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No bail for Johnny Jihad
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Afghanistan
Eastern Khost shura rejects Karzai appointment
  • The shura of eastern Khost province has demanded Hamid Karzai approve its choice of governor or risk another outbreak of the civil unrest which has dogged his first two months in office. The Khost shura arrived in Kabul saying the appointed provincial governor, Kamal Khan, had no support. "Khan is from Paktia [a neighbouring province]. The people don't want him," Shura head Haji Mirzajan said. He said the shura wanted former governor Debarjan Arman re-appointed "as he has the support of all parties and ethnic groups."

    Arman, who is supported by former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, should be made governor "as he has done good things for the people and has not killed anyone," Mirzajan said.
    Hey, good resume entry! "Has not killed anyone."
    I'll concede that "has not killed anyone" isn't the highest of recommendations (although, if true, it may make him unique among adult Afghan males). But, unlike the fake "federal" "republics" so common throughout the world, it seems that Afghanistan has some genuine need for a federal or confederal organization.

    Despite the liking of European and American progressives for unitary pseudo-democratic (where conservatives always run candidates, but never win elections) states without obstructions like bills of rights, perhaps that model isn't suitable for Afghanistan.
    Posted by John "Akatsukami" Braue [www.win.net/ratsnest] 2/6/2002 7:32:29 PM
    I think of Afghanistan as being a classically feudal society, only with guns instead of swords. "Stuck in the 11th century" would be something to take literally.
  • Dostum: Duke of Mazar-e-Sharif;
  • Ismail Kham: Duke of Herat;
  • The late Masood/Daoud Khan(?): Count of Pandjir;
  • Shirzai: Count of Kandahar;
  • &c.
    A complicating factor is the condotierri like Hekmatyar, trying to carve out their own fiefdoms. The king had a little more power than the Merovingians, probably not as much as the Platagenets. The loya jirgas fulfill functions somewhere between an early parlament and a Latin senatus. So they probably really need a king (or an imperator) and the loan of the Magna Carta.
    Posted by Fred 2/6/2002 8:06:53 PM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Detainees flown out of Afghanistan, probably to Club Fed
  • A planeload of detainees took off from the United States' main military installation in Afghanistan, the first such flight in three weeks. Military officials declined to disclose the number of detainees on the flight or give its destination. Previous such flights from Kandahar have taken the detainees to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where a detention facility has been built at the U.S. Navy's base.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Fifth Column
    W. Deen Mohammad: We should understand Osama
  • The leader of the nation’s largest Islamic organization told an audience at Duke University night that while the actions of Osama bin Laden were criminal, the world should try to understand his cause. Imam W. Deen Mohammed, leader of Muslims in America, said bin Laden believes he furthered justice in the world and that "we owe it to ourselves to study what created him and his actions and to respect his cause... I’m not saying he didn’t do a horrible thing — a criminal thing to persons. He should be caught, tried and punished. But his case should be heard." Mohammed said he respected Jews and has even eaten and gathered with them. But he said he doesn’t support the actions of their government in Israel. "When I think of the Holocaust, my heart cries," he said. "But when I look at rigid rulers and leaders of Israel, I see a creation of Hitler."
    Yeah. Some of my best friends are Jews, too. I think we've spent quite a bit of time trying to "understand" Osama's cause, and we've come to the conclusion he's a vicious loon. And it wasn't the Jews who made him a loon. There's also a lot more Adolph to be found in the Islamist movement than there is in Israel.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Home Front
    No bail for Johnny Jihad
  • A federal magistrate judge ordered American Taliban John Walker Lindh to remain in jail without bond, pending his trial on charges of conspiring to kill Americans.
    Get used to the jug, Johnny. You're never gonna see anything else.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    International
    The Learned Elders of Islam
  • You find some interesting things on the internet, often when you're searching for something else. Christopher Johnson has an article on Islam getting a little "blowback" of its own, in the form of disgusted adherents leaving the faith and becoming Christians - at least in those countries where they don't cut your head off for doing it. In Iran, after they've shot the ayatollahs Ba'hai could even make a comeback.

    While thrashing around in Middle East Quarterly (now on my reading list), I found this article on the Ulema - The Learned Elders of Islam - that adds nicely to my previously sketchy understanding of its workings. Having one of those Western-style minds - linear thought process, believer in cause and effect, etc. - I've been thinking in terms of a "Council of Boskone" as the driving force behind militant Islam. This article lays it at the door of the Ulema, but implies that rather than having formal Protocols, the Learned Elders of Islam are subject to a flavor of Groupthink, with a healthy amount of "planning backwards" from what the movers and shakers want to do to find a Koranic justification for it - hence conflicting fatwas among different Ulemas. I can pretty much accept this; certainly the current war against the USA has lots of earmarks of Groupthink ("Hey! Let's declare war on the USA!" - "Why would we do that?" - "They're evil. Everybody knows that!" - "And how will we win it? They have the heavy artillery." - "The Faithful will rise up and smash them! Everybody knows that!") OBL's conversations on his Friends videotape reflected this way of thinking pretty closely.

    But without falling into the Second Gunman on the Grassy Knoll mode of thinking, I believe there's yet another level "over" the Ulemas, probably symbiotic with it, that actually defines what the desirable ends are. And I think that these guys aren't motivated by piety and hatred of unbelievers, but by power. Old Time Religion to them is a means to an end. And those are the guys we're really fighting against.
    The cited article "on the Ulema" in MEQtrly reads eerily like the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion:

    http://www.ptialaska.net/~swampy/illuminati/zion.html

    to whit:

    "Armed with specialist knowledge of the Qur'an and the Sunna, the ulema find themselves in the happy position of being able to voice their opinions or issue fatwas (edicts on Islamic law) on any matter at all. They can influence and mobilize public opinion for or against government policies by declaring these in (or out) of accord with Islam."
    -Gibreel


    "The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes... Three hundred men, each of whom knows all the others, govern the fate of the European continent, and they elect their successors from their entourage."
    -PROTOCOLS of the LEARNED ELDERS of ZION

    I don't mean to put the MEQtrly on the same level as this classic anti Semitic screed, but we need to beware the problem of oversimplification unless some OBL character gets up and says "the fatwah made me do it!" What is important, and Bush in the SOTU address kinda talked around this, is that some of these societies are stuck in the 14th century in many ways and having factionalized political institutions such as these pseudo theocracies is a reactionary impediment to social and economic liberal reform. That is an American foreign policy interest, not the question of whether the Ulema are a bunch of political Neanderthals.

    Posted by Tom Roberts 2/6/2002 1:51:45 PM
    I don't think it was the fatwas that made them do it. I think it was the Groupthink.

    The actions of the Learned Elders of Islam often suggests they got a copy of the Protocols on disk, did a search and replace to change "goyim" to "infidels" and took it from there.
    Posted by Fred 2/6/2002 2:08:02 PM
    kind of like a mafia in charge of souls instead of money but the bottom line is that is all about power and control I figure if you can get people to bow down and pray to a place 5 times a day you can easily get them to kill the infidels
    Posted by Anonymous 2/6/2002 6:08:39 PM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Drudge: IOC won't allow Afghan flag
  • The International Olympic Committee has banned the flag representing a newly-liberated Afghanistan from being flown at the opening ceremonies. Afghan diplomats planned for a single female Afghan athlete to carry the new flag, symbolizing its new role in the world. Concern of the IOC's treatment of the American WTC flag has obscured the IOC's refusal to allow Afghanistan a rare chance to be seen as part of the world of nations by allowing the country's new flag to be flown at the games. Afghan's new ambassador in Washington, D.C., Haron Amin, is hopeful his contacts at the U.N. might break the deadlock with the IOC in time for the opening ceremonies.
    If this is a true report, the IOC is wallowing in the 11th dimension of stoopidity.
    I wonder if money will help them change their mind? Did the trick in the past...
    Posted by Tom Roberts 2/6/2002 2:06:51 PM
    Should we start the IOC bribe fund?
    Posted by Anonymous 2/6/2002 11:34:09 PM
    Well money or hookers, that seemed to work as well if I recall.
    Posted by Anonymous [dodgeblog.blogspot.com] 2/7/2002 10:34:37 AM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    The "E" Word
  • Jonah Goldberg addresses the (Euro-driven) controversy over the "axis of evil" designation. Glenn Reynolds points out that it seems to be going over pretty well with the Iranian-in-the-street. Damian addresses the reluctance of the Left and the Trendy Set to accept the use of The "E" Word.

    It was hard to swallow Reagan's Evil Empire appellation, too. When Osama and Saddam and Yasser and Mullah Fudlullah and all the others are doorknob dead, we'll all be anti-terrorists, just like Communism is languishing in the "dustbin of history" except on college campuses.

    The Taliban was going to kick our collective butts, the same people who gasped at Reagan's gauchery told us. Then we saw the pictures of the happy people of Kabul welcoming the Northern Alliance guys, the kids flying kites and the pretty girls at Mazar, out of their burqas.

    The same people told us that Saddam's Fourth Largest Army in the World was gonna kick our collective butts. Then we saw videos of those guys surrendering to helicopters and Italian cameramen. Do the Iraqis want to dump their Great Leader? Remember after the Gulf War, when our guys withdrew from Basra? Remember the people who left the hospitals to go with them, some with IVs still in their arms, because they did't want to go back to what they'd had?

    Post Modernism (not to be confused with the more popular Toasties and Raisin Bran) tells us that good and evil are relative concepts, that everything is shades of gray. Even if you accept that, it's pretty obvious that some grays are a lot darker than others. I'm with George.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Middle East
    Yasser sez he wants peace, really, truly.
  • Chairman-for-Life Yasser Arafat warned in an interview with Britain's newspaper the Mirror that failure to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians would threaten world stability, and called on the international community to help end the conflict. "The whole international community will be directly affected by what happens here. Our peace is the platform for the whole peace," he said. Arafat told the British tabloid that he was "committed" to peace and that the Palestinians were ready to live as "an equal neighbour" alongside the Jewish state.
    Yasser's probably waiting for a surrender document to get himself out of this mess. Once he's signed, he could always abrogate it later. Palestine has been threatening world stability for lo, these many years. That was the root of this "war on terrorism" mess in the first place. As ever with Yasser, the devil's in the details - get a thorough definition of "equal neighbor" before signing anything. Not that it's worth signing anything with him.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Yasser sez the PA's working on it...
  • Trying to deflect intense pressure, the Palestinian Authority has handed the United States a detailed written response to allegations that it has not acted against terrorism. The 17-page document says the Palestinians have arrested 195 militants, blocked 56 suspect bank accounts, closed 15 illegal munitions factories and 79 unregistered charities and clamped down on militant mosque preachers. Yasser Arafat's government "remains committed to peacefully negotiating an end to Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories," said the document. "As far as we know, there are no actions and there are no results," said Danny Ayalon, a senior aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The claims of arrests are especially misleading, he said, because those arrested were "small-fry" who were not on a list of 33 militants the United States and Israel have demanded be arrested.
    Wonder how many of those jugged were paid to go?
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Terror Networks
    Hiram goes to Afghanistan
  • New York Times carries a piece on Hiram Torres, alias Mohammed Salman, who apparently trained with Harkat ul Mujaheddin in Pakland before moving to Afghanistan with al-Qaeda. Young Hiram was part of a set that was disgusted with American culture - crass, materialistic, etc. - and he had dreams of traveling the world as a revolutionary.
    Unlike Johnny Jihad/John Walker Lindh, Hiram hasn't been heard from recently. His Mom hasn't heard from him since 1998, so he may have had his pointly little head blown off before the Americans even showed up.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Feds investigate US branch of al-Fuqra
  • Federal law enforcement agencies are investigating whether a radical Muslim sect here is laundering money into Pakistan, law enforcement authorities said yesterday. Authorities said that Jamaat al-Fuqra is the focus of the probe, which includes the fraudulent procurement of social services money. Al-Fuqra is linked to Muslims of the Americas, a tax-exempt group established in the United States in 1980 by Sheik Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani. The group has set up and funded rural communes that federal authorities say are linked to murder, bombings and other felonies throughout the U.S. and Canada. Sheik Gilani was arrested last week in Pakistan in connection with the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Muslims of the Americas operates communes of mostly black, American-born Muslims in Binghamton, N.Y.; Badger, Calif.; York, S.C.; and Red House, a rural village south of Appomattox, Va., law enforcement officials said.
    Can't close them down for being a "religious organization," but by God we can close them down for being crooks - if we want to. Look and see where the group's defenders are in the coming weeks.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Abu Sayyaf grabs teevee reporterette
  • A local reporter apparently is being held by the Abu Sayyaf, further complicating the U.S.-assisted hunt for the Muslim terrorists who kidnapped an American missionary couple more than eight months ago. Arlyn de la Cruz, a TV journalist whose easy access and cozy relationship with the kidnappers has made her a controversial figure, has been missing since Jan. 19 when she headed into the jungles of Basilan in an effort to reach the rebel camp.
    Somehow this looks more like a publicity stunt than the Pearl kidnapping. Could be wrong, though...
    If you do a search on "Moro Rebellion" you'll get a variety of accounts which have two themes: a) the Moros and this general group of insurgents are historically one of the most bloodthirsty and tenacious opponents for every central authority in the archipelago, and b) the US didn't do much to help the situation in its colonial policies. This latter theme is generally gratuitously applied for various ideological reasons by anti American commentators, but elides over the fact that the colonial admininstrators were generally appalled by the fact that the Moro's captives' longevity was exceedingly short and their deaths brutal. In classic American style in combatting indigenous peoples, this brutality was returned with interest. Which brings us to the present, and the present has an eery similarity to the situation confronting Gen. Leonard Wood in 1903.
    Posted by Tom Roberts 2/6/2002 2:00:38 PM
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Pearl investigation: Jaish e Mohammad involved?
  • Pakistani police said they had detained at least six more people since the weekend as they hunted Daniel Pearl's kidnappers, and said they were chasing a senior leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad, which is also blamed for a string of violent attacks in India. "There is a connection to Jaish in Pearl's kidnapping. This lead we got from the two persons detained last night in Karachi," a senior police official said.

    Pakistani police detained two men in Karachi late on suspicion of sending e-mails containing photographs of Pearl. They said the trail quickly led to British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, also known as Sheikh Omar, a senior leader of Jaish. Omar, a graduate of the London School of Economics, is a close associate of Jaish founder Maulana Azhar Masood, one of India's most wanted men. Police raided Omar's house in Lahore, but the wanted man was not at home. Police say they believe Omar has been going under the name Imtiaz Siddiqui, one of three people named as key suspects in the case.
    Well, ain't that interesting? One of India's most wanted 20, who's been living and working in Lahore while the Paks have been "looking" for him. Wotta surprise. And now all of a sudden, they can't find him for real. Azhar, on the other hand, is in custody, and if someone hits him very many times he might provide a lead or two.

  • Jaish-e-Mohammad has distanced itself from the kidnapping. ‘‘For sure, Sheikh Omar is our old colleague. But we haven’t had any contact with him for the past four or five months,’’ a Jaish official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters. ‘‘Jaish has no link with the kidnapping. We condemn such acts (of kidnapping).’’
    Oh, we know they'd never do anything like that.

  • Daily Jang reports that Rawalpindi police have arrested an Arab said to be involved in the kidnapping. Police along with the FBI was interrogating him till late in the night. Hannan Ahmad was reportedly directly involved in the kidnapping of Pearl and was associated with Jaish-e-Mohammad. During preliminary interrogation the Ahmad gave solid tips which could lead to the release of Pearl.
    Could this actually be something of substance?

  • Jang also reports Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil said that information gleaned during "intense interrogation" of three men detained Tuesday night indicated that the kidnapping was the work of "a group and not a few individuals".
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Hamas gunny kills three women
  • A Palestinian gunman infiltrated an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, killing three people and wounding four others before he was shot dead by soldiers. A woman and her daughter were killed, and another woman died later of wounds in a Jerusalem hospital. At least four people were wounded, including a child and two soldiers. A Lebanese TV station run by Hezbollah said the attacker came from Hamas. Israel hit back early Thursday. Witnesses said an Israeli warplane fired two missiles at a Palestinian prison and government complex in Nablus. Eleven people were injured, none seriously.
    Continuing the Heroic Resistance by shooting granny ladies and kiddies.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    The Alliance
    Saudis admit hijackers were Saudis
  • For the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Saudi Arabia has publicly acknowledged that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. "The names that we got confirmed that," Interior Minister Prince Nayef said in an interview. "Their families have been notified." Nayef also said the kingdom has detained about 30 people following the attacks, based on lists it received from the United States. Some have been released. Nayef said the men still in detention "have been influenced by bin Laden's thinking... It's possible that we will find among them members of the (al-Qaida) organization. But so far we haven't found anything."
    Haven't looked real hard, either, have you?
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 02/06/2002 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



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    Two weeks of WOT
    Wed 2002-02-06
      No bail for Johnny Jihad
    Tue 2002-02-05
      Frenchies arrest three snuffies in connection with plot to bomb cathedral
    Mon 2002-02-04
      Pak cops stalled on search for Pearl
    Sun 2002-02-03
      7 Lashkar among 12 deaders in Kashmir
    Sat 2002-02-02
      Pearl kidnaping: new e-mail, new clues
    Fri 2002-02-01
      Kidnapers say they've killed Pearl
    Thu 2002-01-31
      Warlords fight it out at Gardez
    Wed 2002-01-30
      Kidnapers threaten to kill Pearl
    Tue 2002-01-29
      Kandahar hospital detainee is a Brit
    Mon 2002-01-28
      5 questioned in Pearl kidnaping
    Sun 2002-01-27
      Zinni calls Arafat "an unreformed liar"
    Sat 2002-01-26
      French cops sieze ETA dynamite cache
    Fri 2002-01-25
      Palestinian detonates in shopping mall
    Thu 2002-01-24
      Gul Agha backs down from plan to invade Herat
    Wed 2002-01-23
      Palestinians threaten all-out war

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