Marion Barry must be proud.
The FBI has arrested a city political figure in New Jersey on charges she sold crack cocaine for a street gang. A cooperating federal witness bought 169 vials of crack from Sophia Merritt two weeks after she was elected to the Democratic committee in June 2002, according to a court document filed by the FBI. She was 18 at the time. Several weeks later, Merritt was seen in a car with more than a pound of cocaine, the filing said. "She was a full-time narcotics dealer," Assistant U.S. Attorney Marc Agnifilo told The Star-Ledger of Newark. Merritt sold drugs for the Double ii Bloods, authorities said. Is that "double eye", or "double eye eye"? Wouldnât that make it "quadruple eye"?
She and her running mate, DeWayne Ellison, are among over 100 unsalaried Essex County or local party committee members. Two represent each of the 55 districts in East Orange. They were on a slate with Rep. Donald Payne of Newark and Essex County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo. DiVincenzoâs campaign committee paid for Merrittâs election literature. He told the newspaper, "I do not even know this woman. No comment." Payne also said he had never met Merritt. "Okay, yes, we would smoke crack together at parties--but nobody introduced us."
Posted by: Dar ||
12/17/2003 3:45:24 PM ||
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This is nothing more than normal, run-of-the-mill East Coast corruption. It's a way of life for us, and it helps make us among the most civic-minded people in America: here in Philly, we have over 100% voter registration, and even the dead go out on Election Day to do their duty.
God, I love this town...
Posted by: Dave D. ||
12/17/2003 17:04 Comments ||
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I guess the teddy bears and the retro gear didn't raise enough doe.
Posted by: B ||
12/17/2003 17:47 Comments ||
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#6
Hey, a drug dealer has pretty powerful control over his/her constituancy. Under Reformed Campaign Finance rules are drug deal procedes considered "soft" or "hard" money? Does it depend on the drug sold?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 18:23 Comments ||
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#7
A Democrat and a crack dealer? That explains a lot.
An 11-year-old Canadian boy is recovering in a hospital after he was trapped underneath a half-ton snowball. Officials in Niagara Falls, Ontario, say the boy and his classmates at a Catholic elementary school were rolling the 5-foot-high snowball around the playground when he slipped. The snowball rolled onto him, cutting off his oxygen. Officials say the school principal revived the boy by performing CPR. The boy is expected to make a full recovery. Police are calling it "a freak accident."
We don't make this stuff up. Really...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 15:36 ||
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School officials promptly effected a ban of snow on all school property.
A celebrity model who once portrayed the swashbuckling Lara Croft has been airlifted out of Iraq because she doesnât like the toilets used by British forces. Nell McAndrew, 30, was given a helicopter ride Monday to Kuwait and a luxury hotel, from where she shuttled back into Iraq for morale-boosting pre-Christmas visits to British troops. "There was some difficulty over the toilets and showers," Squadron Leader Alison Simmonds, a spokeswoman at the British military base in Basra, southern Iraq, told Britainâs domestic Press Association news agency on Wednesday. "She just couldnât get the hang of squat ânâ pop."
#1
She probably couldn't fit into the showers. We ARE talking about a Lara Croft look-alike.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/17/2003 15:05 Comments ||
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Oh, that Nell McAndrew... I see what you mean... There's something about women with guns. She should go down, uh, er, to Austrailia and buck up her comrades in charms.
#9
All those plumbing fixtures we liberated from Saddam's palaces, and she has nowhere to go?
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/17/2003 22:47 Comments ||
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Ha! I saw the pictures #2 linked to in a 1999 playboy. I must say, though, Shannon Elizabeth was in the same issue, so Ms. McAndrew was a little overshadowed. (Ms. Elizabeth, however, is a first-class moonbat.)
Representatives from the Federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms as well as a technician from Kennedy Space Center are at a Merritt Island mobile home today to help remove highly explosive detonator cord embedded in a concrete patio. The cord has been a part of the trailer home at 325 Lafitte Court in Merritt Island for more than 20 years, the Brevard County Sheriffâs office said. Highly explosive, the cord injured two pest control workers this week after they drilled holes into the concrete to lay pesticide.
"Cheeze, Herb! Whut the hell was that?"
After the second explosion on Tuesday evening, Brevard County Fire-Rescue contacted the Sheriffâs Office Bomb Squad to respond. "What we found was detonation cord embedded in the concrete," said Lt. Jack Aguiar of the sheriffâs bomb squad. "We then contacted the Hazardous Materials Team which determined the cord was made of PETN, a material used for detonation." PETN, or pentaerythritoltetranitrate, is one of the strongest known high explosives. It is more sensitive to shock or friction than TNT or tetryl, and is primarily used in booster and bursting charges of small caliber ammunition, in upper charges of detonators in some land mines and shells, and as the explosive core of primacord. "It looks like a clothes line, " said Aguiar. "It may be that someone used the cord as a level line when pouring the slab for the patio, and the line ended up buried in the concrete."
"Uhhh... Wally? Please don't smoke around the plumb bob!"
Mike Bieker, a technician with the sheriffâs bomb squad, believes the cord was put into the concrete by a previous homeowner and has been degrading over the past 20 years, making it even more volatile. The homeowner has lived on the property for about 18 years and has since been moved out of the trailer. The two Terminex employees - Todd Defusco and Jerry Alleston - were treated and released from local hospitals with only minor injuries. The KSC technician is using a handheld detection device to help locate the cord before workers are able to remove it, Bieker said.
Hello, the first one didn't get your attention?
"Damm, Herb, that looks like it hurts. Here, wrap this rag around it while I finish drilling.....Ouch!"
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 14:27 Comments ||
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Primacord detonates at 20,000 ft/sec. Pretty heavy duty chalkline. I wonder where they got it and for what purpose. That stuff would be for quarries, or building demolition, or maybe seismic work. People usually don't leave rolls of primacord laying around.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/17/2003 14:43 Comments ||
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Was the patio to code?
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 14:45 Comments ||
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Makes a hell of a chalk line, though
LOL!
Remember the PSAs back in the 60s warning kids about blasting caps? I spent half my boyhood looking around construction sites for said devices... never could find any tho.
#7
Shipman: same here, except we palled up with some quarry guys who gave us caps, crimpers, fuse, and instruction. We were stupid, but we were pretty safe. And I guess lucky. Needless to say, I am not teaching my 8 year old son the trade, heh heh.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/17/2003 16:30 Comments ||
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After the second explosion on Tuesday evening
Steve - You beat me to it. I could not believe I was reading this line. I guess if they would have had a team of six "pest control engineers" on this job, no one would have been called until the sixth friggin' idiot tried his luck.
Watch this population for future Darwin Award winners. 'Just warmin' up, now.
#9
Ship,I remember those PSA's,I grew-up in mining towns(hell I spent years living in company housing and getting school clothes from the company store,"What'll it be blue jeans or black,son".)All those years around open-pit and underground mines and not one blasting cap.
No "Stupid Criminal Tricks" thread here?
ORLANDO, Florida -- Released from prison, Ronald A. Mahnerâs first mistake was driving back to get his stuff. No, that was his next-to-last mistake
Mahner returned to the Seminole County Jail to reclaim his personal property four days after being released. He had served a sentence for drunken driving, auto theft and habitually driving with a suspended or revoked license. But when asked to provide identification, Mahner handed a sheriffâs deputy his license, which after routine computer check was found to have been revoked for life. oops
Deputy Teri Cresswell couldnât prove Mahner was doing anything illegal without seeing him behind the wheel, so she told him to drive to the back parking lot. Mahner took the car around back, That was his last mistake
parked in a fire lane weâll let that one slide
and went inside to claim his clothing, shampoo, dart board and battery charger. Important stuff he really needed
Ann Mallory, a manager in the Forensic Services Section, called in a computer check of the carâs tag and found it had been reported stolen the same day Mahner was released from jail. His second-to-last mistake
Mahner was handcuffed and arrested Monday, just as he was about to drive away.
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) ||
12/17/2003 2:27:04 AM ||
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Damn! This idiot is one (fatal) traffic accident away from being the winner of a gold-plated "Darwin Award"!
Somebody give him a one-way ticket to the nearest home for feeble-minded criminals.
Ed Becerra
Posted by: Ed Becerra ||
12/17/2003 2:56 Comments ||
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I feel no pity for this idiot. Instead I laugh at his misfortune!
Posted by: Charles ||
12/17/2003 4:23 Comments ||
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All communities must have their idiot. Glad to see the Seminole County lock-up didn't have to do without their's for an extended period.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 14:49 Comments ||
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Now available at Kabul BlockBuster:
The Taliban have released their first video containing footage of attacks on US troops and Afghan militia in southern Afghanistan and appeals to Afghans "to come out and wage a jihad against the United States". "Jihadiâs, come out and play!"
The 22-minute video copied on compact discs, the first from the Taliban following a US-led invasion of Afghanistan, contains poems lamenting the fall of their regime and commentator narrating the plight of Muslims all over the world at the hands of "Hindus, Christians and Jews" in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechenya and Palestine. The video containing propaganda stuff is the latest by group opposed to the US presence in Afghanistan. Hizb-i-Islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar released his own video statement narrating the instances when he narrowly escaped the hunt by US troops and renewing his pledge to continue fighting until foreign forces were evicted from Afghanistan. So this is a different video than Hekâs.
The Taliban had released a similar video of their operations in southwestern Afghanistan that included the footage showing the kidnapping of Turkish engineer. It is also the first video from Taliban, who were generally averse to filming of living beings which they thought was against the edicts of Islam. The Taliban regime under their supreme leader Mullah Muhammad Omar had closed down television and banned music. Guess they needed to drum up support.
An Afghan familiar with the situation in Paktia province remarked how Taliban insurgents ruled the night in Afghanistanâs volatile southern province bordering Pakistan. "The day belongs to Americans and their Afghan allies. People drive in their vehicles playing music. Music cassettes are replaced by religious audios as the night falls when the Taliban come out and set up check points." The reasonably well edited video titled Pasoon (Uprising) in Pushto, apart from showing clips and footage borrowed from western and Arab news channels of the US and Israeli "excesses" in Iraq and Palestine, also contains some shots of Taliban fighters in action against US and allied Afghan forces in Afghanistanâs Paktia province. Bet theyâre staged, a little editing can do wonders.
Central figure in the video, however, is a 26-year-old young man, Abdul Qadir, a Wazir tribesman from Wana in South Waziristan tribal region, who is shown carrying out the attacks and planting a landmine that blows up a pickup truck purportedly killing six Afghan militiamen. Note the "purportedly", the reporter doesnât buy it either.
Mr Qadir, says the commentator, was killed while battling American soldiers in Birmal district in Paktia province on Aug 28. "Abdul Qadir was a hero and a brave mujahid." Now heâs just a dead mujahid.
It also shows father and brothers of Abdul Qadir pledging to offer more sacrifices to evict "infidels" from Afghanistan. "I have seven sons. One has embraced martyrdom in the way of Allah. It is now the turn of my second son. I will give away my remaining sons one by one in the way of jihad," vows Abdul Qadirâs father. Why donât you go yourself and save your sons?
Qadirâs younger brother, clutching a Kalashnikov, is shown on the video, pledging to follow in the footsteps of his deceased brother. The video opens and closes with an elegy lamenting the fall of Taliban.
Good old Abdul Qadir, heroically pushing up daisies, turns out to be a Pak. They couldn't find an Afghan who took it seriously enough — or was dumb enough — to get himself killed? I wonder why that is? They're not even pretending that their operations are anything but a bunch of Paks trying to impose their view of what Afghanistan should be on the country.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 10:53:58 AM ||
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#1
Sounds like a greatest hits release. Artists like to issue them when they don't plan to have any new material soon.
#4
If we're not already, we should be making some of these and releasing them: "God commands every jihadi to wear a bright yellow vest, so as to make their devotion to Him more apparent!"
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/17/2003 12:15 Comments ||
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Send a message to these Taliban jihadists - every time Taliban members are located, send over Spooky to dispatch them from the face of this Earth in a hail of bullets. Snap photos of whatever's left, put them on a million leaflets, and drop them all across the Afghan-Pakistan border with the question printed on them in the local language: Do YOU want to be next?
#6
RC -- reminds me of Bill Cosby's "Toss of The Coin":
After the British lose the coin toss: "The settlers say that during the war, they will wear any color clothes that they want to, shoot from behind the rocks & trees & everywhere. Says your team must wear red, and march in a straight line."
#7
These guys don't seriously think tehy rule the night. I can't imagine that they have night vision readily available. It's can't be that hard to ambush morons that establish fixed positions with a roadblock.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 14:56 Comments ||
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snellenr: Better one --
"Captain Custer, this is Captain Sittin' Bull. ... All right, Captain Sittin' Bull says you and your boys gotta wait down at the bottom of that hill while him and all the Indians in the World ride right down on you."
Last week, the coalition observed the grand opening of the seventh PRT headquarters in Kandahar. Many local and Afghan dignitaries including Governor Pashtun of Kandahar, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, and Lt. Gen. David Barno attended the ceremony. In the next several months, five more PRTs will open: Jalalabad, Khowst, Ghazni, Asadabad, and Qalat.
Education too has been a priority for the coalition. The Aroki Secondary School for Boys and Girls reopened Tuesday in Kapisa Province. The school - damaged during the conflict with the Soviets and destroyed by the Taliban - serves over 1,500 boys and girls. It was reconstructed with 17 refurbished classrooms $93,000 in Overseas Humanitarian, Disaster Assistance and Civilian Aid (OHDACA) funds. Coalition civil affairs soldiers traveled to Mandikhel School in the Khowst Province Monday, distributing several boxes of school supplies donated by families in the United States and more than 200 backpacks donated by soldiers from the Khowst Provinceâs Psychological Operations Team. Friday, in Nangarhar Province, coalition civil affairs soldiers traveled to Shinwar Loyal and Bandar Kholeh in the Jalalabad area for school reopening ceremonies. While the schools were being refurbished, classes met in UNICEF tents.
Bringing medical care to the Afghan people is also part of our stabilization effort. A U.S. Cooperative Medical Assistance team treated 850 local Afghans, and our veterinarians inspected more than 3,000 animals in the Mazar-e-Sharif area in a week-long medical outreach that concluded Thursday.
While returning to their base at Mazar-e-Sharif December 10, doctors from that team responded to a highway accident. One of the tracks on a tank moving to a DDR cantonment site had broken, causing the tank to veer to the side and collide with a civilian truck, injuring 15 civilians. The casualties were then evacuated to the civilian hospital at Sheberghan.
10th Mountain Division soldiers engaged a squad-sized enemy force near Shkin firebase Monday morning. Coalition soldiers returned fire, calling in mortars and close air support. Two anti-coalition militia members were killed and three others placed under control of coalition personnel. There were no coalition injuries.
Anti-coalition militia in Jalalabad fired on U.S. Special Forces, Afghan Militia Forces and Jalalabad police last Thursday, December 11. Coalition forces returned fire, killing four gunmen and wounding one. The Jalalabad police placed under control more than 10 anti-coalition militia members. No coalition forces were hurt in the firefight.
In a sign of his continuing weakness, our common enemy continued to launch ineffectual rockets at coalition forces. Terrorists fired at the Zormat firebase this past weekend and at Bagram last night.
The Saudi lawyer Sheikh Mohsin al-Awaji said yesterday that about 300 persons out of 900 detained in the Saudi prisons over suspicion to have links to terrorism will be released in "the few coming days." These would either be 300 innocent people, 300 well connected thugs or a little of both.
News reports quoted al-Awaji as saying, quoting sources close to the file of the detainees, that "those detainees number more than 900 and it is expected that 300 of the them will be released during the few coming days." The Saudi authorities said it had detained hundreds, not specifying their number. Al-Awaji, a former prisoner is running a cultural forum on the internet. He added that the mediation he had carried out by the authorities and the Islamic groups are continuous in order to bring back viewpoints and to avoid new attacks. He continued that the "good offices initiative between the authority and the gunmen was announced on the 10th of Ramadan (by the beginning of November) by an independent committee of four Sheikhs who have strong credibility. Since then they have been working and achieving encouraging results, thanks to the cooperation among all sides concerned." So they are trying to talk their way out of this problem rather than dealing with it.
The Saudi minister of the interior Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz ruled out in statements in November any dialogue with those who stand behind the explosions in the kingdom. He stressed that the Saudi authorities will not " maintain a dialogue with them except with the gun and the pistol." Well, we didnât really believe him.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 11:09:11 AM ||
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"Ah, y'know, boys will be boys, I guess. We got four Holy Sheiks here, independent of [mumble] with strong connections credibility saying they're really good kids. Cut 'em all loose."
Saudi Arabia will launch its own satellite news TV channel early next year, it was announced yesterday. Culture and Information Minister Dr. Fouad Al-Farsy said the new channel would offer continuous coverage of international news and current affairs. âPreparations for the launch of the channel... are in the final stages. The channel will start satellite transmission by the middle of the Hijri month of Dul Qaada,â the minister said in a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.
I can hardly wait...
He said the channel would strive for credibility and a swift response to news of national, Arab and international importance. A portion of programs would be devoted to covering events in the Kingdom, he added.
Like Friday sermons in Mecca?
Al-Farsy said the channel would air live talk shows about topical issues in addition to recorded programs on the Kingdom and other countries. Meanwhile, the Saudi radio has started an experimental transmission over the world wide web. Its Internet offerings include the general radio program, the second-channel radio program, the Holy Qurâan radio program, the European radio program in English and French, the music radio program, Urdu radio program and other radio programs in various languages.
I'm not sure my heart can take this excitement...
The transmission of these programs can be downloaded through saudiradio.net. At the same website, beta transmission of Saudi television has also begun. A broadband connection is advised to watch the TV programs.
I guess NakedNews.com can hang it up...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:10 ||
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Dull Qaada just about says it all, doesn't it?
More crap, lies and propaganda from the magnanimous House of Saud instead of real jobs, development, civil liberties and the free exchange of ideas.
Good God Allah, it must really suck to be a citizen of SA! No wonder they're so eager to be splodeydopes!
#2
Actually, doesn't Fundy Islam have some sort of beef with "graven images"? I seem to recall a Commandment of some sort that there be no "life-like images" or something along those lines.
If that truly is the case, wouldn't television and movies be forbidden to strictly fundamentalist Islam?
Tisk, tisk... someone's gonna have to issue a fatwah banning photography. HowEVER did the clerics manage to miss this one for so many years?
*smirk*
Seriously, will someone more familiar with the Koran and Islam chip in here and give a clearer definition of the commandment in question, and how modern Islam is wiggling around it? (if, that is, there's a commandment to wiggle around in the first place...)
Ed Becerra
Posted by: Ed Becerra ||
12/17/2003 1:39 Comments ||
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I would prefer they pump their hate out in broad daylight instead of the whispering campaign in Arabic they have been employing. This is going to be a nightmare for the House of Saud, especially with other nations and news networks watching them closely.
Posted by: Ben ||
12/17/2003 4:02 Comments ||
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I had to check (for curiositys sake mind!), and nakednews.com is a real live (hoho) site.
Where's the online form to request that Friday sermons in Mecca be broadcast with an English translation?.
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
12/17/2003 6:40 Comments ||
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All fatwas, all the time. While they're rocking, we're crocking...
From the "This shit donât happen in Texas" file:
TWO female police officers were threatened with a shotgun as they chased three balaclava-wearing armed robbers through Sydneyâs streets today. The incident began when the men confronted two security guards about 10.45am as they collected money from automatic teller machines in the Broadway shopping centre. They stole the guardsâ Smith and Wesson pistols and thousands of dollars in cash before fleeing in a stolen dark green Holden Statesman. Police were called to the scene by a witness and chased the thieves, but the officers were forced to back off when one of the men repeatedly lent out of the car window and pointed a single-barrel shotgun at them. After a pursuit along Glebe Point and Parramatta roads, the men abandoned the car in Chippendale and fled on foot towards Redfern. Redfern local area commander Superintendent Dennis Smith said a search of the immediate area failed to the locate the men but about 45 officers were still searching for them. Now hereâs the weird part: He said the two female constables who had been threatened would undergo a psychological debriefing. "They are fine," he said. "They are now seeking medical assistance, we will have them debriefed and they will be back here this afternoon hopefully ready to go again tomorrow." WTF??? They didnât shoot anyone, they didnât get shot, they werenât even shot at. They just had a gun pointed at them and they have a nervous breakdown? Do that to a female cop here and theyâll have to x-ray your body to find all the slugs. Has the anti-gun programming gone so far there that just the sight of a gun causes grown women to swoon?
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 1:01:59 PM ||
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Shotguns and semi-automatic pistols are still legal here...
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
12/17/2003 18:07 Comments ||
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No offense there officers, but aren't armed robbers supposed to do this? I think it's in the job description.
Unless they were terrified by the Holden Statesman...
From Middle East Newsline
Greece has determined that its national security interests are being threatened by Al Qaida-aligned Arab agents in Bosnia. The Cabinet of Prime Minister Costas Simitis has convened to discuss what officials termed the threat from an estimated 2,000 Bosnian Arabs to the Olympic Games in August 2004. Officials said Western intelligence agencies have assessed that some of those Arab nationals could be training to carry out attacks on Israeli, U.S. or other targets during the Olympics in Athens.
"Here, you people! What're you doing with those explosives?"
"We're training for the Olympics!"
"Hokay."
Officials said the threat of an Al Qaida-related attack will be one of the scenarios in a series of exercises scheduled to take place in February and March 2004. They said the United States has been pressing to revise security arrangements agreed upon a year ago. "Greece, as well as every other country, has the fundamental obligation to safeguard its internal and external security," Greek Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos said. "And it is evident that military planning for the countryâs security takes into consideration the simple fact that the country is a member-state of NATO and, consequently, our military planning takes NATO planning into consideration." Aris: any info that you have heard lately in Greece?
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/17/2003 4:41:29 PM ||
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Maybe we shold pull our troops out of Bosnia and move them to Greece to protect the Greeks from Bosnia. Wait I'm getting confused ...
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 19:00 Comments ||
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One of 13 Palestinians expelled from Israel in May 2002 following the Bethlehem Basilica siege was arrested along with seven others during a police raid in the Brussels region Tuesday. Khalil Mouhammad Abdallah al-Nawawreh, 25, was arrested on suspicion of involvement in two bomb attacks carried out on post offices in Brakel and Court-Saint-Etienne in February 2003, where burglars managed to escape with EUR 213,000. Two of the eight apprehended were sent to appear before Audenarde court, and two to a Brussels court. Al-Nawawreh had been working in Belgium as a mason, was a football fan and activist in the military group Tanzim-Fatah. He had been under high surveillance upon his arrival but police interest in the man was later relaxed as he was not thought to be a threat to the community.
I try not to use bad language on this site, but somehow I can't get the expression "incompetent fucks" out of my head...
#2
He had been under high surveillance upon his arrival but police interest in the man was later relaxed as he was not thought to be a threat to the community.
The polizei probably thought that al-Nawawreh wasn't a threat to HIS community. As for being a threat to others, well, that's a different story...
by Michael Novack, National Review Online. EFL
The Italian newspaper Il Foglio ran a piece Dec. 16 about the frustration at the Vatican, at the secretariat of state, with the imprudent, irascible anti-Americanism of Cardinal Martino, an unfortunate recent appointment (late last year) to the Institute for Justice and Peace, who has not ceased being an embarrassment to his superiors. Rantburg noted the most recent embarassment the other day.
When I was in Rome last February, Cardinal Martino was already under heavy fire for his intemperate and irrepressible anti-Americanism. Even those who before the war leaned more to the weasel French/German position than to the American were dismayed by his uncalled-for comments. Il Foglio pointed out today that Cardinal Sodano, the secretary of state (the official who functions something like a prime minister for the Vatican, the top leader of administration domestic and foreign), -- that is to say, the man within the Church hierarchy who actually has authority to make foreign policy statements in the name of the Vatican --
not only changed the whole title of the document on World Peace released today but also edited out the most offensive passages of Cardinal Martino, from whose department the draft arrived in the last few days. The title, for example, went from "International Law, a Way of Keeping Saddam in Power So TotalFinaElf Gets The Oil Peace," to the less ideological "An Ever Timely Commitment: Teaching Peace." Other rhetorical flourishes were also edited out, according to Il Foglio.
The big Vatican news of the past month has been the major change in the way Islamic terrorism has been directly confronted, with gloves-off honesty in the Jesuit periodical Civilta Cattolica, whose pages are always cleared by the secretariat of state. -- In other words, if the pronouncements of Civilta Cattolica and those of Cardinal Martino conflict, Civilta Cattolica wins the argument. --
Over a third of the Christians of the Middle East have been driven out during the past decade, the journal reports, and it lists many abuses by extremists, against the background of much greater tolerance in the past. It also analyzes carefully just how the extremists function in practice.
The immense relief experienced by the Catholic community in Iraq since the fall of Saddam has not gone unappreciated at the Vatican. In general, now that the American-led Coalition has acted firmly and with far better results than predicted last February by various spokesmen in the Vatican (they did not all speak with one voice), the Vatican has tried to help with the transition to a more just, peaceful, tolerant, and democratic Iraq. (Emphasis added.)
The pope in particular never sided against the Americans, although without doubt he worked and prayed so that war would not in the end be necessary. He took pains to be clear that he is not a pacifist. (He had, after all, encouraged military action to relieve Kosovo of genocide and Croatia of intense suffering). He hoped America would not go to war. For myself, I am glad that in no way could the Vatican at that time have been seen as fomenting a war of "the Christians" against an Arab nation. On the contrary, the popeâs voice was the most audible and constant voice against war. To my mind, that is as it should be. The last thing we would have needed was a pope calling for war against an Arab nation. That last point is extremely important. Bin Laden wants a war between Islam and western civilization. We shouldnât indulge him--there are a lot of Moslems on the side of civilization, and many more who can be persuaded to join us. As GWB recently said:
Are the peoples of the Middle East somehow beyond the reach of liberty? Are millions of men and women and children condemned by history or culture to live in despotism? Are they alone never to know freedom, and never even to have a choice in the matter? I, for one, do not believe it. I believe every person has the ability and the right to be free.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/17/2003 10:17:40 AM ||
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"It's true, of course, that the Church is made of human beings, as Novak also notes. It's just unfortunate that so many of the ones we hear from seem to resemble Cardinal Martino, and the Church -- like any other institution made up of human beings -- will pay a price for filling its ranks with the bitter, the self-important, and the morally obtuse. It is paying such a price now. And what's more, it deserves to."
Posted by: Mike ||
12/17/2003 10:54 Comments ||
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Yeah, I read Reynold's snarky comment: '... will pay a price for filling its ranks with the bitter, the self-important, and the morally obtuse..." (emphasis added)
This unprovable and a calumny. One mid-level prelate gets his fifteen minutes in a REUTERS dispatch and the entire Church hierarchy is condemned. As Mr. Novak points out, the Vatican's actions are profoundly more important than what Cardinal Martino says.
One would think by now that G. Reynolds would wait 24 hours and read two additional sources before basing an opinion on something published by Reuters.
Posted by: roger dodger ||
12/17/2003 12:00 Comments ||
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Roger Dodger
A cardianl is NOT mid-level: it is the last rank before pope and he has voting right for the next pope, unlike bishops and arch-bishops.
You could dispute about the word filling and contend that it should be "not being vigialnt enough about who it admits into its ranks" but not about Martino's importance.
Yes, Cardinal Martino is a member of the College of Cardinals. I was reacting to the more curious development of Martino's being transferred from his prior post as the Holy See's representitive to the UN (for something like 14 years) to his current position as head of something called the Institute for Justice and Peace. I've not heard of the IJP before the Reuters-BBC volley, and I suspect that Cardinal Martino's been pretty upset that too few other people have heard of it, either ;-).
Posted by: roger dodger ||
12/17/2003 12:55 Comments ||
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A few years back I read a profile on a Cardinal Martini (as I recall) puffing him up as the next Pope. Is this the same guy? Is there a Martini and a Martino in the Cards lineup?
"Choosing words carefully, as Martino should have done, is not important simply to avoid offense or scandal, but in order to communicate the entire truth. The entire truth is that Hussein was a dictator and a tyrant and a murderer and that the competent authorities have the right to do what they want with him, within the confines of international law. What bothers those bothered by Martino's statement is the absence of the whole truth, which, of course, also includes the suffering of Hussein's victims. . . .
"For the thinking Catholic, who understands herself to be a part of a living Church that extends through time and space, the remarks of Martino should provide no threat to faith. A frustration, yes. An obstacle in evangelization, yes, and thanks a lot for that, buddy, but a threat to one's personal faith? I am at a loss to see why. For me, Cardinal Martino's statement is no more a threat to my faith than the spectacularly sinful life of a 15th century Cardinal or Pope. Same Church, the saints and sinners all exist on the same plane. It is a mystery, yes, and one worth unpacking - if our faith is revealed incarnationally, through stuff and words and music and yes, people, how do we see through the (always) less-than-adequate stuff and the (frequently) ridiculousness (and worse) of the people to Christ? And how do we help others do the same?"
Posted by: Mike ||
12/17/2003 13:27 Comments ||
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#7
There is a Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini (a Jesuit, I think) and Cardinal Renato Martino. As to whether Martino has voting power, I'm not sure if only these 13 cardinals get to vote, or if every Cardinal votes.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/17/2003 13:41 Comments ||
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#8
It appears the eligibility rules allow all cardinals under 80 to vote, and they suggest no more than 120 voting members in the conclave.
#10
Don't like any priests? Your prejudice is showing "mojo".
Then you've not met the ones I have. The ones that help the homeless, visit the sick in local hospitals, provide counsel to families in grief (like 2 sets of families here, one lost a father in Iraq, the other a 2 year old daughter to the flu), feed the hungry (via time in a soup kitchen or out seeking donations locally from groceries,etc), operate the church facility including repairs, budgeting and funding, and still look after the spiritual welfare of the parish by hearing confessions s3everal times a week, and on top of all that, offering up masses at least twice a day, every day of the week, including Saturdays, and 4 times on Sunday.
Sure do wonder what got you into "hate the religious" mode. And regardless of the religious angles, only the most stubborn and closed-minded would argue that the priests I know (above) are not an asset to the human race.
EFL
THE HAGUE American presidential politics can be played on any stage, and for the past two days it has unfolded behind closed doors in a courtroom in the Netherlands. As George W. Bush reveled back home in the capture of Saddam Hussein, General Wesley Clark, who is seeking the democratic Presidential nomination, has profited from his own personal history with another dictator: former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. In two days of testimony in the international war crimes tribunal in the Hague, the retired four-star general and former supreme commander of NATO sought to burnish his credentials as a potential commander-in chief as he built the case that Milosevic was guilty of war crimes and genocide. George W Bush did not ârevelâ. But do note, that Clark has âprofitedâ.
Even better for General Clark, former President Bill Clintonmanipulated the strings weighed in here on his behalf, the closest thing to an endorsement by Clinton for any Democratic contender so far in the campaign. In the courtroom on Tuesday, Milosevic, who is serving as his own attorney, attacked Clarkâs personal character by citing criticism of him by General Hugh Shelton, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to officials in the Hague familiar with the testimony. Thereâs that personal character issue again.
Posted by: Dragon Fly ||
12/17/2003 9:03:26 AM ||
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#1
If Clark does get Slicks endorsement then you can bet that all the Free Thinkers in Hollywood and Rockland will line up in lock step.
Hegemony or Survival: Americaâs Quest for Global Dominance, Noam Chomskyâs latest opus, has already been reviewed in these pages, including amusing correction of a jacket-quote:
Arguably the most important intellectual alive" - The New York Times
This very old quotation in fact was:
Arguably the most important intellectual alive, how can he write such nonsense about international affairs and foreign policy? - The New York Times
A new UK review by Nick Cohen, reprinted in al-Guardian of all places, craps all over Chomsky again. Long, amusing, EFL
Whatever other crimes it committed or covered up in the twentieth century, the Left could be relied upon to fight fascism. A regime that launched genocidal extermination campaigns against impure minorities would be recognised for what it was and denounced.
Ummm... Yeah. Okay. With the proviso that the "impurities" had to be confined to geneaology...
Not the least of the casualties of the Iraq war is the death of anti-fascism. Patriots could oppose Bush and Blair by saying that it wasnât in Britainâs interests to follow America. Liberals could put the UN first and insist that the United States prove its claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the court of world opinion. Adherents to both perspectives were free to tell fascismâs victims, âWeâre sorry to leave you under a tyranny and realise that many more of you will die, but thatâs your problem.â snip Noam Chomsky is the master of looking-glass politics. His writing exemplifies the ability of the Western Left to criticise everything from the West - except itself. He is immensely popular; but his popularity is mystifying on the first reading. His work is dense and filled with non sequiturs (here he seeks to use the Cuban missile crisis to explain the Iraq war, which is a little like using the first Moon landing to explain the dotcom boom). He claims to confront the comfortable with uncomfortable facts they donât want to face. Yet his audience is primarily a comfortable Western audience. snip
The lesson of 11 September is that no constraints of morality or conscience would stop al-Qaeda exploding a nuclear weapon. If however, it is all our fault, as Chomsky says, perhaps we can avert catastrophe by being nicer and better people. Perhaps we can, but Chomsky is as reluctant to admit that al Qaeda is an autonomous movement as he is to admit the existence of the democratic and socialist opposition to Saddam Hussein. Dunno if these ilk of reviews help the book biz much.
Posted by: Glenn (not Reynolds) ||
12/17/2003 1:14:41 AM ||
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Dunno if these ilk of reviews help the book biz much.
I know, I know..everyone disagrees with me, but I still say that "bad publicity" is an oxymoron.
"I think it shows that exposure may not be particularly favorable, but it will always add to some degree of sales increase."â
Gennaro Castaldo, HMV spokesman. Record stores in Britain reported a surge in sales. Virgin Megastores said sales of Jackson's 1982 Thriller album were up 473 percent from last week. His greatest hits package HIStory was up 383 percent â sending both albums into the lower reaches of the chain's Top 100 chart."
lower reaches, yes. But would we have even noticed he HAD an album out? I mean, when was the last time you rushed down to get Michael's latest. He's been pretty sucky for a long time.
and...
"Washington, Nov.24 (ANI): Pop star Michael Jackson's new album 'LP Number Ones' has become a chart buster in Britain and has sold 120,000 copies in its first week.
Jackson, however, has been in the limelight for reasons other than music. According to rate the music.com, Jackson's record label Sony is claiming that the publicity surrounding the 'Thriller' star over his arrest on child molestation charges, will push sales of his new album up and also help him to retain his record at the number one position".
As for OJ (and Kobe)...he was selling an image. He damaged the product, which is different. It's doubtful it would have hurt his sports career.
Posted by: B ||
12/17/2003 12:12 Comments ||
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#4
um...sorry, the above post was a bit longer than needed. Oh well.
Posted by: B ||
12/17/2003 12:43 Comments ||
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Two French journalists have been arrested in Pakistan for travelling without permission to the city of Quetta, close to the Afghan border. Journalists are not allowed to visit the area without an official escort. Yeah, whereâs their Taliban guide?
The authorities say the two men spent several days in the city, and are in breach of Pakistanâs foreignersâ act. Marc Epstein and Jean-Paul Guilloteau of LâExpress magazine were remanded until 24 December. The arrest of foreign reporters in Pakistan is rare. Killing foreign reporters is another matter.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 4:20:56 PM ||
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At least 40 suspects have been arrested in the initial probe in to a bid to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf, sources said. The suspects are part of the initial investigation into blowing up of the bridge in Rawalpindi used by the presidentâs motorcade. The guys listed below are the cops who were guarding the bridge.
According to the FIR, DSP (Security) Sultan Mehmood Chidhar said he was deputed at the route duty of the president. According to the programme, at the bridge near Ammar Shaheed Chowk, constable Hafizullah was deputed at the East corner and constable Sajid Hussain at the west corner while constable Babar Ali was deployed under the bridge. Babar has a lot of explaining to do.
He said ASI Wazir Ali and Inspector Haji Muhammad Saeed were present on the duty as the route inspector. Them too.
Meanwhile, the agencies have found almost all the devices used to blow up the bridge, including seven detonators, a control box bearing, and supply line leading to detonated explosives. Sources said the time of blast appeared at the timer fixed in the box was 7:12:36 pm. Thatâs strange, how would you expect to hit a moving target with a timer, unless this was a failsafe to detonate the device if it didnât get a remote command.
They said the time limit of the jammer fixed in the presidentâs car to jam the explosive devices was 55 seconds. I guess that means the moving car with the jammer would have been in effective range of the bomb for 55 seconds as it passed. So, divide by 2 and the bomb would not receive the detonation signal until about 27 seconds after the limo passed.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 10:03:33 AM ||
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#1
I'm guessing that the "timer" was a cell phone and that 7:12:36 was the time of the last call received. Any chimp can set up such a bomb with a cell phone, a relay, a battery and a soldering iron. I'll leave the actual configuration as an exercise for the student. A cell phone bomb is a lousy way of hitting a moving target. What if the call doesn't go through? It happens all the time in the USA; who knows how many times it happens in Pakistan. IMHO, a garage door opener is more reliable. This is what the apes in Iraq are using anyway.
#2
The advantage of a cell phone is that you can detonate from a safe distance. If the garage door openers work like mine do, you would need to stand fairly close to the door/bomb to make it reliable. The front bumper almost has to touch the door before it triggers. My wife tells me I am going to need a new door and a bumper shortly.
Posted by: john ||
12/17/2003 15:30 Comments ||
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The car carrying Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf may have escaped a roadside bomb blast thanks to a radio jamming device. Five bombs exploded under a bridge in the city of Rawalpindi on Sunday, mere seconds after President Musharraf had passed over it.
I thought it was 10 minutes after he'd passed over it?
The jamming device may have blocked the signal to the remote-controlled bomb. His security was stepped up in a big way following last yearâs failed attempt on his life in Karachi, for which three members of a banned Islamic militant group have been convicted.
Haven't read anything about any of them being hung. Have you?
Most of the time two or more identical black Mercedes are part of his motorcade, and it is nearly impossible to make out in which car he is travelling. There has always been a ban on carrying mobile telephones at his functions. But lately, security officials have been using a radio-jamming device to block all kinds of wireless communications within a radius of about a couple of hundred metres. Reports say a vehicle with the jamming device is also part of President Musharrafâs motorcade. There is a strong possibility that it may have blocked the use of a remote-controlled device to detonate the explosives while his car was on the bridge on Sunday. However, officials are reluctant to comment publicly on the matter. Somebody has been paying attention, using cell phones to detonate bombs is the current rage with the al-Qaeda/JI crowd. If true, itâs a smart move by his security personnel. Oh, and thereâs a good picture of the bridge at the link.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 9:13:57 AM ||
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So like, every humvee in Iraq is equipped with one of these jammers, right?
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/17/2003 9:21 Comments ||
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"Meanwhile, nearly 20 people have so far been picked up for questioning from various places in Rawalpindi in connection with Sunday's blast.
Those taken in by the security officials include a cleric from a mosque close to the site of the explosion, as well as some Afghan refugees."
#8
This explanation sounds kinda fishy. If our guys don't have this, I can't believe Pakistan has deployed it. I still think it's possible he faked it in order to have an excuse to crack down, which is fine by me.
The India-Nepal âopen borderâ is unique in the sense that people of both the countries can cross it from any point, though there are specific border check posts as well, including 22 major and 143 sub-posts for bilateral trade. The extremely porous 1,800 kilometre-long border, which has been maintained according to the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1950, offers uninterrupted passage for illegal smuggling of goods, arms, ammunition and narcotics, as well as human trafficking from either side. These movements constitute grave risks to security, not only for Nepal, but for India as well, as the Maoists develop linkages, not only with ideologically sympathetic groups in India, but with a number of other subversive groups on a purely opportunistic basis. Sources in the troubled Northeast Indian State of Assam indicated in November 2003 that there was increasing evidence that the proscribed ULFA was forging links with the Nepalese Maoists and may soon set up bases in the Himalayan Kingdom. These moves towards closer links with the Nepalese Maoists may be hastened by the ULFAâs current problems in Bhutan, where there is a strong possibility of the Royal Bhutanese Army (RBA) launching an operation against Indian insurgent outfits holed up in the countryâs jungles. Which happened yesterday
The Maoists are also in a process of strengthening their alliance with other South Asian left-wing extremist groups through the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) to create and effectively utilize the Compact Revolutionary Zone (CRZ). Along the border areas in north Bihar they have formed an âIndo-Nepal Border Regional Committeeâ (INBRC) to co-ordinate their activities. The porous Bihar-Nepal border, the general breakdown of rule of law, poor governance, and lack of sincerity and incapacity of the police forces provides a context for these groups to operate with relative ease.
In another deeply disturbing development, on December 7, 2003, Baburam Bhattarai, chief of the United Peopleâs Front, the âpolitical wingâ of the Maoists, claimed that they were trying to âorganizeâ the approximately 10 million Nepalese in India. It is plausible that much of this âorganizingâ would be routed through the Akhil Bharatiya Nepali Ekta Samaj (ABNES), which is a proscribed group in India under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA), 2002. ABNES was originally founded to work for the âunity and welfareâ of Nepalese residing in India. Gradually, it evolved into a front organization for the Nepalese Maoists and is increasingly identified with the demand for a âGreater Nepalâ, which includes Indian territories. Sources indicate that ABNES secretary Bamdev Chhetri had visited Jammu in September 2001 to establish contact with Kashmiri militant groups in order to set up a supply line for arms for the CPN (Maoist). Chhetri was eventually arrested by Indian authorities in September 2002 and subsequently deported to Nepal.
Posted by: Paul Moloney ||
12/17/2003 2:08:14 AM ||
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Osama Bin Laden fled to Peshawar in December 2001 after surviving a massive US military assault on his Tora Bora base in Afghanistan, according to US intelligence and law-enforcement sources. A report in the Washington Times on Tuesday said Bin Laden reportedly left to meet Mulla Omar near Kandahar, Afghanistan, and later was believed to have moved into Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.
That's what makes me take this report with a bit more than a grain of salt, assuming he's not worm food...
âBin Laden is a hero to many of the autonomous tribes that live along the Pakistan-Afghan border and who support the hard-line vision of Islam promoted by the Al Qaeda founder, US intelligence officials say. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Al Qaedaâs operations chief, who was arrested on March 1 this year in Rawalpindi, reportedly gave conflicting information to Pakistanâs ISI, the CIA and the FBI as to whether Bin Laden was alive, and whether he had met him after the September 11 attacks.
Leading me to believe Binny's titzup...
The report recalled, âPakistani intelligence officials, in an unusual briefing for foreign journalists at the time, said Shaikh Mohammed acknowledged during three days of interrogation at a safe-house after his arrest that he met Bin Laden in December 2002, though he did not say where. US and Pakistani officials retrieved numerous secret Al Qaeda documents and other information during Shaikh Mohammedâs interrogation. Included was a laptop computer used by Shaikh Mohammed that contained the names of at least a dozen safe houses located along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border used by Bin Laden and his supporters, authorities said.â
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:16 ||
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Just heard on the really left wing news here in the land of Oz, that American intelligence has narrowed OBL's location down to a 100 sq kilometres. In mountainous terrain thats actually a smaller area than it seems because the routes you can move on are limited.
#2
Same thing here, in old Europe; one opinion aired by experts in various (relatively serious) tv debates is that OBL has been localized by US intelligence in a definite area, and that, so far, US leadership has declined to snatch him for strategical reasons. And now that presidential elections are coming, the benefit of neutralizing him is supposedly outweighting the disadvantages. So, more euro-conspiracy theory, or a possible big surprize for 2004? Assuming OBL is not already wormfood by now.
#3
Unless I'm mistaken, there have not been any "new and fresh" videos of OBL recorded since just before Tora Bora. I havn't put much stock in the audio tapes released since December, 2001.I'm of the opinion he is dead. Put another way, I havn't seen/heard evidence to prove to me beyond a reasonable doubt that he is still alive.Having said this, if he is still alive, it would bring me great joy to see SF's capture and/or kill him and produce his body for the world to see. It would be a great day for America and a wonderful message to send to our enemies.
Posted by: Mark ||
12/17/2003 6:20 Comments ||
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#4
Don't know if anyone else saw this posted at the Corner blog at National Review's site: Morton Kondrake reports having had a personal conversation with Madelene Albright. Albirght asked Kondrake if he thought Bush already had Osama in custody and was going to announce his caputre at some future and politically opportune moment. Kondrake, taken back, asked her if she was really serious. Albright replied: It's possible you know. Anyone else think perhaps Albright has been reading too many posts at Democratic Underground.com ??? For Christ's sake the woman is a former Secretary of State. What is wrong with these people?
Posted by: Mark ||
12/17/2003 6:30 Comments ||
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#5
What is wrong with these people?
You're asking a question that has several thousand answers.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/17/2003 7:13 Comments ||
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#6
From the evidence, I believe him to be dead. However if he's not, what would be the best thing the US could do?
I know there's some guys at Rantburg that have a lot of experience in military and intelligence operations, so what those people think?
I just think that a very public trial could be counter-productive: the fact that he had survived a huge bombing by the US would be seized upon by Jihadis, let alone what the lawyers might do (OJ anyone?)
That leaves him to be swept away to someplace where he can be kept alive, drained of all information and disposed of when it suits (my preferred option).
Thoughts?
Posted by: Tony (UK) ||
12/17/2003 7:28 Comments ||
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#7
I'm no expert by any means, but I agree that it's more probable than not that OBL is a wormstinking carcass at the bottom of some cave in Tora Bora.
#9
Let him star in the new reality series; "Running Man - New York".
Release him in the middle of Central Park, winner determined by whoever dropkicks his head into the Ground Zero crater.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 10:22 Comments ||
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#10
Steve - is this one of those Euro-thingys where we can't use our hands unless we're wearing the funny-looking jersey?
#12
Tony -
FWIW, I believe he is what I like to refer as 'Oz Dead' - "Not only simply merely dead, but truly most sincerely dead."
Having said that, I truly thing the dumbest move anyone could ever make would be to admit it. Just seeing what the response to Saddam's capture has been convinces me that any proof that OBL was indeed at room temperature would be followed by global screams for an immediate Allied withdrawal from everywhere.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
12/17/2003 10:51 Comments ||
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#13
Mark, I saw Mort on Fox news this morning and he said the same thing. When Kissinger was asked about it a bit later he said, 'there is something about George W. Bush that causes many to loose their good sense.' That's not a direct quote, but its pretty close. Kissinger is friends with Albright and he came just short of saying she's crazy when it comes to George W. Bush.
Bush Derangement syndrom is common on the left. It's actually funny to watch at times. Even the most mild things he does are thought to have the most milicious motives. When he does things the left should approve of they go bonkers even worse like the prescription drug bill.
#14
"is this one of those Euro-thingys where we can't use our hands"
Hell,no! I'm talking about a old school NFL drop kick. Think punt by a quarterback on the run, you don't see it anymore. Of course, rugby players are welcome as well.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 11:35 Comments ||
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#15
Albright replied: anything is possible you know, Bush is such a moronic, evil genius.
Posted by: B ||
12/17/2003 12:23 Comments ||
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#16
Then the Special Forces can play a nice rousing game of Buzkashi with what's left...
#18
I'm not sure where the idea that the Balooch are friendly to the Islamists comes from. At this very moment there are reports of serious unrest in southeastern Iran as the Balooch battle with the regime's Pasdaran. Secondly, it is a dangerous journey from Tora Bora to the Balooch dominated Iran-Pakistan-Afghanistan tri-border region. Third, rug purchasors have found the grasping Balooch would even sell their children for a few bucks. I still hold to the belief that OBL is a greasespot on an imploded cave at Tora Bora.
#19
I thought Sadaam was dead twice and Chemical Ali once. OBL might be dead. I would be satisfied with collecting his number two or whoever is in charge currently.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 21:38 Comments ||
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Pakistan spymasters may have changed their tune. These days fighting domestic militancy is their main worry, they say, even if concern about arch-rival India is never far from their minds. "Our overall strategic policy is to end extremism," a senior intelligence officer said in a rare interview at the headquarters of the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate.
"Or at least to get it back under our control..."
Finding the perpetrators of Sunday's assassination attempt on President Pervez Musharraf is the urgent priority for a secret service that at one time also had a reputation as a hot-bed of fundamentalism. The new priority is a change from the not too distant past when "the external threat" â India â would have been the first phrase on any ISI man's lips. "The extremist groups we fear are firstly Al Qaida and the foreign elements who have been here over the long term, and who have sympathisers locally," another senior ISI officer said.
"They don't answer to us..."
ISI agents for years may have supported Pakistani and Afghan militants, many allied with Al Qaida. But all that changed with the September 11 attacks on the United States. Musharraf was quick to throw his support behind the US war on terror, and the ISI underwent personnel changes to match. Lt Gen Mehmood Ahmed was replaced as ISI Director General by Lieutenant General Ehsan ul Haq a day after the first US bombs struck Afghanistan in October 2001. Ul Haq purged officers most closely associated with eight years of pro-Taliban policies in Afghanistan, about 15 men. "Within six months ul Haq didn't have anyone who had contacts or linkages with the Taliban," one of the ISI officers said. "It's not a very popular thing in our world, but the rank and file in the ISI has taken part in this struggle against extremism." The new overlords at the ISI scorn the idea that rogue officers unhappy with Musharraf's about-face on Afghanistan could be mixed up with militants.
"Nope. Nope. Couldn't happen in a million years."
But there is still a perception among US officials and experts that the ISI has turned a blind eye to Taliban fighters regrouping on Pakistani soil, while coming down hard on Al Qaida and capturing more than 500 suspected members of the group. "These are very superficial observations. They saw black turbans all over Quetta and cried Taliban," the first officer said, deriding recent Western media reports of the Taliban regrouping in the southwestern Pakistani city. But while the battle against homegrown militants preoccupies ISI men for now, India, which Pakistan has fought three times since their independence in 1947, is never forgotten. But for now there is a ceasefire on the so-called Line of Control dividing Kashmir between the nuclear-armed rivals. Kashmiri separatists in Pakistan, some of whom shared training camps with Al Qaida in Afghanistan, now fear Musharraf's commitment to their cause could be waning. While the ISI says it is committed to Pakistan's relationship with the US, the agency is looking with suspicion at warming US ties with India. "We don't want to be upstaged by the relationship developing between the US and India," the officer said. Of particular concern was India's burgeoning defence relationship with Israel. "Israel has become a window for not just weapons, but also Western technology for India," he said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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"Our overall strategic policy is to end extremism," a senior intelligence officer said in a rare interview at the headquarters of the Pakistani military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate.
Translation: Extremism inside Pakistan - bad. Extremism OUTSIDE of Pakistan - perfectly okay. (especially if it's in Kashmir)
#2
Etymology 101
paki: emitting fumes, smoke
stan: a depression formed by impact or explosion
ISIÂ Â Â : of, relating to, or tending toward a deranged state of the mind
Using sledgehammers, crowbars, explosives and armored vehicles, U.S. forces smashed down the gates of homes and the doors of workshops and junkyards Wednesday to attack the Iraqi resistance that has persisted despite the capture of Saddam Hussein. Good Morning! This is your farking WAKEUP CALL ASSHOLES!
Loud blasts mixed with the sound of women and children screaming inside the houses. An explosion at the gate of one compound shattered windows, cutting a 1-year-old baby with glass. U.S. medics treated the injury while other soldiers handcuffed four men, who were later released. The raid, launched before dawn and lasting until midmorning, targeted the city of Samarra, north of Baghdad. U.S. officials say some 1,500 fighters operate in Samarra, making it one of the persistent hotspots in the so-called Sunni Triangle.ââSamarra has been a little bit of a thorn in our side,ââ said Col. Nate Sassaman. ââIt hasnât come along as quickly as other cities in the rebuilding of Iraq. This operation is designed to bring them up to speed.ââ So we are taking off the kidd gloves.
I think they're pissed for the attack from behind the kiddies yesterday.
In the Samarra raid by some 2,500 troops, dubbed Operation Ivy Blizzard, the 4th Infantry Division and Iraqi forces detained at least a dozen suspected guerrillas though others got away, apparently tipped off about the raid.
I see Mahmoud the Weasel has a new job...
In the cityâs industrial zone, troops used even their Bradley fighting vehicles to break down the doors of warehouses, workshops and junkyards. ââLocksmiths will make a lot of money these days,ââ said a U.S. soldier, laughing as he sat atop a Bradley.
Rule Number One of civil, well-reasoned discourse: never cheeze off the guys who drive tracks...
The sweep came after U.S. troops on Tuesday snared a suspected rebel leader and 78 other people, all in one building near Samarra where they apparently were planning attacks. On Monday, guerrillas in the city ambushed an American patrol, sparking a battle in which soldiers killed 11 attackers. That worked well for them didnât it?
ââTheyâve made a mistake to attack U.S. forces,ââ Sassaman said. ââNo one knows the town better than we do. Weâre gonna clean this place.ââ
"Boyz, this here town ain't big enough for all of us! It's time for you to go!"
With Saddam in custody, the most wanted Iraqi fugitive is Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a high-ranking member of the former regime thought to be organizing anti-U.S. attacks. But it was unclear whether U.S. officials think al-Douri is in the Samarra area.
He's reputed to have thrown in the towel. Still waiting for more on that one...
In Wednesdayâs sweep, soldiers used satellite positioning devices to locate buildings pre-marked as targets. As Apache helicopters flew overhead, troops downtown fanned out in squads of 14 to storm several walled residential compounds, using plastic explosives to break in. At one home, an explosion ignited a small fire. Elsewhere, a suspect was punched in the head and a soldier said: ââYouâre dead. Youâre dead.ââ
"You might as well lie down and rot, Mahmoud!" I like it when they stop being nice.
Troops later moved on to the industrial area, where they found little. One military official said he suspected insurgents moved much of their equipment to farms outside town. Sassaman said troops in Samarra seized four rocket-propelled grenade launchers and a dozen assault rifles, as well as bomb-making material.
They should have taken more than that...
Meanwhile, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council blabbed like a media reporter said the U.S. military is holding Saddam in the Baghdad area. U.S. officials have previously said the former dictator was at an undisclosed location in Iraq.ââHe is still in greater Baghdad,ââ said council member Mouwafak al-Rubaie. ââMaybe he will stay there until he stands trial.ââ
Okay. So now he's at an undisclosed location in greater Baghdad. My guess would have been the airport compound, anyway. But I hope they're tightening Bremer's security. He's a prime candidate for a snatch-and-trade...
The council has established a war crimes tribunal and hopes to put him on trial for human rights abuses. The United Nations, the Vatican and many countries oppose putting Saddam on trial before any court that could sentence him to death and others have expressed worries Iraqâs justice system cannot try him fairly. I mean they will have all those victims and relatives of victims who will testify! We canât have that!
Council member Adnan Pachachi said ââall stages of the trial will be public.ââ He added that international experts ââare always welcomeââ because the tribunal allows for the appointment of foreign judges.
#1
40 comments??...
Jeeze, I just wanted to be 41.
Rantburg rules!
Posted by: Chef ||
12/17/2003 22:13 Comments ||
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#2
Noticable slant. Oh, it's AP...
"others got away, apparently tipped off about the raid...
Elsewhere, a suspect was punched in the head and a soldier said: ââYouâre dead. Youâre dead.ââ...
ââLocksmiths will make a lot of money these days,ââ said a U.S. soldier, laughing as he sat atop a Bradley...
...waving his weapon wildly and shooting at any puppies or baby ducks he saw...
ââHe is still in greater Baghdad,ââ said council member Mouwafak al-Rubaie. ââMaybe he will stay there until he stands trial.ââ
Politicians are all the same.
The United Nations, the Vatican and many countries oppose putting Saddam on trial before any court that could sentence him to death and others have expressed worries Iraqâs justice system cannot try him fairly.
Tough shitski, comrades. Try not ignoring the "obvious guilt" factor. Very big in islamic areas, I understand...
He'll get a fair trial and a first-class hanging. New rope an' everything. Probably be the Iraqi social event of the season.
#3
With Saddam in custody, the most wanted Iraqi fugitive is Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a high-ranking member of the former regime thought to be organizing anti-U.S. attacks.
Now that Hussein himself is in custody, any other wanted individuals that are found should simply be dispatched, no questions asked.
Donât know if this was posted; go see the picture at the link.
The South Korean government announced its final decision to send a contingent of 3,000 troops to support US-led stabilization efforts in Iraq. The decision was endorsed at a high-level security meeting chaired by President Roh Moo-Hyun, the presidential office said Wednesday. The South Korean contingent will include combat and non-combat troops who will undertake an independent operation in the war-torn country. A South Korean military delegation is to leave soon for the United States for coordination on location, timing and other details concerning the deployment. South Korean officials have suggested a northern Iraqi region. The South Koreans will not engage in combat but will be assigned to rehabilitation work, the presidentâs office said. Thanks, Korea. Now please stop picking on the US troops staring across the border at the NorKs.
#1
Message is starting to sink in...you help us, we help you.
Posted by: john ||
12/17/2003 22:34 Comments ||
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South Korea is doing well to join in this manner. I believe we should honor their wishes having suggested the northern region. S.Korea has a long lasting friendship with Turkey to the north and may feel more comfortable with the locals of that area. Not to mention, they can keep an eye on the Kurds whom are not so friendly with the Turks Government,
Posted by: Rick ||
12/17/2003 23:55 Comments ||
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From Geostrategy-Direct
Israel has provided the United States a new system to locate and destroy roadside bombs. The Israeli system was provided to U.S. Central Command for the war in Iraq. The officials said the system is still being developed and will probably be upgraded. The Israeli system transmits a signal to detonate improvised explosive devices along roads before they can endanger passing vehicles. The mobile system was first used in Lebanon during the late 1990s and has undergone improvement over the past two years. Israel has also used the IED protection system to detonate explosive belts used by Palestinian suicide bombers. No details were available. That will certainly crimp the Paleo style. They will have to go back to a mechanical system to get around the vulnerability of a signal-actuated device.
The Israeli system was the first to be sent to Iraq to protect against Sunni insurgency attacks north of Baghdad. Over the past few weeks, the Defense Department has been preparing additional systems for deployment in Iraq.
One weakness of the Israeli system is that the system cannot detect the pulse used by the IED. The Iraqi bombs emit a pulse that stems from the remote-control mechanism of the IED. Several Israeli military delegations have toured U.S. Army facilities and demonstrated a number of new systems. These included Israeli armored vehicles, tractors and buses for use in combat operations. In early December, the militaries of Israel and the United States met in Tel Aviv to discuss the lessons from coalition efforts to stabilize Iraq. The delegations were said to have discussed a range of Israeli technological and operational capabilities that stemmed from the Israeli-Palestinian war in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Symbiosis in action.
I'd call it synergy, myself, at the risk of using a buzz word...
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/17/2003 5:53:11 PM ||
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#1
One weakness of the Israeli system is that the system cannot detect the pulse used by the IED. The Iraqi bombs emit a pulse that stems from the remote-control mechanism of the IED.
? The bomb emits a signal?
Seems like the easy (and American) way is to use some sort of frequency agile transmitter followed up by random .50 caliber to suspicious Coke cans, cadavers, phone booths, Corollas and prayer rugs. When and if these guys learn to lay detonator cord in cement we may have a problem it 20 or 30 years.
#2
One weakness of the Israeli system is that the system cannot detect the pulse used by the IED. The Iraqi bombs emit a pulse that stems from the remote-control mechanism of the IED.
I think the previous sentence is a J-school grad trying to wrap his mind around something he can't quite understand. The way I envision this working is by sending out electro-magnetic pulses that are intense enough to induce a high voltage across an electrical blasting cap. Both IEDs and suicide belts need to detonate at a split second notice and must therefore use electrical blasting caps to initiate the explosion. Traditional "fused" blasting caps won't cut it. There are ways to defeat this: shunting the blasting cap until the last possible second, or shielding the blasting cap with a well grounded conductor. Lately there have been several reports of suicide bombers "accidentally" blowing themselves up near IDF checkpoints. This is precisely the type of weapon that would cause those sorts of premature detonations.
#3
I have to figure there are at least half a dozen different ways to rig up an IED so a counter system would have to be pretty sophisticated.
However, I imagine if you had a good pulse emitter mounted on a tank or stryker and had it going down the street emitting, it would be very discouraging to the IED jockies.
#4
I wonder if the Israeli's are just hitting suspected bombers with fire control radar (i.e. a blasted cone of powerful energy.) Could be the kernal of truth in the death ray rumour.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 21:50 Comments ||
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EFL:
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made it clear yesterday that Saddam Hussein is not classified as a prisoner of war - and thatâs bad news for the ex-dictator.
Toldja he wasn't...
Legal experts said that denying Saddam POW status is a calculated move to allow the CIA to take extreme measures to get him to cough up information. POWs cannot be subjected to rough interrogations, put on trial or executed, according to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, of which the U.S. is a signer. He was Head of State, even if he was the Commander in Chief of the Iraqi army, that doesnât make him a POW.
Saddamâs location remained top-secret yesterday, although sources have said he is still in Iraq. When seen Sunday by Iraqi government officials, he was not manacled or wearing a prison uniform. But that was before the serious interrogation began. Heh
"I have no idea how theyâre going to interrogate," President Bush told ABC yesterday. "I do know that this country doesnât torture." But that may be a fine legal point.
Could also be a statement of fact.
"The U.S. government is going to be prepared to do more than a U.S. police force is authorized to do under the Constitution" during questioning, said Catholic University military law expert Michael Noone. But that will not include physical torture, Noone added, saying "once youâve resorted to physical force, youâve lost."
No you haven't. You've simply used up all other avenues, to include giggle juice. (Who is this guy)?
Interrogating Saddam has been turned over to the CIA, a change that Rumsfeld called "a three-minute decision, and the first two were for coffee." God, I do love Rummy. Heâs a one-man quote machine.
Rumsfeld said Saddam is "being accorded the protection of a POW but heâs not being legally described as one at this stage."
Shouldn't be at any stage. And it's probably best to avoid sloppy terminology when talking about him. Al-Guardian picks up on that sort of thing...
"He, clearly, is being treated under the ... protections of the Geneva Conventions and is being treated humanely," Rumsfeld said.
Just not as a POW.
The Geneva Conventions outlaw the torture and execution of prisoners. But rulings by the European Court of Human Rights found that sleep or food deprivation, sustained noise, forced standing and sensory deprivation (called "hooding") are not considered torture. See, we are just following international law.
"Those could all potentially be used to interrogate Saddam," said Detlev Vagts, an expert on the laws of war at Harvard University. "Thatâs the borderline." International accords do allow for trial and execution of "unlawful belligerents," and Iraqi leaders have called for their former ruler to be tried and executed upon conviction. And you wonât find very many people more "unlawful" and "belligerent" than Sammy. Although, Chuck and Bob do come to mind. One thing at a time.
His category's not that of an unlawful belligerent, either. I think the category's called "politicals," which the lefties will use to describe him as a "political prisoner."
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 4:36:44 PM ||
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International accords do allow for trial and execution of "unlawful belligerents..."
Well, perhaps it's open to debate whether or not Saddam is an unlawful belligerent, but the real point is that international accords do provide for the death penalty in certain cases, so Kofi Annan can go suck rocks if he doesn't like that.
Not that the Iraqis will need any external meddling or international blessing in the trial, which is an internal affair in any case.
Posted by: Dar ||
12/17/2003 17:40 Comments ||
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#2
But that will not include physical torture, Noone added, saying "once youâve resorted to physical force, youâve lost"
Lost ? Lost what ? The war ? Nope. The interrogation ? Hardly; after a good smacking, just pick up where we left off with non-violent methods. He'll break, as Rantburg Elder Spook has carefully explained to us...
I get annoyed by rhetorical farts like this statement by Noone.
Posted by: Carl in N.H. ||
12/17/2003 19:12 Comments ||
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#3
No need to get violent. Sleep deprivation alone can break many prisoners. Loud noise, especially CONSTANT loud noise, can drive a man insane in a day or two. The United States has done some very in-depth studies into what kinds of psychological "incentives" work best to get a prisoner to respond in a positive way. Those studies have been refined by hands-on experiments in a dozen different places over the past thirty years, and are virtually foolproof. There's also evidence that physical torture tends to increase resistance, while psychological torture can make resistance appear futile. We know how to play the game, and we have people who are very, very good at it. Saddam will talk - in days, not weeks. Once he starts, it'll be impossible to shut him up!
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/17/2003 19:27 Comments ||
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I do know that this country doesnât torture
Obviously not a Red Sox fan.
A Fedayeen leader and anti-Coalition activity financier was captured along with 72 others when soldiers from C Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry, raided a building west of Balad, in the early morning of Dec. 16. Life Lesson #102: Donât put all your jihadis in one basket.
The raid was based on developed information from Iraqi citizens. The soldiers confiscated 16 AK-47 assault rifles, 75 rolls of detonation cord, 33 full magazines of AK-47 ammunition, seven machine guns, one assault rifle, one sniper rifle, one rocket propelled grenade launcher, 12 82mm mortar rounds, 89 detonation devices, 11 car batteries, eight 155mm artillery rounds, 135lbs. of gun powder and numerous rounds of small arms ammunition. Based on what was found it is believed that the location was a significant improvised explosive device making facility.
--Three soldiers were wounded when a patrol from 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry was attacked with an improvised explosive device in Tikrit at approximately 10:10 a.m. on Dec. 16. Both soldiers were evacuated to 28th Combat Support Hospital and are in stable condition.
--In the town of Muqdadiyah in the evening of Dec 16, soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 8th Infantry were in the vicinity of the PUK headquarters when individuals using automatic weapons fired at them from the rooftop. The soldiers returned fire and wounded one attacker. Five others fled. The soldiers confiscated two AK-47 assault rifles, still hot from being fired.
--First Brigade Combat Team raided three locations in the early morning hours of Dec. 17 in south Tikrit. They were looking for targeted individuals. Five people, including two targets, were captured without incident.
AN IRAQI PAPER SUGGESTS THAT SADDAM HUSSEIN SHOULD BE INTERROGATED IN THE MANNER HE INTERROGATED HIS OPPONENTS. HOWEVER, âAS A COURTESY TO HIM, THE TORTURE SEAT SHOULD BE GOLDEN, THE STRINGS BY WHICH HE WILL BE HANGED FROM THE CEILING SHOULD BE OF DAMASCENE SILK, AND ONLY SILVER CLIPPERS SHOULD BE USED TO EXTRACT HIS FINGERNAILSâŠâ (AL-NAHDHA, BAGHDAD, 12/17/03)
THE COALITION PROVISIONAL ADMINISTRATION IN IRAQ HAS WARNED MOSQUE PREACHERS THAT THEY WILL BE ARRESTED AND TREATED AS WAR CRIMINALS UNDER GENEVA CONVENTION ARTICLE IV (1949) IF THEY INCITE VIOLENCE. (AL-SHARQ AL-AWSAT, LONDON, 12/14/03)
#1
Old Spook's description of interrogation will be quite sufficient for our purposes: which is to extract as much vital intelligence that we can squeeze out of his melon. That is the mission.
Dire Revenge⢠will accomplish nothing for us. Sammy is a psychopath who is incapable of guilt for harming others. When we are done with him, give him over to the Iraqi govt. Just make sure that someone does not let him go. We do not need a f--kup in this department.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/17/2003 16:25 Comments ||
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#2
I'm sure the Iraqis have shredder standing by...question to the court: head or feet first?
Posted by: john ||
12/17/2003 22:54 Comments ||
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You gotta love Debka! They come up with seriously weird stuff. Severely EFL
Saddam Hussein was not in hiding; he was a prisoner. After his last audiotaped message was delivered and aired over al Arabiya TV on Sunday November 16, on the occasion of Ramadan, Saddam was seized, possibly with the connivance of his own men, and held in that hole in Adwar for three weeks or more, which would have accounted for his appearance and condition. Meanwhile, his captors bargained for the $25 m prize the Americans promised for information leading to his capture alive or dead. The negotiations were mediated by Jalal Talabaniâs Kurdish PUK militia. These circumstances would explain the ex-rulerâs docility â described by Lt.Gen. Ricardo Sanchez as âresignationâ â in the face of his capture by US forces. He must have regarded them as his rescuers and would have greeted them with relief. Thats right The Americans rescued Saddam! HeHe!
#1
I read this on debka.com last week and do not buy. They stated that the he could not get out of the spider hole own his own. Well I saw the pictures and that stryefoam lid covering the hold did not seem that hard to open from inside.
Posted by: Dan ||
12/17/2003 16:29 Comments ||
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#2
Debka stretched way too far with this one. It's right up there with CNN saying Saddam was living in that hole. It's pretty clear he was just hiding there due to the approach of US forces. His bodyguards let him down & covered the hole, but were a little bit sloppy ...
As to how he looked, if indeed he has been on the run for 8 months, in some cases changing locations several times a day, most recently coming to a small hut with no indoor plumbing, and quite likely having been in similar bolt holes during other searches ...
Well, you'd look like hell too if that's how you'd spent the last xxx weeks.
Associated Press; EFL
Former Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz has started calling his youngest son â named Saddam after Iraqâs ousted leader â by the name Zuhair instead, according to letters obtained by the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat. . . . thereby adding further to Saddamâs humiliation.
Wait'll he starts calling him "G.W." The poor kid's going to be really confused.
Posted by: Mike ||
12/17/2003 3:05:15 PM ||
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Speaking of trials, Aziz ought to be right at the top of the list after Sammy. A smiling executioner.
Posted by: Matt ||
12/17/2003 16:10 Comments ||
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#2
Apparently the keepers of the official lists of Mohammed's descendants have stricken Saddam's name from that list, too.
Pretty soon, Saddam won't have ANY ancestors nor descendants.
Posted by: The Commissar ||
12/17/2003 23:29 Comments ||
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Adding to the total, thanks to the 101st!
Soldiers of the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) found a weapons cache at a fire station in the vicinity of Tal Afar. The cache was a mix of 20 total live rounds (RPG rounds and hand grenades), and some display rounds used by the locals to help children identify the different types of ordnance in Iraq. It was not an enemy cache. Locals had been using the station as a drop-off point for about two weeks and led Coalition forces to the location. Explosive ordnance disposal teams disposed of the cache.
Soldiers of the 3rd Brigade also completed a cordon and knock operation in Domice to detain personnel believed to be involved in a rocket attack against a tactical operations center in the area. They searched four houses and detained seven people. There were no U.S. casualties reported.
Soldiers from 1st Brigade discovered 25 mortar rounds near the city of Qayarrah. An individual led them to the site and will be rewarded for his assistance. The divisionâs 1st Brigade also opened a newly renovated school in its AO.
Soldiers from 2nd Brigade killed three attackers and wounded one who conducted a drive-by shooting in Mosul. Five individuals in a white car conducted a drive-by attack with small arms. Soldiers returned fire with a .50 cal. and M249, which stopped the car. One individual fled on foot. Soldiers evacuated casualties to the 21st Combat Support Hospital, where one died later. No U.S. casualties were reported. Soldiers of the 2nd Brigade also reported that they had detained an individual with possible ties to Fedayeen and Wahhabi during a cordon and knock search in Western Mosul. Soldiers also found two AK-47s and three full magazines. Soldiers of the 2nd Brigade also conducted a series of cordon and knock operations to detain individuals wanted for planning and conducting attacks against Coalition Forces. The brigade captured all nine individuals with no U. S. casualties reported.
In addition to security operations, the Mosul Public Safety Academy, which is over watched by 101st soldiers, graduated 70 policemen from an investigation course at the Mosul Police Academy. An Iraqi Civil Defense Corps company, trained by soldiers of the 101st, also graduated today and will work in Mosul.
CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait â Logistics experts at this camp are preparing for one of the greatest feats of transportation in military history. The camp will be home to the Iraq troop rotation. Soldiers will come out of Iraq, clean their equipment and board planes and ships for home. Other service members will be arriving from the United States, drawing equipment and preparing to move into Iraq. Nothing like this effort has been done before.
Maybe we should ask the Russers for advice. They used to do it all the time.
The camp is located outside Kuwait City and it is already the logistical hub for Operation Iraqi Freedom. "A total of 800 trucks a day go north into Iraq," said Maj. Gen. Steve Speakes, the deputy commander of the Combined Land Component Command and the man in charge of effort. There are 28,000 American troops in Kuwait, with 10,000 in Arifjan. The soldiers are almost equally divided among active duty, Army Reserve and National Guard. Their sole purpose is to ensure the combat troops in Iraq get what they need, when they need it. But they will be tested further by what Speakes calls "the surge." That is when the 130,000 American service members now in Iraq start moving back to their home stations and 110,000 soldiers and Marines replace them. The surge will start in January and will last through the end of April. Speakes and his soldiers will be the areaâs largest innkeeper during that time, housing about 65,000 more Americans than they do now. But it is not just people that will make up the surge. Those coming out of Iraq will bring 30,000 pieces of equipment with them. That equipment has to be scrupulously cleaned before coming back to the United States or Germany. U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors do not want germs, fungus, insects or diseases riding home with the equipment.
At the same time, arriving units will bring new equipment with them, and the equipment must be married up with the proper units, primed and readied for combat. The soldiers and Marines must test the weapons to ensure they work. Speakes said the command is readying beds, tents, wash racks, fueling areas, chow halls and training areas -- all the things needed to get service members ready for combat or ready for home. Planning began months ago. "We plan for the worst-case scenario," Speakes said. "We donât want to be surprised."
All of this is being done in a high-threat environment. Speakes said the Americans have worked closely with their Kuwaiti hosts to ensure force protection. "They have been immensely cooperative, and we have put in place many force protection measures," he said. Speakes said the surge will be more complicated, in many ways, than D-Day at Normandy. "Itâs going both ways â coming and going," he said. "But these young soldiers are up to the task. The mission is to get people into Iraq so there is no degradation of security, while at the same time ensuring no one stays in the region one day longer than they have to."
#3
This sounds like a dressed-up desert ReForGer, the yearly op plan used to refresh the troops and equipment in Germany during the Cold War. It's not a new idea, as the article would have you believe. In my C-141 flying days, I flew missions in ReForGer and it Korean counterpart, which name I don't recall now.
Both the ReForGer and Korean plans had a surge capability, which was always penciled in, even if never done, but enough of the logistics WAS done to give the movers good practice. Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" had a good peek at ReForGer in it.
#6
We can do it but we haven't done it in a LONG time. We stopped conducting Team Spirit and Reforger Exercises in the late 80's? We have a plan, hopefully one or two of the NCO's and Officers are still around to remember how it's done.
EFL:
In this restive city and across Iraqâs Sunni heartland, many Saddam loyalists refuse to believe that a disheveled and bearded man in U.S. captivity is their ousted leader, whose 23-year rule boosted their position as the countryâs political elite. "It is someone wearing a Saddam mask," volunteered Waleed Ibrahim, a 25-year-old tire repairman in Fallujah. "It is a trick to help President Bush get re-elected." Is he running for the Demmocrap nomination as well?
Minutes before he spoke, U.S. tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles and Humvees carrying dozens of troops roared into the city in a show of force after a night of clashes with Saddam loyalists. Jet-fighters screamed overhead and two helicopters dived and swerved at low altitude. "The coalition forces have arrested Saddam Hussein. Reports that it is a Saddam double are false," declared a voice on a loudspeaker fixed on one U.S. Humvee in Fallujah on Tuesday. "The old regime will never come back. This is the end of the Baath party," said the voice, speaking in Arabic. "Whoever carries a weapon will be killed," the voice said. "Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you?"
"This is terrorism," said Hamed Ali, a shopkeeper, who recounted how jets buzzed the city for most of Monday night. "Even children were cursing the Americans." Hamed, we donât care.
Iraqâs Sunnis greeted news of the July killings of Saddamâs sons Odai and Qusai with similar disbelief. They often dismiss evidence of crimes against humanity committed by Saddamâs 1979-2003 regime as fabrications of the United States, Iran and their Iraqi allies. The defiance is partly a reaction to the loss of prestige and privileges in a new political order that restored the rights of the countryâs Shiite majority and large Kurdish minority - groups long victimized by the Sunni Arab minority. Between them, they account for about 80 percent of Iraqâs 25 million people. Lost their sweet deal so they bitch.
In Tikrit, Saddam loyalists tried to stage a demonstration in support of the former dictator Tuesday, but neither the cityâs U.S.-backed governor nor the U.S. military were prepared to stand by and watch. "Any demonstration against the government or the coalition forces will be fired upon," the governor, Hussein al-Jaburi, said on a loudspeaker mounted on a U.S. military vehicle.
"Y'wanna be tough guys? We'll show you tough guys."
"They will not be allowed to go around kissing pictures of Saddam," said Lt. Col. Steven Russell of the Tikrit-based 4th Infantry Division. "We cannot hand out lollypops in this city. It does not work here." Earlier Tuesday, Russell had a stern warning for the organizer of a pro-Saddam march: "If our ears and eyes see you organizing demonstrations or anti-coalition acts, any survivors you will be in jail for a very long time." Bwahahahaha! The Army of Stevel strikes again! Iâll bet thereâs a little something from Rummy in Lt. Col Steveâs Christmas stocking this year.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 9:35:36 AM ||
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Lt. Col. Russel deserves something from US.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/17/2003 9:42 Comments ||
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#2
Travel into and out of the Sunni triangle should be severely restricted, including the media. Snipers and ambushes can take out anyone breaking the restriction. This is how the Britts won in Malaysia. Once they are restricted the rest of Iraq can progress without being infected.
Also, as Ralph Peters says, if they don't have enough power, or fresh water for all of Iraq the Sunni triangle should be the first one to be hit by the lapse. Let them feel the pain of their own terrorist attacks on oil wells, power and water lines, etc.
Let the pain of the war be felt by the Sunni triangle and not by all of Iraq. Eventually they'll come around.
#4
Victor Davis Hanson writes of how Sherman took the war to those southerners who had supported the rebellion and reaped the benefits of slavery while remaining untouched in their deep south havens. This same fate should await those in the Sunni Triangle who have reaped the benefits of Sadam's terror at the expense of the Kurds in the north and the Shia in the south.
#5
US army has toughened tactics and ROE since October apparently, and these seem to be working. Why tighten them any further, with risks to hearts and minds war? Seems best strategy is differentiate among Sunni areas - in some (Ramadi, Baquba, Balad) things seem to be getting quieter, and/or we have friends. In others (falujah, Samarra, Tikrit) things are much worse. So apply the toughest tactics and ROE to the latter, and reward the former. You need a carrot as well as a stick. And doesnt USMC "small wars" doctrine say that political victory is as important as military, that youre always fighting for hearts and minds?
#6
From today's Andrew Sullivan site [From the Guardian]:
In the same northern Iraqi town yesterday, about 700 people rallied, chanting: "Saddam is in our hearts, Saddam is in our blood." US soldiers and Iraqi policemen shouted back: "Saddam is in our jail."
#7
from a dot mil website review of USMC small wars manual
'It recognizes that ultimate victory will only be possible if the root causes for resistance are addressed to the population, be they social, political, or economic. This can only be determined by a study of the history and culture of the native people and mastered by experience in country. Likewise it recognizes a psychological ascendancy in these types of operations, which speaks directly to re-directing the perceptions and beliefs of the native population, either by psychological operations, or by undercutting the insurgentsâ popular support by addressing some of the causes of dissent. Attacking those furnishing material support or improving the lives of the population, obviating their need for insurrectionists, can accomplish this. Personal conduct of US forces must be beyond reproach as âthey judge the United States and the ideals and standards of its people by the conduct of its representatives.â Even-handedness and cognizance of belligerent parties, local politics, and customs is one of the keys to creditability and success.'
During the past 24 hours, the 82nd Airborne Division and subordinate units performed 164 patrols, including four joint patrols with the Iraqi Border Guard and Iraqi police.
In 3rd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Divisionâs areas of responsibility, an Iraqi train carrying US military goods was attacked northwest of Fallujah. The train was attacked with RPGs and some of the goods were being looted when OH-58D helicopters (KWs) arrived on station. The aircraft initially dispersed the crowd by firing warning shots. Three rail cars were burned and two were blown completely off of the track. Ground elements arrived to secure the area and later received additional RPG fire. There were no injuries to U.S. personnel from the engagement.
In 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Divisionâs areas of responsibility, elements were attacked with an IED northwest of Khalidiyah. The force, consisting of two Bradleys, was positioned near a house observing an area known for anti-coalition actions when the remote controlled IED detonated. Analysis of the blast site revealed two 152mm artillery rounds wired for simultaneous detonation, but one of the rounds did not explode. There were three US wounded in action â 2 of them are currently at the 28th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad while the third casualty has been treated and remains with a Forward Surgical Team at a base near Fallujah. Two individuals were captured during a thorough search of the area.
Task Force âAll Americanâsâ 1st Brigade Combat Team conducted a route reconnaissance east of Ar Ramadi when they noticed freshly dug earth. Upon further investigation, they found two substantial caches. Discovered were three SA-7 launchers, 11 SA-6 warheads, 15 SA-6 fuel rods, 203 artillery and mortar rounds of various calibers, 41 rocket propelled grenade (RPG) rounds, 10 RPG launchers, 24 62mm high-explosive rockets, 57 anti-tank (AT) mines, miscellaneous bomb-making materiel, and a pre-made improvised explosive device (IED) consisting of six 152mm artillery rounds wired together. All ammunition, except ten RPGs, was destroyed in place.
In 3rd Armored Cavalry Regimentâs areas of responsibility, elements were led to a cache by a local tip. The source stated he knew where an IED was located in Hit and led forces to it. At the site, 200 anti-tank mines and 70 mortar rounds were discovered. In addition, five individuals were captured at the site and are being questioned at a nearby base.
#6
Question: how does this work? I assume it's not as simple as, "hey, freshly dug earth, you guys grab some shovels." How are such caches safely excavated? (Expected answer: "very very carefully")
Posted by: (lowercase) matt ||
12/17/2003 15:22 Comments ||
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#7
Question: how does this work?
Sometimes it's a hands-and-knees job, sometimes you can use small excavators, other times you drop in a charge and get somewhere safe before detonating it. Depends on what you think you've found. Whatever is used, it's usually nerve-wracking, and you use someone specially trained in Explosive Ordinance Disposal to do the work. When a contractor discovered a dozen unexploded bombs at Lindsey Air Station, they sealed off the corner where the work was being done, sent in some experts who "safed" the weapons, hauled them out, and let the construction crew go back to work, all in the same day. Most of the folks at Lindsey didn't know about it until the next day, when there was a story in Stars 'n Stripes.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/17/2003 19:43 Comments ||
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#8
Neat. Thanks, Old Patriot.
Posted by: (lowercase) matt ||
12/17/2003 23:39 Comments ||
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For a man whose name in Arabic means "he who confronts," Saddam Hussein went meekly into captivity. His failure to commit suicide the way Adolf Hitler did or to go down fighting U.S. soldiers the way his two sons did in July surprised many observers, who thought Saddam would fear humiliation more than the grave.
But Iraq experts and political psychologists who have studied the fallen strongmanâs psyche say Saddam acted both out of a raw desire to survive and because he believes he can still influence his country and the Arab world. "He didnât put up a fight because he was trapped, and in his own mind, heâs too important to die," says Stanley Renshon, a professor of political science and psychology at the City University of New York.
Like the ousted Yugoslav dictator Slobodan Milosevic, Renshon says, Saddam sees himself as a major historical figure. He refused entreaties from other Arab leaders in the spring to avert war by leaving Iraq and accepting exile. He appears to have believed the invasion would never occur, or that if it did, he could win or survive. Though he lost the Persian Gulf War in 1991, he portrayed that as a victory because U.S.-led forces stopped short of Baghdad and his regime survived. Now he may hope that an insurgency against the U.S. occupation will succeed. Though itâs hard to imagine Iraqis would ever clamor for his return, he retains support among the Arab Sunni Muslim minority that benefited during his long rule.
Amatzia Baram, an Iraq expert and senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace, says Saddam may expect that his supporters will kidnap U.S. soldiers or foreign hostages and try to trade them for his freedom. Alternatively, Saddam may hope to vindicate himself at a trial like the one in the Netherlands where for the past two years, Milosevic has defiantly defended his brutal record in the Balkans. Unless weapons searchers are successful, Saddam will surely argue that he never had the chemical or biological weapons his invaders claimed were there. And a trial could be an opportunity for Saddam to cast himself as a champion of the Palestinian cause, an Arab nationalist who defied the United States. "Iâm sure he feels he can get a lot of mileage raising these slogans and banners," Baram says. "He still believes in these ideals and thinks he can rouse the Arab street."
Saddamâs behavior in captivity so far is instructive. Initially disoriented and docile, he submitted to a humiliating physical examination but quickly began to recover. "Heâs going to revive under our care and feeding," says Phebe Marr, an American historian of Iraq. "He probably will try to bargain. Heâs a rational person and wants to save his life." Two former U.S. military intelligence interrogators say Saddam probably is in a windowless room, under constant surveillance and uncertain whether itâs day or night. If his questioners decide to insult him, they might send a woman to interrogate him. If they want to create rapport between him and his captors, they might have an older, respectful man lead the questioning...
Posted by: OMER ISHMAIL ||
12/17/2003 3:59:46 AM ||
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#1
Saddam probably is in a windowless room
Wouldn't one of the safest places to put this joker be on an aircraft carrier out to sea? There's no way his supporters could find him and spring him; there's no way he could escape. There's also no diplomatic dealings needed with any government since he'd be on 5 acres of sovereign American territory.
Or do you think he's still in Iraq somewhere?
Posted by: Dar ||
12/17/2003 7:03 Comments ||
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#2
5 acres of sovereign American territory.
Then some goof will claim that the protections afforded under the US Constitution apply, and so Saddam is entitled to a lawyer. There's already a line up of idiots willing to defend Saddam.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/17/2003 9:13 Comments ||
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#3
"Saddam probably is in a windowless room, under constant surveillance and uncertain whether itâs day or night"
I already posted as much. Time disorientation will be a big thing. So will changes in his diet. Well lit 24*7. Minimal detail in his cell - no windows, probably all stainless steel and clinical white. If they had time, they will put in furniture that is white plastic and molded to the walls. And it will be *dead silent*. You think Barney is bad - thing about not hearing ANYTHING, in an environment where you dont see much of anything.
Once they get him healthy (to where the stress will not kill him), they will begin the process.
They will do things like wake him at 3 AM, tellhim its 9 AM and serve him breakfast. Then 2 hours later they will serve him lunch, telling him it is noon. Then 12 hours later they will offer him dinner selling him it is 5PM. Repeat this, and be sure to interrupt his sleep patterns and the diurnal rhythms the body tends to form.
Thats when he gets a pretty rough treatment: the so-called "Giggle juice". BUT - they dont question him. They juice him and sit there staring him down. In total silence. Do that a few times at odd intervals.
Then start standard interrogation, Mutt and Jeff style. Once he shows signs of resistance, move on to other interrogation tactics, but maintain the time disorientation.
ALso, there is "spatial" disorientation, where he can be made to think he is in another country. You put the sack over his head, walk him out as if you are putting him on a jet, let him "overhear" he is being taken to some other country for interrogation, fly him in ciricles for a few hours, and bring him back to a different part of the interrogation facility, and have a room set up as if it were in that other country (Russia, France, etc). Interrogate him there as if by a third party with whom he can give "dirt" to make a deal.
Etc.
Saddam will evenually break. Its just a matter of time.
Pardon my naivety, what is the composition of âgiggle juiceâ? The âtruth serum â known to American physicians for a very long-time.
Medically, it is an "ultra-short-acting barbi-turate (drug) that produces general anaesthesia, used for narco-analysis in psychiatric dis-orders.â brand named, Pentothal Sodium
Technically induces unconsciousness lasting 30 to 60 inhibits the Central Nervous Sys-tem CNS, slightly decreases the heart pressure, heart rate & depresses the respiratory cen-tre .
A common believe, as stated in movies (like true lies) & some novels, is when anyone is injected by Pentothal Sodium, he can't tell nothing but the truth but that is not true. When Pentothal sodium is taken in a sub-clinical dose, i.e., less than that causes unconscious-ness, it makes the person more communicative, no hesitation as it suppresses the inhibitory system.
The United States Supreme Court in 1963, deciding that a truth serum-induced confes-sion was unconstitutionally coerced. More recently, state courts have found truth serum-induced testimony to be scientifically unreliable and inadmissible.
Scopolamine is an another drug is used in mind control especially in South America (really high rate by Columbia paramilitary groups) by the criminals to make others do things without their knowledge (People wake up only to find that hey have written out cheques for their entire bank balances by the time they come to their senses they find that all their money has been cashed)
The victim doesn't realise what he had done while he was unconscious and is not even able to identify his assailants as the person losses memory during the period the drug was taken.
Scopolamine is a colourless odourless, somewhat tasteless so it can be incorporated with ease in water, beverages with ease in sufficient quantity than that used in the prescrip-tions as it is used as decongestant & in motion sickness disease and the victim does automatically what you ask him to do.
Then there is, âthe Amytal interviewâ has been known to American physicians for a long time. Amytal is the trade name of a drug belonging to the same family as Nembutal, Seconal, and Pentothal. Its generic name is amobarbital . It is a barbiturate, which means when taken in adequate doses induces drowsiness and sleep.
During an Amytal interview, the physician administers small amounts of the drug, by vein, every few minutes. The procedure usually takes about an hour. The patient is drowsy and slurred of speech, but awake -- the so-called "twilight state" for the duration of the interview.
Intravenous Amytal causes a feeling of relaxation, warmth, and closeness to the inter-viewer; while in this state, the patient is questioned.
Other intravenous drugs, like Valium or Ativan, are sometimes used in this kind of pro-cedure. For our purposes, these medicines should be considered essentially identical to IV Amytal, because they produce these same effects on the patient.
The amobarbital interview was in vogue around the 1930's and 40's, though at that time it was not usually performed to verify or recover forgotten memories. Rather, medically used doctors employed the procedure to examine the unconscious, or to do psychotherapy (for example, to treat "shell shock"). The dominant theory then, held by many physicians, was that people under Amytal could not possibly lie. This theory was reflected in the col-orful name "truth serum" given to the drug.
While all knowledge is not wisdom, one attribute of good science is its sincere attempt to disprove its own theories.
This was tried to verify the belief that people will always tell the truth under Amytal - that is, patients were tested to see if they could indulge in tell falsehood during Amytal interviews. They effectively did. During such interviews, could people deliberately at-tempt to deceive an interviewer? They could. Could they report false or exaggerated symptoms of psychological disorders? Again, they could. Withhold information? Yes.
In time, other studies revealed more information. They showed that during Amytal inter-views, patients demonstrated a distorted sense of time, show memory disturbances, and had difficulty evaluating and selecting thoughts.
In addition, under Amytal, patients' claims about details of their histories--events, places, names, dates -- are untrustworthy. Further, these investigations noted that the drug also makes patients vulnerable to either accidental or deliberate suggestions from the inter-viewer.
Finally, and most importantly, patients under Amytal fail to reliably discriminate between reality and fantasy.
Courts have held intense skeptical views of efforts to "enhance" or "refresh" the memo-ries of participants in trials.
There is also the question of reliability of information obtained from someone who is un-der the influence of an intoxicant. Heedful clinicians have supported these concerns of the judiciary; have warned that memories retrieved in an Amytal-induced trance are likely to be a mixture of fact and fantasy, in a mixture, that cannot be correctly verified without external verification. This point about external verification is important. It means that statements made under Amytal must be reliably confirmed. If they are not, they can-not be considered more truthful than any other statements.
#11
There is also the question of reliability of information obtained from someone who is un-der the influence of an intoxicant.
Since virtually anything that emits from Saddam's mouth will be unreliable, I don't see this as a big problem. Now, if he starts talking about pink elephants and compliments you on the "original Dali clock" in your office, it's a sign you *might* need to reduce the dosage just a bit...
#12
I, for one, am both fascinated and chastized. If my computgfrbv keybava svk,xcz will stop meltijfdj a I'll firewhf, off a letter immediv ad;kf to uh, um, I forgej owevnfda oi;wer y.
#13
*double take* Old Spook! Where have you been? I even posted an article once asking if you were still reading Rantburg and figured you were gone when it got no reply!
Posted by: Dar ||
12/17/2003 16:12 Comments ||
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#14
Everybody can be broken, if not, the method was wrong.
I guess you don't want to hear about how the Soviets did it in 1946.
#15
Good description of the drugs of choice, especially scope and amy.
You will note that none of them are relaibel. It still takes a talented set of interrigators, well crafted questions, solid technique, and the things I described above.
You will note that in my description, the questioning came AFTER the "giggle juice" was done with - trusting drugged testimony is only done under extreme circumstances, usually when time is not available to properly condition the subject. And even then, its still looked upon and treated as if it could be a lie.
The best way to extract data is to get it voluntarily. And eventually they will get it. Took a year to get the best info out of the hard-cases at Gitmo. Saddam should go a bit quicker, if for no other reason than they have enough resources to give him the full treatment, unlike the ones in Gitmo.
As for my disappearance, well, I was busy. Lets leave it at that.
The search for Saddam Hussein was almost as much a hunt for a man who helped hide, feed and protect Iraqâs former dictator as for Saddam himself. The name of the man is a U.S. military secret. All commanders will say is that he is a big-bellied, middle-aged man whose family is close to Saddam â and that on Saturday afternoon, the fat man sang. A short while later, in an operation dubbed "Red Dawn," U.S. soldiers nabbed their quarry.
Did he have one of those hats? When I was in Norway, many years ago, I wanted to get one of those helmets for my child. Couldn't find one...
During a media tour Monday of the ramshackle site where Saddam was captured late Saturday near the city of Tikrit, the man who led the search explained how U.S. forces were tipped off to a farm where Iraqâs most-wanted man was found hiding in a hole. Army Col. James Hickey of the 4th Infantry Divisionâs 1st Brigade Combat Team said his brigade had been staging raids in and around Tikrit, Saddamâs hometown, for eight months in an attempt to find top members of the former regime and end attacks on U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies by pro-Saddam insurgents. As he led reporters down a dirt road toward the small farm compound that was Saddamâs last hide-out, Chicago native Hickey, 43, gave the first detailed explanation of how Saddam was tracked and captured. The former leaderâs last minutes in hiding were far more dangerous and dramatic than initial reports of his surrender suggested.
It's often more dangerous and dramatic than the initial reports — and usually more prosaic to the guys who actually did it. Newspapers need dangerous and dramatic for story content. Troops like prosaic because it results in fewer missing appendages...
Saddam may have saved his own life by surrendering quickly. Soldiers were prepared to toss a grenade into the tomb-like crawl space where he was discovered, Hickey said. But then Saddam, speaking in English, identified himself as "the president of Iraq" and said he wanted to negotiate.
"Yes! I am His Excellency the President of Iraq! This is my palace! I am prepared to consider your offers!... Yes, yes. I know I look like a bagman and I'm covered with flies and shit... But I have my dignity... Don't you throw that grenade, young man!"
U.S. soldiers guarding the site said they were surprised to find Iraqâs former leader, a man who built himself elaborate, marble-floored palaces, living in a concrete hut with few possessions, no communications equipment and no indoor plumbing.
Posted by: OMER ISHMAIL ||
12/17/2003 3:50:17 AM ||
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#1
"See how Saddam is splattered all over this wall here? He's doing his bin Laden impression."
Posted by: Dar ||
12/17/2003 6:57 Comments ||
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#2
LOL! Dar, that is great!
Posted by: Charles ||
12/17/2003 7:07 Comments ||
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#3
"Looking at the odorous burrow where he was finally found, you realize that the last words Saddam might have heard were 'fire in the hole!' - but somehow those atavistic cowboy soldiers swallowed their instincts and took him alive."
--Lileks
Posted by: Mike ||
12/17/2003 9:18 Comments ||
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#4
The last words he should of heard "Fire in the Hole!!!!"
#5
U.S. soldiers guarding the site said they were surprised to find Iraqâs former leader, a man who built himself elaborate, marble-floored palaces, living in a concrete hut with few possessions, no communications equipment and no indoor plumbing.
I'm not, really. Under immense stress, he reverted to his roots and his roots are tribal, village based.
Saddam Hussein is being shown videotapes of anti-Saddam protests in Iraq, the unearthing of mass graves and the torture and execution of prisoners during his reign, two U.S. officials who are receiving reports on his interrogation said Tuesday. The goal is to provoke him into making unguarded statements by confronting him with evidence that could be used in a war-crimes trial, according to the two officials, one in the administration and one in an intelligence agency.
Tapes of torture and execution were made by Saddamâs regime. Some were sent to relatives of his victims to intimidate them. U.S. intelligence officials obtained some of the tapes from those relatives. Interrogators are watching Saddamâs reactions to guide them in future questioning, the intelligence official said.
During Saddamâs first two days in custody, he was pressed for details on impending attacks on coalition forces. He denied knowing anything. Now questioners are proceeding more methodically, asking questions with answers they know to test his veracity. High-ranking officials of the U.S. military, Justice Department and intelligence agencies are involved in the questioning. The CIA is taking the lead, but Saddam will remain in military custody, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said."Characterizing his general relationship with his captors ... the best word would be âresigned,â " he said.
Rumsfeld said the troops who captured Saddam had the authority under standard rules to kill him if he had resisted with gunfire. During Saddamâs interrogation, psychology experts are analyzing every "sweat gland, word and twitch," the intelligence official said. Interrogators hope to gradually work through Saddamâs truculence and what the official called his canned responses. The two officials said the questioners hope he will lapse into boasting about his crimes as president of Iraq...
Posted by: OMER ISHMAIL ||
12/17/2003 3:43:21 AM ||
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SADDAM Hussein was captured in a filthy underground hole because of the demands of the one woman he still trusted. She is Samira Shahbander, the second of his four wives. And now she may receive part of, if not all, of the $US25 million bounty the US Government promised for information that led to the capture of the Iraqi dictator. Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had been tailing her since she fled to Beirut, Lebanon, before the US invasion. In a tapped phone call last Thursday she arranged to meet the former dictator that weekend after demanding cash. But the meeting was cancelled at the last minute - perhaps because Saddam was beginning to feel the heat that US forces were closing in.
Late last Friday, US soldiers captured an Iraqi fugitive they had been hunting since July - who is believed to have given them the former dictatorâs exact location - a farm at Ad Dawr, about 15km from Tikrit, his ancestral home and where he was caught late Saturday.
Last March, with the coalition forces closing in, Saddam arranged for Samira and their son Ali to flee to Lebanon. With her she took $US5 million in cash and a trunk of gold bars from the vaults of the Central Bank of Iraq. She told friends she was going first to France and then to Moscow - that Saddam had been secretly promised by Vladimir Putin, Russiaâs president, to give her sanctuary.
Instead, she went to a pre-arranged hideout - a villa - in the Beirut suburbs. It was there that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad discovered her. Mier Dagan, the head of Mossad, sent a team of surveillance specialists from the service yaholomin to bug Samiraâs every move. The Israeli team noted that Samira - who may have also been colluding with US intelligence agencies without Mossadâs knowledge - had transferred most of her money out of Lebanon to a Credit Suisse bank account in Geneva. A month ago, Samira cashed in her gold bars for US dollars with a Beirut money dealer. Then she started to call Saddam. Supported by Israeli Air Force surveillance aircraft, the yaholomin tracked the calls close to the Syrian border...
The actual story doesn't really jibe with the headline. Apparently Sammy stayed in some sort of contact with Samira. But he was actually sold out by the guy captured Friday. I think news.com.au just wanted to post a picture of her â she's a bleached blondie who looks like she should be named Trixie â and built the story around it, based on what could have been.
Posted by: OMER ISHMAIL ||
12/17/2003 3:35:52 AM ||
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#1
heh! Hey Sammy...who was it??? Your closest advisors, your doctor, your wife??? It had to be someone you trusted..and so far I've heard all of the above. What time is it, Sammy? Sammy! Wake up, Sammy!!
#2
" Who betrayed me!? My dog? How could little Osama do that to me! Why are you laughing? "
Posted by: Charles ||
12/17/2003 4:26 Comments ||
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#3
The phrase "Jesus, man, buy yourself a freakin' CLUE!" comes to mind. (Or would that be "Allah, man, buy...")
When your own family sells you out, that's usually a good sign that you're totally F**ked, and it's time to throw in the towel.
In a weird way, it reminds me of that final scene in "Batman Returns".. you know, the bit where Danny Devito's flunkies (from the circus he'd grown up in) begin to slip away into the shadowy darkness and he's abandoned by everyone but his penguins?
And Mr. Mustache doesn't even have that much. No loyal penguins, not one.
It's pathetic when you're such a failure of a human being that even your own blood kin are willing to sell you down the road like a bruised tomato.
Ed Becerra
Posted by: Ed Becerra ||
12/17/2003 4:36 Comments ||
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#4
This whole story sounds quite unlikely. Israel would not have these sort of resources.
The Americans knew his approx location, asked the right questions and a bit of luck. Bingo
An editorial from the Australian newspaper that explains why the world is a better place as result of American actions over the last half century. EFL
The discovery of Saddam Hussein in a crypt-like hole, hidden by bricks and dirt, in a farm house in a small town near Tikrit, brings to mind the story of another Iraqi who also hid from the authorities by going underground. That Iraqi would be Jawad Amir Sayyid, 45, of Karada, a town southeast of Baghdad. He dwelled for an astonishing 21 years in a cell below his familyâs kitchen, entering it on December 2, 1981, and never once emerging from it until April 10 this year, a day after the toppling of Husseinâs regime.
Sayyidâs story makes a powerful symbolic counterpoint to Husseinâs capture on Sunday. A young man hides in a crypt for more than two decades as Hussein rules the land as a brutal and absolute dictator. The US-led coalition liberates the country. The no-longer-young man comes out of his stifling cell and staggers into the sunlight just as the monstrous ruler abandons his gleaming palaces and himself begins haunting crypts to escape the authorities. The contrast in their spirits on leaving the crypts bears notice: Hussein was described by the US military as "a tired man, a man resigned to his fate".
In miniature, this tale points to the profound morality of the US-led invasion, symbolised by the fact that, since April, innocent Iraqis move about freely above ground while Hussein and his henchmen slip from one rat hole to another. In the broader sweep of history, the Iraqi vignette serves as a reminder of the role Americans have played across the world for 60 years -- defeating totalitarian regimes and bringing a modicum of decency and freedom to desperate lands. The list is a long one and would include virtually every country of western Europe, saved once from the Nazis and a second time from the communists. It includes all the states and satellites of the former Soviet Union, which collapsed after failing to sustain a rivalry with the US. The list also includes many East Asian countries saved from Japanese imperialism. And it includes Kuwait, saved from Iraqi aggression. Conversely, the one place where the US lost a war -- Vietnam -- totalitarian rule continues.
In short, however flawed the US government is -- and it certainly is flawed -- in the course of pursuing an enlightened self-interest since the 1940s, it has liberated people worldwide. Or, to quote Sayyid back in April, soon after he left the crypt: "I believe that Allah worked through Mr Bush to make this happen. If I met Mr Bush, I would say: âThank you, thank you, you are a good human, you returned me from the dead."â The words may be hyperbolic, but this sentiment of gratitude towards the US is one that hundreds of millions of people have shared at one time.
Posted by: phil_b ||
12/17/2003 2:30:22 AM ||
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#1
well said. Like Rantburg..evil never sleeps :-)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Saddam Hussein deserves the ``ultimate penaltyââ for his crimes, President Bush said Tuesday, putting the United States sharply at odds with Europe and the United Nations which adamantly oppose the death penalty. Not again!
A day after saying his own views about Saddamâs fate were unimportant, Bush decided to step forward and publicly state his opinion, a position that could carry considerable influence in determining the punishment of the deposed Iraqi leader. The administration blames him for killing 300,000 people. ``Letâs just see what penalty he gets, but I think he ought to receive the ultimate penalty ... for what he has done to his people,ââ Bush said. ``I mean, he is a torturer, a murderer, they had rape rooms. This is a disgusting tyrant who deserves justice, the ultimate justice.ââ As Fred said, give him a fair trial, and then hang him.
Even while expressing his views, Bush said Saddamâs punishment ``will be decided not by the president of the United States but by the citizens of Iraq in one form or another.ââ He said he doesnât see a need for an American role in Saddamâs trial, a process that Iraqis are ``plenty capable of conducting.ââ I guess the "international jurists" shouldnât pack their bags yet.
The president distanced himself from possible interrogation methods used to elicit information from Saddam, other than to say that ``this country doesnât torture.ââ We sure donât smash peopleâs teeth, electrocute their genitals, and beat the soles of their feet with rubber-coated iron bars. I do seem to recall someone, somewhere who was doing that.
Bush also defended the intelligence that he used in citing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a main reason for going to war. Asked about the emphasis now on alleged weapons ``programsââ instead on possession of weapons themselves, Bush remained firm about his prewar assessment of the threat Saddam posed and insisted the world and America are safer because of the war that toppled him. ``Whatâs the difference?ââ he said. ``If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger. Thatâs what Iâm trying to explain to you. A gathering threat, after 9-11, is a threat that needed to be dealt with.ââ He needs to say that louder, about 100 times.
In the case of Saddam, the death penalty issue could cause friction between the United States and Europe. All 15 member nations of the European Union have abolished capital punishment, and they often pompously lecture encourage other countries - most notably the United States - to abolish it. But it is unclear how strenuously they would object to a death sentence for Saddam. The head might pop off the Belgian ambassador. He might end up taller as a result.
Britainâs top representative in Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said his country would not participate in a tribunal or legal process that could lead to execution. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan also has said the world body would not support bringing Saddam before a tribunal that might sentence him to death. Oh well, no UN observers at the trial. Too bad, so sad.
British Prime Minister Tony Blairâs spokesman said that although Britain opposes the death penalty, it would have to accept an Iraqi decision to execute. Nod nod, wink wink, nudge nudge.
Members of the U.S.-appointed Iraq Governing Council have predicted a quick trial and a quick execution for Saddam. The U.S. occupation authority suspended using the death penalty, and Iraqi officials have said they will decide whether to reinstate it when a transitional government assumes sovereignty, scheduled on July 1. "Ahmed! Clear the legislative calendar for July 2nd. Weâll have business to discuss!"
Diego Ojeda, EU spokesman on external relations, wouldnât comment specifically on Saddam, but said, ``We believe there are no circumstances that can justify the death penalty.ââ Guess we have different beliefs.
But Australiaâs Prime Minister John Howard, who sent troops to fight in Iraq, said he would support the death penalty for Iraq. ``If it were imposed, absolutely,ââ he said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/17/2003 12:07:35 AM ||
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#2
Let me get this stright. According to the U.N. Rape squads and rape rooms are ok. Murder and mutaliation is ok. Genocide is ok. But the death penalty for a mass murder is not ok?
#4
I think he should be treated as a mad dog - put down. Nothing rectified by torture or revenge. Just removed.
But...I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep (even though I'm not sleeping now) if they slowly lowered him into a vat of acid leaving just enough of him to be aware that he's being fed into a shredder. Yawn..yes, perhaps I am tired.
That Being Said I'm going to have to disagree with my fellow RBers on this one. The death penalty will direct all the moths to his flame. Kofi, the Vatican and the Do-Good-Losers-of-America(TM) will all shriek and rip their garments (please send a check or money order to the address to help us now!). The left will busy their meaningless lives by painting sympathetic Sadaam posters in their garages.
Give him the Noreiga treatment. It will be worth it just to deny them all their parade. Just let him rot like the animal he is. Killing him is too dignified, to ceremonial. Let the people look at him and laugh and say.."well look what we have here..if it ain't the Great Nebuchadnezzar."
It will be far, far, more slow and torturous than the acid could ever be.
#5
Seem to remember that hanging was good enough for those at Nuremburg........either way, let the Iraqis do w/him as they will. Until then, bust out the sodium pentathol and see what moron-boy knows......
#6
This is an interesting moral dilemma that GW is placing before the world community, which is entirely consistent with his own words and belief with respect to the freedom and libery of men. If a free Iraq is permitted to trial and judge Saddam even to execution, then the UN and the ICC has no valid justification to step in and take over, either in this or future cases. And if emerging free countries have no need for these institutions, then what these institutions have become are societies designed to validate totalitarian states and protect dictators from harassment. And those individuals and organizations that support these international causes have decided that all forms of social order that deny human rights are preferrable to human freedom. They turn the world upside down and reverse the meaning of language because the biggest enemy of human rights is now the largest and strongest beacon of human libery.
Posted by: john ||
12/17/2003 9:07 Comments ||
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#7
B
The lefties didn't know how to handle it yet with Noriega. They've been practicing. Sammy in long-term storage will look more like Mumia. Picture him as an honorary citizen of Paris.
I have no cruel streak. I'm not in favor of torture, even for him. Send him to the vet.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2003 9:08 Comments ||
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#8
I'm not in favor of torture, even for him. Send him to the vet.
This veteran will gladly take him. There's torture, and there's torture. I can drive him mad without ever touching him, or denying him any human need. I was an intelligence NCO in Vietnam, and learned PLENTY from the VC and NVA - not by direct experience, but well enough to conduct that kind of "interrogation", and even improve on it. I also know, Fred, that you meant a different kind of vetrinarian, implying that Saddam is more an animal than human. He still needs to be dealt with in a way that will finally put the threat he's represented for 30 years to rest in the mind of the Iraqi people. If that means stretching his neck from a lamp post, so be it.
Come to think of it, hanging him from those huge "crossed swords" (if they're still standing) would be the ultimate in "timely end".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/17/2003 10:33 Comments ||
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#9
Kofi, the Vatican and the Do-Good-Losers-of-America(TM) will all shriek and rip their garments
B These folks wear Armani -- they're more likely to "do a Kerry" and rip someone else's garments.
#10
I was in favor of a quick trial and speedy execution. But I like the direction that B has taken. I would expand on the humility portion by making him cleaning toliets or something in the new Iraqi Council Chambers. A meek and humilated Saddam would not be a martyr but the butt of MANY Arab jokes for years to come. But I suspect that the Iraqi Council will want a pound of flesh (or all of it) from this 'man/animal.'
#11
I would suggest the ZTL 100. A European product, somehow even more fitting. Photo here.
Depending our your specific application and unique operation parameters, we deliver the right size machine, with the right components for any application. Call today for a complete and comprehensive application analysis and quote.
#12
funny comments all! Fred's made me feel a bit sick though. "Picture him as an honorary citizen of Paris." so sad because it's true.
Posted by: B ||
12/17/2003 12:39 Comments ||
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#13
Chuck, Looked at your link. Yes I think Saddam would look good in one of those new bras. But not as near as good as Neve Campbell (nice!) in the pic.....
Oh! you mean the next picture under it? Of the shreadder? No that would be too quick and painless. The bra would make him the brunt of jokes everywhere.....
#17
I'm inclined to agree with the President. If the new council decides to execute the guy, that's up to them. The whole point is that U.S. forces threw out Hussein's dictatorship, then subsequently nabbed the guy they were looking for. That part of the mission has been accomplished, and no amount of hemming and hawing by administration critics can change that fact.
#18
Some folks on the left have been saying for months that you can't impose western-style democracy on the Iraqis and that you have to let the Iraqis develop a system consistent with their own values, etc. But the first time an issue comes up that gores their ox, the same folks start insisting on the application of their own version of Western values. "The death penalty! How barbaric those Iraqis are!"
Posted by: Matt ||
12/17/2003 17:37 Comments ||
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#19
No, Spandau prison (the building Hess was in, not the citadel) was torn down. On the premises a shopping mall was built.
As for the death penalty... I don't believe that "death" is a penalty. We don't know what death means. They did know this in former times and that's why the death sentence was carried out with utmost brutality.
Still, let the Iraqis decide. No punishment will match the crime. Eternity is a long time. Whether Saddam finds this out tomorrow or in ten, twenty years hardly matters.
#20
Although the death penalty is too good for him, it's definitely what he should get...and soon.
For a man who meted out the death penalty to thousands, only the death penalty is suitable.
It's Biblical, it's Koranic and until lately, it was considered "civilized" if done after a fair trial by jury as it is in this country.
(This reminds me: Are the Iraqis into juries? And if so, how would they be chosen?)
Actions have consequences, something the Liberal Left would love to pretend isn't true. (Look at how our own Liberal judges have let John Wayne Hinckley have the ability to walk around even after he tried to kill the President of the United States and put his press secretary in a wheelchair for life.)
Furthermore, I don't want Saddam alive to be used as bait or leverage for a "rescue" or "deal" by his loyal Baathis "insurgents" and other assorted IslamoFascist killers.
Israel's had nothing but trouble with the Paleostinian murderers they've put in prison.
There's a saying "where there's life, there's hope." In Saddam's case, that means nothing but trouble.
As long as he draws breath, he's alive to be the focus and worse, the symbol of terrorist killing, murder and activity.
It was good that the Arab world saw him looking like a homeless bum, but it will conclude the lesson to show that he is mortal, just like the rest of us.
Saddam Hussein's cousin has said the former Iraqi president should not stand trial for crimes committed during his time in power.
Well, gee. There's an impartial observer for you...
Izz al-Din al-Majid, who was once Saddam's bodyguard, told Aljazeera.net on Tuesday that he would not get a fair trial in Iraq. "I totally refuse the idea of trying President Saddam Hussein - this is illegal. He is still the legal president of the Republic of Iraq. But if there is no escape from holding a trial, then it should be in The Hague," he said.
Personally, I find the idea of the people he tormented for 35 years putting him on trial to be kind of... you know — jolly.
Al-Majid defected with Saddam's sons-in-law Hussein and Saddam Kamil in 1995, but refused to return to Iraq in spite of a presidential pardon.
That's howcome he's still breathing...
And even though he opposed Saddam's regime, al-Majid objected to America's treatment of him. He said: "Though my differences with the president are known to everybody, I am terribly sad... If I had an army, I would immediately move to Baghdad to drive the occupiers and their supporters out of Iraq.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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#1
If Izzy had an army, it would throw down its weapons and scurry away to hide the very minute the 101st and 3ID looked at them closely. They saw what happened to Izzy's cousin.
So I guess he won't ever have an army!
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/17/2003 0:13 Comments ||
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#2
I love to be lectured on justice, by Baathist tyrants. How many of the Beast-of-Baghdad's victims received a fair trial?
Posted by: Vlad the Muslim Impaler ||
12/17/2003 4:57 Comments ||
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#3
Sounds like he's planning to run for office in Tikrit .....
#4
...or sounds like he is planning a run for the Democrat primary.
Posted by: Les Nessman ||
12/17/2003 11:10 Comments ||
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#5
I think part of the problem is a major misunderstanding. A trial implies an undertaking to determine the truth and so act on it.
Sometimes old familiar ideas do not work and you have to step outside the norm to set things to rights.
There is no conceivable way that Saddam can be found innocent of anything. In this case a the trial is really just an review of the reasons and justifications why the Iraqi people are going to hang this guy.
All the people crying about a "fair trial" either really do not understand what is going on or are trying to prevent the Iraqi people from ever being free.
Most of the noise coming from the latter, as without hatred and misery and evil about in the world these people have no justification for their existance.
Posted by: Michael ||
12/17/2003 12:33 Comments ||
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#6
"Al-Majid defected with Saddam's sons-in-law Hussein and Saddam Kamil in 1995, but refused to return to Iraq in spite of a presidential pardon."
Guess he wasn't as dumb as the Kamil brothers. Or else he didn't have any family that could be used as a lever. Wonder what Saddam told the brothers he would do to their families if they didn't come back. Bear in mind that this was Sammy's OWN family...
Kept us waiting for this all day yesterday...
THE reputed head of the Iraqi insurgency surrendered to US forces at dawn yesterday, Al-Arabiya television reported last night. The reported surrender of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, the highest ranking member of the former regime still at large, follows the arrest at the weekend of two leaders of the insurgency along with Saddam Hussein.
Earlier in the day, Kuwaiti TVâs news programme aired a live broadcast from Iraq where it was reported that Al Douri may have turned himself in to the Americans. However, Nouri did express optimism that Al Douri will soon turn himself in, affirming that âserious negotiations are taking place with the former vice president for his surrender, especially now that his situation has become very precarious following Saddamâs capture.â
So he was at least talking...
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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#1
I don't know, I enjoy some grim satisfaction to putting these scumbags in a cage, but there's too much work to be done to have a party. And by that, I mean serious bullets-in-the-head work, not kissey-face st. dept. kind of work.
I do think the IGC tries this mutt before rolling out saddam. Get the evidence on the record, let the eurocommies have a good look, then skin the big fish. And let the iraqis do it, otherwise it turns into another milosevic showboat propaganda stage. Stupid euros.
#2
Damn! My ululator's still sore from Sunday...
Too funny, Fred! So true. So's mine from Sunday, Monday and now Tuesday because I've been ululating and firing my AK-47 into the air over both Saddam and now the Dim shark feed on Ho Ho Dean.
This is the 3rd report we've had that Al-Douri's given up--it must be true, so maybe we should spell each other on the celebrations and blend them in with Christmas carols, too!
#3
I hope it is true, though I'm not going to hold my breath in the meanwhile.
If Izzy HAS thrown in the towel, it'll break what little spirit the native Iraqi Ba'athists had left after Saddam's pathetic little "I am the President of Iraqi, I want to negociate!" non-event.
(Or, as Chris Dee, a favorite author of mine, once said in a chapter of her novel, "CatTales", "That was the most magnificent display of cowardice ever seen without the aid of the Scarecrow's fear gas!")
Not that it will do much to quell the non-Iraqi rent-a-fools, they'll still come to Iraqi with their guns, bomb belts and whatnot, but we've gotten a handle on that. Won't be easy, I'm not fool enough to think it will be, but it CAN be done. We can do it.
Ed Becerra.
Posted by: Ed Becerra ||
12/17/2003 1:33 Comments ||
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#4
Izzat Ibrahim hangs it up
Too many words in this headline... please trim by two.
That sound you hear is a Dummycrat collapse...
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said US-led teams had found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories and plans to develop long-range ballistic missiles in Iraq. Blair did not go into detail, but a spokesman for the prime minister on Tuesday said the findings were part of an interim report produced several months ago by the Iraq Survey Group, which is hunting for weapons of mass destruction. "The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long range ballistic missiles", Blair said in an interview with the British Forces Broadcasting Service.
But Bush has been keeping the info close to his chest...
He was responding to an interviewer who asked if captured former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may reveal details of his alleged banned weapons programme following his weekend arrest. Blair replied: "There's obviously that possibility there but I think in any event we have got to carry on doing the work we are doing" in hunting for banned weapons. Frankly these things were not being developed unless they were developed for a purpose. When a country with a leader like Saddam tries to hide what it's doing, in a large country like Iraq it's relatively easy to hide it."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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#2
Want to bet these come out after Dean has the nomination clinched by way of pandering to the anti-war moonbats and Streisand wing of the Democrat Party?
I'd save it until then, and refine it and develop it further until it was so obvious that the war was neccesary to everyone [except the Deanies and the fascists at Indymedia and moonbats at the Democratic Underground]
All those souther Demo senators retiring. Economy picking up. Saddam on trial and condemned by his own people. Proof of WMD capabilities and intentions. And Iraq settling in under their own self-governance with international investment ramping up (Letting Europe back in the door after they forgive the debt)
It could be a glorious autumn next year for the forces of liberty and freedom in this world.
Posted by: Pete Stanley ||
12/17/2003 1:35 Comments ||
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#6
Re: Chuck Spinney. Poor guy,if these samples are representative of him, he can see what's going on in the world, but rather than acknowledge it, he works and reworks what he sees until it somehow fits within his narrow and negative anti-american/capitalist/global pig framework. Someone let the poor soul out of his own paradigm prison.
In the first example, he can see what Sadaam does, then he victoriously claims that, "If this vision of autocratic "just-in-time" efficiency and flexibility can be transferred successfully to our corporations, the payoffs would be enormous. The growing disparity between wages on the factory floor and the 80th floor would not only be protected, it could be increased.
#7
"Want to bet these come out after Dean has the nomination clinched by way of pandering to the anti-war moonbats and Streisand wing of the Democrat Party?"
Glad you said and not me, OS, or theyd call me a raving nut. But it DOES seem that Dr. No is the guy Karl Rove wants to run against, much more than Gephardt or Lieberman. And withholding evidence of WMD until after Dr. No has a lock on the nomination would be in Bush's partisan interest - though NOT in the US national interest. Grrrrrrr!
I hope that its not true - i really hope that Bush and his advisors arent that low. If it does turn out to be true expect much bitterness from the hawkish wing of the Dem party, directed against both the GOP and Dean-Gore wing of the Dems.
#8
LH -- I have no doubt most of that bitterness would be towards Bush, though in the real world Dean and his ilk deserve all of it. The Democrats let the issue be turned into a partisan matter; while I'd rather Bush not use it for political gain, he didn't pick the playing field. If you want to point fingers at who's being "low", I recommend you look on your side of the aisle.
And if, in the process, the Fifth Column currently running the Democrat party is destroyed or at least forced out of power for a few years, then I think it would be more than justified.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/17/2003 9:59 Comments ||
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#9
RC it will be directed both ways - look at what Joe is saying about Dr. No - that bitterness is real - but if it turns out that Dr. No is Karl Rove's gift to the Dem party, it will be turned back to the GOP, and with reason.
2. as for partisan matter - how did Joe and Gephardt turn Iraq into a partisan matter - theyve been supporting change in Iraq for a long time. I point fingers at "lowness" on BOTH sides of the aisle.
3. Whos running the dem party? No one, as far as i can tell. Gore could have tried running it, but he went to ground after January 2001, not really emerging till now, and then as an ANTI-establishment figure. McAuliffe dont run things, hes just a fund raiser. The Clintons seem unable to run things - they pushed Clark, and it turned out the were pushing on a damp string.
Dem party isnt being "run" its up for grabs between the naive lefties and the muscular factions - it is of course in the GOP interests that the lefties win, so they can reap partisan advantage. Now thats all fair in politics I suppose - AS LONG AS IT DOESNT involve changing US policy in a way that hurts the US for partisan advantage.
Now its clear to me that IF we have clear evidence of WMD in Iraq its US interest to release it NOW - when international support would help, when we need to buck up US support, and improve troops morale, etc. There is NO US interest in holding back till June. There may be a GOP interest however - since such revelation NOW would help Joe, and they dont want to face Joe. Of course there are some folks who think defeating Dems IS a US interest as such, worth sacrificing other interests for. Such folks are barely above the Democratic Underground scum who root for the Baathists in order to defeat Bush.
#10
Hey guys ... I think it's premature to be certain the Bush administration is sitting on proof of WMD labs.
Bush has said for some time that Kay would report his findings after a thorough evaluation of the tons of documents they keep uncovering. Blair is just restating what Kay said in his interim report to Congress.
Every one here knows the response at that time: nothing is proven, you're cherrypicking evidence, etc. etc. The case is probably made to the satisfaction of the intel community and the leadership, but that doesn't mean all the footnotes are in place for releasing it to the scrutiny of hostile eyes.
Finally, it's pretty likely that the Administration is hoping to fill in key facts gleaned from interrogations and from volunteered tips before pushing this issue again. Think about special ops people combing various interesting remote places in Syria, for instance ....
It would NOT be useful in our negotiations with allies to release partial information or to build a case that isn't overwhelmingly convincing to a hostile or at least uninformed public.
#11
What I find interesting is that the article linked to is from Al Jazeerah. I can't really figure their angle unless their simply trying to paint Bush as a liar for concealing the WMD.
#13
as for partisan matter - how did Joe and Gephardt turn Iraq into a partisan matter - theyve been supporting change in Iraq for a long time.
Where are those two in the running for the nomination? Which party appears to have "BUSH LIED" as part of its 2004 platform?
As for who's running the party -- look at the way the front-runner candidates are campaigning. They're doing that because that's where the votes and money are; THAT'S who's running the party. Official figureheads aside, it's clear which way the party activists want to go.
Listen, the previous Secretary of State from your party just said she thinks Bush is concealing Osama's capture for political gain; one of your party's Congressional reps just had a friendly meeting with a man who sent soldiers to fight our troops; your party's leading presidential candidates are racing each other to see who can make the most outrageous accusation against Bush; the "leaders" in your party are declaring a clear American victory to be a loss for partisan advantage: You can point out the motes in Republican eyes all you want, but if you don't work on the beams in your partys', you deserve whatever happens.
For what it's worth, I think the destruction of a fifth-column Democrat party IS in the interest of the US in general. We need a loyal opposition, and I don't think that's what we have now.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/17/2003 13:18 Comments ||
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#14
"Where are those two in the running for the nomination? Which party appears to have "BUSH LIED" as part of its 2004 platform? "
Uh but thats just the point - if evidence of WMD were to come out NOW, before New Hampshire, either Dick or Joe probably WOULD be the front runner, NOT DEAN. Now if theres no WMD evidence that ready for prime time thats one thing. But IF (as OS, NOT me, suggested) and the Dem front runner is Dean and not Joe or Dick PRECISELY because of a dirty trick by Karl Rove, that is quite another thing.
Does this seem too paranoid? maybe. But think back to 1972, when a certain Ed Muskie was the Dem front runner. And when he was defeated in part due to GOP dirty tricks, giving us George McGovern.
Has Albright made an ass of herself over Iraq - yeah, but so have Zinni, Scowcroft, et al.
BTW - I think Dr. NO is a naive fool who is misguided on foreign policy, but fifth column is vile language, without evidence = i think he THINKS what he says is good for the US.
#15
Amen, Robert...and to liberalhawk, furthermore, I don't think we really know the intimate thoughts of Karl Rove, do we?
We know what the WaPo tells us that Rove is supposedly thinking and we know they don't have an agenda.
I'm a big Bushie, yes, but I find the stance of the Dimocrat party APPALLING--that of its politicians like Ted Kennedy, Tom Daschle, Hillary Clinton and Jim McDermott, that of its officials like Terry McAwful, that of former Dim Administrations like Madame Notsobright and Jimmuh Peanut and that of its candidates almost to a man or woman except for Lieberman.
If the Dims had behaved during WWII the way they are doing now, America would most certainly have lost the war and lost it badly.
Now, their bellicose rhetoric is almost directly responsible for getting American soldiers hurt and killed and even American citizens here at home because, let's be clear, if Clinton (and Carter) had acted when they needed to, 9/11 wouldn't have happened and we wouldn't be staring down a nuclear Iran or North Korea.
I will not only work to re-elect President Bush, but I will work against any Dimocrat that tries to occupy the Oval Office for what remains of my life.
#16
JT - no i dont know what karl rove is thinking- thats why all my posts above include the word IF - i certainly hope what i fear is not so.
There are plenty of GOP pols with appaling stances - including a batch of former officials, who apparently were working hand in glove with the current Sec of State to undermine admin policy on Iraq - and who may well still be doing so (do you REALLY trust Saudi friend Jim ("fuck the Jews") Baker to negotiate with France and Germany?)
Did Clinton fail to go after Osama or Saddam - yup. How many times do I need to remind people that during the time period leading up to 9/11 George W. Bush did so as well? In fact his admin was advocating further downsizing of the US army, and he ran on his opposition to nation-building.
Now I think Bush has done a pretty good job since 9/11 - but lets be under no doubt, that was a reaction to 9/11, NOT his original foreign policy orientation. Criticizing Clinton for failing to do what Dubya also failed to do pre-9/11 is a cheap shot - it may be good politics but is has nothing to do with strategy.
#18
"If the Dims had behaved during WWII the way they are doing now, America would most certainly have lost the war and lost it badly."
are you at all aware of what quite a number of leading Republicans did in the period before Pearl Harbor, opposing the draft, opposing lend lease aid to Britain etc? They ACTUALLY impeded the war, no hypothetical necessary. And even after Pearl, they played politics, pushing for shifting resources to the Pacific instead of Europe, and opposing lend lease to the USSR. Yet any decent democrats made a distinction between isolationist republicans and internationalists like Wendell Wilkie. (Doesnt mean they had to VOTE for Wilkie, just acknowlege that the GOP as a whole was NOT a fifth column) And today any decent Republicans must make similar distinctions among Democrats.
#19
BTW, you will notice i always call the Republicans just that - Republicans or GOP. Name calling, etc doesnt show maturity or political seriousness.
#20
Grover Norquist isn't on my radar--don't really know who he is or what he's doing (is he the GOP's George Soros or something, reputedly?).
You guys on the Left have on your tin foil hats 24/7. Clinton had the opportunity to get OBL no less than 12 times including the last attack event on the USS Cole when Clinton was too busy handing out pardons for cash.
The plan to deal with Osama and Al Queda hit President Bush's desk on September 10, 2001.
Are you telling me that Bush should have dealt with OBL in the 9 months before 9/11?
And before America was attacked on 9/11, no President would have considered an aggressive foreign policy such as we're pursuing now--there was no causus belli.
(Well there were--1993 WTC bombing, which Clintoon treated as a domestic crime, the Africa embassy bombings, the USS Cole--but not that the American people would support from a man who too many of the electorate considered "selected not elected," a reason they cite now for not supporting the war.)
I wouldn't think that Jim Baker is a horrible anti-Semite. Just the contrary, really.
Harry Truman had anti-Semitic feelings, yet he supported the independence of Israel in 1948.
As for Bush downsizing the Army, I've never heard that. How could he downsize something the 2 Clintons had already decimated?
And who was it that had the military votes thrown out in 2000? Clinton's boy Al Gore. I will criticize Clinton and Carter both for failing to deal with Islamist terrorism. That is their legacy.
Suck it up, Dimocrats.
#21
"And before America was attacked on 9/11, no President would have considered an aggressive foreign policy such as we're pursuing now--there was no causus belli."
My point exactly.
1. downsizing the army - the plan was to reduce it from 10 divisions to 8 divisions
2. Grover Norquist leading lobbyist for tax cuts - general GOP bigwig - also good pal of various terror apologists in CAIR, who brought them to the white house, etc. If hes not on your radar he should be.
Jim Baker - no Harry truman - a pal of the Saudi lobby, one of the men responsible for leaving Saddam in power in '91.
Clintons opportunities - despite not having a florida over his head, he had a monica at the time of the Cole, and IIRC the embassy bombings. You tell me which Republicans suggested invading Afghanistan in 1998.
Look I'll criticize dems when its called for, and praise bush when its called for - any one here can tell you that i do both regularly. But this dittohead crap aint strategic analysis, and dont have much to do with any facts.
You are spouting mainly rants and opinions, not facts.
#22
oops, i guess i hurt Jen, who on her blog says about Jim Baker "I personally think he is one of the sexiest senior men alive" I'll have to dig some more info on him though. I saw at least one source that suggested that Wolfie released the no French or German bidders statement to pre-empt Baker, afraid hed give away the store.
#23
"A fine illustration of this Washington tradition took place at the capital's Ritz-Carlton Hotel on Sept. 11, 2001. On that day, former Secretary of State James Baker, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and a parade of other former government officials convened at those swank quarters to attend the annual investor conference of the Carlyle Group, a private investment company known for putting lucrative business deals together for the Saudi royal family (and also known for its roster of all-star advisers, including Baker and the elder George Bush).
Among those gathered to schmooze with Washington's power brokers was one Shafiq bin Laden, a Saudi captain of industry whose brother would slaughter thousands of Americans before the conferees broke for lunch. The meeting, notes Robert Baer, whose Sleeping With the Devil catalogs many others like it, "was the perfect metaphor for Washington's strange affair with Saudi Arabia." "
A:That's right. We have allies, particularly in this fight against terrorism, that don't embrace democracy, and that don't embrace free markets. We've had allies throughout our history that aren't necessarily of the same philosophy and persuasion that we are, regarding principles and values. Sometimes your realpolitik interests demand that.
Q:What I'm thinking about are interviews that we've done with people from the Iraqi National Congress. There are people who are opposed to Saddam Hussein -- [from] people in the street to intellectuals in the Islamic community -- who say that, because of this policy, the U.S. has become identified with the Saudi royal family, for example, who has a reputation for corruption.
A:I won't acknowledge that, because I don't know that that's true, that they are corrupt. I certainly have never seen any of that corruption. But I would ask those Islamic academics or thinkers that you refer to: How many Islamic regimes do they know that are democratic and free market? I can't think of one. I bet you can't.
Q: So our policy's based on the realities on the ground?
A: It's based on our national interest and our national security interests, you bet. And that's really what a nation's foreign policy ought to be primarily focused on, if I may say so. ..."
#25
Gee, thanks a lot, liberal hawk--reducing the Bush Doctrine, which has proved to be effective now for 2 years, to my "dittohead" cant.
The *facts* are too numerous to list here on Fred's dime.
I do have my own blog which has chronicled all of this and more and there are many books on this, but the 2 main ones on this subject I would recommend are Rich Lowry's Legacy and Richard Miniter's Losing Bin Laden.
I don't know about Bush downsizing the Army by 2 more divisions; if he stated as much before 9/11, it would have been on the Pentagon's recommendations and only fitting for a post-Cold War peacetime.
As for CAIR and the Muslims at the White House, President Bush wants to have a country (and a world) where moderate Muslims can co-exist peacefully with those of other faiths under secular government. Compassionate conservatism straight-up. He realizes those 1 billion people (1+ million in the USA ) aren't all going to be jihadis and/or be converted to Christianity.(On a political level, American-Muslims threw their vote behind Bush as a vote against Dim Joe Lieberman. I have a feeling that they will be voting for him again in 2004 for different reasons, now--i.e. his same reasons: that Islam can be about peace if they choose for it to be.)
Baker went along with President Bush 41 to leave Saddam in power in 1991 because that was the deal the U.S. struck with the international, internationalized UN-based Coalition then.
We all know now that was a big mistake, none more so than Presidents Bush 41 and 43.
This is what I think really cost Bush 41 his re-election, not the economy, stupid. (Political "genius" James Carville made that up.)
You can sling ad hominems all you want to but calling Rush and I names won't make us any less correct and calling me a "dittohead" is a compliment to me.
I would never had made it through the Clinton years without Rush.
Oh, and as for pals of the Sauds, look no farther than your current screaming Lefty idiot former Iraqi Ambassador Joe Wilson.
#27
I didnt reduce the bush doctrine to dittohead cant - i reduced YOUR POST to dittohead cant - I do hope you can tell the difference.
Uh the plan to reduce the army by two divisions was made by Bushs political appointees at the Pentagon - the Army was screaming bloody murder - you really should gather facts first.
I too think there are moderate muslims - I just dont think CAIR is among them. And apparently neither does the white house, anymore. Frank Gaffney, a columnist in the Washington Times (no leftie rag) has been taking on Norquist lately -you didnt know that either, did you?
All Bush had to do to toss Saddam in '91 was to keep the war going a couple of more days, while the Shiite and Kurdish rebellions began - nothing the french or Russians could have, or would have done about it. The UN didnt stop it - the admin did - theyve SAID SO - we didnt want to have deal with occupying Iraq, ethnic divisions, etc. They kept their Saudi friends happy.
Heres more for you from the Forward
'"Baker's tenure as secretary of state from 1989 to 1992 is remembered as a time of truculent relations between Washington and Jerusalem, when the top pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the senior Bush were at loggerheads over a number of issues, especially settlements.
At one point in 1991, American relations with Israel's Likud-led government were so strained that Baker declared Ariel Sharon, who was then Israel's housing minister, persona non grata in Washington. Despite his denials, Baker also is famous for allegedly remarking, in a private
conversation on Middle East policy, "Fâk the Jews. They don't vote for us anyway."
Baker's appointment, especially coming after the Bush administration quietly cut the loan guarantees on the eve of Thanksgiving, conjured fraught memories for some in the Jewish community â with both a prominent pro-Israel activist and a Jewish Democratic activist issuing warnings.
"The influence of James Baker is a factor in [George W.] Bush's pressure on Israel to reduce its military response to terror, in Bush's refusal to move the embassy to Jerusalem despite his campaign promise to do so, in his complaining about Israel's security fence, in his public demand for a Palestinian state and his public praise for the Geneva Accords," said the president of the Zionist Organization of America, Morton Klein. A frequent critic of the Bush administration who opposes Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, Klein added: "You can be sure that his conversations with George Bush will not be limited to Iraq."
That assessment was seconded by the executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Ira Forman. "It's a bad sign for this administration to start relying on Jim Baker for foreign policy advice," he said. "For a consummate inside operator like Baker, you can be sure there's no firewall between his advice on Iraq and broader Middle East issues."
Others, however, said the appointment and cuts in loan guarantees have a different valence because President Bush's relations with Israel and American Jewry are so much warmer than those of his father.
Steve Grossman, a former president of Aipac who is national campaign co-chairman for former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean, remembered that Baker gave a speech at an Aipac policy conference in 1989 that was "deeply disturbing to the pro-Israel community. I don't think his relations with the Jewish community ever improved." The current Bush administration, however, has no such "blanket hostility" to loan guarantees or "clear antipathy" to the leadership in Jerusalem, Grossman said. The cuts, he added, are not provoking a Jewish reaction because they have "no serious practical impact."
Jewish communal leaders for the most part were muted in their reactions to Bush's appointment of Baker to the Iraq post â and not a single Jewish communal organization issued a press release denouncing the cuts in loan guarantees.
"I wish [Baker] every success in Iraq," said the executive director of the American Jewish Committee, David Harris, adding, "I'd much rather have him dealing with Iraq than with Israeli-Palestinian issues."
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said, "If Jim Baker was designated emissary to make peace, I would be upset and demonstrate loudly. He has not. They're using him now in the service of an issue on which we all know he has abilities and skills."
Even so, several communal leaders went out of their way to blast Kerry.
"Senator Kerry has sent the wrong signal by recommending former President Carter and former Secretary of State Baker as possible nominees for the job," said the president of the American Jewish Congress, Jack Rosen, in one such statement. "Both Carter and Baker have demonstrated antipathy toward Israel, and neither has the confidence of the Jewish community."
The differences in reaction prompted one Democrat to accuse the communal leadership of partisanship.
"There's an extraordinary double standard among mainstream Jewish leaders with regard to President Bush," said Steve Rabinowitz, a Democratic media consultant and strategist. "Their silence on Jim Baker, loan guarantees and the Geneva Accords is deafening."
Yet Democratic presidential candidates appeared to be making a similar distinction, opting not to criticize Bush's choice of Baker, while hammering Kerry for considering him as a Middle East envoy.
In a statement to reporters, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut called Kerry's choice of Baker "a serious mistake," saying that any emissary must have "the respect and trust of both the Israelis and the Palestinians."
Similarly, Dean's Jewish affairs adviser, Matt Dorf, said that Dean believed that the "the most effective negotiators are trusted by both sides," and that because of Baker's "history with Israel and verbal attack on the American Jewish community, he would be a poor choice."
A spokesman for retired general Wesley Clark, meanwhile, called Kerry's suggestion "offensive."
"We liked it better when Senator Kerry was calling Baker's Florida
operation 'thuggism,'" said campaign communications director Matt Bennett in a statement.
One supporter of a rival campaign suggested privately that Kerry's campaign was hoping the move would improve its standing among Arab-American voters in Michigan.
That idea was pooh-poohed, however, by the president of the Arab American Institute, James Zogby, who said that his polling shows that mentioning Baker as a possible envoy does not attract any more support than does one of the other names Kerry mentioned, former president Bill Clinton.
Kerry's campaign, for its part, did not back away from the choice.'
#28
LibHawk, where do you get all this tin foil hat crap? Are you one of the Clinton operatives or something?
And if you wanna cite "black ops" type stuff like the Carlyle group meeting, you'd better provide some links, quotes, reseach, footnotes, etc.
Robert Baer is a bitter ex-CIA operative who was left out in the cold in Iraq by the Clintoon administration and Anthony Lake. He has an axe to grind and he does so, even if his heart is in the right place.
Our US policy of accomodation with the Sauds goes back as far as WWII, maybe even the 1930's with the drilling of the oil wells there. Dimocrat administrations, as well as Republican ones, saw fit to handhold with SA.
We wanted their oil, they wanted our cash.
Obviously, that relationship is being seriously "reevaluated," but nowhere is the love affair harder to end than in Foggy Bottom at the State Dept.
As for the alleged "Bilderburger meeting" in D.C., no good American was doing anything on 9/11/01 except staring at their television in shock.
James Baker is a patriot and I have a hard time seeing him sit down for lunch while the Pentagon was aflame.
And anyone named Bin Laden was looking for cover.
You Dims and your "Bush is the enemy" propaganda are going to be the end of this country.
But as too many on the Left want to set up a Socialist/Marxist state here and everywhere anyway, that's probably the plan.
#32
"Obviously, that relationship is being seriously "reevaluated," but nowhere is the love affair harder to end than in Foggy Bottom at the State Dept"
Yup, cause so many ex Foggy bottom types end up working for the Saudies, or for firms that rely on the Saudies - like, for example, Jim Baker.
#33
Advent is a penitential season of fasting and I've given up drinking the Kool-Aid for the duration.
Suggest you do the same, hawk, honey.
Friends don't let friends vote or even think Dimocrat.
#38
I'll see your Frontpage on Grover and raise you one.
Here's the incomparable Daniel Pipes writing in October '92 about James Baker and his "Fuck the Jews" comment, inter alia. (Citing this odious "quote" of Baker's seems to be a current talking point du jour of the Left; IOW, Baker's current appointment as enforcer is supposed to be emblematic that the whole Bush Administration secretly hates Jews.) Bush, Clinton and the Jews
On the WMD issue, I think GW & Co are smart enough to realize that witholding critical info for partisan gain will NOT be looked on with approval by anybody, and would end up screwing them royally. They might wait until there is real, hard proof that the French can't pooh-pooh, but that's as far as that can go.
When the spotlight is this bright, upright and honest is the only viable approach.
Circumcision is a rite of passage for young Muslim boys, and in Malaysia it is common for the ceremony to become an event with dozens, or even hundreds of boys being circumcised together. Now thereâs a picture only Michael Jackson could love.
Now the prime ministerâs religious affairs adviser has suggested that circumcision can bring Malaysians of all races and religions together. Yeah, they all grabbed their crotch on hearing this.
Dr Abdul Hamid Othman said that with the growing popularity of circumcision among the countryâs non-Muslim minorities - who see it as good hygienic practice - they too could be invited to join in the celebrations with their Muslim friends. He believes the idea could promote better race relations and he wants to see a nationwide circumcision ceremony organised. Boy, I canât wait to read the comments on this post.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 9:02:00 AM ||
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Does Dr. Othman think there is something particularly Muslim about circumcision? The public hospital in this garden-variety US town routinely circumcises newborns before they get out of the delivery room. RC hospitals tend to do likewise. Some places bottle the trimmings and present them to the proud parents as a keepsake. Of course, Jews have circumcised 8-day-old boys for centuries. They make a big affair out of it. The Brits call on the London Jewish community to provide a mohel when a boy is born into the Royal Family.
#4
BH - *snort* -- COFFEE ALERT -- What a mess! 8^)
[male baby rant] "celebrations"
Gag. Humans do all sorts of weird shit. Some of it makes sense. Some doesn't. Presenting the "trimmings" strikes me as possibly one of those that, uh, doesn't. Sheesh. Talk about fucked up. That qualifies. In spades. As does the idea that whacking foreskin in newborn males would have any effect on race relations. Yeah? How, pray tell? National ceremony, indeed. How, um, fitting. If done for any reason other than practical considerations such as health, no matter who promotes it, it's ooga-booga BS and simple body mutilation. Humans. Sigh.
[/male baby rant]
#5
So, didja hear the one about the mohel who had a store-front office with a nice shop window? He put a clock in the window and thought it looked pretty good.
A friend asks him, "Moshe, why in the world do you put a clock in your window?"
The mohel says, "So what do you want me to put in the window?"
Indonesian police say they will free two of the six Indonesian students deported last week from Pakistan where they had been detained as suspected extremists.
"They've suffered enough..."
Pakistani officials had deemed the six students part of a sleeper cell of Jemaah Islamiah operatives when they were arrested in September. Today Indonesian police say they have insufficient evidence to hold two of the students, named in local press reports as David and Anwar. Hambali's brother Rusman or Gun Gun Gunawan, suspected of channelling large sums of money to Hambali over the past year, remains under arrest. Police have until early Friday to charge or release him and the other three students still in detention. Using internal security laws, Malaysian authorities have detained a number of students indefinitely after they too were deported from Pakistan, describing the students as the next generation of Jemaah Islamiyah leaders.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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The problem may be a bit more complicated . . .
Laksamana.Net - Police say they will release two of six students recently deported from Pakistan on suspicion of alleged terrorism links, while the four others are likely to be declared suspects.
Brigadier General Pranowo Dahlan, director of the National Police's anti-terror squad, on Tuesday (16/12/03) said there was insufficient evidence to detain students David Pintarto and Anwar As-Shiddiqi.
The four others, Rusman âGun Gunâ Gunawan, Mohammad Syaifudin, Ilham Sofyandi and Furqon Abdullah, will remain in police custody for further questioning over their alleged links to regional terrorism network Jemaah Islamiyah. Police have until Friday to charge them.
* * *
US Cooperation Sought
Indonesian police on Monday reportedly asked the US for access to Hambali, saying they need to question him as part of their investigations into the six detained students and other terror suspects.
"What we are developing in this investigation is connected to what we have known about their links to Hambali," National Police chief General Dai Bachtiar was quoted as saying by Reuters.
"We again remind the United States that if we all want to develop this investigation, we must get access to Hambali. We should process Hambali here because he is involved in many cases in Indonesia," he added.
* * *
There has not been a lot of cooperation between Indonesia and the US. Without a track record to cooperation, the US is likely to avoid divulging humint, but it is exactly that kind of evidence that Indonesia needs to prosecute these guys and make a case to Indonesiaâs populace that these are bad actors.
Despite the problems with corruption, etc., that make the press and give Indonesia a black eye, Indonesia (in general) does have a bedrock commitment to a stable democratic, government. They just cannot afford to keep people detained who they cannot justify detaining. I think Indonesia is a better partner in fighting terrorism than the US may realize.
#2
There has not been a lot of cooperation between Indonesia and the US.
At least not during this administration.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/17/2003 13:19 Comments ||
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At least not during this administration.
Oh, that campaign contribution thing . . . ? Please bear in mind that graft and bribes are common in Indonesia -- a kind of âpersonal tax.â I would wager that most Indonesians donât really view them as a crime -- more as an inconvenience. The Indonesians were playing to their own ethnocentricity. It is the Clinton administration that knew better.
Of course, Indonesia has many problems, but it still has tremendously better potential as a partner in the WOT than other places (e.g., Malaysia).
Well, that's a good thing. We'll never see any more of them now...
Indonesia's leading Islamic authority has passed a religious decree against suicide bombing. The Council of Indonesian Muslim Scholars has also made a series of distinctions excluding acts of terrorism from any definition of jihad. The Indonesian council of Ulemas, or religious teachers, ruled that suicide bombing was forbidden, falling outside any Koranic interpretation of martyrdom for a good cause. At the council meeting in Jakarta, significant time was spent discussing terrorist attacks, before a further decree was issued forbidding any destructive attacks that were randomly targeted and caused fear and terror. The Marriott Hotel bombing earlier this year and last year's Bali attacks were discussed during the debate. Suicide bombers are thought to have been involved in both of those attacks.
Gosh! Y'think they were? And what, pray tell, is the penalty for violating the rule against suicide attacks?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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it is sad that it took them this long
it is sadder that no other 'high' councils have done so and that this counsel hasn't said that suicide bombers go to hell
also, not knowing what the exact wording is in the council of Ulemas, they may have left a loophole that some suicide bombings are ok (say, if the victims are jews or some such thing).
"Indonesia's highest Islamic authority has issued an edict declaring terrorism and suicide bombings illegal under Muslim law - but saying jihad, or holy war, is a religious obligation if the faith is under attack." from AP report
#7
Here's the full quote: A senior Indonesian Muslim cleric said on Wednesday suicide bombings could be justified in a war zone but they were forbidden under Islamic law in Indonesia, which is at peace. A commission of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) ruled on Tuesday that recent suicide bombings by militants in the world's most populous Muslim country were not allowed.
"A real struggle in which everything can be given including life for a greater cause is acceptable in a war zone," Ma'ruf Amin, the commission's chairman, told Reuters. The MUI is an umbrella group uniting Indonesia's many Islamic strains.
"However, suicide bombing in a peace zone like Indonesia is forbidden," said the respected cleric from the 40-million strong Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim organisation in Indonesia. Asked about claims of some of the Bali bombers in court that what they were doing was jihad, or holy struggle, Ma'ruf said: "That's what they say. However, clerics have an opposing view. The entire Indonesia is not a war zone, so it's forbidden."
Asked about the suicide bombings carried out by Palestinian militants in Israel, Amin said: "It can be allowed if what they are doing is clearly part of a struggle for the freedom of their nation."
In other words "Don't boom in my backyard, I might get jugged for it".
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 11:27 Comments ||
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#8
"...is acceptable in a war zone...in a peace zone like Indonesia is forbidden,"
IIRC, anywhere under the rule Islam is considered "house of peace," while anywhere non-Islamic is considered the "house of war."
So, suicide bombings are completely acceptable EXCEPT in an Islamic country.
From Geostrategy-Direct Osama Bin Laden has been driven out of Afghanistan and has been given safe haven by Iran. He has been joined by his No. 2 Ayman Al Zawahiri. Bin Laden was seen in Iran as early as July 2003. Iranian sources said Bin Laden and Zawahiri escaped Iran during Pakistani military raids that month in northern areas along the Afghan border. The sources said Bin Laden has changed his appearance. In short, Iranian intelligence changed Bin Laden into a mullah. He has colored his beard black, gained a lot of weight and wears a black turban. Bin Laden, said to be near the western Iranian border with Pakistan, is under the protection of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. The corps has arranged for several doubles in Afghanistan and Pakistan made to look like Bin Laden to provide the impression that the Al Qaida leader is still in the frontier area. Zawahiri has also been seen in Iran. He is believed to be planning a series of attacks against U.S. interests in the Middle East. We need more corroboration....and the US govt is not saying much. The main point is that he is on the defensive and that he has to hide in a rathole somewhere, or he is decomposing protein paste. Binnyâs PR machine has been pretty lame after Tora Bora.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/17/2003 3:22:11 PM ||
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#1
I thought he was hanging around with Elvis and the man on the grassy hill.
#3
The primary reason that I do not think he is breathing the same air as us is the complete lack of video tapes. I can see some body ptting together an audio tape but if I were Binny I for damn sure would of been releasing videos with current newspapers prominetly displayed
#4
Last night on Primetime Live, Bush said that they pretty much think/know bin Laden is in a certain area of Pakistan, on the Afghanistan border. But U.S. forces can't go in there.
#6
Mansoor Ijaz made this point on FoxNews a few weeks ago. (I posted on this at the time.) According to his "unimpeachable source," Binny and Zawahiri are in Iran, dressed as mullahs (black turban, trimmed beard, close cropped hair), and planning fresh attacks on US targets. He added that Binny's ability to move around is restricted, but Zawahiri has the run of the joint. Finally, he said a unit of the Revolutionary Guards was going to engage in a Winter campaign along with Hekmatyar to destabilize Afghanistan.
Posted by: Tibor ||
12/17/2003 17:06 Comments ||
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#7
Causus Belli for a military invasion/overthrow of Iran if provable - I don't think even the black hats are that self-destructive
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/17/2003 19:19 Comments ||
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#8
. He has colored his beard black, gained a lot of weight
Ah Ha! It's the steroids. That's why he can't be on video... he's probably got them cute steroid cheeks. Yep, immuno supressed?
He also criticizes GWB for not attending soldiers' funerals. I guess he missed the analysis from a few weeks ago showing that there is no tradition of recent US presidents attending funerals of soldiers. This Clark guy is a real weenie!
Posted by: Tibor ||
12/17/2003 22:29 Comments ||
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Long, but full of details:
Anticipating their own capture or death, Southeast Asian Islamic extremists sent their sons to Pakistan for training in how to attack Western targets so they could take over as the next generation of terrorist leaders, The Associated Press has learned. Took you long enough, we Rantburgers knew this weeks ago.
In a crackdown on the practice, five Malaysian students, including four teenagers, have been jailed without trial here following raids on Islamic boarding schools in Karachi, which had sent them on field trips to get firsthand experience of Islamic militant operations. The students underwent weapons and explosives training in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and some met al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden before the U.S.-led Afghan war started in late 2001, Malaysia police told AP. Three of the five students are the sons of members of an alleged Malaysian cell of Jemaah Islamiyah â the al-Qaida-linked terror network operating throughout Southeast Asia â who were jailed two years ago. A fourth is the brother of a jailed militant suspect.
Hambali, once operations chief for Jemaah Islamiyah, arranged for some of his students to get Pakistan-based training, a senior Malaysian government official told AP. Hambali has been in U.S. custody since August, but ran an Islamic school in Malaysia for years before going on the run shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. His plan was to train future Jemaah Islamiyah leaders, with the students returning home by 2006 to take up jihad, or holy war, said another Malaysian official, also speaking privately. Hambali, whose real name is Riduan Isamuddin, arranged in 1999 and 2000 for the students to attend Karachiâs Abu Bakar Islamic University, paying for at least two students to get there. Sent his best students to school on scholarship.
In Karachi, they were taken under the wing of Rusman Gunawan, Hambaliâs brother, who "acted as supervisor" of the Southeast Asian students, a Malaysia security official said. Ah hah, I thought he was in charge.
The five were indoctrinated in an extreme version of Islam in Pakistan and were learning how to attack U.S. targets â including organizing suicide missions â in Malaysia and elsewhere. Under interrogation, the students said their instructors told them "they must take up arms, especially against Westerners, as it was the purest form of defending Islam," the Malaysian security official said. "These students were not being trained as foot soldiers but as a second or third echelon of leaders," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Cannon fodder donât need no educating.
Hambaliâs brother was among 13 Malaysians and six Indonesians arrested in the Karachi raids in September. Police released eight of the Malaysians after interrogating them, but jailed the others without trial. Sometimes, not having to worry about rights comes in handy.
The Indonesians, including Rusman Gunawan, were flown to Jakarta and taken into police custody for questioning. A year ago, theyâd never have been bothered. Times change.
Relatives and lawyers for the students deny their involvement in militant activity, and accuse the government of misusing laws allowing detention without trial for up to two years. Several students have asked Malaysiaâs High Court to demand police produce evidence to back their claims, or release them. "Hey, weâve got two years. Sez so right here." Rohaimah Salleh, mother of Muhammad Radzi Abdul Razak, 19, is one of the jailed students, said he was sent to the Abu Bakar school to study religion, not terrorism. The teenâs teacher father has been detained since December 2001 in a Singapore bombing plot. "His father felt a solid foundation in religion was very important for our sonâs future," the mother said. "We had heard from relatives and friends that it was a good school." Er, Rohaimah, your relatives and friends are in jail.
The other jailed students are Abi Dzar Jaafar, 18, Mohamad Ikhwan Abdullah, 19, Mohamad Akil Abdul Raof, 21, and Eddy Erman Shahime, 19. The older relatives of the students are among more than 70 suspected militants being held without trial in Malaysia, many of them in connection with an al-Qaida-linked plot to blow up the U.S. Embassy and other targets in Singapore. Among those detained is Yazid Sufaat, a former Malaysian army captain and Hambali associate who let al-Qaida operatives, including two Sept. 11 hijackers, use his apartment for meetings in early 2000. Hambaliâs capture and that of scores of other Jemaah Islamiyah suspects in Singapore and the Philippines has severely curtailed the terrorist networkâs operations, but a recruiting drive is under way, and key bombmakers are at large. They have dropped off the radar, havenât they?
U.S. officials are following the fates of the Malaysian students closely, including those who have been released, a U.S. Embassy official said. Hundreds of foreign students, mostly from Southeast Asia, Africa and Arab countries, attend religious schools in Pakistan, where authorities have tightened regulations because of concerns about extremism. It looks more like they are arresting and kicking out the foreigners rather than reforming the schools. Too high profile, perhaps? Sidney Jones, whose studies of Jemaah Islamiyah have revealed the use of family ties as a recruiting tool, said Indonesian members had "made a deliberate effort to send their children to known extremist institutions, presumably with the idea of keeping it all in the family for another generation." Long time readers will have noticed that the same family names keep popping up. They send their kids to the same schools and they marry off their children to each other. Sounds like the European royalty before the First World War. They wanted to keep power to those born to the throne as well.
The case of the students arrested in Pakistan was "consistent with an effort to ensure that their children came back trained in the same kind of radical jihadist ideology that their parents had," said Jones, of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. Itâs the Islamist Berkley.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 2:20:27 PM ||
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Long time readers will have noticed that the same family names keep popping up.
And when it comes to terrorist training, it seems that the name Pakistan keeps coming up ever more frequently....
Hat tip: InstaPundit. Edited for brevity.
Several city officials are furious over the Democratic National Committee chairmanâs recent visit to Portsmouth High School, who they feel turned a social studies lesson into a one-sided bashing of President Bush. After requesting to visit the school, Terry McAuliffe was allowed by Principal Forrest Ransdell to come to teach what the principal believed to be social studies classes on democracy and the political process. However, several city officials are livid over what they say turned into a biased Democratic view of Republican President Bushâs term of office. During the presentation, McAuliffe told students that due to Bushâs mismanagement of the country, 70 percent of college graduates will not be able to find a job upon graduation. He also told students that if the war in Iraq continues as it has, there could be a reinstatement of the draft. "He comes into the school and just says what he wants," City Councilor Bill St. Laurent said. "At what point does he stop his politicking to the point of scare tactics? Saying that the draft may come back, and kids cant find jobs, those are scare tactics. He is out trying to get votes. This is taxpayers money, excuse me, but this is my tax dollar and I donât want to use my tax dollar for his pulpit. I am just furious. I am not saying that he can come in and bash the president and then the Republicans come in and praise the president," St. Laurent said.
Any Publicans around lately?
According to school Superintendent Lyonel Tracy, McAuliffe was allowed to speak to the students by Principal Forrest Ransdell as a civic lesson. "If other representatives contacted us, we would act similarly," Tracy said. "To deprive our kids of the opportunity of seeing democracy in action would be a disservice to them. The trick is that we donât exploit these kids for their own partisan agendas." Tracy said Republicans, Democrats, and independents have frequently come to the school to talk to students. "Unfortunately we donât always have control over what people say once they are introduced," Tracy said.
Aiming to ease tensions, School Board member Raimond Bowles has asked New Hampshire Republican state chairman Jayne Millerick to also speak to the social studies classes. "All I have been trying to do is to be a sense of balance," Bowles said. "Our high school students are more than capable of making up their own minds. I have decided from the outset to get a counterpart, a titled Republican official, so that she can respond to the comments of McAuliffe on that day." It has yet to be confirmed whether Millerick will be allowed admittance to speak by Ransdell. Granted, the man has a First Amendment right to say whatâs on his mind, even if the situation may not be appropriate. I would expect Millerick be offered the invitation to ensure balance, and I hope he is more tactful than Terry, who bravely continues to lead the DNC into a death spiral.
Posted by: Dar ||
12/17/2003 5:51:31 PM ||
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Yipe--I mean "she" in reference to Jayne Millerick.
Do-be-do-be-do...
Posted by: Dar ||
12/17/2003 17:54 Comments ||
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#2
egg on face for McAuliffe. Ergo egg on face for Clintons and Clark? Good for Joe? or just good for Dean?
#3
I formally request to talk to these young Men and Women. During MY presentation I will point out how Clinton raped the Military and left us open for attack by Islamofacists. I will then show how the Looney Left has married the Fanatical Islamofacists and stand as the GREATEST danger to our country and all others. Finally I will compare the rise in Anti-Jew feeling of the 1930's to the rise of in todays European Countries. As a side note I will discuss how the Socialist are once again leading Europe into the abyss and why the U.S. doesn't need the U.N. any more.
#4
NH is a very conservative state and even high school kids know the score. McAuliffe only made a fool, of himself,
Posted by: Old Man in NH ||
12/17/2003 18:48 Comments ||
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#5
Quite right, Cyber Sarge.
Egg on face or worse for the whole DNC, as Terry is the spokesman for the entire Party.
McAwful, as the former Co-President Clintoons' tool, continues to turn everything, including the Global War on Islamist Terror, into a matter of (Leftist) partisan political power.
If this high school were studying Marxism and Socialist realpolitik, inviting McAwful would be understandable and the school super would not have been "surprised" by what he got.
Betcha the teenage students figured out how wrong-headed Terry and his theories were right away.
I live in hope.
#6
He should have played it safe an spoke at Exeter. His line of bull would have played well at a liberal prep school.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 19:18 Comments ||
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#7
He also told students that if the war in Iraq continues as it has, there could be a reinstatement of the draft.
Funny, but the only politicians calling for the draft recently have been Democrats. What a pity McAuliffe didn't bother to tell them that.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/17/2003 19:20 Comments ||
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#8
No control over what they say once introduced? Bullshit. Start your talk by saying "Let us bow our heads.", and your ass would be out on the street at relativistic speed.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/17/2003 23:08 Comments ||
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#11
Old Man in NH - yes, but when I moved out of there in '87, that was the case. With all the rich Massholes getting 1M+ houses in Bedford, Amherst and Hudson, I'm not so sure anymore. You guys did elect Shaheen, right?
Animal rights advocates will single out small children at performances of ``The Nutcrackerââ in the next few weeks by handing out fliers saying ``Your Mommy Kills Animalsââ to youngsters whose mothers are wearing fur.
Be sure to equip your children with counter-fliers, saying "Your mother wears combat boots."
``Children canât look up to a mom in a battered-raccoon hat or a crushed coyote collar,ââ said Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. ``Maybe when theyâre confronted by their own childrenâs hurt looks, fur-wearersâ cold hearts will melt.ââ
I dunno about that, Ingrid. When I was a little kid, my Grandmaw had one of those furs with the tail on one end and the weasel's head at the other, with a pair of little gimlet glass eyes. I thought it was really neat. I can't recall ever giving my Grandmaw a hurt look, either. She was a nice lady with a faint moustache and a thick accent, who was always nice to me and had a very comfortable lap. I guess that ruined me for life...
The fliers include a color drawing of a woman plunging a large bloody knife into the belly of a terrified rabbit. The fliers urge kids to ``ask your mommy how many dead animals she killed to make her fur clothes. When I was a kid I used to help my dad kill, skin, and butcher rabbits.
We had a chicken yard, and fried chicken on Sundays. Head on the stump and a whack with the hatchet, then wait for dinner to stop running around in circles. I liked that part better than gutting and plucking them. But what the hell did I know? I was just a kid.
``And the sooner she stops wearing fur, the sooner the animals will be safe. Until then, keep your doggie or kitty friends away from mommy - sheâs an animal killer.ââ This is sick!
Brookline child psychologist Dr. Carolyn Newberger called the tactics asinine ``terribly dangerous to children.ââ
Maybe to the really little ones, but they can't read fliers anyway. I was smart enough to ignore that kind of crap by the time I was in grade school. "Mommy! Another nut tried to give me something today, but I told her to cram it up her ass, just like you told me!"
``Itâs using children in the worst possible way,ââ she said. ``If (the activists) want to legitimately work to protect animals from destruction for fashion, they have every right to. But to do so by targeting children and making them feel their mothers are murderers is absolutely unconscionable.ââ
Normal rules of behavior don't apply to PETA, Carolyn. That's why responsible adults teach their children to tell them to cram it.
Lisa Franzetta, a national coordinator for PETA, said the group will launch its ``fur-ociousââ protest at `Nutcrackerâ performances in as many as 20 cities across the United States. Franzetta, who is based in California, said yesterday she did not yet know when the protests will begin in Boston, where ``The Nutcrackerââ is playing at the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in the Theater District. Franzetta acknowledged the anti-fur campaign might spark a backlash. ``Itâs definitely provocative, I will give you that,ââ she said.
If we lived in a just and reasonable world, you'd end up requiring new dental work with the first one you handed out.
#3
I have visions of the sugar plum fairy beating the sh*t out of granola girl (with a metric truncheon).
Posted by: Dar ||
12/17/2003 14:57 Comments ||
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#4
Aren't there laws against distributing violent materials to minors?
Oh, and you can't make up stuff like this:
``The Nutcrackerââ is playing at the Wang Center
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/17/2003 15:09 Comments ||
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#5
We had a chicken yard, and fried chicken on Sundays. Head on the stump and a whack with the hatchet,
My granny just snagged 'em by the neck and did a weird left/right matrix-like move. She was especially hell on roosters who got feistey with her... she'd kill those for the cats. I always listened very closely to anything she had to say to me.
#6
Sometimes Dad wrung their necks. I don't think he thought I was coordinated enough to do it at age eight.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2003 15:20 Comments ||
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#7
We would lop of the heads of chickens too. Then toss them out into the yard where they would flop around - one made it all the way to the rabbit pens before realizing it was dead (kind of like certain political parties I know....).
Plucking them was a bother. But that ole rooster sure made a damn good chicken soup! (too tough for anything else).
#8
My granny just snagged 'em by the neck and did a weird left/right matrix-like move.
Shipman, I think we could use someone with your granny's skills to 'explain' to the PETAidiots that it ain't nice to terrorize little kids.
#9
My wife wouldn't hurt a fly. However, she would kick the shit out of some asshole who told her kids she was a murderer. I hope Ingrid's handing out the flyers the night she goes this year. Or is that a job for the "little people"?
#10
"Your Mommy Kills Animalsââ
"No, my mommy would never do that. It must be my dad you're thinking of. His name is Tony, Tony Soprano. He kills everybody, hey daddy, over here, this lady says mommy is a killer. Where'd she go..."
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 15:47 Comments ||
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#11
Seems to me that targeting children in this manner is nothing less than harassment of minors. It's kids that should be heeding the words of their parents instead of the other way around.
That having been said, why aren't childrens' advocates up in arms over this kind of manipulation??
#13
Nannie chopped the head off the chicken with my grandfather's axe, then flung it up under a galvanized bucket. (Small back yard,& she didn't want it running around ruining her flower bed.) My brother and I used to fight over whose turn it was to sit on the bucket until the chicken died. (But of course he never helped pluck the chicken - that was women's work.)
That was 50 years ago. I still remember the smell of scalded chicken feathers.
Wonder what scalded PETA idiot smells like?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/17/2003 18:01 Comments ||
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Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 19:23 Comments ||
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#18
If I had a child, I would get out my old Davy Crockett coonskin cap--teach him the words to the old tv show and have him sing it at the top of his lungs if one of those freaks even looked his way.
Posted by: Sue Bob ||
12/17/2003 19:38 Comments ||
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#19
My #2 son would look at the woman and say "No. *I* killed the squirrel. My mommy skinned it, cooked it, and I ate it. I love my mommy."
Bagged two of the critters Thanksgiving weekend. My wife has the photos to prove it.
And I deliberately encouraged it and supervised it to spite and irritate sanctimonious bitches like Franzetta.
....Praise. Now get your mind out of the gutter:
The Material Girl has stepped onto the political stage and endorsed Democratic presidential hopeful Wesley Clark.
Well, by golly! That changes my opinion. I'll be a Weasley man for sure. Who knows more about war 'n' politix than Madonna, after all?
"I think he has a good handle on foreign policy, I think heâs good with people, and I think he has a heart and a consciousness," pop singer Madonna said. "Heâs interested in spirituality -- I mean, those things mean a lot to me." The singer and childrenâs book author met Clark a few weeks ago for over an hour.
Shucks, that's long enough to get to the inner soul of anyone.
In an interview recorded last week with CNNâs Denise Quan, Madonna said they discussed his becoming president. The singer told Quan she had decided to support the former general and she felt Clark was a natural-born leader. "As it stands right now, heâs got my support," Madonna said. The two were introduced by "Bowling for Columbine" filmmaker Michael Moore, who was an early supporter of Clark. Somewhere, Karl Rove is smiling.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 1:16:55 PM ||
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#1
Is she gonna dress him up in her love?
Wesley, don't preach. You're in trouble deep.
Posted by: Dar ||
12/17/2003 13:31 Comments ||
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#2
I wonder if someone will dig up her saying something about her old husband Spicoli's handling of foreign policy. If she said he had a good handle Clarke is doomed by the connection.
#3
Point of order here. Isn't Madonna living in the UK now? And just converted to a new (made up) religion? Sorry Darling, we donât need another EX-Pat knowâit-all but you go ahead and have your concert. While your having it, ask the General to name two songs of yours. Maybe you and he could have a smooch like Brittany? A vote getter.
#7
Stick a fork in him, he's done. This is the best case study I've ever seen of two pathetic people getting together in hopes of fusing one personality. Does Clark really think she matters,whos running his campaign?, Robert Stigwood?, Merv Griffin?
"madge" still thinks she matters. Which is only slightly less pathetic than Clark thinking she matters.
To quote the title of a new great book: "SHUT UP AND SING"
Posted by: Frank Martin ||
12/17/2003 15:40 Comments ||
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#8
This is great! We don't even have to make this stuff up!
Posted by: Fred ||
12/17/2003 16:11 Comments ||
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#10
When are Madonna, Babs Streisand and the Ditsy Chicks gonna form their new singing group "Girlz to Men?"
Coming to a Dimocrat for Prez stump near you soon.
And they tried to denigrate Arnold by saying he was "just an actor!"
Meanwhile, George W. gets slagged off for also professing to be spiritual. Makes some Lefties downright scared, in fact, when all the guy is is a Methodist! Like Hillary!
Some wag once said that Lefties are spiritual, Righties are religious.
The authorities in Kenya are seeking to retrieve at least $1bn (£570m) siphoned out of the country by former officials. A six-month inquiry by investigative group Kroll has tracked the stolen money to accounts in big-name banks, and shares in London hotels. The money may already have passed on to less co-operative places such as Zimbabwe, Kenyan ministers believe. But experts say recovering the loot - possibly as much as $4bn - could be much more difficult than tracing it. The money in question is thought to have been embezzled during the previous administration of former President Daniel arap Moi, who ruled for 24 years before stepping down following election defeat in December last year.
GREETINGS!
LET ME START BY INTRODUCING MYSELF PROPERLY. MY NAME IS TAK ECASHA NDRUN AND I AM A SENIOR OFFICIAL IN THE KENYAN FINANCE MINISTRY. I WAS ALSO CHIEF ADVISER TO FORMER PRESIDENT OF KENYA, DANIEL MOI.
WE ARE CONTACT YOU FOR TO ESTABLISH VERY URGENTLY A BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP BUT ONLY WITH A FOREIGN PERSON OF MOST HIGH RELIABLENESS AND REPUTATION FOR WHICH INVOLVES THE TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO A FOREIGN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE.
LET ME EXPLAIN: BEFORE HIS DETENTION THE PRESIDENT DEPOSITED THE SUM OF $1,527,000 IN A SECRET BANK ACCOUNT IN A SAFE COUNTRY. THIS MONEY WAS REVENUE WHICH I HAVE PERSONALLY CHECKED AND FOUND AS AN ACCURATE FIGURE. NOW THE FORMER PRESIDENT MOI CAN NO LONGER ACCESS THIS MONEY WHICH IS MUCH NEEDED BY MY COUNTRY FOR DISBURSEMENT TO CHILDREN AND HOSPITALS. IF THIS MONEY IS NOT CLAIMED IT WILL BE TAKEN BY GOVERNMENT.
SO HUMBLY WE BEG AN HONEST AND DILIGENT PERSON TO WHO THE UNDISCLOSED BANK WILL TRANSFER THIS MONEY AS TRUSTEE. IN RETURN FOR THIS SERVICE YOU WILL KEEP 30% OF THE SUM AND REMIT TO US THE 70% REMAINING. IN ORDER THAT WE MAY COMPLETE THIS MOST SECRET TRANSACTION YOU MUST SEND TO US YOUR DETAILS BUT MOSTLY YOUR BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER AND ADDRESS SO THAT WE CAN ARRANGE THE SUBSTANTIAL MONEY TRANSFER TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 12:38:27 PM ||
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#1
Sigh... yet another country to add to the email filter...
#2
That last part looks something like the ads I get for a product that will enlarge my penis while simultaneously increasing my gas mileage by 27% and oh btw, just yesterday I was informed I'd won E4,000,000 in the Swiss Lottery. I'm rich! (And well-equipped.) Come get me, girls.
Couldn't find this on Fox News's site, but NewsMax had it. Mark mentions this in the comments to the Osama Fled to Peshawar post. Somewhat EFL.
It was bad enough on Monday when Washington state Congressman "Baghdad" Jim McDermott suggested that President Bush could have captured Saddam Hussein long ago, but moved only when the news would have had maximum political effect. But now, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is telling reporters that the Bush administration may already have captured Osama bin Laden and will release the news just before next year's presidential election. On Fox News Channel's "Special Report with Brit Hume," Roll Call reporter Morton Kondracke recounted Albright's comments to him during an encounter before Tuesday night's broadcast, while she was waiting in the green room to appear on another show. He shot back, "You can't seriously believe that."
"Why, certainly I can, Mort! I can believe five impossible things before breakfast!"
Albright replied that she thought a bin Laden October Surprise orchestrated by Bush was "a possibility." There's more.
#1
The phrase "Albright Says Stupid Crap" is a synonym for "Albright Speaks."
Posted by: Mike ||
12/17/2003 12:26 Comments ||
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#2
Albright's in denial. Her foreign service record is abysmal in conjunction with Blowjob Bill. Thus she speaks to remove responsibility for all the failures during BJB's administration, including Iraq, Bosnia, as well as others.
#9
Why can't this old bat just go into assisted living and leave us alone?
(When Bubba appointed her, you just knew American foreign policy was doomed, if you didn't before. Even Arafat thought she was the chambermaid.)
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
12/17/2003 18:03 Comments ||
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#13
Fox talked about it again tonight and now Almostbrit is saying she was joking. Mort and others that heard her still aren't too sure about her joking especially with all the other conspiracy theories being espoused by democrats. Her letter about it was rather rude!
Posted by: AF Lady ||
12/17/2003 19:13 Comments ||
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Sheila told me to do it. EFL:
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, said Monday that the capture of Saddam Hussein does nothing to change her opposition to the war in Iraq. "I believe we should have had a congressional vote before declaring war (Hello, anyone there?)
and we should have allowed U.N. inspectors time to finish their work," Jackson Lee said during a news conference at Bush Intercontinental Airport. Snicker, I bet she really hates it every time she flys.
One of the more outspoken congressional critics of the war in Iraq, Jackson Lee returned to Houston from a recent terrorism fact-finding mission to Europe and the Middle East. She and nine other members of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security met with officials in Spain, Italy, Syria and Israel, she said. What, France was booked?
Jackson Lee said she was so impressed with Syrian President Bashar Assad during her visit that she invited him to speak in Texas, even though his country is designated by the United States as a rogue state and a sponsor of terrorism. Oh, please, please, Bashar! Please come and do a photo op with Sheila. I bet Karl Rove can get you a meeting with other Democrats as well. Say youâll come!
"Iâm sure someone will write a headline, `Congresswoman invites a terroristâ," Jackson Lee said. OK
"But thatâs not what Iâm trying to do." Youâre trying to become a ex-congresswoman?
She said Assad showed his willingness to negotiate by meeting despite President Bushâs signing on Friday of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, which could impose sanctions on Syria. "Heâs a 39-year-old president who even gave us a picture of him and his children," Jackson Lee said. Binny and Sammy had lots of kids too. Got their pictures?
"Letâs see what he can do. Heâs not his father," a reference to Hafez Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron grip for 30 years before his death in 2000. No, heâs a weak shadow of his father.
Posted by: Steve ||
12/17/2003 12:03:48 PM ||
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#1
Assad and an ass-hat.
Honestly, though, Sheila Jackson Lee should be arrested by US Martials and held for trial on treason. Go back to the latest account of the Thunder Run through Baghdad and count how many times the enemies are described as "Syrian". Go back through the news reports of the last eight months and count how many times we've heard of jihadis coming through, or Ba'athists escaping through, Syria.
Her visit with Assad is part of the jihadi network's effort to recruit and support a fifth column inside the west; she should pay the price for allowing herself to be used by a nation that's at war with the United States.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/17/2003 12:23 Comments ||
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#2
she should pay the price for allowing herself to be used
I rather suspect she has a price FOR being used. Can't wait until the list of people on Sadaam's payroll comes out. Be NO surprise to see her on it.
Posted by: B ||
12/17/2003 12:48 Comments ||
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#3
yea let the inspectors finish their job - another 12 years would do the trick......what a moron
Posted by: Dan ||
12/17/2003 12:50 Comments ||
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#4
Dan, someone already pointed out that the peaceniks were all for allowing the UN years to conduct inspections but start biatching because we haven't found any in a few weeks.....
#6
Houston elected her. Interesting that Southwest Airlines has apparently banned her highness from SW flights because of an incident a couple of years ago.
Goes to show the American public knows no depth to its stupidity, to elect that worthless piece of garbage.
#8
Ms Jackson-Lee represents what is, for her, a very safe district in Houston -- end-result, she can say nearly anything and still be re-elected.
I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be eligible for re-election while serving the prison sentence she deserves for this.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
12/17/2003 15:12 Comments ||
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#9
Sheila is the Texas version of Cynthia McKinney and one of the big reasons that the GOP pushed through the redistricting of the state (first since Reconstruction), even at the risk of the Dimocrat state legislators fleeing the state twice.
Sheila and my old Congresswoman Eddie Berniece Johnson, her evil twin and fellow CBC member, are hopefully enjoying the last days of running their African-American Dim plantations.
Fresh evidence suggests that most, if not all, of the Kuwaitis who disappeared after Iraq invaded its oil-rich neighbor in August 1990 were killed, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report Tuesday. "After many years of maneuvering and denial by the previous government of Iraq, a grim truth is unveiling itself," he said. "The discovery of mass graves in Iraq containing the mortal remains of Kuwaitis is a gruesome and devastating development."
Of course, that's only because we "meddled in Iraq's internal affairs" by disposing of Sammy...
The Kuwaiti government has stepped up efforts to identify some 605 of its citizens who disappeared after the Iraqi invasion. Until its ouster in April, Saddam Hussein's regime insisted it had released all prisoners taken from Kuwait during the occupation and the subsequent 1991 Gulf War that liberated the country. It refused to cooperate with Kuwaiti and international efforts to find the missing prisoners. No prisoners have been found alive since the U.S.-led war in Iraq earlier this year and Kuwaiti hopes that any will be discovered have diminished.
That's because Sammy killed them...
While holding out hope that some of the missing Kuwaitis could be found alive, Annan said prospects are dim. His report included evidence of atrocities committed by Saddam's regime including photographs of mass graves and human remains. Annan called for justice for the victims.
Why didn't he call for justice for the victims when Sammy was still wearing his tin hat and strutting around Baghdad?
"The removal from Kuwait of civilians â men and women â their execution in cold blood in remote sites in Iraq, and a decade-long cover-up of the truth constitute a grave violation of human rights and international humanitarian law," he said.
How do you spell "pusillanimous"?
"Those responsible for these horrendous crimes, particularly those who ordered the executions, must be brought to justice," Annan said.
"But no death penalty, okay?"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:25 ||
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What Mr Amman is trying to do is internationatialize the issue in order to have Saddam judged by the ICC or even the UN where the jury would be composed of a Syrian, a Sudanese, a Saudi and other representatives of similar lovely countries. It would also give back the initiative to the United Thugs Nations
#2
I don't think Kofi understands the depth of hatred there is for Saddam, and those who supported him. He tries to make this an international trial, without the death penalty, and he might as well never go to Iraq ever again.
Posted by: Ben ||
12/17/2003 4:07 Comments ||
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#3
Mr. Annan is trying to catch a train that left the station long ago. The moral degenercy of the UN is a symptom of the total weakness, arab ass-licking, opportunistic culture now prevalent through "old Europe".
Kofi is the harbinger of the future European collapse as a christian western force.
Posted by: The Dodo ||
12/17/2003 7:36 Comments ||
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#5
I echo the comments of JFM, Ben, and The Dodo. Kofi is a court jester seeking to become relevant by reinstating his monarch, multilateralism. Truly, this is a fool's errand and I can't think of anyone better qualified for the job - except maybe some of his coterie of apologist ass-kissers.
The UN is DEAD. It is as irrelevant to freedom and truth and international stability, morality, and legitimacy as its utterly failed predecessor, the League of Nations. It was a good idea and a fair try, but flawed in so many ways that it, too, has utterly failed as an institution to fulfill the role and function for which it was designed. The evidence of these fatal flaws is so blindingly obvious as to be ovewhelming for anyone with an open mind:
1) nations whose relevance has passed holding UNSC veto power - and its reciprocal
2) nations ruled by obvious thugs, insane turbans, and dictators of every stripe holding voting powers that result in travesties such as Libya chairing the Human Rights Commission
3) toothless dithering in the face of real tragedy, such as genocide and muderous tyrants
4) the least effective system for translating funding into action yet devised by man
5) and literally hundred of other examples screaming for recognition and reform or death
It's DEAD. It is the dead rat on America's kitchen floor. Arguably, America made it happen and gave it real power unilaterally post WW-II by its willingness to subjugate itself and put up the lion's share of the funding and facilitation required for the experiment to go forward. Equally arguable, the decision by the US to abandon the monstrosity into which it has evolved must also be undertaken unilaterally and without apology.
Man invented the League. Man invented the UN. Man can just try again - taking lessons from these failures. No US President seems willing to put the demise of the UN on his resume, but it can and will happen - the mechanisms for correcting the absurd imbalances seem to be non-existent or under the veto power of the nations who constitute the problem. A mercy killing is called for.
As for Kofi Annan and his huge staff of worthless tit-sucking gutless cut-n-run SUV-driving anti-American self-aggrandizing self-congratulatory onanistic pandering toadies, it's well past time for them to go home and get jobs.
#9
Every so often I come in and find this dude in one of those shiny mob suits whanging away on the keyboard. Dunno what his trip's about. Spiro something...
#12
There's a simple, easy way to end the United Nations: stop funding it. Without US financial support, the UN will be unable to pay its rent, its utility bill, or its staff. Cut the umbilical cord of US financing, and see how fast the entire thing begins to stink, really, really badly. Let it happen tomorrow.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
12/17/2003 19:11 Comments ||
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#13
From what I've heard there will be five judges that don't all have to be Iraqi's. If I were in charge. I would name three Iraqis (Kurd, Sunni and Shiite.) I would also name Kuwaiti (probably won't happen.) I would leave the last spot open. I bet Iran would make an interesting offer.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 21:44 Comments ||
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JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel on Tuesday barred Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat from Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem for a third straight year, as Egyptian mediators again pressed Palestinian militants to halt attacks. Let him visit Bethelem and forget about any foreign tourists in the West ... oh, right.
With efforts to revive peace talks at a standstill, Israeli leaders sent a mixed message to the Palestinians: Israel is ready to negotiate but will take unilateral action if peace talks fail. Thatâs not a mixed message, but al-Guardian missed it.
Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has advocated a unilateral pullout from occupied lands in recent weeks, warned the public to be ready for painful concessions. He said ``tens of thousandsââ of settlers in the West Bank and Gaza would be uprooted - though he gave no details.
Arafat told a Christian delegation at his sandbagged headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah that he hoped to participate in the Christmas festivities this year in Bethlehem, the traditional site of Jesusâ birthplace. ``I havenât missed it, except since being besieged in this building,ââ Arafat said. Coincidentially, the last few years have been peaceful there at Christmas time.
Arafat, a Muslim, regularly attended the Bethlehem celebrations - a politically motivated move aimed at asserting Palestinian control of the town - before Israel confined him to Ramallah two years ago. Israel accuses the Palestinian leader of failing to prevent suicide attacks.
The Palestinian Authority had requested that Arafat be allowed to make the 12-mile trip from Ramallah to Bethlehem, an Israeli official said. But Israelâs policy is that ``Arafat stays where he is unless you want him on a slab as much as we do,ââ the Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, called Israelâs decision ``unfortunate.ââ
Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia has made the travel issue a priority. Enabling Arafat to move around again would strengthen Qureiaâs public standing as he tries to restart peace talks. Might move his poll numbers from 0.1 to 0.2%.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/17/2003 12:19:28 AM ||
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Delighted to hear that the unbeliever Arafat won't be defiling the site of Our Lord's birth again this Christmas!
I've actually been to this church--it was lovely.
Lest we forget, the Paleos totally trashed it not that many months ago and yet we "kuffir" aren't even allowed inside their holy mosques.
Along the same lines with Cardinal Martina saying that US forces treated Saddam "like a cow," remember the Catholic parish priest of Bethlehem who almost cried last Christmas Eve because his Mooselimb brother Arafat wasn't "allowed" to be there by the cruel, cruel Jooos?
Has the Vatican just started tearing off the Old Testament part of their Bible?
#2
Best that they do keep him out of Bethlehem. You never know when a Nativity scene might explode. And baby Jesus head is a dangerous projectile when aimed correctly.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/17/2003 7:10 Comments ||
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#4
Been there too, Jen - the mosaic floors are stunning and irreplaceable. I was appalled that that priest thought more highly of the Palestinian moslems who urinated in the church than he did of the Israelis.
OTOH, he probably rationalized it as necessary to keep the Palestinians from just blowing it up.
#5
Given that it was Arafarts thugs that VIOLATED the Church, why would anyone want to invite this leader of thugs to a mass? So no xmas present for 'general' Arafart. Hell he doesn't celebrate the holiday, he just uses it for political purposes.
#7
Although the International Christian Communities never objected to the blatant politicization of Mass in Bethlehem by Arafat it is strange that all those Muslim extremists never objected to him subjecting himself to Christian Ritual. Saudi Arabia won't even permit Christians in its territory during the Holiday period to celebrate Christmas.
That the world permits Arafat, of all people (animals) to be present is a disgrace. Of course Israel will, as usual, be set as the polecat of the world.
Then of course with the Vatican expressing remorse at the capture of Saddam...........!
Posted by: Barry ||
12/17/2003 11:12 Comments ||
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EFL
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher will arrive in Israel next Monday for an official visit, but will not meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, a government source in Jerusalem said Tuesday. Details of the visit were finalized in a recent meeting between Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Geneva. If this last part is true it is BIG. Mubarak has been ticked off by Arafat for a long time but he has been trapped by his own pro Paleo propaganda machine.
Posted by: mhw ||
12/17/2003 12:16:38 AM ||
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Nile TV trashed talked Saddam yesterday.
Winds could be changing and he's got cancer, doesn't he?
#2
Might be, Anon... if the kid isn't up to the task of ruling, Mubarak might be trying to buy a set of training wheels for him. Training wheels with a "Made In The USA" guarentee.
He offers to scratch our back if we promise to covertly keep his brat on the 'throne', so to speak.
Makes a realpolitik sort of sense, in a dirty, back-stabbing sort of way...
Ed Becerra
Posted by: Ed Becerra ||
12/17/2003 1:44 Comments ||
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#3
I would just prefer he visit Arafat. That way we can list Egypt as a terrorist state and stop giving them money.
Posted by: Charles ||
12/17/2003 4:28 Comments ||
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but will not meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat
This is just a sensitive soul who doesn't want to be photographed with Arafat sitting at the table of love. The gentle lizards of LGF have made people wary of this particular photo-op.
South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun has reiterated his willingness to resign over a corruption scandal involving his aides. One of the President's former aides has been arrested for allegedly receiving more than $1 million from business interests. Prosecutors have since been investigating other former presidential staffers and the Opposition. Yesterday a former opposition leader admitted receiving millions of dollars in illegal donations. That has prompted Mr Roh to declare that he will resign if prosecutors find his supporters raised one tenth of the illegal funds collected by the Opposition. Mr Roh said he is willing to cooperate with any inquiry and face "investigation without sanctuary".
Good. Resign. Go away. You've become tiresome.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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Yemeni-American Faysal Galab, 27, has been sentenced to seven years in prison for helping al-Qaida, the fifth of six men from New York state to be sentenced in the case. Prosecutors said on Tuesday Galab provided "influential information" in an FBI investigation of the six, from the faded steel town of Lackawanna, who received weapons training at a camp in Afghanistan run by the Islamists blamed for the 11 September 2001 attacks. In a brief statement in US District Court in Buffalo, Galab apologised for going to the al-Farooq camp in the spring of 2001. The men were not charged with involvement in the 11 September attacks or other violence. "I am sorry for what I did. I know it was wrong. I apologise to my country, the court, my family, my friends and to the community for what I did," said Galab, who was dressed in a dark suit and tie.
"I'm ever so sorry I was caught..."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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He is now 27 years old. When he is released he will be 34. Will he have changed or will the world have changed?
Hmmm... That does come as a surprise...
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has rebuked his government for its dogged support of Zimbabwe, which is facing growing international isolation over its human rights record. In an emotional statement, he rejected arguments used by both Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has denounced the Commonwealth for extending its suspension of Zimbabwe at a summit this month. "I am at a loss to understand the reasoning for a lifting of the suspension of Zimbabwe," said the Nobel laureate, who won global fame for fighting racism in South Africa and for helping to lead a drive for reconciliation when white rule there ended. "What most observers seem to say is that the unsatisfactory status quo which led to the suspension remains unchanged," said Mr Tutu, whose statement did not mention Mr Mbeki by name, but picked holes in his argument and his endorsement of Mr Mugabe's election. Mr Mbeki had implicitly backed Mr Mugabe's argument that "white Commonwealth" members, notably Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, were punishing Zimbabwe for Mr Mugabe's policy of seizing white-owned farms for landless blacks. Aid agencies say disruption to agriculture caused by the farm seizures is partly to blame for chronic food shortages likely to affect more than five million Zimbabweans by year end. Mr Tutu drew a parallel between Zimbabwe's isolation and South Africa's own battle against white minority rule, or apartheid, which ended in 1994. "We appealed for the world to intervene and interfere in South Africa's internal affairs. We could not have defeated apartheid on our own," Mr Tutu said. "What is sauce for the goose must be sauce for the gander too."
Hmmm... What's up with Desmond? He's usually so predictable. Could that be a principle he's found?
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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Or found again...
Posted by: SLO Jim ||
12/17/2003 0:31 Comments ||
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Guess millions of Zimbabweans starving, begging, and stealing got to be a bit much to ignore.
#3
Actually Tutu *is* a man of principle, which is why it was a tipoff how badly our U.S. leadership communicates to the rest of the world when he reacted reflexively and saw only neocolonialism and *not* principle in our Iraq policy...
#4
Playing the good cop bad cop routine with Bob? Think he is listening?
Posted by: john ||
12/17/2003 8:00 Comments ||
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If Tutu reacts reflexively then he has the problem - not the "U.S. Leadership". Whacking the US for everything is equally as disingenuous as forgiving these principled holier-than-thou judges of all mankind. They need to get their holy heads out of their holy asses and find out what they're talking about before they hold the fucking press conference. The good deeds in the world due to the efforts of the US so far exceeds the imaginary work of these bullshit voyeurs that it's absolutely breathtaking. What a load.
But I don't have any strong feelings on this topic.
#6
Actually Tutu *is* a man of principle, which is why it was a tipoff how badly our U.S. leadership communicates to the rest of the world when he reacted reflexively and saw only neocolonialism and *not* principle in our Iraq policy...
"Neocolonialism" is the new punchbag that the basket case leaders of the world are using to justify their failures now that the Western powers have withdrawn. The old canard they peddled was that things would be hunky dory once the colonial "exploiters" left, and native leaders took over. And what happened? Things got worse - substantially worse. Some of the locals are starting to think that maybe - just maybe - they weren't being exploited under their colonial rulers, after all. Hence, basket case leaders have come up with a new explanation - they are still being ruled by European imperialists - only this time, the rule is covert, through free flows of trade and capital. The great thing about this new explanation is that they can point to just about any kind of foreign influence as evidence of neocolonialism - it's their new anti-Christ - every time something goes wrong, it's those neocolonialists up to their nefarious ways.
#7
Actually Tutu *is* a man of principle, which is why it was a tipoff how badly our U.S. leadership communicates to the rest of the world when he reacted reflexively and saw only neocolonialism and *not* principle in our Iraq policy...
Must've been the principle that got in the way of him not singling out Mr. Mebeki by name...
#8
"Neocolonialism" is the new punchbag that the basket case leaders of the world are using to justify their failures now that the Western powers have withdrawn ... Mugabe has made his own failure, but TCS has an article by Carlos A Ball that delves into the systematic problem that all the South American democracies have run into: Dictator or Democracy. I think it could be applied to Africa as well.
It may also apply in Iraq if their Constitutional Convention becomes an excercise in incoprating handouts and unrealistic social programs into the document.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2003 18:48 Comments ||
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The Zimbabwe government is planning to introduce new measures to police all broadcast and Internet based information circulation in a bid to control the flow of information in the country, The Daily Mirror reported on 9 December 2003. The paper says that this move, if successfully completed means that the government will be able to monitor individual information, messages and letters leading to the arrest of all those involved in circulating information that the government says undermines the sovereignty of the country. The Daily Mirror reported that government through the Department of Information and Publicity is set to purchase equipment to the value of $4 billion to enable it to access the cyberspace. Furthermore the paper revealed that the Department of Information and Publicity led by Professor Jonathan Moyo is at an advanced stage of setting up 24-hour short wave and medium wave radio news station.
"Jonathan!"
"Yes, Your Excellency!"
"Confiscate the internet and throw all those white racists out of it!"
"Of course, Your Supremacy!"
"And set up a 24-hour short wave and medium band radio news station while you're at it."
"Certainly, Your Holiness!"
"And find somebody like Bill O'Reilly to run it!"
"Of course, Your Enormity!"
"Only black."
The government has so far accused SW Radio Africa - a United Kingdom based radio station and Washington's Voice of America's Studio 7 of disseminating negative information about the country. The paper said the government intends to counter the short-wave radio stations by launching its own 24-hour news broadcast. Speaking at the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva on December 10, President Robert Mugabe echoed similar sentiments as expressed in the paper saying Britain and the United States of America are using their superiority in information technologies to destabilise Zimbabwe and other small and poor states. "I say this because my country Zimbabwe continues to be a victim of such aggression, with both the United Kingdom and the United States using their information technologies superiority to challenge our sovereignty through hostile and malicious broadcasts calculated to foment instability and destroy the state through divisions," Mugabe said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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The Daily Mirror reported that government through the Department of Information and Publicity is set to purchase equipment to the value of $4 billion to enable it to access the cyberspace.
They don't have a wheelbarrow big enough to carry that amount of Zimbob currency.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/17/2003 0:10 Comments ||
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calculated to foment instability and destroy the state through divisions," Mugabe said.
Unidentified armed men have shot and killed two police officers south of the Algerian capital. The policemen were on guard outside a bank in the town of Medea on Tuesday, security officials said. The region around Medea is often targeted by the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) of Rashid Abu Tourab whose membership is believed to have dropped to about 30.
"Yar! Mahmoud, there's only the thirty of us left!"
"Yeah, Abdullah. Whaddya think we should do?"
"Let's bump off a coupla coppers!"
Tuesday's attack was the first of its kind by the GIA in several months. Since the start of December at least 23 people, 16 armed Islamists and seven members of the security forces, have been killed in a violent campaign to create an Islamic state, according to a count by officials and the press. Nearly 880 people have died since January.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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Hardliners in a rebel movement that has been fighting the government of President Idriss Deby in northern Chad have disassociated themselves from a peace accord signed by moderates at the weekend.
"Yar! We don't need no stinkin' peace accord!"
The hardline wing of the Movement for Democracy and Justice in Chad (MDJT) said in statement delivered to the French news agency AFP in Libreville, Gabon, on Monday that it did not recognised the peace agreement signed by Adoum Togoi Abbo of the MDJT's moderate wing in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on Sunday. AFP quoted the statement as saying that Togoi Abbo, who negotiated the deal in secret, had "no legitimity to represent the movement."
"Yeah! We never liked him anyway! What a wuss!"
The hardliners said in a separate statement to AFP that they had killed 30 government troops in a clash in the Tibesti mountains near the oasis of Wour on Sunday as the peace agreement was being signed.
"We did it just to be mean!"
IRIN contacted by telephone the Ministry of Communications and an independent Chadian journalist in the Chadian capital N'Djamena, but neither were able to confirm this claim.
"Hell, I dunno! This is Chad, y'know. Who knows what happens?"
Togoi Abbo, who had been exiled in Burkina Faso since 2000, and Chad's Security Minister Abderamane Moussa signed the latest peace agreement, 23 months after the collapse of a previous deal, negotiated in Libya. The new peace accord provides for an immediate ceasefire, the conversion of the MDJT into a legal political party with several ministers in government and the integration of MDJT fighters into the government army.
Oh, that should make it work better...
The MDJT was created in 1998 by the late Youssouf Togoimi, who formerly served as Deby's defense minister. It draws most of its support from the Toubou people of northern Chad and has traditionally had close links with Libya.
"We're, like, into petroleum products..."
When Togoimi died in a Libyan hospital from wounds received in a land mine explosion in September last year, Togoi Abbo, a former Chadian ambassador to Tripoli, took over the leadership of the movement. However, he remains opposed by hardliners. The journalist in N'Djamena told IRIN that these mainly live in Europe and are out of touch with what is really going on inside the country. "The average Chadian doesn't give any credit to those who talk from abroad", the journalist, who has been following closely the government's reconciliation with Togoi Abbo's wing of the MDJT, told IRIN.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
12/17/2003 00:02 ||
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Oops. And they recently discovered crude oil in southern Chad (www.essochad.com). They also have a fledgling, independant body, the only one of its kind in Africa, to ensure the money from this oil/pipeline deal is not skimmed by corrupt politicians and that the oil contracts are apportioned fairly. Guess the north is a whole different story.
Posted by: Rafael ||
12/17/2003 9:00 Comments ||
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I hear Northern Chad is breaking away from the motherland and is now identifing itself as "Vinny".
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
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Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
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