic text is the infallible, uncreated word of God renders analytical scholarly discourse all but impossible.
"Why would God be influenced by the socioeconomics of seventh-century Arabia, after all?
"If, however, the Koran were seen as a historical document, then it would be legitimate to reinterpret it to suit the new conditions of successive new ages.
"Laws made in the seventh century could finally give way to the needs of the 21st. The Islamic Reformation has to begin here, with an acceptance that all ideas, even sacred ones, must adapt to altered realities."
The novelist's forthcoming tale, Shalimar the Clown, concerns a young Muslim boy who is guided by a radical mullah to become an Islamic terrorist.
#1
Lol, F**kin' Duh, Sally. Reform or Perish has been in neon lights for almost 3 yrs, sonny. You're late.
This was interesting: "Why would God be influenced by the socioeconomics of seventh-century Arabia, after all?"
It begs several other questions, the kind that cause a nasty atheist to giggle, such as the 72 Virgins thingy, the Dome of Pearls, Streets of Gold, yadda³. None of these Earthly treasures make sense in Paradise or Heaven - unless there's an Earthly body with an Earthly nervous system to feel the sensations and a 7-11 on the corner that takes pearls in payment for Slurpees and smokes.
BTW, who in their right mind would want a virgin? Untutored and inexperienced? Pfeh. Give me a Pro who can stop time dead in its tracks. Only naive sexual novices and cowards who live in fear of ridicule would think virgins are preferable. Squirrels.
It's more like a car with a bent frame. No matter how much effort and money you put into it......when you drive it.........it is still a car with a bent frame.
Posted by: Al-aska Paul ||
08/11/2005 11:08 Comments ||
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by taking every single word of the Bible as absolute God given truth there are those in America that can be accused of the same kind of close mindedness
Posted by: bk ||
08/11/2005 11:58 Comments ||
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by taking every single word of the Bible as absolute God given truth there are those in America that can be accused of the same kind of close mindedness
Yes, but bk, they aren't in power, and even if they were they wouldn't do their best to kill off all those who don't agree with them 100%.
#11
BK: I resemble that remark. Guess you mean like "Turn the other cheek", "Love your neighbor as yourself," etc? It amazes me how closely the left WANTS to be in that type kumbaya world, with bunnies and duckies, but fight so hard against Christ's true teachings. Methinks you have some very deep personal issues here. And, furthermore, the true Christian faith shows the exact opposite. Christ died at the hands of men for all of us (a TRUE martyr, as were His immediate followers), NEVER did he say (or show by example) any of the traits of the "true" believers of Islam (suicide bombings, homicides, torture, beheadings, ramming jets into buildings, blowing up trains, yadda yadda yadda). I'ma guessing you've had some personal issues with Christians, maybe the likes of "love the sinner, hate the sin", eh? Not to start a flame war, but we're on the same side (supposedly), and these NONSENSE comparisions of the Jihadis and the Christians REALLY tick me off!
Posted by: BA ||
08/11/2005 14:22 Comments ||
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bk-
FWIW, I believe that the KJV Bible is the inerrant, perfect word of God. I also believe in the absolute right of any other faith or branch to say that their scriptures are the right ones...as long as they don't insist on my death for not agreeing with them. When that happens, I will get every bit as intolerant and closeminded as you THINK I am. When it doesn't, it's live and let live, just like 99.99% of the rest of America.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/11/2005 17:03 Comments ||
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Bah, a lot of people CLAIM to believe every word in the Bible, but you'd be amazed at how many filters people have in place: I once believed the Christian Church replaced Israel, and yet read passages in Romans that explicitly denied that belief for YEARS, and didn't realize the impedance mismatch until last year. Sheesh.
The Bible is indeed God's word: telling me otherwise is being far too late, since I have benefitted and profited from following it for too many years. You may not Believe it, but I KNOW it, and the last time I looked, knowing gained from personal life experience trumped mere opinions of strangers. I'd tell you to peddle your Opinions in Waziristan, where there is a far more gullible audience, but another franchise has already moved in...
Posted by: DanNY ||
08/11/2005 06:15 ||
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"The day the passage to the island is completely dry, animals could leave the island and bring their diseases with them"
Sounds like it's time for an all-out hunt-&-destroy opertion.
"People permanently breathe in salt and chemicals," said Medetov. "Almost everyone here is anaemic. Women's milk is polluted by nitrates which make babies already weak from anaemia even more sick."
But remember, kiddies, the USA is the evil, polluting one. The enviros never hesitate to tell us so. Nothing is ever said about perfect, wonderful Mother Soviet Russia - and if anything is wrong there, it's all America's fault.
You don't even need to ask them - they'll tell you anyway. Incessently.
Pfui.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/11/2005 9:15 Comments ||
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Babs, I think alot of us over here in the good ol USA already knew of the incredible pollution that is endemic to all the old soviet buffer states, standing on a soap box probably wont help your cause.
Posted by: bk ||
08/11/2005 11:00 Comments ||
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bk - lots of informed people know a lot of things. Even though the enviros here (and abroad) try to keep it a secret by saying we're such horrible polluters while almost never attacking other non-Western countrie.
Even though our rivers, air, etc., are much cleaner than they were 30 years ago, while most of the rest of the world's (including Western Europe) is not.
Pfui.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/11/2005 11:19 Comments ||
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bk, my dear, her name is Barbara.
You needn't learn how to spell it correctly, just copy/paste and you'll get it right. You don't appear to be such a close friend of hers that you are entitled to use a nickname she isn't fond of, so your presumption in using it shows a certain lack of manners that must seriously disappoint you mother.
I thought about saying something to him for the condescending name use, but concentrated on my point instead. Thanks for a righteous smackdown - better than I could have done anyway. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/11/2005 15:10 Comments ||
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Hello *Barbara* :) and TW, here's some ammo - as if you need any ;) ...
It seems that for many in the environmental movement, the actual defense of Gaia has taken a back seat to a more important objective; specifically, to attack the capitalist economic system in general, and, in particular, its American exemplar. Interestingly, Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore agrees, saying: "The environmental movement has been hijacked by political activists who are using green rhetoric to cloak agendas that have more to do with anti-corporatism and class warfare than with ecology or the environment."
Of course, given the ostensible raison dâêtre of organizations like Greenpeace and the WWF, attacks upon America can't be couched in blatantly political terms, but must be presented in environmental ones - hence the oft-cited contention that "America is the world's largest polluter". It's common to see the above statement subtly modified into something like "Americans are the world's greatest polluters," a construction that conveniently facilitates the desired demonization of unconcerned, greedy, SUV-driving Americans happily despoiling the air, land and water. In light of the image thus created, it's instructive to examine some actual data.
As far as water pollution is concerned, according to World Bank data on freshwater pollution based on a standard water-treatment test for the presence of organic pollutants, water in the US is significantly less polluted than the worldwide average. In fact, levels of these pollutants in UK rivers and lakes are approximately three times those in the US, which also boasts cleaner water than countries like Denmark, Switzerland, Japan, France and the Netherlands, to name just a few. Odd, given the pernicious presence of "the world's greatest polluters".
With regard to air pollution, the US ranks 114th in the world (first being the worst) with respect to urban sulphur dioxide concentration (the UK figure is about 33% higher), 63rd in ozone-depleting CFC consumption, 45th in urban NO2 concentration, and 13th in NOx emissions per unit of populated land area (the UK value is more than twice as high).
Of course, the greatest concern at present has to do with emissions of so called greenhouse gases. Interestingly, according to recent figures from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the US is not the largest per capita offender here, either. Nor is it second. Among the industrialised nations considered, those positions go to Australia and Canada, respectively. In fact, the average Australian emits some 30% more than his American counterpart (the Canadian figure is only slightly higher than that of the US). Another report (PDF) - which places Canadian per capita emissions at a level just under those of the US, those of Australia again far and away the highest - points out that, when measured per unit of GDP, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Czech Republic and Poland are all greater emitters.
I can only attribute the fact that one rarely encounters vituperative attacks on the Australian emissions champions, or on the Canadian runners up, to the political agenda described above.
Finally, in light of the frequently repeated accusation, it's interesting to note that, according to the OECD Working Group on Environmental Information and Outlooks, only two countries (the Netherlands and Austria) spend more than the US on pollution control and abatement (measured as a percentage of GDP).
But don't expect facts like these to be reported by the likes of Greenpeace - they're too busy pursuing anti-capitalist, anti-American agendas of the kind that so disturb their own founder.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
08/11/2005 16:12 Comments ||
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Cheers, Tony!
Barbara, never could I cut through the issues like you do, but he was unacceptably rude to a lady. Not to mention a woman upon whom his life might depend someday. Sleep well, dear, and may all your runs be successful!
Back in the 1980s, David Szady was among the premier Soviet spy catchers at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, studying every aspect of the Kremlin's mole network. Today, he is mobilizing agents across the U.S. to sniff out spies from a new rival: Beijing.
"China is the biggest (espionage) threat to the U.S. today," says Mr. Szady, now 61 years old and the FBI's top counterintelligence official.
In one of their biggest initiatives after the fight against terrorism, the FBI and Justice Department have sent hundreds of new counterintelligence agents into the bureau's 56 field offices, many with a specific focus on China. The FBI's biggest counter-Chinese effort -- focusing on economic espionage -- occupies an unmarked floor in a Silicon Valley office park near a popular Chinese restaurant.
But this is an altogether different battle from the one with the Soviets. Even as concerns mount in Washington about China's increasing economic and military might, the government faces charges of racial profiling from Asian-American advocacy groups, ambivalence from some business groups and sometimes vague laws on technology exports. And it is having trouble making some of its cases stick.
The nature of the threat is different, too. Thousands of Chinese nationals regularly come to the U.S. as students and businessmen, some working for major U.S. defense contractors -- something the Russians could only have dreamed of during the Cold War. They are welcomed with open arms by universities and companies who prize their technical acumen and links to capital and low-cost labor back home.
The vast majority of them are in the U.S. innocently working or studying. Counterespionage experts say the trouble often starts when they are contacted by Chinese government officials or one of the more than 3,000 Chinese "front companies" the FBI alleges have been set up in the U.S. specifically to acquire military or industrial technologies illegally.
"They can work on so many levels that China may prove more difficult to contain than the Russian threat," Mr. Szady says.
The U.S. government is prosecuting about a dozen cases against individuals alleged to have sent technology to China illegally. FBI officials say at least three more will likely go ahead in the coming months. Over the past five years, the total number of such charges has grown by around 15 percent annually, according to some FBI agents.
Most of the cases involve small, lesser-known tech firms. But Sun Microsystems Inc. and Transmeta Corp. were the targets in one alleged plot, where two Chinese nationals who had worked at the software and semiconductor giants were arrested at the San Francisco airport allegedly holding proprietary data from the companies. The pair were charged with economic espionage and the case is pending. The FBI's Business Alliance, established a year ago, has been meeting regularly with leading defense contractors to understand what technologies they are developing and what potential threats are posed by company employees. The participants include Lockheed Martin Corp., General Dynamics Corp. and Raytheon Co.
The FBI campaign is part of a broader shift in Washington, where more and more policy makers see China's rapid economic rise as a threat to the U.S. both militarily and economically. That rising sentiment is seen in the heated debate over the recent failed bid by China's state-owned oil company Cnooc Ltd. for California's Unocal Corp. The Pentagon has caused a stir in recent months by raising the prospect that China's secretive military buildup could pose a significant long-term threat to the Asian region and the U.S.
Chu Maoming, the spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, calls the FBI's assertion that Beijing is coordinating spying activities inside the U.S. "totally groundless."
Many people in Silicon Valley are concerned that the FBI is overreaching. Asian-Americans worry about a new wave of racial profiling and say the crackdown is reminiscent of the 2000 case of Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan-born American scientist who was fired from his job at Los Alamos National Laboratory and was prosecuted for allegedly giving away nuclear secrets to Beijing. After months in solitary confinement, all the espionage charges eventually were dropped, though Mr. Lee pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of mishandling top-secret information.
Business executives, meanwhile, fear a chill in commerce. "There's a bit of a disconnect between how the law-enforcement agencies see" the risk of espionage and how the business community does, says Harris Miller, the Washington-based president of the Information Technology Association of America, one of the high-tech industry's principal lobbying groups. He says many U.S. companies are dependent upon manufacturing and conducting research in places such as China -- and on the talents of Chinese employees.
"There's a real advantage to work with foreign nationals, as they're very talented," Mr. Miller says. "You don't want to turn them away just because they are not born in the U.S."
Even some of the victims of alleged Chinese espionage have mixed feelings about the FBI's campaign.
Executives at 3DGeo Development Inc., which makes software applications for geophysical imaging for the oil and gas industry, suspected it had a spy problem when it brought in Yan Ming Shan at the request of his Chinese employer, the state-owned oil company PetroChina Co., for software training. The Chinese oil giant earlier had sent an employee to train at 3DGeo's Santa Clara, California, campus, but he was ejected from the facility after trying to gain access to the software company's secured systems. Mr. Shan then appeared and was expelled after doing the same thing. Mr. Shan later was arrested at San Francisco international airport and accused of seeking to pass on some of 3DGeo's proprietary software programs to PetroChina.
Mr. Shan, a Chinese national, was sentenced last December to two years in prison for illegally accessing 3DGeo's computers.
Dimitri Bevc, 3DGeo's president, says the episode highlights a dilemma for the company, which is seeking to secure its intellectual property but also expand its business in Asia. "There's incredible demand from Chinese firms that are hungry for technology," says Mr. Bevc. "But we are built on our own intellectual property."
Now Mr. Bevc is afraid that his company is being punished in the Chinese marketplace. The company still is seeking payments from PetroChina for work already completed, says Mr. Bevc, and 3DGeo's sales representative said his Chinese sales prospects had been drying up. "What we heard back was ... that 3DGeo did something wrong" by taking action against Mr. Shan, who served most of his sentence while awaiting trial and has since returned to China, Mr. Bevc says.
PetroChina declined to comment on the case. Nicholas Humy, an attorney for Mr. Shan, said his client pleaded guilty only to illegally accessing 3DGeo's computer system and not to stealing the company's software or seeking to pass it on to a foreign entity. "The government never proved to a jury ... that Mr. Shan was trying to commit industrial espionage," Mr. Humy said.
On the military side, prosecutors at the San Jose, California, offices of the Department of Justice are preparing for an October trial of two Silicon Valley residents. The pair were indicted in June 2004 for allegedly signing contracts with Chinese military-related entities for the mass production of components to produce thermal imaging cameras. Technology industry officials say the case highlights the murkiness of export laws.
The case involves Night Vision Technology Corp., a San Jose-based firm that procures infrared technology and other high-tech equipment for overseas buyers, particularly in Taiwan. The company is headed by Martin Shih, 62, a Taiwanese-Canadian executive with experience as an electrical engineer, working both in Canada and in California with Loral Space & Communications Ltd., a satellite-communications company. Mr. Shih's Taiwanese-American consultant, Philip Cheng, also was charged.
Pretrial motions filed by the two men's attorneys speak to the belief of many in the technology industry that U.S. laws guarding technology exports are difficult to interpret because so often the technologies have legitimate commercial applications. They also say products such as infrared cameras can't be blocked for export because they have numerous commercial applications, such as use in consumer electronics items. The lawyers also point out that the equipment can be purchased on the open market in countries such as France.
"The indictment does not allege -- and the government cannot plausibly argue" that the infrared products "were 'specifically designed, modified, or configured for military use,' " according to one of the motions by the lawyers, quoting from the indictment.
An attorney for Mr. Shih, K.C. Maxwell, said her client would plead not guilty in the October trial. An attorney for Mr. Cheng, Matt Pavone, declined to comment.
The FBI has had a difficult time making similar charges stick against other alleged Chinese spies. In May, Chinese businessman Qing Chang Jiang was acquitted in a California court on charges of illegally exporting microwave amplifiers, which can be used in radar and missile systems, to the Beijing government.
The technology is involved in so many nonmilitary commercial applications -- such as consumer electronics -- that many companies aren't aware they need a license to export it, say attorneys who have worked on these cases. Mr. Jiang's lawyer says the U.S. company from which he got the technology, L-3 Communications Corp.'s Narda Microwave-West, told him he didn't need a license and so he went ahead with the sale.
A spokeswoman for L-3 Communications declined to comment. But the U.S. Department of Commerce said L-3 Communications was aware that an export license was required and that the company worked closely with the government on the case.
Mr. Jiang was convicted on a lesser charge of making false statements to federal investigators and is awaiting sentencing in California. His attorney, Tom Nolan, believes the U.S. government is systematically targeting Asian businessmen. "They're trying to prevent Chinese industry from doing business in the U.S.," he says.
Community leaders note that the number of Asian-Americans applying for government research jobs plummeted after the Wen Ho Lee case, and warn of a similar mutually destructive chill now. "At a time when the U.S. government is so dependent on the scientific skills of our community, it seems crazy that they've taken steps that dampen our desire to serve," says Cecilia Chang, a Fremont, California-based Asian-American activist who led many protests and donation drives for Mr. Lee.
That could have a big impact on American academia and commerce. About 150,000 Chinese students are studying in the U.S., according to the FBI, and the number of new admissions has been rising. Nearly 64,000 Chinese students entered the U.S. last year, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau, up from 55,000 in 1998. All told, about 700,000 Chinese tourists and business executives visit the U.S. each year.
The swirl of suspicions and tensions between the FBI, China, and the Chinese-American community has surfaced even among the bureau's own agents. Mr. Szady has made a point of hiring more Asian-Americans into his counterespionage network. Yet twice in the past two years, the FBI has turned on its own Chinese-American employees in Los Angeles, accusing them of having aided Beijing.
Mr. Szady acknowledges the inherent complexity of monitoring the Chinese community in the U.S., and says he is trying to find a balance: "How do you protect without being overbearing?" But he argues that it is the Chinese government, not the FBI, that is blurring the lines between legitimate transborder commerce and national rivalry. He says Beijing doesn't recognize the concept of Chinese-Americans. In the government's eyes, "they are all overseas Chinese," says Mr. Szady, a lanky former chemistry student who his agents call the "Z Man."
Mr. Szady and other FBI experts believe China began intensifying its spying operations in the late 1970s, when warming relations between Washington and Beijing opened the way for hundreds of thousands of Chinese to begin visiting the U.S. annually. These analysts say units of the People's Liberation Army and China's Ministry of State Security oversee intelligence operations, and that the state-run Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics has targeted U.S. weapons labs.
In addition, the Beijing government runs an extensive, informal, decentralized spy network, counterespionage experts allege. In most cases, Beijing's spy agencies don't send trained agents to the U.S. to penetrate companies and government agencies, but rather simply seek to glean information from the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who visit and study in the U.S. every year. They also try to get Chinese-Americans to provide information, appealing to their desire to help uplift China's economy.
"In almost all of its collections operations, China is not so much looking at opportunities for stealing things ... as devising all sorts of opportunities for you to come to the conclusion that you would be willing to give at least some of these things," says Paul Moore, who was the FBI's top China analyst from 1978 through 1998. "It's the mundane, day-to-day contacts that are killing us, not the exotic spy operations."
#1
Watch, if we start looking closely at Americans of Asian decent the ACLU will cry that they are being profiled and their civil rights violated.
I say we violate the ACLU.
PRIVATE Mathew Stewart was patrolling the streets of Dili, East Timor, in 2002 when he was confronted with the full horror of live combat.
The quiet soldier and keen surfer from Queensland's Sunshine Coast stumbled upon the almost unrecognisable body of a Dutch journalist killed by militia. Financial Times reporter Sander Thoenes, 30, had been shot in the chest and badly beaten. According to his comrades, Stewart was deeply traumatised by the discovery, his first encounter with death on the front line. He was discharged from the army's 2nd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment for psychological reasons a short time later, sending him into a spiral of depression and self-doubt.
That's got to be one of the most difficult situations for a soldier anywhere, anytime.
While other East Timor veterans looked for a change of lifestyle back home, Stewart began fixing his sights on the war unravelling in Afghanistan in the wake of the attacks on New York the previous year. Furious at his perceived mistreatment in the Australian army, Stewart began making plans to fight for the other side.
Stewart left for Iran around August 8, 2002 and moved into Afghanistan. Authorities believe he joined Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and resolved to fight against the way of life he once served to protect.
When news of Stewart's defection to Afghanistan was made public three years ago, friends and family came forward to describe an easily-led young man who showed no tendencies towards Islamic extremism. "I don't think he's a terrorist. I don't believe that for a second," said Anna Degotardi, who was Stewart's classmate at Immanuel Lutheran College in Mooloolaba in 1992. "He wasn't a leader, he was a bit of a follower but not through anything malicious. I feel really sorry for him. He's a nice guy who had some problems."
Australian Federal Police officers came to Vicki Stewart's home on Wednesday night with a series of still photographs they believed showed her long-missing son brandishing an automatic rifle. Mrs Stewart flatly denied the balaclava-clad man was her son, but this was not enough to convince authorities their interest was misplaced.
One of Stewart's oldest friends, Adam Miechel, told The Daily Telegraph he instantly recognised the heavily-armed man when his image flashed up on the television news this week.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/11/2005 12:12 ||
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"I don't think he's a terrorist. I don't believe that for a second," said Anna Degotardi, who was Stewart's classmate at Immanuel Lutheran College in Mooloolaba in 1992.
This kind of radical indoctrination is truly frightening. If Lutherans can be brainwashed to this extent, profiling is absolutely useless.
FORMER army private Mathew Stewart has emerged as the chief suspect in the hunt for the masked terrorist with an Australian accent.
Stewart left home four years ago to fight alongside Osama bin Laden and has not been seen since.
The Australian Federal Police wasted no time investigating Stewart as the likely hooded figure in the video aired on Arab television.
Officers interviewed his mother Vicki Stewart, who denied the heavily armed man was the missing son she had long believed dead.
But one of Stewart's friends, Adam Miechel, said he believed the self-declared terrorist on the video was the man he had known in Mooloolaba, on the Sunshine Coast.
"My first thought was, 'yeah, it even sounds like him'," Mr Miechel said yesterday. "It looks like him, it sounds like him as well."
Stewart made headlines when he allegedly fled Australia to fulfil his dream of living in Afghanistan and fighting alongside the Taliban.
US forces reportedly found documents identifying Stewart as an Al-Qaeda recruit during a raid on a terrorist training camp in late 2002.
Intelligence agencies believe he made the decision to fight against US and Australian forces after returning from a tour of duty in East Timor, which caused him to have a mental breakdown and led to him being discharged from the army on psychological grounds.
Vicki Stewart was too distressed to speak yesterday and took the day off work to deal with authorities.
A family spokesman released a statement confirming that police were treating her missing son as a suspect.
"She (Mrs Stewart) has been contacted by the federal police and has been shown photographs by officers and advised them that the person in the photograph was definitely not Mathew Stewart," the spokesman said.
"The family is still grieving for Mathew, who disappeared four years ago without a trace.
"The family supports the work that the federal police are doing in this matter."
Mr Miechel said he felt uncomfortable talking about the matter because he was concerned that fresh talk that Stewart was alive would upset his family.
In a tragic twist, it is understood Stewart's parents held a small funeral service for their son without a body in Queensland.
Stewart is one of a handful of Australians believed to have travelled to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/11/2005 12:11 ||
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It may like to call itself proudly the "birthplace of human rights", but when it comes to dealing with Islamist clerics, France is rarely reluctant to set such scruples aside. The country waited only days after the London bombings before summarily expelling its first two radical preachers. It has since sent two more packing and plans to deport a total of some two dozen by the end of this month.
Underlining a longstanding difference in approach between London and Paris, an interior ministry official said France had "no problem whatsoever" in deporting anyone accused of inflaming anti-western feeling - even if they had French citizenship and were formally recognised as preachers by the Muslim community. The planned arrests and expulsions follow repeated statements by the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, since the July 7 London attacks that France "must and will act against radical preachers capable of influencing the youngest and most weak-minded". Fundamental rights such as freedom of speech, that in Britain have, until very recently, protected the controversial clerics, count for precious little in France when the speech concerned is considered an incitement to hatred or violence.
French commentators have long looked with disbelief at what Islamist preachers were allowed to say publicly in Britain in the wake of the September 11 2001 attacks on the US. London rapidly became known as "Londonistan". France's strongly contrasting approach has been conditioned by the fact that it is, in many respects, a very different country from Britain. Central to these differences are the importance of the egalitarian Republican tradition and its rejection of multiculturalism; the ingrained expectation of French politicians that the justice system is at their command; the sheer size of France's Muslim community, put at between 5m and 8m out of a total population of 60m; the fact that France had its first taste of Islamist terror several years before 9/11.
Between July and October 1995, Algeria's Armed Islamic Group or GIA carried out a string of bomb attacks, mainly on public transport targets and mainly in Paris, which killed eight people and injured more than 200. The attacks were aimed at punishing France for its support of Algeria's military-backed government in its long war on Islamic insurgents. Since that campaign, French intelligence has devoted substantial resources to monitoring closely and even infiltrating the more radical elements in the Muslim community. By and large, police know who pose a threat and where to find them: ahead of the 1998 World Cup in France, dozens of Islamists considered a potential threat were quietly rounded up and placed in preventive detention for the duration of the tournament. Similarly, in the wake of 9/11, French arrests of militants with a possible al-Qaida link were all but instantaneous.
The latest undesirable to be deported since the London bombings was Amar Heraz, described by police as an "Algerian Islamist linked to terrorist networks", who was put on a ferry in Marseille earlier this week. Heraz, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 1999 and barred from France for a year, was expelled on the grounds that he had re-entered France illegally. He was preceded by Reda Ameuroud, a 35-year-old Algerian who was also staying in France illegally and whose speeches at a radical mosque in Paris's 11th arrondissement - described by police as "violent and hate-filled" - prompted the French intelligence services to classify him as an "ideological reference point". Ameuroud's brother, Abderahmane, 27, was sentenced to seven years in prison and banned from French territory in May after being convicted of giving "logistical support" to two Tunisians who assassinated the Afghan resistance leader Ahmed Shah Massood in 2001.
Another "part-time" imam, Abdelhamid Aissaoui, 41, was expelled from France earlier this month for urging youths to join the jihad or holy war. He had already served a four-year jail term for his role in an attempted 1995 bomb attack on a high-speed TGV train near Lyon by the GIA.
According to the interior ministry, about 1,100 imams have been identified in France and "the vast majority pose no problem at all". Some 50% are regular speakers, 150 preach only occasionally, and the remainder officiate only at Friday prayers. About 30% are Moroccan, 20% Algerian and 15% Turkish. Those now being targeted are radical imams and ideologists of mainly North African and Turkish origin, based in or around major cities with large Muslim populations like Lyon, Marseille and Paris. French intelligence services consider that about 40 of the country's 1,500 mosques and prayer centres are under the influence of radical ideologies ranging from "classic fundamentalism to violent and hate-filled rhetoric".
Police and ministry officials acknowledge that the greatest threat comes from occasional speakers who often have no formal training and little knowledge of the Qur'an but can exercise great influence over the impressionable youth of France's deprived big-city suburbs. At least seven French nationals are known to have been killed fighting with anti-coalition insurgents in Iraq, and a further 10 are believed to still be there. Several other young French jihadists also died in Afghanistan and fought in Bosnia.
The latest rash of arrests and deportations, however, has prompted the first stirrings of alarm in the moderate Muslim community. "Is it a crime to be a Muslim? If these people haven't killed, I don't know why they're being kicked out," one Algerian in Lyon told French radio. "Muslims are not cockroaches."
Posted by: Steve ||
08/11/2005 11:38 ||
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#1
Snakes?
Spiders?
Scorpions?
But peace-lovin' vermin!
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/11/2005 12:36 Comments ||
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#2
Cockroaches will still be around in 100 years...
So they want to wait until they kill someone to deport them? Brilliant Holmes. Stap a nuke to his back and watch him blow up Paris. Then deport his remains. Kick them out if they so much as condone the horrific actions of the zelots. Don't wait until your countrymen are lined up in a gutter, blood flowing from their shattered remains before you do anything, you asswipe.
#7
Reminds of the old Star Trek joke: An Arab asked Gene Roddenberry why although the crew of the Enterprise was so ethnically diverse with blacks, Russians, Scots, Chinese, etc, there were no Arab characters. The response, "Well, that's because it is set in the future."
Posted by: Random thoughts ||
08/11/2005 13:57 Comments ||
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#10
nothing in what france has one is anti-muslim. They have identified SPECIFIC mosques, SPECIFIC preachers, who are problems - implicitly recognizing that the remainder are moderate.
The Algerian who complained is probably a radical, and so identifies France's justified campaign against radicals with a campaign against all muslims.
#11
Of course they're not. One of them is an unwanted pest that infests apartment buildings, breeds like crazy, and makes the neighbors move away. The other is an insect.
#13
As much as I dislike the French, I must admit that here is a case in which the French are on the right side more than the Brits.
In fact, the French position is also better, in many ways, than the policy of the U.S. We have not been able to use our hate crime laws effectively because it requires showing that hate motivated a tangible crime (e.g., raising funds for Islamic terror groups) and the penalty for the 'hate' part is so minor compared to the crime itself, it is usually not worth prosecuting.
#14
As a member of PETA, I protest comparing muslims to cockroches. I mean, I ask you - which would you rather have more of in your house, your country? I'll take the cockroches.
#15
So they want to wait until they kill someone to deport them?
This is better known as the law-enforcement approach, where they wait 'til someone commits a crime before taking action. Unfortunately, the end result of this is that victims are created, the worst cases being people who have needlessly lost their lives.
The Basque country's regional government has banned a march planned by the illegal political party Batasuna for Sunday. The leader of Batasuna â the political wing of the armed separatist group ETA â had called for a demonstration in San Sebastian for peace. At a press conference, Arnaldo Otegi said the demonstration should take place on Sunday, the day the fiesta Semana Grande starts. The slogan would be: "Now the people, now the peace. Or else", said Otegi. He called on people to "give their support to this effort which the nationalist left is making to build a different scenario."
On Wednesday, though, the government in Vitoria decided to outlaw the Sunday demonstration. In a statement, the interior department said its decision had been based on a ruling by the Audiencia Nacional which concluded Batasuna has no right to call gatherings as an illegal body. The Basque government also said it feared the public order would be disturbed by the demonstration.
Someone noticed the peace loving Basques also tend to randomly explode...
Earlier in the day, both socialist and conservative parties criticised Batasuna over the march. The conservative PP called for the march to be banned while PSOE's general secretary Diego López Garrido said Batasuna had no credibility calling for peace or democracy since it still refused to condemn violence or demand ETA disarms. "Whatever party incites or supports violence is illegal," he said. "In this country, you can defend all ideas, ideas which have nothing to do with the Spanish Constitution, but there is a limit: violence."
The family of American soldier Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2004, has broken its silence and spoken out against his mother Cindy Sheehan's anti-war vigil against George Bush held outside the president's Crawford, Texas ranch. The following email was received by the DRUDGE REPORT from Cherie Quarterolo, Casey's aunt and godmother:
Our family has been so distressed by the recent activities of Cindy we are breaking our silence and we have collectively written a statement for release. Feel free to distribute it as you wish. Thanks à Cherie
In response to questions regarding the Cindy Sheehan/Crawford Texas issue: Sheehan Family Statement:
The Sheehan Family lost our beloved Casey in the Iraq War and we have been silently, respectfully grieving. We do not agree with the political motivations and publicity tactics of Cindy Sheehan. She now appears to be promoting her own personal agenda and notoriety at the the expense of her son's good name and reputation. The rest of the Sheehan Family supports the troops, our country, and our President, silently, with prayer and respect.
Sincerely,
Casey Sheehan's grandparents, aunts, uncles and numerous cousins.
Developing...
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/11/2005 13:47 ||
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#2
Geez, would somebody really forge that sort of thing? When it came out otherwise, it would go off like a bomb. That'd be rotten even by Drudge standards.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
08/11/2005 14:05 Comments ||
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#3
Cindy Sheehan has been posting on Michael Moore's website as well. The comentor on NPR this morning had it about right. She is enjoying all the media attention. She might not realize her addiction for attention is being used by the left as a weapon to bash Bush. Then again, she might not be that dumb and knows very well how she is being used.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/11/2005 15:13 Comments ||
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#4
I was listening to Dennis Prager a little while ago. He evidently thinks it is authentic. He believes she has "snapped". He won't criticize her, but he laid into the MSM, and the people who are "using her". He was quite pissed..
"I don't know why (Bush) won't spend AN HOUR talking (with me)."
Wow ... what an inflated sense of self importance. There are foreign leaders of major countries who are lucky if they're pencilled in for a full hour on any President's schedule.
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/11/2005 16:23 Comments ||
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Via Power Line. EFL. This is despicable. (I'd say beyond belief, but unfortunately it's not.)
(Jason Apuzzo is a filmmaker, Co-Director of The Liberty Film Festival, and Editor of the conservative film blog LIBERTAS.)
Slow to awaken after the 9/11 attacks, Hollywood has finally come around to contributing what it can in the War on Terror: namely, glossy, star-studded movies that sympathize with the enemy. This isn't quite accurate. They sympathize with America's enemies, not the people Hollywood has decided are their enemies (i.e., the Republicans who were ELECTED by the obviously stupid American people).
Hard to believe? Not really
Here's the pitch: with box-office numbers trending down, studio executives are suddenly greenlighting movies they can describe to shareholders as 'controversial' or 'timely.' Whether the films are anti-American or otherwise demoralizing to the war effort is apparently immaterial. Not true - in Hollyweird's case I think it's a plus.
Its appetite whetted by "Fahrenheit 9/11"'s $222 million worldwide gross, Hollywood thinks it's found a formula for both financial security and critical plaudits: noxious anti-American storylines, bathed in the warm glow of star power. Here are just a few films already in the pipeline:
- "V For Vendetta." From Warner Brothers and the creators of "The Matrix" comes this film about a futuristic Great Britain that's become a 'fascist state.' A masked 'freedom fighter' named V uses terror tactics (including bombing the London Underground) to undermine the government - leading to a climax in which the British Parliament is blown up. Natalie Portman stars as a skinhead who turns to 'the revolution' after doing time as a Guantanamo-style prisoner.
"Syriana." Starring George Clooney and Matt Damon, this Warner Brothers film - set during the first Bush administration - features a plot by American oil companies and the U.S. government to redraw Middle East borders for greater oil profiteering. The film even depicts a handsome, 'tragic' suicide bomber driven to jihad after being fired by an American oil company! The film's climax comes with the jihadist launching an explosive device into an oil tanker as American oil barons and Saudi officials look on.
"The Chancellor Manuscript." Paramount reworks Robert Ludlum¹s 1977 thriller into an anti-Patriot Act star vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio. Here's the film's screenwriter, Michael Seitzman: "We live in this crazy post-Patriot Act environment where Benjamin Franklin¹s warning that 'those that give up essential liberties for temporary security don¹t deserve either one' are being ignored, so the subject matter seemed ripe."
That whirring sound you hear is Ludlum spinning in his grave. Along with Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, etc.
The above list, ... there are more
... incidentally, should not be taken as comprehensive. For example, Paramount also has projects in the works about a 'reformed' al-Qaeda operative, and about the victim of an Iraqi suicide bomber. Little about these projects has been made public. I wonder why. (No, I don't. Even they're ashamed of what they'll do to make a buck.)
One thing should be obvious from this list: left-wing agitprop filmmaking is no longer the purview of desperate, 'indie' filmmakers with shaky camcorders and maxed-out credit cards. The films listed above are being made by large, multi-national corporations - and will feature sophisticated, expensive marketing campaigns with A-list stars. Imagine Leni Riefenstahl cross-promoting "Triumph of the Will" with People Magazine covers and E! Channel specials. That's more or less what Hollywood has in mind. I'd go with the "more" and skip the "less" completely.
The proper 'response' for this sort of thing is simple, if complex in execution. At some point conservatives need to raise capital, pick up cameras and start making movies of their own - much like Mel Gibson did with "The Passion." And conservatives should do this not simply to 'rebut' the other side, but to add depth and imagination to what has become a wasteland of popular entertainment. Principle is nice, but I'd suggest they do it for the money. Make good movies - not the trash described above and what Hollyweird generally puts out - and the American people will flock to see them. Unlike now.
Most Hollywood insiders - even liberals - agree that Hollywood is in a creative depression. More conservative voices can only help what has become a bleak situation for the town, both artistically and financially. Movies are a powerful force in shaping the imagination of our culture, and in defining how history is remembered. And the traitors in Hollyweird know it - that's why they're doing this.
It will be a great shame if all we leave behind from this vital period in American history is a shoddy trail of "Syriana"s, "V For Vendetta"s or "American Dreamz" - rather than a "Casablanca" or a "Notorious." But conservatives obviously can't wait for Hollywood to do that for them - they're going to have to do it themselves. Read the whole thing. At the rate they're going, Hollyweird will never get another dime from me. And I'll probably start sending videos back to some of these "stars" *spit*.
The first two films about 9/11 will have come from Michael Moore and Oliver Stone. Sad.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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Principle is nice, but I'd suggest they do it for the money.
maybe they are doing it for the money. Their films suck and things are going south fast in Hollywierd. Anyone check to see whose funding these films?
#2
...IIRC, 'V Is For Vendetta' has actually been in turnaround/development for a very long time, I think it was a graphic novel much like Frank Miller's 'Sin City'. And fiction about a screwed-up UK of the future has been popular for years - check out a very good little work called 'Show Me A Hero' (author forgotten).
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/11/2005 7:24 Comments ||
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#3
Which is why Mel Gibson had to finance The Passion himself, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Meanwhile, interactive console and personal computer games continue to claimed the much valued adult male 18-36, in which gross sales of some titles exceed movie takes. Why passively watch a story when one can participate in it? Besides the controversial GTA, war titles and first person shooters continue to represent a very strong market. Subscriptions to massive on line realtime games like WoW, have expansive participation and generate continued monthly capital flow. These are not baby ducks and puppy dog feel good themes. Wave goodbye movie land.
However, Hollyweird should still be able to sustain the ever popular 'Chick Flick' market.
#4
That whirring sound you hear is Ludlum spinning in his grave. Along with Jimmy Stewart, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, etc.
Brigadier General James Stewart is running a pre-flight on his bomber...
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/11/2005 7:48 Comments ||
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#5
So now Hollywood is making films to appeal to that segment of the population which prides itself on only watching PBS on television, and only going to see art or foreign films at that lovely, old-fashioned little movie theatre in the city. Great marketing move, guys!
#6
Kinda like CNN kicking off their last conservative (Novak) after he stormed off stage (I don't blame him a bit). That'll show us, won't it! They TRULY don't get it, and are just digging themselves a deeper and deeper pit!
Posted by: BA ||
08/11/2005 8:21 Comments ||
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#7
V for Vendetta is a Graphic Novel written about 20 years ago, and is a piece that works on different levels.
I doubt the Wachowski brothers could do it justice though
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
08/11/2005 8:35 Comments ||
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#8
Hmmm... I keep visualizing Geoffrey Rush, in "Shakespeare in Love", in the scene where Shakespeare outlines the plot of "Romeo and Juliet" for the players' company, telling them it will be a tragedy, and not a comedy with a funny bit for a dog. Half a beat, and he comments lugubriously, "Well, that'll have 'em rolling in the aisles." (or something to that effect.)
If anything, this tends to prove Michael Medved's thesis, that Hollywood makes movies for Hollywood insiders(and maybe the foreign audience) and not the mainstream American audience. They seem to be willing to go to any lengths to keep from noticing that Mel Gibson, who made a movie that resonated with the mainstream American audience seriously cleaned up at the box office.
#9
It's a toss-up which is more offensive: the fact that Hollywood is making these, or that they are clearly intended for the lucrative overseas market (their home American audience can go hang).
That last is a twist on an infamous quote from Nixon's, eg. "F--- the Americans, they won't pay us money to watch these anyway."
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
08/11/2005 9:26 Comments ||
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#10
Mike, Paul - don't know anything about the novel, but now is a lousy time to be making it into a movie.
Where were they in the 1990's when it wouldn't have looked like they're making an "I love terrorists and English-speaking governments are evil" statement?
2b - the author said leftist Hollyweird is doing this crap for the money. (Which they'll mostly get from overseas audiences, a lot of whom will view all these films as documentaries, not that the leftist nutballs care.) My point is they could make good films supporting our country and the war and MAKE A BUNDLE. That they won't tells you all you need to know about the leftist Hollyweird crown. Of course, this is the same crowd that keeps making R-rated movies with lots of gratuitous violence and whining about box office receipts, even though they know G-rated movies always gross more.
They're pathetic. I hope some conservatives start making good movies and get rich doing it - much as Mel did with "The Passion." What would be very interesting is if they approched
"bankable" stars for good, America-loving movies and got turned down. Which I'm betting they would, even if said "star" doesn't have a project in the works at the time.
Can you figure out I'm disgusted beyond measure with Hollyweird? Thank goodness for HGTV and the Food Network, or I wouldn't have any entertainment at all.
RC - yes indeedy. That's why I named him first. What a man!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/11/2005 9:35 Comments ||
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#11
I watched my third and, at least for me, my final episode of FX Channel's "OVER THERE."
Sorry, but it bites! After a long, grueling battle with insurgents terrorists, our patrol of stereotypical soldiers - tough-talking sarg, country-boy, tough Latina, high-IQ soldier with troubled soul - survives this fight.
After a long interrogation process of a insurgent terrorist portrayed in all his dignity, we have a SF dude give his solemn word not to harm the terrorist's family if he drops a dime on the location of a weapons depot. Said terrorist does so near the end. As the closing credits begin to roll and the theme song plays, we see an elderly man and his wife on a farm replete with chickens and beloved goats ... and oh by the way, a terrorist guarding a tiny shack stuffed with RPGs and other weapons. The guard looks up and we then are given a bird's eye view of an incoming GPS-guided bomb courtesy of an F-16.
The message: American servicemen's "solemn word" are not to be believed. Great! Thanks Hollywood and TV Land.
#13
The Passion of the Christ did $370M domestic, $612M worldwide. Fahrenheit 9/11 did $119M domestic and $204M worldwide. If Hollywood was just in it for the money they would just make more Passion-like movies.
However, Hollywood has an ingrained herd instinct. Sometimes it leads to everyone making movies out of old comic books. Sometimes it is a lemming-like pull to the left.
Leonardo DiCaprio as an action hero?
A George Clooney movie is a guaranteed stinker, so they can twist any plot they want.
#15
Yeah, and I thought when Peter Jackson cleaned up (and with a three-at-once gamble, with relative unkowns) I (foolishly) thought Hollywank would get on board. But it seems a Down-Under success can't be copied - or even learned from.
Dodo birds.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/11/2005 15:11 Comments ||
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#16
As long as they don't cast Jessica Biel, I'm good to go on the boycott thingy. Did you see Stealth? Crappy movie but the scene at the waterfall, whoa, she was tight, y'know what I mean? Sorta gave me a headache and took all the air outta my lungs at the same time. All I could think about was getting all up close, personal, 'n stuff. I just wanted to rub my face in...
#17
V For Vendetta." From Warner Brothers and the creators of "The Matrix" comes this film about a futuristic Great Britain that's become a 'fascist state.' A masked 'freedom fighter' named V uses terror tactics (including bombing the London Underground) to undermine the government - leading to a climax in which the British Parliament is blown up. Natalie Portman stars as a skinhead who turns to 'the revolution' after doing time as a Guantanamo-style prisoner.
I believe that LIBERTAS is way off on this one. V for Vendetta is Alan Mooreâs visionary 1980's graphic novel about a future England that is literally fascist. You know, with jack boots, rousing Hitler-like speeches, the gestapo, and that sort of thing. It has already exterminated its minorities, specifically gays, lesbians, and troublesome intellectuals. The main character, who is known as âV,â is a survivor of concentration camp medical experiments who has gained what amounts to super powers from the experience. She is also quite mad in a particularly British manner, quoting Shakespear, dressing like Guy Faulks, and so forth.
Natalie Portman isnât a âskinheadâ in the film. Her head gets shaved because she has been put in prison as a V collaborator. If I remember correctly V doesnât kill innocent bystanders, either. She targets specific people whom she feels are responsible for the deaths of her lover as well as the torments she has suffered while imprisoned. In the process she hopes to bring down what is, again, literally a fascist police state. Is V a terrorist? If so, are her actions justified or not? These are questions that the graphic novel asks the reader to answer for himself. It is a complex, compelling piece told partially from the perspective of the police detective who is tracking the protagonist.
The graphic novel at least has nothing to do with modern Islamic terrorism. The directors may very well warp the original book into some stupid piece of Hollywood liberal garbage but, from the looks of the preview, it seems pretty true to the original. Also the movieâs catchphrase âPeople should not be afraid of their government, governments should be afraid of their peopleâ seems like a sentiment expressed mainly by modern American conservatives, myself included.
#20
Barbara - I agree with you. I was just wondering out loud if they are not getting funding from sources that are more than happy to support anti-American films. It's not easy to get funding for a film. I'm thinking more along the lines of Scott Ritter's Shiftin Sands.
But that said, I think they are just true believers proselytizing their religion. Doesn't matter if it stinks - as long as the message is correct. "The Cause" is more important than anything else.
It would be hard to catch, what with Hollyweird's habit of cheating on their taxes bigtime odd accounting practices.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/11/2005 18:56 Comments ||
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#22
we can always hope that one morning we will wake up and they will have all turned into salt :-)
But what I'm really hoping for is that with the internet and good/cheap video editing equipment readily available - we might actually get some good films produced and distributed by talented aspiring young filmmakers.
#23
BH - if you're still around, here's a link to a trailer of "V for Vendetta." How does it compare with the book (which I haven't read)?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/11/2005 19:12 Comments ||
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#24
$ will eventually overcome bias. Mel can start a new United Artists along with Clint
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/11/2005 19:28 Comments ||
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I believe that LIBERTAS is way off on this one. V for Vendetta is Alan Mooreâs visionary 1980's graphic novel about a future England that is literally fascist. You know, with jack boots, rousing Hitler-like speeches, the gestapo, and that sort of thing.
Just like the liberals think we are today, or so I gather...
Posted by: Phil Fraering ||
08/11/2005 23:02 Comments ||
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#2
I was listening to the radio this afternoon - NPR? one of those kinds of shows and they made no mention of this - only a audio clip of Bush saying he respects her right to speak her mind.
Guess they want to get as much mileage out of it as possible before it goes away. On the way home, there was another story about the same thing - no mention - but I got home before it was over so I suppose there was a one in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance that they mentioned this.
#3
Family is split. Some are against, others support her. What we have here is a consequence of that old Sixites New Left mantra: The Personal is the Political.
Imagine its 1942 and Americans, during a time of war, speaking in public about their Commander in Chief and their country in the manner this woman speaks daily.
Would not have happened in part because there were certain things, like calling your President a liar, a warmonger, and blaming him for killing your child, that were beyond the pale. Public and media would have resoundingly rejected such an individual as unhinged and un-American.
Mrs. Sheehan's pain should be personal and not the basis to dictate to a sitting President during wartime (or anytime) what policies must be adopted. However, with the advent of "the Personal is the Political", this is what we get.
#4
Imagine its 1942 and Americans, during a time of war, speaking in public about their Commander in Chief and their country in the manner this woman speaks daily.
Maybe not that late, but in the late '30s, her type were around. I've been reading a book titled "Under Cover", about a guy who spent four years posing as a member of various fascist groups before WWII. There's a passage in it that *screams* Cindy Sheehan.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
08/11/2005 22:50 Comments ||
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An Iraqi air force pilot will be buried Thursday at Arlington National Cemetery. It will be the first interment there of an Iraqi citizen. The late Capt. Ali Abass is the first Iraqi to be honored with burial at Arlington National Cemetery.
The remains of Capt. Ali Abass will be buried with some of the remains of four members of a U.S. Air Force team who died beside him when their plane crashed near the Iranian border. Abass will be one of about 60 foreign nationals buried at the national cemetery across the Potomac River from Washington. More than 260,000 Americans have been laid to rest there since the Civil War.
The event, with a 21-gun salute and a flyover by Air Force jets, will be witnessed by senior U.S. and Iraqi military officials, symbolizing the cooperation between the military services of the two nations. "Things like this tend to draw us closer together," says Lt. Gen. Michael Wooley, commander of Air Force Special Operations Command. Even after the United States withdraws from Iraq, "there will be long-term personal relationships" between the pilots and air crews of the two nations, he says.
Abass was popular with the Americans. He bonded with them because of an earlier incident, according to an Air Force statement. After he and a U.S. officer were forced to make an emergency landing on an Iraqi road, some vehicles approached and Abass had the American hide behind a nearby sand berm. He then convinced the visitors that he worked for the Iraqi agriculture department.
The Americans who died with Abass were part of an Air Force special operations team based at Hurlburt Field, Fla., that is helping train the Iraqi air force. Wooley says the crew was scouting for emergency landing sites for future use, including an unused airstrip in the area near Iran, when the accident occurred May 30. The cause of the crash, near Jalula, Iraq, remains under investigation, but Wooley says there was no indication of hostile fire.
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/11/2005 14:53 ||
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His sacrifice for his country and for freedom will be remembered.
#2
No disrespect to Capt. Abass, but I get an image of him convincing the "visitors" (terrs ?) that he was from the Ag Dept, with a US Air Force plane standing behind him on the highway.
#4
How right and honourable that we do such a thing for such a man. But then, I expect nothing less from our military. Enjoy your Paradise, Captain Abass, you've earnt it.
As part of a package of "urgent wartime support initiatives," the Defense Department has requested that Congress raise the maximum age for military recruits to 42 for all branches of the service. One week after I turn 43, er, I'm 39. That's it.
According to a report in the Army Times, the move would raise considerably the age of potential service members. Under current law, the maximum age to enlist in the active components is 35, while people up to age 39 may enlist in the reserves. By practice, the accepted age for recruits is 27 for the Air Force, 28 for the Marine Corps and 34 for the Navy and Army, although the Army Reserve and Navy Reserve sometimes take people up to age 39 in some specialties, the report stated.
At a hearing of the House Armed Services military personnel subcommittee last month, David S.C. Chu, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said he felt the military's recent problems with recruiting were improving, but that additional incentives would help.
The Times reported Chu did not elaborate on the request to raise the recruitment age and did not mention whether any of the services were seriously considering recruiting 42-year-olds.
Most of the initiatives in the package were previously requested by the Bush administration as part of the 2006 defense budget, which is pending before Congress, and include raises in certain pay bonuses in incentives to help bolster recruiting.
"Recruitment is a challenge right now," said Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., at the hearing. "Both the military and Congress are working on solutions, but I expect these challenges will be with us for some time. Military service is honorable and can be a real growing opportunity for a young man or woman."
Recruitment goals for most of the months this year have not been met, and military leaders have begun instituting various creative incentives to try to boost the numbers.
#1
Age limits on enlistments was pegged so as to allow an individual to retire at 55 with 20 years active duty. This raising of age limits probably doesn't effect the numbers too much. Not too many 42 year olds are in sufficient physical condition for basic. However, it does permit select individuals with unique skills [re: Iraqi/Farsi speakers] to be recruited from a population group of, say, former or current exiles.
#2
I think the government will do whatever it has to in order to recruit....yes, benefit's, pay etc should be increased.
Andrea Jackson
Posted by: Andrea Jackson ||
08/11/2005 12:02 Comments ||
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A word of warning before joining the Marines at that age - the drill instructors will push you until your heart explodes. Had a 28-year-old in my boot camp platoon who got to do lots of extra drills because the drill instructors didn't like "these goddam old men joining my Corps". They seemed to take it real personal.
New monthly recruiting figures released by the Pentagon Wednesday show the Army exceeded its recruiting goal for active duty in July, but continued to fall short of its recruitment goal for the U.S. Army Reserve. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said figures being released Wednesday show that the Army Reserves met 82 percent of its 2,585 July goal by recruiting 2,131 volunteers for the Reserve. The National Guard recruited at 80 percent, or 4,712, of its 5,920 goal. Year to date, the Army is at 89 percent of its active duty recruiting goal of 80,000, Whitman said. The rest of the branches â Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force â also either met their recruitment goals for July or were very close. Those three branches, except the Air National Guard, are on track to meet their annual goals. The Pentagon continues to attribute the shortfall in the Reserves to a challenging recruitment environment triggered by a strong economy and concerns among parents that young people will be sent to Iraq. The Army, in particular, has offered a series of bonuses, incentives and enlistment options to help boost recruitment and retention. Hardly the recruiting "crisis" we hear about constantly on the Congressional floor. Recruiting numbers are down for the Reserves because so many units have been pulled up to active duty; people don't want to sign up for a part time job only to be forced into full-time. The key is that active duty recruiting is only minimally behind their goals, so that means there is still alot of war support IMO.
Posted by: Chris W. ||
08/11/2005 00:58 ||
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And the booming economy makes it harder for people who would consider the military as a career.
The U.S. military plans to ease conditions for some detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - housing them in a renovated section with televisions, stereos and a view of the Caribbean, the detention center's commanding officer said in court papers.
Marvelous idea! I hope this is because somebody's been reading Rantburg...
For the past several weeks, the military has been renovating Camp Iguana for detainees who are deemed no longer a threat to the United States, Brig Gen. Jay Hood said in an affidavit filed late Tuesday in federal court in Washington. The renovations are scheduled to be finished around Aug. 15, and some of those designated "No Longer Enemy Combatants," or NLEC's, will be able to live in communal housing with air conditioning, unlimited showers and additional food, Hood said.
Lots of food. Piles of it. Cakes and pies and deep fried yummies. Ice cream. Potato chips. Gourmet meals, with rich sauces and gravies. Piles and piles of rich whipped potatoes. Baklava. Hershey bars. Twinkies and Hostess Ho Ho's for between meals...
"The living conditions for NLEC's have been evolving and will continue to do so," the general said in the affidavit. Camp Iguana, which was previously used for daytime recreation for Guantanamo detainees considered the most compliant, has been closed for six months. The reason for the closure or the cost of the upgrade was not immediately available, a military spokesman said Wednesday.
Hood's affidavit was filed by the government in the case of two Chinese Uighurs, Adel Abdu Al-Hakim and Abu Baker Qassim, who the government says were captured in Pakistan as they fled a Taliban military training camp near Tora Bora, Afghanistan in 2001. The military has determined that the Uighurs, a persecuted minority in their native China, are no longer enemy combatants, but under U.S. law can't be deported back to their native China because they could face persecution or torture.
That's certainly true.
U.S. officials say they are trying to find another country to accept the two men and other Uighurs who have been detained at the prison for terror suspects at the base in eastern Cuba. Sabin Willett, a lawyer for the two Uighurs, has argued that while authorities try to figure out where to send the men the government should either release them on bond in the United States, place them in a less restrictive facility for illegal migrants at Guantanamo or let them live among military personnel at the base. A federal judge held a hearing on the matter last week but has not issued a ruling. Hood's affidavit argues for placing them in the refurbished Camp Iguana, on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea, along with at least two other Uighurs.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/11/2005 01:31 ||
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AM News is reporting HARRY POTTER books is making it big inroads amongst the Gitmo boyz - no word yet on Britney's Spears pregnancy.
#4
For the past several weeks, the military has been renovating Camp Iguana for detainees who are deemed no longer a threat to the United States, Brig Gen. Jay Hood said in an affidavit filed late Tuesday in federal court in Washington.
When the first plane crashed into the Worl Trade Center, Rachel Ehrenfeld was sitting a her desk in her apartment in midtown. âI wa on the phone with my editor in Brussels finishing an op-ed about terror financing for th European edition of the Wall Street Journal,â she said the other day. âI ran up to the roof to see what was going on, then I came back downstairs and did a new lead. It ran the next day.â
An Israeli-born American citizen, Ehrenfeld has been writing about terror in its various forms for about twenty years. She developed a special expertise in tracing the money behind terrorist organizations, and after 9/11 she wrote a book called âFunding Evil,â largely about the financing of Al Qaeda. Like other authors, Ehrenfeld drew passing attention to the role of Khalid bin Mahfouz, a member of a prominent Saudi banking family, who was, she wrote, allegedly involved âin the funding of terrorism.â
Bin Mahfouz was also, it turned out, one of Londonâs most prominent âlibel tourists,â the term for those non-Britons who try to take advantage of the countryâs pro-plaintiff libel laws. Those laws not only make it easy for plaintiffs to win damage awards but also allow American publications with small circulations in the U.K. to be sued in the London courts. The best-known recent libel tourist is Roman Polanski, who last month won a judgment against Vanity Fair, which is owned by the same company as this magazine; Polanski was not even required to travel to England to bring his case.
Shortly after the publication of âFunding Evil,â Ehrenfeld began receiving demands for retractions from British lawyers for the bin Mahfouz family. She refused to give in, so in 2004 she was sued before the same London judge who decided the Polanski case. âMy book wasnât even published in England,â Ehrenfeld says. âBut they said that because someone bought twenty-three copies there online, that was enough for me to be sued there.â
Ultimately, Ehrenfeld decided not to go to England and contest the suit. âThere was no way to win,â she said. âUnder English law, it wasnât enough that I could prove that I had written what my sources told me, but I would have had to prove the underlying truth of the accusations as well. No one can meet that standard.â So last year the judge entered a default judgment against Ehrenfeld, which now amounts to at least a hundred thousand dollars.
Ehrenfeld then hit on a novel strategy. Having lost the libel case abroad, she sued bin Mahfouz in an American federal court, seeking to block the enforcement of the foreign judgment against her on the ground that it violated her First Amendment rights. âThe Saudis are using their wealth to intimidate people from writing about them,â Ehrenfeld said. âI thought it was time to fight back.â (Her legal fees already amount to approximately two hundred thousand dollars.)
The bin Mahfouz family maintains a Web site (www.binmahfouz.info) largely devoted to recounting its various lawsuits, most of them filed in England, against journalists around the world. (The site does not note that Khalid bin Mahfouz, who held a thirty-per-cent ownership share of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, or BCCI, paid a settlement of almost a quarter of a billion dollars after the bankâs notorious collapse.) âKhalid bin Mahfouz has publicly condemned terrorism in all of its forms and manifestations,â Timothy Finn, one of his Washington, D.C., lawyers, said the other day. âAnd he categorically denies that he has ever provided any assistance or financial support to any terrorist organization.â Finn has asked Judge Richard C. Casey, of the federal district court in Manhattan, to throw the case out on the ground that his client has no ties to New York, and that since bin Mahfouz hasnât tried to enforce the British judgment here, there is no live controversy to decide.
Ehrenfeld earns a living by piecing together teaching stints, think-tank assignments, and book deals. âI am working on a new project about how the Saudis are using their money to penetrate the Western and U.S. economies in a strategic way,â she said. âThis is financial jihad.â But she hasnât had much time to spend on the new book this summer. âIâm not reporting,â she said last week. âIâm doing fund-raising to pay my lawyers.â
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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I hate libel chill. And let's not forget that attornies for the former Secretary of State - Colin Powell - filed an Amicus' brief on behalf of the Saudi defendents in the 9-11 lawsuit. Forget liberal-conservative politics. The State Dept was wrong in acceding to financial jihad.
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
08/11/2005 2:00 Comments ||
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The United Nations nuclear watchdog agency's board adopted a resolution Thursday aimed at defusing its standoff with Iran, which alarmed the West this week by resuming uranium conversion.
The text of the statement from the International Atomic Energy Agency wasn't immediately released, but a Western diplomat said the message was similar to a draft debated earlier in the day that expressed "serious concern" over Tehran's resumption of nuclear activities.
That'll show 'em we mean business
The draft didn't mention reporting the regime to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose sanctions.
The resolution, a copy of which was obtained by the Associated Press, said the agency cannot confirm that Tehran has declared all its nuclear materials and activities.
Could it be that they won't give you access?
The text, which was to be reviewed later Thursday by the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board of governors, noted that "outstanding issues relating to Iran's nuclear program have yet to be resolved and that the agency is not yet in a position to conclude that there are no undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran."
It also expressed "serious concern" over Iran's resumption of uranium conversion this week at its nuclear facility at Isfahan, saying the move "underlines the importance of rectifying the situation ... and of allowing for the possibility of further discussions in relation to that situation."
The measure requested IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei to provide the board with a comprehensive report on Iran's compliance with an agency safeguards agreement by Sept. 3.
Negotiations on how to rebuke Iran started Tuesday when the board met for an emergency session. A meeting tentatively planned for Wednesday was postponed to give delegates more time for informal talks.
(...) Although the IAEA board has the power to report Tehran to the Security Council, which can impose economic and political sanctions on the regime, diplomats made clear they were not considering that step -- widely seen as a last resort -- and instead were holding out hope for a negotiated end to the standoff.
WSJ (subscription required)
Posted by: Captain America ||
08/11/2005 14:25 ||
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Were they afraid that Israel or the US or both would attack if they report Tehran to the Security Council?
Does a single one of them have an ounce of backbone?
#3
"IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei" you expect a muslim to go after an Islamic Repubilc? LOL really?
The facts are is Iran has a right to a complete fuel cycle. No one is going to be able to stop it. They will divert some of that fuel stock to their weapon program. No one is going to do a thing until a bomb goes off.
Every excuse on the planet is being made for Iran. The Left and Muslim world is all for what is going on in Iran. The themes are: The evil "The US is the only country to have dropped A-Bombs on civilians." Muslims have a right to A-Bombs because Israel has them. Israel has illegal A-Bombs and the US and Europe gave them the technology. The evil Jooos!! Jooos! Blah balh blagh.
Get used to the UN dancing around the issue and particulary the IAEA. Nothing will happen but people rubbing their hands in "serious concern."
#4
I don't see that this leaves us any choices given the Iranian mullah's penchants for hating us and martyrdom. They get martyrdom. The only question is how big a loss we take before we have the guts to give it to them. I'm glad I don't live in a city.
Insane Babbling Continues. Film at Eleven... In brief:
"serious concern"
left open the possibility of further negotiations
rebuke
more time for informal talks
holding out hope for a negotiated end to the standoff
Annan called on the Iranians to continue discussions
the best way to break the impasse is to continue the discussions
#1
Ha! Iran knows it has atleast another six months before it has to 'cry uncle'! I suggest the US start loading and deploying 4 Carrier Groups to the region, to raise the collective Iranian eyebrow!!
EFL, I hope. Why does Preview never work for Me before about 0800? No wonder I lose out to the AoS so often.
The United Nationsâ nuclear watchdog Yeah, a little red watchdog, with a bushy tail and chicken feathers on his whiskers is set to vote on a request for a detailed report on Iranâs non-proliferation safeguards by September 3.
A new draft resolution to the International Atomic Energy Authority requests that the organisationâs director general, Mohamed El-Baradei, report on Iranâs implementation of agreed non-proliferation safeguards in three weeksâ time. Request denied. Carry on, Iran.
The new draft resolution, due to be debated at the IAEA in Vienna on Thursday, held back from demanding that Iran be referred to the UN Security Council, which has the power to impose minor nuisance crippling sanctions on Iran.
On Wednesday an IAEA emergency board meeting adjourned without agreement on a resolution that would call on Iran to reinstate the suspension of its nuclear work. The resolution, drafted by Western nations, ran into opposition from terrorist-supporting developing countries.
Earlier South Africa proposed a giveawaycompromise to break the diplomatic crisis over Iran's nuclear programme, after Tehran on Wednesday removed United Nations seals from a uranium conversion facility in order to resume work on producing nuclear fuel.
Diplomats said Thabo Mbeki, South African president, was involved in pushing the interim compromise. Two weeks ago he met Hassan Rowhani, who was then Iran's chief negotiator, to discuss a proposal that would involve shipping South African uranium yellowcake to Iran for conversion into uranium hexafluoride gas. This would be returned to South Africa to be enriched into nuclear fuel. SA officials will express "surprise" at the poor quality of the UF6: "There's hardly any U-235 in here at all."
The EU-3 group of France, Germany and the UK accused Iran of âflagrant disregardâ of its November 2004 agreement voluntarily to suspend its nuclear fuel cycle development. There would be no further talks until Iran resumed that suspension, a UK official said.
The EU-3 and the US intend to push ahead with another IAEA resolution in September that would try to refer Iran to the UN Security Council and Chinese veto if there were no change by then. An Iranian official said it would go to the next stage and restart uranium enrichment at its Natanz facility GPS coordinates? if it was taken to the council.
#1
We're gonna do whatever we want, unless we can suck some more concessions out of you before we do whatever we want anyway.
Got it?
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/11/2005 12:32 Comments ||
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Nope, Comment #1 - you are wrong. What you say may be right about NKor. Not Iran. They just want nukes and will do what it takes until they have them, o r they are stopped by military means..
Watch it there, Bobby, yer gettin' pretty close to in fringement, heh. Since you also copyright all of your spiffy verbalisms, you understand, I'm sure, heh. ;-)
Pak missile development cycle
(1) Buy Chinese DH-10 cruise missile
(2) Stencil the word 'Babur' on it.
(3) Read the user's manual (written in Chinese but with Urdu translations in margins written in pencil)
(4) Press the launch button
(5) Shout Allah-u-Akbar and jump up and down
(6) Buy more Chinese missiles
The indigenously developed first cruise missile of Pakistan Hataf-VII Babur will be in serial production by next month and the batteries of the same would be handed over to the armed forces accordingly.
Babur, the founder of the mughal empire invaded India and razed the cities of Lahore and Pehawar to the ground, raping and killing thousands, many of them ancestors of current day Pakistanis
Posted by: john ||
08/11/2005 20:04 ||
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Serial production after one test flight.
Only in Pakiwaki land
Posted by: john ||
08/11/2005 20:42 Comments ||
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Indian 'Chinese-Paki' translations of instruction books provided gratis....go figure
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/11/2005 22:21 Comments ||
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PESHAWAR: A lookalike of Taliban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar is leading a miserable life in his native Kandahar due to constant fear of being caught or harassed. "Yep, poverty, famine and war woulda been swell 'cept I'm the spittin' image. It was great fer meetin' the ladies in the old days though. Sigh."
Syed Gul Agha, who belongs to Kandahar's Dhand district, has demanded action against two men who took his pictures in Kandahar around two years ago and later publicized them as true photographs of Mulla Omar. He alleged that Khalid Ahmad and Naqibullah photographed him by saying that they wanted to keep his pictures as momentoes. "There's somethin' about you. I can't quite place it. Mind if I shutterbug?"
In an interview with the Pajhwok Afghan News Service, Agha claimed Khalid Ahmad got asylum in the US by handing the mock pictures of Mulla Omar to the American authorities. It all comes clear. We've been chasing the wrong guy. "Calling all cars: Look for the fella missin' the right eyeball, not left."
He said Naqibullah was son-in-law of Mulla Shahzada, who was arrested by the US military sometimes back and freed recently after keeping him in custody for 26 months in Bagram and Guantanamo Bay. Agha, who closely resembles Mulla Omar, Still? I woulda poked out my other eyeball by this point in the story.
described Khalid Ahmad and Naqibullah as 'fraudsters.' We call 'em gansta fraudstas to be exact.
He complained that his pictures were later published by an Afghan journal, Nawasht, and by some Pakistani newspapers and captioned as that of Mulla Omar. He said he had to leave his farmland and suffer economic losses when life became difficult for him in Kandahar. "Those pesky Americans and their helicopters. And the poppy crop was going so well, too. Alas..."
He also said he was unable to accompany his son to the hospital when he was injured in a bomb blast in Kandahar. "Don't laugh, infidel. You try buildin' a bomb with both eyes poked out."
Pajhwok Afghan News Service reported that Agha accompanied Kandahar Ulema Council's member Mulla Mohammad Salim to Kabul recently for a meeting with President Hamid Karzai to seek his help in tackling problems arising from his resemblance with Mulla Omar. President Karzai reportedly assured him to tackle the issue. El Presidente: Mohammad, fetch the presidential patch. There you go. Try that on. Voila, you're a new man. No one will mistake you for Omar again. The gold glitter and ruffles really suit you.
Agha: Peace be upon your soul, your excellency. I am cured.
El Presidente: It was nothing, really. Mohammad, don't forget to order a new case of eye patches from Disney. I don't care, get the funds from the widow's and orphan's fund. What do you mean you spent it on ketchup packets? What is this country coming to.
A Jordanian Islamist legislator has volunteered to defend 17 people arrested on charges of raising funds for the al-Qaida network.
Zuheir Abul Ragheb told United Press International Thursday that his Islamic Action Front Party is checking the cases of the 17 suspects to determine whether they are victims of injustice or whether they committed acts that undermined state security and stability.
"I am ready to defend the members of the groups on condition that they were not involved in acts that jeopardize public security or political stability and did not plan to attack Jordanian employees, be they civilian or military," Abul Ragheb said.
He denounced authorities for arresting the suspects in night raids on their homes, charging that such methods violate the law.
Jordanian authorities said they arrested the suspects, whose ages range between 20 and 25, in two Amman suburbs known to be hotbeds for Muslim fundamentalist groups.
They were referred to the state security court for trial on charges of raising funds for al-Qaida, undermining public security and planning to carry out terrorist attacks against Jordanian intelligence agents and American nationals residing in Jordan.
Posted by: Dan Darling ||
08/11/2005 12:17 ||
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August 11, 2005: The war continues in Sudan's western Darfur province, with pro-government militia continuing to attack refugees. Nigeria said it will send another battalion of troops to serve with African Union peacekeepers in Darfur. That makes three Nigerian battalions for Darfur. One arrived in July, the second battalion is in the process of deploying via airlift from Nigeria to Darfur. The third battalion will arrive in Darfur in October. Nigeria has the largest peacekeeping contingent in Darfar. The second largest? Rwanda. A reinforced Rwandan battalion (1000 troops) arrived in mid-July. Rwanda currently has 1,750 troops in Darfur.
The big questions is, will the increase in troops have an effect? The theory is the armed peacekeepers presence will be enough to deter the "Arab" militias. The Rwandans and Nigerians are also "black Africans" -- like the farmers and herders under attack by the militias.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/11/2005 09:28 ||
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AFTER A STRING OF BOMBINGS in London, the British media began peppering Tony Blair and John Howard with questions about the effects of Britain's presence in Iraq on suicide-bomber recruitment. During the hastily-arranged press conference the day of the second series of attempted bombings, journalist Paul Bongiorno noted that one Australian injured in the July 7 blasts had blamed the Iraq War for the attacks, prompting a tough response from the Australian prime minister. The unnamed victim is not alone; an ICM poll for the Guardian showed that two-thirds of Brits believe that the bombings have some linkage to military action in Iraq.
Today the political situation remains unchanged for Blair and the British. George Galloway, the Scots MP who recently declared his sympathy with the Iraqi "insurgents," told Syrians on July 31 that the British, Americans, and the West needed a cure for their imperialism, not the Arabs for their radicalism and oppression. In fact, Galloway told Syrians that the Arabs appeared to be doing nothing but standing by while the West raped their "daughters":
Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners--Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters. Why? Because they are too weak and too corrupt to do anything about it.
Galloway this week referred to Iraqi terrorists conducting suicide attacks as "martyrs" and told the BBC that Tony Blair and George Bush were the real terrorists. Even though pundits consider Galloway a voice from the fringe, when he says that Islamist terror arose from the first Iraq War and the occupation of Jerusalem, he speaks for a not-insignificant number of Brits, and Yanks as well.
All of which makes the forgotten case of Mohammed Afroze all the more significant.
On the day after the failed July 21 bombings in London, an Indian court in Delhi sentenced Mohammed Afroze to seven years in prison for his participation in a wider plot which had been planned for September 11, 2001. Afroze led another al Qaeda cell which planned to use commercial airlines as missiles to destroy several international targets. The Islamist terrorists intended to send a global message through coordination with the attacks on America. Their plan failed when the terrorists lost their nerve and fled Heathrow.
Afroze and his compatriots from Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Pakistan had planned on flying their Manchester-bound flights into the House of Commons and the Tower Bridge in London. Attacking Parliament would have sent a message to the British government about the continued sanctions on Iraq. Blowing up the Tower Bridge would kill a slew of British civilians, with the intent of terrorizing them into demanding a withdrawal of British troops from the Middle East and a halt to support of American actions in the region.
But Afroze had other targets as part of his plan--and these reveal something much deeper and broader than Galloway and the media wish to contemplate.
AFROZE HAS ALSO ADMITTED to targeting the Rialto Towers in Melbourne, Australia. Australia has a long history of courageous alliance with Britain and the United States, of course, but Australia never set foot in Iraq before the 2003 invasion. They had provided a naval support contingent of three ships with 600 sailors and their own air defense squad. Their mission consisted of interdiction on shipping in the Persian Gulf to ensure no arms made their way into Saddam Hussein's hands during the blockade that preceded the war.
Australia had helped free East Timor from a military occupation by Indonesian paramilitary forces two years earlier. The Portuguese pulled out of Timor in 1976, and the Indonesian military invaded the island nine days later, annexing the territory and imposing an increasingly brutal regime on the Catholic Timorese. In 1999, Indonesia president B.J. Habibie unexpectedly offered a referendum to East Timor, and an overwhelming majority backed independence. This touched off a revolting nightmare of murder and terror by Indonesian paramilitary forces which only ended when an Australian-led U.N. force took control of East Timor and effectively liberated it from the Indonesians.
Clearly the notion that an attack on Melbourne would send a message about Iraq and Jerusalem, therefore, hinges on shaky ground. It seems much more likely that al Qaeda harbored a grudge against the Aussies for their efforts to free East Timor (now Timor Leste) from primarily Muslim Indonesia. However, that doesn't square with the critics who insist that Western policies about Iraq and Jerusalem lie at the heart of Islamofascist terror, especially when some of those same critics--such as Noam Chomsky, Mother Jones, and organizations like Common Dreams--insisted on Western nations intervening in East Timor to free the Timorese from Indonesian tyranny.
In fact, Chomsky sounded themes in his essay demanding military action remarkably similar to those George W. Bush would use five years later while demanding action to free the Iraqi people from the grip of Saddam Hussein:
Not long before, the Clinton administration welcomed Suharto as "our kind of guy," following the precedent established in 1965 when the general took power, presiding over army-led massacres that wiped out the country's only mass-based political party (the PKI, a popularly supported communist party) and devastated its popular base in "one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century." According to a CIA report, these massacres were comparable to those of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao; hundreds of thousands were killed, most of them landless peasants. The achievement was greeted with unrestrained euphoria in the West. The "staggering mass slaughter" was "a gleam of light in Asia," according to two commentaries in the New York Times, both typical of the general western media reaction. Corporations flocked to what many called Suharto's "paradise for investors," impeded only by the rapacity of the ruling family. For more than 20 years, Suharto was hailed in the media as a "moderate" who is "at heart benign," even as he compiled a record of murder, terror, and corruption that has few counterparts in postwar history. . . .
The picture in the past few months is particularly ugly against the background of the self-righteous posturing in the "enlightened states." But it simply illustrates, once again, what should be obvious: Nothing substantial has changed, either in the actions of the powerful or the performance of their flatterers. The Timorese are "unworthy victims." No power interest is served by attending to their suffering or taking even simple steps to end it. Without a significant popular reaction, the long-familiar story will continue, in East Timor and throughout the world.
Somehow Chomsky's--and much of the left's--concern for "unworthy victims" would disappear when the Iraqis, afflicted with a similarly genocidal tyrant, received the same round--or more accurately, sixteen rounds--of indifference from the United Nations.
BUT AFROZE HAD ONE MORE TARGET in mind for his suicide attacks: the Indian Parliament. Again, anyone with a sense of history understands the long antagonism between Muslims and Hindus on the Asian subcontinent. The division of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh after the British withdrawal in 1947 touched off a religious and political conflict that persists to this day. Any aggression against India by al Qaeda would hardly seem surprising given this well-known dynamic.
What would seem surprising is the notion that an al Qaeda attack on India's Parliament would have anything to do with Iraq or Jerusalem. India followed its historical precedents in the month before the March 2003 invasion, in a letter to the United Nations. India argued that they wanted more time before the Security Council authorized military action and that they opposed the invasion of Iraq. More to the point, India had a long history of trade with Saddam's Iraq, right up to the first Gulf War. The Indian government restarted trade with Iraq in June 1991 (almost immediately after the war), working within the sanctions but clearly supportive of trade with Saddam Hussein.
Nor has India expressed any solidarity with Israel. India joined the Non-Aligned Movement, which has repeatedly and publicly sided with the Palestinians. India's U.N. voting record shows that it remains essentially sympathetic to the Palestinian claims over the occupied territories, and its rhetoric shows that it considers the plight of the Palestinians analogous to the struggle of India against the British Empire.
THE CASE OF MOHAMMED AFROZE puts all claims that Western opposition to reasonable goals of Muslims caused September 11, the London bombings, or any of al Qaeda's other attacks going back into the early 1990s. The goal all along has been for Osama bin Laden and his Islamofascist terrorists to seize control of the region that produces the world's energy in order to bring the infidels under their heel--and to be sure we stay there, regardless of our previous sympathies.
Edward Morrissey is a contributing writer to The Daily Standard and a contributor to the blog Captain's Quarters.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/11/2005 09:11 ||
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#1
It's always been questionable how serious the Mohammed Afroze story actually was, certainly the Australian government seemed to imply that he had been forced into making the confession while in Indian custody.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
08/11/2005 20:15 Comments ||
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Posted by: DanNY ||
08/11/2005 06:38 ||
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#1
feh..Probably the single largest issue of this whole WoT, and the E3 is mucking it up.
Notice where the crisis will lie: The Europeans voiced fears the visa refusal would also complicate efforts to keep Iran at the negotiating table
Iran will play the Euro's one way or the other, its not about solving the problem, its about appearing to do something that will accomplish nothing.
Here is my question to the Euro's:
Iran will go nuclear. What can you do
about it?
nothing.
What will you do about it?
nothing.
#2
I'm not even gonna worry about this anymore. It's all about flexing their muscle, unless of course, they do use one. By that time, I trust we'll have an escalating response plan all worked out.
When rape is inevitable.... (Apologies to the ladies and weak of stomach)
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/11/2005 12:34 Comments ||
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#3
When rape is inevitable... save the evidence and nail the bastard!
GAZA CITY - Thousands of Palestinian security officers are enduring a mad rush of physical training and weaponry drills in order to take control of areas vacated by Israel in the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank.
Enfeebled by the five-year intifada and based out of premises partially destroyed by Israeli military action, security branches on the Palestinian Authority payroll are undergoing rigorous training for the Israeli pullout.
I suspect Charlie Johnson will soon re-use his favorite pic of Paleos leaping through rings of fire.
Security sources say 5,000 forces are being assembled and groomed to ensure that Israelâs disengagement from Gaza, due to begin in earnest on August 17, takes place free of violence after an appeal for calm by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.
Some are already in position, with the bulk of national security and police to be deployed early next week in zones bordering the Israeli settlements and roads used by settlers leading to the territoryâs border with Israel.
At the ravaged navy police headquarters on the Gaza seafront under the glare of officers and Egyptian supervisors, men are instructed in the fine art of house ambush, checkpoint management and riot dispersal.
Riot dispersal? I can see why Paleo coppers wouldn't know much about that.
âMore than 5,000 from national security and the other services have been trained. This force will be called on to assume control of the evacuated zones,â said chief instructor Colonel Mohammed al-Rawagh. âOther than physical endurance and operational exercises, they are being taught weapons and ammunition handling,â said instructor Mohammed Wasshah.
With the Palestinian leadership under massive international pressure to ensure the pullout passes off without militant attacks that could precipitate a crushing Israeli military response, little is being left to chance. General Jamal Kayed, national security commander in the southern Gaza Strip, said deployment plans during and after the departure of all Israeli troops and 8,000 settlers have been religiously prepared. âUnder this plan, 7,500 members of national security and police are being deployed in and around the areas to be evacuated,â he said.
In a three-pronged operation, the special core of 5,000 will fan out inside the evacuated settlements, national security on their outer perimetre and police in adjacent Palestinian autonomous zones, said Kayed. Both Israeli and Palestinian officials said the forceâs main task would be to prevent rocket attacks from the likes of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
Success will depend largely on the attitude of both Islamist fundamentalist groups, whose armed wings are responsible for the majority of rocket attacks on Jewish settlements in Gaza and Israel proper. Islamic Jihad has announced its militants are under orders to stop firing rockets at Israeli targets in the lead-up to the pullout. Hamas has said it will observe an informal ceasefire but will respond to any Israeli âviolationâ.
"We can hear dem Jooos breathin'. It grates on our nerves, it's a violation I tells ya!"
Ordinary Palestinians would be banned from nearing settlements during the withdrawal, Kayed said, in a bid to stem much-feared looting and pillaging from angry mobs seeking to avenge Israelâs 38-year occupation of Gaza. âThis force will also be responsible for taking control of the land that the settlements were built on and to protect property and infrastructure which are going to be given to the big-shots preserved,â he said.
Security preparations are also awash in the northern West Bank around Jenin where four isolated Jewish settlements are also to be dismantled in the first week of September. A special unit of 700 security officers has been formed and a camp erected to house them, said security commander in the region, General Dhiab al-Ali. âThe camp will welcome a battalion of 700 soldiers and officers commanded by a colonel. The sole task of this force will be to guarantee law and order in the zones to be evacuated by the Israeli army and settlers,â he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/11/2005 00:03 ||
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#1
Heh, insert "Heavily Armed, Morally Bankrupt, and Mentally" at the beginning of the title, Doc, and I'll buy. ;-)
#2
How much you want to bet the Paleos step on their dorks? If they do a a masive and brutal response should come their way. I mean brutal as in wipe out all the males between 12 and 60 in the Gaza strip, throw the rest of the population out and claim the land as part of the territory Israel in perpetuity.
Let the MMs and TRANZIs choke on that. Tell them the policy of Israel is no longer to "occupy" it is to anex and take full possession of any place that is used to launch attacks on Israel or it's citizens.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri gave harsh criticism of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednsday in Gaza, saying that the latter's condemnation of the use of rockets attacks on Israel did a disservice to the Palestinian resistance movement. Zuhri stated that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was a direct result of such attacks, and said that occupation could only be ended by resistance rather than through negotiations. He used the fact that Israeli forces were not withdrawing within the framework of bilateral negotiations as proof. In a speech before the Palestinian parliament in Tuesday, Palestinian president Abbas stated, "I don't want to talk about whether firing these rockets is important or not, but I wanted to talk about the destructive consequences. No one of us could forget last week's tragedy when a father and his son were killed by a rocket." In response to the comment, Zuhri was quoted as saying that the Palestinian President "didn't refer at all to the fact that the armed resistance is a major reason for ending the occupation", according to Xinhua. He also added that this was the first time in Palestinian history that armed resistance had successfully ended Israeli occupation, and referenced Hizbullah's success in ousting Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000.
A video showing a "Top 10" of bloody attacks against US forces in Iraq that were claimed by al-Qaeda linked groups has appeared on an Islamist website. The 17-minute video is aimed at "those who like to see American crusader blood flowing," said the Islam Media Front which said it posted the footage. One segment shows American soldiers' bodies torn to pieces in an attack near the Syrian border that was claimed by the al-Qaeda Organisation in the Land of Two Rivers (Iraq), the group of Iraq's most wanted man Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Another shows a US helicopter that was shot down and reduced to shreds of metal by a group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq. Yet another scene shows seven US soldiers whose bodies were pulverised in a landmine explosion, before other US soldiers arrived to collect their remains. The scenes are backed by an audiotrack of Koranic chants, war cries and calls of "Allahu Akhbar". The makers of the video call on their sympathisers to "spread the video on foreign forums so that Americans will be ashamed of themselves at the weakness of their army".
Posted by: Oztralian [AKA] God Save The World ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
Here's a video they missed ... link here:
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-976420.php
#2
This is no good. Terrorist/guerrilla wars are primarily political and we are losing, more exactly aren't even fighting the propaganda battle.
The waves should be full with our propaganda, from images showing Al Quaidists being mowed down, to Islamist atrocities in Irak or Sudan and of course, images from Gitmo detainees masturbating in front of their guards or cleaning their asses with Korans.
A French lawyer Drat.
who was part of a defence team for Saddam Hussein sacked by Saddam's daughter this week said the dismissal went against the former Iraqi leader's stated wishes. "The president himself expressed several times... his wish to keep a big committee around him, one that is as international as possible, to denounce the Americans' behaviour in his country," Emmanuel Ludot told RTL radio. He said Saddam made his position known during jail visits by his Iraqi lawyer, Khalil Dulaimi. Saddam's daughter Raghad on Monday issued a statement on behalf of her family saying: "From today, none of the lawyers, except Iraqi lawyer Khalil Dulaimi, will have the right to act on behalf of Saddam." She accused the other lawyers in the 20-strong team from several countries of using their position "to further interests not linked to the case."
#2
..to denounce the Americans' behaviour in his country," Emmanuel Ludot told RTL radio.
Seems to me he'd be better off planning his defense strategy instead; railing against American "behavior" in Iraq certainly isn't going to save his hide from the executioner.
Salva Kiir, successor to the late southern Sudanese leader John Garang, vowed yesterday to carry on his peace legacy as he arrived in Khartoum ahead of being sworn in as the countryâs vice president. âIâm happy to be in Khartoum after 22 years (away),â Kiir told reporters after he flew in from southern Sudan with security tight in the capital. âDespite the fact that we have lost our hero, the man who brought peace, Dr. Garang, we will continue with the same vision, with the same objective and we will implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.â He was referring to the peace deal signed with the Khartoum government in January that ended 21 years of north-south war in Sudan, the longest running in Africa which cost two million lives.
Kiir urged Sudanese people not to resort to violence after deadly rioting shook Khartoum and several towns in south Sudan following Garangâs death on July 30 in a helicopter crash. âIâm appealing to all the people of Sudan, the people from southern Sudan in particular to remain calm and not to repeat all what has happened a few days ago,â he said.
Kiir was greeted by Sudanâs Second Vice President Osman Ali Taha as he stepped out of the plane after flying in from Rumbek in south Sudan. Some 200 Sudanese dignitaries, including officials from Kiirâs Sudan Peopleâs Liberation Movement and the ruling National Congress Party later shook hands with him inside the airport.
I'll bet that was one hell of a scary flight, though it would have probably too much to have it blow up so soon after Garang's "unfortunate accident."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that weapons recently confiscated in Iraq were "clearly, unambiguously from Iran" and admonished Tehran for allowing the explosives to cross the border. Iran's defense minister denied the claims in a report carried by the state-run news agency IRNA.
"Nope. Nope. Never happened. Wudn't us."
According to Ali Shamkhani, Iran is playing no role in Iraqi affairs, including "its alleged involvement in bomb explosions."
So I guess that settles it, huh? So you won't mind if we simply bump off anybody we see transporting them, because they'll be non-existent, too?
The shipment of sophisticated bombs was confiscated in the past two weeks by U.S. and Iraqi troops in southern Iraq, senior U.S. officials said Monday. Although he would not comment on whether the Iranian government was directly involved, Rumsfeld said, "it's notably unhelpful for the Iranians to be allowing weapons of those types to be crossing the border."
I'm sure there's some sort of plausible deniability being held in reserve in case a flat denial followed by face-making and eye-rolling doesn't work...
"What you do know of certain knowledge is the Iranians did not stop it from coming in," he said. Rumsfeld said the weapons create problems for the Iraqi government, coalition forces and the international community. "And ultimately, it's a problem for Iran," he added. When asked if that was a threat of possible retaliation, Rumsfeld replied, "I don't imply threats. You know that."
"They (the Iranians) live in the neighborhood. The people in that region want this situation stabilized with the exception of Iran and Syria," he said. The U.S. officials said the weapons were more lethal and more sophisticated than the bombs typically used by Iraqi insurgents. After examining the truckload of weapons, intelligence analysts said the explosive parts are similar to those used by Iran's Revolutionary Guard. While there is no evidence Iran's government sanctioned the weapons shipment, the analysts said it may indicate a rogue element inside Iran is making the weapons and trying to ship them to Iraq's insurgents.
That's the plausible deniability part, of course. The old "rogue element" ruse.
Troops found the bombs inside crates seized near a border crossing on the Iraqi side, the officials said. Three senior U.S. officials told CNN the weapons were made in such a way that their blast would have been focused in a single direction, thereby increasing their lethality. One official said the shipment included "tens" of bombs.
#2
I'm withholding a rant I just completed based upon that comment, just to be nice and give you a chance to think. Tell me, what do you believe Rummy should do with it? Right this minute, what should he recommend (he's not the CinC, after all) be done. Right this minute? What?
#3
Rummy is the kindest, politest, most soft spoken accuser of Iranian shenanigans I've ever heard of! Brings me to tears! He makes me believe maybe we can all, just get along!!
#5
Poison Reverse,
don't confuse me with the idea of me being an insurgent or sympathizer; let me make myself perfectly clear on this matter (WOT)...I would rather see every man, woman and child killed in Afghanistan or Iraq if it would bring that Seal (or his buddies) back to his family! If I were King smn, I would "Herodize" the male population of those countries, If I were President smn
I would nuke the entire Axis of Evil with 1,000 H bombs and then commit suicide in office!!Understand now...Dismissed!
#6
Are you sure you mean Herodize, smn? All he was supposed to have done was to kill all the male babies born in a given year. How would that advance the war on terror?
#8
smn: "internal consistency in your comments is a good thing for credibility". Write that on the board 500 times
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/11/2005 14:32 Comments ||
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#9
Poison Reverse> That's where you and I differ. I would have used 999 H bombs.
PR, I always thought you were a liberal.
>:>
Posted by: Red Dog ||
08/11/2005 14:34 Comments ||
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#10
My cynical outlook at times Frank, is pressured by the body bags that return to the States! My 'internal consistency' though 'cored' can be persuaded or bent by opinions and discourse from grounded individuals such as yourself!
#11
smn - if you are so concerned with body bags, why aren't you upset about the 40,000+ annual auto accidents where families die in flaming crashes? Why aren't you concerned with the millions of drug addiction related deaths? How about women and children murdered in the US in violent crimes? So apprently it's not really violent death that bothers you but just the self-righteous feeling you get by opposing the war.
#12
Trailing Wife #6,
To reveal my inner id slightly, I don't see this as a War On Terror, but a War Of Testicles! Remove the males "Herodize", remove the problem! The only female I even remotely hold responsible for these problems is Eve! "W" is sugar coating this with his rephrasing of what I still think was an accurate statement when he said a few years ago, that this was a 'crusade' and was forced to correct himself! Islam waged a holy war on Christianity in the late 1980's!
#13
smn - you mean your inner confusion. I have an idea - why don't we round up all of the men, put them in concentration camps and then turn them into bread. Don't you think that's a brilliant way to get rid of all of the evil, war mongering men?
In fact, why don't we just kill them as soon as they are born?
#14
"#13 smn - you mean your inner confusion. I have an idea - why don't we round up all of the men, put them in concentration camps and then turn them into bread. Don't you think that's a brilliant way to get rid of all of the evil, war mongering men?"
Hey wait a minute ... wasn't there a movie called "Soylent Green" starring that dude that played Moses in which people get reduced to green crackers?
#15
I don't oppose the war 2b #11, you didn't see me anywhere near Michael Moore, or in his movie; or near Jane Fonda! If you're testing my loyalty like Poison Reverse tried to do, consider this, George Washingon is my daddy!! About the 40,000 accidents you mentioned; they don't try to take my country away from me. Iran is taking the wrong signal from Rummy, mark my words, High Noon is Coming!
#16
It's really quite interesting to hear the macho posturing coming from those who have neither to fight the battles nor make the hard decisions.
The warriors I know - real ones - don't need the swagger.
Posted by: leader of the pack ||
08/11/2005 19:30 Comments ||
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#17
nobody can do macho posturing? I'd say most here at RB are 'pro-bombing the f&ck out of Iran', yet realize other considerations prevent that ....so far.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/11/2005 20:12 Comments ||
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#18
Swagger? Posturing? I'd say this is more along the lines of smn having escaped the asylum again.
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/11/2005 21:29 Comments ||
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#20
War Of Testicles?
Best be careful saying things like that around all the women wearing the American uniform over there. Sgt. Mom has some amusing (to me at least) tales from her own experience, and that of her daughter Marine Cpl. Blondie (I seem to remember her being promoted, but I'm not clear on Marine rank names.), both in peace and in war.
#21
Pack leader, please let me know when you think I am out of line. Posturing, swaggering or being a chickenhawk have never been my intention, but at times I may well need reminding where the line is. Thanks!
(This is also addressed to any of you who are/were warriors. You know who you are.)
#22
frankly I'm not a warrior, and my opinion here means little in influencing Rummy's WOT (he's doing fine without me). That does not mean I have to withhold. Nor will I
Posted by: Frank G ||
08/11/2005 23:55 Comments ||
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The lips are saying that they're not going to allow the NWFP primitives to indulge their traditional impulses toward violence. I guess we'll see what the hands eventually do.
Insh'allah.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar warned on Wednesday he would take stern action against anyone barring women from local polls next week, including cancelling results in affected areas. He spoke out after police and rights groups said candidates in parts of the NWFP were ganging up to stop women casting their votes. âThis is an electoral offence, legal action will be taken against anyone involved and such a poll will be void,â Justice Dogar told a news conference. He said he had ordered district officials in the province to investigate complaints about stopping women from filing nomination papers or casting their votes. âI also facilitated 506 women in filing their nomination papers in four districts of the NWFP by extending time by one day,â Dogar said, referring to the hardline Battagram, Lower Dir, Upper Dir and Kohistan districts.
He also said the Election Commission (EC) had started proceedings against 103 cases of political interference in the local council election process, had cancelled 63 transfers and postings of officers and had issued notice to many violators including Defence Minister Rao Sikandar Iqbal. âI have called for explanations from the authorities for violating the ban on transfers and postings besides starting disciplinary action against cases of political interference,â he added. Election Commission Secretary Kanwar Dilshad also provided a detailed report of the actions taken against complaints so far taken by the commission.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
This is the *real* anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Voting Act.
LAHORE: Maulana Fazlur Rehman should explain why he makes frequent trips to Libya, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Wednesday.
Gotta be a holy site in Libya somewhere.
Yeah. The 142nd holiest bank in Islam...
"He goes to the UAE and then it emerges that he has reached Tripoli. I had said that he should take the nation into confidence about it, but it seems that he got offended," Ahmed told reporters after attending an Independence Day show for television at the Alhamra.
Hmmm... Fazl canoodling with Col. Kudhuffy... Personally, I think Muammar bribes people on principle, rather than with any particular end in mind. And regardless of what he thought he was buying, I'm not at all sure Fazl's capable of staying bought.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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#4
Libya's in the middle of the desert.
He was misinformed.
Posted by: Steve ||
08/11/2005 9:50 Comments ||
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#5
Libya does have some very fine beachfront property on the Mediteranian. allied and Axis soldiers took advantage of it during World War II. Maybe he just wanted to take a dip in the ocean.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/11/2005 11:57 Comments ||
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PESHAWAR: The NWFP's Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Malik Zafar Azam has termed the federal government's decision to deport religious seminaries' foreign students unconstitutional and said that the provincial government reserved the right to challenge the decision in court. Talking to a three-member US State Department delegation that called on him on Wednesday, Azam said that the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) government conformed with the decision of the apex court regarding the Hisba Bill. He said that the bill would be reexamined after receiving the detailed decision of the court and then implemented in the province. The minister informed the US delegation that the NWFP government had registered 300 madrassas so far, and 400 more were in the registration process.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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#2
Who are they trying to impress? There is essentially no rule of law in pakiland. There are people with power who bless their own dictatorial edicts with a little whitewash called "the law" be it secular or sharia.
#3
Fatwas for Sale! Fatwas for Sale! Bring your agenda and your money and I will personally issue a fatwa on your behalf. It will add zip to your armed muscle.
Void where taxed, prohibited, or controlled by outranking fatwa.
Posted by: Al-aska Paul ||
08/11/2005 11:04 Comments ||
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The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) will not support Maulana Samiul Haq, chief of a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam faction, in elections for senator in the NWFP if he has to retire from the Senate after the upcoming draw. âThe MMA leadership is very clear: Samiul Haq will not be given an MMA ticket,â sources in the religious parties alliance told Daily Times. They said the draw to determine which senators would get a three-year tenure and which would get a six-year tenure would most likely be in October.
The sources said that Haq had angered alliance leaders with his repeated violations of discipline since becoming senator. Haq had made public statements criticising the central leadership of the MMA and the allianceâs policies, and been absent from MMA meetings for several months. Haq and his son Maulana Hamidul Haq Haqqani had also accepted positions as chairmen of standing committees of parliament, despite MMA objections. Another reason was that Haq, along with Senator Prof Sajid Mir, had refused to support the nomination of Senator Prof Khurshid Ahmed of the MMA for the slot of leader of the opposition in the Senate. Haqâs JUI faction only has two seats in the NWFP Assembly, meaning it will be difficult for him to be elected senator again without the support of the MMA. The division of the JUI-S has made Haqâs task even more difficult, as the splinter group led by Qari Gul Rehman will certainly oppose his re-election.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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The following are excerpts from an interview with the presiding judge in the Saddam Hussein trial, Munir Haddad, which aired on Al-Arabiya TV on August 8, 2005.
Interviewer: "Let's assume that in the Dijel case, which is the first case you have finished investigating, Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death - a while ago, Iraqi President Jalal Al-Talabani declared that he would not sign Saddam Hussein's execution warrant, but would leave it to his two deputies, since the execution must be approved by the presidential office." Haddad: "If Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death â although I am not allowed to discuss this, since as a judge, I cannot rule prematurely â Jalal Al-Talabani is a democratic man who believes in democracy. He is definitely not a man who would make such a serious decision alone. I am convinced that there will be a consensus in the presidential council."
Interviewer: "If the Iraqi president does not sign the execution warrant, what is the alternative?" Haddad: "For me, such serious decisions... Jalal Al-Talabani, the president of the republic, is a lawyer, and he is aware of the importance of such decisions. He knows the danger involved in each of the decisions, and this decision is up to him."
"As for my being a Kurd, or someone else being a Shiite or a Sunni, the court... The Iraqi people consists of Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, Christians, Sunnis, Sabbaites, and Shiites. I believe that all the ethnicities are represented in the court. Our purpose is not to take vengeance on Saddam Hussein. We are impartial. We always say this to the defendant, and we say this to the entire world. Our purpose is not to take vengeance on Saddam Hussein, and I personally told Judge Khalil Al-Dulaimi, who represents Saddam Hussein, that if they intend to take vengeance on me or kill me, it will be their loss because I am an impartial judge, and the same goes for all the judges."
Interviewer: "Do you expect to be assassinated or killed?" Haddad: "I do not fear my fate, but if they assassinate me, they should have a reason first. In any case, life is in the hands of Allah."
Haddad: "We are deliberating 14 main charges in the trial of Saddam Hussein and of the top officials of his regime. The first case brought before the criminal court was Dijel. The Al-Dijel incident is well known. It is an area north of Baghdad, which was the site of an attempt on Saddam Hussein's life. Consequently... at least this is what he claimed... Consequently, Saddam Hussein executed between 135 and 145 people. The case was brought before the criminal court, and, Allah willing, a court date will be set soon. With in 45 to 60 days, we will witness the first session of the special criminal court.
"The second case, which is nearly ready, is the case of Al-Anfal and the events of 1991. The case of the Al-Anfal campaign in Kurdistan is well known, as are the events of 1991, in southern and central Kurdistan. The fourth case, which is ready, or almost ready, is the annihilation of the Faili Kurds - This is a well-known incident. In 1980, between 9,000 and 12,000 young people were deported and executed in the Nuqrat Al-Salman jail. About 600,000 people were deported to Iran, according to Decree 666. They were subject to the worst kind of treatment - the girls were raped on the border, their property was confiscated, and they were made to walk on landmines."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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Interesting story. I don't know if this is because they Kurds have a head start on the Arabs, or if it's the usual combination of too much Olde Tyme Religion and not enough sense makes it impossible for the Arabs to do the same. But I do expect the hard boyz and boom artists will try to follow them.
What I'd expect in a normal, sane world would be for the Arabs working on their constitution to suggest "let's do what they're doing up in Kurdistan so we can be prosperous and peaceful, too." But that's an idea that doesn't seem to occur to them.
Each morning before dawn, hundreds of Arabs from southern Iraq gather near a mosque in this northern Kurdish city hoping to find work on one of scores of construction sites dotting the landscape. What began 18 months ago as a trickle of poor, unemployed young men moving north to find work and escape violence in predominantly Arab areas has now turned into a rapid stream. And itâs no longer just the poor and jobless fleeing. Professionals â including doctors, engineers and teachers â are following them, desperate to escape the chaos tearing cities such as Baghdad, Basra, Baquba and Hilla apart.
âI came here for safety, and for my family,â says Dr. Ali Alwan, 40, an eye specialist who moved from the southern city of Basra to Sulaimaniya in late 2003 and has since encouraged dozens of former colleagues to follow him. âHere it is a wonderful life. The children are in school, my wife is happy and there is good work. I donât think I will ever return to Basra.â Around 25 eye specialists alone have since taken the same route out of Basra, he says. At the Razgari outpatient clinic in Sulaimaniya, eight of the 13 doctors are Arabs who arrived in the past two years, according to director Khalil Ibrahim Mohammed.
Young trainees, desperately needed in places like Baghdad and Basra where hospitals are understaffed and overworked, are also getting out. At Sulaimaniyaâs teaching hospital, 20 of this yearâs interns â the majority â are from Basra. âHere things are normal, we are a normal hospital,â says Karzan Sirwan, a Kurdish surgeon at the hospital. âI can understand why they come, and we need them too.â There are sometimes language barriers - most Arabs donât speak Kurdish â but since all Iraqâs doctors are trained in English, they can communicate with one another, and translators are on hand to help doctors talk to Kurdish patients.
Itâs a similar situation at Sulaimaniyaâs university, where 40 Arab professors have joined the staff in the past two years, university officials say. While the newly arrived professionals are generally well paid â most medics make around $500 a month or more â the bulk of the labor flowing to Sulaimaniya is unskilled or semi-skilled and barely scrapes a living. There are no hard figures on the total number who have migrated since the war, but an official in Sulaimaniyaâs investment office put it in the thousands in Sulaimaniya alone. Hundreds of poor Arab men gather in the center of town each morning waiting to be taken to building sites by contractors. Many are recognizable by their headdress and darker features.
Mohammed Abbas, a 28-year-old Shiite from Baghdad, came to Sulaimaniya two months ago. He works construction when he can find a job, and sells cigarettes otherwise. âThere is nothing for me to do in Baghdad,â he says. âAt least here I can make $20 a day most days.â He says hundreds from his area of Baghdad have done the same thing to escape. âI send money home to my family and when I have enough I will return to Baghdad and get married,â he says. At night, they sleep in Sulaimaniyaâs parks and squares. Those that have construction jobs sleep on site. At night, small fires can be seen burning inside half-built buildings.
Haider Salim Djuluwi, 20, came from Kut, in the southeast of Iraq, two months ago, looking for summer holiday work. Heâs now making $10 a day as an unskilled laborer for a new court house. âFriends came before me and said it was good. Twelve of us came together,â he said. âIâm not thinking about a better life, just about making some money and staying safe.â
In Arbil, the capital of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, there has also been an influx of Arabs. Yacoub, a barber in the main hotel in town, came three months ago from Baghdad. âToo many of my friends were threatened,â he said, referring to barbers who have been killed by militants for cutting hair in western styles or shaving beards. âHere I feel much safer.â The language barrier is a problem, but he has found a house in a Christian village, where most people speak Arabic. âThe money is good and the people are friendly,â he says. âI canât see myself ever going back to Baghdad.â
Posted by: Fred ||
08/11/2005 00:00 ||
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#1
From a purely Western POV, this is not surprising. These people seek peace and sanity and a place to live and raise families without fear and the external controls of tribal Sheikhs or Islamofascist Mullahs - who cares the flavor. The negative is that they will likely do what all immigrants from Islam do: bring their stinking backward brutal barbaric baggage with them and eventually, blindly, try to replicate precisely what they fled from.
From an Arab / Muzzy POV this is quite remarkable. They are acting against both their indoctrination to serve these two external Masters and their fear of retribution, for they know better than we ever will how little is required to be branded apostates or traitors and that this is actually merely a ruse, a canard, by which the power brokers of their society wield their power.
Were all Iraqis daring enough to make the choice, it would certainly simplify things for us and the Iraqi forces - everyone who didn't flee would be either a hopeless tool or mindless jihadi - or their Masters. That defines target-rich.
Sadly, I'm coming to the conclusion that the Kurds are the only significant population group in Iraq worth our efforts, thus far. They should be our first concern and our lasting allies, supported to the hilt. They will do something, great things I'd wager, with their opportunity. It's gratifying, with the above warning kept in mind, to see the bravest non-fools amongst the Arabs grab a clue and emulate them.
#5
Yahoo has an article about the southern Shia wanting their own little oil-rich kingdom out of the constitutional convention. I guess if the Kurds can 'federalize", they can too. Leaving the Sunni boomers in the middle, with no assets.
Better get the Israelis to buid two walls....
Posted by: Bobby ||
08/11/2005 12:43 Comments ||
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#6
Actually, I think it's because the Kurds had a head start. The history of the Kurdish enclave is quite rocky, including a civil war between differing factions, before they finally kissed and made up.
Al
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
08/11/2005 15:15 Comments ||
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#7
Here ya go, Bobby - nothin' says it all quite like a visual, eh?
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.
American soldiers "accidentally" fired on a civilian car that entered a shooting range in which they were training on Tuesday, injuring two adults and a child, the U.S. military said.
"Our enemies weave many lies about us, which we are not necessarily aware of. For example: One day, we awoke to the crime of 9/11, which hit the tallest buildings in New York, the Empire State Building [sic]. There is no doubt that not a single Arab or Muslim had anything to do with these events. The incident was fabricated as a pretext to attack Islam and Muslims. The plan was to take over the world's energy sources, and to achieve this control by force and not by agreement or negotiations, by interests, free trade, or anything like that. This is what they wanted. 
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri gave harsh criticism of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednsday in Gaza, saying that the latter's condemnation of the use of rockets attacks on Israel did a disservice to the Palestinian resistance movement. Zuhri stated that the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was a direct result of such attacks, and said that occupation could only be ended by resistance rather than through negotiations. He used the fact that Israeli forces were not withdrawing within the framework of bilateral negotiations as proof. In a speech before the Palestinian parliament in Tuesday, Palestinian president Abbas stated, "I don't want to talk about whether firing these rockets is important or not, but I wanted to talk about the destructive consequences. No one of us could forget last week's tragedy when a father and his son were killed by a rocket." In response to the comment, Zuhri was quoted as saying that the Palestinian President "didn't refer at all to the fact that the armed resistance is a major reason for ending the occupation", according to Xinhua. He also added that this was the first time in Palestinian history that armed resistance had successfully ended Israeli occupation, and referenced Hizbullah's success in ousting Israeli forces from southern Lebanon in 2000.
vowed yesterday to carry on his peace legacy as he arrived in Khartoum ahead of being sworn in as the countryâs vice president. âIâm happy to be in Khartoum after 22 years (away),â Kiir told reporters after he flew in from southern Sudan with security tight in the capital. âDespite the fact that we have lost our hero, the man who brought peace, Dr. Garang, we will continue with the same vision, with the same objective and we will implement the Comprehensive Peace Agreement.â He was referring to the peace deal signed with the Khartoum government in January that ended 21 years of north-south war in Sudan, the longest running in Africa which cost two million lives.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that weapons recently confiscated in Iraq were "clearly, unambiguously from Iran" and admonished Tehran for allowing the explosives to cross the border. Iran's defense minister denied the claims in a report carried by the state-run news agency IRNA.
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar warned on Wednesday he would take stern action against anyone barring women from local polls next week, including cancelling results in affected areas. He spoke out after police and rights groups said candidates in parts of the NWFP were ganging up to stop women casting their votes. âThis is an electoral offence, legal action will be taken against anyone involved and such a poll will be void,â Justice Dogar told a news conference. He said he had ordered district officials in the province to investigate complaints about stopping women from filing nomination papers or casting their votes. âI also facilitated 506 women in filing their nomination papers in four districts of the NWFP by extending time by one day,â Dogar said, referring to the hardline Battagram, Lower Dir, Upper Dir and Kohistan districts.
LAHORE: Maulana Fazlur Rehman should explain why he makes frequent trips to Libya, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said on Wednesday. 
Malik Zafar Azam has termed the federal government's decision to deport religious seminaries' foreign students unconstitutional and said that the provincial government reserved the right to challenge the decision in court. Talking to a three-member US State Department delegation that called on him on Wednesday, Azam said that the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) government conformed with the decision of the apex court regarding the Hisba Bill. He said that the bill would be reexamined after receiving the detailed decision of the court and then implemented in the province. The minister informed the US delegation that the NWFP government had registered 300 madrassas so far, and 400 more were in the registration process.
The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) will not support Maulana Samiul Haq, chief of a Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam faction, in elections for senator in the NWFP if he has to retire from the Senate after the upcoming draw. âThe MMA leadership is very clear: Samiul Haq will not be given an MMA ticket,â sources in the religious parties alliance told Daily Times. They said the draw to determine which senators would get a three-year tenure and which would get a six-year tenure would most likely be in October. 
Interviewer: "Let's assume that in the Dijel case, which is the first case you have finished investigating, Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death - a while ago, Iraqi President Jalal Al-Talabani declared that he would not sign Saddam Hussein's execution warrant, but would leave it to his two deputies, since the execution must be approved by the presidential office." 
