Ken Layne has a good discussion of what the Euros are actually doing about the Bad Guys, versus the yap-yap coming from the Learned Elders of Journalism.
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03/12/2002 ||
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Suman Palit writes, with obvious glee:
In the bloody meanwhile, PETA brings their self-flagellating pogrom to Indian streets. Oh well, I ask, what's yet another rotting compost heap of religous nuts in a society already plagued with theological obesity? PETA deserves the sanctimonious and hypocritical vegetarians and vegans of India. Maybe they'll love India so much they'll move there for good and leave us steak-chomping, sushi-swilling, chicken-tearing, ribs-pounding, venison-chewing North American carnivores in peace..!!
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03/12/2002 ||
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An Afghan force backed by aging armor and modern warplanes advanced to the foot of al Qaeda and Taliban forces' mountain fortifications and prepared for an assault that commanders hoped would finally wipe out the holdouts inside. While U.S. planes bombed enemy positions, tanks and troop trucks rumbled down dirt roads and across a desert expanse to take up positions. Advance teams clambered up nearby peaks to seize strategic heights. At least 1,150 Afghan reinforcements linked up with 1,800 U.S. and Afghan troops that have been trading fire with the guerrillas for 10 days.
Several Afghan commanders said on Monday that they intended to begin a final, all-out ground offensive overnight, but by daybreak this morning the weather had turned hazy and troops were still being deployed and preparations made. The soldiers said they were told the offensive could begin at any time but they did not know when. Wonder if Zia Lodin ever showed up? He should be done washing his turban by now, shouldn't he?
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03/12/2002 ||
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The Americans appeared to have tamped down friction between the Afghans under their command and the newcomers under Haidar. Local U.S.-trained Afghans, particularly ethnic Pashtun commanders, bitterly protested the arrival of the Tajik-led reinforcements sent by Kabul because many hailed from northern provinces. On Sunday, a top Afghan officer from the U.S. force, Mohammed Ismail, called on Haidar's forces to leave and return to their barracks, accusing them of coming only to take credit for beating al Qaeda.
By Monday, Ismail was sounding a different theme. "Gul Haidar has taken a part in the operation. He is our brother. He is one of us," Ismail said. "We are not opposing each other, because we have the same enemy and we want to defeat them." Pashtun locals seem to have made up with the Tadjiks who were sent in to reinforce them. Wonders never cease, do they? Sometimes all it takes is a reminder of how unfortunately inaccurate some of those bombs can be. We always feel so bad when we bomb the wrong guys.
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03/12/2002 ||
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US-backed Afghan forces have seized key terrain and taken Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters prisoner as hundreds of government troops joined the battle Tuesday in the Arma mountains. A spokesman for the commander of the interim government troops told AFP by telephone that hundreds of men from the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance were moving through the Shahi Kot valley backed by heavy armour and US forces. It is the first time Northern Alliance soldiers have taken an active part in the US-led Operation Anaconda against the last known stronghold of Taliban and al-Qaeda extremists in Afghanistan, and came as the United States continued to pull its ground forces out of the battle zone. Some 600 US troops have returned to this air base north of Kabul in the past three days as the fresh Afghan government troops moved into the battlefield in eastern Paktia province. Bet the Pashtuns are unhappy, now that Cousin Mahmud is getting whacked by out-of-towners. The Heroic Forces of Pashtunistan don't look that good standing next to the Tadjiks. They have real impressive turbans, though.
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03/12/2002 ||
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U.S. and Afghan troops are mopping up a shrinking force of al Qaeda fighters blasted by more than 2,500 bombs in the eastern Afghan mountains but the 11-day battle is not over. "Much fewer in number, al Qaeda forces are still holed-up in small pockets scattered throughout the area," Air Force Brig. Gen. John Rosa told reporters. "Operation Anaconda continues. In the last 24 hours we have flown more than 180 sorties over Afghanistan and dropped more than 100 bombs, bringing the total bombs dropped in this operation to more than 2,500... I wouldn't characterize it as being over ... there is still work to be done." Most of the more than 40 caves in the area had not been searched for remnants of up to 800 or more guerrillas believed to have regrouped there two weeks ago.
"We have started, but are nowhere near completing entering the large majority of those caves ... With the booby traps, with the land mines, with the unexpended ordnance, we have got to go very slow, very calculating, very carefully." But a senior Afghan general said U.S. and Afghan troops had overrun Taliban and al Qaeda rebels around Shah-i-Kot on Tuesday, sending them fleeing toward Pakistan and effectively ending the biggest battle of the Afghan war. It's not over, but it's down to mopping up. That means it's a victory. Never bitch about victory, even though you're learning from any mistakes you made.
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03/12/2002 ||
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Nobody's seen Mullah Omar lately, but the Taliban and their supporters have a new icon. Saifur Rahman Mansoor, the youthful commander of the Shahikot fortress, has emerged as something of a celebrity among anti-American elements in Afghanistan since his men downed a US helicopter and killed seven American soldiers Monday. Taliban supporters throughout the region are lionizing him as its hero. A statement attributed to Mansoor says he will prefer to die fighting rather than living a "shameful" life under "U.S. occupation." It's not even clear whether he made the statement, but there appears to be a substantial Taliban and al-Qaeda propaganda operation in eastern Afghanistan looking to stir up hostility to the U.S. and its allies. And that propaganda machinery is spinning Mansoor as a new Afghan icon. The Taliban and al-Qaeda elements that have regrouped in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan want to use the casualties inflicted on the U.S. at Shahi Kot to embolden anti-American forces throughout the region. I think a more accurate translation of what he actually said was, "Holy crap! Look at all the tanks!" As long as all the "rising young stars" on the Bad Guys' side manage to lose all their battles, we don't have to worry. But we do have to make sure they lose.
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03/12/2002 ||
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Christopher Johnson links to this article:
Outside the shrine last month, Afghans exuberantly celebrated the new era of civilian rule. Pop music, banned by the Taliban, blasted from loudspeakers around the corner. Across the street from the mosque, a movie theater advertised reruns of old Indian films, which were forbidden by the regime, as were any other images of living beings. On the wall of a house adjacent to the mosque, a poster vendor was selling large, colorful portraits of scantily clad Indian movie stars.
Confronted by the pent-up wave of secular behavior, older mullahs warn that religious freedom may cause Afghans to abandon Islam altogether. I think we'd all be really surprised if Afghanistan ceased being a predominantly Muslim country. But the Sufis, Ismailis and Shi'ites will probably gain proportionately. You can't beat people into being devout. As soon as you stop beating them, they'll do what they really want to do. That's the "religion" that the US has to export - the belief that people should be left alone to make their own decisions. They'll usually find God where they've been finding him in the past - in the USA and Europe in church, in Afghanistan in the mosque, in (most of) India in the temple. That bit of freedom is actually just what the Moslem world needs. Protestantism brought quite a bit of intellectual vigor to Europe with its rise.
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03/12/2002 ||
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President Saddam Hussein has established a new force to fight off U.S. and allied paratroopers. The force, led by Lt. General Kareem Jareeyah, is supposed to deal with any airborne troops or divisions the United States intends to send to Iraq as part of plans to topple Saddam's regime in Baghdad. He's also got a 7 million-man army together to liberate Jerusalem. That's, ummm... lemme count... yup... lemme take off my shoes to make sure... uhuh, it's over a third of the population of Iraq. The man's obviously a mathematical genius, in addition to being a military genius.
Don't forget best-selling romance novelist. Truly a Renaissa..., er, jack of all trades. Posted by CH [www.crankyhermit.blogspot.com] 3/13/2002 10:16:20 AM
...or jack-off at all trades, as I prefer to put it Posted by ML 3/13/2002 4:59:37 PM
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The foreign ministry of the self proclaimed republic of Abkhazia issued a statement accusing Georgia of preparing a large-scale war on Abkhazia's territory. The statement said that "Georgia has launched an information campaign to prepare the transfer of terrorists from the Pankisi Gorge to Abkhazia in order to create a pretext for launching large-scale combat operations and, possibly, for involving U.S. anti-terrorist groups in Abkhazia.
The Abkhazian foreign ministry has demanded that "Georgia immediately withdraw its armed formations from the Kodori Gorge, in line with the Moscow agreement of May 14, 1994 and under the control of the UN and of the peacekeeping forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States based in the conflict zone, and create conditions for organizing regular monitoring of this region by the peacekeepers and UN observers. The Abkhazian foreign ministry has confirmed Abkhazia's commitment "not to send armed formations to the upper part of the Kodori Gorge, and not to use force against local civilians."
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President Putin said that the situation in Chechnya had stabilized and that the threat of large-scale military actions by the insurgents had been practically eliminated. On the other hand, he said the power structures had failed to fulfill all of their objectives. In particular, the president said the most dangerous rebel warlords have not been neutralized, the channels of arms and supplies and finances to the rebels have not been completely cut off and foreign mercenaries are still getting into Chechnya. First you kill them. Then you build roads and drill wells.
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03/12/2002 ||
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Representatives of the estimated 8,000 Chechen refugees in Azerbaijan have addressed an appeal to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers asking him to take action against the staff of his organization's Baku office, Turan reported on 11 March. According to the appeal, UNHCR personnel regularly demand a bribe equal to 20-25 percent of the $80-$100 to which refugees are entitled. As a result, only 400-500 refugees receive such payments, the appeal said. We're from the UN. We're here to help. Gimme yer dough.
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03/12/2002 ||
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Caucasus Press on 12 March quoted U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Boucher as saying that Washington has no evidence to substantiate claims by Georgian officials, including Baramidze and State Security Minister Valeri Khaburzania, that Al-Qaeda guerrillas are in Abkhazia. Abkhaz government in exile Chairman Tamaz Nadareishvili claimed in an interview published in "Alia" on 12 March to have lists of names of 120 Al-Qaeda guerrillas who underwent terrorism training in Abkhazia as did, he claimed, Osama bin Laden. Nadareishvili also claimed that 20 Al-Qaeda guerrillas are currently in the village of Avadkhara and another 40 in the village of Tsimuri. Georgia has visions of using its army that we're supposed to superbly train to clean up its problems with Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and all the other little pieces that have broken off from it.
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03/12/2002 ||
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Via Juan Gato:
Six months to the day after Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi flew planes into the World Trade Center, the Immigration and Naturalization Service notified a Venice, Florida, flight school that the two men had been approved for student visas. "I think it is certainly embarrassing that the letters show up at this late date," said INS spokesman Russ Bergeron. "It does serve to illustrate what we have been saying since 1995 -- that the current system for collecting information and tracking foreign students is antiquated, outdated, inaccurate and untimely." It does serve to illustrate that Parksinson is snickering in his grave. I make my usual suggestion: Raze the INS, sow the ground with salt, and expunge their names from the phone book. It appears we'd be better off without them.
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03/12/2002 ||
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Kathy Kinsley links to this gem:
A Wisconsin computer worker who dubbed himself Dr. Chaos was charged Monday with possessing a chemical weapon after authorities found a cache of cyanide in a CTA Blue Line subway tunnel in the heart of the Loop. Authorities say they found a cyanide capsule on Joseph Daniel Konopka, 25, when he and a youth were arrested Saturday in a steam tunnel at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Shortly after the arrest, the 15-year-old told police there were more chemicals stashed in the subway.
Konopka was wanted on several warrants from Wisconsin for allegedly staging attacks on a television station transmitter, electric power substations and natural gas pipelines. Many of those attacks fizzled, however. "What we're looking at is someone who styles himself as an anarchist, as a domestic terrorist, who tries to live up to his computer moniker, which is Dr. Chaos," said Door County, Wis., District Attorney Tim Funnell. The "Doctor" and his myrmidons are no different from any other terror group. Ineptitude is no reason to go easy on them. Lock the stupid bastards up until they're little old men too old to stagger off to their jihads - regardless of what their motivations are.
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03/12/2002 ||
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Two people were killed and six injured when police fired at a mob torching Muslims' homes in a fresh outbreak of anti-Muslim violence in western India, where 700 people have died in recent clashes. A curfew was imposed in the village of Panvad, some 100kms from Gujarat state's main city of Ahmedabad, after Sunday night's violence, police said. "We had to open fire to disperse a mob which was trying to set houses on fire. Two Hindu tribesmen were killed and six injured and around 30 to 40 houses of Muslims burnt," a police official Naval said. Ismail Soni, a teacher in Panvad, said about 800 to 1,000 Muslims living in the village had fled the violence that started on Sunday afternoon. "The mob attacked, looted and burnt Muslim houses, shops and vehicles. All the Muslims of the village have fled," Soni said by phone from Baroda city. Amazing, the way that works, isn't it? The only "discussion" called for was, "Stop or I'll shoot." They didn't, he did.
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03/12/2002 ||
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Pakistani police fired shots in the air and used teargas to disperse hundreds of mourners who torched cars and blocked roads in Karachi Tuesday in protest over the killing of two Shi'ite Muslims. Dozens of people suffered minor injuries in scuffles with police after they baton-charged the crowd, which had gathered during funeral prayers for two people killed in a sectarian attack in eastern Karachi Monday.
The two were among six people killed in sectarian violence in Karachi Monday night. Two Shi'ites were also killed in the central province of Punjab on the same day. A police official said mourners torched three parked cars, smashed the windows of more than a dozen other cars and burned tires to block the city's main road -- Sharah-e-Faisal. Y'see, they're not real Muslims. They don't wear their turbans the same way, so it's okay to kill them.
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Mikhail Gorbachev says the Soviet communism he served most of his life was "pure propaganda." The former Soviet leader told a Columbia University audience on Monday that by the time he rose to power, with Soviet satellites in space, the ruling politicians "were discussing the problem of toothpaste, the problem of detergent, and they had to create a commission of the Politburo to make sure that women have pantyhose."
Speaking in Russian, Gorbachev offered his views a decade after he helped topple this "unreal system" with reforms dubbed perestroika. Before that, he said, Soviet politicians operated with lies. "We, including I, were saying, 'Capitalism is moving toward a catastrophe, whereas we are developing well.' Of course, that was pure propaganda. In fact, our country was lagging behind," Gorbachev said.
Change didn't come easily, either. Gorbachev said perestroika spun out of control after Boris Yeltsin took over in 1991. Instead of a gradual shift to democracy, Yeltsin promised Russians that they "would start moving toward paradise quickly, directly," Gorbachev said. "Well, we did move directly -- but into an abyss," with the economy collapsing and many former Soviet republics declaring independence, he said. "It is chaos that (Russian President) Vladimir Putin inherited. Chaos in the economy, chaos in the social sphere, chaos in the federation, chaos in the army, chaos everywhere."
Now, Gorbachev said, Putin must create new economic incentives. "Today is our last hope. If it fails, we could see a very difficult situation in Russia," Gorbachev said.
The former Soviet leader said his Moscow-based Gorbachev Foundation is making a contribution by developing ties between Russian and foreign high-tech companies. He said such business would help slow his country's "brain drain." Take that, Indymedia. Take that, Berkeley City Council. Take that, all you Kommie Kiddies.
What he doesn't dwell on his how much the ruling elite in the Soviet Union bought its own propaganda, despite the evidence before its eyes. Most of them did swallow it. Especially in the middle and lower echelons of the bureaucracy the country was swarming with true believers. Even the August Plotters were motivated overall by their belief in the system. Gorbachev's claim to greatness - and he was a great man - is that he recognized the need for change before the system fell down around his ears and he had the guts to try and do something about it. Glasnost' led to Perestroika, but the perestroika that was actually called for was more than even he believed. The Soviet Union was headed for something similar to what prevailed during the Yeltsin years even under Gorbachev's administration - all he would have been able to do was try to blunt some of the worst effects. The August Coup finished any possibility of that, and the secession of the Baltic States finished off the Soyuz itself.
I even think Yeltsin's intentions were good at the first, before the booze and his family and "friends" did him in. His moment of greatness came when he defended the Parliament, an act of physical bravery that Russians will remember. The words he said were the words of a man who wanted to see real democracy and real change in Russia.
Gorbachev's greatness was moral; it took a deep kind of courage to change a system that was designed to be unchangable. 50 years from now Yeltsin will be a footnote and the world - and Russia - will remember Gorbachev for what he was.
Screed Warning! Gorbachev always gets me over torqued....
"Gorbachev began his speech by outlining his country's history, starting with the 1917 revolution..."
What Gorbachev, as well as most of the CCCP apparatchiki forgot is that Russia's been around much longer than 1917, and most of the horror of the Communist period was presaged in other episodes of opening to the West and reactionary clamp downs:
-Ivan the Terrible instituted a series of internal reforms of the Muscovite state that might have saved that dynasty, but then allied himself with the forces of conservative reaction after the death of his first wife. He finally killed off his sons as "traitors".
-the Petrine reforms were followed by a series of reactionary autocrats who reversed most of the spirit of Peter's opening of trade and society to more Western patterns.
-Alexander II's liberation of the serfs was followed by the reaction under Alexander III which killed off land reform and led to the rural conditions which caused the economic disfunctionalities which helped cause the 1905 and 1917 Revolutions.
-the establishment of the Duma in 1906 was followed by Nicholas II's attempt to recreate Tsarist absolutism, which resulted in the political disfunction that was obviously leading to a Russian defeat in WW I if the February Revolution hadn't intervened.
Gorbachev never showed any conception of historical precedent, and as Twain would remark was compelled to repeat it. It is a poor way to make a living pandering to various Westerners who actually pay him to shed these Krokodil Tears at such cited functions. Posted by Tom Roberts 3/12/2002 10:39:26 AM
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Civic groups condemned Zimbabwe's presidential election as fundamentally flawed, as ballot counting got underway Tuesday and opposition supporters complained of being chased away from the polls by police. "The election well has been poisoned to such an extent that there is unlikely to be any other result" than a Mugabe victory, said Brian Raftopolous, head of a collection of church and civic groups known as the Crisis in Zimbabwe Committee. Really? Who'da guessed that? And after Bob went to such lengths to hide the fact...
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A verdict in Zimbabwe's violence-marred presidential election is expected on Wednesday, with early results showing President Robert Mugabe ahead of his main challenger Morgan Tsvangirai. Independent observers have slammed the poll as deeply flawed, raising concerns about the political fall-out in a country already grappling with a collapsing economy and growing diplomatic isolation on the world stage. Shortly after 1 a.m. (6 p.m. EST Tuesday), results from 32 of the 120 constituencies in the southern African country showed Mugabe with 415,206 votes against 340,217 for Tsvangirai. This represented nearly a quarter of the 3.1 million ballots cast. Voter turnout was put at 55.4 percent.
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The Israeli army has sent thousands of troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships into Palestinian areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a massive operation to round up militants. Thirty Palestinians are reported to have been killed and hundreds taken into custody. The army said its aim was to arrest militants and dismantle what it called the "infrastructure of terror" - such as bomb-making workshops. Palestinian officials accused Israel of starting to reoccupy the West Bank and Gaza Strip so that no progress could come from US envoy Anthony Zinni's mission to the region. Hopefully they've reached the point where they're going to kill anybody with a gun or a bomb and question the rest closely.
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Ramallah-based political hackterrorist cheerleader politician Hanan Ashrawi accused Israel of terrorising the "captive" Palestinian population. "What they are doing now is transforming every Palestinian into a potential fighter," she told the BBC. The Israeli army head of operations in the West Bank, Colonel Gal Hirsch, insisted that civilians were not the target, saying recent sweeps of Palestinian areas had destroyed 20 bomb-making factories and huge quantities of explosives and scores of harnesses used by suicide bombers had been confiscated If it makes Hanan squeal like a pig, I'm all for it.
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Fighting between separatists and government troops in Aceh killed at least 23 people. Soldiers in east Aceh shot three rebels who were resisting arrest. A woman was also gunned down in the clash. Also in the east of the province, troops searching for the killers of an Indonesian marine, who died in a rebel attack, shot seven guerillas. Rebel spokesman Amri Abdul Wahab dismissed the claims, saying only one separatist was killed in the crackdown. The rest, he said, were civilians.
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A Pakistani judge gave the government more time to build a case against the alleged kidnap-slayers of Daniel Pearl. Two of the four suspects, including alleged mastermind Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, were brought to a Karachi court in an armored personnel carrier accompanied by eight or nine police vehicles. Their heads were covered by scarfs as they entered for a pretrial hearing. As he left the court, the chief suspect shouted that "America will be finished soon."
Defense lawyers urged that the suspects be charged and a trial date set or they be released. But Judge Shabbir Ahmed agreed to a government request for more time to find Pearl's body, retrieve the murder weapon, complete interrogation and receive an FBI report on the grisly videotape that confirmed the journalist's death. "How much time do you need?"
"Twelve years."
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Six Israelis have also been killed and seven wounded in a roadside ambush near the Israeli-Lebanese border. Two gunmen, reportedly wearing Israeli army uniforms, were killed while another two escaped. A little Hezbollah involvement? Used to be, if you got caught wearing the other side's uniform, they'd shoot you on the spot as a spy or saboteur. Oh. They did.
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Up to 1,500 militants including around 250 mercenaries from the CIS and other countries are fighting Russian federal troops in Chechnya, First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Yuriy Baluyevskiy told journalists.
"Up to 400 militants from Khattab's group, about 350 militants of Shamil Basayev's group and some 150 fighters of Maskhadov's group constitute the backbone of the bandit movements," Baluyevskiy said. "Two bands led by Akhmadov and Salamov total 100 militants each... An important factor that is likely to influence the situation in Chechnya is that mountain passes on the Georgian border will become passable in late April or early May. It will allow up to 400 Chechen bandits and mercenaries to infiltrate Chechnya." In 2001-2002, 11 members of the Shura (military council) and 20 field commanders have been identified and eliminated. Once you know the size of a problem, you can start to solve it. Next to Kashmir, it's not a very big problem, yet it's been tormenting the Russians for over ten years.
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Separatist rebels in Manipur have shot a number of people suspected of helping students cheat in exams. At least seven people have been shot and injured in the past few days in what appears to be a draconian attempt to clean up the state's education system. The move has created panic among students, according to the Manipur police chief Abdul Ahad Siddiqui.
Deputy police chief AK Parashar said the rebels were hoping to "win the sympathy" of local people who complain about government corruption. The outlawed Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) has said it carried out the attacks, saying it believed in quality education and would not allow anyone to get through exams by cheating. The KYKL is a separatist group fighting for an independent homeland for the Meiteis, the largest ethnic community in Manipur. Damn. And I thought having my knuckles whacked in 4th grade was extreme.
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
