A foreign aid worker has been killed by Taliban extremists in central Afghanistan. The 39-year-old Swiss citizen of Salvadoran origin, a Red Cross worker, was attacked as he was travelling to Oruzgan province. Oruzgan's governor, Jan Mohammad, says Taliban fighters pulled over the man's two-car convoy in neighbouring Kandahar province and "executed" him using Kalashnikov rifles. The governor says the extremists escaped in one of the vehicles. Aid agency officials say the murder could prompt foreign relief organisations to rethink their presence in Afghanistan. Several aid groups have recently pulled out of Afghanistan over security concerns. Taliban or carjacking bandits, not much difference.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 08:43 am ||
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#1
How convenient. Pull out of Afghanistan, pull out of iraq and have the US pay for it all.
Who's going to pay their salaries when we cut their budgets to pay for this directly?
THE first victim of war is always the truth. This morning Nina Allsopp knows that more than most. Yesterday she saw her Prime Minister tell the world her hero brother Luke was callously executed by Iraqi soldiers and then paraded dead on television. Tony Blair used this sensational assertion to justify why Saddam Hussein has got to be removed. But the Allsopp family had been told a totally different story. Their boy's colonel assured them that Luke was NOT executed and had in fact died instantly in combat when his armoured car was ambushed.
There is a huge difference in the two versions of events. Both to the ongoing propaganda war and to the Allsopp family. The same colonel reiterated the truth about how Luke died to them yesterday â and said he was trying to get the record set straight. "We have no idea why the Prime Minister would say a soldier had been executed if he hadn't." Yeah, me neither, why?
Even Downing Street last night admitted it wasn't sure how the men died. But for Mr Blair to talk of "execution" when Luke Allsopp's loved ones were being told a different story is inexcusable. What we do know is that this war has already set the benchmark for distortion and denial on both sides. Distortion of what is really happening on the battlefield. Distortion of the facts of why we are there in the first place. And denial of the glaring reality that we are becoming mired in a war we may take years to escape from.
For the families of the British servicemen who, like Luke, will fall on the battlefield we can only hope their grief is not made worse by doubts over how their loved ones died. Or by politicians, either through misinformation or for more sinister reasons, twisting the facts to justify their actions. The Allsopp family must be told today how their son DID die. And if he was NOT executed then Tony Blair must say so and apologise. To them and to the world.
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 07:40 am ||
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Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 9:34 Comments ||
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#2
your comment link doesn't work now, if it ever did....
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2003 10:31 Comments ||
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"Blair's spokesman said the execution charge was based on the fact that the two soldiers were lying some distance from their vehicle and had been stripped of their helmets and body armor. Reporters asked if it were possible their equipment was removed after they were killed in action, but got no response."
#4
These guys were missing for days. The story was that the convoy dispersed after coming under attack, regrouped and resumed its journey without the vehicle involved. If they 'lost' this vehicle, how could anyone know the men died instantly? I'm inclined to believe this colonel was trying to protect the relatives from the barbaric truth. It has happened before.
THE heartbroken sister of ambushed soldier Luke Allsopp insisted last night: "My brother was not executed." Nina Allsopp hit out at "lies" surrounding his death. Grieving Nina - 29 today - said: "We have been told by the Army that Luke died in action. The Colonel from his barracks came around to our house to tell us he was not executed. Luke's Land Rover was ambushed and he died instantly. The Colonel told us he was doing what he could to set the record straight. We are very angry. It makes a big difference to us knowing that he died quickly. We can't understand why people are lying about what happened. It must be a mistake. It's important to us that people know the truth. That people know what really happened."
Nina was stunned when she heard the PM had gone on TV to denounce the "executions" of Sapper Luke, 24, and Staff Sgt Simon Cullingworth, 36. Mr Blair, speaking in America, condemned gruesome footage of the dead soldiers shown on Iraqi TV as an act of cruelty beyond comprehension. Describing the images as a "reality" of Saddam Hussein's regime he said: "His thugs prepared to kill their own people, the parading of prisoners of war, and now the release of those pictures of executed British soldiers... Oh Blair, why do you have to tell lies, has the propaganda machine run out of creativity?
"If anyone needed any further evidence of the depravity of Saddam's regime, this atrocity provides it. It is yet one more flagrant breach of all the proper conventions of war. More than that, to the families of the soldiers involved, it is an act of cruelty beyond comprehension. Indeed, it is beyond the comprehension of anyone with an ounce of humanity in their souls." The PM added: "On behalf of the British Government, I would like to offer my condolences particularly to the families and friends of those two brave young men who died in the service of their country and of the ordinary Iraqi people to whom we are determined to bring a better future."
But last night Nina said at the family's home in Dagenham, Essex: "I have not been able to watch the TV reports or listen to the Prime Minister talking of an execution. It's so upsetting. And it's not what happened to Luke." Later Mr Blair refused to give further details of what he knew about the soldiers' deaths. How have they been executed sir blindfolded and strapped? please tell, but the truth please!
Pressed by reporters about his claim they were executed, he would only say: "The reason I used the language I did was because of the circumstances that we know." bwah, is that all you can say
Respected TV political editor Adam Boulton was one of those who quizzed Mr Blair at Camp David over his claim. He commented on Sky News last night: "Whether it was wise for the Prime Minister to use a word like 'execute' without being entirely sure only time will tell." Mr Blair's official spokesman later admitted there was no conclusive proof that the soldiers had been executed. He said: "It is a terrible thing to talk in these terms, but since we don't have the two bodies we can't be absolutely sure. But every piece of information we have points in the direction of these men having been executed in a very brutal fashion. It includes the fact that the two bodies were found some distance from the vehicles in which they were travelling and had lost their protective equipment, flak jackets and helmets. It does point in that direction."
A spokeswoman for the MoD agreed that it was likely the soldiers had been executed. She said: "They were found without their protective equipment, which suggests they could have been executed." But Iraq strongly denied the claim. Information Minister Mohammad Saeed al-Sahaf accused Mr Blair of twisting the truth. He said when Iraq released pictures of the soldiers "the situation became tense in Britain because the British Prime Minister lied to the public".
He added: "To launch a psychological war on us he said, 'You have executed (them)'. We haven't executed anyone. They are either killed in the battlefield or the rest are captured."
Iraqi TV showed the dead soldiers lying on their backs near their vehicle. One appeared to have been shot in the chest while the other's wounds were unclear.
British military commanders were "shocked and appalled" by the graphic images. The commander of UK forces in the Gulf, Air Marshal Brian Burridge, described the decision to show them as "deplorable". He added: "All media must be aware of the limits of taste and decency."
Sapper Luke and Staff Sgt Cullingworth were members of 33 Engineer Regiment - a bomb disposal unit of the Royal Engineers based at Carver Barracks, Wimbish, Essex. They were killed after their Land Rover was ambushed in the border town of Safwan, Southern Iraq. Their role was to clear mines laid by the retreating Iraqi army. They were on their way to join colleagues sweeping for booby traps when they were attacked. Staff Sgt Cullingworth and his wife Allison had been married for almost 10 years. They have two sons - James, nine, and three-year-old Jack. The popular soldier had been on tours of duty in other trouble spots, including the Balkans and Afghanistan. Sapper Luke had not seen action before, although he had served in Kenya and Cyprus.
Last night his long-term girlfriend Katie was being comforted by family and friends. Sister Nina recalled last night how their mum, Christine, who died of cancer seven months ago, always called him her "little soldier". Luke's step-father Michael Pawsey said: "The Army brought his wonderful character to the fore. Before signing up a couple of years ago, he was a car mechanic and glorified panel beater. He loved everything about his new job - the camaraderie and sense of achievement. The feeling that he was serving his country. Going to the Gulf, he was doing what he wanted to do. We are numb at the news. But so, so proud of him."
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 07:05 am ||
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#1
Fred has asked that you shorten the articles. If you don't want to comply with his request, maybe you should get your own website.
#2
I check The Mirror website everyday and they have had some of the most emotionally hysterical coverage of any newspaper that I've seen. They print just about anything as soon as they hear it. I know it's a tabloid newspaper to begin with but it's kind of disgusting to see such a rag use the term "Our" Luke. The guy is a hero however he died and their rag doesn't deserve to use his picture.
Posted by: g wiz ||
03/28/2003 7:45 Comments ||
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Love the all capital headlines, Murat. Have you ever thought of starting your own tabloid?
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg ||
03/28/2003 7:48 Comments ||
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Jeebus Murat,
Wait to go on the selective journalism! I find it actually quite gratifying because I know the more stridently you post the whinings of the liberal, anti-Bush press, the better the war is going for the US, and the bigger the mistake made by Turkey. But, hey, at least the Turks have their sovereignty intact...right?
Maybe we need a new category on this blog called "Murat's Corner"...
#5
Murat is lobbying for his point of view here. Disguising that behind "news" articles seems to follow the letter of the rules but defies the intent...which is that Rantburg is supposed to be informative. Other posters also do the same thing (but not as much). If you want to promote your viewpoint, get your own blog. But please stop wasting my time with your attempts to prove you are right. Thanks.
#7
I like the "Murat's Corner" idea, but I don't think it would last -- for the same reason I eventually stopped visiting "Arab News". At first I wanted alternative news, but eventually I realized that there was nothing different there except for the slant.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/28/2003 10:04 Comments ||
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re: posters at the top: Well, it's up to Fred, of course, but I like the posters at the bottom. It doesn't allow the poster's name to shade my thinking on the slant of the article, until the very end. I like that because it helps me keep an open mind when subjecting myself to conflicting ideas. JMHO. Besides, you can always tell it's Murat after reading the first sentence, not to mention the GREAT BIG CAPS. Like if he shouts at us, we'll understand him better.
#10
As long as it's tagged to news and at least mostly on topic, I'll (usually) let it stay. But a word of warning: people can browse through the archives, going all the way back to 9-11-01. If you post too many groaners, a year from now someone could be browsing, thinking to himself, "Boy, how could he/she/it have been that dumb?"
My personal opinion is that these two stories are a tempest in a teacup, blown up to make a point. Murat seems to buy the point. In a week, or a month, or a year we'll know who's right.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2003 16:56 Comments ||
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Try to remember guys, its "rantburg" not "echo Chamber". Murat is fairly representative of a certain opinion.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/28/2003 18:59 Comments ||
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Source is AP:
Russian President Vladimir Putin today called the U.S.-led war against Iraq the most serious crisis since the end of the Cold War and warned that it threatened global stability. The war is "in danger of rocking the foundations of global stability and international law," Putin said during a meeting with Russian lawmakers, segments of which were aired on Russian television. He said the "only correct solution to the Iraqi problem is the immediate end to military activity in Iraq and resumption of a political settlement in the U.N. Security Council." Putin: Holy poo, the US will soon find our chemical doo doo!
#1
"The war is "in danger of rocking the foundations of global stability and international law," Putin said before ordering a crushing attack on Chechnya.
Posted by: g wiz ||
03/28/2003 15:10 Comments ||
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"The only way to save our chestnuts (and keep the world from learning to what extent we've broken international law) is to make everybody leave and go back to doing nothing! Nothing, I tell you!"
#3
The "war in Iraq" has the potential to REALLY rock Russia's stability, which is what Putin is worried about. Not only is their credibility in ruins, so will their economy be when the debts come due, and there's no money from friend saddam.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 16:18 Comments ||
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Putin's trying to emulate Chirac's stridently asinine behaviour?
A skin doctor in the north German town of Rendsburg has refused to treat American and British patients as a result of his strong opposition to the US and British-led war in Iraq. "This war has no legitimacy. There is no majority among the peoples for such a war," the dermatologist, Eberhard Hoffmann, told DPA, explaining his refusal to treat Americans and Brits. The German Medical Association has demanded from Hoffmann to remove his sign in front of his practice which states that he won't accept Americans and British patients. More than 85 percent of German remain opposed to the war in Iraq, according to various opinion polls, released over the past 24 hours.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 12:29 pm ||
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#1
So much for "Doctors Without Borders," I guess.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/28/2003 12:47 Comments ||
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Likewise, so much for the Hippocratic (sp?) oath. Twit.
#3
As a physician, I find such behavior reprehensible. It runs counter to all tenets of medical ethics. But Germany is the country that did horrific medical experiments on unwilling, unconsented Jews...
#5
Please, let them keep this up! We spend billions of dollars in Germany every year. The more this comes to light, the faster we can convince Congress to pull all our troops out of Germany, shut down all the US activities in that country, and save our money. We can follow up with a total boycott of German products, and have their economy tank even faster. Self-deluded Socialist idiots!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 13:28 Comments ||
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My thought when I was posting it was "Hey, Doc! Treat this finger for me!"
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2003 13:43 Comments ||
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Seriously, how many British and American patients can this guy have in Rendsberg, Germany? Boy, INRA will jump on anything even remotely anti- American.
#8
Can a doctor that stupid really have been that good to begin with? Common sense tells you Saddam is bastard that needs to go. Hell 10 year olds can figure that out.
Posted by: g wiz ||
03/28/2003 14:45 Comments ||
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He was hypocritical about his Hippocratic oath.
#10
Im sure that Dr. Hoffmans Wehrmact father was treated by a US or Britsh Army medic before the end of his inglorious career. Im sure the Dr. Hoffman received innoculations from an US Army German Occupation army medic, to keep him from getting polio, whooping cough, and a thousand other things. Im pretty sure he received food and clothing from the "American Red Cross".
Or, is it possible that Dr. Hoffman grew up on the "Ost" side of the wall. Hmmmmm, makes you wonder.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/28/2003 18:29 Comments ||
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I did some investigation in the German press. It seems like this guy did put a sign at his door saying "if there ever was a German collective guilt I'm refusing to treat Americans, British and people sympathizing with them". He is 61. Probably one of these right wing idiots who saw the glory of the Third Reich as a Hitlerjunge.
It should be noted that the association of the local doctors is asking for legal prosecution. What this guy did amounts to "instigating racist hatred" which can mean jail time.
Btw this wonderful doctor says he has no American and British patients. Cheap protest. And unworthy of a doctor.
A German opposition leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union Party (CDU) Friday warned of the consequences of a "humiliating defeat" for the coalition forces in their war with Iraq, according to the Berlin-based radio station Deutschland Radio. The deputy head of the CDU parliamentary fraction, Wolfgang Schaeuble, said the impact of such a defeat could be "even worse" than the war itself. "If the Americans have to pull out for whatever reasons and if Saddam stays in office and triumphs, this would be a catastrophe for the stability and peace perspective in the Near and Middle East and would also encourage all irresponsible regimes in the world and international terrorism," he added. Ah, but if we don't pull out, and he doesn't stay in power then... ummm... all the lefties and Arabs and fellow travellers have been saying that would be a catastrophe for stagnation stability and would encourage international terrorism. I'm so confused.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 12:18 pm ||
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#1
Wonder if they understand the message 1/2 a dozen cellulose encased 2000 pounders(alla "Clear and Presnt Danger)means?
#2
True German Ally - glad to see you back in the fray - voice of reason even when I may disgree with you, unlike Murat. I find hope for the future in your take on this particular leader. I also find Fred's assessment accurate and I hope we live up to the challenge. These bastards understand power, and we need to show the same. No mercy to those who would undermine the effort bought with Allied blood and fortune. They understand that, and will stop when we take the battle to them. Gooooddd Moorrrnniinngg Dammmasssccuuss
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2003 22:07 Comments ||
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I think he's warning of the CONSEQUENCES of a "humiliating defeat", rather than the expectation of such a defeat. I don't think he has a lot to worry about. I also think it's about time to take the gloves off. Maybe we DO need to operate a "scorched earth" policy in Baghdad, just to quiet EVERYONE down a bit. Hate to see that many civilian casualties, but it would end the war in one big hurry. It will probably be the ONLY thing that would shut up the "Arab street". Seeing the kind of damage we COULD do would bring it home that they MAY be the next one targeted, if they don't act like civilized human beings.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 12:43 Comments ||
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I think he is warning the Social Democrats that it is unwise to oppose us, given that war has actually begun - the consequences of American withdrawal for Germany will be worse than those of American victory. His point is that we may forgive them after a victory, but will never forget their perfidy if we are defeated. I think the point is academic (because we'll win), but worth making anyway to counter the knee jerk anti-Americanism of the Social Democrats.
#5
Schaeuble is one of the wisest and most balanced transatlantist politician Germany has. He always warned against Schroeder's foolish stance. He was actually seen as Germany's next chancellor but got embroiled in Kohl's soft money dealings.
While most Germans still oppose the war they understand that now that it's on, a swift US victory is paramount. Well not all people may think that way but my impression is that many German, while being against the war, are willing to help in the reconstruction. And only clueless leftists think it's a good thing that the war hasn't gone exactly as planned.
I'm not so sure about the French. They'd rather see America's humiliation than acknowledging that they screwed it up.
And as someone who survived the bombing of Dresden I'm ashamed that so many people try to compare Baghdad with Dresden. As I see it the Americans have made every effort NOT to hurt Iraqi civilians (which is next to impossible). They now face a foe who plays against any rules. What you see at the moment is an army of a civilized nation trying to combat terrorist thugs who have no respect for their own people. Problems are bound to occur this way. I don't think that the Pentagon underestimated the "will of Iraqis to resist", it may have underestimated the absolute evilness of the thugs who fight for their own survival and would kill a million of their own people without blinking.
Iraqis may not be able to see Americans as "liberators" right now. They have never experienced what freedom and decent behavior is. You can't win people's hearts while you are still fighting. When the Iraqi regime finally crumbles Iraqis will wake up from their nightmare. It will be time to win their hearts then. Over 40 percent of the Iraqi population are children. The best people to start with.
Now just win that damn war. I'm with you. I hope more of my people would be. Maybe they need a wake up call as well. I hope they don't need sarin or VX to do that.
#6
I'm not too convinced that we're going to win those hearts and minds even when it's all over. The thought of a major Arab regime that's stable, as opposed to stagnant, with individual liberties recognized for its citizens, is anathema to the Middle East status quo bloc. There are going to be all sorts of efforts against it - from Iran to impose rule by ayatollahs, from Syria to bring back the Baath, from the Saudis to open madrassahs on every corner, and from the Paleos to export intifada. Attempt to impose freedom of religion and you'll see all of them taking the multilateral gas pipe.
Even if we end up with Sammy and Sons, Inc., dangling from lamp posts, it's still going to be hard.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2003 16:15 Comments ||
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True German Ally - glad to see you back in the fray - voice of reason even when I may disgree with you, unlike Murat. I find hope for the future in your take on this particular leader. I also find Fred's assessment accurate and I hope we live up to the challenge. These bastards understand power, and we need to show the same. No mercy to those who would undermine the effort bought with Allied blood and fortune. They understand that, and will stop when we take the battle to them. Gooooddd Moorrrnniinngg Dammmasssccuuss
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2003 22:07 Comments ||
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Edited.
France's government angrily insisted on Friday that it hopes U.S.-led forces win the war in Iraq, signaling fear in Paris that its image as an untrustworthy friend could seriously damage long-term relations with Washington. Do you have to hit these people in the head with a hammer before they finally get it?
In an extraordinary statement for a major U.S. ally, the Foreign Ministry said it was "indignant" at media suggestions that French support for the United States was ambiguous, and quoted Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin as saying he hoped for a U.S. victory. "I will remind you that the minister said on March 24 ... 'The United States, we hope, will win this war quickly," ministry spokesman Francois Rivasseau said in the statement. When did he say this? In his sleep?
The ministry was protesting media coverage of Villepin's comments on Wednesday at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, where he reiterated his high-profile opposition to the war. The statement did not specify which publications it was referring to, but at least two English-language newspapers reported that Villepin refused to say explicitly who he hoped would win the war. "It is not acceptable that the positions of France be distorted in this way," Rivasseau said, declaring that France's stand on who should win the war was "totally devoid of ambiguity." Villepin began his speech in London by calling for "a renewed close and trusting friendship with the United States." But later, he said U.S. policy risks leading to instability and uncertainty. When a reporter asked him after the speech if he wanted the U.S.-led forces to win the war, he did not say "yes." Instead, he refused to answer, admonished reporters for not listening carefully and referred them to earlier remarks. "Stoopaid, rayportairs! How dair you question my raymarks!"
Villepin's speech made no clear statement about which side he wanted to win. The Foreign Ministry on Friday said he was referring to statements he had made in the past, including the one on March 24.
The French are particularly troubled about mounting calls in the United States for a boycott of French products. A U.S.-based Internet site this week published an advertisement in The New York Times urging consumers not to fly Air France, eat Yoplait yogurt or buy other French goods.While the boycott itself has not yet become threatening, the possibility of a fraying of U.S.-France economic ties and cooperation in the long-term is troubling to many. "Once the crisis is past, one could think that French companies ... could be left out of contract bids," the national newspaper Le Figaro said in an editorial Friday. "That's what French leaders are the most worried about." Well, no shit. You people catch on fast...
While French officials have been more outspoken recently about the importance of ties with Washington, they haven't backpedalled in their condemnation of the war. Just last week, French President Jacques Chirac said France would veto any U.N. resolution letting "the belligerents" run Iraq after the war. And Villepin is going on a tour of European capitals next week â Berlin, Moscow, Rome and Madrid â to discuss Iraq. Maybe zere's steel a chonce to screw ze Americains!!!
Still, France's ambassador to Britain, Gerard Errera, suggested that Paris' faithfulness to the United States should be above question. "It's clear where France stands. To question France's position on this issue is ludicrous. I don't know what the agenda is of this," he said. "The fact that this question was asked is really unthinkable." Notice that...he really doesn't answer the question.
Posted by: tu3031 ||
03/28/2003 11:20 am ||
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#1
US airlines have hundreds of jets on order from Airbus. These companies are threatening to come groveling to the people of the US for a bail out.
Perhaps a brief letter to our federal representatives on the use of tax dollars to fund the Franco-German Airbus is in order.
#2
Monsieur Errera (who despite his name, promises not to err in the future) wants to know what the agenda is... Saddam's, or Chirac's? both the same, it seems. In Chrac's immortal words: "love of the Iraqi people".
Oh, you mean the agenda of the Coalition that is currently liberating Iraq despite all the French-made obstacles and treachery? here is the agenda: to fight terrorism and those who support it -- as well as to tell the truth about French treachery, and make sure your country pays for it. Clear? Now leave us alone.
#4
*blinks* Old Patriot, I'd have thought it was in between Tierra del fuego and the McMurdo Ross Ice Shelf.
Interesting. Based on the time stamps, this came out within the same hour as the report of Jack Kingston's "No French Food" congressional letter hit the BBC. Coincidence?
#5
"... Foreign Ministry said it was "indignant" at media suggestions that French support for the United States was ambiguous ..."
Hasn't been ambiguous that I can see. Absent, yes, ambiguous no.
"... Chirac said France would veto any U.N. resolution letting "the belligerents" run Iraq after the war ... Errera suggested that Paris' faithfulness to the United States should be above question."
Hmm. Nope. No ambiguity there, no contradictions, it's clearly open support for the US. How silly of us to perceive otherwise!
#6
The French detente with the Jihadistas will be shortlived - nobody likes a friend that turns on a dime like that.Congratulations - appeasement still doesn't work!
Posted by: El Id ||
03/28/2003 14:32 Comments ||
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Note that Villepin's statement
'The United States, we hope, will win this war quickly,'
may have lost something in translation, but the English statement doesn't necessarily say he hopes the US will win. He could just have easily have meant, 'SINCE the Americans are going to win, I hope they do it quickly.'
Quite a different meaning than the one he's implying.
Fact is that Chiraq and company deliberately lied to Powell regarding 1441 (a resolution written mostly to their specifications), suckered us (US and Britain) into pursuing a UN imprimatur they had every intention of sabotaging, then went OUT OF THEIR WAY to torpedo the 'good' ship Security Council, and Turkey, and NATO -- and threatened the East Europeans as well.
This will not soon be forgotten, and I can't see US or Brit (or East European) diplomats trusting French assurances ever again. A US defense contractor would have to be crazy to subcontract to a French firm after this -- can't rely upon them as a supplier, nor count on their exports not being embargoed (let alone being sabotaged in the French factory) in the future.
Oh, well. Their perfidy is its own punishment. alone among the permanent members, their only value in the 21st century is the nuisance value of their UNSC veto. By weakening the credibility of the Security Council, they've weakened themselves most of all!
Police have found the grave of a missing former Serbian president they believe was killed by an elite police unit also suspected in the slaying of Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, authorities said Friday. The announcement came less than a day after two main suspects in Djindjic's assassination died in a shootout with police.
That was, ummmm... convenient...
Investigators believe Dusan Spasojevic, 35, and Mile Lukovic, 34, were leaders of the Zemun Clan, a crime gang with ties to former President Slobodan Milosevic that allegedly arranged the killing along with the police unit. The gang members had been hiding for days in the Belgrade suburb of Barajevo, authorities said. As officers tried to arrest them Thursday night, they "opened automatic fire, forcing the officers to respond," police said in a statement Friday. Saves time, money, and embarassing questions.
Especially embarrassing questions...
The government did not specify what role the two allegedly played in the assassination. A police official speaking on condition of anonymity said they organized and financed the plot. On Friday, Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said police had found the body of Ivan Stambolic, Serbia's president in the late 1980s, in a lime-covered grave on a mountain in northern Serbia. Stambolic, a bitter foe of Milosevic, had been missing since August 2000, when when he was abducted by unknown assailants while jogging in a Belgrade park. Police on Monday arrested Zvezdan Jovanovic, accused of firing the shots that killed Djindjic who was ambushed as he left an armored car outside the government building in Belgrade. Jovanovic, the special police unit's deputy commander, served as Milosevic's bodyguard before he was ousted in a Djindjic-led popular revolt in 2000. The "special police unit" were Milosevic's top bully boys.
The group's ringleader, Milorad Lukovic, known as Legija, who also served as the special unit's commander, remains at large. He is not related to Mile Lukovic, the killed suspect. His body will turn up sooner or later.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 08:15 am ||
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Two cartoons on the front page of Le Monde this week sum up France's morbid amusement at the progress of the war in Iraq. Thursday's paper showed an American soldier striding over piles of bodies of women and children muttering to himself: "This sandstorm's awful." Paint 'em black, make it a mountain and call it Anywhere, Francophone Africa...
Today's shows President George W Bush at the controls of a plane shouting to parachutists as they jump "Watch out! It's full of Arabs!" French satire at its most biting...
French television coverage has focused heavily on the suffering of Iraqis, especially those few killed in the bombing of Baghdad. The deaths have fuelled anger in the anti-war marches across France this week. Even as the regime reportedly murders more civilians than its own propaganda tells us we've killed unintentionally.
In Paris Match this week, the editor, Alain Genestar, writes: "War is ugly. This one, like others, should be condemned. But to this ugliness is added this unhealthy rejoicing at the difficulties faced by those who decided to launch war. "Here and there, never, of course, officially in the chancelleries, but in the streets and demonstrations, people take pleasure in mocking the American troops for their suffering, their mistakes and reverses as if these obstacles in the path of war prove they are right to be against Bush." It's getting hard to distinguish between the Paris Boulevade and the Palestinian Street lately.
The loss and damage to Apache helicopters early in the conflict prompted French parliamentarians to joke in private that the Americans would have been better off with French helicopters. I suppose they do fly you backwards out of a sticky situation backwards faster than anyone else's.
VSD, a popular magazine normally full of minor celebrities on holiday, put on its cover this week a picture of American soldiers walking with their heads down through a sandstorm. The headline read: "Apocalypse now: Bush's mad crusade leads us towards a humanitarian catastrophe." Or you could say the opposite. In fact what do they mean "us"? Far as I'm aware there aren't any Frogs in Iraq. Seems like the suffering's "theirs" until the US/UK move in, now it's "ours".
Pierre Lellouche, the most vocal opponent of President Chirac's stance on Iraq within his parliamentary party, said of his fellow deputies "seeing the Americans and British get a bloody nose makes them happy. "They don't understand that if they lose, all the dictators, all the tyrants, all the proliferators will have a field day. Then what is the advantage for France in chaos?" Trouble is, Lellouche, I think they do understand. Anarchy can be synonymous with multipolarity, Chirac's utopia.
President Jacques Chirac and his diplomatic team find themselves in the awkward position of criticising the war, hoping for its swift conclusion and yet knowing that a successful conflict will be seen as a defeat for French foreign policy. And we're going to enjoy watching you squirm.
Le Monde's editorial yesterday said that whatever the outcome of the war, the difficulties already experienced have destroyed the hopes of American neo-conservatives that this war would be a model for toppling dictators throughout the Middle East. It's a bit early to quantify the effect of the dfficulties. But models are there be readjusted.
Posted by: Bulldog ||
03/28/2003 02:39 am ||
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#1
I think what most of the world hasn't yet figured out is that Bill Clinton, the Apologizer-in-Chief, is no longer in charge.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/28/2003 6:28 Comments ||
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The loss and damage to Apache helicopters early in the conflict prompted French parliamentarians to joke in private that the Americans would have been better off with French helicopters.
Want to talk about French aircraft carriers?
Pierre Lellouche, the most vocal opponent of President Chirac's stance on Iraq within his parliamentary party, said of his fellow deputies "seeing the Americans and British get a bloody nose makes them happy. They don't understand that if they lose, all the dictators, all the tyrants, all the proliferators will have a field day. Then what is the advantage for France in chaos?"
Bravo for Lellouche, one of the few Frenchman who can add two and two together and come up with a number that is independent of the opinion polls.
The anti-war protesters obviously believe that ONLY the armed forces of the United States and Israel can be "effectively defeated" by protests, mindless slogans, fancy costumes and floats, and ejection of bodily fluids. If they were truly against war, then they obviously believe that such tactics are useless against anyone else, since there were no such protests when Saddam invaded Iran and Kuwait, when Russia invaded Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan, when Red China invaded Tibet, when Milosovic was waging war in the Balkans, when Tanzania invaded Uganda to kick out Idi Amin, when Argentina took the Falklands, and when Great Britain took the Falklands back. If US Foreign policy is truly controlled by a Vast Zionist Conspiracy, then why hold to the vain belief that said Zionists give a flying F*ck to the message of "No War", spelled out on the grass with the bodies of nude women lying face down because they know they're butt ugly?
#3
Hummm, I'm afraid I'll have to agree with the palestinian comparison. General feeling here in la belle France is that everybody is quietly waiting for the US to fail; not being vocably anti-US is deemed as being "pro-US", which I'm certainly not btw, G. W. Bush is slandered all over the place, dumb as shit, coward, manipulated, racist, muslim-hater, religious zealot,..., Blair is a poddle, Bush's bitch, a mindless follower,... Demagogy, stupidity, blindness, arrogance, fashionable antisemistism disguised as "antisionism" all around. Not too proud to be french, these days.
#4
They don't understand that if they lose, all the dictators, all the tyrants, all the proliferators will have a field day. Then what is the advantage for France in chaos?"
Plenty of advantage for France in chaos. Official policy is to aid, abet and trade with dictators, tyrants and proiferators.
#6
The French have done a great job over the last 100 years of turning over. The protests in Paris before WWII to have the country disarm and live in peace is indicative of the mind set. Let us disarm so we can be overrun and humiliated must be the number 2 past time of the country closely behind protesting.
Of any two countries in the world that should stand The French have done a great job over the last 100 years of turning over. The protests in Paris before WWII to have the country disarm and live in peace is indicative of the mind set. Let us disarm so we can be overrun and humiliated must be the number 2 past time of the country closely behind protesting.
Of any two countries in the world that should stand against fascism and dictatorships should be the French and Germans. Our hypocrisy? Our evil ways? Hey Chirac, look in the mirror because your inaction to stop evil is collusion. The same way your country colluded in German production of war materials after the Nazi's rolled through Paris, and has colluded in selling illegal material to Iraq. Go ahead and protest. It's easier to blame others than yourself.
Another Proud Moment in Academia...
A Columbia University professor told thousands of students and faculty that he would like to see "a million Mogadishus" — referring to the 1993 ambush in Somalia that killed 18 Americans and inspired the movie "Black Hawk Down." The professor, Nicholas De Genova, also called for the defeat of U.S. forces in Iraq and said, "The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military." And he asserted that Americans who call themselves "patriots" are white supremacists. This guy has GOT to be tenured or else Columbia would shoot him out of a cannon...
De Genova's hopes for the defeat of the United States were cheered by the crowd of 3,000 at the Wednesday night anti-war teach-in, Newsday reported. But his mention of the Somali ambush — "I personally would like to see a million Mogadishus" — was largely met with silence. Ooooooohhhh! A "teach-in"! Did they have a "die-in" after? How 60's!!!
A call Friday to De Genova, 35, an anthropology teacher, was answered with a recording that said his voice mailbox was full. Probably with very interesting "anthropology" questions, I'm sure...
Columbia spokesman Joe Kennedy said the university was preparing a statement about the event. History professor Eric Foner, who helped organize the teach-in and spoke after De Genova, said Friday, "I disagreed strongly and I said so. If I had known what he was going to say I would have been reluctant to have him speak." He said De Genova was a last-minute invitee, was just one of about 25 speakers and "did not represent the general tone of the event, which was highly educational." Yeah, PERFESSER. I can probably figure out what you were teaching them...
I don't have much more information, except that I did find out that at another "teach-in" last year, he said: "The heritage of the victims of the Holocaust belongs to the Palestinian people. The state of Israel has no claim to the heritage of the Holocaust."
You have hereby been awarded the coveted Glass Belly-button award, for the strenuous efforts you have obviously shown to get you head that far embedded in your intestinal tract. Maybe with this shiny new glass belly-button you will be able to see past the tripe. Jack*ss.
#3
Someone start making a list. We need to do some serious housekeeping around here. Add this name to Rangel's. Put Fondle's name there, too. No killings, but extradition to Big Diomede Island. In the nude. In January.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 13:38 Comments ||
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#4
I hope people will let him know what they think of his remarks: his email is npd18@columbia.edu.
#6
OldPatriot - It would be far easier to build the list of academics by simply adding every college professor in the US not teaching engineering or the hard sciences. I'm just finishing up my 4th degree (2 engineering, 2 law) and it's absolutely shocking how far to the left the typical faculty member is.
Posted by: B. ||
03/28/2003 14:02 Comments ||
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#7
Technicallly the Blackhawk down incident was a big success. Thousands of of the warlords thugs killed and less than 20 Americans. Is this professor a racist hoping that color people all over will be slaughtered? No, he's probably ignorant like the rest of his fellow travelors.
Nicholas De Genova is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology and the Program in Latina/o Studies at Columbia University. He was previously Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. His ethnographic research explored the social productions of racialized and spatialized difference in the experiences of transnational Mexican migrant workers in Chicago.
#10
The real joke is that by any reasonable analysis Mogadishu was a magnificent victory. We killed and wounded about two thousand against a loss of 18. But Clinton turned it into a humiliating retreat.
Posted by: Norman Rogers ||
03/28/2003 15:43 Comments ||
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#11
If anyone would like to share your thoughts directly with Mr. De Genova, his email address is npd18@columbia.edu. I'm sure he'll appreciate hearing from all the Rantburg fans.
#12
A million Mogadishus? Hmmmm since the other guys lost about 1,000 killed in that engagement, that would equate to about 1,000,000,000 dead (1 billion) "enemies". This dorf is preaching racist genocide.
#14
Since college administrators love quotas, it's time to establish a quota of professors that's in line with the state's voter rolls. It's not about academic freedom, its about diversity. Heh, heh.
Posted by: Don ||
03/28/2003 16:52 Comments ||
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#15
1. He is not tenured.
2. If you know anything about Columbia and its administration, you would know that this sort of behaviour is perfectly in keeping with the status quo.
3. Eric Foner is your typical Chomsky-style historian, using misdirection and dire hints to imply nasty things about America without ever saying anything he has to concretely defend.
4. The only reason there is any criticism of this on the part of Columbia's staff is for press consumption. I was visiting when Bush first sent the bombers into Arghanistan, and within (literally) seconds Anti-American demonstrations were on campus, with signs and all. Columbia is second only to Cornell for Ivy leftism (Brown is much more wishy washy), imho.
#16
A stunning post from Columbia Spectator Online:
http://www.columbias...
"This is a civil war. The second American civil war. You only need to decide which side you are on. The Constitution and the People or the Butcher of the Beltway."
Edwin A. Pell III
edpell@bestweb.net
consultant
NY State
#18
Hey guy's just e-mailed this butt-head,will this message work?
Just who the hell do you think you are?
I know who you are,you are a hate-mongering,spittle-spewing bigot.You have lowered yourself to the level of David Dukes and Louis Farrakahn.
You need to be ran out of town on a rail.
If you have a problem with what I've said here,then just bring your butt down to Roosevelt,Az.and I will introduce posterieor sphincter to my size 10 Redwings
#20
I CANNOT BELEIVE THIS S.O.B. WHAT IS HE DOING IN THIS COUNTRY? Obviously he has a problem with the service men and women who protect it and preserve it.Maybe he should go to a "better"(??) country, where his right to open his disrespectful foul mouth - would get him beheaded. I would love to meet this S.O.B. I guess 9/11 didn't mean a thing to this moron. I guess he sees no connection whatsoever. I guess the recent missiles, launched by Iraq, that went far past their U.N. imposed limitations, were "OK" with him. This guy has his head up his ass.
Here are some "Contact" information lists for anyone who wants to "get in touch" with him. Maybe someone can do some "free dental work" on him.
EMail: npd18@columbia.edu
Office Phone: 1-212-854-0199 (MS 4-0199)
Office Fax: 1-212-854-0500
His mailing Address at Columbia University:
Nicholas De Genova
416 Hamilton Hall
MC 2880
1130 Amsterdam Avenue,
New York, New York
10027
Here is Home address in Chicago(where he comes from)
Nicholas P. Degenova
5237 S. Greenwood Avenue
Chicago, IL 60615
Home phone: (773) 955 â 4489
Im sure he would love to hear from Americans about what he had to say.........Maybe some of our "Armed Forces" people will stop by and pay him an "educational" visit.
Posted by: True American ||
03/29/2003 12:00 Comments ||
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Mr. De Genova appears consumed by hate and contempt for many things, including America and American soldiers. My sympathies are with him, for it cannot be comfortable for Mr. De Genova to live among us consumed by such corrosive and exhausting emotions. May he find peace...
The Canadian House of Commons called unanimously on Thursday for the establishment of an international tribunal to try Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials for genocide and other crimes.
Yep. That should take care of it... Anybody remember the recipe for rabbit stew?
Posted by: George ||
03/28/2003 08:07 am ||
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First, catch the rabbit.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 8:51 Comments ||
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Uh..huh..wha....uh...did somebody say wabbits? Mean sneaky waskelly Saddamite Wabbits?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/28/2003 11:01 Comments ||
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There was a new and gruesome spate of violence in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir today, just days after the killing of 24 Hindus in a village there. Men believed to be Islamic terrorists militants cut off the noses of six villagers, according to police reports.
Eight gunmen reportedly entered a remote village in Rajouri District, which has been battered by violence in recent months, and asked for six Muslim villagers, including a woman, by name. They accused the villagers of being agents of the Indian Army, and mutilated their faces.
Elsewhere in Kashmir, militants also killed five civilians in three separate incidents. One soldier was killed in an attack on an army camp.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/28/2003 11:10 pm ||
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Srinagar and other important cities and town in Kashmir valley are observing a general strike for the third day running, Friday in protest against war on Iraq. Friday strike has been called by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, a top religious and political leader in Kashmir. Protests were made after Friday prayers across Kashmir. Earlier small groups of youth enforced strike in many city areas in capital Srinagar. They made faces, burnt American flags and effigies of President Bush, jumped up and down, hollers, got next to some chicks, and pelted stones on passing vehicles. Main markets are closed and attendance in government offices has been severely hit during the last three days of strike. No skin off my fore, though I think I did just feel my level of concern about events in Kashmir dip a little...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 12:14 pm ||
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(via Drudge) Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday told the media how George Bush thrice sought his help in the war on Iraq, and how he refused the American President. proud of it huh?
"The US President George Bush has spoken to me three times saying that India must help the USA as Sadaam Hussein had left him with no option but to go for the attack," he told journalists. Vajpayee told Bush that India believed war was not a solution to any problem except with Pakistan and China and so could not help. India is also trying to consolidate the support of many countries to prevent escalation of the battle between US and Iraq, Vajpayee said. Just how would it escalate fool?
"I have written to the heads of many countries including China, Russia, France and USA as we are very seriously concerned with this war which goes against the United Nations," Vajpayee said. doesn't go against it at all... the UN did the job halfassed and... oh crap... why bother?
Vajpayee has said in in an all-party meeting that though India does not support the war, there is no need for harsh words. Grimaces, scowls and rolling of the eyes, but no harsh words
He also asked the people of the country to be prepared for adverse repercussions of the war between US and Iraq, which will have repercussions on India. Especially with your attitude pinhead
Asked about the killing of 24 Pandits in Pulwama, the the Prime Minister said this was an act of desperation by terrorists. But war doesn't solve anything, right?
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2003 09:41 am ||
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#2
This is a shame, I was rather hoping that the Anglophones plus Spain, Japan, Turkey, Israel and India could form a new world order to deal with terrorists. Now both Turkey and India are out.
Mr. Vajpayee doesn't know how nicely his country could have done by aligning with the US/UK, and how it could have helped him with the Kashmir problem. As it is, next time you need some help, Atal, call the Chinese.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 13:28 Comments ||
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#3
India has more MOslems than nearly any other country, he's probably afraid they'll start rioting and he doesn't want the trouble. There is also a lot of talk of Iranian/Indian deals going on.
Its just a shame he couldn't keep his pie-hole shut.
#4
He does not need to look for trouble, but appeasing the Fundos will never work. They will keep probing the Indian underbelly with their daggers till they hit a nerve. His Fundo Fifth Column will bite him if he does not do anything about them.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/28/2003 14:39 Comments ||
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#5
I agree that India should make a strong effort to align itself with the US. We share common ideals and goals, as compared to the US and Pakistan.
I believe Vajpayee is making a critical error here.
Posted by: Bill ||
03/28/2003 15:10 Comments ||
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#6
GWB:Good morning My friend President Musharraf, so glad to take your call......
Secretary: psst - Mr president, its Mr. Vajpayee from India
GWB: (signals with hand and exagerated facial features, whispers - Tell him im not in right now.."
Secretary: Im sorry Mr. Vajpayee, He cant take your call right now, hes not in, can I take a message?
GWB: So Perv my good buddy!, What do I have to do close this deal with you on the 100 brand spankin' new F-16's?
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/28/2003 18:52 Comments ||
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WITH IRAQ FINALLY BEING ATTACKED BY the United States, the jihadi press has much to write about. The tenor of the editorial comments and opinion, however, remains the same; if anything, the tone has become more bitter, more apocalyptic. I think I read somewhere that the readership of the Jihadi press in Pakistan is equal to the readership of the mainstream Urdu language newspapers (and they aren't exactly liberal in the outlook either.)
Weekly Ghazwa Time (Time for the Sacred Battle) in its March 27 issue says the US attack on Iraq would spur jihad around the world: âThe attack on Iraq will open a new âdoorâ for jihad; the struggle will become all-pervasive. Jihad is now ubiquitous, and is being propagated by the official media of several Muslim countries. Thousands of mujahideen from neighbouring countries and Russia have joined the Iraqi forces and will conduct a guerrilla warfare strategy against America.â
Ummat (Fraternity of Muslims) is Bin Ladenâs mouthpiece. When Islamabad declared Bin Laden a terrorist last year and published ads to describe bin Ladenâs activities, Ummat published counter-ads in a tit-for-tat response calling him a mujahid! The newspaper describes US president Bush as âSatanâ and likens him to Chengez and Hulagu Khan. âBush plans to cleanse the world of Muslims,â says Ummatâs editorial.
Jamat-ud Dawa brings out several publications. One of them is a monthly journalâ Zarb-e-Tayyaba (The Holy Blow). The journal profiles a few holy warriors in each issue. Its March issue runs a story of an âemotional holy warriorâ who is so impatient and fond of cutting the throats of the Hindus that he often disobeys the orders of his seniors and cannot be restrained. The âemotionalâ boy runs away from home and joins Dawaâs guerrilla training camp in Muzaffarabad. Within 21 days, he becomes a commando. âAfter becoming a mujahid, I realised that I owned the world,â says the boy, adding: âWhen I kill the Hindus, I feel as if the blood of Mohammad bin Qasim is running through my veins and I have come closer to Allah. âThe happiest moment of my life was slaughtering the Hindu General Haman, an extremely cruel and cunning army officer. I kidnapped him and brought him to my camp. He was licking my boots and begging for his life. He was even ready to embrace Islam. But I knew he was a liar. I took my sharp knife and started cutting his throat. He was screaming and I was enjoying cutting his throat. The blood was gushing out like a fountain from his throat. The sight gave me immense pleasure. I kept on cutting his throat until he died. My commander was very happy with me. He kissed my forehead and I became his blue-eyed boy!â The journal asks young boys to follow in the (sadistic) footsteps of the âemotional holy warriorâ and slay the Hindus in the same manner. What more needs to be said?
Daily Islam is owned by Al Rashid Trust (the Trust had been banned by the US for having links with al-Qaeda). The publication quotes the law minister of Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) as saying the clerics in the province will enforce Shariah through a special âHasba Forceâ on the pattern of the Talibanâs ministry of vice and virtue. Since they voted for them the Pashtuns can now reap the rewards
Almost all the jihadi publications are conjecturing about the USâ next target. Zarb-e-Momin says: âKaâaba and the shrine of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) will be the next target of the US.â You have to keep the cannon fodder riled up, after all..
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
03/28/2003 09:59 am ||
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#1
Yesterday, it was the supreme religious leader of Syria. Two days before that the JUI of Pakistan did the same. From minbars (pulpits) and schools all over the world and in your neighborhood, Muslims are inciting violence against non-believers (kaffirs). On Dec. 22, 2002, the fatwah committee of al-Azhar University (Cairo, the highest religious authority of Muslims
ordered the production of weapons of mass destruction for use by Muslims. And large numbers of these mortal enemies are pouring into the democracies. An Australian government website proclaims a 161% increase in Muslims in the past 10 years. In city after city in America, extremist and genocidal Salafi mosques are arising, aided and abetted by supporters of President Bush's "faith based" regime.
How are we replying to this aggression? Logic dictates that nuclear blackmail, annihilation of Islamofascists and forced occupation, are the only effective means to pacify Iraq, etc. Bush/Blair are talking about months and months of unnecessary deaths of the finest soldiers in Western civilization. Bush said that the counter-terror war could take "10 years" while Cheney revised this to "50." Now that there is battlefield proof of Iraq's preparations and plans to use WMD, we are still attacking these animals on a piecemeal basis. American commanders, such as Captain Waldron (3-Div) are openly protesting rules of engagement that jeopardize the lives of troops. Even after Baghdad is occupied by costly, limited-war means, occupying troops will still have to face a bloody intifada carried out by protected Fedayen. Everybody saw those Umm Qasr civilians cheer Saddam Hussein, even as they took food from a relief convoy. This "hearts and minds" indulgence is becoming a spectacle.
Only a wholesale effort, which takes the sail out of "heroic jihad" propaganda, will eliminate this genocidal enemy. We de-nazified Germany. The entire globe needs to be de-Islamofascied at the earliest opportunity, and by the least costly means. Bush's alienation of China, Russia and India - all of which face jihadi insurgencies - has to be reversed, and the common enemy of civilization must be annihilated. (Don't point the finger at Russia. Bush chose to ally with the terror state of Pakistan, which supplies the Chechen jihadis)
One more month of Fedayen sniping from housing complexes followed by laughable Coalition consultation with DOD lawyers on a legal response, will produce the type of frustration that will cause free peoples to cheapen the lives of those human-cockroaches. Solemn declarations concerning imaginary Western "values" that supposedly indulge Salafi genocidism, are going to sound very hollow in the next few weeks. Kill or be killed.
#3
I'm not quite ready to make the declaration that anonon did, but my thoughts are certainly heading in that direction. If the "majority" (as we are told time and time again) of Muslims are peaceful and respectful of others, why have we not witnessed an outcry against terrorism by those Muslims in positions of authority?
One standard answer I've been given is that they are afraid of "reprisals". Forgive me if I find that logic less than compelling--the idea that a religion of "peace and tolerance" must roll over and play dead so that it can be corrupted and kidnapped by those who would use it for violence is an abdication of one's responsibility.
Muslims, you have only a few short years to speak up, act, and regain control of your religion from those who have perverted it for violent means before even those of us who like to think of ourselves as "reasonable" decide that your adherants must be dealt with by force on a global scale. It is not the Anglos who have declared "jihad"--it is also not OUR responsibility to REBUKE it. That job belongs to those of the Muslim faith who truly believe in peace and tolerance.
#4
Flaming Sword:
Hundreds of reported exhortations to jihad, issued from mosques, should have caused you to doubt "hijack" theory. If you read al-Faraj's book - THE NEGLECTED DUTY - on jihad-conscription obligations of all Muslims, you wouldn't restrict finger-pointing to al-Qaeda and company.
#5
"I kept on cutting his throat until he died. My commander was very happy with me. He kissed my forehead and I became his blue-eyed boy." Since being blue-eyed is definitely a western trait, does that mean he became an infidel? It's a strange world we live in.
Posted by: charlotte ||
03/28/2003 12:02 Comments ||
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Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/28/2003 11:03 pm ||
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#1
Rooters has it. Fox's embeds are not surprised. Supply problems cited. Makes sense to me. Better to get something right than to rush to an artificial deadline.
#2
Detail from Reuters:
CENTRAL IRAQ (Reuters) - U.S. commanders have ordered a pause of between four to six days in a northwards push toward Baghdad because of supply shortages and stiff Iraqi resistance, U.S. military officers said on Saturday.
They said the "operational pause," ordered on Friday, meant that advances would be put on hold while the military sorted out logistics problems with long supply lines from Kuwait.
The invasion force would continue to attack Iraqi forces ahead of them with heavy air strikes during the pause, softening them up ahead of any eventual attack on Baghdad, said the officers, declining to be named.
Use of gas-guzzling armored vehicles has been restricted to save fuel and food is also in short supply. In one frontline infantry unit, for instance, soldiers have had their rations cut to one meal packet a day from three.
Resistance from Iraqi militias fighting in towns along the advance lines has hampered the stretched supply convoys.
Excellent news.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/28/2003 23:23 Comments ||
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#3
I was wondering how they were going to avoid getting sucked into house-to-house ala Basra. Let the talking heads continue to talk it up.
Tommy Franks is starting to look more and more brilliant.
#9
"soldiers have had their rations cut to one meal packet a day from three."
What a load of"Bovine Scatology"A C-130 can air-drop a hell of alot of MRE's.
Enhancing the conviction among some Arabs and Muslims that the U.S.-led war of aggression on Iraq is part of a new "crusade" campaign, the Beliefnet.com and Newhouse.com websites recently reported that two leading evangelical Christian missionary organizations were readying teams to enter Iraq to address "the spiritual needs" of the population. Oh, horrors! An Islamist's nightmare! If there are missionaries, can the inquisition be far behind? Look out!
The Southern Baptist Convention, the U.S. largest Protestant denomination, and the Franklin Graham's Samaritan's Purse said workers were on the Iraqi-Jordanian borders ready to go in as soon as it is safe. A free lance translator told IslamOnline.net Friday, March 28, that he was approached by âsome organizationâ to forge up a team of translators to carry out a translation job from English into Arabic, adding that âextracts I saw from the project were of a missionary nature, targeted to three countries; Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraqâ. I, myself, have seen Dark Monks gathering to plot their sinister moves for the conversion of the Believers®. Why, just the other day, I was down at the library, and I saw one checking out a book on how to conduct an auto-da-fÚ...
Franklin Graham, one of the U.S.âs most outspoken critics of Islam, told Beliefnet.com Wednesday, March 25, in a telephone interview from Samaritanâs Purse headquarters in Boone, N.C., âWe realize weâre in an Arab country and we just canât go out and preach.â Not without getting bumped off, anyway...
Muslims were outraged that Graham would be allowed to help with Iraqâs humanitarian effort. They're the ones who'll bump them off...
"Franklin Graham obviously thinks it is a war against Islam,â said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.âThis is a guy who gave the invocation at President Bushâs inauguration and believes Islam is a wicked faith. And he's going to go into Iraq in the wake of an invading army and convert people to Christianity? Nothing good is coming of that.â "And us good Muslims will make sure that it doesn't!"
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Agency for International Development said Wednesday night she could not comment. Diplos aren't allowed to say "Oh, shuddup!"
Meanwhile, officials from the Southern Baptist Convention are also planning a large âreliefâ effort in Iraq once the war ends. âThis is not just a great opportunity to do humanitarian work but to share God's love,â said Sam Porter, state disaster relief director for the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma. "We can't have that! Mahmoud, kill him!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 07:16 pm ||
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Carpetbaggers! Make 'em get visas!
Posted by: Tom ||
03/28/2003 21:55 Comments ||
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#2
Franklin Graham is the son of Southern Baptist Evangelist Billy Graham. He started out as the black sheep of the family, saw the light, and decided to wed his wild side with the practical aspects of the Gospel, coming up with "Samaritan's Purse". Their motto appears to be "Boldly going where the certifiably insane would fear to tread." Think of them as the food paramedics of the Missionary world, running into situations while all the Aid workers and other missionaries are running out. When it comes to rapid response to famine situations, I believe that only the US Military is faster.
Hooper's understandably scared, for I hear that Franklin's got frontline experience with the "Religion of Peace", having been shot at in the Sudan, one of the "Bloody borders" of Islam, to check the situation out himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he isn't one of the movers and shakers of the recent Sudan bill opposing the Mulslim extermination of Christians and Animists there.
When I heard talk on Foxnews about the Bush Administration using private organizations to replace the Food for Oil program, Samaritan's Purse was the very first organization that leapt to mind, followed by World Vision.
Mark my words: Freedom of religion is going to be the Canary in the Mine when it comes to democracy in the Arab World. When it dies, it's time to get your ass in gear and outta there...
A missile fell into the sea and exploded near a major shopping mall in Kuwait City early Saturday, but officials said it caused no injuries and little damage. It was the closest that a missile has come to Kuwait City since the war began in neighboring Iraq on March 20. Appearing on national television, police Brig. Ahmed al-Rujaid said the missile landed at about 1:45 a.m. close to the Souq Sharq mall, a multilevel shopping center that's one of Kuwait's largest. No air raid siren sounded before the explosion, which shattered windows, blasted the glass door at the front of the mall and blew out huge chunks of plater from the adjacent parking structure.
"There were no injuries and material damage is very small," al-Rujaid said. Parts of the ceiling and walls littered the ground in a covered plaza in front of the mall after the explosion. Television images also showed smoke rising over the Kuwaiti skyline. Souq Sharq is on the Kuwaiti seafront and includes a marina, shops and restaurants. The mall is about half a mile from Sief Palace, the official seat of the emir of Kuwait. The emir, Sheik Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah, lives in Dasman palace, about two miles further away. U.S. Patriot missile batteries guard Kuwait against missile attacks by neighboring Iraq. In Doha, Qatar, the U.S. Central Command said it was investigating the explosion but had no further information and could not confirm a missile attack. Ziad, in Kuwait, will probably have some comments on this in a few hours, when he gets up.
FOLLOWUP: Here's more, courtesy of Frank Martin and MSNBC...
A missile landed near the waterfront in central Kuwait City after midnight Saturday, causing a huge explosion and unleashing a large plume of smoke but causing little damage and no injuries, Kuwaiti officials said. THE MISSILE fell into the sea about 1:45 a.m. close to the Souq Sharq shopping mall in the city center, a little more than a mile from the emirâs palace, police Brig. Ahmed al-Rujaid said. âThere were no injuries, and material damage is very small,â al-Rujaid said. The mall had been closed for hours in observance of the Muslim holy day. A team of Czech military chemicals weapons experts wearing full protective suits and gas masks was at the scene, along with a large crowd of onlookers. Naval patrol boats chugged slowly up and down the sea, apparently looking for fragments. Reuters correspondents said they saw what looked like the tailfin of a missile in the debris. Witnesses, meanwhile, told The New York Times that they saw a twisted piece of metal near the shoreline bearing the number â5420â in red. Local television coverage showed pieces of ceiling and walls scattered over the ground in a covered entryway to the multi-level Souq Sharq, which is on the Kuwaiti seafront and includes a marina, shops and restaurants. Glass doors and windows were shattered and some doors were knocked off their hinges. A Reuters reporter at the scene said a cinema facing the sea suffered damage to its roof and facing.
"We were very lucky,â said Mohammed al-Misfir, a Kuwaiti who said he was in the area at the time of the blast. âNormally at this time, the cinema is open, but because of the war it has been closed, so no one was hurt.â State television blamed Iraq for the explosion, which the Kuwait News Agency said followed three hoax bomb calls to downtown hotels late Friday night. "We hope that everyone takes precautions and pays attention to the fact that this [Iraqi] regime is treacherous and will not desist from harming Kuwait,â Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Rageeb said. However, U.S. Central Command in nearby Qatar, said it had no confirmation that a missile fired from Iraq had landed near the city, which is ringed by U.S. Patriot missile batteries to guard against such attacks. NBC News correspondent Don Teague, who heard the blast from a hotel several miles away, said no air raid sirens preceded the explosion. MSNBC Reporters on the scene have reported hearing the local police say "SILKWORM", also the writing on the side of the missle says SILKWORM in Arabic. This could be big.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 07:00 pm ||
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CNN reporter on the scene just gave new details: Its being identified as a "Seersucker"
Also of note, the Czech NBC ( Nuclear Biological and Chemical) Team checked out the scene at the time of the crash. More "unilateral" european action I suppose.
#3
Make no mistake, there is big impact here. If this was launched from Iran, it will be a huge deal. If instead of hitting the seawall and bouncing into the "mall", it had hit a US ship, imagine what Ari would have to hear from Helen Thomas on Monday morning.
Expect more of the same in the near future.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/28/2003 22:11 Comments ||
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The Saddamites hid Scuds on school buses during Gulf War1. Whatever type of missile, it could have been set up beside some barn near the Iraq-Kuwait border. Better to wait for tracking intelligence.
Six Iraqis in two foreign countries have been arrested in the midst of planning terrorist attacks on U.S. interests, Fox News learned Friday. The plots have been foiled and the terrorist material, i.e. explosives, were confiscated, State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said. "The planned attacks were not successful," Boucher said, adding that many Iraqi intelligence service members abroad continue to be a threat. They were so clumsy last time around that all their Mahmoud Bonds get snagged, too...
In one country, four people were arrested and in the other country, two were arrested. One of the six arrests was yesterday; the others were spread out over the "last few days." The arrests were carried out by local law-enforcement authorities, not Americans. The individuals, identified as members of the Iraqi Intelligence Service operating under diplomatic cover, were said to still be in the planning stages of attack. According to officials, if executed, the attacks would have caused "serious damage." In one country, which officials decline to name for fear that they would tip off Iraqi agents under investigation in other cases, Iraqi terrorists had been planning to hit a U.S. embassy. In another country, the Iraqis had not identified a final target, but among its target set were private, non-governmental organizations. They said on Fox News teevee that the countries were Jordan and Yemen...
Sources told Fox News that U.S. intelligence officials are "pretty damn certain" that the agents were working directly for Saddam Hussein since they were Iraqi nationals operating with diplomatic cover. They said in some cases, the Iraqi intelligence agents were primary over the Iraqi ambassadors stationed in those countries. "They outranked their ambassador, in effect," one official said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 06:49 pm ||
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Maybe these other countries will figure it out that the US was serious when we told them to kick out those Iraqi "diplomats" over the past 2 weeks.
Saddam Hussein's war strategy may look chaotic from the outside, but military experts believe it's a carefully crafted plan meant to drag out the fighting and prolong a humanitarian crisis that would prompt the international community to push for a political solution. "That's his only hope for survival," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
In Basra, Iraq's second largest city, Iraqi forces said to be members of the paramilitary Fedayeen prevented British troops from taking the city and fired on about 1,000 civilians trying to flee. British forces have encircled the city for days, but have been reluctant to enter for fear of becoming trapped in urban warfare. In such a situation, the defenders almost always have the advantage and many believe that is why Iraq appears to be waiting for coalition forces to get to Baghdad. Nash said that strategy would also "give Saddam a decision point of whether he wants to revert to chemical warfare."
Iraq's defense minister said the real fight will be in the Iraqi capital â home to 5 million people.
"The enemy must come inside Baghdad, and that will be its grave," Sultan Hashim Ahmed said. "We feel that this war must be prolonged so the enemy pays a high price."
Posted by: George ||
03/28/2003 06:41 pm ||
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"The Enemy" being a term that also encompasses all the residents of Baghdad who are NOT Ba'athist supporters. The Feydaheen will see to that, as they have in Basrah.
#2
...but military experts believe it's a carefully crafted plan...
Carefully crafted?? I swear people give this guy way too much credit. Maybe it's all a big media conspiracy to make the whole war seem interesting, but there's nothing 'carefully crafted' about dragging it out in hopes the Arab league and Eurofriends will call for a cease-fire. We all knew that was going to happen even if the rest of his army surrenedered. What other options does he have for chrissake?
Posted by: g wiz ||
03/28/2003 22:34 Comments ||
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g wiz, never underestimate your enemy.
Let him drag it out, a war of attrition won't last very long. Sucks for the civilian population, but hungry is better than blown up. I don't expect to see any seige of Baghdad in the immediate future. The risk-reward ratio is just not favorable enough.
Posted by: Joe ||
03/29/2003 1:01 Comments ||
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Russian intelligence agents are holding daily meetings with Iraqi officials in Baghdad, and may be interested in gaining control of Iraqi secret service archives if Saddam Hussein's regime falls, the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported Friday. The newspaper said the archives could be highly valuable to Russia in three major areas: in protecting Russian interests that remain in a postwar Iraq; in determining to what extent the Saddam regime may have financed Russian political parties and movements; and in providing Russia access to intelligence that Iraqi agents conducted in other countries.
The report, which said that the meetings include agents of the SVR, Russia's foreign intelligence service, did not specify its sources. The report speculated that the archives were a key topic of discussion when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent Yevgeny Primakov to Baghdad last month to meet with Saddam. Primakov, a Middle East expert, once headed the foreign intelligence service in the Soviet era. Later, as Soviet foreign minister, he attempted to negotiate an agreement to avoid the 1991 Gulf War. His meeting with Saddam in February was given little publicity, with the Foreign Ministry issuing only a brief statement saying he had received Saddam's promise to cooperate with United Nations resolutions, and the trip has remained cloaked in mystery and speculation.
Posted by: Yosemite Sam ||
03/28/2003 05:02 pm ||
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Friggin' Barry Goldwater couldn't pray for PR like this. Russia, if you think about it, has a dirtier track record than France when it comes to being on the 'dooh' side of history- Ivan da Terrible; Stalin; Brezhnev ad infinitum.
#2
They might be more interested in getting Chirac and company by the short and curlies. Sure would make a nice bargaining piece, leading who knows where?
Another day, another Mystery Market Massacre.
At least 50 civilians are believed to have been killed during an air raid on a Baghdad market, Iraqi authorities say. Graphic television pictures showed people scrabbling through rubble to reach the dead and injured amid the wreckage in the Shula residential area of the city. Reports of the blast came as coalition forces renewed night-time bombing across the Iraqi capital. Take home message: when in Baghdad, steer clear of large groups of people during air raids.
Correspondents in Baghdad say there is no clear information yet on what may have caused the destruction of al-Nasser market. Dr Osama Sakhari from al-Noor Hospital near the market told Reuters news agency he had counted 55 people killed and more than 47 wounded from Friday's attack. He said one baby had died in his arms.
Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed Sahaf told al-Hayat-LBC television that 58 people were dead and he expected the death toll to rise. Arabic broadcasters in Qatar and Abu Dhabi showed pictures of what they said were victims of the attack - mainly women, children and old people - as well as shots of mothers slapping themselves in grief.
A Reuters correspondent who visited the scene said most of the one-storey shops in the area were destroyed. Most of the ground was covered by blood and broken glass and there was a crater about two metres (six feet) wide and half a metre deep. One man sobbed for his five-year-old son killed while playing near the vegetable market. "After this crime, I wish I could see [US President George W] Bush in order to cut him to pieces with my teeth," he said.
Another man, Eyad Abadi, told the news agency: "We heard a plane flying over us. We saw a rocket coming in our direction and then we heard the explosion."
Abu Dhabi television said the devastation may have been caused by a US cruise missile. But US officials at the Central Command headquarters in Qatar told the BBC they had no details yet and suggested it may have been a misfired Iraqi missile. It is not known if there are any military installations in the area.
The BBC's Paul Wood in Baghdad - whose reports are monitored by Iraqi officials - says the incident could be the largest single loss of life in the war. He says it will be a propaganda victory for the Iraqis and Baghdad residents will see it as a further example of civilian lives being taken recklessly by the US. Only two days ago, Iraqi officials said at least 14 civilians died when another shopping area in Baghdad was hit during a coalition air strike. They added that seven more were killed and 92 injured in overnight raids on Friday.
#1
I don't know, every time civilians get hit it's a market so that many people get killed and more can watch.
If there is another "market attack" I don't believe in miracles anymore. Why should America target a market or strike one in error all the time?
#3
2 meters x.5 meters for the crater. Does any one out there really think the ordanance the USAF is using is leaving that small of a hole. I'm starting to wonder if the RG is firing artillery into the city
Posted by: Someone who did NOT vote for William Proxmire ||
03/28/2003 17:34 Comments ||
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That was exactly my point, paj. Maybe next time they invite Al-Jazeera for live coverage?
#5
Your right those are artillary rounds. Their shelling their own damd people. Two Markets in two days. I wonder if it will happen again. Three times a charm.
Posted by: George ||
03/28/2003 18:20 Comments ||
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The options are howitzer round, mortar round, dud SAM missile or box full o' semtex. The odds of two SAMs falling on two different markets are pretty slim. So let's exclude that. Howitzer trajectory is too shallow plus the odds of missing are too great, especially when dealing with semiliterate Arab farm boys manning the guns. Mortar has a better trajectory, but the mission failure risk is similarly high. Occam's Razor sez: box full o' semtex.
#7
Sounds like ol' Saddam is copying the own goal market bombing by the Muslims in Sarajevo which killed 50+ people. They blamed it on the Serbs, which was one of the triggers for Bill Clinton's "Operation Forget Monica".
#8
Do you think they'd get the message if we just told them we really WERE targeting their markets?
Does anyone have any doubt that if we really wanted to, we could?
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/28/2003 22:18 Comments ||
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Seen the pictures. Definitely Iraqi self-bombing. BBC of course claims it is "obviously" a cruise missile (where's the evidence?) and make it their "top story". Someone at Centcom needs to make it clear it's similar to fedayeen attacks on civilians.
Iraqi Imams shout anti-war slogans and make faces outside the Sheihk Abdul Kadeer mosque following Friday prayers in Baghdad on March 28, 2003. Bombs and missiles crashed into Baghdad as the United States kept up a relentless pounding of the Iraqi capital. - Reuters
US and British bombs and missiles pounded Baghdad Friday, the Muslim holy day, and residents said eight people died in a raid on a Baath party office. Explosions echoed through the capital for most of the day and residents said the city had suffered some of the heaviest bombing in nine days of war. US defense officials said a radar-avoiding B-2 stealth bomber had dropped two 4,600-pound bombs on a communications center in downtown Baghdad. Iraq swore to fight on and promised "living hell" for the invaders. They're gonna offer them citizenship?
Reuters correspondent Nadim Ladki quoted residents as saying an attack on the Baath office in Baghdad's Mansour district at around noon demolished the party's neighborhood office and several nearby houses. "It basically turned the block into rubble," Ladki said. Local residents said they had pulled eight bodies from the wreckage, including Baath Party militia members and several civilians. That was what was supposed to happen, except for the civilians. Toldja to stay away from the Baathists, though. Just because they're dead meat, you don't have to be...
The thud of explosions and rattle of anti-aircraft fire continued beyond midday. A large fire blazed on the west bank of the Tigris river and thick, billowing smoke rose on the horizon after dozens of blasts in the eastern and southern fringes of the capital. Iraqi defense positions spat anti-aircraft fire above the rooftops as US missiles hit government offices, including the ministries of information, planning and foreign affairs. The US military said two precision-guided missiles from one of its bat-wing, radar-evading B-2 stealth bombers had taken out a key communications tower on the east bank of the Tigris. Ladki said at least one missile plowed into the ground floor of a large telecommunications building in Rashid Street. Militiamen cleared rubble from the smashed and smoldering al-Alawiya telecoms center in nearby Saadun Street. "This is a civilian communications center, why did they hit it?" said one resident. Try this:
"Mahmoud! The radio's being jammed!"
"Then call them on the phone!"
The raids knocked out many telephone lines -- some of the first bombing damage to civilian infrastructure.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 04:04 pm ||
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I see the guy with the sword. He's going to do a lot against an Abrams, isn't he? As for the civilian casualties around Baath party headquarters, I wonder if they still had their ankle chains attached...
I have a feeling that Baghdad is going to be a very uncomfortable city to live in over the next eight or ten days, awaiting the arrival of the 4ID and the rest of the 101st. Being anywhere NEAR a government building will be very hazardous to your health.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 16:57 Comments ||
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Reminds me of the good ol' days playing Sid Meier's Civilization. Spearmen vs. Tanks. Legionaires vs. Bombers.
Those were always kind of one-sided combats, come to think of it...
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg ||
03/28/2003 19:27 Comments ||
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They dropped more on the communications center tonight. Someone sure thinks there's a bunker under there somewhere.
The Iraqi government ordered the expulsion of a German "human shield" and three of his friends, citing security risks as the reason for the decision. A resident of the south German town of Tuebingen, Juergen Hahnel, had spent the past weeks as a "human shield" at a Baghdad-based oil refinery. "I regret especially to leave behind the Iraqi workers at the oil refinery with whom I had experienced the bombings of the recent days and nights," Hahnel was quoted as saying. Hahnel who received wide-scale coverage in the German media, was reportedly on its way to the Syrian border. There are dozens of international "human shields" inside Iraq, hoping to prevent coalition air strikes on Iraq's strategic civilian sites. "You ain't stopped nothin' from bein' bombed, so get the hell out."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 12:07 pm ||
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Enjoy the bus ride to Amman. It could be real interesting...
#4
Okay, the allies are sending in special forces to ensure the Iraqi's don't destroy the oil infrastructure and this dolt thinks being a human shield is going to make a difference? Fool, it was Saddam's orders that lit the oil wells.
US and British war planes bombed ar-Ratbeh hospital, injuring two patients and several staff Thursday night, Iraqi military sources said Friday. The Qatari al-Jazeera TV network quoted Iraqi officials as saying that during the attack, two vehicles were also destroyed at the hospital, in ar-Ratbeh township, 410 km west of Baghdad. The report added that a large number of vehicles and buildings located on ar-Ratbeh road were severely damaged as a result of the bombardment. 410 km west of Baghdad... We won't bother to speculate on what the vehicles were that were destroyed at the hospital.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 12:03 pm ||
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Iraqi officials tell Al-Jazeera - which in turn is monitored by IRNA. Until theres something more direct, i wouldnt assume this is true.
#3
US and British war planes bombed ar-Ratbeh hospital, injuring two patients and several staff Thursday night, Iraqi military sources said Friday.
Nice war map here. Shows Al Ratbeh to be about twelve huts and a gas station. Maybe a little bigger, but not by much. The US is supposed to be 'in control' of that area. Sounds like the specops people found something they were looking for, and targeted it. The blast did some 'collateral damage'. Doubt very much the 'hospital' was adequately marked as such.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 14:05 Comments ||
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Thank God they didn't bomb the Baby Milk Factory(TM) next door!
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg ||
03/28/2003 14:41 Comments ||
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Mehran, Ilam prov, March 28, IRNA -- The Iraqi city of Badreh, close to this Iranian border city, was hit by several US and British missiles on Friday morning. Mehran Governor Sadeq Lotfi told IRNA that four cruise missiles were fired at Badreh, adding that it was the first time the city was attacked by the foreign forces since the beginning of the US-lead war. He added that the city of Mehran was shaking as a result of the missile attack on Badreh. Meanwhile, the Iraqi city of Kout [al-Kut] was heavily bombarded by US and British war planes during the past two days, Lotfi said. Mehran is located at 70 km southwestern Ilam, 10 km from Iran-Iraq border. Badreh is 20 km from Mehran.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 11:54 am ||
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Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed said on Thursday that US forces could surround the capital city of Baghdad within the next 5 to 10 days. The Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV quoted the minister as saying in a press conference that the US forces have settled in north of Iraq in order to reduce the current pressure on US and British troops in south of the country. He added that as the US and British forces were defeated in south of Iraq, they are doomed to failure in north of the country. Hashim Ahmed said that the longer the US forces stay in Iraq, the more they should pay. The part about having Baghdad surrounded is true. Normally, when forces are defeated they withdraw, and we haven't done that. I would agree with Hashim Ahmed that the longer we stay in country, the more we'll pay — until Hashim's wearing a striped suit and claiming he vasss only followinkk o-o-o-o-ordahsss...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 11:50 am ||
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Why aren't we plunging Baghdad into electromagnetic darkness? TV, radio transmitters, newzies with sat phones. Do we need comm with plants and informers, or what? They need some war fog in that department, methinks....
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/28/2003 15:03 Comments ||
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Once Baghdad is surrounded, all the remaining Iraqi forces in the other cities will be tempted to attack coalition forces around Baghdad. If they do, they will be easy pickings for the air force, if they don't, all the less to deal with. Saddam prepared for a guerilla war, dispersing his thugs to keep the regular army "inspired". He may have sealed his own fate given Franks' strategy of avoiding unnecessary engagements and heading straight for Baghdad. As someone once said, Saddam is neither a strategist or tactician, but other than that he's a great military man.
The Lebanese TV Channel Al-Minar said that US forces occupied the Kefl region near Iraq's holy city of Najaf on Thursday.
A little more, also from IRNA...
Coalition airstrikes on Najaf over the past 12 hours have left 86 civilians killed or injured, Iraqi TV announced Friday. The TV said the US and British war planes dropped cluster bombs on Iraqi citizens, which led to death of 26 and injury of 60 others. It added that bombardment of Helleh region also led to injury of 186 Iraqi citizens.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 11:48 am ||
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I wonder how many of those "cluster bomb injuries" looked suspiciously like a 7.62 round through the back.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 21:36 Comments ||
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More than 40 Iraqi troops surrendered to Kurdish forces in northern Iraq in the past 24 hours. According to the Kurdish Democratic Party the troops surrendered near Iski Kalak, midway between Arbil and Mosul, about 210 miles northwest of Baghdad. The source, a member of Massoud Barzani's KDP, said Peshmerga fighters treated Iraqi soldiers well and transported them to a military position near Arbil. He said the mass surrender came in the wake of heavy airstrikes against Iraqi military positions near Iski Kalak on the Great Zab River. In the meantime, strikes by coalition forces continued Friday morning against Iraqi military positions south of the northern cities of Dahouk, Arbil, Chamchamal and Taktak which remain outside Baghdad's control.
A little more on this area...
Kurdish armed forces have reportedly reinforced positions in Chamchamal and Leylan heights around Kirkuk north of Iraq to assume control of the region following Iraqi army's pullout, said a Kurdish partisan on Friday. Head of Iraqi Kurdistan Socialist Party's Bureau of Central Relations Sheikh Taher Barzanji told IRNA that the military tactic would be depriving Turkey of any pretext for military engagement in the area. Barzanji said Kurdish forces have advanced 10 kms into the oil rich region to fill the gap of Iraqi forces, who had on Thursday withdrew from the region by 15 kms. He refuted any goal for Kurds' presence in Kirkuk other than protection of the city's security, saying, "We do not need to attack Kirkuk for its capture."
Sounds like they're trying to collect the whole set...
Some 30 Iraqi soldiers on Friday surrendered to the fighters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) after US-British planes earlier in the day pounded the positions of Iraqi army in areas bordering Kurdish-held regions. A KDP member told IRNA that the soldiers had surrendered in Kalak village of Tepe Garus, northern Iraq, bringing the number of those captured since Thursday to 57. He said that some 27 Iraqi soldiers had surrendered to the KDP in Akri region on Thursday. This, he stressed, shows that the number of Iraqi deserters in the area now seems to be on the rise. The Iraqi army on Thursday backed off some 25 kilometers southward from its positions in Bani Moqan heights overlooking Chamchamal after heavy US-British bombardments on the area.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 10:35 am ||
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"Iraqi Kurdistan Socialist Party's "
I take it their relations with the French Socialists and German Social Dem's are not too tight these days :). Glad to find a socialist party (other than Israeli Labor party and UK Labour Party) that I agree with on this war.
I had to post this because of the title - is Rooters now working for Sammy?
The United States unleashed huge "bunker-buster" bombs on Baghdad Friday in some of the war's heaviest air strikes as the first aid ship docked in the southern port of Umm Qasr. U.S. defense officials said a radar-avoiding B-2 stealth bomber had dropped two of the earth-shattering 4,600-pound bombs on a communications center in downtown Baghdad. It was believed to be the first use of the big bombs on Baghdad since the war to oust President Saddam Hussein began nine days ago. Correspondent Nadim Ladki saw two damaged communications centers in the capital. One big building had been struck at its base. A tangled pile of smoldering rubble was all that was left of a smaller facility. Many telephone lines were knocked out.
Defiant Iraqis converged on mosques for Friday prayers, enraged rather than intimidated by the U.S. bombardment. "You can see and hear the missiles and bombs raining down on us and yet Muslims are coming to the house of God to pray," said the preacher at the "Mother of All Battles" Mosque. While he spoke, the mosque compound shook as 15 more bombs and missiles crashed into an area northwest of the city. Hundreds of Baath Party militiamen armed with AK-47 assault rifles were guarding government buildings and manning sandbagged posts on street corners and trenches in squares and gardens.
Posted by: Spot ||
03/28/2003 10:32 am ||
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The United States Air Force tenders its regrets that the flight crews of B-2s are unable to accept surrender petitions. Please route your requests through Iraqi TV. Thank you.
#2
Anon - re (2), it might be so. If the same sites get hit with busters again over the next few days, it'll be pretty obvious what they're after (and lots of fun for those hiding inside).
BRITISH military interrogators claim captured Iraqi soldiers have told them that al-Qaida terrorists are fighting against allied troops near Basra. At least a dozen members of Osama bin Laden's network are in the town of Az Zubayr, where they are co-ordinating grenade and gun attacks on coalition positions, according to the Iraqi prisoners of war. A senior British military source inside Iraq said: "The information we have received from PoWs today is that an al-Qaida cell may be operating in Az Zubayr, near Basra in the south. There are possibly around a dozen of them and that is obviously a matter of concern to us." British forces were believed to be preparing a military strike on the base where the al-Qaida unit was understood to be holed up. Please do. We'd like the bodies.
If confirmed, it would be the first proof of a direct link between Saddam's regime and Osama bin Laden. Which of course, was denied by everyone opposed to the US and British action.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 09:45 am ||
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Maybe they are getting this information from these guys..... http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/28/1048653839564.html
SMH reports that "residents of the southern Iraqi city of Basra are helping coalition forces to arrest Iraqi militiamen, General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, said in an interview. "We are receiving a lot of help from Basra residents who are directing us to the positions of the Iraqi armed forces, to Baath officials and hideouts of Saddam's Fedayeen," Myers told the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite network."
good news: 173rd air drop successful
Iraqis retreating, Kurds advancing, near Kirkuk
Al Ansar over-run
Republican Guards being pounded, not retreating into Bagdad.
Iraqi recon probes being destroyed.
Brit forces pushing into Basra.
Sir Galahad unloads in Um Qasr.
Marines advance towards Kut and into al Diwaniyah.
3rd ID being rested and resupplied.
Establishment of Talil airbase
Further advance in west.
Bad news:
Continuing coalition casualties - even if its still low by historical standards, its enough to create anxiety (as well as tragic for those involved)
Continuing difficulties in Nasariyah - unlike other Fedayeen harassment, this seems to threaten an important supply route.
On the one hand, on the other hand:
Iraqi atrocities - while horrible for the people of Iraq, may stiffen coalition resolve, counter Iraqi propaganda, and show us why no uprising yet
Bagdad Strategic airstrikes - while some targets of obvious value (TV tower, communications nodes,etc) and I presume others are also, and while civilian casualties (even if the regime is telling the truth) are surprisingly low for this magnitude of air strike, still even this level of civ. casualties (in addition to being tragic for those involved) hurts the hearts and minds campaign both within Iraq and beyond - i hope the costs and benefits are working out.
Uncertainties:
Where is the 101st???
When will the 4th ID get there and be ready?
What precisely is going on in Basra - how many fedayeen, what are iraqi regulars doing, how bad have fedayeen been hurt, any continued uprising, what have the brits taken,
Similar questioins for Nasariya.
Whats with central command in Bagdad? - Looks like Uday is "hors de combat" but not Saddam.
Current status of chemical weapons,alqaeeda reports?
#3
Liberalhawk. The Fox guy (Rick Leventhal?) with the Marines said this morning that some of their forward recon units have eyeballed Iraqis in NBC suits working with 55 gallon drums and they considered the chem/bio threat as very serious.
#6
Liberalhawk: Uncertainties:
Where is the 101st???
Some reports indicate they're providing security for the convoys heading north from Kuwait to 3ID positions. Others place them 'in the north', while some other indicators say they're in the west. I'd say they're where they're needed at the time. When will the 4th ID get there and be ready?
First units arrived late yesterday afternoon, Baghdad time, or early this morning. We've been watching military transport aircraft leave Pete Field for two days now. The people leaving are part of the 4ID. My guess is that they'll be ready to move forward by about Tuesday morning, Baghdad time. What precisely is going on in Basra - how many fedayeen, what are iraqi regulars doing, how bad have fedayeen been hurt, any continued uprising, what have the brits taken,
Similar questioins for Nasariya.
Good question! I'd be willing to guess that SAS forces and British commandos are inside Basra, while the regular Army troups are trying to clear a way into the city without exposing themselves. Urban combat is a BI$$$!!! Whats with central command in Bagdad? - Looks like Uday is "hors de combat" but not Saddam.
My guess is, Central Command in Baghdad is scattered all over the city,has very limited communications capability, and are constantly being hammered by 2000+ lb bombs. Wouldn't want to be any of those guys, no way, no how - even if it did mean a Swiss bank account in eight or nine figures. Current status of chemical weapons,alqaeeda reports?
Fractured, incomplete, and probably labelled "TOP SECRET" as soon as anything's discovered. I think we want to prove he has this stuff, but not too soon. The sooner we acknowledge he has it, the sooner he can feel free to use it.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 13:20 Comments ||
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Old Pat - And don't forget "Where is 1AD". Betcha the brighter Iraqi tin hats are worrying about that right this instant...
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2003 13:33 Comments ||
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#8
Liberalhawk. I got this off of Blogs of War:
12:42pm CST
Saddam Hussein denies having chemical weapons, but U.S. intelligence has discovered more evidence that Iraqi forces may use chemical weapons.
A U.S. official involved in military planning and intelligence said Iraqi troops have been seen between U.S. and Iraqi lines wearing full chemical protection suits and unloading 50-gallon drums from trucks. - AP
Routine activities are underway in the Iskenderun port under the motion on renovation, modernization and reconstruction of bases and ports that the parliament adopted on February 6, 2003. Sources told the A.A on Friday that among the military vehicles which are kept in the port, two Hummer jeeps and two trucks carrying containers left the port early the same day. Meanwhile, six ambulance helicopters which had been unloaded from ''Repubblica Di Rome'' ship that had departed from the port two days ago, are still in the port, and they would sent to Incirlik airbase after their assembling. All quiet in port, it seems.
Meanwhile, four more F-15 planes took off from the Incirlik airbase after six F-15s and six F-16s. All planes returned to the base. Sources said that those might be ''training flights''. Training on air-to-ground tactics. Got to keep those skills up, never know when a war might break out.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 09:33 am ||
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There had been 46 freighters carrying military equipment for 62,000 troops queued up at Iskenderun. 30 freighters transited the Suez.
These numbers don't seem to add up as advertised.
United States troops say they are dealing with a new tactic from Iraqi soldiers - a willingness to use civilians in suicide attacks to halt the American advance. As coalition soldiers drove through a dust storm on Wednesday afternoon, fighters believed to be from Saddam Hussein's Baath Party drove a bus, the passengers still aboard, into a Bradley fighting vehicle. I had heard about this, but not the part about civilians being on board. The bus hit the Bradley and bounced off. Then a Abrams bounced the bus with a 120mm round.
The brief and vicious firefight left the road littered with bodies, all Iraqis, and wrecked vehicles. Small-arms fire cracked and popped overhead even as medical personnel attended the Iraqi wounded. US commanders said they expect suicide attacks to become more commonplace as coalition forces move toward Baghdad. "They have decided on suicide missions to get at us," said Charlie Company commander Captain Jason Conroy, 30. "We need to be really careful about any civilian vehicles approaching us." No shit!
He said the 7th Cavalry had lost two Abrams tanks to attacks by civilian fuel tankers. "They are just running the trucks into the tanks and exploding them. They could do the same with cars loaded with [munitions]." You let a fuel tanker get that close? Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Among the Iraqis captured in Wednesday's battle was one who appeared to be wearing an American-style desert camouflage uniform. There have been reports that Saddam has outfitted his troops with American and British uniforms - either to confuse invading forces or to stage atrocities against civilians that can be blamed on coalition troops. One thing the Iraqis missed, our guys are all wearing chem suits over their uniforms.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 09:21 am ||
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#1
I hate to slur a religeon of nearly a billion people, but it's an undeniable fact Muslims are murderous AND suicidal nuts! Trying to treat them like normal human beings is a huge mistake. The sooner we help them accomplish their goal (death), the better. The only good Muslim is a dead Muslim. I realize that's an ugly sentance to type, but I know in my heart that it's true.
#2
Scooter McGruder:
Cut off the snake's head, and the body dies. The way to get rid of the Islamic murder cult, is: 1. depopulate Mecca and Medina, and then nuke them. 2. use nuclear blackmail, to force states to liquidate all of their internal jihadis. 3. annihilate the entire 5,000 member House of Saud, and seize their oil on behalf of the productive world. 4. destroy every mosque and madrasa on the face of the earth, allowing only personal worship at home (no bringing out the carpet at work). 5. prohibit touchy-feely solemn declarations from Western leaders, about the "comfort" that Muslims get from prostrating toward a 8 inch round black stone.
Any occupation of Iraq is going to be under intafada conditions. Selling that is getting harder by the minute. "Hearts and minds" is not cost-effective.
#4
Anonon: I'm ONLY for "3. annihilate the entire 5,000 member House of Saud." and "5. prohibit touchy-feely solemn declarations from Western leaders, about the "comfort" that Muslims get from prostrating toward a 8 inch round black stone." I'm going on record as opposing the remainder. Vigorously.
I'll be writing letters to my congressman if we go beyond these.
Yeah, it's an ugly sentence to type, but it's a view that's getting harder and harder to refute.
Anymore, I just think of them as Orcs.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/28/2003 12:11 Comments ||
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#6
scooter - you know any muslims? I have an acquaintince who is an Afghani, who was tortured by the Taliban. your sentence is not only ugly, it is vile.
Sussssh, don't tell anyone, it's a secret!
United States Special Operations forces operating in secret had established dominance over a broad swath of territory in western Iraq that extends about 273 kilometres into the country from the border with Jordan, US military officials said. While much of the area is lightly populated desert, it includes several airfields and countless hiding places that US military officials have been worried Iraq might use to launch drone aircraft or Scud missiles against Israel, Jordan or Saudi Arabia. Since nothing has been launched at Israel, I'd say that we must have gotten there in time.
A senior official, describing the area now claimed by US forces, said it stretched from the border with Jordan as far as the Mudaysis airfield, 273 kilometres to the east. In trying to secure the area, troops had "some combat engagements", he said. While "pockets of resistance" might remain, forces loyal to the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, could no longer mount a significant challenge. "I wouldn't say we control all the area, but it is territory that Saddam no longer controls," the official said. In contrast with the much publicised slog north over the week by coalition troops out of Kuwait, or the airlift on Wednesday of troops into northern Iraq, operations in the west have remained shrouded in secrecy. One reason for this is that the troops in the west are believed to be basing some of their operations in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, which are sensitive about being identified with any such activity.
The size of the US contingent in the west has not been disclosed, but Pentagon officials say it numbers in the hundreds. How many hundreds, we wonder?
Initial missions included targeting Iraqi military facilities such as border observation towers, communication nodes and command posts. The troops also struck early at the two largest airfields in the west, known as H-2 and H-3, where some Iraqi helicopter units were based. But much of the focus of the troops, officials said, had been on hunting for Scud missiles and launch vehicles and storage sites for chemical or biological weapons. I think something big may be coming out of that western area, real soon.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 08:54 am ||
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Australian Hornet fighter jets have attacked key Republican Guard units as coalition forces redoubled their air strikes in and around the Iraqi capital. Australian Defence Force chief Peter Cosgrove said the planes were now directly involved in the battle for Baghdad. Details of the strikes involving all 14 of the Australian F/A-18 squadron came as Prime Minister John Howard said the war effort was going "extremely well", but suggested that those who expected victory within a week should "take a reality check". I really like John Howard.
The Hornets have been dropping laser-guided bombs in the strikes, which began on Thursday. The strikes have been successful, according to Australian military sources. General Cosgrove said the F/A-18s were "active in the skies close to Baghdad, preparing the way for what we all anticipate some time soon - the next big coalition push against the Republican Guard". Like I thought, those early reports of RAAF pilots refusing to drop their bombs when the target was not clear were much ado about nothing.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 08:29 am ||
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Fox News is reporting a shower of empty fosters lager cans began to fall on Bagdhad immediately after the arrival of the RAAF.
Government of Iraq, Your Are Doomed!. You might beat a bloody yank and you might beat the pommy english bastards, but beat the gallant aussie gentleman of Sydney?, hardly!
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/28/2003 18:02 Comments ||
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The forces of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) captured positions of the Ansar al-Islam Party in east of Sulaimaniya, north of Iraq, in an all-out attack on Friday. The PUK forces captured the cities of Khormal and Biyarah as well as Sargat and Ahmadabad villages along with ten other villages in the region. Biyarah and Sargat were among Ansar al-Islam main strongholds in this region. US and British fighter planes have bombarded the positions of Ansar al-Islam several times this week. Rolling them up. Prepare to undulate!
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 08:16 am ||
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BBC now confirms:
"The main headquarters of the Ansar al-Islam militant group in the mountains of north-eastern Iraq is overrun by thousands of Peshmerga Kurdish guerrillas, backed by US special forces and air support. "
#2
"The main headquarters of the Ansar al-Islam militant group in the mountains of north-eastern Iraq is overrun by thousands of Peshmerga Kurdish guerrillas, backed by US special forces and air support."
Yeah, but were the bad guys still there, or had most slipped across to Iran already?
Posted by: Dave ||
03/28/2003 12:09 Comments ||
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US Marines say they have captured an Iraqi army general in Nasiriya, in southern Iraq. Sporadic fighting continues in and around the town, although not as severe as in recent days. US aircraft and artillery are continuing to attack targets in Nasiriya. The man the US says is a general was captured on Thursday as US Marines stepped up their offensive against Iraqi units. According to Marine officers with Task Force Tarawa, he was found at his home. So much for dying for his beloved leader.
Documents and a large safe have been taken away for examination. Cool, should be a nice intel find.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 08:32 am ||
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ALLIED troops renewed their drive towards Baghdad yesterday, pledging: "Our job now is killing." After three days spent bogged down by the worst sandstorms in 10 years, while harried by Iraqis and short of supplies, exhausted forces were once more ordered forward.
More than 600 bombing sorties were launched. A 10-mile convoy of Iraqi military vehicles was pounded "into oblivion" outside Najaf, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. In the south hundreds of desperate refugees flowed out of Basra where 14 British Challenger tanks destroyed 14 Iraqi T55 tanks, trying to break out of the city. Further north there was fierce fighting outside Nassiriya, where 31 US soldiers were injured by "friendly fire". A major battle was fought at Samawah, site of a crucial bridge.
Iraqi Defence Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed said last night he believed the US-led forces could encircle Baghdad in five to 10 days. He said: "They have the capability to do so." But he added ominously: "They have to come into the city eventually, God willing. Baghdad will be impregnable. We'll be everywhere and will fight to the end."
As the new assault was launched military and political chiefs warned for the first time that the war could last for months. Supply lines hundreds of miles long are dangerously over-stretched and vulnerable to attack, resistance is stiffer than expected and there is little sign of Iraqis welcoming their "saviours". President Bush said: "It will go on however long it takes to win." A tongue slip mr. Bush? You probably meant "liberating"
Naw. He mean "win." You can't liberate them until the war's won.
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 07:27 am ||
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Nice attempt at spin, Murat. It would seem by "win" President Bush meant to meet the goals of the military action. As one of those goals is liberation, they are one and the same here.
#2
You know what? I DO believe there's no cheering, because the Iraqi people don't see us as being SERIOUS. They probably still believe that Saddam Hussein is still in power. They probably still believe that world opinion will make the US and UK leave. (BTW, What OTHER nations are there where the possiblity of withdrawal of their military forces through mere public opinion exists?)
You're skeptical of US promises because we shafted Turkey in GW I. Long memory. Good for you. BUT you won't grant that the southern Iraqis, goaded into a revolt that was mercilessly crushed by Saddam because George Bush Sr. didn't have the balls to back them up, are EQUALLY skeptical of US promises that Saddam will be GONE? They got long memories too. Good for them. They have a DAMN RIGHT to be skeptical.
MEANWHILE, the IRAQI (YOU READ THAT? I-R-A-Q-I) Kurds, who had the good sense to to revolt AFTER the establishment of the no-fly zones, have fielded a 60,000 man army that they have eagerly put under US command, gushing promises not to invade the northern oil cities. They've used their food-for-oil share to create schools, hospitals, and feed their people. (hey, is THAT what Turkey is afraid of? A Kurdistan that will take care of THEIR people better than the Turks take care of their own?)
Go to a shelter for battered women, Murat, and talk to them. Talk to them about the psychology of terror. Talk to them about the bondage they felt and the terror they felt that kept them from running away. Talk to them about the system of dependency using money, food, and shelter, that their abusive husbands used to make sure they didn't run away. Talk to them about the societal pressures and the seeming heedlessness of their plight that made them believe they couldn't run and find shelter for themselves and their children.
The food for oil program did just that, making these people dependent on Saddam. If he wins, he can retaliate. He can starve them out. Hell, he's an Iraqui killing Iraqis, which, in YOUR crazy, mixed up book, is just damn fine. He can kill thousands and his men are free to commit war crimes and violate the Geneva Convention, and get a moral free pass and assenting silence from you, while you condemn mere tens of casualties of Iraqi civilians killed by Coalition forces by accident.
Explain to me why I should believe the moral judgment of ANYBODY who's so obviously incapable of equally applying the SAME standard to both sides of a conflict you oppose.
I'll listen, but if your intent is to convince me, you've got to EARN the right to be morally convincing first.
#4
Ptah, you miss a very important point as most of the posters here, you think the Iraqi Shia will receive you with open arms because you assume they want to be liberated from Saddam. True probably they do want to be liberated from Saddam, but you forget an important detail, that is the US imposed a big embargo on Iraq, many of them lost a child due to lack of medication, food etc. all the nice side effects of an embargo. Letâs be fair when you would lose a relative or maybe a child you can hate Saddam to the bone, but youâll probably hate the Americans more, thatâs the difference, you and many Americans do expect the same Shiaâs of twelve years ago, but they ainât there anymore, the embargo starvation has produced a repercussion.
You may differ of opinion, but what there is seen right now is not a people waiting for liberation, it is a people fighting for their land and patriotism, not for Saddam.
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 8:52 Comments ||
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#5
Murat - that would be a UN embargo, not a US embargo, right? Not that I support it either way, embargoes don't work too well when the goal is targeting the regime itself rather than the people.
But, the bottom line is, kids are dying at least partially because the food that DOES arrive is stolen by the regime for its own use. You can't seriously believe that the Hussein regime would lift a finger to help the Shia or Kurds. Look at what the vicious criminals are doing now - forcing them to fight (and die, basically) under threat of killing their families, then shooting them in the back if they show any sign of lack of will. A fair assessment of blame for dying children must first look at the regime itself.
Posted by: Jeff Brokaw ||
03/28/2003 9:31 Comments ||
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#6
"You may differ of opinion, but what there is seen right now is not a people waiting for liberation, it is a people fighting for their land and patriotism, not for Saddam."
What i see are civilians cowering in their houses, while the Saddam Fedayeen fight the British in Basra - the civilians waiting to see who wins.
#7
i also see reports of Iraqi soldiers shot by thier own officers, of soldiers who had deserted being rounded up by Fedayeen and forced back into the fight, of a woman being hung for waving to the Americans, of a man in Safwan saying he welcomed the Americans, but refusing to give his name as long as Saddam is alive, of civilians trying to flee Basra but being shot at by the Fedayeen.
There IS a difference between April 1991 and now - but its not so much the sanctions,as it is our failure to help the Shia in April 1991. They dont trust us to stay and finish the job, and with justification. And each bit of news about Baathist defiance, about coalition casualties, about outside support for Saddam, etc further discourages them, and further makes them suspect that we will turn and run, and that if they rise up they will be slaughtered (as they were slaughtered in the wake of April 1991) So the coverage in the press, including the papers you quote from, Murat, are weapons in this war - each negative headline provides objective support to Saddams war effort.
#8
Jeff, officially for the world it is a UN embargo, but for the Iraqis it is an American embargo, at least the one with whom they had with GW 1.
You can't seriously believe that the Hussein regime would lift a finger to help the Shia or Kurds.
This kind of assumption I here often which IMO does not reflect the real situation, people tend to think that Iraqis hate Saddam, while a lot of visitors who have visited Iraq report different, Saddam is for a lot of Arabs a hero FYI as far it has any worth for you.
By the way you talk about the Shia as if they are not Arabs maybe you do, but let me explain that the difference of Shia / Sunni is like Catholic / Protestants, they are both Muslim and the same people.
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 10:15 Comments ||
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Wow. How convenient that I was watching Foxnews while on coffee break, and heard an embedded reporter report on his conversations with two farmers who were crossing the camp to get to their fields and their flocks. They were very nervous UNTIL the reporter and his translator walked up to them to talk to them.
When asked why the people weren't cheering them, one farmer said that they were afraid of being abandoned in the same way they were in '91! They said they were glad that the US was there, and hoped we would stay until the job was really done. One of the farmers had been a soldier, and he admitted to abandoning his post because he didn't want to fight the Americans.
This makes LOTS of sense to me, Murat. More than your deliberate misinformation about UN sanctions being US sanctions. If the Islamic people STILL have their undies in a twist 1000 stinkin' years after the infidel Crusaders captured Jerusalem, then remembering what happened 12 years ago when George Bush Sr. let them twist in the wind won't tax their mental abilities one whit. (And if you want Rantburg regulars to really feel ashamed and embarassed about America, talk about how we abandoned our friends, like the Moro tribe in Vietnam. Get a clue.)
The farmers explained that they were scared of Americans because of the military equipment. (I don't blame them. I feel a little intimidated myself when I go to the Vidalia Air show and see all the nasty military equipment we put on display there.) My supposition is that they relaxed with the reporter because they were afraid of being identified as Fedayeen terrorists.
In short, we were welcome, but they'll believe us when we back up our words with deeds. I.e. when we prove we have a REPUBLICAN president, not a Democrat. Perhaps we underestimated their willingness to let us break some eggs to make the freedom omlette, so they're waiting to see if we'll "get dangerous".
War propaganda you say? What do you think you're feeding us here at Rantburg?
Finally, PLEASE explain a religion that has NO problems continuing to teach hate and revenge for kicking dhimmi enforcing, kuffir oppressing Muslims out of Jerusalem 1000 years ago, when Christianity was able to get the Americans to forgive the Japanese for Pearl Harbor within 20 years of the sneak attack.
The REAL power of a TRUE religion from a TRUE God is it's ability to help men master the power of hate in their hearts, not permission or excuses to let it run rampant in the name and with the blessing of God. THAT was the TRUE disgrace of the Crusades. One of the purposes of my blog is to REFORM and IMPROVE the Crusader order.
And a REAL religion CERTAINLY does not endorse hypocrisy and open lying to advance the cause of God. Leastways one I'm obligated to respect if I don't feel like following it.
I'm listening, but my fairness detection meter still hasn't budged off 0.
#10
"...officially for the world it is a UN embargo, but for the Iraqis it is an American embargo..."
Could you elaborate that point please, Murat? Unless I'm mistaken that's a blatant example of Arab anti-Amercan self-delusion. I take it that if they do actually believe this, you would consider them to be wrong.
"...people tend to think that Iraqis hate Saddam, while a lot of visitors who have visited Iraq report different, Saddam is for a lot of Arabs a hero..."
We've heard from the sort of visitor who think's Saddam's Iraq is just hunky-dory, thanks. They all have an agenda which celebrates Saddam's style of repression, like your good self. And the fact that Saddam is perceived as a hero by many Arabs (which is undeniable) just goes to show the contempt those Arabs have for humanity, be it Muslim, Jew, Christian, or other.
#11
OK guys lets reassess, the Iraqi people are afraid of Saddam, his republican guards, the fedayeen and their own army right, in fact they are jubilant to be liberated by the US and British but so afraid to show. Even at the food delivery by the British in Umm Qasr they are so afraid they still chant in favour of Saddam. Question, who are these fedayeen, republican guards, militias and regulars, arenât they the brothers, sons, fathers or nephews of the same Iraqi people, they really must be happy and in ecstasy that Americans liberate them from their fathers and sons.
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 10:41 Comments ||
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Thanks Ptah and Bulldog, you saved me some typing.
Murat, stay off the meds, you're spouting gibberish. I don't have the time or inclination to discuss facts when you counter them with propaganda.
Posted by: Jeff Brokaw ||
03/28/2003 10:43 Comments ||
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"...officially for the world it is a UN embargo, but for the Iraqis it is an American embargo..."
Yes I can elaborate it, but I am sure you can too, who did fight Iraq during GW1? 90% US and 10% rest, how would you perceive the embargo?
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 10:49 Comments ||
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Murat: the regulars are the fathers, brothers, and sons, of the people of Basra,Nassiriya, etc. Which is why they fedayeen have to force them to fight. The fedayee and republican guards are Sunnis from Bagdad and especially Tikrit. I dont doubt they and their relatives are a problem, and that a good portion of the iraqi people (say 10-20%) support the regime. But I think you are misjudging whats happening in the south right now.
You point out that the Sunni/Shia split is analogous to Catholic/Protestant - I assume you were trying to minimize it - ironic, since some of the Brit forces going into Basra have experience in Belfast. And I would venture that the discrimination faced by the Catholics of Northern Ireland is dwarfed by the atrocities the Baathist regime has inflicted on the Shia.
#16
No critisisiam,Ptah.Just a clarification:The Moros
were an ethnic,minority tribe in the Phlipines(and if possable more insane than the Islamofacists),the people you are refering to in Vietnam are the Montanghards.
#17
Ditto Liberial,
Murat quit with the bull we all know who is in charge of Iraq,who does the slaughtering,who suffers,and who is fat and happy.
What happen did you run out of logical arguments?
Have you been reduced to lies and propoganda?
I used to have a great deal of respect for you but that is quickly on the wain.
#20
I cant let this one get by( from an earlier murat response) : By the way you talk about the Shia as if they are not Arabs maybe you do, but let me explain that the difference of Shia / Sunni is like Catholic / Protestants, they are both Muslim and the same people
Of course we can all point to the shared love and affection between Protestants and Catholics, why Northern Ireland is a perfect example of brotherly love between Catholics and Protestants. After all,they are both Irish, they are one people.
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
03/28/2003 18:19 Comments ||
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The besieged city of Basra is "clearly nowhere near" under Allied forces' control, a British officer admitted today. Colonel Chris Vernon also revealed five days of fighting had made it impossible to get aid into the area. A ship laden with hundreds of tonnes of food and essential supplies for the people of Basra today docked in the nearby port of Umm Qasr.
But Col Vernon warned: "Basra is clearly nowhere near yet in our hands and we have no way at the moment of getting humanitarian aid into Basra." He was confident the city would eventually fall, but could not say how long it would take. "Not easy, no time lines on it," he said. Hopes had risen that aid would finally be delivered to 1.5 million civilians trapped in the city as a British Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship arrived in Umm Qasr. The Sir Galahad - carrying 200 tonnes of food and 100 tonnes of bottled water - has been delayed for several days because of Iraqi resistance in the town and mines in the channel approaching the dock. Civilians trying to flee Basra were shot at by Iraqi militias today, another military source claimed.
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 07:19 am ||
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"Civilians trying to flee Basra were shot at by Iraqi militias today, another military source claimed. "
Thank you Murat, for reminding us what this war is about.
#4
I have not slipped it Ptah, I only regard every claim from the British with sceptism these days, evenso Blair.
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 9:15 Comments ||
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It is not a claim from Al Jazeera, but an English paper
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 10:43 Comments ||
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#6
eyewitness account from the Times of London:
"The crowd was halfway across the concrete and steel span of the bridge when the mortar rounds started falling on the Basra side, men, women and children screaming as they ran to escape machine gun fire coming from the Iraqi positions.
A thousand people, maybe more, running for their lives. A young woman falling, hit by shrapnel, as a pick-up truck broke cover and charged forward, the machine gun mounted on its roof spewing bullets at the crowd.
On the British side, a tank lurched forward, the gunner training his sights on the truck a few hundred yards ahead. One shot and the truck was blown apart, the three people in it killed in an instant. Around the British positions, mortar shells were falling, the Black Watch firing back.
The crowd had made it safely across the bridge, hands raised as they ran towards the British troops, ducking for cover as the British guns moved round to cover their escape. They began moving along the road in the direction of al-Zubayr. They may take shelter there or camp out in the countryside around.
A young woman, badly hurt, was plucked to safety by a British vehicle and driven back across the lines. Others were also injured and medics rushed to tend their wounds. Then came the clatter of rotor blades and two Lynx helicopters appeared, hovering over to the right, just visible between the concrete pillars holding up the bridge. "
#7
sniff, sniff, that made me cry, liberalhawk. Unlike the peace activists who pretend to cry for these people while cheering their oppressors, I'm not ashamed to wish that each one of those brutal oppressors gets as good as they have given.
It's impossible to imagine the horror that the Iraqi people have faced for so many years. If I'm ever in their position, I'd like to think that the people of the free world would care enough to fight for me too.
I need to "turn this war off" for awhile. These stories are really bringing me down, and there really isn't much I can do about it but hope and pray for their freedom.
#8
Don't comment this fucking guy. He's obviously a moron. Obviously a islamofascist. It's funny, go to all the problems in the world. Kashmer, Chechnya, Afgan, New York, Palastine, Philipines, Kurdistan, you name it. What's the link, Islamofascism. The world isn't at war with the Islamofascist the Islamofascist are at war with the world. Just don't read his crap and don't comment on it.
Posted by: George ||
03/28/2003 11:56 Comments ||
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... this is how he plans to force us to enter Baghdad.
This, and .. I think no other reason...
is why our forces have held off on approaching Baghdad.
This article is via National Review's Corner.
Saddam Hussein has made extensive preparations to flee Iraq â and has already smuggled his family out to Syria. He has also been selling off property and valuables to raise millions for his exile. *This just doesn't sound right. I can't claim to be a Saddam expert, but I don't think he'll run. It doesn't contribute to the legend in his own mind of "Saddam the Defiant Hero".*
Just days before the bombardment of Baghdad began, Saddam's first wife Sajida â mother of his heirs Uday and Qusay and daughters Raghad, Rana and Hala â fled to Damascus with three lorryloads of possessions and 60 bodyguards. They are staying with Iraq's ambassador to Syria, Saddam's former protocol minister Haitham Rashid Wihaib told newspapers in London. *Hmm, I never heard of his daughters till now. I wonder if they're as twisted as the boys are?*
The news will heighten speculation that Saddam's regime may be about to crumble. *Everybody assumes that Baath-party Iraq is a one man state. Saddam goes, and everything will automatically fall apart. I hope that's true, but it doesn't exactly strike me as being some sort of law of physics.*
Several of his most senior lieutenants, including his deputy Tariq Aziz, have also sent their families on ahead to Syria before the fall of Baghdad. *Now Aziz does strike me as a runner. He also occupies a very high place on my list of people I'd like to see being stomped to death by a shrieking mob.*
The Iraqi leader has an aircraft on stand-by 24 hours a day to fly him out of the country. The pilot will be Raad al-Tikriti, son of his former minister of defence. *Assuming Saddam is still in Baghdad, the only way that aircraft will get away is if the USAF is ordered to let it go. That's not impossible of course.*
If his escape route is cut, Saddam wants his most trusted bodyguards to kill him. "Saddam will never be captured alive," Mr Wihaib added. *I repeat my preference for a howling mob. I'm sorta primitive that way. However, I'm pretty sure that I won't shock the sensibilities of the typical reader of Rantburg.*
Mr Wihaib also revealed that Saudi diplomats acting as middlemen told the US that Saddam would leave Iraq â if Qusay was allowed to take over. President George W. Bush flatly rejected the deal. *If that's true, my congratulations to the President. Qusay might even be worse than Saddam.*
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
03/28/2003 08:04 am ||
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Sorry about that, Fred, could you please move this to the Iraq section? Thanks.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
03/28/2003 4:07 Comments ||
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Has anyone seen any evidence that confirms Saddam survived the initial strike on his bunker last week?! Have I missed something? All I've seen is a couple of pre-recorded speeches that could have been made any time in the last couple of weeks or earlier, and some footage of meetings (no voices, just musak for heaven's sake) that could be from years ago. Tell me if I'm wrong...
I know it's beneficial for us to perpetuate the idea he's still around, in some respects, but it'd really help with the hearts and minds thing to be pointing out he's probably mouldier than a French cheese right now...
#4
I think every member of the Baath party should have their right hand lopped off at the chin, and turned over to the people of Iraq to deal with as they please. That includes all these street-gang thugs who erroneously believe they're 'heros' and 'superior' to everyone else.
The Arabs are not moved by our humanity. They are only moved by brutality. We should show those who hate us just how well we can exert controlled brutality.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 14:58 Comments ||
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From what I've seen of them jumping up and down in the street, I think a good policy would probably be to shoot every fat guy in Iraq. That would most likely finish the Baath party.
I don't have a link for this--(The link on the title is for the general site.) but I just heard a report at around 09:30 GMT (12:30pm in Iraq) from a BFBS (British Forces Broadcasting Services) embed. She interviewed a commander stating unequivocally that his soldiers witnessed some 2,000 cizilians attempting to leave the city. What the officer described as "irregular Iraqi forces" opened fire on these unarmed Iraqi civilians as they attempted to leave Basra.
Posted by: kgb ||
03/28/2003 03:49 am ||
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Here's a report from the BBC WarblogSouthern Iraq :: Tim Franks :: 0819GMT
According to a British military spokeswoman, between one thousand and two thousand civilians tried to leave Basra en masse. Those people were, in the spokeswoman's words, 'engaged' by Iraqi militia. The civilians turned back and returned towards the city.
As a result, the Black Watch battalion of Britain's 7th Armoured Brigade, which is sitting to the south and west of the city, started firing at the local militia. The fighting, we're told, is still continuing. The episode does not in itself indicate we're at a decisive military stage in the battle for Basra; it does suggest that conditions are bad enough in Iraq's second city for that number of civilians to try to flee.
Posted by: kgb ||
03/28/2003 4:06 Comments ||
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We've just heard more about the 2000 civilians who were trying to flee Basra this morning. We've been told in the last few minutes by British troops that they have now destroyed the Iraqi paramilitary positions and vehicles that supposedly opened fire on the civilians.
British ambulances have now been able to get through to treat the wounded. A handful of civilians were injured, but so far there are no reports of any deaths.
#3
Black Watch battalion forces in Warrior armoured fighting vehicles are believed to have attempted to place themselves between the militia and the civilians being fired upon. Lieutenant Colonel Michael Riddell-Webster, the Black Watch battle group commander, told Mr Bruce that Ba'ath Party militia had been shooting at their own people to prevent them escaping into the British sector in search of food and water. "They have also been mortaring us quite accurately," said Mr Riddell-Webster. "They are using pick-up trucks with weapons bolted to the back of them as mobile firing platforms. "That makes them more difficult to spot and hit." The brigade then called in air support from two British Lynx helicopter gunships to target the pick-up trucks. A forward air controller reported "two good hits".
Anybody get the feeling that Sammy has been watching "Blackhawk Down" and failed to pick-up on the part about our guys not having armor and air support?
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 10:28 Comments ||
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The Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Sir Galahad, loaded with aid, is nearing the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr after two days of delays due to Iraqi mines and storms. The ship is carrying some 500 tons of emergency food, blankets, clothing and fresh water, destined for Iraqi civilians. It had been due to dock on Wednesday, paving the way for more supplies to follow. British military sources said on Thursday mines had been destroyed, but the priority was to ensure the channel is clear before any ships proceed to port. The mines were detonated by clearance teams after being discovered outside areas of water that had already been "swept", the Royal Navy said. The BBC's Owen Bennett-Jones, who is on the ship, said the cargo transporter was proceeding cautiously. "Teams of minesweepers, some working with dolphins, have cleared a channel 50 miles long, but only 200 metres wide," he said. Flipper joins the war effort.
"The Sir Galahad is moving up the channel slowly following the route taken by a specialist minehunting vessel, HMS Sandown." The captain of the ship has emptied the vessel's rear fuel tanks as a precaution in case the ship was hit. The food supplies are mainly rice, lentils, chickpeas and water. "Once that's ashore, the task will be to deliver the supplies to those that need them and that won't be easy," our correspondent said. "Most of southern Iraq remains insecure. But the Sir Galahad's voyage is meant to send a signal that the British government is serious not only about the military campaign in Iraq, but also about the humanitarian aid effort." The UN has warned the looming humanitarian crisis in Iraq could be the biggest such problem the organisation had faced. No, it's a big problem for us, not the UN.
They have been desperate to get the port of Umm Qasr open to get supplies in to southern Iraq. And notice, it's the Allies who get it done, not the UN.
The Iraqis say this is lies, all lies! Iraqi Defense Minister General Sultan Ahmad Hashim on Friday strongly ruled out claims that the port of Umm Qasr has been captured by the coalition forces, saying it is fully under Iraqis' control. Radio Baghdad quoted Hashim as saying that the Iraqi Army's 45 brigade was in full control of Umm Qasr. US and Britain claim Umm Qasr has collapsed. So make sure you don't believe any of this. And ignore the video...
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 12:57 am ||
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"No, it's a big problem for us, not the UN. "
Kinda like when a management consultant tells a client that "we" have a problem, when its really the clients problem, that the consultant wants to be paid to help solve. Kofi, at least, has the good sense to understand that the UN needs "business" to survive, and to understand that the US is a far better "client" than the axis of weasels.
More than 25 Marines from Camp Lejeune were wounded in a friendly fire incident near An Nasiriyah, one of the southern Iraq cities where irregular forces have put up far more resistance than American military planners expected. U.S. officials said some or all of them were hurt when one Marine unit mistakenly fired on another Wednesday. No deaths were reported and no Marines were missing from that incident, officials said. Take care guys, take care.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 12:54 am ||
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#1
I wonder - did they confuse real Marines for Iraqis dressed in Marine uniforms? These damn Fedayeen have turned this into an actual war on terrorism. Hopefully, these guys will eventually take care of themselves, just like the kamikazes did. Good thing they don't have zeros.
Posted by: Matt ||
03/28/2003 2:32 Comments ||
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Actually, I'd like to see them in Zeros. I'd like that a lot.
the other matt
Posted by: (lowercase) matt ||
03/28/2003 9:25 Comments ||
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After falling out of the sky and sleeping in the mud, American paratroopers grabbed a strategic air base on Thursday and began plotting how to cross 80 miles and thousands of Iraqi troops to seize invaluable oil fields in northern Iraq. ``Kirkuk is key,'' said Maj. Mike Hastings of the Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade. ``The Iraqis want it, the Kurds want it, the Turks want it and various other ethnic groups also want it. What this drop means is that we can secure it until we are relieved by other forces.'' Nearly 50 percent of Iraq's vast oil supplies are pumped in the northern fields of Kirkuk and neighboring Mosul. More than 1,000 troops parachuted into Iraq late Wednesday, accompanied by tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles. It took hours to dig out the behemoth weapons after they plummeted into vast mud fields created by heavy rainstorms. I can only imagine.
A C-130 transport plane landed Thursday, as did 200 more Americans soldiers as the Army began stockpiling the airstrip near Bashur with weaponry and supplies. Warplanes from U.S. ships in the Mediterranean patrolled the skies over the north as transport planes came in. One sortie of aircraft struck Iraqi mortar and artillery positions. ``Now, with paratroopers in control you can start flying in the various armored vehicles and various support you need to expand your operations,'' said Rear Adm. John C. Harvey Jr., commander of the battle group including the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. The paratroopers descended because Turkey, a longtime U.S. ally, has refused to allow some 60,000 U.S. ground troops to cross into Iraq. That left coalition troops with no northern front. That changed Thursday. American troops began the day wearing muddy uniforms tinged with frost. They fanned a valley nestling the airstrip, surrounded by snowcapped mountains. Gotta get the northern oil fields before Sammy has them blown.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 12:47 am ||
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Oh god, another Rumsfeld picnic scenario? Does the US really expect that Kurds will form a reliable northern front, yes seemingly she does. Well it wont take long and the 3th surprise next to the Shia will be that also some of the Kurdish tribes fight the US-British invasion, according to MIT Saddam provided weapons to 7 Kurdish tribes loyal to him. Well 173rd Airborne Brigade just make sure to walk behind the Kurds and keep an eye on them before you get shot in the back.
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 4:36 Comments ||
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#2
I don't think the guys on the ground -- the SpecOps guys who have been there for weeks if not months -- are that stupid. Kirkuk will fall to the coalition, just like everything else in Iraq, given enough time and ordnance.
#3
Uh, Murat? Am I remembering wrong, or didn't you have a post a few days back where you suggested that we were going to take those bloodthirsty Kurds all the way to Baghdad and use them as assault troops in the fighting there? But now taking Kirkuk (ca. 150 miles north of Baghdad and in the Kurdish backyard) is impossible?
You're original theory seems to have been a bit of a "Rumsfeld picnic scenario". But to be fair, since English isn't your first language, maybe I misunderstood your post.
For the record, I have a hard time believing that the current Coalition forces in the North -- even reinforced with a Mechanized brigade -- will be able to take Kirkuk. So either we're planning something very unexpected (what is the 101st up to?), or this force's main job is to keep the Iraqi northern forces fixed -- particularly the Nebuchadnezzar and 1st Adnan divisions? That seems like something worth doing to me.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
03/28/2003 7:42 Comments ||
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Patrick Phillips
You donât have to put the words in my mouth Patrick, I never said impossible, but it is true that Kurds will surprise you, youâll never know which tribe is friend or foe.
For the record, I have a hard time believing that the current Coalition forces in the North -- even reinforced with a Mechanized brigade -- will be able to take Kirkuk. So either we're planning something very unexpected (what is the 101st up to?), or this force's main job is to keep the Iraqi northern forces fixed -- particularly the Nebuchadnezzar and 1st Adnan divisions? That seems like something worth doing to me.
Yes I agree
Posted by: Murat ||
03/28/2003 8:33 Comments ||
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#5
"Well 173rd Airborne Brigade just make sure to walk behind the Kurds and keep an eye on them before you get shot in the back. "
Well Murat, maybe if back in 1920 the allies had established a unified Kurdish state, and if they had succeeded in dividing Turkey among its neighbors, and Turks had gone through 80 years of what the Kurds have gone through, you'd also be unreliable and put your own interests above loyalty. Oh wait a minute, you do that anyway, dont you?
Police have confirmed that two letters received by the New Zealand Herald today contained cyanide. Earlier this month the Herald received a letter warning that noon today would see a "demonstration of capabilities" in Auckland and Wellington if the United States proceeded with an invasion of Iraq. That letter followed four other letters to embassies and high commissions in New Zealand. Two of the letters contained cyanide powder. This has been going on for some time. Originally, the threats were against U.S, British, and Australian targets. Now this nut is talking about water supplies and movie theaters. Hopefully they'll catch up to him soon.
Posted by: Patrick Phillips ||
03/28/2003 08:07 am ||
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Hopefully, he'll forget and lick one of his envelopes...
#4
I wish this article would make those who claim taking on Iraq increases the terrorist threat to the countries who actively serve STFU. NZ ain't supporting and look at this!
The leading Iranian armed opposition group, the MKO [Mujahedin-e-Khalq] , is playing a double game by courting both Washington and Baghdad, Iran's Information Minister Ali Yunessi claimed on Thursday. "The Mujahadeen is cosying up to the Americans by making them think they're on their side, and at the same time trying to make (Iraqi President) Saddam Hussein believe there is a danger from Iran," the minister said on state television. "The Mujahadeen have reached a dead end and they have been forced to take refuge in a region of Iraq where there is little danger of fighting." Terrorists generally aren't big on facing real soldiers. They prefer women and children. And I doubt the U.S. is going to buy any of the MKO's line.
The group, based on Marxist and Shiite principals, was instrumental in the overthrow of the shah in 1979 but was later forced out of the country by the Islamic regime and set up camp in Iraq, where it boasted several bases and thousands of fighting men dedicated to the cause. Iranian opposition groups, both Kurd and Shiite, are hostile to the MKO, which has allied itself to Saddam since the mid 1980s and is classified as a terrorist organisation by Iran, the United States and the European Union. That sounds pretty much unanimous...
Yunessi called on the Mujahedeen fighters to "abandon your movement's terrorist leaders and return to Iran". Good idea. And, Iran? We won't look when they get home, okay?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 07:07 pm ||
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You know your in trouble when Iran declares you a terroritst.
The exact role of the United Nations in a post-Saddam Iraq remains the subject of intense transatlantic debate, but one certainty is that chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix will have no part in it. "My contract expires at the end of June," Blix told TIME on Thursday, "and I do not propose to stay beyond that." About time. Don't let the door slam on your incompetent butt on your way out, since you can't afford to lose the IQ points. Not that anyone would notice, mind you...
#1
Bye, Blixie. Take care. I think I'd take that pension plan as a lump sum payout if I were you. Your former employer may not be around for too much longer.
#2
Good bye and good riddance. Thanks for nothing.
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg ||
03/28/2003 14:39 Comments ||
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#3
His MTV experience has really opened some doors for him. Expect Mr. Blix to host a new prime-time dance show this fall, as "DJ Blixxx, the Hansyman"
Posted by: (lowercase) matt ||
03/28/2003 15:04 Comments ||
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Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Hansy - brain damage is a reportable injury!
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
03/28/2003 15:20 Comments ||
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For Hans, it's back to the polar circle, cake, and reindeer. Good riddance.
For the last several months, Israeli officials have been prodding Washington to carry its campaign against the "axis of evil" on to Iran immediately after the end of the Iraq war. Israel's national security adviser, former Mossad chief, Ephraim Halevy, as well as longtime Sharon adviser and former Cabinet minister Dan Meridor, have been warning Washington against "complacency" toward Iran. They, along with others, fear Tehran could emerge strengthened from the decimation of Iraq, its main rival, and thus emboldened in its belligerent attitude toward Israel.
Israeli policy-makers maintain that Iran is still "a year or two" away from assembling a nuclear bomb. Still, they view Iran as a clear and present danger to Israel, more dangerous in some eyes than Iraq. In addition to sharing intelligence on Iran's new uranium-enrichment facility in Natanz, Israel has recently conveyed to American and British intelligence services reports of a dramatic increase in Iranian support and finance for anti-Israeli terrorism. The reports say Iranian support has spread beyond Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad to include Fatah cells in Gaza and the West Bank. Anyone see an Osirak in Natanz's future?
#2
Revolt is a lot easier said than done. I get the sense that they're waiting for the US to come help. I also get the sense that Israel isn't going to wait indefinitely...
#3
I actually see Iran, in the long run, as a beacon of hope for the region. The generation born since the Shah got bounced has grown to embrace free thinking and US ideals. They also tend to hate the humorless backwards clerics who rule them. Indeed, Iran is due for another revolution, and this one will bring them to democracy, without overt US intervention, and they will be a heroic and gallant populace for having done such.
#4
I hope that we are giving the rational opposition lots of covert help. They are going to need it in order to topple this regime in time to avoid some very bad things.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/28/2003 14:58 Comments ||
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I believe that the discovery of chemical weapons apparatus in Iraq, has already served as sufficient pretext for nuking Baghdad. Unless Bush's "pre-emptive strike" doctrine, as stated last May at West Point, is hollow, it is time to put away the smart bomb and the pansy rules-of-engagement, and make Saddam's terror nest look like the dark side of the moon.
And don't remind me that there are 5,000,000 nominal "people in Baghdad." They are Islamaniacs, whose human value is below that of a cockroach. Like Pink Floyd says, "DON'T GIVE ME THAT DO GOODY, GOOD BULLSHIT!"
Iran's former judiciary chief, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, Friday condemned the US-led war on Iraq as well as Washington's plans to set up a post-war government in that country, saying it is impossible to establish democracy with the use of force. "The right to govern Iraq dwells with that country's people and no body must take this right from the Iraqi people," he told thousands of worshipers at the weekly Friday prayers. "That's Sammy's job..."
"Neither America and Britain nor any other outside country has the right to govern Iraq," the cleric said, adding "invading a country with the use of arms and military prowess is unacceptable and illogical". Makes sense to me — but then, I believe in cause and effect. If you don't, then I guess it doesn't make any sense.
"Is a law of jungle ruling, in which any one who has more power and arms wants to attack other countries and govern them?," Ayatollah Yazdi said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
03/28/2003 12:10 pm ||
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We're not there to "establish democracy" -- we're hunting terrorists, WMDs, Saddam and his thugs, and getting in position to put some pressure on the rest of the Axis of Evil. That includes Iran on several counts. Heh. In addition, we're bringing free markets, a federal republic, a bill of rights, and prosperity to Iraq. It's happened before, most notably in Germany and Japan.
Russia can forget about its oil interests in Iraq, Washington and London having decided to cut Moscow out of any postwar arrangements in restructuring Iraq's resources, the head of Russian state-run oil firm Zarubezhneft said in an interview yesterday. "We're clearly going to have to cut our losses on anything we have there and anything we could have had," the company's general manager Nikolai Tokarev told the daily Vremya Novostei. They are finally getting the picture, or are they?
"The Americans haven't gone into this war intending to share with anyone. It's a war trophy," he said. Trust me, Nikolai, if you'll just agree to play by the rules, we'll let you play too.
"We were on to some huge deposits, irrigation projects, a whole lot of things apart from the oil sector," he said. "were" being the operative word...time to face the future instead of the past.
Posted by: becky ||
03/28/2003 11:00 am ||
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I consider this to be a very good sign! IMHO, that they are acknowledging their losses shows that this is a done deal. Hope they are smart enough to figure out they can still be "with us" instead of "against us", while still coming out waaaay ahead of where they would have been with Sadaam. That concept of "compound interest", it's magic, I tell you! MAGIC!
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg ||
03/28/2003 11:40 Comments ||
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As we continue to find banned weapons supplied by Russia to Iraq, we may also want to cut our losses by stopping all other funding to Russia, whether it's 'foreign aid' or 'investment', or just plain graft. Russia has proven it's still our enemy, not someone who is interested in being a partner.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 12:07 Comments ||
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"... The Americans haven't gone into this war intending to share with anyone."
We learned how to share in primary school. There's a give and take though, taught in the Chicken Little story - if you share in the responsibility and work, then you share in the product of that responsibility and work. Hinder or undercut that work, and your losses will be cut for you, and deeply. (To mix and garble metaphors.)
Hundreds of Pakistanis are seeking asylum in Canada rather than registering with the US under its controversial anti-terrorist laws. The Special Registration Programme, as it is known, affects all temporary resident adult males from 25 mainly Muslim countries. The deadline for Pakistanis to register expires on Friday, but many are too afraid to register and are leaving the US instead. Gee, why is that?
Many have been living illegally in the US for years - for instance, on tourist visas which have long since expired. These include families who, for the most part, have lived quiet, undisturbed lives but who do not have proper residency papers. Oh, that's right, they're here ILLEGALLY!!!!
At one of the border crossings into Canada, there are now some 800 Pakistanis in makeshift accommodation, waiting for the Canadian Government to let them in. Have fun, Canada!
Deadlines for citizens from a number of other countries have already passed, with more than 100,000 people coming forward.
Since late last year, the US authorities have been interviewing, photographing and fingerprinting men in an attempt to keep better track of who comes in and out of the country. Don't let the door hit you in the ass, that's for my boot.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 10:14 am ||
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Bruce, I may set a record for civility by me (two in a row! :-)
I'm a physician and I see some immigrants as part of my practice. Yes, the INS is massively incompetent. Yes, after 9/11 anyone from certain countries got hassled. I don't doubt your stories. For the example you offer (married to an American, filed petition for green card), those hassled should be banding together for a class-action suit. You're a lawyer, you've seen the examples set recently by the anti-rave stupidities in Houston and Racine, you know this can be done.
For the legal immigrants, I have sympathy and hope they don't think too harshly of us. For the ones who haven't fixed their status, it's their loss.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 21:54 Comments ||
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#2
Of course you know that this now makes Canada a superpower in the convienience store industry.
#3
Something tells me that the HUNDREDS that are leaving the country v/s the 100,000's coming forward, will be the ones deleted from the welfare rolls (rather than the payrolls). Ha ha, Canada has put themselves in a position to take these losers or eat crow. LOL!
#5
Tu3031, it also means that there will be a surplus of liquor stores in the US for sale. And Shell stations. And 7-11's.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 13:23 Comments ||
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Seriously, this is good news. The more illegals of all nationalities that go, the better off we are. These are "tourists", "students", etc. who deliberately broke federal law.
This was a relatively easy country to get into legally, so what was their excuse? We've even had at least two amnesty programs for illegals in the past 25 years.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/28/2003 15:14 Comments ||
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Steve. If a Pakistani sells just the liquor license in Massachusetts, he'll go up there with enough money to buy Canada.
#8
Some of these Pakistanis may indeed have flagrantly overstayed tourist visas and so forth. But what you guys don't understand is that very many of them are married to Americans, have American children and friends and neighbors, and they are technically out of status, despite heroic attempts to comply with the law, because of outrageous incompetence and inefficiency of the INS. The racist comments in this thread are unworthy of Americans.
Posted by: Bruce Hake ||
03/28/2003 17:30 Comments ||
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#9
Okay, Bruce, we're a little over the top here (on Rantburg every day is little over the top), but consider: if you were in the country on an overstayed tourist visa, married to an American with American children, don't you think the onus would be on you to get your status regularized ASAP?
Most of the Pakistanis in this position are probably decent Joes. They should have seen immediately after 9/11 that the time to continue at loose ends with the law was over. And the Special Registration Program isn't onerous if you're a good person who's simply got a visa problem.
No one here would defend the INS -- a more incompetent Federal agency would be hard to find. But the onus to have one's status regularized is on the individual. These guys didn't get it done. That's their problem. Hope they enjoy Canada.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 17:56 Comments ||
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Steve, Thanks for your civil comment. I have the unusual distinction of having been kicked off a right-winger web site for being too liberal, and off a left-winger site for being too conservative, and I always hope for civility.
I have the misfortune to be an immigration lawyer,
and the vast majority of my clients are legal immigrants or visitors. There is a fundamental flaw in your response. You assume that it is within people's power to "regularize their status," as if
it were like buying a pair of shoes. In fact, my clients are going to fantastic lengths to try to comply with the law and regularize their status, but often they are blocked by really incredible INS bungling. The government does not follow the law! For example, it has been black-and-white crystal-clear in the law for over 40 years that a person married to an American who has filed a proper petition for permanent resident (immigrant) status is in lawful status and entitled to work. Nonetheless, in the recent Special Registration sweeps of people from over 25 countries, thousands of law-abiding foreigners were humiliated, harrassed for hours, denied the right to legal counsel, handcuffed, locked up in holding cells in very cold weather with no shelter and packed in so tight some had trouble breathing, then transported to state prisons and put in with the rapists and murderers for days or weeks--and then eventually released, with no apology. Do you get that? These are legal immigrants. With no criminal record. Not terrorists. Many of them are Christians and people who got asylum in the United States because they were fleeing tyranny overseas. They have American wives and children and employers and patients and neighbors. That is why so many people are so scared. I'm not talking about isolated incidents. These abuses number over 1000 in the past three months.
Posted by: Bruce Hake ||
03/28/2003 19:26 Comments ||
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#11
I would have to say that.. based on the experience of a co-worker who moved here from England for the purpose of marriage...
What Bruce says seems entirely plausible to me.
#12
Bruce, I adopted two children from overseas and the INS put me through hell on the second adoption because my daughter didn't have a "satisfactory" birth certificate. Hell, she barely even had food for her first three years, let alone paperwork! Even though she was a ward of the state and legally released to me by the state, the INS dug its heels in. I persisted through months and months of INS bungling that brought me to tears more than once. But I persisted -- and eventually won. I'm not convinced that all these folks lined up at the Canadian border persisted to do the right thing. Many of them simply took advantage of disappearing into the melting pot rather than taking the risk of seeking legality. For folks like your clients I have sympathy. For the slackers I do not.
Posted by: Tom ||
03/28/2003 21:40 Comments ||
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#13
Bruce, I may set a record for civility by me (two in a row! :-)
I'm a physician and I see some immigrants as part of my practice. Yes, the INS is massively incompetent. Yes, after 9/11 anyone from certain countries got hassled. I don't doubt your stories. For the example you offer (married to an American, filed petition for green card), those hassled should be banding together for a class-action suit. You're a lawyer, you've seen the examples set recently by the anti-rave stupidities in Houston and Racine, you know this can be done.
For the legal immigrants, I have sympathy and hope they don't think too harshly of us. For the ones who haven't fixed their status, it's their loss.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 21:54 Comments ||
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#14
Sorry Bruce - civility's over. I live in San diego, hear all sorts of the same sob stories, and have gotta say: no-one but these illegal residents put themselves and theis families in this terrible position. Depending on periodic amnesties is not a strategy, but a hoping for Christmas several times a year. The citizen children are entitled to be treated accordingly and your clients should have their asses air-dropped from whence they came.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/28/2003 22:49 Comments ||
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#15
I can just see Mr Pakistani man shivering,drinking a molson and listining to a Brain Adams cd.Go Habs eh.
Republican members of the US Congress have asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to boycott a French firm catering for the US Marines. The firm in question, Sodexho, has a $881m contract to feed the Marines. "My colleagues and I abhor the idea of continuing to pour American dollars into a French based firm when those dollars could be feeding our wartime economy," wrote Representative Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican. Mr Kingston wanted the contract to be terminated because that would send "a tangible signal to the French Government that there are economic consequences associated with their international policies". Mr Kingston said Sodexho, the American subsidiary of France's Sodexho Alliance, had recently signed an eight-year contract with the Marines. And I don't care if it is an American subsidiary, it's still a French company. And no, I'm not getting over it.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 10:06 am ||
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HOT DIGGETY DAMN! This is a hell of a lot more significant than "freedom fries" in MY book.
*swells with pride* Jack Kingston is MY Congressman! I'm glad for EVERY penny I spent to get him re-elected.
#2
Sodexho Marriott is one HUGE international company--a search on Google for "Sodexho" will reveal US, Canada, UK, Poland, and many other countries with Sodexho branches. One site claims $4.9 BILLION in revenues in North America. Many companies, including Microsoft, use Marriott catering and staff in their cafeterias.
Posted by: Dar Steckelberg ||
03/28/2003 11:05 Comments ||
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#3
$88million---not small potatos---Representative Kingston---he's da Man! Nice work Congressman!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
03/28/2003 11:06 Comments ||
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#4
Why the hell are we doing buisness with these people,I'm sure there are U.S.companys that would jump on that contract.
#5
Did I mention he's my congressman? I did? Did I mention I voted for him? Head for my website for my tribute...
Paul, it's not $88 Mil. It's Eight hundred and eighty one million green ones. If Dar's right, that amounts to 17.9% of revenues. That'll put one BIG hole in their pocketbook. Here's hoping it puts an even bigger hole in their surrender monkey butts.
#8
Gaddammit! How can they expect a man to go into combat without a heapin' helpin' of escargot?
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2003 15:01 Comments ||
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#9
Paolo, if that French company loses the business, another company will rise to the occasion. The money does not just go "poof." Any boycott of French companies is directly translated into support for other companies, which should be w/in the Coalition. This is a global economy, and we can very easily get rid of the French without pain.
#10
Kalle, point well taken. However, the last thing we need now is a move towards a trade war with the economy still slowly recovering. That being said, it couldn't hurt us to keep our options open and look at domestic providers. From listening to the company officials, they seem to be rather supportive of the troops and the American position. While the French are generally anti-american, there are still those who remain our friends. Let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Posted by: Paolo ||
03/29/2003 1:12 Comments ||
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#11
Oh, and by the way, I am hardly a french apologist. Remember when everyone was getting rid of their Japanese cars at the end of the 1980's because of the Japanese rivalry and the fear that they may over-take us? Well, that problem has solved itself and I believe that our problem with the french will as well with time. We do not need to be seen as vindictive, though we have every reason to couter attack the back stabbers in Paris. This does not mean that we should not retaliate, but that we should do it with patience and quiet determination.
Posted by: Paolo ||
03/29/2003 1:17 Comments ||
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#12
Paolo,
Don't know if you realize it,but we have been in a trade war with France for decades.Do you know that France limits and imposes Tariffs on American farm products,French farmers are about the most inefficent in the world if the limits/tariffs were lifted they(French farmers )couldn't compete.It would also put thier government backed subsidies in dire straights.
Also French airlines are required to buy Airbus,not contract with the lowest bidder.
The ambassador of Saudi Arabia has been found murdered in Ivory Coast's commercial capital, Abidjan. Mohammed Ahmad al-Rasheed's naked body was reported to have been found on Friday with his throat cut in the apartment block where he lived, but outside his flat. The diplomat's body was found in a pool of blood on the staircase two floors below his own flat. His murder does not appear to be politically motivated. The ambassador took up his post at the end of last year, three months after the start of Ivory Coast's civil war, which has left the country divided in two. The apartment block where he lived is in the business district of Plateau, which according to our correspondent, is one of the most secure areas of Abidjan, which has remained under government control. It is next to the American Embassy and close to the building where opposition leaders are living under the guard of West African peacekeepers.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 10:01 am ||
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#1
Payback for Saudi finances in the Northern "rebel" movement which is a barely disguised jihadi movement?
#6
Ok. I acknowledge my own paranoid view of the world, but if he lived in one of the most secure areas of Abidjan, an area under government control, next to the embassy and close to the building where they are holding the opposition leaders... Hmm. Walks like a duck, quacks like duck ... Where's the orange sauce?
#7
Abidjan has had a nasty crime problem for a while.
A mugging isn't altogether impossible. Maybe the
pickings started getting leaner thanks to the
rebellion, and one of the gangs has started trying
to branch out into a richer section of the city.
This was the guy who was mouthing off on Good Morning America the other day about how "Islam is misunderstood".
The former stepfather of a U.S. soldier accused of attacking his own unit in Kuwait was arrested Thursday on a federal weapons charge. William Mohammad Bilal is accused of being a felon with several weapons in his home. He was in custody Thursday night, and was scheduled to make his first appearance in court Friday. Should've stayed outta that spotlight, Billy. It can get real bright. And what the hell was he doing on Good Morning America? He hadn't talked to Sgt. Psycho in 5 years. Sounds like they were real close.
According to a federal court affidavit, Bilal was convicted of aggravated rape and sentenced to life in prison in 1970. In 1979, Gov. Edwin Edwards commuted the sentence and Bilal was freed after serving 12 years. When his parole expired in 2001 he applied for clemency from the state pardon board, but it was denied. I wonder how much that cost him?
Officials said a tipster who claimed Bilal had threatened her several times told them about the weapons. Bilal was married for five years to the mother of Sgt. Asan Akbar. Akbar is accused of lobbing hand grenades into a brigade command center of the 101st Airborne Division on Sunday. The attack killed two officers and injured 14 other soldiers.
Posted by: tu3031 ||
03/28/2003 09:34 am ||
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Another "I hate America" american who believes the rules of civilized behavior don't apply to him.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 12:35 Comments ||
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How long until he Free Mumba type signs start appearing for this guy, claiming it was political persecution or a coverup or something.
Edited for content:
Early in the American invasion of Iraq, amid one of the air assaults, an unmanned aircraft meant to confuse enemy radar fell to the ground in Baghdad. In the wreckage, Iraqis discovered a fragment marked with the manufacturer's signature and origin â "Taas Jerusalem" â a taunting declaration, as if fired from the Jewish state itself. "We found a missile that had fallen in southern Baghdad," Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri announced. "The missile did not explode and God be praised, it exposed Zionism's part in the aggression."
As one of the world's top arms exporters, the country has sold the United States an array of equipment that is either being used or could be employed in Iraq. It has supplied the American military with sophisticated decoys, such as the one found Saturday, as well as precision air-to-surface missiles on B-52 bombers, high-tech targeting systems, and onboard computers and armor for the Bradley fighting vehicles rolling across the Iraqi desert, according to military experts and analyses of Israeli arms sales. It also has designed and manufactured a host of other components that permeate the U.S. arsenal. Asaf Eisin, a spokesman for Israeli Military Industries, confirmed that the fragment found in Baghdad was produced by his company, whose name in Hebrew is Taasia Tzvait and abbreviated as Taas. He said such decoys are launched from fighter planes and have a radar signature akin to a small aircraft.
Posted by: Steve ||
03/28/2003 08:39 am ||
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I heard someplace that 75 to 80 percent of military R&D dollars are spent by the United States, and 15 percent by Israel.
I worked on the test program for the AMRAAM air to air missile carried by the F-14 Tomcats. My mom is pleased as punch to know a little bit of me is somehow out there with our forces sticking it to Saddam (her side of the family has a tradition of sticking it to dictators).
I imagine our Israeli military supply partners are equally tickled.
The Russian military launched a test intercontinental ballistic missile on Thursday from its northwestern Plisetsk base. The Topol rocket was fired at the eastern Kamchatka peninsula, the usual target for most Russian intercontinental tests. When contacted by the agency, a Russian military space agency official refused to say whether the test had been planned before or after the US-British military attacked Iraq. Seems like they are throwing some mighty big chips on the table.
Posted by: becky ||
03/28/2003 10:11 am ||
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What does Russia hope to accomplish by his increasingly belligerent stance? You start to wonder if they actually believe America is as wimpy as presented by the NY and LA Times. There in lies the danger of being educated with white-washed history books.
#2
People, they REGULARLY test fire their missiles: They use air pressure to eject the missile, then the blast doors snaps shut just before it ignites. (This is not alien technology: its the same way submarine based ballistic missiles are launched.) They then reload from an underground magazine. This method makes their missiles very inaccurate, so that's why their total megatonnage is so big: they need large yield weapons to be effective within their error margins.
They didn't disarm or reduce their inventory. We're letting ours degrade via tritium decay. Progress was being made on a treaty when it got tabled by 9/11, so you can go thank Bin Laden for screwing up disarmament.
This is from Agence France-Presse folks! They need us, the people of the United States, to believe that Armageddon is just around the corner.
#3
hmmm, perhaps you are right and I have been seeing this in the wrong light. Found this interesting tid-bit from March 26th regarding the Arms Treaty http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/RUSSIA_US?SITE=AZTUS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Ok, maybe this is all just political posturing rather than actual threats. Hey, I never claimed to be an expert :-)
#4
Ok, that was my post. Shhh, I've exposed myself. Well, I only put the veil on earlier to further avoid offending Muslim sensitivities and I forgot to take it off. :-)
Notice the quote marks. The Independent just can't seem to admit to the kind of company Bob keeps.
An inquiry into President Robert Mugabe's land theft reforms in Zimbabwe has uncovered massive corruption in the allocation of farms seized from white farmers, ostensibly for the resettlement of landless black peasants. The black farmers, originally resettled on the farms, are being evicted to pave the way for Mr Mugabe's cronies, many of whom own up to five farms. But I think we all saw this coming.
In Zimbabwe's tobacco-producing Mashonaland province, about 90 formerly productive white farms are lying idle because Mr Mugabe's associates are arguing about how to carve up the spoils. Mr Mugabe ordered the land audit report â a full copy of which was obtained exclusively by The Independent â but is unlikely to act on it, according to an official. The report details how
Abednico Ncube, the Deputy Foreign Minister and one of Mr Mugabe's chief associates, ordered officials responsible for confiscating land in his province to designate two white-owned hotels in the area for seizure. This was "a violation of the National Land Policy and the Land Acquisition Act", the report said.
Chris Pasipamire, a Mugabe supporter and senior thug official of a gang an association representing Mr Mugabe's war veterans, had "violently" evicted 36 peasants resettled on a seized farm.
Sithembiso Nyoni, a junior minister, had seized a farm with an established infrastructure to produce poultry, livestock and citrus. The farm had been earmarked to become an agricultural skills training centre for unemployed youths. "It is disturbing to note that violence is the order of the day on this farm with hired thugs driven in ... by the honorable minister," the report said.
Edward Chindori-Chininga a minister and Mugabe loyalist, removed peasants and expropriated a 500ha farm.
Saviour Kasukuwere, the deputy head of Mr Mugabe's violent youth wing, owns three farms. He had also evicted peasants who had been resettled, according to the report.
Perence Shiri, commander of the air force, was allocated a farm at the expense of 96 families who were evicted.
Twenty-one peasant families have been evicted to make way for Sydney Sekeramayi, the Defence Minister.
Kembo Mohadi, the Home Affairs Minister, Ignatius Chombo, the Local Government Minister, Josiah Hungwe, a minister for Masvingo province, Elliot Manyika, a minister in the department of employment and his deputy Shuvai Mahofa, Jonathan Moyo, the Information Minister and many more friends of Mr Mugabe are owners of anything between two to five farms each. Mr Mugabe's sister, Sabina, has three.
The inquiry asked Mr Mugabe to take action but middle-ranking officials in the Ministry of Agriculture said Mr Mugabe had done nothing. The report was handed to him about two months ago. "If he had to act, he will probably have to fire his entire cabinet and he would be left with no cronies to boot-lick him. It's unlikely he will do that," said one official. "There are many of his close associates involved in this mass-scale looting who are not even mentioned in the report." Zimbabwe continues to spiral downwards. Can any Rantburg readers make it to the massive anti-Bob protest marches in Berkeley?
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 08:25 am ||
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Keep it up, Bob. I still got Zimbabwe in the Famine Pool. I may double my bet.
Oil prices have jumped sharply, partly reversing the 30% falls seen since the beginning of March. US crude oil prices rose 66 cents to $28.63 while London's benchmark had gained 47 cents to $25.2835 a barrel.
... Oil prices have been given further impetus by social unrest in oil-producing regions of Nigeria, which has already removed more than 800,000 barrels per day - more than 1% of global demand - from the market. The deteriorating situation in Warri, the main city in Nigeria's Delta region, has forced international oil firms such as Shell, ChevronTexaco and TotalFinaElf to reduce output to a trickle. "Two factors are influencing the markets: the potential for Iraqi oil to remain unavailable for longer than expected and the loss of Nigerian oil exports," said analyst Adam Sieminski in a report for Deutsche Bank.
Nigeria, which produces some 2.1 million barrels per day of oil, is the world's sixth-biggest exporter, and is especially crucial because of the high quality of its oil. Nigeria is one of the main exporters to the US, which is wary of relying too much on oil from its neighbours in the Americas. The current unrest concerns the Ijaw ethnic group, native to the Delta region, who allege maltreatment at the hands of the security forces. Nigerian armed forces are reportedly protecting oil facilities and other buildings, after Ijaw militants clashed with members of the Itsekiri tribe. The Ijaw feel they are under-represented in national politics, and claim that electoral boundaries have been drawn to favour the Itsekiri. Although oil firms have moved to boost production in other parts of Nigeria, there is little prospect of exports recovering quickly. And two of Nigeria's four refineries are already almost out of crude oil - something that threatens to exacerbate already chronic fuel shortages. Another problem to watch.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 08:31 am ||
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Not sure who's inciting, but a spectacularly corrupt Nigerian govt has given them fertile ground to work with. Not sure if the oil cos have been merely tolerating or actively encouraging that - could be an element of sowing and reaping there. Not too ideal to have Nigeria, Venezuela and Iraq offline or unreliable at the same time...
#6
Ojukwu, of Biafra War fame, is running for office in Nigeria, on a "Biafra idea" platform. Others favor a "South-South" solution. The common link is detachment from the Islamic social idiocy in the Northern sharia states. Southerners are asking why they should share oil wealth with Muslim parasites who subverted Nigeria's constitution in order to live under sharia perversity.
#7
There's another Islamic/Christian/amimist "civil war" in Nigeria, as the Islamic north tries to force its religion on the rest of the country. I wouldn't doubt some of the unrest can be traced directly back to Hussein and the Saudis. Civil unrest in Africa, mostly either prompted or encouraged from outside, has the potential of igniting the entire continent, to no one's benefit.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
03/28/2003 11:05 Comments ||
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#8
Biafra. There's a name from the past. And it doesn't conjure up happy memories.
#9
"Or are they too busy running internet scams? I got another letter today."
I've got my junkmail filter fine-tuned so most of that's cut out. Now I get mostly offers to grow my doinker another three inches and to sell me Viagra.
What I want to know is, who told?
Posted by: Fred ||
03/28/2003 16:01 Comments ||
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#10
Mrs Abacha still wants you to accept 40 percent of her 30 millions?
Rebel members of Ivory Coast's unity government have stayed away from its first meeting in the commercial capital, Abidjan. They have demanded that President Laurent Gbagbo rescind his appointment of two cabinet members to take charge of the disputed portfolios of shooting and looting defence and interior — on an interim basis. The Patriotic Movement of Ivory Coast or MPCI, say the appointments violate a recent peace agreement and they will not take up their posts until their demands are met. And this is a problem because ...
The six-month rebellion has divided Ivory Coast into a rebel-dominated largely jihadi Muslim north and a government-controlled south where the Christian population is concentrated. "This is a mere diversion. We totally reject the appointment of these ministers," rebel spokesman Antoine Beugre told AP news agency by telephone. The government and rebels had earlier agreed that a special commission, representing all sides, would name the heads of these two ministries — but the commission could not reach agreement. Fancy that!
Wrangling over whether the rebels should be given the defence and interior ministries threatened to hold up the creation of the new government, which was agreed earlier this year during so-called peace talks dictated by the French. Adou Assoa from the ruling Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party is the interim defence minister, while Fofana Zemogo from the opposition Rally of Republicans (RDR) party will provisionally hold the interior portfolio. The nine rebel ministers in the 41-member government also refused to attend the first two cabinet sessions in the capital, Yamoussoukro, citing security concerns. You rebel against the government and now complain about security concerns?
RDR ministers said they were worried about their safety but, with the exception of their leader Alassane Ouattara, returned from exile, and are now participating in the government.
Alassane is making sure his very valuable butt is kept nice and safe...
On Wednesday, about 30 detainees escaped from a French military camp in western Ivory Coast after it was besieged by pro-government loyalists. Thousands of demonstrators besieged the French military base in the western Ivorian town of Daloa. The BBC's Kate Davenport quoted eye-witnesses as saying that the protest, many of them in school uniform, marched through the streets shouting anti-French slogans. During the protest the detainees are reported to have jumped camp barriers, escaping before the French troops had time to disperse the protesters. The French seem to have trouble doing anything right these days.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 09:30 am ||
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Expect the Feathered Frogs to tuck thier tails(sorry wrong spiecies)and run home very soon now.
#2
Now ya see, this just proves that no good can come from unilateral military intervention without a UNSC mandate...and if'n the Frenchies can't get it right, what chance do we stand?
Posted by: (lowercase) matt ||
03/28/2003 9:09 Comments ||
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A rocket carrying Japan's first two spy satellites has successfully blasted off. It marks the beginning of an intelligence-gathering programme prompted partly by North Korea's launching of a long-range ballistic missile over Japan in 1998. The rocket took off at 1027 on Friday from the remote island of Tanegashima, 1,200 kilometres (700 miles) south-west of Tokyo. North Korea has described the two Japanese satellites as a "grave threat". Rather subdued for KCNA, eh?
The two satellites, the first of at least four in the 250-billion-yen ($2.05bn) spy programme, were propelled into clear but windy skies atop a Japanese-made H2-A rocket. Concern about a terrorist attack or possible demonstrations led to heightened security at the space centre. Riot police set up roadblocks nearby, while helicopters patrolled the skies. There had been fears that bad weather could delay the take-off, but the launch took place as scheduled. Until now, the US has gathered intelligence on Japan's behalf.
Our satellites are probably a bit busy now...
These satellites are intended to give Tokyo independent surveillance capabilities. Japan is thought to be especially concerned about North Korea's Taepodong missiles, which are able to reach virtually all of the country. It also wants to monitor Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme. The satellites, which are expected to be in use for about five years, are to orbit the Earth at a height of 400 km to 600 km (250 to 370 miles). North Korea has warned that it may launch "satellites" of its own. Just stuff the Dear Leader into it prior to launch, and we guarantee we won't shoot it down.
Japanese officials say North Korea may be preparing to launch another missile. A Japanese military analyst, Hajime Ozu, told the Associated Press he expected North Korea may make such a move to anger Japan and the United States, which Pyongyang sees as a threat. "For North Korea, a missile launch means a way to boost patriotism at home and a warning to the United States... It is one of the few remaining key diplomatic tactics North Korea has," he said. Other than back down on the nuclear reactor and plutonium.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 01:08 am ||
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Is the PAC-3 good enough to shoot down a Taepo-Dong II?
We may find out shortly.
#2
Hmmm, Satelite launch capability, the missing weapons grade(?) plutonium, the idea that the Japanese wouldn't care as much as the US if Seoul got fragged, and the aforementioned PAC-3's adds up to a possible pre-emptive strike by the Japanese, "Oh no, it wasn't us, they must have had an unfortunate accident."
The UN Security Council has agreed on a draft resolution to reactivate the huge Iraq oil-for-food programme. Diplomats describe the programme as the largest humanitarian assistance operation in the UN's history. The draft resolution will give UN Secretary General Kofi Annan control over the programme, which was previously run jointly by the Iraqi Government and the UN. It allowed Iraq to sell oil to buy food and medicines, providing a lifeline for more than half its population. Especially the Kurds, who could actually use the money to buy food and medicines.
Both Mr Annan and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who met at the UN headquarters in New York on Friday, welcomed the decision. The Council could vote on the issue as early as Friday, and diplomats have said they hope that all 15 members will support the resolution. Perhaps we should dare the French to veto it.
There is currently $2.5bn earmarked for food in the oil-for-food account. But the programme was suspended last week and more than 300 relief workers were evacuated prior to the coalition invasion of Iraq. On Thursday, Deputy Secretary General of the UN Louise Frechette told the BBC that it was critically important for the programme to be reactivated, warning that some people already displaced by the war could have just a few days of food left. She said that while the UN would try to get humanitarian aid through to Iraq, it was the responsibility of the US and its allies to look after the basic needs of the people. Earlier on Thursday, US President George W Bush spoke of the urgent need to resume the programme to help Iraqi civilians — but he warned that the aid effort should not be politicised. The BBC's Susannah Price at the UN says concern had been expressed by Security Council members Russia and Syria during the week-long negotiations, over the issue that the draft resolution might appear to sanction the war in Iraq.
Posted by: Steve White ||
03/28/2003 01:02 am ||
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My impression is that a French veto would mean a break with Germany.
#2
Iraqi oil for food benefits the big French oil company Elf. They are unlikely to veto. The US might however. By the time oil for food is working Saddam will be gone and regular oil shipments can flow.
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.
